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Welcome to Mariners Church Weekend Message Podcast. Inspiring people to follow Jesus and fearlessly change the world. Discover your purpose and get connected by visiting MarinersChurch.org or click the link in the show notes.

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Well, Happy New Year. I'm so glad that you are with us this weekend. I think it's awesome that you are coming to church the very first weekend of 2025 and I really, I love you Mariners Church and I hope this is an amazing year for you. I do want to take a moment and welcome all of we have nine congregations throughout Southern California that are watching now, but two new ones their very first weekend. From this point on, they're going to have church every week. Mariners Trabuco Canyon and Mariners Anaheim. So let's welcome them. So excited. We're so excited to be in those communities and so thankful that you are with us. I want to take you back to 2018 and these are stories that took place in 2018 that you're going to remember. And then they started a lot of conversations about what we're going to talk about this weekend. Mamuwa Gassama 2018, he scaled the side of an apartment building to rescue a child who was dangling and about. And this man bravely risked his life to rescue this vulnerable child. He then was awarded citizenship in France because of his bravery. Now, the reason that the child was dangling from a balcony is because his dad left the child alone in the apartment, left the apartment to go play Pokemon Go on his phone. So he left his child passively as a dad left his child. And yet this child then is dangling and another man saves the child's life. That's May 2018. Fast forward several months. You get to November 2018, and in November of 18, at the borderline Bar and Grill, just not far from here at all in Thousand Oaks, California, a man walked into that bar and opened fire on 260 people, killing many people that night. It was a horrific night. At the same time, that very night, there were young men who, when the tragedy started to unfold, sprang and started to act and rescue and save people. In fact, many women who were rescued that night said this is according to a newspaper article. Multiple men were ready to take a bullet for any single one of us, says a woman who survived the California shooting. One of those young men was Matt Winterstorm, and he threw women underneath a pool table to protect them and then broke out a window and reportedly rescued 35 people through the window, risking his life. And Matt said this, all I wanted to do was get as many people out of there as possible. I know where I'm going if I die, so I was not worried. So you have. I'm thankful for Matt. So some say men are the problem. Some say men are the solution. Whichever one you want to say, you can look at both of those stories. If you want to say that men are the problem, you point to the dad who leaves his child in an apartment and goes and plays a video game while his child is dangling for his life. If you want to show that men are the problem, you point to the man who walked into the bar and grill and opened fire on 260 innocent people. If you want to show that men are the problem, you can look at those two stories in 2000. If you want to show that men are the solution, you can look at the same two stories and you can say there was a brave man who rescued this child who was going to die. You can point to the brave men like Matt who rescued people at the bar and grill. Are men the solution or are men the problem? It is the question that has been debated in our culture in recent years, including 2018, until now. The question we're going to put on the table as we begin a new teaching series called on the Table this weekend is what's happened to masculinity? There are two different viewpoints to this question. Some say that men are toxic. What's happened to masculinity is that men are toxic. So there's a whole group of people who speak of toxic masculinity and a lot written about toxic masculinity. And then there's another group of people that say there's actually a toxic war on masculinity. Which is it? What has happened to masculinity? Now, usually by now, if you're a part of our church, you know, I'm already in the text, I'm already in the scripture, and we're going to get to the scripture. But oftentimes when we're in a series like on the Table, I do a ton of research, and then I surface the cultural wrestle that we're in. And the wrestle we're in now is about masculinity. And so I'm going to do some background work, some sociological work with you of a ton of research. And then I'm gonna get to the scripture and see what the scripture has to say. Now, by the way, if you're like, I'm not a man, why does this apply to me? Most of the people who ask me about masculinity are not men. It's young women in our church who will ask, where are all the good men? Or it's moms who will ask, how do I raise a son? How do I raise a son in the current cultural context that we find ourselves in? So I believe that this message is for all of us. What has happened to masculinity? So some say that men are toxic. And those who say that men are toxic, they point to true stats, such as 80% of all violent crimes in America are committed by men. 99% of sexual assaults in America are committed by men. The term toxic masculinity was not a term