Alright, this is our seventh class together on being transformed, the road to godly manhood. And tonight, this is the subject that we all want to talk about, right? Keys to a lasting love. Embracing a godly marriage. Erica was sitting next to me a couple days ago while I was working on some of this and she said, do you really think you need to be the one teaching that? I said, well, this is as much for me as it is for anybody when we do this. Sometimes we talk about some of these things and don't feel like, man, I'm perfect at any of these things. But it's certainly convicting, especially when you're the one who has to teach on some of these subjects. It definitely convicts you because you spend the time preparing for it before you deliver it to anybody else. So just know if any of it convicts you and makes you think, man, I need to improve on that, well, I've had to deal with that as well throughout the week as we prepare, as we study for it, one of the most wonderful verses in scripture. If we looked at Proverbs chapter 18, verse number 22, this describes the joy and the fulfillment in marriage that marriage brings to a man's life. Whoso findeth a wife, findeth a good thing. I always like to remind Erica that she's a, you know, a thing, you know, found a good thing. And obtaineth favor for the Lord. Yes, yes. If we go back to our illustration that we've used a few times, thinking about the old classic car and the process of restoration, at first glance, you know, the car, it looks worn out, it's rusty, it's got dents in it. This is not a description of our wives, okay? But someone who understands the value in that old car sees the potential that it has. They look past its flaws to how it can be transformed. And the restoration process isn't easy. When you go through the restoration process on one of these old cars, it's a time-consuming process that you go through. It takes a lot of time, a lot of attention to detail, a lot of hard work goes into it when you're restoring a car. But when it's finished, when we see that final product of what we have, the car is, it's shining, it's beautiful, it's strong, And so the application there is that marriage can sometimes feel like a restoration project. It requires that we have patience. It's going to take work. You don't arrive to a perfect marriage. You know, a lot of times you get married and we go into it thinking, you know, this honeymoon is going to last forever, right? And before long, we realize the honeymoon is over. And some people give up on their marriage. We see, I mean, we can look at the statistics, and really for Christians, it really doesn't vary much from what the rest of our culture looks like. We see marriages that end all the time, whether you're a Christian, whether you're in church, whether you're not in church, relationships like this fizzle, because marriages take hard work, and nobody ends up with a perfect marriage on day one, year one, and I don't know if we ever end up with a perfect marriage, but if we have two people that are yielded to God, continuing to love each other and work on it, It's a lifetime journey that we're going through. And as we allow God's principles to shape our love, we can see our relationships transform. So we're gonna talk about how to restore and strengthen and kind of renew our commitment to our wives, if we're married, and work on some of the rust, maybe some of the challenges that we face. Of course, we know we've got, we probably have a lot more rust that we need to work on in our part of the relationship than our wives do. And so that's why we'll deal with it tonight. Now, of course, every man isn't gonna marry. Jesus didn't marry, Paul didn't marry, but most men do. And so if you're a single man sitting here, you're thinking, man, why am I even here tonight? You know, what good does this do me as a single man? Well, for one thing, the principles that we're going to talk about that apply in marriage can be used in all the other relationships that we have in life. The biblical principles that we'll look at are good for friendships, they're good for relationships that we have with co-workers, so it will benefit building a godly character into all the relationships that we have. And if you're a single man that hopes to be married at some point someday, looking at these godly characteristics that we'll talk about tonight will help you. If you start working on those characteristics up front, you may be ahead of where some of the rest of us who aren't single are right now. If you can knock off some of the rust before you get married, your car may be closer to being restored. And you may find a wife that's attracted to you even more having some of the dents and rust knocked off of you, right? What are the biblical principles? We're gonna talk about sacrificial love, responsibility, leadership. And again, those aren't just limited to marriage. When we put those principles into work in every other relationship, it's going to help us in our friendships, our family relationships, potential future marriages. But generally speaking, generally speaking, God created men to need the companionship of a woman. Why did he create Eve? Genesis chapter 2 verse number 18, what does the Bible tell us? That it is not good that the man should be alone. And I will make and help meet for him. And so woman is man's completer. And for the man to be the godly man