5 Masculine Instincts | Chase Replogne

I hope these five masculine instinctive language for men for fathers and sons for brothers for pastors and men in the congregation to just be able to have more meaningful conversations about who are we, what are the things that were living out of how we actually become more like one of those instincts in order to welcome to Building Relationships.

There in the New York Times, Sally "The 5 Love Languages" find ways to strengthen relationships on our website. I love my.com today, pastor and author Chase Replogle helps men understand what man in today's world health and help is on the way and just in time for Father's Day: looking forward to hearing from Chase because there is a lot of confusion a lot of discussion about toxic masculinity in the culture and is a man I want to know about the biblical model of manhood. That's what you hear about your host is Dr. Gary Chapman, Gary, when you were growing up there were problems in the culture, but there wasn't.

I don't think the same confusion that we have today about men you agree with her.

I think you're exactly right Chris and think the role of man and what it meant to be a man was far more defined in those days and rather homogeneously accepted in our culture today.

There's just a lot of ideas about manhood so I'm excited about our discussion today will this meet Chase Replogle. He is the pastor of Bethel church in Springfield Missouri yields degree in biblical studies and MA in New Testament from the Assemblies of God theological seminary. Currently, a demon student at the sacred art of writing Western theological seminary is a native of the Ozark woods so I got a lot of questions about that and he and his wife have two children. You can find out more about the book the five masculine instincts@moodybooks.org choice. Welcome to Building Relationships. I will thank you for having me.

It's honor to be speaking with you today. Let's begin with so little about you tell us about who Chase is, your family and why you do what you do well, thanks. I first and foremost I'm a pastor so I've been pastoring same congregation close to 10 years.

Now a church that we started in its smaller congregation about 100 people, which I love very relational.

Everyone pretty much been to my home and I've been in mayors and first and foremost my my hardest to be pastoring the pastor a congregation of people.

Well blouse. I got a couple kids.

I've got a son and a daughter and I we own a little land here in the Ozarks.

Couple horses a few chickens, although that's mostly my daughter's project and we just enjoyed it outside doing things together. Family and others plenty to keep us busy these days is the reason you tackle this topic. The conclusion that we were just talking about. I think you set it up well unit or was it recently, a study out that Barnett did asking men, Christian and non-Christian men to give them to word options something like confused and clear and they would say which word best describes your sense of masculinity or manhood and overwhelmingly, and particularly Christian men said that they were more confused they would pick the more negative words in the pair of words that they gave them as a pastor I certainly since it myself to a lot of young men in my congregation particularly have been wrestling with these questions. What is it mean to be a man was mean to be a man of the world were in today what is it mean to be a Christian man is that is there something distinct about that as well, to so for me, I came to the topic, primarily again is a pastor trying to help sort this out with in my life. I'm raising a son, myself, and also for the men in my congregation and sensing that a lot of questions a lot of confusion.

Unfortunately in any other part of that. That's hard is I'm keenly aware that even having the word masculinity in a book titled these days. The five masculine instincts is for some controversial sort of regardless of what's actually inside the book, and that's a real struggle for me that if if the topic itself of manhood and masculinity has become controversial, then there's probably a lot of us that are avoiding it.

A lot of us as pastors that may feel uncomfortable walking a path and avoiding what we consider to be those landmines and and what really suffers in the end of his mentor like they're not able to have that conversation or the clarity around it that I think so many of them are looking for right now, so your goal is to focus not on outward change behavior modification, but a strengthening of character is that right it is you know it's struck me that so often the world when it talks about manhood immediately goes to external things. External expectations were traits and unfortunately the church we have a tendency to do that sometimes in a negative way just clichés, but sometimes we do it. Also, in a positive way we talk about the decisions. The external sends that men are prone to. I think that's an important conversation we should be having. What we don't get around to talking about is often is why those particular sentence or one of the desires are instincts motives within my life that are leading me into those particular temptations and is there something about being male that predisposes me to those things. So what I wanted to do with the book was. I wanted to push that conversation, one level deeper. It's not just a conversation about the roles of men or the sins the expectations of man, it's trying to have a conversation that helps men look deeper and say what what are the instincts, one of the desires. One of the things beneath the surface in my life that may be leading to those actions or those those outward things better more easy to see really and so many ways are still connected to those internal questions.

I think the question of character is is right at the heart of cultivating character has everything to do with those disciplines of internal desires and instincts motives later express themselves into character and externals were going to get into the five instincts in our next segment but talk about Christian man and what is happened in the last few years regarding masculinity. What are you seeing in the church culture mentor in the church are struggling.

