Strong Men

This is Chris Hughes with the Christian Perspective Podcast with Chris Hughes, where we encourage our listeners to engage the culture with Jesus Christ. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds, so enjoy it, share it. But most of all, thank you for listening to the Truth Podcast Network.

This is the Truth Network. The heart of every man craves a great adventure, but life doesn't usually feel that way. Jesus speaks of narrow gates and wide roads, but the masculine journey is filled with many twists and turns.

So how do we keep from losing heart while trying to find the good way when life feels more like a losing battle than something worth dying for? Grab your gear and come on a quest with your band of brothers who will serve as the guides in what we call the masculine journey. The masculine journey starts here now. Darrell Bock All right. It's how fun to be in the chair today. Sam is vacated, right, Andy? And so here we are. So this is our chance to say something about Sam.

You know, this is your opportunity. Chris Oh, yeah. He's still on his – Peyton's in the Hall of Fame high. He can't come down low enough to be with us yet. He's way too, way too good to come down here with us.

Darrell Bock That's exactly right. Peyton Hall of Fame. And I loved what Jim said about, you know, he had to go to the Broncos to win a Superman show. You may know that Sam is a huge Colts fan.

And, you know, we're just saying that, you know, it did take him a while to get there. But he belongs in Hall of Fame. There's no doubt about it. So we miss Sam. But nonetheless, in pure Sam fashion, it's Andy's show. It's Andy's topic. Chris Yeah, at least he didn't submit the topic and bail on us.

So I am present. Darrell Bock Yeah, so what are we talking about today, Andy? Chris So, recently, I just felt like God dropped in my spirit. It was a reminder of when – I used to read this passage in 1 John 2 about the strength of men, and how I used to read it and kind of envy it and feel like I would never get there.

There were aspects of it that I had walked in and felt like I'd achieved, kind of. Darrell Bock I'll read it so we can feel guilty. Chris Yeah, I'll read it.

Exactly, okay. This is a little bit long, but it's really about Christian maturity and the process. But it also pulls in, you know, God's influence as well as other people's. But I'm writing to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven for his name's sake. I'm writing to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning. I'm writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one. I write to you, children, because you know the Father. I write to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning.

I write to you, young men, because you are strong and the Word of God abides in you and you have overcome the evil one. And so a lot of my Christian life, I just – again, I had a good relationship with God, but it was jacked up. I think there was – I told you all, orphan spirit, just, you know, there were things in my life, I felt like an unfinished man. I felt like when I tried to stand up spiritually and lead my family.

Like the whack-a-mole story, I got beat head on the head. And it was frustrating. And there was a time in my life where I didn't – I was like, well, to really walk that out, that's really not possible. Or it just doesn't seem like it's ever going to happen. But it was a desire of my heart, and I believe like the Scripture says, you know, delight yourself in the Lord and he'll give you the desires of my heart. Well, I feel like there's – I've walked into that more so. You know, it doesn't mean I've arrived or anything like that.

I still struggle with a lot of stuff. But there is a spiritual strength that I feel like I have now in my relationship with God. A lot of it came – it comes from a lot of different areas, getting your wound healed, identity. But sonship is where it comes most of it. And when you look in that Scripture, there's a lot of talk about the influence of the Father and knowing him as the Father. Darrell Bock And so speaking of that, we have a clip.

You might be shocked. So interestingly – and, Jim, you want to set this – it's actually about a grandfather, but it actually works. Jim Evans Well, it's actually a great uncle, but – Darrell Bock You're right. Jim Evans Yeah, this is one of my all-time favorite movies, Secondhand Lion.

So if I can sneak a clip in, I do. But this is where one of the – now, there's two brothers that lived adventures in Africa. If you haven't seen the movie, why not? But background there, two brothers, yeah. And I knew the other one's name for a minute or two today, but I forgot it again. Darrell Bock Garth. Jim Evans Garth is the other one. But Hub is taking his grandnephew under his wing, and the nephew is actually pursuing him because he found a picture of Hub's wife and wanted to know what happened to her, and that happens just before this. And Hub has this sleepwalking problem, and he's pretty dangerous when he does. But the – so the – I forgot his name.

Darrell Bock The Senate does. Jim Evans Yeah, the kid wakes him up and says, I want to know what happened to your wife. And then that leads into this story that we're going to hear. Woman 1 Those stories about Africa, about you, they're true, aren't they? Jim Evans Man should believe in those things because those are the things worth believing in.

Got that? Woman 2 That was a good speech. Man 1 It was a good speech, wasn't it, Jim?

