Submitted Husbands

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically from the audio and may contain small errors.

We have all seen a bad marriage. We've all seen it, we've seen it either in the wild, we've seen it because we've been in one, we've seen it, we know it when we see it, we see husbands that are either passive or dominating. We see wives that are either hiding or controlling. And we see it generally just a loss of a willingness to put another person first. When you lose that willingness, you are headed for or you are already in a bad marriage. This week we're going to begin kind of a new section in Ephesians five and six. And this section is called the household codes, that's what theologians call them. We've been calling it the submitted life. And so this is the submitted life at home. And Ephesians five and six, it kind of paints this big broad picture of the submitted life. And we've been talking about the submitted life in a lot of couple of different areas.

And the scripture is not shy on talking about how our families should be. Not making a ton of apologies. The submitted life at home. And so today we're gonna be moving from personal life, church life, we were there last week, we're gonna be going into home life. So the next three weeks are gonna be submitted husbands, submitted wives, and submitted families and jobs. Okay. And although these issues can be thorny, which is why we're preaching on men first, they can be thorny but we need to be bold. We cannot skirt around this, we can't apologize, we can't preach it, kind of walking backwards, kind of like looking at the ground, kicking it, saying aw shucks. The home life goes under preached. In a lot of churches in our area, and all across the, really all across society, no matter where you are, it goes under preached. There's a few reasons for that. And I wanna just point out too very quickly

to kind of just acknowledge what we're dealing with. Okay, the first is that biblical male headship is regarded as cultural. Biblical male headship is regarded as a cultural norm. In other words, it's something that is associated with western civilization as opposed to something associated with scripture. It's something that is associated with how white people like to act versus how God created all people to be. That's a big difference. And so what we have is a confusion. We don't understand biblical male headship. God has made men to lead out really at a genetic level. And scripture bears witness to this as we're going to see, but also when you look at really any discipline of study, biology, sociology, anthropology, psychology, it all points to that. It all points to that. It's just kind of obvious, it's staring us in the face. And people try to skirt around it or say,

well no, it has to do with your childhood. Look man, at the genetic level, God made men to be a certain way and that's okay. We have issues being men, obviously men are not perfect. That's not the sermon today. But we need to understand that there's a difference. And we need to understand that God made men to be a particular kind of way. We talk about biblical male headship. We're actually gonna be talking about that a little bit more next week whenever we're talking about submitted wives. We're gonna touch on it this week though. The second thing that it goes under preach, the second reason is that there is a big fear of how others may receive this message.

It is easy to speak the truth, but to be unaware of your audience. If you wanna go in an open air arena and you get a microphone, a megaphone in front of your face and just start shouting things, sure enough. You can speak truth all day. But I would submit to you that a large percentage of the time that you don't understand your audience. People don't wanna hear that. Or actually, they don't wanna hear it like that. You've gotta know to whom you are speaking. So in one sense, I wanna tell you, I am completely qualified to speak on submitted husbands completely, only because I'm a husband. In another sense, I am very disqualified to speak on this because I'm a bad husband. I'm not a good husband. And we're gonna see kinda why that is. That really, no man in here, no man I know or have ever met personally would stand up and say, I'm a good husband. Like, no guy, none of you.

I wouldn't either. And not just like because my wife's looking or something. But I mean believe it on a fundamental level. Like, you don't believe that. None of us believe that we are good husbands. We might be able to point to worse husbands than us. That might make us feel good at night or something. But truly in our person, we know that we are not good husbands. And so humbly, I would just remind everyone as always every Sunday, we must speak clearly where the Bible speaks clearly.

We must do that. I don't stand before you some paragon of husbandry. Okay, I'm not the perfect husband. You can just ask my wife. She will tell you all about it. But very gently and lovingly, because she's a great wife. I'll also say one more thing. If you are unmarried, this is not intended to shame you. This is not intended to be condemning or to say, well, you're really, you're not living your whole life because you're only, you're single or you're not married. And that goes for men and women.

