Real Men – 10 Benefits of Proper Patriarchy

– Welcome to Real Men. Who’s excited to be with the guys tonight? Guys night out? If you’re new, you’re surrounded with the best guys. So here’s the way it works. We go generally through books of the Bible. Right now we’re in a book of the Bible called Genesis, and then I’ll take a piece out and pivot and we do a little leadership talk for men, and then you’ll get time around the table just to get to know each other, pray for each other. You’ve got a table lead. Table leads are great guys. They love you. They care for you. They’ll pray for you. They’ll connect with you, and we’re here to help build you up in a world that’s trying to beat you down. And so this week I wanna talk about 10 benefits of proper patriarchy. We’re gonna talk about patriarchy, ’cause it’s a negative, nasty word in our culture, but the culture’s wrong, and so we’re gonna talk about it, and I’ll start with a story. Some years ago, my youngest daughter came home, or maybe she was upstairs in her bedroom, she came downstairs and she was like, “Dad, I was checking on a friend of mine on social media.” It was a teenage girl, a friend of hers, and she said she was posting a lot of negative statements, end the patriarchy, down with the patriarchy, stop the patriarchy, just this series of sort of protests on this teenage girl’s social media platform. So my daughter came to me and she’s like, “Dad, what’s patriarchy?” And she’s like, you know, a teenage girl. I said, “Well, that’s where your dad is the head of your household. He leads your family, that he takes care of the wife and the kids, and he takes responsibility for the wellbeing of the family.” She just looks at me, she scrunched her nose. She’s like, “Why would anybody wanna stop that?” I said, “Honey, ’cause the whole world has lost its mind.” And I said, “What’s sad is,” I said, “Tell me about your friend.” So we knew this girl, sweet girl, Christian girl, Christian family. I said, “Tell me about her dad.” She’s like, “Oh, her dad’s awesome.” Her dad was a military veteran, served admirably, worked hard, godly guy, loved his wife, loved his kids, faithful to the Lord, not perfect, but a great guy, and he had a really awesome relationship with his daughter, and he loved his daughter very, very much, and they were very, very close. I said, “You need to ask her if she understands what she’s protesting.” She’s protesting her father. She’s not just protesting fatherhood. She’s protesting her own father. Well, come to find that,
you know, she’d gone to school, and they just sort of brainwashed her a little bit, that all the problems in the world are, you know, men who lead and take responsibility. And I would say, no, actually, all the problems started when one guy didn’t lead and take responsibility. It’s not like the world fell into sin ’cause Adam was leading. It fell into sin ’cause Adam wasn’t leading. And so she had a good conversation with her friend, as like, you know that that’s not biblical? You know that that’s not godly? That is actually Satan trying to separate you from your dad, and you’re blessed to have a dad, not just a dad, but a Christian dad, and a dad who loves you and cares for you and invests in you, and this rebellion that you’re being encouraged to have is actually going to put you in harm’s way, and it’s a danger to you. So what we’re gonna talk about tonight is really, what is patriarchy, according to the Bible? And if you went to college like I did and took a women’s studies class like I had to, and I threw up my mouth every time I sat in the chair. Everything was just how literally the problem in the world is men, and the solution in the world is to get rid of the men, and the Bible has the complete opposite answer. The Bible says that God holds Adam accountable first and he sends Jesus Christ as the God-Man, and if you wanna straighten things out, you better start with the men. So we’ll jump in, look first at mankind

in Genesis 5. It kind of summarizes Genesis 1 and 2. “This is the book of the generations of,” who? Adam. So there’s Adam and Eve, but who does the story focus on? Adam, ’cause he’s the leader, he’s the head. Man, “When God created him, he created him in the likeness of God. Male and female he created them. He blessed them and named them.” So what’s the name of our human race?

– [Audience Members] Man.