that God wants us to be, and that's what we're talking about, the road to godly manhood, there's not a greater investment that we can make as believers than to care for and minister to our wives. Because outside of the Lord himself, Our spouse is going to be that one that God uses. A lot of times, you know, you've heard the saying, behind every successful man, what's it, dad always says, is a surprised woman. Many men are who they are because their wives help them to be more for the Lord than what they would be on their own. And that's what a good wife does. A good wife should help us to be a more godly man, a more godly individual. And she is that completer. And she can help us to become what God intends for us to be. But since there's a lot of marriages and homes in turmoil, again, even in the Christian circles, The truth is, a lot of times as men, we're the ones responsible for the turmoil. And we're the leaders of the homes. And so it's up to us to say, if our home's going to experience a happy, healthy relationship, then I need to do my part. I need to take the leadership responsibility that God put on my shoulders We're not trying to shame anybody. We're not trying to guilt anybody. We just need to look at the responsibility that we have as men to be leaders in the home. And it has to start with us. And if we're gonna have great relationships, it ought to be us that are trying our hardest. It shouldn't be all up to our wives to try to be the one to make the relationship what it should be. That's our responsibility. So let's flip over to Ephesians chapter five. Of course, that's where we're going, right? Ephesians chapter five. We'll look down to verse number 23. Ephesians 5, 23. And these are some sobering words of instruction and admonition for every single husband. Paul writes, verse number 23, for the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, and he is the savior of the body. Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church." We are to sacrificially love and give and care for our wives. And that's a choice. We have the choice to make. We can give of ourselves. Without any expectation, we're not looking for anything in return. This is a sacrificial love and leadership that we're supposed to demonstrate the same way that Christ loved and gave himself for the church. That's where it has to start. And then there in verse number 29, notice it says we're to nourish our wives. to care for them, supplying for them. We're supposed to be their providers, loving leaders. And as the Lord nourishes us with his word and by his grace, we are able to nourish our wives likewise. And then we're to cherish our wives. to nurture with tender love, protecting outwardly, providing soothing, comfortable rest inwardly. That's more than just providing a good home, a stable home, a clean home. It's more than providing grocery money. It involves meeting the physical as well as the deep heartfelt emotional needs of our wives. And so it can seem like being a godly husband, being a biblical good husband is this really tall order. Here in Ephesians chapter five, a few weeks ago, we were in the same chapter, just a few verses before we were given these commands for wives and husbands. Let's back up to verse number 18. What are we told just before wives and husbands are addressed here? Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess. But what? Be filled with the Spirit. Being a godly husband, being a good husband is a tall order. But we're not given that command until we've already been told we're supposed to be what? Filled with the Spirit. If we are filled with the power of the Holy Spirit and we're walking in the Spirit and we're giving into the Spirit rather than giving into the flesh, it becomes an easier task to accomplish, doesn't it? God never gives us a command without giving us the power to accomplish what he's told us to do. So yes, it's possible to do what Paul is instructing us to do in those next verses if only we do what he told us to do right before that. We take step number one, we're filled with the Spirit. If I'm filled with the Spirit, it's much more difficult for me to try to go into the relationship doing everything to please myself. Because being filled with the Spirit isn't going to allow me to do everything for self-fulfillment, is it? If I'm filled with the Spirit, that means that self is emptied. If I'm filled with self, I can't be filled with the Spirit. These two things are contrary one to the other. Isn't that what Paul said? So, by God's divine enablement, we can become good husbands or godly husbands. That's what he wants for us. It takes the grace of God, the power of the Holy Spirit to be the right kind of husband, and it takes time to grow. This doesn't happen tomorrow. This is day after day, consistently walking in the Spirit, consistently being filled with the Spirit, day after day, yielding to God, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. We can look back after we've been married a year, five years, 10 years, 15 years, and hopefully we see that if we've made those choices, then where our marriage relationship is down the road isn't where it was in the beginning. You guys have probably said this or maybe you've heard somebody say this. You see people that are married for 10 years, 20 years, 50 years, and they'll say something to this effect that we're more in love today than when we