How To Be Biblical Men In A Broken World | Kingsmen

Welcome to the Kingsmen podcast, where we are reclaiming biblical manhood by training and equipping men for the work of the kingdom. That is a word we're gonna be using a lot, kingdom, which is part of the name, Kingsmen.

What we're gonna try and cover over the next few weeks is an introduction to biblical manhood, and guys, let me just put it to you this way. Most people, most men, have lost their purpose, and the world is giving it to them.

A Biblical Assessment of Manhood and the Broken World

And so what we're gonna use is the Word of God to give us a right assessment of who we are, our circumstances, our future, what promises are there in relationship to our king and his kingdom. So that's how we're gonna identify being a man.

It's being a man as a citizen of the king, as an adopted child. We're gonna get into all of that over the next few weeks. So for the next few minutes, today we're gonna cover a subject that, it's gonna sound a little harsh in the beginnings, just bear with me.

I'm not stepping on your toes on purpose, but I do need you to have a proper expectation of your situation. Otherwise, you're gonna keep making the same mistakes, and I don't want to see you make the same mistakes, the mistakes I have made, alright?

So when you sit down, and if you're any, if you're like any other person that's a problem solver, which I'm a problem solver, you have to understand what's the problem. Have you guys ever been in a conversation with somebody and you're trying to describe to them what the issue is like at a doctor's office, and before you're even done, they're already handing you a solution which you know is not the correct solution?

It just, it's agitating, right? It's like, no, you didn't even hear all my symptoms yet. You're giving me cough syrup, but I'm telling you, I've got like a knife protruding out of my back, okay? I'm coughing because I have a knife in my back.

That's really frustrating. Well, we do the same thing, where we don't properly assess our situation in our world, and we start clamoring for solutions that the world offers us, and it seems to work for a moment, right?

There's a little bit of aspirin, and that cough syrup, and so it makes the pain go away, therefore that was the solution. So let's start talking about the first thing a man that is engaging in God's Word, a biblical man, is a man who has to admit its current situation, and guys, we don't like to admit this, but we are weak, and able, and out of control, even though we want to present ourselves as the exact opposite.

And so we're gonna use the Word of God this morning, or whatever it is, time of the day you're listening to this, I recorded it in the morning. First of all, we're gonna talk about the world is broken.

That is not something we like to embrace, and the other issue is it's broken, and it's not our job to fix it, even though we have been told so many times, this is how to fix a brokenness, you can't. And the reason is, it's not broken because people are lazy, and they need to just try harder.

It's not intensity that's the issue, it's not intentionality, it's the current circumstance we find ourselves in. So this is Romans chapter 8, let me read you Paul's assessment. So Paul, who we would definitely embrace to be a biblical man, here's the assessment he gives us in understanding the surroundings we live in.

Here's Romans 8 20, for the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it. So he's talking about the fall, right? So since Adam and Eve and the garden fell, he goes, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption, and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

So Paul describes our current world in bondage, and you need to pay attention to this next verse, because he doesn't describe it in bondage because we haven't tried hard enough. Listen how he describes it.

For we know that the whole world, or the whole creation, has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now, and not only the creation, but we ourselves, with the firstfruits of the Spirit grown inwardly, as we wait eagerly for the adoptions of son, the redemption of our bodies.

So he's saying we're waiting for something to happen to us that we are not in control of, which is Christ redeeming our bodies, which then he also redeems the world. So we aren't going to fix the curse, or as the way he describes it here, is the way in the world that it's bondage to this sense of destruction.

And there's no way for, let me just put it this way, as a pastor, and as a friend, I've sat down with guys, and at times when I listen to them, it's like they're the only ones who have ever had real problems in life.

And they gave me all these excuses and examples as to why their situation is different than anybody else's situation. I'm like, do you believe you're the only one on the planet that has ever had a problem?

You're the only one who's ever stubbed your toe? And listen, I want to be sympathetic to you, and I want you to hear that I understand your pain, but there has to be a moment where you step back and go, the world isn't against you in the way in which you think.

It's not you against the world, and it's not that you got handed something that no one else got handed, and that you're at a disadvantage where no one else is at this disadvantage. Everybody's story is different, everybody's journey is different, but that's because we live in a world that doesn't play on an even playing field, gentlemen.

It is true. There are people who have better opportunities based upon their height and agility and jumping powers. They're gonna go make millions playing basketball. Some of us, we did not have that capacity.

We were not all born the same height with the same capacities. Not only that, many of us were born with frailties, and our bodies don't function the way they should. So what happens, though, is that the world describes itself as strength and power, and all it is is mind over matter.

I mean, I can't tell you how many times I've heard songs where people say that, you know, whatever you put your mind to, you can go get it done. Well, that's just not true. There's limitations to this world, and we have to be able to embrace those limitations.

