Hey, this is Mike Zwick from If Not For God Podcast, our show.
Stories of hopelessness turned into hope. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just seconds. Enjoy it, share it. But most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network.
This is the Truth Network. The heart of every man craves a great adventure, but life doesn't usually feel that way. Jesus speaks of narrow gates and wide roads, but the masculine journey is filled with many twists and turns.
So, how do we keep from losing heart while trying to find the good way when life feels more like a losing battle than something worth dying for? Grab your gear and come on a quest with your band of brothers who will serve as the guides in what we call the masculine journey. The masculine journey starts here now. Welcome to Masculine Journey.
We're glad you're with us this week. And we have an amazing topic, don't we, Harold? Sorry, I started to say art. I'm looking right at you, and I'm just talking to art, so I started to say art.
That wasn't right. Harold, so what is our topic for this week? It's your topic. Well, since we use movie clips so much in our program, and I was reading and looking at the makeup of Jesus' team, and then Paul had what he had to say about the different makeup of the body of the church, I came up with the wild idea that why don't we look at clips and show how teams are put together of people with different capabilities. Individuals may be terrific in one area, but they ain't going to win the war by themselves. I got to thinking because of all the stuff going on about recruiting high school players for college teams and the pro teams and stuff, you're looking for specific individuals to fill specific roles. And I don't care how good a quarterback may be, if he doesn't have the offensive line to protect him, he ain't no good at all.
It don't matter. Most casual fans don't realize it because the big heavy guys in the trenches don't get the glory, but they're responsible for the victory. And so when you look at the team and you see the quarterback getting all the glory, just remember who's in front of him.
The little running back that looks so great when he can dance to the side and scoot down the field. If he ain't got a blocker, he ain't going nowhere. So that was the idea behind it that to have success, you need a team made up of people with different abilities and that are willing to work together and share the glory rather than try to hog it for themselves. So that's kind of the idea.
And typical of me, I had an idea, but I fell flat on my face and didn't get a flip, get a clip to go with it. Yeah, that happens. Sometimes we get a lot of things going on, but I guess if you're out there, you're saying, well, what's wrong with being by yourself? What's wrong with being the lone wolf? Well, if Jesus, who could have done everything by himself, chose not to, because it was better for him to have a team, not that he needed the team, right? But he chose to have a team. He came from a team, right? That's the whole thing. I think we originated from a team.
It was called the Trinity, you know, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But we were made in community, and we talked about that before. Our hearts were made for community, and we're better in community. Yes, there's a time to walk in the desert alone, and Jesus did that.
We all have to do that. We were never meant to do that forever. We're meant to be part of something bigger, part of God's team, walking in that. Yeah, and you were just saying earlier, you know, like, we're talking about, well, who has some scripture, this or that? And it was exactly where I was at the time when you're asking that, was, well, we are grounded in Genesis 1 26, let us, the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, the infinite eternal team, make man in our image according to our likeness.
We're so unique in all of creation, and we're in that team, that holy Trinity that governs everything we do. I think Andy would call it the A-Team. He would. Yeah, he will get to that a little bit later, maybe, if we play his clip, and so it remains to be seen.
Robby, you actually have the first clip this time, so if you would tell us about that. Yeah, well, as soon as I heard the topic, I thought, well, you know, especially if it comes to Masculine Journey, you can't help but relate to the idea of the Dirty Dozen, right? Which, you know, if you're born in the 50s like me, it would have been about the ages you wanted to see the Dirty Dozen when it came out in the 60s. And the Dirty Dozen was a movie about 12 convicts that were all on death row that they used in World War II to, you know, put behind enemy lines and wreak havoc. Yeah, havoc, havoc.
Well, as Ravage and Havage, you know what I mean. Yeah, there's words in there somewhere. Was that Hebrew? It is now.
I'm a trained professional, just saying. Anyway, you know, the whole idea, and, you know, I think Stu coined it for Truth Broadcasting many years ago. He calls it the land of misfit toys, right? And this group that was in the A-Team, you know, I can definitely relate to because there was so much shenanigans, especially if you watch the movie. But A-Team or Dirty Dozen? Dirty Dozen. Okay, all right. Both. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Both. But in the Dirty Dozen, since they were crooks, you know, and criminals and all sorts of people, they could really pull one over on people. And it was amazing what they could do together because they had lots of gifts, but they were a little unusual, nonetheless.
