How God Makes Men
(Discussion notes below)
Men can change rivers. Creation is waiting on men! Everything fell at the Fall of Man, all of creation is now waiting for the sons of God to be revealed.
For the creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. Romans 8:19
What happens if wolves/men don’t know how to behave like wolves/men? If the wolves behave like bats, hanging out in the basement of their mother’s house, then the trophic cascade cannot happen. In 1 Corinthians 16, Paul closes his letter with the exhortation, “Be on guard, stand firm in the faith, act like men.” When Paul says “act like men,” he has an image in his mind.
We want to learn how to be formed into men, so we can “act like men.” We will do this by examining how God made men in the Bible using the book How God Makes Men. The preface to the book says, “Because God is good, your life will not turn out like you planned.” That’s because your plans for your life are not good enough for God. So be open to how God uses the men in the Bible to reshape your life and plans!
Adam: Man’s Original Design
Man was created for a purpose. God gave man work, relationships, and dominion (Genesis 2:7). Your identity is God-given, not self-made.
1. Identity is God-given not self-made
As a Christian man, your deepest form of identity is received not achieved.
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. Genesis 1:26-27
You were made in the image of God Almighty, the creator, your creator. Whenever you create something, as the creator, you have a purpose in mind. What you created has an identity, a specific design. As men, we were created by God to reflect the image of God.
But there’s a problem. We learn in Genesis 3:15, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” Adam and Eve wanted to be like God. They wanted to make their own decisions about their identity. They wanted to move into the role of creator.
We find the result in Romans 1:21-25:
For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves,because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
We exchange the image of God for a created thing. We wanted to be free to create our own identity. When we create our own identity, apart from God, we live in the dark about who we are. Part of being made in the image of God is to have your physical identity/gender defined for you. Today there are 107 genders, proof that we just don’t want God to define us, we want to define ourselves.
For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them. Psalm 139:13-16
God has identified when, where and to whom you were born. God has determined your race or ethnicity, not you! I am a white, American male with a strong Italian influence from my Grandmother Maracarelli. By God’s design, this is what I received from him. None of that can I change. I can’t identify as a Chinese Woman born in the 1500s.
Post-modern thought says that there is no objective truth, so now we assign and define for ourselves. We want to be like God so we determine meaning, morality, and purpose. Phrases we hear are: You do You, Live Your Truth, Don’t let anyone tell you who you are.
As followers of Jesus, we receive our identity from him.
I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Galatians 2:20
As a Christian man, your deepest form of identity is received not achieved.
2. Men are designed to have intimacy with God and in marriage
Intimacy with God: We were dust but God breathed life into Adam, face to face intimacy.
The Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;
the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Numbers 6:24-26
May God turn his face toward you. That’s how we were designed. Face to face is how God makes men.
Intimacy in Marriage: Marriage is a relationship designed to prevent loneliness. The marriage relationship is designed to reflect the relationships in the Godhead – there is unity yet distinctiveness. Sexual intimacy brings joy and pleasure.
Let me be clear, you don’t have to get married to be a man of God. Jesus and Paul were not married. But in the normal course of life, God makes men by putting men together with women and children. This is one main way God fashions selfish boys into selfless men, in the context of a family.
Leadership – Responsibility and Protection: Yes, male and female are created in the image of God and together were given the task of ruling and bearing the image of God. Yet, it was God’s good design to give unique leadership to Adam. Three ways we see the unique leadership of Adam/Men:
- Primary accountability: God held Adam primarily accountable for the Fall. While Adam and Eve hid from God, God called “to the man and said to him, ‘Adam, where are you?'” (Genesis 3:9) God called to Adam alone – he is the leader. This is God’s chain of command.
- The representation of the human race: Adam had a special role in representing the human race. Though Eve was the first to be tempted to sin, it was Adam who was held most responsible for their combined disobedience. 1 Corinthians 15:22 says, “as in Adam all men die.” Adam is given the responsibility for causing the “trophic cascade of death,” not Eve.
- Adam/Men represent Christ in a marriage: We see in Ephesians 5:23, “For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior.” Jesus is head of the church. Men are designed to model Christ’s leadership in their family.
3. Work: Genesis 2:8 & 15
God designed us to work. Work is not a 4-letter word! Work is not part of the fall. Work is prior to the fall.
And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed…The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. Genesis 2:8 & 15
God is a worker and he brought us on as business partners!
Your work is a partnership with God and has value all by itself – you don’t have to go into ministry to do something significant for God. Some will undoubtedly need to do that. But God wants most of us to stay where we are and contribute to his work in the everyday tasks of life. Doug Sherman
Questions:
- As a Christian man, your deepest form of identity is received not achieved. Is this what you think? Why is it important?
- How do we achieve intimacy with God – face to face?
- Why do you think God chose marriage, sex and children as tools to use to “make men”?
- In the garden of Eden, the greatest failure was the failure of leadership by Adam. What causes you to resist your leadership role as a man?
Iron Leadership Materials: