An Exemplary Husband (Session 3)

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Our Father in Heaven, we praise You this morning for all the blessings that You've given us.
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First of all, Christ Jesus, forgiveness full and free in Him. Father, then all the other things that You've granted us, including our wives, or for those who are not married, our future wives,
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Lord willing. Lord, we would pray that You would really illumine our minds through Your Word.
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Give us wisdom as we seek to lead our homes and our wives.
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Father, bless each man here. Make us better husbands, better fathers, and most of all,
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Lord, more faithful followers of You. We pray for all these things in Christ's name. Amen.
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Well, first of all, I did get one report via email about dates, and I was very encouraged by that.
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I had a woman actually email me and say that her husband got an A+. And I was like, hey, that's not bad.
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Now, A++ would be really super. For you programming geeks, that's pretty good. Come on in.
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In fact, here's the man himself, Brad Arnold. His wife emailed me and said, Brad gets an
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A++ for your date. So I don't know what you did.
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I don't need to know. How many of you have done that? Gone on your dream date, her dream date.
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How'd it go, in your opinion? Okay, good.
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That's good. That's really good. You know, I was thinking on the way here this morning, and I'll get to the material here in a minute.
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Here's a phrase you should never hear. My wife is a better theologian than I am.
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Now, it might be true, but why should it never be said? This is like, to me, if I, no.
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Yes. You know, this is like, well, what can I say? I'm a slacker.
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No. Just no. Which leads into this first point
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I want to say here this morning. What is the most important commitment for any Christian? And the answer is contained in the question.
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Christ, right? And it's just fundamental. Let's look at Matthew 22, verses 36 and 37.
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If somebody would read those, please. Matthew 22, verses 36 and 37. And I think what's really challenging is, if we're honest, and I don't know about you guys, but if we're honest, you know, what is our number one commitment most of the time?
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Ourselves. Simon gets a pass.
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He was out there cleaning the drain. Go ahead. Except when
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I'm focused on myself. Except when, you know, except no.
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And this gets back to that, right? Everybody's a theologian. Be a good one, right?
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And I can remember when I, I mean, it was embarrassing a little bit. When I first started, now you guys are going to go, how could you even teach?
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When I started teaching fundamentals of the faith way back when, at Grace Community Church, I would look at my wife and I'd go, now where does it say, right?
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And she would know where the verse was, and I didn't. That's a little different thing.
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But I, you know, I just would not want to say that. Again, it might be true. She might, you know, read systematic theologies and retain that information better than I do and everything like that.
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But I just can't stop trying to learn more about God and to therefore be in a position to lead the family, right?
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And to teach her, because that's what I'm supposed to do. And to be able to think to myself, well,
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I need to work more on this. I need to love the Lord my God with all my heart, soul, and strength.
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And how do you do that? You know, it is by reading the word. It is by studying theology.
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It is by reading good books. It is by listening to good sermons. Psalm 119, verses 1 and 2 says,
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Blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the Lord. Blessed are those who keep his testimonies, who seek him with their whole hearts.
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This isn't, you know, and I think this is important mostly because of this.
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You know, now I might be able to say something like this. My wife is more spiritual.
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Because I don't even know what that means. You know, maybe it means she prays more than I do.
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You know, and if she's married to me, there's a good reason for that. But I just think, you know, there's this idea that, sorry, that there's a mystical element.
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You know, where we have these kind of non -tangible ideas about God.
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And the truth is, we pursue him with our whole heart by studying his word, by knowing him, by studying what he's revealed, by reading men who've been gifted to us by Christ to the church, and elevating our theological knowledge.
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Okay, as the leader of your home, you set the standard. And this is not just critical.
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This is the, I think, the main principle here that we're going to be looking at this morning. You set the standard for devotion to Christ.
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That is your responsibility. And when we talk about responsibility, why do things happen in your home?
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You know, what is the number one reason why anything happens in your house? To glorify
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God. But I mean, why do things happen that you don't like? That you didn't want to happen?
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And the answer is usually because, or in a lot of cases, it's because you're not actually leading.
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You're just permitting things to go on. When we talk about devotion to Christ, when we talk about seeking him, and we talk about the heart, what does it mean that, when we talk about the heart, what does it mean, first of all, when we talk about the heart?
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What is the heart? What is the human heart? And don't say it's the muscle that moves the blood throughout our body.
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I don't want to hear that. Yes, Larry? The seed of our affections, of our emotions, of our intellect, of our will, even.
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Let's look at 1 Samuel 16, verse 7.
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1 Samuel 16, verse 7. I mean, we tend to think, it's interesting, and we'll,
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I think, develop this a little bit, but when the scripture talks about our decision -making, it uses all kinds of terms, including the heart, the mind, or even, here's one, the flesh, right?
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When we live according to the flesh, well, what does that mean? It doesn't mean according to our bodies.
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It means according to our fleshly desires. 1 Samuel 16, 7, who would read that, please? Go ahead.
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But the Lord said to Samuel, do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him.
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The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.
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Okay. He looks at our heart. Why? Because it is the center of our affections, our emotions, our will, our intellect, everything that we actually are and think.
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Now, when we talk about worship, what do we mean? The songs on Sunday morning, that's our worship.
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What does it mean? What does it mean to worship something? Okay, praise and glorify.
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To ascribe worth to something? Okay, I like that one, to serve something.
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Yeah, first place. Stuart Scott listed some of these things here.
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What we adore, sacrifice for, focus on, submit to, seek after, hope in, serve, give to, talk about.
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How about this? What we turn to for peace, meaning, happiness. What we spend our time, money, and resources on.
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You know, one man said, and by the way, there is pumpkin bread over there. If you want some now, you can go get it. I won't even think you're rude.
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If you show me your calendar and your checkbook, I will show you what you worship, what you value, what your priorities are.
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Now, what's the opposite of worship? What's that?
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Cursing? I knew we were going to get this wrong. What's that?
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Neglect, okay. But let's just think of it, I'm going to have to give you extra pumpkin bread.
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Idolatry. You know, we tend to think, oh, it's neglect or whatever.
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No, because if we're not worshipping God, what are we worshipping? Yeah, we're worshipping the creation, right, creatures.
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This is what Romans 1 is all about. We turn ourselves over to something else. It's not, you know, it is, in this sense, a zero -sum game.
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We're either worshipping God or we're worshipping something else, including ourselves, right? There's no in -between. In fact, let's look at Colossians 3, verse 5.
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Because we can engage in idolatry without bowing. I mean, how many of you have really struggled with your
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Baal worship this week? You know, I was thinking about worshipping the
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Asherim. I was thinking about worshipping Baal, but I said not to.
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Probably most of us weren't. Colossians 3, verse 5. Who would read that, please?
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Go ahead, Peter. It's interesting because these things are not graven images, right?
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These are just sinful desires. And, again, if you're not worshipping
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God, then you are, you know, it's not like, well, I'm worshipping God 65%.
