WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.000 So I'm about you to turn in your Bibles to Proverbs chapter 1. 00:00:07.000 --> 00:00:12.519 Proverbs chapter 1. 00:00:12.519 --> 00:00:19.640 And we're going to read Proverbs chapter 1 verses 8 to 19 and then in chapter 9 verses 00:00:19.640 --> 00:00:20.640 1 to 6. 00:00:20.640 --> 00:00:23.800 And those will be on the screen if you don't have a Bible. 00:00:23.800 --> 00:00:26.080 This is the Word of the Lord. 00:00:26.079 --> 00:00:31.679 Hear my son, your father's instruction, and forsake not your mother's teaching, for 00:00:31.679 --> 00:00:36.119 they are a graceful garland for your head and pendants for your neck. 00:00:36.119 --> 00:00:38.759 My son, if sinners entice you, do not consent. 00:00:38.759 --> 00:00:42.879 If they say, come with us, let us lie in wait for blood. 00:00:42.879 --> 00:00:45.679 Let us ambush the innocent without reason. 00:00:45.679 --> 00:00:53.519 Like she'll let us swallow them alive and hold, like those who go down to the pit. 00:00:53.519 --> 00:00:55.280 We shall find all precious goods. 00:00:55.280 --> 00:00:57.719 We shall fill our homes with plunder. 00:00:57.719 --> 00:00:59.120 Throw in your lot among us. 00:00:59.120 --> 00:01:01.399 We will all have one purse. 00:01:01.399 --> 00:01:04.799 My son, do not walk in the way with them. 00:01:04.799 --> 00:01:07.280 Hold back your foot from their paths. 00:01:07.280 --> 00:01:10.920 For their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed blood. 00:01:10.920 --> 00:01:15.319 For in vain is a net spread in the sight of any bird. 00:01:15.319 --> 00:01:18.159 But these men lie in wait for their own blood. 00:01:18.159 --> 00:01:21.680 They set an ambush for their own lives. 00:01:21.680 --> 00:01:25.240 Such are the way of everyone who is greedy for unjust gain. 00:01:25.239 --> 00:01:28.799 It takes away the life of its possessor. 00:01:28.799 --> 00:01:33.239 Then if you have a Bible, flip to Proverbs chapter nine. 00:01:33.239 --> 00:01:38.039 We'll read verses one to six. 00:01:38.039 --> 00:01:39.439 Wisdom has built her house. 00:01:39.439 --> 00:01:42.159 She has hewn her seven pillars. 00:01:42.159 --> 00:01:44.159 She has slaughtered her beasts. 00:01:44.159 --> 00:01:45.359 She has mixed her wine. 00:01:45.359 --> 00:01:48.239 She has also set her table. 00:01:48.239 --> 00:01:53.039 She has sent out her young women to call from the highest places in the town. 00:01:53.040 --> 00:01:55.359 Never as simple let him turn in here. 00:01:55.359 --> 00:02:01.440 To him who lacks sense, she says, come eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed. 00:02:01.440 --> 00:02:06.040 Leave your simple ways and live and walk in the way of insight. 00:02:06.040 --> 00:02:07.400 This is the word of the Lord. 00:02:07.400 --> 00:02:09.680 Thanks be to God for his word. 00:02:09.680 --> 00:02:11.680 Let's pray together. 00:02:11.680 --> 00:02:22.280 O Lord and our God, we come tonight to pronounce you, Father, Spirit, Son, the God above God's, 00:02:22.280 --> 00:02:25.840 the Lord of lords, the King of kings. 00:02:25.840 --> 00:02:30.120 We come to meet with you as our Creator and Redeemer. 00:02:30.120 --> 00:02:34.560 We come to have our hearts softened before Monday starts. 00:02:34.560 --> 00:02:39.879 We come to be reassured and comforted of the truth of the gospel. 00:02:39.879 --> 00:02:44.800 So we ask, Lord, that you would come and meet with us as we look at this text. 00:02:44.800 --> 00:02:49.240 Because of Jesus Christ, we are confident, Lord, that you hear us when we ask you things. 00:02:49.240 --> 00:02:54.760 We ask, O Lord, tonight that you would bless the ministries of us as individuals as we 00:02:54.760 --> 00:02:57.439 step out into the world, into our workplaces. 00:02:57.439 --> 00:03:05.240 We pray for Katrina as she does just these nine days that you would give her the moment 00:03:05.240 --> 00:03:14.800 to talk to somebody about the meaning of life and that their heart would be touched by the 00:03:14.800 --> 00:03:19.160 spirit of Christ himself to see the truth. 00:03:19.159 --> 00:03:25.680 We ask, O Lord, that we would be people that ask the question above all else, what is true 00:03:25.680 --> 00:03:29.159 and seek to live according to the answer. 00:03:29.159 --> 00:03:33.840 And so we pray, Father, for our city and for our churches, for us in Cornerstone and Hesse 00:03:33.840 --> 00:03:40.919 Valley and Haddington, that we would be salt and light, that we would be agents of revival 00:03:40.919 --> 00:03:45.280 through the power of the Spirit in our city. 00:03:45.280 --> 00:03:49.240 And now we ask, O Lord, as we come to the text, Lord, that you would open our eyes to 00:03:49.240 --> 00:03:53.759 see in our hearts and minds and ears to hear the word of God. 00:03:53.759 --> 00:04:01.400 We ask this in Christ's name. 00:04:01.400 --> 00:04:08.759 So the next two weeks, we are looking at the image of God in Proverbs, and we're not looking 00:04:08.759 --> 00:04:15.120 at the doctrine of the image of God, often called the Imago day from Genesis chapter 00:04:15.120 --> 00:04:16.120 1. 