Man Up

Man up!

Psalm 112

Introduction-

Mothers get the red carpet treatment on their day, with fabulous brunches and beautiful bouquets. For the fathers, however, retailers have cleverly priced almost everything under $9.99!

Case in point: the Talking Fly Swatter. It’s a lime-green fly swatter with a little speaker that says stuff like "Hasta la vista, baby!" "Flight canceled!" and "Die sucker!" every time you try to use it.

Most of us have an idea what television’s definition of a “real man” is.

Rambo

Chuck Morris

Arnold Swarzenegger.

It’s the bad boys, it is the tough guys.

It is unemotional, uncaring, driven at all cost, those who would lay down their life for his cause.

But how many of you have an idea of what the biblical man looks like?

You would have to agree with me that the world does not need more Rambo’s, the world need more men behaving Godly instead of behaving badly.

I bring a challenge. The challenge is to the men this morning.

I am sorry ladies that it is addressed at them, but if they take the challenge and succeed, you will benefit greatly.

You may want to be praying for a breakthrough.

The challenge is to be Godly in a world that expects you to behave badly.

Psalms 112

Listen,

Today men are nor fearing God

Today children are out of control and needing role models.

Today God is looking for men to step up to the plate and be who God intended them to be.

This challenge comes with a wake-up call to God’s men.

Your wives/girlfriends need you to be godly.

Your children are needing you to be godly.

Your church is needing you to be godly.

Every avenue of your life cry for you to be godly.

Your not married- We still need you to take control and be godly.

Families are falling apart-

Society is suffering because men are failing in their God given roles as spiritual leaders.

This Psalm was written by a man to men.

King David wrote the Psalm.

He was a man’s man.

You remember, this is the brave boy who killed Goliath and cut off his head. Rambo and Terminator rolled up in one.

David had a family.

David did not always do things tight.

Like most men, David allowed things to distract him from the priorities in his life.

His priorities should have been walking with God and being the leader God intended both in his kingdom as king and as father in his home.

Almost 300,000 men become father’s everyday.

It usually comes with no training and no instruction manual.

If men would be as God intended, they would change this world!

Proverbs 20:6

“Many a man claims to have unfailing love, but a faithful man who can find?”

God is looking to change those numbers of men becoming fathers and not making an impact on them or being a part of their lives.

Let’s not get in to the mechanicals of it;

It does not take much to father a child, but it does take a lifetime to correctly be a father.

As men in society get farther away from God, the farther all of society is getting away from God.

God is looking for some men to take back their homes, their churches, their communities for Jesus Christ and snatch some from the flames of Hell as God leads them.

Do you want to be a part of that moment of God?

Not generic, that would be good, but you become one of those men God uses.

It begins with verse one

“Blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who finds great delight in his commandments.”

Happy is the man who is reverent to the things of God, who finds delight in His commands.

I. Take back the power God gave you (write down)

You are to lead your family (by example)

You are to love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and soul. (1st)

Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church. (2nd)

You are to train up your child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not turn from it. (3rd).

The Christian father/husband is a tool in the hand of God.

Instructions and disciplines should be in the love that Christ has for us and the father/husband should never present himself as the ultimate authority that rules with an iron fist.

Martin Luther-

“Keep an apple beside the rod to give the child when he does well.”

Take back the authority God gave you as the leader in your family, and do it that they see Jesus in you.

What person would not follow if they saw Jesus?

Blessed be the man who fears God and finds delight in His commands.