MCC Podcasts
Band of Brothers
Did you hear Art made it sound like he was, you know, like he had better stuff to do, but he's going to hang around because the sermon was so good to hear that. Like, what do you got to do, bro? You paid to be here. I mean, it wasn't, I appreciated the sentiment, it just wasn't a huge compliment, you know. Now he's gone. Hey, Greg, Greco and I, Greco and I are watching the Broncos game at his house. So after church, anybody wants to come, come on, Tebow time, baby, let's hear it. Dude, we so love Tebow, is that just, alright, that's not my sermon. Our text this morning is in Exodus because that's where we've been. Sorry, I choked on my spit when I talked about Tebow. Hey, let's turn the house lights on if we can't beat so people can have their Bibles out. So, we are coming to the end of our adventure series and we've been going through studies in the book of Exodus and I want to read this text to start with from Exodus 17. You know, there was a few things that happened in this section of Scripture that I wanted to preach on and I, you know, I was excited about, you know, since Art Sermon last week on, he didn't really leave it, did he? Is he sitting with Brenda? He did, he left, he's gone. There he is. Alright, Art, great sermon last week, that was no kidding, I'm not just blown smoke, it was awesome. And that was on this, you know, one of those biggest adventures in Exodus which was the crossing, the parting and the crossing in the Red Sea, fabulous, awesome sermon. And, you know, and then we get into the story goes they get through the Red Sea and then they step into the desert, like God's big miracles and then the next thing is they're in a desert and then they're struggling and then they're thirsty and it's just this couple of stories that just start right on the heels of that and we almost get to the text I'm going to read to you in just a minute and there was other kinds of stuff in there, thanks, that's more things for me to choke on, that's perfect day, I appreciate that. Give me a second. So there's other things in there to preach on, you know, like one of the things is that they had only been out there a few days, they got thirsty, they didn't have any water and they all started grumbling. You remember that story in the Exodus story, God does the most amazing miracle and then they go out and get into the desert which is, we could have preached on that, they got into the desert. You ever seen God do a miracle and then you wonder the next week or the next season, hello, where are you, you know, right, we could have preached on that and then they start grumbling because they don't have any water and they want to go back to where they were before, you know, like we could have had that sermon, could have been the, you know, the, on every adventure there's people who find something to complain about, right, we could have done that sermon, but you know who you are. So we didn't have to do that. So then we get to this text and this text is the Exodus 17 text where their enemies now show up. Now we'll talk about this in a minute, but come on, really, big giant miracle, come through end up in the desert, people start grumbling, they don't have anything to drink, they find some water and then that's bitter and then God asked to do a miracle to give them some clean water and then their enemies show up. Hey, this is good news, we're preaching, isn't it? Let's look at the text, I went to the look of me, Exodus 17, verses 8 and following. The Amalekites came and they attacked the Israelites at Raphietum. Moses said to Joshua, "Choose some of our men and go out to fight the Amalekites, tomorrow I will stand on top of the hill with the staff of God in my hands." So Joshua fought the Amalekites as Moses had ordered and Moses, Aaron and her, went to the top of the hill. As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning, but when every lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning. When Moses' hands grew tired, they took a stone and they put it under him and he sat on it. Aaron and her held his hands up, one on one side, one on the other, so that his hands remained steady till sunset. And so Joshua overcame the Amalekite army with the sword to make God add his blessing to the reading of his word. You may be from a tradition when somebody says that, then you say after that, when I say, "May God add his blessing to the reading of his word," you can say, "Anybody know? Thanks be to God, or amen, yeah, or right on, dude, or whatever." Your tradition is, but I like to "Thanks be to God," because it's God's word to us. You want to do that just for fun? Anybody? Anyone? "May God add his blessing to the reading of his word." Somebody said, "Right on." I knew it. I knew the dude. Smart Alex in the back. All right. Here's the adventure series we're in. Can I do a little re-adventure-re-introduction to adventure? And then a re-introduction to advent. We're doing this adventure series. It's not just about a crazy adventure. It's not just about being like, "Let's do something wild and crazy." The adventure refers to the nature, the being out of controlled nature of actually walking with a very real God. The adventure is that we've said to Jesus, "Will you take our lives and you guide me? You make me into the man I need to be, the woman I'm supposed to be, the calling that I'm supposed to have, the places I'm supposed to go. And you give me the