That's Not My Name!

00:05 - Speaker 1 Hi, this is Paul Lewis Cole. You're listening to the Brave Men Podcast Today special edition, which means it's just you and me. At the end of this time together, you're going to be able to say to every accusation of the enemy that's not my name. The enemy says, hey, you don't measure up. You're going to say, no, I'm more than a conqueror. The enemy is going to say, hey, you know, you're unworthy man, you never do anything right. And you're going to be able to say I am forgiven and there is no condemnation in Christ. Boom. So I'm in the studios here, west callahan studios in fort worth, and today that's not my name. 00:50 Been working on this for a while, thinking through it, praying over it, saw this revelation and I thought, man, this is strong. I think I heard somebody, uh, speak about Benjamin Jacob's son, how he changed his name. I thought, well, that speaks of identity, because the power of a father naming his son, the power of a parent naming their son, shows possession, but it shows the sense of that young child's worth future, what you believe about them. So, just you and me, and you can hear me doing my stuff in the pen. You'll hear some papers flying around because I've just got a bunch of stuff here on the desk and I love this whole story of jacob. I want to start, though, in james 127, james 120 well, let's you know, you can go back to 1.23, james, the half-brother of Jesus, talking about how we're supposed to live. And verse 23 of chapter 1 of James says If you listen to the word and don't obey it, it's like glancing at your face in a mirror. You see yourself, walk away and forget what you look like. And in verse 25, but if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free, and if you do what it says and don't forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it. Now, this next section of that and in all that's great, it's another translation. This is new, living translation. Another translation is faith without works is dead right. If you, if you just say, hey, I got faith, but you don't, actually it doesn't, if it's not expressed, what is it? Now? This next word sometimes we get, we get offset with it. I'll give a little little NT Wright kind of insight If you claim to be religious but don't control your tongue, you are fooling yourself and your religion is worthless, pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father, means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you. 03:05 Okay, two things here. One is something I put out in the Brave Men motivational email and you need to be getting that. If you're not getting that, go on to cmnmen, c-m-n, christian Men's Network, cmnmen sign up. Click on the thing somewhere on there. I goes, I don't know. Figure it out. It's on there. Click on there. It says so you can put your email in and be getting these motivational emails that come out three times a week and they're outstanding, they're strong. I've got men that write back to me all the time and say this is strong. We've got somewhere in the neighborhood of 50,000 men every month who receive these motivational emails and that's growing. So tell somebody about it. Also, with the podcast, make sure you subscribe and, as always, we have our Monday Night Men. Right now, as I record this, we're going through absolute answers and then we're going to do some Lion's Roar stuff and then after that we're going through 1 and 2. 04:11 Timothy man the whole mentoring process of Paul walking Timothy through things is really powerful. You think about how Paul started the early church and how it all began. He goes somewhere, spends a few months, prays over them. They're filled with the power and anointing of the Holy Spirit. God begins to pour life into them. They've got, most of them, some sort of Jewish background. Many of them have an agnostic or a Roman or Greek background. So they've got many gods or the god is Caesar. So when we say Jesus is Lord, the phrase back in those days in many of that culture in the Middle East was Caesar is God, jesus is Lord, caesar is Lord, and so it's fascinating to see how these things all kind of come together. But it says this it's inward and outward. Right, inward and outward. 05:18 If you claim to be religious but don't control your tongue, okay, we got that one. Your religion is worthless. But here's pure and genuine religion inside of God's caring for orphans and widows, refusing to let the world corrupt you. So not letting the world corrupt you was something we put out in a I've got it over here talking about being set apart. It was something that my son, brandon, who pastors Gallery Church in Fort Worth, said. In fact, it was just a side phrase, and this is the beauty of listening to whoever it may be that you listen to on a podcast or working out, wherever it may be, watching somebody on YouTube, minister and preach, and one of the things we need to do is I've always got my phone handy to put a note into it or a piece of paper to write something down. 06:08 And Brandon said we're not image makers, we're image bearers of Christ. We don't make the image. That's how people want to do create God in their image. But he said you're set apart. You are set apart. You are set apart. There is a you are consecrated to something. No-transcript emailed to you and to many friends. If you haven't received it, you can write to us at office at cmnman. Ask for set apart or covenant consecrated. 