December 24, 2024 • 21 mins
In this episode of The Manhood Tribes Show, we explore the often uncomfortable topic of how to talk to others about following Jesus.
Host Don discusses the significance of developing a masculine faith within the series. We delve into understanding faith as an epic, purposeful, and resilient journey.
We also highlight Jesus' mission for his followers to make disciples and how baptism signifies a radical commitment to the kingdom of light.
Don provides practical advice on how men can share their faith authentically and effectively in their everyday lives.
Tune in to discover how to live out a faith that feels truly masculine and impactful.
00:00 Introduction: The Challenge of Sharing Faith
00:58 Manhood Quiz: How Manly Are You?
01:32 Welcome to the Manhood Tribe Show
01:49 Developing a Masculine Faith
04:20 The Essence of Being a Christian
06:04 Relating to Non-Followers of Jesus
06:47 The Mission: Making Disciples
11:27 Understanding Baptism: An Act of War
16:28 Living and Sharing the Way of Jesus
20:30 Final Challenge and Series Conclusion
💪 Want to know how you measure up as a man? Take our free quiz, called How Manly Are You? and learn how you can get better at being a man. Download for free at manhoodtribes.com/manly. 💪
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Don Ross (00:00):
If you're someone who follows Jesus, how do you feel
about talking to others aboutfollowing Jesus?
Especially people who don'talready follow Jesus.
If you're like most Christians,you probably feel more than a
little uncomfortable about doingthat.
And we've got plenty of examplesof people who have tried to do
that and done it so poorly thatit makes the rest of us kind of
(00:21):
feel awkward and uncomfortableabout having to do it.
And yet at the same time, asthose who have chosen to follow
Jesus, one of the things that heasks us to do is to talk to
others about it.
So how are we supposed to dothat and how do we do it?
Well, let's talk about thattoday here on the manhood tribe
show.
(00:59):
Guys want to know how youmeasure up as a man?
I've got a great resource foryou.
It's called how manly are you?
And it's a free quiz that youcan take to figure out how you
stack up against what it meansto be a man.
And when you take the quiz,you'll also get some free
resources to help you figure outhow you can get better as a man
in the areas where you wouldlike to grow.
(01:20):
So go to manhoodtribes.com/manlyto download your free.
How manly are you quiz today?
That's manhoodtribes.com/manly.
Men welcome to the manhood tribeshow.
My name is Don.
I'm your host.
And today is going to be areally fun and interesting
(01:41):
episode of the manhood tribeshow.
As we dive into a topic that Iknow is going to be just a
little bit uncomfortable for alot of us.
We are in the midst of a seriescalled the way of the king,
where we're talking about whatit looks like to develop a
masculine faith.
Because probably for most of usmen.
The whole category of faith issomething that we have really
(02:02):
struggled with.
Is that even something that'snecessary or maybe we've decided
that it is.
But when we show up to a placelike church, we just kind of
feel like, all right, this isnecessary, but it's not all that
interesting.
Or it just doesn't feel likeit's relevant to what's actually
going on in my life.
I'm not really sure what to dowith this whole category of
faith, but it doesn't reallyfeel like it's something that's
(02:24):
very manly.
Doesn't feel like it helps me tobe a man in my world.
So we kind of have this likeuncomfortable relationship with
faith.
And what I'm trying to say isthat all along faith is meant to
be masculine.
It is meant to relate to us in away that we can say yes as a
man, I feel like I am livingthis out in manly ways.
(02:46):
And in order to do.
And in order to do that, we needto understand our faith in a few
ways.
First, we need to be able to seeit as epic.
It needs to be a big story, agrand adventure, something that
we can find a part end that isbigger than just ourselves.
It's not a story about us, but astory about all of humanity and
(03:07):
how it relates to God.
That is the kind of epic storythat we're looking for.
But second, it also needs to bepurposeful.
In other words, we need apurpose.
We need a part to play in thatstory.
That is something ofconsequence.
We need to be able to takeaction as men and feel like it
actually matters in the storythat we're a part of.
(03:28):
And third, our faith needs to beresilient.
It needs to stand up to the hardchallenges of our day-to-day
lives and not get taken out byjust a little more than a stiff
breeze.
It needs to be something that wecan actually lean on and stand
against and be able to know thatit will stand up when hard
things come our way.
And if it can be all of thosethings, then I think we, as men
(03:51):
can really say, yeah, that's afaith that feels manly.
That feels like something Iwould want to live out and
probably even want to tell othermen about and invite them into.
And that's a lot of what we wantto talk about today.
I've said that in this series,the way of the king.
