Balancing the Christian Life Conference, Good character with Mark McCrary

In this episode of Balancing the Christian Life, we talk with Bart McCrary about the good character track of the Balancing the Christian Life conference. Welcome to Balancing the Christian Life. I'm Dr Kenny Embry. Join me as we discover how to be better Christians and people in the digital age. Hopefully you know by now that we're holding the Balancing the Christian Life online conference July 27th through 29th. To help give you an idea about what we're going to be talking about, I'm talking with my old friend, mark McCrary. He's in charge of the track about having good character. Mark is a longtime friend and someone I've used many times in the podcast. He's also both an elder and evangelist at Douglas Hills in the Louisville, kentucky area. So, mark, how did you develop the theme for the conference?

The first thing I began to ask is well, what is character? And character has been defined, and, I think, appropriately so. You could delve into this more, but just a quick definition your character is who you are when no one's around. Well, if we want to talk about good character, who defines what is good? Obvious answer God defines what's good.

That's right.

No one's arguing with this, so far right.

No.

And if God defines what's good, then where does he define what good character is? There are a lot of places you could look, but for the sake of this track, where we're going to sit is going to be Galatians, chapter five, and the fruit of the Spirit. So if God defines what's good and what good character is, where would we look? And the Galatians chapter five is going to be where we're going to sit Galatians, chapter five, beginning verse 22,. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law, and those who belong in Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with his passions and desires. I had at one point thought about doing one lesson on all the works of the flesh. Decided against this. Let's just focus on the fruit of the Spirit within our life and let that be the thing that defines what good character is.

I think that's a great idea it makes me feel so much better. How many fruits of the Spirit are there?

Nine, that's right.

Which means you have the most number of speakers.

Yeah, and I've got the best speakers too. By the way, I'm joking, I don't want speaker envy in this, but there's a good, I think a good list of very thoughtful guys that are going to challenge those who jump in. Whether it's when these tracks are presented live and I'll give when they're going to be All right If someone jumps in later on I think there are going to be some really challenging, thoughtful ideas are going to be brought up by the men who just have taken a nosedive into what each one of the aspects of the fruit of the Spirit is that Paul sort of delineates here and that's the interesting thing he calls it the fruit singular of the Spirit, but then he delineates within that fruit different aspects and how the fruit of the Spirit is manifested within our life.

That's exactly right. So why don't you tell me some of these guys who's going to be talking about what?

Okay, so Thursday night, july 27th, at 7pm Eastern Standard Time, we're going to look at the first fruit of the Spirit. What a great place to start. The first yes, and that is love. Okay, yes, jason Longstreet, who is just an incredible Bible student. Yes, he's going to talk about love, and love is one of those areas that you probably heard when you were growing up, kenny. You probably heard people preachers, belittle the topic of love the way I did, okay, and it was like well, that person just preached on love, as if love is just this throwaway issue, and the more I read scripture, the more I come to the conclusion that love is really the centerpiece of Christianity. I agree, jesus'. Statement of John 13, verses 34 through 35, by this, all men will know you're my disciples. They'll know am I a Spiritual Prophet or not, by the fact that you don't give to an orphanage. You were baptized for the mission of sins. You don't sin with sing, with an instrument of music and, by the way, I'm not making light of those issues, right, all right. But Jesus said People will know we are his disciples by how we love one another. That's right. That is so weighty, john and his epistle if you don't love. You cannot know God right. So that's going to be the first one. Of course, when we talk about the issue of love, we understand that love is an action, it's not an emotion, although I would also argue, the more I act in a loving way toward other people, the more the emotion Will probably come. But we get it mixed around. We think that love is this emotion and so I don't. I don't have this emotion for this person. Therefore I don't love them, and I think the biblical answer is no. You love them because you care about them. You want them to go to heaven. You're going to act in a loving way. How do you feel towards them is really beside the point.

Yeah, although I've made this point before and I'm sure you agree with it which is if you were to tell Teresa, your wife you know I love you deeply but I have absolutely no emotion for you at all. That that would be very satisfactory.

No, it wouldn't, and that's why I said I think the more we act in love towards other people, the more we will find to emotionally love about other people.

