Man Up
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Why is it that when we were still a young child, when we looked at ourselves we would see ourselves as a grownup?
What we saw was what we desperately wished to be. We wanted to be just like daddy or just like mommy. We wanted to be big and strong and gentle and wise.
Because that is what we wanted, we would imprint that identity on ourselves and we would believe that we were that person, regardless of how far off that personal identity was.
I’m not talking about kids that are 11-15 years old. I’m talking about when we were 3-5 years old. When we didn’t see any of the flaws our parents had. when every adult that was in our lives was some sort of hero in one way or another.
What we saw was what we desperately wished to be. We wanted to be just like daddy or just like mommy. We wanted to be big and strong and gentle and wise.
Because that is what we wanted, we would imprint that identity on ourselves and we would believe that we were that person, regardless of how far off that personal identity was.
If you were to look in the mirror today, and ask yourself… are you the person your 3 year old self thought you were?
This series is about living a life that is focused on who God created us to be within the confines of our gender. What does it mean to be a Kingdom man, and what does it mean to be a Kingdom woman? To not conform to the worlds standards of what it means to be a man or a woman.
Now I’m not going to try and talk about both today. I’m going to start with what it means to be a Kingdom Man first and then later we’ll talk about what it means to be a kingdom woman.
But here’s the thing, If you are a woman sitting here thinking to yourself… why would I want to listen to a message about being a man, and vice versa if you are a man… Don’t let yourself go there because part of being a kingdom man or woman, is holding the opposite gendered people in your life accountable to what God created them to be and His purpose for them.
If you are the opposite gender of who the message is directed to I have a challenge for you. Take notes, try to take more notes that if you were the gender that this message is about. If you’re married, then pay even closer attention because part of your mandate as a married couple is to build the other up and push them to be a better version of who they are currently.
So with that in mind, Men… let’s start with us and women, get out your note books so that when we as men get lost in the realm of manliness that society has set up you can help guide us back to what it truly means to be a man.
“Men, you are in a battle. You are in a war. The stakes of this war and its casualties are higher than a check mark in the win or loss column. Lives will be lost. Eternities will be shaped. Destinies will either be discovered or dismissed, [and] Dreams will be attained or relinquished.” Tony Evans.
There are soooo many things in this world that claim to be what make a man a man. How strong, how handsome, how successful, how handy, how well he can drive, his ability to maintain a house, how much facial hair he can grow, how much chest hair, how tall he is or what his profession is etc… etc...
These things are all nonsense… regardless of how much they may sound like things a man may want to have or be.
I’m going to say something that the women in this room may object to slightly but bear with me, I will clarify and hopefully it will make more sense.
Men, you were created and called to rule. You were created and called to be the head of your family and your wife was called to submit to your authority. Even in the Christian world this concept is so twisted because nobody actually takes the time to learn what this should actually look like, not to mention that we have the idea of what the word “rule” means all mixed up.
When we think of a Ruler, we think of someone who is in charge, who has absolute authority like kings. To make matters worse we often view the word “rule” in a negative concept. Abusive relationships, Dictators, and Corrupt militaristic governments… these are what have come to take the place what ruling looks like.
In God’s kingdom, men are called to “Rule”, but to rule only in the way that God has given authority to do so. Men are not called to rule other things, men are called to rule their own life in such a way as to emulate the Character of Christ.
I’m going to read you a quot from a book called Kingdom man.
"A kingdom man is the kind of man that when his feet hit the floor each morning the devil says, Oh crap he's up! When a kingdom man steps out his door each day, heaven, earth and hell take notice. when he protects the woman under his care, she can do little to resist him. His children look to him with confidence. other men look to him as someone to emulate. (own household) His church calls on him for strength and leadership. He is a preserver of culture and a champion of society to keep out evil and usher in good. A kingdom man understands that God never said a godly life would be easy; He just said it would be worth it." (in the world) - Tony Evans
This is what it looks like when a man rules as God intended. A man successfully ruling His own life and as a result, all of these other attributes and characteristics of a Kingdom man fall into place.
So lets break this down into two categories because if we were to break down this whole thing it would take a long time. Today we’re going to talk about how a kingdom man acts in his own household and with his family, and next time I will talk about what it looks like for a kingdom man to live in the world.
So how does a man wake up each day and live in such a way that heaven, earth and hell take notice. What does it take to protect the woman under his care, so that she can do little to resist him. And how does he live so that his children look to him with confidence?
Let’s start with the first… How to make heaven, earth and hell take notice.
First of all, this one probably stems out of a healthy prayer life and a thriving relationship with God. Reading your bibles, praying, worshipping earnestly and enthusiastically.
