We Challenge

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- We are Crossroads.

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A group of Jesus lovers

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who are more interested in being real

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than looking good.

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We believe the church is called to love God

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and our neighbors.

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No memberships or secret handshakes required.

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We strive to do what we see Jesus do.

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We run to the lost, the hurting, the hungry,

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to those who are asking questions and seeking truth.

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We will do anything short of sin

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to reach our friends and neighbors.

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We believe that everyone has a seat at God's table.

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We go outside our walls

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to serve the forgotten and marginalized.

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We believe we are called to be

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the hands and feet of Jesus on earth.

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We laugh as often as possible.

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The world wants to beat us down and leave us helpless.

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Laughter is our way of saying no to despair and yes to joy.

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We don't take ourselves too seriously.

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We believe God has a sense of humor

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and that farts are funny.

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We challenge ourselves and each other

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to get out of our comfort zone and do hard things.

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We believe that God uses any struggle

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and adversity we face to sharpen us,

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grow us, make us stronger,

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and take us to new places we can't get to from our couches.

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We sacrifice everything for the cause

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to go the way of Jesus.

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We believe everything we have is from God and for God.

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So we give our time, talents and money.

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We choose to die empty.

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We endure through any struggle we face.

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Jesus overcame the world,

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so when things get hard, we push through.

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When we get knocked down, we get back up again.

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Yesterday, today, tomorrow we will follow wherever God leads.

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We are Crossroads. This is us.

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- Hey, how's it going? I'm Andy and welcome to Crossroads.

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As a church, we do those things, we run, we laugh.

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And this week we're talking about how we challenge.

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We're not okay to stay stuck in the same old rut.

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And when we challenge the status quo and each other,

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we grow closer to God and to other people.

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Now, it would be hard to be at Crossroads

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for any length of time and not be challenged.

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Actually, one example of this was when

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I first started hanging around Crossroads. I didn't have a car.

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My car actually didn't work

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and my motorcycle was all I had

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and it was getting cold. It was mid December.

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My motorcycle broke down right outside Crossroads

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and a friend, Josh,

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who you often see drumming around here, came out.

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He said, "Hey, do you need help?"

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I said, "No, no, no, I'm good. I got it."

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And he just looked at me. He said, "No, you're not good.

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Your motorcycle doesn't work

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and it's getting late and it's freezing outside.

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Let me help you." He just called me out.

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He said, "I think you're bad at asking for

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and receiving help," and he was 100% right.

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He called me out on my stuff and I'm a better man for it.

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And that is one example of about 5000 where

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people and this place have challenged me for my good.

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So one thing that I'm going to challenge you

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to do right now is to not skip

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the next part of the service, the worship part.

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It's actually critical to us connecting with God

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and getting closer to Him.

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It's 15 minutes that we focus our attention on God

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and say things to Him and about Him

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that we might not be able to do otherwise.

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So don't skip it, even if you just listen

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and don't sing, that's okay.

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Just think about these words and what they mean for your life.

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God's with us. He's a strong tower, a firm foundation.

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- Those words are easier to read

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than believe and put into action.

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But I want to take Jesus at His word,

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so I don't want to let my current circumstances

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determine what's possible for God.

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But I want to let God determine what's possible

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for my current circumstances

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so no matter what I face, I stand in sync with these words.

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It's what I choose to say now.

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- God, we thank You that You are the kind of God

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who can do miraculous things.

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You've done them and You still continue to do them today.

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We thank You that You are more than able,

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You are capable. You are strong. You are our God.

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We pray all this in Your Son's name. Amen.

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- Crossroads has about 1000 things going on all the time.

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It's a big place that runs after a lot of great things.

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And as always, I want to let you know that

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the absolute best way to keep up to speed

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is by downloading the Crossroads Anywhere app.

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It has great stuff to help you grow with God

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and on your own and with other people.

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And once you create a profile, you can have

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instant access to not just great content

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but great opportunities for you to serve,

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connect, grow and more.

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So whether you attend one of our nine physical locations

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or are a part of the Anywhere Community

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meeting in homes, bars, coffee shops,

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dorm rooms all over the world, the app is the best way

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to stay up to date with what's happening around you.

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And one of the things that you actually see in there

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that I want to highlight is the online night of prayer.

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Now, around here, we believe that prayer works.

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It changes things in ways that are hard to explain

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but undeniable.

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There's also this part of prayer that's called prophecy.

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It's where someone listens to God on your behalf

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to strengthen and encourage you.

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That's actually what we have our prayer team doing

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in these online night of prayer just for you,

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to hear from God about the challenges

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right where you're at, the things that you need right now.

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You can head to Crossroads.net/anywhere

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to sign up for online night of prayer.

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Around here we are all about being challenged.

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It's just who we are.

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And one of the ways that we challenge ourselves

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and get outside of our comfort zone is with camps.

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Camps are built to challenge you in the best possible way,

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and you'll grow closer to God and with other people.

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Just this past weekend, we wrapped up Woman Camp,

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which I hear was an incredible time for over 1700 women.

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Now we've got Man Camp coming up,

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The Getaway for 18 to 24 year olds, Veterans' Camp,

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and even a special weekend getaway for health care

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professionals just to receive some of the care

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and the investment that they give

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to the rest of us all year long.

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For these and more, head to Crossroads.net/camps

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for more information.

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Now, around here, we like to be challenged

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and to challenge each other, to run after new things

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because we believe that God does extraordinary things

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with normal, everyday people.

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That just, man, that changes the world.

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And I want you to hear some of the stories

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of normal people being challenged

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to go to a new place with God right now.

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- One of the things around big churches

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and places that are attractive and fun

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is one of the indictments oftentimes is

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that place doesn't challenge people,

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that place doesn't go deep,

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that place doesn't do the thing that's unpopular. Right?

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What makes -- that's in our DNA,

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challenge is in Crossroads' DNA.

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Why is that? Why is that important to us?

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- I think about, you know,

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one of our seven hills is growth, right?

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And I think about anything in my life that

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I can say I've either gained mastery in

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or I'm gaining mastery in, it's only come with challenge.

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You know? It's only come with somebody

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who's maybe a couple steps ahead who's saying,

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"Great, you think this is where you need to be?

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Now I want to push you here or I want to guide you here."

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And I think that's true spiritually.

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I think that, you know, there's more of God

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to be uncovered and we can't get to it

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if we're averse to challenge.

