Genesis 2:7-25 - Biblical Manhood

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What is a man? How is a man supposed to live, act, worship, and lead the ones God has given to him? Join us as we explore these things today.

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Well from time to time We will do something a little unusual our main series that we go through is the gospel of John And we've been in the gospel of John now for a few years
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We started at the end of 2019 and we're coming up on chapter 16 of the gospel of John but in the fall of the year it's been the case and I think it's been the case every year that in the fall we've done something and What we've done is basically looked at the church the elders and the session of the church has looked and said what is it that The Lord might want us to focus on this year
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Are there things or their themes or their? Situations that we need to be aware of or their potholes in the road that that maybe we need to be aware of I know
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We did last year. We did a church series because it was it was burden on my heart that most
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Christians Just don't know what the church is Yeah, it's something you go to on Sunday, but what is the church why is the church how is the church?
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So we went through that last year. It was supposed to be a four -week series. It ended up being 16 weeks Because there's a lot in the
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Bible about the church this year the things that the session have been burdened with this thing the things that Deacon Dan has also been burdened with is
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Strong families and strong giving and the two actually really do work together because strong families
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Husbands wives and children make strong churches and strong churches have strong giving and that strong giving helps us reach more family so that we
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Can help them grow to be strong as well? ministry cost Ministries about equipping the
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Saints for the work of ministry so those themes sort of came together and what we'll do is over the next four weeks or so is
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We'll look at what does it mean to be a godly man? What does it mean to be a godly woman? What does it mean to be godly children?
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And what does it mean to have faithful giving in a church? we've actually never had a sermon where we looked at a biblical theology of what giving is and By the
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Lord's grace, we will hear that soon by Deacon. Dan. It'll be his first sermon. So we're excited about that Today we're gonna be looking at what does it mean to be a biblical man?
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But I do actually want to start with John 16. That's where our next chapter in John is
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I do want to start there because I think the verse That begins John 16 is a wonderful place for us to start in this message
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John 16 verse 1 says these things I have spoken to you So that you may be kept from stumbling
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Now in the context of John, this is the upper room discourse That's the words that Jesus has just given to his disciples these things
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I have spoken so that you will not stumble but when we realize that Christ has authored all of Scripture by the
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Spirit We know that because in Luke 24 Jesus gathers his disciples together in a Bible study and he says he opens up the whole
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Bible And he says this is all about me So we know that when Jesus says these things there's a larger
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Application that all of Scripture is about Christ and all of Scripture is there to help us and keep us from stumbling
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We just read that a second ago in 2nd Timothy 3 that all scriptures there is breathed out by God It's useful for teaching rebuking correcting and instructing in righteousness so the
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Bible is there to keep us from stumbling and it's to define us and to shape us into the people that God has made us and One of the most central things about you is whether you're male or female and One of the most central things about you is whether you're gonna be a husband or father
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So what we want to do is we want to look at what the Word says what the Bible says about biblical masculinity
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And we'll talk about biblical femininity soon But we want to look at what the Bible says about biblical masculinity
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So men will not struggle so that the men of our church will grow healthy so that this church itself will grow healthy
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You've heard the phrase the rising tide lifts all ships well, if we Here's another way to say that it's a little bit different rising masculinity blesses all people if men are blessed women will be blessed if women are blessed children will be blessed if children are blessed neighborhoods will be blessed and on it goes so we have to recover a view of what biblical masculinity is because as you know
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The world is crazy right now in the last couple years
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Harry Stiles puts on a dress and gets on the cover of a magazine as being a real man Budweiser which was never a real beer anyway
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Puts a man who's pretending to be a woman on its can like this our society is nuts right now crazy
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So we have to understand what the Bible says about these things and what I want to do is I want to start with a passage
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There's so much we could have a we could have a 16 part series on masculinity and femininity It's so much in the
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Bible But I want to go to one passage that it talks about masculinity before the woman was even created
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I want to go back to a passage where God is speaking directly to the man and Telling him who he is
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What's his identity who he's supposed to be called to be all those things and if you will join me in Genesis chapter 2
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That's the passage verses 7 through 25 If you know me, it's a struggle to preach more than five verses.
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We're gonna be preaching a lot of verses today So bear with me where it's gonna be at a breakneck speed But Genesis 2 7 through 25 if you will join me there and we will read the passage together.
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Here's what the passage says Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living being
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The Lord God plants at a garden towards the east in Eden and there he placed the man whom he had formed out of the ground
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The Lord God calls to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food
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The tree of life also in the midst of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil Then the
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Lord took the man and put him into the Garden of Eden to cultivate it and to keep it the
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Lord God commanded the man saying from any tree of the garden you may eat freely but from the tree of the knowledge of Good and evil you shall not eat
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For in the day that you eat of it You will surely die Then the Lord God said it is not good for man to be alone
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I will make him a helper Suitable for him out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky and brought them
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To the man to see what he would call them And whatever the man called a living creature.
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That was its name The man gave names to all the cattle and to the birds of the sky into every beast of the field.
