Women And Children Last Series

We live in a present day world that has challenges in almost every direction that you look.

The search for answers is going on in most every part of the planet.

Our own nation not only has prevailing issues but all of them seem to be heading more toward becoming worse rather than towards any type of solution.

The reason that answers are sometimes hard to find is because often we don’t realize the problems are not problems but are people. The main problem in our nation is not what has come upon us but it is what we have become.

Because we are the center of our own concerns we are not asking the right questions and are thereby not finding the right answers.

Ravi Zacharias said once that when he was taking a course for his PHD studies that only 50% of the grade was for the answers given on tests and in papers.

The other 50% of each student’s grade was based upon the questions asked in class.

The professor considered those who knew the right questions to ask to be worthy of the best grades and the best students in the class.

Sometimes asking the right questions is the hardest thing we can do. The reason is because the answers to those questions often begin with us. We prefer the solution to be someone else.

I need to mention something to the ladies in our midst this morning. I am going to be addressing our men in specific ways. Please do not feel offended or ignored that much of what I say might seem more relevant to men.

It is relevant for all of us at some level but hopefully our men especially can find some benefit in today’s message.

I honestly think that the solutions to things we see in our nation, our communities, our schools and our churches has a representation in our midst this morning. I think a large portion of the solutions to our problems begins with the men. The huge part of the solution to our churches concerns will begin with Christian men becoming everything God wants them to be in their churches and families as well as in their communities and nation.

I asked myself a question a few months back. ‘Is it alright that I am a man trapped in a man’s body’? A person looking at many aspects of our modern culture might not think that is a good thing to be. Men have been under attack in this culture for at least the past generation. Somehow the thought has been that for women to be elevated and liberated that men have to be devalued and restrained.

Fathers have been a primary target. Christian men have become the bull’s eye.

Finding a positive male role model on television today that is anything like a father or Christian might have been respectfully presented before Archie Bunker is like playing ‘Where’s Waldo’. The only two that I can think of are on the shows of two long time stars who have obvious control of their own series.

Tim Allen on ‘Last Man Standing’ and Patricia Heaton on ‘The Middle’.

Tim Allen’s father died when he was hit by a drunk driver when Allen was just 11. The comedian says that after that, he questioned whether if he had prayed harder or had been with his father that fatal day, he could have prevented his death. “For years, I just did not like this idea of God, church,” he said. “(I was) still a churchgoer, but constantly a cynic.” But the cynicism didn’t last. Today, he calls God, “The Builder.” ‘Whoever built me, this is too much, too weird that it happened by accident,” he said. “It didn’t happen by accident.”

Allen said, “I always do ask…what did you want me to do?.....I do ask it but you got to be prepared for the answer……

Many men have unfortunately responded to living in such a culture by making a quiet retreat from the traditional and biblical roles that they were designed for. The have become quiet about their faith and reclusive in their churches.

Women have filled many of the vacuums left by the exit of men from a passionate pursuit of God and His will for their lives.

When Jesus fed the 5,000 the loaves and the fishes the numbers were actually much higher that were fed. 5,000 was only the number of men that were counted. Women and children were fed in addition to that number of men. The estimates are as high as 15,000 total people. If you found a church today with 5,000 men and then added the women and children the estimates would be much higher. Men are very absent from the modern church world. If not in body they are often absent in leadership and in a passionate intellectual faith.