Anybody excited to gather in agreement today underneath the name of Jesus

Trace listen to me. Really I do hope you can see it. I really do hope you can see it right now. I hope you can see the evidence of the Holy Spirit moving in the life of this church right now. I hope you can see the evidence of life change that is happening because of the culture that we have built, which is a huge attribute to you because you help us to build that culture. Last week we had two people that were baptized here at Trace and we need to give it up because every life change for Jesus is worth celebrating. But it also helped us to hit a milestone as a church. You ready for this. We are a five year old church. Last week we hit two hundred total baptisms in the life of this church.

And then this past Wednesday we celebrated as over sixty people went through and finished our ten week Rooted experience and we came together this past Wednesday and we worshiped and we celebrated and we heard stories of life change and we watched three more people get baptized on Wednesday. Yeah you can keep clapping. It is okay this morning to keep clapping and celebrating what God is doing. And listen there are so many more people that are reaching out to us, letting us know that they can feel the Spirit of God working in their life. Some of them ready to fully surrender their life in baptism. Others just trying to make those adjustments to define some lines of where they know God wants them to be in their life and in their faith.

And I also want to celebrate a few of you, or actually many of you, that took us up on the challenge that I gave you several weeks ago. I talked about how as a church we were below budget for about three months of seventeen percent and I asked everyone hey can we just move to the right together. The church that sacrifices together is the church that is going to be strengthened together. And I asked you to move to the right. And if you do not know what I mean by that there is a little card in the seat back pocket in front of you that talked about that and how if we all just move to the right in increments of two percent. If you are not giving anything maybe start giving two percent. If you are giving six percent maybe start giving eight percent. And so many of you took us up on that and last month, October, we exceeded our budget. But listen to me. You can clap in a second, but listen to me. I am not so much worried about whether or not you give so that we can pay the bills. I want you to give because you want to be faithful to Jesus. I want you to give because you know that when God has your money and you are not keeping it all for yourself that you are growing on what it looks like to live through Jesus. Because if we hold on to all of it for ourselves there is no way that we can also represent a generous life and Jesus was the most generous person that you will ever meet. For God is generous, that He gave His one and only Son that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life. I am preaching this morning. Come on somebody.

And I want to see this continue to grow. I want to see the Spirit continue to grow. I do not know how we pour fuel on it but I want to pour fuel on it because I continue to hear even more examples of life change, of how so many of you are feeling the promptings of the Holy Spirit and you are saying yes. Because the opposite of that is stiff arming the Holy Spirit. And I do not know about you but I did that for the majority part of my younger life where I knew what God was calling me to do. I knew who He was calling me to be. But I just kept stiff arming the Holy Spirit so that I could live in my own pleasure. And I am hearing more examples of how so many of you are hearing from the Holy Spirit and you are saying yes. And every time you say yes to the Holy Spirit you are learning what it looks like to live through Jesus. And the more that you learn what it looks like to live through Jesus I promise you you are going to actually remove obstacles for other people to get to Jesus themselves. I want to grow that.

But I also want to acknowledge, listen, we are a messy church. And so we are not going to just get up here and talk with a lot of platitudes and over sensationalize what could actually be happening in some of your lives. Because there is no doubt that some of you are in here today and you are wrestling with some doubts. You are wrestling with some faith. I need to fix this. There it is. Okay I still have my name tag on there too. Nice. Name tag. Name Tag November. Give it up for Name Tag November.

Some of you are wrestling with some doubt. Some of you are lacking some faith. Maybe some of you would go as far as to say I have lost hope. And if that happens to be any of you, which I have no doubt that there are some of you that represents, I want to tell you something that I mentioned to a friend this past week. If you need to borrow hope from me. And that may sound weird and the reason I tell you that is because there is a fervency in my faith right now that I have not experienced in a long time. And so if you need to borrow hope from me because your pastor is fired up right now. I do not know if I have ever been as determined as I am today to help you to learn what it looks like to stand firm in the gospel and to stand firm in what it means to live through Jesus. And so if you need to borrow some hope from me, and not just the kind of hope that causes you to hang on, but the kind of hope that emboldens you to want to give everything for Jesus.

