Introductory Texts
1. Text: 1 Corinthians 10
2. John 8:32
3. John 8:36
4. John 15:7
The 3 Basic Problems
1. Most men in most churches are trained to hear sermons, not to study the Word of God
2. Most pastors are content to win converts, not make disciples
3. Sermon’s don’t set you free, truth does
4. Mediocre men: They want authority, but not accountability
Identification is the basic issue of Christianity
1. Identification – Involvement – Investment – Increase
2. Identify by word, blood and spirit
We become identified with Christ by way of exchange (4 principles of exchange)
1. Communication is the basis of life
2. Exchange is the process of life
3. Balance is the key to life
a. I John 1:9
b. Romans 10:9-10
4. Agreement is the power of life
a. Disagreement results in powerlessness
b. Genesis 10
Five reasons you need to have courage
1. To face reality.
2. To admit need.
3. To be willing to change.
4. To make decisions.
5. To hold convictions.
Conclusion: Men need to have courage in order to be decisive, become accountable and make the tough decisions required to become more Christ like instead of being transformed by the world.
THE PRINCIPLES OF COURAGEOUS MANHOOD
As I prepared to go to a men’s retreat some years ago, God really dealt with my heart. I had pastored for many years and then traveled for major television ministries in America, and I had come to several conclusions.
Number 1: Most men in most churches are trained to hear sermons, not to study the Word of God.
Number 2: Most pastors are content to make converts, not disciples.
Number 3: Sermons don’t set you free, truth does.
Jesus said, “You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.” (John 8:32) He said, “He whom the Son sets free is free indeed.” (John 8:36) There’s a difference between being set free, which is instantaneous, and the making free, which is a constant thing. The issue with Christianity is not instant but constant. Jesus didn’t say if you experience Me and I experience you. He said, “If you abide in Me and I abide in You.” (John 15:7) It’s the abiding. It’s the constancy. Today, you have many people all over the world and many men who go all over the country trying to find an experience rather than simply abiding. I had found these things to be true in my life.
When I was invited to that retreat, I wanted to bring the men a word from God. I had come to the realization that we are living in the era of the mediocre man. Mediocre men want authority, not accountability. One of the years when we went through the country and two-thirds around the world teaching, we brought the ministry on motivation, mission and ministry, which were the three things that God produced in the life of Jesus Christ. A lot of people mistake Jesus’ mission for his motivation. I heard a minister say the reason why Jesus came was to seek and to save the lost. That was his mission. His ministry was prophet, priest and king, but his motivation was the love of the Father. Any mission to seek and to save the lost has to have the motivation of the love of the Father. If it’s not motivated by love and it’s motivated by obligation or by duty or a sense of responsibility, without love, then it’s like building a second story on a vacant lot. It becomes a legalistic approach to doing the work of God and you can get involvement that way, but you can’t get identification.
Men need to understand that identification is the basic issue of Christianity. From identification you get involvement. A lot of people say they want to get people involved in church, but involvement comes out of identification. Then, out of that comes investment. You can’t get people to invest until you get them involved. And, out of that comes increase. Those who are in business must understand that. Apple or Target or some great chain of stores around the world will advertise because they want people to become identified with their product. If they’ll become identified, they’ll become involved. And, if they become involved by going into the store, they’ll make an investment. Then, both the person and the store will get the increase. So, identification is the basic issue of Christianity.
When it comes to our identification with our parents, we are identified three ways: by word, by blood and by spirit. That’s exactly how Jesus Christ has made it possible for us to be related to God the Father. We are born of the incorruptible seed of the Word of God. It is the blood of Jesus Christ that cleanses us from all sin and it is Spirit that is placed in us whereby we cry Abba, Father with our identification with Him.
Now, the way you become identified with Jesus Christ is by exchange. There are four basic principles that have to do with exchange:
Number 1: Communication is the basis of life. The leaf attached to that stem and attached to that branch and into that trunk, that leaf has life as long as it’s attached and there’s communication that comes from the root. But when that leaf is severed and communication stops, abnormality sets in. The ultimate abnormality of that leaf is death, unless it is somehow reconciled and reinserted back into that tree so that it once again can have the communication that comes from the life of the sap of the tree. Any time communication stops, abnormality sets in. The world lives by the communication of the sun to the earth, by which we have photosynthesis, by which we get food and so on. The moon communicates to the earth whereby the tides are set in our oceans. So, everything in life is communicated. There’s a communication from the bees that go from flower to flower. All of life is based on communication. Communication is the basis of life.
