Men's Night | Session 1 - Pastor Chris Kouba

Good evening, guys.

Grab your Bibles, open them up to Psalm chapter 128.

Psalms 128 · chapter mention

Psalm chapter 128.

Psalms 128 · chapter mention

It is good to see you tonight.

Excited for you to be a part of this.

This is going to be a great, great night.

We are excited to see how God's going to use it in your life to help to challenge you as you grow as a personal leader.

The title of this message tonight is The Good Life.

The Good Life.

Do you want to live the good life?

Whenever I was growing up, I grew up in the greatest era of basketball that existed.

And so therefore I was a big basketball fan.

The greatest era of basketball was in large part due to the fact that we had the greatest player of all time.

There really is, it's silly that we have these compet these conversations at times, but Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player of all time.

There's really no other, there's no other comparison.

It's great.

Some of the guys today are great basketball players in their own right.

They're just all competing for second place in every way.

And so I grew up in a huge, great time of basketball, of course, with Michael Jordan, but I also was from Houston, grew up in the Houston area.

And so therefore, man, that was some really, really, really good years back in 94-95 for the Houston Rockets.

Of course, back-to-back NBA championships.

That was the days of Vernon Maxwell.

Those were the days of Kenny Smith.

And of course, Hakeem the Dream Elijah won, right?

I mean, it was just absolutely amazing.

I remember going to the victory parade downtown whenever they won their first championship.

I remember going over to the Adidas store and making sure, or the uh the Academy rather, to make sure that I got in line to get the championship hat.

And then, of course, they win it the next year.

Clyde Drexler comes in.

I mean, it was just a golden air of basketball.

And because of that, it led me to wanting to be an NBA basketball player with my future.

That was what I was all about.

That was what I was excited about.

That's what I dreamed and destined to be.

I remember going to these Rockets games and envisioning the fact that clearly I followed Jesus and God wanted me to follow Him as well.

And that meant by playing professional basketball.

But I went into Deer Park High School on the southeast side of town, and I was my freshman year, I was 4'11 and weighed 110 pounds.

Which meant the good life was not going to happen for me.

In fact, I was actually friends with the high school coach.

My mom was assistant superintendent over there at Deer Park ISD and basically knew the coach, and the coach pulled me aside and said, Hey man, I really love you, bro, but you're not gonna make the team.

And so don't even try out, all right?

Don't even go for it.

You're just flat out too small, all right?

So the good life didn't work out.

Uh so then I remember as well, whenever I was growing up, I began to, I also was involved in student government.

Fifth grade on, every single year I was the class president of my class.

Fifth grade, sixth grade, seventh grade, eighth grade, go up into high school, ninth grade, tenth grade, eleventh grade.

I am class president every year.

I'm going into my senior year, and I am dating what I believe is the best-looking girl in the entire school.

And so therefore, I thought the good life for me then at that time was clearly going to mean that I was going to have a career in politics one day.

I was gonna be able to have influence in some way like that, because I clearly had been shown that I could do this all the way up until that point.

And so I go into my senior year expecting to be the best year of my life.

And this guy named Jason Schrader, in fact, I can't find Jason Schrader, but if you know a guy named Jason Schrader, I've been looking for this guy because he decided to run against me for senior class president at the very last second, and he had never run for anything up until that point.

And dang it, Jason Schrader beat me, headed into my senior year.

And so all of a sudden now I go from every year winning this election to now my senior year, Jason Schrader, beats me.

Again, I'm a little bit bitter at Jason Schrader, even to this day.

But that being said, Jason Schrader not only beats me, my girlfriend breaks up with me a couple of weeks later, and my senior year did not turn out the way that I expected.

The good life, I was trying to achieve it and attain it, didn't feel that good.

Fast forward, I go into Bailey University, I ended up meeting this girl named Hillary.

We get married two weeks after we graduated.

We ended up going and I was gonna pursue ministry.

I go and get an internship at a very large church in the Dallas area.

I'm doing things there, things are going really well, I'm getting a lot of favor, they're moving me around, they're using me.

It's really a great situation in my mind.

I'm thinking this is gonna be a great start to our ministry.

We end up having our first child, things are good.

We end up having our second child, things are good.

We end up having our third child, and all of a sudden, my wife comes to me.

I'm looking on the outside, every single box is being checked.

We've got a beautiful young family.

I've been now working at the church for many, many years.

I've got all of this experience by all stretch of the imagination.

