[Music] [Music] um yeah I definitely like you said I I definitely resonate with a man being the sum of his decisions because I think a lot of the the decisions that we make kind of make up our integrity you know we um the decisions that we make are a reflection of um who we are and um based on how we Act is uh really showing our true character I think that the main principle is uh you know the benefit of consultation because people who need to make an important decision about something they need to seek
out someone who's had some uh life's experiences so that uh they can learn from that and uh in the long run end up making more right decisions than wrong decisions I think I've been blessed uh in the the times when I've had big decisions to make one being uh you know do I propose to my girlfriend I I actually uh just recently became engaged um this past month so um that was a huge decision for me um I feel really blessed because I think there's been very integral men around me um Eric for instance you
know just been there and he's in the same Walk of Life you know where he's recently married um but I have really close friends um that that uh I really really look up to uh just um and and to hear their perspective and to understand that you know this decision that I'm making um is not about me good morning men so uh what I'd like to do first this morning is show you something new that's going on that can help you in your walk with Jesus as a disciple and in helping other men become disciples
too so we've just uh updated the man in the mirror website and so if you were to go on the man in the mirror uh you would would see all of this but but go ahead and just leave it at the top Brian and uh the first thing you see is we help men disciple men four ways you can take the next step find out how and so let's click on that find out how and that takes you actually redirects you to uh discipl men.org and where you will see these four entry points if you
will so there are four ways that we could get more involved together from the right to left and let me just overview them before you click you uh our vision is you know to help every Church disciple every man and no matter where you are in your journey uh on discipleship we want to help so these four things you can do grow as a disciple make disciples build a Ministry to the men in your church or help uh other churches discip men so let's just click on grow as a disciple let's just say that that
would be the place where you wanted uh to get more involved you click on that button and and uh it says thanks for your desire to grow you can become blah blah blah and then all of these different uh things that we can do uh to help you immediately on the right uh get the discipleship blog uh use our daily devotional uh the view of this Bible study well you're here so don't need that uh something to honor your spouse uh the the 25th anniversary edition the man the Mir we got lots of different kinds
of emails depending on where you are and uh and then the search capability on the left hand side though you can sign up for a series of emails uh that will just acquaint you with some different things that would be very helpful for you to know to grow as a disciple let's go ahead and look at the second uh button then and notice at top right uh there's grow make build help so we'll just click on make and uh so the same thing for if you want to make disciples you know how you can start
a man in thee mirr bible study on the right hand side and a few other things and also you can register for some emails and then let's click on build and so let's just say that you want to build a uh Ministry to the men in your church well we can show you how to do that so there's several things that you can get acquainted with right away on the right hand side or you can sign up to get a series of emails uh that would be very helpful on the left-and side and then you
want to help other churches build Ministries to men you can click on that and that's a redirect to area directory.org where you can investigate a full or part-time paid or volunteer career at man in the mirror and there's all the details so uh if you're interested you know check it out hope hope you like it so uh want to do uh first of all Welcome to our visitors this morning if you're visiting with us for the first time this morning we're here every Friday except the Friday after Thanksgiving and after Christmas and we'd love to
have you anytime that you are available and uh but let's go ahead and do a couple shout outs uh the first one goes goes to Iron Man uh thank you Brian by the way uh Iron Man the Trinity Lutheran church and school and uh do I get this right uh Pasar Ro Pasa Ro California see I did Google translate this morning so uh these are 12 men they've been meeting for three months on Sundays at 7:30 in the morning doing the Bible study with us uh stepen will Weber hope I got that right stepen is
the uh lead of that group so welcome and then also uh down in KIRO kir Kira uh I looked that up on Google translate also I just can't remember what I heard uh uh but in uh Willam stad KIRO and uh uh in the Netherlands and tiles uh these are nine men they've actually been meeting for a long time but they are have been reconstituting and for the last couple months they're meeting uh on Thursday nights and Sunday mornings alternating uh and then Richard uh Maria Maria uh I rolled the r but you know I
