Fix Your Eyes on Jesus

Good morning, Multiply Church.

I don't know if we got any competitive people in the crowd, but um uh I know there's some folks who are are a little competitive and they think the 11 o'clock service is the right service to be at.

Uh so I don't know if y'all feel like uh the the more Christian thing to do is show up at 11, but if you feel that way, I'll support you.

Uh it's great to see you guys.

Uh it's a it's a privilege and a pleasure to be here this morning.

It is, I believe, Sunday, February 9th, is that correct?

Sunday, February 9th, 2025, and it is another great day to make it a great day.

Amen or amen.

Um I um I don't know if anybody, I don't know if any of you all picked up on that plug that Pastor Forrest was making in here about donating lightly used blankets, but I was getting the vibe that he was trying to tell Miss Emily something that we've got some that we've got some decluttering to do.

Did anybody else pick up on that?

I was like, man, he's up there grilling her right now.

I don't know if any of y'all got blankets like we got, but we can get rid of those.

Oh man.

But uh thank you again, uh uh, Pastor Forrest and Multiply Church team for the opportunity to visit today.

My name is Jeremy.

Uh, my lovely wife Jayla, my son Miles, and my daughter Mia, they were here first service, but they took the the our baby girl back to the room to uh get a nap in.

And so uh they're not with us this uh uh this particular service, so I can talk about them.

I'm not I'm just playing.

Um, but we are grateful to be here.

Um as we uh open the scriptures today, um I I want you to know that in preparation for today's message, um you know, some of the scriptures that I worked through really seared my heart.

So as we as we focus on uh pointing, fixing our eyes on Jesus and looking at uh the the greatest example that we could ever look at uh of what manhood is, I want you to know that there were uh many areas of of my life uh that I had to uh evaluate, uh that I had to pray through.

Because it's one thing to uh uh it's one thing to consider yourself a believer.

Uh it's another thing, though, whenever you're put in front of a body of believers and you're opening up the scriptures and you're teaching the truth of God's word, uh there's an accountability piece that comes with that.

That's a privilege, and I don't take that lightly today.

And so I want you to know that uh there isn't anything that we're discussing today that from the posture of my heart, I feel as if uh I've got the uh I've got it all figured out.

Or uh I have the the hack on on how to be the greatest of thee.

Uh I want you to know that as I prayed through today's message, uh I uh uh I knew that I was stepping on stage to also preach to myself today.

And so I I would like uh I want to openly um I want to ask you all to invite me to preach, uh, to give me an opportunity to preach to myself today as well.

Um I will say this though, before we get going, that I think it's important uh the the Bible calls us to confess our sins to one another.

And so I want to be transparent with you on the front end.

When I had good close friends that left Somerset, Kentucky to come to Frankfurt to be a part of your church, uh I didn't think good things about multiply church.

Uh Aaron and Brooke Dockery are some of our closest friends, and you guys are blessed to have them as a part of this church.

But I remember uh the conversation we had over dinner, and they shared with us that God was calling them to Frankfurt to be a part of the Multiply Church mission, and I began to question God's goodness in that moment because when I moved to Somerset, I was looking for some friends because when I moved from Bowling Green to Somerset, I was an adult at this time after being married to my wife for one year, and I didn't realize uh how challenging it is as an adult to build new relationships.

I was like, wow, I've been in Bowling Green for quite some time, and and I was literally just walking the streets of Somerset just asking people to be my friend.

And and Aaron, uh Aaron Dockery accepted the invitation.

Uh and and chili suppers and birthdays with the kiddos and life changes and conversations about work and and just gathering and and being able to pour our hearts out to one another and and build gospel center community with other men in Somerset.

Uh, Aaron is uh is someone who I've come to love and respect and admire deeply and dearly, and so you guys are blessed to have them a part of this church.

But again, I've I've repented of those original sentiments that I had about multiply, and I'm here and we're we are in good standing.

Um and let me point this out.

I forgot to share this with the 9 o'clock service.

One of the last times that I was in Frankfurt speaking, I was at a conference and I was on a circuit.

I think uh there was a stop in Lexington, then Louisville, and then Frankfurt, and then on my way home, we happened to be blessed with a beautiful space back in Somerset where we uh live on uh the farm, the family farm that Jayla's family grew up on.

Uh a piece of land that's very near and dear to the heart of my wife.

And I knew that when I left Bowling Green and I moved to Somerset and I moved into that space, I knew there was a really good chance that I'm never leaving.

And so uh it's a beautiful place to be, though.

But her grandparents live close by.

