[0:00] So I'm talking about a man is self-sacrificial, right? So let's jump right in. I'm going to look at three different reasons of why a man is self-sacrificial. Number one, because of the ultimate example of self-sacrificial masculinity, which is!
[0:17] Hey, you guys are on tonight, okay? Jesus, right? Jesus is the ultimate example of self-sacrificial masculinity. So we'll start in Genesis once again, as we have a lot of these weeks.
[0:30] And what is called the Proto-Evangelium, or Gelium, which is basically in Genesis 3.15, there's the promise of a Messianic sacrifice, okay?
[0:41] Genesis 3.15, after they sinned, God said, I'll put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and hers. He will crush your head and he will strike his heel. He was speaking of the sacrifice that would come.
[0:53] He was speaking of Jesus coming, the Messiah coming. And eventually executing one of the greatest sacrifices ever, all right?
[1:05] And this sacrifice, it says that Jesus was the highly exalted man with the name above all names because of his sacrifice. This is in Philippians 2, okay?
[1:15] Philippians 2, 3-9 says, Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourself. Let each one of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.
[1:30] And this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus. Who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God with him to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.
[1:47] And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. And it says, Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name.
[2:00] Okay, so Jesus' ultimate act of selflessness and sacrifice gave him the name that is above every name and caused him to be highly exalted, right?
[2:12] It was quintessential masculinity, quintessential expression of what man was supposed to be. Jesus embodied that. Jesus embodied the perfect man. And so to look at what a man should be, we need to look at the perfect man.
[2:28] We need to look at the ultimate example of man. And that is Jesus. And Jesus emptied himself, taking the form of a servant. Another NID says he considered himself nothing, taking the form of a servant.
[2:40] So anytime you think you're something, you have ceased being a servant of Christ. All right? Ultimate sacrifice and servanthood is to consider yourself nothing. It's not to exalt yourself, but to empty yourself.
[2:54] Okay? John 10, 11 to 15, Jesus said, I'm the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He was a hired hand, not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees.
[3:08] The wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he's a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. I'm the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me.
[3:19] Just as the father knows me and I know the father and I lay down my life for the sheep. Okay? So again, Jesus, the example of laying down his life. Laying down his life for the sheep.
[3:31] He's not like a hired hand who cares nothing for the sheep. Ultimate caring is laying your life down for the other. And we are to follow and imitate this example. Ephesians 5, 25 says, Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.
[3:47] So when it comes to husband drink, what is the example? How are we supposed to do it? As Christ loved the church. And how did he do it? He gave himself up for her. Sacrifice. Ephesians 5, 1-2 says, Be imitators of God as beloved children and walk in love.
[4:04] How? As Christ loved us and gave himself up for us. A fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. So how do we do this? We do it like Jesus did.
[4:14] We become sacrificial. 1 Peter 2, 21. Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example so that you might follow in his steps. Okay?
[4:24] His example was suffering and sacrifice. And 1 John 3, 16 says, By this we know, love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.
[4:36] Okay? It's our job to lay down our life for our brothers, because that's what Jesus did for us. He laid down his life for us, and so he says, Lay down your life for the brothers. This flies in the face of just thinking that Christianity is about just attending a church.
[4:50] I mean, that's a joke when you look at a verse like this. Like, oh, Christianity means I'm just supposed to go to a church and listen to a guy preach? That's Christianity? He says, By this we know, love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.
[5:04] If our expression of church doesn't include some expression of us laying our lives down for specific people we call brothers, it's not church as Christ has meant it to be.
[5:16] And we know it's the way that Christ meant it to be, number one, because it says it here, but number two, because he embodied it. He didn't say, Hey, I'm going to lay down my life for brothers so that you can just attend church meetings and listen to someone else preach.
[5:28] He said, I'm going to lay down my life for brothers so that you can follow my example and lay down your life for the brothers. And why is that important? So that church isn't just a show or an attendance, but it's actually a brotherhood.
[5:41] It's actually a group of people that are committed to one another. It's actually a group of people that love one another, care for one another, and experience life together in such a way that you could actually call it family. Brotherhood is familial language.
[5:54] Okay. Do you have a relationship with your church in such a way that you could say, I have a brotherhood. I can do what Jesus said to do. I can lay down my life for the brothers.
[6:05] And the lack of laying down of life for brothers is what causes church to be lame. Okay. We have to have a group of people that we can lay down our life for. If you don't have friends, brothers who laid on their life for you, you're missing out on what church was always meant to be.
