When I Became a Man

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And then you can, if you would, take out your Bibles with me and turn to the book of 1 Corinthians chapter 13 and find your way there to verse 11 and we will remain standing while we read this.
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We're going to simply read one verse.
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This is the main text of the day.
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It certainly falls within a greater context, which unfortunately we will not have time to invest in the entire portion.
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But the entire context actually begins at verse 1, where the Apostle Paul is talking about the subject of love.
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And then he gets to verse 8 and he says, Love never fails.
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And he talks about when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.
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And that's talking about the perfect end, the culmination of all things.
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And at that point, the things that are partial will pass away.
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But in the midst of all this, he uses an analogy about life.
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And he says in verse 11, When I was a child, I spoke like a child.
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I thought like a child.
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I reasoned like a child.
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When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.
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Father in heaven, I thank you for your word.
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I thank you that it is true.
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And I thank you that it speaks with clarity, even though it was written 2,000 years ago with this portion.
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We know that it speaks directly to us today.
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And it speaks as relevantly as it ever has.
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So Father, this morning when we look at the word, we examine this passage and we examine what it means for a child to become a man.
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I pray, Father, that you would, as I always pray, keep me from error.
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For I am certainly capable of preaching error, and I don't want to.
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For the sake of your people, for the sake of my conscience, and for the sake of your name, I want to preach what is true.
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And I pray, Father, that you would use the truth to draw believers closer to you, to guide and direct them, and to minister to their hearts that they might know how to walk more closely with you.
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And Father, for those who know not you, I pray that this message would be to them a call to repentance and faith, and that they might have the power of the Spirit that would give them the ability to do that.
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And I pray this all in Jesus' name.
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Amen.
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You may be seated.
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Today, all across our country, there is a celebration which is happening, and we call this celebration Father's Day.
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And it is meant to be a celebration of the men in our lives.
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It is a day that, like Mother's Day, can be a difficult day.
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And I'm reminded always that not everyone shares in the same level of enjoyment on this day.
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For some, it is because possibly a father has passed on.
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For others, it may be because there was never an established relationship with a father, or perhaps the relationship that was there wasn't a positive one.
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And so I want to begin by saying that I understand that today is not a uniform celebration for everyone.
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Some celebrate, some mourn, some feel a sense of loss and brokenness.
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And it's important that we seek to not assume that we all face this day with the same sense of lightheartedness and joy.
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But having said that, we know that this day is an important day, because fatherhood is an important institution.
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Many in our society have tried to all but extinguish the role of fathers, but the Bible is clear that fathers play a vital role not only in the family, but also in society, and it is important that we honor this role.
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So this morning, I want to say I am thankful for the men of our church.
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I am.
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I'm especially thankful for the fathers, the grandfathers, the stepfathers, the foster fathers, the uncles who sometimes stand in that role.
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I'm thankful for the men in this church, and I praise God for you.
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And when we consider the subject of fatherhood, it's really impossible, at least in my mind, that we would be able to separate that from the subject of manhood.
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And that's not to say that just because a person has a child, he automatically becomes a man, because I know a lot of males who have children who have not yet reached manhood.
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But the father is, in general, for the child, an image of what manhood should be, and is supposed to be that role.
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As a result, when we think of the subject of fatherhood, our minds turn naturally to the subject of manhood.
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And if there is one subject which our culture has misunderstood and maligned, it is the subject of what it means to be a man.
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In fact, go out and ask people.
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Just spend some time.
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I like doing impromptu surveys.
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If I meet people, new people, and I'm talking to them about faith or Christ, I'll ask them sometimes just random questions, just because I like to hear what people think.
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And the question, what does it mean to be a man, especially today, is a very powerful question, because it has been so confused.
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And especially with the recent upswing of the sort of ultra-liberal thought on the subject of human sexuality and behavior, it may be even considered offensive to make a distinction between men and women, and to make a distinction about what should accompany manhood versus what should accompany womanhood.
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And as I was thinking about this message this week, and I was thinking about what I wanted to say, and how I wanted to address the subject of this passage, I got to thinking about the fact that historically, most societies have had some form of ritualistic way of taking a young male from boyhood to manhood.
