Well, I'm going to go ahead and get started. We have several, I think, that sort of going to have to cut out early. So I'm going to go ahead and start while you guys are eating your food. I know I asked you to bring a Bible and something to write on. So how you're going to write and feed your face, you figure that out. but I figured there may be a few things that you might want to write down. Normally, I say normally, I want to say all the time but I want to be honest too, normally whenever I prepare something it works on me first so and that's sort of what this did and was able to have some time with my wife last night and sort of go over these things with her. and let her sort of assess, you know, maybe not assess, but just get some honest feedback from her on these types of things. So we'll go ahead and get started. To review, our purpose here is to strengthen our fellowship together. call the men of our church to biblical leadership in their home, meaning for them to be the spiritual leaders in their marriage and parenting, and to glorify God by carrying out His purpose for the church by practicing the one another's with each other. And so that is sort of our threefold purpose. I want to remind us of that every time we meet. And I said last week, or last month, that the material that I'm going to be going through is a book called The Complete Husband. So I just want to be upfront and honest. It's sort of like a book study. So while I'm going to be sort of doing it in teaching form, if I'm reading it, unless I say that this is a quote from someone else, then just go ahead and say it's not my words. It's from the book. It's Lou Priola's words. So instead of me just saying, and Lou Priolo said, Lou Priolo said, Lou Priolo said, then just know that it's not like if it's wrote down and I'm reading it, it's a quote from that guy. So I am going to follow a little bit of his outline as well. So I just want to be upfront and honest. If I say something and you're like, oh, that's pretty good, it's not me. If it's not good, then it's not me either. I'm just joking. I'm just joking. Alright, so this is the first lesson in the book. Did anybody buy the book? Okay, a couple. Alright. The first lesson in the book is this, the first chapter is, I wish she came with a manual. Now, just the idea of that thought right there is sort of like, okay, yeah, you know, you might shake your head and sort of chuckle. I wish she came with a manual. Imagine how easy it would be to live with your wife if she came with a set of instructions, a book in which you could find everything you needed to know in order to keep her healthy, happy, and humming at optimum capacity. Mason's birthday just had it and he was all he wanted was Legos. And so we built Legos for an entire day and just following the instructions. I like to follow the instructions, you know, that thing to make sure that I'm doing it right. And, you know, you think about that sometimes when you are glashing or your wife does something or says something out of nowhere and it's sort of like, We've been together this long, and I thought I just about had you figured out, but when you say something like that, I'm just like, I'm still at a loss. And that kind of thing. You know, the truth is, your wife does, in fact, come with an operator's manual. The reason you've never seen it is because it's tucked away in her heart. Deep down in her heart is all the personal information you need in order to understand and nurture your wife according to the Bible. And that's sort of the idea. The key to understanding your wife is knowing her heart. You say, well, that seems like an impossible task. I don't think it is. I don't think it is. Because I think that when you understand what marital intimacy is, and it's funny, I remember counseling a couple one time, and I said, hey, can you, and I'm gonna be appropriate, guys, but I said, tell me what comes to your mind when I say the word intimacy. Literally, the husband had one definition for it, and the wife had one definition for it, and they were completely different. And so I said, OK. And I said, honestly, I think if you combine both of your definitions, you're getting closer to what it is. Because it's really knowing each other. And I think that if you get into that realm, I think knowing how she operates is possible. But it's not easy. Look at 1 Peter 3, 1 Peter chapter 3, verse 7. 1 Peter 3, verse 7. And I'm recording this because I think we had some that couldn't make it. Michael is in Wisconsin, and so I thought that maybe it might be beneficial to record some of these. So that's why I'm wearing this. But 1 Peter 3, verse 7. Well, I'm gonna read from verse one while you're getting there. Likewise, wives be subject to your own husbands so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives. When they see your respectful and pure conduct, do not let your adorning be external, the braiding of hair, and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear, but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious. This is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves Now, what you should not do is go home today and say, hey, John taught us all these things. Let me read this to you, straighten you out, okay? All right, this is just gives us an understanding Peter's Peter's covering and it is interesting how many times in the New Testament letters You know, this is addressed like the marriage relationship is addressed. It's it's several times so verse 7 Likewise husbands now talking to us Likewise husbands live with your wives in an understanding way showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel since they are heirs with you of the grace of life so that your prayers may