Manspeak

By Walt Alexander

Yesterday, as I was reading 2 Peter 2, I was provoked by what Peter wrote about sin. Peter is writing to the church, warning them of false teachers and prophets. In explaining them, he tells the due judgment of the unrighteous (sinful).

Here’s what Peter taught me about sin:
1. Sin is the result of a sinful nature (v.12).
Just as sin in these false teachers and prophets is a result of their sinful nature, I am a sinner. This fact is unavoidable. Psalm 51:5 says, “in sin did my mother conceive me.” No one taught me to sin. I am a sinner by birth. Remember kids. Who taught them to not share their toys? Or who taught them to hit their sister or brother? Matter of fact, who taught me not to share my bread or coffee? No one. Indeed, it is our instinct to sin. We are driven about by our sinful desires and cravings.

2. Sin carries ignorance and deception (v.12).
These false teachers and prophets were blaspheming (speaking evil) about things they did not know. They were ignorant and deceived. They lacked knowledge of their evilness. Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful and beyond cure, who can understand it?” So, my heart is deceitful. I must assume ignorance and not assume that I understand or have arrived at a sufficient understanding of my sinfulness.

This means I must not assume innocence after a conflict with a friend. I must question my motives and carefully investigate my heart by the light of the Holy Spirit.

3. Sin promises pleasure and delivers temporary pleasure (v.13).
Isn’t this true? Don’t you get some deceitful satisfaction in disobeying your conscience or in responding sinfully? That is because sin promises and delivers temporary pleasure. There is temporary pleasure in sex before marraige, lust, bitterness, slander, white lies, etc. But this pleasure is deadly.

This is quite sobering in considering seemingly good things. Sin is not merely in desiring inherently sinful things but in prizing perfectly good things too much. This means we must search all lives for good things that we love too much, like iBooks, iPods, cars, clothes, food, pleasing men, etc. These things are not inherently sinful, but they, like sinful things, compete with our passion for and satisfaction in God.

4. Sin is insatiable (“always needing more and impossible to satisfy”).
Just as these false teachers and prophets were never satisfied, my sinful cravings will never be satisfied. One of the biggest lies of temptation is: you will be satisfied. It promises that if you just give it this last thing, then it will be satisfied and the craving will be no more. Wrong. Sin will constantly be craving for more and more and more. It will never cease.

In fact, John Owen says that the more you give in to sin, or to a sinful craving, the more strength it has. The more you treasure up, the more treasure there is.

How are you doing?
Do you tend to respond to a post like this, saying, “That’s not for me”?
Do you think that’s not for me?
Do you think, “I am doing well right now in that area…I don’t need that”?

If that’s you, you are not alone. I often struggle with an accurate view of temptation. I often think I am not that bad off. Or I think, “God won’t care about this. This is just normal.”

Sin is unavoidable, serious, deadly, deceitful, and insatiable. It must be seriously considered and continually killed. As John Owen challenges us, “Be killing sin, or it be killing you.”

By Walt Alexander

The past few weeks we have briefly studied self-control. We talked first of where we lacked self-control, where we were being controlled by our passions. Then, we talked last week about self-control with our relationship with God, mainly on how to deny ourselves in order to enjoy God. Finally,  in light of Mike’s provoking message from Psalm 90 last week, I wanted offer a insights on time management. Much of time management is self-control. It is making decisions based on priorities, not upon our oceanic feelings (like, “Do I feel like reading for class today?”) or upon the millions of unurgent demands (like, “Should I go ahead and take six precious hours of time to organize my sock drawer or should I read a worthwhile book?”).

That said, our context is Christmas break. In a few short days or a week, you will be out of class for about a month. This time can either be well spent or can fade into the abyss of nothingness (like most of my breaks were/are). So, how can we redeem this break? How can be productive?

Here are a few thoughts:

Remember the days are evil. They are evil because they past so quickly. Like grass, though fresh in the morning, we fade with the evening. Our time here is limited. Therefore, let us strive to count every day as an opportunity to glorify God.  This is our wisdom, to number our days (Ps. 90:14, Eph. 5:15-16). Remember that this break will be wasted day by day if you don’t stop it!

Read, Read, Read. Spend much time reading and communing with God. Have a plan to read and study a particular book of the Bible over the break (like Phillipians, Ephesians, James or something). Regards of the book, plan a book to read. And read it! “Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you” (James 4:8). If you aside time to meet with God, he will meet with you.

