Bob: I want you to imagine for a minute that you were starting on a journey, but you didn't know where you were going. For a lot of men in our culture today, the journey toward manhood is like that. Here's Dennis Rainey.

Dennis: Men are confused. They don't have a vision and a picture of what we're called to step up to – I am absolutely convinced of that. We heap all this guilt on them calling them to be men, and they never get a definition of what it is – what is it you're calling me to?[ Read Full Transcript ]

And so what are we supposed to step up to when we're 62? Where are you headed? Where am I headed?

Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Monday, May 7th. Our host is the president of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine. We're going to talk today about what it means for a man to be a man and how we can know that we are headed in the right direction.

And welcome to FamilyLife Today, thanks for joining us on the Monday edition. I've heard you use a phrase – this goes all the way back to when we were first starting FamilyLife Today. You talk about speakers having life messages. What do you mean by that exactly?

Dennis: I think that there are preachers, speakers and, for that matter, laymen and women, who experience God doing a work in their lives around a topic or around a passage of Scripture, and I think that work of God is so profound that they develop a life message around it.

You know, I've heard you speak, Bob, many times about the husband and the call of a husband to be a prophet, priest, and king. Wouldn't you say that's a life message for you?

Bob: I think the way you describe it, that makes sense. You've talked about honoring your parents. That's one of the life messages that you've had in ministry, right?

Dennis: Right, right.

Bob: And I think what we're going to hear today would have to be classified as one of those life messages for you, don't you think?

Dennis: Well, it didn't start out that way. Quite frankly, it started out as just a chalk talk with the men here at FamilyLife. We had some men who needed to step up, and we had a little meeting where I just called the men together, and there weren't any women in the room, and I just – you were there, you remember?

Bob: I remember, yes.

Dennis: It was pretty quiet in there, because I had some steam shooting out of my ears.

Bob: You were scolding a little bit.

Dennis: I was, I was, and there was good reason for that but, more importantly, I was educating, and I want to read what the Apostle Paul says. This is found in 1 Corinthians, chapter 16, verses 13 and 14, and if you'll open your Bibles to that passage, 1 Corinthians 16:13-14, and if you'll smell it [big sniff], it's the only place in my Bible that smells like …

Bob: Testosterone?

Dennis: Testosterone – real men. And there's a reason. Listen to these two verses – "Be on the alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love." I love this passage. I mean, it really is a cool passage because it has the tough side of a man but the tender side. It has a man standing firm, it has a man loving and relationally tender toward those he's called to lead.

Bob: And we've seen in the culture that men tend to swing back and forth between the soft, sensitive guy, and the macho guy, and the Bible is saying there are elements of both toughness and tenderness in authentic manhood, and we need to embrace both sides and live them out under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and the Word of God, right?

Dennis: You know, it is God who turns a boy into a man. It takes God to make a man a real man. Man was created to be indwelt by God. We're not born that way. We have to come into a personal relationship with Him, and it's Jesus Christ, when He invades our souls, and we invite Him to be our Savior, our Master, and our Redeemer, that He begins that process of taking the boy – ha, ha, ha – and turning the boy into a real man who leads like a real man, loves like a real man but, most importantly, is God's man.

You know, there are a lot of female listeners to our broadcast who – this is what they long for in the opposite sex. They don't just want a man, they want a tough and tender man, a man whose heart is after God, and a man who wants to be – well, who wants to allow Jesus Christ to live his life in and through Him. That's what the Christian life is all about, and I think that's what real masculinity is all about.

Bob: You talk about five steps on a man's journey, and we'll talk about that before we're done here today, but we ought to have listeners here – the introductory remarks you made to this message now – they should know, the group that's hearing this particular message …

Dennis: This was not just any group of men I was speaking to. This was the male half of the speaker team that speaks for the Weekend to Remember marriage conferences.

Now, you'd think, you know, even having the privilege of speaking to this group of – well, they're my associates, my colleagues, my partners in ministry. Yours, too, Bob, there are some 708 couples who speak at our Weekend to Remember, and so there was, I don't know, 55, 60 men. Not all were in attendance at the speaker's retreat that we have on an annual basis, and I decided I would share what had then become a little bit of a life message around stepping up to manhood and share with these guys some of the principles around that. So you're going to hear me allude to that as we get started in this message.

