God's Design for Manhood and Womanhood - Part 2
March 27, 2022 Speaker: Brian Wilbur Series: The Book of Genesis
GOD’S DESIGN FOR MANHOOD AND WOMANHOOD, PART 2
Five Exhortations to Men
By Pastor Brian Wilbur
Date: March 27, 2022
Series: The Book of Genesis
Note: Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
INTRODUCTION
I invite you to turn to Psalm 128. That's not the text for the morning, as we will actually be all over the place, so I hope you have your Bible at the ready. Psalm 128 is just the best place for you to turn.
Proverbs 20:29 says, “The glory of young men is their strength, but the splendor of old men is their gray hair.” That seems like a good verse to kick off Part 2 of God's Design for Manhood and Womanhood. Part 2 is primarily an exhortation to men, both old and young. But before we get into it, let's ask for the Lord's help.
Father, we do pray that your Holy Spirit would shine the light of your truth into our hearts, all of our hearts, but especially the men and future men who are gathered here this morning, that you would raise up a generation of men and grow a generation of men who fear and serve the Lord with glad hearts. We pray in Jesus’ name, amen.
Before I share five exhortations to men, I want to share two introductory thoughts. Keep in mind that these messages on manhood and womanhood are building blocks to help us understand the big picture of what God is doing in the world and in our lives.
And so, I want to begin just by reminding us from what we've already seen in Genesis 1-3, that maleness and femaleness matter a lot. I say this in contrast to so much of the prevailing culture in our day, that wants to minimize, and in some cases even erase, the differences between man and woman. The way that our contemporary culture reasons is that what really matters is personality, competence, gifts, education and training, ambition, that's what really matters. And our culture concludes that, with the exception of a very few minimal distinctions, men and women are largely interchangeable. But that is not the way that the Bible reasons. The biblical view is that, yes, it is true that personality and competence and gifts do matter. Yes, we affirm that. But whether you are male or female is even more foundational to your identity, and God intends for your maleness or your femaleness to shape your entire life in profound and significant ways. And so, my goal has been in these sermons to give that biblical truth proper emphasis. We don't want to minimize the differences between male and female, and we don't want to exaggerate the differences either. But we do want to give what God says about these things their proper due and work them out in our lives.
The second introductory thing that I want to say will probably not be unfamiliar to you. When I make this statement, it might seem off topic but I assure you that it is not off topic. I have not forgotten my topic for the morning and I'm not sharing this statement as a point of agreement or disagreement. I'm rather sharing this statement as a window into understanding. Okay, here's the statement: A woman's place is in the home. Some people have a positive reaction to that statement as they recognize a woman's vital role in nurturing the family and they hear that statement as a dignifying vocation. Other people react negatively to that kind of statement as they hear in it words of restriction that seem to confine women to the four walls of a house, and they find the suggestion that a woman's place is in the home demeaning. And that leads me to ask a question: How low would one have to view the home in order to feel devalued that one's place is in it? Think about it: if I say to a budding scholar, your place is in the academy, you’ve got to study and learn and teach, and the scholar says, ‘Yes!’ Or if I say to an aspiring artist, your place in the big city – South Paris can't contain your talents, go to the big city and hit it big, and the aspiring artist says, ‘Yes!’ Or if I say to a musician, your place is in Nashville – go find a recording studio, get your work out there, and the musician says, ‘Yes!’ In God's plan, the home is far greater than Nashville; far greater than the big city; far greater than even the finest academies like Harvard, Cambridge and Oxford. And yet the idea that one's place is in the home can feel so uninspiring to 21st century westerners. The question is: Why is that? How do you explain that phenomenon? Well, I would say it's because we have not caught God's vision for the home.
One of my primary aims in ministry is to restore Christians to a biblical vision for home life. And I hit on this theme every now and then from the pulpit. In our day and age, we have devalued the family. We have reduced the family to a collection of individual interests. The home is like a glorified hotel: continental breakfast; stacked refrigerator; big entertainment center; and a comfortable bed. But life happens out there, outside the home. That's the way moderns think. But you know, the Bible begins in Genesis 1-2 with a great big universe and then a garden, and then a holy marriage – a man and his wife at home in the garden in God's big world. And the Bible concludes in Revelation 21-22 with a new universe and in it, the city of God, and in that city a holy marriage between the Lamb and his bride: the Lamb and his bride at home forever in God’s world, and it is glorious. The marriage between Christ and the church is the point of the entire universe. That is the point of the entire universe. And our marriages, as Paul teaches us in Ephesians 5, are designed to reflect and anticipate that ultimate marriage between the Lamb and his bride.
