Men's Night | Session 3 - Garry Blackmon

What'd you get the Lord a hand of praise tonight?

Amen.

Hey, I am so excited to be with you guys again.

I'm thankful to your pastor for inviting me.

I don't know if I said this before, but you know, in golf, you know, uh Chief Flanagan, who was one of our chiefs in the fire department, um, and I was under his leadership and I didn't know how to play golf, and he gave me some golf club and showed me some of the etiquettes and things around the golf course.

And so I went out to play in my first tournament without him.

So all of a sudden I got on the first tee with some friends, and man, I swung and missed the ball the second time I hooked it and it just went.

And one guy says, Man, you have any mulligans?

I said, What are mulligans?

He said, They do over.

I said, Yeah, I'm about 10 of those at the thing because I was too, I was too ashamed to tell people I didn't know what mulligan was, so I bought a lot of them.

But I'm thankful to your pastor that he got me a mulligan.

I came back that did it right over.

So thanks for having me tonight.

Amen.

Hey, I'm excited that you guys, I know it's been a long day for you guys, and you guys have been to church and you've been out five.

So I want to guard your time and I want to guard our time together tonight.

Here's what I want to talk to you guys about.

We talked about, your pastor talked about leadership and leading your families and leading and uh at least talked about leading your faith, but but I want to talk about tonight how do you lead yourself well?

How do you lead you?

One of the most important things about leadership is how well you lead yourself.

When I think about that, I know I've been in ministry and serving in leadership and pastor for a lot of times, different ministries, and I've been serving as a senior pastor for a little over two decades, uh, you know, 20 years or more.

And and I discovered a truth, and that is oftentimes we don't have a realistic view of ourselves.

We have been endowed with a great ability to size up others rather than how we size up ourselves.

Anybody say that's true?

We can look at other people and say, I know how they're doing and not doing, but it's hard for us to size up us.

It's that, it's the mural principle.

We can see this stuff in other people, but we don't know how to examine ourselves.

And so tonight, what I want to do, I want to be able for you and I to take a realistic look, an accurate view of ourselves, and understand what are my personal difficulties that I challenge with on a consistent basis.

Watson, Thomas J.

Watson, the founder, chairman of the IBM, said this.

He says, nothing so conclusively proves a man's ability to lead others as what he does from day to day in leading himself.

Really doesn't matter, Hillary Beans, what leadership capacity you are in, if you don't know how to lead you.

You are the most important thing about your leadership abilities is how do you lead it?

The bottom line is the smallest crowd you will ever lead is the most important, and that's you.

Amen.

So we're gonna look at the night as your pastor, you know, gave me this assignment tonight, and so the first thing I thought about when he asked me to speak, and especially in the area of how do you lead yourself well, what came to me and God gave me is the story of Joseph.

The story of Joseph came to me, and I was a fascinating story because you can get so many principles from the life of Joseph.

Joseph was the uh next to the youngest son of Jacob.

And when you think about leadership, if you're in this room, you say, Pastor, really, I didn't, and I'm gonna read the scripture in a minute from Genesis.

Really, I don't have, I didn't haven't, I haven't had any good role models.

I haven't had enough leadership in the front of me to know how to lead.

For me, my dad left uh home at when I was 10 years old, and my mother raised eight kids by herself, and so I didn't have a role model to lead.

And so I don't I don't know how to lead well, let's not lead myself.

Well, when you look at the story of Joseph, and we're gonna read uh Genesis 39, verse 2 and 6, it is fascinating the manifest principles that come from his life in leading well.

Genesis 39:2

Look what it says in Genesis chapter 39, verse 2 through 6.

Genesis 39:2–6

And the Lord was with Joseph, and he became a successful man, and he was in the house of his Egyptian master.

His master saw that the Lord was with him, and that the Lord caused that, caused that everything he did to succeed in his hands.

Verse 4 says, So Joseph found favor in his sight and attended him, and he made him overseals of his house and put him in charge of all that he had.

From that time that he made him overseer in his house, and all that he had, the Lord blessed, watch this, the Egyptian's house for Joseph's sake.

The blessing of the Lord was on him and his house in his field.

