It is a delight as always to be with you as we continue in our series Live the Life and the good news is Jesus shows us how to do just that. In his greatest sermon ever, the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus shows us along with those sitting on the side of the mountain. They are there and all they want is simply for their life to count. Can anybody relate to that? Simply just wanting your life to count for something? There Jesus is and we are combined with them because we all simply want to live a fulfilled amazing journey. We simply want to live the life. We all want signs along the journey that tell us that we are on the right track and that our life matters. That it is filled with significance and that it does have true meaning. Jesus says it does and I am going to show you how to make that happen. He starts with a news flash. It's going to involve more than you and God. It is going to involve other people. He demonstrates to us that no person is an island unto themselves and that we are all a piece of the continent. We are all part of the main and that to live the life, it is going to involve connecting with other people in the process. So he points out to us that since other people by design are a part of the process of us living the life, then we are going to have to be selective in whom we seek out and with whom we hang out.

Turn with me to Matthew 7:15-20. This is how Jesus puts it. He says watch out for false prophets. We are going to modernize this and substitute false prophets for false role models so let's read it that way. "Watch out for false role models. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them." Jesus is saying by the fruit of people's lives we recognize whether they are true or false role models. And to live the life, we need the role models because as created human beings you and I need to witness a behavior before we emulate that behavior.

In 1954, Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile. Up until that time in 300 years of recorded history, no one had broken or ran the mile in less than four minutes. No one had done it. In fact, it had been thought that it was impossible to break that record. After he broke it in 1954, within the next decade, the next 10 years, many others went on to break it was well. We need to witness behavior before we can emulate it therefore it is essential that we seek out and identify our role models and mentors of healthy spiritual influence. Mentors help us to develop their success and to learn from their mistakes. That's a powerful aspect of mentors. Aren't you glad that we don't have to make all of the mistakes? That somebody can make the mistakes for you? So when you are traveling along the road, they can show you there is going to be a pothole here and one here so that you will know when to step to the left or step to the right or to pause and then keep on going. Needing and requiring mentors is a natural process. Jesus is simply saying that we've got to be selective and we cannot hang out with everybody who wants to hang out with us. The best of the best success stories can all be traced back to positive role models - which I am going to call mentors. A true mentor is someone who has already experienced more fruit than you have and is willing to help you to live the life that they are already experiencing. We all need and require mentors, this is nothing new. Different occupations do it and have been doing this throughout history. Sports figures spend hours watching videos of their favorite athletes and those they want to emulate. Leaders spend hours in class reading, training to see what will take them to the next level. Presidents become experts by studying the president that went before them and learning from their mistakes. Preachers have been known to spend entire weeks sitting at the feet of experts of Bible and church history to learn that one small nugget that will take them from mediocre to amazing. In fact that is what Pastor Sue, Pastor Dave and I did this past week at United Theological Seminary for 11 hours a day, learning as we work on our Doctoral of Ministry degrees.

Just like you, I am a product of those that I have sought to emulate and those I grew up with in my family network. It was my grandmother that mentored me and showed me the power in tithing, the power in giving God back 10% of the 100% that God allowed me to earn, even when she was on a fixed income. She taught me the truth that I could have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. It was my dad who mentored me and taught me to never elevate myself at the expense of lowering somebody else in the process. I knew that God was doing something in me and had an idea, but a lay leader in the church where I grew up, Roland Colbert, one day just put it out there for everybody to see and he pointed me out. He said, "Brian, you have a call on your life and in its design it's going to bring others to Christ." In Virginia, there were many mentors. Jeff Nichols, 10 years ago, when I was an associate pastor with him, showed me the importance of self-discipline, administration order and how the church ultimately must be a missional factor in the world. There have been personal mentors like Clarence Brown, Rodney Smothers, Leonard Lovett and Christian Washington who have helped along the way and showed me the importance of what it means to be strategic about using your gifts and talents in moving the church forward. There have been hours upon hours listening to folks like C.L. Franklin and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who informed me that through the preached word we can enter into the presence of God and you and the entire congregation can get there. Today people like T.D. Jakes, Joyce Meyers, Miles Monroe, Rob Bell and Charles Stanley continue to inform my preaching. My wife has always served as a mentor to show me what it means to be present in the present and what doing really looks like. She has been there. I could go on and on and on and on and on of the mentors that I have had and even now as mentors develop for this brand new season.