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No, you're just committing idolatry 35%. I mean, if we looked at it that way, it might change our thinking about some things.
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Habitual sins can be idols. Lying, manipulating, selfish moodiness.
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These are all things that Dr. Scott lists. Complaining, compromising, sinful anger, self -pity, bitterness, worry, despair.
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Complaining against God. Idolatry can be defined this way. Living for oneself, not for His glory.
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Other forms of idolatry. In other words, pursuing security, you know, with a mindless passion.
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Material things, knowledge, control, wealth. Another person. Pleasure.
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Physical appearance. A loving wife. Success, health, approval of others.
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Say, how can a loving wife be an idol? How could that, how could she be an idol?
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Put her up on a pedestal? Yes. How about this? How about if your wife is super loving and you just adore her and you put her on a pedestal?
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And she says, you know what? I really think we need to stop going to church.
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Or we need to go to, you know, the church of what's happening now. Or I really prefer
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Roman Catholic services. And you say, okay, sure. Yes.
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Lead me. Lead me, feed me. That's your job. It's, that could be an idol.
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Because I'm so, I so value peace in our home. That I'll make whatever compromises
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I need to make to get that done. Right? I so don't want strife with my wife that I will refuse to even lead her.
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I've known guys like that. I've seen that in action. And it's not pretty. Now Christians, true
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Christians, will never turn themselves entirely over to a false god.
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But what they can do is divide their allegiance. James 1 verses 5 to 8 says this.
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If any of you lacks wisdom, familiar verses, especially if you're former Mormons. Oh, sorry.
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That would be just me. If any of you lacks, if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask
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God who gives generously to all without reproach. And it will be given him. But it goes on to say, but let him ask in faith with no doubting.
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For the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the
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Lord. He is a double -minded man, unstable in all his ways. You can't pursue, you know,
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God and riches. You can't pursue God and some other idol. You can't do them both at the same time and expect to be in God's favor.
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Now how does God reveal our idols to us? And by the way, what did Calvin say about the human heart?
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He said it was an idol factory. Very good. You guys get A's in your Calvin history here.
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Four ways that God reveals our idols to us. How do you suppose he does that? Four ways. I mean the first one is like two and one.
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And it probably should be the easiest one. How does God reveal to us our sin? Okay, the
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Holy Spirit. It's one. And it's only half of one. According to Dr.
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Scott, I'm looking at... Yes? His word. Okay, so his word and his spirit.
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Okay, so that's one. What are the other three?
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Good, because it says here, Godly human examples to convict us. And he gives the example of Elijah and Baal.
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You know, the prophets of Baal. And he says, you know, what happens... Well, I'll just... You remember the story, but I'll just read the conclusion here.
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In 1 Kings 18, verse 39, it says this, And when all the people saw it, in other words, what happened, they fell on their faces and said,
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The Lord, he is God. The Lord, he is God. Okay, so that's another one. Very good. Okay, allowing...
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In fact, he says, Dr. Scott puts it this way. He says, He may withhold our desires or grant them, showing their futility.
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Right? We get what we want and we're like, Well, that didn't really work.
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I remember, you know, when word gets around that you're in seminary, somehow, you know, I don't know if I seem to have like a glow or whatever.
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In fact, funny things would start happening. You know, guys were always cursing and stuff like that. And all of a sudden, they'd look at me and go,
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Oh, I'm sorry. Right? And you know what my...
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I was like, I need to have a good response for this. So I just said, Don't worry about me. It's not me you've offended.
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D 'oh! But one morning I'm leaving. And, you know,
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I worked in the world's biggest jail, literally, when it opened. And so when I would walk out,
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I had quite a stroll. And I would walk down the main hallway and there were a few offices there. And one of the sergeants said,
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Hey, Steve, come here. So it's like 6 o 'clock in the morning and I'm leaving. And the sergeant's in there and he goes,
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You have a second? I said, Sure. In fact, Bob used to do my taxes, too. And I'm mad that he didn't do my taxes this year because I think it probably cost us $300, $400 for him not to do my taxes.
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He says, I hear you're in seminary. And I said, Yeah, that's right. And he goes,
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Let me tell you something. And I don't know what this had to do with anything. He says,
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I got a Corvette the other day, brand new. And I said, Well, congratulations. Bob was rich.
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I mean, rich. You should see his home. You'd think he was a movie star or something. And I said,
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Well, good for you. And he goes, You know how long that made me happy? 10 minutes. Because he realized the futility in all these things.
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And so sometimes we get what we want and we're like, Well, that was absolutely pointless. There's one other way that God reveals our idols or our sins to us.
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And what is that other way? Let's write the beat down.
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Let's look at Hebrews 12. Hebrews 12, verses 5 to 11.
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If somebody would read that, please. Hebrews 12, verses 5 to 11. Okay, thank you.
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Now, how do we know that we're being disciplined by the Lord? How do you know that? Okay, because he promises he'll do that, right?
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Because he cares about us. Sometimes we think, Well, how could this happen? Have you ever been disciplined for anything in your life?
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And if you say no, then I don't know how you've gotten this far. There are guidelines in life.
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And when we get outside of those lines, sometimes we get whacked. And for the
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Lord, there are spiritual guidelines. And if we get outside those, sometimes there are consequences.
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I mean, I really can't think of any fitting examples. I would just say this. Well, let me just put it this way.
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If you spend beyond your means, like let's say you're the federal government for just a minute. If you spend beyond your means, year after year after year after year, just racking up the debt and you can't print money, what happens to you?
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Bankruptcy, right? There are consequences for our actions. And the
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Lord also will bring consequences into our lives. And sometimes we may not instantly recognize that it's the
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Lord's hand, but it is the Lord's hand. Here's the good news. Even if it feels like the hand of the
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Lord is heavy upon us, what does the Bible tell us? Besides the fact that he disciplines us because he loves us, what else do we know about God's discipline?
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There's a security. Yes, there is. This is always true.
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You can look it up. You can turn it sideways. You can do whatever you want. It's always true, which is that God is, and this is the
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Steve Cooley paraphrase, that God works all things together for good to those who love him and are called according to his purpose, right?
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I don't know what's funny about that. It's true. It's not your paraphrase. You know, and sometimes these things come into our lives, and we think, how could this possibly be good?
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Because God says it's good. That's how it could possibly be good. It's pretty basic.
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God says it. God says it. I believe it. No. You know, therefore it's true.
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No. God says it. Therefore it's true. Just skip the I believe it. Now, Dr.
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Scott says when husbands are unsatisfied with our relationship, some will turn to false refuges, what he calls false refuges.
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Escapes. He lists food, sleep, drugs, travel, sports, music, reading, television, another person, right, to just get away from our wife, strong drink, sex, porn, fantasy, shopping.
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You know, we always think of wives. Let me tell you, I know some husbands who can spend a lot of money.
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Fleeing, just going on drives or walks. Busyness, work, church, hobbies.
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What's true about refuges? I'm going to give you some eagles theology here right now.
