Masculine Faith: The Story

As a man, have you ever felt disconnected or bored with the traditional church experience? In this episode of the Manhood Tribes Show, Don explores the fascinating and often untold epic story of faith as presented in the Bible. 

We dive deep into the roles men are meant to play in this grand narrative and discuss what it means to have a masculine faith. 

You'll learn about the real purpose, resilience, and epic nature of a faith rooted in the Christian scriptures, and how it can transform your life. 

Join us as we start a new series designed to help men understand their pivotal role in God's story. Take our free 'How Manly Are You?' quiz to find out more about your journey in faith and manhood. 

00:00 Introduction: The Struggle with Church
00:10 Discovering a Compelling Story
00:38 Manhood Tribe Show: New Series Announcement
01:33 The Disconnect Between Men and Church
04:48 Redefining Masculine Faith
05:27 The Epic, Purposeful, and Resilient Faith
08:22 The True Story of Faith
17:52 The Role of Israel and the Coming of Jesus
23:23 Jesus' Mission and Resurrection
29:18 Living Out a Masculine Faith
31:35 Conclusion: Embracing Your Role

Want to know how you measure up as a man? Take our free quiz, called How Manly Are You? and learn how you can get better at being a man. Download for free at manhoodtribes.com/manly.

Transcript

Don Ross: 0:01

Guys, have you ever felt like the whole church thing just doesn't work for you? Like whenever you show up, you're just kind of bored and wondering why you're there. Well, it might be that the story you're being told, isn't the real story that you're meant to be a part of. You've probably heard some version of you need Jesus so that you can be forgiven of your sins and you'll be able to go to heaven when you die. Now that's good, but that's not actually the story that the Bible is telling. You might find that the story that scripture is all about is far more compelling. And as a man, it's a story that you're going to want to be a part of. Let's talk about that today on the manhood tribe show. Guys want to know how you measure up as a man? I've got a great resource for you. It's called how manly are you? And it's a free quiz that you can take to figure out how you stack up against what it means to be a man. And when you take the quiz, you'll also get some free resources to help you figure out how you can get better as a man in the areas where you would like to grow. So go to manhoodtribes.com/manly to download your free. How manly are you quiz today? That's manhoodtribes.com/manly. All right, guys. Welcome back to the manhood tribe show. My name is Don. It is really good to be with you again today. We are actually starting into a brand new series. And this series is really all about faith. Now, as I say that, I want to be really careful that that's what I'm saying, because probably for a number of you guys, that's an immediate turnoff. But what I want to say here is that on the manhood tribe show, what I try to do is I want to really try to solve some big problems for you guys. I want to address the things that men are asking about life, about themselves, about the world around them, and really kind of trying to figure out, even if it's not like the highest priority in your life. It's probably a big question, mark, that you've got rolling around in your head somewhere. And so when I say that this series is going to be about faith, I want it to be about faith in the way that you maybe haven't thought about so much. I want to be, uh, I want it to be about faith for you guys in particular, who you would maybe say this whole faith thing. I'm just not sure if it works for me. Like, I don't know if I'm cut out to kind of be the church going guy to be the. To be the nice guy who shows up and follows all the rules and yeah, like I want to be there for my wife and for my kids. And I certainly want my kids to grow up making good choices, but like when push comes to shove, like I show up to church and. I'm just bored. Like, I don't feel like it really has anything to say to me, or I've been around the message that other Christians are preaching and it just makes me feel uncomfortable or weird, or man, they're so nice that I just, I'm not really sure that I fit with that group. You might even just kind of feel like, you know, as a man, like I just don't see a lot of other men around these kind of church and faith circles. Like, I don't know that like the kind of man that I am really belongs there or fits in with what's going on. And that kind of church environment. And I just want to say to you, like I get it. I understand. I think as someone who has been around church my whole life and has even worked as a pastor for a number of years. I really understand. Church. Isn't always the most welcoming place for men. It's not really designed for the way that we think the way that we function, the way that we relate to each other, or even for the things that excite us and that we tend to get passionate about. The way that church is really wired today is that it's predominantly geared towards women. And so because of that, it's no surprise that we, men might have a hard time fitting in that environment. But that doesn't mean that the big idea of what church, of what faith of what God is really supposed to be about. Doesn't include us as men. In fact, what I want to try to do in this series is talk about the ways in which I think we men are actually meant to play a pivotal and central role in this whole idea of faith and church and what all of that is meant to look like in our world. So. I wanted to say, give this a shot. Maybe you've been around faith and church for a while, and you're kind of like bored or done, or you don't really know, like if you buy into it fully or not. And I want to say this is for you, so let's kind of explore it together. What I want to try to do is say, what would it look like to develop a masculine faith and God. What would a masculine faith and guide even looked like? Is that a word that we should even apply to faith? What would it look like to have a manly faith? So that the way that I live