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And I would just say, you know, some of

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the most powerful transformative moments in my life

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at Crossroads and in my relationship with Jesus

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have come because someone loved me enough

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to challenge me to go beyond where I was.

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- I remember volunteer challenges we've done too

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where we said, "Hey, if you're brand new, awesome,

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this message is not for you.

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If you've been around for a while

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and you're just planning on never doing anything

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and occupying a seat in the auditorium, we need your seat."

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We want people who want to contribute

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and who are up for challenge.

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And that's, you know,

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you make some friends, you make some enemies.

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But I think that that's what Jesus did.

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Jesus was not a guy who shied away from challenge whatsoever.

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- Well, I think it also happens relationally.

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So if you're in community and in a group,

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part of our DNA and that we have trained people

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who are part of this community to do

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is challenge one another.

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So I remember being in a group in someone's living room

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on the east side of Cincinnati when I was in college

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and going through what does it mean

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to actually believe Jesus is Lord of my life?

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And if I say that out loud, what does that mean?

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And this person, the leader of this group,

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who's a few years older than me, said,

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"Well, it means like you're going to have to change

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some of your habits so that He actually -- like you, submit."

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And at the time I was like, "Well, I get drunk

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probably at least three nights a week with my friends.

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And I have relationships that

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are totally unhealthy with other guys."

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And I'm like, "Okay, if you're telling me that

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if I say this out loud with my mouth right now,

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I'm going to have to change some of what I do?"

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He's like, "Yes. So you need to actually consider

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if you want to say it out loud."

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And that came right from Scripture,

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which was believe in your heart that Jesus is Lord

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and confess it with your mouth.

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And so I was challenged in someone's living room.

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And that changed, that shifted my life

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on a whole different trajectory in my 20s

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and it came in relationship

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that often happens in groups around here.

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- Good stuff. Hey, great to be with everybody today.

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We are in the midst of a series called This is Us,

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trying to help people understand

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a bit more about Crossroads, but not really.

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What we're talking about are some of the things

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that Jesus calls all people to do who gather together

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who form a church.

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And so these are things that the Church of Jesus

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have practiced for thousands of years,

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things that Jesus did.

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And there are things that we're trying to be

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really clear on here as well, especially since

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we've been in an unbelievable growth here the last year or so.

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We just have a lot of people who are going like,

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"Wait, why is this place do this?

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Why does it not do that?"

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So we're kind of killing two birds with one stone.

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And today I'm going to kind of kill two birds with one stone.

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I'm going to talk about two things that are separate

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but very, very related.

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We're going to talk about challenge,

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how Jesus challenges us

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and how we have to be comfortable with challenge.

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And I'm going to talk about manhood.

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What do those two things have to do with each other?

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Well, you're going to have to hang in there

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because I'll tell you in just a moment.

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Let's pray before I do anything else.

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God, I'm thankful for our morning

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and I'm thankful for transcendent ideas

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and not just the ideas You give us,

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but the way that You have loved us,

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the way You have modeled things for us that blow us away.

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You are good and You're gracious.

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And I pray You'd help me to communicate that today

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and that You will be pleased by what is said

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as your people go to a new place.

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Enable that to happen. I pray these things

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according to the character and identity of Jesus. Amen.

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So we have nothing that's building to an ask.

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We have no ask for you in the midst of this series.

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We're not building to something.

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No, this is just let's get rooted on who Jesus is,

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who He wants us to be, and see what that might mean

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for the for the rest of our life

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and for our church's future.

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We're going to get intense today, just so you know.

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We're going to get intense. I know you don't like it.

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I know you don't like it.

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I know you've come here just to waste your time.

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But we're going to have some intense things here today.

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So I thought maybe we'd start with just something

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a little low key. Just some storybook time.

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Yeah, some storybook time.

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I like storybooks where there's, like, pictures.

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I like books that have pictures.

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It means I can read less and I can look at pretty cool things.

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So let me read you just a nice little story.

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Which story do I want to read? Okay, let's do this one.

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Here we go. Are you ready to sit back and, ahh. Here we go.

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Sounds like good life, doesn't it? Yeah.

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That actually does sound like a good life

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to a lot of men who really don't want to be challenged.

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A lot of us don't want to be challenged.

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If we're going to grow and get closer to God,

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if we're going to understand being in a group of people

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who name Him as their God, which every church should be doing,

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these things that we're talking about,

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Crossroads may be doing them in a way

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that might be different than some churches,

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but if you don't like this, you have to find out

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how you can possibly live without this because you cannot,

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as I'm going to mention today, you cannot

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whether you're a man or whether you're a woman,

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you cannot follow Jesus without embracing challenge,

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without being open to being challenged.

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Jesus was a challenging guy. There's no way around it.

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He was incredibly challenging.

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He was also very fun, as Chuck talked about

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really, really well last week.

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He is also very light hearted, very friendship oriented.

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All that's true. And He's very challenging.

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In our American lexicon of sayings that we have

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we have grown numb to these sayings that came from Him

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and ignore how really challenging they are.

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Like, love your neighbor as yourself.

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Got any annoying neighbors?

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That's really, really challenging.

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"Pray for those who persecute you," Jesus says. Geeze.

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Turn the other cheek, meaning don't get even.

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Take the insult. Ugh, geez. Really?

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How about this one? Go the extra mile.

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That was from Jesus saying when a Roman conscripts you

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and force you to carry his pack a mile,

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show him that you care for him and he doesn't own you

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and go the extra mile, take a harder task for yourself.

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These are incredibly challenging things

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that we don't even see as challenging because

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we've become numb to the spiritual overtones of them.

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One of the most respected New Testament scholars today,

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N.T. Wright, he puts it this way:

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I don't think we see Jesus as He is because

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we soften His words and we don't see the challenge in them

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and we ignore them. Let me just give you a few.

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I could -- I had so many I was going to give you today,

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but I'm just going to give you a few.

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Let's look at them, ad I could give

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a whole sermon on each one of these. I'm not.

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I'm just going to give us the kind of 30,000 foot view

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for us to look at that and say, geesh, like, wow.

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Here's one Mark 10:17:

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They guy's trying to compliment him,

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"Good teacher, amazing teacher."

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And Jesus says, "Why do you call me good?

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No one's good except God alone,"

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meaning I'm not just a good teacher, I'm actually God.

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Wow. Okay.

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Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

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Ten commandments, That's what you've got to do.

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The guy says, "Teacher, all these I've kept from my youth."

