What Is a Man For? - Ben Stuart

Well, church, I've mentioned to you before, several years ago, I was invited by a friend to the Navy SEAL base on Coronado Island. And while there, my friend, who was a SEAL, invited me to negotiate the Navy SEAL obstacle course. And so I did. And so for several grueling minutes, I was leaping over barriers, climbing nets, swinging from ropes, et cetera. And then when I finally finished, he reported to me that I had completed the obstacle course in just under 12 minutes, which was the minimum time requirement to be considered to be a Navy SEAL, which I felt pretty good about, yeah. But then he decided to run it, and he completed it in six minutes, walking leisurely between each obstacle. And I remember as he did that, I thought, well, he's had more practice. And then I thought, and let's be honest, he's a Navy SEAL. And when over the course of the next two weeks, I had to take nine Advil a day just to walk, I came to terms with, you know, God didn't build me to be a SEAL. God has finally tuned me to read books and explain them. It's what I do. But anytime I've been able to be around him or that community, I always kind of leave questioning my manliness and how much of it I have.

And they don't put that on me. They don't write a prescription to up my manliness quotient and then come back later. But it just sort of happens internally. I drive away, and it usually starts with questions like, why am I not proficient with an M4 yet? Like, when am I gonna get to that, right? Or what would my first move be in a knife fight? Right now, it'd be something like, hey, and that just doesn't feel right. Or what if we need a helicopter evac? I'll be looking around for a real man. Like, what am I doing? And then after a while, I go, you know what, Ben, stop it. There's not that many SEALs in the world. So if they're the standard of manliness, there's not a lot of men in the world. But then that naturally leads to the question, well, then what does a man do? What is the standard of manliness? What could you do that you could then say that's what a man does? I know what a phone does. I know what a hammer does. What does a man do? Well, if we wanna understand the purpose of a creation, we have to look at its creator's intent, right? What did God intend when he made us? And it matters to us. We quoted last week, Viktor Frankl said,

life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but by a lack of meaning and purpose. That Thoreau said that. Most men live lives of quiet desperation, desperate because we don't have a sense of purpose in our lives. No compelling purpose drives us, and we need to understand perspective of who we are and why we're here if we're gonna live a life of purpose. And so that's why we've been talking about this series of who is man and what are we meant to do. And last week, we talked about humanity, but I wanted to focus, because I felt particularly convicted to speak to men. Because young men in America are struggling today. And much has been written the last few years about the toxic nature of aggressive and abusive men. Dictators who dominate their people, CEOs who exploit the working man, monsters who abuse young women fill the headlines. And there's truth to it, and it's devastating. And yet at the same time, in a number of media outlets, they publish alarming numbers about young men retreating from society, that there's less men entering higher education, less men entering graduate school and the workforce, less men asking women out on dates, and so less marriages, less husbands, less fathers, less children, less productive members of society. And I had pages of stats to back that up,

but I wanted you to be able to get out by dinner. But I think many of you know, men are struggling, even to the point that now, men's life expectancy has gone down, even while women's has remained the same. One article reported being male is now the single largest demographic factor for an early death. In the Wall Street Journal, Erika Komisar wrote, in my practice as a psychotherapist, I've seen an increase of depression in young men who feel emasculated in a society that's hostile to men. And we can argue about that, and I know some women will say, what about women? Well, we've done sermons about women. We've talked about the Proverbs 31 woman. We've talked about a godly wife and a godly mother. We've talked about all this. I want to talk specifically to men here because I find many men are caught in an interesting web right now that the same media outlets will condemn both aggression and passivity. And so young men are hearing a lot of cultural critiques about domineering men and about disappearing men. And yet what's missing in the conversation of is a positive vision of what a man's for and what a man's meant to do. And so I could spend pages talking about.

not what's wrong at the extremes, but what I would rather do is look at a compelling vision of why we're here. And I know some people say like, okay, you're gonna critique the modern version of man, you're just gonna retreat back to some stereotype. I am not interested in stereotype. I wanna look at the archetype. What did God intend when he made man? And the good news is, we're not the first generation to struggle with this. And we talked about it last week when God set the Israelites free from captivity in Egypt, they had been saved physically from slavery, but there was still a slavery mindset in here. And so when God led them out into the wilderness, he didn't start giving them a list of rules, he said, let me reboot your thinking on everything. Let me introduce you to who God is, and then who you are before I walk you out into what you're meant to do, right? And so last week, we looked at Genesis chapter one, which is about creation, but even though it says true things about creation, how everything got here, the main focus of Genesis one is the God of creation as his art reveals the artist. And we looked at seven things about the nature of God that we saw his agency as God exerts his will on the waters of chaos.

