Multiply as a Man // Genesis 2:1-9, 15-20

- All right, two cities church. Today, we're gonna learn what it means to be a man by looking at the first man, our first father, Adam, type two, return to Genesis two. I'll meet you there in just a few minutes, guys. We are in a new season. And I don't just mean the fall. I don't just mean the Burmans, right? We're in the Burmans, September, October, November, December. I mean, we are in a new season as a church because today, we are officially one church in two locations, give a round of applause to our Lexington community gathering. We love you guys. We believe in you guys. We're praying for you. And we're gonna continue to celebrate with you. And I hope to come back with some updates next week, guys. This is all part of our multiply initiative. If you have it with you, grab your multiply moleskin. We are gonna be on page 16. We gave each of you one of these last week, guys. We ordered, I think 3,000 of them. And we didn't, they basically all kind of got taken away before we even got to the five o'clock service. So a lot of people at the five o'clock service didn't get one. So where maybe some of you, you didn't get one. We ordered a bunch more and they're gonna be here in the next few weeks, so we'll keep you updated. And then grab this card, just know where it is.

You don't have to grab it right now. But this card right here is, we don't want you to turn it in today. We're gonna give you another one of these, the first week in November for you to turn this card in. Here's what this is about. We want every person in our church asking the question, what did God make me to multiply? So what we don't want you to do is to think, this is so awesome. I go to a church that's multiplying. There are people in my church multiplying. The organization of our church is multiplying. That is not what we are doing. We want you to multiply. We want individuals and couples and families asking, where does God want me to multiply? And let me just give you a couple of helps or hacks in regards to thinking about where to multiply. Some of you during this initiative, this is how you're gonna multiply. You're going to stop doing certain things. These are things that you know you shouldn't be doing. They're maybe a secret. No one else knows. You're going against your conscience. You're hurting yourself. And you're gonna stop doing things. It's gonna be amazing. You're gonna stop doing things in this initiative.

And that's gonna just propel you into multiplication. Others of you, you just need to start doing the things you know you need to do. Read your Bible, invest in your kids, date your wife, seek God, share your faith. And together we're gonna multiply. So with that said guys, we've got a lot to cover this morning. So let me pray for us. Let me pray for the Lexington community gathering. And then we've got to dive into Genesis chapter two. Let's do it. Lord, thank you for the men and women in here. And thank you particularly for the people down in downtown Lexington. Trying to reach every man, woman and child in Lexington. That's our vision Lord. We wanna make and mobilize disciples in an environment of prayer and worship. And I pray that that's exactly what they would be doing in downtown Lexington. We pray you're blessing on them. Lord, and we pray particularly that you would continue to have every person in our church be asking the question, what did you make me to multiply? Press the Jesus name, amen. All right guys, well hopefully you found Genesis chapter two by now, it's very beginning of your Bible. Guys, we're going back to the beginning in this series.

Genesis is the book of beginnings. Revelation is the book of endings. We are headed back to the beginning and it's very important for us to do this because honestly we are very confused today as a culture. And if we go back to the beginning of the Bible, listen, every major theme, every fundamental reality is managed or talked about or explained in Genesis chapters one through 11. We're gonna talk about manhood, womanhood, sex, marriage, parenting, family strife, sacrifice, worship. And that's just in the first four chapters. There is so much that we're gonna do together and I am so excited now. Here's what we're doing to begin with. Let me just, before we get to Genesis two, let me remind us about Genesis one because what God word does is speak clarity into a culture that's confused. And in Genesis one, I didn't really mention these last week but we're told about three fundamental distinctions that we need to understand if we're gonna understand ourselves and God and the world. Let me give them to you, ready? The first distinction is between creator and creation. That is literally Genesis one one, in the beginning God. Have you noticed it doesn't like make it argument for God, it doesn't do apologetics and defend the existence of God. It just goes, God is a self-existing, self-defining God and there's God and then there's everything else.

