Well guys I I got to tell you I’m excited to get to do this with you we’re in this book uh you see that book it says core at the top and it’s better man and unleashing a better manhood but basically we’re going to go on an 11we
Journey uh through what it means to be a man and that’s in our culture today nobody knows what a man is how how do you define that how do we how do we talk about it what is toxic masculinity what is masculinity uh and so we get to get a
Clear picture of what is a man over the next 11 weeks we get to figure out what a a working definition of that uh for us and this just doesn’t happen anymore there’s not a lot of this going on now I was handing around a signin sheet and it
Had uh so um let me let me grab that back book for you this is um this is Men’s Fraternity this is what this is based off of and so this was a 24 we uh sessions from the ’90s that uh swept through the country I went through it multiple times here’s what’s
Crazy this was in friendships Library when I was cleaning out the my side office this week which means we already had the content at this church that if we would have used it doesn’t even look like it’s been touched maybe they watched it once but here’s the thing if
This was just content the the the book has fill in the blanks and all the answers are in the back of the book you can go fill them out tonight and you’re done but I will tell you time and again I’ve gone through this multiple times
Over 20 years and I have seen guys try to do this with just the content alone and they fail every time it’s the Brotherhood that’s formed when we kind of do this together when you realize you’re not alone in this we’re on this journey together so um as good as the
Content is you need that uh being able to be in this group together so we’re going to start on page six there’s fill in the blanks and kind of go from that um so I will try to stay on track to get you the the fill-in the blanks uh if I
If I missed one I shouldn’t it’ll be on the screen but if I don’t it’s in the back of your book but um as we get started it calls it uh starting line perspectives and looking at manhood today so if we’re all up here at the starting line and we’re we’re we’re on
This journey together you look around you find out we have a lot in common and so that’s going to be the first perspective uh when you look around your room um you got people maybe you’ve got the same Hobbies whether that’s hunting and fishing maybe it’s cars and trucks
Maybe it’s the job you’re in life stage you’re in you’re a grandparent or you’re a parent or you single or anywhere in between we can all find uh some things that are in common and we have the same issues in common we have the same struggles as we go through this and the
Other thing that we find out about us is that we all want to be better men and so there’s a list of different ways that could be but when you think about being better men um I remember there’s a the guy name was Ferrar Steve Ferrar wrote a
Book pointman don’t know if anybody’s ever read it but he tells a story story in there of a army recruiter a navy recruiter and a marine recruiter that came to a high school they had 200 boys senior boys they were going to go listen to them give a talk 15 minutes each is
What they were told they had and then afterwards they go to the cafeteria and talk to the interested boys well the army guy gets up and he got so excited he supposed to take 15 minutes he took over 20 he was so excited so the Navy
Man not to be out done he went over 20 minutes and then it came time for the Marine recruiter and he had 2 minutes left and uh Ferrar tells the story that the Marine went up there and he got up there with two minutes to go and he
Stood there and for the first minute he just sat stood in stone silence and surveyed the crowd and he B basically they knew what he was doing he was sizing them all up and then with one minute to go he says men I only see about two or three of you
That would make it in the Marines I want to see those three men in the cafeteria after we dismissed and that was all he said you can imagine he was mobbed by the young man that wanted to sign up for that and so there’s this idea we want to
Be better we want to be called up to something better I don’t want to settle I don’t want to just be an okay Dad an okay husband okay at what I do at work I want to be able to do what I do well and
So we want to be better so maybe some of you when you look at that list here uh some of you you uh feel good about where you’re at but you want to keep growing okay you realize that this is a journey and you haven’t arrived so maybe that’s
You today uh so you share that in common with some of these but some of us maybe you’ve got some questions like what do I need to know that I don’t you know you’re stepping into marriage right now or maybe it’s children and you’re like
What are my top priorities I want to be intentional about my time uh How Do I Live Without Regrets others maybe you’re looking for practical help marriage kids spiritual life take your pick but if we’re on to some of us maybe you’re struggling and you need a new Direction
And we’ve all been there I just want you to know you’re not alone if you’re struggling with Direction we’ve all been there at some some point and your failures don’t have to Define you and so as we go through this we’re going to take a step back and get kind of a clear
Picture of what it means to be a man as we get started in this because we’re coming from so many different perspectives and so uh we jump to the next page page seven where it talks about how are men doing today and I’ll tell you right now there’s a lot of
