A Christian Blueprint For Noble Masculinity Part 1

We confront a growing cultural contempt toward men and map a better path: a biblical vision where male strength is foundational, sacrificial, and aimed at others’ flourishing. From Genesis to Joseph, we argue for equal dignity, real difference, and headship as responsibility, not privilege.

Thank you for listening! Please visit us at www.faith-pca.org.

Transcript

Framing A Crisis Of Masculinity

SPEAKER_00 0:24

The content I was asked to deliver to you this evening uh comes from a series I just wrapped up on my podcast on uh Christian masculinity. And I've already heard uh from several of you that you've already uh listened to that. So this is uh I hope I'm hope it's not too boring uh to have a little bit of a repeat. Um but um when I I think what happened was I agreed to come speak on technology and then um after that uh put out that series and then they reached out and said, Hey, while you're here, could you do that with our men? Uh which happy to any opportunity I have to get, um I think this is just lacking candidly in um in in in American Christianity. Um and so anytime I have the opportunity to get brothers together to talk about this stuff, I am eager and glad to say yes. And I want to introduce our time this evening, the way I introduced uh the podcast series itself. For those of you who listened, you'll remember I used I used an article that was published to kind of set the stage of the masculine crisis that we are facing. Um on Father's Day, this past Father's Day, the Toronto Sun published a very interesting om-ped entitled, On Father's Day, it's crucial to recognize the importance of mothers. And its line of reasoning was very predictable. Moms are amazing, dads, not so much. Why are we even celebrating fathers? Why do we even have a father's day? When it comes to parenting, it's the moms that are important. It's the moms that do all the labor. Literally, the art the author focuses on labor. Here are the concluding words. So on Father's Day, when all the attention falls on perhaps the least important character in the delivery room, it seems to me that a smart father would insist on recognizing the blinding truth that the woman who made him a father is the real hero of the story. Do you see? Without hesitation, the father is labeled as the least important character. And this is all emblematic of a drastic perspective change towards masculinity, where it is culturally acceptable, dare I say, culturally predictable, to publicly denigrate men and masculinity. Could you imagine a Mother's Day op-ed entitled, On Mother's Day, it's crucial to recognize that men are the real heroes. You know that would never happen. But the opposite did happen on Father's Day in a major Metropolitan News outlet. This line of reasoning is not fringe fought in our modern society, shaped so much by now three waves of feminism. It is the mainstream mainstream assumption. I could give you example after example after example of public uh disparaging, mocking, even demonizing masculinity. And what is the result? Well, a week after the Toronto Sun, the Toronto Star, that carpet has potential to trip me. I'm gonna do this. Um a week after the Toronto Star published that Father's Day op ed, the New York Times published an essay entitled, Men, Where have you gone? Please come back. And here is the author, herself a feminist. Here is her conclusion. And by the way, she's beautiful with words. She's an incredible writer. But here is her conclusion. So here is what I will say. You are missed not just by my not just by me, but by the world you once shaped. We remember you, the version of you that lingered at the table, that laughed from the chest, that asked questions and waited for answers, that touched without taking, that listened, really listened when women spoke. You are not gone, but your presence is thinning in restaurants and friendships, in the slow ritual of romantic emergence. You have retreated not into malice, but into something softer and harder all at once. Avoidance, exhaustion, despair. She's good with words, and her words are haunting. Emasculated men are retreating into avoidance, exhaustion, and despair. You see, men cannot repudiate their masculinity. It remains alive within us as the indelible and unavoidable mark of God's design. So instead of repudiating, men are retreating. Maybe a better word would be surrendering. Surrendering their noble masculinity to vices and folly that seem safer and more comfortable than a world that has declared war on masculinity. The New York Times asks, men, where have you gone? I'd like to answer that question. I will tell you where men have gone. They've gone to private browsing, alone with their screens binging on lustful fantasies, surrendering not just their sexuality, but their deeper masculine desires, surrendering their manhood to a pornographic illusion of feeling wanted and needed, desired in a dark and twisted way. The fantasy makes them feel for a brief dopamine moment like they are indeed the man. Men, where have you gone? They've gone to video games and sports gambling