And the cardinal sin of man according to Romans one is to worship the creation instead of the creator. So that's the first distinction, great. The second distinction we talked about last week, just briefly, is the distinction between humans and everything else God created. We're not angels, we're not animals, we're under God, we're over creation, and we play a unique role. We are not a cancer. special thing God created. And he created us to play a unique role to subdue and to have dominion. Okay, so those, those are fundamental realities, right? You got to know who God is and no wonder, if you're confused about who God is, you're going to pretty quickly be confused about who you are and you might start thinking you're God or something. But then the third thing, and what we're going to spend the next two weeks on is the distinction between male and female. Now, if I could put us all in a time machine, if such a thing existed and I could somehow just take us back, I'm not saying there was a golden age, but if I could just take us back to 1950, nothing that I'm going to say this week and nothing that I'm going to say next week would be controversial. But guys, we are so confused. I don't mean this and I'm not mean this in a demeanyway. We're so confused about manhood, womanhood, male, female, boys, girls. We've got people in our society who aren't sure what bathroom to use. That's new. We have men playing in women's sports. I mean, we live in a strange time. We live in a time where people talk and I want you to at least know this language. People talk about the difference between biological sex or they talk about the difference between sex and gender and they say sex is what you are in your biology or body, but gender is what you are in your brain. We just guys, and this is this gender issue, this male, female stuff, I mean, it affects everything. So I'll tell you, I'll tell you a crazy story. So I'm a brand new pastor. I'm going to show you how this even affects our church. I'm a brand new pastor in this woman calls the church. Back then, there was like me and Dave on staff. So it's like, hello. And she's like, hey, I need to talk to you about my marriage. And I'm like, great. You know, I can do like, I mean, basic counseling, communication and conflict.

I got this, gave some basic financial stuff. Let's talk about it. She goes, here's the issue with my husband. I found woman's underwear in his drawer. I thought, Oh, goodness. Okay. This is an affair issue. She said, here's the problem. It's his size. She said, I think my husband is dressing like a woman. She said, I got nervous about this. So I grabbed his Kindle and he's reading a book on how to get rid of his Adam's apple. Dark guys. That's an extreme example. But you know what? It shows up in every marriage nowadays where people can't decide who's going to do what in the marriage and it's constant fighting because nobody knows their role. Nobody wants to have clear responsibilities. Here's where we're going today. You can't multiply if you don't know what a man is and what a woman is. And so we're going to talk about it for two weeks. This week, I'm going to talk to the men, but women, you need to listen up. And next week, pray for me. I'm talking to the women. It's going to be like a Catholic priest doing marriage counseling. Ah, you know, here's what you need to do. But here's what I want you to know. Men and women, they're more, we're more the same than we are different, but we are different. And this is, this is what I want you to hopefully get over the next two weeks. The difference between, differences between men and women. Get ready for this. It's very simple, but it's very important to understand. They're God given and they're good. So here's what I want you to do today. I want you to know what a man is and I want you to love it. If you're a man, I want you to go, I love it. I love what I love being a man. And I want every woman going, I love it when men are men. Okay? I want, and every guy next week, I want him to go, oh, because he does. I love it when a woman is a woman. Okay? That's what we're going to do. It's not, it's not enough to just know what these things are. We have to celebrate them. Okay? We have to sing about them with a song in our heart. I mean, we just got to be so excited about who God made us to be. So with that said, I want you to turn to Genesis chapter two. Genesis chapter two says this, "Thus the heavens and the earth were finished." So Genesis two summarizes Genesis one, "And all the hosts of them, and on the seventh day, God finished his work that he had done and he rested on the seventh day from all that is

all his work that he had done." So just kind of reviewing that. Then it says it, "So then God blessed the seventh day and he made it holy because on and he rested from all the work that he had done in creation." Then, so by the way, chapter one of Genesis is about sameness and equality. Men and women equally made in the image of God. Great. How are they different, right? Adam and Eve are created in a different order. I'll show you this in a few minutes. They're created in a different place. They're given different names. They're given different instructions. There's a lot of difference there. Here's what it does, look at verse four. These are the generations. That's God's way to say, hold on. Let me get more specific and tell you what happened. Let me go back. It's like, let me go back to the same scene with the different camera angles, what he's saying here. Of the heavens and the earth, when they were created, in the day that the Lord made the earth and the heavens. Two things I want you to notice about verse four. One, it's the first time we get the word Lord. See, it says Lord God? That's the personal name Yahweh. God gets personal in this chapter as he begins to talk about sex and gender. Secondly, I want you to see that it reverses. It's a small thing, but the whole times,

it said the heavens and the earth, the heavens and the earth, the heavens and the earth. Now, all of a sudden, it's flipped and it's the earth and the heavens. Why? Because God is zooming in, double clicking. Imagine Google Earth from 60,000 feet going all the way down to look at what is a man and what is a woman. Let's read about the creation of the man. When no bush of the field had yet sprung in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land. It won't rain until the flood of Noah. And there was no man to work the ground, the first mention of the man. And a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground. Then the Lord got formed the man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. So he's a physical and spiritual being. And the man became a living creature again. So this is what I'm going to try to answer this week. What does it mean to be a man and not a woman? And that question is not as easy to answer as you might think it is. At one level, you could say, okay, you know, XX chromosome, XY chromosome, adult, you know, female, human female, adult male, human male. You know, you could say that.

