Reclaiming Manhood from Cultural Lies

in the broader culture about what it means to be a man. That's the bottom line. A ton of confusion out there. In fact, there's a sociologist and a researcher named Michael Kimmel, and he went to West Point, and he simply asked the men at West Point one question. He just, two questions. The first one says, "What does it mean to be a good man?" That's the first question he asked. And all the responses they gave were the responses that you'd probably typically think of. They said, "Honor, courage, protector, generous." He's like, "Okay, so that's sort of aspirational." And then he asked him a second question. The follow-up question was this. So what does a real man look like? Like, what does it really look like to be a man in our culture? And they're like, "Oh, well, that's easy. "You're tough, you never show weakness. "You win at all costs, you get rich, get laid." Yeah. Good, I'm glad you thought that was funny. I did too. And here's my point. There's a disconnect. There's a disconnect, and there's a lot of confusion out there about what it means to be a man. And the reality is that so many men feel a little bit directionless about it.

Because so many men did not have strong, godly men in their lives to show us and teach us how to be godly men. And so we start looking everywhere else to tell us what it means to be a man. That lack of direction and that confusion over what it means to be a man is having disastrous consequences right now, disastrous. Because why? Because we are running to culture to tell us who we are as men. And there are two huge, massive lies out there in the broader culture related to being men right now. I'm gonna tell you what they are. The first is this. Here's one of the lies, there's being sold to men. You're the problem. Men, you're the problem. Problem with what? Everything, everything wrong in our world. It's your fault. And some of us have picked up messages out there that men are dangerous and they're toxic. And they're the problem and it's a lie. There's a whole narrative out there that has just shamed men just for being men. Or the bar has been set so low. It's like all the caricatures you see in the Hollywood of men. They're barely capable of walking

and chewing gum at the same time. But I wanna say this real clear, get us out of the gate of the series. Men are not the problem. Men are not the problem. Everything is wrong in the world. Bad men are angry and abusive men are apathetic men are, broken men are, but a man who is committed and surrendered to Jesus, sacrificial, humble and loving. There is nothing the world needs more right now than those kind of men. But the other lie that's floating out there, so that's one lie. Men, you're the problem. The other lie that's floating out there and it's making its round in all the bro-culture podcast circles. It's kind of the pendulum swings the other way and this is the other lie out there. Everyone else is the problem. It's not us, it's everyone else. This is equally destructive lie that's crept into the broader culture. This is the lie that gets men all whipped up into an angry frenzy that everyone else is out to get them. Everyone out there is out to get them, right? Women are the problem. The government's the problem. The other party's the problem. Your employer's the problem.

It's everybody else. And if you buy into that lie, you're gonna lash out with anger and aggression trying to demonstrate your strength. Here's my big point. Here's why I'm saying all this, kind of set us up. If you are looking to culture to tell you what it means to be a man, you are sunk. You're done. Because you will either shrink back in shame and fear because you think you're the problem and that serves nobody. Or you will push back against everyone in anger and aggression and that serves nobody. But if you're here and you're a life changed by Christ, you're a follower of Jesus, we don't take our cues for who we are from culture. We run to God's word to shape us and tell us who we are. And that's why the most important word in the title of this series is the man God made you to be. The man God made you to be. We're gonna run after who God made us to be. Not who culture says we should be. God created men and women. It says in Genesis one that God created us male and female. And if he created us, he gets to define and he gets to lead us into what it means to be men and women in his eyes. And so our pursuit in these coming weeks,

these next few weeks is to become godly men. That's the pursuit. That's the aim. That's the North Star. That's the target. We just wanna be more godly men. And now what I can tell you out of the gate. Let me just kind of start with this. I can tell you this out of the gate. The man that God made you to be has almost nothing to do with what you can see on the outside. Let me tell you a little bit more about me. Some of you are newer, you might not know this. Some of you've been around for a while, you know, some of this. I like football on the eighth day of creation. On the ninth day, he created the Philadelphia Eagles. It's good. It's good. He goes in. It was good. I own a couple of pair of boots. If I'm wearing my boots, I'm usually in a mood. I'm just telling you now. I could tell you every scene of American Sniper. I'm pretty convinced Chris Kallenai would have been best friends. I drive a truck. I don't mind good bourbon every now and then. And some of the best memories of my life involve shooting things.

