BetterMan Core: Lesson 1

Man, I can't explain to you how thrilled I am to begin this journey with you right now. I believe with everything in me that this is the start of something that's going to shape the rest of your life and give you a definition for manhood, not only that you can know, but also that you can live. So let me encourage you with a few things, okay? One, believe big. Believe big that God has something in store with you and then lean all the way in. Don't just passively approach this, but lean in and lean in with some other men. Today's the start of a journey to what manhood is and how that manhood manifests itself in your everyday life. So let me give you something. Ready? Get your workbook out, notebook, whatever way you're taking notes. For men, we're not workbook people, that's sort of a woman's thing. We're a roadmap. So whatever you have with you right there, that is a roadmap to a better manhood. It's going to end up being a treasured piece to you, so hold on to it. But let me give you some starting line perspectives. One, as men, we have a lot in common. Now we got different stories, we got different backgrounds, you got different upbringings and all that, but we got the same questions. We got the same desires. There's things that God has hardwired into men that we need to come to understand. Two, we all want to be better men. You wouldn't be sitting in this study with other men unless you wanted to become a better man. I've known some bad men, but I've never met a man that didn't desire at least at some level to become a better man. Some of us that are watching this right now feel pretty good about where you are in your manhood, but you still want to keep growing.

Some of us have some important questions on what do I need to know that I don't? What should be my top priorities? How should I live or how can I live without regrets? Some of us, if we're honest, need some practical help with our marriages, with our work, maybe with some habits, maybe in our friendships, maybe in your spiritual life. Some of you right now are struggling and you need somebody to help you through this struggle and help you find a new direction moving forward. So let's answer a question. How are men doing today? Well here's the truth. Some men have found a manhood that works. You might be one of those men, way to go. Maybe you know some of those men that have a manhood that is truly flourishing. But I want to tell you something. There is a manhood that truly works and it is, ready, life-giving. That's one of the most important words you will hear in these 11 weeks together. It's a word that shows us that there's a manhood that is more. A manhood that is more than just personal success. It's more than about oneself. It's a manhood that when boiled down, gives something to this world. When a life-giving man shows up now, when a life-giving man shows up on the scene of his home or shows up on the scene of his workplace or in his community, people are encouraged by it. He doesn't take life, he gives life to people. When a life-giving man shows up, you're ready, women and wives feel valued and secure. When a life-giving man shows up, families thrive, sons are drawn to it, daughters delight in it, and the workplace and the community is better and benefit because there is a man on the scene that has life coming out of him. Matter of fact, life-giving is the word that the Bible uses to describe the manhood of Jesus.

1 Corinthians 15.45 says the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. That this is the spirit that we're ultimately in search of on this journey. The truth is this though, some men live in a manhood false. We're longing for a life-giving manhood, but many of us, if we're honest, are living in a fog, and we're living in a time unlike any other time in human history. It wasn't long ago that our culture shared clear markers for manhood. We knew how to measure what it meant to be a man. Some of those markers were things like, hey, to get married. Some of those things were to be the head of your home, to be a responsible leader, maybe to be a breadwinner or a protector. We had these markers that pushed men in the right direction, but the truth is, guys, hear me, those markers have faded. They're even rejected now, and the question is, what does it mean to be a man when we're living in such a haze, guys? There's an eerie silence around manhood right now like never before. Things that we used to celebrate and society used to celebrate are shunned. If we talk about being a man as someone that is moving toward marriage, you might get laughed at because men will say, man, why not enjoy your freedom as long as you possibly can before you get tethered or tied down? If you say something right now like the head of your home, you might get your head cut off. If you say something like to be the breadwinner, how dare you insist that a man should be the primary provider in his home? I want to just say something. Let me give you a statement on the front side here. There won't be one thing that's said in these 11 weeks that diminish the role of women in the world. There's not one thing that'll be said that will belittle women in any way. What we hope to do now, listen, is to rightly elevate again what God intended when He made a man, what roles and responsibilities men were intended to carry.

The word and thought of a protector is a lost thought in our day. As a matter of fact, most women are scared of men because we've earned that in the way that we've hurt and harmed women. The truth is, the New York Times says that single moms are the new normal. They earn the money, they take care of themselves, and the last thing they want to do is to bring a man into the home that might mess that up. Times have changed, and they've left men confused and conflicted. So here's the question. What does it mean to be a man? What does it mean to be what God intended? Well, we've turned from the answers of the past, but we haven't clearly given an answer for the present. We're going to do that in the days ahead. Here's another problem that we're facing. Some men live in a manhood struggle, in a manhood struggle. They settle for less in life, and they don't know that it's less. Why do we see this all over the world? Men get to the end of their lives, and they have huge regrets. They've lived for the wrong thing. They've chased the wrong thing. They've climbed the wrong ladder. They gave too much time to the wrong stuff. It's because they didn't have a right definition of manhood. The truth is this. Men like that, they create problems, lots of them. When men are lost in life, they either shut down or they speed up. You ever been lost driving somewhere? What do you do when you're lost driving somewhere? Be honest. Just speed up, right?

