The Call to Sacrificial Responsibility for Men

Be Strong Men’s Conference | Zach Mabry

In a culture that’s confused about what it means to be a man, Zach Mabry calls men back to God’s design for biblical masculinity. This message is a clear, biblical look at what it means to be a godly man—one who takes responsibility, leads with love, and follows the example of Jesus.

Zach challenges men to live with purpose, lead their families well, and grow in godliness. Masculinity isn’t toxic when it’s tied to Christ—it’s a gift meant to reflect God’s character. Now more than ever, the world needs strong, faithful men who live as examples worth following.

This sermon on sacrificial responsibility is a practical and powerful call for men to step up, grow up, and live out their faith with strength and humility.

• 1 Corinthians 13
• Titus 2:2

Transcript – The Call To Sacrificial Responsibilty For Men

All right, my name is Zach Mabry, nice to meet you all. I have been working here for the past 25 ish years. Started as just a wee lad and never left. So, my plan is to work here for another 25 that’s it. So, we’re going to talk about biblical masculinity and I think, so this is so important for us and our culture today, right now, because our culture is trying to flatten out the distinctions between what it means to be a man and what it means to be a woman and we’re seeing this and but, I think we’re at a really interesting point in our culture where our culture is realizing what genuine masculinity looks like and is longing for it and so, this morning, this is going to be more teaching, less preaching, probably and I want to just take 20, 30, minutes and talk through like a biblical understanding of what masculinity is and I want to make sure that, we don’t get sucked into having a poor understanding of what it means to be distinctively masculine, again, I think our culture, there are several times where we will either have an excess or we will have a deficit and so, what we need to understand is what really is, what has God created us as men to be, where do we see that in Scripture, what has he called us to and how do we fulfill that? So, that’s what we’ll talk about this morning.

It’s interesting, because a couple years ago, Merriam Webster has a word of the year and a couple years ago, it was toxic masculinity, which really interesting and the idea that they were getting at was that masculinity itself is toxic. We’re going to address that in a little bit and I do want to, kind of, try to see things from where our culture is looking and there have been abuses of what it means to be masculine and we, there are different stereotypes and I don’t want to talk about superficial cultural things. I want to talk about what we’ve been created for and called to and I think that’s important and what I want us to understand is that when as a Christian, as we look at the world, that God has created, masculinity and femininity are actually designed features and not design flaws and the world works best when men are distinctively masculine and women are distinctively feminine and that’s how it was created. I was trying to think of a good illustration and I don’t know if I came up with one, but I did come up with an illustration. It might be a bad one because, I was trying to think, has there ever been like, a tool or a program or something that you use for years and years and then, you realize.

Oh, there are added bonuses to this and I was just thinking, even, with a claw hammer, if you’re using a claw hammer to just build stuff, then, it doesn’t make sense why it has the sharp like fork on the end of it. That’s just dangerous. Wouldn’t it be better if it had just a like, if it had a flat metal piece on each side of it and then, you realize, oh, actually, there’s more to this. This was really well designed, because sometimes you don’t just want to put nails into things, you want to take them out and it’s like this tool that has this really great use, that when you have another need, oh, it’s been perfectly designed for that also and that’s what I think when I think through like the way that God has designed men and women as distinctively masculine and feminine, that this is actually part of the goodness of creation and it shows the goodness and the creativity of our designer and I want us to remember that at creation, when God created man and woman in his image, that at the end of the creation week, he said, oh, this is very good and that we need to understand that you being created as a man is part of the very goodness of creation and so, what does that mean and so, let’s talk through that.

First I want to define masculinity. I’m going to use, I love this definition. There’s a pastor in Idaho, his name’s Doug Wilson, he’s written a bunch of stuff and I always this guy, if you pay attention to this guy, he’s kind of, polarizing and I say kind of, polar, very polarizing at times and I always joke around about how, he’s a faithful brother, he’s pastor to church for, 50 years and I joke around and say that I agree with about 85% of what he says and about 65% of how he says it, because a lot of times he’s intentionally abrasive and I think sometimes that’s fine and sometimes it’s not so much, but he said this and it’s because I really do like him, because he thinks differently than I do and it challenges me and so, he’s defined masculinity as this a glad assumption of sacrificial responsibility and I really like that biblical masculinity is a glad assumption of sacrificial responsibility and so, let’s what I want to do is, I want to look, where does he get that from? Because, there are these kind of, three aspects of this, one is responsibility, taking responsibility, but also that this responsibility is sacrificial and that this is done in a joyful way and I think this is really helpful, this is always helpful for me to use this definition and say, am I living this out, am I fulfilling this So, let’s look. We’re going to look at a different passage of Scripture, first in the garden and Brody mentioned a little bit of this.