Furthermore, as I've said before, from Genesis 1 onward, marriage is the basic building block of society, and marriage is the context for fulfilling the great dominion mandate. We have children, we disciple them, we deploy them, and with them, we build a multi-generational family that is on mission together doing the work that God has assigned to us. All of what I just said means that the home is at the center of God's plan for the universe. So let me recast my original statement: ‘a woman's place is in the home’ means ‘a woman's place is at the center of God's plan for the universe’.
And then you ask, where is the man? Well, the answer is clear: the man is right there in the center of God's plan for the universe, at home as husband, captain and chief steward. How shall the man who fears the Lord be blessed? Psalm 128 tells us:
“You shall eat the fruit of the labor of your hands; you shall be blessed, and it shall be well with you. Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house; your children will be like olive shoots around your table. Behold, thus shall the man be blessed who fears the LORD.” (Psalm 128:2-4)
The work of a man’s hands bringing blessing to his house, his wife, and his children who are gathered around his table – that is a beautiful picture of a man at the center of God's plan for the universe.
So that's the introduction. Now I want to share five exhortations to men and to future men. And I have to tell you: what I'm about to share with you is not complicated. I'm not breaking any new ground here. There's nothing novel or creative or humanly brilliant. These are simple things. However, let me say this to the men: we have trouble doing the simple things because of our sinful hearts. I mean, how much time do you spend on trivial pursuits on the smartphone and on games and hobbies and so many relatively unimportant activities, before you realize that you haven't been doing the simple things that really demand your great attention? And so, let these simple exhortations search your heart, remind you of what is important, call you to repentance, and encourage you to make progress in your life.
FIVE EXHORTATIONS TO MEN AND FUTURE MEN
Exhortation #1: You must earnestly seek God first and always.
As we just read in Psalm 128, it all starts with the fact that the man fears the Lord (see Psalm 128:1, 4). In Genesis 1:26-27, we learned that men are God's male image bearers. The first duty of an image-bearer of God is to be closely related to God. You have to be in close fellowship with God before you can get on with the task of representing Him to others. In Genesis 2:7-17, we learned that the man knew what it meant to have his steps ordered by the Lord, and to receive instruction from the Lord before the Lord brought the woman into his life. Ephesians 5:25 tells husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the church. How are you going to love your wife in the way that God intends if you do not know Christ and if you do not know how Christ has loved the church?
As men, we are tempted to put idols in God's place. We are tempted to idolize our wives or our future wives. We are tempted to idolize our children, or money, or our career. I want to say to the men that you have to have a clear head. Other people's wishes, your wife's wishes, your children's wishes, the promise of money or the prospect of career advancement have no ultimate claim on you. As far as ultimacy goes, they are a zero. What matters? Ephesians 5:17 says: “understand what the will of the Lord is.” That is what matters. So, immerse yourself in the Scriptures. Find like-minded brothers who are walking in the same direction and run the race that God has set before you. As the hymn says: “Rise up, O men of God! Have done with lesser things; Give heart and mind and soul and strength to serve the King of kings.”[1]
Exhortation #2: You must energetically steward God’s mission.
This flows out of the first exhortation. When you seek God and let His Word dwell richly within you and shape your heart and mind, then you're going to realize that He is setting before you certain tasks, certain things that you must do, and you must give yourself wholeheartedly to these tasks.
In Genesis 1:28, there is the Great Dominion Mandate to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, exercising dominion. That mandate was given to both the man and the woman. The man ought to take the lead in stewarding that mandate. In Genesis 2:15-17, the man received further instruction: work and keep this garden, Adam. And he received additional doctrinal instruction about what to eat and not eat. In Matthew 28, we have the Great Commission that as believers we're all supposed to be oriented to, that we would be disciples who are growing in the Lord and who are helping to make other disciples, new disciples, maturing disciples. This is the call to represent the Father, to keep and guard what he has set before us, and to transmit the faith to others.