This clip, you know, kind of describes what they were. Major Risen. You are ordered by Allied command to select 12 general prisoners, convicted by courts martial and sentenced to be executed or serve lengthy prison terms for murder, rape, robbery and other crimes of violence. And you will deliver them secretly behind enemy lines in France to undertake a mission of sabotage that could change the course of the war. But the 12 men will be known as the Dirty Dozen. Lee Marvin as Major John Reisman.
There's a little of Major Reisman in every man, says Marvin. Tough and unyielding, yet compassionate. I think it's the best role I've ever been asked to play. You've all volunteered for a mission which gives you just three ways to go.
Either you can file up in training and be shipped back here for immediate execution of sentence or you can file up in combat, in which case that will personally blow your brains out or you can do as you're told, in which case you might just get by. Jimmy Brown as Napoleon Jefferson. Jefferson is any man fighting for recognition against the odds, says Brown.
I think I understand him pretty well. John Cassavetes as Victor Franco, says Cassavetes. Franco is a petty hoodlum forced to heroism by circumstances beyond his control. We go on that mission, we all get killed. That's what they want!
That's what they want! Charles Bronson as Vladislav. The last guy in the world could expect to be a hero. Telly Savalas as Archer Maggot. Maggot is a maniac, says Savalas. His religious fanaticism can never be moderated or quelled.
It is a constant danger. Clint Walker as Samson Posey. An Indian with war paint smeared on his soul. Train them, excite them, arm them, and turn them loose on the Nazi high command. So there's so much I could say about that movie that was just outstanding but you know the couple things that to me where scripture comes to light as I see this so many times is you know in our weakness he's made strong and you know you know his you know perfection or his perfection is made perfect in our weakness however you want to say those two things but the idea of that happening in a team is that through the team of the dirty dozen you saw the strength of God kind of come through in what they could do together as they you know complimented one another and of course you know I can't tell you how many times we've seen that with this particular team right as we come closer and closer to really a dozen so that we truly be dirty you know however that looks but you know I just like you said Sam it wasn't meant for us to be alone and when we're really honest with each other we we do have these serious you know faults and like C.S. Lewis put it you know every once in a while we need to get a good whiff of our inner cesspool and you know we really do and by having you know people there for your back when that weakness shows up and sometimes in really bad places there's a few boot camps I can remember that and I'm sure Sam can too that Robby was running he was hurt and he was you know wounded and I'm like I don't need this I'm out of here right but but again people came to my rescue and and what a rescue it's been you know I can't imagine my life without this ministry and you know the ultimate rescue you know is obviously God gets the glory but it's pretty cool to be it's pretty cool to be along for the ride so if you're if you're doubting the whole team thought that you were meant to be in teams and you're not going to take scripture that's a good reference let me ask you a different way of saying it if you're a movie buff at all I bet you can't name probably your top five movies that at least three of them won't involve a team right you may have a Rambo in there you may have something in there that's it's an individual you know or the one with Liam Neeson where he goes for his dog taken right there may be an individual movie in there where it's about that person but I promise you when you list your favorite movies they're going to include a team of some sort because we're not meant to be alone Animal House right yeah that was a team they were all it's all teams and I think about in sports if you follow sports very closely I remember I don't know gosh it's a couple dozen years ago probably one of the sports in football one of the teams really really went out in free agency and got all sorts of just top players that they broke the bank on free agency and you would have thought just by looking at the team on paper they were going to be the best because they had the best in this position best in this position and they really did and they didn't make the playoffs because they had no continuity there wasn't a team there there needs to be differences right to make it really work you have to work through those differences which we've had to do any team has to do and you have to work through those and get to a common ground but once you do you're so much stronger right why is it that we like the Cinderella team in sports the one that's not supposed to be there right it's because they've gelled together as a team and they're doing something greater than they could have done individually plus we relate to them because we're not superstars right exactly you put all the stories together in the gospels and you see that they had some knuckleheads just like us and the disciples and other perfect people to the ministry and stuff but you know you it was always something that jesus was having to teach them they went off on their own tangent on what they thought god expected what the kingdom of god was like what their role was whatever it was who who's greater you know that question i mean do that question not get asked in teams a lot of times who's greater on the team probably the problem with that football team had all these stars on it right yeah yeah well they all assume they're the greatest right exactly you know and no one's humble enough to know okay right and that's that brings division within the team it does yeah right you know a team for world players is much better than a team full of superstars most of the time so if you're looking for a team a great place to find a foundation for a team is it a boot camp go to mascoandjourney.org to register the upcoming boot camp november 21st through 