Just this morning, but men have been created and called to take responsibility and I’ve only used both of those terms, like this is what we’ve been created for, but it’s also what we’ve been called to and that when we are acting as distinctively masculine being godly men, that we realize that we have been created for taking responsibility and that this is something that we have been called to in Christ and even more so, if you’re a believer, if you’re a follower of Christ we have an example to follow that we need to be looking to and that means that we should be looking to Jesus as our example of what it means to be a godly man and that is because he was the perfect man and we are representing masculinity insomuch, as we are imitating Jesus and so, let’s look in Genesis 1:26 he says, then God said, let us make man in our image, after our likeness, let him have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the heavens, over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth and when he says, man here I think this is actually men and women mankind and that mankind was, we were created to have dominion. Now, again, in our culture, right now saying the word dominion, oh, that’s a buzzword because, when they see dominion.

They automatically think domineering and I do want us to understand that there is this tension that we have to balance, because being a good leader gives us an opportunity to serve and it also gives us an opportunity to abuse that and as believers, we need to distinguish between those two things, but then we see for the man himself, specifically, before God created the woman in Genesis 2:15 it says this, the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden to work it and keep it. I think this is really helpful for us to realize, as a man, you also have been created to work and to keep, to cultivate, to nurture, to care for, but also to protect, to guard and to fight for, this is part of what’s been hardwired into us as men, because this is what God created Adam for and this is pre-fall, before the fall, we still see that man was supposed to love and care and nurture, but also to keep and to protect and to fight. It’s a big deal because and I think that if we’re going to faithfully apply this, then this goes into every area of our lives to have, to be successful in exercising dominion, it needs to be protecting and it needs to be caring for, it needs to be fighting for, it needs to be guarding and it needs to be nurturing and even in that, I think we get to see this blend of what God has called men to.

Because it’s real easy to be like, oh no, I’m a real man, burly and if anybody says anything, oh, I can shoot him down. I’ve got this bravado. Well, that’s not right, but there’s a little bit of that’s actually necessary to be leading, but leading not in a way to abuse dominion, not in a way that’s domineering and not just in the garden, but also we see in the home, in the home there’s couple passes Scripture that are easy. This is what’s crazy and I really want to talk through this in just a minute, but it’s easy to see how this could lead to abuse, look in 1st Corinthians 13 Paul says, but I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ. The head of a wife is her husband the head of Christ is God and then, we see in Genesis, after Genesis 2 God put the man in the garden to work and keep it and then, Brody mentioned, alluded this this morning. No, he then he gave him a job, name all of these things, he named them all and realized, oh, there’s no helper found for me. Then, oh, you’re supposed to figure that out and here’s a woman who he also names, showing his responsible stewardship, he names her, then she sins, leads him into sin and then, when God comes, who does he go to? He goes to the man because even we’re seeing here, yeah, that there is this household that he’s formed, the head of the wife is the husband the one responsible, even for her actions, is the husband.

That’s why God he called to the man and then, we see the command that we’re supposed to follow in the home as husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with a word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing that she might be holding without blemish, in the same way, in the same way as what, in the same way as Christ as loving the church, in the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies, he who loves his wife loves himself. So, you see here, yes, is there an opportunity for abuse? Oh, I’m the man; you’re going to listen to me. There is that opportunity, but it’s also an opportunity to have real, genuine servant leadership, understanding the privilege and responsibility that God has called husbands too and for me, one of the most humbling things is that marriage, he shows us is a picture of the Gospel of Jesus and his Bride and if you are a husband Then the role that Jesus has cast you for is to play the role of Jesus. It’s hard to abuse that. When we’re talking about the one who emptied himself completely, so that he could save us, that’s what you’ve been called to.

