What If Jesus Is the Man You’ve Been Trying to Become?

Are you striving to become a man who is strong, successful, and respected? This video introduces a new series, 'Jesus: The Man Most Worth Following I,' where he explores how Jesus embodies the ultimate role model for men. 

Don argues that qualities men aspire to, such as strength, courage, and honor, were perfectly demonstrated by Jesus. Whether it's about success, building relationships, or living with purpose, Jesus set the example. 

If you want to grow into the best version of yourself, join us in this journey of examining the life of Jesus through the lens of manhood.

00:00 Introduction: Becoming a Man Worthy of Respect
01:10 Introducing the Series: Jesus, The Man Most Worth Following
03:59 Jesus as the Embodiment of the Best Man
05:23 The Five Marks of Manhood
09:01 Jesus and Success: Redefining Achievement
12:17 Jesus and Relationships: Righteousness in Action
16:51 Purpose and Mission: Living with Intent
19:15 Conclusion: Join the Conversation

💪 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: 0:00

If you're like most men, you're probably trying to become someone who is worthy of being respected. You want to be a man who is strong, solid, successful. Competent, dependable, all of these things are really, really good, but figuring out how to get there, how to become that version of yourself can feel sometimes more challenging maybe than it seems even worth. What if I told you that that version of yourself already exists? The man you're trying to become is a real person, and his name is Jesus. Okay, hang with me. Don't click away just yet. I want to try to present to you an idea that maybe you've not given much thought to, that the man you're aspiring to be is someone who is actually worth following, and whether or not you're currently following him. It's worth giving it some thought about what kind of role Jesus can or does play in your life. Okay, my name's Don, and here we are at the Manhood Tribes Channel, and I would love to be able to introduce you to this new series of episodes that we are doing. I'm calling this series Jesus The Man Most Worth Following I. Now I'm doing this for a few reasons. One, I've just come out with a book. It's called How to Be a Man, and at the end of that book I talk about this idea that Jesus is the man most worth following, but I only am able to give it a few pages there in that book, and I really would like to give it more of a treatment. So I, I wanna do that here, but more importantly, I want to be able to help you as a man to figure out who it is that you are trying to become. See, the thing about us as men is that. The way that we go about figuring out who we are, who we want to be. The kind of men that we're trying to become is usually by looking at other men around us or in our world. So we identify role models. I. Or leading figures or maybe even men from history who we admire, who we think stand for the things that are worthy of standing up for, and who we think accomplish the things that we would like to be able to accomplish, who are successful in the ways that we would like to be successful, and we try to aim our life. Somewhat in those directions to try to be like those men to try to become what they are or to do what they did or to, in some way follow along in their footsteps as a way of emulating. Yeah. This seems like the wise path to follow for being the kind of man that I want to be. Now I say all of that, knowing that that sounds very intentional, right? It sounds like, oh, I've got this plan and here's who I'm trying to become and this is what I want to be like, and this is what I want to do with my life. I think the reality for most of us guys is that it's not nearly that intentional in the way that we're actually living it out. It's kind of much more nebulous, sort of this idea of like, yeah, I kind of have an idea of what a good man is supposed to be, or the kind of man that I want to be like. But if I'm honest, I'm really just kind of taking it day to day. And as life kind of presents itself to me, I'm doing the best I can with the situations that I have to face. Yeah, I might have some goals, I might have some things that I'm trying to accomplish, but for the most part I'm just sort of. Managing the difficulty and the tension in my life and doing the best that I can with what I'm given. Now, that's not all bad, but doing the best that you can. Comes from somewhere. You've got some idea of best that you have figured out from some place. What I really want to try to challenge you with is the idea that Best already has a definition, and we get to see that definition lived out in the person of Jesus. The best man that you can be already has an embodiment in who he is. Now, that doesn't mean that you're going to live exactly the same kind of life that Jesus lived, right? He lived his life. He lived it in a certain way, and he did certain things that fit in his context and his timeframe while he was here on the earth. You are not in that. Same context and that same timeframe. So the way that you live your life is not going to look exactly like the way that he lived his life, but there are some things about him and the kind of man that he was that