But it gets a little bit more complex when you say to somebody, what does it mean? I mean, think about what your answer would be right now. What does it mean to be a man and not a woman? 'Cause if a 10 year old boy asks his mom or dad that question here, we can't give this answer. Well, you know what a man is? A man is responsible. It's like, and a woman, isn't responsible? No, a woman's responsible too. And we can't say, oh, he's godly, a man is godly and he's got good character and he has the fruit of the spirit and he's in relationship and he's kind of people. It's like women are supposed to do all those things. Do you see why it's a little complex? What does it mean to be a man? And not a woman. And I'm gonna try to answer the exact same question next week in the reverse. The best answer I think from not just this passage, but from the totality of what scripture teaches is here's what it means to be a man. It means to protect and provide spiritually and physically for the relationships God has placed in your life. And hopefully you're gonna see this by the end, but I just wanna give you the big idea. Men are uniquely called to protect and to provide both physically and spiritually for the relationships in their life. And when you're single, it might just be

some of your sisters in Christ or your siblings. And you get married and it's your wife and you have kids and it's your wife and kids. And you become a grandparent and at some level, you feel a need to protect and provide your grandkids. And then your parents age and you're like, hey, I've gotta protect and provide in some ways as my parents are becoming elderly and ill. And so the first thing I wanna say, there's a couple main things I want us to get today as we talk about biblical manhood. The first thing I want us to understand, and this is very deep. The problem today in our society, the problem in politics, the problem in our church, the problem in this city, the problem in the government, it's all the same problem. It's the problem of Genesis 2.5, I'll show it to you. Look here, Genesis 2, verse 5 says this. "When no bush of the field was yet in the land "and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up, "for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land." Here's the problem. And there was no man to work the ground. Okay, God has a problem. You know what I'm speaking metaphor, obviously God doesn't have problems, but you get what I'm saying. God has a problem and here's the problem. There's so much that needs to be done. There's so much potential, where are all the men?

That's kind of the whole idea. The whole idea of the problem of Genesis, or Genesis 2, verse 5 is there's so much to be done and there are so little men to do it. And you know what, this is interesting because you look at the workforce. less and less men are going to school. You know who feels this most acutely usually? Single ladies. I didn't even wanna say this out loud 'cause it's kind of discouraging, but there are 10 million more single ladies in the American church than single men. Sorry, it's discouraging. We're trying to fix that. And women feel it. They're like, "There's lots of bros!" (laughs) Not as many men. Lots of dudes. Lots of guys. There's not as many men. And I thought about that for a long time this week. I thought, "Why are there not more men?" Now, I thank God for our church. We've got lots of great godly men in our church. But in general, why do we have so few men? And I think there's at least five reasons, and I think you'll find this interesting. Reason number one, there are economic reasons

why we don't have as many men. And here's what happened. The Industrial Revolution changed everything. And I thank God for the Industrial Revolution. It brought lots of us out of, lots of people out of poverty. But the Industrial Revolution, just think about this. We do these things and we look back and go, "Oh, that's what happened." Okay, during the Industrial Revolution, Dad leaves the home for the first time in human history. Dad leaves the home to go to work. And so he ends up being at work eight, 10 hours a day, four, five, six days a week. He ends up giving his best time at work. Now, I don't know if there's any way we can fix it. I'm just saying what used to happen is Dad was on his farm or working in his field and his boys were with him. And all the lessons that you learned just from being around your dad, we have this separation. Even great dads, like they're in the morning, they're at night, they've used the weekends, we do vacation, it's hard to give boys the attention and environment that they need, that they might grow up. Second reason is we don't have any examples in our culture to point you to go, "Yup, be like that, he's a man," right? Okay, the number one running television show, the longest running television show, okay?

