Reforming FamilyLife & Public Culture

What we want to do today is primarily look back and bring everybody up to speed, reviewing where we’ve been and also forecasting where we’re going.

We took the time to pry that lid off and peer inside some of those dark tunnels that so often men never take the time to do. We took a hard look at those hidden things that have helped mold and shape the kind of men that we are today, namely our past experiences. We talked about our family life; our connection, or maybe our lack of connection, with a dad or an over- connection with a mom.

We talked about the wounds that were inflicted on us as we were growing up. How those wounds have affected the kind of person that we are today. Then we talked some about out spiritual experiences, and we are in relationship to a God that we can’t see. I hope that these first 13 sessions have given you a little better understanding of the forces that lie just beneath the surface of your life. These are forces that often we don’t take the time to understand, but forces that are strong enough to shape the kinds of decisions that you’ll make this week without you even knowing it. To make the kind of choices that you really aren’t aware, that are being made for you in your day-to-day of life. Then I’ve also given you some ways to be able to make changes in the things that have occurred in your past. So, that’s what we did in the first half. We pried open that steel-plated manhole cover.

Here, in the second half, Men Of Courage (MOC) is not about looking within. We’re going to lay all that aside. The second half of MOC is all about vision. It’s looking forward to what lies ahead of us. It’s envisioning what the future of a man really looks like. We will talk about how you can describe and define a man in a realistic compelling way. How a man can properly love the women around him – especially his wife. We will talk about how to rightly love your son, how to rightly love a daughter - how a man can face the different seasons of his life. One of the things I want you to see is how a man’s life falls into specific seasons. What the responsibilities and issues are in each one of those seasons. What you can expect as you look forward in your life – because every man’s life follows a generally similar pattern. Knowing that pattern helps you become wise in how you live your life now.

So, the next 12 weeks are about vision. That’s because vision is absolutely critical to manhood. If you can’t see what’s up ahead of you, it is highly likely you’ll make the wrong decisions now.

Proverbs 29:18 says, ‘Without a vision men get out of control.’ I don’t know of any truer statement in all the Bible. Vision is critical to manhood!

Then we’ll also continue to work on our Manhood Plan. Hopefully, you are at least at the stage of this Manhood Plan where you’ve completed the first third of it. I’m counting on that with each of you comrades. Also that you have taken the time to ask some very penetrating questions.

I want to read a few of those questions on this first third of your Manhood Plan, that you should have down by now. For instance,

a. What unfinished business undercuts my journey to manhood? Do you know what those things are?

b. Which of the manhood wounds that we presented in this first half have I not adequately addressed in my life? Can you identify what those are?

c. How will I practically address the wounds affecting me from my past? Do you have a plan?

d. What questions from my past still need to be answered and who can help me? Have I made an appointment to seek their help?

Real men have a real plan. And if you haven’t completed this Plan or taken the time to sit down and go through that, I just want to issue a warning: you are putting off the most critical piece of Men Of Courage.

Men Of Courage is not about listening; Men Of Courage is about action; it’s about initiative. It’s about courage. It’s about going forward. You can not go forward until you’ve finished unfinished business. I know I sound strong, and I know this is a difficult thing to do. It really is. There are a lot of you Comrades that can probably identify with fact that it’s hard for a man to break out of the frenzy of everyday life, where he’s reacting to life. Just reacting to life, and manhood that just reacts to life tends to go really nowhere long- term.

You have to take the time to sit down and take a hard look at yourself. Ask yourself, “who am I really? Why am I the way I am? What are the things that if I could I would really want to change and be done with?” That’s the start of authentic manhood, because that’s the start of seizing initiative by saying, ‘I’m going to become something I want to be, rather than let life make me something that I don’t want to be.’

We’re all on the same page about that? Be sure you do your Manhood Plan. It’s the most important assignment that you’ll get – it’s really the only assignment you’re going to get from me the whole Program.

A Review of Our Original Presuppositions and Promises

Let me review briefly the original 5 presuppositions and 5 promises that we made. At the start, we said we would be guided by 5 presuppositions. The first is:

1. That manhood is in the state of confusion today. Questions like ‘What is a man?’ ‘What do real men do?’ ‘how do they act?’ ‘What is a real man’s priorities? His role?’ Those are questions that most men cannot answer today.

