Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / June 24, 2018 | Game Changing Moves - Game Changers - Chad Parks

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June 24, 2018 | Game Changing Moves - Game Changers - Chad Parks · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

0:00
SPEAKER_00: How are you doing this morning?
0:02
SPEAKER_00: Good to see you.
0:04
SPEAKER_00: I'm so pumped about this morning.
0:05
SPEAKER_00: I picked our title, the title of the summer series, Game Changing Moves, from this book right here, written by that guy right there, Chad Parks.
0:13
SPEAKER_00: Come on up, Chad.
0:14
SPEAKER_00: And Chad's the uh wrestling coach, uh Johnny Heights, and his experience also as a football coach comes out in this book.
0:23
SPEAKER_00: He only bring in like a couple hundred books today.
0:25
SPEAKER_00: You knew about a thousand were gonna get a little fake.
0:29
SPEAKER_00: So anyway, um his mother-in-law is not there at the table, but you know, sometimes you can get to know a person that you don't really know about by reading his book.
0:39
SPEAKER_00: So I picked up this book, and it's my kind of sort of inspirational, devotional, motivational book.
0:45
SPEAKER_00: Chapters are short, that's the main thing.
0:47
SPEAKER_00: But it's all about sports, and I come from a wrestling family, so I love the stories about wrestling, and I love the stories about sports, and I love the inspiration, I love the motivation, so I felt like a new chat, too.
1:00
SPEAKER_00: You probably know, you probably know his his wife Lori, her folks, Bobby Sharon Meister.
1:05
SPEAKER_00: So, and by the way, I think I saw Nick.
1:08
SPEAKER_00: The first picture in this book, by the way, is uh Nick Mack, superstar, All-State, you know, wrestler from Shiny Heights a few years back, and there's a picture of you praying with him before the 2012 state finals.
1:20
SPEAKER_00: Didn't know that was legal, so you can explain that.
1:23
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, where are you, Nick?
1:24
SPEAKER_00: I thought it's not Nick in your wave.
1:26
SPEAKER_00: Stand up, but don't hurt anybody.
1:28
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
1:30
SPEAKER_00: Cool guy.
1:30
SPEAKER_00: Nick grew up at this church, his parents, his grandparents, and so forth.
1:34
SPEAKER_00: So I'll quit talking.
1:35
SPEAKER_00: I'll let you talk.
1:37
SPEAKER_00: Chad uh Chad's not a height, which is okay, which is really cool.
1:41
SPEAKER_00: And uh, yeah.
1:44
SPEAKER_00: So do you even need this thing?
1:46
SPEAKER_01: I'll just hit the book on it.
1:48
SPEAKER_00: Okay, yeah.
1:48
SPEAKER_00: All right, thank you for thanks for doing this for me.
1:51
SPEAKER_01: Yes, sir, yes, sir.
1:53
SPEAKER_01: All righty.
1:57
SPEAKER_01: All right, hey, well, first I want to uh just give thanks to Pastor Congden for bringing me in, letting me share a little bit today, and also want to honor him and the and his family and the leadership here at TBC.
2:10
SPEAKER_01: This is an amazing church.
2:17
SPEAKER_01: Anytime that you are in the leadership role, uh there's some pressure there.
2:21
SPEAKER_01: And these guys, man, they do it well.
2:23
SPEAKER_01: But as a pastor, as a shepherd of souls, someone who like is dealing with the worst and the best, all of a sudden, that's a lot of pressure.
2:32
SPEAKER_01: And someone that has to be fully connected to God, uh, Pastor Jim is, and it's incredible.
2:37
SPEAKER_01: And this week, this is a true story.
2:39
SPEAKER_01: So my mom does genealogy, and uh, my family's very, very diverse.
2:44
SPEAKER_01: But when she does it, I am connected to an email, so as soon as she updates something, it's sent to me as well.
2:50
SPEAKER_01: So I get on and I'm looking at my emails, and I have one, and uh one of our relatives, this is like 200 years ago, had married a James Congdon.
2:59
SPEAKER_01: So literally, like we might be relatives.
3:03
SPEAKER_01: Which also got me to thinking, I'm like, okay, let's see.
3:06
SPEAKER_01: He's from another state, I'm from another state, he's from a wrestling family, I'm from a wrestling family.
3:12
SPEAKER_01: Uh he's a genius.
3:13
SPEAKER_01: I'm I know a genius, I've met one once.
3:16
SPEAKER_01: We're almost like the same person.
3:20
SPEAKER_01: So uh I also want to give honor to my family.
3:22
SPEAKER_01: My wife is now, she was here first service, she's out working in one of the booths, but my in-laws, the Meisners, I honestly like I married up marrying my wife.
3:31
SPEAKER_01: And so anyone who was in the sports, sometimes they say like you outkicked your coverage.
3:35
SPEAKER_01: I did for sure.
3:36
SPEAKER_01: And my in-laws are just incredible people.
3:39
SPEAKER_01: I mean, blessed.
3:40
SPEAKER_01: So my father-in-law is like, he was a dentist for years, retired, but he is like one of the most relaxed and calm and cool and collected human beings I've ever met.
3:49
SPEAKER_01: And then me, like, I'm a little bit Tony Dungey, like cool and calm.
3:53
SPEAKER_01: I'm a little bit Mike Tyson.
3:55
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so I'm a little bit of both.
3:57
SPEAKER_01: I want to be more like my father-in-law, who's just a great man.
4:00
SPEAKER_01: Um, when Pastor came and talked to me a couple months ago, he said, Hey, I have an idea.
4:05
SPEAKER_01: I want to do a summer series called Game Changing Moves, titled After Your Book.
4:09
SPEAKER_01: Is that okay?
4:10
SPEAKER_01: And I, yeah, of course.
4:11
SPEAKER_01: And he said, Would you like to come in and preach one of the sermons?
4:14
SPEAKER_01: It's amazing.
4:15
SPEAKER_01: It's a blown away because I highly respect Pastor Jim.
