I'm probably the most untalented person on the planet, and I was good at two things in my life, and I don't believe any one of them has helped me in the ministry, unless we all have a brawl in here today, you know, or go out and put some helmets on and play American football. And so I don't know about that, but I do agree with that, brother. I think we all have a given gift, a given talent, something that the Lord is going to use, and sometimes, quite often, He picks the bottom of the barrel to get some work done. And I'm thankful that he didn't stop at the top of the barrel. I'm thankful that he looked down and kept on moving. As he said, he hasn't chosen the wise things, but rather the foolish things to compound the wise. And I'm thankful for that. If you have your Bibles with you today, we're gonna turn to 1 Corinthians 16, verse 13. And again, I'll go ahead and say it for you. You're probably gonna say it yourself. This is probably the most used Bible verse for a men's meeting, a men's prayer breakfast. But I also think that it's probably one of the most needed verses today. So within 1 Corinthians 16, verse 13, we're given some instructions here. We're given really a call. the idea, the thought this morning that I want to bring to us as men. And I'm being very specific about that as men. Okay. We have a unique role in this world and it's something that is being steadily washed away. Okay. We're built for battle. I don't think men were built to be at home. I don't think men were built, let me back up. The Bible teaches that men are not built for resting and sitting and living a lackadaisical life. We are built for battle. And so in 1 Corinthians 16, 13, the Bible tells us, watch ye, says, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong. So what I want us to look at today is answering the call to biblical manhood. really and truly in a culture of compromise. As church planters, and you guys have a multitude of American church planters in the room today, one of the great temptations that many of us will face in our life is typically going to be, do I compromise when I come to the field? How can I build a church in a world today where essentially is a pre-Christian world once again? How can I build it and get people to come and get people to like me and get people to do this and that? Really and truly building the church, planting the church, winning people to Christ, teaching people who and what they should be has nothing to do with them liking you, okay? I'm gonna say something right out of the chute today and it's gonna do one or two things. It's either gonna shut you off or it's gonna switch you on. Our feelings today are inconsequential to anything, all right? When people come to me and they begin to express how they feel and they pump on that word feel, feel, feel, usually I'll stop them for a second and as kindly as I can and as with much love as I can, Tell them, I don't care about your feelings. Your feelings are inconsequential to me and they're inconsequential to you. But what are you doing to obey the word of God? Does that make sense? You know, there's a lot of times that I feel bad. I don't feel good. I don't feel happy. I don't feel positive. I live in Wells. I've been there for the last 11 years. And for the last two and a half years, we've had a blanket 20 mile an hour speed limit. How do you think I feel in the car? Okay. So I have to reel that in, guys, you know what I'm saying? And the point that I'm trying to make is with every little instance that we face in our life today as men, we need to recognize that we are not in the midst of peacetime. We're not in the midst of, even though bombs are not being thrown in our windows and not being dropped from the sky, we're not in the middle of the blitz anymore or anything like that. We need to understand that if we make a grave mistake thinking that we can kick back on our leads and hit cruise control and just rest throughout this time until the Lord comes back to take us home. We are in the middle of a battle that is raging and that battle is spiritual today. It always has been, but it's more prevalent to those with biblical eyes that there is a spiritual warfare. It's a cultural warfare. It's a war for manhood. And so in a time today when men are told to tone it down, sit back, take a step down, go back in the room over here, sit in the back seat, when masculinity is mislabeled as misogyny and strength is mocked out and not being modeled, God's word is thundering a call for you and I, watch ye. Stand fast in the faith. I love the fact that the Apostle Paul, through the movement of the Holy Spirit of God, had to add those last three words. Stand fast, but in the faith, right? Quit you like men and be strong. So I want you to think about the battlefield this morning, just for a quick second here, just in our, I'm going to say our, I don't want to say the UK, I say our nation. I realize we're four separate nations. I get that. I know Cornwall doesn't like to be linked in with England, but you guys are English. Sorry, guys. Sorry about that. You are what you are. But