2. Secondly, I believe confused men create major problems. They create major problems in society. They create major problems in marriages. They create major problems with their children, and in their own personal lives. Not just for their own life, but for those around them. That’s what confused men do when they have no vision. They get out of control.

3. Third, confused men settle for less. They exchange a life of honorable pursuits and lofty challenges and courageous convictions and noble difference-making for just raw power, and immorality and self-absorption, and irresponsibility; and boyish behavior that dumbs our gender down. Comrades, in a visionless, masculine world, When you take a hard look around, our gender has been dumbed-down. There are no “knights” in our age who are lights to other men. The lights are going out. I am calling us to a higher and a more noble kind of masculinity. That’s to make men, men! But confused men settle for less.

4. Fourth, there’s no lofty vision of manhood that is compelling for men today. We plan on changing that. In fact, one of the things I’m the most excited about, is to see a lot of you comrades at the end of these 13 sessions, finish excited about your masculinity. You’re going to have a vision of how to do the kinds of things that you were created to do. You’ll be able to articulate it. All of that will give energy to your life and to this high calling to manhood that we’ll be talking about.

5. Then finally, I want you to know that the Bible has insights and answers to all of the above things I’ve just said. In the next couple of days, we’re going to take some real hard looks at the Scripture in defining who a man is. Look at a promise in Psalm 1, where it talks about what the Bible itself promises to those who learn it. Here’s what it says:

“How blessed is the man who delights in the word of God.” [And then it says]: “He will be like a tree firmly planted whose leaf does not wither, and in whatever he does he prospers.”

Those are some amazing promises! If you delight in the Scripture, there’s a wisdom there that gives sturdiness and stability to life. A tree, firmly planted – and in every season – good times and bad times – fall, winter, spring and summer – the leaf is rich and green. In the endeavors that this man undertakes, whether it’s in his vocation; his recreation; his family; his personal life, there is a sense of prosperity and richness to life. That’s what the Scripture promises for those who delight in not just hearing the message that it proclaims, but in applying it in those textures of his masculine life. Those are some incredible promises!

In addition to these 5 presuppositions, I also made 5 bold promises.

1. You’ll have a clear definition of manhood. In the first half we didn’t give that definition. In the next four days we will give that definition. You’ll have it, and it will be very clear. I hope it will be compelling to your life. We’ll be constructing that over these next 4 days. It is a definition that you will be able to carry with you the rest of your life and go back to over and over again. It is one that you will really be excited about. It’s not one that’s seasonal. If you have sons, it will be a definition that you’ll be excited to pass on to your sons by saying, “Son, this is what a man is. This is where I’m going and I want you to go there with me.” You’ll have a definition of manhood.

2.Secondly, you’ll make some significant personal discoveries about yourself. I hope that the most exciting discoveries are still ahead of us in the next few days. You will make some significant personal discoveries.

3. Also, you’ll make some new friends. That happens in our small group. if you’re not in the group, click Men Of Courage WhatsApp Group

4. Fourth, you’ll learn a new manhood language. You’ll be able to use those with one another in a way that connects you to other men.

5. Finally, as I’ve already mentioned, you’ll have a personalized Plan for achieving authentic manhood. Every man needs a Plan that takes you to a different level of manhood – it elevates your game in a whole new way. That’s what this is all about.

These are the promises we can deliver on as we spend these next 12 days together.

Picking Up Where We Left Off

Now, let me pick up from where we left off in Session 13. We spent time unpacking our manhood wounds. We said, every man carries a baggage through life.’ when you open it up – depending on how well a man unpacks his baggage will determine what kind of man he will become.

I said there are all kinds of things in that baggage. We explored those things. There are scary things in there at times, because they unlock emotions that oftentimes we buried in our life, and don’t want to feel anymore - or don’t want to deal with anymore.

1. First, remember The Absent Father Wound. That emotional or even physical disconnect with a dad who should have been in a sense a soul-mate in the early days of my life, but he didn’t prove to be that. You’ve got to go back down in there and deal with it.

2. Secondly, we talked about the Overly-Bonded with Mother Wound, where mom, in love – and for the most part, It was always in love – became too involved in your life. That over-involvement and that over-attention then resulted in either a creating a young son who was the ‘soft male’ who had passive tendencies, or it created a hostile, dominant male – especially dominant to women – with overly-aggressive tendencies. We explored what that all meant.

3. Thirdly, we talked about the All-Alone Wound, where a young man growing up lacks either male friends to encourage him, or male cheerleaders to cheer for him in the noble endeavors of his life. A lot of us had friends – buddies – that kind of hang around us – but they don’t call us up - they call us down. I’m talking about cheerleaders who call us up to the higher things of life. A lot of men lack those kind of men in their life. They lack a language that they can talk to other men in a way, that stimulates them to do good deeds and to a nobler calling. Men also lack male mentors that can instruct them on the road ahead and make them wise for the coming events in their lives.

4. And finally, we dealt with the Heart Wound, which unlike the others, is a wound that you’re born with. Past generations simply called this wound depravity. And no one likes to go into their baggage and find out that they’ve got this wound, even though on the surface of their life, there are symptoms and evidences of that depravity everywhere. It takes a real man to go into his baggage and acknowledge he has a heart problem. There is a natural propensity in my life – if I begin to look back on it – towards a toxic self- absorption and just pure evil. Where I want to do something just for the sake of doing it for me, and I don’t care who it hurts. Or I don’t care what it is; I just want to enjoy it. Every man has a propensity in that direction. We learned that the root of that propensity is because we came into this life without God. Unless there is a moment in our life that changes that, we’ll leave this life without God. Those are hard truths to face, but a real man learns to face it.

There are two ways every man can choose to live with these wounds

Let me summarize the whole last 12 sessions with two diagrams. The two ways that every man can choose to live with these wounds.

1. You can harden in your woundedness

Stage One: Every man begins life without God. His nature is selfish and self-centered. Those are hard realities, and I’m not saying that every man goes out and becomes as bad as he can be. Selfishness and without God does necessarily equate with just going out and doing bad things. It’s just who we are; we can play the straight life, but these things can still be just as true about ourselves.

Every man, at some point, has to go back to this foundational statement. And I’ve got to the decide, ‘is this statement true or false?’ Because everything else flows from that. But the Bible says we come into the world selfish and self-centered and without God.

Stage Two as a son: Every man in his early days suffers some kind of hurts – small or large – growing up. It’s just part of growing up. It might be that I grew up in a good home, but my mom and dad never really gave me any real manhood vision about my life, so I was given a blank slate there. They attended my games, but they didn’t really add any substance or weight to my life. Maybe I had an absent dad; maybe my parents separated/divorced; maybe my mother was way too involved in my life. Maybe I didn’t have any spiritual upbringing; I’m clueless about God.

I could have all those little hurts – large or small – but, those things impact you as a man now. They have impacted you psychologically - they impacted you emotionally - they impacted you socially. They helped shape you into the kind of man you are today. So that leads us to:

Stage Three: As a young man, not a son anymore, what we often we do is construct our manhood from these selfish and wounded perspectives. In fact, many of us will us our woundedness as energy to fuel and excuse our excessive or evil behaviors.

For instance, as I move on into adulthood, I become a workaholic. Why do I become a workaholic? Because I want to earn the love and respect that I never had growing up. Or maybe I choose to become an alcoholic to numb out the pain of being abandoned. Or I become violent because of the anger that I feel inside as a young man being ignored as I was growing up. Or abused. So I just become an angry person. Or maybe I become rebellious and crazy since no one really ever cared about me, so why not? Or maybe I become immoral to dominate women because I grew up in a world of women that dominated me. I’m going to get even; I didn’t like that. Or maybe I become irresponsible because no one took responsibility for me. Or maybe I become overly-responsible because that’s the only way I could survive. Or maybe I became manipulative because that’s the only way I could manage my world.