There is something about how we are created that causes us to resemble and reflect those with whom we hang out and spend time with. This is even true with our pets. Have you ever noticed that sometimes the pet and the owner start to resemble each other? It's kind of crazy. But you spend enough time with that pet and there is a bond and a love there. Then over time, this resemblance takes place and you know Mike has been hanging out in Sudan, right? (Picture of Mike with a camel.) Well, you know sometimes …I'm just saying. We see it and before long we be it and we resemble those we hang around.

Here is the deal: our challenge is not to just say okay, I want to emulate this person or that person, our challenge is to make sure we emulate the individuals who are successful in God's eyes. Those persons who model the character and fruit of the Holy Spirit in such a way as to inform our own life plan and our character. Jesus tells us what fruit to look for. The easiest way to tell a negative mentor from a positive one is by looking at the fruit he or she bears. That fruit of the Holy Spirit Paul tells us in Galatians 5:22-23 are things like, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. So the person who has this fruit learns how to be loving, joyful, peaceful, patient and have these things at all times, not just when they are grandstanding or in front of an audience, but in all the different seasons and ebbs and flows of their lives. Hanging around these folks with this kind of fruit becomes contagious and shows up in our own life. And guess what? The fruit at the end of the day is not just for us. The fruit that comes out of our lives is designed for others to see and so that they can want what we have through the power that God puts in us to create it. Where does the fruit come from in the first place? Turn with me to John 15:5 & 8. Jesus tells us, "I am the vine, you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. This is my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples." He is telling us apart from God there might be seasons of success but it won't be long lasting fruit. But if we stay connected to the Vine, there will be fruit and others will see that we are God's disciples and they will taste that and see that God is good.

Thinking about this whole idea of mentors and hanging around the right folks and resembling those who are going where I want to go and what that means for you and me. I really started thinking about this. Candace and I were in Hartford, Connecticut, for the Visa Gymnastic Championships. Our daughter Brianna had qualified for this competition and it is kind of a big deal because hundreds of thousands of girls all around the country, day in and day out make it their goal to one day qualify to be able to compete with these other girls from around the United States and hopefully go on to become a part of the national team. This year, 2010, 48 girls qualified under the age of 15; and 27 girls qualified 15 and over. We were there and the deal is these girls had reached the point of where they are considered an elite gymnast and this does not happen overnight. Brianna is 14 and started at age four. Well, if you go back and check my ancestry or Candice's ancestry, you won't find a gymnast anywhere. It is not there. It just so happened that at age four she was tumbling in the living room, the bedroom, in Kroger, in Wal-Mart, in Lowe's, everywhere we went. She had all these bruises and we said we've got to do something. We've got to connect her with somebody that can help her reach age five. That was the plan. So we did and she went from recreational gymnastics to training gymnastics and then USGA gymnastics level 1, 2, 3, 4 all the way through 10; and then finally reaching the elite status. Currently she spends about 30 hours a week in the gym and that's just a part of her reality. Where she is now, here's the nugget, she didn't get there by herself. All along the way it took different mentors for different seasons.

