Redefining Masculinity Through Christ's Example

All of us, every one of us men, we have all made a decision, and we're pretty confident that we've made the right decision. But I wanna make sure we've made the right decision, so this week and next time we're together, I wanna poke around on the decision that we've made to make sure we have it right, because it's important for all of us in terms of the decision we've made as men. [00:00:25]

Masculinity is, I didn't make this up, this is from somewhere, a set of attributes, behaviors, and roles, attributes, behaviors, and roles, a lot of wiggle room, generally, a lot of wiggle room, generally associated with men and with boys. So masculinity is a set of attributes. They're all, you know, we probably put different things on that list. Behaviors and roles generally associated with men and boys. [00:01:49]

To a large degree, not exclusively, but to a large degree, in fact, larger, to a larger degree that many of us that want to concede, masculinity really is a social and cultural construct as is femininity. Here's what I mean by that. Every generation and every culture within every generation has its own version of, or redefines or kind of tweaks the definition of what it means to be a man, or what masculinity looks like or acts like, or feels like, or responds like. [00:06:08]

And the point being this, in other parts of the world and more of the Western world, that kind of behavior, even during that period of history was considered horrible. I mean, barbaric. I mean, somebody that would do that was considered a monster, right? And by our standards, we would consider somebody who that was their goal to be a monster too. [00:09:20]

Our assumptions regarding masculinity, they are not 100% intuitive. They are cultural, they are learned, and then they're reinforced. So we have to be careful who we're listening to, and we have to be careful who we're looking to, to define for us what it means to be a man. So let me ask you, what was the script? [00:10:38]

And this is why when you hear Sandra and I talk about parenting, we say, in our family, we only had two overarching rules, and rule number one was honor your mother. You didn't have to honor me, but you honor your mother if you wanted to, you know, live in our home. It was a big deal. Well, I just thought, isn't that great that I have all this? [00:13:55]

And if the script didn't fit, you struggled, you doubted yourself. It might have created some internal insecurity. You attempted to prove yourself. Or maybe you just gave up, to use a super male analogy, you threw in the towel. I mean, there's a script, the boxer covered in his own blood and his own sweat, you know, given it his all, because real men are fighters, and maybe you're a fighter, or maybe you dislike men who are fighters. [00:14:55]

And the soldiers who also came up, they mocked Him and they said, and this is tame, we don't know the words they use. These were gritty soldiers. The most, I mean, it's unimaginable what the insults they hurled at Jesus as He died. Things that wouldn't be scripted, things that wouldn't be written, things that would be, you know, things you couldn't share. You just wouldn't document them. You can imagine. [00:28:22]

The ultimate man refused to save Himself because if He had saved Himself, he would have forfeited His opportunity to save you, and to save His accusers, and to save the world. By refusing to do for Himself what every one of His accusers would've done for themselves, he defined what it means to be a man. And in that moment, in that moment, He won a fight his accusers weren't even aware was being fought. [00:29:08]

At the intersection, and this is what we're gonna kind of tease out next time, at the intersection of lion and lamb, we find perfect masculinity on display. At the cross, we are all confronted with a battle, at the cross, we're all confronted with a battle that every single man wrestles with. That every single man is invited to fight, to join every single day, regardless of temperament, regardless of personal interest, regardless of physicality, regardless of personality. [00:29:55]

It's the battle to say no to me, so I can say yes to the people around me. It's the battle to deny myself and to control myself so I can give more of myself away. So if you're a Jesus follower, men, if you're a Jesus follower or you're attempting to be a Jesus follower, or you're considering being a Jesus follower, this is the script. This is the script. That's the script we're to pass on to our sons. [00:30:50]

And if we do, we will not all be the same. That's not the goal. But we will all be better men, and better friends, and better fathers, and better husbands, because we will be like our savior, the super man, the perfect man. And if you listen to all this and you think, "Okay, Andy, it's hard to argue with that, but you gotta be more specific. Andy, could you be more specific?" Yes, I can next week in part two of Modern Men and Our Ancient Scripts, don't miss it. [00:33:24]