Also, take home a book to read over the break. Take a book that will fuel your passion for God and for the gospel. Try The Gospel For Real Life by Jerry Bridges, or Don’t Waste Your Life by John Piper, or The Enemy Within by Kris Lunguard, or The Pleasures of God by John Piper, or Sex Is Not The Problem (Lust Is) by Joshua Harris or Living The Cross-Centered Life by C.J. Mahaney. These books have greatly challenged me and provoked me over the years.

Expect temptation to meet you at home. Though you may have had an incredible semester enjoying the gospel and enjoying rich fellowhsip with God, your old temptations are waiting at home for you. In fact, they are happy because you probably don’t even think they exist anymore. This is a monumental mistake. They still exist and still have massive power. In fact, Peter reminds us, “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Pt. 5:8).

So, flee temptation. If you struggled with certain sin patterns when you were in high school, avoid those situations completely. Get accountability. Find two or three friends before you leave and ask them to keep you accountable. Have them each call you several times a week (or a day) to check up. This is not weakness. This is true strength - humility exhibited in opening up oneself to others and begging for the help of others.

Pursue servanthood. Serve at home. Do not go home waiting to be serve. Find something that needs to be done and do it! Serve your mother. Take down the Christmas tree, make wassel, cook breakfast for the family, serve your dad coffee in bed, get the paper for the family, go to the grocery store, clean the house, etc. This is a privilege! You get to serve your family with joy and gratefulness for how they serve!

Pursue fellowship. If your siblings and/or parents are Christians, initiate biblical fellowship with them. Or if they aren’t, find a friend to fellowship with. Ask them what they are reading? Ask them about their prayer life? Ask them about their goals in their walk with God?

By Walt Alexander

Is self-control merely bodybuilding?
Is it merely about training your body and possessing absolute control of it?
Is it merely about who has the biggest bench press and who can do the most push-ups?

Before it can begin anywhere else or before it can have significant impact on any other area of your life, self-control must take root in your relationship with God. Really, our relationship with God is often one of the most neglected areas of our lives. We can succeed in going to church, going to bible study, and going to various other events, but our lives alone can be totally different. We often have little or no self-control with the spiritual disciplines. We are often wallowing in laziness and apathy.

Here’s my brief history in this area:

A couple of years ago, about a year after I had gotten saved, I seriously lacked self-control. I loved the Lord and I loved to read. But I could not get up in the morning to meet with him. In those days, I had one of ascending alarms that gets louder and louder with every beep. Because I was either deaf or lazy or both, it would take me forever to get out of bed to turn it off. Many days my Asian roommate (won’t be my last either!), Andy Young, would end of screaming at me or beating on the wall in sync with the alarm. Sometimes, someone would come from another room in the house to turn the alarm off. My entire, daily life was formed around my laziness.

Also, I remember, soon thereafter, I was talking with Kevin Shipp about how I could not possibly take 8am summer school classes because it would be way too early but commenting on how I really needed these classes in order to graduate. He, being the friend that he is, remarked something like, “That’s ridiculous. You need to get up and get to work.” Looking back, this was a pivotal moment of my life. I had to choose whether to serve my lazy lifestyle or to be productive, work hard, and get things done. This moment immensely served my relationship with God, because I began to consistently seek Him in the morning. I only pray I may grow to be more and more disciplined and self-controlled. The point is: there is much hope.

So, how can we cultivate self-control in meeting with God?

Here are a few thoughts (in no particular order):

Remind yourself that reading the Bible is the primary way to know God. Romans 10:17 reads, “Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ.” We must read, read, read to know Him. Think about this. We have a source of true knowledge of the holy, all-knowing, all-powerful God. 

Go to bed early. As Howard Varnedoe has said, “The battle for the morning is won the night before.” Obnoxiously simple, but definitely true.

Set a reasonable but earlier time to get up to read. Though the Bible never says “you must read me in the morning,” in my experience and the experiencing of many, many others, the morning is the best time to read. It is when all is silent and the cries of the coming day cannot be heard (or at least can still be silenced).

Have a reading plan. It doesn’t have to be elaborate, but know where you are turning each morning. The Bible roulette is no incentive to get up.

Have a place. If you don’t identify a place beforehand, it is extremely easy to place it on the backburner. Also, go to the same place consistently is very helpful, but hard for college vagabonds to do.

By Walt Alexander

As leaders, we must be self-controlled. We must not be tossed to and fro by the desires of our body and our deceitful hearts. We must be men of faith, different than the men of the world. We must steadfast and controlled. So, over the next couple weeks, I will strive to give some practical ways to cultivate self-control.

