Why God Might Be Resisting You

that even though I wanna speak directly into the lives of men, this series is for everyone. It's for everyone. And I have loved hearing all the stories of men and women these last few weeks who've just been taking next steps to lean more deeply into God's design for our lives. But the reason that we have taken a few weeks to speak directly into the lives of men is because the world is confused right now. The world's just confused about real manhood. You know, we got caricatures of manhood out there that span all the way from the Marlboro man. We looked at this last week, right? From the Marlboro man all the way to Homer Simpson. It's a wide spectrum. And so when someone says be a man, well, what kind? What does that mean? There's a lot of confusion out there about what that even means. And the truth is that too many of us men, we just never had someone in our lives model for us and show us and demonstrate what Godly manhood looks like. And if men are confused about what it really means to be a man, we cannot live into God's purpose for our life. And if women are confused about what a godly man looks like, you won't know what to look to all my single friends, you won't know what to look for in a man, or you won't know what to reinforce in the men around you that you care about, your sons, your husbands, your brothers, your friends, your dad.

And so we've been trying to cut through, what we've been doing over these last few weeks, we've been trying to cut through all the cultural confusion. We've just been going straight to God's word to give us a vision for what it looks like to be a godly man. I said a few weeks ago that the most important word of this title of the series is the word God, the man God made you to be. We're not running a podcast to tell us who we are as men. We're not running to the latest self-help book to tell us who we are as men. We're not running to culture to tell us who we are as men. We've been running to God's word in the scriptures to define who we are and what our lives can be about. And what we've discovered as we've been doing this is, is that when you run to God's word to define manhood, it has absolutely nothing to do with what you wear, whether you kill what you eat, how much money you make or how many women you've had. In other words, throw all the cliches, throw all the stereotypes out the window. All that matters with God is your character. It's what's going on in your heart. It's the kind of character he wants to form in you that makes you a godly man, that makes us godly man. And so what we've been doing is we've been looking at the three of the most important character traits of godly men, these aren't the only ones. We've just said, these are three of the most important ones.

And so I'll catch you up. Week one, we just said this, who do God make you to be? Godly men take responsibility for their lives. That was week one. Godly men take responsibility for their lives. What does that mean? They take responsibility for the work that they've been given. We looked at the life of Adam, and we saw that he was given work to do and responsibility. They take responsibility for their spiritual growth. They take responsibility to care for the people that God has placed around us. That's what godly men do. We take responsibility for our life. Last week, we looked at this one, pretty straightforward, godly men live with courage. Godly men live with courage. We looked at the life of Daniel last week, and specifically we saw that godly men, they bend to God's word, not culture. They bend to God's word. Even when everything culturally is going against it, we follow Jesus. Sometimes that means we gotta set our course, we gotta fix our eyes, and we gotta walk forward. We gotta pray with faith in the face of fear. We gotta move forward with faith even when we are shaking. But that's what godly men do, man. We live with courage.

And today I wanna look at the last character trait that defines the godly men. It's real simple. Godly men are humble. If you're taking notes, I want you to write that down. Godly men are humble. Put that on your phone. Godly men are humble. Now that's pretty straightforward. That's pretty simple. I wanna unpack this. I think this is actually the most important of all the ones we've talked about for some reasons we're gonna look at here in just a moment. Godly men are humble. Why? Because they know that pride will be their downfall. And humility is the path to greatness. Now let me ask you, are you prideful? Are you prideful? I would ask you to raise your hand, but you're too proud to raise your hand. You probably wouldn't do it, right? I mean, the answer is yes, right? I mean, it's kind of a rhetorical question. We all got a little bit in us. And if you're like, I don't know, well, ask yourself, here's some diagnostic questions you could ask. Do you seek credit for everything you do?