As of right now, is, get ready for it, the Simpsons. Can we all admit, I would like to aim higher than Homer Simpson. I don't think any single lady's out there going, "I'm looking for Homer, I'm looking." That's the man of my dreams, right? And then when it comes to every sitcom, dad's the dumbest guy, right? Every sitcom. And the dog saves the day and the kid knows the problem, it's like, "What's going on here?" So silly. Like, okay, one of the most popular shows the last 20 years was, everybody loves Raymond, he's just such a goofball, right? Everybody loves Raymond and no one respects him. Third reason, okay, so there's no examples, that's frustrating, you know? But the third reason is, I don't know if I could say this too strongly, I think our culture hates men. It's a weird thing to say a lot, it feels strange, but part of it is, we're afraid of what we don't understand. I think our culture is afraid of men, as soon as it's like any type of aggression, any type of ambition, any type of assertiveness, any type of strength, and people don't even know what to do with it. So they're just like, they call it toxic masculinity. It's like, no, no, no, you're afraid of it,

I understand that, let's, we want, we hear, we want ambition under the lordship of Christ, but we want you to be as strong as possible. Then you have things like the whole false narrative that like, you know, all of human history has been an oppressive patriarchy, run by men who do everything for their own power, you know, that's the whole narrative. I mean, and then there's just like, disrespectful language used toward men, like, have you ever heard of mansplaining? I'm about to mansplain to you, okay? You ready for this? (audience laughs) Mansplaining is something, I think women say this, it's when a man is explaining something to a woman acting like she doesn't understand it, so he's mansplaining. There's mansplaining, I will not show you what that looks like. It's basically, they make fun of guys, it's when guys sit with their legs wide open and they're taking up, they're privileged and they're taking up two spots on the train, I can't make this stuff up, this is really true. So there is just, there is a culture that is, okay, I'll prove it to you, men, there is no men's studies department at the university for you. There is women's studies, there is no national organization for men, there is no men's march for you. So we are trying to be a church that is for men

in a culture that is against men. Fourth, fatherlessness, it's just such a big topic, it's even, it's even open it up, here's what we know. One in four, this is like, this is like real-time stuff. One in four kids in America today goes to bed with no dad. enormous effect on people. This is why most men in prison didn't have fathers. By the way, we are now in almost 900 prisons are the sermons are. And here's what's been really interesting for us to see. We got our sermons, thanks to Austin Needham, it's a long story. We got our sermons into 900 prisons. Very humble about it. The neatest thing about it is we can watch what we can see. What sermons are people in prison most interested in? I found that fascinating. I'm like, I've got to know which of my sermons would men in prison want to listen to? Do you know what the most listened to sermon by like 20-fold is? Dysfunctional families. It's the first sermon I preached on Joseph. When they're searching, that's what they're looking for. Something on how to deal with a dysfunctional family. And then finally, there are no rites of passage. When does a boy become a man, right? Is it when he hits puberty? Or is it when he gets his license? Or is it when he graduates college? Or is it when he turns 18? Or is it when he can drink? Or is it when he can rent a car? It's like we don't know is when it gets married? And so the bad news is that often there's a lot of work to be done and no men to do it. That's just the reality. That's how that's always been true. Because the primary sin of men is to be passive and to abdicate their God-given authority. But I've got good news for you. And the good news is God formed Adam when there was no men. And God forms men today. So I want you to see this. Look at me verse, I believe it's verse 7. Here's what it says in verse 7. "Then the Lord God formed," I love that word. It means like fashion to shape, to carve, to craft. It's like a boy is like a block of wood and he needs to be crafted. So this is this. "The Lord God formed the man of the dust from the ground and he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and the man became a living creature." So here I want you to notice the order. Verse 7, God makes man. God makes Adam. Okay, I don't know if you knew this. Watch this. Verse 8. "In the Lord God planted a garden and eaten." Hold on. You made Adam before you made the garden. This will be important in a few minutes. "In the Lord God planted a garden and eaten in the east and there he put the man who he had formed. And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of

