Rick Burgess - "On the Edge with Ken Harrison," Episode 11

hey sir rick burgess of the rick and bubba show thanks for uh letting me be in your studio to interview you it's sort of a reverse here it is uh you know me sitting here talking to you in our studio i feel like i should be going hey welcome to right yeah but you're you're the host today i'm the guest uh i'm excited to be on this podcast and and i i'm uh there's there could be no bigger fan uh than me than what you're doing uh so i'm i'm looking forward to spending some time together now so people who are not from the south they may not realize that you're kind of a big deal well my mom thinks so uh well no the the rick and bubba show is a radio show that's how it started uh when i was a child i can honestly say that god placed this desire to be in radio in me you know people i'm not any help to young people that come to me and say hey mr burgess i can't figure out what i want to do with my life can you help me figure out i really can't and i i feel so inept on that conversation because this has been a passion that god placed in my life i really can only remember having three things i really cared about american football uh you know hunting and fishing and radio and uh you know in the radio also i have a love for music i always have but that kind of tied into the radio and i did play in some bands and do some things like that so i was just mesmerized with with radio host when i was a child and growing up my mom says i got a tape recorder and i'd record fake shows and pretend like i was on the radio so god i just thank him every day that he said let me teach you why i gave you this passion because i got it wrong for so long uh and it's a wonderful thing so we're we're a radio show we've been the rick and bubba show i've been in radio for over 30 years but the rick and bubba show has been an item that's available on radio stations and of course now on tune in apps and podcast archives and you can watch us on youtube and live or archived and all the different ways everybody gets content now but at the heart we're still a radio show and we are a show where seinfeld was a show about nothing we are a show about anything so we're not a sports show but we talk about sports we're not a political show but we talk about politics we're not a a just a pure comedy show even though we do quite a bit of comedy and we're not what you would call a christian you know what i mean by that that title christian radio christian music uh to me these are just human beings talking about what means something to them so we you wouldn't really call us a christian radio show because we're on all secular stations but we are christians who do radio so when we talk on our show everything we talk about all those items i just mentioned all come through the filter of a biblical world a world view yeah and you're pretty unabashed about your faith in your theology yeah i mean we we will get down and and deep and dive in and i believe when jesus said that he was the way the truth and the life and no one comes to the father except through him i take that pretty serious and and when he says go out and make disciples and teach them all that i have commanded you then that's what we should do so yeah we're not uh it is not laid back it's not that deal of hey you know what i mean uh are we we talk we don't talk we don't say big man upstairs and so you know some of this garbage that you usually find in a man that really doesn't know christ which is why he's saying that he he's never encountered yahweh when he calls him the big man upstairs uh that's a you know why we do that because that makes him a folksy grandfather and much easier to sin against you know it's the people that kind of treat jesus like he's a hippie you know this kind of stuff no we we talk about who god says he is okay and not not trying to make him more palatable no we don't do that he said something key there because one of the things i get on a lot is that people um they act like some of jesus words he was kidding so they like the ones about love and tolerance because it's this narcissistic well he loves me and tolerates me but we forget about the incredible demands he has i mean the old if your eye causes you to lust cut it out that's a pretty big demand no it is and i you're 100 right uh can and that's the reason why promise keepers and and and the stuff that we're doing with men's ministry is so crucial if you want to wonder if you ever want to wonder why men's ministry is is frankly not very good at most churches it's because they've tried to present a a vision of god and and of christ the father son of the holy spirit that isn't biblical and they think that what they're doing is trying to make him more palatable when it comes to men it actually turns men off if they were told that jesus said that that if you want to follow him to deny yourself pick up your cross and then he goes to matthew 7 and says the path you're going to be on is the gate's going to be narrow and the path is going to be hard and most of you can't do it see the marines weren't the first one so that came up with a few the proud the marines jesus said the followers of jesus would be the few and they would be on the path that is hard and most of people will not do it and when he says things like i'll divide your family up your your family may hate you and are you willing to if they hate you to pick me over them you know these are these are difficult things and i think steve farrar who of course is on your board and i have a tremendous respect for him i thought he had a great um comment when he said we got to stop presenting jesus with only some of his attributes we can't say that jesus never got angry because he did we can't say that jesus never said things that offended people because he did he said the the where we get in trouble is we don't know how to take these characteristics and hand them out perfectly jesus had all these attributes that a man has but because he was 100 percent god and 100 man in his perfection he handed out righteous anger perfectly he handed out meekness perfectly he handed out telling the truth perfectly so you don't have to take these things away from him just learn how to use them in the correct way and i thought that was a great statement uh is is he he had all these things he just used him the correct way by the way burgess this coffee is every bit as good as you said i told you it was you were bragging about it yeah buzz box coffee is a is a company uh that uh they they they make these incredible bags of coffee from places all over the world and one of the things that we've done at buzzbox coffee is we think that one of the greatest things that we could take out to the world is capitalism but so what we do is we teach these these farmers hey if you want to bring this that we'll help you get it to market because you do need some help there but we want you to make it top one percent arabica grade and we're going to teach you how to use this land that is so fertile for coffee to do it correctly to make it sustainable just just you know not do it in a way that you're not trying to mass produce it where you can always have it and we're going to show you how and what's so cool in some of these parts of the country when we go back is when we they're doing well with their their coffee farming and then we'll come back and they'll have things like hey we're raising goats now we think we can make money off that too what do you think about that and so now they've caught you know if you want to raise the standard of living somewhere teach them capitalism and you know what we've done is the church too many times we've told everybody sit where you are and wait for us to come back with goods again you know and there's nothing that's right and there's but there's nothing wrong with giving but you need to be teaching them you know how how can they they stand on their own and then you see that father standing there with his family with his coffee farm or his goats or whatever and he's thinking you know i'm making my own way so buzz box coffee you can go to rickonbubba.com and look under our sponsors link and you'll see buzz box coffee and every time you drink buzz box coffee ten percent which we'll talk about today this name may not mean much to you now but it will by the time we're done goes to something called the broner burgess memorial fund and that's in the name of our youngest son and then we hand out these grants to evangelical ministries all over the world and so it's just the way we believe nothing wrong with donations i'm for them they're great but what we want to do is kind of we're more like the apostle paul we're going to make tents and we're going to we're gonna provide our own way so and we do that with products and stuff so this is a good one so i'm glad you're enjoying it ethiopian reserve is what you're drinking right now i mean that was a long commercial that it was i mean did i do i get paid well i get i guess you bought me breakfast i did and so in return for breakfast i get to do an ad on your product apparently well see if you didn't like it then i'd move on go i don't know where it came yeah it's funny uh i was just getting a lesson from phil robertson our mutual friend yesterday yeah i was out in west monroe and he was touring me all over his his duck hunting property and he said you know i ain't no environmentalist which wasn't a shock to me no but he said he was giving me a lesson about how he managed all the floodplains and the the i guess that river like floods like 30 feet correct then comes in and he's showing me how he has the pipes to drain it so that the trees can grow better he said i do all this so i can