We understand that there is a pretty strange phenomena in our society today. There seems to be more information available about sex and marriage, and yet there seem to be more marital problems and divorces and marriage meltdowns than ever before. That marriage has become a battleground. Something's wrong and God has given us some instruction into our lives and certainly individuals who'd say, well, that's nothing that God is needed in our homes. We've got to put God in our homes. And certainly that's true. But even in marriage, Christian marriages, there are struggles and there are challenges and there are breakdowns. Just because a man and a woman are saved doesn't guarantee that their marriage will succeed. Marriage is something that must be worked at. It's not automatic. Just because you said I do doesn't mean that you'll live happily ever after. Someone has said the trouble with marriage is not the institution, it's the personnel. There's a lot of truth to that. Henry Youngman said the secret of a happy marriage remains a secret. Well, that's not exactly true. God gives to us some instruction. Someone else has verbalized that marriages are made in heaven and so is thunder and lightning. Or that marriage is made in heaven, but maintenance must be done on the earth. And so we realize that marriage in the family is God's idea, and therefore he has something to say about it. He has instruction that he wants to give us about it. It's God's idea, and so I thought it would be good for us in this month of February to go back and to evaluate what God has to say about marriage. And I certainly understand that a vast majority of the church family are married individuals. So this instruction is for you. Some of you are not yet married, but you're hoping that that one day that might be the case. And so the principles that we look at will be helpful for you to determine what kind of a wife should you be? What kind of a husband should you be? What kind of a man should you consider for marriage? What kind of a wife should you consider for marriage? We studied, first of all, that God designed marriage and it gave to us a foundation for it. And we looked at that in Genesis chapter two. Last week we looked at the mission of marriage, which gave to us an understanding that the marriage relationship between a husband and a wife is to picture Jesus' relationship to His church. And that a wife is to allow her husband to lead just as we, every single one of us, who are believers in Jesus Christ, are to allow Jesus Christ to lead us. That's the bottom line. We are to submit ourselves as the church to Jesus. And that is what the relationship of a wife to her husband pictures. Husbands, our relationship, our responsibility is to picture to the world how Jesus loves his church. And that is what our mission is to be, that in this relationship we picture the fact that we are to submit to Christ. And we are to lead our families and our children are to allow us to lead. And therefore, the principles that God gives to us is played out. But but the mission of a marriage, a mystery that was hidden in the Old Testament that is made available for us, that is revealed to us today, is that the husband wife relationship is to be a picture of Jesus and his church. Next week, Lord willing, we're going to look and I don't have a really fancy title for this. If you've got a good one, you can give it to me. But we're going to look at the topic of sex and marriage, and parental guidance is advised. Some of you are looking at me kind of funny. I want you to know that it's God's idea, and He records this whole business for us, found in 1 Corinthians chapter 7. So if you want to go home and read a little bit about it, and do a little bit of homework, I would encourage you to do so. If you think it's inappropriate for your children, then there are children's ministries that are age appropriate. We're not going to deal with anything in a wrong way. We trust we're going to use God's truth to look at what does God have to say, because it seems that this is a topic that has not been addressed in the Church of Jesus Christ. It's been hidden, and therefore we've been sort of left on our own, though God gives us some instruction and it's God's idea. But that's next week. This week we want to focus on the role of a husband in a Christian marriage and the role of a wife in a Christian marriage. What are the responsibilities? If we could take it down and put it into just one phrase, what is the role? What is a husband's role? Those of you who are husbands, what is your role? Those of you who are wives, what's your role regarded in a relationship, in a Christian marriage relationship? So I invite you to grab a Bible. And turn to Ephesians chapter 5, we're just going to look at verse 33 for a moment, and then look at the application of how we do this. Ephesians chapter 5, verse 33. It's at the tail end of the section that we looked at last week, but didn't have a chance to really develop it as much as I would have liked to, but it really links us into where we're going this week. So you look in Ephesians chapter 5, verse 33. Nevertheless, each individual among you is to love his own wife, even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respect her husband." So in a nutshell, man, it gives to us what our role as a husband is to be. That is that we are to love our wife. And ladies, wives, your responsibility to your husband is to respect him. That's in a nutshell. That's your goal. That's your responsibility. That's what you are to do before God. So we would ask the question, well, how do we do that? How do we go about demonstrating the love that we are to have for our wife or the respect that I need to have for my husband? How do we do that? Well, I'm glad you asked that question, so go over to 1 Peter chapter 3. 