Episode 24: Cultivating Godly Manhood in Your Local Church

To the Ruled Church podcast.

This is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased. He is honored, and I get the glory. And by the way, it's even better, because you see that building in Perryville, Arkansas? You see that one in Pechote, Mexico?

Do you see that one in Tuxla, Guterres, down there in Chiapas? That building has my son's name on it.

The church is not a democracy. It's a monarchy. Christ is king.

You can't be Christian without a local church.

You can't do anything better than to bend your knee and bow your heart, turn from your sin and repentance, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and join up with a good Bible-believing church, and spend your life serving Jesus in a local, visible congregation.

The Local Church as Christ's Kingdom

Welcome to the Ruled Church podcast. I'm here with Gutter Madewell.

Sir.

Reporting again from an underground bunker in Quesa, Arkansas.

No, we're not. Whoa. Hey.

We're about halfway between Quesa and somewhere else I can't think of yet.

We're recording at the round table.

We went through Pontoon, Arkansas.

Yeah, Pontoon's where I grew up.

Boston.

We're recording again without Eddie, but we've got Jacob Robinson, Gutter Madewell,.

Alex Osmond.

Hello.

All members of Perryville Second Baptist Church. We're gonna talk a little bit more on this episode. Oh, and Jack. Say hello, Jack.

Jack Robinson.

Hello.

He's not a member, but.

Jack's not a member yet.

No, he's not yet.

Jack, are you fixing to have a baby brother?

Yeah.

I'm not gonna have a sister.

That's what I'm talking about.

You ain't gonna have a sister.

What's that baby brother's name?

Jace.

Are you excited for him?

Yeah.

I'm excited.

Do you like our church?

Yeah, I like it.

What do you like about our church?

Going to Sunday's class.

Sunday's class.

What else?

When we preach.

Oh, you like when I preach?

Do you like your pastor?

Yeah.

What's your pastor's name?

Cuatro.

Cuatro.

We're on a first name basis. What about when your daddy preaches?

I like that too.

Yeah, do you like your daddy preaching more or brother Cuatro?

Both, yeah.

Oh, okay.

That's a good answer.

Good patterns.

Very generic.

Do you like the new playground?

Yeah. Yeah.

But I can't go down the slide because I'll fall down.

Yeah.

He can go down the slide.

Hey, he uh.

You banned him from going down the slide?

Whose sermon did you fall asleep in though? Mine or Cuatro's? Mine, yeah.

Oh, wow.

I think he likes you better. He didn't fall asleep in Cuatro's sermon.

Both of y 'all put my kids to sleep, so.

I thought I passed the.

You passed the test, yes. A good sermon always puts my kids to sleep.

Who preaches longer, Jack?

Me? No.

It's not true.

Last time, both Jacob and Alex talked about the need for godly men, so we just wanna press on that. You got something else to add, Jack?

Um, I don't know why.

You want some music in the middle like that? You bring that up at the next business meeting.

How about donor stands over there.

Well, we're gonna talk about the need for godly men and we touched that last time and we talked about the signs of a health in a post-COVID church. So we'll talk about godly men more today and is not only the need for godly men, but kinda how you get there.

So if you're in a church, it doesn't matter if you're a rural church or not, if you're in a church, how do you get to the point of having godly men?

So, thoughts.

You have to be born Southern Baptist, number one.

No, that is not true.

You do have to be born again. Actually, I will say this, not to joke around, but I think one reason we don't have godly men, even in pulpits and in churches, is because we have a lot of unregenerate people in our churches.

So that's obviously number one. We need folks to be born again. They have to encounter God. So that's one thing. But what are some other practical ways to cultivate manliness in the local church? I didn't give you guys a heads up what we're talking about, but let me just throw some things out there.

So one, I think there needs to be an expectation. So one thing that we have at our church, there's an expectation that we're doing family worship. Like, we talk about it. We talk about how things go on in family worship.

We talk about it from the pulpit. We give tools and resources for doing family worship.

As well as personal worship.

Yes, for sure, but yeah.

I will say to that point, since I've been at Second Baptist, sharing with you guys and you guys sharing with me like what family worship looks like with you, those are things that strengthen our family worship.

Because number one, it's given accountability. Like, okay, we're gonna talk about it. Like, well, let's talk about what we do family worship. I know for sure, both Gunnar and Quatro have asked me, like, so what does family worship look like?

