BetterMan Core: Lesson 5

Well, men, welcome back to session five in our Better Man Core journey, and it is time to define, man. We have spent a lot of time looking back over these first four weeks, honestly, sounding the alarm and then specifically addressing parts of our past and dealing with dad and learning how to be a dad and building the plan. But now we're turning a corner and we're going to give you today a biblical definition of manhood and masculinity that we can learn how to live into. Here's the truth. Every man needs a clear definition of manhood to guide his life. Every man needs a clear definition of manhood to guide his life. Definition helps set direction. Definition helps set direction, meaning what we know helps us go forward into the life in the most meaningful ways. What I promised you at the beginning of this journey was a definition that could help guide your life, and we plan to deliver on that promise starting today and explain more deeply in the weeks ahead. Every man needs something that can guide him throughout his life, a definition of manhood that we can live and that we can give to other men, a definition that we can reproduce into the lives of our sons and our spiritual sons that we will disciple. Personally, having a working definition of manhood is, and I'm going to tell you something, is the most important part to knowing how to live as a man. Having a definition is the most important part so that you can know how then to go live as a man. That might surprise you, but here's a statement. You can't become what you can't define. You can't become what you can't define. If you go ask four billion some odd men on earth what it means to be a man, you're going to get a myriad of responses, but if they were honest, most would have to tell you they have no idea. So the dad that yells out on the sideline, and listen, you've all heard him and maybe

you've even been him, that yells out to his son from the sideline, be a man, if his son had the gumption to look back at his dad and say, what do you mean by that? He would probably leave his dad in a state of silence because most of us don't know or we don't have the common definition of what manhood. No definition is disorienting, and the truth is many men are out there and most of us are even in our hearts don't really know what it means to be a man, and that's why we wander around out of control. So here's our options. Our options are we can make up a definition for ourselves. If men don't know, they guess. When men don't know, they guess, and you may be in life guessing about some things, but guys, if we guess around manhood, we make a mess. That's called manhood for the moment, and it just don't last. It'll never produce real good results. We can look to culture to define it for us. If we don't have a definition of manhood, we'll be sold an image on media and they'll point to a different man in every season, and most of those images are stunted, toxic, sometimes sexist, and are consistently changing. A lot of men are wandering through the fog and being pushed along by culture. Men get hurt in the wandering, and others get harmed. We can look at the other option is that we can look to enduring wisdom for a definition. I love Jeremiah 6.16. It says, Stand by the roads and look and ask for the ancient paths where the good way is and walk in it and find rest for your souls. I'm here to tell you right now that there is an ancient path to what God always intended for manhood that's not hidden, that's in plain sight, but you need someone to help you see it. So what is the greatest source for enduring wisdom? Where is the base that we're going to build this definition? Well, it's the Bible.

It's the Bible. I wonder if you'd allow me, come on now, and brag on the Bible for a few minutes. I'm going to preach at you. There's no... book that has transformed more lives for good than the Bible has. Did you know this, that the Bible is history's all-time bestseller? It's been a bestseller week after week, year after year, for over a thousand years. Did you know that every week 31% of the world's population looks to the Bible for guidance and help? Think about that. 31% of 8 billion plus people on earth this week will look to the Bible for help for what's ahead. If we believe this or will actually come to recognize this, the Bible has laid the moral, social, and legal foundations for Western civilization. The Bible turned one of the greatest empires on earth on its head in one season, Rome. Any historian will tell you that Rome is where the moral, social, and legal foundations of the Western civilization came from. And hear me, the Bible shaped it. The Bible shaped it. Every culture influenced by the truths of the Bible have flourished, and every that reject it diminish and are destroyed. So let me tell you what the Bible says about manhood. The Bible and manhood, the Genesis story, meaning the first book of the Bible, introduces us to a timeless manhood. In the opening few chapters of the Bible, God introduces us to a real manhood, and he instructs us in it. Immediately after his creation, God calls Adam up. He calls him to step up to four specific life-giving, really important, four specific life-giving responsibilities that if he embraces would make him truly manly. These responsibilities are special. They release life to you, and they radiate life to others. They help the man, and they help mankind. Not just make up your bed, not just a list of rules and responsibilities, but a way to live as sons of Adams, and you are a son of Adam. These manhood responsibilities have now been passed to us to guide our journey to a better manhood. Adam was just the first man, and he was followed by every other man, and the truths that are found in the first chapters of the Bible are transcendent, meaning they're timeless.