It looks as though I am living the ministry dream.

And my wife looks at me and says, Hey, this isn't working very well, and we got to get some help.

I'm like, What?

She's like, This isn't working out.

Here we are with three kids under the age of three trying to figure out how we don't strangle each other, and now all of a sudden I'm in counseling.

And just so you guys are aware, if you're in counseling and you're trying to figure out how you make things work in your marriage with a young family, it doesn't bold well for your future ministry process.

What I thought was the good life didn't feel that good.

Let me ask you a question.

What is the good life for you?

Like, what is that thing that you would say in your mind that you you maybe want to work hard towards and that you want to hold up, and you would hold up and say, hey, this right here is the image, this is the picture.

Like, if I can describe what I want my life to look like and what I want my life to be, this is what it would be.

What is the good life?

What I want you to also consider tonight is this is the good life?

That's good.

Have you found yourself kind of like I was along the way, where maybe I even achieved things that I held up as this is what I am going for, this is what I'm trying to do and trying to be, only to arrive and get there and realize this doesn't feel nearly as good as I expected.

In Psalm 128, we're gonna look at a passage of scripture, and what it's gonna tell us is two things.

First of all, it's gonna tell us how we get the good life, and it's also gonna describe for us what God says, and it's pretty important if God says this is the case, that we we key in on that as to what the good life can actually look like.

Psalm 128, let's begin reading in verse 1.

It says, Blessed is everyone who fears the Lord, who walks in his ways.

You shall eat the fruit of the labor of your hands, you shall be blessed, and it shall be well with you.

Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house, your children will be like olive shoots around your table.

Behold, thus shall the man be blessed who fears the Lord.

The Lord bless you from Zion.

May you see the prosperity of Jerusalem all the days of your life.

May you see your children's children.

Peace be upon Israel.

Starts out with the word blessed in verse 1.

In verse 4, it also uses the word blessed.

The word blessed can be translated as happy.

I want to basically use the word blessed to indicate to us this is the good life.

He begins to describe for us what it can look like in our lives to have a life that is blessed by God, a life that has characteristics that define for us what our image should be if we want to be in the same page as what God is in our personal leaderships, in our personal lives, if we want to have blessing, this is what it looks like to be blessed.

Now, before we walk through these things, I want to let you know if you don't have one of these categories, it doesn't mean that somehow that you are not gonna be blessed.

I don't want you to think that you have to have all four of these things.

Maybe you're not married today.

We're gonna talk about that.

Maybe you don't have kids today.

That's fine.

I want you to know this is the trajectory of what your life should look like that is going to be the good life.

There's multiple things it mentions.

Look at verse 2.

It says there, it says, You shall eat the fruit of the labor of your hands.

Uh, and you shall be blessed, and it shall be well with you.

The good life, first of all, looks like you're blessed in your personal life.

In your personal life.

Men, what this means is that in your work life, you're gonna get to see the fruit of your work.

In your school, if you're school-aged here, that means whenever you work hard at school, you're gonna get to see some benefit from that.

You're gonna see it with good grades, you're gonna see it with provision for men.

You may not gonna have your dream job that means you're gonna get all more money than you could ever possibly spend.

Sure, that'd be great if that is the case, but that isn't necessarily what it means.

It just means this when you work hard, you get to look at what it says in verse 2 eat the fruit of the labor of your hands.

You get to provide, you get to experience what that means for you to work hard and practice and you get payment for your integrity and your diligence.

Things will be well with you.

The end of verse two, even when they aren't always well.

It's a position and a state of mind that allows you to say this, even if everything isn't perfect, I still know that it's good.

I called a young adult a couple of weeks ago who uh is in our church.

He ended up losing his job, and I remember calling him, checking in on him, man, how you doing?

How you feeling?

And he said, PC, here's the deal, man.

It's not ideal.

It's not what I would have expected, but I would tell you this: the Lord is good, and I'm gonna trust him in this.

Only for two weeks later, he gets a phone call that basically gets a job opportunity from a career that he had basically walked away from and said, This is no longer something that's gonna be a part of my life.

And God brings him a job that's gonna keep him around here more, and it's gonna give him even more flexibility, and God's gonna be able to use him big time.

And it's all because here's the deal: whenever you have the good life, whenever you are blessed by the Lord in your personal life, even when you lose your job, you're good.

Because God's good.

Look at what it says in the next verse in verse 3.