Darrell Bock It is indeed. And Hub is in this a strong man. In fact, Robby mentioned that this is maybe one of the strongest characters, although he's got a lot of competition. But he knows who he is, he knows what's important, and he wants to pass that on to a younger generation. And one of the things that really gets me in this that we don't see much today, because everybody wants power money. Now, these guys have money, but it doesn't mean anything to them. They have integrity and strength, and it comes from that.

And that's why we see so many politicians and pastors falling is they're going for their strength and trying to control others rather than controlling themselves. Darrell Bock Yeah, it's absolutely beautiful when you think about the passage that Andy wrote. I mean, excuse me, read. Man 2 I didn't know you wrote it. St. Andrew. Darrell Bock St. Andrew, yeah. That was Paul. But anyway, that was John. Yeah, John wrote it.

Yeah, there you go. But anyway, when you think about that passage, when you think about strength from men, we think about it in the Old Testament. It was very clearly David who was wholehearted, and he certainly stood against Goliath in that epic battle, you know, where you really see strength. Well, when you study the Psalms, you can see that David got that from someplace, and he got it from Deuteronomy 6 to some great extent. And if you read Deuteronomy 6, which is the Shema, you know, that whole idea that the Jews pray all the time. But look how many times it says, teach your children.

And teach them what? To love the Lord your God. And here's the big thing that I'd missed for years. It says, love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength. That's the way you've always all translated it, y'all southerners. But the good news is, if you look closely, you're going to find out that that's the same word that David uses time and again for whole.

So David translated that Deuteronomy 6 is, love the Lord your God with your whole heart and with your whole soul and with your whole strength. And the idea of that is when you looked at Hub and that you saw this man who was whole because he was wholly devoted to something, right, in his integrity and those kind of things that we just talked about. Well, when I was a young general manager and I got an opportunity to run, actually, the biggest store in the crown organization and the way that the dealership had been run is they had a service manager who had been in special forces. He was actually Garin Barre captain.

And if you went to, his name was Troy Bills. And if you went to his office, you would see this, his name with, you know, the captain bar still on it and two 50-millimeter shells pointed right at you just in case you didn't get the picture in his green beret hanging on the corner of the thing over there. So if you didn't know that was Captain Mills that you were talking to, you certainly had that. So he was a very, very strong man, not unlike Hub right there. Well, he'd run off all these general managers because they weren't strong. And so on my way to take this job, because Troy had run off so many general managers, my boss, Royce Reynolds, he said, now Robby, and he had this voice like that, you got to take control. You got to be strong. You got to be the man. You got to show this man who's boss right, you know, and he said, okay, okay, right. So let me tell you a story.

So he's going to tell me the story. He goes, well, me and my little brother went horseback riding one time. And when that, when he was on his horse and it got up on the bridge, it reared up and bucked him right off of there. And I was like, Jim, you got to get control of that horse. You got to show him who's boss. And so he said, well, Royce, you know, if you're so smart, you get up on his horse and shorten it.

Okay. So Royce takes him a stick and he gets up on that horse. When that horse comes up on the bridge, he rears up, Royce takes the head, the stick and just whap right across the head of the horse.

That's the way Royce talked. It was funny. Anyway, you get the picture that he showed this horse who was boss story. I never forgot that story.

Right? So it wasn't long after I came to work there, you know, that my, my new car manager was kind of a wimp. Honestly, his name was, I won't mention his name because he might be listening.

He was a wimp. Anyway, Troy had him out there unloading the cars off the trucks, which was something a lot boy would do. And I'm like, where's my new car manager? And they're all like, well, he's out there unloading.

Why in the world is he unloading the trucks? And what, you know, Troy Mills has him out there. I said, get out there. I said, Zimmerman, get in here and go get in the showroom and, you know, do your job.

Just help people, you know, buy cars. So I knew I'm sitting in my office and two minutes later, Troy Mills comes in there. He goes, what are you doing with a, you know, Zimmerman not unloading my car. I'm like, dude, the new car manager doesn't unload cars at this dealership. The new car manager sells cars. That's what he does. This is a service department shop.

Now they don't. I'm going to call Morgan Mann. Well, Morgan Mann was like the crown henchman that, you know, he thought he had some authority or whatever. And I was like, well, Royce, while you go call Morgan over there, I'm going to call Royce, you know, the owner of the entire thing. And we'll see who's running this dealership. But if I'm running the dealership, you better get out there and start unloading that car because I'm past the point now of you can let one of your lot boys unload the cars.

You're going to go unload the car because you're going to find out who's boss here. Now, the remarkable thing about this story is this was the biggest turnaround of a personality of anything I've ever seen in my life. Royce Mills became one of my, I mean, Troy Mills became one of my best friends. The guy became unbelievably helpful and such a servant once he realized who was in charge.

Right? And the idea is if once you're wholehearted and you know you have legitimate authority and you've been given like here you are, this is the deal, then you can be wholehearted. And in that wholeheartedness comes strength.

