Men of the Beach, Talk #2: The Dangers that Lurk Within

Story #1

Saul:

Saul was a mighty warrior, kingly in bearing, and impressive man. He was a head taller than all the men in Israel, without equal amongst them. He came from a clan famous for its military prowess. He began his reign with a mighty act of subjugation, uniting the tribes of Israel and leading them himself against the Ammonites. After a great victory he is hailed as king. He opens with a bang, a mighty man, a powerful leader, full of the Holy Spirit, acclaimed by the prophet Samuel and celebrated by all the people.

But by the end of his life, Saul is rejected by the Holy Spirit, abandoned and denounced by Samuel, separated in the battle field, and reduced to a botched suicide attempt. His final night as king he consulted a witch. He was widely discredited, a man of anger, jealousy, frustration. His main rival humiliated him time and time again. Victory on the battlefield eluded him unless David was with him. His attempts to harness the entire power of his kingdom to hunt down a small band of men were both futile. His firstborn was more loyal to his rival than to him. He dies a man rejected by God, foolish, weak, and alone. With him, his line dies too, and the kingdom passes to another.

Why does this happen? Why does Saul fail when he began so strong? We see several patterns in his life. There is fear and passivity at critical junctures, like when his army stands at an impasse with the Philistines and daily endures the taunts of Goliath. There is a concern with maintaining appearances, like when he begs Samuel to perform the sham of honoring him before the people, despite the rejection that Samuel has just pronounced. There is a profaneness with the things of God, like early in his reign when he fails to wait for Samuel to perform the sacrifice, out of fear; and when he disobeys God be keeping the best of the animals alive when God had instructed him to kill them all.

What we see is a man who on the outside seemed powerful, strong, and confident, but who on the inside was full of fear, pride, and vanity. The reality of the inner man eventually overcame the brave warrior, and Saul ended his days in ignominy.

Story #2

Ted Haggard:

Similarly, Ted Haggard was a man who looked the part. A charismatic speaker, an intelligent and dynamic thinker, a brilliant organizer and administrator, a far-thinking man of vision and insight, he had built a tiny church in Colorado Springs into a 15,000 member mega-church. With this came a wide influence in the wider world of American evangelical Christianity, including speaking engagements, article-writing, and eventually, the presidency of the National Association of Evangelicals. From this position, Haggard spoke weekly with President Bush, strongly opposed gay marriage, abortion, and other social issues, and fought for greater unity among the various American evangelicals.

In addition, Haggard had an influential ministry in his own church, touching thousands of lives, overseeing a wide variety of ministries, counseling many troubled marriages, and preaching powerfully on a weekly basis. Christianity Today put him on its cover as a poster child for a new and engaging style of ministry with the non-Christian world.

But like Saul, Haggard’s external charisma and gifting hid deep and dangerous flaws. Early in his marriage, Haggard had had a brief sexual encounter with a man, an encounter that he confessed to his wife and a close friend. He had prayed through it, repented, and sought forgiveness from his wife, but not deeply examined this area. Years later, as the toll of his various ministries began to wear on him, Haggard began to drive up to Denver for a weekend (he told his wife he was going on “retreats” to plan sermons). He would get a hotel room and call up a male escort. At first, Haggard just talked to the man, but gradually he began to use for increasing intimacy. Eventually, the man introduced him to drugs to heighten his experience. All this while Haggard continued in his various roles as pastor, speaker, and leader.

Eventually, the whole thing came crashing down. While listening to the radio one day, Haggard’s hired boyfriend heard him denouncing homosexuality and gay marriage on Christian radio. Recognizing the voice (Haggard had never told the man his name), he called some reporters, showing as proof a voice mail Haggard had left him asking for drugs. The story broke, Haggard resigned from all his positions, inflicting on his church and ministry irreparable damage.


Both these men started out acclaimed. Both were respected for their gifts; Saul for his kingly bearing and great size, Haggard for his personal charisma and organizational savvy. Yet both were ultimately brought low by deep and unconfronted weaknesses that their outer gifts disguised.

Today we will be talking about the woundedness that lies within, that perversion of our nature that cannot be hidden forever. We must do a two-part work if we are to avoid the mistakes that brought low these men:

1. We must enter fully into the brokenness of our true self, the distortion and perversion brought to our natures by sin.