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But for Adam There was not found a helper suitable for him So the
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Lord caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man and he slept Then he took one of the ribs and closed up the flesh at that place then the
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Lord fashioned into the woman or into a woman the rib from which he had taken from the man and Brought her to the man
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The man said now this is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman
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Because she was taken out of man For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife for they shall become one flesh and the man and his wife were both naked and We're not ashamed the word of the
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Lord. Let's pray Lord. We thank you that you're the one who defines who we are
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We don't identify as anything You're the one who's identified us
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You've made us You created us you've given us unique Genders unique callings unique roles
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Lord even in our salvation. You're the one who identified us By calling us to be your children
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Lord help us today Help us as men to see what the Bible says about biblical masculinity
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Or this is probably going to be pretty practical. So Lord help us to see How this works to see what this means and Lord help us as men to to bear up Underneath the truth of this passage to grow in accordance with this passage and Lord more than anything
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Help us to as men be a blessing to the women and the children and the families that you bring into our
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Care Lord help us not to be Arrogant or pugnacious or prideful? Help us to be like Christ Lord for the women who are here help help them to see the
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Wonderful vision of what man has been made to be and Lord help her if she's a wife help her to hold her husband
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Accountable to that and to encourage him in that and to and to rejoice in that Lord help our daughters to see this picture and to aspire to have a husband like that and to One day encourage him in that Lord help us just as a community help our men to be healthy help our women to be healthy help our children to be healthy and Lord, I pray that the onlooking world would see that the devastation that they've created from the confusion of genders and from the and from all of the things that they've done in opposition to your word doesn't exist here and It doesn't exist here because we're more righteous as people we're there's no one righteous not even one
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The blessings that exist here Lord Let them be because you are at work among your people through your spirit and through the faithfulness that you are
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Inspiring in your people that leads to blessing Lord. Let it not be about us Let it be for your glory and your renown alone in Christ's name.
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Amen Again there's no better time in American history,
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I think Than to talk about the revival of manhood We live in a world where women are encouraged to change in locker rooms in front of biological men
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Where men have been demonized so badly That now most men or a lot of men feel ashamed even for being man
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They feel guilty or inferior for being a man you have terms like mansplaining Which is just a way of Denigrating man, you've got phrases and culture like toxic masculinity
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Which if you show any ounce of testosterone at all, then you're toxic For the last 30 years that I can remember manhood has been a joke you look back even at at some of the old shows like full house or family matters or Tool time tool times a great example
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It was the husband who was the idiot and it was the wife who was always saving the day in every show
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There's this idea that men are you're stupid by nature and you need to be ashamed of yourself
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And your only real salvation is going to come through you acknowledging your toxic masculinity and becoming more feminine
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That's the view that society has given to you. And that is a view that we must reject entirely because that view is from hell
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God made man He created man now, there's a way to be toxic, of course, but there's also a way to be godly as a man
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It's a glorious thing to be a godly man and we need to recover that vision because the world celebrates the absolute opposite of godly masculinity you look all across the country the reason we started doing pastor story hours is because Because 400 pound men in ugly dresses
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Freakishly ugly dresses. We're reading books to children Somebody has to do something about that.
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Somebody has to say something about that because if that's the view of masculinity Society is just a few feet from the cliff's edge and it's gonna collapse
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Now I'm not saying I'm not being like a Pharisee here and saying that you know, they can help themselves.
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They can't they're lost They don't have the Holy Spirit of God. They've been sold a pack of lies. They don't know who
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Christ is They are following after their father the devil the church actually has to recover a view of masculinity for no other reason than for the church to be healthy for the church to obey
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God and for the church to be a light to The nation's to show them the insanity of their position
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If things continue going on as they are our society will collapse we also have to prepare the church to be the ones who rebuild it when it does and The church will not be in a position to rebuild a fractured collapsing society.
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We don't have strong men So that's why we're doing this That's why we're talking about this and now let's dive into the text verses 7 and 9 of Genesis chapter 2
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We get to see how the man is formed That's the first thing we're gonna look at is that the man is formed by God and that means certain
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Qualities about him are essential to him because God formed him if God shaped him to look a certain way
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Then God liked that and then we should implement that so number number verse 7
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Then the Lord God formed the man out of the dust of the ground So the first thing we learn about biblical masculinity is that God made man with a purpose
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God didn't accidentally make man. He didn't walk into the garden, you know, like in Elementary school where you have a jar of dirt and water and you shake it and then 30 minutes later
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It looks like a little round substance where the dust is just so happened to collect together That's not what happened in the garden.
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God didn't walk and say how that thing get here God purposely made the man. He had a purpose for making the man and he created the man personally
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God affectionately designed the first man by hand Which I think is a fascinating thing
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You remember in the Bible God is spirit Spirits don't have bodies Holy Spirit is spirit spirit doesn't have bodies who made
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Adam Jesus second person of the
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Trinity walking kneeling spitting on the ground Making the man out of the dirt just like he did with the woman's eyes when he when he remade her eyes with With dirt and spittle he makes the man breathes into the man and then fashions the man after his image men
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Do you know that you've been made after the image of Christ? That your body is made after the image of Christ What a glorious thing
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You're not the paradigm. You're the copy He made you after him even as far back as the
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Garden of Eden Which meant which means that he made us to be like him If there's anyone who is perfect masculinity, it's
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Christ There's anyone who's perfect Mentality perfect heart perfect soul perfect mind perfect body.
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It's Christ. So you've been fashioned after Christ Which means that? God loved that plan.
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God loved that vision and God expects us to maintain that vision
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If we've been made like Christ and we as men ought to maintain the form that God made
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And that can apply in so many different ways We're not to go back into formlessness now for instance mentally
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We've been made like Christ. We should fight for the mind of Christ We should not fight for laziness and slothfulness and in our minds and our thought life and in our health
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There's things men that you can do that can help you have better mental health do them
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Maybe physical exercise do them because we've been patterned after Christ Check your emotional health and your spiritual health.
