Men of Honor

let's pray real quick though before we get started. Jesus, we love you. God, I thank you so much for your kindness, your goodness, your mercy unto us. God, I pray, Lord, that you would help us, Lord, to walk after your after you with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. God, I pray tonight for every need in the room, God, every need on line, God, that you would allow your hand to be upon you, God, to answer prayers, God, to heal, to deliver, and to set free, God. God, I pray, Lord, tonight that you would help us to rightly divide your word. Help, help us, God to follow after your heart, God. I pray, Lord, that you would anoint my lips of clay. Help me to teach your unadulterated word of God and help me to help me to follow as you would lead. God help us God direct us and God we thank you and we praise you in Jesus name. Amen.

Well, it's good to see you guys. Uh I was I was I got to thinking about something last night and please understand I know next to nothing about physics. Um but there's an interesting thought. There's an experiment done in the 1920s on where they observed particles. All right. How they observed them, I don't know. I'm not a physicist. All right. But I'm just I'm just regurgitating this experiment because it was it was it was interesting experiment. It's been recreated over and over again. This is kind of a uh of a way that it operates. So apparently what they noticed, please that that when this right here did not help me understand it, but I had to have something because it was even it was even more of an abstract idea. Um that when they when they were able to observe particles that they noticed that particles behaved differently when observed than when not observed. And then of course the question comes, how do you know how they act when they're not observed? Now listen, I didn't do the experiment. I don't know. That's my question. Yeah, like that. I get it. I I I opened with that. I I even went and read some papers on it today. Still don't get it. They were like, here's your equations. This was the best graph I could come up with it. In summary, that's how it does. They they act and interact differently based on their observation. So philosophically I was thinking about this because I can I can kind of philosophize a little bit not not a physicist and I was thinking about it philosophically a little bit and I was like you know what the answer might be that they have consciousness. I don't know you know but it might be that a particle has a center of consciousness. I mean if you if you look at a tree that a tree is has like 20 sensors like sensory receptors like we only have five senses. A tree has like 20. They can feel and and perceive more than we can based on their surroundings or it's different than we can so to speak. It's very interesting. Now, I don't reckon the trees have eyes, but uh it is is at least it's there there has to be in my mind. I'm think I'm I'm sitting there thinking I'm like, well, you know, maybe they do have consciousness. Maybe they realize when they realized when they realized they're being watched, they act differently. I was like, that kind of tracks just kind of, right? I mean, behaviorally, if we're just goofing, like you you ever been just anyone play sports? Yeah. How was the locker room? Unobserved. It was all Yeah, it was absolute chaos. When observed, we weren't doing nothing. We weren't doing nothing. It was control. Yeah. I I think about that and I was I so I started thinking about men's behavior specifically or people's behavior but men in specifics of observed versus unobserved behavior. I was like okay uh I mean right now I I have the pleasure of raising a a little guy and his behavior observed versus unobserved behavior is different. You you guys have seen that. You've raised like 45 kids. I mean you're like a philosopher now. So uh they they and and and as we go those centers of observations they change. So first it's mom and dad right it's that becomes a point of relativity of I am being observed by mom and dad and then it and it evolves and it spreads to a teacher or it spreads to others I remember right I didn't think I was just in class I just did whatever guys are really good at being oblivious I mean we're really good at it uh being in class and then one day you kind of wake up. Oh, there's girls in here. And all of a sudden, your center of consciousness changes a little bit is, you know, like what they say, you know, you all of a sudden start taking showers, wearing deodorant because Yeah. Because you're you're you realize, wait a minute, I'm being watched and it matters to me now. I it was and you know that goes and then it becomes one you know it's like I'm my buds but then that that becomes listen I remember after church every Wednesday honestly we have you know there's a yard in front of the church in Colinwood we would just throw football play football we tackle football whatever I mean it was it just was what it was and I remember the night my but my guys they threw me the football and I was like I'm good guys I'm going to hang out with her you know like that was that was a center of consciousness shift for me. No longer did I care about playing football. It was it was a shift of consciousness. And then it goes, you know, it becomes okay, right? God God programmed us to make women happy and then laughed, did he not? He was like, you know what? Your entire desire in life is going to to to make this woman happy. And it's like and then we're on a treadmill the rest of our life. I don't know how, but he did a good job with it. Hamster will. Yeah, we'll we'll delete this live stream after and keep us all out of trouble.