Verse 6.

So he left all that he had in Joseph's charge and became, and because of him, he had no concern about anything except what he ate.

When you think about the life of Joseph, he had no role models.

His father wasn't a role model.

As a matter of fact, his father had four wives and twelve sons and daughters.

Really, sons alone.

So his father really wasn't a role model.

His brother, his older brother wasn't a role model to him.

His name was Reuben.

You know anything about Reuben?

Reuben slept with his stepmother.

He had two brothers who weren't a role model.

Their name was Simeon and Levi.

They took revenge because the Shelemites, I mean uh Shechemites, they had raped his sister Diana, so they killed the whole village of men.

So they wasn't role models.

The man, his boss, uh Potiphar, wasn't a role model.

So Joseph didn't have any role model.

The one thing that Joseph had is he had something that God placed in him as a young boy that's at 12 years old.

And here's the first principle I want to give to you on how do you lead yourself well.

The first thing you need to understand is that personal identity is more important than positional influence.

Here's what it means: the who is more important than the do.

Who you are, your identity is more important than what you do in life.

Amen, Pastor.

You gotta talk back to me.

Because if you don't, time gonna just linger on.

Because I can talk, because if you get five minutes.

But listen to this: if I don't know who I am, it doesn't matter what I do.

Let me illustrate that point.

You're gonna help me here tonight, okay?

As men, when we first meet somebody for the first time that we have never met before, what is the first thing you ask that guy?

Who?

Say it louder.

What do you do?

Why is that?

Why do we ask them that question?

What do you do?

I can tell you why.

Two reasons.

Because here's what we want to make sure it's called the peckett order.

We want to see where you are and what you do to determine where I stand in my relationship with you, and I just met you.

Because we think that identity is tied into what you do and not who you are.

If you were to say, I'm a doctor, I'm a lawyer, I own my own company, then whoever you're talking with, they're sizing you up based on what you do.

Why don't we not ask the other question?

If we don't see a ring on their finger, why don't we ask them, are you living life celibate celibacy?

Are you sleeping around?

Why you are you that guy?

We think that that's rude.

You would just you just met him.

Why would you ask somebody a personal question like that?

Or do you ask them, if you're married, how are you treating your wife?

Huh?

Have you cheated on your wife?

I mean, you just miss me.

You can't ask me that question.

Because what we want to do, we want to determine is your identity, as I said earlier, is my significance in life is determined by what I do or who I am.

It's one thing about Joseph's life that can undoubtedly be known is that over and over again it says it's about Joseph.

That God was with Joseph.

God was with Joseph.

And so if you're gonna be men who lead yourself, you got to first establish who are you.

And can I help you if you're in Christ?

You are a new creation in Christ.

Amen.

Okay, what the old things are passed away, behold, all things become you.

God has created you in the mygo day.

That's the image of the living God.

You have God's stamp on you.

And when you discover who you are, because if you don't know who you are, listen, somebody's gonna come around and define who you are.

Amen.

And so solid, sustained leadership flows out primarily.

It's not your position of influence in society, but who you are.

And let me say this parenthetically: who you are by yourself is who you are when no one's watching.

Amen.

And God is trying to determine that in our own lives.

Most individuals think leadership starts with titles: CEO, president, coach, doctor, manager.

No, those are titles.

That is not who you are.

That's your position, maybe of influence, but it's not who you are.

And if we don't get that straight, we would let other people determine who we are based on what we do and not who God created us to be.

If you would ask Joseph, matter of fact, if you to go on Joseph's LinkedIn page, you know what you will find?

As he was applying for the position of head of Potter uh uh uh uh uh uh the the the Potiphar's house, you would find, first of all, that his LinkedIn page and his networks were experienced in slavery.

He was a slave.

And the second thing would be dreamer.

Let me ask you this question: would you hire him?

No, you wouldn't hire him.

And his social network wasn't that really good either.

The people that he hung around with got him thrown in a hole and eventually sold into slavery.

But one thing that you can say about Joseph, Joseph worked on building his character rather than his career.

Amen.

When it all said and done, at the end of life, it's gonna be defined, you're gonna be defined, your identity is gonna be found in who you are in Christ.

