Committed Masculinity Podcast

All of us as men have small things- fears, hang-ups, anxieties, idols, and other things we hold onto- that have the potential to hold us back from being all that God wants us to be. Most Christian men know that they be committed to the Lord, to their wives, to their families, and to living lives of purpose, integrity, and character. But for a lot of men, it’s not a matter of knowing. It’s a matter of behavior. In other words, most of the time it’s not our ignorance that holds us back from becoming all God wants us to be. It’s our unwillingness to act, to make a change, or to actually do the work. It’s our unwillingness to sacrifice, to get vulnerable, or to humble ourselves. It’s our unwillingness to be consistent, to be disciplined, and to be held accountable. We could be so much more than what we are. But so many little things so often hold us back.

If you’ve been in church for longer than 5 minutes, you’ve probably heard someone talk about “discipleship” or “making disciples”. Jesus had 12 disciples. After the resurrection, He commanded them in Matthew 28:19-20, to “go into all the world and make disciples”. In many churches, that verse is painted on the walls. The language of discipleship gets tossed around frequently, as does copious amounts of discipleship programming- discipleship classes, discipleship books, and even discipleship conferences. It seems like a concept of which almost every Christian possesses at least a loose working definition. Yet, our application of this concept is sorely lacking. Even if most Christians have similar ideas of what a disciple is, very few of us can articulate a coherent process for how to make one. Worse yet are the Christians who have read books, attended classes, audited seminars, and gone through trainings on the art of “disciple-making”- but have yet to lift a finger to do it. If you’ve ever looked at the commission of Jesus to spend your life make disciples and felt unqualified, unprepared, overwhelmed- you’re in good company. The 12 Apostles just might have been the most unqualified, unprepared, overwhelmed, and unlikely leaders to lead the Christian movement. Religious leaders in Israel during that time were among some of the most educated, brilliant, and qualified in all the known world. Yet God took these 12 ordinary, uneducated, blue-collar men and used them to turn the entire world upside down (Acts 17:6).

Unknown, alone, and isolated. Three words that describe the modern man. It shouldn’t shock us too much that loneliness and isolation have a devastating effect on us emotionally, mentally, and even physically. Our Creator has something to say in His Word about this- “It is NOT GOOD for the man to be alone…” (Genesis 2:18) Human beings were not created by God to live for 27 years in solitary confinement in cells that are 9 feet long and 6 feet wide. Neither were they made to live in virtual cells of social isolation made possible by an artificial purely online world. Or self-imposed cells of emotional and relational isolation created for fear of others getting too close and not liking what they see. Loneliness and isolation are both not good for us. In fact, they will destroy us.  

In every one of us, there is a desire for more than just existing and getting by. We want to be alive. We want to live fully and chase after and achieve dreams. We have a need to feel like our life actually matters and we’re accomplishing something of value with the time we have. We want our lives to count. Some of us even spend time fantasizing about “being discovered”, being a hero, or being remembered for something. Many of us as men wonder why we sometimes don't understand what we are here for. I think this happens when we fail to invest ourselves in what God has placed in our hearts. This happens often when we assume our purpose, but never take the time to truly seek it out. Until we rely on God to reveal our purpose to us in times of prayer, Bible reading, meditation on scripture, and Christian community to tell us what they see in us, we’ll get so consumed in the "want to's" and "have to's" in our life that we’ll never ask God to draw out our deeper purpose. We’ll never asked what we were made for. If we never seek God's purpose for our life, the world will gladly sell us its purposes. As we give ourselves to the purposes of materialism and hedonism, we may find ourselves “fitter, happier, more productive” and “comfortable” in the short term. But when we give up God's purposes in life, it will eventually cost us something. Jesus said in Matthew 16:26, “For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?” (NKJV)  