There's really six big areasthat I wanted to examine to help
us understand what a masculinefaith looks like and how the
(04:15):
Christian faith in particularcan be a masculine faith.
And for the past few episodes,I've been asking the question,
what does being a follower ofJesus actually do to a person.
Okay.
If, if you're a Christian,what's it supposed to do to you?
And a couple episodes back.
We talked about the idea thatbeing a follower of Jesus means
(04:36):
that you are meant to be inunion with God.
Your destiny is to be one withGod and all along the way from
now, until when that union isfully complete in the next life,
you are meant to be growing inthat union becoming more and
more like Jesus and pursuingthings that will help you be
able to do that.
(04:57):
That is the essence of what itmeans to be a Christian, to
become more and more like Jesus.
But how do we know if that'sreally happening?
How, how can we tell, what canwe measure to be able to see?
Am I really becoming more likehim?
And our scriptures are reallyclear, but in order for that to
happen, there's no greaterindicator of our growth and our
(05:18):
spiritual nature, our maturityand spirituality.
Then how we relate to others,the way that we relate to
others, communicates volumesabout whether or not we're
actually becoming like Jesus,because Jesus greatly
prioritized the whole idea ofloving others.
He said that other people wouldknow us, know his followers, by
(05:39):
the way that we loved eachother.
And so if we're doing that well,we can best communicate to the
world.
What it looks like to be afollower of Jesus and why they
might want to be one as well.
And so on the last episode Italked about that there's really
a couple categories that we needto talk about in terms of how we
relate to others.
The first, which we talked aboutlast time.
(06:00):
Was how we relate to other Jesusfollowers.
But today, I want to spend sometime talking about how we relate
to people who aren't yetfollowers of Jesus and what is
the goal for us there and whatshould that really look like?
Because, as I mentioned lasttime, there is a great deal of
overlap.
Love should characterize the waythat we relate to both followers
(06:23):
and non followers.
And so that kind of sacrificiallove that Jesus modeled for us
needs to show up in all of thoserelationships.
But when it comes to people whoaren't yet following Jesus.
What does that kind of love looklike?
And what are we meant to be kindof prioritizing in the way that
we love those people?
(06:43):
Now the scriptures, give us somehelpful ideas on how to be able
to get there.
But it all really revolvesaround this idea of a mission.
At the end of the gospel ofMatthew, which is just the story
of Jesus's life written by oneof his disciples named Matthew.
He tells us the idea that Jesus,after he died and after he rose
(07:05):
again.
And when he was spending timewith his disciples, He told them
that he had a mission for them.
And that mission was to go intoall the world, to all the
nations.
Again, remember we talked aboutthe idea of nations in the big
story of what God is doing.
That God originally abandonedall of the nations, all the
(07:25):
people, groups of the world tobe ruled by rogue spiritual
powers, and that God wouldestablish his own nation.
That nation became the people ofIsrael, but then through the
life and the death and theresurrection of Jesus, the gates
were opened so that anyone fromany nation could come out of
those nations and join thekingdom of God.
(07:47):
Be part of God's people, nomatter where they were coming
from, no matter what spiritualpowers they had been under
before.
They could now serve Jesus astheir king.
And so that is the opportunityfor us, but it's also the
mission that Jesus has called usto.
He wants us to go into all thenations.
And make disciples now.
(08:09):
That word disciple is a real bigchurchy word.
It's not something that wereally use very much in our
culture anymore.
So to help us understand it.
I think it can be helpful tojust use the word student.
A disciple is someone who is astudent of a teacher.
What it isn't though is really astudent.
The way that we kind of thinkabout students in schools today.
(08:30):
And our schools in Americatoday.
Students for the most part arejust learners.
They're there for it to havesome information conveyed to
them.
They need to learn thatinformation and kind of spit it
back out on a test or an exam oran essay or something like that.
That shows that they havelearned the information.
That's not quite the kind ofstudent that Jesus is really
(08:53):
talking about when he's talkingabout disciples.
Disciples served their livesunder a master teacher and their
goal wasn't to just learn thethings that the master teacher
taught.
This teacher or what the Jewishpeople called a rabbi.
I was not just teachinginformation.
He was teaching a way of life.
(09:14):
He was teaching how to best livelife.
And so to be a student or adisciple of that rabbi.
Meant that you were not learninginformation, but you were
learning how to live.
The way that you showed you werelearning what the rabbi was
teaching was not just to be ableto regurgitate his teachings,
his information, but todemonstrate with your life that
(09:37):
you are actually living the waysthat he suggested to live.
By modeling after his behaviors,his actions, his teachings, his
thoughts, his rules, and way oflife.
