Episode Transcript
[00:00:10] Proverbs 28:1 is really going to be the passage for the day. So had Josh read the first 13 verses, because I think that they're. They're all applicable. I might reference them here and there. But Proverbs 28:1 is going to be the verse of the day. And we're just going to do what the Puritans used to do. We're going to ring it out for everything that it has.
[00:00:29] And I'm certain that I won't do all of that. So there's still gonna be so much more in it that we don't get to talk about today. But I just wanna read it one more time over you, and I want you to think about this. And again, this is today on masculinity. That means that if you're one of the men in the room, I'm talking specifically to you today. But for the sisters in the room, I really wanna encourage you to pay attention, as I'm going to encourage the men to pay attention next week when we talk about biblical femininity. Okay? So today the hope is the gospel is for everybody, okay? So the grace of God is for every. Everybody in the room. Okay. Should pay attention. I am gonna speak in some ways and in some of my application, as if the guys were at my house in the barn and we're kind of gathered up together and we're just having a conversation around these things, okay? So just know that before we go into it. But Proverbs 28:1 says this.
[00:01:22] It says, the wicked flee when no one pursues.
[00:01:28] The wicked flee when no one pursues.
[00:01:32] But the righteous are as bold as a lion.
[00:01:39] The righteous are as bold as a lion.
[00:01:43] I was invited to a conference many years ago, many, many years before we planted Redemption Hill.
[00:01:49] And the last speaker got up and he talked about legacy.
[00:01:54] And at the very end of his sermon, he kind of walked to the front of the stage and he addressed the men in the room in regards to legacy. And he kind of went through his life, and not just his life, but his dad's life and his granddad's life and his great granddad's life, et cetera. This kind of lineage of men who love Jesus passing on the gospel to their sons, to the. To their sons, to their sons. It was a really beautiful picture of what happens when God gets ahold of his man, gets ahold of a man, and that man grabs ahold of his legacy, and then he lives out that legacy by the grace of God, to his sons and his sons and his sons. It was amazing. And as I was listening to it, I had one, two thoughts. Number one, that's awesome. That's. As a man.
[00:02:43] And not to say that women don't have this. Men desire greatness.
[00:02:48] That desire for greatness in your heart is not accidental, and it's not a mistake, and it's not bad.
[00:02:55] We desire greatness now. We find it in all the wrong places, and we'll address that in a moment.
[00:03:02] But desiring greatness is something God's built within you and within me. So I'm listening to this, thinking, like, man, that sounds amazing. And then the second thought I had is, I. I didn't come from anything like that.
[00:03:16] So he talks about his legacy. And then he says, and let me speak to the other men in the room. And he says, some of you are here, and you're thinking, you know, my dad is a rambling man. Which is why I still say that to this day. My dad is a rambling man. I don't even know the man. I don't even know if he's alive.
[00:03:32] We got multiple siblings around the country that I've never met.
[00:03:35] It's just. And the story goes that he tried to push my mom down a flight of steps when he found out she was pregnant. And, like, just.
[00:03:43] I mean, so that I have. I asked Cindy to verify this.
[00:03:47] She's not in here this morning. Because not long ago, my grandmother was telling us stories about people in my family. I have literal murderers, rapists, and pedophiles in my family tree, okay? And at 21 years old, Jesus got ahold of my heart.
[00:04:07] I wasn't looking for him. I wasn't searching for him. I didn't want him. I didn't like Christians, and I didn't believe the Bible.
[00:04:15] And the God of the universe, for some crazy, mysterious reason, got ahold of my heart, and he made it alive. Like, I just. I started reading the Bible and thinking, like, oh, my gosh, I believe every word of this. People living to be 900 years old in the Old Testament. I believe it. I don't care if you don't believe it. I believe it. Like, I didn't talk myself into that. Like, God got ahold of me. And so as I was listening to this man talk about legacy, this is how he ended his sermon. Some of you grew up in lineages like this. Some of you grew up not like that. And so for you, Father's Day doesn't as much feel like a celebration as it does just a sad day that is a reality for Some in the room for a variety of reasons.
[00:05:01] Maybe dad wasn't around. Maybe he was around, but he was abusive. Maybe he wasn't abusive, but he just. He wasn't a helpful godly father. Maybe your dad was around and he is or was a godly father. Maybe your dad passed away. There are all sorts of things. Some of you in the room are dads, some of you are not, and some of you want to be dads. There's so many different circumstances in the room and so many different emotions and ways that you and I perceive a day like today. And so here's all I want to do today. Sydney asked me this. She was like, what do you want the men to walk away with? And I was like, that's a helpful framework for a question. I want you to be encouraged regardless of whether or not you're a father, regardless of whether or not you have a father or you have a good relationship with your father or you have a terrible relationship, whatever the case is, that you would be encouraged by your heavenly Father, that the fatherhood of God, the reality of the fatherhood of God, wouldn't just be an idea to you, but by a working of the person of the Holy Spirit doing something in you today over the next 35 minutes through Christ. If you're a believer in Christ, you would leave this place more attuned to the love of the Father for you.
