Needed: Real Men! - Part A

Want to know what a real man is? A real man is a spiritual man. A real man is God's man. A real man is a man who gathers with other men. And a real man is somebody who's not afraid or ashamed of being exposed to the light of God's truth. Our world desperately needs real men, but people don't even know what a real man is these days. And today on Connect with Skip Heitig, Skip begins his message, Needed Real Men, and looks at the example of Joshua to show you what real men look like.

But first, here's a resource that will encourage you as you connect with the heart songs of the Psalms. Someone once estimated the cost of the services that mothers perform. The amount was huge. We know moms don't do it for money. They do it out of love.

While we can't repay our mothers, we can honor them. Here's a great suggestion. It's a special bundle of resources we're calling the heart songs package. It features heart songs. There's a Psalm for that, a powerful five-part series led by Lenya and Janae Heitig designed to teach you to depend on God's love, power, and comfort in every season of life. You'll explore what the Psalms say about love, jealousy, fear, security, and longing.

Maybe you can think of a time when you really, really wanted something. This Psalm is kind of about that. It's this longing, this desire, this hunger that the Psalmist is expressing.

And his longing is for home. In addition to this encouraging series, you'll also receive the Sheology Quiet Time Journal, perfect for daily Bible reading to make notes as you follow the heart song series or for your personal prayer time. Plus, you'll get a bag of Skip's Library Roast Coffee, the coffee Pastor Skip chooses when he studies in his personal library. The heart songs packages are thanks for your gift to support the broadcast ministry of Connect with Skip Heitzig.

So request your heart songs package today when you give online securely at connectwithskip.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888. Okay, we're in Joshua 24 as we join Skip for today's teaching. I want to begin with the challenge to men. As I see it, guys, we have a choice. And this morning you have a choice.

Will you be one of God's thousands of disappointments or will you become one of the few of God's successes? There was a headline in the Boston Globe newspaper that simply said, wanted stout hearted men. And the article in part went on to say, what's wrong with America?

Lousy leadership, not just in government or politics, but in the business, labor, service and manufacturing fields, education and other big institutions and the media, too. The article went on to highlight a crisis in leadership in America, especially among men. What is a man? What is a real man? You've heard that be a real man.

What does that mean? When you think of the term real man, what do you think of? Does Tom Cruise come to your mind?

Good. Or Bruce Willis. Or maybe you think on the other end, Dr. Phil. Or maybe you think, no, no, no, a real man that's that Olympic athlete.

It's Michael Phelps or it's Ashton Eaton or one of the many that took gold. It's a real man. I think the problem is, or at least one of the problems is, is that you ask the question what a real man is or ought to be, and you're going to get so many different answers because we don't know as a culture how to answer that question. Psychology today in an article written by Jim Levine, who had perused several different books, literature on manhood.

He wrote this in that article. One thing that comes through loud and clear. The male is in crisis, buffeted by the woman's movement, constrained by a traditional and internalized definition of masculinity.

Men literally don't know who they are, what women want from them, or even what they want from themselves. Is the real man a fighter? Is he aggressive? Is he macho? Is he passive?

Is he restrained, quiet, or a combination of all the above? Three bikers walked into a cafe in Broken Bone, Nebraska. I don't know if you know where that is. It was a truck stop and these Hell's Angels walked in rough and tough. At the end of the coffee bar was a truck driver, a very short, small, framed, diminutive truck driver, peacefully eating his breakfast, drinking his coffee. One of the bikers walked up to the truck driver, grabbed the eggs off the plate, squished them in his hands and his yolk ripping down.

They were trying to create a fight, start trouble. The next biker took the man's bacon and started eating it and crushed the rest of it. The third biker took the poor man's coffee and just poured it into his lap. The truck driver, having the wherewithal to not create trouble with three Hell's Angels, quietly got up, walked over to the cash register, thanked the waitress, paid the bill, left a nice tip, and walked out the door. Leaving these three bikers befuddled, one of them said, he's not a real man. He's not much of a man. The waitress looking outside the window said, yeah, he's not much of a truck driver either.

He just ran over three motorcycles out in that parking lot. Let me tell you something. Let me tell you something. You want to think of a real man?

Think of Jesus Christ. He was a real man. He was kind. He was gentle.