apps, surrendering their masculine yearning for risk and adventure, to be men on a quest, but a noble quest, a meaningful quest, not the cheap thrill of your team covering the spread or the counterfeit adventure of a video game bender late into the evening. The masculine desire for virtuous and just risk taking surrender to triviality. Men, where have you gone? They've gone to the bottle to numb the shame, to popping Adderall to get through the mundane. They've gone to weightlifting and steroids to sculpt a muscular body, not for strength and honor, but for Instagram. Surrendering their masculine strength designed to protect the most vulnerable, surrendering it instead to vanity, hoping to be admired. Heck, hoping just to be noticed. Men, where have you gone? They've gone to their careers, surrendering noble masculine ambition for idolatrous ambition. After all, wealth and success are easier to obtain than the respect of a critical wife and disrespectful children. Men, where have you gone? Tragically, our younger men have gone to online toxic male influencers advocating for a return to the misogynistic patriarchal order they argue feminism has stolen from us. They've been red pilled, is the term. And they've chosen a middle finger to this emasculating culture and its political correctness. They will be crude, they will objectify women, they will mock sissies, they will project dominance. But here's the thing: they view this as a rebellion when in fact it is only a toxic form of surrender. It is not manly, it is entitlement. Surrendering to self-pity, woe is me, persecution complex, self-victimization. These toxic influencers project this disciplined strength while throwing cultural temper tantrums like children who have lost their toy of cultural power. But yes, many of our young men are very drawn to them. In the absence of noble masculinity, toxic masculinity will always expand. And so I felt this pastoral burden to offer men another way, a better way, a way that does not shame their manhood, but also repudiates toxic manhood. And that way is Christianity. And that led to a 12-part podcast series that your leadership has kindly asked me to condense down into two talks this evening. If you want more, it's online. You can listen to me go into depth. So here's how I'm just going to come at it. All we're going to do tonight is look at the creation of masculinity and then the redemption of masculinity. Let's start with creation. Creation narrative, Genesis 1 and 2 contains a revolutionary vision of gender. We talked a lot about that the last time I was with you a couple years ago. But what's interesting is that what makes Genesis 1 and 2 so revolutionary has changed over time. Originally, Genesis 1 and 2 suggested an unthinkable concept to the ancient world, gender equality. Contemporarily, Genesis 1 and 2 suggest another unthinkable concept to the modern world, gender differences. The scriptures were originally radical because they argued this unthinkable, that men and women are equal. Now the scriptures are radical because they argue a new unthinkable that men and women are inherently different. That is the unthinkable and unacceptable to the modern world as gender equality once was to the ancient world. But both are in the Bible, both are evident in God's natural order, and both are true. The foundational verse here is Genesis 1:27. So God created man in his own image, and the image of God he created him, male and female, he created them. Again, what's radical to the ancient context is that female is included with male as equal image bearer of God. Male and female, he created them in his own image. But what's radical to our modern cultural context is the word and male and female, he created them, meaning there is a designed distinction between the two, immutable differences. There is male and there is female. So let me give you a picture of what emerges when it comes to the creation of gender, to a biblical vision of gender. I said in my podcast, it's a Venn diagram. So picture two overlapping circles sharing much commonality, but also unique spaces of their own. The gender diagram of ancient culture was just one circle. And that circle was exclusively male. Women had no part in that. Women were viewed as inferior, subordinate, even less human than men. As Aristotle put it, the female is, as it were, nothing but a mutilated male. So in the ancient world, there was one male-dominated circle. Ironically, in the modern world, there is also just one circle. But that circle is both male and female without distinction. There's no difference. There must be no difference, because difference, according to feminist ideology, implies inequality. Feminism's method to achieve female equality was to eradicate all gender distinctions. So just one circle inhabited by both male and female without distinction. So you had the all-male circle of the ancient world, the indistinguishable male and female circle of the modern world. And I am arguing for an image of God Venn diagram. God's design for gender shares more in common than differences, but there are important gender distinctions and