The Cost Of Being A Real Man--Father's Day Sermon

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.