not be hindered. So live with your wife in an understanding way. What in the world does that mean? How do you understand her? Some of you may be thinking, I've been married for 10 plus years and I still don't understand her. The Bible places the burden of understanding on you. As the husband, you're the one who must take the initiative to draw out of your wife the information necessary to developing and maintaining the one-flesh intimacy that God intends you to have with her. I think I said last time that in the role of biblical headship, there can be things that your wife does in the home and in the household that is much, she has greater strengths and talents than you do, and so therefore she is sort of taking, if you allow me to use this word, taking the lead in that area. But there's one area you cannot delegate, and that's the spiritual leadership of your home. you must be the spiritual leader. I had a couple in my counseling room and they're coming in and they were wanting to know, you know, what are the marriage roles? What does the Bible say? And, you know, so we covered how the wife is to submit. And he, I could see on his face, this little Like that, like he was, yeah, he's telling her. And then I talked about, I said, all right, you're supposed to be loving her and cleansing her with the word, meaning you're supposed to be spiritual leadership. So as I do in counseling, I normally give like a homework assignment. So I send them home with, and I always give scripture. So they come back and they have scripture. And I said, all right, so tell me what the scripture verse is. And so they, she repeats it back to me. I said, so, all right, your turn. Tell me the scripture that you were supposed to read this week and sort of memorize. I said, well, I only read it twice. I said, OK, now. I said, listen, man. I said, what was the two things that you need to be doing? He said, loving her and cleansing her with the Word. I said, you want her to submit. I said, but how in the world are you going to ask her to submit whenever you're not even doing your job? being the spiritual leader of your home. I said, she comes in here and she's got the verse done. She's leading you in spirituality and you can't even get the verse memorized. So how are you leading spiritually here? No, no. I was like, yeah. You know, I was like, I hate, I don't like stepping on toes. I said, I really don't like doing this, but I mean, are you getting the drift here? And he's like, yeah. And so the responsibility for understanding is on you. It's on you. This is not me telling you. This is the Bible. The Bible says that you're supposed to understand her. So how do we do this? That's the question, right? How do we do this? We do it by understanding two things. Two ways. First, we need to understand a biblical view of marriage. And second, the importance of communication in marriage. And so we're going to spend many lessons, sort of like many, we're going to spend a few lessons sort of breaking down those two things. So a biblical view of marriage and the importance of communication in marriage. Those are the two things that we need to have down in order to get to that point where we are understanding her and understanding our wives. So let's zero in. We're not even going to get to Ephesians 5 this morning with understanding a biblical view of marriage. And quite honestly, I may, even when we get to it, I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time in it because eventually we'll be covering it from the pulpit on Sunday mornings. And I'm going to do a deep dive into that. I'm actually going to break it down. I'm going to do one message to the wives and one message to the husbands when I get to chapter 5 on Sunday mornings. But first, a biblical view of marriage. Turn to Genesis 2. Genesis 2. You're familiar with the story, right? God creates the heavens and the earth, creates man, named Adam, and then he says it's not good for what? Right? It's not good for you to be alone. And so he creates woman. He creates Eve out of Adam. So look at verse 18, chapter 2, verse number 18. Then the Lord God said, it is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him a helper fit for him." Now, the King James uses a word called help meet, and that has become a term that has really gotten into the church culture, and so people are real quick to use the word help meet. Listen, this is a little aside of Johnology here because I've done so much research into translations and stuff because of my background with King James only-ism. Helpmeet was a made-up word. I say a made-up word. It was a brand new word. There was no word of helpmeet before that. The Hebrew term behind it does not mean helpmeet. It simply means helper. Helpmeet is just a strange term, but yet for some reason we've created the entire category of a helpmeet. All right. The idea here is a helper fit for Him. So, this first aspect of a biblical view of marriage is the covenant of companionship. The covenant of companionship. the covenant of companionship. So we see this first in Genesis 2 in the creation of Adam and Eve with the idea of him being a helper. J. Adams said this, God provided Eve not only as Adam's helper but as his companion. He too, as all other husbands since, is to provide companionship for her. Now, go from the first book in your Old Testament to the last book in your Old Testament, Malachi. Malachi chapter 2, verse 14. Malachi 2, verse 14. But you say, why does he not? Because the Lord was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. The word companion has its kernel idea that of union or association. A companion is one with whom you are intimately united in thoughts, goals, plans, efforts, and yes, embodies