are worthy of emulating and I think can help us be able to get to be the best man that we possibly can be. So let's talk about a little bit of what that looks like. What would it look like to be the kind of man that Jesus was? If he really is the man who is most worth following, what makes him so great? Why would we actually want to follow him? What about my life as a man is going to get better? Or how am I going to become the man that I want to be if I do follow him and try to live like he lived? If you followed along on this channel at all, you know that I talk a lot about the. Five marks of manhood. These are the things that I believe every man should possess in order to demonstrate what it means to be a man. And those five marks are strength, courage, skill, honor, and allegiance. Now, I'm gonna spend a lot of time unpacking those specific things and how Jesus embodied those things individually in another episode. So I don't wanna spend a lot of time on it here. But what I do want to say is that Jesus lived those things out. The most perfect way possible that a man ever could. And I say this because I think this is really important for us to understand at the outset. Jesus was a man. Right. So like we know he was a person, we know he was human. But I think it's really important for us to remember that Jesus was male. He was a man, and this is, this is a really important part of who he is and how he came to the earth. He demonstrated what it was like for God to become man by actually being. A man being a male, and he lived out masculinity in the best way possible. I think in a lot of ways our cultural kind of moment wants to sort of forget the masculinity of Jesus. We'd like to kind of downplay that side of him in order to make him. More relatable, more relevant to a culture that has both men and women in it, right? How if, if Jesus is just a man, does he have anything to say to women? Well, of course he does. But our culture has gotten into this very binary, uh, mode of thinking where if you are pro male, that means you have to be anti female. That's just rubbish. And Jesus made it really clear that that wasn't the case. He was able to be pro male and pro female and do it really well while living as a man. As a man, and that's so important. He lived out the life of a man and did it as well as any man could. So we're gonna spend a little more time unpacking that in a future episode, but I just wanna highlight that point off from the beginning. That Jesus living as a man is important. We're following him not just because he's good, but also because he's masculine. He actually demonstrates what it means to be a man, and as men, we can learn from him about. Manhood. We don't just learn from him about what it means to be a good person or how to be a servant, or how to be holy or you know, whatever. Like any of those kind of religious things that you think Jesus is all about. Well, he is about those things, but he also is about being a man. And so we need to kind of recapture this idea that. Whatever it does mean to be a man and how to be able to do it well. Jesus did it best. He lived as a man better than anyone else did, and if we can begin with that idea in mind, then it's not so hard to actually find the ways that he is being the kind of man that. All of us actually do want to be. So let's look at some big areas where we as men are kind of chasing. What are the things that you as a man really kind of want to be able to be and to be able to do in your life? Now, uh, again, Jesus didn't live the same kind of life that you lived, so not everything is gonna line up perfectly, but the way that he lived and the way that you live, I think are meant to have a lot of things in common. So let's start with a big one. Let's start with success. Most of us as men are really kind of chasing success in one way or another. We want to be successful in our careers. We want to be successful at making money. We want to be successful at having an impact and leaving a legacy. We want to be known for something. We want some measure of success in this life that is gonna carry over in some way. Whether that's, uh, sending something down to our kids, you know, our descendants, uh, or whether that's just leaving behind a mark on the earth. We did some good here that actually counted for something and impacted lives beyond our own life. Whatever that looks like, we're looking for some. Kind of success. And it feels a little weird at times to talk about success and Jesus in the same conversation. I think we've kind of gotten it into our heads that like, that feels prideful or that that feels like, uh, arrogant or inappropriate in some way. To look at Jesus and to say, oh yeah, he was successful or he desired to be successful, but. Guys, let's be honest. Name another teacher in the course of human history who has had more of an impact on humans. Anywhere you won't find one. Jesus is the best teacher who has ever lived. He has had more impact on billions and billions of people who live and have lived on the earth than any other person who has ever lived. Okay, you wanna talk about impact? You wanna talk about success? Jesus accomplished it. Again, maybe not in exactly the same way that you are thinking