We saw God's authority, he speaks, let there be light in it if so. We saw God's wisdom in making the heavenly bodies that rotate around each other with signs and seasons and days and years. We saw his creativity, that he creates swarms and teams of living creatures. We saw that he's orderly in the way he constructed the world, structure that allows life to flourish. We saw that he's community, that God is both singular and plural in that passage. Fascinating, bad grammar, but good theology, that we have one God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And we saw his intimacy, that he blesses life and the first full day of humanity's existence was meant to spent in resting and enjoying the God who made them. And then in a profound statement, God, Moses closed night one as he gathered around the fire with this generation. And he looked at them and said, and you are made in that God's image, male and female in his image. And so we looked at last week, we are made to be like him and we are made to be with him. What is man and what is woman? We are made in the image of God

with dignity, made for intimacy with him. Now we need to look at what a man does. And so we're gonna go to Genesis two. And Genesis two in one sense retells the creation story. So some people read that and go, what is this? You're just telling the whole story over again. Did Moses have two creation accounts and couldn't decide which one he wanted so he put them both in there because he's an idiot? No. As you read Genesis chapter one, humanity is the chronological sixth thing. As you read Genesis two, we are the thematic central. Whereas in Genesis chapter one, it was a lot about who God is. Genesis chapter two, the focus shifts to here's who you are. And you see it in verse four where it says, these are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created in the day that the Lord God made the earth and heavens. That word generations, if you're taking notes, is a significant word. It's the Hebrew word toledat. It means the account or the story of humanity. So Genesis chapter one was like the establishing shots at the beginning of the film. Now we're gonna tell the story of how we came to be. And man is not the chronological sixth thing but the thematic central. And God will introduce other elements

as he tells the story of us and what a man's for. And you see, just like in Genesis chapter one, Genesis chapter two starts with a fourfold problem. Verse five, it says, now 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 and there was no man to work the ground. Did you see it? No bush, no plant, no rain, no man. We got a problem. The world is uncultivated and cannot reach its potential. So God solves the water problem in verse six and a mist was going up from the land which was watering the whole face of the ground. God solves that with a way of the environment working that will be very different after a massive flood. That's a different story for a different day. And yet now in this uncultivated wild, God creates this man in verse seven. Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living creature. Notice, last week, God created swarms of animals, teams of fish, and yet here, he doesn't create a flock of man, a gaggle or a pod. He makes one and that word formed has the intentionality of pottery, right? And man is formed of dirt. Did you see that? So there's a humility to you.

You're of the earth and you're like the animals in some ways, but then he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. It's interesting, the word breath and the word wind are the same word because your breath is your wind, right? And in Genesis chapter one, the spirit of God, which is also the same word, because if you have no breath, no wind, no spirit, no life. So in Hebrew, breath, spirit, wind, same word. And in Genesis chapter one, the spirit of God began to. blow over the surface of the water, and God created. And here in Genesis chapter two, the breath of God slows into this human nostril and brings him forth into life. That you see man as dirt and the very breath of God, the wind of God that animates him to be a living being. And so you see a humility, you're dirt, don't get too excited, but also a dignity. But the very breath of God fills you, you're something else, you're not just an animal. Lower but crowned, because God has made you something else. So you see man's dignity as well as his humility. But you also see an intimacy. Did you notice the shift of language? God's called the Lord God. All through Genesis one he's just called God, which is a good thing to call him. But it's the word in Hebrew Elohim,

it means the God of power. That word Lord, when it's in all caps in the Old Testament, translates the word Yahweh, which God will tell Moses later is the covenantal name of God. What's a covenant? It means I want to bind myself into a relationship with you. So in Genesis chapter one, as we see God spin the world into existence, you see Elohim, the God of power, making all things. And now when it steps in to tell our story, he says, hey, the same God who is powerful enough to make all things, wants a relationship with you of covenant, that you will have humility, but dignity made for intimacy with God. He wants to know you and he wants you to know him. You are made on purpose and for a purpose. Verse eight, the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. Now, again, this is where when some people read chapter two, you go, wait a minute, God made the man and then planted a garden? Like, was he just holding a guy, right? And then sort of made it? Well, again, this is not telling the story in a chronological way. You'll see it all through this. You do this if you've ever had a baby. And I said, oh, tell me about it. You don't tell the story chronologically.