All right? So that's a little bit about me. All right? Thank you. And here's our part of why I'm telling you that. None of that makes me a man. None of it. Some of my best friends in the world are men who are artists, wear skinny jeans, think bourbon tastes like gasoline, and drive a hybrid. And they are men. What makes you a man has so much less to do with what you wear, what you drive, whether you kill, what you eat, how much money you make, or how many women you've had through all the cliches out the window. With God, all that matters is what is going on in your heart. Your character that demonstrates itself in action. So in light of that, I want to look at three character traits these next three weeks. We're going to do one at a time, three character traits that God wants to develop inside of us as godly men, to shape us into godly men. And everything's going to culminate in week three of this series, and what I think is probably the most important character trait of being a godly men. So you need to be here for that week. We're going to get to that in a few weeks. But today, I want to jump in with the first area of character

that defines a godly men. And this area of character, this one sets the stage for all the others, because if we do not get this one right, all the others kind of fall flat. And here it is, I'm going to say it real simply. Godly men take responsibility for their life. That's it. That's what we're going to talk about. Godly men take responsibility for their life. Godly men take responsibility for their life. I want to ask you a question. I'm going to ask you to be vulnerable, all right? All of our locations right now, if you're online, you can just raise your hand in the chat, whatever you need to do. But all of our locations, wherever you are, I want to ask you to be vulnerable and raise your hand. How many of you have ever been hurt by a man in your life? Just raise my hands up. Keep it up. You've been hurt by a man in your life. Keep it up. Some of the greatest pain in my life was inflicted on a man when I was younger who was outside of our family. Now, keep your hand up if that man who hurt you, ever came back to you and took full responsibility for what they did to you. You can look around. That's disheartening, because there's

not a lot of hands up right now. That's heartbreaking. Guys, do you understand how much pain has been inflicted on this world by men who would not take responsibility? That's not who we're going to be. That's not who God made us to be. We're going to be godly men who take responsibility for our lives and step into something greater that God has for us. Now, I want to show you where this comes from in the Bible. And to do that, I want to go back to the very first man named Adam. And I want you to see the areas of responsibility, because godly men take responsibility for their lives. I want you to see the areas of responsibility that God gives this man and that he gives to all of us. If you have a Bible, turn to Genesis chapter 2. If you don't have one, there's some of the seats beside you if you're at a location. You can get there on your Bible app. You can Google it. I don't care. Genesis chapter 2, I made it real easy for you if you're using the Bible that seats page 4. So there, you don't have to work real hard. Genesis chapter 2, and what we see is this is sort of the account of how God brings all of life in existence.

He breathes, he speaks, in the universe. The cosmos is created by his energy. In the middle of it, he creates men. And I want you to see this. Let's look at verse 4. So chapter 2, verse 4. It says, "When the Lord God made the earth in the heavens, neither wild plants nor grains were growing on the earth, for the Lord had not yet sent rain to water the earth. And there were no people to cultivate the soil." That's important, we'll come back to that. Instead, springs came up from the ground and watered all the land. Now listen to this, then the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground. And he breathed the breath of life into the man's nostrils and the man became a living person. And I love this image here. God breathes life into man. His animating spirit breathed into us. Guys, here's why I'm telling you this. Every single one of you, God has breathed life and purpose into each one of you. Men and women, he has breathed life and purpose. He has intention for your life. He has purpose for your life. You were created on purpose and for purpose. Why? Because at the very beginning, he says he breathed life. And then look what God does next to this man.

He gives him responsibilities to carrying life. Skip down to verse 15, look at verse 15. It says, "So then the Lord God placed the man "in the garden of Eden to tend and watch over it. "But the Lord God warned him, "you may freely eat the fruit of every tree in the garden, "except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. "If you eat its fruit, you are sure to die." And then the Lord God said, "It's not good for the man to be alone. "I will make a helper who is just right for him." Now I wanna point out something that's real important about all these words we just read here. All that we just read happens before any sin and brokenness enters into the world. That's chapter three of Genesis, it's chapter two. There's no sin, there's no brokenness that's entered into the world. Here's why that's important. Because everything you read before sin and brokenness into the world reveals God's original intent for how things are supposed to be. It's how things were supposed to be. And there are three areas in light of that. Three areas of responsibility that God gives the man. Did you catch it? I'm gonna highlight it here. First is this, God gives a man work to do. He gives the man a will to obey. He said, "Look, I want you going this way,