4:18
SPEAKER_01: I have for a long, long time in this church.
4:20
SPEAKER_01: And this is something I get to do.
4:22
SPEAKER_01: I get to go and speak a lot of places.
4:24
SPEAKER_01: And many times it is motivational speaking or inspirational speaking.
4:27
SPEAKER_01: Since I'm a coach and I've had some wrestling success in my background, I was an all-American in college, and I've had some blessings as a coach as well.
4:34
SPEAKER_01: So people bring me in to speak.
4:36
SPEAKER_01: And I take it serious every time.
4:38
SPEAKER_01: All right, I want to represent Jesus Christ and everything I do and represent him to the fullest.
4:42
SPEAKER_01: So I always take that serious, and I don't compartmentalize my faith.
4:46
SPEAKER_01: I don't just leave like, hey, Jesus is over here and everything else is over there.
4:49
SPEAKER_01: But there are times I'm a public school teacher, and there are times I'm speaking in the public sector where I can't just openly share about Jesus.
4:56
SPEAKER_01: But when I can, when I can, I take it very serious.
5:00
SPEAKER_01: Because talking about Jesus can change somebody's here and now, it can change their eternity, it can also change their family tree.
5:07
SPEAKER_01: One person in your family coming to Christ can change everything.
5:11
SPEAKER_01: So for me, my great-grandfather was a pastor for over 60 years.
5:15
SPEAKER_01: My dad was a Christian, but we stopped going to church when I was about nine years old for some reason.
5:21
SPEAKER_01: And he had taught me to pray.
5:22
SPEAKER_01: I believed in God, I believed in Jesus, but I was far from following God.
5:26
SPEAKER_01: I was far from following Jesus.
5:27
SPEAKER_01: He was not the Lord of my life.
5:29
SPEAKER_01: So today, what I want to do is I'm going to share a few stories from this book.
5:34
SPEAKER_01: And I asked Pastor, I said, Hey, is there anything in particular?
5:36
SPEAKER_01: A certain chapter.
5:37
SPEAKER_01: A lot of times people bring me in and uh they say, Hey, can you teach on this chapter or whatever?
5:41
SPEAKER_01: But he said, We just share some about the book, some about your wrestling journey, and some about your faith journey.
5:46
SPEAKER_01: And so I prayed about it, and God immediately put some things in my mind to be able to share with you guys today.
5:51
SPEAKER_01: But I named the book Game Changing Moves for a reason.
5:55
SPEAKER_01: And the subtitle is Life Lessons from Locker and Beyond.
5:58
SPEAKER_01: So my dad's in the National Hall of Fame for coaching wrestling.
6:01
SPEAKER_01: I've literally been around sports my entire life.
6:03
SPEAKER_01: He was a great football coach as well.
6:05
SPEAKER_01: So I've done that forever.
6:06
SPEAKER_01: And in every single sport, there is a sometimes many, but a game-changing move or a game-changing moment that happens.
6:13
SPEAKER_01: In football, maybe you know, it kicked off and there was a kick return, and that blew the game wide open.
6:19
SPEAKER_01: It changed the momentum of the game.
6:20
SPEAKER_01: In wrestling, sometimes you put someone in the back or you pin them and it completely changes everything.
6:24
SPEAKER_01: In life, we have the same situation.
6:27
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes in business, maybe you got married, maybe you had children, okay, and it changed everything.
6:32
SPEAKER_01: So for my wife and I, we have four kids, ages three through eleven.
6:37
SPEAKER_01: Uh we're crazy busy.
6:38
SPEAKER_01: It's like hurting ants.
6:40
SPEAKER_01: And uh my children are my children are awesome and a major blessing.
6:43
SPEAKER_01: But that was a game changer.
6:44
SPEAKER_01: Okay, game changing move for us.
6:46
SPEAKER_01: Now, their game changing moves, those are enacted by game changers.
6:52
SPEAKER_01: So the stories I want to share with you today, I want to tell you about a couple people that were game changers in my life, challenged you with a couple game changing moves, and introduce you to the ultimate game changer.
7:03
SPEAKER_01: So, talking about uh wrestling.
7:06
SPEAKER_01: I literally have wrestled my entire life.
7:08
SPEAKER_01: So I was born, my mom took me to my first wrestling match when I was two weeks old.
7:13
SPEAKER_01: I pinned the guy, jumped up.
7:15
SPEAKER_01: Like, no, I was there.
7:16
SPEAKER_01: I didn't really wrestle, but I was there.
7:18
SPEAKER_01: So, as soon as I could walk, I was on the match, running around my dad's practices, doing those things, then competing.
7:24
SPEAKER_01: I've competed in over a thousand wrestling matches.
7:26
SPEAKER_01: Folk style wrestling, which is what we do in high school and in college, uh, freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestle, which are the Olympic styles, uh, Brazilian jujitsu competed and trained in that.
7:35
SPEAKER_01: I've coached MMA for a number of years, as long as MMA, let me back up real quick, mixed martial arts, those guys that fight in the cage.
7:42
SPEAKER_01: So some people are like, what is MMA?
7:43
SPEAKER_01: It's UFC, right?
7:44
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so I coached some of those guys.
7:46
SPEAKER_01: Uh I've been around grappling sports forever.
7:50
SPEAKER_01: It is my life, it's my passion, it's something that I love to do, and it gives me the opportunity to pour into a number of people and build into their lives.
7:59
SPEAKER_01: So, what I want to do with you is I'm gonna jump forward from that two weeks old to my junior year in high school.
8:08
SPEAKER_01: Whenever I was a junior, it was during wrestling season, and at this time we hadn't been going to church, I wasn't following God.
8:14
SPEAKER_01: Maybe I prayed every now and then.
8:16
SPEAKER_01: I probably never really read my Bible.
8:18
SPEAKER_01: And so I just get home from wrestling practice, I get out of the car, and like all wrestlers, like we're always hungry, right?