about success, but that's the point. Jesus was thinking about success. He was thinking about how can I actually build my kingdom and what is gonna be the way for me to do that? He followed a path that might look and feel a little different than you think about success. But there's no denying that he's been successful. He absolutely has had an unbelievable and beyond anybody's kind of capability or reach than we can imagine. Big time version of success. Okay, so Jesus understands success and he understands as men that this is something that we are going after. And so as men, it's worth our time to really examine his life and to say, well, how did he pursue success? How did he think about the way that he taught as a teacher? How did he think about the way that he planned for his legacy or his future or what he was going to leave behind so that people could carry on his mission? He thought about all of these things and he thought about them really intentionally. He set all of these things up so that success could carry on beyond him, but using all of the teaching and all of the serving and all of the ways of living that he made a priority. He empowered other people to be able to do those things so that his success reached far beyond him and his specific lifetime here on the earth. So success. Jesus understands it as a man. He models for us a way to be able to do it, and his life is worth looking at for us to figure out how to do that well. Let's talk about another big category. Let's talk about relationships. For many of us as men, we really want to be successful in the area of relationships. We want to be married, and we want to have kids, and we want to relate well to our friends, to our coworkers, to our, you know, distance family. Like what, however you want to label the people in your life. Whatever those relationships are that you really want to do, well at most of us do have that as a category where we are kind of chasing after we want a good marriage, we want to be a good dad, those kinds of things. Now, Jesus really cared a lot about relationships. Again, maybe in his lifetime, not exactly kind of the ways that you did, right? Jesus didn't get married. He didn't have kids, but he did very much care about the way that he treated people. He modeled ways of being able to love people well, to care for them, to serve, for them, to put their needs even above his own for the sake of being able to build them up as people. And the scriptures, the Christian scriptures, there's a word for the way that Jesus related to people that's kind of become this like big, fancy, holy religious word. That word is righteousness. Righteousness really is just the idea of relating rightly to other people, re relating to other people the way that God would have us relate. And that applies to the way that we relate to God as well. Righteousness means relating. I. Rightly, and if we look at Jesus, we see that he had truly phenomenal relationships. He was loved, and he loved so well. The people in his life were so holy devoted to him. They couldn't resist being around him, wanting to spend time with him, wanting to know him more, wanting to. Follow him. Respecting him, honoring him, serving him, doing as he asked, adopting his mission, carrying out the things that he cared about. All of those are things that we, as men, I think long for, oh my gosh. What I wouldn't give to have my, you know, teenage sons rise up in the morning and say, dad, I want to spend more time around you today, and can I please do all of the things that you're asking me to do? Oh my gosh, that would be. Revolutionary, right? That would be life changing. To have people in my life who acted that way. Everyone around Jesus acted that way towards him because he knew how to relate rightly to the people in his life. He modeled. Righteousness, that idea of relating rightly. And so when we look at his life, we need to say, okay, maybe he didn't have the exact same kinds of relationships in his life as I have in mine, but he knew how to do relationships well. He knew how to love people. He knew how to serve people. He knew how to care for their interests. And in doing that, they couldn't help but want to do the same for him. Everyone in Jesus's presence felt loved and cared for except the people who were opposed to the mission that he knew he was supposed to be a part of. And this is a key part as well. Jesus was certainly not without enemies. So when we talk about relating rightly, we can look at his life as well and see that, oh, there were some places where, uh, there were relationships in his life that weren't going smoothly. Where there was real conflict and real opposition, but we can look at those relationships and see why was that opposition there? And it wasn't because Jesus was antagonistic and difficult to get along with. It wasn't because Jesus was awkward or because he was painful to be around. No, it was. It was never that. It was because he had clarity of purpose and mission, and he wasn't afraid to call out the people who were opposed to that mission or who were in the way of seeing that mission accomplished. And when he did that, he made it really clear what people he wanted around him and what people needed to move