Why God Chooses Certain Men

Christian men are starving for purpose, brotherhood, and the presence of God. In this episode of The Valiant Forge, Mark Osborne explores what truly makes a man set apart and why God still chooses ordinary men to do extraordinary things.

What makes certain men feel different?
 Why do some men carry a spiritual weight that cannot be manufactured?
 And what does it actually take to become one of the men God can trust?

Through the stories of Gideon’s 300, David’s mighty men, and the disciples, this episode dives into the real process of spiritual formation, obedience, surrender, hardship, and intimacy with God.

This is not the churchy version.
 Not the Instagram version.
 The real thing.

If you’ve ever felt called to become more than a passive Christian man, this conversation is for you.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Have you ever come across a man that before he even says a word, something in you just says he's different. There's a steadiness about him, a quiet confidence. And it's not something that comes from ego image or trying to look put together. He just feels rooted, grounded, unshaken. Like he knows exactly who he is, and he knows exactly what he was made for, and he's not performing for anyone. Deep down, I think every man wants to become that kind of man. A man God can trust, a man who can stand firm when the world shakes, a man who carries the presence of God into every room he walks into without saying a word. And when I look through the scriptures, I see these men everywhere. Gideon's three hundred, David's mighty men, fishermen and tax collectors who turn the world upside down, ordinary men, but somehow set apart. And the question that I've been asking myself for years what makes a man become like that?

SPEAKER_00 1:02

Welcome to the valiant for the podcast. When we help men overcome life death, don't better in the world and become a valiant warrior for death. Are you ready to overcome your doubt and fulfill your purpose just by gide? If so, let's go.

