Exemplary Husband (Session 1)

Father in heaven, thank you for this morning. Thank you for these men. Lord, I just pray that this time would be a blessing to all of us, that would edify us, that would build us up, that would help us to think rightly about our wives, about our lives, about our families, and about who we are in Christ.

Father, keep our eyes focused on Him, the author and perfecter of our faith, and it's in Him that all the blessings that the

Bible talks about are ours. Lord, bless each one here this morning in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, good morning.

Good morning. I have quizzes, and you know, the quiz doesn't exactly, it follows, but it doesn't exactly follow, so if you don't get them all, don't worry about it.

And I will grade on a curve, so no problems there. You know,

I thought, I was listening to this song this morning, true confessions, because it's not a Christian song, but I thought falling feels like flying until you hit the ground.

A lot of men think that their marriages are going really well. They feel like they're flying, and then they hit the ground.

Don't let that be you. The first three chapters of this book, in fact, the first question, true or false, the most important aspect of marriage is the gospel.

What do you think? It is true. That's a good answer. Very well.

Very nice. And I said, you know, a couple weeks ago that the number one problem in marriages is the lack of focus on the gospel.

And I could spend a lot of time developing that right out of the scripture. But let me just ask you this.

We hear often the first three chapters of Ephesians are well said, doctrine, right?

And it's all about the gospel and who you are in Christ. Then the second three chapters are practical application.

So he tells you who you are and what God has done in the first three chapters of Ephesians, and then he tells you what to do with what has been done for you and who you are in Christ.

Isn't it amazing that during chapters four and chapter five, chapters four and five, that we have instruction on how to conduct ourselves, on how to speak to one another, and of course, in chapter five, about what a marriage should look like after the gospel, after the things that are true about us because of what

Christ has done, then what we're to do with it in chapter four and five. Basically, if you take those principles, if your marriage lives, figuratively speaking, in chapters four and five of Ephesians, you're going to be doing very well.

So talking about the centrality of the gospel in your marriage, let's just take a trip down memory lane, way back, for some of you guys this hasn't happened yet, for the men who aren't married yet, thank you for being here.

On your wedding day, the pastor may have said something like this, ministering in the name of the

Lord Jesus, I now pronounce you husband and wife. May Christ be the head of your home.

May he be the unseen guest at every meal, the listener to every conversation, and may

Christ's love rule your hearts and lives. Did you hear anything like that when you got married? What's that?

Because I cut it out of your wedding ceremony. It's pretty common.

But here's the question for you this morning, is Jesus central to your marriage? Can you just sit down with your wife and say, the focus of our marriage is the

Lord Jesus Christ? And if not, I'm going to tell you right now, you probably have some issues in your marriage.

And if he is, then you should be up here teaching because you are the exemplary husband and I'm not.

My goal is to help you place the emphasis of your marriage where it belongs, not on romance, but on Christ.

I like to ask people, what are they thankful for? What are they most thankful for?

And I think the problem with, if I can put it this way, I think, and I will put it this way, most of us, and this is common, not just for men, but it's common for everybody, but really for guys, we tend to be very me -centric.

We tend to think about ourselves, we are the center of our world, the center of all existence. But when we think about what we have to be thankful for, if I said, what are you thankful for?

You might say, well, what are you thankful for? Food.

Thankful for food. Food is a good thing to be thankful for. It's better than starving. It's better than living in Venezuela, for example.

What are you thankful for? Okay. I'm thankful my wife and I are both saved.

I think that's a great answer. I mean, are you thankful that you have a job?

Here's what we do, right? As we get into me -ism. I don't like my job.

My kids are a burden. My wife doesn't listen to me. We just start, you know, if you wake up in the morning and your first thought is,

I have to go to work. I have this dopey class with Pastor Steve. I have, you know, whatever.

And I'm just, I'm just laying out, you know, all the problems in my life. Well, of course your day is terrible. Of course your life is, you know, somewhat depressing.

If you wake up in the morning, you think, I can't believe that Jesus died for me.

Me. I know me. I don't even like me. I wouldn't die for me. He died for me.

If you think that way, if you start that way, and then you just start thinking, I can't believe she agreed to marry me.

I can't believe the Lord has blessed me with these kids. If you, if you think about it that way, instead of the other way, you're going to be way ahead of things.

Whatever the problem is, the answer is ultimately tied in some way to the gospel.

And if you just think about this way, what Dan said, whatever problems you have today, whatever issues there are today, those problems are going to last forever.

True or false? False. What is forever? Heaven. That's exactly what

I have in my notes. Problems are temporary. Heaven is forever. He gives the example of a couple of husbands in the book.

It says, Bob works hard, supports his family, thinks he's above average. Doesn't have a clue why his wife is so frustrated with him.

She complains he is selfish. What could, what more could she want? He goes to church. He does the normal things.

His wife is lucky. Here's a little insight. When I said, you know, this is going to, there's going to be a lot of Bible.

There's going to be some confessionalism in it too. A long time ago, I'd say I was probably,

I went through my midlife crisis at 28. That's probably a little young for most midlife crises.

I was not, I was not saved, but I can actually remember. I mean, I remember the really stupid things you say in life, at least for me, it's like, there, there are monuments, you know, they should be etched in marble and just like, you know, put in our front lawn.

No, that would be bad. But there are just moments in life where you just go,

I remember exactly where I was and exactly how I said it and everything else. I actually said to my wife, now we're both unsaved.

And I said to her, I said, you know what the problem is? The problem is you're too unselfish.

What's the translation of that? How do you, how do you unpack that? Yeah. I mean,

I should, I should have just held the mirror up and said, you know what the problem is? You're too selfish. But, you know, she didn't want things and I wanted things and, you know, it was kind of,

I mean, as I look back and I go, boy, that was really, that was one, it wouldn't make the top five, it wouldn't be the worst, but it was pretty bad.

Um, but a lot of times we just don't get it.

We don't understand what their complaint is. We, we don't, most of the time it's because we don't want to get it.

He also mentions Ralph, who's trapped with a wife who is quick tempered and disrespectful. She acts like his mother.

Come on now. Have you ever said to your wife, don't mother me? Don't, don't confess. But both of these men are missing the mark.

We need to put off wrong, sinful thinking and put on godly thinking. We need to confess sin and repent.

And by the way, somewhere in here, repentance is a once for all process. True or false? False. Number two, when your wife is frustrated with you, the best approach is

A, go out for a walk. B, get frustrated right back. Okay.

That's the most common approach, right? C, give her the silent, silent treatment or D, something else.

And the answer is something else. In fact,

I'm going to, I have the, I have these cards here and they are collectible.

