Jesus & Men

Welcome to the Awakening Church podcast.

We pray this message encourages you and provides the hope and light of Jesus Christ.

Thanks for tuning in.

Well, good morning, Awakening Church.

Great to be with you.

You can go ahead and have a scene.

Happy Father's Day to all the dads in the house.

Thanks for joining us.

Um I found this in my office.

I don't know why it's in my office.

I'm not sure where this came from.

Maybe from one of my kids.

I don't know.

But uh I saw this this week and it's been there for a while.

It says this uh dad, you're one of my favorite parents.

Thanks.

Okay.

Thanks.

So thank you.

Okay.

Um, do want to just take a moment.

We want to honor you, dads here, stepdads, granddads, spiritual fathers, father figures in the room.

We're so grateful for you.

Your presence matters.

Your life matters, your faithfulness matters.

And just want to say thank you for showing up and allowing God to work through you.

And I also know Father's Day can be a bit of a mixed bag for some of us.

For some, it brings joy and gratitude, and others grief and absence, disappointment, complication.

Wherever you find yourself today, I'm trusting that God wants to speak to you and meet you.

And I want to just invite our Heavenly Father first to speak to us.

So, Heavenly Father, we thank you first that we get to call you Father.

That you are our perfect Heavenly Father.

Even if we had good dads or not so good dads, you're you're so incredible and kind and loving.

And we rest today in you.

Invite you to speak to us, to meet with us, that we'd hear from your word, and we become more like your son Jesus as a result, in whose name we pray, and everybody said, Amen.

Today we're continuing our series unfollow.

And we said from the beginning of this series, in order to follow Jesus, you have to do some unfollowing.

You have to do some unlearning.

We began in week one, really, Jesus and authority and power.

Last week, Jesus and women.

Today it's Jesus and men or manhood.

Um, and I was looking back as when I became a dad, I realized I had to do some unlearning in the process of being a dad.

I had to unlearn what sleep meant when we had a dad.

It was like, oh, whoa, you don't sleep.

It's different kind of sleep.

Had to unlearn really like that silence is a good thing.

You know, before you had kids, silence is a good thing.

Minute you have toddlers, you hear silence, um, you're like, what's going on?

Something is being destroyed, and I don't know about it.

And I also unlearned uh what love really was.

Um I remember when we had our first, like there was this explosion inside of my heart, a capacity to love, like a whole chamber in my heart opened up that I had no idea existed, and just gave like this little fractional glimpse to understanding how our Heavenly Father thinks and feels about us.

And then I was nervous.

I was nervous because um when we had our second, I was like, how could I love this being the same way I love this being?

I'm like, what?

I'm gonna just have like a favorite kid, and I'm like, oh no, I don't want to do that.

And I learned that love doesn't diminish or get divided, it expands.

And the capacity of love is bottomless.

And in the same way, we have to do some unlearning in following Jesus.

Uh, and today we're going to invite Jesus to reshape us, stretch us, confront some of the assumptions that we're carrying, and especially as men.

And so we want to begin simply with this question: what kind of man is our world forming?

The truth is, all of us are being formed by something.

It's not whether you're being formed, it's who or what is forming me.

Culture is forming us, algorithms are forming us, success is forming us, sports are forming us, porn is forming us, work is forming us, wounds are forming us, our father's presence or absence are forming us.

Our world is constantly teaching men what to value, what to chase, what to hide, what to prove, and what to call strengths.

And if we're not careful, we can become men who know how to be successful but not how to love, how to perform but not how to be present, how to win professionally and yet lose relationally.

And so, how does following Jesus reshape manhood?

And more specifically, what happens?

What happens when the crucified Jesus becomes Lord, not only of your beliefs, but of your masculinity, of your marriage, and of your home?

To answer that question, uh, we're gonna go to uh a passage that's really often just a marriage passage.

It's one that I do at weddings.

But in our day today, it's often found a bit controversial, so it's gonna be a lot of fun.

Um, and it's the Apostle Paul speaking, and and it generally is one of the more misunderstood, misapplied, uh, and sometimes misused or even abused within the church.

So the title today is Jesus in Manhood.

Would you say that with me?

Jesus and Manhood.

And right from the outset, I just want to give you the unfollow, and then we'll dive in and unpack it.

Uh the unfollow, what we need to unfollow for us men, but this is for all of us, but unfollow a me-centered manhood.

If we're asking what kind of man is culture forming, it's a me-centered man.

Life is all about me, all for me, about my success, my dreams, my pleasure, my image, my freedom.

