But let's jump back into this. We've covered some lessons. We're going through this book, The Complete Husband by Lou Priolo. And so we've covered, I wish she came with a manual where we talked about 1 Peter 3, 7. You should understand your wife. And we must understand the biblical view of marriage, the importance of communication in marriage. Lesson 2, or chapter 2, was back to school for the rest of my life. We all change, and so does she. Understanding your wife, and then talked about questions to build intimacy. Lesson 3, or chapter 3, what's there to talk about? talked about creating a comfortable environment to communicate. And then the last one we covered was Crash Course in Biblical Communication. I think we did two weeks on that and covered two lessons on communication. And so this one is going to come to, if you've been following along and present whenever we've gone through our messages in Ephesians, then this is going to be a little bit Repetitive, it's gonna allow me not to be, have to stay in Ephesians so much, but actually look at a broader aspect of it. But this is gonna be How to Love Your Wife, part one. This is from chapter five of the book, How to Love Your Wife, part one. And he starts off by saying the real problem with many people, he says many men, but I say many people because I think this is an overwhelming problem, is that they believe that love is a feeling. Love is a feeling, popularized by many songs and popular tunes. Unfortunately, popularized even too, sort of communicated that way through some Christian music as well. And if you think about it, lest I make anybody angry, that maybe you listen to this, some even hymns that we find in our hymn book that were written in the last hundred years. Love is a feeling, all right? Is love a feeling? Love is a choice. Can feelings accompany love? Yeah, it's good that they do. But is it necessary that they have to in order to accomplish love, in order to carry out the biblical mandate for love? In the book, he talks about this. Love isn't primarily a feeling. It's not even primarily an emotion. It's a part of speech. Is it a noun? And he breaks this down. He says, actually, it's a verb. Love is a verb. 1 Corinthians 13. So if you bring your Bibles or get your phones out with your... Please let me go to this part in my brain. 1 Corinthians 13 in my brain. All right. 1 Corinthians 13. We are going to be turning... Actually, we have a little bit less than I thought we would. I got you some passages I'm going to be handing out in just a minute for all of you to have. 1 Corinthians 13. And I was just gonna read four through seven, but let me start at verse one. If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind. Love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. And in the very first part of verse eight, love never ends. Understanding this just a little bit deeper, love is patient. Let's take that. He says love is patient in verse four. The original Greek New Testament, in the original Greek, it is one participle. It is in essence verbal in nature. It would be like saying in English, love shows patience, or love is being patient. So if we apply that down through, if I had the whiteboard, I was gonna sort of put all these things on the board and sort of go through them one by one. Yeah, yeah, got rid of that thing. I think we're gonna get a new one though. It sort of come damaged for us. But love shows or is being patient. Love shows kindness. Love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant. rude. Part of the issue for us is though we don't recognize when we are impatient. We don't recognize when we are unkind. We don't recognize when we're boasting. We don't recognize when we're arrogant. We're not recognizing when we're rude. In our sinful blindness, we don't tend to pick up on our blind spots because we tend to be so focused on their blind spots. Now, let me say this before I go any further. I understand the context of this passage. The context of this passage is not for husbands. The context of this passage is actually within the church. It is 1 Corinthians, Paul writing to this jacked up church in Corinth and covering all these major problems and in 12 he starts talking about spiritual gifts. the the radical problems that they had going on because they totally misunderstood spiritual gifts and then he's carrying that through with trying to teach them how to relate with one another with the spiritual gifts because there's actually rivalries going on within the church because persons getting jealous and envious of each other because this person's got the more spiritual gift and they're exercising this to get dominance in the church and this person it's just like a It's so carnal, it's so wicked what was going on in the church. And he's trying to say, listen, stop worrying about all these stuff, stop focusing on all these things and love. And so he's trying to teach this. The context of this passage is actually between brothers and sisters in