Marks Of A Godly Husband (Ephesians 5:25-28)

Better than a ride at Disney World. Give me just a second here.

Well, good morning. Good morning. Hope everyone is doing well this morning. It's a joy to be with you.

Good to be up here for just a couple of days, quick trip. Kathy and I will be headed back right immediately after the service.

We'll need to get back and make as much headway back to Bozeman before night falls and all the deer and the critters start coming out and deciding they want to cross the road.

So we're going to make tracks, have to do that, unfortunately. But it is a joy to be with y 'all this morning.

Let me open us up with a word of prayer and we will begin. Father, we thank you so very much for this time that you have given to us.

We thank you for the opportunity, the freedom, the privilege that we have to come before you, to come before your word, to open your word, to read it, to delve into it.

What just an unfathomable treasure you have given us in your written word that you have given to us, that you have preserved for us.

We thank you that it is everything that we need pertaining to life and godliness. We pray now that as we go to your word, we pray that it will encourage us.

We pray that it will edify us. We pray that it will convict us and correct us.

All for the glory of Christ our King. It's in his name we pray. Amen. I invite you to take your copy of God's word and open to the book of Ephesians, chapter 5.

Typically, I've been preaching through the book of James as I've had opportunities to come and fill this pulpit.

But we're going to deviate a little bit this morning, with your permission, with or without your permission, I suppose.

But this will be a bit more of a topical sermon, a little deviation from my typical exposition.

But the title of this sermon is Marks of a Godly Husband. Marks of a

Godly Husband. And so we will read Ephesians, chapter 5, verses 25 through 28.

And this will not be a full exposition of this text, but it kind of will be our baseline here, our launching point.

Marks of a Godly Husband, beginning of verse 25. The Apostle Paul writing under the inspiration of the

Holy Spirit of God. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her, so that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that he might present to himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she would be holy and blameless.

So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself.

May God bless the reading of his word. There are three institutions created by God.

The home, the church, and the government. The home, the church, and the government. And at least in two of these institutions, specifically to the home and the church,

God has ordained it that men are to be the spiritual leaders. Men, we are to be the spiritual leaders in both our homes and in our churches.

When men fail to be the spiritual leaders in our homes and our churches, both the homes and our churches fail.

Marks of a godly husband. First, what does it mean to be godly? Godly means to reflect the character of God and to obey the model of Christ.

To reflect the character of God and to obey the model of Christ. A lot of people confuse godly with some positive character traits.

They think of godly as being kind and patient and generous. And certainly these things are part of being godly, but you can have some of these positive character traits and not be godly.

You can find a man who is a kind man and not be a godly man or a patient man or a serving man or generous man and him not be a godly man.

To be a godly man, to be a godly husband, we must first be in a right relationship with the

Lord Jesus Christ. And so I just want to start with the gospel, and then we will begin looking at these marks of a godly husband.

Men and ladies, for everyone here, has there been a time in your life when you have been convicted by the

Holy Spirit of God that you are a sinner? That you have broken God's laws? All of us are sinners.

All of us have broken God's laws. The moral law, the Ten Commandments. All of us are liars.

God says, thou shalt not lie, and yet every single one of us has done what? Lied. We have all told lies.

We are all liars. Just like you only have to murder one person before you're considered to be a murderer, you have to tell but one lie before you are a liar.

Let God be true in every man a liar. Every person in here is a liar, myself included.

Thou shalt not steal. If you have ever taken anything that does not belong to you, then you are a thief.

Thou shalt not commit adultery. And don't let yourself off the hook too quickly. Jesus says, if you look at a woman with lust, you've committed adultery already in your heart.

If you have looked at another person with lust, you're an adulterer. So you go through the laws of God, the moral law of God.

We are all liars, thieves, blasphemers. We have blasphemed God's name and word and deed.

We are adulterers at heart at least. We have all broken God's laws in thought and in deed thousands of times throughout the courses of our lives.

And just like when we break laws on earth, there is a penalty to be paid. How much more so when we break the laws of God?

But unlike on earth, when we break temporal laws and the punishment, the penalty of that law -breaking is temporal.

