Build and Battle on the Foundation

Automated transcript of the sermon audio, generated with OpenAI Whisper (small.en). It has not been checked against the recording and may contain errors, especially in names and Scripture references.

The whole subject of this to me is frustrating because I think it’s so obvious that obviously we should be building and battling in all situations that God puts us in, whether it be political in your neighborhood, in your family, wherever he has you, you should be thinking, how do I behave and how do I relate to the people that are coming at me? And so therefore I think that some of these things where they’re building you to pay attention to them in such a way that you have to join an organization or do this or do that kind of thing to actually make that happen. I’m not against those organizations. I think they can be very helpful.

But the issue is, what do you personally like, and what are you going to be like to that person you come in contact, the spheres of influence you have? The Great Commission is go and make disciples of all the nations, but does that mean that I need to run off to China to make a disciple, or do I have somebody in my circle of influence that needs to be discipled? And I think if each Christian is faithful in his fear of influence, your effect on the society will be far and large because God has a way of moving you around, moving the people you know around, and if you’re blessed enough to live as long as I have, you see these people move and be connected and change their minds and really make an effect here or go over there.

So that’s why I think that this should be an automatic thing that you think you should be doing. The title that I chose, The Build and Battle on the Foundation. The foundation is what does the Bible say about it to me? not with some political theory or Roos Juni or the seven points that they argue in some debate on YouTube is not the issues of what does the Bible say. And I think the Bible is just very clear that we should be engaged in taking dominion from the middle, I mean from the absolute beginning to the absolute end and in the middle in the church age, Christ gives us those things. So to reiterate that, the first thing is on Genesis 1.23 through 31, it says, and there was evening and there was the morning, the fifth day.

And God said, let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds, livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds. And so it was, and it was so. And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds, and the livestock according to their kinds. And everything could creep on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. All of these orders to me, the different animal things, they all have their place, and they should behave in their place. It’s the old gag. Dogs don’t make cats, and cats don’t make dogs, that kind of thing. Everything’s in its place, and they operate in that sphere.

Then God said, let’s make man in our image after our likeness, the Trinity, I think, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the heavens, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him. Man and female he created them. And God blessed them, and then God said, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and then subdue it and have dominion over the fish and the sea, over the birds of the heaven, over every living thing that moves on the earth. And God said, behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of me, all the earth.

And every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food, and to every beast on the earth, and to every bird in the heavens, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has breath of life. I had given every green plant for food, and so it was. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. Right from the beginning, God said that we should take dominion. Now, to take dominion, is Adam gonna do that all by himself? Well, God said he needed to help her, so he brought him a woman. Then they have kids, and they help.

And even after the fall, he reiterates this to him, and we’re gonna read the passage. Again, even after the flood, he keeps reiterating that we are here to have dominion and run this place. And as we get wiser and have generations, we realize we can’t do it all by ourselves, so we create forms of government. We pass these things on to other people and supervise them and everybody operates in their sphere of influence. And it’s Psalm 8, I think, also says this. And Psalm 8’s in the middle of the Bible and after the Pentateuch and those things are written. But the idea in Psalm 8 is exactly over this whole thing where it says, oh Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth.

You have set your glory above the heavens. Out of the mouths of babes and infants, you have established strength because of your foes to steal the enemy and the avenger. When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him and the Son of Man that you care for him? Yet you made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands, and you have put all things under his feet. All God’s works are under our dominion. All sheep and oxen, even the beasts of the field, the birds of the apple and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the sea.

O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth. Again, it’s restated. And as you read the Bible stories over and over, Yeah, the characters fail, but they get better. Some of them learn from their experiences. Other ones are really stupid, and hopefully we will be wise and learn from those things and get better at it. But we are to have interests in all the things that there are. So making a good product, serving whatever you’re doing, do it as unto the Lord. That’s just obvious, and we should be doing that. And to think that that is a lower thing than church is really stupid, because we’ve been commanded and given the order to have dominion over these things.

So cleaning the carpet is having dominion over that particular thing at that time. So doing those things unto the Lord is just obvious to me. And the same thing in government. We establish these things and sometimes they become bad. We’ll talk about that in a little bit here. But right from the get-go, first chapter in Genesis. Then after the Old Testament is getting done, then God comes down and lives among us. And he then is risen and his last commandment to us, Jesus is Matthew 28, 18 through 20. And Jesus came and said to them, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. Okay, this is the institution, I believe, of the church age. At this point, we are to make disciples and teaching them everything he commanded us. Jesus spoke about governments, taxes to Caesar, how to respond to your neighbor, all of the things that we relate to in contract law, in being a good neighbor, in how you take care of stuff, how you treat your animals, all that kind of stuff is all incorporated into Jesus’ teachings in the Gospel and the letters, the church letters, in the New Testament. And he is with us till the end of the age. Then you end up, well, OK, now you’ve got me through that.

