The Biblical Man (Ep. #5, The C3 Man)

This week's focus is on our church's value of being biblical. What does that mean for masculinity and what does that mean for you, as a man - personally? We welcome Jeff Turk to an interview, who shares humbly and boldly his relationship with the Word of God and the God of the Word.

Christ Community Church Little Rock
A community transformed by grace sent to transform the world for the glory of God.

WEBSITE: https://c3lr.org
FACEBOOK: facebook.com/C3.LittleRock
INSTAGRAM: instagram.com/c3.littlerock
PODCAST:  https://c3littlerock.buzzsprout.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Thank you, Toby. Good morning, guys. Good morning. Um, hope y'all had a great spring break. Hope you all had a fantastic Easter. Um, I'll start with a little bit of housekeeping, kind of boring, but I was talking with someone earlier, and uh I just want to let y'all know we are posting these teachings up on our C3 podcast, which you we have two. We have sermons, and then we have kind of you know, whether it's women's or men's or some kind of dinner and discipleship, whatever it is, and it's just called C3 Equip. And it's our church logo, and so just so you know, the last four teachings are on there. We'll have all of these on there. Uh, the audio is not fantastic because I'm recording it right here on my phone, on a voice memo, and then I'm I'm uh I'm posting it, doing a little bit of editing, which is not great editing, but it's just just posting it. Um but that leads into the the second thing I wanted to say is I think it's this week, this room is gonna have a bit of a makeover. It could be this week or next week. And uh the same people who installed you know um everything in the sanctuary, they're they're now gonna kind of take over this room. And so it's just I think even symbolic of our gardens that we've been talking about and working through that we want to see our gardens healthier and upgraded and flourished. Um we want to linger in beauty, it's what we were made for. This room is gonna be great. We'll have mounted screens and a tiny little stage and lighting and A-B, and it's gonna be really great. And the I think the recording, Brandon, will just go through the system, right? And so I don't have to have my phone out. And so that was the best transition I could do from recording to uh to this room. So just uh I think that's something to be excited about. I'm excited for. But uh to start this morning, I wanted to show you a hilarious article from Fatherly, okay? And uh it says, New study says key to happiness is super boring and obvious. It's a real article. And if you look at the bottom, I'll just post that onto a slide right here, I'll read it for you. New research out of the University of Kent and University of Reading in the or Reading in the United Kingdom has come to a fairly obvious, if boring and annoying conclusion. Regularly exercising and consuming high amounts of fruits and vegetables can make you happier. The study confirms positive causation between lifestyle and life satisfaction. You guys aren't laughing as much as I thought you would be. There. Yeah, that much, much better. Uh I'll explain why I think this is funny, I guess, more in a minute. But as Toby just alluded to, this morning is a bit of a pivot. Um, our series this semester is the C3 Man. But as I was working through it, I thought you can't just start with the C3 man without first talking about the biblical man. And so that's why we spent four weeks not defining really what a man does, but even deeper than that, what is a man? What is at the bottom, because who we are and how we were originally intended to be before sin and how Christ has redeemed is working with us after sin, with sin. That then is upstream of what we do. And so that's kind of been what we're, you know, what we've done. And now we're moving into four weeks, as Toby just said, where the C3 man is, we're not going to redefine it. We already have values as a church. The C3 man is biblical, relational, missional, and simple. And I'm sure the last one there describes all of us, probably the most, but that's a good thing. It's okay to be simple. And I'll explain, once we get to that week, what we want that to mean for us as men. And as well, we want this to be a group project, and so today's discussion time, which we'll have, um, is gonna be, I'll explain more about that, but this is gonna be a group project. The C3 man is gonna be built by the men, not just me, not just pastors, not just elders, just all of us. And so I'll explain more as we get there. But um just to recap the last four weeks very quickly, we have a definition that I know we all have memorized. The biblical man, y'all read it with me, is formed and placed by God to keep, lead, and bleed for God and garden. My hope is that that's not just memorized, but that it's really like internalized. And every single word can be squeezed. When we squeeze the word formed, we are formed by God, like God, for God. And we've talked about all of that. Intimately there in the wild, not in Eden, not in the garden, in the wild we were formed. And then we were placed. When you hear the word placed, you squeeze it, and one word comes out, garden. You were not made on a farm. You were not made to yield and produce and for high efficiency first and foremost, but to linger in beauty. To be with God. And then to produce out of that. To keep, keep that word shamar. Remember the goalkeeper. You want shamor of me? Remember that? We all know our Hebrew. Shamar. I think it's the most, I think, I'm not saying God thinks, I think it's the most important word for biblical manhood. Keeper. And remember we talked about uh cudgel and cradle. When you think of keeper, you have we have these hands. You think of a fist, as a keeper, we fight, we take in a godly sense, but it's aggressive. But then we cradle. Think of holding your child, holding your wife's face. It's both. You cannot have one without the other. We all know two soft men, and we all know two aggressive, cruel men. It's this perfect balance that we aim for. We don't get perfectly, but we see it perfectly in Jesus. Lead, that lead and bleed go together, which is why I have that word and in between there. As we lead as men, which is the biblical mandate, we lead by bleeding. Self-sacrifice