Yo, what's up people, I'm your host Jay Will, and I would like to welcome you to Inspire Guys People where we balance faith and business to guide you to your purpose. This is episode 241, fans of Christ Spectators in the Game of Life. Yup, today I'm gonna have a little bit of a sports twist. So you know, I'm a fan of sports.
Used to be a Hooper, you know, when I was younger, not quite so much. Went to the Pistons game last week, me and my homeboy, meach. And this wasn't where the idea came to me, but I think this idea for the show came to me about two or three weeks ago, but I've been a little busy. But you know, when you had a game, you kind of seeing the atmosphere and everything that's happening around you.
And that whole idea of being a fan at a game is what inspired the show that we're gonna talk through today. And I hope it inspires you. I hope it gives you a new perspective on life. We're gonna talk a little bit about like the difference between actually being and living as a Christian versus the mindset of the world today, which I think has turned us into reactors.
And then we're gonna talk a little bit about some practical steps to actually get going and get out of the behavior of being a spectator. And then I think lastly, we're gonna talk a little bit about more of a capitalistic financial approach to that and how that kind of overlays. And I know sometimes that kind of stuff turns people off. That's not the intention, especially in a society that seems to be a little more gearing more and more towards socialism and kind of freehand outs and everybody gets this.
And so we're gonna talk a little bit, not maybe not too much. I'm not gonna try to offend nobody, but a little bit about how like this mentality of the world we live in today and being like a instead of kind of work for it. I want people to give it to me. I want to kind of sit back and do nothing.
And I think that is all contributing to the idea of being a spectator in a game of life. Some of us are spectators in our lives. So those are all the things we're gonna talk about today. If you enjoy the show, please like, share, comment, you know what I'm saying?
Tell somebody about it. And if you're watching this on YouTube, subscribe. But without further ado, let's get into it. All right, what up?
What up people? Michelle, Mel, Canyon, what up, though? All right. So first things first, I want to talk about this idea of being a fan.
What is a fan? Let's think about like how, you know, like how are, how are fans like, like what do fans do? Let me just say that first, if you a fan basketball football, whatever you do sports, it's okay. You know what I'm saying?
What are people? Why not live? Who am I saying? Let me know what you mean by asking who am I saying?
What up to the people that's joining? So first things first, you go to a game football. Let's talk football. You look around in the stands is 100,000, 50,000, 20,000 fans depending on the size of the stadium.
Everybody's wearing a team jersey. People got their face painted. Like you ever see people like, I'm like, some people take their shirt off. They paint the team logo, you know, onate stomach and then they chest and everybody's like, what, you know, and we scream in loud, like being a fan is an exhilarating experience, but some people take it a little far, I think.
But as I look around at the fans in the stadium, I'm like, yo, none of us are actually in the game. We cheering, we booing, we talking our stuff. Like you have people on the sidelines arguing with players, custom players out all of this. And I'm like, bro, you know what's crazy?
Like, we not in the game though. Like we at the game, we're in the atmosphere. We have an opinion about the game, you know, we argue about who's the greatest player of all time. Is it Tom Brady?
Is it Patrick Mahomes? Is it Barry Sanders? And here's why or Emma Smith and all of that is cool. But at the end of the day, I'm like, yo, we not in the game.
And I'm gonna tell you how bad it got for me. A couple years ago, watching the Lions, right? I'm from Detroit, watching the playoffs. We just got good like two years ago, you know, so I'm gonna be real.
We don't know how to act. Like, you know, we got die-hard fans here in Detroit and, you know, the games are crazy and everything is hype. And the Lions were in, I think it was the NFC Championship game and they lost. It was the game to get to the Super Bowl.
And I actually found myself walking around Matt. To the point, I'm not proud of this. I'm be honest. Kind of got an attitude with my wife.
Kind of got at her. Was a little bit attention brewing. And then like, I had to take a step back after that experience and be like, bro, why are you so invested in Matt and you not even in the game? Like, do they come to your job and like, get mad because you didn't respond to an email fast enough?
You know what I'm saying? You didn't file something in the correct folder? No, they don't. Nobody cares about my job.
Y'all didn't come to my job to watch me work. But what's my point? I took a step back and I was like, bro, you can't allow yourself to be out here affected. And you not even playing the game.
I say that to say, as a fan, first thing first, some of us are fans of Christ. And what I mean by that is like, yo, we, we at church, you know, we're in the atmosphere. We grew up in church, right? I'm not even saying you're not a Christian, right?