[00:06:20] And so you'd be built up and you'd be encouraged, and for the men in the room, that you'd be more clear as to why you exist.
[00:06:29] Why are you here?
[00:06:30] Why am I here? Why are we here at this time, in this place, in this city, in this neighborhood, in this church, in your home? Why you?
[00:06:41] Well, we need clarity on that question.
[00:06:44] Because men without a clear mission do really stupid things.
[00:06:50] And part of that is because we were built for mission.
[00:06:53] You were built to do things. You were built for purpose. All of these things.
[00:06:57] We don't know what it is. We try to find it in all sorts of not good places. So I'm gonna come back to the question of legacy at the end. I do just want to quickly address this before we jump into the passage and kind of define what masculinity is and what it isn't.
[00:07:14] Let me give you my outline.
[00:07:16] What masculinity isn't, what it is, where we go wrong, apart from Christ as men and trying to find it.
[00:07:27] And then I want to give you with some gospel hope and practical application at the end. Okay?
[00:07:32] So before we get it, I do Just want to address this because I think that this will help kind of frame the reality of where we are as a culture. We live in a culture obsessed with longevity.
[00:07:42] So everybody now is talking about health, maxing and, you know, taking 15,000 supplements a day so that you can live to be 120.
[00:07:55] I'm like, dude, just from a rational, non Christian perspective, what are you gonna do from 100 to 120 other than wish you were dead?
[00:08:03] You're not gonna do anything. You're gonna sit in your house, all of your family's gone, all of your friends are gone. You're going to wish you were dead from 100 to 120. It's a dumb way to live your life.
[00:08:16] So that. But that we're obsessed with that. Live as long as you can. You know what's at the root of that? Self preservation. That is a brand new worldview.
[00:08:27] Men, and I'm speaking again.
[00:08:33] Did not have a dad telling me these things growing up. So I'm a part of the system, too, in many ways, by God's grace, being shepherded out of it by Jesus and godly men.
[00:08:45] You're not here to live as long as you can.
[00:08:48] You're not here to keep yourself as safe as you can.
[00:08:52] Okay, we model masculinity. I'll just give you the definition up front and talk about what it's not. Masculinity is Christian.
[00:09:01] That's masculinity.
[00:09:03] If you want to know what a man is, don't look at Andrew Tate. And don't look at people on the far left. Look at Jesus Christ. He's a man.
[00:09:13] There's no manlier man in the world than Jesus Christ. He is the definition, the embodiment of all that is masculine.
[00:09:21] He's strong.
[00:09:22] He's brave. He's self sacrificing. He's. He lives with purpose. He knows he's a son of the Father. He loves women. He loves children. He's gentle when he needs to be gentle. He rebukes when he needs to rebuke. That's what it means to be a man.
[00:09:38] Jesus.
[00:09:40] That's the embodiment of masculinity. So when Solomon In Proverbs 28 one is talking about this idea, he does it in the framework of the wicked and the righteous.
[00:09:53] The wicked and the righteous. There's a saying, and this is a quote from a fiction novel that says, and maybe you've heard it says, this says, hard times create strong men. Have you guys heard this?
[00:10:06] All right.
[00:10:07] Hard times create strong men.
[00:10:11] Strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create bad times.
[00:10:24] So I agree with that in many ways. I wanna reframe it just a little bit with more biblical language.
[00:10:35] Hard times create righteous men, righteous men create good times, good times create wicked men, and wicked men create hard times.
[00:10:53] This is the framework that Solomon paints for us in chapter 28, verse 1.
[00:10:59] The wicked and the righteous.
[00:11:03] This is how the world breaks down.
[00:11:06] And I don't have time to go into all of like the questions of. Are you telling me, Brad, that if I'm a non Christian I am just utterly wicked? That's not what we're talking about here. Okay, but what I want to talk about is how we think about true masculinity in light of these general categories and kind of what helps define these general categories. So first let's talk about what masculinity is not. Because that's where the verse starts.
[00:11:33] He says that the wicked flee when no one pursues.
[00:11:39] The wicked flee when no one pursues. This is a quote from Matthew Henry. And he says this he says before understanding. Sorry, he doesn't say that. I say that. He says, what continual frights those are subject to that go in wicked ways. And I want you to listen.
[00:12:00] Guilt in the conscience makes men a terrorist to themselves.
[00:12:08] So they're ready to flee when none pursue like one that absence for debt, who thinks everyone he meets a bailiff.
[00:12:22] Though they pretend to be easy on the outside, there are secret fears which haunt them wherever they go.
[00:12:30] So that they fear where no present or imminent danger is.
[00:12:35] Those that have made God their enemy and know it cannot but see the whole creation at war with them, and therefore can have no true enjoyment of themselves, no confidence, no courage, but a fearful looking for of judgment. Sin makes them cowards.
