The Secret is Revealed: How a Boy Becomes a Man. Part 2 of The Five Aspects of Manhood

I love to wrestle with my three sons.

I unexpectedly surprise them by putting them in a headlock, just to see how they will fight their way free. 

Maybe it’s playful combat, or maybe it’s my way to prepare them for the push and pull of life in a wild, jungle-of-a-world.

·         But a dad should be careful about how he trains his boys, because boys become men.

Now that my sons are bigger and stronger, they have turned the tables on their aging father.

When I least expect it, one of my boys will give me a surprise attack, just to see how I’ll wrestle my way out of things. 

Sometimes all three will band together to see if they can overpower their papa.

What exactly is a telltale sign that a boy is becoming a man? 

While any boy can begin something, a man finishes things. 

A man who finishes things has traditionally been called a husband.

A husband cares for what he creates.

A husband cultivates and tends the persons and things within his realm in order to make them fully fruitful and powerfully productive.

We often equate the word husband with marriage but “husbandry” has also been associated with farming or gardening.

A boy can throw a handful of seeds into the dirt, but a man will faithfully water, fertilize, prune and pray for abundant growth and development.

Here are three things a boy can do this week to become a man that husbands well.

·         First, stop living as a consumer. 

A consumer depends on mom, dad and others without taking responsibility.

Authority flows from taking responsibility.

Contribution creates deeper joy than consumption.

Watch a coach, a mechanic, a webmaster, a pit crew chief, an engineer and a pastor. 

They have an appetite for multiplying abundance.

It’s time to be productive for the sake of loving and serving others.

Things become wild when a man refuses to tend and care for that which is under his responsibility.

What is the condition of your room, body, clothes, computer, animals, and relationships?

What is the condition of your relationship with the living God?

·         Second, don’t abuse your husbanding by overwork. 

When we roll up our sleeves and overexert our energy in inefficient ways we sweat.

Cursed with sweat, we often curse when we give our life to our work.

The gospel is all about Christ working for you as He died to absorb your penalty for sin and lives to carry you with his righteousness. 

He said the final “It is Finished” at the end of his cross-work to save fallen humanity.

All work and no play makes men into exhausted, arrogant jerks. 

I know this because I struggle with overwork and the pride and exhaustion it creates every day.

Make sure you build margin into your calendar to wrestle with your boys, date your wife and play at a hobby.

·         Third, don’t slack up or slack off.  Our culture tempts boys to abandon their role as emerging husbands.

Coasting, convenience and comfort tempt boys to stay boys.

Spend more time cultivating the character of Christ rather than competence at trivial games or useless skills.

Men have a fire in their belly to husband productive things.

Slackness creates mediocre and careless productivity.

Christ played hard but never abandoned his role as the husband of his bride, the church by slacking off.

Paul said it best when he addressed his “brothers” with these words:  ESV 1 Corinthians 15:58 Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.

·         And young men here is the secret of all secrets--

Girls becoming women look for boys becoming men…..men who relish husbanding for the glory of God.

Well guys, what do you think? 

Do you agree that the secret to a boy becoming a man is husbanding things well? 

I’d love to hear from you.

Pastor Howard
Senior Pastor
Metro North Church

Five Aspects that Animate Mannish Men

Guts. 

Grit.

Manhood:  The glorious inner excitement a guy feels-- from his nose to his toes-- when he assumes sacrificial responsibility.

Jesus would walk up to a guy and call him out of his routine and into a new way of sacrificial living and giving with the simple command “Follow Me.”

I remember the day when my dad “called me out” to join him for a work-out at the Atilis Gym.

The Atilis gym was no Planet Fitness. 

A dilapidated building full of rusting weights and creaking machines magnetized men of all shapes and sizes to enter, “pump some iron” and test the extremes of their testosterone.

Angry grunting, the scent of body sweat and eardrum-rupturing rock music washed over me, like a tidal wave, as I followed dad into that Jersey shore gym down the street from our home.

Brian, the owner, had a body that from the neck down resembled a bulky Coke machine.  A large bobble-head was perched atop his frame as he smiled in my direction.

·         It felt good when he noticed me and then aimed his hulk-like hand towards me for a “welcome to the man-club” handshake.

I knew during that mutual vice-grip squeeze that I was far from the feminine family and in the midst of manhood.

But what actually marks out manhood from womanhood?

A stroll through the Jesus story, from Genesis to Revelation, reveals at least five aspects of manhood.

Men image God as lords, husbands, saviors, sages and bearers of His glory.

Or so says William Mouser, who wrote a book on this subject years ago.  While I don’t agree with everything he says, Mouser helped me with a Biblical framework as I began to raise sons of my own.