[6:20] It was always meant to be self-sacrificial. That's what men do. That's what a man is. So again, let's look at Jesus a little bit more. What did Jesus sacrifice? He sacrificed heaven.
[6:32] He left heaven and came to earth. Talk about a sacrifice. Talk about a downgrade, right? He literally left heaven and came to the earth that was tarnished and broken with sin.
[6:45] Okay. He suffered and sacrificed by taking on human form. He took on flesh. Again, that's a major sacrifice. Literally, the creator became one of his creation.
[6:59] He created man and then he became the same flesh that he created. That's an incredible thought to think of the degree of sacrifice that Jesus did just in becoming a man.
[7:10] Okay. He sacrificed independence because he didn't just become a man. He became first a baby. Right? And a baby cannot feed himself.
[7:22] A baby cannot even survive on his own. God himself became a baby dependent on a mother for milk, for sustenance, for life.
[7:33] I mean, that is the most quintessential, most perfect picture of emptying yourself. God emptying himself and not just becoming a man, but becoming a baby. Okay.
[7:44] He sacrificed safety. Obviously, he came to a very dangerous, hostile environment for him. Right? That ultimately murdered him. All right? He sacrificed his reputation.
[7:56] He was called a drunkard. He was called a glutton. He was crucified as a criminal, even though he was innocent. All right? He sacrificed his reputation.
[8:07] He lost friends and family to death. Right? His cousin John had his life taken from him. Okay? He came into this world, lost friends, lost family to death.
[8:21] He sacrificed money and possessions. The Bible says he had no place to lay his head. He sacrificed wife and kids. He stayed single. He didn't get married. He lost his family.
[8:32] He lost his disciples. And he ultimately sacrificed his life. Jesus lived a sacrificial life from day one all the way through. His life was marked by sacrifice.
[8:43] And true masculinity is marked by sacrifice. At the end of the day, Jesus didn't blame. He bled. Okay? That was marked by that. What do we do? We like to blame.
[8:54] We like to be like Adam. Right? And blame all these other things. Jesus didn't blame. He bled. He took responsibility for things that weren't his fault. And said, I will take them upon myself. I will sacrifice for the sake of a lost people.
[9:08] I will sacrifice to restore a planet that came underneath sin. Okay? Number two.
[9:19] Man is self-sacrificial because it's the greatest love. John 15, 13 says, Greater love is no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. Okay?
[9:29] If we're talking about a masculinity that is most loving, it has to be one that sacrifices its very life and lays down his life for his friends. If it's not a loving version of masculinity, it's not true masculinity.
[9:42] God didn't create men to be unloving. Of course he created them to be loving. Well, what is the ultimate act of love for another? It's that he lays down his life for his friends.
[9:53] If you think about all the different attributes of masculinity, self-sacrifice is required to be everything a man is. Self-sacrifice is required to be confident, to be responsible, to be strong, to be the glory of God, to be a fighter, to be a worker, to be a leader, to be any of these things, you must also be self-sacrificial.
[10:13] Every real-life responsibility requires some level of self-sacrifice to cultivate it. Here's a great story that embodies this. Marcus Brotherton tells an amazing story of self-sacrifice involving prisoners of the Imperial Japanese Army in the jungles of Thailand during World War II.
[10:34] Okay? It goes like this. The supreme example of a different way of living came to a climax one horrific evening after a long day of hard labor. That night when the tools were counted, a Japanese guard announced that one shovel was missing.
[10:47] One of the prisoners had stolen the shovel to sell in the black market, it was assumed. The crime was heinous. The guard railed. The perpetrator had maligned the Emperor himself and acted punishable by death.
[11:02] The guard lined up the men in the work party and demanded that whoever took the shovel confess. No one did. The guard ranted and screamed, denouncing the men for their wickedness.
[11:12] His rage reached a new level. All die! All die! The guard shrieked. He pointed his rifle at the crowd and set his finger on the trigger. Prisoners knew he was serious. Calmly, quietly, from the back of the work party, one solitary man stepped forward.
[11:31] I did it, the man said. The guard unleashed his fury on the man. In front of the rest of the prisoners, a contingent of armed guards standing by, he beat the man bloody with the butt of his rifle, crushing the man's skull.
