Able Men

Able Men; 1 Chronicles 9:13

Statistics from churchformen.com

* The typical U.S. Congregation draws an adult crowd that’s 61% female, 39% male. This gender gap shows up in all age categories. Young adult, middle aged, and seniors….

* On any given Sunday there are 13 million more adult women than men in America’s churches.

* Midweek activities often draw 70 to 80 % female participants.

* As many as 90 % of the boys who are being raised in church will abandon it by their 20th birthday. Many will never return. Largely because of the poor example set by their dad’s.

* Men have been absent from the body of Christ and a significant number of those who do go to church attend out of habit, and are unaffected by what they hear.

* Quite a few men go to church simply to keep their wives/mothers/girlfriends happy.

* The majority of men who attend church do nothing to serve within the body of Christ.

This gender gap is not just a U.S. phenomenon; churches around the world are short on men. No other major religion suffers such a large, chronic shortage of males. In the Islamic world men are openly, publicly, and unashamedly religious. Of the world’s major religions, only Christianity has a consistent, nagging shortage of men.

But look in the bible and you’ll see that Jesus had no trouble captivating men. Rugged fishermen dropped nets full of fish and left all to follow Him, but today’s church can’t convince men to drop their remote controls for a couple of hours a week.

But this isn’t the first time this has happened in human history… 1 CHRONICLES…

Not very many people spent their time reading or studying the first nine chapters of 1 Chronicles because the first nine chapters are genealogical records and we often find them boring and irrelevant to our lives. But I believe as we look at the passage in you’ll see its relevance.

It begins with 1 Chronicles 1:1 with Adam, then goes on to cover 3,500 years of human history of the Jews until the time of their captivity and return to Jerusalem. And in these genealogies we see that God is on His throne, and that He is in control. And it shows us that when God’s people obey Him, He will bless them. If they disobey Him, He will chasten them.

1 Chronicles 9:1, “So all Israel were reckoned by genealogies; and, behold, they were written in the book of the kings of Israel and Judah, who were carried away to Babylon for their transgression.” The vast majority of the men in Israel had turned their backs on God and they were taken as captives because of it.

And I believe that same thing is happening today. In fact I’m working with a few men that had turned their backs on God to follow societies idea of manhood and they have been taken captive by their drug, alcohol, work, and sexual addictions. And they have destroyed much of their lives but now they are giving their lives back to Christ, but it’s a struggle for them.

But there was one group of men that had remained faithful. In verse 13, speaking of the priests in Jerusalem the Bible says, “They were very able men for the work of the service of the house of God.”

God called able men to serve Him, and that still holds true today. God is calling able men to serve Him. The problem is it’s getting harder and harder to find men who will take a stand against the cultural norm and say, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

But let me tell you God is still looking for able men to serve Him. Men who will put on the armor of God, take up the sword of the spirit, and fight the good fight of faith. You see we are in a spiritual warfare and God is calling able men to take a stand on the front lines.

But what is an able man? Well let’s take a look at what the scriptures say.

1. THEY ARE MEN OF AVAILABILITY:

The greatest ability is availability. It doesn’t matter what abilities you posses if your not available to God you’re useless to the cause of Christ. ISAIAH 6:8, “I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me.” You see Isaiah responded to the call of God.

I believe we often look at men like Isaiah, Abraham, Moses, David, Paul and many others as great men with tremendous abilities, but the truth is they were men like you and me. They were ordinary men who made themselves available to the Almighty God and God did amazing things through them.