Number 2: Exchange is the process of life. You get that principle from Calvary. Calvary is a place of exchange. The Bible says that Jesus came in His righteousness to be identified with our sin so that we can come in our sin and by repentance and faith become identified with his righteousness. It doesn’t do you any good to become involved in a church or in religious activities until you have first been identified with Jesus Christ. Without the identity of Jesus Christ, the involvement, investment and increase mean nothing. So, the basic issue of Christianity then is identification. It’s the basic issue of most of our lives, but the process, though, by which we had gained that identification is exchange. So, the process of exchange is necessary to life.
Everybody take a deep breath right now. Inhale. Now, hold that for ten minutes. You and I know we can’t, because we have to exhale after we inhale. There is a process of exchange that goes on in our lungs and that gives us life. We breathe in oxygen and we breathe out carbon dioxide. We breathe in that which gives life and we breathe out that which takes life. So, there’s a process of exchange. All our human bodies have a basic metabolism that’s comprised of two things: anabolism and catabolism, the building up of the tissues and the carrying away of the waste products. When those are in balance, your basic metabolism is normal and you can live a normal life. When they are out of balance, you have difficulty. For example, anemia means that you have more waste products being carried away than the anabolic processes by which the blood is able to carry it. Therefore, by anemia you begin to lose strength. And then you have to take something in order to bring that back into line and bring it into balance. That’s what the medicinal purposes are for, to give you that basic metabolism in your life. So, exchange is the process of life.
Number 3: Balance is the key to life. Anybody who has a checkbook knows that. Balance is the key to life. It is true emotionally, it’s true mentally, it’s true spiritually. When ships are going through the water on the ocean and their ballast shifts so that it becomes unbalanced, then as it becomes unbalanced, it will throw the ship over and it will sink. On the ocean, balance becomes the key to life.
Let’s look at balance that has to do in the kingdom of God. For example, confession. You hear a great deal about the word confession, but the Bible teaches us the principle of the balance of confession. The balance of confession is that in 1 John 1:9 we read in the Bible:
9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Having then confessed out sin, Romans 10:9-10 teaches:
9 that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
You have to confess out the sin and having done that, you have to confess in the righteousness. That’s how you put on Christ. That’s how you put off the old flesh. So, you confess one out, you confess one in. Now, if all you ever do is confess your weakness and confess your sin in repentance, the repentance you live in will only lead you to despair. And if you only have faith without repentance then you are going to live in presumption. So, we find that we have to have the repentance and we have to have the faith. So, you repent of your sins and then you exercise faith. That’s exactly what He says. We read in 1 John 1:9 that beyond forgiveness, there is cleansing.
Many men come to the altar to pray. They pray until they have a mental catharsis or a spiritual purgative. Then they walk away feeling as though they have been released from that heavy burden of guilt and they are forgiven. But they go back and do the same dumb thing all over again because they have never waited in the presence of God for the cleansing to come. Beyond forgiveness, there is cleansing. It’s not enough to be forgiven, we must be cleansed.
Number Four: Agreement is the power of life. Agreement is the place of power. The place of agreement is the place of power. All disagreement results in powerlessness. Agreement always produces power.
You take some man who wants to build a house. You have to come to an agreement with the owner of the property. In the United States, you have to get your license from the city. You have to have approval from the planning committee. You have to have all of these things in agreement before you can begin to build. To begin to build without that means you’re in disagreement with them. As long as you’re in disagreement with them, you’re powerless to build. It’s the place of agreement that gives you the power.
It’s the same way in the kingdom of God. Before you came to Christ, there was no power of God in your life that enabled you to live an overcoming life over sin. But, once you came to an agreement with Jesus Christ and said, “Lord I am in need. I have failed, I’ve come short of your glory, I’m making a mess of my life. I’m dumping the whole thing, I ask you to forgive me. Lord I agree with you that you’re my Savior and my Lord.” When you come to Him and admit that in repentance, Jesus Christ then changes your mind. He renews your mind, regenerates your heart. He gives you a whole new outlook on life and His Spirit comes into you to enable you then to live the Christ life.
What happens is that you’re translated from out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God’s own dear Son. The life you now live, you live by the faith of Him who gave His life for you. This is a whole new way of living. So, you no longer live in powerlessness, but now you live in the power of God. And even when we do sin, praise God, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous who, because of His presence at the right hand of the Father sitting before the throne of God, when we approach God and we ask in His name anything, the Father will do it because Jesus paid the price at Calvary.
The point is that before we came to Jesus, there was no power of God in our lives. But once the Spirit of God came into us, once the blood cleansed us, once the Word began to dwell in us, the power of God came into our lives. Disagreement results in powerlessness but agreement produces power.
