Unless the Lord Builds the House - Leaders' Talks

How many of you have heard a story of someone who has lost everything and then found God's purpose for their lives?

Sometimes God's intervention is, oh, I gotta go wipe all this out, all these things they're protecting, I gotta get this stuff out of here so that they can begin to actually live lives.

So unless God is the chief builder of whatever it is you're building, you're wasting your time building.

At The Road, our vision is to raise up wholehearted disciples of Jesus Christ.

For more information on the road, visit theroad.org.

We hope you are encouraged by today's message.

Psalm 127, verse 1.

Psalms 127:1

Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it.

Unless the Lord guards the city, the watchman stays awake in vain.

It is in vain that you rise early to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows, for he gives his beloved sleep.

Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord.

The fruit of the womb is a reward.

Like arrows in the hands of a warrior, so are children in one's youth.

Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them.

They shall not be ashamed, but shall speak with their enemies in the gate.

Now, as we dive into this, I want to look at what you're building.

I want you to think right now, what is my life about?

If I ask you right now, hey, what's the vision statement for your life?

The reality is most of us would struggle to give us the vision statement.

If you've ever worked for an organization that is leadership driven and that is moving forward, then you understand the elevator speech of your vision, right?

They always talk about the elevator speech.

You know what that means, right?

You get caught on an elevator, it's awkward.

The elevator is the only place where everyone immediately becomes mute.

And they just, it's it's almost like being in a public restroom.

You just look forward, don't say nothing, get out of there as quick as you can.

That's the elevator is kind of like that, right?

And then as soon as you walk out, it's like it was killing you to be that quiet because it's like it's like you couldn't breathe, so you just come out and you just start talking immediately.

As soon as you step out of the elevator.

Well, the elevator speech is when you have 30 seconds with someone that you don't know, how do you tell them about your organization and its values?

You should be able to do it in 30 seconds.

Organizations are so serious about that because they're trying to get somewhere and they want everyone on the same page.

Well, we should have that in our lives.

What is your life about?

Like, what's your mission and vision statement of your life?

When you get up in the morning, what do you what is your mind turned to?

What do you got to get done?

What are you trying to accomplish?

What does a successful year look like?

How do you hit your goals?

All of these kind of things come from your value system, whatever's important to you.

And in verse one, it reminds us this unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it.

Unless the Lord guards the city, the watchmen stay awake in vain.

So unless the Lord is driving that mission, that vision, that what you're putting your hands to, you're wasting your time.

This whole chunk of scripture teaches us three things.

Number one, unless the Lord is the chief builder of whatever you're building, you're wasting your time.

Number two, unless the Lord is the chief builder of whatever you're building, you're exhausting yourself unnecessarily.

And number three, unless the Lord is the chief builder of whatever you're building, you're missing out on what you could be building.

And I want to dive through these one at a time.

So verse one says, unless the Lord builds a house, they labor in vain who build it.

Unless the Lord guards a city, the watchman stays awake in vain.

So unless the Lord is the chief builder of whatever you're building, you're wasting your time.

What are you putting your time and energy to?

Go, if you will, to 1 Corinthians chapter 3, verse 10 through 15.

1 Corinthians 3:10–15

So whatever's important to you, whatever you're putting your hands to, whatever you're building, it will go through a couple of tests.

And the first test is 1 Corinthians.

Actually, this is the last test, but this is the first test I'm going to talk about today.

1 Corinthians 3, verses 10 through 15.

1 Corinthians 3:10–15

According to the grace of God which was given to me as a master builder, I have laid a foundation and another builds on it.

But let each one take heed how he builds on it, for no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

Now, if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each one's work will become clear, for the day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test each one's work of what sort it is.

If any one's work which he has built on endures, he will receive a reward.

If anyone whose work is burned, he will suffer loss, but he himself will be saved, yet as one through the fire.

So there's going to come a day for all of us that what you said was important with your life, what I said was important with my life, what I spent my days and my concentration and my energy saying this is valuable.

