Courage To Lead

God never calls the equipped, He equips the called. God doesn't call people that think they have the right resume. God never calls people that think they have the depth to do it. God never calls people that believe they have the intellectual ability or the strength to do it on their own. His strength is made perfect in our weakness. What He does is He attaches the equipping of the Holy Spirit to those that He calls. So the fact that you have been called to lead means the Spirit of God is upon you whether you know this or not. The Spirit of the Lord is upon you whether you know this or not. And tonight I wanna talk to you about courage to lead and I'm gonna show you a guy in the Bible that didn't believe it but that had it and I wanna show you how God brought him about to do it. We're gonna pray, we're gonna be in Judges chapter six tonight if you got a Bible. If not, we'll throw it up on the screen for you. But we're gonna stay in Judges chapter six. I'm just gonna pull this thing apart and we're gonna grow in the Lord for the next few moments. Father, I thank you for the opportunity to gather together with my brothers. I'm thankful for the opportunity to be a part of a church that values the power of manhood and what you have done.

We celebrate womanhood and we thank you, God, for those in our life and for the call of God upon their life in a unique way. But we understand that the mandate has been placed upon us to lead. And Father, we accept it, we don't shirk our responsibility but we lean wholly upon you for the anointing of the Spirit of God to do it and to do it well. But Father, we understand that we must step into a place of courage of ourselves, that we must find the voice of the Lord, the word of the Lord and the courage to believe what you have said about us and to be what you have called us to be. And I pray over these next few moments that the word of the Lord would be animated by the Spirit of the Lord and that you would speak expressly into the heart of every man in this room and those that may even be watching online at a later date. We ask your presence, your Spirit and all in the name of Jesus and every man said. Many years ago, my family and I were at Wild Adventures in Valdosta, don't know if you've ever been there. We were there when it was just kind of getting started. Park was relatively small and they had just started expanding their animal exhibits. And we're walking around looking at the animals and somehow I had never seen one before and in all my years, don't know how I really missed it, but I'd never been this close to one,

but they had just brought in a huge African lion. He was a huge male and he had everything that you would think a big African lion would have. He had this massive mane. I looked at his paws, they were like paper plates. I looked at these enormous fangs and his head like a truck tire. It looked like a 35 Toyo MT. I was like, man, this thing is freaking impressive. You could not be that close to this thing and not be utterly impressed as you stood three feet from 500 pounds of a pure killing machine. I was mesmerized by this thing. My family had kind of went on and I'm just, I'm stopping and I'm just watching this thing. I mean, after all, its official title is Panthera Leo. Its very name means it is the king of all beasts. And while I was admiring this thing, the longer I watched, the more distraught and saddened I became by what I saw. I looked at this incredible animal and the way it was behaving and what it was doing and what it was not doing. And all of a sudden, the longer I stayed, the more heartbroken I became for it because I could not help but think how that this massive and deadly predator should be out roaming the savanna, ruling his pride, striking fear into the heart of every wildebeest, gazelle, and impala

in the African plain. But instead, he spent every hour of every day of every year alone in a cage smaller than an office being fed through a small metal window on one end. And you could tell that years of that had taken its toll. It had done something to him. As big and as impressive as he was, I can tell you without stutter, stammer, or equivocation, there was no longer anything fierce about him at all. He didn't roar. He didn't pace. He didn't pounce. He wouldn't even look you in the eye and come close to the cage. And they tell you not to touch it, but I was over there trying to get him to look at me. I was doing this. Trying to get him to just look at me. He wouldn't budge. Every now and again, he would just roll over. And I wanted him to look at, I wanted him to, I wanted him to. I wanted him to be a lion. I wanted him to look around, ticked, and stare me down. I wanted him to turn around and I wanted to see the wild in his eye that he was born with that God placed in him. I wanted to see him be what he was created to be. But the longer he was there, After I stayed there, nothing.

