Defining a Man | Stand Firm in Faith

So I was listening to an interview with a former Navy SEAL, and he was talking about some of the training that they do, and I don't think Intense gives a good enough description of what these guys do.

Some of the training, just nuts.

He said one of the evolutions they've got to complete in training is the 50-meter underwater swim.

So you gotta swim the length of an Olympic-sized pool underwater.

You cannot break the surface, and if you break the surface, then you fail.

Now they swim the width of the pool.

So 25 meters down, touch the wall, and back.

But here's the catch.

Nobody gets to dive in and get a good head start.

Instead, you jump in, do a flip underwater, and then you can go and you're not allowed to push off the wall.

Pretty intense.

Now, obviously, plenty of guys pass this, but then there's plenty who don't.

Some quit before they get to the finish, they just give up.

And then there are other guys that literally black out underwater and have to be pulled out because they refuse to quit.

Pretty intense.

This guy said that when his class was doing this, when it was each group's turn to go and they jump in the water, the rest of the class would stand on the side of the pool and yell, Go for the blackout! Go for the blackout.

They were encouraging each other to have a mentality of just, you know what, stand firm and accept the fact that you might blackout.

And as crazy as that sounds, this guy said, having that mentality, hey, I'm gonna stand firm, I'm not gonna quit.

That helped him not quit and finish the evolution.

He said that blacking out was better than backing down.

And there's something to that.

So 1 Corinthians 16, 13, the four different parts of it.

Act like men, be watchful, be strong.

Those three things work together.

And as a man, you have to have those three if you're gonna do the last piece, which is to stand firm in the faith.

Now, there's all kinds of faiths in the world.

There's so many different faiths.

Hinduism, Buddhism, Mormonism, Islam, atheism is also a faith.

So many different faiths.

So why does it say the faith singular?

Because there's only one true faith in the world.

To be very clear, that's Christianity.

Our faith is the God of the Bible is the creator of the universe.

And he created mankind in his image.

We were created, we were meant to have relationship with him, but we rejected that.

We rebelled against God, and that's what we call sin.

And because of sin, the world's been completely broken.

Sickness, natural disasters, all the turmoil you see out there, that's all a result of sin.

And there's nothing we can do to repair the world, we can't redeem it.

There's actually nothing you and I can do to reconcile our relationship with God.

That's the bad news.

But here's the great news God had his own plan for redemption.

He sent his son Jesus to live the life that you and I were meant to live and then die for us, which is exactly what he did.

And then three days later, after the crucifixion, after paying for our sin, he rose from the dead.

Now there's grace and forgiveness and redemption.

There's eternal life for anybody who puts their faith and trust in Jesus.

But faith in Jesus is not for the sole purpose of one day I get to spend eternity in paradise.

Like one day I get to go to heaven, I get to be in the new heaven, the new earth.

That's just the cherry on top.

You've also been given a purpose right now, which is to bring the kingdom of heaven to earth, to continue the mission that Jesus started, to make disciples, to become more like Jesus yourself.

Now we have so much hope that God is going to continue to make good on his promises, because he always has.

And one day Jesus is going to come back.

When he does come back, he's making everything new.

There's finally going to be justice for all the wrongs and the evil in the world.

There's going to be no more sickness or pain or death or abuse or evil, no more sin.

Our faith is that Jesus came, he lived, he died, he rose from the dead, and our faith is also he will come back and make all things new.

That's our faith.

So as men, why is it important for us to stand firm on that?

There's a story in Daniel chapter 3 about three men who did stand firm.

Daniel 3 · chapter mention

Pretty incredible story.

And if you have any kind of church background at all, it's very easy to think, oh, the book of Daniel, that's just for kids' ministry.

Oh, yeah, I remember that the lions didn't think that's really cute.

Can we just we can move on?

Can we go to something deeper?

It's very easy to have that perspective, but that perspective is a massive miss.

The book of Daniel is not for kids and it's not for coloring books.

It's actually a great example of showing how powerful the God of the universe is, and it's also a model for men.

