MCC Podcasts
Working It Out - Qualities of a Leader - Qualities We All Should Have Part 2
leadership and what it means to be a leader. And as we're going to see, when you read through of being an elder, of qualifications of being a deacon. And as we saw last week is Paul is about structure, the structure of leadership, or the form of leadership, or what actual tasks context, people will gather they'll be leaders and those leaders will lead. What Paul is concerned about are the qualifications or the character is the heart, is the who are those people that we ask to lead, what kind of people should they be. And we've decided that there's basically, as we've been studying this passage over the last couple weeks, there are three main vital ingredients for leadership. One is to be respected. Last week we talked about this idea of being respected. Today we're looking at this idea of having solid character and the third is to develop a deep faith. So the calling of a leader in chapter three verse one says that anyone who seeks that, that's a noble task that all Christians are actually people of influence. They are leaders in their community, they are leaders in their context and all of us as Christians should be striving for these qualifications. We don't just expect certain people to have these qualifications. The assumption is all Christians are working it out to have these things, to be respected, to have solid character and to develop deep faith. So that's what we do this morning is we're going to hop into number two have solid character. So if you have a Bible, turn to first Timothy chapter three verse one. All right, let's pray. Heavenly Father and our gracious God, we thank you so much that you have invited us in to be a part of your family. We've been adopted through Jesus Christ to be your very own daughters and sons. What an amazing gift that is. But God, we also realize that being adopted in is your daughters and sons means that we are also invited to be a part of the family business, that we are called to be a part of expanding your kingdom here on earth as it is in heaven. And all of us who take on the name Christian, all of us who are identified with you God are people who are of influence in our little spirits, whether it's in our family and our place of work at our schools or in church or in real church leadership. So God, I pray that we would strive to be the kind of people that you desire for us to be. We ask for your Holy Spirit to speak to us, to reveal anything in us that we need to be refined away and that you continue to transform us into the image of your son Jesus. That's in his name that we pray. Amen. All right, first Timothy chapter three, one to 13. Here is like what Ryan said, qualifications for overseers and deacons. Here is a trustworthy saying, whoever aspires to be an overseer desires a noble task. Now the overseers to be above reproach, faithful to his wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him. He must do so in a manner worthy of full respect. And if anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can I take care of God's church? He must not be a recent convert or he may become conceited and fall under the same judgment as the devil. He must also have a good reputation with outsiders so that he will not fall into the disgrace and into the devil's trap. In the same way, deacons are to be worthy of respect, sincere, not indulging in much wine and not pursuing dishonest gain. They must keep a hold of the deep truths of the faith with a clear conscience and they must first be tested. And then if there is nothing against them, let them serve as deacons. In the same way, the women are to be worthy of respect, not malicious talkers but temperate and trustworthy and everything. A deacon must be faithful to his wife and must manage his children and his household well. Those who have served well gain an excellent standing and great assurance in their faith in Jesus Christ. Well, as I was studying this passage, I started listing out all these qualifications. What in the world does it mean to what are these qualifications that God has for us as people who are striving to be godly people and especially for the leaders in the church? What are these qualifications? And I started listing them all out. And here's all the ones for elders, here's all the ones for deacons, here's what they should do, here's what they shouldn't do. And I tried all these fancy ways to mix and match and to come up with some compelling way to share them with you. And if you read through that, again, you just realize there's no way. It is just a shotgun approach of you want to know what it looks like to be a person of good character. If you want to know what it looks like to have solid character, here, here's a ton of things, right? Well, I sifted them all down and I found the best way possible to share them with you. And I came up with a top 10 list. So here's my top 10 attributes that define good character. If we want to be people of good character, God calls us to be those things. What does that look like? Paul says, here's 10 basic things. If you do these 10 things, you have good character. All right, here we go. Number one, faithful to your wife and manage your family well. Now, it's interesting, having good characters, the only way that you really prove that out is by being with others. Good character is that you live one way outside and one way inside, right? That there's the same person, integrity is having the