He just laid there, weary from boredom, barely existing, barely breathing, rolling over every once in a while, waiting to be fed again, just existing until one day he no longer will. Years after years of living a tame, safe, and boring life in a cage, here's what I discovered, that even a lion will no longer believe he's a lion. Even a lion can forget that he is a lion. And one of the reasons why I'm so committed to doing what we're doing here tonight, and what we do in our church to build men, is because I see the cage effect in what it's done to too many men. We were created in the image of God. Bible says that we are image bearers of our heavenly Father and of God. You don't have to read much of the Bible to find out that God is not passive, that God is not lethargic, or a bystander on the sidelines of life or the world. He is active, he is engaged, he leans in. In fact, the Bible says in Romans 8 and 29 that it is the perfect will of God that we be conformed into the image of Christ. And Jesus himself is called the lion of the tribe of Judah. It is the will of God that we live as an image bearer. We were born to be fierce in the right way. We were born to be passionate.

We were born to be engaged. We were born to be fully alive. But too many men no longer connect or resonate with any of those things. When a lot of men look deep into their hearts, they don't really see a lot of courage. They don't really see a lot of passion. They don't really see a man that's fully alive or fully engaged. For too many men that I meet now, they see more fear than fierce, more passive than passion. And please know that it's not new. It's not something that's just emerged in our generation. 150 years ago, one author and philosopher by the name of Henry Thoreau wrote these famous words. Most men lead lives of quiet desperation. Most men lead lives of quiet desperation. When I read it, I didn't really believe that at first, but after many years of doing what I do, I actually think it's true. But why? I think a big part of it is the cage effect. We were actually born and born again for battle. We were created for the challenges of life. We were made for more than just drawing our breath and drawing a salary. We were made for more. And the truth is sometimes the biggest battles that we fight in life are traffic and some jerk at the office we have to see

every now and again. Yeah, I know, they're out there. And when we just live to survive and we're just trying to get by one day to the next and we're just trying to clock in and clock out and not get in too much trouble, rattle too many cages or push too many boundaries, we end up just surviving instead of thriving year after year and just like the lion can lose his identity and forget what he was created to be, a man can begin to lose his identity and forget what God created him to be. Too many men feel insufficient, inadequate, and underqualified. I know not every man, but many, many men. And it's partly because of the relentless grind of responsibility in life, I know that. But I also think there's some other factors that play a role. I wanna share three with you before I drop down into Judges chapter six that I think are the big three that sometimes create this cage effect or this inadequacy in men's lives. Number one, I think it sometimes stems from unfair criticism, unfair criticism. It is incredibly unfortunate, but many men have never really had a great relationship with their fathers. We know this, we know this is statistically true.

So many men stepped out, dipped out on their life, or if they were at least present, they were not really present in the room. They may have put food on the table, they may have provided at the lowest base level, but there was no emotional connection. They never really taught their sons how to be men. And sometimes boys are told in word or in deed they're not good enough, that they don't measure up. And I remember a kid, I'll never forget this. When I pastored with my brother in Lake City, there was a 15-year-old kid that kinda started coming to our youth group. And I remember that he had an encounter with Christ and he gave his life to the Lord and he lived with his father. His mother had dipped out, and so it was just him and his dad, was a mean-spirited dude and just was not a good guy. And I remember this kid going home and he tells his dad he's so excited about what happened on Wednesday night at youth group that he gave his life to Christ. And his father confronts him with this. Christians are weak and they're mild and they're soft. And he says, and I quote, I would rather you be a drunk than a Christian. That's what he told his kid. His 15-year-old freakin' kid. That's what he told him.

I'd rather you be a drunk than a Christian. Well, you know how deeply that affected him. It wounded him. And he ended up falling out of his relationship with God and four years later, indeed became exactly what his father prophesied he would become. Words have lingering power and sometimes we allow someone else's opinion of us to become our reality and unfortunately this happens to a lot of men, especially young men, and their life becomes shaped by something that was said or not said or done or not done somewhere in their life. Number two, I think that, now stick with me, it's gonna sound a little counterintuitive, but listen, I think the second thing that leads to this cage effect is unrealistic compliments. Now I know, again, it sounds contradictory, but hear me out. There has been a ton of research done about this, especially with the millennial generation and the generations that have followed. Now I love this generation, but research has shown that we have actually done a great disservice to them by constantly rewarding just showing up and existing. We've handicapped them. We've handicapped them. We have bound them and not given them what they needed to be able to thrive and survive. We knee jerked from the overly critical side

