My Brother's Keeper

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Welcome to the masculine journey. We're very glad to have you with us this week. We've got a studio full. We've got the phone lines full. We've got just a lot of people with us this week, which is great, isn't it, Robby? A full house.

A full house. Which I understand beats a straight flush. If you're a plumber, it means something.

If you're a plumber, I'm hoping to have a straight flush. Just saying. So Robby, it's an eve. And if you're a gambler, you're wrong.

That's true. It's an eve, Robby. Do you know what eve it is? Oh, wow. Lincoln's birthday eve?

I don't know. It's Super Bowl eve. Oh, my goodness.

Yeah, you're absolutely right. The big game's tomorrow. Can Brady do it? I hope not. That's just me personally out there.

You can hope he does. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. Anyway, well, on the phone we have Jim and Andy, but we're going to get to Jim first, because Jim, in stellar fashion, like almost everybody else in this room does from time to time, we have a topic and then we leave town. And so this is your topic that you came up with just late last week, only to tell us you were going out of town. Yeah, it was kind of interesting because I was set up for this one. But the guy said, well, it's your topic next week. I said, okay. And almost immediately, am I my brother's keeper?

Because I've been reading Genesis earlier in the day. And then I realized, oh, yeah, I got a trip planned this weekend. So in typical Sam fashion of old, I've gone to the beach for my Tuesday night session here.

Yeah. So you are not with us. So what's our topic? You talked about it a little bit, but go ahead and go back into it. The topic is, am I my brother's keeper?

And the immediate answer is yes. So we could stop there. But, you know, we won't. I think we should kick it off with the best example I found, one that is a truly amazing film, Hacksaw Ridge, where Desmond Dawes is fighting to be able to go into battle without a weapon. OK, so we pick this up, he's in the middle of the court martial right now, and so we pick it up and kind of listen to how it plays out. Why is it so important to you giving your refusal to even touch a weapon to serve in a combat unit? Because when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, I took it personal. Everyone I knew was on fire to join up, including me. There were two men in my hometown declared 4-F unfit. They killed themselves because they couldn't serve. I had a job and a defense plan. I could have taken a deferment, but that ain't right. It isn't right that other men should fight and die, that I would just be sitting at home safe. I need to serve. I have the energy and the passion to serve as a medic right in the middle with the other guys, no less danger, just while everybody else is taking life, I'm going to be saving it.

With the world so set on tearing itself apart, it doesn't seem like such a bad thing to me to want to put a little bit of it back together. The defendant's rights as a conscientious objector are protected by an act of Congress, and he cannot be compelled to waive those rights. That includes, in this case, his disobeying orders to bear arms, signed Brigadier General Musgrove, War Services Commander, Washington, D.C. Colonel? I withdraw the charges, sir. Down this case is dismissed. Private Doss, you are free to run into the hellfire of battle without a single weapon to protect yourself.

You may resume your duties and begin training as a combat medic. So, Jim, that was an awesome clip, but tell us about why you picked that clip for this topic. I picked the clip primarily because most of us, I know everybody in this ministry, does service to others. I would even venture to say most of the people bothering to listen to this show are serving others. But are we laying down our lives for others? Are we risking everything for people that don't even like us? That was kind of where I wanted to go with this, and that led me into the scripture, which I'm going to read now.

It is Luke from Luke 6. If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are doing good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do this.

And if you lend to those from whom you expect to take, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners in order to receive back the same. But love your enemies and do good and lend, expecting nothing in return. Then your reward will be great and you will be sons of Elioth, for he is kind to the ungrateful and evil ones. Be compassionate, just as your Father is compassionate to you. That, to me, is being our brother's super. It's not just stepping out of your comfort zone, but giving your all to serve God.

And that's what I aspire to, and I'm a long way from. Yeah, that was a really good passage, Jim, as far as tying that into the topic. It's hard to think about exactly who to help, when to help, how to help. I think you've got to just walk with God through that, don't you? Absolutely.