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Since I was a boy. Ten Commandments, I got them nailed.

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What else you got for me? Because I'm in. Here it is.

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Jesus looking at him, loved him, and said to him.

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Before we read the rest, he's going to give him

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some very challenging words,

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it always comes from a place of love.

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He loved him and he challenges him.

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So you think you're real great because you go to church

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and obey the Ten Commandments. Great. Okay.

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Let's try this, everything you have, liquidate all of it.

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Liquidate all of it and give it to the poor.

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And then you're good to go. Just come follow me.

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That way you don't have anything else

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distracting you to follow me.

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Of course, the guy doesn't want to do that.

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He gives it up and walks away.

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Let's look at another one. Jesus says in Luke 9:23:

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It's hard for us to hear this verse because

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we think of crosses we think of jewelry,

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we think of a sign of Christianity.

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When Jesus said this, he hadn't been crucified on a cross.

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When he said this, they heard it for what he was intending,

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and that was a cross was a means of execution.

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Jesus is saying, "You need to follow me

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to the point where you're ready to die.

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In fact, be so willing to be die

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and be dishonored by people and to not be liked by people

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you actually carry along with you your own cross."

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In other words, he would say today, "Carry with you

00:36:44

your own lethal injection. Think of your life as nothing.

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Your life means nothing as it relates to me.

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Be ready to give it up at a moment's notice." Geesh.

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One more. Let's just do, just do one more.

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Let's do -- I think I skipped the one I want to do.

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Let's do -- Let's do Luke 21:16:

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That's right, you will be hated.

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Jesus says, "Man, hatred is coming your way,

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people not liking you, people not wanting to be around you."

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These are unbelievably challenging statements,

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and I don't have the time to even give a cursory overview

00:37:32

of all of these things.

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It causes me to be really sober minded

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and get freaked out a little bit.

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I sometimes think to myself, "Gosh, if Jesus came

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and started a church today.

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Say He started one where we have physical locations.

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If He started a church in Lexington,

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if He started a church in Cincinnati, Dayton, Columbus,

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would he put Crossroads out of business?"

00:37:58

Out of business. Arguably, yes.

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The greatest teacher ever, greatest teacher ever

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is going to beat us hands down whoever's teaching

00:38:08

better than any, highest moral fiber and character ever.

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It's going to be way higher than me on my best day, way higher.

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Yeah, there's never going to be any any scandal

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in the church in terms of morality.

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If they had a healing and prayer service,

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you'd want to go to His instead of one at Crossroads.

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That's for darn sure. Right?

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You're going to go that one.

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And yet I wonder, I go, "I don't know, man. Because He ticked

00:38:36

people off and challenged people

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and chased people away all the time."

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I actually think sometimes, I think a church I lead

00:38:44

and start it might be bigger than Jesus'

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because I don't challenge like Him.

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I want people to like me.

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He was regularly telling people things

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people did not want to hear

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and they were walking away, like this rich young ruler.

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He could have easily had him like,

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"Hey, let me work with you on that,

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because we really could need some help

00:39:03

and all of the expenses we have and you being on our team

00:39:06

bringing your resources would be really great."

00:39:08

"No, no, no, sell everything you have

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and leave and give to the poor.

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Oh, you don't want do that? Then fine, leave."

00:39:14

He was regularly chasing people away,

00:39:17

or should I rather say challenging people away.

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And I'm really, really challenged by this.

00:39:24

He absolutely was humorous. He was incredibly loving.

00:39:27

He was incredibly fun to be around.

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I believe all that, and time and time and time again

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He said things no one wanted to hear that were true

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and caused people to go, "I can't handle it.

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I'm out of here. I'm out of here."

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I'm not like Him. I'm not as good as He is.

00:39:49

When we look at so much of the history of Crossroads,

00:39:52

so much of what is misunderstood about Crossroads,

00:39:56

there's so much of the difficult times about Crossroads

00:39:58

many of those things traced to us desiring

00:40:02

to honor the heart of Jesus and challenge.

00:40:05

Not just getting bigger and bigger and growing more,

00:40:07

but actually challenging and doing and saying things

00:40:10

that we know cut against the grain of where people are.

00:40:13

Years and years and years ago,

00:40:15

when we took our first Go Trip, it was called Go Mamelodi.

00:40:18

We went over to South Africa and we really felt a need

00:40:20

to go there because we were challenged to engage

00:40:25

in the AIDS crisis that was in South Africa.

00:40:28

This was a very controversial thing way back in 1990

00:40:33

or whatever it was, way 2001, whatever.

00:40:36

Way, way, way, way back when, because there was,

00:40:38

you know, a good bit of people in churches,

00:40:41

in churches, and there still are today who believe that

00:40:44

the Aids crisis was God's method to punish people who were gay.

00:40:48

It was His wrath and His plague on people who were gay.

00:40:57

So if you had compassion for someone who had AIDS

00:41:02

or was gay, you were somehow not understanding the will of God.

00:41:07

Weird, weird, twisted time.

00:41:09

I had -- the last church I came from,

00:41:11

I was on staff there and I led an adult Sunday school,

00:41:15

Christian education in the morning.

00:41:17

I would lead it and have a bunch of people come in.

00:41:20

And this one guy left this other church

00:41:22

and he left it because they had said this thing

00:41:26

that AIDS was God's wrath on homosexuals.

00:41:29

And he raised his hand and said, "What about, what,

00:41:32

what what about people who get AIDS

00:41:36

and haven't had sex with somebody of the same sex

00:41:39

or got it not because they were having sex

00:41:41

with somebody they weren't married to because

00:41:43

people would go out and they would have sex

00:41:45

with various partners, then come in

00:41:46

and have sex with their spouse

00:41:48

and then they would get the AIDS, all that stuff."

00:41:50

And they said, "It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.

00:41:52

It's God's judgment and it comes on all of us,

00:41:54

even if we haven't done it."

00:41:55

And he left that church promptly.

00:41:57

Why did Steve leave that church?

00:41:59

Because he had a blood transfusion and he had AIDS.

00:42:04

And he was just getting whittled down to nothing

00:42:07

right before my eyes.

00:42:10

Challenging doesn't mean you're a jerk.

00:42:13

Challenging doesn't mean

00:42:14

you just say things that are offensive.

00:42:16

But when we decided to do that, it was challenging

00:42:19

and a lot of folks didn't like it.