Bob: Here it is – this is Part 1 of Dennis's message on stepping up to manhood.

Dennis: [from audiotape.] The subject of manhood and being a man is all over our culture. Flying in here, I read an article by Michael Douglas, and in this article they talked to him about some of the roles he played in life in the Delta "Sky" magazine held a quote by Michael Douglas that said, "Men are confused." That is an understatement.

There is little doubt as to why men are confused. At one of our staff meetings that we had with FamilyLife a couple years back, the staff meeting was about over, and I was about to pronounce the benediction of the staff meeting being over and, all of a sudden, in the back of the staff meeting, one of the young men in our ministry grabbed the microphone, began to walk down the aisle to the front, and when he got to the second row, he had a microphone in his hand, he knelt to one knee, he grabbed a young lady's hand – the hand that he had free – looked her in the eyes, and with the microphone live he said, "Will you be my wife?"

And the whole staff, our staff, about 350 staff members totally stunned by this proposal, was for just an instant silent, dead silent. And then they erupted in applause as Jim Whitmore asked his friend to become his wife and fiancée.

Then he went on to say, "I want to leave a different legacy than what I was given." And I could tell by the way he said that there was something more behind that statement than what he had unpacked in that staff meeting. I said, "Jim, would you explain to me what you meant by that?"

So he wrote me this letter, which is three pages, single-spaced, and I'm not going to bore you with all of it, but I just want to read you a section of it. "I have never known the real meaning of family. My legacy is that of divorce, addictions, and passivity. As I grew up, I knew that I wanted more out of life than I was getting. I saw other families that were happy and normal. I told myself that's the kind of father and husband I wanted to be.

Every couple of years a new stepmother would come into my life. They all tried to be nice to me, but after seeing the first five or six come and go, I knew that they wouldn't be around long. They were nice, but I couldn't get close to them because I knew they would be traded in for a newer model by my dad. The last one was number 15, I think. It lasted six weeks." Listen to this quote, he said, "It's always easier to get a divorce than to deal with issues."

It's no wonder men are confused. It reminds me a bit of the story of a young monk who appeared one day ready for work, and he, as a young monk, began to look over some of the copies that had been translated by previous monks, and he said, "You know, you're making a mistake." He said, "You're doing your translating and your copying from a copy. You need to be doing your translating from the original."

And he found an error or two in the midst of it, and so they sent the senior monk downstairs into the cellar to look at the originals and to compare some of the original work. The guy was gone for hours, and, finally, the other monks upstairs began to be concerned about the old monk, and so a couple of them went down in this very sacred spot, and as they began to move down the cellar, they could hear quiet sobbing.

The guy was weeping. And, finally, they found him there with candles all around the scroll that he was reading, and they said, "What's wrong? What's wrong?" And, finally, he composed himself and rose his head from the tablets and looked up, and he said, "The word is celebrate."

Some of you guys will get that a little later in the morning.

I think men have been confused like that monk because we haven't had people painting the way for how we ought to become men. In football you hear the commentators talk about stepping up their game.

You'll watch a game occurring, and you'll say, "You know, they're really stepping up their game." You'll hear them talk about a golfer who is stepping up his game. In basketball men are said to step up their game when they turn on the heat defensively, and they completely turn a game around. Well, I think today is a time for you and I to step up and to call the men that we lead in the ministries that we lead to step up.

To kind of set the context for this, pull out your Bibles, and I want you to look at three passages just very, very quickly. I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this, but there is a theme of stepping up in the Scripture, I believe, calling us to maturity, to grow, and they're very familiar passages. The first one is Ephesians, chapter 4, verse 14.

Paul writes, "As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by trickery of men, by craftiness and deceitful scheming but speaking the truth in love, we are to" – what? Grow up, step up, as men. "In all aspects unto Him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by that which every joint supplies according to the proper working of each individual part causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love."