power to do it, God, and you lead, I will follow wherever you go, whatever you call me to, that my life is now your life." That's the adventure. The adventure of following Christ and being out of control as people who say, "Whatever you want from me, I'm in." That's the adventure. And the adventure is because we don't know what's around the corner. We don't know what the next step is. We don't know if we're going to have the power and the strength to do that God calls us to do, but God shows up and brings it. That's the adventure. So this is why we've been preaching on adventure, rediscovering adventure. It's not just about thrill seeking, it's saying, "What would it be like if I gave my life to the Lordship of Jesus Christ and He took me where I need to go and made me who I need to be?" And man, give me a little amen for that. So that's what the adventure is about. And now we kept it going during the Advent season. And we thought, "Well, I heard Ben joke, and it wasn't here, but I heard it on tape." We don't really have tape anymore. I heard it online. Ben's sermon about this adventure doesn't seem super Christmassy, the jungle fame unless you're going to Fiji for Christmas, but we kept it going because this grand adventure of what God did and this adventure of us now meeting Jesus, because Advent is the story of Jesus coming. Do you know what Advent means? Does anybody know what the word Advent means? Anybody got dictionary on their thing? It means arrival. It means arrival. It means something's coming. We do the Advent wreath. You know what this is all about? You know why we do this? This lighting of each candle, you got this in you? Can I do a little history lesson, a little story? You want to do this? This is not an ancient symbol. This is probably only about three, four, five hundred years old at the most. But this Advent wreath, we light the candles, the light is increasing one week after another as a symbol of the waiting that God's people went through as they longed for the Savior, the Messiah to come. And as God's people waited, there's a past element to this, isn't it? We're celebrating that story of God's lining up the story of salvation, the people in the world getting that they needed a Savior and then Jesus coming. And so as we celebrate Jesus' birth, we wait for Jesus. It's a symbol. It's a series of weeks. It's a season of us waiting for Jesus and we light each candle like week one and week two and week three. That's what we do. There's three purple ones and a pink one. Do you see that? The Christ candles in the middle will light that Christmas Eve saying that he has come. But there's three candles that are purple, one that's pink. The three purple ones represent royalty, the King Jesus, the King of all kings is coming. It also represents repentance or penitence. So there's a solemnity to the season as we wait and we say, oh God, we need you. The sins of the whole world need your forgiveness and your redemption. And so we wait for you. And so one week we light a candle and the next week more light and we light another candle. The next week we light another candle. We lit the pink candle last week because in the middle of the solemnity there's a tradition that happens somewhere along the line where one of the popes or whatever thought, man, you people are heavy as they were going through these seasons of waiting for God and saying, yes, our sin needs a savior and yes, God, look what you've done and we're humble and we give our lives to Christ. And so he started giving out pink roses about the third week into it to tell everybody light up. It's a celebration too. And so we now have a pink candle in our advent. Did you know that's what it's for? It's the party week. Did you know last week was the party week? And none of you partied, you all freaked out that you hadn't done your Christmas shopping and that it was getting late. Third week in advent for us is I've missed the deadline to now shop online. Things aren't going to get here in time and you've missed it all. But that was last week. But you can go ahead and take it into a whole other week. But that's the pink candle and then the fourth candle and then the Christ candle. It's a season of waiting for Christ to come, advent. Did you notice that advent and adventure are the same, they're the same root word? It's from the Latin word that means something is about to happen. Is that not good? Because in advent, something's going to happen. Christ is coming and that's the past, but we also say Christ is coming again. That's the second advent. And so this season is just a symbol for us that we wait for Christ to come then. And there's a present aspect. We wait for him to come now. Come on Jesus, come into my life on this adventure that I'm on where you need to show up, to lead me and guide me and empower me and make me the man that I'm supposed to be. You show up now God. Come show up. Something's about to happen. You get the advent part and the adventure part. This is the season that we celebrate. It's the sermon series that we're celebrating that something's going to happen, that God's going to show up and that's the season that we're in right now. Well, did I read the text? Yeah. I did. So, the sermon this morning, the rest of the sermon this morning, is I want to focus on this one aspect of this adventure, this one aspect. If you don't get anything, here's my title this morning. Living out this adventure, this