same person, both sides. And when it says, being faithful to your wife, those of you who are married, right, your spouse knows if you're faking it, right? You can be a total, everyone in the church, everyone in your business can think you're a great person, but your spouse knows exactly what is going on. And so if you can manage your household, if you can be faithful to your wife or faithful to your spouse, chances are that you have good character. I mean, listen, these are the marriage vows that most of us took when we got married, to have and to hold for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, and sickness and health, to love and to cherish from this day until the day that we death parts us. Now, every time I have the opportunity to do a wedding, it is so fun to do a wedding, but it's also a good reminder, a good check that the person that I am marrying is saying these vows, and these are vows that I have taken. And if I'm going to be someone of good character, man, these are vows that I have to have under control, that a good character, someone who has and holds better for worse, richer, poorer, until death do us part. They have to be faithful to their wife and they manage their family well. The second thing they have to do is they have to have self-control. Self-control is being someone of prudence, moderation, sobriety. They have control over their impulses and the emotions beneath it. For whatever reason, it's become totally acceptable to think, if you feel a certain way, then you should behave a certain way. If you think a certain thought, you should say a certain thought. People with good character have self-control. Not everything that's true needs to be said, right? Not every impulse needs to be acted on. A person with good character has a lock on that. They are not just beasts that do whatever their body tells them to do, their minds and their self-control put a lock on that so they can do what God calls them to do. Number three is they practice hospitality. When we invite people into our home, it keeps us accountable of the lives that we live. I can control my kids in some context, but if you come to my house, you see my house, you see my furniture, you see my life, you see my messy closet, you see my kids, you see what bedtime looks like. You get a picture of who somebody is and when we're in the habit of inviting people into our homes, we're people of character because we continually put it out there that the person we present and the person that we are on the inside match up, that we're able to teach, that we're to know what we believe, that the deal is that those of us with good character is we're trying to strive to be godly people. We have to know what we believe. We have to know scripture. We have to be people of deep faith. We have to be people who can actually articulate our faith. So when our friends and people around us struggle when they crash and burn, when they're going through a hard time, when they have questions about things, we want to be able to have answers for those. So we need to be people of the word and know what the world we believe. Number five, that we are to be gentle. To be gentle in both word and deed. I think of it this way, to not be sharp. It's so often we want to define others and we want to fight against others and we want to make sure that you know who I am and you kind of keep everyone in your arms like this is who I am. But someone who is gentle doesn't say this is who I am and you can come and approach me. A gentle person builds on ramps to other people. A gentle person makes space for a relationship to happen. So someone that's not just in our words, think about how we use gossip, how we talk about others in front of them, that we don't crush others and we use our gentleness to smooth over any rough patches. Number six, not a heavy drinker. It's pretty simple, straightforward. Number seven, not violent. Now, a few of us in this church still get in fistfights, but not being violent is still, right? Most of us, how we're violent is with our bullying, with our verbal abuse, with how we cut people out. It's like this emotional violence and so we need to be, just as aware, that people with good character are not violent, that we're not dishonest with money. It's so easy to get wrapped up with money and status and to just get all spun up about it. I don't know about you, but if you start looking at other people and you think I wish I had that or I want to be blessed like that and then all of a sudden you can't stop thinking about that thing. And the deal is people with good character realize that all of us have been blessed in some ways and we have deficiencies in others. Some of us have been blessed with money, some of us like myself have just been blessed with good looks. But we all bring things to the table and we all have deficits. And if we get all spun up about one thing, then we just get, then we spiral out of control. Number nine is that we're faithful in all things. A lot of us think, if God asked me to right now to pick up my family and go to Africa, I would right. If God showed up into your face and said go to Africa, you would. But God doesn't do that. It's pretty rare that God just shows up out of the blue interface and says go to Africa. The deal is that we are faithful in all things. The Christian life, the same with good character says yes to all of the small choices. It's all the small choices that we have in life that lead us to bigger choices. We