 Now, let's go ahead and just stand, I think, by the nature of you coming to this session. It's already in your heart to live out the content that I'm going to bring just by virtue of your attendance and you showing up for this one. You could have gone to any of them. And so I want to start just by praying for you. This is more of a burden than anything for me. And so it's more than a lecture of content for me. This is just, I think, this ache in our hearts. So Father, we love you and Father, I thank you for each of these ministers. I thank you for these men and these women. I thank you for these parents. I thank you for these pastors. I thank you, Lord Jesus, that you're at work in our churches. And God, we just come before you today and we say we want to finish well. Father, we've got years and decades in front of us. And even as Pastor Lee was talking about the change in our culture, that we're missionaries to this culture. And yet it becomes so challenging when there's just so much complexity. Just feel like we need, Lord God, your supernatural strength and grace, Lord, to stay ablaze for Jesus for decades, to finish the race. And I ask, Lord God, that you would help us. I ask, Lord God, for the pastor who feels weary and tired, that in addition to encountering you, I pray, Lord, that there would be just some thoughts that would help us set into motion, some processes, some ways of thinking, Lord God, that would help us to finish the race that you have for us. God, I pray for your blessing. God, I pray for every local church that's represented. I think of each one in their relationship with you. And I pray, Lord God, that as we hear stories, as we hear Bible verses, as we develop relationships with people, as we have lunch and coffee with friends, as we have moments where we literally have our noses in the carpet, weeping and praying and crying out to you, we ask, Lord Jesus, that this would be a renewal, a refreshing couple days. And God, I ask, Lord Jesus, that you would refresh them, Lord, in their own time alone with you. I pray, Lord, that over the course of weeks, months and years, Lord, that their devotional life would grow stronger and stronger. For those who are married in the room, I pray, Lord, that you would strengthen these marriages. God, I ask, Lord God, that you would help us. We need divine help. We pray, Lord, that we would be marked. I pray, Lord, that we would be faithful to what you've called us to. God, that we wouldn't settle for the American dream, but we would follow the Jesus' dream for our lives. And God, we're just so bombarded with it. I'm so tempted to just live based upon the commercials and build a hybrid of ministry and America and call it a day. But I ask, Lord Jesus, that you would help us to fulfill the calling that you have on our lives. I think of each one who their churches look different and their region of America looks different. Maybe there's people here from other countries. What they do and how they lead their role at the church looks different. But I pray, Lord Jesus, that they'd finish what you've called them to. Lord, open up our hearts. Lord, we just come before you. And God, just as the capital sea church, just as humble leaders, we're asking, Lord God, that you would help us. May we not live with pride. May we not be people, Lord, that have arrogance. Help us. We need you. Help us to be true shepherds, real shepherds that shepherd your people well. We honor you and we love you in Jesus' name and men. You can be seated. Thanks so much for coming to this session. We've got some seats right up here at the front. Or if you guys can squeeze to the middle, that'd be great. We've got people standing in the back. Yeah, you guys can come on all the way up here to the front. If you want to, there's some spots all the way up here. It's great to see all of you. Thank you for coming. My name's David. I pastor Radiant Church in Kansas City. We started in 2016. And I love this tribe. I've been here at a Rise Shine every year. And so deeply love pastor Lee Cummings. We became friends in 2004. And so we've just stayed close. And so love this heart. A bunch of my brothers that I've run with in the past are here on staff. And so love all of you. I've got to know many of you. And I'm grateful that you're here at this session. Now, the burden for me for this session, it was maybe like you. I just experienced just a degree of being heart sick as 2022 started. I think that there was a degree of it in 2020 and 2021. But there was, for me, just a moment. I'll never forget the moment where I got some more news about some more scandals. And a couple of them just hit me really hard. And I don't want this to be. I'm only going to talk about the light. My goal is not to talk about the darkness today. But I do want to recognize that it was painful for me. And so I go on a date with my wife every Sunday night. I don't know how your personality is. I'm a three on the Enneagram. And so I like people. And then I start praying and planning and thinking about the future. So for me, the best night for a date night is Sunday night because I'm literally so buzzed by coffee and so happy that it's my wife's favorite night for us to go out because I'm not stressed about Sunday yet. And so I'm not even thinking about the next Sunday. So we go out on our date night every Sunday night. And so I'm happy during that time. And during that season, my wife, Renata, she said, David, you have brought this up. This whole idea of pastors falling, you've brought it up three, maybe four date nights in a row. And that was just kind of a moment where I realized, OK, this is like, this is hurting. This is hitting me because I have four teenagers and we've got just like you busy lives and we're