It says, Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house, your children will be like olive shoots around your table.

Another way that you experience the good life is in your family life.

Men, this means if you're married, your marriage is gonna be filled with you leading your wife.

If you've got kids, then you're gonna lead your kids in the things of God.

Your home life is gonna be blessed.

It means that yes, you're gonna have times of chaos, and yes, you're gonna have times of conflict, but that's not gonna be the defining characteristics of your home.

Instead, what you're gonna see is that peace and love and joy, these things, it doesn't mean that things are perfect, but man, it does mean this.

You can say, Man, my house is blessed.

Man, I'm so grateful for my wife, I'm so grateful for my kids.

Look at what it says in verse 5 at the beginning.

It says, The Lord bless you from Zion.

This means that you are experienced blessing, you experience the good life in your church life.

This psalm was actually written as a psalm of ascent, meaning this they were headed up to Jerusalem in order to offer sacrifices at the temple.

And so what was happening was as they were making their way up there, it says there, the Lord's gonna bless you when you get to the temple.

And here's the deal: this means, this is our modern day idea of church.

What this is saying is that whenever you come and you're connected and a part of a local church, man, you're gonna be blessed.

What this means is that when you give to God's church, when you serve God's church, when you pray and be a part of the gathering of God's people, guess what's gonna happen?

You're gonna have a good life, you're gonna be blessed.

Let me just tell you, men, if you don't have a home church, let me tell you a really good one that I'm really aware of.

It's the same as United City Church.

You should come and be a part of this one, okay?

And I'm just gonna tell you there's story after story after story after story where a man let down his guard and actually allowed himself to be involved in God's church, and not one single time have I ever met a man who's done that, who's regretted it.

Not one time.

Because why?

You get blessed.

Look at what it says at the end of verse 5 and verse 6.

May you see the prosperity of Jerusalem all the days of your life.

May you see your children's children.

Peace be upon Israel.

This speaks to your community life.

You get to see your area of influence blessed.

You get to see your schools and your neighborhoods flourish.

You get to leave a legacy that your kids and your grandkids can be excited about.

This is what it looks to have a good life.

This is what we want.

Tony Evans, a pastor in Dallas, he says this if you're a messed up man, you're gonna contribute to a messed up family.

If you're a messed up family, you're gonna contribute to a messed up church.

If you're a messed up church, you're gonna contribute to a messed up community.

If you're a messed up community, you're gonna contribute to a messed up state.

If you're a messed up state, you're gonna contribute to a messed up country.

And if you are a messed up country, you're gonna contribute to a messed up world.

Therefore, the only way to have a better world made up of better countries, composed of better states, filled with better communities, influenced by better churches, inhabited by better families, is by becoming a better man.

How do you do this?

The answer is found back in verse 1.

Look at what it says.

Blessed is everyone who fears the Lord, who walks in his ways.

I want to summarize this with two commands.

Fear God and take action.

Fear God and take action.

Man, you want to live the good life?

You know how you do it?

You fear God first.

I was a couple of weeks ago uh at a Black Ops CIA secret uh location that had uh in San Diego that had this special uh runway that people basically could fly in, these CIA agents could fly in and take people to be able to do whatever it is that they do and to be able to interrogate them, and we had the opportunity with a couple of other guys to go and to shoot guns with Navy SEALs.

How is that for an intro, right?

I mean, that's a pretty sweet deal, all right?

It was amazing.

We had the opportunity to shoot some pistols, we had opportunities to shoot uh some SIGs, some M4s, some 308 rifles, sniper rifles.

It was awesome.

We got to shoot uh at some paper targets with our pistols, but then we were also shooting at some steel targets with our with the M4s as well as the 308 uh sniper rifles.

It was absolutely an amazing experience in every single way.

So you go there to this place, and they basically do the first thing they do is they begin to tell you all the different safety briefings, all right?

And they split you up into three different groups of people.

I'd be kind of curious what the what the layout of the room is tonight here, actually, okay?

The first group of people were those that basically have no connection whatsoever, have no experience whatsoever with guns.

How many of you would say that's you?

I've got I got no idea about guns whatsoever, okay?

All right, a few of you.

The other group over here would be the folks that are like experts about guns, right?

They like know all the things.

They know I just pronounced something wrong, I'm sure, and they're probably gonna correct me after this.

Uh and you like make your own bullets and like you know, you make your own guns and all that kind of stuff.

And if things go down, like we want to hang out with you.