got married. How is that possible? Well, if two people are filled with the power of the Holy Spirit and they're both yielded to God, that love for one another, the closer we grow to God, the closer we grow to one another, the deeper and more meaningful that marriage relationship will be. That's the truth. I heard the story of the little four-year-old girl, Susie. You know, she'd been reading Snow White, and so she was so excited to tell her mom about it, and she told her mom how Prince Charming kissed Snow White and brought her back to life. And her mom says, Susie, you know, I know. And Susie says, do you know what happened next? And she said, of course I do, Susie. They lived happily ever after. She said, no, they got married. Sometimes in childlike innocence, the little girl spoke the truth. Sometimes getting married and living happily ever after don't seem like they are synonymous with each other, do they? It feels like sometimes we're at odds. And a lot of marriages are struggling today. And the pattern, even in Christian couples, as we mentioned a few moments ago, even with Christian couples, the end result is divorce. And that's not what God wants. You say, man, I've already had that happen in my life. Well, God's grace covers the past. God's grace can forgive us. So then we take what we've learned from our past mistakes. Once we've got forgiveness, we begin that healing process, that restoration process, and we start moving forward. And so just because something happened in the past, doesn't mean that we are doomed to repeat the same thing in the future. Now that we have new information, now that the next relationship, we're going to take what we know here and we're going to put this into action again. And God can still bless us. But we know divorce brings hardship, kids splitting up, pain, financial hardship, there's regret that goes with it. And so God doesn't want us to go through that. Let's put into action what we can see here. Let's flip over to Colossians chapter, Colossians chapter three. Paul lists some wonderful qualities. We can integrate this into our marriage relationship and this will help us. Colossians chapter three, verse number 12. Think about this question while you're turning there. What are some things that help keep a love life growing? What are some things that help keep the love life, the marriage relationship glowing? What keeps a relationship from growing sour? How do we keep our marriage relationships fresh? So keep that question in your mind, be thinking about that, and we'll get some input and talk back and forth here in a moment. Let's look at what Paul writes, verse number 12. Put on, therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, vows of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering, forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, If any man have a quarrel against any, even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. And above all these things, put on, what's the next word? Charity, which is the bond of perfectness. In every single relationship of life, especially in marriage, but in every relationship. There's going to be times of problems. There's going to be times of pressures, and that stuff can eat away and destroy that relationship. And some of you may be struggling with some of these things in your marriage relationships now, but there in verse number 14, look at it again. It says to put on charity. You know what that indicates? This is a choice. This is a choice, just as you choose to put on a coat. I can take this coat off, and I can choose to put it on. I have the choice if I wanna do this. If I'm gonna put on charity, I can put it on just like I put on a jacket, right? And so we're gonna look at seven keys. We're gonna do an acrostic again, just like we did last Sunday night. We're gonna do another acrostic, this time for the word charity. Because I think having charity in the home, charity in our marriage relationships will help us. It'll add mileage, if we're thinking of cars, it'll add mileage to our marriage. It'll add mileage to that relationship. It'll make the trip more enjoyable. If this is a journey together and we're on a trip together, we ought to enjoy it. It shouldn't be one of those things that, you know, we're just staying together because of the kids. You see that happen, don't you? You probably know people that have done that, where they just stick together. They can't stand each other, but they do it for the kids. And then once the kids are grown up and gone, then they just split and they go their own way. And that's sad when that happens. It ought to be more than we just have kids in common. We ought to enjoy each other. So let's notice in these verses how to put on charity. Here's the first one. This will help us. This is the one, guys, we like this. What's the C? Say it with me. Communication. Say it again. Communication. In a survey among professional marriage counselors, would you believe this? The number one problem that they hear is my husband never talks to me. My husband never listens to me. Communication is the number one thing that marriage counselors say that they deal with. And you know what the truth is? As men, most men are lousy at communication. I was talking to somebody just a few days ago, And he was sharing with me some of his struggles and says that his wife tells him he doesn't communicate. And I told