in the UK alone, guys, one in three children now grew up without a biological father in the home. OK? The Center for Social Justice report in 2022 showed that more than half of households in some communities are fatherless today. And among men ages 16 to 29 in the United Kingdom, rates of mental health issues have doubled just in the last decade. I have all kinds of people that come to me and asking me multitude of questions. And I mean, I have a, I have a medical background. I have a healthcare background. So constantly I have people asking me healthcare questions and this kind of question, well, what are you thinking? Why do we have this? And why do we have that? Why don't, and they're all trying to link it to everything under the sun, airplanes, squirting stuff out of the sky and all this other stuff, rather than getting down to the central problem. The problem is, yeah, we have an outside force fighting us. But guys, the problem is that we're not obeying the word of God. Now, when I say we guys, I'm talking as a, as a nation. I'm not talking about the men in this room, more than likely we're preaching to the choir today. And I understand that. Knife crime in the UK has risen 77% in England and Wales since 2015. Most of that reason is because people are disconnected and directionless. They have no direction, no purpose. So what are they doing? They're turning to crime. I have a personal belief in that. I believe it also has risen because of the removal of the guns in 1996. But nonetheless, you're not going to bring a knife to a gunfight, okay? And I know you guys are going to talk about me when I leave, but yeah, that's exactly how that happens. You're not breaking into the guy's house so you know he's got a weapon behind that door. You're going to go down to the next one, amen. But we'll leave that one where it is. In the U.S., over 70% of youth are in state-operated, I'm sorry, the youth in state-operated institutions all come from a fatherless home. There's an epidemic, it's not just in the U.K., it's not just in the U.S., it's in the world today of absent fatherhood. Our Department of Education here in our countries here says that boys are three times more likely than girls to be permanently excluded from school. Now I'm a governor, I've been a governor for over seven years now in our local primary school. And I sit there and I look at the absentee rates. The absentee rates amongst boy pupils are twice as much as they are from girl pupils. And then we know these families. Our first church in the valleys is in a small village. It's part of a bigger district, but it's in a small village. And we know these families. Matter of fact, we're on like second generation now of young people who are in these primary schools that we know who their parents are and their parents' parents. And you look at it, and you're going, they're continuing a cycle. Absent dad or don't know who the dad is, and it's the mother trying to do everything under the sun, trying to raise them here, got them in every club known to man, all this busy stuff outside of the house, yet no direction within the home. The famous preacher, Adrian Rogers, said that we've raised a generation of men who don't know how to work, worship, or weep. So what happened? I can tell you where the answer is not. It's not in politics. Okay. Although some political things need to change. The answer to the home is not in politics. It's not going to be in policies either. And it's not going to be in programs. There's places for all three of those things. Don't get me wrong. I'm not throwing the baby out of the bathwater, but the answer is the pulpit. So goes the church, so goes the country, is the rule of thumb, the way it's always gonna be. The answer comes from pulpit, it comes from men, and men need to return to the front lines of faith. So what is the call to biblical manhood? The Apostle Paul, the verse that we're looking at today, gives us four kind of quick-fire comments, if you will, or commands, I should say, to the Corinthian church. He commands them to do these things, and they're things that are desperately needed in our world today, just like it was needed in Corinth, it's needed in our world today. It's needed in Cornwall, it's needed in Avedere, it's needed in Cardiff, it's needed in Manchester, it's needed everywhere in our world today, exactly what the Apostle Paul says. So the first thing we see here, if you look at your text, and I'm gonna bounce around a couple of verses, guys, you don't have to turn there for time's sake, but he says, he wants us to be watchful. So we say, watch ye. So we need to be watchful in our life. Guys, that comes from a Greek word called gregario, which means to stay awake, to stay alert, to keep watch. We're all familiar with Ezekiel 33 in verse seven, it says, so thou said a man, I have set thee a watchman. A godly man is not to be passive. A godly man is not to be asleep at his post. He's to be spiritually awake, to be vigilant, to discern the times, and I mean to stand in the gap of the places where we are wanting today. Mental health statistics