They last. They have lingered for us to come and live, and if we'll understand it, it'll change our manhood. The marks of manhood he gives Adam in Genesis have been reintroduced throughout the rest of the Bible over and over and over again from generation to generation. Now hear me. Those that embrace and live out these four responsibilities that I'm about to lay out will move from being a boy to becoming a man. Now no man will do it perfectly. We know that, but a man that will own this will climb upward towards a more noble manhood instead of being pulled down by culture, by pulling down by society, and he'll come to know a real manhood that'll make a difference. So let me give you to him the four life-giving responsibilities of a real manhood, and I'm going to encourage you not only to write these down, but I want you to learn them, to memorize them. Here's the first one. A real man courageously follows God's Word. A real man. Here's the life-giving responsibility. Courageously follows God's Word. We must remember that when Adam, now he opened his eyes the first time. God made him, fashioned him out of the dust, breathed his very breath into him. When he opened his eyes, he opened his eyes to his father, and he had his father's voice and his father's words to learn to live by. Everything else in created order had an internal script, meaning that's called instinct. That when a bird is born, it knows how to be a bird because it has this internal script, this instinct. But God made man in a special way with the need for instruction, the need to know a father, to know our heavenly. He made us with the need to have a head coach and a playbook. He made us for us to understand our relationship with one that commanded us to live a certain way. Genesis 2, 6, 7. It says, The Lord God commanded the man, From any tree of the garden you may eat freely, But from the tree of knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat. For in that day you will eat from it, and you will surely die. In this passage, God tells Adam to enjoy the garden. It's like a buffet. I provided space for you to have freedom, personal freedom, decision-making ability,

but I built some guardrails, Adam. I said, I built some guardrails, Adam. I want you to follow my word. And if you'll learn to do that, you'll flourish. A man begins to experience real adventures of a life-giving manhood when he learns how to courageously follow God's word. Now, I've got a bunch of kids, and I'll take them bowling every once in a while. And if you're a dad with children, and maybe you've got young kids and you're not at that bowling stage yet, for those of us that are, we already know this. If you're going to take kids bowling, there's one thing you need to know. It's called bumpers, guardrails, because there's nothing more frustrating for a small child than just going out there and bowling and just throwing gutter balls. And what God knows about us is that we needed some guardrails, because He wants us to live forward toward purpose and toward intimacy with Him, toward things that make a significant contribution. And He knew that we would need guardrails, and so He's given them to us in His word. Life's not fun living in the gutter. Not fun living in the gutter. It is fun if you learn how to run your race. That's why Jesus says, John 10, 27, my sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. That ultimately, following God's word is learning how to follow Christ. What in America has been hindered greatly by making the finish line of faith the moment that you believe God's word, meaning you believe the fullness of the gospel of Jesus. The truth is this. The moment you put faith in the finished work of Christ, and we'll talk more about that even next week, that's not the finish line. That's the starting line. That's where life starts. That's where you learn how to follow, not merely believe.

Hear me guys. Boys believe. Men learn how to follow. Men learn how to follow. Men that follow, that's got some teeth to it. You've got to really bite down on it and not merely just believe in your head, but learn how to follow with your feet. Not to defame this easy believism, I think God was calling Adam to follow Him. God was asking Adam in the garden to acknowledge that there is in the garden certain things that he had to embrace and ways that he had to learn how to live. It's a decision, men, to turn our lives over to God completely. We're going to talk more about that next week. I love Joshua, the whole book of Joshua. Joshua 1. 7 says, be strong and courageous. Be careful to do all God commanded. That's the first thing. A real man courageously follows God's word. That's part of the definition. A real man loves and protects God's woman. This goes back to Genesis 2 verse 22. It says, and the Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man and He brought her to the man. You know why we in Western civilization have these moments the way that we do in wedding ceremonies? Because God the Father was the first dad to walk the first bride down the altar. When God the Father brought Eve to Adam, He had one thing, one charge from Adam, I want you to love her and protect her. I've stood at that altar many times as a pastor, and let me tell you what I see in the eyes of every dad that's bringing his bride to some dude.