Here's a little bit of context.

Jerusalem had been completely destroyed by the Babylonians, burned to the ground.

And everybody who was not killed, almost everybody who was not killed, was taken as a captive back to Babylon.

I don't think I've ever seen that part in a coloring book.

That would be really interesting.

Now God's people find themselves living in a culture that is hostile and very antagonistic towards God and His Word.

And if they want to continue to follow God, if they want to be faithful to him, well, now they're going to face opposition daily from this culture that they now find themselves living in.

Does that sound familiar at all?

Because it should.

They are faced with a question every single day: do I stay faithful or do I fold?

That was the daily question in Daniel 3.

And as a Christian, that's the same question you're going to face every single day.

Do I stay faithful or do I fold?

Now here's what was going on.

Nebuchadnezzar was king of Babylon, and he builds this gold statue that was 90 feet high.

Huge.

And we don't know exactly what it was, but it was probably his patron God.

He builds the statue, he sets it up in the middle of Babylon, and then he makes a law.

Here's the law.

And the herald proclaimed aloud, You are commanded, O people, nations, and languages, that when you hear the sound, different instruments, when you hear the sound of the horn, the pipe, the lyre, the trigon, the harp, the bagpipe, and every kind of music, when you hear it, you are to fall down and worship the golden image that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up.

And whoever does not fall down and worship shall immediately be cast into a burning fiery furnace.

So as soon as everybody heard the music, verse 7, all the peoples, nations, and languages, they fell down and worshiped the golden image that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up.

Fall down or stand up.

And as a man, this is a decision that you are going to face every single day.

Do I fall down or do I stand up?

It says fall down and worship six different times just in chapter three.

That's a lot.

Why the emphasis?

Why was there such an emphasis then?

And why is there still such an emphasis right now for men to fall down?

I'll tell you why.

Because the world wants you to fall down.

Like the world wants men to fall down and compromise their role, compromise their relationship with the Lord.

The world wants men to compromise truth.

The world wants men to fall down and worship whatever it says to, because here's the truth.

When men fall down, things fall apart.

When men fall down, women are taken advantage of.

When men fall down, kids suffer.

When men fall down, societies fall apart, and so do churches.

People are not safe if men are sitting.

Now, let's be real.

It's very easy for a man to say, not me.

No.

No man, I'm gonna stand up.

I'm the kind of guy that's gonna stand.

I'm not gonna fall down and worship something you tell me to.

I'm never gonna fold.

I'm not gonna cave.

That's not gonna happen.

Okay, maybe.

But there's two things you gotta know.

First, let me say this.

It's really hard to stand in the big moments if you fall down in the little ones.

Little moments like cutting corners.

Maybe at work or on a project or on something that you said you were gonna do, on your taxes, cutting corners on something that seems small and insignificant, that will go completely unnoticed.

That's falling down in the little moments.

And the truth is, you're not really cutting a corner, you're cutting your integrity.

And you're gonna need integrity if you want to stand up in the big moments, like every man says that they want to.

Or what about anger?

Here's another easy place to fall down in a little moment.

In public, are you pretty chill?

But then when you're in private, you lose it pretty easily.

Maybe with your wife and kids, you lose your temper easily.

Maybe in the car, this is a spot where I gotta watch myself, especially when people are just camped out in the left lane.

And I know I make a joke about that a lot.

It's because I'm right, but still.

Thank you.

But really, is that a spot to lose my cool?

If I lose my temper in the car because I don't like how somebody else is driving, that's pretty pathetic on my part.

That's a little moment.

Or are you just are you just flat out selfish?

Like you lose your temper when things don't go your way or you don't get what you want.

Now here's the truth selfishness and anger, they're cousins.

There's a great chance that when one is present, so is the other.

Now, anger's a real emotion, we all have to deal with it.

But man, if I just lose my cool whenever, that's falling down into little moments, and it's probably because I'm worshiping me.

Or one more, here's another little moment.

What about what you look at when nobody else is around?

I'm gonna keep pointing out pornography because it's destroying men today.

