Now the Bible says in Joshua 1-7, only be thou strong and very courageous that thou
mayest observe to do according to all the law which Moses my servant commanded thee.
Turn not from it to the right hand or to the left that thou mayest prosper whithersoever
thou goest.
So according to Joshua 1-7, it takes courage to live for God and to obey the Bible and
to serve God.
You know why it takes courage?
Because the Bible says ye and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.
The weak man is afraid of persecution.
The weakling is afraid of being attacked.
He's afraid of being criticized or mocked.
The manly man is sure enough of himself.
He has confidence enough in the Lord.
He's trusting in the Lord and the power of his might that he's willing to take a stand
for God and he's willing to be persecuted and attacked for it and he's strong enough
to handle it.
The weakling just goes with the crowd.
The weakling won't swim upstream.
He's too weak to do it.
So he just goes with the flow.
He just goes with the crowd and there's nothing manly about just going along with what everybody
else is doing.
No, manliness is a strong man that's courageous enough to be a leader and to be different
and let me tell you something, when you're living a righteous and godly life, you're
different than the people around you.
I mean you say, oh I want to be different and then you go out and just live a sinful
life.
That's what everybody's doing.
A man has the courage to do what's right.
The Bible says it's going to take courage to do according to God's laws.
It's going to take courage to lead and to stand up and say, you know, I don't care what
anybody else is doing, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
That takes great courage.
And remember, some of the false views of manliness, they kind of have a little basis in truth.
You know, the world thinks you're manly if you take all these risks.
You know, you do all this dangerous stuff.
You know, and again, it's just meaningless risk.
It's just mindless risk of just, hey, let's go out and pick a fight with a complete stranger.
And I might get my rear end kicked, but you know, this is showing how much courage I have
and how much boldness I have.
But it's just stupidity.
It's just vanity.
It's just meaningless.
But you know, real manliness says, you know, I have the courage to do something that actually
needs to be done.
And I have the strength to defend myself and to fight, if necessary, for a righteous cause,
not just for zero cause, for no reason.
But courage is a part of manliness.
Number one is strength.
Number two, courage.
What's the opposite of courage?
Fear, right?
Cowardliness.
You know, when you see someone who lives their life in fear and weakness and so forth, you
know, that's not manly.
That's not something that we want to emulate as men.
And not only that, go to Genesis chapter three.
So we see that men are number one, strong when they're acting like men.
Number two, they have courage.
They have boldness.
And you know, part of that is that they're not always worried about what everybody thinks
all the time.
They are bold enough to be themselves, to stand on their own two feet, and not have
to worry so much about, oh man, I wonder if people are going to like the sermon I'm preaching
right now.
You know, I wonder if people are going to like me.
You know, manliness says, I don't care what you think.
You know, and again, this can often be confused with pride and arrogance.
But we're not talking about pride and arrogance.
Pride and arrogance is when you think more highly of yourself than you ought to think.
It's when you think that you're better than the people around you, then you tend to become
a bully.
But rather, confidence is good.
Pride and arrogance are bad.
The Bible talks about confidence as being a good thing.
Confidence is when you say, you know what, I'm on the Lord's side.
I know I'm doing what's right.
I know I'm living my life according to God's word.
Let the chips fall where they may.
I don't care what anybody thinks.
I'm going to do what, this is what God said, I'm going to do it.
That's different than exalting yourself and thinking that you're all that and so forth.