Let's pray. Father in heaven, I thank you for these men who have made some sacrifice, I'm sure, to be here tonight. It's a token of their love for you and their love for their spouses that they would invest this time. Help us as husbands to be more like Christ. We all fall so very short. Help me to encourage my brothers, and pray that what I say would be true to Your Word. In Jesus' name, Amen. We should be glad that your wives are hearing my wife talk. We often, some of these conferences, we will do multiple sessions separated. And there was one year where we talked about intimacy in marriage, men with me, women with her. And the next day in church, a guy came up to me and said, I don't know what your wife taught my wife yesterday. So I'm sure your wives will get many great benefits from hearing Caroline. You don't want to be stuck in here. The classic passage for the role of husbands is Ephesians 5. There are parallels in Colossians and in 1 Peter. Carol and I do a lot of marriage counseling, and so often when people come, the real goal of each party is change her or change him. And actually one title I've given these messages that both she is giving and I'm giving is how to change your spouse, how to change your wife, how to change your husband. The Bible does teach how a wife is to change her husband. The Bible does teach how a husband is to change his wife. You agree? In a sense, okay, you're ahead of me. 1 Peter 3.7 says, if your husband is disobedient to the Word, you win him without a word by your chaste behavior. And so, a wife, by loving her husband and treating him better than he deserves, is an instrument of change and sanctification in the husband. And I can speak that when Caroline treats me better than I deserve, when I've been grumpy or selfish, it convicts me and moves me to want to be a better husband. And then likewise, in Ephesians 5, it says, "...husbands, love your wives as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word." And so we are to be an agent of sanctification for the wife, each of us the wife that God has given us. I do remember pretty well that day, 45 years and five days ago, when we got married. And one thing that was impressed upon my heart was like, God was giving me this gift of Caroline, for I did not know how long. And one day I'm going to need to give her back. I may die, she may die. Marriage is not forever. And my goal or my ambition should be to give her back better than I got her. And God has done amazing work in my wife for which I deserve no credit. But I am to be the agent of helping Caroline also to be more Christ-like. Oftentimes, there's again a lot of marriage humor where men marry hoping that their wife will never change and women marry anticipating the husband will change and all are disappointed. I emphasized at the end last time, I think the most important aspect in Ephesians 5 too, is that Ephesians 5 comes after Ephesians 1-4. And if you don't understand Ephesians 1-3, you can't do it in Ephesians 5. Ephesians 5 is... describing how the Father chose you before the foundation of the world, the Son redeemed you, and the Spirit has sealed you. When you were dead in sin, God made you alive in union with Christ. He's made you part of His people and given you access to God, and all these blessings that at the end of chapter 3, he prays we would understand those blessings. And it's in light of those blessings, then it says, husbands, love your wife as Christ loved the church, because you know that love. That's what empowers you to love. And just saying, I'm going to start doing the dishes and giving more flowers externally, those might be fruit of this love, but it's not the love itself. And this will be emphasized throughout tomorrow as well. I want to go through the passage, and I've only done this once or twice in my life, but in this message, I have an acronym, and it's Give Your Wife Tulips. T-U-L-I-P-S. It could be the Reformed Husband's Wisdom from Ephesians 5. As many of us, I assume, know how much Reformed people like tulips. And so I'm just going to work my way through, and I think some of what, again, most of this will be a reminder to you, which we all need, but I'm also going to give some examples from counseling that might make it a little more interesting to you. So, Ephesians 5, husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the church. The first T is totally commit yourself to your wife. And even this word, husbands love your wife, the word love, even in the Bible, is sometimes used in a cheap way. In 2 Samuel 13, it talked about how Amnon loved his sister Tamar, but his love was a lust that ultimately ended up in him raping her. Then later it said, he hated her with a hatred greater than the love with which he loved her. And we can be guilty of that even in marriage in the sense that we can, you know, I love you because of what you do for me. I love you because of the benefits I gain. And even in terms of sexually making that the big priority, sex can be an idol even for married people. I must have what I want, when I want it. And so we can be like Amnon, not as gross, but still selfish. But then the reminder from Ephesians that Christ loved you when you were not worthy of his love. You were dead in your trespasses and sins. Romans says that we were God's enemies. 