All right brothers, we better do this. All right, we gotta do it like men, right? We're gonna do it in a manfully way. Hail Jesus, you my king.
Your life frees me to sing. I will praise you all my days. You're perfect in all your ways.
Hail Jesus, you're my Lord. And I will obey your word. I want to see your kingdom come. Not my will, but yours be done.
Hail, hail, Lion of Judah. How wonderful you are! Hail, hail, Lion of Judah! How powerful you are!
Glory, glory to the Lamb! You take me into the land So we will conquer in your name! And proclaim that Jesus reigns!
Hail, hail, Lion of Judah! How wonderful you are! Hail, hail, Lion of Judah!
How powerful you are! Glory, glory to the Lamb! You take me into the land. We will conquer in your name. And proclaim that Jesus reigns.
Hail, hail, Lion of Judah. How wonderful you are. Hail, hail, Lion of Judah.
How powerful you are! How powerful you are! How powerful you are!
How powerful you are! How powerful you are! How powerful you are! Yes! Amen!
Yeah! Yes! Amen!
Amen! Alright men, have a seat. Yeah, well done.
Manfully done, I say. This... On this particular occasion, the Lord has laid it on my heart to talk to you, my dear brothers, about identity.
Do you know who you are? Do you know who you are and do you know from whom you receive your true identity? There are those today who are...
There are those traitors to the cause of Christ that are trying to get you unhitched from the Old Testament, from the Old Text. I say to you they will be judged by the texter himself. How may you and I know the answers to the questions that burn in our soul? When we're young and we come into this scene, we want to know where they come from. Where am I going?
Why am I here? Why do I live? And connected to all of that is the big question, who am I?
Now just for the record, that question is supposed to be answered by our fathers. But a lot has been lost in the modern age, including the very rites of passage that used to actually... Come from a father to a son, it is our fathers who are commissioned by God to answer those questions, to impart to us an identity, to help us know where we came from. And you have the testimony of creation, you have the testimony of your conscience telling you certain things. But ultimately...
it is the testimony of divine revelation it is God texting you it is God who is written to you and in an ideal situation the revelation divine revelation will pass through father to son to daughter I say to you men who are fathers We give it a commission to bring them up in the fear and admonition of the Lord. The Apostle Paul, speaking by the Holy Spirit, writing by the Holy Spirit. The problem is, there are far too many of us, not bringing them up, but trying to send them up. them up.
They can't be sent. The command was bring, bring them up in the fear and admonition of the Lord. The fear and admonition of the Lord.
Dear brothers, the question, who am I? It's a question that was directly connected. To a young man's bar mitzvah.
Bar mitzvah. The word means son of the commandments. And so a young man would prove his knowledge of what God has revealed. Demonstrating that he in fact is accountable to God. around his 13th year, there would be a ceremony, there would be an event where his father would impart manhood, his father would usher him across the threshold.
You're a man, you answer to God. The Apostle Paul was referencing that when in 1 Corinthians chapter 13 he said, and I quote, when I was a child, I speak as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child, but when I became a man, I put away childish things. When I became a man, I put away childish things.
Can I point out to you that there was no in-between? I've pointed this out before. Modern culture has created some strange limbo between boyhood and marriage. manhood that the scripture doesn't acknowledge, some strange limbo where you're not allowed to be either boy or man, doesn't exist in God's perspective, in God's economy.
You go from boy to man. There is no in-between. It's all those in-betweens that culture has invented to confuse us.
Consider, and I know I'm perhaps opinionated, I recognize, I invented at least in my own mind what I like to refer to as the Mr. Scale. Perhaps some of you remember it. And I realize we're not all the same. I mean, there's a scale, there's a spectrum of, I don't know.
Let's call it a spectrum of masculinity. And on one end, there's a Mr. Rogers. And that's really dated because most of you don't even know who that guy was. That's how old my Mr. scale is.