Yes, yeah, that that I completely agree with. Yeah, it's. It's almost like we sometimes overreact to no really. So anyway, I do know Jason is a wonderful guy. I've known Jason for years. Yeah, great choice.

So that's. That's gonna be the first one, the foundational one. At 8 o'clock on Thursday night to 27th, I'm going to address the issue of joy. Okay, and what that means. Yeah, and I think that's another one that's misunderstood. Boy Kenny, it seems like I've run across Christians over the years who think that the more morose they are, the deeper they are. Yeah, and and I read passages like this, our polls Statement in Philippians, chapter 4, we've choice in the Lord. Always, again, I say nice ways yeah, and I don't think that the more swollen we are, the more godly we are. No, I think the more joyful. Now, as I say that I'm not, I don't live this Pollyanna life when I think that everything about the Christian life and I don't think the biblical ideas, everything about the Christian life has happy, happy, joy, joy. Obviously we are, and some Christians, look, have you know? They have been through the ringer and I pray for them often and I'm amazed at how they. They get one foot in front of the other one. Yeah, week after week and day after day. Some people have, they've got very challenging lives and I do believe that there are seasons that we will go through where we may not Show the most joy within our lives at the moment. Right, but I guess I would argue I've used the illustration of the ocean that On the top of the ocean, the top of the ocean is is affected by storms and winds, and so it may be chaotic at times, but the farther down you go, the more contented and the more calm the waters are. Right, there are times in our lives that Circumstances are going to play upon our outward circumstances, and so they will be chaotic, but the joy that the Christian has is a deep inward joy. Yeah, and I would also argue, the more we have that deep inward joy, the more that's going to define my life, right, not the circumstances. So I do know that that's really where we're gonna go. We're gonna look at how, how does the child of God Because he's a child of God how does he define his life right? And the more we define our lives, even through our Obstacles and challenges, by Christ, our home in heaven one day, I think, the more joy and contentment will have, right.

So that's gonna be the second track. Okay, you can say completely agree, second, yes, second session.

I do agree with that.

Okay, we don't often agree, but that is what I agree.

I feel pretty good about this so far. Oh good, thursday night at nine o'clock we're going to have our third and final session for that track and that's gonna be presented by Colter Wickerham. Oh yeah, culture. Some of these guys, a number of these guys, are going to be former interns that we've had at Douglas Hills and these are gonna. I've worked with a lot, I've valued them, and Colter has just a mind for Looking at things in unique ways and he's going to dress nine o'clock on Thursday night to 27th. The issue of peace and, as I'm as I'm giving a breakdown of these sessions, I don't know what these guys are gonna do with them. I know what I'm gonna do with mine. So sure, the session on joy I'm pretty sure that one's pretty, we can lock that one in. Colter's gonna deal with the issue of peace with God, yeah, and then Maybe even peace within ourselves, because that's an area where I've known a lot of Christians who were just unsettled within their own lives, unsettled with their, their view of what it means to be forgiven. They struggle with forgiveness and I think that's part of this idea of peace peace that you've been forgiven, and then peace with others. That's certainly something Paul addresses a lot. Ephesians, chapter 2 peace between Jews and Gentiles. How do we get along with each other? So, yeah, we're gonna be dealing with the that aspect of the fruit of the spirit peace.

Yeah, okay, I Think that sounds great as well. Okay, and at Colter, if I'm not mistaken, I think Steve Wolfgang has Colter doing something on the fourth track as well.

I think Colter is gonna be in a group session there, so he's gonna be doing double-duty. Yeah, so I'm looking, I'm looking forward to what Colter shares. All right, friday night, the 28th, 7 pm Eastern Standard Time. David Norfleet, who works with me here, he's gonna be dealing with the issue of patience. All right, and there I know you've talked about this in a previous podcast there really is a progression that I think is found moving from one aspect to the other. And Yet, the more we have love in our hearts, the more we have joy in our hearts and more we have peace in our hearts, the more patience we can have with other people. Right, right, and this is Okay, this is one that, yeah, we can. We can all identify that it's a challenge sometimes to have patience with other people, yeah, especially, maybe sometimes, other believers, our brothers and sisters in Christ. We see their failings, their, their Irritations within our life, but maybe sometimes we have to learn to be patient with God. Yeah, god doesn't work as quickly as we would like for him to work. He doesn't work on our table and again, this would be another one, like peace, that we learned to have to learn to be patient with ourselves. I.

