See, even people like me who constantly make stupid decisions, even people like me who
are very foolish and don't read all the instructions, find that we constantly miss out on bad decisions
because we're asking the right question.
You say, what is the right question, pastor?
The right question is, how are you?
And the other question is, what do you think?
How are you and what do you think?
And with whom you have these questions is incredibly important.
The counselors in your life, the advisors, the people around you to listen.
And that's what I want to begin with today, a conversation about developing your own cabinet
of mentors and coaches to where you can ask the question, what do you think?
And they can ask the question, how are you?
You see, when we were kids, if you were going to go on a road trip and you were not driving,
or even if you were just going down to the Dairy Queen to get a dip cone and you weren't
driving, there was a phrase that we would shout out to make sure that we got preferable
seating.
What was the phrase that you would shout out, shotgun?
Why?
Because you don't want to sit in the back with all the losers.
It's a shotgun.
I love shotgun because it stems back to the old West and I was born and raised in Nevada.
So as you can see, I'm kind of a cowboy.
And a shotgun, somebody who rides shotgun with you is the type of individual who is there
for communication and protection and direction and they're going to help you get wherever.
Here's my question.
Who's riding shotgun with you?
Who is it that's providing protection?
Who is it that's providing direction?
Who is it that's giving you communication?
Who is riding with you in life?
Who is it in your life that are your mentors and coaches that are surrounding you to speak
into your life?
The Bible talks about this over and over, yes, a wise man will hear and will increase
learning.
A man of understanding will attain under wise counsel, but the Bible also says in Proverbs
chapter 11 and verse 14, where there is no counsel, the people fall.
Do you ever wonder why it is that you continue to make mistake after mistake after mistake?
You keep seeming to fall down and then fall down again and then fall down again?
Do you ever wonder why it is there are parts of your life you're extremely successful and
then parts of your life that are just an utter mess?
Do you ever wonder why?
Could it be possible that you have not surrounded yourself with the right counselors and mentors?
Could it be possible you have the right coaches, counselors and mentors in some areas of your
life, but you have failed to bring them up in the other areas of your life?
See the Bible says where there is no counsel, people fall, but in the multitude of counselors,
there is safety.
When you get to a place where you surround yourself, not with just one, but with a multitude
of counselors, that's when you avoid the big mistakes.
So what do I call it, a cabinet of mentors and coaches?
Years ago I had a deacon in the church, his name was Andrew.
And Andrew gave me this principle, he taught me that just like the president of the United
States develops a cabinet, so are you.
Now I don't know which is your favorite president, I'm sure some of you are ready to shout it
out right now, don't do it, you'll be fine.
And I know whoever has a favorite president, you also have ones that are not your favorites.
By the way, I think there's an election coming up, did you hear about it?
I think there's another one, they do them every couple years.
And no matter who the president is, when they get in there, one of the things that the president
does is he establishes a cabinet.
Now why does he do that?
Because he realizes or she realizes that they do not have to be the expert in everything,
they just are the leader, they're the final decision maker, they're the one where the
buck stops, they have to make the call, but to make the call sometimes you need experts
in different areas so they can speak into it.
So you've got an expert about war, and you've got an expert about the economy, you've got
an expert on housing and development, you've got all the experts so that the guy, who the
woman who has to make the decision can rely upon the expertise of the counselors around
them.
Instead of a fool, would not surround themselves with experts when so much is on the line.
Here's my question.
Why is the president more important than you?
Why don't you develop a cabinet of mentors and coaches?
Now a few thoughts about this, first of all, you have to release yourself from the idea
that there is one perfect mentor that will tell you everything you need to know.
One of the reasons why some of us make a lot of mistakes is we've got one person in our
lives and that person is going to be the answer to everything.
And so we overly burden our wife or we overly burden our husband or we think our father
has failed us.
We've got so much big expectations of one particular mentor and everything you have
in life goes to that one person and here's the problem, that one person may not be an
expert in everything.