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You've been patterned after Christ the perfect man perfect emotions perfect spirit Cultivate your life
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So that your form matches his form because you're the copy of him your life says something about him when you're out of form
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You're saying something about the way you believe in Christ Which gets to the physical aspect of these things
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I don't believe that God made Adam To be 500 pounds and out of shape
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You can laugh. That's funny. I don't think he did. I Think he made him with lean muscles.
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I think he made him able to accomplish his duties I think he made him able to work a solid day and to give glory to God in his labors
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I think he made him to take care of his body and To exercise it and to make it physically active
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I think God made Adam in peak physical shape, which for a man's probably 27 years old. I don't know that That's probable
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Somewhere in that range of peak masculinity is where Adam was at. We have a responsibility to take care of ourselves
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It'd be like lending a car Say you come to my house and you ask if you can you can drive my my blue stallion.
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That's parked out front and You bring it back to me totaled How would
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I feel I gave you something that was in flawless condition and you ruined it
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God gave us a gift men and our bodies and how often do we bring it back almost totaled?
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Now I'm gonna be honest with you I've not done this perfectly There have been seasons of my life where I've been up and down as far as weight
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Metabolism has struggled at times. I'm not making excuses. I'm convicted by this I'm working on this.
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I'm laboring in this because if God called us to be Masculine God called us to be strong if God called us to be prepared if God called us to work
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Then our bodies need to represent that if you are like me and you have a very sedentary job
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Find ways to work yourself out find ways to sweat find ways to tear your muscles down then eat enough protein to build them back up again
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I'm just saying we have to take care of our bodies because they're a gift from Jesus and they say something about the way that We view him
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If our bodies are out of shape Our faith is flabby at a minimum.
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So we have to take care of our Selves, I don't think Adam would have gotten winded going up three flights of stairs and Eden and neither should we
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Our bodies ought to be able to do what God has called us to do That means go to work work harder than anyone else at our jobs go home play with our kids
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Our bodies ought to be able to support that kind of lifestyle. Now. There's that there's definitely Instances, there's diseases.
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There's there's degenerative things. There's rheumatoid arthritis. I mean you can we can go on and on There's things that will prohibit that but by and large
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I'm talking over the whole of it We should aim to take care of our body as an act of worship to Christ The question that we need to wrestle with is are we doing whatever we can
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To stay as fit as we can as strong as we can Consistent with the vision of who
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Christ made us or are we not and if we're not It's a joyful thing to repent and it's a joyful thing to turn and go a different direction
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God did not make us to be weak He made us to be chieftains princes warriors and kings and our body is to help us accomplish those things.
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Amen Second thing we learn in these two verses is we see that man or men have been given a responsibility as vice regent with God Says then the
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Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and there he placed the man whom he had formed
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We know from the first chapter and second chapter of Genesis that man is the last Creation of all the animals were completed and then
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God made man and God said that man would rule Just like the Sun and the moon and stars were were called to rule the cosmos and the birds of the air were called to Rule the sky man was called to rule over the earth
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So man has a leadership function the word vice regent means ruling with God So men have a leadership
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Responsibility when you say it like this, there's no insignificant man on the planet There's not one man who doesn't have leadership
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Embedded into him because he was designed that way The fall certainly tainted that image, of course
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Tainted our capacity and there are certain men who have a higher capacity than other men, but we all have been made to rule with God to extend
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God's kingdom to reign men, if you're not cultivating your leadership
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Repent of that and turn in that and cultivate your leadership Redemption heals the fall.
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It doesn't put us back to zero if we were made to rule then If you're in Christ, how are you growing in that?
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How are you growing in dignity? How are you being healed from your sin? How are being healed from your trepidations?
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How are you leading? if I turned in my phone because I ran over it with my car and they gave it back to me just as broken as It was when
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I handed it to them. I would think that I had been robbed You were not broken anymore brothers
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You are in Christ Jesus Your sin nature has been Canceled on the cross and you are being healed and sanctification.
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How's your leadership? how are you growing to rule and extend God's kingdom in your job and your home with your wife and your
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Quiet personal private life that no one else is seeing. How are you ruling and reigning for Christ?
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We were designed men to be leaders. We ought to grow in that The first way you do that is grow in leading yourself
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Don't be lazy in self -leadership Then after that if you can lead yourself and you're you're not dying learn how to lead a woman and Then after you've learned how to lead her so that she's not starving to death and dying learn how to lead some children and if you learn how to do that and learn how to raise them up in the fear of the
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Lord and help them grow up to also do those same things and then become up a grandfather who's
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Showing those things and building generations of faithful people. You've been called to oversee so much in your life
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How are you growing in that? Christian men are made to be leaders
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He free Jesus freed you to be a leader to lead yourself your wife your children to exert dominion over this creation
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For the advancement of Jesus's kingdom to the ends of the earth. We're not passive like Adam anymore
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We've been made To extend Jesus's kingdom. So hold your head high.
