Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / May 5, 2019 | Turnaround Time - Who Needs A Turnaround?

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May 5, 2019 | Turnaround Time - Who Needs A Turnaround? · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: I turned this thing off.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: So um shout out to the tech team for that for that uh bumper video.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: And that's gonna be our series for this month.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: For actually for five Sundays, which will I think will stretch it into June.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: Just barely.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: But we're pretty excited about this.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: We just uh finished an Isaiah series here, as you know.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: We dug deep.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: You guys really got involved.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: Fantastic.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: So, but this is a really interesting uh, and I've got a great summer series for you, uh, you know, but uh I'm not gonna tell you what that is yet.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm so pumped about this series, and I get to have Rodney with me.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: Rodney, uh, how many of you are at the light show?
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: Ever since no, you weren't at the you didn't see Rodney at the light show.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: So Rodney does piano up here at times.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: He did light show ever since, which when I've been calling him the Billy Graham of Topeka Bible Church.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: But and I asked him after that, I said, Would you mind um my sidekick for Men of Success uh was cutting out, and so I asked Rodney if he would mind leading that.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so he's been at Men of Success.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's our Wednesday morning men's group meeting where 30 plus of you come.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: And we go through success books and empowerment books, Jim Collins books, John Maxwell books, Stephen Covey books, and we went through, we came across this book this year that just blew us away.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, you know, I want to teach this book to TBC, right?
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I asked Rodney if he'd teach it with me.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: So, hey, thanks for joining me.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for having me.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: Now, Laura was at last service, right?
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you couldn't talk her into coming twice in a row, right?
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: They uh actually kicked our kids out of child care because they were so rambunctious.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: You got three rug rats, right?
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: Got three little girls.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: Uh my wife and I, uh my wife Laura and I have been married for five, going on five years in June, and we've got three kids.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: Man of success right there, man.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um my father and I used to say, uh, Jim, you you could space these out a little more.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: We had three under five.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: I think we finally figured out what causes it.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: So uh yeah, our oldest one is uh is four, uh or she'll be four at the end of May, and then our second one is two and a half, and our youngest one will be one uh right in the middle of June.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: So you guys remember us?
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: Please pray for us.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: We desperately need it.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: She does uh she does as well.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna do five messages.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: And the first one here we're entitling Who Needs a Turnaround?
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: And we're hoping that this morning you'll answer, I do.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: And and not because you're maybe in desperate or serious need or critical need and you need radical surgery or else you're you know gonna fall apart.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: Some of you are there, but most of you aren't.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: But because you know you're underperforming.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: And we get that word from a guy named Greg Brenneman.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: Greg Brenner, so basically what happened is um I heard that uh Washburn grad, a Kansas boy named Greg Brenneman, was coming to town in March, and that he was a major donor, didn't know him at all.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: Major donor to Washburn, he was he was gonna help the business school.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: He graduated from the business school, and that Greg was gonna fund something, and he wanted Christian businessmen involved.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: Talked to the pastor at First Southern, I think it was, and we decided together, he and I, you know, we try to locate Christian businessmen who would participate in this program that Greg was gonna fund for Washburn's Business School, which is to connect business students with businessmen here in town.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: And a number, uh, about two dozen Christian businessmen from TBC responded, and you Rodney and I, you and I, we were at breakfast with Greg the morning he was in here, and then I had some other meetings with him, and Walter Farley, the whole, you know, just a just a really cool deal.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: And basically the story helped me with this is that Greg is a Kansas boy made good.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: He went to Washburn, uh, where he met uh his Topekah girlfriend, married her named Rhonda, and then after doing great at Washburn in the business school, he went to Harvard Business School, and after that he he um went to Bain uh Bain Corporation or something.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: Bane Bain and Company or something.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: Where he worked with uh the Mitt Romney.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: Mitt Romney, and they would consult with businessmen, businesses that needed to do turnarounds.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: And he was consulting with the worst airlines in America at that time.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we're talking the 90s now, about 1993.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: Continental was ranked 10 out of 10 airlines.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: It was just horrible, and they were about to go under.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: And then they said, We're really desperate.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: Would you how old was I mean, he was only in his 30s, right?
