Be Rich Part 2 // Andy Stanley & Jeff Foxworthy

I love these guys you know I learned it's real easy to discard people or to not think about them when you can put them in a bucket and just call them homeless or addicts or whatever but when they become Jack and Wayne and Kevin and Solomon when they become real human beings it's really hard to turn your back on them and I think that's what I've learned from this place is is everybody in here is no different than I am it's it's people that got damaged early in life and and because of that they had struggles but they're loved no less by God than I am and and so it's kind of a cool thing to sit around in a room full of men and actually talk about these things and I was telling somebody the other day if you offered me of a million bucks but I had to give away my ten years at the mission I wouldn't take the money because it's changed my life it's made my life better and how do you put a price tag on that [Applause] [Music] so would you please welcome to the stage and my friend and yours one of the funniest man in America Jeff Foxworthy that's a lot of pressure yeah that's a lot of pressure Wow thanks so much for doing this my pleasure yeah and Jeff and I have known each other a long time I'm not sure how we met or who introduced us but about I think it's 2008 Jeff and I actually went to Africa on a compassion international trip to meet the kids we sponsored and so I I'm not gonna show any pictures of me but here Jeff is doing he didn't know yet another talent that people didn't know the only job I'm really qualified blowing bubbles so we had a fantastic time on in that environment and spending that much time together with Jeff realized this is a guy that's way more than what people see on television we became friends people know you as famous comedian blue-collar comedy that you know that's for some people that was their introduction to you then fifth-grader and incredible Ryan that was so much as long as they give me the card with the answers on 20-something books how many books I don't 26 seven so yeah people don't even know that you're an author yet 26 27 books and the most amazing thing I want to get this right you've done six comedy albums three of them went triple platinum which means each one sold about three million so Jeff is the largest selling comedy recording artist in the history of the world so that that's like that's like amazing yeah it just seems like it should be somebody else yeah so maybe something folks don't know about you you actually grew up in Atlantis to tell us a little bit about that you actually grew up and grew up in here in hate bill it literally at the end of the runway when and yeah that that's maybe the way I am because I've been held so many jet fumes in my life but it was yeah the home of chick-fil-a so I've known the Cathy family's that when that was the only chick-fil-a in the world so it was a cool boy house yeah and grew up in Southern Baptists gonna church Southern Baptist Church yeah got saved early in life 7 years old I remember that Sunday I was like I wanted to go down and my mother was holding my shirt like you're not there in the invitations yeah during the invitation you know the Oh just as I am you know the choirs gonna sing five stanzas and I'm like I want to go down and my mom is like you're too little you don't know what you're doing so I don't know how this worked out the preacher came to our house they had the preacher do a house call and sat down and talked to me anytime my mom yeah he knows what he's doing and so I'm like we're going Sunday night service you know yeah I've said we're going Sunday night because I'm not going to hell because y'all were too lazy you know Ted let me let me get in you know want to be in the club yeah in case the world ends tomorrow so it was one of those Southern Baptist churches yes yeah well I mean it was and which was a little bit of a problem for me because anybody that kind of grew up in that strict church environment it was well kind of one of those places where you know don't drink don't smoke no custom won't you know like do this and I knew a very early age I was wired like this so it was a little bit of a dichotomy for me because I'm like I know I love God but I can't do that you know that will drive me crazy in it and it probably wasn't until adulthood that I that I reached the fact that there's like God went wait a minute I formed you in your mother's womb I made you like this because you can have influence on people that can't do this and so I'm like that was just free well you just freed up a whole bunch of people yeah I love people like this yeah like so so your face started at a young age and as like everybody else there were twists and turns along the way but you've just that's just been a big part of your life and a central part of your life the whole time for the most part yeah it always was you know it's like weird with comedy cuz I will have people say well why don't you just do Christian comedy and I'm like well then the only people that listen to me or Christians why can't I be a comedian that loves you know and the cool thing about that is they're like I'm a big outdoors guy I love to hunt fish and hike and all that stuff so people will come hear me like at a wild game dinner that would never go to church but they'll come to laugh for 30 minutes and then maybe you know I can share something else with them yeah so yeah I don't regret that so let's talk about the comedy thing a little bit so you went to Georgia Tech went to