always trying to figure out how to plan our lives and pull out our calendars and sync things up and make sure that our lives work. I mean, we planted a church and there's a million things to talk about with our church. And I just found myself just coming out of me was this pain, just this disappointment. And I was wrestling with it. I was just wrestling with what's going on, what's the storyline. So that just became a part of my prayer life. Like, Lord, I just need your help. All I know is that I'm sad. And I know how to listen to podcasts and hear people's opinion. I just need your opinion. I know how to hear. I mean, I'm a podcast machine. I know how to get other people's ideas and everybody loves to get famous telling you what's going on in America. Got it. But God, if I can just get with you and hear what's in your heart. And really, I never planned on talking about this. I just need, I might cry. I just need this for me. I just need this for me. Part of my journey is in 2006, my whole life got rocked when the pastor that I worked for, I worked at a big church and we experienced a massive scandal and I was just devastated. I'd traveled around the world with this leader and I was just heartbroken as 29 and I'd been serving there 2000 through 2006. And so everything changed then and now I find myself just having, it's different, but it was like just things kind of ripped off in terms of just kind of wounds on my heart. And so I started just pray through it. Just kind of asking God, God, if you'll just help me, if you'll just help me, sorry, if you'll help me see it, I just need to see it. I never planned on doing a seminar on it and it's still fresh, I'm still crying. But I went to a meeting. I actually serve on the board for a ministry called Every Home for Christ. And so it's a missions organization and I've served on the board there except for one year since 2009. And I went to this meeting and I'd been praying, I'd been praying just Paul's prayer. I finished the race, just that, just that phrase. I've just been praying, I fought the good fight, I finished the race and I was just praying that God, I want to be a finisher. Just, I want to be a finisher. And so that was just in my prayer time in terms of the way that I was interpreting the pain of 2022 and actually it goes further but it was really fresh for me and I'll just be vulnerable with you. There's some guys that I know, that are like friends that suddenly it's over. Like, I mean, I was saying they're life's over and I was saying they're mission over but suddenly they're the front page of a website and I'm just, that was shocking to me. Cause I remember in 2006, experiencing the moment where I'm going, this can't be my life, right? Like, this happens out there. This is, this is too close. This is home. I mean, and I was experiencing some of that and so in terms of my own, just what I was writing in my prayer journal, just like what was devotional was this phrase, I want to be a finisher. So I was at, sorry I was getting to be a long narrative here but I was at the board meeting for everyone for Christ that they were doing this moment with the staff where they were honoring Dick Eastman. And Dick Eastman is 78 years old and has been serving in the role of president and before that he was serving in terms of being a prayer mobilizer. And they showed this video and I'm just sitting there, I'm sitting honestly, I'm sitting in the back row confession, what's up? I mean, I'm like, I'm just back row, kind of just ready to go into board meetings here and they showed this video and it shows Dick Eastman as a young man and then it shows Dick Eastman as a middle-aged man. It shows Dick Eastman with his wife and here he is and he's 78 years old and he comes up after this video and he just starts leading all these people in prayer and I heard the Holy Spirit just, I mean just strong say, he's a finisher. And I just, it's not a scenario where you needed the Lord to say a lot, you just, it's just that, just, and so it just, it just downloaded in me, it just hit me and I knew that the Lord, it was a gift from the Lord to have a relationship and to see it and I wanna take a few moments and talk to you about some of the things that in my years of knowing Dick Eastman and running with Dick Eastman, some of the things that I see in him as a 78-year-old that for me, have given me some life in my prayer life and I just wanna be an encourager for you and so that might sound too simplistic, you may want me to break down sin management. That's a different seminar. Um, ha-ha, there are those seminars and those are great, people have written a lot of books on those things. What I wanna be is I wanna be a local church pastor that is in a place of desire to finish well that looks at other local church pastors and whatever role that you play at your church and help you see some of the goals, some of the things that I see in Dick Eastman that my hope is will help you. So I was thinking about Paul and Paul just because that phrase, I fought the good fight, I finished the race, kept the faith and I think it's intriguing that as Paul gets toward the end, as he's looking to young Timothy and he's writing at the end, he's saying I have finished and I wanna invite that to be just the burden and I wanna invite you to have the same burden that I have and that is God, let me be a finisher, let me be a finisher and I'm not saying any of the people that have had these challenging moments are that God's not gonna redeem and God's gonna, of course all those things but you know what I'm saying, I'm saying to the best that I can where I finish what God's called me to without a scenario like that. And so kind of the way that it kind of, kind of just landed in my head