Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / March 6, 2019 | Men Of Success - Winter 2019: The Greatest Salesman In The World - Session 7

Transcript

March 6, 2019 | Men Of Success - Winter 2019: The Greatest Salesman In The World - Session 7 · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, good morning guys.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Go ahead and eat.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Get some seconds.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna go ahead and uh get started because we want to talk a little about yesterday, Greg Brennerman.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: Rodney and I were at breakfast there.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: And we might uh talk a little bit about how K-State has moved uh closer to the Big 12 championship.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: 6452, and all they have to do is beat Oklahoma this weekend, and they if Texas Tech loses at Iowa State, they win the title right uh outright.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: That Big 12 the uh Big 12 standings here are uh before KU got spanked last night at Oklahoma.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: It was so surprising.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: Makes me scared for Saturday as well.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: Saturday?
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: We play Oklahoma.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah, he better not lose.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: Gosh.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: My goodness.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: So anyway, yesterday, uh and some of you guys, Pete Bostrick was there.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Let me see, Don Burge was at the afternoon session.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: Who else?
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh let me look around here.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: Huh?
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: Lauren, you were there at four o'clock too.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yep, Ken was there.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Davis Holden was there too, but I don't see him here.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, and part of it's my fault when uh you know I pushed to have an afternoon meeting with Greg Brenneman for all of us for the city or whatever, but I didn't send out the notice to you guys till yesterday morning.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: I was out of town.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyway, talk to us.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, so we went to breakfast.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: This guy, in first, you know, when I heard him open his mouth at breakfast, so there were about 50, 40, or 50 guys, I don't know, Pete, how many there were, something like that.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of businessmen who had signed up.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh there's two churches involved, our church and first Southern at this point.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: And we're supplying businessmen for willing students, business students at Washburn University who want to be mentored, okay?
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: And it won't give them credit, it'll be outside, you know, uh partly because there's so much Christianity associated with it, and there would be there's a huge pushback amongst the secular professors, one or two, and the secular dean over at Washburn.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: But the president Walter Farley is super behind it, the vice president Julie is super behind it, and Greg Brennan, as of 48 hours ago, promised he would fund this whole new program over there.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: He's one of the top donors for Washburn.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: So, so you know, we and for Southern had approached businessmen, got about 30 or 35 to sign up and say, we'll be willing to mentor.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: So these guys came to a breakfast at Washburn.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: You and I were there.
• 3:04
  unknown: Yeah.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: And uh he started talking.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: He opens his mouth, and I'm thinking, he sounds like a bird.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: Kind of a high voice, but I mean, within a couple of words, you're not thinking about his voice, you're thinking about what a stud.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he is he is he is a stud, and he's uh it's it's really cool to see the way that he's intentionally using the platform that God has given him, that God has allowed him to be a part of um for the good of Lowly Topeka.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think he lives in Houston, and he's he's so concerned and so invested in what's happening at Washburn, what's happening here in Topeka, um, that he's willing to do this.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I I just think it's it's he's setting an incredible example for not only his kids, but other businessmen around the world of hey, this is this is how you integrate faith in business and and live it out.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: I you know, I'm thoroughly impressed.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: And here's a good argument for if you become a mega millionaire, so he's he's got his sort of his own fund, they own about 11 companies, and it's about a$300-400 million dollar fund.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: So if you make that kind of money and you can sign checks with six or seven zeros to a university, then you have a lot of say in you know, in programs and so forth.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: So he's one of the top donors, and so he signs the front of the checks, and and they love him.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so he says, Well, I want it to be really Christian.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: I want to be able to share, I want Christian businessmen to be able to share Jesus Christ while they're explaining business.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: And they go, uh, okay, you know.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: So it's wonderful, it's really cool.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: So he shared his story yesterday.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: He met with about 200 students, Washburn students, at noon.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: Over half of them signed up for this program.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: And uh so awesome, really cool.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and also last night, a little I didn't want to call you and say, okay, I'm gonna change direction, but last night uh I got from the tech people over there the actual video of his 28-minute presentation or whatever at breakfast.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: You did yesterday morning.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, wasn't that cool?