Now we end up going back to the end of the Bible at Revelation 21, 22 through 26. It says, now this is after the final battle, the whole thing, this is the new heavens and the new earth. Okay, this is the end of Revelation. And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God, the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives its light, and its lamp is the lamb. By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, and its gates will never be shut by day, and there will be no night there. They will bring into it the glory and honor of the nations.

For eternity, nations will come and worship God by doing whatever it is that he has them instructed to do at that time. So the whole nation thing, we Gentiles or the nations outside Israel, will be paying homage to Christ in the New Jerusalem, in the eternal creation. So right from the beginning to the end. And I think that if we never would have had the fall, This would have come about in Eden and all the rest of it. I mean, of course, that’s conjecture, and I’m reading a lot in the white space. But just when you read the beginning to the end to the middle, it seems to me very obvious that we should be taking these things into account and be involved in them.

And there are spheres of influence as we study what the Bible says about these things in these instructions we have. Once you establish a government, you need to obey it and all of those kind of things, and God helps us understand what those functions are as the story goes on. In Genesis 6, we get to the point where God looks down on the earth after quite a period of time, and he says, the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord regretted that he made man on earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the Lord said, I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry I have made them.

Whoa, he’s not pleased. But, he relents, takes Noah, puts him on the boat, tells him to gather two of every kind, and it starts all over again. But then as it starts all over, he realizes that he doesn’t want man to do evil continually and be as bad as they were. So he starts to give a little more lesson to the people. Genesis 9, 1 through 6, and God blessed Noah and his sons. This is after they get out of the boat and they go, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. That sounds familiar. The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea.

Into your hands they are delivered. Interesting that the animals now have a fear of man. So there is an ingredient in there that lots of pages have been written about, but it’s an interesting thought. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is its blood. And for your life blood, I will require reckoning from every beast. I require it in it from man and his fellow man. I will require a reckoning for the life of man. Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed. For God made man in his own image.

And you be fruitful and multiply, increase greatly on the earth and multiply it.” So all of a sudden, God now makes the rule, if you kill man, man should kill you, the death penalty. So he starts to make rules to keep the world, I believe, from getting to the point of every thought in their heart was evil continually back in Genesis 6. So obviously, God wants us to be related to the government, be citizens that are encouraged by it, and be good neighbors and all the rest of that. So now the problem becomes, okay, what if you live in a bad government? Well, it’s interesting that the church starts with a government that really didn’t know what to do with it, do with Christianity.

And at first, they just thought, oh, it’s some Jewish sect that’s going to go. And then all of a sudden, it came to the Gentiles and they realized they had a problem. And so during that time, Peter writes to the people, and Paul writes to the people, writes to the Gentiles in Rome, Peter, he’s talking mainly to the Jewish believers that are out in the world, and he says, beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. So he knows they’re having trouble, and people are starting to come after him. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, They may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.

So even though they’re persecuting you, treat them well, okay? Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as, to the emperor as supreme or to governors as set by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. mostly governments, even the worst government, are there to put murderers in jail and protect the general population. Without a population that feels safe enough just to go to work and walk the streets, you’re an anarchy. No government wants that, no matter how evil that government is. That’s kind of an interesting thing to think about in this day and age.

I mean, just look at what happened in the George Floyd things. Oh, we’re just having a civil unrest while the guy’s standing in front of the burning building and the people are being killed in the street. Government’s just quit doing its job. And that didn’t work out too well. So now they say, governance and praise those who do good. For this is the will of God, that by doing good, you should put silence to the ignorance of foolish people. Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover up for evil, but living as servants of God. Honor everyone, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the emperor. That was at a time they were living on their emperors.

Now as time goes on, people said, wait a minute, let’s do a different way. And let’s have this part of government. And some people said, yeah, let’s do that. And so it goes on and on. and we now live 2,000 years after that time, and we’ve had lots of different governments happen. And we happen to live under a government that is incredibly free, I think, in comparison to what we could have had 300 years ago, if you think about it. And when you think about time, sometimes we think our day and age is a big deal and everything. But I think it really is a wise thing to look back at just think of your great, great, great grandfather.

Do that back and figure out when that guy was walking around. And you realize, oh my goodness, that’s in the ancient history book. I don’t know what to do with that. And it’s when you realize you’re just in this timeline like that, you realize what an incredible age we live in to have the freedom that we have. Now, even in that respect, you got evil men doing evil things. But in the system of government we have, I think the good people want to stop that. And generally speaking, want to save society. And I think that as things have gone on and just common sense things, it’s a sad commentary that we elect a president that says, OK, we’re going to stop calling He, She, Him, and Vits and having 69 genders or whatever, and said, no, we got men and women.

