Act Like Men | Fortify Series

Amen, you may be seated. Hey, listen, one of the things I love about this time of year, we have a lot of our sports teams from high schools and from colleges that attend together as a team. I wanna welcome our EWU Beach Volleyball team. You guys, wave your hands, yes, yep. Welcome, welcome, welcome. We're excited that you're here. We're gonna be cheering you guys on this year. Any other sports teams that didn't tell us they were coming, anybody else? We got a few coming in the next service. All right, good deal. Hey, listen, grab your Bibles if you would. Let's go to 1 Corinthians chapter 16. Today, we're continuing our series called Fortify, building strong families, strong foundations, impacting generations, and today we're gonna talk about biblical manhood, biblical manhood. So the sermon title today, you'll see it in the text very clearly. This is not original for me. This is right from the Bible. The sermon title is Act Like Men, Act Like Men. And here's what I wanna say before I jump into this. To all the wives in the room, the Holy Spirit does not need your assistance today at all. Come on, right? He doesn't need your help.

Listen, he doesn't need the assistance of your elbows or those looks, all right? If you're taking notes today, this is not a reminder for your husband, all right? So let me help all the married women in the room today. Listen, you should take notes today because I'm gonna give you stuff to put in your prayer journal. When you pray for your husband, this is the things that you're praying for. This is what you're begging God to form in his life. If you've got sons, you need to be praying for your sons that they become this type of man that we're gonna talk about. If you've got daughters, you're gonna be asking God, God, could you bring this man into my daughter's life? All right, so that's what the married ladies are gonna do in the room. All of the single ladies in the room, all right, I'm about to help you more than you even know. I'm gonna give you the profile of the man that you're looking for, all right? He's like, man, what is the profile? Like, you can have, you know, anything we do today, you have to have the profile. This is the profile of who you're looking for. Listen, this is the qualifications both to date you and if they're lucky, they get to marry you, all right? You with me? All the ladies should say amen to that, all right?

So, men, we're gonna talk to you today. Let me just say, put a precursor on this. I'm gonna talk to men like men, and my goal is to encourage you, not to crush you, but I do wanna speak directly to you, and I'm gonna speak passionately because I know what's at stake when men don't assume the roles that God's given us. Most of the problems in society today are not the problems of ladies, it's the problem of men not acting like men. There's a lot of things that we're paying the government to fix that would be fixed if men would just step up and lead, all right? Now, let me put another precursor. I got so much I wanna say that I need to say that I can't say today, but we are putting together a conference for men at the beginning of 2026. There's going to be a conference for men. These are only ladies cheering. Men, you should be cheering too right now, all right? It's called Warrior Weekend, Warrior Weekend. Can you guys throw that up there for me? Maybe not, all right. Warrior Weekend is what we're gonna be calling it. It's gonna be a weekend. We're gonna be announcing the date, so here's what's gonna happen. Men, I'm telling you now,

because before the series is over, all the registration link is gonna be up and ready to go, and you'll be able to go on and register now. We're working out some details with the guest speaker so the dates are a little fluid. That's why the registration link isn't up now. This is gonna be an incredible, incredible weekend. We're praying that God fills this room up with men who wanna act like men, and we're gonna rise up an army of warriors in Jesus' name, amen? So men, we want you to be ready for that. So because that's coming, that lets me off the hook. I don't have to say everything that I wanna say because I have a whole weekend to say some of it, all right? But here's what we're gonna talk about, act like men. The passage of Scripture is 1 Corinthians 16, 13. If you're there, say the Bible is true. Paul writes this. He says, be watchful, stand firm in the faith, and then here's the sermon title, act like men. Let all that you do be done in love. So here's the idea here, act like men. There's five imperatives in this verse. Act like men is at the center. We believe that is like the hub of what Paul is calling men to, this act like men. The other four imperatives are gonna tell us how men act. Like, so how do men act? And we're gonna get to that, but before we get to that,

we gotta ask the question first, if we're gonna act like a man, we gotta ask the question, what is a man? In our culture, we're confused on that, right? Like, we don't even know what a man is, and so we gotta answer that question. And here's the thing, and I'm not just talking about gender. I'm talking about, like, literally, what is a man? So let me just use this illustration. My son is one of my best friends in the world, and this dude, he's a dude's dude, by the way. Like, he loves cowboy boots, country music, trucks. He loves to hunt and to fish, and he loves to kill stuff with a bow and an arrow. He also loves to lift weights and ride bulls on the weekend. Like, that's a dude's dude, right? Now here's the question, does that make him a man? It makes him cool, but it doesn't make him a man, right? Like, it makes him an awesome guy, right? But it doesn't make him a man. So the question is, what is a man? And when I say that, I'm not talking about like the gender battle that we have in our culture. What I'm talking about is, because it's more than just being male. Because think about it like this. A boy is male, but a boy is not a man. A man is male, but a man is not a boy. So what we're talking about is manhood. So what is the difference between a boy

