Please turn now in your Bible to 1 Peter, the very end of chapter 2. 1 Peter, beginning at the end of chapter 2, verse 24. And I'm going to read from 1 Peter 2.24 as far as chapter 3, verse 9. So 1 Peter, reading from 2.24 as far as 3.9, please give your attention to the Word of God. He himself. bore our sins in His body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By His wounds you have been healed, for you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the shepherd and overseer of your souls. Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the Word, They may be one without a word, are the conduct of their wives, when they see your respectful and pure conduct. Do not let your adorning be external, the braiding of hair, the wearing of gold, or the putting on of clothing. But let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart, with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious. For this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, by submitting to their husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord. And you are her children, if you do good, and do not fear anything that is frightening. Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered. Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. Do not repay evil for evil, or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless. For to this you were called. that you may obtain a blessing." We're going to focus especially on chapter 3, verse 7. Let me read it again. Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered. Now, why is the wife paragraph so much longer than the husbands? Because he's balancing out Paul, who had a much longer husband paragraph than wife paragraph. But also because in this short sentence, well, it's a long sentence, but a short paragraph, he makes every word count. He doesn't have to go on long to husbands when every word counts. And the first word that counts is the word likewise. Likewise. husbands. Now what do you mean, likewise? Like what? Well, go back to chapter 2, verse 13. It says, be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor and so on. He's in a section talking about us being subject. And it began with all of us being subject to the king, to the president, to the governor. Then he went on in verse 18, servants, be subject to your masters, employees to your bosses. In the economic realm, you've got someone to be subject to. In chapter 3, he says, likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands. He's pivoting to the family. And now he says, likewise. Likewise. That is, husbands, likewise, you have directions coming down that you have to follow. Likewise, there's a word of God for you to obey." And a reference to that beginning of the wife paragraph. Even if some do not obey the word, i.e., what are husbands to do? They are to obey the word. So here comes the word, likewise husbands. Now, he doesn't want to say likewise husbands be subject. First, because he's talking directly to the husband-wife relationship, but also because he's being clear and also tactful. In Roman law and culture, the husband and father was a law to himself within his family. The pater familius, his word was law. His word could be life and death. And so here are these husbands and fathers used to thinking themselves as kings over all who are within their doors. And he says, likewise, husbands, you have a master. Likewise, husbands, you have a head. You better have a head if you want to have a savior. Now, in this country, we do not have the same exalted place in law for the paterfamilias. But we do have a softer idea, the idea that a man's home is his castle. In your house, you get to do what you want. And insofar as that means that you get to do what you want and not what your neighbor tells you to do, that's great. And so far as that means that you should get to do on your property and not let the whole society tell you what to do within limits, that's great. A certain independence of governmental meddling, that's great. We're not to take it so far as to say, my castle, my law, end of story. We don't get to say that because the earth is Jesus' castle and we live in it. Jesus said, all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. And so likewise, husbands, in your own castle, you're only a steward. You're not the owner of the castle. I don't care about the state of your mortgage and your taxes. You're not, ultimately, the law within your castle. You're to obey your shepherd and overseer in your home, in your marriage, in your family, you're to obey the shepherd and overseer of your souls. And if you say, but it's too unpleasant to do that, you don't know how hard it is here. We just had the example of Jesus, and how He obeyed through suffering, and how He is our example. And so we are exhorted here to obey through suffering if need be. Likewise, husbands, there's a word for you to obey. What is the word? Live with your wives literally according to knowledge. I'll give you just two words in Greek. Katagnosis. According to knowledge. What this first of all means, men, is that you are called to be lifelong learners. You have a job. Your job is to know your wife. You can't simply say, it's