him, I said, you know, I'm really not surprised, because sometimes he and I have trouble communicating. He's just not a very good communicator. And I think most guys, if we were to, we won't do it, but if we were to bring the ladies in here and pull them, we would probably find that most ladies would agree with this, that guys aren't great communicators. We don't really need somebody to tell us that. And it results and some bitterness, it results in fear, a sense of rejection. Men typically have kind of one of two responses. Men either kind of clam up or they blow up. That's what we do. And you guys probably know which one you are. And some people may do both, you know, you clam up and eventually blow up. I've heard it said, I think dad preached a sermon with this title several years ago. Communicate or disintegrate. Communicate or disintegrate. And again, I told you in the beginning, these principles, we're talking in the marriage relationship tonight, but these help us in every single relationship. I know people that struggle to communicate and it's hard to have a relationship with somebody when communication isn't there. So we can put this, if you're not married, you can put this into practice in other relationships that you have. In a boss and employer situation, a co-worker situation, a lack of communication typically ends up resulting in some problems when we're not communicating. So it's not a surprise that when we translate that over to the marriage relationship that we're going to have problems if there's no communication. So what do we do? We have to learn to talk to each other. Brother Paul always talks about hearing the L word. This is what we're talking about, the L word tonight. We got to talk to each other and we have to learn to listen. We have to listen. Sometimes all they want from us is just for us to listen. And I've only been married 14 years, so I certainly don't have, some of you have been married, you know, decades. And so I'm unqualified, you know, for some of you to try to give you advice on this. Like I said, I'm still trying to learn. We all have room to improve on these things in our relationships. But we need to learn to share our heart with our spouse. That can be difficult as guys for us to do. Most guys really aren't the kind that are in touch with their feelings. And a lot of men can find it difficult to share their heart with their wives. But sometimes they want to know what's going on in our life. We ought to let them in, share with them, listen to our wives, share with our wives. So, back to my question I asked a moment ago. What are some of the things that you think help to keep our relationships from growing sour, especially when it comes to communication? What are some practical ways that we can improve on this? What do you guys think? psychologist. Yeah. Last night, Erica was trying to communicate something to me. I wish I could remember what it was. I was watching four college football games at once. You know, I love that multi-view feature on YouTube TV now where you can have, you're not just engrossed in one football game, Al. I was in four football games at one time. And she was asking me something. And I was responding to her in some manner. yes or nodding my head, I don't even know what, because I wasn't engaged in the conversation. I was watching four football games. And she said, I don't think that you're actually listening to anything that I'm saying. I said, you're right, I'm not. Unfortunately, now I can't even remember what our discussion was. I think we were talking about something for Harris, and I think it may have had to do, he's got some birthday pictures coming up, and I think it may have had to do with his outfit. And it was something that I really didn't think that, mattered, you know, at all. My input didn't matter. She's the one who's going to address him, and whatever he wears in his pictures, you know, I'm going to go along with whatever you want to put him in, so fine, you know. But she's asking for my input on this. So she was trying to show me that she at least valued what I thought about that. But I was busy watching my four football games at one time to be able to communicate. And so, you know, when Paul says, you know, that's kind of what I talked about Wednesday night. social media, how it can pull us away from people that are in the room and they're trying to talk to us. So a good thing to do is what he said, if they're trying to have a conversation with us, that would be a good time to go ahead and turn the TV off, put the phone down, whatever it is that we're doing, and give them the attention that they want. Now don't tell her that I forgot what it was that we were talking about last night. One way that we could improve in this, and you guys, still feel free to chime in here. One way that we could improve in this area is if we planned a time where we actually sat down for communication. I remember reading in a book Eric and I went through a couple of years ago, a financial book, as we planned out our financial future, kind of what our goals and our dreams and our plans are for years down the road. And one of the things, it's a book from Dave Ramsey's organization, but one of the things that they suggest is that you have regular sessions where you sit down together and you just, you dream together. You talk about what the future may be like. You talk about what