Now yes heaven is coming and it is going to be incredible and I have no doubt in my mind that when we all get there, when we experience that overwhelming love that the Bible says surpasses our understanding, when we first experience that overwhelming sense of love by being in the presence of Jesus, all of us will want to go back and wish that we would have done more. So let us do it now. Yes hope is coming in the hope of heaven. But we have hope today. Hope is ours to take today. And so if you need some, if you need some, borrow it from me. Because I believe in Him who is able to do immeasurably more. Immeasurably more than what we could ever ask or imagine according to the power that is not at work within you, that is not at work within me. It is at work within us. So Trace let us do this together.

And this had nothing to do with my sermon. I just had to get it out. Is that all right. I just had to get it out. So I am going to pray for us and I am going to make a hard transition.

Father Lord we just ask that You come and that You continue to do Your will in this church and through me. And Father You know that even some of the small refinements that I have made in my faith recently, things that You made apparent to me, things that were causing too much comfort in my life, I can feel that as I surrendered even those over to You God I am feeling the presence of Your Holy Spirit more active in my life. I want that for everyone in this room. All of us have a tendency to stiff arm the Holy Spirit. All of us have a tendency to pivot and kind of move in a direction that is more out of our own selfish desires and pleasures. God I pray that You would come and have Your way with us. That You would have Your way within this church. And so God do continue to do what only You can do. We love You. In Jesus name everybody said amen.

All right. Hard pivot. You ready.

A couple weeks ago we kicked off this series called Lines and we determined that we need to DTL. We need to define some lines. We need to define some lines. And I said hey man if you are anything like me, and since most of us are like the rest of us you probably are. If you are anything like me you have probably crossed some lines in your life. And the lines that are the easiest ones to cross are the ones that we have not clearly defined. And some of you, like you knew that that line was there. Maybe others we kind of just slowly drifted in the wrong direction. Others of you like you were you were line dancing. I was like hey you know there we go. [Music] Everybody clap. No do not do that. Like some of you knew what you were doing. And I have been there. And I would tell you, man in college I was probably, I minored in professional line crossing. Okay. I get it. We have all been there. And so it is incredibly apparent, it is to me and it should be to you, that if we are devoted to living through Jesus that we need to clearly define some lines. Some lines that we already know that God would not want us to cross, because if we do not clearly define them those are going to be the easiest lines to cross.

And then last week I got up here and I talked to us about how love defines lines. And if love defines lines it makes complete sense that we would try to arrive at the most accurate understanding of love that we possibly can. And so what we did is we opened up God’s Word and we looked at one of John’s letters in First John and we also looked at John’s Gospel and we determined that the most accurate way that we could biblically define love is this right here. That the fullness of grace plus the fullness of truth is God’s complete love. Which means when love lacks grace it is incomplete. And when love lacks truth it is incomplete. And so if we do not get this right, not only will we misrepresent what love is, we will often start defining the line of love at the lowest common denominator. And the lowest common denominator of how we define love is whatever is going to be to our own personal convenience in any given situation.

So that leads me to today. And Trace today what I want to do is I want to talk about a line that I feel like either needs to be defined or maybe it needs to be redefined around the subject of masculinity or manhood and more specifically the role of a Christian man.

Now if you are my age or older you know that the debate on this subject is not a new debate. But I would say that the conclusions that people are arriving at because of this debate are new. And if you were to ask me why so many people have abandoned, have jumped ship on the traditional view of what it means to be a Christian man, that we have ascribed to for the last couple thousand years, I would say it would be this right here. Toxic masculinity.