and someone who has crossed the threshold into manhood? That's what we're talking about. And the reason this is a problem, and the reason we've got to answer this question is because we have this new window in our culture today, and here's the new window. Before, decades ago, you were either a boy or you're a man, but now what we have is a new category of what we call adult boys who are not yet men. Adult boys who are not yet men. So here's what that simply means. It means they can drive cars, vote, buy alcohol, and join the military, but they're not men, they're just boys who can shave. And so we gotta bring some clarity to some of this. And here's what happens, you chuckle, but here's what happens. If we're not careful, if we have this category and they live in this window, and by the way, this could be everywhere from 14 years old to 74 years old. That could be the category. And here's what happens if we don't bring clarity. Here's what you end up. You end up with boys who are old enough to be men who are not men pretending to be men. They want all the rights of manhood without any other responsibility. And here's what it does. It expresses itself, this kind of window expresses itself in two extremes.

One is passivism, passivism. The other is chauvinism. Say, what do you mean passivism? Well, passivism is where we abdicate responsibility that God has entrusted to us as men. And so we want the responsibility, we want the title of man, but we don't want the responsibility. So you end up with boys who want sex with no commitment, money without hard work, significance without sacrifice. These guys play way too many video games, way too much golf, and they live for their hobbies. Some of you are like, that stung, I was talking to you. Then you have chauvinism. Chauvinism is the other extreme of this. What is chauvinism? It's where you distort responsibility into domination. And here's what you find with these type of boys pretending to be men. They beat their chest and compensate for their insecurities with vibrato. And because they know they're not a man, that they want to look like a man, they revert to things like big tires, big muscles, and big mouths to hide the insecure little boys that still live inside. And here's what you end up with. You end up with a group of grown boys who define their life by what I call, define their manhood by what I call the three Bs.

The ball field, the bedroom, or the bank account. That's manhood. I conquer opponents, I can run over everybody, I can dominate people around me. Or it's the bedroom, like, look, man, I'm sleeping with a lot of people, and man, look at what I'm doing. I have all of this freedom, and look at how fun my life is, and they're trying to define their manhood by how many women they can shack up with. Or it's the bank account. Look at what I drive, look at where I live, look at where I go, look at all the toys and all the stuff that I've accumulated, look at the position that I hold. And it's just this vibrato trying to hide the little boy that you really are. And my responsibility this morning is to call you out of that. You see, here's the aim of raising boys, is to help boys become men. And so listen, here's what it requires. It requires a man to call a boy to become a man. And there's some of you boys in the room, I'm calling you to manhood today. So here's what we gotta do. So what is a man then? All right, we haven't really defined that yet. Well, let's look at Genesis chapter two.

You don't have to turn there, it'll be on the screen. We're gonna spend most of our time in Corinthians. So just stay with me there. Let me read to you Genesis chapter two. There's some insight we get with Adam. Notice this, Adam was created a full-grown man. So when God created mankind, he created Adam already a man. And so what we see is God's intention for manhood in Adam before the fall. Listen to what the scripture says. It says, the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden to work it and keep it. I underline that for a reason. And the Lord God commanded the man saying, you may surely eat of every. tree of the garden, but the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you should not eat, for in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die. Then the Lord God said, it is not good that man should be alone, amen, I will make a helper fit for him. I want you to notice something about this passage of Scripture. God is speaking and calling and working in Adam's life before Eve is ever created. Why is this important? It's important because what you find is that God gives Adam three things. He gives him a calling to fulfill, a command to obey, and a companion to love,

and he does this before Eve was even created. So before woman was ever made, here's what you have, God creating man and giving men responsibility. So if I was gonna give you a great definition of what's the difference between a boy and a man, here's the answer, responsibility, that's the difference. Men assume the responsibility that God has given us, and what we find is is that God has entrusted to Adam the responsibility to lead his family, to steward creation, to make the world around him flourish because he is there, and he entrusts him with this responsibility even before he creates his wife. And let's just talk about this for a minute, this first calling, a calling to fulfill. You say, what do you mean, a calling to fulfill? He places Adam in the garden, watch this, to work it and keep it. Men, look at me for a second. Work is not a byproduct of the fall. We were created to work. We were made to work. So for those of you who hate work, listen, you hate your calling. You've been called to work. Adam was given a responsibility to work it and keep it. Here was Adam's calling, here was his job. His job was to make the rest of creation look like Eden. In other words, here's the calling for a man. Your calling is to make the world and the people around you flourish because of what you do.

