No Sanity Required
No Sanity Required is a weekly podcast hosted by Brody Holloway and Snowbird Outfitters. Each week, we engage culture and personal stories with a Gospel-driven perspective. Our mission is to equip the Church to pierce the darkness with the light of Christ by sharing the vision, ideas, and passions God has used to carry us through 26 years of student ministry. Find more content at swoutfitters.com.
No Sanity Required
Fix Your Eyes on Jesus & Pursue Holiness
Biblical masculinity is being attacked by our current culture. We need to pursue what the Bible has to say about being a godly man instead of listening to the world. This episode of NSR is from Snowbird’s recent Pure & Holy Retreat.
Brody walks through 4 things a man of God is defined by and 3 masculine virtues. Let’s think about what is godly. The Word of God has a renewing power in our minds. We need to stop making excuses, fix our eyes on Jesus, and pursue holiness.
Resources:
- 1 Corinthians 13:11
- Genesis 2
- Be Strong Men's Conference
- Respond Women's Retreat
- It's Good to Be a Man by Michael Foster
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Click here to get our Colossians Bible study.
Welcome to no Sanity Required. We recently had an event at Snowbird. It's called the Pure and Holy Weekend, but it's basically a conference on sexuality, biblical sexuality, for students. We're trying to teach what the Bible teaches and show students a high view and picture of what God has called us to do and be and the reward and satisfaction, gratification and fulfillment that comes through doing things God's way. Crazy times to be teaching on this. Crazy times to be teaching on sexuality, to be teaching on marriage, to be teaching on masculinity, gender, gender roles. But we feel like God's given us the platform and he's called us to it.
Speaker 1:So in this episode I want to talk to you a little bit about how we came about doing this event, why we do it once a year and then smaller microcosms of the same event that go on throughout the year in our camps and conferences and, yeah, the heart and philosophy and mindset behind it. I think it comes good after it comes on the you know, the end of doing a couple of weeks on pornography and this is a good, good follow up to that. I want to talk about why we do this event and how we approach it in student ministry, the early sort of stirrings of this event and then how it's evolved and grown and developed and what it is into, what it is now. And then I want to share with you the talk, the challenge that I gave to the young men that were at the event. We're going to bring you along and we're going to, we're going to plug that in here and let you listen to that and we'll come back at the end and and give some closing thoughts. So welcome to Know. Sanity Required.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Know Sanity Required from the ministry of Snowbird Wilderness Outfitters. A podcast about the Bible culture and stories from around the globe.
Speaker 1:Every February we do an event at Snowbird Wilderness Outfitters called the pure and holy retreat pure and holy, pure and holy conference, or somebody would just call it pure and holy Probably should change the name, because it I think it's that's a little too general and vague. I mean purity, holiness or things that the Lord has called us to as believers, that kind of span every facet of our lives. But we started doing this event so that we started it 15 years ago the climate was way different than it is now. We started doing it just so we could have a weekend where, if a student, pastor or or or parents wanted to bring their students or send their students to an event that focused on what is God's design for marriage, for sexuality, biblical masculinity, biblical manhood, biblical womanhood. What does that look like? What does the Bible say? And then how do we? How do we live that out? As 15, 16, 17 year olds, you know what is it like for a 13 year old to walk out and live out in their faith, biblical sexuality, you know, and the abstinence of certain things that that God would expect of unmarried people. And so, anyway, we do it, we, we, we, we tackle that every February and it's. It's become a very effective and well attended event. It got so popular for a while that we started doing it twice. We were doing back to back weekends. Now we're back to just doing one, as we were able to grow and expand and and house more people. But it's a it's an interesting event because people, people come here with an understanding that we're going to teach practically how to walk out what the Bible teaches, what the scripture teaches about relationships and sexuality in particular, and and that's what we do, is what we try to do. And so one of the things that happens on this weekend this this year, we went this was a couple of weekends ago we went through 1 Corinthians 13.
Speaker 1:So we just talked through 1 Corinthians 13. We did that in four sessions. There was a fifth session that took place on Saturday morning at 11 o'clock where we separated the guys and the girls. I addressed the boys and one of the ladies that teaches here, anna Rose, she spoke to the girls. I spoke to the boys, the young men from 1 Corinthians 13 11, since we were already in 1 Corinthians for the whole weekend. Friday night I spoke on the first couple of verses out of 1 Corinthians 13,. Then then Spencer, then Rob, then John. We closed out that chapter over the weekend.
Speaker 1:We covered that that you know, is known as, like the love chapter, and it was. It was great. I loved listening to the teaching, the other men sitting under their teaching, it was wonderful. But I wanted to bring you along in this episode and talk, talk to you about the way we we addressed biblical masculinity with the boys. And first, I think it's important to give you a little backdrop.