Jesus being with us, is going to require a band of brothers and sisters. It's going to require a band of brothers and sisters. Living this deal out where we say, "Jesus, something's got to happen. You come and you show up from me. I'm going to go where you want me to go. I'm going to be who you need me to be. I'm going to be faithful to the tasks that you've called me to. God, you show up for me. Something's going to happen. You come." That adventure requires, as this text shows us, a band of brothers and sisters to be around us, a band of brothers, a posse, your peeps, yo, yo, what else do you want to call it? A band, your group, your, what? Your gangsters. Does somebody really say that? Your homies, it requires, living out this thing requires that those people around you. When you see that in the text, that's what this story is telling us. This adventure needs, this adventure of living for Jesus needs to have people around us. And we kind of get that at Christmas. We sort of get that at Christmas because at Christmas we start to reflect on the deepest and richest things, this advent. Oh, you come, Jesus. You came to be our Savior. We wait for you now to come and we wait for you to come again. That waiting time at Christmas, we sort of, we start to think of the deepest things in life and they're super rich for us because we're gathered around with the people that we love, aren't we? I mean, that's what Christmas memories are so great about is this, the people that are with us, the people around us, the collective deal. I think last year we showed a video of a hallelujah, chorus, flash mob in a mall in Canada. And like half of us were crying at the end of it because it was like, that was so beautiful. There was just this sense of all of us together and recognizing the deepest things of life. You know that feeling? That's what we're doing here. So we're doing Christmas Eve together. We're all together in this thing. We kind of get this, that the deepest things we require people around us. Well, the text teaches us some truths about this that I want to go into a little bit further. This teaches, this text is one of the many places that says we got to have people with us on this journey. Here's a few truths and we're going to get to the last one at the end. And that's the one that requires this band of brothers, this band of sisters with us. But here's some lead-in stuff. The truth is about Exodus 17, about living this adventure of Jesus leading us to be the people that we were called to be. Number one, every season of life is a battle. Do you see that in the text? Do you see that in the first verse of that text in verse eight? The Malachites came and attacked the Israelites at Raphidim. That's the first verse of this deal. Every season of life is a battle. Every season of life, we've got this struggle at hand. Whenever you see the struggle in the Bible, you see the battle motif, you see the war story, you're like, what is that? Well, there's a lot going on there. God was preparing a people for himself from whom the Messiah would come. But there's also this symbolism in all these battle stories because that's what life is like for us. Life just doesn't come and flow easy, we give our lives to Christ, everything's great. When God shows up and does miracles in our lives, we then start entering into the battle of staying engaged in being the people that God's called us to be. Anybody see that it's a battle, that it's difficult? And we go, maybe it's just not working for me. No, friends, here's how it works. It works that way for everybody. God does great things. The sea parts you walk through on dry land and then you get thirsty and then the enemies show up. I got to tell you the truth and I didn't want this to be point number one. It's like a super negative merry Christmas everybody lives a battle. At first gathering, I'm like, wow, that was way heavier than I wanted it to be. But it's true. We have an enemy of our souls, Satan and the whole demonic forces who come to break your heart, that you will not stay in the battle of acknowledging God and becoming the person that God has for you to be. That's our life. That's the journey that we're on. If we do not come to Christ, then we can stay along and he's like, you know what, cool, that person's not doing anything significant in the kingdom of God, I'm all good. But when you find that there's battle in your life and it's one struggle after another, I'm here to tell you that's part of how it's supposed to be. That's part of the way it works because when you're God's woman, when you're God's man, when you lit up the call that God has on your life, you become a target for all of the forces of evil so that it will break your resolve to be the kingdom of God in this world. Do you understand that? I'm sorry. That's such a happy merry Christmas. But life is a battle and you see that in these kinds of texts. You see that in this particular text, it says, okay, so here they are. They got blindsided of another passage about this situation tells us in Deuteronomy. It says when they came out of the desert and they were worn out, the enemies circled behind them and knocked them off their feet. That's the way it feels to us sometimes. We get attacked. So that's the truth we got to deal with. It's a reality and it's going to lead us somewhere. Every season of life is a battle. Number two, everybody has a significant job. If you look at this