But you know, we come to church. We scream and holler. We'll do the like the praise team. Like, oh, yeah, we'll, you know, we'll do all of that.
We got opinions about the preacher. We boo each year. We talk about them. We post about them.
If something happens in the church, we the first ones on Facebook that want to, you know, say whatever we want to say. But then it's like, yo, we such fans, but are we in the game? And it is like, well, what does it actually even mean to be in the game? What does it mean to be a player on God's team in Christianity?
What's the difference between, yeah, I'm a fan. I believe isn't that enough? Like I come to church every Sunday. I clap.
I pay my ties. I do everything, right? You bought your ticket, you know, just like a fan of the game. You, you paid for the concessions.
You did your good deed. And some of us have become so okay with being fans that we don't even realize, like, bro, you're not actually on the team. You were in a Jersey, but your Jersey got somebody else's name on it. And so I say that to say, let's expand this thinking.
Like, yo, do I want to just be a fan of Christ? And that's something that we have to look at ourselves. This isn't about pointing the finger. This is about looking at yourself and saying like, yo, am I a fan of Christ or am I like in the game?
Like, am I actually doing this? And then I want you to parallel it with your own life. It's like, yo, am I just out here a spectator in the game of life? Am I looking at other people judging them the way we judge players and we argue about them?
Or am I like actually doing something in my life? And I think there's a lot of people out there that are struggling in their own life. Like, and I know it's hard to admit it, right? We don't want to admit that we struggling or that we like sluggish or we don't have any purpose or any goals in our own life.
But if we be honest, it's like, bro, I wake up every day and I'm online arguing about what happened to somebody else's life. You feel me? What's up, people out there? So for me, it's about being introspective and saying like, where, like, why are we even like that today?
And I'm not saying this is the only reason we're like that. But I want to give an example of something that I think is contributing to causing us to be more and more accepting. I can't talk people. Where's my little mother?
I can talk. We're becoming more and more accepting of just being spectators, both in Christianity and the kingdom of God, but also just spectators in our own life, right? I think part of that is like think about social media and what social media has become. And honestly, even what podcasting has become.
And I don't want this to come off like, this isn't all negative. I'm not taking a shot. Anybody who does this is just something I've observed over the last couple of years. Reactions have become the thing online, right?
It has become a thing to not actually really create your own content, not actually develop anything or put anything proactively out into the world. But over the last maybe three to four years, it has become common practice to just turn on your camera and react. Like hey, something happened in the world that everybody cares about whether it be most of the time is some level of extreme good or bad, mostly bad, like something extremely bad or extremely crazy happens. Everybody comes online, turns on their camera and then it's about like who can react the best, right?
Who can be the best spectator? Like pull up somebody else's life, pull up somebody else's situation and then their story goes viral and circulates and it's just like, oh, this is just basically a bunch of people spectating and reacting to somebody else's life or situation. And I'm not saying that's always bad. Don't don't get me wrong.
Please don't get me wrong. If you do this, like it's not a shot at everybody who does this. So one of the things that concerns me about it is you start waking up and looking on social media and I ask myself like, where are the pro actors at? Where are the people that put good things out?
Where are the people who instead of like, we're in about the spec in your neighbor or your brothers? I, we're the people that are looking at the beam in their own eye. And I think about like Christianity and the walk of Christianity, I genuinely don't think God has called us to exclusively, you know, react to other people's lives. And I also think when you're a reactor, what happens when nothing has happened, right?
You don't even know what to do with yourself. Like, oh, I don't have anything to react to. And you start searching for something to react to or what's happening. Because you don't actually have substance within yourself.
And I'm again, this isn't a shot at people. There's some dope people who react. Please don't take this the wrong way. I'm just talking about society at large and like how I sit back and say, I think we've adopted this spectator spirit.
Spirit. Now, what's wrong with that? One of the things I think is wrong with that is that it's very easy to be a spectator and reactor of somebody else's life. And I can, you know, sit in my mom's basement and turn this camera on and react at everything.
But then when the camera goes off, the question is, what am I doing with my own life? Now I would hate to be a reactor in your life and then turn this camera off and look myself in the mirror and have no purpose. No direction, no sense of motivation, no sense of understanding like who I am. And I actually believe that most of life's journey, right, should be about you understanding what God wants you to do in your life.
And then walking out that purpose and growing and learning and getting closer to the Lord. And it takes time. Like, trust me, like I'm still growing. It takes a lot of time like to like just grow as a believer to improve, to, you know, get over your own trauma, your own life experiences, your own self doubt, whatever it may be.
