Okay, so, there's our terms. Last week we went over, like I said, the two explicit passages. I'm just going to open the prayer really quick, and then we'll get started. Father God, thank you for this opportunity to be with these brothers and sisters. We pray for those who can't be with us. Jeremy and Amy, if there's sickness in their household, that you comfort them in this time. And that they would be refreshed and renewed through fellowship with one another, and as they listen to the sermon together, talk together, Lord God, that you would meet with them and their children. For Sarah as well, if she's not making it with her children, Lord God, in the midst of a difficult situation in her life, Lord, that you would comfort her, and that if there is a way that we can come alongside and help care for her better, help her be restored, and help her in this difficult situation, Lord God, we ask for wisdom to do that, that you might be glorified. I'll meet with us now, Lord Ashley, guard my mouth from error as I'm talking, as I'm discussing, that your word and your truth will be transferred, not my ideas. So we love you, Lord, and we thank you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. All right, Ephesians 5, 22-33. I'll read through it really quick. It's sort of our jumping off text for this morning. Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish, In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies, he who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes it and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. Let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband." So I know everybody came to a parenting class to hear about parenting, and today we're going to talk about marriage, because it's the context that our children are in touch with every day, all the time. And as we heard in this passage, and we'll look at and see in this passage, it is the transferring of the worldview which God intended. So, fathers playing, imaging forth Christ mothers imaging forth the church in our response and caring for one another. And so in our transferring of the baton and the communication of the gospel to our children, our marriages need to be able to do that. So this is not about perfect examples, this is about authentic examples. So, I've said this before, I'm going to say it again, just so it can be reminding us. I don't want people to hear legalism, what's coming from me. we take the opportunities then, because we're not going to be perfect, to communicate the effect the gospel has had on our life. So, our words speak the story of the gospel, our lives tell of the effect the gospel has had, the change that has occurred because of Christ's work on our behalf. So, this is a... jump in with questions if you have them, please. Could you repeat everything you just said? The gospel, blah, blah, blah, the gospel. Parenting and the gospel, transferring the gospel to our children. So Ephesians 5 is jumping off points. And so this is about marriages again. Ephesians 4.11, remember I said in that first class, teaching from the word, giving jumping off points, and then it's the job of the apostle prophet, evangelist, pastor, teacher, to equip the saints for the work of ministry. So teach, and then we're going to live life, we're going to care for each other, we're going to do the work of ministry and caring for one another. Andrew Kostenberger in his book, God, Marriage, and Family, gives a good definition, biblical definition, of what God is looking for, desiring, when he designed the family. So I'm going to read that right now. What God desires is happy, secure, and fulfilled families where the needs of the individual family members are met, but where this fulfillment is not an end in itself, but becomes a vehicle for ministry to others. In this way, God uses families to bring glory to himself and to further his kingdom, showing the world what he is like by the love and unity expressed in a family, by the husband's respect for his wife, the wife's submission to her husband, and the children's obedience, even if imperfect in every one of those categories. What is more, the husband-wife relationship also expresses how God, through Christ, relates to his people, the Church. Thus it can be said that families have a vital part to play in God's plan to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ, for the praise of his glory." Ephesians 1 10 and so on. So that's from Kostenberger's God, Marriage, and Family. I had a thought while I was reading that, Hannah. How does that definition line up, you think, with what you're taught to do and what you go out and do? like family yeah yeah well i think though what you know what you say about the marriage um and acting on the parenting that's the whole theory behind the family counseling so what he's talking about with um the what husband wife relationship is being um important and um i think that that's very similar to the secular view of what a family needs to be like. That the marriage needs to be first and taken care of in order for parenting to follow after. Okay, good, excellent. It's just secular. Yeah, they don't use the terms of imaging fourth Christ and whatnot. So that's a great