kill ducks you know he's got his thing god put millions of pounds of protein flying down you know to come down here but um duck hunting season is 60 days long and he says so for 60 days of me hunting i have made this 1600 acres of pristine land perfect with rice and all the millet or whatever else that they eat so that these ducks are healthier well fed they breed better i made perfect breeding grounds for them so i'm i'm augmenting the duck population and it's all doing that great not because i'm some bleeding heart environmentalist but because i want to hunt them but this is how everything works together in in one way yeah a healthy way yeah we right like right now on your way to the airport you'll have to dodge american white-tailed deer and the reason why you'll have to do that is because where i live we love to deer hunt so we create an environment where deer thrive and we take very few of them to your point but we fill up our freezers and but the deer overall are now more populated in alabama than ever the herds are healthier than ever the environment is healthier than ever we're not developing all these natural forest land and all this natural farmland because we want deer to have a place to live because we enjoy hunting them which leads to this if you really love an animal then you should eat it that's true there's truth to that there is some truth today and i am all for eating the animal in a restaurant i am too i uh you know the idea of shooting it and cleaning it and hauling it out and yeah i mean you know i live in colorado as you know and somebody's just telling me about bagging an elk and how he climbed the mountain and he's at 12 000 feet elevation and he sees the elk 400 yards away in a canyon and he shoots it and now he's got to take an elk yep up a canyon and down and pack i'm like that doesn't sound like fun to me they have restaurants for that sort of thing it comes with a nice little huckleberry sauce and uh yeah side of potatoes and it's fantastic but i'm not as hardcore as that i will shoot an american whitetail deer probably this coming weekend because our rifle season is about to open i will put it into the back of my truck drive it to the deer processor and then process the deer and we'll fill up we'll fill up the freezer with that so i'm not as hardcore but but i do enjoy it though and the meat is fantastic and back to some of the bleeding hearts out there whatever meat that we don't need we donate to a food bank and we feed the poorest people in alabama they have delicious meat that we've all hunted so you had sort of segway earlier you've got a foundation for your son correct start the story with what we were talking about earlier with you know raised middle class-ish yeah uh finally start to get some money and then and take us from there because what i want people to get out of this is where god shows up in immense tragedy how you dealt with this immense tragedy and how your marriage survived what destroys almost all marriages yeah so the the story is this my wife and i i'll give you the long story since the podcast um uh unlike being on the show we have to do it in five ten minute segments but my wife the only commercials that we have are the ones you keep that's right sorry about that and there's more to come no i'm just kidding so in in 1996 uh my wife and i were married uh both of us had come to the marriage alter uh you know completely redeemed and reconciled to a holy god through the redemption found only in christ but when we when we went through our marriage counseling both of us were cultural christians which by the way that's just a nice way to say lost okay we thank you yeah we believed all the same things that the demons believed about jesus but we were not under his authority nor had we repented nor were we reconciled back to god nor were we involved in any kind of church home at all and i remember in the which a lot of people listen to this need to hear because there's been a lot of people say wait a minute that sounds like me every time i tell the story when i get to speak to men all over the country and that is that you know i was raised like you said in kind of a lower middle class family i didn't know that we didn't have a lot of things it didn't matter there's no no heartstring story i have for you my mom and dad loved me they were they have they're still married to this day and uh they introduced me to church um and and took us there mainly out of a cultural obligation my grandmother is a true disciple of christ or was she's gone into heaven now but she lived it uh my dad believed it but kind of thought she was maybe a little a little radical which i found out now just means she was the real deal but anyway so so and we weren't uh so when i when i left and went to play college uh football i i left the church and never went back you got to see where you played now i actually played at troy troy alabama yeah it used to be called troy state when they were division two in the gulf south conference and that's when i played for them they're now just called troy and they're division one now and where'd your son play my son oldest son played auburn and i know this is a bone of contention between the two of us because of your love of the oregon ducks and we had to do like phil robertson to the ducks in 2010 in the national championship game and my son was on that team so so i'm 1-0 against ken uh but anyway so um so anyway so you're two-and-oh because you guys had that come back again oh that's right yeah i'm sorry we're two-in-one so anyway so i um when when i when i i was not in church for 13 years and i got into the show had just started i'd been in radio for a while but i was completely deliberate perpetual continual sin chasing women drinking had already gotten divorced was married for two years had two kids in two years so my wife then comes in and sees this man and somehow by the grace of god uh agrees to marry me so she's about to be a stepmom immediately you know with two little kids uh and she's taking this on i go to marriage counseling trying to get a church to get married in because you know i'm a cultural christian so you have to do that right and and so it doesn't mean anything to you but you still should do it and so a pastor called me on it rick cagle i got to go do his eulogy when when he was laid to rest and got to tell his family about the boldness of their daddy their granddaddy their husband and he looked at my life and he said i'm not gonna marry you and i said um and you some guy you got you got some kind of axe to grind with somebody that's been divorced or whatever he said no i don't even know the details of your divorce i i just don't think you're saved i don't think you're a christian wow and i was like what wow and he said so so why are you coming to my church now he's about to be the lawyer to prosecute me on my claim to be a christian to judge you well i tell you what he did he presented a case and i was not found guilty of being a christian and he says he said why are you coming here i said because you're in between where her family lives and my family lives he said where do you go to church i don't go to church and then i said that idiotic thing well you know you don't have to go to church to be a christian and yes every time a man says that are you as embarrassed as i am and he says well legalistically that's true but i don't know anybody who's been redeemed by jesus that does not go to church they don't go to they don't go to church to become redeemed they go to church because they are redeemed wow and i'm and i'm like okay that's a strike against me hard to argue that one and then he began to point out you do this it's not a stumble for you this is who you are this is how you talk this is how you drink this is how you treat women this is how you that you get into these fights you do this you do that and he goes these are not stumbles for you they're not mistakes this is who you are and he said so i have too much respect for the power of jesus to say that you have been redeemed by him jesus can't be lord over your life and i was like wow so i was kind of offended you know and i said you know he's judging me which is what people in their flesh do they get offended who you judge me you know and so i go home and i can't i can't get away from it and uh i get the bible out of my house because i live in alabama it comes with your house and you can't live in alabama and i have a bible or two or three you have like a gideon right when you're moving it's right over there of course it was when you opened it had that new smell you know and uh and you always tell me in this i said here's here's he'll here's what will tell me about your commitment to the word of god if you left your bible at church last sunday when did you discover it was gone sunday morning when the next sunday came around and you're asking honey where's my bible that's probably not a good sign so i had i had more bibles than i knew bible verses but i had been exposed to the gospel as a child and i was thankful for that because i understood the concept of even what i was rebelling against without claiming i was rebelling against it so i opened the bible in god's great sense of humor where does it fall james chapter four james look you know this and i know this if you and i said hey tell you what burgess harrison why don't we get together let's study the book of james over the next several weeks you and i at the end of it will be like we got a lot of work to do we got some growing to do because james challenges us and he's the kind of guy that we need at promise keepers that we need at the manchurians.com do you love and act can do you love it when they're trying to get the jew