Masculine Faith: The Mission

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.

Transcript

Don Ross: 0:00

If you're someone who follows Jesus, how do you feel about talking to others about following Jesus? Especially people who don't already follow Jesus. If you're like most Christians, you probably feel more than a little uncomfortable about doing that. And we've got plenty of examples of people who have tried to do that and done it so poorly that it makes the rest of us kind of feel awkward and uncomfortable about having to do it. And yet at the same time, as those who have chosen to follow Jesus, one of the things that he asks us to do is to talk to others about it. So how are we supposed to do that and how do we do it? Well, let's talk about that today here on the manhood tribe show. Guys want to know how you measure up as a man? I've got a great resource for you. It's called how manly are you? And it's a free quiz that you can take to figure out how you stack up against what it means to be a man. And when you take the quiz, you'll also get some free resources to help you figure out how you can get better as a man in the areas where you would like to grow. So go to manhoodtribes.com/manly to download your free. How manly are you quiz today? That's manhoodtribes.com/manly. Men welcome to the manhood tribe show. My name is Don. I'm your host. And today is going to be a really fun and interesting episode of the manhood tribe show. As we dive into a topic that I know is going to be just a little bit uncomfortable for a lot of us. We are in the midst of a series called the way of the king, where we're talking about what it looks like to develop a masculine faith. Because probably for most of us men. The whole category of faith is something that we have really struggled with. Is that even something that's necessary or maybe we've decided that it is. But when we show up to a place like church, we just kind of feel like, all right, this is necessary, but it's not all that interesting. Or it just doesn't feel like it's relevant to what's actually going on in my life. I'm not really sure what to do with this whole category of faith, but it doesn't really feel like it's something that's very manly. Doesn't feel like it helps me to be a man in my world. So we kind of have this like uncomfortable relationship with faith. And what I'm trying to say is that all along faith is meant to be masculine. It is meant to relate to us in a way that we can say yes as a man, I feel like I am living this out in manly ways. And in order to do. And in order to do that, we need to understand our faith in a few ways. First, we need to be able to see it as epic. It needs to be a big story, a grand adventure, something that we can find a part end that is bigger than just ourselves. It's not a story about us, but a story about all of humanity and how it relates to God. That is the kind of epic story that we're looking for. But second, it also needs to be purposeful. In other words, we need a purpose. We need a part to play in that story. That is something of consequence. We need to be able to take action as men and feel like it actually matters in the story that we're a part of. And third, our faith needs to be resilient. It needs to stand up to the hard challenges of our day-to-day lives and not get taken out by just a little more than a stiff breeze. It needs to be something that we can actually lean on and stand against and be able to know that it will stand up when hard things come our way. And if it can be all of those things, then I think we, as men can really say, yeah, that's a faith that feels manly. That feels like something I would want to live out and probably even want to tell other men about and invite them into. And that's a lot of what we want to talk about today. I've said that in this series, the way of the king. There's really six big areas that I wanted to examine to help us understand what a masculine faith looks like and how the Christian faith in particular can be a masculine faith. And for the past few episodes, I've been asking the question, what does being a follower of Jesus 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 that being a follower of Jesus means that you are meant to be in union with God. Your destiny is to be one with God and all along the way from now, until when that union is fully complete in the next life, you are meant to be growing in that union becoming more and more like Jesus and pursuing things that will help you be able to do that. That is the essence of what it means to be a Christian, to become more and more like Jesus. But how do we know if that's really happening? How, how can we tell, what can we measure to be able to see? Am I really becoming more like him? And our scriptures are really clear, but in order for that to happen, there's no greater indicator of our growth and our spiritual nature, our maturity and spirituality. Then how we relate to others, the way that we relate to others, communicates volumes about whether or not we're actually becoming like Jesus, because Jesus greatly prioritized the whole idea of loving others. He said that other people would know us, know his followers, by the way that we loved each other. And so if we're doing that well, we can best communicate to the world. What it looks like to be a follower of Jesus and why they might want to be one as well. And so on the last episode I talked about that there's really a couple categories that we need to talk about in terms of how we relate to others. The first, which we talked about last time. Was how we relate to other Jesus followers. But today, I want to spend some time talking about how we relate to people who aren't yet followers of Jesus and what is the goal for us there and what should that really look like? Because, as I mentioned last time, there is a great deal of overlap. Love should characterize the way that we relate to both followers and non followers. And so that kind of sacrificial love that Jesus modeled for us needs to show up in all of those relationships. But when it comes to people who aren't yet following Jesus. What does that kind of love look like? And what are we meant to be kind of prioritizing in the way that we love those people? Now the scriptures, give us some helpful ideas on how to be able to get there. But it all really revolves around this idea of a mission. At the end of the gospel of Matthew, which is just the story of Jesus's life written by one of his disciples named Matthew. He tells us the idea that Jesus, after he died and after he rose again. And when he was spending time with his disciples, He told them that he had a mission for them. And that mission was to go into all the world, to all the nations. Again, remember we talked