It takes time. And some of us are waking up every morning and I'm not judging nobody, but some of us are waking up every morning and we got everybody else's life figured out, but we not in the game of our own life. We just fans. And so I think about that.
And so it's like, okay, well, if we become fans and spectators, right, then it's like, well, what do we do? Like how do you, how do you get beyond that? Like, and why? Why should I even get beyond that?
And I think about like Jesus with the disciples, right? The disciples were in the game. It's to the point that when Jesus, I'm going to call the recruiting, like college basketball coaches or something, when he recruited the disciples, you know, one of the things that he said at some point, don't quote me at the point or script. I'm not preaching right now.
I'm just kind of giving paraphrasing. But you know, he said like to count up the costs before you follow him. And I think about that. Like, why did Jesus ask the disciples to count up the costs before you follow him?
And I look at it as like, he did that, at least partially, because he was letting you know you're about to go from being a fan to getting in the game. And when you get in the game, there's sacrifice. When you get in the game, there's something to gain, but there's also something to lose. And it's going to take some effort and some work.
See fans, we don't have to work out. I don't have to work out. Like I could just stay being out of shape and then judge the football players in the NFL that are in great shape, working hard, practice all week, study the playbook, deal all of that. And here I am on my couch out of shape and saying, hey, you should have made that tackle.
You should have did this. I'm like, well, this guy runs at the speed of light is strong as, you know, a superhero. And here I am on my mother's couch in the clothes I had on yesterday telling these professional athletes that they're horrible because they're in the game and I'm merely a fan. I've given up nothing to be a fan.
No shot at fans, but I'm just being real. And so what happens is Jesus wants you to count up the costs because when you get in the game, it will change your perspective. Now, what do I mean by that? The perspective is interesting.
Have you ever, you know, set at the top of the stadium? Like meaning like you chilling and you sitting at, you know, in the nose bleeds sections, the game look real different in the nose bleeds fam. In nose bleeds, it looked like dots. Like you're watching dots on the court or the field.
You get a little closer, you're gonna have some good seats and you're like, oh, wow, I could see what's going on. The game is looking a little faster down here. Then you get like some quartz out or front row seats or like really low level. And it's like, wow, like I can like see the speed and the players look way taller.
It's like, oh, he's not sure at all. Like all of these things change. Now imagine how much that perspective changes even more if you get in the game. Let me see what y'all time on the comments.
All right. Yeah. Somebody call me AI. Is this AI?
I don't know. I guess so. So when you think about the fact that like you get in the game, imagine if you were at an NBA basketball game, just as a fan watching it and all of a sudden they call the time out and they pointed you like, yeah, you like, come on, get you a jersey and say get in the game. You're not nervous.
You'll be to actually get in the game. You know how much faster and stronger everybody would be if that ball was in your hand. You pass it to you and say do something with it. Go score, go get a touchdown, go hit a three.
Like all of a sudden all that finger point you did all that booing you did all that screaming and hollering. Now all of a sudden things have changed because you're in the game. Now when I talk about this like as a believer, getting in the game, being a disciple, getting in the game and like actually walking through ministry with people, it changes your perspective, right? Even getting in the game changes your perspective about yourself because you get in the game and have a turnover.
You get in the game and file someone or fall on the ground and you realize like, oh, wow, like, oh, man, like, okay, I made some mistakes too. I'm not, I'm not perfect. And so getting in the game sometimes will turn you away from being just this reactor that's always pointing the finger at others to having a little bit of grace, going from judging everyone for everything and wishing the worst on them to trying to walk them through because you now understand what it's like to be in a game and get tackled and have a bloody arm or a broken finger or whatever it may be. And so part of what I'm saying to us as believers is I think it's time for a lot of us to graduate from being just simply fans of Christ, spectators in our churches and our communities of faith, spectators in our own life and our careers and whatever it is that we're doing in life, moving from being a spectator to being a player that's in the game.
Now, what does that mean? That means once you get in the game, things won't be perfect. I think some of us are scared to check in the game because as a fan, you want it to be perfect. You want your team to score every time.
You screaming at every turnover. You are just judging everybody. But as a player in the game, you become afraid to do that. So what I want to say is like, don't be afraid to be in the game.
Don't be afraid of the fact that you might file someone or you may get filed or you may have a situation where the coaches matter to your team is looking like, what'd you do? But the beauty of being in the game is that you end up getting better. The longer you play the game, things slow down. You start growing.