That’s what we do; we take our selfishness and our woundedness and we construct our own version of masculinity, which leads to:

Stage Four: As a man, I’m driven then by these forces that I don’t understand and I refuse to examine. When issues come up that don’t work, circumstances and others are blamed for my problems and my failures. I’m never the problem. You see my depravity won’t let me, look at me. I’m not the problem; my wife is the problem. My job is the problem; my investments are the problem; my kids are the problem, but not me. By not looking at me and taking responsibility for me, what I do as I have that selfish and wounded perspective that’s shaping my manhood I simply create a life of pain for myself and those around me. Which leads to:

Stage Five: If I’ve got money and I’ve done well in life, I try to buy my way out of my pain. My wife’s not treating me the right way, then I go get a lawyer. My kids are the problem - rather than seeing me as not being the kind of dad I needed to be, I get them counselors and psychiatrists. I send them to nice camps to get them corrected and I gather around me in my power and wealth “yes-people” who’ll always tell me I’m doing okay. I’ll indulge myself in all kinds of toys and experiences to buy myself out of my pain. The Proverbs say, “A rich man’s wealth is his fortress” (it’s his castle, that he can build for himself so he doesn’t have to look at real life, and he doesn’t have to take a hard look at himself.)

Now those of us that are maybe not at that level of wealth, there are other ways that we can ignore the pain in our life. We can get into drugs - we can get into alcohol - we can sit in front of the TV forever. We can look at pornography on the internet after everybody went to bed - we can get involved in adultery. We can indulge ourselves in sports - go away every weekend to the golf course, just to get away from the pain. That’s what men do, but that’s a refusal to admit the truth about myself, which then leads me to:

Stage Six: In time that selfish and wounded manhood hardens. It just hardens. As a man, as I grow old, life becomes small – it just becomes me. It becomes empty, mundane, bitter or reckless. And that’s why Henry David Thoreau wrote these words; “the mass of men live lives of quiet desperation.” I’m working a job; I go home to a wife; but underneath the surface, I live a life of quiet desperation. Something in me wants to get out; something in me wants to live at a higher level; I just don’t know how!

2. You can be delivered from your woundedness:

If you look there are a bunch of stages that can be changed. You can have all these stages -- beginning life without God - suffering some hurts as a son - constructing your manhood around selfishness, but there comes a time – a special moment when a man can experience a major turn around in his life.

It can occur for a number of reasons, but whatever those reasons are, here’s what happens to him. Somewhere along life’s journey, a man has an opportunity to turn around - to change that view of himself - and some men do – not all men – but some men do. When they do, they suddenly discover the truth about themselves. They recognize, ‘you know, I really am a selfish person; I really am without God’. They accept responsibility for their lives and their problems, and they stop blaming others. They also grieve over the losses that they have had in life. ‘I am sorry I didn’t have an involved dad. It hurts, but I can’t keep living there.’ ‘ I am sorry that mom was over-involved.’ ‘I am sorry that nobody took care of me.’ ‘I am grieving over the fact that nobody instructed me in my early years how to live.’

We can say whatever we want to about our life, but you finally have to go in there – feel that – and say, ‘but I’m not going to live there anymore.’ I discover the truth about myself. That could occur at Stage Two, as I’m a young son in a home where dad’s abandoned me, and I feel lonely. That could occur at Stage Three, where I’m a young man constructing this manhood that I don’t fully understand and it’s just not working. It could occur at Stage Three or Four where I find myself addicted to some behavior and I can’t get out of that addiction. It could occur at the very end of life – when I’m just empty and alone, and I realize my life didn’t count for very much. But in that moment, I finally discover the most amazing thing: the truth about myself.

And in that moment, I do one other thing. (that’s how we ended in Session 13) In that moment, I turn in faith to Jesus Christ for help. It’s an amazing moment.

Most of you have heard -- whether you’re in church or not – somewhere along the line, you’ve probably heard the story of the Prodigal Son. I’ve come to understand that story as a bigger story than just what meaning it initially conveys. I really think the story of the Prodigal Son is a story of manhood; of every man’s life.

