Man Church

Hey, Dad, how you doing?

Doing fantastic, John.

Good, I'm glad. Sorry about that, I just had to get a little bit organized. I'm about to make a coffee. You look like you're having breakfast. Yeah, that's good.

I've got me a little sausage, egg, and cheese.

Ah, cool. You at the house or you off gallivanting around the world?

No, I'm at the house.

Oh, good.

Sitting downstairs looking into the backyard.

Oh, that sounds like a great thing. Let me make me a coffee. Won't be a tick. Melissa brought me a fancy coffee machine for my head, my shed, so I better use it for Man Church, you know what I mean? We're going away on Sunday. Had a friend, he's got a lake house and he's, uh, he, he, he's been encouraging us to go out there for a while. So, um, we're gonna go head off and get 4 days. And, uh, so that'll be fun.

Where are you going?

Uh, a lake house near Tyler. Tyler, Texas.

Oh, you'll enjoy that.

Yeah, I'm really looking forward to it. Yeah, it's going to be great.

I tell you what you're going to enjoy even more is SpaceX buying that 125,000 acres over in Louisiana Bayou.

Yeah, that'd be fun, wouldn't it?

Oh yeah, I'd like to drive by. Hey, Marion.

Good morning, John.

How you going? You're here with my father-in-law. Max is here. We're having coffee. I'm having cigars. I don't know what you're doing.

I got my coffee here and yeah, just doing a little bit of paperwork here real quick this morning. But yeah, ready to rock and roll. I'm looking forward to it.

So yeah, it's gonna be a good morning, right? Oh geez, I look forward to it. So weather getting cooler out there, you are?

It is.

Yeah, we're we're in for a pretty cold week actually. This morning is cold. We're at 45.

Oh wow!

So I think next week our highs are in the mid-sixties. But so it's been it's been an unusual summer for us. We had really hot, unusually hot in July. And some August, but now it's getting cold quick.

So well, we're still, but we're just starting to get a little cool. We could do with some. We could do with some rain.

Yeah, getting pretty dry. You had a fire through there a while, a couple weeks ago, didn't you?

Yeah, down towards Al.

Yeah, that's what I thought.

Looks like Dave Carney is living where he his backdrop is exactly where he wants to be.

Hey, brother.

How are you, mate?

Good, brother.

Good.

That was that lake we went to, I think.

Yeah, it's beautiful, man. I'll be sending you pictures from the lake out by Tyler on Sunday, that's for sure.

Nice.

I'm surprised Jay doesn't turn up Monday morning once he sees them. Gets you bass fishing on, dude. I think it'll be a.

I think that's a that's a huge blessing. It's gonna be rad.

Yeah, it's gonna be rad. We're all gonna enjoy that.

It's gonna be great.

Well, it's been a good week. It's been a week. That's for sure.

For sure. For sure.

Yeah, how about people want to come in?

Hey, Al.

How are you, sir?

Doing good, man. You got a softball or something by the looks of it?

I'm actually just picking up my truck.

Had a late night, you know. Ah, yeah.

Nah, it's one of those high school games, 2 and a half hours away. We're gonna get into Woodlawn, so.

Okay, good. How you going, Nick? Good to see you, brother.

Good morning. How are y'all?

Good. Did McKenzie ring you? Not yet. Uh, Melissa spoke to him yesterday and So he was running around getting up to no good or something the other day, so he's going to give you a call.

Sounds good. Morning, Al.

Morning, sir.

How are you? Morning, Nick. Marion. Max.

Morning.

Good morning to everybody.

So everybody on Instagram and Facebook and TikTok with all where we are, if you want to drop on and drop on the Zoom, fellas, please go to Man Church. And you can register and get in there. And we'd love to have you on for the conversation.

I've invited a couple of people. I don't know if they'll join, but I've sent the invitations out.

Oh, well, thanks, man. Good on you. Good on you. Just shuffling my notes, fellas. Always too many notes. Remember when I was running the church and Al was in it, you know, I'd prepare and I'd always prepare. I'd always spend about 40 hours a week preparing sermons. I took it real serious and I can't remember a day I didn't get into a pulpit with like 20 or 30 pages worth of sermon notes. Al always used to laugh. And one sermon, it's like they were like these perpetual sermons that would just start and then go and go and go. So I've got, looks like I've got an echo. Might be you, Sam, if you wouldn't mind muting. Is that better?

Yes, sir.

So yeah, these perpetual sermon notes, it's a little bit, can't get myself out of the habit. So I enjoyed preparing this one, back to basics, which is, I love, man. It's funny, you know, whenever you're, you're teaching the word, I always find it does more in you than it does for anybody else. But that's the nature of the scripture. That's why reading the scripture is important. But I'm getting ahead of myself. We're gonna be out in South Carolina in about a month. Al and I are going out there to go bear hunting.