Statistics today uh in this in this session there’s a lot of like bad news of like what the state of manhood today we’re not here to just Grumble and complain and talk about the problems we’re here to find Solutions and we’re going to get clear definitions through
This we’re also going to break off into small groups and we’re not going to gather around and cry on each other’s shoulder and saying Kumbaya We’re Men we’re going to talk about these things and we’re going to get honest with each other but some of us are worried
About what what are you expecting from me I’m just saying we’re going to press in get honest with each other I mean it’s okay to shed a tear every once in a while but that’s not the goal is like who the group that cries the most wins
Or something like that and so it’s funny because especially if I’m like hanging out with my kids there’s a moment where I’ll tend to like leak from my eyes is the way I say it now and they some people get mad at because I don’t call
It crying but like um I saw my son raise his hands in worship today and he got me and I knew I got to get up and preach and if I let that go too long I’ll get up there and I’ll be a mess and I’ll
Just cry the whole time and the ladies in this church go oh you honey you cry all you want nobody Minds oh I mind and you mind like you don’t want me up there crying every week I had a friend he was awesome but every time he taught the
Bible he cried I mean about the dumbest stuff sometimes I’m like I don’t want to be that guy so like I try to lock that in and keep that but they don’t get that as a man there’s certain things you try to portray but also it’s like I just
Want to be in control of my emotions I don’t want to be that and so I get that there’s a balance here we’re not here to just all cry and blubber around even though sometimes you need to do that I’ve been there but anyway as we get
Into this how are men doing today we’re going want to see some statistics through this but some good news first um some men have found a manhood that works and a a manhood that truly works is lifegiving that’s the next one of those so when you think about that uh
You think about the circles of your life there are guys in your life let’s say you’re at hunting camp or you’re at work at a team meeting at work and this one guy comes in and it’s the guy that everybody’s like glad to see the energy
In the room goes up right they will step up they’ll do whatever needs to be done on the job they don’t have to be told they’re like lifegiving you’re glad they’re there you know they’re interested in you and they’re not just takers they’re givers but we also know
Those other guys they show up energy comes down you know they’re only around you when they need something they’re takers um this kind of manhood is lifegiving and when you see that kind of manhood what you see here it says is people are encouraged by it you know
Women and wives feel safe and valued around around it you know that’s the thing about masculinity if it’s done correctly they feel safe families Thrive with it U it’s the picture of that husband and wife especially the dad when he has a stable centering force in the
Family it’s like the rest of the family kind of revolves around that is that there’s stability in that uh then they Thrive sons are drawn to it it says you know that’s the sons that look at their dad and say that’s my dad they’re proud to call out that that’s their dad
They’re drawn to that kind of manhood that the kind that works daughters delighting in it you know I’ve got daughters and I want them to be raised in such a way they see manhood so when they get into relationships they’re looking for men that model this kind of
Manhood the last thing I want to do is be the dad that creates daddy issues for my daughters so when they go out in the world and the first guy that says you’re pretty or gives them any attention they run to them because they’ve got daddy issues because they didn’t understand
What a real man looks like for me what what to feel secure and Delight in that they need that from someone else you know whole there’s whole groups of men that pray on girls with daddy issues like so if you’ve got daughters you know this is important as well even though we
Talk a lot about Sons uh it matters for us with daughters and finally the workplace and Community benefit because of it so that’s some more things that we see out of a manhood that truly works and then even here lifegiving is the word that the Bible used to describe
Jesus and that’s actually found in 1 Corinthians 15:45 notice what this is going to be a key part of this definition of manhood as we get to that in week five it says the first man became a living being that being Adam the first man Adam and the
Last Adam became a lifegiving spirit that being Jesus the first Adam is the one that uh because of sin brought the curse on us the last Adam Jesus he reversed our sin curse and how do you do that first Peter tells us by he G he
Gave his life to us you know his death brought us life so that’s lifegiving that’s what we want to be about we want to be givers in not takers uh in our relationships and so as we’re working through this you know I’ve gotten to see men move forward in their manhood
Journey through this I’ve gotten to see guys take that initiative in their life and watch their families Thrive as a result of it and so that’s what we want to see but the power of that comes from Jesus he’s the one that gives us life
And uh one way it was described to me is like a car without gas you know we can do this life without Jes Jesus and when it’s downhill we can Coast pretty far right I was dropping my kids off at school one day and I realized I had not
Checked the gas I forget what happened never happens to me but I ran out of gas but I’m at the top of a hill it’s a mile down to the school and there’s cars in front of me and I killed the truck just enough gas that I cranked it and popped
