Our culture is confused about what it means to be a man. Even notions of masculinity have, in many corners, become toxic. Kingdom Men Rising Bible study speaks truth into a poorly defined and disoriented culture about the purpose and future of masculinity from a biblical perspective. In this Bible study, men will wrestle honestly with the unique questions and circumstances they face today. It invites men deep into their own stories to reveal the true expression of masculinity—God’s intent.
In this video excerpt of the study, Dr. Tony Evans talks about the importance of rising up and taking a stand for God, even when our world is shaky.
The video is above, and the complete manuscript is below.
When God would call the men to meet with Him three times a year (Exodus 34:23-24), He called them to have a meeting, to define their identity, and give them their instruction. And He told them, if you’ll follow My rules and if you’ll come under My authority in My relationship, then I’m going to bless you, I’m going to bless your family, and I’m going to bless your nation. Conversely, if you walk away from Me, all of those structures are going to be in trouble.
The foundation of our culture has become shaky. We need men to rise up and take their stand under God for the improvement and the impact that God wants to make in the world.
Now I must admit, life can make things shaky. I’m a personal testimony of that. My dear wife of almost fifty years passed away on December 30, 2019. The next day was our New Year’s service. That’s where we would go every year to worship. I had a decision to make. I remembered that in the book, Kingdom Man, which set the stage for this study on Kingdom Men Rising, that it opened up that when a kingdom man’s feet hit the floor in the morning, the devil should say, “Oh, crap. He’s up.” The devil should quake a little bit because a kingdom man has hit the floor, and even though his world may be shaken, his commitment to Christ does not shake with it.
So on that New Year’s Eve, knowing that my wife would have been by my side to walk up to the front of the sanctuary and sit in our seats, I had to take a stand, because there would be thousands of people there wondering how I was fairing, given the crisis I was facing and given all the other losses that had come even before the loss of my wife. My father dying a month earlier, that same year, my sister died, then my sister’s husband dying. It was just one loss after another in a concentrated period of time. Will the foundation crack where my children needed support, where the congregation needed guidance, and where the world was beginning to shake?
Well, that morning I got up on the 31st of December, and I put my feet on the floor, and I thought in my mind and in my heart, devil, you’re not going to win this. You’re not going to own me. But circumstances look bleak, and the pain is great and the tears are flowing like a river. But since God still has me here, I still have a job to do. I still have a post to man and a responsibility to own.
So I got up that morning and I began to prepare for our New Year’s Eve service. And I got up to talk about how life is a vapor. We never know what another moment or even a day will bring, but we’re called to submit to the will of God even when we don’t prefer it, we don’t like it, and we don’t want it.
Men, you and I have been drafted. We’ve been drafted by God to rise to the occasion, to take our stand with God, even when life is not voting the way we want it to vote, when things are not going the way we want them to go, we’re called to take our stand with the living God and to represent Him.