He might very well love him and be glad he's going to be his son-in-law. But he is entrusting to him. You're going to love her and protect her, right? You're going to care for her. It's what Paul was speaking to in Ephesians 5, 25. Husbands love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and He gave Himself up for her to love her and to protect her according to God's word. God was speaking a message into the human race that manhood was this taking responsibility, that the man would fulfill his role to help establish his wife and to his family. It calls the man up. It weights him with a responsibility that must be accepted. The third truth is this, a real man courageously follows God's word, a real man, he loves and protects God's woman, and a real man excels. at God's work. Genesis 2 15 says, Then the Lord God took the man and he put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate and to care for it. Do you know that there was work before the fall? That work was not something that came after sin entered the story. That God made us to work. That work, hear me men, is sacred. It's the calling of God that no job is merely a job. Every job is an opportunity to glorify God and to fulfill calling. Vocation, you've heard of that before, your vocation comes from the Latin word vocare, meaning a call. That work is a man's call to serve God. It's not just something to feed me or to feed my family, but it's something to bless others. It's something to provide a service to humanity that glorifies God and is a way of displaying his kingdom. Not just something to be consumed, but a way for us to make a contribution. Every man was made to excel at work, no matter what kind. I remember I heard somebody I deeply respect that went to the famous Louvre, this historical architectural place, and there's all the things that you can see above just in the architecture and the way that it was designed. But one of the things that was fascinating to him, this being built hundreds of years ago, is they took them down into the basement

to where the foundation pillars were set. And in every block, every block, those that created this structure had put a cross in every block as a way, even they were saying as they got them, as a way for them to say that their work was a way to worship. Not that they worshiped their work, but their work was a way for them to worship God. It's a way for them to say, God, thank you for the opportunity to work. That's what Colossians 3, 23 and 24 says. Whatever you do, do your work heartily. As for the Lord, rather than for men, it is the Lord Christ who you serve. I'm going to talk about that, guys. I'm telling you, if men can find the way, let's do it, to not live to find identity in work, but from their identity in Christ, learn how to work, it can be satisfying. I'm going to talk more about that. And then the fourth part, a real man blesses God's world. Genesis 1, 28 says, And God blessed them. And God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it. God does. How does God intend a man to primarily better God's world? That God set men into motion, into this world to better it by how? Primarily by being a dad. That through being a dad, we have the opportunity to raise up more worshipers, raising the kind of kids that make a meaningful contribution to human flourishing. Your contribution to this world as being a dad is more than you can imagine or fathom. You can send healthy, well-rounded children that become adults into every sphere of our culture. The raising up and sending out healthy, well-grounded children is how we as men best contribute to bettering society, ensuring its future stability. Children and manhood go together. A good dad, a smart dad, is a real man. Psalm 127, verses 3 and 4 say, Behold, children are a gift of the Lord. Like arrows in the hand of the warrior, so are the children of one's youth. How blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. Men, what I just gave you is the mountain of manhood.

It's the full responsibility, life-giving responsibility. Listen to me, if learned and lived to change the world, will change your life and change others. I remember we celebrate every year, rightly so, Martin Luther King Day. And I love those images of him standing before hundreds of thousands of people, sharing a dream of the United States being a racially equal and socially just place. It was crystallized vision, honestly. It was a visionary moment where he talked about what it would look like, mankind, to live in such a way in our lives, in our churches, in our communities. And it helped bring about a measure of change. Let me tell you what, I'm Believing for and believing with the Better Man team, I'm believing that men would capture a dream. That men would capture a dream of what it means to truly be a man. To truly be the kind of man that would courageously follow God's word. To be the kind of man that would love and protect God's woman. To be the kind of man that would excel at God's work. To be the kind of man that would better God's world. To be the kind of man that would be a change agent in our nation. So let it sink in for a moment. Let that definition, listen to me, marinate your soul. And then we'll learn how to take some steps. So what defines a real life giving manhood? It's a man that courageously follows God's word, loves and protects God's woman, excels at God's work, and blesses God's world. Adam tragically walked away from that definition, from God's call into a real manhood, resulting not in a better life for him or his wife, but for a lesser, harder life. Today, as sons of Adam, we too have a choice