We can only live the life that God gives us, okay? We can only do that. So to you, I would say, let Ephesians five, as we read this, be kind of a signpost. A signpost for you to either, if you're a man, how to be a man, how to treat people, but also if you're a woman, let Ephesians five be a signpost for you to know how to encourage all the men in your life. The husbands, the boys, the dads, the granddads. And maybe even some cases, just ex-husbands or baby daddies or kind of whatever situation you're dealing with, right? Like, how do you love that man well? How do you kind of respect him in whatever role that he's gonna be? How do you do that in a way that is submitted to the Lord? How do we do that? All right. I do wanna say, so now that all that's kind of out of the way, the submitted life begins in the home. And it begins, in the home, it begins with submitted husbands.

When you have a home that doesn't have a submitted husband, it makes everything else tough, right? It makes everything else tougher. It makes decision-making tough, it makes a lot of it tougher. Okay, so with that, let's kind of open to the scriptures. Let's look at Ephesians five. We're gonna be in Ephesians five, 25 through 33. And we're gonna hit all of that. So Ephesians five, 25.

Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. Okay, husbands, so we get it out of the gate. Husbands, give yourself up for your wife. When I talk about being a submitted husband, this is what I'm referring to. This is a Greek word, to give yourself up, one Greek word, paraditomy. Paraditomy means to hand over something of immense value to the care of another person. It means to take something that you value deeply and to entrust that to another person. So for example, Jesus, in his care for his church, his bride, what is referenced here in Ephesians five, 25, he has made a sacrifice for the church. He has sacrificed himself for his bride. And in fact, this is the essence of what it is to understand the gospel of Jesus Christ. This is what makes someone a Christian. The only reason that you and I are Christian is because Jesus has sacrificed himself,

took the initiative, did it willingly, sacrificed himself on behalf of his bride. He gave himself up for her. Christ loved the church by giving himself up for her. But it's not just a simple act of devotion. It is an entrusting of that sacrifice to the benefit of other people. So let me just lay that on two fronts. Jesus did not just sacrifice himself for the church, for the church to just go, man, thanks. Okay, yes, let's be grateful, okay? Let's say thank you and mean it. Yes, yes, and amen. But it's not just for that, is it? It's not just for that. It's for more than that. It is an entrusting of that sacrifice for a benefit of all.

And in the same way, husbands should give themselves up for their wives, but it's not for their wives that they should give themselves up. In other words, as you are giving yourself up for your wife, we're gonna look at kinda what that means, as you're doing that, it's not contingent on whether your wife says thank you. It's not contingent on whether your wife appreciates that or even sees it. You should give yourself up for your wife in ways that she can't see, okay? You should give yourself up for your wife in the same way that Christ loved the church, and that is not just for the benefit of the church, but for the benefit of many. Here's a couple of benefits right here. Look at verses 26 and 27. So Christ loved the church, gave himself up for her. That he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself

in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing that she might be holy and without blemish. So here's the picture that we're getting. As Jesus gives himself up for the church, the church is spiritually refreshed. A renewal, a washing kind of comes over the church as Jesus does that. Husbands, when you give yourself up for your wife, she receives a spiritual blessing because of that in a way that she doesn't really have access to otherwise. When you give yourself up for your wife willingly, it does something, it unlocks something, it changes something.

And so this isn't like how to manipulate your wife, just give yourself up for her. That's not what we're talking about here. It's like a gardener, right? Whenever a gardener is working, he considers, when he plants something, he considers the soil makeup. He considers weather patterns, okay? And then he plants accordingly and he tends to the needs of those plants, of that area. So husbands, you tend to your wives. You give yourself up for your wives. So how do we do that? How do we benefit our wives in this way? Let's get very, very practical. And because I need to be so practical here, I'm actually gonna be generally practical, like how do we do this in the everyday? And then I'm gonna do it specifically on decision making. We'll get to why in a minute, but let's talk about how husbands give themselves up in the everyday. Next couple of verses help us, give us a little bit of perspective.