Let me see if I can find them. We'll start with this one.

Take one and pass them around here. We, we have, uh, I have a series of these and you know, and you're like, well, gee, what are they?

Are they a game? No, not exactly. But I had Patty put them together. And one of the reasons I did was because I want, um, some of us hear well, learn well that way.

Some of us need visual reminders. And so what this man card deck is, are some visual reminders of things.

And this one, this first one is, you know, the game is afoot. If your wife is frustrated or here's something else, and we'll talk more about this, but if you, um, have been around your house for a couple of days and you've noticed something kind of mysterious, which is when you think about it, you're going, you know,

I can't remember the last time my wife said anything to me. Have you ever experienced that?

Yeah, there's something wrong, right? When the kids are, the game is afoot, she's frustrated. The game is afoot.

Well, what does that mean? It means you've got some work to do. You need to figure out what's wrong. And by the way, the wrong way to go about it is to sit your wife down and go, okay, now tell me what's wrong.

You know, break out the Klieg lights. I've done that a few times. And if you don't know what Klieg lights are, ask

Taylor later. Let's look at, uh, Romans two, or I'm sorry,

Romans 12 verse two of which the quiz.

I do not. I have a copy, but, um, yeah, if you want to, yeah.

Make four or five or six more copies. Romans 12 verse two.

Would somebody read that please? Okay.

Do not be conformed to this world. I want our thinking.

I want your thinking to not be worldly. How do worldly husbands treat their wives?

Well, gifts a bunch of different ways. Well, let me ask you this. When you go to work, how do the guys talk about their wife?

Do they say positive things about them? Really? Well, that's pretty cool actually.

Okay. I mean, I, I used to hear extraordinary things about people's wives, you know, ball and chain.

She did this, she did that. I mean, just complained after complaints, battle acts.

I heard that a lot. Yeah. Our attitude needs to be not that we are stuck with our wives, but we are blessed with our wives.

Our wives are a blessing to us. And if we're not careful, our thinking can be just as selfish as somebody who's unsaved.

If all we think about are negative things about our wife, then we're going to have issues.

Let's 20 to 24. I mean, true or false? As a man thinketh, so is he.

As you think, so you act. True. And if you think my wife is the ball and chain, my wife is a negative in my life, my wife is the thing holding me back.

Well, she probably will develop into that. And that's not a positive confession. That's just because that's how you're going to act towards her.

And so that's how she's going to respond. Would somebody read verses 20 through 24 of Ephesians 4, please?

Thank you. Now, let's just take my own personal, sinful life and let's just talk about it, how this applies.

I said to you, you know, my wife was too selfless.

And this is before she got saved. You can't even imagine what she's like now. Right? It's like, it's pretty incredible.

I'm like, you know, I don't even know what to say. Is that a problem?

And the answer is, if I'm thinking about it rightly, which I try to do, the answer is no, it's not a problem.

It's a blessing. Let me see. My wife is too selfless. Oh boy, I'm cursed. Come on.

There are ways to deal with it. I'm not going to talk much about money, but some of the things that we've done to just, so I can get my own little selfishness in, right?

I can spend the money that I like to spend. I just, sometimes I have to save money for it. Jonathan knows about my computer habits, how

I'll save and save and save and save. And then I just go boom and buy myself a new computer. This is what

I do. But this process here, putting off and putting on, this is repentance writ large, right?

This is the Christian life. This is sanctification. This is what we do. Here's how we used to think, but now we're in Christ.

So now we have to transform our thinking. We have to put off the old thinking, put on new thinking, not be conformed to the image of the world, not think the way it does.

Without the gospel at the heart of our lives and our marriage, there's no gratitude.

There's no conviction of sin. There's no confession of sin. There's no repentance. There's no sanctification.

And ultimately, if the gospel isn't at the center of your marriage, there's no hope for it.

If the gospel isn't at the center of your marriage, there's no hope for it. Now that we've had the shotgun blast, let's back up a little bit.

We'll be nicer. We'll have some fun. I have a news flash for you.

Men and women are different. I know it's shocking, but you know, in the world these days, that is amazing, right?

Because there's no reason why a woman shouldn't be a firefighter. True. There's no reason a man shouldn't be running in the women's

Olympics or on the women's hockey team, for that matter. Whatever she wants to, he or she, or whatever they want to do, right?

Yeah, girl and the Boy Scouts, why not? But Stuart Scott notes, he says that often a woman's primary complaint about her marriage is we have no relationship.

We have no relationship. And we listen to that. What do we think? What do you mean I have no relationship with you?

We're married. I see you every day. What do you mean I don't have a relationship with you? What's she actually trying to say?

There's no open communication. There's no emotional bond, right? She has different needs, different desires, a different view of a relationship than you do.

And as husbands, we can be oblivious to it. So why is that, do you suppose? We don't take the time to think about it because we're selfish and oblivious and task -oriented is one of the places where I'm going, but I'm going to say lazy.

And when I say task -oriented or when Jonathan says it, here's why I say we're task -oriented because we're in a marriage, right?

And we come home from work every day. We have dinner. We watch whatever we're going to watch.

We go to bed. We wake up. We do the same thing the next day. Our relationship with our wife is fine.

What's the problem? But from our perspective, there's no issue.

There's no problem to solve, right? I'm task -oriented. Tell me what the problem is and then

I'll fix it. Well, that's not the issue. The issue is she wants to talk.

She wants to have this whole kind of relationship thing. And for some of us, that's a problem.

Now, does that mean you're... Here's one of my favorite phrases, but not a favorite phrase.

From time to time, I'll hear that somebody's wife is high maintenance. When your wife says, you know, we need to work on our relationship, that doesn't move her into the high maintenance category, right?

This is just normal. I mean, for some of us, this is going to be a newsflash. Really? I'm supposed to have a relationship with my wife?

But the Bible commands us true or false. The Bible commands us to have relationships with other

Christians. True. Okay. Would you think that, you know, for example,

I see some of you at church. Does that mean we have a relationship?

Right. But it doesn't necessarily mean that we have fellowship, that we're interacting and all these things. So the fact that I'm living with another

Christian, God willing, and I mean, she is a Christian, my wife is, I'm blessed. The fact that I'm living with her and she's a

Christian doesn't necessarily mean that we have a relationship. I have to work at that. Now, the way

Stuart, Dr. Scott talks about how the

Trinity can help us understand relationships. And he says the basic elements seen among the

Godhead should be present in a biblical relationship. Talks about unity.

I mean, just think about this. Some of these terms, not all of them will apply, but just some of these terms and how they apply to marriage.

