Men Are Struggling. Here's the Conversation We Need.

to make no mistake about it the direction of the home it flows through to men and that's not just for us to be chauvinistic about it is a responsibility and a mandate that quite frankly we see that Ball's been dropped in society as a whole is reflective of that and when I think of toxic masculinity I don't think for the strong man I think of a man with no chest I think they see us Lewis talked about that the chest quite a bit I think about the weak man because weak men have the ability to do more damage in society than the strong man they're more of a threat because there's no identity there's no confidence there's no meekness which is that controlled strength and it's often the weak men the one who don't feel heard who don't feel understand that end up going out and carrying out some of these crazy acts of violence that we've seen in our culture over the years it's typically The Loner the isolated guy has no friends has no family and then one day he just snaps and goes out and goes crazy and masculinity true masculinity is the antidote for that Godly masculinity it is the antidote for that type of stuff that we're seeing in our culture I saw Patrick Bet David I don't know if you're familiar with him he's he's got a huge podcast he started out with leadership and Entrepreneurship and now he does a lot more stuff like cultural events and current events and he put a video up just a couple days ago talking about the father issue in America and the fatherhood of Crisis really and how the father absence in our country is some of the statistics and I can't recall them off the top right now but they're at an all-time high of children that are being raised in the home without dads and then you start to look at guys and culture come into the surface and Andrew Tate is a name that's on everybody's lips right now if you're not familiar with Andrew either you've been living under the Rocks I'm certainly probably seeing someone people not you we talked about Andrew before the show but in general he it was one of the most Google searched man men on the planet and you see a guy like this come to prominence and create so much popularity in such a short period of time and very type a macho masculine I got all the cars I got all the girls I'm making all the money type guy and how much a guy like that resonates with the young men in our culture and I was just interested to try to connect the two right on as one a symptom of the other I and you maybe just we'll just start there and hear some of your thoughts yeah definitely we definitely have a void particularly definitely in my ethnic background definitely my ethnic family as far as black Americans with the Advent of the Great Society we went from 77 of 2 parent home to now probably in the low 20s and how that's affected children and how it's just totally shifted the culture as far as Black Culture so and obviously the other ethnicities have caught up as far as that dysfunction goes of not staying not being committed to our families not being committed to the vows that we take when we get married so a strong a strong because of that void there are guys that can come in like an Andrew Tate that and also as another issue we're in an increasingly effeminate Society where feminism is being promoted we have a term called toxic Max masculinity now as we're trying to persuade people away from authentic manhood the rugged John Wayne figures of our movies from the 70s the Clint eastwoods all those things we've moved away from those things we're seeing more and more if you will beta type males in society now rather than the alpha males like an Andrew Tate I'm I'm sure you've probably even heard of Kevin Samuels who passed away recently in some of the straight shooting things that he said to women that call in and question him yeah and so those type of Straight Shooters are they don't really people don't really know how to receive them but there is an attraction that draws people to that I think a lot of men probably look at an Andrew Tate or Kevin Samuels wishing that they could be that way privately even if they even but even if they don't really want to admit that because that is again that's what we came from strong male types there's a reason we love football we love the contact we love the competition that's just innate in her and our makeup as men and so we see we've seen a gradual softening of society to where again men are being pushed away from the table as we see more and more females take leadership roles be more vocal I'm I still I admit them I have trouble sometimes when I watch a sporting car a sports show maybe on TV and I see a whole panel of women debating football and I'm like wait a minute where's the guys at we're I'm not a chauvinist at all but I'm from way back when we had maybe one woman back or in the early days of CBS Phyllis George be on there with Brent Musburger and some of these other guys and now we see so many women and again I don't have a problem with seeing women rise to the Forefront and do some things like that but I think there's just an under there's an underlying push away from authentic manhood I was just thinking about it this morning we've got we've had a void really we used to have Promise Keepers movements back in the 90s where men got together and went to stadiums and worshiped together ate together and talked about male things fathers would take their sons and and we've we have a void there because of again there's an outright war that can't be argued against manhood against masculinity yeah and we're seeing it with the rise of the transgender thing the rise of genders dysphoria and all these different things that are coming from the fact that we're we're now preaching non-binary we're preaching subjective decisions based on what you think you are you feeling the moment yeah and we did a series on that at my church back in on the fall and there's a book on by a guy by the name of Chase rapley Oak it's called the five masculine instincts and really talks about the that crisis that men are going through in general because all masculinity has been labeled as toxic and gender gender is so fluid now there it's it's it's against the cultural current to celebrate the differences and the distinct differences of men and women and if we celebrate even traditional gender roles like in my home I work and my wife is home with the children and it's not to say she couldn't go out and get a job if she wanted to but we both find deep value and doing what we feel like God has designed us to do and yeah she can do things that