Genesis 2:7-25 - Biblical Manhood

Biblical Manhood in Genesis 2

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. 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.

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. We did last year. We did a church series because it was it was burden on my heart that most 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? 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 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 strong families and strong giving.

And the two actually really do work together because strong families 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 Can help them grow to be strong as well?

Ministry cost. Ministries about equipping the 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 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? 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 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? But I do actually want to start with John 16. That's where our next chapter in John is.

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 John 16 verse 1 says these things I have spoken to you. So that you may be kept from stumbling.

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. I have spoken so that you will not stumble. But when we realize that Christ has authored all of Scripture by the 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 Bible and he says this is all about me. So we know that when Jesus says these things there's a larger Application that all of Scripture is about Christ and all the scripture is there to help us and keep us from stumbling.

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 and righteousness so the 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. So what we want to do is we want to look at what the Word says what the Bible says about biblical masculinity.

And we'll talk about biblical femininity soon. But we want to look at what the Bible says about biblical masculinity. So men will not struggle so that the men of our church will grow healthy so that this church itself will grow healthy.

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 The world is crazy right now in the last couple years 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. Puts a man who's pretending to be a woman on its can like this our society is nuts right now crazy. 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.

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 Bible, but I want to go to one passage that it talks about masculinity before the woman was even created.

I want to go back to a passage where God is speaking directly to the man and Telling him who he is. 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.

That's the passage. Verses 7 through 25 if you know me, it's a struggle to preach more than five verses. 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. 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.

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. The Lord God calls to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food.

The tree of life also in the midst of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Then the Lord took the man and put him into the Garden of Eden to cultivate it and to keep it the 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.

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. 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 To the man to see what he would call them and whatever the man called a living creature.

That was its name. The man gave names to all the cattle and to the birds of the sky and to every beast of the field but for Adam. There was not found a helper suitable for him. So the 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 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.

The man said now this is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. 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 for they shall become one flesh and the man and his wife were both naked and We're not ashamed the word of the Lord.

Let's pray Lord, we thank you that you're the one who defines who we are. We don't identify as anything. You're the one who's identified us. You've made us. You created us you've given us unique Genders unique callings unique roles Lord even in our salvation.

You're the one who identified us By calling us to be your children. Lord help us today. Help us as men to see what the Bible says about biblical masculinity. 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 help us to as men be a blessing to the women and the children and the families that you bring into our 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 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 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. 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. Inspiring in your people that leads the blessing Lord.

Let it not be about us. Let it be for your glory and your renown alone in Christ's name. Amen. Again there's no better time in American history, 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.

Where men have been demonized so badly. That now most men or a lot of men feel ashamed even for being man. 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.

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.

It was the husband who was the idiot and it was the wife who was always saving the day in every show. There's this idea that men are you're stupid by nature and you need to be ashamed of yourself. And your only real salvation is going to come through you acknowledging your toxic masculinity and becoming more feminine.

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. 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.

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. Freakishly ugly dresses. We're reading books to children.

Somebody has to do something about that. 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. Now I'm not saying I'm not being like a Pharisee here and saying that you know, they can help themselves.

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 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 God and for the church to be a Light to the nations to show them the insanity of their position.

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.

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. 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 Qualities about him are essential to him because God formed him if God shaped him to look a certain way.

Then God liked that and then we should implement that so number number verse 7. 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.

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 It looks like a little round substance where the dust has just so happened to collect together.

That's not what happened in the garden. 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. God affectionately designed the first man by hand.

Which I think is a fascinating thing you remember in the Bible God is spirit. Spirits don't have bodies. Holy Spirit is spirit. Spirit doesn't have bodies who made Adam.

Jesus.

Second person of the 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 duck with dirt and spittle.

He makes the man breathes into the man and then fashions the man after his image men. 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.

You're not the paradigm. You're the copy. He made you after him even as far back as the 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 Christ. There's anyone who's perfect Mentality perfect heart perfect soul perfect mind perfect body. It's Christ. So you've been fashioned after Christ, which means that God loved that plan. God loved that vision and God expects us to maintain that.

Vision.

If we've been made like Christ and we as men ought to maintain the form that God made and That can apply in so many different ways. We're not to go back into formlessness now for instance mentally. 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. There's things men that you can do that can help you have better mental health.

Do them. Maybe physical exercise. Do them because we've been patterned after Christ. Check your emotional health and your spiritual health. You've been patterned after Christ the perfect man. Perfect emotions perfect spirit.

Cultivate your life. 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. You're saying something about the way you believe in Christ.

Which gets to the physical aspect of these things. I don't believe That God made Adam To be 500 pounds and out of shape. You can laugh that's funny. I don't think he did. I think he made him with lean muscles.

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. I think he made him to take care of his body and to exercise it and to make it physically active.

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. Somewhere in that range of peak masculinity is where Adam was at. We have a responsibility to take care of ourselves.

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. That's parked out front and You bring it back to me totaled. How would I feel I gave you something that was in flawless condition.

And you ruined it. God gave us a gift men and our bodies and how often do we bring it back almost totaled? 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.

My metabolism has struggled at times. I'm not making excuses. I'm convicted by this. I'm working on this. 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.

Then our bodies need to represent that if you are like me and you have a very sedentary job. 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.

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. If our bodies are out of shape Our faith is flabby at a minimum.

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 eat and neither should we. 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. Our bodies ought to be able to support that kind of lifestyle. Now. There's that there's definitely. Instances, there's diseases.

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 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? To stay as fit as we can as strong as we can. Consistent with the vision of who 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. 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.