The other end of the Mr. scale was Mr. T. And most men are somewhere in the middle, the normal guy. And it kind of depends on what does the situation demand. There are those of us here who tend to live on the other end of Mr. T-end and... You're warriors, but you could also be villains. You have the potential to be a predator or a sheepdog, right?
You are a minority, but you exist, and I relate to you. I identify with you. I really do.
And then there's the other end, right? I mean, great guys like Sandy Adams. You know, they're, well, what I mean is, Sandy, I don't think Sandy's ever been in a fight.
And I think that's a good thing. I'm proud of him for this. I'm just making sure he's not sneaking up behind me. But they're gentlemen. They're gentlemen.
They're kinder. I think my brother David Guzik, he's a warrior. He's only small on the outside, but he is huge on the inside. He has equipped men with biblical knowledge and truth and effected a spiritual war in a way that no large hunk of meat could do.
But he plays golf. I do believe with regard to this Mr. Scale or this spectrum of testosterone, my observation is we on either end need the help of the Holy Spirit. The help of the Spirit of God to make us like our King who is all up and down. As Sandy preached, a bruised reed he will not break, but he will break the serpent's head. And he will dash the nations in pieces like a potter's vessel, Psalm 2. Gentle as the situation requires and as fierce as it requires is our King.
And we need the help of the Spirit of God to help us to know where we are to be, to what we are supposed to be. But consider this. reality of boyhood versus manhood and again, I think men are supposed to be men. I think that means something when God says like a man, as he does to Job in Job 38. When God uses the expression, stand up like a man.
Go to your lungs like a man. I got questions for you. That's a great moment in the Bible. Stand up like a man.
This is God speaking from a whirlwind. I believe as men, perhaps this is my opinion, but I think masculinity calls you to take certain actions. For example, there is a right way and a wrong way for a man to apply chapstick.
There is. Plan A, take it off your wife's lips. If she's not available and you are left alone with a stick, and it doesn't matter if you're alone or if there's people watching, grasp it with a fist.
No wrist action. No pouting. No.
Grasp it with a fist. One wipe this way, one that way. Put it away. I'm gonna write a book. When it comes to boy versus man.
Because I think we're supposed to be men. And as men, we are called to be leaders. We're called to rule.
Well, boys. Boys need discipline. It comes from the outside. You know that. Men discipline themselves from within.
Boys, they listen to themselves. That's a mistake. Men talk to themselves. They tell themselves what to do.
They'll grab themselves by the collar and go, Look man, get it together! Even as the psalmist, Psalm 42, Why art thou so disquieted, my soul? Or Psalm 105, bless the Lord, oh my soul.
That's a command. That's a guy grabbing himself by the collar. Go listen, man. Better pull it together and remember who God is. Don't you forget all he's done for you.
Amen. Boys, they do what they feel. They're all about what they feel.
I won't go on that rant again. Always announcing their feelings. They can't start a sentence, but I feel like, I feel like they're...
It's so true. Men do their duty despite what they feel. Despite what they...
You may be scared to death. Oh well. Duty calls you to an action.
I will readily confess to you. that during the COVID tyranny, I acted, and it was acting. I acted unafraid of jail, and I acted unafraid of the storm of opinions.
It was an act. I was scared as a pathetic little girl. I was, but I didn't show it, and I did not obey it.
No, you may feel all kinds of things, but you're a man. You do what you're supposed to do, not what you feel. A boy knows nothing of that.
Boys live for play. They live for play and they live for pleasure. Now men, they live to work. They live for accomplishments and they find pleasure in it. I believe that.
As a matter of fact, I'm concerned with a whole generation of boys with beards that are still lost in the world of virtual reality. And they choose virtual reality over reality. It's not real achievement.
It's not real. It's not, you know, the whole world of porn is just another virtual reality where you're a sex god. You don't have to maintain a relationship. You don't have to win a woman. You just pretend.
True words. I think I was the quotable C.S. Lewis on the subject of masturbation. Leave it to the quotable C.S.
Lewis. But he asked the question to the Christian masturbateur. He asked the question, where is the mortification?