alone just in our country are revealing the absentness and the removal of biblical manhood. Matter of fact, did you know the United Kingdom, the United Kingdom, the number one, the number one killer of men under the age of 45, what do you think it is? Suicide. Number one. I mean, it's a disconnected, purposeless life, a feeling unfulfilled, and entered into the level of desperation. What does desperation mean? It means without hope. I want you to think about this just for a second here. We've gone so far in our nations today and teaching evolution. You couldn't get a group of this, this size right here, scientists to agree on the evolution at all, the pattern of it, the position of it, all this, that you couldn't get them to agree on everything whatsoever. Now we can agree on the Bible, but 99% of the time a group this big, but you're not going to do that with science. Why? Because it's a science falsely so-called as the Bible says. I want you to imagine what happens when you teach a generation of children who teach it to their children, who teach it to their children, who teach it to their children, that you came from nothing. When you die, you're gonna go to nothing. What do you think is in the middle? I am nothing. What is my purpose? I have no purpose. I have no benefit. I'm not doing anything at all. Let's just switch it off. The devil has been a mastermind. and robbing our children, especially our men from their biblical position. We need to be a watchman in our home. You know, we need to watch what we put on the screen. We talked about this on the way down today. We need to watch where our children spend time with and who they spend time with. We need to watch what influences our family. You know, Adam, guys, Adam wasn't absent in the garden, was he? You do remember the whole verse. It says, and she took, right? And the woman took the fruit of the tree, right? And gave to her husband with her. He wasn't off naming animals or working the ground. He was standing there next to her. He wasn't absent, guys, whatsoever. He was just silent. And silence, guys, has cost humanity everything. Matthew Henry said the woman was not deceived, but the man was delinquent. Think about it for a second. Are we doing the same things in our lives? For years on end, my wife, we wanted her mother to get saved and it took quite a long time for that to happen. And she would tell me, but I don't want to push her away. And after about two years of hearing, I don't want to push her away. I don't want to push her away. This is what I said to my precious, loving wife. I said, how close is she now? You don't want to push her away, but remaining silent on the faith. How close is she now? She's not going to be pushed any further than she is now, but she will tip off to the edge of eternity in the devil's hell. And finally, after about a decade of living the life of being faithful, doing X, Y, Z, she got saved. Amen. So we need to be watchmen. Number two, we need to be faithful. Paul says, stand fast in the faith. Don't drift, don't drift with the tide of compromise. We need to stand firm in truth. I have this cup, my daughter owns a coffee shop that's inside of our gym and I got this cup on here. This is stand firm, okay? And on the other side, it's got the Bible verse, you know, being unmovable, you know, always abounding in the faith, always abounding in the Lord. And I was there working with a guy one time, my coffee mug was sat there, and he saw that mug right there, and he says, what does that word mean right here? You know, and he was talking about the word abounding. He opened the door, I walked right through it. What does it mean? Well, I just don't know how I'm going to bow. I'm in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ abided in me and I in you. I said, I'm in Jesus Christ. He's in me today. I'm at the right hand of the father. He didn't understand any of that in the forefront, but about 10 minutes later, he's like, I like that word. And I like what you're saying. Then I turned it around and says, but it says stand firm. I said, here's the deal. I'm not changing the position that I hold to in the word of God, not for you or not for anyone else. I said, but I'm gonna stand on it. I'm gonna watch you and talk to you and witness to you every single day. And whatever you do with that is your responsibility. But it's my responsibility as a man to stand. And guys, you don't have to do it arrogantly. Jude 3 says, earnestly contending for the faith that was once delivered unto the saints. Did you know only 6% of our adults hold a biblical worldview in the United Kingdom today? There's one study that found that men ages 30 to 55 consider religion irrelevant and unimportant in their daily life. And yet the Bible tells us, wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God. And then he ends that verse about the whole armor of God saying, haven't done all to stand. So I think that's a good question that we ask ourselves here this morning. Have we done all? Meaning have we removed things in our ears and filled them with good things, eyes? What are