The Making of a Man
Text: Philippians 1:6 He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. 1 Corinthians 16:13-14 Be on the alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. 14 Do everything in love.
Intro: What does it mean to really be a man? How do you come to a place where you know (deep down in your knower) that you really have the stuff it takes to be a man? So many males strive all their lifetimes to be manly, but often only find substitutes for masculinity. For example, courage (a very manly trait), is mimicked by bluff and swagger in order to convince others that you are not afraid. [I still remember my sophomore year in HS, when the starting fullback was injured and I got some of my first playing time in a varsity game. We were playing Condon, and coach kept running me up the middle. I’d get 4 or 5 yards each carry. One of the seniors on the team slapped me on the back and said, “Opperman! You are a man!” While that made me feel good, I think I sensed even way back then, that there was a bit more to being a man than knocking heads and carrying a pigskin around.] Some guys try to prove themselves through strength, gruffness, outbursts of anger, harsh vocabulary, or through their sports prowess or skill in their work. Some males hide behind intellectualism, showing little or no feeling – kind of an emotionless “Spock-like” person. Everything is academic, or elementary, my dear Watson. Others become “Mr. Nice Guy” and pursue perfection, so nobody can find any fault in them. Their world becomes safe, and people admire them and feed their egos. There are probably many other examples we could give of how men seek to find their masculinity. The problem with these is that they often hide the true man. Most men want to be known as a man’s man – rugged, tough, brave, capable – the kind of person nobody wants to mess with. That is fine, but who are you as a person? Well, I’m nobody to mess with. Okay, but who are you? I’m nobody’s fool! Alright, but who are you?
-God wants to make manly men out of all of us guys. However, we have to be willing to give up our way of coping with our fears and weaknesses and quit hiding. We must learn to cooperate with Him as He strips away all the armor, gadgets, and accessories and reveals the very core of our being. The very thought scares us to death! To lose our identity we have built up around other things leaves us feeling like we are in the middle of that dream where we have gone to school or work in our underwear. We feel vulnerable and ashamed and just want to find someplace to hide. We think we will be humiliated if everybody finds out what we are really like. But in our humility is our salvation. The way up always begins downhill. The way up is down.
Prop: Men, regardless of your past, God can take you on a journey to make you the man you were intended to be. [Ladies, God works in a similar way in each of you. This morning we will approach it from a man’s perspective, but don’t think that God isn’t at work in you, making you the beautiful person He wants you to be as well.]
Interrogative: How does God make us into the men or women He wants us to be?
TS: Let’s take a look at 4 manly actions that will help make a man out of us.
I. Real Men Submit to God’s Initiation
James 4:7 Submit yourselves, then, to God.
-[Freshman initiation / hazing / rites of passage] God has His own initiation He wants to take us through. He initiates us to prepare us. What is He preparing us for? Men are wired in such a way that they all have a battle to fight, a beauty to rescue, and an adventure to live. We were not made to kill time. We were built for accomplishment and excitement. A man’s life should be an adventure, not a leisurely stroll.
-Before we will cooperate with God, it helps to know that it will be worthwhile. We must realize that God is committed to bringing us back to the original design He had for us. When He made us, He had an intentional plan for us. The blueprints behind our design were drawn up to achieve a specific end. Men often stray far away from the original design, so God calls us out from where we are, takes us on a journey, and restores our original identity. The person we become is not the same person people have known in the past. No! We receive a new name and a new identity. When we discover our true identity, we discover our purpose, our direction, and our passion!
-Think about Abram in the Bible. God called him to leave his homeland (Ur of the Chaldees), and head for a land He would show him. Along the way He gives him a new name, Abraham (exalted father > father of a multitude), and a new identity with some incredible promises. I heard one scholar say that God breathed new life into Abraham when He gave him his new name (Abra – HA – m). Jacob also left his home so God could teach him some things that he couldn’t learn hiding behind his mother. Years later he came back into town with a limp and a new name – Israel (God prevails).
-Now even if you had a great father, who was both firm and loving, expected a lot, but had patience and understanding, every man still must go through this initiation into manhood, that God wants to bring you through. Initiation involves a journey and a series of tests which help us find our new identity and our place in this world. Each test reveals something new about us, showing us who we really are in Christ.