He was sweet. The other hand, he could rebuke hypocrites and overturn tables in the temple. He would say to a woman caught in adultery, neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more. But to the Pharisees, you whitewashed walls, you bunch of slimy snakes.

You don't want to mess with them. In fact, get this, a national magazine did a survey asking men and women their idea of their ideal man. Jesus Christ got more votes from both men and women than anyone else. And they asked what traits would attract you to him or cause you to give us that answer.

And they said a caring attitude, intelligence, admirable morality, and sensitivity to others. Well, we come to the book of Joshua this morning, and it's a leader speaking to leaders. It's a man, Joshua, speaking to the men of his nation.

Joshua 24, a formal gathering at a very important place has taken place. Joshua used to be the second in command under Moses. He was like the VP. He was like the assistant pastor.

He was like the right hand guy. Now he's the man. But in chapter 24, Joshua is about 100 years old. So it's time for him to retire.

He sees the end of the road. He's passing on the mantle of leadership to a new generation. And so he wants to address them, and he does. And I love the fact that though he's approaching century mark, he's 100 years old, in chapter 23, it says, Joshua was well advanced in years. Isn't that a polite way to say he's really old?

I just like that. He was advanced in years. Last week I went to play golf, and the guy on the other side of the counter smiled, and he said, would you like the senior rate? I said, am I eligible for the senior rate? He looked at my license. Oh, yes. I said, then I want the senior rate.

Anything to save a buck. So Joshua stands before the people, and we're going to look at several verses. But this older gentleman with the perspective of years, with the perspective of the longer gaze that he didn't have when he was younger, gives to these men and to us men three steps that will help us climb up to the level of what I'm calling a real man. Step number one, present yourself to God. That's the first step, men. Let's present ourselves to God. Let him examine us. Let him deal with us.

That's always the first step. Verse one, Joshua 24, then Joshua, gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem and called for the elders of Israel, for their heads, for their judges, for their officers, and they presented themselves before God. Literally, they took up their station before God.

That's what it means. The wording indicates a formal gathering of men who would stand and take up their station to be examined and to be commissioned before God. Now, where are they? At a place called, it says in your text, Shechem. A very important piece of their history.

It would be sort of like American men gathering at Plymouth Rock or Gettysburg, perhaps, or The Wall in Washington, D.C. It's a very significant place, Shechem. But more than that, Joshua wanted them to come to Shechem because Shechem would inspire spiritual accountability.

Let me explain. The first covenant God ever made with Abraham, their forefather, was at Shechem. The bones of Joseph, once they were taken from Egypt, were brought and buried in Shechem. Joshua previously, earlier in his life, in chapter 8 of this book, brought the people of Israel there to reaffirm a covenant at Shechem. And the tabernacle, that holy tent where people would meet with God, was pitched at this time at Shechem. So in a place rich with spiritual history, Joshua calls the men to stand with each other, stand in God's presence, stand by the sanctuary, and stand and be challenged with God's truth. That's the idea of presenting themselves before the Lord.

You see, Israel had a rocky past, and they would have a tough future. And Joshua wants to know that he's giving the leadership into the hands of real men. So you want to know what a real man is? A real man is a spiritual man. A real man is God's man. A real man is a man who gathers with other men. And a real man is somebody who's not afraid or ashamed of being exposed to the light of God's truth.

That's what's happening here. And what's happening here is what Paul says should be happening now. Romans chapter 12, verse 1. I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you, remember the word, present yourselves as a living sacrifice to God, holy and acceptable, which is your reasonable service.

Men, let me ask you a question. Is there somebody in your life that asks you the tough questions, probing questions, questions about why you do what you do, how you're really doing at home, what you're watching, what you're listening to? Some of the best memories I have of mentors of mine have been the times they've sat me down and asked me the tough questions. Socrates said the unexamined life is not worth living. And the idea isn't just self-examination, but doing it before the Lord. Examine your life in the presence of God.

Letting God by His Spirit reveal what's really going on inside of your thought life, your personal life, your dream life. David put it this way, Psalm 26, as a prayer. Examine me, O Lord.

Improve me. Try me and my heart. Psalm 139. Search me, O God, and know my heart. Test me and know my thoughts. Hey, let's do that, men, today.