of stepping up into this life giving definition of manhood or stepping away to a lesser manhood of our own designs. Let me give you some practical implications of this definition. This is a manhood for every man. With God's help that you can aspire to. I love when King David says to his son Solomon, be strong and show yourself a man. God will meet you in this charge, man. He will give you the power along the way to become the kind of man He's called you to be. This definition, this is a manhood that can serve as a life compass, a life compass. And when you get lost, get your bearings back. When you start to slide, you can see the way back. When you start to lose focus, it becomes high def again for you. This is the kind of manhood that women are known for. I don't care what culture says, women want to be loved and protected. They want to know, will you love me? Will you do the hard things to love me? Will you be willing to lay down your life to protect me? This is the kind of manhood that we can confidently call our sons to. Masculinity can only be taught. Men teach and call younger boys into it Instead of just screaming from the sideline, be a man. We can actually show the next generation how to become a man. That's a radical difference. This is a manhood that history affirms. Dr. Bill Bennett said this, history has repeatedly described manhood in terms of four domains.

This is interesting, this is not a Christian writing this, this is a historian. Here's the four domains that he gave religion, family, work, and community. He gave us the definition that we find in Genesis. So no matter how long we live on this earth, we keep coming back to the core tenets of the kingdom of God. This is a manhood that promises deeply satisfying rewards. John 10.10 said, I came that you may have life and have it abundantly. God's not trying to be restrictive inside of that. He's trying to help us learn how to live for a great reward. For what will ultimately matter in the end. Let me give you some of God's promised rewards. The reward of courageously following God's word is real freedom in life. John 8.32 says this, Jesus said you will know the truth and the truth will set you free, make you free. The reward of loving and protecting God's woman is a deep, intimate companionship called oneness. To not merely settle for being married, but to have oneness with someone. To have more than what this world would sell. Genesis 2.24 says, for this reason a man leaves his father and his mother, and he is joined to his wife, and the two become one flesh. Man, if we cultivate what God has called us to, there is a marriage out there that you and your spouse both long for. Praise God for marriages that make it. But I'm believing, and the scripture calls us, to marriages that flourish. That find true oneness. The reward for excelling at God's work is success and affluence. For doing work God's way. Proverbs 22, 29. Do you see a man skilled in his work? He will stand before kings. He will not stand before obscure men. Men that do God's work, God's way. Listen to me. He lets the world see. And the reward for bettering God's world is gladness and joy as a dad. Proverbs 22, verse 34, it says, The father of the righteous will greatly rejoice in he who sires a wise son will be glad. There's something about getting toward the end of

your life and seeing that by God's grace and the power of the Holy Spirit according to God's word that you've raised some children that are flourishing in life. You know, we're living in an age where everybody loves superheroes. I mean, everywhere you turn, Marvel, DC, all those things, every generation recreates them because there's something about it. I think there's many aspects to it that we're longing to see Christ, as we'll talk about even more next week. But we're also looking for a hero. We're looking for heroes in life. Can I tell you something? A true superhero, can I tell you who a true superhero is? A true superhero is a real man. The world is longing to see them again. All the other things are fantasies. A real man changes the future. You can be one of those kinds of men. I want to challenge you in the weeks ahead, let's take the next 30 days, and I want to challenge you to learn this definition, to be able to recite, to be able to, that you learn it so that you have it by memory, that you can learn to put it out in front of you like a dashboard, like a gauge to help you know how to engage your manhood in a way that'll make a difference. Now I want to encourage you, lean into your time with your small group there, guys, and answer these questions. Keep doing the work week after week. God is layering things into our lives, and we've turned a corner now. Now we're not just going back and looking at our past and finding freedom. We're moving forward into our future. So I look forward to next week with you. www.circlelineartschool.com