And as a chaplain of the fire department, I've I've buried a lot of people.

And I would go back, you know, one of the things I would do when they call for the chaplain, I would go and meet with the family if they wanted me to do the officiating of the funeral.

My my my you know pattern would be to go and speak with the family and just sit down with the family because if I didn't know the firefighter, then I would ask them, tell me about your grandfather, or tell me about your dad.

Give me some adjectives that describe him.

Well, he loves to hunt, he loved the fish, you know, he loved the you know, garden, or he loved the fix on his tractor, or he loved to be out in the yard.

And I say, just okay, tell me about who was your dad?

And everybody, maybe three or four of the sisters and the wife, they would pause for a moment and their mouth began to quiver.

You know, it's got an emotional time, and they start defining him as a loving father, a provider, a protector, a man that knew what he wanted to do and that cared for his family.

You see, all us, all the accolades, and they could have been the chief in the fire department, tested out on this, and had all the trophies on the wall, but at that moment nothing mattered to be identified as a godly father.

To get to heaven and hear God's voice says, Well done, good and vape for service, it doesn't get any better than that.

In Romans chapter 8, verse 29, the Bible says this about every man in here that knows God.

Romans 8:29

He says, We are conformed into the image of God.

Wow.

Focus on Him and His Word, and then the transformed power of Jesus Christ will make your life different.

So, how do you lead yourself?

Well, start with personal identity.

Who are you in Jesus Christ?

How do God seize you?

How do God seize you right now?

Not your wife, not your children, not your employer or employee, not any one of your children, not your pastor, but how does God seize you?

That's an easy question.

God sees me as his creation, created in Christ Jesus to do good works.

Yeah.

So the who comes before the do.

And I stand on this stage tonight because I am one of you in the sense that I want significance.

I want people to know who I am.

And I'm gonna work hard at it to get it.

And when they give it to me, I discovered that sometimes we are climbing the ladder of success and we get to the top and discover that the ladder is on the wrong building.

We worked all our life to get up there and look over and and we're in the wrong position.

And so it's about who you are.

Don't let anything or anyone define you or what God says about you.

Here's the second principle.

If you're gonna lead yourself well, it's about personal identity, but second of all, it's about private integrity and not public victories.

It's about integrity, it's about character.

One of the most powerful life principles from the life of Joseph is his life of integrity.

When he was made, and we read in the verse, is that Potiphar, when he hired him, he made him over, he had over everything that he owned.

He made him in charge of it, except that which he didn't eat.

That means his wife, his family, his fine, he had the keys to the treasure, he had keys to the jaguar, the rose, he had keys to everything.

And so one day Joseph was minding his own business, and Miss Potiphar saw him, and she said, She was a very aggressive.

Let me say something about being aggressive.

Listen, if I'm I'm being just honest with you.

Listen, for you you fathers with these young boys, let me tell you this.

And fathers who have young girls.

The girls are more aggressive than boys now.

You know, when I was in high school, I had to lie a lot.

Come on now.

Yeah, you know what I'm talking about.

I had to tell a lot to get something what I want, right?

Baby, I love you.

You know I love you, you know I love you, you know.

Come on, you know.

Mean, I always tell young girls about church, listen, if you see a guy doing all this, walk away.

Because he is lying.

Mean, you know.

So listen, God, my sons, they didn't have to do anything.

Because it was so great.

And Papa White was so aggressive, she grabs Joseph and says, lie with me.

Now listen, I think there's two things in that.

I think that's a sexual connotation, but I think that's some abuse with that as well.

Because remember, she is his boss.

She was forcing an employee to do something immoral.

And you know what Joseph says?

I won't do it.

Because he had integrity.

Integrity.

Character.

If you don't have integrity, you don't have anything.

Integrity is listen, is involved with this idea or has this idea that you have character and it can't be bought.

And Genesis chapter 39, verse 9 says this, now then I could do no such thing.

Genesis 39:9

This is Joseph talking to her.

I could do no such wicked thing and sin against God.

And though she spoke to Joseph day and day, he refused to go to bed with her because of his integrity.