06:49 To be consecrated to something means to be set apart, dedicated or devoted exclusively to a particular purpose, and that's who you and I are as followers of Christ. We're consecrated. You have a holy calling. Here's what Jesus said for their sake, talking about people. This is recorded by the Apostle John for their sake, I consecrate myself that they also may be sanctified in truth. And another translation says I give myself as a holy sacrifice for them so they can be made holy by your truth. So here's a key thing right here and this is what we get into in James pure and genuine religion. 07:34 Don't let the world corrupt you. That's internal. Caring for orphans and widows is external, and basically it's this I give myself as a holy sacrifice. Caring for orphans and widows is external, and basically it's this I give myself as a holy sacrifice. So you take care of the internal because of who you love. On the external, you actually consecrate yourself or set yourself apart. In other words, you don't act like the world. You don't swear like the world. You don't talk like the world. You don't swear like the world. You don't talk like the world. You don't have the same thought patterns as culture. That's why oftentimes, you'll—i don't care who the news provider is—you'll put it on and you'll go. 08:14 I don't know about that. And the reason that something comes across as sort of cross-grain is because you're thinking through the mind of Christ. You're thinking of being set apart. You're thinking of redemption, you're thinking of the resurrection of Christ. You're thinking of life, you're thinking of hope, you're thinking of righteousness. You're thinking in a different manner than the world thinks. That's Romans 12, 2, which says if you want to change your life, change the way you think. You see, as men of God, we're not called to blend in with the world's patterns, but to stand out, distinct, consecrated, set apart, wholly devoted to Jesus. And as we walk this path, we are formed into his image, and being formed into his image means that we draw men to Christ. We're consecrated, then, for the sake of others. So refusing to let the world corrupt you, as James is talking about, means that our thought patterns change, and so we actually are not just people of faith, we're people of works. 09:24 You know Mary, martha, you know the sisters of Lazarus. Lazarus dies. If you know this story. It's one of Jesus's best friends. A man named Lazarus lives in Bethany. In fact, he was such a close friend he didn't make him a disciple. He needed somebody to decompress with. And Lazarus had a sister who could cook that's Martha and a sister who was dangerous that's Mary. And there's different theological studies on who Mary is the same one that broke the alabaster jar and poured it on his feet and his hair. But the interesting thing about it, with Lazarus and Mary and Martha, when you think about that, you think about Mary as the one being celebrated and Martha's the one that gets upset. Martha's the one that's the worker, martha's the one that's. And you go ah, martha didn't care much about being with Jesus, she cared about getting stuff done. And Mary, she was the one that's. And you go ah, martha cared, didn't care much about being with Jesus, she cared about getting stuff done. And Mary, she was the one that really worshiped. And Martha gets a bad rap. Because the bottom line is if you're building a business, who do you want, mary or Martha? If you're building a church, who do you want, mary or Martha? Yeah, I'll take Martha. 10:45 You know when Francis Asbury started the circuit riders and I'm riffing a little bit. I know where I'm at. I got a bunch of notes here, but I'm riffing a little bit when Asbury started the circuit riders, the late 1700s came out of Wesley and across, particularly in the southern US, but across Kentucky and Indiana and south. When he started all that and it was the Methodist church when they would plant a church and it grew large enough, the first person they would hire this is fascinating to me the first person they would hire and pay was not the pastor, wasn't an admin. They would hire an evangelist. 11:30 In other words, it was faith and works, somebody that knew how to bring people into the church, bring people to Jesus. People into the church, bring people to Jesus. You see, what you think and do matters, and it matters for others. Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God means caring for orphans and widows. And when we talk about religion here, nt Wright basically says hey, don't worry about that word. That word and that culture meant that you are on the outside what you profess to be on the inside. In other words, your works show your faith. We know you by your fruit. So when we're talking about religion, it's not just pomp and circumstance or some sort of way of doing the Eucharist. Pure and undefiled religion here means you live like Christ, you act like him. Jesus, our advocate we're going to get into that in a minute and New York Times this last week. 12:39 I know you probably didn't go through the whole thing, but I look at it for a lot of the reporting and I think we need to stay in touch with what's happening in culture and what people are thinking. It was fascinating that we're talking about the new Washington DC $3.8 billion plan to build a stadium a couple miles from downtown for the Washington Commodores 180 acres of public land. And the writer said why is it so easy to build sports facilities when we can't build housing? And the comment here I thought was really good, said cities build stadiums in part because it's so hard to build almost anything else. And they had the story of one group there that has been working in northwest Washington DC. There's a parking lot developers have been trying to build on for 25 years in order to have housing and other things that are needed. The city says Washington DC, to their credit, says eventually there'll be up to 6,000 housing units around the stadium, so forth and so on. I'm not hassling the guys building the stadium, you know. In that sense, it's just that. 13:52 What are we thinking about when we do all these things? What's our thoughts as followers of Christ? And this is why we need to be involved in culture. It's why our thinking and our thought life and our radicalism, as revolutionaries of Jesus Christ, as warriors for the Most High, has to permeate the culture, because we care about people. Bottom line, we care about people. Bottom line. We care about people. Now, that's not my name. That's not my name. 14:30 Let me mention this again. When a man is discipled in Christ, it changes everything. When a man is discipled in Christ, it changes everything. And what I mean is when a man just doesn't assent or lean into or yeah, you know, I believe in God, I believe you know Jesus is the Son of God and then goes on his way. It's what James talked about. He said you looked at something, you looked into it and you said, yeah, that's good, and then you went on your way. In other words, you didn't begin to act like what you say you believe. And I think that's where we have to hit the ground as followers of Christ and as warriors for the Most High, you and I, and just do things about this Raising up the next generation. 15:22 I saw another article this week that talked about the next generation, you know as millennials, then Gen Z and then whatever that, but they called it. The next generation is the therapy generation, the therapy generation, and that's why we need to be fathers who speak into the lives of our children. So now here's, here's a father, here's jacob, abraham, isaac and jacob. Right, abraham, isaac, jacob abraham receives a promise going to have a great nation. Isaac follows through with things. It's fascinating stories. Gets to jacob, jac. 15:59 Jacob works for his uncle because Jacob had to run, because he stole the blessing from Esau, isaac's blessing. And then he had a dream. God's hand is on him. But I mean stuff is happening. And so he goes to work for his uncle and he works for seven years and his uncle tricks him and instead of getting the girl that he wanted, which is Rachel, he gets a girl named Leah. So Jacob doesn't know it. I mean this is crazy. 16:33 Verse 25, chapter 29 says, when Jacob woke up in the morning, he goes dude, who is this? This is Leah. I mean, I don't know, man, how much makeup does she have on, right? What was going on here? And he worked seven years for Rachel and he's tricked. And Laban goes yeah, but this is the way it is Always marry off the oldest daughter. And so he tricked him. So he worked seven more years and gets Rachel. So now this is where the tribes of Israel come from. If there's any confusion, this is where the tribes of Israel come from. They come from Jacob. So what was promised to Abraham comes up in third generation. It's a fascinating thing. You can look at all that stuff later. 