What About Manhood?

Everything about Goliath says, 'Look at me.' Look at how big I am, how strong I am, look at what I can do. He stands nearly ten feet tall. His armor weighs more than some middle schoolers. The tip of his spear alone weighs fifteen pounds — imagine carrying around a bowling ball on the end of a stick and throwing it as a weapon. He is huge, and he is terrifying. But Goliath's real problem was never his size. It was his pride. His strength existed for one purpose: his own glory.

That is what the Bible would call toxic masculinity — strength without God. And it is worth saying plainly, especially in a culture that often treats strength itself as the problem: strength is not the issue. Goliath's sin was not that he was powerful. It was that his power had no master above it. He answered to no one. He used his size to intimidate, to dominate, to make a name for himself. Strength aimed at self-glory always curves, eventually, into destruction.

Here is the uncomfortable truth for any of us tempted to measure manhood by raw capability: the strongest man in the room is not necessarily the godliest man in the room. A man can bench four hundred pounds and still be spiritually weak. A man can run a company and still fail to lead his family. A man can conquer a boardroom and still be conquered by his own sin. Goliath had strength, but he had no submission — and strength without submission is just a louder way to fall.

This is why the gospel does not ask men to become less strong. It asks them to surrender their strength to a King. The whole message of David and Goliath turns on one sentence worth memorizing this week: biblical masculinity is strength surrendered to God for His glory and the good of others. The opposite of toxic masculinity is not weakness. It is strength on its knees.

So take an honest inventory today. Where is your strength actually pointed — at your glory, or at God's and your neighbor's good? Your gifts, your drive, your competence, your influence are not the problem. The only question is whose name they serve.

There is a second man in the valley, and he is easy to miss because he is doing nothing at all. Saul hears Goliath and freezes. Which is astonishing, because Saul was literally the biggest man in Israel with the most battlefield experience. He was the king. He was the warrior. He was the leader. He was the one man who should have stepped forward to protect his people. And yet, for forty days, he doesn't move.

Why? The fear of man instead of the fear of God. Saul's whole life had quietly become about protecting Saul — his reputation, his safety, his position. 'The fear of man lays a snare,' the Proverb says, 'but whoever trusts in the LORD is safe.' Saul was snared. And before we are too hard on him, we should admit that this is the trap many men fall into today. Drake put it bluntly: the greatest threat to masculinity today is often not aggression. It's passivity.

Passive masculinity is the man who knows what he should do and simply refuses to do it. He waits. He avoids responsibility. He stays silent. He is always hoping someone else will go first — someone else to pray, someone else to lead, someone else to volunteer, someone else to disciple his children, someone else to fix his marriage, someone else to step up. And while he waits, the giant keeps talking and the king keeps sitting. Whole families and churches are paralyzed not by loud, aggressive men, but by good men who do nothing.

The gospel has a remarkable track record with stuck men. In today's reading, another Saul — Saul of Tarsus — is enslaved to a different master, breathing threats and dragging Christians to prison, until the risen Jesus meets him on the Damascus road and makes him the boldest witness the church has ever known. The same God who freed Saul of Tarsus from his rage can free you from your fear. Here is the liberating logic of the whole sermon: once you and I truly fear God, we have nothing else to fear. We are finally, completely set free.

So name the thing you have been passive about. The conversation you keep avoiding. The leadership you keep outsourcing. The responsibility you keep hoping someone else will pick up. Passivity feels safe, but it is its own kind of snare. Today, fear God more than you fear the moment — and take the first small step you've been putting off.

When David finally steps forward, he sees the exact same giant everyone else sees. The difference is never what David sees. The difference is what David believes. While the whole army measures Goliath against themselves and despairs, David measures Goliath against God and is unbothered. His confidence is not in David. It is in the Lord who has delivered him before and will deliver him again.

And notice where that confidence was forged. Most people assume David was prepared in the valley. He wasn't. He was prepared in the pasture. Out in the fields, alone, a lion came, and then a bear, and David fought them off to rescue a single lamb. Nobody saw the lion. Nobody saw the bear. Nobody applauded. No one posted about it online. But God was quietly preparing him in the ordinary, unwitnessed moments of an ordinary job. The giant fell in public because David had been faithful in private.

We live in a culture that wants the spotlight without the preparation. Everybody wants the trophy; nobody wants the training. Drake pointed to Lionel Messi, who, when asked what it felt like to become an 'overnight success,' answered: 'I started early and stayed late, day after day, year after year. It took me seventeen years and a hundred and fourteen days to become an overnight success.' Championships are won long before the stadium lights come on. The same was true for David, and it is true for you.

