Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / January 16, 2019 | Men Of Success - Winter 2019: Primary Greatness - Session 2

Transcript

January 16, 2019 | Men Of Success - Winter 2019: Primary Greatness - Session 2 · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

0:00
SPEAKER_01: Hey guys, how you doing?
0:05
SPEAKER_01: How about that breakfast, huh?
0:07
SPEAKER_01: Let's give Tom a hand.
0:13
SPEAKER_01: Um, if you look over on the um where the food is, where the guys are up there right now, on the right hand side, yeah, Tom has Tom is stacked.
0:23
SPEAKER_01: Uh, can you see some containers there, about 10 containers?
0:26
SPEAKER_01: They've got like potato salad.
0:27
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, those right there.
0:28
SPEAKER_01: You want to hold one up and wave it.
0:30
SPEAKER_01: So Tom's just telling me that we have those in the kitchen, have no use for them.
0:35
SPEAKER_01: I think they're scalloped potatoes.
0:36
SPEAKER_01: Hey, Tom, you want to say something about them?
0:39
unknown: Scalp potatoes and potato salad.
0:42
SPEAKER_01: So, anyway, if you'd like to take one, make your wife happy, she won't have to fix your supper tonight.
0:49
SPEAKER_01: So, anyway, those are giveaways.
0:52
SPEAKER_01: All right.
0:53
SPEAKER_01: Rodney, how are you doing this morning?
0:55
SPEAKER_00: I'm doing, I'm doing well.
0:56
SPEAKER_00: How are you?
0:57
SPEAKER_01: I'm doing great.
0:58
SPEAKER_00: Good.
1:00
SPEAKER_01: Oh, uh hey, listen, would you mind um so there's uh Sam, would you grab that and pass that around?
1:07
SPEAKER_01: So we got a bunch of we got most of your email addresses from last week.
1:10
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna pass this around.
1:12
SPEAKER_01: And if you didn't give me your uh email address from last week, uh I want you on our mailing list so I can let you know what's going on.
1:18
SPEAKER_01: Pass this around, write your name on the left hand side, and um and your email address on the right hand side.
1:25
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
1:27
SPEAKER_01: Um hey, let's talk sports.
1:30
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, let's do it.
1:33
SPEAKER_01: Man, is that exciting, huh?
1:36
SPEAKER_01: That was amazing to see uh to see uh Mahomes score that touchdown and for the Chiefs to beat Indianapolis.
1:44
SPEAKER_01: Really sound.
1:45
SPEAKER_00: See, we only have a two-game season left, so I think two games.
1:48
SPEAKER_00: Two games left, hopefully.
1:50
SPEAKER_00: What do you think?
1:51
SPEAKER_00: Um I don't know.
1:52
SPEAKER_00: I'm kind of like last week.
1:53
SPEAKER_00: I'm scared.
1:54
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:55
SPEAKER_01: I'm real scared.
1:57
SPEAKER_00: I was scared last week, and then our defense showed up um in ways that we've never seen before.
2:02
SPEAKER_00: And then uh, you know, offense kind of dragged a little bit.
2:06
SPEAKER_00: I thought I seriously thought this is gonna happen like it happened a couple years ago when we were at Indy.
2:11
SPEAKER_00: We couldn't get anything in the second half.
2:13
SPEAKER_00: They start coming back, they got that block punt on us, and I was like, here we go again.
2:16
SPEAKER_01: Oh no.
2:17
SPEAKER_00: And um, we pull through, but this week I don't know.
2:21
SPEAKER_00: Because kind of like the Colts, they uh Patriots play so well this last weekend.
2:26
SPEAKER_00: I hope they just crash.
2:28
SPEAKER_01: Um it's so cold that that old, I gotta be nice.
2:34
SPEAKER_01: So a friend of mine posted on his Facebook account that um most important thing in the world, most important thing in the world is that this Sunday the Chiefs win and go to the Super Bowl if they beat New England.
2:45
SPEAKER_01: And some very religious, I don't know, pious, sweet Christian woman in our church wrote back and said, Really?
2:53
SPEAKER_01: The most important thing in all the world?
2:56
SPEAKER_01: Bob or something like that.
2:58
SPEAKER_01: So I decided to wait and I said, Oh, and she said, How about world peace?
3:04
SPEAKER_01: And she hasn't even run for Miss Miss Kansas.
