Lake Lundgren Men's Retreate

Be the Church

Session 1: Spiritual Pull

What future are you cultivating?

No matter how you live, you are cultivating your future. To experience life is to understand that our decisions today will affect tomorrow. Some more immediate, some that eventually catch up to us over time.

This is a consistent pattern in life and it has led some to believe in Karma. Because they noticed that people who do good things often see good things in return. Those who are constantly selfish, angry, looking out for number 1, they consistently invite strained relationships, lack friendships, and are never satisfied.

One of the interesting things about life is that the moment we start focusing too much on ourselves is the same moment that we invite hardship, anxiety, and stress. The longer we are self focused, the worse it gets. In part because we find a need to control more and more, but there are too many areas of life that we cant control even if we try.

Contexts of cultivation

Marriage - How well do you encourage your wife? What are you trying to build up in her? If you were to consider an overview of the ways you speak to your wife, how often are you walking away from conversations, critiquing her weakness, or finding some other way to get her to adjust to you?

How many of those negative moments stack up against the moments where you are purposeful in encouraging her? Complimenting her strengths?

Even if you spend as much time encouraging as you do critiquing, what is it that you think you are cultivating?

Kids - Purposeful time, intentional conversations, ready to make memories. How are you cultivating their faith?

Too many times, dads are barely engaged with their kids. You go to work, put in the hours, you spend some time with your kids. You even tell them how to think about certain things. But you are not intentional. You have not made a plan. You just do it as it comes and goes.

Not having a plan is planning to fail. Don’t fail with your wife. Be intentional. Don’t fail with your kids, listen first, ask them what they think, ask hard questions to get them thinking deeper. Teach them how to rightly think about God, about life.

If we want our kids to walk in faith, than we better demonstrate how to walk in faith. Do your kids see you reading your bible? In prayer? Do you have spiritual conversations? Do you have a family devotional time that is purposeful?

If you are not intentional to cultivate your relationship, the well being, and spiritual maturity, you are setting your family up for a challenging future.

Social life - How do you point your friends to Jesus? Do you build them up, encourage the faith you see in them, pointing them to the Lord - or do you assume that is the role of other people? Do you wash it off, saying “that’s not who I am.”

But it is who you are called to be!

Is it your assumption that spiritually you get to determine how you engage others for Christ? Or do you recognize that He has called you, purposed you, and equipped you?

Church life - Are you meaningfully engaged in contributing to the building of God’s kingdom by working in unity with your local church? Or is it that you show up, you tithe a little, you talk to people, get fed from the sermon and go home. Guys, that is an un-intentional life. That is showing up out of habit and because you know it is good. But you were not designed to show up. You were designed to be part of the movement.

I am not here to put anyone down, but I am here to speak plainly. If you are haphazard in your marriage, as a father, with your community, or with your church - than you are cultivating consequences that will eventually surface.

When I was growing up, there was a movie that came out called Second Hand Lions. Has anyone scene it (Show of hands)? In the movie, there are two old uncles, Garth and Hub. Garth and Hub are two old retired men living in the country and the story is about how their great nephew, Walter, comes to live with them. At one point, they decide to grow a garden. Using garden hoe’s they till up the soil, plant the seeds and begin to take care of it. They have rows for cabbage, potatoes, beans, corn and all kinds of vegetables. A few months go by and they are working the soil, pulling weeds, and young Walter recognizes that each row of plants looks similar. Well, this gets Hub inspecting for a moment, walking across the rows and looking at the pictures of the plants, he realizes that none of the plants look like they are supposed to. Until he gets to the end. The last row is, corn, it all looks like corn. Garth says, “Wow, that seed salesman sure saw us coming!” With frustration, Hub looks at Garth and says, “No, He saw you coming - Corn, Corn, Corn, its all a bunch of corn!”

I don’t know about you guys, but I don’t want to investments I make in my life to all come back as something different than I thought I was cultivating. I want to know that I am making good investments that will yield an appropriate harvest.

I believe that God has created each of you with a purpose in mind and He has given you everything you need to do it. But we have to commit to Him and His ways in order to cultivate good seeds.

Consider Genesis 1:28–30 “28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” 29 And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. 30 And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.”

God made you with purpose

to be fruitful and multiply

fill the earth and subdue it

have dominion over the rest of creation

2. Verse 29 tells us that He has given us everything we need to fulfill our purpose.

What is interesting is that we are told “God blessed them.” this idea of blessing means to flourish. Jesus said, John 10:10 “10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”

You see this is the pull of life. Adam and Eve felt the pull when the serpent came to deceive them. When he came to steal their purity, their blessing, their enjoyment of right relationship with God.