out, my spiritual life feels like it's a part of what it means to be a man, not just kind of this, like. Softer sort of a feminine side to me where I do nice things and, you know, make all the right choices. Like I there's far more to it than that, but what would it mean for us as men to really have a masculine faith? I think there's three things that I want to try to cover in this series. And we're going to look at them from a whole bunch of different angles. But I think for us as men to have a faith that really resonates with who we are as men, there's three things that are needed. One, it needs to be epic. And when I say epic, I mean, it needs to be a big story. It needs to be something that feels like it involves all of our life. And it is sweeping us up into a grand mission and a grand story. When guys think about the movies that they love, they are epic stories. When you think about things like gladiator or the Lord of the rings stories or the whole like Marvel franchise, right? All of it is epic. It's telling these big grand stories and there are key parts. For heroes to play. Men want to be able to contribute to an epic story. And so we need our faith to be built on an epic story. We also need our faith to be purposeful. Men are built for action. And so when we think about what a masculine faith looks like, it should have purpose behind it. We, men should have a role to play. We should have a part to contribute. We need to have a purpose in the faith story that we are living out. If we don't, then we're just kind of like sitting around on the sidelines, sort of twiddling our thumbs and that doesn't feel masculine at all. So if faith is going to be something that. It relates to us as men. We need to understand it as being purposeful. We need to have a purpose. We need to have a role to play. And then third. It also needs to be resilient. And what I mean by that is not that just that you need to be resilient, you know, that we, as men need to be resilient, although that's true as well, but our faith needs to be resilient. And that means that in the midst of the really hard things in life, When our faith gets challenged by the toughest, most difficult, most painful things in our life's journeys. That it can hold up. It can actually take some punches. It can get knocked down and get back up again. Our faith needs to be resilient. It needs to be able to encounter all that life can throw at it. And still holds strong. So we want to try to figure out what does it look like then to take the faith that we've been exposed to and figure out how can we live it out in a way that's masculine. That's epic. That's purposeful. That's resilient. So we want to try to do all of those things in this series. But the way that we're going to do it is look at what I'm going to say are basically six big categories that are going to help us kind of re-examine especially the Christian faith. As most of us have been presented it in American modern culture. Okay. So as we think about the Christian faith, there's kind of six big areas I want to cover in this series. And the first area is just the story of our faith, the story of our faith. Most of us in America or in, in the west in general, have been presented with a version of that story as simply something that goes like this. God created the world. There was some kind of fall sin like Adam and Eve. They made some bad choices. And so because of that, Jesus had to come and rescue all of humanity. He died on a cross to forgive our sins. And if we'll put our trust in him, we can go to heaven when we die. And that's kind of the whole story that we've been presented with. And there's some nice things about that. And there's some really good things about that, but it's not epic. It's not really a big story. I mean, I just told it in like less than 10 seconds. It's not purposeful. All that we have to do is just trust Jesus. And then like, what is there left to do? We just sort of sit around and wait until we die and go to heaven. And what do we do in heaven? Like what, what, where is the purpose for us in that there there's no role for men to play in that story? And it's also not resilient. Many of you who are watching have probably come up against some really hard places in your life and found that like, yeah, great, Jesus forgives me on my sins, but what's he going to do about all this hard crap that I'm facing? That story doesn't hold up very well. It doesn't give you something to anchor onto to be able to say, yeah, I can weather these storms because of my faith. So we need to do a little better than that. And today I want to try to tell you the story of your faith. If you're a Christian. Or the story of God and humanity from the Christian perspective, for those of you who aren't, so that you might be able to give another look at what it means to follow the God of the Christian scriptures. What does it mean to understand that whole story and to be able to find yourself in it? Okay. Now, I could spend hours trying to tell that story. And clearly we don't have that kind of time here on the podcast. So this is going to be a really condensed version of that story, but I want to try to present it to you in a way that you maybe haven't really heard told to you before. So let's jump into that. The story of God and humanity begins as it goes in the beginning. God created the heavens and the earth. But before God created the heavens and the earth, there was this whole realm. That was filled with other beings. God didn't create humans first. He created the spiritual racist first. Sometimes we call them angels, but the Bible actually has lots of words for spiritual beings. The kind of generic term for that is Elohim. These are just spiritual beings who existed in God's spiritual realm and worked with him in all manner of ways. They were involved in helping God with the creation of the physical realm, which is the world that we inhabit. Sometimes the scriptures call that the earth or just the land. We are a part of that realm, but there was a whole realm that came before us. And when God created this realm, he made us as humans in particular to kind of be the