Ephesians 5, 28. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies, he who loves his wife loves himself, which is a really odd way to express that, okay? Here's what I would say practically, know your wife. Know your wife. Know her mind. Know her preferences. Know what she's thinking. Know what she's going through. Ask her how her day was and remember what she said. And remember how she said it, okay? Study your wife. Know your wife. Know what the little quirks are. Know what the things that bother her are. Just know that, okay? I know, for example, that my wife hates waking up to a sink full of dishes. I mean, you think you hate things, but my wife really hates waking up to a sink full of dishes. It's just defeating, she really hates it. Any women also with her on there? Yeah, okay, a couple of you, like, oh, can't do it. Somebody's like, it's fine.

Let the dishes pile up, ha ha ha. My wife does not like that. And so if I want to bless my wife, and I know there's a bunch of dirty dishes in the sink, just do the dishes. She didn't have to ask me twice. She didn't have to ask me once sometimes to do the dishes, okay? And I thought about this. You know, we have so many things that we can track nowadays, and it's always gonna sound weird whenever I say to track your wife. That's always gonna sound weird, but I'm gonna say it. Track your wife, okay? You can track your heart rate. You can track your favorite sports team. You can track the stock market. You can track so many things, gentlemen. You can track World War II history. So many of you love the World War II history, but you can track all those things, okay? You can track all those things. Consider tracking your wife the same way. And I don't mean like bust out a chart

and like, she was happy today. That's not, don't do that. That's weird, that's stalker-y. Pay attention, though, to what your wife is like, what she's doing, is she having a bad day? Is it a tough week at work? Is it a, was it a tough day at home? Help her figure out, right? My wife, we were talking yesterday, my wife is Christie, and she's right here. She's hearing me preach this whole thing, and so if you think I'm lying, I got a lie in front of my wife, which is impossible.

So I'm not lying here. Yesterday we were talking, and she had a really good idea. And she said, the idea is immaterial for this illustration. She had a really good idea, and I said, that is what, that's what I want to unlock. I said, I want to be able to do things for you so that you can have good ideas about other things, so that your mind can be free from like, doing the next thing, right, of just stuff that you gotta do because you're being dependent upon for all these things. Take some of that off so that you can have a little bit of freedom, a little bit of openness, a little bit of clarity to be able to think and dream and maybe take care of some longer term things. That's how I need to take care of my wife. Your wife is probably different than that, and you need to respond differently than that. But that's just like someone, I think my only gold nugget,

that I have unearthed after 25, almost 25 years of marriage, is that I need to help her do that. Track your wife. Know her. Consider her. The next two verses go on, talk about it a little bit. It says, for no one has ever hated his own flesh but nourishes and cherishes it just as Christ does the church because we are members of his body, okay? You need to know your wife. You also need to give her attentive care, okay? This is way more in the moment kind of thing, attentive care, okay? You need to listen to your wife in the moment. You need to work with her when you are able. Listen, brothers. I know, I know when you get home from whatever you get home from, whether it's working outside or whether it's your job, the first thing you wanna do, if you're anything like me, is sit. Okay, that's a little bit of amen and going on through the laughter. I feel it, okay.

You wanna sit. Listen, just take, you wanna see a difference in your marriage. Don't sit. See if there's anything you can do to help. See if you need to take the kids on a walk. You got multiple children that are under the age of 15. Get them out of the house. That's probably what she wants you to do. I'm just guessing here. Just alleviate some of the burden. Help cook with her. Help her do whatever she's doing. If she's gotta finish a deadline, a thing for work, a deadline, and you can help with that, then do it. If you could do something to take her mind off of whatever else she has to do, then do that. Be attentive. Provide for her needs in a timely manner. Attentive care. Lastly, speak well.