1 Peter chapter 3. In fact, if you mark your Bibles, it probably would be a good thing. Maybe some of yours already have the link there from Ephesians 5.33 to over to 1 Peter chapter 3. 1 Peter 3, and we're going to be spending our time in these seven verses, the first seven verses of Peter. Now, we noticed last week that in Ephesians 5, two-thirds of what was being said was addressed to men, and one-third was addressed to women, where it's flipped around in this particular chapter. In fact, those ratios aren't even there. The first six verses, there's instruction to women, and verse 7, there's instruction to men. But we're going to spend the majority of the bulk of our time in verse seven. Now, there are some ground rules for as we enter into this passage, men, ladies, you need to keep your elbows up where I can see them so that we aren't doing this to one another as we go through this passage, because there's going to be enough challenging for each of us as we move into this into this section. The way I want to approach this is really answer three questions, whether the role of a Christian wife or the role of a Christian husband. The first question is, what is it that we're called to do? Secondly, how do we do that? And thirdly, why should we do that or what's the reason that we should do that? For those of you ladies, as you look at the role that God has given to you as a Christian wife, we were going to address what is it your responsibility? How do you do that and why? Men, same thing. What is it that we are supposed to do? How are we supposed to do that and why should we do it? which seems to answer the basic questions in regards here. So let's start, as Peter does, as he addresses wives first, and what is your role? What does it mean to respect your husband? How is that lived out? And we see that in the first six verses. So we ask the question, what does it mean to respect this husband? And so we see the answer to that in verses one and two. In the same way, well, you say it's the same way as what? Well, in the previous section, in Peter, Peter has told us that we are to be in submission, we are to allow other individuals to have authority over us. And one of those individuals is the government, that we are to submit ourselves to government. A second area that we are to allow individuals to lead us are in our business, working as supervisors, employees, employers, those kinds of things. And so what Peter is saying is all of us are to allow individuals that God has placed over us to lead us. All right? All of us submit to someone in some place. We allow them to lead. And so we read here in verse 1, "...in the same way, you wives, allow your husbands to lead, so that even if any of them are disobedient to the word, they may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives, as they observe your chaste and respectful behavior." So he's talking to Christian wives in a context in which oftentimes, you know, the husband may or may not have been a believer here. He's addressing. So what if your husband isn't a believer? What if he's not a Christian? What is your call? Should you still allow him to leave? Absolutely. Says if he's disobedient, what if he's a he's a believer, but he's not really following Christ very closely? What do I do then? Allow your husband to leave. It's really very simple. Well, simple's an easy term to throw out. I mean, the principle is simple. And so he says, in the same way, you wives, allow your husband to lead. Don't nag him. Don't manipulate him. Allow him to lead. They're going to observe what kind of behavior. He speaks of chaste and respectful behavior. There it is again, that there is respect that you have for him because God has placed him to lead you, to encourage you. Chase means that there's no question about whether or not you're being committed to your husband. There's no, it's clean, it's innocent, it's modest, it's pure. I saw a report fairly recently that tells us that social media has been wreaking havoc in marriages, i.e. Facebook. Because through Facebook, there are individuals who are connecting with old flames. Old boyfriends can happen, old girlfriends. And there's this emotional adultery that takes place that is not being chased. That there must be a commitment to a husband, to your husband. So he says here that the wife's responsibility is to allow her husband to lead one, do it chastefully, do it respectfully, say, well, how do we do that if that's the what? How do we do that? Well, the how is found in verses three and four. So that