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: It was so I really would like to show it to you, and maybe by the end of the year, or maybe two weeks or something, I'll show it to you.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: By the way, I think we'll go ahead and meet next week.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: I know it's spring break, some of you may not be here, but we've missed a couple of weeks already, and I want us to be done here in three or four weeks, uh, April 3rd.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: So we'll go ahead and meet next week.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: And uh yeah.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: So, guess what we're gonna do?
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: Any of you read this book?
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: This is Ogmandino's the Greatest Salesman in the World.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: Is this dinky little book?
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: Borrow my copy if you want, but um, or you can download it.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: The actual paper copies are out of the library, but but you can do, I don't know if you guys ever do ebooks where you just connect with them on your computer.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: You can read it in an hour or why, or go over to if you got a time this week, go over to Barnes and Noble, do my favorite thing.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: You go in there, they've got a lot of comfortable seats, go grab one of their copies, sit down, read it for an hour, maybe with a cup of coffee.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: But this is the best-selling book of all time, uh uh in uh in personal self-help or whatever, making Agmandino the single most successful, most well-known um what do you call it, success uh writer of all time.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna share with you.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: It has 10 principles we're gonna share with you.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: And the principles, some of them are very different than ones we you're used to you're used to.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna share the first five today.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: Second five next week.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: So um, can I kick it off to you?
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: Can you tell us a little bit about the background story of this?
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so the background story is um as you get through the introduction, there's essentially there's this little poor boy, camel boy, who who wanted to be rich.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I can't remember the guy's name that he wanted to be like, but he he saw this guy who had great wealth, he had great success, he was a what he would call the greatest salesman in the pathros?
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, something like that.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um and and he wanted what he had.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: And so he said, Can can I come and can I just shatter you?
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: Can I can I be with you?
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: And he's like, Why do you want to do that?
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what would be the point?
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: And he says, Because I see all the wealth that you have.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: And and that's what I want.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: I want to be the greatest salesman in the world.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: And he looks at the young boy and he says, Listen, true wealth is of the heart.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's not of the it's not of the purse.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: So, first thing you have to understand, young boy, is that um it's it's not about the money.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: And this is not anything to do with any of the points.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: He's just trying to frame this little man's mindset of um, this is what you're gonna have to do.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: So he says, Here, here's what I'm gonna let you do.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna I'm gonna give you a robe.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: And every single day, and this is a setback like in the like Jesus time.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: So what you have to do is you have to go out every single day, and when you sell this robe, you can be a part of my crew.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: You can be a part of uh I'll teach you everything that I know.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: And so day after day, day after day, he's going out, and they're just kind of people on the market are looking at him like, no, get away from me.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: No, get away from me.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and he's he's becoming so discouraged, so discouraged.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: And and it's uh an expensive robe this guy paid for us, one of the top dealers in the Middle East, and they're they live in Israel, something southern Israel, something.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so he's trying to sell this every day in Bethlehem, and it isn't working because it's expensive.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's real it's beautiful, red, thick robe with insignia on it.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: And so one day he's out in the marketplace and he's just he's just been rejected, been rejected, been rejected.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: And um he's he's just kind of sitting there, and uh the day's about to end.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: He has no he has no place to stay.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: And so he's trav as he's traveling, he he sees in this cave this this flicker of light.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: And it's cold, and he goes in and he he's just trying to get warm, so he's wearing his robe, and he's sitting there huddled up, and he walks in the cave and he and he's kind of shocked because he sees these two people and this little babe in this cave.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: This is the actual picture of these people from the book.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um and he goes in and he sees this young woman who had just given birth, and they're trying to wrap this baby to keep it warm.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: And he looks at them and he looks at his robe and he looks at them, and he looks in his robe and he goes, I know what I need to do.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: He walks over, takes his robe, and he just he just hands it to him and he walks away, and he walks away really, really sad.