I think theologically, this is what Paul is trying to help you understand, is that if you're feeling like it's off, like the world is off and your life is off, it's because it is. In other words, every single human being admits the world is not what it could be or should be.

That's the innate reality that we exist, that there is a God, and God created the world, and the world is not how it was originally designed. Like, we can feel it in our bones. We feel it in our nature that it should be different.

Suffering, Weakness, and the Power of Christ

So living a life that embraces that is, I think, extremely important, and this is how Peter describes it, that suffering really is not only physically, but spiritual suffering becomes par for the course.

It's a way in which we learn to embrace it versus trying to beat it. Listen to this. This is 1 Peter 4 verse 12. Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trials when it comes upon you to test you as though something strange were happening to you.

I love how Peter says this. He's saying, when you are suffering for your faith, that's not a strange thing. Don't be shocked by that. Guys, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna poke the bear here. We're gonna deal with this later, but everybody is acting so shocked that America is losing its religious way, and it's attacking Christianity, and all of those Americans are running, Christian Americans are running around shocked by it.

Peter says, why are you shocked? That's how this world works. There's no such thing as a Christian nation. There might be Christians that live in a nation, and at one point there might have been a lot of them, but there's a difference between God who is running a nation and versus God who's saving people in the nation.

So I love this when Peter says, don't think it's strange when it's happening, but rejoice in as far as you share in Christ's sufferings that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.

Now listen, there's a second side of our suffering we shouldn't be involved in. He says this, if you're insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed because of the Spirit of God, of the glory of God rests upon you, but let none of your suffering as a murder, or thief, or an evildoer, or as a meddler, yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name.

Meaning that, gentlemen, you're gonna suffer because you live in a broken world, and you're gonna suffer because you're gonna stand up for Christ. He says, don't make it worse for yourself because you're suffering for doing sinful things, which we're gonna get into here in a moment.

What I'm trying to argue for, guys, is this. We're living in an upside-down world where what's being described here is that weakness is strength. That is just not how we are being trained today. We make fun of weakness.

Why do kids who are weak and different and little get made fun of at school? It's because there's an innate side of us where we love to feel the strength by dominating over weakness, and so for Christians to step back and admit, especially men, that we're not as strong as we think we are mentally, physically, and spiritually, we're afraid we're gonna get stepped on.

There was a father I was talking to recently, and his son got called by the school because his son was bullying. Well, as he was thinking through and talking with his son and realizing this was very strange for his demeanor, and I know this kid.

Very strange. It is very strange. He's just not that kind of kid. What he realized is if he joined the bullies at bullying other kids, then he wasn't the one getting bullied, right? It's part of this nature where we just don't want to be the weak one, and so we'll even pretend or do something unethical so that we can be a part of that strength.

Listen to how Paul describes this as he's wrestling with his own weakness. This is 2 Corinthians 12, verse 8. He says this, three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, and he's talking about this frailty, this struggle that he was having, that it should leave me.

But he said to me, my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. So Paul, I think he was talking about some kind of a physical weakness, something that was hurting him, and even not only spiritual weakness, but even physical weakness.

Jesus steps in and says, even in your physical weakness, you're gonna trust me, and you're gonna trust my gospel. So he says, therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weakness, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

For the sake of Christ, then I am confident, I'm sorry, I am content with weakness, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. So not only spiritual weakness, which he's talked about in Romans chapter 8, spiritual persecution in 1 Peter chapter 4, but now in 2 Corinthians chapter 12, he's talking about your physical.

So there are guys who are gonna listen to this podcast, you're bound to a wheelchair, you have cancer, you have some kind of ailment that prevents you from being able to exert or work out, and at times you can start to feel less than a man, right?

Like I can't even take the groceries in from my wife, or I don't have the energy, whatever it is, and you start to feel like you're useless, and it's meaningless. According to Paul, he says, no, no, you just trust in the power of Christ.

This is where God has you, he has you there for a reason, and you trust in that, and you believe in that. And then suffering, I think, brings strength in the kingdom, because what we end up not doing, gentlemen, this is part of taking it and learning what biblical manhood is, and how to apply it in the purpose of your life.

What weakness does is it gets your eyes off of you, and off your circumstances, in your situation, to where you're always trying to fix your current situation, which, first of all, you can't, it's under a curse.

Secondly, you can't change the way you were born, and if it's a makeup of how you were made, you're not gonna change that. But that becomes, we want to change it because everybody else is looking at us.

I want you to hear this, this is Paul describing for us what the purpose of our life is, in light of our suffering, and in light of the kingdom. He says this in Romans chapter 5 and verse 1,. Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord, Savior Jesus Christ.