And if you look at what's happening in the world today, creation isn't flourishing because of men. A lot of times, creation is suffering because of men, because they're not assuming the responsibility, walking in the calling that God's given them. And I'll say this to a lot of you older men in here who have retired. Listen, I just wanna tell you, just because you got to be 65 and you're not called not to work anymore. And so if you've retired from your vocation where your paycheck once came from, that means there's gotta be some other work that you're called to do to make the world flourish around you, not just sit in your recliner and watch Fox News all the time. Now, you got more wisdom and time than you've ever had in your life. Use it wisely to make the world flourish, amen? Here's the second thing, not a calling to fulfill, not just a calling to fulfill, but a command to obey. It says, God commanded the man. He commanded the man and he told him, don't eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Why? That's my tree. And here's what I love about this. God says, you can have all of this stuff, but you're gonna refrain from eating that tree over there. And here's, I believe, why God does this.

He wants Adam to realize that you can't live in true manhood unless Jesus is your Lord. Like there's a surrender to the will of God that is required for us to live and enjoy the flourishing of life that he's created for us. So he's giving him this command and he's reminding us that men have been given the responsibility to lead the way in submission to Jesus. You know what I love about this? Is that after Eve is created, God does not say the command again. Well, how is Eve supposed to know what the rules are? God entrusted Adam the responsibility to lead his family. He commanded Adam and Adam was then to lead his family in obedience. Listen to me, men. You cannot lead your family to places you do not go. If you're not walking as Jesus is Lord, that means you can't lead your family to do the same thing. So this is a huge thing here, a command to love. Here's a third one, a companion to love, a companion to love. He says, I will make a helper fit for him. And so he crafts Eve and he makes and fashions Eve. And here's what I love about the distinction. Notice this, Adam was made outside the garden in the wilderness, in the chaos. Explains a lot about men, right? And then he was placed in the garden like a bull in a china cabinet.

She was created in the place of beauty, in the place of peace, which tells us a lot about the way that women are wired. So here's the idea, is that God gives this calling to Adam. He gives this command to Adam. And then he gives this wife, this companion to Adam so that he would lead her and love her. And as he worked and as he followed the commandments of the Lord, and as he loved his wife, all of creation would flourish because he took responsibility. Responsibility that God gave him seriously. Men take responsibility. And so here's what I would say to single men in the room who are longing to step into the space of number three, a companion to love, a wife to call your own. Let me just say this to you men. If you're not walking in number one and number two, you ain't ready for number three. And single ladies in the room who are looking for a husband. If you're dating someone who is not doing number one and number two, he is not ready for number three. He doesn't work if he's lazy. If he's just hanging out with the boys all the time, but there's no ambition, no vision for his life, no direction. If you ask him what he wants to do, and he's like, I don't know, I'll figure it out. He ain't ready to put a ring on it. And if he's not walking in the commands of the Lord,

or if he is in a relationship with you and encouraging you physically to engage in things that you know the Bible says you shouldn't do until you're married, then not only is he not walking in the commands of God, he's trying to lead you away from the commands of God. He is not ready for number three. Manhood is for men, not boys. And ladies, you need to be looking for men, not boys. So the call is to act like men. Are you ready? Man, he got real quiet in this room. First Corinthians 16, 13, let me read it again. It says, be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Let all you do be done in love. So here's what we're gonna do. What he does, he gives us one command, act like men, four imperatives around it to show us how men act. Let me break this down for you in four statements. You ready? How do men act? First of all, men take responsibility for themselves and others. Men take responsibility for themselves and others. This is what he means when he says, be watchful, be watchful. The word watchful there could be translated, be alert, stand guard, have your head on a swivel, stay awake. That's the idea here, be watchful.

It's a military term. It is the soldier that's been placed on the wall to watch out for the enemy, to make sure that before the enemy even gets close, that he's setting the alarm and he's staying awake and he's manning his post. That's the idea here. Why would Paul use such an extreme word? And here's why, men, and this is why I'm so passionate about this this morning, is because we are at war. And so many men are living like it's a peacetime season, and it's not peacetime. Peacetime is coming when King Jesus comes and once and for all vanquishes the enemy and sets up his throne on earth. That's when peace is coming. But until then, we're at war and we have an enemy, and this is what 1 Peter says about our enemy. Listen to this. He says, be sober-minded and be watchful. It's the same phrase that Paul gives here in 1 Corinthians, be watchful. Why? Because your adversary, what does that mean? It means that you have an enemy and he's the devil and he prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. Listen to me, the enemy doesn't wanna coddle you, cuddle with you, play with you. He wants to devour you and everyone you love.