your adornment must not be merely external, the braiding of hair and wearing gold jewelry or putting on dresses, and let it be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in the sight of God. So what's he saying? That it needs to be the husband in this respectful aspect, there's a lasting beauty that you are to be developing. That's the how. You see in this passage, not merely braiding hair, wearing gold jewelry, or putting on dresses. There are some folk who would say that women should never wear jewelry or anything because that's what the Bible says. That's not what this passage says. Because if it says you can't wear jewelry, it also says you can't wear dresses. So it's not what the passage is saying. It's saying that the beauty that you have and that you reflect to the world and especially to your husband is something that comes from the inside out, that there is a gentle spirit and a quiet spirit. And that's not something that comes automatically to any of us. Therefore, it's going to take some time in God's word in order to develop this kind of an attitude, respectful, gentle, quiet spirit. to your husband. Some of you, maybe you're not yet married, you say, well, I'm not I'm not about to do that, then don't get married because you're just going to have tension. It won't work any other way. Say, well, why should I do that? We see that the answer to that in verses five and six. He says, For in this way, in former times, the holy women also who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, being submissive to their own husbands, just as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord. You become her children if you do what is right without being frightened by any fear. Now, let me let me tell you right up front, Abraham didn't get it right all the time. He made some horrendous mistakes. He made some big blunders in how he led his family. And yet and yet Sarah allowed him to lead even through some of those really big blunders. You can go back to the Old Testament, book of Genesis, and read some of those things that he did. And yet what Peter is saying is there is a real beauty that lasts, that is not external, but it's internal. You see, the longer we live, there's this particular, and I'm not sure that they've got a name for it or not, but there's this law that seems to kick in that we ain't what we used to be. You know, the body doesn't just, it just, you know, gravity pulls on us, and delightful food pulls on us, and you know, all these things just, and we just aren't what we used to be, and we try and work at it, and that's not bad, and yet we try and maintain that But that's not ultimately what counts. It's the inner beauty of the heart that even though this outward vessel might be decaying, as Paul writes elsewhere, yet the inner person can be renewed day by day. There can be a new and developing and lasting beauty, a beauty that increases. You can look around within our church family and you see that reflected on the faces of many of our godly women. There is a beauty that is an inner quality that continues to increase. It's not something that you'll lose. It can increase. And so Peter says, ladies, show respect to your husbands with a gentle and quiet spirit so that there would be this continuing, increasing inner beauty that just radiates Christ through your life. Absolutely phenomenal. All right, let's shift gears, and let's go to men. What, as husbands, is our responsibility that's found in verse 7? Now remember, men, we're called to be the head. And at first blush, we might think, well, that's really neat. I get to be boss. We're going to find there's a tremendous amount of responsibility on being head. So what is the responsibility of a Christian husband? What is the role of a Christian husband? Well, let's look at the what, as we did with the ladies. What does it mean? What are we supposed to do? Well, it says in verse 7, you husbands in the same way. Now, that's interesting, isn't it? Because you go back to verse 1 and you saw in the same way. So what's he saying? In the same way, husbands, we are to submit ourselves to Jesus Christ, we are called to submit. We have a submission responsibility to allow Jesus to live in our lives, to lead in our lives, just as we are to experience and demonstrate the love of Jesus to our wives. Our wives respond, demonstrating what we as a church are supposed to do to Jesus, but we have a responsibility to submit. So he says, in the same way, just as he said to women at verse 1, in the same way. Their exact same phrase. So men, we have this responsibility. You men, you husbands, in the same way, live with your wives in an understanding way. And we would say, oh, got that. Check. Got that one. That's easy. We live under the same roof. We eat at the same table. We sleep in the same bed. We have our funds. We put them together. And so I'm living with my wife in an understanding way. Not quite so fast. That last little phrase, in an understanding way, that should grab your attention. That grabbed my attention. Because we normally hear this statement about, well, you know, women, you just can't understand them. Peter said that's no excuse. Get to know. Understand, live