BetterMan Core: Lesson 11

Well, men, here we are, session 11, the grand finale, baby. I am so proud of you for going on this journey. I want to encourage you, man, take that workbook, notebook, binder, whatever way you have all these notes and hold it tight in the weeks ahead, even though you might not be meeting with that small group of men anymore. Man, go back through those truths and let them marinate in your soul until they make you a different kind of man, make you a better man. Keep making adjustments. Keep that friend group alive, man. Y'all keep talking through the things of the kingdom and what God's doing. This is just the beginning of a better manhood, and a better man provides more resources to take that with these core truths and define them out even more in five-week little blocks. I'd encourage you to pick up in a future season and do some of those things. But today, I just want to sort of land the exclamation point on what we've been learning together. And really, these 10 weeks before, I've been teaching you these truths that better man is put together based out of what's in Genesis. But today, if you'll let me, I just want to preach to you. I want to preach and Lord willing, have the Spirit of God awaken something in you from one chapter of Scripture, 2 Chronicles 20. And I'm reading from the New Living Translation today because I love how it renders here. And it's got some manhood moments on it that I think would speak to us. So one, let me read you. Verse 1, it says, After this, the armies of the Moabites, Ammonites, and the Mianites, that's a lot of U-nites there, declared war on Jehoshaphat. Messengers came and told Jehoshaphat, a vast army from Edom is marching against you from beyond the Dead Sea. They're already at Hazazon Tamar. Jehoshaphat was terrified by this news and he begged the Lord for guidance. So I want you to imagine this scene, Jehoshaphat, who we see in the Scripture is a good king

to this point. He's one of the few godly kings we see in the Scripture. And one morning, he wakes up to this message, there are three armies, nations, that have decided to bring an end to your reign and to God's people. Bad day, right? Bad report that he's found out that they've strategically come against him. You know what he doesn't do? He doesn't rally the troops. He doesn't retreat. He feels something. He feels something. He feels something deep inside. He feels desperation. Guys, I want to just speak to you for a moment. I sounded the alarm week one, and now we've laid out this biblical definition, but I want you to know that we are living in a war zone and we have the armies of our greatest enemies, Satan, and strategic forces of spiritual darkness that are trying to destroy manhood and masculinity, that are trying to destroy the intent of God around gender, that are trying to destroy your family. And so we need to feel something. We need to listen, embrace desperation. That a sign of a true man, a sign of a better man, is he knows when it's time to embrace desperation. And I just want you to know, men, it is right to feel desperate for God. It is right to feel desperate for help. It's right to look out there and say, I don't know how to do this on my own because you were never intended to do it on your own. So Jehoshaphat is a good king and a godly king, and he doesn't rally the troops and he doesn't retreat. But instead, he's terrified, and in light of being terrified, he begs God for help.

And I just want to tell you that masculinity and manhood as the world might portray it would say that begging is a sign of weakness. But in the kingdom, begging is a sign of strength. God, I need you. I pray that you'd be the kind of man that every day would be desperate for God, would pant for more of his presence and his power to fulfill what God has called you to as a man. It says he begged the Lord for guidance, and he also ordered everyone in Judah to begin fasting. So the only thing that he does is he calls on all the other men and all the people of Judah to get before God. Men, listen to me. There's no substitute for getting in the right spiritual position. Fasting, prayer, reading God's Word is all positioning yourself for wisdom from above, for power and strength that you need, direction in the future. So here's my charge to you. Be the kind of man that every day would be desperate for God, would pant for more of of man that gets in the right spiritual position every season of your life. Not just merely this 11 weeks, the next 11 weeks, every season of your life, spiritually position yourself for power, for help, for an outpouring of heaven here on earth. Men of God are made in the presence of God. They're not freaks, they're not accidents. They're men that have lingered and tarried, and they know how to position themselves. Jehoshaphat positioned himself, and through fasting and prayer, he was positioning all of God's people. Verse 4 said, So people from all the towns of Judah came to Jerusalem to seek the Lord. What do you think about that? People from all over, all over Judah came to Jerusalem to seek the Lord. Jehoshaphat had rallied people spiritually, rallied people spiritually. I'll tell you, it's interesting in that time, you had all kinds of different belief systems across Judea. You had the makings of future Pharisees and Sadducees. You had Jews that disagreed about different types of

