Act Like Men: A Call to Biblical Manhood

Biblical Manhood on Father’s Day

Be seated, and at this point I want to invite you to take out your Bible and turn with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 16. Today of course is Father's Day, and we are looking at the subject. The title of today's message is Act Like Men.

We're going to, when we get to the text, we're going to be looking at 1 Corinthians chapter 16 and verse 13. Is there a way to get that, hon? Thank you. On Tuesday of this past week, the United States Senate approved an expansive military policy bill that would, for the first time in American history, require that women be registered for the draft.

The two bills, one in Congress and one in the Senate, are different, and the one in Congress does not have that section. And those two will have to be brought together in a contentious debate, which is expected.

It is expected to be quite contentious. And military experts are saying that even if the efforts to compel women to enlist fails in Congress, the issue is not going away, and that they are confident that this will be an eventual necessity.

This is the last in a long line of decisions which have been intended to blur and even destroy the distinctions between men and women. Just a few years ago, a woman made the national news because she decided that it was best for her son to become a Girl Scout rather than a Boy Scout.

And her son wanted to be a Girl Scout, so she went and took her son to the Girl Scouts. And when the troop leader said that he was not able to come because, of course, in the very title it says Girl Scout, that he wasn't allowed to come, well, she took it to the national level, fought at the national level, and eventually the Girl Scouts acquiesced to say that whatever a child identifies as is all that matters.

And so now little boys can be Girl Scouts, and I'm sure that there are little girls who want to be Boy Scouts, and I'm sure that the lines are going to blur there very quickly. In 2007, Dr. Norman Spack, a pediatric endocrinologist, started a new clinic at Boston's Children's Hospital.

He said some children with gender identity disorder have resorted to cutting themselves and even attempting suicide. Therefore, they should be allowed to choose the gender that they want, and the clinic offers puberty-blocking drugs to children as young as 10 years old.

These children may go on later to receive opposite-sex hormone injections and even surgery. All this nonsense is predicated on one simple lie, and here's the lie. Men and women are the same. Men and women aren't different.

There's no need to make a line. Everything's the same. Let's just blur the line. Be what you want. And that lie has so infected the brains of people that they believe the entire idea of male and female is simply a social construct.

Listen to people talking. They'll say, it's just social. It's just a construct that we've created. It's not something that's natural. It's social. This is where the idea of gender fluidity comes from.

The idea that one can vary their gender back and forth over time and really have no foundation as to who they are. In fact, the definition from a website which promotes this, defining gender fluidity like this, it says, a gender-fluid person may at any time identify as male, female, neutroi, or any other non-binary identity, or some combination of identities.

Their gender can also vary at random or vary in response to different circumstances. They don't have... They're not male or female. They're just whatever they are at the time. A video made the rounds on social media this week of a pair of women who were raising a young boy.

And in raising this young boy, they're trying to raise him in what they would say a gender non-conforming environment. What are they doing though? They're trying to dress him like a little girl. And guess what the little boy is doing?

He's rebelling. They put him in a tutu. Guess what he said? I don't want to wear a tutu. You know what he wants to do? He wants to go out and play sports. You know what the lady said on the video? She said, well, maybe he was an Olympic athlete in a former life.

Well, maybe he's just a boy. What are you, nuts? I mean, maybe he's just a boy. Listen, folks. I'm bringing all this up only because this thinking is unbiblical, it's unnatural, it's unscientific. It doesn't even go with what science tells us.

There's a different biology, male and female. We know it. It's very simple. The two sexes are designed to be complementary to one another, not the same. The complementary sexes are supposed to go together to produce something.

It works together. It's biology. It's science. It's Bible. It all goes together. It's very simple. I'm not trying to be ugly. But it's the denial of this that is creating one of the biggest problems in our world today.

And that is that we have lacked any sense at all in our morality, in our judgment, in our justice, in any of this. We are losing our minds. Boys and girls, men and women, females and males are different.

Both bring something different and complementary to the human race. They are both valuable to the human race, but they're different. And if you can't see value in difference, then you have lost your mind.

And that's where we are as a society. We're only valuable if we're all the same. And that's foolish thinking. This morning, my goal for our Father's Day message... By the way, I don't know if you ever noticed, Mother's Day and Father's Day messages tend to be pretty hard here.

