Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Amen. Welcome to the Graceops podcast. Brian Phillips here with you today. We're going to have a short time of prayer. We're going to engage the Word in prayer. But before I do that, I want to talk to you about something really powerful, our call to action. So we've built out this entire culture. We've got all this great content, values, build your band of brothers. We got all of it's there. God's been building it piece by piece. You're probably attracted to it because it's inspired you in some way, shape or form. Or you're an early adapter. Maybe you're more like me. And you don't have to see all the details. You just get the big picture and let's go with it. Well, I'll tell you what, god's starting to fill in all the little details and I'm really excited to bring this to you. We came up with a clear call to action for our entire culture. Every man in Grace Ops. This is what we're expecting you to do now. We'll be rolling this out over the next week or two, three on our website and the app and all kind of stuff. You're going to see this more and more and it's going to become the very centerpiece of our culture. It's called the 212 goal. The 212 goal, as you know, Grace Apps is founded on Titus 212, talking about how Grace trains us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self controlled, upright, and golly lives in this present age. So with all that said, the 212 Goal is this. Watch this. It's a goal. And that's a strategic word. Two. We're asking every man in Grace Ops to read two chapters of the Bible every day. We're asking every man in Grace Ops to pray for twelve minutes. The 212 goal. So now we make it a goal because guess what? You're probably going to fail at it. And we're going to continuously come back to it again and again. It's not about perfection. It's about pursuit. So it's about the pursuit. And it's not just about the 212 goal. It's not just about getting my two chapters in and my twelve minutes of prayer. We hope that the twelve minutes of prayer is just a start to get you into greater amounts of prayer. We're hoping that the time in the Word isn't just about checking off a box of I read two chapters, but did those two chapters read you? Maybe you only read eight verses, maybe 1012, and you get so gripped and moved by it. I think we need the same disciplines as David, right? Morning, noon and night. Morning, noon and night. So maybe I read ten verses in the morning and they wreck me, they bulldoze me. The whole point is this, guys, it's about knowing God and encountering God. That's a problem in this day and age. That's the problem with where the church got weak, is because we stopped knowing the lord and we let his standards fall down. So our next part of our call to action is just practicing our values and living upright, super simple. And the third one and the last one is just building community and we have different on ramps for that, partnering with the brand, helping us build community, coming on as a partner with us financially, a prayer partner. So you're going to see all this roll out. But the very essence of the whole thing is the 212 goal. It's pretty awesome. So hey, today I want to take a few minutes and let's engage. We're going to be rolling out these Monday prayer times.
[00:03:01] If we're calling the whole culture to the 212 goal, then on Mondays on the podcast, my part is to offer some prayer, sort of fire up your Monday, getting you focused on this thing. Hey, if you bombed it over the weekend, get back up. A righteous man falls seven times and rises again.
[00:03:21] So you're your own excuse machine, kill yourself. You know what I'm talking about? In Christ, take up your cross, die to yourself. Maybe kill yourself is not the right word. But it's the same thing.
[00:03:35] I've said this recently, that the cross of Christ buys and purchases our salvation. The cross he calls us to is how we live in that salvation. And that's what grace is training us to do, to live in the power of a salvation, which means we have to die to ourselves, our will, our ways, our desires. And so let's get into prayer. This is one of the strategic things here, the 212 goal. Let's hit some prayer guys. I want to pray out of Psalms, chapter one. It's one of my favorite psalms. It's a powerful psalm and I'm just reading it right out of my Bible here. It says, 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.
[00:04:26] But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.
[00:04:34] He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yield its fruit in its season. And its leaf never, never. And its leaf does not wither.
[00:04:46] In all that he does, he prospers, the wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away.
[00:04:53] Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.
[00:05:06] Father, we thank you that your word says, blessed is the man, blessed, happy, content. This is a man, a man or a woman who are sorry, fixing my camera there. Blesses the man. Father, we thank you that blesses the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked.
[00:05:28] Lord, help us to be those men today. Help us to be those men who are blessed.
[00:05:33] Happy is another word. Content, excited, committed, devoted to you that our lives are blessed because we're not walking in the council of wickedness, Father. Wickedness runs rampant in our culture. Come on, guys, just pray. Declare this over your lives, your families, your wives. When it says Blesses the man, it talks about men and women.
[00:05:57] Blesses the man, the woman, the child who walks not in the counsel.
[00:06:07] Walking is a lot of action when it pertains to this passage. A lot of energy.
