iRetire4Him Show 151: Full Surrender for Full Satisfaction

Jim Brangenberg: Your retirement years can be 30 years filled with meaning and purpose as long as you connect your faith and your retirement years. That's why I'm welcoming you to iRetire4Him. I'm your host for the day, Jim Brangenberg. Hey, check us out online, iRetire4Him.com. That's iRetire4Him.com.

You know, when you start a job or a business or an organization in your late forties or early fifties, can you imagine it still being a major part of your life in your eighties? Founders start businesses with a dream of leaving a legacy and making a lot of money. But our guest today has done so much more than that.

Buck Jacobs started the C12 Group in 1992 with the dream of mentoring and discipling business owners and leaders to let their faith impact their work and to teach business people how to run a kingdom company. At first, it was a small venture, but today C12 has over 5,000 members in cities across the country and has caused other organizations to explode as well through strategic alliances.

Buck Jacobs turned over the reins of the day-to-day operations 20 years ago, and in that time, two other leaders have taken his place, but this is Buck Jacobs and his c12. So his legacy is C12, and his involvement in this country and around the world is always C12 related.

Buck may be well in his retirement years, but his energy, enthusiasm, and encouragement are contagious and he's an inspiration to many that retirement isn't just another phase of life, but an opportunity to live out our faith unfettered by schedules and lived out in obedience. I'll let Buck tell the rest of the story. Buck Jacobs, welcome to iRetire4Him.

Buck Jacobs: Thank you, Jim. It's my pleasure to be here. I'm excited. I have to, I gotta straighten you out on something. I have not retired. I have only been repurposed.

Jim Brangenberg: I just said your retirement years. I didn't say that you actually retired. You turned over the reins 20 years ago, but really you've been repurposed. You started in 1992, you turned over the reins 20 years ago.

Buck Jacobs: I didn't really give it up for two years ago. I really gave it up about a little over three years ago in terms of my technical relationship with C12. I have no position with C12, no responsibility to C12. Of course, occasionally they ask me some advice or I might speak to some new employees, but that's just what I do. But what I've always taught and believed, there is no such thing as retiring from serving Christ. You just do it in a different way.

So here's what happened to me, and I'll get to your question. When COVID hit, C12 had to back away from our normal format of meeting around the conference table and we had to do it quickly. And fortunately we had some young smart guys on our staff that knew about Zoom. And so we began zooming all of our meetings and our one-on-ones.

I learned to zoom and it was wonderful for me because I didn't like to travel long distances. But with Zoom, I could be everywhere. I could zoom into the C12 in Brazil and pray with and encourage the guys there or the people in Malaysia or anywhere in the country. And in that process, I met a lot of new people that I just didn't know and not necessarily as a part of C12, but they would hear about C12.

I'd get guys calling me up and say, how did you do it? How did you put together a board of directors that has taken the company from where you left it with some semblance of continuity to what you left? And I have a opportunity to build a relationship with somebody in Michigan or Ohio or wherever. I said, this is what we do and the way we do it. So it really didn't change what I was doing before. It was just done in a different way, primarily by Zoom and telephone.

And I developed a group of guys that I would talk to, sometimes once a week, sometimes once a month, but on a regular basis with situations that they had. I found that there's a lot of younger guys out there in the world that don't have an older voice in their life.

Jim Brangenberg: That's for sure.

Buck Jacobs: And they love it. They love to have somebody, so of course I don't charge for what I do now. It's a relationship, and I tell 'em, I'll talk to you as long as you feel it's worthwhile. When you feel it's not worthwhile anymore, you'll move on and someone else will fill your place. But we'll be still friends and it's been great. I got a lot of stories about that you may not want to hear today, but you probably will sometime.

Jim Brangenberg: You never know. You never know, but - just a basic question. I understand that you never planned on retiring. I only met you when you were in your seventies, so you're already still going pretty hard, but did you ever expect your quote unquote retirement years to be so full?

Buck Jacobs: No. In the first place, I didn't have any vision for being this old. Nobody in my family ever lived past 56. So I didn't have any models, but I never really wanted to be old. I never wanted to do nothing. And when Bob Mack and I sold the business to Mac Company, which was my introduction to Christ centered Workplace. In about 1993 and we moved to Florida to start the golf ministry, we moved right alongside one of the Dell Webb retirement centers and started meeting a lot of people that were retired. And I didn't wanna be like them.

Jim Brangenberg: Yeah. I call that purgatory on earth, Buck, since I lived in Florida for 20 years in two different homeowners associations. I call that purgatory on earth. (laughter) People pay money to go be miserable, be surrounded by other miserable people.