about the idea of nations in the big story of what God is doing. That God originally abandoned all of the nations, all the people, groups of the world to be ruled by rogue spiritual powers, and that God would establish his own nation. That nation became the people of Israel, but then through the life and the death and the resurrection of Jesus, the gates were opened so that anyone from any nation could come out of those nations and join the kingdom of God. Be part of God's people, no matter where they were coming from, no matter what spiritual powers they had been under before. They could now serve Jesus as their king. And so that is the opportunity for us, but it's also the mission that Jesus has called us to. He wants us to go into all the nations. And make disciples now. That word disciple is a real big churchy word. It's not something that we really use very much in our culture anymore. So to help us understand it. I think it can be helpful to just use the word student. A disciple is someone who is a student of a teacher. What it isn't though is really a student. The way that we kind of think about students in schools today. And our schools in America today. Students for the most part are just learners. They're there for it to have some information conveyed to them. They need to learn that information and kind of spit it back out on a test or an exam or an essay or something like that. That shows that they have learned the information. That's not quite the kind of student that Jesus is really talking about when he's talking about disciples. Disciples served their lives under a master teacher and their goal wasn't to just learn the things that the master teacher taught. This teacher or what the Jewish people called a rabbi. I was not just teaching information. He was teaching a way of life. He was teaching how to best live life. And so to be a student or a disciple of that rabbi. Meant that you were not learning information, but you were learning how to live. The way that you showed you were learning what the rabbi was teaching was not just to be able to regurgitate his teachings, his information, but to demonstrate with your life that you are actually living the ways that he suggested to live. By modeling after his behaviors, his actions, his teachings, his thoughts, his rules, and way of life. You were demonstrating that you are a disciple of that rabbi. So to say that a disciple is a student is correct, but it's also something more like an apprentice. You weren't just learning information. You were learning a craft. It's just that this craft. I was all of life. You were learning how to do life. The way that your teacher said life should be done. And that's really what it means to be a disciple. Jesus is saying to us, go into all the world and to all the nations. And make disciples call people out of the way that they have been living and help them understand that the way that I have shown you to live. Is the best way to live. Help them to become members of my kingdom, of my family and live the way that my family is meant to live. We are meant to be people who help make new disciples, even as we continue to be disciples ourselves. We are meant to continue learning what it looks like to follow Jesus and to live the way that he lived to become more and more like him. But we're also meant to teach others how to do the same. So, how are we supposed to do that? What does that look like to be a disciple maker, to be somebody who goes into the world and calls people out of it to become disciples of Jesus. How do we do that? Well, he gives us a couple big ideas of how we should go about doing that in this mission that he gives at the end of the book of Matthew. He highlights two big categories. The first thing he says is that we are to baptize them in the name of God, the father, the son, and the holy spirit. Now. There's a lot of religiosity loaded into that phrase of baptizing them in the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit. For you that might conjure up imagery of a sacred ceremony in a church with people dressed in their finest, Sunday clothes and babies and white gowns, or, you know, it might have something to do with, uh, a lake or a big pool of water where people are getting thrown in or dunked or who knows what. You've probably got some kind of imagery of what baptism really sort of looks like at least in the sacred ceremonial way that we think about and do baptism today. And there's nothing inherently wrong with any of those practices. But I think by focusing on just the practices, just the ceremony, we miss really the point 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. Now that may be the furthest thing from your mind when you think about baptism, but let's examine, what's really going on there. Baptism is what happens when you or someone in your family makes a confession to be able to say, I confess that Jesus is Lord. And I want to come under his authority, his kingship. And when that happens, that tells all the spiritual powers. That you no longer belong to the kingdom of darkness, but now belong to Jesus's kingdom. The kingdom of light. You have switched sides and you better believe that that pisses off some evil, spiritual powers. It is an act of war just as if you had betrayed your own nation and joined up with a foreign nation and a major war that is not going to make your current nation happy. And so that's the case with baptism is that you are saying, I no longer belong to darkness. I am now free in the kingdom of light, as I followed Jesus. And it is a declaration of war saying that I have switched sides and will now be part of this mission. I will no longer live according to the ways of the kingdom of darkness, the ways that I was taught or the way that I understood from how the world around me lives, I will take my cues from Jesus and learn to live the kind of life that he wants me to live. That's what being baptized in the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit means. It means that you are looking to the Trinity father, son and holy spirit. The life of God in community to learn how is life meant to be lived? How should you be doing things? And you're going to take your cues from them. From God, the father, son, and spirit. And not from the world around you and especially not from the rogue spiritual powers that have dictated the way that the world around you lips. That is a declaration of war. So baptism takes on this whole new meaning. It takes on this whole new idea of saying we, as the followers of Jesus are asking people to declare war, we're asking them to switch sides in the midst of this longstanding brutal war between these rogue spiritual powers and God. And we are saying we're no longer going to be associated with