I wasn't sure if that was all talk, if you guys are actually going.

So what do you mean all talk, Marion? What are you talking about?

Unbelievable.

Bloody bond trader.

I expect, I expect to get together for dinner at least.

Well, it might be breakfast, mate. Hey, John, he's buying us dinner, John. Yeah. Okay. Nick's buying us dinner then, is he?

Yeah.

You coming bear hunting, Dave? No, Dave's— Dave, I think, is a yogi fan. I don't know, man. Melissa's in the house praying for the bears to run away and we won't get anything because they're too cute. So I don't know how that's going to go. So if we, if we don't shoot anything out or bring any meat home, then it's because God loves Mel more than us, which is understandable.

I'm with Mel. I'm hoping the bears run away.

Yeah, I know. Yeah, I know. It is what it is, isn't it? All right, fellas, make sure you got a coffee, got a beverage. Gonna be a good day today. Good day today. All right, you got your Bibles? Always good to have a Bible.

I got one sitting right here next to me.

Come on. Hey, Mike Croc, I thought, mate, I thought you got raptured and the rest of us were too sinful and got left behind.

I did. I return from the— from heaven, I've got a story to tell.

Okay, well, I'm glad you're here and I'm glad you're alive. It's good to see you, mate. Good to see you, Sam. I love Sam's room. I love his paneling in that room there. That's good. Got shed down the backyard by the look of it. It's great. Dad's having breakfast. Ned— Ned Alls. Ned Alls.

Hello, mate.