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I Don't care what your rank is at your job. I don't care if you feel like you have no discernible skill you do
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Hold your head high Step into the calling that God has made you and grow up in it. It's good for you
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The next thing we see is that God breathes into this man It says in the passage that he breathed the breath of life into him and that he became a living being now
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This is not just unique to men because both men and women are made in the image of God But since this is not a sermon about women
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We'll talk about it for the men the most discernible quality in your life The greatest thing that is going to help you in your masculinity is your relationship with Christ If you look all throughout the centuries masculinity has tended towards two equal and opposite errors either either aggressive machoism or passive effeminism
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Both of those are toxic masculinity biblical robust strong godly
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Masculinity is the opposite of that God breathed life into you so that you would be a living man so that you would pursue him
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The only way to be a godly masculine man is to be in relationship with Jesus Christ pursuing him running after him
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Because it'll make you tender when you need to be tender. It'll make you strong when you need to be strong It'll help you stand against the tides of the current challenge that we're facing with with conviction and yet humility
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You Really can only be a biblical man if you're patterned after the first man.
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I'm not talking about Adam I'm talking about the one that Adam was made to resemble if you don't live your life in conformity to Christ You will adopt the cursings that are all throughout the scriptures
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As we read earlier if you adopt your life and pattern to Christ You will receive the blessings men if you want to be a real man
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Don't drink a lot of beer and burp and fart real loud because that's not the measure of your masculinity That campfire macho ism doesn't work in the kingdom of God and if you want to be a real man
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Don't dress like a metrosexual and be passive and and and put off everything and it's only someone else because you're trying to be kind That doesn't pass for biblical masculinity either.
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You want to be a real man? imitate Christ That's masculinity. Let's keep going.
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We gotta go fast The next thing we see is that God made him connected to the earth.
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He made him connected to the earth It says then the Lord God formed the man out of the dust of the ground and out of the ground the
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Lord calls to grow Every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food The man was made in connection with the earth
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God drew the man out of the earth and when we die we go back to being dust there is something
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Connected between us and the ground There's something glorious When you stand with bare feet in a beautiful grass shod field where you're we feel like you're connected to the earth
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Why cuz you're made out of it? It says that Adam was made from the earth.
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It says that the earth cried out when Abel's blood was spilled. It says that In sin the earth cried out to God and was brokenhearted over our sin because it also underwent the suffering
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Hurricanes and volcanoes came about because of our sin It says that if a man is hung on a on a wooden pole overnight, it will pollute the land
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When Christ died the earth responded with epileptic confusion and convulsions
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There's a connection between us and the land Don't buy
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Everything is so polarized Don't buy into toxic climate changes and where everything is doom and gloom and you must get your electric car and your paper
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Straw that melts by the halfway through the coffee That's silly
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But also don't live with disregard either The earth is for us to steward and care for don't dump toxic waste in your backyard
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Care for the land that God has given you because it says something about who you are May it never be said that a
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Christian has a bad lawn as men may we work hard labor.
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I Have weeds in my yard too, but it's an area where I don't pride myself in It's an area where I want to strive to do better And you know what?
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We're the only ones on earth that have a worldview that supports how to care for the land We're the only ones everybody else has these
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Incredibly hyperbolic views that won't last and are really just a money racketing opportunity to sell more
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EV cars We have a worldview that tells us how to take care of the world and steward the world because God made it
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God made us from it Number six God gave man a purpose in his geography
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It says that God placed him in the garden. God did not say Give me your top three list like a recruiter would in the army.
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Where do you want to go? I think Eden might be nice this time of year. That's not what God did God made him and God placed him.
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That means that God Purposefully puts Adam where he wants Adam to be.
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I think the same is true today Men, you are where you are at for a purpose.
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Your geography is purposeful. Your job is purposeful You might not like it But it's purposeful.
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God is sovereign over it and I think Because God placed Adam in the garden expected him to work where God put him
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I think God expects you to work where he's put you and Flourish where he's put you and bring life out of the soil where he's put you
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Remember God put you where you were not to complain God's not like you know what there is there's a decided lack of frustration in this area.
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I'm gonna put you So you can you can help balance things out because the joy is just too much there
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He put you there for a purpose He put you with the family that you have for a purpose the job that you have for a purpose and your job like Adam Is to make it flourish
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Brothers, are you making the place that God has called you flourish is? Your job flourishing because of you is your boss blessed because of you is your wife blessed because of you is your household blessed because of you is
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The whole sum total of what you touch under the blessings because of your labors
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And if not, we need to repent Because we were made to bring blessings we were made to work We were made to work hard.
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It says God planted a garden towards the east and Eden there He placed the man that he informed he put him into the garden to work
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To cultivate it and keep it. I Remember the first time I realized that work was not a consequence of the fall
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You think yourself work Adam? I Wouldn't have to go to work if it wasn't for you.
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Uh -huh Work was there before the fall work is good Work is a glorious thing.
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It's the futility that comes in in the fall It's the frustration in your work that came in the fall as Christians Didn't Christ redeem us so that we could go back to how
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Adam was created. So why are we the ones who complain at work? Why are we the ones who slack off at work? Why are the ones playing can't use this example anymore?
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But I think you'll get the point solitaire on our break. Maybe you're playing Minecraft now. I don't know what people play now
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Why aren't we the hardest workers? Why aren't we the ones that are actually bringing fruitfulness instead of utility into the workplace?
