Act Like Men (Father's Day 2025)

1st Corinthians 16 If you're using one of our Bibles there in

front of you, it's found on page 962. 1st Corinthians 16, page

962. We live in a culture that's

often assumes a man is worthless, that he's emotionally

unintelligent, right? Over the years, many television

shows have depicted men as the idiots in their storyline.

Barney Fife was just the beginning, back in the 60s.

Since then, there have been many others.

Archie Bunker, Homer Simpson, Joey from Friends, Al Bundy and

Ray Romano, and Everybody Loves Raymond just to name a few.

There's a lot more than that. These are just some of the

classic examples of male buffoons in television, men

inserted into the story for comedic relief, basically.

Now, fortunately, men, we don't have to follow the examples set

before us in our entertainment. God has given us some good

advice through the apostle Paul. And so this morning we're going

to look at that. Now we have a very short text

this morning, but it is a decently long message.

If I'd kept everything I had, if I kept everything I had, it was

probably going to be an hour, but I think I've probably cut

out a good 15 minutes. So hopefully this isn't too much

coming at you this morning. But if you're able, would you

stand as we read God's Word this morning?

1st Corinthians 16 will be at verse 13.

Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong.

Let all that you do be done in love.

You may be seated. Now we're obviously in Paul's

first letter to the Church of Corinth.

And by the way, I should probably say, if you love to

take notes I have and you didn't grab one of the bulletins or

note sheets, you might want to grab it because there's a lot of

verses listed on the note sheets to help you as we navigate

things this morning. So we're obviously in Paul's

first letter to the Church of Corinth.

And this church is notorious for all their perversions.

They they're perversions of the Lord's Supper.

They're perversions of marriage. They're perversions of the

ordered way. When they would get together for

worship, they had many problems. So Paul had to spend much of

this letter to the church at Corinth correcting them.

So Paul's first exhortation to them is to be watchful.

He says be watchful. Watchfulness means that we are

to be awake or or vigilant. Are we good, baby?

Hopefully, yes. OK, I was a little in a rush

when I did this yesterday. We're to be awake, we're to be

vigilant. We're we're going to have a

heightened level of awareness to the things around us.

The picture in my mind is that of someone watching over a

business or location a night watchman.

The night watchman's job is to look out for anything bad or

suspicious that is happening and and order to prevent theft or

some other unwanted behavior or or trespassing where people

shouldn't be. That's the night watchman's job.

He's on high alerts for anything that is Askew.

Even the slightest thing that seems to be out of place will

hopefully catch the night watchman's attention.

Now there are 6 things that we can be watchful for.

Six things. The first one we can watch out

for is Satan. Watch out for Satan first.

Peter 5/8 says. Be sober minded.

Be watchful. Your adversary, the devil,

prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may

devour. Satan hates you.

Satan wants to destroy you. He is hungry and you're on the

menu. So watch out for him.

Now how do we do that? Like I say that and you're

probably like, OK, what does that look like in real life?

How does one actually watch out for Satan?

Is it is it like, oh, you're walking down the street and you

see Satan walking the other way by you?

Or is it that casual meeting somebody for the first time and,

and realizing that they're evil? Well, no, those aren't.

Well, actually, I can't say those aren't the things because

it's possible you might meet someone who's evil, like

actually, right, Because we are broken people.

So you might meet someone who is evil, But one of the best ways

to watch out for Satan is to watch out for the next point.

That is temptation. Watch out for temptation.

He has three particularly insidious tools that he uses to

distract us from God's working. Those tools are the lust of the

flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.

Satan knows the things that we desire are the keys to our

hearts. If he wants to get our hearts,

then he needs to go through our desires.

Now James, the brother of Jesus, he wrote, he wrote down, each

person is tempted. He is lured and enticed by his

own desires. The the literal picture that

James has in mind here is it's a fishing illustration actually is

what he's using. It's that of a fish.