text, everybody has a significant job in it. Look at verses 9 and 10 in the text. So Moses says to Joshua, now up to two people, choose some of our men. There's a whole bunch of other people. And go out and fight the Amalekites and tomorrow I'm going to stand on top of the hill with the staff of God in my hands. So Joshua fought the Amalekites as Moses had ordered and Moses, Aaron, and her went to the top of the hill. Everybody had a job to do in this deal. Each of these guys had something significant to do in what was happening. Moses got a call in his life to do something for God. They got attacked. He better go fight. Moses took charge and everybody had a job in this thing. Everybody is going to have a job in this life of living for God, this adventure that we're in. Nobody gets to be on the sidelines. Everybody's got a part in it. And some of you go, you know, I don't really have a part in that thing. The guys up front have a thing. My wife kind of carries that deal for me. I don't really have a part. You know what? Everybody has a part. You see it in this text. The adventure of living for Jesus requires all of us and everybody doing their thing. And that's a whole bunch of other sermons. But I want you to notice that each of the guys had a different job. I love the fact that, and this is one of my favorite things about this passage, and I've preached this passage. I've preached a different sermon on this passage a couple years ago. But one of my favorite insights about this is that he goes, "Okay, well, they got attacked. They're at war. They better go do some battle." So Moses says to Joshua, "As a good leader, hey, you take some people and go fight and I'm going to go up on top of the hill. Is that just the best?" I said to Artverse Gathering, and I'm like, "And thus began every senior pastor I've ever met." He's like, "You guys go down there where they got sharp sticks and they're getting poked in the eye and I'm going to be up and acknowledge God." You know? It's like really? That's your job. Apparently, it ended up being a very important part of the deal. But everybody had their own job and we're going to talk for a minute about what Aaron and her did, which is a very cool part of this deal. Everybody had a job. I also don't want you to miss God had a job in this deal. It's one of the passages that shows us in Scripture this eternal truth, that God in His sovereignty does the work, but He always calls people in and everybody gets a significant job. And together things happen and it's never one or the other. And so when we live our Christianity thinking, "Well, God kind of does this thing and I just sort of skate. That's never true." Or well, we got to work and we got to do this and we got to do that or the other thing. That's never about us. It's always about God in His work, His power, His glory, His fame. And so everybody gets a job, Moses, Aaron, the guys that are fighting Joshua and God Himself. Everybody's got a job. So every season of life is a battle. Everybody has a significant job. Three, every adventure is about dependence. Every adventure is about dependence and it's about dependence on God. Look at verse 11 in the text. As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning. But when every lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning. Every adventure is about dependence on God. When Moses held up his hands, they were winning. What's holding up his hands about? This is this picture of Moses standing on top of the hill over the battlefield, acknowledging the power and the glory and the presence of the very real true Almighty Yahweh God over them. He declared it. He acknowledged it. He recognized it. He was humble. He was depending upon it. He was crying out for it. This was the symbol of it. You with me on this? Come on. Something's about to happen is advent, is adventure. Something's about to happen and it's got to be about God. And so Moses is the symbol of Moses standing there. He held his hands up. And as long as he could acknowledge God and worked with God and waited for God and begged for God and was humbled before God, then they were winning the battle the text says. But when his arms were lowered and the symbol here is, he wasn't acknowledging God. He wasn't dependent on God's power and desperate for God's presence. He wasn't recognizing that it was for God's glory. The implication is he was then strategizing and looking at battle and giving signals and directing things and he was in control of the adventure. When that happened, they started to lose. You see the symbol? And what else did he have in his hands as he acknowledged God? What did he have in his hands? He had a staff. What was his staff? What is his staff? It's a big stick. Yeah, exactly. You guys are smart. And the big stick came from where? What did Moses do when he got his call from God? You know? He was a shepherd. He was tending sheep to his father-in-law's place and he had a staff and a staff is something you get to poke a sheep with when they're doing stupid things. And he had this thing. And so it's this symbol of this is what you bring to the table, now we know in all the chapters before this as well, earlier when he got his call, God said, "What's that in your hand?" He goes, "This is my staff." Remember that? And God goes, "Throw it on the ground." Through on the ground became a snake. God's like, "See, I get a million of these. Watch this." And God did some