Speak well of your wife, John 15. Jesus is talking about His disciples and He says that they're clean because of the words that are spoken to them. I wonder, I wonder if even the same thing kind of remotely applies to your wives. How do you speak to your wives? Do you speak well about your wife? Let me tell you guys, nothing is worse. Nothing is worse than being out at like a dinner party or out to dinner with people or whatever and some husband starts bashing on his wife. It's uncomfortable. It's just, even if it's kind of funny, it's not funny. Even if it's sort of like, it's just different. You might protest on that. You might say, well, it's funny whenever she makes fun of me. Yeah, it is. It's really funny when she makes fun of you. It's not funny when you make fun of her. It just isn't. I realize that's a double standard, but it's real. If anybody wants to try it out,

you run that experiment this week and tell me how it goes. It's definitely okay for her to make fun of you. In fact, it's probably expected, but for you, when you start teasing your wife, you start bashing on your wife. Speak well, speak well of her, because your wife desires to be attended to, known, loved. She desires to understand on a fundamental level that she is worth your time and attention.

Women by code cannot say that to their men. Okay, it's a code. I don't know why you can't say it, but you can't say it. But you want to feel loved, cherished, and worth their time. You want that. Women want it. And I'm probably not even expressing it in a good way. Just insert the better words there, ladies. Just do it. But for men, I think just to be able to tell you outright, like, men displaying that she's worth the effort is,

that's like 99% of the problem. Okay. When your wife desires that, so when you give yourself up for your wife, it drives her to give yourself up for your wife. Like Jesus Christ gives himself up for the church. It pushes her forward in a way that she, she probably didn't even expect or can't really describe, but it's just support in a way that is life-giving

when you do that, men. And it's not something she can ask for. It's not something she can order on Amazon. It's not something she can tell you directly about. You know, like, if you start complaining, you're like, you just need to tell me what you need. Okay, okay. Well, she doesn't have to, because I'm saying it right now. Okay. She needs to know she's worth it. All right, now this right here, on this point that I'm about to say, this is where a lot of men get stuck, because there's times when your wife's needs to be loved, encouraged, to be shown she's worth it, to all that, your wife's needs for that, and all that's good, right? Those needs seem to be at odds with the fact that you are the leader of your family. Okay. Because on one hand, you got my wife's needs, I need to care for her, and then this other thing, there's a decision that I've gotta make that I know my wife is not excited about,

not happy about, she disagrees with me on maybe, she's got misgivings that we don't have time to consider because we gotta make the decision. So you're leading forward, but you're doing it at the risk of, making things tough between you and your wife. It's a tough thing. And so when we talk about how husbands give themselves up for their wives in the everyday, it's actually kinda straightforward. It's a sacrificing of what you, kind of what you're desiring in your own flesh or whatever to drive her forward, to help her, to attend to her, to listen to her, right? But then, and there's this other thing, this role of being head of household. Like I said, we'll talk more about that next week. But this role of being head of household, that's in scripture where you've gotta make decisions, you've gotta lead your family out, and you're gonna do that at the risk, or at least it's theoretically risky,

that you're gonna completely derail whatever kind of great mojo you had going on with your wife, okay? So practically, how do husbands give themselves up in decision making? If you still gotta make the decision, then how are you giving yourself up? It's tough. It's not navigated very well, honestly. It's kind of difficult. So for this, I am breaking all of my rules and I'm giving you an acrostic. I'm giving you an acrostic. I'm giving you five points and they spell something, okay? They do, I'm telling you, I'm breaking all my rules. I never do this. But here we go, here we go. Practically, how do husbands give themselves up in decision making? And these are sequential even. You're welcome.

First thing you gotta do, if you're gonna give yourself up for your husband, if you're gonna, sorry, for your wife, if you're gonna give yourself up to her for her, then the first thing you have to do is listen to God. L, listen to God. Men, you need to take the time to become convinced of things. You need to get before God on your own and you need to ask. You need to look at scripture. You need to speak to a pastor or a deacon. You need to seek wisdom. You need to know what you know. You don't need to go in there half-cocked. You need to get your facts. You need to become convinced.