There's going to come a day where God is going to send it through a refiner's test.

And at the end of the test, that's what was really important.

Whatever had Christ at the center of it, whatever was led by Christ, whatever Christ initiated in you because you were walking in the Lord, and God said, now do this.

That's super valuable.

I don't care how grandiose whatever we're building is, one day it's going to go through a fire, and there's a chance it can go through just like cotton candy goes through a rainstorm.

Nothing.

At the end of a day, nothing.

What are you building?

You building your career?

You're building your portfolio?

You're building your family.

You're building your NCAA bracket right now.

We all know.

That's a really good, that's a good illustration, by the way.

At the end, we all know how stupid that whole thing was.

This was a waste of my time.

Got one team left in here.

That's what it looks like to try to just imagine what you should be building instead of inviting God in and saying, God, how do we build this?

What do you want to do?

I remember when God told me that He wanted me to stand up in front of people and talk, I said, I'll do anything.

I'm not doing that.

I'll not do that because I don't like that.

And because I don't want to do that.

And the thing I wanted to do was be a basketball coach.

But the day that God spoke, I wept.

I mean, I really wept.

And the reason why I wept is because I knew God spoke.

And I knew it was done.

And so I had a choice in that time to say, forget it.

I'm going to be a basketball coach anyway.

Or to say, okay, God, I had a big vision for my life.

And now it's gone.

Cotton candy in a rainstorm.

I'm going your route.

And I've not regretted going his route.

And you won't either.

As you begin to go God's route, you'll begin to see some confirmation of, hey, I should be doing this.

So whatever you're building needs to be built based on what God says is valuable, what God says is important, based on the plan that God has for you.

And whatever you're protecting may be protecting your retirement.

And the Lord may be laughing.

Not that preparing for retirement is bad.

Hear me.

But whatever you do, you should be praying to the Lord about it.

The Lord may be sitting here saying, you've got 33 days left.

You need to be investing in me.

Don't spend all of your energy protecting and protecting and protecting and protecting.

Some of us protect our children.

And you're actually harming your children in the way that you're protecting them.

So I listened to a young guy this week, he said, his biggest concern for this generation, the next generation of leaders, is that they have been conditioned not to take risk.

They have been conditioned not to do that.

And so unknowingly, sometimes we can protect to the place that we have this safety complex that we've put on the next generation of people that we lead.

It's not that you're dangerous and that you don't protect them in the ways that you should, but it is that you don't over-protect.

There's nothing safe about God.

God is not safe.

So when you stay awake and you protect and you protect and you protect all the things that you've built, you might be actually fighting against the Lord.

How many of you have heard a story of someone who has lost everything and then found God's purpose for their life?

Sometimes God's intervention is, oh, I gotta go wipe all this out, all these things they're protecting, I gotta get this stuff out of here so that they can begin to actually live life.

So unless God is the chief builder of whatever it is you're building, you're wasting your time building it.

It shouldn't be built.

Go to Matthew chapter 7, verse 24 through 27.

Matthew 7:24–27

And while you're doing that, I'll give you a quote from Peter Drucker.

Peter Drucker says, there is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.

There's nothing so useless as making sure you are doing efficiently the thing that didn't need to be done in the first place.

You mean to tell you something that is super easy in our culture?

Yes.

Yes is easy.

Yes is we say it without thinking about it.

Hey, will you lead this Bible study?

Yes.

Hey, will you come over to my house and pray over us?

Yes.

Hey, my friend is struggling.

Can you go?

Yes.

Hey, you want to join us?

We're doing such and such.

It's only a four-week commitment.

Yes.

Hey, you want to give$29.99 a month?

You get an extra TV channel.

Yes.

So easy to say yes.

You know what's hard?

No.

No.

One of my favorite distant mentors, meaning they don't know me.

I just follow them.

I read their books.

I subscribe to their podcasts.

There's this guy, he talks about saying no.

He said saying no might be the thing that makes you more successful than anything.