Christ in the church. That's the interpretation. But I think we are not out of the way with an application to our wives. in the marriage relationship? Because let me ask you this. If we are to love brothers and sisters in Christ within the church this way, should we not much more love our spouse the same way? So I don't think I'm out of bounds by talking about this passage to you as husbands. When God wanted to describe love, Priolo says, he used verbs because love is something you do much more than something you feel. So, with that being said, how many times in a given week do you feel like you really don't want to love your wife? Maybe not a week. Maybe your marriage is really good and it's more like a month. Maybe it just happens every once in a while. You can't remember the last time where you just really didn't want to love her. Whatever it is, Is it an excuse whether you feel it or not? No. Because whether we feel like we want to love them, or let me say it this way, whether we feel they deserve love does not factor into the equation of whether you should be obedient to God in loving your spouse. Okay. He asked this question, do you love your wife as much as Christ loved the church? I know, it's like, okay, okay, you're making me feel bad, and then it's like, for the one guy who's like, yeah, I'm doing a great job, let's just knock your legs out from under you. All right, do you love your wife as well as Christ loved the church? And the answer is no. No, she's not loving her well enough. You know in Psalm 23 it says, surely goodness and love and kindness will follow me all the days of my life. I was looking that up here probably about a year ago, and really the word surely there could be only, and only goodness and love and kindness will, and the other word will follow me, it's actually a strong word, it's chase. Only goodness and love and kindness will chase me all the days of my life. What makes that difficult? Here's the thing that we need to understand. I was talking to Mary and I last night. We're both going through, actually, I'm not going through this book with her. I'm doing, there's a book called The Exemplary Husband by Stuart Scott that is much more detailed, and I think a little bit bigger. He says in the introduction that there wasn't a book in biblical counseling on husbands, and he said then, so they really pressured him to write that, and when he was almost finished with it, Priolo released this book, and he was like, I didn't have to do it but he said they released it anyways and then Mary's doing a book that we actually borrowed from you called The Excellent Wife by Martha Peace. We're doing the book together and we were talking about this last night and that was that how important theology is in everyday life. because your theology impacts your everyday life. Why is loving your wife so difficult? Whether she's a great wife or whether she's a wretched sinner, okay? Either factor, why is it difficult? What does your theology teach you? What does your doctrine say? It's because, what did you say? Okay, because of our flesh, which is a theological factor of teaching us about sin. Our anthropology and our homardiology. There's the two theological terms that refer to the doctrine of man and the doctrine of sin. You put those two factors together and two people that have the same human condition, that sin, in the same household, What are you gonna have before long? Struggle. Struggle. Yeah. I mean, it's gonna happen. You can go ahead and anticipate that this is going to be a difficult thing. But what has he commanded you to do? He talks about this. He then goes into a section where he says, let's define love. All right, so this is where I was going to have you guys look these scriptures up. All right. So, Dean, did you bring a Bible? No, I didn't. Okay. Travis, I'm going to turn to Ephesians 5.25. Ben, do John 3.16. All right. Using that memory bank there. Laramie. Ephesians 5.2. Luke, you have? Okay. Channing, Galatians 2.20. Daniel, Matthew 5.43-44. And I'm gonna do Proverbs 25. 43-44. Is that what you said? Yeah. Okay, alright, Ephesians 5.25. Okay, so, does this thing need to be turned off? I keep hearing something going on back here. Sounds like something's bubbling. Okay, alright. So we're looking for a biblical definition of love. Here he's telling you how to love. What is the word that he uses? Love your wives as Christ loved the church. And how did Christ love the church? All right, John 3.16. There you go. All right, so he loved the world that he what? What was the expression of his love he gave, okay? Ephesians 5 too. Okay. He just left. All right. Galatians 2.20. I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live. Yet not I, but Christ lives within me. And the life that I now live by the flesh, I live by the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. I just quoted your verse because you left. All right. That is that is that what it is? I quoted it wrong. All right. Look at him. Mr. Bible