8:24
SPEAKER_01: So I'm gonna run in the house and eat.
8:26
SPEAKER_01: Well, as soon as I get out of the car, I hear someone yelling at me, and I look across the street, and it's Miss Corr.
8:30
SPEAKER_01: And across the street from me were two incredible human beings, Carl and Laverne Cor.
8:35
SPEAKER_01: And uh Carl still lives there, and Miss Corr passed away a few years ago, but they were actually my godparents and two of the best and most beautiful people I've ever met.
8:43
SPEAKER_01: So some people, like when they walk in the room, they just bring a light, right?
8:46
SPEAKER_01: They just light up the room.
8:47
SPEAKER_01: That's how the Cores are.
8:49
SPEAKER_01: Also, when you enter into their house, it's the most peaceful place that you've ever been in your life.
8:54
SPEAKER_01: So I cut grass for them since I was real little.
8:56
SPEAKER_01: So every week I would cut their grass, I would come inside.
8:59
SPEAKER_01: There's a certain chair that I sat in, and Miss Corps would talk to me for a long time.
9:03
SPEAKER_01: We had a great relationship.
9:04
SPEAKER_01: Her and my mom were like best friends, and she kind of mentored my mom.
9:07
SPEAKER_01: And uh this particular day, she hollers and says, Hey Chad, when you get a second, can you come and see me?
9:13
SPEAKER_01: So I run inside and I tell my parents I'm gonna go to Miss Kor's real quick.
9:16
SPEAKER_01: And I go in there, and again, as soon as I walk in, it's just like peace in that house.
9:22
SPEAKER_01: And I go and I sit in my chair, and Ms.
9:24
SPEAKER_01: Korr says, Chad, you were on my heart and I was thinking about you today, and I want to share with you a little bit.
9:28
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, okay.
9:29
SPEAKER_01: And she says, Do you know the story of David and Goliath from the Bible?
9:34
SPEAKER_01: And I said, Yes, ma'am, I do.
9:36
SPEAKER_01: And she said, Well, Chad, you're David.
9:38
SPEAKER_01: And at first, I'm like, wait a minute, like, David's like amazing, and I don't know a lot about the Bible, but and she said, You're young, you're strong, you're courageous, you're able to face any giant, any battle that comes your way, you can take it on.
9:51
SPEAKER_01: And so I felt good.
9:52
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, Yeah, yeah, I'm David, all right.
9:54
SPEAKER_01: And she says, but I want you to know this.
9:57
SPEAKER_01: David had a relationship with God.
10:00
SPEAKER_01: David prayed to God, he believed in God, his power came from God.
10:03
SPEAKER_01: He didn't come from his own training, he didn't come from his own strength.
10:05
SPEAKER_01: He did those things and did them well, but his power came from God.
10:09
SPEAKER_01: So I want you to know, Chad, and she pulled out this little gray bag, and inside of it were five smooth stones.
10:14
SPEAKER_01: She said, David used a slingshot, and he had five smooth stones.
10:18
SPEAKER_01: Only took one, and he killed the giant.
10:21
SPEAKER_01: I want you to take this with you.
10:22
SPEAKER_01: And this is a reminder to always talk to God.
10:26
SPEAKER_01: Always pray to God, always let God be your source of power.
10:30
SPEAKER_01: She prayed with me.
10:31
SPEAKER_01: I left and went back home.
10:33
SPEAKER_01: And that day, that day, a seed was planted in my heart.
10:37
SPEAKER_01: I didn't fully give my life to Christ yet, but a seed was planted in my heart.
10:41
SPEAKER_01: Soon after I started going to fellowship with Christian athletes.
10:44
SPEAKER_01: We had that at our school, and they did it once a week over lunch.
10:47
SPEAKER_01: I started going to that, and I made a decision you know what?
10:50
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna be a Christian.
10:51
SPEAKER_01: This is pretty awesome.
10:52
SPEAKER_01: I kind of like this whole thing.
10:54
SPEAKER_01: Here's the problem.
10:56
SPEAKER_01: It was me wanting to be a Christian.
10:57
SPEAKER_01: I hadn't surrendered to God.
10:59
SPEAKER_01: I just said, I'm gonna be a Christian.
11:01
SPEAKER_01: Now I'm a really disciplined person.
11:03
SPEAKER_01: So if you ask my family, I'm kind of like a nutritional freak with my eating.
11:07
SPEAKER_01: I'm super disciplined.
11:08
SPEAKER_01: Am I eating?
11:08
SPEAKER_01: Am I working out and all that type of stuff?
11:10
SPEAKER_01: And so I just made up my mind, you know what, I'm not gonna cuss anymore.
11:14
SPEAKER_01: Uh these are the things I thought Christians did, okay?
11:16
SPEAKER_01: I'm not gonna cuss anymore.
11:18
SPEAKER_01: I am not gonna have inappropriate relationships with young ladies anymore.
11:21
SPEAKER_01: I'm not gonna party, I'm not gonna fist fight, I'm not gonna do any of those things.
11:25
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna be a Christian.
11:26
SPEAKER_01: And I did really good.
11:28
SPEAKER_01: So the rest of my junior year, man, I didn't do any of those things.
11:31
SPEAKER_01: And then my senior year, I didn't do any of those things.
11:34
SPEAKER_01: I might have gotten a couple fistfights, but beyond that, beyond that, so fast forward to my freshman year of college.
11:42
SPEAKER_01: I got a wrestling scholarship to Missouri Valley College in Marshall, Missouri.
11:46
SPEAKER_01: They had won a national title the year before.
11:48
SPEAKER_01: Great wrestling program.
11:50
SPEAKER_01: They had one of their assistant coaches from Oklahoma and he recruited me.
11:53
SPEAKER_01: I really liked what he was saying, plus they were paying for my school, so I went.
11:56
SPEAKER_01: And it was about probably six or seven hours from home.
11:59
SPEAKER_01: And my family did not have much money.