Here is where we face a small speed bump. reading, praying, and worshipping out loud in front of others are things that in our society, manly men don’t do. There’s a stigma in our world that says these things are feminine.
2 Samuel 6:
If you’re a manly man, you shouldn’t enjoy reading or singing, not to mention the fact that if you’re a man you may or may not be good at singing which is sometimes why men don’t sing at worship gatherings.
Let’s just turn that stigma around and take a look at King David for a second
And David danced before the Lord with all his might. And David was wearing a linen ephod. So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord with shouting and with the sound of the horn.
As the ark of the Lord came into the city of David, Michal the daughter of Saul looked out of the window and saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord, and she despised him in her heart.
Not only did he worship, but he danced before the LORD… undressed, or at least in his underwear.
Men, If you sing badly and feel embarrassed to sing when you worship, you can still worship the LORD. He wants your praises and your adoration nothing more. If you can’t sing, first of all, you really don’t have to. Worship is so much more than singing. Put simply, it’s glorifying God and how you choose to do that is totally up to you.
Just a side note, women… most of the principles that I am going to talk about in this particular portion of my sermon are also applicable to you.
but..... If you feel you can’t sing, and the reason you don’t sing to worship is because you’re scared of what others may say, that my friends is Satan messing with you and as a man, who by the way is called to be a warrior for God, should tell satan that you’re going to sing badly and loudly because it’s the best you have and God deserves the best you have even if it’s not the best in the room. If anyone complains about your singing, direct them to me and we’ll have a nice friendly chat.
Let’s talk about prayer…
I’ve preached on the concept and direction in 1 thessalonians 5 that says we should pray without ceasing.
But what if we rarely pray in the first place? perhaps you’re like most other Christians (not necessarily a bad thing) and you mostly pray when you need something.
Think about this for a moment… if the only time your kids talked to you was to ask you for something, how would that make you feel?
If you don’t have kids, imagine that you do
Probably not fantastic is what I’d guess. You want to hear about their school day, what they had fun doing, what they found sad or hard… you want to hear all about the latest hobby they’re learning because you want to just be with them doing something they love to do… why?… because you love them.
Now imagine for a second that you are your children that only ever ask you for stuff and don’t talk to you otherwise… and that God is you…
This by the way, is how the majority of Christian relationships with God are played out.
Write this down… God loves me, and he feels about me like I feel about my kids… Have I told God something about my life recently that excites me? Have I told God something that I’m happy about in my life? something that he gave me?
Now after you’ve written that, take it home, rip it out of your notebook or print it from your phone and stick it to your bathroom mirror and make sure you see it every morning. then get your spouse or parents to keep you accountable to those questions.
If you have a healthy prayer life, what begins to happen is that you can actually start to hear God quite clearly. Then guess what, Satan will have a much harder time messing with you because you’ll be able to hear God tell you it’s happening. Trust me on this one. This is something that I’ve been learning first hand recently.
Here’s the last one… reading. If you don’t enjoy reading, then you may not read the bible as often as you might like to. or maybe you just feel too busy.
This one… this one I have two ways to approach this. The first is you can listen to the bible with your phone. Just download the bible app and press play. If you don’t have a phone, I’m guessing reading is just fine by you. Take baby steps and listen on the way to or from work. Even a little bit of God’s word is enough to make your day better.
The second approach… and I’ll admit that this one is a lot less friendly than the first. I’m sorry, but be a man. There are things in this life that are required of us. Making ends meat for our families, maintaining a property, going to work and actually working, fixing this or that, teaching your kids how to live in this crazy world, cleaning the house…
now for any of these other things do we just decide not to do them because we don’t like to or because we don’t have time in our day? of course not, if we’re running out of time we work harder and faster and if that isn’t enough then we get up earlier tomorrow and finish before we start tomorrows to do list.
If we don’t particularly like doing something that we have to do, we suck it up and do it because we have to...
Now let me just stick a really sobering fact out there for us all to think about… none of those things involve our eternity… reading our bible on the other hand…
I’m going to let you decide how high up the priority list you decide to put reading your bible. And I’m also going to apologize a little because that may have sounded confrontational. You are not alone in this and I am certainly not above this. We’re all in this together and this is part of the battle that we are fighting as men who are trying to be kingdom men.
Okay so if we can succeed at these things, I’m willing to bet that heaven, earth and hell have noticed
Let’s talk about that little bit that says “When a kingdom man protects the woman under his care, she can do little to resist him.
The way this is worded sounds a little domineering. so lets talk a little about what this means.
The word protect means to keep safe, or keep from harm. I’m going to take a wild stab in the dark here and guess that if you are going to keep the woman under your care safe from harm… I’m guessing you love her.