Unity, right? We should be unified as a couple. Uniqueness of personhood.

Well, she is her own person. I'm my own person. They have perfect communication between the

Godhead. Involvement and cooperation.

Knowledge of the other persons. Expressions of thankfulness. Verbal expressions of love.

Visible expressions of love, goodness, blessing and service. Trustfulness, trustworthiness, and utmost concern for God's truth and glory.

So that's pretty much the standard. We have some work to do.

Now, let's think about, because he mentions it, visible expressions of things that we can do. You know, what do they do?

Well, they encourage one another when we're discouraged. They might be forgiving of one another.

They stir one another to love and good works. Gently admonishing one another. Do we think about that as a visible expression of love?

Firmly and loving rebuking one another. Bearing one another's burdens. By the way, firmly and loving rebuking of one another.

That's a card you don't want to play very often. And the reason I made these cards is because to give you the idea of, you know, do

I want to play that card? Anyway, and we'll develop that a little bit more. But this is one

I want to focus on. It's one thing to say that we love our wives. And I've bolded and italicized that word, say we love our wives.

It is another to practice biblical love. It is one thing to say that we love them, but is another one to demonstrate that we love them.

Let's look at Colossians 3 verses 12 and 13. And again, Colossians.

How many chapters in Colossians? If you're looking, there are four chapters.

The first two are doctrine, basically all about the gospel and who we are in Christ or what has been done for us in Christ.

And then chapters three and four tell us what to do with that. Would somebody read verses 12 and 13 of chapter three, please?

Does this sound like how you treat your wife? This is instructions between church members, between believers.

This is how we are to treat one another. Is this what your home looks like?

You know, just as an example, do you raise your voice?

Do you shout? And do you justify it by saying, well, you know what? Sometimes the only way I can get heard is to raise my voice.

Is that true? Somebody said, yes.

Is it true? I don't know if it is true. Just like when a wife goes silent and you have to figure out what's going on.

I mean, I've, you know, I worked for the sheriff's department for 21 years and I've stood with murderers, rapists, and thieves, and I've had them yell in my face.

And when I look at them and I say, I don't know why you're yelling at me. I'm not yelling at you.

I've never had anyone continue to yell. I don't care who they are. Why is that?

Well, for the most part, it's because it's difficult for one person to carry on an argument.

It's like, you know, it takes two to tango, you know, it takes two people to fight, et cetera, et cetera. Well, it's true. And the other person, after a while, they might just, you know, continue yelling and screaming and all that.

And you just go, okay, well, you know, when you want to talk, let me know. I don't have to deal with that, thankfully, because that's not how my wife is wired.

And that's part of what we're talking about when I say the game is afoot. And we'll develop this more about living with your wives, according to knowledge.

Every one of our wives, true or false, are different. True. They have some things in similarity, some things in common, but they're different.

You know, my wife is pretty unusual. If I send her flowers for Valentine's Day, she's kind of like, yeah, whatever.

Flowers aren't, you know, the great big deal to her. Chocolate is a little bit more important.

And it has to be a certain kind of, I mean, there's some chocolates I could get her that she's just not going to like. You have to know, right?

But think about the love of God here for a moment. Because if we look at verse 13, it says, bearing with one another, and if one has a complaint against another, you have a complaint against your wife.

Forgiving each other. And listen, as the Lord has forgiven you, so also you must forgive.

It's similar to Ephesians 4 .32, where it says, you know, you must forgive as God in Christ has forgiven you.

And here's the point. When God loves you, he doesn't emote.

He doesn't just kind of feel something. It's not passive love.

It is active love. He chooses to love you and he acts on it.

God's love is not emotional. God acts in love. That's how we are to act. We are to be compassionate, kind, humble, meek, patient, forbearing, forgiving.

Is that how we treat our wives? We are to have a loving attitude toward them.

Let's talk about what it means to be or to have a biblical relationship. And he defines,

Dr. Scott does, defines biblical relationship this way. A joint participation between two distinct

Christian persons in which there is involvement, Christ -like love, now listen, sacrificial, enduring, and in keeping with God's word, good communication, appreciation, edification, and service, all in an attitude of respect and humility, and all for God's glory, fine, and for the benefit of the other.

Again, is this the relationship we have with our wife? Are we focused on the glory of God?

Are we focused about the benefit to her? He says here, unbelieving wives, some of us may have unbelieving wives, do not have the capacity to relate as God relates because they're not

Christians. But by carrying out your responsibility, you can be a witness of God's love and bring great glory to him.

We are to love our wives as Christ loved the church, and we're going to talk more about that as well.

But I really wanted to get to this. He gives some major pitfalls in relationships.

And again, the focus on Christ and the gospel. First pitfall. I don't know where we are on this here.

Again, it probably doesn't matter. First pitfall, not pursuing

Christ first and foremost. Our relationship with Christ will always affect our horizontal relationships with one another.

If we are not loving God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, we are putting something else someone else in his rightful place.

We will inevitably find ourselves having difficulty in our other relationships.

If we are consumed by something else, someone else, other than Jesus Christ, you know what?

Even if it's your wife, what's the problem with making your wife your top priority instead of Christ?

She is an idol, right? And she's going to fail.

That's exactly right. She's going to fail. So then what happens? I've put all my effort into my wife.

I haven't put my effort into Christ. You know, here's the other thing. If she is a Christian and I'm doing that, do you think she's going to appreciate or she's going to say, does this guy love the

Lord or what? Right? Here's a complaint you won't hear from too many wives around Bethlehem Bible Church or in Christianity generally.

You know what? Here's the problem. My husband is too Christ focused. You know what?

I hate the guy. He gets up in the morning and he reads the Bible and throughout the day he's kind and gentle and meek and mild and patient and forbearing.

I don't know what to do with that guy. He puts me first.

He treats me like a queen. I am miserable. Let me know when that happens to you, when your wife starts complaining about that.

Second major pitfall in relationships, pride, and this one goes right to the heart.

It says pride will cause us to look down on others and lord it over others rather than lovingly lead.

A person who is self -exalting will also get defensive. Now listen to this blame shift. What is blame shifting?

Finding a reason outside of yourself that something went wrong. How old is blame shifting? All the way back there.

It's the woman you gave me. Right? How many times in our own lives do you ever find yourself thinking

I want to say this but then I know that's not right. It's really my fault.

Yes, every day. I want to blame somebody else but it's my fault. I want to rename something.

I want to put another label on it. You know, I'm not angry because that would be a sin.

I'm just upset but I'm upset enough to want to punch a hole in that wall.

Well, it's anger. I don't know what to say. How about we just ignore sin?