It and I I got started down the hill as other cars were going and I rode that break for the next like five minutes just slowly but surely no power steering anything in in the truck and I coasted in and I pulled in and I walked in and
Got my kids cuz I had to drive back up the hill you know what without gas it’s not going back uphill I can Coast I can’t take the hills when you look at life you can Coast till you hit the hills but life is more uphill than it is
Coasting and that’s why we need Jesus to give us that life and so we’re going to get into that a lot in this and um I promise that what we find is things that point us to a better life so the life-giving nature that makes us a
Better man uh when when we’re in this the it works but then you jump into the next part and some men though they’re in a manhood fog you know wed last Wednesday it was foggy you couldn’t see 10 feet in front of you on uh Hurrican Road and when when things are foggy
Vision isn’t clear and we’re talking about manhood what is that picture of manhood when we don’t have a clear picture it’s foggy and you think back uh you don’t have to look very far to see how times have changed in our culture you see that on that list times have
Changed leaving men conflicted and Confused there was a time it was a lot easier to figure out what a man was you go back a few generations and Men primarily worked on their farm and they worked at home so either they worked at their Farm or they worked at a shop in
Their house or they worked in town but it wasn’t far away and so boys grew up seeing their dads at doing you know doing their job they saw their dads at their best you know the plow breaks they saw them problem solved they saw them fix it they saw overcome difficulties
They got to see their dad at their best then the Industrial Revolution comes along Men start going off into factories well now you got these men going off to factories the boys go into schooling primarily led by women nothing against women not rocking that but at the same
Time they don’t get to see Dad at their best anymore when are you going to see Dad do problem solving overcome you know the problems that he faces how does he deal with anger all those things don’t get to see it anymore dad’s gone you’re just learning at school and you learn
You learn at school don’t you don’t get to be a boy you know girls can emotionally kill each other with bullying tactics but we go out and we settle it with one punch in the yard and guess what school suspension for us you know the girls they’re over there
Causing May way more damage and we’ve already worked it out but that’s the way schooling works then you take the 20th century whole generations of men going off to war you had World War I World War II Vietnam Korea the gulf Wars men were coming home whole generations of fathers
Coming home emotionally cut off from their children the PTSD and the things they face caused them to pull back and then you take this this new culture you know there are people that would say anything masculine is toxic not just toxic masculine they’d say all of it so
Men walk on eggshells wanting to talk about manhood and so then you take boys growing up in this how do we help them see a vision for manhood when that’s what our culture has done so it’s very confusing and it’s hard to figure it out
So we’ve got to turn from the answers of the past because that’s not working anymore but what does the answers in the present look like because what you see as you look through it we need to recognize that men in a manhood fog struggle they struggle uh when you think
About struggling here it’s um it gives us a couple of ways that they struggle as a result of not having a clearly defined manhood we don’t have that vision is it’s foggy this is what happens when they struggle they settle for less in life but they don’t know it’s less
They just settle into a routine and there was this uh psychiatrist this is from the 1950s his name was Rolo May and he wrote about uh what he saw in the life of men and some things have changed since then but I want to read to you
What he had to say about men all the way back in the 50s he said the clearest picture of an empty life is a Suburban man who gets up at the same hour every weekday morning he takes the same train to work in the city he performs the same
Task at the office he lunches at the same places leaves the same tip for the waitress comes home on the same train each night spends a twoe vacation at the shore each summer which he does not enjoy he goes to church but does not know why he goes he moves through a
Routine mechanical existence year after year after year until he retires at age 65 and very soon after dies of heart failure possibly brought on by the repressed anger although I have always had the suspicion he died with boredom now he’s we don’t get on a train
And go somewhere but you look at life it’s a it’s like a treadmill that’s what he’s describing day in day out you get on that treadmill and you go and now things have changed people don’t tend to stay at the same job as much anymore for instance but you know those guys they’re
Like they’re jumping from job to job to job oh this is the one this is the one that’s going to make me happy or hey you know what I’m starting up this new business and if I just sell my soul to this for the next year I’m going to cash
In in life you know we see that other guys you know you think about treadmills they are the next new vacation the next new toy the next sexual exploit the next new experience it’s still just a treadmill and we look up one day and go
Is this it do we settle for less and that’s what we don’t want to do we don’t want to settle for less uh and that’s what happens when we don’t have a clear picture so men in a manhood fog they struggle they create problems lots of them uh when you start looking at
