Introduction & Why Men Are Missing Peace

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Welcome to the Monday Morning Men podcast. It's been a couple weeks since we've been more than a couple weeks. But for you listening, it's only been a week. It's been one week.

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Um we are in May and it is 46 degrees outside in North Carolina. So I don't know what's going on there.

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We can't beat that. No. Um this morning we got a fun episode uh talking about fellowship and peace. Excited about what you got for us. Um we've been loving the feedback. If you've got more feedback for us, info at mondaymorningmen.com. And uh with that, let's dive right into this because we you want to yeah, let's get into you're like you want to keep this.

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I I do I would keep it short. I will we'll just like kind of tell you guys something. My wife, who I love, I mean, I share my life in my bed with sexing your brother yesterday. This was like three weeks ago. She's like, You have a your podcast is live. What are you talking about? What do you think I'm doing in the morning? Where am I going? This is just just so you know, if God will strip you of any sort of uh achievements that you think you've done, your wife will be like, I didn't even know. In fact, the other day, she's like, I came across a YouTube short of you. I was like, this was two days ago. I was like, what? Anyway, just side note, God gives

The Burden Every Man Feels Today

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you wives and children to keep you on the straight and narrow, that's for sure. But yeah, let's get into this. Um, I'm really excited that this topic, it's gonna be a little bit different. We're still gonna make it, you know, something you can apply in the next for the next week in practice. However, my goal, and as cliche as this sounds, is to, I would love to have this published in a book form by the end of 2027. You're welcome to keep me accountable on this. Um there's always something that's kind of like your heart, which your which your theme, like what's God put on you? Everybody has a soapbox, and if you know me, I have lots of soap boxes. But this is one that really I do have.

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Let me just jump in a lot of soapboxes.

SPEAKER_01 2:32

Probably the most soapboxes of any person I've ever like you don't how do you care that much about it? I'm passionate about the many, many. Wendy's fast food is the big noun, just lesson. Yes, I have many opinions and many thoughts. Um, but this is one where I'm like, this just feels it's sat right in my spirit, and I believe it's an important one. God wants to speak. Um, so this episode's gonna kind of be a two-parter. So we're gonna we're gonna give some application for this week. And then for next episode, we'll even give more kind of you'll see how well I'll the context of which I'll lay this out in the format. But uh one of the big primary things that I've noticed in my own life, and even this whole Monday morning men and what God's been leading me, it's been stuff that's been going on inside and some unrest and some lack of peace that I've had. And the more that I spend time with guys, the more that I talk to them, there's a lot of men that are not happy with where they're at. And um, in fact, uh, I think there's the I need to find the stat on this, but I but it was three times more likely in their 30s to be in an addiction of some sort in your 30s. So whether that's, I mean, it's easy to

Why Modern Solutions Aren't Fixing the Problem

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look at, you know, that's drugs, alcohol, pornography, and agree, but we're talking about men are checked out in a level that's not even normal. So whether that's sports, your phone, your work life, whatever it is, we're checked out. Um, you add anxiety to that and and just this unrest that we feel as a society. We're the richest society that ever probably has existed in the world. And yet we are more unhappy, more anxious, we have more stuff at our disposal, and yet we're miserable. Uh, my buddy uh Drew, who I'm hoping to have on here to talk about anxiety uh down the road, he's got a stat in his new book that um if you were to take elementary uh kids 50 years ago, that the majority of them would be committed to an institution based on their current anxiety levels, just normal kids that are in grade school. So this is crazy. I mean, up since uh 55% of anxiety is up for you know male adults specifically since 1990. So we're just living in a time of unrest. Peace is non non-existent in our lives. I have men that are with godly wives and families that are comfortable that are kind of miserable. And it's an interesting thing for me. And so as I've been processing and thinking about this, and I love reading and I love listening to books, there is this um band-aid that I think we're putting on just a hair. It's a good band-aid. We have to stop the bleeding a little bit. But when we consider some of the tips and tricks that are being presented by Christians, I think they're just treating the symptoms a little bit. And what I mean by that, like I'm I'm a huge fan of taking a Sabbath. We do that as a family. I'm I'm a huge fan of we do Shabbat. I'm a huge fan for we have a brick at our house, which is like it shuts your phone off where you can't receive or certain, you can do text messages, you can do whatever you want, shut down apps, you know. We we take media fast. We do all the things that all these books do. We're intentional. We eat dinner as a family. I mean, uh literally every night. We do family devotions almost every single day. So we're we're we're doing the tips and tricks that are there. But what I'm realizing is I was processing this, there is a sense of privilege that comes with us trying to set parameters that say, hey, I don't want these things to take place that are happening in our current culture, right? And so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna set up these boundaries to stop them from happening. If I can give an example, it's like I appreciate