You were demonstrating that youare a disciple of that rabbi.
So to say that a disciple is astudent is correct, but it's
(09:59):
also something more like anapprentice.
You weren't just learninginformation.
You were learning a craft.
It's just that this craft.
I was all of life.
You were learning how to dolife.
The way that your teacher saidlife should be done.
And that's really what it meansto be a disciple.
Jesus is saying to us, go intoall the world and to all the
(10:22):
nations.
And make disciples call peopleout of the way that they have
been living and help themunderstand that the way that I
have shown you to live.
Is the best way to live.
Help them to become members ofmy kingdom, of my family and
live the way that my family ismeant to live.
We are meant to be people whohelp make new disciples, even as
(10:46):
we continue to be disciplesourselves.
We are meant to continuelearning what it looks like to
follow Jesus and to live the waythat he lived to become more and
more like him.
But we're also meant to teachothers how to do the same.
So, how are we supposed to dothat?
What does that look like to be adisciple maker, to be somebody
(11:09):
who goes into the world andcalls people out of it to become
disciples of Jesus.
How do we do that?
Well, he gives us a couple bigideas of how we should go about
doing that in this mission thathe gives at the end of the book
of Matthew.
He highlights two bigcategories.
The first thing he says is thatwe are to baptize them in the
(11:31):
name of God, the father, theson, and the holy spirit.
Now.
There's a lot of religiosityloaded into that phrase of
baptizing them in the name ofthe father and the son and the
holy spirit.
For you that might conjure upimagery of a sacred ceremony in
a church with people dressed intheir finest, Sunday clothes and
babies and white gowns, or, youknow, it might have something to
(11:54):
do with, uh, a lake or a bigpool of water where people are
getting thrown in or dunked orwho knows what.
You've probably got some kind ofimagery of what baptism really
sort of looks like at least inthe sacred ceremonial way that
we think about and do baptismtoday.
And there's nothing inherentlywrong with any of those
(12:16):
practices.
But I think by focusing on justthe practices, just the
ceremony, we miss really thepoint of what baptism is all
about.
Baptism.
Isn't just this like sweet,tender, spiritual moment where
we celebrate a family milestone.
It's actually an act of war.
(12:37):
Now that may be the furthestthing from your mind when you
think about baptism, but let'sexamine, what's really going on
there.
Baptism is what happens when youor someone in your family makes
a confession to be able to say,I confess that Jesus is Lord.
And I want to come under hisauthority, his kingship.
(12:58):
And when that happens, thattells all the spiritual powers.
That you no longer belong to thekingdom of darkness, but now
belong to Jesus's kingdom.
The kingdom of light.
You have switched sides and youbetter believe that that pisses
off some evil, spiritual powers.
It is an act of war just as ifyou had betrayed your own nation
(13:21):
and joined up with a foreignnation and a major war that is
not going to make your currentnation happy.
And so that's the case withbaptism is that you are saying,
I no longer belong to darkness.
I am now free in the kingdom oflight, as I followed Jesus.
And it is a declaration of warsaying that I have switched
(13:43):
sides and will now be part ofthis mission.
I will no longer live accordingto the ways of the kingdom of
darkness, the ways that I wastaught or the way that I
understood from how the worldaround me lives, I will take my
cues from Jesus and learn tolive the kind of life that he
wants me to live.
That's what being baptized inthe name of the father, the son,
(14:04):
and the holy spirit means.
It means that you are looking tothe Trinity father, son and holy
spirit.
The life of God in community tolearn how is life meant to be
lived?
How should you be doing things?
And you're going to take yourcues from them.
From God, the father, son, andspirit.
And not from the world aroundyou and especially not from the
(14:27):
rogue spiritual powers that havedictated the way that the world
around you lips.
That is a declaration of war.
So baptism takes on this wholenew meaning.
It takes on this whole new ideaof saying we, as the followers
of Jesus are asking people todeclare war, we're asking them
to switch sides in the midst ofthis longstanding brutal war
(14:50):
between these rogue spiritualpowers and God.
And we are saying we're nolonger going to be associated
with those evil, spiritualpowers.
We are now going to beassociated with Jesus.
This is so important.
And I hope as men, you begin tofeel the epicness, the
purposefulness of what this isall about.
This isn't just some Sundayschool sweet moment that we're
(15:11):
calling people to.
This is changing sides in themost ferocious battle that
humanity has ever been a partof.
And God is asking you to go intothe front lines and to say to
people.
We have something better tooffer.
Will you come over to our side?
Will you choose to follow Jesusas your king?