And this is why Paul is saying, be alert. And Peter is saying, be sober. Keep your head on a swivel. You have a enemy, he's crafty, and Jesus tells us in John chapter 10, verse 10, John chapter 10, that he has a mission statement and the enemy's mission is to kill and steal and destroy you and everyone you love. And God has placed men to be the watchmen on the wall that looks and is prepared and stands as the front line of defense for both culture and the family. And when men don't stand watch, people get consumed. People get consumed. So you have to take responsibility, first of all, for yourself, men. Take responsibility for yourself. What does that even mean? It means you need to be watchful for you. Like the enemy's coming for you. It's his football season. And I know there's been a lot of coaches spending a lot of time watching game film for their opponent, their district rivals, and they're gonna try to collect as much. And here's what they're gonna do when they're watching game film. Not one moment of watching game film are they gonna watch the kids on the sidelines without helmets on.

What they're gonna do is they're gonna try to find out who's the greatest threat on the field, and then they're gonna build a game plan to try to neutralize the threat. We're gonna double team and triple team. We're gonna make sure if we get beat, that dude's not gonna do it. They're gonna take somebody else that we didn't see coming. Why? Because if you can neutralize the greatest threat, then you can probably win. So can I just tell you, men in the room, because you've been placed as watchmen of the wall, you are a marked man. Because as goes the men, so goes the culture. As goes the father and the husband, so goes the family. He wants to take you out. He knows your weaknesses better than you know your weaknesses. He knows where to trip you up. He knows where your failures are. You know what that requires? It means that you let go and not take. You gotta build a defense around yourself. Being watchful doesn't mean that you're just doing this. Being watchful means that you're building parameters and guardrails and systems in your life. You need men who can speak into your life and call you out. Who can see behavior and patterns and go,

hey man, I love you, and I love you too much not to say something, man. You need to get home more often. You're spending way too much time away from the house. Hey, I was at the house the other night and I heard the way you spoke to your wife. Hey, listen, what's going on, man? They need to know what your sins, I got men in my life that know my sin struggles. They know my personality struggles. I got men that'll pull me aside and say, hey man, that was in the flesh, that wasn't from the Lord. You know, I need that. My wife has access to my phone, everything on my phone. She has access to every social media account that I have. When I travel, by the way, I travel a lot, I never travel alone. I always travel with someone. I take another man who will hold me accountable. We stay in the same hotel together and they travel with me. You know why? You say, man, that's kind of embarrassing. No, I just know my weaknesses. And I'm not gonna be caught off guard. I'm gonna have systems in my life where I'm not gonna be snipered by the enemy because I wasn't prepared. You're gonna take me down, you're gonna have to work for it.

You say, well, ain't that embarrassing to have to travel? You're a grown man, you can't travel by yourself. Ain't that kind of silly? No, I'm gonna tell you what embarrassing is. Embarrassing is having to look at my wife and kids in the face and tell them I failed them. Embarrassing is to have an elder stand in front of you, the congregation, and say, after running hard for 25 years, our pastor's been disqualified. That's embarrassing. I want people around me who are gonna hold me accountable and systems that will protect me from the enemy. Why? Because men take responsibility for themselves. They also take responsibility for others, those that God has entrusted to them. Husbands, do you know what's happening in the heart of your wife? Like, do you listen when she talks? Like, are you absorbing? Are you just trying to fix all the problems and try to get her to stop talking? Do you know the friends that your kids have? Do you know them? Do you know their families? Do you know what they do when they're at their house? Do you know those things? Well, mama takes care of that. No, no, no, daddy's supposed to take care of that. Like, your little girls have boys who were just like you

when you were 16, wanting to put them in cars and take them places. And you don't even know their name or who their parents are. And you've not had a conversation with little Johnny about his intentions with your daughter. And can I just tell you, when you take the time and get to know the kind of guy that your daughter's bringing home, not only are you gonna learn a little bit about him, you're gonna learn a lot about your daughter. Who are your sons pursuing? What kind of relationship do they have? What are they doing behind closed doors? You should know that as men. What's on your kid's phone? Well, that's my kid's phone. If you're paying for it, it ain't your kid's phone, it's your phone. And you as a husband should be taking responsibility for people around you. That's number one. Number two. What does it mean to act like a man? Men stand firm on biblical truth. Men stand firm on biblical truth. That's what he says here. He calls the men to stand firm in the faith. Now, something interesting about this, when he says stand firm in the faith,

he's not talking about stand firm and be faithful or to have faith or to believe. The definite article, the faith, is how we interpret that verse to understand that it's talking about the gospel or the truth of God's word. So another way of saying it is he's calling men to stand firm on the word of God. Have your feet rooted firmly in the truth of God's word. That requires men that we know the word of God to stand firm on it. By the way, this word stand firm here, this phrase here, rather, is a military term as well. The Roman Empire dominated nations. And one of the reasons, they had all kinds of military advancements that nobody else had. But one of the things that they had was the ability in ground battle to outmaneuver and outfight the people that they were fighting. They had equipment. So when they would get into the valley where there would be wet ground and they would do hand-to-hand combat, the Romans had invented, so the first military to wear what we now know as cleats. They had boots with spikes. And here's what they were able to do.