[11:44] When the tools were counted again, it was found that all the shovels were there. The guard had miscounted. One man died in the dust and dirt of the death camp by the River Kwai.
[11:57] One man died so that others might live. What a story, huh? It's a picture of ultimate sacrifice. It's a picture of someone taking responsibility, even for things that weren't his fault.
[12:09] He didn't steal the shovel. But he sacrificed his life so that others could live. And this is what men do. You hear a story like that and you don't think, man, what an effeminate slacker.
[12:21] You know? You think, wow, what a man. Do you not? You not think, man, that's the man I want to be. That's the kind of man that I look up to. That's the kind of man I respect.
[12:33] Right? And there's something inherently in us that knows that that's true masculinity. That knows intrinsically that self-sacrifice equates to masculinity. We respect this kind of behavior.
[12:47] Which leads me to number three. Man is self-sacrificial because of what we observe in life and art. Okay? You know, because who we are as a man is built into our nature, and who a woman is is built into her nature, even an unbeliever can observe things that are true about men and women without ever reading the Bible just by observing through history how men and women behave in certain circumstances.
[13:14] Because, and this points to God, because our masculinity is hardwired into our nature. It's not something that is pressed down upon us by our culture, as the world would tell us.
[13:25] It's just not true. You know this is true just because if you have little kids, you know that you can press on all kinds of things onto your boy, and you can ban all guns from him, and he will take his pink butter and jelly sandwich, and he will bite it with his mouth and make it into a gun.
[13:40] Right? That's what he does. Why? Because it's built, there are certain things built into his nature that no outside forces can undo. God made men and women, and he made them not as some outward thing, it's from inside.
[13:57] Okay? And so we can observe some of these things through life and art, and we can see certain things that are masculine. Okay? And at the end of the day, we hate the coward and respect self-sacrifice.
[14:08] All right? You know this when you see it in real life, you know this when you see it in a movie. Right? We hate the coward. We don't, we, where it's like, no one tells you to hate the coward, but you do. No one tells you to love the guy who's self-sacrificial, but you do.
[14:21] Right? The definition of heroic is this, supremely noble or self-sacrificing. All right? When we think of someone who's a hero, you can't think of a hero without self-sacrifice.
[14:34] The very definition of heroic is someone supremely noble or self-sacrificing. Self-sacrifice is heroic. Okay? Think of, think of all the best movies you've seen.
[14:46] How many of them have self-sacrificing? I mean, how many? All. Most of them, right? Maybe all. Well, I don't know. That's just, whenever that's there, there's just something different, right?
[14:57] There's something that grips you as a man. You're like, what is that? Well, it's because it's hardwired and you buy God himself. Some of you may have seen Band of Brothers. There's a scene in Band of Brothers where a guy by the name of Spears and a guy by the name of Blythe.
[15:16] Most people who watch Band of Brothers love Spears and they hate Blythe. Why? Well, here's a scene in one of the movies. You have this scene where they're, it's nighttime, they're kind of crouched behind some protection because the enemy lines on the other side and they're going to probably attack him the next day.
[15:35] There's bombs going off and Blythe is scared in a foxhole just sitting there. And Spears goes and checks on him and he says to Blythe, he says, you know why you hid in that ditch, Blythe?
[15:48] Blythe says, I was scared. Spears says, we're all scared. You hid in that ditch because you think there's still hope. Blythe, the only hope you have is to accept the fact that you're already dead.
[16:00] And the sooner you accept that, the sooner you'll be able to function as a soldier's supposed to function. Okay? And if you've ever, if you've ever seen Band of Brothers, Spears embodied that and it's based on a true story.
[16:13] I mean, he just had no regard for his own life and because of that he was one of the most heroic guys in that band of men. He sacrificed all the time and all the men respected him towards.
[16:26] The opposite of self-sacrifice is selfishness. It's self-preservation. It's self-seeking. It's self-absorption. It's being stingy and cheap. Blythe was a coward because he was trying to save his life.
[16:40] Spears was a hero because he saw himself as already dead. How do you see yourself? Are you self-preserving? Are you already dead? It's much easier to lose what you've already lost.
[16:52] Mark 8.35 says, Whoever would save his life will lose it. Whoever loses his life for my sake and the Gospels will save it. Luke 17.33, Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it.
[17:06] Whoever loses his life will keep it. Whoever loves his life, John 12.25 says, Whoever loves his life loses it. Whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.