And I'm not trying to shame you if this is something you're fighting against, not trying to shame you at all.

I'm not trying to convict you.

My job is not to convict you.

I can't, the Holy Spirit can.

But I'm gonna call this out because it has devastating effects.

Unfortunately, it is uncommon today for a man not to look at pornography.

In 2026, 78% of men say that they view pornography, but 44% of women also say they view pornography.

It's a serious problem.

I believe this is one of, if not the biggest, spiritual attack on men in Western culture.

It's definitely something the world wants men to fall down on because of how devastating it is.

It hurts individuals, marriages, wives, kids, societies.

Like remember, when men fall down, things fall apart.

Well, if you're falling down to pornography in those little moments when nobody's watching, you know what falls apart?

Trust.

Trust falls apart.

Marriages fall apart.

Real intimacy.

God designed real intimacy to happen between a man and a wife and something that we're meant to enjoy.

But man, if we fall down in these little moments, that real intimacy falls apart.

Also, human trafficking.

There is a direct connection between lust and pornography and trafficking.

The more there's a demand for porn, well, supply and demand, you have to increase the supply.

And this is not me just making a statement.

Data supports this.

Human trafficking goes up because of pornography immensely.

Man, those are just a couple examples, just to get you to think.

It could be something totally different for you.

The point is, every man likes to think that he would stand up in the big moments.

I sure hope I do.

I've seen all the movies.

I want to be William Wallace.

I want to be Maximus for sure.

I've seen the movies.

I want to be Leonidas with the 300.

Everybody wants to stand in the big moments, but it's really hard to stand in the big moments if you fall down in the little ones, guys.

So right now for you, is there is there something you just keep falling to?

You gotta know.

Because this is the second part.

It's also really hard to stand if you don't know what you're falling down to.

What the world will tell you to worship, the pressure you will be under as a man, what your friends will encourage you to fall down to.

It will almost never be as obvious as a 90-foot gold statue.

It will be much more subtle than that, even to the point where you don't realize that you've already fallen down to it.

Here's what I mean: worshiping this gold statue, this was a pledge of allegiance to that patron god Antonebuchadnezzar, but it was also a commitment to the Babylonian government.

Now, this this was much different than saying the Pledge of Allegiance in third grade.

This was a requirement to worship the Babylonian government.

And if we're being honest, it's very easy for us to worship the government today, too, without even realizing it.

Worshiping the government can look like praise and belief that a particular party or system or leader is the savior.

But then worshiping the government can be the exact opposite, too.

It could be flat out hatred for a particular party or system or leader.

Like I don't care what side of the aisle you're on, it is so easy for our attention and our passion to be attached to what's going on politically.

If your thoughts, emotions, anxiety, hope, if if those things are controlled and attached to what goes on politically, that's worship.

So let me just get up in your business for a second, alright?

Are you as passionate about what goes on in the kingdom of heaven as you are about what goes on in Washington?

Sometimes we don't need a fiery furnace to fall down, we just do it willingly.

We do it because the news tells us to.

Or because the algorithm tells us to.

Now, should we care about what goes on in the government?

Absolutely.

Should Christians be involved in politics?

Of course.

Should we worship politics?

Absolutely not.

And there's three men in Daniel chapter 3 that refuse to do that.

Daniel 3 · chapter mention

So as a man, what are you really worshiping?

I mean, you can lie to me, that's fine.

You can lie to yourself.

All that's gonna do is cause you to fall.

And when you as a man fall down, the people around you, the people that depend on you, they'll fall apart.

So what are you falling down to worship right now?

Let me give you a couple things to think about.

Easy stuff, like success.

Success is a great thing.

Everybody wants to be successful.

I want to be successful.

But do you think you're gonna find meaning in success?

Wherever you think you find meaning, that's gonna be what you worship.

Again, great thing.

I enjoy comfort myself.

Horrible God to worship.

Or what about approval?

Do you think your value as a man is attached to how other people view you and how valuable other people think you are?

And if they're influential people and they think you're valuable, must mean all the more, right?