For some of you, this is very easy to do. The next step's hard. For others of you, this is very hard to do. The next step's easy. But listening to God and becoming convinced of the things that you need to be convinced of, you know what you know and you have to be sure of that. If you go in half-cocked and you're starting to go to the next step, then you're not gonna do a good job.

Listen to God. Become convinced that. Take your time. Listen to God. Second step, explore together. Explore together. After becoming convinced of what you need to be convinced of, but before you make the decision, there it is. That's the tough part. You spend time making yourself, you're sure about it. You spend time 360 in that thing. You know, oh yeah, this is it. These are the things that we must do. We must be concerned about these things. This is what has to be in focus. Then you go to your wife and before you make the decision, because it feels like you already made it, but before you make the decision, you go and you explore that together with your wife. You invite your wife into the discussion about the decision. If you haul off and make a bunch of decisions without telling your wife, she might follow you, but she'll resent you. She might do what you want, but she won't trust you.

You are breaking down trust as you do that. Explore it together. And here's some start. Ask her what she's been praying through. Assume that she's been getting before God like you've been getting before God. If she hasn't, she can totally tell you that. Tell her your thoughts. Buckle up, boys. Even things you're unsure of. Even things you're unsure of. Can I just tell you, ladies, I'm just gonna speak for all the men right now, what men fear in that situation and in many others is that if they are open about being unsure, they will look weak, and their words will not hold weight later.

I'm not asking you to understand all that, but I am asking you to acknowledge it. When men are open about what they are unsure of, if they open up about that, they will fear appearing weak to you, like unable to make a decision, real flip-floppy. And then later, when their words do need to hold weight, they won't. They'll be like, well, you're not sure about this anyway. And many times, whenever men are open with other men or with women or their wives, they, about half the time, you get torched. About half the time, you get made fun of, you get nailed on it, you get, well, you don't even know if you wanna do this, okay, but it gets thrown back at you pretty fast. That happens a lot for men. And what you learn as a man is to be sure of what you are saying. You learn to be strong, to be tough, to be able to take criticism. But whenever you're gonna put something out there,

you're gonna know what you're gonna know. And so when you hear your man open up about not being sure about something, just let the clock tick. Just sit there and listen, because you are getting some rarefied air stuff. He doesn't wanna tell you what he's not sure of. He doesn't. There's like every incentive in the world for him not to. But if he does, just receive it and do not make fun of him later for it. Explore it together.

Listen to God, explore together. Third, aim true. Aim true. Once you have listened to your wife, men, you need to call out the noble goal. You need to state it, set it. You need to say, this is what we are going to do and it is worth doing. And you set your heart on it and you do not veer away from it. You do it. Whatever your decision is, you do it. Come hell or high water, you do it. Things get derailed. Things get messed up all the time. But let it not be because you were asleep at the wheel. Let it not be because you're really not sure no, make a decision, set the goal and go for it. Do it. Do not be wishy washy.

Aim true. Know what you're going for and go for it. Without apology. Don't worry about who's gonna receive it and what you're gonna, you know, so and so is gonna say about it online. Listen, listen. Here's one of my favorite things that Jesus ever said. He said wisdom will be proven right by her deeds. The reason he said that is because clickbait exists. The reason he said that is because people will have an alternate explanation for whatever you just did or said. And here's my encouragement to you. Don't sit there and try to appease everybody. Aim true. Go for what you're going for. Don't look to the left or right. Push hard on a noble goal and never apologize for it.

Ever. Aim true. Because when you have listened to God and when you've explored it together, there ain't nothing left for you to do but hold the line. So hold it. Get encouragement if you need to. Get a bullpen of guys to help you hold the line. But you gotta hold it. Aim true. Fourthly, draw clear boundaries. I mean this with your wife. Draw clear boundaries with your wife. Here's what happens with decision making in particular.