When Candice and I felt God calling us to Ohio to team with Mike and Ginghamsburg and to team together with you in ministry, we started finding mentors for our children. We found schools that had the right things we were looking for and then we had to find a gymnasium for Brianna. So we began looking around and like most states, at that time, there was only one gym in the entire state of Ohio that trained at the elite level. I am just grateful, I thank God it was Cincinnati and not Cleveland. Thank you, Lord! So there we found the gym where she could train at that level and this does involve me traveling a little better part of an hour to come to work each day and Candice now has to home school Brianna. There are sacrifices from the entire family with this type of deal. And we have to be careful and intentional that we spread enough time around for the rest of the siblings as well. But the team of role models and influences go way beyond just Brianna's biological family. The main mentor now, the main coach at the gym, Mary Lee Tracy, we found out that first day that she indeed was and is connected to the Vine, that she is a Christ follower, so she understands what long lasting fruit looks like. You know you are not 40 and a gymnast. It has a short life span so it is important that she was connected with someone who is connected to the Vine so that there will be long lasting fruit, those fruits of the Spirit that Christ talks about and Paul brings to life. There in Hartford, Connecticut, at the Visa Championships, I thought about the dedication and all the different people who went into making what we were witnessing possible. How it was so much larger than us and so much larger than even Brianna.

How that all came about - I want to share with you what I observed as part of the team and network that it took to get to Hartford. It took a team of mentors and the first part of a mentor team that it took was somebody who could develop her talent. T for talent. Somebody who could develop that and to develop that it had to be somebody who could see that talent. These are people who were there and could identify her strength and also identify her weaknesses. So when we went to see the Cincinnati Gymnastics Academy, you don't just walk in and say I want my daughter to be on the elite team. It doesn't work that way. So she had to interview by way of demonstration. She had to go through the bars, the beam, the floor and the vault to show where she is. So after two days of the interview process, Mary Lee sat us down and said, "Okay, here's the deal. Yes, your daughter does have that raw talent to compete at this level and yes she can be a part of this elite team here at the gym, but it is going to take a lot of polishing on where she is. We've got to bring her up to speed and also her self confidence. God has given her a gift and we've got to show her that when she hits the floor, she needs to strut her stuff because God gave it to her, it's bigger than she is." And so she was able to identify her strength as well as her weaknesses. Also in the mentor of teams there is also Amy. Amy helps every day with different exercises so it is more than just the head coach. That is one thing I discovered that when we have diversity in our portfolio of mentors, then our talent is sharpened. There is something powerful about being connected to a team of mentors.

I also observed over the years that there have been individuals there that helped her develop or exercise daily discipline. That's E, exercise daily discipline. There are individuals there who help her with this because all good things evolve out of intentional daily practice that might not be easy. And those who help you get beyond the days you don't want to practice and those individuals who are there to help push you to exercise discipline. Along with the coaches there are her teammates. There are role models who are trying to go and are going the same place she is. They played all along the way. At different seasons there are different mentors. So there is a different season of mentors that are her teammates now. To be your very, very best requires exercising daily discipline. With that discipline, we begin to reach our goals.

Then the next - A, accountability. Accountability helps us to remember our goals. Discipline helps us to reach them and then accountability helps us to remember our goals because it is important to remember. What does accountability look like? For her, there had to be a balance of the coach, there is the coach that takes them beyond pain. Weight lifters figured this out years ago: no pain, no gain. Regardless of what talent we have been given, no pain, no gain. So you need to have, and she has always had somebody, with no bull, to tell you what it is and you can go beyond that pain level. There is life after pain and that's where the brightest fruit dwells. But there has to be somebody else there too. There is Dr. Larry Nasser, the physician for National Team Olympics and for these girls who says, "Okay, yeah, you push beyond the pain, but don't forget what the MRI says." There is a season of stepping back and making sure you have balance. And to help them, there is Jamie, the physical therapist, but a strong accountability to be the very best that she can be. Lastly, there is the essential motivation by having those people around her who knew that if this is bigger than you, then you must stay connected to the Vine and be motivated by something larger than yourself - and every body plays in this role. We saw that it is important that Brianna's friends were people who would motivate her toward this goal and to use what God had given her. In life, there will be people around you who are not rooting for you. We had to explain that to her. It is the same for us, there will be haters in all of life. The important thing is recognize that, just don't put them on your team. If you have a team of mentors, make sure everybody is on your side and rooting for you. That essential ingredient to motivation was and is being connected to the Vine so that regardless of the competition or what comes next, you will be able and she will be able to produce that fruit.