1 John 4.10, God demonstrates his own love towards us that while we were yet sinners. Sorry, that's Romans 5. God demonstrates his own love towards us that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 1 John is, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son. Loving your wife isn't conditionally treating her according to what she deserves, which is what our flesh responds normally with, but it's sometimes treating her better than she deserves. It's interesting that when God chose you, the Scripture says He did not choose many mighty or high or noble. He chose kind of the dregs of the earth, 1 Corinthians 1. Now, that doesn't mean that if you're single, you should go try to find the most ugly, ornery woman you can to be more Christ-like. We all did the opposite, right? We chose the best we could get with what we had. And it reflected your values and charm, beauty, intelligence, spirituality, hopefully at the top, the woman who fears the Lord. So you chose the best you could get. So it should be easier for you in some sense. And yet you still chose a sinner. And learning to treat her not, we'll talk tomorrow about not treating her according to law, but according to grace. It means not being surprised when she falls short and she sins. that you want to reflect Christ's love for you. And just like Philippians 3.9 says that in Christ we've been granted a righteousness not of our own obtained through keeping the law, but the righteousness that comes from God by faith. God looks upon you as if you'd perfectly kept the law and treats you accordingly. And so we don't treat our wives according to how well they're keeping our law. that we love them as Christ has loved us, and sometimes the best opportunities is when they don't deserve it. God has also made us to be the ones who initiate in love. One of the great weaknesses of many men is that there's a conflict. They kind of wait for the wife to come to them first. And in many marriages, it's the wife who's putting forth really the effort to try to keep the marriage close, and the husband seems distracted. Of our relationship to Christ, it says, we love, 1 John 4, 19, we love because he first loved us. God made her to respond and us to initiate, and there are very many passive women. I actually have an entire talk called, When Husbands Won't Lead, and it's for mixed groups, largely for the wives. What do you do? Well, don't let that be your wife. And then the love is also to be from the heart. Some people think, okay, I'm doing my duty, I'm doing the right stuff. In Hebrews 12, when it talks about Christ enduring the shame of the cross, it says, He did it for the joy set before Him. He found joy in fulfilling the Father's will and saving us that even the cross the the pain of the cross was worth it in a sense because of the game he gained us and the Lord wants us not just to be dutiful husbands, but from the heart to care for them and We'll get to the end what do you do when that's hard the you would be unconditionally Sacrifice your own interests for her needs. It says, Christ loved the church. He gave himself up for her. This is referring to his death for us, the great sacrifice. His great love is demonstrated on the cross. Ephesians 5.2 says that Christ loved you and gave himself up for us, an offering and sacrifice to God and a fragrant aroma. When Paul wrote these words, He was writing something very daunting. I think that what Carolyn is telling your wives to do is really hard. We have a hard time submitting to Christ as perfect, and they're being told to submit to us, and we fall so far short. But likewise, what we're being told to do is also very hard, to be willing to love, in such a way, to humble ourselves in love. In Philippians 2, when it says, consider others more important than yourselves, he goes, have this attitude in yourselves which was in Christ Jesus, although he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality to be a thing to be clung to, but emptied himself, taking on the form of a servant. And there's so many men, and it goes back to Genesis 3, where your desire shall be for your husband, he will rule over you, and our pride and our selfishness, We want our own way. And Paul is saying, as Christ gave up his life for us, we are to be giving up our lives for our wives. Now you say, great, I get it. If somebody comes to the front door, points a gun at my wife, I will get between my wife and the guy with the gun. I actually have one person I know that was in that situation and he did get shot. He's lived. That's unlikely to happen to you. What's going to happen is the baby's crying and it's three in the morning and your wife is exhausted, but you've got to get up at 530 to go to work. and you don't measure what's even, you measure what's loving and you go above and beyond. It's when the budget is kind of tight and you know your wife would really be, actually most wives what they want is you to buy stuff for the kids when they're younger actually. Or for me, like my wife wants to buy gifts for people and that's the only financial conflict we've ever had. And so, but you wanted a new fishing rod or you wanted something for your boat or whatever thing is your thing. And to say, it would be my joy to give up the way I wanted to spend some of our budget because I want my wife to have the thing that's really important to her. The Bible teaches that authority has been given by God to serve, and this applies to us as pastors as well. Jesus talks in Mark 10, I think it's Matthew 12, among the leaders of the Gentiles, they want other people to serve them. But Jesus said, whoever wants to be great among you will be servant of all. And the classic passage for this is very familiar to you is in John 13. And it's the familiar story of Jesus washing the disciples' feet. But it's important because I know of no bigger problem among men in the church than men who are selfish and want to use their authority selfishly rather than using their authority to serve. And we were actually, we were talking at dinner. Caroline was on the phone right before dinner with a woman, a wife, whose husband basically said, look, I'm in charge of this family and this is what we're going to do. And in that particular situation, I think he should have discussed it with her. And I think in one sense, he has to make the final decision. But there's so many men who love Ephesians 5.22. Wives, submit to your husbands. They've not even made it to verse 25. They're stuck in Ephesians 5.22. And they use their authority to say, we're going to watch what I want on TV. We're going to spend the money