What often happens in decision making is you listen to God, you explore together with your wife, you aim true, you call it the noble goal, and then your wife's like, well what if we do, what if we, you know, what about, what if we just do, what if it's a different color, what if it's, you know. There's a lot of exploring happening, okay. Because, and it's not because the goal isn't set, it's because there's, now that the goal's set, there's all these possibilities that come up, right? Like, and that's a good thing. That's not anything bad, it's not. But that drawing clear boundaries means this. It means that on essentials, I need you, husbands, be a rock, do not move. On non-essentials, allow. Allow for the creativity and the movement. Allow for a little bit of chaos. Allow for where it's gonna go, right? Just let it go. On essentials, don't move. Aim true, hold the line.

Yes, yes, and amen. But then there's all these details, okay. So like if you're gonna buy a house, let's just talk about buying a house, because it's just a big decision. It's just a big decision. So it's easy to kind of use it as an example, okay. You listen and you're like, God is directing us to move to like here, and the house needs to have these kind of features, and I'm pretty convinced that the Lord wants us to use our house for ministry to have people over, and so it needs to be shaped a certain way. Okay, great. And then when you're convinced of that, you go to your wife and you explore that together, and you say, what have you been here from the Lord? What do you want? Where do these things kind of line up? How can we get the same house, okay? Like you want a house, I want a house, but the house has to be the same house, so we have to kind of compromise.

We gotta talk this out. We gotta explore that together. After you've explored it together, then hold true, okay. Don't start looking at houses that don't fit those parameters. Look at houses that fit the parameters, okay. If you start looking at houses that don't fit the parameters, you are casting doubt on what you've already established together. Don't do that, right. Husbands, you've, you've, excuse me, you go for those houses. On drawing clear boundaries after that, you can say, like, hey, we definitely want a house like this, okay, and all those things are just like these rocks kind of in there. But then there's like all these other amenities, like electric gas, swimming pool, no swimming pool. How big's the backyard? Where's the, you know, is there a fence? What kind of fence is it? Is it an old house, new house? Is it a fixed yard? Look, there are so many, it's dizzying

the amount of options that you have after that, okay. That is most decisions. Most decisions between husband and wife have kind of the central core thing and then they have all of these, like, what color are the walls gonna be questions that kind of flow out of it. What I would tell you, husbands, is on the essentials, be a rock. On the non-essentials, just go for the ride. Just enjoy it, man. Just enjoy the ride. Don't sit there and try to make non-essentials essentials. When you do, it will make everybody upset. You and your wife, okay. Let the non-essentials be non-essential, okay. Lastly, sympathize, sympathize. In any decision, there's disappointment. In any decision, there's opportunity cost. Because you're choosing this, you can't do that, right. In any decision, there's risk. Because you decided to do that, now you can't do this or now this is now a bad, a negative consequence

because of it. Show compassion in that. If your wife is upset about the decision that you made, okay, not mad at you but just mad, then it's okay to just listen and not have to defend your decision. It's tough, it's tough, because you're gonna wanna defend your decision. But instead, show compassion. Even if she's blaming you, show compassion. Even if she's frustrated, even if she thinks that you just made a bad decision and this is the, you always make these kind of bad decisions and just, husbands, I'm telling you, just shut up. Show compassion. Be a shoulder to cry on. Listen to her, be upset. Without fixing it.

And all the ladies said, amen. Ladies, let me just help you understand. That is so hard to do. For your husbands, they wanna fix it. They just do, it's how they love you. It just is. They wanna make things better and good and all that, that's just, they love you that way. Men, sometimes your wife's just mad, man. Just let her be mad. Sometimes the rain comes, right? What do you do? You wait it out, right? You can't go outside that day, because it's raining, okay. It won't be raining forever, right? Look, when your wife is crying on your shoulder and upset and maybe halfway or maybe full way blaming you for whatever decision just happened, man, just let her cry. She won't cry forever. Just take it. Just work through that. Take her seriously. I'm not saying, you know, like, it's fine. She doesn't know what she's doing. I don't mean that at all. I do mean, though, that in a moment,

you might be upset about something, but then in a week, you're gonna have a different perspective on it and you're not blaming your husband. You're gonna think differently about it. Well, between now and then, if you're, between now and then, if your husband has tried to fix it now, then he has entered the problem arena. He has become part of the problem, okay? But if all you have is just that you're upset, that you're kind of remorseful, that you're crying, that you're whatever about it, a week later, if your husband has just listened to you, then in that week's time, you will trust him more.