is how we love. We do not lead in this sense of dominance and cruelty. We lead by serving, but we do lead. And what makes the garden grow is our blood, the blood of the Shamar. We cut ourselves, we bleed. That is, we are in cruciform position, which is how we see Jesus. We get wrung out as men for the sake of our garden. So that's a quick recap. Um again, we have those four teachings up on C3 Eclipse. I would encourage you guys to take note of that. What I want to do now is just really teach for about five minutes. And then the heart of this morning is uh in the next several mornings, is we want to have uh um interviews with uh with key guys in the church that I think really well embody the value that we're going through today. And so today we're gonna have a special guy come on up, but let me just talk briefly about the vision of what it means this morning to be a biblical man. Okay, chapter 3 of Genesis, verse 8, we read this phrase. And they, Adam and Eve, heard the sound, it was familiar to them, of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. This was normal to them. And what would they do as they walked with God? Now the Bible does not say that Adam and Eve walked with God, but we can infer it with our maybe it's speculation or maybe it's just creative theological imagination, if they heard the sound of God. They didn't see it, they heard it. Which means they knew it, which means this was familiar. And so we can imagine that God, as trainer, who trained Adam, the Shamar, who trained Eve as the azer, the helper, that this was familiar to them. And guys, this is what we want to reclaim. This is what it means to be a biblical man, to walk with God. It is doing. But it's also listening to God's words. As they walked, they talked. And we know we see this from Jesus. Most of his sermons were on the go. His teachings were on the go. And that's what we want to get to. So that's the vision I want to put before you as a biblical man, is one who walks with God in the cool of the day. Now we don't get to physically walk with God anymore. There is such a thing as Genesis 3. But that's what we can come back to. That's what Jesus means when he says, Come to me. Put my yoke upon you. It's walk with me. I'm going to carry the load, but you're going to walk with me. That's the vision. I think it's incredibly exciting, but we know that there's a breakdown. And so let me show you Genesis 2. Remember, 2.15 is the best verse to memorize for this entire semester. The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden from the wild to work it and keep it. There's Shamar. And the Lord God commanded the man, listen to the command of the garden. You may surely eat of every tree of the garden. Okay, it's an abundance paradigm. Go, God says, go, enjoy. But then he says, But of one tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat. That's all he says. Don't eat. For in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die. There's the warning. But the command is don't eat. But then a couple verses later, we're now to Genesis chapter 3, the very opening. He, the serpent, said to the woman, so this is the temptation scene, did God actually say you shall not eat? Let's go back to Genesis 2. Yep. Yeah, he did. But look how but then look at verse 2. And the woman said to the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it. Did God say that? Back to Genesis 2. No. So there's a breakdown. Eve did not hear the original command from God. God gave that to the keeper before Eve was even there. And so we can infer that it was the keeper's job to explain to the Azer, to Eve, hey, this is what we ought to do and what not to do. Whether it's Adam's fault or Eve's fault, we can speculate all day. Maybe it's both of their fault. But there was a breakdown in the Word of God, and it led to the spiral crater that we call theologically the fall. One little detail. Painting God as this cosmic kill joy. We can't even touch it. You just feel the heart coming up there. So my point with that is very simply that we must, as men, saturate our minds with God's ideas. That's my whole point. I'm almost done. Saturate our minds with God's ideas. Because if we don't, our ideas take over. That is the default. We are on an escalator going up towards our ideas, and we gotta hop off that escalator. That's just the default. We're not just standing still, we are not neutral, we are moving towards our ideas. The greatest haunt of the entire Bible is that everyone did what was right in their own eyes. We justify our sin. We justify our evil. We call it good. And so if we don't men saturate, so that's why it's like, man, I want you men to go to the Bible and just have the most awesome experience. That doesn't happen. 99% of the time, at least for me. Most of the time when I read the Bible, it's incredibly boring. But my main thought is, God, I'm well, I'm gonna get to the couple main thoughts, but it's I just gotta saturate my brain. I've got to do this or else I'm gonna have me today. And my wife doesn't need me. My kids don't need me. Y'all don't need me, Pastor Justin, with my ideas. Let's saturate. And so here's the here's how I want to end. This is a great quote, Archibald Alexander. Whether we are the most learned critic or the most powerful theologian, we nonetheless come to the Bible as those who learn to sit at the feet of Jesus in the spirit of a child. I'm gonna read that one more time because I'm gonna make four points, 20 seconds each. We come to the Bible as those who learn. To sit at the feet of Jesus in the spirit of a child. Those are our four points. Come to the Bible. Men, discipline, rhythm. Come to the Bible. However you are, if you're feeling it, if you're not feeling it, what do you have to give up to come to the Bible? You're not gonna have an inspirational tailwind at five in the morning or at 9 p.m. or on your lunch hour for 10 minutes. You're not. So give it up. I should only be, man, if God wanted me in the Bible, then I would want to be in the Bible. No. You come to the Bible. Come what may, you make your way to the Bible. That's point one. Second is your posture. You come to learn. We do not look at the Bible eye to eye. We do not put it beneath us. We come to the Bible beneath it. And whatever it says, we conform to. That is the Christian way.