And so, if your wife – your helper – comes to you and says, Can you remind me why we are here? What are we doing this for it? What's the point? Where is this all headed? – that is a really bad time to say, ‘I don't know.’ You ought to know. And if you're out there right now and you honestly don't know, then you must prioritize learning, getting to know, figuring it out. You have to have a biblically shaped understanding of why you are here and how your life fits into God's big picture mission for the world. And let me be clear: you don't have to have a sophisticated mission statement for yourself and for your family. If you would just have the basic convictions that God has put me here to represent him, to love my wife, to raise my kids to love and follow Christ, and to work hard to provide for my family, and to do all this for the glory of God – if you would simply have those points of conviction in your heart and mind, then you would be light years ahead of all the grown-ups in America who have never grown up. You don't have to have a complex mission statement in order to live in the foundational vision of Genesis 1-2.
My own sense of God-given mission has been with me for over 20 years. It’s really simple. I'm here to teach God's word for the health and growth of the church. And I'm here to build community around God's word. That basic mission has guided me for over 20 years now. About half of that time, I was single, and I made a little bit of headway. I was pursuing it, I was living it, but I made just a little bit of headway. And then God sent help: Charlotta. And since then, we've made a lot more headway as we are laboring together after this vision. This is a big part of why we have people into our home on a regular basis. We have multiple families and individuals in our home at the same time, and that's part of that vision to build and strengthen community around Jesus and His word.
You must energetically steward God's mission.
Exhortation #3: You must faithfully keep your marriage covenant.
Now, I know that there's some single men out there, but most men are married or will be married or were married. So that's where I'm putting the emphasis. You must faithfully keep your marriage covenant. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is the faithful promise keeper: "the faithful God who keeps covenant, and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments" (Deuteronomy 7:9). Moreover God sent His Son to lay down his life for covenant breakers, like you and me in order to secure a new and better covenant through his blood.
Men, your marriage is designed to tell the truth about God's covenant keeping love. When Christ brought you into his covenant, He took upon Himself all of your deficiencies and all of your liabilities without grumbling. Husbands, you are to follow suit. You are to take your cue from Christ. Genesis 2:24 envisions a man leaving his father and mother and holding fast to his wife and the two become one. And this calls you to marital fidelity in thought, emotion and practical action. Jesus said what God has joined together, let no man separate. The law says you shall not covet your neighbor's wife. Hebrews 13:4 says, “Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.” Be faithful. This whole concept of a husband and wife being one flesh, you got to understand that biblical marriage is not two individuals on two separate tracks, who agree to help each other achieve individual self-fulfillment. Many people approach marriage that way but that is not biblical marriage. Biblical marriage is the conjoining of two lives into one. So that now there is one flesh, one life, one purpose, one track. Husbands, you need to understand that once you are married your well-being is bound up with the well-being of your wife. If you defeat her, you defeat yourself. If you neglect her, you neglect yourself. If you belittle her, you cheapen yourself. If you treat her harshly, you treat yourself harshly. If you do not beautify her, then you show that you yourself are unworthy of glory. If you condemn her, you condemn yourself. If you would like to not be condemned, then you should learn to forbear, and forgive, and intercede, and pour out grace from the heart. This is what Paul unpacks in Ephesians chapter 5. You can turn there if you want. I'm just going to read three verses Ephesians 5:28-30. They're very, very familiar. You and your wife are one by covenant, and this covenantal unity has implications for how you live. It says in Ephesians 5 beginning in verse 28:
“In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body.” (Ephesians 5:28-30)
We are joined to Christ, He nourishes and cherishes us. Husbands, your wife is joined to you nourish and cherish her. You must be faithful to your marriage covenant.
Exhortation #4: You must diligently lead your wife and children.