don't even know what language you speak down there there there's several different languages so maybe I maybe I got it wrong so if I did I'm sorry Richard uh anyway we uh are so honored and grateful to have both of you groups with us and so I wonder if you men would join me and giving a warm Man in the Mirror welcome to these two groups one two three hurah okay welcome glad to have you guys with us all right so uh the the series is the man in the mirror uh we're moving now into
uh a new section the first message is entitled decisions how to make the right choice um and so uh over the course of a year we only make two or three really major decisions most of us if that many how many of you get the the weekly reminder email about the Bible study how many of you don't get it uh so if if you're interested in getting that let's just uh give me give me your business card or something with your address on it your email address and we'll send that to you but uh we
we do send this out and if you're online you can you know go to the manage subscriptions page and sign up for that too but you're probably already getting it otherwise you wouldn't be watching today I'm guessing anyway so uh but this is a this is where I really kind of introduce this the topic of the day and try to create a little uh gravity for it and uh that's what I said in the opening line most of us will only make a handful of truly major decisions in the course of of a year and
these These are the decisions like you know do I change jobs uh do I do I take the job that wants Tove move me to another city uh do I do we buy a new home do we have a another child do we have a child do we adopt a child um do I go ahead and declare bankruptcy and start over again do I hire this person or not hire this person do I let this person go or keep them even though they're uh the disruptive uh to a point where it's kind of borderline um
all kinds of major decisions so what what I'd like to do as we begin this morning is you no doubt have a a a major decision that that you are facing right now and so let's just let that be the shadow case for the lesson this morning so as we go through this uh what we want to do is I want to show you a a Biblical process for making major decisions one that will hopefully give you the wisdom that you need you see I if your decision is a moral choice you don't need my
help you don't need the help of the other men at your table uh if it's a choice between right and wrong you just you already know what to do all right so the the I guess there is a choice will I obey God or or or not but the vast majority of these major decisions that we have to make there is no prescription in the Bible for them do I marry this woman or that woman you're not going to get the Bible saying I Told You So as men we all want the same things we
want to lead powerful satisfying lives we want to leave a mark on this world we want to feel alive what's stopping us [Music] why are so many of us just Spectators watching life pass Us by what happened to The Passion of our youth you don't have to settle for half alive God has a plan to harness that raw energy within you to transform you into the man God created you to be you can become a man alive [Music] [Music] yeah as a young boy growing up in Dallas Texas there wasn't a morning that I woke
up I did not see my dad sitting on his little green stool ugly little green stool reading his Bible in the kitchen reading his Bible he modeled that for us and it cultivated an appetite in my brother and I to do the same thing what my dad gave to me when I was a kid was a desire and a taste for the word of God I have read the Bible every year since I was 18 years old not because I'm super spiritual but because I realized that I'm an idiot without it the word of God
is the standard in my home it's the standard for my marriage it's the standard for my companies and this has been the most tremendous blessing of anything that I could have ever read in my life well today we don't necessarily read books as much as we read online so my brother and I started a plan on U verion about 5 years ago and we published it to our website so that all of you can join us today in reading through the scriptures and this is something that if you get on the U verion Bible reading
plan you'll be on the exact same Bible reading plan that we're on if you start today you'll end up reading the exact same thing that I'm reading in the morning that my brother's reading and a host of other people are reading as well we actually encourage everyone that visits our website to read through the Bible in a year to take the challenge just to get into God's word you may say I don't understand the Bible well there's a lot of things that we don't understand that we still partake of do you understand how a black
cow can eat green grass under a blue sky and produce white milk I don't get it either but none of us eat cereal with water we're throwing some milk in that bowl I encourage you to go ahead and get in the scriptures even if you don't understand it it'll feed your spirit you may not completely get it in your mind at the soul level but at the spirit level you're putting gas in your gas tank get into the scriptures join us in a Bible reading plan get back to the word of God and you will