How about we just sweep it under the rug because if I have to admit sin, if I have to ask forgiveness, then what?

I was wrong and guess what? I look bad. We're talking about pride.

He says he will also be reluctant to be accountable to anyone and will rarely see anyone as capable of giving advice or beneficial inputs.

Nobody knows what I'm going through. Nobody can understand. Nobody can help me. I am the only person in the history of the world who's had this problem and I run into people who actually say things like this.

You can't understand and I'm like, when it comes to marriage, believe me, if I haven't lived it,

I've seen it. You know, right up to, I was just talking about this last night.

Actually, a friend of mine that I worked with when I was in the jail, deputy sheriff, he was having an affair with another deputy and they moved into a house together and a strange husband showed up and there was a fight over a gun and my friend was shot and killed.

And I'm like, so I've seen everything from adultery to murder and everything else.

So there really isn't too much that I can't understand. Instead of being prideful, we ought to put on humility.

Let's look at Philippians 2 verses 1 to 4. Familiar verses, but would somebody read that please?

Philippians 2, 1 to 4. So if there's any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being full of cord and of one mind.

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in your note, count others more significant than yourselves.

For each of you, look not only for his own interest, but also for the interest of others. Okay, how do you, how does this apply?

Well, let's put it this way. How does this apply to our marriage? How we turn this on, but probably need to turn on your

PhD to figure that out. Yeah, we need to look after our wife's needs instead of just our own. It's easy.

I mean, it's very worldly to kind of treat a marriage as, you know, what can I get out of the marriage?

It's another thing to think, what can I do for my wife? How can I put her interests first? And it's the opposite of pride, right?

It's humility and it's Christ -like. It just goes on there to say, to talk about Christ, have this mind in yourselves, among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus.

And then it goes on to talk about how he condescended to love us and come down to earth and live.

But we need to put on humility, admit sin, admit sin.

When was the last time you confessed a sin to your wife? And by the way, I'm going to tell you right now, here's a newsflash.

You know, some people think that having a good communicative relationship means you have to tell your wife everything you think.

Is that a good idea or a bad idea? It's a really bad idea. It's a horrendous idea.

Well, and you know what? Here's what I would say, you know, well, why are the things that you don't want to tell your wife? Well, not everything that you think is something that you're actually thinking about doing.

I mean, I get ideas in my head sometimes and I'm just like, I would never do that. You know? Okay. I don't have to tell her everything.

And you know what? Here's another newsflash. If she told you everything that she was thinking, it would not be pretty either.

I mean, we have to realize that we're just sinful. She's sinful. And the

Lord has brought us together and we need to live in light of that. But we need to do. There are times when we need to admit sin.

There are times when we need to seek counsel. We need to get advice.

And maybe it's not her. Maybe it's somebody else. Maybe we don't know what to do with our wife.

How to get around an issue that we're having. Get some counsel. We need to welcome accountability.

Let's look at Hebrews 10, 24, and 25 because this is a little bit of a nuance here that we wouldn't always see.

Hebrews 10, 24, and 25. And if somebody would read that, please.

Hebrews 10, 24, and 25. Okay. We want to encourage one another to love and good works.

And I just thought about that. And when we're talking about welcoming accountability, we need to be willing to have brothers and sisters in our lives who come and say, how's your walk?

How are you doing? Are you engaged in love and good works?

Are you living the kind of life that you ought to be? And we ought to welcome that. Let's talk also, having talked a little bit about pride, let's talk about sinful communication.

Because I think this is a place where we can probably park for a while. In fact,

I do have a card for this. I know I do. I have a few actually.

And a lot of these have scriptures on them, including this one. Deceitful, unwholesome, or hurtful words.

And then I underline this part, as well as the tone of voice and body language with which they are said can also be sinful.

How's that possible? How's it possible that just the body language and the tone that we use can be sinful, even though what we say isn't sinful?

Sarcasm. How many of you ever say sarcastic things? The rest of you are lying.

This morning when I left, my wife, even though she did set her alarm and did wake me up, because that's how we do things.

She has her side of the bed. And if I set my alarm, it's like, why did you set your alarm? So she sets the alarm.

It's okay. I don't care. When I left this morning, I didn't look at her and say, thanks for getting up and making me breakfast, right?

Why wouldn't I do that? Because she didn't get up and make me breakfast. No, she had prepared the coffee.

All I had to do was hit the button. Everything was all made. I just had to throw it in the microwave. But she didn't get up and make me breakfast.

So why would I say that? Sounds like something, you know, maybe

I would have said at some point in my life. But I actually have talked to husbands and wives who say things and they're like, well,

I didn't say anything wrong. Then I listened to the spouse and I'm like, well, yeah, you did. Because you did exactly that, right?

You said thank you, but you didn't mean it. In our flesh, we want to excuse our sins.

We have reasons for saying what we say, right? Let's go to Ephesians 4 .29. And again, I think there are just basically two places in scripture where we could just, in the book of Ephesians chapter four, where we could just,

I said to somebody not at this church, I said, you know what? If you just take Ephesians 4 .29,

make a poster out of it and Ephesians 4 .32 and make a poster out of it and you just plaster that all over your house, it could change your life.

Actually, it could. Ephesians 4 .29.

Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.

Now, this is an example of putting off and putting on.

We put off corrupting talk, corrosive words, acidic words, words that tear down.

I wonder how many arguments there would be in our homes if we practiced that alone. Not insulting, not tearing down, not talking negatively to our wives.

And again, this is in the context of speaking to other people at church. And you think, well, if I'm supposed to treat other

Christians this way, I don't have to treat my wife that way. Right?

I mean, they're special. She's just my wife. I mean, sometimes,

I'm sorry to say, sometimes that's the way we act. Right? Like I have to act a certain way towards other people, but my wife, man, she signed up for this.

She knew what I was like. She just has to learn how to deal with it. No, you need to put off corrupting talk.

You need to stop talking like that. One of the first things that happened when

I got saved, because, you know, I don't know how many of you know police officers. I know a lot.

We're pretty sarcastic. And part of that is, you know, we have a lot of excuses.

You know, it's a coping mechanism. It's this, it's that. I mean, we see bad things. Right? I mean, it's not everybody who's seen somebody shot through the head.

Right? These are things that affect you. You can't help them. You know, not many people can say to a wife, well,

I'm sorry, we have to take your kids out of your house, but your husband is a child molester. When you've had those kinds of conversations, it changes you.

You know, you have to learn how to cope with that. But there's no excuse for taking the way that, you know, the troubles of the world and everything else and using them like a battering ram on our wives.