differences. Now we're going to get to the uniqueness of male, but before we explore how men are different, I do think it's important to demonstrate the shared commonality of male and female, which is greater than our differences. And the reason that is so important to explore is because in conservative evangelical circles, reformed evangelical circles, of which I'm a proud card-carrying member, there is another fallacy that we can fall into. In our earnestness to maintain the unique distinctives between male and female, we can unwittingly exaggerate and overstate those differences. So the ancient world was one circle that was only male. The modern world is one circle that is male and female indistinguishable. I think complementarianism, if we are not careful, becomes one circle with a line right down the middle. God's image is a cleanly divided, is cleanly divided in half. On one side, you have a bunch of cultural male stereotypes, and on the other side, you have a bunch of cultural female stereotypes. And any form of crossover is viewed as a form of compromise. And the reason why this is really important to state, especially in a men's gathering, is because you may not fit neatly into those gender, those exaggerated gender stereotypes of what our culture, and I don't have time to get into this, but it came out of the industrial revolution, of what our culture believes men should be. I went to seminary uh during the height of uh reformed uh complementarian movement. Uh uh John Piper and um who co-authored that with them? Grutum, Wayne Grutham. They had just uh published Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. Um, Mark Driscoll was on the rise with his like machismo screaming at everybody's sermons, you know, just man be men and all of that. And so I was kind of, it was kind of the height of all of that complimentary and stuff. And my roommate in seminary, who to this day I love, he doesn't he wouldn't mind me sharing his name uh uh and sharing this example. His name is George Faithful. So yes, he graduated and became Pastor Faithful. Um, but anyway, George was artistic, uh, quiet, contemplative, would rather have would rather be with a book uh than watch a game on uh on Saturday uh mornings uh in the fall. Uh me and my buddies in seminary would roll out of the bed and watch college game day, and he would get his violin out and practice. Um he loved it, he loved to practice his violin on the weekends. And I'll never forget we were discussing, I think it was Elders' book Wild at Heart, you know, which is this exaggerated men go get on an adventure to become real men kind of thing. And um, and we're discussing it, and and and I'll just never forget him asking, am I less of a man because I don't fit into the complementarian, over-exaggerated stereotypes of masculinity. And so this, if we are not careful, is what evangelicals can do to gender. Still one circle, but cleanly divided with exaggerated stereotypes on either side. But my argument with the overlapping circles is that God's image revealed in male and female is not as clean as conservative evangelicals have made it out to be. There is room for so much overlap. Yes, there are differences, but we need to make sure that we are not exaggerating those differences. For example, Proverbs 31 is the, of course, go-to passage on biblical womanhood, right? We call it the Proverbs 31 woman. But when you actually look at the passage, what we see are characteristics that we culturally tend to associate with masculinity. I'll just give you a quick sample here. It says, she considers a field and buys it. So she is a um, she is a uh an investor. With the fruit of her hand, she plants a vineyard. She's a farmer. She dresses herself with strength and makes her arms strong. So both in her her countenance and literally her body, she is strong. She perceives that her merchandise is profitable. So she's a savvy entrepreneur. And I could go on and on with Proverbs 31, but you see my point. The very go-to passage on womanhood, we literally call it Proverbs 31 woman. When you actually read it and consider it, it sounds like stereotypes that we in the modern industrialized world tend to ascribe to men in our culture. So the point I'm making here is that a Christian complementarianism can, if we're not careful, be way too cleanly bifurcated. Certainly there are differences, and we will get to it, but there is more commonality than differences. Let me show you what I mean actually from scripture again from Genesis 2. There is this mounting suspense within the chapter. God creates Adam, places him in the Garden of Eden to work and keep it, to have dominion over it. Now, remember the picture I gave you of the ancient world's view of gender? It was just one circle that was all male, a male-centered, male-dominated world. That's the picture that seems to be emerging in Genesis 2. Adam alone in his paradise garden, ruling and reigning. It is at first quite literally a man's world. But the story is interrupted by this. Then the Lord said, It is not good that men should be alone. This is the first, you've heard this probably before, this is the