So now you're chasing after what people think about you.

That's a self-inflicted prison.

Galatians 1:10 says, Am I still seeking the approval of man or of God?

Galatians 1:10

Am I still trying to please man?

Am I trying to please other people?

If I'm still trying to please other people, then I cannot be a servant of Christ.

That's just another way of saying falling down and worshiping the statue that was set up.

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

Here's what that means: it means a man unapologetically worships King Jesus with passion and uncompromised dedication, no matter what it cost him.

That's what it means to be a man.

And deep down, that's what you and I want.

You want to be that guy, so do why?

And let's just say you do stand up, you don't fall, you don't compromise, you don't conform.

Don't think that's gonna mean rainbows and butterflies from here on out.

It's not.

Faith in Jesus will bring fights, inevitably.

Man, Satan, Satan would love for you to fall.

Satan wants to throw everything he can at you, but Satan knows that he cannot defeat you.

Because the truth is, your victory has already been locked up in Jesus if your faith is in Christ.

That's what happened at the cross and the resurrection.

Satan knows he can't defeat you because of that.

All he can do is try to get you to beat yourself.

And the way he's gonna do that, he's gonna try to get you to stop being faithful.

That's all he can do.

Every spiritual attack, every temptation he will throw at you, it will all come down to can I stop making him, can I stop that man from being faithful?

That's why 1 Corinthians says, stand firm.

We need you to stand firm.

There's a group of people they they take off and they go to Nebuchadnezzar.

Here's what they say to him: they say, Long live the king.

You issued a decree requiring all the people to bow down and worship the gold statue.

We just want to remind you, the decree also states that those who refuse to obey, they must be thrown into a blazing furnace.

It just so happens that there are some Jews, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, whom you put in charge of the province of Babylon.

Well, they pay no attention to you.

They refuse to serve your gods, and they do not worship the gold statue you have set up.

Nebuchadnezzar hears this and he just loses his mind.

He goes into an absolute rage.

And not a great idea to enrage the most powerful man on the planet, a man that had earned a reputation for being ruthless.

So Nebuchadnezzar has these three guys, he has them brought in front of him, and he demands that they fall down and worship right now.

He says, Bow or burn, you choose.

He thinks he's being merciful because he's given them a second chance.

He even tries to get him to see it from his perspective.

He says, But if you do not worship, you shall fall immediately and be cast into the burning fiery furnace.

And who is the God who will deliver you out of my hands?

Nebuchadnezzar has no idea how arrogant that is.

And he has no idea who he just challenged.

Like I gotta think that when Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego they heard that, they thought, the God who destroyed Pharaoh in Egypt, that's who.

The God who parted the Red Sea.

Bro, have you ever seen that happen before?

No, you haven't.

He parted the Red Sea and then he walked, let his people walk through it on dry ground.

The God who tore down the walls of Jericho, the city they said couldn't be conquered, that's who?

The God who was with the teenage shepherd when he killed Goliath, that's the God whose hands were in.

Guys, remember this.

When you face the furnace, remember what God has done in the past.

Because when you remember his power in the past, that's gonna help you trust his power in the present.

So Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, they hear what he's saying, and then they answer him, maybe with the best line in the entire Bible.

They said, Oh Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you.

Like if we're thrown into the blazing furnace, the God who we serve is able to save us.

He will rescue us from your power, your majesty.

Here's the line.

But even if he doesn't, like we want to make it clear to you, Your Majesty, even if he doesn't, we will never serve your gods or worship the gold statue you have set up.

Mic drop.

How awesome is that?

Our God can save us, but even if he doesn't, throw us in the fire.

We don't care.

We're not bowing down, we're not worshiping other gods, we're not gonna disobey him.

That's also foreshadowing.

You know who that sounds like, don't you?

Father, you can take this cup from me, but even if that's not your will, I'll still go to the cross.

These guys are foreshadowing Jesus.

God the Father could have saved Jesus from the cross, but he didn't, so that Jesus could save you.

Men, that's the example we imitate if we want to be men who stand.