You say, oh, we were at the hospital, it was crazy, but then the baby came and we got home and we had made this crib and I was like, wait a minute, you didn't assemble the crib till after you brought the baby home? No, we assembled it earlier, but I'm telling you the story of the baby. So we brought the baby home and we had decorated this room for the kid. You didn't decorate the room till you brought the kid home? I'm not telling the story chronologically. I'm telling it thematically as I focus on this child. You do this with movies. If you went and saw Spider-Man, and I asked you, how was it? Not many of you would go chronologically. Opens on a cityscape of New York. You wouldn't do that. You would pick and choose stories at random throughout. Why, because you want to tell me the themes that stood out to you. But I wouldn't look at you and say, this isn't chronological, liar. I would say we naturally assemble stories that way. And Genesis chapter two works that way. As it's telling the story of man, it introduces these different pieces. So yeah, God made the world, made this man, and yet in the midst of it, God creates the sky and from the uncultivated world, he makes a garden.

That word garden is a walled garden. I separate out the wild and uncultivated and I create a space just for you. And there he put, placed, the man he had formed. God the potter formed us, God the farmer plants us. And there in the midst of it, God puts him. It's the word rested. And the word Eden, where he rests this man, Eden means delight. That God puts this man in a place that's wonderful, an environment conducive for flourishing. God creates a structure so that the life under his care can flourish and reach its potential. And you see in verse nine, out of the ground, the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. I love that. I want you to notice the first thing it says about these trees is not that they're functional, it's that they're aesthetically pleasing. That's for you, creatives, right? So you can feel seen, right? God doesn't just make it for food to nourish you. God says, I wanna make it pleasing to the sight. I want it to look awesome. That God values placemaking and then makes it good to eat as well. Incidentally too, notice God provides food. In the ancient creation myths of that day in the surrounding cultures, it's the gods were hungry

so they made you to serve them to provide them food. As Moses tells, no, let me reboot your understanding of the world, he's like, you don't make food for the gods. God made food for you. Where do you think this came from, right? You don't serve him as if he needed anything, he has given you life and breath and all things, right? And so here God puts him in this place and then Moses describes some trees we'll get back to, some rivers that we'll skip for now, but in verse 15, it says the Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and to keep it. So now we're getting to the what man is meant to do. Man is not meant to just lounge around, right? He's not laying there as squirrels bring him grapes. That God put the man in the garden to work it and to keep it, work is pre-fall. Now the frustration of work will come later, thorns and thistles it will grow, but here we. reach our potential as we put our hands to meaningful work. And notice there's two words here about what a man does, that he works it and he keeps it. That word work is a beautiful word in Hebrew variously translated. It can mean to till, like to work the soil in an agrarian sense. Or sometimes it was just used generally for labor, all kinds of work. It was translated often the word to serve

because that was the idea. When I work, I am serving some people or someone. That's what my work is meant to do. So the Levitical priests, when they were in the temple, they did this word. They would serve the temple of God as people were drawn in to meet the God who made them. Another way to translate this word is the word cultivate, cultivate. What's happening here? God served this man by creating an environment where this man could flourish. And then God takes that man and says, hey, you work so that what I've put under your care will thrive under your leadership. That's the idea for this man. What do you do when you cultivate, those of you who garden? I don't, but I've read about it. You don't fashion dirt ex nihilo out of nothing. You take existing material and you arrange it. You move the dirt. You plant the seeds. Why? You wanna create an environment where the life under your influence can flourish. That's why you tie little trees to sticks. Is it to torture the trees? Is it to make some horrible torture chamber? No, it's so those trees can grow up straight

and produce fruit to reach their full potential. That you arrange raw materials so that life can flourish. God said, I made it all and I made you to be in my image. Now you be like me. In some ways you can't be, but in some ways you can. I created an environment where you can flourish. You create an environment where life under you can flourish. That's the first thing a man is meant to do, to cultivate so that life can reach its full potential. And that second word is to keep. It's another interesting word. It means to take care, to take care of something. That I cultivate, I put the living things under my influence in a place they can thrive, and then I protect that. It's also the word to stand guard. Interestingly, in Genesis chapter three, after humanity's sin, this is the verb that the angels do, to guard the garden that we wouldn't eat from the tree of immortality. Again, different sermon for a different day. But the idea here is to guard and protect from threats. This is what the temple priests would do as well, that they were called to guard the temple from people attempting to do profane things inside. And you may look at that and say, protect? This is the Garden of Eden, this is perfection. What do you have to protect them from? Well, spoiler alert, but a serpent's gonna come sliding in in about one chapter, right?

