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Invitation and Identity

The Masculine Journey / Sam Main
The Truth Network Radio
November 2, 2024 12:30 pm

Invitation and Identity

The Masculine Journey / Sam Main

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November 2, 2024 12:30 pm

Welcome fellow adventurers! This week, the A Team is talking about invitations and identity. The clips are from "Remember The Titans," and "Bruce Almighty." 

Be sure to check out our other podcasts, Masculine Journey After Hours and Masculine Journey Joyride for more great content!

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This is the Truth Network. The heart of every man craves a great adventure, but life doesn't usually feel that way. The Masculine Journey starts here, now.

Welcome to Masculine Journey. We have an exciting week for you. Very small crowd, Andy, Grant. Very small crowd this week. Do you hear an echo, a wicko?

A little bit. Normally this room is filled with bodies, and this week you have a trio here. There's some weeks we have 10, 11, 12 people here. Now you don't hear all those people in the air. I just sing. You could sing if you'd like to sing. We may be our last week on the air, but you could sing if you wanted to. Normally we have a lot of people in the room, but everybody you hear tonight is in the room with us. You hear them. Yeah, that's it. Nobody waiting in the wings.

Nobody's on the bullpen or anything. It's just us. What you see is what you get. What you hear is what you get.

He's not degrading anybody. No, not at all. Initially we knew a couple people were going to be out, and then they just started dropping like flies, man. They were just like, I'm gone, I'm gone, I'm gone.

That sounds like a good idea. I'm gone. I'm out of state. You didn't know you were going to be out of state earlier? Come on, now. A couple of them weren't feeling well, which they could stay home.

We hope they're out. Now, I'm excited about this show because it's a counterpart to last week's show. Last week's show we were doing it on the lures and the labels that the enemy has, the lures he throws out trying to get us to take a bite, to try to get us to be reeled in by him so that he could call us his instead of God's, and the labels that he puts on us. As we're talking about that, Grant kind of throws out last week, he's like, well, what about God? He was asking about God's version of that, the lures and the labels.

That actually became this week's show. We're going to defer to what Jim wanted to call it, and then we'll talk about it here in a minute. But we are calling it invitation and identity. What does God throw you out as an invitation, which I like another word better, but we'll talk about that here in a minute, and what does he call you in your identity? What does he have in your identity? So this is Grant's topic.

So Grant, welcome to your first week of having a topic, I think. Darrell Bock Yeah, there you go. And he's here. Joe Fornear And he's here. That's not a – normally some people like Robby last week will throw out part of a topic and then not be here. Grant Williams Or I'm at school.

Joe Fornear Yeah, that's right. And so we're going to kind of get into it. Andy, before we get into the topic, do you want to talk any more about it or do you want to play your clip? Andy Horwitz Yeah, I'll talk a little bit of what this clip kind of – all the clips I did, and I tried to parallel somewhat to my life, not just in a general sense, but a personal sense. And in this one, it's from Remember the Titans, and you've got Coach Boone and Gary and Ray. They're getting ready to go to camp, to football camp. And Gary and Ray have an elevated sense. You have the merger of a black team and a white team where the schools came together, and the coach, Boone, ended up becoming the head coach. And Gary and Ray had been on a good team previously. Gary was an All-American, so he was going to come and kind of tell the coach what the deal was.

And you just hear this interaction, and I want to get into more of the meat of it, but just go ahead and listen to it now. Coach Boone Good morning, good morning, good morning, coaches. How are you? Gary Bertier Good morning. Coach Boone How are you? Gary Bertier I'm good today, then. Coach Boone I just wanted to let you know what the offense is doing. Gary Bertier It's an awful skinny playbook, ain't it?

Coach Boone Yeah, well, I run six plays, split biz, like Novocain. Just give it time, always works. See you on the bus. Gary Bertier Be patient, Bill.

Your time will come. Gary Bertier Here we go. Gary Bertier Here we go. Gary Bertier I'm going to help you boys. I'm Gary Bertier, the only All-American you've got on this team. You want any of us to play for you, you reserve half the open positions for Hammond players, half the offense, half the special teams. We don't need any of your people on defense. We're already set. Gary Bertier Uh-huh.