governors or the rulers of this realm. He said that we were made in his image, which means that we were meant to be what the Bible calls an idol or an icon. We were meant to represent God in this realm and to extend his will and his way of doing things. Into this realm. And so you hear right off the bat. We have a big part to play. We have a purpose in this realm. God has meant all along for mankind to rule over the physical realm and to bring into it, the order of the way that God does things. He wants this realm to exist the way that he would have it done, but he doesn't just make that happen by, you know, waving a magic wand at it. He does that by putting his image. Into this realm and saying, go and make that happen. That is our job. Our job is to rule and to govern this realm the way that God would want it ruled and governed. We have a big part to play. But not long after we were created, some things kind of go sideways. One or maybe even many of those spiritual beings began to have different thoughts about how things should be ruled and governed. In the spiritual realm, as well as in the physical realm where we were governing. The story is that. Uh, being who we call Satan tempted our first humans into thinking that God was holding out on them and that he had created them in a way that they were missing out on some of the things that the spiritual beings got to be a part of and that they got to know. And that if we would just do the one thing that God said not to do, it would actually open our eyes and allow us to be like these other spiritual beings. And even like, God himself. But in doing so. It actually broke us. So instead of giving us all of the insight and the knowledge and the power that we hoped to gain, it actually separated us and our relationship with God. We were still his image, but we were now broken. And that way we weren't able to actually fulfill the role that he wanted us to do because we couldn't function the way that he wanted us to function. We had been tempted. And we fell for the trap. And in doing so that physical realm became not just ours to govern anymore, but these rogue spiritual beings started to have a say in how the realm got governed. And that was never their role to play. That was ours, but because of our mistake and invited their role in making things happen differently here in the physical realm. Things went from bad to worse, really fast in the early years and centuries of humanity. God tried to correct things by causing a flood and wiping out a significant part of the population. That part of the population was actually something that had gone horribly wrong. The scriptures tell us that some of those spiritual beings actually came and made it with human beings. And in producing offspring, they created a race of giants that the scriptures call the Nephilim. These things were never meant to exist. They were a mixing of the spiritual and the physical realms that God never intended to happen. And so he caused a flood to help wipe them out and say, we need to start again with humans governing the way that they are meant to, but even in starting again, we didn't make the choices that we were supposed to make. Things continued to get worse and worse and war and violence and injustice and horrible immorality began to take control over the way that the world was governed. And eventually we came to a place where we decided we would build a tower and try to rise to the heavens and actually bring God down to us. To say that we no longer needed to function the way that God had intended us to function, but that we could actually decide what ruling this realm looked like for ourselves. But God, the God of the Bible. He's named Yahweh and scriptures and Yahweh, who was the Elohim of Elohim, the single and highest of all spiritual beings. The one who had created everything said. It's not going to go that way. And he caused things to be disrupted. He changed our languages and he separated us from one another. And in doing that, he actually handed all of humanity over to these other rogue, spiritual beings. He just decided. Hey, if you're going to live this way, I'm not going to try to stop you, but I am going to continue my plan of having humanity, be the rulers and the governors of this world, and to do it in the way that it should be done. According to Yahweh's kingdom. But in order for that to happen, y'all way was going to have to do something different. And so he did, he handed over all of the nations or all of the people groups to these rogue spiritual beings, and so that they began to worship other false gods. They treated these spiritual beings as deities and became subject to them. But what God did was something totally different. He decided he would start. A new nation, that would be his own nation and would function the way that he intended humanity to function all along. So he called out one human being from amongst all of these corrupt nations. And from that one man said, I am going to make a new nation. Now that man's name was Abraham or who we know as Abraham. It was from Abraham that God decided he would create a new nation. Even giving to Abraham and his wife, Sarah, a son in very old age, who they named Isaac. Isaac then had a son named Jacob and Jacob had 12 sons who became the tribes of Israel. Israel was God's chosen nation. And it was from the people of Israel that God had decided he would establish his rule and his kingdom through them. Israel was sent into an era where they were enslaved by the nation of Egypt. But God, and very powerful and dramatic fashion delivered his people out of Egypt through the story of Moses. He raised up Moses to be a deliverer for his people and rescued them out of slavery. You know, many of the stories, probably about the 10 plagues and the 10 commandments and all of that. All of that was God's way of rescuing his people, his new nation, and saying you will be my people and I will be your God. Yahweh gives his new people, a set of teachings that we sometimes call the law, but the scripture is actually call the Torah. It just means teachings literally is what it means. And he gave them these