– Man. It’s literally the word Adam. It’s mankind. So all this gender studies nonsense, and all this, you know, re-imagining of humanity, well, you can’t use the word mankind, need to use the word humanity. It’s like, we still have the word man in there, so you didn’t make a lot of progress. You went from man to human. Still man. But what God says is he named the race mankind, and then what you’re gonna see in the book of Genesis is very controversial in our day, but that is that God traces genealogies, generations, and legacies through men. And it says this guy had this firstborn son, and then he had these kids, and so when God looks at our lives, he looks in terms of our marriages and our children and our children’s children, but he looks at our families through the men and the decisions that you and I are making. So we need to see our life, see our marriage, see our family, our children, and our generations as God does, and that is by holding men first and foremost responsible. So not only did he make mankind, he multiplied mankind. So we looked at this, and I’ll just summarize Genesis 5. It’s a genealogy. How many of you, you read the genealogies in the Bible, you get super bored? How many of you, if that was your family, it would be super interesting? Okay, who was my dad? Who is my grandpa? Who is my great grandpa? You know, what’s my family history? Where do we come from? Why are we the way that we are? This is the human history for all of mankind. “Adam fathered a son and his own likeness, after his image, named him Seth. He had other sons and daughters.” Every generation is traced patriarchally through the male line, ’cause the man is the head of the household. He is a plural leader with his wife, but singular head. “Seth fathered Enosh, had other sons and daughters. Enosh fathered Kenan, had other sons and daughters. Keenan fathered Mahalalel, had other sons and daughters. Mahalalel fathered Jared, had other sons and daughters. Jared fathered Enoch, he had other sons and daughters. Enoch fathered Methuselah, had other sons and daughters.” And then here’s what it says. Enoch, what’s the great line? He walked with God. What that means is he was he was a believer. This is like a father and a son going for a walk. God is his Father, and he’s a son. “Methuselah fathered Lamech and had other sons and daughters. Lamech fathered Noah, saying, out of the ground, the Lord has cursed. This one shall bring forth us release from our work and from the painful toil of our hands. Lamech had other sons and daughters, and then Noah fathered, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.” So we can read through this very quickly and sort of overlook the obvious. This is 1,656 years from Adam to Noah, and when God sees all the people on the earth, he says that’s mankind, and he looks from one generation to the next, this man, and then this man, and then this man, and then this man, and it says that only one man walked with God. One guy walked with God, and left to ourselves, no one would walk with God. So let me say this. If you are like Enoch and you’re a guy who’s walking with God, you are an outlier, you are a freak, you are an oddball, you’re a minority. You will be opposed. The culture is going to make fun of you. All of

the gravitational force of our world will be against you, and you’re gonna get a lot more spiritual opposition and spiritual warfare and demonic attack. That’s just the way it’s going to be for you. And I don’t tell you that to discourage you, but just to prepare you for reality. If you wanna do the wrong thing and ruin generations, it’s pretty easy. If you wanna the right thing and bless generations, it’s gonna be a little harder. And most men choose the path of least resistance. That is, “I’m not going to walk with God and I’m not going to be a blessing to future generations.” Every once in a while, while a guy stands up and says, “Well, we’ve had a mess of a family, but it’s gonna change here. I’m gonna walk with God, and we’re gonna start a new legacy and a new line, and it’s gonna be blessed and I’m gonna walk with God, and then I’m gonna encourage the people who are following my leadership, my wife, my kids, my grandkids, to follow in my footsteps, and we walk with God together.” How many of you guys, that’s exactly why you’re here? You’re like, “I wanna be that guy, and I wanna figure out how to go on that walk, and I want generations to follow me.” Now, that’s why we’re here and that’s why we do this. Now, that being said, when the Bible speaks of men and God, it’s really curious. God shows up to Moses in Exodus 3, and then Jesus says it later. He says that he is the God of blank, blank, blank. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. What is that? It’s a son, it’s a father and a son and grandson. My hope and prayer is that you would see your children and your children’s children walk with God. See, I have this tremendous blessing. My dad is a believer. My dad loves Jesus. My dad walks with God, and I walk with God, and my sons, his grandsons, they walk with God. It’s like, I just had dinner with my son Calvin. He’s in college. So our God would be the God of Joe and Mark and Calvin. See, it’s our God, that each generation of us men is walking with God, and we’re walking together. Now, there is a whole line in my family that doesn’t walk with God, and the results are very, very different, and it’s very painful and it’s very hard to see. How many of you, your father was like Enoch or your grandfather was like Enoch. They walked with God, and you’re following their leadership? How many of you, that’s your story? How many of you are like, “I’m Enoch. I’m the first one. It’s all starting with me. Nobody was walking with God. I’m walking with God. Generations was just like that family genealogy, just like they lived, they sin, they died. Nobody walked with God. But I wanna make a pivot in my generation and I wanna make a pivot for future generations.” That’s why we’re here. Now, the reason we’re doing this is that generations change according to the decisions that men make. You’re gonna see this through the whole rest of Genesis. Genesis is a few thousand year case study, not just in families, but in men, as husbands and fathers and leaders. Every page of Genesis will be another man, so you’ve met Adam, now you’ve met Enoch, and now Noah shows up, and then you’re gonna meet Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Joseph. All of Genesis is a case study on how to be a man and how not to be a man, and it’s just generation after generation, looking at the decisions that you make. They have generational implications for blessing or cursing, and so we want to think biblically, and Genesis, as you read it, just keep looking for the men, and ask, okay, what decisions do they make? Did that bless or curse future generations? Were they a benefit or not? And so what happens is there are two opposites of what I’ll call biblical patriarchy or proper patriarchy, and that is a man loves God and does what God created him to do and called him to do, to lead and love, to provide for, and be a blessing to his wife and his kids and the world. There are two things that are against or two errors in the way of biblical patriarchy. One is chauvinism. The other is feminism. These are both errors. Let me start with chauvinism.