your job to adjust to me. No. We're both to be learning and accommodating each other. But it actually specifically gives that job to the husband here. Live with your wives according to knowledge. Do not to be ignorant. Now, you may have discovered that you were remarkably ignorant when you got married. That's fine. Your job is to start learning. Don't worry about how little you knew on the day that you got married. Whatever. Start learning. And keep learning. Because you have to live with your wives according to knowledge. You don't have to be ignorant. You don't have to stay ignorant. You don't have to be rocks. Now, when you hear husband-wife knowing, you might think of Genesis 4. And Adam knew his wife, and she conceived and bore a son. Later on in the chapter, Cain knew his wife and she conceived and bore a son. At the end of the chapter, Adam knew his wife again and she conceived. That's part of the picture. That in the sexual realm also, the husband is to know his wife and learn with understanding what makes for mutual joy and encouragement. But in context, you can see we're talking about a lot more than that. We're talking about the entire relationship, all parts of it, and so it reasonably is translated here in an understanding way. You're supposed to be understanding. Now, what is there to understand? Three things. Her, yourself, and God. Live with your wife in an understanding way. Understand what? Her, yourself, what you're doing, how it's affecting things, and God. Understand her. I suggest that you stop, look, and listen. Elementary school teachers drill that into their kids. Stop, look, and listen. A little clapping thing. It's actually a great idea. Husbands can be so full of themselves, what I'm doing, my problems, all the things that I am doing, that we may not even really see our wives. I mean, we see them enough not to bump into them, but not see them. And so we're told here, A, stop. You're not called to just do whatever is troubling you. You're called to live with her in an understanding way. You're called to a certain study of this person, so you better stop other things and say, all right. Look, it's kind of remarkable that the Gospels, which are so short, really, when they're talking about Jesus. I mean, here you are covering Jesus, and you only gave us 28 chapters at the most. And yet, in these very brief books, there's several times where we're told, and Jesus looking at him, or Jesus looked, of course he looked, like how else would he know? Why are you telling us that he looked? Well, saying that to say that that impressed the apostles, that they could see that he was pausing and really studying. He was pausing with a long enough look to assess the situation in the person that that kind of dawned on the apostles. You know, what he's doing there is important. I think I'll put it in scripture. Looking on him, Jesus loved him, or whatever it is. Where to look? So as I said, it's very easy. I mean, you don't miss seeing the body in front of you. OK, fine. But do you see the person? Is she having a good day today? or a bad day today? Or are you thinking, I have no idea today. Well, it's 11.30. You've had some time. Is it a good day or is it a bad day? It's called to look and to see the person and really perceive what is going on. If we don't stop and look, there won't be much understanding. And having stopped and looked, OK, it is a bad day. I deduce this by how the plate landed on the table. I can deduce this by the expression of the face. Do you have understanding yet? No. Well, we have to stop, look, and listen. Because very often, husbands, I see a problem, but I have no idea why. I perceive you are upset with me, but I really don't know why you're upset with me. I do not know why this is a bad day. We must come to listen. Now, what does it take to listen? One, it takes you to stop talking. Some guys are so busy talking, yeah, no wonder you don't understand, you haven't listened. There's no opportunity. We have to stop talking, we have to stop other things from talking. Stop the TV, get off the computer, get off the phone. How can you listen if you're both down like this? By the way, if you have problems, I suggest face-to-face communication and not this. Yes, you have to listen. And then as you listen, of course, husbands, you've got to listen with understanding. One thing to understand is, why is she telling you this? Is she telling you this so that you can solve it? Well, then great. Go ahead and do it. But you better figure out first if that is why she's telling you this, because it might not be for you to solve. It might not be for you to tell her how to solve. She might know exactly how she's going to solve it, but she wants a sounding board. Or maybe she just wants to share her frustration and her day. She knows what she's going to do. She doesn't need anything from you except to be a sympathetic listener. So as you live with your wife in an understanding way, and you stop, look, and listen, before you start talking, assess, OK, why is she talking? So I can solve it? So I can tell her how to solve it? So I can be a sounding board? Or so I can just be a sympathetic listener? Or something else? If you