I don't give the little hearts and flowers. I try to give you something to chew on. This is heavy stuff. This is serious business. Life is serious. We have enough fluff. We have enough foam in our life.

We need some meat. Something to chew on. So this morning, I want to focus on the subject of biblical manhood. We're going to see that not only does the Bible commend men toward biblical manhood, but it also demonstrates what that's supposed to look like.

It's a very simple thesis today. The thesis of the message, very simple, right in your face. Act like a man. Be a man, if you're a man. So let's stand and read the text. It's 1 Corinthians 16, verse 13.

It comes in the end of the book as Paul is providing his last final words, these little mini exhortations that he gives. And in the midst of this, we see in verse 13, he says, Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men.

Be strong. Father in heaven, I thank You for Your Word. I thank You for the simplicity of the text that we're looking at today, and yet the profundity which we see within it. And how this simple truth has been abandoned in a world that seems to have lost its mind.

I pray, Lord, that we would, as believers in the Word of God, that we would submit to it, particularly the men in this room, that their ears and eyes would be opened today, that the scales would fall from the eyes, that the ears would be unstopped, that they would hear from Your Word the call of manhood, and that they would accept the call.

I pray that the women in this room would understand that there is a distinction between men and women, and that they should exhort their husbands, their fathers, their sons to biblical manhood. And I pray for me, Father, I pray that You keep me from error.

As I know, I'm a fallible man capable of preaching error, and I do not want to cast a dispersion on the name of Christ by preaching error. I certainly don't want to hurt any soul in this room by preaching error, and I certainly don't want to imperil my own fellowship with You.

So I pray, Lord, that You would keep me in the truth as I preach. In Jesus' name, Amen. If you read Paul's writings, you'll notice at the end of his letters, he often ends with what I call mini exhortations.

They're sort of just pithy little short statements of reminders. He's getting to the end, so he's sort of just getting a lot of things out at one time. And so he starts to sort of shoot these things out rapid fire, kind of like machine gun preaching.

Like at the end of 1 Thessalonians, he says, Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances. You know, it's just boom, boom, boom. Things for you to consider as we end this conversation.

As I end this long letter to you, let me remind you of a few things. Well, when we arrive at the end of 1 Corinthians, we find that there is also a list of these exhortations, these little mini exhortations.

And in the midst of them, we find one very short statement that would be easy to read right past if we were simply just reading the text. In the English standard version, it says, Act like men. Some translations, it says, Show courage.

I don't think that that is the right way. If your Bible says, Show courage, I don't think that's the heart of the word. I think the ESV gets this right. I'm not sure what it says in King James. I guess somebody out there probably has one and could probably tell me after the service.

But I know in the ESV, it's hitting, because the Greek is simple. Andritsomai. Andritsomai comes from the root of Andrei, which means man. Andritsomai is the verb form. And so it becomes be a man or act like a man.

That's, in the Greek, very simple. So the question becomes, well, why does Paul commend his hearers to act like men? Well, it is apparent that there is something inherent in manhood which he found commendable.

He found something about being a man to be virtuous enough to say that's what you should be. That's not to say that all men are commendable. All men are not. All men are not virtuous. All men are not worthy to be pointed at and say, Be like that man.

That would be wrong to understand it like that. But rather, he's saying that manhood is a thing that we ought to aspire to. Manhood is a goal that we ought to move toward. And the reality is, if you say that today, and the average group of folks that don't have anything to do with the Bible, don't have anything to do with Christ, just very liberal-minded people, that's like cursing.

If you say there's something good about manhood or being a man. Especially in the age of feminism. Feminism and feminists have almost convinced society that it's a sin to be a man. That manhood itself is wrong.

During the radical feminist movement which sprung up in the 60s and 70s, men were often portrayed not only as bad, but the enemy. Men are the enemy. We're battling against them. Masculinity was seen as something to be eliminated.

In fact, during the Clinton administration, Duke University law professor Madeleine Morris advised the military, the military! This is in the 90s. To eliminate its masculine attitudes such as dominance, assertiveness, aggressiveness, independence, self-sufficiency, and the willingness to take risks.