The fish sees the bait and the fish just has this innate

desire. It doesn't stop and ponder this

thing, this bait that's in front of it.

The fish just immediately goes for it.

It bites, right? James is saying that we have

these things inside of us, these things that when not kept in

check, can get us into trouble. Temptation comes from inside.

It's not a strictly external force.

Sometimes we think, oh, this situation tempted me, or this

situation tempted me. What?

Whatever the case may be, the that is a factor.

But James in James 114 tells us it actually starts inside of us

with our own desires. That's where it starts.

And that temptation can lead to sin.

So Satan will exploit those desires in any way that he can.

So be watchful for Satan. Be watchful for temptation.

Next, be watchful for apathy and indifference.

Apathy and an indifference. Satan's ultimate goal is to

prevent the growth of God's Kingdom.

Apathy and indifference are a favorite of the enemies because

he doesn't have to do anything to accomplish his goal, right?

The person who's apathetic and indifferent to the things of God

isn't doing anything to expand God's Kingdom.

In Revelation 3, John wrote to the Sardis Church.

He wrote, I know your works. You have the reputation of being

alive, but you are dead. Wake up and strengthen what

remains and is about to die. For I have not found your works

complete in the sight of my God. The church at Sardis, there was

a lot going on there. Apparently they had a reputation

for being alive. But Jesus says through John, you

are dead. It's all just surface level.

It's there's not anything deep beyond what's going on.

They weren't actually doing anything for God.

They appeared to be, but they weren't.

They'd become spiritually indifferent.

By the way, it's reasonable to assume that when you're doing

something for God that you will receive the attention of the

enemy, right? He doesn't want you to be

successful in the Christian life.

So if you're being successful, he's going to work against you.

And if by chance you're not receiving attention from him,

then it's possible. But a little bit of apathy has

started to creep in. So it's time that you tick Satan

off and just start living for God, going after him with all

that you are so that you tick Satan off.

He will still stay on you. But for sure, you want him

ticked off. You don't want him happy with

you. Oh, that person is fine.

I don't have to worry about them because they're not doing

anything. We don't want to be that.

We don't want to be apathetic. Next, false teachers.

Watch out for false teachers. Jesus warned that his followers

that false Christ's false messiahs and false prophets

would come and attempt to deceive them.

So how do we know what a false teacher looks like?

Well, we can spot a false teacher considering a few

things. What do they say about Jesus?

If they teach anything that's contrary to what Scripture says

about Jesus, then that might be a false teacher.

Do they preach the gospel? We are saved by grace through

faith in Christ's redeeming work on the cross.

Anything more or less is a false teacher.

Does the teacher exhibit the character qualities that glorify

the Lord? We're encouraged in Scripture to

look at the fruits, the fruit of the person, or if qualities,

their fruits if you will, are greed and pride and rebellion.

You might have a false teacher, somebody that you don't want to

follow. Now, I have it on good authority

that in the FBI, those who devote themselves to working

with counterfeit currency, they focus on one thing.

Some of you may already know this.

They look at the original. That's their focus.

They don't devote themselves to looking at all the other forms

of counterfeit currency that are out there because there's a lot.

They focus on knowing all the details and intricacies of what

does authentic currency look like, what does it look like?

What does it feel like? They know this so well.

So then when they come across a counterfeit, they know it

instinctively. They just know that it's a

counterfeit. We need to know what Scripture

says. When we know what scripture

says, then when we come across a counterfeit, we come across

false teaching. There should be a red flag in

our mind. Something should happen and we

say hold on. That doesn't jive with what I

know scripture to reveal. So I would say that even goes

for anything I say. If what I say doesn't jive with

Scripture, please let me know. Obviously, my goal is always to

represent Scripture accurately, but you can't just trust

everything that you hear from somebody.

We always must be like the Berean church and going to the

Scriptures to see what's the Scriptures say.