00:42:21

We built the largest privately funded AIDS hospice

00:42:24

as far as we realize or know in the history of South Africa,

00:42:28

funded it, built it and everything,

00:42:29

and then it failed miserably. That's another story.

00:42:32

That's another story.

00:42:33

But we were challenged by this, and we decided

00:42:36

to challenge this because Jesus challenged us.

00:42:41

Sexuality, we're going to have we're going to have

00:42:43

a series on sex at some point this year.

00:42:46

And I'll tell you what's going to happen.

00:42:48

All these growth problems we've been having,

00:42:50

those growth problems are going to go away.

00:42:51

They're going to be gone. They're going to be gone.

00:42:56

Church is going to decrease in size.

00:42:58

It's going to be painful

00:43:00

and it's going to be wonderful at the same time.

00:43:02

One thing I've learned about sex, no matter who you are,

00:43:05

all you want to hear about sex is

00:43:06

whatever you're doing right now is great by God.

00:43:08

That's all. That's all we want to hear about sex.

00:43:10

That your beliefs are the right beliefs,

00:43:12

your actions are the right actions.

00:43:13

And when we see what the Bible says, very few of us

00:43:17

want to be challenged in that area.

00:43:19

But we feel like we need to do this from time to time

00:43:22

because we need to be like Jesus, who said things

00:43:25

that people didn't want to hear.

00:43:27

No matter what you're doing right now,

00:43:30

no matter what you're doing right now,

00:43:32

Jesus loves you as you are right now.

00:43:34

Right now as you are He loves you right now

00:43:38

and He loves you too much to allow you

00:43:41

to stay where you are right now.

00:43:44

He challenges us

00:43:46

because He wants us to become more like Him.

00:43:47

He wants us to move and that's always the more difficult place.

00:43:51

Race, gosh, how many times have we taken our shots on race?

00:43:56

We don't -- we don't do it right. We don't say it right.

00:44:00

If you if you talk about race, it's not said in the right way.

00:44:02

You said too much. We're not doing the right thing.

00:44:05

And yet we still do, we still talk about the truth

00:44:10

that races in our country are not together.

00:44:12

We are not right.

00:44:14

And there's truths that are still painful,

00:44:16

like someone who looks like me is going to have

00:44:18

an easier time starting off in our culture

00:44:21

than somebody who has darker skin than me.

00:44:23

There's an advantage to being white.

00:44:25

And whenever we talk about this,

00:44:27

doesn't mean I should feel guilty for being white.

00:44:29

It just means I should have compassion and heart

00:44:32

and understanding and want to work towards

00:44:34

giving opportunities to people

00:44:35

that doesn't come as easy for them.

00:44:36

And Chuck and I've talked about this a lot, Chuck Mingo,

00:44:39

in case you don't know him, he's black.

00:44:40

I don't know if you noticed that or not,

00:44:42

but he's black and I'm white.

00:44:43

And we've talked about how if we never talked about race,

00:44:46

would Crossroads be larger than it is right now?

00:44:49

Because every -- Yes, a woman says, "Yes, yes, it would"

00:44:53

because everyone gets upset all the time.

00:44:54

It's hard. It's difficult.

00:44:56

We talk about it a lot.

00:44:57

We don't talk about a lot, but we talk a lot about

00:45:00

when we challenge, very few people,

00:45:03

people who say they know God, by the way,

00:45:08

are up for being challenged.

00:45:09

I'm not even talking about things like parenting

00:45:12

or all sorts of stuff.

00:45:13

This is a safe place for everybody. Everybody.

00:45:17

This Crossroads is a safe place and it has to be safe

00:45:19

to hear a very unsafe message,

00:45:23

the message that Jesus loves you.

00:45:26

The message that Jesus wants to facilitate you to grow

00:45:30

to become somebody you aren't right now.

00:45:33

He doesn't just affirm what you think

00:45:35

and what you want to believe and what you do right now,

00:45:37

He wants to make you more like Him, and that is His love.

00:45:42

That's how He challenges us.

00:45:46

We have a big investment in camps.

00:45:49

We like doing camping.

00:45:51

Part of why we do camping is because it's challenging

00:45:54

because we don't like it.

00:45:55

We'd rather be in resort than outside.

00:45:58

But in case you want to be like Jesus,

00:45:59

I don't know about this, Jesus camped.

00:46:06

Well, I guess I want to be like Jesus,

00:46:08

but I don't really want to do what He did.

00:46:09

I don't. I don't want to do it.

00:46:11

For the better part of three years, he was camping

00:46:13

without high tech gear.

00:46:17

There's something that happens as we see Woman Camp,

00:46:19

which by the way, was last weekend. It was amazing.

00:46:22

How many of us went to it? [cheers]

00:46:24

Some day you ladies are gonna invite me to Woman Camp.

00:46:26

I don't know why you haven't so far.

00:46:27

You have no part of me there.

00:46:29

I want to go someday, but you haven't had me there,

00:46:31

so I just celebrate from afar how great it is.

00:46:34

The highest Woman Camp we ever had.

00:46:37

1500 women went, 90 baptisms took place.

00:46:42

Women having fun, women worshiping,

00:46:45

women breaking free from issues they've had,

00:46:47

bonding with one another in a challenging environment.

00:46:50

One woman says this, she says:

00:47:16

[applause]

00:47:20

It's so good. So great. Man Camp is coming up a couple of weeks.

00:47:23

A couple more days to sign up, guys.

00:47:25

You'll pay more right now than you would have

00:47:27

two months ago or so,

00:47:29

but it could change your life because it's challenging.

00:47:31

You're going to meet God and have an opportunity

00:47:33

to meet God in a way that you're not going to

00:47:35

in a comfortable environment because God challenges us

00:47:37

and meets us and laughs with us.

00:47:40

Speaking of men, let's talk about challenge and men.

00:47:43

We've talked about this series and thought, you know,

00:47:45

there's so many rumors and misperceptions

00:47:47

that go around around men at Crossroads.

00:47:50

I hear from people say, "All Crossroads cares about is men,

00:47:52

all Crossroads cares about."

00:47:54

And I got to tell you, I don't understand it.

00:47:56

I talk with a woman about this just this last week.

00:47:59

She said, "I don't. I don't understand it either."

00:48:01

She said, "I've never been in a church

00:48:03

that believes in the Bible and has more women in leadership

00:48:07

than Crossroads and has more people,

00:48:09

more times women speaking on stage

00:48:11

and has opportunities for women.