I want to spend money. We're going to vacation where I want to vacation. That's the opposite of why God gives authority. And in John 13, there's one little detail I noticed some years ago. You know the story of Jesus washing his disciples' feet. You call me teacher and Lord and I am. But the verse that really grabbed me was in verse 3 where John, under the inspiration of the Spirit, knows what Jesus was talking about before, what Jesus was thinking about before he washed the disciples' feet. And it says, Jesus, knowing the Father had given all things into his hands and that he had come from God and was going back to God, got up from supper, laid aside his garments, taking a towel, he girded himself. So, what was Jesus thinking about? He was thinking, I'm the Son of God. I came from the right hand of God. I'm returning to the right hand of God. I have all authority. Now, what would we do? You guys, wash my feet, go get my food, whatever. No, then fully cognizant of his authority, he expresses his authority by serving. And that's what we are to be. And many of us husbands are really good at our own form of math, as we can look at the labor to be done in the home. And we can estimate how much we're doing and how much the wife is doing and want to make sure that it's even. But it's not about math. It's not about equality and division of labor. Jesus didn't say, love your wife according to what is fair. But he's saying, set aside your rights and live sacrificially. The best example of a husband that I grew up with was my grandfather on my mother's side. And I remember as a little kid, and I'd go over and stay with my grandmother during the day while my grandfather was at work. And I'm not sure what my grandfather, you know, I probably was a lot more trouble than I remember being. But my memory is she'd play bridge with her friends or she'd work on a crossword puzzle and I'd play and then she'd make dinner and it'd be a wonderful Southern fattening dinner. And my grandfather would come home and we'd eat this wonderful meal. And then my grandfather, my grandmother was shorter than Caroline, like she's barely five feet tall. My grandfather was 6'3". And my grandfather would get up from the table. This is before people had dishwashers. He'd get up from the table and he'd start clearing the table and start doing the dishes. She'd go, Daddy, don't do that. He said, you made that wonderful meal for us. This is the least I could do. It was like a little routine they went through. I think she lost every time. He always wound up doing it. But I remember as a six-year-old thinking, that's not fair. That poor man got up so early in the morning. He fought traffic to go into Washington, D.C., come back to the suburbs in Virginia. She's not had that hard a day. Again, I may have been underestimating the amount of bother I was, but it wasn't about fear. Of course, what I saw is that she adored him. She knew she was loved. That's what God may use, just as it's Christ who loved us first, to bring forth that kind of love in your wife. the highest desire could be that my wife would look at how I treat her and say, that must be how Jesus loves me. So that's you. L, verse 25, still, limit your love to your wife alone. It says, Christ gave himself up for her. Now, if I was teaching a theology class and going through the doctrines of grace, I would make the point that Christ died for the church. But in a marriage class, it's still expressing that Christ had a special and unique love for his bride, the church. He died for us. We have privileges as his bride. And we as husbands need to be very careful to be faithful to our own wives, to flee youthful lusts and pursue righteousness. Job said he made a covenant with his eyes. And many married men struggle with pornography, struggle with self-gratification. We counsel a lot of adultery cases, Carolyn and I do, more than I'd ever like to see. We'll warn about this tomorrow some more as well. Very few Christians decide that's what they want to do. But part of limiting your affections to your wife is not to allow a bond to be created between you and a woman. Adultery doesn't happen just, you meet somebody and then you're off to a hotel together. It's usually something that develops very gradually by the neglect of your marriage and by an emotional connection. So to be devoted to her. And then there can be other things. There's a Garth Brooks song, I Will Not sing it to you, and I'm even going to change one of the words, but his eyes are cold and restless. His wounds have almost healed, and she'd give half a Texas just to change the way he feels. She knows his love's in Tulsa, and she knows he's going to go. Well, ain't no woman of flesh and blood. It's that blank old Rodeo. It's not just women who can sometimes take a husband's affection away. True story. When I was in Escondido, California, we had a lot of Westminster, California students in our church. And I was having lunch with one of our students who had been married, I don't know, a year and a half. And we were talking and he was telling us something that had happened a day or two earlier where this guy is very studious. I mean, this is back 30 years ago. He's now a professor. He's got his PhD, he's written books. And so really working hard instead, they're sitting in their living room and his wife said, his young wife said, I wish I were an ancient Near Eastern language so that you would pay attention to me. Any man with sense would have dropped the book. And so to give our wife, you know, the priority in life that hobbies, career, other things that could take our attention inappropriately. We had one case where a wife threw her husband's laptop into their swimming pool. I do not think that was justified, but I think it was provoked. That's L. I, and that is, irresistibly draw her with a love which purifies. That's verses 26 and 27. 