12:01
SPEAKER_01: My dad was a teacher, my mom is a stay-at-home mom, had brothers and sisters, we always had cousins that lived with us, and uh in the summer we had painted mode.
12:09
SPEAKER_01: So I'd bought a truck.
12:10
SPEAKER_01: I actually bought three trucks in high school with my own money.
12:13
SPEAKER_01: Kids go to work and make your own money.
12:16
SPEAKER_01: So I go to Missouri Valley and I'm there.
12:19
SPEAKER_01: Like I don't have enough money because I'm paying for other stuff.
12:21
SPEAKER_01: I don't have enough money to go back home, and I literally only went home once that year.
12:25
SPEAKER_01: But uh I get up there and I don't know a soul.
12:27
SPEAKER_01: Like I didn't know anybody on the wrestling team.
12:28
SPEAKER_01: I knew the coach that recruited me, and that was it.
12:30
SPEAKER_01: And so I just kind of jumped headfirst into wrestling.
12:34
SPEAKER_01: Whatever the best guys on the team, the returning all-Americans, the guys that won nationals last year, whatever they're doing, I'm gonna do.
12:39
SPEAKER_01: So I lifted weights with them, I ran with them, I worked out with them in the room.
12:42
SPEAKER_01: Some of the other freshmen like wrestled each other.
12:44
SPEAKER_01: I'm trying to wrestle the best guy in the room.
12:45
SPEAKER_01: I wanted to be a national champion, I wanted to be an all-American, be the best I could be.
12:49
SPEAKER_01: This whole time, I'm not praying at all.
12:52
SPEAKER_01: I'm not reading my Bible at all, but I'm a Christian, right?
12:54
SPEAKER_01: Okay, because I made myself a Christian.
12:56
SPEAKER_01: So I'm going through this whole thing, and uh I walk in, I have a wrestling match, and I beat a returning all-American off the team.
13:04
SPEAKER_01: And I'm varsity, so I'm feeling pretty good.
13:06
SPEAKER_01: I call my mom and dad, and back then we didn't have cell phones, so we had like a payphone, had a calling card, like$5 on it.
13:12
SPEAKER_01: So go talk to the fish real quick.
13:14
SPEAKER_01: All right.
13:16
SPEAKER_01: Well, I get injured, and I'm gonna have to take a medical register, and I'm just like just nosedive.
13:21
SPEAKER_01: Plus, I'd always made, I had a 4.0 GPA in high school, I always made really good grades.
13:26
SPEAKER_01: Maybe it was like a 385, something, but really good grades.
13:28
SPEAKER_01: Well, in college, you like actually have to go to class.
13:31
SPEAKER_01: I wasn't doing that a lot.
13:32
SPEAKER_01: And uh my coach came and found me and was like, hey, you're on a scholarship, right?
13:35
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, Yes, sir, thank you.
13:36
SPEAKER_01: And he was like, Yeah, you gotta go to class or else you're gonna lose it.
13:39
SPEAKER_01: So started going to class, but things were not going super well at this time.
13:43
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so I'm injured, I'm trying to catch up in classes.
13:47
SPEAKER_01: Well, there was a young man that I met there at that college, and his name is Vin Shard Dobbins.
13:52
SPEAKER_01: And has anybody here ever seen the movie Friday Night Lights?
13:55
SPEAKER_01: Football movie Friday Night Lights?
13:57
SPEAKER_01: Okay, if you've ever seen that, then maybe you know a little bit about Odessa Permia High School in Texas.
14:02
SPEAKER_01: They go by Mojo Magic.
14:03
SPEAKER_01: They won multiple state titles, and we all know Texas football is crazy.
14:06
SPEAKER_01: All right, high school football is like pro football.
14:08
SPEAKER_01: If you drive through there, you see stadiums that are just incredible.
14:10
SPEAKER_01: So he is on the best football team in all of Texas.
14:13
SPEAKER_01: I meet this man and I walked into his room for the first time, and there's just like state championship rings up there.
14:19
SPEAKER_01: But Vince is about probably 6'3, long, lean, huge smile African-American man, and uh the like guy, like Miss Corps, he's a light.
14:28
SPEAKER_01: So he's a fifth-year senior, and he still lives in the dorms, but I didn't know what the time is.
14:32
SPEAKER_01: That was part of his ministry.
14:34
SPEAKER_01: I didn't know that.
14:35
SPEAKER_01: So I meet Vince, we talk, we share, and I'm like, I like this guy, man.
14:40
SPEAKER_01: I see him a couple weeks later, and every time I saw Vince, every single time, he'd be like, Hey, brother Chad, how you doing?
14:46
SPEAKER_01: We give a little hug.
14:47
SPEAKER_01: And it wasn't like how you doing, keep moving.
14:49
SPEAKER_01: Like he wanted to stop and talk.
14:51
SPEAKER_01: And he wanted to listen.
14:52
SPEAKER_01: That time I needed somebody to listen to me.
14:54
SPEAKER_01: I didn't know why, but I had a lot of issues going on in my mind, in my heart.
14:59
SPEAKER_01: And so we would stop and talk, and before we would leave, every time Vince would say, Hey, I'm going to church Sunday, do you want to come with me?
15:06
SPEAKER_01: And be like, Yeah, yeah, I'll go.
15:07
SPEAKER_01: And then I'd find an excuse and I wouldn't go.
15:09
SPEAKER_01: And I would see him a couple weeks later, he'd invite me to church, I wouldn't go.
15:12
SPEAKER_01: Well, I go home over Christmas break, I come back, I'm starting the second semester, I see Vince, we're talking, and then he says, Hey, I'm going to church this Sunday.
15:21
SPEAKER_01: Do you want to come with me?
15:22
SPEAKER_01: And I don't know if I just want him to leave me alone or if like God was really moving on me, but either way, I decided, you know what?
15:28
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm gonna go to church.