too. Okay? So let me get you an understanding of that again. A companion is one with whom you are intimately united. What is united there? Unity. There's unity in marriage. There's agreement. There's on the same page, right? Of thoughts, goals, plans, and efforts. Now, if we took a test in here of our marriages and asked how many of our marriages are picturing that, I'm sure that we would come up short in some areas. And I use the term we because I'm assessing myself in this as well. That's why I had a talk, I sat down with my wife last night and talked through some of these things. So that's what we should be going for. I mean, that's what we should be looking at. So it's like, okay, one of the roads to this is understanding your wife. And doing that is understanding what your marriage should be. It's a covenant of companionship. Now, there's one aspect of getting to this idea of companionship that helps us understand how to get there. And I'm going to use a term here that's going to totally make you think of prophecy, but it's not. It's revelation. Revelation simply means revealing oneself. Think about, we talked about this this week, think about your relationship with God without His revelation to you. What is God's revelation to you? This is the Bible, right? Think about how your relationship with God would be if this didn't exist. Not very much, right? There would be so much you would not know about God. Think about how much you do know about God and how much you have a relationship with God because He has revealed Himself to you. And who took the initiative to do that? He did by choosing to reveal Himself to you through His Word. It took effort. It took forethought. It took planning. It took his purpose being fulfilled for us to have what we have in front of us. All right? Revelation is important for relationship. Meaning you revealing yourself to your wife is key. It's huge. As men, we don't like doing that. And we could get into the psychobabble stuff about why, but that's not important. And quite honestly, every man's different. Some men don't have a problem with it. Some men are OK with it. Some men struggle with it more than others. And a lot of times, past issues have a lot to play into that. But when it comes down to it, and listen, I think that it would be helpful and beneficial as we are going through these things together that we are growing closer to each other. But can I be honest? There is not a single person in this room that you should be revealing yourself to more than your wife. I mean, you're talking about the stuff where you get uncomfortable and you really don't want to, but your wife should know those things. I'm not saying anybody in here should, but your wife should. The importance of revelation to companionship. Imagine, okay, so I said that if two people reveal themselves to each other, they will be able to have an intimate relationship with each other. There's a whole aspect of this that I would probably, I didn't have it written down, but I could probably comment on, but I don't want to be inappropriate with kids in here. But I'm telling you, it matters. All right, so hindrances. This is what I want to do for the rest of it. Again, these are going to be short snippets. So the rest of it, the rest of this, I want to talk a little bit about hindrances to revelation. Hindrances that keep you from revealing yourself to your wife. Having that companionship, having that communion with her. All right, number one's fear. Genesis 3. The curse, right? You have, they sin in the garden. You have the temptation of the serpent. You have, they recognize what they've done. And in verse seven of Genesis three, it says, then the eyes of both were opened and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, Where are you? And he said, I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself. All right. A couple of observations. We see that God asked where he was. Who answered? Adam or Eve? Alright, so let's talk about the man here. What was the reason he gave that he hid? Fear. He was afraid. Why was he afraid? Disobedience, yeah. But now he knew he was exposed. And that brought fear, that brought the emotion of fear. So therefore the motivation behind him hiding was fear. Now again, this may not be for every one of you, this may not be, but sometimes we do not disclose things because of fear. Sometimes, The anxieties or fears that we as men may have do not come and manifest themselves as fear. You say, what are you talking about? Well, it's real easy to see when somebody's worried about something, right? But men and the culture that we're brought up in are like, we're not supposed to be fearful, feminine, that kind of thing. So what happens is a lot of time those fears and anxieties manifest themselves in anger. What would be a fear for many men? Not being able to protect their family. So when danger comes or something like that or something is done, I've seen men that actually lash out to their wives because they put themselves or put maybe the kids in a situation where they thought it was unsafe. And so therefore the fear of the man was manifesting itself in anger. He wasn't necessarily having an anger problem. It was a fear problem. And what probably would have been more beneficial to that marriage was instead of having a conflict of anger that's lashing out, is sitting down with that one who should be able to understand, sitting down and saying, listen, I get what you're doing, but when you do those types of things, or when that's kind of, I fear that you're now in danger. Okay? I could go to a personal illustration, but I don't want to be long. Selfishness. Number two. Selfishness. Hindrances to revelation between you and your wife. Fear. Next one