He used that word, mortification. Where's the dying to yourself in the fantasy? It doesn't exist. It doesn't happen.
Boys, they prefer virtual reality where they don't really bleed. It's not real. Now, there's a time for that when we were boys.
But there's something wrong with you. If you're still living your life like a boy, and I'm saying that as a friend, I say it with all the love in my heart, you need to know who you are. You need to know who you're supposed to be, and you need to receive that from the one who made you. Thank you. How about the words of Nehemiah?
Consider in Nehemiah chapter 6, the occasion where they attempted false prophets were corrupted and for pay. They delivered a message to Nehemiah to intimidate him, to back him down from the mission that he had undertaken. Nehemiah's own testimony. Nehemiah chapter 6 verse 10. Afterward I came to the house of Shemaiah, the son of Deliah, the son of Mehedabel, who was shut up.
He said, let us meet together in the house. of God within the temple, let us shut the doors of the temple for they will come to slay thee, yea, in the night. They will come to slay thee. Nehemiah's response, dear brothers, hear it. And I said, should such a man as I flee?
Should such a man as I flee? That is Nehemiah saying, would that fit who I'm supposed to be? Would that be fitting?
Should such a man as I flee, and who is there? The being as I am would go into the temple to save his life. I will not go in. Lo, I perceived that God had not sent him, but that he pronounced this prophecy against me for Tobiah, and sent Balad had hired him. The book.
or was he hired that I should be afraid and do so in sin that they might have a matter for an evil report that they might reproach me it's amazing to me Nehemiah knows what he is supposed to do because he knows who he is. Hey, let's consider that lower end of the Mr. Scale for a second. Think about Gideon.
Gideon. He is so not Mr. Swagger and you know there's no there's no sable rattling there's no posing Gideon is scared to death what God has called him to do you know Gideon's story how the Lord calls him and calls him a mighty man of valor. No doubt Gideon looks around and goes, you're talking to me?
You must be kidding. Gideon responds, and yet he obeys. He goes on for this great adventure. And God takes a man who is scared to death and then keeps making it scarier.
He keeps making it like the odds are too good, Gideon. We've got to make it worse. I can just picture Gideon on every time God speaks to him, biting his knuckles.
That first invitation, God says, tell everybody who's scared, just go home. I'm sure Gideon's like, uh, really? Does that include me?
But he stays, even though he's afraid. He goes through all of the thing where God weeds his army down. It just keeps getting worse. Then God speaks to Gideon and says, Gideon, you're still scared.
I want you to sneak on down with your servant. To the centuries, the Midianites, I want you to listen. Well, you know, Gideon was still real scared because he took God up on it.
And he creeps on down in the dark, and what does he hear? He hears a century sharing a bad dream. He hears a man going, dude, dude.
I had the stream. I had the stream and the other guy, the other Midianite said, what was it? What was it man?
He goes, there was this cupcake. There was this cake of barley. And the other guy goes, oh!
I mean who in the world is scared of a cake of barley? Who's scared of a cupcake? And in the verb attached to that cupcake, that cake of barley, the other guy goes, what'd it do? And the guy who had the bad dream goes, it tumbled. into the camp.
And the other Midianite guy goes, go! And tumbled. No, he doesn't rocket into the camp.
Gideon doesn't hear himself being described as a lion or a bull. A cupcake. A cupcake that's not even doing anything cool, it just tumbles. It tumbles, hits a tent, smoke the tent, and the other guy goes, Ah!
And I can only imagine Gideon in the dark, snickering at the thought of them being afraid of him. But he stands up in the dark, no doubt to go, I am that cupcake. And that cupcake goes off to war and wins.
The other guys were so messed up. God had freaked them out so bad that all Gideon and his men had to do was say his name out loud. So did the Lord and Gideon. And, you know, they all go berserk and kill each other. How did God impart this?
He just told him, you're a mighty man of valor. Do you understand that with you and I likewise, an identity will be imparted if we will learn to listen, if we will learn to receive. Text.