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. I was just sitting here thinking to myself, is it better to give the handout or will they pay more attention if they take notes? This is the challenge with notes. We didn't get it. You're going to get the handout later, I believe, but here it is. Irresistibly draw her with a purifying love. And so, it's verses 26 and 27. 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, that she would be holy and blameless. And so, we think of Christ, how when we were dead in sin, we were made alive by His Spirit, how Jesus said, no one can come to me unless the Father is in me, draws him, and yet we were drawn to Him. and taken from death to life, and that Christ is committed not just to saving us, but to making us holy. In Ephesians 1, verse 4, it says, the Father chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before Him. That we were not just chosen to avoid hell and to go to heaven, we were chosen to be holy. And that's not just holy in heaven, it's holy now. the language that Paul is using here, the sanctifier being cleansed by the washing of water with the Word. Philippians 1.6, that he who began a good work in you will continue to perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus. It's not just At your moment of salvation, he's done. That's the beginning of his work. Titus 2.14, he gave himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed and to purify for himself a people for his own possession, zealous for good deeds. I trust that's what the Lord is doing in your life. And now that's what he calls upon you to do for your wife. And so there is a sense, and this is a tricky sensitive one. There is a sense in which you should be striving to change your wife not by helping her to lose weight or be more affectionate or keep the house better, whatever it is you're tempted to think, but to pursue her spiritual growth and to do so actively. There are many different ways you can do this, and I'll speak for a moment personally, that in the first several years of our marriage, we were very inconsistent in prayer together other than at meals. And in 1990, as I was finishing seminary, the church where I had interned and was serving, it's like an associate, was going through an ugly church split. And those are really hard times because it's your job, it's your friends, it's your church, it's your ministry, it's all of your life is affected by this. And people are taking sides and it's just horrible. I was thankful for then 30 something years of peace after that in church. But it was so hard. It was like it drove us to pray. Like we just had to pray. We couldn't sleep without praying together. And even though that was a hard time, I can look back on that and thank God because now over 34 years later, we're still praying together every single day. and there's virtually, I mean, I guess if we're physically separated or something, but it's just, and some of it is God made us to be habitual. And so just like I'm sure most of you brush your teeth before you go to bed, it'd be kind of weird not to brush your teeth. Well, in a more spiritual way, it'd be weird for us not to pray. And I think some men get the idea to be a spiritual leader, like there's got to be this long extended thing, and I've got to do these devotions the last half an hour, and we sing and have a benediction, and I prepared a message with three points in a song or something. And I think for some, a lot of men, and when we're counseling couples, we say, are you doing this together? And so few are, even seminary students and their wives, and just, you know, three to five minutes at the end of the day. That's when we do it in the morning. Do it sometime. I can't tell you when to do it. But for some of you, that would be thrilling to your wife. But I also warn you, if you start and stop, she'll be discouraged. We've given that assignment to people, and the wife thought that'd be wonderful if we would do that. And he does it for three days, and then Peter's off. Another thing I will say about how we are as men, it's our pride, is that if you've been married for a while and you haven't been doing it, than for you to start doing it as an admission you should have been doing it. And that's what I was talking to a man, mid-fifties, been married a long time, kids getting grown, and he admitted that was about the hardest thing for him to start leading his family spiritually because it's an acknowledgement he had not been doing the right thing all that time. And so again, I would encourage you, it doesn't have to be this big thing. The other aspect is even more recent. in that Caroline and I, in our course of life, we're almost always together. We do ministry together. Every day we take a walk and we share Scripture together, and we're walking and share what we've been doing, how we use this passage and all this. So we've had kind of a Bible conversation, like Pilgrim's Progress or something a lot of the time, but there wasn't a devotional type thing. I'd say more nights than not when we're at home, we have other people at our table. And in the last couple of years, I've been using these PNR 31-day devotionals. I actually wrote one of them over there. I'm not telling you to buy that one, but mine's on finances, but on hope and fear and anxiety. And just every night, they're two pages long, okay? It's not this long thing. I mean, morning and evening is also very short. I'm going to run out of these before too long and I've got to keep coming up with more. But it's brought such happiness to Caroline to have that element. She's like hanging back waiting for me, and now we've been doing it consistently. It's a testimony to others. We have a couple from Uganda who stay with us a night a week because they live two hours away, so they'll come up for classes a couple days to Charlotte. We've been going through one on forgiveness right now. Sometimes you read it and, okay, let's go do our thing. talked for 15 minutes, and in their culture, some of the concepts of what was