We know that's true by the statistics men are participating in church less than women.

Even though personal practice of faith, the most that he stated their praying last reading Scripture less than women pastors I can say this is a pastor myself. We still feel stuck, how is it you get men to show up to church how you get them to bear responsibility in families and local congregations communities around neighbors and generally most pastors ending.

Most churches are struggling with that were seeing the same kind of disengagement.

Some of the same apathy that the world is experiencing as men are participating less and so for the church were I think at a critical moment where we desperately need clarity around what it is.

Men can do and why they're needed. Why we need fathers in the home is why we need men in the church why we need men serving in communities. We need clarity around that conversation. We also need to be able to carve a path for men to come back to those responsibilities as more and more men find themselves just frustrated by the confusion of the controversy is there dropping out and disengaging from those things. It's not enough to just say you know.

Shame on you. You should be engage menu should be better fathers. We as pastors as church leaders we gotta be able to carve a path to say to men. I understand you're not who you wish you could be and I understand there's people who may not even once you participating. But here's what that looks like, to bear responsibility in a positive way as a believer, and here's how we actually grow in character is meant here is that we become better meant the kind of men who can bear greater responsibility in families and in the church in the community so clarity about those purposes, but also a path that can help lead men to those better things in so many ways. That's what I've been trying to do with this book as well to is just carve a path through the controversy to say to men. There is a possibility of Christlike character and it is something you can strive for and make progress and and it's not always easy work, but it's really really necessary work that your family, your congregation, your community depend on.

They depend on you.

Growing in Christ likeness and character, so does matter. So it sounds like to me that you're giving men permission to talk about something that they have for a lot of different reasons, just Below the surface, just keep your head down. Just keep going. This is opening up a conversation.

As you said to help us go a bit deeper. Is that right yeah you know I mean one of the things I'm most on about being on the show is what I think about Dr. Chapman's book "The 5 Love Languages" . One of the things that I think you did so well as it gave language to help couples have more meaningful conversations so they were probably experiencing these things and feeling this things and probably stumbling through some of that language, but the language of "The 5 Love Languages" really helped start deeper and more meaningful conversations in a similar way. That's what I hope this book because I hope these five masculine instincts gives language for men for fathers and sons for brothers for pastors and men in the congregation to just be able to have more meaningful conversations about who are we as men and what are the things that were living out of how we actually become more like Christ. One of those instincts that have to mature in order to do it today on Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman were talking with author and pastor Chase Replogle. Our featured resources. His book the five masculine instincts. I guide to becoming a better man. Find out more at Moody book's.org that's moody book's.org which is first of all that I like the idea that you say five masculine instincts. Okay I like the number five is you might so let's get into the five masculine instincts can you give us an overview of the news and in the biblical examples of each. Sure, I'll give you a quick summary for each so we can go wherever you'd like. In the conversation, but that the five instincts run through them and then I'll come back to the character of the five are sarcasm adventure, ambition, reputation and apathy and for each of those I pair a biblical character as a way of trying to see that instinct at work in their life as a tool for helping you see it at work in your own so for sarcasm. I use the life of Cain Kane has the sarcastic moment where he says to God and my my brother's keeper, but that's after God is come down and initiated this conversation with Kane about why his sacrifices been rejected, and God warns Cain about the sin that's lurking that's crouched at his door. What Cain demonstrates is a kind of immaturity and an inability to recognize that God is offering him something good. This discipline this challenging conversation feels to him like a threat. In his responses to trivialize it to make it a sarcastic joke which we see as a reader really is contempt. It's this immaturity that can't grow up or take the lesson sarcasm. The second is an adventure with the story of Samson.

There's this cultural narrative right now, particularly young men feel good to know who you are, you have to leave behind place in tradition and family and religion and you have to go find yourself on some sort of quest and adventure. Some search for meaning in and through that process of searching to find your true self still be a kind of actualized self in the process.

Samson story can be read that way he grows up. A Naz right now, which is a tradition given to his parents first and also the time in Israel's history. That's not a particular high point, but he constantly finds himself tracking down and looking for meaning in all things Philistine and in the end, he doesn't become wiser or more actualized enlightened because of that, he seems duller and less discerning and less capable of sensing the story, God is trying to write in his life. So Canaan ends and art sees me, Samson and adventure the third of them is ambition. Use the story of Moses to look at ambition and Moses wrestles with ambition across his whole story.