And I was coming in from Frankfurt that day after speaking, and as I'm coming up my driveway and I see Howard's truck, which he's affectionately known as Paul in the family, Paul.

And uh so I see his truck in the drive, and I'm thinking, why is he parked in the middle of my driveway?

Because now I have to either go underneath the truck or over top the truck to loop around into the drive by the garage.

And as I'm edging my car past his truck, all of a sudden, boom, shotgun fire goes off.

And I'm thinking, dear Lord, baby Jesus, if I would have been five feet closer, he would have shot through my car.

I don't know what was going on.

And then he gets out of the truck and he looks over and he sees me and he's like, hey, just casually waves.

I'm like, Paul, you don't just shoot a shotgun from my driveway every day.

What's going on?

He's walking across the field and he used to run beef cattle on the farm, and sometimes the vultures, I don't know if anybody in here knows anything about cattle and some of those babies, but sometimes the vultures will like to pick on some of the newer calves and try to uh separate them from the mamas and you know, so forth and so on.

So so he popped a vulture and then he walks across the field over the fence, puts another one in it, and then reaches down, grabs it by one of its claws, and just drags it on across back over the truck, and he's like, Good to see you, Jeremy.

I'm like, I walked in the house and Jaleb was like, hey, babe, how was Frankfurt?

I was like, Your grandfather nearly shot me.

So I'm hoping the end of our trip to Frankfurt today is a little bit better than the end last time because I'm not trying to shots were literally fired when I pulled in my driveway.

Uh I'm gonna open up here today, guys.

Uh a pastor uh of mine uh who I set under his leadership for a number of years when I lived in Bowling Green.

He used to oftentimes say, Thank you for bringing the church into this place today, because uh the church is not the building, the church is the body of believers that make up the church that uh that that that that does the work of Christ uh inside the building.

And so thank you for for gathering here this morning uh to set under God's word.

But also he used to say this, which I thought was was very timely, uh on the beginning of a message.

He would say, uh, the world is not as it should be.

And and when he's when he said that, when he made that statement, he wanted to connect with the minds and the hearts of people because he knew that walking through those doors and setting in these seats were a group of people who all were carrying baggage.

I don't know, uh I don't have an opportunity to meet everyone today, and that's a challenge as a speaker, trainer, and coach.

Uh rarely do I have an opportunity to camp out long enough to meet everyone, learn their first, middle, and last name, learn what their fears, frustrations, failures, struggles, setbacks are, uh what you get excited about, what your dreams, hopes, desires are.

I don't get an opportunity to learn all that, but I do know that you're a human just like me, in search of meaning, in search of purpose, want to be loved, admired, respected, appreciated.

You want your life to count for something.

And every Sunday as we walk through these walls, we're bringing with us the baggage of our personal lives, whether it be financial struggles that we're burdened by, uh, whether it be health implications or recent news of struggles uh health related in uh with loved ones, uh friends and family members, or whether it be relational risks that we're walking through, uh brokenness, uh, open wounds, trauma uh from past years uh that we're working to try to heal.

Uh I don't know what what you're bringing with you today, but I do believe that as we pose that question or or we or we introduce that idea, we could all agree that as we look out in the world, there's something in our spirit that says, this is not how it's supposed to look.

Would you agree with me on that?

The world is not as it should be.

The pain and brokenness that we see, the suffering, the division, uh, the way people uh hurt people aimlessly, the way people treat others.

Um, the world is not as it should be, and so that should posture us uh uh in a place with our minds and our hearts to come inside these doors every Sunday to hear something that moves us in a direction to help us be a conduit of bringing heaven down to earth as its original design was made.

Uh we have the ability to participate in that, and I hope the conversation that we cultivate today will help spur us in that direction.

But I'm gonna start today where I'm gonna end.

I'm gonna introduce an idea, a statement.

We're gonna end with that statement, and then we're gonna open up here.

Uh it goes here, it goes like this fixing our eyes on Jesus gives us a biblical understanding of what man what a man is and how to flesh that out in the real world.

In other words, we have to have a target that we're shooting for.

Uh in real in reality, for many of us, we are shooting at something.

Uh, but if we're honest with ourselves, uh there are seasons of life where we struggle to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus.

But at the end of the day, we're all looking towards something, and whatever we're looking toward, it is shaping who we are becoming.

But when we fix our eyes on Jesus, we have a biblical understanding of what a man is and how to flesh that out in the real world uh so that other men, especially young men, especially the next generation, who may not be Christians, can see the masculinity in Christianity and be encouraged by it.

Uh let's go to the Lord in prayer real quick.

Heavenly Father, I thank you so much for the gift of this day.

