Men of the Beach, Talk #4: A Vision for the Future

Intro:

A) Purpose of Men of the Beach? Not to lay out every detail of every aspect of Biblical manhood, not to give a comprehensive view of what it means to be a man, but to lay a foundation in your life, a foundation that you can build on throughout your life.
B) Review the three weeks.
1. Biblical Foundation
2. Wounding, need for interdependence
3. Relationships with women
C) What will we do this week? I want to look to the future. I want to picture this whole room fifty years from now, for us to be able to sit down and reflect on the godly legacy that each one of us has left. I want to warn you and exhort you. The future will be hard. It is not easy to walk with God. It is a rare thing to see.
D) A few Scriptures haunt me here:

Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad the path that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.

The parable of the sower

Not everyone who says to me ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only him who does the will of him who sent me.

E) So, I want to lay forth a strong exhortation to us in the realm of Biblical manhood. Remember that I, like Paul, want to “beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.”


I. The Three Resolutions

What are these resolutions?

1. I will nurture my relationship with God all the days of my life.

A) What does this mean?

This means that the overriding passion in our life is to nurture and grow our intimacy with God, in every arena, but especially in the secret disciplines of prayer and time in the Word. This means that on our lifelong priority list, Relationship with God remains the number one thing. This means that every day from now until the day you die, you want to know God better than the day before. This means that no matter what responsibilities enter your life, you are careful to give to God the firstfruits of your time.

Our grounding Scripture is Luke 14:26-27: “If anyone does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple. And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.”

B) How to do this?

Develop deep and lasting habits now. After I became a started following Jesus, I decided that I would ask every old believer I met who was still walking with God what had helped them make it for the longterm. There were many different answers, but one that was consistent across the board was the careful setting aside of daily time to connect with Jesus. The time varied from 30 min-2 hours, but it was consistent. Build these into your life now, and protect them with everything you have.

Tell the story of last week.

C) The urgency

Do you think it is easy to make it all the way to the end? How is it then that the Scriptures abound with the stories of men who live in faithfulness for many years but falter at the end? Demas, Judas, Asa, Joash to name a few.

Remember the parable of the sower. Pursue God first not only now, but in every season of your life.

2. I will live and walk in an ordered, pleasing way.

A) Explain walk.
B) This is a restoration to the way we were created with reference to work. All of us will have laid out before us a course of work. For some, this will be ministry. For most, however, it will be a job of some sort. Engineer, doctor, teacher, businessmen perhaps.
C) Most of us also will have families. Wife, one or more children.
D) Some verses:

Titus 2:12—“[The grace of God] teaches us to say ‘No’ to ungodliness and worldly passions, an dto live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age.”
I Thessalonians 4:11—“Make it your ambition to live a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you.”
Colossians 3:23—“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men.”
There are many others.

E) The point is that God is pleased in order, discipline, and the steadiness of regular habits. God wants you to live in a careful and ordered way. This is something to puzzle out and think over, especially you who are graduating. But housework, labor, excellence in your job, time spent with your children and wife, these are all intrinsically good things!
F) This is to take responsibility upon yourself, to shoulder it up and work for it. For each of us, the responsibilities we will be given are different.

3. I will act when action is called for.


A) What does this mean?

Passivity is our original problem. Remember Adam standing back and watching as his wife ate the fruit, frozen in indecision, fear, unbelief. To act in the midst of fear is to radically put on the characteristics of Christ. To act in fear is to act in faith.

To act when action is called for is to be bold.

Story of Jeff

B) How do we do this?

We must resolve to do so, both in ourselves and collectively. We must encourage one another and hold each other responsible. We must grow in faith. Great are the rewards for the man who acts! Highly honored are the courageous, those who in midst of fear act boldly and seize what God offers.

Story of Phineas

Truly resisting passivity is ALWAYS HARD. Truly entering into security will always scare you. Are you willing to be scared and still act?

II. The Distractions

Having spoken of our three resolutions, I will speak also of three deadly distractions, the tools that our enemies will use to take us off of the purity of our devotion to Christ.

1. Joash and worldliness (associated danger, hypocrisy)

Story: II Chronicles 24

After Jehoida dies, Joash listens to the men of his court, the officials that urge him to become more like the other nations. He is pliable under this pressure, and lacking the strong warning voice of his priest, he gives way to them. When the prevailing winds blow in one direction, Joash follows, to his folly and ultimate death at the hands of the very officials he had listened to.

