We good to go? Okay. Okay, so we're going to, I'm gonna do my best. All right, I'm gonna set an alarm and everything because I failed Joseph. He mocked me incessantly. Actually, he just made fun of me once. So it's a testimony to his sanctification because I would have probably not let that happen. I would have made fun of him much more than he did of me, but we'll set this for 30 minutes. That way I can start wrapping up. My Last week we went over Actually, let me pray start father. Thank you for this morning. Thank you for your word Thank you that you have spoken And that you have preserved your word for us so that we might know how to live help us to Not be ashamed of your word and not be ashamed of you, but to glorify you and all that we do Grant us your spirit now that we might grow in understanding for your glory and our good. Amen. All right, so last week we're in, for those of you that haven't been here, we're in a series on marriage. And it's really more than just marriage. We started off the first week talking about how to discern God's will sort of in general, so that that would drive us to God's word, to be able to understand what his revealed will is rather than spend hours upon hours hand-wringing over his mysterious will. Then we moved into what does it look like to be single in the church? What are some of the requirements for those who are unmarried in the church? And then we're now moving into, I think, the next week Michael taught on husbands, and then last week I taught on wives and kind of gave the big, hopefully the big theological underpinning of what the story is, what marriage is, who the husband is, who the wife is, and My help mate informed me that I was probably not as clear or helpful as I could have been for the women in the congregation last week because of my own personal timidity when it comes to addressing women's roles in the church and in their homes. I think, and I talked to you a little bit about some of that last week, I think part of it is it also sometimes feels self-serving for a guy to talk about what women should be doing. It feels kind of like maybe a preacher preaching on tithing. It's like, well, of course you're going to say that. You're the guy that, you know. So it feels a little bit that way when it comes to preaching or teaching on husbands and wives. And yet it doesn't seem like Paul had that issue, maybe because he wasn't married. So what I'm going to try to do for us this morning is not to allow my own deficiencies, my own insecurities, keep us from coming to the Word of God and seeing what does He say about these things. Because really, ultimately, my unwillingness to tell the truth about these things is really a revelatory of my own faith, not of the Word of God. So I'm going to try to repent of that this morning, so bear with me. What I want to first start with, and you'll see there in the little packets that Cohen handed out. Wife, did you need one of these? Yes, yes. So we're going to just basically read a lot of Bible this morning, just to allow God's word to hopefully set in and see that these aren't things that are made up. They're not cultural phenomenon. In some ways, they're very anti-cultural. But I first wanted to start with some general directives here. Paul is writing to Titus to help him set up the church there. And he says, he gives some instructions for older men. He says, older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and instead fastness. Now, he goes on in verse six to say, likewise urge the younger men to be self-controlled. So before we even get into husbands and wives, I think the big emphasis is on personal holiness. Okay, so whether you're a husband or you're a wife, there are so many commendations and requirements for you that don't just relate to what does it look like to be a husband. Every older man in the church is to be these things. Okay, every older man should be sober-minded, not given over to conspiracies or crazy teaching or fringe stuff. He's to be sober-minded, he's to be in his right mind, not given, as we'll see some of the instructions, particularly for women, not given over to much food or much wine, but to be in his right mind at all times. Sound in the faith, so not just sort of coasting along, but to be sound in the faith, know what he believes. And in particular, Paul then moves on and tells younger men, interestingly, to be self-controlled. Okay, that is a very interesting, again, it applies to all of us, but I think for younger men in particular, to control yourself. not to give yourself over to whatever you may find, but be self-controlled. I'm gonna actually skip these because Joseph is already looking at his clock. So what you have here is Paul, he's actually not an old man. Paul is writing to Titus probably in his late 40s or early 50s and he says, I'm not writing these things to make you ashamed but to admonish you. He's writing to the Corinthians now. For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers." He's writing to the whole church here in Corinth and saying, I became your father