At times he's motivated by and he strikes down the Egyptian book of acts tells us expecting that the nation of Israel would rally behind Mrs. leader. This ambitious action moment. At other times he seems sort of pressed down by that great ambition. He's discouraged and disillusioned at the burning bush just can't possibly take on the work that God is giving him I'm slow of speech and can't you send someone else. Throughout his life. He's always measuring himself against that vision of his life and he ends up because of it outpacing what God is actually asking of him and becomes at its worst moments, the judge of not only himself but also the nation of Israel and God. And that obsession is something God finally asks him to sit down.

He won't enter the promised land with the people. So Moses and ambition. The fourth reputation and David David story is really a story about the public image of being king. A man after God's own heart and the reality the truthful integrity of his own life and the difficulty it is to reconcile those two things. At times he does so well at this, he takes off Saul's armor and fights Goliath is who he is a shepherd with God and his side but other moments, he sends with Bathsheba and then worsens that sin by covering it up and plotting murder and thinking that he's gotten away with it and so I use David's story to have a conversation with men about his tendency to protect our reputation in the real need for integrity. What true integrity looks like the final of those is apathy with Abraham which that maybe a little surprisingly think of Abraham as the father of faith, certainly not apathetic. He follows God crossed horizons and not knowing where he's going. But when things do go wrong in Abraham's life.

It tends to be because there's a complexity he faces that he finds himself retreating from when he is waiting and waiting and waiting for this promised son. This air his wife Sarah comes up with a plan to produce that air through Hagar. Their servant goes along with it and then it produces conflict within his home and Sarah comes to admit it, one moment. Abraham literally says your you deal with it sort of checks out from the complexity of that situation and we read that Sarah mistreated Hagar and Hagar and Ishmael flee into the wilderness that actually happens a few times in Abraham's life and it's a warning for us as men that we know how complicated and difficult the world can be, and there is a tendency sometimes to with treat to withdraw from it in our apathy, but there's a real danger in doing so in an Abraham story you see how God waits him back up to faith in some powerful ways. The quick summary for each, but sarcasm, adventure, ambition, reputation, apathy will look into those and more deeply as you alluded to already noticed that Adam is not listed in the instincts that is a reason why he's not on the list. You know I I looking out of a little bit in Cain story can be in this being the son of Adam and inheriting some of this brokenness sin from Adam as we all do, but part of the reason a lot of men's books start with someone like Adam as a way of trying to investigate this question. What's the role men should play what is it, what should we be doing is men and that's a really important conversation but it's not the place that I try to start with this book up for me.

The question is not just what role should men play, but that we should be having a conversation but what I'm trying to look out is what are the internal things that keep us from living up to those roles. Those expectations that many of us are clear about, but find ourselves falling short of some for me what I was really interested in where these these, the complexity of these other biblical men in the way that their lives failed to live up to those ideals sometimes aren't really heroic at all but yet God still redeems them and uses them in the complexity of that story feel so much like the complexity of our own lives as men. That was sort of what got me interested attitude and if these five instincts will for me these actually came from. I was reading Shakespeare. Believe it or not a one of his famous plays as you like it has a monologue. The opening words will be familiar to most people, all the world's a stage trickster heights in each of us men and women have our entrance and exit and he goes on to say that a man in his life, plays these seven parts, and he describes the seven stages of a man is there often called her pictures or images.

The first and last, her birth and death, and Shakespeare tries to make the point that as we, the world dependent on someone else's care. We tend to leave the world dependent on someone else's care, but in the middle of those two are these five stages that go from a reluctant schoolboy all the way up to what we might call retirement years really quickly when I read those, I noticed number one. Some of those images in my own life, where I was with those images and as a pastor I recognize really quickly. The minute my congregation and that they are motivated not just because they're men by certain things there often motivated by these different stages that they find themselves in as men, and those can be different today can change depending on life stage age, but also just situations. And then that became a tool for me recognizing when you know these instants are also present in the men of the Bible you can see these in their stories as well and by seeing them there there a tool for helping us recognize those instincts in ourselves. So Shakespeare gave me beat the images in the language I try to put a word to each of them. What I describe as instincts but I Shakespeare.

Of course, is remembered as one of the great psychological writers. He eats trying to get it human nature and certainly he helped me recognize what was in that broken humanity of many of the biblical minutes walk is a fascinating study is. Is there a way to discover your own where you are in these five yeah will certainly a part of what makes an instinct challenging is CS Lewis defines an instinct as behavior, as if from knowledge. So in other words, your acting and living making decisions as if you've taken the time to think it through, when really you happened.