going on in their churches was so contrary to Scripture, and that's part of their training to go back. So take some spiritual leadership, but it doesn't have to be huge. Obviously with the children, not to leave it to your wife to read the scripture to them and pray with them and have family worship if you're at that stage as well. And again, it doesn't have to be this big elaborate thing. I don't know what you're telling people to do in your church, but I know people are just like, I was talking to a couple about this and they were saying, oh yeah, in our church, they taught us how to do this. It was something like if you did it, it's 20, 30 minutes or more and say, well, that's what we're going to do. That's a great plan. How often do you do it? Maybe once a week. I said, why not pick something you do every single day? And it's more manageable. And that's my counsel, my advice. Another way to lead your wife spiritually is to encourage her ministry. We had a lady in our church who was gifted in music and would be part of the team of people who helped us in music. But her husband, being a very selfish man, resented either two trips in two different vehicles to church using up the gas or him having to do more to prepare the kids. the same man actually resented if there was a meal train and she'd want to bring food. Why should I pay money for that? If your wife wants to serve the Lord in the church, you should be really happy about that. Now, anything can go too far. Some men and women neglect the family or the marriage for that, but we should be encouraging them. What is your wife's gift? And does she have opportunity to express that gift? Are you holding her back? Is she afraid you might not want her to do that? I've had occasion in recent years to have to practice that. Caroline's been a stay-at-home mom basically since we were married. And we did lots of hospitality, which is almost all her, but we were doing it together and we'd do some counseling. And I was just used to having all of Caroline I wanted. I was the priority. We moved to Charlotte eight years ago. She started as a full-time seminary student to get her Master of Arts in Counseling. And for two years, I had less of Caroline than I'd ever had before. At the time, I would normally say, what's for dinner? I'm thinking, what do we have from Costco that I can microwave? Or what can DoorDash or a pizza place send me? that I'd be done at the end of the day, say, hey, okay, it's nine o'clock. Let's watch TV for an hour before we go to bed. Can't do it. I got a paper to write. Thankfully, I think the Lord sanctified me through that. But, you know, the Lord has so used her ministry. And even I thought, well, now seminary's over. Well, now she's much in demand, counseling women. We don't charge. Maybe that's one reason we're in demand. But we're helping churches in the area. We're working with students and their wives. Actually, it's the same deal where she's meeting with someone at four or five o'clock and dinner's going to be late. Almost all the time she makes a wonderful dinner, but just having to accommodate my selfish desire for her time and her attention to allow her to do the ministry while still making sure we have enough time together, which we do, and being happy she's doing that rather than thinking what it's costing me. And then one more in terms of spiritual leadership is, do you have the courage sometimes to make decisions that are biblical but go against her preferences? In Genesis, it's interesting, you've got this expression a few times where a man listened to his wife. Now, there's a sense which you should always listen to your wife, but if listen means obey, in Genesis 3, when Eve gave the fruit to Adam, he listened to his wife, and that was bad. He needed to say no. Later on, when Sarah said, hey Abraham, here's my handmaid Hagar, he listened to his wife. That was a bad idea. My observation is many of us are tempted to say yes, and we should say no, and no, and we should say yes. And so sometimes it takes a lot of courage to disappoint your wife by standing up for what you think is right against her preferences, where she may want to spend money on something and you realize that it would put you into debt and you think that would be unwise and you don't want to keep her from having the thing you want her to have, but you've concluded as leader of the family that would not be the best decision financially. I've seen cases where the man may be more mature spiritually and the church he's chosen is very solid, but from her standpoint, the church, this other church, the kids like it better, and they have donuts or whatever, and her friends go there, and for him to have the courage to say, I'm really asking you to follow me to this other church, even though I know you'd rather be there. And so, I will also say, though, that no godly woman wants a husband she can completely control. That she wants a husband she can respect, including someone who would, if she was going astray, correct her, just as we as husbands, by the way, should be willing to be corrected by our wives. More on that tomorrow as well. These things are all related. So, that's I, he. Persevere in providing, that's two piece, right? Persevere in providing for her needs. That's back to Ephesians 5 verses 28 through 30. So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself. for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it just as Christ also does the church because we are members of his body. This is the same thing, the kind of reference in verse 23 to the wife, that he is the savior of the body. But it's interesting because in verses 25 to 27, The basic motivation and example was, as Christ does love the church, love your wife. That seems like the highest motivation. The next one is almost like, well, if that doesn't convince you, love her as your own body. That you're an idiot not to take care of yourself. No one ever hated his own flesh. You