Quit You Like Men
The following message has been summarized from the live recording. You can listen to the entire message by clicking the image above.
“Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong.” - 1 Corinthians 16:13
We live in a day when the idea of manhood is being blurred, and some are even trying to erase it as far as the Bible is concerned. I am afraid our culture does not know what manhood is. We have the wrong idea on both sides of the pendulum. Some would define manhood by physical strength. Others would reject physical strength altogether. Some would reduce manhood to personality or preference. But God has never been unclear about what biblical manhood is.
When God defines manhood, He does not point us to culture. He does not ask us to look at our cultural moment. He points us to character. That is what I want to talk about: the character of a godly man, biblical manhood in a confused world. Quit ye like men.
A Final Charge to a Struggling Church
We find this charge at the close of Paul's first letter to the church at Corinth. The church at Corinth was a struggling church. As we read 1 Corinthians, and even into 2 Corinthians, we understand that this church had real problems. They had sin problems. They had issues. How many of us would agree that we have some issues today? We sure do. All of us do. First Corinthians is very relevant for us in 2026, very relevant for our culture, very relevant for us right now.
In the middle of that final charge to the church at Corinth, we find a statement that is needed today as much as it was needed two thousand years ago:
1 Corinthians 16:13
"Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong."
This morning I gave every man in our church a flashlight, not because anyone needs another gadget, but because I wanted to give something to go along with a picture of what our homes desperately need: something to take home as a reminder, something to attach this truth to your heart and your life.
Manhood Is Defined by God, Not by Culture
God does not leave manhood to culture, because culture changes. Not only is culture different from place to place, it is different from time to time. The culture I grew up in is very different from the culture of today. I have spent a little over half a century on this earth, and I have seen culture change dramatically. I think of those nearing a hundred years old, who have seen nearly a century pass. I cannot imagine the change they have witnessed. But God does not leave manhood to culture. God defines it, and I want us to look into the Word of God to see His definition.
A Biblical Man Is Watchful
Notice verse 13 again: watch ye. I think also of 1 Peter 5:8:
"Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour."
A flashlight is only useful in dark places, and we are living in dark days. As a matter of biblical manhood, a man must be watchful. Passive men are not a help to their homes. Absent men do not help their homes either.
I know this morning my heart hurts for many of you. I have a wonderful father. I am so glad he gets to be here for my daughter's wedding this week. I have a wonderful relationship with my dad, and I was reared in a godly home. I praise God for that. But I know some of you do not have that. Some of you wish you even knew your dad, wish you had some connection with him. My heart hurts for you. But I am so glad this morning that we have a heavenly Father who is perfect, and who is always present. He said, in Hebrews 13:5:
"I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee."
Men, it is important that we be like our heavenly Father. Do not be absent. One of the biggest problems in our culture, one of the biggest declines in the last fifty years, is dads who are absent. Some may be in the home physically but absent spiritually. Sleeping men do not help their homes. We have to be watching, looking, paying attention. God is looking for men who are awake spiritually, not drifting through life, not ignoring the danger, but watching over their lives, watching over their homes, watching over their relationships. How is your relationship with your wife? With your children?
We are to be watching not only over our home, but over our heart. Men, how is your heart? Is there a guard over it, or have you left the door open, unguarded, unprotected?
If I go home this evening and lay a steak on the counter and walk away from it, I guarantee someone in my house will find it. Our dog, Yeti, a big, shaggy creature whose head is tall enough to reach the counter, will decide that steak is his own Father's Day gift if it is not guarded. Men, the devil is watching. The Bible says he is looking for that chance to attack. Is your heart guarded? If we neglect our heart, we leave our family and our home unguarded. God needs men to be watchful. A biblical man is watchful.
A Biblical Man Stands Firm
1 Corinthians 16:13 also says to stand fast in the faith, and Ephesians 6:13 says:
"And having done all, to stand."
A biblical man is not easily moved. He does not bend with culture. He does not shift with pressure. We ought to stand for truth, and this book is truth. We have perverted the word "truth" in our culture today. We want to add a modifier to it that should never be added. We want to say, "I want to speak my truth." We want to define truth ourselves, package it up the way we want to show it. But it is not our truth. It is God's truth, and if I change God's truth, it is not truth anymore. The Bible says, in Romans 3:4:
"Let God be true, but every man a liar."