[00:12:57] This is what Solomon is saying.
[00:13:01] At the root of wickedness, the opposite of true masculinity is fear.
[00:13:12] And that fear predominantly, but not exclusively is a fear of judgment. Because they know in their hearts that they're estranged from God.
[00:13:25] So 30,000 foot, you exist to glorify God and enjoy him forever.
[00:13:32] It's a Westminster Shorter Catechism. It's true, the Bible testifies to this, you exist. I exist to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.
[00:13:45] Not in a dead, stale relationship with God, but in lively, warm, joy filled communion with God. That's why you exist.
[00:13:55] Your job is your job, your family is your family. And they're all important and holy things.
[00:14:02] But the grand purpose of your life is in whatever you do to Glorify God and to enjoy him forever. That's what Christ came to purchase through his life, death, resurrection, and ascension. Not just so that you go to heaven, but so that you and I live the entirety of our lives in communion with God, to glorify him in all that we do and to enjoy him forever.
[00:14:26] And so when we're not living out that purpose because we've been separated from the God by whom we're made and for whom we're made, then the entirety of our life is one of fear.
[00:14:40] We fear everything.
[00:14:44] And so I, you know, gosh. So I've heard multiple things that have come to the surface in, like, popular culture stuff over the last couple of weeks that talk to this, that are seeking to talk to this issue of masculinity.
[00:14:59] And so, again, you have those on the progressive side that want to villainize anything that hints at masculinity. And friends, that's wrong.
[00:15:08] It's wrong.
[00:15:10] It's unnatural to tell a boy not to be a boy and to tell a man not to be a man, it's wrong.
[00:15:19] So that's one side of the equation. And again, if you're here and you believe that or you're like, the gospel is for you, and I'll talk about that more at the end.
[00:15:30] The other side that we're seeing kind of play out before our eyes is wrong, too, which is this kind of like, weird, almost violent machoism thing.
[00:15:46] Again, machoism in and of itself is not the. It's not bad. That's not wrong. Bravado is not wrong. It's where you're finding your strength.
[00:15:54] And so you have one side saying masculinity. Anything involving masculinity or a man being a man, a boy being a boy, is toxic. Not true. You have the other side saying, you know, as many women as you can get, as much money as you can get, as much power as you can get, that's what it means to be a man.
[00:16:11] Not true.
[00:16:13] Who's writing the proverb?
[00:16:16] Solomon. He had all of that.
[00:16:19] And if you read the book of Ecclesiastes, at the end of his life, he's like, pleading with younger people to say, hey, listen, eat, drink and be merry. Enjoy your life.
[00:16:29] Don't find your fulfillment in it because it will not satisfy you. It's vanity.
[00:16:35] Does all this make sense?
[00:16:38] So both sides of the cultural perspective, we're swinging the pendulum, as we always do. We have no idea what the heck we're doing.
[00:16:46] We are really like sheep. The Bible's not Lying about that.
[00:16:52] Okay, we need guidance. We need clarity. We need revelation. We need the shepherd.
[00:16:57] We need the shepherd to show us what the right way is, what true masculinity is. And so if false masculinity is categorized or defined with wickedness, and wickedness is being estranged from God and therefore trying to find your purpose and your masculinity and all those things and all sorts of other things other than the one thing that you were made for, which is God himself, what does it then mean to embrace true masculinity? We'll look at the rest of the verse.
[00:17:33] The wicked flee when no one pursues but the righteous. And we're just going to stop before we get to what the righteous do and how they're characterized.
[00:17:43] Who are the righteous?
[00:17:45] What does that mean when we think about this word righteous in the Bible?
[00:17:52] Maybe some of you are under the impression that what this means is those who live a good, moral, upstanding life, the righteous.
[00:18:02] Wicked people do bad things. Righteous people do good things. This is generally how we naturally think about this question of who are the righteous? And here's why. It's like it couldn't be of greater importance, and this is for men and women.
[00:18:19] It couldn't be of greater importance for you and I to understand this word righteous. Because here's the thing, friends. Apart from it, you and I cannot know God.
[00:18:31] We cannot be in a relationship with God.
[00:18:35] If the greatest need you have and I have in life is to be reconciled to God, to be in a relationship with him. If that's the greatest need that you and I have, and it is, and it's not just a need, by the way, it's a want.
[00:18:48] He fulfills every need and want.
[00:18:51] If that's the greatest need, and you and I cannot be in his presence unless we are utterly righteous, then we have a deep problem.
[00:19:03] So who are the righteous?
[00:19:07] Psalm 14:3 says this of the world, Jew and Gentile. They have all turned aside and together they have become corrupt. There is none who does good.
[00:19:22] Not even one.
[00:19:25] That means churched people, unchurched people, Republicans, Democrats, white people, black people, everybody, everybody in the world. There is none who does good.
[00:19:37] Not even one. One.
[00:19:40] That's a. That you ever stop and think about what David is saying there and what Paul says? He echoes that in Romans, chapter three.