[17:21] Galatians 5.24 says, Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. This is why Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2.2, I decided to know nothing except Jesus Christ and him crucified.
[17:37] The masculine life, especially for a Christian, is one where you've lost your life. You're not trying to find it. I moved to Colorado. What for? I was trying to find myself. Okay? Well, find yourself.
[17:48] You can't find yourself by looking for yourself. You find yourself by losing yourself. You find yourself by losing your life. You have to sacrifice your life. You can't be trying to save it, preserve it, find it.
[18:00] Okay? A lot of men, they don't know who they are. Right? You know? They're still answering the question that God asked in the garden. Adam, where are you? Still not self-aware. They still don't know where they are.
[18:12] God didn't ask that question because he was really wondering where Adam was. God knew where Adam was. That question was for Adam and the same question is for you. Where are you? Trying to find yourself? Trying to find identity in all these other things?
[18:25] Or have you lost yourself? Have you said, I got a plan to lose it all? Right? I am going to sacrifice everything I have because I'm living for something bigger than myself.
[18:36] I'm living for eternity. I'm living for Christ. I have the ultimate example. I've found the secret and it's through loss. Through losing my life, I find my life. Courage is brave action in the face of danger.
[18:50] It's brave action in the face of adversity, sacrifice, or risk. The more danger, adversity, risk, or sacrifice involved in the action, the more courageous it is.
[19:02] Okay? This is why ultimately in these movies a lot of times we look at it and think, oh, that's really admirable or that's really noble or that's something I want to be or do because the movie stood to dramatize the degree of adversity and sacrifice and risk and it just amplifies how much we think that's cool, that's admirable, that's noble.
[19:28] Okay? The more danger, adversity, risk, or sacrifice involved in the action, the more courageous it is. The more sacrifice in an action, the more we respect it. The more selfishness, the more we despise it.
[19:42] Martin Luther King said, if a man hasn't discovered something he will die for, he isn't fit to live. That's pretty strong words. But again, if you think of a man as self-sacrificial, if someone hasn't discovered something he will die for, then he isn't fit to live because he isn't a man.
[20:00] He isn't a man. Let me ask you the question, question. How much sacrifice does the life you currently live require? How much sacrifice does the life you are currently living, how much does it require?
[20:14] The life you've chosen to live, the life that you are choosing to live, the responsibilities you've chosen to take on, the job you have, the relationships you have, the church you have, how much sacrifice does your life require?
[20:29] And have you curated your life to avoid sacrifice? Have you set up your life to sow to your selfish, fleshly comforts, wondering why you continually reap destruction?
[20:44] What about your church? Have you avoided churches that ask a lot of you that require sacrifice? What is, how is your life currently set up?
[20:55] If sacrifice is quintessential masculine, if sacrifice is the embodiment of masculinity on so many levels, how are we setting up our lives? Are we setting our lives to be men?
[21:07] Are we setting up our lives to avoid masculinity, to avoid that which is manly by avoiding sacrifice? Avoiding sacrifice is avoiding your manhood. Avoiding sacrifice is avoiding what it truly means to be a man.
[21:19] This is boyhood behavior. Little boys avoid sacrifice. They run from it. They make excuses from it. Again, Jesus didn't make excuses. Jesus bled.
[21:30] He sacrificed. Josiah Strong says, There's not enough of effort, of struggle in the typical church life of today to win young men to the church.
[21:41] A flowery bed of ease does not appeal to a fellow who has any manhood in him. The prevailing religion is too comfortable to attract young men who love the heroic.
[21:52] We cannot, we must not be a church like this. We must be a church that expects sacrifice for men. Women as well.
[22:03] But of course the men. To be a part of a church that does not expect sacrifice for men. To complain about a church that asks you too much. This is far below your manhood.
[22:15] This is far below the God who called you, who created you. The prevailing religion is too comfortable to attract young men who love the heroic. We must create churches that draw men because men need to be saved.
[22:30] And men aren't going to be saved. And men aren't going to be saved if they don't see the true Jesus. They're not going to see the true Jesus until they see men who act like Jesus and look like Jesus and have the substance of Jesus.
[22:42] And the substance of Jesus is sacrifice. Teddy Roosevelt said, I wish to preach not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life, the life of toil and effort, of labor and strife, to preach that highest form of success which comes not to the man who desires mere easy peace, but to the man who does not shrink from danger, from hardship, or from bitter toil, who out of these wins the splendid ultimate triumph.