that was broadly used until 2017. The MeToo movement surfaced many sexual abuse scandals and is Christians, we must always stand against abuse and for the abused, for the person who's been abused. And I know some of you in all of our congregations, in a room this size with this many people, you have suffered horrific pain at the hands of an abuser. And our hearts break with you. And it was wrong and unjust, and we are against abuse and we are for you, and God is against abuse and for you. But the Me Too movement then surfaced that term called toxic masculinity. It wasn't used much until 2017. Sociologist Carol Harrington, she says that you can only find the term in academic journals until 2017. Then it became mainstream. It started being used all over. In fact, you've lived through seven or eight years of hearing the term over and over again. And like many terms in our culture, it starts to get overused, lose its meaning, because hardly anyone defines what it actually means. And then it can be used to describe a whole bunch of different things. For example, Richard Reeves, who wrote a recent book called Of Boys and Men, he says the term toxic masculinity, it's really lost its meaning because it means so many different things. He says it's been blamed for mass shootings, gang violence, rape, online trolling, climate change, the financial crisis, Brexit, and the unwillingness to wear a mask during COVID So he's essentially saying this has started to mean something. So many different things, and then it's caused men to wonder if they can even be proud of being a man because. Or are all men toxic? Peggy Ornstein interviewed adolescent boys for her book Boys and Sex. She asked them what they liked about being a boy. And she says that when she interviewed teenage boys about, hey, what do you like about being a teenager? A teenage boy, that many struggled with an answer because they thought they're not supposed to like being. In fact, she Quotes a sophomore in high school who said, that's interesting. I never really thought about that. You hear a lot more about what is wrong with guys. Helen Lewis is a feminist writer, so she writes from a feminist perspective, but she rejects the framing of toxic masculinity. She says this, the toxic masculinity framing alienates the majority of nonviolent, non extreme men. So she's saying it started as a good term because we were calling out scandal and abuse and abusers, but it got broadened to mean any and everything. And it's alienating good men. Which is now causing some to say it's not only that there's some toxic men, there's actually a toxic war on masculinity. And those who believe there's a toxic war on masculinity point to, like any war, it's fought on different fronts. So if there is a toxic war on masculinity, which I believe you will conclude that there likely is, based on what I show you that in art, there is a war against men. Sitcoms. Research shows that 80% of men in sitcoms are depicted as clueless or apathetic. You've seen some of the sitcoms. It's hard to find a great male role model in sitcoms. BYU did a study and found that 80%. I'm sorry, that Disney films and television shows that every three minutes a man is depicted as a buffoon every three minutes in Disney, which we have very few great examples of men in these television shows. Now, I know there are some, such as Bandit in the show Bluey. He's an amazing dad. He's an amazing dad. He's kind and he's present. He's compassionate. We all would want a dad like Bandit. But I do want to point out that the best dad Disney offers us is a cartoon dog. That's the best dad that we have. And so some would say there's a war against men in art. Others point out to the war that they say happens in psychology. According to the association of the American psychological association, in 2018, they published new guidelines that would guide people in their practices and. And in their guidelines, they articulated that traditional masculinity is harmful, including traits such as competitiveness, aggression and risk. Now, many therapists and psychologists pushed back against the APA and said, whoa, whoa, whoa, come on. Those are traits that can be used for good. Obviously they can be used for bad. But those traits aren't inherently wrong in and of themselves. And we have to be careful that we don't counsel boys as if something's wrong with them, as if they're just defective girls. In fact, therapist Erica Commissar, she wrote this in my practice as a psychotherapist, I've seen an increase of depression in young men who feel emasculated in a society that is hostile to masculinity. New guidelines from the American Psychological association defining traditional masculinity as a pathological state are likely only to make matters worse. The war also happens in education. Many believe that young men are falling behind when it comes to education. And Richard Reeves in his book Of Boys and Men points this out that in 1972, women were behind in terms of receiving a bachelor and a graduate degree, 13 percentage points compared to men. But by 2018, the gap is now 15% the other way around, that men are falling way behind when it comes to education. And Richard Reeves is asking why aren't people raising the alarm on that? Men also, there's an attack on them in the workforce economist David Arder. He writes the labor market trajectory of males in the US has turned downward