Men After God's Heart: 10 Principles of Brotherly Love

By Isaac Hayes, MDiv

Men After God's Heart is an in-depth examination of how Christian men relate to each other. Now more than ever, it is imperative for men to develop healthy, meaningful relationships with their spiritual brothers. The Western masculinity persona has prevented men from experiencing healthy male bonding, creating a distorted perception of masculinity. But Jesus sets the example for how Christian men can and should display brotherly love.

Birthed out of a men's seminar he taught entitled "10 Principles of Brotherly Love," Hayes explores Jesus's final moments with His disciples in the upper room, which he calls the Disciples' Ship. In John chapters 13 through 17, Jesus teaches and illustrates ten principles of love that they were to continue in their relationship with each other.

Men After God's Heart will help you audit the male relationships in your life and challenge you to go beyond your personal convenience to brotherly commitment. This resource aims to build disciples who live in relationship, grow in fellowship, and engage in stewardship. It is a must-have resource for personal devotion, men's groups, and seminary's spiritual integration labs (SILs).

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Aug 13, 2022
• ISBN: 9781639618231

Book preview

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Men After God's Heart

10 Principles of Brotherly Love

Isaac Hayes, MDiv

ISBN 978-1-63961-822-4 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-63961-823-1 (digital)

Copyright © 2022 by Isaac Hayes, MDiv

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1

Love Is the Mark of Discipleship

Chapter 2

Brotherly Love Is Limitless

Chapter 3

Brotherly Love Is Humble

Chapter 4

Brotherly Love Is Longsuffering

Chapter 5

Brotherly Love Is Accessible

Chapter 6

Brotherly Love Is Transparent

Chapter 7

Brotherly Love Is Supportive

Chapter 8

Brotherly Love Is Connected

Chapter 9

Brotherly Love Is Sacrificial

Chapter 10

Brotherly Love Is Loyal

Chapter 11

Brotherly Love Is Intercessory

Conclusion

Appendix

Brotherly Love Assessment

To Latouna, my partner in life and ministry.

Acknowledgments

First, I want to thank God for the faith to pursue this project and lay bare my thoughts for public critique. His ministry to me (while writing this book) was worth the endeavor alone, as He exposed just how broken I am inside.

I also want to thank my wife, Latouna, for her many prayers and continued investment in the gifts and callings God has placed on my life. Her positive reinforcement and encouragement to see the uniqueness of God's hand on me has been invaluable.

I am also grateful for my mother and her unwavering support of every endeavor I have undertaken, whether playing baseball, running for congress, or entering the ministry. My mom rocks!

I owe a debt of gratitude to Decature Tounsel for exhorting me to do more with the gifts God has given me. He told me I should be writing books. One year later, his challenge has been answered.

Finally, I want to thank the men of the Apostolic Church of God in Chicago, Illinois, for encouraging me to take the 10 Principles of Brotherly Love seminar and do something with it. Well, that something is this book!

Introduction

And when [God] had removed [Saul], he raised up unto them David to be their king; to whom also he gave testimony, and said, I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after mine own heart, which shall fulfil all my will.

—Acts 13:22

What Does It Mean to Be a Man after God's Heart?

If you attend any brotherhood or men's ministry event, you are certain to hear an exhortation to be a man after God's heart. It sounds good, and it is good, but what does it mean? A man after God's heart has become so nomenclature in church circles that we all assume we know what it means, but very few people ever take the time to explain its meaning to us.

The apostle Paul helps us hammer out a definition from his sermon in Antioch of Pisidia by explaining that a man after God's heart shall fulfil all [His] will (Acts 13:22). According to Paul, who is quoting from 1 Samuel 13:14, the man who does all that God wills is the man who is aligned with the heart of God. The heart of God is not a place of weakness, but strength. I remind (or inform) you that King David was not just a worshipper, but also a warrior. He slayed the Philistine warmonger and giant, Goliath, successfully led Israel's army to battle victory after battle victory, and established Israel's hegemony throughout the region. Yet, David's heart was tender toward God, and he was a worship leader like none other, who instituted liturgical reforms that heightened the sacrifices of praise that Israel offered to Yahweh (the covenant name of God). One could argue that the warrior David was the result of the worshipper David. This symbiotic relationship between warfare and worship is most expressly illustrated in verses 3 (warfare) and 4 (worship) of Psalm 27:

Though an host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear: though war should rise against me, in this will I be confident. One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to enquire in his temple. (Psalm 27:3–4)

David fulfilled all of God's will because he was in love with God, which brings us to the title of this book, Men After God's Heart. God's will is His commandments. The man who is after God's heart lives according to all of His commandments. I am not advocating for a form of legalism, because legalism is based upon fear, but a David-like obedience that is based upon love.