24th again that's mascoandjourney.org and we'll talk with you after the break but you have time right now during this break to go get the registration started we're there we're waiting on you we're going to get you an email what we have at our boot camp is something that makes you stronger and it gives you the strength to go on your regular walk with god it's something that will make you be bigger than you were when you got there i've been coming regularly and it's just such a blessing when you guys invited me i was at the worst time of my christian walk i was going through some things the first time i came i don't know if you remember i was couldn't even walk i couldn't stand up straight and uh i'm walking now i ain't running around a lake yet but you know the greatest things is just being around a group of men that love the lord and sharing his kindness and his love uh all of you guys i done sat and talked with all of you guys different occasions different conversations and it's all been unique and refreshing you guys gave me a whole different perspective in life and you can't hide the true genuine love of god you can't hide it register today at masculine journey dot o-r-g love is the answer release for most of the questions of my heart why are we here and where do we go and knock on my soul it's not always easy and sometimes life can be deceiving i'll tell you one thing it's always better when we're together welcome back to masculine journey it is better when we're together guys i just want to ask you a question and we didn't set this up ahead of time because i don't often give you questions ahead of time but uh how many times for you has it happened where you're just having a horrible day and you don't really feel like coming in here on tuesdays because we meet on tuesdays to record the show but you come anyway and it's all the difference in the world that's what made the difference is coming and being better together right no one can hear you shake your head well a couple of you might i raised my hand they couldn't see that either so you know we're still figured out the radio thing well i'm just kind of agreeing with your point but i can't remember having a bad tuesday yeah other times in my life but not necessarily on a tuesday yeah there are times i'm just really really tired from work or it's been a long week and it's only tuesday and i feel like man i just much rather go home right and honestly the enemy comes at me very often with that you know trying to give me reasons why it would be you know better for me to go do something else but those are the times that i know most likely i have to be here because there's something here for me you guys but god's here for me and god's with me wherever i am i get that but you know it is better to be together and i leave here in a much better place and it sets me up for the whole rest of the week you know just because i spent some time with my brothers that's the thing about a great team we all selected into this we weren't recruited but it's when you see something that you admire and want to be a part of it makes all the difference in the world it does absolutely absolutely well danny you're uh next to your club yeah i chose a clip from show blue bloods which is one of my go-to's most of the time because i love the show really yeah i know y'all wouldn't know that you know but um good thing can't see hand gestures but you're waving at me i'm waving at you um the uh you know i went kind of a different route when a team is more than one person and i thought about marriage in this for some reason or another and and this clip is from a scene where jamie who is uh frank reagan's son and his partner eddie who she they've been partners on the on the patrol for quite some time and they've fallen in love and they're proposing to get married and then stay partners and you know they work as a team on the job but they're making it a permanent team all the way around the board and i just thought it was a neat clip and what the scene is that they're at the family dinner which every episode either ends or somewhere in there's a big family dinner and they're throwing this idea to a room full of cops and district attorneys and so so that's what we'll hear is the interchange on what they're doing and how they set the whole proposal and then we can talk about it again oh but you know that you can't work together anymore well that's what we thought too but you thought well assumed but i looked it up and there's nothing in the patrol guide or any of the books for that matter says married cops can't be partners on the job nowhere no wow but i knew that you and dad would be for that rule even if it wasn't actually a rule but the rule does make enormous sense why well a couple partnered together on the job can create conflicts yes but but i hear us out consider if two people willing to swear the following to each other could still be good partners on the job swear the following one vows that we wrote to each other you wrote vows already okay turns out she's been working on them for a while so i just turns out so has he so uh i will always have your back if you fall behind i'll wait up i'll earn your respect and pay your respect every day we have i'll be your scout your night watchman your cavalry your medic your chaplain and our army of two no retreat no surrender no retreat no surrender you can count on me and you can count on me you can count on me welcome to our family honey thank you dad so they're becoming partners in life and you know partners on the street and you know scripture says that a man and woman become one flesh and that's the the ultimate two-person team you know i think but um the that was my thought process behind it and i thought a lot about you know my life with michelle and we make an awesome team she's more the the architect and the uh the planner of the group and i'm the uh i'm the engineer and the working crew to put something operations yeah operations your field operations yeah and complaint department you know that but uh the but those kind of things are you know there's been so many times in our life where her strengths shine when when when i had weaknesses and vice versa and you know that's what a team is you know like this band