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he he had made partner at Bain and Company at 30, and then at 33 they asked him, Hey, would you come be our president and COON THE CONTICE?
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: President and Chief Operating Officer of Continental Airlines.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: So he worked for them for like five years and totally turned them around from 10th to first place of Air and Airlines.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so, and Harvard Business Review wrote an article about this.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: Greg Brenneman, this Mennonite boy from Kansas, and all of a sudden he's getting phone calls.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: He starts a company called Turn Works or something that turned companies around and he's still working.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so Burger King, which, you know, was, you know, uh not doing too well in 2004, said, Would you come and be our president?
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: And chief operating officer or chief executive officer.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: So he was there for two years and turned them around and moved them back up uh on top of Wendy's.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: They were they felt like their life was over if they were gonna be number three instead of two.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: And then he bought Quisnos and so forth, and he they started calling him the king of the turnarounds.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: If you go to the Washburn website, you know, he's listed in a major way on Washburn University, they call him the turnaround guru.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyway, this is the guy who I'm hearing about, and and and we meet him, and this guy's humble, he's really cool, and when asked who needs a turnaround in companies, businesses, he says, not just the companies that are in serious trouble, that need radical surgery to survive, but the companies that are really bringing in a profit but realize that they are satisfactorily underperforming and could do better.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: So that's one of the first things.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so I get his book.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I I get his book online.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: So get this.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: Jim, so I get a phone call from Jim on Saturday morning, like eight o'clock.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we're eating breakfast at our house, and he calls me.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: Doesn't even say good morning or anything.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: He just says, Hey, I I found this book that has changed my life.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: I go, Jim, it's eight o'clock.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: Like, surely, he said, I just picked it up this morning and I've read a hundred pages.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: I've got to bring it over to you and give it to you.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and so I'm like, okay, yeah.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: Come on.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: And so he comes and he sits down at the kitchen table and he starts explaining to me this good this book, and he says, Hey, and I want to do it uh maybe this week and next week at Minute Success.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I just go, Jim, I can't read as fast as you can.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: Just give me a little bit of time.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, and so he gives me the book, and I sit down Saturday Sunday night and I start reading it.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: And Monday night, I start reading it.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm I'm blown away at this point.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, I can see why Jim said what he said.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: And um I read about 200 pages in those nights, and I was like, I think this will be good.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: I think this is something that we should do because of the type of man that Greg is.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: So then he comes, so we teach it at Men of Success, and then Greg comes to Washburn University, and we're there at the breakfast, and a bunch of Christian businessmen from First Southern and TBC are there, and we get this whole thing set up, and I mean it's just a really great day.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: And then uh and and then Greg tells his story, and I'd love to have him come here and tell his story, and and maybe he will because uh and Greg's gonna hear this because when I told him I might do a sermon series on this, he said, Would you please send it to me?
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm hoping, Greg, that you'll maybe come this fall when you visit Washburn and come and share your story.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's an amazing story, and he's he's the only you know major sort of player in American business who's just so honest about his Christian faith and his Christian life and everything in his book.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: And and and he and he asked, he says, people ask me for 20 years, would you write a book?
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: Would you tell us, would you write in a book, these five principles that you use to turn around companies right away?