in such a way, the word that's used, we get our word science from it. It means that you're probably going to have to do a little study. Now, they didn't really come with an owner's manual. That would be nice. I'll sit down with a book here in my easy chair, and I'll be, no, well, probably the reason why we didn't come with an owner's manual when you stood in front and you said, I do, was so that you might get to know them personally instead of reading about them, you get to know them. You know, if you get, I like to know how things work. You know, if you get a software program, or if you get a phone, and you know, it's like, what will, oh, I didn't know it would do that. Oh, do you have one of these, man? Does it do that? Yeah, it does. Oh, I didn't know that. Get a new vehicle. What's this button? I have no clue. Well, let's push it. Find out. Well, I'm not sure. Let's go read the manual now. That didn't work. You know, but it says that we are to live with our wife in an understanding way. That means it's going to take some study and it's going to take some work. We normally think it's just it. Sorry, ladies, but it's a typical guy thing. OK, we said I do got that thing accomplished. Now go on to do some other things. No, no, no. First priority. Go back. Learn to live with your wife in an understanding way. For those of you who aren't married yet, and I think you're beginning to figure out men and women are different. Have you figured that out yet? Those of you who are married certainly have figured that out. Let me give you an illustration and a picture. Supposing it's the individual's 10th anniversary and And he's decided he's not really been very good at making sure he's recognized these anniversaries over the past few years. He's missed a number of them. So he said, this day, I'm not going to miss this anniversary. I'm going to make sure that I acknowledge it. It's not going to be, oh, yeah, our anniversary is back three days ago. I'll miss that. So he put it on his outlook, he put it on his calendar, he put a note on his dashboard. He had it plastered all over and I didn't really want his wife to see it because he wanted to remember it on his own. And so that day comes and he remembers. And so right after work, he heads down to the car shop and he goes through all these different cars and he's reading them all very carefully. And he's really proud of them. You know, I remembered and he, oh, that says what I want to say. So he picks it up and he takes it and he takes it up, pays for it and goes home and discreetly sneaks it in the house. And then when his wife's doing something else, he goes back to the table and he writes some really nice words to her and how much she means and all of that and sticks it in the envelope and seals it up and waits for the kids, you know, until they go off to bed. After they're off to bed, he takes it to his wife with a big smile on his face, you know, man, I finally won. And he takes it to her and here, and she is beaming because he remembered finally. She tears it open and she begins to read and looking really good and all of a sudden halfway through her face falls. She gets a scowl on her face. He says, well, what's wrong? What's wrong? She says, nothing. Now, he may be somewhat clueless, but that's a pretty good indication that something big is wrong. She says, no, no, I know something's wrong, got to tell me what's wrong, she says, well, you bought me a birthday card. He said, no way, that can't be, that's impossible. I went through all of them. It can't be a birthday card. He gets and looks at her and says, happy birthday. She's pretty upset about that, and he's upset that she's upset and that what he tried to do just didn't come out well. He said, you know, I tried, and she says to him, but, you know, if you hadn't had your truck detailed and it came back and there was a spot on it that missed, you would have seen that. He said, yeah, but I tried. Now, if you tell the story To the ladies, I like what Emerson Egrich says, he says, ladies have this tendency to look at life with their pink sunglasses and pink hearing aids so that they see things as a woman would see things and they hear things as a woman would hear things. And guys have this tendency to see life with blue sunglasses and hear with blue hearing aids. And so when you would be talking, when the wife would go to the office the next day and say, you know, my husband didn't say, I mean, I guess I understand exactly what you're feeling. The guy would go to his work the next day and say, you know, this is what I try to do. Yes, she's irrational. You know, I mean, we understand exactly what you're feeling. Well, we need to begin to move and to understand what our wife is thinking, man. It's our assignment. I saw those elbows. So that our responsibility is to do what? We're to love her, so we're to live with her in an understanding way. I've read a statistic, maybe you've seen it, that most married couples spend less than 37 minutes a week in communication. How in the world do you get to know your spouse if you're spending less than 37 minutes or 37 minutes a week? Say, well, OK, then she needs to start talking. No, no, no. This