we doing to do all to stand? Faithfulness is not a passive belief, guys, but it's active living. You know, it's one thing to be able to preach it and get up and say it and sing it and shout it and do it on Sunday, do it on Wednesday, do whatever, do it on Saturday prayer meetings. But what are we doing in our homes? What are we doing on the streets? What are we doing in our every single day life? Men say they believe the Bible today, but are they living it? And many attend the church, but do they leave their homes in the spiritual movement of the word of God? That's the question. Charles Spurgeon said, if you believe in the Bible, show it by your life. Let your whole conduct be a commentary upon it. I believe when somebody sees our life, especially our family, they should be able to read the Word of God. Sometimes you've all heard that cliche that you may be the only Bible that anyone ever reads. And that sounds good, but are you living that? As men, are we taking it upon ourselves to stand fast, to be faithful in the Word of God? Not just half-stepping, not just on Sundays, not just when it's important, not when we're just outside the doors. One of the differences that I think as a foreigner, coming to another nation, obviously, and being a minister and a church planner for that. One of the things that you find out real quick, and I don't know if these gentlemen here have experienced this. I know I have, and I do, is that you are switched on basically for the duration. There's very little downtime. I get a little downtime when I sleep, okay? I like what R.G. Lee said. R.G. Lee got a phone call one time from a nurse in a hospital. She goes, Dr. Lee, I know that you're busy. He goes, yes, ma'am, I'm always busy. I even work my toes when I sleep. I like that. But being switched on is important. But guys, do we, our lives, are we switched on understanding that, okay, we're in church, we get the word of God, we receive the word of God, it makes us feel good, it convicts us, we make corrections in our life. But then when we walk through those doors and we go down to the, to the frog, or we go to the streets, we go to the gym, or we go to places that we do every single day, are we switched on to live what that sermon said on Sunday? Watching, guys. Be faithful in your walk, be faithful in your word, be faithful in your worship, okay? Thirdly this morning, and I'll move on, we should be masculine. Now I understand we have a variety of ages here in the room today, and your interpretation of masculine may be different than your counterpart's definition of it, especially if you've bought into today's idea of masculinity. But Paul says, quit you like men. Now, here's my take on that. If Paul said, quit you like men, like the Holy Spirit told him to say, and he couldn't have written anything else down, it doesn't change with the times. There's a way a man should act. You know that phrase, quit you like men, you know what it literally means? It means act like a man, okay? You know, it means be mature. It means be courageous, man. Not brutish, but bold. Not dominating, but dependable. Again, you know, Paul said in 1 Corinthians 13, 11, he says, when I became a man, I put away childish things. Now I want to hit something here that may hurt. I hope it doesn't. But the average male today spends more time on entertainment than he does on education, exercise, or spiritual development. More time on entertaining himself. We're not a pre-Christian nation. I mean, we're not a post-Christian nation any longer. We were a pre-Christian nation. We have come full circle today. Why have we come full circle? Because we went through every stage of the cycle to where it was Christian, where we were post-Christian, now we're right back again to pre-Christian. We're looking right at those days when the Roman Empire ruled this world and everything was based for a Roman citizen on entertainment and pleasure. You say, well, preacher, I don't see us being like that. We gotta work hard. You do have to work hard. But how much time do you spend on educating yourself? How much time do you spend on spiritual development? How much time do you spend on physical exercise? Okay? As compared to just entertaining yourself. Think about that today. I read that the average man spends three plus hours on gaming or entertainment media, and yet they claim they have no time to read the Bible or to pray. Okay? Now guys, I'm not a gamer. I'm not a gamer for a multitude of reasons. These big fingers don't poke buttons very well. I'm going to go ahead and tell you that. So physically, I'm not a gamer, okay? The other part of it is I guess I'd be labeled with whatever it's called today. I don't even know what the new diagnoses are, but I was a hyperactive kid, whatever that translates to in 2025, okay? I got the attention span for games of a ferret. All right, I'm gonna last 30 seconds and I'm gone. I want to go to something else I will I like doing things productive and I'm not throwing a rock at any of you guys if you play games It's not my forte. So I don't have that struggle. So that's just not