This is the Truth Network. Coming to you from an entrenched barricade deep in the heart of central North Carolina, Masculine Journey After Hours, a time to go deeper and be more transparent on the topic covered on this week's broadcast.
So sit back and join us on this adventure. The Masculine Journey After Hours starts here now. Welcome to Masco and Journey After Hours. We are setting in the midst of community talking about community. Wow.
Just think of the depth of that. Doesn't it just blow your mind? Yeah. Yeah. How ironic that we'd be doing that.
Almost completely blown. Yeah, yeah. It reminds me of that Kellogg's cereal box. It has a picture of the Kellogg's cereal box. Oh, yeah.
But a never-end. Yeah. It's a never-ending cereal box. Wow. I'm lost the rest of the show.
And that was going to be my comment on I love to go to the barber shop because they had the. Permanent or the endless mirrors you can look at one. I stood for hours looking at. Yeah. At the guy in the middle staring back at you.
Yeah, however many gyms there were. Yeah. I've searched for this. It's recorded. Yeah.
Yeah, we're talking about community.
So we're hanging around with community, talking about community, and the reason is because. We Kind of Delved into a foundation series back in like 2022 or something, and we've evidently never finished it. And Andy said, Hey, let's go back to the foundation series. And I I threw out, well, how about you know, community because that's the foundation of of this ministry. It it was kind of community.
Now, it wasn't just You know, hey, Sam and I like to play checkers. I mean, you know, that wasn't it. It was that there was a shared mission. Uh there was a shared belief system about who God was. um what God was wanting to do in each one of our lives.
also in the lives of other men, and Jim agreed with that and Mark agreed with that. And then everybody in this room ultimately has agreed in large part or in small part with that concept that that it's not just about Being a Christian. that God came to seekin' to save what was lost. And not the lost. the lost or part of what was lost.
But he came to seek and to save all that was lost.
Well, part of what was lost was the real Nature of community, the real nature of healing and restoration, and how communities are important. in that process. That we both knew at the time. We weren't going to ever get whole by ourselves. And Uh you know it We had experienced something called a boot camp, and we had begun to experience some.
some growth and discipleship and And healing in those ways. And so that was kind of the shared mission, if you will, is: hey, let's continue to walk in that. But we knew before we could go out and do that, we had to at least be okay enough with the community of each other, Um, Jim, Mark, Sam, myself, uh, our wives.
Well, Jury's still out on Mark a little bit. It is. I mean, he doesn't even live in this state. I mean, You know, but I did hang out with him last weekend, and it was a lot of fun. But, um That's kind of why we went back here is because in the very beginning, we often talk about this in John 1.
You know, in the beginning was God and And With God was the Word, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh, and He dwelt among us for a while. Um all of those things.
Well, community was obviously a big part of things because God himself is community. and he thought it was cool enough, awesome enough, um that he wanted to give it to others. And so he created a community of people. Yeah, and when you look back at uh the first couple of chapters of Genesis, Adam's only thing was community. He hadn't fallen yet, he hadn't lost that sense of community.
It was him and God and Eve, right? And that was the community that they were in. And then that well, that was one of the things that got lost in Genesis 3. was that deep sense of community with the Father. Yeah.
Right. At at a level that I don't even think anyone can understand at this point. yet, you know, it'll probably be beyond our time here. Yeah, I think a good example of that too is we've had, we've used plenty of clips from the chosen, but the whole chosen Is you see the humanity of these guys and how Jesus called them. That was the example of the first community that Jesus dealt with, the disciples.
And when you look at how they interact, you know that those dudes got on each other's nerves. You see some of that in the chosen. They're all well, you see it in the scripture where they're trying to say, like, well, who's the greatest? you know, and all kinds of stuff like that. But then you see those scenes around the campfire or their walk You know, from from, you know One place to the other, Samaria to Jerusalem or the other way, and that kind of thing.
And you begin to see how much time they spent with each other, and there was community.
Now, there was a mission to do. But the majority of their time was in community of just knowing each other. And a lot of times we throw people together and say, go do this. And they're not connected. There's no community.
And that's talking about the foundation. You've got to have that as a foundation to have. In my opinion, a fruitful ministry. Long-lasting, anyway. Yeah.
And going back to the garden, what did God say? God said it's not good for a man to be alone. And um Danny, you mentioned something about um To where As long as you're with God. then you always have community.