Georgia Tech I was a Georgia fan I would have gone to join had no money and so I had to live at home and I worked at a grocery store full-time so Tech was the closest school and I went there for three years until they invited me to take some time off here's the funny part so I have two readers many of us feel better oh yes mr. disco and and so last Christmas my mother was saying to me you know you have three years it's you just should go back and get that last year and I said mom pick the comedy thing is working out okay she's like I know but you would have something to fall back on [Laughter] so yeah I went and then they took some time off and anyone who worked for and worked for IBM started in dispatch but I had a job carrying a tool bag fixing machines it sounds more glamorous than it was and I was the guy I was the guy that was always like doing impersonations of the boss and the break room and then somebody would tap you and you turn around and the boss would be you know so I was not headed for greatness there but actually it was your friends at IBM that encouraged you to well I had a bunch of friends that would go to the punch line every week you know it was kind of new the comedy club thing and they kept coming back to work and going Fox you're funnier than the people down there you ought to go do this and I didn't and so they entered me in a contest a lot of people probably remember the great southeastern laugh off they entered me in this they signed you up they signed me up and this wasn't an amateur night it was for working comedians and so I'm like I went and watched for a week to try to get an idea what it was all he's never been to a comedy club no I well when I was a kid I would buy like you know Cosby albums about Hardin Flip Wilson and I'd memorize them and go to school and get in trouble for them the best note that I ever got in my life first time I played the Fox Theater somebody brought a note to the dressing room and it was from my high school principal and he said I cannot believe I am shelling out money to listen to the same kind of stuff I used to try to put a stop to yeah here there's that guy again yeah I went a home and in wrote five minutes about my family and went back the next week and won the contest Wow and the first time I said no idea what I was doing now something else very significant happened at night yes I'm my wife currently current know she won't know she wasn't my wife then I was single yeah current you know it sounds like the one he's got now not one of the next two or three so but she was an actress and she had just done a movie with a guy that was a comic and so that they had a group that came down to root for this guy and he was in the he was in the contest he still we're still friends today so I met and she came up and talked to me and so and I was so nervous I like looked at her and I spilled my drink right like all down the front of her and I'm like well I'll guess you'll never go out with me and she said you haven't even asked and that was 30 30 years ago so we've been married 32 years I met my wife and my career the same night same place that's pretty cool yeah and so and she encouraged you to chase this she was the only person you know and I guess it was because she was the one saying you've got all this creative stuff inside of you you're gonna go crazy if you don't get it out so after two or three months of doing amateur nights I quit IBM and my mother's this was my mother's first question are you own the dope not just dope Verdot are you on the dope and I'm like no I'm not on dope I just I want to try to be a comedian and she's like we can get you help we have five years later I was on Johnny Carson the same mother's going you know you wasted all those years at IBM and moms they're the best okay so you met Greg your wife yeah and you've been married for 30 just 32 years I got a picture of your whole family check to my oldest daughter Jordan who works at the Atlanta mission full-time that's her job Jules a Auburn grad oh really we're gonna do that on Sunday we're just gonna rub it in and then my beautiful wife who doesn't change and I just get old so that's fabulous so the comedy thing your mom was right it ultimately worked out the other thing before we switch gears that I love about you Jeff and I've heard this from other people and then I've asked you about it is during all those years I mean being a professional comedian you're all over the country you're on the west coast a lot you live in Georgia you stayed here and where it was it would have been so easy to just disconnect from family and just live that life you you paid a price both in terms of time energy and money to get home be there in the morning get your kids to school and that was that's always been a priority for you yeah well my dad left when I was young Mike and so and no matter what your parents say when when you're a kid and your parent leaves in your mind you think I wasn't worth sticking around for hmm that's what you feel and so even though I had a job that put me in a different city every night I wouldn't rent a plane I was plowed a PDK I would fly home every night so say Friday night I had a show in st. Louis I would go do the show and I'm flow home and get home at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning and I'd get up and I'd take them to soccer or basketball or whatever they were doing and then I'd get back on the plane at 4:00 in the afternoon fly to Minneapolis or flight or you know wherever I was doing so for but I would take