Real men’ told to love one another

FORT WORTH?Gene Getz, speaking at the 2008 Real Men of Impact Conference, offered a simple challenge to the men in the audience: love one another.

The theme, “Hold Fast,” comes from Job 17:26 in which Job says, “I hold fast my righteousness and will not let it go. My heart does not reproach any of my days (NASB).” The conference was held at Glenview Baptist Church in Fort Worth.

In his final address to the conference, Getz, the keynote speaker and a noted pastor and author, discussed the process of “becoming men who love Jesus and want to reflect his life.”

This process is not intended for solitary believers but for believers working together within the body of Christ, Getz said.

“We don’t grow in isolation,” Getz added. “We grow as each part does his work within the body of Christ. Anyone who says I don’t need anyone else doesn’t understand the scriptures ? The Bible is very clear that we need each other.”

Men are especially prone to minimize their need for other believers, Getz said.

“I think as men, particularly, sometimes we are guilty of being isolationists, of being those who live in their own world who are afraid to be vulnerable?who are even afraid to become involved in other people’s lives. So I think there’s a particular message to men: We are members of one another.” Getz explained.

Getz offered several “one another” statements from the New Testament that describe how Christians grow together as members of one another within the body of Christ.

The first such statement is found in Romans 12:10 which reads, “Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; give preference to one another in honor. ?”

Brotherly love can be difficult for some men, Getz said, because their fathers were reluctant to show affection.

Getz asserted that the local church can help those men to learn as adults what they did not learn in childhood.

“One of the most exciting things about the church of Jesus Christ is that we can be a reparenting organism,” Getz, pastor emeritus of Fellowship Bible Church North in Plano, said. “We can reparent people. There are people who come to our churches who don’t understand love. They’ve never been loved in a deep sense. They come from dysfunctional families, and they need to come into a family that’s functional, and that’s the family of God,” Getz added.

As men and women are “reparented,” Getz continued, they learn how to parent their children in a more loving and affectionate way.

Brotherly love should manifest itself not only in changed families but in service to one another within the body of Christ, Getz said.

Such love is similar to but distinct from the love commanded in Romans 13:8, the next of Getz’s “one another” statements. That love, Getz noted, is the unconditional agape love that God displays for his creatures, which has a profound effect on the church, according to Getz.

“When we love one another as Christ loves us, it produces unity within the body of Jesus Christ,” Getz said.

Conversely, Getz said, ungodly behavior within the church often has different results. Citing examples, Getz said:

?”When Jesus Christ tells us to honor one another above ourselves and we honor ourselves above others;”
?”When Jesus Christ says be devoted to one another in brotherly love and we focus on ourselves rather than other people;”
?”When Jesus Christ tells us to serve him and we serve ourselves, what does that create?”

“A dysfunctional body,” Getz answered, building to a crescendo as he spoke.

Getz, who called a church that lacks unity “dysfunctional” and a “great tragedy,” challenged the men in the audience to work to avoid dysfunction in their churches and work in unity in accordance with God’s design.

“You men, all of us are to take the lead in creating a supportive community of love,” Getz said.
Getz noted that such a community of love has an important responsibility: restoring those who are trapped in sin.

In Galatians 6:1-2 Paul writes, “Brethren, even if anyone is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; each one looking to yourself, so that you too will not be tempted.”

This process should be restorative and carried out with wisdom, humility and caution, Getz said.

“This is involving someone who is trapped in sin. They’re going in the wrong direction, and we care enough to go after them and do everything we possibly can to restore them and set them free,” Getz said. “That’s a task for more than one person who loves Jesus and loves people. This is a difficult task that should be done with incredible humility considering ourselves as we could also be tempted.”