Think about that and think about the points of observation that you went through of of what I you know and and I I do want I do want us to reflect on that just a little bit of the points of all right how did that shift over time? What did that get to? And then it got to, if I may, as we got older, right, it shifts to responsibility, our points of inflection. Guys are very much in the present as a whole. We have to live in the present uh if we want to or not because something's demanding our attention all the time. If we live too much in the past or too much in the future with our heads in a cloud, bad things happen. And so we're like, "All right, I'm just living in the present. I'm planning for the future. Living, you know, like I'm I'm focused step after step." Um, that begins our our points of consciousness change. Our points of observation change. It becomes a boss. It becomes a And so what can I do at work when my boss is not around versus what I do when my boss is around? What can I do? So on so forth. Um, it it switches somehow. It switches, right? We we that we lose the voice of our mom correcting us in their teenage years, but God somewhere brings another woman along to then observe us and we get corrected again. And I got corrected tonight. I was apparently wearing brown shoes with this. And she was like, "That's stupid." I mean, she didn't say that, but I'm pretty sure she thought it. Yeah. I'm pretty sure she thought that. She was like, "You're going to have to change that." Understood. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, I just got observed and now I have to now I have to act the way I think I'm supposed to act. So then I got to you that to me that's a deep and wide conversation, right? Because a lot of times that's the way we do. Uh I got to thinking about it in terms of the locker room. I got and and just guys hanging out, us being us. Uh I was going to pick on Dakota, but he's teaching kids tonight. I told him his name was uh Brother Goofy. I don't know if he's going to use that or not, but you could call him Brother Goofy or not, but observationally our patterns change when we are observed by something. What I've seen is it matters what we feel like we are being observed by. Does that m Does that make sense? If we're being observed, there's a good old country song. Dad, I've been watching you. Dad, ain't that cool? Y'all ever heard that? I'm your buckaroo. I want to be like you. He's telling the story. His kid cussed. He's like, where'd you learn that? He's like, well, I've been watching you. You're like, oh, that's a point of consciousness. To me, it looks like part of being a man is a progressive realization of the world around us. Is that a fair statement? Part of being a man is is realizing, okay, my step affects someone else. And the greater our realization of the ripples that we make, I would say the more the more conscious we are of our existence. Now, this isn't I'm not I'm not whatever the Daly Lama and we're not achieving Nirvana tonight, but that's I mean that's essentially where the philosophies of of what of the Buddha come in is you want to achieve centeredness and consciousness. But the reality is they're they're on to something there. There is a there is an understanding that what we do affects and how far we understand that effect I believe we can be intentional or unintentional about it.

How many knew that the exact tone of your voice mattered? Well, yeah. After after your point of consciousness grew a little bit for the point of contact. Point of contact. Girl dads. Girl dads. What changed in your life when you had a girl? Your point of consciousness. Right. Tea parties. Got your toenails painted, didn't you? Right now. That's what it it changed. And so then we act according to what we're expected to act to, right? Essentially, that's what we it becomes an exhausting performative art sometimes and we just want to make a bubble bath and relax. No, that's it's not us. Uh we just want to we want to go I don't want to I don't know. It can be gaming. Uh we want to game. We want to I don't know. We want to go on a road trip. I love road trips. I mean, I've been dreaming about going to that upper part of Maine up there with just the woods, the great Maine wilderness. Yeah. It's like nothing. I just want to ride my motorcycle through it and go up to Quebec City or something, you know? But I can't right now, so whatever. Now I'm sad. I class over. Yeah. So, so part of part of us, right, responsibility, reality, all those things, they weigh on us. But I I don't want to those are those are practical terms to talk about the conscious the growing consciousness of our inner self, right? Those are reality hits you in the face. Responsibility weighs on your shoulder. But consciousness, it's internal. It's delving into yourself and understanding that my tone really does affect someone else in a massive way. And then now, do I care about that or do I not? That's consciousness.