I want to share with you men a very sobering thought. In Genesis 2:18-20, your wife is identified as your helper. In Ephesians 5:22 and 1 Peter 3:1, she is called to submit to you and to be subject to you. If you do not faithfully and humbly and confidently lead her, then you afflict her with many troubles. She's supposed to help you and to submit to your direction but if you abandon your post or if you're abusing your post, what is she to do? So be resolved to exercise godly leadership. Exercising leadership, as a husband, doesn't mean that you do everything. And it also doesn't mean that every decision that you make, you make without considering her counsel and input. But what exercising leadership does mean is that you willingly assume responsibility for the entirety of your life together. Don't sit around and wait for her to figure it out for you. You rise up and take the lead.
Take the lead to provide for your family. That flows right out of Genesis 2-3, to work and keep the garden. And then in Genesis 3, the Lord tells Adam that by very hard and sweaty labor, he's going to win bread. Men should be resolved to work hard in order to provide for their families. Proverbs 12:11 says, “Whoever works his land will have plenty of bread, but he who follows worthless pursuits lacks sense.”
Also take the lead to teach your family and to ensure that your children are learning to see every facet of life and every field of study from a biblical worldview perspective, from God's perspective. Don't fail to appreciate the value of simply gathering your family together, opening up the Bible, reading a few verses, saying a few words. Doing that simple 5 to 10 minute activity on a regular basis, speaks volumes to the other members of your family.
Take the lead to set an example for your family. Jesus set an example in the way that he loved and served his disciples and other people. Your children and your wife should see that you're just not sitting on some throne handing down executive orders, but that you're in the game laboring hard and serving with humility and with gladness in order to lift up those around you.
Take the lead to defend your family. Take the lead to set vision, policies, and boundaries for your family. If you don't, you are apt to drift. Don Carson, one time, was talking about how individuals don't drift into holiness. I would also say that your family will not drift into good vision, good policies, and good boundaries. You must take the bull by the horn, be proactive in walking with God, trusting his word and trying to put good habits and rhythms and patterns in place for you and your family.
Take the lead to pray with and for your family.
Take the lead to communicate with your family. A head that does not communicate to the body, is doing a great disservice to the body. Learn to initiate conversations, stick your neck out there. Take the lead to convey verbal and physical affection to your family. I was listening to a book some months ago and the author was making a point about the Father speaking to Jesus at his baptism – “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased” (Mark 1:11) – and that this is a great example of good fathering. Jesus went into the wilderness knowing that he was loved and delighted in by his Father. How many children don't have a father who is very clear in communicating love, affection, and delight in his children?
Take the lead to address problems facing the family.
Take the lead to involve your family in the life of the church. Men, you are your family's chief representative in the wider world. Generally speaking, you will spend more time out in the world than your wife and children. Don't go out into the world to escape. Go there because God has told you to go there and go there as a representative of Jesus, as a representative of the church, and as a representative of your family. Speak well about your family in public and be eager and glad to return home to your family after your worldly business is complete.
Fellow men, this call to take the lead is nothing other than a call to sacrifice. You cannot do these simple but very important things in a few minutes. You must give yourself to these things. You have to understand that there are things you don’t have time for. I have friends in different parts of the country that I used to talk to on a semi-regular basis before I was married and had many kids, but I don't have time for that anymore. There are a lot of things I don't have time for. This is a call to sacrifice, to bid farewell to individual self-fulfillment and individual comfort seeking, and to lay down your life for the good of your family.
Exhortation #5: You must honor the difference between male and female in every sphere of life.