Hear that again. We want our military to eliminate the following. Dominance, assertiveness, aggressiveness, independence, self-sufficiency, and the willingness to take risks. Wow! Many radical feminists have put forward the notion that all things feminine are valuable, and as a result, all things masculine are terrible.

Sadly, this has led to the demasculinization of boys in our society. Masculinity is inherent in boys, and yet we rob them of that. If you have a boy, you know what I'm talking about. You hand a boy a stick.

What does that stick become? A sword! Or somebody said a gun. Well, yeah, okay. Boys want to run. They want to play. They want to get dirty. They want to wrestle. Oftentimes, girls want that too, but it's always in a different way.

The boys have this inherent drive to be a boy. In fact, you ever heard the term, he's all boy? Well, you think that came, you think we just made that up? No. Boys are fascinated with things that go boom.

These are all part of the nature called masculinity. However, as I said, devout feminism defines masculinity as something to be challenged and defeated. According to modern feminists, those things which a boy does to display his natural masculinity should be stifled.

We're told to take away the toy swords because it's just going to teach him to be violent. All the while, we miss the fact that most of the times, the boys are not fascinated with the concept of hurting other people.

They're fascinated with the concept of protecting other people. You ask a little boy, what are you doing? I'm fighting the bad guy! Almost every circumstance. You get a group of boys together. Nobody wants to be the bad guy.

Everybody wants to be the hero. Everybody wants to protect the weak. That's the internal drive of masculinity. It's to protect those who can't protect themselves. We're told to replace the swords with Barbie dolls.

What happens when you give a boy a Barbie doll? He sees her feet are sharp and he says, I got a knife. It doesn't work. You can't rob him of his masculinity even though we try. We dress him like little girls.

We treat him like little girls. We don't let him get hurt. We don't let him give a try at anything. And we wonder why we're raising a generation unwilling to exercise their masculinity in a positive way.

Boys are being told that it's wrong to act like boys. And I'm telling you today, that's wrong. Rather than stifling the boy's masculinity, we should be nurturing it. We do not need to turn the masculine into the feminine.

We need to turn the boy into a man. And that's really something that, in our society, we have lost. This isn't in my notes, but this is just something I think about sometimes. In other cultures outside of the United States, oftentimes there is a certain process that a young man goes through to become a man.

Whether it's some type of a ritual that the group gathers together and says, okay, once this boy goes, maybe it's a hunt. He goes out on a hunt. And when he brings back food for the village, he's a man.

Or maybe it's some other type of responsibility that he has to hold to. And he has to go through this and become a man. What do we say in the United States? Oftentimes it has something to do with illicit sexual behavior.

Then he's a man. No. We don't have a right that turns boys into men. And what happens is we deal with perpetual adolescence, 30-year-old little boys. And that's part of the problem. We need to teach our boys to be men.

But to do that, we've got to know what it means to be a man. So what does the Bible say that manhood should be? What does the Bible say that a masculinity from the biblical term should be? What does Paul mean when he says act like a man?

Well, manhood has a very particular set of responsibilities. The most obvious that a man has a unique role in the family. He is the husband to the wife, the father to the children. He's the leader of the home.

Now, I realize television tells you different. Television tells you that the dads are the stupid one, mom is the brilliant one, or the kids are the brilliant one. Watch Nickelodeon. The kids solve all the problems.

The parents are stupid, always, especially the father. He's a mere idiot. But the biblical model, the husband is the head. He's the leader of the home. He husbands his wife. He fathers his children. And as a result, he has a threefold duty in the home.

And you've all heard me say this. And I'm going to say it until I am blue in the face. I'll say it until I die. Fathers, and I'm speaking specifically to fathers, if you're not a father today, if you're a man who wants to one day become a father, great.

If you're a man who is a grandfather at this point, you still have some responsibilities in this. And women, you need to be listening too because you need to know what you should be exhorting your men to be, whether you're a daughter of a man or the wife of a man.

All of this, it fits everybody. Don't think I'm just talking to certain people today. It goes to everybody. There's three things that a man ought to be in his home. The three things, protector, provider, and pastor.