See, Joseph led others publicly, but he led himself privately.

You are who you are when you by yourself.

Public leadership starts with integrity.

If you lead other people, you better make sure that how you're leading private privately dispels itself in public.

Joseph, Joseph didn't wait till he got to the palace before he started living a life of integrity.

He was living it all of his life.

It's only because God was with him.

Integrity involves practicing what you preach on a consistent basis.

The greatest gift you can give yourself, here it is, brothers.

Listen, note this it's honesty.

The greatest gift you can give yourself is to be honest.

Wow.

Because you will never be able to lead yourself as long as you lie to yourself.

Come on now, amen.

Now that's not originally from me.

I heard Anna Stanley say that.

If you can't have integrity and you don't have integrity, what will happen is eventually you will not be able to live with yourself long enough because you keep lying to yourself.

Proverbs tells us this a man without self-control is like a city broken in two and left with his walls ruined.

Let me ask you this question how is your city being kept?

If the walls of your life are not kept, then your life is broken.

It's a shamble.

And God is saying, listen, the city is, if you're if you're left open, vulnerable to life, then you're susceptible to all the things that come into life as you're not guarded.

I said in the in the panel if you don't have any accountability, if no one is holding and guarding your integrity in life, then you're an accident waiting to happen.

No man is an island to himself.

And let me say this because I used to think that I was stronger than those guys that failed.

But listen, I'm one step away from the next guy, given the opportunity.

Amen.

Because I know me.

Y'all don't know me, but I know me.

Don't, don't, listen.

I I I know me because listen, I'm kind of naive now because the older I get, I'm just not as I'm not into all.

But my wife says, Did you see that?

I said, What?

She's flirting with you.

What do you mean she flirted with me?

I ain't said nothing.

But I ain't see wise pick that stuff up.

I get on an elevator now, man.

I'm telling you, and the door opens, and somebody comes in.

In the words of the Ohio players, 24, 36, 24, old with a winning hand.

She's uh come on now.

And she gets on.

You know what I do?

I'm getting off.

I didn't need my flow.

I'm getting off.

No, no, no, no, no.

I'm playing that game.

You ain't gonna give me today.

Maybe tomorrow, but not today.

And they get on, hello.

No, no, no, goodbye.

I'm off.

I'm I wanna maintain.

Listen, brothers, listen, I wanna finish well.

I'm to the end of my life.

Almost, I'm not ready to die, but listen, I'm to the end, and I wanna finish well.

It only takes one compromising or uncompromising position for any one of us to fail on our jobs.

We have the keys, we have the responsibilities.

We're just one listen, uncompromising position away.

Your integrity is all that you have.

It used to be that your word was your what?

Your bond.

You hunt, you did a handshake.

You didn't have to write up no contracts and all that.

You stuck your hand out there and said, I'll be there tomorrow.

That's that was your word.

That's integrity.

Say what you mean and mean what you say and stick to it.

The problem is that we've allowed society to change who we are.

Amen.

So stand with integrity.

The Bible says stand with integrity.

And when we stand with integrity, we won't fall.

Andy Stanley said something in his book of Next Generation Leadership.

He said this, he made this statement.

He says, We are always one decision, one word, one reaction away from damaging what has taken years to develop.

Wow.

That's integrity.

That's integrity.

Here's two biblical tips.

Two biblical tips.

Write these down or take a mental note.

Two biblical tips of developing garlic character.

Here it is.

Hate what is evil and love what is good.

That's the first, that's the first biblical principle of developing godly integrity.

Here's the second one.

Don't keep bad company.

Amen.

Bad company corrupts good morals.

My mother didn't have a theological degree, she didn't finish college, but she had said and say.

She had a whole lot of sayings, but I remember she said this, son.

If you lay down with dogs, you're gonna get up with fleas.

Anybody else's mama said that?

Huh?

You hang around with bad people.

You you can't say to the law enforcement, but I didn't do it.

But you were around them, you're with them.

Mother had another saying, every tub is gonna set on its own bottom.

Young people said, What does that mean?

That means tubs back then they had the claw foots.

And so they set on their own bottom.