00:04:16.120 --> 00:04:20.160 We're looking at the image of God. 00:04:20.160 --> 00:04:21.959 What's the image of God? 00:04:21.959 --> 00:04:27.800 The image of God is men and women. 00:04:27.800 --> 00:04:33.160 Herman Boving, the Dutch theologian, hopefully says it this way. 00:04:33.160 --> 00:04:40.879 The human being does not merely bear or have the image of God, but he or she is the image 00:04:40.879 --> 00:04:42.439 of God. 00:04:42.439 --> 00:04:46.000 And so the next two weeks, we're looking at the image of God, men and women. 00:04:46.000 --> 00:04:48.959 That's the image of God, male and female. 00:04:48.959 --> 00:04:50.879 And tonight we talk men. 00:04:50.879 --> 00:04:57.120 And the significant question of our time and of our culture is something like, is there 00:04:57.120 --> 00:05:00.120 an essence to maleness? 00:05:00.120 --> 00:05:03.199 Is there an essence to what it is to be a man? 00:05:03.199 --> 00:05:08.879 In other words, is there something that marks male identity above all else? 00:05:08.879 --> 00:05:10.720 Can you get at that? 00:05:10.720 --> 00:05:13.320 What does it take to be a man? 00:05:13.320 --> 00:05:22.520 And the answer, the essence of manliness is complex. 00:05:22.520 --> 00:05:29.240 But tonight, and we're starting just a bit late, so sorry for that, but in the next 30 00:05:29.240 --> 00:05:36.040 minutes, we're going to clear away all the confusion and get to the utter complexity 00:05:36.040 --> 00:05:39.600 of manliness stated in just a few simple sentences. 00:05:39.600 --> 00:05:42.760 No, we're not. 00:05:42.760 --> 00:05:45.439 We're not going to do that because I have 30 minutes. 00:05:45.439 --> 00:05:48.360 And biblical manhood is a huge topic. 00:05:48.360 --> 00:05:52.680 And there are treatises that are over 800 pages that I was looking at, not that I read 00:05:52.680 --> 00:05:58.120 them all this week, but looking at on biblical manhood, as it's often called. 00:05:58.120 --> 00:06:03.439 But so our focus tonight is on proverbs and manhood, specific to proverbs. 00:06:03.439 --> 00:06:09.439 And the key difference, the key issue in proverbs about being a man is the difference that proverbs 00:06:09.439 --> 00:06:15.959 draws implicitly between boyhood and manhood. 00:06:15.959 --> 00:06:19.240 And the difference in boyhood and manhood in proverbs is not something that's according 00:06:19.240 --> 00:06:24.800 to age, but according to character. 00:06:24.800 --> 00:06:27.680 And it's described like this in chapter 9, the chapter we just read. 00:06:27.680 --> 00:06:32.360 It's the difference in the way of simplicity and the way of insight is the way the writer 00:06:32.360 --> 00:06:33.360 describes it. 00:06:33.360 --> 00:06:39.879 In that passage, wisdom is being personified as a woman, and it says that she makes her 00:06:39.879 --> 00:06:46.160 table, she prepares a feast, and then it says that she sends out her young women. 00:06:46.160 --> 00:06:47.879 Literally the word there is virgin. 00:06:47.879 --> 00:06:53.160 She sends out the virgins that are serving in her household to beckon the simple, to 00:06:53.160 --> 00:06:54.160 come to her house. 00:06:54.160 --> 00:07:00.160 And it says, come, simple ones, eat my bread, drink my wine that I have mixed, and leave 00:07:00.160 --> 00:07:03.480 your simple ways and live. 00:07:03.480 --> 00:07:09.160 And what's happening there is metaphorically the way of wisdom versus the way, against 00:07:09.160 --> 00:07:16.160 the way of simplicity is being depicted as akin to the romantic chase. 00:07:16.160 --> 00:07:21.680 In other words, lady wisdom is calling out to young men and saying, come here and eat 00:07:21.680 --> 00:07:27.160 from the table of wisdom, leave simplicity, leave boyhood behind. 00:07:27.160 --> 00:07:30.000 Come and get wisdom, get manhood. 00:07:30.000 --> 00:07:34.560 It's the transference from boyhood to manhood is getting wisdom, and that's the way the 00:07:34.560 --> 00:07:36.399 book depicts it. 00:07:36.399 --> 00:07:41.759 And as difficult as this may seem in our time and in today's culture, and we're not going 00:07:41.759 --> 00:07:46.600 to explore all the ins and outs of this and not even close tonight, but the Bible does 00:07:46.600 --> 00:07:53.639 give an objective, absolute way to realize what true manhood is. 00:07:53.639 --> 00:07:59.560 And the answer to that is it's found in the man Jesus Christ. 00:07:59.560 --> 00:08:07.480 He was meek and he was lowly, he was strong and he was ferocious, and he was gentle, and 00:08:07.480 --> 00:08:12.040 he loved his bride all the way to the point of death. 00:08:12.040 --> 00:08:14.879 And so tonight we're going to look at two things. 00:08:14.879 --> 00:08:19.720 First, to be a real man is to do crossfit. 00:08:19.720 --> 00:08:23.040 And secondly, to be a man is to rarely communicate. 00:08:23.040 --> 00:08:24.519 No, I'm kidding. 00:08:24.519 --> 00:08:27.639 Of course. 00:08:27.639 --> 00:08:33.559 I mean there's an argument maybe, but two points. 00:08:33.559 --> 00:08:36.759 We're going to look at men and women very briefly, and that's not the main point. 