Skip to content Men Covered by God Oct 14 · 41 min ...more
October 14, 2022 · 41 min · Manhood Defined
...more Show the full description Show less Support this leader Liking this video? Support this ministry.
Support this leader
Liking this video? Support this ministry.
Give
Support this leader Liking this video? Support this ministry.
665K followers
Dr. Tony Evans is the founder and senior pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, founder and president of The Urban Alternative and author of over 100 books, booklets and Bible studies.
665K followers
0:01 A man's malehood is tied to the biology with which he was born that establishes his male identity.0:13 Then that male becomes a boy. Boyhood is tied to dependency and immaturity. So we got a couple0:25 of hoods. We got male hood. That's strictly biological identity. You've got boy hood, which is0:37 dependency and immaturity. But the goal of malehood is manhood. And in the Bible, manhood0:50 is defined as responsibility under God. That is, from God's point of view, a male has not fully arrived to be a man until1:02 he's operating under the rule of God in relationship to God. So the question is which hood are you in? Just1:14 malehood, immaturity, irresponsibility, boyhood regardless of your age?1:26 You still holding on to your mama's apron string? But then there is biblical manhood. God called for 3 conferences1:38 a year, 3 men's conferences. We just have 1. 3 times a year, all the males1:50 in Israel are to come before the Lord their God. There were to be no exceptions, no females allowed,2:02 Only the males, all of them, were to appear before the Lord God 3 men's conferences every2:14 year. Why did he call only the men? The man was created first because God would hold him2:26 ultimately responsible for that which was put under his care and in his charge. So manhood is tied to responsibility2:38 under God. The absence of that diminishes authentic manhood. Now, why did2:49 God call this meeting? Why was this meeting 3 men's conferences every year called by God. Let me show you3:01 something in chapter 34. He says in verse 10, then God said, behold, I'm going to make a covenant.3:14 Verse 14. For you shall not worship any other god, for the Lord whose name is Jealous is a jealous god. Otherwise, you might make a covenant with the inhabitants3:26 of the land. Verse 27. Then the Lord said to Moses, write down these words, for in accordance with these words, I have3:38 made a covenant with you and with Israel. Then at the end of verse 28, and he wrote on the tablet the words of the3:50 covenant. This is a word that you've heard me bring up many times, and it is the key word to define our relationship with God4:02 and in this case, the man's responsibility under God. All the men. The word covenant means a divinely created4:14 bond. It was an officially established relationship between God and his people, and the word that God would use about an official4:26 relationship is the word covenant. He would covenant with us. God called all the men of Israel because he was establishing an4:38 official protocol, an official relationship that was to be authorized to the men and4:49 then spread out from the men to that which was their responsibility. That's called a covenant.5:01 Covenants are always official. They're not casual. In the spiritual realm, they are the mechanism through which God favors flow. His5:13 favor flows through his covenant. A synonym for the word covenant is covering. A covenant5:25 covers. As I've defined it before, it's like having an umbrella in the rain. The umbrella covers you. Doesn't stop it from raining. It just stops it5:36 from raining on you because you are covered. Now you can have an umbrella but not be under it.5:49 Well, even if you are in the covenant, if you are not under the covenant, you go uncovered. So we have a generation today of6:00 uncovered men. They may go to church. They may be Christian, but they're not covered. And if you are an uncovered man, that6:12 means it's raining on all the folk in your life too. Because you are uncovered, they're getting wet. God called all6:24 the men to covenant with them because they were to cover not only their own lives and their own family, but in this context, the whole nation.6:37 So the question on the floor was to bring all the men in alignment with the covenant6:50 so that they would be covered by God, so that that which they are responsible for in the covenant would be covered too.7:03 So the positioning of a man underneath God's covenantal covering would determine the well-being of the whole nation.7:17 So if you were the devil, your major goal is to get rid of men. Because if you can get rid of men, you can keep everybody else uncovered.7:30 And if everybody else is uncovered, the favor of God will be diminished or perhaps absent