And we've shared that, but also, you know, encouragement. You know, I've received encouragement. And there may be things that you share, like, hey, this is what we're doing in family worship, where I think that would be great to incorporate in family worship that we do.

And I think that's so important for men as fathers who are the leaders of their home to share that with one another.

Yeah, at our church, there's not an expectation of like a monolithic sort of everybody's doing the same thing in family worship. But there is the expectation, because we all have different ages and such, and that's just part of it.

But there is this expectation that this ought to be happening. And so we ask about it not to be like, gotcha, but as an encouragement and to discuss and learn.

And I don't know if this is just in circles that, you know, I was familiar with, but it seems like family worship in the last decade, couple decades, is something that has kind of went on the back burner as a lot of churches.

We've expected, you know, well, hey, that's what Sunday school is for, and that is what, and I think it was Votie Bauckham talked about that that was one of the, when they first started the Sunday school movement, I think it was over in England, somewhere like that, that one of the things they worried about is that two things would start happening.

They would start pulling children out of worship with adults, and families would stop doing family worship. And I think we saw that. I think we saw a mass movement away from that, and that's something that I think.

So at our church, we're family integrated when it comes to our corporate worship, but we do do Sunday school classes and Wednesday night classes, and so we don't have a problem with those things. I don't think those things are necessarily wrong, but I think there is the mentality that if you don't, that you just bring your kids to church and let them be discipled.

Yeah, it shouldn't be a replacement. That's right.

You shouldn't expect the church or Sunday school teacher to do what God has commanded you to do as a father.

That's right.

So how do we encourage and cultivate godly manhood? One thing is there's just the accountability expectation, the encouragement with family worship. Okay, what else?

I think one thing is it's like the kingdom of God that starts as a mustard seed and grows into a large tree, right? It starts off with you getting along with God in prayer.

And in reading the scriptures. Yeah, we get to say that in prayer, yeah.

You can't lead family worship even if you're not worshiping and communing with the Lord yourself. It's surprising how many people don't read their Bibles on a regular basis. That alone is where we need to start.

Read your Bible.

That sounds legalistic.

So having godly men in the church starts with having godly men seeking God and then leading their families in worship and then that will flow out into the church.

Men who are given to the word. I'm given to the word. I'm not just reading it just to check a box. Like I want the word of God. I hunger for the word of God.

I think in order to have godly men and just to tie in back to elders, I think to have godly men who are gonna be in positions of leadership and that the church body are gonna be submissive to them, they have to be men that know how to pray and they know how to read their Bibles.

I mean, honestly, men, I'll just say this and everybody knows this, but a man who doesn't pray often, you can tell when they'll start praying. You don't pray. A man who doesn't read his Bible, you can tell you don't read your Bible.

And so if we're gonna be men.

Why are you looking at me?

Right, yeah.

If we're gonna be men that are in a position of authority, if you're gonna be an elder, you have to know your Bible. You have to hunger for God's word, love it and meditate it and you have to know how to pray.

That's right.

You know, Psalm 1 says, not only does the blessed man not walk in the counsel of the wicked nor stand in the way of sinners nor sits in the seat of scoffers. Like we could stop there. I think there are a lot of moral men in the world today that would be like, well, I don't do that.

I don't stand in the counsel of the wicked. I don't, or walk in the counsel of the wicked, stand in the way of sinners, sit in the seat of scoffers.

I don't do that.

But that's not all the blessed man is. In verse two it says, his delight is in the law of the Lord and on his law he meditates day and night. So it's not just about not doing something. That's part of it.

But it's also doing something. And I would say that creating a culture and expectation of reading the scriptures daily.

That's right.

And one of the things that we're doing, again, this is not the be all end all, but I'm just trying to offer suggestions. And we're learning and we're growing as a church, but we're trying to do a Bible reading plan this year and encouraging, you don't have to read the same plan, but it's an encouragement to the church to read.

And I've seen several grab the plan and the idea is that we're gonna read through the Bible together and be able to ask one another about it. We'll all be reading the same thing, the same day, essentially.

And I think that accountability is important. I don't think people should be legalistic about it, but we are fallen creatures. We're prone to laziness and procrastination. Having that discipline of, somebody's gonna ask me how my Bible reading is going.

I mean, it may be a wrong motive, but.

But it's not completely.

Is that not?

Having that discipline.

Is that not a good example of why Christians need the local church?

Yeah, it is. Yeah, accountability isn't, I don't think it should be just for sin, although I think even that is fairy lags these days, but like even just, yeah, are you getting into God's word? Are you leading your family in worship?