The Real Issue: Your Heart, Not Your Habits

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the brick that doesn't allow me to access certain apps at a certain time. So, you know what, you're not on social media when you're home with your family or you're not looking up a sports score. That's great. But see, there's something going on in my heart that makes me reach for my phone. And so the whole idea behind this podcast, uh, for this episode and the next one, and what I'm hoping to put in book form is to address the symptom that's actually there. Why are you reaching your for your phone? There are books out there that will give you the bricks, but that but there's something going on inside. Deuteronomy chapter 20, verses 8 through 13 is actually one of my favorite passages in scripture, uh, which if you look that up, I want to be careful because it's the passage where God tells the nation of Israel to go in and annihilate every living thing. And people have a lot of time for, you know, like a hard time. And my job is not to defend God. I'm not gonna explain because he goes and says, kill all the animals, women, children, and men. And this is hard for people. Um, but I'm not gonna get into the uh the apologetics behind why, you know, to defend God and why he asked for that. But one of the reasons that I do know that he asked for that is God is not a culture changer. God is a culture starter and an annihilator of bad cultures. You do not get to take something bad and convert it to good. It is removed, it is stripped, it is dead, it is gone, and then new life is given. And if we think that way, I can appreciate hey, you need to set up certain things in your family to help give that rhythm of peace that we we so desperately need, but it's kind of like a band-aid. What's going on in your heart? What culture are you developing? We've talked about this before. You're growing something. What culture are you developing both in your life and your family? Um, and address some of the issues that are going on there. I hope that makes sense. But this is kind of the context that I want to write this book.

God's Definition of Peace (It's Not What You Think)

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We have a problem, and then specifically it's it's one with peace, and we'll get into that here, and then we'll get into the next episode on kind of how we can walk out uh peace in our own lives. But here's the culture God wants to develop with us, and that's peace. That is his main goal. People don't think about this. Like when we think about peace, we think about the 70s or somebody that's kind of a hippie. But peace simply means when you look it up in the Hebrew, it means wholeness or harmony. And I love that because when you look at what who you are as a person, this is something that you're constantly trying to achieve in your relationships. Wholeness with your wife, right? Harmony is a two-part person, right? This is you can't have harmony uh just without you know one person singing, you need two people, right? God's desire for us is that we have peace. Ephesians 3.19, Paul prays for the people for the believers in Ephesus. He says, to experience the love of Christ, which surpasses knowledge, so that they may be filled with the fullness of God. And then in John 14, 27, he says, Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. I do not give you to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not be afraid. Jesus is our peace. This is our desire. Paul's praying for the fullness of Jesus, who is peace to be resignated in the believers. Uh, C.S. Lewis says, God cannot give us happiness and peace apart from himself because it is not there. There is no such thing. Jesus' peace. This is the culture he's trying to develop in us. So I'm gonna break this down and just kind of hold on to your hats. If you're sitting in your car, uh, listen up and focus. Uh, you know, if you have to pay attention, you got to do what you got to do. It's an inside joke. I was snapping my fingers, but uh pay attention because I'm this is gonna be a lot, but I want to throw at you kind of where my journey is taking me. So if you start it quite literally at the beginning, the earth says that it was formless and void. The Greek word means chaos. So there was nothing there. It was in it wasn't in harmony. God then establishes that harmony, right? He comes in, he brings order. This is his goal, is the peace and the harmony and the wholeness of the earth. We then obviously fall. We've now broken that harmony. We've broken the peace. His goal was peace with us on earth. He then gives us a way back to peace, which is Leviticus chapter three. If you open that up, you're welcome to read it. I'm not gonna