Chauvinism is the men are activated, they’re making decisions, but they’re not godly, they’re not wise, they’re not loving, they’re not humble, they’re not like Jesus. They’re making decisions, but they’re not good guys. The opposite is feminism, comes along and says, well, the men got activated. They made some real bad decisions, therefore we need men to no longer be activated. We need men to be passive. We need men to stop leading and making decisions, and instead we need women to. Well, we saw that in Genesis 3. Genesis 3 is the beginning of feminism. One guy’s like, “Well, I’m not gonna lead,” and she’s like, “I got this,” and it didn’t go well. What you’re gonna see throughout Genesis is chauvinism. Certain guys are domineering, overbearing, boorish. They’re mean to women and children. They’re not healthy and godly. And these tend to be the two wars in our world. Well, are you gonna be a man’s man, a kind of a chauvinist? Or are you gonna be, you know, sort of a… I dunno, what would the word be for a soft guy?

– [Man] A beta male. – A beta male.
– [Man] A Democrat.

– A Democrat, somebody said. Shots fired. You know, the metrosexual type guy, who’s like, “I just, you know… I just, I don’t make decisions. I don’t lead, I don’t do conflict. You know, I don’t want to insert myself.” What we don’t need is men who do nothing, and we don’t need men who do the wrong thing. We need men who do things, but they do the things that are right. That’s what the Bible calls men to, and some of you guys have vacillated between these. You’re like, “I was domineering and overbearing, so then I’d be came very, very passive.” You’re like, “Well, that was wrong.” So we you’re like, “I was very, very passive, and so I just, I’ve decided just to put my foot down, raise my voice and drop the hammer.” Well, that’s not it, either. The issue is how do you be active in a way that is godly and brings blessing and the presence of God into your life and into your family? So what I want to talk about is, and this is gonna be more of an architecting thought and it starts with how a family is to be architected. So here’s family governance. So God has a family, the church has a family, and you have a family. The governance of God’s family, our church family, and your family should be consistent. My family should be learning from the church family, how to do family like God does family. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. That the way God does life is the way that we should do life. So in God’s family, the Father is sovereign over all, the Son is our Savior and example, and the Holy Spirit is our power. And so what we see within the Godhead, the Bible uses the language of family, that whole language of Father and Son, that’s family. That’s loving relationship, and so what we see is the Father, Son, and Spirit. They are plural leaders, but there’s a singular head. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one God, three persons, plural leaders, singular head. Who’s the head? The Father. That’s what Jesus prays. He prays, “Our Father.” He says, “I don’t come to do and say whatever I want. I say and do what the Father tells me to do.” And even that language of Father and Son, true, that denotes headship and leadership. I mean, the Father is the leadership position. So God’s family has plural leadership,

singular headship, and then God establishes the church family to train other families how to do family. So the Christian church is to teach, model, and correct for the will of God. So we’re supposed to look up and say, “Okay, God, how are you organizing your family, your heavenly family?” Then the church needs to figure out how to help train people how to do family, and church is like a big extended family, where all the families get together. So the Bible says to treat older men like fathers, older women like mothers, and for young men to treat young women like sisters, which means you can love and have a relationship, but it’s not inappropriate, and the Bible says that guys are to treat one another as brothers. It’s all family language. The Bible talks about the church as the household of God. And so God does family a certain way, and then God sets up the church to teach the Bible, about how men are to lovingly lead their families and how family and marriage and sex is to be done, to teach it, but then also to model it, and that’s one of the reasons that we get together. You can read things, but until you see it, you don’t know what they’re talking about. You’re like, “Why do you do that?” So like, when I got saved, I became a Christian at age 19 in college. I went to church and there was some great families, and so I went to a church and had a ton of families as well as a number of college kids, and I met a few families that had good marriage and good kids, and they seemed like happy, joyful families. And I’ll never forget one of the families. I walked up to him and I was like, “You guys seem to have a good family, and everybody in the church kind of knows you guys.” And they ended up having like 12 kids. One wife, 12 kids, so I’m like, “You apparently get along. You know, I mean, you don’t fight very much. I mean, you don’t have time, you know? So you’re too busy.” And their kids all love the Lord and they love them, and they were a super loving, beautiful, fun family, so I asked them, I said, “Can I ever come over and have dinner with your family? And I just would like to see how you guys do family, and I’ll bring Grace. We’re brand new Christians. I love her, I wanna marry her, but I don’t know how to do family I don’t know how to do Christian family. I’m a brand new Christian.” And I said, “If you guys want, then we’ll watch your kids, and you guys can have a date night, so I’ll trade you babysitting for me coming to watch you in your natural habitat, you know?” So we went to dinner at their house. They all sat down for dinner. I was like, “Okay, this is cool. So this is so okay.” And then dad was at the head of the table, and they all held hands and they sang together. I was like, “This is crazy. I never seen this. I’ve encountered the Von Trapp family. This is insane, you know?” And then the dad led the conversation at the table. “Hey, okay guys, what’s going on in school? How are you guys doing? How’s sports? Do you have any homework tonight? How can we be praying for you guys? What is God teaching you?” The dad just kept asking really open-ended good leading questions, and everybody talked and visited, and it was super fun and warm, and I just remember sitting there going, “Oh! So this is what it it’s like to have dinner as a Christian family.” I needed to… I can read that in the Bible. I didn’t see that. Now, seeing it, and I’m like, “Okay, he’s got a plan coming to the dinner table.” No phones, everybody’s engaged, and he had a big personality. He’s a great guy, still a friend. And they had fun, so then after dinner, the kids helped clean up, and then they went on their date and then they came back, and he is like, “Okay, it’s bedtime.” I said, “Hey, can I just see what you do with the kids?” So he pulled all the kids in and led a devotional, read the kids’ story Bible, they had a discussion, and then he laid hands, and he prayed over each of the kids, and then kissed them, told him he loved them, and they went to bed, and I thought, “Oh” So dad reads the Bible with you. Dad’s actually really fun. And what I saw was he had the kids dress up,