altogether.7:41 The issue of the covenant is alignment. Are you operating underneath its governance? I think I7:53 shared a year ago, my garage door wouldn't open. I'm pushing, I'm pushing, I'm pushing. I'm trying to lift it but it's too heavy. Things are not working. The rope that releases8:05 it wasn't was broke. I so if things were not working, I couldn't make things work. It wasn't because I wasn't trying. I was pushing a button. I was trying to lift it up but it was too8:17 heavy so it wasn't working. I wanted it to work. I needed it to work, but it wasn't working no matter how high I tried. I called the garage guy and I said,8:29 look, my car's in the garage. I gotta get out. I'm stuck. What do I do? Can you come over and deliver me? So I called on him for deliverance. I8:40 did everything I knew to do to be delivered, but I was still stuck in my garage. He told me to go over to the garage door. I went over to the8:52 garage door. He said, look down on your right and on your left. I did. He said, you see those 2 square canisters? I said, yes. I he said, which way are they facing? I said, well9:04 1 is facing horizontally toward the other. The other is facing vertically toward the back door. He said, your problem is an alignment problem. He9:16 says, they're not aligned properly. He says, they are designed to face 1 another so they can pick up the signal. But 1 is facing this way, the other is facing that way so9:28 they're not communicating. He said, if you'll simply go down and turn the 1 on the left to face the 1 on the right, you'll find the power that you're looking for. When I9:40 changed the alignment and got the 2 canisters aligned to 1 another, then push the button, voila. Power that I didn't know I possessed. What I9:51 needed was to get in alignment. And when I got things in alignment, power showed up and I was delivered from my incarceration10:03 in my garage. See, a lot of men are pushing buttons, cussing and fussing and not, nothing's opening. The wife not changing, the10:15 children not changing, the career is not changing, but they pushing all the button and God is saying, I'm waiting for you to get in alignment. Because if you will get in alignment under me,10:27 you'll see some power that you didn't know you had. But because you're out of alignment and not operating in relationship under my divine rule, all your buttons10:39 aren't working. When the tires wear unevenly in your car and your wheel is shaking, that means you need an alignment. If your life is shaken10:51 and you worn out and everybody around you is worn out too, that's because you need an alignment. So God would call all the men of Israel to 3 conferences a11:03 year to get them back in alignment, to get them functioning underneath God's covenantal covering. Now, to understand11:15 this further, we want to study some Hebrew for a moment. There are 3 Hebrew names for God in these 2 verses. Different names, but11:27 all referring to God. You see the spelling capital L, small o, small r, small d, that is the name Adonai.11:40 You see the name God, g o d, that is the name Elohim. Then you see in verse 24, capital l, capital o, capital r, capital11:51 d. Lord, capitalized, that's the name Yahweh or Jehovah. 3 different names. So God is the speaker in the12:03 conference and he gives 3 different sermons using his 3 different names because he wants all the males to know all 3 names.12:15 So let's look at these 3 names so we can understand what the men's conference was about because that explains what it means to operate under the rule of God.12:27 1 name, g o d, is Elohim. Elohim is God's creation name. In the beginning, God, Elohim, created the heavens and the earth, Genesis 1 1 says.12:41 El, the singular before you get Elohim, the plural, El means strong 1. Elohim is God's majestic name of creation.12:53 God spoke and his power was manifested. Elohim is God's power name. He creates the animals. He creates the vegetation. He13:05 creates the sun and the moon and the stars and the Bible declares that God's creation came ex nihilo. That means out of nothing. God is the only 1 who doesn't need13:17 raw material to make something. He says, I want all the males to come and meet with Elohim. I wanna show you how strong I am.13:28 You think you the man? Let me show you what the man look like because if you will come under my covenant covering, you will see my power. When a man is not13:40 operating under the rule of God, he's limited to his power. When he's operating under rule of Elohim, now his power source has got a strip on it. He's got13:52 a power strip because he's operating under the strong 1. The second name, capital l, capital o, capital r, capital d is Yahweh or when you put the vowels14:04 in it, it's Jehovah. Jehovah is God's sovereign relational name. In Genesis chapter 1, you