Society and the number of crimes committed by men compared to women it becomes pretty evident where we cause a lot of those issues all 90% of all crimes committed by men uh 95% of all burglaries committed by men 98 98% of all sexual assaults committed by men 94% of drunk drivers
Are men so if you don’t have a vision get into trouble uh we’re going to see that in just a second but uh it tells us that third one you know we guess at our masculinity and we hope it works we just guess at it like maybe
This is what what a man is you know that maybe we think based on what we’ve seen on TV or whatever it is but I can I can I feel this so much because when I was nine years old my dad left us and he
Died when I was still in high school and so growing up I didn’t have anybody to tell me you know I had to guess a lot about what is manhood and I’ve shared some of these stories in the past but like I didn’t know how to tie a tie I
Didn’t know how to uh ask a girl out how to lead in the dance my dad was an a mechanic in the air force in Vietnam he never taught me how to uh change the oil in a vehicle or drive a stick shift none of those things and I was angry I
Remember just growing up going why you know how how am I supposed to know these things I was an Angry Kid if you knew me back then I was a hotthead I thought it was they said the Davis temper that’s what I had gauge and I just used that as
An excuse but I realized there was something far deeper there I didn’t H I was having to guess at everything and I hated it um there was a another Pastor that mentioned this happened to him his dad died when he was was younger but he had an older brother so he had somebody
To look at to say is this success and you know is this a man and his brother was actually quite successful went off to college and he started getting jobs places like Dale and Cisco Systems and all these computer companies over the last 20 years and he just kept moving up
And up in the world and this Pastor said but what he didn’t realize was while his brother was moving up in the world he was working his way down to the bottom of a bottle and he was drinking every day just to get through the day and he
Was called into a hospital bed to his brother’s side when he was 42 years old and he said but if you didn’t know him you’d have thought he was 72 his body had given out and he died now I’ve seen men in a conf you know the confusion play out maybe not as
Dramatic as that some drinking them themselves to death at 42 but here’s what happens when we don’t have a picture we just try to make it up as we go we cause we cause problems we can get in a lot of trouble as a result um maybe you feel like that’s
Where you’re at you’re in the five the good news is we don’t have to stay there um there’s a quote on the next page page eight I’m not going to get into it tonight but basically this Anthropologist says you need to find healthy roles for your men because if
You don’t there’s problems and uh you can read more about that but there’s actually three PS to that every man needs a purpose a plan and a pursuit or you get problems um do you have those things in your life you know that’s what we’re trying to get is a purpose and a
Plan like you we get a game plan for life at this I like to win but if we play a game and I don’t know the rules and I don’t know how to win I get frustrated real quick and a lot of us that’s what life is so we’re going to
Figure out what does that game plan for winning but I wanted to jump ahead and get into these challenges that we face with our time that we have left um the four challenges that men face going forward uh you’ll see it the first one is the loss of a common manhood
Vision the loss of a manhood Vision uh there’s a lot of ideas of what a man looks like but we don’t have a shared Vision you know what is a man like who told you you were a man who’s the first one to say you’re a man or or
When did you know you were a man was it when you were 18 was it when your bank account got something far when you got married um you know where you know and who is a man like what was our definition of a man I heard it somebody put it pretty good for
Multigen is it John Wayne Bruce Wayne or Little Wayne but like do you have a picture of what is a man okay there’s you know there’s the John Wayne guy all the way to Lil Wayne you got to decide uh what is a man in this and so we’re
Trying to figure this common manhood Vision out because without Vision we live in a No Man’s Land we have to make it up kind of guessing at it and I remember there’s this article in Wired Magazine about the movies you see I was an 80s kid and I grew up watching
Transformers and uh they were talking about how uh the movie started to come out you know they made Transformers movies one just came back out on like Amazon or whatever I still watch him if I can with the kids but it’s just it’s Michael Bay is the director Michael Bay
Makes things go boom you know he’s looking for the the Blockbuster Movie Everything blows up but they were shocked when they started coming out with these Transformer movies because the actors started calling in and they were terrified they were going to mess up the story they wanted to make sure
They had the essence of the story just right so they didn’t mess up this Transformer movie Michael B’s like what are you talking about like it’s just a big robot you know fighting each other why does this matter so much and so Wired Magazine started to dig into it
And it turns out that uh the the biggest one they were scared of messing up was the leader of the Transformers do y’all know who that is who knows Optimus Prime that’s right they did not want to mess him up that was a noble character to