powerful stuff and then with the plagues, he'd hit the Red Sea. I mean, he'd hit the Nile River with it and okay, and this was the proof of God's power that he took something, he took a shepherd's staff and make it an instrument of God's unbelievable world-changing miracles. So the symbol is you go before God and you stand with what you got. You know, it's a diaper bag for some of you. It's a high school diploma. It's a calculator. You go before God, he goes, "This is all I got. This is all I bring to the table." But I'm calling and acknowledging and depending and crying out for the power and the glory of God to be at work, and he goes, "Oh, by the way, have you not seen what I've done with that diaper bag? Have you not seen what I've already done with what you've put your hands to in the past? You hold it up. So as Moses stood acknowledging God, he could see the staff and he thought, "Man, I saw that thing turn into a pick and snake once. God can do anything. This is us, friends. Every adventure is a dependence on God. And when we say you're it, it's for you, it's by you, it's about you and I need you, something's going to happen." Then the battle gets won. We become who we're supposed to be. We live the lives that we were called to live and the glory of God gets manifest in the world. Come on, church. This is all of us. But when we lose it and forget and we start micromanaging the battles and living by our own power and wondering about our own comfort and about our own glory and about our own issues, we lose the battles. This is the picture in this. This is the picture of this whole idea. This is our walk with God. Every season is a battle and everybody has a job in that battle, and that battle is always about the dependence on God and then this thing. Look at the numbers. That is awesome. That's our tech people making a joke because I, the first service, I had numbered those and they were numbered wrong and now they've numbered them wrong again differently just to group with me. Every super, every super, look at their cracking up, it's tech humor. But every superstar gets tired. We're to be dependent on God, we're to acknowledge what God's done, but everybody gets tired. Superstars get tired. You think to yourself, you know what, this thing doesn't work for me. I'll let the people who seem to have all the passion for Jesus, all the unbounded energy. You know what, I ramp up for you once a week and you go, man, that's a guy who looks like he can be all fired up for God and that doesn't work for me. So I'll let him do the Jesus stuff and I won't. You know what? Everybody gets tired and Moses, verse 12 in here, the beginning of verse 12 just says those simple words after talking about Moses lifting his hands or lowering his hands. It says when Moses hands grew tired, the superstar got tired. He had been given an incredible task to do for God. He was to live for the Lord. He was to be God's man in this place and he got tired. He was not able to keep his hands up. You guys, I want to talk about that because this reality when we acknowledge God and things go the way they're supposed to go become God's people and when we forget, the difference between those two are usually not us saying, thumbing our noses at God and going, you know what, forget it. I don't want to be righteous. I want to be a jerk. Like, I know so many of you in this room and I know none of you are going, you know what? Forget God. I just want to do my thing. Some of us do that. We do that in moments. We do it when it feels good to do it and I know all that. But most of the time would you not agree that most of the time this battle is being won or being lost by the fact that sometimes we just get tired. It's hard to walk with God. It's hard to lean into the spirit. It's hard to lean into confession of sin. It's hard to listen to God's voice. It's hard to understand what God's word is saying to me today. It's hard to keep my tongue. It's hard to be patient. It's hard to believe sometimes that something's going to happen. You with me on this and we get tired. And that's what the text says when his hands grew tired. And that's why this whole sermon is leading to this point, which is that every adventurer needs a band of brothers and sisters around him. Seven's a holy number. That'd be number seven. That's the complete truth right there. Because we get tired. All these truths lead to one another. This is a battle we're in to be God's people, to be the man and the women that God has called us to be. And everybody's got a job in that. And we have to be dependent on God. And so when we acknowledge God, that's what it's about. But everybody gets tired. And so we need people on the journey with us when we're too tired to do what we need to do to be who we need to be. And this is who we need to be. It's about acknowledging God. When you look at this, the rest of verse 12, so when Moses' hands grew tired, they took a stone and they put it under him and he sat down on it. Aaron and her held his hands up one on one side and one on the other side so that his hands remained steady till sunset. So Joshua overcame the Amalekites with the sword. Joshua was able to win the battle because Moses was able to continue to acknowledge God because his posse got around him and helped him persevere. You with me on that? You don't miss anything. I don't know. What else you got in here? Whatever you're going to remember this morning, the