is selfishness. Selfishness. Probably the most common. There is a very real corollary in the Bible between sinful fear and selfishness. Why? Because people who are selfish tend to be fearful. They're afraid that they're going to lose the thing that they want. And it's focused inward. It's focused on self. The opposite of and antidote to fear is... Anybody know? The opposite of and antidote biblically to fear is what? Love. It's love. Perfect love casts out The opposite of an antidote to fear is love, to sinful fear. Love, now get this, love is the opposite of an antidote to the sin of selfishness. Let me read this one to you, 1 Corinthians 13. What is 1 Corinthians 13? Love, yeah. Verse three, if I give away all I have and deliver up my body to be burned, I have not, but have not love, I gain nothing. Verse four, love is patient and kind. Love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant or rude. Here it is. It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful. The opposite of an antidote to selfishness is love. It's love. Love does not seek its own way. So consider these definitions. Consider these definitions thinking about this. Love, the definition of love, being more concerned with what I can give than with what I can get. Alright, think about that. A working definition of love is being more concerned about what I can give than what I can get. Put that in a relationship of you and your wife. It's more about what you can give to her than what you get from her. There can be many applications in that. Working definition of selfishness. Being more concerned with what I can get than what I can give. It's about me. I want. So, selfishness is being more concerned about what I can get than what I can give. Love is being more concerned about what I can give than what I can get. Fear, then, is being more concerned with what I might lose than with what I can give. I may be stepping into dangerous territory here. I think this is what you see a lot in the country. You see a lot of this in American politics and with people in the country. Because a lot of things are based on the fear of what they might lose. I think you see this in churches. I think you see this with churches that don't want to do anything, change, or want to go forward and do anything in the ministry. Because they're so fearful of what they might lose than what they can give. But think about that in your own marriage. What are you fearful of losing? So love being more concerned with what I can give than with what I can get. Selfishness being more concerned with what I can get than with what I can give. And fear being more concerned with what I might lose than what I can give. The third one, so first is fear, second is selfishness, third hindrance is pride. Pride. I thought this was interesting when I read this. Pride is the AIDS of the soul. What is AIDS? I didn't write down the definition of the acronym. But AIDS is a virus that effectively blinds the eyes of its victim's bodily defense system. This prevents his autoimmune system from seeing and consequently destroying those deadly pathogens that ultimately kill them. AIDS is a virus that basically causes the white blood cells not to do anything. Our bodies were created amazingly by God. All right, some of you know that I like superheroes, right? And so one of the superheroes that is out there is called Wolverine. And one of Wolverine's superhero powers is that he regenerates healing like just like that. So like somebody shoots him in the head, you know, about 10, 20 seconds, the bullet pops out and as it heals, he's back at it, all right? Quite honestly, the way our bodies are made is like Wolverine just a whole lot slower. I mean, in a way, yes, we have medicines that help, but if you really understand how your body works, I mean, given time and the right environment, it heals itself on most occasions. Okay. And a lot of that with sickness is the white blood cells. The white blood cells come in whenever there's a virus coming in. The white blood cells act in a way that they almost have like this coordinated special forces attack system where they surround the virus and then overtake it. And then once the virus is completely enclosed in the white blood cell it almost like I read somewhere where it's like it detonates and explodes and eliminates it. All right. AIDS is where you basically take the defense system off the table because it keeps the white blood cells from doing anything. That's why if somebody has AIDS virus, if they get the common cold, it could kill them. Priolo makes the connection that pride is like the AIDS of the soul. Pride is like the edge of the soul. Listen to this. Pride blinds you, not only to itself, but to every other sin tucked away in the recesses of your heart and life. Think about that. Our pride blinds us to our problems, our very own problems. It deceives you into thinking that you are spiritually well, when in fact you have a deadly cancer and are in desperate need of the great physician's cure. I'm going to read that again. Pride deceives you into thinking that you are spiritually well when in fact you have a deadly cancer and are in desperate need of the great physician's cure. Pride keeps you thinking that the issue of conflict that you have is her fault. It's her fault. One of the worst times we had in our marriage, we didn't talk for three whole days. Three whole days. And I remember what I was thinking during that. I remember thinking this. I always apologize. I always apologize. I will not do it this time. This time, she's going to make things right first. What is that? It was stupid, immature, selfish pride. I know you're wanting to know how we got it right, right? I was sitting there preparing for a