Sermon Cloud

Intro.
    Do we have any men here today?  Don’t raise your hands or nod or stand up yet.  I want to know do we have any men here today.  Our culture is confused and caught between two extreme positions.  At the heart of both is insecurity in the man God calls men to be.  On one side there are the manly men to the extreme.  They take no prisoners, show no mercy or tenderness, stand up for what they like, always have to show and prove their authority.  Abusive about it.  They don’t even listen to their wives counsel.  They brag about how they can fight.  There’s never a fight they’ll walk away from.  Make sure everyone can see them when they flex their muscles.  They’re hairy, strong, red meat eating manly men.  The church as a whole has a few of these kind of men.  They may not know it, but they’re dead men with a brave front.
    On the other side is the opposite.  Here you have timid men.  Scared men.  Scared of the authority they’ve been given, prone to listen to the strange ideas that men and women are built exactly the same.  Prone to give in without any fight, despite what they believe.  There’s never a fight they won’t run from.  They are hairless, spineless, witless, scared men who’ve been stripped of all signs of Biblical masculinity.  The Church as a whole is full of these men.  They let everyone else make decisions.  They always defer to their wife to make a decision.  Ultimately they shrink away from any form of risk.  They have the sneaking suspicion that they’re not really even alive, but are just dead men walking.
    What happens in the church when these 2 extremes dominate it?  Insecurity.  The manly men are insecure to the extreme and can’t handle it when they don’t dominate, b/c it makes them appear weak.  These men are scared not to have authority.  The wimpy men are insecure to the other extreme and have to appear weak in order to keep from being given any decision making authority.  They’re not scared of not having authority they’re scared to death of authority.
    Somewhere in between these extremes is what the Bible calls a real man to be.  For the man transformed by Jesus, authority is a heavy responsibility meant to be exercised with great love and care, not a big stick to beat people with.  Strength is a quality used to nurture people the way Christ nurtured people, not a muscle to flex and show off.  A fight is reserved for those things that matter most, not just another opportunity to win.  Was there ever a perfect man?  Just one.  There was one man who showed us more truly than any other man what it means to be a real man.  Every other man is a shadow of the true man.  Some look more and some look much less like Him.
    One thing is for sure; the Church needs men patterned after Jesus, and not men patterned after whatever culture says.  That means we battle to take the extremes I just mentioned, the big manly man and the little wimpy man, and teach, model, lead, and strive to see God turn them into the perfect man, Jesus Christ.  We’ll never perfectly get there until He comes back.  But in the meantime, the Church DESPERATELY needs men to be sanctified towards becoming a REAL MAN.
    In the Bible there are only 2 kinds of men we’re to imitate.  Jesus.  And the other is men who are learning to be like Jesus, whether they know it or not.  Today, men, I want to challenge you from the example of Abraham as we find him in Hebrews 11.  Let’s read together then, Hebrews 11:8-12;17-19 (READ).  
I’m gonna give the context the shaft today b/c I have 4 points to challenge you with, and I want us to get out before this evening.  The main thing you need to remember from this whole section is that everything you see and hear flows from FAITH.  Faith is the common bond throughout this chapter, and specifically here in the life of Abraham.  Here’s what we’ll see this morning.  A Real Man of Faith:

 Gets His Marching Orders From God (8)
    Where do you get your orders from?  Verse 8, the writer of Hebrews says (READ).  You know this story.  Abraham’s family worshiped idols.  His dad worshiped idols, we’ll see that tonight.  Abraham didn’t know the real God.  But God knew Abraham.  He tells him, “I’d like for you to pack up everything, your family, possessions, your life, and I want you to leave home, but I’m not telling you where to go yet.  And when you get there you’ll have an inheritance, but I’m not telling you what it is.  Will you do that?”  And Abraham says, “Yes.”  He did it immediately.  He heard from the Lord, he answered yes, and he set off marching.  He didn’t know the promise of blessing from the Lord yet.  He didn’t know about the richness of the promised land yet.  He didn’t know any of those things, yet he took his orders from the One True God.
    What would we do today?  Here’s what most of us would do.  “Yes, I’ll go.  But, 1st you have to tell me where I’m going.  God show me your will ahead of time.  I have to know the whole thing before I go.  Where am I going?  What will I do when I get there?  What about my family?  They go to school here.  Their friends are here?  Well, maybe I won’t go.  UNLESS, you give me a sign.”  That’s not the answer real men of faith give.
    Men, to lead you family, to lead in your church, taking your marching orders directly from God is infinitely risky from a human perspective.  It looks crazy.  Think about Noah.  A righteous man among unrighteous people.  They thought he was out of his mind.  A boat for a flood that will kill us all!  Same for Abraham.  His family probably said, “You need to stay here, get your education, and get a nice job and settle down.  Who is this God anyway who told you to leave?”  
    Men are specifically called to lead in faith.  To lead the family.  To lead in the church.  Leading in faith means doing things that look risky, and in some ways are risky.  But the point of faith is taking action based on what you can’t see.  And the object is a God who is infinitely good, holy, loving, righteous, faithful.  So we move at God’s orders not b/c we know how it’ll turn out, but b/c we know the God who ordered us.  You can’t take your orders from a God you have no faith in.  You can’t take your orders from a God when you don’t understand faith in that God.  When you want to see the end from the very beginning.  That’s God’s job.  We’re not privileged to see that.  Men, to be a man, to take the lead, you must be ready when God says “Move,” to start marching.