Husbands are supposed to love their wives in such a way that they are giving themselves up for them and I know even on a practical level, this has been really instrumental in my life, because I used to think about I’ve never been the best husband ever. Surprise, sometimes I get angry over stupid things that don’t matter. I know none of you guys have ever done that. You guys have never had, just me petty arguments with your wife over stupid stuff. You guys have never done that, I wish I could be like you and I can remember distinctly, there was this one time my wife and I, when we first got married, we were living in an apartment that was 285 square feet of bliss and I would get so mad when dishes would pile up in the sink, I would just get mad. You used that, you clean it and I realized, oh, this is an opportunity for me to get mad, or I could just serve her and it was so, there’s a switch that went on in my mind. this verse was like, Jesus, gave his life for his bride, tortured, beaten, naked, hung on a cross, crucified and I’m complaining about dishes and I was just like, oh, okay, this doesn’t compare, but It’s little things like that we need to be reminded, yeah, what does it mean to actually give your life for your wife and I want us to be clear here.

Because I think even that can be overdone in such a way where we abdicate our responsibility. We need to talk through that, but when we see this in Scripture, we see that there are three God ordained institutions and we see both the home, the church and government and specifically, God has designated in the home and in the church, male leadership. That’s what we see. We see it so clear, this is God’s word and we can’t, to argue with that is to argue with God and so, that’s heavy for us, because that means if you are going to be in a home and if you’re going to be in a church, then you have been the one who’s called to lead in that. I would say, probably by extension, analogy, the government as well, but I’m not going to fight for that, I’ll leave it alone because I’m not, in government, but I am in a home and in a church and this should lead us not to arrogance, not to pride, but to humility like because, again, what we’re doing is we’re supposed to imitate Jesus in this and this is where there’s a lot of people have taken Christian ideas and weaponized it to abuse people. We see it happening in the home and we see it happen in the church, but this should never be the case, because what that means is we are not properly understanding what God has created us for and called us to the way that I like to refer to it as a responsible stewardship.

God has called you to a responsible stewardship that’s not exercising Dominion in a way that’s domineering, but it’s doing so following Jesus and to get super nerdy, I decided to throw some words up here that I could define what we see as for husbands and wives, is ontological equality with functional subordination. I can’t help myself. Sometimes I just, what that means is, in our being, we are created completely equal and we need to understand that, because it is easy when you are given a position of leadership, that that gets to your head and then, you say, Well, no, actually, I am better. No, that’s not as far as the creation order, we’re equal, but there is; areas in which there is subordination in function. So, in my home, my wife and I have the exact same value, we’re talking eternal image bearers of God who Christ died to save. Can’t get any more valuable than that, but I’ve been called to lead her, not in a way that I’m arrogant, saying that I’m better than she is, but in humility, that this is the role that I’ve been cast to. This is what I’ve been called to. G K Chesterton wrote this poem called if I set the sun, beside the moon and I just, I love it for its simplicity he says this, if I set the sun beside the moon, if I set the land beside the sea, if I set the flower beside the fruit.

If I set this the town beside the country, if I set the man beside the woman, I suppose some fool would talk about one being better. That’s so pretty and just a good little dagger. Better? No, don’t be some fool that says one’s better than the other, but that’s because, again, remember when we’re talking about the roles that we’ve been called to as masculine or are, the women in our lives as feminine, we have just been assigned these roles by our creator and we need to be faithful to that and what I think is really interesting, this is the point I want to talk through, is that I think our culture is figuring it out. You guys know if you pay attention to what’s happening in the culture, there is some crazy stuff going on. Boys pretending to be girls and beating everybody in physical competitions, woo-hoo and that was kind of, on the rise for a while, but I think that even normal non-believers are figuring out uh-huh that’s just not right. You see so many professional female athletes that are saying, oh no, that’s not the case and what we are seeing is, I think that our culture, as I’m just watching and listening, our culture, is figuring out that there is actually something good about responsible masculinity and the reason for that is because, whether you believe it or not, you’ve been created in the image of God.