[00:19:48] Not even one.
[00:19:50] Not even Mother Teresa, not even Billy Graham, not even, you know, whoever your grandmother, whoever you deem as a saint. Not even one.
[00:20:01] Not even me. I haven't killed anybody.
[00:20:04] I haven't committed adultery. On my wife.
[00:20:08] Not even one. Friends, we can't measure. We have to stop measuring our morality in comparison to other human beings.
[00:20:19] Our morality must and can only be measured against the holy God of the universe.
[00:20:25] And when we measure our morality against him, we're ruined.
[00:20:34] I heard a friend recently talk about friends in his friend circle who have left the faith.
[00:20:40] And he said when he talks to them about Jesus, their response is, yeah, I believe in Jesus. And when I see Him, I'm going to tell him he's got a lot of explaining to do.
[00:20:51] I'm like, man, no, you're not.
[00:20:55] You're not going to say that.
[00:20:56] You say it now because you don't see him.
[00:21:00] You're not going to say it to his face.
[00:21:03] His holiness will ruin you.
[00:21:09] And it's true for all of us.
[00:21:12] There is none who does good. Not even one. When I give the invitation today, some of you need to repent of religion.
[00:21:22] You need to repent of living your life as if your good deeds are what make God love you.
[00:21:30] You need to lay it at the foot of the cross.
[00:21:33] There is none who does good.
[00:21:37] Not even one.
[00:21:39] So what in the world do we do? It's the wrong question.
[00:21:44] What do you do is the wrong question. Here's the right one. What has been done?
[00:21:51] What has been done for you? Brothers, if you want to be encouraged today, remember that question, not what must you do?
[00:21:59] What has been done?
[00:22:02] What you and I must do, as we'll talk about in a moment, flows from you believing again and again and again, what has been done?
[00:22:16] What has been done? Because Paul says in Romans 3:20, for by works of the law, no human being will be made righteous in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. So what has been done? 2nd Corinthians 5:21. Listen to it with fresh ears. Holy Spirit, help us believe this, for God made him.
[00:22:36] Jesus, who knew no sin, made like you and me, in every conceivable way but one. But without sin.
[00:22:47] The Son of God took on human flesh, sent by God the Father in love. God the Father does not love you because of God the Son. God the Son is sent by God the Father because God the Father loves you. He loves you so much, he sent the most precious thing conceivable, His Son and his Son took on human flesh. And he lived as the righteous man, bold as a lion.
[00:23:12] The lion of the tribe of Judah is who Jesus is.
[00:23:19] He made him who knew no sin to be sin.
[00:23:25] In one moment, the righteous one was punished as if he were the Wicked one.
[00:23:35] Inconceivable.
[00:23:39] He made him who knew no sin to be sin. Why did he do it? Who did he do it for? On our behalf.
[00:23:48] On your behalf.
[00:23:51] The cross is for you.
[00:23:53] It's not a general concept out there in the netherworld of seminary life. The cross is for you.
[00:24:01] The one who knew no sin became sin on your behalf.
[00:24:07] Why?
[00:24:09] So that in him, through faith in him, not through your works. Through faith in him, you and I, brothers and sisters, might become the righteousness of God.
[00:24:22] Who are the righteous?
[00:24:26] The righteous, according to the Bible, are those who are in Christ.
[00:24:32] That's the righteous.
[00:24:35] Those who are no longer estranged from God.
[00:24:38] But those who have been reconciled to God by grace, through faith in Jesus. Not according to what you do.
[00:24:50] It's not about what you do primarily. And if you and I want to really lean into what we are to do and how we are to live.
[00:24:58] Bold as a lion.
[00:25:01] Then we have to stop thinking so much about that and start remembering what has been done.
[00:25:09] He made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf. So that in him, you and I might become the righteousness of God. The righteousness is not something for the Christian that you grow into. It's not something that's cultivated over the course of your life. In a positional sense.
[00:25:26] It is forever given to you as a gift by God through faith in Jesus. And it is meant to be received, friends. Have you received it?
[00:25:38] Have you received the gift of eternal life through Jesus alone?
[00:25:44] And in so doing, the righteousness of God himself is accredited to you once for all time.
[00:25:51] You are forever righteous in Christ, man. That's really good news. Is that good news to you? Praise God. It's awesome. That's awesome news. You are forever accredited. The righteousness of God in Christ. That's wonderful news.
[00:26:07] So that's who the righteous. That's who the righteous are. But look at the remainder of the verse. What do the righteous do? How are they characterized?
[00:26:16] They are as bold as a lion.
[00:26:19] The wicked flee when no one perishes.
[00:26:23] The wicked are driven by fear because at the very root of their existence they know that they are guilty before God.
[00:26:32] And so everything terrifies them.
[00:26:35] The righteous know that their guilt has been taken away once for all at the cross.