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Every form of refuge, what's the rest of it? Has its price.
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That's right. Some of you have been involved in pagan idolatry, I can tell you. Now, is this true?
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Every form of refuge has its price. Yes. Because even if I say
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I seek refuge in the Lord, does that have its price? Consider the cost, right?
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Every form of refuge has its price. Okay, many of these things, he says here, are not inherently sinful.
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You can go for a walk and that's fine. It's a matter of our hearts and motivations. We must be satisfied in Christ alone.
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Let's look at Psalm 62, verses 5 to 8. Psalm 62, verses 5 to 8.
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Go ahead, Simon. Okay, now this is the only refuge.
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You know, even though the Lord has his own cost, he's the only one that can ultimately satisfy us, right?
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We can seek temporary refuge in many places, but our ultimate refuge is in God, in the
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Lord Jesus Christ alone. Now, what does God expect from us with regard to worship?
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We read that he expects our whole heart, right? What does he say about idols? I mean,
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I love this out of 1 John 5 .21, and it's right at the end of the book, but it's really kind of like it summarizes basically most of the
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Old Testament. Little children, keep yourselves from idols, right?
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When we look at the history of Israel, this is what they were doing over and over and over again. But we want to have the right passion.
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We worship what we are passionate about. When we have wrong desires and expectations, when we focus on others and or the circumstances of our life, we're going to have difficulty.
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Here's some examples he gives of problematic expectations.
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My wife will please me in how she looks and dresses with her talents, abilities, and accomplishments outside of the home.
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What's wrong with that last part? Yeah, she should be a worker at home, you know, and even if she has a job outside of the home,
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I shouldn't be focused on that. In other words, should my greatest pleasure be the fact that my wife is employee of the year at whatever company she works at or that she does a great job in the home, as the name in the
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Bible would say, in the home. I really enjoy this one because this is, this will just kind of make you want to commit ritual seppuku.
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Sorry. That my time, this is a wrong expectation, that my time, in quotes, really be my time.
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I get to do what I want. And what's wrong with that expectation?
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I mean, is it okay to have some time to yourself? Sure. And then your wife says, honey, can you do
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X, or can we go? And you say, no, this is my time.
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I've blocked it out. It's on the calendar. You should know better than to bother me. That'll be a conversation starter, as we say.
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I get to do what I want. Listen, when you sign up, you know, when you say, I do, you are, you're not signing up to be subservient, but you are giving up kind of the me stuff.
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Your wife can't be your last priority. Here's another wrong expectation, that my wife won't be late or keep me waiting.
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For some guys, that's probably true. That's probably true for me. That my wife will be the sexual initiator or available on demand.
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There's another term for that. It's called laziness. Another one, that she would treat me respectfully.
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Now, should she treat you respectfully? Yes. But if that's your expectation, you know what?
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I actually had somebody tell me, well, you know, my wife doesn't respect me. You know what
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I said? Be respectable, right? There might be a problem here, bro.
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You know, maybe you need to be respectable. Another one he gives, that I would have,
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I can't even read this without laughing, that I would have plenty of money to live as I please. I don't even know, you know,
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I don't know why you think that would be the way it is. Another one, that there would be peace and harmony around me always.
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And with all due respect, I have to just say, that's dopey. And I say that with all due respect.
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Okay. Now, here's some right desires and expectations. And what do you think, you know, as opposed to, if you listen to that other list, what do they expect?
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Expect right responses from other people. And they would expect right circumstances, right?
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Which is not reality. The right desires and expectations focus on, what do you suppose?
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Christ. Okay. But more specifically, on our walk with Christ.
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Let's look at Philippians 3, verses 10 to 14.
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Let's put it, let's put it this way. There are things in life that you can't control.
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And then there are things in life that you can control. And what can you control? Yourself.
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Pretty much what you do, right? Let's read Philippians 3, verses 10 to 14. Who would read that, please?
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Go ahead, Spencer. Okay. So let's think about some things that we can control.
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Dr. Scott lists these. That I may know God's word and obey it. That's within our control, right?
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We can study the word of God. Also, that I may seek
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Christ with my whole heart and be more like him. Be conformed into his image. By submitting to the word, by listening to it, by heeding the promptings of the spirit through the word.
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That I may be used in evangelism. Right? I may be a good witness to other people.
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That I may please Christ regardless of my circumstances. I mean,
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I, you know, this is just something that we ought to just, as men, especially, we don't take excuses out of our kids.
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But when we sin, when we're thinking wrongly, when we're worried, when we're preoccupied with things, what do we do?
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We start making excuses. Things that we wouldn't accept out of other people, especially out of our little ones.
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But we just offer excuses. We should, we could rightfully expect that we'll be joyful and trust in the
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Lord to use me for his glory. We may rightfully expect to be used to serve others.
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We may rightfully expect that we look forward to heaven, where I will be with Christ forever.
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These are the kind of things that we should be thinking about, that we should expect, not these other circumstances.
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It's our thinking that we should be concerned about, not the circumstances of life or other people.
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The basic principle is that we need a sound foundation.
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Things cannot be right in your life or in your marriage if you are not committed to pursuing Christ. You must be a man after God's own heart.
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So, what is really important to you? What are your priorities? Is it your goal to glorify
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Christ in your marriage? And if so, what do you need to change?
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What do you need to change? And if you say, my wife, you are wrong.
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I mean, all I can tell you is the easiest way to, by the way, if you're struggling with your wife, the easiest way to change your wife is not to divorce her and get remarried.
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The easiest way to change your wife is to change yourself. And I mean, you say, that doesn't even make sense.
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It makes a lot of sense. If you change the way you think, the way you behave, the things that you prioritize, just watch the influence that you have on your wife.
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We think that we don't. But, you know, a lot of times, you know, when my wife is, was it something
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I said? He's just stepping in. You know, my wife is this or she's that or the other thing.
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Well, it may be sin on her part, but there also may be things that you are doing that contribute to that.
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Now, what is our primary responsibility as husbands? What is our primary responsibility, our primary biblical responsibility?
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To lead them? Okay, to love them. Now, to love them as Christ loved the church, that's exactly right.
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Okay. Tell me if you've ever heard this, probably from unbelieving friends that you have.
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My wife and I have grown apart. You ever heard that? We're not the same people we were as when we got married.
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How about this? I don't love her anymore. We've fallen out of love.
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What's wrong with all those statements? Sure.
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Everybody is, right? Okay, excellent.
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Love is a choice, not a feeling. It's an action, right? It's something that we do. People are like, well, we've grown apart.
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Well, why have you grown apart? I'm going to give you a little secret here, and you can give me a quarter on the way out.
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You've grown apart because you never put any effort on being together, on growing together, right?
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It's like, well, we're completely two different people. Well, when did that happen? Was that Thursday? This takes time, right?
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A marriage doesn't disintegrate overnight. It takes years and years of neglect. You know, you don't,
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Friday, you were just out mowing the lawn, and, you know, taking care of it. You weeded it and everything, and you wake up Saturday morning, and it looks like an abandoned lot.