the jewish council together and and they're they're trying to get this thing worked out between the jews and the gentiles john couldn't get it to come to order peter couldn't get anything to happen so we know that paul couldn't make it happen and it said you know what we're telling james on you the jerusalem council they sent for james and what does it say when he shows up no one opposed him james was in charge he was jesus brother so he's a little hard to argue right but when he showed up do you love in scripture in the book of acts that says and no one opposed him which means they'd opposed peter they'd opposed john they'd oppose paul they didn't oppose james james you know paul writes these beautiful letters that are phenomenal they go on for chapters and chapters james said i just need five chapters yeah and i'm done first book of the new testament ever written right and it's correct a brother in his sin and save him from hell and a myriad of other sins what about so you believe in in the trinity so what so did the demons yeah you know and they shudder at the same time old joy my brothers when you suffer various trials so it's not a fun book no and and don't forget he's talking to a church during all this so so he says to me that day god through james submit yourself then to god resist the devil and he'll flee from you come near to god he'll come near to you well i'm a man so i thought wait a minute submit come near resist submit resist come near that's action action action now i'm not talking about earning salvation i'm talking about repentance and i realized i'd never done that i'm not under the authority of god i'm under my own authority and like the pastor had said and your life looks like like it so that day in my little bachelor pad with that that nasty carpet i remember just saying i do submit to you because i was raised by authoritative father so i understood authority and i understood i wasn't under god's authority and i submitted to his authority i repented of my sin i told the devil that i was done with him and i started moving toward god and then he just rushed to me not the prodigal and he started the process of radically changing me that continues as you and i are talking now so when we sherry and i got married i love when my wife said this she said the day that we got married which is going to help you with this this big question we're going to talk about she said that was the first time in my entire life that i knew that i was exactly where i was supposed to be that's awesome what a testament from a wife to a husband she said i'd never felt that way my whole life and and under god's authority changing us redeeming us and making us holy we were entering into holy matrimony and he had us where we were supposed to be so from that moment on so now she starts being a great stepmom to the kids we start getting them into church uh then she gives birth to the first biological child uh who is uh now 21 years old and this is preparing us for what was coming because i remember this it's important for me to include this she had this perfect pregnancy and we've been married for three years perfect pres pregnancy and on the night that he was to be born we got there and she wasn't very far along and so the everybody's going you're going to be here laboring for hours tell your family to take showers do this i'm telling my mom and dad go get the go get our other two kids get up here y'all take your time we're barely starting you know she had not progressed very much but she was in labor enough now and the water had broke she we couldn't go back home we were going to be there so they decide they're going to try to speed up the labor pains with pitocin so they come in it's just the two of us we're the only two there and they give her pitocin and i see my wife grab her stomach and she has what should not have been an excruciating labor pain which should not be happening yet we're not far enough alone and i see the nurse look over at all the stuff that's you know coming out on the baby and all these different graphs they have and they start looking at these rolls of paper and she's hollering and she's just screaming and they looked at i could tell by the look on their face that it wasn't good and they said we're gonna have to go get the baby we're gonna have to do an emergency c-section we think that there's been an abruption and the baby's cut off now from oxygen and your wife's likely bleeding eternally internally so we have to do emergency surgery and my wife's like this you know that's not what she wanted you know she had all these visions i was going to go well now they're putting her to sleep you know because there's no time for epidurals or anything like that and i'm just standing there i'll never forget this ken i'm standing there out in the hall i'm kind of confused and doctors are running and everybody's running none of the families got there yet and so they run they push her in there and i see the doctor scrubbing in you know he's he's rapidly scrubbing in and i'm like what am i supposed to do you know where's that daddy thing where i come in and and he said you need to pray it's what you need to do really yeah and so i'm thankful it was a godly man in that situation so i did but i'm three years in i mean i'm brand new to the faith i'm growing i'm being discipled by an older pastor we're plugged into our local church and we're getting involved but i'm still just an infant spiritually and i said the lord i know that you are in control of who lives and who dies and i just pray right now you saved my child and you saved my wife please don't let them die and and so i look and they're in there and i see the doctor and all of a sudden the doctor looks around and he pulls this wonderful baby boy out of my wife's body and he points to the baby and he gives me a thumbs up he's okay and so then he points to my wife and he says give me a thumbs up she's gonna be all right oh wow and so i began to there then they said hey let's clean the baby up we're gonna do the apgar score be sure there's no problems and we'll give them to you there's no family there yet they all know the problem they're getting trying to get there now and i remember walking out into that hall waiting on them to hand me the baby and they're you know sewing my wife up and all this and i just said lord thank you so much just thank you for saving my baby and thank you for saving my wife and i remember thinking this this christian thing is really awesome and all of a sudden you know all these sins i committed have been forgiven all these relationships i've damaged are working out i've been i got a great wife the show's you know just growing i'm making money like i've never made before i'm like man this this is fantastic and i heard so clearly in my spirit ken well what if they died would i be any less great and i thought why am i thinking that right now i think well i guess god's and i thought that's a good lesson i can't wait tell people hey and guess what i thought about see it's okay to say that when it hadn't happened but see what i didn't know is god was prompting me we're going to keep working but there's another day coming so you need to start thinking about if i'm god in all things or just some things and am i great in all things or just great in some things now i didn't understand that at the time at the time i just thought okay that's a good word and so the baby is fine sherry is fine we're going to have another son perfectly healthy no problem then we have another son perfectly healthy no problem so now there's five of five children and sherry and me we're the we're the burgess seven and buddy you know if we if we come into a restaurant you know we're here and uh we're just having a blast and the show's growing and sherry and i both came from very lower middle class families and and we had never had access to money before we didn't we didn't know we were so didn't know what to do and so we're going taking trips we'd never taken before and doing all these things and so in in the fall of 2007 you and i talked about this over at lunch today uh sherry and i and i'll shorten this story for what we're trying to get to we ended up purchasing a farm that we didn't know we were going to purchase that just kind of came out of nowhere uh and i didn't know why we why this kept coming up we weren't even looking for a farm we were looking for a beach house or a lake house and decided that those were too expensive and we didn't want to get into all that and out of nowhere i started getting these emails about this farm that i didn't want but as we got down and we toured it god kept revealing that he wanted us to take this farm it was a lot less expensive we thought it'd be great for our children to have access to rural life and like our i got the experience growing up that they had never really experienced um and we'll do a garden and we'll fish and we'll hunt we'll ride four-wheelers and and it's got a barn and a little bitty house with a tin roof on it and this is great well that that's at the end that's in october of 2007 in january of 2008 uh i had now started going out and speaking places and telling my testimony and because i was in radio the the first ministry that really was presented to me was youth ministry uh you know hey you're the guy that's in entertainment who's being a christian while being an entertainer and you know so a lot of youth conferences want you to come and give your testimonial and i was still you know now i'm now i'm you know i've been a follower of christ you know for 12 years now at this point because it's 2008 and um so i'm you know learning i'm further down the road and i remember i was preaching and the verse that