SPEAKER_01 1:27

Welcome to the Volume Forge podcast. I want to talk about the men that I mentioned at the top of the episode. Because I know men like this. Men who carry a spiritual weight that you just cannot manufacture. When you are in their presence, you just know there's something different about them. One of my mentors is one of these men. And I've asked him, I've asked him, how do I become more like you? And he said, You don't try to become more like me, you try to be more like Jesus. But when you're around a man like this, you want to be around him so you can learn, so you can glean from him. When he speaks, it's not loud, it's steady. And these kind of men, there's a depth in them that only comes from truly walking with God. And the older I get, the more I realize I don't want to be impressive. I don't want to be known. I don't want to look strong on the outside while being hollow on the inside. I don't want to look like I got it all figured out. But what I do want to be is I want to be rooted. I want to be set apart. I want to carry the presence of God in a way that's unmistakable. So today I want to talk about what that actually means. Not the church version, not the Instagram version, the real thing. What does it look like for an ordinary man to be set apart by God? And when you look throughout the scriptures, you start to see a pattern. God has always separated men for a purpose. Not because they were perfect, not because they were the most talented, not because they had the cleanest story, not because they had the best story, but because they were willing, available, and surrendered. Now some of these men, just like myself, they weren't surrendered in the beginning. God had to refine them. God had to forge them. Take Gideon, for example. God called him out while he was hiding in wine press. I'm not going to go back into the whole hiding story. I talked about that last week. If you want to find out more about that, you can go back to that episode. But let's talk about Gideon when God met him. He had a false identity. He felt like he was a loser, even though God told him he wasn't. God told him he was one of these men who were set apart. But he didn't believe it. But God gave him some things to do, and he worked it out. He figured it out. He got to the point to where he called all of Israel to come and face the Midianites. But God said that was too many men. Now this is what I'm talking about. Are you one of the three hundred? Out of a hundred thousand men, I believe it was. God chose three hundred. Are you one of these three hundred men? Can you be one of these three hundred men? Don't you feel like there's something inside of you that makes you one of those three hundred men? And here's the thing about those three hundred men. It reveals something about the heart of God. He's never impressed by the crowds. He's looking for a man he can trust. He's looking for a man who is after his own heart. Speaking of a man after God's own heart, let's talk about David and the mighty men, the one that I talk about all the time on the podcast, the ones who were disgruntled, disheartened, and in debt. These are the men that came to David in the cave. When David was at his lowest and they met him there, and David led them. They ended up becoming David's mighty men. I believe there were thirty of them in all. They were all these kind of men that I'm talking about that when you get in their presence you just feel there's there's something different about them. And then you go to the disciples, the fishermen, the tax collectors. And in that day the tax collectors were the lowest of the Jews. The Jews did not like the tax collectors, especially the Jewish tax collectors. These were ordinary men who were overlooked. But Jesus used them to change the entire world through the Holy Spirit. And the more I think about it, maybe these men weren't special. Obviously they were called. God called them. But maybe he saw something in there, something in them that he is seeing in you right now. Maybe they are willing to be used, to be set apart, to be called by God. Maybe they were willing to let God form them. And how does God form a man? Becoming formed with God comes from time with God. The first thing that separates a man is time with God. Real time, quiet time, honest time. Because you can't carry the presence of God with you if you've never been in his presence. And I'm not talking about performing spiritually. I'm talking about a man who actually knows God in private. A man who prays, and when he prays, he feels something stirring in his spirit because God is speaking to him. He waits, he listens, he hears the voice of God. When you spend true time in God's presence, and I know this because I spent so much time trying to pray out of a spiritual discipline and not really having that relationship with God. When I got to the point of knowing, and I'm not saying I'm one of these men, I'm not saying I'm one of these men that when you get in my presence, you just know there's something different about me. I'm just like you. I'm trying to figure it out. But I do know the more time that I spend with God, the closer I get to fulfilling my purpose. This podcast would have never started if I hadn't been spending time in God's presence, truly knowing God. Another thing that sets men apart is obedience. Set apart men become dangerous because they obey. Even when it's uncomfortable, even when it costs them, even when nobody sees it. There are a lot of things that I do, and I'm a podcaster, so you know I talk about things that I do because I'm trying to encourage things. There are things that I do, and again, this is me being very careful. I talked about this last week because I don't want to be the man that says, hey, look at me and look what I've done. But I do things because God tells me to. I talk to people in restaurants, I talk to people in grocery stores when I'm out shopping because God says, go tell this person that I love them. I do it all the time now. I was never this guy before. And I'm not saying this to come off like I am something special because I'm not. But I am being obedient. There are times that I have conversations with people that I never mentioned and I will never mention because God led me to speak to them, and we had a deep, honest, personal conversation that shouldn't be shared with anybody. But when you're obedient and you step up and you become the man that God wants you to be, when you start hearing that voice, and again, that comes from the first thing that I talked about time with God, time in God's presence. Because once you start spending time in God's presence, he's going to call you to do something, and you need to be obedient in order to become set apart, in order to become one of these men that fulfills his purpose. That is different. Most men want strength without surrender. But the men God trusts, the men God uses, they obey before they understand. And this really is where different set apart men become refined. And that's through hardship. I think suffering changes men. I've been through a lot of it myself. It helps you grow. It's not easy to go through. This isn't supposed to be easy. Pain exposes us. Hardship strips away the performance. Failure humbles us. I was just on a podcast where the guy's like, How did your failure cause you to refine your faith? Because when you fail, you've got no one else to lean on. And if you trust in Jesus, if you trust in God, it it refines your faith, it makes you stronger, it makes you spend time in his presence, it makes you become more obedient. So you see these three things that I said that makes you set apart, that makes you different, they all kind of go together. And they all start at the first point. Time in God's presence. You want to be different. You want to be the man that people say, Man, there's something different about him. And it's not about you. Go back to my episode last week. It's not about us. There's just something different. These men that I'm talking about that I know, I see these as special men. They don't see themselves as that. They know who they are in Christ. It's a quiet, holy confidence that they carry. I want to be one of these men. I aspire to be like them. Not because of who they are, but because who they are in Christ. God has a way of using hard seasons to refine us, to form us. Some of the strongest men I know didn't get there through success. They got there through surrender in the middle of pain. And here's the hard truth. Most men will spend their lives distracted. It's easy to get distracted. I sometimes myself, I sometimes myself still find myself easily distracted by these things right here. They will distract you. They'll make you spiritually passive. Spending too much time binging Netflix, spending too much time doing things that you shouldn't be doing. They will make you distractive and spiritually passive. There's nothing wrong with those things, but you have to refine them. Don't spend too much time doing them. You don't want to be the man that never becomes the man God called you to be. You have a purpose. If you are a Christian man, you have a purpose. God has designed you for a certain purpose. Most men never become who they're supposed to be because they never truly surrender. And that scares me. I feel like I'm surrendering now, but it's so easy to slip back into the spiritually numb, into the dryness, into the distracted place. It takes intentionality to stay in God's presence, to stay connected to God. I don't want to spend my life pretending to follow God while staying comfortable. I don't want to look strong while being hollow. I want to become the kind of man that spends time with Jesus. I want to become the kind of man that you know that I've been spending time with Jesus. The kind of man my wife can trust. The kind of man my children respect. My children are adults now, but I still want them to respect me. They do. But I can lose that by becoming spiritually numb by becoming distracted. I don't want them to lose that respect in me. I want them to see the man of God I am becoming. I want to become the kind of man that other man can lean on. A man who carries the presence of God into every room he walks into. Just like the man I spoke about at the top of this. You just know there's something different about them. I want to be that man. And I want you to be that man. And maybe that starts with finally giving God your full attention. In private, when nobody sees it, because I don't think these men in the scriptures that I mentioned earlier were superheroes. I think they were surrendered. Maybe not in the beginning, but after spending time in God's presence, if we go back to Gideon, an angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon. That angel of the Lord doesn't say an angel, it says the angel. The angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon. That was Jesus Christ. He spent time in God's presence. Maybe not willingly, God just showed up. Maybe this video right now is God showing up in your life, and the presence of Christ is in the room wherever you are, listening to this video, watching this video, listening to this podcast, whatever it is. Maybe the presence of God is speaking to you right now, and He's showing up in your life, asking you to surrender and spend time with Him so that you can become a man set apart to be used by God. And I think one of the biggest reasons that men stay stuck is because they try to fight these battles alone. Isolation hardens men, but brotherhood shapes them. That's why I started this podcast, this movement, this community, because God told me to. I'm trying to become one of those men that are being obedient to God and following God's will and follow God's plan. But I don't want to do it alone because I know how important it is for us to walk this out together. Come with me. Be one of the 300 men. Follow this podcast. I have a community that I created on school. It's called The Cave of Doom. If you listen to the podcast at all, most of my interview episodes, it's one of my signature questions. And I mentioned it at the top of this. That's where mighty men are formed. Right now there's not a whole lot going on with it, but as it grows, there is going to be more going on with it. Because I I don't want this just to be a thing I started just because. I want it to be different. I want it to be a place where men who are different can be formed, can be forged through the Holy Spirit, through the presence of God. So if you want to join me, if you want to be one of these men who are set apart, not so I can build up an audience, I just want to build a space where Christian men can come together, find each other, work together, and become different, become set apart so that the world can see them carrying the presence of God with them. Because when you carry the presence of God with you, it's going to spread everywhere. Our purpose on this earth to is to advance the kingdom of God. And as we show up, spend time in God's presence, and show up to others in the world, and we're obedient to what He's telling us to do, we can see this world change. So do you want to be different? Do you want to be one of these men? Do you have this feeling deep down inside of you that you were meant for something more? If that's the case, get in God's presence with that. Stay strong, stay valiant, be different, be set apart, and be blessed.