For some of you, it wasn't a family member you did this with, for some of you it was
some professional coach in life and this professional coach in life is really good at the job they
do but their family falls apart.
That's why you are really good at your job but your family is falling apart.
You see?
Or maybe you are following a family expert in everything, your family is fine but your
job is falling apart because you haven't found a coach or a mentor in work.
So one of the things we must do is find a multitude of counselors and then go to each
individual one for the specific areas that we need in life.
I've been thinking about this sermon literally since last September of how I could share
these principles with you and I thought at this point the best thing I could possibly
do is show you my own personal, Josh Tice, my personal cabinet of mentors and coaches
so let me show it to you.
This is mine.
As you can see, there I am on the left, I'm at the head of the table.
Why?
Because it's my table.
So I can sit there, that's where I put myself.
It's your table, you can create your own table, put yourself there.
As you see to my right is my wife Heather, she is my number one counsel, she rides shotgun,
she's the one I bring things to.
I get counsel and advice.
But notice as important as her role is, she is not the only person I go to for counsel
and advice.
Neither am I the only person she goes to for counsel and advice.
We need a multitude of counselors, you see.
Person beside that is our own personal counselor, my wife and I go to at Renewing Life Center.
She's a wonderful counselor and you should find a counselor.
You say, what, you, pastor, you go to a counselor, a therapist?
The answer is absolutely.
When Heather and I are in a scenario that we can't figure out, we don't agree upon.
When we have a fight once every 20 years, what we, when we're not on the same page,
we love to schedule a meeting at Renewing Life Center, sit down with this counselor
that we've developed a relationship with over the years and say, okay, here's our situation.
And I love this woman.
She's wisdom, she's godly, she knows the Word of God, she often sides with me.
Not always.
And this is our counselor.
We also have a family expert in our life.
The family expert is always beside the financial expert, not always to the family experts,
no finances and not always to the finances people, no family.
But for us, we have a family expert.
For me, that's my mother and father.
We often go to them for a lot of counsel, how we deal with children at this age, how
about now we're going into the grandparent phase in a couple years.
These are the people we're fighting as a marriage.
Sometimes we just need help on how to love one another.
Okay, so we go to a family expert.
Let me ask you this.
Who is it in your life that you go to for family advice?
Now let me just stop and say this.
If you go to them and their family has fallen apart, not a good person to go to.
Look, I'm not saying they're bad people.
They might have other areas of expertise, but why are you getting family advice from people
who don't know how the family works?
Like good question, right?
That's like getting financial advice from your poorest friend.
Am I wrong?
Is that hurtful?
Is that hurtful, to say?
Like they might be incredibly good in other areas, but they don't know money.
Why would you get financial advice from them?
So I always have a financial expert there.
As our finances have grown over the years, it's become professionals.
You pay for these things.
So we go to somebody at Edward Jones.
Across the table from me is perhaps one of the most important positions, and that's
what I call my spiritual life coach.
Historically, it's been referred to as a shepherd or a pastor.
Somebody that I could go to.
You say, well, you're my pastor.
I am your pastor, but I have a pastor too.
My pastor that I go to is the one I grew up with.
That's my father.
And I'll go and get counsel from him about my spiritual life when I'm not walking with
the Lord the way I need to, or I need counsel or prayer, and I go to him and he's such an
encouragement to me.
Now he is a pastor of a very large church, but he only really sits at the table of a
very few spiritual life coach.
Why?
Well, because you can only be the spiritual life coach of so many people.
Now some of you are like, oh, okay, pastor, I got it, that one's you.
Well, for some of you, perhaps, but for most of you, no, I'm not that.
Our relationship is this.
You learn, and I teach, but in reality, you don't have a phone call with me once a week.
We can't do that with 1,500 people.
You say, well, then who do I have in that area?
It's a very good question.
Who do you have in that area?