"not this way, I want you eating these trees, "not this tree, right, a will to obey." And he gives the man someone to care for. These are the three areas of responsibility. So in other words, he gives the man vocational responsibility, spiritual responsibility and relational responsibility. So these are the three areas I wanna dig into a little bit more. I wanna dig a little bit deeper into this and how, as men, we can take responsibility in each of these areas that God gives us. Let's look at the very first one. First one is this, Godly men take responsibility for their work. He gave them a job to do. We work to enjoy, right? What is it saying, 215? The Lord God placed the man in the garden of Eden? To what? To tend and watch over it. That's work. To tend and watch over it. The first thing he does is give Adam work to enjoy. He places him in the garden and gives him the responsibility to tend and watch over it. In other words, it is the invitation to co-create with God. It's almost like he gets everything started and then he invites Adam, you go make something of it now.

You go work hard. You go create something of this now. Get to work. Make something of it. And the intent was for Adam to do his work in a way that contributed to human flourishing. See, this is the difference between a occupation and a vocation. Occupations are the jobs we do. They change. You know, I, you know, first job I ever did, I rang the bell outside Salvation Army, you know, doing that kind of thing. It was about one degree and I was freezing and I was miserable. And then I started bagging groceries and I've done about everything. I worked for the Department of Juvenile Justice. I've done it all. Those are just occupations. Occupations are the jobs we do, right? Vocations, a little bit different. Vocations, purpose and the calling that we bring to the jobs that we do. It's higher. And so what we mean when we say that godly men take responsibility for the work, what we're talking about is using our work to build something good and godly for others. That can look a thousand different ways.

That can look a lot different ways. Some of us are here today. And what we do is we take wood and stones and concrete and we build homes for families to thrive in. Some of us, we create art to inspire others to consider God. Some of us organize spreadsheets. God bless you. To bring order and clarity for others to flourish. Some of us, we help other people manage their money well so that they can live lives of good stewardship with all that God has given them. This isn't just about getting a job. That's what I'm trying to say. This is not about just getting a job. It's about seeking God with how He wants to use you in your job to bring healing and wholeness to the world. Godly men take responsibility for the work. Listen, some of us think that the point of work is to work hard enough so that one day we don't have to work anymore. But I've seen men who stop working and they get bored and bored men are dangerous men because we will look to shadow missions when we're bored to give us a sense of fulfillment and adventure. And I don't mean that there's, listen, I need you to hear me on this. I don't mean that there's not a time in our life that our hours start to slow down

and that you won't be doing the same work that you've always done, but that's just occupation. Not talking about occupation. We're talking about vocation and that never stops. If you are still breathing, God is not done with you. If you're still alive, He still has purpose for you. He still has work for you to do. We don't retire from the call of God on our lives to join Him in making something good of this world. And as followers of Jesus, our chief aim in life, I hope you know this, our chief aim in life as followers of Jesus is not comfort. That's not the aim. through our work. Guys, some of us are bored in our life right now and it has nothing to do with the occupation that we have. It's a great occupation. It's because you've lost a sense of your vocation. And Godly men take responsibility for their work, asking God, how do you want to use me in my work to bring about more of you into this world for others? I love the way the Apostle Paul says in the New Testament. He's writing to followers of Jesus and he says this, work willingly in whatever you do as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people. That is a fascinating statement. Do your work as though you were working for Jesus, as though you were working for the Lord, not people. Can you imagine the kind of purpose it would breathe into our work if we took that seriously?

Imagine that Jesus, before you work on that, writing that email to that client, just imagine for a second that Jesus gave you that assignment of writing the email to that client. How would you write it? Imagine Jesus himself gave you the assignment to follow up on that sales call. How would you follow up? Imagine Jesus himself gave you the task to lead your division and your company. How would that affect the way that you lead your employees and cared for your team members? Guys, look, you may not be in the position at work that you dream of, but you choose whether or not you're gonna honor God by the way in which you work. And Godly men, take responsibility for the work. Second is this, Godly men take responsibility for their spiritual growth. Godly men take responsibility for their spiritual growth. What did it say in Genesis 2, 16 and said, "But the Lord God warned him, he said, "You may freely eat the fruit of every tree in this garden." That's all yours. Except one, except the tree, the knowledge of good and evil. You eat his fruit, you're sure to die. God gives him a will to obey, boundaries to stay within. What is that? That's spiritual responsibility. God designed you to live in personal relationship with him, every one of you, to know him and to walk with him and to join him in his work in this world.