So these first four things that we're watching out for, they're

negative, but there's two positives that we can watch out

for. Let's be watchful in prayer.

Devote yourself to prayer. Now, prayer is what I, what I

like to call my declaration of dependence upon God.

It's my declaration of dependence upon God.

That is what prayer is. It's it's a way for me to pursue

my relationship with God, to be recharging him, and it's

intended to be the heartbeat of the Christian life.

It strengthens my relationship with him and it strengthens my

defenses against Satan. The last thing we're to be

watchful for is the Lord's return, the Lord's return.

There are two fantastic motives for faithfully living for

Christ. The 1st is what He did on the

cross, but the second is the fact that this isn't the end.

Jesus is coming back. He's going to return and set up

an earthly Kingdom. So knowing that there's more

than simply life here on this mortal coil compels us to live

for Him. We're to be looking for and

anticipating the day of Christ's return.

So secondly, stand firm in the faith.

Stand firm in the faith was the next phrase that Paul used.

Saving faith and faith in God's working aren't what Paul is

referring to here. When scripture uses the definite

article that is the word the in combination with the word faith,

it has something in particular in mind.

The words the faith refer to the core fundamental doctrines that

we consider truth. These are doctrines that are

considered non negotiable and which form the basis of historic

Christianity. Examples of this include the

inspiration of scripture, the deed of Jesus, his incarnation,

death and resurrection, and salvation by grace alone through

faith in Christ alone. These things are core doctrines.

This is what we refer to as the faith.

In his commentary on this passage, the commentator Jane

Charles Hodge cautioned followers of Christ to not

consider every point of doctrine open for discussion.

There are some people who who love to look at every point of

doctrine and debates every single point.

No, it's good. It's good to have healthy good

debate about about doctrine because that that helps you know

what you believe and why you believe it and making sure that

scripture itself affirms what you believe.

Now, throughout history, the church has had numerous debates

or councils to codify what essential Christian doctrine is.

This was important, especially in the early churches growth and

development, because people wanted to debate these different

points and they there were different beliefs about who

Jesus was and, and whether there was a Trinity and different

things like that. And so the early church had

these councils to discuss these things and clarify what

Scripture has revealed to us. But the things I just mentioned,

they're not up for debate. Someone from outside of the

church may may say I don't believe in Jesus, I don't

believe he actually existed. I don't believe in the cross or

I don't believe in the resurrection.

That is actually apologetics. That's a, that's a different,

different category. So then, so then we are helping

someone to understand these issues.

But these are things that the church has been practicing for a

couple, couple thousand years now almost.

So this is what it means to stand firm in the faith.

We stand in these beliefs. As I mentioned earlier, it's

important to know what the truth is or else you can run into

issues. Paul's reasoning is found in

Ephesians 4, verse 14. It says there so that we may no

Ephesians 4:14

longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried

about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness

and deceitful schemes. Now I love to hear about new

ideas and and concepts. It's it's just part of my

personality. If I hear something new,

something novel, something unusual, I might spend a little

bit of time researching that thing to learn about it and and

at least gain a surface level knowledge of it.

So I know generally what discussions about that thing

revolve around. Now I can't help but wonder if

it's kind of like the Athenians and and their encounter with

Paul. You see, the people of Athens,

they were known to be highly curious about different ways of

thinking. So in Acts 17, Paul has this

famous moments, his moments at the Areopagus because the people

there said, hey, Paul, come, come speak to us.

We want to hear about this unusual thing that you're

talking about. What is this, this novelty, this

novel idea that you're Speaking of?

It was foreign to to their Greek way of thinking.

But new ideas and thoughts can be fun to consider and talk

about. But new ideas and thoughts can

be the place where Satan loves to work, to start to erode

truth, to chip away at it. And oh, this sounds really good.