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: Because this is the most expensive robe.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: It has this little mark on it that that signifies how expensive it is, and he just gives it away.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: And he goes back to his mentor and he says, I gotta tell you something.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: I I I failed.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um I've done a really stupid thing because what I've done is I I just kind of randomly gave away this robe to this woman and this man in the cave who were having a baby.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm I'm sorry, and he just starts to cry, and and the guy lights up.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: And he says, I can't remember exactly what he says, but he's just like, he starts crying.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: And because when he gave so when he gave away that robe, what happened was there's a star that came up in the sky.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: And it shone so brightly that this guy who was his mentor, he didn't know this at the time, was blind, so blind that he couldn't see.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: And he couldn't see, and when that star arose and was over this place that this babe was, it gave this his mentor uh finally light that he could actually see.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: And he says, Come here, son, he said, I don't I don't care about the robe.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: You persisted so well, and I'm gonna I'm gonna give you what it takes to be successful because this is what it takes.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: It takes you to to sacrifice, to give away, to do all these things.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, I was looking for a sign that you would be a guy that I can invest in, I could, I could give everything to.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: And by you giving away this robe and by my sight being restored, this was the sign that was given to me.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so he says, uh, you know, there's these 10 scrolls that made me successful.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: So he pulls out these 10 scrolls, and uh he he gives it to the young boy and he says, You got to keep this to yourself.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: Can't do anything with it.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: I was the first person to receive it, you're the second one, and you can't tell anybody about it.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: So then they get into, you know, they tell the story about these scrolls, and then they get into these ancient scrolls that help you to be successful.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, this old chest, and he opens it up and he says, You can't share these scrolls with anybody.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe at the end of your life, one person, I've never shared them with anybody, been in this locked room.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: So he says, take them one at a time.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: You gotta start with number one, and and so and so he starts opening them.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: And the very first scroll is the very first scroll is uh he opens it up in the in the first the first line of it is uh Today I'm a I'm a new creation.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um where he says, today I begin a new life.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and he starts talking about the scroll starts talking about you begin a new life, and what you're going to do is you're gonna take these these timeless principles, uh, you're gonna take advantage of every opportunity that every opportunity that you have.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: That you're gonna take wisdom from generations from generations, and you're gonna take every opportunity that you have and you're gonna learn from them.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: And you're gonna take this knowledge and you're gonna take this experience, but most of all, you're gonna take these principles that endure.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_01: And what you're gonna do is you're gonna uh you must you must apply because these these principles are gonna teach you more about how to prevent failure than it is how to gain success.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and I think that's that's really true of principles.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: They they kind of guide us of what to stay away from.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um and he says, you're you're gonna take these things and they're gonna help prov prevent failure in your life.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um the scroll says the only difference between success and failure is habits.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: Good habits lead to success, bad habits lead is is the unlocked door to success.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: He says, um in order for you to be successful, you have to be a slave of your new habits.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: So you're gonna be you're gonna start to form new habits, good habits, and you're gonna become their slave.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: He says, when you're a child, you're a slave to your impulses.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: But when you become a man, you're a slave to all of your habits.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um he says, if I'm going to be a slave, if I have to be a slave, let me be only a slave to only the good habits of my life that I'm gonna develop.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: So it made me it made me think and made me want to ask this question to us this morning.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: I was asking it of myself last night.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: Just what are our habits?
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: What are your more specifically, what are your spiritual habits?
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: What are your financial habits?
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: What are your uh fitness habits?
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: What are your thought habits?
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um what are your interpersonal communication habits?
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_01: What are those things that you've just kind of grown accustomed to in life and they just they're just your habit?
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um are there anything of those, uh few things that I just mentioned, are any of those bad habits?
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: There's anything you can look at and you go, ah yeah, I should probably change that about myself.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um are you willing to let those things just remain to be bad habits in your life?