my kids to school every day and my brother lives next door to me I'd take five little girls to school every day because I wanted my kids to know hey even though I love what I do yeah you're the priority in my life yeah I think that's an important thing for folks to know because it's so easy to use a myriad of things as an excuse but that was that cost you terms of time influence and a sling and a whole lot of money so um so 10 years ago and this is this is amazing ten years ago someone that I don't think you even knew all that well invited you to do something you had no interested in it also tell us about how the whole involvement with you missionary countdown for ten years to who recorded it on Tuesday morning they would air on the weekend and so it got canceled and I kept these and we were I was with my girls at the Carter Center watching a documentary thing and then they had to go to the bathroom and whatever you girls do in the bathroom takes a lot longer than whatever is guys so I'm killing time and a guy had a table set up from the Atlanta mission and I took one of their brochures and as I'm reading it and I was like oh I didn't realize this was a faith-based thing and the guy's name was Joshua Harrelson and he said hey if you want to have lunch I mean Brody's number down and I got home I put it on the kitchen counter and for months how many two or three months my wife would be can I throw this away I'm like don't throw that away but it just said that things came and went and I finally called him and he said yeah come down for lunch and in my mind I'm thinking he wants something out of me he wants me to do a show and donate the money or he wants me to do their commercials he wants something and and I asked him I'm like what do you want he's I just want to have lunch and so he invited me down the first guy that I met at the mission and and this was my feeling about people that were homeless I'm like oh there's somebody homeless find a few bucks and they'll go away and I can go deal with what I'm dealing with the first guy on that was a now we're in the middle of downtown Atlanta it's this white 20 year and this is your first trip down first trip down there having a lunch down in the cafeteria 21 year old kid named Jason and I'm looking at him and to be honest I'm like a kid a job you late what the heck are you're 21 years old what are you doing and so we sit down and Joshua says hey Jason tell him your story and Jason said well it was me and my brother and my mom and dad and then when I was 11 my mom killed herself he said and then the next year my brother killed himself and then it was just me and my dad and my second year at college my dad killed himself he said and I just got tired of hurting and so I just started getting high and I'm looking at this kid and I'm thinking I would have got high - oh because when you get high or when you get drunk you're not a good employee so you you don't work nobody wants to hire you and so you don't have money and so you start borrowing and taking from people around you and that's how you end up on the street is some kind of hurt that you've known - that's how you end up on the street that's how you end up homeless something bad happened to you and you couldn't get past so all of a sudden instead of being nameless and faceless this was a real guy with a real story that really it's the story stuff and I'm looking at him and I'm going on I could be homeless I could be you because I would have gotten high - and so what was the ask after lunch I mean there was an ask well yeah I went back two or three times I kept thinking what do you want and I kept asking Joshua what do you want and he said finally he said you keep asking what I want I'll tell you what I want I want you to lead a small group he said none of these guys have ever done a small group a small group at the Atlanta mission with homeless people yeah do a little small group Bible study and I'm thinking they're six and a half million people in Atlanta and you can't find anybody more qualified than me really and so that's how it began it was me and 12 guys and I had they even entice them I would stop at chick-fil-a and get chicken biscuits I'm like if you'll just come just small group I'll give you a chicken biscuit and so literally you when you get to chick-fil-a on Tuesday mornings they're not even though I'll wait for them to open I'm standing outside in the dark with so if you would ever like to get Jeff's autograph if you'll go to the chick-fil-a you have to get there at 6:15 6:15 you got a good job yeah so you pick up okay keep going so in what was weird it was almost divine it's it's and I'm like wow this job is bigger than I am so I had a group of guys that some of them I barely knew that I would text and go hey one like my close some of your friends yeah yeah just associate somebody say oh this guy's kind of got a heartburn and like would you like to come down and almost to a man every one of them said I'll come down once but to cease are busy from back in I can't do it but once and then 10 years later they've been there every Tuesday for a decade Wow and and I mean I love these guys these guys are just so all in under some of them are out here today and so it's not my thing all I did was say yes that's all I did I wasn't qualified I just said yes I'll do this now why did you go back because you know what well that was the thing with Jason because he didn't ask you initially to do anything it was just well here's why I went back was because of the stories and and in