i used at the end of every session when i left in in january of 2008 to go speak and left my wife and children behind at the house i went to to talk in six different sessions in pigeon forge tennessee up in the gatlinburg tennessee area and i'm at these conference centers and i'm speaking to these groups of youth with scott dawson's evangelistic association scott and i are still dear friends to this day and my last verse was john 16 33. i said i want all of you remember with all the things going on you know with 2008 that was another time when things were getting kind of rocky in our country very not near as bad as now but at that time it was things were getting uncertain and uh i said remember that jesus said i say this so that you'll have peace and i said didn't don't we all like that i mean meaning isn't that what you really want if i was to ask you what you really wanted you'd say peace you want to know that everything's gonna be all right well jesus says in john 16 33 i say this so that you have peace in this world you will face tribulation not you might you will but when you do always take heart have joy in your heart because i have overcome the world whatever it is jesus is overcoming he's overcome our sin problem you know we all deserve hell but jesus said i'm gonna resolve that so i've resolved your eternity so you always hang on to what really matters and remember who i am and i've overcome it i'm better than whatever you're facing i'm stronger than whatever you're facing that's my speech and then i walk out after the fourth session i had two more to go i got into the van to be driven to the next arena and my phone had been ringing while i was talking the last the the session i just finished and it was from my house so i called back and that's not abnormal i mean you go on the road a lot you get a call from your family hey what's going on yo how's it going you know and all this hey the kids who want to talk to you whatever and my wife was frantic and she said you got to get everybody there to pray and there was about 7 000 youth there and i said what's happened she said i don't know how this happened and i said what what tell me what's happened and she said the baby got out of the house the boys were all playing he got out of the house i don't know how he got out of the house he's falling into the swimming pool and he's drowned and this is the baby this is our fifth child fourth son and his name is bronner back to the bronner burgess memorial fund i remember sherry wanted the name and she was your name to all of them let me name this one and all of our kids we didn't know they had b names until we got down to the fourth one so now you can't change your b theme you know because now that kid feels weird so my my kids name are brandy blake brooks brody and so we get down to the last one and she says i want to name this one i want to name him brock and she said oh you're trying too hard that's that super hyper you know brock you know you're trying to make him out to be another linebacker at all this and i said well maybe and she said i don't know i just like this name broner and i said that's somebody's last name i don't that's not even a first name honey she said i don't know i don't want to do a weird name but i kind of want to do a unique name i like broner i said okay you know well now again there's god again he has a unique name that you may not forget and so she said you got to get by to pray he's drowned and now the emts are trying to revive him and i'm and think about you know you know you know how it is when your wife is having trouble and you're on the road and you can't just be there there's distance between you i mean you you're not gonna get to them in the snap of your finger even if you come up with this great plan to get to them there's distance and so immediately people started in i had driven there which is about a four and a half hour five hour drive from where i lived and so people immediately says we got to get you on the plane we got to get you back quicker which i was i agreed go ahead you don't have to speak these last two sessions we'll get out and tell these kids what happened we'll get them praying for you so now you're on you're trying to get back and i had a friend that said get in the car i'll take you back to the hotel get your stuff and i'll get you to the airport they're sending a plane for you yeah i found out later all the different people that were moving around trying to get a plane to me which i was so grateful for and so he and i are riding in the car and i guess we're just so accustomed to god doing what we want and i remember him being confident he says hey it's going to be all right your son's not going to die and we both kind of you know i mean that's how this turns out right and i start thinking back to you know brooks and the problems that he had at his birth and i was thinking well god he turned that around but in the back of my mind what if they died what if they would i be any less great so i said well i'm gonna call the hospital i gotta get some kind of update of some kind because my wife you know she's shut down now i'm not i can't get in touch with him and i called and i said i'm calling to check on my son what's your son's name and i said william broner burgess he goes my brother all right hang on just a minute so they put me on hold we're in the car driving to the airport my friend's driving i'm in the passenger seat and the chaplain picked up and right then you know what's about to happen the chaplain does not get on the phone to say hey everything's made a turn everything's better he's fine he's in there laughing your wife's with him had a scare that's not what chaplains do so the minute the chaplain picks up you know what's about to happen and i remember feeling this overwhelming presence of the holy spirit just pressing in on me pressing in on me and of course my friends looking at me like so and the chaplain i'll never forget this is mr burgess are you alone and i really wasn't talking about my friend driving just uncontrollably i said i'm never alone i'm never alone and you know we're not if we belong to christ and we have the god's spirit in us the holy spirit he's always there the comforter the the helper and i felt the presence of god i felt the comfort i really did i felt the strength just saying hey i'm here and i'm in control i'm here and and then i said something so weird that could only be supernatural i said i can't imagine what you have to do every day and the chaplain said what i said i don't know i just feel like i need to pray for you man i can't believe you have to tell people what you're about to tell me i said you have to do that every day you know i just had a i had a connection to this chaplain you know just and um and then the chaplain said mr burgess your son could not be revived your son's passed away and i said where is my wife and the chaplain said there's people with her and i said you tell her that i'm coming to her right now i will be there so then became the problem came the process of walking to that plane and getting on that plane and i remember looking out the window and it was so weird because the moon was there where it was supposed to be you know you think the whole world's come apart because your world has and i sat down i don't even remember what the pilot looked like years later he said i'm the pilot that flew you i just i mean you know you're sure here's tunnel vision and i said to god because of that this relationship that we're given with him through jesus i said father what are you doing i don't what is this because you know what i knew enough now a 12-year follower of jesus unlike the three-year follower of jesus this time i know enough to know that he allowed it because i know he could stop it he's our show me could stop it if he wanted to if that was his will he could stop it but he didn't and so i said so what are you teaching me what is this and i and i just felt in my spirit the word perplexed perplexed i want the world to be perplexed they expect you to reject me in this and i want you to glorify me they're about to see the real deal because i was totally dependent on him either i remember my brother saying who yo your brother knows you pretty well and my brother said to everyone i heard you know months later he said i told everybody this is going to go one or two ways it's either going to be one of the most awful things we've ever seen and rick is going to reject god and he's going to turn on his family he's going to turn on god and it's going to be ugly because he knew that i was capable of being that guy too before jesus because i was a bad guy he said or this is going to be really something to watch it's going to go there will be no in between this won't be some mediocre response and so when i get off the plane i could literally you can't really feel your feet touching the ground you can't really feeling and you're kind of almost being ushered like you're gliding into the hospital and he had just given me everything that i needed and and my wife you know describes in her book that she she took five years to write a book about where is god in this and of course you know what the answer is right in the middle of it you know scripture's not silent on suffering and pain and you know and and all of this it says quite a lot about it and who god is in it and so at this time though we you know she's just grasping for answers and she said i was i was there and and i was praying for my child to be revived and she said and and they're trying to revive him and i can she said i can remember these audible words coming out of my mouth that i couldn't pray you and i talked about this we did the facebook live