begin to see change in your life [Music] we used to always want to be in Ministry and then when we got out of baseball we got into business but then we realized hey you know what business is Ministry so we asked ourselves the question who ever told us that we weren't in Ministry anyway we realized that it's about passion not position if the fruit of the ministry is coming out of us then the fuel of the minister is inside of us and the root word for minister is to serve so we can serve our community
in the marketplace and if we're doing it for God's glory then we're in full-time Ministry anyway and as a minister in the marketplace if you meet the need that the customer or client is paying you for you'll be able to meet the need that they're not paying you for what you're doing for them and receiving payment for is simply the tool that God is using to get you in the door and you may even meet needs that they don't even know that they have it's time to turn business into Ministry there is no prescription in
the Bible for them do I marry this woman or that woman you're not going to get the Bible saying I told you so and so what I want to do is I want to I want to show you this process and lay it out for you and you can operate on this big decision that you have sort of in the background first up though we've got to cover this the gravitas of this decision making is a process that is barely understood this is bass and stul handbook of leadership you see how thick that book is
you see all the Post-it notes in there those are my Post-It notes and there's a note on each one of those and because I've read this entire book this is 7,500 summaries of Articles and uh uh and and on research and monographs all academic research on leadership and decisionmaking and the editor of this book comes to the conclusion that he could not find a single set of common traits or processes that described how Executives made their decisions one forun 500 CEO re said he put it in plain English he said I'll be darned if I
have any idea how we make our major decisions around here it's a process that is barely understood not only that many major decisions turn out wrong so Peter Ducker in an article that he wrote for uh I forget it's in the man of the Mir book but I think it was the Harvard Business review some somebody like it Peter Ducker wrote an article and and he reported that uh this Guru a guru of all management all time said that that of among the the most effective people making hiring decisions onethird only onethird of those decisions
turn out to be good decisions onethird turned out to be mediocre at best and one third of them are outright failures and in my PhD studies in organizational change I discovered that 2third of all organizational change initiatives whether it's Six Sigma or some kind of quality improvement program or whatever it is doesn't make any what kind of program 23 of all organizational change initiatives fail outright and that's without regard to whether they're public private profit nonprofit it's almost like an iron law so so with this there is this staggering amount of evidence that most of
the major decisions you're going to make are going to be wrong some of you right now are thinking about your wife oh so not only is it a process that is barely understood and not only do many of these decisions turn out wrong but finally as I've already said the Bible provides very very little direct um information about which way you should go on these major decisions and so the the goal in in a moral choice is to do the right thing but the goal in a priority choice where you have two right options do
I buy the red car or the or the blue car uh the the the object of making those decisions is to be wise and so how can you make the wise decision all right in this process of making the these this right choice the the overarching thing we're trying to do is we're trying to find what is the the wise choice what is the choice now I said that this is a process that is barely understood but we can have a a goal in mind for it there is a set of principles that we can
apply to it that are biblical it's not hopeless the Bible can lead you Jesus can lead you to the right decision let's take a look at Matthew 26 verse uh from verse 36 on so this is Jesus in the garden at Gethsemane right after the the last meal they shared together and uh Jesus knows that he's about to be arrested and so he takes Peter James and John and he goes a little deeper into the garden and then he leaves them and he says stay alert and then he he goes and he prays and in
verse 39 it says going a little farther he fell with his face to the ground and prayed my father if it is possible may this cup be taken from me some of the major decisions that you facing are are not opportunities they're excruciating problems uh do do I have I have uh two children that cannot and will not get along how do I resolve that so sometimes these problems are cups of suffering and then Jesus goes on yet and so take it away from me because that's what I want take away the suffering that's what
