A recording of the May. 18, 2017 After Hours event for men, led by Pastor Jim Keena of E-Free Church in Bozeman (www.efcb.org). Uncover the biblical principles of masculinity as shown in Genesis and the New Testament – you will not be disappointed!

A special thank you to Jim for leading us this month – it was a treat to have you!

[su_accordion][su_spoiler title=”Automated Transcript” open=”no” style=”default” icon=”plus” anchor=”” class=””] Tonight we have a treat to hear Jim Keenan Jim is the pastor over at be free and South 19th and around a long time in Bozeman, how many years now? Nine years in Bozeman. a phenomenal Bible teacher. I’m just gonna leave it at that one of my all time favorites and I enjoy your stuff so much, Jen. Love your spirit, your demeanor. How you come across and how you just kind of slightly shake us up. So come up and join us. Give Jim a hand. My on Yeah, okay, good. All right. Uh, yeah, it’s good to be here. I love talking to men and we’re just going to share some about what a what a man is what a man is. So let me pray for us and then then we’ll get started. Father, thank you for the privilege to stand before these men to share your word about what you’re calling us up to fulfill and our unique redemptive purpose. So I asked for a feeling of your Holy Spirit. I pray that each of us will be sensitive to your spirits work in your words, direct confrontation and teaching and instruction to us. So we commit this time to you. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen. all goes well I’ll talk for about 30 minutes and then we’re going to have about 15 minutes of table time where you can discuss and kind of talk about what I’ve talked about. So last night I was doing some premarital counseling for a couple that are non Christians. They don’t go to church. She’s a co worker, my wife and was looking for a pastor. And I had enough a relationship with them that they asked me if I do their wedding, I said, Yeah, if you’ll do some premarital counseling with me, and so it’s really neat for me as a pastor, Christian pastor, that me be with two non church, non Christian people who really don’t have a great interest in spiritual things they really didn’t talk about we don’t want to go to church. I go great because I this is a good opportunity. So I met with them last night. And you know, the topic came up as a Hey, I want to talk to a bunch of men tonight and I want to talk What a what a man hits. And I think I kind of asked the question, you know, what, what do you think a man is? And I didn’t give him a long time to formulate their answer, because I like to talk a lot. So I just kind of cut right in. But I said, you know, what is the man? I’ll tell you what, I won’t tell them tomorrow night. And so I gave them a definition I’m going to give you It was so cool. Because here, they’re sitting there, you know, totally uncharged and they’re going. Yeah. And she on her face goes, Yeah, yeah. She wants him to do what I’m going to tell you guys to do. And it’s so cool because it resonated with both of them. Because what we’re experiencing now is a manhood crisis in our culture, where we really don’t know who we are, how God has made us, what we’re all about, and culture and a post Christian culture we have with broken Families and so on understanding who we are some man is challenging. So what I want to talk about is what is a man and here so my goals for our evening this evening, I want to look at three areas of responsibility for men, men in general. Then we’re going to look at two examples of manhood and then want to close with a definition of what authentic biblical masculinity is. Let’s start with developing his biblical definition by going to Scripture. And so if you have your Bibles, you go ahead and grab them. And this is going to be really easy to find the Bibles I might use the ESP which is what you have there in the middle. It’d be easy fine. Go to page one. Genesis one, and Genesis is kind of organized like this. There’s this Genesis one has this wide angle view of creation, especially men and women in particular Chapter Two, there’s a close up look. And then chapter three, it draws a tight focus of who they are. So let’s just look real quick at Genesis chapter one. There’s this wide angle view of God creating male and female. Genesis one verse 27. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God, He created him, male and female, he created them. So we see God as created creating men and women and distinctive as as they’re created in God’s image. Theologians use this Latin term describe this. A Margot de Margot day means that every human being male female is created in the image of God. What is one of the clearest evidences for God? You you because what he did with humans, on all other animals, he elevated to this highest status any share some of his image with humanity, male and female. Every person you meet has some of the attributes that God Himself shared with them. So you can look at each other and get a little glimpse of what God is like, in a miniature degree. He shared his attributes with this. So we’re image bearers we have inherent worth, and value male and female, God created them. So we have value and then we have a purpose. This theological term is called a cultural mandate. You see this in verse 28. And God blessed them and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens, and over every living thing that moves on the earth. Some hope I didn’t write it down, some somewhere says that God made man a little lower than that ain’t jobs, and he crowned him with glory and honor. And then there’s this description of us being over animals. We’re not animals are image bearers of God. And we have been given this responsibility. Again, theologians call this a cultural mandate, to create culture to, to rule