00:08:36.759 --> 00:08:39.960 And then we're going to look at secondly the main point, boyhood and manhood. 00:08:39.960 --> 00:08:41.919 So first, men and women. 00:08:41.919 --> 00:08:47.559 This is not the main point in the book of Proverbs, but I want to say that Proverbs as 00:08:47.559 --> 00:08:53.759 a book exists because of an assumption it makes with the rest of the Bible. 00:08:53.759 --> 00:09:02.080 And that's that there is a difference in gender between men and women, boys and girls. 00:09:02.080 --> 00:09:09.080 And the assumption is built in the fact that Proverbs is a book that's written to boys, 00:09:09.080 --> 00:09:12.360 not to girls specifically. 00:09:12.360 --> 00:09:17.559 It's written, the book of Proverbs is written primarily to young men. 00:09:17.559 --> 00:09:21.799 And there are three attributed writers in the book of Proverbs, if you've caught that. 00:09:21.799 --> 00:09:27.079 Solomon, a guy named Agur, and a guy named King Lemuel. 00:09:27.079 --> 00:09:31.559 And we don't know who the last two are historically. 00:09:31.559 --> 00:09:39.279 But these are three men writing to boys, but the star of Proverbs is four women. 00:09:39.279 --> 00:09:46.479 And the four women, the most important characters in the book of Proverbs are two pairs of contrasts, 00:09:46.479 --> 00:09:51.639 metaphors, lady wisdom and lady folly on the one hand. 00:09:51.639 --> 00:09:57.240 And then on the other hand, the most famous, the noble woman of Proverbs 31 and the forbidden 00:09:57.240 --> 00:10:01.679 woman that Neal talked about a lot last week. 00:10:01.679 --> 00:10:10.559 And so this is three men talking to a bunch of boys about four women, to put it simply. 00:10:10.559 --> 00:10:13.759 It's a book, it's a book written for boys and it's time. 00:10:13.759 --> 00:10:18.080 And this is, that doesn't mean that it's message exclusively for boys, not at all. 00:10:18.080 --> 00:10:19.639 It opens up to everyone. 00:10:19.639 --> 00:10:21.439 But its audience is primarily young men. 00:10:21.440 --> 00:10:26.120 You see this in the very first verse we read tonight, chapter one verse eight. 00:10:26.120 --> 00:10:30.320 Hear my son, do not forsake my teaching. 00:10:30.320 --> 00:10:34.120 And the constant voice is the father speaking to the son. 00:10:34.120 --> 00:10:37.520 724, listen to me, O sons. 00:10:37.520 --> 00:10:40.280 And that is constant throughout the entire book. 00:10:40.280 --> 00:10:46.160 And there is a vast body of scholarship on wisdom literature that says that most of the 00:10:46.160 --> 00:10:50.360 time in the ancient Aries, the time of the Old Testament, that wisdom literature was 00:10:50.360 --> 00:10:57.320 often delivered to boys and to girls with different texts, with different emphases and 00:10:57.320 --> 00:10:58.320 different insights. 00:10:58.320 --> 00:11:04.399 And a lot of Hebrew scholars think that the song of songs in our Bible, the song of Solomon, 00:11:04.399 --> 00:11:10.480 it's often called, was written specifically for girls navigating the problems that they 00:11:10.480 --> 00:11:13.840 have with men in that ancient Ariesian world. 00:11:13.840 --> 00:11:17.920 And there were many problems with the way men treated women in the ancient Aries. 00:11:17.920 --> 00:11:20.039 And so a lot of scholars think that. 00:11:20.039 --> 00:11:25.399 But the important thing to say is this, that the assumption at the outset of the existence 00:11:25.399 --> 00:11:31.679 of the book of Proverbs with the rest of the Bible is that gender differences are real, 00:11:31.679 --> 00:11:38.319 that gender differences do correspond to being born male and female, and that gender doesn't 00:11:38.319 --> 00:11:43.599 exist on a compendium or spectrum of possibility. 00:11:43.599 --> 00:11:49.439 But as soon as you start to express that gender difference or what exactly that difference 00:11:49.440 --> 00:11:58.480 is in detail, we always either over-express it or under-express it. 00:11:58.480 --> 00:12:02.040 One of us has a tendency to either over-express it or under-express it. 00:12:02.040 --> 00:12:06.720 And one of the famous examples of that is the book that was a New York Times bestseller 00:12:06.720 --> 00:12:14.320 in the 90s, John Gray's Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus. 00:12:14.320 --> 00:12:20.480 That book was poking fun at gender differences, stereotypical gender differences, but it was 00:12:20.480 --> 00:12:28.520 also trying to, in its own way, offer solutions to the deep animosity that John Gray noticed 00:12:28.520 --> 00:12:34.960 developing in late modern culture between genders, between men and women. 00:12:34.960 --> 00:12:40.520 And this is what he said about the differences between men and women. 00:12:40.519 --> 00:12:45.279 John Gray, men and women differ in all areas of their lives. 00:12:45.279 --> 00:12:50.679 Not only do men and women communicate differently, but they think, feel, perceive, act, love, 00:12:50.679 --> 00:12:55.079 need, and appreciate completely differently. 00:12:55.079 --> 00:13:02.240 They almost seem to be from different planets, seeking different loves, needing different 00:13:02.240 --> 00:13:04.439 nourishment. 