The Peace Offering & Why God Saved You

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read all of it, but you have five different uh uh offerings that were required by God in order to atone for your sins. But out of those five, uh, four of them are required. One is voluntary, and this is kind of where I want to sit for a second. It's known as the peace offering. And I love this is that most of your Bibles will also call it the fellowship offering. You see this in Exodus chapter 29, 46. The reason God saves you, and this is I always ask people, why did God save you? Yes, he saved you from your sins. Yes, he saved you so that he's glorified. But Exodus uh 29, 46 says that I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt. So the Egypt rep representing our former self, right? He's about to explain why he did it. And it's not because I wanted you to walk righteously, I wanted you to be better than everybody else, I wanted you to watch, you know, walk morally the high road. Those are all good things. It says that I'm the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt so that I may dwell with you. Fellowship was always the goal. And in fellowship, that's peace. That's what peace means. Peace doesn't mean, and this is where a lot of Christians get off, that doesn't mean rest. It doesn't mean boundaries, it doesn't mean a clear schedule, it doesn't mean the simplicity of life that we achieve. I'm not saying those can't bring us peace, but peace has always been relationship with the Father. So go ahead and get rid of your mind, like what's going on in your mind. Like, I need peace in my life, like I just need things to slow down, or I need uh less, you know, drama, or like friend, you're gonna have that forever. Like I mean you live in a fallen world. Peace is not quietness of your life and just like living a simplistic life. It can, but really it's just relationship with the Father. Remember this Satan is the prince of this world. This is what scripture says. Revelation, he's known as Leviathan, which means chaos. So if you think about this, he's the prince of this world, known as chaos. So Jesus is known as the prince of peace. God is trying to communicate to us, this is highly, highly important to him. It's his goal that we would experience peace on earth. What did the I mean, all the angels gather around and said, peace on earth, goodwill toward men. When you think about it, you're like, What does he want? Is everybody happy? No, he wants relationship with us. So if you understand,

Fellowship With God Creates True Peace

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we have a cultural problem, we have an unhappiness and an unrest. It's because you're not walking in harmony or wholeness with Jesus. We have a peace issue here. Fellowship with God and fellowship with others is what gives us peace. So if you want peace, if you want to develop this culture, and this is kind of where I want to go with this, if you want to develop peace in your life, it starts with fulfilling the greatest commandments that we see: loving the Lord your God, walking in wholeness with him and fullness and harmony, and then loving others, walking in harmony and fullness and wholeness with others. It's that simple. So here's how it's gonna play out. Fellowship with God is walking in relationship with him by communication, by worship, by praying, by reading your Bible, all the basic things that we've talked about that you know, and it really what breaks down into obedience. So if you can see how I'm kind of painting this and that I hope to write in a book, it's like a cultural problem. Then you have this piece that you're, you know, God's wanting to develop, and then this kind of overarching umbrella that comes into play of how we walk this out. And really, it just comes down to obedience. That's walking in harmony with someone, right? That's walking in communion, communion. He wants something out of us. He's saying, hey, this is the way to do it. We need to walk in obedience. Ephesians 2.10 says this for we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus, to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. We've talked about this verse before that we're to walk in harmony, right? That's that Pomia, that Greek word that says that his rhythm is with us. We walk in that. We know that in uh was it Colossians uh 3.10 that we are to be ruled by peace. It's to umpire our hearts. So if we understand this, if we know that this is what he wants to for us to do, we just simply need to follow in obedience. Our fulfillment comes from there. John 4.34 says this this is Jesus talking, right? Who we're emulating. My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. Our goal should be able to walk in peace and to walk in the fullness of our relationship with him. And it starts with obedience. If we do this first part, it followed the peace and the fellowship with God, it will bring us into fellowship with others. I mean, it's that simple. If you love God and you're focused on him, you can't help but love him. You will start to love and follow and obedience by loving others. First John 1, 3 communicates that. That which we have seen and heard, we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us. And indeed, our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. So the application is super simple, it's simple obedience. And we're going to get into this more and explore kind of, I guess, in a it's going to be in more detail next episode, but it's still going to be broader than even some