Maybe this is actually truth when people start to just take

something at face value, when they don't really dive in deep

to understand it. So if Satan, if Satan can erode

the objects of our faith, if he can get us to have little things

that aren't quite accurate in our faith, then he's on the way

to keeping us unproductive. So it's important for us to have

sound doctrine from God's word. The Corinthians had a lot of

screwed up thinking and this letter, like I said is is

addressed to fix some of their thinking.

This letter is so dense because there was so much that Paul had

to address with them. Human philosophy and wisdom had

eaten away at their view of God and in his ways.

First Corinthians chapter 3 verse 18 reads Let no one

1 Corinthians 3:18

deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that

he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may

become. Wise.

Let him become a fool, that he may become wise.

It sounds like nonsense, right? But this is the world's

perspective. The world looks at God's ways as

foolish. Why would you live that way when

you can do all these other things and you can just live

life on your own terms however you want?

But the reality is, is that the wisdom of this world is actually

futile and and it doesn't stand up to the wisdom of God's truth.

We need to stand firm in the faith and fight for what has

been handed down to us over the years.

Third, act like men. Be mature in courage.

I wanted to qualify that statement.

Act like men so that we understand what that means when

when Paul is writing and he says act like men.

Unfortunately, in our culture today, exhorting the male

species to act like men is likely to earn you all sorts of

insults and side eyed glances. The use of such words invokes

accusations of misogyny and toxic masculinity.

Mainstream culture would argue that you're just encouraging

behaviors viewed as masculine. Normative things like playing

sports, lifting weights, shooting guns, fighting, perhaps

even walking around and grunting like Tim Allen.

You know, he was so funny, young people, I don't know.

If you know who he is, go check him out.

What was the show? Home.

Home improvement, Right? Yes.

OK, So what Paul has in mind when he says acts like men is

mature courage. The mature man exhibits such

qualities as self-control and confidence and courage.

The immature person, however, doesn't exhibit these qualities,

but rather acts out of a lack of self-control.

They're hesitant and controlled by fear.

The root word that could literally be translated as as be

manizing, be be acting like a man is andritsumay, which is

derived from the Greek word andras, which is the word for

man in Greek. The Septuagint, the Greek

translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, uses this word in to

refer in particular to to soldiers to encourage them to

have courage and and strengthen obedience to the Lord.

Sometimes being obedient is hard, right?

Sometimes when God calls you to something, it requires a step of

faith. It requires courage to step into

something sometimes like to step into being a lead pastor.

It has required a lot of courage and faith to step into this

place to be a lead pastor. Sometimes it's hard to be

obedient. So, so Paul is saying be

courageous. God is going to empower you as

you step into this space and and you step forward in obedience.

Over and over in the Old Testament we read the words be

strong and courageous. I love just re reading

throughout, especially Moses writings as he's getting ready

to to hand off the baton over and over he says to Joshua, be

strong and courageous. Then Joshua takes that same

statement, be strong and courageous.

They keep reiterating that over and over.

And what reason do we have to be strong and courageous?

It's the Lord's presence, the Lord working on behalf of his

followers. You're not in this alone.

Be strong and courageous because God is with you.

He is working in you and around you.

Second Timothy 316 and 17. Many of you will no doubt

recognize this passage. All Scripture is breathed out by

God and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for

correction, and for training in righteousness that the man of

God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

Paul told Timothy Scripture was inspired by God and and

scripture is useful. The ultimate purpose of it is to

to make you mature, to make you complete so that as you grow up,

as you mature in the faith, then you're ready for whatever God

has in front of you. You are ready to step into that

new thing, to step forward in obedience.

Next, be strong. Be strong.

You know there may be some rumours going around of your

pastor recently lifting relatively heavy weights and

squatting numbers he hasn't done in decades.

If you're not on Facebook and haven't seen that then I

apologise. I'm not usually one to talk

about numbers, but I just had a had a great moment a couple

weeks ago. I can validate that those rumors

are true. Likely, unless somebody's

throwing around really huge numbers, then I can't

necessarily affirm those. But as fun as it is to be

physically strong, that's great. It's fun.