Don't need none of my people. Gary Bertier Mm-hmm. Gary Bertier What'd you say your name was, uh, Jerry? Gary Bertier Gary. Gary Bertier No, you must have said Jerry, like Lewis, which would make you Dean Martin, right? Gary Bertier Ladies and gentlemen, I've got an announcement to make. We got Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin going to camp with us here this year. Jerry tells the jokes, Dean sings the songs, and gets the girl.

Let's give them a round of applause. Gary Bertier Where's your folks, Gary? Parents, out of here? Boy, out of here. Gary Bertier That's my mother. Gary Bertier That's your mama? Gary Bertier Mm-hmm. Gary Bertier Very nice, that way.

Take a good look at her, because once you get on that bus, you ain't got no mama no more. You got your brothers on the team, and you got your daddy. Now, you know who your daddy is, don't you? Gary, if you want to play on this football team, you answer me when I ask you, who is your daddy? Who's your daddy, Gary?

Who's your daddy? Gary Bertier You. Gary Bertier Uh-huh. And whose team is this?

Is this your team, or is this your daddy's team? Gary Bertier Yours. Gary Bertier Mm-hmm. Get on the bus.

Put your jacket on first. Gary Bertier Uh, Dean, fix that tie, son. Darrell Bock So you just hear that. You can hear the coach just put the boys in their place. And what was their problem? They had an elevated sense of self-worth.

They were prideful, and they thought they were going to tell the coach how to do it. And it seems somewhat insulting or humbling of what he, as a man, kind of speaks into them. But, you know, if you really take a step back and look at this clip or listen to this clip, you see that, I mean, he even says, you know, who's your daddy? That's very humbling. But sometimes we have to be asked by God, who's your daddy?

And we're running around trying to say that we run the show or we don't really know who our daddy is. So to bridge this over into my story, I've been separated with my wife. I was trying to get my validation through my work. I was very frustrated that my company would not promote me. I didn't necessarily want or need the money, but it was more about influence. I felt like I brought a lot that I didn't get respected for, and it was very frustrating to me.

And I kept trying and trying, and nothing was happening. And God, in his invitation to me, I thought it was me just trying to escape that situation. I went to work with another company, very humbling. I had to start from the beginning, and I immediately found out that I wasn't all that. I was exposed like Gary was there. I did not have all the answers in this new job, and I really had to depend on God. Well, I look back through that, you know, that whole situation, and that's what seemed to be – I mean, I think God actually had to expose me in front of – there was situations at work where I almost was called out like that.

Now, other people had their issues themselves, and I don't – I think I had some valid points, but I was Gary there, and I was acting like that. And God saw that in his mercy, but what he really wanted, the invitation was to say, Andy, who's your daddy? Who is your daddy? And I wouldn't have told you then. It's all – I'm looking back and seeing this in the past. But I found my daddy through that. But I was stuck in a place that I needed to be invited out of all I knew at that time, and it's been an incredible ride since.

And I'll talk a little bit more on some other clips later on about how that story continues. You were telling us before the show that, you know, you stepped into this other role and then realized, wow, I really need – I need God here, right? I mean – And the other job, I don't think I did.

I didn't feel like I did, whereas I did. But this was something new. I was into a new – and I was intrigued by the adventure that I knew that I was going. And it opened some doors up to me.

I got to travel and all this stuff. But whenever I started to have to get in front of customers and tell them about our products that I didn't know anything about and hadn't learned, and I realized I had a lot of gaps in my professional skills, and I just really didn't have what it took at that moment, it really caused me to rely on God. I can remember him, though I was still seeking him, and I began to realize my need for him. I can remember one of the business trips I was on, and I was having to go in front of people, and I read the Scripture that said, I will put you before men of means, men that, you know – and I really did end up doing that. So even while I was being humbled, he was still picking me up through this process.

But he had to step in and say, Andy, who's your daddy? Yeah, as you were talking through that, I was reminded of a story back in California when I lived there. And so, you know, working in the construction industry, there are ups and downs. You know, there's hills and there's valleys, there's feasts and there's fam and however you want to say it, right?