Well, to somebody saying, well, I'm struggling here. It's so rough for me here. Um God is not doing anything for me.
Okay, well, have you gone to God with your problems? Because if you're just sitting there trying to handle things on your own, Then you're cutting yourself off. You'd be in your own island. You'd be in your own God, so to speak. But if you take your problems, your issues, you take them to God, then you will be in that community of you and God handling all of your issues.
Sorry, Jamal is laughing at the three stooges over here. I saw them all trying to focus. That's part of the community. On the YouTube, I'm just going to show them. I'm going to be wrapped tangled up in this.
You're strapped up. You're going to be like, Grant over there, yeah. It's just the wire. I don't know why Grant and Andy don't like each other trying to fight over there. How they get to work to open it up and let it.
Yeah, that was the grand escape instead of the great escape. He sent me loose. Andy, you said something before the show about uh a time in Scripture where the communities really demonstrated. I don't think you said it on the first show, did you? No, well, there's at Jesus' baptism, you see the Father speak and says, Thou art my beloved Son, whom I'm well pleased, and the Spirit descended on him.
So that was a picture of the unity, the community of Of the Godhead, I think that's what you're talking about, right? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. That was fundamental, and I know we talked about it before. For me, at my first boot camp, it was really realizing why I needed community.
Yeah. God gives the first example. I mean, he's a leader. He shows us how to do it. You know, that's something that you know Even just the Father and the Son, the community, Jesus is constantly going and being with the Father, and that was where his power came from.
It's all based on community. Where there's scripture that says where two or three are gathered in his name, they they'd be in the midst of that.
So that any time we are together as a b body of believers, we got more than two or three here. We know he's with us. And It just brings strength to know that it isn't just a bunch of guys getting together to go do something, go spend time together, that we truly believe God is with us in this. Absolutely. Well, getting on to our next clip, it comes from a unique movie that you wouldn't think about.
Yeah. That's um I love this movie. My granddaughter loved it even more than I did.
So every time she came to my house, she said, Papa, I want to watch Alex. Um which it's not about Alex, but there's a person named Alice in there, and it's Alice in Wonderland, and that that movie um Uh I probably watched it 112 times before it really sunk in how deep. Of some spiritual meanings there are in that. And I think there's no question that the writer of it knew that as well. But In this clip, you're going to meet Alice.
You're going to meet, you know, four or five, five other characters. One of them is Absalom. He's a caterpillar that kind of is. you know, a Holy Spirit figure and There's Tweedledee and Tweedledum. I don't know what their names are, but that's the characters they play.
And there's a rabbit, and there's a mouse. But Alice is trying to figure out why am I here? Why am I in Wonderland? And there's a few people that are saying, Well, we think you're here because of this. We think you're the Alice we've been looking for.
And she doesn't believe it because she doesn't even really know what there is to believe yet. But there's this community of people, broken as they are, messed up as they are. only seeing little pieces of the puzzle, coming together and working together in order to get to a greater um sense of purpose and mission. Yeah. Who are you?
Absolute? You're not Absalom. I'm Absalom. The question is... Who are youths?
Alice. We shall see. What do you mean by that? I ought to know who I am. Yes, you ought, stupid girl.
Unroll the oracular. The oraculum. being a calendrical compendium of underland. It's a calendar. It tells of each and every day.
since the beginning. Today is Griblik Day in the time of the Red Queen. Show her. The Francis Day. Ooh.
Yeah. Frabjus being the die, you slide a jabberwalk, eh?
Sorry? Slay a what? Oh yeah, that'd be new there with the Vaupool sword. No other swords can kill the Jabberwocky. No hell.
If it ain't Vawpool, it ain't dead. That's not me. I know. Resolve this for us, Epsilon. Is she the right Alice?
Not Hardly. And so the point there is Church is supposed to be the original community, right? And church is about Tweedledee and Tweedledum and Alice and all of these different people coming together. who are not hardly who they are supposed to be yet. and walking towards that.
wholeness. One of the things that Paul says that God decided upon us Ephesians 3. before the foundations of the world to make us whole. and holy. And we're not quite whole.
when we're walking by ourselves, when we've not had you know A lot of healing in our wounds, when we've not learned to walk in community with one another, all of those different things. And that's what we've learned. Through this ministry, we've We've loved each other well at times. We've hurt each other badly at times. We've repented together.