I thank you for the blessing of this place.

Uh, I thank you for the guests who have gathered here, uh, who are curious about the name of Jesus, uh, who are looking for an opportunity uh to be in right standing with our Creator, which is you, God.

Uh I'm grateful for all the OGs in the crowd who've been here since the inception of Multiply Church, who have labored and toiled out of love to create a space where new people could come and come face to face with who you are.

Um I'm grateful for the opportunity to stand before this group of people today uh as a vessel for you.

As a father, through my body, through my mind, through my mouth.

Uh use me, Lord.

Uh use me to share scripture, to share stories, to cultivate a conversation where people can begin to think critically about it about what it looks like uh to flesh out biblical manhood uh in a world uh that uh that we are essentially pitted against.

Um so I thank you for this time together, Lord.

Uh may it glorify you, make much of the name of your son Jesus, and it's in his name that we pray.

Amen and amen.

There was a special on television, and I've actually read a couple of articles uh that point to the same idea that I'm gonna introduce here, and they're all similar in some capacity.

Uh, but this particular TV special uh outlined um uh a story about a group of elephants.

I want you to hang with me here because I'm sure you're gonna be like, I didn't think we were gonna talk about elephants today uh on Super Bowl Sunday, uh, but we are anyway.

There was a special on TV about a herd of juvenile male elephants that were running wild.

And I wouldn't assume that anyone in here specializes in uh in elephant uh biology, but uh most commonly male elephants are referred to as a bull, and female elephants are referred to as a cow.

Uh so I may use the term bull interchangeably here in the story, but that it was a group of juvenile bulls that were running wild.

They were running over trees, they were fighting each other, and literally creating havoc in their environment.

They were male elephants that were gone wild, and experts were trying to figure out what on earth is happening.

Finally, they noticed that there were no adult males that were in the herd.

They were all teenage elephants that had lost their natural mind, and due to increases in testosterone at given seasons of their life, uh, essentially they were in a state of frenzy.

The reason there were no adult male elephants is that poachers sadly had come in and killed all of them for to harvest the ivory from their tusks.

So, in an attempt to fix the problem, experts got creative.

I don't know how this works, but they got creative and they found a way to fly in, they flew in a group of male adult elephants, mature elephants, and dropped them into the herd.

What happened next is pretty interesting.

When these male elephants were dropped into the midst of the chaos, they began flapping their ears, raising their trunks, and making these loud sounds.

Anybody here know how elephants sound?

Do all that, did do that together this morning?

Uh making these loud sounds, and after a few days of doing such, flapping their ears, raising their trunks, making these loud sounds, it began to get the attention of the younger bulls, and the teenage male elephants began to calm down.

As long as the teenage male elephants were calling their own shots, here's what was happening.

You had gangs of elephants that had gone crazy harming themselves and other animals aimlessly because they had no direction, because of the lack of discipline.

But when the adult male elephants were dropped in and they flapped their ears and raised their trunks and made these sounds, they demanded order amongst the herd.

And not only that, in the natural order of things, these adult bulls essentially did this.

They modeled acceptable behavior for the young bulls to follow.

I think you're picking up what I'm putting down here.

We've got a generation of young males who are lost today.

I don't know if you see what I see when I look out into the world, but we have a generation of young males who are lost today.

And in search of meaning and purpose in their lives, here's what's happened.

They are pursuing things that I can remember pursuing once upon a time in my life.

Um athletic ability and physical uh prowess, uh, sexual conquest, economic success, accumulation, achievement, all of these things for notoriety, all of these things for fame, all of these things for recognition.

That there's there's a young generation coming up.

They're looking for something, but all they have to follow are worldly pursuits unless we have adult males that step into the herd and begin to show them how to behave.

Begin to show them what to look for, what to fix their eyes on.

Uh we need a generation of adult bulls, real men, who will flap their ears and raise their trunks and sound out the truth in love.

I'll say that again.

Truth in love.

Everybody say truth?

Everybody say love.

There's a lot of people that know truth.

There's a lot of people who know how to use God's word to harm other people.

There's a lot of people who know how to use scripture to shame other people, but very few people are abiding in Jesus and know how to speak the truth in love.

We'll let that hang out there for just a second.

I appreciate that.

There's a lot of people, but but many folks don't know how to speak the truth in love.

Thank you, sir.

My beautiful grandmother, Virginia.

And so, in doing so, uh we have the opportunity to calm down a generation and show them how to act.

Because up until a certain point, for a lot of folks, I don't know if there's any new believers in here, but I can remember being at a place, and I had a great example in my father, but truth be told, because I come from a broken, blended family, and because I had some open wounds and some trauma, and and that had manifested itself a number of ways, I was looking for ways to fill some voids in my life.

Uh, but when we have the the right people postured and have and have their eyes fixed on Jesus and adult males who are walking out uh their faith in a biblical manner, uh, it gives these young teenage bulls something responsible and respectable to follow.

Uh and so with that story as we transition, uh, we're gonna be looking at four specific ideas this morning.

Um, and I believe we're gonna throw some scripture up on the screen as well as we walk through a few passages, but uh we're gonna walk through a few passages from Matthew and supplement a little bit uh from other spaces as well.

But I hope they provide some insight and encouragement for you and your walk with Christ this morning, because we obviously understand that as we look out into the world, uh men on a number of fronts are struggling.

They're struggling for meaning, they're struggling for purpose, and many of us have fallen in the trap of thinking that manhood uh strictly resides in the narrative of being a provider and a protector.

But I believe men are actually more comprehensive than that.

So the first idea that we're gonna talk about here uh is foundation.

And we're gonna we're gonna look at Matthew 7, 24 through 27 first here.

Uh and I'm gonna read here for us.

Uh this is from the uh English Standard Version, ESV here.

Everyone who then hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.

And the rain fell, and the floods came and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall because it had been founded on the rock.

Um and everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.

And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat against the house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.

Uh this may sound like a cliche statement, and I don't want it to sound too worldly, but when it comes to building our the foundation of our life and setting up, putting ourselves in a position uh to do good, to be good, uh, to serve others at our highest capacity, uh I heard someone once say that you can't build a skyscraper life on a chicken coop foundation.

You can't build a skyscraper life on a chicken coop foundation.

But I want to point to something deeper here.

If you want your personal life, your family, your ministry, and your community, if you if you want stability in those things, we need the strong, sturdy foundation of God's word.

Point blank period.

Um because at the end of the day, trials of life are gonna come.

Some of us in here have been through a number of them and we've come out on the other side.

Some of us in here have testimonies of faith where we can look back and we can see how God's goodness and his provision prevailed in a number of different areas because we placed our trust in him when seemingly we looked out at our circumstances and didn't know how we were gonna make it.

But inevitably, no matter who you are, where you come from, what you've been through, what your future holds, here's the truth the trials of life will expose what your foundation is made of at some point.

The trials of life will expose what your foundation is made of at some point.

Uh and the foundation is where we begin.

So we want to we want to we want to build a foundation of biblical manhood on the truth of who Jesus is, the rock of his word, versus the other worldly pursuits.

I remember when I lived in an apartment many years ago, there was a crack in the wall and in the drywall, and I'm not uh a big home improvement guy by any stretch of the imagination, but I watched a few YouTube videos and I figured I could patch a little bit of drywall.

Uh but for some reason, every time I patched that crack, every time I patched it, it kept coming back.

And I couldn't figure out for the life of me what it was until I finally realized, guess what?

It was the foundation that was the issue.

That it didn't matter how many times I patched it, it didn't matter how many times I painted it, it didn't matter how many times I tried to put something over it to cover it up, the truth was is the crack was still there because there was an issue with the foundation.

The truth could be said for many of us, even as men, that many of us have cracks in our lives, emotional, relational, financial, but oftentimes we are drawn to address the symptoms versus targeting the source of the problem.

And so as we as we look to Jesus, who is the author and the perfector of our faith as the ultimate definition of what a man looks like and how to flesh that out into the real world, we can't just look at the scriptures.

We also have to allow the scriptures uh to uh to uh inform how we live our lives, right?

We have to study the life of Jesus and allow how Jesus uh lived his life and how he treated people to inform how we too live our lives.

This requires to both have a knowledge of the Bible and to apply it to our life.

The second point we're gonna discuss today is this is having biblical community in our presence.

Um I don't know about you, but as a man, there have been times where I've struggled uh to open myself up and uh allow other people in because I've had some folks do some things to me that didn't feel good in my past.

Uh anybody else been there before?

Uh uh some there's been some times in my life where I've had some trust issues, right?

There's been some times where I've done some things and I've had uh some people have let me down.

There's been some times where I've done some things where I don't feel deserving of biblical community in my life because I know who I am and how messed up I really am.

But ultimately, if we want to move in a direction of becoming more like Christ, becoming more than just the definition of manhood that the world presents, we have to position ourselves around other people.

Matthew 18, 20 says this for where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.

Now I want to make sure that I preface this.

This is on the back end of the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus is preaching, and he's unpacking all of this, these applications to the lives of new believers and helping them understand what it looks like uh to be set apart, if you will.

