The sermon titled 'Act Like Men - Twelve Manhood Muscles Every Man Must Strengthen' by Scott Brown addresses the decline of biblical manhood in our culture and the need for men to act like men according to the teachings of the Bible. The speaker presents 12 manhood muscles that men must strengthen, covering topics such as being an image bearer, embracing masculinity, taking dominion, becoming a soldier for Christ, being a disciple of Jesus, being a member of the church, exercising headship, fulfilling the role of a husband, providing for others, protecting others, and being a teacher of the next generation.

You have an outline in front of you that I plan to work through. You know, this is the best time for manhood to shine because it's being rejected. Biblical manhood is actually disappearing in our culture. And the things that I want to say really are sort of like painting a target, a target for fathers to teach their sons, and a target for sons to aim at. And, you know, biblical manhood is under tremendous attack.

You know, one of the most famous filmmakers, James Cameron, said that testosterone is poison in a man. Well, testosterone isn't poison. It's what makes a man a man. And I'm here to quote the word of God that says, act like men. And I want to give you 12 manhood muscles that every man must strengthen.

Every man must learn how to be a true man, and there are men who act like men, and there are men who act like women, and we're here to call men to act like men, to think like men, to fight like men, and to love like men, because that's what the Bible teaches men to do. You know, there are many muscle groups in your body, and there are also muscle groups that a man must strengthen. A man doesn't just need a backbone, but he needs the muscles strengthened at the core. And, you know, frankly, women are in a tough place today. Young girls are in a tough place today and the reason they're in a tough place is that the world and the church is producing too many economically emotionally stunted young men Men who are behind Part of it is the culpability of their fathers who didn't teach them how to be men, didn't teach them how to work, didn't teach them how to make money, didn't teach them how to focus, didn't teach them how to be mature.

And also boys who didn't focus themselves on the things that really make for manhood. In a way, you could call this message crossfit for manhood. In crossfit, they deal with all your different muscle groups. And just as there are skeletal muscles, there are lots of muscles, at least 12 muscles, that are targeted by a CrossFit trainer. The muscles around your spinal core, your biceps, your triceps, your shoulders, your forearms, your legs, your thighs, your hamstrings, your calves, your glutes, and your back muscles.

These are the muscles that make a man strong physically. But we live in a world today where manhood is not being strengthened the muscles of manhood are going into atrophy You know they say that when you reach age 30 You begin to lose somewhere between 5 to 8 percent of your muscle mass every decade and then when you turn 50 it jacks up to 15% 10 to 15% you can end up 60 years old with 30 to 40 percent of your your muscles in atrophy gone this happens to people as well this happens to men they lose their edge and I'm here to say that you know this is a time to recover manhood. In your outline, you'll see a quote. I'll read it. The whole generation is womanized.

The masculine tone is passing out of the world. It is a feminine, hysterical, chatting, canting age. Henry James, 1886. It's accelerated, brothers. It's ramped to a fever pitch.

So this is CrossFit for manhood. You know, there's this whole matter of Difficulty that we're living and we're living in a world that lies about manhood. The devil is a liar. That's what the Bible says. The Bible says he masquerades as an angel of light.

The Bible says that he's a faker, and in 2 Corinthians 11, 14. And so we have to recognize that we live in a world that's lying to you about manhood and I hope that we can recognize how critical it is for fathers to recover it and for sons to get focused on it big time and so I want to issue 12 muscles in the body of biblical manhood why because you're a chosen generation you're a royal priesthood you're a holy nation your people for God's own possession to declare the praises of God. One of the ways that you declare the praises of God is by being a man. So let's talk about 12 muscles of manhood that you must strengthen. And the first is that you are an image bearer.

This is Genesis 1, 27 to 28. So God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him, male and female. He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, be fruitful and multiply.

Fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea Over the birds of the air and over every every living thing that moves on the earth this is the image of God in man God has placed his image in man and he puts it in his actual physical being and you're living in a world right now where people are saying well there there is no image of God in man you can be whatever you want but no God has made man in his own image and and and as a result it just makes it difficult that we live in a culture that doesn't teach you that you are made in the image of God. The second, a man not a woman. You're created a man, not a woman. This is in Genesis 1, 27 and 28, 1 Kings 2, 1 and 2, and 1 Corinthians 16, 13 and 14. I'll read 1 Kings 2, 1 and 2.