We've cried together. We've. Shared a mission together, and we've seen a lot of guys get freedom, and a lot of ladies get freedom. Um from illegalism or a darkness. Um That they've been living in most of their life thinking, this is it.
I don't get it. They're asking the same question Alice was. Why am I here? What what you know, this doesn't seem to fit. No, it it doesn't.
But a community of people. is to help us. see the glory that God put in us when He intended us and then call that out and help us learn to walk in it. You know, the abundant life that Jesus promises isn't after we're dead, right? It is ultimately, but it's available.
Pieces of it now. And what we talked about a lot is we see Christians a lot of time that walk around just waiting to die. You know, because this is as good as it's going to get. And there's so much more out there: there's healing, restoration, and all those things that come in the midst of community. It's called work.
Yeah. Jim, you had something you want to say?
Well, he just gave me the microphone. That was actually, I made a weird connection between. Your clip. and mine and that Both of them were written by Folks trying to get the Christian message across. And Both of them require a community to Get that message across.
Absolutely. And the amazing thing I you know that I'm feel compelled anyway to share it. Sure a lot of you realize that the Varpal sword? It is Christ. I mean In other words, he is the word of God, which is his sword.
And You know So if you go on and watch the movie, They'll tell her Just grab the sword. It knows what it wants. which is genius for you know the We think we read the Bible, but to some extent it reads us. Right? to a a great deal within the community it helps you, which is what they're doing.
They're helping her to see the importance of the variable sword. The the importance of becoming Alice But by the same token, she's got to take up the sword because she has an enemy that she didn't even know. And right here in this clip, who's the Jabberwalker? And I'm going to tell you, how many boot camps have we come to where people realized, Oh my gosh. I'm fighting a Jabberwockie.
And I'm really in a fight. And and it and it's life and death? And and The imagery of it is spectacular. That Of the idea of the Varpals Ford, and I didn't want to let that go without mentioning it. I actually have to watch this show.
I've never seen it. It's got some of your favorite people in it. I'm sure it probably does.
Well, Jim, since you mentioned your clip, trying to get it put on. No, I'm just kidding. You mentioned your clip. Won't you tell us? It was that transparent.
You were. It was pretty clear what you were doing there.
Well, I mean, I got more and more into thinking about this fellowship of the ring. It's a group of nine very different.
Well, four of them are close friends, all hobbits, but they're kind of one. unit. Clip is about the final two hobbits. getting the ring where it belongs. It was a group of nine that set out on a quest together and had to do this.
It was the defeat of evil in the world. And The Fellowship of the Ring had their moments, like we do, of infighting and Getting split up, and the lead into this clip is we now have. Frodo and Samwise. And uh I think Sam Wise has Sam Wise as a favorite. I mean, Sam has Sam Wise as a favorite.
As do I, um, between Him and the dwarf, but the dwarf is more comic relief, which I like as well. But Sam Wise is the most virtuous. Yeah. The whole crew, in my opinion, and we're about to see why. Yeah, here we go.
Yeah. Do you remember the Shire, Mr. Fallon? It'll be spring soon. The orchards will be in blossom.
and the birds will be nesting in the hazel thicket. And then we sow in the summer barley in the lower fields. And he did the first the strawberries with cream. Yeah. Do you remember the taste?
Strawberries. Sam, I can't recall the taste of food. Not the sound of water. Touch of grass. I'm naked in the dark.
There's nothing, no veil between me and the wheel of fire. I can see him with my waking eyes. Then let us be rid of it once and for all. Come on, Mr. Fruddle.
I can't carry it for you. But I can carry you. Come on. This group. And again, they're a different bunch, but Frodo and Sam have been friends for life.
You have a dwarf and an elf that dwarves and elves hate each other and yet they get into friendly competition because they are part of the community. And you have a wizard who's leader, but he gets taken out for a while and comes back as a stronger leader. It is such a interesting if you Well, I don't know what's happened if you've never heard of the Lord of the Rings or seen it all. But if you got 10 hours to kill, watch all three of them together. And it is very powerful.
But this is one of the most powerful scenes where these are the two left that have almost gotten to the source. Mount Boom where they can destroy the ring. But Sam's trying to build up Frodo to go on. But all Frodo can see now is the evil eye. He doesn't remember home.
He doesn't remember all the joy of his earlier days. and he has to pick him up and carry him up there to complete their mission. but they did because of that fellowship. make it all the way to the end. And that's What the church is supposed to be.