Buck Jacobs: Yes. And they're miserable to everybody. We were doing some work, doing devotions with a nursing home down there and taking our kids to see the older people there once a week, and it was just great. But when we'd leave there and go to a restaurant or snap into Publix, all people in there look at us like, you're scum.

What are you doing here? You're not old enough. I was 48, just a kid. So I never wanted to be that. I never looked at that life as something that I wanted. I've always gotten my thrills from making a difference and you just sit and watch TV all day, you're not making much of a difference.

God in his kindness just moved me from a relationship in C12 where I had obligations to a relationship with him, where I only have his obligation. He's my accountability partner and and this way of doing it with Zoom and phone calls, a few in person things, but for instance, yesterday we got back from a trip to Michigan, Grand Rapids, Michigan. About five years ago, Mike was up there getting the group started up there and a young guy that wasn't gonna be able to be in the group came up to Mike with a question and Mike told him, I don't have time to really deal with that question with you, but you need to talk to a zaken.

He says, what's a zaken? He said zaken is this Hebrew word for elder, and one of our founders, the founder of our company, become a zaken after he left the company. A zaken in the old olden days was an older man who was too old and tired to fight or farm, which is all they did, and he couldn't go out anymore, so he just stayed home. That's the only option they had for their later years.

But they would gather together by the gates of the village, by the city gate, and the young guys are going in and out. And zaken were more than happy to talk with them, share with them, sometimes even adjudicate minor issues with them.

And I said, what a way to end your career. Just, I can do it by phone or Zoom. I don't even have to leave my home to do this. And it can be anybody anywhere. I talked to our guy in Brazil every week for five years. I talked to this guy in Michigan, his wife was in a horrible car accident a year and a half ago. Guy could show you a picture of the car. It looks like somebody took a piece of aluminum and just wound it all up. And when the paramedics got there that at the scene of the accident, they said, no sense looking in there, nobody could survive that.

She'd been parked behind a semi and another one had come full speed and driven her into the one in front of her, and blew her up in the air. And she spun around and she landed in the only place in that car where she could have survived. She's about five foot two or three. She landed underneath the steering wheel in front of the front seat.

And there was like a little coffin place there, just about that big. Now, she was badly hurt. She had a tore, horribly broken left leg that they had to bolt back together and she had that done twice. Her husband and I praying with them through this rehab.

This last weekend we got to go up to Grand Rapids. Her husband has a ministry called The Movement and he has six or seven Christian leaders come once a day to Grand Rapids and speak to the people that he invites to the meeting. Yesterday he had about 180 people there. They had some great speakers. Alan Barnhart was one of them. Illinois.

Jim Brangenberg: Nice. There's one guy I never got a chance to interview. But did you grow up understanding that God loved business, that your work mattered to God, that you didn't have to quit your job to going in full-time ministry?

Buck Jacobs: No, I didn't. Our family did not believe in God. Our family was an agnostic family as far as God was concerned. My dad was in World War II for three years and when he came home, what he experienced made him question whether there was a God. So we were respectful towards God, but we didn't have a relationship. I didn't have a relationship with God until I was 35 years old.

God did a whole series of maneuvers to get me to a place where I received Him, and he absolutely reached down and pulled me out of the muck and sent me, I did a 180. I was all worldly, all for money, sex, and power, living a very dissolute life. And then one day it all changed. And then the next day, my best buddy called me from Chicago- I was living in Los Angeles - and invited me to join his business, which he had committed to Christ because he wanted to show the world that he could be a Christian and a business success at the same time.

I had no idea what that might mean, but timing was good. I would've gone and swept the floors because we were that tight and I was that broken over what had happened in my life. So I joined him, and we spent 10 years together with a, with the mission statement that said this business exists to bring honor and glory to God and to do business in a way that his son will be able to say, well done, good and faithful servant. So we did 10 years worth of business, multiplied seven times in the 10 years.

And it was great. We had a wonderful experience and then we decided to sell, which was a mistake. Should never have done that. Should have gotten some people who had the same vision and heart that we did to keep running it 'cause - anyway, but we did.

Jim Brangenberg: No, I'm gonna hang there for a second because that's an issue still today. You're talking 40 years ago, but that's still an issue today. Great christian companies run by great believers that have a great kingdom culture and in the end, they sell to the highest bidder and in six months or less, everything they worked for gets destroyed.

Buck Jacobs: Which is exactly what happened to us. And that's what I learned. That's where I learned that you can't do that.

Jim Brangenberg: And there's great companies out there now like Perpetuate Capital outta Reno, Nevada, that are saving those kingdom companies. There's groups popping up across the country trying to perpetuate that stuff, but that's an issue. Christians need to understand that. Believers who own businesses need to understand.