Speaker 1:That manhood, biblical masculinity and manhood has been under attack, a calculated sociological, psychological and spiritual attack going back to, I think, the 1970s. So it it doesn't take much to study this. Right, you go and you can do your own researching. What you'll find is that, coming out of the free love moving of the 60s, the, there was the rise in the 70s of modern feminism, which is under its own attack now because of the LGBT movement. It's hard to be a feminist when you're trying to form an alliance with the trans movement where men want to identify as women and take women's jobs. It just gets really. It's hard to when you don't hold the biblical truth. It's real hard to stay consistent. It's hard to know what to believe. So anyway, that's another. That's another podcast episode. The point being, with the rise of feminism, there was a massive, I think, strategic and diabolical attack on boys.
Speaker 1:Now, I grew up in rural Western North Carolina in a mill town where over half, probably half anyway, of the kids I went to school with in elementary school, their dads worked at the paper mill in our town. It was called champion paper mill, later became called, later came to be called Blue Ridge and that just shut down. Canton, north Carolina, just shut down last year. But it was a mill town where you know a town of 5 or 6,000 people and a mill that employed a paper mill that employed I don't know 1500 people, something like that. So it was like the whole town revolved around this blue collar, three shifts a day, seven days a week. The mill was always running. When you got out of high school you went to work at the mill. If you didn't go off to college or the military, and it was, there was a blue collar field so there were fistfights on the playground and tackle football during recess and we played war and guns and army, and so I think we were a little bit behind the trends of the 70s and 80s and the rise of feminism, but that that was already happening in the halls of academia and in uh, you know, places like larger cities, particularly progressive or liberal cities, um, in school systems where boys started to be emasculated now not physically emasculated, although that's where we are now and we talked about that a few episodes back, those that, the episodes on the the rise of Babylon, but or the spirit of Babylon. But there there was an attack on boys, there was a gender attack where boys were emasculated in terms of their spirit.
Speaker 1:And I pause right here and say, just think about TV programming. One of the things I do with my kids is is we watch old television shows. We do not watch modern television shows. There's, I've, I've caught my kids watching some modern stuff recently that, uh, just that said. We said, hey, we're not going to watch that in this house, and here's why because it attacks God's plan for marriage, sexuality, men, women, whatever. But we watch in my home, older stuff. So one of the shows, one of the programs we watch, is the A team. And I love the A team because it was a show in the eighties, that that that celebrated certain characteristics of masculinity good, triumphant over evil, men who fought for the innocent, who defended. I mean it was there was so much cheese and corniness in it, you know, but for uh, for my boys when they're younger and growing up, it's great because there's this sort of mindset of we fight for the innocent. In the week, the cartoon that we watch was the old GI Joe cartoon, and now it's hard to find that without spending money, but you can find it and and so we watch these programs. The um, the television programs that were popular um before the attack on boys, often celebrated certain masculine traits and characteristics and we want to celebrate those.
Speaker 1:I was in the home of a friend recently and he's uh, he's about my age and has already raised half of his kids. They have a larger family than we have and he still got three or four kids at home. And I walked into their home on a Saturday afternoon Saturday evening um was going to be speaking there on Sunday walked into their home and there was um, their, their, his kids were sitting in the living room and they were watching a 1960s television show about uh, a World War II fighter squadron. It's called uh, the black sheep squadron. So they're watching this old. You know he's got the DVDs. I guess or he's um or he's bought you know some streaming service. He's bought the episode. So they're watching this old.
Speaker 1:And so we got in this conversation about, yeah, just, there was a time and I know that that era, from World War II up through the seventies. I know we had our own different issues with racism and civil rights and and, um, abuse in, uh, in the home and alcoholism. There was a lot of problems that that that generation sort of gave rise to. But the point being, in this subject matter, this conversation, there was a we, we, we were, we learned how to be boys and then learned how to be men. You played hard, you fought hard, you competed hard, you worked hard. At the end of the day you slept hard and then, um, there were certain things that a man was expected to do, certain characteristics that a man was expected to display, and those characteristics were celebrated strength, um, toughness, grit, stick to itiveness, you know. So I I think it's easy to trace the attack on that, not just in the seventies with the rise of feminism, but also it's easy to trace the attack on that um, by by looking at what's happening in TV and film and looking at the fact that when there is a movie that comes out that celebrates the strength of a man, it's a blockbuster. You know, oftentimes it's a lot of times it's huge, it's so popular or last year or a year before last, whenever it was that the what is a man documentary came out with Matt Walsh and the thing, just you know, sold millions and millions and millions of views, and it's because that resonates with us. So you can, a society can do everything in its power to oppress God's design, but at the end of the day, you can't, you can only oppress it so much.
Speaker 1:Um, there's a reason that men like Jaco will link David Goggins, joe Rogan. There's a reason that these types of men are right now so popular. Their podcasts are at the top. Their books sell out crazy. It's because there's a masculine feel or nature to it, especially like guys like Jaco and Goggins. They compete in these ultra marathon. You know Goggins competes in ultra marathons. Jaco's whole thing is discipline, discipline, discipline. That resonates with people. There's a reason why so many, um men from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have YouTube channels that are highly successful.