of brothers which is very important to me that i almost feel like i was drafted into this but no but um that it's that thing where you know we see it a lot setting up at boot camp the stuff that people don't see is that everybody's got their skill set and you know that that's what marriage comes through everybody's got their strengths and their weaknesses and it meshes together and becomes something beautiful that would not happen if we were all rambos or long rangers or whatever and just because i can't imagine a one-man set up for a boot camp or you know one-man operation in a house or something like that but you know those kind of things but that's just where i went with it with that you know and i love the show blue bloods but i also love you know what god has put in my life and and deeply appreciate you guys and my wife because i need you guys all of you so thank you the um the question i had on it if if we would have the camera it's not really a question if we had the camera if you would have realized that if you looked around the room not everybody could get up on the ladder so that usually goes to rodney you know to be up on the ladder and so that would not be my strong suit it would be up on the ladder and then for several of us that's kind of become what not the favorite thing of our strengths you know but it was set up and which is even you know leading up to a camp all the different things that have to be done you know the uh just ministry in general it takes a team in the camp excuse me i know that's one of the things like you're just talking about all the things we don't see but he's going through puberty could you could you imagine you guys have done it where you've done multiple camps where you've had to do multiple talks not just two but three and four and more it's like one person doing all that organizing it getting it going doing the radio show you just can't do these kinds of things by yourself ministry is meant to be a team effort for sure well yeah everything right in life is meant to be that way yep yeah yeah well andy you have the next clip so if you'd like to tell us a little bit about your club so speaking of hold on we've got four minutes you got time you got four minutes we'll do it after we'll do it next yeah that'd be better probably all right so what are you guys going to talk about for the next four minutes i'll just i'll just say um you know this this idea of being the brothers a lot of times we talk about it in the community of not so much mission but just community and how that's where we've experienced a lot of growth i think but we've thrown been thrown together in mission and and that's really the what it was like with the disciples there was community within mission and if you watch the chosen you see a lot of that and um i don't know it's just i think god in the in how he created things just like us we're called in relationship with him but also on mission go and tell the world you know what you've heard and um i just think that um but it's much more rich whenever you can go to a boot camp and do setups and do the talks together and be able to say man i didn't know that about your story after you hear somebody's story and that that really impacted me i've heard it numerous times where you'll one of us will tell about a wound or and how god came after that and you didn't really know that and so it's a constant um i don't know it's just a process that we continually go through over and over and and it deepens our faith it deepens our walk but it wouldn't be possible obviously i mean how how long did i sit dying for something inside not really knowing that i wanted to be in a community but that's really what my heart desired and then when you get that it's it's a beautiful thing and it's something that i think so many guys don't realize that's what they need but it's it's available so well sometimes sorry go ahead Robby oh that's i was just going to say that there's a something to belonging right like wow i really belong here like these people really accept me and i feel completely part of the team right and and and you don't get there and that's how i relate it to heaven that at heaven you're going to feel like oh i completely belong here well jesus completely belonged in the three right and so when you're when you're in a community that truly is of god i mean that's the part that you feel which is like oh i really am part of this i really do belong and it took me a long time to get there that was a long time i felt like the outsider looking in and the the cool part about it is that they you know it's a god thing because in the world birds of a feather flock together you usually hang out with people just like you but when god puts a team together you're as different as day and night there's a phrase that came from another organization i was part of that says we are a lot that normally would not mix and when you look around you know we are probably guys that would not have hung out in our worldly state because of our different walks of life there are different interests and that kind of thing but here we are as different as day and night but a cam camaraderie that that is not easily broken yeah i mean the disciples you had two brothers that fished together but then you had and some other guys from the area but then you had a tax collector he was an outsider for sure you know you had the zealot you had that was you know into into um i don't know what he was he was a zealot for the hebrew religion or whatever but you know that you just had a variety of guys that it was a hard example really and so what makes it tough to get in to be a part of a team the enemy doesn't want you to be part of one right and so come in and he'll tell you you're disqualified for this or you're disqualified for that it's it's his way of keeping you from being part of something bigger right and so if you're not in a team currently and you want to be in a team ask god to help you see a team ask you to form one around here to bring somebody in mind or bring one person to you two people make up a team guys so just go out and do that and tell you what love somebody really well this week and walk with god in the midst of it we'll talk to you next week this is the truth network