member over here. He does have it in his head. Okay. Matthew 5, 43 and 44. You've heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, you love your enemies and pray for them. Okay, so you see, well, I have one more. Proverbs 25, 21 says, if your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat. If he is thirsty, give him water to drink. Biblical definition of love, what would you say? If we placed the exam question in front of you and you had to define love biblically from these passages, how would you write your answer? Selfless sacrifice. Okay, selfless sacrifice. All right, now let's go back to 1 Corinthians 13. Verse one, if I speak in the tongues of men and of angels but have not love, I am a noisy gong or clanging cymbal. If I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, if I have all faith so as to remove mountains but have not love, I am nothing, if I give away All I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. All right? Thought I had the definition. Well, what did you say? Giving of yourself for the other's benefit. I'd say that putting both of those together still is not getting completely at it. All right, because it is like this, and I'm jumping ahead of myself a little bit, because I think he writes it down later, but it is giving toward the desired person. A definition that I learned in my teenage years was the desired object, but I don't like the word object. It's so impersonal. But the desired person without any thought, any desire for return of myself. That's not even human. That's, that is what? What is it? Well, that's what Christ did for us. Is it though? He loves, He wants us to worship Him. No, we should worship Him. He desires, He created worshipers for us. But Christ did it out of obedience. Christ went to the cross out of obedience to the Father and love for the sinner. and love for us. Okay? This was God's plan. Alright? But this is what he's called us to love. Alright? So, the question is, what did you say it was? What did you say that that kind of love is what? And you're exactly right. You're exactly right. It's the same way and you're getting to understand Ephesians 5 when you understand that. Because what you're asked to do, what you're commanded to do in Ephesians 5 is impossible in your human flesh. But it is possible under the control of the Holy Spirit, driven by the Holy Spirit. Let me continue on. Love is giving without primary motive of getting some temporal reward. What do we give? So let's think about this. What are we giving? Do we just give anything? In our zeal and motivation to try to accomplish love, does that mean that we give whatever, anything to the person? No. Why? Because some things that person may want may not be God-honoring, right? It's not just anything we're giving. The giving that we give, number one, has to be in accordance with God's Word. Well, John, I'm just curious on this stuff. I mean, I'm just kind of rummaging on this myself even more. I've rummaged on this for off and on for a while, but, you know, Paul says he sacrificed and gave, basically, to these churches. He said, nor that my reward in heaven may be greater. You know, I mean, he's motivated by a self-desire. I think we have to say that It's not for a selfish end of ourselves, but for an end that God has designated for us. In other words, you know, you read Scripture and it says, humble yourselves before the Lord. Why? What's the goal of humility? That He may exalt you. So I don't humble myself, it's just for the sake of humility. But the end goal is that Scripture says God will exalt you. So there's a return on that, but it's a God-ordained and God-bought... The return is not the motivation, though. I would push back against that. I don't think the return is the motivation. What is the motivation for all that we do? It is that we should do what? Glorify who? Glorify God. But see, I would disagree with the fact that the reward is a motivation. The reward is a product. Because what are we going to do with our reward once we get to heaven? Are we gonna sit there and relish in our rewards and say, look at what we got, what are we gonna do? What does heaven, what does it say? Boom, we're casting it down at his feet because who ultimately receives the glory? It is a completely God-focused life because we have to empty ourself. Here's the, let me just skip over some things to get to this because I think some of you are struggling with this. All right, the root cause of all marriages, all marriage problems. Selfishness. When you start talking about that the motivation of some of what we should do is because of what we're gonna get, what are you in essence feeding? Yourself. You're feeding that selfishness. We gotta starve the selfishness. Because the selfishness is what causes the issues. James 4, one through three. What causes conflict? What causes divisions? What causes fights and wars among you? Is it not this, that your desires The heart issue of the problems that we have come from the heart