This is deeply good news for any man who feels stuck in an unglamorous, unnoticed season — the early mornings, the faithful commute, the diapers, the quiet obedience nobody claps for. God is not wasting it. He does His most important shaping in the pasture, not the valley. The lions and bears of your hidden life — the small temptations resisted, the small duties kept, the prayers nobody hears — are exactly how He builds a man who can be trusted with a giant.

So do not despise the pasture you are in. Be faithful in the thing in front of you today, especially the part no one sees. Everyone wants a platform; nobody wants the process — but the process is precisely where God makes the kind of man He can use.

Let me ask you the question Drake asked the men in the room: who helped make you into the man or woman you are today? Was it a father, a coach, a pastor, a teacher, a mentor? Because none of us becomes who we are alone. God almost always uses faithful people to shape the next generation of faithful people. That is not a detour from His plan; it is His plan.

Drake told the story of Dr. Lyle Dorsett. Before he was a seminary professor, he was a Marine. And before he was a Marine, he was a broken man in need of grace — who, after an argument with his wife, drank himself to a stop on the side of a mountain road and woke up looking over a cliff that could have ended his life. As he sat there, Billy Graham came on the radio, and right there on the roadside Dorsett surrendered his life to Christ. God transformed him into a pastor, a professor, and eventually the holder of the Billy Graham Chair of Evangelism.

Drake met Dr. Dorsett his first year of seminary, right after failing an exam he had studied for as hard as he possibly could. He was discouraged. He didn't know if he had what it took. And Dr. Dorsett sat down with him and told him not to quit — believed in him when he could barely believe in himself. Drake says he sometimes wonders if he would still be in ministry today if not for that one conversation. Near the end of his life, Dorsett stepped back from public ministry to care for his wife as her health declined. That, Drake said, is biblical manhood. Not fame, not power, not dominance — one faithful man following Christ and investing in others.

Here is what most men never realize: how much influence they actually have. A conversation. An encouragement. An example. A life lived faithfully in front of someone watching. That is how God changes generations. Paul told Timothy to take what he'd received and 'entrust it to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also' — four generations of faith in a single sentence. You may never hold a chair of evangelism, but you are almost certainly someone's Dr. Dorsett, whether you've noticed it or not.

So today, think of one person a step or two behind you — a child, a younger man or woman, a new believer — and take the small, deliberate action you'd be tempted to think doesn't matter. Send the text. Make the call. Have the coffee. Say the encouraging word. Generations have turned on less.

Here is the twist we don't expect. We all want to be David in this story — the hero, the giant-slayer, the one God uses to deliver His people. Sign me up. But if we're honest, that's not us. We are much more like Israel: afraid, powerless, unable to save ourselves, huddled behind the battle line — until a Champion steps forward on our behalf. Because Jesus is the greater David. David defeated a giant; Jesus defeats sin. David defeated a warrior; Jesus defeats death. David won a victory and shared it with Israel; Jesus won the victory and shares it with His people. The hope of Christianity is not that you become David. It is that Jesus becomes your Savior.

And that changes how you face your own giants. Look at what David does in verse 48: he runs. He doesn't walk. He doesn't hesitate. He doesn't overthink it or wait for a better opportunity or ask for one more sign. He runs toward the giant. Why? Because faith moves, and fear hesitates. A man who knows the battle belongs to the Lord doesn't have to inch forward — he can charge.

So let me ask you the question Drake left the church with: what is your giant? Because most giants don't live in valleys, do they? They live in our homes, our marriages, our parenting, our habits, our fears, even our excuses. You probably already know what yours is — the Holy Spirit has likely been naming it as you've read this week. Maybe it's leading your family spiritually. Maybe it's reconciling a broken relationship. Maybe it's asking for forgiveness, or putting away the thing that has captured your attention. Maybe it's getting into a group, or stepping up where you've been passive, or surrendering your life to Christ for the first time.

Whatever it is — run toward it. The world needs fewer Goliaths, fewer men obsessed with themselves. It needs fewer Sauls, fewer people sitting passively on the sidelines. It needs more Davids — not perfect people, but faithful ones who trust God and His Word enough to take the next step. Goliath fought for himself. Saul protected himself. David risked himself for God. And Jesus gave Himself for us — so that now we can give ourselves to Him.

This is the declaration the men of Christchurch stood and read together, and it's a fitting place to land your week: 'As a follower of Christ, I reject passivity. I accept responsibility. I trust the Lord. The battle is His. By God's grace, I will stand firm. I will run toward my giant for the glory of God and the good of others. So help me, God.'