A recording of the Mar. 16, 2017 After Hours event for men, featuring our great friend and fellow leader, Vernon Droge. Enjoy his words of wisdom from life, books and the bible in this talk. Thank you, Vernon!

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So, every time we get together, we asked, how many of you are here for the first time when I see a show of hands.

That’s just kind of amazes every time how many guys we get every time. So

just because we got a bunch of new guys. Bear with me a little bit. I’ll just tell them a little bit about why we do this.

We

kinda came up with this idea.

Maybe 16 months ago,

Doug and Daniel were like, kind of the forefront of plan on this. And it’s

really simple. Every everybody at some point in your life is going to have a really important question. And that’s

why am I here? And how did I get here?

There’s really only two answers one

here an evolutionary chance that you came by chance to this earth. Second one is that there’s some intelligent being out there that created you for a reason. And the after hours team believes we have the answer, and that we need to share that with you. And that’s that there is a God and none of us are here by chance. And then He created us for purpose. And so we think that’s so important that

This is what we do. We throw a bunch of food together, and we invite you guys and co chairs this building. And it’s basically because we feel it’s so important that we know our God, and we believe in him. And we just want to tell everybody about that. And you guys might crowd the size of probably all over the board in your spiritual journey from really not knowing a god, maybe there is a God to maybe believing in God. And wherever you’re at. We’re glad you’re here, because that’s why we’re here to kind of share what we know what we believe.

So

there’s three parts to after hours.

The first part is the food prepared by the best chef I’ve ever seen. Over there.

Part of it is just meet a bunch of guys and just hanging out and doing some networking and talking and just making new friends. That’s our second part. And the third part is just some type of a Bible story Bible lesson. And we’ve done a few different things here. We have a Bible story, and then just kind of read a Bible story and just talk your way through it. Last time, we have a panel up here, and tonight, I’m just going to take a scripture and then kind of work through a few things, legal stuff I’ve read and stuff through that. So

we’re just going to

start by reading text here, in some Flipboard ends to one level, we’ve all got these on your table if you want to look at them.

So it’s called imitating Christ humility there for a few minutes.

Courage from being an idea of Christ. Love if any common cheering this fear any tenderness or compassion, to make my joy complete by being like minded having the same love being one spirit and one mind, nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, rather in humility value others, above yourselves, not looking to your own answers to each of you to the interests of the others, in your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus, who being a very nature, God did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage. Rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even the death on a cross. Therefore, God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that was above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth. And every time we acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God, the Father

When I was thinking about what to talk about tonight, I started thinking about what would I, what would have been good for me to hear when I was back 2030, you know, 2030 years of age, which probably already have this group is, and

I thought I’d take that along with a book that I’ve just been reading, called intentional living by john Maxwell. And then I thought I’d take a little March Madness backs basketball, and kind of do like Doug does, I just throw it all in the pot, and kind of see what comes out and hopefully, in something kind of good.

So, john Maxwell, in the book intelligent living starts out by saying,

take a blank piece of paper and write your story on that piece of paper. And for a lot of you, you probably have written two chapters, starting your third chapter.

You’re, you’re the author, you have the ability to write the rest of the story. And you have the ability to write the end of the story. So

maybe Bob’s chapter six and my story.

We’ve all got a different story. And we can write it. However we want. We are the author. About eight years ago, I heard somebody say, I don’t remember wherever it’s stuck with me. And it hit me and said, other than the books you read, and the new people you meet, you’ll be the same person five years from now that you are today. And

I just really hit me and I thought, I don’t think I really want to be the same person. I am five years from today, or 10 years. And so I started thinking about my story and I said, I couldn’t change a few things. So I started just reading him very avid reader. I read anything I could get my hands on.

All different subjects. And I changed the church I went to, and I started going to a new church and I met a whole bunch of new friends. And part of that was, I just wasn’t really challenged where I was in my life. I just felt like I was kind of stagnant. I looked at my friends, everybody was likely, we’re all in agriculture, about the same things. Every time we got together, I wasn’t being stretched at all. And I just thought, you know, I want to grow the rest of my life, I want to get better.

So,

for all of you, you know, you can, you can analyze where you’re at in your story. And you can, at any point, start writing a new chapter.

So, how many of you want to live a life of others? Or another way?

How do you want to how many of you want to live a life of significance?

