BetterMan Core: Lesson 2

Well, men, welcome back to week two of our Better Man Core journey. I want to encourage you, I know that it's easy to bail at some point, but be the kind of man that shows up week after week with your group of men to believe that God has something in store for us on this journey. So if you've got your workbook, notes, whatever way you're doing that, I want you to break out that roadmap to a better manhood. It's taking us somewhere, and I want to encourage you to take great notes, and each week, go back and look through them. Make some little personal applications, some things you've got questions, maybe even for your small group that you're walking through. Let me give you just sort of a refresher from last week, some key elements that are shaping our manhood today. We covered this last week. One, we have the challenges of our modern world. We talked about this last week. You've got the loss of a common manhood vision, and the question, can manhood truly be defined? We made you a promise last week that it can. Now we looked at the problem last week of a weightless manhood, a plague that's been unleashed by absent dads and fatherless homes. We talked last week about the radically changing social landscape, the realities of merging sex roles in our day, the decline of marriage. We sounded the alarm last week about the state of things right now, and I pray that we wouldn't turn a deaf ear to those things, but recognize them and let it rightly move us personally. We talked about lies that men believe about themselves, that maybe I should just know what to do intuitively, or if I tell the truth about myself, I'll be rejected. We said, that's a lie. That's a lie. There's always, listen to me, there's always healing when we're honest. There's always, listen, there's always hope in the light, and to walk into that as things can happen in our lives.

Today I want to talk to you about another challenge that we're facing, but this one is not found out in front of us. This one is actually behind us, that the challenge that we face to building a better manhood, Many of us are still living in the weight of the past, that we respond to things in our present because of things that shaped us in our past. Don't say that again. That we respond to things in our present because of things that happened to us and shaped us in our past. Listen, our past as men is extremely important. So much of what we do right now, so much of how we react right now, so much of how we feel, guys, hear me, lean in, right now, or even believe right now, doesn't actually happen right now. That we are shaped by people, maybe situations or circumstances in our past, hear me, they're concealed in our soul and carried into our future. So let's embrace something, ready? Let's embrace the challenge of our past. Many men now fail to connect the dots between their past and their present in a way that helps explain the way that they are and why they feel the way they feel. The Greek philosopher Socrates once said, the unexamined life is not worth living. It could also be said, an unexamined manhood is hard to live with. When asked by friends, think about this in your life, when asked by friends or maybe a loved one, maybe one of them moments with your wife, why do you get so angry like that? Maybe somebody said to you before, why can't you share your feelings with me? What makes you act this way? Do you think this is resonating with any of you? Why do you work all the time? Why do you feel like that? Many men have no answers for themselves. A lot of guys I would bet on the other side of this screen right now that are watching this don't have answers to the questions because we've never taken the time to answer what

shaped who we've become. Behind every why question, hear me now, in our present, why you act that way, why you respond that way, why you feel that way is a story from our past that has shaped us. But maybe we've forgotten, most likely we've ignored it. Minimizing or ignoring the impact of our past often now, big important statement, undermines our present. And honestly guys, it destroys our future. It's going to take some courage. I'm asking for some courage, heart to heart. Man to Man. Some courage in these moments for us to take some time and to look back into our story today and in the days ahead so that we can begin to look forward into a different kind of tomorrow. The challenge is getting a grasp on your story. Have you ever told someone your story? Hearing it come out of your own mouth would be victory in itself. It could help each of us to get some handles around what makes us us. Also we need help with our story. We need some men to help draw those things out and process where our story has been formed and shaped over time to probe a little bit maybe where it needs to be probed to help us put our story together. Men that have heard my story know me best, have helped me most, helped me process, helped me move forward in life. Everybody, you ready, has a story. Now what I want to do, you'll get to know me a little bit better. I'm gonna share my story as an example. I'm gonna give you some categories that's gonna help you in my encouragement between this week and the next session is whoever you're walking this Better Man Corps journey out is for y'all to put it into practice and write out your own stories and have another time that you meet to just share your story. I'm gonna give you an example of what that can look like. So let me tell you about me growing up. I was born March 31st, 1981. Gregory Kyle Reno. And so I go by Kyle. So I was that kid the first day of school every year. They say Greg. I go by Kyle every day. So somebody resonates with me on the other side of this screen. And I was born to my mom and dad. My mom was a senior in high school. She became pregnant with me