00:13:04.439 --> 00:13:10.000 One difference, he writes, women talk and openly communicate. 00:13:10.000 --> 00:13:16.000 Men go to caves in order to solve their problems their own way. 00:13:16.000 --> 00:13:23.120 And then he argues in another place very briefly, women seek love, men seek power. 00:13:23.120 --> 00:13:32.600 Now this is one of the great examples of over-expression of a social construct that's false because 00:13:32.600 --> 00:13:37.120 everything that he described there is not essential to what it means to be male or female, 00:13:37.120 --> 00:13:43.960 and merely a stereotype, a construct that's been placed upon men and women by a culture. 00:13:43.960 --> 00:13:48.960 And the point I just want to make in this first point very briefly is that Christianity, 00:13:48.960 --> 00:13:56.560 I think unlike any other worldview, offers deep resources and explanatory power for understanding 00:13:56.560 --> 00:14:01.759 gender that speaks into today's problems. 00:14:01.759 --> 00:14:06.720 And this is best expressed in me going scientific for just a second, kind of. 00:14:06.720 --> 00:14:10.160 Also just stick with me for two minutes on this. 00:14:10.160 --> 00:14:15.879 There are two prevailing views about the way gender has developed at the time that John 00:14:15.879 --> 00:14:18.600 Gray wrote that book that still dominate today. 00:14:18.600 --> 00:14:23.040 There was a recent article in Atlantic expressing the two views, but for the second time I'm 00:14:23.040 --> 00:14:24.320 not going to quote it. 00:14:24.320 --> 00:14:29.440 The first view is the environmental view that developed in the mid-20th century. 00:14:29.440 --> 00:14:33.120 It's also known as the biosocial view of gender. 00:14:33.120 --> 00:14:37.919 And it says that gender differences between men and women or boys and girls especially 00:14:37.919 --> 00:14:44.000 are completely, entirely social constructs that they're created by the environment that 00:14:44.000 --> 00:14:47.039 we raise our children in. 00:14:47.039 --> 00:14:50.960 And they're completely dependent only on social expectation. 00:14:50.960 --> 00:14:56.560 And that means in the environmental view that the culture creates these differences and 00:14:56.560 --> 00:14:58.159 that's a problem. 00:14:58.159 --> 00:15:04.120 And the only real solution to that problem is to seek either a genderlessness society, 00:15:04.120 --> 00:15:08.480 which was something people talked about in the mid-20th century, or a society that has 00:15:08.480 --> 00:15:15.679 a multiplicity, a huge spectrum of gender that dissociates us from any binaries. 00:15:15.679 --> 00:15:21.159 And so that's the environmental view, that gender is completely socially constructed. 00:15:21.159 --> 00:15:26.639 But immediately and especially in the 90s, there was a big reaction in the scholarly 00:15:26.639 --> 00:15:28.879 world to that view. 00:15:28.879 --> 00:15:35.639 And the reaction was largely from natural scientists and social scientists that said 00:15:35.639 --> 00:15:41.759 that that view is discredited if you study the animal kingdom and humans themselves and 00:15:41.759 --> 00:15:46.600 what developed in response was what's often called the evolutionary view. 00:15:46.600 --> 00:15:48.600 And after this we'll be done with views. 00:15:48.600 --> 00:15:52.080 So just almost done with this. 00:15:52.080 --> 00:15:56.920 Laura Bloom is famous for this, she wrote a book in the 90s called Sex on the Brain, 00:15:56.920 --> 00:16:02.759 where she said that across all animal species and humans, gender differences are real, 00:16:02.759 --> 00:16:08.440 they're universal, but they're developed as survival mechanisms across time. 00:16:08.440 --> 00:16:17.120 So that patriarchy is a survival mechanism and nurturing also is a survival mechanism. 00:16:17.120 --> 00:16:21.400 And now they're deeply wired into the brain and for her as well, this is a problem and 00:16:21.399 --> 00:16:26.240 the only way to overcome it is to subvert the evolutionary process and try to change 00:16:26.240 --> 00:16:27.759 it to overcome this. 00:16:27.759 --> 00:16:31.159 So they both seek the same outcome. 00:16:31.159 --> 00:16:36.559 And I'm being incredibly minimalistic here because we don't have much time, but I just 00:16:36.559 --> 00:16:40.319 want to say the Bible is different. 00:16:40.319 --> 00:16:44.039 The Bible is different from both of these views. 00:16:44.039 --> 00:16:52.839 The Bible's logic gives it an immense explanatory power because it says two things, one that 00:16:52.839 --> 00:17:00.519 gender differences are created by God, that human beings are created male and female, 00:17:00.519 --> 00:17:06.119 and that gender differences are distorted by sin. 00:17:06.119 --> 00:17:10.519 And what that means on the one hand is that the Bible says that gender differences are 00:17:10.519 --> 00:17:17.720 not mere social constructions, that they're real, but on the other hand because of sin, 00:17:17.720 --> 00:17:22.839 there are plenty of harmful social constructions regarding gender differences. 00:17:22.839 --> 00:17:30.319 And it's really only the Christian worldview that has the power to say both of those things. 