haven't figured that out, you're not listening very well. And it can be such a benefit when you figure out, oh, I just have to be a sympathetic listener. I could do that. I could. I'll be a sympathetic listener. Once you get that straight, you're living with her in an understanding way. But you know, you live with your wife for a long time, if God blesses you that way. And so you get to the point where you also know how to listen. How to listen? What do you mean, how to listen? I just told you part of it. Why is she telling me this? What is she asking? I need to know what the goal here is. If the goal is simply to relate to her, then great, let me relate to her. But you also need to know what helps your wife feel like you're listening. feel heard. Now, I'm in an intercultural marriage. Doesn't look like one. Doesn't sound like one. But although my wife looks American and sounds American, she was born and raised up to 18 in Japan. And that matters from time to time. Because in Japan, when you're really listening, you let the person know that you're listening with oral feedback. I've heard my father-in-law on the phone in Japan. And it was amazing. He was sitting there going, hi, hi, hi, hi, hi, hi. And he wasn't the one doing the talking. The other guy was doing the talking. All that hi, yes, yes, yes. All those yeses were just to say, I'm with you, I'm with you, I'm with you, I'm with you, I'm with you. And so my wife. is not satisfied if I am listening by zipping my lip and just looking at her. She doesn't feel hurt. Because, of course, me zipping my lip and just listening looks exactly the same as me zipping my lip, looking at her and not listening. She can't tell the difference. And so I've learned, I need, okay, let me do a little bit more like, uh-huh, yeah, good, uh-huh, yes, and then what? And then she needs a little more. And you know, husbands, you might want to check that out. She says, I don't feel heard. That's so frustrating. I was listening. Oh, yeah, what did I say? Roll it out. This is the last two sentences. Yeah, but you weren't really listening. As you listen, listen with understanding. Understand what makes her feel heard. Because you have a God-given assignment to live with understanding. That requires listening with understanding. That requires, again, helping her know what Helping her feel heard. You know, God has told us to do unto others as we would have them do unto you. And that is an excellent golden rule. I meet you, I don't really know you that well, but I have an idea of how to treat you. I should treat you the way that I would like to be treated. But it seems to me that in marriage, that's a good rule for the first three years, and then you start to do better than that. You've got to start to love her as she would like to be loved, as opposed to as you would like to be loved. Now, what do I mean? Well, my wife does this well. She has, on multiple occasions, bought me a birthday present of tickets to the 76ers basketball game. And then she goes with me. We get to watch Yao Ming or Tim Duncan or something great like that. I have never bought her Sixers tickets for her birthday. And I think I'm on the right track there. Because I'm not simply doing unto her as I would have her do unto me. You can do better than that in marriage. You can say, OK, what would she like to do for a good evening? Now, husbands, sometimes this gets difficult and frustrating. And in certain topics, they become no-go zones, because somehow the conversation never goes well. And it's affecting the whole marriage. So what do you do in that kind of frustrated place? You go discreetly to someone who's been married longer than you, and you ask for help. This does not make you less of a man. If you had trouble on your house, You're a man if you solve it. And you go to the hardware store with the small one, with the guy who knows everything. And you ask him what to do. And you buy the tool he tells you to do. And you go home and you do it. And you're being a man because you're solving the house problem. And how dare you think, but in marriage, I'll be less of a man if I ask for help? You wouldn't do that with your house. And so we have, when there's a wedding, there are witnesses there. If you're witnessing at a wedding, you're signing up for future help, if need be. And you've got to be able to call on those people. Preferably, hopefully, you had some people at your wedding older than you, who've been married longer than you. And you're also in a church, and you have pastor, elders, older people, people who've been married 46, 48, 44 years. And you have a problem you can't solve. You go, and you ask for help. Because you're to live with your wife according to knowledge. Live with your wife in an understanding way. And what else you need to understand is yourself. Again, you can think of the saying, my face, I don't mind it, for I am behind it. It's the people in front that I jar. And you cannot see what you're doing, how it affects things, because you're just being you. I wasn't yelling. I'm sorry, everybody else in the room thought you were yelling, and you were yelling. Often, again, as I said, we cannot really see our lives, because we're