Hey, brother. Good to see you, mate. Good to see you, brother. All right, boys, let's pray and get into it. Father, we come to you in Jesus' name, and we commit the next hour to you. In fact, we draw aside from everything in our life to this hour, and we do our best as men. We live busy lives. We've got many responsibilities, many things that are going on. And we are trying our best to give you this hour, because we know an hour spent with you, an hour spent with brothers, is an hour well spent. And be with us. Help me as I communicate this word. Help me convey what you've put on my heart, and help it touch and change us accordingly. Let all errors be mine, and all blessings be yours. In Jesus' name, amen. So, um, thanks for inviting folks. Uh, thanks, uh, Nick, for inviting your mates out and all of you that do who come along because it's, you know, I, um, you know, I think it's good. I think it's important to do that. We believe in something, we get behind it. It's good for us, it's good for others, and it's been a great blessing running Man Church. It's been nice to be able to teach the word again. I, I was thinking about what I wanted to teach and I had a couple of things and And I've had a couple of really impactful conversations this week, and actually in the last couple of weeks about different things. And I wanted to do a back to basics, 7 essentials for Christian men, because I think it's so easy in our life to get away from the fundamentals. And I, I think fundamentals are fundamentals because they're fundamental. And I think to remind ourselves often of what those things are that are important in our Christian life. And how they shape our life. I think that's an essential thing. There really are only half a dozen things that we need to focus on. I think sometimes as men we can feel overwhelmed. We can feel that there's too many things to do and we're not sure what to do. So I want to break that down a little bit for us today. And these are the things that both in terms of our relationship with God and our relationship with ourselves. that I think are important, and then we'll kick it open to conversations when we get done. So, um, Bibles are beautiful things, and they can be overwhelming. They're a tremendous collection of books written by multiple authors over thousands of years. And one of the best things was invented by an old fat monk riding a donkey in the 14th Hundreds. It's called the index. You know, the index is at the front of your book, right after marriages and births, if you're in mine, and an inscription and the preface, which I don't know what it's about. But what you'll find is you'll find an index in the front of it, and that's always a good thing to start. So if you're ever looking for a book in the Bible, start in the index. If the preacher says go to the book of, you know, Enoch, and you can't find it in the front of the Bible, then that's all right. You don't have that sort of Bible. Get another one. But if he says, "Where's the book of Matthew?" It's in the index, just after the maps normally. So the Bible's divided into two parts: Genesis. This is the start of the the front end, the Old Testament. The Old Testament doesn't mean it's boring, although some parts are. The Old Testament just means it's the collection of writings before. The New Testament. Now, the New Testament is the stuff that focuses on Jesus, and the Old Testament is the stuff that focuses on stories about Jesus before he came and the formation of the children of Israel and all of that. So these are not scary things. These are very useful things. So I want to start 7 Essentials for Christian Men, and I've got 3 things that I want, I want to suggest that we should commit ourselves to as men. And then I've got 4 areas that I believe we should be responsible for. So the first thing is, I think we should commit ourselves to knowing God. James 4:8 is the scripture, and I'll read it for you, but always check scriptures. If you're sitting in church and the preacher says turn to this, or he puts it up on the big screen, do yourself a favor and make sure it's actually in the Bible. I've been in the occasional church service where some fellow made something up. I didn't stay long. So James 4:8, draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Now you'll notice there's relationships that happen. God will always meet you. And what God is looking for is for you to take a step towards him. So draw near to God. In other words, lean towards him and he will lean back towards you. I always find it's been one step towards God and 1,000 by God towards me. So commit yourself to knowing God. And when I say this, I mean to commit to a level of intimacy that's important, not an exercise in public worship. Going to church doesn't make you intimate with God. It makes some of you feel like you're fulfilling a religious obligation. It's not a sense of something religious that you have to do when you're getting to know God. Every year, Melissa and I choose 2 words, and those words frame our world. Last year, 2025, it was gratefully present. In 2026, it was intentional connection. So in 2025, it was a challenge in some way, but it was really enjoyable. Enjoyable to teach ourselves to be grateful in every aspect of life, to be present in whatever life threw at us. And then 2026, that was much more of a challenge for me. This year has been because those 2 words are intentional connection. Now, this means that we wanted to be intentional in everything we do. Focus, no random activities, make the most of every minute of life and love and business and friendship. And I can do focus very, very well. But the connection part was something I've always found a challenge. It's a challenge because of my past, because of neurodiversity. You know, it's also the reason I can focus, I suppose. But I made myself this promise this year. That I would identify relationships that I'd want to have in 20 years' time, and I'd push into those. And I made time for those. It got me uncomfortable. I chose to have conversations with people when I normally would have