00:48:14

We don't spend more on women's ministry

00:48:15

or on men's ministries than women's ministries.

00:48:17

It's confusing. I bdon't understand it."

00:48:20

So I want to try to explain it a little bit today

00:48:23

because it ties into this challenge piece.

00:48:27

Women are obviously hurting.

00:48:29

It's hard to be a woman in America, very, very hard.

00:48:32

Hard to be a woman in corporate America, very, very hard.

00:48:35

It's hard to deal with the things in the home

00:48:39

and the disproportionate amount of single moms in our country.

00:48:41

It's hard. It's very, very hard.

00:48:43

Women deserve massive amounts of compassion

00:48:46

because they are living a challenged life. Really.

00:48:48

Yeah, I get some amen for that.

00:48:51

And what we need to do is we need to expand

00:48:53

our compassion bucket for more,

00:48:55

not give women less compassion, but expand the bucket

00:48:58

and give more people compassion, like men.

00:49:03

Men are four times more likely than women to commit suicide.

00:49:07

Men are three times more likely than women

00:49:09

to have a mental illness.

00:49:11

Men are two times more likely than women to have a DUI

00:49:14

or a chemical abuse related incident than women.

00:49:17

Men are not well, and I believe

00:49:21

the compassion of Jesus should expand for everybody,

00:49:25

should have compassion for all folks.

00:49:28

And churches do not do a good job

00:49:32

having compassion for men or reaching men.

00:49:34

Last statistic I saw was 70% of church attendance

00:49:37

in America are women, 70% are women, 30% are men.

00:49:40

I think it's more like 80/20, actually.

00:49:43

The reason, there's a bunch of reasons for that.

00:49:45

I think one of the reasons is we do a better job

00:49:47

speaking to women than we do to men.

00:49:49

We do a better job having sort of communal,

00:49:53

just heartwarming sharing experiences.

00:49:55

We do that really better in a church setting

00:49:58

than we do mobilizing men for a mission to do something.

00:50:01

For whatever the reasons are, the American church

00:50:03

is doing a really, really bad job reaching men,

00:50:06

developing men, and everybody is losing. Everybody.

00:50:12

One of the questions I have for God is why is it

00:50:14

I know so many good godly women,

00:50:16

but so few godly men who are available for them?

00:50:19

Why? I don't -- When I meet a godly man,

00:50:22

he pretty much has options.

00:50:24

But I don't see good women who have a lot of options.

00:50:27

What's going on here? Where is the --

00:50:31

Where's the void in our culture?

00:50:33

The Me Too movement existed for a reason,

00:50:36

because men are not well and they're doing harmful

00:50:39

and bad things to women.

00:50:44

So we have a heart for that. We have a heart.

00:50:46

We have a heart for men and we have a heart for women.

00:50:49

And we want to pour resources in and structure a church

00:50:54

that might be more apt to reach a man

00:50:56

where he may not go into another church

00:50:58

to be reached through that church.

00:51:00

It's a deep commitment that we have here.

00:51:02

It's important here.

00:51:04

When my daughter was born, my first, my eldest daughter,

00:51:08

she was born, I looked at her and was really amazing

00:51:10

because the first verse I ever saw that I had my own DNA

00:51:13

because I'm adopted. It's beautiful.

00:51:15

Like, wow, my own DNA and someone.

00:51:17

And then my second child was born, my son.

00:51:19

They took my son, they put him on a little table

00:51:22

and they put him on this little table when he came out of Lib,

00:51:25

put him there and I went over, "Oh, my God."

00:51:27

Held his little hand and looked down at him,

00:51:29

holding his hand, and then he sent a stream of urine

00:51:32

up in the air, it landed on my arm

00:51:35

and dribbled all the way down my arm.

00:51:38

And I thought to myself, I said, "Yeah,

00:51:41

this could be an omen."

00:51:45

I thought, "If I don't get a hold of this little guy,

00:51:48

he's going to piss all over me

00:51:50

just like I pissed all over my dad."

00:51:56

There is such a thing as a 15 year old man

00:51:58

and there's such a thing as a 45 year old boy.

00:52:01

It has nothing to do with what hobbies you like,

00:52:04

if you drive a truck,

00:52:05

it has nothing to do with your income level.

00:52:07

It has to do with certain marks of a man.

00:52:10

And I realized I've seen enough men hurt women.

00:52:12

I don't know what it is, but men have a power to hurt

00:52:15

more so than women. They just do.

00:52:17

A dad's words, for whatever reason, hurt a child

00:52:20

more than the mom says the same thing.

00:52:22

We know that, we have scars generally

00:52:24

from what our dad said to us or didn't say to us.

00:52:26

We don't like this, by the way, as dads,

00:52:28

we don't like that, but it is.

00:52:30

We know that men have the ability to hurt somebody,

00:52:32

and we do.

00:52:33

That's why the whole Me Too movement has taken off,

00:52:36

because you've got boys in business

00:52:38

who take advantage of women.

00:52:40

When you have a boy, you have a grave responsibility.

00:52:45

Do you have a dog? Dogs are great.

00:52:48

I don't understand those of you, though,

00:52:49

who have, like, Chihuahuas. I don't understand it.

00:52:52

Chihuahuas or those wiener dogs or whatever, I don't get it.

00:52:58

Like, I just I'd rather have a cat

00:53:02

because it'd be easier to take care of, right?

00:53:04

But you know, if you have that dog,

00:53:05

that's fine. No problem.

00:53:06

And truth is, I've never seen a nice Chihuahua.

00:53:10

No, seriously, have you? They're like, [snarling sounds]

00:53:13

Someone's always holding them. [snarling]

00:53:17

And, you know, it's okay because it's not a powerful being

00:53:22

and it's really not going to hurt anybody.

00:53:25

When you have a boy, when God gives you a boy, newborn boy,

00:53:30

you have before you a puppy rottweiler,

00:53:35

a puppy German shepherd, a pup.

00:53:37

If that boy doesn't get raised right,

00:53:39

someone's going to get hurt.

00:53:42

And so I realized that I've got to do

00:53:45

something different for my son.

00:53:48

So I just started researching things and doing things.

00:53:52

And that led to a book that I wrote a while ago

00:53:56

called The Five Marks of a Man.

00:53:57

And it led to Man Camp and led us to having a heart

00:54:01

for men in our normal day to day ministry.

00:54:03

And I found that there's five things, by the way,

00:54:05

the five things that separate boys from men. Five, five.