over culture, and to make things better. And so he’s given this mandate them to be fruitful and multiply, and to subdue the earth and create because God is a creative God, He made us creative. So that’s a wide angle view chapter one, chapter two, then we see three areas of responsibility. And and in particular, we want to draw our focus just a little bit tighter and look at this first man. His name is Adam. Hebrew, that means the man pretty creative for the first guy. And there’s only one. Yeah. Were you the man? No one else on demand. So here’s going to be three areas of responsibility. And this is kind of unpacking some of what I said to the guy last night, and a couple. The first thing we see in these three areas of responsibility is that God gave a man of work to do. Genesis chapter two, verse 15, the Lord took the man and put him in the garden, to work it and to keep it. Work is ordained for us. Before sin. Sin didn’t create this necessity to work. We have always been creative beings meant to work and do things productive. So before the fall, we were created to work. And one of the things is this is a God gives a man of work to do. us a man have a work to do. Adam was created that way. And as we move on into the New Testament revelation of what a man or what a person is, he talks about us being right with God. He says, For by grace, you’ve been saved through faith, legions to eight through 10. And this is not your own doing. It is a gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. Here’s one element of a responsibility of every man is we’re here to work, to fulfill our redemptive purpose and to move it even more so into a Christian context. You have been gifted before the foundation of the world, with those things that God can use and you to accomplish His glory and your work. The one responsibility for every man is to work, be creative and fulfill that redemptive purpose to fulfill what God has called us to do. Second thing is this, God gave him a work to do and and also God gave him a will to obey. We see this in the very next verses, chapter two, verse 16, and 17 in Genesis, and the Lord commanded the man saying, you may surely eat up every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat for in the day you eat of it, you shall surely die. I remember you had a Bible study with john and soothing limb, they were Chinese. They had a Was it a Buddhist background? I forgot their background, but they were both Christians. So this is like the first time we opened the Bible. These were these Chinese students that we’ve known for a long time ago. So I shared this verse I remember so clearly John’s kind of surprised when we when we saw this, this particular text about the tree but in the middle, and and then them taking and we’re talking about the creation story. And he looked at me and he looked up and he goes, God’s plan is flawed. God’s plan is flawed. Why did he put the tree in the middle? And I said the tree had to be there. Because if they were to be image bearers of God, they were to be volitional begins with the capacity to choose. And what the tree in the middle enabled him to do is to make a choice. Do you want to stay with God or not? They had a choice to make and so it was necessary for them to be image bearers of God for the tree to be in there. So they put the tree in there and there was a God put the tree in there. And there was just no there wasn’t 10 commandments. There’s just one Tony. Tony. That’s it. Again, yeah, there’s not much mission to get into when you’re alone. But he said, Just don’t eat of the tree, because the day you eat of it, you shall surely die. So here was this also, God gave man a will to obey, a work to do and a will to obey. And God wants to be in relationship with us. God wants to be the authority, the leader in our life, and he wants us to obey His will. There is a will, that God has for you to obey, real man except that responsibility. They walk in obedience. The next thing is, this is in verse 18. Then the Lord said, The Lord God said, It is not good that a man should be alone. I will make a helper fit for him. And we see this story of the creation of he were rib was taken from Adam and she was formed from that and she was a helper suitable For him, I remember doing wedding, or some premarital counseling for one couple years ago, I said, describe your wife to me and she goes, she’s my missing rip. That’s pretty cool. She kind of completes what’s not there for me. And so she was his missing, read that fulfillment of what is right. And so what we see here is it was not good for him to be alone. And so God gave man, a woman to love. So this is a story of these three responsibilities that God has given us at work to do a will to obey and normally a woman to love. Yeah, he had to have a woman to be fruitful and multiply, that not every man has to be married is not God’s call in their life to be married. But the majority are. There is this woman that you’re to lab. So we have these three examples from from this close focus. Now we want to move into more of a type focus. And what I want to do at this point is give you two examples of masculinity, a prototype and an anti type. prototype, you follow this one, the anti type, you don’t follow this example. They’re put in contrast with us. So we’re going to look at the example of Adam as a, as eventually we’re going to see an anti, this is what a man isn’t to be. This is how a man is not to live. And you learn from his negative example. So we see this as we go on in Genesis chapter three, in this story of the creation account, who he is, and now we move to in a tight focus of the fall and we look carefully what happened. Now Genesis three, one. Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beasts of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, that God actually say, You shall not be Eat of any tree in the garden. And the woman said to the serpent, We may eat the fruit of the tree in the garden but God said, you should not eat the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it lest you die. The serpent This is a manifestation of the evil one Satan. But the serpent said to the woman, you will not surely die. But God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened. And you will be like God, knowing good and evil. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that was delight to the eyes, and at the tree was to be desired to make one wise, he took its fruit and ate and also she gave some to her husband, who was with her and he ate it Here we see the far the one will that he was given to obey. You violated he ate as well of this fruit. That was forbidden. And so we see this example of Adam, who he had a will to obey but as an anti type of what manhood is to be, he walked in disobedience to what God called him to do. Here’s an anti type of masculinity. They walk in disobedience to God’s will. Their defiant to his authority and his will and his way. Here, here’s our problem. We want to be like God, because I want to be God, Jim. I want to be master of me. I don’t want to bring myself under the will and the authority of the Creator God, he created me. He’s our anti type. But we put also not just an anti type, but scripture has as a prototype of what authentic masculinity is all about. And he’s called by theologians. Sometimes the second Adam is Jesus Christ. He is our example of what God has called us to do. Romans chapter five, verse 17. for it because of one man’s trespass, he he’s talking about in this one man, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through one man much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign through the life of the one man, Jesus Christ, the one man Adam, because of his sin, and since he’s our great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandpa and where his lineage we two were born with this fallen nature. We were born sinners, by by nature and choice. There’s that bent that actually Have that we follow and because of his sin is spread to all of his descendants. But Jesus Christ stood in contrast, and he gives righteousness. I like this first Adam second Adam. Contrast in First Corinthians 1545. Thus it is written, the first man Adam became a living being. The last Adam became a life giving spirit. The last Adam is Jesus. So he puts the anti type Adam, the prototype Jesus, and this way says but Adam, he was living being Jesus, the prototype. The second Adam is a life giving spirit. Every had to fill out like a delicate a reference call for someone who’s trying to find a job and and they are like completely worthless. You’re just scrambling around to say something good about him. And they’re saying what kind of guy is he’s a good guy so on. And this is what you say, Well, he’s a living being. That’s what Paul does about Adam. Here’s this reference. Well he was a living being a Jesus is a life giving spirit. That’s our example man. You You bring life or you just suck air. Are you a living being are a life giving spirit and we as Christ followers follow the prototype, not the and I type. In that we become life giving spirit. Think about work or your life giving spirit at work, or your life giving spirit to your wife or your life giving spirit to your children or your life giving spirit in the church. You add the culture or do you suck? Are you a living being our life giving spirit? So we see these two examples of of Adam who failed the test and Jesus who pass this test. And every man is going to make a decision to walk in the shadow of one or the other. So one of the things I told you to do is I’ll give you a definition of authentic masculinity and those you’ve been in a men’s fraternity, this is just lifted right from it. It is no creativity on my part. I sucked it from somebody else. And then I give it to you as a life giving spirit I guess. So here it is. We’re going to develop this this definition. So what is the definition? Looking at our prototype and our and I type? One element I think of a biblical definition of what a real man is, is, first of all, they reject passivity. They reject passivity. Look at her and I type Adam who was in the garden. Come back to that verse six in chapter three. This is what he says. So when the woman saw the tree was good for fruit food, and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was able, was to be desired to make one wise. She took of the fruit and ate it. And this is what I always thought growing up. It was until I say this later in life. I thought that when the serpent tempted Eve, that Adam was out playing basketball, or farming or something, and he comes back he goes, what has happened here? That’s not the way it was. Did you see what it says is text and she also gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate. It seems as if to imply that Adams watched the evil one tempted Wife and he just stood there as a life breathing he was passive. I am 56 years old I’ve been married 35 years. I love being this age and I look back at my life and they’re not a lot of things that I’ve done that I regret I didn’t favorite my wife I I’ve stayed out of jail I pay my debts we got a nice house you know, there’s not a lot of you know, kind of good job all that they’re not a lot of things I look at that I that I’ve done that I regret. But there are a lot of things I regret that I haven’t done that should have done for him who knows to do good and does it not to him it is sin. And, and when we walk in the anti type of ad and one of the things we do is we’re passive Men, God did not create us to be passive. He wants us to exert authority and rule and be leaders, not be