I completely agree with that as well. I think, yeah, that idea of patience, or sometimes called perseverance, I I think that's the one that we probably do not address very often, but I think it's probably the one that we probably deal with the most often. Because, the fact of the matter is, most of our life is not on our timetable. It's on somebody else's timetable, and patience is something that you have to learn Well especially again, since we're in a community of believers, in a church.

The only way a church is going to survive is, if we can, because of our relationship with the Lord, if we can learn to be patient with one another. And again, this idea of being patient with yourself, patient with your struggles, with your lack of understanding, sometimes with your failings, understanding that when you're trying to serve the Lord, you still want to fail sometimes, and I shouldn't do that. That shouldn't happen and I know it shouldn't, but sometimes we've got to learn from our mistakes and stand back and understand that God's forgiven us and if he's forgiven us, he's put it behind us, and we need to as well. We need to move forward.

That's right. Yeah, that's exactly right. And, by the way, david Norfleet is somebody that I have known for decades and he's just an excellent guy. So I mean, I'm glad you got him and he's I know, he's somebody who you work with, yeah, yeah, and somebody that you've known for decades as well.

That's right, and I've got complete confidence He'll do a great job. Friday night. Friday night eight o'clock on the 28th, the next lesson will be kindness, Okay, and I pulled in a guy that I have known for 30 years and that's Joe Shane. I don't know Joe. Joe is just one of these. He's a preacher that preached at my home church when I was growing up and had this seminal role within my life. In fact, probably if I didn't so want the session on joy, I would have given it to him because Joe was one of the and he just hit me at the right time in my life Late teens, early 20s, I was getting married, A lot of things changing my life. My ability to process information, to understand Christianity better was just beginning to grow. But he really helped me to see that a child of God can have joy within his life and he can have confidence and salvation. So he's going to deal with the issue of kindness and striving and this one really is dealing with how we treat other people. Yeah, Because of love and joy and peace and patience, and how it can manifest itself in kindness within my life. Just this morning we have at Douglas Hills we have a morning five five-ish minute broadcast on Facebook called the Morning Five and Noah works and I looked at Psalm 112. And we were talking about the person who is just praising the Lord. He's at peace with the Lord and in verse eight it says he has distributed freely, he has given to the poor his righteousness and joy forever, and I think that's what kindness is all about. Yeah, when we have complete confidence in God, I don't have to fight with someone else and compete with someone else. I can be kind to other people because I know that God is going to be there with me.

Yeah, and I hope this is addressed as well and I feel fairly certain it probably will be. And then, when we talk about the difference between kindness and niceness, that there's a difference between being nice and being kind, and sometimes what would you say?

that is Kenny.

Kindness is something where you are putting other people's needs, where you're helping benefit them as much as you can. So, for example, if somebody has a dream of being a singer but they do not have the ability in that the nice thing would be to say that they have a nice voice, that they have a good voice, but the kind thing would be to try to channel them in a direction that gets them away from singing, because if that is not their true talent, it is not kind to lead them on in such a way that they believe, no, I really need to pursue this. Kind people can't upset people, but I think there is a big difference between kindness and niceness.

That's a good distinction. Maybe a biblical example of that would be in 2 Samuel, chapter 12, where Nathan rebuked David. I mean, the safe thing to do is keep your mouth shut. Don't rebuk the king. The kind thing the nice thing to do would be hey, you know you're good, but what David needed to hear. The kind thing was hey, you're the man you are wrong. You are the man, you are right.

You are the man, you are right, and you're the one that needs to change and I've benefited over the years from brethren who have been kind to me because they told me what the I needed to hear, rather than being nice to me and telling me what I wanted to hear.

Right, I think I'm just guessing at this point that there will be some overlap.

So anyway, but anyway, and kindness is one of those that I think it's short-tripped as well, but anyway, who else is on the docket?