your hopes are, what your goals are, what your desires are, what your interests are, what your plans are. In that case, it was talking specifically about what our retirement might look like. And so, you know, it's fun to sit there and talk about, okay, what can we do when Harrison's finally grown and we are back to getting a full night of sleep again? And maybe we save up enough money that, you know, someday we can slow down. What could we do? And it's fun to sit down and just kind of dream about what the future may be like. But it shouldn't be something that we just do one time and then we never come back to it. And that was kind of in the financial sense. But it ought to be regular for us to do that, to sit down and kind of share what our plans, what our desires, dreams, and goals are for our relationship. It should be something that, you know, that we plan on doing. Sometimes we don't get it done, but we should plan on trying to do that and that would help us when it comes to communication. If they saw that we took the lead on that and said, hey, you know, let's set aside a night. If we can't go out and eat together and talk about it, let's, once the kids go to bed one night, let's sit down and let's have a conversation and let's talk about these things. That's a good way to communicate, to do it regularly. Just a thought. I mean, remember what we said, communicate or disintegrate. Anybody else have any input, wisdom to add to the? I said Wednesday night, I talked about how I was reading the book on the art of conversation, how Americans are losing the ability to have conversation. That's one of the things that you can do. You ask somebody about their interests. When I worked for the magazine for several years, we did a lot of interviews. And so my job was to figure out how to get the individual that I'm sitting across from to talk. And when I went to do an interview, they weren't there to hear anything about me. And people like to talk about themselves, right? We all enjoy that. So you find out what they're interested in and you can get them to open up. But yes, look them in the eyes, seek to understand her heart, seek to understand her life, find out her interests. Scripture tells us, Proverbs 25, verse number 11, a word fitly spoken is like apples of gold and pictures of silver. So we need to communicate. We need to communicate. Next, hugs. Now maybe you're not into hugging. This was a bit of a tough one for me. I'm not a real hugger, okay? I'm just not that big into hugging. But it's something that I probably need to work on. It's something that I think a lot of people should probably work on. First of all, there's scientific backing that says that hugging is good for us and may even add years to your life. So that's a pretty good reason to get into hugging. You know, don't go hugging random women now, okay? That's gonna get you into more trouble. Then we'll have to have another session, okay? They say that it could add, you know, because hugging's associated with releasing oxytocin, which is a hormone that de-stresses. So there's scientific proof behind this. Erica gave me this part, because Erica's a hugger. She likes to hug. And sometimes she, my mom even says this, that I don't do a good job hugging, you know. Sometimes they hug me, and I guess I'm like a limp fish. I don't really hug back. And so they say, you need to work on hugging more. So it's good for us. Second, it's not as difficult. Giving that person a hug really doesn't cost us a lot. Doesn't cost us anything. And our family, they need it from us. I was reading today, A quote from Dr. John Delaney, he works for Dave Ramsey's organization and he's into the sort of the relationship side of things. And he talked about how important it is for fathers to hug their sons. Our family, not just our wives, but it should be common for us to hug our family. Some of you may be wonderful huggers. Denny, he looks like kind of, you know, the hugging kind, you know, he just looks like the kind that's, he's a hugger. It said, from what I can, there's some proof behind this, that women need eight hugs a day. I asked Erica and she said, that sounds about right. If I do one hug a day, I feel like I'm doing a good job. They need eight hugs a day. It gives them a sense of security. It gives them a sense of value. It gives them a sense that you care. It's a way of showing and sharing affection. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and shall cleave, stick like glue to his wife. So there's, that's Erica's biblical principle for hugging is like, you are commanded to stick to me like glue. So that's a hug. Jesus repeated it. He said, for this cause shall a man leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife. And we ought to cling to our wives. Hugging is healthy. Unless you're sick. Well, I guess hugging is better than kissing. That depends. Yeah. Most of the time, I get accused of trying to pull out of the hug too fast. She doesn't want me to let go. Or she'll have to take my hand and throw it up there. She's like, don't be so limp. Squeeze me. Yeah. They know if you're faking the hug, right? But it should be for our whole family. Our family needs hugs. And that's something that's simple that we can all do. My wife likes to be hugged, but she likes to be hugged too much. We can be out somewhere, and some random man that I don't know will come up to her. Right. There's