so they were all little, so when they did a Bible story, the kids would dress up as the characters and play it out. So it was fun, you know? So you got one kid over on the table. It’s like, “I’m Zacchaeus climbing the tree.” It’s like the first time he can rebel, but it’s for a Bible story, so he can’t get in trouble, and they’re having fun with it. I was like, okay, so they’re doing fun Bible study. Dad is blessing them. He kisses them on the head. He lays hands and prays over them. He gives them a hug. That’s what bedtime looks like in a Christian family. I didn’t know that. So the church is to provide teaching, but then modeling. That’s where getting to know one another and seeking out wise council. And you younger guys, not just standing back, saying, “Nobody talk to me.” These guys are married and they have jobs. They’re busy. They’re not like you, just living with their mom, you know, cashing the stimulus checks. They have things to do, and so you’re gonna need to actively pursue them, and say, “Hey, can I learn about your business? Can I learn about marriage? Can I learn about parenting? You know, you how to buy real estate.

How do you do that?” You need to actively pursue. But part of the church family is to replace what we used to have in our extended family. Extended family would help you learn and grow up, but the family’s so broken, divorce and infighting and relocation and moving. Families scattered or broken. Church family comes along and says, “We’re here to teach and model and correct,” meaning when you’re out of line, our goal is not to punish you, but to correct and redirect you so you can live in God’s will, and that’s the place that God blesses. Because we love you, and we genuinely deeply do, and the reason why I’m here every week is you matter to me. You’re one of my highest priorities. I want to see your wives loved. I want to see your kids love the Lord. I want to see your life get better and better as you get older and older, and I want you to make those deposits right now that turn into withdrawals later. And I’ve got five kids, 16, 18, 20, 22, and 24, and two are married, two are in high school, one is in college, and these are some of the greatest years of my whole life. I love being a dad of adult kids. It’s super fun. I like the relationship. I like coaching. I like praying with ’em. I like grabbing meals to check in. Everything that we invested when they were little, I’m just having a blast. It it’s awesome. I love being a dad, and Grace and I will be faithfully married 30 years this August. And so, you know, for you, I want the best for you, and so we want to teach you what the Bible says. We want to have people model that for you. And none of us is perfect. You’re gonna see our faults, flaws, and failures, but then also correct, and so when you’re out of line and you’re not obeying God’s Word, our hope is that then we could have a conversation with you, maybe even around the table, and some brothers can put an arm on you and say, “Hey, that’s not what God says and if you want to be blessed, you gotta live in the place that God blesses. God only blesses his Word. So if you’re out here, he doesn’t bless that. We want you to be here, ’cause we want you to be blessed, and God’s will is always best for you.” Now, that being said, when it comes to this issue of mankind and patriarchy and husbands and fathers, the way this gets misrepresented all the time, and I’ve been teach in the Bible for 25-plus years as a senior pastor, I have been publicly eviscerated and scorched earth for decades on this issue. Media outlets, misrepresentation,
just, and I’m saying that for 25 more years, because at the end of the day, you know, we need to just teach men that God made them as men, and it’s good to be a man if you’re filled with the Spirit and you live as God created you to be, and the world needs that more than ever. With that being said, the way this gets misrepresented, they’re like, “Well, the Bible says that women should submit to men, or that men are better than women.” Doesn’t say anything about that. The