SPEAKER_03 14:26

We learn.

SPEAKER_01 14:27

It's our posture. We are beneath it. We submit. And it is incredibly hard. Because we want to make the Bible conform to us. We want to Thomas Jefferson it and cut out the parts we don't like, but that's not what we do. So that's our posture. At the feet of Jesus, guys, keep it relational. It's not a textbook. It's not going to answer every 21st century question we throw at it. But Jesus is speaking to us through it. And so often in my best times in the Bible, I'm literally talking as I'm breaking things down. And just practically how I start every Bible study is I just start asking a million questions. I aim for 20 questions, even if it's one verse. 20 questions, and I start talking with God through it, applying it to my life. And I will walk away with maybe two answers, and I've got more questions than answers, but I'm just talking with Jesus. We all have different ways of doing it. Don't hear that as prescription. But just keep Jesus in mind. Don't just deal with a text, deal with a person. Not just the word of God, but the God of the Word. And we do it in the spirit of a child. And what I mean by that, guys, is when we wake up in the morning, we immediately think, oh man, here I am. I'm king, I'm Shamar, I'm husband, I'm dad, I'm worker. Before anything else, you are a boy. You are a child. And you actually have a dad, a heavenly father. And so you go to him. And do you know how strong the belief of a child is? I mean, it's it's it's it's relentless. Like trying to out-argue a four-year-old with Santa or the tooth fairy. You know, it's it's unbelievable. What we come to Jesus and we just say, God, just tell me. You know, I'm here. You're my dad. And we start there, and then as a child, we can then put on our other hats, which are very important, but they're not the first. You're a husband, you're a dad, you're a cousin, you're a nephew, you're a you name it. We wear a hundred hats, guys, but the most important is child. So we come to our dad, we just say, Teach me. And everything he says, we believe, 100%. Not perfectly. Rarely perfectly, but that's our posture. Yeah? Okay. Well, what I want to do now is have a fantastic conversation with a man who um, well, you know, something that Joseph and Daniel and David of the Bible all had in common is they ran kingdoms. They were busier than all of us, and yet they still met with God multiple times a day. The guy I want to interview this morning, Jeff Turk, an ordinary man, but he's a president of a company. He has a wife who adores him, probably too much. He's got kids that think he's a hero. He can outrun, outwork out any of us. And uh, and he lives in such a way above reproach that he has no enemies. Except for me, when you beat me in every race we've ever done. So, guys, can we give a warm welcome to Jeff Turk? Here's our chairs right here, my friend. Yeah, no, I I got a mic for you. In my mind, this transition went so well. With that kind of introduction, did you guys make? Hey, I'm gonna have my beer, right? Where's where's the mic? Here you go. Here you go. All right.

unknown 18:07

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 18:08

All right, Jeff. Now, here, did you um you want to see this okay to show? Is this okay? Okay, guys, we're gonna put it up here. Who you've gotta watch out for is this one right here. Watch out for him. Watch out for that one.