Buck Jacobs: The whole problem is they're poorly taught, Jim.

Jim Brangenberg: I understand.

Buck Jacobs: And the seminaries teach pastors poorly and the pastors go into their career and they do a poor job of explaining what life is really all about for a Christian. And consequently, that kinda stuff goes on. Consequently, divorce happens. Consequently, nothing good comes out of it. What's being normally experienced in the Christian world today, because it's like we're given the wrong model. If they don't understand that everything is God's, everything is a gift, we're to use it to his glory, to build his kingdom. And that includes the talents and the gifts that we have internally and naturally, and the education that gets provided to us by whatever, and on. Resources and opportunities. It's all God's.

Jim Brangenberg: So what do we do, Buck, though, to take the wisdom that you've gotten in your eighties and get it to the people that are about ready to retire? To let them know, Hey, retirement's just a different phase in life. It may mean that you're a full-time, fully funded missionary to do whatever you wanted, whatever God's calling you to do. You don't maybe need a paycheck, but Buck, this is an issue. There's almost a hundred million retired believers in this country.

No, they're not a hundred million. There's 50 million retired believers. A hundred million working believers.

Buck Jacobs: Yeah. I know. It's a very frustrating, the only thing I say is, oh you know the old story about the guy that's throwing the starfish back in the ocean? And guy comes up to him and says, what are you doing? He says it's one starfish. How could that be important? Said, it is to that one.

So that's what I'm doing right now. I'm looking for ways to expand the message. That's what Youversion, this thing that you're seeing in Youversion, in my heart, is a way to open the door to really solidly teaching the work of the Holy Spirit and the responsibility of the Christian to God to use the gifts and talents that he's got to build the kingdom. Now, he may do it as CEO of a publicly traded company, but his main purpose, his vision is Kingdom, Kingdom business.

Jim Brangenberg: Right. And Buck's referencing the Youversion Bible app. He just released a 30 day study on Romans 8 I highly recommend. I've been going through it because I know Buck's been a friend and it has been very impactful, very impactful.

Buck, let me ask you a question. I didn't tell you I was gonna ask, but I warned you at the last minute I was gonna ask you. Alright, you spent all these years in business. You've got all this experience and as we understand it now, our years on Earth are preparing us for the work that we will do in heaven. Yes, we will work in heaven. A lot of times that's a part of theology that's missed out.

Everybody's got this vision of we're floating around on clouds playing harps. In no way. What? How horrible would that be? I'm sure it would still be cool because it's in heaven, but still... have you thought about all the experience and the giftings and the wisdom, the knowledge, all that you've been given all these years, how God may be planning to use that when you hit the streets of gold one day?

Buck Jacobs: I've never really given that much thought, and I don't really care. I'm gonna be very happy just to be there. For somebody that started where I did, end up in heaven, hearing the Heavenly choir, seeing Jesus, seeing Paul, seeing a bunch of people that are there ahead of me, I don't care if God wants me to sweep the floors.

I don't care how he uses what he built into me, that's totally up to him. In fact, I feel that way already. I'm not looking for the next deal. I'm not looking to make more money or to gain more reputation and so forth. I'm just striving to be obedient to God's spirit, day by day, minute by minute, and run out the clock.

I'm running a race that was set before me - Hebrews 12: "run with endurance the race that has been set before you, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of your faith," and so forth. So that's my thing. It has been for the last, probably the last 10 years. I don't give a rip what the world thinks or what they say. I know where I'm founded and I know where I'm going. So when I get there, if he says, Buck, I want you to go dust off Mars. I'd say, Okay.

 (chuckling)

Jim Brangenberg: That would be a task now, wouldn't it? Dust off Mars. I like that. That's a good one.

So when you look at your friends, your peers you hang out with, you've had guys go through C12 now for 33 years, there's a lot of those guys who are quote unquote in their retirement years who've become friends of yours, I am sure. How have you been able to speak wisdom into them about retirement and the fruitlessness of checking out, going on vacation for 30 years and the fruitfulness of seeing those retirement years as years for meaning and purpose?

Buck Jacobs: It's one-on-one with a lot of them. That's just, I don't have a real business reason or some ministry opportunity to speak with them, but that's what I'm doing on Youversion

Jim Brangenberg: Okay.

Buck Jacobs: By teaching them the Holy Spirit, leading into full submission, full commitment to God, not using my wisdom and my strength and my cool to do things, but trusting in him, believing that he doesn't give a rip about how big something I build unless I'm building it for the kingdom and his direction. I can build it for the kingdom in my own strength, and it doesn't mean anything for him, to him.