It seems logical and obvious to you like something that's rational, but really you haven't considered it so the challenges how do you learn to recognize something that you've already taken for granted as true interacting apartment so the biblical characters are a great tool for this. They help us recognize instincts and motives within their lives that suddenly we began to recognize and ours as well. I'm practically speaking, I did build a little online assessment tool. Nothing scientific but 25 questions that will help the user didn't sorta begin the process of reflecting on who they are and what might be motivating them. That's at the five masculine instincts.com but really it's just a question of how to use what I have in the lives of these biblical men to start reflecting more deeply on what might be motivating me as I see it motivating them choice. I'm sure there man who heard what you just said and they were trying to write down that their website so give it to us again. Sure the website is the five masculine instincts, just the book title.com that's with the number five. You could also just Google search five masculine instincts and and you'll find it and it's just a short 25 question quiz there and it will also follow-up show you that breakdown and also have some video descriptions that explain each of the instincts as I did before ghost goes, quizzes are helpful as we think through topics like this.

How do you find a particular instinct, you know, you realize that this is where I am at the juncture as part of made recently. So this is just who I am and sometimes we just settle into something less than we could, but how do you how do you fight that that tendency.

I appreciate the way you said this is the way were made because the truth is these instincts I think are part of our human nature and I don't think the five instincts I'm describing here are necessarily sinful warming certainly ambition reputation, we wouldn't say we want a generation of ambition less men. The New Testament calls for you to think about your reputation.

So these these five instincts are the five expectations you have to have these things to be men nor are they the five sins of men.

You watch out for these. What they really are is there these tendencies, these instincts, these narratives that we live out of without ever considering or thinking about and the danger is, as we begin to overindulge those things and not be able to recognize how they're leading us into action. So I think the way we fight against them is is we check them wheat we put in place some intentional practices that help us get perspective on them. The philosopher Nietzsche said that a eight instinct weekends whenever it is forced to rationalize itself.

So in other words, when you ask your and sing some hard questions when you try to get some perspective on it, it loses some of that power over you it loses some of of its control over you and you actually become the master of that instinct a good thing versus it mastering use. I think perspective and awareness of that instinct at work in your life is really what helps you recognize when to trust it when there may be a better instinct that you need to you need to trust over that one that you happen you say in the book for self-knowledge alone can be dangerous.

Explain that I take this from Paul's advice to the young man Timothy activities and very difficult pastoral situation in Ephesus, conflict and controversies around the church is young, which some people look down on and Paul gives them this piece of advice that to keep showing the progress that he's making. That's not just logistical progress post talking about character formation who you are before this congregation, and that Timothy will do that by keeping a close watch on his life and a close watch on the teaching. The teaching is shorthand for doctrine, or the gospel that he's received Pogo so far as to say that by doing those two things he'll save himself and his hearers he's talking about hell pastor well help bear responsibility well roles that he's been asked plate so for Paul that advices is twofold. It's not just pay attention to yourself self-knowledge that can be one of the things the world teaches us to do your true self. Look within and everything's about what is true or write to you pulses you should look within your life and understand what's motivating you while you're behaving the way you're behaving but there's a secondary act which is you have to also pay close attention to what you have in Christ and how the things of the gospel change in check and mature those instincts those desires within you.

I like to think of those two works is sort of the left and right foot of progress we move forward by better understanding ourselves and better understanding what we have in Christ and applying those two things together. Okay, so chastened, I just went to the five masculine instincts.com I gave you my email express this. I told you how old I am and I'm taking the quiz and there were a couple of questions.

I'll tell you what happened to me in just a minute but there were a couple of questions that really kind of touch the nerve. I find it difficult to stop working. I had to say, often on that one. I find myself less engaged than I used to be and I think I said occasionally on that you're not not often, but occasionally it do you find men when they go.

Is there one or two questions that just jump to the front that say okay here is where your instinct lies.

You know there's 25 questions there's five instincts, it's probably not hard to sort out here there's there's around five questions for each of the instincts and what I'm trying to do with that assessment is discern which of these instincts might be strongest at the moment. This is not a personality test. It's not as if you are this one thing and will be shipped forever. It's really just trying to help you reflect on are the arguments go back to the definition of instinct are there things going on within me that I've not actually paid close enough attention to that are motivating my behavior and are there some symptoms of that that I could see so of those two questions. Certainly the first one's ability to to stop working.