Culture says live your best life.

Technology says curate your best images.

Image.

Look, Maxine says optimize yourself until everyone notices.

Success says, don't let anyone get in the way of your dreams.

Porn says people exist for your gratification.

Consumerism says you are the center of everything, and everything exists to serve you.

It's self-fulfillment theology, which ultimately creates deep emptiness, shallowness, fragility, a lack of significance, and meaning because a life curved inward on itself always becomes smaller.

Unfollow a me-centered manhood and follow Jesus into self-giving manhood.

Jesus offers a better way, self-giving rather than self-serving.

Jesus is the ultimate meaning of what it looks like to be human.

And so I just want to give you three things of what does this look like to follow Jesus into self-giving manhood, self-giving discipleship if you're a woman in the room, because this is actually for all of us, but I'm going to speak more directly to us men today.

The first thing that this means is embrace spirit-filled mutual submission.

Say mutual submission with me.

Embrace spirit-filled mutual submission.

Ephesians 5, verse 21.

Ephesians 5:21

If you got your Bibles, you can open up there.

Ephesians 5, verse 21 says this.

Ephesians 5:21

Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Submit.

Honor.

Prefer one another.

Why?

Because they deserve it?

Because they earned it?

Because they're awesome?

No.

Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Now you'll notice what I said was embrace spirit-filled mutual submission.

And here's the reason why.

You're like, Brian, there's no like spirit in this verse at all.

This actually begins in Ephesians 5, verse 18.

Ephesians 5:18

What this looks like, this word submit, oh, go just real quick, go back real quick.

There we go.

Thank you.

Sorry, that was all my fault.

I got ahead of you.

This verse, uh, word submit here, it doesn't it look like a command?

It's like submit.

It's actually for you uh English major, it's actually a participle uh in the Greek here.

The command is all the way back in Ephesians 5, 18, where it says, and do not get drunk with wine, which leads to debauchery.

Uh don't allow yourself to be under the influence and under the control of a foreign spirit, if you will.

Instead, be filled, be controlled, be under the influence of the Holy Spirit.

That is the command.

Be filled with the Holy Spirit.

And then he gives us five participles, five expressions of what filling of the Holy Spirit looks like in our life.

Now we're ready to go to the next slide.

Thank you.

Be filled with the Holy Spirit.

And when you're filled with the Holy Spirit, you're speaking to one another's in psalm, hymns, and spiritual songs.

Like the filling of the Spirit changes the way you talk to one another.

Singing and making a melody in our hearts, like there's just a song in your heart when you're filled with the Spirit of God.

Giving thanks.

When you're grumbling, when you're griping, it is not a filling of the Holy Spirit.

You cannot grumble and gripe filled with the Holy Spirit.

You're giving thanks.

And then submitting to one another.

A spirit-filled mutual submission.

Well, what does mutual submission mean?

What does this word submit look like?

First, the approach.

It is a love marked by giving, not getting.

It is a love marked by my aim is to give to you rather than get from you.

Have you ever had someone do something nice for you, and at first you thought it was very kind and felt like love, but then you realized they just wanted something from you?

Yeah.

Did that feel loving?

No, it felt like you're being used.

I remember when we were first married, uh, Jenny and I, we've been married almost 24 years now, and somebody told me uh that the sexiest thing a man can do is do the dishes, you know.

And I was like, all right, I'll do the dishes, you know.

So I get there, I'm doing the dishes, and she doesn't even notice.

So I do them again.

I was like, all right, I'm gonna do the dishes, and I'm like, hey, Jenny, I'm doing the dishes.

She's like, great, you know.

I'm doing the dishes.

Now I'm starting to get bitter because I'm doing the dishes, so that she noticed that she's going, like, ooh, look at you.

All right.

I was wanting her attention and her affection and response from it, not because I just was trying to be loving.

And honestly, I probably just should have been doing the dishes, anyways.

That's just like what I should be doing.

First and foremost, mutual submission is a love marked by giving, not getting.

So much of the way we love is focused and flipped inward and trying to get.

Secondly, it's the objective is to bring out the best in the other person.

Mutual submission asks this.

How can I bring out the best in you?

I'm looking at you.

How can I bring out the very best?

How can I leverage what I have, my time, my resources, my abilities, and bring out the very best in you?

And the motivation isn't because they deserve it, isn't because they earned it, isn't because they're awesome.

The motivation is out of honor for Jesus.

Submit to one another out of reverence.

See, Jesus, you are my Lord and Savior.

You gave everything to me, and so you have everything of me.