Why be self-controlled? Why be self-governed?
We want to be self-controlled because we want to live for Jesus. We want to magnify Him with our lives. We want to honor him with our lips and our lives. At the cross, we were set free from slavery (Rom 6:1-10; Gal 3:1). He died in our place, receiving the just punishment for all of our sins and freeing us from slavery to those sins. Therefore, we must not be a slave to anything because we have been set free! We want to be self-controlled so that we can live for Jesus, magnify Jesus, and honor Jesus.

Also, we want to be self-controlled because we want to have true, substantive joy. This is only found in Jesus. The joy of the world in excess and indulgence is a thin, weak joy that leads to eternity in hell. But the joy of Jesus in self-control is deep, massive, eternal joy.

Look at Psalm 16:11.

You make known to me the path of life;
In your presence there is fullness of joy;
At your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

Therefore, self-control is not an exchange for something less satisfying but for that which is most satisfying! It is the pursuit of “fullness of joy” and “pleasures forevermore” found in knowing God. There is no satisfaction that can compare.

Where do I need self-control?
As leaders, we must ruthlessly examine our lives to see where we lack control, to see where he is the least enslaved. We must examine our desires, our wants, our cravings, our “needs,” our relationships. Everything. We could be enslaved to anything. John Calvin once observed:

The evil in our desire typically does not lie in what we want, but that we want it too much.

So, it could be a something not inherently sinful used wrongly, like coffee, good food, alcohol, sex, exercise, television, computer games, any hobby, etc. Or, it could be something inherently sinful, like sex before marriage, debauchery (“excessive indulgence to sensual pleasures”), gluttony, stealing, lying, cussing, lust, pornography, laziness, etc.

We must search our lives for these things because they are idols - anything that competes with our passion for God. They compete with our worship of God. John Calvin points out:

The human heart is  a factory of idols….Everyone of us is, from his mother’s womb, expert in inventing idols.

Our hearts create idols all the time. We must not ask ourselves, “Do I have any idols?” But rather, “What are my idols?”

We must search our lives for the things that entice us. Where do you lack control? What is competing for your passion for God?

The good news
The good news is that God does not deal with us as our sins deserve (Ps 103:10). In Christ, he is quick to give mercy. And this does not just happen at our conversion but for the rest of your life. We identify the areas we lack control and are sinning against God, so that we can cry out for mercy and change to be more like Jesus!

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The John Calvin quotes came from a message entitled “The Idol Factory” given by C.J. Mahaney at Sovereign Grace Ministries’ 2000 New Attitude conference.

By Walt Alexander
Last week, we talked about intensity and about how we often fail to be filled with zeal for the Lord and passion for God. And if you are like me, the thought of being spat out of Jesus’ mouth for not being intense is quite frightening.

So you may ask yourself. How can I - a lukewarm, apathetic young man - cultivate Godly intensity? Here are a few thoughts I had with the help of last’s weeks comments.

WAYS TO CULTIVATE INTENSITY:
1. Believe the gospel.
The gospel articulates some harsh, strong realities. It says there is a God who is the Creator of everything, the Sovereign Ruler of everything, who is completely holy (without sin). It also says that man is completely sinful and is opposed to God in his flesh (Rom 8:8). Man is without God and without hope. Man is deserving of eternal destruction from God for his sins and will receive it if he does not submit to the gospel (2 The 1:8). There is one mediator between God and man, Jesus Christ (1 Tim 2:5). Only Jesus is both God and man. Only Jesus perfectly obeyed God (2 Cor 5:21). Only Jesus died on a cross. Only Jesus is the Way to heaven (Jn 14:6).

This gospel - and its profound implications - should awaken us from our confused stupor.

2. Live the gospel.
Live the gospel. Living the gospel means we must apply the gospel to our lives daily. It means we must daily recount our sinfulness and hopelessness before a holy God. It means we must remind ourselves that He - the sinless Son of God - died in our place for our sin. This should awaken us to live lives of  passionate worship to Jesus.

Also, the gospel must make us ruthlessly intense about our sin, always striving to kill the sin in our hearts. However, we kill sin not because it makes us righteous but because we are righteous. We kill sin not to earn God’s favor but to please God whose favor is on our life.

Reach out. Knowing that the gospel is true and that it controls everything. Every human being will one day go to either of two places: heaven or hell. No one is exempt. In fact, every human, in his sin and rebellion against God, is headed straight for hell with all his heart (as Mr. Kittrell reminded us on Sunday). Do you believe this? If you do, your life will be gripped by an intense passion to see others know Him, the only Savior from wrath and the only satisfying Treasure.

3. Read the Word.
This should really be throughout the two previous ones. Nevertheless, continue reading the Word. Intensity is created by faith and faith is created by reading the Word of God. Romans 10:17 states: “Faith comes by hearing and hearing through the word of Christ.” The Word is the way to know God. Don’t be satisfied with vague, passionless prayers. Know God. Read His Word.