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And, like, for instance, if you study back into history, and you study back to the Spartans, and we are all familiar with the Spartans only because of the movies that have sort of aggrandized the behavior of the Spartans.
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There was a lot of very, very bad behavior among the Spartans, so we might not make too much of heroes of them.
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But they did have a way of making sure that a boy went from being a boy to a man.
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When a boy was seven years old, the Spartans would separate him from his family, would place him into basically, as it were, ten years of training.
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And after ten years of training, on his 18th birthday, he was called a man, and he was put into the force of the soldier.
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He was a Spartan soldier, he was a warrior.
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And that's when they knew, now you're a man.
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Now, some cultures are not so refined.
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I want to make sure I say this correctly.
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There's a primitive tribe known as the Satur-Maui tribe, where the way a boy becomes a man is he has to stick his hand inside of a leather glove, and he has to hold it there for ten minutes without making a noise.
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That may not sound like much of a problem, but the leather glove is filled with bullet ants.
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And so he has to, a bullet ant, according to the index of pain, it's the most painful ant bite in the world, and they put his hand in a sack of ants, and he has to hold his hand there for ten minutes without making a noise.
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If he does that, then he's a man.
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That's really weird, but that is a cultural phenomenon in some parts of the world.
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Perhaps the most common ritual, and one I imagine you're all familiar with in some way, is that of the bar mitzvah.
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You're all familiar with what a bar mitzvah is? A bar mitzvah is when a young boy in the Jewish community reaches the age of 13.
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When he reaches the age of 13, he becomes bar mitzvahed.
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Do you know what bar mitzvah means? The word bar means a son.
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If you remember Simon bar Jonah means Simon son of Jonah, or this bar that.
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The term bar means a son.
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And a mitzvah is a commandment.
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And so bar mitzvah means to become a son of the commandment or a son of the law.
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Essentially what it's saying is you are now responsible for keeping the rules.
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You are now responsible to the law of God.
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You're now under the rule of God's law.
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And within the community of the Jewish people, you're now a man.
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You now have the rights and the privileges and the benefits and the responsibilities of being a man.
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And while most cultures have had some form of this, whereby boys in the community become men, the American culture has not adapted this concept in any real unilateral sense.
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In fact, I ask you, and I want you to think in your mind, just for a minute, what does it take for a boy to become a man? When does manhood begin? Some say, well, it's at age 18.
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Others say, well, it's when he gets married.
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Still others say, well, it's when he reaches a certain level of education, when he graduates high school or he graduates college.
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But I want to ask, think of this, just those few that I gave you.
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Do any of these make a person a man? Does age really identify a person as a man? Does marital status really bring someone into manhood? And does education really establish that this is what it means to be a man? Has manhood been misunderstood? Could it be that because in our culture manhood itself is seen as some kind of an offensive thing, that it's been relegated to almost a bad thing, that we don't even want to address what it means.
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Michael Kimmel, who is a sociology professor, stood before a group of his students and he asked a question and he had a whiteboard behind him.
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And he said, tell me what it means to be a good man.
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And of course these are university students.
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They looked a little perplexed.
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Well, what do you mean? He said, well, you know, you think about a funeral.
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Everybody says at a funeral he was a good man.
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Well, what does that mean to be a good man? So they said, well, a good man is a man who is, well, he's a man who is caring.
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So he wrote down caring.
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A man who is honest.
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He wrote down honest.
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A man who is willing to put others first.
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Okay, wrote that down under good man.
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And then he said, okay, tell me the definition of a real man.
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Tell me what a real...
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Okay, now no hesitation.
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He's authoritative.
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He's strong.
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He takes charge.
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He's a man's man.
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And one of them said he never cries.
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So he's sitting here writing down all these things.
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And then Professor Kimmel stepped back and he looked at the board and he said, okay, so here's what we have.
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We have a good man is this, but a real man is this.
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And he said, but these two lists don't go together.
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These two lists are pushing each other apart.
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Could it be that we really don't know what it means to be a man? We're confused over what it means to be a man.
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In fact, he says, and I quote, I think American men are confused about what it means to be a man.
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The definition of manhood in our society hovers in the realm of the obscure.
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For many, to deem manhood a good thing is tantamount to veiled sexism, so they don't want to even talk about it.