I can't do I do things that she can't do and I think there's there's some of this mindset whereas if you Embrace any type of masculinity in today's culture it's really pushed back woman and Andrew Tay is the extreme and I think a lot of people do on he gets the attention because I think he just says what's on his mind and he's very clear he's very direct and I've almost wondered if some of it isn't for the clicks right and some of it isn't a show as Extreme as he goes sometimes but even saying things like he said in the past where I'm it's my duty to protect my wife oh that's chauvinistic I don't know it isn't like it's my duty now there's a lot of controversy around him now apparently he's been hemmed up on some charges and I don't want to say that I'm I'm a fan of any of that a dude has been convicted of human trafficking or he's guilty of it then he needs to be put in jail and so there's there's no question there I don't want anybody listening to get the wrong idea that my conversation about him is an endorsement of that type of behavior but even guys like Jordan Peterson when he came on the scene he was initially like just speaking out about masculine issues and encouraging men to make their beds and stand up with their shoulders back he was drunk through the mud by the left leading media like as a as toxic masculinity and why are you so angry and conversely when you get into some of the common feeds on his videos you're hearing young men thank you Jordan you saved my life in some of his books and so it's just you're right there is this huge push in culture just you really just discount masculinity and it's not it is difficult I think in today's culture to try to find our place as men when everything's been so blurred it's raising I'm raising three young men now three boys my wife like your wife when we were raising young kids she didn't work she she eventually took some work as the kids got a little older and gave her a little more freedom from from mothering but that's that's a role that nowadays whether you're opening a door for a woman do women even want that anymore pain for dinner paying for dinner they're like I could pay for my own dinner that's okay it used to be right that thing used to be how it was ingrained in us that the man is supposed to take care of things and trust me I believe there comes a point in relationships whether it's marriage or not where women want that whether they can really articulate it or not whether they really think through with it I think they want it deep down I think they would appreciate it over time versus a husband that well he's up he's playing PlayStation all night long and sleeping all day and I'm working after a while that relationship's not going to work so again they're going to step back into a Biblical worldview at some point because that's the way God designed it and that's God designed human relationship God put those God built us that way for a reason and no matter what's going on in the culture it comes back to what the way God does things is what works it's it's it's proven it's time tested and we're going to see challenges more and more as we go as we continue to venture away from what his original design was for us so do you think that some of this battle on masculinity and the culture has on led to some of the fatherlessness and homes is there a tie in there what do you think has contributed to if you had to put your thumb on it and solve this problem in just a moment on a conversation if what do you think causes that well I think probably the boomer generation that ended around the 60s they were committed to marriage they were committed to the original whether their marriages were great or not they did not divorce and they raised their kids with those values and so I believe as we started to see more and more breakups the husband is the cover the spiritual covering for the wife and the children and so as you take that covering away and the woman takes on a role that's not hers she's not equipped for it spiritually or physically so you have single moms raising kids those kids are without a male and we can I've seen some a lot of statistics on the fact where father absences is men are more likely to be incarcerated women are more like girls are more likely to have teenage pregnancies and all those different things and then you have an epidemic where you've got now you've got teenage moms and so that next Generation behind them is compromised and then so down through the years we've seen to where we where we are now where kids are questioning their identities well your identity where's our identity as Christians come from it comes from God our Father so fathers in a home are very key for Sons very key for daughters not to offend any of our female listeners but it really is important that identity is really passed down through the father we are the seat we are the carries of the seed we're the ones that we're the ones that set the tone for our homes we're the ones that we should be the role model we should be what our daughters are looking to find when they want to mate we should be what our sons aspire to be again Mom I'm not taking away the role of moms they're they're nurturing role is very key but the direction make no mistake about it the direction of the home it flows through to men and that's not just for us to be chauvinistic about it is a responsibility and a mandate that quite frankly we see that Ball's been dropped and society as a whole is reflective of that yeah it really is yeah I think that's the challenge of not being able to celebrate or the loss of celebration around each individual gender and what God designed each gender to do and this whole toxic chauvinistic mindset and really just trying to silence that debate it's like this isn't about Freedom a woman a woman and a man could choose to do whatever they want they have the same opportunities but just because they the can doesn't mean there aren't some things that God uniquely gifted each of us to do and so I think when we take that away from one gender or the other we're really missing the beauty and what God created us to be as male and female and these some of these situations I think you've seen you've heard stories of people that have come up in single apparent households and have done really well and it's a it's certainly able to be done but just because it can be done and the exception doesn't mean it has to be the rule right and that's what we've said it's like by celebrating the fact that a two-parent home is going to ultimately be the best scenario for a child it's like well what about the