thing romans chapter 8 sometimes the holy spirit prays which you ought to be praying and she said i heard myself saying not my will but your will be done lord and she said i couldn't pray that because i didn't really want that i wanted him to do what i wanted to do but his will be done you know jesus in the garden father not my will but yours if there's any other way if there's not then we do this so he he was not revived as you know and the doctors told her that they had to stop and she said so at that moment my pastor came in and he tried to console me uh which he should that's great our family came in that was there and tried to console me our friends started surrounding me she said but there was an awkwardness in that hospital because they all knew that they could not be my husband they couldn't they couldn't replace him they couldn't be the children's father that were still survivors so we all waited on him because no one could replace him listen to me man who's listening to this podcast right now or watching this podcast you got to stop with this attitude that somebody else can do what god designs you to do amen no one else can you know men and women are equal but they're not the same they don't have the same responsibilities they don't have the same roles we're not them and they're not us now i know you've got a society right now that says that's not true that we're interchangeable we're not we can't do what they provide for the children what they provide to the marriage and they can't do what we do what he designed us to do under his authority we're either an asset under his authority or we're a detriment outside of his authority and so when i got there i just went over to her and i took her in my arms and i kissed her and i held her and i began to talk to her and pray with her and speak scripture over her and she said in that moment that's when god was revealing to me that everything it was gonna be hard but everything was gonna be all right and so we started the process uh and found out why god had given us that little farm i told you about that ken because my wife said i don't think i can be back at the house where this happened we may we may eventually stay there but right now i can't and i thought we'll look at you god providing a place for us to go for refuge and we went and lived in this little tiny house with four children and a tiny house with a tin roof on 80 acres and uh and you know what we did we we grieved and we spent time together we didn't have a tv we went outside to play we we uh when the kids had to go to school they would come back to school and and then we would be there and and so at the time of me trying to go back to work back to do this show that i still do thank you lord i didn't know how to do that i thought well the comedy part of it's going to feel weird and talking about ball games is going to feel weird talking about politics is going to feel weird and i just said i was sitting in a little chair in that house again and i hope one day you and i get to go down there and i'll show it to you i'm sitting in this little chair i'm trying to get up to go back on the air for the first time and here's the beauty of brothers in christ my brothers in christ stood at that studio and waited on me all they did was stand where i could see them when i started doing the first show that i went back and they just looked at me and prayed for me the whole time i was there to help me get through that first show but it when i'm ready to go i don't think i can do it because i can't and i said lord i just don't think i can do this anymore i mean i can't even tie my shoes right now and i really couldn't i physically would try to tie my some boots i had on i couldn't time and i'd been raised by a very strong man who taught me authority and toughness and move forward go you got you can't everybody's dependent on you i knew all that and i'd live that way and god said you know i said lord i can't do this i can't even tie my boots and he was like no no now you're actually ready the problem was rick that you weren't strong enough the problem was you were never weak enough and now i've got you to the point that you're asking me to help you breathe you're asking me to help you tie your boots now i can actually use you in a way that i never could before because you're finally dead you finally died to yourself and now i'm gonna build you back into a man that is totally dependent on me and that has been the process and that has been kind of where we've been on our journey and it continues you know to to this day well i think you've already answered the question at a high level but you know what what is the number like 90 of couples who lose a child get divorced or something how did you avoid that fate jesus the the faith like you said our marriage is not based on my wife's name is sherry our marriage is not based on rick and sherry i'm imperfect she's imperfect i don't i don't put the pressure on her to fulfill me she doesn't put the pressure on me to fulfill her we we built our house under the authority of christ and i can honestly tell you that i believe that marriages that fail in this situation are marriages that are not under the authority of christ i believe this all it does is reveal the state of the marriage for for those i mean i knew who god was in all this because he had prepared me for this i wasn't like losing my mind going how did these things happen what is this why do bad things happen to good people you know why because i knew i wasn't a good person there are no good people and i wasn't saying oh my what what was my wife doing and well i shouldn't have been i thought i was supposed to go speak at this thing we were you know i knew psalms 139 13 through 16 that he when he wove my child together in my mother and his mother's womb my wife's womb that he said he had written in his book every day of broner's life before he had ever lived one so my son's life is not incomplete it's just it's just complete in two and a half years that's what god designed and uh and i've seen what he's done through that little boy has been used by god to impact more people than men who are listening to this that are in their 80s they've lived a lot longer than that little boy live but they have they haven't had near the impact and uh and so i i can honestly tell you i know it probably doesn't make as good a movie but we never had that time of our marriages in trouble and and oh no please please don't blame me or or please don't blame me because i was gone and don't blame me because that just never happened and and it and it didn't happen because of our marriage being based on the foundation of christ we knew that bad things can happen you know as my wife talks about before she said she cried out to god you know why the children but we were so happy you know what god said but i called you to be holy i called you to be holy and and speaking of the children but what about what about god's children my wife said something that this is about to rock your world it's a very profound thing and this first time i've told you so i get to get your reaction this was incredible she said i was trying to figure this out she was at the farm she said and god said what about my children so you're going to get reunited with your son you are going to spend eternity but the children that reject me and they reject my redemption that i provided for my children god talking when they reject my holiness because i'm holy and if they're not redeemed by my son they can't come into my presence and i lose my children every day that will be forever out of my presence and you know what sherry said listen to the statement this is going to blow your mind and she said for the first time i had compassion for god my my poor poor pitiful me shifted and i felt compassion for god how hurtful that must be for him to watch his children reject him and forever be out of his presence never to return so if i have to go through suffering but yet it will save more of god's children and if one person is redeemed this is my wife if one person she said this on fox news and i thought i thought the whole i thought the fox team was going to just completely melt you already seen their faces she said if one person is redeemed because of the earthly death of my son then it was worth it wow wow then so be it so it's not about us so your wife had the spiritual maturity to actually see god as a being correct what he is yes as a father correct which i don't think most of us really see god that way no i agree he's not some mist out there or something like that he's a being and he is our father and and and you know what we are his children and he provided redemption and sometimes his children just rejected you had a foundation built up and i talk to men about this all the time they whine about their sins and they whine in their laziness that they can't read scripture or whatever when the crap hits the fan this is a an adult or you know pg show so this is it's the crap that hits the fan right when the crap hits the fan who you are at that moment is what comes out yeah the preparation you've given you the spiritual maturity you had to be there for your wife in a myriad of different ways that you couldn't understand because you could you didn't just need to be strong you need to be empathetic you needed to be soft you need to be sensitive at the same time you did need to be strong there's a time to cry and a time to not cry correct and all that stuff all the man that you had become at that point came out in that moment that either was going to drive you two together or drive you apart correct and and i think one of the things that um that i think about this a lot is that god loved