[23:13] I wish to preach not the doctrine of ignoble ease. A life of ease is ignoble. A life of ease constantly looking for the easier route, constantly avoiding sacrifice.
[23:25] Again, this is not who you are. This is not who God has called you to be. Are you avoiding difficulty and sacrifice? And are you settling for a life of ignoble ease?
[23:36] This is not what God has for you. This is not what God has called you to. Men, it's time to rise up. It's time to repent of avoiding that which God has called us to because it's hard.
[23:47] You bet it's hard. Okay? But those broad shoulders he gave you, he gave you for a reason. There's a reason you have those shoulders. God created you to do hard things. God created you to carry heavy burdens.
[23:58] God created you to sacrifice. And ignoble ease is below you. So how do we be a self-sacrificial man? Let's look at the definitions.
[24:10] The definition of sacrifice is to forfeit something for something else considered to have a greater value. To forfeit something for something else considered to have a greater value.
[24:22] You will never sacrifice what you have for something you believe to be of lesser value than what you are sacrificing. This is super important. This is key. And it's a fact.
[24:34] This is how the world goes around. Alright? You will never sacrifice what you have for something you believe to be of lesser value than what you are sacrificing.
[24:46] If you think that what you are being called to sacrifice is of higher value, you will not sacrifice it. You think it's more pleasurable? You won't sacrifice it. You must have a higher pleasure. Paul said in St. Corinthians 12, 15, I will most gladly spend and be spent for your souls.
[25:04] He didn't just say, I'll spend. He wasn't some ascetic leader. No, he said, I will gladly spend and be spent. He didn't say, I'll just spend and be spent because that's what I'm supposed to do and I'm a Christian and I don't really want to do it, but I just have to do this.
[25:21] He said, I will most gladly spend and be spent. And the greatest sacrifice, the only real sustaining sacrifice is one that comes from joy. It's one that comes from a place of gladness.
[25:35] Why? Where do we get this from? Acts 20, this is also Paul, 20, 22 to 25. Paul says, and I'll hold and go into Jerusalem, constrained by the Spirit, not knowing what will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and afflictions await me.
[25:52] Okay? So, hardships, things he will have to sacrifice. Again, no one's making him do this. He is choosing to go into places that the Holy Spirit is telling him where he knows what is awaiting in there is imprisonment and affliction.
[26:07] That's what he says. He's choosing that. How does he do that? How does he choose to do that? Verse 24, but I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself.
[26:18] If only I may finish my course in the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. Behold, I know that none of you among whom I have gone about proclaiming the kingdom will see my face again.
[26:32] Okay? The key was that he didn't count his life of any value nor as precious to himself because he had a greater reward. He had something bigger, more pleasurable. He was able to withstand and endure great hardship, almost unparalleled you could say, right?
[26:47] Because he had a greater reward. And so it became something he did gladly. Why would you give up when he gave up? He gave up so much. And how could he do it gladly? Only if he had something better. Doug Wilson says, masculinity is the glad assumption of sacrificial responsibility.
[27:04] You see this in Matthew 13, the ultimate picture of this principle. Matthew 13, I'm sure you're familiar with it. The treasure hidden in the field, pearl of great price, right?
[27:15] It says, the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy, he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. You notice that?
[27:26] It says, in his joy. What's so joyful about him? Well, you know what's joyful about it. You know what's joyful about it because he sold all he had to get it.
[27:37] Why is it joyful? Because what he was getting was worth more than what he sold. You would never sell all you have for something of lesser value than all you have. Right? If Jesus is saying, hey, sell everything you have, give up everything you have for something way worse and do it with joy.
[27:54] You know? He's not saying that. He's not saying, give it all up. And if you do, I promise you much worse. He didn't do that.
[28:05] But is not that what we think? I mean, you have to do a little gut check here. Is that not the way we think? It has to be. Otherwise, you do it gladly. If you're not doing it, why aren't you doing it?
[28:16] Is it that you don't believe that what you get is better than what you give? Is it that you don't believe that what you would receive in exchange for selling all is actually worth more than all you have to sell?
[28:31] And so, therefore, your Christianity is a burden to you. Your masculinity is a burden to you. And at the end of the day, you still keep looking at porn because you love your porn. And you love it more than Jesus.