You don't know where you're going, but you're getting there quicker. Most social problems in America rest at the feet of confused men. No matter how tough we look, we're fragile. Guys, we are fragile without focus, without clarity. 90% of all crime in America is male crime. 98% of all rapes are attributed to men. Most marriage problems are male problems. One out of four women in college will be sexually assaulted before they graduate. Why? Because men without a guiding definition of manhood are dangerous. Are dangerous. We break things. We're sounding the alarm right now. I know it got real serious real quick. We're sounding the alarm so we can see the state of manhood, so that we can move forward. It's a problem when men, they guess at their masculinity and they hope it works. I think if we're honest, most of us have spent a lot of our time sort of guessing our way forward, not always knowing the right guide to a real manhood. Margaret Mead, an anthropologist, famous anthropologist, said this. The chief responsibility, she studies societies and cultures. She said, the chief responsibility of every society is to find healthy roles for its men. Because a culture that fails... to offer its men a clear masculine blueprint for embracing good and noble pursuits, will see its men naturally dumbed down to problematic behaviors. When we don't know where to go, we destroy things. When we don't know how to move, we make a mess. So let me give you the four challenges that men face going forward. One is this, the loss of a common manhood vision. Without vision, we live in no man's land. Without vision, we're left to make up manhood for ourselves. And that ends up being manhood for the moment.

Whatever manhood is pushed for for us, whatever masculine thing comes out of Hollywood, whatever thing they want to describe as a man to us, and it's a fad, and it fades. It's momentary. What I want us to dare to believe is that there is a manhood that is proven. That there is a manhood that is timeless. That God intended for us, would we be brave enough in the weeks ahead to return to timeless truth and learn how to live it? Proverbs 29 verse 18 says, when there is no vision, the people run wild. There is a vision for manhood, and we're going to see it in the weeks ahead. Another problem we face right now is the rise of a weightless manhood. It's created, and I'm going to get real personal here for a moment. It's created by the emotionally or the physically absent dad. The loss of dad, hear me now, is important on at least two levels. A dad's presence gives a son emotional stability, gives him love, gives him affirmation. My eight-year-old son now, I remember when he was three years old, Abel was his name, A-B-L-E, now to him who's Abel. My three-year-old son at that point was building Legos, and I was sitting beside him watching him, and he did something. He looked up at me, and he asked this question at three now, are you proud of me? Every son, every young man needs the stability, was intended to have the stability of a dad that affirms, that loves, that gives him emotional stability. Second thing that every man needs is dad's instruction that gives him directional stability, meaning like moral convictions and practical skills. That every man was intended to have his dad play a role in giving him instruction moving forward, but many men, many men even watching this, have missed that moment in your life because you didn't have that relational connection with your dad. The truth is a stable loving home is the first and most important ingredient of human thriving. That's why Proverbs 17 6 says, the glory of sons is their fathers. You hear that? The glory of sons is their fathers. Now the word glory, it communicates weight, that a man with a stable father figure is weighted in a world in a way that stabilizes the son. Now I was a football coach for a while in my life before surrendering to ministry, and we always had football dummies. I think you can imagine this, a tackling or blocking dummy, and I don't care how big or how bad. If you're a division one player or an NFL player, it could get lit up, knocked down, but there's one thing that would always happen on that hitting dummy, it bounced back up because at the bottom of it was sand or some kind of substance that weighted it, meaning that it could get hit and it would bounce right back. Well when a son has the stability of a father that emotionally and

directionally helps him, affirms him, moves him, points him, that in this world when he gets knocked down, he knows how to bounce back up. He's a true iron man. He knows how to take a licking and keep on ticking, but when a son doesn't have that, he gets blown about all over. Weightless manhood unleashes a host of problems. Anything can knock him down and keep him there without the weight of a father's love and direction. Oftentimes it moves us toward things that we try to find that weight. Maybe it's sexual appetites fulfilled, maybe it's drugs, maybe it's crime, maybe it's success. Men will try to prove themselves to this world to have somebody say you have what it takes. When we don't have that weight, we will go on a search for it somewhere. I've known men that spent their whole lives in response to the wounds that they've felt from their fathers. We'll address that. Something you need to know. Women can't fix a weightless manhood, meaning mom can never play the role of dad. Wife can never give you what you're longing for in that affirmation of a father. You're going to need two things, and what I encourage you to believe is that you need to hear some things in these next weeks from your heavenly father. You need to hear some things from some spiritual fathers, maybe in that circle. Maybe hear some things. Maybe you need to go in pursuit of your dad and ask for some of those blessings. We're going to address all that in the weeks ahead, and you need some friends to do it with. This is an epidemic in America today. In 1960, only 5% of boys in America were fatherless. 1960, 5%. Today, 41%. 41% of men are fatherless. No wonder the world is burning. No wonder things are broken. We're also living in a radically changed and radically changing social landscape. The last 50 years have been socially breathtaking. We've continued to see men and women's roles increasingly merge. No clarity anymore in definition. The definition of marriage, for the first time in 4,000 years, changed. Some 44% of millennials consider marriage obsolete. A majority of children, 61% born to mothers under 30, are born outside of marriage. There are now multiple gender categories, not just male. It's female. Sexual standards have dramatically changed. Other things that have changed has been socially breathtaking. All this has happened in the last window of time. Women now outnumber men in college by 30% and earn more advanced degrees. Women now make up the majority of enrollees in law and medical school. The New York Times said this, at colleges, women are leaving men in the dust. Not only that, there are now 7 million working age men in the United States that have no reason why