[00:26:41] That their conscience has been cleared and cleansed. That they've been reconciled to God. That they're sons and daughters of God in Christ. The very righteousness of Christ. That's who the righteous are. And the righteous, friends, are bold as a lion.
[00:26:58] Bold as a lion.
[00:27:02] What does that look like. What does it look like to be bold as a lion? I think one of the most clear examples and Hebrews 11, honestly, I thought about, like, which direction to take the answer to this question for us.
[00:27:14] But I think one of the most clear examples is 1st Samuel 17 is David and Goliath.
[00:27:18] I would encourage you because I'm kind of in a season of doing this with the Old Testament.
[00:27:23] Is man not allowing yourself to believe that the men and women in the Old Testament, or in the New for that matter, but especially the Old, are. Are two dimensional, allegorical, non people.
[00:27:38] Okay, so we think about David and Goliath and for those of us who are reformed in the group today, we're like, David and Goliath is about Jesus defeating sin. It is about that. Ultimately it's about that. But it also really happened. You ever think about that?
[00:27:52] Like Goliath was a real human or whatever. He was Nephilim, whatever, whatever you believe about that.
[00:27:58] Like Goliath was real, David was real. And David as a little boy really went to his king, King Saul, and said, I'll fight him.
[00:28:11] That is like. That's amazing, isn't it?
[00:28:14] That's amazing.
[00:28:18] 1st Samuel 17:32, David said to Saul, let the men's heart let. I'm sorry. Let no man's heart fail because of him.
[00:28:27] Listen to how bold David is. He wouldn't even call him by name.
[00:28:31] Let no man's heart fail because of him. Your servant will go and fight the Philistine that. It gives me chills. That's amazing.
[00:28:43] Bold as a lion.
[00:28:48] That's why David can say in Psalm 23:4, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, which. Which he literally was in that moment, I will fear no evil. Why? What is it that makes a man bold other than remembering that he is the righteousness of God in Christ for those who are followers of Jesus, what makes a man bold? David says, you're with me.
[00:29:14] You're with me.
[00:29:16] Not only am I no longer estranged from God, but now God is my Father and he's with me.
[00:29:24] He's with me in everything.
[00:29:27] It is amazing to try to put yourself in the mind of David in that moment as he's looking up at the giant. And the giant seemed. He seemed to seem small to David.
[00:29:39] He had such a massive picture of God in his mind that he had believed in his heart that he was like that guy, like, let no man's heart fail. That's a little boy talking to men, talking to his king. I'LL fight him.
[00:29:57] Bold as a lion. That's the strength of the Lord. That's not some kind of faux Internet masculinity thing.
[00:30:06] That is a little boy, probably not very muscular, looking upon an impossible situation and knowing in his heart because he knew who God was and he knew the faithfulness of God. God's going to bring me through this.
[00:30:20] Bold as a lion.
[00:30:23] But man, while David provides an example for you and I, brothers, his faith provides an example to us on what it looks like to be bold as a lion. David wasn't a perfect king, made lots of mistakes, lots of terrible choices. Someone greater than David is here.
[00:30:43] A greater king is here.
[00:30:45] A perfect king is here.
[00:30:47] That king that I just articulated to you a few minutes ago, who laid down his life for you, he's the one who's with you.
[00:30:56] What do you have to be afraid of?
[00:30:58] What do I have to be afraid of? It's not to say that we won't struggle with fear. We will. We will struggle with fear. I struggle with fear.
[00:31:07] But like David, we too can be bold as a lion. Because the God whom we were once accountable to, who we're still accountable to, but who we were once guilty under, the condemnation of his wrath because of our sin, has taken our sin away.
[00:31:22] He's forgiven us of all iniquity. He's clothed us in his righteousness. He is now your father, and he is on your side.
[00:31:29] He's with you always, even.
[00:31:33] Even to the end of the age.
[00:31:39] So I want to just conclude for a few minutes talking about kind of the how.
[00:31:46] How do you and I, as followers of Christ, specifically those who are men. But again, a lot of this applies to everybody in the room who is a follower of Jesus.
[00:31:55] How do we grow into our masculinity, that is by.
[00:32:00] By the working of the Holy Spirit, we become more and more like Jesus. That's the simplest definition I can give you that you and I would become more and more and more like Jesus and all of who we are.
[00:32:14] How do we. How do we do this? I want to give you five things, and then I'll give us an invitation and we'll. We'll pray.
[00:32:22] Number one is we pray.
[00:32:26] We pray.
[00:32:30] Righteous men, holy men, men who have been redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ, who are filled with the spirit of God, are to be men who pray.
[00:32:39] And prayer does many things.
[00:32:43] Number one, John Calvin would say this, and I agree with this, because you don't. He's just. You don't want to typically disagree with him on Many things. But he said that prayer is one of the greatest acts of faith.
[00:32:57] A prayerless life is a functionally atheistic life.
[00:33:03] So you can know all of the theology in the world and get all the seminary degrees in the world and be in ministry and do all sorts of things and live like a functional atheist, even though cognitively you don't agree with atheism.