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You know what? I'd love to see I'd love to see the New York Times write an op -ed on Why Christians are the hardest workers and then try to explain it based off of some completely ridiculous thing
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Except God Christians one of the ways we can bring a spotlight to the glory of Christ is in how hard we work and In how much we do to bless the people around us and above us
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We were made to work. Let's work number seven God made man to create livelihood and industry
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Again, he put him in the guard of aim to cultivate it to bring something out of it to to draw raw resources out of the
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Ground man, this is controversial today man was commanded to work in the Bible Not his wife
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His wife was not commanded to work in Genesis 2 man was commanded to work man was commanded to extract the resources
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He was commanded to do that before sin he was commanded to do that as a way of bringing resources into his family because his wife is gonna be the one who takes them and multiplies them and makes them living but He was the one who was called to imitate
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God in work, how do I what do I mean by that? Well, if you remember it was Christ who knelt down in the garden and fashioned the man with his own hands and he worked
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Christ was working making shaping Breathing life into Adam brothers.
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How are we taking the resources that God has given us the dust of the earth and Making something living out of it if we're gonna take
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Christ Christ made a living man out of the dirt What are we making living out of the dirt that God has given us?
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What are we drawing out of the resources that God has given us to make the world a flourishing place now
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There's all kinds of ways that you can look at this. Maybe you're a computer chip processor guy You literally are drawing from the dirt and making silica and chips and I don't know that world
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You know it better than I do. Let's move on Minerals and steel maybe you're maybe you're an iron worker
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You're drawing resources out of the dirt Wood to build houses drawing resources out of the dirt crops to feed your home drawing resources out of the dirt
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Fueling your house with fossil fuels Drawing resources out of the dirt
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Even on your computer if you work from home with your soy latte Even if that's you the computer that you're using was made from the resources
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God gave us from the dirt and you're using that to bring life to the world is your job bringing life to the world is
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The way that you work bringing life to the world That is what God did to Adam That is what God expects from us men that we would bring life to the world through our labor.
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Are you doing that? There's far too many people are bringing death and destruction today.
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How are Christians bringing life number eight?
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Goes along with that God gave man a peculiar sort of curiosity God made man out of dirt which seems sort of bland, but it's far from bland
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God told Adam to name all the variety of the animals. Can you imagine what that day must have looked like?
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all the different speciations of birds and Of different beasts coming to Adam and him naming him.
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Do you know why God did that? Well, there's the covenantal reason because Adam was going to be ruler over those things
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So him giving them a name was him exerting his loving dominion but at the same time
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Adams like two minutes old and God's showing him these glorious things and you imagine
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Adam saying look at that thing it's got a duck bill and And it's got look
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I don't know what it and he starts naming them and God is a sort of wowing Adam with his glory and his creativity
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Because God is fueling Adam to be curious and to have creativity himself God put
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Adam in a very rich Topographical region caused eat called Eden It said that waters flowed down out of Eden which meant that Eden was at a higher
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Geography and elevation so Adam probably had waterfalls. He had mountains to explore.
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He had little valleys. He had little gardens he put him in a very diverse region because he was stoking that curiosity for him to explore and for him to Investigate and for him to build he gave him a region that has all different kinds of minerals
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It says that there's gold and Jasper and bdellium. I think I'm pronouncing that correctly in that region.
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The gold of Havala was better than any other region Why did he put Adam in such a diverse and? dense
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Region if he didn't want him to explore it Why did God put us in an earth that has so many mysteries if he didn't want us to?
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Explore them and discover them and to find out about them. It'd be like putting a deaf man on the front row of a Tchaikovsky Concert that would be wasteful
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It'd be like putting a blind man in front of a Salvador Dali painting or an illiterate man in front of the works of Bill Shakespeare God didn't put
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Man as a dull creature in a dull garden He put man as a curious creature in a garden teeming with mystery because he wants us to explore it
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To extract from it to discover it to know it It's a part of our
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Dominion men to be curious and to seek out answers That's why we have medicine today because people were curious
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Think about the man who discovered beer can you imagine? He's like it's not gonna rain tonight.
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I'll just leave my barley in this little pail the next day. He comes out and he's like Man my barley then he tasted he's like, thank you.
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God. What a discovery and then the world was changed forever
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Think about all the chemical reactions that we know of and then the chemical reactions We don't think about fusion power how when you split a tiny little atom it breaks forth so much energy
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No one would have known that unless they were curious and they explored and they and they did scientific discoveries
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Think about the man who who started taxonomically labeling. He's like, here's my pinky toe Here's my big toe and he gets to all the different parts of the body now
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His eyes can't name anything else and eventually you get to the point to where somebody says, huh? I wonder if there's something smaller than what my eyes can see maybe there is and then they build a microscope and then they come up with DNA and then they come up with HTP and ATP or not
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HTP ATP I'm sorry, that was my fault She's our scientist
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ATP I don't know what HTP is Atoms electrons eventually quarks. I think there's probably some atomic particles of subatomic particles of subatomic particles
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And we haven't found them yet because we don't have the resources yet or the technology to do it But some curious person is gonna figure it out.
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And I think that gives glory to God. I Think God put us in a world full of so much mystery because he wants us to explore it
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Christians of all people should not be afraid to explore and do science and to do and to make
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Technology and we're the only ones with the world view to actually do it rationally The world makes technologies that destroy things because they have no value or no biblical value.
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We don't have that Why are we running away from these things? Why aren't we the innovators in culture? Why are we the ones that that make the technologies that bring life to the world
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Willy Wonka great theologian? He said we are the music makers and we are the dreamers of dreams.
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That's us as the church We're the ones Who are at the cutting edge of music at the cutting edge of art at the cutting edge of all that stuff?