3:07
SPEAKER_01: So I so I write and I say, the single most important way to advance world peace is to beat the New England Tyrants.
3:15
SPEAKER_01: So anyway, whatever.
3:17
SPEAKER_01: So that's a big game this Sunday.
3:20
SPEAKER_01: Pray for Kansas City.
3:22
SPEAKER_01: So um, I don't know how that little picture got in there, but the Hawks hung on and beat Texas, the guy with the weird hair here, really good defensive player, scored about twice as many points as he's ever scored in his life in the first half alone, and they sneaked by.
3:39
SPEAKER_01: And in an even uh real bigger surprise, K-State, who, as you know, looked dead just a week or so ago, uh have now won a couple and actually beat at Iowa State uh an Iowa State team that had just waxed uh KU by about 15 points.
3:57
SPEAKER_01: So life is good in Kansas right now, sports-wise.
4:01
SPEAKER_01: Don't know if we'll say that next week.
4:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, let's hope so.
4:03
SPEAKER_01: Hope next week we're talking Super Bowl.
4:06
SPEAKER_01: Okay, we're in this book called Primary Greatness.
4:11
SPEAKER_01: I know most of you don't have it.
4:13
SPEAKER_01: It was put out after Covey's death, and what happened is his son and other people gathered articles he'd written, notes he'd made, and put together this really good book, subtitled The 12 Levers of Success.
4:27
SPEAKER_01: So why don't I just review a couple slides, Rodney, and then uh let you hit us on the first lever of success.
4:34
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
4:36
SPEAKER_01: Primary greatness, he says, is on the inside.
4:38
SPEAKER_01: This is Hulk Covey's whole thing, which is very biblical.
4:41
SPEAKER_01: Primary greatness on the inside is about character, secondary greatness, fame, wealth recognition is on the outside.
4:47
SPEAKER_01: Many people confuse success with secondary greatness, but a successful life's about primary greatness, duty, honor, integrity, etc.
4:55
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
4:55
SPEAKER_01: Which fits, of course, with what uh the Lord said to Samuel and 1 Samuel 16, 7, uh concerning uh the boy David, man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.
5:08
SPEAKER_01: So we've got these 12 levers.
5:10
SPEAKER_01: I told you last week uh that we're gonna take them in two weeks.
5:15
SPEAKER_01: Man, we started going through it.
5:16
SPEAKER_01: We decided yesterday, no way.
5:18
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna take three weeks to go through these.
5:20
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna go through the first four today.
5:22
SPEAKER_01: And the first one, in some ways, I think you I agree with you on this, Rodney.
5:28
SPEAKER_01: The first one, uh, maybe the most important.
5:30
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
5:30
SPEAKER_01: Integrity versus the lever to wedge out the rock of playing games and seeming to be something, uh, is integrity.
5:39
SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, as you guys look at this picture, uh picture these 12 levers that he's about to talk about.
5:45
SPEAKER_00: Um, he's saying that these levers are uh key to us achieving primary greatness, that we would be people of substance rather than appearance or image.
5:55
SPEAKER_00: Uh and these principles, though not um exhaustive, if you don't have these 12, it's gonna be hard for us to achieve to be people of substance.
6:04
SPEAKER_00: And so these levers are to help us root out things in our lives that would cause us to be people who are not of substance.
6:11
SPEAKER_00: And so the first one is this this principle of integrity.
6:15
SPEAKER_00: Um you said this is the first lever.
6:19
SPEAKER_00: Uh, people who have lost integrity live life and work seeming to be uh something that they actually are not.
6:26
SPEAKER_00: They're worried about more how people view them, see them, than they're about who they are.
6:31
SPEAKER_00: And when you think about integrity, he says this in the book, he says, when you don't live a life of integrity, there's two things that um that are compromised.
6:41
SPEAKER_00: Uh your conscience and the people who rely on you.
6:47
SPEAKER_00: I think we've all kind of experienced seasons of life where we don't live in total integrity.
6:52
SPEAKER_00: And that bears on our conscience, like we know it.
6:55
SPEAKER_00: We know that we aren't men of integrity in these seasons of life.
6:59
SPEAKER_00: And it and it's hard for us at times to live with ourselves in those seasons.
7:03
SPEAKER_00: And also what happens is those people who rely on us most, they can't trust us.
7:08
SPEAKER_00: Um our integrity is uh is is is questioned.
7:15
SPEAKER_00: And I know I know for me when I've when I've lived through seasons of of life where I don't have integrity, it's a very tiring way to live.
7:23
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, is it not?
7:25
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
7:26
SPEAKER_00: Because what I'm more concerned about is I'm more concerned about showing other people that I have it together rather than actually having it together.
7:33
SPEAKER_00: So then you pose a question.
7:35
SPEAKER_00: So how do you get how do you arrive at integrity?
7:38
SPEAKER_00: How do you get it?
7:39
SPEAKER_00: And he poses two qualities that you need to have.
7:43
SPEAKER_00: First one is humility, and the second one is courage.
7:48
SPEAKER_00: First one is humility because of this.
7:51
SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm gonna use a story from the Kenner household to kind of illustrate this.
7:57
SPEAKER_00: So this happened last night at our house.
7:59
SPEAKER_00: We have a principal in our house that you listen and obey, and you do that right away.
8:04
SPEAKER_00: We're sitting at the dinner table last night, and our three and a half-year-old decided she didn't want to eat dinner.
8:10
SPEAKER_00: So she was just sitting there, and we were telling her, hey, you need to eat your food.
8:14
SPEAKER_00: You can't just eat your sweet potatoes, you need to eat everything.
8:17
SPEAKER_00: And so she kind of played, sat there, played, and uh sometimes we'll we'll try to reward uh them obeying.
8:25
SPEAKER_00: And so last night cake was on the table.
8:27
SPEAKER_00: I said, listen, hey, if you if you obey, if you eat your food, you'll get it.
8:32
SPEAKER_00: And about the third time in, of us telling her to eat her food, I was kind of I was done.
8:39
SPEAKER_00: My wife, about 17 times later, was like, all right, Annalise, you're not gonna get cake.
8:46
SPEAKER_00: And you could see the look on her face, it kind of switched, and she starts scarfing down her food.
8:52
SPEAKER_00: And she's like, mommy, I'm eating, I'm eating, I'm eating.
8:54
SPEAKER_00: I look, I go, listen, it's too late.
8:56
SPEAKER_00: Like you have had your chance to to obey.
8:59
SPEAKER_00: It's too late, you're not getting any cake.
9:00
SPEAKER_00: And she kind of just lost it at that point, and I didn't have any grace for her because I had told it's been 18, 17 times that we told you to listen and obey.
9:09
SPEAKER_00: And um, and I started to think in order to live our lives according to principles, most of us, I know this is true in my life, I don't start to listen to these principles until it's too late.
9:21
SPEAKER_00: That I see the consequences of it, and I start to scarf down these principles like I need to change, and it's too late at that point.
9:28
SPEAKER_00: And so a person who is a person of integrity realizes uh he has humility to say, I'm going to first align myself to these principles.
9:40
SPEAKER_00: Number two is that you have the courage to stand up, courage to live by your convictions.
9:46
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and so those are those are the two, because if you lack either one of those, you'll have a ton of humility and no courage and you'll lose your integrity.
9:54
SPEAKER_00: Because what you'll end up doing is you'll end up living by the way that people want you to live, or you you're you're more concerned about being accepted rather than having courage to stand up.
10:03
SPEAKER_00: Or if you have a ton of courage and no humility, you'll compete with other people, you'll you'll um forgo any sort of principles, and at the end of the day, you'll lose, you'll lose your integrity.
10:14
SPEAKER_01: Um I'm gonna know, did she get the cake?
10:16
SPEAKER_00: No, absolutely not.
10:19
SPEAKER_00: Uh she begged for it for the next half hour and it was bad.
10:24
SPEAKER_01: You're so much like I was.
10:26
SPEAKER_00: My wife is full of grace.
10:28
SPEAKER_00: But um uh I I do want to kind of want to go to another issue because we're all men here, right?
10:38
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I think I think the the easiest way to first disqualify us and to make us feel inferior, like we don't add up, we're inferior to other people, other men, like I'm just not as good, is by the way that we live our lives, sexual integrity.
11:00
SPEAKER_00: Is it not?
11:01
SPEAKER_00: We're not all gone gone through those seasons where we've lacked sexual integrity, therefore we lack any sort of courage uh to stand up for what's right.
11:12
SPEAKER_00: We go through life just kind of hating ourselves.
11:15
SPEAKER_00: And so I just want to ask, and I don't want to shame, because I don't think shame ever changes someone's life uh for the long term.