How many of you that's you, okay?

You're it's proud, you're proud of it.

Raise your hands.

Okay, like three of you, all right?

And and and you all know you're way more than that, you just don't want to do that.

And the rest of you basically then are probably in the middle, like I am, which is basically like the middle category.

Like, I'm not like brand new to guns, but on the other hand, like I'm not an expert when it comes to guns.

Would you the rest of you say you're in that category?

Okay, got most of us, all right?

So that was kind of my deal, right?

I've gone my CHL, I've shot guns before, but I've never really been around high-powered guns to this effect uh ever in my life before.

Certainly not with any sort of expertise of any kind.

And so I'm sitting there in the middle section, and the Navy SEAL comes up there and he's giving us kind of the debrief, and he's telling us about all the different things.

First of all, he pulls out the M4 and he immediately just goes and he starts shooting bing, bing, bing.

Remember, he's hitting these steel targets.

He's just kind of hitting them one after another and just showing this is what you're supposed to do.

He gives us the whole debriefing, though, and he tells us so much about all of the power of the gun.

He tells us so much about how we're supposed to be careful with the gun, and basically makes this idea and makes you so afraid that you're clearly either going to die or you're gonna kill someone else today.

Is basically what he kind of gave you this impression.

And so I went from going into the process being very excited about getting to go and shoot these guns with these Navy SEALs, to honestly, I began to be a little bit nervous.

I began to be a little bit afraid.

Again, I've never been around guns to this effect, and I'm seeing the way that they're recoiling, I'm seeing the power, I'm hearing the sound of it, and I'm interested in it, but man, it just kind of makes me a little bit nervous.

So I go and I grab that M4, and I remember pulling that thing up.

I put that thing up next to my cheek, and I look through the little laser, and I'm seeing, and I'm looking at that steel target, and he just the the guy standing next to me, and he's basically all right, just go and just pull the trigger whenever you're ready.

Pull the trigger whenever you're ready.

Pull, I couldn't do it.

I put the thing down, I was like, Man, I gotta kind of catch my breath here.

I mean, I I got I got nervous.

Now I don't typically get nervous, I've been I've shot guns before, not like I've never been around them before, but I got nervous because all I'm thinking in my mind is man, I don't want to shoot somebody, and I don't want to shoot myself, like I don't want to mess this up.

I I I I'm nervous, I don't want to, all these things are going through my head, and and and and and so the of course the Navy SEAL comes, man, what's wrong?

What's going on?

And gives me this little pep talk, and then he comes over there and picks the gun up, just do this, man, and just bing, bing, bing.

I mean, just one hitting steal target after another one.

Oh, oh, I feel so much better.

Thanks, you know, right?

Kind of a deal.

Uh, and so sure enough, I go and I I pick back up the gun, and suddenly he says, just relax.

Let the gun do the work, and you'll have a lot of fun.

And sure enough, literally, instead of being so tense, I just began to relax.

And man, every once in a while I heard a ping.

I didn't hear very many of them.

I missed a whole lot of the targets, but I'm telling you, it was an absolute blast.

Here's the thing, though.

I was fearful of that gun enough to want to be near it, but fearful as well to where I didn't necessarily enjoy it.

I believe what God is calling us to do whenever he says that we're to fear him, and some of us treat God in that way where basically we get around him and we get near him and we fear him in the sense that basically we're afraid of him, but we don't relax under his submission.

We don't relax under our respect of him to such a degree that we get to enjoy him.

I mean, let me tell you how you fear God.

You fear God, one, by recognizing that he is all-powerful, you fear God by recognizing that you better submit to his authority.

But here's what I would also tell you: when you embrace that, when you see that that is for your good, you will have the time of your life.

Man, God is calling us to fear him in every single way, to enjoy him by recognizing his authority in our lives and freely submitting to it.

Proverbs chapter 1, verse 7 says, The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.

Proverbs 1:7

Fools despise wisdom and instruction.

Do you want to be wise, men?

Here's how you become wise.

You do it by prioritizing and focusing on God and fearing Him.

Proverbs chapter 14, verse 26 and 27.

Proverbs 14:26

In the fear of the Lord, one has strong confidence, and his children will have a refuge.

Amen.

Do you want your kids to have a refuge?

Let me tell you what that looks like.

The way that your kids will have a strong refuge is by them seeing a dad who prioritizes the fear of the Lord.

Look at what it says in the next verse.