And part of what it means to walk with God is to live and surrender to his ways for our lives. To say, God, your way is best. And if you say, go here, I'll go there. And if you say, don't go here, I won't go there because your way is best. And God tells Adam, I've got good plans for you, Adam. I have a way of life that will always lead to your thriving and your flourishing. But to experience that, I'm asking you to stay in my will to follow my lead at spiritual responsibility. Guys, our families, our friends, they're looking for men who will take responsibility of spiritual growth seriously. What does that look like? Well, I'll give you two real simple starting points. We take responsibility for our spiritual growth when first we prioritize church. That's real low hanging fruit. We just prioritize church. Where we just make a decision and go, man, I'm not gonna settle for my kids to drag me to church. I'm gonna lead the way. I'm gonna lead the way. This is gonna be a priority. Well, I don't, you know, your kids will be like, "I don't feel like going, well, great." There's a lot of things we do, we don't feel like doing, but we do them because they're good. We don't let our kids lead us.

We're gonna lead them in this way. We're gonna prioritize church. That's the low hanging fruit right there. The second thing is, how do we take responsibility for spiritual growth? Prioritize engaging the Bible. You personally, why? Because this is how we know God's will. This is how we learn God's will, his boundaries that he's given us. This is where we learn. This is how we learn the way of Jesus, our new commanding officer. And then we take responsibility to surrender to it, even when it doesn't always make sense. It's like, God, that's hard. Yeah, I know, but it's best. We know that all of God's ways are not there to restrict us, but to free us and to make us fully alive. And you're like, I wouldn't even know where to start with that. Guys, we've got Bible reading plans that you can find on our website. You can find the LCBC app that make it so simple to just jump in, just jump in, just jump in. Godly men take responsibility for their spiritual growth. This is why we're always, I'll just tell you, this is why we are always putting next steps in front of you as a church to help you grow spiritually. Every single one of us, we all have next steps we can take to grow in our relationship with God.

I'm there, I got next steps I can take. You have next steps that you can take. And we're constantly trying to encourage you men, take your next step and deepening your relationship with God over the next three weeks. I'll just tell you straight up, at all of our locations in the atremes, you're gonna see three very specific next steps on these banners that will grow you spiritually and help you take spiritual responsibility. For some of you, it might be to finally get baptized. That's your next step. To step out, for some of you to give your life to Jesus for the very first time, to step out and surrender to Jesus saying, I need a new commanding officer for my life. Some of you are dragging your feet on baptism, it's time to get baptized. It's time to get baptized. You can do that when you leave the atrium. You can take a next step with that. For some of you it might be to get into a group. That's your next step. Put yourself around a brotherhood of others who can walk with you, man. Do not walk alone. Don't walk alone. And for some of you it might be to finally unleash your purpose through serving. And one of our teams here and contributing to the lives of others who need you here. I just know you've got a next step. I don't know what it is for you. Those will be out there every single week of this series. And look, man, it's our job as a church to put out the plates, but you've got to eat.

Can't make you eat. We've got to put out the plates, but you've got to eat. And you know what gives me so excited, man? What gives me so excited is I know that they're going to be men all over this church over these next few weeks that are going to get serious for the very first time in taking responsibility for their spiritual growth. And you're going to take a next step and as a result your heart is going to come more alive to God than ever before. Godly men take responsibility for their work. Godly men take responsibility for their spiritual growth. And last thing that we saw in that passage, Godly men take responsibility to care for others. To care for others. What did it say? It said when the Lord God said it's not good for the man to be alone. I'm going to make a helper who's just right for him and God creates the woman. And men have been happy ever since. He gives them even and now he has the responsibility to care for someone else. I want to point this out. This is very important. Do you see the order in these responsibilities, by the way? There's an order to this and God is a God of order. It's not random. First, work to do. Second, a will to obey and spiritual responsibility. And then after that, get that in order, someone to care for. And there's a lot of guys, let me start saying what guys real quick. There's a lot of guys who want a woman without first taking responsibility for your work and your relationship with God. And you will get it backwards. And a lot of guys want a woman but your life is out of order and chaos. And you should look at your life and ask if you were God, would you entrust one of your precious daughters to your care? These other things aren't in order? Listen man, this third area of responsibility describes the fundamental difference between being a boy and a man.

