Every Man Carries Five Generations Inside Him

Sermon outline

Men are under real pressure, much of it inherited, but a man who masters his daily habits and carries a God-given vision changes the course of at least five generations after him.

1. The pressure on a man, and the consequences he lives with

   Men ask who they are and why they are here, and then a young woman, a marriage or a child arrives and the pressure is on before they are ready. Some men got over the trauma of childhood and some are stuck at the age it happened, reacting as that child whenever something goes wrong. David was a man after God's own heart and was forgiven, yet he was told there would be no peace in his house. Sometimes we live with the consequences of our own choices and sometimes with other people's.

   “Some of us are stuck at the age of the trauma.”

   • 2 Samuel 11-12

2. It is okay to be vulnerable

   Men suck it up and cry in the dark because they are not sure anyone will understand. He tells them it is okay to cry, and to find a release in sport or some activity, not in drink, drugs, friends or women. Pressure kept inside shows up in the body as stress, anxiety, high blood pressure and worse. A man who learns to give things to the Lord, to forgive and not to worry can manage himself, and a man who can manage himself can manage anything.

   “So the first thing I want to say to you tonight is, it's okay to be vulnerable.”

   • Proverbs 25:28

3. The protagonist and the antagonist: as a man thinks, so is he

   In every man's story his father is at times the hero and at times the enemy, and every man still looks for his father's affirmation. He speaks honestly about his own father: a career policeman for almost thirty years, a learned man with a master's in law and a doctorate in theology, sincere, disciplined and wholehearted once he gave his life to the Lord. For all he criticised him, he aspired to be like him, and found himself repeating the very things he did not like. If we are not careful we become both the protagonist and the antagonist in our own story.

   Illustration: After his father died the family cleared his office and filled 44 boxes with books, every one of them read, highlighted and written in.

   “As much as I criticize my father, I always aspired to be like him.”

   • Proverbs 23:7

4. Fall forward: finish what you start

   His father taught him that whatever you do, you do it properly or not at all, whether washing a car, studying or doing a job for someone. Men get bored and pull away as soon as something gets hard, jumping from job to job and course to course. Follow it through to the end; if it turns out not to be for you, the chapter closes finished, with no what ifs.

   Illustration: A bodybuilder cannot go to gym twice a week and expect a bodybuilder's growth, and you do not wet your ankles at the shore and say you went for a swim.

   “If you're going to fail, you're going to fail forward, not backward.”

5. Daily habits become your life

   What happens in the first thirty days of a marriage becomes the routine for the rest of it, and the routines of any life set its discipline. From James 1 he traces how a desire repeated becomes a routine, the routine gives birth to sin, and sin fully formed brings death to every area of a man's life. It takes discipline to go to bed early, give God the first part of the day, refuse gossip at work, and go home to be a father and husband at your weakest.

   Illustration: A mechanic who starts work at five or six has to wake at three to pray, which means going to bed at seven or eight.

   “It takes more effort, more strength, more tenacity to go home and be the father and the husband and the son that we need to be than to go out and let it all loose.”

   • James 1:14-15

6. You cannot learn from what you criticise

   Everyone has mentors, bosses and leaders placed over them. If we criticise them we cannot learn from them, and if we cannot learn we cannot grow. A person willing to put the relationship at stake to tell you the truth is someone to hold on to.

   Illustration: Sitting like an MMA fighter waiting for the first punch so you can kick somebody in the teeth.

   “Brothers, we cannot learn, glean or get any blessing from something that we criticize.”

7. Where there is no vision

   Ask most people what they want to accomplish this year and they will name two problems they want solved. Without vision a man stays divided between the world and God and has nothing to lead his wife and children with. He tells of a household visited at four in the afternoon that showed no vision in the ordinary hours of the day, and warns that a man with no vision duplicates it in his children. Take a notepad and pen before the Lord and write where you see yourself, your wife and your children in one, five and ten years.

   “When a man has a vision, he marries the kind of woman that he sees in that vision.”

   • Proverbs 29:18
   • Hosea 4:6
   • Ephesians 5:25

8. You are the problem solver

   Problems will come every day, but God will not allow more than we can bear, so the man facing the problem is meant to be its solution. Maybe God put you in that job to learn the whole business, so make yourself invaluable and, as his father taught him, steal with your eyes. Money does not buy loyalty, discipline, character or resilience; the problem is often the thinking, not the money. He teaches budgeting and tithing, and gives his own family as his reference point: they went from a garage to multiple properties because his father and mother had the vision first.

   Illustration: A man who asked for help with money had budgeted for haircuts, toilet paper and deodorant but not for food or rent, and had never budgeted a tithe. Once the budget was reordered he never needed the money.

   “The money was the thinking. The problem was the thinking.”

   • 1 Corinthians 10:13
   • Psalm 34:19
   • Romans 4:17
   • Matthew 25:14-30
   • Joshua 24:15

9. Five generations, and everything else is a tool

   Every man carries at least five generations inside him, so today's decisions reach great great grandsons he will never meet. Having come out of apartheid, men must model a life not reliant on the government but on God's kingdom. A car, even a paid-up one, is a depreciating tool, not the goal; the real asset is the wisdom, faith and Spirit of God in a man, which transcends economies and seasons. Seek the kingdom first and you never have to chase money.

   Illustration: A Japanese proverb: better to be a warrior in the garden than a gardener in the time of war. The warrior trains in peace so that when war comes he is ready.

   “Every single man here has at least five generations inside of him.”

   • Matthew 6:33
   • 1 John 4:4

In this message