in Christ Jesus for the gospel. I urge you then to be imitators of me. And he says that again in chapter 11, follow me as I follow Christ. And then he says that that's why he sent Timothy. So in Ephesians, Timothy and Titus, you get a lot of these instructions for the church. And Paul is writing to the church. He's saying, look at my godly example, follow my godly example. And then he gives qualifications for overseers. So I'll let you kind of read those as far as general instructions. But then there in Titus, well, so the church at large is supposed to be able to look at her overseers or to look at the officers in the church and say, just like what Paul said, that he became a father in the faith, and then he tells the church, imitate him, the officers in the church should be able to say, hey church, look at our lives, Look at our homes. Look at our children. Look at the way that we are living. Do what we do. And that's a really scary thing, let me tell you. But that is how Paul has said the church is supposed to function. And so they're not existing autonomously. You don't have to go home, open your Bible, try to figure all this stuff out on your own. He's given us each other. He's told us what older men should be like. He's told us what the officers of the church should be like, and the elders in particular, so that when these things get out of whack, You are able to then come and say, this is out of whack. What do I do? And the elder should be able to say, here's what we do. You do this. And then you know what you should do. This. So that's a big calling. But all of these things that Paul is telling the broader church at large, these are things that should be practiced in the lives of everyone in the church, but in particular the officers. And so when you find if and when these things get out of whack, and they get out of whack in our life, and we go talk to each other, but when these get out of your whack, out of your whack, out of order in your homes, please, please come to us. Yeah, we'll skip, we'll skip Titus too. Actually, here in, is Julie, no, so I think starting in March at Julie and Peter Edmond's home, there are gonna be some women going through a book called Feminine Appeal. And it's really an exposition, is it Carolyn Mahaney? Carolyn Mahaney walks through this verse here that you have before you in Titus 2. So women, if that's something that you were interested in, that's gonna be something that's coming up. So I'm gonna go ahead and skip, and I'll let the older women teach the younger men, kinda like Paul tells Titus to do. So, all right, so let's move into husband-specific callings. All right. Now, we said last week that one of the interesting things about how whenever God is dealing with Eve in the garden after the fall, so he comes, he looks for the husband, he's asked where you're at, and then when he's administering the curses for sin, he addresses Satan, Eve, Adam. And then in the epistles, there's this pretty neat inversion where almost exclusively, the eves are addressed first. So in the curse, the wife is addressed first. In the blessings, the wives are addressed first. But we're gonna start with husbands so that I can be harder on guys like Abel, as is more comfortable for me to do. So, Ephesians 5, 25 through 33, this comes after Paul has addressed wives, we'll deal with that here in a second, but he says, husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, so 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, so 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 and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. So I'm gonna stop there and try to draw out a few things here that husbands, you have a responsibility before God to be manifesting these things in your home. just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. Now, I think the easy thing would be to kind of take the gunslinger, Wild West, my wife is in danger, there's a robber man, I'm gonna put myself between robber man and wife, robber man shoots me, I'm valiant, life-giving up husband, right? That's kind of cool. You know, don't take the girl, Tim McGraw, you know, take me, whatever. I think that's really great. That's the easy part. Okay, that's, I'm not saying that was easy for Christ, but I think for husbands, we can say, sure, I would, I would sacrifice my life for my wife. And then we play like an hour of watch TV and play video games while wife is exhausted at the end of the day. And the husband comes in and he's super tired and he deserves some alone time. It's like, wait, I don't remember who said it. Everyone wants to start a revolution, but nobody wants to do the dishes, right? Every husband wants to sacrifice his life for his wife unless he's tired from a long day at work. So many marriage sessions, when it comes down to when things get off, it's usually involving the husband not being diligent to sacrifice his own strength for his wife. Now, again, we'll deal with things later for the woman, but the husband doesn't, it's not as though he goes to work and he provides for his family