SPEAKER_02 18:24

You've probably seen him running around the church.

SPEAKER_01 18:29

There, how about now? How about now?

SPEAKER_02 18:30

Hey baby. Yeah, he uh he thinks his place is just his playground. So it's full of energy. Well, Jeff, tell us a little bit about yourself.

SPEAKER_01 18:38

The guys in here may not know you too well.

SPEAKER_02 18:41

Yeah, well, thank you for the introduction, Justin. Uh so Jeff Turk, uh, from here in Little Rock, I've been at Christ Community since the beginning, and actually I met my beautiful bride here at the church.

unknown 18:51

Yeah, how'd you get her?

SPEAKER_02 18:53

Uh, fair question. Um, she was working in the coffee shop whenever we're meeting a Little Rock Christian, and uh, I was leaving service one day, and she's stopping the tracks, and I saw her. And uh so we headed off, and we've been married nine years now, and we have a three-year-old Henry and a one-year-old William. Uh we call him Bud over there. And so uh the Lord has blessed me with a uh with a beautiful garden. Uh blessing every day. Um Jess mentioned the president's flashball change. Uh we've got uh 31 locations, about 400 team members, and I genuinely love going to work every day. Uh Matt Sack in the back there did work with him. Garrett Hartman right here, both my brother-in-laws. Uh, we all get the privilege of working together with an unlabeled team. Bless me on measure. Uh love doing hard stuff with you and some other studs in this room. Uh, I love going on adventures, so it's all about me.

SPEAKER_01 19:48

Yeah. But if no one wants to be up here as like the biblical man, okay, so I ask you because this is another hard thing. Because no one lives up to it perfectly. You don't want to be marked as like, you know, I'm the biblical man of Christ Community Church. But I think what's going so cool, why I wanted you up here is because we're such close friends. I've seen you ebb and flow with your study of scripture. I've we're in a community group together. We uh, like Jeff said, we do a lot of things in the trenches together, and so we just we're really open, honest, and uh accountability partners with each other. And uh I've just seen you have these highs, these lows, and so forth. But what is life like when you're at a local, when you're not living as a local man?

SPEAKER_02 20:33

Yeah, I uh think it's a great layup question that you gave me right here off the bat. Um I hope I'm still welcome at the church after answering that question. Uh you used a phrase on Sunday, uh self-obsessed heart. And I think whenever I'm at my worst, whenever I'm not uh pursuing the work, whenever I'm not acting as a go-and, I have a self-obsessed heart. I think that presents itself in three ways. Um I can be extremely selfish. I think you've seen that you've seen that give up nature and the monster things selfishness, whether it be at home or at work, uh I can be so selfish. The second I would say uh less is uh I was exposed to pornography in middle school. And since then, uh that's about so hard to admit. Uh but that's another area of my life that whenever things are going to take so hard to be so. And then third, I would say I can be complacent. I can you know seek comfort, seem to pass around, uh, you know, not make the hard decisions for myself and my loved ones and people at work. So I think that all stems from that you know, that self obsessed part that you like want to send it. And that really I think uh summarizes what I look like when I'm not. Acting as a political man, I guess those two things.

SPEAKER_01 22:02

Yeah. Yeah, I think we're using terms right now, and we can also think about the given grace between like not being a biblical man and being a biblical man. These are big broad buckets, but we all know, you know, the spirit inside of us when we're living out as a biblical man and when we're not. So on the contrast, Jeff, when what is life like when you are functioning, living out as a biblical man?