15:30
SPEAKER_01: So we're in Marshall, Missouri, there's a little town beside it, and that's the church he went to, and they came and picked up college students in a van, took us to this church, and it was a church of God in Christ.
15:40
SPEAKER_01: Now, I hadn't been to church since I was about nine, but I can tell you, and this is from a little kid's perspective, but I can tell you what I remember about church.
15:47
SPEAKER_01: We went in, we sit there like a real quiet.
15:50
SPEAKER_01: I don't remember, there was probably music, but I don't remember the music or anything.
15:53
SPEAKER_01: My dad would give me like something to draw on, and I just remember the pastor on stage like screaming in the heat.
15:57
SPEAKER_01: I was like, God, why is this guy so angry?
15:59
SPEAKER_01: All right, like that's all I remember about church.
16:02
SPEAKER_01: So I walk into this church of God in Christ.
16:05
SPEAKER_01: If any of you have ever been to an all-African-American church, an all-black church, it's a whole different experience, right?
16:10
SPEAKER_01: So most of my friends were minorities growing up, a very diverse in the area that I lived in, and uh, but I'd never been to an all-black church before.
16:17
SPEAKER_01: And I walk in, and I'm talking, it was like an hour and a half of praise and worship, like my hands were getting tired, I was like, I can't clap anymore.
16:23
SPEAKER_01: Okay, and then the pastor preached for an hour, and then we did more praise and worship.
16:27
SPEAKER_01: Then we had lunch.
16:28
SPEAKER_01: And so, as a college student, like if you're gonna get fed, you're in, right?
16:31
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so I was like, yes, this is awesome.
16:33
SPEAKER_01: Well, I didn't realize that Vince was dating the pastor's daughter.
16:38
SPEAKER_01: So we had lunch, and then we left and went to a sister church, and then we were there.
16:42
SPEAKER_01: So I didn't get back to the dorms like eight o'clock at night.
16:45
SPEAKER_01: So my mind like, man, this church is crazy, like it's all day long.
16:48
SPEAKER_01: How do people do this?
16:49
SPEAKER_01: I didn't realize it, but I loved it.
16:51
SPEAKER_01: So I went back the next week, I went back the week after, and then something happened to me.
16:56
SPEAKER_01: So I literally had wrestled since I'd been a kid, and I want to share with you a scripture real quick.
17:03
SPEAKER_01: This is from Genesis 32, 24 through 25.
17:07
SPEAKER_01: It says, So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak.
17:11
SPEAKER_01: When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob's hip, so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man.
17:19
SPEAKER_01: If we were to read the whole story, you would figure out that Jacob actually had a wrestling match with God.
17:26
SPEAKER_01: They wrestled all night long.
17:28
SPEAKER_01: And in the morning, God said, Let me go.
17:31
SPEAKER_01: And Jacob said, I'm not gonna let you go until you bless me.
17:34
SPEAKER_01: And then God, like maybe this in jiu-jitsu too, like dislocated his hip or something, hurt his hip.
17:39
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
17:39
SPEAKER_01: But then he blessed them.
17:41
SPEAKER_01: Jacob, which literally means deceiver, which means liar.
17:44
SPEAKER_01: He changed his name to Israel and he blessed them.
17:48
SPEAKER_01: So I'm going to this church, and all of a sudden I realize I've been wrestling literally since I could walk.
17:55
SPEAKER_01: I've also been wrestling with God since I've been a young man.
17:59
SPEAKER_01: I've been in a long wrestling match.
18:00
SPEAKER_01: If you've ever been around wrestling, if you've ever wrestled, you know it is one of the hardest sports.
18:05
SPEAKER_01: You're using every muscle in your body the entire time.
18:08
SPEAKER_01: We train for hours at a time.
18:11
SPEAKER_01: Nick back there, I can't tell you, we've been training since he's been little.
18:13
SPEAKER_01: We put in hours and hours and hours of work to walk out and wrestle a six-minute match in high school or a seven-minute match in college because it is so tough.
18:21
SPEAKER_01: Jacob wrestled God all night long.
18:23
SPEAKER_01: Okay, kudos to Jacob.
18:25
SPEAKER_01: That guy was in shape.
18:26
SPEAKER_01: All right.
18:28
SPEAKER_01: But God is willing to go the distance with you.
18:31
SPEAKER_01: God is willing to wrestle with you.
18:33
SPEAKER_01: And he'd been wrestling with me for a long, long time.
18:35
SPEAKER_01: So on a particular Sunday, I walked in and God hit a game-changing move on me.
18:41
SPEAKER_01: He flipped me upside down, put me on my head, gently lifted me back up and put me on my feet and changed man.
18:47
SPEAKER_01: This time it wasn't me trying to change.
18:49
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't me saying, I'm gonna be better, I'm gonna be moral, I'm gonna be good.
18:52
SPEAKER_01: This time it was God changing my heart.
18:55
SPEAKER_01: He took a heart of stone.
18:56
SPEAKER_01: I had a lot of anger in me.
18:57
SPEAKER_01: He took a heart of stone, and he made it a heart of flesh.
19:00
SPEAKER_01: He made it tender again.
19:02
SPEAKER_01: He let me start to feel love, to feel love from others and to be able to show love to others.
19:07
SPEAKER_01: I hadn't had that in a long time.
19:08
SPEAKER_01: I hadn't had that in a long time.
19:10
SPEAKER_01: I'd gotten hard.
19:12
SPEAKER_01: I'd been angry.
19:13
SPEAKER_01: God changed all that in a moment.
19:18
SPEAKER_01: If you ever read Jeremiah 18, one of my favorite chapters in the Bible, one of my favorite stories.
19:24
SPEAKER_01: God tells Jeremiah, I want you to go down to the potter's house.
19:28
SPEAKER_01: And I want you to watch the potter.
19:30
SPEAKER_01: And Jeremiah doesn't know what he's going in to see, but he goes in and he sees the potter working with clay and making a vessel.
19:37
SPEAKER_01: Maybe it was a bowl or a play or whatever it was.