I want my wife is wanting to leave me uh and I'm fighting for the marriage and it just does seems like I want to give up I I mean I do want to give up I God take this take this away from me that's what Jesus is saying this is my my this is my cup you know Jesus said you know follow me take up your cross deny yourself follow me what is that cross well that's your burden whatever your burden is take it up follow me deny yourself but Jesus says here yet not as
I will but as you will God this is what I want but even more than what I want I want what you want this is the Uber principle in decision making and wise decision making is to is to be able to say that okay God you know I I you you have my wife we've been trying for for for eight years to have children eight years we've been trying to have children Lord we long to have children yet yet as much as we want to have children Lord even more than that we want what you
want right so that's the Uber principle here in decision making and notice what happens th this is a big this is a big deal because it says in verse 42 he went away a second time and he prayed my father if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it may your will be done my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts are higher than your thoughts and then and then it says in verse 44 so he left them and went away once more a third time and
prayed the third time saying the same thing yet not what I want but what you want not my will but your will and that's the big idea today the goal the goal is always to bring my will into alignment with God's will that's the big idea the goal in making a wise decision making the right decision is always is to bring my will man and do I have a will now I mean some of you are wusses you know you don't have a will okay you're just kind of you know man or along I'm just
joking with you but but some of us have strong ideas and convictions about what's right and what we want do and what we think you how we want to leave the world a better place what we want to accomplish our desires our Ambitions guess what whatever your will is you can be almost certain it is not God's will you've heard me say this the the one sentence that I use to best describe my life it is my theme sentence because God is good my life has not turned out like I planned and you no doubt
can say exactly the same thing exactly the same thing hello I'm creation and I am the theory of evolution you know why is that why is what that you're a theory well because I sort of kind of haven't been proven at all yet well what do you mean yet well there's a lot of scientists still trying to prove anything about me oh how's that coming not so good not so good no I'm sorry to hear that oh it's okay what about you what proof well yeah why aren't why aren't you a theory well because every
design has a designer oh but what if that design is random that's not possible it has to be why Hey look it's the missing link where just sorry now that's random [Music] what do you think is the holy spirit be an interesting question Holy Spirit you know I've heard of course I've heard the spirit the the concept of Holy Spirit the holy spirit is part of the Trinity part of the spirit of God that's a good question that's a good question you got me on that one the holy spirit is the third part of the
Trinity specifically um it dwells inside almost like a conscience uh in in within you I think it's just something that's inside of all of us um I think it's your true nature he dwells within you if you are a true Christian he looks after you and he dwells within your soul heard about it but I kind of like don't you know not really know about what C that wor mean I've heard of it but I mean you know you're putting me on a hot seat right now it's a guide that God gives us to help
guide us in our life and to do as we should you know these are kind of personal questions too I really don't feel like answering while I'm getting a pedicure I'm sorry I know what it is but I don't want to give you the uh the Bible School answer the spirit Holy Spirit what is that God's sent him as a comforter here on this Earth to comfort those that love him and who have accepted him I think it's I don't know just people who are good and in life people who are good Are Holy Spirits
yeah have you ever heard of the Holy Spirit yeah yeah what do you think that is well something that the Lord sends down to like check things out and make sure no problems are going on is the holy spirit checking on everybody I'm the wrong person to ask probably is he checking on you when you don't do your homework yeah it's in all of us but in our Purity maybe maybe when we're when we're younger in our purest purest form without all the baggage on top man that's a good one he's someone that is a
part of God it is God's personality and you know the father and the Son and the Holy Spirit H I guess they're related in what way you have any idea cousins cousins I think definitely undefinable that's for sure yeah because what does it do uh that's undefinable as well is it a good thing or a bad thing hopefully a good thing for [Music] sure as Christians when people bring up the topic of evangelism what do you think that means well in my experience people usually end up in one of two camps Camp one says you