The Bible says in Genesis 10 that the people were trying to build a tower up to the heavens. They wanted to make a name for themselves. God came down and took a look at them, saw that because they were all of one language, they were all of one political persuasion, they were all of one mind, they were all of one heart, because they were all in unity, they were going to be able to do it. So, God brought tongues and divided their ability to communicate. And when He brought the tongues so that it brought the disagreement, it resulted in powerlessness and they could not then be able to continue to build. So the disagreement brought powerlessness.
Now because God’s transcendent glory is God’s ability to take the things that are meant for evil and turn them around and make them work for good, God took the tongues of the Old Testament that produced the disagreement that resulted in powerlessness, and when the people came on the day of Pentecost and they were all with one accord and one place and the Spirit of God came upon them, it was the tongues that released the power of God in their lives. So, tongues then became the blessing that had been the cursing in the Old Testament. God’s transcendent glory is His ability to take the things that are meant for evil and to turn them around and make them work for our good.
Disagreement is the reason why many of us don’t have the excellence that we desire. It’s the reason why some of us don’t achieve the things that we want to achieve because we’re working in disagreement with ourselves.
You take some guy that’s going to work on the job. He hates where he’s going to work, and as a result he imagines being someplace else, and his heart is back home with his family. He is in disagreement while he works. He will never achieve excellence there and will never be able to do what he needs to be able to do as long as he’s in disagreement.
You take a guy that goes out on a golf course and just before he leaves he realizes on his desk is a big pile of work and his wife calls and says the plumbing broke in the garage and there’s water all over the garage floor and some guy walks by at the same time and says it’s a beautiful day, let’s go play golf. So, he turns to the secretary and says, take care of this pile of work, calls his wife says, call the plumber and goes out and plays golf and shoots 110…on the first 9. The reason is because he’s in disagreement! His heart’s at home, his mind’s at work and his body is on the golf course. He cannot shoot a good game of golf. But, you put him out there when the family is on vacation and there’s little work and it’s all done, get him on the golf course where he’s got his mind, his heart and his spirit all in unity and he’ll be able to shoot a good game of golf.
It’s the same way in our home. When there’s disagreement or disunity in our home, there’s powerlessness in our home. Children are master psychologists. They know if they can produce disagreement between mom and dad, they can take authority in the home. You take a 17-year-old boy that’s just got his driver’s license and he’s got a date. He says, “Dad, can I have the car?” Dad says, “Yeah, but you gotta be in by 11:00.” “No sweat Dad, I’ll be here.” He goes out, 11:00 comes, no boy, no car. 12:00, no boy, no car. 1:00, no boy, no car. Dad’s up, he’s fidgeting, he’s fussing, he’s tense, he’s tight, he’s anxious. Finally about 1:30 in the morning, here comes the boy. Dad says, “You’re grounded, don’t ask for the car again for a month, give me the keys.”
The boy goes off to bed. The following week, the girl he’s been wanting to date finally says yes. He has to have the car. Got to have the car! Got to have it! So, who does he ask? He walks in and says, “Mom, can I have the car?” She says, “Sure.” So, he walks in to Dad and says, “Hey Dad, where are the keys? Mom says I can have the car.” Dad says, “I don’t care what your mother says, you’re not going to get that car.” Boy walks back and says, “Dad says he doesn’t care what you say.” She says, “You tell him I said you could have that car.” He goes back again and says, “Dad, Mom says I can have the car.” Dad says, over my dead body.” The boy goes back and says, “Mom, Dad says I can have it over his dead body.” She says, “Well if that’s the way he wants it.”
So, Mom and Dad get in a huge argument and in disagreement. While they’re arguing and disagreeing, what does the boy do? Takes the keys and goes. He produced what in the home? And when he produced the disagreement between Mom and Dad, Mom and Dad lost authority.
You see, that holds true, not just whether it’s a home, but it holds true in a business. It holds true in a church. It holds true in a nation. In American when John F. Kennedy stood up and said, we’re going to put a man on the moon within ten years, the whole country got into…Agreement.
And, we put him on the moon in how many years? Eight years. But, we went to Vietnam and the country got into disagreement and as a result of it, we lost our power and we brought our boys back in a way we should have never brought them back home. You see, World War II was the soldier’s war. Soldiers fight until they win because if you win, you have victory and if you have victory you have peace. We had the Eisenhowers and the Bradleys. We had peace as a result of winning World War II. But, in Vietnam it was a politician’s war and politicians do things by committee because committees do things by compromise so that no one has to be held accountable individually for the decision of the committee. That’s why God never called a committee to lead a church. He calls a visionary.
So, we’ve given you four principles. What are they? Communication is the basis of life, exchange is the process of life, balance is the key to life, agreement is the power of life. You need to understand those in your life as man because those are principles of the kingdom of God.