4. Read Christian biographies.
Travis (the hefty guy in the pictures) reminded us that Christian biographies serve to fuel intensity like few other things. So let’s read them. Or listen to Piper’s Of Whom The World Is Not Worthy series.

Here are a few suggestions:
Jonathan Edwards: A Life by George Marsden
Spurgeon: A New Biography by Arnold Dallimore
The Forgotten Spurgeon by Iain Murray
‘John Owen’ by John Piper (from Men Of Whom The World Is Not Worthy)
The Shadow of the Almighty by Elisabeth Elliot
Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther by Roland Bainton
Jonathan Edwards: A New Biography by Iain Murray

5. Look around you.
Hebrews 13:7 reads, “Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith.” Look around at all the leaders around you, like C.J. Mahaney, John Piper, Al Mohler, Bill Kittrell, Howard Varnedoe, Matthew Lindsay, Mike Plewniak, your care group leaders, your father (if he is a believer). Look at them and consider their life. Consider the outcome of their faith in God. Consider the outcome of their lifestyle. And imitate them. See, we don’t have be smart or inventive or creative (sigh of relief). We get to follow them. We  get to study their lives and imitate them. Doing this will definitely spur you on to greater intensity for the Lord.

By Walt Alexander
After concentrating last week on servanthood, the most important aspect of spiritual leadership, we will now move on to various other aspects of spiritual leadership.
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Intensity.

What comes to your mind first when you hear the word intensity?
Do you imagine Todd Moles sucking down a Red Bull and screaming random, incoherent phrases/sentences?
Do you think of Jonathan Oldacre salivating over a Quarter Pounder with Cheese, wondering whether he can one before Melanie (his “weight watcher”) returns to her seat?

For anyone that knows me, I am anything but intense. I slide through most days in a daze of apathy and lukewarmness. However, as men (and women), we are called to be intense about the things of God and the realities of the gospel. Let’s look at what the Bible tells us:

Revelation 3:16 warns us: “I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.”

Romans 12:11 commands us: “Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit.”

The people Christ was addressing in the first verse thought they were burning for the Lord. They thought they were hot. They had prospered and had need of nothing (Rev. 3:17) – so they thought. Yet they were actually lukewarm. They thought they were one thing but they were revealed to be quite different, kind of like the little man who thinks he’s a big man. They did not burn for the Lord. Christ threatened to spit them out of his mouth. He threatened to kick them out of his house – the kingdom. They would not enter heaven lukewarm.

When I hear the word lukewarm, I think of hour-old, dirty, misty, nearly cold and far from hot bath water. Who wants that? Is this what we give God? Distracted, short, unattentive, affectionless devotion. Is this you?

In Romans 12:11, Paul commands us not to be slothful in zeal. Zeal is simply “fervor for a person, cause, or object” (dictionary.com). This means our joy should not fall off. We should “be fervent in spirit.” We should not lazy in our passion for God. Our passion for the great cause of the gospel of Jesus Christ should always increase. We should be men marked by increasing zeal and love and intensity for our Savior. And this zeal should move us to do great things for the kingdom of God. This zeal should be seen in our eyes when we talk of the things of God. It should be seen in the way we attack our days. It should be seen in the way we spend our money. It should be seen in the way we spend our time. Check out this quote by John Piper in “The Marks of a Spiritual Leader”:

Spiritual leaders must go out alone somewhere and ponder what unutterable and stupendous things they know about God. If their life is one extended yawn they are simply blind. Leaders must give evidence that the things of the Spirit are intensely real. They cannot do that unless they are intense themselves.

Where are you? Is your life one extended yawn? Are you lukewarm? Are you fervent in the spirit, growing in zeal?

H ow can you grow in intensity? I would love to know what has served you this area of cultivating intensity.

By Walt Alexander

Luke 22:24-27:

A dispute also arose among them, as to which of them was to be regarded as the greatest. And he said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and those in authority over them are called benefactors. But not so with you. Rather, let the greatest among you become as the youngest, and the leader as one who serves. For who is the greater, one who reclines at table or one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines at table? But I am among you as the one who serves.”

Three things:
1. Leadership in the world is about authority and exercising lordship.
Isn’t this true? In Christ’s day, he was referring to the likes of Herod, Pilate, Caesar – all Gentile (or non-Jewish) leaders. These leaders were known for their exercise of power. For instance, when Jesus was born, Herod had all the male children in Bethlehem and the surrounding region killed. He possessed tremendous power and directing many men. In our day, we can look to Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, or North Korea’s Kim Jong II. Their leadership consists in their accumulated power.