While both men and women reflect God in similar ways, men and women also reflect God in different ways.  When we accept the similarities and the differences, a rich-colored picture of God emerges to inform our sexuality and inflame our worship of God.

·         Let’s look at the aspect of man as lord and we will develop the other four in upcoming posts.

Referring to a man as lord may sound blasphemous to some of our ears. 

Only God is Lord—right?  Right.  When God is described as LORD he is the ultimate ruler above all.

I’m not referring to man as lord in that sense.  Our English word lord derives from the Old English hlaford which means “master of the house” or ruler.

We find this concept in the very first command given to Adam in the garden: “…fill the earth, and be its master. Rule the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that crawl on the earth." (Genesis 1:28)

Later in the Jesus story we read “But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ.  (1 Cor. 11:3)

·         A head rules over a body for its good, not the other way around.

A young man constantly wonders “who am I and what am I here for?”  Parents need to aim their sons at this picture of lordship.  God designed a man to exercise dominance and power on the earth by commanding, controlling, deciding and decreeing good.

Remember that God created man to be an image of His ultimate rule (see Gen. 1:26).  Rulers in the ancient world would erect statues of themselves and place them all over their kingdom.  When someone saw the image or statue, they would be reminded of the power, provision and rule of the ultimate king.

Do we deliver this picture of dignity to our sons?  Wives, do you speak to others respectfully regarding your husband’s God-etched role?  Though they are not God they are masculine mirrors of the true master of the universe.

Just watch the men in your life.  They will try to master this or that.  They will work hard to accomplish great goals.  These are glimpses of lordship.

But sin shattered the image of God. 

Now men do two terrible things: 

·         they either abandon their representative rule on the earth

·         or abuse their power and authority.

Regretfully, I do both of these.  One minute I am passively abandoning an area of rule as a dad, husband, pastor, friend, and neighbor.  I drag my feet instead of making the hard decision.  I wait for my wife to decide so that she can take the heat for the consequences.

The next minute I am abusing others, creation, myself and God due to my sin.  I make unilateral decisions without consulting my wife’s wisdom, God in prayer, or the wisdom of others.

I spend so much energy trying to hide my sin-shattered state or fake a fully-restored image of lordship, rather than admit my true condition.

Is there hope for my masculinity?  Yes.

·         Jesus became a man.  He never abandoned or abused his rule.

He came to restore my masculinity, reversing the curse of sin and is actively restoring me to become more and more like him.

 “As all of us reflect the Lord's glory…we are being changed into his image with ever-increasing glory. This comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit”. (2 Cor. 3:18)

So moms—allow your sons to rule.  Let them make decisions.  Stop dictating the details of their life and allow them control.

Wives—stop nagging.  We all know this is a fierce attempt to manipulate us into masculinity.  When you manipulate a man, you pour fuel on the fire of our sinful tendency to abandon or abuse.  Stop.  Help us by praying.  Turn to your ultimate Lord and submit to his direction on how to live with such difficult men.  He will help you.

Dads, stop spinning the unimpressive image of your lordship to your family.  They know you are a shattered image.  Instead, admit when you abandon or abuse your rule.  Decide to ask for forgiveness.

Men, we need to spend more time deciding to gaze upon the face of Christ.  He has taken the penalty for our abandonment and abuse of lordship and transferred his resume of righteousness to our account.

He is renovating us right now by his Spirit to rule with mercy and grace.

I look forward to expressing the second aspect of masculinity, “man as husband” next time. 

An unfinished man gazing at the finished man Jesus,

Pastor Howard
Senior Pastor
Metro North Church

The Tomb as a Picture of Mercy

I invite you to push down gently on the brake of your hurried life.  

Slow down and relish Mary Magdalene’s mysterious experience of mercy, captured by her friend John:

John 20:11-14  11 But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, and as she wept she stooped to look into the tomb.  12 And she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet.  13 They said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping?" She said to them, "They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him."  14 Having said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing…

Three subtle surprises meet Mary at the tomb.

First, Mary found that angels of mercy appear in the presence, not in the absence of her emptiness.

Her friends Peter and John looked into the tomb with tearless eyes and saw nothing!

As the story goes, Peter and John ran off leaving her alone at the empty tomb of Jesus.

Standing there alone and feeling empty, her tears began to well up and run over.

Was she weeping as she remembered the seven evil spirits that abused her, and the day Jesus mercifully drove them out of her heart forever?  

Were her tears drawn from the recent well of witnessing her Savior’s shameful and painful death?

As hot tears flow like a fountain over her bloodshot eyes and cascade down her cheeks, she stoops to look into the tomb for Jesus.

Have you ever lost something dear to you?  A wallet?  A treasured ring?  The keys to the car? 

Even though you have searched in a certain spot without finding the object, you keep looking in the same location with desperation to find what you have lost.  