You ever see an NFL or NBA player that come in as a rookie and they look out of sorts and, you know, Tom Brady was like a six round draft pick. Nobody knew he was going to be Tom Brady, but he got a chance to get in the game and never got out again. Another player got hurt. Drew Baleso gave him a gave time, Brady opportunity to get in the game.
When he checked in the game, he took advantage of that opportunity and never was a bench player ever again in his career. Now, some of us think, well, you know, I'm not just a fan. I'm actually a player. Like, I got a jersey.
I'm on the team. I'm actually being on a bench and being in the game. And one of the things that I realized is that the opportunities in his life don't last forever. And some of us, you know, we've had opportunities to get in the game or being a game.
Well, I know I'm cool being a fan. No, I'm good. I don't really want to try. And we spend our whole life never really trying, never really going all in because we're afraid of the outcome.
We're afraid of whether we're going to succeed or fail. And that's why you can't be afraid of success. And then some of us are actually afraid to be great. We're afraid of like what happens if this goes well?
Am I good enough? You know, can I carry this? And the thing is, it's like just get in the game. You don't have all the answers.
Trust God. And some of us in our own life are spectators because we're so afraid of opportunities, opportunities jumping our lap. And we like, no, I'm good on that because we're afraid to get in the game and change our perspective. So I just want to encourage you today and say, don't allow yourself to just be simply a fan of Christ.
Don't allow yourself just to be a spectator in your own life. Don't allow yourself to like be a person that's just looking at everybody else's life and judging them every day. And then you ain't even doing stuff. And I'll be real.
That's one of the things that's maybe kind of frustrating or weird to me is like, bro, like I don't have time to react to everybody else's life when I see you'll have areas to grow. How you reacting to everybody and you not even doing what they doing. Like you got some people, they react into videos about stuff and you like, bro, like you don't even do that. Like you, you don't even actually do that.
Here's the one thing I'm going to say about like, I mentioned in the intro a little bit about capitalism and socialism. I know a lot of people don't like capitalism these days. They feel like capitalism, I can talk. It's like a representation of like greed or something like that, which there could be truth to that right there is true to that.
Like there are plenty of greedy people, but I would, you know, kind of relate it to the difference between being free and being a slave. Why do I say that? We live in this world where I think when people have agendas, right, it's so tricky how they twist things up and they take an imperfection of something and try to highlight it. So it's like you take one of the imperfections of capitalism and you highlight that as a negative to try to sell people this other agenda that you know is actually rotten and bad for them.
But on the surface, there is a layer of glossiness that you can kind of trick people into accepting. It would be like taking an onion, but like imagine if like you took an onion and dipped it in sugar and like maybe you dip it in honey and put sugar in. So the onion looks like a candy apple, you know what I'm saying? Then you bite into it and you realize beyond that first layer, this thing is horrible.
And that's how I kind of feel about socialism. And here's why I say that. A lot of, you know, again, they'll sell you capitalism as like greed and stuff, but there's the freedom to earn. One of the things I like about capitalism is that you have the same opportunity I have.
I have the same opportunity as the next person. And I'm generalizing here, I'm again, not saying that capitalism is perfect, but I'm going to show you the difference in what I mean. In the same way, freedom isn't perfect. I know people are like, what do you mean by that?
Freedom isn't perfect. Well, freedom of speech isn't perfect. Why do I say that? Because you give people freedom of speech and then people use that freedom to say a bunch of of wild stuff.
And then you say, do I want to live? Do I want to be free and be free to have a podcast and talk about what I want to? And then that also means that I got to accept freedom of speech by and large and some people might say some terrible things. Or do I want to kind of suppress freedom of speech?
And then that also means that I can't say I don't have the freedom to say some unless it's maybe universally acceptable. That sounds good on the surface. But what happens when something like your faith or your belief is not universally acceptable and whatever it is today won't be tomorrow. And then now that's deemed as hate for something and you can't say that.
Most of us don't want to do that. Now, the other thing is like, let's take literal slavery versus being free. So slavery in the United States as an example. In Booker T.
Washington describes in his book up from slavery, the experience of the day that the slaves were free. I'm paraphrasing. He described this experience as like, first everybody was happy and long story short, after a couple hours or so, I don't know if it was literally a couple hours, but later that day or the next day, people realized like, whoa, wait a minute, I'm going to be free. Yeah, that sounded good.
And so you realize like, I got to go out here and get my own food. I got to go out here and fend for myself. Some people decided in that moment, even though they were free. Hey, master, can I remain a slave?
Like imagine being a slave, right? We always talk about horrible slavery is which it was how unfortunate it is, which it was. But there were slaves that actually opted into being a slave because freedom is scary. Freedom is imperfect.
