The wise benefit from those who are a few steps ahead of them in their journey.
Chadron Bible Church Podcast
Enlisting the Help of Guides - Selected Scriptures (The Journey of Life series)
(soft music) - Welcome to Shadron Burian Church, where we wanna have deep roots in Christ and in God's Word so that we will bear fruit for God. Helping others to follow Jesus as well. Find us at Shadron Burian.org or on other platforms under Shadron Burian. Thanks for joining us. (soft music) (soft music) Earlier this summer, I was up in Rapid City. As many of you know, I've kind of been getting into the backpacking world a little bit, something new to me. And I was up in Rapid City. I went to a little store downtown and I was looking around at all the backpacking gear, I really had no idea what I was looking at. I'm a hunter, I'm a camper, I'm an outdoorsman, but when you get into the backpacking section, it's another world. It's very unique gear. And there's a lot of different options to choose from. And so as I'm looking around and I'm getting kind of overwhelmed by all of the options that are there, this older gentleman who worked there comes up to me and he says, "Hey, can I help you?" And I went, "Yes, you can." And to be quite honest, I was feeling a little vulnerable because depending upon this guy's character, I thought he's either gonna really help me or he's gonna know that I don't have a lot of experience backpacking and he's gonna be the salesman and he's gonna try to sell me on everything. And so I was honest with him, I felt a little vulnerable, but I said, "You know, I'm just getting into backpacking and I don't know what to bring. I don't know what to put in my pack, honestly." And just wondering if he could help me. And I was pleasantly surprised by his answer when he said, "Actually, I have a lot of experience backpacking I've been doing it for decades." And if this store was smarter or wiser, they wouldn't have hired me because I'm not a salesman. I'm just an old cowboy. And so I'll do my best to help you work through what this item claims to do for you and what it really does. Because I mean, if you're looking at water, like tools for backpacking, they have a whole section for like different types of water, bottles and dispensers and things like that. Like, you know, how to get water out of a stream. Do you put a thing on your bottle or do you get these drip bags? And there were so many options, right? And his advice, by the end of his advice, I went, "Well, that was his experience "and his advice was really helpful. "And it really helped me." And in the same way, like, as his journeys, like he told me, he's like, "I went on this journey, "I tried this, it didn't work, and now I use this." Okay, and so his experience really helped me in my own journeys. And I thought, "Well, that applies really well to life, "doesn't it? "People who have more experience than us "who have gone before us, "their journey can really help us, "those who are a few steps behind them, right? "The up and comers." And so that's what we want to look at this morning. We're gonna look at four principles for enlisting the help of guides in our lives. You might call it mentors, guides, whatever you want to call it. But the first one is Pound and Proverbs one, if you want to turn there with me. Proverbs chapter one, verse five, it gives us our first principle, and it's that we just need to understand our need for guidance to begin with, to understand your need for guidance. Proverbs one five says, "A wise man will hear an increase in the learning. "A man of understanding will acquire wise counsel, "or as the, I think it's the ESV says, "the one who understands will obtain guidance." Before you ever set out on a journey of any kind, it doesn't matter if you're traveling in a car, it doesn't matter if you're doing the backpacking thing. You're gonna seek guidance, kind of like I did, right? You're gonna wanna know not just where you're gonna go, but actually how to get there and how to walk through that journey, how to walk through life maybe. I think of Tony Dungy's words quite often, his illustration when he says, he's the old coach of the Indianapolis Colts, but he said, you know, when we're, when we go to play a football game, we prepare, we put in a ton of hours preparing for that one game every week. We are disciplining ourselves to eat right, to be fit, we watch film, we get to know the other team, and we come up with a game plan based on that, and he says how crazy it is that in life, some of us, you know, how crazy it is that we'll approach a football game that way, but when it comes to life, we won't put a game plan together. We won't seek guidance for it. And what Proverbs 1.5 is saying is that if you are wise, if you're a wise person, you're gonna seek advice, you're gonna obtain guidance. The contrast would be that a fool doesn't. Proverbs often contracts the wise with the foolish, and so the fool would not seek guidance. He wouldn't reach out to anybody who's been there, done that, and because of that, would be susceptible to pitfalls and traps along the journey. I read a quote this week that said, mistakes