In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.
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So Love and protection go hand in hand. If you love them, you will protect them and if you protect them you probably love them.
Okay, now this resisting bit. “she can do little to resit him.”
Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.
:22-
This is what we’re getting at. Men, If you protect and love your wife the way she deserves (because by the way she’s God’s daughter and he’s got the biggest shotgun out there and He’s not afraid to use it) then She is going to submit to your authority because Love begets love. If you love then she will love and if you respect then she will respect.
Now I’m sure that all of you are doing this well, I really am. But here’s the thing… when was the last time you tried to improve how well you loved your wife? If you are doing this well, take it as a challenge to be even better than you already are. (I’m 100% serious by the way, 100%) and if on the slim chance you aren’t doing this well and you’ve been ignoring it a little, then take this as a little reminder.
Also, God never called anyone to anything easy. Marriage definitely falls into that category. God brought each of you together because He knew it would be amazing but he never said it was going to be easy. Part of being a kingdom man… yup, you guessed it…Is doing the hard things because that’s what Jesus would do.
WWJD, something that we’ve all heard at one point in out lives in a children’s church or Sunday school class. Which is what brings me to the next thing.
What makes your kids look to you with confidence? And this one is lifelong, not just when your kids are young and still living under your roof.
Ask yourself, WWJD? Think of your kids, they’re watching you, learning from you, and when they’re grown guess what… all of those things are still happening. So what would Jesus do if he had kids watching and learning from his action, inaction, joyfulness and irritability?
well of course you are going to want to model what it looks like in your life if you want them to do well. Kids, no matter their age can and will learn from their parents or be inspired by them.
Let me tell you a secret… having kids that look to you with confidence requires the same thing as having a wife that honors and submits to your authority as the man of the house.
The theme is Love and respect. Sometimes it may seem that your kids don’t deserve your respect. But that is exactly what they need to grow up into adults who can emulate Christ. To continue being adults that emulate Christ. I’m not saying that you have to spoil them rotten and give them everything they ask for… that would probably produce the opposite effect from what you want.
Respect and Love come from a place that acknowledges failure and sees the consequences of those failures but doesn’t hold those against that person, old or young. When we love and respect someone and teach them that their mistakes and failures don’t define who they are and what they’re character is… Those people will look to you in absolute utter confidence unbreakable because you have shown yourself to be trustworthy.
If you want your wife to submit to you, you want your kids to look to you with confidence no matter how old they are… The biggest thing that you have to do is submit to God. Submitting to the one who created us, gave us a hope and a future, gave us the loved one’s in our life.
As much as all of what I’ve talked about this morning is important, this one is even more important and none of the other stuff will happen if you don’t do this one thing.
once again, for this one we just have to man up. no one is going to help with this one. God will… but you have to start the process of submitting every part of your life to Him.
Being a Kingdom man where you get up in the morning and your feet hit the floor each morning and the devil says, Oh crap he's up! Being the man to step out your door each day and, heaven, earth and hell take notice. Being the man who protects the woman under his care in such a way that she can do little to resist you. Being the man who’s children look to him with confidence.
For all of these things, we just have to man up. no one is going to help with this one. God will… but you have to start the process of submitting every part of your life to Him.
The reason God isn’t going to help you start the process is because he want’s you to want to live your life in submission to Him. He want’s you to start to commit to these things on your own asking for God’s strength while you do. And he does this so that when He brings His help to you, which He will, you keep striving instead of deciding you don’t have to because God is taking care of it.
Men, If you want to be the man God created you to be
Women in this place right now… I bring this charge to you this morning… Everything that I have spoken to the men in this room about today is hard. They are some of the hardest principles for men to master because it involves being exactly opposite to what the wold says men are.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and it was good. then He created man, and it was good. But then God noticed one thing in his entire creation that was not good.
Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”
You are that helper. And you are more than just a helper you are a strong help from God. Next time I speak I will be talking more about this because it is amazing and beautiful but for now…
My Charge to you is this… Pray for the men in your life, encourage them every way you can to be more of the man God called them to be. Even when it seems hard and it’s the last thing you want to do because he’s grumpy after work or tired and not very communicative…
Do this even though you don’t want to because if you do… you will constantly be pushing those men you love closer to God and His purpose for their lives and as a result, all the things that make this particular task hard or unsavory will gradually disappear because the Closer they get to who God created them to be, the closer they get to the character of Christ.
God created man and he created woman to be a certain way and each one individually he gave a purpose and a calling.
Let’s help one another and pray for each other to grow closer to that original design that God had in mind when he created us
These things are all nonsense… regardless of how much they may sound like things a man may want to have or be.