00:17:30.319 --> 00:17:35.039 Only Christianity can explain the universality of difference and the universality of dignity 00:17:35.039 --> 00:17:41.759 and equality and the reality of harmful social constructs regarding gender because we have 00:17:41.759 --> 00:17:48.480 a doctrine of creation in Genesis 1 and a doctrine of sin in Genesis 3. 00:17:48.480 --> 00:17:55.039 And it's those two doctrines that a human being needs to explain reality. 00:17:55.039 --> 00:17:59.200 And Proverbs, to close this point, is assuming this reality. 00:17:59.200 --> 00:18:01.319 It's built into the basis of the book. 00:18:01.319 --> 00:18:06.480 It's a book written to boys about relating largely to women in their lives and how to 00:18:06.480 --> 00:18:10.000 do that well and good and righteously. 00:18:10.000 --> 00:18:16.839 And let me just say lastly that Christians, because this is the biblical logic, Christians 00:18:16.839 --> 00:18:26.079 above all other people have to understand that since the fall, the sin of gender animosity 00:18:26.079 --> 00:18:28.599 has been rampant. 00:18:28.599 --> 00:18:34.319 The sin where men often think I would be better off without women and women often think we 00:18:34.319 --> 00:18:37.399 would be better off without men. 00:18:37.399 --> 00:18:43.919 And we don't really think that, but we speak that way sometimes. 00:18:43.919 --> 00:18:46.559 And that sin can be defined like this. 00:18:46.559 --> 00:18:54.839 Gender animosity is supposing that one gender is more the image of God than the other. 00:18:54.839 --> 00:18:59.119 And that's a sin, and that's something that Christians above all people in our culture 00:18:59.119 --> 00:19:02.639 have to fight. 00:19:02.639 --> 00:19:05.679 So that's at the back of wisdom literature in the Bible. 00:19:05.679 --> 00:19:07.039 And that's point one. 00:19:07.039 --> 00:19:10.959 Point two, and we only have two points. 00:19:10.959 --> 00:19:18.079 The main point in Proverbs, boyhood and manhood, the culture I grew up in, bought into John 00:19:18.079 --> 00:19:26.879 Gray's picture of over expressed gender differences in the Southern U.S. 00:19:26.879 --> 00:19:33.480 There was indeed a very clear essential masculinity to be a young man in the place that I grew 00:19:33.480 --> 00:19:34.919 up. 00:19:34.919 --> 00:19:40.240 And it was a social construct undoubtedly, but the one way to express it, it's been 00:19:40.240 --> 00:19:44.679 often expressed this way, is by using the three B's. 00:19:44.679 --> 00:19:47.240 What's a man, where I came from at least? 00:19:47.240 --> 00:19:58.359 A man, to be a man, you must, three B's, the ball field, the billfold, and the bedroom. 00:19:58.359 --> 00:20:00.200 The ball field, the billfold, and the bedroom. 00:20:00.200 --> 00:20:04.120 That's the three things you have to be a part of. 00:20:04.120 --> 00:20:05.759 First the ball field. 00:20:05.759 --> 00:20:09.400 How do you perform on the field on Friday night? 00:20:09.400 --> 00:20:13.920 That means American football and translation. 00:20:13.920 --> 00:20:18.960 And that's essential to who you are, to be a man, where I come from. 00:20:18.960 --> 00:20:25.320 The billfold, that's a metaphor for saying, are you successful at your endeavors? 00:20:25.320 --> 00:20:29.400 So if it's school, do you do well, do you defeat the competition? 00:20:29.400 --> 00:20:34.039 If you're at work, do you make money, do you defeat the competition? 00:20:34.039 --> 00:20:38.640 And then thirdly, the bedroom, which is a crude way of saying, can you get girls to 00:20:38.640 --> 00:20:40.680 go out with you? 00:20:40.680 --> 00:20:44.640 And those are the three ways that masculinity was primarily expressed in the culture that 00:20:44.640 --> 00:20:46.000 I grew up in. 00:20:46.000 --> 00:20:50.000 And that's called hypermasculinity. 00:20:50.000 --> 00:20:54.519 I had a tough time this week trying to think of a way to categorize the social construction 00:20:54.519 --> 00:20:57.799 of masculinity in this culture, actually. 00:20:57.799 --> 00:21:04.560 I think it's much more complex here, and not quite like that in totality. 00:21:04.560 --> 00:21:05.960 But that's hypermasculinity. 00:21:05.960 --> 00:21:10.160 That's one social construct of what it means to be a man. 00:21:10.160 --> 00:21:16.200 It's where male identity is associated primarily with performance, with success, to be a man 00:21:16.200 --> 00:21:19.080 is to be successful in all these domains. 00:21:19.080 --> 00:21:20.400 And so are you man enough? 00:21:20.400 --> 00:21:23.279 That's the question of a recent book by Dan Pyle, a pastor. 00:21:23.279 --> 00:21:24.880 Are you man enough? 00:21:24.880 --> 00:21:32.160 And Proverbs tonight is saying that approach is the way of simplicity. 00:21:32.160 --> 00:21:35.279 That's the simple-minded way. 00:21:35.279 --> 00:21:40.519 It's reducing masculine identity to performance, and it's not the way of wisdom or insight. 