Well, maybe there's something going on with the ambition of my life since leaving me to overwork and you could that drag vitally well except by the way is mind too that that's my highest one. When I take the quiz and this this tendency in us as men to. There are things that I now withdraw from that used to maybe I engaged in will is there a chance I write about in the chapter on ambition. This scientific idea of entropy as time goes on, things become increasingly disordered increasingly complicated things are just order themselves. Naturally they distorted themselves naturally so the longer we live is mentioned, the more aware we are of how little control we actually have how complicated things are in our youth. We may rush into something imagining we can fix that we can sort that out that in the wisdom a good thing of our older age. We recognize is probably more complicated. Now there is a tendency in that to withdraw from the kind of apathy that could keep us from engaging those things so if is a man you find yourself in. Often this happens with relationships, avoiding relationships because of their complexity or avoiding things that you used to be passionate about because maybe you just haven't been able to get the outcome you are looking for. Not always a bad thing apart. That's a process of aging, but could also be an instinct of apathy that you're overindulging and can have some some real consequences associated with so say at 47% on ambition. That's like off the chart right.

That's about were mine is that's probably distraught scientific. You may decide today.

I do know there's something else going on here.

It's ringing true enough. If you fill in the Holy Spirit. Maybe that's it. Well I'm glad that I'm only 11% sarcasm 6% adventure.

My reputation is 14% but ambition was 47% apathy was 22% and what I take from that is that I can. I think if the FA feels comfortable if I can and I can achieve something here and I move toward it. I feel comfortable with that. If I if I feel like I can't win in this and a lot of times relationships fall into that.

Then I more apathetic to that because I don't see a way to unite. I don't have ambition toward that because of for whatever reason so that I know you're saying is not scientific, but I'm seeing a mirror here yes Shakespeare as a great description about apathy instinct where he describes the man is beginning to lose his voice as he ages which is of course a physiological thing. His voice is changing, but he means it also symbolically that our engagement with the world speaking into those things begins to diminish and Shakespeare uses the phrase the world has become too wide. I think that's a phrase that resonates with a lot of men. The longer we live that things that were once simple and we had passion for suddenly the complexity of cause us to withdraw from so I yeah seen ambition and apathy is kind of lived experience. One minute and the next I think is is probably realistic for a lot of men you can take that assessment case is talking about@the5masculineinstincts.com our featured resources. Chase Replogle's book the five masculine in find out more at moodybooks.org that's moody.org you can find out about your love language or discover more ways to strengthen relationships at our website. Five love languages.com you can listen to the stream or download the podcast right there@ 5lovelanguages.com Chase Replogle is our guest today and were told about the five masculine in the guide to becoming a better man for more about that. Go to moody book's.org mood e-book's.org which is before took a break to you and Chris were talking about ambition and you use Moses as an example of that in the Bible. One of the two extremes of ambition. I think this is something people misunderstand about ambition.

We tend to think of ambition, just as a drive to do something great, which it certainly is. I mentioned before, I use Moses to look at ambition and Moses has this at the beginning. He's driven by this desire, he strikes down in Egyptian the book back tells us he imagines the Hebrews will rally behind him, he'll become their decisive leader into freedom, but instead the two Hebrew slaves that were being beaten that he rescued end up mocking him who made you prince over us so he flees into the wilderness when 40 years later, God shows up at the burning bush you would imagine Moses would be excited because God commissions him to the very work. He had tried to take out by his own ambition go and deliver my people, but now the sudden Moses is reluctant.

I'm slow of speech, you know, I they won't know you've actually sent me. Can't you send me someone to help you go so far as they can't get someone else to do it.

We struggle to reconcile those two things, how can Moses be we imagine ambitious. One moment, and not ambitious. The next but I think that's actually the lived experience of ambition. Ambition is I have a vision for something great that I want to achieve in life and what tends to happen as we begin to measure everything against the fulfillment of that ambition. At moments that leaves us feeling empowered and energized at other moments as we feel incapable of achieving it is that measurement fall short. We feel disillusioned and discouraged, but it's that same vision by which we define our life that really fuels both of those things. So a person who feels a beaten-down disillusioned discouraged by their lack of progress is still really measuring their life against about ambition and the tendency is we begin to do that with other people.

We begin to judge other people and measure them against that ambition. We begin to measure God against it. Course the great moment.