And so what I want to do today is I want to talk about this. I want to define or redefine some lines around masculinity. But I want to set some ground rules really quick. I want to set some ground rules because anytime I talk about something like this that probably will bring about a lot of opinions, surface a lot of opinions, and there is going to be maybe some tension around this subject even, one of the things that I have to do is I have to teach around what I call landmines. And the reason there are landmines when it comes to this subject is because depending on who you listen to, what you ascribe to, depending on what is informing your bias, because we all have bias. We agree there, right. We all have bias. And depending on what is informing that bias, I may try to speak something, I may try to teach us something with a very specific intent, but because of your bias you will hear something completely different.

So here is what I am going to ask of you. Whatever that bias may be, and we all have it, can I ask that you just shelf it for the next twenty minutes. That is it. Just shelf it for the next nineteen minutes and thirty four seconds. Just shelf it. And let us allow God’s Word to breathe. Let us just allow God’s Word to breathe. Because I believe if we will just go back to the Word, if we will go back to the text and see how God defined this, I do not think by the time I get done teaching on this today that anybody really is going to have any problem with what I have to say.

And I will be clear. Something I have to work really hard on, because I have got my own bias, is that when I get up here that I do not teach from that bias. And to be honest with you there are things in the Bible that I do not even like. There are some things that the Bible mentions that I do not even like. But if I am going to take this position seriously and if I am going to make sure that I am being informed by Scripture first, then I have got to make sure that I shelf my bias as well. And so my hope is that we will all come to the table today shelving our bias, whatever it may be, just allow God’s Word to breathe. And my guess is that we will all land in a place where we feel, if nothing else, there is more clarity on the subject of masculinity and manhood.

Now we should probably ask the question. Why has toxic masculinity become such a strong narrative in our society. And I can assure you it is not because of some Democratic or Republican agenda. It is not because feminists are trying to take over the world. The reason why toxic masculinity has become a mantra for so many is because, you ready, it is true. It is a problem. And if we do not own up to that first there is absolutely no reason why we should move forward with this conversation.

And for the sake of clarity I do not want to get into like corporate America. I do not want to talk about politics or any other side of this argument. But what I do want to do, listen to me, is confess that the mass majority of spiritual abuse that has taken place within the church is almost exclusively because of a misuse and abuse of men in leadership. And so listen to me. If you have been on the other side of toxic male leadership in a church, I see you. I see you. And I fully acknowledge that this has been a much bigger problem than what people in my position often want to admit.

And to be clear it has not just been in the church. Historically Christian men and husbands have not only diminished and demeaned women’s voices in the church, but they demanded their wives to be submissive in the home. This is not what God had in mind when He gave men the mantle of leadership. And fellas listen. We just have to acknowledge that this has happened. We have to acknowledge that this has happened. And at times it has been incredibly unhealthy and it has led to a high level of hesitation when it comes to trusting men in positions of authority.

Now to be clear, and we need to be, I would strongly argue that there are just as many examples if not more of men leading well in the church and men leading well in the home. But you know as well as I do these will not make the headlines. And to be clear I think we would all agree that there are plenty examples of toxic feminism, toxic leaders whether male or female. Anybody ever met a toxic teenager or two. Yeah. And if one is sitting beside you right now just be like no I do not know what you are talking about.

And so listen to me. I want to acknowledge on one hand that this is a big problem. But I also want to acknowledge on the other hand that we need to bring attention to how we are mishandling the problem. How we are starting to dismantle something that God designed. And so I want to make sure that we do not go so far in what I often call a pendulum swing. Where it is like yes we see that there is a problem and maybe in our attempt to solve the problem we swing the pendulum so far in the other direction that it creates a bigger problem.

Let me illustrate it this way. If you lead an organization, that you notice, like if you are in a leadership position at all and you notice that there is a problem, you do not dismantle it. You do not just kind of bow out and act like it is not a problem. Because you have worked really hard to probably put a culture in place that you want to reinforce. Like why we have those things in place to begin with. And so you do not just dismantle it and get rid of it all together. You deal with the problem. Maybe you have worked for an organization or a leader at some point in time and you found out that there was a policy in place and it was a ridiculous policy and the reason why there was a ridiculous policy in place is because of Pat. Like Pat was the problem. But nobody wanted to talk to Pat. Instead they put together a ridiculous policy that affected everyone because nobody would deal with the problem. And Pat was the problem. And by the way if your name is Pat I am sorry. I just needed a name for the sake of illustration.