SPEAKER_02 22:26

Jump back just a hair. Um, I want to I want to share something with this room that was deeply impactful for me. So last year we did Banyer Together in the pilot uh group. And one of the exercises is take those parts of you that are at your worst, your worst weaknesses, the sins that you fall into. Um and there was an exercise called the Satan wins obituary. And so what you do is you take uh those attributes about yourself, um, those lies that you believe, and and you write an obituary for yourself. As if those functions, those those areas of your life take over and consume your life, and what would the obituary look like if Satan won in your life? And so I wanted to share this with you because it was impactful for me and something I thought would would help today. So this is an obituary I wrote for myself. Jeff Turk, age 63, was found deceased in his well-organized home, surrounded by possessions accumulated from a life spent pursuing personal gratification. Though physically fit, surrounded by mementos of global adventures, Jeff succumbed to personal weaknesses that shaped a solitary existence. Known to acquaintances as a nice guy and kind, Jeff's life was ultimately marred by choices that led to a profound sense of isolation. He lost a protracted battle with lust, most clearly seen in an addiction to pornography, that despite periods of subdual and attempts to conceal it from loved ones, he ultimately failed to overcome on his own. This struggle culminated in an affair, not one that he sought out, but one that found him because of his passivity, leading to divorce from his God-fearing, kind-hearted, and beautiful wife, Erica. His relationship with his children were reduced to infrequent scheduled visits. No real relationships with his children ever materialized after divorce. Erica and their children have made it known that they will not be attending the funeral. With ample time on his hands, Jeff indulged in activities he once believed fulfilling. Extensive international travel, frequent hunting and shooting excursions, intense daily workouts, and solitary pursuits of study and reading. However, he eventually realized these endeavors offered no true fulfillment, and the financial strain of a divided household limits' ability to enjoy a comfortable pursuit of gratification. Even when opportunities arose to engage meaningfully with his children and others, Jeff constantly prioritized his own fleeting pleasures over genuine connection. His life brimmed with potential for positive impact, instead, heared towards the path of least resistance characterized by consumption rather than contribution. He consumed movies, video games, books, and experiences, but never truly went uphill to cultivate a life of purpose and lasting influence. The graveside service, attended by only a few market, his final resting place in Village, Arkansas, next to a distinguished family that did choose to go uphill. The reason I wanted to share that, there's a lot to unpack there, obviously. But that was a deeply impactful exercise for me. To see the garden that I've been blessed with, the blessings that I have in my life, and that if I don't battle daily, if I don't dethrone that self-obsessed heart, there are real consequences. And you know, it was an honor to go through that last year. But I had a buddy a few years ago who unfortunately had an affair, and his friends got together around him and uh brought in a mentor. And that mentor set all his friends down, and uh he looked all of us in the eye and he said, guys, make a mistake. You're two mistakes. One one of two choices away from being is the exact same spot. And that was an eye-opening uh moment for me, and one that I won't forget. But um to recognize I've got a garden and I've got weeds in that garden that I have to I have to pluck and I have to prune some bushes regularly. Um because my sin of nature and myself obsessed hard to take over. So that was powerful.

SPEAKER_01 26:40

Um thanks for sharing that, Jeff. That's that's that's the one man. Um, you know, and I think even you talking about weeding your your garden, a lot of times in our cultural moment, we talk about men having strength, and it's like, are we allowed to talk about that? You know, we read these legit Hebrew and Greek words in the Bible that is like, well, these are strong words applied to men. And we have to have strength, we have to rip out parts of ourselves, of our gardens. And it takes an aggression, it takes a warrior mindset. That's not all we are, but just hearing you say that, you know, you've used the word uphill so many times. That requires strength if you've ever even tried to get to this location. Um we would be known for a doctor and our quads here. Okay, Jeff, that is amazing. I hope that plans to see and maybe even an assignment for you guys to like write that obituary yourself. Um what is it? What is it like on the other side of the point? Okay, so what is life like as a biblical man using the terms that we're using?