The power of success actually lies more in what you say no to than it does in what you say yes to.

Because you don't have infinite time.

And he describes a lion tamer in a circus.

He said, You ever wonder why a lion tamer walks around with a stool?

I mean, why not a club?

Why not a gun?

Anything but a stool.

And he points at him like this.

And he said, Because a lion can only focus on one thing at a time.

And you're telling him four things is attacking you right now.

And he is paralyzed because he doesn't know what to attack.

So he just sits still and is tame and does nothing.

This is all the things that we say yes to.

And we're fruitful at none of them.

Because we've said yes too much.

And we're not actually able to build anything.

Because we've got ten sets of blueprints in front of us, and we want to conquer the world, and really the world is kicking our teeth in because we can't just come to grips with this.

We're not God.

We're not infinite.

Our time is not infinite.

I had the pleasure of going to the hospital with one of our oldest members of our church this week.

And she's in hospice, and she's just going through the process of death.

And that lady made such an impact in our family.

Not because she conquered the world, not because she was some incredible entrepreneur, but because she was sweet.

She was kind.

This older lady, pray for her.

She's still in the hospital.

Her name is Dot.

Pray for her.

She would kiss me on my cheek every single Sunday.

That's valuable.

It seems not valuable, right?

It seems insignificant.

It's huge.

Sometimes the little things that you do that you think, oh, that's nothing.

It's not nothing.

And sometimes the big things that you're aspiring for, and you think that's going to put my name on the map.

It won't.

It really is about being in the center of the Lord's will and being the person you're supposed to be.

Makes a massive, massive impact.

But you got to be able to say, no.

No, I'm not going to do 20 things.

Because I'm walking in the Lord.

And if I say yes to one more thing, I can't even read my Bible now.

I can't even get up in the morning.

I don't even have 20 more minutes to spare anymore.

Because I just told you I'd be there at 4 o'clock in the morning.

And I cannot do that.

And that actually comes from a vision that you have that what God builds is more important.

And you'll want that.

Because let's do look at Matthew chapter 7, 24.

Matthew 7 · chapter mention

It says, therefore, whoever hears these sayings of mine and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on a rock.

And the rain descended, and the flood came down, and the winds blew, and it beat on that house, and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock.

But everyone who hears these sayings of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand, and the rain descended, the floods came down, the winds blew, and it beat on that house, and it fell, and great was its fall.

The thing that has always intrigued me is the storm is exactly the same, word for word, comma for comma, period for period.

There's no difference in the storm.

You might be going through the exact same storm that others are going through, but you're holding up because you're building on the word.

And you're like, oh, I've seen this before.

I had a mentor of mine this week tell me, hey, you need to reprogram your mind.

You need to look at scripture and reevaluate where you are.

And then Michael gave a talk during a leader devotion about how God said Peter was the rock.

And in that I've just felt my spirit, the Lord saying, Bobby, who you believe, what you believe about me does not shape me, it only shapes you.

And I'm telling you, you're the rock.

You build on me and you're solid.

Quit worrying.

And so I have to choose to believe God's word.

And then that makes me able to really accomplish some great things.

So I say yes to things without thinking, and I'm not able to build on God's word.

It's easier to say yes than it is to say no.

It is like having a root canal to say no to the thing that you said yes to.

So it's easy to say yes.

It's hard to say no.

It's like having a root canal to go back and say, I know I told you yes, but actually it's no.

So pray through what you're building.

Pray through what you're giving your time to.

God is the only one that's infinite, and God is the only one that has an unlimited amount of time.

If he tells you to do this, you do that.

But you have to do it based on the word.

So let's keep going.

He said, it is in vain that you rise up early to sit up late and to eat the bread of sorrow, for he gives his beloved sleep.

Man, is sleep good.

You don't know until you have gone through a season of no sleep.

When you have not slept in a long, long time.

I went for a season, you can ask my wife, of probably six months or more, where I averaged about two hours of sleep a night.