It says, The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life, that one may turn away from the snares of death.

Proverbs 19, 23, the fear of the Lord leads to life, and whoever has it rests satisfied, he will not be visited by harm.

How do you fear the Lord by prioritizing the Lord?

Men, is the Lord a priority in your life?

Or is the Lord the priority in your life?

Do you fit him in when it fits?

Or do you make sure that everything else bends to his will and his direction and his guidance in your life?

I'm a big football fan.

Any football fans in here?

You guys are football fans?

There seems to be decent potential hope for the Houston Texans.

Maybe, just maybe.

I don't know.

Maybe.

It just can't get any worse, you would think.

Uh I'm a Cowboy fan and uh I've been a Cowboy fan for a long time.

Uh I I'm not like, you know, because I was in Dallas and whatever else.

I'm a Cowboy fan because whenever I lived here in Houston, the Oilers left.

And so basically I had no option of choosing a local team.

And so therefore, my best friend, his dad, was a cowboy fan.

I became a cowboy fan at that time and then just happened to live in Dallas for the last 17 years prior to to moving here a couple of years ago.

And so Because of that, I've always been a long, long-standing Cowboys fan.

And you know, it's interesting when you think about football fans in general, not just Cowboy fans, really football fans of any team.

You just think about this because a football game lasts for one hour, right?

There's four 15-minute quarters.

Now, what's ironic about the fact that a football game lasts one hour is that of all that hour-long game of time, there is actually only 17 minutes of actual action that takes place in an hour-long football game.

Did you realize that?

Only 17 minutes of an hour-long football game.

The rest of the time, what's happening is that the clock is running while they're huddling, or the the clock is running as the as they're making a first down, or they're punting the ball, or all the various things.

But here's the irony of this as well.

You have 17 minutes of actual action for a one-hour football game.

However, we all know that if you're gonna make a commitment to go to a football game, you better basically budget at least three hours to go to that game, right?

Because in addition to the fact that it's only 17 minutes of an hour-long football game, there's all the stoppages of play.

Yet no one complains about the fact that they stop at halftime.

No one complains about the fact that they take timeouts, no one complains about the TV timeouts, no one complains about the time that they spend in between each quarter.

Instead, everybody goes to that three-hour football game and they are prepared for a three-hour football game and they're having the time of their lives at that football game.

In fact, if the game happens to go into overtime, no one's gonna complain about that.

They actually get more excited for that, right?

It's awesome because a game is so exciting that it's gonna go into extra time.

Now, also consider the fact that for a 17-minute football game that lasts for an hour, which actually represents about three hours, when you consider all of the time that people spend driving to the stadium, fighting through traffic, trying to figure out how to get a parking spot.

Then you consider the fact that some of them, whether it's rain, whether it's snow, whether it's sleet, whether it's hail, no matter what the weather conditions are, they actually are so diehard, they will show up early at the game and they will tailgate.

Then when they go inside of the game, they're gonna spend money at the concession stand, they're gonna buy something to eat, and they're gonna buy something to drink, and they're gonna have the time of their life.

No one's making a comment about the fact that this stadium is basically only used a few times a year, that's such a big, massive stadium and costs all this kind of money.

No one says anything about that.

No one's complaining about the fact that all of these people at the very same time are fighting, trying to not only get parking spots, but also are trying to get food and all of these things.

No, no one complains about that.

You want to know why?

Because basically, a 17-minute game actually represents an hour long of an actual game, which really takes about three hours while you're at the game.

Realistically takes about seven hours of your day, does it not?

And I want you to think about this.

Seven hours of your day, and then what are you gonna do on the way home?

You're gonna listen to Sports Talk Radio talking about the game that you just watched.

And then what you're gonna do is at night, you're gonna go look on your phone, you're gonna watch highlights of the game that you actually attended.

And then you're gonna go on the NFL network and you're gonna look and see the preview for the upcoming game that's about to come.

And think about how much time has now been devoted all to basically one football team.

Now, let me just ask you guys this question: how is your football team doing?

Has your football team ever let you down ever before?

I mean, your football teams are notorious for disappointment.

Like every, I mean, I'm a cowboy fan.

Like, I don't even know what it means to win anymore, right?

Like, it's just every year is like, oh, well, we're the best team on paper.

That's that's all we got going on, right?

But it's so much time.

I think the problem comes for us is that we oftentimes begin to say, well, this is just something that I'm interested in, or this is just something that I do, not realizing how much massive time it is given and how much massive time it takes in your life.

