Amelia Church of Christ - Christian Church in Amelia, OH near Cincinnati in Clermont County

This is the second message in our series called Not Just Plumbing: Real Femininity and Masculinity in a Fallen World.   We talked about real, godly femininity on Mother’s Day. In this second installment in this series, we’re going to talk about Real Masculinity.

I want you to take a second and think about how men, husbands, and fathers are portrayed on TV.   The man is usually a bumbling oaf like Homer Simpson.   He’s lazy like Ray Barone.   He’s a loudmouth like Fred Flintstone, or a goofball like Barney Rubble.   He’s a macho, grunting gorilla like Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor. You’ve got to go back a long way to find the all-star dads like Ward Cleaver and Andy Griffith. These TV dads may be funny to laugh at, but you probably wouldn’t want to be like them.

The idea of a man being a principled, courageous, chivalrous leader apparently doesn’t make for funny TV because you just don’t see it. But this is more than just what is or isn’t on TV. It’s deeper than that. There is a societal issue here. Our culture has become one of emasculation. We saw in the first message in this series how radical feminism teaches women to compete with men; you need to be more of a man than the man is. Actually this is a street that runs both ways, because men in our culture are taught to be more feminine. To ignore, or even overcome, the inherent traits of masculinity.

And unfortunately this emasculation has worked its way into the church. Godly masculinity has been undercut and we’re raising a new generation of boys who don’t have a clue how to be a man of God. Today we’re going to talk about real masculinity in a fallen world. It doesn’t matter what our culture does or doesn’t say. What matters is what God says.

God has called men to be leaders. Keep the word LEAD in mind, because by using the four letters, L-E-A-D, we can discover what a real man of God looks like.

1. A real man of God loves his wife. That sounds simple and straightforward. Some of you would even wonder why mention such a simple principle. I mean, doesn’t this really go without saying?  Well, not really. It was important enough to God that he said it in his Word.

In Ephesians 5:25, God says, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her…” (NIV)

At first glance, it sounds like such a simple thing. A real man of God loves his wife. But let’s dig in a little bit into what Paul wrote here in Ephesians.

When he said, “Husbands, love your wives,” the word he used for love is agape.   The New Testament was originally written in Greek. The Greeks had more than one word for love. Three of their different words for love are Phileo, Eros, and Agape.

Phileo is a friendship kind of love. Philadelphia is known as the City of Brotherly Love. Phileo is where that name originates from.

Eros is where we get our word erotic. Eros is a romantic, sexual love. But interestingly, that’s not the word that Paul uses to tell husbands to love their wives. He has something bigger than sex in mind.

He chooses the word Agape. Agape is a divine love. It is the only kind of love that goes on loving regardless of the circumstances. This word, agape, is the same word that Paul used for love in 1 Corinthians 13.

He said, “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.” (1 Corinthians 13:4-8, ESV)

That’s a pretty tall list, guys. Is your love for your wife always patient? Is it sometimes rude? How often do you insist on your own way? Is “irritable” a good word to describe the way you relate to your wife? All of a sudden, it doesn’t sound so simple to say that a real man of God loves his wife, does it?

Paul said that we are to love our wives, “just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her…” (Ephesians 5:25, NIV) For us to love our wives as Jesus loved the church, the first thing we have to remember is that Jesus died for the church. It was a love that was completely sacrificial.

So this forces us to ask a question. Husbands, what sacrifices do you make for your wife on a daily basis? Do you serve her? God’s picture of the husband is that he is the leader of the home, but it is far from a totalitarian regime. It is a humble, servant leadership. It is one of continuous loving sacrifice. That’s what Jesus modeled in his love for the church, and that’s what we’re called to emulate.

Kenny Boles wrote, “It is only Christ’s kind of love that makes the headship of the husband tolerable. When the husband’s greatest desire is for the happiness of his wife, and when the wife’s greatest desire is to support the leadership of her husband, a harmonious and successful union will result.”