Practical Step #1: Deal With Unrepentant Sin

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of the episodes we've done before. But but obedience is the answer to everything. Um, in this kind of like idea, as this journey starts to take place, I really want you just to understand that we're trying to have a different culture in our hearts and in this like the the fertile ground that we're growing. So that's kind of like what I want to address. And in in an effort to do this, if you are wanting to cultivate peace in your life and walk in fellowship and harmony, the simple thing is this you can't do that if you're walking in blatant unrepentant sin. So kind of application one for this episode whatever you know that you're doing that is contrary to God's will. Now there are there's sins that you don't realize. David prayed, forgive me for the sins. Like God is not breaking off, I don't believe, some sort of uh communication or fellowship with you for for sin that you just don't even know you're committing. This is something we should need a it's a whole nother conversation. But if you're walking in blatant unrepentant sin, you know you're not walking in harmony with God. So before we can even start to develop a culture of peace within our lives, you have to get rid of that. Like you have to confess it. You if you're walking in selfish ambition or you're being disrespectful to your wife on a consistent basis and you know that you're not treating her properly, or you're angry with your kids, or you're unkind, if you're indulging your flesh with, you know, either just fulfilling it with whatever desire you want, whether that's porn, television, even if it's things that aren't necessarily evil, but you know that you're walking in something God doesn't want you to do. If you need to pause this episode right now and just confess it. Ask for forgiveness. Um start to reorder your life where you're walking in true obedience. If you need to, call a buddy, keep yourself accountable. Whatever you need to do, it needs to start now, but you can't walk in harmony

Practical Step #2: Identify Your Lack of Peace

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and wholeness. You can't even start to develop peace in your life with blatant, uh, unrepentant sin. The second thing that I would encourage you to do is that, you know, maybe if you get to work or tonight, if you got to pull out your phone, your notes, or a journal, whatever you do, address the lack of peace in your life. Like think to yourself, do I have peace or where do I don't have peace? Like, what is kind of unrest? And if there's this general, let me just encourage you. Sometimes we have this general unrest. You're just kind of irritated. You're like, I don't know what I'm doing. Is this worth it? I'm not happy. That there's kind of this unrest, which a lot of guys have. I want to tell you right now, you're probably not walking with God. I don't believe you experience Christian burnout if you're walking with God. There's no way that the Prince of Peace is walking in hand in hand with me and I'm walking complete chaos or unrest. So address it. Be honest with yourself. Ask yourself what you're feeling. Is there dissatisfaction, irritation? You can even ask your wife and your kids. Even my wife will tell me she's like, you are you, there's something irritated about you. Like you just seem irritated. And start to pray about them. Write them down the things that are making you that way or things that you're just simply feeling. It's a little bit different than probably what a lot of men are comfortable with, but it's important that you start with this foundation. I would honestly confess that unrest or that lack of peace to another brother. Like my my the best advice I can give you to is find someone to walk through if you can. Find someone to keep you accountable, someone to pray with you. So again, you're confessing your sin uh to God. You're walking in uh harmony with him, you're not walking in a blatant disobedience, and then you're gonna address some of that peace that's not sitting in your heart right now. Write it out, make it super simple, find where you're doing, you know, where you're kind of missing the line a little bit. And so you're honest with yourself. And then we'll start there and we'll kind of build off this in the next episode. Those are the two kind of things that you can practice this week. Uh, Matthew Henry said this Christ died, he left a will in which he gave his soul to his father, his body to Joseph of Arimathea, his clothes to the soldiers, and his mother to John, but to his disciples who had left all to follow him, he left not silver or gold, but some something far better, his peace. God wants to give us peace. This is what his goal was found in scripture. We see that in Leviticus and Exodus, and ultimately in the culmination of the new covenant. So, this is what we're trying to walk in true harmony and wholeness with God. Um thoughts on it.