And we find ways to fight amongst each other, but that's not.
Well, Jesus spent an entire chapter in John praying about Unity in the church. fighting with one another as opposed to Going forward on the one mission we've been assigned. Yeah, I'm pretty sure Jesus doesn't care the color of the carpet. Yeah. And if you're fighting over blue and red, make it purple.
You know, you can come together on those sorts of things very easily. I like pink.
Well, we could do that. You have pink at your church, and that'll be just fine. I wanted to get to yours, Andy, before we run out of time. We've got about five minutes left. Do you want to talk about your clip a little bit?
So this is from the movie Fury and World War II, you've got a tank command that Has had, I think they lost a track on their tank and they couldn't really go anywhere. They still have some. am ammunition and all, but they know the Germans are coming. And they've got a pretty good crew that they know can take them out. They, you know, the commander, Brad Pitt, here.
uh D Don Collier, I believe is his name. He gives them an opportunity it's not on the uh the clip, but he gives them an opportunity to leave, but they because they've done this they've been fighting together, Some of them really want to go and they're tempted, but they all decide to stay together. They've got a young guy that you'll hear talking about Machine. His name is Norman. He was a guy that wasn't part of the core group, and they've invited him in and they gave him abuse, but eventually he became part of the group.
And you just have all of this stuff that has gone on. They've fought like cats and dogs. They've enjoyed each other's company. They've been through a lot together. But they know that they're on this last mission and it's a mission that's.
this pro they're probably going to end up in death. We'll hear their community, their discussion, and that kind of thing, and then we'll talk about it on the other side. Uh Ah, that's better than good. Mm. Come here.
Come here. What you gonna do with that? I'm gonna drink it. I know you heard me preach. I know it.
What we're doing here is a righteous act, John. You hear me, Gordo? Mm-hmm. Here's Bible verse. I think about sometimes, many times, it goes.
Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send? And who'll go for us? Mm-hmm. And I said Here am I. Send me Book of Isaiah, chapter six.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Yeah, I can't yeah. Yeah, um Exactly right. Wow. You're some.
Mm. Tom, you fight machine, ain't you? Machine, that's it, that's his war name. That's perfect. I christened the machine.
Yeah. Machine Machine. I love it in here. I don't know. Best job I ever had.
So you just hear that there. I mean, just walking through it, the first part of it was just this. uh commander who didn't lead on about h his life much. You know, whenever they heard that he knew this scripture and they thought this guy doesn't know anything about the Bible, but they learned something about him. And that's what you do: you learn in community the deeper things.
We've been together a long time together, but we still learn something about each other every time we get together. And then you hear the identity they give this kid who stepped into a role that they've actually fathered him into. And to hear him to get the identity, another thing that. you know, is born out of community and then You know, I love it in here. Who would want to be loving, love being in a tank?
But they love a lot of guys with a lot of guys, exactly, and a lot of farts and all that kind of stuff going on. And they did love to be together. You know, they were in community, they were on mission together, but they were in community together. And then the best job I ever had, best line of the movie. And it just really speaks to.
That's the perspective. It was a difficult job. It was a hard job. But they had the community, and because of that, it was the best job they had ever had. Yeah, and you look at all the the movies or even the the series Band of Brothers, right, that people from totally different backgrounds, totally different things, would never be friends, but because they had this shared battle that they are and they're lifelong friends, right?
The deepest friends they ever had over a few year period. Right, because they they went some tough road together. And stayed connected years after the war. Yeah. Absolutely.
Any other last thoughts before we kind of wrap up on this topic on the importance of community or what it's done for your life?
Well, I'm not sure if this point has been made, but I apologize if it has. It is important for us as Christians to be together as a community, but we also have to go out and serve the outside community. It's not good for just us to serve ourselves. Even Jesus Christ went out and served us and served the outside community as well.
So, you know, it was about lifting up everybody so we can all be closer to Christ.
Well, this week, again, I challenge you to spend some time with God and say, God, What is the community you have in store for me in this season of my life? May not be the same one you've been in. Maybe a new one He's calling you to. And if I'm in the wrong community, God, help me step away from it and step into the place that you're calling me to. And trust Him to lead you in it.
But first of all, start with deep community with Him. Right? Pour yourself into him. And he'll give back to you what you need to go do. Thank you for listening to us.
We'll talk with you next week.