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That doesn't happen. And in the same way, your marriage isn't perfect one day, and then you wake up the next day, and you're like,
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I don't even know this person. We have nothing in common. We can't even talk to each other. It took a long time to get there.
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It took a long time to get there. Biblical love is not romantic feelings.
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When we say, I love you, there should be feeling behind it, right? But not just feeling.
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Love is not mere physical attraction. Love is not sex.
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Needing someone is not love. Benefiting from someone is not love.
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Those are not biblical concepts of love. Biblical love mirrors the love of Christ for us, right?
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When we think about how Christ loves those he's died for, you know, would we say, well,
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I love him more than he loves me. I loved him first, you know.
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We would never say any of the things that we would say about our wives if we were thinking about Christ.
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Well, the reason is because we're not thinking rightly. Dr. Scott says it is initiated by him.
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It endures. It is verbalized, right? We're not in any kind of loss for the fact that Christ loves us.
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This is throughout scripture. It is compassionate. It is demonstrated by action.
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It puts others first, the love of Christ. It sacrifices for others. It treasures others even though, listen, they are not worthy of his love.
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And Christ's love for his people is not based on their performance. And if we just think about that,
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I mean, just think, you know, when we think about our wives, do we initiate, you know, do we show them our affection?
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Does our love endure? Is it verbalized? Is it compassionate? Is it demonstrated by action?
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Does it put her first? Does it sacrifice for her? Does it treasure her?
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Is it not based on her performance? Dr. Scott says in some marriages the wife is so embittered that she begins treating her husband as an enemy.
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I've actually heard husbands describe this. My wife hates me. My wife treats me like her enemy.
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Then he says God still holds a husband in this situation responsible to love his wife.
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He commands us to love our enemies, right? Matthew 5, let's read that.
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Matthew 5, verses 44 and 45. My wife hates me.
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She treats me like I'm her enemy. What are we to do? What am I going to do?
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Jesus gives us very specific instructions. Verses 44 and 45 of Matthew 5 from the Sermon on the
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Mount. Somebody read that, please. Taylor.
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Okay. I mean, when you read this, you just think, okay, this is how
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God treats us, right?
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He makes the sun rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and the unjust. He treats us before we're, or even while we're in sin, right?
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The sun doesn't stop. Life doesn't cease. He says, here's what we're to do.
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We're to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute you, even if it's your wife. And he suggests confessing, repenting, and asking forgiveness for any personal sin.
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And what does this take? You know, my wife is being mean to me. And Dr. Scott says, well, you need to confess any kind of personal sin.
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What does that say to you? I mean, what do you have to do to think she's treating me like garbage and yet I'm supposed to go to her and confess my sin, ask forgiveness from her?
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What does that say? Okay.
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It takes humility, right? It says, listen, her actions are not the issue.
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I can't, again, control, non -control. I can't control what she's doing. I can't control how she's going to respond.
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All I can do is control my attitude and my actions. I need to examine myself and see if there's any harmful way in me.
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I need to go to her and confess my shortcomings. Then he says, by doing good toward her.
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Doesn't the Lord always do good toward you? And the answer is yes. By returning blessing instead of evil for evil.
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You know, I mean, there are movies made about that. I've seen movies like this and they're not very edifying.
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But, you know, where the husband and the wife are like at civil war where they're just, I mean, this is kind of the worldly ha -ha laugh.
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You know, the whole marriage is falling apart. She does something and so he does something worse.
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And then she does something worse. And I'm like, okay, this isn't, this is no longer a cold war.
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This is like, you know, actual kind of shooting war. Romans 12 says this, bless those who persecute you.
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Same kind of idea. Bless and do not curse them. Then in verse 17, repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable on the side of all.
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I mean, what does the Lord say? Vengeance is mine. I will repay. Let him take care of it. You do the right thing.
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Now he does say here, you know, one of the things that we need to do from time to time is lovingly confront her sin.
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But he notes that's after you've dealt with your own. People love to, I mean, I find it interesting in marriages that people like to confront the sin of their spouse.
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Right? I don't like to do that. Why don't I like to do that? Is it because I'm a coward?
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Well, yeah. But I think it's more like, the more
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I think about my own sin, because if you go through, let's just go to Matthew 7 for a second. If you start down this road, you know, a lot of times you find yourself thinking, okay,
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I do need to talk to her, but it changes your attitude about it. And I'm going to skip verse 1 because, you know, it's the unbelievers here at Verse.
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Okay, I won't skip it. Judge not that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce, you will be judged.
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And with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, or your sister's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?
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Or how can you say to your brother, or your sister, your wife, let me take the speck out of your eye when it is the log in, or when there is the log in your own eye?
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You hypocrite. First take the log out of your own eye, then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.
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It's so easy to fault find. It's harder to say, okay, what about me?
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What am I doing? What have I contributed to this mess? How am I treating my wife? What things am
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I not doing? We want to, you know, let's look at this another way.
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When you discipline your kids, and I'm not comparing your wife to your kids, but when you discipline your kids, do you want to be as angry as you can possibly be, and then drag them off into the room and beat them senseless?
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Some of you are like, well, I guess it depends on how big the kids are. But, you know, maybe when they're as old as some of those
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Goddard kids, you have to get your rile on, you know. But we want to do that, even the discipline of kids, we want to do in humility and with restraint and with patience and all these kind of things.
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And we want to think, well, I don't want my kids to be afraid of me, but I want them to understand that they've done something wrong and that there need to be consequences and all these kind of things, right?
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So when you talk to your wife, it's not, you know, almost said a papal.
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It's not a parochial, it's not a parental kind of thing, but even so, when you approach anyone, you want to have first checked yourself, see what your own motivations are, to see if there's any hypocrisy in you.
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But you need to tread lightly into this with humility when you're confronting anybody because you know that you're a sinner too.
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But you can't just not do these kind of things. You have to deal with them.
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But I think there is a tendency, especially in marriage, to be too critical.
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If love covers a multitude of sins, well, what does that mean? I cover the sins of people that I don't know all that well?
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I think the times that we should be most willing to cover sins are with our spouses.
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He also suggests by praying for her. And, you know, I think this is underrated.
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Praying for your wife. Why do I say that? Why do I think that praying for your wife is underrated?
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Peter? Yeah, I think that's good.
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I think it gives us patience. I try to every morning, because my wife basically makes me breakfast every morning.
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For the rest of the day, I'm on my own. I just kind of forage throughout the backyard. I pray for my wife every morning.
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Why do I do that? And, you know, in part, because what
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I try to do every day is think about the things that I'm most thankful for. Right?
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Especially early in the morning to just kind of set my mood up for the rest of the day. And so what I think about is, I'm thankful for my salvation.
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Because I know how scummy I am. And I'm like, I wouldn't have saved me. I don't even like me.