teachings as a way of being able to say, here is how you will live out. What it looks like to be a nation who is dedicated to me. Now it's really important to understand that these laws weren't about earning your ways. Fafer. The people of Israel already had you always favor, he was there nation. He had established a covenant with Abraham. And then again with Moses through the giving of the Torah, to be able to say you are my people and I am your God, and that is not going to change. So they were never not in God's favor. But in keeping the teachings of the Torah, they were able to demonstrate what God's kingdom life was really meant to look like. And in doing that, they continued to receive his blessings. But at times when they tended to live like other nations and to try to do things in ways that weren't consistent with God's kingdom. They received curses for that because God wanted them to be a people who would show the rest of the world, what it looked like to live in his kingdom. They were meant to be a light to the rest of the nations. They were a special nation, but they were meant to show every nation what it looked like to live in God's kingdom and to be a part of Yahweh's life. This is what we are always meant to do as God's image. We are meant to show the world what it looks like to live in his kingdom. And to follow him the way that he has always intended. Israel moved into a promised land and tried in many places to live out of God's laws and teachings, but they failed many, many times at being able to do that. They failed so miserably, in fact that God had to send people to rescue them out of their periods of devastation and destruction and rebellion. And all the things that they were causing to go wrong. These people were called judges. But after an era of the judges, the people of Israel had finally just kind of said, we don't want this pattern to continue anymore. We in fact, want a king, we want a king so that we can be like all the other nations. Now God said I have chosen to be your king. You aren't meant to be like all of the other nations. But because this is what you want. I will give it to you. And he did. He established Israel as a kingdom with a king. And those Kings started out. Okay. In fact, the second king of Israel, David is probably one of the most famous figures in all of history. He ruled Israel well, and he showed them what it looked like to follow after the heart of Yahweh. But David wasn't perfect. He made some pretty big mistakes himself. And his son Solomon came to rule, but Solomon adopted a lot of the practices of foreign nations, including marrying other foreign wives and bringing the worship of their foreign deities into the land of Israel. And after Solomon, the kingdom of Israel actually split into, into two kingdoms called Israel and Judah. And over the course of their years, Israel and Judah spiraled further and further downward and further, a further away from following the teachings of Yahweh. Both kingdoms were eventually destroyed. Israel was completely destroyed by the kingdom of a Syria. And then later on the kingdom of Judah was destroyed by the kingdom of Babylon, and actually many of those people from the kingdom of Judah were sent into exile in Babylon. But before that happened. The presence of God who had dwelt with his people from an incredible building called the temple. Actually his presence left the temple. He abandoned his people. And the sense of saying, I will no longer be physically present with you. Even though you are my people, my presence is not going to be with you in this way anymore. And the people were sent into exile. Although the prophets had foretold that they would come back. And they did. They returned to the land of Israel about seven years after their eggs exile, just as the prophets had foretold. But then for many years, the presence of God was not physically with his people in the land of Israel. It was many centuries later that a young Jewish boy was born in the town of Bethlehem and his name as many of you know, was Jesus. Jesus was born as a insignificant little Jewish boy. And an insignificant town to insignificant parents. But he wasn't just an insignificant young man. He was the son of God. And he went on to live a life that demonstrated exactly what it meant for mankind to live a. Lifestyle that looks like the life of God's kingdom as he had always intended. Jesus did things that no one had seen before and that no one understood. He was famous for his miracles, for healing, the sick, and even raising the dead. But he was also known for his kindness and his compassion for the way that he served the poor and paid attention to people that. No one else in that culture paid attention to even the religious leaders. Jesus took the teachings of the Torah and helped them understand what it meant to follow your way and a whole new way of understanding that. But because he was suggesting new kinds of things and because he hadn't come up from the significant. Teaching schools that many other teachers had, he was looked at kind of funny and he angered the religious leaders in the political leaders of the day significantly. And because of that, they sought to bring him down. Even to the point. Of killing him. Jesus. Uh, son of Israel, but also the son of God suffered a death for the way that he had lived. But for the controversy that he had brought to the people of Israel. But in dying, he did something that no one expected. In his death. He actually went to the realm of the dead, the place where all dead humans had gone. And rescued them out of the slavery of the enemy. They no longer belonged to the rogue spiritual beings who had come to overthrow the world and to rule it as they wanted to rule it. But instead. He said you have access to my kingdom now. And then on the third day after his death, he actually rose from the dead. He conquered death. He defeated sin and he overthrew the rogue spiritual powers who were enslaving humanity to their causes. And because of Jesus, something entirely new happened. God's kingdom was now available on the earth to all people. It was no longer just something that