11:23
SPEAKER_00: I just want to ask, how is your sexual integrity?
11:28
SPEAKER_00: How is your thought life?
11:30
SPEAKER_00: How is the things that you look at?
11:33
SPEAKER_00: Because it's very important for us to live a life of sexual integrity.
11:38
SPEAKER_00: And you may be sitting here going today, like, I lack it.
11:41
SPEAKER_00: I'm married, I got a couple kids, and I lack it.
11:44
SPEAKER_00: Or you might be single and you lack it.
11:46
SPEAKER_00: I want you to hear this.
11:48
SPEAKER_00: There's grace for you.
11:49
SPEAKER_00: I also want you to hear this, and I want you to uh I want you to know the seriousness of what I'm saying.
11:55
SPEAKER_00: Is that I want you to get help.
11:59
SPEAKER_00: Hear what I didn't say.
12:01
SPEAKER_00: I didn't say I you need to go get help.
12:05
SPEAKER_00: Well that may be true.
12:06
SPEAKER_00: I want you to hear, I want you to go get help.
12:09
SPEAKER_00: The reason why is when you live, there's something about you that when you live as a man of integrity in all areas of life, I just want you to experience that.
12:23
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing more great as a man to know that I'm a man of integrity.
12:30
SPEAKER_00: So I want you to get help because I want you to experience a life of freedom, a life of integrity, a life of courage, life of humility.
12:42
SPEAKER_00: You can look at yourself in the mirror and go, I'm a man of integrity.
12:46
SPEAKER_00: You take everything else away from me, I'm a man of integrity.
12:50
SPEAKER_00: So may we be men, men of integrity.
12:53
SPEAKER_00: And if you're sitting there struggling today, here's what I invite you to do.
12:57
SPEAKER_00: You gotta go, you gotta dig.
12:59
SPEAKER_00: And this may take time, this may take six months, it may take a year, it may take two years, but yeah, I want you to dig into what what the office is your secret self.
13:07
SPEAKER_00: And just ask yourself questions.
13:09
SPEAKER_00: And ask yourself questions like, what do I think I'm benefiting from this?
13:13
SPEAKER_00: What am I gaining from this?
13:15
SPEAKER_00: That if I didn't have this, um that I would feel like I would lose.
13:22
SPEAKER_00: Because oftentimes our motivations, the things that we think we're losing, that's those are the reasons why we're doing what we're doing.
13:29
SPEAKER_00: So we gotta we gotta go there, we gotta dig, we gotta figure out what's going on to really figure out what is causing me to continue to live a life that's not whole, that's not uh uh has integrity sexually.
13:43
SPEAKER_00: So encourage us to be men of integrity.
13:46
SPEAKER_00: There's not there's no greater picture to our wives, to our kids, to each other than just to be men who have integrity.
13:52
SPEAKER_01: I'm sure glad you brought that up.
13:54
SPEAKER_01: We it was when it was when this chapter started talking about the secret life and the secret self and so forth that Rodney and I began talking about this.
14:04
SPEAKER_01: It's not as though we don't know about this.
14:06
SPEAKER_01: Like like the other 90% of you, we've gone through times in our life when, as you said, I like the way you put it, we have lacked this kind of sexual integrity.
14:15
SPEAKER_01: And then you don't feel whole.
14:16
SPEAKER_01: You know your secret self is different than your public self, and um and and and that's at the heart of integrity today.
14:24
SPEAKER_01: Guard your heart, watch your heart, everything you do flows from it.
14:27
SPEAKER_01: So the integrity challenge at the end of this chapter in his book is choose one area in your life, it may be sexual integrity, in which you could show more integrity, then do it.
14:37
SPEAKER_01: Uh let's move to the uh second lever.
14:40
SPEAKER_01: Now that's a lever he calls the lever of contribution.
14:44
SPEAKER_01: It's a very different lever, but it's really, really important.
14:49
SPEAKER_01: This is the lever by which you jack up the stone and get rid of the stone of living the easy life.
14:56
SPEAKER_01: And he gives this illustration, even at the beginning of his chapter, of a movie that's uh, wow, it's 20 years old at least.
15:03
SPEAKER_01: And so it's a movie that some of you have never seen.
15:06
SPEAKER_01: Famous movie called Mr.
15:07
SPEAKER_01: Holland's Opus.
15:08
SPEAKER_01: Uh, Richard Dreyfus was the actor back then he was young.