[00:33:18] And the reverse of that is true, that one of the greatest acts of faith a Christian can do is to put himself in his closet, get on his knees and pray.
[00:33:27] Prayer both ignites our hearts and grows conviction. Where we need conviction and we as men need conviction by the grace of God, we need to get angry over things that we ought to get angry about.
[00:33:43] Anger in and of itself is not bad. It's an emotion. God feels that emotion. God gave you that emotion.
[00:33:48] Misplaced anger, misguided anger. Anger that's predominantly about you and your little kingdom is bad.
[00:33:57] But anger that's fueled by the kingdom of God and His righteousness is good.
[00:34:02] When children get abused, it should make you really angry.
[00:34:06] When women get abused, it should make you really angry.
[00:34:09] When politicians manipulate and do different things to control the masses and gain more power and they do it, that should make you angry.
[00:34:20] Pray for them, because the Bible tells us to do that. But all of those things ought to make you and I angry. Our sin, our indwelling sin, ought to make us in some level angry.
[00:34:34] Not in a self loathing, self deprecating way, but we ought to hate sin.
[00:34:41] Prayer is a means by which conviction in our hearts is cultivated. It's where the little flicker of flame that exists in your heart and in mine grows, is in the closet of prayer.
[00:34:55] And humility grows in the closet of prayer. Because in praying we're doing something fundamentally dependent.
[00:35:02] We're reminding ourselves that the whole world doesn't rest on our shoulders, that we can't save anybody, that all of the things that we want to see happen in life are only going to come by us abiding in Jesus and through his hand, not ours, in terms of the things that we can't control and the things that only he can. So men are to pray. Paul tells Timothy that men are to pray in the church, lifting holy hands. I would love to see more of that with you brothers when we sing lift your hands.
[00:35:32] There's nothing super spiritual about that.
[00:35:35] But man, what a wonderful example you would be to our women and children if you lifted your hands while we sang to Jesus.
[00:35:41] If Jesus stood on the stage. It's not a rebuke it's an encouragement. If Jesus stood on the stage as the risen king, you would lift your hands.
[00:35:52] Lift your hands.
[00:35:54] Pray with lifted hands. Lead, lead your wives for those who are married and your kids for those who have kids.
[00:36:02] Model for them what it looks like to worship the risen Jesus.
[00:36:06] Pray with lifted hands.
[00:36:10] The second. So that's men who pray. That's one of the ways that we cultivate being bold as a lion living. I didn't mention this in my sermon. So righteousness is positional and it's experiential.
[00:36:23] It's positional in that your union with God will never change because of what Christ has accomplished on your behalf through his life, death and resurrection. When you blow it, you're still his. He still loves you when you do great, you're still his and he still loves you. Your union doesn't change your communion with God. However, that experiential relationship that you carry on a day by day basis and that I carry on a day by day basis does do this, oftentimes on the basis of a variety of things. Does this make sense?
[00:36:53] And so righteousness is something imputed to you. It's also something that you and I grow in. We grow in holiness. This is what the Bible calls sanctification.
[00:37:03] So prayer is one of the means by which we grow in holiness by God's grace. Number two is men ought to read.
[00:37:13] You ought to read man guilty too much. YouTube.
[00:37:18] It is a colossal waste of time.
[00:37:20] It is such a waste of time. It's so dumb, isn't it?
[00:37:27] You don't typically watch good things on YouTube. I'm not talking about overtly sinful things. I'm just talking about really dumb things.
[00:37:35] And I'm not saying don't have leisure time and recreation and do fun things like we should do all of those kinds of things.
[00:37:45] But men ought to read. And I could go on a diatribe of different things I think you ought to read, but start with read the Bible.
[00:37:56] We have to be men of the word. Spurgeon would say he would look at a torn up Bible. Maybe you've heard this.
[00:38:01] This one's not bad. Example. He would look at a torn up Bible and he would say, any Bible that's torn up belongs to a man whose life isn't time in it. Visit many books. Many, many good books live in the Bible.
[00:38:18] So brothers, if you are in Christ, if you're a Christian, you ought to read your Bible and keep your mind focused on the beauty of what happens when you do it. I'M not saying just go read your Bible so you can check off a checklist. That's such a cheap way that we talk. I don't have to read my Bible. That's such a bad way to think about this, and you know it.
[00:38:39] We read our Bible so that by the grace of God, we would look more and more like the man Described in Psalm 1. A tree planted in streams of water, that the winds and the waves and the storms come. And by the grace of God, man, we are stable.
[00:38:54] You read the Bible for the benefit of your wife and kids.
[00:38:58] You read the Bible for the benefit of the people in this church.
[00:39:01] That's why you're in the Word. It's not just about you.
[00:39:06] We grow in holiness because the people in our life that are dependent on us benefit from that.
[00:39:14] And so men pray.
[00:39:16] Men read.
[00:39:18] The third thing is men ought to evangelize.