That being an engendered, embodied soul is part of the goodness of creation and even if you don’t recognize the creator, I think that what our culture is doing as our culture is looking at general revelation, the way that God has revealed himself in what he’s created and they’re seeing, oh, masculinity actually does have a place. Good male leadership is worth following, look at some of the people in our culture that are getting tons of press right now, you’ve got Jocko Willink, who wrote, Extreme Ownership, which is a way of saying being responsible. You’ve got David Goggins, who is, distinctively masculine, just going to run a couple 100 miles right now. Sure people are getting drawn to that. Joe Rogan is one of the biggest voices in our culture right now and he is, distinctively masculine, often in an abusive way, but, he doesn’t have the right filter he understands yes, there is some sort of design here and it’s a good thing and I’m going to go towards that even, like Jordan Peterson himself is not super masculine, but he is teaching like this, men taking responsibility and people are flocking to it, his 10 rules for life was, it changed the culture. They’re like, oh yeah, these are things that I should do to and to put it in, Christian terms, to put away childish things to become a man and people are eating it up. Why are they eating it up, because, it’s biblical truth.

Because, they as much as they want to it is impossible for us to escape the fact that we are God’s creatures living in God’s world and they’re blinded, but they’re seeing dimly this vision of what masculinity and femininity is and I think they’re sick of all this imitation, which they should be, but what I’m frustrated with is I’m frustrated that if you look in the culture for examples of what masculinity is, you get some of these guys and you don’t get solid Christian dudes, because this is where we should be pointing towards the goodness of God and creation and not backing down from it. Christians need to be leading the way in influence in our culture, in what real, genuine masculinity is, because we do have the balance and that balance is Jesus untethered masculinity actually is toxic, look at that’s this point. Is it masculine toxic? No. Toxic masculinity is toxic when you take a good thing and put it into an excess that it wasn’t created for. Yeah, that is bad and what’s really interesting and again, same thing. We’re talking about dominion, not domineering. We’re talking about sacrificial leadership, not abuse, but we need to temper that with the fact that just because someone’s saying, oh, this is servant leadership, well servant leadership is still actually servant hood and leadership.

Because, I think so many Christian guys have gone down this idea of servant leadership and they’ve just become pushovers. They aren’t standing up for what they believe in. They’re sitting back and sitting on the sidelines. They’re not engaged in the conflict at all. So, again, we need to balance that and I think we have a perfect example of this. We have Jesus and what we need to do is, when we are looking at Jesus, when you read through the Gospels and you see who Jesus was, what his personality was, every one of those things we need to emulate. We don’t need to pick and choose what we want to emulate or not. Some guys will overdo this and they’ll be like, well, like Jesus said, I want I’ve got this righteous anger, I’m mad, just like Jesus was mad in the temple, okay, you know what, there is a time and a place for that, but we see that happening once maybe twice in Scripture, but that doesn’t characterize his ministry, in fact, when you see Jesus, Jesus, more often than not, is surrounded by women and children and outcasts to the point where his disciples were too stuck up and said, whoa, whoa don’t let the kids go to him and he’s like, no, no, no, never, never keep these kids from coming to me. That’s I know and it’s so easy for us to be like, oh, well, that’s more of that’s like nurturing.

Like a woman. No, no, no, no. That’s not feminine. That’s not a feminine characteristic. Again, we were put in the garden to cultivate, to work and to protect, not one or the other, but both in the proper balance. So, if you say, I want to be like Jesus in confronting and oh and when he spoke against the Pharisees and Sadducees, you brood of vipers, who warns you about the wrath to come, okay, pretty ballsy, good, but also, don’t stop the little children from coming to me, oh, hold on, there’s a single mom who’s kid just died, let’s take care of that, oh, you’ve been suffering for this long. I’m here for you. A leper who hadn’t touched people forever reaches out and touches, if we’re going to have a balance, then make sure it’s a real balance. If you want to be like Jesus, makes you want to be like Jesus in everything, not just on the things that maybe line up more with your personality, oh, God, hasn’t made me that way, okay, change it. Isn’t that, what the process of sanctification is? Well, if otherwise, you’d get saved and you’d be just like Jesus and it’d be so easy, oh yeah, okay sometimes you need to figure out, oh well, these are actually negative aspects of my personality that aren’t like Jesus. Stop it. Cut it off, put it away. That’s what sanctification is. We need to be asking the Lord.