And so interestingly, when man's called to protect, it's usually in a spiritual context. You're meant to lead the way here. But I want you to see, God tells this man, I made this world, but you have a job to do. You're in my image, so be like me in your limited way. Cultivate and keep. Create an environment for flourishing and then protect it. And so God gives man authority. I want you to see that, God gives this man authority. You do things with the earth. And in the midst of that, he gave him liberty in verse 16. And the Lord God commanded the man saying, you may surely eat of every tree in the garden. That word surely is the word eat. In Hebrew, if you want to emphasize something, you say it twice. He says, hey, your first command, eat, eat. I hid food all throughout here. Apples, that's gonna be an easy find, low-hanging fruit. But there's carrots hiding out in here, there's potatoes. I don't know how long it's gonna take him to find those. There's all kinds of stuff. I want you to enjoy what I made. Man is given liberty, but he's also given responsibility in verse 17. But the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat. From the day you eat of it, you will surely die. That surely is die, literally, dying you will die.

It's interesting, what is this tree of life? We're told in the New Testament that God alone possesses immortality, that Adam and Eve weren't made to live forever. So what did they do? They would have to come by faith and take from God's appointed means for life. That's why later in Genesis 3, God keeps them from the tree of life lest they eat of it and live forever. Immortality is through the means God gave that human beings were meant to come by faith to God's gracious application for life that'll go on forever. It's always been by grace through faith. Or there's another opportunity. You can eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Now, that's not just being aware that evil exists. That is, I get to decide what's good and evil. I get to be the arbiter of what's right. I'll make my own path because I'm the captain of my soul. So I either try. to you, God, who made all things and gave me all things, that your way is best, or I go my own way, and I don't have to acknowledge you. God gave man authority and responsibility. You eat from this tree, what you're saying is, I'll take the authority, but you keep the responsibility. But it's not meant to work that way.

Try that as an employee. I'll take authority over our budget, but I don't want responsibility to have to, you know, keep the books, spend this money however I want. You're not gonna be in that job for very long, right? That these are meant to go together. And so here, God says, I'm giving you authority and liberty, but with responsibility. Choose to trust me, or go your own way. But I promise if you do that, dying you will die. You will not achieve what you are meant to be. But then God notices his first not good. We saw in chapter one that seven times as God made the world, he said it was good. Now we get a not good. Do you see it in verse 18? The Lord God said, it's not good for the man to be alone. Interesting, you go alone, he's with God. It's the perfect quiet time, 24 hours a day. And you go, no, God is community. That's how God can be love, father, son, and spirit, celebrating one another for all of eternity. God is in himself a party. He is not a monad, he is the one that is three. And so he's looking and saying, you're not meant to be just the single cul-de-sac of my grace. You are meant to be a conduit of it to others. And so he says, I will make a helper fit for him, right? Now helper there does not mean assistant, right?

He's not making him a secretary, okay? Helper is not a derogatory term. It's used of God throughout the scripture as one who comes to your aid, right? It's used of warriors that come to aid the other. Robert Alter, the great Hebrew scholar, says help is weak if it's meant as an auxiliary function. Ezer, the word, often connotes active intervention on behalf of someone else. A good translation would be a sustainer beside him. I'm gonna create someone who can come alongside him to help in this great calling that fits him, a help meet suitable for him, the one that corresponds, what Peter will call in the First Testament, or excuse me, the New Testament, a fellow heir in the grace of life. Verse 19, it says, now out of the ground, the Lord God has formed every beast of the field and every bird of the field. Again, he did that earlier, but we're talking about it now because we're telling the story of man. The heavens brought them to the man to see what he would call them, and whatever the man would call every living creature, that was its name. The man gave name to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and the beasts of the field, but for Adam, there was not a helper fit for him. I love studying this passage with people

because God's like, it's not good that this man's alone. I'll create a helper that meets him. So God created the birds and the animals and told the man to name them, and whatever he named them, there they were. And people were like, wait, wait, wait, wait. We were on the helper thing. Why are we on the animal thing? God loses train of thought? No, God knew Adam was lonely. Adam didn't know. And so God says, we need to make a helper suitable for him. But God says, let's just start bringing him some animals. And did you notice God gives the man agency? That's the next thing about the man. God leads an animal to the man and says, name it. Well, what am I supposed to name it? Name it. Well, if I pray, will you tell me what to name it? No, you name it. Yeah, I've given you some parameters of how you're meant to live, but I've also given you agency. Go, exert your will on the chaos. What's that called? Aardvark, then that's what it is. What's that one? Elephant, that's what it is. What else you got? Oh man, a penguin, all right, let's go.