While looking and looking and looking through the waterfall of her tears, like a rainbow-- two dazzling angels appear!

Why do we attempt to escape our pain and sorrows?  Her vision happened in her sorrow.

Second, Mary found that the posture and position of the angels resembled the Mercy Seat.

The ancient ark of the covenant-the throne of God- featured one brilliant angel at the head and one at the feet facing each other.

The so-called “mercy seat” was between the angels.  

The mercy seat was the meeting place between God and man.

But there was one hitch for a meeting to materialize.  

Sinful humanity could only meet with the Holy God after the sacrificial death of an innocent animal took place.

Remember that Mary had seven evil Spirits.  The rarely-read book of Leviticus tells us that the blood of the innocent substitute had to be sprinkled seven times onto the mercy seat.

Without the punishment for sin symbolized and dramatized in the life-giving blood of another, God would not meet with man.

Jesus’ lifeless body had acted as the mercy seat between the angels.  

God solved the problem of our alienation by removing His wrath by means of a substitute sufferer.

Jesus absorbed the wrath of God on the cross diverting our deserved penalty and atoned for our sins.

Jesus was Mary’s mercy seat and she desperately wanted to meet with God again.

Thirdly, Mary found that turning around changes everything.

Not finding Jesus in this mysterious tomb of mercy, she turns around.

Surprise! Mercy himself stands smiling upon her.  Mercy cannot be entombed.

Could it be that the secret of surviving suffering is not the removal of the circumstance but the turning toward the merciful one?

The mystery of Mercy, her Messiah is not lying dead like a cold slab of blood-stained stone.

Instead, he is alive and standing as the meeting place between God and man forever.

Pastor Howard
Senior Pastor
Metro North Church

The Day Her Heart Stopped Shaking

I heard the loud, dull, continuous sound before I felt it.

It scared me a little at first.

Before I could connect the sound to the source, the twitter of a tremble nipped at the edges of my awareness.

Sitting in my blue recliner, the audible rumble morphed into a vibration that began to oscillate underneath me.

Earthquake?

I had experienced many of those in California but the emotional aura created by the rhythmic rippling remained eerily unfamiliar.

Fear began to cage me in as the ground began to quiver and shake with growing throbs of kinetic intensity.

As my heart fluttered from fright, my eyes spotted the cause of the convulsion.

Through a window, I saw a yellow bull-dozer romping to and fro at a nearby construction site.

The earth shook as it scooped up and then plopped heavy rocks back to the earth with a drumbeat of thumps.

This new knowledge halted my heart from shaking even though the ground underneath me continued to move.

My experience reminds me of a story.

Do you remember the story of Jesus meeting the woman with the shaking heart?

You know.  The sinful woman caught half-naked and wholly exposed in the very act of adultery.

Jesus’ best friend John describes the details in the eighth chapter of his biography.

Two earthshaking observations about this dear woman have the power to still our shaking souls.

·          First, Christ alone holds the key to the cage of our shame.

John tells us that it was early in the morning when she was caught and brought to Jesus.

He was sitting at the temple and teaching a big crowd as the sun began to brighten the world.

The self-righteous “teachers” shoved her into the very middle of the crowd to teach her a lesson.

Can you see her?  Look into the mirror to find her. 

We are all surrounded by a leering crowd of shameful sins.  Like rattling skeletons in the corner closets of our heart their shaming eyes stare into us.

         The lidless eyes unblinkingly search us as shame shakes our hearts.

Knowing that Jesus holds the key to condemnation, the stone holders scream to him so all could hear-- “She was caught and the law commands us to stone her. What do you say?!!”

As they grip the heavy stones in their dirty hands Jesus keys the cage of her shame by looking away from her.

His pure, brown eyes look down to the ground and he fingers the earth instead of pointing out her sin.

She is free from the only gaze that has the lasting power to punish her guilt.

·         Second, Jesus asks the only question that stills a shaking heart.

John tells us that Jesus stood up to the men as they clutched their stones with a death-grip.

He leaned in, looked them all in the eye and said: 

“Throw your stone of shame only if you have a heart that is not quaking from the shame of your own sin.  Throw it!”

He gracefully averts his eyes from them, bends down, and points his finger of shame to the earth.

And the trembling begins.

One by one each shameful sinner surrounding this dear woman drops his heavy stone.

I can hear the thuds and feel the tremors under the soles of my feet.

Jesus and the woman with the shaking heart stand alone and we hear them say these words: 

"Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?"   She answers, "No one, Lord."

Jesus tenderly adds, "Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more."

Like a mother rocking a restless baby, his graceful words rocked her shaking heart.

All became still.

Pastor Howard
Senior Pastor
Metro North Church