15:12
SPEAKER_01: And uh the story in this movie was that uh uh uh uh that Mr.
15:19
SPEAKER_01: Holland was this performer.
15:20
SPEAKER_01: He was an outstanding musical performer, but he wanted to write an opus.
15:24
SPEAKER_01: He wanted to, you know, if you know if you know Carrie Liveggren, you know, he's got a whole life, his whole life he's been trying to write this huge opus, and he's basically just finished it.
15:32
SPEAKER_01: Well, Mr.
15:33
SPEAKER_01: Holland wanted to do that, but he he was just married, he had a little kid, he wasn't making money performing on stage, and so he decided to become a teacher.
15:41
SPEAKER_01: And in this way, even though he didn't like students, even though he didn't like spending time with students, even though he wanted to work on his opus, work on his symphony, and so forth and perform, he needed to do it to make a little bit of money so he could spend time too with his wife and his child.
15:55
SPEAKER_01: So I went to the school, and for decade after decade, he got so busy he couldn't work on his opus.
16:00
SPEAKER_01: He was so frustrated.
16:01
SPEAKER_01: He just worked late at night, just advancing it.
16:04
SPEAKER_01: He had hoped to become famous by this in a couple of years, but here it is, 20, 30 years later, before he finally, finally finishes it.
16:11
SPEAKER_01: And in that time, he's had, without knowing it, an incredible impact on all these high school kids.
16:18
SPEAKER_01: And he's finally decided he liked young people.
16:21
SPEAKER_01: You know, he never did quite, you know, love them.
16:24
SPEAKER_01: And so, but the school is sort of strapped, and there's some people that don't think that music education should be continued, and finally they win.
16:32
SPEAKER_01: And so uh he is being sort of kicked out, the music program is being stopped.
16:37
SPEAKER_01: And on the day in which he's resigning, all of a sudden, 30 years of former students come and they fill an auditorium and they present him with an award and they say, Look around you, Mr.
16:49
SPEAKER_01: Holland.
16:49
SPEAKER_01: There's not a life in this room that you haven't touched, and each of us is a better person because of you.
16:55
SPEAKER_01: We are your symphony, Mr.
16:56
SPEAKER_01: Holland.
16:57
SPEAKER_01: We're the notes of your opus, we're the music of your life.
17:00
SPEAKER_01: And then they surprised him.
17:01
SPEAKER_01: They had gotten his opus and they had passed it out to all of the uh to his graduates, and they and they brought them up on stage with their instruments, and they asked him to lead his own opus for the first time.
17:14
SPEAKER_01: Very emotional uh ending to the movie.
17:17
SPEAKER_01: So this chapter is about that kind of a thing.
17:20
SPEAKER_01: What kind of a legacy are you going to leave?
17:23
SPEAKER_01: You ask yourself the questions, what has God gifted me to do in life?
17:27
SPEAKER_01: What do I do better than anyone else, or maybe what's the best kind of thing that I do?
17:31
SPEAKER_01: What does the world need, and what how do my gifts touch the world so that I can get involved in doing that so I can leave a contribution, so I can leave a legacy?
17:40
SPEAKER_01: I thought it was a really good chapter.
17:42
SPEAKER_01: And uh, and the and the and the question then at the end is what legacy will you leave behind?
17:47
SPEAKER_00: Jim, do you mind if I ask you what what what is your legacy that you want to leave behind?
17:52
SPEAKER_01: Well, we talked about that when when we were out to eat.
17:55
SPEAKER_01: Um when I was 60 years old, I went into the elders in a January or February when I just turned 60, and I said to the elders, you know, I've been read-I just finished a book about, oh, it was by one of these business writers, uh, famous business writer, and he said, the way you evaluate yourself is who who succeeds you in your business.
18:16
SPEAKER_01: He's talking about business, and how does the business do after you're gone?
18:20
SPEAKER_01: And I said, you know, I'd I'd like us to start talking, to spend at least one of our 12 monthly meetings each year talking in depth about succession.
18:28
SPEAKER_01: I'm 60, and uh, you know, I think by the time I'm 70, uh, we should have a successor in place.
18:36
SPEAKER_01: And and we did, we started doing that.
18:38
SPEAKER_01: Uh, Dan can tell you, Dan Scota back there.
18:40
SPEAKER_01: And um, we made a list of qualities that we thought fit the DNA of Topeka Bible Church.