not had conversations. I chose to be vulnerable and open. I've asked for help from people that I normally would not. have asked for help from, because I don't normally ask for help. And it's a level of connection that I wanted to have. And, and what I'm suggesting is that with God, it's an intentional connection as well. It's not just something that accidentally happens. I'm suggesting that knowing God takes the same level of commitment. It is decisional. It takes time. And you have to be vulnerable and open. You don't accidentally get to know him. You didn't accidentally get to know any friend in your life. It was a decision to continue to build those relationships. So as men, I believe one of the first things we need to have is a commitment to know God. The second thing is I want to challenge you to be committed to be comfortable with reading his word. Psalm 119 says, your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. Now, if you just listen to the poetry of that, it's beautiful. It's a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. It will literally show me where to walk and where to go in a dark situation. That is what the, the word promises to be in our lives. When you don't know what to do and you don't know where to go, The word is there, these book of wisdom and incredible teaching and and prophetic insight to guide that for your life. But I want I want you to notice what I didn't say here when I said commit yourself to be comfortable with reading the word. I chose those words very very deliberately. I did not say condemn yourself because you haven't read your Bible for an hour today. I did not say condemn yourself because yesterday was the first time you touched a Bible this year, or maybe in your life. What I did say is that you have to get comfortable reading his word. So what, what does that mean? Well, first of all, it means you relax and you start now. If you hadn't read your Bible this week, we'll start today. If you haven't read it this month, start today. If you haven't read it this year, start today. Just be comfortable. Don't beat yourself up. Well, I'll start tomorrow. No, don't start tomorrow. Start now. Get off Man Church if you want. I don't care. Or do it after Man Church, but just start reading your Bible. It doesn't matter. God does not keep tally. He's just waiting for you to, as we said in the first one, is to become intimate with him. And his word, the things he says, is the very first place to start that. So what I would suggest that means is you own a physical Bible, not a Bible app. Bible apps are great, you know, if you want— if you're sitting somewhere in a cafe and you forgot your Bible at home. But I like sitting in a cafe with a Bible. I like to, you know, sit there and establish my ground and have a little read. Now, what sort of Bible or what version of your Bible should you have? Because there's a lot of things that stop people, um, reading their Bible. One, they don't have one. Two, they go into a bookstore and there's like a million of the things and they're all done in fancy wrappers and you don't know what to pick up. And, um, or you're having a conversation with some guy on Facebook and he tells you you've got to have this one particular Bible or you go to hell. Well, All of those things are wrong. So the best version of the Bible for you to have is the one that you'll read. Just start there. Just start there. Don't talk about translations. Don't talk about anything else. There are some of them that are really— don't buy a Hebrew one because you don't speak bloody Hebrew. Now don't buy a Texan one because no one understands what they're saying anyway. And particularly don't get an Australian because those buggers cuss too much. And, you know, don't get one of them if you want an easy one to understand. So the best Bible you will ever have is the one that you'll read and go to a bookstore and just start cruising the books. You know, tell them you're buying it for your niece if you're embarrassed. You know, lie about buying a Bible. I don't care what it is, but just pick them up and start to read them and you'll pick up. So I don't like— like there's a whole group of people who say the only Bible in the world to get hold of is The King James Bible. Well, I wouldn't do that because I don't understand it. I haven't got no bloody clue what that stuff's saying half the time. And if I'm going to read my Bible, I want to actually enjoy reading my Bible. So I would actually suggest it's not the King James Version, and you can get one of those at some point in your life, but buy one that you want to read. Just, it's easy for you to read. Now have a couple if you've got a King James Version and you think, man, I'm not really reading it. Go and get another one. You know, go to a church and like they've not— there's sometimes whatever church you got to, there's sometimes a pile of some sort of Bible up the back. They'll probably give you one. So 2 Timothy says all scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, correction, and for training, that a man may be complete, equipped for every good work. The Bible is a great place to start in understanding who God is, to complete and round your life out. And look, we can be disciplined. We can never miss a season of, you know, Game of Thrones season 28. You know, we'll be disciplined and watch that thing every night. I can't see why we can't read our Bible for 15 minutes. Now, is that a guilt trip? No, I don't know, probably, but not really. Just an encouragement. You know, we make time in our lives. A man's, a man's life, what's important to a man is found in his checkbook and in his, in his calendar. Men put emphasis on things that they spend money on and they spend time in. And so, you know, I would block out time every day. Now, you might only get there once a week at 7 AM in the morning, or stop off at a cafe to work, or whatever it is, to read your Bible. But I want to encourage you to have that time aside. Because it will literally change the character of your life. And I don't make it a religious exercise. I