You just will. I don't know why that's true. I don't have to. I can just let my wife cry on me, okay? Husbands, you don't need to understand. God bless us. We are. We are beholden to great mysteries that we cannot comprehend with our wives. But if we can just let them do what they're gonna do and be there on the other end, that's a lot. That's a big move. That's my encouragement. Listen to her be upset without fixing it. Be able to sympathize. If you're keeping score at home, that spells leads, okay? Really proud of that. Listen to God, explore together, aim true, draw clear boundaries and sympathize. Listen, you will have a lot of decisions to make big and small from what are we gonna do for family vacation, what house we're gonna buy, what car we're gonna buy, to what are we gonna have for dinner that night, how are we gonna dress this kid. So many decisions, big, small.

My encouragement, the Lord has put you two together. Husbands, the Lord has given you your wife to enjoy. So enjoy her. Love her, behold her. If you look over, kind of sideways, and you see your wife and she's looking hot, tell her. So many snickers, you guys grew up. Listen, just tell her she's hot. Ain't nothing wrong with that. That's God honoring, dude. Yes, and amen. Like, look, women don't understand this. I need to preach the word. I'll say one thing. Women do not understand. Women have so many body things going on. It's dizzying, I don't know, I don't understand. I can't comprehend, I don't. But husbands, if you will just express the fact that you think your wife is beautiful, never expect her to receive that well, ever.

She won't, it's okay. She doesn't have to receive it well. You just have to mean it. That's it. There needs to be no agreement about how hot your wife is between you and your wife. It can just be said. Okay, what does the Bible say? Let's go back to the Bible. Let's do that. So many things. When you have a man who is submitted to the Lord in giving himself up for his wife, when you do that, it will change your marriage. It will change your family. It will change how you see yourself for husbands and wives. You will be able to become a blessing for others.

The dream for your marriage is not for you guys to be in marital bliss forever, okay? That's not the dream. God's not going for that dream, right? That's not the dream. The dream for your marriage, the dream for your marriage is for you guys to be able to love and trust one another so much that you can invite other people kind of into that larger circle and love them, sacrifice for them out of the abundance. Because you know, for example, if you are a husband, you know your wife loves and supports you so that you don't have to, you're not worried about that front. You can attack this front and go, okay, I'm gonna minister to this dude who's having a tough time with his wife. I'm gonna minister to this dude who's dealing with some porn. I'm gonna minister to this dude who is just a knucklehead and cannot get life straight, okay? But if I'm a husband and I'm always worried

that my wife doesn't have my back, I can't minister to that guy. I can't do it. I'm too busy worried about the home front. I'm too busy worried about my flank. Women, you are his rear guard. You protect your husband. Husbands, your wife is your rear guard. Cherish her. She watches where you're not watching to protect you. You can trust her for that. Ephesians 5, 31 and 32 says this, it quotes the Old Testament, it quotes Genesis 3. It says, therefore, a man shall leave his father and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. I'll stop there for just a second. Sometimes that is called leave and cleave, because in the King James version it said to cleave to one another, which is a really funny word that we don't use anymore. But it means that they come together.