only see the name Elohim,14:16 and God did this, and God did that, and God did this. But at beginning in chapter 2 verse 4 of Genesis, you see the Lord God, the Lord God, the Lord God. It's no longer Elohim only, it14:28 is now Yahweh or Jehovah Elohim because that is God's relational name. See a lot of men want g14:40 o d who don't want l o r d. They want God without a relationship. What God wants you to know is you don't get g o d if you're not willing to accept l o14:52 r d. That is you must be pursuing a relationship with him, not just looking for power from him. Many men will go to15:04 God to show his power when they don't want a relationship to the powerful God they're asking to see the power from. That's why in Genesis 2, it's the Lord God, the Lord God. When he makes15:15 Adam, the Lord God placed him in the garden. The Lord God told him what to do. The Lord God. That's why when the devil shows up, he drops Lord and keeps God because he doesn't mind religion as long as there's no15:26 relationship. So God wants every man to be pursuing a relationship with him and not only power from him. Let me put it another15:38 way. God just doesn't want us as men coming to him to see what we can get from him. He wants us coming to him because we want him. And because15:50 we want him, he doesn't mind us getting things from him. So if you are pursuing the stuff from God, but not the God who has the stuff, then16:02 that becomes an illegitimate pursuit of God because you want the person without the relationship. The third word is capital l, small o, small r, small d.16:14 That's Adonai. Adonai means your boss, your manager, your supervisor. Adonai means the16:26 1 who tells you what to do. A man is not living up to his manhood if God can't tell him what to do. If you can16:38 overrule God, if God clearly says this and you say that, you said, you're not my boss, man. I'm the man. I make the final decisions. You16:49 only come when I want you. You do not tell me what to do. Now, everybody know men don't like folk telling them what to do, including God. Because plenty17:01 of men, when you say God says this, we'll go, but I think, but I feel, but I ain't into that. Okay. Tell your boss that tomorrow at work.17:15 Adonai means I'm your boss man. I am the 1 who sets the governing guidelines for your decisions. And he says, I want all 3 relationships with you. I wanna be17:27 your power. I wanna be in relationship and I wanna have the right to overrule you. If God can't overrule you, you're not a man as far as17:38 he's concerned. You're a punk. Because you've not given him permission to be God over you or me. Whenever we17:50 buck him, whenever we buck him, we step outside of the covenant and we're no longer covered. No matter how much church you go to, no matter how18:02 much religious talk you talk, if he doesn't operate those 3 roles, your power, your relationship, and your ruler, first Corinthians 1118:14 verse 3 says, God the Father is over Christ. And then it says, and every man is under Christ. So18:26 if you name the name of Jesus Christ, if you declare that you are a Christian, that means that you are to be operating underneath the18:37 lordship of Jesus Christ, which means Jesus Christ has the final say so over your life in every area.18:50 There is to be no area where he can't overrule you. Unless Jesus Christ has the final say so, he is not Lord and you are not covered.19:02 And then it says, a woman comes underneath a man. But a woman is supposed to only come underneath a man who's covered so that she too is covered.19:15 Because if he not covered, it's a good chance she not covered. And so he called all the men to be under the covenant19:27 or under the covering. A man's self definition is intrinsically tied to his spiritual subordination. Let me say that19:39 again. A man's self definition is intrinsically tied to his spiritual subordination. So if there is no spiritual subordination19:51 to the rule of God over a man's life, his definition of his manhood is flawed. Now I know it's quiet up in here,20:03 but that's okay. Now, this is risky business. Listen, it's risky business because see, when you call all the20:15 men out at 1 time, to the conference, that means there's no military. That means, commerce has taken a major dive.20:27 That means there's nobody there protecting the homes. That's risky business. God has the audacity to say, take a bet on me. You take a20:39 bet on me. You wanna bet, man? Bet on me. Because even though I'm calling all the men away from the nation to meet with the Lord their God at the20:51 very same time, it's gonna be alright. It's gonna be alright. Let me show you that in a moment. So, all the men have come to the conference now. They all, they all come to21:03 the conference and they, they sitting there and God is, God is on the