[00:39:24] Men ought to evangelize, brothers. I mean, and again, there are few things more joy filled than sharing the gospel with somebody, regardless of how they respond to it.
[00:39:37] If they cuss you out, if they walk away, if they're like, I don't think we can hang out anymore, whatever, whatever the scenario is that you and I fear, that keeps us from doing it. When you actually do it, even if you stumble through it, you know you're jazzed because that's what you ought to be doing.
[00:39:55] And when you pray and when you read, then you and I are going to be much more prone to share.
[00:40:02] Paul again tells Timothy, do the work of an evangelist. This is for every Christian. This is not just for pastors. Do the work of an evangelist.
[00:40:16] Regenerate Men do not shoot up schools.
[00:40:23] Men who have been born, who have been born again by the Spirit through faith in Jesus, they don't do stuff like that.
[00:40:33] So, man, if you and I, by the grace of God, want to see less and less of that, one thing we can do in addition to pray is evangelize.
[00:40:43] Share the gospel with somebody. Find a young man, share the gospel with him. Invest into him. We'll get into more of that in just a moment. I'm gonna go over time today, guys. So evangelize.
[00:40:56] Evangelize. Regenerate. Men don't shoot up schools. Regenerate. Men don't rape women. Regenerate. Men don't abuse their kids.
[00:41:04] Regenerate. Men are not perfect men.
[00:41:08] But legislation in and of itself will be insufficient to fix the problems that you and I see.
[00:41:14] Not saying it's irrelevant. It's insufficient.
[00:41:18] Men need to be evangelized. And the reason I'm specifying men is because it is a disproportionate amount of men who are doing these things.
[00:41:28] They're lost.
[00:41:31] Not a justification for their sin. They're lost.
[00:41:34] They have no idea what the heck they're doing.
[00:41:36] Just like you and I didn't before the good shepherd came and snatched us out of the kingdom of darkness.
[00:41:42] So let's extend the wealth.
[00:41:45] Tell people what they must do to be saved.
[00:41:48] Call them to repent of their sins and to believe upon Jesus. Evangelize.
[00:41:53] Read, pray, evangelize. The fourth is men invest into the next generation.
[00:42:01] Righteous men who have been redeemed by grace are to invest into the next generation. And I want to kind of speak to two things. Number one, the cultural lie that says children are a burden and not a blessing is damnable.
[00:42:24] I mean, two weeks ago, I heard a really famous actor jokingly, lightheartedly, talking on a talk show about he and his wife are never going to have kids because their life is better without them. That's a lie.
[00:42:40] That's a lie. It's not true.
[00:42:44] Children are a blessing.
[00:42:46] They're not a burden.
[00:42:49] The word of God says that.
[00:42:53] Stop caring so much, friends, about what the world thinks, and recognize that you and I swim in an ocean of worldview that we need to get out of. In many ways, children are a blessing, not a burden. If you are a father in the room, what you are doing has more value than you could ever fully comprehend.
[00:43:17] I grew up without a dad.
[00:43:19] I wasn't fathered really until my father in law came into my life, taught me how to hunt, taught me how to fish, taught me how to grill. I'm not, you know, and more importantly than all those things, he taught me how to follow Jesus as a man, how to love my wife, how to love my kids.
[00:43:43] Like the epidemic in our society is fatherlessness.
[00:43:47] That's in many ways the problem.
[00:43:52] And how in the world are we ever gonna grow and see that change if we don't understand what masculinity is, if we can't define it?
[00:44:03] And so Fathers, and I am, I told Austin Wilkie this this morning. I'm, like, consistently blown away by the fathers in our church. You encourage me. You challenge me, you teach me.
[00:44:14] I'm just.
[00:44:16] Couldn't be a better group of men in the world than what we have at Redemption Hill. And it's not just the fathers, it's the men of Redemption Hill.
[00:44:25] So what you're doing, not only is it not meaningless, it's holy.
[00:44:28] It's a holy thing that you're doing for the men in our church who are not yet fathers but who desire to be.
[00:44:37] I'm sorry.
[00:44:39] Jesus loves you.
[00:44:42] Your worth is not found in being a father.
[00:44:46] As wonderful as it is to be a father, what's even better than that is your status as a son.
[00:44:53] Jesus says, rejoice not in the miracles that you see, but that your name is written in heaven.
[00:45:01] Brother sister, your name in Christ is written in heaven. There's nothing better than that.
[00:45:08] I have five kids. I love them. They bring a lot of joy to my life.
[00:45:12] They have never once, not one time, met the deepest need of my soul.
[00:45:17] Only Jesus has.
[00:45:22] And so if that's you and you don't yet have children, or you don't have children, whatever the circumstance is surrounding that, invest into the next generation here.
[00:45:32] We need you.
[00:45:34] The kids of RHC, there are 40 of them need you.
[00:45:40] I don't want to be the only male masculine voice in my kid's life.