Yeah. I'm sitting here listening, Sam. I'm the sinner man. It's like, what's in it for me? And I say that in jest, but there's a lot of times when that's the truth. You get to the point where Robby had asked me in the pre-show, who do I avoid helping?

And the sad part is, the answer is pretty much everybody. And back to, I was listening to Jim, and it struck me that something he had read in that passage is pretty much the way I feel about loaning people money, is that if I'm going to do it, I'm not going to do it to the point where I'm expecting something in return. Because if I'm loaning your money, I'm writing it off. I'm saying, okay, I will never see this again, especially if you're a good friend, because the friendship's more important than getting the money back, nine times out of ten.

Yeah. I'd say what gets in the way for me doing this is a combination of two different things, honestly. Cynicism gets in the way, and judgmental, being judgmental. You know, in one of the communities in this area where we live, in order for somebody to beg on the street, they have to go get a license from the city. And a license for all that costs money. The license costs money. And so I struggle when I see somebody with a license thinking, okay, you went to all that effort. This is judgmental, and I know it is. But you went to all that effort to get a license and to put money down and to make it to City Hall and do all that.

Can you just get a job? I mean, that's where my mind goes, and I know it's judgmental, and I look to see kind of what they're wearing. And do they look like they need the money?

Because there's so many people out there that play the part that doesn't need it. And from my standpoint, I don't have a problem giving somebody a meal or feeding them on the street. The worst place you can approach me is like in front of a grocery store or in a restaurant, in front of a restaurant. Because the first thing I'm going to do is look and say, come on, I'll go buy you a meal. I'll go buy you groceries.

Yeah, I agree with that. But I'm not going to give you cash so you can spend it doing who knows what. We still are called to be good stewards of what God has given us, and you have to give things in good faith. There's the point of helping somebody out, which I don't mind doing.

And we do it all the time. My wife is my better half, literally. And she's constantly saying, hey, we've got to take a meal to this person or we've got to help out these guys because they're having COVID going on right now.

And I'm like, great, let's go do that. But from a standpoint of total strangers, I have not arrived. I'm hit and miss on that. And again, I know that it's just judgmental. I think I've seen too many YouTube feeds or whatever of people being followed back after having begged all day and they have a nicer car than I have that they get into. And I know that's not 99.9% of the people's story out there. But that's the one that sticks in my mind, and it shouldn't.

Based on the passage of Jim Redd, it shouldn't really matter. But for me, that's a mental thing I've got to try to get around is looking at people and making a judgment. Do I really think they need it? Like you, if they're in front of a restaurant, I have no problem buying them something. Indeed, it's just a matter of giving them money not knowing. If I know it's a definite need, absolutely.

But the unknown for me is one that makes it really hard to go do. So, Robby, you had an experience with us this last weekend, didn't you? Actually, I have a dear friend that all of us know in the ministry by the name of Corn.

He's Ricky Corn, but I just call him Corn because it works so well with all the jokes I like to tell. So, when we were in Jamaica, I noticed this, he has this phenomenal giving ability to like everybody we came to. If we went to McDonald's and there were 30 people out there that were begging, he was buying bags of hamburgers and handing them out. And every place we went, he actually got in quite a bit of trouble from the person leading because he kept on being so generous. And that would seem to think that Ricky was extremely wealthy. He's one of the poorest, as far as resources, he was giving out of very little. But he would give, give, give. And the other day, he was having this discussion with me over the phone on how important that when you meet one of these challenges, that you're actually been given a test from God. And that was echoing around in my mind when I was out on the street over the weekend. So, we'll get to that story in a minute.

Yeah, like normal, I ask a question, didn't give you enough time to answer. So, that is the lead in as we come back is Robby's going to tell the rest of the story. But in the meantime, you can go to masculinejourney.org, look up to see any events we might have coming up or to reach out to us. We live in an on-demand world, time, weather, meals, and content. That's why the Truth Network has the Truth Podcast Network. Some of your favorite Truth Network programs, plus some that are podcast only.