have to be faithful in the small things in making our beds and listening to our parents and showing up at work on time and paying our taxes and being kind and being gentle. We do these things one little task at a time and sure enough, God like shows up and invites us to do large tasks. But the people who end up doing those large tasks, if you ask me, I can't believe God told you to do that. They're like, what? It's just another thing that God's asked us to do, or we're just being faithful in all things. And the last thing is that we're willing to be examined. So those are 10 things, right. If you do those 10 things, you are someone of solid character. Now, if you're anything like me, I look at that list and I think I got it down because I can find at least one person in every category who I'm doing better than, right. In every one of those categories, I definitely don't drink as much as some people. I'm definitely not as violent as some people. I'm faithful in all things at least compared to some people, right. When we look at that list, we say, this is what it means to be a good character. And then what we do is we, well, maybe you just me, is I find people who I compare myself against and then I'm pretty happy with the kind of character that I have. Well, this last spring, I've taken up a new sport. I've given up running mostly because I just run so slow and it's embarrassing. So I picked up mountain biking and I got a mountain bike and I've been trying to figure it out. I've crashed a little bit. But a couple of weeks ago, after vacation Bible school, I went out with some of the freshman guys and we went to China camp. And it was so great to be a mountain biker, to go with freshman guys and go out to China camp. And I'm keeping up with them. I'm riding with them. I'm like, you know, I'm going over like little, they're not jumps, but they're like little bumps and I'm handling it. I didn't even wipe out once. I am a good mountain biker. Everything they did, I could do. I could keep up with them. I was just in fast. I wasn't winded. I didn't have to walk. I'm a good mountain biker and I felt so good about my time with them. But the deal is I also go mountain biking with one of our college kids, Casey. Casey Peterson is an awesome mountain biker. In fact, he's so awesome. He's sponsored by -- who's Santa Cruz? Somebody? I don't even know anymore. One of those guys, right? So he's sponsored, right? He's given stuff. He's so good, right? He's paid to do it. And I go mountain biking with him. When I go mountain biking with him, all of a sudden I'm like, "Oh." That's what mountain biking is like. So the same trail cruising around that I did with the freshman high school guys, having a great time. Casey's actually doing bunny hops up onto the side. There's no jumps anywhere, but he's doing jumps. He does this cool thing that I tried once. Actually, I did it on accident. But what he does on purpose is it's a switchback. He'll be driving down the switchback. He jams on his brake. He pops his back wheel up, kicks it around, and keeps going down the road. It's pretty awesome. I just bail when that happens. So Casey, he's an awesome mountain biker. So if I think that the pinnacle of being a good mountain biker is the freshman guys, I'm pretty good. When I compare myself against a real mountain biker, I go, "Oh, I got some room." Now, what I love about Casey, not only is he very good looking in a good mountain biker, for sure, but Casey is someone of deep character. Casey, for our students, there's not a lot of Christian kids in Marin County. There's not a lot of kids like, "We all love Jesus, and this is great." This is tiny little remnant community that we have here. And so to be an amazing Christian, to do this list as a high school kid in Marin, it's pretty good because the 99% of your school is failing at that list. So you even taking a stab at that list, you are like a legit Christian. And so I love how Casey is. Casey, for his senior year, he was like the top. He loves God. He wants to honor God. He went after it in his faith. And he was like the example. You want to know what it meant to be a godly young man. You looked at Casey, and it was legit. Now, Casey graduated. He went away to Colorado Christian, right? And went away to Colorado Christian, and we hung out and had a meal over Christmas break. And this is why Casey is so awesome because he went to Colorado Christian, and this was his take. Those guys are really Christian. Because what happens, and you may not realize this, but in the rest of the world, there's actually a bunch of Christians. And there's a bunch of Christians that come together. And so it'd be normal for a bunch of Christians to be together and the way that they do that list, the whole bar is like a whole different bar because they have been around this whole Christian culture their whole life. They've memorized the entire Bible. They've been doing a wannas from day one. You know, their parents are like elders and deacons, and they get to this whole normal thing for all these Christians in Christian Colorado. So this list, Casey was doing awesome at this list. He goes to Christian Colorado, Christian, he goes, oh, my list is a little different than the rest of the Christian world list. And what's so rad about Casey is, like for me, I'd be like, but I'm Casey. I'm a professional mountain bike rider. So see you later, stuffy Christians. But no, what Casey does is Casey goes, oh, that's what it means to be a good