We imitate Jesus.

My God can save me from losing my job because I won't cut corners, but even if he doesn't.

My God can save me from being mocked because of my faith, but even if he doesn't.

My God can save me from any kind of persecution you can throw at me, but even if he doesn't.

Be a man who says, but even if he doesn't.

Actually, more importantly, live a life that says, but even if he doesn't.

That's what it looks like to be a man who stands firm in the faith.

So Nebuchadnezzar hears this and he's just, he can't believe they would do this.

That somebody would reject him like this.

So he loses his mind again.

He has them tied up and he throws them in the furnace.

I told him.

I said, bow or burn.

I let him choose.

I'm merciful.

They chose being burned.

He thinks it's over.

So he looks in the furnace.

He goes, Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold up, hold up.

Didn't we throw three dudes in there?

Well, now there's four in the fire, and they're walking around, and the fourth looks like a son of the gods.

There's many scholars that believe, and I line up with this too.

I think they're right.

There's many scholars that believe that fourth man in the furnace was Jesus himself.

Walking around.

So Nebuchadnezzar is blown away by this.

He calls them, he says, Hey guys, come out of the fire.

And they do, they just walk out of the flames.

Untied, clothes aren't burned, they don't even smell like smoke.

The only thing that burned up in the fire, the ropes that they were tied up with.

What man tried to tie them up with.

Nebuchadnezzar on the spot says, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, your God is the one true God.

The most powerful, wicked.

King on the planet in that moment acknowledge the God of the universe, the God of the Bible, our God.

And then he promotes these three guys to positions of higher influence in Babylon.

Again, the world superpower.

They just got more influence way up there.

But right before he throws them in the furnace, he asks them, Are you guys ready?

That's a very important question.

Men.

You have to be ready to stand firm.

Not just hope that it happens when the moment comes.

So as a man, you get ready by being planted.

Psalm 92 says this.

The righteous flourish like the palm tree, and they grow like a cedar of Lebanon.

They are, if they are planted in the house of the Lord, they flourish in the courts of our God.

So palm trees are really, really difficult to uproot.

They're designed to withstand hurricane winds.

That's why in a hurricane you can see a palm tree still standing.

And then cedar is one of the strongest woods on the planet.

So what Psalm 92 is saying, that men, you will be that strong, you will grow, you will flourish, you'll be able to stand up in a hurricane if you're planted in God's word and you're planted in God's church.

Be here and be here.

And you'll grow strong like that.

You'll stand in a hurricane.

And that also requires brothers.

When you don't compromise and conform, when you don't fall down and you stand, Jesus will stand with you.

And notice how Jesus didn't take him out of the fire.

Now he got in the fire with them.

And some of you guys are going through right now.

You're in some kind of furnace.

And they're going to come again and again and again.

And sometimes God doesn't want to pull you out of the fire because he wants to form you in it.

Sometimes you need to be in the fire before you're ready for greater positions of influence.

But he's not going to leave you in there by yourself if you stand.

They also stood together.

They're with brothers.

Ecclesiastes 4 says this two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed.

If one person falls, the other can reach out and help.

But someone who falls alone is in real trouble.

Likewise, two people lying close together, they can keep each other warm.

But how can one be warm who is alone?

We're not, guys, we're not going to spoon after this.

That's not the application I want us to pull from this.

You get the point, it's an illustration.

A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back to back and conquer.

Three's even better.

For triple braided cord is not easily broken.

Together, not alone.

Men, we're designed to stand with brothers.

There's a reason why most likely every guy in here has seen Band of Brothers.

Because it speaks to how we're wired.

We're supposed to stand in the fight with other men.

So right now, who are your brothers?

Who are your 3 a.m.

friends?

And if you don't have any, find them, but they're here.

This is just another reason for you to come to Uncommon on Friday night and Saturday morning.

You'll find brothers if you don't have them.

Now, closing this whole thing out, I want you to hear this, man.

You gotta hear this.

There will be people who come after you if you do not conform and don't compromise.