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Box 550, Kernersville, North Carolina, 27285. Music playing Welcome back to the Masculine Journey. We are talking about being a brother's keeper. And we're going to get to Robby's story in just a second because I want to see where that goes. But Andy, thank you for the bump. And who is that? What's that song? It's Matt Maher. And I knew there was a song out there on your brother's keeper, but I couldn't really remember it.

I searched it and found it right away. And as I listened to the word deeper than I normally do, I was like, yeah, this is spot on what Jim was getting at, I think. So, Jim, can you confirm that? Absolutely. It's really, we're not used to being the servants we need to become.

And that's what I want to head towards for myself and for everybody else out there. That's what the song is about. Thank you.

And Andy, there probably is a song out there called My Brother's Creeper, but I think that's probably a little bit different. Different outcome. I did not say it like that. I don't believe that's not the way I heard it in my ear. You started to say it.

That's okay. We picked it up. When we left, we were getting to a story where our buddy Corn had an impact on you, right, Robby?

He did. And it's an interesting thing, the idea that your brother's keeper actually comes out of, as Jim mentioned, the story of Cain and Abel in early in Genesis in chapter 4. And so this was obviously Cain's response to God after he'd murdered his brother. And the word keeper there is shamar in Hebrew.

You might knew I was going to go there. And the idea is actually looking for Jesus in your brother to some extent. And so part of one of the definitions of that word is to treasure your brother. And Corn is somebody to treasure in my mind. You know, he's outside the normal box if you get to meet Corn. But he kind of rolls around in your mind because, you know, here's this guy that really just does not look at life the way most people do.

And he very much is that kind of generous guy. So my family was downtown Knoxville. We were switching cars with my daughter in college. And a little bit of a story there I won't go into. We came out of a restaurant downtown and it snowed.

And so it was pretty cold, like 28, 29 degrees. And here's your downtown Knoxville, Tennessee. And here are these homeless people. And as we walked by one of them and he goes, man, I want a hot cup of coffee. And he actually sounded like Corn as he said it. And naturally as I'm hearing this it's rolling around in my mind like, oh man, Corn would be telling me it's a test, Robby, it's a test.

It's right now you're getting tested. Because that's how Corn would talk. And so we went around the corner actually. My daughter wanted to get a cup of coffee and we went in that. I just was like, man, I have got to give that man some money to get a cup of coffee.

My wife says don't give him money. He gave the gym plan is go get him a cup of coffee. So I got him a cup of coffee, you know, with some sugar. It was a five dollar cup of coffee. It was a nice hot cup of coffee.

And so I come around the corner and I give it to this man who's sitting there. And I can't say the exact expression, but he went, hey, yeah, a hot cup of coffee. You know, he was like, man, oh, baby. And then he was like, he looked at me and he was like, thank you, thank you, thank you. And I was just like, you could see this. And I literally went to tears. I couldn't help but go to tears.

Just because this man was so grateful that I could do so little and get such a huge response. But there was another big part of me that I was experiencing. I was like channeling my inner Korn. You know, one of the joys of the experience actually was to call Korn on Monday and say, Korn, man, you don't know what an impact you've made on my life. And I told him this story and he was like, you know what that was, Robby?

That was a test. That man needed a hot cup of coffee. And, you know, I treasure that in a really, really real cool level. And I think there's something else that I'm going to share that I think is very important. In the Hebrew alphabet, there's a letter called a Gimel and there's a letter called a Dalad. And a Gimel is the so-called rich man who is looking to give back to the poor man what has been stolen from him. And the Jewish concept of it is to give in a way that you don't embarrass the person who is receiving. Because actually you're giving back to them what was stolen from them.

Right? Satan has stolen so much from all of us. And so when somebody gives to you, to some extent you're receiving that which has been stolen. And so there is nothing other than just the opportunity to give back to somebody something that was stolen. So when Jesus is talking about to give them that code or turn to – whatever. He's talking about giving them back the dignity and the treasure of them being in the image of God himself. And treasuring your brother as you would treasure Christ.