When we sin against God, we sin against one who is eternal. We sin against one who is eternal and of infinite value.

And because we have sinned against Him, the punishment of that sin is also infinite and eternal.

And if we die in our sins, we will very rightly and very justly go to a very real place that the

Bible calls hell, where the fire will not be quenched. The worm will not die. There will be wailing, weeping, gnashing of teeth, tormented day and night forever and ever.

And there is no end. That is what you deserve. That is what I deserve.

Our works will not save us. There are no amount of good works that can overcome the debt that we owe to God because of our sin.

Our works are as filthy rags before a thrice -holy God. We cannot save ourselves.

And so God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, eternally God, from eternity past, sent

His Son, Jesus Christ, to this earth, and Jesus took on a human nature.

Jesus was one person with two natures, eternally God and now man.

And as the God -man, Jesus lived out His life on earth, never broke any of God's laws.

He lived a life of perfection. And He willingly laid down His life on the cross.

His life was not taken. He gave it. He gave His life on the cross.

Jesus offered His perfect life as the one time for all perfect sacrifice to perfectly satisfy the perfect wrath of God.

And the only way to be in Christ, the only way to know that when we die, we will have eternity with Him and not in hell, is to repent of sin, turn from sin, and place our trust in the risen

Lord Jesus Christ and what He did on the cross. Lay your works down.

They will profit you nothing. But if you turn from sin and place your trust in what

Christ did on the cross, you will pass from death to life. All things passed away.

Behold, all things made new. In Christ, that is the only way to be saved.

That is the gospel. And so, men, if you are in Christ right now, let me share with you what a godly husband is, what a godly husband looks like.

Our model, of course, is Christ Himself. We, as men, as the husbands, are to be the spiritual leaders in our homes.

We are to shepherd and love our wives as Christ shepherds and loves the church.

He is our model. He is our typos in the Greek. He is our template. I can remember when

I was a little boy in first grade learning how to write, and the teacher passed out these templates, if you will,

I suppose, the templates that were laminated, and they had the letters on them, and they had the, you might remember these, the solid line for the bottom line, and then they had a solid line at the top and right in the middle, the dotted line.

And so you had the alphabet, right? And you got these in your desk, and you had your number two pencil, and the teacher gave us some tracing paper, and you put that tracing paper over that template.

And you learned how to write by tracing the letters that you could see through the tracing paper.

That is our template. And you didn't trace them perfectly, but you got pretty close.

Christ is our template. He is our model. We will never shepherd and love our wives perfectly, but He is our model.

He is our template. 1 John 2, verse 6, The one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He, as Christ, walked.

Christ is our model. Now let me say something a little bit about love, because love is something that is often misunderstood.

Love oftentimes is thought of in terms of emotions. And we love our wives as long as we have warm emotions towards them.

Emotions are certainly involved in love, but love is not primarily about emotion.

Love is an action. Love does things. As the text that Jim read for us this morning in 1

Corinthians 13, 4 through 7, love is primarily an action. It does stuff.

And emotions are certainly involved with that. But love is first and foremost an action.

It is something we do. It is something that is lived out. So how are we to love our wives?

Well, the Bible says, Husbands, love your wives as Christ also loved the church.

I want to give you six marks of a godly husband, and I'll list these, and then we'll go through them individually.

Six marks of a godly husband. Number one, a godly husband is self -sacrificial.

A godly husband, number two, is a serving husband. Number three, he is a protecting husband.

Number four, he is a forgiving husband. Number five, he is a teachable husband.

And number six, he is a holy husband. A godly husband is a holy husband.

So let's work our way through these. Number one, the first mark of a godly husband, a godly husband is self -sacrificial.

Self -sacrificial. Greater love has no man than this, said

Jesus, than he lay down his life for his friends. John 15, verse 3.

And for any man who would say, well, I love my wife, and I love her enough.

No, you don't. Do you love her as Christ loved the church? No. He is our model, but I can assure you, you do not love your wife as much as Christ loved the church.

I love my wife, Kathy. Kathy is by far the most important person to me in the world.