is your responsibility. You see, being head comes with responsibilities. It isn't merely privilege. In fact, by the time we're done, we may be tempted to say, OK, I'm turning my headship badge. I'm done. Because there are some huge things that God calls of us as those who are called to be head. All right, so that's the what we are to do. Now, how do we do that? How do we demonstrate this love for our wife? Again, we see it in verse 7, as live with her in an understanding way as with someone weaker since she is a woman. Now, that's not derogatory. It's a reality, friends. It's talking about physical strength. It's not talking about emotional. It's not talking about intellectual strength. We know that normally men are stronger than women. Men were made to work outside, do those kinds of things, be involved in physical labor. I mean, that's what happened to Adam back in the garden. You know, men are stronger than women. I know we physically, normally, normally, And a woman is weaker physically. Normally, you don't say, I hope you don't say to your wife, hey, dear, I just two o'clock in the morning, I heard a noise out in the kitchen, dear, would would you go check on it? And I'm going to go in a closet and pray. And if everything's OK, you just call my name and I'll be right out there right beside you. No, it's a guy's job. It's interesting, even in the world where we're trying to balance everything out and make men and women the same, and again, you know, you do the work, that's fine. But even in that world that has tried to make a difference, they still make allowances. Let me give you an illustration. Interesting. Ever since Billie Jean King, who was the other guy that she played? She thumped him. Bobby Riggs, yeah. Thumped him in tennis. You know, it was battle of the sexes kind of thing. Okay. So now, and there's been a move in tennis that we're going to balance the purse, the winning purse, so that if you win in the ladies tennis, you get as much money as you win if the men win. Okay. But they still make a difference. Ladies tennis, you only have to win two out of three sets. guys have to win three out of five. So there's a potential that you could only play three games if you're a woman, but you could play five games if you're a man. I mean, whatever they want to do is fine. But in this setting where they say, we're going to treat everybody the same, they're not treating everybody the same. I'm not suggesting that they do. I'm just saying in a setting like that where we're saying, well, we're all equal. No, they've already made allowances. They understand that physically, stamina, those kinds of things, that men are, the muscular structure is different. for a reason, and therefore it says that men, we are stronger, she's weaker, therefore what? She is more vulnerable, so then how do we respond? So then he says, since she is a woman, therefore what do you do? You show her honor. You take that which is weaker and you elevate it and hold that which is weaker to be that which is more precious. The honor that's used here is the idea of something that is precious. You esteem it of high value. It has dignity. That this wife has tremendous dignity and so that we are to treat her with respect and with honor, to show her honor, to demonstrate honor to her. Let me share with you seven areas, men, that That would mean take notes. That we need to be involved in showing honor to our wife. These are not original with me, but I've had the opportunity to think them through just a little bit. The first area in which we honor her is that we honor her maritally. What does that mean? That means that she knows that she can trust us, that we don't flirt. We are now married. We're not flirting with everybody else who comes along, that we're not being disrespectful, that we don't have a wandering eye, that she can trust us. Maritally, she knows that we are honoring her. We are holding her up. I shared with you. When I was in high school, I worked for an individual who had his own company, and Saturdays we kind of worked together, so we traveled. I was working for a monument dealer. We set headstones in graveyards. And I was traveling with him, and I was watching him. You know, we were going down the road just one day, and it was kind of like... You know, like a Mr. Bobblehead. And I said, George, I said, you're a married man. He said, yeah. He said, I may have already ordered, but I can still check out the menu. Oh, that's a good one. You see, the problem with that is once you have ordered and you keep checking out the menu, there's normally this tendency to to keep reading the menu. So, you know, that looks a little more attractive. Can I change my order, please? No. That we honor our wife merrily, that that she knows that we are committed to her. Secondly, that we honor her physically, she is weaker, which means, man, man, We don't hit her. We don't shove her. We don't push her. We don't grab her. We don't intimidate her. That is out of bounds. That is not honoring. That is sinful. And if some of you ladies are in that situation, then you need to address it. Maybe you need to come to some Christian brothers and say, look, my husband's kind of