Bible talks not about men and women, but husbands and wives and fathers and children, okay? I’ve got two daughters. The last thing I would ever tell them is, “Just do what men say.” Right? Dads agree with me. No, no, no. I’m your dad. There’s only… I’m your dad, so there’s only one man that you need to listen to, really, I mean, you should have wise counsel, but you’ve got one dad. You don’t need to listen to men, just dad, just one man. I would never tell my wife, you know, “Just do what men tell you.” Right? ‘Cause then I’d be doing prison ministry from the inside for the things that men would want my wife to do. So instead what I say is, “Honey, you don’t need to deal with men. You just need to deal with one man.” We’re not talking about gender wars. We’re talking about personal relationships. So, “Honey, you need to relate to one man, I need to relate to one woman, that’s it. And kids, you don’t need to relate to men, just dad.” It’s in the context of loving relationship, where you know me and I know you, and I care for you and I wanna bless you, and I want God’s best for you, and I wanna be someone that, when you think of, it’s a joy and it’s not a grief. Now, that being said, here’s the big problem, and this is more of a big architecting issue. Our world has no idea what to do with a man. It has no idea how to educate a man. It has no idea how to raise a man. It has no idea how to instruct a man. It has no clue whatsoever. So what we’re seeing right now is a generational collapse of masculinity, and as a result, we are seeing economic repercussions. We’re seeing a lack of entrepreneurialism. We’re seeing a lack of men who have any sort of ambition or foresight, and we are creating a dependency class, particularly of young men that have no understanding of why they were made and what it means to be a man, okay? But I want to talk about 10 benefits. If you understand what the Bible says, God made us male and female, equal in value and worth. It’s not good to be alone, that your wife is a help and a compliment, and like a left and a right hand, you work together and you’re better together. And the two become one. It’s not about, you know, do you win and she loses, or does she lose and you win. You become a new one, and you seek God’s will, and then you serve God together, and then you bring children into an environment that has masculine and feminine mother and father, loving, leading together, making decisions, singular headship, plural leadership, trying to model God’s government, and then bring that into the family. When that happens, there are the 10 benefits of proper patriarchy. Number one, it encourages single men to grow up, get married, and lovingly lead a family. Guys right now, they don’t know what the end zone is. So let me ask the single guys, if you don’t know what the Bible says, that you know, it’s not good to be alone, it’s good to get married, good to be fruitful and multiply, love your wife, raise a family, if that isn’t your end zone, what are the other end zones that young men will select for themselves? Just get drunk, addicted, just pleasure, waste time. Just find gals and have sex. Don’t have relationship, don’t have marriage, don’t have family, just have sex. What else?

– [Man] Money.

– Just go make money and be very selfish and greedy. You’re not thinking about taking care of your family. It’s just all you. It’s why many men don’t ever want to get married. They’re like, “I can keep all my money and plenty of people will have sex with me. Why would I inconvenience myself or be unselfish?” Other end zones that young men will set up for themselves, if we don’t establish for them, hey, it’s good to get married. It’s good to lovingly lead a family. Yeah, just