(15:32):
This is a pretty big calling.
This is a big mission that Jesusis giving to us.
And as men, it's something thatwe need to take seriously.
We need to really see the valueand especially the violence
that's involved in being able tomake this happen.
This will take prayers ofprotection in order to be able
to go up against oppositionalenemy forces and be able to say
(15:55):
to other people who are stillenslaved by the kingdom of
darkness, that they ought tojoin the kingdom of light.
That is the kind of mission thatyou are being called into is to
go into talk to people about thekingdom of light and invite them
to make Jesus their king.
Now, how do you do that?
How do you do this kind of firstbig part of the mission?
Well, I think we need to look atthe second part of the mission
(16:17):
to be able to understand that.
The second part is to teach themthat teach these disciples to
obey everything that Jesus hascommanded us.
Now, when we think aboutteaching people, how to obey
everything that Jesus hascommanded us, we're going to
fall back a little bit on thethings that we talked about in
the last episode, all of thedifferent practices that we
(16:38):
brought into play, to be able tosay, how do I become more and
more like Jesus, if we'rebecoming like Jesus, we should
be the men who are capable offollowing the commandments that
he gave us to live out.
The teachings that he talkedabout to be the kind of men that
he's asking us to be, and thosepractices will help us tap.
Into the power of the holyspirit in order to be able to
(17:00):
live the way that he wants us tolive.
But that's also the way that wetalk to other people about it is
being able to say, here's whatJesus is teaching me to do.
And this is why.
Your life is the best way to beable to talk to other people
about Jesus and about hiskingdom of life.
Is to be able to say, I havebeen invited to do things
(17:23):
differently and that's because Iwant my relationships to look
differently.
I don't want them to becharacterized by jealousy or
bitterness or unforgiveness orbackbiting or infighting or.
Any of the number of otherthings that you can think of
about the way that relationshipswork in the world around you?
You want to be characterized bysomething different and you want
(17:44):
the relationships that you're apart of to be characterized by
something different.
You want relationships to becharacterized by love and joy
and peace and generosity andself control, all these things
that all people, whether they'reenslaved to darkness or not wish
and hope that theirrelationships could be
characterized by, but haverarely experienced that in their
(18:06):
actual relationships.
So your life is the best way ofbeing able to communicate with
other people about what it lookslike to follow Jesus and to be
part of his kingdom.
It's to be able to say, Hey, I'mreally struggling with this
parenting situation that I'mdealing with my kid right now,
but here's how Jesus is askingme to forgive my kid for the way
(18:28):
that he's handling things.
And here's why he wants me to dothat because I know that
forgiveness is going to relateto is going to lead to
restoration in thatrelationship.
Instead of me just clamping downand becoming more brutal and
aggressive with my kid andpunishing them even more harshly
for what they've done wrong.
I want our.
Our relationship to becharacterized by one of
(18:50):
closeness and forgiveness andgrowth.
So that as my kid ages up, Istill have a relationship with
him and he knows that I lovehim.
I think every parent, when theylook at their relationships with
their kids would say that that'swhat they want in the future for
their relationship with theirchildren.
But what they do right now,maybe helping them get there, or
(19:10):
it may not.
And the way of Jesus is a waythat will help them to be able
to get to that place.
So you can invite people toconsider the type of living that
Jesus calls us to.
And to say, Hey, this is reallyworth it.
The kingdom of light has muchmore, better things to offer
than the kingdom of darknessdoes.
And calling people into that issimply a matter of teaching them
(19:33):
about the way that you havechosen to live by just talking
about your life every day withthe people that you're around.
So those are the two bigcategories that you want to work
in, baptizing them in the nameof the father and the son and
the holy spirit, which is an actof war.
And teaching them to obeyeverything that Jesus has
commanded us, which is simply anact of sharing your life.
(19:55):
And when you think about it inthose ways, It becomes far more
simple and way less intimidatingor awkward than most of us have
made talking about Jesus.
It doesn't have to be thisawkward standing on a street
corner with a big sign, yellingthings at people or going door
to door and handing outpamphlets dressed in weird
clothing.
Like none of that has to be apart of the way that we share
(20:16):
Jesus with others.
It's meant to just happen as apart of our normal lives and to
be a simple invitation to inviteothers, to consider something
better than what they'recurrently experience.
so that's my challenge to you.
How can you be part of thisgrand mission that God is
calling us to as his men?
(20:36):
How can you be a man, a man whogoes into the front lines and
invites people out of darknessto come into the light and to
give their allegiance to Jesus.
I want you to think of two othermen around you that you would
consider.
Praying for.