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Why have we retreated in the modern world to be to be afraid of? the scientific enterprise
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When you do that, just like everything when salt ceases to be salty Things rot the discipline of science has rotted in our day
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Because the Isaac Newton's have abandoned the scientific sphere
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We're the only ones that have a worldview that actually can produce godly curiosity. We need to do it men be curious
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Now that doesn't mean that you're gonna be a world -famous scientist. There's a Nobel Peace Prize winner, but are you curious at all?
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I know I went through seasons of my life where I get home from work and I'm so tired from everything and I'm just saying I'm just gonna just gonna watch
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TV I'm just gonna do something mindless. Don't do that brothers Watch something that's gonna it's gonna invigorate your mind learn something study something
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You have a God who is infinite who can't be exhausted study him learn about him read a theology book about him
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Living life that's curious. Your children will be blessed from it and It's especially true.
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If you don't have the resources to pay for everything you have to learn how to do things If your car is broke take your son outside and fix it with him do stuff like that Continue to stoke that curiosity because God made you that way and it's curiosity that has developed some of the greatest
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Technologies the world has ever seen and it's Christian curiosity curiosity that moderates it makes it godly
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Don't veg out on video games or YouTube. It's easy to do learn how to fix something learn how to mend something be curious live curiously number nine
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God made man for relationship with him Again this is not unique to the man.
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It doesn't just apply to men, but we're talking about men in this in this sermon Find your life entirely rooted in your relationship with Christ It will bless you and it will bless those around you
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That's how you're formed Nine things right there that God has formed men to do we could go in further
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We could we could go more but that's nine things you to be mentally physically emotionally spiritually strong You're to rule and to have dominion over the world you're to be a living eternal being in submission to Christ You're to have connection to the earth and to extract the life and the resources from it
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You're to have purpose where you're planted and make wherever you're at flourish or to work hard and produce things to be curious and to Explore things and you're to be in relationship with God if you do those nine things
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That's a great summary of what biblical masculinity is but yet we're not finished and yet there's more men's not just formed man is in formed a
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Massive part about being a biblical man is that God has informed you of his commands Look at what it says in verse 15 through 17
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Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the Garden of Eden to cultivate and to keep it and the Lord God Commanded the man saying from any tree of the garden you may eat freely
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But from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat from the day you eat of it You shall surely die now.
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We can't elaborate on everything here, but woman It's important to remember has not yet been made if God wanted to create a marital democracy or a post -nuptial oligarchy or whatever you want to call it
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He would have waited until Eve was created and he would have given the commands to both of them He did not do that.
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He gave the command to Adam men remember this
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That God has given you a special place in a special role in your home He gave you the commands so that you can share them with your wife
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Satan subverts that by having at Eve share with her husband. That was not the pattern It was the husband who was supposed to share with her
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He was supposed to teach her. He was supposed to help her. So men if you're gonna be this
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If you're gonna do this, you have to know the Bible Adam I Hope memorized this command and yet he still failed in actually teaching it to his wife
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Christ has given you brothers the commands So that you can be the spiritual leader again this is not a popular doctrine nowadays because we live in an androgynous and Egalitarian culture that's trying to subvert the things of God, but it's all throughout the
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Bible men are to rule over The woman Genesis 3 woman is to submit to man
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Ephesians 5 her husband not any man Husband is the head over his wife first Corinthians 11 3 men are to rule tenderly and gently and lovingly
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Colossians 3 women are to learn quietly from her husband first Timothy 2 and men are to rule their families.
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Well first Timothy 3 and Go on and on God set up a hierarchy in the home with men to be the spiritual leader and Here's the here's the hard part about that if your family is unhealthy brother you're responsible for it
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You might not have been the one who caused it You might be doing everything you possibly can But in the same way that a captain is responsible if the first mate wrecks the ship
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You're responsible if your family gets wrecked. You're the one who's been put in charge to lead and to lead like Christ.
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I think about how many homes that I know of personally that would have been spared if the husband would lead like Christ and would love like Christ and would care for his wife like Christ I post from now and again on the silly technology called social media and What's interesting to me is when
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I post about men loving their wives like Christ loves the church It's like eight to two 80 % of the people who like those posts and heart those posts and share those posts are women
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Maybe there's something inside of woman who craves for you to step up and man up and lead and lead like Christ It is how we've been designed brother to lead and to not just lead of our own strength in our own accord
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You're not very smart neither am I We are called to lead in relationship to the commands of Scripture God gave
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Adam the commands and that's where his leadership was rooted in is to take those commands to his wife lovingly care for her
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Shepherd her guard her safeguard her, you know Adam If we're gonna talk about the first sin
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We always blame Eve Eve's the one who took the fruit ate it. Where was Adam? Why wasn't he safeguarding her?
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Why wasn't he there protecting her? I think there's an indication of the text that he was right there Even while she grabbed the fruit because she handed it to him and he ate it
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Where was his active leadership there? That's the sin He didn't protect his wife Obviously she sinned as well, but we're talking to the men this week
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Men who are masters of God's words treasuring its truth Taking those truths back into their home teaching their wives teaching their families having conversations about the scriptures
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Helping their children to memorize scriptures to learn the truths of God. It will be a blessing as we've sung before Men, you are called to be the theologian of your home whether you like it or not
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God did not ask your opinion on the matter. He called you that if you are not currently
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Very theologically minded you don't know much doctrine. You haven't read much scripture I'm here to tell you that that's okay but to repent and There's an easy fix if you haven't read the
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Bible much read it much If you don't know much theology learn theology if you don't know doctrine learn it.
