Bringing Heaven Home

07 Real Manhood Real Fatherhood

Hi. Welcome fathers, mothers and grandparents to ‘The World Needs A Father’, Bringing Heaven Home series on chapter five – what it means to be a real man and a real father, dissecting the culture-caricature of men. What do all those big words means.

What happened was in our last series, we were talking about wounds, about how people get hurt. And those who we ourselves hurt, like our wife and our children. The key in being set free from this bondage of hurt is forgiveness. So let's not forget that Satan came to earth to inflict pain and hurt to the lives of many marriages, children, and families, so that he can prevent us fathers from moving on to be real Godly men and Godly father that God has always wanted and destined us to be. So let's move on and look at what it means to be a real man and a real father.

 We will be looking at the worldly, conventional understanding of what a man is, the worldly view. The issue here is that we have not broken free from the way the world views men. And very often, even Christian fathers, young men, and women who tend to hold the Hollywood view of what a man should be, the macho type you know. You have a lot of money with girls hanging around them. And so the conventional understanding of men is, he look at his position, his status. His identity is with his position. I am the CEO, I'm a man so successful. My identity is with what I'm doing. And my goal is to be successful, to be prospering, to be a man of success, to be recognized. And very often, our marriage suffer. Our children suffer, because we don't have enough time for them. We have not developed meaningful, close relationship with them. And then we also caught up with performance. The world is so performance oriented, so performance driven. Our value is based on how much we earn, how successful we are. We must outplay, out earn other people to be successful. Why? Because our reward is power and control, wealth and influence. So these are the way the world sees what it means to be a man, to be a father.

But is this what God in the bible is talking about? I don't think so. Because a real man is a man who courageously stand by his convictions in challenging time. The word of God would have put inside the heart of men, certain truth, certain convictions that he must stand by. Even though it's very difficult, very challenging. When God created men, he wanted men to be in charge. In Genesis 1:28, God, when he created Adam and Eve, and then God said, God bless them and God say to them, be fruitful and multiply, feel the earth, subdue it, have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves on the earth. So it simply means when God created men, he wanted men to extend his rulership, will and nature from heaven to earth. He want to manifest his glorious character, wisdom, righteousness, judgment in the earth realm through facilitating the leadership that he is entrusted upon mankind. And of course thirdly, is to extend God’s own heavenly government on earth and influence the earth from heaven through mankind, which is the theme of what ‘The World Needs A Father’, Bringing Heaven Home to every family. It is very significant.

And so men have to exert God's will on earth as it is in heaven. Why this is so significant? Because Adam has lost his legal right and authority when he sin against God. And Satan then took control upon the planet. But Jesus came to restore the authority and have given it back to men when he died on the cross, was buried, and he rose again. In that, it was victory for all mankind. So men, as God has intended it to be, He wanted men to invade earth with heaven, with a visible expression of an invisible world that is in heaven. And the theme again, to bring the love, the joy, the peace of heaven into every individual family and lives. This is significant. Men has to exert the authority.

But there is a cost. What is the cost of being a man? We are called to be people of conviction, not conformity, of moral nobility, not social respectability. We are commanded to live differently, and according to higher loyalty, higher order. If you look at the way Jesus Christ lived his life, it’s very different. He is a counter culture man, because of that, the Pharisees and the Sadducees  don't really like Him. Because Christ show forth to all men what it means to live a Godly life, to please God. And for that, He will encounter great persecution from people who's not in alignment with the way God wants to live His life.

And so a real man is someone who lifts the bar for himself and others from a mediocre lifestyle to a level of nobility, the music of eternity. In other words, a real man of God would want to live his life upon the standards that God has set for himself. And that is what many people, many Christian believers, fathers, find it challenging to aspire. And many along the way just give up. That is a sad state of affairs, because God wants to bless us when we live a Godly Holy life, that He has always wanted us to do so.

G. K. Chesterson, he was an English writer, philosopher, lay theologian, a literary writer and art critique. He was once asked by a journalist, a very simple question. What is wrong with the world today? What is wrong with the world today? And do you know what is his answer? It’s this, “Dear sir, I am. Yours, G. K. Chesterson.” So if you look at the world today, we can blame a lot of people. We can blame the government, we can blame the rich, we can blame COVID, we can blame so many things. But are we taking responsibility to do something about it when things go wrong, when things are not right? It is easy to point finger and blame everybody else except oneself. What about taking the challenge to take responsibility and do something about it, to make a difference, and impact the community and the society that we are in.

We need not just to talk and talk and talk and do nothing about it, but to take responsibility and execute it with sincere intentionality. If God has called you to help the poor, then do something about a poor. If God has called you to help children who are being abused and do something about it.

A real man, real Godly man, real Godly father will reject passivity. That means just ‘bochap’, don't do anything about it. And with energetic initiation and implementation. In other words, he will energetically initiate and do something about it. Not just talk about it, and he will implemented with immediacy. Too many of us have done a lot of talking but  a little doing about what needs to be done. We must be like James, which is let us not just be hearers of the word, but doers of the word. That will make a difference.

And so for us as fathers, as young men, we need to think about this very important verse, 1 Timothy 4:8, “Physical training is of some value, but Godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.” We need to submit ourselves to some real Godliness training that will move us to do something about what is happening in the world today.

So to round it up, this is the pillar of what ‘The World Needs A Father’ is all about. The four responsibilities of a father. Fathers, we need to establish the authority, regain the leadership that  God has entrusted us. We need to confer the identity to our children and daughters of who they are as young men and as young women. Their maleness and their femaleness. Father need to provide emotional security, and our children will know they are loved by you unconditionally. And then a father needs to affirm the potential of the child. Let it be each and every one of them, that has a unique potential of them to be able to do great things in God’s destiny for their life.

And so take time when you are together to reflect on this question. How does our culture define men, and do we agree? Why few men stand by their conviction? The conviction that God has put in the heart. And question three, what is a real Godly man, and a Godly father? Thank you very much for listening in. Goodbye.