before her senior year and had me in March of her senior year. She was a baby raising a baby. And growing up was some interesting part. My dad and then married in a short window of time. And my dad and then did some courageous things. My dad went to work as a bread man. He was 18 years old. Flowers Bakery Company. He worked hard hours. He ran extra routes to help us have some kind of living. And he and my mom moved after I came home from the hospital to a trailer behind my grandparents house. And life sort of began that way for me. I was being raised by young parents that were trying to figure out things on their own. They did some very noble things. My family. A little bit more about my family. I had four years later a brother, Zach, that was born and that I thoroughly enjoyed tormenting most of his life. Still do as the oldest. Others oldest out there resonate with me. And about ten years later a baby sister came. There's more to my family dynamic than I can share. But we grew up country poor. Came from a trailer to a 600 foot square foot house in Trafford, Alabama with a railroad track. Literally our house, country road, railroad track. I had people come over and spend a night with me. And at midnight when the train came through, they called the mamas, right? They were scared to death. Watch the blood leave their body. We had some good moments, man. Some really good moments. In the summertime when school was out and my mama couldn't handle me anymore, my dad would get home from work and she would say to him, he's going to work with you because if he doesn't, when you come back one of us won't be here. And so I remember as a young child getting, literally being awakened by my dad at 3.30 in the morning to go and run a bread route with him. And some of the best memories I have is sitting on a milk crate with that big gear shift in the Flowers Bakery Company truck and my dad reaching up and getting a loaf of bread and he had, ready for this, peanut butter and karo syrup. And mix it together on a paper plate and we take some fresh bread that still had the moisture from getting it from the bakery and we take some white bread and you mix that together and I don't know where you're from, where you're watching this, in Alabama they call that peanut butter and break it. And man, that is gold. I remember those moments. I

remember how great it was just being with my dad and riding in the summertime. I remember some noble things about my family. I grew up in Alabama and I don't know if you know this, but Alabama is known for many things, not all of them are good. One of them that's bad is racism. And I remember finding out more about that as I grew up and was older, but I didn't live in that. A noble thing about my dad and my family was, from a very early age, we had African-American friends, had black people that were very intimately involved in our lives. My dad started, he put the E in entrepreneur and he started a construction company and his partner in it was a black guy, Willie. That was like a family that would walk into our house and would eat dinner at our table and ran this business with my father. And honestly, the more I look back on it, was a very noble part of our family's dynamic that's shaped a lot of my life. There's also some missed moments, maybe you've had some of those, some missed moments. My dad had this backwards morality, and while that was a noble thing I just shared with him, on the other side, I remember at a very young age watching movies with my dad that no child should ever watch, seeing things that awakened a sexual appetite in me at an early age that was harmful later, that didn't protect my purity. I remember watching my dad would go rage monster. I watched him break a windshield out of a car, I watched him throw a washing machine out the front door, I watched him run a pool stick through a door. I watched him think, you know what had awakened in me? That mad and rage is a right response. What he did at one level, I took to a whole other level. Then there were some hurtful moments, I don't know your story, I'm just sharing mine. Some hurtful moments, I remember my senior year, I came down Reno Street, that's where we ended up living. That's where our family started doing better, and my dad's business took off, he built us a house, and I remember coming down the hill, Reno Street, and my mom was driving up the hill about a hundred miles an hour to find out that their marriage was falling apart because of some really bad decisions he made.

That day was the first time that my dad and I would fight, it wasn't the last time. We moved some furniture around, had some hurtful moments, that left a scar. Because of that, he ended up leaving, moving several hours away, and this angry, confused guy spiraled. I tried to find stuff in everything, drugs, relationships, sports, and by the fall of my freshman year, I was a hot mess. There's also some defining moments. My senior year, my eighth grade brother, who I had found before that, passed out huffing gas because he was taking his older brother's steps and even going a step further. His eighth grade year, my senior year, my brother came to saving faith in Jesus Christ, and the first person he came after was me, his older brother. Defining moments is waking up as a senior in high school and finding your eighth grade brother with hands laid over you, praying that you would come to Christ. Not long after that, the fall of my freshman year, through his witness and the witness of a baseball coach, I came to know Christ in a life-changing way. I say all that, but that's a part of my story that radically shaped the way I saw the world, saw manhood, and then I had to relearn that based off God's Word and through the help of other men. I'm telling you today, at forty-two years old, that I'm in a really good place in my inner world, that I learned how to forgive my dad. My dad and I's relationship has been fully restored, and he actually came to faith not long ago himself, fulfilling a twenty-one year prayer for my dad. But I wonder what your story is. Do you know it? Have you ever shared it? Hey, do you have some of those things that you've explored your past to help explain really you to you? Have you ever took the journey to unpack it? So I want to ask you a few questions. One, what's your story?

Nobody's story is the same. You just heard mine, somebody needs to hear yours. It doesn't have to be as dramatic as mine to have made a big difference in your life. Do you know that many of us have never shared our full story? A full story goes beyond just the facts about what happened in our past. A full story goes beyond just the facts about what happened in our past. It also includes how people and events from our past made you feel. Maybe loved, maybe supported, maybe encouraged, maybe shamed, maybe lonely and abandoned. How those feelings helped shape who you are right now. Many here have a lot to celebrate, and what I hope, guys, is to me, I'm not talking about, don't try to make yourself out to be a victim or not trying to make your story out to be something that it's not. Many of you have blessings you've received that you've got to celebrate and see. Most of us have things we need to evaluate. What kind of mark did that leave on us? What ways did it shape the kind of man that we've become? So let me help you out. I'm going to give you six looking back truths. The examined past is crucial to a better manhood. Without examination, the good from our past can go unappreciated. The good from our past can go unappreciated. And the bad can... unconsciously rule over us. When a boy fails to connect with his dad, let's say, demons of one kind or another often fill the void. Some of you men, this is gonna land specific with you. I want to encourage you to wrestle through it. Behaviors born from an absent dad often are things like outbursts of anger, violence, maybe workaholism. You work too hard. You work all the time. Exploitation of women, maybe acting out for approval. You just want to be seen. Some men go as far as drugs, alcohol, pornography. We all have our ways of coping with hurt. Many men have yet to process the, this is an important statement, the unfinished

business from their past that still lives in them. Unfinished business. That can include, listen, maybe some unresolved tragedy. Maybe a family breakup. Maybe a personal conflict. Maybe abuse. Maybe personal, physical, even sexual. I've helped men walk through that. Abandonment. Betrayal. Do you sense, guys, listen, the Spirit of God very well is speaking to you right now. Do you sense any unfinished business in your life? Until a man deals with the pain from his past, he can never truly be free. He'll never be truly free. What negative message do you often hear in your head? What negative message do you often hear in your head? The who or the what from your past do you need to come to grips with? Here's the truth. You can't effectively address the past or the impacts in the presence without the help of a few trusted friends. You need some brothers to go on the journey with you to help you unpack this stuff, to help you see what you can't see, to understand why you think the way that you think. There is no such thing, I'm about to destroy a fallacy, there is no such thing as a self-made man. That's why Proverbs 27, 17 says, is iron sharpens iron. So one man sharpens another. You need brothers to go on the journey with you to help you unpack your story and to sharpen the edges, man, to clean the blade. For better or worse, we are significantly shaped by where we come from. But though we are each a product of our past, no one has to be, that's a huge statement, a prisoner of the past unless he chooses to be. Either by denying it or ignoring it or surrendering to it. The good news is this, man, you can break free and find a better manhood. You can be free from your past. So what I'm asking for you and believing for you is that the light is turning on, that you're starting to see what has shaped the way you see yourself. You're starting to understand why you feel the way you feel. You're looking back over your life, that you're going to take some time to examine any of that unfinished business in your life. And listen to me, and you're not going to run from it, you're going to run to it. And you're going to say, that hurt, that moment changed the way I think about myself, that left a mark that needs to be said, that left a wound that needs to be healed, that left a hurt that needs some help. That if you'll be brave enough to go on the journey back into your past with some trusted brothers, you will find a different future. Don't, listen to me guys, don't pull up short now. That you find yourself in this moment because God's passionate love for His sons. And He wants you to see some of the shackles that you have from your past and break you free into a future to no longer be a prisoner, but to be ready to run, to be ready

to live. So here's my encouragement to you men, listen to me, to take some time with the, listen, the model we just had and the resources that have been provided to you by Better Man, even in your workbook, to get a grasp on your own story, to look back and see good moments, noble moments, hurtful moments, missed moments, and to write out your story. And with those brothers that you're walking out this journey, to take another time, not intercession time, but to take another time and to just share it, maybe around a bonfire, maybe around a dinner with a steak, and to take the time to hear each other's. story. If you'll do that one, you'll form friendships at a level you never have and you'll find freedom that you've never experienced. Now I want to encourage you to start that conversation through your time together right now as a small group or at a table or however y'all are meeting together and to answer some of these key questions. I really want to encourage you each week to take that better man question. You're building something here. Take that better man question and answer it. Take good notes. Write things out and I can't wait. Listen, I can't wait to hear the stories of change that's to come. We're not just bringing these things to the surface. We're going to help you in the weeks ahead learn how to find freedom in it forever. Look forward to being with you next week.