statement, succinct statement about God's plan for the family. The notes will be up online if you want to revisit this anytime. So the end of the family is not the family, the success of the family, the needs of the individual family. It's coming together as a clan, a unit, to be a small church, be a mini-church, to go out and be a vehicle for ministry to other people. Which means, parents, we have to be clear on our roles of how we're caring for one another, how we're dealing with things. It's not measured in temporal or horizontal terms. So our interaction is horizontal, but again, just like speaking to one another in Psalms, hymns, and spiritual song, our spiritual act of worship goes through the body, through our words and our actions in the body, and God is glorified in that. These are acts of worship that are taking place. So the big idea comes from this, for this passage this morning. Marriage is an opportunity given to parents to display the gospel for their children. Marriage is the opportunity, in fact created by God, in the imaging forth of Christ and the wife's response to portray the gospel. The theater is the house and we're the players, not Christ himself and not the actual church, but imaging forth the appropriate response. And so sort of like last week where we talked about the big idea being parents can encourage or parents can discourage, there's still two sides to this. So you have the opportunity to display the gospel by how you interact. There's also the opportunity to do harm. But the good news is God is sovereign, even over our shortcomings and failings, and we are all evidence of that as we sit here, having been raised by imperfect parents, and very few of us, if any of us, having had gospel parents really instilled these things in us that way. So last week, or last time, trying to think of ways we discourage, I was just thinking, how can I discourage my kids as an individual? But what this is showing today is we're kind of, as a team, as one together, can encourage our kids or discourage them. And it just dawned on me, I'm still playing today, a child does probably become more worried and anxious when he sees mom and dad fight. But when he sees the love that's showing in the Gospel, then that builds security in him. Yep. That's good. So the mystery of marriage that was in our opening passage from Ephesians 5, I'm going to focus quite narrowly. I'm going to assume a whole bunch of stuff. I'm assuming that you guys are here, the people that are here, and you're married, and you understand what a real marriage is. You understand what God did in the beginning. So I'm not going to try to convince you that I'm not talking about homosexual marriage or anything like that. I'm going to jump off. We're going to jump in. These are relationships that you guys want to work on and cultivate. and bring glory to God. So we're going to jump in right at that point. So the fear of the Lord is going to be, I think, by hopefully not too much reductionism, I've reduced our focus, our time, on the fear of the Lord in our roles as husbands and wives, and transferring that as part of the Gospel idea to our children. That idea of the fear of the Lord comes from experience I've had in my period of the pastor and counselor taking care of people, that understanding, what drives and motivates us versus Proverbs 31, which is the picture of a godly woman, so often ends up being a checklist that women measure themselves against, and it ends up feeling like a failure because you don't feel like you measure up very well. But we're going to see that there's a flow to that when we look at women today. There's a flow to that that culminates in the fear of the Lord. And all those things on that checklist come out of this response. So Proverbs 1.7 says, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge and of wisdom. Fools despise wisdom and instruction. So we want our children to know this is a foundational verse for our children, and then something we need to remember all the time, something we need to instruct our children in. We need to let our children know that they are fools in a loving way. if they are fools, if they are not loving the correction and the wisdom that is being instilled, trying to be instilled. And it is the essential passage in preparation for marriage. It's an essential passage in preparation for child-rearing. So if you remember from our passage last week, Ephesians 6-4, Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Bring them up in the instruction and admonishments The fear of the Lord is to give them a fear of the Lord, to help them understand what the fear of the Lord is. So Christ says in Luke 12, 4 and 5, I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear. Fear him after he has killed, who after he has killed has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him. I had never noticed until I was studying this week that part of it says, but I warn you whom to fear. Fear him who, after he is killed, has the authority to cast in the hill. So he's obviously talking about his father in that point, and he's talking about the appropriate fear of the Lord. Now, we know the fear of the Lord is not pitted against his mercy