SPEAKER_02 27:54

Yeah, well, I think it started with what you were talking about earlier, which is getting in the word. It's dethroning uh self-obsessed King Jeff daily, and it's putting Christ on that throne. And that's that is pursuing um uh spiritual disciplines. Regularly, people talk about what that practically looks like, but it's getting into the word. It's finding that passion. Everybody's got different passions, uh, whether it be you know a certain doctrine or something in scripture or prayer or fasting or you know, conversations and community, but finding those things that that fire you up and keep Christ on that throne of your life, and that it's not yourself, that it's not your your fleeting pleasures, your selfishness, your pride, your anger, your lust, whatever that may be, it's it's every single day uh finding ways to make sure that you're putting Christ in the throne. I think that starts with getting into the word. And that manifests itself in different ways in my life. I think my wife could tell you in the first 30 seconds when I get home if I'm uh if I'm you know pursuing the Lord that day. Um, if I've dethroned myself and put him on the throne, that first 30 seconds is key when I get home to set the temperature at the house. And I think at work. I think uh the team I work with could tell you pretty clearly if I'm uh you know if I'm pursuing the Lord. I think it's something that your garden sees. Uh you know, your plants flourish uh whenever you're tending it and you know you're plucking the weeds out. Um I think as far as lust, it's you know I've mentioned a few times here, uh you've talked about uh uh mental brothel. It's like, man, there's all of us have that brothel in our mind. And when we're pursuing the Lord for me, that whenever I scripture memorized, whenever I've woken up, gotten in the word, it is uh it is at bay, it is subdued, it is I've plucked that weed. And so life is not perfect, uh, but I think it's in its proper order, and I have the lens, the right lens, uh to look through when I'm you know getting the word and stuff.

SPEAKER_01 29:54

Yeah, so clearly you're not batting a thousand, but what are some of those rhythms?

SPEAKER_02 29:58

Yeah, um this is this is an interesting one. I've got a three-year-old to one-year-old uh schedules are a little different these days than they've been in the past. Uh, and every season's a little different, but if I don't make the time, if I do not prioritize getting the word, having a quiet time, spending time with my Lord and Savior, it does not happen. It doesn't happen by chance. It's I have to I have to schedule it. And so right now I'm either not working out or I'm waking up at 4 45 and getting into the work. That's my only option. Um I had a mentor years ago who challenged me to have to build like a life schedule. I don't know if any of y'all have ever done this, but you you build out your entire week, every hour of the week, you build it out. What does it look like? When are you working? When are you exercising, when are you spending time with the work? And I think that was really convicting for me because I clearly made time for the things that I wanted to make time for for working out, I had to work, you know, even daylights out. I had not prioritized uh quiet times. And so sitting down, putting together a schedule and making sure that's the first thing that goes on the schedule uh when prioritizing it.

SPEAKER_01 31:06

And just just practically, when you're attacking the Bible, uh like what do you read you know the Bible of the year? Do you go through a book?

SPEAKER_02 31:15

Do you have you know Yeah, for me, I think this you know impacts everybody a little different, everybody's got a different take on this.

SPEAKER_01 31:21

There's a thousand great ways to read and state the Bible. Yeah, I'll make that clear. I'm just asking Jeff His.

SPEAKER_02 31:25

Yeah, I you know, right now in Maine year we wrote the New Testament in the first quarter, and that's kind of water skiing. You're going pretty fast, not getting very deep. I I like spending a week on you know a section of a chapter. I like really being able to go deep, understand, you know, how that impacts my life, uh, you know, how I should act, different what that means for salvation. Yeah, that's that's uh that's what I enjoy.

SPEAKER_01 31:52

Um okay, so this might be embarrassing, but just like boots on the ground, let's get real, because we all have barriers that are pretty flimsy at the end of the day that keep us from the Bible. What are some of the years?

SPEAKER_02 32:08

Yeah, well, what you you mentioned earlier. Um there are definitely times I get into the worker, have a quiet time. I woke up early, went and you know, sat down and did it, and I don't feel like I necessarily got the ROI on it. Uh it's kind of checking a box. That's like 80% of the time. I mean, just to be yeah, just to be frank. Um, but then sometimes later on in the day, I feel like the Lord just kind of taps me on the shoulder or helps me see something that's like, oh that's kind of how that applied. I didn't get much out of it this morning, but you know, it may you know be a week later. And maybe nothing. Uh but I think I think over time uh it goes back to taking me off that throne is I very quickly put myself and myself in front of the throat. So that uh sleep. Sleep uh and uh yeah, I mean a warm bed, my wife in it, and I have to get out and the house is cold, and I have to go make a pot of coffee and I can sleep, uh, especially whenever these guys little guys don't sleep super well all the time. So yeah, sleep and ROI.

SPEAKER_01 33:13

Yeah. When we were talking, Jeff, you said you said that uh scripture memory for you is a great like barometer of where you're at, you know, if you're kind of living out as a biblical manual or not, if you're in the Bible or not. That's that's not particularly true of me, uh, but I'm curious what you meant by that and what that means for us.