2. We must develop a coherent and compelling understanding of manhood to enter into.

In Ephesians iv.22-24—

You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitudes of your mind; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.

We see here this process. First, to put off the old, perverted self, which is being corrupted, a word which means slowly eaten away and weakened from the inside. You see, if we do not put this self off, no matter what we put on ourselves, there will be an internal source of corruption that will eventually overwhelm us. The inner man must be confronted.

Second, we are renewed in our mind. This is the process of transforming our minds through the Holy Spirit working through his word. As we understand ourselves and God through the lens of Scripture, our minds are made new, and we are equipped for this putting off and putting on. Finally, we are to actively walk in the new revealed ways, to put on the new man, to conform ourselves to the vision of manhood presented in the Scriptures.


Men of the Beach, we must enter into the darkness of our hearts. We must see and know the dangers of our sin. Most of all, we must confront the distortions that we have absorbed, the conflicts between what we receive from our environment, our family, our culture, and even our churches, and what is true.

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Men, listen, what is required of you in the investigation of yourself is honesty and humility.

1. How has my view of manhood been distorted? This is a lifelong process and involves the careful application of the Word.
2. What wounds have I received? How have I been wronged?

Types of wounds:

1. Distorted view of man from absent or abusive father
--This is extremely common. No father figure wrecks havoc on our understanding. It is our fathers that affirm us as men.
2. Overbearing/Controlling mother
--The emotionally manipulative mother often works hand in hand with the absent father. This can keep a man in a perpetually emotionally constrained state, a state of perpetual childhood in other words.
3. Rejection by peers
--Rejected not just by certain people, but as a male. Common for unathletic boys.
4. Sexualization wound
--This is increasingly common as pornography has become widely available. A significant number of people your age, including, I imagine, a good portion of the people in this room were exposed to porn in middle school or younger. This is a gap even between me and you. Other forms of sexualization include sexual abuse, early sexual activity. The Bible says that sexual sin is against our body and “wages war against our soul.” Significant soul damage is done here.

There are other ways that we have been harmed, wounded, sinned against and sinning.


Application:

1. There is weakness in your heart, as a man. You are not strong. Do you think that those men, Ted Haggard, all the thousands of Christian men who have been overcome by the sin that lay in their heart, do you think all of them willfully ignored their sin? No, most likely in their pride they did not realize it was there. They imagined themselves beyond falling.

Judas travelled with Jesus for 3 years before his greed and pride overcame him and he fell. Ted Haggard ministered for 30 years before his sin overcame him. Sin will withdraw from you, lie dormant, pretend that it is absent, while all the time it waits for you to forget, to let down your guard.

2. There is a God-ordained way for us as men to deal with our weakness, and to deal with it together. This is a way that you will never outgrow, that you will never move past your need for. This is the depth and power of mutual encouragement.

See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God.

All our weaknesses, all our flaws, all our problems and issues, all of them must be worked out in the light, not by us alone, not by our own strength, but on the mutual strengthening that we have only in community with others.

3. This is not for today, not for tomorrow, not for college, not for our youth, but for all the days of our life. As long as we are susceptible to sin, we need men looking into our lives, examining it, and watching over us. And we need to do the same to others.

Some of us are doing this. Others have done this in the past. Others have never done it.

4. Sin has power when it is hidden. The hardest time to share is the first time. We have to permit each other access. They have to see us. What front are you putting up to your brothers? How are you obscuring yourself, hiding what is shameful?

If you get nothing more from this whole program than this one thought, I will be happy:

You must, throughout your entire life, allow men to see your life, to rebuke you, and do the same for them.

5. What obstacles lie in the way of this?

A) The cursed passivity of men. Men are passive and can live side-by-side with each other without ever knowing each other. You must be the initiator. Don’t wait for others!

B) Fear of rejection, shame. This is understandable, but a lie. In our attempts to hide our shame, we achieve the opposite. Think of Ted Haggard, how for years he saved himself from the shame of admitting to a close friend his struggles with homosexuality. But in the end, everyone knew.

C) Perceived absence of men to share with. Moving to a new area, a new church, etc. Can you commit yourselves to this in the long term?

You will only perceive this as urgent so far as you are aware of your sin and weakness. God says humble yourself, and he will lift you up. Therefore men, humble yourself, in your self-conception.