Remember the story’s about a young man growing up with a dad and he comes to the place where he wants to get out on his own. He asks his dad to give him what’s owed him from the family estate, and he’s going to live his life the way he wants. He’s going to construct his manhood the way he wants around his selfish, wounded, godless nature. That’s where he really is. Now he doesn’t know that. He just thinks he knows more than dad. And so dad says, ‘Okay,’ and gives it to him. Here’s the story:

“And not many days later, the younger son gathered everything together and he went on a journey (this is his manhood journey) into a distant country and there he squandered his estate with loose living (because there was no vision). Now when he had spent everything, a severe famine occurred in that country and he began to be in need. He went and attached himself to one of the citizens of that country. And he sent him into the fields to feed the swine (the pigs). And he was longing to fill his stomach with the pods the swine were eating, and no one was giving anything to him. But when he came to his senses (he had this moment), he said, ‘how many of my father’s hired men have more than enough bread, but I am dying here with hunger. I will get up and go to my father and say to him “Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight and I’m no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me as one of your hired men.” And he got up and he came to his father, but while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion for him and ran and embraced him and kissed him, and the son said to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight. I’m no longer worthy to be called your son.” But the father said to his slaves, “ Quickly bring out the best robe and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet; and bring the fatted calf and kill it and let us eat and be merry, for this son of mine was dead and has come to live again. He was lost and has been found.” And they began to celebrate.”

Every man lives through this journey, but there’s a point in his journey that I want you to see.

There comes a place where life doesn’t work for this young man. There will be a point -- regardless of regardless of your background --where you’re alone coming into this world, living your life on your own, in whatever world you live, and you will come to a place where life won’t work anymore. You either come to your senses and run to your father, or you stay where you are and eat with the pigs. That’s the story of manhood.

Yet, what’s so wonderful about the story – it almost brings tears to my eyes -- is when he finally said, ‘you know, I need to admit the truth about myself. I’m alone; this isn’t working.

I’m not fully satisfied. I will get up and go to my father.’ He finds a father – not just waiting – he finds a father running to him. that’s how God looks at you.

This whole story is about how God looks at you. In that moment when you turn to Him, He runs to you, because He wants you to have the life that He’s always wanted for you. You know what you call that in the Scripture? You call that being “born again.” When you’re born again, for the first time in your life, you’re not playing religion anymore, because now you’re in the real nitty-gritty of life. You’ve turned to your father and you say, ‘you know, I want you in my life. I want to go through this life with You and have the life You want to have for me.’

God embraces you as you embrace Him, and a new life occurs that the Scripture says is being “born again” Out of that, for the first time really – not the religion of your mom and dad - not the church that you grew up in. For the first time, it’s not religion anymore, it’s a relationship with your Father who wants to make you a man.

For the first time you begin to really pursue a life with Christ. That life with Christ then goes on and produces hope and health and happiness.

2 Corinthians 5:17 says it this way:

“Therefore, if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things have passed away and the new things have come.”

We ended the previous session speaking of how to enter into that relationship. We’re not here to cram religion down your throat but, we are here to offer some help and some exploration.

Until a man digs in and really understands what he is, can he ever come up to the kind of masculinity that we’ll be talking about over the next 12 Sessions.

Summary Observations

Let me finish today with just a few final observations of this second kind of masculinity.

1. First, rather than numbing out to his wounds or being enraged by them, the new man in Christ will unpack them. He will embrace his hurts and he will feel them, and then he will deal with them in appropriate ways. I hope I’ve helped you in that regard this last 12 Sessions.

2. Secondly, rather than blaming others for his life, the new man in Christ will accept personal responsibility for it. That’s what I love about that prodigal son. It says, ‘when he came to his senses…’ He finally was willing to admit ‘you know, I’ve sinned against heaven and in God’s sight, and I’m ready to take personal responsibility for my life’ and he did. A new manhood suddenly appeared.

3. And then, finally, rather than ignoring the masculinity of Jesus Christ, the new man in Christ becomes eager to pursue it and, as he does, a new manhood emerges. That’s why the real words – probably the most powerful words of Jesus Christ when He was on earth – were these words: “Follow Me.”

One of the things I’m probably the most excited about is that in 2010, for whatever reason, I decided to follow Jesus. In the ashes of chaos, with my family life disintegrating and me being clueless about manhood - God took me and refashioned a manhood for me that I’m very excited about today.