struggling in this area and I'm a little fearful of him. And that's a sin against you. And it's a sin against God that we do not lay hands on our wife because we are upset with her. I read something about a year ago. It just boggles my mind. C.D.D. Christian Domestic Discipline. And this website says that Christian men, since you are the head of the home, as you spank your kids, you're supposed to spank your wife if she's out of line. And I'm thinking that is totally ridiculous. That's an oxymoron. How can you be a Christian man and you're disciplining your wife? In fact, it's not just being an oxymoron, it's just being a real moron, you know? That's the bottom line, men. We do not do that. We're going to see we're equals before God. You can't get that from this text. You cannot get it from any text in scripture. Again, I remember in high school staying in a home in another state and it was about 9 30 ish 10 o'clock and I'm just sitting in the living room. I don't really remember what I was doing, but all of a sudden here's this commotion. You see this wife go whoosh. Interesting. Followed by husband whoosh. That's interesting. Followed by child. And I say, wait, wait, wait, what's going on here? Daddy's spanking mommy. Yeah. Out of bounds. Totally out of bounds. So we honor her merrily. We honor her physically. We honor her verbally. We encourage her. Again, it's no nasty nicknames, no words that don't belong in a discussion between a man and his wife. We don't raise our voices. We don't discipline, threaten. I mean, it's just it's out of whether you say, well, it's not it's not physical, it's just verbal. No, no, that's out of bounds. That's not honoring. It's not honoring. And unfortunately, it happens in Christian marriages. Number four, we're to honor her financially. That means we do the very best we can to pay for the bills. And I realize some of you men are working two and three jobs to try and bring in enough to make it work. And ladies, I hope you recognize that, that they're trying to provide for their family. But you see, we can take this too far one way or the other. I remember, again, another state and another place, sitting down and having a conversation with an individual, a woman, about son-in-law and daughter had been married and the son said, well, I'm head of the household, therefore, we're pooling all of our money together and she's a stay-at-home mom, so I'm going to control how we spend the finances. And he had enough money to go do the things he wanted to do, buy the toys he wanted to do. He had to buy a new camera, buy a new set of golf clubs. But she barely got money that she needed to buy food and put on the table for the kids or even buy clothes for the kids. And so mother-in-law was slipping her a little bit of money every now and then so that they might be able to put food on the table. That's wrong. It's wrong. It is the fact that, OK, because you're head or because we're head of the home, therefore, we get to buy the good stuff and and we leave it all. But we can push that pendulum the other way. We can say we can become excessive. Okay, I'm going to shower her with all kinds of expensive stuff and run up the credit card bills. That's wrong as well. That's not treating her. You're putting yourself in a deep hole. Those of you who are considering and contemplating marriage at some point in time, you need to take some notice of what's being said here, especially if he's an abusive individual. You need to run as fast and as far as you can now, because like it or not, he's on his best behavior now. Wait till he gets married. Same thing is true financially. Think, well, you know, he's really sharing. He bought me a $500 ring just for my birthday or just as a good news item or something of that nature. Can he afford it? Or has he put himself in such tremendous debt? So we honor financially. It means we do our best to provide for our families. We honor her practically. Do we take care of our house the best of our ability or does it look like it's, you know, a city dump? You know, I'm kind of embarrassed to have anybody over here. I realize that I've been involved in a remodeling project and you may have walked through our house. You probably said, Dan, you need to practice what you preach here. But we're working on it. All right. Working on it. Or she gets the lousiest vehicle, doesn't start, doesn't whatever. We need to honor her parentally. That means we love the kids that we have together. We are involved. Men, we are involved. It's not our wives job to discipline our kids. It's we and we get together on the same page. Neither ladies do you say, well, wait till your husband, wait till dad gets home. Then we're going to, you know, that doesn't really make looking for dad's return very high on the list. So there's this matter that we are together, but we discipline dad. You have got to be involved. That's part of headship. being involved in the raising of your children. And a number of you have done this and you realize as you look at this, you say, man, it's a big job. Absolutely. Some of you have checked out of doing hobbies that you really enjoy because you know you've got to spend time. Not because