So as we grow, as we mature, Paul said it like this. He said in in 1 Corinthians 13:11, "When I was a child, I spoke like a child. I thought like a child. I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways." I think that if if and I love I love Paul's writing because he was such he was so widely read. He had he was such a deep thinker. I honestly think he was leading us into understanding that that the path to a man growing is not a man growing. It's a man growing. It's it's it's mind, body, and soul. It's it's understanding the that we are we are more than just responsible. We are more than just people that face reality. We are people that have to be conscientious or conscience of the reality around us and how we affect that and how we can touch that.

Now, here's the thing. All of us I' I've seen this and I want to talk about it in a church context because I've seen this uh and and I I'll give an example of this in a little bit, but I've seen this differently at different times. Some some guys and men whatever they they are at church because their wife wants them to be at church because their point of consciousness has evolved to be I will be there because it's easier for me to be there. I will do this. Right? We all do it to some degree. Maybe not with church but with something. I will do this because it's easier for me to do this than not. whatever the knot is, right? We and that's that's part of reality, but that becomes a performative art of ourselves because that's not who we are. So maybe it's right and wrong in some situations. I don't I don't know. I don't want to speak to the fullness of that. But what I've seen is in an application for for a church setting, for a relationship with God setting, I've seen men be faithful for years and years and years. But the reality was it wasn't faithfulness. It was performance. And they weren't putting on a show. They weren't. It was performance based on the consciousness of who was watching them. There is something to be said of that. Okay. But it's not genuine. There's something to be said. I am trying. But if that's as far as it gets, then that's where it's at. But when it the the telltale of it is is no man can live a lie every day. And so the telltale is the fruits that it bears. How does this shine through? How does it look guys? You and I, you you guys know what your parent you know your parents' shortnesses and weaknesses and shortcomings were. Whether they wanted you to know them or not, they could not live that every day. they could not live the best side of themselves every day. That's where it shows up the most when we are when we are when we are living for God out of out of performative arts based on who we're observed by or what we are observed by or what we think we need to do instead of having that conversation that transformation within ourselves of this is more than just something to do. This has to be who I am. If we do not get to that point of understanding that this is who I am, we will be the we will be passive men in our relationship with God. If I can get to the root of that and understand that fully, I I I have seen men that and and and I'll tell you if if we're just being honest and I'm I'm not I've seen men that were that there example here. I'm going to I'm going to try and get out of the abstract for this, but you guys all probably know someone that you've observed in this manner, but there was there was a there was a beautiful, wonderful couple um that I know that at one point in time she was she was over our nursery and she was so good, so diligent with it. Turns out her diligence meant he was also diligent with it. Right now, I would never touch a nursery. That's just not like I would never like be the one to oh we need to go do this and you know we need to go like remodel this. That's just not how my mind works. But she was like hey over here. All right. You know and not in a bad way. It just just was it was just funny to watch how how her focus evolved and pulled in him. But it wasn't in a healthy manner because he was doing it out of a performative art, out of an obligation. He wasn't grumbling and complaining. I'm not saying that. It wasn't even it wasn't even and I'll say this, it wasn't even like truly unhealthy, but it wasn't genuine. It wasn't out of his heart's burden to to serve. Now, we can do that and and and I'm just using that as a light example because we can do that for short times on things, right? We can we can serve. Yeah, honey. I'll help you with that. I'll help you hang that. Whatever. You know, we can do that. We can all serve at VBS and it not be our heart's desire. That's that's But we can't have a relationship with God like that. That cannot be the fullness of where we delve into a walk with God. And I think that that many of us have seen that modeled in generations past because I'll just be honest with you, the church has been primarily pushed by females. There's a practical reason for that. Just the other week, we you know, we we hosted a a family, we hosted a funeral, and part of that funerals or the care of that, it was a lot of females involved in that, especially on the day of the funeral because the men had to be at work. That's reality. That's practical. That's that makes sense.