Our frustrations, our whatever, our angst, our trouble in life is not an excuse to verbally beat down our wives.

Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouth. So how do you do that? I was saying, you know, we used to have what we called a slam fest, which basically meant, you know, we would just get into one -offs, see if we'd come up with the biggest insult.

I don't like to brag, but I was pretty much, I don't know if I was a black belt, but you know, I was pretty close. I was close to earning my black belt.

And then something happened. I got saved. And I remember the first day, my boss's name was

Wally. And the first day where I thought, I'm a

Christian and I'm at work. And Wally comes at me with a slam. And I'm just like,

I knew what I wanted to say. And I'm just going, I can't say that. That's not right. Wally was like, what's wrong with you?

And I'm like, I don't know. But, you know, I think I need a couple of Advil or something. If we take a couple seconds,

I think I have another card for this one. Maybe I do.

But here's the point. If you, if you take a few seconds and just think, what's going to happen when

I say this, what is going to be there? I guess I don't. What's going to be the response when

I say this? It's pretty terrific. It's a, you know, it takes like, you know, it might seem like forever.

Sometimes when you're, I don't know how many of you speak publicly. I do sometimes.

There's something that we do when we speak or preach. It's like sometimes we're afraid of there being like empty air of just letting something hang.

I'm going to suggest to you that a two second delay will seem like forever, but it's not.

And what this two seconds can save you from, again,

I mean, I can, I can remember this is probably because it was after we bought the Aerostar. So it had to be 1986.

And I can remember we were driving back to my dad's and I remember where we were on the freeway, the 605 freeway crossing the 10.

When I said something to my wife, I'll never forget because it was so brutal.

And I knew it. I mean, I was not saying, but I knew that what

I was about to say was not right. And I said that anyway, this,

I mean, I really have a wonderful wife. This principle, if you'll just take that two seconds to just say, okay, what's going to happen when

I say this? I want to say this. Is it needful? Is it corrupting?

And then secondly, is it building up? That's the second part of this, right? Is it good for building up?

Is it good for edifying? Is my wife going to hear this and be edified?

And if she's not, then there are a couple of things I could do. One is think of another way to say what I want to say, which is edifying.

And another way, and this is a shocking thought, don't say anything. I've had people say, well, you don't know.

I'm Italian. It seems like it's always the I people. I'm Italian.

I'm Irish. I'm Icelandic. I don't know what it is about these

I people. But, you know, we can't control what we say. We just have to say what's on our minds.

We have to get it off our chest. I'm like, there is a certain kind of person that has to do that.

And it is an I focus, right? But it's not Irish or Icelandic or Israeli or, it's the

I. It's me. It's my id, to quote

Freud. It's my need to express myself. It's my selfishness.

And I'm not doing this. I'm not building up. I'm not edifying. I'm not giving grace.

I'm expressing my own selfishness, my own sin. I'm sorry.

Yeah. Well, yeah. Yeah. If you have to, there is some irony there, right?

Jesus said to gain your life, you have to lose it, right? And I'm going to suggest to you a lot of times to win an argument, you have to lose it.

You're like, well, how does that work exactly? There are some arguments, you know, what happens when I win this argument?

And this is just consequential thinking. I mean, sometimes I'm just like, I listen to what people say and I'm like, what did you think was going to happen after that?

If you said that to one of your guy friends, the next move would be, I better duck because here comes the haymaker, right?

Consequential thinking. What am I, what I'm about to say, I mean, even if, even if you can't think as far as, is this edifying?

If you just say, what's going to happen when I say that? If the response is going to be, you know, some kind of screaming or tirade, or she's going to storm out of the room or whatever.

Why do I want to say that? Is that really the best way to handle it? And let me just say this too, because we live in a different age.

I absolutely hate texting. Why do I hate texting?

I don't know. I just do. Maybe it's because I'm old, but I have to tell the truth. I will get texts.

And sometimes I realize that those texts are three days old because I haven't checked for texts in that long.

I don't, you know, email's fine, but texting,

I just hate it. But I find now that people like to, husbands and wives, text each other, even from different rooms.

I don't understand that. And there's a reason I don't understand that.

I'm like, I don't think it's a good idea. I mean, to me, how much effort would it take to make sure that your texts are edifying, are building up?

I think a lot more than just kind of sitting down with your wife and talking to her face to face and kind of thinking, okay,

I want to be calm when I say this. I want to preface it by a lot of things, you know, about how sinful

I am and about how much I love her and everything else. I'm not going to do that when I text, you know, it's just going to be like,

I'm just going to get to the point. And I think, you know, a lot of the, sorry, sorry for you younger people, but I think there are a lot of nuances of communication that have just gone out the window, right?

And they're bad for guys, especially because we're all about shortcuts, right? If I can mow the lawn in 10 minutes, that's better than if I can mow it in 25 minutes.

And I'm going to figure out how to do that, right? And if that means, you know, taking two lawnmowers side by side and, you know, and I've got a measuring thing there so that, you know, when

I turn, it's perfect. And I'm like, do, do, do, I cut my time in half, you know, this is just what we do.

So if I can communicate quickly and I think, well, that's better, quicker is better, quicker is always better.

No, it's not always better. It's more important to make sure that we're getting the message across that we want.

And sometimes texting is a horrible medium for it.

We had to make sure no corrupting talk instead have it be building up.

And I'm telling you what, so many times, if you just think about what you're going to say is think about what the response is.

If you could even think about it this way, what would I do if somebody said that to me? I probably wouldn't dig it.

Well then don't say it. So there you go. Why don't I text? Because I like being 93 % more efficient.

Yeah, well, then that's, you know, it's a good reason to change your attitude. But yeah, let's talk about another major pitfall, a lack of appreciation and thankfulness, a lack of appreciation and thankfulness.

Dr. Scott says when we are focused on the negative aspects of a person or of a relationship rather than on the positive, we are reluctant to relate as we should.

And I wrote, more frankly, we just don't care about thinking rightly when we are zeroed in on our wives, weaknesses and sins.

If all you can see are her flaws and imperfections and the things that she does wrong, what are you going to do?

You're going to hate her or at least at the very least, you're going to have a negative attitude. And here's the thing about women.

And I'm, you know, I'm not telling you all the secrets I know about women, but I will tell you some. They are typically more intuitive than we are.

And attitude means so much more. They will hear the tone of your voice. And this is why, you know, maybe texting is a good idea in some cases, because that the 93 % of what you don't think you're communicating, oh, they're receiving that.

You can say whatever you want, dude, it doesn't even matter because your face, your body, your tone, everything is so wrong.