The difference between being a boy and a man has nothing to do with height, size, muscle, mass or age. A boy thinks first and foremost always about themselves. And a man thinks about others. A boy is fundamentally self-centered. When it snowed these last couple of weeks, snowed last weekend, there was only one thing that my seven-year-old boy Solomon was thinking of. Like one thing on his mind, he got up before the sun was up. What was it? Yup, sledding. Fun. Playing. Isn't this the greatest day God ever made, right? He had no other thought in the world except him. Why? He's a boy. I wouldn't expect him to think any differently. But let me ask you guys, when you saw the snow covering your driveway, what was the first saying went through your mind? Do not say that word in church, all right? What's the second thing that went through your mind? Why? Because you realize you got to go clear it. Why? Because you got a family, because you got work to do. You got others who are depending on you to clear it. Guys, let me say this, man. You can be 47 years old and still be a boy. Because boys only think of themselves. And let me flip that, you can be 19 and be a godly man. Because you take seriously the responsibility to care for others. So let me ask you, are you caring for and investing into the people that God has put in your sphere of influence to care for? Husbands, invest in your wife.

Invest in your wife. Guys, there's nobody that terrifies me more than Jenny. I'm going to shoot. She's not in this gathering. So I'm going to say it, all right? Terrifies me. I can stand up here. I can talk with all the conviction, courage, and the world and all that passion. And then I get home and I'm like, not because of her, because of me. Because she knows my darkest moments. And she knows my failures. And I feel shame. And sometimes I feel like I have abdicated the ability. I've traded away my authority and ability to lead and to invest. Invest in your wife. One of the best decisions Jenny and I made years ago was to prioritize going on breakfast dates every Friday. It's not luxurious. It's like waffle house quality, okay? But a few years ago, we just said, "Man, we're gonna prioritize this time together." And someone challenged me in that season about whether I knew the specifics of Jenny's life. This is what it means to invest. Like, not the vagaries about Jenny, but specifics. In other words, there's a big difference between Jenny likes to read books and these are the books she's reading right now. One requires investment. And guys, I'm gonna be honest, man,

I don't always know what to talk about. There's a real talk. I don't always know what to talk about. This is why God created chat GBT. I'm not kidding, we were at dinner the other night, I go, "Please give me some questions to ask my wife." That is the prompt that I gave it. And I just like, I had dinner here, I'm like, "Hey Jenny, what was it?" She was like, "This is so thoughtful." I'm like, "Yes, yes, yes." Little did I know she was like, "Please give me responses to my husband's questions." Here's my point, man. Go to chat if you need to, don't overcomplicate it. She loved that I was just asking. She loved that I was just investing. Don't overcomplicate it, husbands. Just invest in your wife. Dads invest spiritually into your kids. They need you, man. They need you. They need you. Read the Bible with them. They're 10 and underman. Read the Bible with them. And I know, man, that's terrifying for some of you. You're like, I don't even read the Bible. Well, you start first because you take a spiritual responsibility for your life

and then you're gonna take relational responsibility as well. Start with the kids Bible. I love the kids Bible. So simple. I learned a ton through the kids Bible. We got, go see our kid ministry staff. We'll get you hooked up with a kid's Bible. It's like a page. You can do that. Pray for your families. Pray with them and pray for them. And I know, again, that terrifies some of you. I talked with some guy recently a couple weeks ago and he's like, I don't really know how to pray. I'm like, yes, you do. Because you know how I know how you know how to pray? Because you're talking to me. And prayer's talking. And you know how to talk, you know how to pray. But if you're scared and you're like, I don't know, I'm never really prayed out loud. Well, then write it down and just hand it to him. That'll be meaningful. Yeah, sometimes I don't know what to pray either. And there have been times where my kids, I just knew they had a test coming. And so I just grabbed them right before, I don't do this all the time, but I just grabbed them right before they left the door. And I just kind of put them around and said,