It's the same phrase as that, listen, you can't get on a flight unless you got your own ticket.

And no one, listen, God says, whoever you are, you make sure that your integrity will outlive you.

Let it be said that as a pastor, I tell my men and my congregation, I do not want to stand over you and lie or try to figure out something good to say about you.

Your name is the only thing you have, and so pass it along with integrity.

Amen.

Here's the third thing I'll give and I'll stop.

How did Joseph practice leading himself well?

The last thing he understood is God's divine purpose is greater than self-promotion.

Let me ask you this question.

I had lunch with my, well, dinner with my oldest son.

He's 30, Gary is 37.

We're having this talk.

I'm a coach now rather than dad.

So he's 37, he's an accounting for an executive, uh, small boutique executive firm in the galleria, and so he's thinking about dad, I'm tired of doing this, da da da da.

And I just coach him.

And I was talking to him the other day, and and we were talking about some things in life and and trying to trying to, you know, you know, see what transition he's trying to make.

And I stopped and asked him this question.

I say, son, why are you here?

He says, What do you mean why I'm here?

I invited you to dinner.

I says, No, that's not what I'm talking about.

Why are you here?

Dad, what are you talking about?

I said, I'll tell you what, the next week you need to come back to me and answer that question, why are you here?

Because, son, God has a purpose for your life.

Not just a purpose, but a divine purpose.

God had a divine purpose for Joseph.

Yes, he did.

Over and over again, you read the life of Joseph, and God was with Joseph.

And here's how I know that God had placed a divine purpose on Joseph's life as well as he did mine.

I didn't know it at 18, didn't know it at 20, didn't know it at 21.

It took me probably when I was 40 years old that I'd know I had a purpose in life, and I am fulfilling that purpose.

The Bible says Joseph's purpose was this in chapter 45 of Genesis, round about verse 5 through 9.

When his brothers that had sold him to slavery, and Joseph is now in command of all of Egypt.

He had been put in prison, Potiphar's wife lied on him, Potiphar put him in prison.

He stayed in prison two years, got out.

Well, the butler forgot about him, so he stayed an extra year.

But when he got out, he interpreted Pharaoh's dream.

And he says, if that's gonna happen, who am I gonna find to take care of all that these seven years?

And he says, I tell you what, you do it, Joseph.

And all of a sudden his brother showed up.

You know the story, if you read it.

And he, man, you talking about integrity.

Because I'm telling you right now, if my brother would have done that to me, oh, it's gonna be hell to pay.

Excuse me, Pastor.

Oh, it's gonna.

I'm just telling you, I'm being real, okay?

Y'all, y'all not getting away like that.

Oh no, y'all gonna suffer.

Yeah, I'm gonna make sure y'all suffer real bad.

But they came back and Joseph broke down.

Watch this.

The Bible says that Joseph says, What you guys meant for evil, God meant it for good.

Here's what it's in.

Because God wanted to save.

God did all that to use me to save a nation.

Watch this.

Watch this.

This is a powerful.

I didn't see this.

I preached this text many times, but I found thought last week when I was looking at it, just for you guys.

I start thinking, was he just talking about Israel?

Just saving Israel?

No.

Listen, because if Israel wouldn't have been saved, right?

Then David and all the, and then the Messiah wouldn't have come.

And if the Messiah wouldn't have come, salvation wouldn't have been offered.

You're talking about a divine purpose.

Here's the principle attached to that.

You're not here for yourself.

You're here to save and serve others.

The greatest purpose you can have in life is to give yourself away.

That's a divine purpose.

Some of you may not even discover, haven't even discovered your purpose in life.

Your purpose of the life is to see how, if you're a Christian man, to see how many people I can get into the kingdom of God while I'm here.

That's a divine purpose.

That's it.

And it starts with your family.

I'm working on getting my family.

Listen, I'm I'm just gonna be can I be transparent with you?

Listen, I come from a dysfunctional family.

I'll say it, I admit it.

This is not on tape, it's just on tape.

Don't let my brothers and sisters see it.

But they dysfunctional, man.

I'm telling you, they all whacked out.

But I'm trying my best to get them saved.

Not get them saved, but I'm always serving.