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And that pushes the problem back even further.
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Not only do we not know what it is, but we cannot be known for asking such a question because to do so would make us part of the patriarchal movement.
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Yet the Bible is clear, and I want to make this point.
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The Bible is clear that manhood is actually a good thing.
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Do you realize that? The Bible actually talks about manhood in the positive.
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Hold your place at 1 Corinthians 13 and turn just two chapters over.
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Well, three chapters.
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1 Corinthians 16.
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1 Corinthians 16, verse 13 says this.
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The apostle Paul is giving his final instructions to the Corinthian people, and he's telling them how he wants them to behave and how he wants them to live as believers.
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And he says in verse 13, Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, and do what? Act like men.
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Act like men.
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The word there in the Greek, andretzomai, literally means act like men.
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Just in case you were wondering if it was something really, really clever.
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No, they got it right.
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Some of your translations may say take courage, but that's actually not the word.
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The word andret is the word for man, andretzomai means to act as a man.
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Paul says that is a virtue, not a vice.
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And some of you may be saying, I think I've heard this before.
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Well, that was my passage for last year.
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It was 1 Corinthians 16, verse 13.
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Because I really believe in this.
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I believe that manhood has been all but forgotten and put aside.
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So, if you want to say, well, he's doing his annual push for manhood, yeah.
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Because even though we're looking at a different passage, we're looking at 1 Corinthians 13, verse 11, it is a similar subject.
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It's important to understand that the virtues of manhood are important for us to understand because we are called as men.
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And if you're a woman, I know you might be thinking, well, this must not be for me today because he's not addressing womanhood.
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Well, if you're married or if you have children who are boys, if you have fathers, you know, we all can relate.
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But in essence, today is calling men to manhood.
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And this is important because in the church, do you realize historically in the church, the church has been overwhelmingly, especially in the last 100 years, overwhelmingly supported by women rather than men.
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Happened a lot after the Industrial Revolution because men were working out of the home, whereas before that we were more of an agrarian society.
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Men work closer to the home, working, tending farms, things like that.
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But when the Industrial Revolution happened, men began to go away from the home, working away from the home several hours a week.
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And so they come home and they end up spending their Sundays resting at home rather than going to worship.
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So churches were filled with women and not with men.
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And what happened in the last 100 years is that there was this sort of a natural thing that a church would be about 80-20 women to men and the adults.
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And men have given up that responsibility of being the man of the home, the pastor, preacher, provider, protector in the home.
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And we've given it over to our wives and said, Here, you take care of the God stuff.
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I'll take care of the needs.
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I'll bring the food home.
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You pray over it.
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I'll buy the Bible, but you read it to them.
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I'll put the gas in the car, but you drive them to church.
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And that's giving up a vital part of what it means to be a man.
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So yes, I'm speaking to men today, primarily.
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And yes, it's Father's Day, but I'm not here necessarily to pump fathers up.
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I want to make much of my Father in heaven.
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And I've already said, if you're a man in this church, I love you and I appreciate you.
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But this is a call to action, men.
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This is a call to manhood.
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Because I absolutely and firmly believe that social pressure has been used to intentionally subvert and malign what the Bible says about the virtues of manhood.
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And let me say this, to add to that sentence.
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By lifting up manhood, I am not subverting womanhood.
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If you were here on Mother's Day, you heard what I had to say.
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And if you've ever been here when I've talked, there is nothing more precious in the world to me than my wife.
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And she's so much more important than me.
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You know, the Bible calls for the weaker vessel.
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I say, yeah, but man, porcelain is weaker than steel, but it's much more valuable.
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And that's the way she is.
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She's the weaker vessel because if something happens, I'm the one who's going to take the hits, not her.
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That's the responsibility of me.
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That's how it works.
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Weaker does not mean lesser.
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That's an important key.
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A man cannot do what God designed a woman to do.
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But likewise, a woman can't do what God designed a man to do.
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So we need to, rather than pit the two against each other in some weird sociological battle of the sexes, we need to understand that the two complement each other.
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Adam was in the garden and God looked at him and he said, you know what, it's not good that he be alone.
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And you know what God didn't do? God didn't say, you know what, I'm going to make him one just like him.