The primary way he's going to speak to your heart, my friend, is by text. I'm telling you. He is the one who made you.
You know Ephesians 2.10. If I asked you the question, you'd give me the right answer. Ephesians 2.10 says, for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which he before ordained that we should walk in them. You'd give me the answer, well, God's workmanship, but is that actually your daily reality, brothers? Whose workmanship are you?
Have you allowed yourself? to be formed and shaped or Other things shaped you. I stand before you as a man who was once a boy.
A boy who was thrown away by his father. Thrown away. Left alone, abandoned. And abandoned to a scary world. And a world where there's so many questions and there's no answers.
Into my misery, into my broken-hearted childhood, the seed of the Word came, for which I'm so very grateful. I'm not exaggerating. I'm not going to give you hyperbole. I'll tell you. that we were desperately poor.
I was a messed up kid. The first whole decade of my life, I urinated on the same mattress. And with no hot running water, you know, you'd... You go to school smelling like that, you end up in a place in the stratification of, you know, human culture in your little school.
I was a broken, messed up, bitter child. My heart was broken, I was poor, and I smelled bad. I had these questions burning.
I'm just trying to sort it all out. I can tell you that it was the grace of God that caused the Word of God to be delivered to the soil of my heart. And I am also very grateful that the king himself, the second person of the triune Godhead, the king himself, was willing to come to this world. And listen, you know, little kid, being like that kid I was, and grateful for those Baptists and their buses.
They scooped us up and trucked us into church and Sunday school. There was a flannel board and paper doll story time. And I'm telling you, I'm grateful.
I don't want to criticize. I'm grateful. But I must tell you that the paper doll Jesus character did not capture my heart.
I believed what they told me about him. And I prayed the prayer they led me in. And I followed in baptism.
You know, like when I was eight. But it wasn't until that 13th year of my life. that provoked by the godly example of my science teacher.
I mention his name every time I testify, Mr. Lawrence Eason. He taught us the theory of evolution and absolutely destroyed it. And he provoked me more than anyone to want to know what he knew.
And I could tell he had the answers to the question and that all the questions he found those answers in the written text of this forbidden book. I dove into it and there I met a king who so captured my heart he was greater than any paper doll presentation. He was greater, he was grittier, he was real, he sweat and he bled, he wept and he whipped, he overturned tables.
He touched broken people and He healed them. The King Himself captured my heart. I've never been the same, but He, in calling me to His Word, in calling me to this book, He spoke to me as he would speak to every single one of you, my brothers. You had no rite of passage? Did you have no event?
Did no one impart manhood? Did no one impart an identity to you? Can I remind you of how he wrestled?
Was it Jacob? Because he will treat his sons different than he does his daughters. There's no spot in the whole Bible where he's wrestling any of his daughters.
But he will take you down and allow you to stay in this all night exhausting wrestling match as he did Jacob. As the dawn's approaching, he had touched Jacob, one touch, and Jacob is in agony. What tendon, what joint, I'm not clear on that, never have been, but I know he's in agony, he can't stand, but he's still hanging on.
And what does he have? He's got the foot of the one that he demands a blessing from. And the one he's hanging on to says to him, what is your name?
What's your identity? Who are you? Jacob.
The irony is, Yaakov. Heel grabber. He's doing it!
He's living up to it! He's got a foot! He's got a heel!
He came into the world! Hanging on! To his brother's heel.
Now he's got a heel. It happens to be the heel of his maker. And his maker says, no more say you be Jacob, Yaakov, no, you are Israel.
Do you understand his capacity to tell you who you are? And just simply by saying it, he makes it so. He is one who speaks of those things that are not as though they were, and boom, they are. Would you hear him?
Would you listen to him? don't listen to any of those heretics that try to unhitch you from divine revelation you know what wokeness is dependent upon you being unhitched and unhinged but instead I urge you brothers in this war Hear your father, my father, tell you who you are, and then look to him for the strength to be that in his name. Amen!
Amen!