What often happens in a church is that sometimes we get upset because the person we want to
sit in that seat isn't sitting in that seat, when in reality it's your responsibility to
find somebody to sit in that seat.
Who's sitting there for you?
Now at Southern Hills, one of the things we attempt to do is provide small groups for
that reason.
There are dozens and dozens of small groups, men and women, who lead incredible small groups.
These are the shepherds of our church.
These are the pastors that you could go to and say, this is what's going on in my life.
I see James is over here in Priscilla.
They lead in small groups.
These are the men and women that you can go to and say, hey, this is what's going on in
my life.
You can text them and say, hey, pray for this situation that's happening in my life.
Here's my question.
Who is it that you can text today and say, pray for this today, and they'll call you
on the phone, and they'll pray with you in that moment?
Who do you have?
Or they can counsel you and say, you better not do that or you better do that.
I have a guy named Mike Smith who I call a life coach.
He spent 20 years in the Air Force as the, retired as the sergeant of the Thunderbirds.
And then he went and worked for Berkshire Hathaway.
He has a lot of life experience.
He now is a professional speaker and he comes to our church.
And years ago, I began to do work with him.
So why pastor, don't you know everything about in life?
No, not like him.
He knows a lot of things about life that I don't know.
So when I have to have a really tough conversation about something with somebody, I'll often
go to him and be like, hey, I got to have this conversation.
What do you think?
Now do I go to him about theology?
No.
He doesn't know theology.
But he does know life.
So I keep him at my table.
There's another vacant seat there.
I have a vacant seat in my personal.
I'm just trying to be as transparent as I can.
I have a vacant seat professional mentor.
A mentor in your profession is somebody who has gone already ahead of you beyond where
you've gone.
And right now, I'm looking for somebody who has built a church beyond where our church
is built.
And I'm in the market, as it were.
I'm always looking for somebody else to learn from.
I have a professional accountability partner.
His name is Mike McConnell.
He's somebody that I sit with every three months.
He's the chairman of our deacons.
I sit with him once every three months.
And I present with him my weekly schedule and my quarterly goals.
Some of you live a lifestyle like me.
You're a little bit entrepreneurial.
You don't necessarily have a direct supervisor that you have to check in with.
And because you live an entrepreneurial lifestyle and you don't have somebody overseeing you
constantly, you kind of let things slack.
Could it be possible that you do what I do and you find yourself submitting to somebody
and having a professional accountability partner that can ask you tough questions like, how
are you doing?
And what can I help with?
One that holds you accountable to your own goals.
This is one of the things that Mike does for me.
Every single quarter he'll ask me, what's your schedule look like?
What are your goals for the coming months?
Month, do you feel like those are reasonable goals?
We walk through this.
Then I have my spiritual accountability partner.
That's Aaron Flanagan.
He's another pastor in town.
This is a personal one-on-one relationship where once a month we sit over coffee and
he asks me the tough questions.
He's like, are you spending time with your wife?
Are you reading your Bible and praying every day?
Are you keeping your eyes and your mind and your heart pure before God?
We have very, very honest conversations over the last many years.
He's been my personal accountability partner.
Why am I telling you all this?
I'm trying to show you that one of the things that make, according to the Bible, a successful
life, void of more mistakes is a multitude of counselors.
What I call a cabinet of mentors and coaches.
That leads us to our second thought today, and that is, how do I build one?
The goal is not for you to walk away and say, well, our pastor really has a good group around
him.
The goal is for you to walk away and say, how can I build my own?
Let me help you with that.
How do I build a cabinet of mentors and coaches?
The Bible says in Proverbs 12 verse 15, the way of the fool is right in his own eyes, but
he who heeds counsel is wise.
How many of you have ever known a fool before?
Raise your hand.
How many of you have ever known a fool?
Come on, more of you know fools than that.
You live in Las Vegas.
How many of you have not just known a fool?
Sometimes you've played the fool.
How many of you have ever played the fool?
Raise your hand.