Now the days of David drew near that he should die and he charged Solomon his son saying, I go the way of all the earth. Be strong therefore and prove yourself a man and keep the charge of the Lord your God to walk in his ways to keep his statutes his commandments his judgments and his testimonies as it is written in the law of Moses that you may prosper in all that you do wherever you turn that the Lord may fulfill his word act like men the King James Version of the Bible and in first Corinthians 16 13 says quit you like men in other words go forward like a man act like a man Ephesians 6 tells men be strong in the Lord and You know you were born a man not a woman and we're here to help to help you think about how you would throw off effeminacy. Effeminacy is behaving like women. Webster's dictionary says, effeminacy is the softness, the delicacy, and the weakness in men, which are characteristic of the female sex, but in which males are deemed a reproach, unmanly, delicacy, womanish softness or weakness. We need masculine men today.

Men are being feminized from their youth, not just in their thinking, but in their hair, in their clothes, in their speech, and even in their behavior. And it actually can be, not always is, it can be a problem For home school boys that are just raised by their mothers Where they have no men to help them to see what it means to be a man boys need men to challenge them to act like men dress like men talk like men you know there's this soft man This effeminate man that's not fitting for the kingdom of God You know if you're wearing jewelry you're probably following the fashion industry not the manhood industry testosterone you have testosterone running through your veins who knows how much more tossed testosterone a man has in a woman how much is anybody know how much more testosterone does a man have than a woman in his body? 10% 20% 95% 2000% a man has 2000% more toss testosterone in his body than a than a woman does and as a man your gender is one of the most powerful expressions of the wisdom of God. It's the glory of God in creation, man made in the image of God, and God crafts men to be men.

You are a man from birth, and you will always be a man. And if they dig your body up 50 years after you're dead they'll look at your bones and they can tell that you're a man. A father has X Y chromosomes and the Y chromosome determines your manhood. A woman has two X chromosomes. If a child has a Y chromosome, he's a man, and he has a penis.

It was his testosterone and his chromosomes that did that. That's, that identifies him as a man. Here's what I want you to know. You're, if you, if you think you're feminine, your body is lying to you, your, your feelings are lying to you, the devil is lying to you, if you are thinking like a woman. If a son begins to feel this, he needs a father to tell him that his feelings are lying to him because he is a man the creation order is so significant and in in Genesis 221 we learn these facts about, about manhood.

A man is 10 percent larger than a woman. That's because he has a duty to protect. A man has 30 to 40 percent more upper body strength than a woman. Men can compartmentalize and focus like men like women cannot What men have stronger bones than women men have way more muscle mass and when testosterone starts ramping up in your body and you're 12 or 13 years old, your voice starts to crack. That's testosterone working in you because you're a man.

These are good things. These are things that God has done. You know, there, there's all this uproar today about, you know, transgender, quote, men, you know, competing in women's athletics. And what's happening is these pretend women who are actually men, you know, are competing in all these sports and they're absolute, I mean they're, they're beating women to death in it. But there's, there's actually some strange humor in all of this.

There's a woman's fishing club in England and they've barred, they've barred transsexual men from, from entering in their fishing club. They're mad about it because a man Can cast almost twice as far as a woman and there's a woman's chess club in England and they're all uproar because There are transgender men that want to enter into their chess competitions. They don't want the men in there because men think differently. It's not the same because men and women are different. And what you have today is you have you have men dressing like wearing their hair like women Skittle hair jewelry man buns, you know singers with breathy voices Kpop singers you can't tell whether it's a boy or a girl this is this is the insanity of our culture this is trying to teach men how to be women and how to look like women but in the Bible actually God tells men to look like men and women to look like women there's a distinction that the Bible speaks of so a man not a woman third a dominion taker Genesis 2 15 Genesis 9 Psalm 8 4 through 6 Adam was charged to keep the garden and to subdue it.