Speaker 1:It resonates with me, and so it doesn't matter what cultural movements are going on. There's always going to be something in the heart of men that resonates with those stories, and we believe that to be true, because God wired me in a certain way. He wired women a certain way Doesn't mean that men should have feminine characteristics and virtues and that women shouldn't have masculine characteristics and virtues there, but it means that there are distinctions and distinctives between the two genders and we don't have to be sorry for that. In fact, we need to celebrate that and we need to do it God's way, not the world's way, because there have also been perversions in the other direction, while we're seeing now perversions in the way of the world, in the way of gender confusion.
Speaker 1:And you can't like, like. There's no way that right now, 30% of teenagers identifies gay or trans. Nope, there's no way that. That's that's. That is because they're culturally caught up in the moment of what the world is celebrating. There's no way that there's that many people who are legitimately trans or gay, like, like Darwinian evolution, would refute that. You know you, a race would not succeed. I mean a gender. A species is the word I'm looking for. A species would not succeed. That would become extinct. If you went from a generation ago, less than 1%, to now 30% are same sex attracted, what happens in another generation where 60%? Well, it doesn't take rocket scientists or great you know, philosophers, to figure out that a species couldn't succeed like that.
Speaker 1:We believe that our children are under an assault from the devil and that assault takes on the form of physical body mutilation, the removal of of private parts, that it's an attack on gender, it's an attack on kids and that's what Satan does. You can go back and study these Old Testament societies and cultures where they worshiped God's like. The one that always comes to my mind is the, where they worshiped Molloch or Molloch, and I've read that the first child was always to be sacrificed at on the altar to this God. You know, that was like part of the way that they did things. It was crazy. That's just. That's obscene and absurd. But it's the world that that we live in. There's always going to be an attack against what God is trying to do and what God is intending to do. So walked the boys, we walked through.
Speaker 1:I entitled the talk when I became a man and it comes from 1 Corinthians 1311. This is when I was a boy. I spoke like a boy, I thought like a boy, a reason like a boy, but when I became a man, I put away childish things or boyish ways and we walked through it and we said let me just challenge you guys for half an hour here. If I could be so daring as to think that in a half an hour on a Saturday, a Saturday morning, at Snowbird wilderness outfitters in the middle of February, we could lay down some biblical truth that would redefine for you what God has designed men to be that in the garden, when Adam was confronted with his sin, he shirked responsibility. That there was a disruption of God's design for the order of the family, the home society. Think about it this way this past week I had the opportunity to speak to a group of men in Charlotte businessmen, educators, pastors, probably 150 men, some of whom maybe listen to this podcast, but it was, it was an honor to get to do it.
Speaker 1:And we, we we open to that conversation, open that talk up, talking about how men. God's design in the garden was that it would go God exercising authority over the man, then man exercising headship, leadership over the woman in the home and society, and the woman and the man exercising authority and headship and dominion over creation. So God exercises dominion, authority and headship over the man and the woman. The man is given headship and leadership over the woman, but does it, but not given greater value, just the role that God calls him to play as the, the head of his household, the leader in that home, the spiritual leader in the home, and then that, under the man and the woman, is creation. Well, in the fall, what you've got is the serpent deceives and usurps authority over the woman, who then does the same thing to the man, and they're all doing it at the same time. They're doing it to God. So you've got what would have been the order of headship goes God, then man, then woman and the creation. Now you've got it inverted, where it's creation, the serpent and the fruit, then the woman, then the man, and then God is pushed to the bottom.
Speaker 1:But that doesn't work, because you can't push God to the bottom, you can't suppress the truth. Imagine taking a large physio ball that's full of air and it's packed tight and try to dive down and hold that thing on the bottom of a you know swimming pool that's 10 feet deep. You can't do it. You can't hold it down there. It's going to force its way to the surface. The pressure is too great. You cannot suppress the truth. You cannot take who God is and what God's designed and suppress it, otherwise something's going to erupt or explode, and so that's what we're seeing right now as a society and as a culture.
Speaker 1:So I want to share with you I've been talking long enough. I want to share with you this session that I did with the guys last two Saturdays ago at the 2024 Pure and Holy retreat, when I became a man what it is to be a man. So we'll let you sit back and listen to this and then I'll come back with a few closing thoughts. Yo, yo, there we go. Thank you, landon. Landon, you did a phenomenal job playing the guitar this morning. That was awesome. All right, so I'm going to go fast. I'm going to give you all talking points, each of which is its own sermon. If I had time, if we were going to be here for three, four days just talking about biblical manhood, each of these points would be its own talk. So I want you to bullet point these and then they'll make great talking points and discussion points later on.
Speaker 1:I'm not going to drill real deep into any one thing. It's just really going to be high level overview, and it's going to come from one verse that we're going to unpack 1 Corinthians 13, verse 11. It says when I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reason like a child. When I became a man I gave up childish ways. So a couple of things to point out in that verse before we get into some principle and application.