And this particular passage uh uh uh specifically points to uh some squabbles inside the church or a dealing with sin uh amongst other believers, and how whenever uh you position yourself with uh biblical uh accountability, this gives you an opportunity to come to an agreement on uh what's been done and what needs to be done moving forward uh uh essentially.

However, I like the fact that it specifically says here, where there are many gathered in my name, Jesus is present.

He wants to help us grow as believers, he wants to help us grow as men, he wants to help us grow as a community.

The only way that we can do that is by positioning ourselves with other people who have their eyes fixed on the same thing, which is Jesus, right?

Also, uh uh in uh to make this point, uh I pulled up Psalm 133.1, and David says here in the Psalms, behold how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity.

What David is talking about here, he exalts the glory of brothers who are living in biblical harmony, right?

Uh unity does not mean sameness, right?

Uh we many of us who will watch the football game later on, we know that there are different positions that are played on the field, but the ultimate goal of the offense with all 11 players on the field is to advance the ball past the goal line to get that touchdown.

But those guys don't all play the same position.

But they are in unison with their purpose and their mission.

But they're not all the same, right?

They got different ages, they got different backgrounds, they come from different places, they have different strengths, right?

Unity.

He says here that when we come together in peace, love, and unity, it ultimately reflects the attitude of Christ.

In other words, Scripture plainly tells us that the best way to reflect Christ is to do so in community.

From the very beginning, before God set all of this in motion, uh, he existed in a trinity.

He existed in relationship.

And that ultimately is what makes Christianity different from the vast number of religions across the world is that it's not about religion, it's about relationship.

And we were built for relationship with him.

That's why Jesus came to do what he did, right?

And so understanding that we are communal creatures, that we are better when we are in community, it gives us an opportunity to live out our brotherhood in a way that we couldn't otherwise.

You've heard the old adage that I can do bad all by myself.

Ain't that the truth?

Uh we can.

And I know for myself, I've done some really bad things when I've tried to live life all alone.

Number three is service.

Number three is service that if we have a foundation that's built on Christ and we understand that it takes community to grow as a believer, then we also understand that what we do is a gospel-driven effort to serve the Lord through all of the different capacities that He's given us on this side of eternity.

It's not about uh accumulation and achievement.

It's not about getting the bag.

It's not about I, me, and mine, and I gotta take care of number one.

It's about uh lovingly looking for opportunities to serve other people because ultimately that's what Christ came to do.

Uh Matthew 20, 28 says this, um, excuse me, 11 uh 20, or excuse me, 2028 says this.

Even as the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.

Jesus was exalted.

He was exalted with the with the name that would be above all other names.

But instead of using that as a platform to just simply get what he wanted, here's what Jesus chose to do.

He attained his greatness by humbling himself as a servant and suffering unto death to serve other people.

Uh on that note of the Super Bowl in the NFL, some of you may have heard the name of uh Pat Tillman before.

Uh Pat Tillman was a uh a former football player who walked away from a multi-million dollar lucrative NFL career because he felt he had an obligation to serve in our nation's military, and that choice ultimately cost him his life.

He's been honored a number of times, and people remember him when it when they talk about service and sacrifice.

But we need to understand that from his example, it's a reminder that our service to God is one that will cost much.

It's gonna require us to give up some things.

It's gonna require us to lay some things down, it's gonna require us to be set apart, but we should be willing to do so because of what Christ has done for us.

Uh, a mentor of mine once said that when you think about work in the world, when you think about doing what it is that you do, what you've been gifted to do, ordained to do, or called to do uh through your work, um, he said, I want you to consider it being a gospel-driven effort, you doing those good works out of the love that Christ has had for you, not you doing those works to earn your salvation, which sadly many of us uh have a uh an ideology of faith when it when it comes to that.

We're trying to earn our salvation.

Uh and and what he what what what that particular mentor was talking about with me whenever he introduced this idea of gospel-driven work, he was mentioning that we should work from the rest that we have in Christ versus working and then needing to rest because we've placed work above all else, which leads us to our next point, which is rest.

And when I say rest, I'm not just talking about taking a break and taking a nap or taking a day off.

I'm talking about rest for your soul.

The starting point is foundation.

Then we build rich community because we're gonna need community in order to do the service that we're called to do.

But more importantly, the only way to truly do that and do it at a sustainable pace is to be yoked to Jesus Christ, which is what is introduced here in Matthew 11, 28 through 30.

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, ESV.

The NIV version says, All who are weary and burdened, come to me so that you can find rest.

He said, I'll give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

Rest for your soul.