consumed with what we're doing. We cannot see the effect of what we're doing, because we're so behind our faces, so busy doing what we're doing. You might say, well, I'm not affecting my marriage. I'm never home. Yeah, exactly. If you're absent, that has an effect. If you're present, what you're like while you're present has an effect. To be a husband is to be an impactful person, even when you don't want to believe it. To be a husband is to be impactful. And so we're to understand what that impact is and understand how the changes that I make can have much bigger impact than I might think. on the whole climate of the marriage. Let me know the effect of my absence. Let me understand the effect of my anger. Let me know the effect of my not responding at all when she said something to me. I want to encourage you to understand those really frustrating things where it just always seems to go back and forth down the drain. The negative feedback loops in marriage. where somehow you're just missing each other and getting more and more frustrated and it keeps getting worse. And that seems to happen every time you're on this topic. Yeah. So live in an understanding way. A. We seem to have a negative feedback loop on this topic. So B. How are you going to break the chain? What are you going to do differently? Because those scripts start to get like worn in. You just do it again and again. But you're supposed to be understanding. What are you going to do to break, to put a short circuit on this? and figure out what to do. You say, I have no idea. Well, that's when you go for advice. You live with your wife in an understanding way. You've got to know her, you've got to know yourself, and you've got to know God. Because God is in your marriage. That Malachi 2 passage, that says some profound things about marriage. Did He not make them one with a portion of His Spirit in their union? So the Holy Spirit is in our union. So we're not alone here. The Holy Spirit has some hard to quantify but real spiritual presence in our marriage. It's rather amazing. It can be rather frightening. So we want to know the principles and the purposes of marriage and know it in order to carry it out. It's not something that you know so that you can sound smart. Something that you can know so you can live by it. What are the principles of marriage? First of all, Jesus was asked about it in Matthew 19, and he starts talking about what God did in the beginning. God ordained marriage in the beginning. Therefore it is a creation ordinance. It's something for all people. Believers or not, God has a plan for marriage. And if we want our marriages to work well, we'll do it God's way. God ordained. that marriage should be between one man and one woman. Now, why has it got to be one man and one woman? Well, because that's how a baby is made. And there's no real other way of doing it. And as we said, what was the one God seeking? Malachi 2, godly offspring. And so we're told right up front, God ordained marriage in the beginning to be between one man and one woman, who are not too closely related There's a list in Leviticus 18 of what is too close. Not too closely related, and able with judgment to give their consent. Language of our confession. No marrying four-year-olds. No marrying people who don't know what's going on. Marrying is entering into a covenant, and you are to know what you're doing when you enter into a covenant. It's to be a lifelong covenant. You're not to marry for any other period of time. other than as long as you both shall live." And it says in our Westminster Confession that all sorts of people may marry. Now, what do I mean all sorts of people? We've already gone through certain qualifications. One man, one woman, able with judgment to give their consent, not too closely related. But what do you mean all sorts of people? Well, knowing the British, they're probably thinking about social classes. But you shouldn't always be thinking about social classes. Is the crown prince allowed to marry the girl who lives in the dump? Yeah. His dad and mom might not be too happy about it, but that is a valid marriage. They can't say that's an invalid marriage once it's happened. Nope, nope. The person on top of the society can marry somebody from the bottom, and that's a marriage. Same if you go to India, and there's different castes. Now, their rules may be you can't marry outside your caste, but in God's sight, you can. It doesn't matter if one is a Brahmin and the other is an untouchable. It's how much more, then, when it comes to race. It doesn't matter what race each of the persons is. Moses married an Ethiopian. And when Aaron and Miriam objected to it, God came down and sided with Moses, which takes care of that. So all sorts may marry, but believers are only to marry another believer. That's in the Old Testament. That was the first thing in Malachi, too. Marry the daughter of a foreign god. No. She has to marry a fellow believer. Is that a racial thing? No. As soon as Ruth says, and your God will be my God, she's eligible. That wedding is celebrated, even though she's from a different country. Your God will be my God. You're welcome here. In the New Testament, it is