passive. And I bet many of you think of moments when you sit there with your hands in your pocket, and you watch evil unfold in front of you. And you did not step in and intervene. And you didn’t stop it. But you came complicit with it and engaged with it. Because after she said, he offered to him he took that will to obey, he violated but he also violated because he didn’t stop in and become the head of the family that God calls us to be protect his bride. He was passing the prototype is anything That passive. Jesus is active in his pursuit of us. And he was active in his interest of time and it turned into die on the cross for us. Jesus is not passive, he’s active. And no one looks at Jesus goes well, he’s pretty laid back and passive. So far the definition of this is that a real man rejects passivity. Next thing we see also in this text is that a real man will accept responsibility. He will accept responsibility. Go back to the Genesis text that we’ve been looking at. And in this Genesis checks in chapter three, look how he responds, when he is encountered by God with this sin. When he was caught by God, he’s cornered, and God confronts him with this, and this is what he does. He says in verse 13, or excuse me, Me. Let me just back up a little bit here. Verse 10. And he said, I heard the sound of you in the garden, God began looking for him. And I was afraid because I was naked. And I hid myself. Who told you you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat. And the man said, the woman you gave me, gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate. When confronted with this, then he rejected responsibility. And he began to make excuses, cast blame and play the victim. God, it was the woman that you gave me. He rejected responsibility for the sin as the head of the family. And what we see in the anti type of masculinity is this failure to accept responsibility. This is what the word responses abilities is is built upon, you are response able, you have an ability to respond and make decisions. And what we have in our culture is millions of adolescent males who don’t man up and take responsibility for their actions, and they spend their time and excuse making blame shifting and victimization of themselves is not my fault. And that’s part of the old adage. And Jesus Christ rejects the past 70 and he accepts responsibility, and he pursues us as well. Because what we see in Christ as this, we see him first of all, he accepted the responsibility of God’s will to obey. This is what john 434 says, Jesus said to them, my food, my passion is to do the will of Him who said Me and accomplish his work. Jesus the prototype of authentic masculinity, he accept the responsibility of the work that God has given us. When we hear that we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus do good work. So he prepared advanced residue. A man says, I’ll do it. I will accept responsibility and I will do the work that God has called me to do. Next thing in Jesus, we see that not only did accept their sponsor, obey the will but accept responsibility to the work to do I glorified you on Earth, having accomplished the work that God that you gave me to do. JOHN 17 for if some though you were in our church, and I was preaching not too long ago, I said, I have figured out what I want engraved on my tombstone. JOHN 17 four where Jesus says, I glorified you on Earth. having accomplished the work you gave me to Do Wouldn’t that be awesome to engrave that on your tombstone? That I glorify God, when I lived here on Earth, by doing the work he called me to do. That is that will to obey that work to do. And also, Jesus accepted the responsibility of a woman to love. Now never married, and Jesus is the supreme prototype of a man, but he loved his woman, because as Roman as a church, the bride of Christ, and this is what says in phases 525 husbands love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. So here we see in Jesus the prototype, he took responsibility to obey the will of father do the work he called to do and to love his bride, as Christ loved the church. Or Thanks, guys with the couple They’re not church. I use kind of a variation of this idea of what a man’s all about. And it’s from john Eldredge, his book Wild at Heart. And john elder said this that there’s three things that are man supposed to do. There’s an adventure to live a Bama fight and abetted rescue. I’m telling you what, when I told that guy that the husband to be in his bride to be was right there, I said part of his role is a beauty to rescue Sheila and she knows my wife cuz she works with my wife and I said, You know what? I think without boasting I think my wife is very, very beautiful. Inside now and this color girl she is. I just really love your wife. I really look up to her. I said not bragging but I really think that what’s happened is because I’ve tried to love her the best I can. Her beauty is radiated even more There is a countenance about her, because I perceive her and I want to love her. Now we’re released that beauty with the inner. And so Jesus loves his bride the church, he loves you passionately and he wants to release that beauty within you. So this definition man is real man rejects festivity accepts responsibility. And then he leads courageously. Adam hid because he was afraid. And one of the things that will keep you from your redemptive purpose is fear. And what we need in culture society is that men to take the lead to step up in your spirit and your culture and create culture. lead your families to take the initiative. And we see in the prototype of Jesus is his leadership his ability to move forward. There was a there’s a point in the story that Adams reverse 90 God calls out to the man and this is what Adam says, Where are you? And it’s like God’s voice to you as it