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He didn't do that.
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He said, I'm going to make one fit for him.
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I'm not going to make him a mirror image.
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I'm going to make him one who complements him in every way.
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And so please don't think for a second that by exalting the virtues of manhood, I'm in any way subverting the virtues of womanhood.
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There is value and immense value in both.
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And the shame of our modern culture is the concerted effort to blur the line between the two.
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So in our passage today, Paul makes a distinction.
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He's talking about himself.
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He's talking about himself using an analogy here in the greater scheme of talking about the fact that there's coming a time, there's coming a time when all of this partial knowledge that we have about God is going to pass away and we're going to have full knowledge.
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We're going to go into the presence of God.
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Do you realize that one day you're not going to have to wonder anymore about all these things you wonder.
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You wonder things about God? I wonder all the time.
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I honestly get up at night sometimes.
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I'm usually the last person to go to bed.
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You know, we put JJ to bed.
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The kids go to bed.
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Jennifer goes to bed.
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I'm usually the last one to bed.
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And sometimes I lay there with my eyes wide open staring at the ceiling just thinking about the things of God, thinking about life and the life to come.
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And sometimes it's overwhelming.
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Amen.
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Sometimes I'll say out loud, Oh Jesus, this just overwhelms my soul.
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And Jennifer's like, what? It's not you, it's Jesus.
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I'm not talking to you.
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But for a moment I'm overwhelmed by the reality of it all.
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But one day, even though I'll remain overwhelmed forever, but one day I won't have so many questions.
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That's right.
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Because one day I'll see him face to face.
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And it won't be like looking through a dimmed glass, as the Scripture says.
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Right now we look as it was through a glass that's been dimmed.
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But we'll see him face to face.
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And that's what Paul's talking about here.
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He said one day we'll see God face to face.
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Just like when I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.
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But when I became a man, I put away a child.
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That's where the analogy's coming in.
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He's saying right now we live a life, in this life, that will mature one day.
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We're going to be with God one day.
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And that's the analogy.
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But the analogy is what I'm talking about today.
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And the analogy is this.
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Paul made himself an example.
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He said when I was a child, I spoke like a child.
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I reasoned like a child.
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And I thought like a child.
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But when I became a man, I put away childish things.
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So Paul says here there are three things which have changed in his life from his experience in childhood to his experience as a man.
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The way he speaks, the way he thinks, and the way he reasons.
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And ladies, I can say this applies to you.
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You can say when I was a child and when I became a woman.
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And you make that application as well.
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Because in this sense, Paul is not necessarily addressing men only, but he's talking about the natural advance of age.
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He says when I was a child, these things I did differently than now I'm an adult.
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Now I'm a man, I do these things differently.
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Now I want to say this.
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Many men never give up speaking, thinking, and reasoning like children.
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They stay in many ways in perpetual adolescence.
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And there's even a joke within some groups of women that the husband is the additional child of the family.
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You ever heard that? You know, they might have three children.
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Well, I've actually got four children.
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I've got my husband.
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And he needs as much guidance, care, oversight, as any of my...
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He's the overgrown baby of the house.
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You know, you think I'm lying.
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Just turn the television on.
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Used to be father knows best.
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Ward Cleaver would come home.
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The wife would go to him.
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You know, the beaver's been acting a fool or whatever.
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And Ward would have words of wisdom.
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And sage advice.
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That way of presenting where people say, Okay, this is a man, and this is the way a man behaves.
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But now fathers are bumbling buffoons.
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They're no better than any of the children.
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In fact, often they are worse without an ounce of wisdom to show for their years of life.
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And while that is the new normal in the world and socially acceptable in modern society, this is not the model for the church.
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The church needs men who speak like men, who think like men, and who reason like men.
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The church community needs maturity, thoughtfulness, deliberation, and sober-mindedness.
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It needs those who are willing to put away childish behaviors, take the reins of ministry, and cover ground for the kingdom of God.
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The church needs men to be men.
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Perhaps now more than ever.
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But what does maturity look like? What does manhood look like? And what are we missing? Well, looking back at the passage, I want to break it down.
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The outline is simple.
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We're going to look at how men speak, how men think, and how men reason.