Let's just sort of see this as a divine appointment by God. We're here. We're gathered together, some of us with our wives, our families, but we're here before God.

I stand with you, not apart from you, and we're asking the Holy Spirit to do deep things and search us deeply in this assembly, to shine the white-hot spotlight of His holiness into our lives. You go, I don't know if I want to do that. Somebody said that most of us don't like to look inside of ourselves for the same reason we don't like to look at a letter that has bad news. I don't know if I like what I'll find if I look deep inside me. But the point, again, is not self-examination.

It's doing it in the presence of God. It's saying, Lord, here I am, naked and open before You. Reveal who I am. Show me where I failed as a man, and help me from this point on to be what You want me to be. That was the thought of David in the psalm I just quoted, Psalm 139, when he said, Search me, O God, know my heart, try me and know my thoughts. Listen, see if there be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. That's what it means to present yourself to God. That's always the first step. Be honest before God. Step number two, after you present yourself to God, is to peruse your spiritual journey, your history.

Peruse means to examine carefully, to consider in depth. And that's what Joshua does, beginning in verse two. Joshua said to all the people, Thus says the Lord God of Israel, Your fathers, including Terah the father of Abraham and the father of Nahor, dwelt on the other side of the river in old times, and they served other gods. And then I took your father Abraham from the other side of the river, the Euphrates, led him throughout all the land of Canaan, multiplied his descendants, gave him Isaac. To Isaac I gave Jacob and Esau.

To Esau I gave the mountains of Seir to possess. But Jacob and his children went down to Egypt. So I sent Moses and Aaron, and I plagued Egypt according to what I did among them. Afterward I brought you out. Then I brought your fathers out of Egypt, and you came to the sea, and the Egyptians pursued your fathers with chariots and horsemen to the Red Sea. So they cried out to the Lord. He put darkness between you and the Egyptians and brought the sea upon them and covered them, and your eyes saw what I did in Egypt. Then you dwelt a long time in the wilderness.

Yeah, 40 years is a long time. And I brought you into the land of the Amorites, who dwelt on the other side of the Jordan, and they fought with you, but I gave them into your hand that you might possess their land, and I destroyed them before you. Then Balak, the son of Zippor, the king of Moab, arose to make war against Israel, and sent and called Balaam, the son of Beor, to curse you. But I would not listen to Balaam, therefore he continued to bless you. So I delivered you out of his hand.

Then you went over the Jordan and came to Jericho, and the men of Jericho fought against you, also the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Gergashites, the Hittites, the Jebusites, the termites and the out-of-sights, and everybody else. But I delivered them into your hand. I sent the hornet before you, which drove them out before you, also the two kings of the Amorites, but not with your sword or with your bow. I have given you a land for which you did not labor. That's grace. And cities which you did not build, that's grace upon grace. And you dwell in them. You eat of the vineyards and the olive groves, which you did not plant.

Now, therefore, stop there. What does he do? What is he doing? He's telling a story. He's an old guy, kind of like talking, reminiscing about way back then, then this happened.

Why is he doing this? He's reviewing their history. They loved history geographically and spiritually. Geographically, you started in Mesopotamia. I brought you to Canaan. Then you went down to Egypt. Then I brought you back here to Canaan.

But more than that, spiritually understand where you have come from. Your ancestors were idol worshipers. I brought them out of that idol worshiping area into this land. These people here were idol worshipers. Then you went down to Egypt.

Those guys were idol worshipers. Then I brought you back here. And now you serve me, the only true and living God.

Something else I want you to notice. Do you notice that Joshua speaks in the first person in much of this, as if God is speaking through him. He says, Thus says the Lord, I took you, I gave you, I sent, I brought you out. I brought your fathers out. I brought you into the land.

I delivered you. Why is Joshua reaching all the way back in their history in this final speech that he gives to men? Here's why. Joshua is using hindsight to produce insight. Listen men, hindsight properly utilized will produce insight.

He's calling on them to make a choice in the final two verses that we're going to read. Before he calls on them to make the choice, he wants to use hindsight to produce insight. It's always good to look back and remember your past. Let me qualify that. As long as you don't let your past weigh you down. Some people just live in their past. It's what happened 10 years ago.