the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." Okay. God creates Adam and then he creates the garden and then he puts Adam in the garden. Why do I bring this up? It's an interesting insight but it's actually the implications are really important. Man was not created in the garden. Or what else is there? Just the wild. So listen, the woman was created in the garden and a woman kind of looks like she was created in a garden. And men looks kind of like he was in the wilderness. I mean, that's kind of what he looks like. I, when we're creating a garden, this is why you love flowers. You're like, this is, you know, this is, you know, so here's what I want you to know. This is a really important thing to understand about about men. Manhood is formed in the wilderness through trial, through difficulty, through hardship. See what men are not, men do not become men through a life of ease and comfort and coddling. Maybe just a word to moms. I mean, moms, most moms don't do this, but some moms, it's usually moms, this is how to watch for it. It's usually moms who don't have a good relationship with their husbands. They try to find way more of relationship with their sons. And what they'll often do is they'll keep treating their son like, I don't know, he's 10. And they'll make all his meals and they'll meet all his needs and the deal is something like this. I will, here's the deal, son. It would never be said out loud, but it's something like this. How about this? How about you stay in the house and how about I take care of you so you never have to grow up and I never have to not be your mommy? This is why Freud who wasn't a Christian, but he said this is such a well-worded phrase. Freud said the successful mother necessarily fails because the successful mother gets her son ready to not need her in the same ways as he gets older. So how are men formed? If they're not form through comfort and being coddled and through ease. First, they're formed by facing God. Think about the creation of Adam. So, I don't know how God created Adam. We don't get all the details. He's formed from the dust of the ground. Of course, now Eve will be formed from Adam. And the idea is the first woman comes from man, but after that every man comes from woman.

But anyway, Adam is coming out of the ground. And I don't know if God has him standing up or if he's laying down, but God makes him. And then it says God breathes into Adam the breath of life. And then it says, he opens his eyes. He becomes this living creature. And what is the first thing that the first man sees? God. You cannot be the man God wants you to be without a relationship with God. You need to seek God's face. How do you become a man? It is in some ways as simple as going to God as your father, having a relationship with him, worshiping God the father and letting him speak to you, tell you what to do, and then you obey it. If you worship God and obey him, I mean, you'll become a man faster than you could imagine. But the second thing is men are formed first by facing God. Men are formed, this is important, by being fathered. Men are formed in the men by being fathered by other men. And I'll try to explain this next week, but a girl kind of more naturally just becomes a woman. This is like nature takes over. This is why every middle school girl is more mature than every middle school guy. Yes, this is how it is in high school. This is how it is in college. This is how it is in grad school. The women are all just like, what is going on?

Grow up and do your homework and pay your bills. They naturally become men need to be dragged, kicking and screaming into manhood. It's basically what needs to happen. And it needs to happen by other men. By the way, this is another practical thing to ladies. Let the men in your life hang out with other men. Men need to hang out with other men. I mean, this is not an excuse for him to, you know, be absent from the house and have drinking buddies and golfing buddies and never be around. But I'm just saying, there are certain women. It's like the millennial younger generation woman, like they're like in prison, their husband. We will watch TV together for three hours every night. You will not leave if we'll go to bed at the exact same time. It's like, let the guys, this is for your own good. Like, you know, let the guys in your life spend time with other good godly men so that masculinity could be called out of them. Third, men are formed by facing reality. You know, it's kind of implicit in the text, but God's like, well, here you are, Adam. And in a second, he's going to get a wife and everything. He's like, all right, you know, boom, and he puts him in this garden. He's like, well, you got a lot to do. And we'll see the men. He's like, you got to work this and you got to keep this. And he has to constantly deal with reality all the time. It's like, OK, why don't men grow up today?

I gave you all the five reasons earlier, economic reasons. But I will tell you, like, why is the average, you know, let's pick on someone for a second. Like, why is the 30-year-old who's living in his mother's basement covered in cheetah dust? Like, what is his problem? What is his problem? Well, you know, actually, I know the answer. For most of these guys, the reason that they don't grow up is because they're living in fantasy. Usually video games in pornography. It's very sad because usually these men are not good at life. But they're very good at world of warcraft. And I want to be sympathetic because I've seen some situations where it's heartbreaking in our church, where guys genuinely, they feel trapped. And it's like, you want to say, dude, there is, you know, there's a battle to fight and it's not on call of duty. You know? And there's a woman for you to find. And it's not, you know, Princess Peach, OK? Mario. But guys, guys, they have this world in which they just have video games. It's like they're not in the real world. And then a bigger, more pernicious one would obviously be pornography. You know? It's like, I don't want to go into too much details, but it's like the amount of naked women the average guy sees. You know, we read, we read about King Solomon with 800 wives. Like, hmm.