Speaker 1:In the New Testament scripture and this is true in the Old Testament when you see the word child it refers to, it can refer to a couple of things. It can refer to like birth to 12, because in that culture they had a real defined line where you shifted from childhood into manhood. So a lot of times in the Jewish culture, when you were 13, 14, you started to embrace and move towards the responsibilities of being a man. But there was a window of time that looks a lot like our culture has looked up until your generation, which is from about age 12 to 18. That was what we would call a transitional time.
Speaker 1:You're moving from boyhood into manhood. You look at me, listen to me. You as a young man, that's on you. You need to embrace the responsibility now, in this season of life, of transitioning to manhood. You need to put away childish ways, to put away boyish ways and to start to aggressively advance towards manhood. I use the word advance because it's a militant phrase, it's an athletic phrase, it's the idea that we are on a march with a mission moving in a direction. And I'm fired up about this because, as a father to three sons, but who sees boys come through here every year, all year, you are living in a cultural moment where you are under attack as a God designed male, m-a-l-e.
Speaker 1:Starting in the 1970s, before any of you, before some of your parents were born, starting in the 1970s, there was a whole scale assault on God's design for manhood, and the target of that assault was little boys. There's an emasculation, there's a tearing down, there's a redefining where what you're going to hear in culture and society right now is that it's toxic or it's unhealthy or it's gross or broken to embrace what God has determined that manhood should be. Things like being the leader in a relationship, being a protector in a relationship, standing up for what is right and moving and living with conviction, submitting yourself to God's authority for your life as a young man. If you've got a godly dad, that's a blessing and so you can submit to that authority, but if you don't have that, then you're going to have to proactively submit to the authority of the men in your local church, the men God's put in contact with you, because to move from boyhood to manhood is a very huge task that is placed on your shoulders. Now, those of us that are older, we have the responsibility of walking you through that, of coaching and teaching and mirroring and showing and by our own lives and actions, displaying what the characteristics of manhood should be. But it's your responsibility to learn that and you need. God built you for responsibility. Everybody say responsibility. God built you to take responsibility for your own actions, for your own future, for your own past, for your today, yesterday and tomorrow. You take responsibility for that and what you do is you submit that to the Lord and then walk in obedience to God and His word and He'll grow you into the man that he wants you to be. There's nothing toxic about being what God has called and designed you to be. The most powerful and effective thing that you will ever do or be as a young man is to be obedient to God's word. To be obedient to God's word and to understand his design for us as men.
Speaker 1:So in this process, I want to unpack this verse. He says when I was a child. I spoke like a child. So he's going to give us a contrast. A child speaks a certain way. A man speaks a different way. A child speaks a certain way. A man speaks a different way.
Speaker 1:Learning how to communicate is a critical part of moving through this process of becoming a man. Learning how to communicate is critical to the process of learning how to become a man. This means learning how to do things like make eye contact, articulate yourself, say what you're thinking when it's appropriate, speak with clarity and with words that make sense. It's a big deal. But also learning that what comes out of my mouth is a reflection of what's in my heart. What's in my heart is a reflection of what I've taken in through my eyes and my thoughts, and so my speech and my communication is directly connected to what's going on in my mind and my heart. So the process of pursuing Jesus and learning to be like Christ is going to shape the way that I talk. So he said when I was a little boy I spoke a certain way. I think we could break that down and we could say vulgar language, swearing to be cool, having a bad attitude and being a smart alec. Put those things away and embrace godly, manly communication. Just learn to speak like a man would speak, like God's man would speak.
Speaker 1:Second thing he says is when I was a little boy, I thought a certain way. I had certain thought patterns, and when I became a man, I began to think a different way. What that means for you and I is we have to take control of our thoughts. My thoughts are going to be slave to my will. I'm going to will myself to win the battle in my mind. And this is real important because thoughts are a tricky thing, because if you just go into autopilot, your mind will drift and wonder, and I need to make sure that it's wondering in a space that honors the Lord and won't take me down a path that is destructive to who I am as a man of God.
Speaker 1:So, learning to think the way the Bible says this over and over, it'll address the idea of how I think. It'll say things like whatever things are good, strong, pure, healthy. Godly think on these things. You want to win the battle against pornography. I'll tell you this it starts with a transformation of your mind, which means a transformation of your thought process, and the way that happens is renewing your mind every day, according to Romans, chapter 12. Every day my mind is being renewed by the word of God.
Speaker 1:The word of God has for the believer. The word of God has a powerful like reproducing effect in my mind, like pornography has a powerful destructive effect in my mind. The word of God has a powerful renewing and building up effect in my mind. So when I think about that one area of thought life, what I think about in my struggle with sexual thoughts or temptation, that's just one area that the word of God will renew my mind daily. I want to challenge you to open God's word every day and expect that the creator of all things, the sustainer of the universe and all that lives and moves and has its being, the one that spoke it by the word of his power Hebrews 1, into existence. His name is Jesus and he will communicate to you personally when you open his word. You got to believe it. You got to open it every day, expectantly that God will speak to you. The word of God is powerful and it is effective, and the word of God will renew my mind, which will, in effect, change my thought life.