It's what happened 20 years ago. It's good to be in touch with that, but now get over it and move on. But your past properly used can be a great motivation. Don't let it be a weight. Let it be a wing. Don't let it be an anchor.

Let it be a sail. But it's good to remember where you've come from because that helps you know where you're going. Listen to Isaiah chapter 51. God speaking to the prophet says, Look to the rock from which you were hewn and to the hole of the pit from which you were dug. There's an old saying that says, You can tell the depth of a well by how much rope has to be lowered. I'll just tell you right now, God lowered a lot of rope into my pit to get me out of it. And real men will remember where they come from, and real men will be in touch with what God has done in them and the goodness of God to them.

I'll give you a simple suggestion. Learn to recite your personal testimony. Some of you don't even know what a personal testimony is, perhaps. Your personal testimony is how you came to Christ, and your testimony should include who you were before you met Jesus, why you were attracted to Christ, how he changed your life, and what you've become since then. Those are elements of your testimony.

You can do it in a short, sweet presentation, but you can pull that baby out, and it can be a very powerful tool, and it helps you remember where you've come from. You present yourself to God. You peruse your spiritual journey, and those two steps lead us now to the third, and that's the step of choice. That's where you pick your course of action, the last two verses, verse 14 and 15.

That's what we're gonna cover here. Now, therefore, says Joshua, Fear the Lord, serve him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your father served on the other side of the river and in Egypt. Serve the Lord. And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your father served that were on the other side of the river or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell, but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

It's a funny thing about people and these people notwithstanding. Joshua says now it might seem wrong for you to serve the only true and living God. In other words, he knew that these people had a proclivity, a propensity, a bent to go backslide and to worship false gods. It had been part of their history.

It was even part of their ongoing process. So he calls on them publicly presenting themselves in the presence of God to make a choice. And what are the first two words of verse 14? Now, therefore, and those words simply mean based on all that I just said, therefore, that's the transitional word, make a choice. In other words, the choice that I'm demanding that you make is the logical result of what God has done. By the way, every sermon you and I hear should always have a now, therefore. Every truth you're ever exposed to should always have a now, therefore.

Every radio program, television message, book that you read should always have a now, therefore. That is, when you and I hear truth, we should make a choice to implement it because you know what happens if you don't make that choice? You've just made a choice not to do it. And when you choose not to do it, pretty soon you just get good at hearing sermons, hearing sermons, hearing sermons, marginalizing what you hear, not applying it to your life, and your heart gets calloused. And all you do is become a sermon connoisseur.

I give a scale of one to 10, I'll give that a six. Who cares if you grade it or not? Now, therefore, when we're confronted with the truth. Now, why is that so important to make a choice? Here's why. I think it's safe to say that you are today a summation of the choices you have made up to this point.

Would that be right? You are who you are. Your personality is simply the totality of all the choices you have made in your life because here's the dynamic. You make the choice, and then your choice will turn around and make you.

You make the decision, and then the decision will turn and will make you. So he says, choose this day whom you will serve. That wraps up Skip Heitzig's message from his series Keep Calm and Marry On.

Find the full message as well as books, booklets, and full teaching series at connectwithskip.com. Now, let's go in the studio with Skip and Lenya with news about a trip to Israel you can take. I'm guessing that many of you have thought about, talked about, maybe even dreamed about visiting Israel.

Well, let's make that happen. Lenya and I are taking a tour group to Israel next summer in 2024. And I can't wait. We'll start in Tel Aviv, head north to Nazareth, the Sea of Galilee, and the Jordan River. We'll spend several days in Jerusalem and see the Garden of Gethsemane, the Upper Room, and so much more. And we'll wrap it all up with a swim in the Dead Sea. Now, I've been to Israel many times, like over 40. In fact, I can honestly say, though, that visiting the places where the Scriptures unfolded, where Jesus lived out his earthly ministry, it never gets old.

No, it doesn't. The incredible sightseeing will be punctuated by times of worship and teachings that you'll never forget. And Jeremy Camp and Adie Camp will be with us to lead worship, make plans to join us next summer in Israel. See the itinerary and book this Israel tour with Pastor Skip Heitzig at inspirationcruises.com slash C-A-B-Q. That's inspirationcruises.com slash C-A-B-Q. Be sure to come back next week as Skip concludes his message, Needing Real Man. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.