And finally it was doing some neurological damage.

And I went to the doctor and I was like, hey, I'm like whacked out.

My chest hurts.

I can't hold a pencil anymore.

I'm weird.

And the doctor was like, Well, do you have any stress in your life?

And I just started laughing.

So I began to forget that she was my doctor and talked to her like she was my counselor.

And she said, You know what?

I can prescribe you medicine, but I'm gonna do this instead.

Whatever you're worried about, stop it.

It's not worth it.

She said, all the medicine in the world is not gonna help you if you don't go to sleep.

You've got to sleep.

Here's the problem with building and investing in things that we shouldn't build and invest in.

We stay up and we worry about them.

That's right.

Is your job keeping you awake?

That's a sure sign that you haven't given it to the Lord.

I know, I walked in a job like that.

I thought every day how can I be successful?

How can I finally be somebody?

And the Lord's over there saying, you already are somebody.

Who told you?

Who told you you were naked?

Who told you you weren't somebody?

Where'd you hear that from?

And why did you believe that?

And I'm sitting over here just trying to be somebody, trying to be somebody.

And my kids are talking to me.

I don't have time right now.

I'm trying to be somebody.

And my wife wants to go out on a date.

I don't have time for that.

I'm trying to be somebody.

And God says, hey, I need to talk to you.

I don't have time.

I'm trying to be somebody.

All the while I stay up at night worried about being somebody.

I think in general, hard workers go to bed early and get up early.

I think in general, now in general, slackers and creatives, Michael, go to bed late and get up late.

But I think people who do not trust God go to bed late and wake up early.

Because they're trying to be somebody.

And I'm telling you, if that is who we are, you're wearing yourself out unnecessarily.

I want to show you a piece of scripture.

If you will, go to Matthew chapter 6, verse 22 through 34.

Matthew 6:22–34

It says, No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be loyal to the one and despise the other.

You cannot serve God in mammon, or you cannot serve God in money.

Therefore I say, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, what you will drink, nor about your body and what you will put on it.

Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?

Some people could not answer that yes.

I mean, I think that really is a call to priority.

You think life is about eating?

To some people it is.

You think life is about looking good?

To some people the answer to that would be yeah, life's about looking good.

And he was a man, you need to get some depth to your life.

But then he says, look at the birds of the air, for neither they sow nor reap, or gather into barns, yet your heavenly father feeds them.

Here's another question.

Are you not more valuable than they?

I think you have to answer that question.

I don't think you can just fly past it.

I think to truly get rest, you have to say, Am I not more valuable than the birds of the air?

You are.

You are.

You're not just more loved, you're more valuable.

God's spirit is in you if you're a follower of Christ.

If you're not a follower of Christ, I want to tell you right now, God died on a cross to say you're more valuable than the birds.

When man sinned, God slaughtered an animal to cover their sin.

You're more valuable.

So why do you worry about clothing?

Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow.

They neither toil nor spin, and yet, I say to you, not even Solomon in all of his glory was arrayed like one of these.

Now, if God so clothed the grass of the field, which today is here and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not more clothe you, O you of little faith?

Again, that doesn't mean you don't put forth the effort to work.

God has something to say about people that don't work, too.

But it means you don't obsess over it.

Therefore, do not worry, saying, What shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or what shall we wear?

After all, all these things the Gentiles seek, for your heavenly Father knows that you need them, but seek first the kingdom of heaven and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things.

Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

So if you're worried about what you're building, you should instead surrender what you're building to the Lord.

You might be building exactly what you're supposed to be building, but you're so obsessed and worried about it.

Just surrender it.

Just surrender it over to the Lord.

Otherwise, you're robbing yourself of deep and great sleep.

I used to travel around the country speaking and rapping and doing all that kind of stuff.

And my I had a singer and a DJ that was always with me.

And my DJ liked to drive, but here was the problem.

I can't trust anybody else to drive.