was that, you know that famous financial book, Rich Dad Poor Dad? I was just thinking about finishing pastor, fading pastor because I wanna, I mean basically in that book, it gives you if you wanna think like my rich dad, think this way, if you wanna think like my poor dad, think this way and I just, for me, I've had the enjoyment of getting to run with Dick Eastman who's a finisher and frankly I've had the opportunity to run with some people that I think have had some scandal and have faded and the reason why I use the word faded because I could use another word, not an F word, that sounds bad, failing, falling, there's lots of other ones. Welcome to church and wow, hope this isn't on YouTube. But I want you fading because when I think about, when I think about the story there, none of these guys that I've run with, whatever, they didn't start off thinking they were gonna have a scandal. They didn't start off a fraud. They just faded. Just got to a place where they allowed some things in their lives to be tweaked and then hit the wall. Does that make sense? I'm sorry for the failing pastor joke that might have been over the line. So I wanna give you a few things that I see in Dick Eastman. Number one is this. In Dick Eastman, I saw a life of intimacy over influence. Intimacy over influence. When Dick Eastman was young, I think at late 30s, he made a decision to spend an hour alone with God each day. And he would spend an hour alone with God in prayer and it became, it became, I mean, he ended up writing books on it and so he wrote a book called The Hour that Changes the World and so it's a phenomenal book on how to spend time alone with God for an hour. It's based off of when Jesus says, can you not wait up with me for one hour? And so he takes it into 12 different increments of five minutes and just prays for an hour a day. And then now he's 78 years old and he's never missed a day in over 40 years. And so many people say that sounds like legalism. If you say it to Dick Eastman, he's got kind of like a jovial little jump in his step and he says it's not legalism, it's love, you know? And it's this but deep embedded in Dick Eastman as a leader that is a finisher, this is a core value. And so I remember one time specifically where he took me to his house and he showed me his prayer closet and he had taken space and in Colorado you have, sometimes you have like these the stairs go down and then you have like a space where you can keep things under it and he had turned the storage space into his prayer closet and every day he goes in that space to pray. Some days it's on an airplane, he travels the world as a missions organization leader but most days that he's home, that's his place and so it's got maps on the wall. He showed me a list where my name was on the wall as he was praying for me and he had books stacked up high, he had prayer journals, he had pens and this space was a priority. Why the space was a priority because being with Jesus was a priority so he had a time and he had a place and he had stories about even when he got home from traveling on transatlantic flights and getting in super late only to tell his wife, hey I'm gonna go spend an hour, he called it the gap. I'm gonna go spend an hour in the gap before the end of the day because I'm gonna get every day I'm gonna spend an hour alone with Jesus. It's one of the things that's marked his life and I know many times and even in this conversation we like to say, no, no, David, I came to this session because I want you to tell me what are the walls I can build to keep me from sinning? What are the things that I can do? And I'm just telling you the thing the thing that the Holy Spirit dropped on my heart was to look at Dick Eastman because I was praying for my own journey and I'm giving you some of that and Dick Eastman, far more than sin management, he wasn't just had a good defense, he had a great offense, right? He was going after God strong in the secret place. Many pastors say cliche but if you think in your head, cynical cliche, you're in a rough spot. If you look at me and you say that's a cliche answer, I need something else, I'm just telling you that's a warning sign right there. That means something's a little bit off right there because that means you're not, deep down you're saying that's not really enough so I wanna invite you to let that be a pop quiz. What should go off on our heart is oh God, man, let me be a finisher like that. Let me have tears in my eyes when I talk about Jesus when I'm 78 years old rather than looking for another pragmatic approach to just stop sinning. Just telling you if you'll get the secret that I saw in Dick Eastman is that he's a blaze. I mean he's 78 and he's a blaze. And I'm not exaggerating. You can go meet him. I mean, here's, now when I say a blaze, I'm not saying that he's like a 35 year old Zella sweating John the Baptist with, I mean he's 78, he wears like 78 year old man sweaters and he kind of sings when he talks and but he's walking around, he's going, and he's got joy. He's like, oh, he's singing as he walks, he's praying and oh, I mean he's, but that's what a blaze looks like. That's what a blaze is. And so anyway, it's one of the things, just fun story, one time about 2015, we were seated in a classroom about this size and we were waiting for a missionary to give kind of an update and I'm sitting next to Dick Eastman. We were kind of killing like that for a little three or four minutes before the meeting starts. And I pick up his Bible because all the pages are just like, I mean torn and colored and snotty and just, and I'm just like looking at it and I give him this, but the cover, it looks nice, you know, so but I'm flipping through it and he looks at me and he goes, I