K. Chesterton once warned. When you’re trained to live suspended between contradictions, you don’t move forward with confidence. You drift wherever the cultural winds happen to blow.
The air we’re breathing right now is confused, and that confusion shapes how men think about themselves, their homes, and their responsibilities. It presses in quietly at first, then loudly, until many men no longer know what obedience even looks like.
It began in a garden, long before there were headlines to argue over or trends to follow. Genesis shows us a good design at the beginning. God created man and woman in His image, different by design and meant to complement one another in ordered harmony.
Then the order fractured in a way that still echoes today. Eve stepped into leadership God had not given her, and Adam stepped back from leadership God had commanded him to carry. When it all fell apart, Adam did not bear the weight of his failure and instead pushed responsibility onto his wife.
Sin did not erase what God made good. It bent it out of shape and twisted what was meant to function in harmony into a pattern of conflict. The design remained, but it was no longer operating as it should.
That distortion shows up in predictable ways. Women are tempted toward control, and men are tempted toward abdication and blame. We see the pattern everywhere because the pattern has been with us from the beginning.
This tension did not originate in culture. Culture amplifies what the Fall introduced and then sells it back to us as progress. A feminized world is not the result of strong women, but of sinful distortion in women and sinful abdication in men.
The answer to Adam’s failure is not better techniques or stronger personalities. It is a better Man who did not fail when obedience was costly. Where Adam stood silent, Christ spoke truth and stood firm.
Where Adam withdrew when responsibility pressed in, Christ stepped forward and embraced the cost of obedience. Where Adam blamed his bride, Christ bled for His bride. The contrast is not subtle, and it is meant to reshape how we think about leadership.
Christ restores manhood by reordering obedience, not by inflating ego or celebrating dominance. His model of strength is quiet endurance under the authority of the Father. He shows us that real leadership absorbs cost instead of shifting blame.
Men do not mature past the cross, and they do not outgrow their need for repentance. They grow by staying near it, returning again and again to the place where pride is put to death. Formation begins there and only continues if it remains anchored there.
Biblical masculinity is not domination. It is sacrificial responsibility under God, carried out in ordinary obedience that rarely draws applause. You do not learn manhood by watching culture, and you do not recover it by reacting to culture. You learn manhood by looking at Christ and ordering your life under His authority.
What Acting Like Men Actually Looks Like
Scripture is concrete about formation and does not leave masculinity in the realm of vague sentiment. It calls men to be watchful, to stand firm in the faith, to act like men, and to be strong. That is not bravado, but obedience with backbone.
Acting like men looks like paying attention to spiritual danger instead of drifting through temptation. It looks like standing firm when truth is unpopular and costly. It looks like leading in repentance before leading in direction.
It also looks like bearing weight instead of dodging it. It looks like choosing obedience when comfort would be easier and compromise would be rewarded. These habits are formed slowly through repeated, costly choices.
Men are not formed by comfort, and they are not strengthened by endless affirmation. They are formed by responsibility carried over time. You either take responsibility for your formation, or you allow the world to deform you into something weaker than you were meant to be.
The disorder we see around us did not start in courtrooms or classrooms, and it did not originate in political movements. It started in a garden when God’s order was rejected. That rejection still multiplies confusion wherever it takes root.
When God’s order is dismissed, confusion spreads into every sphere of life. When men abdicate their God-given role and responsibility, distortion follows close behind. The pattern is ancient, and the consequences are still with us.
The world does not need louder men who perform strength. It needs stronger men who practice obedience when no one is watching. It needs men who carry weight instead of performing outrage.
The call placed on men is simple in its clarity, but not easy in its cost. It requires watchfulness, firmness, and strength that grows through obedience. Stand watch, stand firm, act like men, be strong, and go and do likewise.
Note: This article is an adapted from a recent sermon by Virgil Walker
No comments:
Post a Comment