absolute irresponsibility. These are the guys who are moving back in with their parents well into their twenties and thirties, but it’s not so that they can save money to buy a house, and it’s not because they were addicted and they’re trying to get their life back on track. There are legitimate reasons. It’s just, “You know what? I don’t like responsibility. I don’t have any initiative. I don’t have any ambition, and I was told that if you’re, you know, aggressive or a planner, you’re a toxic male. I’m not gonna be toxic. I’ll just be on the couch.” We’ve got a whole generation of these guys. How many of you are looking at the future, going, who’s gonna lead the country? Who’s gonna lead the church? Who’s gonna run the businesses? Who’s gonna go to work? Like, you know… Who’s up to lead? Catastrophic failure of leadership, and it starts with a single man saying, “Okay, I gotta lead myself and then I’m gonna marry a woman, and together we’re gonna put a life together and then we’re gonna lead our kids and family.” And I want to encourage you. There are many young men who are coming. It’s an honor to have you. In addition, if you decide to do things God’s way, you need to know that you are going to get in a head-on collision with Satan, that he’s gonna do everything he can to keep you from reading your Bible, doing what it says, seeking wise counsel, growing up, figuring out your finances, getting your sexuality under control, you know, marrying a woman, being faithful to her, and loving your kids. Every day, there’s gonna be resistance and opposition to that, but it’s the best thing, because ultimately that’s what God blesses, and I would tell you single guys that ultimately, when you’re working against God. Pastor Jimmy Evans, one of my pastors, he used this analogy recently. I thought it was good. He said when you’re working against God’s will, it’s like you’re in a canoe, and you’re trying to go upstream, and when you’re in God’s will, it’s like the canoe turns around. That’s what repentance is. It’s turning around, and now you God’s will. Now, it doesn’t mean you’re not gonna get a stiff headwind from the world, but you’re gonna get a good undercurrent from the Lord. As soon as some of you men turn your canoe around, like, “I’m not gonna sleep with her. I’m gonna move out. I’m gonna go get a job. I’m gonna, you know… I’m gonna get my act together. I’m gonna stop having my accountability group be Jose Cuervo and Jim Beam and Johnny Walker. Those are no longer my accountability partners. I’m gonna get some real guys in my life.” God will supernaturally accelerate and bless that. For those of you guys that are a little further downstream. How many of you you’re like, “I was rowing upstream against God’s will. I turned around, and he’s actually been pretty gracious to get me moving.” Okay, the second thing, it establishes an unchanging multi-generational leadership structure for the family to reduce foolish experiments in fighting and family division. God establishes a governance pattern for the family. Singular headship, plural leadership. The husband, father is the head. The wife is the plural leader. They make all the decisions together, but he’s firstly responsible. We looked at this. This is why even when Adam and Eve sinned, God came looking for Adam first, ’cause he’s firstly responsible, and what this sets up is a multi-generational pattern for family governance. If you don’t have a multi-generational pattern, then every generation just sort of reinvents how to do life and family, and then those families don’t get along and you don’t have good extended family, and the result is you have a lot of broken, fractured families. How many of you, you feel this in your extended family, like, well, in that family, the kids run the show, and in that one, mom runs the show, and in that one, dad runs the show, so that’s why we don’t get together, ’cause we can’t get along, and even when we have conflict, we don’t have a way to deal with it because we don’t even agree on who the

leader is or how the decisions get made. And the result is, then, if we don’t have God’s blueprint, that the man is the first primary person responsible for the wellbeing of the family, we end up with these stupid generational experiments, so like when I was growing up, the big expert on parenting was a guy named Dr. Spock, and what he basically said was kids don’t have a sin nature. They’re morally neutral. The key is not to lead, instruct, or correct them, but to encourage their self-esteem and let them do what they want. And the Bible says, if you don’t correct your child, you hate them. The Bible says that they have a sin nature. So we had a whole generation that was like, “Well, let’s let the kids lead the family, and see how that goes.” And now we look. Those kids have grown up and they’re not doing well, because the family wasn’t architected according to God’s divine design. Number three, it puts the weight of responsibility on the shoulders of men, so that they feel as they should. How many of you guys just coming to Real Men, are coming to Trinity, you feel like, “Oh man, I’m taking on some new responsibilities. I’m feeling a weight of responsibility that I didn’t feel before.” And honestly, it’s good for us as men. I always say that men are like trucks. If you want ’em to drive straight, you better load ’em up, and if you’ve ever driven a two-wheel drive truck in a rain storm, they’re all over the road. You load it up, it just settles in and it drives straighter. Men are like trucks. The only way to straighten them out is to load them up, and what’ll happen is men will come here and they have a very important decision to make, and that is I will stay and take on my God-given responsibilities, to pay my own bills, to figure out my own sobriety, right? To keep an eye on my own zipper, to pray with my own wife, to love and lead my own children, or not. And I’ll just tell you this. If you’re a guy who comes to the decision like, “I want to, but I don’t know how to,” we’re here. If you’re the guy who says, “I don’t want to,” this is not going to be a great place for you. You know, you’re still welcome. I mean, we’ll, we’ll offend you every week. It doesn’t bother me either way. But if you, if you’re a guy who says, “I don’t want to do what God says. I don’t want to take on those responsibilities that God has appointed to me as a man,” then this is really, this is really a waste of everyone’s time, ’cause the guys around the table, they are there ’cause they want to take on the responsibilities that God gives them, and they want to help you do the same. But how many of you, as you take on those God-given masculine responsibilities, it feels right? You’re like, “You know what? I was made for this actually. My Father made me as his son to carry some responsibilities, and when I do, I actually feel like I’m a man. I’m doing the things that I was made to do.” Number four, it gives men permission to protect and provide for women and children as noble masculinity. It’s saying, you know what? You are a man. You need to protect and provide for women and children. Amen?

– [Audience Members] Amen.