I would, I would say everybody does. You

We’re here for however many years, we want to we want to live life in house, we want to matter. We want to kind of someday we’ll look back and say, I affected something I impact somewhere. We don’t just want to go through this life with the insight, you know, what was that all good for? So, today, I want to read a couple of quotes from Maxwell’s book talks about living a significant life. The first one now listen carefully, just might ask some somebody what jumped out at you this to be significant. All you have to do is to make a difference with others, wherever you are, with whatever you have day by day. And the second quote is, when you intentionally use your everyday life, to bring about positive change in the lives of others, you begin to live a life that matters.

Anything jump out in there, throw it out. If you want to say

What you have do with what you have?

Okay. Do

you do with what you have? What was that one

about people?

And that’s kind of what I was getting out there. The thing that I heard in that was, it’s not about you.

And I think that’s just really ironic that

to live a life, that significant

world to tell you, it’s all about you. You know, image is everything, right? That’s what we’re taught all the time. But Maxwell saying, to live a truly significant life. It’s not about you, it’s all about others.

So I’ve had the privilege of getting to know some really successful people in my life.

People I really admire. And when I say successful, I’m not just saying the wealthy

saying they have successful marriages, great relationships with their families have been involved in good businesses.

So, all those people, how many of you think when they turn like 5060 years old wake up someday and just say, what happened?

I’m super successful.

Think that ever happens? No, I don’t think so.

They’re super successful because they’ve lived intentional life. Their goal is not their goal in life was not success. Their goal was significance.

So remember our definition of significance. It’s not about you. It’s all about others how to value add value to others.

So if we look back in our verse that we read,

who were who was like the most significant life that’s ever been

lunch.

Jesus Christ, exactly. Jesus life as we read in those verses. It says, I’m getting out of selfish ambition. did Jesus have any selfish ambition?

He’s willing to come down to this earth. It was about him. It was about his ambition

to Jesus make everything about us.

Absolutely. What value would we have wasn’t for Jesus’s life on this earth and his death on the cross. Christ is the most significant life that’s ever lived. And it says to have that same attitude as Christ.

So

there’s always a natural downward pull to life. You don’t want life always be up and right. It seems like a lot of it is now to the left. It’s always a slide. What happens at

You stop climbing?

Yeah, you’re going to start going the other way.

I think it’s a fair comparison to say it’s you know, you always hear about you’re like swimming upstream. If you stop swimming you go downstream really quick. I’d say it’s more like if you’ve ever been on a large body of water like a large lake and you’re you’re fishing you decide to drift for a while.

Because you’re looking at the surroundings water, you don’t even notice that you’re drifting. You can sit there for a couple hours and just kind of relax. Look at the water around it. Also, you’ll look off in the distance and you’re like, wow, like I’ve moved a mile down the lake. That’s what our life is like, if we’re not intentionally living our life, you can just get so swept away by all the events, all the stuff in your life, that you find yourself drifting slowly over

It’s not something that also happens to you. If you’re not living intentionally trying to add value to other people’s lives, you naturally are going to slide. You know, the thing I find out interesting about evolution is we’re supposed to be all evolving to a higher state right? And yet, if you look at the world, nothing gets better. Naturally, everything because everything falls apart on its own. The same thing with our life, you don’t significant significantly, look at ways to intentionally you know, build things in your life, your marriage, your family, whatever it is, the natural course is birth to decline.

There’s this the chaos of life and just tries to pull us down. There’s TVs now hundreds of channels to watch. You got your social media, your internet, your YouTube, you got stuff, chaos, all this chaos everywhere. And that’s what slowly

grabs us and slowly drips us backwards if we’re not living intentionally.

So March Madness started tonight, and I got in

100 that I should do a john wooden quote. I’ve been in basketball kind of my whole life. I played it, I coached it. I watch it a lot. And so john wooden to me was like, there’s a little blood of Jesus.

He’s what he’s real close, he’s way up. So, john wooden says, Do not let you get not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do. And this whole point there is of all the stuff in your life. So much of it, you can’t control the political scene, world events. I mean, how much control do we actually have, but we do have control in some specific areas. And I picked just three of those tonight to talk about a little bit and that’s

marriages, families that are workplace

and I’m talking about marriages, to be serious girlfriend, fiance, whatever. If you’re in a serious relationship that kind of works the marriage to so if you’re not married, just told me out it might become

so how can we add value to our lives and our marriages.

