Father's Day 2019 Masculinity that Reflects the Image of God
Father's Day 2019 Masculinity that Reflects the Image of God
There's no place for toxic masculinity in the life of a man who follows the example Jesus set.
Genesis 1:26-27 (NCV)
Then God
said, “Let us make human beings in our image and likeness. And let them rule
over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the tame animals, over
all the earth, and over all the small crawling animals on the earth.“
So God created human beings in his image. In the
image of God, he created them. He created them male and female.
Each Gender, male and female, reveal character
qualities of God. Human beings reflect, no matter how poorly, the image of the
Creator. Since today is Father’s day, I would like to focus our attention on
how the male is created in the image of God, how sin has maligned that image,
how society is now demonizing males and fathers in general and how the power of
the Holy Spirit can redeem and restore and raise a male into a man that will
indeed again reveal the character of God.
In the beginning, the theological story of our
origins, God is the cause. God creates a sentient being, one that is response-able
to Him like the angles.
Genesis 2:7 (NCV)
Then the Lord God took dust from the ground and
formed a man from it. He breathed the breath of life into the man’s nose, and
the man became a living person.
In this material world, this being, this man, is
created in such a way as to be able to commune with God, to know God, to walk
with God, to talk with God. Man is created in perfection, nothing in the man is
broken, nothing out of alignment, nothing that was not intended. The Man is to
be God’s ambassador to the creation. The man is tasked with caring for the
earth, the Garden that is in Eden, the Man is to work the land, love the land,
and be responsible for its wellbeing.
Genesis 2:15 (NCV)
The Lord God put the man in the garden of Eden to
care for it and work it.
Being created in the image of God the man is
endowed with free will, the freedom to choose. That is an awesome
responsibility. Love requires freedom. Love cannot be coerced, love
relationships must willingly be entered into and willingly maintained. God made
it possible for the man to maintain the relationship in which the man was
created.
Genesis 2:16-17 (NCV)
The Lord God commanded him, “You may eat the fruit
from any tree in the garden, but you must not eat the fruit from the tree which
gives the knowledge of good and evil. If you ever eat fruit from that tree, you
will die!“
It is my speculation that human beings were
created in such a way that they would never die. Life is drawn from God, to be
separated from God is like a flourishing plant that is cut off from water, it
slowly withers and dies. We should note that this command to refrain from this
certain tree is given to the man. The man is held in account by God.
The origins story continues: God saw that the Man
was incomplete, the humanity had something missing, or more accurately someone
was missing; a suitable companion.
Genesis 2:22 (NCV)
The Lord God used the rib from the man to make a
woman, and then he brought the woman to the man.
The rib, is a symbol of alongside, not from the
skull that the woman should be the ruler of man, not from the foot that the
woman should be subservient to the man, but from the side, a symbol of equal
partnership in the stewardship of the Creation. “The male, full of love, in his
tender, strong, moral leadership in relation to the woman; and the woman, full
of love, in her joyful, responsive support for man’s leadership. No belittling
from the man, no groveling from the woman. Two intelligent, humble,
God-entranced beings living out, in beautiful harmony, their unique and
different responsibilities.”
A pre-Fall characteristic of all humanity was
transparency and equality.
Genesis 2:25 (NCV)
The man and his wife were naked, but they were not
ashamed.
You can’t get more transparent than naked. Nothing
to hide from one another, no secrets necessary, no desires but to love each
other, no guilty conscience, no lies, no misrepresentations. Each equally
valuable, each worthy of dignity, respect, and love. Yet with this one caveat,
the man created first is the one God holds first accountable for the team’s
stewardship of the Creation.
In the Garden, there are four key relationships
that humanity enjoyed. There is a relationship between God and the Man, the Man
and the Woman, The Man and the Earth and the Man with Himself. The nature of
the created relationships was love, love free from egoism. When I use the term
egoism I am not using in the same sense as Freud’s contribution to psychology
with his thoughts about the ego. Egoism is selfishness, self-centeredness,
self-deification, self-rule. The Greek word is kata sarkos , and scholars over the centuries have translated the
word to mean the flesh, the sin nature, the sinful self. Egoism is the principle
within that desires autonomy, self-governance. Left unchecked egoism motivates
you to do what you want when you want, the way you want, no matter the
consequences for yourself or for others. Logically for there to be the choice
to love, there is also the choice not to love. Egoism is the choice not to love.
Temptation awakened egoism.
Genesis 3:4-6 (NCV)
But the snake said to the woman, “You will not
die. God knows that if you eat the fruit from that tree, you will learn about
good and evil and you will be like God!“ The woman saw that the tree was
beautiful, that its fruit was good to eat, and that it would make her wise. So
she took some of its fruit and ate it. She also gave some of the fruit to her
husband, and he ate it.
What happened is that the man, the responsible
party disobeyed God in an attempt to reconfigure the relationship between He
and God. The man chooses to be co-equal with God, and in doing so instead of
being elevated to Divine status became separated from the very source of his life.
In the choice to disobey to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil the man became less than what he was created to be, and the glory of
God within became veiled, obscured, obstructed with egoism.
The relationships between God and the Man, the Man
and the Woman, the Man, and Nature, and the Man and Himself, are radically
altered. Being expelled from the Garden describes the relationship between God
and Man, clothing themselves describes the relationship between Man and the
Women, thorns, and thistles describe the relations between the Man and the
Earth, being afraid describes the Man’s relationship to Himself. The intimate
created relationships are ruined. Instead of a person’s relationship with God
being the guiding principle of life, egoism exalts self to that position. The
man chooses to distrust God’s goodness and turned away from God to depend on
his own wisdom for how to live life.