Uh many of you have heard this before, and you understand this because you've been around the block a time or two.

But a yoke is a wooden harness, a wooden harness that uh uh that that is attached to the necks of a pair of oxen to bring them under submission to do the work that a farmer has for them to do.

Christ is asking us to hook up to the harness that is attached to him so he can help lighten our load, so to speak.

But the challenge with that is when you hear the idea of coming under submission, I don't know about you, but there's been some times in my life when I can honestly just say, I don't like somebody else telling me how to live.

I don't like uh submitting myself to someone else and someone else telling me what I need to give up or what I need to do.

I'm my own man and I want to live my life.

But what Christ is asking us to do is that if we submit all the areas of our lives that he's calling us to, uh ultimately he will give us a better, more richer experience as we live our daily lives.

Um and there have been times on that that that concept of submission, there have been times when I say, God, you can have my marriage, but uh I'm I'm gonna keep my pocketbook to myself because there's some things I want to do financially before I start giving a little bit more.

There have been some times where I said, you know what, I want to keep these relationships intact.

I want to I want to chase these women here, I want to go have some fun, but you know, I'll I'll I'll give you my time on a Sunday.

Can I be honest with you?

Uh there's been times when I said, you know, God, I'll uh I'll give up this, but you know, I'm just gonna keep this to myself.

And what I come to find out is that living a life without submitting all that he has called me to submit to him is very, very exhausting.

Exhausting.

Not only does this yoke allow the farmer to move them in a direction to do the work that he's called them to do, but just like we prefaced in the elephant story here, uh it allows uh younger oxen to be trained by older oxen, experienced oxen, helping them provide maturation and development.

Hooking to Jesus' yoke enables you to learn how to live.

And when you come to Jesus, he gives you rest in terms of salvation.

But when you accept the yoke of discipleship, live the life that he's called you to live, you will experience rest in your daily life.

That doesn't mean that life is gonna be sunshine, rainbows, and yellow brick roads.

Let's be honest about it.

We're still gonna face hardships.

Uh we're still gonna experience things that are uh uncomfortable.

We're gonna still experience pain on this side of eternity until God's work is finished.

We're gonna experience those things, but God allows us to be yoked to Jesus, which gives us an opportunity to live a richer, more fuller life in the experience.

Won't you know that you can walk through financial hardship and still have peace?

Won't you know you can deal with some health implications and still have the joy of the Lord in your heart?

Won't you know that you can deal with a a son or a daughter who you bump heads with on a consistent basis and you're scared that they've lost their way, and you can still have some peace about it in the process because you know ultimately that Jesus is in control.

Genesis 2.2 says this also, that our minds and bodies are Genesis 2.2 talks about on the seventh day that when God finished his work, he began to rest because he saw that his work was finished and his work was good.

This this sets in motion for us something internally that we already know, that as humans, uh, we don't have the capacity that God does.

And so God invites us to take rest through Sabbath and communion with other people, because if all we do is work, our bodies will tell us when to rest.

All right?

And so through a foundation, through community, through service, through rest, this positions ourselves to move in a direction of following the life of Christ to become more of a comprehensive man, the term that we're going to introduce here in just a minute, but but where we where this all points to here is identity.

Here's the bottom line.

As we point to Christ, ultimately everything falls under identity.

That whatever we fix our eyes on, it will begin to form us.

Someone once told me that uh wherever your focus goes, your energy flows.

And uh who you are becoming in the process is more important than what you're doing because who you're becoming determines how you do what you do.

This is really all about identity.

And when we see ourselves, when we see ourselves yoked with Jesus and we're moving in that direction, it begins to shape our identity.

And as we abide in Him and we endeavor to bear much fruit as uh the Bible calls us to in John, uh it then begins to shape the things that we're looking for, the things that we're doing, the uh the way that we build our families, the way that we show up for work, the way that we engage in our community, uh, the way that we show up in uh um the comment sections on Facebook.

I know I'm talking to somebody in here because some of y'all are crazy, and y'all use Facebook uh to to berate other people because they don't vote like you.

I know how y'all are, you terrible Christians.

I'm not like that, but I know you are, right?

But our identity begins to change when we are yoked to Jesus.

The reason we need to look to Jesus is because the dilemma that we face today can be painted by this picture here of a crown.

Um as you see here, the world tells us that those who have all the power are the ones who are great.

We've been sold a bill of goods, we've been told a lie, that the more power that you have, the more popularity that you have, the more pleasure that you can engage in, the more possessions you can attain, the world says you will be great, and people will remember your name.

But Jesus, when he stepped on the scene, when he stepped on the pages of history, he flipped that idea upside down.