first not good of Genesis. Up until this point, God creates and he calls it good. But man alone in his man's world is not good. Meaning, God does not view the world as exclusively a man's world. It is an incomplete, not good creation. Then God says something that at first will seem offensive, but it is actually the opposite. Says, I will make him a helper fit for him. Now we read that and immediately associate it with abusive patriarchy. A woman as a helper for the man, like some inferior servant. That's not what the Hebrew word is used for. In fact, it is always, it is almost always used for God. God is an ever-present help in trouble. The Lord is my help. My help comes from the Lord, maker of heaven and earth. These are all the same Hebrew words. And that's the level of dignity and necessity that God is ascribing to Adam's need for Eve. Then Genesis do Genesis 2 does something fascinating. Immediately after God says, It's not good for man to be alone, I will make him a helper fit for him. Immediately, and this is intentional, it transitions to the animals. Now, out of the ground, the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called, every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the heaven, to every beast of the field. It's easy to miss, but that flow would seem natural to the ancient patriarchy. It's not good for man to be alone. He's gonna need a helper. Let's start bringing all the animals to Adam, meaning a parade of lesser creatures, subordinate creatures brought to Adam, who he has dominion over all of them. And so he names each of them. And here is what everyone in the ancient context would expect to happen next. The parade of lesser creatures under the dominion of Adam would cultivate, would culminate with a lesser creature of his kind. It's not good for man to be alone. I will make a helper fit for him. Here come the animals that are not fit for him. Suspense is building. This parade of lesser creatures that Adam has dominion over is going to end with a lesser creature that is fit for him. Here you go, O great Adam the patriarch. I present to you a woman to have dominion over. But instead, the parade of Adam's dominion ends with these words. But for Adam, there was no helper fit for him. There is nothing and nobody among the lesser creatures, amongst those to whom dominion has been given to Adam, there's nobody below him that is fit for him. Meaning, God doesn't have a subordinate for Adam. Instead, the countercultural twist of Genesis 2 is that God has an equal for Adam. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept, he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man, he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Eve, not formed like an animal for Adam's dominion, but formed from Adam. The same essence, dignity, glory, nobility as Adam. In ancient pagan societies, women were not just considered inferior to men, they were literally inferior substance to men. But listen to Adam's famous declaration. Then the man said, This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. When I say a gender Venn diagram, it's not a perfect picture, but that's what I'm trying to communicate. Bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh, same substance, same essence, my equal, a co-image-bearer of God. And then comes another verse that is often misinterpreted as just Christian misogyny. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. We get hung up on the fact that Adam named her and miss what he named her. She is not another animal to be named. She is not an inferior creature for his dominion. She is called woman. Literally, in the Hebrew, it means out of man, meaning she is me and yet she is not me. She is my essence and substance and yet a distinctly different person. She is my equal and yet my perfect complement. She is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh, and together we shall become one flesh. This is God's original design for gender before we made a mess of gender. Together, male and female, created to reign in God's name, as equal image bearers of his image, as noble king and queen over the kingdom of Eden. That's gender equality according to God's original design. In the ancient world, it was shocking. In our modern world, you hear that. This world hears that and says, whoa, that's lovely. But now let's consider what is shocking to our modern world: the uniqueness of male and female, specifically for our purpose, the unique glory of masculinity. To discover the uniqueness of male, we must look at what is unique to Adam and the creation narrative. We looked at in depth at Adam and Eve's similarities, but what the question is, what is unique about Adam's creation? Well, the most obvious is that Adam is first, created from dirt, the life of God's image breathed into him, and then Eve is taken out of Adam. Now, is there any significance to Adam created first from which Eve comes to life? Theologians have long agreed that this does not have an ontological significance, meaning it does not communicate that Adam is superior to Eve. But there is a strong theological consensus that this is there