me enough to start preparing me for it you got to pay attention for those things and what you can't do is like you said wait till this kind of thing hits you and then you think i wish i'd known these things i wish i had been in the word of god i wish i was seeking god and i remember so vividly perfect example my wife honestly could sit down on this podcast and say ken if you would like to we can start with genesis chapter 1 verse 1 and i'll walk you through the revelation if you'd like to stay on the air until i'm done and she could do it but can we skip leviticus right i know yeah and she really bogs down in that but let me say this but in all in all seriousness so you would think and a lot of men do this my wife's good she doesn't need me i she doesn't matter if she has a spiritual leader my wife's more into bible study than i am she knows more than i know so listen to this moment so i come home from work one day this is maybe month maybe week eight somewhere in there and because i'm a man i'm trying to do that thing of now we got i got to see how this is all working out and my therapy was what working was speaking was going like an idiot i went on a book tour way too soon this was a book that we already had going from rick and bubba should not have left her that that soon i was just thinking if i the more and i gotta get out there and do these interviews and do this do this and so i come home she's in the kitchen she's laying in the floor she's sobbing and and she looks up at me and she says so tell me again why the god god allowed this to happen now this is a woman that's been saying all the right things okay and i'm like well she knows this i'm you know like an idiot i'm kind of like i don't understand this and and so i said well you know we talked about psalms 139 we talked about all the verses about suffering we talked about first peter one six and seven we you know you when she when she was on the on the morning after our son went to heaven i think we passed out for maybe 15 minutes 18 20 minutes it's all the sleep we really got and i walk into the room she had actually got gotten out of the bed before me and she has our children sitting around her and she's on the couch and she has the children reading romans chapter 8 to her from beginning to end and when they would finish whoever was reading it she would say again read it again and so i remember that and i'm like you know and i looked at her and like a idiot i said honey i mean i'll tell you these things but you know these things and i've already told you this and i'll never forget this to your point and she looked and she said well then tell me again well what if what if she said tell me about this and i said i don't know what if i didn't know what if i said well you're the one who studied all that where would she be right now where would our marriage be it's a powerful point you know what if i didn't know see that's the thing i think men don't understand you need to know and like you and i have talked about just devote the same passion and time and effort to knowing the word of god as you do to all your hobbies and all the other things you care about you're an expert on those not because you have great study habits but because you care about it so why why don't we have that same drive and i'll tell you why if you don't it's because it isn't as important to you as the things you're an expert on it's not because we don't have good study habits because we don't really love it the way we do the things that we know a lot about but see your wife and your children are going to pay a terrible price if you don't know because i mean look at the state of this country right now now would be a great time to start knowing what the word of god said and who god says he is and where we're headed and so you can tell your children and your wife don't worry i remember growing up as a little boy my dad's a big guy i played a linebacker and fullback and you know i have to hear about that all the time in the sec when they play both ways well you know we play both ways we didn't even have a face mask i know that but you know and so he's that guy and tough as nails successful football coach and i remember and this is the way we need to be talking about see the the the man of the house under the authority of the ultimate father we used to go down our gran my grandparents had a little cabin down on the black warrior river and they had one of those old little old-timey ski boats where is that it's uh it's it's it's hard to describe the warrior river is really big but it's in alabama and it runs uh from the top of alabama all the way down to the gulf of mexico down into the mobile bay down down that way it runs through the whole state okay so this was kind of outside of birmingham huey town out that way and so they were there for years in a little cabin and they had one of those old-timey ski boats you know you know had the little window on the front whatever and i remember we would be out in the water and sometimes storms would be coming and i remember as a little boy i'm not you i hope you had this experience i don't know the relationship you have with your dad but i would look and my dad with those big muscular legs and a pair of shorts would get up on that steering wheel and he'd start looking you ever seen somebody look over the top of the actual windshield when they're driving a boat and he would look at the water and the minute i would see him driving the boat i was at perfect piece i was like well there's dad he's got this now i don't know whether he had it or not i never knew if there were times where my dad was going oh buddy we're in trouble you know i mean but i never noticed i never i couldn't see it he was calm he had it under control and so when i would look at him he was a calming force and that's what our families need to see from the man of god in their house hey dad is everything going to be all right yeah let me tell you who god is let me tell you what the scriptures say at the end of it all guys it really is going to be all right because of this biblical truth dad why is this happening bam this biblical truth this dead why does this the biblical truth biblical truth hey dad are there many ways to heaven biblical truth biblical truth hey dad what's that well hey it's school they say god's god doesn't really have a standard of marriage that that you know that we that every really anybody can be whatever they want to be whatever gender they want to be what's the bible say about that see when you don't know those kind of answers you know you're really setting your family up for failure and nobody's going to replace you this is how we got where we are because we have outsourced the spiritual education of our families to the government and to school and into corrupt churches yeah rick when you were going through all that some people listening to this now have gone through this trauma or something related but many more people have been the guy that was the friend of somebody who went through it or they will be when you think back to how people responded to you um you know what was the right thing to do i mean there's those people that run up with the patronizing verses right i mean your wife was being ready romans 8 8 28 all things work together which when your son just died doesn't sound very good how should guys who are responding to this kind of trauma in someone's life a family member how should they have responded well here's what you don't say you do not say you know sometimes we don't know why please don't ever say that that is a terrible statement well you know sometimes we just don't know why no people looking for answers what you really need to know is not the patronizing verses you need to know the part of the bible that talks about who god is in all this hey once you know that your loved one's life is complete remember what god said in psalms 139 13-16 i know it's hurtful right now but their life's not incomplete hey you know this is it hey man we're praying for y'all this is a great time for c.s lewis said you know pain and suffering is god's megaphone for a sleeping world he's giving you a megaphone right now and one thing that really helps and i've seen this turn of especially a dad on the dime i'm talking about people who are like ready to reject god and you know what i say don't let this be your son's legacy let your son's legacy don't let it be where your son died and oh by the way we all turned away from god too you know your son would be it's going don't let that be my legacy that my death ruined my family and turned my family from god because your son is in heaven yeah he wants to see his family right and so don't let that happen like sherry talks about very very straightforward we started out thinking about being heaven focused because our son was there now we matured through that to realize we're having focus because jesus is there but he used this to get us pointed toward heaven so talk about the legacy that's going to come from this loved one's death this tragedy hey looking forward to how god's going to use you p in first peter sad people say that hey don't remember in first peter says in this you rejoice though now for a little while if necessary you've been grieved by various trials to test the genuineness of your faith you have a platform we're praying for you we're here for you but please don't come up and act like you don't have any idea what's going on right now sometimes we just don't know why you know how i interpret that sometimes i don't read the bible hey i'm sorry i didn't get prepared for this moment covering scripture hey remember god tells us and and tells us that he's near to the brokenhearted and give him out of