This becomes clear and Moses's story is God commands him once again to deliver the people by speaking to the rock water flowing out. Instead, Moses strikes the rock. But he also adds he gathers the people and says, you rebels must we provide water from this rock for you what what is it that led Moses did disobey, which ultimately will cost him entering the promised land will it's this judgment of the people around him. You're a bunch of rebels. Unlike me, and it's this judgment of God, mistaking his emotions for God's must we produce water from this rock will certainly that wasn't Moses producing it and it's his own discouragement that he feels throughout the process as well to soap ambition can can show up in many different extreme experiences and emotions and feelings, not just the one of empowerment. Think ambition is something as you said earlier, is a positive thing that we have a vision to see something we want to see something happen we move in that direction were motivated to do that yet, but I think with Christians. Obviously we have that thing from Jesus, where he served on the bone near the branches. You stick with me you bear fruit without me you can do a thing is so that ambition for Kristin has to be brought under the view of God if this is what you omitted to. You can equip me to do it right yet and that's the remarkable part of Moses's story because he's asked to set down that great ambition. He will die on Mount Nebo looking at the promised land that he won't enter I write in the chapter about this intentional check on ambition of can I set it down, which is a part of this Christian tradition of Sabbath of rest. It's unfortunately we tend to think of Sabbath as if I take one day off a week I'll get a lot more done on the other six.

It's kind of like a life hack to more productivity. But I think the way God intended it is something like we accept that we will only ever achieve 6/7 of what were capable of achieving that I'm going to intentionally limit what I can envision and imagine I might be capable of.

To ensure that I'm following God and not outpacing him that I'm leaving and leaning into the vision he has not the vision that I have.

What struck me is so powerful about Moses's story is I was listening to a professor lecture on Jesus's moment of transfiguration against his close become radiant his disciples see him revealed is who he is and the gospel say that he was then joined by Elijah and Moses and the professor was talking about the location of this transfiguration probably being there mountain beside the Sea of Galilee, and it struck me that Moses was in the promised land that he actually does make it into the promised land, but it's not in his own earthly ambition, his earthly body or his earthly effort. It's there with Christ that ultimately that great ambition is fulfilled and it's his ability to check it to set it down and entrusted to God that I think ultimately ensures that let's go to the instinctive reputation and you use David as an example of that.

So David struggle with his true identity and what that led to acquire men prone to fall into the scum same pattern. David's life is set in the context of Saul's Saul was the first king. His name literally means the one ask for what's interesting about Saul is his qualifications for becoming king were two things he was tall and handsome face all that and that was enough for them to grounded. He looked like a king, which was enough to make him a king, and yet he he struggles to live up to that public image.

He really just candies unraveled by the expectations of it. As I mentioned before, David at times gets this right. He recognizes he has to be who he is. Before God I mentioned before, when he takes off Saul's armor. There's another great scene where he goes and tries to move the ark to to Jerusalem, the city of David, or he's been centralizing his government and the languages it's almost above fanfare so that kind of parade and you imagine that he's probably leaving it is that is this King did the city of David, and it's in that story that use all reaches up and studies the ark and is struck dead and in that moment everything stops.

They ditch the ark in a nearby housing home a few months past. David comes back and decides to move the ark again but this time it's different makes a sacrifice and he dresses in a simple linen e-file. It's the garment of a humble servant. It's the same thing Hannah sewed for Samuel in when he was serving as a child in the temple.

So this time he leads the procession as an act of worship and as a servant when he comes into Jerusalem.

It works they make at this time his wife which is Saul's daughter Michael sees him and says how the Kings dishonored himself dressing like a humble servant, a common servant that is the tension that so many of us live in this expectation of the world to play a part to protect our reputation to care about our public image and the reality of who we actually are. This humble servant.

This common person before the Lord and David at times gets that right and at times gets it terribly wrong what's always struck me though about about David is we know so much about his life.

At the end of the day all of the official records are there, a man of his power could've burn them upon his death, and more than that, he leaves us all of his songs his own words of repentance for everything he got wrong. We we have everything about his life and we live in an age where politicians spend millions of dollars to cover up their sins and hire image consultants and publicity firms yet. David leaves us with the full complex record which in the end is my definition of integrity.

Integrity doesn't mean you always do what is right, it means you're able to bear responsibility and to own both the good and bad in a whole self-image integrity comes from the word integer, there's no fractions no pieces but one whole thing.

And certainly David is that he's not a model. He wouldn't say go be like David there things he gets right and things he doesn't get right.

But in the end his whole life is a kind of confession and integrity that helps us see his willingness to embrace all of it, both the good and the bad. We talked about character. How does that relate to reputation. I think a good example of it is David and Saul. Saul has a reputation and yet his character cannot live up to that reputation and he crumbles under it will at the same time.