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I would have cast me into the deepest part of hell the first chance I got. So thankfully,
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I'm not God. But I'm like, I thank God for my wife. Why? Because I just think what a gift she is to me.
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How she has been such a gift to me. All the good things that she does for me. And when I think about all the good that she does for me, then
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I'm less apt to think, I can't believe she did this. I can't believe she's letting that happen.
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You know, and everything else. And I'm like, well, you know what? Maybe she let this happen. But she really does a lot of good for me.
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You know, I'm really blessed. The Lord has certainly blessed me with my wife. I think it's just a matter of, you know, getting, reminding ourselves, almost instructing ourselves about all the good the
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Lord does for us through our wives. Okay, let's have a working definition of love.
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You know, we've mentioned that it's an action and everything else. Let's just go with his definition here. He says that love is a selfless, enduring commitment of the will to care about, and benefit another person by righteous, truthful, and compassionate thoughts, words, and actions.
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A selfless, enduring commitment of the will to care about and benefit another person by righteous, truthful, and compassionate thoughts, words, and actions.
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I will now give you a moment to just flog yourself. Okay. I mean, that's, that's a high bar, right?
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Now if I just say it this way, how does Jesus love us? Could we describe it this way? A selfless, enduring commitment of the will to care about and benefit another person by righteous, truthful, and compassionate thoughts, words, and actions.
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I think that's a good definition of what he's done for us. True love has no ulterior motive to benefit self.
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True love is like God's love. And we probably fail, we definitely fail every day in that.
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It's not feelings based. Since we are commanded to love, right, a commandment from him, beloved, let us love one another for love is from God and whoever loves has been born of God and knows
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God. Anyone who does not love does not know God because God is love. We are to emulate
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God. And yet, what's the truth? The truth is that we're going to fall short. We're going to fail.
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And that's when we need to confess. You know, just thinking about that, what's the easiest thing to do when you sin against your wife?
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And don't say confess because that's not easy. What's the easiest thing to do? To ignore it, right?
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It takes no work. It takes no effort. But what does that do? It makes us callous, right?
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And I think it doesn't do much for her either, right? If we just think about this, what, you know, we've grown apart.
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Here we are together, you know, in the beginning, here's where we got married. And then as we, you know, do that sort of thing, well, she just keeps going this way and we just kind of go off this way and then gradually, you know, it's like this.
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Well, no wonder you're going apart because you're not making the effort to stay together which sometimes means biting the bullet and saying, you know what, sweetheart,
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I've sinned against you. Let me just kind of confess that and would you please forgive me? Now, what are some hindrances to loving our wives as we should?
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Some hindrances, well, first of all, wrong motives, you know, if we want to, if we're looking to benefit ourselves rather than our wives, right, go back to the definition.
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Benefit another person by the righteous, truthful, and compassionate thoughts, words, and actions. What are some wrong ways of thinking, wrong motives?
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And he gives pride for one. And he gives several examples and I want to give some of those, pride.
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Why doesn't she think of me more? Why doesn't she do fill in the blank for me? How about this?
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My life is hard. Another one, I will never be able to do what
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I'm commanded, you know, I'll never love her like I ought to, so I'm going to stop trying.
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Or this is a common one. I'll do this if she'll do that. Isn't that what marriage is about?
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Compromise 50 -50. What's wrong with that thinking? You guys should know this, right?
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Marriage is 50 -50. It's 100 -100.
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And you know what? What can't you control? That's right. All you can control is this.
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This is you. This is another problem.
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I want to do what I want to do. I'm a man. I'll do what
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I want. Or I don't want to do that. What's in...
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Can you elaborate on what you mean by the 100 -100? Yeah. 100 % effort. Right? I mean,
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I'm to love my wife. What if she doesn't love me? What if I don't get what I want? What if, what if, what if, what if?
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My job is to love my wife like Christ loved the church, 100%. Not unconditional, right?
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Now, on my best day, where do I rate on this? Probably not real close to 100. And on the other hand, you know, here's a problem.
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You know, if I sit here and try to rate my wife, how's she doing today?
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You know, I'm thinking I'm probably about a 97. You guys are laughing.
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I don't think that's right. My wife, on the other hand, I don't know, man. She made soup today, so I'm going to give her about a 62.
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She knows I don't like soup. And you know what? I think she was kind of smiling when she made that soup.
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Maybe 57. Again, you know, what's wrong with this?
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I don't control her. But I'll tell you what, if we were in this range,
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I think we'd find that her rating, if we were to bother with such things, would be higher.
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You know, and you'd say, well, you're not supposed to do these things. I'm just saying that the more loving, the more caring, the more everything else you are, you'll be surprised at how things change.
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You'd be like, she certainly is wonderful here lately. Well, maybe it's because you're a little bit more Mr. Wonderful yourself, for those of you who watch
59:10
Shark Tank. OK. Yes? I guess a 50 -50, too. If you're actually doing 50 -50 so that you're adding up to 100%, then there's absolutely no overlap.
59:24
Hm. Right? And if there is overlap, then there's going to be gaps.
59:31
So to try and shoot for 50 -50, you're like, I'm picturing a Venn diagram, math teacher, sorry.
59:37
There'd be no overlap in that Venn diagram, and you wonder why you'd grow apart. Yeah. Right, right, right. Yeah. Yeah.
59:49
Yeah. Sorry. All right. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. It's not a math teacher. That is not to scale.
59:54
OK. Well, let's just say it's 50 -50.
01:00:01
Right? Let's go back to the 50 -50 thing. Well, if I'm rating myself 97 and her at 57 or whatever, well, then reality is, let's just shift things here a little bit.
01:00:14
So I'm close, but I'm not quite there. And she's at 22, so now we're at 69 or whatever.
01:00:21
We're not doing too good. Right? And the reality is, we're never doing as well as we think we are, and she's never doing as poorly as we think she is.
01:00:31
Right? So I mean, if we're shooting for 50 -50, we're missing the mark anyway, because we're saying, well, half of my effort towards my wife can be sinful, can be a complete failure.
01:00:45
No. No, we can't do that. So if you're in a bad place, or there's conflict or brokenness in the relationship, the contrary is not true, right?
01:00:56
You're not both 100 % at fault. Like, that analogy doesn't flip around.
01:01:04
Well, I don't want to get too deeply into that, but let me just say this. When we're having conflict at home, my tendency is, until shown otherwise, to take 100 % of the blame.
01:01:24
Why? Because I'm the leader.
01:01:30
You know, at work, back in the day, when I actually had people working for me, not like today,
01:01:38
I had a team of people working for me.
01:01:44
And when one of them made a mistake, did something wrong, violated policy or whatever, well, who did that reflect on?
01:01:51
Whether I did it or not, it reflected on me. And so here's the thing, what
01:01:58
I learned in my years of middle management. When I gave loyalty, when
01:02:08
I gave effort, when I showed that I cared about the guys who worked for me and the gals who worked for me, they gave it right back to me.