There's so much we could say about this, and I'm just going to sketch a brief picture. Honoring the difference between male and female starts in your marriage. The apostle Peter said,
“Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.” (1 Peter 3:7)
Men, you are a big utility mug that can be thrown around and it doesn't break. She's fine china, or a wine glass. You don't treat her like one of the guys because she isn't one of the guys, but rather you treat her with a tender and warm and understanding heart. Honoring the difference between male and female continues in parenting. We want our boys to grow into manhood, and our daughters to grow into womanhood. And then honoring the difference between male and female extends into every area of life. It’s not for nothing that the apostle Paul told Timothy in 1 Timothy 5:1-2 to treat older men like fathers, younger men like brother, older women like mothers, and young women like sisters “in all purity” (1 Timothy 5:2). And it's not for nothing that Paul told Titus in Titus 2 to teach the older men and teach the younger men and teach the older women. But Paul didn't tell Titus to directly mentor the young women. Instead, he told the older women to mentor the young women (Titus 2:3-5). There's a reason why I have one-on-one lunches with men, and not with women. There is a reason why I will meet with a few of our boy teens to disciple them, but not with the girl teens. There is a reason why I will not have a one-on-one meeting with a woman (unless she is much, much, much older than I am). And someone might say, well it's kind of inconvenient – now you've got to get a third person involved in the meeting and that just makes scheduling more difficult. To which I reply, it may be inconvenient, but I'll tell you what's really inconvenient. Unfaithfulness, that's really inconvenient. You're intelligent people, you watch the news, people fall right and left into infidelity. A godly married man will not hang out with a woman, other than his wife, on a business trip. He will have clear boundaries.
Further, a godly man will protect a woman's heart by taking the lead to establish these boundaries. A married man will take the lead to not let a conversation with a woman, other than his wife, get too personal or go down the path of oversharing. A godly man will graciously learn how to conclude and wrap up conversations like that. Men, you are not a helpless victim; you are the leader – act like it! In the words of Marshall Segal: “Be the safest man on earth for a young woman to meet.”[2] Another thing to think about: be the safest man on earth for another man's wife to meet. That's the beauty of godly character. It's the glory of trustworthy, self-disciplined character, under the control of the Holy Spirit, with your resolve being to do what is best for the people.
Now, what I'm saying here does not mean that men and women at large – or Christian brothers and sisters – what I'm saying doesn’t mean that we don't have meaningful fellowship with one another. We do have meaningful fellowship with one another in the safe context of community. There are conversations that take place in the sanctuary before and after the service. There are conversations that take place in the context of a home group or in the context of a ministry team meeting, or when we have people over for dinner. There all kinds of enriching relationships that are taking place between men and women, and that's a good thing. But you must have wisdom and good sense when it comes to everyday life.
EMBRACE THE BIBLE’S GLORIOUS VISION OF MANHOOD
Have you ever heard of Adam Mitchell? He's a fictitious law enforcement officer in the movie Courageous. However, I have to tell you there's nothing fictitious about the vision of manhood set forth in that movie – it is truly glorious vision of manhood. And at the end of that movie, he says, speaking to a large group of people:
“But I tell you that as a father, you are accountable to God for the position of influence he has given you. You can’t fall asleep at the wheel only to wake up one day and realize that your job or your hobbies have no eternal value but the souls of your children do.”
He continues:
“You don't have to ask who will guide my family, because by God's grace, I will. You don't have to ask who will teach my son to follow Christ, because I will. Who will accept the responsibility of providing and protecting my family? I will. Who will ask God to break the chain of destructive patterns in my family's history? I will. Who will pray for and bless my children to boldly pursue whatever God calls them to do? I am their father, I will.
“I accept this responsibility, and it is my privilege to embrace it. I want the favor of God and his blessing on my home. Any good man does. So, where are you, men of courage? Where are you, fathers who fear the Lord? It's time to rise up and answer the call that God has given to you and to say “I will. I will. I will.””[2]
And when you think about the weightiness of this task, you might say what the apostle Paul said as he described gospel ministry: Who is adequate for these things? Who is sufficient for these things? (see 2 Corinthians 2:16) These are big significant things of eternal value, and we are weak and fragile and sinful human beings, who need a lot of grace. But lean into that grace, and let it transform you men into worthy men of courage.
Let's pray.
Father, we pray that you would reproduce the image and the character and the heart and the priorities of your Son into the lives of these men and boys who are gathered here this morning. We pray that you would do a great awakening in our day, of restoring the value of marriage and the family, and of making it what you intended it to be, to display your glory throughout all the earth. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.
ENDNOTES
[1] From the hymn “Rise Up, O Men of God” by William P. Merrill.
[2] Marshall Segal, “The Safest Man for Women: A Guide Toward Sexual Purity.” Published by Desiring God on March 4, 2022. Available online: https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/the-safest-man-for-women.
[3] From the movie Courageous. Sherwood Pictures, 2011.
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