And it's not going to gain me any rewards in heaven, but I can be obedient to him, listening to his leading for what he wants me to do - I don't see that changing much when we get to heaven. I just - in that study today, and I don't know if you read it or not - my comment was really, it's all about him. I'm content. As the sharing rolled out today, the guys in this study and there's 40, there's 50 of them, they're being touched. The comments they're making are telling me they're being touched by the Holy Ghost. And my comment was, I'm listening to you guys, I'm reading your comments today, and in my mind, I go back to hearing Andrae Crouch sing My Tribute in 1983.

"How can I say thanks for the things that you've done for me?" And so forth. And so that's my thing now, I just... anxious to be obedient. I'm learning to hear the spirit more clearly. I don't have it all together, but what I have, I want to share with people. That guy up in Michigan, his life has been changed forever because we met and his wife's life has been changed forever because we met and their girls are gonna be changed forever because we met.

He's been transformed from an everyday Christian to a disciple of Christ, and it shows. He's got a big job. He is a regional manager for medical equipment with... I can't think of the thing. They're like rays, they shoot, they do it with rays. Anyway, and he makes big money. His wife, before she was injured, she was one of the best known personal injury attorneys in western Michigan. She lost that business because she did recover, but not quick enough to hang on to the clients. She had, I think she had four other attorneys and nine paralegals working for, and I got to see her this last weekend.

I went, primarily I wanted to see her. Her husband was telling me about it. I've walked through the whole thing with them, but maybe three or four months ago, he said, Hey man, Tara's really feeling bad because she thinks she'll never be able to run again, 'cause she was a runner before she was injured and run marathons. And I said, she's gonna run again. He said what? Tell her that I said she will run again.

I've got a picture in my phone of her finishing her first 5K about six weeks ago. It's like seeing chariots on fire all over again. Glow on her face and her kids. Those are the things that I wanna work for now. And you have to just let God provide him because you can't tell who is going to be really open to more of God or not, especially if there's a cost and there's always a cost.

Jim Brangenberg: But what's the cost to you? You're having fun. You're talking to people all across the world. You're getting to pour your life and wisdom and knowledge into them. What's the cost to you at this point in time?

Buck Jacobs: The cost is to yourself. You gotta give yourself up completely, surrender to be used by God in any real significant way. If any of the old self is hanging around, that part is painful. The part that's submitted to God, realizing that God works everything together for good, so everything that I receive either is sent by or permitted by God. It's good. Doesn't look good to me, but to him it's good. That's good for me. The hard thing is not to do anything.

The hard thing is get up in the morning and I look at my calendar. I don't have anything. I don't have meetings, I don't have calls I have to make, I don't have stories I have to write or, today, the only thing I had on my calendar today was talk to you, which is wonderful. I love that.

But without that, my day is what are you here for? And why are you leaving me here, Lord? But he's teaching me brokenness. He's teaching me humility. He's teaching me to do and think ways that, that I didn't before. I was a good Christian. In the eyes of the world, they would say, Buck's a really good Christian. He's raising his kids God's way. He's going to church every week. He's leading his company for Christ. But there was still parts of me that was not sold out to God, that was still wanted my way of some things, and there was still some temptations that would grab me every once in a while.

So to tell you, I had a experience down in Texas. I was speaking at a conference down there not too long ago. And they had a group of us speakers up on stage for a q and a session, and one guy raises his hand and he said Mr. Jacobs, you're, I think you're 78 now. And he said how old did you have to be before you didn't sin anymore? I said I can't tell you, but I know it's older than 78.

 (chuckling)

Jim Brangenberg: Yeah. Yeah. That answer I knew already.

So Buck, you and Bonnie been married a lot of years already. What do you guys do for fun as you've started to slow down a little bit, but you've also stopped working as much as you used to? What do you guys doing for fun?

Buck Jacobs: We still date, we still do things. We've just sold our house this last year and moved into a retirement apartment, which is a new experience, and that required some adjustments. We're still committed to having the marriage that God wants us to have, so we still stay the way, stay the course. See, the things that the world would say was fun, like going to play golf or go fishing or what, those aren't fun to me anymore.

Those are, those mean nothing unless they connect with leading somebody to Christ or helping somebody through a problem in Christ, or there's some Christ reason for doing them. So we've traveled, we've been to, India and we've been all over the world, right? I don't wanna do that anymore. Those long flights kill me. We just focus on our relationship. We got three lovely girls and six lovely grandkids that are now all in college. And yeah, and doing wonderfully well. And not necessarily in the world sense, but they're good people. They're good kids going straight so far, no stumbles, no drugs. No booze and so forth. So we're blessed to be with them. They, fortunately, love to be with us.

