“Becoming a Man”
(Luke 2:52)
Dr. Richard S. Koole
Chapel Pointe
July 19, 2009
I. Introduction
A. Making up for Fathers Day
B. Why men are happier than women
- The garage is all ours.
- Wedding plans take care of themselves.
- Car mechanics tell us the truth.
- We never have to drive to another gas station restroom because this one is just too icky.
- Phone conversations are over in 30 seconds flat.
- We can open all our own jars.
- We get extra credit for even the slightest act of thoughtfulness.
- If someone forgets to invite us to something, he can still be our friend.
- We almost never have “strap problems” in public.
- The same hairstyle lasts for decades.
- We only have to shave our face and neck.
- We can "do" our nails with a pocket knife.
C. Raising men in our church
1. Husbands and fathers
2. The backbone of the church
3. Starts with the boys
D. Read two books about well-loved men
1. Ben Franklin
a. Great in so many ways
b. Always placed others ahead of himself
c. His “Code of Decency”
d. 12 rules of behavior
2. George Washington’s code
a. When he was 16 years of age
b. “110 Rules of Civility and Decent behavior in Company and Conversation”
c. How to treat other people
d. Simple acts of courtesy
1. Never talk with food in your mouth
2. Always rise to your feet when another enters a room
3. Never read in the presence of others
4. Treat every person with courtesy and respect
e. Gained the favor of all who met him
E. What does this have to do with the Bible?
II. Text
A. Brief review…Luke 2
1. The 30 silent years
2. What happened to Jesus during those years in Nazareth?
(51) Then Jesus went down to Nazareth with Joseph and Mary and was obedient to them. But his mother treasured all these things in her heart. (52) And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.
B. How Jesus grew
1. In Wisdom
a. The mind of God in the body of an infant
b. The mysteries of the hypostatic union
c. But we know his wisdom “grew”
2. In Stature
a. Physical
b. A lot easier to understand
3. In favor with God
a. God was well pleased with his son
b. After 30 years, down by the Jordan River
“This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased”
c. He had faced temptations of life…and not sinned
d. Mission accomplished
4. In favor with men
a. The people around him
b. Those that knew him intimately
c. This usually gets overlooked
B. This will be a different sort of sermon
1. Next week
a. A voice crying in the wilderness
2. Coming this Fall
a. Series on temptation
3. But first….How to grow in favor with men
4. Koole’s list
a. Things I’ve jotted down through the years
III. How to grow in favor with men
1. Invest in your family
a. My uncle Don’s funeral yesterday
b. Life begins and ends with family
c. In the end, it’s family that will matter
1. Acquaintances come and go
2. People you were once close to
a. High school and college
d. Some things I’ve learned about family
1. If you wait to have kids until you can afford them, you probably never will.
2. Eating out with small children isn't worth it, even if someone else is buying.
e. More seriously
1. Invest time now
a. Those who plan to do so later
b. It’s easier to build strong children than it is to fix broken men. (Frederick Douglass)
2. Be an example
a. Children learn by observation rather than argumentation
b. They see your heart
3. Treat well those who are closest to you
a. They will pick your nursing home
f. Don’t lose heart with kids when they are 14…or 24
1. Praying for adult sons
2. Always tell the truth
a. Lies will eventually get exposed
b. Nobody has a good enough memory to cover every lie
c. Life is so much simpler when you tell the truth.
d. There is great freedom in having nothing to hide
1. “Flee, all has been discovered”
2. What secret are you hiding?
e. It only takes one lie
1. Get caught in one lie and a thousand truths will be doubted
f. Can’t always trust everybody
1. Some people are very convincing liars
2. People will lie and deceive…and do so very convincingly
3. Trust but verify
3. Place people above things
a. Notice and engage the people you meet each day
1. Ask them about themselves
2. Everybody’s favorite topic
b. Don’t look down on anybody
1. I have never met a man who was not my superior in some particular area (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
2. Everybody in this church knows more than me in some area
c. Making friends
1. You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you. (Dale Carnegie)
2. Don’t brag about your accomplishments, people would rather hear about your failures
d. You may be able to impress people with your successes, but if you want to influence them, share your failures. Everybody has failed, so it’s a great way to connect (Maxwell)
e. Who is God trying to bring into your life
f. Meeting people at our picnic
4. Nourish and develop your character
a. Nothing is more valuable than a good name
1. Ecclesiastes 7:1
(1) A good name is better than fine perfume, and the day of death better than the day of birth.
b. The legacy we leave behind
1. “The Dash”
2. What will people say about you at your funeral?
c. Now is the time to prepare your eulogy
d. People won’t talk about how much money you had
e. Don’t worry about your reputation. Worry about your character.