01:02:15
Right? I remember one day I was at home on my day off, and one of the guys who worked for me called me and said, you aren't going to believe what happened.
01:02:23
And this, you have to understand, there is something called the, what do they call it?
01:02:32
There's like a code. We don't rat each other out, right? And they called me at home to rat out one of their fellow employees.
01:02:39
And I'm like, I guess I've really arrived as a boss. Right? They're willing to tell me things that I would have no way of knowing if they didn't tell me.
01:02:48
And you know, the fact that somebody gave their keys to an inmate, that was problematic. It's called bad form in the jail.
01:03:04
It's really not acceptable. But here's my point. As the leader, right,
01:03:10
I'm going to get, when people come and they say, you know what, I love how your building runs or whatever,
01:03:16
I'm going to get all the praise. Well, I've got to be willing to take the responsibility too. People say, well, I think you have a great wife.
01:03:21
You have great blah, blah, blah, blah. OK, well, you know, thank you. I'm going to deflect and give the credit to my wife because it's right, it's true, it's everything like that.
01:03:30
But when things are going wrongly, I need to be willing to step up and say, I'm to blame.
01:03:36
Why? Because I'm the one who has to then initiate the change. Right? There's nobody else to do it.
01:03:43
Who am I going to point to and say, you know, I can't appoint a special commission or people to go out and figure out what is wrong with my family and then, therefore, change it?
01:03:52
It's on me. So the 50 -50 analogy,
01:04:00
I'm not really. And when it comes to blame, I always want to take more than my fair share.
01:04:05
Why? Because it is my fault. I'm the leader. I'm responsible. You know,
01:04:14
Ephesians 5 says that Christ is the head of the church. And it says
01:04:19
Christ is the head of every man. And then what? The husband is the head of the wife, right?
01:04:24
This is how it goes in the org charts, you know, so to speak. Dog and then kids.
01:04:35
You know, the. OK, that might not be right.
01:04:42
There might be a problem here. But this is, the Lord holds us responsible, right?
01:04:48
So how are we going to say, well, it's not really, you know, it's the wife you gave me. It's her fault.
01:04:53
No. That didn't work for Adam, and it's not going to work for us. OK, where were we?
01:05:02
All right, what's in it for me? OK, so we talked about pride. And then one that I think is very akin to pride, arrogance.
01:05:11
And here's a couple of examples he gives. I don't need her input. Now, there may be cases where that's true, where you don't need her input.
01:05:19
But isn't it always better if it's a major decision to kind of get her input? I think it is.
01:05:28
Or, you know, something like, I know I'm right. He cites proud actions, bragging, pointing out her wrongdoing and not mine, planning on my day off around me, or planning my day off around me.
01:05:46
And I just think, you know, I've seen this little video making its way around Facebook about, you know, the guy that it's called the, what do they even call it?
01:05:55
I wish I had the video. I'd show it here this morning. The wife, you know, translator or whatever.
01:06:00
She says, what's that? Manslater, yeah. It's like she says, well, go ahead and do whatever you want.
01:06:08
He's like, OK, well, you know, he takes his golf bag and he's heading out for the house. And what she's really saying is, you know, don't even think about going golfing, you know, because there's going to be major problems.
01:06:19
So we do need that. Well, she said it was OK. It wasn't really OK. Yeah, she said fine.
01:06:26
Oh, fine. Run that through the translator. Oh, no, better not. How about this one?
01:06:35
Tuning out my wife, just not listening to her. Her lips are moving, but I can't hear what she's saying.
01:06:41
Like some Pink Floyd song. Your lips move, but I can't hear what you're saying. OK, sorry.
01:06:51
Another hindrance to loving as we ought to is fear. If I do or say that, she will get mad.
01:07:03
Is that true? Sometimes. I mean,
01:07:11
I like to give guys this test or this little mechanism. You know, when
01:07:17
I say what I'm about to say, what's going to happen? And if it's not going to be good, then is what
01:07:25
I'm saying sinful, right? If I say this, she's going to blow up.
01:07:31
Well, why is she going to blow up? Is it because I'm confessing sin or whatever? Well, if that's the case, then let's just get it over with.
01:07:41
But if it's me sinning against her, then I need to recalculate what I'm saying. Here's one.
01:07:51
I've heard this one. If I give an inch, she'll take a mile. I don't even know what that means.
01:08:00
I have to be in control. OK. There's what you can control and what you can't control.
01:08:08
Fearful actions. Staying quiet when I should speak. Staying quiet when
01:08:16
I should speak. Being jealous. Doing something to keep her happy. You know, just to placate her.
01:08:27
He also says bitterness. I've heard this one. I've had it. I can't take any more.
01:08:34
I'll show her. She thinks things are bad. Just wait till I do this. Or how about this one?
01:08:41
I'll never forgive her for that. She doesn't deserve it. Forgiveness is such a big issue.
01:08:50
I mean, I've said this before, and I'll say it again, and I'll say it till the day I die. You need to just put these verses down and memorize them, inscribe them, make phylacteries, put them on your wrist, whatever.
01:09:09
We need these verses a couple times a day. And this one is about your tongue, speaking only edifying words, words that build up.
01:09:20
You know, again, if you say to yourself, OK, what I'm about to say, is it edifying? Does it build up?
01:09:26
Does it help those who hear? If it doesn't, then maybe I shouldn't say it. And this one, about forgiveness.
01:09:33
We are, as Christians, commanded to forgive as God has forgiven us in Christ Jesus.
01:09:40
And when we think about bitterness, what does bitterness suggest? That I've not forgiven her.
01:09:50
And what is bitterness? Bitterness is sin.
01:09:57
And a person who is always bitter, what do we know about them? What do we know about a person who's always bitter?
01:10:09
They're not happy. Well, I'm going to go a step further.
01:10:16
These things are antonyms.
01:10:25
OK? So are these things.
01:10:41
This is the action and attitude of a Christian. This is the action and attitude of an unbeliever, a person who is consistently bitter.
01:10:54
Are they exhibiting the works of the Holy Spirit? I suggest looking at Galatians, seeing the fruits of the
01:11:05
Spirit in Galatians 5, and you will see that this is in the preceding group.
01:11:11
This is not a work of the Holy Spirit. This is a work of the flesh. This is a work of unbelief.
01:11:22
Edification, the tearing down type of statements that Jesus makes in like Matthew 23.
01:11:35
Is edifying, tearing down idols, edifying? I'll make this easy.
01:11:41
If Matthew 23, if your wife is a Pharisee, feel free to give her Matthew 23, and give her an elbow to the clock, too.
01:11:54
There's really no, you know, I mean, we could go to what
01:12:00
Jesus says to the church at Ephesus. You know, I have this against you, right?
01:12:07
You've lost your first love. Say that to your wife. Jesus knows exactly what to say at all times, right?
01:12:17
And he can speak to unbelievers like what? Unbelievers, right?
01:12:25
You, on the other hand, don't know the other person's heart. You don't have the knowledge or authority of God.
