Real Men Love Jesus

Real Men Love Jesus

by Rev. Jim May

This is Father’s Day, 2004. It’s a day when we all stop for a moment to reflect on the father that we have. That reflection will either make us grateful for having a father that we can look up to and admire, or it will force us to fact the stark reality that the man who brought us into this world may be our biological father, but he isn’t, or wasn’t, a real father at all. Through the power of sin and the influence of the world, we are losing the picture of what a real man, and especially a real Father should be. Everywhere you look you can see what the world defines as a real man. I submit to you that, what the world depicts as a real man is only a shell of what God intended for a man to be.

There is a lesson that is taught in just about every psychology class, in every business seminar, and in every marriage and relationship building seminar, that goes like this:

Treat someone like they are the person you want them to be and they will eventually become that person. That is pretty good advice when you have a spouse or someone you care for who has some behavioral problems. This advice often works to improve their behavior if you have the patience to wait for the change to happen. The problem is that this advice can also work in reverse.

Through repeated attempts to change someone by using subliminal messages and placing before them examples of what you think that they should be, people can be eventually molded and influenced to become like the picture you place before them. Just in case you don’t think that this is true, I going to prove it to you this morning.

Seated in this congregation right now are a number of men that are shining examples of what God expects of a man and a father. But you don’t have to take many steps until you will find men who are falling prey to the image that the world has set before them. They are losing, or have already lost, their place in the home, in the marriage, in society and in the eyes of God. They are failures as men and fathers, though the world may look at them as a great success in business and in the ways of the world.

God measures success in a far different fashion than the world does. Mankind has developed a warped sense of values and has certainly developed a different vision of what real manhood is all about.

I want to use two men this morning to give you an example of what I am talking about. I want every man in this congregation, and yes, every woman in this congregation, to get a clear picture of what God expects in a man, a husband and a father. I want us to measure ourselves to see how close we come to what God would call a successful father.

Genesis 3:17-24, "And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. And Adam called his wife’s name Eve; because she was the mother of all living. Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them. And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life."

God created Adam to be the father of the human race and created Eve to be the mother of all living. They were created perfect in every way and for a time they lived up to their roles as the man and woman that God intended for them to be. But it wasn’t long until Satan began to warp their sense of values through lying and deceitfulness.