along four skill acquisition, employment rates, occupational stature and real wage levels. And many economists are now saying that when self driving cars reaches scale that overnight the driving industry, the truck driving industry, will be radically impacted. And it's mainly men who are driving the so there's two convergence happening with young men in our culture. Jobs that were traditionally labor intensive and held by men are decreasing because of increasing technologies. And the knowledge jobs, the knowledge worker jobs, which depend on education. Men are getting less and less bachelor and master's degrees. So there's a convergence, many say, in the workforce and in education against men. Now also, the war has been fought on media. Here's a snapshot of some titles of articles and books. In the article we need to talk about masculinity, the author says that men are so toxic that they can't even talk about their toxicity. Essentially, men, you're so toxic you can't talk about it because you're blinded by your toxicity. So sit your toxic bug down and shut your toxic mouth. Essentially what the article says, which puts men in a very difficult position. Here's some of the other titles. Women have the right to hate men. Why can't we hate men? The book how to date men when you hate men. Another are men necessary? And this very understated one, I hate men. Now, we would probably have to agree that there's no other group in our current cultural context that there could be books published that says I hate blank. And so there's no Surprise that rich that the song Rich Men north of Richmond this last fall was one of the most popular downloaded songs. Because young men in our culture feel as if they are under attack. And I know this because I pastor a lot of young men in our church who feel as if there's so many things that are waged against them in this moment. It is why adolescent and young men suicide rates are escalating and increasing. The song says this young men are putting themselves six feet in the ground, referring to the spike in young men committing suicide. Because all this dang country does is keep on kicking them down. So men feel as if they are under attack. So are men toxic or is this They're a toxic war on masculinity? In my research, I read a lot of books. I came across one title, two books with the same title, the End of Men. Now, Hannah Rosen wrote a sociological. It's a very popular book called the End of Men. It's just a sociological study. She's just presenting what she believes are the facts that the gender war between men and women has been lost. That men lost the gender war, she says, and she just writes about the implications for what it means for men that we've lost the gender war. Now, as Christians, we want to say there doesn't need to be a gender war, that men and women are both created in the image of God with equal value and dignity, and that God wants us to cooperate and to complement one another and be with each other. But that was her work, the End of Men. And then there's this book, the End of Men, which is a dystopian novel which imagines a pandemic. And what happens in this pandemic is 90% of all men die. This is a novel. It's a made up story. I mean, the pandemic's not, but the 90% part. What would happen if 90% of men would die? And so she imagines the author does life with 90% of husbands and fathers and men in the workforce and men in society gone. What would happen? Well, there's a lot of research about what would happen if there were no men in families and in workforces. There's some organizations that would say to the author, we don't have to imagine what happens if there are not men. The organization no Longer Fatherless speaks of the challenges of a child growing up in a home without a father. This is what their data says. 85% of youth in prison come from fatherless homes. 71% of high school dropouts from fatherless homes. 90% of all homeless and runaway children from fatherless homes. 60% of youth suicides from fatherless homes. In the book the Boy Crisis by Warren Farrell, he writes about the importance of a man in a child's life, whether it's a father or a father figure. And he says men in a child's life matter in many measurable ways, impacting school achievement, school dropouts, employment, suicide. He says this is the highest factor a man in a child's life. Drugs. It's five times more than any other factor. Bullying, both the bullied and the bully. Victimization, violent crime, poverty, trust and empathy. He says, we don't want the end of men. We need men in. In families. We need men in societies. So how do we make sense of this? What do we do with all of this conversation? Again, on one corner, men are toxic. The other, there's a toxic war on masculinity. What does the scripture say? And we believe that men created in the image of God, women created in the image of God, but men who are healthy help have healthy families, healthy works, healthy society, healthy culture. What does the scripture say to men? Now, obviously, the title of the sermon is what Happened to Masculinity? So I'm probably gonna talk to the dudes for a little bit here, but I believe this will impact all of us. We're gonna look at a passage in Scripture, 1 Kings, chapter 2, verse 1 through 3, where you see David, who's a man after God's own heart, challenge Jesus, his son, a man named Solomon. As David is about to die, he