Like that's, I don't think these should be controversial things. I think men should be doing this in their homes. Like personally seeking God and leading their family in seeking God.

And if you can't do it, you're not being a godly man.

Well, in that, I mean, I don't think you can. I don't think you're qualified to be an elder if you're not, and I see me and Quattro have been reading a book that really dives into a lot about elders. It talks a lot about accountability.

Like if you've got a group of men who are elders at the church that, like Alex said, it's accountability in every walk. Now it's, I don't know how we would define in like a legalistic way, but it's more of accountability of, you know, like we are, like, because ultimately we're accountable to God as those, I mean.

Yeah, legalism is an issue, don't get me wrong, but it's, in my opinion, it's way less of an issue than licentiousness, I think, in the churches today, you know.

The pendulum's swinging.

That's right, if you tell me, now we don't correct licentiousness with legalism, for sure, but we say, look, you ought to, in America, it is a reasonable expectation that you're reading the Bible every day.

Why do I say that? Because more likely than not, like whatever the literacy rate is, you're literate. More likely than not, you're not working so much that you don't have 10, 15, 20 minutes a day to read.

More likely than not, you have access not only to God's book, but so many resources where you can either listen to it, you can get commentaries like Matthew Henry's or John Gill's. Like these commentaries, like for free.

Yeah. Right? Yeah.

And so you can enact.

So there's such access, but there's such ignorance of God's word. And so, yeah, so one, family worship. Another, the expectation and accountability of reading the Bible together. Let me throw one out here.

One thing that we've done for, I guess, over five years now is we have met on Thursday mornings to study the Bible together. And again, this is just an extra meeting. We meet early and not.

Not mandatory.

It's not.

We're scripturally mandated.

Well, it's not mandatory that we have to do it, but it's just a way that we.

Yeah.

Iron sharpens iron. And we just go through books of the Bible. I mean, that's all we do. Like, we just go through books of the Bible together. We just get finished 1st and 2nd Peter. And this morning we started out with Isaiah and it's not a huge study.

We just read the verses together and we talk about it. I mean, I know it sounds simple, but it's what we do. And I've, particularly, I won't say his name, but particularly one brother in our church, I've seen a tremendous amount of growth over the years.

You know, he's only been a member three years, but it's been amazing to see and encouragement. And we just read the Bible and we just look at what it says and we just talk to one another about it.

Yeah, iron sharpens iron.

Yeah, amen.

You're right.

Another one I was thinking about is evangelism. Oh, that's good. Yeah, I was thinking like, you know, it's easy to get as men to get conceited with pride, but, you know, approaching someone with the gospel that, you know, in their simple nature will probably hate, that, you know, that's humbling.

And, but it also builds courage, you know, and these are qualities, humility and courage that we need as men, as well as, you know, learning to articulate the gospel, not just to our family and to our children, but to strangers and to, you know, other adults.

That, I think that's extremely important as a godly man to be evangelistic.

You know, go ahead.

I was just gonna say, we've had a couple of opportunities to do that together and those have been wonderful, but I think it's also been, whenever we went out there and we've done that together, you know, I think going back to the Goat Fest and I think you probably talked about this on a previous episode about going and evangelizing at the Goat Fest with the encouragement like of having you guys there.

That was my first time to ever open air preach.

You did great.

Well, no, but I've preached behind a pulpit numerous times. I mean, pastored five years, preached behind a pulpit. That was my first time. And, you know, I was nervous and to have the encouragement of, you know, brothers that I get to serve with and then to see each one of you stand up and proclaim the gospel and evangelize and to do that.

I'm not saying you always have to do it together, but I think that was so wonderful as a, you know, a group of men.

It is more encouraging.

Bob gets to go and encourage.

And I want to add this. This is what I was going to say is like, in these opportunities that we've had, and we've had several in the last several months, even in a small town, we've just done different things.

Gunner and I went to a library reading thing and then we've had a couple of parades. These were just normal parades, but there was a fair parade in September and a Christmas parade in December and then the Goat Fest and even, we didn't do it as much with Christmas caroling, but we did pass out a couple of tracts.

But in all these events, not only have we had men preaching, we've also had, there's been a couple of specific instances, I remember, of brothers who didn't preach at all, but they were there for support and then they were actively passing out tracts.