The average 25-year-old may have seen more than that. And then you think, well, what does it do to people? Well, first of all, it gives you an unbelievably unrealistic expectation of what a woman even looks like. And that's really scary and then they find themselves preferring pixels over a real person And so men must be formed by being father by facing God by facing reality. This is my wife This is my kids. This is my job. This is my house like what has got it? Whatever God's put in front of you Like starting to notice things and you'll grow up a lot But I want to show you something else God gives Adam one other command found in verse 15 Look here in the Lord God Took the man and he put him in the garden of Eden to work it in to keep it Okay, now now single ladies love when I say this but before God Gave Adam a wife. He gave him a job Amen Right, I will tell you guys listen. I will give you the best pickup line ever You know my boys now we joke about pickup lines everyone so I just joking you're like are you tired because you've been running through my Mind, you know, did it hurt when you fell from heaven, you know Are you from Tennessee because you're the only ten I see you know, okay? They're all terrible We just joke about it, but anyway, but anyway, but I will literally give you this is this is the best pickup line that any single guy single guys single ladies love this line here it is I Have a good job I Mean Okay Men need to work, okay This is not a sermon on whether women need to work and be led by the spirit of how your wife also works or your girlfriend works Or how you guys manage the kids with two different career paths. That's all I'm talking about. I'm actually talking about something deeper I'm talking about men need to work guys. I Mean here's the thing We you were built to build men. So you were built to cultivate and to build things

This is like guys are always like in their garage like a bigger a faster or stronger They just have to and here's the thing if you don't build Something good you'll build something bad How many guys built a ton of bad habits because they were never building anything good and you have to build by the way You will become idealistic young men become idealistic until they build something It's so good to know Every time I talk to a church planner I'm like this guys, you know, I love church planners. I was a church plan I'm like he's unbelievably idealistic but as soon as he has to start to build something He'll come back and ask all the right questions. I Mean the worst men are these guys who are doing nothing and They're so critical about everybody else who's doing everything cuz you're not building anything You have this ideal idea of marriage interview ideal of family in your mind the ideal of work in your mind So here's listen. This is how work. This needs to be articulated. This is how work works What men do is they trade in their youth for a skill set? and Then you trade in that skill set for a career and then you trade in that career for money And then you use that money to provide for your family That's what you do and you don't want to miss out on that you don't want to give your youth to something So you don't have a skill set so you can't get a career so you can't provide So again, I'm not I don't want to get weird about this. There's no number in my head that I'm trying to give us that We I'm just saying I want you men to take primary responsibility Like in your heart you can figure out all the details of you know, maybe your wife makes more money all that I'm saying I want you to feel in your heart. I I need to be the one that makes sure ultimately that our family is provided for physically and spiritually Now I know this sounds a little self-serving, but I can tell you One of the ways that you can provide for your family spiritually

Make sure they're in the best church they ever could be a part of When I watch these men these lazy men who they go to church sometimes they don't go to church other times They're not really committed, and I'm watching their wife and their kids dying on the vine. I Mean I don't know if this guy's at our church now, but basically I'll tell you you know, so hello if you're here But I'll tell you a story about a guy. Um, I Don't know I don't even remember anything about him really but basically we we um I was at this is a couple weeks ago I'm at the soccer game for my son and this guy comes out to me He says pastor Kyle This happens like somewhat regularly, you know, and I'm like, oh this person might be in our church I don't know their name ah, you know, so he comes over and he introduced himself and and um, I said hey Manny introduces him gives me his name and and I said do you go to two cities he said I know we used to go to cities I thought a w I was like, what am I gonna do? I mean, this guy just told me, I used to be your church, I'm not your church anymore. I said, which is fine, you know? But I just said, I said, where are you in church? And he said, nowhere. And I said, how's that working for you? And he didn't really not answer. So maybe he's back, and if you're here, welcome, we love you, we're just so you're got you back. Generally, but I'm just telling you, when I watch dads, usually actually, because they can't submit to any authority and they don't wanna be held accountable, when I watch them take their kids out of our incredible environments. Very, it upsets me very, very much. We have designed these environments in such a powerful and incredible way to invest in the next generation.