01:12:31
And when you're talking to, whether it's a believing wife or an unbelieving wife or whomever you're speaking to, you can't talk to them.
01:12:39
I mean, there are times, you know, can you, I'll give you an example.
01:12:44
I think this is kind of okay. Years ago, when we were in California, there was a yard sale in our neighborhood.
01:12:52
And we had some friends, in fact, a friend of Mike's and I was over, and these female
01:12:58
Mormon missionaries came around. And my friend goes up and says, oh, what are you ladies doing today?
01:13:09
And they said, oh, we're just going around giving people the gospel of Jesus Christ.
01:13:15
And he goes, oh, really? He says, well, what's your gospel? And you know, they explained it a little bit.
01:13:21
And he goes, that's not good news. That's bad news. That's the kind of news that sends people to hell.
01:13:26
And I thought, well, that's okay. You can tell them that because that's the truth, right? And it wasn't said in a mean way.
01:13:33
It was, you know, totally, and he walked through what the gospel was. And I thought, well, that's fine.
01:13:39
But I think when we're talking to our wives specifically, you know, we don't have the capacity and we don't have the position to speak to them in a
01:13:53
Matthew 23 sort of way. And in fact, I think if we're going to be correcting them, we ought to talk to them in kind of a
01:14:00
Matthew 7 way, which is I've checked myself. I've taken a fearless moral inventory to go all 12 step on you.
01:14:11
I've examined myself and I've confessed my sin and I've done these things. And now I'm going to approach you in a humble way, not in an arrogant way, because I already know that I'm an idiot.
01:14:21
And, you know, here are some of the things I need to talk to you about and we need to kind of work through. But I would never go that route.
01:14:29
I don't know if that's, I just don't think. I was wondering if there's a place for tearing down lies and things that people are trusting in.
01:14:44
Yeah, but it - Still edifying. Yeah, but what I'm always going to want to do is say, well, you know,
01:14:51
I see you brought home the Book of Mormon. Let's talk about that, you know, and that kind of thing.
01:14:57
And let's walk through that. And why would we not want to do that? And kind of what are some of the problems with that?
01:15:03
And, you know, I think at every step, make it more of a conversation rather than a lecture. And, you know, eventually, as soon as possible, actually you're going to want to go to scripture and sort of establish, it's not me and it's not my opinion.
01:15:18
This is what the Bible says and not say it in that way either, you know. It's not me and it's not my opinion.
01:15:23
This is the Word of God. And so, I mean, we always have to be loving in our thought processes and think, you know, here's an easy way to kind of walk through the whole
01:15:35
Ephesians 429 thing, the edifying language. What would
01:15:42
I be thinking if I were sitting down and listening to me talk right now? You know, what
01:15:48
I'd be thinking, man, that guy is sure jumping on me. What did I do to him?
01:15:54
You know, or what I'd be thinking, he's right. You know, maybe
01:16:00
I don't like everything that he's saying, but he's saying it in a loving way and I appreciate the way that he's bringing this truth to me.
01:16:09
I mean, listen, there have been slightly different things. There have been times where I'm preaching.
01:16:17
I mean, I remember one funeral I did, which I did not want to do because he was an unbeliever, committed suicide. I did not want to do this funeral at all, but I was asked to do it.
01:16:25
And then during the message, it was the weirdest thing because I actually like,
01:16:31
I was listening to myself and I'm going, it was almost out of body. I'm listening to myself and I'm going,
01:16:38
I really like this message, Steve. While I'm preaching, I never think like this. And I'm going, this is really nice.
01:16:43
You sound very friendly and everything else. And so, you know, after the funeral, all these people, all these unbelievers that were there, there were probably about a hundred or so unbelievers at this funeral and they all walked.
01:16:55
I mean, I thought I was being super nice and they all walked by me like this, you know. Now the believers, there were about 10 of them there and, you know, and they all came up and hugged me afterwards.
01:17:06
But, you know, it was like, I was just being a super nice and everything. And so that's what I mean.
01:17:12
You want to present things, you don't want to be, and this is always the case, right? You don't want to be the obstacle that causes somebody to not listen to the truth.
01:17:24
Our intention, I'm trying to remember what my prof used to say, the guy that I tried to get to adopt me while I was in seminary,
01:17:33
Dr. Roskapp, he used to say, we want to be, oh, winsome, attractive, right?
01:17:46
And then he'd say, we want to be winsome too, winsome. It's not about winning the arguments.
01:17:52
We want to basically recruit the other person that we're talking to, whether it's our wife or whoever it is.
01:18:00
We want them to kind of come around to our viewpoint. And we don't do that by berating them, right?
01:18:07
We do that with the word of God and with a winsomeness, with an attractiveness, with, you know, just by being nice.
01:18:17
We can tell the truth in an edifying way, in a building up kind of way without tearing the other person down.
01:18:26
Now, I want to tear down, I want to deconstruct the wrong ideas, right?
01:18:34
But I don't want to deconstruct or tear down the person. So, yeah, I just came up with that.
01:18:40
Thanks. Okay. Yeah, here we are, bitter actions, things that we don't want to do, hindrances to loving our wives as we should.
01:18:55
Cutting my wife down verbally. Again, Ephesians 4 .29, we don't want to do that.
01:19:02
Not believing the best about my wife, suspecting her motives. Suspect your own motives, dude, don't suspect her motives.
01:19:11
Planning or doing wicked or vengeful things so that she suffers. Continuing to think negative thoughts about my wife.
01:19:29
Why? Why would you do that? How's that going to help you? It's not going to help you.
01:19:37
Preoccupation. You ever say these kinds of things to your wife? I'm too busy to talk. I'm too busy to pray with you.
01:19:44
I'm too busy to spend time with you. I don't have time for that. I hope not.
01:19:52
I knew a guy who once would say or do things like this, doesn't matter what we say, it matters what we do, right?
01:19:58
God has called me to my ministry, not to be occupied with my wife's neediness. Too busy doing ministry things.
01:20:07
I have to do this ministry, otherwise I'm not fulfilling God's call on my life. What's your number one call once you get married?
01:20:16
To be a husband. I don't care if you're the greatest pastor, the greatest worker, the greatest whatever of all time.
01:20:24
If you're a failure as a husband, you're a failure, period. Preoccupied actions.
01:20:31
Ignoring problems. Ignoring problems in the home. And can I just say, why do we ignore problems in our homes?
01:20:42
Because we're lazy. Yeah, it's easy. It's the path of least resistance. Neglecting my wife.
01:20:50
Part of the thing with the dating, taking them out, trying to figure out what it is that she likes and do that kind of thing.
01:21:01
Well, why is that? What do you suppose means the most to your wife?
01:21:10
I mean, like I could go get my wife something that costs $1 ,000, or I can get her something that costs 30 bucks.
01:21:18
And it doesn't, it's not the amount of money that I spend on it. It's the fact that I found something that she liked or she wanted.
01:21:27
I'll give you an example. And this is like, this was not my wife, but this is just kind of, I think, indicative of how women are and women think.