just got that rebound. And I'm like, you know, great. And he goes, yeah, he goes, well, I took it to the place to get it rebounded. That little young lady there, when you're 78, like the 60 year olds are the young ladies, you know, it's like, I mean, I'm not kidding. Like that's the way he talks, you know, and he's like, young lady there, she was like, she told me it's gonna take, it's gonna take three weeks to get it back. And I looked at her and I said, and she said, sir, it'll take three weeks just like everybody else. And he said, I said to her, I need it tomorrow. I use this Bible every day in my time alone with God. He said, I gotta tell her a little bit about the Lord. You know, I'm telling you, I can do his vocal inflection so well. The Lord, like that's exactly how he talked. And she said, sir, you're gonna have to wait. And he said, young lady, I'd love to have this tomorrow. And she goes, it's not possible. And he looked at her and he said, I'll pay any price. And he said, I had it the next day. Here's what I love about that. I don't know Dick Eastman's ability to pay some extra money, but I do know that most of the 78-year-olds I know are trying to work on spending that money on something else. Another trip, a little nicer TV, a little nicer something else. And Dick Eastman, the reason why, I mean, who knows what he paid? He didn't care, any price. And I know all of us, we were like, brother, just download an app. You know, welcome to 2022. But for him, there's a value system. The value system of the finisher is I'll pay any price for that. I'll pay any price for that. The value of the finisher, it's wrapped around. I'm going, and so I wanna invite you straight up, I wanna invite you to embrace that habit that Dick Eastman has. I think that's a mark of the finisher. I think that's the mark. If you'll be someone that spends time alone with God each day, we see it in Jesus. Jesus, Luke 442, alone with his father, Luke 516, alone with his father, Luke 612, alone with his father, Luke 918, alone with his father, Luke 111, alone with his father, Mark 135, alone with his father, you get the idea. And I'll just go flip it on the other side. When I look at some of the the sadness of people that have faded, there became a cynical response to this. Oh, yeah, of course, well. And then there's kind of the obligatory, that's what I ought to do, but I don't. That's what I should do, but I don't have time. So I'm just inviting you to lock in with you, just embrace the Dick Eastman system. I'm gonna be alone with Jesus. When it is boring, mundane, and difficult, I'm still gonna be with him. And as pastors, I love what Lee was saying earlier about our chief role being intercessors and prayer leaders, that devotional piece is so critical. And I think if we're gonna lead praying churches, which is what we're talking about here, you gotta be the praying pastor. And to be the praying pastor, you gotta start. Because I'll tell you this, if you'll get alone with God and get strengthened in that secret place, that'll give you the enjoyment of doing what you do. It'll just change it. It'll just change it because you'll see your role differently. You'll see your role as living from obedience rather than constant comparison and obligation. And I think that some of the things I see in faders, and I'm not saying this with, I'm saying this with brokenness. And that's why I'm even talking about it. I'm not saying this to be mean. But I think that it's easy in our culture, in the global information age, to want influence more than you want intimacy. And when you want influence more than intimacy, better halt. You want to finish the race saying, I love to the Lord my God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength. Not, I was famous. People knew who I was. And I'm just, I know you know that, but I want to invite us to embrace the habits that keep us on the right track to keep that intimacy piece ablaze. So if you can lock in with, I'm just write it down. I'm going intimacy over influence in my life. Psalm 78, and David shepherded him with integrity of heart with skillful hands, he led them. I think that as pastors, it's easy for us to, we got two things, we got, if you have skillful hands, you'll develop influence. And yet it's the integrity of heart. It's that piece of walking with God and being a godly person. And we see this in, like if you look at like, lawyers, doctors, people in other fields, they can have skillful hands and people aren't paying attention to their character, meaning if you're a brain surgeon, I'm not paying attention to, something wrong is with your character on your own time. But as pastors, you mess this one up, you mess it all up, right? So it's skillful hands and integrity of heart. And so I think to make this chief and make this first and make this number one is the right way to finish. It is the way that we'll make it. Of course, I love the old Leonard Ravenhill and since the whole theme of this is praying churches, I thought, I'll quote Ravenhill, but he says everyone is living in the secret place or in secret sin, you know, like. And I mean, that's a strong statement. Everything that Ravenhill says is strong. But there's some truth to the reality of fight for that. And I just, I don't say that like a mean get with it. I'm just, I feel like I'm kind of saying it as, as like, I'm 45, sometimes I feel like I'm 15 and I look 15, but I feel like I've had the opportunity to sit under leaders that faded and leaders that are finishing. And I'm just telling you, I think this is the chief one. I'm just telling you, I'm not saying it like, there's a pragmatic thing in me that feels like, I believe it biblically, but I feel like, so I met Dick Eastman in 1997. So it's been 25 