Stop Being The Boss Who Stones People

Most leaders want two things at once: a high-performing culture and a team that feels valued. The hard part is doing both without drifting into either harshness or passivity. I’m working through that tension in real time, and I bring you into my “Jesus Gym” to ask a blunt question: can we lead with grace without lowering standards?

We walk through three scriptures that keep me grounded when I’m tempted to either come down too hard or let things slide. In John 8, Jesus confronts a public shaming scene and shows how accountability can be firm without being cruel. He challenges the leaders who want to condemn, then calls the woman to leave her life of sin. Standards stay high on both sides of the room. In John 21, we watch Jesus restore Peter after repeated failure, not by embarrassing him, but by re-commissioning him with real responsibility. That’s not excusing, and it’s not punishment either. It’s restoration that raises the bar.

Then we land on Ephesians 4:15, a leadership principle that applies directly to business, teams, and family life: speak the truth in love. Truth without love creates wounds. Love without truth creates weakness. Together, they create maturity. If you’ve been wondering what to do when someone fails, ignores direction, or falls short again and again, you’ll leave with a clearer framework and a challenge you can actually apply this week.

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This is the Buddy For Junior Show — where faith, truth, and courage come together. Join us as we explore life’s deeper purpose and carry the torch of conviction. The show begins now.

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Transcript

High Standards With Real Grace

SPEAKER_02 0:01

Welcome to the Buddy for you Junior Show. Thank you all for being here. All right, today in the Jesus Gym, we're going to unpack what it takes to be a leader grounded in the Bible and still holding your standards high. And I've been challenged with this, folks. How do I hold high standards? Bring grace to the leadership table, to those that I'm leading, and hold people accountable to the standards that got us to where we are today in the business front, in the brand front.

SPEAKER_01 0:39

It's not easy. Man, I am messing up. So does God have high standards?

SPEAKER_02 0:50

Does Jesus have high standards? A lot of us, or a lot of people, think Jesus was his hippie that loved everyone no matter what you did. Well, today I'm going to show you that I've learned and I strongly believe that our standards should be increasing, not decreasing. That we can hold people accountable with grace and hold our standards high. And if you go back and listen to my podcast, The Buddy Foy Jr. Show, you'll know over the last four weeks, I've been really struggling with my past leadership to where I believe the Bible's telling me how to lead. Because I was a kick ass, get it done, take names, warrior mode. And it worked. But it doesn't feel as rewarding anymore as I understand how the apostles led, how Jesus led. And I'm applying the biblical readings that I'm doing to leadership. And that's what I'm here to talk about. So can we have grace without lowering our standards? There's three scriptures that tell me we can have high standards. We can have grace. We can hold people accountable. Jesus is confronted by the religious leaders with a woman who commits adultery. It's in John chapter 8. And they want to stone this woman to death. And they're

John 8 And Accountability Without Shame

SPEAKER_02 2:24

testing Jesus. And it sounds so simple when you read it, but imagine. Jesus is writing in the sand. He stands up and he says to these people, those without sin cast a first stone at her.

SPEAKER_01 2:39

Throw it. They don't, one by one, starting at the oldest to the youngest, leave and they drop their stone. Jesus does not bend over and say to the woman, I love you.

SPEAKER_02 2:57

You keep doing your thing. You be you. Don't worry about these guys. So he holds the crowd accountable, the leaders of the law that understand scripture. The law of Moses says we have to stone her to death. Be careful about the law you invoke.

SPEAKER_01 3:14

We could be stoning you next. And he looks at the woman and he says, Where are they?

SPEAKER_02 3:24

Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you? No, sir, she said, then neither do I condemn you.

SPEAKER_01 3:32

But here's the kicker. Jesus declares, Go now and leave your life of sin. He doesn't say go be you. Don't worry about it. Don't sin anymore. That's holding the standards high on both sides of the room. So the ones condemning and the one being condemned. He holds both parties accountable. So we can have high standards. We can hold people accountable. And we can lead with grace.

SPEAKER_02 4:17

This next one is huge. Whew. My hair standing.

SPEAKER_01 4:23

Okay. Standards, grace.

SPEAKER_02 4:27

So John chapter 21, he this is the timeline is Jesus has resurrected and he's been crucified. Remember, Peter denies Christ three

John 21 And Restoring Peter

SPEAKER_02 4:39

times. Now, the this Peter's out fishing. Jesus appears and they have breakfast. And Jesus, he does not say, yo, Peter, you denied me three times, brother. What's up with that? He asked Peter a question, because you know in the air, the vibe, as the kids say, was around what's gonna happen.