a lot of times there'll be different people at church that want to hug, and I always try to be mindful if it's a lady that tries to come up to hug me, I usually try to do the side hug thing. So I'm not embracing the woman if somebody, again, I already told you I'm not a real big hugger. So if a lady comes up to me and is trying to hug me, I'm gonna kinda do the side hug thing and be fully open and keep one hand on her shoulder and the other hand off of her. So I think that's, like I said, we don't wanna go hugging other men's wives for sure. We wanna keep it to our family. I think there can be times, you know, maybe at a funeral or something like that, there's times, you know, when you feel that you might give somebody a hug that you normally wouldn't, that's not your spouse or in your family, but for the most part, it's good practice, I think, you know, to keep our hands off of other ladies, for sure, whether they're married or not, you know, you don't want to hurt your own testimony of people. I saw him hugging so-and-so out there in town the other day, so. Be careful with that, but with your own family, definitely, it's a good practice. And with your kids. Hug your kids. Tell them that you love them. What's next on our list? Where are we? A, attention. Give time and effort to each other. date each other regularly. A lot of times we spend time trying to date them before we get married, and then once we get married, we think, well, you know, I want her, so now I don't have to do any dates anymore, right? But we ought to keep that practice going. I heard that there was a couple, they were celebrating their golden wedding anniversary, and a man asked me, he said, what is the secret to such a long marriage? The husband said, well, he said, we take time to go out for dinner twice a week, a good meal, some soft music, a slow walk home. She goes on Tuesdays, I go on Fridays. That's not what we're talking about, okay? We want to show interest in one another's hobbies and recreational activities and personal interests. We kind of touched on that a moment ago there in communication. Now we kind of really dig in on that. You're not going to have a healthy marriage without showing attention to your spouse, time and attention. And sometimes when we think of going out on a date, we think that this is going to be something that costs us a lot of money. If you have the money to spend to go out on a really nice date to a nice restaurant, you know, dinner and a movie, go to a concert, go to the symphony orchestra, whatever it is, if you can do that, fantastic, do it. Spending time together does not equal it having to cost a lot of money. And so don't let that be your excuse for why you don't do it. There's many things that we can do that are budget friendly that still allow us to focus on each other and to have attention. Yep. That's a good thing to do. Hiking is typically something you can do that's free. You may have a park that you have to go to if you're at a, you know, you may have an entrance fee or something, but even if you had to pay to go on a hike somewhere, it's a relatively cheap activity to go do. Do a picnic lunch. Spend time together. Go on a walk. If you live in a neighborhood, walk around your neighborhood at night. It's been one of the things that It was easy for me and Erica before Harrison came along. I mean, we could go whenever we wanted to. And in the last two years, it's been more difficult to try to plan that. And we've had to be much more intentional about trying to find time to spend with each other. But it's important that we're intentional about doing that. We've all got to make time. We're going to go, Next month, we're making plans. We're going to go to a Christmas concert together. We both enjoy music. We both love Christmas. We're going to go to a Christmas concert together. We enjoy, one of the things that we enjoy doing the most, we enjoy cooking together. We like to get into the kitchen and to cook. So sometimes, one of the things she got us for Christmas last year was a couple's cookbook, and it's just got random recipes that we've gotta scratch off, can't see what they are, but it tells you here's how you're gonna plan your date together, and you need these items, and we don't know what the recipe is, and so it'll be an adventure for us, and we'll try something new together. But it's a way for us to spend time together doing something that we both enjoy doing. What are some of the other things that we could do to spend time? Some may enjoy shopping. You know, it's not always my favorite thing to do. But, we ought to work on just trying to become best friends with our spouse. That's a way, a great relationship, a great marriage relationship is built. I'm trying to be best friends and working on that. And for any relationship to grow and to become better, whatever the relationship is, it's going to take time and attention. It doesn't just happen automatically overnight. That's how we develop them. Paul said, be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love in honor, preferring one another. So we have to work on that. Proverbs 5.18, let thy fountain be blessed and rejoice with the wife of thy youth. We ought to enjoy being together. And it takes attention. Here's the R, responsibility. Responsibility. Someone said that marriage is like a midnight phone call. First you get a ring and then you wake up. The