Speaker 1:The third thing he says. So he says I spoke like a child. When I became a man, I stopped speaking like a child, thought like a child. When I became a man, I stopped thinking like a child, reason like a child. When I became a man, I stopped reasoning like a child. And what this looks like is reason. And like a child is when you make excuses, you come up with reasons not to do what you should do. You can always convince yourself that what you're doing is what you need to be doing. Reasoning like a man is when I say what are the effects and ramifications of my actions going to be? If I say or do this, what's the effect of that going to be? Reason it out. If I want to achieve something, what is it going to take to get there? Reasoning like a man means you set goals for yourself and then you move aggressively towards those goals.
Speaker 1:Reasoning like a man says I don't get anything for nothing, except the grace of God that brings salvation Outside of that. Everything I'm going to get in my life, I'm going to work for it, fight for it, earn it and expect no one to give it to me. See, we live in an entitled society right now where everyone's expecting something for nothing Everybody, I'm not saying that y'all are like this, but that's the world we live in right now. Don't expect anything for nothing, except the grace of God that brings salvation. And that didn't cost nothing. It cost God the death of Jesus on the cross. It's been paid for in the blood of Jesus. Your salvation was free to you. One time. When God extends it to you and he saves you by grace and he washes you in the precious blood of Calvary's cross pouring out of the broken body of our Savior and cleanses you from unrighteousness, that is free. That time you're saved by grace. The rest of your life, it costs you everything to follow Jesus.
Speaker 1:Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German pastor, a German reform pastor, who died under Hitler's power in a Nazi prison, and he said this in his book the Cost of Discipleship when Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die. Die to yourself, die to your desires that are ungodly, die to your fleshly impulses and urges. Submit all of that to Christ in reason in your mind, to fix your eyes on Jesus. Paul tells Timothy a man of God is defined by four things. He's defined by what he fights for, what he flees from, what he takes hold of and what he pursues. After? What are you going to pursue Godliness? What are you going to flee from those things that are ungodly, that will tear you down, that will break your view of sexuality, that will break your view of relationships, that will break your view of manhood? Push away from those things. What are you going to take hold of the plow? Jesus says Put your hand on the plow and don't look back and work and labor with your eyes on Jesus. Paul says I fix my eyes on the prize of the high calling in Christ Jesus and I don't look back, setting my eyes on what's ahead, not looking on what's behind. Fix your eyes on Jesus and pursue holiness. So that's what determines a man of God. You got to reason that out.
Speaker 1:He says when I became a man, all these things changed for me the way I talk, the way I reason, the way I think. All of that changes as you enter into manhood, which you are currently doing. If you're 12 years old, 11, 12 years old, you're transitioning to manhood. Right now, as you transition to manhood, it's critical that you begin to process these three things. My words matter, what do I say, what do I think and how do I reason? What do I say what do I think and how do I reason? Now I want to give you practically a couple of lists of things, and we'll be done so as we go out. That's the 15 minute short sermon challenge. Let me give you some things to take with you. These are the things you can really unpack in your share groups or maybe over the next few nights, on Wednesday night or Sunday night, whenever you meet, some things that I think would be helpful for you as dudes.
Speaker 1:I want to give you three masculine virtues, three masculine virtues. Y'all know what masculine means. Let me give you a definition of biblical masculinity. First, Biblical masculinity. All these are. These next few things came from other dudes. I didn't make this up, but I can't remember who all the guys were, so I'm not stealing from them, I just can't remember who said it.
Speaker 1:Biblical masculinity is the glad assumption of sacrificial responsibility. The glad assumption of sacrificial responsibility. What that means is biblical masculinity is me saying I will gladly, willingly and with joy embrace responsibility for my own self and for those that I care about, even if it means sacrificing my own comfort, and it's like. That's like husbandhood, fatherhood 101, right there, by the way Husbandhood, fatherhood 101. Sacrifice for those around you. Sacrifice for those you've been entrusted to care about and to love and to care for. Sacrifice Live a sacrificial life. Dudes, listen, brothers If you will learn to live sacrificially, you will live with overwhelming satisfaction and joy in your life. Will you sacrifice for other people? Will you care about other people? I'm like I will tell you this that when you set aside your own demands and desires to meet the needs of other people, like let's put this in the context of a relationship with the young lady, if you say what matters to me most is that I'm pursuing the Lord and she's pursuing Jesus.
Speaker 1:Paul writes in Ephesians 5. He says that my job as a husband and we're talking to you because you're going to be a husband one day sooner than you think your job as the man in the relationship, your job and responsibility towards that young lady is that she grow more in love with Jesus, that she grow more satisfied in Jesus, that she grow more like Jesus. In order to make that happen, you're going to have to constantly, sacrificially, do what it takes to get her in that direction, which is going to mean you're stepping back and pursuing your relationship with Christ as she pursues hers. What relationships look like right now on planet earth is typically what can I get out of this? What's in this for me? How do I get off on this? How do I get my thrill? My satisfaction? Set that aside, and the glad assumption of sacrificial responsibility will bring you joy and satisfaction. I promise you so three things masculine virtues. The first one is wisdom. Pursue wisdom.