repeated in Corinthians. Do not be unequally yoked. If your husband dies, you can get remarried, only in the Lord, meaning another believer. And finally, Jesus says the only grounds for the believer to divorce his spouse is adultery. Now that's a bracing teaching. Husbands and wives can sin against each other in all kinds of painful ways. And Jesus knows that. When he says, what's grounds for divorce? He says, porneia, adultery. And Paul goes on to say, if the unbeliever leaves, well, the unbeliever is left. But that's not for the believer to do. He doesn't say, if there's an unbeliever, the believer may leave. No. No. The reason for a believer to divorce is adultery. And we'll get on to some of the other issues related to this. Let us bear in mind that that is the principles of marriage. Now, what is the purpose? You know the parameters, but why get married? Why did God ordain marriage in the beginning? Again, there's three reasons. For the mutual help of husband and wife. I will make a helper suitable to him. In particular, help with what? Well, Adam was to be fruitful and multiply. So the second reason is for children. Family, children for society, children for the church. The third reason is to prevent uncleanness. You get these three in Genesis 2, Malachi 2, 1 Corinthians 7. Three purposes of marriage. Mutual help. All kinds of ways to help each other. Two are better than one. For godly offspring. Not just making a baby, that's the easy part. Raising the baby. Raising the child to maturity. And to prevent uncleanness. And then there's one more thing that the husband must understand about God. And that is that the husband must understand the Gospel. There are so many fights in marriage and you're fighting about who is right. Who was right? Who was right? You ruin your marriage over arguing over who is right. And what is the Gospel? The Gospel is that you're so wrong that the Son of God had to die so that your sins can be forgiven. The gospel is that we're all radically wrong, often, frequently, not in every instance, but a lot of the time, we're in the wrong. And so we understand that that's what we profess, that I'm wrong a lot, in God's eyes. That should make it a whole lot easier to say, so let's not make the marriage based on who's the most right, given how often we'll be wrong. Instead, the verse goes on to talk about grace. We can only stand before God because He has the grace to forgive us. And as our marriages are to be reflections of Christ and the Church, we are to make our marriages a place of grace and forgiveness. We shouldn't be competing in who's the most right. If you want to compete, let us compete in showing grace. Live with your wife according to knowledge. What is there to know? Her, yourself, and God. Now, what is our next problem? Our next problem is familiarity breeds contempt. How many of you have ever heard the saying, familiarity breeds contempt? The meaning is, when you know something real well, it doesn't impress you very much anymore. And by the time you understand your wife, be she ever so godly and wonderful, by the time you really understand her, you understand not only her strengths but her weaknesses, not only her virtues but her faults, you will come to know, husbands, a lot of sin and a lot that displeases you." So, how are we going to deal with that human tendency to show contempt for what is familiar? He says, live in an understanding way, Showing honor. When we're being told that we need to know, we're being told that we have to resist that natural downhill tendency of familiarity and contempt with this opposite, showing honor. The Greco-Romans honored strength and despised weakness. It's a little funny when he goes on to say, showing honor to her as the weaker vessel. How do you honor weakness? But we honor strength. Isn't that what most people do? Honor strength and have contempt for weakness. How does it say honor a weaker vessel? How are we supposed to get our minds around that? Well, in 1 Corinthians 12, the Apostle Paul starts talking about the human body. He says, you know, you've got one body, a lot of different members that do different things. And the good thing, too. Because your toenails don't see very well. So it's a good thing that you have one body with many members that do different things. Now he says, you know, some of your members are weaker than others. When I had to pick up a 70-pound sandbag the other day, I made sure to use the appropriate members. I didn't try to do it with my pinky. Got to protect the pinky. And he says, in the more unpresentable parts of your body, you cover them up and you show, you honor them with your modesty. So you have one body with many members and you take care of the weaker ones. You show honor to them. And you put that together with Ephesians 5, you're one body with your wife. And so if she's weaker, what do you do with the weaker parts of yourself? You take care of them. You guard them. You make sure that they're not asked to do something beyond what they can do. Bend your knees before you pick that up. Take care of your back. And take care of your wife. because you are one body with her. Even the Greco-Romans knew they were supposed to honor