[28:42] And if you love your sin and your lust more than Jesus, guess what? You're going to keep doing it. You can try all your little tricks and you can use your software and you can have your accountability buddies, but at the end of the day, none of it's going to work.
[28:55] Because you're trying to do something against the way God created things. You're trying to do something that the Bible says is not true. But you added on all these little Christian accessories, quote unquote, and have all these little groups and all the software and all these little tricks of the trade.
[29:12] And you're doing push-ups and you're taking cold showers. And at the end of the day, you're not doing the one thing that Jesus said to do. And that is to see that he is greater than all these things. And that what you get with him is greater than all.
[29:24] And so you sell your life of sin and you repent of it and you turn from it and you give it up. And in exchange, you get Jesus, your very great reward. And he's better.
[29:35] But if you don't believe he's better and you love your sin more, then you will continue to do your sin no matter all the other things you will try to do. No matter all the things you put on your phone and all these other things, you must see that Jesus is the treasure of him on the field.
[29:48] Then in your joy, you'll go and sell all that you have and buy it in the field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls. When finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it.
[29:59] Do you see that Jesus is of great value? Or are you still convinced that those pixels on the screen, that woman on the screen is of greater value than Christ and the riches of your inheritance in him?
[30:14] Which is it? Which is it? In that moment, you know darn well what you're thinking. You're thinking this is better. And that's your problem. You don't believe that Jesus is better.
[30:26] And it's not that you have to make yourself believe it. It's true. He is better. He is better. And this is why all the people you've seen, who've forsaken all, all the people you've seen that you admire, who sacrifice, you say, that's a man.
[30:38] The reason they do it is because they found something better. His name is Jesus. Hebrews 10 34 speaks of this kind of person. It says, you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one.
[30:55] What kind of manner of man is this? Joyfully accepting the plundering of your property? Have you ever anything stolen from you? Joyfully accepting the plundering of your property.
[31:07] Why? Since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one. Do you have a better possession? Do you possess something better than your sin?
[31:17] Do you possess something better than what you have? Do you possess something better than your time, your talents, and your treasure? That's the only way you'll sacrifice. The only way you'll sacrifice. Supreme pleasure is the key.
[31:29] Okay? What do you believe gives you the most pleasure? Some of the greatest sacrifices I've seen were for sin. Sacrificing marriages, children, jobs, time, friendships for the love of sin.
[31:42] And I've sat across from a man who was literally willing to give up his wife and his children just because he loved smoking weed. And he was tearing his marriage apart.
[31:55] He was separated from his spouse. I'm appealing to him to not throw away his marriage and his children just because he wanted to smoke weed. As goofy as that is, of all things.
[32:08] Beautiful wife, beautiful kids, and he was literally entertaining this and was having a hard time making the decision. And I'm thinking, oh my, what are you thinking? I know exactly the same.
[32:22] He loved the pleasure he got from that addiction more than his own kid, more than his own wife, more than his God. In that moment, he had to repent and seek pleasure in Christ.
[32:37] Thankfully, he did. His marriage is restored. But boy, I didn't know which way it was going to go for a while. I've seen, you know, it's not that men don't know how to sacrifice, it's that men sacrifice for the wrong things all the time.
[32:53] It's just like, I don't know how to do this sacrifice. I'm like, no, no, no, no. You are really good at sacrificing. You have given up so much for your sin. It's actually amazing. I have talked to men who have an incredible ability to sacrifice so much for their loss.
[33:13] Willing to sacrifice even their own job because they have to look at these images so badly they're willing to do it even on a company computer or a company phone. I don't even care about my job.
[33:23] I just care about this immediate gratification. It's not that we don't know how to sacrifice, that we sacrifice for the wrong things. The reason we sacrifice for them is because we believe those things and things that give us most pleasure.
[33:38] Do you believe that Jesus is God? If he's God, he's supreme. If he's God, he's better. If he's God, he's highly lifted up and exalted over all their pleasures.
[33:49] That's what it means to believe Jesus is God. He's not one God among many. He is the only God, the true God, supremely greater than all things. That is what faith in Christ requires, is to believe that he's greater.
[34:03] This is saving faith. This is the faith that saves you, not just from hell, but from the power of your sin. Do you understand? Your quote-unquote faith that you think that saves you from hell, if it doesn't have enough power to save you from your sin and the power of your sin, do you really think it has enough power to save you from hell?
[34:23] What kind of delusion are you living in if you think that that's true? The same power that saves you from the punishment of your sin is the same power that is accessible to the Christian to save you from the power of your sin.