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Because that's the outline of the text.
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Paul says, I used to think like this, I used to speak like this, I used to reason like this, but now I do so like a man.
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Well, what does the Bible say? Well, first let's look, what does the Bible say about how we speak? What does the Bible say about how we speak? You don't have to turn to these passages, but I want you to think about them as I read them, because we're going to go through several in a shot here.
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But think about this passage.
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What does this say? James 1.26 If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue, but deceives his heart, this person's religion is worthless.
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You ever heard somebody that shouts the praises of Jesus on Sunday morning, but their tongue is used to absolutely destroy people all the rest of the week? Their mouths are, as Paul said, like an open grave, and the venom of snakes is on their lips.
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James says such a person who has a religion like that, who is not speaking in a way that glorifies God, that their religion is worthless.
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Ephesians 4 tells us this, Ephesians 4.29 Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.
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Let no corrupting talk come out of our mouths.
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What does that mean? It means that when we talk, we speak in virtuous ways, in true ways, not ways that are meant to defile, and to tear down, and to break apart.
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I like Colossians 4.6 Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.
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When we are talking to people, do we talk to people with words that are gracious and seasoned with salt? Or are our words hateful, vindictive, hurtful, cutting, divisive, destructive? How we speak says a lot about our maturity.
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It really, really does.
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You know what? I want to talk about this.
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You all know the term Calvinism.
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We tend to identify, at least I identify myself as a Calvinist as far as historically Calvinism.
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And I'm going to start teaching next week on what that means because we're in the 500th year anniversary of the Reformation.
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And during the time of the Reformation, there were three main men who made a big difference.
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There was Martin Luther, there was John Calvin, there was Euryx Wingley.
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And all of those men were what we call the magisterial reformers.
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And out of them came very important theological doctrines and teachings and things that still continue to today.
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And Calvinism made its way in many directions, but up into England.
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And in England is where we have the English Baptists.
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And out of that came what basically we are today.
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Even though we don't identify ourselves as Baptists, the theology that we have is very reformed and very Baptistic.
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So it would be in line with those early English Baptists.
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So I say all that simply to say this.
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I know some people who when they learn about their history and they learn about their theology, they get really excited and they get really puffed up about what they know.
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And they become dangerous because their words are not seasoned with salt or laden with grace.
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They want to carry the hammer of theology and just beat people over the head with it as if it were an axe.
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We joke we call it cage stage Calvinist.
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What's a cage stage Calvinist? Mike knows this phrase, I'm sure.
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It's somebody who learns about the doctrines of grace and they're so excited that everybody they come in contact has got to hear this now.
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It's the most important thing in the world.
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And while it is hugely important, and I would never downplay how important it is, we beat people with it.
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And that's not what we're called to do.
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You know how I learned about the doctrines of grace? And I don't want to embarrass Brother Jim, but I'm going to do it anyway.
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Brother Jim, we were on a bus ride to a camp where I was going to be speaking, one of the speakers there, and doing counseling there.
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And on the bus ride, Brother Jim just asked me, Hey, have you ever thought about this? And I said, Well, yeah, I've thought about that.
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I gave him the typical Armenian answer.
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And he says, Well, what about this passage and this? Have you read Romans 9? Have you read Romans 8? Have you read Ephesians 1? In the context of thinking about these things.
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And I hadn't.
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And you know, it took me a year before I figured out what he was saying.
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I remember sitting in my chair in my living room and I'd holler at my wife, Jennifer! Doesn't this sound like what Brother Jim said? And I'd read it.
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But the point is, if he would have taken an axe to me that week and just chopped me down the whole time, that probably would have driven me further away from the truth than drawing me closer to it.
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And so how we speak says a lot about our spiritual maturity.
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That's why Paul says, When I was a child, I spoke like a child.
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But when I became a man, my speech changed.
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How I talk to people changed.
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Now, I'm not saying we never say hard things to people.
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Because sometimes we have to call people to repentance.
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And sometimes we have to speak the truth.
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But we always speak the truth how? In love.
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My goal is to never see someone depart the church.
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Never see someone depart the faith.
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Never see someone depart the conversation.
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But I know that I don't always have control over that.
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Because there will be times when people depart because they're angry with the truth.