00:54:10

And I'm going to tell them to you,

00:54:12

but I got to tell you this just on the QT.

00:54:14

Don't tell my publisher this.

00:54:18

All these things are also able to be done by women.

00:54:22

I know, I know, I know it's marketing. It's marketing.

00:54:25

So all these marks can be marks of a woman as well.

00:54:28

But these are the push points.

00:54:30

Every man you know that you respect

00:54:32

has all five of these things.

00:54:33

Every man who's a hero of the faith that's in the Bible

00:54:35

has all five of these things.

00:54:36

We may be weaker in 1 or 2 of them, but we embrace them,

00:54:39

say, "This is where I'm going." Here we go.

00:54:41

Now, as I tell you these five things,

00:54:43

let me just tell you, ladies, this is a talk

00:54:46

I've given to NFL teams in locker rooms.

00:54:49

I've given this talk on university campuses and fraternities.

00:54:53

I've given this talk to different groups of men.

00:54:55

Let me just say this, this information,

00:54:58

you should have this information for every person you date.

00:55:04

This is your scorecard.

00:55:07

You do not want to date a boy.

00:55:09

And let me tell you, my experience is

00:55:12

girlfriends do not grow boys into men. They never do.

00:55:15

If you're dating a boy right now, he will always be a boy.

00:55:18

Or if he becomes a man, it won't be because he's dating you.

00:55:21

Something else will intercede for him to become a man.

00:55:25

I'm doing this to help you.

00:55:27

I'm telling you, I don't want you to have a broken heart

00:55:29

because you've gotten too deep in with a boy

00:55:32

who's never going to be able to meet your needs,

00:55:34

who's never going to lay down his life for you,

00:55:36

who's never going to be strong for you.

00:55:38

These five things, not necessarily in order,

00:55:40

here they are.

00:55:41

One of them is this: Men have a vision and boys live day to day.

00:55:45

Men say there's something out here that I'm going after

00:55:48

that I don't have right now, a college degree,

00:55:51

a business to start, a marriage,

00:55:53

I'm going to be in a journey to sobriety and recovery.

00:56:00

There's something out there I don't have, I see it,

00:56:02

I want it, and what's between here in that vision

00:56:05

is time and difficulty.

00:56:08

Time and difficulty, that's what it is.

00:56:11

It is a challenge to have a vision.

00:56:14

I'm not talking about a daydream.

00:56:15

Everyone has a dream.

00:56:16

That's a daydream if it doesn't challenge you

00:56:19

to do things you don't want to do over periods of time

00:56:22

until you actually attain it.

00:56:24

A boy will never have a vision.

00:56:25

A boy just wants to have a good day.

00:56:27

Boys wants to have an easy day.

00:56:29

It's got to be a nice day. It's got to be a good day, too.

00:56:31

No challenge today. No, I just need to have a good, easy day.

00:56:35

But a man has a vision, which means he embraces challenge.

00:56:38

I have a whole talk to each one of these.

00:56:40

I'm not, just a broad overview.

00:56:42

Second one, men are protectors and boys are predators.

00:56:48

Boys take, take, take, take, take, take, take, take.

00:56:54

I took for my dad entirely.

00:56:55

Didn't have a rule I didn't break,

00:56:58

didn't have a car I didn't wreck,

00:57:00

didn't have a curfew I didn't violate,

00:57:03

didn't have any money around the house

00:57:05

I didn't steal at some point.

00:57:06

I took, took, took, took.

00:57:10

That's what boys do, they take, take, take.

00:57:12

They don't add value, they don't sacrifice, they don't protect.

00:57:16

Men protect.

00:57:19

For 100 years, the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission

00:57:23

did a study based on a century of records

00:57:26

about what happens when people get mugged

00:57:28

or they get violently accosted on the street.

00:57:31

And they looked at this and they realized that

00:57:34

the spontaneous rescues of strangers

00:57:37

were done 90% of the time by men.

00:57:41

90% of the time it was a man who stepped in

00:57:43

to help somebody who was being accosted.

00:57:45

And unfortunately, 1 in 5 were killed in the attempt.

00:57:50

This is a dream for a true man.

00:57:52

I'd love to -- I'd love to die for somebody.

00:57:55

I'd love to die for a noble cause.

00:57:57

This is a true dream for men.

00:57:59

Boys are, like, "Why? Why would you do that?"

00:58:02

Boys just take. They wouldn't give up their life.

00:58:04

Jesus is the ultimate man, He lays down His life.

00:58:07

It was a challenge to Him.

00:58:08

All the ancient gods,

00:58:10

they'll tell you you have child sacrifice.

00:58:12

Jesus though, He lays down His life,

00:58:14

as the child of God He sacrifices Himself.

00:58:17

The child of God, out of love for you and I,

00:58:19

He lays down his life for us

00:58:20

so we don't have to lay down our life for all of eternity.

00:58:23

We can be with God right now.

00:58:26

Three: men work and boys play.

00:58:28

Now I like to play. We play a lot of Crossroads.

00:58:31

Play as good. Play is revenge for work. It is.

00:58:36

I put money towards play. Play is good, play is good.

00:58:38

But I don't live for play. Men don't live for play.

00:58:41

Men work. Boys play.

00:58:43

Men don't look forward to retiring.

00:58:47

Men are not looking forward to that,

00:58:50

if that is interpreted as I'm looking forward

00:58:52

to not working anymore.

00:58:55

Now there's gonna come a day where you're going

00:58:57

to maybe have to retire, you're going to be too old

00:58:59

to hit the basic requirements of your job,

00:59:00

or corporate America is going to want somebody younger in

00:59:03

or you're not going have the same energy.

00:59:04

That may happen sometime.

00:59:05

But the idea that a 20 some year old

00:59:08

would have a goal to not work is crazy. Crazy.

00:59:13

That was a goal of mine to retire at age 55.

00:59:16

I had that goal in my early 20s.

00:59:18

Why? Because my early 20s I was a boy.

00:59:21

Adam and Eve are in the garden

00:59:23

and they're working before sin comes into the world.

00:59:26

We work. Work isn't a curse. Fruitless work is a curse.

00:59:33

I turn today 58. It's my birthday today, 58.

00:59:36

[cheers & applause] Yeah. Crazy.

00:59:38

I only bring it up to say I feel like I'm just starting.

00:59:42

I honestly do.

00:59:43

I feel like I'm just starting to figure out life.

00:59:45

I feel like I'm just starting to get traction.