are your best mentors. And I thought, yeah, that's so true. I love my mistakes, looking back, because they teach me for the rest of my life, very powerfully, but then I wanted to qualify it, or modify that to say mistakes are, you know, really good mentors, but we don't want them to be our only mentors. Like why should we have to learn everything the hard way? Why not reach out and seek guidance? If you turn to Proverbs 11, 14, we'll look at another principle. Proverbs 11, 14, just a few pages there. And it's to seek an abundance of guides. That's the second principle. Seek an abundance of guides. Where there is no guidance, the people fall, but in an abundance of counselors, there is victory or safety. So again, it just reinforces the idea that if we don't seek guidance, that we're susceptible to those pitfalls, to those traps, a people, that's where people fall, right? But the wise person is gonna seek an abundance of counselors, plural, not just one, but actually more, they're gonna reach out to more than one person, seeking guidance. And because of that, they're blessed, they're kept from harm because of it. Going back to my entrance into the backpacking world, that day, I was flat out honest with that guy. I said, look, I don't have a friend or a mentor in this area. I don't know who to talk to, but I'm glad the Lord brought you into my life, basically, I should have said. But, 'cause he was really helpful. But I didn't just stop there, and I didn't buy everything he told me to. I went home, and I approached the wisdom on YouTube, obviously. Some of it's really helpful, some of it's not, though. But either way, I'm learning, and I'm learning, there's a ton of backpackers on there who are sharing their advice. They're saying, hey, here's what I take with me. This is what I do, and yes, some of 'em are different, depending on the kind of journey they're taking, or their preferences, but I learned a lot from that. And I got an overall idea, a general idea of what I should break and how much I should carry, how much should be in my pack, basically. But, not just one person, but looking for many. When it comes to a boxer in a ring, when a boxer steps into the ring, we tend to think that they're alone, right? And they are, they're gonna fight one-on-one with a guy, but every boxer has a team in his corner to encourage him and to advise him. A boxer will go into a fight, you know? And he may know, you know, it's one thing to be in a fight and know, to be like watching a fight and know what a boxer should do, or a football game or something like that, but it's quite another thing to actually be in a ring and fighting, right? Because it's like Mike Tyson said, everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face. (laughs) Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face. You know, going back to my boxing days, I'm not a brawler anymore, I gave that up a long time ago. But, in high school, me and my buddies, right? Just having a good time, we're in the basement, put the gloves on, just for fun. Me and my best friend, actually. And, I had it planned out, you know? He was gonna throw that big right punch and I was gonna duck and uppercut and, you know, go at him. But, he drilled me, (laughs) and my game plan went out the window 'cause it knocked me kind of silly. You ever got hit like that and you get kind of dizzy and you're like, you don't even know, remember where you're at for a second and you gotta bring yourself back together? Well, life is a lot like that, right? We get drilled. We take some punches and in life, if you're taking punches, man, it can get disorienting. And you can start to make really poor decisions. And what you need is people in your corner to advise you, to encourage you and to sort of level you out, I guess you could say, to bring back, bring you back into focus, maybe help you interpret a certain situation properly 'cause when you're in the thick of it sometimes, it's like when you get lost in the wilderness, it's really easy for your emotions to take over and you just forget the fundamentals. Like what is this really all about? Right, and so tapping people in your corner is critical and I'm always looking for more people like that. I don't know about you, but I'm always looking for more people like that, more people to bounce information off of, more people to acquire wisdom from. I don't, I just, I've actually expressed my grief about not having enough people like that before that I wish were there. But get some people in your corner. If you flip to chapter 13, this is a really close proverb, chapter 13, verse 20, really nearby. It reinforces this idea of just, surrounding yourself with wise people, chapter 13, verse 20, he who walks with wise men will be wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm. So if you want to live well, if you want to finish well, what should we do? What should you do? Well, you ought to look around at others who are living well and who are on track to finish well and just go to them and say, hey, can you teach me a thing or two? What have you been through in life? Like, I'm in this situation, have you ever