stage. He's doing the preaching. Okay? He doing all the sermons. Elohim, Yahweh,21:15 Adonai. What is he telling them? What is he telling them? Let me show you something.21:26 Psalm chapter 25 verses 12 to 14. Oh, this is sweet. Watch this. Who is the man who21:38 fears the Lord? He will instruct him in the way he should go. His soul will abide21:50 in prosperity, and his descendants will inherit the land. Watch this. The secret of the Lord is for those who fear him,22:02 and he will make them know his covenant. Now, this is deep. He says, if I could get the men to come underneath me, come underneath22:14 my my authority as God, then what I'm going to do with those men is I'm a tell them some secrets. I'm a tell them some secrets.22:27 A secret a secret is not for everybody. When you when you tell a secret, it's only for the people you want to hear it.22:39 A secret is not blast out to everybody. A secret is just for that person you want to hear it. Only men under the covenant get secrets.22:51 Men who are not under the covenant don't get secrets. They don't get a private conversation about what God wants them to do23:03 next in their life, with their problem, with their career, with their money, with their circumstance. They don't get secrets. So men not under the covenant live their lives in trial and error.23:15 Let me try this. Let me try that. Let me try this. Let me try that. When Jesus Christ walked on the earth, he never had trial and error. He knew exactly where he was supposed to go, what he was supposed to do because him23:26 and God had secrets. Let me explain how this works. In football, you have a rule book. All23:37 32 NFL teams have the same rule book because the rules govern the game no matter where the game is being played. All the rules apply to all the games and23:49 all the players on all the teams in every stadium every Sunday because it's the NFL rule book. As you sit here this morning, I'm giving you24:01 the rule book. I'm taking the Bible. I'm seeking to explain it. Everybody's hearing the same rules and the same guidelines because you're hearing the rule book.24:14 But every NFL team has their own playbook. The playbook is not available to all the other teams. It's only available to that team.24:27 This team doesn't give that team their playbook because their playbook are the plays uniquely related to their team.24:39 All teams have the rule book but each team has its private playbook. If you look at a football game, you'll see the head coach or the offensive coordinator calling in plays but24:51 putting a covering over his mouth. It's a sheet or it's a board, something so that the media won't show what he's saying about the play he25:03 wants the team to run next. He's saying it in secret. In other words, it's only for his team to know. It's only for his quarterback to know. It ain't for everybody. It ain't not for the other team.25:15 It's not for the stadium. It's just for his team. It's a secret. So you can come to church and get the rule book but God says for every man, I got a playbook. I wanna give you some25:27 private instructions with your name on it and this play is just for you. It's not for every man, it's for you. But that playbook is only given to men who are in the25:38 covenant, who are under the covering, who are operating. The way God did it was he gave the play to Adam, Adam gave the play to Eve. We got Adam looking to Eve for the25:50 play. And the reason we got all these Adams looking to Eve for the play is that men aren't close enough to God to hear the secrets for themselves.26:06 That's why Exodus 33 is so is so critical. That's the chapter before the 1 we read. Look at this. Look at some key verses in Exodus chapter 33 verse 7.26:18 Now Moses used to take the tent and pitch it outside the camp. A good distance from the camp and he called it the tent of meeting. Verse 9.26:30 Whenever Moses entered the tent, the pillar of the cloud would descend and stand at the entrance of the tent, and the Lord would speak with Moses. Verse 11. Thus, the Lord used to speak to26:42 Moses face to face. Just as a man speaks to his friend. When Moses returned to the camp, his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, would not depart from the26:54 tent. Then Moses said to the Lord, see, you say to me, bring up this people, but you yourself have not let me know whom you will send with me. I need some more information, God. Moreover,27:06 you have said, I have known you by name and you have also found favor in my sight. Now therefore, Lord, I pray you, if I have found favor in your sight, let me know your ways27:18 that I might know you so that I might find favor in your sight. Consider too the people you've given me. Verse 17, the Lord said to Moses, I will27:30 also do this thing of which you have spoken for you have found favor