Let's name this stuff. Scientists classify, organize. That's part of the will of God, that you exert yourself on the chaos. And yet, as he does it, there's no helper found suitable for him. This is God's kindness, right? That God looks at the man and says, why don't you name that one, buddy? Aardvark, okay. Why don't you go talk to it? Hey, Aardvark. Well, what's the matter, buddy? He doesn't talk. Be nice to have one that talks, wouldn't it? Let's name some other ones, buddy. And off he'd go. And Adam feels his loneliness, his longing for companionship, pre-fall. We will not shame you for longing to be connected with people. Friendship, and marriage, and intimacy. It's good. God lets Adam feel it, and then in verse 21, God, in his mercy, knocks him out and performs the first surgery. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man. And while he slept, took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh.

And the rib the Lord God had taken from the man, he made into a woman and brought her to his side. That word rib is the word side. It's been variously attributed. But there's the old poem, she was not made from his head to rule over him or his foot to be trampled by him, but from his side to be loved by him, right? And so God creates the woman and leads her down the aisle to the man, like a good dad. And in verse 23, the man says this at last. Finally! Naming all these birds and animals. But finally, this one's bone of my bone, this one's like me. And flesh of my flesh, she shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. I am Isha, she is Isha. I am man, she is wow, man. And you see, the first thing Adam does is celebrate who she is because of who made her. That she is a co-heir in the grace of life. A help meet suitable for me, we fit. And then Moses can't help but commentate at the end of night two, he says therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife. This man has his central relationships bound around those who made him.

And yet he will become intellectually, financially independent from these and create a new circle of commitment. That now this is the inner ring, this woman. That the first thing I did was not touch her but celebrate her with poetry. That I will covenant with her, that I will leave them and cleave to her, hold fast. God is a covenantal God, man is meant to be the same. And the two become one flesh, right? And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. The idea there is not just like, so they ran around naked, isn't that weird? The idea is full vulnerability and full safety. I can be fully me and I can be loved. That's good, that's a good story. So what is man? Let's start to apply this. We see seven things about him. There is a humility but there is dignity. Made for intimacy with God and other people. He's given authority over the creative world. And yet a liberty to enjoy it but a responsibility to care for it. With a sense of agency, enact your will. Now with all that, what does the man do? He creates an environment where life under his care can flourish. We gave you two words, cultivate and keep, right?

To use your power in service of others. How does a man do that? Let me give you three P's. This doesn't often happen in this church, folks. Here's your three P's of what a man does. Number one is that man produces. Man produces, this is what a man does. He was told in Genesis one, be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth. I told you about my kid's first audio Bible that it translated that passage, have babies, right? And that's true, that's a part of it, right? That you produce life, which is part of the crazy thing God does. God doesn't just keep creating life on his own. He puts within you the ability to create life but only in the context of community, right? And so here he says you create life but even if you're single, you can still do this. Jesus and the apostle Paul were both single. And yet Jesus gave birth in a sense to the church that helped people know God and come alive and who they are in God. Paul, who chose singleness because of the mission God had called him to, Paul uses parenting imagery all the time. He told churches, I'm like a mother in labor pains for you. And then he says, I'm like a nursing mother feeding you. And then he says later, I'm like a father exhorting you to walk and to move and to reach your potential.

He says, I am mothering you and fathering you. That's the calling God gave me. So you don't have to wait till you're married to fulfill the creation mandate. You were meant to produce, make things. Exert your energy and your agency on the world to make things that are good. God put that in you, be fruitful and multiply. And then as you produce things, provide, provide. That's the word cultivate. Provide an environment where the life under your care can flourish. You produce a business, whether it's in your home or in the middle of the city, you produce something and then you provide the resources for the life under your influence, the men and women who work for you, the kids you're raising, that they would reach their full potential. You can't create raw materials, but you can assemble them in a way that allows them to reach their potential. You provide. Parents create homes where kids can thrive. Bosses create businesses where human beings can use the gifts God gave them to reach their potential. Leaders in government create government structures that allow all of us to thrive. That's the idea, the created intent. Produce and provide.