made it— make it a regular exercise. There's a difference between a religious exercise and a regular exercise. A religious exercise is something that you feel compelled to do because you're going to feel less of a man if you don't do it. A regular exercise is something you do because you love and value it and you want to actually do it. So make it a regular thing, not a religious thing. Make it something you're passionate about doing and do it accordingly. So the third thing is commit yourself to talking with him. Commit yourself to talking with God. 1 Thessalonians 5: Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus. Rejoice always, pray without ceasing. Now there's some people who will take this scripture, and I've heard it, it's unfortunate, and they'll say that what you should do is be cloistered for an hour, or you should be continually in your prayer closet. I don't know why they call it that. And, um, you should be in your prayer cupboard, and you should just be talking to God, and that's all you should do with your life. It's a monastic experience. Um, I don't believe that's the case because the Apostle Paul said to pray without ceasing. Now Now, now, Paul was the guy who wrote the entire New Testament, just about. Well, most of it anyway, two-thirds of it. And Paul was also the guy who planted the majority of the early church. Now, this guy was busy talking to people, running around, traveling around, being stoned nearly to death, having angelic visitations. He had a few things on. The one thing he wasn't doing was sitting on his rusty dusty. So prayer is an activity that you can do anywhere and any time about anything that you want to. It's a conversation. It's a dialogue between friends. It's not a once-a-day deal. It's not a one-off experience. It's not a one-and-done. I find that I am praying throughout the day over little things. I just say, you know, thanks, God. You know, thanks for today. It's awesome. I'm a bit worried about Man Church. I want to make sure I get this right. No, I've got to prepare this sermon and I've run out of time. So what do I do? Oh, I gotta go. I gotta drive out this way. So it's this kind of, you know, I wanna punch this guy in the throat, you know. So let— help me not do that. You know, that guy pulled in front of me in the traffic. I wanna stop and punch him in the throat too. So help me not do that. So there's constant conversations that are going on all the time. And that is, that is what I believe prayer is. So So often a thing that will stop men from praying is again a little bit like a word—is they don't know where to start. And you know that awkwardness you have when you meet someone for the first time and you try and talk into them? Often that's the awkwardness we'll feel when we come to pray because we're not actually bringing. Our true self to the conversation, we're bringing a whole bunch of constructs that we've built up around ourselves and the topic of prayer to the conversation. So, you know, you meet someone for the first time and you, you know, regardless of who you are, you try to impress them because that's the nature of who we are. We tell the stories that we want to be told about ourselves. We, we laugh at all the jokes to make sure that, you know, that someone likes us and We don't actually ever share much about ourselves. And, and women will communicate face to face. Men will communicate shoulder to shoulder. If you want to get to know a man, you go and do something with a man. You sit with a man shoulder to shoulder. And that's why men can go 2 years without seeing each other. Then all of a sudden, they're going to decide they're going to— they meet up. So they go build a deck. They go hunting, they go fishing, and all of a sudden they just—they start exactly where they were before. Why? Because we're doing something shoulder to shoulder. We're not going to sit in a—that's why therapy normally doesn't work for men, because who the hell is going to sit looking at some fellow who just wants to talk? You know, forget that. And so we want to do these things together. So, so you've got to do things with God. So early on in my Christian walk, I wanted to sit down with God and have a conversation, you know, like, and I would go to a coffee shop and buy 2 coffees and then go and sit on a park bench, or I'd make a thermos and I'd pour God a coffee and I'd pour me a coffee. Now I'd end up having 2 coffees because he never seemed to want to pay for Starbucks. I don't blame him. But I would be this activity that I would be involved in because I just thought, I want to have a coffee with God. So, all right, so I'd buy 2 coffees. They always thought I was odd. And I have a mutter to myself in the corner. But what it did was establish a ritual in my life of intimacy, a ritual of doing something that was important to me in a way that I could understand and that I could do. And I want to encourage you to do the same way, to engage in this conversation of intimacy with him in a way that is intimate with you, that you're comfortable with, and just do it on an ongoing basis. And, and try to take all the shackles off thinking that you have to have it perfect before you chat to him. Because this, you know, before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Before you were in the midst of— before you knew this, the storm was going to be there. He was walking towards Peter in the water. So he knows what's going on in your life. And he wants to be there and have these conversations. He's just like that new person you've just met, waiting for you to start that conversation. So that's what I want to encourage you to do, is to start a conversation with him. So 4 areas that we need to be responsible for, and I don't have any particular order in these, and I sat around thinking, well, maybe I've got to put them in a particular order, or the guys will get, you know, all confused about what's most important. So all of these are about as important as the same, and I just randomly picked them. So don't read anything more into it than there is. I'm not that complicated.