They come together. They're not the same. It's not coming together. It's coming together. They're not the same. If you think men and women are the same, I don't know how many of the opposite sex you've seen. We're not the same. We are both valuable in the eyes of God. We're both created the same way. We're the exact same spiritually. We're the same in value. We're the same in a lot of ways, but we aren't the same thing. We are different things. We'll talk about that a lot more next week. The two shall become one flesh. It says this mystery is profound, and I'm saying that it refers to Christ in the church. So he's saying, he's quoting Genesis 3 where men and women come together, and he's saying this mystery is very profound, how people can come together. He's like, but I'm not talking about people coming together. I'm actually talking about Christ in the church. In other words, he's saying that the mystery,

the bigger mystery than men and women is how Christ loves the church. He's saying that the way that Christ gives himself off for the church is actually just this profound mystery. With husbands and wives, it's kind of a dimly lit thing. You see, when you see a good marriage, you're like, okay, that's good. But it's difficult to see sometimes. Let me just leave you with this. When it talks about a man leaving his father and mother and a whole fast to his wife, there's a reason it says that the man leaves his father and mother. There's a reason it states it that way because the man has to take initiative. Men take initiative and give yourselves up. And I will tell you this, gentlemen, it doesn't just work in your home. It definitely works in your home, but it doesn't just work there. If you are at work and you begin to give yourself up for your coworkers, you begin to truly desire

their promotion, their betterment, the development of the team as a whole, giving everybody skills to be proficient in more and level up. When you do that at work, blessing follows, brothers. When you do that with friends even, when you give yourself up and you let, like you push hard for your friends to get a better job of promotion, a job at all, to be ready for marriage, when you push your friends that way, blessing follows. That's just not what we see. Not a lot. It's difficult to find. And so I just wanna encourage you, men, all men, married, not married, doesn't matter. Men, put it in your sights now.

Let's leave a legacy of sacrifice for others. Let's leave a legacy where we are giving ourselves up for other people, just like our Lord Jesus continues to do for us daily. Let's let that be our legacy too. Ephesians 5:33, it says, however, let each one of you love his wife as himself and let the wife see that she respects her husband. I will point out these are different. It doesn't say, let each one of you love his wife as himself and let each wife love her husband as herself. It doesn't say that. It's not the same. It's different. For husbands, this looks like attentive care toward his wife. For wives, it looks like something different and that's what we're gonna be talking about next week when we talk about submitted wives. If you today, if married or not, if you today are here and maybe you've never heard anything like this before, maybe this is kind of brand new,

if you have not trusted in Jesus Christ, the thing that I've just told husbands to do for 30 minutes is the same thing that Jesus does for us. Jesus lays himself down for us. I am part of the bride of Christ. I, a man, am part of the bride of Christ. The bride of Christ is the church. I benefit because Jesus Christ has laid himself down for me, continues to lay himself down, give himself up for me. Doesn't assume that I'm kind of fine on my own and kind of leaves me out here to let me be feral, let me do whatever. He doesn't do that. He continually kind of lays himself down for me, for my benefit, so that I can grow and develop and embrace new challenges and be a, maybe a half decent husband one day and be a father and be a pastor and do all these things, right? Jesus Christ is laying himself down for me to do that. That is the gospel of Jesus Christ. You are a Christian when you accept that.

When you accept that Jesus is laying himself down for you and you believe that and you follow him in that, that's what it is to be a Christian. I wanna encourage you, I wanna challenge you this week. Find a man in your life, even if you're a man. Men and women, find a man in your life. Thank them, consider them and thank them for how they have laid themselves down for you in some capacity. I guarantee you, they probably haven't been told that that week, probably not some information they hear all the time and it would be a true blessing for them. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for the opportunity to listen to what you have to say. The opportunity to know that you have everything in the palm of your hand and to know that although you are worthy of all honor and glory,

that you lay yourself down for us. You sacrifice yourself for us, you give yourself up for us. We see that on the cross. We see it every day, just as you call to us, as you speak to us. Lord, you don't follow us that. Our behavior doesn't merit that. But out of your goodness, out of your love, your faithful covenantal love to us, you continue to speak, you continue to draw us.

You continue to want good things for us. Lord, help us to see it, help us to walk in it. Give us courage. It's in your name that we pray, amen.