The Cost Of Being A Real Man
Psalm 1:1-6 Ephesians 5:25-6:4
Today we celebrate Father’s Day as a tribute to the men who have impacted our lives in many ways. Some have been our own fathers and some have been other men that God placed in our lives. We can say thank you for your love, for your time, for your sacrifices. Thank you for mending bruises, fixing bikes, loving our mothers, paying tuition, going to work, building us up and bringing us to church. We say thank you for being our teachers, our coaches, our friends, our advisors, and our protectors.
One of the great privileges in life is that of being a father. Some of you men here today have been incredible fathers. You’ve been there with your child either through birth or inheritance since day one. Keep up the good work. Some of you have been okay fathers. You made more than your share of mistakes, but you’re still trying to make up for those mistakes and put things right. Keep up the job. Some of you know you’re not being the father you ought to be, and you have not made up your mind yet to start doing what you know in your heart is the right thing to do. Let this Father’s day be your day of change.
When God looks at men, God sees incredible potential for what could be. God even lays His reputation on the line by allowing Himself to be called our heavenly Father. Every child enters the world with a built in love for his or her father. What a man does is either going to build on that love or squash that love. When we have a bad image of our earthly father, it makes it a little more difficult to understand our Heavenly Father. For an earthly father to be a great father, he needs to be in touch with the Heavenly Father who mends all relationships.
Before a man becomes a father, he ought to be a real man. I find it interesting that God is not addressed regularly as Father in the context of prayer in Scripture, until after God had chosen to become a human being in the form of a man in Jesus Christ. For we find in Jesus, what it’s going to take to be a real man.
One day a pastor was talking to one of the older ladies in the fellowship hall, and he told her that she looked very nice with her new hairstyle. She said yeah, “I might still be able to find me a ½ of piece of a man to marry.” He thought about that phrase a ½ of a piece of a man. How many of you have an idea of what she meant by a ½ of a piece of a man? Is there any man here whose goal it is in life is to end up a ½ piece of a man?
When you hear the phrase, “now there goes a real man.” What image comes to your mind? Do you see someone big and athletic like with bulging muscles? Do you see someone who is very attractive with a lot of sex appeal? Do you see someone who is has a lot of power and money to throw around? Do you see somebody who can take charge to get whatever it is that they want to get? All of us probably see something a little different
.A real man is one who recognizes there is a greater purpose for living than taking care of his own needs. Let me say that again, a real man is one who recognizes, there is a greater purpose for living than taking care of his own needs. One man that recognized this more than any other was Jesus Christ Himself. Jesus made it clear; He did not come into the world to simply please Himself. He came to do the will of the Father. That will was to offer himself as a sacrifice for the wrong we have done, in order for us all to have a chance at a right relationship to God. Jesus voluntarily gave up his life, so that we can live.
Real men do not happen by accident. Real men are not determined by how much money they make, where they live, the color of their skin, or how much education they do or do not have. Real men are not determined, by how well they play sports, how good of a voice they have to sing or to rap, how well they dress, or what car they drive.
Real men are determined by the choices they make, the stands they take, the commitments they complete and the relationships they build. A real man understands that he is a soldier in battle and is involved in an all-out war for his soul. Men, you need to realize that Satan has a gun pointed in your direction and the bullets are coming at you. The hard thing to do is to recognize the bullets. If they only came at us at as hot pieces of metal, immediately ripping away our flesh, we’d take the time to arm ourselves and attempt to dodge them.
Instead they come at us in at low velocity, sweet and pretty seductive ways, with invitations to just try this this one time. Or here is a way to get some money quickly. Or do this and nobody will know. Or you’re entitled to this good time. Or as a man, you owe yourself this opportunity.
It’s not until we’ve got on the other side of the good time that we began to discover, I got hit with a bullet and I’ve been wounded. For some of us that wound grows and grows. We find ourselves in predicaments we never hoped to be in. Men what bullet has hit you recently and it costs you for more than the pleasure you received. Are you willing to deal with being ready for it the next time it comes around?
Satan took three shots at Jesus. In the first one, Jesus had not eaten anything for forty days. Satan told him, “Use your power to turn the stones into bread so that you can eat.” In other words, prove to the world that you are somebody and will do whatever is necessary to get your needs met.
Men we will all be tempted to prove that we are somebody, and that my needs come first. We see where this leads to in the destruction of our youth. We need more men interested in being fathers and less men just looking for sex. We need more men who can say, my needs can wait, “I’ve got a higher calling on my life. My future is too important to risk for 20 minutes of fun” That’s the kind of cost involved in being a real man.
Satan’s second shot at Jesus came in the form to live life recklessly and believe it will all work out in the end. He took Jesus up to the highest point of the temple and said, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, because the Scriptures promise that the angels will catch you and not a stone will hit your feet.” A real man does not have to prove anything to anybody. He knows who he is and what his purpose is.
He cannot be talked into doing something foolish, just to be seen by others or to get their approval. He does not take that foolish path thinking everything is going to work out in the end. He knows that in life everything does not work out in the end. People do go to jail. People do get AIDS and die. People do get killed in robberies. People do get addicted to drugs. People do lose their marriages, their families and their kids.
Real men are focused with their lives on things that truly matter. They do not risk them on the whims or the dares of other people. Real men don’t mind looking like wimps if it means protecting their future. There’s nothing brave or manly about taking stupid chances. Just because you have God watching over you, don’t tempt God to have to come and get you out of a jam, you did not have to get in tin the first place.
Satan’s third shot at Jesus came in the form of getting everything you want at a discount by living with compromise. Real men know the danger of a compromised life. Satan told Jesus, “look I can give you all the power, the wealth, the kingdoms and the things that go along with it, if you will worship me.” Satan did not ask Jesus, to not worship God the Father; he just wanted Jesus to include him in his spiritual life. Jesus responded, “Get away from me Satan. For it is written, you are to worship the Lord and serve him only.”