18:45
SPEAKER_01: We've been talking about that for years.
18:47
SPEAKER_01: In fact, Dan and I and the other elders are gonna stand up uh in church in what is it, two weeks, Dan?
18:54
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and tell everybody where we are in this and this process and what we're gonna be doing this year.
19:00
SPEAKER_01: But about three, four years ago, and I think Derek knows this, somebody came to me and said, So, you know, sort of the question you ask, so what are you thinking of doing in your sort of last five years of being full-time here and in pulpit?
19:15
SPEAKER_01: And I thought, wow, I've been so focused on what's best for the church, I haven't really thought of what I should be focused on in my last several years.
19:25
SPEAKER_01: And I talked to some people about it, and I talked to Melody about it, and I thought, you know, the when I think about the best things I've ever done at TBC, it's not preaching, it's been the fact that the first 10 years I poured my life into a bunch of young guys who are just a few years younger than me, some of whom have gone on to be seminary professors, pastors, and other things, and I thought, wow, just the tyranny of the urgent over the years.
19:48
SPEAKER_01: I've gotten so involved in other stuff and in programs.
19:51
SPEAKER_01: I need to get back to doing that.
19:53
SPEAKER_01: And so as a result, I made it my decision that the number one most important thing for me, my last five years at TBC, would be spending time with younger guys uh who were willing to spend time with an old dude like me, and and you know, pour into them in leadership and in theology and things like that.
20:11
SPEAKER_01: So that's the answer to the question.
20:13
SPEAKER_00: Um thanks for answering that.
20:14
SPEAKER_00: I do want to say this to all you guys who are older than me in this room.
20:20
SPEAKER_00: Um for a young guy like me, you guys have an in, you guys are our lifeline.
20:31
SPEAKER_00: You guys are I want to encourage you, don't pack it in.
20:35
SPEAKER_00: Don't move to Florida, don't move to Colorado.
20:39
SPEAKER_00: Stay here and invest in us, please.
20:43
SPEAKER_00: Uh if you've been on Facebook the last couple days, you see these um you know people posting pictures of uh this is me ten years ago, this is me here today, and and the change.
20:55
SPEAKER_00: And I was kind of going through it on Saturday, and I just sat with the Lord, and the Lord's like, sit down on the couch and let me speak with you.
21:01
SPEAKER_00: And he kind of took me through, and I I started I started to look at the last seven years of my life, just who I am as a person.
21:09
SPEAKER_00: And God said, Don't let my grace towards you be in vain.
21:11
SPEAKER_00: And I started to think about what is his grace towards me.
21:14
SPEAKER_00: And I look back at my time in Memphis, there's about four or five older men who just invested in me, gave me their lives.
21:23
SPEAKER_00: And I and I sat there and I started to, I was weeping uncontrollably.
21:29
SPEAKER_00: Because I started to think about my life without those guys.
21:33
SPEAKER_00: Like, where would I be?
21:36
SPEAKER_00: And they played such an important role for me to develop me who I am today and who I will be, that if I didn't have them, I'd be kind of I'd just be lost.
21:47
SPEAKER_00: And what an incredible opportunity that you guys have, the older men, to just give us your lives, give us your lives and give us the gospel and show us what it means to be successful and just just guide us, just be there for us.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Just give us your time.
22:01
SPEAKER_00: You may not see the return on your investment.
22:03
SPEAKER_00: Just give it to us.
22:04
SPEAKER_00: We need it.
22:06
SPEAKER_00: Please do that.
22:08
SPEAKER_01: So there's a challenge really for both older guys and younger guys.
22:11
SPEAKER_01: Younger guys could take the initiative to go up to an older guy and say, hey, can we spend some time together?
22:16
SPEAKER_01: Older guys could go up to younger guys and say, Hey, can I take you out to lunch?
22:20
SPEAKER_01: Something like that, right?
22:21
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
22:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
22:23
SPEAKER_01: So take us into this third one out of the four priorities for this morning.
22:26
SPEAKER_01: This has to, or out of the four levers or levers.
22:30
SPEAKER_01: This is the this is the lever of priority.
22:34
SPEAKER_01: This is the lever of doing the most important thing in life.
22:37
SPEAKER_01: This is talk to us a little bit about prioritizing.
22:41
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so the this chapter is about prioritizing.
22:45
SPEAKER_00: So what's on your schedule?
22:47
SPEAKER_00: The key is not to prioritize what's on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities, to keep the first things first.