And start to think about how youcould talk to them in a way that
might invite them into thekingdom of light.
(20:59):
How could you share your lifewith them in a way that might
show them that what Jesus isoffering is better than what
they're experiencing right now.
So think of two men begin topray for them and ask God how
you could begin to have aconversation with them.
That shows them the kingdom oflight and the way of Jesus.
All right guys, this has been anincredible series and we've got
(21:22):
one more episode left to be ableto talk about.
I've been hinting about it for awhile.
As we have gone through thisseries, that there are some cool
things happening at the end.
And that's what we need to talkabout in our final episode,
coming up next.
So I'll look forward to talkingto you then on the manhood
tribes show, I'll see you.
If you're someone who follows Jesus, how do you feel
about talking to others aboutfollowing Jesus?
Especially people who don'talready follow Jesus.
If you're like most Christians,you probably feel more than a
little uncomfortable about doingthat.
And we've got plenty of examplesof people who have tried to do
that and done it so poorly thatit makes the rest of us kind of
(00:21):
feel awkward and uncomfortableabout having to do it.
And yet at the same time, asthose who have chosen to follow
Jesus, one of the things that heasks us to do is to talk to
others about it.
So how are we supposed to dothat and how do we do it?
Well, let's talk about thattoday here on the manhood tribe
show.
(00:59):
Guys want to know how youmeasure up as a man?
I've got a great resource foryou.
It's called how manly are you?
And it's a free quiz that youcan take to figure out how you
stack up against what it meansto be a man.
And when you take the quiz,you'll also get some free
resources to help you figure outhow you can get better as a man
in the areas where you wouldlike to grow.
(01:20):
So go to manhoodtribes.com/manlyto download your free.
How manly are you quiz today?
That's manhoodtribes.com/manly.
Men welcome to the manhood tribeshow.
My name is Don.
I'm your host.
And today is going to be areally fun and interesting
(01:41):
episode of the manhood tribeshow.
As we dive into a topic that Iknow is going to be just a
little bit uncomfortable for alot of us.
We are in the midst of a seriescalled the way of the king,
where we're talking about whatit looks like to develop a
masculine faith.
Because probably for most of usmen.
The whole category of faith issomething that we have really
(02:02):
struggled with.
Is that even something that'snecessary or maybe we've decided
that it is.
But when we show up to a placelike church, we just kind of
feel like, all right, this isnecessary, but it's not all that
interesting.
Or it just doesn't feel likeit's relevant to what's actually
going on in my life.
I'm not really sure what to dowith this whole category of
faith, but it doesn't reallyfeel like it's something that's
(02:24):
very manly.
Doesn't feel like it helps me tobe a man in my world.
So we kind of have this likeuncomfortable relationship with
faith.
And what I'm trying to say isthat all along faith is meant to
be masculine.
It is meant to relate to us in away that we can say yes as a
man, I feel like I am livingthis out in manly ways.
(02:46):
And in order to do.
And in order to do that, we needto understand our faith in a few
ways.
First, we need to be able to seeit as epic.
It needs to be a big story, agrand adventure, something that
we can find a part end that isbigger than just ourselves.
It's not a story about us, but astory about all of humanity and
(03:07):
how it relates to God.
That is the kind of epic storythat we're looking for.
But second, it also needs to bepurposeful.
In other words, we need apurpose.
We need a part to play in thatstory.
That is something ofconsequence.
We need to be able to takeaction as men and feel like it
actually matters in the storythat we're a part of.
(03:28):
And third, our faith needs to beresilient.
It needs to stand up to the hardchallenges of our day-to-day
lives and not get taken out byjust a little more than a stiff
breeze.
It needs to be something that wecan actually lean on and stand
against and be able to know thatit will stand up when hard
things come our way.
And if it can be all of thosethings, then I think we, as men
(03:51):
can really say, yeah, that's afaith that feels manly.
That feels like something Iwould want to live out and
probably even want to tell othermen about and invite them into.
And that's a lot of what we wantto talk about today.
I've said that in this series,the way of the king.
There's really six big areasthat I wanted to examine to help
us understand what a masculinefaith looks like and how the
(04:15):
Christian faith in particularcan be a masculine faith.
And for the past few episodes,I've been asking the question,
what does being a follower ofJesus actually do to a person.
Okay.
If, if you're a Christian,what's it supposed to do to you?
And a couple episodes back.
We talked about the idea thatbeing a follower of Jesus means
(04:36):
that you are meant to be inunion with God.
Your destiny is to be one withGod and all along the way from
now, until when that union isfully complete in the next life,
you are meant to be growing inthat union becoming more and
more like Jesus and pursuingthings that will help you be
able to do that.