What about you? Do you tend to equate leadership with control and authority? Do you tend to think you are leading only when you are telling someone what to do or directing them? Do you think the quality of a leader is based on the number of directing roles he has?

2. Not so among you.
Why would Christ not want us to lead this way? I think it is because in the presence of great power and authority, pride is not absent. Therefore, God does not want us to be known for our prideful, sinful accomplishments but for our humility. Indeed, God looks throughout the earth for the humble and contrite of heart (Is 66:2). Humility is what we should be known for because it is what is pleasing to God.

3. Leadership in the kingdom of God is about serving others.
In verse 27, Jesus contrasts the two leaders. One is seated at the table and one is serving the table. The leader is the one who is serving. This is counterintuitive and countercultural. After Christ makes this statement, leadership in the kingdom of God was never the same!

This makes the call to leadership all the more challenging. We cannot (as leaders) merely point people in a direction. We must lead them by serving them and serving alongside them!

Do you lead others by serving? Or do you tend to strive after a secular, worldly form of authoritative leadership?

How can you grow in serving others? What are practical ways to you can lead others by serving them?

Last week, we said: In order to lead effectively, we must be humbled and transformed by the cross of Christ. As we move forward with outworking leadership, we must keep this at the forefront of our minds and hearts.

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What does spiritual leadership mean anyway? A few years ago, when I first became a Christian, I would have balked at such a discussion on a blog. I might have asked:

Why would someone care about leading?
Does it really matter? Are there any consequences?
Who/what are they leading anyway?
Do I really have to worry about leading anyone but myself?
How does all this affect me?

What is spiritual leadership?

John Piper defines spiritual leadership as “knowing where God wants people to be and taking the initiative to use God’s methods to get them there in reliance on God’s power. … Therefore, the [ultimate] goal of spiritual leadership is that people come to know God and to glorify him in all that they do.”

Interestingly, Piper’s definition contains two major aspects:

1. Spiritual leadership is about placing people where God wants them to be. This means that spiritual leadership is not primarily about the leader. Oftentimes, we think leadership is based on our gifting, our talents, our abilities, our desire, our hard work, etc. But Piper reminds us that leadership is about moving people. It is about motivating people, not manipulating people. It is about cultivating people, not controlling people. It is about developing people, not dictating people.

As an aside: all men are leaders. We are always leading. There is not one day that goes by that we do not lead. The question is not, therefore, whether we lead, but, rather, to whom and for whom we lead.

2. The goal is to know God and to glorify Him. This is the single goal of spiritual leadership. Oftentimes, even spiritually, we think the goal is getting praise for our work, getting commendation for our gifting and talents, feeling “accomplished” in our own hearts, etc. However, the spiritual leader is about knowing and glorifying God. This is his goal.

Where are you?
How are you leading people right now in your life?
Are you encouraging people to pursue God?
Are you leading them away from him?
Do you lead people to yourself or to God?
Do you lead in order that you may be praised or that God might be honored?

Before we get started. I am not a blogger and am ill-qualified to add anything to the blogging world on biblical leadership. So, I will mostly be commenting on the Word and various articles of real leaders!

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All men are called to lead. You are called to show yourself a man (1 Kings 2:2), by being courageous, bold, and faithful. You are called to serve (Mark 10:44,45). You are called be humble (Eph 4:2, 1 Pt 5:5). You are called to be gentle (Eph 4:2, Phil 4:5). You are called to rightly handle the Word of God (2 Tim 2:15). And the list goes on.

But before we start perfecting these characteristics, something else must take place. In his article, “The Marks of a Spiritual Leader,” John Piper says,

“All genuine leadership begins in a sense of desperation; knowledge that we are helpless sinners in need of a great savior. That moves us to listen to God in his Word and cry out to him for help and for insight in prayer. That leads us to trust in God and to hope in his great and precious promises. This frees us for a life of love and service which, in the end, causes people to see and give glory to our Father in heaven.”

Before we can effectively lead anyone, we must be men humbled and transformed by the cross. Humbled, because at the cross we realize seriousness and awfulness of our sin against God. Transformed, because through His death, we have received new life. So, the cross tells us the truth about ourselves.

Leadership underneath the cross begins with desperation before God. It begins with realizing our own inability to effectively lead and our need for God to help us accomplish anything (John 15:5). It ends with cries to God for help and a humble, intense submission to the Word of God.

Cross-centered leadership is about helpless, weak, and humbled men trusting in a powerful God, so that God - and not men - will get all the glory!