00:21:40.519 --> 00:21:47.240 And so in Proverbs 9, the pastors we read, Lady Wisdom beckons young men the simple, 00:21:47.240 --> 00:21:53.480 come and turn in here, drink my wine, eat my bread, the bread of understanding of what 00:21:53.480 --> 00:21:57.319 it means to grow up and to be a man. 00:21:57.319 --> 00:22:02.720 And that means that seeking manliness in the book of Proverbs is metaphorically expressed 00:22:02.720 --> 00:22:08.960 as the quest for seeking godly character. 00:22:08.960 --> 00:22:17.720 Essential manliness in the book of Proverbs is this, men seek to have godly character. 00:22:17.720 --> 00:22:21.720 And there are a few recurring themes of what that means in the book of Proverbs, but they're 00:22:21.720 --> 00:22:27.519 actually really nicely paralleled in the passage we read from Paul in 1 Timothy chapter 3. 00:22:27.519 --> 00:22:32.799 The list, what it looks like to be a godly man, and this is the list of what you have 00:22:32.799 --> 00:22:37.400 to have to be an elder, but it's not saying that everybody needs to pursue being a pastor. 00:22:37.400 --> 00:22:41.759 That would be against the very worldview that we preach. 00:22:41.759 --> 00:22:46.359 But it is expressing the traits of a godly man, and this is what Paul says. 00:22:46.359 --> 00:22:53.160 Men are above reproach, the husband of one wife if they are married, which is not essential 00:22:53.160 --> 00:22:54.839 to manliness. 00:22:54.839 --> 00:23:01.639 Overminded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, not drunkards, not violent, but 00:23:01.639 --> 00:23:06.119 gentle, not lovers of money. 00:23:06.119 --> 00:23:13.759 In the book of Proverbs, I just want to briefly here say that there's one clear message that 00:23:13.759 --> 00:23:19.919 is throughout the entire book about the transference from boyhood to manhood, and it's expressed 00:23:19.920 --> 00:23:26.039 in chapter 1 enigmatically in verses 17 and 18. 00:23:26.039 --> 00:23:35.480 When the author says this in 18, men do not set an ambush for their own lives. 00:23:35.480 --> 00:23:45.480 Men do not ambush their own lives, or in verse 17, men do not lie in wait for their own blood. 00:23:45.480 --> 00:23:49.120 Now what in the world does that mean? 00:23:49.119 --> 00:23:54.799 If you look at chapter 1 verse 8, the very first verse we read, here my son, your father's 00:23:54.799 --> 00:23:55.799 instruction. 00:23:55.799 --> 00:24:00.279 So this is a father talking to a son, and then the climax or the explanation of what 00:24:00.279 --> 00:24:05.559 he says is his principal instruction is found in verse 10, and this is what he said, my 00:24:05.559 --> 00:24:10.799 son, if sinners entice you, do not consent. 00:24:10.799 --> 00:24:15.879 Now literally, you could translate that passage a little differently, and if you had a very 00:24:15.880 --> 00:24:25.000 literal translation of it, it would say this, if sinfulness tries to make you foolish, don't 00:24:25.000 --> 00:24:28.840 give it control of your desires. 00:24:28.840 --> 00:24:36.880 If sinfulness, young men, tries to make you into a fool, don't let it take over your desires. 00:24:36.880 --> 00:24:41.680 And so what that means is that the rest of this passage is a metaphor where the father 00:24:41.680 --> 00:24:47.360 is saying to the son, when people who are evil come and try to get you to do bad things 00:24:47.360 --> 00:24:57.480 with them, it's the same thing as when you let your evil desires control your actions. 00:24:57.480 --> 00:25:04.000 If sinfulness tries to make you into a fool, don't give it control of all of your desires. 00:25:04.000 --> 00:25:11.640 And so when it says, men do not set an ambush to their own lives, this is what it means. 00:25:11.640 --> 00:25:20.880 If you do what you want all the time, then you will kill yourself. 00:25:20.880 --> 00:25:22.960 That's the difference in boys and men. 00:25:22.960 --> 00:25:30.240 Men know that if you do as a man what you want to do all the time, you will kill yourself. 00:25:30.240 --> 00:25:34.880 You will go down the path of destruction, the evil way. 00:25:34.880 --> 00:25:38.740 And so that means that the development and proverbs from boyhood to manhood is essentially 00:25:38.740 --> 00:25:43.480 described according to the virtue of self-control. 00:25:43.480 --> 00:25:45.240 Self-control. 00:25:45.240 --> 00:25:50.279 And Paul talks about self-control as the final of the fruits of the Spirit in Galatians 5 00:25:50.279 --> 00:25:52.240 23. 00:25:52.240 --> 00:25:58.680 It's listed at the very middle of the qualifications for elder in 1 Timothy 3 and the clearest proverb 00:25:58.680 --> 00:26:05.839 and the whole book of proverbs that's directed precisely to men says this in chapter 25, a 00:26:05.839 --> 00:26:15.480 man without self-control is a city who has been broken into and plundered and left without 00:26:15.480 --> 00:26:16.980 walls. 00:26:16.980 --> 00:26:23.759 A man who does not have self-control is a city who has been broken into and plundered. 00:26:23.759 --> 00:26:33.879 In other words, if you men cannot control what Augustine calls a long time ago, disordered 00:26:33.880 --> 00:26:40.640 loves or disordered desires, then that means you leave yourself to become exactly what 00:26:40.640 --> 00:26:46.720 you want to become. 00:26:46.720 --> 00:26:49.200 And that's disordered. 