Mark Driscoll's Message from God to Guys - 'Grow up!'

Historically, a guy would go through two life phases: boy, then man. The transition from boy to man was comprised of five sociological variables that happened almost simultaneously or in very close succession:

1. Leave your parents' home (Gen. 2:24);

2. Finish your education or vocational training; 

3. Start a career-track job, not a dead-end-Joe job;

4. Meet a woman, love her, honor her, court her, and marry her;

5. Have children with her.

But here's what's happened. Rather than moving from boy to man by this succession of sociological transitions, we've created something called adolescence. It's a third life stage in the middle between boy and man. We don't know what to call them so we just call them guys. These are boys who can shave.

Today, adolescence starts somewhere in the teen years and continues indefinitely. There is no foreseeable end. The problem with adolescence is guys don't know when they're ever going to grow up and be men, and no pressure is exerted on them to do so.

Is it when you're sixteen and you can drive, or eighteen when you can vote and join the military, or twenty-one when you can drink?

Is it when you graduate from college after you've worked on your undergrad degree for seven or eight years?

Is it when you get married? Is it when you have kids? Is it when you buy a house?

No one knows. So, we are left with indefinite adolescence and a Peter Pan Syndrome epidemic where men want to remain boys forever.

The Apostle Paul says, "When I was a boy, I talked like a boy, I thought like a boy, I reasoned like a boy. When I became a man, I put childish and boyish ways behind me" (see 1 Cor. 13:11). A lot of guys don't, as if responsibility is a bad thing and the longer you can prolong it, the more masculine you are. That's the world. It's absolutely childish and it's consumerism.

The marketing sweet spot for many companies is young men ages eighteen to thirty-four. These guys don't know what it means to be a man, and so marketers fill the void with products that define manhood by what you consume rather than what you produce.

The tough retrosexual guys consume women, porn, alcohol, drugs, television, music, video games, toys, cars, sports, and fantasy leagues, as if being a man is defined by how much meat you can shove through your colon, how many beers you can pound, how fast you can drive, how stinky you can fart, how hard you can hit, how far you can spit, how loud you can belch, and how big your truck is.

The artsy, techie metrosexual types consume clothes, decaf lattes, shoes, gadgets, cars (not trucks), furniture, hair products, and underwear with the names of very important people on the waistband. For them, manhood means being in touch with one's feelings, wardrobe, and appearance.

A legion of moms and girlfriends enable these boys who can shave. They pay his bills, pick up his messes, loan him their car, and refill his sippy cup with beer or martinis, depending upon his preference. Girlfriends, gal friends with benefits, and miscellaneous other mannies (nannies for men) need to know this: you want a guy you can marry and have babies with. You don't want to marry a guy who's a baby.

Men are supposed to be producers, not just consumers. You're defined by the legacy, the life, and the fruit that come out of you, not by what you take in. But most guys are just consumers.

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