Like you're always kind of listening to make sure you get credit. When you're at work and they're talking about a division that overperformed, are you just waiting? Like you're on the edge of the seat before they say your name. Just listen, like I want my name said. Do you struggle complimenting other people? Do you brush off feedback or advice? Like you don't wanna hear it. Can you remember the last times you said the words, "I'm sorry." Here's one. Are you mad when you don't get a thank you? That was me, by the way. That one stings a little bit. You're like, "Don't y'all see I watched it?" I took the trash out again. It's like, yeah, that's kind of your job. (laughing) this isn't gonna be a surprise to you, but we live in a culture in that celebrates, it celebrates self-promotion, doesn't it? It celebrates getting ahead at the cost of others. It encourages us to let everyone else know how great we are. But let me show you just how seriously God takes this. This is such a straightforward passage. This is in James chapter four, verse six. It says, God opposes the proud. God opposes the proud that gives grace to the humble.

You know what's funny, even if you're here right now and you're not a follower of Jesus yet, like you're kind of just checking things out, you're not sure what you believe and all that, but you're here and you're kind of dipping your toes in. This is probably something you like and admire about God. You've got something in common here. God opposes the proud and so do you. What do you instinctively do when that arrogant person, you know what I'm talking about? Don't say their name, just get 'em, right? In your head right now, you know what I'm talking about, but what do you do when an arrogant person walks up to you and begins to posture? Like list all their accomplishments, self-promotes. Don't you automatically wanna create some distance between you and them? Don't you automatically wanna put your hand up and what, oppose them? Because none of us like prideful people. And yet, and here's the warning and it's a big one. Pride is one of those things that is so easy to see in others and yet so difficult to see in ourselves. Guys, listen, I've had a lot of people over the years being a pastor, I've had a lot of people wanna talk to me about a lot of different things you're struggling with. I've had more conversations and I could count people who want to tell me about their struggles and marriage, struggles with lying, struggles with lust, struggles with forgiving someone.

Let me tell you what I've never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever had someone call me up and say, I just need to talk to you about this. No one's ever said, Jason, I'm struggling with pride. And yet, it affects every one of us, all of us. And I want us to consider this idea here, what it said, what we just read, is that when we live with pride, God will stand against us, God will oppose us. That's weighty. Let me explain what that means. Sometimes, when I'm watching football, I'll play this little game, like with my family, for all watching football together, I'll come up with these little scenarios. And I'll say things like, hey guys, do you think right now, like if we're watching Eagles, do you think right now, like literally this second, at my age, in the shape that I'm in, right this moment, if I got transported into that game right now, a plane against the Eagles defense, do you think I could get three yards on a carry? Why are you laughing? (congregation laughing) That's a serious question. Now, let me remind you of just two examples of what I would be going up against, if that were to happen. So my boys, Jalen Carter, Jordan Davis, now that is about 650 pounds of Kelly Green pain right there.

What's funny is, our communications team kind of wanted to give you a sense of scale. So here's how it actually might look. (congregation laughing) I don't know. Now, LCBC, my church, who loves me, and I love you, do you think I could get three yards? It's messed up, man. Of course, the only right answer is no. I'm not going anywhere with them opposing me. So listen, listen, listen. Think about what James is saying here. Don't miss this. You are on the offensive in life. God's handed you the ball. He's given you a field of responsibility in your life. You've got to responsibly smooth forward in your work, responsibly smooth forward in family, your kids, your finances, spiritual growth. You're trying to take ground. You're trying to move the ball down the field in your life. Do you need God's help to do that well? Yeah, you better believe you do. And yet, what James is saying here, what God's saying is when you become prideful, God leaves your side of the ball on offense, and he goes on the defense against you now. He's opposing you. And if God is opposing you, you are not going to make it very far down field.