19:40
SPEAKER_01: He's making it.
19:41
SPEAKER_01: But it says that the clay was marred.
19:44
SPEAKER_01: It was messed up, it had a mark, it had something wrong with it.
19:48
SPEAKER_01: So he smashed it all down and he rebuilt it into the vessel that he wanted to use for his purposes.
19:54
SPEAKER_01: When God softened my heart and he changed me, he took a young man that was messed up, a young man that was marred that had all kinds of issues, and he reshaped and re-molded me into a vessel that he could use for his purposes.
20:08
SPEAKER_01: Now I could go out and I could wrestle, not for me.
20:11
SPEAKER_01: I could not just wrestle to try to be the best, but it was a platform to glorify God.
20:16
SPEAKER_01: It was a way to show light to my teammates.
20:19
SPEAKER_01: It was a way to show light anywhere I went.
20:22
SPEAKER_01: The Lord blessed me with some athletic ability, and I was able to win a lot.
20:26
SPEAKER_01: How many times did I get to talk to the newspaper and give God glory right away?
20:31
SPEAKER_01: It has opened up doors for me to coach in so many places and be able to glorify God.
20:38
SPEAKER_01: God took this messed up young kid and changed him into a vessel that he could use after a lifelong wrestling match.
20:46
SPEAKER_01: Vince graduated, went back down to Texas, and by the way, he is now a pastor at T.D.
20:52
SPEAKER_01: Jakes Church, the Potter's House, which is the largest African-American church in the world.
20:58
SPEAKER_01: He's now a pastor there.
21:00
SPEAKER_01: I go back home and I get mentored.
21:04
SPEAKER_01: So I go back home, I tell Miss Corr what happened to me, and so all day long I would go and I would lift weights with my dad in the morning, and then we had a painting and mowing business, and we'd work all day, and I would go to Miss Corps' house a couple times a week, maybe nine o'clock at night, and we would sit there until 10 or 11 just studying the Bible.
21:21
SPEAKER_01: And she would tell me what these stories meant, what these words meant.
21:25
SPEAKER_01: God began to open up my heart and my eyes, my mind, and help me to understand the Bible.
21:29
SPEAKER_01: Before I was like, I don't need to read that thing.
21:30
SPEAKER_01: When I did, I was like, I don't understand what this is saying.
21:34
SPEAKER_01: Now all of a sudden I could understand it and I could apply it to my life.
21:39
SPEAKER_01: I had an aunt, Aunt Paula, Machankus.
21:42
SPEAKER_01: Aunt Paula started a Bible study at her house, so I came over and I started running the Bible study at her house for teens and early college age.
21:49
SPEAKER_01: She is one of the most loving people I've ever met.
21:52
SPEAKER_01: She showed me what it was like to love people the way that Jesus loves people.
21:56
SPEAKER_01: I began to follow her and to watch her and to try to do the things that she did.
22:00
SPEAKER_01: And she taught me.
22:01
SPEAKER_01: And my dad had started going back to church and rededicated his life to Christ at the same time, the same year.
22:08
SPEAKER_01: God's crazy, right?
22:09
SPEAKER_01: God can do all kinds of things that are unexpected.
22:12
SPEAKER_01: So my grandmother was sick with diabetes, and my dad wanted to go to church with her.
22:15
SPEAKER_01: So we started going to church with her at the church of the Nazarene.
22:18
SPEAKER_01: I went there, I started teaching a morning Sunday school class for teens.
22:23
SPEAKER_01: And then out of nowhere, the pastor came and talked to me and he said, I don't even know why I'm asking you this.
22:27
SPEAKER_01: I just feel it on my heart.
22:28
SPEAKER_01: I'm 19 years old at this time.
22:30
SPEAKER_01: Would you want to come in and preach one of our services?
22:32
SPEAKER_01: I had never done any public speaking in my life.
22:34
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, I'm in, let's do it.
22:36
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
22:37
SPEAKER_01: I came in, I preached.
22:39
SPEAKER_01: It was probably terrible.
22:41
SPEAKER_01: But it must have been all right because the pastor said, Hey, outside of wrestling season, would you be willing to come back once a month and preach a morning and an evening service for us?
22:50
SPEAKER_01: And I did that for the next two years.
22:52
SPEAKER_01: And I was able to do that because I was in the Word and I was praying and I built a relationship with God.
22:57
SPEAKER_01: I was becoming more like David.
22:59
SPEAKER_01: Miss Korse saw it a long time ago.
23:01
SPEAKER_01: I didn't see it.
23:02
SPEAKER_01: She had built into my life.
23:04
SPEAKER_01: Now people were discipling me.
23:06
SPEAKER_01: They were changing the way that I did things so that I could help other people change the way they did things.
23:12
SPEAKER_01: Got to go on, ended up wrestling at Fort Hay State.
23:15
SPEAKER_01: Met my lovely wife there.
23:16
SPEAKER_01: She's from Topeka, came back, got this job here, wrote the book last year.
23:21
SPEAKER_01: 16, 17-year-old me would have never imagined those things.
23:24
SPEAKER_01: God has things in your future that you can never imagine.
23:27
SPEAKER_01: We all have gifts and talents and abilities, and you have these things that you can do, but I promise, once you dedicate your life to God, once you give your life to Jesus and accept him, it's not all rainbows and sunshine.
23:38
SPEAKER_01: You've still got issues, right?
23:39
SPEAKER_01: Okay, but you know who to go to, you know where to take those.
23:42
SPEAKER_01: But God will open up gifts and abilities in you that you don't even know you have right now in order to glorify him, in order to build a platform for him, in order to build into his church, not just this church, but the body of Christ.
23:54
SPEAKER_01: He will do those things for you.
23:57
SPEAKER_01: I didn't know that when I was younger, but I had game changers who built into my life.
24:04
SPEAKER_01: I had game-changing coaches.
24:05
SPEAKER_01: My dad's in the National Hall of Fame, my college coach is in the National Hall of Fame.