[34:37] If you profess Christ but you are not saved from the power of your sin, why in the world do you think that God has saved you from the penalty of your sin? And why in the world do you have future hope that he will save you from the presence of sin?
[34:49] It ain't going to happen. That's not saving faith. One of the indicators that you have saving faith and believe that he saved you from the penalty of your sin is that you have present power to resist sin in your life.
[35:02] He is saving you from the power of your sin as well. It doesn't mean you're perfect. You have a fleshly sinful body, but sin no longer reigns over you. Sin no longer rules over you.
[35:12] This is what the word of God teaches. That's the kind of faith we need. That Jesus is supreme, Jesus is better. Hebrews 12 2 says that Jesus who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross.
[35:25] Even Jesus endured the cross because of what? Joy, pleasure. Jesus was motivated by pleasure? Yes! If Jesus needed pleasure to be motivated, how much more do you need it?
[35:39] It was the joy set before him that he endured the cross. If you would endure the cross resisting sin and resisting temptation, you must see the joy set before you.
[35:49] That obedience to God is better. You can say like Joseph, how could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God? God is better. Philippians 3, 7, 11, this is why Paul said, whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.
[36:05] Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and may share his sufferings becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
[36:38] To profess believing in a God who resurrected from the dead and not believe that God can't resurrect us from our own sin, ludicrous. It's laughable. It's hypocritical.
[36:50] If we profess the risen Lord, he should have the power to be evident in our life that sin doesn't reign over us anymore. This should be the mark of his people.
[37:03] Sacrifice without joy is a false religion. The false religion. It sure is that being Christianity. Sacrifice without joy is a false religion.
[37:15] A Christianity that's all burden and no joy. And here, let me tell you this, it'll never last. Mark my words, it will not last.
[37:27] If your Christianity is all burden and no joy, it might be getting you through right now, it is not one that will last you through the end. It will not one that will last you through persecution and hardship.
[37:39] It will know that. Some people have stronger wills than others, but you don't have a strong will enough to do that in your whole life. Until your perceived value and pleasure in Christ, the kingdom, your wife, your kids, other people in the church exceeds your perceived value and pleasure of your life, your comfort, your sin, and what you have, then you'll never live a truly consistent, sacrificial life, and no one will really respect you as a man.
[38:10] So by Romans 8, 18 says, I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed. Not worth comparing.
[38:21] 2 Corinthians 4, 16, 18 says, we don't lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.
[38:36] It's not just that Jesus is better. It's that it's beyond all comparison. There's no competition. There's no comparison. There's no debate. He is the undisputed king of the earth.
[38:50] Uncontested ruler. Nobody greater. And if you're still having a conversation with your flesh about whether Jesus is greatest, you need to get saved. cry out to him that he might save you from your unbelief.
[39:07] We look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. The things that are seen are transient. The things that are unseen are eternal. You have to believe that saving is losing and losing is saving.
[39:24] Gain is loss and loss is gain. It's an upside down kingdom. Loss is joyfully pursued when loss is gain. You hear me on that? You won't pursue loss until you believe that loss is gain.
[39:37] You won't pursue sacrifice until you believe that sacrifice is gain. Loss is consistently avoided when loss is loss. You understand what I'm saying?
[39:49] If you think that loss is just death unto death instead of death unto life, you avoid it. Some of you are avoiding it. I'm telling you why you're avoiding it.
[40:01] Do you hear me? I'm telling you why you're avoiding sacrifice. It's because you think it's loss. It's because you don't think it's gain. You haven't believed what Jesus said. Jesus said that loss is gain. Sacrifice is gain.
[40:12] When you believe that, you pursue it. If you don't think it's gain, you'll never pursue it. David Livingston, a missionary to Africa, said, for my own part, I've never ceased to rejoice that God has appointed me to such an office.
[40:26] People talk of the sacrifice I've made when spending so much of my life in Africa. Is that a sacrifice which brings its own blessed reward and helpful activity, the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind, and a bright hope of a glorious destiny thereafter?
[40:44] Away with the word sacrifice, he says. Say rather, it is a privilege. Anxiety, sickness, suffering, or danger now and then, with the foregoing of the common conveniences and charities of this life, may make us pause and cause the spirit to waver and the soul to sink.