We’ve got a young guy here at church that has a t-shirt that simply says, “I love my wife.” That little proclamation is a driving force in the life of a real man of God. But we can’t ever reduce its meaning. When a godly man tells his wife, “I love you,” he is saying, “I will sacrifice for you. I will serve you everyday. I will love you when you get stretch marks and age spots. I will love you on your best and worst of days. I will love you patiently and gently. I will always put your interests above my own. I will never take you for granted.” That’s what a real man of God means when he tells his wife, “I love you.”

A real man of God leads by loving his wife.   He also leads by being an example to his children. There’s a great passage in the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy that really demonstrates how God views our fatherly example to our kids.

In Deuteronomy 6, God says, “Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children.

Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.” (Deuteronomy 6:5-9, NIV)

The real man of God is an example to his kids. He is constantly looking for teachable moments with his children. Any moment could be a moment where his example could help his son or daughter grab onto a spiritual truth. But did you notice that it’s not enough to talk the talk? This scripture tells dads to talk about God at home and on the road, when you go to bed and when you get up in the morning. But it goes beyond just talking. It tells us to tie God’s Word to our hands, burn it on our foreheads, write it on our houses. In other words, back up your words with action. Show your kids that this is important to you.

I love the show on The Discovery Channel called Deadliest Catch. Have any of you ever seen it? It’s a show that documents the most dangerous job on the planet: crab fishing. That may not sound that dangerous at first, but when you watch what these guys endure on the Bering Sea, it’s incredible.

There was one episode recently where this particular crew was fishing in the worst weather imaginable. Their boat, their gear, everything was coated in almost a foot of ice. Not only did this really make the deck dangerous because you could slip and fall into the ocean, the ice also added way too much weight to the boat. If they took on much more ice, the boat could capsize. So they had to quit fishing and dig out hammers, chisels, picks and whatever else they could get their hands on and start busting up this ice.

But the coolest part was that the captain left his heated cabin, bundled up, grabbed a hammer, and started breaking up the ice on the deck. And this crew that had been growing more and more hopeless was reenergized and they all jumped in to the clear the ice.

Now, think of how things would have been different had the captain just issued a directive from his cabin. Can you say mutiny? But instead, he chose to back up his words with his example. 

Dads, why would we expect anything different from our children? Why would we expect our kids to love the church if all they hear from us is criticism toward the church? Why would we expect our kids to love the Bible if they never see us open ours? Why would we expect our kids to have a relationship with God that is personal and intimate if all they see from us is church attendance? Why would we expect our kids to develop a character that is consistent when they see us act one way at church, and a different way at home?

Every father is an example to his son or daughter. It is inescapable. The question isn’t whether or not you are an example to your kids. They question is what kind of example will you be? Guys, the old cliché is still true: A child is not likely to see God as Father unless he sees God in his father. A real man of God is an example to his children

A real man of God has adventure in his DNA. There is something in guys that longs for action, for adventure. And it starts from early boyhood. I watch my two-year-old son at play, and I just don’t see fear. I see him trying to tackle greater and greater challenges, things that even put in him in danger of getting hurt, but Ryan just doesn’t know fear. He knows exploration and adventure.

Guys, when you were kids, what did you want to be when you grew up? I wanted to raise rodeo bulls. No joke. My friend and I decided that, when we grew up, we would move out west, buy a ranch, and raise the biggest, meanest, orneriest bucking bulls you’d ever seen. Was their danger in our venture? Sure, but hey, we’re men. We were all about adventure.

But here’s where our emasculating culture comes into play. We teach boys that this kind of aggressive, adventurous spirit is not something to be valued, it’s something to overcome.

And at times, it’s even worse in the church. We teach our children to be like Jesus, and the way we do it is we teach them to be nice. Jesus was nice, meek, and mild, so that’s what we teach our kids. And our boys hear our teaching, believe that Jesus was a wimp, and to follow him, they’ve got to become a wimp to. And what we end up doing to our boys is undercut the masculinity that God planted in them. And these lessons are remembered from boyhood into manhood.