in another direction or get in line with what he was doing. He was radically polarizing because of that. He was a very polarizing. Person during his lifetime. But in doing so, he made it really clear what relating rightly was all about, and this idea of purpose and mission was a big part of that. Now speaking of purpose and mission, that's another thing that I think we ought to talk about in terms of what it means that we as men are really hungering after we long to have a sense of purpose in this world, to have an idea of what we're meant for, what we're called to, how we're supposed to. Make a mark in the world how we're supposed to leave a legacy and make a difference in the work that we do or the things that we're passionate about and that we care about. We long to have a sense that when we wake up in the morning, I've got something to do, and that's something matters. Men are designed for that we are meant to contribute to the world in significant ways. Nobody. Modeled this better than Jesus. Jesus had perfect clarity about what his mission was, and he talked about it regularly, how he only did what he saw the father doing. He knew that God had given him that mission and he was going after it full throttle and full-heartedly. He knew that that was his purpose and that was what he was about, and so he. Woke up every day knowing this is what I'm here for. This is what I'm meant to do. He also, and we can sometimes forget this, because the Bible actually only covers about three years of his life. He also knew when it wasn't time to focus on that mission. He spent maybe upwards of about 30 years of his life not being specifically devoted to that mission, or at least being devoted to it in ways that were more obscure. He was building. He was preparing, he was becoming the kind of man who could live out that purpose when the time was right, when he was called up into the big leagues, so to speak, he was ready for his moment, but he spent a lot of years in obscurity preparing for and getting ready for that. Purpose and being able to live it out. So there's a whole lot there. I mean, we could spend, gosh, multiple episodes just on that one idea alone. But the idea that Jesus had a purpose and he lived it out very well by preparing for it for many years. And then by stepping into it when the moment was right, he knew what he was about and he made the difference that he came to make. In fact, he's still making that difference. Even 2000 years later. We are still being impacted by his purpose and his vision for what he wanted to accomplish. Okay. Now look, I've only said a few things here, but I hope I'm beginning to paint the picture for you.'cause this is really just the beginning of our journey of examining Jesus as the man who's most worthy of following. But I think the idea probably is clear by this point what it is that you're chasing after as a man. You're going to find its ultimate fulfillment. Jesus, you're going to find that he is the man that you are trying to become. And so the more that you can get that picture in your head, the more I think that you're gonna get. Kind of curious about Jesus, kind of curious about his life and why he lived the way that he lived, why he did the things that he did, and maybe that he's worth looking at. A little more of a second glance. Maybe he's worth giving another opportunity to, maybe you've written him off in the past because of things you've seen his followers do, and Lord knows we, his followers have certainly made a lot of mistakes and have not done him right many times over. But just because we, the imperfect ones, haven't lived that out well. It doesn't mean that he, the perfect man isn't still worth following. And that's what I'm hoping that we can do in this series is really take a better look at Jesus the man and examine why it is that he actually is worth following and why we as men need to see him as our ultimate example sample. So if you want to become a stronger, better man, don't just look at the men around you. Look at Jesus. And stick with us for this series. We're just getting started and I think you're gonna love where we're going next. Okay, in the comments down below, I would love for you to engage with us. Just post one thing about Jesus that you would like to grow in as a man. What's one quality of Jesus' life that you admire that you would like to get better at? And if you're curious about how you can get better as a man, I've got a resource that I would love to get in front of you that is called How Manly are You? It's a free quiz that we have here in Manhood Tribes that will help you explore those five marks of manhood that I mentioned earlier, and to figure out where you're doing well and where you can get better. If you go to manhood tribes.com/manly, you can download our, how Manly are you? Quiz for free today, so check it out now. If you've enjoyed this kind of content, I would encourage you to like the video, subscribe to the channel. That will make sure that you get our videos up whenever they are updated, and it will help get our content in front of other men like you as well. I appreciate it and I look forward to talking to you again next time here on the Manhood Tribes Channel. I'll see you then.