00:26:49.200 --> 00:26:56.000 You are like a city without any safeguards without self-control and you will be plundered. 00:26:56.000 --> 00:27:00.080 And we've seen this throughout the whole of our series in the book of proverbs. 00:27:00.079 --> 00:27:06.759 A lack of self-control allows broken desires to dominate in your work life. 00:27:06.759 --> 00:27:13.599 You become without self-control slothful or addicted to too much work in your life of 00:27:13.599 --> 00:27:15.879 speech and the way you speak. 00:27:15.879 --> 00:27:21.240 You have no ability to control the desires expressed from your heart from your tongue. 00:27:21.240 --> 00:27:26.240 You have trouble controlling your addictions to drink or to anger and rage. 00:27:26.240 --> 00:27:31.480 If you don't have self-control, you can't control your romantic desires, the erotic 00:27:31.480 --> 00:27:34.359 desires that Neil was talking about last week. 00:27:34.359 --> 00:27:39.680 And so I think the essential point, the difference in boyhood and manhood in the book of Proverbs 00:27:39.680 --> 00:27:43.759 is men get self-control. 00:27:43.759 --> 00:27:48.039 And we'll just close briefly with two things. 00:27:48.039 --> 00:27:50.039 How? 00:27:50.039 --> 00:27:53.599 How do you get it? 00:27:53.599 --> 00:27:56.959 And there are two things, I had four but I'm only going to give two. 00:27:56.959 --> 00:28:10.439 Two things, godly men know that they have needs and godly men must become athletes. 00:28:10.439 --> 00:28:13.679 Just stick with me on that one. 00:28:13.679 --> 00:28:17.439 Godly men know they have needs. 00:28:17.439 --> 00:28:22.000 If you want to get self-control in the book of Proverbs, you have to know that you have 00:28:22.000 --> 00:28:25.240 a disordered self. 00:28:25.240 --> 00:28:30.599 As men, you have to know that your desires, your loves are disordered. 00:28:30.599 --> 00:28:35.319 That just because you desire something doesn't make it good. 00:28:35.319 --> 00:28:40.200 And hypermasculinity says, I have everything I need inside of me and all I need to do is 00:28:40.200 --> 00:28:43.599 compete to reach my potential. 00:28:43.599 --> 00:28:50.359 But masculinity in Proverbs says, men first have to learn that they have broken desires. 00:28:50.359 --> 00:28:56.479 In other words, men have to know that they don't perfectly image God as his image in 00:28:56.479 --> 00:28:58.599 this world. 00:28:58.599 --> 00:29:02.639 And that means you need reconciliation. 00:29:02.639 --> 00:29:07.240 The first thing a godly man knows is that he needs reconciliation with God. 00:29:07.240 --> 00:29:10.799 And we expressed this in our earlier sermon in chapter 1 verse 7. 00:29:10.799 --> 00:29:15.079 This is called getting the fear of the Lord. 00:29:15.079 --> 00:29:18.399 Getting the fear of the Lord means having a relationship with God. 00:29:18.399 --> 00:29:20.339 That's all. 00:29:20.339 --> 00:29:28.599 And men, you can never be your true personality without the fear of the Lord, without a relationship 00:29:28.599 --> 00:29:31.319 with God. 00:29:31.319 --> 00:29:36.399 And the only way to be reconciled to God, to have a relationship with God and not his 00:29:36.399 --> 00:29:43.799 enemy is through the man himself, the man. 00:29:43.799 --> 00:29:45.599 The man of power. 00:29:45.599 --> 00:29:46.879 Jesus Christ. 00:29:46.880 --> 00:29:53.360 The man of power who loved his bride by dying for her. 00:29:53.360 --> 00:30:03.400 And that means that the command of the gospel for men tonight and always is repent and believe. 00:30:03.400 --> 00:30:06.040 And what we're talking about here is not just once. 00:30:06.040 --> 00:30:12.920 I want to ask you, if you're a married man or if you're a man that has a girlfriend that 00:30:12.920 --> 00:30:19.800 you've been dating maybe for a while, or if not, either of those in terms of a broader 00:30:19.800 --> 00:30:26.880 relationship you have with a family member or a best friend, if someone went to your 00:30:26.880 --> 00:30:31.279 wife or your girlfriend or your family or your best friend and said, is that a man of 00:30:31.279 --> 00:30:36.759 repentance, what would they say? 00:30:36.759 --> 00:30:40.800 And the point is that repentance is not just for one time. 00:30:40.799 --> 00:30:44.799 married men are repenting men. 00:30:44.799 --> 00:30:46.839 Jesus is the greatest man that ever lived. 00:30:46.839 --> 00:30:48.339 That's easy to say. 00:30:48.339 --> 00:30:49.759 Paul maybe was second. 00:30:49.759 --> 00:30:52.240 I don't know, but maybe. 00:30:52.240 --> 00:30:58.319 And in 1 Timothy chapter one, Paul says, Jesus Christ came to save sinners. 00:30:58.319 --> 00:31:02.440 And then he said, Paul says, and I am the chief amongst them. 00:31:02.440 --> 00:31:07.599 And you got to know that Paul wrote the book of 1 Timothy when he was a very, very old man. 00:31:07.599 --> 00:31:08.960 He was very old. 00:31:08.960 --> 00:31:15.360 And Paul was manlier and godlier and walked more righteously than any of us men in here 00:31:15.360 --> 00:31:17.559 do or ever will. 00:31:17.559 --> 00:31:20.920 And one of his last statements was, I am the chief of sinners. 