And number three is to protect. Whatever threatens the life under my influence and care, I step between it and them. And I will sacrifice myself because I am not here to just be served, I am here to serve. That's what a man does. Whatever I have to do to protect those I love from evil. We're gonna see in chapter three, and I don't have time to teach all this, but I'll summarize it. Adam abdicates that responsibility. As the serpent tempts, he exploits Eve's misunderstandings, wherever they come from, of God's created intent. Adam is complicit in it, and Adam abandons his role as protector. And you see in Genesis chapter three, humanity breaks with God, and all of creation breaks, right? And in the midst of that, you get Cain coming out of Adam. And Cain enjoys the authority God gave him to raise crops and build it, and yet you will not worship God and trust God. I'll take the authority, but not the responsibility. And when God calls him on it, Cain gets resentful and he kills Abel. I wanna serve me, and so rather than serving life, I'll take it. And then he accuses God of injustice. You see an arrogance and injustice in the heart of Cain. And then the Bible breaks into a genealogy, which most of you skip,

unless you're looking for baby names. But there's a purpose for why this genealogy is here. In Genesis chapter four, Moses goes seven generations down from Adam through the line of Cain. Let me show you seven, which is the number of completion. Let me show you the perfect abdication of what a man's meant to be. And seven generations down in this genealogy, it stops and tells the story of a man named Lamech. Lamech means conqueror. And in verse 19 of chapter four, it says, Lamech took for himself two wives. What did God say in the garden? The two will become one, right? Lamech says, I don't want to do that. I'm worth at least two. I don't care about these women. They serve me. And you see he's willing to exploit women for his own benefit. Why? Because he's bigger than them. So I'll create a harem, right? He takes one named Ada and the other name is Zillah. Ada gave birth to Jabal. He was the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock. His brother's name was Jubal. He was the father of all those

who played the lyre and the pipe. As for Zillah, she gave birth to Tubalcain, the forge of all implements of bronze and iron. And the sister of Tubalcain was Nama. These are one of those verses that you go, this is the lamest quiet time ever. But what do you see happening here? You see sophistication in agriculture, in the arts and technology. The man is exerting himself to create. There is something still good in what we're doing here. And yet the story of Lamech closes with a tragedy in verse 23. It's a poem he says to his wife, which imagine, ladies, your wedding night that you get married to a guy that seems like a go-getter. His name's Conqueror. And he leads you away onto the honeymoon and introduces you to his other wife. And then he sits you down and writes you a poem. Tell me what you think, ladies. Verse 23. And Lamech said to his wives, Ada and Zillah, listen to my voice, you wives of Lamech. Yeah. Give heed to my speech. I've killed a man for wounding me. And a boy for striking me.

If Cain is of N sevenfold, Lamech 77-fold. God protected Cain even though Cain was a rebel. God said, I'll protect you seven times. Lamech says, I can handle myself 77. I don't need your God. God is for weak people. And then he says, in raising up the young, caring for those who are smaller and weaker than me so they can flourish, no, I'll kill them if they get in my way. And he says this to the women to threaten them. So what do you see? I'm a conqueror. I will take up authority. I will take up agency. And I will use it not to serve but to be served. I'll exploit you for my purposes. This is toxic masculinity. Not Genesis two. And we see the children of Lamech. We see the attitude of Lamech all through the culture. And it's led to a point where so many people say, well, that's what men are. No. That is the distortion. And it's real because sin distorts everything. Mark Batterson just down the street said, there is software and there is virus. Genesis two is the software that this man was made by God to produce, provide, and protect.

The virus that's infected the software is arrogance and violence. That's different. But masculinity and men are good. And the way God made men is good. It's interesting. Psychologist Michael Kimmel developed this test. He started it with cadets at West Point. He asked these men in the classroom, what's a good man? Someone dies and you stand up at his funeral and you say he was a good man. What do you mean? And he says, right away they answered, honor, duty, integrity, sacrifice. Stand up for the little guy. Be a provider, be a protector. Be responsible, be generous. And then he asked them later. Okay, later he said, all right, if I tell you to man up, be a man, what does that mean? And he said, a cadet shouted, oh, that's different. That means be strong, never show weakness. win at all costs, suck it up, be competitive, get rich and get laid. And Michael Kimmel said he's repeated that with boys, schools, police academies, FIFA, athletes, always the same result. That if you ask him what's a good man, it's attributes that sound a lot like Genesis 2. If you ask him what's a real man,