their aged parents when they got weak. Even they knew how to honor the weak. So we are to honor our wives when they are weaker. This, of course, points out that physical abuse is totally wrong. You do not honor the weaker by beating her up. That is precisely and 100% wrong. You couldn't get that more wrong right there. Now, how is the wife the weaker vessel? Well, then in two ways, and now one. Back then, weaker physically and weaker in society. As I said, the paterfamilias had the right to rule in his households. His word was law. You've never heard the phrase materfamilias, because that wasn't a thing. That's not the case for us. But when it comes to physically, although we may be able to think of exceptions, the husband's usually bigger. The husband always has more testosterone. So the husband is nearly always stronger. And so, we're to be stronger and show honor to the one who is weaker. There's all kinds of ways that that has to be carried out. There's the making sure you carry the heavy object. There's the being patient when you come back from a long trip and you want to unpack. I've done this. Come back from 24 hours, door to door, Cyprus to Philadelphia. And I come back. We come back. We're both tired, but I want to unpack and be done with the trip and put the suitcases away. I still have enough energy left to do that, although I'm just tired enough to be grumpy. And she's more tired. She's not ready to unpack. She wants to just flop on the bed. She's weaker. Well, I signed up for that, you know? I got married. I wanted to get married. I asked her to marry me. I could see I was bigger and stronger. I'm to show honor to her and not get frustrated that she doesn't want to keep on going as long as I do. We ought to be glad for our strength, men, because it would really be bad if we were both weak. It's one of those moments when she can't keep up. Well, be glad that you can keep going. If there's something that really needs to happen, it's good that you can do it. And there goes the second reason to show honor to the woman. One is that she's the weaker vessel. The other is that she's an heir with you of the grace of life. And that is a powerful teaching. There's been a lot of religions in this world that have said that women are deficient, or maybe not even really involved at all. And this one says, no, that's ridiculous. Both man and woman are made in the image of God. Both have dominion over the creatures. Both are heirs of the grace of life. Jesus died for her just as much as for you. And if Jesus died for her, you better honor her. Now, what does honor look like? Well, contempt is the opposite. We have to get the contempt out of our systems if it's there. Because contempt is poisonous for a relationship. You do not love what you do not respect. We're to honor with our words to our wives. And we're to honor with our words about our wives. And we're to make sure that the kids honor their mothers. And we're to honor with courteous physical action. Because we have a king to obey. And he tells us here to understand, and in the middle of all your understanding, honor your wives. Pain and resentment come into marriage. We are not to let them rule. We're to live in the fear of God. And so he goes on to say, so that your prayers may not be hindered. One textual variant, so that your prayers may not be cut off. Now again, he's speaking tactfully, because he's speaking knowing that some of the husbands who hear this are not believers. So he's saying it tactfully. But these are powerful, frightening words. To have your prayers hindered is to say that your relationship with God is starting to go down the drain. When your prayers are hindered, your connection with the source of life and forgiveness is beginning to be doubted. And we shouldn't be surprised at this, because it says in 1 John 4.20, whoever says he loves God and hates his brother is a liar. Because whoever does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And if you understand the scriptural idiom, you have no more important brother, husbands, than your wife. He is the most important brother you have. And if you hate your wife, you don't love God, who gave you that wife. And God is on the side of the one who's hated and despised. It's striking in Genesis. Jacob ends up married to both Leah and Rachel. He loves Rachel. By comparison, he hates Leah. When God saw that Leah was hated, God opened Leah's womb. The hated wife began to have the children and the honor and the security of that. God is on the side of the hated. And so it shouldn't surprise us when it says, if you're not living with your wife in an understanding way and showing her honor, that your prayers will be hindered. Hindered on two different ways. Hindered because God is not close to those who are oppressive and those who are not honoring their wives. And also not close because you'll find trouble praying if you're bitter against your wife. That's also true. If you are bitter against your wife, you will find it extremely hard to be close to God until your prayer is, please forgive me for being bitter against my wife. When you have that bitterness in your soul to the one closest to you, you're not close to