need to talk about Jesus and live a life that's consistent with what you believe and Camp 2 says all you have to do is live a good life it'll speak for itself well first of all it's a big jump to assume that anyone can live a good life don't you think I mean Romans 3:10-11 says None is righteous no not one no one does good not even one that doesn't convince you in Mark 10 a man comes up to Jesus and kneels down before him and says good teacher what must I do to inherit eternal
life and Jesus responds promptly with why do you call me good no one is good except God Alone Now Not only was Jesus subtly claiming to be God here he's making it pretty clear that nobody is good except for him hence the no one is good part but this is the sideshow to the main event folks so step right up and let's get down to it and let's assume when Camp to says good life they just mean if you live a visible Godly life people will just by watching you understand all they need to know
about God okay let's play that out shall we and let's ask Bruce if he can help us hey Bruce hey so Bruce grabs a Mormon a Jehovah's Witness and a Christian and he tells you to follow each of those folks around and after simply watching them you'll know all you need to know about God now each goes to a place every week and sits among like-minded folks each person prays each treats you with respect each loves his family he's honest with his money and basically a nice person so which God do you pick based on
just watching who's right how do you know what do you compare unless they tell you either they do what they do talking it seems becomes critical no doubt nature reveals much about the invisible attributes of God but how do you know exactly what he requires of you I mean who he really is and what his ultimate plan is without some kind of specific Revelation from him I mean how would you know if your mother wanted you to paint the left wall of the garage red if it wasn't specifically communicated to you in some way usually
by writing a note or speaking to you so what did God deem the best way to communicate the specifics of his will did he summon purposes to do a modern dance that he draw word pictures in the cloud no to communicate precisely the things he wanted you to know he intervened throughout history and spoke through men ultimately moving some of them to write the Bible that is he spoke and he wrote a note how would we know if God created the heavens and the Earth in six days that Adam and Eve were created in a
perfect world but their Rebellion brought sin and death into the world that it's the grace of God through faith in Jesus alone that saves us how would you know that Jesus died on the cross and resurrected from the grave how would you know any detail about God and his word and his plan if nobody told us well we wouldn't we couldn't and that's why you got to tell people things you just can't hope people would catch on by watching you live a so-called good life it's just not enough ultimately you got to tell them why
you live that way but don't just take my word for it my inquiring B band of Misfit read along in Romans 10 and how can they know who to trust if they haven't heard of the one who can be trusted and how can they hear if nobody tells them Jesus himself definitively declares in Matthew 28 go therefore and Make Disciples of all Nations baptizing them in the name of the father and teaching them to observe all that I commanded you it's kind of hard to baptize in the name of somebody without actually saying the name
and it's pretty difficult to teach people to observe Commandments without telling them what those Commandments are right I mean I could go on until my mouth falls off but suffice to say Christians are commanded to live a life worthy of the calling which irrefutably includes things like giving reason and answers for our hope and engaging in a conversation about Christ so this idea that you never have to speak out about your faith and all you have to do is live a good life and people will catch on has been debunked adios hello I'm creation and
I am the theory of evolution why why are you so happy oh are you kidding because I have hope hope mhm you know in the assurance that I have a purpose a purpose mhm you can have one too you know I don't want one what are you talking about everybody wants to have a purpose that's not true some people want to hold to the unproven fact that we're nothing more than a bunch of protoplasmic Goo that evolved over billions of years and will end up as Cosmic garbage therefore serving no one or no purpose at
all no hope or purpose right that's so [Music] sad life it is my theme SS because God is good my life has not turned out like I planned and you no doubt can say exactly the same thing exactly the same thing notice three times three times he talks about bringing his will Jesus says three times he talks about bringing his will into alignment with God's will that should not go unnoticed Jesus wanted something but three times he he asked for his will but he submitted that what he really wanted more even than that was God's
will all right so how to not make the wrong decision is the next thing I'd like to talk about because because decision making is a process that is barely understood and many major decisions turn out wrong and the Bible doesn't give a lot of guidance on things that are uh and you know on these uh it's called the Adia you the uh the uh the uh things that are permissible okay that are not necessarily prohibited or commanded by scripture everything else is lawful and so it's those those that big group of decisions that we make