worship and traditions and all those things. But when desperation is happening, you lay down all those secondary issues to get into the presence of God and be desperate together. Man, I want to encourage you, listen to me, to be the kind of man that rallies other men. To be the kind of man that walks into your workplace, walks into your church, walks into your community, and rallies other men saying, listen, we need God. We need the help of God. We need the power of God. We need an outpouring of God's manifest presence, man. We need a movement of God. Be the kind of husband that rallies with your wife. Be the kind of dad that brings your kids into the presence of the Lord. Man, you look across history in our nation, there's been movements, man. There's been revivals. There's been awakenings. And I just want to say this to you. I believe we're at the beginning of one. I believe that the rumblings of revival are happening. I think we're seeing outpourings of God's presence in the movements. People coming to Christ and being baptized, man, and kingdom advancement. I think there's a movement among men. Be one of the kinds of men that rallies other men. Ultimately, we're not rallying them to some ministry. We're rallying them to the God that made us. Rally people spiritually. Verse 5, you see, Jehoshaphat stood before the community of Judea and Jerusalem in front of the new courtyard at the Temple of the Lord. And he prayed, O Lord God of our ancestors. Now here he is. Here's the king standing in front of the people. He's ordered them to fast and pray. And people have rallied to this moment. And then he prays in front of them, O Lord God of our ancestors, you alone are the God who is in heaven. You are the ruler of the kingdoms of the earth. You are powerful and mighty. No one can stand against you. O our God, did you not drive out those who lived in this land when your people Israel arrived? And did you not give this land forever to the descendants of your friend Abraham? Your people settled here and built this temple to honor your name. They said whenever we are faced with any calamity such as war, plague, or famine, we come to stand in your presence before this temple where your name is honored. We can cry out to you to save us, and you will hear us, and you will rescue us. Let me tell you what the king is doing with

this community. He's bringing a promise back into God's presence. This is what I want to encourage you. Be the kind of man that knows God's Word and knows how to take one of God's Word as a promise into his presence. Be the kind of man that can say before your children, Lord you said you'd never leave us or forsake us. Lord you said if we would repent and turn that you would hear from heaven, that you'd be the kind of man that rallies other men, that knows how to take the promises of God's Word and bring them into his presence. Say, Lord let your kingdom come. Let your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Be the kind of man that courageously follows God's Word and courageously takes God's Word through prayer into his presence with other people and say, God do something now. Do something in our day. Be the kind of man that holds on to a promise in the middle of the battle. That you're the God of restoration, man. You're the God of renewal. Maybe your marriage is going through a tough time. Take some promises into God's presence. He'd make some dead things alive. Maybe you're having a hard time in your workplace, man. Maybe take some promises of God's favor, man. God I need you to give me wisdom. discernment. Verse 10 it says, And now see, then he levels the crosshairs in his prayer. Now see what the armies of Amon and Moab and Mount Seir are doing. You would not let our ancestors abate those nations when Israel left Egypt. So they went around them and did not destroy them. Now see how they reward us, for they have come to throw us out of your land, which you have given us as an inheritance. So don't you think about this. Jehoshaphat's taking a promise back. You said that you would hear us. You said that if we cried out, you would rescue us. And then Jehoshaphat, he levels the crosshairs and he says, Now look at these three armies. And he prays against their warring presence in their life. Men, I'm going to encourage you, listen to me, moving into the future. Make war through prayer with precision. Pray for the things of the kingdom of God and pray against the things of this world, the flesh and the devil. Man, know how to pray for your kids, but also know how to pray against the things that will oppose your kids' flourishing. Pray against identity, things that would confuse your

kids. Pray against the lies around gender for your kids. Man, pray against the agendas of the enemy in our nation right now. Man, full-throated. It's not a time for timid prayers anymore. Man, it's time for wartime praying. It's time for men to rise and to make war and to pray with urgency and passion. It's time for some men to raise up and be an intercessor and to stand in the authority of Christ against the assaults of our enemy. It's time to pray like it matters. Be the kind of man that knows how to make war in prayer. Be the kind of man that presses in and keeps praying in the midst of the fight. And then one of my favorite passages in all the Bible, verse 13, it says, "...and all as all the men of Judah stood before the Lord." Can you imagine? They laid down their plows and picks, and all the men from all across Judea made the long journey to Jerusalem, and they stood before the Lord. I love...this is why I'm reading from the New Living Translation...with their little ones, wives, and children. So all the men led their families into God's presence. That's a revival. That's a movement. God's going to speak to one man and give him assurances in a second, but the thing that matters most is that you see men are bringing their family into God's presence again. Listen to me. You want to love and protect God's woman? You want to better God's world through raising children? Be the kind of man that positions your family...listen to me...underneath the truth of God's Word in environments that help them connect with God in worship and praise, but in your own home, bring your family into the presence of God by praying with them, talking through the truths of Scripture with them. Be the kind of man...listen to me... that leads. It takes your family on a spiritual journey until you die. Live and lead spiritually until you're home one day. That'll change...listen to me...your family's world, but it will also change the world. Verse 15 it says, and he said, Listen all you people of Judah and Jerusalem. Listen King Jehoshaphat. This one man gets a word. This is what the Lord says. Do not be afraid. Don't be discouraged by this mighty army, for the battle is not yours, but God's. That's a good news right there. Tomorrow march out against them. You will find them coming up through the ascent of Ziz at the end of the valley that opens to the wilderness of Jerual,