been through anything like it? What can, you know, so you just sort of, it's a mentor-mentee relationship. Surround yourself with wise people, try to avoid some of the pitfalls, some of the traps. I think we all know of people in our lives we can think of, maybe it's ourselves at times, where we were on track, we were on the right track, we were going somewhere healthy, we had so much potential, and then we got into the wrong crowd and we suffered harm for it. Surround yourself with wise people. John Maxwell, a well-known voice in the leadership world, said, "The people closest to me "determine my level of success or failure. "The better they are, the better I am. "And if I want to go to the highest level, "I can do it only with the help of other people. "We have to take each other higher. "Let's keep pushing each other higher "and wisdom and virtue." Just encouraging one another, being a Barnabas, a son of encouragement to each other. Do you have a Barnabas in your life? Do you have a Paul in your life? Like the Paul-intimity relationship? That's where I want to go next. Second Timothy 3.10, for our next principle, I don't just get any guide, get an experienced guide, if you can. Seek an experienced guide, enlist the help of experienced guides, like Timothy and Paul. When we open up to second Timothy, we're looking at Paul's last letter. And it's a really tender letter from Paul to his young mentor. He actually calls Timothy his son in verse two. He's writing this letter to him about how to go on, after Paul's gone. Timothy had followed Paul around, did life and ministry with Paul, so he'd learned from him how to walk the walk and talk the talk of the Christian faith. And he says in verse 10, he says, "Now you followed my teaching, "conduct purpose, faith, patience, love, "perseverance, persecutions and sufferings. "Such has happened to me at Antioch, "at Iconium and Lystra. "What persecutions I endured, "and out of them, all the Lord rescued me. "Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus "will be persecuted. "But evil men and imposters will proceed from bad to worst, "deceiving and being deceived. "You, however, continue in the things you have learned "and become convinced of, "knowing from whom you have learned them. "And that from childhood, "you have known the sacred writings, "which are able to give you the wisdom "that leads to salvation through faith, "which is in Christ Jesus." So what Paul's saying there in essence is, Timothy, you've watched me. You've done life with me. You've heard my teaching, you've seen my conduct, you've seen how I've responded in good situations and how I've responded in trials and errors. And he says, if you imitate me in my response to that, you'll do well, you'll live well. And I wish we could all say that. You know, imitate me and you'll do well. I mean, to be quite honest, I'm jealous of Timothy, being able to have Paul as his mentor for life and ministry. Because a guy like that, having someone like that in your corner, having someone like that in your life is absolutely priceless, aren't they? They are so priceless. And we should cherish those relationships and develop 'em. There's just nothing like having an experienced guide who's been through trials and tests and mistakes to sort of instruct you and help guide you as you go through life, as you go through the changing seasons and situations in life. And that's the thing too, that I should probably put my finger on, is just how seasons of life change, don't they? In life, there are changing seasons. You know, a 40-year-old father cannot live like a single 20-year-old. If he did, right, the family would fall apart. So you have to gauge where you're at. Like, if I'm a father with several kids, I'm gonna look for a father with several kids who's a little bit older than me and then a lot a bit older than me. And I wanna learn from those guys. If I don't, if I'm going through the seasons of life and I don't learn to adjust my sales to the wind, I'm gonna say, right, the boat's gonna capsize. And so be ready to adjust the sales in life's journey. One of the books I came across recently was by an old pastor named Carrie Newhoff. He's a pastor for pastors now. That's pretty much all he does is he pastors, pastors. And he's got a book that says, it's called, "I Didn't See It Coming." What do you think he's talking about? Mid-life crisis, right? The mid-life deal upon which I am quickly approaching. But he talks about how, you know, I just, I did not see that coming. I was a pastor, I was a mega church pastor involved in this and that and going in 24/7 non-stop. And he just hit that wall. And he ran into cynicism in his life, disconnectedness from things. He felt irrelevant. He felt burnout. He felt empty. And so in that book, he talks about how to work through those things that have mid-life, trial. And see, a mentor can help prepare you for that sort of thing. Right, so he's been through it now. He's trying to help others who are gonna go through it as well. And that's what an experienced guide will do for you. There's two things they're gonna do for you that I, that if you wanna write them down, I don't know if it's helpful or not. Number one, they'll help prevent unnecessary hurts in your life. They'll keep you from unnecessary hurts in your journey 'cause they've been there, they've done that. Again, you don't have to learn everything the hard way. Then Utah, there's a stretch of highway. 