and his love that we receive. But it's because, we can fear him actually, because of the mercy and love that he has shown us, because there's nothing he cannot ask because of what he's done. So we cannot commend his excellence to anyone else that which we have not commended to our own souls. So as husbands and wives and as parents, this is preaching this to ourselves before we transfer it to our children. If we don't believe this is told by our actions towards our spouses, we are not exhibiting a fear of God. So we're talking about insistent and persistent negative responses to one another, not what happens in the daily minutia of life, which is where we are flippant and unloving and fall short in what we're doing. I'm talking about a consistent pattern of insistent sin and inflicting harm on other people. We only prepare our children to be idolaters by setting up man or themselves as a priority, and God will not be feared, and our children receive their cues on how to interact with the sinful and fallen world based on receiving the accolades of man. So number one, we're going to focus on the fear of the Lord. The mystery of marriage. Point number two, parenting is not your highest calling. I mentioned this in the first week and I want to remind as we talk about the marriage aspect that that's so often because of what we deal with all the time and especially moms because you're dealing with children all the time that can begin to feel like the overwhelming priority in your life. And the first priority mom is being a daughter of God. You're not defined by how many things you can check off on Proverbs 31 lists. You're not defined by how your children integrate into the church, or how your children measure up against the pastor's kids, which should be fine, or how your children interact with your small group or the world. You are daughters of God, and that's what your identity is in. Fathers, your success in your job, leading your family so your children can sit through an hour of preaching does not define us. Our sonship before God, purchased, being purchased, having been purchased, by the blood of Christ is what defines us. So parenting is not our highest calling. We are a child of God despite of and in spite of our successes, whatever they are, or failures in anything in life, our jobs, our marriage, our parenting. Hope in God, let's not turn our children into idols because children make terrible gods. And mystery of marriage point number three, it refers to Christ and the church. So a lot of this was informed by Piper's sermon series, This Momentary Marriage, and also the book that came from it. And in it, he asked Noel, his wife, what's the one thing you would have me communicate in this? And she said, and it's a really profound, simple statement. She said, you cannot say often enough that marriage has to do with Christ and the church. it can't be said often enough. That type of thinking, if we were aware of that, if we were aware of what's occurring and should be occurring in our marriages, we'd probably treat one another much differently. If I had that in my forefront, I think I would be a better husband all the time. Unfortunately, I have not gotten to that point. Piper says, marriage is the doing of God and the display of God's glory. That is what is occurring in marriage. This means that every word and act has the opportunity or the potential to lift up the name of the Lord or to prove out that we are idolaters in some other area and we are seeking our own glory, our own end, our own satisfaction, our own joy and pleasure instead of the Lord's. It's meant to be a living drama of the covenant-keeping love between Christ and the Church, Piper says. So marriage is the opportunity as parents to tell our children of the work that Christ did on our behalf. based on not only our words, because our words tell the story in a way that actions cannot, but our actions tell the effect. Our understanding, the integration of the gospel, saturation in our lives of what he has done before us. So husbands, we're going to look at just that first in Ephesians 5, 22. Listen for the word as in this in these verses so wives submit to your husbands as to the Lord for the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church his body and is himself the Savior now as the church submits to Christ so also wives should submit to everything to their husbands so as is the key word that says we are not Christ and wives are not to treat us like we are Christ They are to submit and act like they do towards the Lord. And when we look at the women's part, we're going to see that the full submission that's being spoken of in the passage is submission to God, 100% unequivocal. Other things flow out of that, like interaction with the family. So, since we are to be Christ, we're in Mark right now, and the defining central verse of Mark We're doing, we're expositionally preaching through Mark, and it's called the Servant King Series, which is the theme of Mark as a whole. And the central passage, the central verse is this, Mark 10, 45. For even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. So our imaging forth as Christ should have this idea tattooed on our brains. came