More of us, right?
Amen.
The way of a fool, did you know a fool doesn't know he's a fool until after he did the foolish
thing?
Just like a villain doesn't know he's the villain.
The villain doesn't know he's a villain.
The villain thinks he's doing the right thing.
Always.
And the fool doesn't think he's a fool until after the foolish thing, and then he looks
back and he's like, that was dumb.
You ever been a fool?
The Bible says the way of a fool is right in his own eyes.
However, to keep yourself from being a fool, he who heeds counsel is wise.
If you listen and heed the counsel around you, there is wisdom, there's safety, according
to what we see in the scripture.
So how do we build a cabinet?
Well in my second thought here, I really want to make it really practical, so I'm going
to show you this graphic.
This graphic is what could be your own personal cabinet.
So I've left it blank on purpose because some of you might want to fill this out.
Some of you might want to take a screenshot.
Some of you might want to pull this out later and say, okay, wait a second.
I sit here, who is it that sits to my right?
Who is my counselor, my therapist?
Who is my family expert in life?
Who is my financial expert?
Who is my pastor or spiritual life coach?
Who is that small group leader in my life?
Who is my professional mentor, my professional accountability partner, my spiritual accountability
partner?
Who are these people?
Now how exactly do you build this cabinet?
Here's how you do it.
The very first thing you do is you've got to, number one, you've got to name the seats.
What you need may not be what I need, and what I need may not be what you need at this
stage in your life.
For me, these seats are often changing.
What I might need at the moment.
For example, for years I had a preaching coach.
How weird is that, right?
Say what do you mean a preaching coach?
Exactly what it sounds like.
A guy that I paid who was a pastor for years and he would listen to my sermons and then
we would get on a Zoom call and he would tell me how bad I did.
Like a coach.
And then he would tell me that was good and that was good.
Why do you say that?
Why do you stand this way?
Why don't you do this?
And a lot of the things that you know of my speaking have been developed through counsel.
You see, we in our society we call it coaching.
So the question that you need to wrestle with first is what are the seats that you need
to name?
Maybe right now in your life maybe you need a seat called dietitian.
Right?
I mean genuinely.
You might look at your life and you say, you know what I really need?
I just need to figure out how to eat well.
Maybe you need a personal trainer.
Maybe you need a ministry leader.
Maybe you need a marriage expert.
Maybe you need a childhood expert, early childhood development expert, raising young children.
I don't know what seat, but the first thing you do is you name these are the seats that
I need.
And the first you name the seats, then you pick the people to go in the seats.
Here's the coolest thing about this.
You're in charge of who sits at your table.
Do you know what we often do?
Instead of picking good people to sit at our table, we just allow all the people around
us that have no idea what they're doing, tell us whatever their opinion is at the moment.
Or worst case scenario, some of you are like, I don't think I need this.
Why?
Because I have YouTube.
And YouTube tells me everything I need to know about life.
Who is it that's sitting at your table?
Not only do you name the seats, you pick the people to sit at those seats.
And so there are all sorts of people.
I will show you this next slide because I want you to know as a member of Southern Hills,
you already have multiples of these available to you.
For example, did you know as you look right across the table at Spiritual Life Coach, as
I mentioned before, maybe your small group leader would be the perfect type of shepherd
or spiritual life coach that you need in life.
They love Jesus.
They're a little bit farther down the road in this walk with God or her walk with God
than you are.
And you can go to them for prayer requests and counsel and they're always available to
you.
They're only ministering to 10 to 12 people.
They're there for you.
What about like a financial expert?
Now I know some of you are getting older.
You're in your 40s like pastor.
But some of you in your 20s and you're like financial expert, what is that?
How do I do that?
Did you know that we have one right here, a pastor that can help with that?
Somebody like Fred Murray.
And we've got men like Sorrell and Gary Amick who can sit down with you free.
They're not trying to sell you anything.
And they just sit with you and help you get out of debt or help you set a budget for the
first time.