and then we went to this other extreme and told them, you're amazing, you're the best, without ever having to prove they're the best. We've told them you are incredible. No one is as good as you. We've told them this without ever challenging them to excel or holding them accountable when they don't work hard. See, I grew up playing sports my whole life. Back then, you actually had to be good at something to be recognized. I mean, back then, bro, you actually had to do something. You had to actually work hard to get an opportunity to start in the game. You actually had to win to get a trophy. Now, as long as you can just show up and keep breathing, we're all winners. And that ain't no good. I remember a Baptist pastor in Lake City. He knew my son played basketball for the school and he was trying to get his upward basketball program going and he literally calls me, because we were friends, and he said, would you please bring Tyler and enroll him up for the basketball? And I said, well, is it, it's upward basketball? He said, yes. I said, does that mean y'all don't keep score? He said, yes. I said, my son will never play in your basketball league. He needs to know that that doesn't reflect anything

in real life at all. That if somebody's better than you, you're gonna lose and it should drive you to get better and to practice and to do and set some other things aside so that you can excel and one day maybe win. That's real life. See, that's real life. Researchers are now saying that what it has actually produced in this generation is a real fear of failure in young adults because they have never learned a valuable lesson early in life. That failure, that failure, that failure is simply a part of doing anything meaningful and significant. It's just a part of it, but they're so scared of it because they've never lost at anything. If everybody is a winner, then nobody learns the motivation and tenacity of bouncing back when you lose and the drive to work hard and smarter next time. Every one of us actually need to experience the pain of loss in order to find the heart and the drive to forge ahead and learn how to win. When we insulate a child completely from the sting of defeat, we have no foundation to teach them how to handle the disappointments of life and come back even stronger. That's a life skill, baby, that every one of us needs. So you got unfair criticism, you got unrealistic compliments. Here's the biggest one, I think. Unwise comparisons, unwise comparisons. Sometimes we just look at other men

that are absolutely 100% crushing it. We look at other dudes that are farther ahead than we are. They make more money, they've got a better career, they have a better house, they drive a nicer truck, and we don't feel as intelligent or as successful or as gifted or whatever you fill in the blank. We compare what we think is our incredibly normal and boring lives to other people's exciting and amazing lives, and it can leave us feeling less than incredibly inadequate. Sometimes inadequacy even creeps in to our spiritual lives. Sometimes we look at another brother next to us and we just think, man, this guy, when he prays, God's listening. He's on the edge of his seat, man. And then they ask you to pray at Life Group and you go, rub-a-dub-dub, God bless his grub. That's all you got, you ain't got nothing else to say. And you're like, man, I don't even know if I'm saved. I mean, this guy is like the Pope and I don't even know if I'm even saved. It can do that. Let me tell you what the Bible says in 2 Corinthians 10 and 12. Those who compare themselves are unwise. The Bible tells us not to do it. Don't worry about their journey. God's got you on a journey. Bless them on their journey, but God's got a part for you and a place for you to play.

Don't worry if somebody's ahead of you. There'll always be somebody ahead of you that ain't got nothing to do with you anyway. All that you gotta do is obey and be a blessing and be glory and honor to your heavenly Father. That's all you're supposed to do. Well, I wanna show you a man in the Bible today who felt like he wasn't enough. And there was a great, great call of God on his life. and something that mattered, not just for a few people, but for an entire nation, and he had opted out of a worthwhile fight that was right in front of him because he had lost his nerve and he had lost his courage, but God had called him to lead, just like he's called every man in this room to lead, and God restored his courage and ended up using him in an amazing way, and his name is Gideon. There's a little background, okay? I never just wanna jump into the text. I wanna give you a little bit of context so that you understand where we're going and why we're going there. The nation of Israel is one of those cycles that I often tell you about. If you read the saga of Israel, it is this terrible up and down, I love them, I love you not, they will honor the Lord for many years, they will bless the Lord, they will honor his temple, they will worship God, they will segregate themselves to themselves for the glory of the Lord,

they'll live by his commandments and keep his instructions, and then a generation will go by, and the next generation falls away from the Lord, and they begin to go after pagan worship and idol worship, and they abandon the instructions of God, and when that happened, God would then turn them over to their enemies and judge the nation, and they would go into one of these cycles for many years until they would pray and seek the face of the Lord again, God would hear their prayer, and out of his mercy and compassion, he would rise up a liberator and liberate them again from their enemies, and they would go on to live another cycle of glory and honor to God, and it just so happens when we come into Judges 6, that Israel's in one of those moments where they had turned away from God, and a neighboring nation called the Midianites have swarmed Israel and abused their land and their people, they were a cruel nation, they would wait, for example, until they planted all their crops for food, and just before they harvested their food for the year, they would go in and sometimes just destroy it, they wouldn't even harvest it and take it away for themselves, sometimes just out of spite, they would just burn their fields so that Israel would have nothing, sometimes they would find flocks and herds of sheep and goats and what they use for food,

and they would just kill every animal and leave them rotting in the field, that's the kind of people they were, and it had been going on for seven years, seven long years, but finally, the prayers of the people have moved God, and God hears their cries, and God sees they are repentant, and God makes up his mind, it's time, and he raises up this guy by the name of Gideon, and I wanna read it to you, Judges chapter six, we're gonna camp out here, Judges six, 11 through 16. Then the angel of the Lord came and sat beneath the great tree at Ophrah, that's not Oprah, that's Ophrah, which belonged to Joash, and Gideon, son of Joash, was threshing wheat at the bottom of a winepress in order to hide the grain from the Midianites, and the Lord appeared to him and said, you mighty man of courage, the Lord is with you. Sir Gideon replied, if the Lord is with us, then why has all of this happened to us? And where are all the miracles our ancestors told us about? Didn't they say the Lord brought us up out of Egypt, but now the Lord has abandoned us and handed us over to the Midianites? Then the Lord turned to him and said, go with the strength that you have, go with the strength that you have, because we're gonna tie all this back together at the end,

go with the strength that you have and rescue Israel from the Midianites, I am sending you out. But Lord, Gideon replied, how can a guy like me do what you're asking me to do? My clan is the weakest in the entire tribe of Manasseh, and I am the youngest and weakest of my entire family. And the Lord said to him, don't worry, I will be with you, and you will defeat the Midianites as easily as if they were only one man. Now, you get it. When you read the story and you just hear this little snippet, this is not a story of bold, courageous, go-get-it man who was sold out to the cause, ready to give his life for his freedom and his nation. This is a frightened guy hiding in the shadows, simply hoping to get some wheat without getting picked on by the Midians so he could have something to eat. This is far less William Wallace and Braveheart and far more Barney Fife and Mayberry. That's who he is. He's not, freedom, they may take our life, but that is not, this dude's got one bullet in his pocket and an unloaded revolver and scared of his own shadow, and God shows up and said, you are the man. I wanna share with you three things out of Judges chapter six,

that my prayer all this week has been that God knew who was gonna be in this room and God knows what's going on in your life. for life even though I may not know the details of it. And those that may be watching online later, God knows where you are and who you are and what he's called you to do as well because the call of God once again is on every one of our lives and my prayer is that you would out of Judges six come to understand and embrace these three truths above anything in your life. Number one, I want you to understand out of verse 12, God sees more in you than you think there really is. God sees more in you than you think there really is. Let's go to verse 12. Then the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said, you mighty man of courage, you bad mamma jamma, you the man, dog, the Lord is with you. That's a weird thing to say. It's a weird thing to say because there is absolutely nothing bold about what he's doing. There is nothing courageous about this scene. It is just pure survival. When the angel comes on assignment and shows up and said, Gideon, you are a mighty man of courage. If you and I would have been standing there, we would have went, who are you talking to, bro?