Yet, how much does the God, who is all merciful, who is faithful, who is consistent, who not one single time ever has ever let us down, who has always been there, who has always responded, who has always come through when we needed him, yet we just simply maybe include him in a little bitty prayer before we eat a meal.

Men, you're at a men's conference, so my guess is you're gonna probably say, or at least you're gonna tell somebody that you came with, hey, yeah, God is a priority in my life.

Here's what I'm asking is God the priority in your life?

Otherwise, you're gonna spend all of your life trying to pursue the good life only to discover it's not very good.

Well, what God says is that you are to fear him, and the way you fear him is you prioritize him.

Now, some of you are like, well, that's not my problem.

I've never gone to an NFL football game forever.

Oh, because hunting is way better.

Oh, golf is just way less time for you and money.

Look, I love everything that I just told you about.

I love all of it.

I love all of these things.

But some of you men need to be honest about your priorities.

And the more you continually live in denial, the more you're not living in the wisdom and the fear of God.

Instead, you need to ask the hard question of my life and say this is part of the reason why life isn't really that good is because I'm asking God to bless something that He says he will not bless.

I believe these things can all be a part of our lives, but they must be subservient to God being the ultimate priority in all that we do and all that we say.

Look at verse one again.

Blessed is everyone who fears the Lord, who walks in his ways.

Amen.

You want to live the good life?

Here's how you do it.

Number one, you fear God.

Number two, you take action.

You take action.

I'm convinced what separates men who are strong, godly leaders from those who are not, it's very simple.

They do stuff.

Simply stated, godly men do stuff.

They do good stuff, they do kind stuff, they do helpful stuff, they do godly stuff, they stop bad stuff, they fight evil stuff, they do massive amounts of stuff.

Men have a bias towards action.

They don't talk about what we should do, they actually go are the ones who go and do it.

They don't talk about what they could have done, would have done, should have done.

Instead, they're known by men who actually go out and do what God calls them to do.

They're men who have a bias towards this.

What does God want me to do?

And I want to make sure that I am someone, the end of verse one, who walks in his ways.

James chapter 1, verses 22 through 25.

James 1:22–25

But be doers of the word and not hearers only deceiving yourselves.

For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror.

For he looks at himself and he goes away, and at once he forgets what he was like.

But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets, but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.

To become a man of action, you gotta learn to do the right thing, even if it seems small.

Man, tonight we're gonna give you some tangible actions, some tangible steps of things that you can do in your marriage, of things that you can do in your life, of things that you can do in your work life, in your personal life, in all these various areas.

And I would simply tell you, don't walk away here feeling like, man, I want to be a better man and do nothing about it.

Instead, you want to know what the good life looks like?

It's a man who even sometimes struggles through trying to take the next step of obedience.

Would you bow your heads and would you close your eyes all across this room?

And you're gonna hear from some incredible men tonight.

We're gonna give you some very practical things along the way.

About how to live a good life.

And I'm gonna ask you right now to make a commitment.

A commitment to say yes to whatever the Holy Spirit is gonna prompt you to do tonight.

For some of you, this may mean a rec- a relationship that you need to reach out to for reconciliation.

For some of you, this may mean just patience sitting in the sun that seems to be the situation that you're dealing with right now.

For some of you, this may mean that you need to persevere through your trial.

For some of you, this may mean you need to humble yourself.

Admit.

And ask the Lord to bring conviction and healing in your life.

I don't know what it is, but I can promise you this: you have an enemy who's gonna actively be working to try to get you and convince you not to do it.

He wants nothing more than for us to have a men's conference, only to walk out here and be more informed in our disobedience.

Instead, what God is calling you to, what he wants to lead you towards is to be a man of action.

A man who walks in his ways.

Some of you need to confess tonight that you have not made the Lord the priority in your life.

You've made him a priority, but he's not the priority.

I want to ask right now that you would even make a commitment.

Say, God, I'm changing it tonight.

Things are gonna be different after tonight.

Make a commitment to him.

Father, I pray you'd move in these moments.

I pray you'd move in this evening.

And that God, you would call men to do hard things.

And that God, we would be characterized by a people who say, Yes.

We're willing to do whatever it is that you lead us to do.

Because God, we believe ultimately that good life that you desire for us is what is best for us as well.

It's in the name of Jesus I pray all of these things.

Amen.