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And I can't fix that.
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But my job is to share the truth in love with the hopes of what Jesus said, winning my brother.
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He says, if you share someone about their sin and they repent, you have won your brother.
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So that's my goal.
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I want to persuade people with my speech.
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Not repel people with my speech.
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I want to draw people with the work of the Spirit, of course, who does the drawing.
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But I don't want to be a tool that beats people away.
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I want to be a tool of God to draw people in.
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So I've said enough about that.
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But you understand, how we speak is a part of manhood.
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Second thing, what does the Bible say about how we ought to think? As Paul says, I spoke like a child and I thought like a child.
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And you know, I got to thinking.
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I looked up the word for this.
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Ephronun is the Greek for thinking.
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And I was thinking, how is this? What does it mean to think? First of all, that's sort of a philosophical question.
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What is thought? How does thought work? And how does it relate to our conscience? How does it relate to our spirit? Things like that.
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That's sort of a big question.
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But really, I got to thinking.
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There's another time where this word is used in the Scripture.
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It's in Philippians 2 where the Apostle Paul says this.
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He says, Have this mind in yourself that was also yours in Christ Jesus.
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He's basically saying have the mind of Christ.
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So what is thinking? What is biblical thinking? What is biblical manhood thinking supposed to be? It's a mind that seeks to have the mind of Christ.
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Now what is the mind of Christ? What was Christ's mind focused on? It was focused on His Father.
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But I'm going to be a little bit simpler.
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That's true.
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The mission of Christ was to do the will of the Father.
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But He was focused on truth and love.
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His truth, He was not compromising on.
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Neither was He compromising on love.
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So when I think about how I ought to think, everything I think about, and I taught the last two Sundays about truth and love, my thoughts should be focused on the truth.
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And it should be influenced by God's love.
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And when I think about anything, I should ask this question.
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This is a very important question.
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You guys remember, and I know this is a little sort of bandwagon Christianity, but you remember years ago there was a band, people were around the wrist and it said WWJD and what would that mean? What would Jesus do? I never really got into that.
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But I will ask this question.
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What would Jesus think? Because there are times when I know I ain't thinking like Jesus.
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There are times when I'm thinking and I know that ain't the thought Jesus would have.
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So what do I do? Do I just be satisfied? Well, I'm a sinner.
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No.
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I want to think like Jesus thinks.
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That's having the mind of Christ.
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And sadly, I think that is very little concern for a lot of people, even people who call themselves Christians.
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I think it's very little concern that they're thinking like Jesus thinks.
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What happens is, when Jesus agrees with them, they'll say, yeah, I agree with that.
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But when Jesus disagrees with them, they'll say, well, I know I'm wrong, but...
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You ever heard that? Well, I know I'm wrong, but...
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You need to stop before the but.
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You need to say, I know I'm wrong and I need to have the mind of Christ.
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If you know you're wrong, fix it.
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If you know you're wrong, repent of it.
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It's not good to be wrong.
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It's not good to simply say, ah, I'm not perfect.
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I know you're not perfect, but we're called, be holy as He is holy.
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We're called to repent when we realize something is wrong, not just revel in it.
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Have this mind within you, which was yours in Christ Jesus.
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Have the mind of Christ.
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Think like Him.
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And when we don't, we fix it.
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Thirdly and finally, and I know I'm going long, so I'll hasten to the end.
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He says that we ought to speak.
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He says, I spoke like a child.
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I thought like a child.
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And then He uses the word reason.
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He said, I reasoned like a child.
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Now that word reason is a really long word in the Greek, and I'm not even going to try to read it to you, but basically what it means is it means to deliberate or decide or make decisions.
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You ever spend a lot of time with kids? Horrible decision makers.
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In general, kids make poor decisions all the time.
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You give a child a medal, something, he's going to look for a light socket to put it in.
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Horrible decision.
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But that's just the way they are.
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They're not good at making decisions because they haven't learned how to do that yet.
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And that's the reasoning that Paul's talking about here.
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He says that when you become a man, you become a man who makes decisions or reasons out making his decisions as he ought.
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The Bible says that we reason through the Word of God.
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I want to read to you a passage, Romans 12.
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And you all know this.