There will be people that come after you if you do not fall down in worship, fill in the blank, whatever.

They may not try to kill you, I hope not.

But will they cancel you?

Probably.

Will they try to sabotage you?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Will they slander you?

Absolutely they will.

Why?

Why'd these guys come after Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego?

Were they jealous of their positions?

Yeah, maybe.

But more than likely, it was probably conviction.

Here's the truth.

Those who do not compromise and conform will convict those who do.

You will be a source of conviction to other people if you stand firm in the faith.

This is both for men and women.

And our culture hates conviction.

Hates it.

When you hear out there, no judgment, a lot of times that's code for no conviction, no accountability.

Our culture hates conviction.

So here's what will happen.

First, they'll call for you to conform and fall down.

If that doesn't work, then two, they're gonna come at you and call you some kind of name.

And if that still doesn't get you to come fall down, then they're gonna come at you with some kind of furnace.

That's the progression.

Don't be shaken by it.

Don't be discouraged.

Don't be afraid of it either.

Jesus said this was gonna happen.

In fact, that should just increase your faith all the more.

That's what happened to Jesus.

He said it was gonna happen, now it's happening verbatim.

I can trust God's word even more.

So stand firm in your faith in Jesus because of it.

Stand firm in God's word, stand firm in what is true and good and pure, because no matter what, you know who wins at the end.

Read the back of the book.

We have no other reason not to stand firm.

But men, what will happen if we don't?

Every single man is gonna face furnaces his entire life.

So how is a man, how do we respond to a furnace or the proverbial gold statue?

What are we supposed to do?

I'll say this we cannot be passive.

One of the most dangerous things in the world is a passive man.

You will do far more damage to your family, your wife, your kids, our society, to your church than any external force can if you are passive.

As men, we may not be able to win the battle that we're facing, whatever it is, but we're still called to confront it.

Like we do not get to abdicate our responsibility to lead our families.

Like we don't get to passively stick our heads in the sand when things get hard.

No, to be a man means you are a steward of direction.

That's direction in the home, direction in the church, and direction in our culture.

God did not invite us to negotiate this role.

Passivity is not an option for us, and there are way too many abandoned wives, fatherless kids, and dying churches that are just screaming for men to be men, and passivity is the first thing that will disqualify you as a man.

Yeah, it's hard to stand firm.

It's hard to stand firm.

Sometimes it's really hard.

And it might cost you something, it might cost you a relationship or a promotion, it might cost you some humiliation, might cost you freedom.

Standing firm in the faith might cost you your very life.

So, sure, ask the question: what will it cost me if I stand?

Great question.

But there's a far more important question you have to ask.

What will it cost me if I don't?

Guys, what's on the line if you fall down instead of stand?

And don't think the consequences affect you only.

Your wives, your sons, your daughters, your friends, your grandkids, they all see the fight that we're in right now.

It's a fight that's attacking our homes, our churches, our society.

It's attacking God's very created order.

And it's not a battle against flesh and blood.

It is a spiritual battle with eternal implications, and they are all watching you.

How will my husband respond?

How will my daddy respond?

How will my brothers respond?

How will my grandpa respond?

How will the men respond?

Will we be passive cowards that fall down as soon as we hear the music?

Or will we stand firm in the faith?

Will we stand on God's word?

Will we stand on the truth unapologetically?

Praise God, Jesus stood firm.

Jesus Christ being crucified so you can have salvation from a battle that we cannot win on our own, and we are damned to hell if we lose it.

But in the greatest example of a man, the greatest example of standing firm, Jesus stood and he took the furnace for you.

And his posture was not to beat his chest and screaming and get angry at everybody else.

No, he just stood up and he opened his arms like this.

Men, at the very least, we stand firm for Jesus because Jesus stood firm for us.

And Isaiah 7 9 says this if you are not firm in the faith, then you are not firm at all.

And the only way to be firm in the faith is to know, is to know who, capital W, who your faith is really in.

So put your faith not in yourself, not in the government, not in an idol.

Put your faith in the fourth man who stood in the furnace, the man who stood by hanging on a cross.