00:31:20.920 --> 00:31:26.519 He was a man who knew that repentance was for all of life. 00:31:26.519 --> 00:31:33.519 500 years ago, in two months from a couple weeks from now, Martin Luther started the 00:31:33.519 --> 00:31:39.480 Reformation by nailing the 95 theses on the door of the castle in Wittenberg. 00:31:39.480 --> 00:31:45.759 And the very first thesis he put on that door was this, our Lord and Jesus Christ, when 00:31:45.759 --> 00:31:51.839 he said repent, he meant that the whole of the Christian life from first to last must 00:31:51.839 --> 00:31:55.000 be one of repentance. 00:31:55.000 --> 00:32:01.480 And so the primary thing tonight that a respectable godly man needs to know is that they need 00:32:01.480 --> 00:32:06.360 to be saved from themselves. 00:32:06.360 --> 00:32:11.720 Today you need repentance and forgiveness in the gospel. 00:32:11.720 --> 00:32:18.880 And secondly and finally, and we'll close, godly men that want self-control have to become 00:32:18.880 --> 00:32:21.519 athletes. 00:32:21.519 --> 00:32:27.440 You have to become an athlete if you want to be a godly man that gets self-control. 00:32:27.440 --> 00:32:39.039 In 1 Corinthians chapter 9, Paul likens the walk of the Christian life to race to athletes. 00:32:39.039 --> 00:32:44.000 And he says this, do you not know all of you, and you all know this, he's talking directly 00:32:44.000 --> 00:32:50.080 to us, do you not know that in a race runners compete but only one of them wins and gets 00:32:50.080 --> 00:32:53.720 a prize, right? 00:32:53.720 --> 00:32:58.680 So you need to run that you obtain the prize, he says. 00:32:58.680 --> 00:33:05.759 And we all know that every athlete, he says, exercises self-control in order to compete. 00:33:05.759 --> 00:33:11.200 They do it for a temporary perishable wreath or prize. 00:33:11.200 --> 00:33:14.319 But we compete for an imperishable prize. 00:33:14.319 --> 00:33:21.759 So I discipline my body, my soma daily and I keep it under control. 00:33:21.759 --> 00:33:30.079 And what Paul is saying there metaphorically is that a successful athlete, everybody knows 00:33:30.079 --> 00:33:34.720 this, a successful athlete that's going to win, that's going to win at the Olympics, 00:33:34.720 --> 00:33:36.920 exercises self-control, right? 00:33:36.920 --> 00:33:41.720 They only eat certain things, they only drink certain things, they sleep on a very regimented 00:33:41.720 --> 00:33:51.200 schedule, they do crossfit, they have a very tight schedule that's self-controlled, right? 00:33:51.200 --> 00:33:53.840 Everybody knows that. 00:33:53.840 --> 00:33:56.160 And it's hard to do that. 00:33:56.160 --> 00:34:01.440 And sometimes it's miserable to never eat what you want to eat. 00:34:01.440 --> 00:34:04.360 And the thing Paul is saying here to us is why? 00:34:04.360 --> 00:34:06.440 Why does an athlete do that to themselves? 00:34:06.440 --> 00:34:16.159 And this is what he says, the secret to self-control, that for the athlete it's to get the crown. 00:34:16.159 --> 00:34:18.000 They do it for the crown. 00:34:18.000 --> 00:34:22.639 The wreath or the prize literally here, the prize of victory. 00:34:22.639 --> 00:34:24.920 And it's good to be an athlete. 00:34:24.920 --> 00:34:26.920 And it's good as a man to be an athlete. 00:34:26.920 --> 00:34:28.239 I agree with that. 00:34:28.239 --> 00:34:29.480 Yes, indeed. 00:34:29.480 --> 00:34:31.320 But it's not essential. 00:34:31.320 --> 00:34:36.679 Godly men must become athletes of a higher order. 00:34:36.679 --> 00:34:40.639 And here's the secret to self-control. 00:34:40.639 --> 00:34:47.199 Desiring a greater prize than your disordered desires can give you. 00:34:47.199 --> 00:34:52.919 Desiring a better prize. 00:34:52.919 --> 00:34:55.879 And Chalmers put it this way and we'll close with this and it's cliche. 00:34:55.879 --> 00:35:02.559 Thomas Chalmers, our father in the free church, but sometimes cliche things are worth saying 00:35:02.559 --> 00:35:05.679 and that's how they became cliche. 00:35:05.679 --> 00:35:12.079 In the explosive power of the new affection, how does a man displace in his heart the desires 00:35:12.079 --> 00:35:14.839 of the world? 00:35:14.840 --> 00:35:23.559 By seeing the glory of God in the face of the man Jesus Christ as a more worthy prize. 00:35:23.559 --> 00:35:32.240 So that the heart does no longer resign to the old affections, the old desires, but exchanges 00:35:32.240 --> 00:35:36.880 that old desire for a new and a better hope. 00:35:36.880 --> 00:35:38.880 Let's pray. 00:35:38.880 --> 00:35:48.160 Father, we ask, Lord, that you would help us as men to become self-controlled over our 00:35:48.160 --> 00:35:54.000 desires which are difficult to control in the world of sin. 00:35:54.000 --> 00:36:02.160 And so we ask that we would be given a heart that prizes Jesus Christ as our crown above 00:36:02.160 --> 00:36:06.320 the temporary things that our earthly desires can give us. 00:36:06.320 --> 00:36:13.680 And we pray that you would make us holy men who love well, who are gentle and strong. 00:36:13.679 --> 00:36:39.719 And we pray for this in Christ's name.