I’m just going to focus on two things. One is leadership and trust.

Your wife will operate in her best realm, which is the caring, nurturing loving room, which is being led while and that may sound old fashioned. It may sound like not politically correct anymore. But I truly believe that’s the way God designed the world and that’s the way God designed family structure is the man in the hall the man

needs to be

Take responsibility for leadership. And that’s, you know, I’m saying leadership and like a servant leader, that you’re doing your best to lead your life, not in my way or the highway type of leadership. And I think places where you need to lead well is in the spiritual part of your home.

Leaving the family and devotions

getting you’re getting your family out the door to church.

Finances would be another one that you leave well in those areas, if you lead while in those areas that your wife will be Feel free to do what she does best.

So number one is trust. So how do you like we’re talking about intentionality and

raising the value of those around us? How do you raise the value of your wife on his trust? How do you gain trust with your wife

Whoever, you have to be an open book.

And that’s kind of foreign to a lot of us anymore. But I say an open book in your finances. There’s no such thing as two bank accounts. There’s no such thing as your hidden stash.

You’d have to be open in every area of finances include your cell phones.

It should be open to your wife and pick up at any time to look at. And that seems for a lot of the side. When I go for a drive, and I set myself alongside me, and my wife, she always always picks it up, and she’s any messages from the kids today. And he snapped from the kids today. And she goes to my cell phone and she looks up what my day was about. And I’m out on the farm all day. She’s living her life doing her thing and when we get together, she’s really interested in who I talked to what I did, and I always find it. So cool.

That I can say, there’s not a thing on there that you can read. And I just I just that’s just such a good feeling for me and her that it anytime she can grab that. And so I’ll take that to your computers,

you know, your your laptops, your iPads, whatever. If you want your child, your wife to truly trust you, they should be able to grab any one of those anytime and look it up.

One thing that’s really prevalent today is privacy. You know, we’re talking about adding value to our wives. There’s probably nothing that D values your life more than look at pornography. That’s just comparing her to somebody else puts her value. She said, I must not be as valuable as the people that my husband wants to look at. So it’s totally valuable to her. It breaks the marriage trust and that’s what your whole marriage is based on trust. And that breaks the

That right there. And if you’re a believer, we’re held to a higher standard than just not looking at pornography. We’re held to the standard of, really, your wife is the only woman that you need to be looking at. And it says in the Bible, if you lust after a woman, you’re committing adultery in your heart. So, you know, we’re all we’re all men. If an attractive woman walks into a restaurant or enjoy, you’ll notice

that’s just who we are. That’s, that’s just we’re visual. And we’ll notice that, but that doesn’t give you me

the right for a second or third or fourth look, you can observe at one time and then bounce your eyes. And a great book and a great resource for all of you is I got it on the back of your hand out there is this book is called every man’s battle. And I was saying it should be in every man’s life.

I’ve read it multiple times in my life I’ve gone back and looked at chapters multiple times. Because it truly is guys every man’s battle you will battle the problem with your eyes throughout your life and here’s a great resource to help you battle that he’s got some just some really good stuff in here that just kind of helps you plan for like

their situation I wasn’t ready for now what I do if you read the book, you’re kind of ready for those circumstances.

So next area besides are our our wives is our family. And

I got another great quote. So if he’s that close to Jesus, quotable and it’s like almost reading the Bible, right, okay. So

the best thing father can do for his children is to love their mother.

just such a great quote. Your kids learn

More about how to treat the opposite sex, from your example with your wife than anything else. So if you treat your wife in a special way and a high regard, you love her, you respect her, Your Honor. That’s telling you your little boys in the family and as they grow up to junior high, women are so special. Girls are something special they need to be they need to be treated special. And that will carry through so that when you’re young son starts to date. He’s going to say I know how to treat women. I know. I know how to treat this girl because I’ve seen my dad. He treats girls with respect your little daughters when they see that relationship. I’m really healthy relationship between you and your wife. They’ll say, I know how I should be treated. I should be treated like my mom was treated. And that special. And my dad always talks really calmly to my mom and treats her own

Special. So when your daughter goes out at 15 1617,

whatever on that first day, if she isn’t treated like that, it’s going to feel wrong. It’s going to feel the same, right? Some young guy goes a little too far, she’s gonna be like, you’re not treating me like what I’ve seen a lot of leaders, right? So you’re gonna have a huge impact on your kids that way. I just met a guy over here, that’s going to raise five boys, Mike over here just a little bit ago and just never underestimate the impact you’re having on your children.