We are called to maturity, and if you're going to move to maturity as a man, a man has to step up. Another passage of Scripture – 1 Corinthians 13 – again, this is a real familiar one to you guys – not reminding you of anything profound here. It really describes my life. 1 Corinthians 13, verse 11 – "When I was a child, I used to speak as a child, think as a child, reason as a child. When I became a man," when I stepped up from childhood, "I did away with" what – "childish things."

"For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face-to-face. Now I know in part but then I shall know fully just as I have been fully known but now abide faith, hope, love, these three, but the greatest of these is love."

I ran across a quote that's just a great quote about stepping out of childhood. This guy wrote, "Most of us become parents long before we have stopped being children." Said it many, many times, God – I made the mistake of thinking God gave us six kids so we could help them grow up. He gave us six children to help "moi" grow up, "me" grow up. We are to step away from childhood and step into adulthood.

Finally, the last passage of Scripture is in the same book, 1 Corinthians. Turn over a couple of pages to 1 Corinthians, chapter 16, verses 13 and 14. "Be on the alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love." Be men, act like it, step up, be the man, play the man.

Well, we had a little come-to-Jesus-meeting, as Crawford calls them, with our staff, and I had, in my notes, these steps that I had created in my notes about what I believe were five steps every man should take as we step up to maturity. And in God's sovereignty, as I was giving the message in Mark Schatzman's church there in Little Rock, Grace Church, I began the message just where I started it with you guys.

I said, "You know, guys, I want to speak to just man-to-man. It's not a matter of an authority speaking to you about something, I just want to plead with you heart-to-heart." And behind me was enough stairs to illustrate the very point I was making, and so the whole thing was kind of hatched. From my notes to the stairsteps, and I began to speak from this, and it's kind of emerged into an illustration that I find men really connect with, because they are in the process of stepping up, and some of them are stuck between steps.

You're ready to step up, but they don't know what to step up to. Michael Douglas said it, "Men are confused." They don't have a vision and a picture of what we're calling them to step up to. I'm absolutely convinced of that. We heap all this guilt on them, calling them to be men, and they never get a definition of what it is – what is you're calling me to?

And so what are we supposed to step up to when we're 62? Where are you headed? Where am I headed? Who painted the picture for you – anybody? Did your dad step into your life and said, "Son, here is where we're going." Anybody have a dad who did that?

It's like we have to apologize for being a man but you know what? It doesn't have to be so. And so I began to speak to men. We taught a series for men about becoming a man who know how to love his wife, and we started with about 450 men and ended with 600 coming out at 6:00 in the morning. And I think part of why they kept coming was that each session we tried to have a man come and stand on the step where he was, where he had been, and tell about a decision he had made to step up.

And guys were coming and giving testimonies from the stairsteps, telling what they were stepping up to, and I'm telling you, guys, it was just cool. It was cool because guys were catching a picture of stepping up to maturity ultimately and becoming obedient to Jesus Christ. We can begin to just formulate a band of men who can say, "You know what? We're going to define this together, and we're going to revolutionize the Christian community together by giving men something they can step up to – listen to me – without apologizing.

Bob: Well, we've listened to Part 1 of a message from Dennis Rainey on stepping up. In fact, I wish our listeners could see what was there that morning as you were presenting this material to the men who speak at the Weekend to Remember Marriage Conferences. You had actual stairsteps with the steps to manhood listed on the stairsteps, right?

Dennis: All five of the steps were there and at different points I would stand on different steps talking to them about each step – actually had stairs built – and each of the five steps were labeled with a name, and I actually gave the message standing on the stairs talking about stepping up. Because I think it is a metaphor, a picture, that resonates with men. We talk about it all the time, as I just mentioned in the message, I refer to men and sports stepping up, stepping up their game.

So it's only a natural illustration to be able to list these five steps as a visual for men to get in their minds what it looks like to step up.

Bob: And you actually cover up on the stairs what each of the five steps are, and one at a time, you kind of pull off the cover and show that the first step a man is on is boyhood, right?

Dennis: Right, and then I uncover the next step, which is adolescence. One of the most curious steps that I think God ever made for a young man. I have a few questions for God when I get to heaven about this step.