00:59:47

So I've recently said, "I think I'm going to go

00:59:49

to my position if I can still do it to 70."

00:59:52

New goal, 70, put it out there because I don't --

00:59:55

I'm not trying to escape and just play more.

01:00:00

Men work, even if they're not getting a paycheck,

01:00:02

they get up in the morning, "How do I add value to my kids?

01:00:05

How do I add value to my grandkids?

01:00:06

How do I have value to my communities?"

01:00:08

Men work, boys play.

01:00:10

Fourth: Men are team players, boys want to be MVP.

01:00:15

Boys want to be all time quarterback.

01:00:17

Boys want the perfect job for them

01:00:18

and they want everyone to see how great they are.

01:00:20

Men are team players.

01:00:22

Jesus assimilated, amassed a team around Him

01:00:26

known as the 12 Disciples.

01:00:28

Jesus was in a team known as the Trinity:

01:00:30

God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit.

01:00:33

Because young males are hurting,

01:00:35

so also are young females hurting.

01:00:38

I talked to young males on the college campus.

01:00:40

One of my things I do is I encourage them,

01:00:42

Hey, just talk to a girl. Just try talking.

01:00:47

Not texting. You talk to her.

01:00:49

You can own this campus because no one talks to women anymore.

01:00:52

I'm serious. Like, you can go way high above your level.

01:00:55

I'm telling you, dudes talk.

01:00:57

But they're so lacking self confidence

01:01:02

and they don't know how to talk.

01:01:03

And then when they do start learning how to talk to a woman

01:01:06

and actually have a conversation

01:01:08

instead of breaking up with her on text

01:01:10

or only having text messages, actually just talking to her,

01:01:12

they were so hesitant to ask a person to marry us.

01:01:16

We keep pushing off marriage

01:01:18

later and later and later and later.

01:01:19

Why is that? Because we don't see that marriage is about team

01:01:24

and young males don't embrace team.

01:01:27

We don't embrace a relationship

01:01:29

where there's mutual submission on the team.

01:01:32

The truth of the matter is, as a man, I tell guys,

01:01:35

as a man, your life will not go next level

01:01:37

until you get a teammate who won't leave you.

01:01:41

A spouse doubles your impact,

01:01:44

unless you get married to a boy,

01:01:46

then he cuts it in half. Serious about that.

01:01:49

A spouse either doubles your impact or cuts it in half.

01:01:52

But it is a beautiful and amazing thing,

01:01:53

but we're not embracing marriage in our culture anymore

01:01:56

because we're increasingly spiritually immature

01:01:58

and we don't want to lay our life down for somebody else.

01:02:01

Jesus says this:

01:02:16

The way is hard.

01:02:17

We are a church that does hard things.

01:02:19

We do hard things.

01:02:21

I want to live a life where I do hard things,

01:02:23

where I want to embrace being challenged.

01:02:26

And Jesus says the gateway to heaven,

01:02:29

the gateway to His life, the gateway to the Kingdom is small.

01:02:32

Why is that?

01:02:33

Is it because God is trying to make it uncomfortable

01:02:35

and very few, He doesn't want a lot of people there?

01:02:37

No, it's that not that many people are going there,

01:02:40

so there doesn't need to be a big gate.

01:02:41

There's not a lot of people going the way of God,

01:02:43

so why have a big gate?

01:02:45

All you need is a little opening.

01:02:47

Tell you what, if you're going to follow God,

01:02:49

if you're going to be about His ways,

01:02:51

get used to being in the minority.

01:02:53

You will not be approved of the popular masses.

01:02:58

You won't, which is the fifth mark,

01:02:59

men take a minority position,

01:03:01

boys always have to be in the majority.

01:03:04

Boys always need everyone to approve of them.

01:03:06

They need to be right in line with what everyone is thinking.

01:03:09

Me too. Me too. All that kind of stuff.

01:03:11

But men are alone, many times there's not many of us,

01:03:16

or if I just take out the men thing, people of faith

01:03:20

feel like they're alone because you're in the minority.

01:03:23

As Jesus said, you are in the minority,

01:03:26

that's why it's a small gates.

01:03:27

Wide path to destruction, very wide, wide wide

01:03:30

because everyone's going there.

01:03:33

Part of why you might be attracted to come to

01:03:35

a Crossroads location or any church location, right?

01:03:39

It's because even though inside of a gathering of Crossroads,

01:03:43

you're going to have people who don't want challenge

01:03:46

and who are going to be gone next week

01:03:47

or are going to be gone right now if I said something

01:03:49

that didn't match up with their view,

01:03:51

even though that's going to happen and even though

01:03:53

we have in our rooms every week

01:03:54

and that's why we started the church,

01:03:56

people who are seekers who are not saying, "I believe this."

01:03:59

They're saying, "Maybe I could believe this,

01:04:01

but I want to figure out."

01:04:03

Even though we have those folks of people,

01:04:05

we come into a room, one of our rooms like this

01:04:08

and we go, "Oh. I'm not the only one

01:04:13

because I feel like the only one out there.

01:04:16

I feel like I'm an alien out there,"

01:04:18

which the Bible does call us aliens, by the way.

01:04:20

"I feel like I'm -- But I come here like, Oh, okay,

01:04:23

there's others like me.

01:04:25

Oh, I might be in the minority,

01:04:27

but God always is ultimately the majority. Always."

01:04:31

And I'm reminded of that right here, right now.

01:04:36

I live in Cincinnati, my hometown, love Cincinnati.

01:04:39

And one of the things about Cincinnati

01:04:41

that's kind of unique, if you didn't know this.

01:04:43

We have pigeons in Cincinnati,

01:04:45

but not as many as you might think.

01:04:47

Pigeons are a real nuisance, a real problem in cities.

01:04:50

Pigeons are like boys. They flock in masses.

01:04:56

Come in out of nowhere. They flock in masses.

01:04:58

They stay low and they peck the stuff up.

01:05:00

They don't have any high reaching goals.

01:05:02

They stay, they make a lot of noise

01:05:04

and they leave and they poop all over everybody, you know?

01:05:07

"I'm gone. See ya." They poop all over and they're gone.

01:05:10

That's the boys are like. That's what unfaithful people are like.

01:05:13

They're just, you know, they're like pigeons.

01:05:14

And then there's birds of prey

01:05:17

who are always in the minority.

01:05:18

The reason Cincinnati doesn't have more pigeons

01:05:21

is because we also have falcons.

