Welcome to Man Talk, a ministry sponsored by TAWCMM, talking and walking Christian men's ministry, where we're devoted to breaking down the walls of race and denomination, and to point men to their God-assigned roles. Now here's your hosts, Will Hardy and Roy Jones Jr. Welcome back to Man Talk Radio. I'm Roy Jones, one of your co-hosts. And I'm Will Hardy, your other co-hosts. Good to see you again.
Long time. Will loves it when I pick on him. He can smile through his eyes.
I can't see his smile so easy through the mics here, but he smiles through his eyes. So Will, we're back to Tender Warrior by Stu Weber, and this book's been out for several years. Folks, if you've not picked up a copy of it, please get a copy. I really think this will speak into many men's lives, and if you've got sons that you're building into, this would be a great book for you to walk them through. It personally means a tremendous amount to me. It was a book that my mentor, when God finally got a hold of my heart in 2005 and said, I need to start doing work for the kingdom, that he walked me through.
And man, what a phenomenal book it is. The first element we're going to talk about and the five components of a tender warrior is servant leadership. It's about being the servant leader. And so what this means is leading through service and humility. And you know, men, oftentimes it's hard to be humble, especially if you've been reasonably successful in your physical attributes, your career, your athletic prowess, those sorts of things.
You have to really work and let God remind you and keep you grounded that it's all through the humble sense that you even have those skills and those talents, and that you really need to exercise humility. And oftentimes, and Will, I'm sure you've seen this as well, many times men are extremely arrogant. And other words that come to mind when we think about arrogance, you know, that we have to be careful of as men. Yeah, and I think that damages our spirit. And what it does is it's a very bad reflection on who we serve. So if we're supposed to be servant leaders and we're acting out of arrogance, then we're acting out of the opposite of what God wants us to be as men and showing humility. And many things can get done through leaders, but the question is, is how?
How do you get things done through people? And that's part of what a leader is. So when we talk about leadership, you know, we're talking about not only leadership amongst adults or maybe children, but leadership within your own self.
How can I lead myself as a man to do those things that God wants me to do? How can I be open to the spirit to walk circumspectly, to walk in the spirit so I don't fulfill the lust of the flesh? And of course, that's the mind, heart and the will. When we talk about the flesh, it's just not the skin and bone because we are spirit beings first. So we are spirit in a body and not a body with a spirit. So we have to understand that as being.
That's good. When you think about servant leadership, who is the greatest servant leader that comes to mind for you, Will, and who comes to mind for me? Well, it's obvious. Jesus Christ. And when you understand, Roy, I think the Gospels and how Jesus impacted people, whoever he went around. And just like Jesus, when he went around people and he began to talk about the kingdom of heaven, there were always those there who would agree with what he said and some that called him a devil. And see, it's no different. So that tells me you will never have 100% of people agreeing with you.
Never. You're always going to have some agree and you're always going to have some who disagree. Even in the houses of worship, some of the things you say, there are going to be people who agree and there's going to be people who don't agree. But see, that doesn't necessarily mean that what you're saying is wrong just because they disagree with it.
And we have to understand that it is through the lens of the word of God. So as an individual speaking, how is this lining up? What does it do to my spirit, these words? Are they uplifting? Are they encouraging? Are they condescending?
Are they damaging? We can receive something so many different ways apart from the way the speaker wants you to understand it. And again, that's a critical component, I think, to any type of communication. So when we talk about the tender warrior and we're talking about the serving leader, how would you contrast traditional views, Roy, with authoritative leadership? Traditional views with authoritative leadership or about authoritative leadership.
I think the traditional view, the non-biblical view, I assume is what you're referring to as traditional, is that it's a dictatorship. It's my way or the highway kind of mindset instead of let me show you how to do this through my own ability to do it or teach you how to do these things versus go do it because I said go do it. And I think that's what Christ was so instrumental in was that he walked it out.
Every day he walked it out, literally and figuratively he walked it out. So it's amazing to think about what he did in three years and what's happened over 2,000 years, where we've come and how the gospel has spread across the world. But I think that's what comes to mind when you ask me about authoritative and traditional leadership. Yeah, and people who are authoritative I think don't necessarily understand how to apply the biblical view of taking that humility that God has given them and yet still be authority, show your authority in the sense of maybe the position you're in. And it's not easy for that because you're going to be dealing with some people who are born-again believers but who may think differently with respect to how the biblical principles should be applied.
And then on the other hand you just got an individual who can't discern a bottle cap from a cap gun. So they can't differentiate between the two and of course this is pointed out in 1 Corinthians chapter 2 and verse 14. That the natural man received not the spirit of God, neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned.
They can't differentiate between the two. So when we think naturally, when we talk naturally and we get into that authoritative state without having the humility to go along with it, it's a critical balance and it's tough. I mean I admit it's tough and I've seen so many things occur when I was in the military and when I saw these things and I was a young Christian back then and I saw these things and God was just showing me that there are so many avenues that the enemy presents to individuals to say these things are available to you. And then all of a sudden, depending where they are in their frame of mind, they'll seek to go down one of those avenues. And when they do, I mean I've seen young men in the military just literally destroy themselves. I mean just destroy themselves.
Yeah, I've seen that too. Some of my son's friends had their military careers messed up because they did some stuff they shouldn't have done. And he was there to help them as they came out to get back on solid ground which was amazing in itself. To be able to help restore. Absolutely.
Restoration. Well what are some of the key traits that Stu recognizes as part of the servant leaders? Humility, which we've talked some about. Empathy, which is understanding, the ability to understand what someone's going through and what they're feeling.
Absolutely. And then selflessness. You know when we talk about empathy, that's a big word for me because you're actually putting yourself in their position.