01:21:38
When I was on the sheriff's department, I mean, I went through a couple of years where I went to physical therapy three times a week for two hours a day, because I was having knee and shoulder surgery and all this other stuff.
01:21:49
And so I got to know my physical therapist pretty well. And my physical therapy routine pretty well too.
01:21:56
I mean, I still do it all the time. And it was
01:22:01
Christmas time and I thought, well, I wanted to do something nice for my physical therapist. Well, she had mentioned that she really liked this song by Christmas song by David Bowie and Bing Crosby that was on a
01:22:15
TV special and she'd never been able to find it. Well, this is before the whole, not everybody had internet and not everybody was carrying the internet in their phone.
01:22:29
YouTube and all that stuff was just kind of on the periphery. Well, I found the album that had this on there and I gave it to her.
01:22:38
I mean, it cost me like 10 bucks or whatever. And you'd have thought it was like the greatest thing ever because I was listening to what she was saying and I did what she didn't expect.
01:22:50
I mean, she probably would have married me if I wasn't already married. But it's that kind of thinking about our wives and listening to them and doing things for them that it's not the amount of money that we spend on them.
01:23:02
It's actually knowing that we're listening to them. They care about that. I mean, they're completely different than us.
01:23:10
We're just like, you spent 30 bucks on me. You spent a thousand dollars on me, awesome.
01:23:20
And even better that you made the money. So, how do we demonstrate love for our wives?
01:23:30
And we'll have to leave leadership for next time. But how do we demonstrate love for our wives? We prefer her to ourselves.
01:23:38
We show interest in her interests. And this is so,
01:23:47
I can't even tell you. How many of you guys know what fat quarters mean? Fat quarters, anybody?
01:23:57
I'm gonna take a little bow because it's a quilting term, right?
01:24:06
And fat quarters, yeah, thank you very much, Corey. There are specific,
01:24:12
I mean, fat quarters is a specific measurement of material. And you can go into any quilting store and they'll have like little areas where they've like rubber banded or whatever these little fat quarters.
01:24:25
And so you can go and they're just like, I forget what the exact size is, but it's like nine by whatever.
01:24:32
And they're just little swatches of material that you can buy and mix and match and whatever and turn into a quilt.
01:24:40
And so, like if I go and buy my wife fat quarters, I score. If I buy her, if I go into a quilt store,
01:24:48
I mean, I went to Seattle a few years ago and was on a trip by myself and I went by the quilt store and brought home some quilt material.
01:24:55
And I even got the right kind of material, these kinds of things. Why does she like that so much?
01:25:00
Because it shows that I'm listening, that I get it, that I care about what she cares about.
01:25:07
She likes to quilt. I mean, do I have any particular interest in quilting? No, I'm just gonna tell you.
01:25:15
No, I do not. But that's beside the point. I encourage our wives with words of appreciation.
01:25:28
Brighten her day with an unexpected card or gift. You know, it's funny.
01:25:37
My wife is funny about flowers. Some women love flowers. My wife doesn't really like flowers all that much.
01:25:43
But if she doesn't expect to get flowers and she gets flowers, she likes them. It's only like, you know,
01:25:49
Valentine's Day flowers really, you know, how cliche, kind of lame. Chocolate is always welcome though.
01:25:59
Spend time with her doing something that she enjoys. You know, maybe she doesn't like playing
01:26:07
Xbox. You know, that's okay. Spend some time with her doing what she wants.
01:26:15
Spend time listening with interest to her concerns. You know, here's how you don't start your conversation.
01:26:23
Get the hourglass, flip it over. Okay, you have two minutes to tell me what's on your mind.
01:26:29
When that thing is done, I'm done, right? That is not a good way to go. She has to know that you care.
01:26:36
Ask some questions about it. Actually show that you're listening. It does work.
01:26:44
Let's see. Okay. Now here's a tricky one. He put this down in the book and I thought, well, it's not always so easy.
01:26:53
Help her when she looks as if she needs it. Yeah, Cory goes, ah.
01:27:00
Okay. Because you have to be pretty sure that she needs help, right?
01:27:07
Or like here's one where she starts, have you ever had this experience? And if you haven't, you will. She starts telling you about some problem and you start giving her what?
01:27:18
Solutions. And she gets mad and you just go. Because it's just not something we do, right?
01:27:26
I have never in my life started talking about a problem and then thought, I don't want a solution for this.
01:27:31
I just want to air it out, right? That is just a total girl thing to do.
01:27:36
And I, you know, I think it probably took me about 10 years to figure that one out. Because now what do
01:27:42
I do? She'll start with some issue like that and I'll go, did you want some feedback on that?
01:27:50
I don't even say, do you want a solution? You know, it's like, did you want some feedback on that or? And no. And I'm like, okay, that's what
01:27:57
I thought, but I just want to make sure because, because here's the other side. She starts giving you some problem and you go, you don't say anything because you think it's one of those times where you're not supposed to say anything.
01:28:07
And she's like, why aren't you going to say anything? You can win, but you have to figure out how to win, right?
01:28:16
So it's like, so it's just like with all humility and everything, you kind of go, did you want some feedback on that?
01:28:24
You know, well, yes. Okay. Okay. And then, or it's like, no, thank you for listening.
01:28:31
Okay. That's all. My job here is done. I can go golfing. All right. Show non -sexual affection.
01:28:42
You know, if the only time you're affectionate with your wife is when you're in bed, then don't be surprised if she's not particularly affectionate while you're in bed.
01:28:54
Let's close in prayer. Okay. Sorry. Another way to demonstrate love, confront her in sin.
01:29:02
But again, you have to go through this whole process. It's like, I think, you know, if we were as eager to be confronted in sin as we are to confront others in sin, or put it another way, we should be as eager to confront somebody else as we are to be confronted.
01:29:18
How about that one? Pray with her and lead her spiritually.
01:29:24
Read scripture with her. See to it that she is serving in the church.
01:29:32
She has, presumably she's a Christian, she has spiritual gifts. How is she exercising them?
01:29:38
Your job is to grow together, you know, to nurture her in the word and by the spirit of God.
01:29:48
How are you doing that? And if you're not doing that, you're not doing your job. Okay.
01:29:54
I think it is time to go. We'll answer any questions and we'll talk about leadership the next time we're here.
01:30:01
Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for the wisdom of Dr. Scott and thank you for these men.
01:30:08
Father, I just pray that you would grant us wisdom as we are diligent to search your word to learn more about you, that as we become better theologians, better followers of Christ, better lovers of God, that you would help us to be better husbands, better fathers, better lovers of our wives, those who are able to demonstrate affection, those who are able to help our wives to be better leaders and servants
01:30:55
Father, to just help them in every way to grow into Christ -likeness.
01:31:03
Bless each man here and their homes and their future homes. Give us a greater patience, desire to be with our wives and a desire to grow in terms of forgiveness and in terms of the way that we use our tongues.