Adolescence is supposed to give way to the next step, which is mature manhood. It's not just manhood, it's mature manhood, and I'd have to say that's kind of a new insight I had just the other day, Bob, when I was looking at Ephesians, chapter 4. It talks about becoming the mature man, and it's not just becoming a man.

Bob: Yes, you can become a man just by the years passing, physically, chronologically, but a mature man is somebody who grows into it, and there are a lot of guys who have reached the age chronologically who haven't reached maturity.

Dennis: That's exactly right, and that's what we're called to. And the next two steps, of course, I think are the ones that add nobility and great favor to a man's life. The fourth step is being a mentor, and the fifth step is being a patriarch, and you're going to hear me talk about, this week, really, how our culture degrades being a patriarch and how there is very little nobility in this step and yet, frankly, it's a step that's clearly seen in the Bible, and it brings such distinction to old age.

You know, and it's interesting, I'm not old, but I can see this coming. You know, my eyesight isn't quite as good, my hearing, my memory. Some of the things you begin, as you age and get a little older, they're not quite as sharp as they were in your 30s.

Well, what's going to happen as we get older if we don't have this step? In my opinion, it's a God-ordained step that just brings enormous esteem, value, and honor to a man with gray hair or maybe no hair – just a man who is pursuing Christ and has become a great influencer and a protector and a connector in his culture.

Bob: Well, we're going to unpack this journey that men are on through this week, and we're also going to hear from your wife about what a wife can do to help her husband on that journey, and both of these messages are available on CD. If any of our listeners are interested, they can go to our website, FamilyLife.com, click the red button that says "Go," in the middle of the screen, and it will take you right to an area of the site where you can get more information about how to obtain CDs of these messages so that you can pass them along to others or listen to them again.

Our website is FamilyLife.com, and the red button in the middle of the screen says "Go" on it. So if you click that button, it will take you right where you need to go for more information about how to secure the CDs and about other resources that are available from us here at FamilyLife as you are raising sons to become men or as you are mentoring younger men along the way. We have resources we can recommend to you no matter where you are in your journey, and the men around you in your life where they are in their journey – resources that you can use to help yourself and to help others step up to the next step of manhood.

Again, you'll find those resources listed on our website at FamilyLife.com. Click that red button in the middle of the screen that says "Go," or call us at 1-800-FLTODAY, if that's easier for you – 1-800-358-6329, and someone on our team can let you know what is available and how you can have the resources sent to you.

By the way, we are excited here at FamilyLife. We have had a group of friends who have come to the ministry recently and have said they want to help encourage more FamilyLife Today listeners to join with them in helping support the ministry of FamilyLife, and their encouragement really means a lot to us.

They have said that they are going to match every donation we receive during the month of May on a dollar-for-dollar basis. So when a listener, like you, sends in a $25 donation, they are going to send in a $25 donation, and we'll get $50 out of that. Or if you send $50, they'll match it with $50. You understand how this works, right?

They have agree to match every donation up to a total of $475,000, which means that we need as many of you as possible to make a donation during the month of May so that we can take full advantage of this matching gift opportunity.

Now, you can donate online, if you'd like, or you can call 1-800-FLTODAY to make a donation but, in either case, your donation is going to be doubled, it's going to be matched dollar-for-dollar and, of course, all donations to FamilyLife Today are tax deductible. We're listener-supported, we're a nonprofit organization, so we need to hear from you this month. If there is any way you can help with a donation call 1-800-FLTODAY or donate online at FamilyLife.com. And don't wait until the end of the month. Go ahead and call us today and let me say in advance we appreciate your financial support.

Tomorrow we're going to hear Part 2 of Dennis's message on stepping up to manhood. We're going to talk about boys becoming men, and what happens when a young man gets stuck in adolescence, and his body grows up, but he doesn't. I hope you can be with us for that.

I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, and our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our host, Dennis Rainey, I'm Bob Lepine. We'll see you back tomorrow for another edition of FamilyLife Today.

FamilyLife Today is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas, a ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ.