Becoming A Real Man

A REAL MAN

1 Corinthians 15:45-49

* Men – Video / Women – Video

* All of my life I have had my own personal concept of what it means to be a REAL man. Understand, I never gave it much “thought”, I simply watch dad, papaw, my uncles, men friends, and others to decide what manhood is all about. Know what I discovered? Most of us men—have given little thought to being or becoming a real man, we just kind of “gravitated” into the role. Candidly, as I reached my middle age years, I sensed that maybe I didn’t have it all “right” or altogether. So for the past several years, my passion has become to engage men to be or become men.

* By lunch tomorrow my desire is for you and I to have either discovered or reaffirmed what God is calling us to be and do.

* Although in His word, God doesn’t write out the “definition” of a man, we are certainly given picture after picture of what a Godly man looks like.

* Turn in your Bible to 1 Corinthians 15 and let’s begin our journey for the next few minutes about manhood. (READ TEXT)

* Robert Lewis tells the old story is told of the man who always wanted to go to the Super Bowl and could never get tickets. Finally, he found a ticket, bought it, and arrived at the stadium to discover that his seat was in this “nosebleed” section. Everything he would see had to be seen through His binoculars. All during the first half he watched both the game and the crowd. He was looking for a vacant seat somewhere for surely, he thought, someone got sick, had a family emergency, or even had a car accident and was unable to make it to the game. Just before half, he saw it, a vacant seat on the 50 yard line next to an old man. At half-time, he made his way down to row 10 and spoke to the man about the vacant seat. “Sure you can sit here. For years, this seat was my wife’s but she died so make yourself at home and enjoy the game.” As took this seat the second half started and he couldn’t believe it. Only 10 rows up on the 50 yards during the super bowl. Surely it doesn’t get better than this! As the third quarter ended, our friend came back to reality and began to think about this older gentleman. Turning to him he said, “Thank you so much for letting me sit here, but I’m curious, I can’ t believe you couldn’t get one of your friends to come to the SUPER BOWL with you.” With a tear in his eye, the older man said, “They’re all at the funeral home.”

* For the next few minutes let’s consider a couple thoughts which will be the spring board of all the break out leaders & our keynote speaker will offer.

1. The Common View of Manhood. –Some will, no doubt, be upset by what is about to be said. But my request of ask every man here is that we lay aside our pride and our preconceptions for the next 15-18 hours and simply open our minds and hearts to another way of thinking. This is not a new way, but rather an old (Old, Old) way of thinking. Let the thoughts permeate your mind and receive a fair hearing and consideration so that the Holy Spirit can use these truths to speak to our souls.

* The common view of manhood to is difficult to express. Why? Because there are so many trying to define it. For us, “southern males”, manhood is almost about the “most”, “best”, and even “toughest.” As teenagers, this was drilled into us as the one who scored the most touchdowns, had the highest batting average, or scored the most buckets was obviously the real man. By the way, the real man didn’t ever express emotion, was literally insensitive, and could dominate those around him. Then, starting about 20 or 30 years ago, as some of us came into adulthood, the talk began about getting in touch with our “feminine side.” That was a real winner. Honestly, I have looked me over and there is nothing about me that looks feminine.

a. The Facts about this View of Manhood. - The fact is that today we have a flawed concept of manhood. Some of this has come from dictating dads and manipulating moms as well as uninformed people. Most of the time, this is done in and out of ignorance. From the home to the work ethic to sexuality, we live in a culture which is attempting to redefine what God has designed. The results are horrendous.