God. You can't do it. One commentator, Selwyn, says, access to God in prayer is the golden test of human affections. He said, when you love someone well, you're close to God. And when you love them badly, you are far from God. And the only way up is down, onto your knees to confess your sins and to ask God to help you and forgive you and help you to repent with her. So that your prayers may not be hindered. In your sinful flesh, you might say, well, who cares? I'm not praying anyway. And why aren't you praying anyway? Because you've been hindered. You have been cut off. And you need to go to God in humility. Because God is actually your number one relationship. God is your number one relationship. God is the one who's always with you. And God is the one who can answer your prayers. You can go into marriage expecting your wife to do everything for you, but there's only so many things a person can do for another person. It is God who can give us all things. So we must not let our prayers be hindered. We have to be a very powerful spur if we would just get our minds around doing everything that He said and showing honor to our wives as the co-heir of the grace of life. I was talking about this passage recently with a bunch of married people and I said, okay, I'm going to have to preach this pretty soon. What do you want me to tell the unmarried people? And they said, oh man, you've got to tell unmarried people that marriage is not a fairytale. Marriage is not a fairytale. Marriage is hard. It's good. You should do it. Really, you should. But it's hard. It's not a fairytale. That means you've got to resist a fair amount of popular stories that make it a fairytale. You've got to resist the stories where the whole struggle of a novel is to get the young woman married, and now she's married, and Jane Austen has nothing else to say, so the book is over. That'll work for you if you die on the honeymoon. But if you keep living a while, there's more life to talk about, and there's more things to do, and there's more work to be done here. And again, you're watching Snow White. So there she is in a coma. Now he comes, he kisses her, he puts her on the horse and rides her off and that city is not attached to the earth, because this is actually a parable about Christ. And there's nothing to say about the marriage. Listen, why do we have a weekly Sabbath? Because we need the rest. Because life is work. And life is work all the way through life, which is why we need a Sabbath all the way through life. And that work applies not just to struggle for income, but to our relationships. Our relationships will also take work. You know, there's these foolishly romantic pictures of marriage that we can have. And then there's the Puritans, whoever it was, who called marriage a school of sanctification, which is the least romantic thing I've ever heard about marriage. But it's a lot more true. When you're in school, you have a body of material you're supposed to master, and that fits marriage husbands. You need to understand so that you can put to good practical use the things that you're learning, and that applies to marriage. There will be unexpected moments of testing, pop quizzes, and that applies to marriage. And there will be someone judging how well you're doing, and that applies to marriage. It's a school of sanctification. And so we have help for those who are struggling. We have help from other older people who've been married a long time. If you say, but I don't know anybody here in this church, well, I suggest you get to know some of the older people who've been married a while in this church. Each of your elders, the elders have all been married for 23 years. by an odd coincidence. And others are older than us. You can probably figure it out if you look around. Secondly, we have help from the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit has apportioned our marriage to let us appeal to God, to give us the strength to walk by that Spirit. And we have help in Jesus Christ, who is atoned for our sins, which therefore includes the many sins that are committed within marriage. You can become very depressed. If you compare your vows that were up here and your reality, which is down here. But in Christ there is forgiveness. Because He died for sinners. And He died for His bride. And He died for us, His bride, when we were not pretty. But He died so that He might clean us of our blemishes. So we have help in Jesus Christ. who is also our example of perseverance. For he died for all of us sinners, so we can live for one. Husbands, obey the Lord. Understand your wife. Honor your wife. And be steadfast in prayer, that we're called likewise to know our wives and honor them. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we pray that you would bless our marriages. Help us, Heavenly Father, to love our wives. Help us, Heavenly Father, to respect our husbands. And Lord, give us the grace and power of your Spirit, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of love, and power and self-control. Help us to walk by the Spirit, with the One closest to us. Help us to walk this way within our marriages. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.