And whatever you ask of me, you have my yes before you even ask anything.

It's yes.

And out of reverence for you and out of my relationship for you, I'm gonna treat that person, those people, the way you've asked me and called me.

It's powerful.

In fact, I uh when I do marriage counseling, I call this the most powerful relationship principle on the planet.

It's not a tit for tat thing, keeping track thing.

And this isn't a marriage thing.

Paul's talking to the church.

By the way, mutual submission is the very way of Jesus, and it is the call upon every follower of Jesus.

Let me give you just a few verses, and I had to cut a lot of them down.

So this is just a few.

This is just a handful.

Mutual submission is the way of Jesus.

First, Jesus said in Matthew, and it's all over in the Gospels, you can read more.

Deny yourself, take up your cross, follow me.

Um Philippians 2, 3 through 8 says, value others, treat others above yourself.

Romans 12, 10 says, um, honor one another above yourselves.

Uh Galatians 5.13 says, serve one another humbly.

Ephesians 4, 2 says, bearing with one another in love.

Ephesians 4, 32, be kind and compassionate to one another, and we could keep going on like this is our posture towards one another, who are brothers and sisters in the family of God, of how we are to respond and to treat each other.

So, before submission was a marriage word, it is a discipleship word.

We're gonna get to that in a second.

But before submission is a marriage word, it is a discipleship word.

First, embrace a spirit-filled mutual submission.

Secondly, honor women as disciples under Jesus.

I just want to start with just honor women.

Let's just start there for a second, men.

We are losing chivalry and honor in our age.

Men, honor women in how we talk, in what you look at, honor women by the kind of music you listen to, honor women in the way you date, in the way that you speak about your wife, your mom, your daughter, your coworker, your sister in Christ.

Do not objectify women, do not reduce women, do not consume them, do not use women to validate your insecurity, satisfy your lust, or inflate your ego.

Amen by myself.

Let's get going, church.

Honor them, because every single woman is made in the image of God.

Now, what the Apostle Paul writes now has been ripped out of context and misused, but what he does is actually revolutionary.

I'm gonna show you.

This is really fun.

He says, wives submit to your husbands as to the Lord.

And you're like, Ryan, where in the world did you get this honoring thing from that verse?

Here's what's really cool.

So you see, I highlighted the word submit there.

In the Greek, uh, the way it's written, so think about this this whole flow, like we don't have the break of verses and chapters like we do in ours.

In the Greek, it's written, it starts with be filled with the Holy Spirit.

That's the only command, right?

This word submit isn't a command, and then he's following this line of thought.

This word submit isn't in the Greek here, actually, it's wives to your husbands as to the Lord.

Now, what Paul is doing, and this is really common uh in Greek, is he's allowing the verb in verse 21 to also be the verb in verse 22.

And in so doing, it's intricately connected.

So what he's saying is the this type of submission, this is what all believers are called to, and this is actually wives, what just means to follow Jesus.

And he does something so powerfully here.

He actually addresses wives.

This is incredible.

Um, in the ancient day, when he's writing, he begins to talk about what mutual submission look like in the context uh in the Greco-Roman world, they had what they called household codes.

Now, uh in the Greco-Roman world, Aristotle and others, they wrote up these codes of conduct, and it was to inform the men, the male heads of house, of how to govern and rule their household.

Ancient instructions for ordering the oikas, or the household, uh, the household was seen as the foundation of society.

Ordered households produce ordered cities, while disordered households threaten uh social stability.

Household codes primarily instruct the male head of households in how to govern those under his authority, wives, children, and slaves.

And Paul does something so powerful here.

He takes the familiar household codes and subverts it from the inside.

In the household code, women and wives were talked about.

Men were told how to govern them.

Rarely were they addressed.

Now notice what the apostle Paul does.

First thing he does, he is addresses wives.

This is incredibly honoring.

The man or the head of the house was addressed and told how to govern, but in Ephesians, Paul does something revolutionary.

He directly addresses wives, not as extensions of their husbands, not merely as people to be managed by the man of the house or background character.

Paul addresses wives as moral agents before the Lord.

Paul addresses wives as disciples under Jesus.

He says, So when Paul speaks to wives, he's not placing women under men or lesser beings, he's addressing wives as disciples, which means, husbands, this verse is not yours to weaponize.

Submission, by the way, does not mean silence, losing your voice, tolerating abuse, pretending you do not matter.

Submitting in the way of Jesus is a decision to use your life for the good of another.

It's called discipleship.

So men refuse to weaponize Scripture.