I love her. But you know what? I don't love her enough because I don't love her as much as Christ loved the church.

And you know what? She doesn't love me enough because she doesn't love me as much as Christ loved the church.

Never get to the point where you feel like you love your wife enough because you don't.

We love our wives as Christ loved the church, and that is a self -sacrificial love, a self -sacrificial love.

Acts 20, verse 28. Luke writes, Be on guard for yourselves and all the flock, among which the

Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood.

Christ sacrificed Himself for His bride. He sacrificed Himself for the church.

That is how much Christ loved the church. And men, if we are to love our wives, if we are to be godly husbands, our love for them is to be a self -sacrificial love.

And this was a revolutionary concept in the ancient world. The Roman world, their mindset towards women is that basically women were property.

They were owned. And the idea in the ancient Roman world of sacrificing yourself for your wife, that was unheard of.

That was a completely foreign concept, and yet this is what Christ taught.

We are to love our wives as Christ loved the church, self -sacrificial love. Our wives are to come before everyone else, and if need be, we are to sacrifice ourselves for our wives.

A number of years ago, I was preaching in Alaska, and I was in several different places, but one place

I was was this remote village way out in the bush, in the wilderness of Alaska.

And you didn't get to this little village by road because there are no roads into this village.

You get in the village, you fly there. And when I say you fly there, you don't fly Delta. You get on a bush plane.

It's somewhat similar to what they make out here. And they have these big, I guess maybe not hyperinflated, but these big, almost balloonish, cartoonish -looking tires because when you land in this village, you don't land on a concrete runway.

You land on the grass. And you walk around in this village, and you'll see houses.

And just like here, we would see a car parked in somebody's driveway there, you would see an airplane parked in people's driveways because people flew like we drive here.

And as I was there, I was there for several days, and the pastor of the church in this village was telling me a story about a man in his church and, of course, a pilot.

And he and his wife and his daughter, young daughter, five or six years of age, very young.

But they flew somewhere, and as they were, between the time they left and the time they were coming back, a blizzard had set in.

They were trying to come back, fly back into the village. It was in this blizzard, and it was horrible.

The snow was blowing every which way. The winds were howling. The dead of winter.

And he got disoriented, and they didn't land on the runway. They crashed into a big lake there at the village.

Lake was frozen over, but the ice wasn't yet very thick. Crashed through, broke through the ice.

His little girl is in the back seat, strapped in. His wife is next to him in the front seat.

She's knocked unconscious. He's the only one who can get out of his seat. The plane's going down.

The plane is sinking. Who does he save? Who does he go for first?

His wife or his little girl? He saved his wife.

He cut her out or got her out of her seat and got her up onto the ice enough where she was safe.

And the plane went down with his little girl strapped in her seat. She drowned.

Did he do the right thing? Did he save the right person? Yes. Yes, he did.

Men, there is only one person that the Bible tells us that we must leave and cleave to, and that is our wives.

Our wives come ahead of everyone else. It's tragic. It's heartbreaking, but he did the right thing.

Our love for our wives is a self -sacrificial love. Our love for our wives, being a godly husband, is a serving love.

We are to serve our wives. Jesus speaking in John 13, verse 15, he says,

For I gave you an example that you should also do as I did to you. Men, we are to be the spiritual leaders in our home, but that spiritual leadership, that leadership, the role that we have in our home is not a dictatorial leadership.

It is a servant leadership. A godly husband is a serving husband.

We are to put the needs of our wives above the needs of our own.

The Apostle Paul in Philippians 2, verse 3, says this, Do nothing out of selfish ambition or empty conceit, but thinking of others as more important than yourselves.

Our wives' needs come before our own needs. We are to serve our wives.

And, men, if you've got plans with the fellas on Friday night and y 'all are supposed to get together and watch the game, well, probably not

Friday night, but Saturday, watch the game, college football or Sunday NFL, or you've got a fishing trip planned with the boys, and you've had it planned for a long time, but something comes up and your wife needs you, you know what, you tell the fellas,

Sorry, guys, my wife needs me. Take a rain check. We'll do this another time.

Your wife's needs come before anyone else's needs in your life, including that of your own.