All right, so then, friday night at 9 o'clock, july 28, jared Gunter. He's a former trainee as well, good-might as well. He's going to deal with the issue of goodness. And this is really, really, really looking at our moral character. Okay, this one really jumps into, and I think part of that too, is what we appreciate. Do we appreciate good things, as Paul would say in Philippians, chapter four, verse eight? Do we think on things that are good? So how does goodness, how is it expressed within our lives? All right, then, on Saturday, the 29th, tristan Gentriero, another former intern, is going to address the issue. That's just a common theme among some of these guys, I'm noticing that. Yeah Well, because I know what they're going to do you know? these guys. I know what they can bring to the table. That's right, and people will benefit so much. Tristan is going to deal with the issue of being faithful, faithfulness, and part of that one is faithful to God. What does that mean? To be faithful to God but then faithful to others? Right, how do we show faithfulness to others? Standing by them, believing in them, encouraging them? Now, that's going to be a really good track, yeah, I agree. Then at three o'clock on Saturday, july 29th, austin Shear, another former intern, is going to address the issue of gentleness. That, along with the idea of being kind, they are somewhat linked to one another, but I think they are. They're perhaps separated in that. Kindness is how I treat them, what I say to them. Gentleness is how I deal with them, how I handle them, and I think that's another area, kenny, that maybe brethren have failed at over the years. I remember, case in point, when I was a kid kid, I was probably 17 years old. That qualifies as a kid, right, that absolutely qualifies as a kid, but go ahead. I had lead singing one night and after services, one of the elders at the time came up right after services and just jumped on me and said you realize that song's unscriptural right, right, right. And I'm a 17-year-old kid, you know, and one of the elders just beat me down in a way that wasn't gentle. In contrast, one of the other elders, whenever I would preach, I looked forward to meeting him in one of the side hallways after services because he would always put his arm around me and encourage me. Now he might correct me, but there was always a gentleness in the way that he did it. And as I say, that I know that there have been times that I probably have not been as gentle with my corrections of other people as I should have, and gentleness is just such an important way of the way that we deal with one another. Another scriptural example of gentleness would be 2 Corinthians, chapter two, wherein 1 Corinthians chapter five, paul deals with the brother who had been withdrawn from Right. We're not told in 2 Corinthians two that we're dealing with the same brother, but Paul does deal with a brother who had been forgiven and he tells the brethren to be careful how you deal with him. Right Said, forgive him and comfort him. Are he maybe overwhelmed by excessive sorrow? So I beg you to reaffirm your love for him, right, that's gentleness.

Yeah, I don't know if you're familiar with the word that's actually used there, but it's also translated meekness.

Yeah.

And that idea that, because there's a misconception about both meekness and gentleness and it's the idea that you have to be weak, and the argument that I've heard and I know you've heard the same thing only strong people can be gentle. Weak people are just weak. Yeah, the idea is that you have the strength to do something, but you're putting that strength under control and that I guess one of the arguments that I would put up against all of this is that gentleness has to have strength behind it. If it doesn't, it's just weakness. Yeah, and there's not anywhere in these virtues that that is something good. Weakness is not a virtue.

Right.

Gentleness is, weakness is.

It's weak and it's mean. Yeah, and unfortunately, let's just be honest we have all seen Christians who have been mean to other people.

Oh heavens, yes, oh yes.

And they have said something and they wrapped themselves in the cloak of well, I'm just telling the truth. Maybe you are, but, kenny, as our culture changes, we're going to have to recognize that as we deal with a lot of practices that are going to be showing up in our churches more yeah, practices such as the struggle of homosexuality, of course, transgenderism and things like that. We've got to figure out how can we stand for truth, but do it in a gentle way, and we cannot comfort ourselves by saying we're going to stand for truth and, however people take it, they take it that way. We are called upon to present the truth in gentle ways, and we got to figure that one out, so that's going to be an important one OK. All right and lastly last one Self-control. Self-control On the 29th at four o'clock. We're just going to play the podcast that you did with Scott Beyer and let's take it.

And Luther Pratt yeah, yeah, no.