That's the three roles that the father provides to the home. And that's to everybody. He's protector, provider, and pastor to his wife, protector, provider, and pastor to his children. He is that over the home.

Let's look at those three things. I gave you in your notes some places to write notes. I'll just give you a few things to think about. Number one, the role of protector. The Bible throughout its pages gives example after example demonstrating the responsibility of men to protect their families.

One of the most specific ones I think about is if you go back to the book of Numbers and you read... What is the book of Numbers? It's a census of the people of Israel. That's why it's called the book of Numbers.

It was a time when the people of Israel gathered together and they determined how many there were who had come out of Egypt after the Exodus. That's why it goes Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers. Numbers is this gathering of the people and determining how many people are in each tribe.

But if you go back and read the numbers in Numbers, if you go back and read the amount of people in Numbers, you'll notice this. They only counted one group. They didn't count the women. They didn't count the children.

And they didn't count the old men. They counted the men of fighting age. That was it. Why? Because that's the number we need to know when our enemies come. Now we can conjecture there's like 600 ,000 fighting men.

We can conjecture from that there's probably about 2 million people. If you figure every man probably had a wife and probably had a set of parents and maybe some children, we're looking at about 2 million people plus, group of people.

But there were 600 ,000 fighting men. And that's the way they described them in the Jack. You guys did that in your Sunday school class? They described them as fighting men. That's what these men were.

And they were expected to be that. Not the women. And not the children. And not the grandparents. The men. The men who were in their prime were expected to do one thing for the nation. Stand against its enemies.

Stand and protect against those who would come in and try to evilly or through evil hurt the people. The women and the children stand behind the men. The elderly stand behind the men. And the men take the line.

The men do battle. The men are the warriors. The men protect. That's what a man does. If you go over to the book of Nehemiah, you remember Nehemiah after the time of the persecution under Babylon, after they had been brought back and Nehemiah is rebuilding the wall that had been destroyed.

You know what Nehemiah had the men do? If you go back and read in chapter 3, you know what Nehemiah had the men do? He had them work on the wall that was right in front of their house. Because they all had houses.

And they had this wall that had been destroyed and they had to rebuild the wall. Why do you think he had them work on the wall right in front of their house? Because this is my house. This is my property.

This is my home. These are my children. And if I'm going to... You know, it might be easy if he had me working down the street. It might be easy for me to take a day off. It might be easy for me to slow my work ethic a little bit.

But when I know that this part is directly going to affect my home, I'm going to be the one out there first thing in the morning, last to go to bed, making sure that wall gets up. Why? Because that's the man.

He protects his home. Even Jesus said in the New Testament, Mark 3 .27, He says, No one can enter a strong man's house and plunder his good unless he first binds the strong man. What's Jesus saying? It's simple, folks.

Men protect their homes. Even in Jesus' parable, men protect their homes. He says the only way to go in and plunder a man's house is to first bind that man. Because if you don't bind that man, he's going to kick you out.

Because he understands his role to protect his home. Men, you are a bulwark. And I know that's an old word, but it's a word I like. One of my favorite hymns. A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing.

You know what a bulwark is? It's a wall of defense. We call God our bulwark. He's the wall of defense. Well, guess what, men? That's you. In the home, you are the wall. You're the one who everyone else stands behind.

And it should be that way. Men are the protectors of their home. Number 2, men are the providers. Look with me at 1 Timothy 5. I actually ask you to go there. We can go out of 1 Corinthians now. We've seen that passage.

Go over to 1 Timothy 5 and verse 8. Paul is talking to Timothy. He's giving instructions for the church. How should the church behave within the body? How should they treat each other? How should people in the church behave?

I think this is an important passage. Verse 8, he says, But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

That's pretty tough, isn't it? He says if a man is not providing for his family, he is worse than an unbeliever. Now, I want to say this right from the outset. This does not mean that a woman cannot do things outside the home that benefit the home.

If you go back to Proverbs 31, there are some things that a woman can do that benefit the home. But I'm going to tell you this. If you come to me and say my kids are going hungry, I'm not looking at the wife.

That's just... This text has a masculine term. It says if anyone does not provide for his relatives, that is masculine in the Greek. It's his relatives. It's the man's responsibility. Ultimately, if your kids are going hungry, I'm not looking at your wife.