don't have to be taught to love yourself, right? I know there are counselors out there that say you need to love yourself. We all love ourselves plenty, too much. And so he's saying, but if your wife is really part of you, like we saw in Genesis 2, then a person who hurts himself deliberately is a crazy man. It works against your interest. And to mistreat your wife, is the height of insanity because it's just causing you harm. Instead, you should care for her. I mean, you think of your own commitment to your body, right? You may be losing hair. You still comb what you got and take care of your body. If you're sick, you go to the doctor. If you're losing weight, you try to lose weight, but you still love and care for your body, thin or fat, right? We're totally committed to ourselves. But he's saying there's to be no less commitment to your wife, because like Eve was taken out of Adam, she is yours. Also nourishing and cherishing is what's described as what Christ does for the church. So much of that is in Ephesians, that Christ has nourished and cherished us by giving us redemption, forgiveness, and inheritance. He's adopted us. We've been raised and seated with Him. We're fellow heirs with Him. We're members of His body. We're partakers of the promise. We have bold access. We've been given gifts by the ascending Christ. We have a new nature. None of you wrote all those things down. They're in my notes, some of them. Anyway, His provision has been generous, and our provision should be generous. And I think part of what this implies and part of what's in Genesis 3, when the curse is given and the woman is going to be cursed in her primary sphere, which is childbirth, and Adam was going to be under the curse in his primary sphere, which was provision. The ground was going to bring thorns and thistles because of the fall. We have that primary responsibility. I have occasion sometimes to counsel couples who are struggling financially. We're doing some pre-marriage counseling right now, and in one case, the guy's in school, and you're wondering what's going to happen when he's done. And I would say to a prospective bride, you want to find a man who'll do whatever it takes to take care of his family. There is another couple we did the pre-marriage counseling for. They've been married a couple of years. They are struggling financially. They have a baby. The wife's at home trying to help a little bit with some side work. And I saw them this past Sunday at our picnic. And this guy is like working his full time or as much as he can doing stuff for Amazon, which has a big facility in Charlotte. And when they're not keeping him busy, he's doing DoorDash. One thing that he lacks actually, he lacks the skills in life to make $50 an hour and work less and provide better. He's having to try to get $20 an hour skills and have to work a lot more hours. But I commended him and to his wife as well, that he's doing what it takes to do the best he can. The measure of your faithfulness isn't that necessarily you give her her dream house and she can drive the new Lexus. the measure, are you doing what you can to make sure that her needs are being met materially? I think that Our wives are free to work some outside the home. I think the home should be their priority from Titus 2. Women should be workers at home, love their husbands, love their children. The woman in Proverbs 31 is contributing to the family and sees that her gain is good by that. But especially when your family is younger, you don't want that to be a burden for her. What I run into is among Christian women is not, oh, these kids are keeping me home. I just wish I could be out there working. It's more the women who are out there working saying, oh, I would love to be home with my kids. And I've counseled couples where he's doing the best he can and she's still going to have to work. I don't judge that. He's doing the best he can. But for us as men, we want to try to make it possible that our wives can fulfill their calling without being burdened with that. And then to cherish them, to nourish them, to be generous. We've already kind of touched upon that. As much as you can within the means you have to give her the freedom to buy the food. Again, a lot of moms, it's really not clothes for herself, but clothes for the kids and the things they need. And you want within the ability you have for her to feel free to spend the resources. Different people have different kinds of wives. I have to go shopping with Caroline. I hate shopping. But she can be tight-fisted about everything but giving things to other people. And so I have to walk into J. Jill and say, yes, this looks nice on you. And yes, we can afford it, please buy it. And if I don't go, that may not, she'll just try this stuff on and tell me about it. And then we have to go back anyway. Again, some of you have an opposite situation. Early in our marriage, I don't know who gave us this advice, but we created for Caroline and we call it her mad money. Now, in 1979, when I'm making $1,500 a month, mad money might have been $10 or $20 a month. She could do whatever she wanted to do with it and no accountability for that. Of course, what she did is it just kept accumulating for the most part. And then when she does get a bunch, she gives things to other people, pay for something nice for family members who can't afford it. But I think that's a good type of thing you could do. But there are other ways you nourish and cherish your wife. One thing that Caroline experiences with wives is frustration when, I mean, again, real example where the husband is going to fix the toilet in the master bedroom. He takes out the toilet and there's this hole in the ground. Now, from his standpoint, there's a toilet down the hall. to which the wife can go, so we are not toiletless. And he's going to get around to it someday. He knows it. And she says, will you please fix the toilet? Translation is, if you love me, you will