fact one of my best friends I'm like I said if you've never read a book called same kind of different as me Ron Braun Hall and and Denver more the story them but that that book really influenced me and one of my dearest friends in the whole world Wayne cook he had the he and I are that book but I was scared to death of cook because cooks big and and he was angry when I first started going in there and and I have a friend Ronnie Brassfield we called him chicken man and so one in one of those early groups we were it was hard to get him to talk to discuss because if you'd been in church you don't talk and so we I was trying to think of questions so one of my questions was what is the Bible and and so chicken man one guy said was just a book so chicken man took the trash can put it in the middle of floor and walked over and dropped his Bible in the trashcan and you see everybody go yeah and cook got up and he pulled it out me wiped it off he said chicken man don't do that and he said well if it's just a book why does that bother you and cook told the story in the condensed version he said when it's when his mom died he said I inherited $70,000 and like a lot of us when we have excess we don't do well with it and he just started party and got a couple of girlfriends and they said they're partying night and day we you know getting high doing crack and and when you don't go to work you don't get paid when you don't get paid you don't pay your rent and you end up on the street and he said so when I get kicked out of my apartment we're bouncing from place to place and I've got my stuff in a few suitcases in a backpack but as I'm bouncing from place to place I'm losing stuff hmm and one of the things that he had was when he was a kid he had his Bible that his mother had given him and on the inside cover she had written a love letter to him on the inside cover of the Bible well somewhere along the way he loses this Bible then it's always happens the money runs out the next day the girlfriends go away and now you've got a crack habit in here on the street your year and a half later a guy hires him and another guy to go clean out an apartment building that he had bought and he's gonna refurbish and rent out and so two floors they're cleaning the mount cooks on the bottom floor and other guys on the second floor and cook those up to check on him and he said there's a little pile of stuff in the corner now this is a hundred miles from Atlanta year and a half later 100 miles from Atlanta he's going and he said what's that stuff in the corner he said well that stuff I found that might be worth some cook cities over there rooting through it looking at it and there's a little pile of books covered in dirt he reaches down and he pulls a book out of the pile and he opens it up and there's the love letter from his mom it's his Bible it's his Bible year and a half later 100 miles away she put it in a movie people would say that's not believable any city literally collapsed to the floor and started sobbing he's like okay of God's chasing me this hard Wow I'm gonna quit running Wayne cook has been sober for a decade and has taken more guys off the street down at the Atlanta mission than anybody in Atlanta Wow Jeff he told me that when you start a new group or there's new guys coming into the group you oftentimes start with Luke 15 and you start with the story of the prodigal son and you know the setting is Jesus has Pharisees and religious leaders on one side and tax collectors and sinners on the other and neither of them understand what God is like and so he tells these three little parables these three little stories that they're going to be in the story of the prodigal son but there's also an older brother and so you told me that's where that's in terms of introducing them to this is the gospel and the significance of what's about to happen that's where you start why why that story and what's the connection between that in that group I think it's the greatest piece of literature ever written and it's you know you open your Bible and it's this auric but it's you know the story of one son that says hey I want my inheritance which in that culture meant I wish you were dead yeah you're not dying fast enough so it says to your dad I wish you were dead I don't want my money and you know goes out and squanders it on all the things that the world says your cool things women and booze and whatever and you know ends up feeding somebody's pigs and wishing he could be what they were he's like all right I'll swallow my pride and go back home to dad in that part of the story that I love is it says while he was still a long ways away his father saw him so his father wouldn't that's that's an active thing that's not a passive thing he's searching the hilltops waiting on this kid that said I wish you were dead you know they reunite puts on the ring the road this in the sandals meaning you're not a servant you're a your family and the son that had stayed and that had done everything right gets mad because you know the the father had said let's kill the fatted calf and have a celebration because of my son that was dead is now a lot you know you know who hated to see the Sun come home the most I would guess the brother but not the fatted calf Oh I should not have like oh wow that's you're gonna use that down the road though I guarantee no I'm just not going to answer that question that service come on so but I think it's it's just such a great analogy because it's called the prodigal son but it's not really about