Even when I'm exhausted and I get in the passenger side, I'll close my eyes for like a few seconds and I'll feel the car jerk and I'll go, you alright?

You okay?

You alright, man?

And then I find myself being more awake when I'm supposed to be sleeping than I would be when I was driving because I'm so concerned that this guy's gonna kill me.

When the reality is he's a better driver than I am.

I'm just a control freak.

So when Heather drives on a long road trip, it's super hard for me to go to sleep.

But I gotta be able to trust, nah, she's a good driver.

Well, the Lord is the best driver.

So when God says, hey, you just lay over there and get some sleep, how foolishness, how foolish is it of me to stay awake to make sure God's doing a good job.

You good?

You alright?

Keep it between the lines, man.

You alright?

It's not have anything to do with God's ability, has everything to do with I can't trust the Lord.

And if you can't trust the Lord with what's being built, here's the deal: He's not the one building you are.

If he's building, you should be able to relax.

What does he say?

Learn from me.

Come unto me, I'll give you rest.

My yoke is easy.

My burden is light.

The burden he was talking about was dying on a cross.

How is that possibly light?

It's not that the job's easy, it's just that it's not his job.

He's saying, I trust you with the job, Lord.

I trust you with it.

I depend on you for my strength, and I walk in you with it.

Now I want to go on and I want to look at the end of this.

It says, verse 3, Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord.

Fruit of the womb is a reward.

Like arrows in the hands of a warrior, so are the children of one's youth.

I don't know about you, but when I was reading this and I've read it multiple, multiple, multiple times, I always felt like whoever edited this, whoever put titles in the Bible, messed up here.

Because it doesn't seem to make sense.

It says, unless the Lord builds a house, you're laboring in vain.

Unless the Lord stands guard, you're watching in vain.

And then he says, you need to sleep.

You need to get some rest.

Don't be so anxious.

Children are a blessing.

That's weird.

The way it is laid out is weird, but you know what was weird?

Actually, I'm weird.

I'm weird that I didn't understand this all along.

Just another good example that God's always right and I'm always catching up.

Look at this.

Unless the Lord builds a house.

You can only build so many things at one time.

So you're staying up and you're working and you're anxious and you're trying to build a house and you're trying.

God says, unless God's building it, you're wasting your time.

Unless God's building it, you're wearing yourself out.

And the whole while my kids are coming to me.

And they're saying, Dad, can we play?

I don't have time, man.

Dad, can we play?

Not now, I'm tired.

And God is saying, Oh, the best thing that you could possibly be building is standing in front of you right now asking for your time.

And because you're out of priority, you're looking at the greatest privilege God could possibly be giving you.

And you're saying, I don't have time.

I'm building.

I'm tired.

I've been building.

And God says, children are a blessing.

They are not in your way.

They are not keeping you from building.

And if that's what we think, we totally miss the privilege.

It reminds me of when the disciples told all the kids, y'all get out of here.

God's doing big work.

And Jesus just gets red in the face and says, you bring them here and y'all go do something.

I want time with my kids.

I want to be with the kids.

And he said, This is not a waste of time.

Shame on you.

This is not a waste of time.

Now listen to me, this is not just a good speech.

This is not just some flowery words.

This is for real.

This is the best thing you could possibly be building.

If you have kids, invest in them.

Because it's, they're going to outlive you.

And the best thing that could happen is you could invest in them and teach them to invest, teach them to value kids.

Because you're outliving yourself.

So let me give you an example that he gives in scripture.

He says in verse 4, like arrows in the hands of a warrior are children of one's youth.

They're valuable.

Let me tell you why kids are valuable.

They're valuable because they're fun.

Man, kids are fun.

They're fun because they'll say stuff that you think and they'll say it out loud.

And then you still get the adult look to be able to say, hey, hey, hey, we don't say that.

But inside, your kid person inside is like, but that is funny.

But my daughter asked me because of the work that the middle school group is doing.

My daughter asked me this weekend if I could take her out on a date.

And I said, Yeah, let's go out on a date.