22:52
SPEAKER_00: So in order to get, you know, how do you think about what is the most important thing to me?
22:57
SPEAKER_00: Um you have to kind of think about what are what are some things that are important to me?
23:02
SPEAKER_00: Um what are the things that are unique about you?
23:06
SPEAKER_00: What are some of your responsibilities?
23:08
SPEAKER_00: What are some things that you can do that nobody else in your life can do?
23:13
SPEAKER_00: I was sitting with Derek the other day and he he was telling me, he goes, he goes, this is very convicting.
23:20
SPEAKER_00: He said, nobody can love my wife the way that I can love my wife.
23:23
SPEAKER_00: It's like, that's true.
23:25
SPEAKER_00: Uh nobody else can raise and love my kids the way that I can.
23:29
SPEAKER_00: Uh you know, if if you're owner of a business, nobody else can run your business quite like you can.
23:34
SPEAKER_00: So those things that are important to you, those things that are the things that we need to prioritize.
23:39
SPEAKER_00: What happens so often in the midst of the busyness of life is that we just get focused on the things that are so urgent and in front of our face that he says we often lose the uniqueness, we we lose our contribution and our uniqueness in the midst of all that.
23:57
SPEAKER_00: Like we miss what we can contribute, miss what we can give to other people.
24:02
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and so then this uh if you go to that next slide, this is one of my favorite, this is from the seven habits of highly effective people.
24:10
SPEAKER_00: Um that most of us live our lives in quadrant one.
24:16
SPEAKER_01: Um actually quadrant three, kind of the not important and urgent stuff.
24:23
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so these are things like phone calls, emails, uh, text messages that we're just so consumed with these things, and then in order for us to really live a life that's around priorities, we have to live in number two, quadrant number two, the not urgent and important things.
24:36
SPEAKER_00: So those things would be things like a regular date night with your wife.
24:41
SPEAKER_00: I think those things are so important.
24:43
SPEAKER_00: Working out, work, yeah, working out, diet, exercise, um, those are so quiet time.
24:49
SPEAKER_00: Those are those are things that are not urgent.
24:52
SPEAKER_00: They're not in your face saying, you need to do me.
24:54
SPEAKER_00: Like, listen, I need attention.
24:56
SPEAKER_00: But they'll sit there, and if you just not do them long enough, uh, they'll start to creep on up on you.
25:02
SPEAKER_00: So the question to think about is what is the important future state of my responsibilities and these relationships that are important to me?
25:12
SPEAKER_00: Long term, five, six years down the road, what do I want to see uh happen in these areas of responsibilities or these relationships?
25:21
SPEAKER_00: Um and I want I also want to tell another story.
25:25
SPEAKER_00: I got really convicted the other day.
25:27
SPEAKER_00: I was on Facebook and I was uh I saw this guy and he he made a quote.
25:33
SPEAKER_00: Because I think so often what can happen for us is guys, I know for me, I can get so consumed with secondary greatness, I start to pursue those things.
25:43
SPEAKER_00: There's things that really at the end of my life aren't going to be a priority.
25:48
SPEAKER_00: And he says this the quote says, I'm gonna and I'm gonna try to summarize it the best I can.
25:53
SPEAKER_00: He says, at the end of your life, Christ is not going to be uh impressed or in awe of your bank account, car you drive, um house you live in, all these things that we focus on, all these things that you know, I look at somebody else's life and I say, golly, that guy's great.
26:14
SPEAKER_00: He says, What he's gonna do is he's gonna he's gonna ask you at the end of your life, he goes, What do you what did you do with what I gave you?
26:22
SPEAKER_00: And I think so often we can hear that, what did you do with what I gave you, and think it's more of a you need to give an account to me of everything that I've given you, and more of a dogmatic type of question.
26:33
SPEAKER_00: And I want to I kind of want to flip it and I want to all throughout Jesus' life, you see him going, This is it's my food to do the will of the Father.
26:43
SPEAKER_00: You see in Ephesians 2 where he talks about how we are all created for good works, that he's created those for us to walk into.
26:50
SPEAKER_00: In 2 Corinthians 5, he he gives us the ministry of reconciliation.
26:55
SPEAKER_00: I think he's inviting us in with him to be on mission with him, to prioritize the things that are really important to him, that he's gonna kind of stand there and he's gonna, he's not gonna be like, What did you do?