me. All right, I'm not good at it either So, I mean, I just don't know how to do it, but we cannot say I don't have time to read I don't have time to pray. I don't have time to do XYZ when we have the time to entertain ourself and playing games and and watching movies and watching television. We have time, we just choose not to prioritize the time. Guys, we don't need grown boys. We need biblical men. You know what I like? And Trey and I have talked about this the past couple of months. I love Nehemiah. I love Nehemiah. I like Nehemiah's Pentecostal aspect. I like his interpretation of laying on hands. He tells us, I'll send ballad over there and tell, you know, if you do so again, I'm gonna lay hands on you. All right. He didn't have time to come down and play and have a meeting with him. He goes, but you keep antagonizing people. I'm coming on the other side of this wall and I'll whoop you real good. Amen. I like that part. I love it. That was my, my pastor's favorite verse. He goes, I'm gonna lay hands on you again, if you do it again here, but this is what he did. He grabbed a trial in one hand. And he grabbed a sword in the other. And Nehemiah 4.14 says, fight for your brethren. Fight for your sons, your daughters, your wives, your houses. We need to be masculine. I'm not telling you to go out there and pick fistfights with people. I'm telling you to fight a spiritual battle today in a world of darkness, in a culture of compromise, in a world that's trying to rob you for who God wants you to be. And you need to fight for it. You need to fight for the next generation that's gonna come behind you. You know, some of these guys in here, we understand in the realm of church playing, I clearly understand, and I have no problem with the foundation that we're trying to rebuild of biblical Christianity and biblical manhood, that you know what? I may never see it explode, but I want to build it for a generation that's gonna come behind me, and they can stand upon that foundation, and they can move forward, and it can grow, and they can build churches that will maybe see a revival come in, or souls saved, and see the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm fine with that. I don't need the attaboys. I don't need the glory. I don't need to be the influencer. What I want to be is the man that God called me to be. And I want to stand upon that foundation that he's given me. And I'm going to quit you like men. I'm going to stand up and do right. A. W. Tozer said the church at this moment needs men, not delicate over modest boys, but heroes of the cross, man. Lastly, he tells us to be strong. Be strong. It's not just gym strength, guys. It's spiritual muscle. Now, I do believe you ought to be in a gym. I believe you ought to exercise. You don't have to go to a gym. You can get up and you can go walk every single day, all right? You can do something physically at your level today to maintain your health, all right? That may be the only thing I say about that this morning. It may not be, but I'll just leave that where it is. Ephesians 6.10 says, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. Be strong, man. Strength is to resist sin. Strength to lead when it's not popular. Strength to serve when you're tired, when you're weary. Anybody weary and tired today at all? Have you had a long week of work? Are you tired? Some have been pulling up carpet. We've been building walls. I had a 13 and a half hour day yesterday and loved every minute of it. Maybe not every minute of it, but I enjoyed it, amen. I like to work and I don't want to sit around. But you know, even when you're tired, you know, my dad taught me something years ago. My dad got saved when he was 19 years old. My mom was saved when she was 12. But when I got saved, we had been out of church for ages on end. You know, we played around in the church when I was a little kid. I wasn't raised in the home like probably many of you were, you know, but you know, when my dad got back into church, matter of fact, the man that led me to the Lord, I left two days later to go to uni, go back to school. I was transferring up to Nebraska. And I said, if you can do anything at all, please go by and see my mom and dad. My dad was all the way on a hunting trip when I got saved. I got baptized on a Wednesday. I got in a car on Thursday and took off 1,000 miles away from home, all right? I told my mom I got saved. I told my best friend I got saved. He said, oh, cool. Didn't know anything what it was about. I had no idea. It's like you said, your dad was friendless six months after salvation, and that's what I found as well. But I'm saying all that to say this. They went after my mom and dad like a dog with a bone. And my dad said, when my dad was down on his back, he assumed my back's better. I'm going to be in church on Sunday. He went to church anyway on Sunday, and he never looked back. I could tell you for 20 minutes worth of stories what happened from that moment forward, but I won't, but I'm going to say this one thing. A couple of years later, I'm in the middle of my NFL campaign and I'm