Now I know us and I'm not judging those slaves in their lifetime and their culture and what was happening, right? But what I am saying is easy for us to just react to them and talk about, oh, if I wouldn't have been me, how you know? You have been in that situation? What's my point?
Freedom is scary. And so because freedom is scary, what people do is they sell you this idea that, hey, if you just vote for me, everything will be taken care of. You get free boat rides, free bus rides, free schooling, free this. It all sounds good on the surface.
I think what happens though is when people are giving you something, you have to understand that in return, they want control. The Bible says, right? People are always talking about the Bible. I think this isn't dude around in me when like Moses is talking about this, but it's like be the head, be the tail, be the lender, not the borrow, right?
Be the lender, not the borrower. Be the person that is giving, not the person that is always receiving. Like, now you have to think about the mindset of what that actually means. It means you have to go out and get something.
You have to go out and be a producer. You want to go out and be the person that creates something and owns something and is free to either fail or succeed on your own. Because if you are always in a position of borrowing, then you are at the mercy of the lender. And so again, in a socialist society, if you are at the mercy and you think the government is going to sell you on, yeah, we got free food and free this and free everything for everybody.
It's like, well, understand that in return, you're giving that person power over you. You are giving up your freedom to say, I'm going to fully trust you to feed me. But then at some point, you realize later on, wait, this person doesn't have the same intentions or beliefs that I have, but now they are in control as to what I do because I've allowed myself to be in a sort of bondage or slavery to them because I thought the idea of a handout sounded good. Now, I'm generalizing a few things, but I'm saying this just simply to say that in this life, some of us have become spectators who expect handouts who are a victim in every story.
And we have lost the essence of being able to be more than a conqueror, conqueror, to have the David mentality, to be a David that can conquer a goliath. There is beauty in overcoming obstacles. So if you were a person to sit down and say, I can't figure out my life. I don't know what to do.
We've all been there. I've been there. I have struggles. I still have shortcomings and doubts and all those type of things.
But I just want to encourage you today to get up and be in the game of life, to be a player in the game of the faith, to actually be a disciple of Christ, to get up and take advantage and do something because you don't want the freedoms taken away from you to where you can't do nothing. And my one fear about society today, especially in America is like, we have all the freedom in the world to go out and fail, go out and succeed. And some of us just sit back and argue about politicians and we want people to give us a free handout. This guy doesn't like me.
This person doesn't like black people. This person doesn't like white people. It's like, why are you giving these people out of this power? Okay, they don't like black people.
They don't like white people. Like carry on. I do. I like both.
So it's like, I'm not, y'all can argue about that in waste time. I don't need someone to like me because you cannot like me in this door. And he and God opened another door for me. And I still have the opportunity in this society, this free capitalistic society to go out and create a podcast and fail at a podcast or make an album and fail at it or succeed at it.
And the beauty is in doing and go out and be a believer and share the gospel with Jesus with people. I have that freedom. But some of us, we want to give the government and people so much control because we think what we're trying to do, you think you're going to eliminate all the negative people in the world that don't like you. It's like, okay, people don't like you.
Everybody doesn't have to like you. Get over it. Go and live your life, stop making excuses and becoming overcome. Imagine if David was like, but Koliath doesn't like me.
The Philistines won't like me. They said, you know, even my own people said, I was to, you know, wear this arm or do this. David went in there. I love David mindset.
Like, no, I'm rocking my own clothes. I'm going in there. I got my own weapon. And I'm not scared of him.
That's a mentality of overcoming all day long, not a spectator, not pointing at everybody else. And what they should have did is a person had decided to get in the game. Like, we talk about David and Goliath. We talk about these stories in the Bible.
Like they're not real. It's like David was there on the sideline and said, yeah, call time out. Check me in coach. I want to get in the game.
And some of us are afraid to get in the game, but we'll sit on the sideline and talk about how Goliath is beating everybody up and killing everybody and how, look at this guy. He couldn't even beat him. He couldn't do this. And it's like, well, look in the mirror, are you even in the game?
Some of us won't get in the game because we are worried about other fans and spectators spectating on us. You got to get, you got to get that out your mind and get in the game. I hope that you are inspired and encouraged. If you like this, again, please like, share, subscribe, check out Inspire Guys, people on YouTube.
I share a lot of shorts and stuff like that. Hopefully this touches you in a place and gets you in a place to get in the game. Love y'all. I bless y'all.
Y'all having amazing, amazing, amazing day, people. Y'all be easy, man. Oh, yeah.