– I mean, that’s just… This is 101. And the protection is, is my wife safe? Are my kids safe? If I’ve got a teenage daughter, is my teenage daughter safe? And it’s just, it’s making sure that they’re okay, because we live in a world where there’s lots of bad men, and so good men need to get in the middle, ’cause bad men hurt women and children, and good men get in the middle ’cause they love women and children, especially your wife and your kids. And also provision, and the provision, when men hear this, they tend to think in terms of finances but it’s more than that. A financial provider. Should a man provide for his family? There’s a crazy idea. Yes, Paul says, if a

man does not provide for the needs of his family, he’s denied the faith and he’s worse than an believer. And so providing is not voting for someone who will tax someone else to take care of your responsibilities.

– [Man] Yep.

– Okay? It is taking care of your family. But then, in addition, it’s not just the financial. It’s also emotional and it’s spiritual, like I’m gonna talk to you, I’m gonna pray for you, I’m gonna help you, I’m gonna love you. It’s total provision. How many of you men, just hearing that God made you for that, something in your soul snaps, and you’re like, “I kind of felt like that, but I was never just told.” God made me as a man to protect and provide. Now, how many of you, when you do that, that feels good? You know what a bird feels like when it flies? Good. You know what a horse feels like when it runs? Good. You know what a man feels like when he acts like a man? Good, ’cause that’s what you’re made for. So we wanna encourage men who are protectors and providers. We wanna honor that. I don’t care what the world says. They’ve lost their mind. They don’t know what they’re doing. Marriage, family, sex, men are using and abusing women and children. We’re not those guys. We love, protect, provide for women and children. In addition, it causes a man to make unselfish decisions to bless his wife, children, and grandchildren. How many of you didn’t know how selfish you were ’til you got married? See, you were selfish. There just wasn’t a witness. Now there’s a witness. How many of you, you thought you weren’t very selfish, then you get married, then you realize you’re very selfish? And then you feel like you’re doing pretty good, and then you have a kid. Then you realize it’s worse than you originally thought. You’re very selfish, ’cause now your kid is a total inconvenience. They’re throwing up, they’re dominating all your wife’s time, they’re spending all your money, and it’s gonna be a while before any of that changes. And what it forces a man to do is to say, “I’m gonna be a servant, not selfish. Okay, how do I bless my wife? How do I bless my kids? How do I bless my grandkids?” It forces a man from being a consumer to being a producer, from being a taker to being a giver. And again, there’s something in that as a man that just absolutely rings true at the level of the soul. When you could take care of your kids, when you can bless your wife and kids, and you see them blessed, something in your soul as a man, just is like, “I was made for this.” My wife smiles, that’s a good day. My kids are smiling, that’s a great day. In addition, number

six, it reduces the need for the government to feed, educate, and raise our kids. My thing is always we need more fathers and less government. At some point, if all you do is let the government take care of all the women and children, and you don’t have men going to work, then who the heck are you gonna tax to take care of all of that? And they say, “Well, we can’t afford it, so we’ll just go into more debt.” I believe in Jesus and math. And I will just say that more dependence without people taking responsibility for their family eventually leads to a complete economic collapse, and what we do, we’ll take out debt. We’ll say, “We’re just taking out debt.” No, we’re not. What we’re doing is we’re taking our bills and handing them to our grandchildren, and the Bible says that a wise man leaves an inheritance for his children’s children, and so it must be that a fool hands a debt to his children’s children, which means we’re a whole cursed generation of economic idiots, just spending money we don’t have, taking it from grandchildren that aren’t even here yet, and just assuming that they will pay the price for our