tired and I'm weary and I'm this and that. It's Wednesday. I was supposed to meet with an agent that afternoon and I was just tired, man. It had been a long day. My dad's an amputee and I've never seen him give up on anything. He's the hardest worker I've ever known in my life. And he's laying on the sofa after he had worked that day and he gets up and I can hear him cracking and, you know, that sound. And I said, man, why are you going to church tonight anyway? It's Wednesday. I said, why don't you just take it easy, dad? You're tired, man. You know what he told me? He goes, every time I'm tired and I'm weary and I don't feel like going to church, but I go anyway, that's when I get the biggest blessing. And I've never forgotten that point. You serve God when you're tired. You serve God in the strength to lead when it's not popular, and when you're weary, and even in the midst to resist sin. Some of you guys may remember the experiments back in the 70s called Universe 25. Anybody hear of that? I'm going to show you if you have. I studied it in uni. It was called the mouse utopia, and Dr. John Calhoun is the one that performed this study, and he took a bunch of mice, males and females, and he put them in the perfect environment. They had all the food, they had all the rest, they had all the housing, they had everything, they were given everything, food, safety, no predators whatsoever, and they grew in leaps and bounds. But then what began to happen after a few generations, they lost all their purpose, the males stopped defending, the females stopped nurturing, and death came. The entire society collapsed. not from violence and not from hunger, because they had everything they ever needed, but from meaningless comfort. And if we have turned our eye and turned our ear away from the reality that that's where we're being lulled into today, guys, we're not watching. We're not being strong. We're not standing. Because the reality is comfort kills courage. Ease erases engagement. So what's our challenge today? And I'll be done. I think you need to get strong in the Lord. I think you need to look at a spiritual bench press. How about that? I mean, you need to read the word daily. You need to pray without ceasing. You need to be engaged in your local church. Find something to do in the local church. Be involved in it. Fight like a man of God. Joshua 1 9 said, be strong and of good courage for the Lord thy God is with thee. If the God of the universe, I said something to my wife last night before we went to bed, I said, it is absolutely remarkable to stop and think that the same spirit that raised Jesus Christ up from the grave is inside of me today. Think about that, man. The same spirit that moved upon the face of the deep and created everything that you know is inside of you and for saved and born again today. Don't tell me we can't be strong if my God's with me, amen. We can be strong. If your children follow you, are they gonna end up at Christ's feet or are they gonna end up at the world's doorstep? Think about that. If your wife leaned on you today, if she leaned on your leadership, is she gonna rise or is she gonna fall? If your church depended on your engagement, would it thrive or would it die? We need to be a pillar in this world today, not a puppet. We need to be a leader, not a leech. We need to be a soldier and not a spectator. There are a lot of spectators at a cross. Matter of fact, I think it was W.A. Criswell that preached a famous message called the spectators at the cross. People looking on and they're watching, but there's just a handful of them that did something about it. Vance Havner said, the devil is not fighting religion. He's too smart for that. He's producing a counterfeit Christianity so much like the real one that good Christians are afraid to speak out. Watch ye stand fast in the faith, quit ye like men, be strong. It isn't a suggestion, gentlemen, it's a summons. So brothers, can I encourage you, don't lose the fight. Don't give up, don't hand over your sword, don't forsake your post, but rise up, fight for your family, lead with integrity and live a life of conviction. Let us cry with our heart, just like Joshua said, ask for me in my house. We will serve the Lord. It wasn't up to a committee meeting. It wasn't up to a vote. We will serve the Lord. Will you bow your heads this morning? Father in heaven, thank you, dear Lord, for this morning, this opportunity and time to bring thy word. I pray that you would take it, be an encouragement to each and every one of us, and let us grab ahold of it this morning in a way, and bring honor, glory, and praise for you, Lord. And I pray for men this morning, that they would be strong, they would be steadfast, that they would fight, that they'd be soldiers, dear God, that we would take the responsibility that you have given us, Lord. And I pray that if we find ourself wanting in any one of these four this morning, help us today through the movement of the Holy Spirit of God, through the direction of the word of God, make those corrections and move forward. In Jesus name we ask.