We’re moving on. The best guy gets the job, regardless of the color of his skin or his nationality or whatever. He gets the job because he’s the best one at it. Well, duh, what an idea. But that kind of common sense over the past 50 years has eroded in a big way. And we are now in a really, I mean the last two weeks have been unbelievable what’s happened. So how do we as Christians respond to that? A lot of this is just good common sense brought to you by a guy that I’m not even sure he’s a Christian, all right, the President Trump.

You know, when they ask the question, are you a sinner? Well, he doesn’t want to answer that. That’s a problem. But the thing is, that common sense comes from Christian principles and biblical principles. So if God puts that guy in, you want him to do that, and we want to live under that, and so forth. So the other passage that everybody goes to is Romans 13, and let everybody, be subject, person be subject to the governing authorities, for as there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore, whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.

For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have to fear the one who is in authority? then do what is good and you will receive his approval. Now, we don’t live under the Roman system that Paul’s writing about. We live under a government that we have all kinds of different ways to question that government. We can say, we have this right, you can’t do that to us, and use the system to protect yourself from it. But when the system just ends up declaring they’re going to do this and take away those rights, you see how quickly that can be done away with. And we saw that over the past 10 years with the Justice Department going after people just because they wanted to and trying to shut churches down.

And we here at Trinity, at first we were trying to be wise, thinking, you know, we’re hearing all this stuff that the plague is coming, we’re all gonna die by next week if we get this stuff, what’s going on? So we said, okay, let’s be wise, but as we got into it more, we realized, wait a minute, this is a variation of cold virus, and yes, weak people could get really sick from it, and that sort of stuff, but does that mean that we should listen to people outside of our sphere? our sphere, our sphere is the church, and our country recognizes that, and they got out of that sphere telling us we couldn’t worship. We at Trinity said, no, we’re not doing that.

And we never quit a Sunday. We had the crazy thing of where we were doing the, what was that thing, video, and we’d watch it afar, and there’d be six people that were doing the service. It was really weird. But we ended up saying, no, we’re not going to do that. And luckily, we had a strong sheriff in this county that said, I’m not going to arrest people to do that. We had the Pekinguses farm, so we met outside, and we did that. And looking back on it, I think we were even being really kind to do the way we did it to them. And yet, that’s considered, oh, you were really scary. And it’s just common sense. And it’s also having people that recognize their sphere is this and the other sphere is over there.

And if I were a guy that was afraid, and I use this argument with people that after the COVID thing calmed down, I still see them around and see them in different places in the community, that they’re still wearing masks, okay? They still got the cloth thing on that they made so they’re just breathing through a piece of cloth and it really is not doing anything for them. But they, you know, were so upset that we meet. And I said, you know, you hate us so much. If this thing was really that bad and we were all meeting together, we would have all died. Why weren’t you happy that we were meeting? And they kind of looked at me and went, well, I guess you’re right.

You know, and I said, we weren’t even wearing masks. You know, we could have really gotten it. And then they didn’t want to talk about it because they realized I was going to turn the thing on the mask debate. But we live in a situation where just with common sense you can talk to people and talk with that, and it just, of course we should be involved in this kind of stuff. And even like in Russia, like Sergio and Anastasia, they go and visit in Moscow and stuff. And the people there, yes, Putin’s a quote dictator and they got the oligarchs who are running the place and everything, and we’re trying to use all these things to stop them.

Their economy is going and blowing. And what’s happened is Putin realized he has to turn the capitalistic system loose enough so that products can move and people can eat and all of that kind of stuff. And when you do that, man’s ingenuity just takes over. When the government clamps down and they’re going to give you so much cheese and all that, that’s when they add the lines in front of all those doors and you can only get meat on Tuesdays and, you know, all that nonsense. And it’s just basic common sense to me anyway.

So now the next thing that happens as you think about this stuff in the build and the battle is there is the influence in this day and age right now of Satan and demonic influences also going on. Not just disbelievers, but I’m talking demonic and satanic influences. And I would justify that with 1 John 5, 18. And it says, we know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning. But he who was born of God protects him. Who was born of God protects him. And the evil one does not touch him. We know that we are from God and that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. And we know that the Son of God has come and given us understanding so that we know Him who is true, and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ.

He is the true God and eternal life. Little children keep yourselves from idols. Mainly speaking, you have classes of people that are godless, and then you have ones that start to move over into worshiping idols. Most of them are worshiping themselves as an idol, But like climate change and all that kind of stuff, it becomes a religion to them. And the whole gender thing and all of that. And most of those things are based on just pure nuttiness. I mean, especially the whole gender battle and all of that. How do they think they came into the world, you know? With two kishearits getting together is just crazy. And the other one that demonstrates this is Ephesians 2, 1 through 3.