do this soon. And if you don't do it soon, you must not care about me. And so how can you show love to your wife? It's when she indicates there's something you can do for her, that that just jumps up in your priority list. That's the way she feels loved when she indicates a preference like that. My wife has now twice mentioned to me that she wants to go see Hamilton. It's not true. but I better get to do, I better get on it. And then also meeting her emotional needs. Again, more on this tomorrow, we're running out of time tonight. Well, on that note, she asked me if she could go to nine and I said, take whatever time you have some time. Yeah, she usually out talks me in these things, but also her emotional needs in terms of, And that's a big topic for tomorrow as well, as many wives feel neglected. Many wives have a much greater need for connection and communication on a personal level than husbands do. I had to learn early in my marriage. Caroline was different from me in that way, not only to me. Not just to have conversation. Some conversation is what time you picking up the kids? What are we going to have for dinner tomorrow? When are we going to travel? But actually the deep kinds of conversation you probably had when you were dating and engaged. We're counseling a couple right now. that are in, I think I've mentioned them already, they're in their 50s. Their kids are just now kind of growing up and leaving the house. And the wife is very, very unhappy in that the husband just, I mean, he wants physical intimacy on a fairly regular basis. But really, he doesn't even try to engage her in conversation other than who picks up the kids and what's the budget. And I was talking to the husband this last week and just, your wife wants so much more. And he even kind of said, well, I didn't really think that meeting her emotional needs was my problem. And he has a relationship with his brother where, oh, we talk all the time and we're close and we share life. I said, that's fine, but you should have to think better than that with your wife. Oh, but it's hard with my wife. It's easy with my brother. Well, then you need to work harder at doing the hard thing. She is very, very unhappy. And even sexually she feels used, like that's the only time he's interested in being with me. Sometimes we'll suggest a couple, like go away for a couple days. She's like, I know what he's going to want if you go away a couple days. I don't want to go away a couple days. Now, if it was to go away a couple of days where the purpose would be to build the relationship, that would be something different. Also, meeting her needs romantically. We pursue them pretty hard when we're trying to win their hand, and sometimes those things can let off, which is not good. And then meeting her sexual needs. Marriages are just so different in this way. I've been surprised in our counseling that we've had at least as many women complaining that they felt neglected in this area as men. And again, I can't say, I really think women are really all over the place emotionally in this area. There's some women that really have greater desire. And if that's the person you're married to, then 1 Corinthians 7, your sexuality, your body belongs to her and you want to do everything you can that she would feel happy and satisfied in the marriage. There are some women where what they want is to know that your affection is directed towards them exclusively. and you've got nothing left for anything or anybody else. And what they get out of it isn't an explosive experience as much as feeling loved and cared for and knowing you're loyal and your covenant is strong in that. And so, you need to live with your wife in an understanding way, 1 Peter 3.7, and make sure in this area she feels cared for. Of course, the other situation is the one I was describing. If she doesn't think you're close personally, then this may be a very hard area for her. Almost all sexual problems are relationship problems. I mean, there are some physical problems, but the relationship problems are usually really what it is. Wayne Mack used the example that sex and marriage is kind of like the red light on the dashboard. If there's a red light on the dashboard, it's not a problem with the light. There's something wrong under the hood. I'll give you one more. In Exodus 21, when it talked about the basic responsibilities of a husband, it was food, clothing, and conjugal rights. I think a lot of the reason for the conjugal rights there was having kids. I've seen men who want their wives to work more years. to save more money. They don't want to start living on one income. And you have women who are giving me children or I die and husbands who are slowing that down or preventing it. And I think, I mean, I think both husband and wife have a say about kids, but I think when your wife is yearning for kids, she gets two votes. You have to have a really good reason because that's her right. is to have children. Now, if you're on your 12th or 13th, it's probably time to get some counseling. But there are more cases of a woman who yearns to have kids and the husband is holding her back, I think being affected by the culture. Cherishing her, being patient with her. It's interesting, the version in Colossians of this is so short, and yet it touches upon something directly that's not explicitly in Ephesians 5. He says in verse 19 of Colossians 3, husbands love your wives and do not become embittered against them. There are other translations of that, exasperated, impatient. Why is it there? Because that's what we do. is she's the weaker vessel and we get frustrated because she's not on top of things the way you want her to be. And I told Carolyn this, we were driving around today in the rain trying to see the ocean and that I struggle with this of being exasperated. I didn't use the word exasperated, but same idea that I get tempted because she doesn't move as fast as I do. She's not as intense