There's up cycles and down cycles, and they both have their challenges. And I was out there and was in construction, and we were kind of approaching – I didn't know it at the time, but the first down cycle, I'd never been through one. And about that time, about six months ahead of that, I just felt God telling me for some reason to start getting some lawn equipment. I mean, I had a mower and I mowed my yard, but he was like, no, get a trailer, you know, get an edger, you know, get these things. And I'm like, okay.

And so I'm getting – I'm not really knowing what's going on. And so at that time at work, I had a person that had been kind of a peer – actually had been in a completely different role, but is a peer in a different role get promoted above me, which was fine. I had no issues with her getting promoted, but I knew that she didn't really know a whole lot of what was going on.

And so my humbling moment came when she said something to me and had given me direction, and I made a comment of, you know, why don't you just let the people that know what they're doing do it. Darrell Bock Yikes. Jay Smith Yeah. It wasn't intending to be disrespectful, but it was – Darrell Bock Condescending. Jay Smith Condescending, all the things I really wasn't intending to be, but it was. And a week later – what's that? Darrell Bock Education.

Jay Smith Educational. A week later, I found myself without a job. Yeah, I had been laid off and realized that this was not a time to go find a job in construction. And so, you know, worrying about it one night, I hear God tell me in a dream, which he does sometimes, Sam's Total Lawn Care. And so, you know, I had this thing.

And for the next year, until construction picked back up, the way I've had as a single parent at this time, my wife had left my daughters and I. And so it was me and my two girls. And, you know, I kept us alive by Sam's TLC. That's what I call it. Give your lawn a little bit of love.

Give it some Sam's TLC, Sam's Total Lawn Care. And had I not been buying that equipment and listening to God, but it was a very humbling time. And I honestly really had to lean into God over that year, because, you know, I learned about paying the power bill when you don't have to pay it, at least there in California, until it became a pink notice. When it was a pink notice, they were about ready to shut you off, you know. And so, you know, it was just the white forms. It was okay. When it became the yellow, okay, it's like a sign, right?

Yeah, a traffic signal. And I found, okay, I got all the way up until it got to be pink. We're going to go to break now. When we come back, we're going to talk more about this topic. Go to masculinejourney.org to register boot camp.

Talk to you after the break. What we have at our boot camp is something that makes you stronger and 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 couldn't even walk.

I couldn't even stand up straight. And I'm walking now. I ain't running around the 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. 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. Order today at masculinejourney.org. Welcome back to Masculine Journey. That is Jason Gray.

Remind me who I am. And yes, we have used that bump. We have used that clip many, many times. But it is such a good clip on this topic of identity, isn't it? Yeah. Identity and new name. I tried to put those two together. But yeah, that whole idea of who you are, it's foundational, and that's one of the best songs out there for it.

Who do you think? Well, what we think is, Grant, who we think we are is who the world tells us we are. And that's what this song and the video actually goes after. It's all the labels that the enemy and the world give you. And what God calls you, it's Jason Gray. Go watch it on YouTube.

Remind me who I am. Great, great video. Just very powerful. Enough that we've been doing it for many, many boot camps now. We have, yeah. And it speaks volumes.

It really does. Yeah. And so that's part of the identity which we're talking about today. If you just joined us, we're talking about invitation and identity, the things that God offers us. Now, I did say that we were going to use a different word for invitation, which we will.

We like the word, meaning the three of us here, and I can't speak for Grant. But Andy and I like the word entice. And originally I said entice and identity. And then Jim kind of had issue with it, so entice is more of a negative connotation. And it technically, if you look it up, Jim is right and Jim is a walking dictionary.

So I should have known that that would be accurate. But my concern is I get invitations to lots of things, right? It doesn't mean I go or don't go. I sometimes go, sometimes don't go. But when you're enticed, it means you're intrigued.

It means you're kind of, I want to know more. Darrell Bock To me, it's an invitation on steroids. Darrell Bock Yeah, it is. Darrell Bock Yeah, it's a little bit more of a pull to it. Darrell Bock So we're going to call it God's positive enticing invitation, just for our friend Jim who's listening. Darrell Bock To be truthful, I looked it up in Blue Letter Bible and went into the – well, I took the Scripture from James about how we were enticed away.