but you will not even need to fight. Take your positions, then stand still and watch the Lord's victory. He is with you, O people of Judah and Jerusalem. Do not be afraid or discouraged. Go out against them tomorrow, for the Lord is with you. That if we want to see victories in our lives, our families, in our nation right now, you got to be willing to take your post. Nobody...hear me men...nobody can play your part. No one can stand in your post in this spiritual war but you. God's promise...hear me...is I'm gonna fight for you. I'm gonna...listen to me...I'm gonna take care of you. I'm gonna... protect you. I'm going to...oh, listen to me. God's saying, this is not a power struggle between the enemy of our own soul and the God of the universe. There's not a power struggle here, but you got to take your post. He has the authority. We have to assume the right position, the right post. Men, you've got to be willing to keep waiting in to the war. I know you get tired. I know that's intense. It's just worth it. I want to look at you at the end of this 11-week Better Man journey and say, stand your post. We need you to stand your post, because there's a bigger kingdom at work here. Verse 21, it says, after consulting the people, the king appointed singers. This is just funny now. The king appointed singers to walk ahead of the army, singing to the Lord and praising Him for His holy splendor. This is what they sang, give thanks to the Lord for His faithful love endures forever. In verse 22, in the very moment they began to sing and give praise, the Lord caused the armies of Ammon and Moab and Mount Seir to start fighting among themselves. So you won't find any general, if you study war, that when they think strategically about the battlefront, that they say, let's send out first the singers. But what the Lord knew, and He had led Jehoshaphat to do, because the victory is theirs, that they were going to praise their way, praise their way into the fray, into the fight. And the scripture tells us in this moment, that the moment they started worshiping, God started warring. Man, I want to encourage you, we are living in the war zone. Worship in the middle of it. Worship is not a personality type, man. It's a right response to the finished work of Christ. So I want to encourage you to be the

kind of man that knows how to worship Him in the midst of the war. Worship Him in the midst of the fray and the fight, that your family could see that, that other men could see that. I heard a guy say one time, one of the signs of a healthy church is singing men and crying babies. I believe that, because when men are spiritually engaged, when men are vertical, everything else can flourish. When men have their eyes set on Jesus, and the finished work for the cross, and the advancement of the kingdom, when men worship in spirit and in truth, everything is rightly aligned here. It doesn't mean that, listen to me, it's not, it doesn't mean everything's sunshine and rainbows, but that we worship in the midst of the war, we worship in the midst of the struggle. Be the kind of man that knows how to worship His way through the war zone. Verse 25, it says, King Jehoshaphat and his men, after the Lord sent confusion, and they ended up destroying themselves, all three of those armies, King Jehoshaphat and his men went out to gather the plunder, and they found vast amounts of equipment, clothing, and bibles, more than they could carry, so much plunder that it took them three days to collect it all, and on the fourth day they gathered in the Valley of the Blessing, which got its name that day, because the people praised and thanked the Lord there. It's still called the Valley of Blessing today. We talked about this, receiving God's great reward. Men, here's a promise for you, if you'll do it God's way, on the other side of your obedience, your faithfulness, it's God's great reward. Listen to me, what could look like the Valley of Defeat, through the power of God, can become the Valley of Blessing, the Valley of Blessing. Men, listen to me, on the other side of your marriage, it might look like the Valley of Defeat. On the other side of your child raising, man, parenting, can look like the Valley of Defeat. On the other side of your workplace, man, right now it can look like the Valley of Defeat, but listen to me, if you'll walk into it God's way, He can turn it into the Valley of Blessing, and what looked like it was going to be great loss can become great kingdom gain. God is leading men through the war again. He's just looking for those that will embrace desperation, men, that will get in the right spiritual position, men, that

will be humble and ask for help, that will rally others to go on the journey with Him, will pray with precision, and will believe that God can move mountains and change things, that will bring his family into God's presence, that will worship in the midst of the war, and they'll be willing to open their hands and give praise and say, look what God has done to receive the blessing of the advancement of God's kingdom through their own lives. And so I bless you in Jesus' name today to be the kind of man that you were made to be, to be the kind of man that will courageously follow God's word, that would love and protect God's woman, that would excel at God's work and would better God's world. Go live into the fullness of it.