Them and they wanted to follow it so here’s what it said um this guy who’s a 30-year-old National Guardsman said these words in the in the article I latched on to Optimus Prime as a kid you see my dad passed away and I didn’t really have anyone around and he was
There for me every day and so that Wired Magazine comes on and finally dove into it a little bit and said Optimus Prime practically parented the lat key kids of the mid 80s he was our all father when Flesh and Blood models weren’t around you hear that that’s a group of
Men saying I need a vision and I’ll settle for a toy robot I just need somebody to look up to that’s what we’re looking for we need to have what what is that what is that picture that we’re trying to portray to others what is that for us that’s what
We’re trying to figure out because we want that Vision because without it um it says right here without Vision we’re left to make it up for oursel Proverbs 29:18 where there is no vision the men run wild notice it says people but with men without Vision we run wild and so
It’s important that we understand these things in it now the next part of this is the rise of a weightless manhood um when you think about a weightless manhood it gives us a picture of that it is created with the emotionally and or physically absent dad
Okay so maybe your dad wasn’t there or maybe he came home but he still wasn’t there emotionally gone okay whichever one that is when you have a dad in your life it provides that weight and here’s what it looks like emotional stability says love and affirmation now moms naturally nurture they naturally
Move that way but dads that that that’s got to be intentional you know if you leave that all to the girls and they leave that all to the wives we’re missing out because one of the biggest things that you see in our world are men that are wearing themselves out for the
Approval of a dad who’s completely absent he may already be dead or he’s never even noticed but they’re still trying to win that affirmation make sure it’s not our kids like that maybe you’re the one on that rat race though you’ve been trying to prove to a dad that’s not
Even paying attention uh when you have a dad that pays attention uh you get that stability you get that those moral convictions and practical skills in there as well and so there’s a there’s a part of this when you think about weightless versus not weightless the way
They described it in this series is um there was a guy named Michael plant Michael plant bought and created a $650,000 boat it was Sleek it was called the the coyote he wanted to sell around the world on it so he spent $65,000 and this is back in 1992 which I don’t know
That’s worth what 20 million now I mean it feels like that’s just a lot of money back then when I was going up but he wanted to sell around the world and he set off in October of 92 from New York in about 30 days later a Greek tanker
Found his boat completely upside capsized there was a 60ft mast on this thing and it was pointed straight down completely intact but it was missing something on the bottom of the of the of the boat it’s called The Kill there was supposed to be a 8600 lb bulb it’s called The
Bulb kill and that bulb was what held that boat in Cross currents and with the cross winds and everything else that was to what give it stability but it was missing it sheared off they don’t know if a whale hit it rock hit it malfunction whatever but but without it
That craft was completely upside down and we don’t have that weight in our life to know what a man is it’s just like that when cross currents in our culture hit us it flips us upside down that’s when he calls it a weightless manhood we don’t have that Dad to
Provide that waiting in our life so we’ve got to find a way to put that back in us so you got an epidemic here you see this in the middle of page nine in 1960 only 5% of boys in America were fatherless today it’s 41% and how many of those of the 60%
That are left are actually present and not emotionally absent now we’ve talked a lot about boys we’ve talked a lot about sons and maybe you’re saying Jason I don’t have any boys all I got daughters you know or I don’t have kids yet like what’s this got to do with me
That’s where this comes in because I remember what it was like going up without a dad and I didn’t know how to shake a hand and at our church they did the whole awkward shake a hand next to you where you shake everybody’s hand I was
Left-handed this is what I did I walked up and started doing this some men set me straight real quick hey you shake with your right hand web to web squeeze and then that was one man in the church and then I would go around and I’d shake
Hands like this and somebody stopped me and said son when you don’t look me in the eyes like that and you don’t give me eye contact you look Shifty I can’t trust you I learned to look men in the eye and give them a good handshake because they had father figures you may
Not have your own kids but everybody around us is looking statistically we need to be those father figures they need a vision in our church there’s some young boys in this church that have no father figures around them except who we are at church and that’s why we have to
Live this out so that’s why it’s so important that we get this but I remember being scolded by one of the dudes he just got on to me about how to shake a hand and stuff but now when a young man shakes my hand and looks me in
The eye that impresses me more than anything else they can do because somebody has invested in them they didn’t get that by accident you know they didn’t find that on YouTube you know they they’re not going to find that kind of answer there’s somebody that invested in