battle was won because Moses' friends helped him when he got tired, helped him continue to acknowledge God. This was acknowledging God. He got tired. Then they held up his hands physically, said, "No, no. What you were about was true. The man that you wanted to be was true and right. The goals that you had were given from God and that was truth and righteousness. The things that you've heard God say to do, that's exactly right. When they encouraged him to do that, they helped him keep his fight going. They helped him acknowledge God." That's what the other brothers and sisters did, two quick specifics about how they did this. Number one, I want you to look and see. It says that he kept his arms, his hands, so his hands remained. What's that word? Do you see it? Steady until sunset. You see that? They kept his hands steady till sunset. You know what that they helped him stay the course with what he knew was right. That word steady, it's a Hebrew word that nearly everywhere else in the Old Testament, it's translated faithfulness. They helped him be faithful to what he was supposed to be and who he was supposed to be. He had a vision for what it looked like to be a man of God. He had a vision for what it looked like to live a life sold out for God's work and these people came and said, "You will be faithful and we will help you be faithful." And without us, you will not be faithful, but you're going to be faithful to it. Is that not a great word? They helped his hands remain faithful in his acknowledging and crying out and depending on God. Come on, that's what we need from one another. In fact, the only other place that most of the other places that this is used in the Old Testament, it's used of God. His compassion's are new every morning. It is your faithfulness, true to who you said you were going to be. That's who God is. And in this, Moses was true to who he dreamed to be, who he longed to be, who God called him to be, the man and the vision and the tax that God put in front of him. He was faithful. They helped him to be steady and to fulfill the vision that God had given him. Man, we got this thing going on all over our church. You know that? We have this all over our church, this kind of language. I love men's ministry because the men's ministry uses words like this. If they're gutsy enough to get into the deal, they use these kinds of words. They get up front after men's fraternity and they line up front and they say, "We wrote our manhood plans." Do you remember that? We got to be up front and we celebrated the manhood plans. Can you believe some people wrote a manhood plan? Is that not awesome? The manhood plan was this is who God made me to be. This is who God put in my life to love and encourage and strengthen. This is the kind of stuff I got to do. This is stuff I got to not do. It's all out on paper. Here you go, guys. Everybody gets a copy. My manhood plan. We're taking 40-day challenge of loving our wives. These guys are all intentional about strengthening one another and all this. I was thinking about all this and I asked Vinnie, if I could share this, do you guys know Vinnie Lamica? Vinnie is right here. Vinnie and Cindy are right here. They have an embarrassment. You just stand up so everybody knows who you are because that's awful. See, this guy is Vinnie and Cindy. This is not about Vinnie or Cindy, but you know what? I call him because I go, you're a guy that comes to mind when I'm thinking about this point in my sermon because he's a guy who has learned this language and uses this language from the beginning where he goes, I know the man that God has for me to be and I need some help getting there. I need my band of brothers. I need my band of sisters, his wife, Cindy, is in that. I need these guys. I know what it's going to be like to be a father and I carry my baggage and I get tired and I'm not the man always that I want to be, but I need some people around me and to hear him talk about his dreams for the ministry that God has for him, for the purity that he can live in, for the husband that he can beat to Cindy, to the father that he can beat to his kids and his step-kids and I mean, this is a guy who said, I know what it would look like and I can't get there without men in my life. I need people around me to hold me steady because man, I get tired, I get tired, I can't be the man that I'm supposed to be without people around me. What did Moses' friends do? They helped him get steady. They helped him be faithful. Then he's friends in his story as filled with groups of guys who said, no, no, bro, you will be faithful to who you're supposed to be. And the second thing that these guys did, they helped him be faithful, steady. And also, I can't miss this, they did something super material and practical, didn't they? Super practical. They got in there and they held up Moses' hands and they put a shoved a rock under his bottom so that he could stand up longer. These are guys that did not jump into his world with a bunch of platitudes and go, you know what, things are going to be okay, I guess. Or they weren't also people stood at a distance and said, have you checked out Moses, dude, he's looking a little tired. He's struggling a bit, don't you think? Let's put that on the prayer chain, you know, I mean, they didn't do that. They jumped in there and they helped him, they didn't come in and condemn him, they didn't come in a distance ago. Well, he needs