We see that hypocrisy had long lay at the heart of Joash, even as for years under the tutelage and influence of Jehoida he had outwardly followed God. Yet it was hypocritical, and when a different influence entered, there was no deep heartwork to hold him back from falling.

In America, it is easy to be a hypocrite. As long as we are mostly comfortable in a Christian culture, within a faithful church, etc, it is easy to follow God. But what is the true condition of our heart? Is there hypocrisy in it? A concern for appearances and the approval of others? Or is there a real work that if tested would stand firm against all the temptations of worldly approval?

We are men. A man is a planted thing, a tree with roots that the storms cannot touch. Men of the world are like diseased trees, outwardly seeming beautiful and strong, but awaiting only the blowing of a wind to knock them down.

2. David and pleasure (associated danger, isolation)

Story: II Samuel 11-12

This is a familiar story, and if it isn’t, it should be, for every man. David is many ways a prototype for us of godly manhood. We see his deep faith, his courage and activity, the responsibility he takes for his kingdom, etc. But here we see him as a different type of model. This is in the comfort of his kingdom, after long years of military success. His army goes out to fight, but David stays behind. All the men are off in the field, fighting, and David lies in comfort on the roof of his palace, isolated, given over to pleasure, his work abandoned. He sees Bathsheeba, he desires her, and he takes her.

No, obviously the flowering of his sin is his adultery and the murder he performs to conceal it. But it begins in his abdicating of is work and pursuit of pleasure, comfort.

Do I need to expend much time elaborating this danger? There are endless examples, most quite obvious, of men, even men of great spiritual success, who have been taken out by the pursuit of pleasure and the gratification of the senses.

Now, to be a man does not mean to life an ascetic life, or a life free from the experience of the good things God has created for us. To enjoy food, sex, rest, all these are good and pleasing things which the Bible commends to us. But we MUST understand that there are great stumbling blocks in earthly pleasure which must be seen and watched out for. Generally, when we are living in isolation, we are unable to comprehend our danger.

3. Gideon and pride (associated danger, faithlessness)

Story: Judges 8

Gideon is used powerfully by God to free the people, acting in great boldness to oppose a vast army with a mere 300 men. But after this, when he is acclaimed by the people, he foolishly uses the tribute they give him to make himself an ostentatious ephod (a priestly garment). This golden ephod, which was not for non-Levites to wear, became a snare to Gideon and his family, who used it for idolatrous purposes.

We see Gideon’s self-flattery, his desire for acclamation, and his proudly placing himself into a role that rightly belonged only to the Levites. Although this does not prevent him from being used by God before and after, it harmed his family and his legacy.

We see that this stems from a history of weak faith. Observe the double process of testing that he asks from God before he will go forth. Also, his fear and weakness when asked to go out. Gideon, though not faithfulness, certainly seems to display a weak faith. This weak faith is what feeds his pride. Faith is the sight of God’s hand in all actions and trust in his word acting through all actions. A man of weak faith confronted with success leads inevitably to pride.

Pride is a great danger to all men, both in its positive and negative aspects. Explain positive and negative. It is generally pride that leads to both hypocrisy and isolation. Pride is at the heart of all hatred, pride prevents intimacy with God and others. Pride is always present in the heart, but it is success which reveals it. Thus as you move through life and experience degrees of success, your pride will make itself known. But if you attack it now, if you humble yourself now, beginning patterns and habits of self-humbling, you will be equipped well to deal with both success and failure.

III. Conclusion:

1. Remember, the power of the new life the power of Christ exercising himself in the indwelling Spirit in the context of deep fellowship.

2. Do you want to be a man? Then ask yourself these things:

A) Do I have a compelling picture of what a man is, as presented in the Bible?

You will need to constantly renew your understanding. Remember these keys though: We are designed to act, to take responsibility for our work, and to guard and take responsibility for women.

B) Do I see myself as a fallen man redeemed and brought into new life by Jesus?

This is both a general and specific understanding. We of course are generally sinful, but do I see how the perversion of my created MALE nature has made itself known in specific areas of my life?

C) Are others, who also have this compelling picture, examining my life?

All the days of your life. We need to work these things out together!

D) Am I willing to move in fear?

Do it scared. The actions that are required of us may be difficult, scary, hard, etc. Will you do them? Remember Jeff’s story.