And you were dead in trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air. That’s us. We were dead in our testament, following the prince of the power of the air. The spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. Again, those that don’t follow Christ are in that group, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. So that’s going on now, and that’s out there also. And some of these things are just plain demonic, the abortion situation.

to have a discussion, even if you want abortion, that the woman has the baby, the baby’s alive, and should we be able to kill the baby because the mom doesn’t want the baby? To even have that discussion, you’re so far out there on the edge that how crazy is that? So now, the whole thing that I want to say It’s just these few passages should show you that we should be involved and we should be those citizens that other people look to us, why do you do that? Why do you want to make that product? Why do you want to talk to me about this and that? And that whole thing, that lifestyle, will make a better world. You should be the best farmer.

You should give the best service. You should treat those people like you want to be treated. You don’t want to get cheated. Don’t cheat them in the deal. And that whole thing, if you do that, will just change your life. I’ve been involved in certain negotiations with people, and they thought it was a fair negotiation. And I said, OK, you have this contract. What happens if we turn it around and you take the other side and you sign it? Would you be the other guy and think it’s a good deal? Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, that’s really kind of the way you should look at it. Do you think you’re giving that guy a fair thing? I mean, profit is not a sin.

You’ve got to make money in order to make a good product and pay the people the wage to make it. And it’s just, duh. And so out of that, the build in battle is everybody is related in the world to some situation where you can bring your Christian influence and God’s making dominion into play in your situation. So with that, what questions do you have or whatever? Yeah. The political thing to me is, oh, Another interesting thing that I learned and heard, and I haven’t read this commentary, but Martin Lloyd-Jones, big English preacher in the 40s and 50s, his commentary on Romans 13, he brings up that the American war of revolution was a biblical thing to do in America, being an Englishman, which I thought was interesting.

I mean, I thought, Jubal sent us a thing this morning to Sean and I about what he’s doing. To me, it is such a perfect story. Jubal joins the Navy. You were a diver first? Is that right? Incredible thing. Enlisted diver, you know, doing the Navy thing, all this kind of stuff. Then he decides, did you then become a warrant officer? Or how did that work that you got into the medical part? Yeah, but then they paid for you to go to medical school and all of that. ends up to be an officer, retires as a commander, and then goes to work for Providence in the middle of the COVID thing and everything. And they look at him and say, you’re obviously the best person for this job.

And right away, he’s running the whole nursing staff and running them all. And pretty soon, they don’t like it, because he’s, you know, I’m sorry, you got to do this, you shouldn’t do this, I’m not gonna do that. And they just couldn’t handle it. And it’s amazing. But I think it’s a blessing because then I think it’s going to give you a great business in a couple of years. I mean, these things are starting all over the Midwest, as far as I know. So yeah. So I have a question. Yeah. So one of the things that you kept saying was duh, or it’s obvious, or it’s common sense. Right. Right. Duh. That was like your theme.

Well, that’s my theme all the time. Right, right, right. So, which I’m trying to- The answer’s on page 46, look at it. Stupid kids, right? My students out there, right? Stupid ones, another one, yeah. So if it is duh and common sense and obvious, why are more people not building and battling? Specifically even in our context, why are we not doing more? Yeah, I think the real hope is that we have so deserted the common sense in our public education. I mean, kids can’t, the latest test, an eighth grader cannot read four paragraphs and tell you what the paragraphs contain in America. That’s the latest study, right, Gail?

I got that right. Yeah, that’s, it was a news story yesterday. They came out with that. They have so deserted just common sense teaching. I mean, in 1986, I went to be a teacher helper in the best school district in LA in the second grade. Morgan was there. And a second grader, I was in the back, and I was told, Mr. Light, stay back there. You can help me whenever I need it. And his teacher was like 62 or something, getting ready to retire, nice lady. And this little kid got up out of his seat. And she said, Johnny, sit down in your seat. And the kid just looked at her and started wandering off. So I’m sitting in the back.

I said, no problem. And I went over. I got little Johnny, and I put Johnny back in his seat. I mean, this is 1986. And the lady comes up to me, and she says, we have to go outside, Mr. Lightman. And I said, okay. So we go outside and she says, you can’t touch the children. I said, well, how are you gonna make little Johnny sit in his seat? Oh, I can’t do that. That’s why I’m retiring next year.