Now, I was pointing out to you a little bit ago that identification is the basic issue of Christianity and out of identification then comes involvement. To have involvement without identification is like building the second story on a vacant lot. You can be involved in church all you want, but without identification with Jesus Christ, you don’t have an identity that is established for eternity. That’s why you have to confess Jesus Christ. You cannot get rid of the identification. It’s basic. Out of the involvement comes the investment. People that are willing to identify with the church, become involved with it, are willing to tithe. The tithe then gives them and the church both increase.
Now, when I was going up to minister at that retreat in Oregon, there were verses of scripture out of 1 Corinthians 10 that have now become the basis of the book Maximized Manhood.
In 1 Corinthians 10, in the 6th verse it talks about the children of Israel who were going out of Egypt into Canaan. Now, one of the things you have to remember is that Egypt was a type of the world. Canaan was the Promised Land. God wanted them out of Egypt and into Canaan. God always thinks about where He wants us, not where we are. He takes us from where we are to get us where He wants us. So, when it talks about salvation, we are not simply saved from sin, we are saved to eternal life. We are not saved from filthy habits; we are saved to a sanctified life. We are saved to, not simply saved from. Men who are only saved from wander around in a wilderness and eventually die like the children of Israel did because they came out but the never came in. So, it’s not being saved from, it’s being saved to. It’s not coming out, it’s going in. The issue then is on the positive and not on the negative. God never ends anything on a negative. He always ends it on a positive. So if you’re going through anything in your life right now that is negative, thank God it isn’t the end because God will not allow the thing to end in the negative when you’ve submitted and committed it to God. His transcendent glory will turn it around and make it work for your good and His glory.
That’s God’s ability to do it.
The five sins that are mentioned here in 1 Corinthians 10 are lust in the sixth verse, idolatry in the seventh verse, eighth verse fornication or sex sins, ninth verse tempting Christ and tenth verse murmuring. The five sins that kept the children of Israel from out of Canaan are the same five sins that keep men from being maximized in their manhood today. Lust, idolatry, sex sins, tempting Christ and murmuring.
This ministry began that first Saturday in February 1980 when I stood up in front of those men and said, sex sins will be the problem of the church in the 1980s. Regrettably, that was a prophecy that came to pass, but it was a prophecy.
Now, we’ve got a new decade and a new century ahead of us. God’s doing new things and great things. But, it was this kind of teaching that enabled the ministry to get started, and when it first began I was commanding men to repent of their sex sins and commanding them to do it out loud because the principle of the kingdom is, and it’s in the book Maximized Manhood, sin can only go out of the life by the way of the mouth. Sin can only go out of the life by the way of the mouth.
You can’t beat it out, you can’t force it out, you can’t do anything except confess it out because Christianity is not built in suppression and repression, it’s built on confession. So, that’s why in our lives when we suppress things or we repress things, those things remain in our lives. They can only go out by the way of the mouth, so the only way they are going to go out is by our ability to confess them.
One of the problems we have in our lives is that when things occur in our lives, we don’t want to admit them. We don’t want to face them. See that’s the reason why you need to understand courage. There are five reasons you need to have courage. Five reasons you need to have courage.
Number 1: To face reality.
Number 2: To admit need.
Number 3: To be willing to change.
Number 4: To make decisions.
Number 5: To hold convictions.
Five reasons you need to have courage. That’s why the Bible says in 2 Peter 1: “Add to your faith virtue.” The word virtue means moral excellence in its primary sense. It means masculinity in its secondary sense and in its tertiary sense it means valor or courage. Add to your faith courage. It’s not enough to have faith; you have to have courage added to your faith. That’s what Jesus was doing in the Garden of Gethsemane when he prayed until great drops of blood like sweat came out on his forehead. He was praying because he had faith, but he was adding courage to his faith in order to face Calvary. It was reprehensible; it was heinous; it was something that was repulsive to him, but he was willing to face it. But, he had to have the courage to face it to add to his faith and that’s the way it is with us.
We’ll never get rid of those things in our lives that are negative. We’ll never be able to get rid of those things in our lives unless we are willing to be man enough to face reality. That’s one of the things many of us don’t want to do is face reality. That’s the problem with a drug addict. That’s the problem with an alcoholic is what they call denial. He denies he has a problem. You take men that are drinkers and are alcoholics but will never admit it. They’re in denial. Or it’s like a man who is in cocaine or marijuana or whatever it may be and has to have his fix and yet he says he’s not a drug addict. He’s in denial. And, the first thing you have to do to have any solution to a problem is admit you’ve got a need or admit you’ve got a problem. You can’t do it until you’re willing to admit that.