is a teleological meaning here, meaning this. There's a purpose and design to the order of Adam and Eve. Simply put, when God created Adam first and then Eve from Adam, he is not instituting a value structure, but a relational structure. And within that relational structure, Adam serves as the foundational strength. Eve is the glory of the story. Adam supports and serves, protects and promotes Eve's glory. In Genesis 2, God is constructing an architecture of his image. Adam is the foundation, Eve is the edifice. So you're building a beautiful new sanctuary here. And unless you have utterly inept general contractor, I am assuming they began that with the foundation. The building was not constructed first. First, a strong foundation was laid. And then from that foundation, the beauty that's almost done, the beauty is then constructed and built up from that foundation. So it is in Genesis 2, with Adam taken from dirt as this strong foundation. And then from Adam, the beauty of Eve and the glory of female is fashioned. Now, when you visit beautiful architecture, when that thing is complete and you get to have your first service in there and you walk in, I'm willing to bet on that Sunday, nobody's going to walk into church and say, Man, what an amazing floor. Maybe you're good in a beautiful floor. I don't know, but what an amazing foundation. Unless you're an engineer or something and you come in there and say, ooh, great foundation. I bet you won't even think about the foundation. I bet you will stand in awe of the beauty and majesty of the architecture. By the way, kudos to you for building a beautiful building. Um, in light of the uh technology stuff, I'm going back to my technology stuff. And along the lines of how we are being recreated uh according to the efficiency of technology, this is reflected even in our architecture where we only think what's most efficient, what's most cost effective. We don't think about how beauty is a protest against technology. It's really important. And Protestants don't get that as much as they should. Our Catholic uh brothers and sisters do. But um, you will stand in all the beauty and majesty of the architecture without even a single thought of the foundation that is at all times holding, supporting, sustaining that beautiful architecture. So it is with masculine strength. It exists not for itself, not to boast in man's superior power, not to be exploited for selfish glory and gain. It is designed as a humble, selfless strength that exists for the good and glory of another. That is not to say that female strength does not exist for the good of others as well. Of course, Jesus calls both men and women to embody selfless strength. But the point is that men are endowed with unique strength because they have a unique role to play with their strength. With great power comes great responsibility. That's that's Peter Parker. If you want me to give you Jesus, I'll give you Jesus instead. Too much is given, much is required. Now, this foundational masculine strength is most defined and demonstrated within the covenant of marriage. But it also serves a vital role within the created order. And the reason why I just wanted before I get into them to the way this plays out within gender complementary and marriage stuff, some I know are single here. But that does not mean that God doesn't have a calling for your masculinity. I was um I was talking to my sons about this. We we we uh for those of you there this morning, my mom gifted us a cruise for um for Christmas as a Christmas gift. So after Christmas, we went on a cruise. And and when you go on the cruise, you do kind of the safety instructions and stuff like that, and they show you in here the lifeboats and all this stuff. And I was talking to I have four boys and I was talking to them, and I just said, you know, if things go down, just so you know, it's women and children on these lifeboats first. And uh my uh 18-year-old and 14-year-old are like, uh, and my nine-year-old's like, yeah, all right, all right. It was it was Christendom, it was the Christian advancement across the world that introduced the concept of male chivalry. Masculine strength is to be bound by the code of sacrifice, chivalry, valor, honor. This is the gift that men offer to society, serving as this foundational sacrificial strength to the common good. I do believe, we joked, but I do believe that women and children on the lifeboats first is right and good and virtuous and Christian. I do believe, I, you know, I'm I'm whatever. I know military theory has changed, and you know, women serve military now. We can debate all this stuff. But here's what I do like about our country. Still to this day, if war is on the horizon, I do believe only our young men should be eligible for that draft. That is the role of men in a society and in the common good. Sacrificial masculine strength is foundational to a flourishing society. And then every man, the reason I'm saying that is every man, whether single or married, is called to provide that for the good of their neighbors. But the truly unique role of masculinity manifests itself when