Gideon, you mighty man of courage. Gideon, you mighty big wuss, that's what you are. You're a coward, bro. You're not a mighty man of courage. Everything about his behavior and demeanor says that he's the last guy to lead a revolution against a large invading country. But this is the principle. This isn't just God trying to build his self-esteem. You need to hear this. This isn't God just trying to give him some attaboys or build up his courage or make him simply feel good about himself. It's something God actually does all over the Bible and I could show it to you all over the Bible. Whenever God calls us to do great things, it's not wishful thinking. It's because he sees us as we were created to be, not as we currently are. He sees that you are fearfully and wonderfully made. He sees what he put in you when he birthed you. He sees what he placed in you. He sees the power that he has latently given to you and when he speaks to us, God never calls us or speaks to our present position. He always speaks to our potential, to what we can be in him that he's called us to be. When God sees us, he sees what others can't see. Sometimes what you can't see in yourself, he knows the care that went into you.

He knows the craftsmanship that went into you. He knew what gifts he specifically gave you. He knew what talent he specifically gave you. He knew what power he specifically gave you for a specific purpose that he called you to do. Ephesians 2 and 10, for we are God's masterpiece. He ain't into finger painting, big dog. He's Picasso in it, baby. He is not into paint the numbers, see what you end up with. My man's brushstrokes are amazing. You are fearfully and wonderfully made. We are God's masterpiece. He has created us new in Christ Jesus. Why did he do it? Look at the last line. So that we can do the good things that he planned for us long ago to do, long before you ever took your first breath. God saw you, knew you, equipped you to what he's called you to do and placed you on this planet for. You are not here randomly. You are here on purpose, with a purpose and for a purpose. And God does it on purpose. Long ago, he had a plan. He drew up that plan and then he created you as the perfect piece to complete that plan. And even though sometimes we feel awkward and odd and like we don't fit,

God knows that he predetermined and created us specifically to live out his purpose through our lives to the world. God sees more in you than you think there is and as men, we have to learn to believe the report of the Lord and trust what God says about us, not what the enemy says about us, not even sometimes what you say about yourself, but what God says about you. God says you are someone in him. You are equipped and called. Faith is trusting God's report in spite of whether you feel like you are or not. Number one, God sees more in you than you think there is. Number two, I'll show it to you right here in Judges. God has put more in you than you think you have. He's put more in you than you think you have. Verse 14, watch this. Then the Lord turned to him and said, go with the strength you already have. He didn't say go in the strength that I'm about to impart to you. Go in the strength I'm about to give you. Go in the strength after you fast for 30 days and you pray to me for 30 days, I'm going to let the spirit of God come upon you and I'm gonna give you what you need to do it. He said I want you to go with the strength that you already have and rescue Israel from the Mennonites. Not go get more training, go and read more books,

go and learn. the art of warfare and combat. He said, go in the strength that I've already given you. Here's my point. My point is not to suggest that we should not prepare. You should. My point is not to suggest we shouldn't train. We certainly should. My point is not to say we shouldn't get better or prepare. We certainly should. Here's my point. There are so many men that as soon as they see an opportunity in life, or they feel an opportunity in life, or they're drawn to a specific direction, immediately they hear that inner voice that says to them, this is certainly a good opportunity for somebody, but not you. This is a good opportunity for somebody, but you know who you are, and you know what you don't have. It's for somebody more gifted than you. It's for somebody more intelligent than you. It's for somebody more talented than you. You could never do that. You do not have what it takes. This is exactly what Gideon was saying to God. This is exactly what Gideon thought about himself. He actually said to the angel, hold up, buttercup, you don't understand. I think you've made a horrible mistake. First off, let me break it.

He breaks it down for the angel. He goes, there's 12 tribes in the nation, like the angel don't know this. There's 12 tribes in the nation of Israel, and of all the 12 tribes, you got this little punk one on the end called Manasseh. That's my people. And then of all of the little punk tribe of Manasseh, and all of the families that make up the tribe of Manasseh, you got these poor little weaklings that are the smallest family of the smallest weak tribe of Manasseh. That's my people. And of my people, of my brothers and my sisters, if you were to stand us in a line, you have went down and overlooked my brothers and my sisters, and you have picked the runt of the litter. That's who I am. I am from the smallest tribe in Israel. I am from the weakest family in Israel, and I am the weakest one in my family of the weakest of the weak. He makes the case why he's not the guy, and it doesn't deter the Lord at all. He just keeps calling him a mighty man of valor. He just keeps calling him a man of courage and of greatness. What he's saying is, Gideon, you don't understand it yet, but there is way more in you than you think there is, and I'll prove that there's more in you than you think there is.