I'm all why you doing this, brother.

I just love you, bro.

I love you, bro.

I'm texting them.

I'm loving you, bro.

I text one of my brothers, hey man, I know you're going through something, bro, and I'm just praying for you.

You know what the text came back?

Said, whatever.

Man, God, you gotta give me another purpose.

That's not it.

No, it is.

Joseph brothers throwed him in prison, and later on it came in life, and Joseph broke down and says, I now know what you meant for evil.

God had a purpose.

What is your purpose?

Even tonight, I love your pastor.

I know you love your pastor, man, because it's a Sunday night.

You can be doing a whole lot of things.

But what is your purpose of being here tonight?

It's gotta be a divine purpose.

And listen, if you lead yourself well, you have to know why you're here.

God has something greater for you.

Some of you think, well, man, I reached it every night.

Pastor, I don't need anything else.

Yes, God has a profound purpose.

And this lesson teaches me and teaches you, no matter how circumstances or action, God will accomplish his purpose.

If you've fallen, get up.

If you miss the mark, brush yourself off and start again.

Don't stay there.

There is no weapon form to guess you shall prosper.

Nothing if you're in Christ.

He has given you everything you need to succeed in life.

God, listen to me.

God is with you.

The God of refuge is your strength.

Be men of strength, be men of integrity, be men of purpose, be men of true identity.

Amen.

And when we do that, the evidence of our life will be seen even when you leave.

They evidence your life, somebody will know that you passed this way.

Let me close with this.

This is a great, great verse.

And the Bible tells us, you know, three times in this verse in Genesis 45 and 5.

After his brothers came into Egypt, he revealed his identity to them.

Now that do not grieve or be angry yourself because you sold me into crates into slavery.

For God, here it is the first time.

For God sent me before you to preserve life.

Verse 7.

God sent me before you to preserve you of a remnant remnant on earth.

Verse 8.

Now therefore it was not you who sent me, but God.

Three times in that verse.

This was all a part of God's plan.

And can I say this in closing?

You being here is not an accident, no matter where you come from, where you've been.

For me, my dad left at 10.

God had a purpose on my life.

Man.

And you have a purpose in life, no matter where you've been, no matter what you've done, no matter what anybody has said, God has a purpose on your life.

He has, for this moment, He has you here to fulfill His purpose.

For the fathers in the house that have young men and young daughters, you have been placed in a home on purpose.

No one can feel your spot.

You are there for a divine purpose.

Complete your assignment.

Then one day you'll stand before God and you'll say, Well done, good and faithful servant.

Gracious God, our Father, I thank you so much for such a time as this.

May we be as David mighty men, the men of Azacar.

They knew the signs of the time and they knew what to do.

God, we've gotten our assignments tonight.

I thank you, the Father, for Pastor Chris.

Leading us the Lord on how we can father and lead our family and leading our faith.

I thank you, the Lord.

For the divine providence of your hand being upon the vision to gather men together in this place to discover what we are as men of God.

And so, God, I pray that you would give us the strength, the boldness in the days to come to follow through.

Father, this is practice.

This is warm-up.

We know the Lord that there's a game that's going to be played tomorrow.

And there's going to be a real enemy daring us to hike the ball.

He's going to try to stop every move that we make, every decision we make.

He doesn't want us to progress.

We know that.

But God, we pray that the Father, with your spirit, that you would give us the power of the Father to overcome.

That one day we can live in victory.

So, Father, I pray for each band, each young man in this place today.

God, would you show them their purpose?

The hardship they've been through, the circumstances in life, whatever has come their way, it has a purpose.

God, you're so intricately aware of us.

Every number of intricate strand of hair on our head is numbered.

When one moves, you know it's been missing.

Every teardrop has a name.

Whatever men have gone through, God, we pray the Lord that you would give them the strength and the grace and the fortitude to rise up to be men of God.

In their homes, in the workplace, in the marketplace, here in church, wherever we are.

May we live out our purpose in life.

So when the end comes, you will say to us, Well done, good and faithful serving.

We give you thanks even now, for it's in the strong name of our Christ we do pray, and all of God's men said.

Amen.