Them so one more thing that we Face uh is C right here a radically changed and rapidly changing social landscape look at some of these statistics from the last 50 years we’re almost done guys uh this is the longest session in all of it it’s about 45
Minutes total so I’m trying to keep us on track but look at these stats it says men and women women’s roles have increasingly merged the definition of marriage has changed for the first time in over 4,000 years now it can mean a lot of different things uh some 44% of
Millennials now consider marriage obsolete you’re wondering what a millennial is or if you’re a millennial mid-20s early 40s that’s the Millennials now in Mississippi that can change depending on what pocket of the South you lived in but if you were if you remember 911 you’re probably in the millennial
Stage where if you don’t you’re in j z that’s that younger that’s those high schoolers that we saw today at church um and there’s differences but look at that that generation sees marriage is basically OB almost half say that marriage is obsolete cohabitation has exploded for the first time it says in
American history there’s more unmarried adults than married adults there’s 61% of children are born to mothers under 30 are born outside of marriage there’s multiple gender categories in 14 States this year there will be the third item third option on gender on the driver’s license that’s how dramatically it’s
Change can could you imagine trying to describe this some of our grandads you know it’s not just boys and girls anymore there’s this there’s that all this change all that uh it’s just all of this has changed now some things have changed in and and it’s bad for guys but
Good for girls women now outnumber men in college um they’re earning more advanced degrees it says they they’re enrolling in in law and medical schools by a majority it says that we’re New York Times said men are being left behind in the dust at college so there’s some
Information here single women are buying homes faster than single men depression rates 10 tenfold uh among men and since 1960 women shoulder most of the responsibility for the health and vitality of the Christian faith in the United States there’s a lot of churches the only people active in it are the
Women and the men aren’t drawn to it outside of the church and inside the church it’s like why why why don’t the women you know let the men do it no the men didn’t step up there’s a reason women run most churches is because the men were passive and didn’t step up and
So I’m thankful to be at a church where I have men that don’t let that happen like they step up and they say I will help I’ll be a part of this but that is a major part A lot of people look at church they see think of it as a
Feminine thing to do instead of understanding what it means to follow Jesus as your king so clearly women are excelling in today’s modern world while men have stalled that’s your next couple of fill-in the blanks so when we get into this section uh that’s where we are and part
Of the reason we’re here is because there are certain lives me lies men believe about themselves and that’s part D and that’s what we want to look at for a few minutes is just some of these lies that we believe about oursel um you’ll see that on page
11 the first one is I should know what to do you’re like you think you know I should know how to take care of my finances I should know how to take care of my wife I should know how to do these things because I’m a man and we believe
That lie you know I was coming back some of you know this story because I’ve I’ve shared that conversation with you but uh again my dad never taught me how to drive a stick Shi well that didn’t matter in the suburbs no way I cared we all drove around our little vehicles and
If it iced over we just stayed home you know that kind of thing everybody here’s got a 4×4 everybody knows what they’re doing but when I moved back I was looking at a truck that was built in the 60s and was more than likely a manual transmission and I said yeah I’m a
Little worried about that because I can’t drive a stick and I would watch people’s response to that and it was priceless some guys would go are you serious you can’t drive a stick how can you not know because are we born at Birth to know how to drive a stick I
Didn’t have a dad to teach me I learned how to take computers apart because that’s what I learned but like for a long time I was ashamed of that now I do it as a social experiment I’m like I can’t drive a stick I see what guys say
Like how can you not drive a stick but we think I should know that and for a long time I was ashamed I was frustrated but there’s other things in our life I should have known better how to handle my finances I should have known how to
Handle uh raising kids or whatever it is and so maybe you believe into that line that we should just know these things um it’s just not true so with that we look at the next one I’m the only one who struggles with this you know I’m the
Only one that really struggles with some of these things you think nobody else is struggling with pornography nobody else is struggling with anger feelings of insecurity you know all these things we just think I’m the only one I’ve got to figure this out and I’ve telling you you
Can try and take this and figure it out on your own but I’ve watched guys try and fail for 20 years we need others to go you know what I’ve been there I’ve done exactly what you’re going through I failed I messed up and here’s what I
Learned you know we need to be able to build each other up in those moments here’s a big one number three it’s too late to do anything about this you know what my relationship’s over it’s too late I’ll never have a good relationship with my kids it’s too