2 Peter chapter one, verse three. Watch this. Jesus has all the power of God, and his power has, say it with me, given us everything that we need to live a life fully devoted to him. We have these things because we know him personally, and because he chose us by his goodness and for his glory. Look at it again. And the power of God has not going to give to us. It is past tense. It has already been given to you. It has already been deposited in you, whether you feel it or not, whether you know it or not. God has given us everything we need. This is why a personal relationship with God is the foundation of every man becoming what he was intended to be, because when a man grows in God, he grows in wisdom. When a man grows in God, he grows in life. When he grows in God, he grows in relationship. When he grows in God, he grows in courage. Let me say it to you this way. True growth in God is not about getting something new that you don't think you have. It's about discovering more of what you have already been given by God. That's what real growth is. It is discovering, not being deployed something you think you need, you're deficient of.

It is actually discovering what he gave you when he called you, equipped you, and saved you by his grace. The reason that God speaks to us about our potential with such confidence is because once again, he knows what he put in us. And Gideon already had everything he needed to do, and God was calling him to do, and so do you. And all we need to do is grow in it, be developed, and sharpen it over time. You have it, and God knows it. We just have to believe it. When I was a young man, running buck wild, arrested three times, living like a hellion, I didn't believe for one minute I could ever be a decent, stand-up Christian, much less a pastor. I didn't think I could do it. I didn't think I could live the life that wasn't anywhere on my radar. But God knew, in spite of how fast I ran and how far I ran, and how little I believed in my own spiritual ability through the power of the Holy Spirit, he knew that he had put something inside of me. And now I look back and can see that those things were being developed and were growing over time to do what I'm doing now. God sees more in you than you think. Think there is, God has put more in you

than you think you have. And number three, let me show you this. God can do more through you than you think he can. Verse 16. But Lord Gideon replied, how can I rescue Israel? Here he goes. My clan's the weakest in the entire tribe of Manasseh, and I'm the youngest and weakest in my entire family. And the Lord said to him, he doesn't even read, but I love that the Lord doesn't waste his breath. I love the fact that Moses tried to argue with God and God just ignored him. People throughout all the Bible tried to argue with God and God just ignored him and just got to the point. God doesn't waste his breath because he's not like trying to, he's not trying to outlaw your you. He's being God and he knows you're his creation and he just ignores it and goes, yeah, keep going. Yeah, no, do it. No, you got it. No, I know what you think, but that's not what is real. I know that you, but your thoughts are here. My thoughts are above your thoughts as the way heights of the heaven are above the earth. What he's saying is, at some point, you got to believe me. At some point, you got to put your trust in me and what I've called you to do. Gideon couldn't possibly see

how that his seemingly limited ability was ever going to accomplish this monumental feat. And God said, here's the secret sauce, Gideon. The secret sauce is that you think you're going to face the nation of Midian in your own power and by yourself. The secret sauce of what makes all of this work is that I will be with you. The omnipotent, sovereign, omniscient creator of heaven and earth, who's by power it all still sustains and rotates. He said, I am going to be with you and in you and because of that, it ain't even a fair fight, bro. It ain't even a fair fight. Keep reading the story. You're going to see a phrase in the book of Judges about Gideon repeated about six times. And the spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon. And the spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon. And the spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon. I did some research. And if you break down every one of those words in the Hebrew, there is an image that emerges. I love the Hebrew even a little bit more than the Greek. If you go to the Greek in the New Testament, the Greeks were very, very fluent. And so they would have like 14 words for love. And so they were very cautious and careful to be able to describe exactly what they were trying to describe.