I'm looking at you. I'll tell you a story that happened many, many years ago. Many, many years ago. There was a family who needed help, and they perpetually needed help. It was like almost a weekly thing.

They were coming and asking for food or money from the church. And we helped a lot. We did do a lot in trying to help this family. But it came to the point where I realized that the husband and the son, who was an adult son in the home, neither one were working.

And this woman was working two jobs. And finally I said, no more. I said, you get them out of that lounge chair, and you get them to work. That is their job to provide for you. I mean, we didn't just cut her off.

But I'm saying we had to take her into counseling and say, look, you're in a situation where you're perpetuatingly allowing this to happen. And by the way, I just want to throw this out in context. This passage isn't even talking about your kids and your wife, because that's a given.

In context, this passage is actually talking about your older parents. Because you know what? As your parents age, guess who's responsible for them? You are. As my parents age, I'm responsible for them.

As they were responsible for me as I was younger, I'm responsible to my parents as they get older. You ever thought about that? You ever thought about how you're called not only to provide for your children, but to provide for your parents as they age?

We're called to that. We're called to provide. Men provide. Men protect. Finally, thirdly, men pastor. Number three, men pastor. Some people say priest. You'll hear people say protector, provider, and priest of the home.

Priest is a fine word. Priest means intercessor. And that's fine. Understanding Christ is the high priest and the only true priest, I don't normally use the term priest, but I understand if someone does.

They're simply saying intercessor in the home. But I say pastor because a pastor means shepherd. Spiritual shepherd. And that's what the man is supposed to be in the home. Turn with me to Ephesians 6 real quick, and I just want to show you how this is used in the text.

Ephesians chapter 6, Paul is talking about the family. In chapter 5, he talks about husbands and wives. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church, gave Himself for her. And in Ephesians, we get this little quick note here.

It says in chapter 6, verse 4, Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. But bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

That word bring them up in the Greek means to nurture them. It means to rear them to maturity. That's what it means. It means to train them. It means to actually train your children in the ways of God.

That's what a pastor does. I, as the pastor of this church, seek to train you in the ways of God. Every Sunday we come together, we worship God, and we seek to go to the Word, to be trained by the Word of God, to be men and women of God.

That's what my job is. Well, that's your job in the home, dads. Your job is to train your children in the ways of God. Because guess what? If you're leaving that job to me, I can't do it. I get one hour a week.

You get the other 167 hours in the week. I get one, you get 167. There's no way I'm going to have the influence that you will. There's no way I'm going to be able to instruct them like you can. So I ask the question, if you're married, men, are you discipling your wives?

Do you pray with her, talk about God with her, seek to answer her questions? And does she feel like she can come to you when she has a question? You know, the Bible says she's supposed to. 1 Corinthians 14 says women are not to speak in the church, but if they have a question, they should ask their husbands at home.

That's not an offense towards women. It's a command to men. Men, you ought to be able to answer your wife's questions. If they have a question, they should come to you. That's your job. You're her pastor at home.

Fathers, are you discipling your children? Do you know your children well enough to know if they're pursuing the Lord? Do you sit down with them and help them in a loving way, examine their walk with the Lord?

Do you ask them questions about their faith, about their walk? And when you find inconsistencies of their life, if they're sinning, do you stay with them through the repentance that's necessary? This is a crucial responsibility for the pastor of the home, which is the father.

These are unique roles that men are supposed to fulfill. And as such, I believe it's why Paul urges us to be men. Again, to Paul, manhood was something that was virtuous to be obtained. It meant putting away the childish things and being a man.

In fact, one other verse you might want to write down. You don't have to go there, but 1 Corinthians 13 .11, Paul says this, When I was a child, I spoke like a child, and I thought like a child, and I reasoned like a child.

But when I became a man, I put away childish things. There's something about graduating to manhood that Paul saw as valuable. And I believe it's these three things. And when I say protection, I don't mean just fisticuffs with a bad guy.

You protect your children from bad theology. You protect your children from bad thinking. You protect your children from a bad education. You protect your children from bad friends. You protect your children from bad people entering into their life and bringing with them the evil of this world.