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It just takes effort Don't be lazy. Don't give yourself excuses You've been made to do this.
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You'll be held accountable for this do it Your wife's blessing your children's blessing depends on your faithfulness
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They're downstream of you brother Do this if you're single and you don't have a family to do this for do it for yourself
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Be like our beloved deacon Dan studies the scripture harder than anybody. I know If you want to know how to study the scripture go talk to Dan.
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He will tell you block out some hours because the man's got he's got a lot of information that he can give you about this and It would bless you to do that Men, if you have not eaten, well, your family will be starving
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If you've not feasted on the Word of God your family will be famished Get into the word
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So so far we've seen that the man is formed in a certain way The man is informed in the scriptures to lead his family.
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Now, we're gonna see how the man is unformed Text says Then the
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Lord God said is not good for the man to be alone First time God says something's not good. I See what he would call them and whatever the man called the living creature
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That was his name and the man gave names to all the cattle and the birds of the sky and every beast of the field but for Adam There was not found a suitable helper for him so the
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Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man and he slept and He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh of that place the
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Lord God fashioned into a woman from the rib of man and He brought her to the man
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Now so much could be said in this passage I'd love to make a joke about how when I fall into a deep sleep, you could probably take my rib, too
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But I won't say that But I want you to notice that God doesn't make the woman from the dirt
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He makes the man from the dirt and he makes the woman from the man So that there's a connection an intimate connection between the two of them
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He doesn't make the woman out of the man's feet because man is not to Dominate her doesn't make the woman out of the man's head
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So she will dominate him makes the one out of his rib so that they'll be side to side together in unity different role
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But equal and equality he made them to be a team and hate them He made her to be his helper
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The woman is connected to the man because she's gonna help the man accomplish the mission that God has given
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Now there is an interesting feature of this deep sleep that comes here because the word for deep sleep here
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Actually points back to Genesis 1 the deep darkness When God brought the world out of deep darkness and into light so in a sense
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God is deforming and decreating Adam When God said let there be light now, he's saying let there be darkness.
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He's taking Adam back into a chaotic state To draw from him the one who will help him accomplish his
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Mission again, there's so much that we could say here, but it says in the text
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That the man it's not good for you to be alone, it's not good Why have you ever have you ever met a single guy?
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before Rhetorical question. It's not good Oftentimes it is just not good.
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I was there Dan is the only single guy I know who takes care of himself There's only one passage in the
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Bible that extols Lifelong singleness only one the rest of the Bible talks about the joy and the blessedness of marriage and how good it is to Be married and how it actually is a way that God Matures the man because man is incomplete on his own man is not fully mature fully refined and fully developed on his own
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He's a bit of a wild card Any anyone any woman knows this we do not come pre -programmed
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We can live in whatever filth without batting an eye We can wear three -day -old socks because well, we didn't wash them.
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I Slept for for six months on a cot in the desert and we didn't have washing machines.
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So guess what? I just rotated clothes And I was okay with it because I'm a man
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I was made out of the dirt. It's okay for me to be dirty It's okay for me sometimes to act like Sasquatch strolling around with no responsibilities, but that's not good for marriage
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Marriage is gonna force men to not be selfish anymore and to actually take care of themselves and actually do things that That are going to be a blessing for the family masculinity is not sitting around all day doing what you want to do
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That's what single people do Marriage forces you to do what's good for other people marriage makes men better Marriage actually makes men better Parenting makes men better.
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It makes them less selfish and more focused on the needs of other people families make men better it's only under extreme circumstances like the
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Apostle Paul and Some other circumstances we can't name them all but there's only under extreme circumstances where lifelong singleness is actually a blessing
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George Gilder said this civilization is built by men with families to feed Think about that you and I men we're more than happy to eat ramen and beanie weenies
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That's that's fine But when we have a family we actually have to care for people and feed people It makes us work harder when we have someone who's relying on us.
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It makes us more creative Some of the great technological advancements have come from people who had families to feed
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Civilization is built by men who know that there's people relying on them who if they don't eat it's because of your fault
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So it makes men work harder better longer more faithfully that rising income is almost
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Universal for men when they start out as young men, they make almost nothing by the time of the end of their career They have resources to share with kids and generations because families make men better Society as damaging this because they're encouraging men to shirk responsibilities
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Guaranteeing that we will have a generation of 30 year old man boys, which is what we have
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The Bible tells us to embrace the burden as men men you thrive under burden your wife doesn't
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Take the burden from her. Don't be a burden to her Men, we thrive when other people are relying on us
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Have a wife have children and work hard. It's good for you Teach young boys how to be providers.
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Here's something that is really controversial Be open to young marriages Why in this society do we wait until our late 30s?
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to encourage people to get married when fertility is almost gone and you've got a man who's so Selfish because he spent 38 years of his life doing what he wants and he's now not
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Qualified or if he is he's gonna be an awful husband. Why don't we wait? Why not tell a young man who's got a great job and who's and who's being prepared by his elders in his church for marriage
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Get married. Yeah, you're not gonna do it perfectly But the burden of it the struggle of it the the hard work of it is gonna make him better It's gonna make him stronger.
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It's gonna make him work harder. It's gonna make him a good provider Burden matures men and it blesses the people around him.
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That's not a universal obviously You know, there's all kinds of godly faithful marriages that happen later in life.