it sounds a lot like layman. And you see what's happening in the culture today is men feel pulled between two different visions. And not everything over here is bad. It's not bad to be a conqueror, a go-getter, but what are you using it for? To be a blessing for life or to hurt life? What do you do with your power makes all the difference. God made men good, you are made good, he made you powerful good, but it's power for a purpose that life under your care can flourish. So it's interesting, Nancy Piercy, who's one of the premier evangelical scholars of our day, she's at the Houston Christian University, wrote a whole book on masculinity, and she opens it with the story of a mass shooting in California. That a 28-year-old man showed up at a bar where he knew there was a college night, threw smoke grenades in to create confusion, and then just started shooting people, killed 12 people including the police officer who was there. And she said, but at the same time, there was another 20-year-old man, and what he did is instantly when he heard shots fired, he and his buddies threw the women around them underneath the pool table and shielded their bodies with their own. And as soon as they heard him stop to reload, they threw a bar stool through the window

and started throwing the women out. One of the young girls who was there for her 21st birthday party, said these men, multiple men, got on their knees and blocked us with their backs toward the shooter, ready to take a bullet for any single one of us. And then Nancy Piercy says, which one's a man? One used masculine power to take life. One used masculine power to save life. Which one's the software, which one's the virus? And yet she goes on to quote that the American Psychological Association issued its first guidelines for counseling men in 2018, and it denounced, quote, traditional masculine ideology as, quote, psychologically harmful. No, being a man is not harmful. Being a sinful man is devastating, because men have power. Louise Perry talks about this in her book, that adult women are approximately half as strong as adult men in the upper body, and 2 3rds as strong in the lower body. This obviously has implications for sports, but she moves on and says, what this mean is, men can outrun women and outpunch women. Almost all men can kill almost all women with their bare hands, but not vice versa, and that matters. So it makes sense for women to be fearful of the power of men, because many men have taken that authority without the responsibility, and a bad, strong man is dangerous.

And so many people say, well, then we gotta depower men, because a bad, weak guy is less dangerous. I can beat him up, or run away. But if you're out in the woods, you run into a bad, strong guy, you're in trouble. You run into a bad, weak guy, still bad, but you might be faster than him. You run into a good, weak guy, he's nice, but if we run into some problems, we're both in trouble. So what's your best option? You want a good, strong man. You want authority with responsibility, agency with intimacy, I care, and I use my power to care for those under my influence. That's what God did for him, that's what he's meant to do for her and for all those under his influence, the young men and the likewise. Incidentally, this is what changed ancient Rome, that Roman men used their power to exploit. They would sleep with all kinds of women, particularly their slaves. And yet God said, no, the two shall become one. A good man loves his wife and loves his children and cares for them. And Romans were like, y'all are so weird, but you're so much happier. And women flocked to Christianity because it created stable environments where they could flourish. And ultimately, Roman women and Roman men

became interested in Christianity because they saw the way men and women serve each other with the gifts God gave them, they seem happier. What looked like a loss, he doesn't use his power to exploit people and sleep around, actually was a gain. It's like by losing his life, he found it. Huh, yeah, yeah. Christina Hoff, who's a feminist philosopher, wrote this. History teaches us that masculinity without morality is lethal, but masculinity constrained by morality is powerful and constructive in a gift to women. That's my point. So as we close, quickly, let's go back to our three Ps. I want to challenge the men, produce, make good things. Does that include getting married? Possibly, statistically for the majority of you, yeah. It does. And so eliminate sexual activity that uses people. Eliminate pornography from your life because it uses men and women without caring for them. Their bodies, their minds, their hopes, their futures. Eliminate it. Eliminate what nightstands. Eliminate using people for yourself. And I know some guys when they hear that, they go, well Ben, what will I do with all this pent up sexual energy? Control it like you would a mad dog. Take that power and put it under controls.