1. If I take care of my character, my reputation will take care of itself (D.L. Moody)
2. When wealth is lost, nothing is lost; when health is lost, something is lost; when character is lost, all is lost. (Billy Graham)
f. Character building can be painful
1. Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved. (Helen Keller)
5. Dream big
a. Don’t let high school define who you are
1. Some tremendous surprises
b You create the plotline for your life
c. Of all the judgments we pass in life, none is more important than the judgment we pass on ourselves (Nathaniel Branden)
d. You can have anything you want, but you can’t have everything you want. (John Maxwell)
e. Focus on your strengths, not your weaknesses
f. The reason most goals are not achieved is that we spend our time doing second things first. (Robert McKain)
g. Dream no small dreams for they stir not the hearts of men…or God
h. It seems that both Fortune and God favor the bold
6. Don’t be afraid to fail
a. There are a lot of ways to become a failure, but never taking a chance is the most successful
b. The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one (E. Hubbard)
c. When you look back at life, you’ll have more regrets over what you didn’t do than what you did
1. If you have a dream…now is the time to pursue it
7. Grow during the tough times
a. The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy (Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.)
b. Times of calamity and distress have always been producers of the greatest men. The hardest of steel is produced from the hottest fire (Andy Andrews)
c. God will not look you over for medals, degrees, or diplomas, but for scars (Elbert Hubbard)
d. Pain is God’s megaphone…He whispers to us in our pleasure and shouts to us in our suffering
e. God will not let you endure what you cannot handle
f. When God wants to send you a gift, he wraps it up in a problem, and the bigger the gift that God sends you, the bigger the problem. (Norman Vincent Peale)
1. The growth of Chapel Pointe
2. Fall projections
3. Trying to be wise leaders
4. But….what great problems to have!
8. Find a job you enjoy
a. If you’re going to spend 8 hours a day…
1. My passion for what I do
a. I don’t consider it work
2. Yet I need to work hard at it
b. You can tell a person that loves what they are doing
c. I acknowledge we are in a tough job market
1. Pursue your passion…your dream
d. The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his life and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him, he’s always doing both. (James Michener)
9. Strive for excellence
a. Excellence is the gradual result of always trying to do better. (Pat Riley)
1. Work harder than the other guys
2. Working my way through college
a. Summers in New Orleans and Florida
b. 12 hours per day…6 days a week…in the heat
b. “The Outliers” by Malcolm Gladwell
1. How the best got that way
2. From Bill Gates to the Beatles
3. 10,000 hours of practice time
c. Don’t cut corners
d. Do things right
10. Don’t worry
a. Worry is a sin
1. Demonstrates a lack of trust in God
b. Worry is a waste of time and energy
1. Worry is like paying interest in advance on a debt you may never incur
c. Worry will steal the joy from your life
1. Worry doesn’t empty tomorrow of its trouble, but it does empty today of its strength.
11. Guard your attitude
a. Everybody will face suffering and sorrow
1. Not something you can control
2. But you can control how you respond
b. Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you respond
1. Bitter or better
c. Experience is not what happens to a man. It is what a man does with what happens to Him (Aldous Hefley)
d. Happiness
1. Nobody can make you happy. Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.
12. Never give up
a. Press on. Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education alone will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. (Calvin Coolidge)
b. Never give up (Churchill)
Churchill was asked back to his old school. Churchill, in fact, had been quite a failure at that very school; yet he found within himself a passion for excellence, a talent for turning failure into success through perseverance. And as you know he became the prime minister of England and a heroic World War II figure.
As the schoolmaster introduced this man, one of the greatest orators of all time, to the auditorium full of schoolboys, he said “Young men, be sure you take copious notes, because this will probably be one of the greatest speeches you’ll ever hear.” Do you know what the sum total of that message was that day? Short, stout Winston Churchill stood behind that podium and said, “Never give up!” And then he paused for almost a minute. Catching his breath, he continued even more boldly: “NEVER give up!” Another lengthy pause followed, and then, pounding his fist on the podium, he shouted at the top of his lungs: “Never, NEver, NEVer, NEVEr, NEVER GIVE UP!!!” And then he turned and quietly sat down.”
III. Summary
A. The 30 silent years
(Luke 2:52) And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.
1. When see him next, he’s 30 years old.
2. God liked what he saw.
a. This is my beloved son in whom I’m well pleased
B. Are you growing in favor with God and men?
1. Favor with God
a. What will God say when you stand before him
b. Matthew 25:21-23 “Well done, good and faithful servant”
2. Favor with men
a. At your funeral