Guys, I'm just saying, this may explain why, for some of us, it feels like at times right now, we just, we keep backing up in life right now. It's like we're losing ground in life. It could be pride is somewhere in the mix. But we're going to be godly men. Now, the question, of course, sort of in light of that is, well, what does humility, what does that look like? And the best way to define humility is I think just let the Bible speak for itself. So I'd love for you to turn in your Bibles if you've got one to Philippians, chapter 2. If you don't have a Bible with you, that is no sweat. There's some of the seats around you if you're in one of our rooms right now. You can get there on the U version Bible app. You can Google Philippians 2. I don't really care. Just get there. Philippians 2. If you're using the Bibles at the seats, I want you to see these words here. And as you're turning there, let me give you a little bit of context. What we're about to read is from an ancient letter written by a leader in a church named Paul who was writing to followers of Jesus living in a city called Philippi. You can go to this day. You can still visit the city. It's a modern day Greece. And this letter, Paul unpacks so simply what it means to follow Jesus and the implications for our lives. Specifically, Paul is about to unpack what humility means, what it means to live a humble life and why we would even do that. And it has massive implications for any of us men who want to become the man God made

us to be. Look at Philippians, chapter 2, look at verse 3. Don't be selfish. Don't try to impress others. I'm already over two. Be humble. There's our word. Thinking of others as better than yourselves. Don't look out only for your own interest but take an interest in others too. Now I want you to keep the Bible open. Like keep it out there. We're going to come back to this in just a moment but there's a lot to unpack right now from just these three little sentences here. And something that I want us to note from these very first words that we just read that Paul said is that humility is a choice to be made. You pick up that? It's all actions he's talking about. Humility is not a feeling. Humility is a posture that lives itself out in action and so let's just dig in a little bit deeper into what we just read because it gives us a working definition of humility in the actions that demonstrate it. There's three markers of humility that I want to work through from this passage. Here's the first one. We want to be humble men. Here's what it means. Humble men. Ask for help. Write that down man. Humble men. Ask for help.

What did he say? Don't be selfish. Don't try to impress others. Man, look, there is nothing that will keep a man from asking for help more than our obsession with impressing other people. Ladies, let me let you in on a little secret here. Most men in your life, they care about being liked about that much. I mean, we want to be liked. It's about like that much, but do you know what we care about like that much? Being respected. We want to be impressive more than we want to be liked. Hate us. Love us. Just don't ignore us. Now, look, that's rooted in brokenness. I'm not even saying that's a good thing. I'm just saying that's a thing thing and it might be rooted in brokenness and that drive to impress others has led to falling for so many minutes, led for so many of us to fall for the lie that our worth and our value is found in proving how capable and successful we are. And so many men suffocate, man, they suffocate under the weight and the burden of life because in the name of trying to prove we're impressive, we refuse to ask for help. I want to show you what this looks like. I want to give you a visual for this and so I want to invite, I want to invite one of the best young men I know out to join me. I want to bring out my son, Silas. So, Silas, come on out here. You know what helped me out here. All right. All right.

Now, listen, let me just say something real quick. I could do all this, by the way, I'm just deciding not to, but Silas just hit his personal best on his max on bench press this week. He's not going to tell you what it was because he's humble, but it's more than you can lift. I'm just saying. So, anyways, all right, get on up there and I want to give you guys a visual for how this works. See, this is how life works for us. Every man here has some weight that you're trying to put up. You've got some weight that you're trying to carry in life, every single one of us. You've got responsibilities and things that you're trying to move forward. You get some reps in. There are seasons of life where like we're lifting the weight and we're doing well. We're moving things forward. We're taking ground. Our relationships are doing well. We're growing spiritually. We're getting reps in. We've got some successes against temptations that come our way. We are carrying the weight well, but it does not matter how strong you are. At some point, the weight of life will begin to wear on you and it will begin to feel heavier and it will begin to pin you down. It might take a year. It might take 10 years, but at some point, the weight will be too much. We got a decision to make when we get to this point right here. We got a decision to make. And listen, some of you. You know, because some of you, you feel weighed down today. You feel pinned down by the weight you've been trying to carry. You feel stuck.