marriage relationship carries a lot of responsibilities with it that aren't always evident when you're saying your vows. We say those vows, we say those words, and then, you know, later on we realize everything that came with those vows that we said. And while there's nothing wrong with enjoying the romance that goes with the marriage relationship, we've also got to commit to the rest of the responsibilities that go with that commitment. In the scriptures, Ephesians chapter 5, where we started tonight, wives are taught that they're supposed to submit, they're supposed to revere, they're supposed to honor their husband, to be a true completer. And the husband is taught there in that same passage, what are we supposed to do? We're supposed to love with self-sacrificing love. We're to nourish by giving leadership in the spiritual, emotional, and material realm. We're supposed to cherish our wives. We talked about how that is to soften with warmth. We're to be that protector. If we go back to Ephesians chapter five and continue looking down through there, it continues to talk about that relationship and likening it to what Christ is to the church. And we're supposed to provide for the physical needs of our wives, we're to honor our wives, we're to love them, we're to refuse to hold grudges. Sometimes that can be a tough one. And these commands are serious enough. God commands, God connects a husband's relationship with his wife to God's willingness to hear and answer his prayers. First Peter chapter three, look at this one. First Peter chapter three, verse number seven. Likewise ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honor unto the wife as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers be not hindered." Colossians chapter 3, where we just were a moment ago, Paul says, husbands, love your wives and be not bitter against them. And if we were to care for our wives and love our wives in this manner, a lot of people want heaven on earth. Well, if we were to take our responsibilities the way that we should, we could probably have a little bit of heaven on earth. Let's go to the eye. Intimacy. the most personal private area of the relationship. This includes but is much bigger than the physical intimacy. Our society has such a distorted view and places such a great emphasis on physical sex that a lot of times true relational intimacy is missing in a lot of marriages. Ed Wheat wrote in his book called The Bond of Intimacy, the following ways to develop true intimacy. And he talks about physical touch and affection in a non-sexual way. That would go back to just hugging. Holding their hand. shared feelings, closeness without inhibitions, open communication and honesty, spiritual harmony, similar values being held, imparted secrets, genuine understanding, mutual confidence, A sense of warmth, safety, and relaxation together. Signs of love freely given and received. Mutual responsibility and caring. Abiding trust. And the last one he lists there is the sexual pleasures that are lovingly shared. All of those things, when we put that into our relationship, helps to develop intimacy. It's like a two-sided coin. Intimacy is supposed to be exclusive and inclusive. exclusive in the fact that it excludes any other people from being in this relationship. It's the husband and wife. No improper relationships with others. While it's focusing on just the two of us. on just the two of us. There in Proverbs chapter five, we mentioned one of those verses, but it says, drink waters out of thine own cistern, rutting waters out of thine own well. Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad and rivers of waters in the streets. Let them be only thine and not strangers with thee. Let thy fountain be blessed and rejoice with the wife of thy youth. Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe, let her breast satisfy thee at all times, and be thou ravished always with her love. And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman and embrace the bosom of a stranger? For the ways of a man are before the Lord, and he pondereth all his goings. And so we have to work on developing intimacy and there's all these other ways that we can do that. It's been said, marriages are made in heaven but maintenance occurs in an earthly setting. We have that responsibility, we have that command that we are to have knowledge and patience. I mean, in the Old Testament, you remember when somebody got married in the Old Testament, what did they do? They took a year off from everything just to get to know each other, right? Most of the time we spend a week or two on a honeymoon and then, you know, we're off. Some people never even take the honeymoon and you're just into this relationship. We have to get to know our spouse. And intimacy, I forgot to write down, I thought I had the note of who wrote this. Here's the quote. Sorry, I can't attribute it to the man who said it. Intimacy is simply touching one another physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. Reach out and touch the one you love. We develop spiritually and emotionally Physically, that's how we achieve intimacy. Then we come to the T, tenderness. We tend to be cruel and inconsiderate many times to the people that we love the most. With others, we're kind, we're considerate, we're tactful, and it shouldn't be that way, and we should work on that. We shouldn't treat strangers or coworkers better than we treat our wife or our family. Ed Wheat in that book, he says there's four ways we hurt one another with words, looks, attitudes, and actions. And he says, what we really need in our relationship is best, B-E-S-T. And he gives the prescription for a superb marriage. And I don't think I put these on your list, but you can write these in. He says that we need to have blessing. We should speak kind and gracious words. Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, Colossians 4, 6. There should be blessing. We should express thankfulness and appreciation. And sometimes we just need to be quiet and patient. And then he says we need to have edifying. We should be building each other up rather than tearing each other down. First Corinthians 8.1, here's our word that we're using tonight. Charity edifieth, it says. Charity edifieth, builds up. There should be sharing. We should share in all areas of our life and embrace the interests and desires of our spouse. Paul said we should endeavor to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. And then there's touching. Again, touching says I care for you. And so we ought to show that tender loving care. Be ye kind one to another, tender hearted. and tenderness, it'll transform our relationships. It'll transform a marriage if we show that. And then here is the why. To finish out our acrostic for charity, we need yieldedness. This deals with being submissive. Sort of the cry of the culture today is I have my rights. I have my rights. And a lot of times we fight for our selfish preference in things that really don't matter. They're pride struggles. And God commands both the husband and the wife to submit their rights to one another. Let's go back to Ephesians chapter five. Let's look back at this verse one more time. Verse number 21. submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God. We're a self-centered society. And instead, we need to be yielded in our relationships where we have mutual respect, where we're agreeable, not argumentative. Sometimes I struggle with that, I like to argue. Erica said the other night, she said, if you asked most people what you enjoy doing, they'd say that you like to argue and debate. I do. I like that. But we ought to be willing to give up our way to prefer and please our spouse. Let your moderation be known to all men, Paul said. And so the key to being submissive is found there in those same verses, be filled with the Spirit, speak to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things. When we do that, we can find ourselves submitting. And the more under control of the Holy Spirit we are, the more we'll be able to submit our selfish will and desire to the needs of our wife. A yieldeness has no rights. And if we want to have peace, Jesus said, blessed are the peacemakers, if we wanted to have peace and unity and love and all these other things in our relationship, when we yield, that helps. Colossians 3.14, remember the verse we began with, above all these things put on charity. All of the actions, all of the attitudes that we have, they ought to be clothed with charity. And so if we took the seven keys that we talked about tonight and applied them to our marriage relationship, we'd see improvement. We'd see growth. Solomon, he gave us some great truth, some words of encouragement in Song of Solomon, chapter 8, verse number 6. He says, Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm, for love is strong as death, jealousy as cruel as the grave, the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it. If a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned. The flame of love in a healthy and biblical marriage, it's going to have some trials. It's going to have some hills and some valleys, some ups and some downs, some challenges, but no matter what comes, true biblical love can't be drowned out. And so the The way that we leave this tonight is that we have to decide if we're going to make this commitment to biblical manhood when it comes to these relationships. This is what I put on your paper to finish with tonight. Will you be faithful to your wedding vow, not only to abstain from extramarital affairs, but also to truly and deeply embrace and love the wife that God has given to you? Will you renew your commitment to truly love her, meet her needs, be intimate and affectionate toward her? That would help us to keep the honey in the honeymoon going when we do that. And as we work at developing our marriage with the wife that God has given us, it will become more wonderful. It will become more blessed. You can be one of those people that years down the road, you look back and say, hey, we love each other now more than we ever have. And God will bless our homes. Isn't that what we want? We want God to bless our homes as we step up and we take the spiritual leadership. Our wives would be thrilled if we went home and just took all of this stuff and put it into practice and said, I'm going to take the spiritual responsibility that I have as a husband to do these things. To love our wives the way that Christ loves the church. So, we'll end it right there. Does anybody have anything else to add to this? Again, I don't have all the answers. I'm still relatively a newlywed compared to some of these guys in the room, but anybody have anything else to add to our discussion this evening before we wrap it up?