But a lot of times church becomes that thing that we are and and and I'm I'm going to say church and and and relationship with God, but I don't I'm going to use those synonymously tonight understanding that they were not always categorized the same thing. Okay? A relationship with God can become a byproduct because we think she'll carry that weight for us. She'll carry the mental load of that for us. She's emotional. She'll be the spiritual one for us. She can sense the things in the spirit maybe better than I can. But the reality is maybe she can't. she's just having to carry a load that you won't because the reality is looking into ourselves and and getting to that point of all right that's got to sit there and I really got to focus on this. I've really got to carry the weight of this after a 10-hour day of carrying a weight. After a 12-h hour day of carrying a weight, that's not easy. It's hard. Reality is that sometimes we say, "Well, you know what? It's all right if I if I let her carry that load. She's carrying the the load of taking care of the kids. Good for her. She was made to do that. But what she was not made to do is carry the load of the spiritual health of the family. It's just it's just not real. That it's it this the statistics bear it out, guys. It doesn't work. It just doesn't work.

The only way that a healthy family can grow and mature is if a dad is carrying the weight. It is it if a man is carrying the weight. And I will say this, the only way as our centers of consciousness grows, the only way a country, a city, a town, a job site can be true to and have a good nature about it and have a Christian nature nation or a Christian atmosphere is if our if our atmosphere carries the weight. It is not easy. It is hard. And it doesn't mean that that we all of a sudden change the type of water that we're in. But it does mean we control the type of ripples that are made and we can be a baffle against bad ones and we can be a good we can be start making good ripples as we grow and we become responsible for those around us. That is what a man is designed to do. A man was not designed and made to just do the haka dance that the New Zealand the New Zealand guys do all that. That looks fun. We weren't designed just to do that. That's that's actually what that's that's adolescence coming out in us. But we're designed to carry the weight and carry the load. It is easy for us not to because we have everything else to carry. I'm not talking about church attendance. I am not talking about uh this or this or this. I'm talking about the mental load, the spiritual load for our families. When we carry that, our whole family dynamic shifts. Okay, I'm going to use a a quick example of this. Something that helped me realize this was and and not because I am and stretching this example just a little bit.

When Lauren and I got married, I had already had a set of responsibilities for the church. Not even spiritual. I just had things I had to do that I had accepted responsibility to do. Wasn't even in a spiritual aspect. Well, my custom is to work on those things whenever they're present. That's just my custom, right? Not a lot of discipline around it. Have to learn discipline on it. When we got married, part of her ideology of the marriage was we're just going to live in bliss for a while. You know, we're we can go do what we want to do. If she's taking photos, babe, you got to walk away. I'm telling a story about us. You got to walk away. You have to walk away. You got to let me get the story out. No, don't you come back. Really convenient. Yeah, it was really convenient. Never mind on that story, guys. The Lord has saved me. Yeah. No, it there was there was a conversation. She did not realize the the the time invested the things I did. like she knew she grew up in a pastor's home, but what I was doing was was different and and she didn't realize the time invested in it. And she's like, "Why are you doing this?" Well, this is my responsibility. Well, let's go do I can't right now. I've got to do this. Now, I have to learn discipline in that. But the reality is that was the pace I had to set for my home. I was doing this before we got married. This is not if I and I and I I did I said this is not a passing fancy. This is a calling. I either do it all the way or I don't do it at all. That's the only way I know to work in a calling. Right? And and not to sacrifice my family for the sake of a calling, but to understand this is the direction that this boat's going. If if we're going to go there, we have to go together. If we're not, we get off and we we go do what we need to do. Okay? And and and and this wasn't this was over time conversation. And so I'm summarizing a lot of conversations here, but understand part of the spiritual leadership of our home and and and that was more of a practical conversation, less of a spiritual, but part of the spiritual leadership of our homes and of our consciousness. We have to be willing to carry whatever that is that God is calling us to carry, whether it's convenient or not. We have to be willing to say, "I understand. We've got this. This this is calling out of me." Right? A lot of the calling of God is not just the call to preach. It's not just the call. It's the calling the best part of us out of us. Because only you know what what you're not giving to God. Only you know what God's calling for you to pull out of you. Ron, I don't know your your time, talent, and treasures, but you know what God talks and pulls at you on. When we answer that and we allow our consciousness to be fully aware of that because the real we numb that with distraction. We numb it with with with this or that. We numb it with busyiness. We numb it with need. we numb it with that. Whatever those things are, we can we can find things to numb that with. And some are some are important and urgent and some are just numbing agents. They never really take it away. They just push it down the road.