17:18 But then Leah and Rachel. So Leah starts having sons, starts having children Levi and others and I mean it's looking good. And then Rachel's not having any kids. Now this is funny because I love the fact that God's honest when he had them write the Bible. God's honest when he had them write the Bible. And so it says Rachel's not having kids. 17:46 So she goes to Jacob and says I've got to have kids. And Jacob's like dude, I'm doing my part. And she says well, take my servant, my maid, sleep with her. And so he does and gets pregnant, has Dan, which becomes one of the tribes of Israel. And then she became pregnant again and had Naphtali. Now Rachel named him, bilhah had him. 18:13 Now what's crazy is Leah stops having children. So she goes hey, I've got a maid too, you can have her. So Jacob is like dude, I'm all in on this, dude, I made this stuff bad. It's like Jacob's like no, no, no, no, no, I can't do all that. Abram had the same deal, right, and so, anyway, then Leah's pregnant, rachel's pregnant, jacob's doing well, things are going well. Then he takes off. 18:50 There's a whole bunch of stuff that happens here, and then Jacob and Esau, jacob wrestles with God, going through it, a number of other dramas, things that happen and then what happens is Rachel is pregnant and it's a hard delivery, and this is chapter 35 of Genesis. Okay, it says her labor pains were intense, very hard delivery, and the midwife says don't be afraid, you're about to have another son. Rachel's about to die. But with her last breath, she named the baby Ben-Oni, which means son of my sorrow, son of my sorrow. Then later Jacob comes in and says no, no, no, no, that's not his name. His name is Benjamin, which means son of my right hand. Now, there's the key right there, and there's the thing I wanted to talk about is because what happened is the father and this is the type of God, the Father, the Father, and this is the type of God, the Father, and Rachel, in her emotion, in her sorrow, in the things that were going on, said well, his name's Ben-Oni, which means born in sorrow and then she dies. 20:18 Jacob comes in and says no, that's not his name. And that's what I want to impress on you and I today is when the enemy comes in and tries to name us something negative, you and I can say can you hear me pounding the table? I'm pounding the desk where I'm recording, I'm pounding the desk where I'm recording. We can say that's not my name, that's not my name, that's not who I am, that's not my identity. You see, when he changed his name to Benjamin, what that means is she had said oh, son of my grief, son of my sorrow. She died. 21:02 And he comes in and the father declares his name is Benjamin and it's a type or a metaphor of God speaking over you and me through Christ, of changing our name. Dude, this is so awesome man, from being an enemy of God to a child of God. The enemy says ah, you know, you're an enemy of God, you'll never be, nothing will ever be right, nothing will ever be good. And God comes in Romans 5, sends his son and says no, you were a child of God, man so strong, that's not my name. Benjamin means son of the right hand, and a right hand in that culture symbolized strength, favor and honor. Renaming him saying that's not his name. What Jacob did is take his son from grief to strength, changes the narrative from pain to power, changes his future from pain to purpose. Right hand means a position of authority. In fact, think about that Jesus sitting at the where. Where is he? Where's Jesus? At the right hand of the Father? So this is so man, this is so strong. 22:36 Because what happens here, the theological resonance of this, is that God always rewrites our stories, steps into our brokenness and says that's not who you are. In fact, even when we do the Eucharist, when we have communion think about this when we have communion, the first thing we take is the bread or a crack or whatever it may be. And Jesus said this is my body, broken for you, and it's a metaphor and a picture of our brokenness in him. Here's our brokenness. His body was broken for us, but we're broken when we come to him. And then he said and take this cup, and that communion is the wine or the juice. And he says this cup represents my life. So there's the brokenness of the past when you receive communion, and then the life in the future, your life moving forward in Christ man. 23:39 As my friend Kerry Old says, he restories our story. He came as the Word. Why? To restory our story and that becomes our identity. So our identity is not based on the old name of what the enemy tried to put on us. We have a new name 2 Corinthians 5, 17. Therefore, if anyone is on us, we have a new name 2 Corinthians 5.17,. 24:02 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a what Come on. You know this one. He is a new creation. The old has passed away, the new has come. You know I'm having a birthday this week and as you think about things, you can get pretty excited about things coming up and there were some great moments. 24:24 And then you go ah man, there's some regrets. This whole thing about living life without regrets, that's a denial thing. You've got regrets. I should have said this or should have done that, and you cover it all in Christ. The level of disappointment you have in your life is disappointment is not based on where you are, but where you expect it to be right. So the level of disappointment is the gap between where you are and where you expect it to be, and that gap is what Jesus came to close. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. 