years. And this isn't theory. I've watched him lead like this for 25 years and I've watched him, I've, what's going on the internet? Gotta be careful I say. I've watched him be made fun of by famous people for being faithful in secret prayer when other people were getting famous. And I watched him, I watched Dick Eastman not care. I watched Dick Eastman stay in that cave of intimacy with God and not care and not say names and not get, I watched it. So I get the luxury of just being, I mean, I started the process when I was a teenager hanging out with these guys and now I feel like I just wanna share with you man, my hope is is that you don't get cynical and this is the thing that bugs me. It's the thing that bugs me about pastors is we so love to be intellectual that we mock devotion. It's just amazing to me which I'm just telling you it's a mess like the end of the day God says love him with all your heart and he's less impressed with your big brain. He's more impressed with your big heart. He gave you high intellect. He gave you a great brain, good use it. But at the end of the day he's looking for voluntary love. And so I'm telling you man, if you write the great books and you can give a great lecture, it's not as good as having a big heart in secret place. So the thing that I love about Dick Eastman and it's fresh for me cause I literally just had, for me it was just one of the, you know those moments that are just so precious from the Lord where you're like, I'll treasure it all my days. That was the moment I just had where I had the Holy Spirit to say, he's a finisher and I didn't get like a blog post. I didn't get like 10 points. All I got was just that, it's just that burden. He's a finisher. I interrupted the meeting. Cause I just started crying. I'm such a mess, me crying, can you imagine? And I literally, I interrupted the whole meeting. I took the microphone and I just, and I just said, Dick Eastman's a finisher. I'm crying and I'm like, you're a finisher. And all the missionaries that have flown in for all over the world are like, is this supposed to go on, you know? And I was the only one enjoying the moment. Even Dick Eastman was kind of like, I wasn't on the itinerary. I wasn't on the flow sheet, but I just had this like, I just, oh, cause I had, I had the, I had the history and color of springs. And I was like, I remember these moments. And for me, even this, like where I'm like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna tell a bunch of strangers this kind of devotional thing that's going on inside of me. But I just want you to feel it. Cause I'm just, I want you to finish. I want to finish. I just want us to, I want us, I want this to be our confession. I think this is a big one. So just a couple more thoughts on this and that is that, that intimacy over influence thing, out of that, you do minister, your motive for ministry is obedience. Your motive for ministry is not to build a platform. And yet it's actually possible in our day and time to use ministry as a platform to build wealth, fame, prestige. And because of it, it's just, it's just so easy for us to use ministry as a means for the very things that are greed and pride. And I mean, you can literally look at the, you can look at the things that God hates, right? Like the seven that God hates. And you can use ministry to use that and that and that. And only God knows your heart. And I think this is tricky. This is off script, but I just think, I just think when I look at ministry for us, I think we're in a new day where our heroes, I think that young people can go into ministry where the heroes are celebrity preachers instead of missionaries and martyrs. I just, and I think that's one of the most tricky pieces in ministry today because when I was a kid, I went to go into ministry and my hero was my dad. And my dad was unknown, obscured, but he just loved God and was doing the great commission. But he was my hero. And then he had heroes of John Wesley. And I love John Wesley because John Wesley was five too. And I was like, that's probably my destiny. Ah! And I was like, nobody else liked me except my dad. So I was like, I'll do what he does, right? Sorry, that was the front point. But when I look at today, and I work a lot with young people and lights go on where I mean, and I know you could go, well in the 80s you had, you know, televangelists and in the 50s you had, you know, big tents, but it's not the same. You can't, the nature of the internet is that it's instant, it's global, it's all over the world. People, it is so difficult to count how many people came to your big tent in the 1950s compared to instantly how many views you had today. I mean, it's just a different game. And so we have so many young people going into ministry and they don't even know the motive of their own heart. And I'm telling you, it's easy. I don't know how old you are, but it's possible for us to fade and we started off. And we still think of ourselves as the kid at camp that says, seein' Keith Greensounds, hug on anywhere, I'll do anything, you're amazing, I love you God. In our head, we're remembering the devotion of yesteryear, but we've got allowed all kinds of hooks to get into our heart since then. That's the thing you read about Saul and David. Saul then started off a mess, he became a mess. Right? We think, I'm David. No, you gotta fight to keep that David heart. We will all slip into Saul unless we are intentional about fighting for our hearts. Okay. This is another thing I love about Dick Keesman. Sorry, and if all this is, is David's love for Dick Keesman? All right, that's just how it is. All I'll do is put it in my prayer journal. Hey God, I spent an hour talking about how much I love you and Dick Keesman. All