as I am. I get tempted to act frustrated with her. I can't remember her being that way with me. Therefore, I should listen to what Paul says, that we're going to be tempted to be exasperated, even if what they were doing wasn't meant to annoy us, and sometimes if they're sinning. Cherishing her means you love her, you're patient with her, you're gentle with her, you show her respect. Proverbs 31, the heart of her husband trusts in her. At the end, he praises her, honor her. I've seen men really destroy a marriage by treating their wives as if they were inferior and stupid. They were very devoted to their wives in one sense, but they didn't see their wives for who they really were. In one case, this wife became vulnerable to a man who, instead of treating her as stupid, treated her as smart. And she got pulled away. It's her fault what she chose, but I think the husband was a contributor. He would micromanage her. He wouldn't let her go to the store alone. He'd go to the store and tell her what kind of mac and cheese to buy. And later, Some guy that didn't want to tell her what kind of mac and cheese. Affection that's not sexual. A lot of women yearn for hugs and hand-holding and, okay, speaking a bit personally, for me to just hold Caroline, or when she's going to sleep to hold her, she says it's like the best thing in the world for her. That's not sexual in that situation, but just to feel loved and cherished in that way. Now you have to have a relationship that goes with that. Not that I'm perfect in that either. Express appreciation to your more on that. Then Peter says, if you don't do this, your prayers will be hindered. So that's T-U-L-I-P. She's still talking, I'll give you one more. S, steadfastly endure when marriage is difficult. I've talked to a couple men this week, and they're in really hard marriages. I'm talking to, I have a few men who are really hard marriages. And the verses in Proverbs that talk about it's, you know, to live with a quarrelsome woman, it'd be better to live in the corner of the roof. And, you know, I'm reluctant to use that verse. I've never used one in front of the wife. But there are some men who are in really, really hard marriages. You have women who are angry and controlling. In some cases, someone's married an unbeliever. In some cases, he thought he was a believer. She's not a believer. And there are less sanctified Christian women as well. Your wife doesn't return your affection. One of the guys I talked to, his wife had been intimate with him in over a year. She doesn't follow your leadership. She nags you. In some ways, it's an opportunity to be more Christ-like than I have to be. To keep loving her in that way and to pray that God would help you to love her. To pray that when you're—one of the most common assignments I'll give people is from Ephesians 4.32, be kind, tender-hearted, forgiving each other as God in Christ has forgiven you. But this word, tender-hearted, When you're disappointed in your marriage, you can be tempted to be hard-hearted. Even when you go through a hard season, you can be tempted. Sometimes I've given, here's your only homework this week. Pray that God will give you a tender heart towards your spouse, to care for them. It's the kindness of God that leads us to repentance, and God may use that to help her to repent. One case, a lot of women, been had fathers who they never could please, mothers who told them they weren't good enough. And maybe I've told you, I think your wife has never been loved in any kind of unconditional way. And maybe that's affecting her. It's not an excuse, but it's probably affecting her now. And you need to strive for that. What if you don't have those romantic feelings? That's where you need to pray for the tender heart and strive to show love as Christ has to you. Pray that as you know the love of Christ better, that will empower and enable you to do that. What if your wife won't follow your leadership? I gave the example before about church. You can't grab your wife by the hair and drag her to the church you want her to go to. You can make your small kids go to the church you want them to go to. You have authority to compel your children. They must obey you, and you have to discipline them. But there's nothing in the Bible about disciplining a wife. And there may be just that very situation where you say, Honey, I really want you to follow me, but if you're not going to follow me, that's between you and the Lord. Still want to get along. I'm disappointed, but, and there are spending other areas that can be really, really challenging. You can't force your wife to submit. You know, this makes me sad, but your submission is something voluntary that can't be compelled. And even if you think you're in the right, I think you have to be kind and entrusted to the Lord. Of course, sometimes in an extreme situation, you might involve the church. So, now they're done. I'm the one who's gone over. Sure. Steadfastly endure when marriage is difficult. So we've gone through our tulips. If you're single, marriage is not just about having someone meet your needs. Marriage is about you loving someone, meeting their needs, fulfilling their dreams, and becoming a man who will do this. Becoming a man who would attract a godly woman by your godly character and commitment. And we as married men, the key to getting better at this is to better know the love of Christ. Nothing else will suffice in the long run. And that will empower and enable you to do so. Let's pray. Father in heaven, I thank you for these men. I know that they're committed and we need to be better husbands. Help us. by the power of your Spirit to know the love of Christ and reflect that love. Thank you that your grace to us is great. Thank you that we have wives who have been very gracious to us and treat us better than we deserve. Help our marriage to be a great blessing to them in every way. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.