Speaker 1:If you study the book of Proverbs, it is a book that is primarily. A lot of the book of Proverbs is written toward or to younger men. So I would encourage you, like we go back to what we said earlier about renewing your mind If you spent the next year walking daily through the book of Proverbs, it would change your life. If you'd submit to it Now, you can just read the Bible in it and not change your life. You read it and you submit to it, you surrender to it.
Speaker 1:You know that dog I talked about last night, my dog. His name's Gus. He barks, he acts tough. As soon as you walk up to him, he goes down like this he ain't never been beat, ain't never been hit, he's just a big chicken. He submits. I walk to the Word of God. I want to submit to it Like I want to because of the power and the authority. I'm not here to negotiate with the Scripture. I'm not here to master the Word of God. I'm here to be mastered by the Word of God. So I submit to it. If I will do that, the book of Proverbs is a great place to start.
Speaker 1:I love to read the book of Proverbs and I love to read the Gospels Matthew, mark, luke and John. I love Mark because it's the shortest Gospel. I can read it faster and it's less wordy. I love Mark and I love the Proverbs. And in the Proverbs what you'll have is principles for sexual purity, principles for work and work ethic, principles for pursuing higher learning, even if it's not higher education, because some of y'all ain't going to go to college. Some of y'all don't need to go to college. Some of y'all ain't got no business going to college. You need to learn how to weld or do HVAC or go into military or go learn how to be a firefighter, and some of you need to go to college. You figure that out. You get some good coaching and counsel, but wisdom doesn't come through higher education.
Speaker 1:Wisdom is God's application of knowledge and discernment in your life. Discernment means learning how to make choices, learning how to take action and what the repercussions and ramifications of that action will be. Doin' wisdom masculine characteristic number one is wisdom. Masculine characteristic number two workmanship. We are God's workmanship, our salvation, created in Christ Jesus. Workmanship is learning how to be a hard worker, but learning how to be good at everything you do for God's glory. So, learning how to like, learn how to work with your hands, how to show up. Look, let me tell you something as a dude in our society right now if you just show up, you're gonna blow people's minds. You're gonna blow people's minds. I was talking to a CEO I think is what this guy is of a corporation that employs a couple thousand people. He said right now, if somebody would just show up to work on time, they'll climb our ladder so fast Because people won't show up. People are expecting something for nothing. Growin' workmanship, figure out what you're gonna do.
Speaker 1:One of my favorite things, one of my favorite stories I was about 20 years old and I was working. I was working for this, for a camp, and they had a bunch of horses and every eight weeks we would pay a horseshoe guy to come around and shoe all the horses and it cost like 400 bucks. I was like I can figure this out. Well, I couldn't figure it out, but what I did is I found a guy that would teach me and for two weeks I rode around with this horseshoe and I learned how to shoe horses and like it was such a cool. To this day I mean, that was 30 years, 30, some years ago. To this day I got a cool skill that I never use. I don't shoe horses, but it's cool to like. Think back at what I learned in those two weeks. I didn't just learn a skill that I actually made a living doing that for a few years when we started Snowbird.
Speaker 1:Learn how to do some things. There's nothing wrong with that. You're not going to get everything you need to know out of a textbook or on a website. Put your hands on something and learn how to do it. Learn how to work. You know what a callus is. You know what it's like to have cracked knuckles from working. Do it, man. Go to work. If you're like, ah man, I don't, there ain't nothing to do. You got grass, go get your weed eater. Come this summer and learn how to work Like work. We are built for work. God built you to work. You will be gratified when you work hard. Now, some of you are not going to work blue collar jobs. You're going to work in banking or business or higher education, doesn't matter what you're doing.
Speaker 1:The point is you were created for workmanship and workmanship is a masculine virtue. Where does that come from? Well, it comes from all throughout scripture, but specifically in Genesis, chapter two. God created Adam to share in the work. He created Adam to share in the work. Number three, third masculine virtue what's my time? Seven minutes? Number three, third masculine virtue is strength, strength.
Speaker 1:As much as you have the physical capacity, work to become physically stronger. Don't mean you gotta go be a bodybuilder, pump an iron, but just be strong man. Don't be a couch potato. Sorry, dog, get off the couch. Like do something. You play games, that's cool. You don't play Fortnite, go for it. But like limit that. Come up with something. Like for every 30 minutes of Fortnite I play, I gotta do 30 pushups. I'm making this up right off the top of my head, okay. But like learn to do the things that you need to do to become physically stronger. To become physically stronger, you know what I mean. Like we're, that's a masculine virtue. Hey, I got a news alert for you. Men are stronger than women. Physically we are, don't matter what your sociology teacher tells you. We're not the same in all categories.