not to be served, but to serve, and to give our lives as a ransom for many, for ours. And it goes beyond that, but we're dealing with this right now. So how are we to be like Christ? Well, how? By fearing Him. This is about the fear of the Lord. So for starters, that means that we need to be aware that there is more mercy available in God than the amount of sin that has occurred from us or towards us on the horizontal plane. So Richard Sibbes said that in his book, he said this, in his book The Bridegroom's Read, there is more mercy in Christ than there is sin in us. Now if we choose to act like the primary offenses of our spouses and our children is directed towards us, We are saying that the blood of Jesus Christ is insufficient to deal with those sins, and that the offense directed at me is a greater offense than that to Christ, so we are not being servants. We struggle with that. So one thing that's bound up in this passage that I think we can work on as men, that means when it comes to leading our wives and our children, one thing we can do out of a fear of the Lord, out of an understanding of who God is, and we are imaging forth this, is we initiate reconciliation. So from the very beginning, the very first picture we have in Genesis, when Adam and Eve sinned, took the forbidden fruit, and they ran and hid themselves, they would have never bothered to look back at God if God had not come to them. And then the rest of redemptive drama, as you know, as you look at all of Scripture, is a constant coming of God and drawing His people back to Him. So, we came to serve, we initiate reconciliation. And like Christ, who I'm sure was aware of the magnitude of our finite sins against His Father's infinite holiness, at best our family is finitely sinning against our final sinfulness. And so the two cancel each other out and we both end up on the same side of the line in need. So we reconcile like Christ did Even if, even if, we are 100% right, which if I was honest about interactions I've had with Dana, there's no time that I can point to that I can say I was really trying the whole time 100% to love you and to be Christ to you and you did nothing but sin against me. If I'm honest. I'm trying to be at this moment. I'm going to recognize my sin and in seeking reconciliation with my wife, I'm going to deal with the sin, my offense against her, my lack of caring for her less than Christ has called me to do. So, Philippians 2, 3, 2, 7 says, Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others as more significant than yourselves, that each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count his equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing." Again, just another reminder that even Christ, who was God, did not consider that authority to be something, a card to be played when he was offended against. And likewise, our leadership and the fact that scripture gives us authority and the responsibility for leading our family. That's not a card that we flip out to say, listen, you're screwing up here. See who I am. Don't you know how important I am? Don't you know what God said about what you should do? That's not how we go about it. In humility we do what we do. And we talked last week about 1 Peter 3.7 about how living with our lives in an understanding way so that our prayers are not hindered Our wives are the weaker vessel, Peter says in that same passage. And so we're aware of that. And we need to walk gently with our wives. We're to fear Him, who after He has killed, has authority to cast them to hell. So that is our motivation. Not obedient, compliant children. Not a wife that looks a certain way. Not a home that's kept a certain way. Fear the Lord compels us to do this and to care for our children and our wives in this way. So, Psalm 128, if you have your Bibles, you can turn there. It's a great, great, um, you don't have to, I'll read it to you. Um, but, um, it's a, it's a family psalm. It's a, it's a great psalm. It'd be a good thing to go home and meditate on. Blessed is everyone who fears the Lord, who walks in his ways. You shall eat the fruit of the labor of your hands. You shall be blessed and it shall be well with you. Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house. Your children will be like olive shoots around their table. Behold, thus shall the man be blessed who fears the Lord. The Lord bless you from Zion. May you see the prosperity of Jerusalem all the days of your life. May you see your children's children. Peace be upon Israel. Just as a reminder, before we move forward too much, none of these things in Scripture is never intended to give sort of a, if you do this, you're guaranteed these results. And I'm not commending that either. I don't want you to hear that. I'm commending that we're called to fear the Lord. And that the normative way that the Lord works through those things is in drawing His children to Him, is in having a wife then that has an easier heart, submitting and coming alongside her husband, being the woman that God's created her to do. It doesn't mean it's going to be easy. It doesn't mean it's going to work. It's not a silver bullet we pull out and load into our gun and we're excited because