24:08
SPEAKER_01: I've actually had three National Hall of Fame coaches.
24:10
SPEAKER_01: Most people don't even know one.
24:11
SPEAKER_01: I've had three of them.
24:12
SPEAKER_01: I don't know why God blessed me like that.
24:14
SPEAKER_01: But he did.
24:16
SPEAKER_01: But then I had people that spiritually mentored me and still do to this day, and build into my life.
24:22
SPEAKER_01: So here are a couple things I want to do with you guys.
24:26
SPEAKER_01: One is, what's your wrestling match right now?
24:30
SPEAKER_01: Everybody here, you're a wrestler.
24:33
SPEAKER_01: What is your wrestling match right now?
24:35
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you're wrestling with does God exist?
24:37
SPEAKER_01: Who is this Jesus?
24:38
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you're wrestling with pride.
24:40
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you're wrestling with anxiety.
24:42
SPEAKER_01: Everybody is going through some sort of wrestling match.
24:46
SPEAKER_01: Go to the one who has the answers.
24:48
SPEAKER_01: Wrestle him.
24:49
SPEAKER_01: Engage him.
24:50
SPEAKER_01: In wrestling, you can't run away from somebody.
24:53
SPEAKER_01: It's called stalling.
24:53
SPEAKER_01: You'll get in trouble and they'll get a point and then you can get kicked out of the match from it.
24:56
SPEAKER_01: Don't run from God.
24:58
SPEAKER_01: He's alright.
24:58
SPEAKER_01: He'll wrestle you all night long.
25:00
SPEAKER_01: He'll wrestle you throughout your lifetime.
25:02
SPEAKER_01: Engage with God.
25:04
SPEAKER_01: He's not afraid of it.
25:05
SPEAKER_01: He'll wrestle you.
25:06
SPEAKER_01: And you never know.
25:08
SPEAKER_01: He might dump you on your head and hit a game, change, and move, and change everything about you for his glory so that you can go out and you can do his work.
25:15
SPEAKER_01: So what is your wrestling match right now?
25:18
SPEAKER_01: The second thing is who are the people that are built into your life?
25:22
SPEAKER_01: God puts people in your life.
25:24
SPEAKER_01: God uses people.
25:25
SPEAKER_01: He puts people in your life.
25:27
SPEAKER_01: Whether you've accepted Jesus and know him or you haven't, God puts people in your life who are going to build into you.
25:33
SPEAKER_01: Think about those people.
25:35
SPEAKER_01: Maybe send them a text or give them a phone call or whatever.
25:37
SPEAKER_01: I can't call Miss Core anymore.
25:39
SPEAKER_01: She's passed away.
25:40
SPEAKER_01: I wish she could hear me preach.
25:44
SPEAKER_01: Do you know that whenever I was cutting her grass?
25:47
SPEAKER_01: I didn't grow up in the church, right?
25:49
SPEAKER_01: So she came out, and this is this ages me, right?
25:51
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so she comes out and she would give me cassette tapes to listen to on my Walkman of preachers.
25:57
SPEAKER_01: You know what the first cassette tape she ever gave me was?
26:00
SPEAKER_01: Pastor T.D.
26:01
SPEAKER_01: Jakes.
26:02
SPEAKER_01: Vince, who led me to Christ, is now a pastor at T.D.
26:06
SPEAKER_01: Jakes Church.
26:07
SPEAKER_01: Man, God works in amazing ways.
26:10
SPEAKER_01: But who are the people that build into your life?
26:12
SPEAKER_01: Who are your game changers?
26:14
SPEAKER_01: They're out there.
26:16
SPEAKER_01: If you don't have one, find somebody.
26:18
SPEAKER_01: There's a church full of them right here.
26:21
SPEAKER_01: Here's the third thing.
26:22
SPEAKER_01: You go become a game changer.
26:25
SPEAKER_01: If you're a Christian, if you know God, if you know Jesus, do it in your home.
26:31
SPEAKER_01: Do it in your workplace.
26:32
SPEAKER_01: And maybe you work in the public sector like I do.
26:34
SPEAKER_01: Let your light shine.
26:36
SPEAKER_01: You don't have to run around dump trunking Jesus on everybody, fire hosing them all the time.
26:41
SPEAKER_01: Live your life for Jesus.
26:42
SPEAKER_01: You're going to build some relationships.
26:43
SPEAKER_01: And in building some relationships, you're going to have an opportunity to share.
26:48
SPEAKER_01: I teach and coach at a public school, and Pastor asked me there's a picture where I'm praying with Nick before the state championship.
26:56
SPEAKER_01: I don't just go and force prayer on my wrestlers, but if any of my wrestlers ask for prayer, I guarantee you they're going to get it.
27:00
SPEAKER_01: We are going to pray.
27:02
SPEAKER_01: I promise you that much.
27:03
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
27:04
SPEAKER_01: And Nick used to come and ask me before almost every match, hey coach, will you pray with me?
27:07
SPEAKER_01: So we would always pray before his matches.
27:10
SPEAKER_01: You go be a game changer, build into somebody else's life, disciple them, mentor them, help them to know Jesus better in a deeper way.
27:19
SPEAKER_01: Don't just come to church and say here on Sundays, I've been guilty of it.
27:24
SPEAKER_01: When's the last time you invited somebody to church?
27:27
SPEAKER_01: And when you go to a large church and there's two buildings, my wife and I have talked about this.
27:31
SPEAKER_01: It's awesome, but one of the bad things is there's not much accountability.
27:35
SPEAKER_01: Like you can miss on Sunday and nobody knows.
27:37
SPEAKER_01: Man, you must have been in the cab building.
27:42
SPEAKER_01: But just because there's a lot of people here, there's a lot of people out there who need to be in here.
27:47
SPEAKER_01: They need to be in a church.
27:48
SPEAKER_01: They don't know God.
27:49
SPEAKER_01: They don't know Jesus.