they can't work that don't. More women are managers in the workplace than men, and single women buy their own homes, twice the rate of single men. Depression rates have increased tenfold in men since 1960. All those things tell us this. Clearly, women have excelled and are excelling in today's modern world, while men have stalled. There's so much talk around so many other things, and this silence around the purpose of a man and what manhood truly means. Here's the fourth challenge men face. The lies men believe about themselves. I want to encourage you now, even as I share these with you, would you circle one of them? As men, we often make the mistake of processing out our lives alone. I should just know what to do. We think intuitively, I should just know what to do. Well, the truth is, in sports, you get a playbook and a coach. In a job, you get a manual and a boss. But in life, the matters are a little more delicate, like marriage and purity or how to be a dad. Oftentimes, men don't know where to turn. No one knows what to do on their own. Hear me, men. Nobody knows what to do on their own. Often, men withdraw when they don't know what to do. What I found about me, which is true about you, sometimes I would rather not try than fail. And when we do that, many times men will isolate, which always leads to some kind of death and destruction. Maybe another lie you might be believing is, I'm the only one that struggles with this. Let me promise you something. You're not the only man that's watching this right now that's struggling with the things that you're struggling with. I don't care if that's drugs, or if you're struggling with being a dad, or if you're doing stuff, hear me now, online, all by yourself. You are not alone in your struggle, and you need the help of some other men. Some of you are believing this lie. It's too late to do anything about this. I got a promise for you. If you still have breaths, you can become a better man. If you still got breaths, you can be a better man. Maybe the lie is I can do this and no one will ever know if our age has told us anything Everybody gets found out Everybody gets found So no matter what you're struggling with or what's in the dark, or maybe you just think you can exist until you die Everybody ends up paying the price listen to me for their own of their own struggles their own brokenness If I tell the truth, maybe it's a lie you're believing if I tell the truth about myself You'll reject me Let me tell you the way that God's God's hardwired

Humanity and specifically inside of the Christian faith That if you'll get honest you'll get help That if you'll get honest You'll get help and what you find in this life this thing that we're living together if I share my struggles with somebody a brother most times they Reciprocate by sharing theirs and then we can actually help each other move forward. We'll teach you about that So here's the question. Can we define a manhood that will work for us in the modern world? Here's the promise you can You can find a manhood that will work a manhood that you can pass on to others a manhood Listen that you can raise your sons in that a manhood that you can disciple other men in a manhood that can influence your Friends hear me guys. There's a manhood that is truly Life-giving. So let me give you five promises Five promises on the front to our better man journey That if you'll go on the journey these 11 weeks with us, you will increase your manhood understanding and you will make some significant Personal discoveries the lights going to turn on Things are gonna become clear the fogs gonna roll out Lights gonna come in if you'll go on the journey you got to go on the journey though Another promise you're gonna receive some helpful insight and support from your table leaders No matter what your context is if you're in a large group watching this breaking into tables or if you're in a small group You're gonna get some helpful insight and support by journeying with a few other brothers through this thing Here's a promise for you. You go on this journey with some other men. You're gonna make some new friends Listen, everybody needs a spiritual buddy No branch of our military sends people to war alone They always have a buddy system in place is that you need somebody to live this thing out With here's another promise. You'll have the opportunity to Upgrade your manhood by using a weekly better man question Every one of us love upgrades, right? I mean we live in ages everything's about upgrades if you'll go through this journey in

Every level at every level of your masculinity and every level of your life you're gonna upgrade to a biblical standard that will actually help you flourish and win and Win and lock men want to know how to win You want to know how win if you'll go on this journey the scriptures will show us how to win in life Without vision you live in no man's land without vision. You'll make up manhood for yourself My promise to you is this if you'll go on the journey you won't have to That we will clearly see in the scripture what it means to be a man and how to win in life Here's the last promise You'll receive a clear Definition of manhood that will work for you in this modern world week five We're gonna roll out the definition of biblical manhood Then we'll spend week six through ten and really take that definition And let us see how the rubber hits the road how we can actually live in this you're at the beginning of a journey men This this session was sounding the alarm That there is a problem in manhood Specifically in America, there's contextual issues and societal Problems and at the core of it is we've lost what it means to be a man and it's not because God has been silent But it's time for us to hear his voice Again, so I want to encourage you men go all in with him And he will show us the way forward now take some time and unpack those Table discussion questions with some brothers and really wrestle through it and I look forward to seeing you next week