God help them remember everything they've studied. Amen. That's meaningful. It's just you investing. It's you investing. It's you investing, single men. Ask God to show you who he's placed around you to invest in. Find out what your friends are going through and then encourage them. That's you investing. That's you stepping up to be a Godly man. Lead a group here of kids or students, pour your life into them. Why? Because Godly men take responsibility to care for people that God has placed around us. And ladies, let me just say something that's going to happen these next few weeks. Here's what I think is going to happen. Your boyfriend, your fiance, your husband, the men that you care about, your sons, your dads, whatever. They're going to try to do some of these things that we're going to talk about these next few weeks. They're going to try them and they are not going to do them perfectly. They're going to take two steps forward, one step back. And I'm just asking you not to judge it. We thrive on your encouragement. I'm just asking you not to judge it.

Praise the progress. It might not be where you want it to be, but it's a step. It's a step. Just say, man, I see you making efforts. I see you making efforts. Honor that and celebrate that. Godly men take responsibility for their work. They take responsibility for their spiritual growth and they take responsibility for the people that God has put in their lives to care for. Now, here's the tragedy, okay? Here's the tragedy. Here's the tragedy and the story that we've been living in today. At some point, Adam forfeited his responsibility. He abdicated his responsibility to care for the person that God had entrusted to him. Because one day, Eve is in the garden and has tempted to go against God's will for their lives to take that fruit and to do the only thing God said was not in their best interest. And I want you to see where the man was when Eve was tempted to eat the fruit that God had instructed them not to eat. This is what it says in Genesis three. It says, she, Eve, saw that the tree was beautiful and its fruit looked delicious. And she wanted the wisdom it would give her. So she took some of the fruit.

She ate it and then she gave them some to her husband. Who was with her? And he ate it too. Adam was there and he knew God's will. And he knew how to care for her. In fact, the Old Testament wasn't originally written in English, it was written in Hebrew. The Hebrew word that translated who was with her, it literally means shoulder to shoulder. He was right next to it. The issue was that he did nothing. He did nothing. He took no responsibility. I love the quote by Edmund Burke, maybe you've heard it before, but Edmund Burke once said, "The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing, to advocate responsibility." And God sees what just happened. He sees that they've stepped outside of his will, and he confronts them, but I want you to look where God starts. God sees that they stepped out of his will and says, "And then the Lord God called to the man." Where are you? He starts with the man. They're both responsible, but he starts with Adam, and then Adam responds so admirably, "What a man." He's like, "God, I take full ownership. God, this was me. I was with her shoulder to shoulder. I knew your will. I knew your direction.

I stepped outside. I felt Eve. I felt you. I felt myself. It's on me." Nope. Here's what Adam said. It was the woman. It was her. You gave her to me. I didn't even ask for her, and then she gave me this fruit, and I don't know how but I ate it, and Adam did what men have been tempted to do ever since. He blames someone else. He blames someone else. If you and me sum up everything we're talking about today and one statement is this, responsibility comes alive when excuses get buried. And some of us are here today, and we've just been blaming. We've been blaming. We've been making excuses, so we don't have to take up the manual of responsibility. It's time to bury those excuses, because godly men take responsibility for their life. Guys, I want to tell you, I've wrestled over this message a lot because like you, and I'm not just like you, and I waver between apathy and taking responsibility all the time, and I waver between making excuses and taking responsibility in the areas of my life all the time, and nothing has brought out this tension more for me than my marriage. Nothing. I don't know what that alarm means, but it means maybe I shouldn't tell this story, but I'm going to tell this story anyways. For all the other campuses who couldn't hear that, some alarm just went off. Let me ask you this about marriage real quick. What two issues tend to create tension, most tension in marriages, money, and what move