So, you know what we do when we get to this point, you know what a lot of men do? What a lot of men do is they start looking around at what other men are carrying. They start comparing their weight to what others. And then you feel shame. You're like, I should be able to lift this. I should be able to do this, but you can't. Some of us, you know what we do? We just go, maybe I just need a little bit more time. Silas, I just leave you here for the next hour. Would you be all right? No. But we convince ourselves, I just need more time. I'll just need more time. Some of us get to this point. We decide that we're just gonna try to white knuckle it. Maybe if I just strengthen my grip. We're trying to white knuckle, but you're exhausted from that. And you are pinned down. We get pinned down by the weight we're trying to carry it. But there is a very obvious thing we can do in this moment that will require some humility. What is it? I need a spot. I need some help. I need a spot, you wanna ask for a spot? Yeah, all right. He said please. Thank you, Si.

Can you help me thank him? (audience applauds) I'm so burdened. Man, I feel this so deeply, man. I am so burdened right now. By the amount of men that I'm seeing that are buckling under the weight of life, because they will not ask for help. They've fallen for the lie. I can do it on my own. Guys, I know you don't even need to tell you this, man. There is an epidemic right now of addiction. There's an epidemic of pornography. Sweeping through the lives of men, affairs, divorce, breakdown of the family. And so often at the center of those things is a man who has convinced himself, I'm strong enough on my own. I can handle it all alone. And some of us are getting buried pinned down by temptation. And no one knows. Pinned down right now by struggles, 'cause we just won't ask for help. You know, sometimes pride shows itself in real loud bragging and self-promotion, but you know what I've found with men? Most of the time, pride shows itself in silence. Just silence. Refusing, let anyone else in. Refusing to ask God for help or anyone else.

I ran into this guy a couple of weeks ago who told me some of the story. I was out in the atrium and he's trying to raise his beautiful little daughter, probably four years old or so, all on his own right now, and that's hard. And things have been hard at times. And he told me, I was like, "Well, what are you doing here?" And he told me, "Hey, I'm in the atrium right now. I'm walking over to that banner right now that says, "Don't walk alone because I want to find a group of men that I can walk with right now." And when he told me that, I just thought to myself, "He's gonna be all right, he's gonna be all right." That's a humble man. There's a man, I can't do it all, I can't carry all this weight on my own. Maybe that's your next step today. It's time for you to get around some other guys to walk out here, find a group as a couple, get around some other couples that will help you. You can go right out of the atrium, go to that banner and says, "Don't walk alone." We're gonna help you with that. The humble men ask for help. Here's the second marker of humility that we just saw. Humble men use their strength to do what? To lift others up. That's what humble men do. We're gonna be humble men.

Humble men use their strength to lift others up. Remember to say be humble, thinking of others is better than yourself. Don't look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others too. You know, we said the first week of the series that the fundamental difference between being a boy and being a man has nothing to do with height, muscle mass or age. A boy thinks first and foremost about themselves. That's the definition of a boy. They look out only for their own interests. And a man thinks about others and considers the needs of others. Guys, I know 40 year olds who are still boys, still boys. They only think of themselves. They never consider the interests of others. On the other side, I know 17 year olds who are godly men. 'Cause they open their eyes to others around them and they ask how they can serve and use their strength to lift others up. God has built strength and capacity into you, influence into you, influence and capacity in us as men. And pride will convince us that our strength and our influence is all for us. It's to lift us up. It's to advance us. It's to benefit us. But I want you to hear from the words of Jesus, man.

This is straight from Jesus's mouth. Listen now, he talked about influence. He says, you know that the rulers of this world lord it over their people. Officials flaunt their authority over those underneath them. But among you, it'll be different. Who, my followers, anybody wants to be a godly man. Among you will be different, hell. Well, whoever wants to be a leader among you of everyone else. We all have authority and influence, every single person. Because every one of us, how do I know that? Because we're all engaged in relationships with family, friends and community. And as soon as you're in a relationship, you got influence. And Jesus is saying that influence is a responsibility to be managed, not a reward to be enjoyed. And if you think that you're a power and your influence gives you the right to order people around, to use people for your own game, it's a matter of time before God is standing on the defensive against you, opposing you. Godly men use their strength, their influence, their power, their resources, their time, their lives to serve others and lift them up. Let's think about a few context and apply it to our lives real quick. I mean, think about our homes for a second. Husbands, are you serving your wife?