-Sometimes I think that we are missing what God is really up to in our lives. We seem to think that our relationship with God exists only to make our lives work easier or better. When bad things happen we ask God why He let that happen. We ask why He doesn’t just fix everything in our lives so we can just enjoy life. But when we embark on this journey of initiation with God, we have to ask new questions: Lord, what are you trying to teach me here? What issues need resolved in my heart? What are You asking me to let go of? What’s the next step?
-So, men, let’s embrace this journey God is taking us on. He is teaching us to be real men – men who are tough enough to love right and live right! Well, as we are on this journey, one thing we will need to deal with are the wounds that we’ve picked up along the way.
II. Real Men Learn to Face the Wound
Psalm 109:22 For I am poor and needy, and my heart is wounded within me.
-Most men would say, “What wound?” “That didn’t hurt! I’m okay!” Men often think it is shameful to show that a wound hurts. Only sissies cry. We all try to be like the hero in the movies, who, even though they’ve been shot, keep charging at the bad guys until the job is finished. Just break the arrow off and keep fighting. Pain is no big deal! I can take it!
-Another wrong way of dealing with the wound takes us in a different direction. Some men will admit that the pain happened, but they think that they deserved it, because of their failures. So they just suck it up and embrace the reality of the wound as something they just have to live with.
-What exactly is this wound? I am borrowing this and a lot of today’s message from a book by John Eldredge titled, Wild at Heart. He describes this wound as something that is caused by words or messages that come primarily from their father or a father figure. “You’ll never be a man. You are such a mama’s boy! You little sissy!” A boy who hears these words from his father will grow up deeply wounded by them. He even starts to believe them. They become his accepted reality. Why does it matter so much? Because he receives his masculinity from his father. Mom cannot bestow masculinity. In fact, as a boy grows, Mom has to learn to let go, and even let him do something dangerous every now and then. Only a man can validate the masculinity of a boy who is becoming a man. Masculinity bestows masculinity. This takes place on camping trips; it takes place while father and son are working or playing together. This validation takes place in the context of daily life.
-The wound also takes place in daily life. When a father or male figure fails to validate the masculinity in a boy, and instead belittles or insults him, he is causing a wound that may stay with that boy for the rest of his life. That wound says to the boy, “You don’t have what it takes. You aren’t cut out for manhood. You don’t have the right stuff!” So this wound creates a sense of failure and insecurity. It is not until a man knows he is a man that he will stop trying to prove that he is one. Some try to prove their manliness through sexual exploits, or outdrinking or outworking the next guy, but they come up empty. Some try to prove that they have the right stuff by being ruthlessly successful at making lots of money. However, they still feel empty. The wound is still there, and it speaks a daily curse over them that says, “You will never really be a man!”
-How tragic! What is the answer to this problem? Is there any hope? There is only one thing that can atone for our past failures. There is only One Who can help restore our masculinity, and begin to heal our wound. With His help, we can face our wound and find healing.
-TS: Before we talk about healing the wound, let’s deal for a moment with the substitute identities that we adopt for ourselves in the midst of our woundedness.
III. Real Men Learn to Remove False Identities
Job 5:17-18 17 "Blessed is the man whom God corrects; so do not despise the discipline of the Almighty. 18 For he wounds, but he also binds up; he injures, but his hands also heal.
-When we are wounded we often use a very common defense mechanism to keep us from further pain. We find a few gifts that work for us and try to live off them, hiding behind them to shield ourselves from any further vulnerability. It’s not that there is anything wrong with these gifts, but they must be seen for what they are – shields or walls to keep people from getting close to the real you. It is a defense against pain. Never again do we want to hear that we come short of being a man. We don’t want people to see or know about our wound, so we cover it up.
-Unfortunately, if we never uncover the wound, we will never find healing. God can only cleanse and heal what we are willing to uncover. So, God will begin to strip our false identities away. He will begin to remove the defenses we have built around us. God wounds us in the place of our deepest wound. Why would He do something so cruel? Because He wants to deal with the real you! The things that are fronts or pretenses must come down in order for your true manliness to be restored.
-When God is doing this, we must be very careful not to let our enemy – Satan – lie to us and convince us that God does not really care about us. God is doing this out of His intense love for us. The best response is to accept God’s invitation to leave everything you’ve been relying on and venture out with God. Begin to peel off the mask that you’ve been hiding behind. Just know that it will be painful, but it is all worth it! As we learn to stop trusting in all of the false things we’ve been trusting in, and begin depending on God, we will be well on our way to the healing God wants to give us.
-How can we take off the mask if we are not even sure what it is? A good starting point might be to ask those you live and work with a few questions: What is my effect on you? What am I like to live with or work with? What don’t you feel free to bring up with me? Face your fears head on and quit hiding the real you. Drop the fig leaf. Let the deeper hidden issues come to the surface so you can deal with them.
-TS: If we are willing to come out of hiding, then we can move on to find the healing we so desperately need.
IV. Real Men Find Healing for their Wound
Psalm 147:3 He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.
-First of all, healing never happens outside of intimacy with Christ. The healing of our wound flows out of our union with Him. The closer you are to Jesus, the more of a man He will make of you!
-However, there is a process of healing. The first part of the process is probably quite obvious, but often overlooked. It is surrender. You won’t find the real you until you give yourself to Christ. Invite Jesus into the wound. Ask Him to come and meet you in the broken, hurting areas of your life. Jesus said that His purpose in coming to this earth was to bind up and heal, to release and set free. Ask this Jesus to heal all the broken places within you, just as He promised to do.
-Another part of the healing process involves grieving the wound. Your wound was not your fault, and it does matter. I’d like to show a short clip that gives us an idea of what grieving the wound is like. [Show “It’s not your fault”] You don’t have to suck it up anymore and pretend it is not there. It is and it hurts, and I’m messed up because of it! Grieving our wound is the only honest thing to do. Our grief allows us to admit the truth: we were hurt by someone we loved, we lost something very dear, and it hurt us very much. It is okay to cry when we grieve our wound. Tears are healing.
-We need to let God love us and let Him get very close to us. John 15:9 says, "As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.” Letting God love us is more than making a mental note that God loves us. It is letting our hearts come home to God and staying in His love. This deep intimate union with Jesus and His Father is the very source of our healing!
-Finally, men, we must come to a place where we can forgive our own fathers. Whether they were bad fathers, or just failed to bestow masculinity upon us for whatever reason – it is in our best interest to forgive. Forgiveness is a choice, not a feeling. If you wait until you feel forgiveness for someone who wronged you or failed you, you may never forgive them. Feelings take time to heal after the choice to forgive is made.
-So, we allow God to bring up the hurt from our past. We acknowledge that it really did hurt, it really did matter, and then we choose to extend forgiveness to our father (whether he is still on this earth or not). When we forgive, we are not saying that it did not really matter, because it did! We are not saying that we probably deserved it anyway. Forgiveness says, “You wounded me, and it was wrong, but I release you.” Then we ask God to father us as only He can.
Conclusion: I know this is a bit heavy for Father’s Day, but I just couldn’t get away from it. God wants us to be whole men! He wants us to be well and strong and masculine! He doesn’t want us to be crippled by things from the past. He wants to heal us if we will let Him. Know this: All men have a wound. That includes me. Only through God’s fierce love and tender mercy can we face it and be healed. I encourage you on this Father’s Day to take a step in the right direction. Don’t assume that you are exempt from the things I’ve shared today. You weren’t created to live a wounded existence. You were created for wholeness and life so that you might give wholeness and life to your family and to others who need it so badly! You were created for intimacy with the One who made you – the One who is making you into the man you were intended to be.
-So, start by submitting yourself to God’s initiation. Say, “Lord, I am willing to go through Your initiation.” Also, be willing to face your wound. Be man enough to tell yourself the truth – it hurts! Let God help you remove the false self, the false identity you have created. And finally, Be healed! Be restored! Be the manly man God wants you to be! When our masculinity is restored, we might actually be up for living a little bit dangerously for Christ! When some of these emotional obstacles are removed by the power of God, we will be able to soar like an eagle and roar like a lion! Let God make you into the magnificent creation you were meant to be! Let’s pray.
[Several ideas borrowed from John Eldredge’s book, Wild at Heart]