We don't know anything about that because in America, we use one English word for the same. We use the same word love for cheeseburgers that we do our wives. All right, that's different. But the Greeks had eros, they had ahava, they had agape, they had all these things. So they were very descriptive. But the Hebrew language I like more because the Hebrews gave imagery. So when you would break down the word in the Hebrew in that phrase, it would give you imagery. And the image, when it says the spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon, the image the Hebrews are telling you is that the spirit of God would step in and wear Gideon like a coat. It was like Gideon was a coat and the spirit of God just stepped into the coat and zipped him up and it was on like Donkey Kong. He wore him like a coat. And if you've ever experienced one time when the spirit of God comes upon you to do something that you know you couldn't do in your own power and by yourself, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Gideon, God taught Gideon through the war with the Midianites that while there is certainly preparation and work that had to be done, and there's a whole story there, a whole sermon there, that when God is truly with you and in you,

you actually have way more than enough that you need to be successful. I cannot tell you how many times in 32 years that I have absolutely felt completely overwhelmed in the face of some of the obstacles and challenges and responsibilities of ministry. And said, God, I'm not sure I'm the right guy. I've said it before. And God would completely show up and remove barriers and wear me like a coat and give wisdom in a moment that was beyond human insight or send the right person at just the right time. That completely changed the game, man. Whenever we believe that all of the obstacles and challenges that we face are completely up to us, that it's only up to our ability to conquer, we will always feel anxious, overwhelmed, and inadequate. But when God calls you to do something, he promises to be with you and his presence brings all the power to do it that you will ever need. You are not alone in the call of God on your life. Gentlemen, our families and our friends in this world is waiting for men of honor to step up and show the way. That God would raise up an army of men that would have the courage to lead, that would have the tenacity. to stay with it. That would believe the report of the Lord and step into the calling of God on their life. Your wife is counting on you,

your children are counting on you, your community is counting on you, your church is counting on you, and a host of people you don't even know yet are counting on you to be what God has called you to be. Now, I thought about this a lot this week. I knew we were gonna dive into this spiritual principle and we were gonna talk about the spiritual aspects of what God has called us to do. And I was gonna show you biblically that there's more in you than you think there is, that you can do more through God than you think you can, that God sees more in you than you think there is. But I wanna leave you with something that I heard years ago that has always stuck with me. I wanna leave you with some pragmatic leadership. I wanna give you a leadership philosophy, a pragmatic leadership philosophy that further illustrates the point there's more in you than you think there is. I was watching a podcast and I heard this gentleman who was a highly successful magazine entrepreneur from the 90s and the early 2000s, made millions and millions and millions of dollars. He owned about nine very, very, very, very popular publications. If I named them, you would immediately know them right off the top of your head, they're household names. And he was telling his personal story

at a Toastmasters event. And here's what he said, he said, my father left my mother and I when I was three years old. I never really knew my father. I tried to reach out one time and find him. He wanted nothing to do with me. So my mother did the best she could. She worked two jobs to try to support us. I was a very discouraged kid. I was a completely below average student in grade school, in junior high, and even in high school. And when I got into high school, I skipped school a lot. I hung out with the wrong people, smoked weed, did all the things that those type of students do. My mother became deeply concerned for me because she could see that I had no future and she was so worried about what I was going to become. And one day she sat down at dinner and he said she begged me to take the SAT. I was never gonna do it. I had no plans to go to college. I was barely gonna graduate high school if I did. And she begged him and begged him and said, you've gotta do something with your life. Please, just for me. Now if you know what the SAT is, it is that standardized test of math and verbal, two parts, and the ultimate score is 1600. 800 for math, 800 for verbal. So if you scored perfectly, it's 1600.

He reluctantly acquiesces to the pleading of his mother. And he takes the test and he scores 1480. Now if you know anything about the SAT, that is mind-boggling, that's a mind-boggling score. You are in the top 2% if you score anything over 1350. He scored 1480 and his mother, the first thing he said, his mom asked him, did you cheat? He said, I swear, Mom, I just took the test. And with tears in her eyes, she said, Ron, you cannot squander this opportunity. It is clear there is something in you and you gotta do something with it. You can't waste this opportunity. A score like that will afford you chances at a next level school that not many students are gonna get an opportunity to go to. You've got to not waste this opportunity. And he said, even at 16, I knew deep down she was right. His senior year, he said, I approached everything differently because of my newfound goal. I went to class, I didn't skip one day of school, I applied myself vigorously. In the areas that I knew I was deficient in, I actually stayed after class and got tutoring where I needed it. And of course, because of all of this, I didn't have the time to hang out with losers and burn weed anymore. He graduates, he goes to a community college first, gets the foundation, then a university,