01:05:23

I saw one of those eating one day down at

01:05:26

the Metropolitan Club a number of years ago,

01:05:28

and there was the peregrine falcons, like, awesome.

01:05:31

Started looking into them and there's a bit of dispute

01:05:33

about how these falcons got to Cincinnati.

01:05:36

Were they intentionally introduced

01:05:37

to knock down the pigeon population?

01:05:40

Because that's exactly what happened,

01:05:41

or were they part of a restoration plan

01:05:45

or do they just happen to get here and they're --

01:05:48

I don't know why it is, but all I know is

01:05:50

those in Cincinnati love the falcons

01:05:52

because we have less pigeons.

01:05:54

No one's ever excited about pigeons.

01:05:56

This is the way it is if you're going to be

01:05:58

a faithful person, a person who takes challenge,

01:06:01

if you're going to be a man,

01:06:02

you're going to always be above the fray.

01:06:05

You're going to be,

01:06:06

you're always going to be in the minority.

01:06:07

And when you go toe to toe with a pigeon, you will always win.

01:06:11

A faithful, God-fearing man coming against the boy,

01:06:15

no matter how much money he has,

01:06:16

no matter how many muscles he has,

01:06:18

no matter what his inch bicep is, you will always

01:06:20

have a power to your life that a boy will never understand.

01:06:25

The falcon, the falcon attitude.

01:06:29

In two weeks Alli is going to talk about

01:06:31

a women's study that she's offering.

01:06:33

She's going to talk about that in two weeks.

01:06:35

Right now, just one little teaser.

01:06:37

I've got a book coming out that's a field guide

01:06:38

to help you on these marks, if you're a man.

01:06:40

It's a thing that you can use, you can use with friends

01:06:42

that's going to come out and we're going to start

01:06:44

men's groups for five weeks.

01:06:46

I'm going to be there the first week

01:06:47

and I'm going to give plaques,

01:06:49

like these wooden plaques and stuff.

01:06:50

It's going to be pretty cool thing.

01:06:52

I'd like you as a man to get connected to maybe to a team.

01:06:55

We want to get you in group, so look for those,

01:06:58

sign up for those. That should be good.

01:07:00

Okay, here's my last thing. Last thing.

01:07:04

I was doing some, I was in my mind, cycling through

01:07:07

all the people I knew that have left Crossroads

01:07:10

over the last 28 years, and it's painful to me. It is.

01:07:13

I was adopted and so therefore when someone leaves,

01:07:16

I feel like you're abandoning me.

01:07:18

Abandonment is a big issue.

01:07:20

And I think about some of those folks and a lot of people

01:07:22

have left for good and understandable reasons.

01:07:25

And a lot of just kind of has bothered me.

01:07:28

I look back at this one guy.

01:07:30

I remember he just, he just, I don't know.

01:07:32

He just -- He never quite got it.

01:07:35

And he went to another church, a guy who I know,

01:07:37

good church, really, really good guy.

01:07:39

And he came back and said, "Yeah," he said,

01:07:41

"He does, man, every time I go, it's just a nice service.

01:07:45

Every time it's a nice." That's exactly what he said,

01:07:48

"A nice, it's a nice service. He does a nice job."

01:07:53

[cringes] Did anybody ever say Jesus was nice?

01:07:59

No. He was unrealistic, actually,

01:08:03

He was demanding actually. He was incredible loving,

01:08:06

incredibly nurturing and incredibly compassionate.

01:08:11

And He also was very direct and very, very challenging.

01:08:17

That's what you're going to get when you're here.

01:08:19

You don't want to be around people,

01:08:20

you don't want to be around people

01:08:22

who all they want is affirmation.

01:08:23

You don't want that.

01:08:24

You don't want to be around people

01:08:26

who just want to sit and get.

01:08:27

"I want to come in. I want to sit and I want to get.

01:08:29

I want to sit and I want to get some teaching.

01:08:31

I want to sit and get some worship and hold hands

01:08:33

and do a little Kumbaya singing.

01:08:35

I want to sit and I want to get some affirmation.

01:08:37

Just tell me that I'm right and everybody out there is wrong.

01:08:39

I want to sit and get.

01:08:40

I want to sit and I want to get."

01:08:42

No, what you need is be able to come to a place

01:08:44

where you can sit and you can stand and you can pray

01:08:47

and you can move because Jesus is challenging you

01:08:51

to be the people He's calling you to be.

01:08:54

He's calling you to a higher level

01:08:58

and we can only go to a higher level

01:09:01

if we see Him as challenger and we come to a place like this

01:09:05

that hopefully every once in a while

01:09:07

just challenge our socks off

01:09:09

even when we don't like it, but we need it.

01:09:13

God, I'm thankful for how You've been

01:09:15

so patient with me as a boy over the years.

01:09:18

I'm thankful for how You have given us

01:09:20

the just opportunities that have been before us

01:09:23

to do those things and to keep seeing new opportunities.

01:09:28

God, all of us, all of us have weathered

01:09:30

under a challenge you've given us,

01:09:32

and we don't want to look back.

01:09:34

We want to look in the future. We want to go forward.

01:09:37

We give you our future and we accept the challenge

01:09:40

You've given us to be a woman, to be a man in Your image.

01:09:44

And we pray these things

01:09:46

according to the name of Jesus. Amen.

01:09:51

- You know, when you're just getting to know someone,

01:09:53

you're like trying to see, "Do I like this person?

01:09:56

Do I want to be their friend

01:09:57

or do I want to go on a second or third date?"

01:09:59

That's kind of how it is with church, right?

01:10:01

Now as we've been going through the series

01:10:03

and you learn more about Crossroads, maybe you're like,

01:10:06

"Yeah, I like this place."

01:10:07

If that's the case, then get connected with us.

01:10:09

If you're near one of our physical sites,

01:10:11

try going to the next step and coming in person on the weekend.

01:10:15

And if you're not near a physical location,

01:10:17

we'd love for you to join us in the Anywhere home.

01:10:21

It's a place to do way more than just watch the service,

01:10:23

but to be a part of the community that is Crossroads,

01:10:26

to stay connected with your church,

01:10:28

to meet other great people all over the world,

01:10:30

to get prayer and plenty more.

01:10:32

Head to Crossroads.net/Anywhere

01:10:34

and click on Anywhere home.

01:10:37

Hey, you don't want to miss next week on Crossroads

01:10:39

we're talking about how we sacrifice.

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