all day long and then he's done when he gets home. No, you come home then and you are engaged. You don't come home and unplug. you come home and in some ways, that's when it really ramps up, right? It's in some ways work. And I mean, I've talked to a lot of you. When you're on like a week long vacation, when you're home all day, and the wife runs some errands for like four hours, By the time she gets home, the dude is like, what the heck? Like, I think there's thing, I gotta go back. 60 hour work week is calling, right? Because in some ways it's easier to leave work before, you know, leave for work before everybody gets up. So you don't have to deal with that chaos. And then you work all day with like relatively mature adults, right? I say relatively because, but they're not like climbing on you generally, depending on your work. They're not wanting cheese it every like 47 seconds. You're not having to go to the break room and do everybody's dishes. You generally get respect because you're there to work hard. And if you're doing your job well, people come to you and they ask for your advice and generally they listen. Right? Not so at home. You get home and all just chaos is there. And so a lot of guys would rather sacrifice by working 80-hour work weeks, skipping morning teeth brushing, socks putting on, shoe tying, late night teeth brushing, go to bed seven. I'm going to skip that so that I can provide for my family. That's an easy cop-out for Christian men. The idea that you would give your life up for your wife is not just go to work. You give over your life for your wife and your family all day, every day. And husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. So if you think you're tired, guess who else is probably tired? Probably your wife. And one of the ways that you love your wife like Christ loved the church is even when you're tired, Love your wife. Sacrifice for your wife. Play with the children so that she can go on a walk, right? Love your wives as Christ loved the church. And he also says there in verse 29, nourish and cherish her. Okay, it's not like you're partners in a law firm. There is a nourishment that goes into your wife. Who is this woman? I want to nourish her. And it's like a cultivation. And for some guys, early on, if they're not used to doing this, sometimes checklists are really helpful. What are some things I can do to nourish my wife? So I've counseled husbands before, and I had one guy, and I'm asking him, I'm like, well, what do you think you could do to be a better husband? He's like, man, I don't know. I'm like, well, who do you think you should ask? And he's like, oh, Michael Lortz. And I'm like, well, I mean, yeah, sure, Michael would be a good guy to ask. Anyone else? And he's like, Devin. And I'm like, yeah, Devin, you know, he's a good man, loves his wife. I think Amy feels probably quite cherished, great kids. Anyone else? And he's like, oh man, he's just, no, he just can't think of anybody. And I'm like, What about your wife? And you see this like dread slash embarrassment wash over him that he never, it never crossed his mind to be like, hey wife, what are some things I could do to be better loving you? We're dense, okay? Husbands, ask your wife for a checklist. Like if you don't know, if you're like, man, I really, save yourself angst, save yourself bitterness, because what you'll probably do is the husband that's like, okay, I'm really gonna nourish my wife. And so you'll go home and you'll do all these things that you think are a great idea. You'll probably get in her way, annoy her, and then you're going to get mad at her whenever she's not like super thankful for all the things that you're trying to do to nourish her. Save yourself all of that. Just go to her and say, what are some things I could do for you to make you feel loved? And then do those things. nourish your wife and cherish her. Hopefully we set the theology of this for you last week. This should be done out of a love for your wife, a desire for your wife, all of the ways that Christ looks at his church. You should be thinking about your wife in these ways. So we're trying to be more practical this morning. Go talk to your wives. Colossians 3.19, husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them. Okay, this is a command to you men who are married, do not be harsh with your wife. Now, I know that that probably is like, well, duh, right? But it's not well, duh. or Paul wouldn't have written. Okay, I confess, I struggle being harsh with my wife, and I need to be reminded by the word of God not to be harsh with my wife. The temptation is to think of yourselves, again, as partners, this is this grown person, okay, I go to work all day, these people know how to do their job, when I come home, why doesn't she know how to do her job? And so we get mad at the kids for frustrating us, we get mad at the wife for not being all the things that we expect her to be, and so then we become harsh. Do not be harsh with your wife. Christ is not harsh with His church. He is gentle with us, thankfully. He