Late I can’t make a career change it’s too late when we buy into that lie we miss out on some of the things that God wants to do in our lives I have seen men decide to say it’s not too late I’m going to repair that relationship with
My kids I’m going to repair that relationship um you know financially or whatever it is I’m going to make a career change and I’ve watched Men step up and watch their lives Thrive now they didn’t always succeed in the eyes of the world but you know what they knew they
Gave it a shot you know you want to be able to look at your kids one day and say I gave it everything I could to make it work with your mom but so many times we’re got we’re taught in our culture just give up these are the moments where
You might be thinking it’s too late and it’s not too late to at least give it a shot and do what God’s called you to um so we got a few more I can do this and no one will ever know I I I’ll I’ll deal with these little
Problems it’s not really a problem for me so I don’t really need to let anybody know and if I tell you the truth about myself you’ll reject me that’s the big one for a lot of us if you knew me you really knew me you wouldn’t accept me
I’ll just tell you right now in these groups if you get honest and let’s say you’re sharing a problem with something let’s say you go you know what I’m addicted to pornography your group is not going to go what’s pornography your group’s not going to stand up and go
I’ve never dealt with pornog I’ve never dealt with lust how dare you like what kind of guy deals with that they’re going to go you know what I’ve been there and they need you to be honest enough so they can walk alongside it with you you know I’ve watched some
Things happen in at our church this past year and it’s guys that didn’t want to tell me they were struggling and I missed opportunities to just invest in them I’m not going to judge them I just want to know so I can walk alongside so you know you’re not alone that’s what
This journey is about so so I want to give you a second to take an act of courage take a look at that list of five lies it’s five right 1 two 3 four I’m so bad at math um I want to give you a chance Circle one you’ve been telling
Yourself is true or Circle the one you struggle with the most I’m just going to invite you go ahead and do that take about 10 seconds look them over which one is the biggest struggle that you deal with so as we finish out here’s a couple of things that we’ve
Got to ask the one question is can we Define manhood that will work for us in the modern world you know what is what is it it’s not the you know is if it’s not about our bank account if it’s not about the size of our muscles if it’s
Not how deep our voice is you know what is it and the answer is yes we can find that and we’re going to get to do that over the next couple weeks we get to the definition on week five and I’ll talk about that in a second but you know some
Are like just give it to me now we like to run with the plan but we need to set some more groundwork we need to till some soil there’s some more parts we need to unpack they’re not slow playing it to get more money out of us it’s one
Book and they you know all they’re getting out of it is the printing cost it’s you got to think about where this is going out in our country there are whole groups of men right now that have never been in a church that are checking this out because somebody invited them
And they’re gonna and you notice this was not Bible heavy tonight we’re not just like just digging into the Bible the whole time we’re getting a few statistics we’re reading a few verses but that is very intentional because you learn to build trust in this so that
When we do talk about about the ultimate man is Jesus it didn’t they they they’ve learned to trust you enough to hear it okay so that’s what’s cool about this and so we’re going to get there there’s there’s a reason behind it so there’s five promises they make on this better
Man journey and the first one is you’ll increase your manhood understanding and make some significant personal discoveries every time I go through Men’s Fraternity I find new things out I get reminded of things I forgot from the first time I did it my wife I’ve gone
Through men’s rur at least six times in the in the there’s other groups of it like break offs and other things I’ve gone through those dozens of times it feels like and people would go Amy why are you letting Jason do this and a it just bothers me they’d say why are you
Letting Jason do this you know because I’m a man but no I uh she knows and I know uh I’m going to do what I want to do because that’s what men do right no um she would just respond graciously to them and say every time Jason Goes to
Men’s Fraternity he’s a better husband and it’s true because I make new discoveries every time I’m in a different life stage every time I go through this so I’m going to find out some things about me uh through this but you’re going to find some things out as well number two on the
Promise is you’ll receive helpful insight and support from your table leader Steven MCB n Gore and myself will be your table leaders in this group and uh we’ve got some for the Wednesday night group but um you’re supposed to start with a group of five go through
This training and come out with five table leaders and launched this to the church I didn’t wait that long I went ahead and launched it big and I talked to better men the company and stuff because it’s not rocket science you can look one page over page 13 there’s your
Questions there’s three questions the table leader is going to go how do you think men are doing today what’s your greatest concerns as a man in this modern world and encourage everybody in the group to share and not let anybody Dominate and not just shoot the breeze
