The Strength Of A Mature Man by Pastor Sam Adeyemi: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

We Are Created to Influence

God's ultimate promise was to make Abraham a father of many nations, and through his seed, all the families of the earth would be blessed. That is movement level. When you are conscious of that calling, you are intentional about how you build influence and how you use it. We are not hustlers. We are creators.

Man Is the Foundation of Everything

I spell man R-E-S-P-O-N-S-I-B-I-L-I-T-Y. That is the spelling of man. That is the reason Jesus described himself as the cornerstone — the stone which the builders rejected that God made the head of the corner. When you are a cornerstone, the weight of the building rests on you. That is man's destiny. That is man's design.

When God would create the woman, He did not go back to the raw material from which He created man. He created the woman from the man. Man is the foundation for everything. The word Adam means mankind. If you met Adam two days after God created him and shook his hand, you were shaking hands with mankind. And once something went wrong with him, something went wrong with everything.

Romans 5:17 (NLT) — for the sin of this one man, Adam, caused death to rule over many. But even greater is God's wonderful grace and his gift of righteousness, for all who receive it will live in triumph over sin and death through this one man, Jesus Christ.

Something went wrong through one man. But God corrected it through one man. And God is correcting many things in the world right now through some men.

Why Satan Targets Men

That is the reason Satan does everything to weaken men. We are Satan's special project. Just because one Moses was about to be born, Satan moved Pharaoh to decree, "Throw all the male children into the river." Just because one Jesus Christ was born, Satan moved Herod to decree, "Kill all the male children from two years and younger." One man. Because one mature man in God's hands can shift generations, Satan does everything to stop that maturity.

Jesus — The Model Man

Jesus Christ is our model man. The redemption of manhood and mankind is rooted in him. Luke 2:52 — He grew in wisdom and stature, in favor with God and with man. The key word is: He grew. That is one major difference between the last Adam and the first one. The first Adam was created in an adult body. When Satan came, he crashed. But when God brought the last Adam in, He came as a baby. They took time to groom him. He grew. Growth.

Galatians 4:1-2 — the heir, as long as he is a child, is not different from a slave. He is put under tutors and governors until the time appointed by the Father. 1 Corinthians 13:11 — when I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child. When I became a man, I put away childish things. A mature man is a terror to Satan. A mature man is an instrument in God's hand to establish His plans and purposes.

Satan's Strategy: Imbalanced Growth

If Satan cannot stop the maturity, he makes it imbalanced. He distorts it. Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, in favor with God and with man — balanced in every direction. But Satan makes men grow in some areas and not in others.

We live in a world of extremes:

• Strong in career, weak in relationships
• Strong in spiritual life, weak in finance and career
• Strong in career and finances, weak in spiritual life
• Strong in career, weak in health

Whenever one part of your life is painful, you compensate for it with another. Like a bad leg — you transfer the weight to the other leg to disguise the pain. A doctor can see it instantly. When there is pain in relationships, in the home, men throw themselves into business and try to compensate by over-succeeding. When children say, "You have no time for me," the response is, "I'll buy you a toy." But that is not strength — that is compensation. Imbalance.

Healing for Wounded Men

The Holy Spirit gave a picture for this conference. A pastor was preparing his Sunday sermon while his young son kept interrupting him. To keep the boy busy, he tore a picture of the world from a magazine into pieces and told him, "Put the world back together." He expected the boy to be occupied for hours. But in a few minutes, the boy returned with the world perfectly assembled. Shocked, the pastor asked how. The boy said, "Daddy, there was a picture of a man on the other side. I put the man together — and the world came together."

When you put the man together, the world comes together.

Joseph, speaking to his brothers who had sold him into slavery, said, "Do not feel bad. I know you think you sold me, but it was actually God that sent me. You have to learn to reframe the things that have happened to you. Don't ascribe to people the power they don't have. Don't give yourself an excuse to generate bitterness. They are not powerful enough. Whatever they did, God is converting it into an opportunity to fulfill your destiny."

This is the healing of a wounded man — not denial, but reframing. Not pretending the wound did not happen, but seeing through it to God's sovereignty. Romans 5:17 — what Adam broke, Jesus fixed, and the solution is bigger than the problem. Life is bigger than death.