and then two years later, he finishes up his MBA at an Ivy League school, his Master's of Business Administration. Launches his first magazine, and then in the next seven years would launch six more, and then eventually two more, and become a successful worldwide wealthy publication entrepreneur. When I heard the story and he gets to that point, I thought to myself, man, that's an amazing story. It really is fascinating. It's really interesting, and apparently all this guy needed was a standardized test to unlock his intelligence and give him the confidence to go on and change his life. Then he tells the rest of the story. Here's what he said. 12 years later. Years after starting his business, he gets a letter in the mail from Princeton, New Jersey. Periodically, a board will go back and review the tests that are standardized throughout the state. He got it, he saw who it was from, and he throws it on the counter, thought it to be junk mail, didn't open it for four days, but one day his wife did. It turns out that the year he took his SAT, he was only one of 13 people in New Jersey who were accidentally given somebody else's score.

And it wasn't no 1480 game. My man scored 740. 740. They won't even call you back at community college with 740. And I went, oh my God. And then here's what he said, bro. Rocked my world. Here's what he said. He said, my life didn't change when I got to 1480 and believed I was highly intelligent. My life changed when I started behaving like a 1480 and doing the things that 1480s do. Making class a priority, applying myself to difficult tasks, getting tutored when I needed it, leaving the wrong crowd behind, spending time with a new group of people that were driven to succeed. What he said is, I began to live, act, and think like someone I currently wasn't, and because of it, I eventually became the person I always wanted to be. Here's the principle. Don't wait until you feel like a great leader to start living like one, thinking like one, and acting like one. Don't wait until you think you are a great leader to start living like one, thinking like one, and acting like one.

You need to find a great disciple around you in your life, a great man of God, and get close to him and just do what they do. You need to find a great father in your life who loves his kids, whose kids love and respect him. You need to get around that brother and just do what he does. You need to find a great husband that loves his wife and cherishes his marriage and keeps his vows to his woman and provides and protects and loves her with all of his heart, soul, mind, and strength and just do what that brother does. You need to find a great leader and just emulate what that brother does. And when you begin to do what you see these other great men of God begin to do, this is discipleship, plain and simple. All the disciples did were spend three years with Jesus. They ate with him, they slept where he slept, they walked where he walked, they did what he did, and then when he was gone, they just carried that on. They just did what they saw Jesus do. There is a great leader in every man in this room. It won't be in your score or your standardized test. It will be when you begin to start acting and living the way great fathers, husbands, disciples, and men of God act and live. You do that and watch how the landscape of your family and your community and your life begins to shift and change into things

that you've always dreamed of and actually always wanted. My prayer is that like Gideon, if there's anybody in this room, and you would be that guy that would go, man, you don't know my family. Yeah, I don't need to. I'm not downplaying it, I'm not being, you don't know my story, man, you don't know my background. Listen, Gideon had the worst of the worst, but the call of God was on his life, the hand of God was on his life, the spirit of God moved into his life. And if God could do for Gideon and God can do it for this dude, God can do it for you, in you, and through you, but you have to believe it. And then you actually have to do something about it. You can't just hear a word like this and hear a sermon like this and go, man, what a fun night, bro, what a great night. No, it's gotta be more than that. There's gotta be more to it than that. We can't just gather together, sing some songs, get the goosebumps and walk out of here. There has to be a moment where we make up our mind that we are going to be men of action, not talk. That we're actually gonna do something in our families for good. We're gonna do something about what the enemy's put in front of us. We're gonna do something with what God has called us to do.

We're actually gonna do something. And the moment that we do, the spirit of God rushes into our life and that's when change begins to happen in our families and our communities and in our lives. I pray that we would all find the courage to lead at the level that God has called us to lead. Let's pray. Father, I thank you.