a man covenants with a woman till death do them part. And there's a word the Bible uses to describe a husband's unique role that is so controversy in our time that people fear to even name it. But I will, it is headship. That the husband is the head of his wife and family, unthinkable, even unspeakable to our modern ears. But just consider the imagery of why scripture invokes the language of headship. All the head does is think for the needs of the body. The head is only concerned about the well-being of the body. What headship means in its original design, not its simple abuses, what headship means is that when a man gets married, he is no longer the head of himself, serving his own wants and needs, concerned only about what he desires. Instead, those nuptial vows mark the sacred moment where he is now the head of his wife. Till death do them part. His concern, his obsession, his daily fixation is not himself, but his wife. His masculinity and all of its glory and strength now serves his wife and subsequent children. This is why Jesus Christ is called the head of the church, because in his incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and ascension, all of that is channeled for the good of the weaker. And Paul explicitly says that as Christ is the head of the church, so the husband is the head of his wife. Headship is selfless, not selfish. Family-centered, not self-centered, humility, not mastery. We are accustomed to defining headship in terms of privilege when in reality it is defined as a responsibility, meaning it does not offer the man a patriarchal crown to enjoy. It demands of the man a sacrificial cross to bear the rest of his life. Return to God's original design in Genesis 2. What is interesting is that the original command is given to Adam before Eve is even created. I don't know if you've ever noticed that. Verse 16, the Lord God commanded the man, saying, You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but the tree of knowledge and good and evil you shall not eat, for in that day that you eat it, you shall surely die. I am giving this responsibility to you, Adam. Don't you dare disobey and ruin my creation. Don't you bring death into my perfect creation? Next verse. Then the Lord God said, It's not good that man should be alone. I will make him a helper fit for him. And that command. We already discussed the word helper. It's a good term, not a demeaning term. So here's the pattern of Genesis. Adam, I'm giving the responsibility to you. It's on you. But I'm giving you Eve because you're gonna need help. And then comes Genesis 3 when the fruit was tragically taken. And yes, it was Eve who took the first sinful bite. But if you read the rest of the Bible, you would not know it, would you? It's consistently viewed as Adam's fault. The sin of Adam. It is Adam's failure that plunged this world into fallen chaos and destruction. Such is the nature of headship responsibility. Here's the verse describing that infamous moment. Eve took its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Adam was there. What was the man doing? He was failing in his headship. Failing in his headship responsibilities, thinking for himself, not for his wife, and not for the creation entrusted to his dominion, cowardly, passively, silently, selfishly sitting there, allowing the world's destruction to unfold. What he ought to have done is protect his wife and indeed all of creation with his masculine strength and valor, he should have grabbed that lying satanic serpent and flung it to the ground and trampled its head. But the coward chose silence, the silence of Adam, as many theologians have labeled it. And so the uniqueness of male headship is less about privilege, brothers, and more about responsibility. And what woman, may I ask, what woman wouldn't want to submit to a man like that? What does the word submission mean? Another word we're not allowed to talk about in this culture. But what does that word even mean? It's literally a construct, construct of sub, which means beneath mission. Submission is placing yourself under the mission of another. But what is the mission of the husband to think first for his wife, indeed to lay down his life for his wife? So I love to ask women who struggle with the gender complementarian stuff. I love to ask women, can a woman place herself under the mission of a man whose mission is to lay down his life for her in every way? What a strange gender structure that God institutes in Genesis. A wife dies to herself to surrender to her husband's mission, which happens to be to die to himself for the sake of his wife. I'm confused here. Who is giving and who is gaining? Who is serving and who is receiving? The answer according to Genesis is yes. Or as Paul introduces his entire Ephesians 5 discourse on marriage. Submit to one another out of reverence to Christ. Biblical gender creates an unconventional marriage competition rather than the stereotypical marriage competition of who can get more, take more, win more. It's a competition of who can give more, serve more, love more, die to themselves more. But brothers, somebody has to lead