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Those of you who are Bible readers, a lot of you probably may have memorized this text.
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Paul says, I appeal to you, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies, what? A living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service.
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Do not be conformed to this world, but what? Be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
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He's saying this.
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He's saying your mind needs to be renewed because our decision making is faulty.
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We're sinful people.
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We're fallen people.
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We tend to make decisions based on our urges.
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We tend to make decisions based on our frustrations.
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We tend to make decisions based on our lusts.
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We tend to make decisions based on all these things.
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But we need to have our minds renewed.
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And the only way to have our minds renewed is through the Word.
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And I'll tell you this.
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When a man or when a person has his influence, rather, let me start again.
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I've said it wrong twice, so I'm going to say it right.
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When a person's reasoning is influenced by the Word, he's thinking like a man.
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When a person's influenced by the Word of God, he's thinking like a man.
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When he's influenced by his flesh, he's thinking like a child.
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When he's influenced by his urges, he's thinking...
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Because that's how children make decisions.
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Urge.
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If you took a toddler and you put him in an adult body with an adult strength, he would be the most dangerous person in the world.
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Because he would only function off of the urge to do.
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And he wouldn't be able to be controlled because he'd be so monstrous.
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And Paul says, no.
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We need a renewal of the mind.
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We don't need to think like children.
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We don't need to speak like children.
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And we don't need to make decisions like children.
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We need to give up childish ways.
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Now I want to draw to a close by saying this.
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I do not believe that the Bible gives an exact time when this happens.
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I don't believe that you can say that age is when a boy becomes a man because there is no magic number.
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I've met some 20-year-olds who are wise beyond their years and I've met some 50-year-olds who haven't yet broken through any real level of maturity.
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Likewise, it can't be marriage because the Bible says that some men are gifted to singleness.
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And what if we said marriage was the only way a boy could become a man and the man who never gets married never gets to be a man? So that's not the case.
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And it can't be education because I don't care how many letters you have after your name.
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It don't account for wisdom in a lot of people.
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So the Bible doesn't give us a demarcation point that's absolutely discernible.
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But here is what we know.
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A boy becomes a man when his speech, his thoughts, and his decisions are conformed to the Word of God.
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That's when we know that he has reached biblical manhood.
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And I'm going to say not perfectly because there ain't a perfect man in here.
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And I'm three foot above all y'all but I ain't above any of you.
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Three foot higher but not above.
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But the pattern of the life, the talking, the thinking, and the decision making are influenced by the Word of God.
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And when they're not, he's still thinking, talking, and acting like a child.
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Some may say, well pastor, I don't know if I qualify then as a man.
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I don't talk or think or reason in accord with the scripture.
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Well brother, this is where I point you to Christ.
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Because if you have problems with maturity in speech, go to Christ.
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Repent and turn to Christ.
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If you have issues with maturity in how you think, repent and turn to Christ.
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And if you have problems with how you reason, repent and turn to Christ.
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Jesus is there for the broken, He is there for the needy, and He is there when someone needs to grow in maturity.
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So if you have a need this morning, and I think we all do, we all need to look to Jesus.
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Let's pray.
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Father, I pray that you will help us be the men that we need to be.
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I pray that you'll help the women to be the women you've called them to be.
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And I pray that they would understand that this call is to leave behind thinking, leave behind talking, and leave behind reasoning like children.
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And to go forward to maturity, whereby we might make strides for the kingdom of God.
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But we know that these things are not of us.
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These things are not simply the by-product of study, or the by-product of some kind of spiritual discipline, or some type of self-discipline that we do.
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We know that these are the by-product of your word, and the by-product of your spirit working along with that word in our heart.
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So I pray first for the men in this room.
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I pray that the men in this room would understand what it means to be men of God.
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Father, people call me a man of God because I preach.
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But Lord God, these men are to be men of God, all of us.
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Men of God.
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And I pray that you would mature us through your word.
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I pray, Lord, for the women, that they also would be matured through the word.
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And I pray that the children would be able to look to their fathers and to their mothers, and say, there is a man, there is a woman of God.
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Father, all these things I pray, and I ask you to be merciful, and lead us all to repentance in Jesus' name.
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Amen.
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Let's stand and sing.