the son that went away it's not even about the son that stays and gets mad because they're having a party it's about the love of the father I mean the whole story's about that and that's who God is you can't be bad enough to make him quit loving you and you can't be good enough to make him love you more and I think sometimes especially within the organized church we become that son that stayed and we're like I'm gonna do everything right and you'll love me more and it's like no it's not possible I don't love you anymore then I love the guy that's smoking crack under the bridge I love you all the same and that's that's what makes him so cool man it's we don't love that way he loves that way did the guys resist that story is that kind of an eye-opening moment or take a while for that to sell you know most people that live in addiction got damaged too early on some type of abuse might have been sexual abuse for physical abuse emotional abuse so it's hard you know to feel like you're loved that way and I think for a lot of people the idea of father father's not necessarily a good word to a lot of people you know especially when you've had a father that's left you or abused you or or whatever so there's a transition there but but this is why these final studies are important because once and and what I did is everything my earthly father could not give me it was like gods like okay you want a daddy that just loves you a daddy that doesn't leave a daddy that's here a daddy that encourages you that I'm gonna and so I just let God be my daddy mm-hmm you know and there were nights when days to this day when I get frustrated I'm like that can I just climb up in your lap you rub my for a little bit and so you know I freed my dad cuz my dad's dad left early my dad's dad went out for a pack of cigarettes and never came back and so I'm like oh well that's why my dad was that way it's awful free my dad up from that and I love my daddy passed away in 1999 but he's freed up from that and so once you understand how I am loved and I'm not you know cuz that's what we all have in common is a comedian all I'm thinking about is what are we having common that's that's what I look for comedy in well one thing we all have in common everybody wants to be significant everybody wants to be worth something and and at the cross God said you're not worth something you're worth everything you're worth everything to me I'm gonna give up my perfect son for you if you were the only person on the planet I'm gonna do this for you I love you this much and so in addiction if you can ever get that hurt to heal you can get restored and it doesn't happen in every case but it happens over and over and over again down there guys that work the hopeless heroin addicts that are out there making a difference you know got their own place got marriages in so we're all damaged every one of us is jacked up in some way and I think the thing that just thrills God's heart is to see broken things restore Wow because God doesn't start something oh oh that didn't work out I'm gonna give up on that he's like no if you have trust me I'll make this right you told me a story once where because you know there's they're homeless and they all have a story but they get accustomed to people doing things for them they come to the mission and they're fed they come to the mission they can get into a program so you decided you were gonna try to teach them this this particular group you've been with for a while you had good relationships to be generous so you decide you're gonna give them some money - can you tell that story is that too awkward no no it's not too hard so how many people have been wrong about something okay I've been wrong about it's funny when I look back at my life most of the things that are I argued vehemently for or against 30 years ago totally changed my mind yeah so the mission has a wonderful thing it's called being in the program and if you agree to get cleaned if you'll get sober they'll put you up for a year they'll feed you every day they'll put you up for a year but we're gonna go through you know emotional healing spiritual healing job attainment you know all kinds if they have to be in a small group with your Foxworth it yeah well but it's like we want to restore we don't want to just keep taking care of you because you're homeless we want you not to be homeless and so after about a year of doing the program Jim Reese who quit his job as CEO of a fortune 100 company to run the Atlanta mission just an amazing story in itself I said to Jim I said Jim they need to bless somebody because we're providing every meal we're providing the beds we're providing the towels in the soap they need to bless somebody and I said I want to give them all at Christmas a hundred bucks and chips like oh no I don't want people over the street buying crack no don't give him 100 bucks it's over and and I just you know I kept praying over this and I said I'm telling you it's gonna be okay I just feel like God's telling me it's gonna be okay so we ended up on 50 bucks and so by this time the twelve had grown into 250 big guys on Tuesday mornings and so when did the bank and get crisp $50 bills and at the end of the thing we gave every guy in the program a $50 bill and guys are jumping up going I can get a bus ticket I can go home for Christmas I can buy my kids presents I mean they were diving and so excited and I said to them I said okay that's your money you do it whatever you want to but three blocks away there's a school that caught on