character. That's what it means to be a someone of deep faith. I'm in. And so what does he do? He spends his whole first year and first semester getting after studying scripture, being someone in ministry, and setting the bar high for me and for our students, and so I appreciate that. So thanks, Casey. I didn't embarrass you too much, right? Okay. So, all right, so all that's to say, we want to be people of good character. That's the list. But how in the world do we do well in that list? Because we all just simply judge against people who aren't as good. So there's three ways in which we're going to look at this morning of how in the world do we actually develop good character? How do we develop solid character? And the way we're going to do it is we're going to look at King David. King David, he's the man after God's own heart. He wrote a bunch of Psalms. He's the star, first and second Samuel. Like he's, he's a stud muffin. And apparently he was really good looking too. So I'm like, you're my man. So King David though, he loved God. His, I mean, he was the man after God's own heart. Everything he did was defined by his love for God. He was passionately in love with God. I want to read to you one of his prayers. This is Psalm 119, one of his prayers. It says, "The heavens declare the glory of God. The skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech. Night after night they display knowledge. They have no speech and they use no words. No sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth. Their words to the end of the world. In the heavens, he has pitched a tent for the sun, which is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber and like a champion running to the end of his course. It rises at one end of the heavens and makes it circuit to the other. Nothing is deprived of his warmth." And if you read through the Psalms, you get this picture that David loved God. And I think the challenge and the hard thing for me is you can really love God and not have solid character. Having solid character actually takes effort and work on our end. So what I love about David is he did that. He loved God passionately with all of his heart, with all of his being everywhere he saw God was alive in at work and he loved God. But yet he also did the hard work to be someone of character. So these are three things that David did that we're going to look at. How do you develop solid character? The first thing that you have to do is that you have to be disciplined. You have to be someone who actually does the hard work and gets after it and does the things they're supposed to do. It goes on in Psalm 19, it says this, "The law of the Lord is perfect, refreshing the soul. The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, giving joy to the heart. The commands of the Lord are radiant, giving light to the eyes. The fear of the Lord is pure and during forever. The ordinances of the Lord are sure and all of them are righteous. They are more precious and gold than much pure gold and they are sweeter than honey than honey from the honeycomb. By them your servant is warmed and keeping them there is great reward." And what is so amazing about David is he loves God but he is disciplined. He loves God's word. David memorized God's word. Psalm 119 talks about how he just meditates on God's word day and night. He soaks up God's word and by soaking up God's word, by loving God's word and loving God, he started to put these things in place to protect him, to be someone of good and noble character. When you look at David's life you see how he behaved. He is someone of good character because he spent so much time working it out, working out his faith. So when it came time, the Philistines were crushing the Israelites and there is this giant named Goliath. David because of his faith, because of his character, because of his discipline, because he has been getting after he goes, "Why aren't you guys out there? God said he is going to deliver us. Let's do it." And no, everyone freaks out and says, "No way." And so David picks up a slingshot, he kills them, and cuts off his head and it's super gory. It's my favorite children's story. There is another time where David and because that David became super famous and he could have with his fame gone in and said, "Hey, I deserve to be king. I am so famous. I am so good looking. I am God's man. Let's go do this thing." But instead he knows because of his character, because of his study of God's word, because he has been working hard at being a man of noble character, what he does is he says, "No, Saul is God's anointed." And there was this time when David ticked off Saul and Saul ran away, you know, ran in for his life and he's hiding in a cave. Saul comes out looking for him to try to kill him with all these guys. And Saul ends up going to this exact same cave to take care of some personal business and it's just David and Saul in the back of this cave. And David could have just cut his head off right there. Come out with his head and be like, "That's right. I'm the king." And what's wild is on that list of character things, according to all the other characters, of all the other kings in that area, that would have been acceptable. That would have been the okay right thing to do. But because he's been informed by the word of God, because he's been disciplined, all he does is cut off part of his robe. He sends down, says, "Saul, I could have killed you, but you are God's anointed, and I trust in