[00:45:45] I want there to be lots of godly masculine voices in my kid's life. And many of you do that every week.
[00:45:52] Keep doing that. Invest into the next generation. If you don't have somebody to disciple, get in on the game. Brothers, we need you. We need you in the kids ministry.
[00:46:01] We need you.
[00:46:03] That is, right now, our next generation ministry is the kids ministry. We need you.
[00:46:08] If you're godly, if you love Jesus, if you love the Word, if you're filled with the Spirit, we need you.
[00:46:15] Invest to the glory of God.
[00:46:21] The final is.
[00:46:24] I'm sorry, I've got two more.
[00:46:27] The next one is men who repent.
[00:46:33] Men who repent. Solomon says in verse 13, chapter 28, whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.
[00:46:47] So the promise is mercy, the mercy of God, not condemnation.
[00:46:51] The invitation is to not only confess, but to forsake.
[00:46:57] Brothers, some of you are coddling your sin.
[00:47:03] You're coddling it.
[00:47:08] You're not getting serious enough about it.
[00:47:12] And it could be a host of things for a decade or so. Maybe not a decade, but close to a decade of my marriage, I was coddling fits of rage by calling it a temper.
[00:47:27] The Holcomb temper is what we used to say. It's not a temper, it's fits of rage.
[00:47:34] And it needed to be put to death.
[00:47:38] It was already put to death over 2000 years ago on the cross of Christ. And by the power of the Spirit, it needed to be confessed. And forsaken and so I want to encourage you today, brothers, if this is you, if there's something in your life and you know what it is, if there's something in your life that. That you've been confessing but you haven't been forsaking, please, for the love of all things good, make today the day.
[00:48:06] Hear what Theo Vaughn said? Not many weeks ago, not a Christian said, Jesus talks about the blind man, who says. Jesus says, what do you want me to do for you? And the blind man says, I want to see. And Theo's kind of. He's kind of working out his own thoughts, and he's like, I hear that, but I don't know if I want to let go of my sin.
[00:48:27] That's honest, man. That's more honest than we are most of the time.
[00:48:32] It's tragic because Christ welcomes the sinner, forgives, redeems, restores, cleanses, offers a better life than whatever that thing is. And, hey, listen, I know it's scary. There are things in my life I simply, whether it be sin or something that just distracts me from the Lord. Things in my life that I know I ought to give up, but I'm afraid to because I'm afraid if I let go of that thing, I'm not going to have a safety net anymore. Like my daughter's blankie.
[00:49:03] She just. She screams for it when she's anxious, and as soon as I give it to her, she starts sucking her thumb.
[00:49:10] It calms her.
[00:49:12] Man. There are a lot of things in our life, brothers, that do that for us that are much more devastating than a blankie.
[00:49:21] Could be alcohol.
[00:49:23] Could be anger. Could be pornography.
[00:49:26] Could be a host of things.
[00:49:29] If you know what that thing is. I'm not telling you to sin hunt yourself. But if the spirit of God reveals something specific to you, would you both confess it today at the altar?
[00:49:39] And would you ask the spirit of God to help you forsake it with the help of other brothers in your life?
[00:49:46] Righteous men, men who belong to Jesus, repent. They are repenters.
[00:49:52] And then the final thing is, righteous men, godly men, love.
[00:49:59] We love. What is all of this stuff without love?
[00:50:03] Noisy gong.
[00:50:05] Clinging symbol.
[00:50:08] Meaningless.
[00:50:11] Why do you exist?
[00:50:14] You exist. You've been redeemed by Jesus. To love the Lord your God, with all of your heart, mind, soul and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself. That is your North Star in life.
[00:50:26] And that begins with the people closest to you.
[00:50:31] So, brothers, what sort of legacy do you want to leave?
[00:50:36] I just want you to think about it, how do you want to be remembered?
[00:50:41] What sort of legacy do you want to leave? Because the invitation to leave behind a legacy that makes much of Jesus is available to you.
[00:50:50] You haven't out sent it.
[00:50:52] You're not disqualified from it.
[00:50:55] The invitation is available to you.
[00:50:57] Let's pray.
[00:51:03] Father, we love you. We thank you for.
[00:51:05] We thank you for Christ, God, thank you that our hope is found in Jesus. That our hope is not found in what we do, it's not found in what we accomplish. Those are good things. But God, I thank you that our identity, our purpose in life, our hope is found in Christ. Thank you for the men of Redemption Hill.
[00:51:25] Thank you for their life. Thank you for their salvation. For those who know you, for those who don't. God, I pray that today you'd make that clear to them, that by a working of the Spirit, they would put their faith and trust in Jesus, the righteous one and God. I pray for those of us who do that. You'd remind us of all that you've accomplished on our behalf. And by the power of the Spirit, you would help us grow and become more like Jesus in all of life.
[00:51:52] To be imitators of God as beloved children. For the good of those in our life, for the good of our community, for the good of our church, for the good of our city and to the glory of your name. We love you. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.