(04:57):
That is the essence of what itmeans to be a Christian, to
become more and more like Jesus.
But how do we know if that'sreally happening?
How, how can we tell, what canwe measure to be able to see?
Am I really becoming more likehim?
And our scriptures are reallyclear, but in order for that to
happen, there's no greaterindicator of our growth and our
(05:18):
spiritual nature, our maturityand spirituality.
Then how we relate to others,the way that we relate to
others, communicates volumesabout whether or not we're
actually becoming like Jesus,because Jesus greatly
prioritized the whole idea ofloving others.
He said that other people wouldknow us, know his followers, by
(05:39):
the way that we loved eachother.
And so if we're doing that well,we can best communicate to the
world.
What it looks like to be afollower of Jesus and why they
might want to be one as well.
And so on the last episode Italked about that there's really
a couple categories that we needto talk about in terms of how we
relate to others.
The first, which we talked aboutlast time.
(06:00):
Was how we relate to other Jesusfollowers.
But today, I want to spend sometime talking about how we relate
to people who aren't yetfollowers of Jesus and what is
the goal for us there and whatshould that really look like?
Because, as I mentioned lasttime, there is a great deal of
overlap.
Love should characterize the waythat we relate to both followers
(06:23):
and non followers.
And so that kind of sacrificiallove that Jesus modeled for us
needs to show up in all of thoserelationships.
But when it comes to people whoaren't yet following Jesus.
What does that kind of love looklike?
And what are we meant to be kindof prioritizing in the way that
we love those people?
(06:43):
Now the scriptures, give us somehelpful ideas on how to be able
to get there.
But it all really revolvesaround this idea of a mission.
At the end of the gospel ofMatthew, which is just the story
of Jesus's life written by oneof his disciples named Matthew.
He tells us the idea that Jesus,after he died and after he rose
(07:05):
again.
And when he was spending timewith his disciples, He told them
that he had a mission for them.
And that mission was to go intoall the world, to all the
nations.
Again, remember we talked aboutthe idea of nations in the big
story of what God is doing.
That God originally abandonedall of the nations, all the
(07:25):
people, groups of the world tobe ruled by rogue spiritual
powers, and that God wouldestablish his own nation.
That nation became the people ofIsrael, but then through the
life and the death and theresurrection of Jesus, the gates
were opened so that anyone fromany nation could come out of
those nations and join thekingdom of God.
(07:47):
Be part of God's people, nomatter where they were coming
from, no matter what spiritualpowers they had been under
before.
They could now serve Jesus astheir king.
And so that is the opportunityfor us, but it's also the
mission that Jesus has called usto.
He wants us to go into all thenations.
And make disciples now.
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That word disciple is a real bigchurchy word.
It's not something that wereally use very much in our
culture anymore.
So to help us understand it.
I think it can be helpful tojust use the word student.
A disciple is someone who is astudent of a teacher.
What it isn't though is really astudent.
The way that we kind of thinkabout students in schools today.
(08:30):
And our schools in Americatoday.
Students for the most part arejust learners.
They're there for it to havesome information conveyed to
them.
They need to learn thatinformation and kind of spit it
back out on a test or an exam oran essay or something like that.
That shows that they havelearned the information.
That's not quite the kind ofstudent that Jesus is really
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talking about when he's talkingabout disciples.
Disciples served their livesunder a master teacher and their
goal wasn't to just learn thethings that the master teacher
taught.
This teacher or what the Jewishpeople called a rabbi.
I was not just teachinginformation.
He was teaching a way of life.
(09:14):
He was teaching how to best livelife.
And so to be a student or adisciple of that rabbi.
Meant that you were not learninginformation, but you were
learning how to live.
The way that you showed you werelearning what the rabbi was
teaching was not just to be ableto regurgitate his teachings,
his information, but todemonstrate with your life that
(09:37):
you are actually living the waysthat he suggested to live.
By modeling after his behaviors,his actions, his teachings, his
thoughts, his rules, and way oflife.
You were demonstrating that youare a disciple of that rabbi.
So to say that a disciple is astudent is correct, but it's
(09:59):
also something more like anapprentice.
You weren't just learninginformation.
You were learning a craft.
It's just that this craft.
I was all of life.
You were learning how to dolife.
The way that your teacher saidlife should be done.
And that's really what it meansto be a disciple.
Jesus is saying to us, go intoall the world and to all the
(10:22):
nations.
And make disciples call peopleout of the way that they have
been living and help themunderstand that the way that I
have shown you to live.
Is the best way to live.
