Johnny Sanders (00:09)
Hello and welcome back everyone to another Faithful Friday. Hope you all had a great week and are looking forward to the weekend. On Monday's episode, I had a great conversation with Jason Perry and in this we discussed a lot of different things, but one theme that I think was really important that he had a unique perspective on is masculinity, not just in culture, but in the church. Now, most of you listening to this, watching this,

You probably know that masculinity is in dire straits right now in the country, in the culture. You really have a couple different lenses, really multiple lenses that you can look masculinity through. You can look at it through the more of, if you want to call it woke, and which little time out here on woke, like the way all kind of understand what woke means and everything. And I don't think it's like a terrible thing to say, but.

I just get tiresome of the word woke and sometimes it's become so widespread that it just doesn't really hold a lot of meaning to me anymore. So I don't like to use the word woke too much. That's neither here nor there. But so really the progressive type of movement, how they look at masculinity is really in a negative sense. Several years back, there was a really big push if

push for the term toxic masculinity. And basically it was looking at masculinity and, that the thing that always pops in my mind of kind of the campaigns at that time, was, Gillette had this little commercial infomercial thing. I don't know what you would really call it. and it was talking about.

boys being boys and how, you know, Gillette's phrase is the best that man can get and was basically telling men we can do better than this. And anyways, one of the scenes on there was these boys that were like wrestling together and all the dads were saying boys will be boys. And the commercial was framing that as a bad thing that, Hey, boys wrestling around. That's just promoting that's it's grooming, if you will, this.

Johnny Sanders (02:29)
toxic masculinity, this masculinity that's overbearing, domineering, abusive, that's just trying to eventually be overbearing with our fist, through violence, through force, and also even towards women, sexually even, sexually abusing or see women as being just sexual property. Now, don't get me wrong, there are plenty of men out there, and honestly, you...

that's listening to this, me, that's speaking this, whether you're a man or a woman, we're all guilty of toxic type of traits out there. If you're a Christian, as I am, you believe that you are sinful and that we are all that way. So my complaints towards toxic masculinity isn't that men do bad things, like of course they do bad things. It's in how it's framed and it...

Some of the proponents would say, no, we're not against masculinity. It's just the toxic masculinity. But it really throws masculinity in it as a whole. And it's the progressive framework really doesn't like biblical masculinity, which is more of what we'll get into, which is not toxic masculinity. It is biblical. It's the way that God created men to be. And what happens...

is that ends up shifting some of the culture, shifting some of the young boys to be maybe more feminine or repress those masculine urges. And that's something that is very, very bad, not just for the boys growing up and the young men that grow up, but also for the young girls, for the young women. Women need to have masculine fathers. They need to have...

masculine husbands, and they need them to be biblically masculine, biblically good fathers, good husbands. And again, this is what I want to really stress, is that masculinity is not the problem. Sin is the problem. I'm going to throw the toxic side away. Sinful masculinity, using your masculinity for sin, that is a problem.

Johnny Sanders (04:52)
that the masculinity God gave us that for a reason. So maybe that know me personally know I have two sons. And I know some of this is not true for every boy or for every girl. But those of you that especially have a girl and a boy, the for sons and daughters, you probably have seen some differences. There's obviously the physical differences between boys and girls, which is incredible that we still can't.

As a culture fully understand the difference that they're the sexes are clearly different again. Just change the diaper It's not not hard to tell but more so just personality wise demeanor wise The way that they interact with the world is typically different. Give you a quick little example my daughter She loves playing with me likes to have fun But she doesn't want to really be picked up and thrown on the couch and kind of rough -housed in that way

My two -year -old son though, that he lives for it. He cracks up. Just you can see the love in his eyes when I play with him in that rough type of way. He's got more energy, more desire to just rough house and he's going to be more likely to knock things down and things of that nature. And by me rough housing with him, it's actually a really good thing. One, it's showing him that, hey, like...