SPEAKER_00 20:02

I I I can just sympathize so much with what you're talking about. I I don't know what it is, but I feel like it's

Why Success Never Satisfies Men

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like I hit my 30s, and all of a sudden it's like I'm not happy. You're not happy. It's true, dude. I and and I think that there's a lot of guys that feel that way, as you mentioned. And I don't know if it if it's cultural influence like what you see on social media, you have this expectation of you're supposed to be somewhere, you're supposed to achieve this, but it's almost as if the more that I reach for the things that I feel like I should be as a man provider, a husband for my family, you know, building a business, all this stuff, it's the more uh like uh chaos that I have in my life. It's if it's okay, well I think I think that if I just make more money, that's gonna solve my problems, right? But it doesn't, it just creates more chaos. If if only I have uh more time off on the weekend, less work or whatever it is, it it none of that is gonna bring true peace, right? So I think it takes a lot to really examine yourself to be able to identify those areas that what's the root of it? Like, why are you trying to achieve? Why are you trying to do these things? The thing that works well for me is just journaling, just writing it all out. Like because I'll all internalize, I'll just sit and stew and get really quiet, but until I actually get down and write stuff out.

SPEAKER_01 21:43

But um one of the things that I've I've I've been journey I've noticed I've had been writing a lot more and you know, because it kind of work out some of those emotions. But what I've been doing sometimes at work, like I'll just have that that unrest because I'll put my headphones in and just play the audio Bible. If if my peace comes from direct communication with him, because sometimes we think our peace is fixing our bank account, like you said, achieving some sort of accomplishment, we look for the fullness of peace anywhere but Jesus.

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Yeah.

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I mean, we just do. And he's saying, I'm the culmination of all peace. Like just sit at my feet and and like I'm the I'm the true joy. Like if he's the prize that we're seeking, and it sounds super spiritual, but it's actually just super simple. And I I I'm I'm a huge I I love sports, and it's always just I always make my boys do this. In fact, I made them watch this the other day. There was a guy, I'm a I love golf, and um Roy McRoy achieved he he won did the Grand Slam, they've been chasing this forever. And him talking about how fleeting it was and how like even the like kind of like this emotional crash that he experienced afterwards, he'd worked so hard and found out it was so unfulfilling. Not that he wasn't happy with the win, but it just is what it is. Yeah, yeah. I I mean this is why we have an epidemic right now because we see people online who look happy, who look like they have peace. Friend, it's not it's not it's not the beach house, it's not it's not achieving

Chasing the Wrong Things Always Leads to Sorrow

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something at work, it's not the promotion, it's not exactly affirmation. It is quite literally sitting at the feet of Jesus.

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The the the verse that came to mind was first Timothy six ten, where it's for the love of money is the root of all evil. Like everybody says that, right? But the second half of that verse, um and while some have coveted after it, they have erred from the faith and pierced themselves through many sorrows. It's like the very thing that you go for that you think is gonna bring you peace actually pierces you with sorrows. Right. That's that's so good, yeah. Um, and you could probably not to modify scripture, but you could take away money and interject something else of this world that you think is gonna bring you that satisfaction, and it's just not gonna, it's it's not gonna come from it. It's not only gonna come from a relationship with Christ.

SPEAKER_01 24:10

And we're in Jeremiah as a family doing family devotions. I was reading to the kids last night, Jeremiah chapter seven. Basically, God always allowed the children of Israel the things that were in their hearts, and I told this to the kids. I was like, We think God punishes us in like this, he does discipline those whom he loves. But I'm like, a lot of times he just gives us our hearts' desires, which enslaves us and makes us miserable. Yeah, and here he is, these people they were building worthless idols, they were digging their own wells,

Final Challenge: Repent & Walk in Peace

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they were chasing it. Literally says material things in chapter seven, things they they thought would make them happy. And he's like, Well, you like Babylon, here's Babylon, enjoy it. Yeah, and they were miserable. And the reality is we should be chasing him.

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It's good, it's a good way to leave it. Um, well, hope you guys enjoyed this episode. Hope you were blessed by it. Um, there's some really great action points to to take away from this. So I'd really encourage you to if you're listening to this and if you have Christ in your heart, you should feel that conviction on whenever we're talking about some of that blatant sin in your life. So I'd really encourage you to um take some time, sit in silence, journal, uh, pull the car over, and just spend 10 minutes like in prayer, just repenting before the Lord and um address that lack of peace because he wants to bring peace to your life. And so um, yeah, with that, we'll see you guys next week.