25:07 Mistakes, regrets, failures are real, but they no longer define you. Man, I love that stuff. All right, here we go. So now the enemy comes to make accusation right. The enemy accuses you. Think about this for a moment. Jesus is our advocate and if you've the word of benedict church at all, you've probably heard this at some point. He's our advocate before the father, after his resurrection. So the cross, resurrection the early church didn't preach the cross as much as they preached resurrection, because it was the power over the enemy, it was the power over negative names. That was the power of resurrection, life. 25:48 And in Luke there's this moment where Jesus sends out 70 men, two by two, and he says go out and do stuff. I mean, don't take anything with you, just go out, crush it, just go out strong. And they came back and said man, it's been incredible. We've seen people healed, we've seen all these different things happen. It's a remarkable time. And Jesus, he gets fired up and he actually speaks a prophetic word. Where is it? I'll look for it. Here it is in. I think it's Luke 10, 18, maybe, yeah, luke 10, 18 says Jesus looks at them and says I saw Satan fall like lightning. All right. Now in Job, in the first chapter of Job, you see Satan comes with it, says he comes with the sons of God. It says he comes before God and makes accusation of Job and they have a conversation. Jesus said no, I saw Satan fall like lightning. Now watch this. The cross of Jesus Christ and the power of the resurrection totally defeated Satan and he can no longer accuse you before God, he accuses you before you and that's why we hold on to what my identity is in Christ. 27:09 You tell me that I'm dead in trespasses, dead in sin, and we can say, yeah, it's not my name, I'm alive in Christ. You say, yeah, you know, you've been. You're kind of living in a negative world. Yeah, but that's not who I am. I, the Bible says I'm a city set on a hill. It can't be hidden. I'm the light of the world. I mean the enemy would come and say, hey, dude, you're guilty and you know it and you've got all these things you've done. The Bible says God says, yeah, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, but since you've been justified by faith, you have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. So who I am is I am been justified, that's who I am. The enemy would come and say, hey, nobody wants to be around you, nobody wants you, you're not connected to anything, there's nothing that that anybody wants to be a part of. That you have in your life and you can say, no, no, I'm adopted into god's family, that's not my name. The negative thing you're trying to put on me, that I'm a slave to sin. No, no, that's not my name. I am a slave to righteousness. Come on somebody. 28:24 I believe that when Jesus saw Satan fall like lightning, it changed his position as advocate. Now think about this. He's our advocate. What is he doing there, at the right hand of the Father? He's looking at you and saying look that guy's awesome. Look at him, look at how well he's doing. Look at her. Look at her. Begin to really get into the Word. Look at her doing things to help people. Look at her. Look at that outward manifestation of her life. Look at what this guy's doing. Look at who this man is. He's becoming more like Christ, and our advocate is actually our encourager, our infuser, our anointing, before the Father at all times going that's my guy, that's my man. 29:16 He was an orphan. Now he's adopted into my family. Now he's part of us. We are together. He was weak and helpless, but now he's strong in the Lord. He was rejected, but now he's accepted. That's who I am, man, because whatever the enemy puts on you, you can say that's not my name, that's not my name, this is who I am. I wrote down some other ones. Here we go. 29:47 But to all who receive him, he gave the right to become children of God. It wasn't performance. It's by grace alone you carry his name, sharing his inheritance. That means you have a father who loves you unconditionally, who delights in you, who empowers you to live boldly. Now here's the thing he loves you unconditionally, but the promises are conditional. Deuteronomy says if you keep my word right. That's why this consecration, being set apart is so important. Set apart doesn't mean to not be in the world. It means you just don't act like them. So if you're involved in building that stadium in Washington DC, you're also involved in making sure that people get food. You're also involved in helping people get housing. Come on somebody. I mean that's who we are as followers of Christ housing. Come on somebody. I mean that's who we are as followers of Christ. 