Jim Brangenberg: So Buck, as we close this time out, because I would love for you to speak to the retired audience that we've got. This goes out to hundreds, about a thousand people, every other week. So it's not a huge audience, but everybody who's listening, of course, they're important.

But the whole intent behind this podcast was we need to start talking about how retirement shouldn't exist within the biblical community. That we should look at it as just a different phase of life, fully funded missionaries, a time of meaning and purpose. But there's a lot of people struggling with the reality 'cause they've been told all their lives to prepare for retirement as a part of the American dream. They've also been taught that the America dream of retirement is biblical.

Buck Jacobs: Yeah.

Jim Brangenberg: Most people have been taught what they're retiring from and they know what they're retiring from, but they very rarely know what they're retiring to. So speak to those people. Share some wisdom, 'cause you're well into those quote unquote retirement years. Speak to them.

Buck Jacobs: You know what I've learned, Jim, my life really got shaken up when I first was challenged to read 2 Corinthians 5:12. And that says, "for we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what he's done in the body, whether good or bad." And I started to press into that and to study it and it really became very clear. Salvation is free. It doesn't come without responsibility.

Every Christian has a responsibility to minister, to share God's love. That's what they're here for. They didn't get sent here so they can just experience the temporary pleasures of earth. Which a lot of 'em are confused of that, and they think if they get enough money, they can do this and they can do that and they'll be happy and they're not right. They're never supposed to be that way. We are here to become ambassadors for Christ, and we can be an ambassador for Christ at any age, any sex, any race. If you're a human Christian person, you are an ambassador for Christ. You don't have to enroll and enlist. You are there.

So when we come to the judgment seat of Christ, what's that judgment gonna be about? It's gonna be about, what did we do for Christ? What do we do with the opportunity to be an ambassador for the kingdom of God to the world at large, wherever we are. Did we promote God's values? Did we promote our values? Did we express the love and kindness of God to people that we didn't necessarily like and so forth? That's gonna be the judgment. That's what Jesus is gonna ask every single Christian.

It's not something that's an option, it's part of the deal of being saved, right? We're saved to work. We're not saved by works, but we're saved to work. Retired people have tremendous opportunities because of their experience and because of what they've lived through, like being a zaken. They go sit in the village gates somewhere and share wisdom with younger people that are having problems. They don't know what to do, 'cause they haven't been through 'em yet.

And so I say that those decisions that we make are eternal. You can live your whole life here as a Christian and never get one single kudo from Jesus. Bill Gates could die and go to heaven tomorrow, and God's gonna say, I don't know you. It's not how much money he has. It's what's in his heart. And so everybody, every single Christian, if I could, I just wanna blast from that message into the audience that it's not an option to serve Christ. That's what you're born for and that's what you'll be judged for.

The judgment seat of Christ is promised to every believer. Every one of us is going to go through it, and we're gonna have to explain how we made the decisions that we made to do the things that we did to Jesus. And for some of them he's gonna say, that's wonderful. I've been waiting to give you this, and he's gonna hand us a precious gem or something like that.

And for some, he's gonna say, I didn't tell you to do that. Where did you get the idea that's what you should do? Did you see it in my Bible? No, but it was a great opportunity. Lord. I've got 48 stores and I've got my, I'm worth $12 million. And, I worked, I honored, I was nice to my employees. I paid my bills on time. I tithed in church and he's gonna say, that wasn't what I sent you to Earth for. You missed. You got the good, you missed the best. And my heart breaks for people, like some of the guys that have come into C12 and walked away before they really got it.

And some do, because it's gonna be this awesome thing when they come before the King of Kings. And he said, what did you do with what I died to give you? I died so that you could be a part of the kingdom, you could serve father in extending his kingdom. What did you do to do that? And that's so sad, because it's all there in scripture. It's not hidden. You gotta dig it out a little bit, but it's not hidden.

Jim Brangenberg: Buck Jacobs, thanks for sharing a little bit of your story, but thanks for being on iRetire4Him today.

Buck Jacobs: My pleasure, Jim. God bless you and Martha.

Jim Brangenberg: And if you've got anybody in your family that's running a business, they're a believer, they're running a business, or maybe they're running a business and they're not a believer, but they know that there's something more, I highly encourage that you check out C12 , online at joinc12.com. joinc12.com.

And there is guaranteed a local C12 Group near you. Couldn't recommend it more. You've been listening to iRetire4Him with your host, Jim Brangenberg. In this retirement phase of life, we all want our lives to be full of meaning and purpose, so we can say with our final breath, iRetire4Him.