you have to spend time, because you want to spend time. Maybe you maybe your wife needs to get out for a cup of coffee with with some friends and spend some time. And OK, great. Here's some money. Go enjoy the time. It is. Well, here you go again. Well, I guess I got to babysit. No, you're not babysitting. You're being a parent. You're being a dad. You get to invest time in boys and say, here's what it means to be a boy. For those of us who didn't have any boys, we just had daughters and that was a blessing, too. I don't mean just in a just, you know, that had who had daughters need impact, need opportunity. Well, I didn't start doing this soon enough, and that's taking daughters out on a daddy date, you know, one of them maybe one week and another one another week, you know, and we begin talking about what are you looking for in marriage and what's that look like? And so that when someone comes along, they have something. I hope we're setting the model so that they have someone and something to evaluate. What's it mean for a guy to treat a wife? What's that look like? You see, we're involved in this parenting, honoring our wife and parenting, honoring our wife spiritually. That means we pray for our wife. We pray as a family. We lead in prayer. Yeah, well, I ask my wife to pray. No, that's not what I'm talking about. You know, you can share praying responsibilities, but Dad, you need to pray. Say, well, I'm not very good at it. Well, practice. It doesn't have to be a 10 minute prayer. It might start off being 30 seconds. You know, what do you want to pray? What do you want me to pray about? So you begin praying about these things. Lead them in family devotions. Get a book. There are a lot of helps. Keys for Kids is a great resource. If you've got young children, you begin reading it. You can share that, but you be the one who takes the lead. It doesn't matter, well, why do you go find all this stuff and get it together? No, no, you need to share the lead. You need to take the responsibility. That's one of the neat things I love. And, you know, as I look around, we're blessed to have a number of you men, good number of men. And it's neat to see you involved in ministry. Whether you're teaching a Sunday school class, whether you're involved in AWANA, whether you're helping out in nurse respect this morning. There's one of our guys sitting on the floor in a nursery helping. He said, yeah, I'm not sure if he got up. He said it might be hard to get up. I'm not sure. I think he's here. I'm not sure. But, you know, men who are involved, you know, God bless you women. And I realize, ladies, some of your husbands aren't here and we need to be praying that guys, your job is to reach out. Maybe you look around and say, I need to I need to target this guy and start praying that God would work in his life and he might come to know Jesus and lead his family. You see, it's our responsibility. You know, we look at those seven things. And what do you say? That's going to take a lifetime. Absolutely. Absolutely. Welcome to headship. Okay, I'm ready to turn in my headship badge. Tough. If you already made a decision, you're in it for good, start working at it. It may mean we back out of some things for a while. It may mean we've got to make some changes in our life. And many of you have done that. You gave up that hobby. You gave up that sport for a little bit. Because you see, when we stand before God as men, And responsible for our families, this headship thing. God's not going to ask us and say, OK, Dan, how far up a tennis did you get? 2.0, 2.5, 3.0, 3.5? What was your rating? He's not going to care. How many trophies do we have sitting on our shelf? God's really not going to care. He's not going to say, oh, by the way, how many levels of World of Warcraft did you make? Doesn't care. He's going to ask us, how did we honor our spouse? Notice, notice, honor her, verse 7, as a fellow heir of the grace of life. You see, we are equals before God. She has as much spiritual right and honor in the presence of Christ as a guy, that we are equal before God. Say, well, OK, the wife's the incentive for the wife to do that was so that she might be increasing in her in her beauty. What's the incentive for a guy? I mean, this is hard work. Why should I do that? I'm sorry, guys. But that, you know, ladies, that's how too often we think, you know what? What's the reason to do that? Here's a simple answer. Heaven's watching. They were to get that last part of verse seven. So that we do this, we honor our wife, why so that your prayers will not be hindered. You want to be in good communication with Christ? You want to be in good communication and fellowship with God? Then we've got to honor our spouse. If not, our prayers are going to be hindered. And you see, it's very important, men. We don't sit around saying, well, you know, my wife starts to respect me, then I'm going to start to love her and honor her. And wives, you think, well, when my husband starts to honor and love me, then I'll start to respect him. No, no, no. That's not how this works. Actually, here, men, it's our job to take the first move. But we can allow things in our lives to get our attention