Session 2: Conviction (The 5 C’s Of Biblical Manhood)

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Welcome everybody. It's good to be with you. It is now Wednesday, our session on Monday, unpacked this idea and this curriculum that I've been developing for years on the five seas of biblical manhood. And I mentioned to you that a biblical man has, one godly is the preceding word compassion, conviction, commitment, confidence, and courage, those five seas. And I promised you that I would unpack those over these days so that you could get a better idea of what those words mean and the importance of how they need to build on each other.

And a couple of days ago when we talked about godly compassion, I made it very clear that guys, everything starts with that, godly compassion. And by that, we are talking about compassion for God first, revering God, being an awe of God, being close to God, in order to have compassion for others. We talked about the two greatest commandments. I gave you some illustrations for those of you who weren't there for that. If you scroll down on my feed, you can catch that video.

It's already had, I think, several thousand views. And you're welcome to go take a look at that one. And I would encourage you to do that, by the way, before you really take everything into consideration for this session. So this will be the second session. And this is going to be dealing with godly conviction, who I mentioned before, you cannot really have unless you have godly compassion, compassion.

Let me just pause for a second and talk about defining the terms. When I say conviction, I am not talking about opinions. There's a difference between a conviction and an opinion. I wrote an article and I'll probably republish it. If you go to our website, it's otm.co.

If you go there and you scroll down under target point blogs and articles, you'll see an article in there, something like the greatest danger of our time, dot, dot, dot, uninformed opinions. And guys, that's where we are today. We've got opinions all over the place. The problem is that most opinions today are based on air. And so somebody hears something or their favorite news person suggested that this is something that you should consider.

And when you really press in with people's opinions, you find out that there's very little factual basis. There's certainly a very little oftentimes spiritual basis for those opinions. And convictions are totally different. Opinions are just the way I think about something, the way I feel about something. And oftentimes, it can be really misguided and very, very dysfunctional.

I like to say, you know, God is real and he lives in heaven. And guess what? He has an opinion. And guess whose opinion don't count? Yep, that's right.

Yours and mine. But we live in a world today where everything is driven by opinions. There's public opinion polls. People want to know how you feel or think about something. And it drives me nuts.

You know, people call me for my opinion and I say, why do you want my opinion? They say, well, because we value your opinion. I say, why? Why do you value my opinion? Well, because it's important to us.

We want to know how you feel about stuff. Well, what if my opinion in the way I feel about stuff is dysfunctional? What if it's uninformed? What if I don't know what I'm talking about? You're telling me that my opinion is going to carry weight.

It's going to have value. You're going to use it in a big poll to make decisions. Do you realize how stupid that is? And of course, I can't get anybody to want to talk to me after I ask them those questions. Nobody likes questions.

But that's the problem we have today. It's all about my opinions. Godly convictions, guys, that the root of godly conviction must be love. It must be. Godly convictions are based on faith and based on what I really, really understand.

God is trying to teach me in his word. It's based upon doing research and understanding what the moral laws and codes are that we're to be living our life by and being convicted by those things. And so let me unpack that a little bit more. John Wesley had an interesting quote. He says, give me 100 men who hate nothing but sin and love God with all their hearts and I will shake the world for Christ.

And what Wesley was talking about is people who not only love God and know God, but they have godly convictions. People like that are going to ultimately end up with godly commitment, which we're going to talk about in the next session, which is so incredibly important. But that commitment must be born out of godly compassion and then ultimately godly conviction. Let's look at some Bible verses. In 1 Thessalonians 1.5, it says, because our gospel came to you, not simply with words, but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction.

1 Thessalonians 1.5, Joshua 1.8 says, do not let this book of the law depart from your mouth. Meditate on it day and night so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. And then there's that transitional word then. In other words, if you do this, here's the promise. It says, then you will be prosperous and successful.

And it's not talking about prosperity and success in worldly terms, guys. It's not bigger in better cars and more houses and more assets. It's talking about spiritual prosperity. But God is trying to get us into his word and understand that we are not to let that word depart from us. We're to study it.

That's the only way you're going to end up with godly convictions. You study it. You get into it. You dissect it. You believe it, okay, with all of your heart.

2 Timothy 3.16 and 17 says, all scripture. How much scripture? All. It's pretty clear. All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training, and righteousness.

Why? So that the man or woman of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. And by the way, that's where we're going with all this, guys. It's about the things that we do for Christ. And this is equipping us to be able to do that and giving us the conviction that God is real.

Your word is real. Your truth is real. And the only way, again, you're going to get that, is to be in the Word. Matthew 22.29, Jesus replied, you're an error because you do not know the scriptures or the power of God. Romans 15.4, for everything that was written in the past was written to teach us so that through endurance, listen, and the encouragement of the scripture, we might have hope.

Hey, dear ones, how many of us need hope today? How many of us don't have a lot of joy right now because of the situation we find ourselves in with this pandemic? Listen, man, that's what God's Word will do for you. It'll not only give you conviction, but it'll give you hope if you're digesting God's Word. Be in the Word.