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: And you do it so quickly.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, No, a lot of good books out there.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: John Maxwell writes good books, you know, um Stephen Covey writes good books, Jim Collins writes good books, I don't need to write a book.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: And then he said, something happened that made me decide to write a book after 20 years of saying no, and he says it goes back to my upbringing.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I grew up in Heston, Kansas, this little Mennonite town of about 3,500 people.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's sort of uh 20 minutes north of Wichita.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, you know, it's uh under 4,000 people, seven Mennonite churches, one Methodist church.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: He said, we used to drive by the Methodist church on Sunday mornings and say, look, all the pagans have gathered in one place, you know.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: That Mennonite humor, you know, it's just uh and he says, but I grew up, he says, see, he says, I accepted Christ as my savior as a young boy.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: I grew up in a great family.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: My grandfather had founded the Heston Corporation, one of the Fortune 500 companies, it's sort of the major company, obviously, in that, and you know, north of uh north of Wichita, an agricultural company.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: My uncle was the head of it, and my father, you know, was the president.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, so I grew up learning how to work.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: When I was in high school during the summer, he says I'd get up at 6:30 till noon.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: I would mow and trim a golf course in town from noon till five.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: I was carrying office furniture and delivering it, and five from five till ten every night I was baling hay.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: He said, that's just what we Mennonite kids did.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: I learned how to work.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: And then he says, I came to Washburn University.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: He says I absolutely loved Washburn.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: I met my wife there, I did really well there, and then I moved on to Harvard, and he says, I just, it's just been amazing what the Lord's done in my life.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: But he said, then something happened.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I realized I says I was 45 years old.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, I I I people thought of me as a success, and in some ways I guess I was, but he says I didn't feel like it.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I was in church every Sunday, Rhonda and me and the kids.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: I worked for Iwana.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I'd volunteer and help in Iwana.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: I tithed, I had helped build a Christian school down in Dallas.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, he says, I realized I was only paying lip service to my faith, to my family, and to my friends.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: I was only lukewarm spiritually.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: I felt restless and unfulfilled.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: I said to myself, there's gotta be more than this.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: He told that to a buddy of his.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: He said, a friend of mine who was a CEO, and the guy said, You're crazy.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: He says, You got the perfect family.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: You got a wife who loves you, got kids who are well behaved, you're a multimillionaire, you're traveling all over the world.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: People are always trying to get you to, you know, tell them how to do things.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: He says, you know, you're serving the Lord.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: What could possibly be wrong?
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I heard the guy, but he says, I knew I still needed something.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, basically, it came back to a verse, you know, that he had read and that he had heard in church that convicted him.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: And it was this verse here.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna talk about this verse, then I'll let you talk about your verse.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: So this verse is Revelation 3, 14 to 16.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: I know you've heard it.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus is speaking.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: He's talking to one of the seven churches of Revelation.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: You're in chapters two and three.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: The church at Laodicea.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: Laodicea was this town in uh western Turkey today, which is on top of a hill, beautiful city, very wealthy city.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: It had a, you know, not a huge city, but it was wealthy.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: It had a shopping center, it had a stadium, it had the whole banking and Wall Street of the whole Western Asia was there at Laodicea.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: But it just had one problem: it had no good water supply.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: That was its embarrassment.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: And the interesting thing is Jesus uses that metaphor when he says to the church at Laodicea, I know your deeds, that you're neither cold nor hot.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: I wish you were one or the other.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: I love this.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: I know your deeds.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm watching you.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh several years back, Dustin, uh Laura Fluke, you know, is in charge of our nursery, and her husband Dustin, you know, says, I was in the kitchen.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: I seen Laura open up a can of pop and then walk out of the room.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I walk in there, and there's Mia.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: She's, I think, three years old at that time.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I see the can of pop is moved and it's empty.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: I said, Mia, did you drink mom's pop?
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: He says, She hesitated and she said, No.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Mia, Jesus is watching you.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: And she goes, Where?
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the point here is that Jesus is watching all of us.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, I'm watching you, and I know what's going on.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I I noticed that you're neither cold nor hot.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: Laodicea, you know, piped in.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: You can still see the remains of the of the aqueduct there.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: It piped in its hot water from the healing springs, by six miles away at Hierapolis.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, you can still see the lime deposits and everything.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: But by the time this nice hot healing water got to Laodicea, it was tepid.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: They piped in from ten miles away, really fresh spring water from Colossae, which is right, there's a freshwater spring, but by the time that water traveled 10 miles, it was tepid.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know about you, but when I go to Starbucks, I've never ordered a tepid coffee.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: I've ordered a lot of cold coffees, I've ordered iced coffees, I ordered a lot of hot coffees.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: I don't like lukewarm coffee.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: And that's basically the point here.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: The point is that both hot and cold have their uses.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: Hot has its healing uses, cold has its refreshing uses.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: You can apply that to spiritual life any way you want to, but God's point is you know what?