Listen to me. Maybe you need to write this down. If we try to deconstruct something that God designed it will likely lead to more damage. When we attempt to deconstruct something that God designed it will likely lead to more damage. And if I had time I could unravel the last twenty years in how this has played out in our society.

So our response to toxic masculinity is not to deconstruct what God designed. But instead define some clear lines. I believe God has designed and designated men to lead their homes through service and sacrifice. And so I do not want to dismantle this. Listen to me. I want to develop this. Because the next generation needs more examples of godly men who are willing to stay in the fight and win the battles that matter the most. Can I get an amen this morning.

And so let me begin by kind of building a biblical framework for us that I think will be helpful. Maybe it will be somewhat elementary to some of you that have been doing this for a while. But I think it is a good thing just to have a refresher course for all of us in this. In Genesis chapter 1 God says so God created human beings in His own image. In the image of God He created them. Male and female He created them. I am going to get into this a little bit next week too, but guys this is incredibly beautiful. We cannot complete the image of God without a male and a female. We cannot complete the image of God without a man and a woman. It takes both of us. So this has never been about a conversation of value or importance. It is about roles and responsibilities.

In Galatians chapter 3 let me emphasize this point further. For you are all children of God through faith in Jesus Christ. And all who have been united with Christ in baptism have put on Christ like putting on new clothes. There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all what. One. Everybody say one. One. In Christ Jesus. So we are the same in value and importance, but not in responsibility.

And if I could point to one thing of why toxic masculinity has become such a big problem. Why the narrative of toxic masculinity has made so many headlines. And why even Christians have started to abandon God’s original design for men and women. It would be because men did not take the responsibility, but they tried to usurp their authority. And when authority, somebody needs to write this down, when authority becomes greater than a responsibility it is always going to lead to toxicity. Can I say it again. When authority becomes greater than your responsibility it will always lead to toxicity.

And so what I want to do is I want to point to, and we could go into a lot of different Bible passages, I am going to point to Ephesians chapter 5 today, on a framework that I think Paul gives us that we cannot walk away from. After we read this passage you cannot walk away from it. I would say you cannot read the New Testament and walk away with the conclusion that men own the majority of authority. Men own the majority of responsibility.

And if you are a guy in here and you are like well I did not sign up for that. Well too bad because you are a dude. And we have more responsibilities.

So Ephesians chapter 5 beginning in verse 21. Now this is huge because I am already, I am going to blow somebody’s mind right now. And further submit to one another. Now when guys read this historically they did not pay attention to that part. Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. For wives this means. What this means. Means this is what submission looks like for wives. But to be clear submit to one another. That means there is probably something coming up for the dudes as well.

So for wives this means submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For a husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church. Strong language I know. He is the Savior of His body the church. As the church submits to Christ so wives should submit to your husbands in everything. And ladies when you hear how your husbands are supposed to lead this part of submission, and again this is just one part of submission, guys have a submission part two, but when guys lead the way that Christ has called them to lead I promise you will not have any problem with that.

For husbands this means. What is this. Submit to one another right. Jump back. For husbands what it means to submit to one another. So here is our part fellas. For husbands this means love your wives just as Christ loved the church and He gave His life up for her.

Now sometimes when we read that passage we think the one event where Jesus just gave up His life, right. He surrendered His life. He died for us on a cross. But I want you to think of it with a broader sweep, with a broader context, because Jesus gave up His entire life. Throughout His thirty three years of life He was giving it up for the church. Not sinning. Not moving forward with His personal agenda but with the agenda of His Heavenly Father. And so husbands, just as Christ loved the church and gave His life up for her.