100 miles long and there's a sign there that says no gas for 100 miles. Now, you might see that sign and prepare yourself and go, great, all right, I need to get gas. But you might not and you might miss it. A good mentor is there to point out that sign and say, hey, no gas for 100 miles. So you better be ready for it. Here's some resources to help get you through it. An experienced guide will also increase your enjoyment of the journey because number one, think of that boxer, right, that boxer, when he gets drilled and disoriented, what's he wanna do? He wants to quit. When he keeps taking leg shots to his liver, he wants to quit, but he's got people in his corner saying, don't quit, don't give up. Here's how you go about it. Here's how you counter that. Attack. And so you increase your enjoyment because you don't give up. You have a Barnabas in your corner encouraging you to keep going, don't give up. You see a barrier, I don't keep going. You can do this. How great it is to have a coach, right, that pushes you and you get more enjoyment out of that sport or whatever it is because you go the distance. But then you'll also miss out on things if you don't have a guy like that. Okay, you're gonna miss out on different things in the journey that you don't wanna miss out on. So Tim Bulke, he's kind of become a mentor of mine. Recently. I've been quoting him a lot in this journey thing, but he talks about how one time he went to New York City and their goal one day, he was staying in Upper Manhattan and their goal that day was just to go see the Statue of Liberty in Lower Manhattan. And he said if it had not been for a family member who lived there and knew New York City, he said they would have rushed right through all of Manhattan to the Statue of Liberty and saw it and that would have been it. They would have reached their destination and that's fine. But he said we were fortunate enough to have a family member who lived there. And so that day rather than racing to the destination, he said we enjoyed the trip there. He says we went to Greenwich Village and we had brunch and we talked to someone who was there at 9/11, had an unforgettable conversation with an eyewitness of 9/11. We went to this little church where they had services every afternoon for 9/11. They went to Chinatown, Little Italy, they saw Wall Street, all on their way to the Statue of Liberty. And so his point was don't just think about the destination, think about the journey. Think about enjoying the actual journey that you're on, don't miss that part of it. And then the last principles found in Proverbs 27.9, if you wanna turn back to Proverbs, I got you all over the place this morning. And it's good to hear those pages turning. You guys didn't have the digital ones, I can't hear you swiping loud enough. But Proverbs 27.9, be a helpful guide to others. Oil and perfume, make the heart glad. So a man's counsel is sweet to his friend. So he's just gotta put in those two elements side by side and say, and this one is like this one, just as a oil and perfume will gladden someone's heart. So does the counsel of a good friend. A good friend's counsel is like oil and perfume, right? And it sweetens their life a little bit. So be a helpful guide to others. And I guess what I mean by that is not, go on social media and share your opinion on every article, as far as like counseling others, when it comes to guiding others. That's not what this is saying, that's not at all what I would suggest you do. This is talking about just being a good, a good friend, a listening friend, someone who's there to talk to, someone that people can trust you, like with their, people can trust you with their heart, right, to think and pour out their heart to you and not expect to be, you know, haven't shared with the world or be, you know, critical about it. Like this is just a good friend, two good friends sitting down, having conversation and counseling one another. A listening ear in someone's life. I think that, well, there is a time for professional clinical counseling, right, or guidance. There most definitely is a time and a place for that. But I've found that most people just need a good friend to talk to. And having that good friend, having that listening ear, someone who will gently nudge someone in the right direction will do more than hours in a therapeutic setting ever will. As a man talking to some of the other men here, you guys know what I'm talking about. You walk into a pastor's office like my own, or you walk into like a counseling office somewhere else, and, you know, sometimes it's the guys just want to stare at the floor. Like they feel ashamed of just being there, or guilty or something, trying to get help. But, and I'm not saying there's not a time for that, but, you know, you get a few guys together like we're doing on our journey experiences. You get a few good friends together in a car, on a hike, or in a fishing boat or something like that. And it's amazing what God can do through just their interaction, just talking to one another. I mean, guys will weep together. They wouldn't do that dare to do that in my office, you know, sometimes, but you get some guys together, they'll open up, they'll talk about life. And it's really helpful. It's oil and perfume, making the heart glad. One of the quotes I came across recently was this one by Henry Newen, I don't know much about him, but he says we have, we probably have wondered in our many lonesome moments. If there is one corner in this competitive demanding world where it is safe to be released, and to expose ourselves to someone else, and to give unconditionally, it might be small and hidden, but if this corner exists, it calls for a search through the complexities of our human relationships in order to find it. He's like, find yourself that corner where with people that you can trust, where you can open up and you can share. Find yourself someone like that that can take the mask off. You know, we wear way too many masks, and I can't wait to get to heaven 'cause those are gonna be gone. I don't wanna wear the mask. The people I want in my life don't wear masks. You know, they just don't. They're honest about things. They open up, that's the kind of person I wanna be. So my exercise for you this morning is, well, the application would be to find that corner. Get some people in your corner. Find a mentor of some kind. Maybe you should need to find a mentee of some kind. To be quite honest with you, the mentee generally has to reach out to the mentor because if they're really a good mentor, they're not gonna force their wisdom on you. And so you probably need to reach out. Actually, the mentee, the person who wants to be mentored generally needs to make the sacrifice to meet with that mentor. And so I'd encourage you to apply this message by finding that mentor mentee relationship in your life. And then an exercise that I found really helpful was to just write down, take some time, sit down, write down 12 names, 12 people in your life who have impacted you in a positive way and changed your life. Write down the names of 12 people who have changed your life for the better. And you'll be surprised. If you're struggling, just ask yourself the question. If it wasn't for so-and-so, then I wouldn't be who I am today. And I think you'll be surprised with who makes that list and who doesn't. I did this exercise probably two, three months ago and I was really impressed with who made the list and who didn't. Some of these guys were in my life long-term, maybe a quarter of them where I were in my life long-term, maybe I had a third of them. Another set of them, like they were in my life for just a little blip. It's a short time span in my life but they spoke to me in powerful ways and the Lord used them. And then the last group, boy, they don't even know me, but God uses them. I just know them as a voice or a preacher or a teacher who consistently tends to speak to the things that I'm going through in life. I don't know if they're just a few steps ahead of me or what, but God uses them. They speak my language, kind of people. And so, take that time, work through that and then maybe even thank them for their impact in your life and encourage them that way. I'll end with one more quote as I have been doing in this series, another extended quote, but here we go, imagine going on a trip to Arizona. You're driving along highway 64 between Tucson and Desert View, you keep your eyes on the road, you've never been there before and the road is unfamiliar. You don't look to your left and you miss it. What do you miss? The Grand Canyon. You didn't even know it was there. You sped right past the best part of the trip because you hadn't asked anyone who'd been down that road what you should see along the way. So he says, take time to learn what's ahead on the journey. Take initiative, be someone who's a few steps. Meet someone who's a few steps ahead of you. Be intentional, get ahead of the game and don't forget to share where you've learned along the way with those who are a few steps behind you. That's a good thought to leave us with. So let's pray. Lord, thanks so much. Just for this journey of life series this summer, I really don't feel like I'm putting this together in my own effort or my own strength and I just really feel like your hand is in it. And I pray that you would continue to give us wisdom and insight, counsel us through your word for life's journey, Lord, prepare us for the things that are ahead. Bring the right people into our lives that we need. The right mentors, the mentees who need our experience. You know who they are and I just pray that we'd be more aware of that as a result of this message and it actually put a little more effort into it as well. But as always, we thank you for being the ultimate guide. The ultimate shepherd and for your word, which is a lamp to our feet. It's of Jesus name, we pray, amen. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)