gives an issue. He issues a challenge to his son. And this is God's word. And I want to preach this word to you today, and I want to define what a man is and what a man isn't, based on the Scripture and the overarching narrative of God's word. But this is this passage. First Kings, chapter 2, verse 1. As the time approached for David to die, he ordered his son, Solomon. So here's the order. As for me, I'm going the way of all of the earth. Be strong and be a man. And keep your obligation to the Lord your God, to walk in his ways and to keep his statutes, commands, ordinances and decrees. This is God's word. Now notice King David, a man after God's own heart, says to his son, be a man. Be a man. And I want us to understand what a man is and what a man isn't. First, what a man is not, number one. A man is not an animal. A man is not an animal. In fact, when you read what has been called toxic masculinity, and I would say that initially that term did describe a lot of horrific behaviors committed at the hands of men that we would for sure say were toxic. But it often was used to describe men not acting as men, but men acting. And when men act as animals, men are driven by their desires. They're governed by their instincts, not governed by self control, not driven by who they are. Created in the image of God. They live as an animal, not as a man. And because men have been or at least felt as if they're under attack, in our current culture, there's a lot of young men, young men that are pastor in our church, that are drawn to people, celebrities or influencers on Instagram who will talk to them as a man. But sometimes the influencers are really horrible examples. For example, Andrew Tate is one who speaks to young men often about masculinity. But he's a horrible example of a man because he tells young men to treat women essentially as if they are property. He devalues women. He talks to young men as if they are to act on their instincts and on their urges. Now, I realize, and some say why there's articles written. Why are so many young men looking to someone like him? The reason so many young men look to someone like him is because they feel as if they've been berated in this culture and emasculated in this culture and they're drawn to somebody, anybody who will stand up for them. And so if you have been drawn to him because you want someone to stand up for you, I understand the desire for someone to stand up for you. But you're looking to the wrong person because he's actually asking you to live sub human, to live less than who you are. Listen, young man, you are not an animal. You are a man. There's a difference between a man and an animal. Let me introduce you to an animal. This is Roscoe, my dog. He is the cutest golden doodle that there is. In fact, the reason I know is because Roscoe, we put a wedding together between him and another doodle in our church. They got married and Roscoe impregnated this other doodle. And we had six. We sold them. We made some pretty good money because people in Southern California will pay a lot of money for a double doodle. And so Roscoe. But you think, look how cute. You think he's cute. You think he's cute. I wanna tell you about Roscoe in dog years. He's 42 years old and he still lives at home with his mommy, who does everything for him. Roscoe doesn't provide for himself or for other people. Everybody provides for Roscoe. Also, Roscoe, he had those six kids. But I want you to know, Roscoe's a deadbeat dad. He's a deadbeat dad. He never one time asked to go see those kids. He does not know their names. He also walked out on the woman that we gave him to in marriage. He walked out on her complete A deadbeat dad, a horrible husband. And he also will show up at your house, use the bathroom in your yard as he looks at you. Roscoe is not a great example. Let's look at the picture again. Do you still think he's cute? Do you guys still think he's cute? Okay, well, if you do, it's because he's an animal, not a man. He's allowed to do that because he's an animal and not a man. But listen, men, it's not cute when you live that way. And when a man lives and defines a man as how many women I can sleep with, you're being an animal. You're not being a man. When you live and you try to prove your manhood by how many conquests you have or how much you can drink or how much you can make, you are living as an animal and not as a man. And God desires more for you. I want more for you than you to live as an animal. You are not subhuman. You are created in the image of God. You are not an animal. So a man is not an animal, number one. Number two, a man is not a boy. A man is not a boy. The difference between a man and a boy is that a boy needs people to provide for him and a man provides for other people. Sadly, in our culture we have some 28 year old boys, some 36 year old boy boys, some 45 year old boys who you live your life for other people to take care of you and meet your needs. But a man seeks to serve others. A man seeks to bless others and care for others and doesn't seek to live where everyone waits on him hand and foot. Now, my heart is for the young men in our church. The reason that I think we have some people who biologically would be a man, they're 28 and they're a dude, but they live like a boy is because for some, you haven't had a man walk with you and show you how to be a man. In fact, I can point to a