30:44 I think it's one of the things that really was a problem for the generation before me is that there was this teaching, this holiness teaching, where being set apart and not part of this world meant that you weren't even connected. You just didn't do anything about it. So back in the mid-60s, there was actually an organization back in the mid-60s that had a lot of clergy on it. Ted Bear talks about it a lot with Movie Guide. There was an office that was a legally bona fide office that would oversee movies and they would give it a stamp. And of course, now you've got the R and the PG and the PG-13, whatever it is ratings thing. But they actually were able to speak into the culture and say, no, that's not acceptable, no, that's not right. And somewhere in the mid-60s they stopped doing it because the church just got uninvolved. Church just got uninvolved, and I think that's why it's taken a lot to reverse that. 31:46 I see it happening since the times of Ronald Reagan, where people begin to be involved in political things. People begin to be involved in the sciences, humanities, stem. You know we need to be in that. We need Christians who are followers of Christ, who are writing movies. We need to be in that. We need Christians who are followers of Christ who are writing movies. We need followers of Christ writing great music, not music that just rips off whatever the world did. Come on. I mean, you know, if we have the anointing and creative power of God, then we should be able to do some things that are just outrageously new, different. I love what's happening right now across our culture with music. 32:28 Fathers affirming the next generation you are a child of God, you are chosen and beloved. You are a temple of the Holy Spirit. You are an ambassador of Christ. You are more than a conqueror. That's Romans 8, 37. In all things, we are more ambassador of Christ. You are more than a conqueror. That's Romans 8, 37. In all things, we are more than conquerors. There's daily battles, doubt, anxiety, temptation, injustice, but we don't fight alone. We fight in Christ. All right, is that all my notes? I think that's it. I think that's good for you and me. 32:59 Today, just sharing these things over a cup of coffee, I get fired up. I fire myself up, start going through this and go oh man, that is so good. You know David over and over. He would say in the Psalms. He would say why are you downcast? And he would speak to himself. He would say things about lift your face up, lift your light up, lift your, you know, lift your heart up. Here's the thing, man. Jesus did not lower the bar of manhood, he raised it. So we would need a Savior, and so in Christ, in the power and anointing of the Holy Spirit, in Jesus Christ, we're more than conquerors. This is who you are. The same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead lives in you. That's not my name. 33:57 When the enemy says, ah, you don't measure up, ah, you're not perfect, yeah, of course we're not perfect, we're pretty human. Jesus came as human to show us how to live human. We're not trying to live some sort of perfect life, we're living human in Christ. So let's go, change things. Let's go, let's make stuff happen. Let's go out there and let's make movies, change culture, build some of the greatest churches that have ever been built in the history of the world, write books, you know, build a new plumbing business. Come on, I'm speaking over you right now. Go out and do what you know God's put in your heart. Be salt and light. 34:45 I love what Jeremy McGarrity said and I'll close with this about his wife Janie, our dear friend Pastor Jim Garlow, his daughter, who went to be with the Lord a few weeks ago, and Jeremy said about Janie. He said when we first got married, I made up, we made a pact. Jeremy said this about Janie we made a pact 26 years ago that everything we do we would do in order to lead people to Jesus Christ. I can't think of a more amazing thing for a young couple to do and to do that. She lived her life well. They pastor the church called Skyline Church in Southern California, san Diego area, and Janie lived that way her whole life and to hear her children and others talk about her was remarkable and she lived her life and fulfilled her assignment and now is with the Lord. But it just stirred me up to say what is my pact? What is my pact? What am I doing? Am I just building stadiums or am I helping somebody? Again, nothing wrong with a stadium, but what if we actually helped somebody also? You know, build a great business and then go help build somebody's life and build people's lives as we do it. Hey, I love you. 36:14 Thanks for being with me today on the podcast Brave Men podcast. As always, you can find the tools and resources to Disciple Men at cmnmen. Cmnmen, and join me on the Monday night men broadcast. Never forget this hope is alive. Hope has a name. Hope's name is Jesus. God bless. 36:49 - Speaker 2 Brave Men is a production of Christian Men's Network, a global movement of men committed to passionately is Jesus. God bless, that's cmn.men. Your host has been Paul Lewis Cole, president of Christian Men's Network, and if you haven't yet, please make sure you subscribe to the Brave Men podcast wherever you find podcasts or download it. Thanks for hanging with us today. We'll see you next time on Brave Men.