Amen. Second thing we learn in these two verses who see that man or men have been given a responsibility as vice regent with God. Says then the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and there he placed the man whom he had formed.

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 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.

So man has a leadership function. The word vice regent means ruling with God. So men have a leadership. 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.

Embedded into him because he was designed that way. The fall certainly tainted that image, of course. 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 God's kingdom to reign.

Men, if you're not cultivating your leadership. Repent of that and turn in that and cultivate your leadership. Redemption heals the fall. 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? How are you growing in dignity? How are you being healed from your sin? How are being healed from your trepidations? 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 I handed it to them.

I would think that I had been robbed. You were not broken anymore brothers. You are in Christ Jesus. Your sin nature has been canceled on the cross and you are being healed and sanctification. How's your leadership?

How are you growing to rule and extend God's kingdom in your job and your home? With your wife in your quiet personal private life that no one else is seeing. How are you ruling and reigning for Christ?

We were designed men to be leaders. We ought to grow in that. The first way you do that is grow in leading yourself. 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 then learn how to raise them up in the fear of the Lord and help them grow up to Also do those same things and then become up a grandfather who's Showing those things and building generations of faithful people.

You've been called to oversee so much in your life. How are you growing in that? Christian men are made to be leaders. He free Jesus freed you to be a leader to lead yourself your wife your children to exert dominion over this creation.

For the advancement of Jesus's kingdom to the ends of the earth We're not passive like Adam anymore. We've been made to Extend Jesus's kingdom. So hold your head high. 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. Hold your head high. Step into the calling that God has made you and grow up in it. It's good for you. 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. 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 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. Both of those are toxic masculinity. Biblical robust strong godly 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.

The only way to be a godly masculine man is to be in relationship with Jesus Christ pursuing him running after him. 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. You really can only be a biblical man if you're patterned after the first man, 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. 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. Don't drink a lot of beer and burp and fart real loud because that's not the measure of your masculinity. That campfire machoism doesn't work in the kingdom of God and if you want to be a real man.

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. You want to be a real man imitate Christ.

That's masculinity. Let's keep going. We gotta go fast. The next thing we see is that God made him connected to the earth. 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 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. God drew the man out of the earth and when we die, we go back to being dust. There is something 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. Why cuz you're made out of it? It says that Adam was made from the earth. 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. 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.

When Christ died the earth responded with epileptic confusion and convulsions. There's a connection between us and the land. Don't buy. 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.

Straw that melts by the halfway through the coffee. That's silly. 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. Care for the land that God has given you because it says something about who you are.

May it never be said that a Christian has a bad lawn as men. May we work hard labor. 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? 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 Incredibly hyperbolic views that won't last and are really just a money racketing opportunity to sell more EV cars.

We have a worldview that tells us how to take care of the world and steward the world because God made it. God made us.

From it.

Number six. God gave man a purpose in his geography. 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. 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. That means that God Purposefully puts Adam where he wants Adam to be. I think the same is true today.

Men, you are where you are at for a purpose. Your geography is purposeful. Your job is purposeful. You might not like it. But it's purposeful. God is sovereign over it and I think. Because God placed Adam in the garden expected him to work where God put him.

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. 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. I'm gonna put you. So you're gonna you can help balance things out because the joy is just too much there. 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. 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.

The whole sum total of what you touch under the blessings because of your labors. 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.

It says God plants at a garden towards the east and Eden there. He placed the man that he informed he put him into the garden to work. To cultivate it and keep it. I Remember the first time I realized that work was not a consequence of the fall.

You think yourself work?

Adam I.

Wouldn't have to go to work if it wasn't for you. Uh-huh. Work was there before the fall. Work is good. Work is a glorious thing. 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 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, 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. Why aren't we the hardest workers? Why aren't we the ones that are actually bringing? Fruitfulness instead of utility into the workplace.

You know what? I'd love to see I'd love to see the New York Times who write an op-ed on Why Christians are the hardest workers and then try to explain it based off of some completely ridiculous thing.

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. We were made to work. Let's work number seven.

God made man to create livelihood and industry. 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 Ground. Man, this is controversial today.

Man was commanded to work in the Bible. Not his wife. His wife was not commanded to work in Genesis 2. Man was commanded to work. Man was commanded to extract the resources. 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 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. Christ was working making shaping. Breathing life into Adam brothers. 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 Christ.

Christ made a living man out of the dirt. What are we making living out of the dirt that God has given us? What are we drawing out of the resources that God has given us to make the world a flourishing place now.

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. You know it better than I do.

Let's move on. Minerals and steel. Maybe you're. Maybe you're an iron worker. 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. Fueling your house with fossil fuels. Drawing resources out of the dirt. 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 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 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. Are you doing that? There's far too many people are bringing death and destruction today.

How are Christians bringing life number eight? 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. God told Adam to name all the variety of the animals.

Can you imagine what that day must have looked like? All the different speciations of birds and. And of different beasts coming to Adam and him naming him. Do you know why God did that? Well, there's the covenantal reason because Adam was going to be ruler over those things.

So him giving them a name was him exerting his loving dominion but at the same time Adams like two minutes old and God's showing him these glorious things and you imagine Adam saying.

Wow.

Look at that thing.

It's got a duck bill and. And it's got look 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. Because God is fueling Adam to be curious and to have creativity himself.

God put Adam in a very rich Topographical region calls eat called Eden. It said that waters flowed down out of Eden which meant that Eden was at a higher Geography and elevation so Adam probably had waterfalls.