The world often defines masculinity as power, dominance, or status, which is the crown.

But Jesus showed us that true leadership is humble service.

Humble service.

You know, get you some real friends like Aaron Dockery, who'll let you borrow his dusty boots for a presentation at church.

We're gonna find out how many real men we have in here today.

We're gonna take communion out of this boot later.

We're gonna see how humble and lowly you are.

But Jesus, his definition of greatness is service, suffering, saving others.

He washed feet, he bore burdens, he sacrificed his life.

If we are to become the men of God that he is calling us to become, to do the kingdom work that's been assigned to us, our goal should be to follow the example of Jesus, the greatest example of what a man looks like.

By serving our families, our communities, and workplaces with humility and strength.

I'll say that again, humility and strength.

Because sometimes when you unpack these ideas, some men are thinking to themselves, this just sounds a little too soft.

Well, let me tell you, there's nothing soft about praying in a garden and being so distressed that your sweat turns to drops of blood.

There ain't nothing soft about when the enemy comes to tell your folks, stand down because I have work that's left to do.

There ain't nothing soft about packing a wooden cross until your death.

There's nothing soft about giving up your life and crying out to God in a moment of separation where our sins were poured out on him, and still choosing, he prayed, Father, could we let this cup pass?

I don't know if that ever has resonated with anyone, but there's a point in scripture where Jesus says, Hey, hey, big guy, can we work this out any other way?

Is there another way we can accomplish this than having to go through all this?

But yet, and still, he chose through humility and strength to lay his life down.

As we work to close today, I'm gonna paint a picture for you of a definition that an author and someone who I have a tremendous amount of respect for by the name of Jason Wilson.

Jason Wilson has a wonderful online platform that's unbelievably encouraging for people who would choose to connect with him online.

But Jason is not only an author, but he's also a nonprofit director.

And under the umbrella of his nonprofit in inner city Detroit, uh he runs an organization where he helps develop youth, particularly inner city youth uh that have been marred by brokenness in their lives.

A lot of a lot of fatherlessness in these homes.

Um and the beautiful thing about this is that through through the community that he's building, there's an accountability piece to it.

And that accountability brings healing, and that accountability brings godly exhortation, and that accountability builds up the body of Christ, not an accountability that says you need to man up and you need to do your job, you need to get it together.

Uh, an accountability that says, I love you enough, and because we've built relational capital, and because we both agree that this is the standard of the life that we should be living, and that Christ is our ultimate salvation, that we have the ability to call one another to a higher standard.

And that's what Jason ultimately does with this platform.

But I want to read for you his words of what he talks about is a comprehensive man, a man that's far more dynamic than what the world has given us a definition of a man is.

And he's walking through these particular 10 points through a book that he recently released called The Man the Moment Demands, becoming a man that each moment demands, and being able to handle those moments in our day-to-day lives as a man who is following Jesus.

He says this when we talk about what it means to be a comprehensive man, there is no greater example than Christ, because in Christ we find a perfect man and a sinless savior.

That takes me back to one of our songs here at the beginning of service today.

Um I believe who I believe that you are who you say you are.

What a beautiful song.

If we truly believe that Jesus is who he says that he is, guys, that that should change something in us.

That should that should challenge us to make some adjustments.

He says, Jesus was a fighter when he made a whip of cords and courageously drove out the money changers from God's sacred temple.

He was a fighter, he was a provider when he miraculously fed 5,000 hungry people with just two fish and five loaves of bread.

He was a leader when he transformed humble fishermen into fishers of men.

He was a lover when he sacrificed his life for our sin.

See, oftentimes when we hear that term lover, our minds go to a place of promiscuity.

We think about intimacy and romance, physical intimacy and romance.

It says here that the ultimate lover was our example of Christ who sacrificed his life for our sin.

That's that's love.

He was a nurturer when he healed the sick, sought the lost, and cast out demons from the possessed.

He was a gentleman when he listened to the hearts of women, offering them truth without pursuing ulterior motives.

He was a friend when he willingly sacrificed his life for his disciples.

He is the ultimate husband to us, his bride, the church.

He says in scripture that if you have seen me, you've seen the father.

And lastly, he is the son of God and was a son who honored his earthly parents while having the divine authority to choose his own path, but he chose to follow the plan that was set out from the beginning of time.

Men, we often say that I can do all things through Christ, but I encourage you to reflect on this today.

Can he do all things through us if we continue to limit ourselves to a worldly definition of just being a provider and a protector?

Can Christ really do all things through us if we have such a limited view of what manhood really is?