You know, so when you talk about preaching, not every, I don't believe every man in the church is called to go out and street preach, but every man in the church is called to evangelize. And so it's a tangible way to not just talk about evangelism on Sundays, but to go do it together.

And it's like when you're in the trenches together, you know, there's a bond that's built, you know, a camaraderie.

And you learn, you know, you really get to know people. Like I didn't know Alex, that was,.

I don't think I had met you before that time, actually.

I think it was that first time we met, but to get to experience that, to get to open air preach together first time we met. And then there's another brother who, in our church, who was there both of these, the Christmas parade, that I've been to the Christmas parade and the Go Fest, who didn't open air preach, but like Quatro said, passed out tracts.

I think he

They've had a lot of that.

Like a maniac.

Like a madman at the Christmas parade. I ran off and left him, he was a mile back, because he wanted to make sure every single person got a gospel tract, and he did the same thing at the Go Fest, whatever it is.

But there's a bond built there, and a spiritual maturing that happens there when you're doing these things. And don't talk, okay, so here, evangelism example, don't talk just about courage, but that's a way to go.

Be courageous, as it were.

Yeah, it's edifying.

Very good.

Gunner, you've been looking at some stuff.

Oh, okay. No. Okay.

All right, what else? I have one more thing, though. I was kinda saving it for last, but.

Go ahead, let Jacob go.

Well, I just, and I don't wanna, I think we've done a pretty good job of not leaving out men, but this is not just, we're not just referring to, I don't think, men that are elders, or gonna be elders.

Like, we're talking about men as a whole, and that's what, in Titus chapter two, Alex has read that, was that this episode?

Last episode.

Last week.

Go look at last week's episode if you want that little.

Last week.

Tip it.

We'll tip it.

But it says, it starts out with, older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith. I mean, and so it's not, we're not just referring to, man, you may never, you're not gonna, you may say, I'm never gonna be an elder.

Why do I need to be strong in the Word? Or, you know, I think, I use the example of, I know we're not talking about women, but older women, I'm a 70-year-old woman, I have no kids at home. Why do I need to be strong in the Word?

Well, you can't, as you go on down, in Titus, how can you go to a young woman and train her, and teach her all these things that it says, you likewise urge, that's younger men, but to be self-controlled, working at home, kind, submissive to husbands, that the Word of God may not be reviled.

How can you do that if you're not in the Word? And that goes for the older men, you know, who are sound in faith. And so, don't think that, I'm not an elder, they're not talking to me. I think we're talking to any man, any Christian man in the church.

Or if you're not married, like, you may think, oh, like, that family worship stuff isn't for me, like, I think these are, like, if you're a young man who's not yet married, like, these should be goals, like, that you should be preparing for, like, if God does call you to marriage.

And try this, as a young man.

It's most likely you will be.

Try this as a young man, try going to your pastor, or try going to older men in the church, and say, hey, look, I'm single. Could I come sit in on your family worship one night? Yeah, yeah.

I've been there.

That is very edifying, to sit in on other people's family.

It'd edify you, and it'd encourage.

I did it.

It'd encourage, oh, cool.

Okay, so here's the last one I want to do, and I want you guys to weigh in, too, because I don't want to miss this one at all. How do you cultivate godly manhood in the church? Eddie and I have talked about, on numerous occasions, that the pulpit is not the only way that you reform a church, and it's so true.

There's so many other things that go into it. However, in saying that, we in no way are minimizing the pulpit, and that's where I want to go to now. I want to talk about one of the ways that is non-negotiable.

So some of these other things, you have to figure out how they fit with your church. The Thursday morning men's meeting, or maybe what Bible reading plan, or your evangelism events. These are gonna change depending on your specific church, but one thing that we all share in common unity here is the pulpit.

The pulpit is a central place of making disciples. As we preach, we don't back down, and we don't apologize. Hey, we have bought into this idea, and again, we go to a coffee shop, I guess it's really a donut shop, every Thursday.

So I'm not minimizing sitting around a coffee shop or a donut shop and having discipleship that way. But we have thought, because of various material out there, we have thought that the main thing about discipleship is sipping your lattes and reading a good Christian book together.

I'm not minimizing that, okay? But I am saying this, I'm maximizing the pulpit. Do you know 400 years ago, our Baptist brothers did not have a Starbucks?

Right?

So how were they doing discipleship? They were preaching the word of God. They were making sure that men were doing family worship and catechism, but the pulpit took center stage. And like, don't apologize for that.