psalms where that comes from hey hey don't forget this don't forget that hey john 16 33 i say this the bible verses bible verses cover and hey pray with them don't just say i'm praying for you pray with them put your hands on them right then hey be there for them show up at the door hey i just want to drop by hey we want to come in and just sit with you casserole's help they always help you know and i remember a guy came in my door up here who's a dear friend of mine now rich wingo he knew that i had been doing the what i should do as a dad under the power of christ he comes at my office one day and says we're not going anywhere i'm shutting the door and now we're going to sit here and talk about you we've talked about your wife you talked about your children you've been doing this how are you doing let's sit here let's talk about it get it out here you mad at god say something you know and then let's work let's walk through the scriptures again that's good stuff yeah that's how it works i remember um working on a major business deal in 2004 and my son had this horrid asthma attack and i i had to go for my office and pick my son up and well i don't know why we didn't call the ambulance but um rushed to the hospital his pouring rainstorm and got him in he was three years old and he was laying there and if anybody's ever had anybody almost die of asthma they'll know what i'm talking about you can see the the ribs they're sucking around their ribs and their lips turn blue and i remember that little three-year-old looking at me like i was gonna do something right oh wow and he's trying to talk but he can't because he doesn't have enough air and so he did have this gasping sort of and he doesn't realize he's he's still happy right and they're trying to get an iv in him and they can't blood squirting all over the place from the iv and i i remember that feeling of utter hopelessness i remember that feeling of um that huge business deal that i was working on i could just care less i mean what was so important to me an hour ago means nothing lord take my business take my house i'll live in a tent yeah just give me back my boy amen and i remember them coming in saying we can't handle your son we've gotta have to take an ambulance into children's because his oxygen is so low and we wrote in the ambulance down there and my son's eyes were rolling back oh my goodness you know that that was an all-night thing and he he finally did recover and the only thing he could remember was how much fun it was to ride in the ambulance how about so i'm glad one of us had fun in the experience that's right but it but it is moments like that you know why did i get to keep my son and now he's you know outgrown asthma and he doesn't remember what it was like anymore yeah but but we just don't know and god in his grace and his love always has our best in in mind but there's stuff going on that is beyond us there is a plan and as you said every one of us has a mission when we're born uh people hear me all the time quote ephesians 2 10 for where god's workmanship created in christ jesus for good works that were prepared beforehand that we should walk in them amen every one of us has a plan and your boy had a plan no question and that two and a half year old boy reached all these people unfortunately there was also great pain for people involved in that blessing to other people as christ said sometimes a seed has to fall to the ground and die so that something can grow up exactly yeah and and we've seen that over it god will just confirm it there'll be days that i'll be like thinking okay i'm kind of drifting and despair a little bit because it never really goes away from you and all of a sudden boom an email will come in once you know i watched your eulogy on youtube i want you to know that hey this happened know that your son's life was used by god to to give us what we needed and and i'll show you like there it is again he just continues to confirm and affirm over he always gives you that little bit of something when you need it and and then a lot of this has to do with there's a freedom in it do you really think honestly look at me do you think i'm afraid of kovid [Laughter] what are you going to do to me now i've buried a two and a half year little boy what else would you like to bring after me i'm free what are you going to do to me you know you kill me like paul said delivers christ to die is gain so what you know i want i want i want my life to count for the kingdom of god i want to disciple my wife my wife disciple my my children and go out and make disciples and disciple men because like you and i've been saying if if you disciple men you change everything yeah and we need the men to be in the proper place under the authority of christ rick what about the guys that have screwed up what about the guys that went through trauma and screamed at their wife divorced their wife what about the guys that drove their kids away and they're gone and they don't know what to do well you know what it's never over as long as you're on this side of the dirt right i mean it it's never over there's always hope so why don't you say instead of saying because well here's what satan wants you to know he does he does it to me because i lived to such a wretched man before redemption and i made a lot of mistakes and you know i'll be sitting here just like when you start talking to me about promise keepers here he comes you know here comes the accuser promise keepers you they don't want you look at the kind of man you used to be you're get it i mean and he tries to bring up all the things you do and sometimes he uses people there's people that are really willing to spread his message for him there's plenty of people that still wish that i was the person i was before jesus because it made them feel better about themselves not everybody's happy for you when you start you know raising the standard a little bit of what it looks like to follow christ they'd rather you kind of stay mediocre so they don't feel challenged by it but you don't let that bother you but back to that man the adversary wants to tell you that you've blown it there's no way to repair it it's over nothing you can do that's absolutely wrong have you looked through scripture at the men that have done the most terrific things that god redeemed and used them to make an impact for his kingdom does that mean every relationship you damage will be repaired there's no guarantee of that but i'll tell you what it does mean you can get it you can repent of your sin you can be forgiven you can be redeemed and you can be made new in christ and he can use you to advance his kingdom and it may or may not be restored back to you on this side of heaven but the bottom line is you can be a follower of jesus and you can do the right thing before you're dead some of some of the most powerful men i've seen and i know of one who didn't even become a follower of jesus until he was 73 years old in the last five to six years of his life he was an absolute warrior for the kingdom so you're you're not done yet don't this is not your legacy this isn't how it has to end okay not everybody does there's a lot of things that if i would have been redeemed sooner i would have done differently okay uh i i abused god's standard of marriage before i entered into the holy matrimony he intended i wish that had not happened i can't go back and change that in my history but now my wife and i go forward say no this is god's standard for marriage whether i always adhere to it or not this is not talking about perfection nobody listen to this or watching this is perfect nor have you ever been but it is about progress it is about a new life it is about a new birth i'm not remotely like the man i once was does that mean that man never existed does that mean all those relationships from that that man wrecked were all redeemed no there's some people to this day that still have anything to do to do with me i understand but you know what that's not what it's about i just have to be right with god and be used where he can use me so it's not over right now repent and be redeemed and finish well finish what's not over what about the guy who's not saved how does someone come to know christ it's real simple but but not simple simple and not simple because you've got to deny self and you've got to repent we've lost this in the western church when's the last time you received grace when's last night or somebody preached repentance well i hear grace all the time yeah well but but that grace doesn't come without repentance i love this one too hey god loves you right where you are no he doesn't who told you that have you ever read psalms 5 he said he hates the people who don't repent isaiah i cover my ears so i don't have to hear your prayers christ so wicked yeah it doesn't sound no no what god he loves you enough to remove you from where you are and he and he and he will love you where you are but he's not going to leave you there you got to repent what did jesus do what john the baptist said hey repent the kingdom of god's at hand here it is he's here and then what did jesus start saying repent or die you know so he calls you to repentance so that's the first what is repentance repentance means like you are facing in one direction and jesus is in the other direction your back is to jesus and your face is to your sin and you say i will now turn a 180 from my sin and i will turn to jesus and i will submit his authority and i will confess that he is lord jesus christ is lord i want unto your authority jesus and i repent of my sin i believe you alone can forgive me i have a i have a contrite and humble heart i am truly sincere i want to be forgiven i ask you