that we want what we want. Now, do we serve a God who when we obey and serve and live to glorify Him, whether in everyday life or in our marriage, do we serve a God who just says, yes, I receive glory, you don't get anything? Is that the kind of God we serve? In his loving kindness, as Channing was pointing out, he does reward us, he does bless us. But I think that we have to be very, very cautious of that motivation. That is a byproduct, that is a joy that we relish in. It is finding our complete satisfaction and joy in Him. What does the Westminster say? Chief end of man is what? To glorify God and enjoy Him. We find the enjoyment and satisfaction by what? Glorifying Him. Is He glorified in us loving our wife as Christ loved the church? Yeah. Would you say that the glorification of God, which is achieved through Christlikeness, would you say that the pursuit of Christlikeness is a selfish desire or a selfless desire? Because it's about us, about who we are, but it's not for us. So would you say that's a selfish desire? It's a desire that you should be dying to self as you're pursuing it. but it's for ourselves to glorify God. We're desiring something, a change in ourselves. Janet, I think that's what you were mentioning. Yeah, I'll just leave it at that. I've said enough stuff. I think that goes, I think that's the root of what we're trying to figure out. Is the desire to be like Christ a selfish desire or a selfless desire? I think then you're getting into judging the individual heart. I think that it should be a desire that is increasingly growing less selfless, all right? In this life, are we gonna be completely 100% rid of selfishness? No, no. In this life, should we continue growing to be less selfish and more God-glorifying? Yes. We don't do that by feeding selfishness. What is Piper's book, Desiring God? What is the tagline to it? Does anybody know? It is something about Christian hedonism. He took a lot of heat for that, right? Because hedonism is what? Yeah, it is completely self-seeking. Well, he defined Christian hedonism as finding that pleasure and completely emptying ourself and glorifying God. It's sort of, it's one of those things that just, it's like, okay, these ideas, these seeming paradoxes, right? That the less I feed myself, the less that I give to myself and give to God and glorify God, the more what? I find joy and pleasure. It's a paradox. It doesn't make sense, in a way. Another illustration that is very, very similar to this is service versus on a pursuit of making money. Money should be a result of service, not the other way around. We fight this like crazy with our technicians. It's very similar, I think, and it goes like when you and helping them realize and get what they want. And when you do that and ask a ton of great questions and just care about their lives, be human and not be Mr. Salesman, just care about them and they're like, they have this frustration, that frustration, great, I can help with all of that. You'll end up serving them and you'll end up making good money doing that. Well, everybody goes, you're just doing it for the sake of money. And it's the same thing. If you go in for the sake of money, being Mr. Salesman, you can make money that way, but people feel ripped off. Whereas you go in and care about them, and the end goal is, if they buy something great, if they don't, but I'm going to serve them, and money is a result of it, that you will end up helping them tremendously. And so it's often a fight, a battle. And I think it's very, just remind me of as you're going through that, it's very similar. He writes this, this is the definition he writes in his book. I feel like there's like, you guys feel like I'm contradicting myself here. Love is giving the other what they need without the primary motive of getting something temporal, getting some temporal reward. It's not forgetting that we will receive something in honoring and glorifying God. But it is removing the aspect of doing it out of a selfish motivation. It is doing it because you genuinely love the person. Now, that is a process of sanctification. Sometimes we are just gonna have to do it. And we're gonna have to remind ourselves. This is why scripture is so key in this battle that we face. Richard Baxter said this. Selfishness is the radical, positive sin of the soul, comprehending seminally, or in seat form, and casually all the rest. Man's fall was his turning from God to himself, and his regeneration consisteth in the turning of him from himself to God, and the mortifying of self-love. Selfishness, therefore, is all positive sin in one, as want of the love of God is the privative sin in one. So, how, let's transition a little bit. We can come back to this after we're done. We can debate, okay. How do we respond when your wife sins? How do we respond when your wife sins? Go Romans 5. Romans 5. How did God do it? Romans 5, we'll focus in on verses 6 through 8, but it says this, therefore since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into his grace in which we stand. What does he say there? Think about that. Through who? Through Christ. We have access to what? What do we have access to? John, you said Romans 5? Romans 5. 6? I'm reading, I'm starting at verse 1, but I'm going to get to 6 through 8. Verse 2, we have also obtained access by faith into His grace. What do we have access to through Christ? His grace. His grace. In which we stand and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that we rejoice in our sufferings, Knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has given to us. Listen, this is what he's getting across. This does not come from you. This is not born out of yourself or your heart. This, as Daniel said, it's impossible in yourself alone. But what is it done? This is now possible because of Christ's work on the cross that it can be poured into you through who? The Holy Spirit. And how do we enact the Holy Spirit? By asking Him and praying to Him to empower God's truth as we see it into our lives in daily action, okay? Verse six, for while we were still weak at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. Who's the ungodly? Yes. Yes. We always look at the ungodly sometimes and we think some other person. We must recognize we are the ungodly. and stop thanking ourselves on such high a plane and our spouse or that other person that is the point of frustration in our life as the ungodly. No, we were the ones that he died on the cross for. Verse 7, for one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die, but God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. How did true love actually, like how was it actually able to be demonstrated? Not that he died for people that were righteous. And in that, that's how love was able to be shown. You, are not necessarily demonstrating Christ-like love when your wife is easy to love. You demonstrate Christ-like love when she's not. I think that's great apologetic. How do you define love without the presence of evil? How do you define goodness without the presence of evil? God's always been loving, but that mercy has never been on display in the Trinity until sin came into the world. And God put that aspect of his love on display. Not that it wasn't there, but now it's got to be displayed in that. And we receive the benefit of it. God gives the glory, we get the good. He chose us. This is what you could have been. This is what I've done for you. We're gonna glorify God for that, you know, the death of His love for us. But, you know, how can God give Himself more fully to us in a display is that He can pour out His life unto death. That's how He can show, He can empty Himself. And that, you know. And what is a gospel manifestation of you in your marriage? It is dying to yourself that you can love her. Okay? There was one more thing I was going to say and then I was going to move to the questions. Let me ask you this. I'm so focused on this because I'm getting ready to do a series on it. What is grace? Define grace in your own terms. Unearned favor. Explain it. Now demonstrate, like, what would grace look like? I think grace looks like when you're wrong, is maybe an illustration, when you're wrong looking, keeping the other person's best in mind or thinking best of them. Instead of quickly thinking negative and just letting it go and moving on. I'm not sure what that meant, but I don't need to take that personally as an offense. Or maybe it did offend me, but you love it. I would say that would be a manifestation of love. What does scripture say? Love covers a multitude of sins, right? Being able to look past something is more of a manifestation of love than it is grace. But what is an outworking of grace? What would be just a simple illustration of how grace would work in an everyday situation? Somebody does you wrong. Forgive. Not just forgive. Now just forget it. What did you say again that grace was? Unearned or unmerited favors. Okay. What is it? Somebody does you wrong. Keeps serving and loving, pursuing, chasing. It's undeserved 100%. It's not grace. Okay, here's an illustration of grace, all right? Somebody does you wrong. Let's think of a situation. Let's leave the marriage thing situation just a little bit. Let's do something like traffic, right? Let's say somebody just cuts you off in traffic, all right? You're driving down the highway, and this person sits there, and you see them right there getting ready to turn out of the Walmart or something, and they are looking at you, And for some reason in their minds, they decide to just pull out anyways. They cut you off, you have to slam on the brakes. Now what is your instant reaction? Exactly, it's like, Christian cuss words. Okay, alright, then they go on. And they put their blinker on. But they never switch lanes. I mean, just continuing the frustration of an idiot driver, right? But then you're planning on going over to Chick-fil-A. Okay, and then you get frustrated because you see that person turn into