right. But I do, I love this guy. I'm in love with this because he's finished. He's 78 and he's finished and that's rare. Like we can't find him. I know, I know. You know lots of them, I don't. I don't. All right, sorry. All right, marriage. Here's another thing. Here's what I love about Dick Keesman. Even that day, he got up and he gave a little sermon at to the staff and to the board and to the missionaries. And here's, here he's 78 years old. He's got his wife, Dee, right here on the front row. And during his whole talk, he said her name at least 16 times, at least 16 times. He would just be like, hey, you remember that, Dee? And you remember that? And then we, do you remember when we were in Tanzania? Oh, you remember the missionary named Laka Laka Laka as we were in Waka Waka Waka stand and we were ministering to the La La La La tribe and you're just like, wow. And nobody's laughing, but him and her. We're just like, and here's why I say that. I'm gonna say marriage over ministry. That's the second one, marriage over ministry. Now I know that's a strong statement. And I know all of us have different marriages and I know our spouses are different and I know that if you're married and I know that the way that you do life is different. But here's what I love about Dick Keesman and that was you always saw him place high priority on his wife, Dee. So they had offices next to each other. She ran the board minutes, he's like a happy, it's like seven on the integrand type and she's kind of like a detailed, like a one or something or in the disc test. She's probably a C and he's the I. And so he's like into where Hawaiian shirts that get your attention and look bright while she's wearing the business suit. That's their personalities. But Dick, at 78 years old, Dick Eastman, he just can't stop talking about his wife. In fact, he's making jokes to her on the front row. He's made her a priority. I remember in the 1990s, looking at their pictures where they were wearing matching outfits when they were in their, I'm telling you, I told Renata, I was like, we're wearing matching outfits. I did, you can look at my Instagram story. Now that sounds bad because I just preached against Instagram. But I mean, yesterday I was like, we looked like Dick and Dee, I posted it. I was like, yeah, I'm on my way, babe. I'm a finisher. I'm like, we're, I'm like, anyway. I'm, but I'm just telling you like, there was this, there was this togetherness, like we're together focused. And I just want to invite you to think about it. Here's what I see about some of the faders. Some of the faders stereotype their spouse as a certain way and then say they'll be fine. She'll be all right. I'm not, and I'm just saying, I've just watched it. I just, more than once. And it's a, oh, they're this way and they'll be okay. And I just want to invite you to learn from Dick Eastman. Learn from the Bible to make your marriage a priority. And I think this is a key mark of a finisher. It's one of the things I love about Dick Eastman. I think a great marriage is the best defense against adultery. And so when there's an intentional, an intentional building, it helps the perpetual, all the adulterous stories. You know, when you get down to a lot of the scenarios, not all, but many of the scenarios with some of these scandals, oftentimes, not every time, there was just taking your foot off the gas, stop accelerating on your marriage. And so it's not, something was necessarily wrong. It was just that we stopped laboring to make it great. And so I want to invite you just rearrange your time, work on it, make your spouse a priority. One of the things I loved about D that I try to do all the time, and people have picked up on it, I say the name Renata all the time, because I learned that from Dick Eastman. Like he's never, he says all the time, and so if you're a monologuer like me, or he just says her name, he just, and then every place he can, that you see a picture of Dick and D. It's not just Dick Eastman. Although Dick Eastman, she's not a speaker. She's not up front. He's not trying to increase her profile. He's making it clear who he's with. And just every time that you can, every time that you can, hey, we're together, we even match. And he talks about that. He talks about different seasons. There was seasons where, when he was first starting to write books in the 1970s, where he would write it on notebook paper and then she would type it. There are seasons where she was leading administratively and they had offices next to each other. Her role has changed, but they've stayed close the whole time. I think it's significant. Third one is this. Calling over comfort. Calling over comfort. I just wanna juxtapose, I just wanna juxtapose two different pastors. I was talking to you, I can't believe I'm so scared to say some of these things. I was talking to a mega church pastor. I'll say that, okay? Can I say it? I'll say it. I got, you can do this, I'm in our next year. Okay, and this is, I'm just, I'm saying this because this is real personal and I just, I want you to feel it. But I was talking to him and there's nothing wrong with what he said. Nothing wrong with it. But it's different than what I hear from Dickiesman. We're talking and he's, I was a young pastor and he's talking about the day that he hits his retirement number. The day that he hits the certain amount where he knows he can make it and finish and go and he named his hobby. I'm not gonna say it, in case somebody listens to this. And he named his hobby and that was the number where he could get to do what he really wanted to do. And ministry was the avenue that he chose and he was being obedient to God. And I think he's fine. I'm not saying it's wrong, but I am saying it's