message on Wednesday night. I was like, I can't preach in this thing. So I called her up and I was like, listen, I'm sorry. I don't even remember what we were fighting about. She's like, I don't remember either. And I was like, I'm so sorry. And so we made things better. But I mean, pride keeps you from those types of things because it keeps you focused not on yourself, but on your sin, but theirs. It is your pride that holds you back from revealing those things to your wife about which you are ashamed. Because she is your wife, she has a biblical need to know certain things about your life that affect your relationship with her. Because she is your suitable helper, she has a biblical need to know about certain things in your life that affect your relationship with God. Your wife is the greatest asset you have in your process of sanctification. It's not the pastor. It's not a discipler. It's not your best friend. I mean, where you are at in your relationship with God should be regular discussions that you have with your wife. I mean, we've talked about that. Me and my wife will go on a walk and we'll sit there and talk about, like, what are you struggling with right now? I feel like I've told her, I feel like I have the deepest conviction right now of, you know, either my prayer life. Just being open and honest with her. And she says, how can I pray for you? How can I help you in this matter? I've said this, I can't talk about the issue of pride, this is not directly in the notes, but I can't talk about the issue of pride without making this statement. You are no more like Satan than whenever you are filled with pride. Because the one sin that caused Lucifer's downfall was pride. That is the most satanic thing you can do, is be filled with pride. The last two I didn't have much to go with because I really don't think that this is common. This is the majority of the issue. The fourth one is laziness, hindrances to revelation, hindrances to revealing yourself to your wife. The fourth one is laziness. Remember there is something harder than changing. It's not changing. Right? Because this is going to be uncomfortable. It's going to take effort and change where you don't really do it. And it's a lot easier just to let things keep going. But that's on a path down to be. I had an illustration I was going to tell you, but OK, we're doing all right on time. All right, so I'm going to give you a practical illustration on how not doing the thing that you should do right in the moment is a lot harder than when you wait on it. All right, so I'm at the car lot. It's like three months ago, literally three months ago. I'm walking up and down, checking trucks and everything. And I look in the back of this is a 2014 Chevy Silverado. And there's just a simple little takeout dish of leftover food. Looked like somebody had just went to the restaurant. I mean, it was fresh and in a little bag in the back of that truck. And I immediately got aggravated. I was like, that's my brother-in-law's. He just left his food in one of the car lot trucks. I'm not getting it. I should have said, you know what? Forget it. I'll just grab it, throw it under trash, or go ask him whose it is. No, I was aggravated. I wasn't going to get it. Well, move on. Out of sight, out of mind. Go on every now and again. I would, ooh, that looks worse. And just keep on going. And it stayed there for three months. Yeah, for three months. I think Monday I walked past it because I was starting cars up and I walked past it and I was like, something smells like it's got trash in the back. And I look and I was like, oh, it's brown. Definitely not going to handle it now. OK, yesterday. He comes to me at lunchtime. I'm sitting there eating my lunch. He said, when you get done with your lunch, take that 2014 Chevy, run it through the car wash. I got somebody coming to look at it. I said, all right. I swear, honest truth, I didn't think one thing about that thing. I went and got the key, went and got some car wash money. I just jumped at it and went. Last thing I ever thought was there was something in the back. So I took it to the car wash. They vacuum the inside of it, and they send it through. I'm sitting there just waiting. I'm listening to something on my earbuds. And then it comes through, and I go out there. They're drying it off outside. As soon as I opened the door, I was like, man, something smells like a wet dog. Oh, this stinks so bad. I'm like, what is that smell? And I look over at the people drying. I was like, is it done? They're like, yeah, come here. And I was like, what? And they're like, there's something dead in there. You need to take this through again. It's making us all sick. And I was like, oh, that bad smell is me. I brought the bad smell. And I realized what happened. When it went through the car wash, that thing was so rotted that it just like busted open. and that smell was awful. So I took it back to the car lot and I said, okay, there was something in the back, trying to make it sound as good as possible. I said, there was something in the back and it broke open in the car wash and now it smells terrible. And my brother-in-law looked at me and said, well, take it to one of them car washes and get the pressure washer and clean it out. I was like, you're gonna make me do it. I was like, okay. So I went, it took me two times through and with the thing and I got it out there and got that smell out. If I had just done the thing that I should have done three months earlier, I mean, I was getting a headache like that. It was that bad. Like it was so awful. Listen, if you recognize right now with what we've been talking about this morning that there are issues that you need to start working on these things, do