you're going to watch? No, sex. Okay? Sex. Money is sex, and over the years I've gotten some things right in these areas, and I've gotten some things wrong. An area I think I got it right was when I decided that I would take responsibility in our relationship, in our marriage, in our home, I was going to take responsibility in the way that we would use our money early on, and Jenny and I sat down when we were first married, and we just said, "Look, I'm going to take responsibility of this. I'm going to lead us by just saying our money is God's. Every penny, none of it belongs to us. It is all God's, a hundred percent of it, not a fraction, a hundred percent. He's just chosen to let us be his managers of it. Every penny is his. We're just managers, and so we're going to tithe. We made this decision early on, first day. We're going to tithe. That just means we're going to bring the first 10 percent back of everything we make to the work that God is doing through the church. We resolved it, we made that decision, we've never looked back, and that will be our floor, by the way. We said that 10 percent, that's our floor. That's not our ceiling. That's not how we go. That's the standard, and then we'll go up from there, because it's all God's, and that decision was the best decision we ever made financially. I'm telling you right now, that is the best decision we ever made financially, because it put our money in its proper place, and we made God the God of our money. When it came to sex, I got something wrong, early on, when we first got married, I brought

a lot of sexual brokenness into our marriage. I had some things happen to me when I was younger that had distorted sex, and then I made some of my own choices along the way that warped God's intention for sex. I came in with some brokenness, and I'll just tell you, sexual intimacy was like an oxymoron for me. That was a foreign concept, like sexual intimacy. Intimacy. What does that have to do with it, right? but terrified of the intimacy part. And so when I wanted it, great. And when I was driving it, great. But there wasn't a whole lot of intimacy I was creating and I was leaving Jenny out in the cold. And there was this moment about two and a half years into our marriage and Jenny was just broken over it. The way I was treating sex in our relationship, and we talked, finally, we talked. And my eyes were opened that it was time to take responsibility, that I wasn't honoring Jenny when it came to sexual intimacy. And when I finally buried the excuses, and I had a lot of them, but I finally buried the excuses and took responsibility for the hurt I was causing Jenny. Guys, I'm telling you, God began to heal that part of our marriage. (gentle music) Responsibility comes alive when excuses get buried. Who are we gonna be?

We're gonna be men who take responsibility for our lives. That's who we are here. That's who we are. That's who you are. We're gonna be godly men. Because God has called us into a life of responsibility. I want you to think about the area in your life today that God might be prompting you to take responsibility in. Just think about those three areas. For some of you, is it responsibility with work? Is that where God's just kind of nudging you today? It's time to get to work. You've just kind of settled in. You've gone a little bit apathetic, a little bored, but you've got more to offer. It's time to look at your work as a God-given responsibility to join him in making something in this world that leads to flourishing for others, to see our work as an act of worship. Maybe that's it for you. Is it the second area for some of you? It's time to raise your temperature of responsibility and your spiritual growth. It's time to take a next step to prioritize church, to start serving, to get baptized, to mentor, and lead the next generation here, to find a group of brothers who provide accountability belonging and care when you need it. Or maybe it's that last one. For some of you, it's like God's just nudging you,

saying, hey, I'm calling you to take another step and responsibility for the people that I've placed in your care. It's time to make an investment into the people that God's entrusted to you. It's time for some of you to say sorry. That's taking responsibility to bury the excuses. Say sorry. You've been holding on to that grudge way too long and it's your son. Come on, bury the excuses. It's your dad. It's time to have that conversation. I don't know what it is for you. I know what it is for me. I just know God's calling us up to be men who are responsible. And I would just encourage you to ask God right now. God, what area are you calling me up towards greater responsibility in my life? Just a step, just one step. Why? Because we want to be godly men. You by the power of the Spirit living inside of us take responsibility for our lives to pray with me. God, we are so grateful for your wisdom. We're so grateful that none of this, all these ways that you're calling us up to greater responsibility in our lives, none of it is with shame. It's not a burden. It's freedom.

It's freedom. It's with joy. You're not beating us over the head with this. You're saying I got an adventure for you. I got something greater for your life. God, I pray that we would be people who would step more deeply into the responsibility you've given us to take responsibility for our work, to take responsibility for our spiritual growth, and to take responsibility to care for those around us that you've entrusted to us. I pray that we grow in those areas. And we say thank you, God, that you've given us all we need so that when we try to take responsibility and we fail, and we will, that you are there and you will pick us back up and say keep walking. We're just gonna keep walking. We're gonna keep walking as godly men. We're gonna keep taking a step forward. Thank you that you don't let us settle, but you have something greater for us. As men, we pray all this in your name, Jesus.