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I'm not I'm not being prescriptive here. I'm just saying Men respond to burden if you give man a burden he'll meet it or he'll do everything he can to meet it
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Putting man in the godly burden of marriage to care for someone else other than him When she's at home with the children and he knows that if he doesn't work hard They don't eat that is good for men and it helps them be productive and I think
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God made us that way Now as we land the plane in a sense
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We talked about how man was formed by God to do certain things We talked about how man was informed in the commands of Scripture now.
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We talked about how he was deformed To make way for his wife who he would now live to care for now.
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Let's talk about how the man is reformed Genesis 2 23 and 25 the man said now this is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh.
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She shall be called woman Because she was taken out of man for this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife and they shall become one flesh and The man and his wife were both naked and we're not ashamed
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Marriage not only refines men it reforms men families not only refine men it reforms them They're no longer in their singular form.
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They're one flesh with another person They're called to look after her as well. They're called to cling to her
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To cherish her as an image of how Christ loves his bride so in that brothers
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Be thankful for your wife celebrate your wife. Love your wife sacrifice for your wife blood sweat and tears for your wife
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Praise your wife. Thank God for your wife Because God made you one flesh with her to care for her and it reforms you and shapes you as you do it and you do
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It not because she's worthy you do it because he's worthy You do it because Christ is worthy because when you do that you image his love for the church
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If you want to tell the world of a heretical gospel go home and be cold to your wife If you want to tell the world of a gospel that has no power then
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Be cold and angry and hateful to your wife because you're telling the world of a false gospel
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Love your wife like Christ loves the church Let's keep going
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That man is also transformed We know that man sinned in the garden and that cursed masculinity
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We also know that the true man Jesus Christ came at just the right time and he healed us all the sins of Adam I think about it to myself
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Jesus kneeling in the garden shaping Adam knowing that it was for Adam that he would soon die The true man
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Jesus Christ came and he liberated us of our toxic masculinity of our broken manliness of our machoism and of our pacifism and everything else in between and it was right after the
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Resurrection that Christ gave these words to his twelve closest friends all men.
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He said this All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth go therefore and make disciples of all the nations baptizing them in the name of the
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Father and Of the Son of the Holy Spirit teaching them to observe all that I've commanded you and lo
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I am with you always even to the end of the age Now it might not be abundantly clear here, but Jesus is going back to Genesis here
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Genesis was the story of how man was supposed to rule and extend God's reign to the ends of the earth here Jesus in his
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Resurrection is reinvigorating that He's saying that was a good plan.
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I'm not I'm not turning it over. I'm not I'm not Canceling that plan. I want you to go and make disciples of all the nations to spread the kingdom of God to the world and men
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That means that if Christ has reinvigorated that Genesis story Then your masculinity is a part of that story your discipleship is a part of growing not just more like Christ But more as God made you to be as a man
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Everything that we've shared today applies because Christ died on the cross for your sin and restored you back to your purpose
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So a final recap Men, you're called to be strong for the work.
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God gave you and Christ restored you to that Your heart is to be vigorous for truth and righteousness your body is to be strong formed exercise cultivated for the glory of God Your labors are supposed to be hard and glorious and full in the world
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You're to bless your company with your labor. You're to bless your bank account with your ingenuity You're to bless those who are under your care your family
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You were to take the first fruits of your blessings and invest them in the kingdom of God You're to rule well and have godly dominion be curious and learn skills that will bless the earth
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And you're to be in relationship with Jesus Christ That is a summary of what manhood is now the question is
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Will we submit ourselves to that vision? Will we submit ourselves to Christ? Will we pattern ourself after the true and godly man or will we go on in our sin?
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You don't just affect you you affect your wife you affect your children you affect generations So my challenge to you brothers is to read the word
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Submit yourself under its life under its pages and under its truth Be the kind of man that will bless your family in your home if you're single be the kind of man that will bless your future family in your home and What you'll see is because our world is a microwave culture
01:00:29
We want everything to be fixed now That's why we think that if we vote for the right politician that will win the election and then we'll change the world
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Does it work that way? but at the end of your life when you see 15 20 30 40 grandchildren who love
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Jesus and who are excited to go to church and Then you look around at your brothers who?
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Are the same age as you and you see that they have a family and a legacy and you look around and you see that the country very slowly is
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Being filled with Christians the right way through families through reproduction Multiplication to the glory of God when you see that over the course of your life
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Then you'll know that this kind of thing gives glory to God don't get caught up in what you can do
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Immediately to fix everything just be faithful in the little things day in day out
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And if you do that, God will be glorified and your family will be blessed. Amen. Let's pray Lord there's so much that we could say from your word about what a man is and how a man that's supposed to live and move and have his being and how he is to bless his family in his home and Lord, there's
01:01:36
I Feel like we just barely scratched the surface Lord, I pray more than anything that More than any specific thing that was shared today
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That our men would be invigorated to pattern their life after you To chase after you
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To get their masculine vision from you to love their family like you To do their work like you whatever we do whether we eat or we drink let it be to the glory of God Lord I pray that that would be true for our men
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Lord also pray for our women That they would be blessed By godly men
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Lord, I pray that they would be a wonderful helper and help mate To godly men
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Lord, I pray that That they would not settle For the cheap veneer of toxic masculinity that our world is peddling
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That were that they would if they are single that they would find a godly man They're married that they would hold their man to the scriptures and encourage him towards righteousness in these things
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Lord may we be a church filled with strong healthy godly men to the glory of Jesus Christ.