SPEAKER_01 5:09

Peter denied Jesus three times, but they both know. Jesus asked Peter three times. Ironically, Peter denies him three times. Jesus asks him three times the question. Simon, son of John, do you love me?

SPEAKER_02 5:30

Peter says, Yes, Lord, you know I love you. Yet he just denied him. Then again, do you love me? Feed my sheep.

SPEAKER_01 5:41

And the third time, do you love me? Feed my sheep. Now, Jesus never says, Hey Peter, let's talk about your failure.

SPEAKER_02 5:55

Resurrection or restoration is never about shame. If we haven't learned that by now in all these episodes, we're not paying attention. So here Jesus is leading Peter. And remember, the Great Commission, like these guys gotta bring people to Christ and tell the story about Jesus. They don't have time for fishing. They go fish for men and women to bring to the Lord. It's amazing. I don't know if I could be this graceful.

SPEAKER_01 6:28

So this is setting the standards high with grace. So Peter gets a little annoyed. Right? And instead, Jesus doesn't lead into this annoyance. I forgive you.

SPEAKER_02 6:45

No, get back to work. The grace without lowering standards, the fact that the standards got higher there. Peter goes from a fisherman to a shepherd of the early church. So he denies Jesus three times. Jesus comes after the resurrection and asks Peter a question three times. Do you love me?

SPEAKER_01 7:12

And then God elevates Peter to get out and preach.

unknown 7:19

Man.

SPEAKER_01 7:21

That's restoration tied to responsibility. That's raising the standards.

SPEAKER_00 7:29

Now for a business leader, folks, that's gold for us. The real question. When someone fails, do we fire them? Do we excuse them? Or do we restore them and call them back to the standard?

SPEAKER_01 7:52

Boy. That's the um that's the needle we're threading.

SPEAKER_02 8:02

If we're leading somebody that denies the business model, that ignores your orders or your agenda or whatever you set out for them to do three times, do you extend grace?

SPEAKER_01 8:19

Do you embarrass them? Do you elevate them? Do you lower your standards? What do you do? That's the challenge. Now to close this out, we're gonna go to Ephesians chapter four, verse 15. Let me just lead you up to this.

SPEAKER_02 8:42

This is the book of Ephesians,

Ephesians 4:15 Truth Spoken In Love

SPEAKER_02 8:45

Ephesus. And they're asking Peter, I'm sorry, Paul, hey, how do we get people not just to come to church, but really grow up to the next level of maturity? And Paul tells them, and this is a hard one for me, because I'm definitely a truth teller. And it's not with a soft glove, it is a sledgehammer. So Paul wants to prepare and set the Church of Ephesus up for success. How do you get your people who are coming to church to grow up and to lean in wholeheartedly to Christ? What Paul is addressing here is before he writes chapter four, verse 15, he says in 14, chapter 14, there will be no longer, they will be no longer infants, tossed and forth back and forth by the waves. Sorry, I was a little choppy. What Paul's saying is no more being tossed to and fro by the waves, right? No more emotions, no more opinions, no more false teaching, the pressure, the culture, the trends. That's the waves just tossing us back and forth. Sounds familiar to me. What Paul's saying, he's not talking to children as he's saying there's will be no more infants. He's saying in Ephesus 4.15, and this is key for leadership, especially for me, instead of speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, and that's Christ.

SPEAKER_01 10:44

So instead speaking the truth with love, he doesn't say tell the truth. That's harsh, folks.

SPEAKER_02 10:55

He doesn't say love only. That's passivity.

SPEAKER_01 11:00

He says, speak the truth in love. Why? He wants to lead this church to get to the next level. They're crushing it. He loves his church. Love without truth weakends. Maturity requires both truth and love. Just truth creates wounds.

SPEAKER_00 11:27

Love only, it makes you weaker. But the both, that's a power punch of leadership.

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Now, for years, even now, I'm a stranger to that love approach. But let's face it, if we're getting up every single day, we're making payroll, and we're the first ones not paying ourselves. We're loving. We're loving on our employees because we're still getting up. We're still pounding the pavement. We're still showing up. We're still making payroll. And they're getting paid before we do. That's love. So we're bringing that.

SPEAKER_01 12:08

Let's be aware of that.

SPEAKER_00 12:10

And let's be truth tellers. Folks. How does Jesus want us to lead?

SPEAKER_01 12:23

Thank you for joining me on my Jesus gym. Don't take the bait. We'll see you next week.