Through him, we have also obtained access to faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in the hope of the glory. Not only that, but we rejoice in our suffering, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope.

Stop for a moment. What produced endurance? It wasn't your workout plan. It wasn't your spiritual workout plan, right? It wasn't the intensity that you decided to add to your life. He's saying endurance came by you enduring what?

Suffering. Suffering, God exposing your weakness, because what is suffering? Like, listen, if I have a splinter in my finger and I have the capacity to pull it out, I'm no longer suffering, right? But if I don't have the capacity to pull that out, which means that I am suffering something that's outside of my control.

This is what he's saying. God has sovereignly, through the purpose of this world, allowed you to endure suffering that you would experience endurance in what? What are you enduring in? Endurance in faith in Christ's power and not yours.

Suffering causes you to take your eyes off of you and saying, okay, I don't have the capacity to overcome this. I don't have the capacity to change this. Who must I trust? Because I want you to pay close attention, and I'm gonna poke the bear in another, poke the eye, the other eye in the bear, however you want to use that illustration.

It isn't a required, it isn't necessarily that Paul says he needed to pray more and have more faith and God would remove the weakness, whatever his eyesight issue was. Boy, you hear that, right? You just need to discipline yourself more, you need to pray more, have more faith, whatever it is that you want to put that's in there, this prosperity gospel chunk.

No. He says that God is using my weakness to make me endurance, have endurance in my faith. So a moment you find yourself in a situation where you can't change it, and he says actually you can rejoice knowing God's going to use that to make you strong.

Not in you, but in Christ. I think this is why Paul has to say, kind of bringing this down to the end, gentlemen, that when he's proclaiming this kind of a message to the world, he says this at the beginning of his letter to the Romans.

He has to state this because it kind of makes sense now. He says, Romans 116, for I am not ashamed of the gospel. Now why would you say that? Most people would see the gospel as good news, right, as something that most Americans would, depending on their version of it.

But when you think about what the gospel is, it's good news to sinners, to people who are weak and broken, to people who realize they absolutely cannot present any part of their being before God, and God would think it be, would accept it, right?

So he's saying the gospel is for the people who are broken. He goes on to even say this, God didn't choose the things that were strong. That's not what he chose. He chose the things that were not, the things that were weak, the things that people despised.

He even said to Israel, the reason I chose you, because you were the smallest of the nations, not the most powerful. And my power will be made declared known in your nation because of who I am. So as we think through this, gentlemen, there are times where you have to embrace, if Paul is saying, I'm not ashamed of the gospel, that means there are people who are ashamed of it, and typically the world is.

Because what is the gospel for? The gospel is for the weak, the broken, the frail, those who are trapped in sin, who cannot present before God anything of value. That to us is good news. To the world, they don't want to hear that.

What they want to hear is, are you weak? Are you frail? Are you spiritually lacking? Here's how to improve yourself. Self-improvement. And this, this is not the way of our King, and this is not biblical manhood.

So first step in biblical manhood, gentlemen, is to actually embrace and believe that you are in a broken world that will not be fixed until it returns, that you are far more weak than you care to admit, and the moment you embrace your weakness, the gospel becomes that much more sweet.

That much more sweet. It's okay for us, as Paul says, I boast in my weakness. Gentlemen, we do not boast in our weakness. You get a bunch of guys around in a room, and we're all trying to hide and protect ourselves, right?

And we'll use it through various means, whether what I have accomplished, or my pedigree of where I've come from, or the level intensities that we put into things, and we find our identity, which we're going to talk about in the next episode, we find our identity in our strength.

And what happens to men who finally realize they're not as strong as everybody thinks they are? Their life crashes, their purpose crashes, because their identity has crashed, because their identity has been in themselves and in their strength.

Weakness, Identity, and Rejoicing in Trials

So in our next episode, we're gonna take this weakness, which becomes an absolute blessing and a joy. James even says, when you enter a trial, cloud it a good thing, because God's exposing your weakness so you can experience his strength.

Gentlemen, the weaker you can become, the more powerful you will be, because you'll stop relying on yourself and your wisdom and in your ways, and you're gonna start relying on Christ and his power and his ways.

And we're gonna talk about that in the coming weeks. Hope this is encouraging for you. Follow us on social media, let us know, give us some feedback, make a comment in the video below if you're watching this on YouTube.

The biggest hope I have for you right now, gentlemen, is that after every episode, you walk away finding the confidence in Christ. And the second thing I hope you find confidence in is that Christ is not done with you yet.

No matter where you're at or what you've done or where you're going, Christ loves you, he cares for you, he has a purpose for your life, and we're gonna hopefully help gain some clarity in this podcast about all three of those.

We'll see you next week.