not wait. Don't wait. Don't put it off. Because it's not going to be good. The last one is ignorance. So here's some closing questions. Does fear, selfishness, pride, laziness, or ignorance keep you from disclosing to your wife all the necessary information about yourself that she must have in order to be your helper? To what extent does your wife reveal herself to you? I'm sitting here talking to you about opening up to her. Does she open up to you? Does she feel safe enough to open up to you? Does she feel comfortable enough to open up to you? That's one of the questions I asked Mary last night. You know what she told me? She said, yeah, there was a point in our marriage where I didn't. Not feel safe, but not feel comfortable. I was like, Okay. What would you say prevents her from disclosing herself to you? All right, so last time I gave you a passage, a verse to memorize. I think it was Colossians. Him who we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom that we may present everyone complete or mature in Christ. Did I say that all right? I was trying to quote it because I memorized it too. Okay. All right. So here's, I'm going to give you assignments. Say it's in my DNA. I have to give assignments. Okay. So here's your assignment. Here's your assignment. I want you to memorize 1 Peter 3, 7. Live with your wife in an understanding way. That's the passage. Memorize 1 Peter 3, 7. And I want you to do these sometime within the next month. I want you to plan a time to sit down with your wife, turn the TV off, kids are in bed, and ask her these two questions. I want you to ask her these two questions. Do you think or feel that I withhold being totally open to you. And what I mean by that is this, not letting you in on my biggest fears, concerns, and shortcomings. I'll read it again. Do you think or feel that I withhold being totally open to you, not letting you in on my biggest fears, concerns, and shortcomings? Who needs that to be read again? All right. Do you think or feel that I withhold being totally open to you, not letting you in on my biggest fears, concerns, and shortcomings? What I mean by that is what you think it is. We all, everyone's their hardest critic, right? What is those things that you're beating yourself up on? She should know. Do you think or feel that I withhold being totally open to you, not letting you in on my biggest fears, concerns, and shortcomings? Ready for the next one? All right, so the second question you're going to ask her is sort of the same, but in reverse. You're going to ask her, do you think or feel that you cannot be totally open to me? sharing with me your deepest fears, concerns, or shortcomings. So basically the first one you're asking her if she thinks that you don't do that, and then the second one you're asking her if she feels that she can't do that with you. So number two is do you think or feel that you cannot be totally open to me, sharing with me your deepest fears, concerns, or shortcomings? Start small and ask what is one practical way you can work on changing that, if that is in the negative. Start small and ask what is one practical way you can work on changing that. And then the last one is pretty simple. Pray that God will empower you to change. Pray that God will empower you to change. Let me say one quick thing. Does anybody need any of that repeated? One quick thing. For some of you, when you get to this point and you ask these questions, it's a good possibility that just asking those questions will turn into an argument. I'm not joking. Because if you're not habitually sort of cultivating that kind of communication with your wife, then your sinful pride may react with whatever the answer might be, or she may not respond right, or this, that, and there's a good chance that that could turn into an argument. Do not let that discourage you. If that happens, let it calm down, let emotions subside, ask forgiveness from God, and then go back and ask her to forgive the way you responded. We're gonna get to it, but I'm gonna ask one thing, you may wanna try it, but I remember listening to a marriage seminar by, I think it was either Piper or C.J. Mahaney, and he said, he encouraged all the men at that conference to go home and ask their wife, sit down with their wife and say, ask this question, if you knew that I would not respond sinfully, what is one area about me that you think I should change? And I remember listening to that, and I was foolishly listening to it with Mary in the car. And I was like, that's a joke. That's a joke, guys. But he said that, and I was like, oh, did she hear that? Oh, yeah, she heard that. OK, now I've got to ask her. But it is. It's a good thing. If you can get to that point where you can ask her that, it's a good thing to do, because it cultivates honesty in her. And it sort of sets yourself up not to go into that sinful pride of defensiveness. So I probably went a little bit longer. Yes? If you knew that I would not respond sinfully, what is one area you think I should change?" And she looks at you and she says, all of it. That's a joke guys, it's a joke. All right, I know it went a little bit long, but like I said, that stuff worked on me first, so I wanted to cover that with you, and we'll work through it. But let's pray, and I'm gonna get me some breakfast, all right? Father, thank you so much for all that you've done for us. Thank you for these men. Thank you for their hearts and their concern to grow closer to you and to grow closer to their wives and to cultivate families that glorify you. I pray that you will strengthen their covenants of marriage. And I pray that you will strengthen our church, our church family. We love you and we give you praise in Jesus' name. Amen.