is patient with us. He speaks kindly to us. The words that you use with your wife should bring life and not death. Do not be harsh with your wife. Moving on into 1 Peter. Three, Peter exhorts husbands, 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 in the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered. Now, this likewise is after, Peter has explained to the church in exile that's undergoing unjust suffering, he has explained what does Christ look like in these trying circumstances. And it's in these trying circumstances that Christ's humility shines forth. His meekness shines forth. He has all the power. He has all the authority to bring legions upon legions on these people. that are making his life difficult, right? But he doesn't. He restrains himself and he endures faithfully and meekly. And so when Peter says likewise, he's drawing on all the imagery that he's just laid forth there in chapter two. And so husbands Likewise, live with your wives in an understanding way. And if you're going to live with, if we are going to live with our wives in an understanding way, we're going to have to try to understand our wife. OK, what makes her tick? What makes her tired? What makes her encouraged? What makes her discouraged? And that comes through talking, right? Something that a lot of us don't particularly like to do. But if we are going to live with our wives in an understanding way, the way we understand our wives is by asking them questions, listening to them, and then remembering the things that they said whenever we asked them the question. I had a discussion with one of our kids the other day. Their question was, well, it wasn't a question. It was, mom, why did you, mom, I said not to dry my overalls, okay? Insubordination, rudeness aside, we dealt with. My contention to this child was, your mom loves you, right? You have communicated this to your mom. And Rachel actually hadn't dried the overalls. She had hung the overalls. The kid was wrong. And if the kid had remembered all of these things about their mother, that mom loves me, I've communicated this to my mom, I'm experiencing this reality over here that seems to be like mom did the thing that I said for mom not to do, but that's not very mom-like. Mom usually loves me. Mom usually takes care of me. So the kid's response should have been, hey, mom, did you dry? If, assuming all else being equal, hey, mom, did you dry these overalls? Skipped all of that, right? Try to understand, the kid should have tried to understand, given everything she knows about her mom, Whoops, you just narrowed down one third of who the rascal might have been. But husbands, try to understand your wife. Don't jump to conclusions. Don't assume things about her, particularly those of you who are married to a woman who you know loves you. who you know is trying to take care of you, who you know is trying to do all the things that we're about to ask of her, that God asks of her here in these coming verses. Try to understand her. And you know, it's kind of cliche. I don't know that people throughout all the history of the universe ever got a monthly date night. but if you get a date night, what a great opportunity to just be asking these questions, set some time aside, be able to ask questions. And just a heads up, like the first couple times you do that, you're gonna fight, probably, I've heard. Because you're gonna be thinking, I'm gonna be this great husband man, I'm gonna live with my wife in an understanding way, and if you've never asked some of these questions, Heads up, y'all. She can be nice, but it's gonna hurt still. So endure the fight, and then do it again next month, and do it again next month. And over time, it'll sting less, you'll repent quicker, and you'll be able to understand your wife such that she's not constantly having to explain herself to you. Okay, done with husbands. Questions on husbands. before we move to the wives. Do what? Yeah, of course, right. We're actually gonna talk about pride in our sermon later, so that one wasn't in here. All right, so as we move on to these, I actually don't have a packet in front of me. What's the first one there for you guys? Oh, okay, so we kind of follow the same pattern. So interestingly, when, In the New Testament in particular, whenever husbands are addressed, there's always sort of this, guys, soften, right? It's in different ways, don't be harsh, live with them in an understanding way, honor your wife as the weaker vessel, but this sort of, if you're gonna put a texture to it, it's guys, soften. And it's in a manifest, a manifold ways that Paul and Peter encourage men to do that, but what's interesting is in every single address to wives, there is one common denominator, and it's one that we don't like generally in society, and that's wives submit to your husbands. So this is the one I danced around a ton last week. But Ephesians 5.22-24. Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. 