Psalm 103, verse 13, says the Lord is like a father to his children, tender and compassionate to those who fear him. I find that really interesting, saying the Lord is like a father, comparing God to us. I mean, how scary is not that we are tender and compassionate. And so that’s how God is it puts a ton of pressure on the stove again.

So,

this statement seems pretty heavy, but I think it’s very true. You are the image of God the Father, to your children.

And I don’t think I really understood this until the last few years. how true that is. I was at a class talk like probably six, seven years ago for it from Sam summer, the European church. It was a class called the advanced learning and it was advanced spiritual studies and was just trying to get you a little deeper into the Bible. And I sat next to a guy named Andy for like four lessons and I got to know a little bit super nice guy. He was in the military plane caught bazooka, he was just I really admired him right away. And he was Yes sir. No, sir. And I thought he was pretty high up in the military already and, but this guy has got really got his act together. Well, Sam started teaching about a Father’s blessing.

How every kid wants His Father’s blessing. And he started talking about, you know,

what it’s like to have a loving Father and the Father that’s always there for you. And I looked over at Andy and I saw tears in his eyes. And he kind of said, as Billy said, I have no idea what you’re talking about. And he shared with us that he had a father that left them at an early age, he was raised by single mom. And when he heard somebody talking about God, the Father has been loving and being there for you, and caring about you. He said, I can’t conceive of that, because he had never had that relationship with his father. And then Sam was leading a class was like it was probably mid 60s, early 60s, just whoever if you’ve ever known Sam, Sam was just like one of the neatest guys ever. And he said to our class, he said, I had a father at an early age commit suicide.

Then my my mom remarried. And step dad was abusive to me. And he said, I still struggle all the time with issues from my childhood from those relationships, and Sam, and he was a pastor his whole life. And he seemed like he had his act together like nobody had ever mess. And he’s saying to me, I struggled so much because of the fathers that I had in my life. So just think about that, as dads what an impact you are going to have on your kids for the rest of their lives.

In many ways, how you treat your kids is how they will you how they will view God as our father. I think my dad, he was a really strong is a big guy, strong guy. He would take the hails on the farm and draw my way up on the stack and replace

Pick up driving along, he could just take like 70 and 80 thumbnails and throw them up onto the pickup. And he was just he was, if he had to put it on a scale of my dad, he was strong.

I’m gonna put him on the disciplinary side. And if you would, caring and compassionate, that probably wasn’t my dad until you know, later in his life when he kind of really got to know him. But that was the scale tipped heavy that way. And if I think of my god, no, I think a lot like my dad, and have to remind myself as a Christian over and over and over, God is caring. He’s compassionate. He loves you, He forgives you. Why do I always have to remind myself because I never saw my dad that much. And so I

as you see your dad and just like, just think about your dad’s right now and then think about God and I can almost guarantee you how you think

About Your dad is a lot about how you think about your God.

Another way is if

you don’t feel like you have the approval of your dad, you’ll have you’ll have that carry through. You don’t feel the approval of God, if you raise your kids in that way where you’ll say to them, I’m really disappointed and you say that a lot. You’re going to grow up with the God the Father just thinks is disappointed in you. So be really careful how you raise your kids, because that is the example and that is the view of your father going forward.

Another thing I want to talk about briefly here is

your example is probably going to speak louder than your words to your kids.

And your kids are always watching as fathers. It’s almost like you’re on a stage and your kids are the audience. And they’re watching all the time. So

are you are you teaching your kids to serve others by your example? Are you one out who’s you know, service stuff around the area in the community, great training tool for your kids.

If you’re the type that likes to give charity likes to tie, don’t hide that from your kids show. Say, Hey, this check is going to the church, this check was going to salvation army, whatever nonprofit, show your kids that is important. That example will carry through their lives.

Show your kids will know what’s important to you by how you spend your time. And you can tell your kids over and over over like, you know, going to church that’s just what that

Really important to my family. But then, during ski season, we don’t go to church that much. During archery. We don’t go to church that much. You can carry it on and on and on, you know, they will see what’s important to you by where you spend your time.