And so what does that look like. If I could boil it down with two words it is service and sacrifice. Even Jesus said I did not come to be served. I did not come to be served. I came to serve. And so if we are going to model what it looks like to love our wives, to submit to our wives as Christ did to the church, then we give our life up for her through the two lenses of service and sacrifice. To make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God’s Word. He did this to present her to Himself as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any blemish. Instead she will be holy and without fault.

Man. Heavy burden there. A lot of responsibility there, is there not.

And so when we usurp authority where there should be responsibility it is always going to lead to toxicity.

Now if you have been coming for a while, do not jump to that next text just yet. If you have been coming for a while you know that I have taught on several different things and one of the things that I have used to kind of help us define context in what we are reading in the Bible, because context is key, right. A verse can never mean what it never meant. And so to help us define context I have used the phrase was that meant for a moment in time or is that meant for all time. Was that meant, that passage we just read, was that meant for a moment in time or was that meant for all time. And many would argue that that was meant for a moment in time. That that is not really how things operate today. And if that happens to be you I want to show you what Paul says next.

As the Scriptures say a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife and the two are united as one. Everybody say one. One. This is a great mystery. We are going to revisit this next week too. This is a great mystery but it is an illustration, do not miss this, ready. It is an illustration of the way Christ and the church are one. That is divine language here. Paul is actually saying there is a divine design to what I just mentioned when it comes to how the wife submits to the husband and how the husband submits to the wife. There is a divine design behind it. As Christ and the church are one. He is illustrating it between the relationship between Jesus and the church. And if you begin to dismantle that, I would just tell you you better be careful. You better be careful.

So again I say each man must love his wife as he loves himself and the wife must respect her husband.

It is impossible folks. It is impossible to read the New Testament and not come to the conclusion that men carry the weight of responsibility. God has given men a unique role. He has given women a unique role. And the unique role of men and masculinity, we see it play out positively and negatively. Socially. Spiritually. In the family. But even if you study the field of psychology, even the field of psychology will show you the unique influence that men have, specifically in the lives of your kids. And I really do not need to convince you guys of this because you get it. You cannot deny the unique influence that men have been given.

And men listen to me. When we use this unique influence to elevate our authority it will always lead to toxicity. But when we step up, when we step up and we own our responsibility, it creates a stronger foundation of faith for everyone else around you. And some of you have experienced that in a positive way and some of you know what that is like because that was neglected in your life. I would happen to be one of those in my younger life. Which is why I am so committed to developing young men. Which is why I am so committed to helping men step up and grab on and take hold of the God given role that God has given you, that God has designed.

So listen to me. I want to be really clear about this. As your pastor I am not going to entertain any idea that deconstructs God’s design for men. But I will commit to doing everything in my power to develop men to lead like Jesus. And if that happens none of us will have a problem with that. Through service and sacrifice.

This is one reason why we are completely, completely kind of just doing an overhaul of our men’s ministry that we are going to start brand new in January. And guys I want to give you a heads up. This will not be a comfortable men’s ministry. This will not be a comfortable men’s ministry. But it will be an effective one.

Now some of you, and I am going to conclude here because I want to have a little bit extra time during our response time today, you heard me say it a little bit earlier. This is a messy church. This is a place where you can stop pretending because you cannot hide and heal at the same time. And the picture that I just painted is how God wanted it to be designed. The picture that I just painted is what the Bible teaches us. And I wanted to make sure that I stayed true to that. That is not always how it pans out is it.

And throughout my sermon many of you were saying yeah but Aaron. Like if you only knew. Like I wish that was my experience. That has not been my experience. And what do I do if my husband is not. And the list goes on.

So what I want to do is I am going to pray for us right now to conclude my sermon and then I am going to lead us into a time of response where I want to acknowledge some of those things. And if I can, if God can use my voice this morning, I want to help bring some healing maybe to some of those things and maybe even give you some practical steps of how you figure it out from this point forward.

So let me pray for us.