But you gotta provide, but then it says to protect. Look here. It says in verse 15, the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it, okay? That's the idea of providing and to keep it, right? That's the idea of guarding and protecting. By the way, this command is not giving to Eve, it's given to Adam. He is uniquely called to protect and to provide. Guys, this is why I know we live in such a domesticated world in which everybody's kind of polite and we're not really in danger a lot. Like we don't understand how horrible the world was everywhere you lived for almost all of human history until very recently, where men were very much valued as people who protected. Okay, that's how it was. I mean, guys, men are, this is so obvious, but men are stronger than women. The average Joe's smoke, you know? He doesn't work out, you know? He doesn't do cross-fit. He doesn't eat kale, you know, all that, whatever. And then the average lady, okay? Joe's smoke, his upper body is 60% stronger than hers. And his lower body is between 30 to 40% stronger. So here's the thing, we are called to protect both physically and spiritually. Now today, there doesn't seem to be, thank God, a ton of need all the time to be physically protecting,

but I think that oftentimes we are not aware enough, dads, of all of the devices that our kids have, and all of the things, you know what do they say? We over-protect in the physical world, we under-protect on the digital world, and all of the things that are coming through, all of the devices, the dad, the dad has to say, you know, what do we need to do to protect our family? I'll show you something else's entry with Adam, and we're almost done, but look here. Verse 16, it says, "In the Lord God commanded the man." And by the way, what he's gonna say to the man here, he doesn't say again to Eve when he creates Eve because he assumes that Adam is going to be the spiritual leader in his home and pass on the word of God to his wife. Look here, "In the Lord God commanded the man, saying, 'You may surely eat of every tree in the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die.'" Basically, at the end of the day, one of the things that men have to do, if we're going to lead, is we're gonna have to be spiritual leaders, and if we're gonna be spiritual leaders, we have to know our Bibles, many of us have to know our Bibles better than we do. And so some of you, I don't know if during this, you know, multiplying this ship, part of you're like,

"You know, I can't multiply and lead my family if I don't know my Bible, and over the next 16 months, I'm gonna read the entire Bible." Or maybe even put the cookies lower on the shelf and say, "Okay, I'm gonna read the entire New Testament slowly during this initiative, so that I can know gods were better." And let me give you another tip. This is a great tip for dads to help lead their family spiritually. Make sure all of your kids have an age-appropriate Bible. I mean, some of you, your kids got the iPhone, and they've got the Lula Lemon pants, and they've got all the cool stuff that they need to kind of fit in. And they don't have a great Bible. A Bible that's in a translation that they can understand. I mean, my son, William, I used to go up to his room at night and he would be reading the action-adventure Bible. And it's a graphic novel, it's a 400-page graphic novel of all the main stories of Scripture. And he learned to read the Bible himself by reading the... I think it's called the action or adventure Bible. You can look it up, but a very helpful resource. Well, let me show you the last thing that God says to Adam. "Then the Lord God said it is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him a helper fit for him." So that's next week with Eve.

But look here, now out of the ground, the Lord God had formed every beast of the field at every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. Here's the last verse, the last verse we were told about Adam before Eve comes into the picture next week. "The man gave names to all the livestock and the birds of the heavens and every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found to help or fit for him." The last thing Adam does is to start to name things. Now, I don't know if you realize how big of a deal that is in the Bible, but to name something, God starts naming things, right? He called the greater light this, and in Genesis 1 we see God naming things. To name something is to be able to have authority or to have dominion over it. This is why parents name their kids. No one else does. This is why, interestingly enough, when Jesus is born, do you remember when they appear? Basically, Mary and Joseph are told, you don't get the name. Why? Because you don't have control over them. Because you don't have authority over ultimately, I do. So God gives him the name. Listen, this is very practical, but some of you men, you need to start naming things in your life. What does it mean to name something, to define it? You can't deal with something you won't define. Like, have you ever been to the doctor? You know someone who went to the doctor, they get a lump? And like, that is the scariest week or two is not knowing what it is. As soon as the doctor is like, I got here, here's the name of it. You're like, thank God. Because it can't be everything. Everything is too many things. I need to know what it is. And so I would just encourage the men in here to lead by starting to name things, having conversation with the wife and saying, you know what? Can I just name what you can correct me? Can I just name what I think maybe is a problem in our marriage right now? Can I just begin to name? Well, it was the problem with Adam, right? The problem with Adam is when it came down to the temptation, he doesn't name the serpent as the enemy. See, what happens is, you know, we're going to get to Adam and the whole temptation count in a few weeks. But even though as amazing as things start out for Adam in chapter two, we know that Adam in the next chapter, I hate to break it all of us in chapter three, he's going to fail and fumble and bring all of humanity into sin and rebellion and folly. And every person after him, every man, has struggled with the same temptations and made similar decisions except for one,