very popular YouTube channel called dad how do I, which is beautiful. Rob Renner lost his dad when he was small, and he's over 60 years old. He puts together this beautiful YouTube channel, and it's simple videos like, dad, how do I shave? Dad, how do I grill a steak. Dad, how do I change the oil in my car? It's awesome. But when you look at the comments, your heart will break because you'll read comments, people will say, I'm 58 years old and I never had someone show me these things. And for some of you, that's really been your story. You would want to be a man, but you're still living as a boy because no one has walked alongside you and showed you how to be a man. And my heart breaks for you. And I want you to know that our church wants to provide a place for you to help shepherd you to live as a man and not as a boy. We mentioned rooted earlier in our service, and if you're a man, we can put you in a rooted group where you'll have an awesome godly man as the leader who will help you and be a model for you and encourage you. Because a man is not an animal, but a man is also not a boy. And number three, a man is not a woman. There has been a lack of clarity in our culture on this. And the lack of clarity between what a man is and what a woman is has actually hurt both men and women. Both men and women are created in the image of God. We saw at Christmas that God insisted in the genealogy of Jesus to have women listed, that God created women and longs for women and pursues women. He created men and longs for men and pursues men, but he created men and women differently. Biologically different. In fact, one of the ways that men are different from women is that men biology tells us they have more testosterone. Testosterone is also used by those who believe all men are toxic. To say testosterone is toxic because it causes you to be aggressive. And aggression can be used negatively, but aggression can also be used positive, positively. If you men will submit your drive and your. Your passion and your power and your strength, if you will submit yourself to God and place yourself under him, he will direct your aggression and your passion to bless others, to serve others, where you're not living as a beast and you're not living as a boy, but you're living as a man who helps others and helps others thrive, including women and children. And my fear specifically for the young men in our church. Oh, my heart breaks for the young Men in our church, I led a group of high school guys for four years. I still hang out with them. They're sophomores in college. But every time they're back in town, we get together. My heart just breaks because for some, they have heard that because they're a man, something's wrong with them. Some of you have perhaps felt that man to be a man in our culture. But I'm being called toxic. And what it causes some men to do is step back and be passive because the last thing you want to be called is toxic. That's why I've had some young men say it's hard for me to want to pursue a woman because I'm scared I'm going to say the wrong thing and she's going to say that I was a creep or that I was toxic and how I talked to her. And so young men listen, you should not be toxic. You should not live as an animal. But you must be careful you don't swing to where you're now being passive and you're then not living as. In fact, the first sin in the scripture is passivity. Adam and Eve, they're in the Garden of Eden, and there's this tree that God says, don't eat from this one tree. But Satan tempts Adam and Eve together and says, you should eat from this tree. And Satan starts to speak directly to Eve, the woman. And according to the scripture, Adam is right there. He's right there watching Satan tempt his wife and pull his wife away from the grace of God. And. And Adam watches passively, which reminds me as a man that if I will not lead my family in the grace of Jesus, Satan is more than happy to lead my family away from the grace of Jesus. Man, you are not to be passive. You are to be a man. How does David define being a man? He doesn't define it by how much you can bench press or how much brisket you can eat, or how good of a brisket you can cook. Although I hope I have more of those in 2025. I hope for those things. But that's not how he defines a man at all. Notice verse 3. This is how he defines you. Being a man to keep your obligations to the Lord, your God, to walk in his ways and to keep his statutes, commands, ordinances and decrees. The Scripture says that for you to be who God wants you to be, and this would be for both men and women, for you to become who God wants you to be, is to walk in his ways. You will become like whoever it is you walk with in 20, 25 men. If you walk with men who live as beasts, you will become more beastly. If you walk with men who are really boys who can shave, you will live as a boy. If you want to live as a man, you have to walk with men in your life. And the way to walk with the ultimate man is to walk with God. Because God the Son, Jesus, the Christ is entered this world and he is the perfect man. He gives the beautiful display of masculinity of what real masculinity is. You can look at Jesus and see real masculinity according to Jesus is he is both fatherly and fierce at the same time. He's fierce because he's willing to walk into the temple and he's a fighter. He overthrows the the money changers