And Miss Amanda from Lighthouse gave her a sheet that she was supposed to go out on the date with.

And she said, the sheet went something like this: here's what I appreciate about you as a dad.

What could I improve on as a daughter?

What could I add value to the family by doing?

What are some of my blind spots?

And we just had, she don't, I'm just gonna tell you, she doesn't have too many blind spots.

And so we're sitting there and we're drinking coffee because I'm cheap.

So we're drinking coffee and we're playing cards, and people are looking at us like, oh, isn't that sweet?

Daddy daughter on a little date.

And she said, Dad, you know what'd be funny?

Like if you acted like you were mad right now and you just got up and turned the table over and you started yelling at me like, you're cheating! You're cheating, because we're in public.

I was like, dude, that would be hilarious.

That'd be awesome.

You can only get that from hanging out with younger people.

Here's another thing.

Kids are a blessing because believe it or not, they are just as capable, even at the age they are, of exceeding anything that you could build.

Young people, you're capable of building anything.

Don't wait till you're older.

One of the reasons why I like being the youth pastor, as I say, kids are like sponges, adults are like rocks.

Kids just soak it up.

You just pouring your heart out to these kids, and they're like soaking it up.

And adults, it just kind of runs off their back.

And here's why.

Adults have already made so many decisions that the amount of work they would have to do to turn around and go actually build what God wanted to build all along, they're like, not even worth the energy.

I just don't have it in me to undo all the stuff I've done.

If an adult comes to you and says, I've messed up my life, there's a good chance they messed up their life.

If a kid comes to you and said, I messed up my life, usually my advice is stop doing that and give it three months.

Usually that'll solve the problem.

Young people are able to accomplish so much, man.

I've sat with 12-year-olds and worked with them, and they've raised$50,000 to provide surgeries for kids around the world by themselves, selling cake pops.

I've seen young people do more than adults, hands down.

You have some really cool people in your house.

Now you should have them come and be a part of what we're doing here at this church.

But the last thing that I like is he says, like arrows, in the hands of a warrior, are children in the hands of their parents.

Blessed is the one whose quiver is full of them.

Listen, what I can do with this in cooperation with this is incredible.

It's far more than I can do with just this.

At least with an arrow, I can do this.

But this is not much.

And what the Bible is saying is, and I'm not going to do it, but what the Bible is saying is if you have the vision, and if you have the ability, and if you're wise enough to see the value of your children, they're more valuable than the CEO of any company.

If you're wise enough to see it, you can know.

Whoa, if I can cooperate, I can live beyond my life.

I can go where I could never go on my own.

But the arrow and the bow have to cooperate.

Parents, you're the bow.

Kids, you're the arrow.

Kids, listen to me.

Young people, even young adults, listen to me.

Respect this.

Respect it.

Go to your parents and say, I think you can get me somewhere that I can't get on my own.

I got any blind spots?

What do you see that I'm capable of?

But I'm standing in the way.

Honor your father and mother that your days may be long.

But leaders, adults, see the value in these things.

You gotta see the value in them.

They're probably better than what is keeping you from giving them your time.

They're probably better than that.

Now, I've asked Jeff Madole to come up here.

Because just looking at that thing kind of scares me a little bit.

We're gonna end on this, but just looking at this kind of scares me a little bit.

So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna move this.

Is that where you want it?

Let me get out of the way.

Can you light this up as good as possible?

Wait till I say go.

I'm hold on.

I told I told our security guy, now there's gonna be a guy come up here with a bow and arrow.

Don't shoot him.

I'm good.

All right, you guys kind of stand up and scoot over so you can see.

I've been so terrified.

And I asked Jeff this morning, I said, Hey, you're gonna hit that target, right?

He's like, Yeah, I'll be fine.

I got scared because it looked pretty small.

I was hoping for something like here's the deal, guys.

When I asked him, do you got it?

He said, Yeah, yeah, I got it.

I'm fine.

I I I know my bow.