Speaker 1:God made us to be stronger so that we could work hard and protect. I am a protector, I am a defender, I am a provider because I am a man, not because I'm in the special forces, on an ODA team or on SEAL team four, five or six, but because I'm a man and if you ever wondered about that, you'd reach down there like to think about it, like, okay, yep, they're still there. I need to remember those are there because God put them there and that makes me different than my sisters in Christ who are female. Why do we gotta say these things? Because this is under assault in your generation, in our society, and future generations are gonna look back and say them people in 2024 lost their minds. People all the time talking about we're gonna be.
Speaker 1:I don't wanna be on the wrong side of history. Then embrace masculinity and remember masculinity is loving and protective. It provides sacrificially. Paul writes to the Corinthians and says to men he says be strong, act like men, take courage and let everything that you do be done in love, everything that you do be done in love. We don't express our strength physically, in an abusive or overwhelming way. We do it in a loving and kind and gentle and protective way. Strength that is tempered with gentleness, justice that is tempered with mercy those are godly, masculine, biblical characteristics. So we need to pursue those three characteristics, those masculine virtues wisdom, workmanship, strength.
Speaker 1:Now last thing I wanna do is give you a bullet point list of five things that I think modern man needs to stop doing. We got four minutes. I gotta do five things in four minutes. Five things modern man needs to stop doing. Number one modern man needs to stop seeking praise. You don't need a pad on the back of a trophy for every diagram thing you do. That's positive. Find gratification in the process, work hard and be satisfied. Your grandfathers and great grandfathers didn't get trophies for plowing fields and building cities. The gratification was in the work. It was in the work. You don't need to be praised for everything you do.
Speaker 1:Number two stop being self-deprecating. What does that mean? You're not a victim. You're not a victim. Now I know that there are dudes in here that have been sexually abused. You've been physically abused. I know that. I get that. I experienced, as a six-year-old boy, sexual abuse. So I get what that does in terms of the disruption of the way you see manhood or the way you see yourself. It can deteriorate your confidence. It can mess with your understanding of who God wants you to be.
Speaker 1:Listen to me. All I'm gonna give you is biblical truth. The scripture says that in Christ, we overwhelmingly conquer through Him, and greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. Satan's the father of lies. He lives in the world. He's gonna lie to you and tell you you're nothing, tell you you're broken, tell you you're weak, and Christ is gonna tell you exactly the opposite. When you submit to Him, when you embrace God's plan for your life, you're not a victim. You are an overcomer. You are not broken. You are in the process of being redeemed and sanctified by Jesus, the one who has the power to do it. You're not a victim. So don't, don't, don't. And another thing with self deprecating is this idea of like woe is me, poor me. Don't do that. Get your shoulders up, get your head up. Posture even matters. You understand who you are in Christ.
Speaker 1:Number three modern man needs to stop complaining. Stop complaining. One of my favorite stories. I don't have time to tell the whole thing, but I was at Chick-fil-A and this dude was in front of me complaining to the 16 year old girl because she gave him the wrong size milkshake. And I thought this is where we're at right and I made a scene too. It was so awkward. His wife was like see, I told you it's embarrassing, it was so funny and I thought we got a grown man right here complaining because he got a medium instead of a large milkshake. Trust me, that cat could have done with the small. To be honest, he needed to put some of these principles in place. But but we need to not complain. Don't complain. I will tell you this. Complaining never, ever, ever, ever. Not one time in all of history as moaning, groaning, murmuring and complaining made anything any better for any man. This never happened.
Speaker 1:I'm reading in my personal quiet time right now. I'm reading through the book of numbers. This morning I read numbers like 18 through 21. And it's Israel going. We ain't got no water. Well, I'm tired of eating manna, I'm sick of this. And then the Bible's like God just got mad at those jokers he's like. At one point I was like I'm gonna kill all y'all. I'm just gonna kill all of y'all. We don't like that picture of God, do we? Ooh, that seems so. That seems like something God said. So I believe he was this close and in his righteous mercy he pulled back. But like God hates murmuring and complaining, I can tell you that that's a biblical principle, biblical truth Number four modern man needs to stop making excuses.
Speaker 1:Stop making excuses. Embrace responsibility for your actions. Don't make excuses. Don't blame somebody else. A part of making an excuse is putting the blame on somebody else. God comes to Adam. This is our first day I did this. God comes to Adam in the garden. It says I know what you did. And he goes, he points it even. He says the woman that you gave me is y'all's fault. The first man failed at this point and it's affected everybody since then. It's not my fault, it ain't on me. Just embrace responsibility for your actions and for the actions of others. Part of that means don't make excuses. Don't make excuses. Understand. God made you to end that embracing of responsibility. Take responsibility for your actions and your thoughts, and I think it's important right here to understand, if you've made mistakes, that you don't feel like you can come back from the power and the blood and the grace of Jesus is great enough to bring healing and peace and satisfaction and to reset you on a course of freedom from sexual addiction or from self-loathing or self-deprecation. So don't make excuses for your actions. Embrace responsibility and receive what God has for you in the form of healing and purpose and direction.