Lifting her up. You know, Ephesians 5, 25 says, "Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church." Well, how do you do that? It says later in verse 27, "He gave himself up for her." Husbands, we should ask every now and then, when's the last time I gave something up for my wife? When's the last time I laid down what I wanted? For what she wants. Humility means caring about the things she cares about. Humility means lifting up your wife by carrying the load when she's sick. Humility means giving her a night out with friends. Humility looks like scraping the ice off her windshield before she leaves in the morning. Humility means listening so you understand, not listening so you can fix her. Hello, guilty. We want to be humble, man. It's not my fatherhood for saying, "Dad's." Let me just speak to dads. Are you using your strength to lift your kids up? Humble dads don't throw their weight around the home. They use their strength to serve the family and create safety and peace for their kids. Look, I was thinking about this last week. You know the thing that makes so many of us successful in the marketplace is also the very thing that can make us tyrants in the home.

The thing that makes us so good at work can sometimes be the thing that makes us tyrants and relationships that matter most. Making decisions, telling people what to do. You know, I can fire them if they don't end up doing what I had said for them to do, and they did it well, right? You treat your kids though like they're employees and you will win the point, you will lose the kid. We're going to humble ourselves. Humble dads, humble dads say sorry to their kids every now and then when it's needed. Your kids, listen, man, your kids are going to see the worst in you. There's going to be ruptures in the relationship. I'm just telling you now, that's okay. That's fine. There's no shame in that. You live together. Your family, they're going to see ruptures in the relationship. They're going to see the worst in you. That is expected. But what wrecks families is not the ruptures, kids can handle the ruptures. What wrecks families is when there is no repair. 'Cause you never went back and just said, I'm sorry. For some of you, man, it's been a decade. Some of you, two decades. And you're still holding on to that thing, man. Just go say sorry, humble yourself. That's pride.

Ask forgiveness. Give forgiveness and humility. I'm not suggesting that being a humble dad means we just give love without limits. I'm not saying that. You got to set boundaries for your home. But I just know too many dads fall into the trap of setting all the limits, no love. That's not who we're going to be, man. We're going to be godly men who are humble. That's what it looks like to use your strength to lift others up at home. Let me just talk about one other area real quick. I want to talk about here at church. What does that look like? I want you to know, man, this church needs your strength. This church needs your strength. We need your strength leveraged for the good of others. We do not show up to church as consumers. Consumers ask, what did I get out of it? That's a consumer mentality. We don't show up to church and go, what did I get out of it? That's not what we show up. We show up as contributors. When we come to church, what do we say? We don't ask, what did I get out of it? We go, what did I bring to it today? Who did I serve today? Who did I notice today? Who do I open a door for?

What did I open a door for today? It's about what I bring. It's about what I contribute. I love seeing the growing numbers of men who are humbly contributing here at this church showing up to serve here, investing in people here, using their strength to lift others up. Men whose kids are out of the house. I know men whose kids are out of the house, but they have decided they're not done shaping the lives of the next generation, so they're leading groups of students now. I know men who stand out in the cold and they greet people as they arrive on our campuses and they help them park and they help open the doors for people everyone coming in. There's hundreds of ways here to leverage your strength here to lift others up, and it says unleash your purpose and go, man, I don't want to consume, I want to contribute. I want to contribute. Humble men ask for help. Humble men use their strength to lift others up. There's one last thing. One last marker of humility. I want you to see the most important one of all. I want to keep reading. I told you to kind of keep your place here in Philippians 2. I want you to look at the next verse, Philippians 2. Go to verse five. Paul is going to root all of this now in who Jesus is. Everything you just said has context for what we're about to read now. He says in verse five. But we must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had. Well, what was that? Paul goes, let me tell you.

Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead he gave up his divine privileges. He took the what? Humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. And when he appeared in human form, he what? Humbled himself in obedience to God and died of criminals death on the cross. Now just stop here for a second. Do you see who Jesus is? The perfect embodiment of extraordinary strength matched with remarkable humility. With all the power in the world and yet what did he do? He chose to lower himself, to humble himself for you. For you, for me. To bring us back into personal relationship with God. Apoll doesn't stop there, it gets better. Look what it says next, it says therefore, because of what he did, because of his humility, because he lowered himself to lift others up. Therefore, God elevated him, Jesus, to the place of highest honor and gave him Jesus, the name above all other names. That at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow and heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue declare that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. He gave Jesus the name above all names. We're talking about pride, let me just say this. I hope it's not a buzzkill, I hope it's not a spoiler alert.

Your name will not be remembered, will not be remembered. You're about two or three generations away from extinction. How much do you know about your great, great grandfather's name, your great, great, great grandmother's name? Not much, but you lift up the name of Jesus and your legacy will last, because his name remains. And that his name, every knee should bow. This is the final thing I want to see. This is the last marker of humble men. Humble men bend their knee to Jesus. Humble men bend their knee to Jesus. At the name of Jesus, every knee should bow. I want you to know this guys, every knee will bow. Every single person here right now, we are all gonna bow our knee to Jesus. Some of us, it will be willingly or unwillingly. That's your choice, but we will bow. And you want to know how to stand strong in life? It starts with bending your knee. Standing strong always starts with bending our knee. What does it mean to bend our knee to Jesus? It means we place our complete lives in his hands, we follow his commands and we worship him as our king and our savior. You want me to tell you what wrecks me every week that we sing and we worship here as a church, man. It gets me every week, stirs my heart up every week. It's when I see men here singing their hearts out, hands raised to God. And I know their story.

I look out some of those men's hands raised, knees bent, singing their hearts out and I know what they're struggling with and I know the shame they carry from some of the things in their past. And I know the sickness they're facing and I know the pit that some of them are in and there they are bending their knee to Jesus. When we raise our hands, by the way, man, that is just a physical act of worship. It's taking the posture of a child, reaching for a good heavenly father. You ever seen a child reach for their daddy? That's dependence. That's a sign of love. That's why we raise our hands. And when we worship, two things happen at the exact same time. One is that any time we worship, we grow increasingly aware of just how broken we are and that we cannot depend on ourselves. When we make more of Him, we realize how unworthy we are in comparison. And at the exact same time. I thank God who created us. This is why I can't wait for this Thursday night. I can't wait, man, for the men's night of worship coming up this Thursday. We got locations all over the state that are hosting it. There is one near you, you need to be there. You need to be there, man. We're just gonna, why?

Because we're gonna bend our knee to Jesus as men. It's not gonna be a lot of fluff, fluff, fluff, whatever. I don't even know the words for it. We're just gonna come. We're gonna come into the presence of Jesus. We're gonna make much of him, not of ourselves. We're gonna lift him up. We're gonna bend our knee. And we're gonna make sure that we've come ready to seek Jesus. That's what we're coming to do. Because his name is greater. And he's the one who possessed all power, all strength, all glory. And he used every ounce of it to serve and to lay down his life for others. And to love deeply and sacrificially. I want you to hear this, man. We don't need more of our own strength, man. We don't need more of our own strength. We need his. And if you think this series has been about you pulling up your bootstraps and just working harder the things we've talked about, you've missed the point. We don't need more willpower. We don't need more of ourselves. We need more Jesus. Men, listen to me. Your kids don't need a perfect dad. I mean, they need one, humbly bends their knee to Jesus. Your wife doesn't need a perfect husband. Your girlfriend doesn't need a perfect boyfriend. I mean, they're longing for one, humbly bends their knee to Jesus. You find a man like that, man, everybody wins.

Your team at work, the company you lead, they don't need a perfect co-worker, they don't need a perfect manager, they need someone who bends their knee to Jesus. That's who we're gonna be.