I know my arrows.

I'm gonna hit the target.

And all the while I'm thinking, I could never hit the target.

It could never happen.

Listen, I'm not gonna shoot you at the thing, don't worry.

We need these.

This is what we need.

This is what we need to be.

And for many of us, I say us because I don't even know where it's at.

I say us because this is where we are.

What that did, this could never do.

But guys, we can upgrade.

You can upgrade.

If you're not building what God wants you to build, you're wasting your time.

If you're building something and you know God is saying, that's not who I called you to be.

That's not what you're supposed to be building.

You're exhausting yourself.

You're worrying for nothing.

And if you're not building what God has called you to build, you're missing on what you could do.

I want you to look at your kids right now.

I want you to get a vision.

I don't care if your kids are 40.

Get a vision.

I'm serious.

Get a vision.

You're more important to them than they realize you are.

You're more important to them than you realize you are.

Get a vision for your kids.

Now, there's people in this room right now that are saying, I don't have any kids.

I don't care.

Do you think that exempts you out of having a vision?

You think that exempts you from being a warrior?

Listen, if you just walk through any hunting range, any target area, you see these laying everywhere.

They shoot just fine.

If you pick them up, it doesn't matter if they're yours or not.

You can still shoot them.

They'll still shoot.

Listen, my bus driver, when I got on the bus, he said, There's an arrow.

I didn't meet my father until I was 20.

My bus driver said, There's an arrow.

My uncle, when I cussed my teacher out, called me to his house and he looked me in the eyes.

He said, I'm ashamed of you.

He said, You're an arrow.

And that got me in line.

Some of the greatest people in my life are not my blood relation.

There's students in this room right now who are saying, I wish I had a bow.

But I don't have anybody to send me out.

We're a mentoring and discipleship church.

You should be able to look and say, I'll send you out.

Let's have coffee.

I'll send you out.

Let's play basketball.

I'll send you out.

But I'm going to look you in the face.

I'm going to tell you the truth.

Even as early as this next month, we're doing something called D now.

And it's discipling young people for a weekend.

We need host homes for that.

You can say, hey, you can stay at our house.

We'd be glad to invest in you.

There's students in this room.

Parents, you need to look at your students and say, you need to go to that.

You're going to become a sharper arrow.

You need to go to that.

We're going to develop you, mind, heart, strength, soul.

You say you need to go to that.

And there's students in this room who don't have a bow.

They don't have a bow.

And so when I'm asking them, hey, are you coming to D now?

They have a look on their face that's like, oh, I'd like to, and I know exactly what's coming next.

But I don't have the money.

There's people in this room right now that you could say$75 for a weekend.

Totally.

Just write the check.

Put D now in the bottom and drop it off as you go.

Listen, there's things that we're doing in our church to help develop you as a bow.

Steve's God wild marriage.

Grab it, read it, invest in your marriage.

Stu, in his next outlier class, he's using this book, A Practical Guide to Culture, helping the next generation navigate today's world.

If you say, hey, I'm not that, I'm this.

Go to Stu's class.

Find a mentor.

Dive in on Thursday nights when we have youth at 6 o'clock.

One of our outlier classes is on breakthrough relationships.

Show up.

Invest.

So some of you wives, as we close right now, some of you wives, I want you to look at your husbands and say, you need to upgrade.

You can just do it like this.

They'll know what it means.

Some of you husbands, look at your wives and say, hey, you need to upgrade.

Some of you kids, today, don't do it right now, it'll be embarrassing in front of everybody.

But today, on the way home, tell your kid, tell your parents, hey, I'm depending on you as my bow.

And some of you parents, as you're driving home, look at your kids and say, hey, you're a pretty sharp arrow.

I believe in you.

Now, for the rest of us, I want us to look at students or anyone that doesn't have someone that can do this in their life and say, hey, I'll be your bow.

I'll send you out.

And if you're building anything that distracts you from this, you're not building the way the Lord wants you to build.

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