 A Real Man of Faith Perseveres When Things are Hard (9)
    Look at verse 9 (READ).  B/c we have faith, men who are men will not give up when things look grim.  When pickings are slim.  Abraham moved.  God took him from place to place.  He lived like a nomad, wandering throughout the promised land, not even knowing that all the places there that he set his feet on would one day be given to his descendants.  God took him away from his home, to go live as a foreigner, a stranger in a land that wasn’t his.  He lived in tents with his family.
    Through the wanderings there were events that happened to test him to the limit.  He didn’t always pass with flying colors.  He lied twice about Sarah, his wife, saying that she was his sister.  But that’s not why we remember Abraham.  He kept on going.  He let his nephew Lot settle in the good places while Abraham took the not so good places.  Then he watched as the place Lot settled was destroyed, and as Lot’s wife was burned up.  It wasn’t all easy.
    Following God in faith is never easy, men.  You hear people say from time to time that the safest place to be is in God’s will, and in one sense that’s true, but not in the way we first think of it.  You’ve got a great job, men.  You’re making lots of money.  You family is set, your wife doesn’t have to work, your kids are taken care of, and then suddenly you find the overwhelming sense that God’s calling you to quit your job, and enter the ministry.  A hard place to be, you won’t make the same kind of money, you will struggle, it’s by no means a safe bet, but you say YES, b/c it’s God.  God led you to the place where you are, and you have to say to your wife, your kids, your grand kids, “I know this looks crazy.  I know this will be hard.  But God said do this, and we have to follow.”  And guess what?  That’s what will keep you going even when times are very hard.  We need men of faith, who will persevere in God’s will even when it’s hard.  How?  How do we persevere?  Look at verse 10 (READ)

 Real Men of Faith Trust Even When The Situation is Laughable (11)
    Look at verse 11 (READ).  This talks about Sarah, but this is the story that the Bible tells all throughout to show an example of real faith.  That God promised Abraham a descendent even though he was old, even though Sarah is old.  Everyone knows, we know, that an old, old woman can’t have a baby.  Abraham knew it.  Sarah knew it.  Abraham told Sarah, and the Bible says Sarah did what?  What did she do?  She laughed.  It’s laughable.  It’s not even remotely believable.  But God told Abraham this, and it says, “And he believed the Lord, and he counted to him as righteousness.”
    How many of you are doing something right now that God’s called you to do that is laughable?  Something you never would’ve believed in a million years.  You say, “I’m a Sunday School teacher, and that is laughable.”  “I’m a witness to Jesus everywhere I go and that’s laughable.”  “I’m a Christian.  I’m in Church.  Do you know what I used to be?  If you knew me then, you’d say that is laughable.”  That I’m in this pulpit is laughable.  I know myself.  I know who I was.  I know who I am.  But I’ve got the same God, you’ve got the same God that Abraham had.  And that’s the ONLY thing that makes our sometimes silly, ridiculous little lives not laughable.
    How many of you today, God IS telling you to do something that sounds laughable, and you just can’t believe it?  God’s saying, “You need to pray.  You need to teach.  You need to give.  You need to be a leader.”  And you’re laughing to yourself, saying, “I can’t do that.  I’m not capable of that.  I’m too old.  I’m not educated.  I can’t do it.”  And God says to you NOW, “That’s exactly right.  You can’t do it, and that’s the whole point!  I can.  I can, and that’s all that you need to know to believe me.”  Real men of faith trust, even when the situation, the promise, the call seems completely absurd and laughable.

 Real Men of Faith Believe Even When It’s Impossible (17-19)
    Look at verse 17-19 (READ).  This story will tear your heart out if you read it like it’s supposed to be read.  “Your son, Abraham.  I want you to give me your only son.  The son I promised to you.  The son Sarah laughed about.  The son who was the heir to the promise.  The one you waited patiently on.  GIVE ME YOUR SON ISAAC.”  And Abraham, like before, packed their things, took Isaac with him to the mountain, laid him on the altar before God almighty, and prepared to give away his only son.  And that, Church, is impossible to believe.
    I’d never give my daughters away?  I’d never sacrifice them, for anyone.  I would kill someone if I had to to protect them.  So would you.  But Hebrews tells us that Abraham believed that if he gave up his son, sacrificed on the altar before God, that God would RAISE him back up from the dead, into life, and THAT is impossible, but he believed that God can do anything.  And the man the Bible says was righteous, not b/c he was perfect but b/c of his faith, received a ram in the place of his son.
    DO you believe the impossible?  Men, today, do you believe that God is able to raise the dead?  He has.  He already has.  

Conclusion
    Real Men.  The common theme that unites all these things (REPEAT), is faith.  Real men have faith in Jesus Christ.  God sent Jesus, His only son, to be the sacrifice.  He never again called for a person to sacrifice their son.  He never will.  It’s been done.  It is finished.  Jesus paid everything for us.  We are righteous b/c He is righteous.  When God looks at believers, rebels, sinners, stained and marred, He sees Jesus.  Spotless.  Pure.  Without fault or blemish.  He is the only sacrifice God will ever accept, and there is NOTHING else.  
    We need men.  Our homes need real men of faith.  Our churches need real men of faith.  Men ready to forsake all for the sake of Jesus.  Men ready to stand up and lead us forward on the basis of God’s word, God’s promise.  You may think you’re a real man, but without Jesus you’re dead already.  You’re a sinful, selfish, scared little boy.  How can you respond today?  I’ll ask again.  Do we have any real men here today?