Right, why? The word meek in the Greek is used of Jesus. People hate the word meek because it sounds like weak, it's not. It was used of a war horse under constraint. A horse that's strong but skittish is a danger to everybody including the rider. But a war horse is disciplined enough to ride into battle and not be afraid, charging towards the spears. And so when you're called meek, it means have that power, don't minimize it, control it and aim it towards good. Water that's flowing in a river creates life to a valley. Water that is unbounded creates a swamp. You bind up that energy God gave you in a direction. You practice chivalry and then you meet a woman that you love, her mind and body, you'll say poetry over her, even if it's not as good as Adam's, that you care about her mind and her soul and then you guys get married and have babies in Jesus' name. Number two is you provide, create an environment where all life under your influence can flourish. And it's interesting, all throughout Christian history, that's what a man understood, that I am meant to care for my family, the family I came from and the family that I'm building now. And I'm meant to care for my church and my community.

When a man woke up, they said, what does a man do? He cares for his family, his church and his community. That's it. I exert my power on the chaos of this world to protect and to produce and to provide for those underneath my influence. That's what a man does. And you don't have to wait until you're married to do that. Be a good man. Serve in this church. Build up your neighborhood. Build up a community. Be like Tyler. Tyler was single for a long time, just got married recently. Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! We started serving as a church at Love DC. We put him to work. He showed up at an organization,

was helping build some of the physical necessities required for a ministry that served young kids in the city. And he realized, you know what? Their needs are greater than one afternoon of service is gonna provide, which was, in some ways, the point of Love DC. That you get inspired to go, you know what? I can work in this city, get a job in this city, earn money in this city, but I can also contribute to these human beings in the city. And there's some kids, they're not my kids, but they're kids in this city, and I can build a fence. I can build a deck. I can build a place they can play basketball. I can create an environment where these kids growing up in the city can thrive. And so we did it. And then helped out with the Crisis Pregnancy Center and landed on their board of letting me show up to care for my city, to provide what human beings need to win, right? Do that. And then protect. Protect. Interestingly, throughout the Bible, we'll talk about this next week when we wrap up this series, it's often talked about spiritually, that our battle's not against flesh and blood, right? So there is a physical protective element to men.

But King Solomon will say, it's better for a man to have self-control than to breach a walled city. He says, between being able to conquer a city and being able to conquer you, start there, because it's harder. So you take all that energy God gave you. You have 10 to 20 times more testosterone than the woman next to you. What a wonderful and challenging gift. But you take that and you channel it in productive aims. And you'll be a force for good in the world. That's what Jesus did. Jesus, when Paul looked at Genesis 2, he saw Jesus. And he told husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. Jesus provided for the church. It says he nourishes her and cares for her. What do you need to live? You need forgiveness? You got it. You need grace? You got it. You need mercy? You got it. Jesus provided what we need to thrive. And then he protected. When he saw the wrath of sin coming down on us, he stepped in the way and he took the hit. And Paul looks at husbands and points at the cross and says, you love like that.

You protect and you provide. So your bride can be all that she's meant to be. We look at a Jesus who loved us like that and we become men like that. There's a monument to the Titanic in Washington, DC, which the first time I saw it, I thought was so random. Titanic didn't launch from here, it didn't sink here either. Like, what are we doing? But when that ship went down, there were only life rafts. for 700, there's over 2,000 people on the boat. So 1,500 men begin to hear the cry, women and children first. We're gonna let the kids live, they got their life ahead of them, we're gonna let the women live, they can care for these kids. We're the most expendable in this scenario, we die so they can live. And that's what they did. And when that happened, there were women in the United States that saw that and said, we can't just read that in the news and do nothing. So the Society of Women here in Washington, D.C. sent a letter out to the women of America and said, we wanna honor brave men who will sacrifice to serve women and children. But you can only give a dollar. Because we don't want one person to give all the money and it's their monument.

We want the women of America to come together to say to men, that kind of masculinity is to be celebrated. And so they built a monument and we put it right in the center of Washington, D.C. And then we moved it for the Kennedy Center and put it in storage. And now it's back out in a random spot in the Navy Yard. I challenge you to find it. But the woman who made the statue made it of a man standing like this. That's the picture of true masculinity. That I sacrifice to serve. I don't deny that I'm strong. Jesus Christ had the power of God at his disposal. And yet he used all that power for good. To produce life. To provide for us all you need to thrive. To protect you from evil. That no one will he lose from his hand. Satan can't pry his fingers loose, Christian. He is strong and he is loving. And we're meant to be that way. And when you see a man make his first stumbling steps towards that kind of masculinity, celebrate it. Don't denigrate it. That's good, that's Genesis 2. That's software, not virus. That's what Jesus is doing. Making men and women all they're meant to be.

For the glory of God and for the good of all those under our influence.