They were able to dig in and get a wide stance, a firm foundation, so that as the enemy would hit them, they would be able to either stand their ground or advance on the enemy. It's kind of like an offensive lineman. Like when they dig the cleats in and they have a strong, firm base and foundation, they dig in, why? Because they're holding off the rushers or they're creating space for the offense. This is what he is calling men to do, to have our feet rooted, our stance. We're ready, we're prepared. We've got a firm foundation, so that as the enemy attacks, the word of God becomes the foundation. the foundation of our life and home. One of the reason culture and the lies of culture are taken over is because men aren't leading the way of standing firm on the Word of God. We need to be speaking up and speaking out and speaking truth. It means that we gotta live in the Word. We've got to love the Word. We gotta lead out of an overflow of the Word. You know what that means, men? You gotta get in the Word. You know, there was a study done a couple of years ago, 100,000 people surveyed, and they targeted men in this, and they were asking the question,

what difference does reading the Bible make daily to everyday life of a man? And here's what they discovered. This is fascinating. They discovered that if a person read the Bible, if a man read the Bible one to three days a week, it had no real impact or influence in their life. But they discovered what's called the law of four. And the law of four is this, is that whenever a man went from one day, two days, three days, and hit the fourth day, something exponential happened in his relationship with the Lord and the way he lived his life. I want you to listen to a couple of things here. It says, listen to this. It said that literally there was a shift. He was 400% more likely to memorize Scripture, 228% more likely to share his faith, 416% more likely to invest in the local church, 218% more likely to live generously. Moving from three days in the Bible to the fourth day in the Bible. And then it talked about his behavior. Listen, these are the things that drop exponentially. Behaviors that men struggle with drop exponentially. Listen to this. Here are the issues that drop exponentially. Anger issues, bitterness in relationships, alcohol abuse, sex outside of marriage, pornography plummeted,

and spiritual stagnation almost went away. Just from moving from reading the Bible three days a week to four days a week. Imagine if you begin to read the Bible five days a week. So while we have a Bible reading plan, I have a friend, Robbie Gallaty, he says this. You gotta get into the Word until the Word gets into you. Get into the Word until the Word gets into you. You want your life to change, put your feet firmly on the Word of God, but you gotta consume it in order to stand on it. Here's number three, listen to this. To act like a man means that men walk in supernatural strength. Men walk in supernatural strength. He just says two words here. Be strong. Be strong. And we gotta recognize here, he's not calling men to be physically strong. He's not saying, hey, you gotta bench press more. Here's what he's saying. He's calling us to spiritual strength. You say, how do you know this? Look what Paul says in Ephesians chapter six. Listen to this. He says, finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. It's the same thing he says in 1 Corinthians. Be strong, but then he adds to it.

Be strong in the Lord. Don't be strong in you, don't be strong in your giftedness, don't try to white knuckle it. Be strong in the Lord and the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God. What is the whole armor of God? Suit up in the gospel. Why? That you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. Remember, we're in a war, right? And so we gotta armor up. That is how we are strong as men, to stand strong. What does strength look like? I've been thinking about this all week. Let me give you a couple of things extra that's not on the screen to write down. All right, you ready? So what does it mean to be a strong man? First of all, listen to this. Strong men are honest about their weakness. Strong men are honest about their weakness. You know what we do as men? Here's what we do as men. You know, I am a man. So it's just a little confession time. We camouflage our weakness with vibrato. We cover up our weakness with anger, with frustration, with pride.

We cover up our weaknesses by pretending that we're not weak and then when people question us on that, we just kind of turn them off and write them off and just walk away from that. That's what we do. But here's what happens, though. When you don't own your weakness, when you don't embrace the weakness, everybody has weaknesses. Everybody has weaknesses. And here's what we gotta recognize, that it could be that the weaknesses that are in your life, the reason God is letting those weaknesses there because he's trying to get you to the end of you so that at the end of you, you can find the strength and power that God wants to give you. So when you pretend to be strong, when you're really weak, you continue to stay weak. But when you can acknowledge that you're weak, here's what you'll find. You'll find strength. This is what the Apostle Paul says. He says, listen, your strength is made perfect in my weakness. Like God's strength is made perfect in our weakness. And then he says, therefore I boast all the more in my weaknesses. Why? Because when I am weak, then I am what? Then I'm strong.