people that only have one parent well I'm not knocking that and I believe that God can work and that child can be raised up and be successful in a one-parent home but just because that's happened by certain circumstances doesn't mean we should want that to happen in every scenario it's not taking anything away from those people and that seems to be like an issue of culture as well today it's like I think if I speak out and I say the yellow is my favorite color it's in culture today it's like what about the other fathers why do you hate them all it's like no it's it's just my favorite it's just my idea of what a good color is I like yellow and a lot of people don't like it but it's like of course there's an ability for us to move and be successful in the exception my words and I'll jump it up excuse me but there is a design I think we should see to follow that design that God has laid out the original design in the garden was wasn't for man to sin not to eat from the Tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil so once that sin was Unleashed didn't mean that God had some great examples of Grace all through out the Bible where we had Noah who walked uprightly we had Abraham we had a lot of these guys that did it right but then the midst of dysfunction but God's original will was not for sin to enter into the world and so yeah I'm the product of a single mom but I had some solid my grandpa my grandmother my grand they really poured into me and so I made the determination when I met my wife that we're gonna have to start with our kids and the in the tragic part of it is that whatever generation drops the ball really forces the Next Generation to have to find those values out in society I found them I found fathers and baseball coaches I found fathers and teachers the scary thing which obviously is on our topic for the day but where do people go now because you've got teachers that grooming you've got all kinds of those situations in the schools that you really can't count on anymore to find solid Role Models so you force your kids into a culture when you abandon them you force them to try to find their identity in a place that's incredibly broken and so we find things like gender dysphoria kids struggling with identity suicide all those different things they come because those kids have been uncovered and when they're uncovered the enemy just he's hated life from the beginning and so he wants to come obviously at the most vulnerable society to tame it before it ever gets started it and so again part of our mandate is men is we've got to guard and we've got to govern we've got the shepherd we've got to protect and when there's no Shepherd there the this when the Sheepfold is left unguarded the wolves come yeah and they circle back when that identity piece will be professionally started this top this section of the conversation was you look at an audience of a guy like Tate or Peterson and it's predominantly young men and it tells me that despite what Society is trying to push down our throats and trying to push that masculinity is not important and everything's just fluid and you do what you want be what you want yada there's a hunger and these young men for somebody to speak identity into them they wouldn't be watching if there wasn't they'd want somebody to tell them even I go back to Peterson because one of his viral Clips in the beginning was him telling get up out of bed in the morning and make it and people joke about that make you mad but it's a starting point and simple practical advice like that those are things that we get from our parents we get from our fathers they tell us that and when there's that vacuum somebody like Peterson comes along and just says the common sense thing that we all know but for some of these young men it's life-changing because somebody's speaking instruction into them and so if as Kingdom men we're not whether that be in our own homes or going beyond that and as you were mentioning you had other men in your life as you were being raised that spoke identity into you like we have to understand that as a kingdom mandate there is a vacuum in this culture for strong male figures and if we're not filling that void then these men will find somebody and then masculinity in that regard when it's not filled with Godly masculinity does become toxic right it does become toxic masculinity and when I think of toxic masculinity I don't think they're the strong man I think of a man with no chest I think they see us Lewis talked about that the chest quite a bit I think about the weak man because weak men have the ability to do more damage in society than the strong man they're more of a threat because there's no identity there's no confidence there's no meekness which is that control controlled strength and it's often the weak men the one who don't feel heard who don't feel understand that end up going out and carrying out some of these crazy acts of violence that we've seen in our culture over the years it's typically The Loner the isolated guy has no friends has no family and then one day he just snaps and goes out and goes crazy and masculinity true masculinity is the antidote for that Godly masculinity it is the antidote for that type of stuff that we're seeing in our culture yeah Once Upon a Time we'd have policemen come to schools for career day or they were highly thought of and that's a symbol of security in our society that's someone as a young kid you run to a police officer when you feel threatened so that's that's what we came from to where we are now where we again where we because of the fatherless absence and the whole thing of just baby daddies that are just planting seeds doing the Nick Cannon thing of just I haven't seen how many kids you can have but not really stewards I think he's up to 12 but a whole set of disciples we can be a father doesn't mean that we should be a father and so again that's that's it's backed us we've been dancing around the whole thing about stewardship which is what masculinity really is about because we've been made we're we're called the head not because we're dominating but because that's a place of of responsibility yeah that's a word that responsible and accountability I've probably preached that so often are just two of the really hard words for people to really want to embrace today because it makes them have to be responsible they can't just they can't just say whoops you've got to have a plan you've got to have a way of doing things if you're going to bear fruit the greatness of Jesus throughout the Bible of talking about what simple things