Daddy's here, I'm playing with you. But it also shows him some of his restraints, some of his limits. Like, hey dude, you can knock stuff over, but daddy's a lot stronger than you. And it's not just about daddy. It's also about when he grows older, he goes out into society. If he just wrecks and starts hitting anybody that he feels like, something bad's going to happen to him. So by me wrestling roughhousing with him, it's actually teaching him. He's learning how to interact.

with the world and to not be in that sinful masculinity. So let's get a little bit more into what I mean by biblical masculinity and sinful showing of that masculinity. So our main text for today is going to be 1 Corinthians 16, 13 -14. And then we'll have another passage we'll get into after that. But 1 Corinthians 16, 13 -14 reads, Be watchful.

Johnny Sanders (07:17)
Stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love." Now, I love this just succinct verse. It really comes right at the tail end of 1 Corinthians and Paul's kind of giving just some instruction to the church at Corinth there. And this passage is incredibly applicable for...

for today and that's what's beautiful about scriptures. It's applicable for all time. But when it starts out there, be watchful. This is a big piece of biblical masculinity. Quick story on my end. I never really grew up being a huge like rough and tumble type of boy growing up. I played sports and things like that but wasn't super aggressive or anything like that. Never really gotten any like...

his fights or anything like that growing up. So I always kind of struggled a little bit with the concept of just protection, being like aggressively protecting your wife or your kids or whatever. When I'm a teenager and I didn't really have that much to protect, I just didn't really quite understand that. But when I, especially when I started dating my wife, that...

inner protection that that masculinity to be watchful overtook me. Now all of a sudden when my wife is out late at night and is driving, I'm watchful over her. Hey, be careful. Check in with me when you get back. When somebody's walking down the street and they look a little suspect, I shield her. I walk on the outside so I'm closer.

to either cars that go by or people that go by. These are just basic little things, but it's very instinctual. I didn't wake up and just decide, yep, I feel like being watchful. No, that was that masculinity that God implanted in me and men to protect that we need to be watchful. You don't have the luxury of just saying, well, my wife will probably be okay. My kids will probably be fine. Whatever happens, happens. No, be watchful.

Johnny Sanders (09:39)
And then that next piece is staying firm in the faith. That's where you don't relax. For my kids, that's why we've decided to homeschool. And that's a whole other discussion that we can get into. But I want to stay in firm to say that some of these things that are happening in public schools, no, my kids aren't going to be exposed to that. I want them to be rooted in faith. And I'm not moving on that. I'm standing firm. And...

You as a father or as just a young man that's listening or if you're a woman that's listening to your husband, to your brothers or friends, whoever they may be, they have things that they may need to stay infirm in as well. And if it's rooted in the faith, if it's rooted in scripture, they need to stay infirm. You don't let go of that. You may lose some friendships. It may be a little awkward, but you stay infirm.

That's where you act like men, that next piece. Being a man is not always about people liking you. It's about standing firm. It's about being strong. You see in Joshua, be strong and courageous. That is consistently spread throughout Joshua. That's what being a man is about, being strong and courageous and the Lord, and talking about be strong. Some of that can be physically strong. I do think that's something the culture neglects a little bit. We need to physically be healthy.

Trying to lift weights and be strong for your family, but more so being strong spiritually, being strong emotionally, mentally, to not let things around you affect you and your family. You gotta be strong and take, you gotta have to take some arrows sometimes, take some darts from the enemy. And that's what being a man is about, being strong. Now this last piece is part of what I wanted to talk about to say a little bit that our culture.

oftentimes swing side to side and goes with the newest trends. And I see a little bit of an overcorrection and we need to be careful about overcorrections that we do them rooted in Scripture. So verse 14 says, let all that you do be done in love. Now I want us to pause on that word love because that's such a loaded term. Our culture thinks all sorts of things about love. Somebody that's in the progressive movement.