If what I say is different from what God says, God says I am the liar, not Him. The Bible does not change. It is always the same. Not one jot or one tittle will pass away. It is settled, final, finished. It is not in flux. It is not like culture. It is solid, and God wants us to stand on it.
It is difficult to stand on truth, because truth does not fit culture. Some of us remember learning to drive a manual transmission long before all the modern synchronizers made it easy. I learned on an old 1970s pickup truck and a 1961 International straight truck, neither of which had synchronizers to make the gears mesh smoothly. If you did not know how to time the clutch and the RPMs just right, you heard it, and my uncle would let me know I was grinding his gears. No matter what we do, truth is never going to mesh with our world. No matter how we dress it up or tweak it, if I stand on truth, it will not fit, and that is why it is so hard. Standing takes a decision: the character to say, "I am going to stand for truth, for what God says, not what I feel or like."
We have to stand for conviction too. When you decide something is truth, it is settled, not up for debate. My daughter Hannah is marrying Johnny this Saturday, and I can tell you that is not a decision either of them made lightly. It is a covenant before God and before those who gather to witness it, a serious, lifelong commitment. I believe God wants us just as committed to His truth as we are to our marriages, committed in conviction and in faith.
How do you grow that kind of faith? Romans 10:17 tells us:
"So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God."
One of the failures of manhood in our culture today is that we simply do not read this book. A young man in our church, Liam, was at my house recently as we scrambled to reschedule an event, and we got to talking about school. He mentioned an exam with a reading comprehension section and said, almost offhand, "I read my Bible every day, so I will be fine." I was so proud of him. He made that decision himself, but I guarantee you can trace it back to his dad's example. I wonder how many of us men could stand before God and say the same, that we read our Bible every day.
Too many of us are passive and silent when it comes to truth, loud about our preferences, our sports, our barbecue, but silent about Christ and the Word of God. A biblical man stands where God places him.
Years ago I took Brother Earl Jessup hunting. My girls called him "Uncle Preacher." He has been in heaven about ten years now. A few years before he went home, he came out and spent time with me, and I took him hunting during rifle season. I also had Brother Mark Heskith along, whose family had been in Portage la Prairie for years and were dear to us. I placed Mark and Brother Jessup in one spot and told them to stay right there, and I climbed up into a tree of my own, like Zacchaeus of old, though I was not looking to see Jesus, I was looking to see a deer.
From my perch I watched one of the biggest bucks I have ever seen jump the fence about eighty or a hundred yards away. I could have taken the shot myself, but I wanted Brother Jessup to have it before he went to heaven. I prayed, "Lord, thank You. Thank You. Thank You. I prayed this would happen." I watched that deer head straight toward where I had left Mark and Brother Jessup, and I waited to hear the shot. An hour passed. Nothing. Two hours. Nothing. Finally another deer came from behind me, and I climbed down to get mine.
A little while later, Brother Jessup and Brother Heskith came walking up, and I asked what happened. The deer had gone exactly where I knew it would go. Mark looked at me and said, "Pastor, it's my fault. About five minutes after you walked away, I thought this wasn't a good spot, so I told Brother Jessup we should move." If they had only stayed where I put them.
Christian man, stay where God puts you. Do not move. Stay on this book. Stay with your family. Stay faithful to Him no matter what culture says. Standing firm is not passive. It requires strength of character. That is biblical manhood.
A Biblical Man Acts Like a Man
"Quit you like men" literally means to act like a man, to be a man, not by culture's definition but by God's. 1 Kings 2:2-3 says:
"Be thou strong therefore, and shew thyself a man; and keep the charge of the LORD thy God."
God defines manhood through obedience to Him. Are we obedient to the Word of God? God does not define us by personality, preference, or presence. So many of us want to think, "This is just who I am." But God defines us by obedience, by responsibility, by faithfulness. That is acting like a man biblically. It means taking the responsibility God has given you, even though most of us would rather let it go. We lead even when it is hard. We do right even when it costs us something.
A Biblical Man Is Strong in the Lord
Finally, a biblical man is strong in the Lord: spiritual strength. 1 Corinthians 16:13 says to be strong, and when we read that word we often picture bulging biceps or a powerful man moving heavy weights. But that is not the strength Scripture is describing. Ephesians 6:10 says:
"Be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might."