When we when we allow ourselves to grow as men, as as first Corinthians 13 says, "When I was a child, I spoke like a child. I thought like a child. I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. How many of y'all have wanted to sit down in the floor and throw a tantrum like a toddler some days? I mean, all right, I'm done with it. You know, like do that right now. Right now. Yeah. Right now. Right. Like like that's that's always part of it. But part of that call the call of God of manhood. the call of God to to to for us to enter into a full consciousness of what of what we are made to do. God is God is saying, "No, you you you don't act like that. You act like a man." And we can about it or be like whatever about it. But the reality is only God knows and only you know what God's calling out of you. It's not passivity. It's not aggression. It's not It's not to conquer the world. It's to not It's not to leave the world like worse than you found it. It's It's not It's about you. You're not judged by the measure of someone else. You're judged by the measure that you have. And that almost sounds like communism, right? You're judged by what you have to give. the one that had one talent, the one that had three talents, the one that had four talents. They were not judged by what the others had. They were judged by what they did with what God gave them. We really get caught in the comparison trap and we judge ourselves based on what we think we have, but the reality is we have to understand what how God views us. One of the hardest things I think for us to do is to view ourselves the way God views us. I think we would look at ourselves wildly differently. That gets us to the the ultimate point of consciousness because every other point of consciousness is performative. I have to act like this around my kids because I don't want them to have bad habits. Have to treat my wife this way. And and and so part of that's behavioral training and we have to have that. I have to treat my wife this way. I have to all right. I have to dress this way. I have to act this way in public. Those are all good. It's performative. But the reality is that until our conscious, our center of consciousness extends to God. And we understand that God is the one that we truly answer to. We don't answer to our kids, our wives, our family, our bosses. We answer to God until we truly realize that, till it seeps into us. Yes, sir. Oh, okay. Yeah. Until until it seeps into us and we become we find that whole that wholeness of understanding that that the only way that we can appear before God is to be made new before God. And then having enough ability to lay down those things that we do not deem right to put before God because that's the hard part. Well, I've got this part, God. He's all right, but what what else do you got? Well, I got this part, God. And and being willing to allow God to work step by step on us, right? It's progressive. This is not it's not something that we wake up being able to do every day or just tomorrow. But it is progressive. It's directional. God, help me be what you would have me to be. Yes, sir. somebody's basically categories. Yeah. Which is really long. That's what culturally or socially is one of those categories. The ultimate mark of growth and understanding connectivity to God is open consciousness. And part of that is understanding where your identity is and how much of that you do know how much of that you dictate your actions, your behaviors, your thought. So if you're caught up in pride, It will allow you to truly join with your spouse in a way that says Ice was now the two now my decisions are not just decisions but also now because we are now it's not my decision it's our example picture of the need to to reorient where we where we get our identity from and that's from God says we are not who we think we are. I agree. I do think I'm trying to tonight. So I want us to at least in that process to at le all all right. So you could also uh I want say Max Lo calls it five levels of leadership or something. There's there's a thousand different ways to look at this. It's the same progressive nature of consciousness. We have to realize where we are, what drives us, what our what our motivators are in order to know that that's not where we should stay. Because if it's a check box or a checklist, well, you know what? She wanted me to do this and you know, there has been peace in my home since this because you know, I I satisfied that or you know, she wanted me to. And the reality is it's more than a checkbox. That's what it has to be. It has to be our being.