Alright.

The number one is take responsibility for your physical body. 1 Timothy 4. For while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way as it holds promise for the present life and also for the things to come. Now that scripture has been a little bit twisted, is because people will say, well, don't worry about your physical body, just concentrate on your, your, your spiritual body, and that's just what you need. But that's actually not what it says. It says, for while bodily training is of some value— now this is Paul who's growing up, growing up in a Romo-Greco community, the guys who invented the Olympic Games, the guys who ran around the gladiator schools— these people were into physical fitness. So he's saying Listen, I understand that that's of some value, but to be spiritually fit is of more value. So it emphasizes one but doesn't dissuade you from the other. I believe we've got a responsibility as men to be physically fit. You know, can you pick up your eight-year-old child and march a mile to get them out of the backwoods to get them to you know medical help? Is that an extreme thing? Yeah, but kind of not if you've got small kids. You know, can you lift things around the house? Can you do things? Well, sometimes at different stages in our life, our bodies are a bit more broken down than others, and we're going through injuries or whatever. So we all go through stages. But you know, I do you ever have that one relative who always sends you those things that they find about great health ideas? They're trying to. They stay healthy with my— Max, my father-in-law, is that guy for us. Max has got more home remedies than any man in the world. And what I love about that is not just getting great home remedies from Max, is that my father-in-law is committed to living his best physical life so he can enjoy it, collide with God, and have his latter days stronger than his former days. And I find that a very inspiring thing. So unfortunately, people have twisted this word to mean that you can't drink beer and you can't smoke tobacco and you can't go dancing. I actually don't think that means that because Jesus drank alcohol. There's literally nothing in the Bible about tobacco, and the Bible did a heck of a lot of dancing and playing music. So we do have this one body that we're supposed to steward and be vessels over. And to be honest, When I watch a preacher who can't see his toes because of his belly, I really don't— we're not going to listen to him for a range of other things. And this is a personal challenge for myself. You know, I've had to work all my life at staying physically fit. It's not something that comes easy to me, but it's something I'm committed to. I was talking to a friend just yesterday, and he's straightening up things and areas in their life. And one of the first things he said is, I'm getting back to the gym. Isn't that funny? But This guy's got so much going on in his life at the moment, personally, and a range of other things. The very first thing he wanted to do to get his life in order was to go back to the gym. He wanted to get himself physically fit because we know as men somewhere inside us there is a connection between the physical and the spiritual. Hey, brother, what was that? First Timothy? First Timothy 4:8. All right, thank you. You're welcome, brother. So there is a connection between those two. And I think that we should be able to do that. Now, I'm not suggesting you take up bodybuilding, but I am suggesting you should be in good enough condition to do whatever you need to do when God asks you to do it in the best and most efficient way that you can. So number, number next is take responsibility for your reputation. Proverbs 22:1, a good name is to be chosen rather than good riches, and favor is better than silver or gold. Um, you don't hire people based on their skill set. You, you really don't. Very rarely do you do that. Um, if you're hiring employees, you hire them based on their reputation. Um, you hire them based upon what people who are currently employing them say about them. Uh, when I was in Los Alamos working for a, a company up there, um, they had a very high-level background check. And one of the things they did in that background check, whether or not, You would be accepted into this organization was to contact friends and families. It's exactly the same in police force. They contact friends and families because they want to know what other people think about you and say about you before they have to work with you. And that's what this generation doesn't understand is that everything you post online stays forever, and you won't be hired because your reputation will be shot. Hebrews 11 says, "By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God." So that what is seen was not made of things that are visible. In other words, when God created the world, he did it with his word. His word spoken was his promise to us. He spoke his word that is a promise to us, and we take him at his word and we act according to the word that he gave us. Your word is your bond. People frame their world based on your word. If you ever promised your kids you'd take them somewhere and something didn't happen and you couldn't do it and you had to tell them and you saw that shattered look on their little tiny faces and you, and you felt like it's not my fault, it's like, but I am now feeling like the worst human being that's ever walked the planet. Why is that? Is because they heard you say something and they framed their little tiny worlds according to your word. And we do that every time in business. We do that every day in business. We do that every time in relationship. If I tell you I will be there, I will do my best to be there. If I tell you I'm going to do something, I will do my best to do something. And if I don't do it, then I will apologize for it. I will repent of it. I'm sorry. I will recant it or rescind it. I'll take it back. I'm not going to do that. I'm unable to do that. I'm just letting you know. I think it's important for us as men that our word is our bond, that we're the sort of people that people can trust that our word is, which means that you have to be comfortable with saying yes and with saying no. You have to be comfortable with putting boundaries in your life, and you have to be comfortable coming back and revisiting those. Hey, listen, look, I said I could do that, but I can't do that. Something, something's come up. I've changed my mind. I'm unable to do that. You just don't let something slide. Your word is the basis of your reputation. Now, a good reputation is something that's highly sought after. However, a good reputation is not something that is regarded as being valuable anymore. What's regarded as valuable is the ability to run a PR campaign and to, you know, just be able to talk your way out of it, to do damage control. A good reputation doesn't mean you're perfect. A good reputation means you're authentic. A liar has integrity if they lie. A thief has integrity if they steal because they're being true to who they really are. You have to make sure that what's on the inside of you lines up with what's on the outside of you. And if you look at yourself and you see that you act in a way that you don't want to do, you don't change your external behavior. That's gonna lead you into trouble and you're gonna get in