And that's probably when you don't want to say anything, you know, send her a, send her a Hallmark card, send her a box of chocolates.

And first Thessalonians 5 .11. I mean, the Bible is really consistent in what it says, listen to this, therefore encourage one another and build one another up again, edify just as you are doing, encourage one another.

It's, it's amazing. And I'm not, this is the Holy Spirit's work. But I remember, you know, my wife is so,

I mean, she really is wonderful. I remember when I said to her, you know, I'd like to go to seminary and she said, okay, if you want to, you know, when

I came home from seminary one day and I said, I said, we're going to go to Israel.

And she goes, we can't afford that. And I said, don't worry about it. I've already mapped it out.

This is how much overtime I'm going to work. Right. While I'm in school, you know, and she goes, okay.

And that's what we did. Right. I just, I had to work overtime to go to school anyway. And then I worked more overtime so we can go to Israel and we saved the money and we went, she doesn't.

And, and, you know, instead of complaining about how much time I was working overtime, how much time I was gone, everything else, how much she had to do with the kids, she would instead, you know, bring me lunch at, at, at the jail where we could sit out and eat lunch together and stuff like that.

And that's just how she is. And here was my point that every step along the way,

I mean, my wife is she's somebody who likes to be in the background.

She's definitely not like me. And this is a good thing that she's not like me, but you know, if you would have said to her, you know, in 1995, you would have said, you know what, you're going to be a pastor's wife.

You're going to be one of the, you're going to be the head of the women's ministry at the church. You're going to, you know, teach a

Bible study and everything. She would have said, I can't do that. I can't do that.

That's not something I can do. She's doing it, you know, by the grace of God. Sometimes because she has to, because she still wouldn't do it unless she had to.

But God can, God can grow people in ways that we couldn't even think about.

Now, let me ask you this. How much better will your wife respond to you if you are commending her, speaking well of her and building her up than if you're not?

Let me put it another way. Why would you talk to your wife in a way that you would never speak to your co -worker or boss?

How does that communicate to her? You know, sweetheart, you are the most important person on this planet to me.

Well, okay, but you don't talk to anybody else the way you talk to me. You don't run anybody else down the way you run me down.

So how would I be able to tell that I'm the most important person to you? Well, if I didn't love you, I wouldn't kick you like a dog.

Major pitfall number five here. Self -focused expectations.

The me -centered thinking. And this gets back to what do

I get out of the situation? He says, looking and waiting for another's growth, time, care, or attention is always a bad idea.

We must not live in expectation or put conditions on our love and care for others.

Why are we to love our wife? It's commanded.

It's the right thing to do. Christ loved the church. What's that?

He loved us first. What's that?

We're supposed to be one. Thank you for that. To glorify

God. To glorify God. You know, does ROV glorify God? The answer is yes, it does.

Now, it will help our marriage, but the primary thing is because it glorifies the Lord. We're supposed to, and when we do, it glorifies the

Lord. What's our response to that? Love your wives even as Christ loved the church,

Ephesians 5. Again, if you live in Ephesians 4 and 5, you'll do well. What do people most often say?

Men often say, men, love your wives like Christ loved the church, but you don't know my wife.

You don't know what she's like. It's not easy loving her. She's this, and she's that, and the other thing. Don't make excuses for your disobedience.

Imagine, you know, if you have children, imagine one of your children came to you, and someday if you don't have children,

Lord willing, you will. Imagine your child came to you and you said, why did you disobey me? And they said, well, you know,

I disobeyed because Billy blah, blah, blah, blah, or because Jill did blah, blah, blah, blah.

Would you accept that? You wouldn't accept it because it's blame shifting.

You wouldn't say, oh, well, that's good. You know, I have no problem with that. So then we want to go before the

Lord and say, well, I know I'm supposed to love my wife like Christ loved the church, but she, the wife you gave me,

Lord, the ultimate problem with failing to love our wives as Christ loved the church is we are saying what

God you failed. You gave me an unlovable wife.

You gave me a woman who is not what she should be. Is that true or false?

It's false. God gave you exactly the right wife, exactly the right wife.

How do we know that he's sovereign? And because she's your wife, right?

You might say, well, you know, she's not the way I would design her. She's the way

God designed her. And I want to take a moment to just ask this question.

Let's look at Matthew chapter seven. You know, we're not going to go there, but it's a good verse.

Verses three to five. And I want to ask this question. Are you more concerned about your wife's obedience, her faithfulness than yours?

Matthew seven, verses three to five. And would somebody read that please? This is, you know, this is a moment, forgive me for my own sarcasm.

And I have another card about this too, but let me just put it this way. True or false, you are, and I think

I even get this here somewhere. You are responsible for your wife's sanctification. You know, this is, this is a

PolitiFact moment. I'm going to rate that true, false. Let's look at, let's look at Ephesians five for a moment.

Since I said, you know, we do well to live in Ephesians five, let's live in Ephesians five for a moment. Verse 25.

Husbands, husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. We know that one.

Verse 26, that he might sanctify her having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word.

Okay. If we're to love our wives as Christ loved the church, there is a certain element of sanctification in there.

But if we look at Philippians chapter two, you know, work out your own salvation with the fear and trembling, she's responsible for working out her own salvation.

But in a sense, we are responsible for sanctification.

I'm going to, let me just explain that a little bit. We talk about the gospel centered nature of our homes and our focus.

What are some practical ways that we can kind of do that? Make sure that Christ is the center of our home.

Okay. Discuss scripture. We do that with our wives. Does that have a sanctifying effect?

Yes. As long as we're not saying, yeah,

I'm going to tell you, if I could get everybody in this, in this room to just do this. Well, it would, it would be, you'd be way ahead of things.

You'll avoid so many problems. You'll just be like, man, my life got so much simpler.

Just a couple seconds. You know, we'll save you a lifetime of trouble. And it comes with a lifetime guarantee too.

So there is a sense in which you're responsible for sanctification, but always, you know, here's the problem.

Some husbands want to correct their wives, want to be the parents, want to teach and explain and sort of treat their wives like a child.

It's a bad move. And you know, the two second rule, or just thinking about this, what about the log in my own eye?

Why am I so worried about her specs? Don't I have enough sin for both of us?

Right. And there are ways of doing things when they, when a wife needs to be confronted or when you need to talk to her about something, but it's always got to be done in humility.

And really this is anytime you're going to go and confront anybody, anybody about sin, you want to think about this passage here and just think, okay, have

I really removed the beam from my own eye? The thing that keeps me from seeing how wicked I really am.

And now I'm going to go, you know, administer to somebody else. Well, I want to make sure that I'm not a hypocrite, that I'm not complaining about her in a way that I would never even think about looking at my own life.