And I said, you’re serious. I mean, when I went to school, they had a two-fisted wooden paddle that you get to go to the guy and grab your ankles and get whacked, you know? This is stupid. And that’s in 1986. And now an eighth grader can’t read four paragraphs. So just because they don’t have that much common sense, that’s why most of them can’t do anything. They come to work for a guy like you and you say, well, you gotta show up at 8.05 or 8 o’clock or whatever. Oh, I just didn’t feel like I got on an 8.30? Well, you’re fired next, you know? Well, you can’t do that. I could, you know. And so we’re picking more and more from a smaller pool.

I had a, we went down to interview, we were going to have another person come and help Martin, our guy that runs our store down in San Diego. Nice young ladies coming in because a lot of it’s secretarial because you’re just doing computer work instead of handling these parts. And at that time, we wanted that kind of thing. And this girl was sharp. I mean, she looked nice. She was clean. She was talking the whole thing. And so I thought, and we have a little test to give them to see if they know the basic math of how to get the ID from the OD and that kind of thing. She did all right on that. And then I said, well, you’re going to have to make change.

Can you make change? You know, I expected make change. What kind of stupid question is that? And she said, what do you mean? And I said, well, and I took some money out of my pocket. And I said, if I gave you $1 and the product was $0.75, what would you give back to me? She couldn’t answer it. I literally went up in the cash drawer and got four quarters. I said, there’s $1. And I said, I need to know, I’m giving you these four quarters, but I only need $0.75. She couldn’t do it. I said, how do you buy anything? And she pulled it out of her purse and said, with this credit card. I just give them the credit card. I don’t look at anything.

She was 18 years old? Unbelievable. And had her diploma and the whole thing. How do you get out of high school, and you can’t do that? So that’s why I say that they are that ignorant. And stupid is not, you know, I use stupid. They’re ignorant. They’re not stupid. But they aren’t trained. But what about us T-seers? Why are we not building more? Why are we not doing more? Is it just time? I think a lot of guys are. And I think they’re doing it on the level that they are. Everybody can’t be a world beater. I don’t expect that. Some people have different goals in life. They want to be a good employee, eight to five, and then I want to go home and be with my wife and that.

And they’re just not motivated that way. Some of us want to have more free time to do something different. Some guys take a job so that they can earn enough money to, I don’t know, go fishing or whatever, that their passion is. I meet with young people and they come to me and they say, what should I do? I say, do what you love and find a way to make a living from it, so that you’re always excited about it. And a guy like you, well, I wanna make deals, I wanna make this, I wanna make this bigger and better, and that’s interesting to you. But everybody’s not gonna be like that. Because they haven’t seen examples of it.

That’s a big possibility. Because they talk about the feminization of men, And it’s learn how to work, get your 9 to 5, earn a living, provide, and that’s it. So have there been, I would ask Phillip, do you see a ton of examples where young men can see something different? Yeah, and it’s interesting that over the years I’ve hired and worked with a lot of different people. And like one time I ran a factory, there was about 150 employees in it. And from all kinds of different backgrounds and really highly skilled people, fantastic wood carvers. They could lay gold leaf.

They could do carpentry like you couldn’t imagine, making incredible like Louis 15 frames that were four by six foot and then all gessoed gold leaf and then antique perfectly, I had guys from the Dominican Republic that could hand watercolor French mats where you take and make super straight lines with watercolor in a French mat that is a very specialized mat that goes around drawings, stuff like that. All these guys were really artistic. And to run all those kind of people that really understood the talent they had and everything and yet to be part of it. And every one of them had a different thing that they loved doing. Whether it be play the flamenco guitar, they wanted to be the best at that. But that’s what they could do was really match picture frames up with art.

So they sold picture frames, but they really wanted to be a flamenco guitarist. All of those people were following their particular thing. You do what you want to do. That’s, you know, Sean has said that many times. But that’s it. You do what you want to do. And if you really want it, you’ll do something and go for it. I have a question, or I want your thoughts. I am a little bit, I see it as somewhat of a distraction, potentially, in terms of men building and battling, growing and progressing forward and planning for the future. Everything you’re talking about. The thing that is in the way, I think, potentially for a lot of us men is a combination of recreation and family time and parties.

And none of those things are bad. I’m just saying, if you look around and you, maybe I’m not the norm, but I feel like I’m doing birthday party after get together, after some kind of vacation, all the time. Actually, too much, too much of that. So there’s not enough time to grind out the productivity that you’re trying to build, right? Because you can’t let your kids down, you know? They’re only little kids for so long, and you got other people who look to you to get yourself involved in their function or whatever.

So can you speak to that? I mean, men are… the conception I have is to be somewhat detached from the enjoyable while they’re doing the hard thing because they have to, because they’re thinking about everybody else doing the enjoyable things while they’re planning, like the family can have vacations because the dad has thought about it and, you know, 20 years prior, right? So tell me what you think about that.