trouble because you can't keep up with that. What you have to do is change your internal compass. I was speaking to a friend of mine a while back, and he's told me that he had a problem with boundaries at one point in his life. And he made an inter— and he would notice that he would end up in all this series of obligations of things and, and couldn't or wouldn't, or I'm not sure what the thing was that happened that caused this to happen for him. But he made a big decision that boundaries were important. And I've watched him for, for years. Now, and I see him constantly setting and resetting these boundaries for different situations, and I admire it because he's trying his best to hold true to the promise he made to himself that he would live according to you know boundaries so he could keep his word and do his thing. First of all, I'm sure it was an external thing. No, I don't want to do that. I said yes to it, so I've got to do something. But then it became an internal thing where it. Float out the other way. And I think that's very important for your reputation, that you are who you say you are. You do what you say you will do when you're gonna do it, even to your own detriment. And sometimes that detriment is saying, listen, I promised you I'd be there, or I said I was gonna commit to that, but I can't commit to that now. Something's come up, or I didn't think about something. So I'm not gonna just let this slide. I'm gonna go back to you And have a conversation about it. And even though that's very hard, I think as men, we actually value and appreciate that a lot. So just a thought for you. Okay, next thing is take responsibility for your personal development. Um, Philippians 3, but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on towards the goal of the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:13, and I'll send you guys these notes. There is no such thing as neutral in nature. There is no such thing as neutral in the spiritual kingdom. There is what we might call lukewarm, neither hot nor cold. But you are either, either growing or dying. Like, that's the nature of life. It's a principle of life. It applies to marriages, businesses, tomatoes, church life. Um, how do you know things are healthy? Well, they're growing. There's something in them where people are maturing. Now, sometimes it's numbers in a church life, and sometimes it's just the quality of people. Their life is getting better. Sometimes in business, it's the numbers that are coming in the front door, and sometimes in business, it's the fact that you're getting all your systems worked out in the business. Now, we want to look at the dollars coming in. That's one part. But what about the systems that support the growth? Because sometimes we get growth in a business and we don't have the systems in place, so we can't take advantage of that growth and we lose that growth, which actually means we go back further than we were and we lose momentum. So whenever there's an opportunity in life where there's a pause, I always look at those— I've come to look at them now as this is an opportunity for me to try and at least herd the ducks onto the quarter-acre, Keiko. Get them all roughly there so that when it's time for them to fly, they're going to go in roughly the right direction. Last year I went hunting with Al and, and Dave, and, and I wanted to do it for years, and I had a chance to do it. And I've hunted kangaroo and goanna. Goanna is easy, just hit them on the head, you know. Kangaroos easier, they just stand there and look at you and you're like— deer's a little different, kangaroo a bit skittish like that. But I've hunted sheep. But they're kind of easy. They just sort of stand there and look at you and you hit them on the head. So I can slaughter a sheep. I've skinned sheep. I've been hunted by pigs. That, that's a conversation for a beverage. But I wanted to go hunting because I've always thought that a man should be able to, at least if necessary, hunt some food and bring the meat home. It's just one of those things that I think you should be able to do. And Rob's turned up. Let me let him in. And I think you should be able to do that. So I've always wanted to do it. And I thought, I'm gonna go and do this. I'm gonna go and do something different. And I've got other friends in my life that I do different things with. People have taught me different things, you know, from, you know, firearm stuff to physical training. But I think you should always be apt to and wanting to develop and grow yourself. 2 years ago, Melissa and I decided we wanted— I wanted to move into full-time writer. So in that period of time, the last 2 years, I've read probably 150 books. I've gone every Wednesday and Monday night for the last 12 months to writing and critiquing groups. I've attended dozens of seminars because I wanna be something different, which means I have to do something different. I was out with another mate the other day. He wants to start a YouTube channel. He's got a very unique business. And I watched this incredibly capable person be absolutely lost in what the hell he was doing. And it was the best bloody day. Like, here's my mate who's so bloody good at everything, just stumbling around going, what the heck? And he's so passionate about this thing. But he wanted to change. He wanted something new. So he had to learn something new and do something new. And I'm excited to play just even a small part in that, in helping him do that, because it's just— it's like learning that stuff for the first time yourself without the anxiety of learning that stuff for the first time yourself. You can just sit there and watch someone else absolutely stuff it up. And I'm telling you, we, we had an absolute ball. It was like a complete day of clusters and it was everything that could have possibly did. I mean, batteries went flat. We played back some of this video and it sounded like Arnold the Chipmunk, you know, and we're— only half the stuff got recorded and stuff wasn't working. It was fantastic. And, uh, but what I loved was his commitment to do something different, be something different. And I think for all of us, we need to have that sort of drive in our life that we want that. We want to do something different. We're always trying to— Push on, you know, iron sharpens iron, one man sharpens another. So how are you growing? How are you changing? How are you pursuing your dreams? How are you doing and what are you doing to become the man that you want to become? I think we always need to have those things out of us because again, if you're not growing, you're dying. If you're not doing something, and I was talking to another mate, you've got this particular passion in life. And it's the thing he— ever since I've known him, he's talked about. And I was so happy for him. He actually took some steps towards fulfilling that, going and doing something absolutely unique. And I was just so encouraged because I love this guy. And I've seen him talk and heard him talk about this stuff for ages. And, and so for all of you, I want to encourage you is pursue those dreams. It doesn't matter what the heck they are. Is it important to you? They're important to you. And surround yourself with people who who will support you and laugh at you. Laugh with you is probably what we're supposed to say, but laugh at you is a great starting