So when I can acknowledge the failure. in my life, when I can acknowledge the shortcomings, when I can say, you know what, I do have a temper problem, or I do have a lust issue, or man, yeah, I mean, I have this issue with not wanting anybody to tell me anything. When you begin to get vulnerable and say to people around you, yes, I do have a weakness in that area, and then you get honest before the Lord and say, God, I don't know how to break this thing in me that I want to break so badly, you're gonna have to do it. Here's what God says, you're actually in the perfect position to become strong because you're finally admitting that you're weak. When you go to a trainer and say, man, I wanna get strong, I wanna get more healthy, you know what, they're not gonna go, like, where is your strengths? They're gonna go, hey, where are you weak? And they begin to target those areas because they can take those weaknesses and they begin to strengthen those areas. All of a sudden, you become much stronger. But here's what we do spiritually, we hide our weaknesses, pretend they're not there, and they dominate us, end up crushing everyone else around us. That's what strong men do, they own their weakness. Here's number two, they walk in humility. They walk in humility.

Men all the time say things like this, you know, I'm the man of the house. I'm the leader of my home. You know, God's called me to be in charge, so let me just help you with this. If you're the leader of your home, that means you're the first to say you're sorry. It's you're the first to admit you're wrong. That's how you get to lead. You're the first to make sacrifices. Why, because you're the leader of the home. Leaders always go second, never first. And here's why this is important. It's important because this is what Jesus, who is the ultimate man, models for us. Remember the scripture in Philippians, though he was equal with God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking on the very form of human flesh and being found in human likeness, made himself obedient to the point of death, even death on a what? On a cross. Is Jesus the leader, the first above everything? What is the answer? Yes, he's the greatest servant to ever walk the face of the planet as well. We gotta humble ourself, we're gonna be strong men. Here's the third way you see strength in men.

Strong men don't quit when times get hard. Strong men don't quit when times get hard, they persevere. Men, look at me for a second, hear me say this. It's time that some of you stop taking your ball and going home every time there's a disagreement in your house. Or when things get hard, you're the first to throw your hands up like, I don't know what to do, and then your wife is stuck figuring it out. Some of you young men, look, you're at a job and you hate it and it's like long hours and it's hard and you sweat and people you don't like, and so you wanna quit to find an easier job. Sometimes you gotta stay in the hard stuff because that's what makes you tough. Some of you men, it's time to stop fighting with your wife and start fighting for your wife. Men don't bail when times get hard, boys do. And being a man means that you're not a boy, which means you don't quit and you don't walk out. You do hard stuff, you persevere. This is what we do. But we live in a culture right now that men are forced to apologize for being men. And I just wanna say to the men in the room, listen, don't ever apologize for the way that God made you. Masculinity is not toxic, it is one of the ways that you reflect the image of God. So be a strong man, be a persevering man.

And if you got boys, raise them to be strong men. How do boys become strong men? You gotta let the boy do some hard stuff. When I was a kid, every stick was a gun every stick was a gun, every acorn was a grenade. I'm telling you, it was a different day. We wrestled, we fought, we roughed house, we got hurt, we did it again because we were dumb. But we got tough along the way. Nowadays, we wrap little Timmy in bubble wrap and then we take him to therapy and we give him medication because he's acting too rambunctious. Listen, little Timmy should be acting rambunctious and he should get in trouble every now and then, why? Because he's not a girl, he's a boy. And if you want little Timmy the boy to become big Tim the man, he's gotta do some hard stuff. This is why one of the things we did differently, I got two girls and a boy. And we raised Noah different than we raised our girls. He can testify to this. And from the age of like four years old, if I left town, I got down on my knees, look him in the eye and said, son, you're the man of the house. You protect your mom and you protect your sisters. Now, could he protect them at four years old? No, but I was wanting to drill into his soul. You're a protector. You're a defender.

You look out for the weak, the vulnerable. You take responsibility for what God has entrusted to you. Because one of these days, he's going to be a husband and he's going to be a father, and I don't want him to quit because things get hard. So there are times we gave him a job that he hated and despised. Why do we do that? So men in the room, if you got a boy and you're hiring somebody else to do your lawn, shame on you. You are cheating your son of opportunity to become a man. Like the yard will look crazy if he mows the grass. Who cares, but you're making a man. Boys got to do hard stuff so they don't quit when times get hard. Finally, here's the last thing. Listen to this. Men leverage their life to love and serve others. Men leverage their life to love and serve others. Look what he says lastly. He says, let all you do be done in love. Listen, our motivation for everything should be an overflow of love, amen? Like so we leverage our role as a leader, not for personal gain or pleasure, but to love those that God has entrusted to us. Like to be a servant. We've all talked about servant leadership. I want to be a servant leader.