27:50
SPEAKER_01: They need to be exposed.
27:52
SPEAKER_01: One word can change their life.
27:53
SPEAKER_01: One service.
27:54
SPEAKER_01: Invite them.
27:55
SPEAKER_01: This isn't just for us.
27:58
SPEAKER_01: Invite them to come in here and to sit and to hear Pastor Jim's word every single week.
28:02
SPEAKER_01: He's an amazing teacher.
28:05
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely amazing teacher.
28:07
SPEAKER_01: And I'd never told him this, but it was a number of years ago.
28:11
SPEAKER_01: One of my wrestlers who was super close with him and his family was killed.
28:16
SPEAKER_01: And then the very next day, my private technique wrestling coach, who had a great relationship with, died.
28:22
SPEAKER_01: It was a rough time for me.
28:23
SPEAKER_01: Man, trying to deal with that grief, rough, rough time for me.
28:27
SPEAKER_01: No one even knew, but inside I was in turmoil.
28:29
SPEAKER_01: I was torn up.
28:30
SPEAKER_01: I remember coming and sitting here and hearing sermons, and this always stuck in my mind.
28:35
SPEAKER_01: I don't even remember what the sermon is about.
28:37
SPEAKER_01: I just know that Pastor Jim said this.
28:38
SPEAKER_01: It was a time where he was going through a rough patch in his life.
28:41
SPEAKER_01: And he said he would say this day by day, by the grace of God, I'm getting better in every way.
28:47
SPEAKER_01: I would say that two or three times a day, sometimes more.
28:50
SPEAKER_01: I would read my Bible, I would pray.
28:53
SPEAKER_01: And that little phrase carried me through.
28:56
SPEAKER_01: Had I not been in this church, had I not had game changers who built into my life, I wouldn't have had that.
29:03
SPEAKER_01: So invite somebody to church, disciple someone, build into their life, be their mentor, you go out and be a game changer.
29:09
SPEAKER_01: That's how we change your home, our neighborhoods, this community, and the nation.
29:15
SPEAKER_01: That's how we do it right there.
29:16
SPEAKER_01: That's the plan.
29:18
SPEAKER_01: And the last thing is this just because you're in church doesn't mean you know Jesus.
29:23
SPEAKER_01: If you're here today and you don't know him, God, he's waiting for you.
29:29
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is the ultimate game changer.
29:32
SPEAKER_01: The devil thought he was the game changer.
29:34
SPEAKER_01: Jesus was crucified, hung on the cross, and the devil was like, I did it.
29:40
SPEAKER_01: I used God's own creation to kill his son.
29:42
SPEAKER_01: I did it.
29:43
SPEAKER_01: Bam, game changer move right there.
29:45
SPEAKER_01: It's over.
29:46
SPEAKER_01: It's a wrap.
29:48
SPEAKER_01: And then Jesus went and conquered death, hell in the grave, and he rose again.
29:51
SPEAKER_01: And he sits at the right hand of God and intercedes for us.
29:54
SPEAKER_01: He did that for you.
29:56
SPEAKER_01: He walked out like, walk out, walk out of the grave looking around, like, I did it.
30:00
SPEAKER_01: I'm the game changer.
30:01
SPEAKER_01: Actually, he was like, My daddy did it.
30:03
SPEAKER_01: He's the game changer.
30:05
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is the only one, and it is a personal decision.
30:09
SPEAKER_01: Just because somebody else in your family knows him doesn't mean that that carries over to you.
30:13
SPEAKER_01: You have to make a personal decision and build a relationship with him.
30:16
SPEAKER_01: Read the Bible.
30:17
SPEAKER_01: Get in there.
30:19
SPEAKER_01: But first, you got to wrestle with them.
30:21
SPEAKER_01: See if he's real.
30:23
SPEAKER_01: Accept him as your own Lord and Savior.
30:25
SPEAKER_01: Know that he died for you.
30:26
SPEAKER_01: Know that he can change everything about your life.
30:28
SPEAKER_01: You in turn can go and help other people and change their lives.
30:32
SPEAKER_01: So if you don't know Jesus as your Lord and Savior, say it might be the day.
30:37
SPEAKER_01: Ask God to reveal Himself.
30:38
SPEAKER_01: Pray to God.
30:39
SPEAKER_01: Talk to Him.
30:40
SPEAKER_01: He's not afraid of your wrestling match.
30:42
SPEAKER_01: He likes to wrestle.
30:43
SPEAKER_01: It's his favorite sport.
30:45
SPEAKER_01: I think it is.
30:55
SPEAKER_01: But wrestle with God.
30:58
SPEAKER_01: So today, whenever we leave here, I want you to think about the game-changing moves that have happened in your life.
31:06
SPEAKER_01: Who can you be a game changer for?
31:10
SPEAKER_01: Who needs to be in this church?
31:13
SPEAKER_01: In any church, who needs to be here in the Word of God?
31:16
SPEAKER_01: And if you don't know Jesus, today's the day to come to Him.
31:20
SPEAKER_01: Let's close in prayer.
31:21
SPEAKER_01: Father God, we love you.
31:23
SPEAKER_01: We thank you for this day.
31:24
SPEAKER_01: We thank you for an opportunity to hear your word.
31:27
SPEAKER_01: I ask that you just come into our hearts and our minds, soften our hearts, help us to know you and accept you.
31:32
SPEAKER_01: Know that your son Jesus died for us so that our sins can be forgiven, dear Heavenly Father, so that we can be changed now, that we can be changed for eternity, we can change our families, dear Heavenly Father.
31:41
SPEAKER_01: Help us to love well and to go out into our communities and to be game changers in every arena of our life and do it to glorify you.
31:50
SPEAKER_01: And most importantly, to lead and show people Jesus and what he did for us.
31:54
SPEAKER_01: We love you and thank you for all that you do for us.
31:57
SPEAKER_01: It's in his name we pray.
31:58
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
31:59
SPEAKER_01: All right, you're dismissed.