Help them to become members ofmy kingdom, of my family and
live the way that my family ismeant to live.
We are meant to be people whohelp make new disciples, even as
(10:46):
we continue to be disciplesourselves.
We are meant to continuelearning what it looks like to
follow Jesus and to live the waythat he lived to become more and
more like him.
But we're also meant to teachothers how to do the same.
So, how are we supposed to dothat?
What does that look like to be adisciple maker, to be somebody
(11:09):
who goes into the world andcalls people out of it to become
disciples of Jesus.
How do we do that?
Well, he gives us a couple bigideas of how we should go about
doing that in this mission thathe gives at the end of the book
of Matthew.
He highlights two bigcategories.
The first thing he says is thatwe are to baptize them in the
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name of God, the father, theson, and the holy spirit.
Now.
There's a lot of religiosityloaded into that phrase of
baptizing them in the name ofthe father and the son and the
holy spirit.
For you that might conjure upimagery of a sacred ceremony in
a church with people dressed intheir finest, Sunday clothes and
babies and white gowns, or, youknow, it might have something to
(11:54):
do with, uh, a lake or a bigpool of water where people are
getting thrown in or dunked orwho knows what.
You've probably got some kind ofimagery of what baptism really
sort of looks like at least inthe sacred ceremonial way that
we think about and do baptismtoday.
And there's nothing inherentlywrong with any of those
(12:16):
practices.
But I think by focusing on justthe practices, just the
ceremony, we miss really thepoint of what baptism is all
about.
Baptism.
Isn't just this like sweet,tender, spiritual moment where
we celebrate a family milestone.
It's actually an act of war.
(12:37):
Now that may be the furthestthing from your mind when you
think about baptism, but let'sexamine, what's really going on
there.
Baptism is what happens when youor someone in your family makes
a confession to be able to say,I confess that Jesus is Lord.
And I want to come under hisauthority, his kingship.
(12:58):
And when that happens, thattells all the spiritual powers.
That you no longer belong to thekingdom of darkness, but now
belong to Jesus's kingdom.
The kingdom of light.
You have switched sides and youbetter believe that that pisses
off some evil, spiritual powers.
It is an act of war just as ifyou had betrayed your own nation
(13:21):
and joined up with a foreignnation and a major war that is
not going to make your currentnation happy.
And so that's the case withbaptism is that you are saying,
I no longer belong to darkness.
I am now free in the kingdom oflight, as I followed Jesus.
And it is a declaration of warsaying that I have switched
(13:43):
sides and will now be part ofthis mission.
I will no longer live accordingto the ways of the kingdom of
darkness, the ways that I wastaught or the way that I
understood from how the worldaround me lives, I will take my
cues from Jesus and learn tolive the kind of life that he
wants me to live.
That's what being baptized inthe name of the father, the son,
(14:04):
and the holy spirit means.
It means that you are looking tothe Trinity father, son and holy
spirit.
The life of God in community tolearn how is life meant to be
lived?
How should you be doing things?
And you're going to take yourcues from them.
From God, the father, son, andspirit.
And not from the world aroundyou and especially not from the
(14:27):
rogue spiritual powers that havedictated the way that the world
around you lips.
That is a declaration of war.
So baptism takes on this wholenew meaning.
It takes on this whole new ideaof saying we, as the followers
of Jesus are asking people todeclare war, we're asking them
to switch sides in the midst ofthis longstanding brutal war
(14:50):
between these rogue spiritualpowers and God.
And we are saying we're nolonger going to be associated
with those evil, spiritualpowers.
We are now going to beassociated with Jesus.
This is so important.
And I hope as men, you begin tofeel the epicness, the
purposefulness of what this isall about.
This isn't just some Sundayschool sweet moment that we're
(15:11):
calling people to.
This is changing sides in themost ferocious battle that
humanity has ever been a partof.
And God is asking you to go intothe front lines and to say to
people.
We have something better tooffer.
Will you come over to our side?
Will you choose to follow Jesusas your king?
(15:32):
This is a pretty big calling.
This is a big mission that Jesusis giving to us.
And as men, it's something thatwe need to take seriously.
We need to really see the valueand especially the violence
that's involved in being able tomake this happen.
This will take prayers ofprotection in order to be able
to go up against oppositionalenemy forces and be able to say
(15:55):
to other people who are stillenslaved by the kingdom of
darkness, that they ought tojoin the kingdom of light.
That is the kind of mission thatyou are being called into is to
go into talk to people about thekingdom of light and invite them
to make Jesus their king.
Now, how do you do that?
How do you do this kind of firstbig part of the mission?