Have you have you guys ever been around someone who it seemed like everyone around them, not because they were popular or handsome or whatever, but that everyone around them was kind of elevated a little bit. And I mean that in a in a personality sense. Maybe maybe they're able to financially help their whole family. they're able to whatever it is. I think of and and and to help picture this, I think of Dave Ramsey. Dave Ramsey came up with a formula. He's not a genius. He's he's good at what he does and he stays in it. He does it well and he helps others with it and he pays his ties and he does all those things. He helped those around him. He He found something. He's like, "All right, this is what this is what's God's calling out of me based on my behavior. this is how I do this. Now, we can all follow Dave Ramsey's plan. It's a pretty decent plan, pretty good plan, pretty hard plan. But the reality is he didn't keep it to himself. His center of consciousness said, "You know what? I found a good thing. Let me see if I can help others with it." So, part of that is is being man enough to to think of others, right? That's that's one of that first steps of of coming of figuring out where our of our motives are. There's a reason why James 1:27 says pure religion and undefiled before God and the father is to is to minister or to help the widows and the fatherless and their affliction because they cannot help you. That's servant leadership. those that can do nothing for you serving them. That gets us outside of oursel. That's why when we send a when when a kid goes on a missionary trip, a 10-day missions trip or whatever to another world, to them another world, they have no point of of consciousness of that world, of the needs that exist in that. Okay. I can still remember going to the Philippines and there's a baby, a naked baby just laying on the sidewalk in front of McDonald's. I don't know why it was laying there. There didn't seem to be someone, but it was just like, oh, all right. And just that's that world. But that's a point of consciousness there that exists. Now, the parents were probably right there because the baby wasn't there later, you know. I don't know. I don't know what happened to it. But that's a point of consciousness of okay, the world's not all just sunshine and rainbows. Part of part of being a man is not just being hit with reality. It's understanding reality and then saying, you know what? I can change reality. Because I believe that's what God's called every one of us to do. He's calling us out of ourselves, not to hide from it, not to numb it, not to just say, "This world's going to hell in a hand basket." He's called out of us to make a difference in our world. I don't know what that looks like for you, but I know I I don't know fully what it looks like for me, but I know as I hear the voice and the call of God, as I as I take a step, and God's like, "Yep, that's that's in the footsteps." or I take a misstep. And he said, "No, that's not in the footsteps." It's okay. Take a back step, go forward. Right. His word is a lamp into to my feet, a light into my path. There's a reason the psalmist wrote that. Ah, okay. That's why your word says that. How many How many think differently than they thought 10 years ago? Yeah. Yeah. And if you still think the same, then you haven't grown. That's the idea. I mean, Elder, you think a little differently than you thought 30 years ago? Oh, yeah. That's part of that, right? Some of that's just time. Some of it is searching internally.

Would you guys stand with me real quick? I'm going to going to close us out, but let's pray together. Jesus, I love you. And God, I thank you, Lord, so much for your kindness, your goodness, and your mercy. God, I pray, Lord, that you would help us, God, not to just act and react in an observed manner, God, but Lord, help us, God, to follow after you. God, help us, Lord, to to change our nature, God, to allow you to change our nature, Lord, to be the men that you're calling us to be, God, to be holy and righteous men. Men that the ripple effects of our lives affect others. It changes others for the better. It It lifts It lifts all the other boats around us, God. Lord, help us to be godly men, holy men, righteous men, God. Not men of our own selves, but God, men that you can be proud of, you can trust your word in. God, I pray Lord that you would help us, Lord, to walk after you. God, help us, Lord, to our let our centers of consciousness expand, God. Let us realize the effects that we have on others and and shoulder it and be okay with it. God, give us the strength. God, I pray, Lord, that you would give the men the spiritual understanding that the practical is spiritual. God, I thank you and I praise you in Jesus name. Amen.