And it's difficult to do. I mean God is blessing me at this point to begin to counsel a young man who is going through some things. I'm hoping that Lord's will that he come tomorrow morning, you know, he said he would. And it's so critical because he is at a point, at a breaking point. And I believe that God has placed him within my path as a means of saying there is always hope. So when you empathize with a person and you put yourself in their position, you're not allowing yourself to be selfish but rather to be selflessness. Because you are understanding and you're saying maybe I went through that, maybe I know someone else who went through that and this is how they came out.
Maybe you can offer them some guidance or a little bit of counseling. Any word of encouragement God can use, I think, to bring a person from a point of, a breaking point or a point of despair, put them on the road of hope. Yeah, and what comes to mind in looking at these three traits right away is Christ's life. Here he was, the Messiah, had all the power that God had bestowed upon him as part of the Trinity. And here he exercised humility in the way he walked, the way he talked. He had empathy, he understood at a level that even we can understand what people are going through. And of course his selflessness was all about, he demonstrated that by being all about serving others. It was never about himself. He could have easily had anything he wanted, he could have saved himself, he could have done any of those things, but it was about us. It was about all of us, which the most selfless act he could have ever done was when he died on the cross for us.
But his whole life was about selflessness and what we see in those three years. So when you look at this, Roy, and you ask yourself the question, okay, I'm allowing these traits of humility, empathy, and selflessness to be enacted in my life, then how can other people benefit from these things? If you're allowing God to bless you to be this way, what's the benefit that they would receive as a result of your obedience to these three traits? I think they would see zero arrogance. They would see it's all about the people that I'm serving or around, it's nothing about me. They would see an understanding leader that can empathize with whatever they're going through and try to, if they're looking for it, try to offer some counseling guidance from experience or get them to the person that could help them with those things that may be something I had not had any experience in, but that's part of that empathy is being able to recognize that. And then, of course, the selflessness, I think it goes back to what we mentioned before, it's all about the other person. So as a leader, you're about growing your people, you're about teaching them, you're about maximizing their skills, their talents, and helping them grow and to feel good about what they do. And encouragement, I think that's a big part of that.
To be quite honest, Will, I think that's a big part of what it would look like. You know, Roy, I enjoy counseling so much because it gives me an opportunity to really reshape the mind and the heart of men, women, couples, children whom I've come in contact with. And I am so thankful for that because there is, God had blessed me just to go back and look over the many, many years, 30 plus, that I've been doing this. And God had blessed me to have a 93% success rate.
Can't too many people say that? And I'm so thankful to God because when you put time into something, into understanding someone, and someone who is willing to open up, then God can show you the three traits that we just mentioned here. How to be humble, how to show humility, you know, and not when someone starts bombarding you with a lot of things that they are ashamed of, that they have done, that you're not being critical and being selfish and saying, why you let yourself get into this situation, or something like that, but we're putting ourselves again in their position and we're saying, God, I'm hurting now because he's hurting or she's hurting or the children is hurting as a result of one or both of their actions within the home. So I think that that's the rewarding thing for me and how the success in which God had blessed me to experience is due to putting the time in, putting the effort in, and staying in meditation, memorizing the word of God, and letting that word rest with them so they can have a nugget, you know, and record down during the conversations that this is what I need to work on, and it's critical to write it down because they need to look at it. We can't remember everything, you know, that we did during the week or even said.
I could hardly remember what I had for breakfast, you know, three or four days ago. If you can, you're doing much better than I am, that's for sure. So I think that that's tantamount to a person's development. Yeah, that's really, really solid. Well, folks, we're coming up on the end of this session. We'll come back to a few more components of the servant leadership as we move into the following stages of the caring provider. And there's two more elements, which we'll go ahead and give them to you as I pull my notes out here. One is the Faithful Friend, which is extremely important, and then, of course, the Visionary Mentor, which, as I shared earlier, that's how I got introduced to this book to begin with, was still my mentor.
Again, if you haven't picked it up, please get a copy, and it's also available in audiobook as well, and then Everand and several other venues that you can access audiobooks and the written copies as well. So folks, thank you again for joining us. It's been a great session, Will, as always, very informative and always learning something when we're together. Roy, can you lead us in a word of prayer?
I can. Father, we just thank you, Lord, for loving us so much, for allowing Will and I this time together through these years and just how you brought he and I together back in 2013, Lord. We knew exactly what you were doing, and we had no idea, but we knew we had common ground, and that was we both loved you and wanted to serve you at a higher level, and that we wanted to break down the walls of race and denomination. And, Father, we've been successful in our friendship and love for each other as brothers in Christ, and just we thank you for that, Father, and just may that be mirrored through all of our networks of people, Father, the people listening on the radio audience. It's been a while since I've asked that question. When have you had dinner with somebody that looks different than you look?
When was the last time you took someone to lunch that looks different than you? And that's where Will and I's heart is at, that men will come together no matter what their backgrounds, what their race, what their desires are, but if they have a common love for you, Father, that they would come together and start making a difference, because if we as your body can't do it different, then how will people of the world ever do it differently? And, Lord, we just lift up all of our listeners, protect them, speak into their lives, Father, speak into their hearts, let them know that we love them, Father, let them know that you love them, show them in a special way, Father. Someone's listening and struggling, Lord, just put someone in their path. Send a signal to them, Father, to let them know that you've got them undergirded and that there's someone right beside of them, Lord. We know that you can do this, and we just lift up all these people. We lift up our families, our children, grandchildren, our work associates, Father, our company, and just everyone that we touch and have a part and blessing to be a part of, Father. Lord, thank you so much, in your Son's precious name. Amen. Amen.
