A Generation Without Men

On the day I planned to depart from Atlanta (after Okey and Leslie's AWESOME wedding!) , I got an opportunity to go to my boy Nnamdi’s house briefly before going to the train station. While there, his uncle unexpectedly told all of us to sit down. He read a few verses in Hebrews that morning and wanted to discuss them with us with the intention of thanking us for coming to the wedding and encouraging us before we parted ways. This experience was one that I had grown accustomed to over the years due to my close connection to the family and my late uncle Richards family leadership. As we sat together on the sectional, leaning forward and listening intently as our uncle explained the verses being read by Uzoma, I felt a bit eerie. Every time this man talked, laughed or made an expression, I couldn’t help but to remember my late uncle who played such a significant fatherly role in my life. In my 11 years of walking with the Lord, I have not had any other man show me so closely what it means to be a father who strives to honor God in the raising of his children. He is the only man in my 11 years of walking with the Lord that ever sent everyone out of the room, sat me down, and had a man to man talk with me about a concern he saw in my life and to advise me concerning manhood….I was 29 years old at the time. He is the only man I have ever seen model what it means to lead a family.  I can remember several occasions where he would randomly sit his family and anyone else in the house down and use the opportunity to discuss the issues of life, teach us with story's from his life, discuss the mysteries of God, and remind us of our responsibility as growing adults to lead and be prepared for life. Needless to say, his passing left a significant void in my life. I remember recently sending a message to his Facebook inbox that read “I miss you uncle. So much to say, so many questions to ask.” Those words have gone through my head in so many of my difficult moments.


As we came to a close of the brief exhortation and prayer, Nnamdi said something to me that he has expressed many times and said for the second time during this particular weekend. He mentioned how challenging, and at times scary, it is for him as the oldest son in the family to attempt to fill the shoes of his father. It’s not only the fact that his father, by the life he lived, left huge shoes to fill, it’s also the way just about every man in his large family has set a high standard in word and deed of what it means to lead. I never got a chance to respond, but as I’ve had a chance to think about it, I’m kind of puzzled. It’s one thing to be humbled and challenged at the example you were shown daily of what it means to lead with the tough and tender hand that is necessary for a man to have when shepherding his family (and uncle Richard was a SICK example of this)…..it’s another thing to aspire to lead in this way knowing that you haven’t had any examples of what it means to be a man of God who leads in his home. I did have my father in the home growing up and I care deeply for him, but there is a vast difference between having an unbelieving father and one who strongly pursues a life that is shaped by the gospel and expresses it in how he loves his wife and raises his children.


Sadly, there are way too many men who do not have the challenge of having large shoes to fill. Instead many are left to fend for themselves; to attempt to be the first to purchase a pair of shoes and wear them well. But by God’s grace, I’m encouraged that we have not been left to fend for ourselves. My first teacher has been the word of God. The scriptures set in front of me a command to refrain from living idly, to be responsible, to work hard, to lead boldly and to love gently and generously. They also lay in front of me the ultimate example of what it means to be a man – Jesus Christ. Despite pop cultures depiction of a feminine, passive, long haired hippie-king, the scripture describes Christ as a man who worked hard, who was responsible for himself and was able to sacrificially lead and be responsible for others. The scriptures depict him as a man who was fearless in the face of opposition, from both the religious and ungodly and from the cultural norms and the demands that they presented which often stood in opposition to what God was all about. The scripture describes him as a man who was willing to stand alone and not shrink, even when he spoke before men he knew wanted him dead. A man who suffered for the sake of others without complaining.  They describe him as a man who was neither passive nor domineering; the two positions all men lean toward due to the fall. And along with all of this, the scriptures describe him as a man who was loving and compassionate, a man who loved children and could sympathize with the pain and sufferings of those around him. This is the example we have been given and this is the kind of manhood that we have been called to.


So yeah....we have MASSIVE shoes to fill! It's a wonder that fathers don't take the scriptures example of fatherhood seriously, especially those who claim to be Christ followers. Many men in the church are actually raising their sons to chase after the Christian version of the American Dream; education, money, a hot wife and a life of ease and comfort.....oh yeah, and God.  Sidebar::: doesn't that sound like Lil Wayne thanking God after winning a Grammy.....only because "without him, none of the crap I've selfishly acquired for myself would be possible."  As a result, we have an epidemic of 30-something year old boys who have not been prepared to lead themselves and certainly should not be allowed within 50 yards of a wife and kids. And many of them, though they claim Christ, life effectually as atheists in terms of what shapes how they live, their views of marriage/family, and their views of the BASICS of Christianity. All of the things just listed seem to be shaped more by the Godless contemporary culture than the gospel.
I don't feel like we have taken seriously the trend in our culture that has even crept deeply into the church. In the last year, more than ever before, I have learned that there is a cost to living out biblical manhood. It is the cost of Christianity.....everything. It is laying down your life as Christ laid his down for the church. God has called men to be the primary discipler of their children and wife.  He has called men to teach, to lead, to love and to live sacrificially.  He has called men to work hard, to have a Christ centered vision for their homes.  He has called us to raise children who, contrary to the cultural norm, have a CHRIST CENTERED vision for their lives and hearts that are ready to give themselves away at an early age for the purposes of Christ. This is normal Christianity. Not the next level......the only level. 


My brother Nnamdi and I had two very different experiences in the home, but the task set before us is the same. Though he got to see his father transformed by Christ and see an example of a man who leads with his eyes set on Christ, there is still the similar difficult task of striving to be men who know God, know the scripture, and bring up children that are the beginning of multigenerational faithfulness in our families. And not only to do this in the context of our families, but to be the kind of men in the church that uncle Richard was to me.  To, at times, be called out by men older than us and boldly stand for the offensive truths of the gospel that may conflict with our culture, and one day raise sons that have their eyes fixed firmly on eternal purposes in a world where everything in our culture marginalizes or misinterprets manhood.


I'll close with a prayer that Mark Driscoll prays with his son almost every night, not only for his son, for himself as well.  It reflects the kind of men we need........


“God, make me a man with thick skin and a soft heart. Make me a man who is tough and tender. Make me tough so I can handle life. Make me tender so I can love people. God, make me a man.”


I also leave you with two links....
One with the problem  :::  The Omega Male
Two with the solution  :::  Sermon by Mark Driscoll ::: Sermon by Voddie Baucham