you know do I take a job in Lakeland you know do I whatever you know do I start my own business do I pour my life savings into this new business venture do I make that investment these are not things that are spelled out in scripture specifically and so the best insurance to not make the wrong uh to make the best insurance for making the right decision is to make sure that you understand how not to make the wrong decision are you with me so this is a risk management deal here this section how to
not make the wrong decision well there's a scripture for this as well and it's found in Matthew chapter 4 beginning at verse one let's take a look at that and as you're turning there let us remember that this is an important lesson from Jesus Hebrews 4:15 tells us that uh we do not have a high priest Jesus who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses but we have one who has been tempted in every way just as we have been tempted and yet was without sin so he understands what your major decision is whether it's
problem or opportunity he understands and he's given us this fantastic principle now let's take a look at how to not make the wrong decision and once again let's turn to the life of Jesus so th this is the the the trifold temptation of Jesus he's out in the wilderness he's fasting and uh the Satan comes to him and the first temptation is that he uh tempts him to do what to take some rocks and turn them into bread something like that right and so so the first Temptation here uh is to to go against the
word of God Jesus says says do not put the Lord your God to a test so the first principle of not making the wrong decision is to to make sure that you are in conformance with with the word of God um and then secondly the devil in verse five took him to the holy city and and said you know throw yourself down and uh the angels will come and rescue you and so forth and Jesus says it's also written don't put the Lord your God to attest so if the the first way to make sure
you make don't make the wrong decision is is uh make sure you are in conformance with the the word of God how did I say that in the book I didn't say it exactly like that I said it better in the book and of course you can never find anything when you're looking for it but yeah our first step in making good decisions by not making wrong decisions is to live by the word of God that's it live by the word of God God and then secondly uh the second principle is is uh you know
not don't put God to a test you know don't put yourself in a position through your decisions that in order to rescue you it's going to take a miracle I've done that we've all done that but I mean the we get our we get our our our circumstances so uh disrupted that there's no way out I mean it is going to take a miracle and that doesn't mean that he won't send the miracle but if you want to not make the wrong decision uh don't put yourself in a in a position that you're you're testing
God and then the third uh way is he he tempts him to worship Satan and that's the Temptation we have is to to worship and serve other gods and and the principle there that Jesus gives in Matthew 4:10 away from me Satan for it is written Worship the Lord God and serve him only and so the third principle of effective decision making um and is is to always worship God and serve him only in your decisions so if you don't want to make the wrong decision uh the best insurance about it is live by the
word of God uh don't put God to the test and make sure that you are doing what you're doing in a way that worships God only all right so that's that's how to not uh how not to make the wrong decision the big idea again here the goal the goal of all this it's always to bring my will just as Jesus did into Conformity with the father's will with God's Will and then the uh third piece of this that we'll look at this morning how to make a wise decision okay so so we've talked about
the Uber principle we we've talked about how difficult it is to make decisions we talked about how you uh how Jesus what Jesus's method to not not make the the wrong decision and now well how do you actually make the wise decision ask your wife she she already knows she already knows the answer so and if you're not married get a wife okay and then and then it's all taken care of or you could do the following actually I'll tell you a cute story I've told it here many many years ago but because it happened
many years ago but I uh I I I had always wanted a radar detector now I don't even know I couldn't tell you why it was why I wanted a radar detector I mean I really don't drive in places where you could even use a radar detector and I I've only had just a handful of tickets in my whole life uh because I usually I'll run the cops so uh that's not that but but I just I just I just wanted one and uh totally irrational and I get a magazine a monthly magazine and every
month it has this radar detector ad on the back cover oh maybe that's maybe that's why I wanted one because of the advertising impact but anyway with all of that convoluted reasoning I don't know I just maybe I thought that it would be fun to be able to see the cop before he saw me you know uh something like that anyway I bought one and it came in the mail and I open it up and my wife walks by and uh and she says what's that and I tell her explain and she said are you