Yes. Yes. Yeah. And I mean, you know, the, the problem is when we take too much on ourselves, right.

And we presume that we know better than the Lord does. There are things though, you know, like I, one of the troubled signs when people come to the church and they're relatively new, sometimes you can sort of tell that the wife is a spiritual leader of the home.

And, you know, sometimes they want a more touchy feely church or whatever. And so they move on.

But here, getting back to the gospel centered focus of the home. Yes. Discussing things with your wife. You know, here's something really practical that I, I stole from Pastor Mike, you know, 20 some odd years ago.

Cause I'd say, you know what? I don't know how to do family devotions. I don't know how to talk about the Lord. And he said, well, why don't you just do this?

Why don't you get like concise theology by J .I. Packer or something like that.

And just cause it's like J .I. Packer writes these short essays and, you know, sometimes they're a page and a half, two pages, three pages.

Just read that right before dinner and then go to the dinner table and just talk to the kids and your wife about it.

Right. And ask them a few questions. And you know what? It really wasn't that hard.

And if you're not, you know, you're just like, well, I'm not a good teacher. I'm not this. I'm not that. Well, may I just suggest it's excuse making because it's your job.

It's your job to make sure that your home, your marriage, your family is Christ centered, is focused on the gospel.

You know, bringing, bringing your family to church once a week, isn't the issue. It's not enough.

And I think that's really, you know, that's a great point. I mean, if you see her, you know, but then again, you have to be somewhat knowledgeable, too.

I mean, there are a lot of husbands and I'm not talking about anybody in this room. If their wives brought home, you know,

Jesus calling and they'd go, oh, that's nice. You know, she's reading a book about Jesus without any idea of, you know, what's in there.

Maybe the latest and Voskamp book. Oh, I heard about it. And good for you.

So there is a sense in which, you know, you can steer your wife away from things that she ought not to be involved in, you know, using the kind of the better, best paradigm, you know, good, better, best.

So that's true. I just think, you know, when you get down to the nitty details, I think there is a sense in which, you know,

I don't want to micromanage her sanctification. I want to give guidance and, you know, certainly steer her away from bad things.

You know, there are reasons why she shouldn't read Fifty Shades of Grey, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But I, you know,

I think any husband or wife who wants to be like and their wives like this, too, who want to be the

Holy Spirit. You know, I think we have to we have to balance things out.

We have to be careful about that. Okay.

So let's talk about God's purpose for marriage. Generally, Dr.

Scott says marriage is good and has perfect purposes. God's overall purpose for marriage is to bring himself glory.

This is clearly accomplished through. And then there are some specific areas that he gives.

And the first one is companionship. Oh, by the way, let me just go back to that card, the correction card.

Let me just say this about that. One of the reasons why I put, you know, triple points for correcting your wife in front of your kids.

You should never do that. It's obviously a high scoring game.

You should never do that. You know, what do you do? Let me just get real practical here. What do you do when your wife says something in front of your kids that she should not have said?

I'll tell you what I do. You know, right through the 10 ring.

What do you do? Get angry. You get even with her.

Two seconds. You can draw your weapon and listen. Oh, no, that's not right. Here's what you have to do.

You're the leader of the home. You set the tone. She gets angry with you in front of the kids and you just think,

OK, if I respond in front of the kids and this escalates in front of the kids, what are the kids learning?

Kids are learning conflict. The kids are learning this is what marriage is about. You know, pull up a seat, kids.

We're going to show you what marriage is all about. We're going to go 15 rounds, although they don't go 15 rounds anymore. They're kind of whippy.

They only go 12, sometimes only 10. Boxing, for those of you who know what boxing is.

What do you do? Don't respond or say, you know what?

Can we just talk about this in the other room? Is that the ideal thing? Well, no. The ideal thing would be she wouldn't have said that, but she did.

So you have to respond to it. And, you know, the best possible way, the best possible way is we're not going to talk about this in front of the kids.

We're not. We're just not going to do it. I'm not going to respond to that. You can do whatever you want. I'm not going to respond to that.

And by the way, don't say that you can do whatever you want, but I'm not going to respond in front of the kids. Kids, I want you to see this.

We need to protect our wives. We need to protect our marriage. And when I said, by the way, and I want to back up a little bit,

I think one of the most important things that I've kind of learned, in addition to the two -second thing,

I only say positive things about my wife. Why is that? You know, is it my positive confession?

It trains my thinking. And I want to think just positively about her all the time. And at work, you know what?

You want to talk about gospel opportunity. When everybody is talking about, you know, the ball and chain and, you know, the nag or the chang, you know, she's

Chinese, the nag, or she's this or that, the other thing, you just say, you know what?

My wife's great. What do you mean she's great?

Well, doesn't she? No, it's not my wife. Well, how'd you get so lucky? I didn't get so lucky.

God brought this wonderful woman in. God did what? You know, da, da, da, da. Okay, I'm going to start talking about the gospel to you, whether you want to hear it or not, because Jesus Christ is changing our lives day by day, you know, constantly.

He saved us from our sin, and he is sanctifying us constantly. I want, can you imagine getting back to Ephesians 5, and again,

I think if you live in Ephesians 4 and 5, your marriage is going to change. Getting back to Ephesians 5, can you imagine as Christ loved the church, and let's suppose

Jesus had a job, and he went to his job every day and said, can you believe what the church is doing? Can you believe, da, da, da, da, is that how he loves the church?

No. Does he correct the church? Yes, but that's because the church is in need of massive correction.

We are to love our wives as Christ loved the church, not to run them down, to say good things, true things.

I don't care if your wife's an unbeliever. Should you run her down in front of other people? No. If we go on in Ephesians 5, what does it say?

It says no man ever hated his own flesh. She is your flesh. Nathan.

You said you shouldn't like the kids. So if a husband and wife are supposed to present like a unified front, and be sort of together, and you think your wife is saying something wrong to your kids, do you side with her to appear unified even though you think it's wrong, or do you just sit there passively and deal with it later?

That's an excellent question, and the answer is I probably would sit there passively and wait,

I mean unless it's horrendous, talk to her later, and then Lord willing have her come back and say, you know, you know what

I said this, probably a better way is this. So that, and it really is important, and there have been times, you know, where I know my wife didn't agree with me, and we'll talk, we will talk about submission.

And let me just kind of preface it this way.

There are times in a marriage where husband and wife don't agree. That's amazing. If your first response is submit, it probably shouldn't be, and I say probably, you know,

I mean there are crazy scenarios you can build up for me where that is the right thing to say, but I think it's usually better if you, you know, by force of scripture and reason and loving discussion, you can get her to agree with you is ideal, right?