Let me help you. We got to lose that phrase. There is no such thing a leader that's not a servant leader. So it's just a leader, why? Because leaders serve. That's what we do. You put others first, you lead the way by making sure that everyone else knows the way and you put them first so that you're loving them by the way that you're leading them. And men, this is the way that we should posture our life in preparation before we get married with whatever authority God has entrusted to us, and then when we get married with the people that God has put under our care. So listen to me. Here's what that means. It means that we got to be both tough and tender as men. Tough and tender. Not just tough, although we need to be tough. There are going to be moments, men, where you got to be tough. You got to fight for your family. You got to protect your family. And if need be, there's going to be moments maybe in your lifetime where you have to die for your family. You should be willing to do that. But you should also be tender as well. You know what that means? That you're tender, you're tough enough

to fight for your family, but you're tender enough to hold them and comfort them and hear them and listen to them and pray with them and support them. Man, you don't have to just hold the line. You got to hold the line, but you don't have to just hold the line. Man, you got to say I love you a lot, a lot, to the people you love. Some of you men, you grew up and you never got told by your father that he loved you or he was proud of you. And because of that, everything you do is driven by trying to fill that void of what you wish you had of your father, for him to say to you, I'm proud of you. Can I just tell you for you men that are carrying that wound, I'm sorry that that's been your experience, but here's what I want you to know. You have a heavenly father. And when you step into biblical manhood, your heavenly father is proud of you. And why don't you, rather than blame your father for why you don't say, I love you, why don't you break the generational curse? Some of you don't tell your wife you love them enough. You're like, I told her the day I got married, I love her. I told her I'd change, I'd tell her if I changed my mind. You know, man, that's weak.

That's weak. Listen, men, you need to change the temperature for the better. You need to change the temperature for the worse. Listen, men, you need to change the temperature for the better in the room. Let me ask you this question. Lynn, man, eyes right here for a second. Let me ask you this heart question. Does the tension in the room increase at home when you walk through the door or decrease when you walk through the door? Do shoulders drop? Dad's home. Or they're like, oh, dad's home. We gotta get our act together. Like there should be, so when strong men walk in a room, when there's a man that's strong that walks in a room, it's gonna give two different responses. He's here, we're safe. Or it's gonna be, he's here, I don't feel real safe. Man, you need to ask yourself the question, what is the temperature of the room and how does it change when you walk in? It's a great question to ask. Maybe if you're man enough, you might ask your spouse that one day. Man, we gotta be not just tough, we gotta be tender. Here's what I've learned.

You can't just confess the hard way. I've learned this the hard way. So when I confess things, you just gotta know, I like, I'm, it's because I fail more than I succeed. Here's what I've learned. That my tone and timing and tenderness changes everything in conversations. So here's what I mean by that. How I speak. When I speak and why I speak matters in the conversation. Like I could be telling the truth, but if I tell the truth in a harsh way, it's not good. I could be telling the truth, but if I tell the truth, when they're just trying to work through some emotions and now I'm trying to fix it because by nature, by the way, I'm a fixer, this is the struggle for me. My wife literally has to tell me sometimes, last week she told me, all right, I'm gonna talk to you for a second, but don't fix it. I just wanna be mad for a minute. And then for 20 minutes, she's like, blah, and at the end, she's like, what do you want me to do? I'm like, now is the time? You know. And then tenderness. Do I really hear her? Or am I just annoyed? And then write this down if you're taking this.

I got two quotes I think will be helpful. Listen, here's what I've learned. An unfailing truth spoken in an unloving way will be an unreceived message. An unfailing truth spoken in an unloving way will be an unreceived message. I heard a pastor say it like this. If I'm wrong in how I'm right, then I'm wrong even if I'm right. If I'm wrong in how I'm right, then I'm wrong even if I'm right. So here's why this is important, men. Listen to this. Tough and tender. Tough and tender. And this is the model and the example that we see throughout the Bible, by the way. We think of a lot of these godly men, these warriors for the kingdom, mighty men of the scriptures. They were both tough and tender. Let me show you what I mean. David was a warrior and a worshiper. He struck down tens of thousands in the battlefield, but he strummed a harp and sang worship songs to the Lord. Moses was mighty and merciful. He courageously stood face to face with Pharaoh and delivered God's people, yet he fell to his knees in tears, interceding for his people.

Joseph was a governor and gracious. He ruled with strength, dignity, and wisdom in Egypt, and yet he forgave his brothers who sold him into slavery. Peter was both passionate and penitent. He swung a sword, cutting a man's ear off to defend Jesus, and then wept bitter tears when he abandoned Jesus and denied knowing him. Paul was a dude's dude. Paul persevered, and yet he was pastoral. He endured beatings and shipwrecks and imprisonment, even death, yet he was broken over lost souls in need of Jesus. Tough and tender. But I just wanna tell you that the greatest example of this is Jesus himself. Jesus is the ultimate man, amen? I mean, Jesus is the example of being tough and tender. He is the true measure of manhood. I want you to listen. Let me describe Jesus to you. He was bold enough to overturn tables, yet gentle enough to embrace the broken. He was strong enough to rebuke the proud, yet merciful enough to restore the repentant. He was powerful enough to cast out demons, yet compassionate enough to welcome outcasts. He was sovereign enough to create the world, yet loving enough to lay his life down for sinners like you and me. Jesus was both the lion