Johnny Sanders (12:05)
could say, well, love is love, right? You know, that's gay marriage and all these other things. We don't want to root our understanding in love in the culture. We want to root it in scripture. So let's go to the most famous passage in scripture about love, which is in 1 Corinthians as well, a couple chapters earlier. 1 Corinthians 13, 4 through 8. Love is patient and kind. Love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant or rude.

It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. So I'm not going to go through every verse in this like I did in the first passage, but we need to make sure men listening to this, women listen to this that have husbands and fathers. We need to be encouraging them.

that to stand firm, yes, be masculine, yes, but root it in love. Root it in love that is biblical. Don't do the hippie Jesus stuff like love is love and all that stuff that isn't really actually love. Sometimes love is tough love, right? And that's where we don't, like verse six talks about, does not rejoice at wrongdoing. We're talking about go back to gay marriage. That's why we don't rejoice.

gay marriage because we know that it's wrong. So it's not about just being happy love and everybody's happy, nobody's wrong. No, it's still rooted in truth. But some of this in here, I see this swing to the other direction, especially young men that have been beaten up. They're told that they are not only do they have that toxic masculinity, they also have white privilege and all sorts of things. And

Understandably so this is a concern I've had for a while. We're starting to see some seeds of push back on that and a good chunk of that as praise God, you know, we need to push back on these ideas, but they need to be pushed back again rooted in biblical truth biblical love and when I see some of that Arrogant and rude love is not arrogant and rude. It's not irritable or resentful a Lot of this resistant movement. I don't see that I

Johnny Sanders (14:31)
I see some young men, especially young white men that are tired of being beat up. I see some arrogance. I see some resentful behavior. And again, it makes some sense. I'm not completely getting on to everybody. I can understand why they would feel that way. But standing firm, being watchful, all those things we talked about, it needs to be rooted in love.

We cannot look at the progressives, at the people hurling insults our way and say, I'm just going to knock them down. I'm going to take them out. I'm the victor here. That's really what we're doing when we're wielding our sword to attack them. That's not who we're supposed to attack. We need to be attacking that sin. We need to be loving towards them. We need to stay in firm.

And you're going to take some arrows, no doubt about it. But we cannot be arrogant in this. We cannot be irritable. We cannot be resentful. We've got to be rooted in that biblical love. So don't be tempted to correct, course correct, and let's just do the complete opposite of what the culture's been doing. And that'll teach them. That'll learn them. They'll get what's coming to them.

We are not God. Vengeance is mine, thus saith the Lord. Right? We need to have faith that God will take care of this. Our job is to present the truth. Men, it's your job to stay firm, protect your family. Don't let them be rooted into these evil, awful philosophies in our culture, these untruths that have taken over many in the culture. Staying firm, yes. But...

Don't wield the sword against them in an arrogant type of just vengeful way. Have faith that God is a much better, does much better vengeance than we ever can. Have faith in that. God can take care of that. That is not your job to wield that sword and take it to them individually. So keep that in mind, especially men. Be watchful, stay firm, be masculine.

Johnny Sanders (16:57)
Please, please do. Your wives, your daughters, they need to see that. But let it be rooted in love. Do not make this about yourself. Make it about glorifying God. Maybe you're sitting there listening to this and you're like, look, that's great, but my church is filled with just not masculinity at all. Maybe there's female preachers or all sorts of things that are just not...

not biblical, there's no men standing up. If you're struggling with that or if you're struggling in your life, maybe of not being able to stand firm or being so scared, I don't know where to turn to, let me know. I offer some of these consultation services, not so you can come to me forever. That's not the point of that. I want to get you connected into a good church.

I want you to get connected or to be able to learn some tools for you to stay in firm for your own family. Do your own thing. But let me know. Reach out to me. I'll put a link down there and to my website and the description down low and send me a message. See if you're interested in doing some consultation services with me or if there's something I can be praying for you about. I would love to hear from you. And anyways, I hope you guys have a great weekend and remember to stay in firm.

in your faith but have it rooted in biblical love.