So here's how we're gonna end this whole series.

We've spent the last four weeks defining what a man is.

Because in our world, the spectrum is over here, you've got men that are just passive, compromised, totally disengaged.

That's a problem.

Then on the far spectrum, you've got the manosphere who says, do whatever you want, get as many women as you want.

Life is all about you.

That's just a bunch of boys who can shave.

What we need is right in the middle.

We need men.

Are there toxic men?

Yeah.

Is there toxic masculinity?

No.

That's to try to get you to be discouraged as a man.

God created masculinity.

It's just time for us to step into it.

To be a man who's watchful.

Out there, watching your home, watching in the church, watching specifically what's going on spiritually.

A man who's strong, physically, emotionally, but most importantly, spiritually.

Men that stand firm in the faith, on the truth, unapologetically, because there's a lot of things that would love to fill in that vacuum of men just backing away.

Whether it's wokeism or secular humanism or Islam, it doesn't matter.

When men stand firm in the faith, that stuff cannot prevail.

And it's coming after people because it's a spiritual attack.

And we've defined that being acting like a man is acting like Jesus, who is the man.

Like we need men who will sacrifice themselves to bless every everybody else, who are quick to die to themselves because it's not about us, it's about everybody else.

They want to see everybody else, specifically our wives and our kids, thrive.

Men that are kind.

We need kind men, not nice men, kind men.

Men that are gentle.

And remember, gentleness is strength under control.

We need godly men, biblical men that follow the model of Jesus, that live out 1 Corinthians 16.

So here's what we're gonna do.

We have wristbands down front, we'll have them in the middle.

These wristbands just say uncommon.

Because 1 Corinthians 16, 13, unfortunately, that's an uncommon man today.

So if you want to be that uncommon man, if you want to respond to that verse and be those four things, be the man that God has called you to be, be the man that Jesus has modeled for you.

I want to ask you right now, I want you to stand up if you want to be that man and you're willing to be the man.

Go ahead and stand.

Stay up, guys.

I wish I'm just taking this in for a second.

I wish y'all could stand up here and see what I see right now.

Somebody after the 9:30 service, uh, a woman.

She's a single mom, and she said, It was so good to see good men standing because I didn't know they existed.

They exist.

It doesn't mean that you're not gonna struggle, doesn't mean that you're not gonna screw up, doesn't mean you're not gonna fall at times.

But in a moment, I'm gonna ask you to come and grab one of these wristbands.

But before we do that, here's what we're gonna do.

Women.

I want to spend a couple minutes, and I want the women in this room, I want the women in our church, I want you to pray out loud for the men in our church.

I want you to pray out loud that they would be 1 Corinthians 16, 13, that they would be watchful, that they would stand firm in the faith, that they would act like the man Jesus, and that they would be strong physically, emotionally, spiritually.

Pray for the kind of men that you want here.

And if Jesus doesn't come back in the next 50 years, pray for the future men in our church.

Also pray for our young men.

We have a bunch of our students standing up here right now.

Pray for them.

So I want the women to pray out loud for a man.

And if wives, if your husband right now is standing, I want you to stand up next to him and I want you to put your hands on him.

A wife praying over her husband is one of the most powerful things he will ever experience.

So I'm gonna give you a few minutes to pray out loud.

Let's make it loud.

The prayers of the saints will not go unheard, especially if they're loud.

And we have godly, godly women in this room.

We need to hear your voice praying right now.

I'll give you a few minutes, then I'll pray for us, and then we're gonna worship.

And when we worship, man, if you stood up, come grab one of the wristbands.

Grab one, they'll be in the middle too.

Put this on every single day.

It's a decision.

Today I'm gonna be uncommon.

Today I'm going to be 1 Corinthians 16 13.

I'm gonna choose this today, which is really easy in the middle of a moment like this, but can you choose it again tomorrow?

And then the day after that, and the day after that.

The world needs uncommon godly men right now.

Thank you for standing.

I'm standing with you, ladies.

Let's pray.

Go ahead.