David has a reputation, and at times he protects that reputation. But other times he's willing to present who he actually is. There is a character within him that is bigger that he is more committed to than just the public reputation. My favorite one my favorite quotes in the book is there's a Mark Twain quote in the section that says if you give a man a reputation for rising early, he can sleep till noon.

I think that's how we think about reputation. If I can convince enough people of who I am.

It doesn't really matter. Well, it's the flip it really matters who you are and at the end of the day, God sorts that out. You know he will protect you. He will see you through so I think we should spend far more time thinking about who we actually are the integrity of the character of it and let the reputation be something that's in the hands of God have always been fascinated by the reality that even though David failed horribly. In some situations, yet he poured his heart out to God totally acknowledged his failures and God forgave him and allowed him to continue to to remove the skiing think sometimes we get discouraged when we when we fail to say well I discovered ditch the whole thing.

We want to make these men heroes we want to make them good or bad and we want to either emulate them or don't do this or don't do this, in particular with David because we know so much about them but I think it's true of all the biblical characters that are not so much heroes as they are companions state they expose us more than they say. Be like me. The one were trying to come like is Christ and what these these companions along the way.

Help us do is recognize our own short comings, our own instincts.

The way our lives are complicated and need grace and David is certainly a picture of that the full complexity of broken humanness and yet a willingness to confess and bear all of that before the Lord and because of that to be able to be a man after God's own heart. It's only grace that allows that to be true.

This is Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman, author of the New York Times bestseller "The 5 Love Languages" chase Replogle as I gassed the author of our featured resource titled the five masculine in a guide to becoming a better man. Find out more at moodybooks.org that's moody book's.org let's talk a little bit about apathy in our last session here use Abraham as an example of that. You say that if our faith is not tested. It can lead to apathy and difficulty distinguishing between writing will talk about Abraham I want to suggest that Abraham story has a kind of false ending to it worth the part of Genesis where it's the story of the patriarchs, Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and so there's a handoff moment in which God moves from Abraham to Isaac to Jacob. This lineage of those patriarchs and that appears like it's happening at the end of Genesis chapter 21 Abraham finally comes into the promised land.

He has finally received the air. The sunny is long-awaited for Isaac, we read that he signs peace treaties with all of his neighbors. He's at a point of great wealth and security and Genesis says he plants a tamarisk tree there and bear Sheba. So in other words, it's this image of settling the retirement of things.

Finally, having come together and what you imagine would happen is you will turn the page and this will now be Isaac story but you turn the page and you read those opening words of Genesis 22 but God tested Abraham he calls Abraham to sacrifice Isaac so much you could say them could write whole books written on that episode but it's the fact that God tests him here that's so fascinating to me when you want to say has Abraham not proved himself as hard to pass the testimonies followed from home and gone, you know, years, decades waiting and believing.

Surely he's passed the test but I think there's a kind of danger that Abraham faces in that retirement moment. That's greater than any of the dangers before when he's forced to live by faith to follow God. There's a desire or an eagerness to live by faith because he needs it.

He does not know where he's going or how it will play out, or how he'll overcome these dangers risks. When the sun is finally his peace treaties are signed in the bank account is full of the retirement plan is laid out in the place is finally his.

Certainly Abraham still has faith, believing that God exists, but the need for an active faith.

A lived faith to see him through life. Maybe he's most at risk. In that moment of not needing God of not beating faith in that active way.

And so it is God puts him back into a position of needing his face to be alive and active. There's a great line in Hebrews where it says that Abraham goes through with this.

He's willing to sacrifice Isaac because he believes that God was able even to raise him from the dead. I love that word even as it implies, this range of possibilities that Abraham saw all of the ways even to the point of resurrection that God could raise Isaac from the sacrifice and so it is. Abraham becomes once again this character of faith walking into something unknown. Believing by faith. This full range of ways that God might rescuer save even if it is in resurrection, he becomes once again who use it is best a person of faith and I think God helps all of us as men recognize there's a tendency when we have things firmly in our control sometimes just by retreating into recliners and hobbies in our own comforts that we can actually lose hold of the active nests of our faith. The real active Nyssa bar relationship with God and sometimes he tests us, not as a way of making us prove ourselves, but a way of waking us back up to that need for lived, lived faith within our lives. You write that these instincts are not necessarily sinful mentioned it before but if left unchecked, and overindulged. They have the tendency to collapse a man's life into desperation and defeat explained that if you look back over those characters we discussed, I think you see that play out Sampson overindulged his adventure and it leads him to destruction. Kane gives into his sarcasm and it he ends up in that story in the land of nod. It's Hebrew for the land of wandering adrift and aimless, whenever Moses gives into his ambition. He becomes blind to what God is doing and he outpaces God and begins making demands in judging people. When David protects his reputation.