Father first thing I want to say is just thank You for how clear Your Word is. God thank You for how clearly You have defined things for us. And yeah there is no doubt that we have deviated from what You have originally designed and things do not always go the way that they are supposed to. Often times they do not. And that leads us to kind of throw our arms up in the air and maybe we even start to dismantle something, to deconstruct something that You designed for a very specific purpose. And God I think all of us probably admit we have, maybe if I am just speaking for guys, we have screwed this up to some extent. And so God I pray that as we lead into a time of response, as we come back to the cross, we remember what is made available to us. We remember what You are capable of even in the midst of our messy situation. God we love You and we pray this in Jesus name. Amen.

So some of you are here today, and ladies I will talk to you. Some of the things that I just described you might say man I wish my husband would have, will do. And it has been really hard for you. And you are not really sure what to do in a situation like this because you would have no problem on your side of the submission. But we are again, we are submitting to one another. But on your side of submission you would have no problem with that if your husband would actually fill in the blank.

And so here is what I would tell you to do, especially if there are kids involved. Somebody has got to lead them to Jesus. Somebody has got to show an example of what it looks like to live through Jesus. And we cannot control anyone. And so if you have to, ladies, step up and lead. Become the spiritual leader of your home. I promise you God will bless that. God will bless that. Lead your kids to Jesus. Show them through example what it looks like to listen to the promptings of the Holy Spirit and follow through on them. Do not wait for your husband. But keep praying for him.

Fellas we have all messed this up to some extent. And maybe right now you are thinking through all the ways that you have screwed up and you are kind of dismissing yourself from being able to have any value anymore. Maybe it is a divorce situation. Again I know there is a lot of messy situations. And what I do I get to process through that with people all the time. I get it. Listen to me. I get it. And so guys the last thing I want you to do today is dismiss yourself and allow the enemy to build a narrative in your mind that it is too late. That you have already screwed up enough. That you have already done the damage. You might as well just kind of call it in.

I promise you from this day forward if you will just continue to submit to Jesus, if you will continue to try to model what it looks like to live through Jesus, if you will listen to the Holy Spirit and take every opportunity you can to speak truth and grace into the lives of your children and to your family and to the people around you, God will bless that.

I can easily look back in my rear view mirror and come up with plenty of examples to say well it is too late now. But it is never too late. Hope is ours to take today because Jesus is fully capable.

I am going to lead us in a time of response where we come back to the cross, and around the room you see the crosses on their side. There are some communion elements there. And we are going to remember what Jesus is capable of, beginning with Him walking out of a grave and defeating death so that we can have life. And in those communion cups is a little cracker that represents His body that hung on that cross for us. And in that cup is some juice that represents His blood that was spilled out for the forgiveness of our sins. Which means no matter how many screw ups. No matter how your story reads up until today. You do not have to walk with shame. You do not have to walk with guilt. He came to take that from you, not put it on you.

And so as you take that cup today I pray that you are reminded of Him who is able to do immeasurably more than what you could ever ask or imagine according to the power that as it were within us. If you are here today and something is eating you up inside, we have got some people that will be in the back with blue shirts on that would love to pray for you. Whatever that may be. Maybe it has something to do with my sermon today. Maybe it does not. But they would love the opportunity to pray for you.

If you would rather be a little bit more discreet about it we have got black tables back there with some cards that you can write out a prayer request.

Hope is ours to take today.

Let me pray.

So Father in this moment I pray that no matter what anyone’s given situation looks like, no matter how messy, no matter how hopeless it may feel, God that You would remind them that there is always hope. That the power that raised You from the grave exists within us, especially as a body of believers as we gather in agreement knowing what You are capable of. And so Lord if there are any narratives that need to be spun out of people’s minds today because they built this narrative that is breeding into this spirit of hopelessness and it is too late now and I am not worthy or whatever it may be, God that You would spin that narrative out and You would replace it with Your compassion and Your mercy and Your love and Your faithfulness and Your forgiveness.

So God meet us in this moment. We pray it is a thin space. That we truly do feel just a little bit closer to You because of our desire to fully surrender to You. So God meet us right here right now. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.

Feel free to respond.