Because that's what he says, right? Jim in that past. As you gave to the least of these, you gave it to my brother. So my clip is from the movie The Least of These. And this young girl and her mom have been staying in a car. They're homeless. And they come into a little restaurant where she is working. And she gives her daughter a sponge bath with the paper towels in the bathroom. So clearly they have no money for Christmas. And then this little girl walks in, sees the Santa sitting there.

And she sits down and has this conversation. Do you visit everybody in the world? Yeah, of course I do.

Everybody deserves something for Christmas. I thought you had lists. You know, a good list and a bad list?

Sure, I do. But there just aren't that many kids that are so bad I wouldn't visit them at Christmas. They have to be pretty darn bad, don't you think?

Bro, what is wrong with you? Not everybody believes in Santa Claus. Nor, nor do they need to. Do you really feel like your little thing of balancing the scales? If you're good, you get a gift. If you're naughty, you don't get anything.

Is that working out for everybody? More coffee, Santa? It's more like Christmas spirit. Look, I just came in here for some breakfast. Spread a little Christmas spirit. Wow, and you're the professional. I don't understand any of this.

Okay. Rose is a special person around here. And so is that little girl. She's a single mom. She can't buy groceries, much less Christmas presents.

That little girl didn't choose this road. When Rose came here, she wasn't looking for a job. She wanted to wash dishes or clean anything it took to get Katie a meal. One single meal. Jack fed them both and gave Rose this job.

What just happened? Katie's a good kid. She doesn't have Christmas. A lot of kids don't. So I just think that that's a phenomenal understanding there of how we set up through our culture people's expectations about the reason I didn't get much for Christmas is I must have been naughty and that little girl and these people just bringing that to the forefront. And again, the movie is outstanding.

It's called the least of these. But the idea is do you see what's going on there? It's the treasuring that they have of each other as friends and the treasuring of what's important beyond the financial situation, which works out.

It does. Jim, we've got about three minutes left in this segment that we're doing before we go to after hours. But I did want to get to your first question and kind of ask the team here. What does being your brother's keeper mean to you? So, Jim, I'll start with you, actually. That's your question, but I'll start with you. What does being your brother's keeper mean to you?

It means to do what's necessary at a given time. And what I was thinking about most as a friend, and I call it that, is someone I've helped out that is an alcoholic and have literally put thousands of dollars into helping him out. He got clean and sober for nine months in a program and then fell off the wagon. And not too long ago I got a call from a police officer that said he was trying to get down there to come to church to see me because I would help him. And it broke my heart to tell the officer, no, I'm not there, and I'm not going to be that person there. I mean, I'm about to break into tears talking about it now, but I knew that's what I had to do at that point. And now he is back in another program in town and is sober again because I allowed him to reach that depth of not having me to rely on. And that was one of the hardest acts of actual service that I've done for him, and I've done a lot for him over several years.

But God had to do it, and I had to let him do it in the hardest possible way. We bring up a great point that sometimes the greatest help we can give is not giving them the assistance that they think they need, because it does make them turn to another source, and hopefully that other source is turning to God to where he can help them rely on him and not on one another. I know we've all had friends that we've had to do that with individually and collectively, and it is one of the hardest things to turn and say, I'm sorry, I can't help you right now.

You know, even if you financially could, to know that's not what you need to go do right then, because that's not what they need most. And that's where walking with God really comes into the equation, because you've got to know when that time is, and only he knows when that time is, is to say, not this time. Or maybe, yes, this time, maybe next time, if you need to, we're going to do that. Right?

But it's always walking with him. Are we going to be like dogs and put our life on the line to save other lives? To me, almost that would be easier than knowing what to do in the circumstances we normally encounter. I'm like Jim, who said earlier, he gives money to people not expecting it back. But when do we give back to people?

And what does that look like? That's great points. And we're going to talk about a lot more of this in the After Hours. We've got more questions.

We've got personal stories to share. You can go to masculinejourney.org to download the podcast, to download the After Hours podcast. You can also get it at Spotify.

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So that's a little teaser out there that we hope we will have one. And we would love to hear from you. So please go to our website. Reach out to us. Let us know how you're doing. Let us know how we can pray for you.

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