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November 18, 2017 - October 22, 2019
And I know this about you: you sincerely want to do something powerful for God and to be God’s redemptive agent in the world and to make a difference. That’s why you’re reading this book, right? So act on your better instincts.
“Let us not become weary in doing good” (Galatians 6:9).
Most callings are just plain hard. Your burden and calling may be to the lost, the poor, the unborn, the homeless, the fatherless, families, children, young men struggling to find their identity, or the breakdown of society and government. It’s no mistake that God gave you that particular burden. You are His instrument. That’s how He is redeeming the world.
That’s when I heard the words form in my mind: You’ve been faithful. Stay the course. That’s a good word for you too. If you’ve been faithful, stay the course.
So what should you do if it seems to be taking forever? The only thing you can do. Be faithful.
That’s the only area we can influence. Timing belongs to God. Outcomes belong to God. So our job is to be faithful, not to produce a particular outcome. You can’t pull this off. But Jesus can. This is the holy grail for those times when you feel like throwing in the towel.
Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men...
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When Nehemiah showed up in Jerusalem, the people were discouraged and weak. But Nehemiah soon managed to inspire them with his vision to rebuild the wall that had been broken down for so many years. He organized them and put them to work.
I can tell you there’s nothing like the thrill you get when you respond to the burden God has given you and see Him act through you.
Becoming the man God wants you to be, however, is not principally about personal fulfillment. A man becomes himself by fitting into the larger perspective of what God is doing in the world. Our callings are about what God wants, what God is doing, what God is changing, what God is transforming.
And when we answer the call, somewhere a wall gets built or rebuilt. Somewhere some broken part of the world gets redeemed. We do what the Master needs. And He gets the glory He deserves. So never refuse that burden, because that is how God is restoring the world.
The Scriptures frame disciple making as a moral issue. By that I mean making disciples is a choice between right and wrong, obedience and disobedience.
Why is discipleship so important? Problems get solved when the right kind of people are trying to fix them—disciples. So if we help people become who God created them to be, then they will be released to do what God created them to do. They will become servants of God and agents of change in our homes, workplaces, churches, and communities. They will populate our governments, school systems, health care, and businesses. Everything else is lipstick and rouge.
An inherent part of the definition of a disciple is that we are sent to repeat the process and help others become disciples too.
I am sent. You are sent. That is fact. What we do with that fact is choice.
By all means, let’s continue helping single moms, pregnant teenagers, and fatherless boys. We need more of that, not less. But we’ll never solve these symptomatic problems without treating the underlying cause—that men don’t understand biblical manhood.
Hugh Lake preached the gospel simply. H. O. Giles and Bob Helmling modeled the gospel until I had to have it. God used Dan Stanley to bring me to conviction of sin. Jim Gillean invited us to be part of his small group, where my wife, Patsy, and I were equipped. I give glory to God for these men. And I trace it all back to my praying wife. Jim in particular saw
something in
me that I didn’t see in myself. What really got me was that he believed in me more than I believed in myself. He ...
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God has given us a clear, simple prescription to bring men to maturity. It’s for mature men to take younger men under their wings and show them how to walk the Christian life. Men are His method. He equips us to reach other men, because it takes a man to teach a man how to be a man.
Here’s the good news. If we get men right, we will get marriages right. If we get marriages right, we will get families right. If we get families right, we will get the church right. And if we get the church right, God will change the world. In a very real sense, the cure for everything starts with men’s discipleship. That’s the way Jesus saw it. In this chapter, we’re going to look at how the disciple-making process works. We know more about how Peter became a disciple and disciple maker than any other man in the Bible, so let’s find out how it happened. CALLING ORDINARY MEN INTO AN
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Witnessing is simply taking people as far as they want to go toward Jesus.
But that awestruck moment of humility, faith, and repentance is precisely what Jesus is looking for—the starting point of how God makes men.
Of course, each of our stories is different in the details. There is no formulaic way of giving our lives to Jesus. But in one sense each of our stories is similar—the emptiness, the lack of meaning and purpose, the futility of it all, the anger, the lashing out, the loneliness, the existential pain, the drawing toward Jesus, the witnesses, hearing God’s Word, the conviction of sin, the coming to an end of self, repentance, faith, surrender, and making Jesus Lord. His challenge to us, like it was to Peter, is to follow Jesus—to give Him our lives and then be the witnesses who tell others how
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Jesus called Peter and the rest of the twelve disciples to be with Him. In other words, He called them into a relationship—a small group, a life-on-life community where they would become like brothers.
Jesus brought ordinary men together in authentic relationships where He equipped them to accomplish extraordinary tasks. That was, and is, the elegant simplicity of God’s plan to make men who will be qualified to reach other men.
Jesus made it safe for His disciples to express their honest doubts and reservations and to ask questions.
Peter was changing. He was being transformed by the renewing of his mind (see Romans 12:2). He was growing in spiritual maturity (see Ephesians 4:11–13). He was being equipped to live like Christ.
There were, of course, other stumbles—like cutting off the right ear of the high priest’s servant, denying three times that he even knew Jesus, and telling Jesus, “You shall never wash my feet!” (see John 18:10, 17, 25–27; 13:8). Like Peter, you and I are going to stumble. To stumble is part of the process. That’s inevitable.
Equipping is simply bringing people together around Jesus and
watching Him change the way they think and what they do.
Here’s the takeaway: anything that will move a man along toward spiritual maturity is equipping.
God’s challenge to each of us, like Peter and Dan, is to let Him change the way we think and what we do, then equip others to do the same.
The words Peter and bold go together in many people’s minds. He was a gigantic figure in the early church.
Yet before Jesus invited him to be part of His small group, Peter, like Dan, was an unknown man leading a small life. So how do we account for his success in making disciples?
Simply gather around the person of Christ, preferably in the company of a few like-minded men, and watch Him change the way you think and what you do.
First,
Second,
Finally,
So consider discipling some younger men. That’s a place where you are needed.
Our job is to be faithful, not to produce
a particular outcome. It’s the ministry of giving people a nudge—whether that’s calling them to live in Christ, equipping them to live like Christ, or sending them to live for Christ. Simply be with them—the people whom God has placed in your path. Nudge them along. Everybody deserves a nudge. And you’re just the man who can do it!
In fact, the creed of a servant is “Wherever, whenever, whatever.” No reservations. No holding back. Increasingly surrendered.
God makes men by forging us into humble servants who are increasingly surrendered to the lordship of Jesus.
Few men ever have been more passionate about following and serving Christ than the apostle Paul. He was an “on fire, let’s get ‘er done, do-your-duty, I can’t keep it in / gotta let it out, press on, fight the good fight, finish the race” kind of guy. He was willing to go wherever and whenever God sent him to do whatever God told him to do.
Maybe it’s his tenacity in spite of prisons, floggings, beatings, stonings, great pressure to the point of despair, and being shipwrecked without losing faith. Maybe it’s the opposition he faced from the very ones he was trying to help. Maybe it’s his willingness to go without sleep, food, a warm blanket, or even enough clothes.
Spend a few moments taking in the passion, zeal, and tenacity he revealed in these amazing words:
We are hard pressed on every side,
but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not de...
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Then I asked, “Who are you, Lord?” “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” the Lord replied. “Now get up and stand on your feet. I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen of me and what I will show