who can devour the nations and the lamb of God who took away the sins. Men, you say, I don't have a father to look to. Look to Jesus. Be like Jesus. You say, well, I don't know how. Well, first is this. You surrender to Jesus. You cannot step into biblical manhood and be what I'm talking about by your self-effort. The first way to step up as a man is to kneel down before Jesus, for him to be the Lord of your life, for you to stop playing. Some of you are realizing right now in this room, some of you men are realizing you don't have a real relationship with Jesus. And you're wondering why it is that I can't step into manhood. Why can't I leave my family? It's because you need a Lord. You need a the ultimate man to call you into manhood. And that starts with salvation. And there's some of you that need to do that today. Today. So our response is gonna be twofold. For some of you men, it's time to receive Jesus today, to embrace him as Lord and Savior. For others of you who know him, it's time for you to kneel down before him

and to kneel down in humility as a Christian man, acknowledging where you're weak and saying, hey, I'm drawing a line in the sand. and I'm stepping over into living out what God has called me to as a man. And the way that you do that is in full submission and full surrender. So here's how we're gonna do this. I'm gonna ask you to bow your heads. For the men in the room who sense right now, I don't know that I have a relationship with Jesus, but man, I am tired of trying to play the man without knowing Jesus. And I need a savior. I want you to know that Jesus loves you. He died for you, he resurrected, and he can make you new right now. And if you're in this room and you're like, pastor, that's me. I'm tired of running. I need to be made new. I wanna receive Jesus. I'm gonna ask you to do something right now where you are. If that's you, I'm gonna ask you to do something bold. You're saying, pastor, today is the day for me. I'm giving my life to Jesus. I'm done doing this on my own. I wanna trust him as my Lord and savior. I'm gonna ask those men to stand to their feet right now. If that's you, and listen, I know that's a bold statement.

Praise God. Is there any others? Thank, praise God. There's more. Anybody else, just keep standing. Just keep standing. We got decision encouragers. If you're standing, praise God. It takes a lot of courage to do this. Some of your men are like, man, why do I gotta do it in public? Because being a man means you gotta stand. Sometimes you gotta stand alone. If you're gonna be a man that stands for Jesus, this is a good day to start. If you'll look to your right or your left, there are gonna be some people here. We got some gentlemen standing right in this section here. You guys will make your way to that direction. We got some guys standing. Anybody else? Right here in the back, the back left corner, somebody gotta get one of our encouragers right over here. Craig, if you guys can. If you're standing, just slip out of your seat. There's gonna be some guys that are gonna grab you. Pray with you and praise God for all the men standing today. Anybody else? Now, men in the room who know Jesus,

men in the room who know Jesus, I'm gonna ask you to do something and I'm gonna ask you to do it. And ladies in the room, if you're married to a man that's beside you, you need to let this be between him and Jesus. And you have nothing to say about how he responds to this moment. Please hear me say this. Do not quench the work of the Holy Spirit through your insecurities. You pray for your husband. And there's so many, and you are single men in this room, I'm talking to you as well. Listen, if you're a man in this room and you're like, pastor, you said some things today that, man, just convicted me. And I recognize areas of weakness that I have not walked in biblical manhood as God has designed me to walk. But man, I want today to be a first day for me to begin to take steps toward Jesus in this. In other words, this is a first way for you to admit, man, there's some weaknesses and I want Jesus to do a work in me. And I recognize that I can't be the man that God's called me to be on my own and I need supernatural help. If you're ready to step into that space

with no one looking around and no one coercing anyone, for those men, I'm gonna ask those men to stand if you would. For those men who are saying, I know there's some areas of weakness, I wanna step up, I wanna walk in more faithfulness to biblical manhood. I'm gonna ask you to stand and just keep standing. I'm gonna pray over you in a second. All over this room, men are standing up. Praise God for you. Praise God for you. Only stand if the Holy Spirit prompts you. Praise God. By standing, men, it means that you're not just gonna stand. You know there's some things, there's some sin issues right now that God is calling out in your life and you've gotta own it. You gotta confess it. You might have talked to your spouse or your girlfriend about it. But today could be a defining day for generations if more men would do what you're doing right now. What I wanna do is pray a blessing over you. God, I love you and I thank you for these men. And here's my prayer for them, God. Make them a mighty warrior for the kingdom.

Men who speak the truth and walk in purity all the days of their life. May they be strong and courageous, yet humble and gentle. May they seek you with all of their heart. In Jesus' name, amen.