A godly husband is a self -sacrificial husband. A godly husband is a serving husband.

A godly husband is also a protecting husband, a protecting husband.

Certainly, we are to do everything that we can do to protect our wives from physical attacks, but those needs thankfully don't always arise, not very often anyway.

But also, men, we are to protect our wives from verbal attacks.

Protect our wives from verbal attacks. Men, don't you dare ever speak ill of your wife to someone else.

Don't you dare be caught doing that. You protect your wives.

And don't you dare entertain someone else speaking ill of your wife to you in your presence.

Don't you dare. Someone comes up to you and starts speaking ill of your wife, you shut that down.

You are to protect her. You are to put yourself between her and those who would speak ill of her.

To protect her. A godly husband is a protecting husband. And men, we are to do this even when we feel like they don't deserve it.

Even when we feel like that they have done things to disrespect us, we do not disrespect them.

We do it when they disrespect us. We do it because Christ is our model. Christ loved those who did not love him.

Christ loved sinners when they hated him, in fact.

It brings us to our next point. A godly husband is a forgiving husband.

A godly husband is a forgiving husband. Jesus says, Father, forgive them. They know not what they do.

There will be times, men, when your wife gets on your nerves. And there's going to be a lot of times when you get on her nerves and you put two sinners under the same roof, and that's what marriage is.

You put two sinners under the same roof. And from time to time, there's going to be some trouble. You're going to get on her nerves.

She's going to get on your nerves. You're going to do things that require her to forgive you.

You're going to do things to her. Or she's going to do things to you, rather, that will require you to forgive her.

And one of the marks of a truly godly husband is that you are a forgiving husband.

Jesus forgave those who were nailing Him to a tree. Surely, we can forgive our wives when they do things to us that they shouldn't do or say things to us that they shouldn't say.

Be a forgiving husband. Few things, I should say, will destroy a marriage more quickly than a lack of forgiveness on the part of one of the partners.

Few things will destroy a marriage more quickly than that. Men, when your wife sins against you, it doesn't mean you brush that sin under the rug, but deal with it and then forgive her.

Forgive her. Bury the hatchet and don't leave the handle sticking out. Forgive.

Let it go. Don't bring it up later. John MacArthur has said,

We are never more like Christ than when we forgive. A godly husband is also a teachable husband.

A teachable husband. Men, we are the spiritual leaders in our home, but that does not mean that we are always right because our wives, as believers, are indwelt by the same

Holy Spirit who indwells us. And we are to be the spiritual leaders, yes, but it doesn't mean that we are always right.

Sometimes we're not right. And you know what? Sometimes there have been occasions, rare though they have been, where I've been wrong about something.

Perish the thought. And Kathy has offered me loving correction.

And you know what? When I recognize that she's right, I bend the knee to that truth.

Men, being the spiritual leader doesn't mean we're always right. She is indwelt by the same

Holy Spirit who indwells us. Love her enough to respect her, to listen to her, because oftentimes, in fact, there's no one on earth who knows us better than our spouse, right?

There's nobody on this planet who knows me better than Kathy. And there's nobody on this planet who knows her better than me.

And a lot of times our spouses will see things in us that we don't always see. Men, be teachable.

Be willing to recognize that you're not always right. Spiritual leader, yes, but it doesn't mean that we are always right.

Receive correction. Be willing to do that. And also, a godly husband is a holy husband.

And this is where I want to spend the majority of our time. A godly husband is a holy husband.

Be ye holy as I am holy. I've mentioned before in my preaching the attributes of God.

And if you've never done a study on the attributes of God, please do yourself a favor and do a study on the attributes of God.

And it has been said that the holiness of God, if you take all of his attributes and combine them, if you will, that would result in his holiness.

If you take his mercy, his faithfulness, his aseity, his omniscience, his omnipotence, his justice, his love, his patience, all of these things, and you combine them, it results in his holiness.

The holiness of God is the only one of his attributes that is reiterated three times.

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty who was and is and is to come.

God is thrice holy. And one of the sure marks of a godly husband is a holy husband.