Chick-fil-A too. And they are in the drive-thru line before you. Or maybe, that wouldn't work. They're behind you. Yeah, they're behind you. You pay for their meal. That's grace. Grace is saying, you don't deserve this because you've wronged me, but you know what? I'm gonna give you a gift. I'm going to do something for you to show you that I love you. Grace is not just forgiving. Grace is not just overlooking. Grace is saying, in the midst, in spite of what you did, I'm gonna do something kind and loving and good for you. See, what was mercy? If God had just showed mercy and never given us grace, what would that be? We don't get to go to hell, right? We miss hell. But what was his grace? It's not that we just miss hell, it's we get heaven. On top of heaven, we get hell for all eternity. On top of that, we get all the small little joys as we walk through this life. It's grace upon grace. It's grace more abundantly. It's more grace. So whenever I start talking to you about showing your wife grace, it's the same thing about showing Christ-like love. You don't get to demonstrate your grace whenever your wife is being a great wife. You only get to demonstrate grace in your marriage whenever she's driving you crazy. And that is why we need the Holy Spirit. That is why we need the Word of God. I watched a webinar this week. I'm trying not to go too long on this. I want to know where I'm at on time. I watched a webinar this week on, I'm doing a training class on marriage and family counseling. And the organization that I'm going through did a live webinar on biblical Bible memorization. and you're going to see this soon because I was so impressed by this. I thought this is amazing. Because the way that we, the practical outworking of putting God's Word into your heart is memorizing. This is what this guy did. He developed a system where he would take, they just simply looked like business cards is what they were. It looked like a business card. And he would take the lie and he would put on there the lie, and then he would take just like a statement that he would tell himself. All right, so let's use anxiety, all right, for the issue of anxiety. I don't know how this is gonna turn out. All right, that can create anxiety in us. We are worrying about all the different outcomes of a situation that may happen, and even the worst possible ones, and it's creating this anxiety within ourselves. Lie. And then underneath the word lie, he'd put truth, and then he'd have passage. passage on God's sovereignty and control, on the truth about peace over anxiety, from Philippians 4.8, think on these things. And he just made tons of these for different issues. And he said that he was counseling a guy, and I'll go over to this situation of like sexual temptation or pornography. So he was counseling a guy. And so he used this illustration, he said, this is what battle is. He said, what does the Bible liken to in the armor of God? a sword. And he said, imagine this. He does this illustration when he said he's preaching to teens or talking about this. He said that he brings two swords and he has one guy attacking him with a sword and he's sitting there defending the sword. And he said the guy will come at him with a sword and he'll take his sword and come up and block it and he'll quote a passage. And then the guy will throw another tack, and he'll block it, and he'll quote a passage, and he'll keep doing it. And he said, here's what the majority of the Christian church is today. He takes his sword, he sticks it in his sheath, and he says, anxiety, come at me. And the guy just comes at him, sticks his sword. But he said that, Utilizing scripture in the everyday thoughts of life is number one, how you're using your sword in everyday life. It is the defense that you must have. Number two, that is how the Holy Spirit starts affecting transformation in your life. It's recalling those scriptures in the real time. He said he had this guy that was struggling with this, and he said that he started working with him with different cards. Have you ever seen those old CD, plastic CD cases that zip up and stuff? Dude had one for business cards. I'd never seen one for business cards, but the dude had one for business cards, and all they were were pages full of those truth and lie cards, and he said he would carry it around. Like, dude carried it around, and so whenever he had a thought or he saw a woman walking down the street, he'd unzip that thing and he'd start going through them. And the guy said, crazy, right? Weird, right? He said, no, there's a Christian who's ready for battle. And I was like, so I'm gonna start working into utilizing that. It just transformed the way I think about this. So when we're talking about this aspect of this, and you say it's impossible, Start getting these verses in your everyday mind repertoire, where it starts calling to your mind this, and you'll see the Holy Spirit begin to change you and fill you in these situations to love her that way.