goes to creation. Where are you men? Where are you to step up and fulfill your redemptive purpose? Where are you? And he was hiding because he was afraid. So this development of this manhood a definition is we reject passivity, accept responsibility lead courageously, and then we invest eternally. he disobeyed God for an apple. He rejected paradise and Eden for essential taste of something that looked good to the eyes. The appeal of being like God, and he didn’t invest eternally thought short side and part of being a A prototype of follower of Jesus Christ of this authentic masculinity is that that we invest our lives in things of eternal worth. That we want to make an internal significance of what God has called us to do. Adam invested in a temporary chosing what would satisfy him in the moment. And one of the signs of adolescent behavior is lack of impulse control and experiencing delayed gratification. And we need to learn the delayed gratification of eternity that we will fulfill our redemptive purpose here and now, Jesus said, Do not lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. But lay up treasures for yourself in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in. Well, I’ve gone a little bit over my time, but I have one story. It stories don’t count for time. When we when we I was passing on Arkansas, and we were going through a tough period of time, and we’re going through a tough period in our marriage and just, you know, just a lot of pressures, lot of things going on to us. And so we decided, I said, Kim, let’s just go to some counseling, because, you know, we’re just not clicking right now and all the stress and so on. So I’ve ever went to counseling, marriage counseling, and, frankly, the counselor lady, she didn’t do any good. But what was good is me saying, we got problems. Let’s go talk. I mean, that was the huge thing. I really was. I think that was the big thing. But I remember one at one point. We were sitting there talking and she was doing the counselor talk stuff, you know, and she looked at me and she goes, what, what what? You dream of failing? If you could do anything or world what would you drink? What would you do? I thought it’s really a good question, because it kind of determines what’s that work that God’s calling us to do? What’s that area passivity, I need to reject, what are those responsibilities I need to take? It really begins to, you know, what does that dream and, and I told her I said, you know, and I’ve been past this church and I there’s been this tug in my heart. I said if I could do anything right now, I would quit the church. And I would move and go to seminary somewhere so that I could further my education. Because what I had my man is I wanted to teach in a Christian University in the next generation of leaders. And I remember you know, there was all these things, you know, we had four kids at home and all this going on and I’ve seen really just pull it complicated. And and so I just told her what my dream was. And then you know, how it is kind of accounts and then, you know, she turns and says the same thing to Kim. And so Rather than listening to Kim, I just can put my head down like this. I was listening to Kim, but I put my head down. And there was like this. You know how this is like a impression, you know, we didn’t hear a voice or anything but just this really clear thought came to my head is what I was. We’ll do it and I thought I go we could do this. And we sold our house. It was so beautiful. I tell Kim, I I called him up when I was gonna break the news that we’re going to sell our house with my wife and four kids to what wound up being Chicago we didn’t even know where we’re going to go. And here I am in my 40s now, I think in my midlife crisis, so anyway, they said leave my wife, I just took her with me wherever you are I called him up. I said, Hey, I want to go out for lunch and talk to you. So she’s excited cuz she gets go for lunch, you know is Oh, great. So again, the car The church was passed during, she hopped in the car with me. We back out the car and I turned to her. I said, Kim, I’m going to resign the church. We’re going to sell our house, and I’m going to move in Roman seminary. And this is what my wife said, let’s do it. Because she knew, I loved her. And she knew I would listen to the voice of God. And I really believe we did. And we did it. We sold our house, left Arkansas, moved to Chicago, in relevant seminary, spent four years there. And then job opened at Arkansas at the Christian university that I wanted to teach at and they didn’t hire me. And so I had to GM Plan B. Bozeman. I’m so glad I’m here. God put stuff in us. It may not be that big. But that was a moment of rejecting positivity, of accepting responsibility of leading courageously and investing and eternal. That decision is what determined me standing here today, talking to you. I’m glad I’m talking to you. Because being the man that God created us to be, is one of the most fulfilling experiences I get to influence people for Jesus Christ attorney I get to stand in front of a group of What is there? 500 here 2000 here, yeah, thousand men and share the beauty of the gospel and comment out to masculine. I love this. There’s something in you that God created you to do. You do it. I’ll pray. You can break up your groups and talk about what’s a man? Let me pray. Father, thank You for Doug and Daniel and their leadership, their courageous leadership, their willingness to, to organize this event. And we pray that your spirit would do your profound work in us. I pray that we’d be men who who reject positivity, that we accept responsibility that we lead courageously. We invest our lives in eternal matters. We pray this in Jesus name. Thank you guys. Transcribed by https://otter.ai [/su_spoiler][/su_accordion]