Men, we are to guard, as Paul says in his letter to Timothy, take heed of your doctrine in your life.

You can have sound doctrine and not have a godly life. There are those people out there that have sound doctrine.

Oh, they've got all five points, and they can tell you the difference between infused and imputed righteousness, and they've got it down.

They've got good doctrine on paper, but they don't live holy lives. You can have sound doctrine and not live a holy life, but you cannot live a holy life without sound doctrine.

And Paul says take heed, watch, be on guard. Guard your life and your doctrine.

Live a holy life. Live a life that is pure and holy before God, pleasing to him.

And men, we should not be entertaining ourselves with the sins for which Christ died.

We are to live holy lives. Christ is our model in that.

We are to be holy for he is holy. And I'm going to delve here.

I'm going to meddle here. And I looked up some, in preparation for this message,

I looked up some statistics on pornography. And according to Barna Research, I'm just going to read these to you.

And there's a part of me that wished I had not done this because after I did, I was actually quite depressed.

But according to Barna Research, the pornography industry every year brings in more revenue than the

NBA, the NFL, and the MLB, Major League Baseball combined, just the pornography industry.

Every year, the pornography industry has more revenue than ABC, CBS, and NBC combined.

That is staggering. The average age at which a child is first exposed to pornography, age 11.

And these statistics are several years old. Average age at which they're first exposed to pornography, age 11.

By age 14, 94 % of young people are exposed to pornography.

Ninety -four percent. And this one really got me. Over half of pastors admit.

These are just the ones who admit it. Over half of pastors admit to regularly viewing pornography.

They should do God a favor and get out of the pulpit. That is shocking.

Absolutely shocking. Men, this is a temptation and a sin.

Actually, too, a third, according to these statistics, a third of those who view pornography are women.

So it's not just men. We tend to think it's not just men, but a third of those who view porn are women.

But, men, this is a temptation that seems to beguile us more so than it does the other gender.

And I tell men this, you can't help what you see. Guys, all of us see things that we wish we didn't see.

You know, something will flash on the TV, a commercial or something like that. You can't help what you see, but you can help what you look at.

You can't help what you see, but you can help what you look at. I get emails regularly from men, and the emails go generally like this.

You know, dear Justin, blah, blah, blah, thank you for your ministry, whatever. They, you know, watch my stuff or YouTube or whatever.

But I need some help. They say, I love my wife, but I look at pornography and I just can't stop.

I just can't. I've tried and I just can't. And here's my response.

A, you don't love your wife, so stop saying you do.

If you did love your wife, you wouldn't be looking at pornography. Men, there is no better way to convey hatred to your wife than to look at pornography.

You could look at your wife directly in the eye and say, I hate you with a white -hot hatred of a thousand suns, and that would not convey hatred to her as clearly and loudly as you looking at other women on the computer or on the

TV or whatever. So A, if you're looking at porn, no, you don't love your wife.

That is the opposite of love. And for men who say, well, I just,

I can't help it. I can't stop. Yes, you can. Yes, you can.

You just don't want to. Let me give you a couple of scenarios. Let's suppose I were to implant a little small explosive device in your right arm, buried in your right arm.

And the next time some image came up on your computer screen or whatever, something that you shouldn't be looking at, and there was a little sensor in this explosive device, and the next time you looked at pornography, that thing exploded, and it blew off your right arm.

You think you could stop looking at pornography then? Oh, yeah.

You better believe you could. What if I were to say this?

If you do not look at pornography for the next year, at the end of that, or say two years or five years, at the end of this period of time, if you don't look at anything that you should not be looking at,

I will write you a check for $50 million. Could you stop looking at it?

Yep, you sure could. You sure could. So you know what you've just told me? You know what you've just admitted to me?

You love your right arm more than you love your wife. You love $50 million more than you love your wife.

That's what you've just admitted to me. And you love pornography more than you love

Christ. It's not that you can't stop.

It's that you won't stop. It's a heart issue.

Sexual sins leave a stain and a wound unlike any other sin.

Read with me, if you will. Flip over in your Bibles to Proverbs 6. Proverbs 6, 23 through 29.