point. And, you know, they're true friends if they laugh at you as well as with you, because we all do that sort of stuff. The last thing is take responsibility for your finances. Um, 1 Timothy 5, but if anyone does not provide for his relatives, especially members of his household, he is denied the faith. And is worse than an unbeliever. There's a lot of guilt and condemnation that can be in that, because if you're struggling to make ends meet, you can read this and think, and you'll be told—I've heard people say this was really unfortunate—that if you can't pay the bills, then you're not a real Christian. That's that's actually not what that says, because if you have a look at other parts of the New Testament, Jesus says, "Listen, why are you worried about food and shelter where where I God?" Provide food and shelter for the birds. I'm going to take care of all that stuff for you. I believe what he's talking about is being responsible, being responsible with what you have to the best of your ability. And if you need to increase in some of those abilities and some of those knowledge, that's what you do. I grew up poor. I grew up with a lot of instability, not knowing my parents and without any knowledge of making money. And I've done my best to learn, and I've made a lot of mistakes. You know, I'm an entrepreneur. So, you know, I've made millions and been bankrupt. And I think entrepreneurs are always one paycheck away from being billionaires or broke. And that's just the nature of, of who we are. But I've always found a way to make the money that I need. God has always provided opportunities for me to get wealth. to provide for my family. Even at my lowest, I'm 4 days and $400 away from being homeless. That was only 4 or 5 years ago. And on the day that we— I did not know what to do. My pickup truck that I borrowed from a mate— well, I think we hired this one, I can't remember— was loaded to the hills. We had nowhere to live. I had $400 in the bank. I didn't have any money for food. And I mean, within a 48-hour period, we had a house that someone that we walked into, that the guy said, we're gonna— I'll finance this for you. He wrote— I mean, it was bloody miraculous. And I was doing everything. In fact, I had a list of jobs I was going to do. I worked out I could work at Home Depot at these hours. I could go to Walmart. Then during the day, I could try and find another job. I was going to do everything I could. So I think as long as that's our attitude, that we're not lazy, we're prepared to do it, then God will always bring things our way. Beside the point. Um, there are 3 things in life that destroy relationships, destroy churches, destroy friendships, and that's communication, sex, and money. All disasters in marriages come down to communicating, sex, and money. I think even in friendships between men, it comes down to communication. intimacy and how we deal with our finances. In business, it always does. It always comes down to communication, intimate relationship, and how we deal with finances. More marriages break up due to stress caused by those areas than anything else. And, you know, look, I'm not trying to be crude, but sex is a conversation. Conversations lead to sex. If couples aren't communicating verbally, then they're not gonna communicate physically. If couples can't communicate around their money, it's going to lead to distress. which is going to lead to lack of sex, which is going to lead to broken communications. The cycle that goes on. Now take that principle and apply it over your life, and you'll find that those 3 things are always the area where things most break down. Now, there's no perfect way to manage your money or do your money in a household. I know people where they've both got joint bank accounts. I know people where the wife handles all the finances, and I know people where the husband handles all the finances. They make joint decisions. So, but I do believe there's a responsibility on a man to be responsible for his household. And that's actually what I think 1 Timothy is saying, that you're responsible for financially providing for your household. Now, how you do it as a couple, because don't forget Proverbs 31. Now, Proverbs 31 is actually about a woman who was an entrepreneur who made all the money and took care of all the household so her husband could sit and be a political leader in the city. So here's this lady who's dynamically involved in creating wealth for the family. So we're talking about a joint partnership in here. But what I believe Timothy— what Paul is saying when he wrote to Timothy, who was a young man of 30 who was overseeing a church where there was a whole lot of people sitting around doing nothing, he was saying, hey, listen, buddy, it comes down to a fellow. He's got to be responsible for what happens in his household and how that money is managed. So responsibility for managing the money. And overseeing and make sure there's enough at the end of month. I think that really is a man's responsibility. So you've got to take responsibility for your family that way. I've seen more lives and relationships destroyed by the misuse of money or the lack of money. Have you ever had that fella who asked to borrow $50 and his words were, I'm going to borrow this $50 for you and I'm going to give it back to you next week? You know that fella? You give him $50. And he doesn't give you that $50 back next week. Now, it's only $50. So are you such a tightwad that you would destroy a relationship because a guy didn't give you $50 back? No. I'd be pretty ticked off because this guy gave me his word and it was about money. And there's all this cascade of different things that break down from that. But something as little as that can ruin a relationship. Because someone's not true to their word over a small amount. Then again, you can allow a relationship to be ruined over something like money because you don't forget, hey, listen, you borrowed my Tupperware container. Give me the Tupperware container back. Whatever the thing is, whatever that small thing is that's got a pee under your mattress, just have a conversation. Get the thing back. Talk about it. And they go, well, screw you. I'm going to keep the Tupperware container. Well, screw you. I'm going to slash your tires, and so it goes on. We're always very balanced. If you can't steward what you have, then you're never going to qualify for more. If you can't steward what you have, you'll never qualify for more. You don't hope that more money comes along and you'll do better with it, like the lottery. Now I'd love to be tested with that. I think God should give me ten million dollars and just to see if I can be tested in that. I'd All those in favor? Yeah, we all would. We'd like to have that test. You have to prove yourself faithful in little. You need to do the best you can with what you've got in order to qualify for something different. Proverbs 21: The plans of the diligent— diligent, faithfully involved in repetitive activity— lead to surely an abundance, but everyone who is hasty comes only to poverty. There is no get-rich-quick scheme. What there is is a chance to do something a little different and get something a little different. So that's what I got for you. Let me, let me turn off the streaming and we will have a conversation around those points.

Alright.

How the heck do I do this?

Well,