God's anointed." Right? He is someone of massive, massive character. And it is so hard. And the problem is, for us Christians, it takes hard work. For those of you who are excellent musicians, I am not an excellent musician. I love playing Father Abraham with little kids. I can do that all day. Three chords, you can play guitar for 10 minutes, and you can be doing that. But a master musician, right? Someone who has actually dedicated their time and their life to learn and master an instrument, they've had to say no to so many things so they could master this instrument. But then, because they've mastered this instrument, they are free to do anything they want with that instrument. It is an unbelievable thing to see someone who is so skilled at that craft to do whatever they want. And for us as Christians, to be of solid character, it does. It takes hard work. It takes private work. It takes saying no to certain things to master our character. And when we have our character under control, when we have disciplined our lives and we have solid character, we are free to do anything. But it starts with being disciplined. So how do you know if you're putting it into practice appropriately, right? You read God's word, you read those 10 things, you're like, "I'm doing great." Well, this is where David is totally unique. Why I think he's such an amazing man and why he's a man of your God's own heart. And Psalm 19, as we continue going through that, it says this. "So by them your servant is warmed and keeping them there is great reward. But who can discern their own errors? Forgive me my hidden faults. Keep your servant from willful sins. And may they not rule over me. Then I will be blameless, blameless, innocent of great transgression. May these words in my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my rock, and my redeemer." What is so amazing about David is he's not only disciplined, but he actually has a reflective prayer life. A reflective prayer life is not God I pray for this, God help those people, God do this, God do that. A reflective prayer life is saying, God, turn the light on me. And not just to bless me, not just to help me, but turn the light on me and what is going on in my heart. How am I really doing? Reveal any blameless way in me. And Psalm 139 at the end of it, he says this, "Search me and know my heart. Test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there's any offensive way in me and lead me to the way everlasting." Who prays like that? I can tell you what, for 30 years of my life, I never prayed like that. I was all about praying for this person, praying for that person, praying for this thing, praying for that thing. But to actually stop, to actually be quiet, to actually say, "God, search me. Test me. Know me. Reveal any offensive way in me and then lead me on the way to everlasting life." That is a gnarly prayer. That is a scary prayer because the deal is when we become Christians, the Holy Spirit comes inside of us and the Holy Spirit is alive and he's active and he's transforming us. And we can dump cold water on that and we have this tiny little flame and the Holy Spirit's like, "I want to do stuff." We're like, "No, we just dump cold water on it." But the second we say, "God, search me. Test me. Know me." All of a sudden that fire burns and God reveals stuff and God transforms us. But it starts with us saying, "God, search me." A few years ago, I started doing a spiritual, I mean a spiritual director up in Santa Rosa and she told me about this really simple prayer exercise that I want to share with you. It's called the Prayer of Examen. It's super simple. People have been doing it for thousands of years. But for me in my Acts prayer that I learned in youth group, I never did the Prayer of Examen. And the Prayer of Examen is simply this. It's four questions. It's the end of the day you lie in bed. Most of us, that's easy, right? Then a day, you're in bed. Kids asleep, your wife starting to snore and you think this thing. These are the four questions. One, God, where were you today? Two, where did I listen and obey? Three, where did I turn the other way? And four, where did I miss it? In the first couple of times I did this prayer, I had to say, "Where are you today? I didn't see you. Where did I listen and obey? Well, I didn't see you. So how could I? Where did I turn it away? Why didn't I see you? So how could I? Where did I miss it? Oh, now to go through my whole day again. God, where did you show up? Because I missed it. God is alive and active in every moment of our lives. And I just happened to miss it. The prayer of Examen says, "God, where did you show up?" And we stop and we reflect and we examine. Then we go, "That's where you showed up." And then by you showing up, how did I respond when you showed up? Was I faithful and did what you wanted me to do or did I turn the other way? Oh, when I did what you wanted me to do, this is how it worked out. When I went the other way, this is how it worked out. And we begin to build a discipline. So we're not just disciplined and saying, "I don't do this. I don't do this." But then we become disciplined in our prayer life and the way that we think and the way that we reflect. And when we actually get in the habit of saying, "God, search me, test me, reveal any offensive way in me." God messes us up. And this is what happened to me. When after Mackenzie was born, we had two little kids now, and my wife, you know, she was trying to be faithful