So when we come back, we're going to talk more about Hazzak Amate as my friend Jim. What if one weekend wasn't up to you that you could go and God would orchestrate it all? Masculine Journey Bootcamp, basic training designed to give men permission to be how God made them, passionate warriors for the kingdom. Based on John Eldridge's Wild at Heart, experience four days purpose for God to come after and perhaps reawaken dreams and desires he uniquely placed in your Masculine Heart.

Fall Bootcamp coming up November 18th through the 21st. Go to masculinejourney.org and register today. Hi, this is Sam with Masculine Journey.

I'm here with my son Eli. We're going to talk about ways that you can help support the ministry. One way you can go to smile.amazon.com, go to smile.amazon.com. There's information on our website there on how to do that. You go to facebook.com and click the donate button, or you can go to masculinejourney.org and find the donate button. Masculinejourney.org. Or if you want to mail something in, mail it to P.O.

Box 550, Kernersville, North Carolina, 27285. You're supposed to prompt me. Okay. Andy, you picked out that prompt. What were you thinking? Thank you for that prompt. Dead air.

That's never supposed to happen on radio. No, that's a simple man, you know. So my thought here was I couldn't really find anything I wanted to just really speak to strength. But to me, my mind always went to just a simplicity, just a contentness, knowing who you are as a man.

And that song, The Simple Man, is really from the chorus there. Or the verse, though, really speaks to just a mom, how she was given guidance to her son about the priorities of life is essentially it. And really that's what we're talking about is really the priorities of life, which obviously is our relationship with God. But you get spiritual strength from that. But I believe that God doesn't make it too difficult for us. It's a simple way of life.

If it takes some effort, it takes some effort to find that strength in him. But it is a simple life. So Rodney, you picked a clip from a movie we've never – I don't think we've – apparently there's lots of these movies, Fast and Furious. But we didn't pick one from Fast and Furious 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5.

And I don't even know where – I forget where they're at now. But man, they – I went and looked it up just to find out, well, yeah, how many of these movies have they done? And they've done a lot more with all kinds of different names. There have been branches and branches of different movies. But one of the reasons that you picked this was you had a woman involved, and you loved that part of it. Well, it was very – yeah, because I saw it out there, and I thought, well, let me see what's in this clip.

And then I was like, this is one that I had seen before. Because I've seen these Fast and Furious stuff at different times, and who knows which one in what order, you know, because – but what goes on in these movies is that the bad guys, they're stealing cars in the very first one. And so it's a lot of action, stealing cars, cars flipping, flying all over the place, and, you know, a lot of excitement. But they're really good guys. But we steal cars.

But we don't hurt people. But we steal cars. And then the car, they're furious. I know they're fast.

Well, they're fast, and they're furious. So, you know, it's – so – and you've got the cop who's trying to take him down but then finds out there's really worse people, and he becomes a part of them. So through this whole saga, you've got the cop becomes a part of the gang, let's say. And what happens is the leader of the gang, he loses his girlfriend. They think she's dead in somewhere through one through five. So now here they are in number six, and this picture shows up to the leader, and he sees a picture of her. And in the middle of this clip, they'll hand that picture over, and then that's when he says, basically, they're messing with your mind, because he's like, this is what cops always do. But this is this playing out, and you'll see some strength come in.

They are strong men that they also need a strong woman to end up basically confirming who they are to legitimize what they're about to go do. And thank you, Rodney, for making me feel so much better about my rambling setup earlier. We got everything.

I'm down to the beer and the barbecue. It just doesn't feel like home. Maybe it's because you don't realize how much you appreciate something until somebody takes it away. I don't know. The place has probably changed so much, you probably wouldn't even recognize it anymore. Yeah, everything's changed. So what's up with you? What's going on?

Taken a week ago. Diplomatic security service. Cops. You know, I used to do all the time as a cop.

This is exactly what cops do. He's messing with your head. But he's dead, though.

I need to know for sure. But I'm going with you. You said you were going to leave this life behind. We both said that we were leaving the life behind.

He's right. We're family. We got a problem. We deal with it together. And I'll feel safer knowing you're both out there watching each other's backs. You're stronger together. You always were.

Now go get Lettie. So yeah, you've got the woman involved in that clip is the leader's brother who ends up falling for the cop, and they're now married. And so it's all kind of an intertwined family, right? And that's, again, that's where we're the strongest. When we're with the family of God, when we're with our brothers and sisters, that's when we're the strongest.

That's where he does the most work through and of his people in us to help us, to lead us, to show us examples, to make sure that if we get off the beaten path, somebody's there to chastise and make sure we stay on and don't walk down the wrong path. I mean, we do it with each other. You guys have shared wonderful stories.