folly. And we’re reaching a point where you can only have so much government, and the way God has architected the world, unless the men are doing their job, there is no government that can make up for the deficit of the men. But here’s what I’m telling you. If you have good men, you need far less government. You just do. Just do. I got five kids. We don’t need probation officers. There’s a dad. We don’t need police officers. There’s a dad. We don’t need an addiction specialist. There’s a dad. We don’t need… We don’t need them to be in crisis, committing crimes to generate revenue in their teen years. They’ve got a dad. And what is happening is our whole world doesn’t think biblically. It just, it looks at the Genesis and just thinks it’s a dumb old story and a list of names. It’s just a waste of time. No, these are men. Some did their job, some didn’t, and it affected generations. That’s the big idea. Next one. It increases the likelihood of all family members living as Christians. Statistically, if a wife gets converted, the husband and children do not. That’s not to discourage the women, but statistically, if the husband converts, so does the wife and so do the children. Why? He’s the leader. He’s the leader. So if you worship God, your daughters are probably gonna worship God and marry a guy who worships God. If you marry a gal who worships God, and you have kids, your sons are probably gonna grow up, worship God, and marry a gal who worships God. It’s very simple, and so if you can get the men, you can get the whole family. If you can get the men, you can get generations. If you get men, you can get entire family lines indefinitely. So let me tell you guys, you guys are very important, and your decisions are very strategic, and there are people coming onto the earth into the reality that you are deciding for them today. In addition, it encourages wives and children to gratefully honor men who try to love and lead. How many of you, as you take on more masculine responsibility, your wife and kids, they appreciate that? Now, they don’t always love it. There are some situations, but you know, I grew up… My kids grew up in an environment where my wife would always say, “Mark, thanks for providing. Thanks for working hard. You know, thanks for sending the kids to Christian school, whatever.” She was very grateful. My kids are very grateful. I find…
I find tremendous appreciation from my kids, and as a man, I don’t need trophies, I don’t need awards, I don’t need accolades, but if your wife is like, “Thank you,” and your kids are like, “Dad, you’re a blessing,” I’m good. My whole life is good, ’cause they know me the best, and if they consider me to be some sort of blessing, then it means that I have lived a life that is like the Father treats me, I’m treating them. In addition, it makes a man feel like a man when he lives as God created him to, right? How many of you guys, after sleeping with your girlfriend, you’re like, “That just felt right.” No, no, if you have the Holy Spirit in you, the only thing that feels right is obeying God. Everything else feels wrong, because the Bible says that our sinful flesh, in Galatians, that the flesh is against the Spirit, and that it keeps us from doing what we want to
do. If you have the Holy Spirit, meaning you’re a Christian, if you’re a believer in Jesus, God has given you new desires. You’re like, “You know what? I don’t wanna be an addict. I wanna be free to live my life. I don’t wanna be the guy who’s really good at getting girls to go to bed. I want to be the guy who his wife respects. I don’t wanna be the guy who’s, you know, a legend at the bar, right? I wanna be a legend at the dinner table. I don’t wanna be a guy who just spends his whole life being selfish, and then he’s just alone ’cause nobody wants to be with him. I wanna be the guy that my kids and my grandkids invite me into their life, and I get to see God’s blessing for generations.” And this is where the world doesn’t understand anything that the Bible says, because if you don’t have the Holy Spirit, you don’t have a new nature. You don’t have new

desires. All you’ve got is your old desires. Once you meet the Lord, you get these new desires. You’re like, “That’s what I want to do.” How many of you guys here right now, you’re like, “I wanna learn the Bible. I wanna be a good man. I wanna be a good husband. I wanna be a good father. I wanna live a life that honors God, and that’s what I wanna freaking do, so that’s why I’m here.”

– [Audience Members] Amen.

– That’s it. Now, you say that to a non-Christian, and they’re like, “I don’t even understand what you’re talking about, because you don’t have the Holy Spirit and you don’t have those desires. And then lastly, it increases the passing of wealth generationally to bless. If a man says, “Okay, I’m gonna live according to God’s word, love this woman, raise these kids,” then what you’re gonna have at the end of your life, I don’t know how many zeros are gonna be on your final tally, but you’re gonna have assets to hand off. The best way statistically to pass… The best way for wealth to exist is for a husband and father to intentionally architect his household to think not just of himself, but of his children’s children. If you’re the guy who doesn’t spend all of his money on divorce proceedings, and some of you have been divorced, and I’m sorry for that and I know it’s painful, but if you don’t spend your money on divorce attorneys and splitting your assets, if you don’t spend your money on all of your hobbies and shenanigans and foolishness, if you don’t go into massive debt and act like the federal government, and you’re actually wise with a plan, you can give something to your kids, and maybe if your kids are wise, they can extend that to your grandkids. And what that does, that is generational blessing that overcomes generational cursing. And I promise you guys this. If you want to do what God wants you to do, and you want to be who God wants you to be, your Father absolutely is committed to helping you achieve those goals. Father, thanks for an opportunity to teach, and God, I’m sure for some of the guys, it’s a lot, but God, so many guys, they either had no dad or they had a bad dad. He was either a chauvinist, he was domineering, overbearing, and just more of a drill sergeant than a dad, or God, they grew up in a home that was more feministic. Dad was absent or he was passive, and as a result, God, they didn’t get a good picture of masculinity. And so Father, help us to find good men, models, mentors, men who are tough and tender, men who love and lead, men who protect and provide. And God, I just want to honor all of these men who are joining us here in the room and online, and God, I want to thank you for the honor it is to be in the room with these men. God, none of us is perfect men, but we are new men. We are changing men. We are growing men. We are learning men. We are convicted men. We are men who do have new desires. We are men who do have the Holy Spirit. We are men who want to change the trajectory of our life and legacy. God, for those who come from generations of faithfulness and they’ve been blessed, I pray that they would continue that legacy. For those, Lord God, that are the first generation and it starts with them, I pray for courage and fortitude to do what is right, and God, the reason that it is hard for them is because there’s been so much gravity against their family, and God, would you give them the supernatural ability to defy gravity, to obey you, to do what is right in your sight, and to be good sons of our Father. In Jesus’ name. Amen.