Alright let me turn the corner; that was for Brianna, what about you and me? Well, it is the same acronym and it is called Team. Let's go back through it and see what it looks like. On your team of mentors make sure you have somebody that can T – develop your talent. Somebody who recognizes what God has placed in you. That is how God has designed the entire system. God has placed within other people the ability to see what is in you and they can see it at times better than you can, it is by design. It is by God's desire for us to be a family. There are people who can look at you and see you better than you can see yourself and those are the people that you want to be a part of your team because they can bring out of you what God has placed within you. They are there to show you areas of improvement and can tell you like it is. This is what you have, but this is what you need to develop for this to come out. This is even an area that can sidetrack our desire to live out God's destiny for us. Find individuals on your team who can keep you focused on what you need to accomplish in developing your talent. Sometimes this means having mentors who are good in finance. If finance is clouding your vision, find somebody to put on your team who knows what it is and has traveled through getting out of financial debt. If marriage is a challenge, if that is taking attention away from what God is calling you to do, find somebody that has been married 15, 20, 30 years and still has the fruit of the Spirit in their lives and have them come beside you so that can be strengthened. If your children are causing you to pull your hair out, then go to the counselor and find some children with the characteristics that you want in your children and get connected with them and allow them to be a mentor and learn from how they were able to accomplish things.

Then moving on from talent, there is a need for E, exercise daily discipline. It is about the daily deal. We need individuals who will keep us on track on the 24 hours we were given every day. They help with the time management piece, that daily discipline. When you're undisciplined and there is somebody walking beside you, they can help you eliminate a lot of choice for the day. No, that doesn't fit the goal. No, that's not a part of the goal. No, that doesn't fit the goal that you are on. So individuals who can help you exercise that physically. That might cost a few moments or a few dollars, but we have to take care of the body if we are going to be in this race and we are going to live the life God called us to. The spiritual exercise, the spiritual discipline, making sure we are staying connected to the Vine because that is the source of the lasting fruit. That is how we stay connected. Those who can make sure that you are disciplined in staying in God's word, that you are disciplined in studying, prayer and meditation, that this is a daily part of your exercise, and then realizing that all of this studying and all of this stuff that is going on on the inside is for you to be disciplined and exercise some type of social actual mission outside to the world. That goes on to lead us to the accountability factor. There has to be someone accountable there who is pushing you beyond what you think you can do and also holding you accountable when you agree on what you have set out to do. So when they call you on Sunday and say, "How did you do this past week?" Then when you say fine, they don't say, "Okay, good." They say, "Define fine. What does that look like as compared to the goals that you have set for yourself?" They are able to walk with you and say, "This week, this is how we can fine tune that to move a little bit further."

Lastly, there is the motivation. This comes from being connected to the Vine. You need someone who can tell you that you can because God gave you the gift and God wants you to develop that talent. You can because God has called you into existence to produce fruit and producing fruit is how you will help others. What does this look like when we are able to have a positive team, the right team? Then the fruit comes out in our life and we are able to have that joy when we go to work knowing that what we are doing is significant, that it does matter, that it is a part of God's plan. To have peace in situations where others are pulling out their hair, you walk in and peace walks in with you. To have faith to move mountains, where you are not relying on your own eyes because others have seen something in you and you know that you can look past the mountain that is in front of you. The ability to love others, to know that nobody can stop you from reaching what God has called you to be and you can look beyond hate and see love wherever you go. The ability to have patience in an inpatient world. To be kind to folks who are disturbed and taking it out on you. To be gentle when you used to have a pit-bull response. That is what happens when we hang around the right folks. Self control even in the midst of the hurricanes and the volcanoes that happen in all of our lives. Self confidence that you are breathing for a purpose and your life is even deeper than you. These are the fruits that come about when we have the right mentors.