This pull is always subtle. It always carries interest, pleasure, and desire. In this life you will always have an ability to readily envision and dream about having more money, more sex, more control, more freedom, more house, more tools, more memories. There will always be more, but there will never be enough.

What are you cultivating if you always need more?

Sometimes we believe that we can skirt the line. Because we can control our impulse, even though we may feel the need for more in the moment, we can resist the temptation when we want therefore it isn’t controlling me.

Jesus teaches that our compromises, our haphazard living, our willingness to skirt lines before the Lord reveals that we are being robbed of the blessing He has for us and we don’t even know it. We are assured by Jesus, that God has given us each a purpose, and that when we are faithful to enter into all that He has for us, there is a time of flourishing that leads to abundant life. A life that has planted good seeds each day and in time gets the joy of harvesting them.

I am not talking about some prosperity gospel, I am talking about finding joy in Christ, blessing in Christ, flourishing in Christ.

Tonight, our focus is on Psalm 1, you can turn there in your bible, lets pray before we read.

Psalm 1 ESV

1 Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; 2 but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. 3 He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. 4 The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away. 5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; 6 for the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.

This Psalm gives us two vary different portraits for life. One is intentional before the Lord and the other is not. These two portraits are wildly different. But they didn’t start out that way. In fact, the people who these portraits are meant to depict, started in the same place. Dispositionally, we all start in the same place. Lost, deceived by the world, by our desires and sin, often cultivating sin and wickedness in our lives not on purpose but because that is the reality of a life that is autonomous from God.

Psalm 1 reveals that spiritually you are moving towards God or away from God. Cultivating what is right and true in your heart, or chasing shadows in mirrors.

I have come to believe that one of Satan’s primary goals for you is to believe that you are doing fine just where you are. Because complacency kills. Setting husbands up to fail in their marriage. It’s setting fathers up to fail to excel in their parenting. Communities struggle because of the lack of stability in the home and in the church.

Psalm 1:1 “1 Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers;”

The Psalmist intentionally leads us through appropriate order, recognizing that we all had to turn from sin. Calling us out of all the ways we have learned to be content, distracted, or mildly engaged.

A man who walks in the counsel of the wicked is a man who is drawn to and captivated by worldly reasoning. Listening to rationalizations and reasons for what is right and what is wrong based on nothing more than personal opinion or governing authority.

Have you ever considered....... why or why not it is okay to get drunk, to smoke some weed once in a while or be hopped up on gummies. Why or why not it is okay to lie, steal, or cheat as long as you don't get caught. Or what if, whatever the issue is, what if it doesn’t hurt anybody, what is the problem then? It doesn't hurt me, it doesn't hurt them. Well, there are a lot of problems with that, because you are saying the basis of morality is only dependent on the damage you create. If morality is defined by damage done than it doesn’t account for doing what is right, it no longer has anything to do with being virtuous. Just as long as I don’t cause damage than I am fine - That is a lie from the pit of hell.

Basketball - Was Michael Jordan a great basketball player because he never hurt other players? Or was it that it was because he never caused the team problems?

In any other context, this idea of “as long as it doesnt hurt someone else” doesnt add up.

To walk in the counsel of the wicked is to get caught up in this type of thought without seeing through it.

One of the problems that atheists have wrestled with and yet to find any good answer to is morality apart from God. That if God doesn’t exist, who gets to decide what is right and wrong? In the counsel of the wicked, the wicked will determine whatever most aligns with their own desires.

A man who stands in the way of sinners is one who lives in sin. One who is not distinct from other sinners but looks just the same. What’s worse is we live in a generation of cultural Christians. People who claim to be saved, who will claim Christ and live their lives totally separate from Him. Cultural Christians who do not know God or live for God. They claim to go to certain churches but they are only there a couple times a year.

Or we see believers will be content with certain areas of sin. Not serious about killing the sin in their life, in so doing, we sear our sensitivity to the Holy Spirit, you see we are stained with sin and will comfortably stand in the counsel of the wicked under the guise logical reasoning. Just as Adam sat on the side line watching Eve interact with the serpent, we are often guilty of the same.

A man who sits in the seat of scoffers is a man who started with a hard heart, eagerly pursued the ways of this world and has continued to harden himself from God. Some have learned how to do this, while still claiming faith. Living autonomous from God, yet claiming to be redeemed and forgiven.

I have watched men, who grew up in the church, who grew up in pastors homes - they know the truth, but have hardened their heart. Incredibly blind to what they are sowing. Almost entirely living is disregard for God. This is a way that we mock God with our lives.

