A Man's Job

**Because You Asked -- Sermon 19

Manhood Is a Matter of Creation

Genesis 1:26-27 displays that male and female were within the creation plan of God and designed by God with separate identity. Thus, maleness is God's design, God's creation, and a God-given identity.
Mankind retains the image of God given at creation. See 1 Corinthians 11:7 and James 3:9
One who fails to recognize that they are created in God's image will always have identity confusion.
One who fails to recognize that they are male or female will always have gender confusion.
Nothing in Scriptures supports an idea that masculinity is something to be subdued.
Nothing in Scripture would display the idea that masculinity would in any way display femininity to be of lesser value.
Healthy cultures and families will honor gender as both a matter of fact and faith. Cultures that create and allow gender confusion are inevitably cultures in collapse.

Manhood Is A Matter Of Order

Mankind was given a dominion role over God's creation -- Genesis 1:26.
- When that order is overturned, chaos ensues, and mankind is in danger.
Man was given a leadership role over women and children -- 1 Corinthians 11:3, 7.
- When that order is overturned, chaos ensues, and women and children are in danger.
The family role of men is further described in Colossians 3:18-21.
- Beginning with wives, Paul instructs them to submit to their husbands, as it is fit in the Lord.
- The word submitὑποτάσσω [hupotasso], meaning "under appointment." Since the fall, God has given a certain order to society that holds it together. There is nothing in Scripture that supports any kind of view of women as inferior, but everything in Scripture speaks of men as the head of the home.
- Note that women are to submit as it is fit in the Lord. This adverbial clause tells how to submit, not why to submit. There can be views of submission which are not fit in the Lord, and these are not insisted upon here.
- Paul then gives a simple instruction to husbands, only nine words in Greek, 10 in English, and is almost the totality of instruction for husbands found in Scripture. Being a husband is not something that is hard to do. Husbands are first to love your wives, a subject in which Paul slightly elaborates on in Ephesians 5:25-31, with the only addition of giving Christ's love for the church and a man's love for his own body as the comparative point.
- The second instruction to men concerning wives is to be not bitter against them. Sometimes men, who have a longing for freedom, can become bitter to their wives who may, by necessity or by her demands, keep them from expressing this freedom. Love conquers any degree of bitterness, but where it is still a struggle, the husband is simply instructed to put the bitterness out of his life.
The order“a man's job" to protect and obey.

Manhood Is A Matter Of Identity

Based on the creation, the man provides three great benefits in society. These are matters of his identity, and when taken away he will be frustrated, emaciated, and an ultimate drain on society.
First, man is the provider - Genesis 2:15
- From man's first day, he was given a job.
- When society expects men to provide through work, and men fulfill that expectation, that society becomes prosperous, orderly, and healthy.
- When society delays manhood by minimizing work, that society will become impoverished, dependent, and crime-ridden.
Second, man is the protector. -- Genesis 2:15-17
- From man's first day, he was to keep (v. 15) the garden and was given the assignment of protecting all who came after from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (v. 17).
- When society expects men to protect themselves and their world, that society can prosper financially and in faith, and the men are whole in their sense of being.
Third, man is the prospector.
- Genesis 2:24 -- a man shall leave…. This means that he's going to have to go “prospecting."
- “fend for himself." By his creativity and hard work, he would thrive. If he just sat there waiting, never taking a risk, he would shrivel up and die.

Man's Most Important Role

A man who is not under the headship of Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 11:3) is going to be forever confused about who he is and what he is supposed to do.
The question of Mark 8:36 is one that should be remembered by every man.

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