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_01: As he goes on in this chapter, he talks about this is the way that I'm gonna form new habits.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_01: And he kind of gives this um uh instructions of how to use uh these next nine scrolls.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_01: He says, every day you're gonna wake up and you're gonna read it.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: And in the middle of the day, you're gonna read it and you're gonna meditate, and at night you're gonna read it and you're gonna read it.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_01: So you're gonna read it three times a day.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's gonna constantly be going through your mind, you're constantly gonna be thinking about it until the day where it starts to become natural for you.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: Like you have these two minds, and the first mind is, you know, you're gonna be aware, you're gonna be reading these things, but then your second mind is the one that kind of operates when you're asleep.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: And you want to get it to the point where these things are operating and you start acting as though, like, this is just very natural for me.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I think the same is true as us in our Christian life, that we should there should be a book that we're reading every single day that as we continue to learn and continue to grow, it just becomes a natural habit over our lives.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: So that's just this first principle is so much like the first principle of Covey, which is take the initiative in your life.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's the first principle in Greg Brennan's book, which is you make a plan, make a one-page plan of your life.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I had this book when I was uh 17 in 1970, uh, you know, I was 20 years old, actually uh 18 years old, and and I was going out and trying to sell, total failure.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I read this first thing, and I also had uh the company I was working with going door to door in the summer given us this little booklet, uh Greatest Secret of Success in Life, and its one thing was uh that successful people form the habit of doing what unsuccessful people don't do.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's just general like that.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought, wow, okay, I'm failing out of college, you know, I'm looking at the wrong things.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'm staying stayed up all night 20, 21 days, this my freshman year of college playing cards.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just a total failure.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: I set a record for demerits and ROTC because I wouldn't get out to the marching ground on time.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I had to spend every evening swabbing the colonel's floor.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I am just a total loser, you know.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and I thought, well, you know, why don't why don't I form the habit of always getting up when the alarm rings instead of just rolling over and always being late to class and so forth?
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: Why don't I form the and and uh it was just life transforming, just that little thing to form good habits.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: The second thing, now that one is common.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: The second one, this is really unique.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think I've seen this in any other book.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: The second scroll he opens, and it is, I will greet each day with love in my heart.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's convicting.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is really you don't you don't see this.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, for instance, here here's the here's how this book sounds when you read it, okay?
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: I will greet this day with love in my heart, for this is the greatest secret of success in all ventures.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: Muscle can do this and that, and even destroy life, but only the unseen power of love can open the hearts of men.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: And until I master this art, I will remain no more than a peddler in the marketplace.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: I will make love my greatest weapon, and none on whom I call to sell things can defend against its force.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: My reasoning they may counter, it goes, my clothes they may disdain, my speech they may distrust, my face they may reject, and even my bargains may cause them suspicion, yet my love will melt all hearts like the sun melts hard clay.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I was a failure, utter abject failure my first two years selling.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: You know, even though I was working 80 hours, 80, over 80 hours every week, which is insane, you know, six days a week.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: Getting up 6 a.m., not going to bed till 11 every night, calling on houses.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I was making about five cents an hour because I wasn't selling a thing, but it was all about me.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: So I read this and I thought, you know, why don't I switch this around so that every door I knock on, my only concern is how to make Mrs.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: Jones happier 15 minutes after I leave.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know, 15 minutes, I'll be here 15, and make her happier than she was before.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: Stop thinking of yourself and how you appear and whether you're selling.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: It it was life transforming for me.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the second principle.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: Make love your greatest weapon.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's a really convicting principle when you read these little short two, three-page chapters.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, third one is I will persist until I succeed.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um He starts off the chapter by telling the story about an Orient time young bulls were uh rated.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: What they would do is they would let bulls charge a picador, and every time this bull would pass by, this lancer would proke him with a with a little sword.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: And they would rate the bravery of the bull by his willingness of the number of times that he determined that he was going to charge, regardless of him getting of the bull getting pricked.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: And that's how they would rate him.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: He says, such is true in life.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Greg Burdenbrand said this yesterday that all of our games here on earth as a Christian are all away games.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um think of that, isn't that great?
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: Because of the world we live in, all of our games as Christians are away games.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um and a couple other things that I just I just want to take straight out of the book.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um he says the prizes of life.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna get to that one.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um he says the prizes of life are at the end of the journey.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know the number of steps that it's gonna take for me to reach my goal.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: He says I could fail a thousand times.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: But if I fail at the thousand step and I give up, who knows if success is gonna be right around the corner?