Sexual sins leave a stain unlike any of the other sins. Why? Because as the

Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6, every sin that a man does is outside of the body, but he that commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.

Proverbs 6, verse 23. For the commandment is a lamp and the teaching is light and reproofs for discipline are the way of life.

To keep you from the evil woman, from the smooth tongue of the adulteress, do not desire her beauty in your heart, nor let her capture you with her eyelids.

For on account of a harlot, one is reduced to a loaf of bread, and an adulteress hunts for the precious life.

Can a man take fire in his bosom and his clothes not be burned? Or can a man walk on hot coals and his feet not be scorched?

So is the one who goes into his neighbor's wife. Whoever touches her will not go unpunished.

And then look at verse 32 and 33. The one who commits adultery with a woman is lacking sense.

He who would destroy himself does it. If you want to destroy yourself, commit adultery.

Look at another woman with lust. Wounds and disgrace he will find, and his reproach will not be blotted out.

That's a sobering verse, is it not? His reproach will not be blotted out.

This is not to say that sexual sin is the unforgivable sin. It's not.

And it requires no more effort, if you will, anthropomorphically speaking, for God to forgive someone of sexual sin than it does for Him to forgive someone of any other sin.

And those who are in Christ have been forgiven, judicially speaking, forgiven for all sins, past, present, and future.

But sexual sin, because it is a sin unlike other sins, it is not outside of the body.

It is inside of the body, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6. Sexual sin, it leaves a wound that will never be fully healed.

You've heard the phrase, time heals all wounds. Time can make things better.

But when it comes to this wound, when it comes to the wound, when it comes to the scar that is left by sexual sin, that wound never completely heals.

That reproach will never be completely blotted out. Oh, you can still be forgiven judicially, but it will leave a wound.

It will leave a scar. And for the man in the ministry who commits this sin, he's done.

There is no more ministry after that. Forever disqualified from ministry. Step down.

Sexual sin leaves a wound. It creates a wound that can never be completely healed.

And that's why the Apostle Paul says, flee immorality in 1 Corinthians 6. Flee it.

Don't entertain it. Don't dabble with it. Flee. Run.

Because it will leave a wound that will never be fully healed. Ephesians 5 verse 3,

Do not let immorality or any impurity or greed even be named among you, as is proper among the saints.

Sexual immorality is not to even be named among us as believers.

Not to even be named. 1 Corinthians 6, the

Apostle Paul says, Do not be deceived. Do you not know that the unrighteous, the fornicators, the idolaters, the adulterers, homosexuals, thieves, covetous, drunkards, revilers, swindlers, will not inherit the kingdom of God?

If your life is marked by habitual sexual immorality, whether it is, and it doesn't, not just the physical act with another physical person, but if you are looking at things, you're entertaining that in your life, then you have every reason to examine yourself to see if you're in the faith.

Because this should not even be named amongst God's people. A godly husband is a holy husband.

Men, you can't help what you see, but you can help what you look at. And all the ladies out there are just thinking,

Yeah, Justin, you get those mean old men. You let them have it.

Ladies, I got a verse for you too. 1 Timothy 2, verse 9.

Paul says, Likewise, I want women to adorn themselves with modest clothes properly, discreetly, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or costly clothing.

I do not think the point here is that it is inherently sinful, ladies, for you to wear a pearl necklace or gold earrings or something like for you to braid your hair.

But 2 ,000 years ago, the application of this 2 ,000 years ago, pearl necklaces and gold earrings and stuff were not nearly as common as they are today.

If you were living 2 ,000 years ago and you gussied yourself up like that, then you are making a statement in your purpose, your intention.

You are trying to bring attention to yourself. The point here, ladies, is that you should not dress in such a way, adorn yourself in such a way that you are intentionally trying to bring attention to your physique.

If you are intentionally dressing in such a way to cause men to stumble or you're trying to accentuate yourself in some way, in an immodest way, that is inherently sinful.

Ladies, don't do it. Don't do it. Ultimately, all of this comes down to a heart issue, a heart issue in our relationship with Christ.

You've heard of this program, and I don't have it, but Covenant Eyes.