This book is about love for God and for our brothers. As we will discover, Jesus gives us a new commandment to love one another (John 13:34). The man after God's heart is the man who not only loves God, but also loves his brothers in Christ. It may seem rudimentary at this point, but trust me, you are going to be challenged as you read this book. I know I was challenged as I wrote these chapters.

I must confess that I am an emotional Neanderthal. You would have a better chance of getting adequate emotions out of a junkyard dog than me, but my heart is soft and sensitive when it comes to God. However, this is not a book to make you cry, but a book to make you dig deep into the crevices of your social formation and clean out the baggage that keeps you from having healthy relationships with your Christian brothers—i.e., your Christian friends.

According to Louw-Nida, a friend is a male person with whom one associates and for whom there is affection or personal regard.¹ The brotherhood and men's ministries in our churches are good at the association half, but we struggle with the affection half. Part of the reason we struggle is because we are cautious and guarded against our brotherly affection being mistaken for sexual attraction. We don't know how to love other men. (Don't worry, we are just getting started.) Nevertheless, we say that we are men after God's heart, and God's heart (His will) is that we love one another. In fact, the thesis of this book is that men after God's heart are men who love Christ and one another.

How, you might ask? We will spend the remainder of the book answering this question. We will do so by exploring Jesus's actions and teachings with His disciples in John 13 through 17 before experiencing His passion—His suffering and subsequent death. In them, Jesus provides us with at least ten declarations and/or deeds that make up the framework of this book. In chapters 13 through 17, Jesus is in what I call the Disciples' Ship, engaging in a pre-Passover feast with His disciples on the eve of His passion. The intensity of Jesus's last hours with His disciples provides the perfect backdrop for the heart of Christ to become the heart of every man who desires to do all of God's will. After all, Jesus does call every one of His disciples to follow me (John 12:26).

I pray that you will read this book in chapters. This is not the type of book you can read a few pages at a time. Once you start a chapter, I strongly encourage you to keep reading in one sitting until you finish it. It is going to challenge you, open up some deep wounds, and make you feel uncomfortable, and that's okay. Most of all, it is going to set you on the road to a happier, healthier you because there is ministry in the pages that follow. Old relationships are going to be restored and new relationships are going to be formed.

Finally, I strongly encourage men's ministries to purchase this book for the men of your church, read it one chapter at a time, and discuss each chapter as a group or in subgroups. In fact, this book is the result of a men's retreat I taught on the 10 Principles of Brotherly Love. The men were so emotionally moved by the teaching that several of them encouraged me to do something with it. Well, I heeded their advice. What follows is a far more intense and in-depth exploration of Jesus's final moments with His disciples than what I shared with them.

It is time we had some open and honest dialogue about male-to-male relationships, a spiritual man cave of sorts. My prayer is that Men After God's Heart will start the conversation. Please be warned that this book is not for the faint of heart, but it is for men who are after God's heart.

Chapter 1

Love Is the Mark of Discipleship

A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.

—John 13:34–35

What Is Discipleship?

Discipleship is a popular word today. If you pick up any Christian book, watch any Christian programming, or attend any Christian conference, you are certain to hear the word discipleship. We have discipleship classes, discipleship ministries, and discipleship T-shirts. But what is discipleship, and why is it important?

Discipleship is a process of transformation

Discipleship is the process of being a disciple. It encompasses the moment of initiation into Jesus's spiritual kingdom through the moment of transition into His heavenly abode. While we are developed as disciples through the missional gifts Jesus has given to the church (Eph. 4:11), let us approach it for our time together from the perspective of what happens through us and not to us. A through us perspective moves discipleship from a passive understanding of what programs the church needs to create to help believers grow spiritually to a purposeful understanding of what our Lord expects us to live out collectively (verses 12–13).

Mentorship, small groups, and discipleship classes are vitally important to our spiritual formation (I am not suggesting that we discard them), but to what end are we investing in these ministry channels if the goal is not to live out what is being poured in? Therefore, discipleship must be viewed as a symbiotic (mutually beneficial) relationship between each disciple and his church (see Symbiotic Discipleship Model). As the disciple grows, the church grows; and as the church grows, the disciple grows.

Discipleship presupposes there is a ship full of disciples. Now I have never been enthusiastic about spending extended periods of time aboard a ship, but I can imagine that before we had planes, trains, and automobiles that could transport us over long distances in short periods of time, it was important to have good relations with those whom we would spend months, if not years, sailing the boisterous seas.

As disciples of Christ, we are in a ship that has been sailing the boisterous seas of a fallen world infected and affected by sin. The trauma and dysfunction resulting from having treaded those seas often goes unnoticed and unaddressed, because we are conditioned to detach ourselves psychologically and emotionally from our social experiences. Sin enacts a heavy toll upon us spiritually, psychologically, emotionally, socially, and physically. Years of treading the sinful seas of this world fill the lungs of our souls with contaminated water, wear out our minds from the constant threat of perishing from our environment or at the hands of those we come into contact with, isolate us from others in the interest of