different than what I heard from Dickiesman. So that the day that he did, and he's retired now, the day he hit that number, he did. And he's been doing that hobby, living in a different place, doing that thing, and he's a great guy. He's a great guy. But let me tell you what I saw from Dickiesman last month. Dickiesman is 78. Said yes to following Jesus as a young man, went into ministry as a young man and at 78, which that's about a lot older than the other retired guy I just talked about. He's been jumping on airplanes, eating gross food, going to the darkest places, working late nights, writing as many books as possible, trying to train me, trying to train young leaders, you know, like trying to invest his life all the way to the end. And now at 78, where he's physically unable to walk in the presidency anymore. Now he is changing his role, not to be done, but just to switch, Jim Collins idea, just to switch his seat on the bus. Now instead of being the CEO, his new title is, he's the CPO, the chief prayer officer, right? That's a true story because to the end, he's wanting, his touchdown is standing before Jesus and finishing the race and fulfilling the calling. And it's a different scenario than when you've mixed the American dream and ministry. It's a whole different way of looking at life. And our challenges is we go, oh, I don't, David, that sounds so hard. I just want you to read Paul and ask yourself if you're an American first or if you're a follower that wants to finish first. And I'm not, I don't know your scenario and I'm not saying that what I just put in front of you is a mandate for all people. That's not what I'm saying. I do want you to see a difference in the heart though. And I do want you to know as a practitioner that there is a difference. It's what Lee was talking about a moment ago. There is a difference between just saying, this is what everybody's all, the way everyone's always done it. So I've always seen a scenario where people kind of just mixed the American dream and do ministry instead of doing fill-in-the-blank occupation. What I see in Dick Eastman as a finisher is that it was always, I'm just fulfilling the calling of God. It's so the way that he makes choices is different. For me, I was thinking about this idea of calling over comfort in the story of David and Bathsheba in 2 Samuel 11. Cause that's clearly the story where at the time in the springtime when kings go off to war, David stayed home and in comfort, standing on the top of his house, that's when he saw Bathsheba. And I think that it plays into this principle for us. I think that it's easy for us to, when we try to start to take steps back into comfort because we've been successful in ministry, that's often the place where we find ourself ensnared. And so I wanna invite you to say, I'm gonna, I have a calling. I know what it is and I wanna finish. David, are you saying that retirement's wrong? No, I'm not saying retirement's wrong. I'm talking about a way of thinking. But I am saying that the person that thinks I wanna make enough money in ministry. Like I just talked to someone who just, they literally three weeks ago, same story. They were able to save a lot of money. They're in their fifties and they're moving to a lake house and they've been in ministry and they're done and they're so happy about it. I'm not belittling them. I know that by virtue of bringing it up, you think, oh, he's a jerk and he's slamming these people. That's not what I'm doing. What I'm trying to do is tell you, I think that is the normal way. I think that is what everybody does. I think that's mostly what I hear. That's why I'm just, there was just something about the day where I felt like the Holy Spirit said he's a finisher is the day that he said, I'm not done. I'm just changing my seat on the bus on what I can physically do because I want all the way to the end to stand before God and say, I have finished the race. I fought the good fight. So I'm just telling you, I think that's one of the key things that I see in him. Fourth one is this, I'm almost done. Humility over haughtiness. Almost every time that we look at a fall or a fade, pride is the root. And so Proverbs 16, 18, pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall. Famous verse. How do we maintain humility? One of the things I love about Dick Eastman, I don't know if you've figured this out. I'm giving all Dick Eastman stories today. So I can do that. I'm a spiritual son. I get to do that. Can you imagine being 71 years old and still going on extended fast just because you're in love with God in your 70s? Like I was a part of a youth prayer and fasting movement in the 90s and I enjoyed fasting a lot more when it was new and I was 19. And now that I'm like 45, my temptation is to be like, ah, I've been there, done that. And another wild guy is coming out of nowhere calling the whole world to 40 days of prayer and fasting. I get to check the box and say, I've been there, done that. If that's confession of sin, just take it as it is. But you start to be like, I don't know if I want to do another corporate fast with another group of people for another thing. Maybe it's just me. All right, but here's what I love about Dick Eastman. In the 70s, still going on extended fast. And it's a mark of humility that still says, I'm desperate for God and I'm not the center and I need him. And I think it's a habit to be a finisher, to not be at a place where you get to where you use all the systems to just make your life more comfortable, where you're still putting in voluntary sacrifice, where you're literally saying no to your body to say yes to God. And I just think it's one of the things that many leaders stop doing because they can. And nobody knows except