What about a family expert?
We have people like Chris and Nicky Murray or the Gebremeskels or the McCarrills.
People who lead our family ministries that you can go to and say, I have questions about
kids.
I have questions about marriage.
I need help in this area.
You don't have to go and pay somebody $100 an hour to get some advice.
You've got that available to you as a member of the church right here in your church if
you'll take advantage of it.
What about a counselor or a therapist?
Did you know right here at the church we have a pastor who dedicates himself to counseling?
The pastor of care and counseling?
Pastor Andrew Wilson.
You can call the church offices and schedule an appointment and get good, godly, spiritual
counsel on your decisions.
And so number one, what you do is as you build a cabinet, you name the seats, you pick the
people that are supposed to sit in those seats and then practically, very practically, I
know this is going to blow your mind, here it is, very practically, you approach them
and you ask them and you schedule them.
That's it.
This is like shocking how detailed it is, right?
Once you figure out who needs to sit in what seat, this is what you do.
You go to them and say, can I ask you a question?
I would like to have a monthly conversation with you.
That's it.
Now, let me warn you, some people are already thinking of individuals you want to sit at
your table and they did not come to church today.
And so you're going to text them and you're going to be like, will you sit on my personal
cabinet of mentors and coaches and they're going to be like, what?
What does that mean?
So sit down and explain what you mean.
I see you're a little bit further in your career than I am.
I want to learn from you.
Or I see that you really did well with your children or your grandchildren.
I want to talk to you.
I see that your marriage is really strong.
I want to sit down and approach them.
And then lastly, be very clear to set the expectations of the relationship.
This is key.
Be very clear to set the expectations for the relationship.
So let's say you want somebody to have a relationship, maybe a quarterly once every
three months conversation about child raising.
Then let them know, I would like to take you to coffee once every three months.
All I want to do is talk about how to raise children.
It'll be 45 minutes of your time and that's it.
Now they know exactly what you mean by that.
You set the expectations.
You've allowed them to know exactly what.
Then you give them time to decide and now they're there.
And then every single time that time comes up, you call, you set the meeting, you schedule
it, you have the meeting, you take notes, you go home with that wisdom.
This is what we should be doing.
This is wisdom.
So in the professional category, be ready to pay.
Some of you that are in your 30s and 40s and 50s, somebody like, well, I've already arrived.
Hey, there's always room to grow.
Be willing to pay and sometimes pay well to go to the next level.
Yeah?
Amen?
You understand what I'm saying?
So I know some of you are like, man, I was really looking forward to a verse by verse
Bible sermon today.
Absolutely.
And we do that all the time here.
But this is a sermon that God has placed on my heart since September specifically for
young adults.
How many of you agree the young adults of the American generation need to make sure they've
got their ducks in a row in this new world?
Can I get an amen?
Don't you think that somebody ought to tell them how to do that?
Amen?
To teach biblical principles from Proverbs.
They tell you about surrounding yourself with wisdom.
Well, then let your pastor do it.
Can I get an amen right there?
Amen.
So number one, what do we need to do today?
Well, you need to build a cabinet of mentors and coaches.
We talked about how to build a cabinet of mentors and coaches.
And then lastly, what does this actually look like?
What do these meetings look like, pastor?
It's a good question and we'll be done.
The Bible says, listen to counsel and receive instruction that you may be wise in your latter
days.
This is what it looks like.
The man or woman who begins listening to wisdom and counsel in their early days, in their
old life days, you will be found to have been wise.
Those who ignore counsel, ignore admonition, ignore reproof, the type of person in their
teens and twenties who says, I do what I want, nobody tells me, they end up fools.
Those who early on in life or if you're a little latter in life as early as possible begin
to say, I need to have the right people talking to me.
The earlier you do that, the better.
And what happens is by the end of your life, you will have been known to be a wise, this
is what it looks like.
Practically what does it look like?
The conversation.