There's Covenant Eyes, and you can sign up for it. I guess the way it works, if a professing

Christian man has been struggling with this or whatever term you want to use, struggling or however, but anyway, he signs up for this, and then he's got an accountability partner.

If you go to one of these websites, it automatically sends an email to your accountability partner, and he sees what you've been looking at and knows you've been going to a website or websites that you haven't been going to.

I struggle with these kind of things, these Covenant Eyes and other programs like them, because here's the issue.

If you have to have that to keep you holy before God, then there's something wrong with your heart.

There's something wrong in your relationship with Christ. Is Christ not enough? Is He not enough?

Is the Holy Spirit residing inside of you, the third person of the triune

God, is He not enough to keep you pure and holy?

Is His Word not enough? If you need this Covenant Eyes or some other program, you need an accountability partner.

Is Christ not enough accountability? Examine yourself to see if you're in the faith.

Go to war against your sin. Men and ladies, go to war against your sin.

And I don't want to go fully into this. I think I've already dealt with Ephesians 4 .26 before in an earlier sermon

I preached a year or so ago. But Ephesians 4 .26, it says, Be angry and yet don't sin.

Don't let the sun go down on your anger. Literally, the way that reads in the Greek, it says, And that word yet is not in there.

It says, be angry, don't sin. Don't let the sun go down on your anger.

I would submit to you that the object of that anger is not your spouse. It's not talking about having a...

If you have a tiff with your spouse, you kiss and make up before you go to bed. Don't let the sun go down on your anger. The object of the anger in Ephesians 4 .26

is your sin. Be angry at your sin. Stay angry at your sin.

Don't let the sun go down on it. In other words, keep the sun up on that anger.

You go to war with your sin. Put to death the deeds of the body. Be killing sin or sin will be killing you.

And men and ladies, there is no reason for you to have a friend of the opposite gender who is not also a friend of your spouse.

I'll say that again. This is part of having a healthy marriage. This is part of being holy. Men, do not have a lady friend who is not also a friend of your spouse.

Ladies, you have no business being friends with a man who is not also friends with your husband.

Guard your marriages. Be holy. And men, finally, as we begin to land the plane here, cannot be the spiritual leader if you are not reading and studying

God's Word yourself. If you are not nurturing your own soul, your own heart, feeding your mind, filling your mind with the

Word of God yourself, you cannot lead where you have not been yourself. Read and study

God's Word. Read and study God's Word. And also, men, we are to be the spiritual leaders in our home because our wives are the weaker vessel.

We're to be their leader because our wives are the weaker vessel. 1 Peter 3, verse 7.

The apostle Peter says this. He says, You husbands, in the same way, live with your wives in an understanding way as with someone weaker since she is a woman.

And show her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life so your prayers will not be hindered.

A couple of points here in this verse. First, notice that Peter affirms our wives, women, as fellow heirs of the grace of life.

They are indwelt by the same Holy Spirit who indwells us. We are saved the same way. There is neither

Jew nor Greek, male nor female, free nor slave. We are all one in Christ Jesus. Our wives are our fellow heirs in the gospel.

But the Bible, written by the Holy Spirit of God, does say that wives are the weaker vessel.

They're weaker than men. Now, what does this mean? Does this mean physically weaker? No. Now, generally speaking, generally speaking, yes, men tend to be physically stronger than women.

I mean, that's just common sense. It's obvious. I think that was actually kind of proven in a rather embarrassing way this past week when a lady tried to be a kicker in a college football game.

There's a reason there has never been a female to play in the NFL. Okay, there's a reason for that.

They can't do it. Now, there are some women who are stronger than I am physically.

I mean, of course, but generally speaking, yeah, women tend to be physically weaker than men.

But that's not what is primarily in view here. What is primarily in view here, women as being the weaker vessel, means

I would submit two things. That generally speaking, there are exceptions, but generally speaking, women tend to be more led by their emotions than do men.

Men tend to be more logical, more analytical. Women tend to be, generally speaking again, more led by their emotions than are men.

Does anybody remember 20 years ago in the 2000 United States presidential election?