was true of Israel, but anyone from any nation could now be called part of the people of God, if they would put their trust and their allegiance into Jesus as their king. Jesus had risen from the dead. And he spent several weeks among his followers, teaching them what all of this had been about and how they were meant to carry that message and that mission to the whole world, that everyone was meant to have the opportunity, to be able to give their allegiance to king Jesus and to live a life in his kingdom, understanding what it meant to follow Yahweh. As Yahweh had meant to do all along. His people were now a light to the world so that everyone would have an opportunity to be a part of his nation. This was what he intended from the very beginning. When he had said that we would be the rulers of the earth. But now he has gone about it in a way that no one expected. He is rescuing us out of the kingdom of darkness, out of the slavery of these rogue spiritual beings and into the kingdom of light, into the kingdom of Jesus, so that we might be able to live the life that we were always meant to live, to have the purpose that we were always meant to have, and to be invited into a much bigger story than just toil and slavery and death. Jesus did all of that for us. And all that is asked of us in order to be able to experience that is that we give our allegiance to Jesus. The scripture say that if we confess with our mouth, that Jesus is Lord and believe in our hearts, that he is raised from the dead. Then we will be saved. So, all that you have to do is confess, confess that Jesus is Lord. Now that might sound like a very simple thing, but confessing that Jesus is Lord means that you're recognizing he is king. Not only over the whole world, but over your life in particular, it means that you are surrendering your life to him. Everything about you, everything about the way that you live about the choices that you make, about the way that you relate to others, about how you spend your time, about how you spend your money, about what you eat, about what you wear, everything. You are surrendering everything to him. He is Lord, and you are confessing it. If you are willing to do that. And to believe in your heart, that God actually raised him from the dead to have confidence that he really is who he says he is. And that that actually happened. He will save you. He will rescue you out of darkness and into his kingdom of light. It is a free gift to anyone who wants it to anyone who is willing to give their allegiance to Jesus. And in doing that, we agree to participate in the mission of his kingdom, which is to say, There are so many who are still lost and enslaved to the kingdom of darkness. And just as Jesus is about rescuing them, he wants us to be doing the same. Our purpose is to bring the kingdom of light to the earth. You see, the thing about Jesus's kingdom is that it isn't something that is far away and distant. When we think about dying and going to be with Jesus in heaven. That's not really the whole story. The whole story is that God's kingdom is coming to earth. And while we might experience death and separation from the earth for a little while. We are always meant to live here. In the end, we will be resurrected with new bodies and we will live here on the earth and bring God's kingdom rule to bear for all of eternity. But in the meantime, we're meant to do it in what little ways that we can in the ways that we relate to each other in the ways that we show up and serve those in our community who most needs serving in the ways that we engage with politics in the ways, in the ways that we engage with business in the ways that we handle our money and our relationships and our time and everything. Everything about what you do is meant to display Jesus's kingdom to others. You have a purpose, you are his image you represent to the world. What living in his kingdom is meant to be about. This story is epic. It is purposeful you have a role to play and it is resilient. It holds up to the biggest and the grand a stories of all time. Because it is the story of Yahweh. Our guide. And humanity who he has created. It is the story that we are all meant to be a part of. And so I want to call you up into that story. I want to say to you men. You have a role to play. You have a purpose. This is a giant story. It is not just being about being a good boy until you die so that you can go. You know, sing some songs in heaven for the rest of forever. That's boring. That's a story that nobody wants to be a part of, but it's not the story of the Bible. The story of the Bible is so much bigger and so much grander and so much better than that. And you have a part to play in it. You are, ya'll always image. You are a part of Jesus's kingdom and you are meant to bring that kingdom here on the earth. In any way and an every way that you possibly can. That is your role men. That is a role that we as brothers need to take up. And that's what I'm challenging you to do. Pick up your sword. In whatever way, that that is meaningful to you, you have a role to play. And as a member of God's kingdom, you need to be advancing what he is all about. Now we're going to continue to talk more about what all of that means and how you might live out that role and understand what your role looks like. At the present time and in this world today. But for now, what I want you to know. Is that. It is possible to have a masculine faith. It is possible to be a man who loves God. And enjoys doing that enjoys living out his faith in the world, because you are so confident that you have a purpose and you have a role in the story that you're living in is big and epic and grand, and your faith can withstand the hardest things that life can throw at you. It's all worth it. And it's all far better than you probably have been taught. We're going to continue to unpack that, but for now, I just want you to know. Much more is possible than what you've been exposed to. I hope you've caught a glimpse of how wonderful a masculine faith can actually be. And I look forward to continue to unpack that with you and the rest of this series.