GOD’S PLAN FOR THE MAN
Psalms 128:1-6
INTRO: If there’s anything in shortage today it is men. Real men who will say as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Not everyone who is a male is a man. I mean a real man, a godly man. You can be born a male, but it takes maturity to be a man. You’re young only once, but you can be immature forever. I am talking about being a real, masculine, virile, Godly, Biblical man.
What is real manliness? What is God’s plan for the man? If you get a dishwasher, a refrigerator, a stereo, a CD player, etc., you get a book of instructions. If you get a new automobile, you get a book. God has given us a book. It is the Word of God and from the Word of God we’re going to find God’s plan for the man. We’re not going to get it from Tom Brokaw. We’re not going to get it from Donald Trump. We’re not even going to get it from John Wayne. We’re going to have to find out from God’s Word what God’s plan for the man is. There is a basic fundamental difference between men and women and the devil is doing all that he can do to blur that distinction.
The Bible says in Genesis 1:27 that God made them in the beginning, male and female. There are those who trying to tell us that there is no fundamental difference and they’re doing that in the name of equality. Men and woman are equal, but they are not the same.
God made man and God made woman. God made them different. God made them different for a purpose. In this Psalm we are going to find out what a real man is. God’s plan for the man.
I. A REAL MAN WILL HAVE A FAITHFUL WALK (v. 1).
This verse talks about the pattern that a husband and father is to set before his children. He is to be a worshiping Father. He is to be a godly husband. He is to have a personal walk with almighty God. His wife and children need to see the husband and father walking with God. In the home, the man is a figure, a picture of Almighty God.
What did Jesus teach us to call God? Our Father. If you’re a child and you have a father then what is your mind going to say? God is like Daddy. We are taught to pray to God, our Father. In the home, the husband represents Almighty God to his children, and the Lord Jesus Christ to his wife. The Bible says that God sent his Spirit into our hearts crying Abba Father. That means Daddy, father.
Fathers, the reason you ought to live such a godly life is that you are modeling before your family what Almighty God is like and what the Lord Jesus Christ is like.
Look at I Corinthians 11:3-7. This verse tells us that while God the Father and God the Son are co-equal and co-eternal that God the Father is the head of God the Son and while the husband and the wife are of equal worth, the husband is the head of the wife. And then Paul says in verse 7 speaking of the man, “... he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man.” He, the man, is the image and glory of God.
The woman is the glory of the man. That is, in the home the man pictures almighty God, the Lord Jesus Christ. The woman pictures the church, the bride of Christ. Men, listen. Don’t ever get the idea that religion and spirituality is primarily for the woman and the children. God demands more spirituality from the man than the woman. God puts a bigger responsibility on the man than on a woman. And if your home is not right, you share the primary responsibility. Not her and not the children. Men, we are the head of the home.
II. A REAL MAN WILL HAVE A FRUITFUL WALK (v. 2).
God’s plan for the man is to provide for his family. He is to be a provider for the home. This goes all the way back to Genesis 3:19. “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground.” Now he’s saying it’s not going to be easy. And that ladies is why God gave men a tough exterior. He’s suppose to be tough because he is the primary bread winner. God did not make the woman to be the primary bread winner. God made you ladies, to be the nurturer.
God made the man to provide. That provision goes beyond food and clothing and housing. If you think that you can give your kids things and put your wife in a beautiful house and you’ve done your job, you’re wrong. You are to provide the emotional and spiritual security of that home. We have a generation today that has forgotten that principle.
You are not to be only a provider, you are to be a provisionary. That is to say what does my family really need? Have you ever sat down and thought out plans for your family? I have. I have them on my prayer list. I’ve thought out plans for my life and plans for each one of my children. That doesn’t mean that I can rule their homes. I can not.
But I have something that I can pray for. I have something that I can work towards. I have something that I can hope for. What is God’s plan? What is man’s fruitful work? He is to be a provider and he is to be a protector.
III. A REAL MAN WILL HAVE A FAMILY THAT WORSHIPS (vv. 3-5).
He’s a man that seeks God’s blessing and therefore becomes God’s blessing. The blessing goes beyond his own family. The blessing goes to the nation. America will never be right until our homes are right. Our homes will never be right till the daddies get right.
God’s plan is for man to say: “as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” In verse 3, the picture is of a wife like a tender vine and the children like olive plants. Do you know one thing that they both have in common? They need to be cared for. They need to be cultivated.
A vine is very fruitful, but it needs support. It needs something to lean upon. So you’re wife is like a vine by the side of the house. And the olive trees, you’re children. In the middle east, if you had olive trees, you would have a source of productivity, a source of wealth. These olive trees, green, productive, beautiful and stable. But they need to be cultivated.
Fathers, how are you to cultivate your olive trees? Look at Ephesians 6:4. “And ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.” Don’t provoke them. That means to exasperate them, to frustrate them, to badger them, to wound them, to humiliate them. Josh McDowell said something I will never forget. He said that “rules without relationships make rebellion”. Now if you don’t get anything else out of the message that’s not mine, that’s Josh’s.
The word for nurture here is the idea of tending a garden. Just like you would cultivate your olive trees. Weeding, watering, fertilizing. It takes discipline, instruction. It takes demonstration. It takes time. I read that the average father spends 7 ½ minutes per week with his teenagers. You say, well I can’t be there. That really means you just don’t care. Psychologists tell us that if a father does not spend time with his daughter, her chances of becoming frigid or promiscuous are greatly increased.
These are your olive plants. You say, I don’t have time. Do you know your chief assignment from God concerning your wife? It is to make her a more radiantly beautiful Christian. You are the pastor in the home. The husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the church. Some say, well, we just believe in mutual submission. That’s a contradiction in terms. Christians in general are to mutually submit, but in the home there’s headship. Anything with no head is dead and anything with two heads is a freak. I’m telling you. There’s headship in the home.
The great problem in America is not primarily rebellious women. The great problem in America is failing men. Now there are some rebellious women. I hope you’re not married to one of them. But the great problem is primarily men failing to be the men that they ought to be.
CONC: I want to wrap this up talking about a real man and his future wealth. Look in verse 6, Where is real wealth? What is wealth? Is it a BMW? Is it five bedrooms, four baths, a patio, and a pool? What is wealth? I’ll tell you what wealth is. It is children that love their family and are saved. Children don’t make a rich man poor, they make a poor man rich. The rich man can’t take his money to heaven, I’m taking my kids to heaven. I’m planning on taking my grandkids too. We’re going to heaven This is our wealth.