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: You're disgusting.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: You're lukewarm, you're right in the middle, and so I'm about to vomit, literally, vomit you out of my mouth.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what Greg says.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: Greg says, I couldn't get this out of my mind.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: I couldn't, it's just that passage he says just seemed written for me.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: I was a card-carrying member of the Church of Laodicea, and suddenly it hit me.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: He had written this book about companies that were seriously underperforming.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, I thought of my own phrase, satisfactorily underperforming.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: That was me in my personal life, and I knew I wasn't alone.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: And that's when he said, you know what?
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: I need to sit down and write a book.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: See if my five business principles can apply to my personal life.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the book he wrote, and that's the book that blew me away, and that's the book that Rodney and I read.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: We uh that book's called Right Away and All at Once.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: And chapters one, three, five, seven, and nine are his five principles for businesses and companies.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: Bunch of that stuff's over my head.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: I love it.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you love that stuff.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: But chapters two, four, six, eight, and ten are how he tweaks the principles for his personal life, what he did about it, and how it completely radically changed his life.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: And that's when I go, this is something I need, I think all of us need.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: We need turnarounds in our life.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: So basically, in this book, you'll find it's not just companies he's talking about.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: He says there's two kinds of people that need a turnaround.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, people in bad trouble who need radical change even to survive.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: That may be 5% of you.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: And you need a turnaround.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: But for 95% of us, we're doing fine, but we're satisfactorily underperforming.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: Greg took out a sheet and a pencil that day and he started writing down his go forward plan, but I'm not going to go there because I want you to go there.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: You you were telling me, I love the fact that there's a story that Greg Greg didn't mention and that I didn't see, but as you read this book, you thought of this story from the Gospels.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: And it just applies perfectly to a guy who came to Jesus, a guy who had it all had most of it together, but it's kind of underperforming.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: We uh we see this interaction that Jesus has with this, with a man in Scripture and three out of the four Gospels.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um and it's interesting to me that three out of the four people who wrote about Jesus' life and his ministry thought it was important for their audience to see Jesus' interaction with this guy.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: Now to set the stage, uh this was probably near the end of Jesus' life, maybe anywhere from four to ten days before he rides in on a donkey, and the people are with palm branches railing, Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna in the highest.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: He's just gotten done fielding some test questions from the Pharisees about marriage and about divorce.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: And uh there's these large crowds that have gathered around him.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: And his disciples are alright, he their his disciples rebuke the people and say, Take these people away from him.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus said, No, no, no, no, no.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: Let them come to me.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: Uh this story is found in three different books.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: Like I said, it's in Matthew chapter 19, if you want to follow along.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Mark chapter 10 and Luke chapter 18.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, what we find from Matthew is Matthew says, he he he he looks, he writes, he says, and behold, it's almost like this guy pops up out of nowhere.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: He just says, Hey, hey, reader, look.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we get a little bit more detail from the book of Mark.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_01: It says, uh, now when Jesus and his crew are heading out of town, this man comes running up to Jesus and kneels before him.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: And then from the book of Luke, we find out that this man that comes up to Jesus and asks him a question is a ruler of some sort.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_01: So we know that he has some sort of influence, some sort of clout in his community.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_01: And imagine with me, if you will, the scene.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_01: Uh here he is with a whole bunch of people, and he's about to run out of town, and this guy comes, he comes running up, he said, Oh, wait, wait, wait.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_01: Glad I caught you, Jesus.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, I've heard about you know all this good stuff that you've been teaching.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_01: You're a pretty good teacher, and uh I I had my own personal question for you.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um this may kind of sound kind of stupid.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: Uh maybe I missed something uh when you were in other towns, but I I was just I was just wondering and let's go ahead and ask it.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, what is it that I need to do to inherit eternal life?