this unconventional competition to outserve one another. And that is a responsibility given to the husband. Subversive strength. The one endowed with superior strength could and tragically often does rule with selfish strength. But God flips the natural paradigm with this supernatural calling. The husband's responsibility is to win the cruciform competition. It is the strongest who is called to go the lowest. So low that he becomes this foundational strength, such that his marriage and his family and broadening out his community rests and flourish upon his sacrificial life. Again, quote, so on Father's Day, when all the attention falls on perhaps the least important character in the delivery room, it seems to me that a smart father would insist on recognizing this blinding truth that the woman who made him a father is the real hero of the story. Well, there's an irony to that, op ed. The goal of the mother shining, receiving the attention, recognition, and even admiration, and of a father humbly serving and supporting, not needing a Father's Day celebration, certainly not feeling entitled to it. No, her glory is his reward. This ironically is the design of noble biblical masculinity. So the op-ed and biblical headship seek the same outcome, but it matters how we get there. In the op-ed and in this cultural moment, female glory comes by shaming masculinity. In Scripture, female glory comes by the humility of masculinity. In the former, his glory is stolen. In the latter, his glory is laid down and given. And I will close the biblical example of exactly what I'm talking about. We just got done celebrating Christmas. And when you imagine the details of that miracle, who comes to mind and the Christmas nativity scene and all that? Who comes to mind besides Jesus Himself? Mary, of course. Her faith, her courage, yes, even her glory. The angel says to her, Greetings, O favored One, the Lord is with you. Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And then Mary sings this song about all generations shall call her blessed. Ironically, exactly what that Toronto op-ed is arguing for. It's the mother who deserves all the praise. What about Joseph? Do you see that Nate Bargazzi Christmas bit where we're talking about all the songs that we sung, and there's Joseph and Mary and Jesus, and Mary's like, oh, will there be songs sung about Jesus? Like, oh yes, yes. And the song sung about me is like, oh yes, yes. And Joseph said, What about me? And Nate Bargazzi goes, Yeah, there'll be a lot of songs. Where's Joseph? Where's Joseph? He's easy to miss, isn't he? But he's there. He is the foundational strength and courage of this story. The woman he is betrothed to and has never been with is pregnant. Do you know how shameful that was to men in that day? It would be customary for him to just cast her off as his disgrace. But Joseph is courageous and he is resolute and he is willing to bear whatever cultural stigma comes his way because an angel of the Lord has visited him, and his virgin bride has conceived a son destined to be the Messiah. And Joseph's faith is mighty, his courage is noble, his character is resolute. He will trust the Lord and he will not abandon his bride. Mary gives birth to the Messiah. Hallelujah. Rejoicing. All glory to the newborn king as it should be. All generations will call Mary blessed as promised. Not much about Joseph. Until shortly after the birth, insecure King Herod, the embodiment of worldly insecure masculinity that we're going to get to, he feels threatened. He feels threatened, and he is determined to kill this supposed king of kings. Who does the angel come to then? This is not a coincidence. Behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph and said, Rise, take the child and his mother and flee. For Herod is about to search for the child to destroy him. And Joseph rose and took his child and the mother by night and departed to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod. When the child and mother are threatened, when danger is on the horizon, the angel comes to the husband, to the father, to the man. Get your wife and child out of there. And it is Joseph who saved the Savior of the world. Yes, of course, Jesus is the highest glory, as it should be. And yes, Mary is an appropriate lesser glory to Christmas. But behind the scene of the world's salvation is the humble, foundational, almost unnoticeable strength and courage of Joseph's masculine valor. All right, let me pray. We'll take a brief break and then we'll come back and uh go with our second thought. Lord, uh thank you for this beautiful vision of what masculinity ought to be. And I can only imagine my brothers are like me and quickly seeing how we have failed to be this. Give us grace. Give us grace to know that no matter our failures as men, um your grace is greater. And I pray um that uh as we uh look now in the second talk to how you redeem our masculinity, how you change us as men, that you would inspire us and give us hope, and we would all leave here ready to be the men that you have called us to be. Through Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.