and to create tensions. And we have this tendency, when he does and she does, then I will do. Let me say something pretty straightforward here. But it's something that it's really been on my heart, and I've been trying to examine it myself in my own life. That is that we have a tendency to judge our spouse harder than we do ourselves. All right, let me give you an illustration. that someone had shared with me and it makes a lot of sense. For example, in a situation where maybe there's a husband who's addicted to pornography and a wife that looks at that and says, man, I just can't stand that. And the husband is sinning against her and against God. It's not something that will help you in your relationship with Christ, nor in your family, and it will hinder you. But the wife has a very caustic, bitter, biting tongue. showing no respect at all for her husband, that sin is just as wrong as the one of being caught in pornography. But you see, the tendency is to say, well, you know, he's caught in this. Therefore, I can't respect him. Therefore, I'm just going to let him know what I think. That is just as sinful before God. Both of those are sinful. And for a husband to say, well, my wife doesn't really show me respect when she does and I'll get out of this. And we can go down the line on different excuses and illustrations that we have to say when she gets it figured out, then I will love her and I will honor her. And she's saying when he gets it figured out, then I will respect him and I will allow him to leave. No, no, no, no. My plate's full on these seven responsibilities that I have of honoring my wife. Ladies, your plate is full on the responsibilities that you have of allowing your husband to leave and to respect him. Let me encourage you to encourage him. You know, again, the fact that he may be here in church with you. Thank you for taking some leadership in our home. Thank you for being there. Thank you for going to work. Husbands, we need to do the same thing. We we get this tendency to just go through expectations. So God has given to us some principles. The role of a Christian wife is to respect her husband. Under God, to picture to the world the relationship of Jesus to his church. The role of a Christian husband is for us men to honor our wives and to lead them as Jesus loves his church and leads his church. If you don't know Christ, you can't build a Christian home. Now, please don't misunderstand me that all of this, you know, you just trust Jesus and poof, home's beautiful. It's a process, but what we are doing is taking the Holy Spirit of God and asking him to be part of our home situation and to radically transform me. And you see, that's what we're doing. We're coming to that point where we realize that we can't be good enough. We need Jesus to be involved in our lives, to have a relationship with Christ. That's the most important thing. You cannot build a Christian home. You cannot build a Christian family if you don't know Christ. You cannot be a Christian if you have not trusted Christ. You've come to that point in your life where you realize that we can't be good enough. And that's why Jesus died on the cross and he gave his life for us. So that we put our faith and trust in him. The past is past. It's forgiven. It's done. And we become new and we head in a new direction. And then that relationship that we have at home is the picture to this world. The love of Jesus for his church. And the fact that the church allows Jesus to lead in their life, let's pray. Father, we've looked at some really pretty heavy information from pretty heavy truths, and yet we realize if we back up and take a look that you're absolutely right. There are things that we need to learn and that we need to practice in our marriage relationships to be a picture to the world around us of how Jesus loves his church and as we as husbands love our wife. And then how the church, how we as the church submit ourselves to Jesus. So Lord, I pray for each of the marriages here this morning, God, that we might work and develop and practice our respective roles, that as men, our job is to honor our wife, whether or not there is respect or as much as we think there ought to be. There's wives that they demonstrate their respect and they're allowing their husbands to lead whether or not they feel that there's as much love. But the responsibility is on men, the headship, the leadership, which we are to exemplify. Father thank you again for each married couple here this morning and father. Thank you for the fact that you bring hope That whether times are good or whether times are bad. There's hope that's found in Christ Lord, I pray for the young people who are not yet married and are hoping one day that To be looking at a relationship like this, a marriage relationship that, Father, they might understand that they need to be the right kind of person, but they also need to look for the right kind of person, one who truly is following after Christ. So, Father, we invite you, we ask you, we implore you to be involved in our marriage relationships and in our homes. So that we might have the privilege of showing who Jesus is. It's in his name we pray. Amen.