Sam did last week about Darren and how much he helped him through a very rough patch. That's what we're here for to do. That's what we're called to do with each other. Yeah, I think when I think of strength, I really think of masculinity.

I mean, that's what God intended for man to bring, is strength. And in that, you know, it's important that we just remember that, you know, that masculinity is bestowed. It's not caught. It's caught from others, but it's bestowed from other men. It's not bestowed from a woman or, you know, whatever. It's just... Well, women are involved too.

They are. They play a part in it, but actually masculinity, you know, I mean, a man has to teach a man how to be a man, you know, and that's, I mean, God, he created male and female. He knows the man's heart, the masculine heart, and he knows how to train that heart, but he also puts other men in our lives.

And that's so important to all this. My strength would not be where it was without you guys as a band of brothers and other brothers that speak into my life. Yeah, there's a whole network that God has interwoven for you. And one of the hard things is to let go of control and let him lead and let these other men walk and speak into your life and actually have some say so when you're listening to them intently and honestly and really trying to take it in because I've ran into many men, you know, whether it's a church or with you guys or others that, you know, speak some great things. And there's been times in my life where I just, yeah, you can say whatever you want. I just don't listen to you.

I like to think I'm listening better now, you know, listening more, understanding who has good wisdom and who may not at times, but... So there's a really beautiful thing in the word strength in the Hebrew, you know, version when you go to look at that word, which, you know, Jim makes reference to is chazak. And when you look at that word, the reason why you hear that zz sound in the chazak is because that's a Zion.

And that the he is a het. And so you've got this idea of, clearly, it's how you reflect God's God's glory. In other words, it's a unique, like your special sauce.

Like two alt beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese. So that Zion is clearly, interestingly, it's a female energy that is reflecting the male energy that is actually coming off Christ. So it's coming from Christ, it's being reflected back to God, and it's yours, and it's yours uniquely, and that's in that head. And then when you add the Zion, you see you're getting like a double portion of this sword, so to speak, which is also what you plow with. And then the last letter, a hoof, is sort of like this, where you find the word holy.

And it's almost like there's this hidden goodness in there, almost like a pregnant person that's in there, that you've got to go crack open in order to get out of the husk in order to find them. And that's your identity. So if you knew Nikita Kolov, you might know that he was the Russian nightmare, and he had a signature move. It was called the Russian signal. You see— Darrell Bock Sickle. Darrell Bock Sickle.

Right, not the Russian signal. And so the question is, you know, what is your signature move? In fact, I can remember working on my very signature, because that made me very unique. And so, you know, what is it that actually God gave me that when I talk to Jim, he loves to play the game Risk?

I said, I bet you've got a signature move in Risk, and you don't. You do, don't you, Jim? Darrell Bock Yeah, and it hit me immediately when you mentioned that. Darrell Bock And so what is it that when you go to this, maybe it's a fishing lure that's your favorite, or maybe it's a way, a particular golf club that you can hit well.

Whatever it is, it's your signature card. It's something that you do, and you know as soon as you pull it out of the bag, this is where this is going to go. So in this clip that I'm going to play is Maverick in the movie Top Gun has got this signature move where he hits the brakes on this plane, and everybody in the movie except the guy sitting in the second seat knows that when he hits the brakes, it's not going to be good for the Russians here. And so when you hear him go, you're pulling him up to do what? But what you're going to hear is he's going to go to his signature move here, and when he does, when they say splash four, that's a MiG hitting the water, and you can kind of see, to me, you know, what a beautiful thing. You know what it felt like when you pulled that signature move out, and there, in fact, is the way that you reflect God and strength. That move, there's a MiG on your tail, there's a MiG on your tail!

Head to brakes, he'll fly right by. He's going to get a lock on us! Now! I've got a good lock. Firing. Whoo! Splash four! Mustang, this is voodoo three.

Remaining MiGs are bugging out. And so I'm going to our resident fighter pilot and sage here, who's had a chance to listen to all this on strength, probably seen more strength than all of us all combined. So Harold, what's your wisdom?

We're going to give you the last minute. Well, I think it's wise to develop a signature move, if you will. Mine, on the pickleball court, is more like a ping pong shot, where I put a spin on there. The ball takes a drastic jump to the right or left, away from the person trying to hit it. And if I hit it right, it's a winner.

There you go. And so developing, what's your God signature move, right? What does that look like, and how do you develop that? And what a fun thing to think about is your own, very own Russian sickle God style.

What does that look like? So we've got boot camp coming up. We've got After Hours. If you go to the website, you can go to the podcast, and here we're going to talk about each of these guys' signature moves when we come back in the After Hours, so stay tuned. We've got so much more coming on strength. This is the Truth Network.