we're guaranteed it's going to work. We're doing it because we're obedient. We're doing it because we fear the Lord, because Scripture tells us to fear the Lord. And He will produce the results that He will produce as Sovereign. So, two times in that passage, blessed is everyone who fears the Lord. And then halfway through, Behold, thus shall the man be blessed who fears the Lord. The fear of God compels us. William Farley says in Gospel Powered Parenting, we fear God because sin always has consequences. We fear God because sin always has consequences. We are aware of that. We want that idea to be transferred to our children. And we don't want to live like that doesn't occur. We don't want to live like we are above the law because we are the highest law in the house. The highest law in the house is scripture and it is God who gave us scripture. Yes? How have you and your family, like, have you ever, I've wondered, how have my kids seen me get spanked in life? How can I tell them? Because they're not seeing me get spanked, you know, in a visible sense. So have you been, have you found a way, is there a way to communicate? I mean, all I can say is, God spanks me, you know, when Daddy's talking to kids, Daddy, or God knows how to spank me, you know? I'm trying to convey that idea that I'm under God's authority and that he's, I've only been able to do it once. I haven't thought about doing it regularly. One time, nobody's going to believe this, I lost my temper. I was working on a truck in the garage and was getting frustrated. I think I scraped my knuckle on something because I was being overly aggressive trying to work on the truck and I was angry. Then I got a little bit angrier. wide-eyed staring at this point, because Papa's really angry. And then I was able to talk about how, OK, see this right here? That's because I lost my temper. And that's why whenever we're doing, so whenever we discipline, I'm always communicating to my children. So I'm not communicating discipline. I'm going to think on that some more. But I am always communicating my need for Christ to come and change my heart with the children. So do you have any thoughts about how to do that? Anybody else have any thoughts? It would be easier if you could point to it. Yeah. Look, Daddy lost, he's murdered his wife and look at this mark on his head because out of the blue he just hit his head on the cover because he's mad. Like that, that happens every time, but we'll talk, point to invisible things, just the feeling of like, you know, I guess you could... I know Steve does talk about his scar. He points to his scar as this, as a pride, a moment of pride, a big season of pride culminating in his arrogance, not needing a seat belt, and the effect that it left. So he does teach his children about that. It's not necessarily an ongoing one, but I think the effect is if you are showing that you have been affected by God's work in your life in this way, then that's the intended fruit, the seeds that you want sown into your children. Well, one thing is I don't want my kids to fear that I'm going to get physically punished, I would rather them see that I am so sorry to God. I want them to see my reaction to them and the humility that, you know, when I realize I've really sinned, that would, to me, seem like I want to portray how their response should be, not just the fear of, I'm going to have a scar for the rest of my life, or the fear of the things that were pointing towards heart change and how you're getting the same thing, because I want you to have this heart. Isn't that kind of like a repenting of a white heart is a big thing, and you're repenting before them and saying, look, I totally messed up. Isn't that like the picture of falling on the rock rather than the rock? Yeah, that's exactly right. I don't want them to hear that I'm broken over my sin, not that I got pranked or lost or whatever. One thing that David, when he, in one of his psalms, he talks about his bones just like aching or something. Yeah. There's this internal, extreme discomfort because he's just having a piece and then when he confessed, that internal aspect of his soul, I guess, was healed. That's what I would love to communicate to my kids is my experience, but it's so like... How do you break that down? But even at a very young age, I know one time Emma colored on the couch, and I was making her clean it up, and she's laying on the couch crying. She's like crying. Help me Jesus, help me Jesus, I need you Jesus, and she's struggling to help me. That's the point right there, is to have that heart of repentance. And I think they'll see that more clearly whether or not you have a specific action that came against you. Yes, Psalm 6 is what you're talking about there. Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am languishing. Heal me, O Lord, for my bones are troubled. My soul also is greatly troubled. And he says, I am weary with my moaning. Every night I flood my bed with tears. I drench my cup. couch with my weeping and my eyes waste away because of my grief. It grows weak because of all my enemies. Yeah. So, um, yeah, it's the trend. I think one of the most effective things is, you know, um, I can't remember if I mentioned this in one of the other classes, but the idea that we talk about this as pastors modeling precedes teaching. And so if we can point to, how we have lived and acted this out in front of our children as an Imaging 4 thing to explain to them because, first of all, there's still a lot of words, well, for my kids, there's still a lot of words that don't have meanings to them. You know, it's tough, you have to grasp for words, you're trying to portray this big idea and you're trying to do it, and so whenever you can point to an Imaging 4, the modeling that's occurred, it's going to be easier for them to see, grasp the picture, grasp what's occurring. So, if I only preach and believe and live like sin has consequences, but I don't offer the hope of the gospel, then I've offered no hope to my own soul. I've offered no hope to my family's soul. So, fear of God leads to the awareness of my sin, and that leads to the awareness of my need, and that leads me to the gospel. And the gospel reminds me as a husband and father that how can I not give mercy to those in my care when I have received so much mercy in spite of my insistence, persistence, rebellion, and treason against God. Psalm 130 verse 4 says, With you there is forgiveness that you may be feared. With you there is forgiveness that you may be feared. The taking away of our sin, the wrath of God poured out, absorbed by Christ, exhausted in his body and flesh. The fear of God leads us to the cross where we find the power to change, not from in here, from Him. And we become slaves. We become slaves of God when we are purchased. An idea that we can transfer to children. With you there is forgiveness that you may be feared. When we are forgiven, and it is dealt with in the way it is, and we recognize that we were purchased, so you guys know that language of what occurs, that transfer. Okay, I will give my life for this man's life. Take his head off the chopping block and I will lay my head down. There's nothing God cannot ask of us. There's nothing that he cannot require of us. And so he does require that we live perfectly. And he is merciful because he then comes and lives the life we could never live and dies the death that we deserve to die. And so, man, we remember that and we image that forth in what we're doing. So, we're to be like Christ. in sacrificial love. We initiate reconciliation, I've always said, we lay down our lives, that means given opportunities, we exchange our needs to meet the needs of others. We have a perfect, complete example in Christ and we point to that as often as possible so that our hearers and the observers are never confused about what we are doing or what we think. I mentioned this last week again, that We're only really fooling ourselves if we think our sin is not seen, especially by our children and wives, those that we live closest to. If we go around pretending like we're not doing it, our children will learn hypocrisy very, very well, and that will be what they take into the world. And we don't want that. Sacrificial leadership, number two, motivated by the fear of the Lord. We lead in godliness and we lead in gentleness. We lead in instruction and we lead in learning. We lead in teaching obedience, we learn by teaching obedience, or excuse me, we lead by teaching obedience and we lead in being obedient. So we're imaging forth, we're modeling for these things. And about this leadership, we don't get to decide how to lead. We don't decide what we're going to do. We search the scriptures and we do it. Our wives and our children are stewardships. They are the property of somebody else. And we are then, and this is a clear picture, we're a representative of the owner. And so, I point to the story of Robin Hood. The thing that's occurring with Prince John, while King Richard is off fighting the Crusades and doing his thing, the kingdom, Prince John was a steward. And he was not supposed to he was supposed to be actually Making sure that King Richard received glory, but instead what has happened in the story in the Disney version He gathers glory for himself and he gathers wealth for himself and the kingdom is not taken care of and King Richard returns he is very angry and That's that's the picture. So we're a steward and we're simply to represent we're to think and You know, what have we been told to do? How have I been told to lead? How have I been told to instruct and do that? Because this is not our kingdom. This is not our domain. We are minions of His dominion. Make sense? Okay, the wife's priority. Any questions on husbands? Any thoughts? Anything you'd rather I said, ladies? Alright. Yes. Earlier, much earlier this evening, you were talking about, we don't want to say to our kids, you know, obey me because of who I am. I'm a parent, so you need to obey me. We definitely don't convey that attitude, but we do want to teach them that their obedience is to God, and we share the scripture that God is saying, obey your parents for this is right. But we're not necessarily trying to assert some sort of authority in us. We're the middle man. We're kind of connecting them with what God's demand is of them, so they understand they're there to answer to God for what