What’s on the surface never tells the full story. The reality of any item, event, situation, or person’s character can rarely be assessed through a social media post, headline, or first impression. But the true character of something will eventually come to light. Personal character might be defined as the motivation to do what’s right; or who we are when no-one else is watching. Our personal character is shaped by our value system- our standards of what we believe to be right, wrong, valuable, virtuous, harmful, helpful, or honest. As Christian men, we have the revelation of Scripture- God’s value system and standards for how we’re to live a righteous life that honors Him. The problem is that so often our personal character as men gets shaped by other value systems besides God’s Word. Standards of masculinity from our family of origin, workplace culture, preferred media, and those in our social circles often have a greater influence on what we believe to be an acceptable lifestyle for a Christian man rather than God’s Word. This creates in us toxic distortions of masculinity and critical gaps in our personal character. Try as we might, we can’t cover up poor character with charm, success, charisma, or swagger. The true character of something (or someone) will always come to light.  

Proverbs 2:1-6 says, “My son, listen to what I say, and treasure my commands. Tune your ears to wisdom, and concentrate on understanding. Cry out for insight and ask for understanding.” (NLT) The word “wisdom” appears over 200 times in the Bible. We’re told to seek it, accept it, listen to it, and ask God for it. We’re told that wisdom is better than silver, gold, and priceless possessions. We’re told that wisdom leads to long life, riches, honor, pleasantness, and peace. But above anything else, we’re told that, “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 9:10). What does that mean? It means that for us to truly have this invaluable gift of wisdom- respect, honor, and reverence for God must be at the center of our lives. When this happens, we begin to value His Word (the Bible) as the ultimate authority for every decision we make in life. We begin to live our lives with the knowledge that God sees all, knows all, and can’t be lied to or hidden from. We start truly considering the reality of eternity, understanding that someday each one of us will give an account of our lives to God. Wisdom is best defined as the ability to see things from an eternal, God-honoring perspective and to respond appropriately. When we have God’s wisdom in our lives, we respond to life challenges, difficulties, and obstacles quite differently than the rest of the world because we’re willing to take a step back and examine our situation through the lens of what truly matters.  

Everybody has a vice- a stubborn, resistant sin that you find yourself struggling against again and again. The Bible calls it an, “easily besetting sin” (Hebrews 12:1). This is the area that for whatever reason you have a weakness towards and in which find yourself continually tempted. Superman had Kryptonite. Moses had his temper, Sampson had his sexual addiction, and Simon Peter had his big mouth and an apparent problem with impulse control. In fact, all of us are only a few bad decisions away from giving into our vice and destroying everything we care about and hold dear. We all have that potential. How does that happen? How does our sin nature (our flesh, the “other guy”) win and gain control in our lives, leading us to death and destruction?  

You can follow some rules without loving God, but you can’t truly love God without a sincere commitment to follow His commandments. Love must ALWAYS be the basis for our obedience and commitment. Love must be the basis for our allegiance. And allegiance is the proper response from a man who truly wants to honor God.

When we’re born again and given God’s Spirit, His will for us is that we would be conformed into the image of His Son Jesus. That means that we’re to be men who accept responsibility, because we follow Christ- the one who modeled it perfectly for us. To accept responsibility as Jesus did means that we reject blame-shifting, victimhood, passivity, and seeing ourselves as the consummate injured party. We are to take responsibility for ourselves, our obedience (or lack of obedience) to God’s Word, and our God given responsibility as men to be who God has called us to be.  Some of us as men truly struggle in accepting responsibility and owning our behavior. It’s like we’re hard-wired to want to avoid it and make excuses. Why is that though?  

Who are you? Why are you here? So many of us as men live our lives simply existing. Every day we climb aboard the treadmill of modern life and start jogging. We go through the empty rituals of our morning routines- we shower, shave, dress, get our coffee and make the drive to our place of employment- rarely asking the bigger questions of, “why”? Rarely do we question where we’re going, why we’re going there, and how we ever got started on this meaningless journey in the first place.  Who are we anyway? How’d did we get here? And why are we here in the first place?