You are your children's bulwark. It's not just about, yeah, I take care of a bad guy, fisticuffs. Well, great. There's more to it than that. The same guy that would protect with his life his daughter from a rapist will send her away with a 16-year-old boy with no supervision and wonder what's happening for three or four hours.

Really? That's what we're going to do? Think about that. Oh, now he's stepping on my toes. Well, lace him up. This is what I'm talking about. We protect our children with more than just carrying a firearm or something on our person.

There's more to it than that. We provide for our children with more than food on the table. We provide spiritual food to our children. We provide them with work ethics and examples because we get up and we go to work in the morning and we come back tired in the afternoon.

And we don't complain about it. We say, thank God I have a job and I can provide for you. We pastor them by bringing them into God's house, teaching them God's Word, keeping them around God's people and showing them the Word of God in our daily life.

Women’s Dignity and Complementary Roles

Now, I want to, for a moment, turn my attention to the ladies, and I'm going to draw to a close. I want to turn my attention to the ladies just as I draw to a close because, again, I don't want you to think that you're left out of this.

The world has tried to convince you, ladies, women, old and young, the world has tried to convince you that any time a distinction is made between men and women, it is intended to make you inferior to men.

And as a result, you might hear this message today about the virtues of manhood and you might think that my goal is to make you inferior to men. But I want you to hear me clearly. Women are not inferior to men, but you are different than men.

And to say otherwise is to deny history, to deny biology, to deny the very basic human experience. And there was a time in history, and I bet you some of you older folks might even remember, there was a time in history where women were treated as more than equals.

Because there was a time when women, when they came into the room, a man was supposed to stand up. And when she left the room, he stood up. When a ship was going down, women and children go to the boats first.

Ladies first was understood. We held the doors for them. We protected them. They were precious to us. They were more than equals. And this attempt to make a crass equality has robbed women of one of the most valuable things that they had and that was their preciousness to us.

When Paul said that women were the weaker vessel, I got news for you. That's not a bad thing. Because a steel cup and a Ming vase, the steel is stronger, but the vase is infinitely more valuable. And there was a time when we understood that.

Women have a valuable place. We protect them, we provide for them, we pasture them, because they are valuable. The cry for absolute equality has had its consequences. And unfortunately, the lack of distinction between men and women has been its most obvious casualty.

We should praise God for the complementary way in which He created men and women. I know I'm not equal to my wife. I'll tell you right now. I'm not equal to my wife at all. Because there's a lot that she can do that I could never do.

And she's not equal to me because there's a lot that I can do that she could never do. And I would be a fool's fool to say otherwise. I'm a man. I should act like a man. She's a woman. She should act like a woman.

And we should understand biblical manhood and biblical womanhood and strive for those. Not what the world demands, but what God has prescribed. Men be men. Follow the example of Christ, who is the ultimate man.

He wasn't a wimp, by the way, and I'll finish with this. Jesus Christ was not some limp-wristed, skinny-jeans-wearing, hippie-looking man. Jesus Christ was a man's man who took the punishment that He didn't deserve for a people that He loved with His own life.

He was the ultimate protector. He was the ultimate provider. And He was the ultimate pastor and priest. If you want an example of manhood, you look to Christ. A man who in the face of all adversity stood for what was right.

Stood against evil. And loved people even though they didn't love Him back. Christ is the man to which all men should seek after. Let's pray. Father, I thank You for Your Word. Lord, I thank You for Jesus, the ultimate example of manhood.

I pray that all of us today would see Him and His work on the cross as the ultimate example of love and affection for those who didn't love Him. That we would receive that love through repentance and faith.

And I especially pray, Lord, that the men in this room, those who have not been seeking biblical manhood, and I know, Lord, that there are always going to be men here among us who feel a sermon like this is directed right at them.

I pray that they wouldn't hear it as discouragement, Father. I pray that they would hear the encouragement. Be a man. Act like men. Seek manhood. Seek the Bible's prescription to be the man your wife needs, the man your children need.

And Lord, I pray for myself and all the men here, God, that You would convict us and change us toward that direction. We would always seek the call that You've given to us. I pray, Lord, for those who are among us, Lord, there may be some here that don't have Christ as their Savior.