So it's the Greek word. And looking at it, when you look at it, it doesn't talk about even the bait and the fish and stuff like that. But it does carry a negative connotation. But I think we've all used the term entice in a positive way of enticing to something good. Darrell Bock Yeah, yes. Darrell Bock So of course, maybe it's tied to something like, oh, that dessert entices me. It could be bad. But I think that was Jim's example.

He said ice cream entices him. Darrell Bock Yeah, that's right. Darrell Bock Okay. Darrell Bock Yeah. Darrell Bock I played drums in a rock and roll Christian rock band.

Entice people to come and think of this music. Darrell Bock That's right. Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely. And so we're going to move on to a clip of mine. It's from – I don't remember what it's from. Darrell Bock Let me look at it here. Darrell Bock Which one did you – Darrell Bock Oh, Bruce Almighty. Darrell Bock Bruce Almighty. This is from Bruce Almighty. And so what's happened, if you haven't seen the movie, it's like, I don't know, 30 years old.

You should have seen it by now. But if you haven't seen the movie, what happens is Bruce is a news reporter, a weatherman, I think, on the local station. And he's having a pretty bad day. And so he gets mad at God and he kind of takes it out on God just verbally. And God says, okay, he makes a comment, Bruce makes a comment, you know, anybody could do this.

God's just a mean guy, you know, whatever. And so God says, okay, you think you can do it? And he invites Bruce to be – have God's powers for a day for a period of time. And Bruce initially thinks it's great and he doesn't believe that he has them. And he sits down at a diner and he parts his soup, like it's the Red Sea, it's tomato soup, right? And he parts it. And so it's going to reference it. And he tries all these things and he realizes, man, it's not easy being God.

He gives all the people everything they wish for and that backfires. And everything he tries, he realizes, man, I just can't be God. And so where we pick up this is it's after Bruce has realized that he's back talking with Morgan Freeman who plays the God character. And so they're talking about this whole concept. And I want you to listen to this conversation and then we'll talk about it.

There we are. It's good. It's good. It's a wonderful thing.

No matter how filthy something gets, they always cleaned it right up. There were so many, I just gave them all what they wanted. Yeah.

But since when does anyone have a clue about what they want? So do I do. Parting your soup is not a miracle, Bruce. It's a magic trick. A single mom who's working two jobs and still finds time to take her kid to soccer practice, that's a miracle.

A teenager who says no to drugs and yes to an education. That's a miracle. People want me to do everything for them.

What they don't realize is they have the power. You want to see a miracle, son? Be the miracle. So the reason I wanted to play that is on this topic of enticement or invitation, rather. God's invitations look very different. In Andy's clip they just used, the invitation from God was completely – you couldn't see it until later on.

You have the eyes later to see clearly what happened before. On this one, a lot of times the invitation will be something that rises up inside you, a passion that you have or something that you really don't like the way something's working or you really like the way something's working and you're passionate about entering into it. That could be part of God's invitation. And I'm not suggesting from this clip at all that we do it absence of God. God always wants us to do things with him. But he empowers us. He chooses to empower us. He chose the disciples to spread the word of Jesus. Darrell Bock You've got to open up so he can come in.

Dr. Darrell Bock Right. And so on this what I would ask is God's invitation in your heart may be just something you're passionate about. I know that when I went to my first boot camp in 2004 – 2002 I think – my first one was 2002. I went to my first boot camp in 2002.

I knew I wanted to do boot camps. I was passionate about them. The first one was many, many years later.

And I'll talk about it on my next clip when I play that. But I had a passion for it, but it just didn't happen and it didn't happen. And just because it didn't happen didn't mean it wasn't a passion God laid in my heart. It wasn't an invitation.

It just wasn't the timing I thought it was going to be. Darrell Bock Right. Dr. Darrell Bock Yes. I didn't mean let him come in. Let him come in. More like request him in. Dr. Darrell Bock Right. To invite him in.