So where are these mentors going to come from, where do I get started? Write down your talents. You've got an idea of something that God placed in you that pulls you a little forward. Then as you write it down, God will lead you in the right direction to find those people who can see what you can see and can see even further. Where are these people going to come from? There are tons of places. We mentioned earlier, cell groups. That's a primary breeding ground for people to say you know what, I see that in you. Give me your eyes so that I can see. God has given people the eyes to see what you have. Cell groups are a great place. If you are not in one, Change the World cell groups are coming, and are a great place to start gathering this team of folks around you. Books will bring it out in you. You can read a book and start seeing your talent by that thing that you start resonating with inside that book and it is just calling your name. The yeah, I'm tied to that, that is part of what God has placed within me. Sponsors, finding those individuals who will help you recover the things that the enemy may have stolen in your life. And there are classes for all these areas that we need to grow in, that is the power of the Ginghamsburg experience. We will have books coming out the next week or two. Bible with Brian starting September 8 - I double, triple dare you to come out. We are taking the spiritual motivation to a new level. Come on out and I don't know how you will come in, but I know how you are going to leave. Find those places. Support groups.

Now what do these mentors look like? Well they are teachers, they are coaches, they are certified counselors, they are cell group members, they are friends who are in our everyday lives. Those who can recognize what God has placed within us. Choose those persons who have exercised discipline in those areas that we need to improve. Accountability, don't think that you can do it by yourself. None of us are designed to do it by ourselves, we need individuals who will hold us accountable and push us on so that we can produce the fruit that the world is dying to see. Choose a motivator, those are the individuals who get inspired by seeing the gift in you. Develop that team of folks who will inspire you to go on because they know it is bigger than you and God has put you on a mission and that you were designed to live a filled life.

Let me see if I can bring this home. Why do we need mentors? Without mentors we can not break through the barriers that arrive in life. When Brianna was eight at level 5, she came home one day and said, "Dad, by the way, I am quitting gymnastics today." I said, "Okay. Can we talk about it?" She said, "There is no way I will make it to level 6. It is too hard. I can't do it. I am not as talented as the level 6 girls. I will never make it to that level and I am afraid and I don't want to go on because I can't do it." So we talked to the coaches and they told us that in gymnastics it is one of those strange sports that when they reach these points, a lot of the girls want to stop and some of them do. And parents just have to live with it. So we went home and we prayed with Brianna and we said, "Brianna, here is the deal. We see something in you right now that you don't see yourself. It is bigger than you. And you know what, if you want to stop at the end of the season, that is okay, but you are not going to do an emotional, there is no quitting mid-season. But at the end of level 5, if you have decided that you want to go on a different path, then we will support you in that because God can use many forms." Had we let her quit we would never have seen this.

(video of Brianna doing gymnastics)

We all reach level 5 seasons. We all get to those times in our life where we can't see how we can take the next step. We all do. The power of the team is that they can see with God eyes what you and I can't. They can say this is bigger than you. God is calling you forward. You can be a great teacher. You can be a great doctor, a great physician. You can be a great pilot. You can be a great painter or great carpenter, a great construction worker. You can be a great parent, a great sibling, a great student, you can, you can, you can, you can, you can because you are tied to the Vine and it is bigger than you. YES, YOU CAN!

That's the power of the team. And that's the power of the family of God. Develop your team. Remember you are connected to the Vine. Can I pray for you? "God, we are so grateful that we don't have to do this by ourselves. In fact, we can't do it by ourselves, but You have so intricately tied all of us together. For the fruit of the Spirit and true success in life, we need one another and we thank You, God, for developing systems and places and opportunities where we can find the team of mentors so that we can live the life for which You placed breath within these bodies. So let it be, God, in our lives. Amen."