That's not what Paul has in mind.

Paul is not talking about being physically strong.

Paul wants the the Corinthians to have inner spiritual

strength. That's what Paul has in mind.

The person who has matured in the faith is spiritually strong.

They're able to withstand whatever comes against them,

whatever trials come against them.

They've been through life. They've bent, they've been

around the block a few times. They are strong in the faith.

They know God is in control. God's not letting go of them.

They're spiritually strong. They know that He will be

faithful. So this strength comes from the

Holy Spirit's working in us. We submit ourselves to the

spirits working and in turn He will strengthen us.

In Ephesians 6, as Paul was about to introduce the armor of

God, he began the section by saying, finally, be strong in

the Lord and in the strength of his might.

God's about to give you all these tools.

In Ephesians 6, he's about to give you all these tools for

living the Christian life in the midst of this spiritual battle.

But this isn't your working, he says.

It's God's working. It's God's strength in you.

That's what it is. In his second letter to Timothy,

Paul wrote to his young protege and told him how to live out his

faith. Second Timothy 2 verses one and

two. You then my child, be

strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus and what you

have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses and

trust to faithful men who would be able to teach others also.

Again, Paul says your strength, it's not in you, it's found in

the grace of Christ working in you.

But I love that Paul doesn't stop there.

He then says, well, Timothy, you, you've heard this from me.

I've invested this into you and into other other men.

Now be sure to pass this on to other faithful men so that they

can then pass it on as well. Don't let this thing that I gave

you die with you. Keep passing it on.

This is discipleship, Paul investing himself into multiple

men who then turn around and do the same.

In 2nd Corinthians 12, Paul brought a bit of clarity to what

it means to be strong in the Lord.

There, Paul outlines all these experiences that he'd had.

He'd had visions, he'd had revelations.

He he was taken up into heaven. Well, really, he's not even

actually sure if he was physically taken into heaven or

if it's just just a vision or out of body experience or, or

what it is. He's experienced all these

amazing things and, and he says he can't tell us about it.

He says, I could tell you the truth of these situations, but

I'm not going to do that because in fact, the things I've

experienced and have only led to just this sense of awe and

being, being able to see all these things that God is able to

do. And so because of what I've

experienced, God sent me this thorn in the side, the thorn in

the flesh, this thing to humble me and keep me down so that I

didn't become proud and boastful.

And this, this thorn in the flesh was so horrible.

I, I pleaded with God several times.

I asked God, can you please remove this?

But God, God says my grace in, in 2nd Corinthians 12, my grace

is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in

weakness. And Paul says, therefore I will

boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of

Christ may rest upon me. Do you catch this?

Paul was glad to be weak in himself.

He didn't want personal fleshly strength, which I can't help but

wonder if he had a bit of because because he was fairly

athletic. I think probably scriptures.

He he loves athletic illustrations.

So, you know, I, I think he may have had some strength as well,

but Paul knew. But Paul knew that at the end of

his rope, that was where God's awesome power was demonstrated.

God's grace would come shining through and it would show itself

to be sufficient for every moment in his life.

At that point, Paul could say that he was proud of his

weakness because Christ was demonstrated in his weaknesses.

When we find strength in ourselves, we're venturing into

dangerous territory. Strengthen myself is the entry

way to pride, which will tear you up when you give yourself

over to it. You know, you know the verses.

Pride goes before the fall. God opposes the proud but gives

grace to the humble. Pride isn't where we want to

find ourselves. When we end up in pride, then we

make ourselves an enemy of God. Pride can sneak in when you

least expect it. In Galatians 61, Paul told the

church at Galatia what to do when someone's caught in sin.

He says, brothers, if anyone is is caught in any transgression,

you who are spiritual should restore him in the spirit of

gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you

too be tempted. The warning here is for even the

spiritually mature, those who have been around in the faith

for many years, they, they have grown up.