Speaker 1:The last one we need to stop breaking promises. We need to learn how to love our wives. We need to learn how to love our children. We need to learn how to love the widow and the orphan. We need to look around and see the people that are in our lives that are hurting. One day, you're gonna be a man that's gonna bring children into your own home or family that don't have a family. You're gonna be someone that think about, like the opportunities that God might put in your path on a day to day basis, to just man, be a person who impacts the world for good, to look at other people and to see their need and to care for them, to pay attention to what's going on around you and to be someone who loves others, expresses that love, care for other people more than you care for yourself, and keep your promises. I can tell you after 30 years of marriage it's not always easy to keep your promises, but it's always worth keeping your promises. It's not always easy.
Speaker 1:One of my favorite quotes is from an ex-UFC fighter named Matt Hughes. I'm not a fighter. I never fought in the MMA, or I never been. I tried to box it to YMCA while I was sixth grade and my buddy, jeff Woods, beat the snot out of me. I was like this ain't for me. But I heard Matt Hughes say if you're undefeated, you hadn't been fighting the right people.
Speaker 1:In other words, if you're in the battle, you will lose. Sometimes You're gonna lose, you're gonna make mistakes, you're gonna fail, you're gonna falter. But one thing you can do is you can keep your promises. Even in defeat, even in failure, even in the struggle, you can keep your promises. Do that. Don't live with a sense of entitlement, don't live a mediocre existence. Pursue Christ in just.
Speaker 1:All we're talking about is being the men that God's called us to be striving for it, and there's men in this room that'll help you. That's why they're here this weekend. You got to lean into these brothers, these older brothers that are men that you want to invest in your life. And we do all these things. Here's the beauty of the whole thing. We do all of these things. We will be on mission for Jesus to build his kingdom, grow the church, reach the nations. The impact will be generational and global. That's the big picture. Pretty cool. Let us know what you think. That's some strong teaching, I know. And if you're not familiar with how we do things here now you know how we do things. That's probably a good indicator of that's a good sample of how we do things. We do ministry, particularly how we do it with young men. We challenge these boys. We challenge the ladies too. But what I'm sharing with you this morning was just because it was the talk that I gave to the men.
Speaker 1:I'd like to come back in the near future and do a similar episode to this, only as it pertains to women and girls and how we teach and instruct in that arena. So we'll probably do that. We'll probably I'll probably try to plan, schedule that into a future episode. An episode in the near future Probably might do that around the Respond Women's Conference coming up this spring. We do have coming up.
Speaker 1:I'd just point out a couple things. We've got a men's conference. Let me see where we're at on the on the numbers for that. Our men's B Strong conference is coming up 23rd of March. Oh yeah, we're packed out. We are packed out, so, but you'll be able to track that content. And if you want to come to that event and we don't have any availability left right now with our people we're we're well over 500 dudes that are going to be here for that, but then if you're still wanting to come, there's ways we can get you into the sessions. You may not be able to eat on on snowboard property your meals or something like that, but we get you into the sessions. So don't, don't hesitate to reach out. And then in April, the weekend of April 19th, 20th and 21st we've got our women's conference, called the respond conference. Maybe, when we get close to that if, if, if I can remember I'm going to make notes of it If I can remember that then we'll follow up with some content similar to today's content, um, but, but just hopefully you're encouraged to know that we're challenging boys and men here to do and be what God's called us to do and be these masculine virtues, the things that modern man needs to stop doing, the things that we need to do.
Speaker 1:A lot of that. Uh, those main points came out of a Michael Foster book called it's good to be a man. I've not read the book, I'll be honest, but I have looked at some bullet points that Zach Mayberry gave me. Um, so I think that would be a good read. Um, I've rambled enough.
Speaker 1:Thank y'all for listening to. No sanity required for support and share this thing. Man, push it around. What is it that people always say Like it, subscribe it, subscribe to it. I don't know. I can't remember how you're supposed to say all that, but I'm assuming if you listen to this, you probably already do those things, and uh, but share it with friends and family, and, and we want to be a resource and an encouragement to people. So, yeah, thank you for your support. It means a lot more than you know and we're just blown away by God's goodness and grace and what he's doing. So I hope you'll be back here to listen next Monday as we talk about complaining and murmuring.
Speaker 1:The end of that talk we said uh, uh, or in the middle of that talk I just gave that you just listened to. One of the points was to stop complaining and I referenced the people of Israel. We're going to get into some uh, what does it look like to be and live positive, to be a positive person, to live positively and to refuse to complain? I think it'll be good. Um, looking forward to unpacking it. And I got a lot of travel this week. I'll be heading up North, being Minneapolis, being Wisconsin, then heading down South and Georgia than the next week in Jacksonville, I think. I think I don't have a calendar in front of me. Lots of travel right now, but we'll get these episodes pushed out in between that. Um hope it's a blessing to you. Have an awesome week.
Speaker 2:Thanks for listening to. No sanity required. Please take a moment to subscribe and leave a rating. It really helps. Visit us at SW outfitterscom to see all of our programming and resources, and we'll see you next week on. No sanity required.