No, another former intern, adam Littmer In fact, adam was the first guy that I worked with in our training program and Adams, all these guys again, all of them are just. They've got great minds, good students of the Bible, great ways of presenting scripture. Adam's going to talk about the idea of self-control. Self-control is the idea of determining to be godly. I think of Paul's statement 1 Corinthians, chapter 10, verse 23,. All things are lawful, but all things are not helpful Self-control wrestles with. Is this issue helpful to be spiritually or not? And do I 1 Peter, chapter 4, verses 1 through 5, do I put aside things that are helpful to me, right? Do I strive to live in a way that pleases the Lord, and what does that demand? That demands I'm going to have to put away what I want to do in order to say, yes, what I want to do is what I shouldn't do, right, but what I really, really want to do is what God wants me to do, and am I going to pursue that?

Yeah, yeah. Well, we talked about Control a couple of weeks ago, so this is one that's fresh on my mind and I know there are a lot of different directions to take that, and I look forward to what the animal, how Adam, will take that.

So, anyway, no one, no one in any of these discussions are going to be reinventing the wheel, you know, and at the end of the day it's just. These are all great reminders to, and I think what they become are Benchmarks for me to determine, because one of the questions in this whole issue of the fruit of the spirit Kenny, is Does Does this happen to us by the Holy Spirit or do I make these things happen in my life? All right, I come down on. I found a great quote in the new international commentary of the New Testament. That said, the phrase directly ascribes the power of Frutation not to the believer himself but to the spirit, and Effectively hints that the qualities enumerated are not the result of strenuous Observance of an external legal code but the natural product of a life controlled and guided by the spirit. So what that is saying is, I think, when I submit to God and I submit to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, from the word of God and the spirit within my life, these things are going to be the result. Right, ergo, these become and I don't get to say the word ergo that often I was about to say this is exciting now. Ergo, if I am submitting to God, then I ought to be seeing these benchmarks within my life. Right, so it makes sense.

That makes perfect sense, I think, one of the go ahead.

Well, and I may not see them all at one time. Okay, there's a growth here, mm-hmm. But but if I've been doing this Christian thing for five, ten, fifteen years, I ought to be able to see. Maybe not these characteristics in my life perfectly, but I need to be seeing each one of these. And if I'm not seeing them, then I need to go back to question zero, and that is am I allowing God To take over my life and I am I submitting to his spirit within my life?

Right. I think the way you think, the way you're conceptualizing this, is right. When you start thinking about, if you choose God as your leader, these are the virtues that you can expect to start seeing in your life. By the way, I mean, you didn't deal with any of these and I make I understand why you didn't. But when you look at At the, at the works of the flesh up in verse 19, quite frankly, that's what's get all he gets all the press. Yeah that's what gets all the attention. I mean, everybody knows and he, but any everybody under a certain age knows the name and rotate. At this point I'll go ahead and tell you I mean he's. He's a guy who talks about sexual immorality, he talks about impurity, he talks about sensuality, he talks I mean the things that Andrew that make and rotates. And let me give him his do. I think he's doing a really good job of diagnosing a problem with men, yeah, but but his solutions, his solutions, are the works of this, are the work of the flesh. Yeah, exactly and that's giving him a lot of Attention and notoriety. Why, well?

and jail time.

Yeah, well, yeah, but but one of the things that I would say, when you look at the fruits through the spirit, that doesn't get a lot of press Because, no, these kind of people, yeah, go ahead.

No, I think you're exactly right. And the reason why is I Can look at the works of the flesh and feel pretty good about myself. Okay, I, I'm not engaged in idolatry, sorcery, in the tea strife Drunk, in this. I can. I can look at those things. You know I'm doing. I'm not gonna sing out of the park when I, when I look at the fruit of the spirit, though, as a child, as a Christian, I'm challenged a little bit more because, while I may not Outwardly be engaged in the works of the flesh, although inwardly, in my heart, I may be right Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Am I showing the positives? Yeah, it's one thing. To put off the negatives, that's. That's one of the reasons why I think scripture is just so wonderful and the passages like Colossians, chapter 3, that tells us okay, as a Christian, put off these things. Well, oh good, right, I'm putting those off. Yeah, but are you putting on these other things, right? It's as Christians. We don't define ourselves as people who don't do certain things, and that's been Boy again. Let's be honest, that's the way we, that's the realm we like to operate in. I am not Doing these wicked things, but what am I doing? That's where the fruit of the spirit comes in.