out of your stupid mind you can't have one of those you're in the ministry for crying out loud and I scratched my head it took me about 15 minutes to figure it out that and and so then I was glad it had a 30day money back guarantee and so I packaged it up and set it back uh hello I am creation and I am the theory of evolution that's right what's up with the tail the tail I was just trying to break the I right I figured you did that yeah and I figured you'd no
okay that's that's funny too thank you yes look I realize it's difficult for some people to fully grasp me well that's just because you don't make any sense well it does take a certain uh what's the word I'm looking for something imagin no no no it takes a lot of uh decep no no what's the word A Lot F no don't ever use that word sorry evidence that's the word it takes a lot of evidence to fully grasp who I am that's evidence yeah like the fossil record exactly so you guys have finally found all
the transitional forms no no no no no oh you found a few right I mean after 150 years of searching no uh no not a one oh so the there really is no evidence right so it does take Faith what did we say about that word Sorry by the time the Civil War was over 600,000 men lay dead that would equate to 6 million men today these were real men with real families today our nation is again fighting an internal War one that makes the devastation that took place in the 1860s pale by comparison this
battle is Raging out of control in neighborhoods Across America your neighborhood think for a moment about the casualties taking place on your street where you work even your church men leave women weep a little 12-year-old girl prays god why is my daddy so angry this is a real battle these also are real men with real families when you look at the church do you see men leading powerful transformed lives though there are inspiring exceptions most men lead tepid lukewarm somewhat defeated Lives why is that in Matthew 22:29 Jesus told some confused religious leaders the problem
is that you don't know the scriptures and you don't know the power of God the core problem is that most men have never been discipled to be Godly men husbands and fathers they don't understand what it means to follow Christ not really who's to blame that's not the important question what matters is this evangelism without discipleship is cruel the statistics are numbing for every 10 men in the church nine will have at least one child who will drop out of church eight will not find their work satisfying six are only paying the monthly minimums on
their credit card balances five admit to having a major problem with pornography four will get divorced affecting 1 million children every year and only one will have a Biblical worldview and all 10 are struggling to balance family and work issues the collateral damage is staggering for example 25 million children onethird of our kids will go to bed tonight in a home without their biological father the American family is in deep crisis and it's not because of women and it's not because of children the American family is in crisis because a lot of men are in
a lot of trouble the conclusion is inescapable men have become one of our largest neglected people groups the staff and directors of Man in the Mirror want to lock arms with you to help these men lead powerful lives transformed by the Gospel of Jesus Christ This is a battle we can win we cannot we must not and by God's grace we will not fail crying out loud and I scratched my head it took me about 15 minutes to figure it out that and and so then I was glad it had a 30day money back guarantee
and so I packaged it up and sent it back uh so you know it's not that easy to make a wise decision all right so I'm going to give you uh seven means of guidance uh this these are even broader than just decision making but uh and uh I'm going to draw your attention you don't need to even write these down you can if you want but they're also written out for you because on the table is a copy of an article called called how to make major decisions and uh we I've been I've been
writing these uh mostly me some by David Del and Brett clemer but uh for a Dozen Years these articles a monthly article on some men's issue and so uh you can go to the that website I showed you at the beginning and in the search window you can search for any any conceivable men's topic or issue or leadership issue and and you you'll find some but this was the very first article I ever wrote for for the uh for this series how to make major decisions and so I don't think I Chang anything on the
inside on page two are these these seven means of guidance and the first one is the Bible you know this is the single most important question on any major decision has God already spoken on this issue because if he has then you already know what God's will is if the big idea is to uh the goal is to bring my will into alignment with God's will that means if if God already has a will and he's written it down then then that settles the issue second uh is is prayer so prayer is the currency of