To show us with his word, what are the areas of my life and my personality that need to die and then, kill them, put to death those things that’s what Scripture will say and I want to say this, especially when we’re, looking at the culture that we actually are in a place where we’re seeing that Christianity is not just true, but good for the world. I read this book recently. I highly recommend it. It’s by a lady named Nancy Pearcey. It’s called The Toxic War on Masculinity, really great and what’s so good in this book is she goes through like she is a statistician, she is a professor, a nerd and she starts going through all of these statistics. Okay, this isn’t trick question. How many have heard, oh, well, the divorce rate around Christians is as much of the same as non-Christians, have you guys ever heard that? That’s the narrative that our culture is trying to tell us and oh, Christianity actually doesn’t change anything. People are getting divorced as much who say they’re Christian, those who don’t say they’re Christian and that’s actually, if you look at the facts in one way, that’s the case, but she dug even deeper and she realized, oh, actually what they need to be doing is what they need to be comparing nominal Christianity with the people they’re calling religiously devout and to be religiously devout,

It means go to church three times a month or more and what they’re seeing is when you analyze the data in this way, then those people who are religiously devout again three times a month or more, they are more loving to their wives, more emotionally engaged with their children, least likely divorce, lowest levels of domestic abuse and violence, real Christians actually are so good for the world. When we see real Christian marriages, there’s less violence, there’s less abuse, there’s less divorce, there is, statistically, this is crazy. The demographic of women that feel more sexually fulfilled are middle aged women married to strong Christian husbands, because it’s good for the world, because it’s how God created us. Now what’s interesting is that with nominal Christians, those who say that they’re Christians, but don’t even go to church three times a month, those people actually have the highest rate of divorce and the highest rate of violence and she says this is very profound. She says nominal men hang around the fringes of the Christian world, just enough to hear the language of headship and submission, but not enough to learn the biblical meaning of those terms and that’s what we’re seeing. When, you hear these statistics oh, well, Christian men do this. Christian men do this, oh, time out. We got to dig deeper if they’re actually Christian men.

We’re seeing those statistics that’s not the case, in fact, best thing for the world, but when people say, this is what’s happening, they say, oh no, I’m the man I’m going to lead. You need to submit. When that’s happening apart from a biblical understanding, then we’re seeing abuse and my challenge for you all is make sure that that’s not us, make sure we’re the ones who are actually looking to Jesus as our example, oh; you want to know what courage, what strength, what does that look like? Look to Jesus. You want to see what nurturing and caring and compassion, remember, it was Jesus who when he was getting ready to die on his way up the hill entering Jerusalem, he looked and started crying, weeping. Why? He says how I longed to hold you in my arms like a mother hen gathering her chicks. The manliest man in the world started weeping, saying that he would love to have that type of affection for them, yeah, because that’s what compassion, properly used looks like and I’ll say this, don’t be fooled by counterfeits. Anybody remember Wild at Heart John Eldridge, you guys remember this? Yeah, I remember this. I thought the first couple chapters amazing and then, he went on and I was like, he lost me, but one of the things he said super clear I thought was so good, he said, deep in his heart, every man longs for a battle to fight, an adventure to live and a beauty to rescue.

That’s actually I think he’s dead on because, again, that’s what Jesus did. Jesus was called to meaningful work, came here and won his bride, us and I think that there is something about men that this resonates with us, but what we’re seeing in our culture is men are accepting counterfeits for these things and I do think, especially for our young men and our older men, they’re fulfilling these longings with porn and video games Where there is a pseudo battle, a pseudo adventure and a fake beauty and these are things that we are called to in the proper context, that are good and great and wonderful, but what our culture is doing is our culture is giving us perversions of those that are enslaving us and so, what do we need to do? I’m just going to walk through some real practical stuff, be prepared to give your life. That’s what we’ve been called to. Again, remember, we’re talking about the glad assumption of sacrificial responsibility. So, look at young men and Paul says, in 1st Corinthians 13 such good words to young men, when I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways, for those of you who are young men, then you need to start putting away childish things now and it’s not that hard.

You just analyze the way that you’re living and say, okay, here’s a godly man who I love and I respect, probably someone else who’s here with you and say, would they be doing this, is this how they would be spending their time, is this what they would be doing and if it’s not, then it’s probably a childish thing that you need to put away. It’s that easy. One of the things that I’ve realized past couple years is I think so much of our sanctification is time management. What are you doing with your time, are you using it in a way that you would want others to do, are you filling it with childish things? If so, put it away. We have such a small, limited amount of time here for husbands. We’ve already read this. Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for and then, in 1st Peter 3 says, likewise husbands, look at this. Again, people who take the language of the Bible and weaponize it are missing the mark. They do not understand what because it’s easy to be like, oh yeah. Well, it says that wives are supposed to submit to their husbands. How dare they? Yeah, it says that, but in the proper context, you know it says husbands give up your lives for your wives, look in 1st Peter 3 It says likewise, husbands live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman.