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_01: Immediately I think about one of two things.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I think this guy is either super prideful, he's coming up to Jesus while this group of Pharisees are maybe still around.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um He wants to impress those people who are in his community when Jesus is there, and so he wants to prove his self-righteousness uh in front of these people, in front of these kids, in front of Jesus, and maybe even to himself.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think that's his heart.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: I think the heart of his question is this.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: I think he's he's realizing I'm at a crossroads.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I have all this stuff, I have I have a position of power, I have influence.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_01: There's this emptiness and there's this hollowness inside of me that I I like I just can't seem to shake.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm gonna come to Jesus and it's because maybe maybe I just surely I just gotten the formula wrong somewhere.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: Like I missed one of his teachings, and uh maybe he'll tell me what it is that I need to do, and surely I can just fix myself and go on.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna put myself right in front of him and I'm gonna ask him for life, and you can just almost kind of hear it in his voice is hey just don't send me away.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_01: Like I'm desperate, I'm here, I'm kind of embarrassed that I'm here in front of my knees in front of you.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just asking you for life.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_01: This life that he's asked for is not only just this eternal security.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's this life that Jesus would talk about in John chapter 4 when he's talking with the woman at the well.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: He says, if you would have known who it is who's asking you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_01: Later on, he goes on to describe what this living water is.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's this water that produces a spring of water that wells up into eternal life.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_01: That's what this man is after.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: And we see Jesus' response to him.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe kind of coldly, he just says, if you want to inherit eternal life, just obey the commandments.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: Book of Matthew says that uh this man that has okay, well, which ones?
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: I just asked you what I need to do to inherit eternal life.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: And he goes, he goes, which ones?
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: And then Jesus answered him.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: He just goes, Well, you know the commandments.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, don't steal, you shall not give false testimony, don't defraud people and honor your father and your mother.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't know what this guy's thinking at this point, but his next response to him is is almost like a like he was I can almost hear the frustration in his voice.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like, like Jesus, like, I've been doing this since I was a kid.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_01: What else do I need to do?
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: And if I was one of the disciples at this point, uh, I could just imagine the scene.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: Uh here he is.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: And if I'm here, if I'm one of the disciples, I'm probably looking at this guy, looking at Jesus, maybe even looking at the other disciples, because I've been with Jesus for three years.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: I've seen the way that he's responding to people who are uh self righteous, who think that they can do it all in themselves, and I'm probably sitting there just going, boy, this is about to get awkward.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: Comes the lightning.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: Here it comes.
• 21:59
  unknown: And I want
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: You to look at Jesus' response.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_01: It says that Jesus looked at him and he was so angry with him.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_01: Is that what it says?
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_01: It says he looked at him and he was so disappointed in him.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's not what your Bible says.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's not what mine says either.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: It says Jesus looked at him and he loved him.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: This word for look is this word in the Greek called blepo.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: It said Jesus discerned clearly what was going on in this man's life.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_01: And he saw it clearly and he loved him.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_01: He wished well for him.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: And then Jesus told him the truth.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: He said, uh, son, one thing you lack.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: Go sell everything you have, give it to the poor, and you'll have treasure in heaven.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: Then come and follow me.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: We don't see uh this man's response, but if I was that man in this moment, I imagine that this response would be like if Jesus is right in front of me.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_01: He's just kind of looking, standing there looking at Jesus, and he's just heard what he said, and maybe can't even look Jesus in the eye anymore.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_01: He's looking all around, maybe looking at the people that are around him, and maybe he's embarrassed.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: We don't see his response.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_01: He just he just turns around and he just walks away.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: You might be asking, what does that have to do with us this morning?
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_01: Say for us, sometimes our lives and even in our Christian walk with the Lord, we can feel as though we don't have much life.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: Life just seems kind of stale.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: That we're not experiencing the light that Jesus promised us in the scriptures.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_01: There have been seasons, if I'm honest with you guys, there have been seasons of my life, and maybe seasons of your life, maybe you're in that season right now that the best way to describe my life, maybe the best way to describe your life right now is you are satisfactorily underperforming.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: If I were to ask you, come to you and just say, do you feel like the majority of your life that you would you would describe your life as I have springs of water that are welling up to the eternal life?
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_01: I think you would just go, no, I don't.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_01: Golly, am I desperate for them?