It’s this third temptation of a slight compromise that hits many of us striving to pay the cost to be real men. We don’t mind God being God, but we also want to leave room for one another god, and unfortunately that other god is us. We reluctantly give up calling the shots in our everyday situations.
In our New Testament reading, we had the verse, 2 Timothy 2:3-4 (NIV) 3 Endure hardship with us like a good soldier of Christ Jesus. 4 No one serving as a soldier gets involved in civilian affairs--he wants to please his commanding officer.
Few things are easy about the life of a soldier in times of war. Each day someone loses his or her life in battle or is maimed for life. A real man is called to be a good soldier of Jesus Christ. Imagine for a moment that you and five others soldiers have been assigned on a dangerous mission. On the way there, one of the five soldiers tells you, he saw that soccer was going to be played that he really wanted to see and maybe even play in, and he was backing out of the mission to get a ride to go the game. You’d tell him to get his priorities in order. A soldier does not have time for games in the middle of a mission. Others are counting on you to do your part.
A real man is one that others can depend on to do his part. There is a commitment to finish what has been started. Can you be depended upon by others to be a man in your circumstances? Are you willing to take a stand for what’s right as a man or do you seek to blame somebody else for why you’re not doing what you know you should be doing? Real men do not go around blaming others. They make up the difference needed.
Every soldier has a commanding officer who gives out instructions. A real man knows that, and he is willing recognize the authority of God in his life. It is strange that to be a great man, one must recognize he is nothing apart from God. You see without God, we are selfish, we are lustful, we are hungry to please our appetites and we will use force to get what we want.
The very things we seek to have, we will destroy because we are in charge, and we worship ourselves. Anytime we worship anything other than God, our values continue to go downwards. We become amazed at the kinds of things we will begin to do.
Our Old Testament reading, said “Blessed is the man who does not walk in the ways of the wicked, or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. But his delight is in the law of the Lord.” God wants every man to have a blessed life.
Men, God meets us and takes us where we are. There is not a standard of goodness we have to reach before we can ask Him for help. What we need is a desire to change where we have been, and head in the direction God wants us to go. That direction involves a new way of living and a surrendering of trying to get our own way.
In the New Testament we have a few verses that give us instruction specifically as husbands and as fathers. As husbands, we have received orders from above to quit thinking primarily of ourselves and love our wives as Christ loved the church. You know if LeBron James played each game with the intent of getting as many points as he could in a game, the CAVS would not have made the playoffs.
Marriage is about a team commitment for the team to win. Our wives need to know there is nothing we would not give up for their health and well-being to make our homes work. A real man is into a marriage not to simply get out of it what he can, but to put as much into loving his wife as possible.
We have received orders from on high in Colossians not to be harsh with our wives. Men it is so easy for us to speak rougher to our wives than we do to others. I know I have been guilty of this more times than I want to admit. Our anger and our frustration are often misdirected at them. In Peter we are further commanded to be considerate of our wives and treat them with respect.
Where have you been reluctant to demonstrate respect to your wife? Do you cut her off when she’s talking? Do you value her opinion? Do you embarrass her or put her down in front of others? A real man knows how to build and encourage his wife or the woman in his life. A real man knows how to respect not only his wife, but all women. He knows not only how to respect his daughters, but to insist that other guys respect her in the house as well.
We have received orders from on high concerning our children. We are told to not exasperate, provoke or anger our children by our actions. As fathers, we have to recognize the pain we inflict on our children when we refuse to demonstrate the love for them that God intended for us to give to them. When we have a child, there is a commitment that has been made by our actions from the previous nine months. It was a decision of choice.
A real man recognizes the consequences of the choices he makes, the risks he takes, and he is there to take a stand for his actions. He is to do all in his power to change his life, for the good of the child that has been brought into the world. It is a responsibility that lasts until the day he dies. So be careful with the choices you make about sex. God has a better plan in mind.
We are also told to bring our children up in the training and knowledge of the Lord. This is something we cannot do, without first acquiring the training and knowledge for ourselves. Our youth are looking to us as fathers and as men as examples. What are they finding as they get a closer and closer look? A father has incredible worth and potential. He is always influencing someone in some direction.
Real men recognize that all men are not going to do their part for the youth. So they volunteer to rise up and choose Christ by giving of themselves to be positive role models and influences in children’s life. They serve as teachers, as coaches, as big brothers, as tutors and as mentors Jesus spoke of the greatest love as being, laying down one’s life for a friend. Real men are looking for positive ways to deny themselves to make a difference in the lives of others for the cause of Christ.
No man and no father can be all that he is capable of being without a personal relationship to God. That relationship can only come through knowing Jesus Christ. Every man needs a role model that will never let him down. The only one who can fill those shoes is Jesus. Jesus was both a real man and God all at the same time. As a man he knows the struggles that you have gone through, as God, he knows the victory he wants you to have in the midst of the struggle and He has the strength to give to you to make it happen.
The price however is not cheap. It will cost you a lifetime of commitment to saying no to your own selfish desires, and yes to God’s plan for your life day in and day out. When it is easy and when it is not. Only real men can accept the cost of the call to follow Christ. Most men are not able to pay the price.
They hold on to the wounds from the battles in life. They wear their scars as trophies. Real men are able to say, enough is enough. I want a change for myself, for my wife, for my kids, for my community, for my role in the body of Christ. Forget the image thing, forget the world’s lies. I’m going to be a real man of God.
This is a Father’s Day sermon and deals with the question of what does it take to be a real man.