As the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered, just said wives need to submit to their husbands, but then says husbands, if you are not honoring your wife, the way that you ought to God won’t listen to your prayers. That’s heavy. So, what do we need to do? We need to live with them in an understanding way, which literally means, according to knowledge, that if you’re a husband then you’ve been given one area that you’re supposed to become an expert in. You need to figure out your wife as much as you can. Will you ever have her figured out? No, try and then, apply it, learn something new and the thing about wives is you could learn something today that’s not true tomorrow, head on a swivel, guys like, wow, but I thought, no, like, okay, well, then let’s do this, but, this is hard work, but it’s worth it, for those of you who are dads, we need to be men who are raising men. Dads, it says in Ephesians 6:4 fathers do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline, instruction of the Lord, for some of you, you guys, maybe you’re like, well, maybe I’m a young man I’m not married. So, this husband stuff and this dad stuff don’t apply to me, oh, yeah, it does. This is what you’ve been called to.

You need, especially if you’re a young man, right now, you need to start cultivating a self-sacrificial love right now, so that when you get married, you’ll have a proper object for that. You need to be exercising discipline now and living the way you should now, so that when God gives you young men to disciple, that you’re ready for that you know how to exercise discipline to your children because you’ve exercised it on yourself and for some of us right now, that’s really where we need to camp out. Am I desperate in myself right now in a way that I should to be able to lead others and then, for some of you, you don’t have kids, or your kids are out of the house we still need you, look older men? I’m not going to read the whole thing. Titus 2 he starts off with older men, he says, older men be sober minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in the faith and love and in steadfastness He goes on at the end, he says, show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works. That’s heavy for you older guys, your kids are out of the house, don’t check out, don’t just resign to sit on your couch. We need you to be examples of what it’s like to finish strong. We need you to show us it’s worth it. It says in your teaching, show integrity. You know what that means?

That means, if you’re older, then being a model of good works and you need to be teaching. That’s the model we see in Scripture, in your teachings show integrity, dignity, sound speech that cannot be condemned, so that an opponent may be put to shame having nothing evil to say about this, the outside world is looking for Christian men to actually stand up and be Christian men, our culture is longing for this for two reasons, one, because, fundamentally, we have been called and created for this. This is what the very goodness of creation looks like when it’s lived out and two, because our culture has been starved for good, godly examples of what genuine masculinity looks like and it falls on us to be the ones that are doing this. The last thing I’ll say is live prescriptively. What I mean by that is that we need to live our lives in such a way that we want to ask others to follow and again, we need to be self-evaluating. I spoke harshly in that situation. I don’t want people to act like that and then, own it. I’m sorry I spoke harshly, great, be a model, when Paul’s writing to Timothy, who is a younger man, who’s been called the disciple, even younger men, he says, set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity. That’s in everything; we need to be the ones who are setting the example in what we’re saying, in how we’re acting, in the way that we love.

The faith that we have and that we live out and in our purity that’s what we’ve been called to and for every one of us this is heavy for me. It was heavy for me because I’m standing up here and saying, this is what biblical masculinity is, but it’s even heavier for me, because I’ve got three boys that God has given me that live in my home who I want them to be godly men, but they’re not going to grow up to be godly men if I’m not showing them the example to follow and so, I need to see myself as an example for them, because God has called me to that. Do I want these guys to make the same mistakes I did? No, of course, not, well, what am I doing to help them discipline themselves for godliness and again, every one of us, whether you again, it doesn’t, no matter what age you are, no matter what life situation you’re in, there are younger men that you can be discipling. That’s what we need to do and we need to understand personally, apply this and then, how can I live this out with others and so, that’s my challenge for you is, let’s look at the commands that we have in Scripture, let’s look at the way that God has shown us, how Jesus fulfilled this and then, let’s ask the Lord to use the spirit in his word to make us into godly men who are raising godly men.