Oh. Ha ha ha ha. You know, it’s supposed to work six days and then it takes the Sabbath off. Nowadays we’re working five days and they’re short days too, right? So we’re just chock full of recreation and enjoyable leisure. Here’s my answer. I think that those that are too busy with all of that, even when you have large families And the large family, you should be training that kid right away to be taking care of stuff. Ideally, if you live on a farm, it just happens because you gotta have the kids all doing that.

I’ve had kids work for me counting stuff, you know, little tiny round pieces of rubber and stuff. Okay, count this. Here’s a bag of 10,000 or something. And you also put a scale by there, and you show them, hey, how much does that hundred of those weigh? And they, oh, look at that. Well, how fast could you count them now? So make them think. The whole thing with the birthday party and stuff, maybe I was raised wrong. I don’t remember any birthday party I ever had. I really didn’t care. The things I remember is when my dad and I had a relationship kind of thing. Like just driving to another horse ranch to look at a horse and sitting in the truck for five hours, driving over to New Mexico or something.

And him just looking over at me and going, this is kind of cool. He wouldn’t have said that. This is really nice, isn’t it? And then he papped me on the leg. And I thought, wow, that kind of thing. And that’s the real thing that happens. The bouncy house and the, you know, going to, poke me in the eyes to go to Disneyland. I mean, not happening. That’s just stupid. I mean, thousands of dollars are spent at Disney World looking at a bunch of fake stuff. You know, take them out, look at this tree, isn’t that incredible? You know. Or pick up this horse poop and do something worthwhile. You know. But that kind of relationship where, you know, they know, because they want to be that thing too.

I, we’re right now, well, you’re involved in it. The idea that the camel farm can be something that we can have a few people out of our congregation help Linda make that a viable project and do farming that sustains itself in a small space and show that and make, maybe make some products and that kind of thing. It’s a real opportunity. And I, it just, I mean, Aaron is so excited about it, he doesn’t know what to do. And he went back to learn how to be a contractor and hated it, had a bad experience, It’s then went to work for some guy in New York on a farm, loved it, and comes back and right across the street, he now has an opportunity to actually plant some corn and grow it and see what happens.

It’s very cool. And what you and Max have done with the chicken thing, I mean, to me, it’s crazy. And that’s the kind of application. Being busy is good. I mean, we got now what, great grandkids and grandkids. And those kids know I love their birthday. And I hope they know we love them. I mean, we take them to lunch and all that kind of stuff. But I way more appreciate the special time in the morning or something when we’re standing there and we just got up and we know we gotta go to school and we look at each other and laugh and say, you know, this is a bunch of nonsense. I don’t want to go, you don’t want to go, but we got to go.

And they learn that from you. Because they realize, well, sometimes I got to do stuff that I don’t like. Well, yeah, welcome to the world. So I don’t know if that really helps. But there are times where silliness and parties are fun. But to go after that, I mean, for those of you that went to college, how long did it take before you really got tired of the frat parties or whatever. Hey Dave. Not long. Yeah. Over here. I’m gonna take a shot at the other Dave’s question as well.

We know that to be an image bearer of God is to develop, is to pour your life into relationship and responsibility. So when I think in terms of building, I need to be building relationship, I need to be building in responsibility. And so to me, birthday parties, within reason, I mean, there are the, you’re going off on the crazy, you know, these days, you know, it’s not a real party unless you drop $10,000 on it, you know, that’s crazy. But those times, those birthday parties are building when they’re done properly. As a grandpa of 14 kids, I spend a fair amount of time eating ice cream on dates with my grandkids.

But they are purposeful dates. We have meaningful conversations. You could argue there, are those frivolous? Are those purposeless? Could I be doing something better to build? Seven-year-old Chloe. One minute, I’m sitting down trying to show her how to make change out of $1, which she doesn’t enjoy so much. And then other times, I’m sitting down having ice cream cone with her over at Dairy Queen. and talking about life, both are building when done properly. Yeah, but see, the ice cream cone purposely sitting across from, that’s a whole different kind of discussion. But even the birthday party, which you might say is that frivolous, that’s still a relationship.

That’s building memories. That’s, it’s still establishing a relationship. You know, right now, and your focus is probably the same thing that RH is, If all I leave behind that anybody remembers is 14 grandkids that love Jesus, I’ll be happy. That’s going to be the benchmark. Whatever else I’ve done and built, all the code I’ve written, none of that stuff is going to matter. But those 14 souls are going to matter. And so, I think of it in terms of relationship and responsibility. She’s got to learn how to do math. She’s got to also understand that her grandpa loved Jesus, and she has responsibility to love Jesus too.