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. What can sometimes be the case is you have this relationship, this picture painted in the scriptures of, well, Christ is the head of the church, the church is to submit to Christ, and the husband is called to reflect Christ, and all of these should be really hard ways, and then the wife can say, well, if he would just act like Christ, then I would submit. Right, if he would act more like Jesus, I'll act more like the church. The Bible doesn't give you those caveats, right? It's not as though Paul never says, Peter never says, wives, if your husband is reflecting Christ to you, then reflect the church to him. Like, that's not ever what happens. You cannot escape, just like we talked last week and the week before, we cannot escape the fact that marriage exists in order to tell the world and to tell one another something about who God is. You can't escape Guys, you cannot escape the fact that in your marriage, you are to reflect Christ to your wife. You will either do that well, or you will do that poorly, but you can't get out of it. The same is true for wives. You will paint a picture of the church to Christ in your marriage. You cannot get out of it. You will either tell a really good story about what that should look like, or you will tell a terrible story of what that should look like. And that's why your behavior is so often, and this is true for men as well, but your behavior is tied to the glory of God. Peter says for you to do these things so that the word of God will not be reviled. And now, when we look at the broader church right now, we actually see a pretty terrible story of how the church should submit to Jesus, right? The church is not quite fond of submitting to Jesus. Don't tell the same story. Tell a different story, guys. I don't think it's a coincidence that as we have rejected this idea that any of us would have authority over us, the church has lost her witness in the culture. We are, in some ways, functioned just like everybody else. We are just as unsubmissive as everybody else. As Christians, we have the opportunity to actually glorify God in our lives by manifesting what that should look like, and wives, you get to manifest submission in a way that is foreign to a watching world. Now, some things that Paul says here in Ephesians 5 is wives, submit to your own husbands. And we touched a little bit on this last week. So it is not as though every household needs to look like Cogbill household, right? Rachel has an obligation to make our household look like how I think our household should look because I am her husband. She doesn't have an obligation to turn into the Hanson household, or the Barnard household, or the Ed, even if those are great households, right? Her obligation is not to make her household look like the one she sees on Pinterest. Right, and what can often happen is the wife has in her mind what this beautiful, this household should look like. And so she wants to craft this really cool, and I'm sure it's a great household that you've seen online, right? Or maybe it's a great household that you think other people might have, even though you're not actually in their household, you just get to see the part when you go to the house and the dishes are clean. You want to have this household, but that's not what you're called to. There's so much more freedom in God's Word that He would have for you. Your household doesn't have to look like those. The only thing you have to worry about is, well, what does my husband want our household to look like? And if your husband's pleased, and if your husband thinks that this is what, I mean, he's gonna be held responsible by the Lord for this household. You can either help him, or you can make his job much harder for him. And so if he thinks this is what my household should look like, this is what I think about education, this is what I think about how we should use our money, this is what I think about our time, this is how I think we should faithfully live as a household, you get to help him with that and you don't have to worry about anybody else's. If the husband says, I don't care if there's dishes in our sink when people come over, they eat cereal too, don't stress about it. And we laugh because we've all fought about it probably, right? When we first started hosting community group, One of the biggest hurdles for a lot of the women in the community groups to get over was, well, their house has to look like this house, and that has to look, and the guy would be like, it's fine. Now, it's a wonderful desire to create a beautiful home, right? That's amazing. But you don't have to totally stress yourself out and use all of these other standards. Allow your husband to say, here's what I think is important. Here's what we should think is important. And then you get to think those things are important too. And you don't have to worry about everything else. Real quickly, Joseph, sorry. I want us to deal with 1 Peter 3 because this came up in our RBI course. This is something that I think is important because it is a, Well, Ephesians 5, 22 and 24, gosh, we're not gonna have time for that. Okay, 1 Peter 