Well, I think we need to look atthe second part of the mission
(16:17):
to be able to understand that.
The second part is to teach themthat teach these disciples to
obey everything that Jesus hascommanded us.
Now, when we think aboutteaching people, how to obey
everything that Jesus hascommanded us, we're going to
fall back a little bit on thethings that we talked about in
the last episode, all of thedifferent practices that we
(16:38):
brought into play, to be able tosay, how do I become more and
more like Jesus, if we'rebecoming like Jesus, we should
be the men who are capable offollowing the commandments that
he gave us to live out.
The teachings that he talkedabout to be the kind of men that
he's asking us to be, and thosepractices will help us tap.
Into the power of the holyspirit in order to be able to
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live the way that he wants us tolive.
But that's also the way that wetalk to other people about it is
being able to say, here's whatJesus is teaching me to do.
And this is why.
Your life is the best way to beable to talk to other people
about Jesus and about hiskingdom of life.
Is to be able to say, I havebeen invited to do things
(17:23):
differently and that's because Iwant my relationships to look
differently.
I don't want them to becharacterized by jealousy or
bitterness or unforgiveness orbackbiting or infighting or.
Any of the number of otherthings that you can think of
about the way that relationshipswork in the world around you?
You want to be characterized bysomething different and you want
(17:44):
the relationships that you're apart of to be characterized by
something different.
You want relationships to becharacterized by love and joy
and peace and generosity andself control, all these things
that all people, whether they'reenslaved to darkness or not wish
and hope that theirrelationships could be
characterized by, but haverarely experienced that in their
(18:06):
actual relationships.
So your life is the best way ofbeing able to communicate with
other people about what it lookslike to follow Jesus and to be
part of his kingdom.
It's to be able to say, Hey, I'mreally struggling with this
parenting situation that I'mdealing with my kid right now,
but here's how Jesus is askingme to forgive my kid for the way
(18:28):
that he's handling things.
And here's why he wants me to dothat because I know that
forgiveness is going to relateto is going to lead to
restoration in thatrelationship.
Instead of me just clamping downand becoming more brutal and
aggressive with my kid andpunishing them even more harshly
for what they've done wrong.
I want our.
Our relationship to becharacterized by one of
(18:50):
closeness and forgiveness andgrowth.
So that as my kid ages up, Istill have a relationship with
him and he knows that I lovehim.
I think every parent, when theylook at their relationships with
their kids would say that that'swhat they want in the future for
their relationship with theirchildren.
But what they do right now,maybe helping them get there, or
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it may not.
And the way of Jesus is a waythat will help them to be able
to get to that place.
So you can invite people toconsider the type of living that
Jesus calls us to.
And to say, Hey, this is reallyworth it.
The kingdom of light has muchmore, better things to offer
than the kingdom of darknessdoes.
And calling people into that issimply a matter of teaching them
(19:33):
about the way that you havechosen to live by just talking
about your life every day withthe people that you're around.
So those are the two bigcategories that you want to work
in, baptizing them in the nameof the father and the son and
the holy spirit, which is an actof war.
And teaching them to obeyeverything that Jesus has
commanded us, which is simply anact of sharing your life.
(19:55):
And when you think about it inthose ways, It becomes far more
simple and way less intimidatingor awkward than most of us have
made talking about Jesus.
It doesn't have to be thisawkward standing on a street
corner with a big sign, yellingthings at people or going door
to door and handing outpamphlets dressed in weird
clothing.
Like none of that has to be apart of the way that we share
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Jesus with others.
It's meant to just happen as apart of our normal lives and to
be a simple invitation to inviteothers, to consider something
better than what they'recurrently experience.
so that's my challenge to you.
How can you be part of thisgrand mission that God is
calling us to as his men?
(20:36):
How can you be a man, a man whogoes into the front lines and
invites people out of darknessto come into the light and to
give their allegiance to Jesus.
I want you to think of two othermen around you that you would
consider.
Praying for.
And start to think about how youcould talk to them in a way that
might invite them into thekingdom of light.
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How could you share your lifewith them in a way that might
show them that what Jesus isoffering is better than what
they're experiencing right now.
So think of two men begin topray for them and ask God how
you could begin to have aconversation with them.
That shows them the kingdom oflight and the way of Jesus.
All right guys, this has been anincredible series and we've got
(21:22):
one more episode left to be ableto talk about.
I've been hinting about it for awhile.
As we have gone through thisseries, that there are some cool
things happening at the end.
And that's what we need to talkabout in our final episode,
coming up next.
So I'll look forward to talkingto you then on the manhood
tribes show, I'll see you.
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