Yeah. It’s interesting how different people view it. And I know it’s from your experience, but for me, a much more important party was what it was last night. You clowns were all over there watching Scarlett Pimpernel, right? That was last night. Yeah, or two days ago or whatever. That to me is super good, because you’re looking at that and I could tell you’re all going, oh, this and that. But that kind of organization, you’re building a foundation with each other. And it’s not necessarily, it doesn’t cost a lot of money. It doesn’t have to be a big party. You’re sitting down and having fun together and you made snacks and all that stuff.

But you’re watching, I don’t know, you’re bonding together in a different way. So I’m not against fun. Don’t get me wrong on that. Fun killer. I mean, that’s all I, I’m just one big bag of fun. Okay, Phillip, just, I have one question. I am big on celebrating, and I think there is a time and place for a jump house. You’re exhausting on celebrating. You’re not big on it, you’re exhausting on it. Here’s the thing, what are we building and what are we battling? We are building the kingdom. How do we do that without relationship? How do we build relationship by telling people and showing people that we value them, we value their time.

We value the fact that they were created in the image of God. And if we don’t have passport, if we don’t have that relationship, that connection, our building is not going to be very fruitful, right? I keep going back to this jealous ability. And if we don’t have that, like how fun would it be to go over to the Bikinis’ and have, I don’t even know, I know it’s a book, I don’t know anything about it, I’m not classically educated and classically learning how to teach. But it sounds amazing and like, I don’t know, maybe we should do that. Mason, are you around somewhere? Yep, there she is. Okay, anyway, all that to say that it is, it’s whatever we can do to foster relationship, to foster shared experiences, to encourage and provide opportunities for people to grow and be inspired to do something for the Lord.

And the rest of us get to benefit from that. But I mean, if you’re trying to build in battle without your people, you’re not gonna be very successful. Yeah, but what happens when you come in building, you want to build in battle like we all talk about, and everybody’s sitting there thinking, oh, he must really have an incredible life because he’s talking all this stuff. There’s a lot of baggage all of us bring to this. We all come out of broken families and crazy stuff, and the build in battle for that person can be totally different than, That person may need the bouncy house and the goofy birthday party. I’m not saying they’re all bad, but it’s still that relationship and talking with that person.

More like Jim was saying that time when you go and have the ice cream with the grandkid and you’re actually talking, or like I told you the times of my dad, long trips were always the best because then you had them cornered and you can talk and you could get answers. and willing to say things like that. My mom was totally different. She was very much the game player and wanted to do that kind of stuff, crawl under the thing with the kids and all of that. So yeah, one is not better than the other. But I think wisdom is good. You don’t overdo something. But if you do have a passion for something, you can be looked upon as you’re overdoing it.

And that’s another problem too. I mean, I don’t know if that’s helpful, but it’s real life. So I think where it can go wrong is, sure you can throw a huge party and all that. But when you’re, I don’t know, exemplifying or setting forth an example of basically teaching, without us even trying, teaching kids what is more important, getting what others have, or learning the actual important lessons. And it’s easy to do the sometimes harmful former when you’re indulging and all that, right?

And sure, maybe going and doing farm work as a birthday celebration, may look like anti-fun, But I mean, it’s, yeah, but that’s the, that is something to avoid though, is kind of accidentally teaching your kid that like, okay, like, do you know what I’m talking about? And… I think so, I’m not sure. Those accidental times, right? I mean, like when you went to work for the wire bending thing and you were successful and you were wearing the holes in the gloves and you didn’t have the gloves. At that point, you were realizing, oh, look at that. That’s very clever the way that machine bends that thing. Sam Rothenberger is that way.

I don’t know if he works for the guy that bends wires that make vines go on the wire. Isn’t that what that stuff goes? It goes on vines, right? Apple trees. So, and when you realize that’s very clever, that kind of experience, And you may think the guy is a nutcase that thought this up, and he is a very unique guy, the guy who worked for it. But that’s just, I don’t know, but that’s kind of what you’re talking about, I think. I’m going to explain this, like maybe I should have thought of this before I took the mic. Yeah, exactly. All of the celebrations there are surrounded by, by or the focal is the end of a season is like experiencing the bounty or you know raising the barns and getting all of the syrup out of the trees you know like it every single festive thing that they are doing is all a kind of a grand and finale of some really hard work.

Right, it’s all a work party. And those are my favorite. So if anybody wants to do a work party, let me know. But exactly. So anyway, yeah, it was just when you were talking about farming and doing the hard work, and is that really fun? Well, yeah, I mean, purposeful. And those shared experiences, again, are creating a lot of relational connections. Yeah, you’re gonna live in the house and rewire it, I understand, right? How cool is that? I’m not sure I wanna go back in that house and touch a light switch, but other than that, no problem. What? What? What? So it is, it’s interesting because, Mr. Light, in what you were talking about, for guys in particular, guys are not usually the people that even wanna go to the parties anyways, so they’re probably not the ones who planned it, let alone the people that wanna go, So that already is starting off on the foot where it’s like, this is taking me away from something else I’d rather be doing.