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: I think the most obvious thing that I would need to say to you right now in this moment is that your life needs a turnaround.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_01: Something in your life needs to change.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_01: And here's what I would encourage you to do.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: That's you.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: You would find some time.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's this afternoon, in the stillness of this afternoon, maybe it's sometime this week, maybe you got a day off, maybe you know you're gonna have some time where it's just you doing nothing.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: That you would sit and you would ask Jesus this question, Lord, what is it about my life that I need to change?
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_01: We don't ask Jesus the question of we need to, what do we need to do to inherit eternal life?
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: We sometimes we ask him the question, what is it that we need to do just to experience a little bit more life?
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_01: Here's what I think he'll do: I think he'll come meet you right where you're at.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_01: The Bible says that he'll never leave us or forsake us, that he's faithful even when we're unfaithful.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_01: And he'll look at you.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: And it won't be with eyes of disappointment, and it won't be with eyes of anger, and it won't be with eyes of shame, but he'll look at you and he'll just with his eyes just filled with love and he'll just tell you the truth.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: Rodney, this is the area of your life that you need to change.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: Jim, this is the area of your life that you need to change.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: Cindy, this is the area of your life that you need to change.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe for you, maybe as I've been speaking, you you know exactly what it is.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: And you've asked Jesus the question before.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: Sadly, his response has been not something that you wanted to hear.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_01: And you're tempted at this moment to just walk away and not say anything, just walk away.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe for you it's that relationship.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe you've been single for some time and there's this guy or this gal that you met.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_01: But you know this is not the right relationship for you.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_01: You just don't know if you could go back to another season of singleness.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_01: Did you just wait on the Lord for Him to bring you someone along?
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe for you, it's in your marriage.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_01: There are issues that you need to work through in your marriage.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: There's issues in your life that you need to work through.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe for you it's financial.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_01: You're in debt over your head.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_01: Don't see a way out.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: You've asked Jesus what it is that I need to do, and He's He's answered you, but you don't like His response.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_01: You just don't know if you can give it up.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe for you it's the pornography.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_01: The alcohol.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: The addiction to prescription drugs.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe you struggle with anger.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe for you you're harboring anger and bitterness against someone.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_01: You just haven't let it go.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_01: You just haven't forgiven them.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_01: And Jesus is saying, you need to change.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: You need to a transformation.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_01: I encourage you when you walk out of these doors today, that you would wrestle with the Lord.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: Whatever it is, that you would wrestle with him.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: You would grab onto him and let him grab hold of you, and you would be honest with him.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: You'd be honest with yourself, maybe even be honest with other people in your life of, hey, here's where I'm struggling, and I just don't feel like I have much life, and I'm just working through this issue.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: And will you walk with me through it?
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus, will you walk with me through this?
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_01: As I attempt to just experience a little bit more of this fullness of life that you promised me in the scriptures.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: I don't have it.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_01: I hope that you would come back next week having either laid those things aside, maybe being honest about them, that we would look back maybe a year, maybe two, maybe five years from now, May 2019 would be a month that you would look back on and just say, my life was forever transformed because I gave this area of my life to Jesus.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: So let me let me say it not quite like you did, it was great, but let me say it another way using Greg's words in the book.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: He asked three questions.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: Am I performing in life to my full potential?
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: Your answer is probably no, I'm not.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: Does my life feel fulfilling and significant apart from my business?
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: Is it?
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: And third, are there any areas in my life where I need change?
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: Greg asked himself those questions, and when his answer to those questions was, yeah, there are areas.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: He got a piece of paper, like you said, he got a pen.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: He titled just one page, because he believes a believer that you shouldn't do anything that takes more than one page.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: It needs to be short, quick, to the point.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: And he wrote down at the top of the page my go forward plan.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: And he came up with a plan.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: We'll talk more about that next week, the specific the specifics of that.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: But uh, but for right now, the question is who needs your turnaround?