This is the dominion Mandate what does it mean to date to take dominion it means to rule and it means to reject passivity it means to accept responsibility it means to conquer territory it means to take care of your stuff it was so funny when Josh Keith took that bottle of water and threw it over his shoulder and said, well, why did just somebody else pick it up for me? No, men pick up their own bottles, men clean up their own tables, men make their own beds, men take action, men conquer, men do the right thing. That's what taking dominion is really all about. To take dominion means to improve everything around you, not to sit back passively. In your heart, in your home, with your friendships, in your car, with your possessions, you take dominion over them.

One of the greatest challenges of dominion taking today is dominion over your phone. Either you'll take dominion over your phone, or your phone will take dominion over you. And right now we have millions of young people that their phones have taken dominion over them, not just young people. Maybe even some of you sons are learning from your fathers whose phones have taken dominion over them. It happens.

Men are dominion takers, and they make choices how they dress, how they think, how they hold a conversation. It's time for men to take dominion. Fourth, a soldier. A man is a dominion taker. Teach your sons how to be dominion takers.

And you be a dominion taker yourself. Spend your time taking dominion not playing around Number four a soldier second Timothy 2 3 through 7 Ephesians 6 10 through 20 second Timothy 2 3 through 7 says therefore you must endure hardship is a good soldier of Jesus Christ No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier This has to do with fighting You know Deuteronomy says that men should wear the garments of the warrior. Women should not wear the garments of a warrior. Your weapons, though, are spiritual. I read this yesterday.

When a coyote gets into the sheep pen who would you rather have next you? Well managed boy with a good inside voice or the one out sword fighting and slinging mud pies of his friends men are actually designed to be soldiers to conquer territory finally my brethren be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil Ephesians 6 10 fifth the fifth mark of manhood The fifth muscle that you should strengthen is the muscle of a disciple of Jesus Christ, a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. Matthew 4, 18, Jesus was walking by the Sea of Galilee and he saw two brothers and he said to them, follow me. What is a disciple? A disciple is a follower, number one, and secondly a disciple is a learner, a learner from Jesus Christ.

A disciple of Jesus Christ is not his own man he's not becoming more like himself he's becoming more like Jesus Christ he's actually throwing himself away and taking on Jesus Christ number six a member of the church. Strengthen that muscle. It's a very important muscle, Acts 2-42. The Lord Jesus Christ desires that his men would be implanted deeply, and folded thoroughly into the life of a local church, and to be a member, to be a living stone, to be a citizen in that holy nation. Nancy Piercy wrote a book a little while ago called the war against masculinity you know it's really interesting book she talks a lot about the statistics of different kinds of men here's one thing she says She says that the men who are actually devoted, seriously devoted to their churches are different than the other Christian men, the other men who claim to be a Christian.

She's talking about people that go to church three to four times a month, and they're really, really embedded into church life. And she says that those men are totally different than the rest of the evangelical men. Here's what she says. The men who are devoted to churches are the best men. Men who attend church regularly are more loving to their wives and more emotionally engaged with their children than any other subgroup in America.

They are the least likely to divorce, and they have the lowest levels of domestic abuse and violence. By contrast, nominal Christian men who play games at the church you show up once or twice a month they report the highest rate of abuse of any group even higher than secular culture a couple secular culture, secular couples. Membership in the church makes you a lifelong contributor and a recipient of the wealth of multiplied gifts of the spirit in this family of God a member of the church number seven ahead ahead the seventh muscle that you ought to be strengthening is headship Genesis 3 1 through 7 first Corinthians 11 3 Ephesians 5 22 to 33 and Joshua 24 15 men are specifically designed by God for headship heads do the thinking heads do the envisioning give your boys something to be head of now They're actually designed primarily to be submissive to you, but you should teach them how to be ahead. You should teach them how to make decisions. You should teach them how to take responsibility.

You should give them things that they might even fail at so that they can learn how to take Authority and headship over the things that they're doing By the way Without headship women perish without a vision women perish You know that's why Adam blamed Eve for the fall. He said oh, it was the woman you gave to me Adam did not act as a godly head of his wife Adam did not protect his wife from the voice of the serpent he should have refuted the devil he should have stood up and smashed the head of that serpent number eight a husband you fathers you're training husbands future husbands not just future men not just future Dominion takers not just future church members you're also training future husbands The most yet boys the most important thing you can do is to get yourself ready to be marriageable, and that takes a long time. And spiritually, socially, economically, ecclesiologically, you should be embedded in a local church. Marriage, when you finally get married, you realize marriage is a daily activity it has nothing to do with falling in love it has to do with loving somebody every day Man needs to know what love looks like.