Jesus Christ, who's called in the New Testament the second Adam. So part of what I want us to do today is because we don't have often models of manhood. I want us to look to Jesus Christ as the ultimate man. Jesus Christ is the manliest man who ever manned, if that's even a thing, okay? Because what Jesus did was he protected and provided for his bride the church. Jesus took responsibility for his life, but did even more than that, he took responsibility. This is what real men do. Sometimes you take responsibility for things that aren't even your responsible. You're not even responsible for him. I mean, what did Jesus Christ do? He went to the cross and he died for our sins. That was our responsibility, but he took it. And he rose from the dead. Look, Jesus loves to do two things. Well, he loves to do way more than two things, but Jesus loves to save sinners, but I want to encourage you that Jesus also loves to build men. And here's what we're trying to say at the end. Listen, here's my heart. I've got a whole other thing I'm going to say next week to the ladies, but to the men, I want you all to know this in our church. We want to. We aspire to reach men, especially to reach young men. They are the least likely person to ever show up in a church and we want to go after them because here's the truth. If you get the men, you get everyone. I hate to break it to us if we don't know this, but men as a general rule do not follow women to church. They will follow women to the club. Okay, that's different. They will not follow a woman to church. If the men begin to come to go to the church, guess what? You get all the women that you already have plus a lot more women. If only the women come to church, we don't get the men. And so, here's what I want to tell the men. We love your masculinity. We want to be a place where you can take your aggression and your assertiveness and your ambition. And you can bring it all under the lordship of Christ that we need about as much masculinity in this church as we can handle. We want, I want you to know, secondly, I want you to know that we are by God's grace. This is a passion that we are by God's grace going to be a place where people learn what it means to be a man where men can become men. Listen, men are, if you don't know that this is about us, ladies, men are practical theologians. We want to know, how do you make enough money? Men want to know, how do I have, how do I romance and have sex with my wife? How do I forgive my dad? How do I be a good dad? How do I do the whole work, life, balance thing? It's like, listen, this is a place where we're going to figure this out together. I want to talk to the single man. I love the single man. We got great single men in our church and I'm not here to beat him up.

I'm here to build him up. And I just want to tell you, listen, I get it. Single man. Jesus was single. I know. The Apostle Paul was single. I know. And God may call you long term to singleness. And in the meantime, I thank you, you know, you-- But if you burn with passion, I just wanna encourage you to pursue marriage. And I wanna talk to all the other men real quickly as we close, I know we're talking about a lot of things, but the temptation when men hear a talk is either to abuse their authority to abdicate their authority or to abandon it. I wanna encourage you not to any of this. Don't abuse your authority if you do not be harsh, do not be domineering. All the warnings in scripture about being harsh and domineering are given specifically to men because that's a temptation. So this would be a great time to repent. Don't abdicate your responsibility, thinking the youth ministry will disciple my teenager and the kids ministry will reach my young kids and the government will pay my bills and the school will educate my kids. It's like, I want you to take personal responsibility for your life and then don't abandon it. If you've abandoned, if you've probably in the past, man, I've abandoned, we want you to come back. We want you to pick up your responsibility and finally just a word to ladies. Listen, I want you to know that I know that as I'm teaching this, some women in here,

when they hear a sermon like this, they think, I love my husband, I love my boyfriend, I got the best dad, I hit the jackpot with my uncle and my grandfather, it's amazing. And then there are women, I don't know if they're in our church, but there are certain there are women in the world that they have never in their entire life ever had a positive experience with men. And at two cities, we wanna hopefully change the way that you view men and change the way that you have had an experience with men because we have lots of good men here, women, as we go out this week, here's what we need from you. We just need you to encourage us, okay? We don't say Kyle said, or you're just doing this because Kyle said that you can't say that this week, okay? If he does anything good, even the littles, but here's what you do, Hercules, Hercules, that's what I want you to do. I mean, he just, okay? We're like a dog, we do something good, Pat us on the head, we'll do it again, I promise, okay? Let's pray together. Lord, thank you for the men and women in here. I'd love to hear male and female laughter together. I love that we can laugh together. I love that we can partner together. I love, Lord, how differently you made men and women, yet how similar we are. Lord, would you do what we've been praying?

Would you help us to understand what a man is and what a woman is, and not just to understand it, but to love it, to celebrate it, and to live it out, live it out as single people, live it out in our marriages, live it out in our families, raise up the next generation to do the same, we ask all this in Jesus' name. Amen. (gentle music) [BLANK_AUDIO]