and be a good mom and have little kids. Let's be honest. She was not doing a good job. I'm sorry, I feel you weren't. And every day, I would pray to God, "God, help my wife. Help her, Lord." She's just had a kid and she's all self-absorbed and she's all worried about her kid all the time. And, you know, she's like, "What is going on?" Like, I have like this list of 100 things that she was just not doing well. And I'm like, "Come on, God. The Holy Spirit lives inside of her. I don't want to be the jerk husband and be like, maybe you should stop wearing sweatshirts all the time. You know, God, through your Holy Spirit, you need to tell her these things. And I'm going to be faithful and I'm going to prayer my guts out for that." All right, that's how I prayed for 30 years of my life. Super good at those prayers. The prayer of examined says, "Okay, God, whatever you're going to do with Katie, you're going to do with Katie. Search me. Test me. Know me. And I'm not going to lie. Like within a day and a half, God wrecked me. It's like he took these glasses, he broke them, he gave me these new glasses. And all of a sudden, I was horrified. I was horrified at the husband that I was, at the prayers that I was praying for Katie. All of a sudden, he showed me like it was like this like glimpse from heaven to go, "Hey, you want to know what your wife's doing? Show me her care for our kids. Show me her care for my friends. Show me her care for my family." Like I was like, "Oh my goodness. My wife is a saint. Wear more sweatshirts. I don't even care." Like, and I realized I am this total wreck of a person. I am so selfish and so self-absorbed and so fragile in such poor character. And that was just two days going, "God, search me. What's it going to be like? God, search me." And God, through his Holy Spirit, wrecked me and gave me brand new glasses for my wife. And thank you, those glasses are still on today. So the deal is that we have to be disciplined. We have to have a reflective prayer life because that is the only thing that's going to allow us to build good character. If not, I'm simply going to judge myself by the worst people around me and think I'm doing pretty good. A reflective prayer life says, "How am I really doing according to your standard, according to the call on my life?" Now, why I love David is if you know the story of David, David wasn't always super virtuous and didn't always have good character. David simply made three bad choices. That's it. All it takes is three bad choices for your whole life to spin apart. He decided not to go to battle one spring. According to all the other kings, he looks around, "How am I doing compared to all the other kings? I'm taking this battle off. It's cool. I'm tired. I'm 40 now. I'm a back hurts. Whatever." So he takes it off. He thinks that's an okay thing. That's one poor choice. But because he doesn't go to battle and because it's spring, he has more time to wander around. So he wanders around the rooftops. And what does he see? Some naked girl bathing. How rad is that? He's like, "Ah, a naked girl bathing. This is awesome." And because it's hot and it's the spring, it's happening a lot. And he looks at her. So he doesn't go to battle. He goes and looks at naked girl bathing. And then he goes, "I think I'd like to spend some time with her." You know what I mean? And so he uses his keenly power and influence to go and spend time with Bathsheba and ends up getting her pregnant. And now he's like, "I got her pregnant." And then he tried to cover up for it. And in the middle of trying to cover up for it ends up killing her husband. Right? So that's this whole dramatic story. It's this amazing story. And you're like, "How did this guy, the man after God's own heart, the person who loves God, who loves God word, who has this reflective prayer life, how in the world could he miss it? How could he miss it so badly that he has an affair and actually murders the wife's husband? Because it is so fragile. Character is so fragile. And it is so humbling to think all of us. Every single person in this room are three bad choices from totally screwing up and wrecking our lives. We're that close. And so this last thing, why David still didn't just become the biggest joke of history, but why he became the man after God's own heart is because he allowed space for godly counsel. So he goes and he kills Bathsheba's husband and Bathsheba's sad about her husband dying, but then when that time was over he takes Bathsheba to be his wife and he starts living his life. But then he gets a knock on the door. Second Samuel verse chapter 12 says this, "The Lord sent Nathan to David and when he came to him he said, 'There were two men in a certain town. One was rich in the other poor. The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle, but the poor man had nothing except one little U lamb that he bought. He raised it and he grew it up with him and his children had shared his food and drank from his cup and it even slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him. Well now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveler who had come to him. Instead, he took the U lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to visit him." So Nathan comes in, "Oh, Nathan, what's up? Tells him this story and this is David's reaction. David burned with anger against the man said to Nathan, as surely as the Lord lives, the man who did that must die." Look at David. He looks at that list of character