R.C. Sproul Jr. said, “I’m not sure whether our men in the church wear skirts because we worship a god in a skirt, or whether we worship a skirt-wearing god because the men in the church are so weak.”

It’s time for us to revisit the life of Jesus. Was he just a nice guy? Was he meek and mild? Was he a god in a skirt? Not the Jesus of the Bible. Philip Yancey wrote, “How would telling people to be nice to one another get a man crucified? What government would execute Mister Rogers or Captain Kangaroo?”

There is a yearning for action and adventure in the heart of men. It was placed there by God. So why would we, as God’s church, squash that?

It’s time to teach our boys that faith in Christ is an adventure. If they see their faith as nothing more than church attendance, they will be bored. But if we teach them that true faith is an adventure, think of the possibilities.

Dads, this responsibility of the teaching falls, first and foremost, to you. Teach your kids of the adventure of following Jesus. What would that look like? For example, turn your next family vacation into a mission trip, maybe even to another country. That’s plugging adventure into faith. It will require prayer and it will stretch your creativity, but we can’t sit idly by while we raise another generation of nice, Christian boys. Our world doesn’t need more nice, Christian boys. It needs men who are adventurous, men who are risk-takers, revolutionaries, world-changers.

In his closing words in 1 Corinthians, Paul wrote, “Be on the alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong.” (1 Corinthians 16:13, NASB) It doesn’t sound like Paul is looking for wimpy, pansy men, does it? He’s looking for real men of God who have adventure hardwired into their DNA.

Lastly, letter “D.” A real man of God is devoted to what matters.

The book of Nehemiah in the Old Testament tells us how Nehemiah led the charge of rebuilding the walls around Jerusalem. He faced opposition from within and from outside forces. His people were growing weary and frustrated.

Nehemiah stepped up to the plate. Check this out from Nehemiah 4:   “After I had looked things over, I stood up and said to the nobles, the officials and the rest of the people, “Don’t be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons and your daughters, your wives and your homes.” (Nehemiah 4:14, NIV)

Nehemiah was calling the men of Israel to take a stand. To show their devotion to what mattered: their children, their wives, their homes. But this devotion would require them to fight.

A real man of God is devoted to what matters, and that devotion may mean he has to fight for what matters. Again, this calls for men of courage, risk-takers. Your family is worth fighting for. Your church is worth fighting for. Your character and integrity are worth fighting for.

Too many wimpy men give up on a marriage because it’s not perfect. They give up on their kids because pampering and spoiling them is easier than disciplining and correcting them. They give up on their church because there are problems. They give up on their character because it’s easier to follow the crowd than to stand alone.

A real man of God is devoted to what matters. He is willing to fight for what matters. A real man of God using Nehemiah’s words as the battle cry of his life.

“Don’t be afraid... Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons and your daughters, your wives and your homes.” (Nehemiah 4:14, NIV) A real man of God is fiercely and ferociously devoted to what matters.

Our Lord has some pretty definite ideas about real masculinity. For those of us who are men, and for those of us who are in the process of raising boys to become men, we cannot afford to forget these principles.

Guys, God is calling us out. He has called us to lead. And if you’re willing to answer his call, we invite you to demonstrate it by standing up. If you are today committing to lead by loving your wife, to lead by being an example to your children, to lead by being adventurous, to lead by ardent devotion to the things that matter, then we invite you to stand up. If you commit to living as a real man of God, we invite you to stand right where you are.

If you are seated around one of these men that is standing, would you grab their hands, place a hand on a shoulder, and pray for them?

PRAY

None of us will ever perfectly measure up to God’s standards. But remember that we haven’t been talking about real men. We’ve been talking about real men of God. To be a man or a woman of God, you need God’s grace above all else. When we fail or fall short, there is grace to carry us to another day. If you’ve never accepted this grace, we invite you to accept His free gift today.

Mike Edmisten