SPEAKER_02 33:34

Yeah, it's just been something really powerful in my life. It's been super helpful. Um is Sam more in here? No, no, he's called Slide. He gave uh he gave me a book uh last year about scripture memory, and it's been helpful. You know what it's called? Uh 100 Bible verses everyone should know, and something like that. It's very simple. We just kind of wrote down. Um but it's just something for years that's I I I almost use scriptures as tools in the tool belt. Yeah, it's like there's different seasons you go through, different areas in your life, different challenges you face, and I think there's um there's an answer to most everything in there that can help you walk through those things. And so that's just been something that's helpful for me, and because I view it as so valuable, it's a good barometer, what barometer of whether I'm you know I'm really in the word, I'm under simple word or not.

SPEAKER_01 34:23

So, as we end, what is the burden on your part for these men? A call to action, something that you just want to like, you know, halftime, 30 seconds left at halftime, we're going out, we're a little bit down, going in the third quarter, second half, you look all of us in the eyes. What is it you want to share with us?

SPEAKER_02 34:48

Yeah, I think what I want to say is um, guys, we all we've all been blessed to have a garden. And every single one of us has weeds or something in that garden that doesn't belong, that shouldn't be there, something that needs to be prone out. My challenge for this room is do not believe the lie about that weed. Do not believe the lie that the sin in your life, that that weed is just small and insignificant, doesn't matter. Don't believe the lie that it's too big to overcome. Um believe the lie that really doesn't, you know, it doesn't matter, or that it's weird and somebody's not gonna understand it if I bring it to light, or that I'm the only one going through this, or they won't understand. Whatever the lie is, do not believe it. That is from saying, do not believe that lie. There are way too many resources in this room. Um, there's so many guys in here. Um, you know, I think I got bragged on Garrett Hartman. Last year, you know, Garrett shared his story, and I know because he was vulnerable about the weed in his life, um, it impacted other people in this room. It really changed lives. And so my call is don't believe the lie. Repent, talk to the good Lord about it, but man, see somebody out and just have a conversation with somebody about it. There's plenty of pastors you know at the church, uh, internet brand and Justin. Um, you know, come talk to me, find somebody at your table, uh, be vulnerable, uh, but don't believe the lie about your life, whatever it is, don't believe it.

SPEAKER_01 36:24

Well, I'll pull a little bit of an audible. Maybe we have time like a question or two in the middle of the discussion. Anyone have just like a something for Jeff they they would love to ask? Justin or something. So we go to somebody else.

SPEAKER_00 36:43

I'm getting that top three top three percent. Um yeah, right.

SPEAKER_02 36:54

So we came in focus flash for us, and then we did a QA somebody basically I'm gonna get manager.

SPEAKER_00 37:02

Yeah, so uh Jeff, I'm saying this because I know you this rhythm of reading the Bible is is not new. It's not something you just picked up and we see. So all of us come into the room today with a different rhythm and discipline in this area and your comments really like a long period of discipline. So for the guy that maybe is newer to that discipline.

SPEAKER_02 37:30

You know, I mean kind of workout where you suggest how one I definitely recommend doing in the community first is find somebody to do it with, regardless of what the passage is, find somebody to walk through it with. Um I love the book of John. Um I love the book of John. I you know recommend starting there. Uh the gospel. Um I think you really get to see Jesus and it, I mean, he just comes to life and really challenges and convicts me there. Uh that or Psalm 23 or Psalm uh 121, those chapters have been something whenever I'm you know struggling with something or you know, just going through a valley in life, that those two chapters, Psalm 21 and Psalm 121, uh, that always just kind of healed my soul. I think my Michael challenged us to memorize Psalm 23 years ago and that that stuck with me.

SPEAKER_01 38:30

So can I add something that uh asked? But even just like in community, one of the coolest things I I think that that we can do if it's like I don't even know how to study the Bible is meet with someone and do it 5, 10, 15. Okay, you're there in a booth at a Starbucks table, whatever, living room. Both of you read the passage that you're studying for five minutes. Journal, ask questions for 10 minutes, and then talk about it in 15 minutes. It's amazing. It's amazing. You'll you'll be like, oh wow, I thought I did pretty good there. And then they have these insights, you know what I mean? You just get to bless each other. That's just a really practical thing to do. It might sound overwhelming, but it's just a really easy on-break to studying the Bible in community.