our personal relationship with Jesus he he just he loves it when we love him he loves it when we talk to him he he loves being in relationship with him for Jesus salvation is among other things it's it's a relationship he it's a relationship it's a reciprocal love relationship and so lovers talk to each other people who love each other talk to each other you know if I'm not talking to you that means I don't like you no I'm just kidding about that you know if if if we are in a relationship and we've you
know communicate regularly and all of a sudden we're not talking what do you what do you sense what do you feel you miss the person right and so prayer is is a is a fantastic way and then the Holy Spirit uh you know the the Holy Spirit lives in each of us there's several of his roles that are listed here and uh but I love this verse Romans 8:27 the spirit intercedes for us in accordance with what God's Will and what are we trying to do we're trying to bring our will into alignment with God's
Will and so the Holy Spirit helps us do that as a means of guidance fourth conscience by the way conscience is fantastic as a green light uh not so good but as a red light very good uh because your conscience uh especially when you already want something really really really bad you will because of the flesh we all have the flesh still you can kid trick and fool yourself into believing something uh even against your conscience uh if it's really bad sometimes it's referred to as like a seared conscience some of you have probably heard
that term before maybe all of you so use conscious as more of a red light if you get a check you know in your in your spirit in your uh I don't know what other word to use except in your spirit if you get a check in your spirit about doing something yesterday I was in a meeting in Nashville and and we were trying to decide whether or not to add a uh uh an 11 principle to a list of uh of distinctives and a couple of us just had a check in the wording and
it because it looked it looked really good but there just was something that wasn't quite right and then after a couple hours it was pretty clear what was not right but it was a good red light that conscience and then number five circumstances hey look if you're 5 foot six I like to work with numbers and don't enjoy uh being around people you may not an NBA St but you might make a great accountant you know uh so if you have uh a if you need $100,000 mortgage and you've applied for it for the the
house you really want but you can only qualify for $775,000 mortgage guess what you know God's will God speaks through circumstances money is a hand of Providence it's not the only hand of Providence but money is a hand of Providence God guides us with these Financial things and then Council I was mentioned in the opening video plans fail for lack of councel but with many advisers they succeed and so just to make sure that that you are able to have somebody that you can bounce these these things off of hey probably more than one especially
with somebody really close to you um uh because they may have a vested interest in the outcome of the decision that you're about to make so it's kind of a good idea to make sure you have some independent people around uh getting counsel from a wife is actually an extremely good idea and then the final one is is the fasting so uh brothers that's what I wanted to say to you about making major decisions this morning your major decision hopefully this will this will help you um I mean we all make decisions every day all
the time right uh one young 15-year-old man was telling me in a storyboard session I was doing he said well basically we could just make everything about decisions because really everything boils down to decisions you know we're the sum of the decisions that we make the big idea today the goal in making these decisions is always to bring my will into alignment with God's will father thy will be done let's pray our dearest father thank you for your word just Jesus thank you for laying out how you made your decisions and how you avoided making
bad decisions and what your ultimate goal was in making your decisions and and Lord I thank you uh on behalf of these men also for giving the US these means of guidance by which we can make uh better uh decisions and wise decisions and I just pray for whatever those things are that are uh troubling uh uh these men my men your men that you would uh you would give them uh something here today that would that would encourage them and show them the way the process by which they can make a decision that would
honor and glorify you and be wise for them in Jesus name we pray amen hello this is Tommy beand pastor of the church in Butler thank you for watching this man in the mirror Bible study series my prayer is that you've been challenged to become the strong Christian that God desires each of us to be if you've tuned in and you don't know Jesus Christ as your personal savior I would like to pray with you and for you I can be reached at the church office at 478 862 5966 if you don't have a home
Church we'd like to invite you to visit us at any of our weekly services please come and join us we'd love to see you for more Man in the Mirror Bible teachings tune in each week to your local Flint table Channel 14 thank you and may God bless you as you grow in him [Music]