talking about C talking about rocks talking about building your house on Rock versus sand all those things break down into all of life that if we just pay attention to those simple little stories and realize that they're while they're simple they're talking about deep truths that if we perk our ears up we can hear what he's saying he's he's giving us the pattern throughout all of out of his word to to deal with all the Human Relationships yeah and and so as you said earlier men are given a certain role women are giving a certain role if we're the head it doesn't mean that well I'm going to dominate my wife and she's got to she's got to do what I say and she's under my feet yeah it's not going to know yeah I was gonna say it's not glorious from a Biblical standpoint like it's not authoritative it's not a control thing because the Bible tells me that I have to love my wife as Christ left the church and that means being willing to give my life up even to the point of death for my wife and my family and it's a position of service and sacrifice so a lot of times these biblical models it's all about control it's all about authority over women not at all it's about me being willing to say I'm I'm willing to put myself aside and serve my wife just as Jesus did for me and if that comes with insult if that comes with revolve comes with persecution or even potentially death it's my mandate to love Christ as Christ left the church and I made this comment when I preached on this a few years ago a few months ago when we talked about masculinity I said if our job is men is to love Christ as Christ of the church that I have to understand that even if there's a conflict and I'm 99.9 right it's still my responsibility to initiate reset reconciliation that doesn't mean that my wife can't do it but if I think about the way Christ handled reconciliation he made the decision to go even when we were a hundred percent wrong he was still willing to go and do what was necessary to reconcile our sins and so I find that when there's a mess in my house or there's conflict even if I'm Justified and I'm correct if I'm loving Christ if I'm loving my wife as Christ loved the church that means I'm I'm going to come hand in hand and I'm going to say what I'm sorry I blew it let's fix this and go from that direction Terraces we wrap up I just wanted to ask you one question to close things out let's just say there's a if 16 to 20 something young men listening to us have this conversation around masculinity maybe catches this clip in whatever form it ends up on social media what would you say for a young man like that's struggling to find his identity and if you just had to give one piece of encouragement I can't really make heads or tails I don't know who I am what type of advice or word of encouragement would you give to him well I would hope if he's not in a church Community that'd be my first suggestion for him to or to find a place and look for him and if he's a child that doesn't have if he's a young man that doesn't have a father influence in his life look around and see see who's doing it see who's fathering their children well who's consistent at working and try to connect and try to glean from someone who's done it what I was struggling to articulate earlier some of the things that Jesus said talked about fathers Fathers and Sons mothers and stealing in daughters that society prepares we don't have mothers with daughters in the kitchen anymore so girls going to marriage and you might be lucky to get something made in the microwave for dinner or you're going out to dinner and again because the definitions have changed in our society now what do you want me barefoot and pregnant and staying in the kitchen no but learning how to be a wife the Bible says he who finds a wife finds a good thing and I don't want to get away from the get on a tangent away from what you originally said and I feel myself going there so let me rail myself back what will we say to that young man again we need to find someone who looks solid to you and the scary thing is what does solid look like for that young man again I guess being in the church and being in a solid church and I'm hearing you talk about that you're doing you've had sermons about masculinity I don't know if how incredibly rare that is in the in today's day and age to even Broach those subjects I think we need to once again go back to having more and more more and more older mothers are coming alongside young married daughters and young married women and just Chef or stewarding them through marriage what would happen if a woman who's struggling in her marriage has an older female to that's got an established relationship for years of being able to go to her and say look how do I navigate through this same way with young men having older men the older men are to teach the younger men the older women are to teach the younger men there again there's that void where that's there's that void of stewardship and so we get the fruit of what we see in society because we have not stewarded properly stored it and so that young man 16 to 20 and I won't and I would say because of being a Christian obviously I'm going to point you to the church but I found solid Role Models through Athletics I found them in other places other than the church and I guess I could say I was blessed I found a really good Role Models because I didn't have a father but they really I would really suggest the church first and also find a man who's in a long-term marriage that's that's solid and it's his employment solid in his values upstanding and latch on to him and let him it's tough out there I understand and I know you do as well as I want to be that as my kids grow older I want to make myself available to to be a part of that process for someone else hopefully someone's watching my life and saying I want to be I want to be more upright like this like Terence is hopefully I believe my sons are watching me and so that's that's what we have to do that's and that's what I hope any young man is who may watch this go find someone who's doing it someone who's someone who's solid in their relationship not someone that's going from Woman to Woman someone that's going from job to job someone who's got children all over the place find a person who's in a solid established family and latch on to them that's what I would say amen yeah that's really good so Terence where can people find you if they want to connect with you on social media I'm on Facebook I'm on Instagram I'm on Twitter I'm definitely not hard to find I'm pretty vocal I'm pretty out there quite a bit