to forgive me i repent of my sin i submit to your lordship i confess publicly either through a baptism or some way that you now belong to jesus and then if if you're sincere it says that he he will acknowledge that and he will save you but then at that point now you're just all you are now is a drunk or uh an idiot that just that was just redeemed you know the process of now changing sanctification discipleship now starts too many people take that one step then they don't move and a lot of times you see no impact or no change in that life jesus will change you in a moment as far as justify you but as far as sanctifying you that's still going on with ken and rick we're still growing because that that's a process of sanctification and that comes through prayer and fasting and getting in the word of god and getting involved in the local church and and starting to pursue jesus and growing in his word but those you that are lost right now and you say i can't fix this because i'm not a man of god you're right so so repent repent of your sin confess jesus is lord come into his authority and say look i know that you love me i understand the cross it's obvious that you love me but you got to teach me how to love you because if i love you i'll start obeying you so last question how important is being discipled it is crucial what did what what does it say in the great commission go and make disciples it doesn't say go and make converts she can't just leave them there and i think what's happened 269 times in the new testament the word disciple is used the word christian is used three and only once is it not derogatory that's when peter finally tells him first peter i know they're making fun of all you disciples calling you christians don't wear it is a badge of honor now see we messed up because in the new testament everybody that was called a christian can was a disciple what we've done in the western church is we go out and try to make christians who were never disciples we try to get converts and then we just leave them and then they're devoured by the enemy i'm not saying the enemy can take away their their salvation that's not for me to say but he certainly doesn't they have no impact they don't go make disciples because they never became one discipleship is crucial especially in men's ministry you and i've talked about this we've spent a tremendous amount of time taking care of the issues of men on the symptoms and we don't address the disease you know yes the man has porn problems yes the man has his job out of whack yes the man has his hobbies out of whack yes the man his eyes wonder everywhere yes the man's doing all these things but that is not his problem his problem is he's never been discipled either he's never been truly repentant and never been redeemed or he's been left as a spiritual infant so jesus says in the great commission and i've heard many people uh dallas wheeler calls it the great old mission he says now teach them all that i have commanded you well great omission i like that yeah well i like everything dallas will have wrote oh gosh well you talk about a challenger so we have to make disciples the reason why we don't have men being spiritual leaders in their home is they never been discipled let's be clear for a minute um because we were talking about this earlier too discipleship to some people means men getting together and running around and having fun no that's fellowship and so fellowship and discipleship can go together sure but that's only one of the other and as i had said to you if i said rick i want to learn how to to speak spanish i want you to teach me spanish i think you're probably the wrong guy to go to probably so but you know for the sake of argument um i'm not going to learn spanish by us going duck hunting together no i mean you may teach me how to account to tanner you may say que pasa ola but you don't know spanish yeah how am i going to learn spanish maybe we go duck hunting and then we sit down and we study and you hold me accountable and you say did you do your lessons this week and here's what we're going to study here's a greater meaning of what these words mean and then after spending years with you now i'm finally capable of ordering in a mexican restaurant and sounding intelligent but church so often does this it's it's run around and have fun day well that's not making people nothing wrong with that it's just not discipleship correct yeah it's fellowship and we've been calling in a men's ministry fellowship discipleship forever and the difference is in tension being intentional what if all of a sudden i declared to you i was a mechanic and you're like you're a mechanic absolutely you said okay good i'm about to go drive the airport this car sounds funny i'm like oh i don't know what's wrong with it and you're like well how do you not know well i'm a mechanic do you not know why car works i have no idea well that you can't be a mechanic you know what are you i'm a christian really so what do you know about it are you a disciple of jesus so tell me about him what does it even mean what is it yeah and so we we have to sit down and we spend time in the word of god like you said you and i may go duck hunting and have a blast okay especially fill us come down his place yeah right but then when it's over you know what i would say if we want to do discipleship because we did fellowship now discipleship we get back to the camp house and we get out the word of god and our bibles look tattered because they've actually been used like phil's yeah like phil's and we get it out and we say hey man let's talk about this i've got a guy right now that is is probably my my biggest mentor and and the guy i spend the most time with getting discipled it's gotten to the point now where we can't even go hunting anymore because we talk about jesus so much the sun goes down and we never went out but our intention was to go and hunt but we end up talking about jesus and getting in the word what do you think about this scripture before we know what our bibles are out we're discipling each other it happened just uh two weeks ago he said do you want to go hunt i said i think we've missed it he said what time is it i said it's 4 15. he's like you got to be kidding me i thought it was like 3 o'clock you know we're going to do like an afternoon hunt and we realized we've missed it but that hunting became secondary to why we were there it's important and we still hunt we have a great time but discipleship is we're in the word of god and we're growing and we're challenging each other and we're how can a man not be embarrassed that he's a spiritual infant wouldn't you be embarrassed to be to be uh not excellent in anything in your life but yet we're how are we so okay with not being excellent in our spiritual life i don't even understand that i am embarrassed with my golf game that's why i don't know i didn't want to bring that up excellent i didn't want to bring that up um so wrapping up you've been through i think the worst trauma that i can imagine losing a child you responded and these are my words not yours you responded in a godly mature manner because you were prepared you had been discipled you had been in scripture you had been in prayer and that your wife and your children's greatest time of need you were their dad because you were a man ready to go because you had christian friends and you'd been a scripture and whatnot last word as we sign off because i think this is going to make an impact on a lot of people um go ahead if there's anybody that is a spiritual leader for your wife and for your children if you're a married man listen this or if you're a single man and you you intend on that happening sometime in your life if anybody else takes on that role then they have become a better husband and father than you are the the this this cannot be sidestepped you you cannot be who that wife and that child and the church and society you can't be who they want you to be if you are not a disciple of jesus you've got to correct this amen because if it it's it's like we said before the influence you have cannot be turned off some of you are trying to get in a neutral position there is no neutral position your influence is either an obstacle or a detriment to your family to your church to your society or it's a blessing and an attribute and the difference is that is whether you're under the authority of christ or not and this is a really big deal and i will tell you this if you're not a follower of christ you're not a man period rick burgess i couldn't have said it better than that where do they go to get the streaming of the rick and bubba show rick and bubba's show you can go to rickenbubba.com spell out the word and all the information about the show is there we also if you have a need for a men's discipleship strategy at your church or your community or your group the man church use the word the themanchurch.com we have all sorts of resources there we have a plan and we have curriculum and we also have individual resources for individual men men and we can help you your church your community your group plug something in and we would love to come alongside you and help you any way we can i hope pastors are hearing that intentional discipleship from the man church stuff it's good stuff thank you man i appreciate that and thank you for this i'm excited for promise keepers to be back and let's lock arms and and let's let's move this thing forward yeah man all right thanks man

Channel: PromiseKeepers

Views: 932

Rating: 4.7647057 out of 5

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Id: TRkeU2j_7Hg

Length: 75min 52sec (4552 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 10 2020