those evil, spiritual powers. We are now going to be associated with Jesus. This is so important. And I hope as men, you begin to feel the epicness, the purposefulness of what this is all about. This isn't just some Sunday school sweet moment that we're calling people to. This is changing sides in the most ferocious battle that humanity has ever been a part of. And God is asking you to go into the front lines and to say to people. We have something better to offer. Will you come over to our side? Will you choose to follow Jesus as your king? This is a pretty big calling. This is a big mission that Jesus is giving to us. And as men, it's something that we need to take seriously. We need to really see the value and especially the violence that's involved in being able to make this happen. This will take prayers of protection in order to be able to go up against oppositional enemy forces and be able to say to other people who are still enslaved by the kingdom of darkness, that they ought to join the kingdom of light. That is the kind of mission that you are being called into is to go into talk to people about the kingdom of light and invite them to make Jesus their king. Now, how do you do that? How do you do this kind of first big part of the mission? Well, I think we need to look at the second part of the mission to be able to understand that. The second part is to teach them that teach these disciples to obey everything that Jesus has commanded us. Now, when we think about teaching people, how to obey everything that Jesus has commanded us, we're going to fall back a little bit on the things that we talked about in the last episode, all of the different practices that we brought into play, to be able to say, how do I become more and more like Jesus, if we're becoming like Jesus, we should be the men who are capable of following the commandments that he gave us to live out. The teachings that he talked about to be the kind of men that he's asking us to be, and those practices will help us tap. Into the power of the holy spirit in order to be able to live the way that he wants us to live. But that's also the way that we talk to other people about it is being able to say, here's what Jesus is teaching me to do. And this is why. Your life is the best way to be able to talk to other people about Jesus and about his kingdom of life. Is to be able to say, I have been invited to do things differently and that's because I want my relationships to look differently. I don't want them to be characterized by jealousy or bitterness or unforgiveness or backbiting or infighting or. Any of the number of other things that you can think of about the way that relationships work in the world around you? You want to be characterized by something different and you want the relationships that you're a part of to be characterized by something different. You want relationships to be characterized by love and joy and peace and generosity and self control, all these things that all people, whether they're enslaved to darkness or not wish and hope that their relationships could be characterized by, but have rarely experienced that in their actual relationships. So your life is the best way of being able to communicate with other people about what it looks like to follow Jesus and to be part of his kingdom. It's to be able to say, Hey, I'm really struggling with this parenting situation that I'm dealing with my kid right now, but here's how Jesus is asking me to forgive my kid for the way that he's handling things. And here's why he wants me to do that because I know that forgiveness is going to relate to is going to lead to restoration in that relationship. Instead of me just clamping down and becoming more brutal and aggressive with my kid and punishing them even more harshly for what they've done wrong. I want our. Our relationship to be characterized by one of closeness and forgiveness and growth. So that as my kid ages up, I still have a relationship with him and he knows that I love him. I think every parent, when they look at their relationships with their kids would say that that's what they want in the future for their relationship with their children. But what they do right now, maybe helping them get there, or it may not. And the way of Jesus is a way that will help them to be able to get to that place. So you can invite people to consider the type of living that Jesus calls us to. And to say, Hey, this is really worth it. The kingdom of light has much more, better things to offer than the kingdom of darkness does. And calling people into that is simply a matter of teaching them about the way that you have chosen to live by just talking about your life every day with the people that you're around. So those are the two big categories that you want to work in, baptizing them in the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit, which is an act of war. And teaching them to obey everything that Jesus has commanded us, which is simply an act of sharing your life. And when you think about it in those ways, It becomes far more simple and way less intimidating or awkward than most of us have made talking about Jesus. It doesn't have to be this awkward standing on a street corner with a big sign, yelling things at people or going door to door and handing out pamphlets dressed in weird clothing. Like none of that has to be a part of the way that we share Jesus with others. It's meant to just happen as a part of our normal lives and to be a simple invitation to invite others, to consider something better than what they're currently experience. so that's my challenge to you. How can you be part of this grand mission that God is calling us to as his men? How can you be a man, a man who goes into the front lines and invites people out of darkness to come into the light and to give their allegiance to Jesus. I want you to think of two other men around you that you would consider. Praying for. And start to think about how you could talk to them in a way that might invite them into the kingdom of light. How could you share your life with them in a way that might show them that what Jesus is offering is better than what they're experiencing right now. So think of two men begin to pray for them and ask God how you could begin to have a conversation with them. That shows them the kingdom of light and the way of Jesus. All right guys, this has been an incredible series and we've got one more episode left to be able to talk about. I've been hinting about it for a while. As we have gone through this series, that there are some cool things happening at the end. And that's what we need to talk about in our final episode, coming up next. So I'll look forward to talking to you then on the manhood tribes show, I'll see you.