It leads him not only into sin, but to cover up that sin in egregious ways that really if you read the story plays out in the lives of his own children as well. Abraham, when he gives into this instinct to with treat. It shatters his family. It creates more brokenness in the very thing he thought he was escaping more conflict and complexity. What all of us need is men as we need self-awareness to recognize one of those instincts and we need the ability to check them with something that we have in Christ that keeps us from overindulging them have an adventure have an ambition do have a good reputation take a retirement take a vacation. Those things are not wrong.

But if they become your whole way of being.

If they become your hope they become the thing that you trust. Before anything else, and they will lead you into sin even though they themselves may not be sin.

So, as Paul said to Timothy we get these two works paying attention to myself. My instincts, but recognizing there's a better instinct in Christ that Christ offers me something to check these that allows them to be redeemed and used for good, but not overindulged that leads to destruction. As Christians we say Jesus is our model. So how does he handle these instincts in his own earthly life.

I think it's interesting to think that these could have been present for Jesus as well to with or not sends their instincts. You know Jesus grew up as a small boy into a man he understood. I'm sure this instinctive reluctance to mature like light came probably. He understood the desire for adventure to leave and find something greater, but certainly there is risk of ambition.

I think that's part of what Satan tempts him with whenever he's in being tempted in the wilderness that there is an easier way to shortcut without the pain of the suffering to have the thing that he's imagining. I think Jesus obviously people worried about his reputation his disciples tried to protect his reputation. People basically said you realize how you're being perceived for who you hang out with and certainly there is a temptation towards apathy. If there's any other way. Let this cup pass from me if I can possibly not have to step into the midst of this, let's do it that way but I think the thing that so clear about Jesus. Life is a submission, even if these instincts were present. They are not the ultimate they're not the ultimate impulse. The ultimate desire.

The final conclusion he trusts his heavenly father. Man does not live by bread alone, not my will but your will be done and that's ultimately what it comes down to for all of us as men.

How do we recognize what's going on in her heart and then how do we turn to God and say God I want to use this thing in me for your glory for your good. The way that you've created me. So if this ambition is from you and help me to see it and follow it and if this if there's something in my reputation that I should be worried about you show it to me and help me help me move forward into it. If there is some adventure you're calling me to go on.

Certainly so much of faith is an adventure, then you lead the way. Now my own ambition on my own since for adventure that ultimately the active character is an act of submission of coming before God and submitting all of these instincts to him and trusting that he matures them into Christ likeness and I think Christ shows that submission in such powerful ways choice for those of us who are Christians watch the importance of understanding the gospel and submission to Christ about which you were just talking and learning to master these instincts.

I think we have to have the gospel to help us do this because the gospel it is the tool by which we check all of the instincts going on our life. It's so countercultural it's so upside down. It forces us to look at things in new ways, and to recognize that God is doing something that on our own we wouldn't of chose or could do so in some ways with the gospel does is it it inserts a new instinct and your heart a new narrative of who we are and how we live in. It forces us to take it this good news and reconcile it against all this news. All of these instincts that were living with, and so I think ultimately I think all of us to grow in character, but I think Christ offers us a way of growing in character that unique and powerful that he infuses that into us through the power of the gospel and I think the gospel is the key to becoming the kind of man.

We were created to be who really can mature those instincts into something better. Who could bear responsibility better.

But the gospel gives us the power the tools to really check those instincts in a decisive way which I said let me thank you for being with us today and for taking the time and energy to write this book, you think men are going to find this book very helpful. So thank you for being with now thinking that means a lot to me and thanks for the all the work that you put in an valuable to me and the people in my congregation as well to it, so it's just an audit of what an encouraging conversation today, Chase Replogle has been our guest.

You don't have to spell it in order to benefit from what were talking about will find out more about him and our featured resource go to Moody books.org Moody books.org find out more about five masculine or for more ways to strengthen relationships. Visit five love languages next to your question about love languages, marriage, parenting, and appeared Gary is coming up in one action team building relationship with Dr. Gary Chapman's action radio publishing ministry in the Bible and thanks for the