they do with their heart. And we can then be that concerned person and say, God is asking you to do this. It would be good for you to... That says it would be good for you. That's absolutely right, yeah. He said it, but I'm the person... And part of our stewardship is to, so one of the things we're doing when we're teaching our children, there's consequences for action and we discipline them, or how we disciple them with the rod or by isolation time or whatever we're going to use. What we're doing is we're teaching them and we're cultivating. We're working the soil so that it's ready to receive the gospel all the time. Learning of obedience is actually the key thing that when we get to discipline in the rod or training in the rod, that's going to be the thing. This is about learning obedience because that's preparing children for interaction with God, is obedience. You're absolutely right about where we're going. The thing I'm going to say to women is so you learn how to follow your husband, you learn about following your husband, submitting to your husband based on your experience and practice of submission to the Lord. So if you have found yourself trying to submit to your husband in obedience to the scripture and not happy about it, not thrilled about it, it's probably because you're starting in the wrong place in the process. It's good that you're seeking to do what scripture's ordained, commanded, but There's a way in which it goes about. So, women, the fear of the Lord is what directs your being a helper completer. So your submission to your husband is secondary to full submission to the Lord. Meaning if your husband says to go break the law, you know, you gently remind your husband that you're submitted fully to Christ. And you want to be submitted to him, but he has stepped out of the way. We used to have a joke at the other church. We'd say, and then women duck, get out of the way, because God's coming and He'll deal with them. So you do what you need to do. So, submission that's spoken of in the Ephesians 5 passage is full submission to the Lord, which then includes submission to your husband. So you play a wonderful role in the theater of life for our children. You're going to represent the church and its role in submission to Christ and how to act towards Christ. So since marriage speaks of the mystery of Christ, so when Paul's saying that he's talking about the mystery in the Old Testament, that's now being revealed as Christ has come and the church is created. It's gone from the invisible to the visible and then back to the invisible because we still don't know what it is. But since we're aware of those things occurring now, we know that marriage speaks to this picture, is what we're saying. So we're talking about how to live and how our lives, our interaction as spouses, and what these roles are imaging forth to our children, and how they should respond to Christ. So, I'm going to look at Proverbs 31, 25-30, which Prior to that, for about 10 verses, is the checklist for Proverbs 31 women. I'm just going to reach the point, and we're going to build up to verse 30 that culminates, and then look back at the passage. So strength and dignity are her clothing, and she laughs at the time to come. She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue. She looks well to the ways of her household, and does not eat the bread of idleness. Her children rise up and call her blessed, her husband also, and he praises her. Many women have done excellently, but you surpassed them all. And here's the key passage. Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. So again, all those other things prior to verse 30 in the checklist is a result of a woman who is fearing the Lord. So don't try really hard to take care of your home and please your husband. Start with fearing the Lord. Don't be so concerned about your children and making sure you get everything right and being defensive and protecting them against everything. Start with fearing the Lord. And what will flow out of that is all these other things with a different heart than we have found before. So, it moves from the fear of the Lord, which leads to submission to God, which leads to submission of your husband. So if you don't start at the beginning of that process, you're going to be worn out in your own strength. You're going to be dissatisfied because you're going to expect us as husbands to respond in a way that we're not going to because we're sinful. And it's going to create more problems. So success in mothering is no success if it comes at the cost of obedience to the totality of what scripture says to be a woman. So the totality of the identity of being a woman comes from who you are as a daughter of God. and what Christ did, not in giving you value, but that you are counted among the elect. Not what you do, not success you can point to. Husbands, if we are more concerned about how our wife looks, or how our home is organized, or having children that are annoying us at the end of the day, and we are not creating time in which we are sowing into her, and making sure that she is prepared and is fearing the Lord actively, daily, moment by moment, then we are creating legalism. And we