[00:06:13] You're devoting a lot of energy in the council of ungodliness where you ought not to be. So, Father, we just thank you that the man who turns off the world turns off the world's counsel. Not that he's a foolish man, but the man who builds wise counsel around him so he can wage his war is a man who's blessed. Lord, we don't hear that a whole lot today in our world. We don't hear that a whole lot today even in our churches. But Father, today in the gracehops culture, thank you, that's a blessed man. That's a man who's powerful in your kingdom and in this world, and it goes on. Blessed is a man who does not sit in the seat of scoffers. So now walking now we're shifting to sitting down, right? No, we're standing now sorry, I skipped one. So we're walking in the council says, blessed is the man who does not walk in the council of the wicked, nor does he stand. So now you're not moving as much. Now you're standing in the way of sinners. Father, help us.
[00:07:21] Lord, we just renounce ungodliness and worldly passions in our lives today.
[00:07:26] May we not stand in the way of sinners, God.
[00:07:32] And that could feel like such judgmental language to use. It's not like we've never made mistakes and like, we're better than everybody.
[00:07:39] We're not, like, looking down our nose like, oh, I'm the psalm one man, and you guys all suck.
[00:07:45] Father, we help us to have an authentic expression of relationship with you. But Lord, for real, like in our hearts, we don't want to be standing in the mindsets and the ways of justifying a pathetic life.
[00:08:02] Lord, we don't want to stand in those ways and bring an offering to you. That's pathetic, acting like you didn't see or you don't know.
[00:08:16] Help us, Lord, to overcome.
[00:08:20] Blessed is the man who does not sit in the seat of scoffers. So we went from walking to standing to now we're sitting down.
[00:08:30] You know how scoffers like to sit to sit scoffing.
[00:08:39] I used to think scoffing was a that was the way the world atheist, whatever.
[00:08:46] And the Lord showed me a long time ago that the worst scoffer in the world or in our lives is actually people who believe in God.
[00:08:54] They scoff at the concept of believing in miracles or they're filled with unbelief and they're just like these unhappy or they got pain.
[00:09:08] I don't know.
[00:09:10] There's a seat of scoffers, and the enemy is pulling out a chair. The enemy is inviting you in to be a scoffer. Be careful how you handle the things of God. Be careful how you judge things. Be careful how you label things.
[00:09:23] Careful of putting on that eight, nine or ten for the church service. Be careful not to do those things. Engage. This is about encounter. I used this quote today with some friends. I said, Francis FRANJAPAN, I don't know if you ever heard of him, but he has this powerful quote, this thought that he said that's never left me. I read this over 20 some years ago, and he said, holiness isn't the absence of sin, it's the presence of God.
[00:09:54] And that is so well said that holiness isn't the absence of sin, it's the presence of God. So it's not about not doing all these things and calling it righteousness. It's about finding God. That's why the 212 goals so powerful, go get two chapters in, go get time in prayer daily. Make it a goal. We didn't make it a commitment. I mean, we chose the Word very carefully.
[00:10:21] But, Father, today, don't let us be men who sit in the seat of a scoffer, lord, I'm guilty. I've been there before. We've all been there, God. But help us to be men who are blessed, filled with joy, because we recognize that, and we turn away from it. We recognize it and we move on. And, Lord, we thank you that this man who lives this way is like a tree planted. God, thank you. That you're planting us by streams of water. Thank You, Father, that you cause Your yield in Your fruit to come out in season, in due season, and that our leaf would not wither. Father, may we be men who can provide shade in the scorching heat of the landscape we live in and the desert places of which we live in. May we be men of God, men of the kingdom who actually have shade. We can provide comfort for others outside of Your kingdom, and we can use that as a way to evangelize and bring them into Your love and Your kindness. Thank You, Father, that you are the streams of water for us. Father, we thank you that you are causing fruit to yield in its season and that our leaves will not wither.
[00:11:27] Thank you, Father. That all that we do would prosper, Father, that our relationships would prosper and our finances would prosper and our influence would prosper, and we'd be bold witnesses to move forward and do powerful things with that.
[00:11:39] And, Lord, the rest of this passage, we thank You, Lord, that we have this powerful opposite. Now, the wicked aren't like that. They're like chaff. The wind drives away. They're not planted, they're blown away.
[00:11:54] They won't stand in the judgment or sinners in the congregation of the righteous.
[00:11:59] Lord, we thank you that you know the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish. So, Father, we thank you that as this verse closes out, as the psalm closes out, we thank You, Father, that you know the way of the righteous and that you know and you also know the way of the wicked. And Lord help us to be humble. Help us to pursue you. Help us to live a blessed life by walking in your righteousness, by taking up our crosses and by running strong in the power of your grace.
[00:12:32] Be with us today, Lord, as we crush this week and move forward in strength. In Jesus name. Amen. Well, guys, you're going to hear more and more about this 212 goal. Our clear call to action. It's been kind of a developing piece over the last year or so. I've just always been asking, how would I clarify this? How do I answer the questions? What is grace? Ops? Well, we're there now. Awesome. So we look forward to rolling all this out and getting hundreds and thousands and tens of thousands and literally millions of men into Grace ups culture. All right. God bless you. Until next time. Live upright.