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: So all I'm gonna do is I'm just gonna I'm just gonna take another step.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna take another step because I can I can take another step.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_01: That's the easiest thing to do.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: But I cannot worry about the goals of life.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_01: And he says, uh, the other thing that I'm Going to do, and this is this slide.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: He says, I'm never going to consider defeat, and I'll remove from my vocabulary such words as quit, cannot, unable, impossible, failure, unworkable, hopeless, and retreat.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: That I'm going to remove and and I'm going to remove despair from my mind.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: And even if despair, if my mind becomes infected with despair, I'm going to take another step.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to keep going.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: He says, as long as there is breath within me, that long will I persist.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: For I know that one of the greatest principles of success, that if I persist long enough, I will win.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: I will persist and I will win.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: And and I again want to pose these questions to us this morning, is where in your life do you feel like right now is just giving up?
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_01: Is it in your marriage?
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: Is it in raising your kids?
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: Is it in your family relationships?
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_01: Is it in your job?
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: Is it in your fight for sexual purity?
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: Where in those areas of your life do you feel like giving up?
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I'd be uh wrong to assume that there's nobody here who's maybe at that moment this morning where you're going, I'm about ready to throw in the towel.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_01: I'm done.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: I'm tired of going, I'm tired, tired of failing, I'm tired of taking another step.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um my only encouragement for you would be don't.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_01: And my second encouragement would be for you to reach out to another man here.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: If you don't have another man here, come reach out to Jim or I and just let us know what's going on in your life.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: That you're at the point where I'm about to quit.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, when when you read the scriptures, it's uh you you read in Peter, you read uh Paul's letters, this idea that this life is going to be hard.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_01: First Peter talks about we have this enemy of a roaring lion who's looking, seeking to destroy us.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: You have Paul and his idea of training.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna train my body, I'm gonna make it my slave.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: Because what's it, what your what your body's gonna want to do is it's gonna want to quit.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_01: This life of a Christian life.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's a it's a life that we run a race, it's it requires endurance.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's a long marathon.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_01: That just symbolizes how hard the Christian life is, how hard it is for us as men, that we're that we're probably more attacked than anybody else.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_01: The enemy knows if he can take us out, he can take out uh the agents through which God wants to work, takes out the leaders.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I think we we need not forget the words of our Savior where he says, Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, I'll give you rest.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_01: Like Jesus even knows that in our running that we're gonna become weary, that we're gonna become heavy laden with the burdens of this world, and we are not to give up.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: That we wouldn't be so tough, try to be so tough as men to just that we wouldn't, we first we wouldn't go to Jesus, and second, we wouldn't come to each other and say, I'm struggling.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_01: Help me.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: Help me.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: Don't be so tough trying to be somebody that you were never created to be, that you don't reach out for help.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: You in in this life that you'll push and you'll you'll do whatever it takes to succeed, and that one day we'll get home and with our Lord and we can rest.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: So uh I'm gonna make an executive decision.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: We've taken a half an hour.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: So I think we'll just stop right here with these three lessons.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: Remember the three great lessons, uh, and then we'll just take three next week and then maybe do a third week where we'll take the final four.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: So the three lessons for this week, remember, are I will form good habits and become their slave.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: I'll greet each day with love in my heart, and I'll persist until I succeed.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: So um so here's some discussion starters for your table.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: What good habits have you formed or would you like to form?
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: Number two, have you ever met anyone who greets each day with love in their heart?
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: Identify and describe that person.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe a third one.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: This this third one's built on uh uh something we didn't talk about this morning.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: Change the third one to uh to uh the persistence.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, maybe maybe talk about the difficulty of persisting in life, okay, and pray for each other.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: Let's do that.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: Would you lead us in prayer?
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Lord, we uh we thank you for this morning.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we thank you that we can gather as men, uh, that you've given us each other as the body to help sharpen, to help encourage, to help love, to help uplift, to help bur to bear one another's burdens.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Lord, I just pray for our time this morning.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_01: It'd be a rich time of fellowship.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_01: Uh that you would be in the midst of that.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: Lord, that we would be reminded of your goodness uh, Lord, and that we would uh live today in a manner that is worthy of the calling that you've given us in Christ.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_01: Lord, what a privilege it is to be, to have forgiveness, to have grace, to have mercy.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_01: Or may our lives reflect uh uh that privilege that we get to walk in every day.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: We ask and pray these things in your name.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.