I Would say this as well I don't disagree with anything you just said there, but I would say this as well Virtue and morality rarely get publicity. That if you are and I can't let me borrow my own phrase if you are good and you do good, the world doesn't notice very well. If you are bad, if you're evil, the world has a conversation to have with you. Now You're suddenly much more interesting to them. But it's not interest for the right reasons. It's interest because, let's face it, you're doing stuff that we can all criticize. Now. Does that make sense? That's right.

Oh, yeah, well, as you were saying that, I was thinking about the phrase I've seen on the back of bumper stickers, on the backs of cars several times well-behaved women seldom make history. Yeah, okay, and I'm not picking on women here, but that's the general idea that to make history you've got to be noticed and you've got to be loud and proud. And the fruit of the spirit male or female argues against that. The fruit of the spirit says the people who are genuinely remembered are the women and the men who sometimes work behind the scenes. They're the people that you can list, that and I can list that few people will ever remember the Hank Caldmans or the Frank Butler's or the Betty Haines's but they are important people to me because they were people who ultimately, in my estimation, submitted to God and allowed the spirit to work within their life and they bore the fruit of the spirit.

Yeah, I agree. I think that's the fact of the matter is, we all know the names of the people who do the works of the flesh, but if you give yourself three seconds, the people that you love are the people who are working the fruits of the spirit.

Yeah.

And that's just something else.

All right, and look. The challenge I mean the challenge for us today is we live in a world where, as you just said, the people who work the works of the flesh are the ones who are noticed, they're the ones who get the likes. They're the social influencers yeah, they are the ones that we are told to admire and, unfortunately, a lot of our young people are struggling with that concept right now and the concept of no, you need to be the person that shows all these characteristics, you need to be a person of good character. Is it noticed as much? Yeah, but the end reward is far, far greater. I mean you brought up the Tate guy Before last year and he was arrested. He made a lot of noise and had a lot of followers. Still has followers. Yeah, he does, but now things aren't quite as good for him now, and that's what's going to happen if you don't have good character. Yeah, that's right, you'll ride high for a while, but it's gonna blow up in your face at some point.

Yeah, and if it does not blow up in their face in this lifetime, it will not sustain them Right? They cannot save themselves. All right, mark, I certainly appreciate the guys, that you again. Once I hand these tracks off, I'm always interested to see the directions you guys take them, and this is a fabulous direction to take. This I will say it again this year. I said it last year. I appreciate you doing this. I know this is work. I know this takes some time to put together. I am extremely impressed with what you came up with. I've known you far too long to you know that I love you. You know that this is something that I'm number one not surprised about it, because I knew you would do this well at it, but I'm also really gratified. You and I have been friends for a long time and this is just proof positive of one of the reasons we are. Yeah, this is exactly what I would expect from you.

You know I've told you, Kenny, I think this is a great idea. Anytime you get to study the word of God is good. When you can study the word of God with people who are really good at presenting ideas, it's wonderful. And if you can study the word of God with people who have great ideas and they'll challenge you from the comfort of your own home, that's Christmas, dude, that is fantastic. You know, I think it's a wonderful opportunity for people to sit back and just with students of the Bible, sit back and take an hour and then not only to hear them but to have the ability to go back and hear again, listen again. One of the issues going on with these tracks are multiple tracks being played at the same time. To be able to go back. That's exactly right and listen to another track later. You know you've got your number one pig for that evening at seven o'clock that you can listen to, but you can go back later. I appreciate so much you pulling something together like this.

Well, I appreciate that. The only other thing that I wanna add into that I love that this is a live session where we're actually able to ask questions, we're able to talk to the speaker, we're able to talk to one another. That, to me, is worth something. So anyway, I appreciate this man.

Hey, I appreciate you, buddy, good to see ya.

Good to see you. Obviously, mark is a good friend outside of several times. I'm excited about what we're going to be doing in late July. As a reminder, the conference is free. There are tiers where you can help, financially supported, as well as two other tiers where you can get some books, but attending and participating is without charge. If you'd like more information, please go to wwwbalancingthecristianlifecom slash conference. If you didn't get that, I've left the address in the show notes. So until next time, let's be good and do good.