27:05
SPEAKER_00: He's gonna be like, What did you do?
27:07
SPEAKER_00: Like, what did you guys do with what I gave you?
27:10
SPEAKER_00: And it's gonna be this incredible, like he wants to hear everything that we did with what he trusted entrusted to us.
27:18
SPEAKER_00: And in 1 Corinthians 3, it talks about the word we're to build on our foundation of Christ with gold, silver, wood, hay, and stubble.
27:26
SPEAKER_00: And he, and there's gonna be a day, there's gonna be a day that we give an account of what we did with what he gave us.
27:32
SPEAKER_00: And it's gonna be tested by fire.
27:35
SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna walk up with things in our hand, we're gonna place it down, he's gonna set it on fire.
27:39
SPEAKER_00: And in 1 Corinthians 3, it says that those things that lack that that go through the fire are that's gonna be our reward.
27:47
SPEAKER_00: The things that make it through.
27:49
SPEAKER_00: And I was convicted because I I think about the things in my life that I'm gonna be carrying up and I'm gonna place there.
27:56
SPEAKER_00: He's gonna set it on fire and it's gonna go, whoosh, it's gonna be gone.
28:02
SPEAKER_00: And the the legacy that's gonna be left behind for me, I'm just gonna kind of be standing there.
28:08
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like it's all gonna be gone.
28:15
SPEAKER_00: And the legacy for me is I'm gonna be known as a man that could barely escape the flames.
28:21
SPEAKER_00: Like there would be nothing to be said about my life spiritually.
28:27
SPEAKER_00: And so I do want to ask the question: what are your spiritual priorities?
28:31
SPEAKER_00: What are the things that God has gifted you with?
28:35
SPEAKER_00: Are you prioritizing things spiritually?
28:39
SPEAKER_00: Are you investing in younger men?
28:40
SPEAKER_00: Are you investing in your kids?
28:42
SPEAKER_00: Are you investing in yourself?
28:45
SPEAKER_00: Um, I think those things on that day, you know, if we look at that day, we should start preparing for that day and prioritize those things.
28:53
SPEAKER_01: And it means that we have to say no to some things that seem really good.
28:56
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
28:57
SPEAKER_01: The quote from this chapter is have the courage to say no, decide what your highest priorities are, have the courage to say no to other things.
29:04
SPEAKER_01: And the way to do that is by having a bigger yes burning inside the enemy of the best, is oftentimes the good.
29:11
SPEAKER_01: The priority challenge, what's your burning priority in life right now?
29:14
SPEAKER_01: What do you need to say no to in order to realize that priority?
29:17
SPEAKER_01: Write down how you'll say it.
29:19
SPEAKER_01: Say no, then do it.
29:20
SPEAKER_01: Uh listen, Rodney, we've used up our half hour, so I'm gonna sort of, we're gonna put this sacrifice, that's number four, at the beginning next week.
29:29
SPEAKER_01: And um, I want to just drive us to our group discussion starters and dismiss you into your groups.
29:35
SPEAKER_01: So once more, I would encourage you to go around your table, share, make sure everybody knows your name and where you work.
29:41
SPEAKER_01: And if you got a wife and kids, number two, what's something you want to do well?
29:46
SPEAKER_01: What legacy, this is the contribution one, do you want to leave in your personal and professional life?
29:51
SPEAKER_01: And third, what is your burning priority in life right now?
29:54
SPEAKER_01: What do you need to say no to in order to realize that priority?
29:58
SPEAKER_00: Would you lead us in prayer?
29:59
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
30:01
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we thank you um for today.
30:05
SPEAKER_00: Um thank you that you've given us today, Lord, that there are people who uh who woke up yesterday who are not here with us today.
30:14
SPEAKER_00: And we have an incredible opportunity uh to be in relationship with you.
30:19
SPEAKER_00: Uh Lord, I pray that we would not that we would that we would take advantage of that privilege that we have.
30:26
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I pray that you would help us to be men of substance, men of character, of integrity, men who sacrifice and contribute to other people's lives.
30:34
SPEAKER_00: Uh Lord, I pray that you would help us give us the power to do that.
30:37
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I pray that you'd just be with us today and the rest of um the rest of this week.
30:41
SPEAKER_00: Oh Lord, that our our lives would be marked uh by characters uh that are pleasing to you.
30:49
SPEAKER_00: I pray these things in your name.
30:50
SPEAKER_00: Amen.