in my sight and I have known you by name. Then Moses said, I pray you, show me your glory. And God said,27:42 I myself will make my goodness pass before you and proclaim the name of the Lord before you. You see what he did? He didn't wait for the conference.27:54 Says Moses built his own tent. He met with God regularly face to face because he knew the closer he was to God, the more information he'd get from God. And the28:06 more information he got from God, the better he would be able to fulfill his responsibilities in life. Too many men have failed to come under the covenant bringing chaos to marriage,28:17 chaos to parenting, chaos to the culture, chaos to society. And I don't mean by that women don't have a responsibility, but I do mean men ought to be setting the pace.28:30 You ought to be hearing from God, but you can't do that coming to church. You gotta have your own tent. You gotta have your own meeting place. You gotta have your28:41 own regular interface with the living God to pitch a tent. The passage goes on to say that a lot of folk, when Moses went to the tent,28:53 would stand at their tent. In other words, they didn't go to the tent. They just stood and watched what Moses was doing. Don't come here and watch my tent. Get your own tent29:06 so that you can hear God for yourself, speaking to your mind, speaking to your thoughts, speaking to your circumstances. He says, and God29:18 met with Moses face to face. God has given you the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit's job is to take the rule book and give you your personal playbook.29:30 He won't contradict the rule book, but he will personalize the playbook because guess what? Your play is not the same play as somebody else. You need your own experience29:42 with God and that comes through pursuing a relationship. That comes from knowing the rule book but pursuing the relationship. Psalm29:53 103 verse 7 says, God showed Moses his ways and he showed Israel his acts. That's a big difference. Israel got to see what God did. Moses30:05 got to see where God was going. See, if you're gonna be a leader, that means you gotta be going somewhere and it's in everybody's best interest if you know where you're going. So30:17 he says, God showed Moses where he was going and he got to know Moses by name. If we could get men30:29 pulpit the pew and back again to pursue a relationship with God, we would find things changing in our circumstances.30:41 We wouldn't need to run and get a divorce. We wouldn't need to abandon our kids. We wouldn't need to see the culture fall apart, but because men won't come to the conference that God is setting up and because men30:53 will not pitch a tent for their ongoing relationship with God between the 3 conferences a year, we never hear from God. We just hear sermons from man and we don't get a31:04 playbook. We just quote a rule book. In football, everything is related to where the football31:16 is. The first down is measured by the chains to where the football is. The touchdown is whether the football crossed the plane of the goal. The31:28 field goal is whether the football went between the uprights. And complete pass is whether you held on to the ball. Everything is related to this little package31:41 and your proximity to it. Because if you, if the package is here and you step here, you're outside. Because you're not in proper alignment with the football. This whole31:52 14000000000 dollars industry is all related to this. It's all related to your proximity to this. God's covenant32:05 is the key to the game of life and your proximity to that determines how the game of life works or does not work in the life of a man, in the life of32:17 any Christian, but particularly the life of a man because he's calling all the men. Now, if you become this kind of man, if I become this kind of man, if we become this32:29 kind of men, what can we expect? Verse 24 tells you of chapter 34. He says, I will drive out the32:41 nations before you. I will enlarge your borders. No man shall covet your land when you go out 3 times a year to appear before the32:53 Lord your God. No, you didn't. Okay. The guys who've been around here for my for a while know I got this little thing I do. When I'm asked to do33:04 something and there's a lot of confusion and what should we do and all that, I hold up 3 fingers. 3 fingers. I hold up 3 finger. 