They are no longer on just the milk of the word, but they're,

they're consuming solid food from the word.

Even those people watch out. Be careful when you are

confronting someone's sin. Be careful.

Check yourself first. Make sure that you don't have

any sin in your heart that that you need to attend to.

And this is important so that we're not tempted to become

arrogant or puffed up by finding strengthen in ourselves or in

the while in the process of confronting someone else's sin.

Oh look how good I am, look how mature I am, and look how much

sin you have in your life. No, that is not what Paul wants

us to be doing. So keep watch on yourself lest

you also be tempted. Our strength must be in God and

not ourselves. Lastly #5 act in love.

Act in love. What might the outcome be if

Paul stopped with verse 13 and he didn't include the words of

verse 14? He says be watchful, look out

for the enemy, stand firm in the faith.

That is, don't let anything move you or dissuade you.

Be courageous and act like men. Be strong.

What if Paul had stopped there? If we only had Paul's first four

exhortations, then, then we could end up being militant,

hardened, unforgiving. A Christian who has all these

things but not love is incomplete.

Love brings a softer side to our character.

It's the perfect complement to each of these principles.

With love, our firmness doesn't become rigidity.

With love, our strength doesn't become domineering.

With love, the courage we display in our lives is properly

guided and considerate. And when cold in love, the right

doctrine in our lives doesn't turn into dogmatic legalism.

As we pour love over these 4 commands, we escape the trap of

self righteousness. We walk in grace, devoid of any

arrogance that may desire to creep into our hearts.

In Ephesians 4, Paul addressed those who are tossed around by

different doctrines and in verse 14 he told the Ephesian church

and us how to address these situations.

When someone follows after some sort of untruth, something that

is doesn't jive with what scripture says.

He says his advice was was to speak the truth in love.

Speaking of the truth is great, but it needs to be accompanied

by love. We have to hold these two things

in balance. If we speak only truth, then we

can come off as proud, judgmental and legalistic, and

this can lead to an environment that is unforgiving.

On the other hand, all grace, all love, it can lead to moral

indifference and potentially enables harmful behaviors.

Someone whose outlook is all grace is devoid of any real

foundation. They can just float back and

forth from this belief to that one.

Whatever their heart desires, they have no real anchor for

their soul. Live however you want, I love

you, you can do whatever you want.

That is not what love is but biblical grace and truth however

is life transforming. It's biblical truth but it's

covered in love and grace and says this is the truth.

Now go walk in that. The other night we had an elders

meeting and and talking about someone Mike Findley said a

certain author and I think I would say theologian that he

follows online is like AI love this picture a velvet covered

brick. This this this gentleman can can

communicate truth. That's the brick part, of

course, but they do it in such a manner that you don't even

realize that you've just been clobbered by a brick.

They do it gently. They do it with grace and in

love. Men, rather than follow the

horrible examples that we have set before us in our

entertainment, let's follow the model set before us here in

Scripture. Be watchful, stand firm in the

faith, be courageous as you act like a man, be strengthened by

the Holy Spirit's and let all that you do be done in love.

Let's bow our heads and close our eyes.

God, we thank you for the opportunity to look into your

word. We thank you that we can look

into your word and God and we can see how you want us as as

men, as fathers to live. God, I pray that each man in

this place this morning would not be discouraged because of

what he's heard, but that each man would see, OK, hey, here are

the things that I need to do. Here's how, Here's how I can

live. Here's what it means to be a

godly man, to be a godly father. And we ponder these things.

God, I pray that each man in this place would just pick one

thing. What is 1 area where I can grow?

So God, we pray for the Holy Spirit's working.

We pray that you would empower us to live, to live this

Christian life in the way that you have called us to live.

God that we would, we would be able to step forward, encourage

to be obedient to you no matter what you are calling us to.

So we offer these things to you. It's in Jesus name we pray,

Amen.