As men who are called to lead, we must remember that every facet of our life, and every milisecond of our leadership, must be done in submission to the Lord Jesus Christ. He is our King and soverign. We are simply the stewards of His treasures and will be held accountable for how we care for His possession. At the heart of it, that is the essence of male leadership. It is not pomposity, abdication, nor machismo. True godly and masculine leadership is found in submission to Jesus. It comes in orienting our lives around loving, serving, obeying, and worshipping Him.

When we began this masculinity series a couple of months ago, I was convinced that the recovery of Biblical manhood was one of, if not the most, important issues that we face today. There is an all-out war being waged against men and the culture around us is suffering because of it. In the same way that a house will not stand if you knock down it’s load bearing walls, a culture cannot stand when you knock down its men. They are the ones who were designed by God to bear the load of the nation, they are the ones who were made to protect our most valuable and precious citizens, our women, who in turn care for and protect our children. So, when you cut down the men, pervert them, and cripple them, you leave everyone else exposed… Which kind of seems like the point.

Today, we draw our masculinity series to a close by talking about what it means for men to bear the load of leadership. In this episode, we will talk about where true leadership begins and we will give a Biblical case for what male leadership looks like, in this generation, and beyond. So, let us first begin with where leadership begins, and that is at submission.

Submit Like a Man

In order to lead like a man, you must first know the limits of your leadership. You are not sovereign, Christ is. You are not unlimited, He is.

We know this from many passages, but perhaps the most clear passage for us to consider is Matthew 28:18, where Jesus says

 “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.

Jesus’ perfect unbroken submission to His Father, along with His lifelong unblemished active submission to the law of God, as well as His lifelong unflinching passive submission to the covenantal plan of redemption – that would culminate in Him being crucified on a Roman cross, dying like a criminal, and buried in a borrowed tomb – is what earned Him supreme, unlimited, and unrivaled authority. When He rose form the dead, He did not claim a kind of amprophous or undefined victory… He triumphed over all powers, authority, and dominion. He earned maximal authority on earth, in heaven, over life, and over deah.

Knowing this, we may rightly conclude that there is no actual (or even perceieved) authority structure outside of Jesus Christ. Every king, every dictator, every potentate, and every single person exercises authority that is borrowed on credit from the Lord of glory. We will either bow our knee to Him, in this life, as humble slaves that have done our master’s bidding (Mt. 25:23) or we will bow in terror in the life to come, when He showcases His magnified and exalted position to all creation (Philippians 2:9-11).

As men who are called to lead, we must remember that every facet of our life, and every milisecond of our leadership, must be done in submission to the Lord Jesus Christ. He is our King and soverign. We are simply the stewards of His treasures and will be held accountable for how we care for His possession. At the heart of it, that is the essence of male leadership. It is not pomposity, abdication, nor machismo. True godly and masculine leadership is found in submission to Jesus.

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