It’s interesting because all of the believers around them can clearly see how they are causing their own turmoil. Causing their family and friends turmoil. But these guys just don’t believe them.

Now, here is the point I have been building to, pay attention here - The danger of complacency, of unintentional pursuit of God, of only going to church out of habit, is that we believe we are moving towards God when we may be drifting further from Him.

Psalm 1 teaches that we are blessed, when we don’t allow any of this to be true of us. But instead, choose a proactive pursuit of God.

Psalm 1:2 Continuing under the umbrella of blessing: “but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.

You can’t just show up to church, to bible study. We must engage our heart and our mind with God’s word. We must aim to be in His presence praying through scripture. Praying it over ourselves and praying it back to Him. We have to be willing to receive from God and implement action that follows those convictions.

The one who loves God is the one who meditates on His word. Who recognizes that in the Bible, God’s very character and nature can be found. The person who loves God is diligent to seek Him in His word. To be present with Him. To be filled by His Spirit. Ready to lay aside the counsel of the wicked. Ready to stop functioning the same way as everyone else. Ready to understand the way they have caused some of their own turmoil.

Own what you are responsible for, bring it before the throne of God and lay it at His feet.

Look at what God produces in you when you submit yourself to Him this way.

Psalm 1:3 “3 He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.”

Sometimes, we over complicate our lives. But according to Psalm 1, it is quite simple - if we would prayerfully meditate on God’s word, with the intent of knowing Him.

I think we live in a day when we often just want answers. I just want to know what I should do and what I shouldnt. Don’t settle for the things a Christian should or should not do, push beyond that when you study. Seek His character, His nature, look for who He is.

Scripture Fed-Spirit Led- Worship Based Prayer

Reverence - Identify God’s Praiseworthy Attributes

Response - Surrender to Him and His ways

Requests - Ask the Spirit to guide your prayer over concerns, resources, and relationships

Readiness - encouragement and strength for the spiritual battle.

As we prayerfully seek God and understand Him by understanding His word, we will more readily identify sinful practices verses righteous practices and we will be equipped to address them.

We will grow in our sensitivity to the leading of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

There will absolutely be challenging moments of temptation where God will test us. But as we learn to step away from sin and choose God’s way, we find that over time the powerful pull of the temptation diminishes.

There is great value in righting your heart in prayer before you read God’s word.

The Center for Bible Engagement has been doing survey’s around the world since 2003. They have surveyed people from 8-80 years old, from 24 countries. As surveys continue to come in, they update their total data.

In all their study, they have found several meaningful statistics that help us understand ourselves. But of all the statistics, there are four consistent stats that stand above the rest.

People who read their bible four times or more a week, on different days. So people who take time to pursue God four times a week are

30% less likely to struggle with loneliness

59% less likely to view pornography

228% more likely to share their faith with others

407% more likely to memorize scripture

Think about how significant that is. If you would just commit to read the bible on four different days of the week, look how it might mold you and shape you!

Imagine if we all committed ourselves to the Lord and His word everyday!? Encouraging all the guys in the church to join us! What might God do in and through His church if we were so motivated to seek Him.

It is by being in His presence that you are transformed. It is as simple as that. Yes, there will be battles along the way but if you have been in His presence you have been strengthening yourself for those moments.

The way to finding strength and the power of the Holy Spirit working through you is simple to seek God. And this is what Jesus said:

Matthew 22:36–38 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment.”

Really, the question that we need to carefully evaluate is “do you Love God or do you love yourself?”

Men who love God, move towards God. They don’t sit on the sideline, they are disciplined to pursue God and His purposes.

If we could simply have the hunger to pursue God first, we could be that tree in Psalm 1. Constantly fed by the nutrients of God’s presence, hydrated by His word. We could grow each day, stronger, more prepared, more effective at living out the purpose to which God has called us.

We could be men who have the confidence in how we build up our wives, encouraging their faith walk, to invite them to pray through and study God’s word. We could cultivate healthier, better marriages.

If you want a strong marriage - start praying through scripture with your wife.

We could be men who know how to make the most purposeful, meaningful investments in our children. Recognizing that you never stop being a dad. But that being a good dad requires prayer and intentionality.

We could be people who strengthen our community. Who build up and encourage what is right. Modeling discipline and conviction.

We could be men, who have learned how to live on mission, worshiping God in all that we do.

What future are you cultivating?

- This weekend, I want to challenge you to write down 2-3 areas where you need to do a better job of cultivating.

Would you also share those 2-3 areas with other men who will hold you accountable.

People who are serious about growth, changing what needs to change, they invite and build accountability. Don’t do this on your own, invite brothers to pray with and encourage you.