3 fingers. I got it. That's what that mean. I33:16 got it. So when I need to take care of something at church, at home, sometime I don't say anything, I just hold up 3 fingers. That means you don't have to worry about it. I got it. Now33:28 a lot of times I don't got it, but I don't tell people I don't got it. I hold up 3 fingers then I go get it.33:45 But my 3 fingers, 3 fingers, I'm telling them that y'all, self down. It's gonna be okay. Don't worry about it. Not your responsibility. I Don't say all that. I just hold up 333:57 fingers. I mean, you chill. I got it. You know what God is saying here? If I can get you under the covenant, hear my 3 fingers. I got it. Father, Son, Holy Ghost. I got it.34:10 I got it. I will keep the nations from destroying you. I will enlarge your borders. In fact, I got it so much. I will change the way people are even34:21 thinking because they will not even covet what I've given you. I will affect their whole mentality. I'll change the way things are changed. You you wanna see God invade your life,34:33 invade your world, invade your circumstance, and have him hold up 3 fingers and you all shook up and tow up from the flow up. And he's saying, if I can get you under the covenant, I got it.34:47 I own it. When men are operating under divine authority, in relationship, in their tent of meeting, and in34:58 their collective gathering of men, then they will be able to see what it looks like when God has it. When God is answering prayer, when God is intervening in circumstances, when God is35:10 changing people who who didn't look like they could ever change. But it's all about the proximity to the covenant.35:22 So it is time now that there would be no more excuses. That we do not give excuses as men why we don't have it.35:34 By getting into proximity with God, You say, but I'm busy. I don't have time. I work. I I do this. I do that. I do that. That's an excuse.35:47 How can you be too busy to meet with somebody who gonna take over your situation? Every football game only has 17 minutes.36:00 17 minutes of contact in every football game. That's it. About 17 minutes. That 17 minutes is part of a 1 hour game. Every football game is 1 hour, but there's only36:12 contact 17 minutes. But you gotta sit 3 hours. So you're sitting 3 hours to watch 1 hour to see 17 minutes36:24 of contact. If you go to the game, that's 2 more hours because you gotta drive to it. You gotta park. You gotta walk a long way. So that's 5 hours36:36 of which you're sitting 3 hours so that you can watch 1 hour in order to see 17 minutes. But now you gotta go home. That's 2 more hours because because you gotta walk from36:48 the stadium to the car. You gotta work through all the traffic. So now that's 7 hours of which you're sitting 3 hours in order to watch 1 hour so you can see 1737:00 minutes. And you're going to time to get in there to see 17 minutes. Then when you go home, you're going to turn on SportsCenter NFL Network37:12 to relook at the clips of what you just spent 7 hours to endure. Then you're gonna go to work tomorrow and at the water cooler, you're gonna discuss what happened37:24 all day yesterday. Then you're gonna start looking at who the team is gonna play next week. But help me out somebody, what have the Cowboys done for you lately?37:37 But I know somebody who says I will cover you. I will oversee you. I will manage you. I will direct you if I can get your undivided37:48 attention in relationship underneath my rule. So God is calling all men to take your stand underneath his38:00 authority so that a man can see what a man ought to be because he's the man that God built. So all the men stand to your38:11 feet. And I wanna I wanna get us started. First of all, with the definition.38:25 A kingdom man is a male who visibly and consistently submits to the comprehensive relationship and rule of God underneath the38:37 lordship of Jesus Christ in every area of life. That must be the mindset. To get you started, you must intentionally set38:49 aside time to meet with God daily in his word and through prayer for the purpose of cultivating spiritual intimacy in order to draw down39:00 heavenly authority and receive divine instruction. This can be done by reviewing the weekly sermon outlines and key scriptures that we put online for you every week. Reading and meditating through a39:12 book of the Bible or using a daily devotional. Our bookstore has many of them. The goal is to seek more of God, not merely seeking things from God.39:26 Secondly, pray daily with your mate and share with her what you are learning from church or in your personal time with God. So now you're taking spiritual leadership.39:38 Thirdly, regularly use meal time for praying with and over your family, having devotions and discussing what your children had learned at Sunday school or at children's church, removing all distractions at this39:50 time. Removing the iPad and the computer and the television and the phones because this is daddy is here now. To40:01 begin to set the atmosphere. And you may be saying, but I don't think my family's gonna go for that. Well, God's not requesting this. This isShow more
25:00
Footsteps of Peace Tony Evans
Comments No comments yet. Start the conversation.
Comments
Keep it kind. Comments are public.