And not get to the actual questions that’s what it take it’s not rocket science but you’ll find out by week three you’re going to go I could read the question question and uh I truly believe this and some of you won’t believe this yet but I
Believe every man in this room could be a table leader in the fall if that was the need in our community and you had a group of five guys that needed this and I believe every one of you could be at table leader but there’s some men in our
Church that don’t feel like they could be for whatever reason that’s what these 11 weeks are for there’s a bigger picture what you can be so uh you’re going to receive that help you will also make new friends you are getting put with groups of people and you don’t know
Everybody and that is intentional um if you just hang out with the people that you know um it’s kind of hard to um grow in that but it is kind of scary for some to go out of that box but when you realize that you’ve got
More in common than you ever realize um my friend Shane from Tennessee this is how we got to know each other was Men’s Fraternity we went to a golf tournament we kind of hung out after that but his brother was wanting to do this Men’s Fraternity I had gone through through it
Before I went through it we went through it two whole times because he knew other men that needed this and I had the privilege of seeing uh Shane and his wife come to know Christ and baptize them it took about six years of going through some of this and walking through
Him but I have seen my best friend come through this but we weren’t best friends when we started we had we thought we had nothing in common and it turns out there’s a lot in common now especially with Christ so uh just so you know it’s
If you’ll open yourself up to it you can make some new friends and these are men that will have the same language as you same inside jokes because we go through this together and that helps through this um when I watch The Five Guys that did the video series The reason I
Decided to do it live is because the two of the guys didn’t fit our culture the other three two of them clearly they are great speakers and they hired them because they’re great speakers and they had clearly never gone through Men’s Fraternity because they were talking
About Theory but the one guy even when he talked I could tell he’d gone through men fraternity because the language changes and his illustrations of how he has seen men but he was talking more to that Suburban mindset and he’s talking about things that honestly is a waste of
Time for us when we need to just get down into what it means to be a man here okay and so that’s why I went ahead and bit the bullet and I’m going to teach it live um I promise I’m not wanting to do it as much as I know it’s important I
Actually talked to the guy that I was going to show his videos and his videos and it says you should teach life if at all possible so that’s why I’m investing this in you and I’m going to sleep like the dead tonight okay because when I speak I get really tired afterwards
Every time especially on stuff like this so the final two uh final two uh promises out of this is you will have the opportunity to upgrade your manhood using a weekly better man question the first one of those will be in session two which is in two weeks remember Super
Bowl is coming up and then we’ll jump back into it you’ll use those answers at the end to build and create your own better man plan so by the end of this you’ll have all these questions that you’ve answered to help you build a game plan and everybody’s will be different
As a result of that but you’ll also receive a clear definition of manhood that’s that fifth promise it’s going to be presented in session five and then it’s spelled out from session six to 10 and so um in just a minute we’re going to go into our small groups and uh
Kind of talk through some of this and process this it’s not super deep as you’re getting going on this it’s just kind of where you at and what what are some things that excite you about this um but it gives us a picture of manhood
That’s what this 11 weeks is going to do and you know I I hope you’ll stay with me the chances of all 45 men going through it are slim but let’s let’s break that mold okay there’s there every time there’s guys all of a sudden there’s easy to make excuses you know it
Rained it’s cold I’m just glad you made it tonight because this is the hardest night to make it to and so then as we go through this now you got guys looking forward to seeing you and you’re looking forward to seeing them and it builds that accountability um I started going to
Jiu-Jitsu um n years ago and I started I couldn’t do the night classes because my wife says dinner dinner matters to her so they started a 6 am. class and I’m like I’m without excuse because I got nothing better to do at 6:00 AM than go
And try to strangle each other so I show up to class the first time this was 5 years ago this year in May they’re celebrating a fifth fiveyear thing and want me to come up for it but I remember standing in the class there were five of
Us and this young coach that’s a black belt and he’s awesome but he says look we have to have Five Guys on average to keep this class going or we’re going to close it down and there were five of us so we looked around like instant accountability right you know like I
Need to be here so that we all get out of this you need to be here for the rest of your team okay so that we all get something out of this because again anybody can just go over the curriculum when it all possible don’t have to watch
It online try to do it in person because it matters so um we don’t need to be perfect men we just need to be better men that’s what we’re trying to get to okay so let’s do that together
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