Like, that's one of the reasons, and we talked about in the last episode, COVID was so devastating is it tried to silence the pulpit. In many ways, in many churches, it did. And we need to, if I could borrow, change of phrase a little bit, make the pulpit great again.

But the pulpit, that on a hat or something like that.

But the pulpit must take center stage in the discipleship and sharpening of the men in the church. Y 'all have any thoughts or comments about that?

I couldn't agree more.

We should minimize lattes and promote dry coffee. For real, man, that's the way to go.

Cut that cream out.

I think the preaching of the word has to be central. I think it, absolutely. I mean, I think scripture speaks to that. And you cannot be obedient to scripture without the preaching of the word being central in local church.

And I'm sorry, you can't do that over Zoom.

No, that's right, that's right. I would add that cultivating fellowship, you know, is something we didn't talk about, but eating lunches together. And on Sundays we do that kind of stuff and we try to just be in each other's lives.

Oh, sorry, I will say this.

Oh, a lightning bolt has struck Gunnar.

Light bulb just went off.

Here comes the wisdom, prepare yourself.

And I think you guys, we're already doing this, but we have not mentioned it. Cultivate godly manliness is be a church that cultivates hospitality. And you've said it already, but we haven't actually said the word, but hospitality, right?

We're having meals together. We're being in each other's lives, not just in the Sunday morning gatherings. We get to know each other. So being a godly man is being intentional on being with your church body.

In Titus 1, that's one of the qualifications of an elder. It says, starting in verse seven, as an overseer of God's household, he must be blameless, not arrogant, not out-tempered, not an excessive drinker, not a bully, not greedy for money, but hospitable, loving what is good.

Well, like in what we do on Sundays, we have lunches at your house or my house, or hopefully in the future, Alex's house, or you know, probably not Jacob's, because he doesn't live here,.

But he lives in a nice little location.

And we eat lunch together, and whoever is a member or a visitor even, wants to come, they can come eat with us, and we talk about the word, we talk about the sermon, and we encourage each other, and we talk about the Lord.

And that's what's important too. We don't just sit around, and intentional in talking about the ball game, or hunting, although sometimes those things come up, we're intentional on talking about the Lord.

And that's what I think cultivates godliness. Not, oh, we have something in common in deer hunting, okay, that's good, but we have this in common, that we both know Christ, and we both love Him, and we both want to know Him more.

Absolutely.

One practical way to put this into effect is to take advantage of the Lord's day. Because you hear this, and you say, I'm so busy, my kids are busy, I'm busy, we're working, I work late, I work 12-hour shifts, there's just no way that I can add more time with brothers.

And I think that there's legitimate situations, that that's true. Maybe you're driving 45 minutes to church, and so you live a long way from people, and it's just hard. So one way, I do think that we can be intentional in days outside of Sunday, but let me just give you one easy win, and that is take advantage of the Lord's day.

That is, you're gathering already, you might as well eat together, eat together in one another's homes. Or, we were at a church recently, I was at a church recently preaching at my friend Jonathan Murdock, and what they do is they all just kind of pitch in and bring food to church.

And then after the morning service, they just eat together. And they do what we're talking about, but spending time together in true fellowship is an important aspect.

Right, true fellowship, not hanging around talking about whatever. That's what a lot of churches are trying to do.

True Christian fellowship.

Right, right, not just, you know. But I think that's what's lost in our culture. One of the reasons is because so many people have this independent mindset and private mindset. If we're gonna be people together in the same church, as a church body, we are to know each other's lives.

And you can't do that being surface level. How am I gonna encourage you or hold you accountable if I don't really know you?

Well, camaraderie, let me just push back just a tad on that, but camaraderie exists all over the place in our society. People get together to hunt. People get together to watch the ball game, to go to the ball game.

People get together for a card night or whatever. But what we're talking about is.

To record a podcast.

Yeah, what we're talking about is true Christian fellowship. So yes, there is a private mentality in our, but people get together, we're social, right? But what we're talking about is not just getting together.

Okay, the world does that. We're talking about like Gunnar says, true Christian fellowship, getting together intentionally to cultivate Christ in one another. You know, I guess, it's okay. You're not in sin to talk about the ball game or hunting or whatever.

But you're not doing true Christian fellowship.

But if that is all your meeting is talking about, that's not true Christian fellowship.

You're not exhorting one another or encouraging one another.

So that's fine. Keep the name fellowship all in your church. It ain't Christian fellowship though.

No, no, no.

Whoa, all right.