It was Al Gore versus George Bush. Remember this? And I can actually remember this because I was watching the

Democratic National Convention whenever it was, September, October, August, somewhere in there before the presidential election, in November, of course, in 2000.

But Al Gore got up and he made his big speech at the Democratic National Convention, and by all accounts, it was just kind of a blah speech, nothing really memorable about it.

But Al Gore did something at the very end of his speech that really made a lot of headlines. Anybody remember what that was?

Al Gore kissed his wife, and it wasn't just a little peck. When Al Gore was finished with his blah speech, and that's kind of redundant when you're talking about Al Gore, but when he was through with his speech, his wife,

Tipper, came up to greet him, and you can go on YouTube and watch this, but Al Gore, rather unexpectedly, and Tipper apparently wasn't expecting it either, but he reached over and he grabbed

Tipper like this, and he kind of leaned her down, like the famous World War II photo at the end, you know, like the sailor did, and he laid a big wet one right on Tipper.

It was a very demonstrable, and when you watch it, it actually caught Tipper off guard, and I don't really think she enjoyed it all that much, but it was a very demonstrable, very dramatic kiss.

Overnight, according to the polls, overnight Al Gore's approval rating among women went up 20 percentage points.

The needle didn't move with men, but it went up 20 percentage points with women overnight.

Why? Because of his fiscal policy, his foreign policy, his judicial philosophy?

No, because he kissed his wife. Al Gore almost became leader of the free world simply because he kissed his wife.

Women tend to be more led by their emotions, and women tend to be more susceptible to false teachers.

Tend to be. Again, exceptions to everything, but generally speaking, women tend to be more susceptible to false teachers.

Men, this is one of the reasons we need to be their spiritual leaders. We need to lead them. Why do you think ladies like Beth Moore and Joyce Meyer are so enormously popular?

Because of their expositional genius? No, they couldn't exposit their way out of a wet paper bag.

No, ladies follow Joyce Meyer and Beth Moore because they tell stories, and they're relatable.

In fact, I kid you not, I've had more than one lady tell me this in just the last year or so, more than one.

Come up to me and said, Justin, when I first heard you say something mean about, or not mean, but contrary to Beth Moore and against Beth Moore, it really made me mad because I really love

Beth Moore. But then they began to realize, wow, the more they listen, oh, yeah, there are some problems here.

And I've had more than one lady say, the reason I used to watch Beth Moore on TV is because I wanted to see what she was going to wear.

I wanted to see her outfit. Women tend to be more susceptible to false teachers, and this is why we need to be their spiritual leaders.

Deuteronomy 11, verse 18. God says, man, this is being the spiritual leader in your home, your wife and your children.

You shall therefore impress these words of mine on your heart and on your soul. You shall bind them on your hand.

They shall be as frontals on your forehead. You shall teach them to your children. You shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk along the road, when you lie down, and when you rise up.

Men, read and study God's word. Talk about the things of the

Lord to your wives, to your children on a daily basis.

Men, read Scripture with your wife. My favorite part of the day is at night when

I'm at home, when I'm not, you know, traveling somewhere at night, Kathy and I, last thing before we go to bed, we read

Scripture together. We read some out of the Psalms, some out of the Proverbs, out of the New Testament.

It's my favorite part of the day. Spend time in the word of God with your wives, with your children.

Talk of the things of the Lord when you sit in your house, when you walk along the road, when you lie down, and when you rise up.

A godly husband is self -sacrificial, he is serving, he is protecting, he is forgiving, he is teachable, and he is holy.

Let's close in a word of prayer. Father, it is a tremendous responsibility that you have given men to love their wives as Christ loved the church.

Father, I pray for all of the men who are here who are striving to do that.

I pray that they would immerse themselves in your word. I pray that they would guard their lives and their doctrine, that they would be holy, pleasing to you.

I pray for the marriages, the families that are represented here. We pray that we would live our lives in such a way that it honors you, that it honors

Christ, because he is our model. We pray for the strength of our families. We would reflect well upon you.

Lord, give us as men the desire, the ability, the discipline to be the spiritual leaders in our home, all for the glory of Christ.