This is not a weapon placed in the hands of husbands, it's a spirit-filled posture placed before a wife.

Her response to Jesus, a voluntary act of discipleship before the Lord.

It's hers to offer.

Unfollow a me-centered view of manhood and follow the self-giving way of Jesus.

First, embrace spirit-filled mutual submission, honor women as disciples under Jesus, and finally follow the crucified Christ, not Caesar.

He goes on to say, For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the church, his body, which he is savior.

Now, as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to the husband in everything.

And there's been lots of conversations like, what in the world does headship mean?

And the amazing part is Paul actually answers that question.

See, Paul is speaking to a structure where the head of the household was already clear and defined who had the power.

It was the man of the house.

And so headship, according to Paul, is not being in charge who gets to make the decisions, who wears the pants in the relationship.

That is the way of Caesar.

That's Rome.

In Rome, whoever was strongest got to make the rules.

Might made right, power, control, dominance.

And Paul's extremely clear.

Follow the crucified Christ.

Headship means leading the way by laying down your life for your wife.

Headship is not getting the right to get your way, it's the responsibility to give your life away.

I believe the calling of headship of every man is I am called to lay down my life for my wife.

I love doing this at weddings, by the way, because I start with mutual submissions.

You should come to them.

They're fun weddings that I do.

They're great.

We actually do this passage.

And I show them in the Bible, it was like, okay, you see the mutual submission verse right there, and then you see this.

Section on wives and see how big that is.

And then do you notice like the men's section?

Oh, it continues over here.

Like Paul's wording to men and calling on them is three times longer or more than it is to women.

Notice what he says.

Because Paul is not baptizing male power, he's actually crucifying it.

Husbands, love your wives.

That's an imperative.

That's a command.

First command: be filled with the Holy Spirit.

Because you cannot do this.

You cannot live this out.

You cannot apply this without the power of the Holy Spirit.

You cannot do this in your own strength.

This self-giving, sacrificial way of life for every single one of us.

Ourself pulls us down.

And what we need is the filling of the Holy Spirit to enable us to love in a way we're not able to love, to love the way Jesus loved us, be filled with the Holy Spirit, and then love the way Jesus loved.

Those are the two commands in the text right here.

Husband, love your wife just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word and to present her to himself as a radiant church without stain or wrinkle or any blemish, but holy and blameless.

In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own body.

He who loves his wife loves himself.

After all, no one ever hated their own body, but fed and cared for their body just as Christ does the church.

The command to love is not a feeling.

It's a laying down of our life daily.

Twin and a half years of marriage in of like, Jesus, your call on me and my discipleship is like to be the first to forgive, to be the first to lay down my life, to be the first to sacrifice.

And if I'm honest, there's things where I just go like I don't want to.

And there's times where I want to get back.

Moments where I just want to hold out.

I just want to wait until she comes and there's like this icky, gross part of me that's like that's like Jesus, would you form me?

Would you change me?

Would you shape me?

Because like I'm still putting me first.

And you've called me to die first.

When my wife and I were first married, uh, you know, you get these guest books.

Uh, we had our guest book, and it was actually a picture uh uh on a frame, and people signed the mat.

And um remember this line.

And it's been the line that we've written or I've written in many other guest books because it's one of the best marriage advice that I've ever received.

And it just was four little words compete to be selfless.

Compete to be selfless.

That's mutual submission, by the way.

Compete to be selfless for Christ's sake, because it's all about him, it's all because him and it's all for him.

I'm gonna compete to be selfless.

When we were first married, I thought I kind of figured it out, like, oh, we we we understand it.

And then I got married.

That's weird, right?

Talk about unlearning.

Like, by the way, premarital counseling is awesome.

Everyone should do it.

Um, postmarital counseling is even more helpful.

Um premarital counseling is awesome.

I mean, then you realize you didn't know what you're thinking, and then post-marital, you're like, that's what they were talking about.

Oh first year of our marriage, marriage acts like this x-ray machine.

And you know what it revealed in my heart was just how selfish I am.

How much I want my way, how much I don't really want to give in.

And then we had kids.

And then if marriage is like an x-ray machine, kids are like an MRI machine.

And it just reveals the depth even more of my own selfishness.

Because kids, they don't even care, they just cry and they whine and they want your time and they don't apologize for it.

And you're like, I have to give you all this, and you're just crying.

Yeah.

Compete to be selfless, not compete to win an argument, not compete to get your way, not to compete compete to be noticed, or to prove how much you do.

Compete to be to go first in love, to apologize first, to serve first, to forgive first, to listen first, to bless first, to lay down your life first.