cause. He's standing up against injustice and he's standing for people who can't encounter the presence of God. He's a fighter, but he's also fatherly. He says, little children, you come onto me. Jesus is tough and he's tender at the same time. He's tough. He goes to the cross, carries his own cross to his own death, endures the shame and the scorn of the cross. His stakes are driven into his hands and into his feet as he is crucified to take take away our sin and our shame. He is tough, but he's also tender. He's tender to you. He's tender to you. Listen men, if you've lived as a beast, he's actually really tender to you today. Because Jesus was known as a friend of sinners, he welcomed people to himself. That the religious people said, we don't want anything to do with you. Jesus welcomed people to himself. And Jesus welcomes you no matter what has been in your past. If you've lived as a beast or as a boy, he welcomes you. And if you will come to Jesus, Jesus will change you. He'll even change the type of man that you are. And if you will walk with him, God changes you into the type of man who blesses a family, who blesses a society, who blesses a neighborhood. He changes you into the type of man, the man that you would be proud to be, the man that your children would be proud to have as dad. Listen, men in our church, I want us to be the best husbands. How are we going to be the best husbands? If you will follow after Jesus, he turns you in to the best husband. Because your heart is refreshed with how Jesus chased you down. Even when you were cold towards him. You follow after Jesus. He stirs your affections for your wife and you pursue her and you go after her. I want us men to be the best dads. If you're not married and you don't have kids yet in the future, I want you to be an awesome dad. And the way that you become an awesome dad is you follow after God because he's the ultimate father who's tender and compassionate and wise and kind. You follow after him and. And he turns you into an amazing dad. So be a man. To be a man, you have to walk in his ways. Now, listen, I wanna be honest. Some are gonna say to you, if you go to a church like Mariners that teaches the Bible, they're gonna turn you into someone who's like, hard and rough and not tender towards women and children. That's what's. No, Christians don't say that. That's the secular society that says, us Christians, we aren't actually the best people, but research says the opposite. Let me quote you some stats from one chapter in the book the Toxic War on Masculinity by Nancy Pearcey. This is from her chapter, How Christian Men Shadow the Stereotypes. And she's saying the stereotypes that us Christian men are gonna be. We're gonna be tough, we're not gonna be tender, that we're gonna be moralistic, and we're not gonna be kind. She says that's not true according to the research. These are just a bunch of bullet points. Let me read these to you about what happens to you if you follow after God. Protestant men who attend church regularly are the least likely of any group in America to commit domestic violence. A man's emotional work is the most crucial determinant of a woman's marital quality. And who tests out as doing the most emotional work? Men who believe the Bible. Churchgoing Protestant men are the least likely to yell at their children. Religiously active fathers spend about 3.5 more hours per week with their children compared to secular fathers. Churchgoing men are least likely to cheat on their wives. Church attendance is the most important predictor of marital stability, which is why it's awesome. If you're married, you're starting church off this year. Great marriage this year. That's what I want for you. Elizabeth Brusco. She studied Pentecostal Christianity in Columbia. She's not a Christian. She's actually a trained. She's actually actually trained in Marxist thought. And she thought her research would reveal that Christianity would hurt families. But she discovered after looking at men who had converted to being a follower of Jesus. This is what she found that when a man converts, he stops drinking, smoking, gambling and sleeping around and he begins to direct his money to his family and their standard of living goes up. She was surprised that wow. Christian men in Colombia actually make their first families better. Studies of active churchgoing fathers find they are the most likely to set boundaries at work and reject careerism so they can focus on their families. The research says that men who follow Christ are good for everyone around them. What's happened to masculinity? Well, men who live as beasts are toxic. Men who live as boys need a father figure who's going to help them live as a man. But men who are men are not toxic. They bless the culture, they bless their family. They make an impact. Men don't be an animal, a beast. Don't be a boy. Be a man who follows after God and he changes you into the kind of man that he wants you to be. All right, extend your hands, please, and let me pray a prayer of blessing over you as we go. Jesus, I pray you'd bless your sons and daughters this week, that you would remind them that you are gentle and approachable and that you love them. Cause your face to shine on them. I pray they will experience your mercy and your joy this new week. In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen. Go in peace. Have a great week.