his privacy. They didn't have a pseudo friendship, they didn't go, hey, bro, how's it going? They jumped in and stuck something under his butt and propped him up and took to put him on both of his arms and held him up and said, you will acknowledge God, you stay faithful, you wait for something's going to happen. And they jumped in and they helped him. When I was asking Vinny about the guys that, you know, about his story, he started mentioning guys, not only could he tell me the exact guys that are in his life, he could tell me what they offered to his life. I mean, he was, and I started taking notes at my desk because I was asking, hey, can I use you as an illustration? He said no. And then, you know, he started talking about these guys, like he goes, he goes, you guys know Rick Rager, his Rick Rager over here by the kitchen. He goes, Rick Rager is a guy who will hold me accountable. Rick thinks strategically. So when I share goals and objectives and like Rick goes, okay, I'm in and then asks me about him and then encourages me to continue to meet those things and he's faithful to help me meet them. But there's an accountability there. He goes, Mike Schimman's been in my life from the very beginning of me trying to walk with God in this church. He goes, Mike Schimman's a guy who demonstrates to me the grace of God because he listens and he accepts me and he gets what I'm going through. And that strengthens me when I'm with him. He goes, cold-bolter. Do you guys know, coz-- right here, coz in this church, he goes, cold-bolter, if you know cold, this makes sense. He goes, cold-bolter is a guy who has the courage to tell me the hard stuff. He tells me, dude, you shape up. This is true. Now, you, you know, you raise the bar and you go after it. Is that not right? Is that not sound like Cody, you guys? Like this is the stuff that he brings to the table. This is what coz does for me. He challenged me. That's courage to do it. Dale Tate, who's playing bass up here, Dale, and he goes, Dale inspires me to keep going, to persevere, to keep asking for help, to be told, no, this is true. He goes, I have this friend, Jeff, who I just met, who's also here this morning, Jeff came. He goes, Jeff is a guy who reminds me, inspires me to say these things that you're about are right. And when you get tired or when you forget or when you get confused or when you get sick of trying, these are right. This is who you're to be. He knew what all these guys brought to him. These friends, Moses' friends, got in and did something real and practical in his life so that he could be dependent on God and continue to live this journey, this adventure of all that God called him into, which he never could have done without their help. Because every adventurer needs the band of brothers and sisters around to say, "Let me help you continue to acknowledge God and be God's man. Be God's woman." I'm going to have the band come up and I just want to give you a couple quick thoughts and challenges here as we end this morning. We're going to light the advent candle and sing this song, this advent song we've been singing. Friends, if these things are true, very, very quickly as the band comes up, here's a thought. Number one, if this is true, we all need one another in these ways to acknowledge God and live out this adventure, you've got to look around and see whose hands are falling. You've got to look around and figure out who it is that God has called you to serve and to minister to. Are you dabbling in people's lives but do not bring the help of a band of brothers and sisters to somebody else so that they can continue to acknowledge the power and the presence and the glory of God? Who's God put in your world that you're to serve and call to those things? Good buddy gets a job and God wants to use you to strengthen somebody's arms. Do you know who it is? Second implication challenge, you've got to get really honest, really fast about when you're tired, when you get tired. If this is true, the lives of battle and it's about dependence and everybody gets tired and we need people around us to get us through those things to continue to acknowledge God and be the men and women we're called to be. Do you cry out to those folks? Do they know it? Are you in relationships in ways that people know that you're tired and that you need them? Because lastly we need a plan about that and that's what Moses did in the text. Moses goes here's the deal and this is what Vinnie has done in his life friends and many, many others in this room. Vinnie has said this going is going to be tough because to be the man that God called me to be with my baggage and with my tiredness just like all of us and I'm going to do it right friends and I'm going to need you. This is not going to be easy and so I'm going to need you and I'm going to need you and I'm going to need you and he gathered his band of brothers around him and had a plan so that when the going got tough and when he got tired he had people holding up his arms. Do you have that plan? Have you just dabbled in people's lives but don't have brothers and sisters that will go the distance so that you become all that God has for you? May that be our challenge as we say in the advent, "Something's got to happen God you don't come and meet me to live this life, bring me people, bring me people to do it with me." May that be our prayer and our challenge. We're going to sing our advent song.