You can get her to maybe see the wisdom in what you're saying, but sometimes, you know, after you've done all that, and I can remember one specific instance in which my wife really did not agree with me, and so we talked about it.

It was she and I, and we just talked and talked and talked and talked, and you know, she goes, well, I just don't agree, and I'm going, here's what

I said, not submit to me, woman. Get behind me, Satan. I said,

I said, well, I know we don't agree, but ultimately,

I'm responsible for this, and I'm going to, you know, whatever the judgment of the

Lord is in this matter, it's going to fall on me, and so I think we have to go my way.

It's not like, yes, I'm the winner. I'm the boss. I'm the champ, but I don't see where I have any other choice.

I'm convicted of this. There's no scriptural reason to not do what I'm, you know, what I want to do.

I think it's the best course, and, but it should always be, you've got to pray about it.

You've got to think about it. You've really got to be convinced in your own mind that it is the way to go, because if you, and we do have a, we do have a submission card, by the way, and I'll just give you a little preview.

If your first response is submit, submit, submit, submit,

I don't know how many cards you think you have in the deck, but if they're always submit, there are going to be problems in your marriage.

Leading doesn't mean submit. Leading means follow me.

Leading sometimes means just putting your arm around her and saying, you know what, I know this is difficult. I know you don't agree with me, but we have to do it, you know, this way.

Yes. So how do you reconcile the topic that you're on now saying

I'm sorry, but we have to do it my way? How do you reconcile that with our

Philippians 2 discussion where you said put your, the interests of your wife first above your own?

Because her interests, that's a good question, but I would say this, that the, her interests,

I wouldn't necessarily mean or say that it always means her wishes. Philippians 2 doesn't mean that what she wants is always right or best or even godly.

I mean, she might want, you know, let's just go back to the life of Steve and let's just say my wife was more like Steve than Steve is.

During my midlife crisis, we had three kids and I went out and bought a two -seat sports car, which

I later told in a one -car accident, but that's a whole other topic. That was not sensible.

That was not good. That was not right. You know, so supposing her attitude was, well, you know what,

I have to defer to Steve and his interests come before mine, Philippians 2.

We weren't Christians at this point, but that would just be like, she would have to eventually, because I could sign the papers anyway and she couldn't stop me.

But if my wife now said, you know what, I really want a two -seat sports car, I just go, okay.

You know, I mean, it doesn't kill me. It won't kill me. But I think the point is, you know, getting back to this, submit.

She needs to submit. Here's an interesting thing. Let me ask you this. Correct me where I'm wrong.

The verse says, husbands, ensure your wives submit to you as the church submits to Christ.

Is that what the verse says? No. What did I get wrong? The command is to the wives, not the husbands.

Now, why is that important? It's their job.

And so often, you know, the guys want to, you know, submit, submit, submit, submit, submit. Is that my job?

No, no. And should she be playing the Love Your Wife Like Christ Loved the

Church? No, no. It's our job to make sure that we are loving our wives like Christ loved the church.

It's her role. It's her biblical role to submit to us as the church does to Christ.

And when we get those things confused, we run into issues. You know, so what does that mean?

Well, we're going to be talking more about headship and things like that.

And we're just about out of time. But let me just end on this. Biblically, it goes like this.

Christ is the head of the man, right? Again, we're in Ephesians 5. As the husband is the head over the wife.

What does that mean? That means that there's responsibility. I am responsible to the

Lord. She is responsible to me. Does that mean that I am more important? And we're going to be talking about all this in a month.

So keep your notes. Here's the point.

The point is there are things in life that she may want to do.

She may think is right. But ultimately, if you think, well, I'm responsible for this.

And it's hard for me to think of a situation without giving too much information away.

But the number of times that I've never had to say to my wife, submit.

I have had to say to my wife, you know what? We don't agree here. I'm going to have to make the call.

And then what does that mean? That means that she has to decide whether she's going to submit or not.

We don't agree. I'm going to have to make the call. I don't have to say to her, submit.

She knows. How does she know? She has a Bible too. And as long as I'm convicted in my own mind, if I've already gone through all the steps and I'm thinking, well, you know what?

This is the most Christ honoring decision I can make. She's going to wind up trusting me.

If she's looking at me, just like, this is the most selfish thing I've ever heard. I can't believe you want to buy a

Lamborghini. I can't imagine why I would want to buy a Lamborghini.

What's that? No, it wasn't. No, it was not a Lamborghini. It was definitely not a

Lamborghini. All right.

All right. It was a Pinto. I souped up that Pinto and it was really sweet.

It was nice, man. It really was nice.

Okay. The ultimate point is

I need to have the mindset of how do I serve my wife? How do

I sanctify her? How do I exhibit the love of Christ to her?

It's not about what can I get out of the marriage? What is she going to do for me? But it's what

I can do for her. And there are a bunch of things that we're going to discuss about. I'll just give you one.

Here's something that I started doing when I got saved. And I think at first my wife thought I was batty.

I started opening the car door for her all the time. And you think, well, what's that all about? Is it chivalry is not dead?

She can open her own car door. And that's what she used to say to me. I can open my own car door. And I said, you know what?

I said, would you, for me, allow me to open your car door? Because it reminds me of what?

That I'm to serve her, that I'm to put her first, that I'm to think about her. And it just helps me.

It's just a physical reminder of the fact that I am to serve her.

It's kind of simple. It's kind of, you know, some people might say it's old -fashioned. It's this, it's that or the other thing.

But it puts me in the right mindset of thinking my life is not all about me.

And sometimes we just need the simple things to sort of help us remind ourselves of where we are.

I mean, we've been married for a long time. Why do you still open her door? Because we've been married for a long time. And I want to be married for a long time more.

I want to always put her first, not just sometimes, but always, every single day.

Anyway, we're out of time. Let's pray before the play gets started here. Father, we just thank you for the

Lord Jesus Christ and for his life, his death, his resurrection, as we think about those things and how they ought to impact our thinking, our lives, even our home lives and our marriages.

Lord, I pray that you would help us to put Christ first. And as we put Christ first, other things will fall into place.

Help us to love our wives sacrificially, being mindful that they are the weaker vessels, that they are different from us.

Thank you for that, that they're not the same, that they have different needs and desires, different talents and abilities.

Father, how you've sovereignly chose each of our wives, and even for the guys here who aren't married yet, their future wives, to help sanctify them, to help them serve you better, and to ultimately glorify you as they exhibit

Christ's love for the church and the church's submission to Christ.