That is your calling, man.

And then the apostle Paul closes it out.

Says, for this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and unite into his wife, and the two will become one flesh.

This is a profound mystery, but I'm talking about Christ in the church.

He's just getting caught up in like the gospel, because that's where we have to get to.

Because this is like, without the gospel and without the Holy Spirit, this is impossible.

Marriage, the Apostle Paul's saying, is meant to become a living signpost of the gospel.

It's interesting.

Sometimes in the church, marriage in our day had been idolized, it's been lifted too high, and singleness had been demoted.

And I think we've done a good job.

The Apostle Paul was single, and singleness is like, man, you're not incomplete if you're single.

Um, and then what we've unintentionally done is we've kind of demoted marriage to, and it's like, no, there, Jesus is working both beautifully.

Marriage is meant to become a signpost.

A signpost is not the destination, it points beyond itself.

It's not displaying a perfect marriage, it's about pointing to the faithfulness of Jesus.

A love that moves first, a love that gives first, a love that sacrifices first, a love that forgives and stays faithful, lays down this life for the good of your beloved.

Oh, what a picture to a watching world.

Where an apology becomes a signpost, forgiveness becomes a signpost, choosing presence over escape, laying down your preferences.

Daily we need to remind ourselves of the gospel.

To be this kind of church of mutual submission where we actually treat one another, laying down our life for the good of the other and in our most significant relationships.

Remind ourselves that grace is what got us in, and grace is what sees us through.

His undeserved, unmerited favor.

Grace is the invitation in, his favor on your life, saying, You have a brand new identity, completely forgiven.

You are adopted, daughter-son of the King Most High, and now you are learning to live out that new reality of my grace completed by the finished work of Jesus on the cross, that death no longer has its thing, but you have life dwelling in you through the power of the Holy Spirit.

And so as a result, today I remind myself of the gospel.

I remind myself that what got me in is his grace, and his grace is sufficient for me, and his grace is sufficient for my marriage, and his grace is sufficient for every single thing that I step into.

And what I need, and what you need, all we need is that fresh filling of the Spirit.

Be filled with the Spirit.

It's impossible.

It's not hard.

What we're just talking about, it's not hard, it's impossible on your own.

See, the moment you say yes to Jesus, you are what the scripture says, baptized by the Holy Spirit.

This very Spirit of God comes and lives and dwells inside of you.

The same power that raised Christ from the dead lives inside of you.

You transfer from death to life.

That's called regeneration, and now you're learning to live out that new life.

And being filled, we are commanded to then allow our lives to be yielded to the Holy Spirit's work in our life.

And the truth is, if we're really honest, if I'm really honest, man, okay, I'm more filled with anger than I am with the Spirit.

And so then there's the prayer, Holy Spirit, fill me afresh right now.

I'm more filled with jealousy than I am with the Spirit.

Holy Spirit, would you fill me afresh?

I'm more filled with the hurt and the wounds that just have littered my past or my present.

Holy Spirit, fill me afresh.

I yield my will.

I'm more filled with lust.

I'm more filled with just wanting to get my way and selfishness and pride.

Holy Spirit, fill me.

Holy Spirit, fill me.

What the church needs, what we need, what America needs, what your marriage needs, what your singleness needs, what your womanhood and your manhood needs is a fresh filling of the Holy Spirit.

Holy Spirit, fill me afresh.

Holy Spirit, fill me afresh.

Holy Spirit, fill me afresh.

Would you fill me afresh right now?

Right now, would you just make it your prayer?

Right now, would you just go like what are the things that that are filling you right now?

I'm filled with distractions, I'm filled with anxiety, I'm filled with depression, I'm filled with hopelessness, I'm filled with Holy Spirit, fill me afresh.

I need a fresh work of you.

I need a fresh work of you.

I need a daily work.

I need a minutely work of you right now.

I've been trying to live in my power and my strength.

Holy Spirit, fill me afresh.

I yield, I surrender.

My pride, my time, my hurt, my hopes.

I can't.

But you can.

You're living inside of me.

I yield to your power, your strength, your comfort, your direction, your wisdom.

Holy Spirit.

Fill me afresh.

I'm gonna continue in worship, and I'm gonna invite you to the table of communion to remember his gospel grace.

And I just want you to continue that posture invitation.

Holy Spirit, fill me afresh.

Where do you need the fresh work of the Holy Spirit in your life?

What's dead that He needs to bring back to life?

What's dead that He needs to cut out?

Holy Spirit, fill me afresh.

We hope you are blessed by this message.

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