Well, sometimes it's over Zoom, sometimes it's a phone call.
A lot of times it's face to face.
I have a quarterly conversation every three months, like I said with Michael McConnell,
he's the chairman of our deacons.
Every time he sits down with me, he asks me a question, I ask him a question.
He asks me the question, how are you doing?
And that's the moment where I can lie or I can be honest.
And then I ask him the question, what do you think?
I want to know.
He'll talk to me about my quarterly goals or my weekly schedule and I'll say, what do
you think about that?
I think that's too much.
Do you think I should do something else?
He's giving me counsel.
I do that every quarter with Michael McConnell.
All of these relationships are going to be different.
Some of them are going to be once a month.
Some of these relationships are going to be once a quarter.
Some are going to be every other week.
Some of them are going to be once a year or whatever you need to call them.
It's totally up to you, but you know they're sitting at your table and they know they are
one of your counselors.
You customize it.
My wife and I, what does it look like?
My wife sits at my table.
We meet.
You say, you schedule meetings with your wife?
Yes, I do.
She's a very important person.
And if we don't schedule time to meet, guess what?
We end up not communicating.
So twice a month, my wife and I have scheduled meetings.
And you know what we do with these scheduled meetings?
We sit down and we go through our calendar and we go through our budget and we go through
our issues.
Just us.
We have an assistant that helps now.
Our calendar.
What's coming up over the next week?
What about two weeks?
We try to make it three months so that we get our minds around.
Even though we're meeting twice a month, we want to make sure our calendar is in order.
Where are you going to be?
Who's making dinner that night?
Who's picking up the kids?
All of that is happening.
Not yelling across the table or across the house, but sitting down and talking about
it.
Yeah?
It makes sense?
We talk about issues.
So instead of bringing up a weird issue late at night when one of us are trying to sleep,
we know we're going to meet in about a couple of days.
Mark it down, bring up the issue at the meeting.
We sit down and talk about this.
Hey, three weeks ago this happened and we need to talk about what are we going to do
next time this happens?
See, no emotions begin to go away.
Just talk.
When you surround yourself, and by the way, I wanted to preach a whole sermon on marriage
but I have one coming up on March 3rd.
There's a whole sermon I'm doing on marriage.
We'll break into that in a couple of weeks.
This is about what those meetings actually look like.
And here's what I'm trying to say.
I'm saying you can do this if you put the work in.
Your life was not meant to be lived on your own.
You don't have to blame everything on the fact you didn't have a good dad.
Or the fact that your boss never trained you properly for your job.
You can take control of your life by following the biblical principles of surrounding yourself
with the right voices.
And if you do so, well, you'll avoid the mistakes.
Like I did with Africa.
You see, I was not worried about my trip to Africa.
I'm a good traveler.
I've traveled all over the world.
And so I didn't even read the packet in preparation and that was going to be a troublesome thing.
But I had a meeting scheduled with Heather where we sat down and talked about the next
few months.
And she brought up in our every other week meeting.
She said, now you and Savannah are going to West Africa in January, right?
I said, yeah, yeah, but that's like, you know, months from now.
She said, are you prepared?
I said, of course.
She said, did the missions agency send you anything?
I said, yeah, I think, I don't know.
So she read through like the 45 pages, things you need to know.
She's like, you know, we need to schedule these vaccines.
You need to get your visas.
You need to make sure this is in order and that is in order.
This is how you dress.
This is how to bring cash.
This is where to exchange your cash.
You're going to a place that doesn't have Apple Pay.
You understand?
And so the trip went well, not because I know what I'm doing.
The trip went well because I have the right voices asking the right questions at the right
time to keep me accountable.
You don't have to be the smartest person.
You just have to surround yourself with smart people.
You see?
I'm pretty sure that's kind of what the Bible was saying.
3,000 years ago, to people like you and me.
If you do it well, well, your road trip will go much more smoothly.
Let's pray.
Thank you.