You know, men need to understand what muscular fidelity is. Muscular fidelity. Strong devotion to one woman for the rest of your life no matter what happens Some man who nourishes he cherishes your training sons to be nourishers and cherishers cherishers of women number nine a father Proverbs 23 22 Deuteronomy 131 Malachi 4 6 Ephesians 6 1 through 4 fathers men are made to be fathers fatherhood is the chief force in forming civilization without fatherhood culture collapses that's so obvious to anybody who's looked at social structure Ask the men who are in jail ask the men who are on drugs ask the men who are in insane asylums Ask the men who are failing in this life ask Homosexual men Ask the men who are dying of AIDS. They didn't have fathers. Fatherhood is designed actually to make a man out of you as well.

Fathers who love their children, fathers who walk with their children, walk beside their children, fathers who teach their children, fathers who become grandfathers and teach their grandchildren. This is fatherhood. You're raising future fathers sharpen the fatherhood muscle you fathers 10th a provider first Timothy 5 8 and Proverbs 14 26 Your boys need to start thinking about how to be providers rather than takers givers not consumers investors not devourers become a provider But the problem is boys are playing games, they're not learning how to be providers. They're learning how to waste their lives. They spend their times doing things that don't make money.

You know, it's interesting what's happening in our culture. It's actually pretty astonishing. The percentages of men who are not working are dropping like a rock. Percentages of women who are working is rising dramatically. In 1960, 93% of men were in the workforce in 2021 68% that's a huge drop from 93 to 68 percent men are not working you fathers do not let your boys go through their childhood without working and working and working and working 11th a protector Ephesians 5 22 to 33 Colossians 3 19 Proverbs 30 18 and 19 Proverbs 30 and and several verses there in in Ephesians 5 we learned that a husband is the Savior the Savior of the body he's a protector he's he's like a night watchman in Proverbs 423 here's what you need to know It's not weak men that make women happy, it's strong men who make women happy.

Strong men protect women. Strong men are disciplined. Strong Strong men are disciplined strong men do the right thing Weak men are pansies they follow their own feelings Women with strong men know that they won't be abandoned Women with strong men know that they won't be abandoned Women with strong men know that they will be protected from garbage and garbage people women with strong men know they'll be provided for to the death a provider by the way pornography destroys the protection of women if you want to destroy the protection of women in your soul then you start looking at pornography and if you are Just recognize what it's doing to you It's it's it's actually destroying your protective instinct 70% of men between the ages of 18 and 24 are looking at pornography on a regular basis. Pornography increases infidelity 300%. Pornography increases infidelity 300%.

300% pornography increases infidelity 300% because it takes away all of your protective forces in your soul you cannot play games of pornography it won't play games with you 12th the teacher of the next generation Deuteronomy 6 1 through 8 Psalm 78 1 through 8 Ephesians 6 1 through 4 here we have this command to fathers to teach the next generation that fathers would teach their sons and they would teach their sons and they would teach their sons and that fathers would teach their sons how to teaching a teacher, you're training a trainer. You're not just teaching a young man something, you're teaching him to teach something, which means you have to review it all the time, because you're teaching a teacher. This is the best time for manhood to shine in our culture. When manhood is being profiled as toxic, when men are being feminized, when men are bowing to the pressure of their lying feelings that they are women those are lies from the devil if you have any of those thoughts because you are not a woman you are a man excuse me act like men so every man must learn how to be a true man Every man must learn how to think like a man.

Every man must learn how to act like a man and fight like a man, and love like a man. And I've just given you 12 muscles of manhood to exercise, to strengthen, and to reject anything that contradicts them. This is manhood. I pray that God would use all of you to raise up a whole generation of real men. Bible men, Strong men providing men Men who take the minion and then a final word do you fight to you fathers?

Take decisive action paint the target for your boys help them and I pray that you would help them help them to quit like quit them like men to act like men and to perform the function that they were created for in this world. Amen.