Mission Critical

Men should be men of action...but what does that mean?

Mike Thornberry - West Point grad, 1996 US Olympic men’s handball team

How does God “fine tune” our lives? Puts us in community - Proverbs 27:17 - “Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another.” How does iron “sharpen” iron - by clashing against each other - conflict...you need to have men around you that you can smash your ideas against to see what is true and right and good…

When you say something to your children...that God is wanting to say to you - check out Parenting: 14 Gospel Principles That Can Radically Change Your Family by Paul David Tripp...convicting to the core!

“Mission” - the WHY of what I’m doing…your actions reveal your mission. What do your actions reveal about your mission - are you driven by self-pleasure and self-glorification or do you have a higher, better, more meaningful mission for your life?

Do you look at the END to determine the path that you choose in life? What do you want said at your funeral - by your wife, your children, your business partners/coworkers, your neighbors, etc.?

How do I determine what my “mission” is?

1. Is what you’re doing temporal or eternal?
2. The “Nathan Hale test” - “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.” Does what you’re doing meet the requirement that you’d be willing to die for it?

These are pretty steep concepts - but it helps you evaluate the actions that you take in light of something larger than yourself. Are you consumed by personal pleasure and temporary satisfaction or are you interested and invested in living a larger story with the days you’ve been given?

Accountability - so important to surround yourself with men who will hold you accountable to the standard of the type of man that you say you want to be. Do you have men in your life who are willing and able to speak truth into your life - even if, and especially when, that truth hurts?!

Importance of team sports - surrounded by a group of men who won’t let you settle for less than  your best - why do we do this when we’re young, but remove ourselves from community when we get older?

Japanese art form that puts pieces of broken pottery back together with gold - making the broken pottery more valuable and precious after it’s been broken and repaired, usually seen as a metaphor for embracing your brokenness and what Christ can do to redeem and restore what was once broken and discarded - is called Kintsugi.

Action Item - where can you find an older man to mentor you - church! Yes, men, you need to be involved in a good church where you can find older, wiser men to mentor you in life. 

Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 - Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up! Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him - a threefold cord is not quickly broken.