Paul and Timothy 4.13 says, until I come, until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of scripture, to preaching and to teaching. And then in Psalm 119.105, your word is a lamp to my feet and a light unto my path. Guys, listen to me. That's such a profound word. God's Word, listen, what is that verse saying?

God's Word will not only, if I'm in it, will not only illuminate my daily steps, a lamp unto my feet. He will illuminate my daily steps, so I'm not tripping over stuff every day. But here's the greater promise. It'll also be a light unto my path, unto the purpose of my life, unto the vision that God is trying to shape in me and where he wants to take me. But guys, if you're not in this book, if you're not in this Word, then that Psalm 119.105 is not for you.

It's not going to be a lamp unto your feet and a light unto your path. The only way it's going to be that is if you're in the Word. Also, if you're in the Word, you'll be a man of godly conviction, does not compromise, does not compromise. I talk about moral schizophrenia when I teach men. Moral schizophrenia, listen, is truth understood, maybe heard on Sunday that's not lived out on Monday.

And let me tell you why it's not lived out, because if I live it out, I might lose my job. If I live it out, I might not look cool if I don't entertain those off-color jokes and don't want to go and do things that are not healthy for me. And the reason why you're compromising is because you don't have godly conviction. It's not really in you. So it's easier for you to just say, okay, you know, yeah, I understand.

We do the bobblehead thing on Sunday morning, you know, in church. Yeah, that was a great message, Pastor. But then on Monday, we don't live it. And that's called compromise. Compromise happens as a result of not having godly conviction.

Can I have godly compassion and love God and maybe even love people and not have godly conviction? Yeah, it's a lot harder though. If you truly love God and you're truly in his word, and you're close to him, and you ask him to let you see your circumstances and other people through his eyes, believe me, you will have godly conviction. And so don't give yourself over to the popular notions of the world. And guys, listen to me, even in the body of Christ, there are some people that are very progressive and leaning toward the new and better things when actually, they're not new and better, they're old.

I mean, they're not new and better, they're just new. The old things oftentimes are the best things. Rely on those. C.S. Lewis says this, an open mind, which is what the world tells you you should have, Alan Bloom in his book, The Closing of the American Mind, by the way, one of his greatest quotes, he says, the problem with an open mind is your brain's fallout.

And by the way, guys, I mean, we're living in a world today where people's brains are falling out left and right. But anyway, C.S. Lewis says this, an open mind in questions that are not ultimate, okay, is useful. But an open mind about the ultimate foundations, either of theoretical or practical reason, is idiocy. Okay, if a man's mind is open on these things, let at least his mouth be shut.

Yeah, that's not easy today. I mean, people, we want to have an open mind to everything, and we're very, very boisterous and loud about it. But C.S. Lewis is warning us, be careful. John Wesley says a lot of stuff like this as well.

Anyway, if you're going to have godly conviction, what happens is you become a man and woman who believes that God is in control, no matter what your circumstances. You have godly conviction that, Lord, you have my back. I don't have to worry about anything. You know, I've often said, and this may sound crude to you, but Hitler, Osama bin Laden, had conviction. They had conviction.

And as a result of those convictions, they were able to impress a lot of people to strap on bombs and kill themselves, to go out and kill other people. So convictions can be ugly and can be bad. But godly conviction, boredom of godly compassion, is always going to be healthy. It's always going to be good. A conviction is not a preference.

A conviction is something that does not change to suit the circumstances of life. It is something you would die for. And again, there are negative things that people have convictions about and convince others to die for. But I don't know about you. The only kind of conviction I want to have is godly conviction.

I'll die for my Lord and save your Jesus Christ, of course. But if you desire that kind of godly conviction, then my suggestion, again, is to make sure that you're doing a good job of developing godly compassion first and then get into the word of God. Learn everything God is trying to teach you about life and about the values that you should have and about the way you should live. And you will become a man and woman that has godly conviction. Now, in the next session, we're going to be talking about godly commitment.

And I've said it before, and unless you have godly compassion and then ultimately godly conviction, godly commitment is going to be hard to come by. Commitment is a huge word. Commitment is a big difference, by the way. I'll repeat this on Friday. There's a difference between commitment and a decision.

A decision is one thing, but a commitment is what every fiber of your being born out of conviction, what every fiber of your being committing to a particular course of action. And I'll unpack that a little bit more on Friday. Anyway, I'm hoping that all of this stuff is coming through for you guys. I'm not seeing a lot of comments. I'm going to have to go back and see if this actually recorded.

And obviously, if it did, it will be posted on the site and you can review it at your convenience. Thank you so much for joining today, Lord. I just ask you to bless all of my friends and all of the people around the world that pick up this feed and will ultimately see this. Bless them, Lord, and help them by your Holy Spirit to only receive from my words those precious nuggets of truth that you intended just for them, Lord. Bless them, encourage them, give them a great day in the name of Jesus.

And all God's kids said, Amen. All right, thank you guys. We'll see you soon.