So, number one, you have to face reality. Number two, you have to admit need and number three you’ve got to be willing to change. Change is not change until it is change.
The common problem all of us have is that we always judge other people by what they do, but ourselves by our good intentions. That’s the tendency that all of us have, and so as a result of it, many times we’re not willing to change. But, if we don’t change, if we’re not willing to change then we cannot grow. The only constant in maturity is change. So, if you’re not willing to change, you can’t mature. If you’re not willing to change when you come out of the womb as an infant, you’ll never become a child. If you’re not willing to change, you’ll never be an adolescent. If you’re not willing to change, you’ll never become an adult. So, change is the constant in life. So, you’ve got to be willing to change.
Now, I recognize the fact that in the textbooks of our country today, one of the things that they’re doing with moral relativism is saying there are no absolutes and everything is subject to change, so therefore the only constant is change. But, what they’ve done is taken a truth and made it go into error. Error oftentimes is nothing but truth carried to the extreme. That’s why the closer a lie is to the truth, the more damning it is. But, when it comes to us in our lives where change has to occur, that’s why I put it in the book Potential Principle. In our lives where change has to occur, if change will not come from the top, it will come by revolution from the bottom. If it won’t occur voluntarily from the top, it will occur involuntarily from the bottom. So, what happens is you got to recognize the fact that where change is necessary, change must occur. Now, in yours and my life as men, when there are things that are wrong in our families, there are things that need to be taken care of and corrected. That change has to begin in us in order for it to be effective in their lives.
The fourth thing then is to make decisions. See, mediocre men want authority but not accountability. So, as a result of it, they won’t make decisions because they don’t want to have
to be held accountable. That’s why you’ve got men that are journeymen but not craftsmen. It’s the reason why you have politicians not statesmen. What have I done to you? Have I hurt you? How many are listening to me? Let me see your hands. But, it’s nonetheless true. You have to be willing to make decisions. See that’s one of the characteristics of a mediocre man is in decisiveness and the Bible says an indecisive or double minded man is what: Unstable in a few of his ways.
Did I say it wrong? Oh, I’m sorry. A double minded man is unstable in some of his ways. That’s what I said.
So, it affects his entire life. So, if he’s double minded in regard to God, it affects everything in his life. Are you following me? If he’s double minded in regard to his wife, it affects everything in his life. If he’s double minded about his wife. He knows he’s married to her, but he doesn’t want to be married to her. He wants to live like single while he’s married. He’s double minded. It will affect everything in his life. It will affect his work. It will affect his relationships with other people. It will affect everything about him because a double minded man is unstable in all of his ways. So, we have to be willing to make decisions.
You know how decisive men are today, don’t you? Try it one more time. You know decisive men are today, don’t you?
Thought you’d never ask. Tuesday. His anniversary is Thursday. He calls his wife and says, honey I want to take you out to dinner. She’s excited. Thursday comes, they get the babysitter, they get the meal taken care of. Both of them are coiffed and perfumed, they’re ready attired, they walk out the door, wave goodbye to the kids, the babysitter, go down and get to the car. He opens the car door for her, she gets in, he closes the car door, walks around to his side of the car, opens the door, gets in, takes the key out his pocket and puts them in the ignition. But, before he starts the car, turns to her and says …where do you want to go?
And, she says, I don’t care, anywhere you want to take me. And, he says, but it’s your anniversary, I want to take you where you want to go.
She said, but you invited me, you make the decision.
Well, I want you to make it because I want you to be happy; I want you to be able to go.
I don’t want to make the decision, this is your invitation, you take me.
I’m not going to make the decision. You’re going to make it. I’m not going to make it.
Twenty minutes later sitting in front of the golden arches.
There in front of McDonald’s hamburger stand, he turns to her and says, honey, I’m sorry, the devil really got in there. Devil didn’t have anything to do with that, he’s just dumb. Dumb because she wanted him to be decisive because decisiveness is one of the characteristics of manhood.
And, then the last one of course, the last one, hold convictions. I made mention one day that I was so sick and tired of weak-willed, soft-spirited, limp-wristed, pussyfooters tippy toeing through the tulips.
What I am simply saying guys is in this day of age, thank God that He is moving on the church to put new courage into the hearts of His men to be able to stand against the things that are going on in this world and to declare the virtue and the name of Jesus Christ come what may. I want you to know something: The world is finding a new generation of men that are willing to stand up and take their stand for Jesus Christ and not care what the world says, but rather than the world changing them, for them to change the world.
God wants you to be a maximized man because manhood and Christlikeness are synonymous.