Can he really do all things through us if we only allow ourselves to bring under submission to Him the things that we want to give up?

Can He do all things through us if we just limit ourselves to being a fighter and a provider?

See, the challenge though that we have to understand is that if we're going to pursue this.

Idea of comprehensive manhood and be a man who fixes their eyes on Jesus and chooses to follow him, laying our lives down with humility and strength, then we have to prepare ourselves to be misunderstood.

Bob Goff once said, if you're gonna love people the way that Jesus loved people, you better get ready to be misunderstood.

Amen or amen.

Because Jesus did some things that had people perplexed in the scriptures.

Jesus said, Why are you they said, Why are you hanging out with these folks?

They asked him questions and he answered with another question, forcing them to reflect on their own questions.

If we're gonna follow Jesus and submit our manhood unto him, we've gotta we've got to be prepared that there's gonna be some people that think we're crazy.

You mean to tell me there's gonna come a time when you're gonna shut your phone off, and the only people that have access to you is your husband and kids?

What?

Who does that?

You mean to tell me there's gonna be a time where you sacrifice that round of golf because you see that the church is meeting a need in the community, and instead of playing another round of golf, you're gonna choose to do something otherwise?

What?

You mean to tell me that you're not gonna go hang out with said folks because you've come to the agreement that maybe some of the conversations that they're having really isn't helping put you in a good space?

What?

We're gonna look different.

We gotta be prepared to be misunderstood.

God created us to be tough and tender.

I was watching the NFL honor show a couple of nights ago, which by the way, I was crushed that my man Lamar Jackson didn't win MVP.

And if some of you all don't think that he deserves MVP after one of the most statistical impressive uh years ever as a quarterback, we can we'll scrap outside.

I'll show you what biblical manhood is.

Right?

But one of his teammates, Roquan Smith, who was up for the award of um Man of the Year, Walter Payton Man of the Year, he said this in one of the little blurbs uh throughout the show.

There's a time for aggression, because it's a big burly linebacker who'll knock your head off if you come over the middle.

There's a time for aggression, then he also said this, and a time to be gentle.

God created us to be tough and tender, to be a protector and a nurturer to work and to play, to love and to fight, to labor and to rest.

But above all else, he created us to worship him with every fiber of our being through every facet of our lives.

And when we do that, when we do that, we can be used by him to position other people to also live a life in the freedom of Christ.

We are comprehensive in nature because we were created in his image, and masculinity that's anchored in anything other than Christ simply misses the mark.

In 2004, there was a guy who was who uh was an expert marksman by the name of Matt Matt Emmons, and Matt Emmons was in the 50-meter rifle competition, and Matt was crushing, crushing the competition.

Going into his last shot, he had such a wide margin with his lead that all he had to do was hit the target, and he's got gold.

That's it.

Just hit the target and he wins gold.

Matt lines up the sights, fires the trigger, pop, bullseye.

But it just so happens that Matt didn't win the gold, didn't even win silver or bronze, didn't even place.

Because that shot, that last shot that he fired hit the wrong target.

Hit the wrong target.

Bullseye, but it wasn't fixed on the wrong target.

He got in a hurry, he lost sight.

What are we fixing our eyes on?

And that's where we close down today.

Where we started, where we finished, is that fixing our eyes on Jesus gives us a biblical understanding of what a man is and how to flesh that out in the real world so that other men, especially young men, who may not be Christians, can see the masculinity in Christianity and be encouraged by it.

Let's pray as we close.

Heavenly Father, thank you for your word today.

Thank you for showing up.

Thank you for, as Jesus says, being with us as he promised until the end of the ages.

Uh, thank you for showing us the way.

Jesus, thank you for living a life that we can model so that we can bring glory to our God, so that we can train up a younger generation, so that we can set other people up to live a life that's free in Christ.

Thank you for the the leadership capacity that you've called us to and that you've placed on us.

Um, Lord, we just thank you.

We thank you for all that you've done for us, but better yet, Lord, we thank you for who you are.

Because it's in who you are that's allowed us to get to know you personally through your son Jesus.

And God, I pray that the truth of that will continue to transform hearts at Multiply Church.

I thank you for what Multiply Church is doing in this community of Frankfurt.

Uh, I pray, Lord, that you would blow the doors, blow the doors off the hinges of the movement that you've created in the hearts of this body of believers.

Let the men, let the men in this church flesh out a gospel-centered life that draws other people to the light.

And Lord, we promise to give you the praise every step along the way.

So go with us as we depart from this place.

And uh Lord, continue to set us up to win, to win big for your son Jesus.

It's in his name that we pray.

Amen.