God. And I think that it's easy to start to have some spiritual pride. And it's one of the things I just want to encourage you with. When you see leaders that, you know, when you're the one that says, well, this lust I'll tolerate because everybody struggles with it. Until there's a spiritual giant, until there's a spiritual leader, until you read the scripture and you go, I'm actually gonna have a higher vision than that. And I want to invite you to think, man, what if, what if we were people, what if we were pastors and leaders that were so filled with spiritual desperation that even in our old age, we're praying and fasting. One of the things that Kiesman did, I remember this one, he did, he told me, we're in the World Prayer Center and he does this, I'm doing a 40 day worship fast. And I said, you're not gonna worship for 40 days? He goes, that's how proud I was. I said, no, the other way, he goes, all I'm gonna do is I'm just gonna worship for 40 days. I'm just gonna worship for 40 days. I was thinking, you know, a lot of mega church pastors, they don't even worship during the service. They stay in the green room, but here's Dick Kiesman. I'm gonna have 40 days, just worship, just worship. It's this less of me, more of God, habits, disciplines, faders, stop worshiping, stop praying, stop fasting. And it's just you. And here's what we do. We go, I know all the right answers. I don't go to those seminars anymore because I know the answers. The kind of person that's in this session today is a spiritually hungry person that's saying, I think you just being here is a step of humility. And so I love that about Dick Kiesman, I love that about you. I think if you'll build that worship fasting prayer life, prayerlessness is proof of pride. It's dependence on me rather than dependence on God. Last one is this, people over prestige. People over prestige, one of the most amazing things. So here's Dick Kiesman running this massive ministry, millions of dollars, and he and D would have Renata and I and our children over to their house. Another time, he brought five guys in and we sat on his porch and he just taught us how to spend time alone with Jesus. I told you about the time he brought me to his house so that he could show me, so I could see his prayer closet, the gap. I know what it is to be around leaders that would even call themselves your leader, your mentor, and you have no idea where they live. But Dick Kiesman saw people, he was intentional, brought them over to his house. 1 Peter 4.9 says, offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. Oh no, no, that's not really my thing. We're not really like hospitable people. Here's Peter. Hey church planner, hey senior pastor. No, but my church is big. Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. Yeah, but you're grumbling, but offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. No, but I live in America, we don't have to do that. No, no, no, but my kids are not good at cleaning their rooms. No, but read the Bible, it's just right there. Just read Peter. I know, but this is American culture, it's different in Michigan than in other places. Offer hospitality, just saying one of the things I loved about a guy who ran a multi-million dollar ministry and he had time to have us to his home. It's just invest in real people rather than just throw it out there to the internet, throw it out there to the crowds. Are you a disciple maker? Dick Eastman's a disciple maker with real people. Real people, I'm a disciple maker because I teach and it goes out there. Okay, rearrange how you see making disciples and ask yourself if you're actually with real people. Easy for us, I think, to get in the big crowd, big internet world and distance ourselves from the mess of being with people and knowing them and walking with them. So one of my favorite things about Dick Eastman is that he sat with us and knew us and gave my kids real gifts, tried to know my kids' names. And I just think that's one of the things when I sense the Holy Spirit say there's a finisher. I don't know how big of one this is but I think it's really significant in the internet age. I think it's one, I'll never forget Dick Eastman with all of his busy schedule and he had about 100 people on staff and he spent a couple weeks where all he did was just in a classroom and he just spent 15 to 30 minutes with each staff and their family just praying with each one. And then the admin assistant sends in the next family and he prays with them, he listens to them and he prays for them. Just in the middle of, this is before he was the CPO, this was back when he was the CEO, running everything but intentionality with real people. And I think that's significant, I think that'll help us. Let's stand, let me pray for you. Father, I thank you for these leaders. I pray, Lord Jesus. We just stretch your hands, can you just lift your hands? Father, I just pray, Lord Jesus. Decades from now we'd be finishers. We pray that Paul's confession would be ours. I have fought the good fight, I've finished the race, I've kept the faith. I ask Lord Jesus for finishers in this room. I ask Lord God, Lord that we would be people in our context, in our generation. I pray that you would strengthen them with might in their inner man. I pray, Lord Jesus, that they would walk with you and know you in the secret place. I pray, Lord, that they would love well, make their marriages priorities. I pray, Lord Jesus, that you would help them to walk in calling, not comfort. Let us, let us finish, let us live or we finish what you've called us to do. I pray, Lord Jesus, mark them with humility. Let us be real pastors, real shepherds. Know, see, love, take care of real people. In Jesus' name, amen. Thanks for coming.