But building and battling in a non-dualistic where God cares about every square inch of what he’s created means that you, going to the birthday party that was planned, even though you were at one the last two nights consecutively, is probably what God wants you to be doing. Now if you actually have something that has a deadline that actually needs to be done, well that takes priority, but it’s not necessarily that one thing is better than the other thing, but there might be priorities that have to be fixed. So I used to be very much against all of the dances. I was a dance hater. I like dancing, but I hated that we were planning dances and everybody was going to I didn’t want to go to that. I want to do something else.

But then when my mom in particular was like, but you don’t see the cultural connection here between growing the community, getting guys invested in participating. Once I saw that connection, I was like, this is building too. This is building and battling for me to go to the dance. It’s building and battling to go to a birthday party and also to go to work. So all of it is what God cares about. So it might not feel like the most productive thing to have to go to another birthday party, but it’s still building something that you might not be able to see quite yet, which that’s kind of cool, but that’s the hardest part to understand, like to remember, is that the things that don’t produce the obvious results, lots of times are the things that build the biggest and strongest foundations.

So it’s one, it’s under one, the same category. So three bullet points, one question. Mostly I don’t like when my kids leave to other people’s houses and I can’t work with them. That’s the annoying thing to me. They’re always going to somebody’s house for a party and I need their help on a Saturday, like every Saturday.

And then with regard to, like it’s a work day, Saturday. I think that’s the definition of Saturday, if any kids are listening. And then with regards to, I totally get the quality of time, there’s value obviously in that. What Jim was saying and Calvin, actually everybody, Riva. Yeah, the relationships are eternal. We’re dealing with human souls that are going to be around for eternity. And that’s the product. Money’s not the goal. I’m not trying to build a legacy without detached from human souls. But I do think that perhaps, you know, I’m getting sucked into distractions as a guy. And I think maybe it’s a tendency of our community to err on the side of chumming it up with our pals and instead of grinding and plotting and building, doing the hard, less fun thing, perhaps.

There’s a speculation on my part. And then, yeah, you think that’s probably where I’ll end it. But those were my thoughts. That’s kind of a downer. I don’t wanna end there. Make your kids stay with you and help you. Seriously. There are those times. And the thing is, they want to be grown up. What do kids want to do? They want to be, especially when they get to be 13 or 14, I’m a young man. I want to do that. The sooner you can let them be that, the better they like it. So you give them that thing. You kind of hold the reins loose, but still have reins. So when they get out there, they’re going to fall off the cliff.

You can jerk them back. But you want them to be trying to do it a little more, a little more than that all. And also, where in that, I can’t believe I’m talking about birthday parties, but as it is, they want to grow up. So I’m sure teach them how to decide, actually, guys, you get one party a month on Saturday. We’ll let you choose which one, but the other ones, you’ll need to work for whatever the percentage is. Just like that, you’re gonna have to do whatever you want. Just like when it’s your driving your kids around, you’re gonna have to decide to point all of the options that are good things, which one is the best.

So here’s your opportunity, we’re gonna give you some three notes, we’re not saying you can’t go to any, and we’re also saying we have things that we need you to do for our household. And so here’s your opportunity to participate in that process, rather than all of you having to decide. Yeah, it’s sad now that Cal got to a point where he was really capable of doing a lot of things. Now he finds a woman and he’s going to move off. What the heck? Yeah. I’m going to tell you a few things. Here, anybody, and Dave, your question at the beginning also wasn’t about whether celebrations of parties are problems. But when you are in a community where that makes it, helping our kids learn, OK, well, that’s good.

For the ability for Aaron and all of them to maybe even work on a Campbell farm and make that happen. Just all the other things that I don’t even know about. Help everybody understand that you have given them a job and that that job is good and that they should be that representative for you at that job. And yet, they can be a thing to make that even better. So we thank you that we live in a country where we can do that. And if you think you can do it better, go start your own. Let’s still able to do that here. So we thank you for all of those things. And of course, we thank you most of all for your son. And it’s in Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

For the ability for Aaron and all of them to maybe even work on a Campbell farm and make that happen. Just all the other things that I don’t even know about. Help everybody understand that you have given them a job and that that job is good and that they should be that representative for you at that job. And yet, they can be a thing to make that even better. So we thank you that we live in a country where we can do that. And if you think you can do it better, go start your own. Let’s still able to do that here. So we thank you for all of those things. And of course, we thank you most of all for your son. And it’s in Jesus’ name we pray.