stuffs, man. I'm a good king and I'm going to stand up for this poor guy that got oppressed. He is a good man of good character because when we start going down a messed up road, our eyes become blind. We stop being reflective. We don't really realize what we're doing. And David goes, "That guy is going to die." And I mean, poor Nathan, he's just like, "Oh man, don't say that. You're going down." So he says, "He must pay for that lamb four times over because he did such a thing and had no penny." And you can just see David all hot to trot. So excited, the prophet came to him with a problem that he's going to go and solve. But then Nathan must have been so rad to be Nathan. Nathan does this. Then Nathan said to David, "You are that man. This is what the Lord that God of Israel says. I anointed you king over David and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. I gave your masters house to you, your masters wives into your arm. I gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if all this had been too little, I would have even given you more. Why did you despise the word of the Lord in doing what is evil in his eyes?" And then Nathan just goes on and blasts him. Now David, being a good king, a good character, had every right to say, "Nathan, no one talks to the king that way. Guards cut his head off, put his head on a stake and stick in the front so that the whole city would know that no one speaks to the gods knowing to that way." He could have done that and would have been esteemed because according to the list of what it meant to be a good king, it fit that deal. But the reason why David is a man after God's own heart is simply because David said, "I have sinned against the Lord." And then Psalm 51 is this whole confession of David about how he is sinned. Because if we are going to be people of good character, we have to be disciplined. We have to get after it. We have to be people to have a reflective prayer life, say, "God, have your way with me." And we also have to allow people to speak truth into our lives. No one likes doing that. No one does that. In fact, it is so rare for someone to speak truth into each other's lives. If I have an issue or problem, I'm going to ask 100 people until I find the person who tells me what I already wanted to know, right? You guys probably don't do that, but I do that. I think, "What do I want? I'm going to ask people." And then when I find that one person, they go, "Oh, man, that person is so wise because they told me what I wanted to know." But God the Council comes in, says the hard things, and you receive that as someone coming from God. And what is so cool about our church, our church is full of people with good character and who hear and listen to God, the Council. I think of Sarah Cochrane is like that. I think David Christensen, you were for sure like that. John Beams and Pete Stout, and every Monday, they check in and they're like that. They speak into each other's lives. Amanda Milhahn kind of, you know, you don't see on the outside, but you are totally like that, right? You are someone who hears and listens to God's Council. We need people like that. I'm honored to be a part of a church where that is of value, but we need to do that because all of us, myself included, were three poor choices. We are three bad choices from ruining it all. We have to be disciplined. We have to do the silent behind-the-scenes work of being disciplined in our life, saying no to certain things. Having quiet times, reading scripture, being in Christian community, we have to be after those things. We have to have a reflective prayer life. We can't just pray for others. We need God to speak to us, to reveal the offensive ways in us. And man, when we start down that messed up road, when we start going and being wayward, we need people in our life to stop us and have the Nathans and say, "You are that man. You are that woman. We need those Nathans. We cannot shun those people. We cannot cut them out. We need those Nathans." When we do those things, then that characterless, we actually, those become hallmarks of our lives, and we become the solid Christians that God calls us to be, so that we can be people of influence, so that we can actually expand God's kingdom here on earth as it is in heaven. Let me pray for us. Heavenly Father, it is a daunting task to have to talk about character, because you know my heart, you know the hearts of people in this room, and we do love you, Jesus. We long to love you, Jesus. We long to honor you. And we strive to do the things that you ask us to do. But we screw up and we mess up, and sometimes it's been a long time since we even looked in the mirror. But God, I pray more and more, we'd be a community. We'd be a church of people that are full of Nathans. We are full of people who will speak godly truth into our life, so that our character continue to be refined. God, please protect me, protect us, protect our marriages, protect our families, protect our businesses, protect our very character God, so we don't need another Christian to be a laughingstock, but we need Christians to be people of good reputation, of good character, so that the world may see what a good god we serve. I'm so thankful for your gracious kindness for the way that you forgive us and heal us and allow us to strive and start again. So God may today be a new start for us as we today, day one, strive to be people with good character. And may all honor and glory be yours forever and ever.