This problem of egoism is especially seen in the
relationship between the man and the woman.
Genesis 3:16 (MSG)
You'll want to please your husband, but he'll lord
it over you."
What this verse means is that when egoism has the
upper hand in woman, she will desire to overpower or subdue or exploit man. And
when egoism has the upper hand in man, he will respond in like manner and with
his strength subdue her, or rule over her. Basically when egoism is the guiding
principle the male and female seek to exploit the weakness in one another to
get what they want.
(John Piper https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/manhood-and-womanhood-conflict-and-confusion-after-the-fall )
Our scientific observations of masculinity are corrupted
by egoism. Therefore they report a man to be competitive, aggressive, assertive
and a sexual predator. The male is violent, an oppressor, a tyrant, and an
abuser, especially of women. They use there greater physical strength to
subjugate women. Therefore the cultural trend is to vilify the man, men are
toxic, a threat to the general well-being of society and unfortunately fathers.
Fathers in the culture are often portrayed as
inadequate when it comes to anything dealing with the family. The father is the
baby daddy, the sperm donor. The father
portrayed in the media is Frank Gallagher, Al Bundy, Homer Simpson,
irresponsible, incompetent, and stupid. What I fear is that the observations
are pretty accurate, males who never grew up, boys in adult bodies but never
becoming the men God intended at the Creation.
Where to find a role model for masculinity? Enter Jesus.
Galatians 4:4-5 (NCV) & Col 1:15 (NIV)
“…when the right time came, God sent his Son who
was born of a woman and lived under the law. God did this so he could buy
freedom for those who were under the law and so we could become his children.” [Jesus]
“is the image of the invisible God,
In the conception narrative, we learn Mary
conceives supernaturally. Jesus is born human, fully human, but Jesus free from
the tyranny of egoism, Jesus is a son of God, not a son of man. Jesus is like
Adam before the Fall. Jesus is the model of how humanity is to be, and
specifically for us today a model of masculinity free from egoism.
Jesus was never a father, but he most certainly
was a man. We have been sensitized to toxic masculinity when it comes to how
men treat women. When we examine Jesus relationships with women we find some
remarkable characteristics.
Jesus’ brand of masculinity was one where women
were:
honored (Matthew 26:6-13),
listened to (Mark 7:24-30),
and embraced as evangelists (John 4:1-42).
For Jesus, women could be disciples (Luke
10:38-42),
they could
travel with him (Matthew 27:52),
and they were worthy of serving as positive
examples in his stories (Luke 21:1-4).
In a world where the testimony of a woman was not
allowed in court, Jesus entrusted the message of his resurrection to Mary
(Matthew 28:1-10).
When we study the roles of women in first-century
Palestine we clearly see that “Jesus violated the mores of his time in every
single encounter with women recorded in the four Gospels.”[ Walter Wink, Engaging the Powers, 129]
Jesus actualized the before Fall status of the
woman. Jesus sets the example of how men are to relate to women.
That example informs how a husband is to relate to
his wife:
1 Peter 3:7 & Ephesians 5:25 (MSG) & Malachi
2:15 (KJV)
“Be good husbands to your wives. Honor them,
delight in them. As women, they lack some of your advantages. But in the new
life of God's grace, you're equals. Treat your wives, then, as equals so your
prayers don't run aground.” “Husbands, go all out in your love for your wives,
exactly as Christ did for the church—a love marked by giving, not
getting.” “Let no one deal treacherously
against the wife of his youth.”
That example informs Fathers how to relate to
their children
Ephesians 6:4 (MSG)
Fathers, don't exasperate your children by coming
down hard on them. Take them by the hand and lead them in the way of the
Master.
Fathers are to be their child’s first teacher
(Proverbs 22:6).
Fathers are to provide for their child (1 Timothy
5:8).
Fathers discipline their child (Proverbs 3:11-12
& 13:24).
Fathers spend time with their child (Deuteronomy
6:6-9).
Fathers are compassionate (Psalm 103:13).
Fathers never give up on their child (Luke
15:20-24).
Fathers pray for their child (1 Chronicles 29:19).
Egoism if allowed to take control makes
masculinity toxic.
Egoism is subdued,
First by becoming a disciple of Jesus.
Acknowledge that your masculinity has been ruined
by egoism
Believe that Jesus is the example of how real men
are to be.
Commit yourself to follow Jesus.
Ask God to receive you as His own.
When God answers your prayer, you are sealed with
the Holy Spirit. The Spirit within begins to transform you, removing you
toxicity: “It's rotten through and
through. Get rid of it! And then take on an entirely new way of life—a
God-fashioned life, a life renewed from the inside and working itself into your
conduct as God accurately reproduces his character in you” (Eph 4:22-24 (MSG).
The sealing Spirit’s sanctifying grace transforms
you and matures you to a place where you realize that egoism still is influencing
your behavior, hijacking your best intentions. When you recognize this place on
your spiritual journey it’s your time to crucify egoism. Your need is to be
filled with the Spirit, out of the desire to be all that God wants you to be,
you confess your egoism problem, you consecrate all that you are and have to
God, you bend the knee, confirming that you are all in, identifying completely
with Jesus. God will answer that prayer. The Holy Spirit now empowers you to
disregard the urgings of egoism, giving you the ability to consistently choose
to live in accordance with the model that is Jesus.
You will become a real man, a real husband, a real
father and a real example of masculinity. You will become a man you reflects
the image of God.
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