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: I need a turnaround.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: Grab a piece of paper, write down what God's saying to you.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: So as we were coming out, we're talking about how appropriate it is Runday that we have the Lord's table right now, and the group was singing, Jesus paid it all to him I am.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: And we're thinking about, you know, I'd like to think that this rich young ruler circled around and came back.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: You know, because like you said, it was just it was just before the Palm Sunday and the Good Friday and the death of Christ and so forth.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'd like to think that he said, you know, this is what I need more than my money.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: I need to follow Jesus.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I have a nice picture of maybe him being there when Jesus rode through the gate.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'd like to see him in heaven.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I don't know.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_01: We don't know whatever happens with this guy.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_01: And and like you said, I I was sitting there thinking about this.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_01: Now, this is not a scripture, so I don't take it as gospel, but I could just imagine this.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_01: Like, he maybe he has a change of heart.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_01: He goes home, says, Yeah, I do need a change.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_01: And he he does go and sell all the stuff, and maybe he sees Jesus that week, and maybe he sees Jesus the next week uh at Passover, and he's going to do his sacrifices that uh is required of them.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he was a religious guy.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and um and he would he would see this guy on trial, maybe kind of looking through the the the crowd and just go, yeah, good teachers on trial.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I wonder what's going on.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_01: And you can just imagine him just following whatever it is and see him get beat for us.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_01: See him take his cross and carry it all the way up to the hill and where they force him down, make him lay on there, and they take these spikes and they put it through his hand.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_01: I just imagine that guy just being there.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_01: Take the spikes, put it in one hand and another, and you hear the screams and the yells, and then take a spike and put him through both of the feet.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_01: And when he's hanging there on the cross, Jesus would yell out, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_01: And this guy, being knowing the commandments, would know that this is uh this is the introduction to Psalm 22 where it talks about the suffering servant of the Lord who was on hanging on the cross, and that maybe in this maybe in this moment this guy just realized and said, There was nothing that I could do.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the performance standard is stupid.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_01: And he he was just blown away by what it is that Jesus did on his behalf.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I I was in here on Easter Sunday, and I have a just kind of a visual representation of kind of what a heart should be like as we go to communion.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_01: I was sitting back there in the back corner, maybe row two or three, and um uh I just so happened during worship to look up here uh to this section, and I saw an older gentleman, and he was red.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_01: He's kind of visibly moved, he was visibly emotionally just, he wasn't distraught.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_01: He it just looked like he was just crying tears and tears of joy and tears of gratitude.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I just thought in that moment, I got a little emotional myself, I go, here's this guy, maybe in his late 60s, early 70s, and his days of coming to meet the Lord are are sooner than uh than it is for me, maybe.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_01: That he has a realization that he he's about to pass on from this life on earth and go and meet his savior, and he's just been he's just sitting here overwhelmed with gratitude and with joy and with thanksgiving that he would even be forgiven.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_01: That God has stayed faithful to him his whole life and he's about to go meet his Savior.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's a perfect picture of our hearts as we come to commune is this idea that we really believe that there was nothing that we could have done.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_01: Nothing.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_01: No goodness, we couldn't have earned it.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_01: That we should have been lost and left for dead.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_01: That we should we shouldn't even be able to experience any sort of life.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus loved us too much to just leave us in that state and he came.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_01: He lived a life that we were supposed to live that we couldn't live, and then he took the punishment that we were supposed to take, all that we might just have life, that we could be forgiven.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_01: That shouldn't do is just move us to a heart stance of just gratitude and appreciation for what it is that he's done, that we would live a life that's a little bit different.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_01: We would love him, uh, we would honor him with the way that we live our lives.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_00: That's a perfect way to go to the Lord's table.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_00: Why don't I pray for us?
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: And uh and the servers will come forward at that time.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_00: They'll pass the bread out, take it when you're ready, will you?
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_00: And the cup when you're prepared.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_00: But let's put ourselves in the kneeling position of the rich young ruler this morning.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_00: Father, we thank you for your son Jesus and how he came to earth and his graciousness, how he loved this guy who other people might have said, you know, this guy's way too arrogant, but Jesus loved him.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: And we thank you that he loves us even when we say or do stupid things, even when we're lukewarm, that he does still care for us.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_00: And he just asks us uh to be willing to turn around to repent, to look up rather than just at ourselves.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_00: And we ask that during the Lord's table here we may, like we hope the young rich uh young ruler did, we may see you on the cross this morning.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.