fire last month and it burned up all of their stuff and I said so they're really struggling with notebooks and paper and pencils and things like that I said I was just down at Children's Healthcare last week and they told me that over the Christmas holidays there will be 300 kids there on Christmas Day and it's the coldest winter and in a hundred years in Atlanta and there's people sleeping under cardboard so whatever you guys collectively want to donate into this basket in the middle of the room we as group leaders have pledged to match you dollar for dollar you know the 15 group leaders will match you 250 guys dollar for dollar and we'll go notebook paper and we'll go buy hats and gloves and we'll go back towards for kids 250 homeless addicts got up and went and put their $50 bill in the bucket every man in the room and then they started digging through their pockets and pulling out five-dollar bills in ten dollar bills and then they went back to their room and they got their change and started dumping it in there and at that point I got a and walked around the corner and and set against the wall and soft like I have not sobbed as an adult in my life because I'm like me I feel good about myself when I sit there and write a check for somebody but I never gave every dime I had to somebody else and so being wrong about somebody when you look at somebody out on the street and you think oh they're just a bum or they're just a drug addict it's like no they're a person and they've got a heart maybe bigger than yours and that they're willing to give everything they've got to help somebody Wow well we're yeah then that powerful so we're challenging folks at all of our Atlanta area churches all nine churches around the city to step out of their comfort zone answer a call and do something uncomfortable and we've asked people to go to a website you you were here and and some did and some won't and some will and they'll get too busy and I love the fact that your first invitation you had that phone number and you set it on your dresser and you shuffled it around and moved it around and it sat there and sat there and then finally and so what would you say because our churches are full of busy people raising kids grandkids we're going to work and our hearts are good you were generous and our hearts we're just not all about generous on our calendars sometimes so you know our culture is are yours well what do you say to us busy people about these opportunities yeah I tell my kids that you're not really alive until you have a few hold your nose and jump moments just hold you're like when I quit IBM to be in a comedian that was they hold your nose and jump first year I did 406 shows made $8,300 and how many shows 406 Wow so and I know you're going there's only 365 days in here but that's like two shows Friday three says or whatever if you wait until you have the free time to go love on somebody else you're never gonna do it just say yes just so yes I I will commit to go do this and and what I found happened to me I was wrong about what the world sells you as being a full life I find with my life my life is the best when I'm not the most important thing in it and everybody in here has somebody in their life an aunt a grandfather or grandmother or whatever that you look at and you go man that's the kind of life I want to leave I guarantee you whoever you're thinking about when I say that was not a self focused person they were another because I've never known anybody that was self focused that was happy and so when Jesus said I used to contemplate that what does that mean when he said you'll have life to the full it's not what the world tells you it's not hey what I get for me I found that what I found down there - no you know because when you serve somewhere like that you're probably thinking whoa you know you come away with that with the idea of oh I'm so appreciative over what I have and they don't have and that's not the case at all they the case for me is oh I know somebody's story and we have much more in common then then we're different and we're both loved the same way by this crazy guy that just covers us in a waterfall full of grace so the full is the relationship that I have with these guys that I never would have had if I hadn't just said yes and I wouldn't trade it for anything I love these guys they've made my life so much better I sit there you would pay money to listen to them pray so they're not like this in am not being accusatory but sometimes on Sunday we act like we got it all going on you know and when we do we're just pretending we don't have it all going on so it's sometimes it's refreshing for a guy to go hey I stole my grandmother's life savings to buy crack and you're like well the cross covers that too we can do over that so but if you write a check you're gonna have a positive influence on somebody's life and that's great but if you serve you're not only gonna have a positive influence on somebody's life you're probably going to have a real positive influence on your own life and it just makes it richer and fuller and yes and once you've tasted purpose you don't you can't be happy with just existing anymore Wow well Jeff thank you for what you do thanks for coming today can we give a warm multi-campus welcome and thanks to Jeff Foxworthy thanks y'all god bless you

Channel: North Tarrant Church

Views: 27,492

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Id: EumEdusJzM8

Length: 36min 2sec (2162 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 12 2018