[41:01] We'll let this only be for a moment. All these are nothing when compared with the glory which shall be revealed in and for us. He then concludes and says, I never made a sacrifice.
[41:15] I never made a sacrifice. He also says, David Livingston says, if a commission by an earthly king is considered an honor, how can a commission by a heavenly king be considered a sacrifice?
[41:32] C.S. Lewis in the book, The Horse and His Boy said, for this is what it means to be a king, to be first in every desperate attack and last in every desperate retreat.
[41:43] And when there's hunger in the land, as must be now and then in bad years, to wear finer clothes and laugh louder over a scantier meal than any man in our land. It's a joyful sacrifice and it's leading a joyful sacrifice.
[41:59] First one on the attack, first one, last one on the retreat. And when there's a scant meal, you laugh as you eat it. What do you need to sacrifice to be a better man?
[42:13] What do we need to sacrifice to be a better man? We need to sacrifice our selfishness. We need to sacrifice our self-absorption. If any of these things are, there's things coming to mind with this. Don't just listen.
[42:25] Like, repentance is required. We need to sacrifice our selfishness. We need to sacrifice our self-absorption. We need to sacrifice self-preservation, self-seeking, being stingy and cheap, laziness, passivity.
[42:38] Mark Manson said, most of your problems are not actually problems. They are discomforts. Discomfort is not the problem. On the contrary, it's usually the cost of the solution.
[42:53] Are we willing to embrace discomfort to get into the place where God has called us to be as men? Being a man requires us to embrace discomfort, to embrace sacrifice. Gaining anything worth having without sacrifice is a fantasy.
[43:06] Masculinity that doesn't cost you is no masculinity at all. Porn, social media, video games, and watching sports all revolve around yourself and don't require sacrifice.
[43:20] Okay? And some of these there's nothing wrong with them. Porn, obviously, there is. But there's nothing wrong with them in and of themselves. But you've got to ask yourself, the things you're filling your life with, do they all revolve around yourself and do they require sacrifice?
[43:33] If the majority of the activities in your free time all revolve around yourself and don't require sacrifice, we've got a problem. We've got a big problem. It's a masculinity problem. It's a manhood problem.
[43:45] We should be filling our lives with things that revolve around others and require sacrifice. That's what a man does. That's what a man does. Eric Mason says, men in extended childhood treat their lives like one, like one big fantasy world.
[44:02] They engage others through artificial means like pornography, social media, and video games instead of real life. In their fantasy world, everything revolves around them. So they're incapable of contributing to a family, church, or community because all of those things require sacrifice.
[44:20] Deriving most of your pleasure from things that don't cost you anything is a masturbatory lifestyle. It's good to think of it that way. I know that's graphic, it's extreme, but it's true.
[44:32] Is your life a masturbatory lifestyle? I'm not talking about the actual sexual act, I'm talking about the way you live. Toby Sumter says, the New Testament repeatedly points back to this fact, that man was made first.
[44:47] And why was man made first? Man was made first in order to be cut first, in order to bleed first, in order to lay down his life first. And so he did, and God put him into a deep sleep, cut him open, broke out one of his ribs, and closed the womb back up.
[45:02] And from that bloody rib, God formed the first woman and brought her to the man. Before sin entered the world, before there was any curse, any death, God showed Adam that the way to glory was through obedience, suffering, and sacrifice.
[45:17] There was no glory bride apart from Adam's pierced side. And many centuries later, when Jesus came as the new Adam, he was crucified for his bride, and the Christian church was formed from his bloody side.
[45:30] For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. Ephesians 5.30. So putting these things together, we insist that the glory of man is his strength, but it is particularly the glory of using his strength sacrificially.
[45:45] In closing, I read 2 Samuel 24.24, that says David, when he was required to offer a sacrifice because he had made a choice that was causing the angel of death to kill a bunch of people because he called a sentence when he wasn't supposed to, and someone was offering to give him the threshing floor and the sacrifice needed for the sacrifice, and David says an interesting thing to him.
[46:12] He says, I will not offer offerings to the Lord my God that cost me nothing. Or in other words, I will not offer a sacrifice that cost me nothing. Don't offer to God that which costs you nothing.
[46:25] Don't have your life marked by something that doesn't cost you anything. That is filled with yourself. You're filled with things that don't require sacrifice. Don't offer it to God. Don't offer it to other people.
[46:35] Be a man. Be self-sacrificial. Amen? Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Thank you.