Darrell Bock Yeah. I think that whole desire that we talk about in the calling at boot camps is this idea that desire I think is part of who you are. And I think whenever we really begin to seek him, part of that desire that gets activated comes from the essence of who we are. It's not just random desire.

Oh, let's go do this. A lot of times I used to read the Bible and just say, automatically be motivated by a scripture to go do one thing, thinking that's what it is, without asking, without checking into, is this fit my desire? Because you can do random stuff for God, but I think he wants more to direct whatever you're doing and tie it to your desire and who you are. He had a plan. He had a vision for us in our mother's womb.

Why not align with that instead of just doing something random? Dr. Darrell Bock Exactly. And God's invitations come in many different, they look completely different. This is Jesus healed to blind differently lots of times. God's invitations is not going to be the same for Grant, for Andy, it is for me. I know that when I got started with the Hope Center, which is a food bank and clothing closet, and we do some other things over in Kernersville, initially I was at lunch with my pastor, and we were just talking about some stuff.

He's like, hey, do you have any interest in being the director of the Hope Center? Well, I'd never really thought about it. And initially I said, no, I don't really want to do that. And then the more I thought about it over the next couple of days, God laid it on my heart, like, why don't you want to?

It's not that I have an issue with feeding the hungry, I want them to eat, or clothing those that don't have clothing, I want them to have that. I just didn't feel that pull on my life. Darrell Bock Yeah, your vein was ministry to men. Like that was that only channel, and I think he's created us to do more than one thing.

John Dickerson Exactly. Well said. I couldn't have said it that well, so thank you. No, I mean, I kind of said, well, God, my ministry stuff you have me doing is in this vein.

It's with the radio show, it's with the boot camps, it's with that. And God's like, well, why? And so I got ahold of my pastor, I said, yeah, you know what, I think I will. I think I would like to look at doing that. And so as it's kind of, I've been doing it now for a few years and just learning that, you know, I really have a passion for it.

Right? It's part of my calling, you know, to use a Christian term. It's part of the invitation that he's called me to, but it's also part of my identity. You know, to utilize leadership skills in a different way. You know, I've led people, you know, lots of years in my career. I've never had the opportunity to lead volunteers. Darrell Bock Opportunity. John Dickerson Yeah, and leading volunteers is completely different than it is leading people that are getting paid to be there.

Right? Because, you know, I mean, we have some amazing volunteers, and I'm not poking fun at any one of our volunteers that we have at the Hope Center, so don't hear it that way. But when you work with volunteers, not at the Hope Center, right? But in general, when you have a bunch of volunteers, it can be like herding cats, you know, a little bit. But it never has been there. It's been just a lot of great people just wanting to love on other people by service.

You know, and it's really opened my eyes to what generosity looks like, which has been my word of the year this year, to lots of things that I thought I knew the meaning of that I really didn't. Darrell Bock Yep. Speaking of, don't you mean herding cows, not cats? John Dickerson Yeah, it's easier to herd cows than cats.

Cats do what they want. Darrell Bock They do, especially my cats. John Dickerson Oh, your cats. That's the first I've heard you call that. John Dickerson My adopted cats. John Dickerson Okay. All right.

Well, they're your cats. We have long enough, they're yours. So any other – we have about a minute or so left, I think, before we wrap up the show, maybe somewhere in there. But anyway, any other thoughts before we go on to the after hours?

Darrell Bock I mean, the whole idea behind this invitation is it can be anything, I think. We've talked a little bit about calling and ministry and maybe even career and stuff like that. But God will call you into just being with him, but maybe being in a setting like we've talked about it on here many times, just nature. He'll call you into that because your heart comes alive and he knows how he made you. And I think he puts that in all of us to a degree. But I've found life in that invitation for God to call me out into nature, calling me out into adventure in the woods and other stuff. And it's brought life to my heart. I talk about it many times.

Don't do it all the time, but I do it as much as I can because it does bring life. John Dickerson Yeah. When we first started talking about this topic, we thought it was going to be two separate things, but you can't talk about invitation without talking about identity. Go to masculinejourney.org. We'll talk with you next week. This is the Truth Network.
Whisper: medium.en / 2024-11-02 14:22:17 / 2024-11-02 14:34:04 / 12

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