3, likewise, so again, the things that Peter has just set forth about Jesus that he then likewise brings husbands' attention to, he's likewise bringing wives' attention to in 1 Peter 3. Wives, be subject, again, 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. And then he goes on to the adorning or the things that make you beautiful are not merely external. So it actually gets left out in this translation. But what sometimes happens is pietists come to this verse and they say, how you look doesn't matter. Right, so don't wear makeup and earrings, don't dye your hair, you should have a pretty heart. That's not what Peter's, it's not what he's saying, okay? He's saying don't nearly let it be those things. So the assumption is we are going to be tempted in that direction, that if I'm beautiful here, that's really what matters, okay? It's fine to be beautiful here. You actually should pursue beauty externally, but it's not merely external. It should be the person of the heart. So that aside, let's deal with the without a word phrase. What sometimes happens is people come to this verse, and because in the context, if some do not obey the word, they may be one without a word, right? And so some people will come to this text, particularly, well, some people will come to this text, and they will say, this only applies in the case that a woman is married to an unbeliever. Okay, that is a common interpretation of this text, but that is actually not true. It is true that if the woman is submitting to her own husband, if the woman is winning him in these ways, then, and Paul argues this in 1 Corinthians 7, she might be an instrument to her unbelieving husband's salvation. Okay, that is very, very, very true. But what gets left out is the phrase, even if. Okay, so the idea that a godly woman can win her husband by her conduct and not her words is true even for an unbeliever. even for the guy who doesn't have the Holy Spirit, even for the guy who rejects everything else about the Word, even that guy might see the behavior of his wife and be changed. But if that's true for even that guy, it is still true for the Christian. Okay, so what we don't want to do is, likewise, wives, be subject to your husbands if they're an unbeliever. That's not what Peter's saying. That's not what Paul says. Even if he's an unbeliever, you are to submit to him. Now, like we said last week, he doesn't get to lead you into sin. He doesn't get to lead you into disobedience. If he's not gonna get up and take your kids to Sunday school, get up and take your kids to Sunday school. If he gets pissed about it, come talk to us, okay? You be faithful. But it's not as though Peter's saying, be subjects to your own husbands only if they're an unbeliever. He's saying, no, wives, be subject to your own husbands. Even if they're an unbeliever, that might change them. And then coming down, likewise, wives, you can win your husbands without a word when they see you respectful and pure conduct. So some of the most convicting times for me as a husband is actually when Rachel doesn't say anything. Because when she does say something, you know what sometimes kicks in? I mean, it hasn't happened for years, but my pride. And so she says something and I dig, right? My heels are good, not in these shoes, they're kind of old, but I'll dig. And then I want to explain, and it's sin, right? I'm not justifying it. But when she doesn't say anything, then burning coal is just, they're showering it down. Son of a gun, I gotta go fix this, right? So wives, be careful. Peter doesn't say, the assumption is you've already spoken, right? The assumption in 1 Peter 3 is something has already been said, otherwise there wouldn't be a word for this guy to go against. The assumption is you've already said something. If your husband's doing something, by all means, talk to him. This isn't saying you have to be a mime and you have to be like. No, be like, hey man, can you take out the trash? It's not saying don't talk. It's just saying once you guys have talked about this, be godly, be submissive, and you can win this guy. If you're able to win somebody who doesn't have the Holy Spirit, how much more is this guy gonna respond to the conviction of the Holy Spirit, okay? So that's a kind of a practical thing there from 1 Peter 3, kind of being able to avoid that erroneous but popular interpretation. Questions over, questions over that, you actually see, The example that Peter uses is actually the example of two believing spouses, right? So it's not as though he uses Abigail and Nabal, right? It's not as though Peter expands on his example by using a believing wife and Nabal. He expands on his example by using Sarah and Abraham. Okay, so we're dealing with two believers in this text. Okay, questions before I let Joseph sing to you. Yes, sir. Yeah. Yes. Yeah, she definitely talked to him. And sometimes he listened to her. And it wasn't that good. And sometimes you listen to her when it was, you know, so it's not about it's not just about talking. It's about your reverence and your behavior.