It doesn’t going to be it isn’t a cell. If you say kids, we church is really important, my family. And then during summer soccer season, you’re chasing all over the nation, watching the kids play soccer, and you never go to church, but they’ll figure out what’s really important to your life.

One other area that I’ve talked with Doug about this several times, and this might be our fault, our generation as much as your fault. I don’t see young men leading, especially like in

the area like in local government or in church, like my generation did, and I’m not

Sure, if you don’t

ask enough life, we’ve got so busy. But my dad was a leadership kind of his whole life. He just was always leading the board on a council, some area of his life he was leading. And that just seemed natural. So when I got to be in my 20s, I started leading Bible studies, I was on boards, I was on councils. And now I see the 20 and 30 year olds of this generation, not stepping up in leadership, as much at least that’s my opinion. And I think it might be as much our fault that we don’t challenge you guys. And we don’t ask you guys who are like, we maybe hold on too tight. I think we just have to figure that out. And that will be an example to your kids. If you lead

in different areas of your life. Your kids will see that an example and they will aspire to leadership.

One just shortly

story about how much a bad example

can mean to you. When I was probably 1012 years old one night, I said to my mom, I can’t really what I wanted to do something the next day really bad. And she said, Well, that’s one you better ask your dad and some more damage and while you went to bed like a half hour ago, and I said,

Well, I really got to know if I can do this tomorrow. And she said, Well, he might not be asleep sneak in his room and see if he sleeping. So I open the door real quiet, and I peeked around the corner to look and there was my dad on his knees on the hardwood floor frame, like a half hour later. And

all the all the devotions we had all the things he’s told me is all kind of faded away. And yeah, they’re probably part of me and who I am, but I don’t remember any of the word for word in that but that picture to me, I can close my eyes and see it right now. like it was yesterday.

Because my dad was a big strong man, by his example, by being down on his knees

before bed, submitting himself to heaven and God showed me what was important in his life. And I’ll never forget that your example guys is just huge for your kids.

Finally, in one area that we can affect love significantly as work

be the best team player you can be.

You know, in our text, it says it says put away selfish ambition

to live a significant life. It has to be about me about you.

I used to coach basketball, lot watching it. And

I found you could have like, eight good players and not be a great team. Because you’re missing that one thing. And what’s that one thing

gets

The kid that made everybody better. You could have a good players and be an average team. You could have four or five average players, but one kid that nobody could stop that was made everybody on his team better. And you could have a great team. How’s up with the classy tournament last week watching, and almost every kid had one, one or two guys that nobody could stop. And that’s why they’re at the state tournament, because those guys always drew a crowd, two or three defenders without believe their man to stop that guy. And that would make this average player so much better.

So at work, be that player.

Be the valuable guy. You’re the guy that makes your whole team better. Who’s going to get the promotion, who’s going to move up in the company

when the boss looks around his

You’re going to want the guy that it’s all about himself. Or so you’re going to want the guy that everybody’s better around the guy.

So you’re going to want the guy that when it comes to rushing time, everybody wants to be on his team because he can make everybody better. He’s the guy them drop anything to help you finish your project. I mean, he’s the guy that was 20 below and snowing out. He says, I’m gonna go start my car and everybody comes up from work and all their guards you have to still swim. He’s the guy that brings coffee to everybody in the morning, Patrick Flynn CEO, and he says, to be a great team player, you have to be humble, hungry and smart. And the humble part is, it’s not about you. But the smart part is just that.

Make make your work about making your team outwork better.

So now on your on your

papers that we handed out, turn it over the back side,

we have a little thing called table top table discussion.

There’s two parts or one is

one area of your life you need to be more intentional

or what area of your life you need to be adding value to others. And then the second part is share with your table and area of your life where you are being intentional about building value in others.

So just go through those those questions at the table and use it as a time to learn from each other. If you’re struggling in an area, maybe it’s somebody else’s tables got a really good idea in that area, and just kind of talk it through. And after we’re done. We’ll just go around the table by table and have just yet

A spokesman on or somebody speak up and just

can identify an area that somebody in your table think was pretty cool, where you’re living very intentionally, whether that’s in your work, your marriage, your family, any area of your life and you decided to live very intentionally in this area to make a difference in other people’s lives. Go ahead and talk for 1015 minutes and then we’ll come back.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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