are pressing on our wives things that scripture has not commanded. So those things, all the checklist things in scripture, are results of that one thing, important thing. I want to finish with a quote I got from my sister's blog, and I want to encourage you moms right now that are in the daily minutia of life, sometimes feeling like you're stuck in ten foot swells in the middle of the ocean, and you're in the bottom of the trough, and you can't get your bearing, you can't get your breath, be encouraged by this. Mothering is a sobering role, I know, and it is a remarkable role. And this quote from Chesterton is phenomenal. So, to be Queen Elizabeth within a certain area, deciding sales, banquets, labors, and To be Whitley within a certain area, providing toys, boots, sheets, cakes, and books. To be Aristotle within a certain area, teaching morals, manners, theology, and hygiene. I can understand how this might exhaust the mind, but cannot imagine how it could narrow it. How can it be a large career to tell other people's children about the rule of three, and a small career to tell one's own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone. No, a woman's function is laborious because it is gigantic, not because it is minute. So, it is a remarkable thing, the role of mothering falls under culture shapers. You have more impact on the direction of culture, and fathers we do too, we have more in this context, and if we took it, we would shape the direction of culture. by preparing our children to interact in a godly, fearful way, fearful way of God in that culture. Preaching the gospel, living the gospel, serving the community for the glory of God, those type of things. I may have messed up there. Thoughts? Just before you quoted the quote, that section was before that. Could you re-say that? Because I think it's something I need to hear. What was it about being in the ocean of life with ten foot? Probably making sure that you Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, If our wives are fearing the Lord, then everything else is going to fall in place, and everything will flow from that. Everything flows from that. I didn't want to do too much reductionism, because sometimes when we do reductionism in Scripture, we miss the points, and we end up looking at a forest by staring into a tree like this, and we miss everything. But I think in this case, everything flows from the fear of the Lord, and having that idea and that awareness, believing that we can preach the gospel to ourselves and as spouses we can preach the gospel to one another, that I think it was an okay thing to do in this case, I hope. Were you going to say something, Brett? Thoughts? I can see just kind of a, I mean, sort of both husbands and wives, like you said, in principle before. So in my concern to make sure we're doing all the transparency and stuff, and developing a checklist and stuff, that's actually proof or lack of, or bad proof of a lack of faith in God to do those things. It can be, yes. And so I overburden my wife with, you know, how are we doing here, how are we doing here, as opposed to how are you fearing the Lord, which is what I'm hearing tonight. I should be seeking to ask how unfair the Lord is, so that stuff just comes out, rather than trying to be the pressure. We're trying to be pressure. Pressure is what works, as opposed to revelation, or what God can do. So I see that. I'm faced with the same thing that I was seeing earlier when you were talking to the women about how big is God? Because the wife who's terrified of submitting to her husband because she's going to be taken advantage of and nothing's going to happen, no one's going to protect her, she's going to get herself over this guy, she's going to die because no one's going to step in. But you said, you know, move out of the way and God will get him. So it's really, ultimately, how big is the God she believes in? So she truly has that faith that he's going to knock him out if she believes that he's going to be that big. then that's where that confidence would come from, to just kick at it. Even if it seems silly to me, and pointless, and a waste of time, I'm just going to submit. Even though it's up to you, and I'm trusting that you're going to fix this quick, that would be the fate there. So I'm saying, on my part, I'm also facing the same thing of asking, how big is my God to be able to empower my wife to do stuff in grace, so that I don't try to get that stuff done through my own impressions. So we're all in the same boat in that sense. Yeah, it is. That's good. That's good. And also guys, don't underestimate the power of affirmation too, which our wives do. Again, we take for granted a lot of times, I know I take for granted a lot of times, her doing her job and doing it well and I appreciate it, but I don't always mention how much I appreciate it. And I think that goes a long way in loving and caring for our wives, practicing affirmation. Questions, thoughts, regrets? Yes. Hope in God. The gospel is for sinners. And the more we recognize and come face to face with our sin, let it drive us to the place where the gospel becomes more and more glorious. All righty, continue with the conversation.