This is not natural strength, not strength of personality. We follow a cult of personality today, but that is not what it means to be strong in the Lord. A husband cannot lead his home in his own strength. A father cannot rear his children in his own strength. None of us can build the kind of marriage we ought to have without God's strength. We cannot stand in our own strength. We have to be strong in the Lord.
I once ministered to people who did not have the strength to stand on their own. While I was in Bible college, I used to pick up a man in a wheelchair and carry him onto the church bus because we had no accessible transportation. He could not stand or walk on his own. But he asked me for help, he did not force me on himself. In the same way, God will not force His strength on you. But He is there to strengthen you, if you will ask.
Remember Saul, head and shoulders above every man in Israel. When they wanted to make him king, he hid. They finally found him, and alone with God he said, "I cannot do this. I need Your help." God later said of Saul, in 1 Samuel 15:17:
"When thou wast little in thine own sight..."
That was when God used Saul, when he knew he was not strong enough on his own. But when Saul began to think he had it handled and did not need God anymore, that was his fall. Christian man, that is our fault too, mine included. It is when we think we no longer need God.
Strength comes from walking with God. When God made Adam, He set the pattern: man walked and talked with God. That pattern should never have changed. God still wants to walk with you. He still wants to talk with you, and He still wants you to talk with Him. We are strong in the Lord by depending on Him, trusting Him, and yielding control to Him.
Returning to God's Ancient Landmarks
Our world does not need a new definition of manhood. We need to return to God's definition, to the ancient landmarks.
I grew up on a farm in southern West Virginia. Many of the old farms in that part of the world did not have fences, but they planted hedgerows, using a hardwood tree called Osage orange, sometimes called hedge apple or bois d'arc. I could take you behind my parents' house to the edge of a field between two properties. There is no fence there now, but if you look closely at those old trees, you can still see the faint ridges in the bark where barbed wire once wrapped around the trunk. The wire is long rusted away, but the hedgerow still stands, and there is no question where the property line is. The boundary is still obvious.
The boundary of right and wrong is still very obvious in the Word of God. You have to close your eyes and close this book to say you do not know what is right or wrong anymore. It is plain, and we need to get back inside God's boundaries.
That matters for our families, our children. Our children do not just hear what we say, they see what we do. We say, "Don't do what I do, do what I say," but it does not work. Your actions speak louder than your words. Proverbs 20:7 says:
"The just man walketh in his integrity: his children are blessed after him."
If you are watchful, your children will learn to be watchful. If you stand firm, they will learn to stand firm. If you walk with God, they will see it lived out. But if you drift or compromise your convictions, they will witness that too.
A father's role is to provide for his family. The Bible says if you do not, you are worse than an infidel, so we ought to work hard and provide. But that is not our only role. It is to lead, to protect, not perfectly, but faithfully. A flashlight does not always make noise, but it gives guiding light. Some of you will never stand behind a pulpit or preach a sermon. You may never be famous. But every day you can quietly bring that light, that stability, that direction and faithfulness into your home, and it matters more than the world will ever understand.
A Call to Decision
The world does not need perfect men. There was only ever one perfect man, and that was Jesus. The world needs men who are watching, standing, obeying, and depending on God. There is a great need today, not just for more men, but for men who understand biblical manhood, men who will watch and stand and take responsibility and walk with God. That does not happen by accident. It happens by decision, and even rejecting a decision is itself a decision.
As we close, I want you to consider a few questions:
Am I spiritually alert, or am I drifting?
Where have I failed to stand firm? All of us have failed somewhere. Lord, would You show me the area where I have failed to stand?
Am I living as a man by God's definition, or by culture's?
Am I depending on my own strength, or on God's strength?
Homes will be shaped by the decisions we make and the lives we live. Someday, when you pick up that flashlight, whether by your chair at home, in your garage, in the glove box of your car, or on the roadside helping one of your kids with a broken-down vehicle, I hope it reminds you that God has called you to be a man who brings light into a dark place. We live in a dark world, and Christian men are called to bring the light of Christ to the darkness around them: to their families, their homes, and their culture.
Christian men, can I encourage you to make a decision today to be the man God has called you to be? Find your role, fill it, and bring the light of the gospel to a lost world. Quit ye like men.
