SPEAKER_00: When my race is complete, my lips shall repeat.
SPEAKER_00: Not I, but Christ in me.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Let's open up our Bibles tonight, guys, to the book of Ephesians, chapter 5, verse 23, Ephesians 5, 23.
SPEAKER_00: We'll get there in just a minute.
SPEAKER_00: It's been an honor to be with you, gentlemen.
SPEAKER_00: Got to take out pretty quick tonight, or get out rather pretty quick this evening after I preach, driving back to Austin.
SPEAKER_00: Gonna preach in the morning.
SPEAKER_00: So just want to say in advance, it's been an honor to be with you guys.
SPEAKER_00: And so tonight I want to talk about marriage, my marriage, and how to love our wives well biblically.
SPEAKER_00: If you've been in the church long enough, you've probably heard that it's your responsibility as a husband.
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, we got any single guys in here?
SPEAKER_00: All right, take notes, guys.
SPEAKER_00: Take notes.
SPEAKER_00: It's coming.
SPEAKER_00: You probably heard it's your responsibility to biblically love and lead your wives.
SPEAKER_00: But what I've sort of realized is that there's a problem, and the problem is that most of us really don't know how to do that.
SPEAKER_00: Um we we don't really have a good idea of what it looks like to biblically love and lead our wives, and those that do, sometimes we're not even very good at it.
SPEAKER_00: And so I want to I want to show you a quick video.
SPEAKER_00: I think it's just a couple minutes about sort of how difficult it is sometimes to love our wives.
SPEAKER_03: It's just there's all this pressure, you know?
SPEAKER_03: And sometimes it feels like it's right up on me, and I can just feel it, like literally feel it in my head, and it's relentless, and I don't know if it's gonna stop.
SPEAKER_03: I mean, that's the thing that scares me the most, is that I don't know if it's ever gonna stop.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: Well, you do have a nail in your head.
SPEAKER_03: It is not about the nail.
SPEAKER_01: Are you sure?
SPEAKER_01: Because I mean, I'll bet if we got that out of there.
SPEAKER_03: Stop trying to fix it.
SPEAKER_01: No, I'm not trying to fix it.
SPEAKER_01: I'm just pointing out that maybe the nail is causing- You always do this.
SPEAKER_02: You always try to fix things when what I really need is for you to just listen.
SPEAKER_01: See, I don't think that is what you need.
SPEAKER_01: I think what you need is to get the nail.
SPEAKER_02: See, you're not even listening now.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, fine.
SPEAKER_01: I will listen.
SPEAKER_01: Fine.
SPEAKER_02: It's just sometimes it's like there's this achy.
SPEAKER_03: I don't know what it is.
SPEAKER_03: And I'm not sleeping very well at all.
SPEAKER_03: And all my sweaters are snagged.
SPEAKER_03: I mean, all of them.
SPEAKER_01: That sounds really hard.
SPEAKER_03: It's thank you.
SPEAKER_03: Ow!
SPEAKER_01: Come on.
SPEAKER_03: If you would just tell things How many of you ladies have?
SPEAKER_00: Alright, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: I mean it's the story of my life right there.
SPEAKER_00: Um just on YouTube.
SPEAKER_00: It's called it's not about the nail.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, go home and show your wife that.
SPEAKER_00: See how that goes.
SPEAKER_00: So, such a great video.
SPEAKER_00: You know, and here's the thing, like, for many of us, if if sort of the veil of our private lives were opened up, what what the world might see is that we're we're good businessmen, we're uh we're good leaders, we're good at whatever profession that God has sort of called us to, but but just like this guy, sometimes it's really difficult to be a great husband.
SPEAKER_00: And a lot, honestly, for for a really long time in my life, that was me, and I don't even think I realized it.
SPEAKER_00: I know I didn't realize it.
SPEAKER_00: And and mainly because my passion was the church.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think I would have admitted it, but in a lot of ways, the church and my job in the church had become my mistress.
SPEAKER_00: And I was pretty much putting my God-given responsibility to love and lead my wife just on cruise control.
SPEAKER_00: And um sorry, and uh for the first 11 years of our marriage, I had no idea that there was a problem.
SPEAKER_00: Um, if if you would have asked me, I would have thought, I would have told you that I'm killing it.
SPEAKER_00: And we've been married 23 years now, so kind of a crisis happened about year 11.
SPEAKER_00: I would have told you everything was okay.
SPEAKER_00: Jennifer is my wife Jennifer is an incredibly godly woman.
SPEAKER_00: She loves Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, we very rarely argued, almost never, in the first 11 years.
SPEAKER_00: So she had such a strong walk with Jesus that she kind of did her thing with Jesus, and I sort of did my thing with Jesus, and so um she was great, or at least I thought she was.
SPEAKER_00: And so I I I pretty much, I mean, you would ask me guys, I thought, I'm I'm the husband of the decade.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm we never argue.
SPEAKER_00: She seems to be so healthy, and that's how things were until one day, year 11, she sat me down.
SPEAKER_00: And sat me down on the bed, said we need to talk.
SPEAKER_00: She was crying, and um, and she looked at me, and I I actually wrote down later on in a journal everything she said to me because I wanted to remember it.
SPEAKER_00: She looked at me and she said, I want you to know something, Matt.
SPEAKER_00: I love you, and I love Jesus too much to ever leave you, but I want you to know something that that that I'm not good in this marriage.
SPEAKER_00: And and it's not working.
SPEAKER_00: And here's what she said.
SPEAKER_00: She said, She said, I feel like you're here with me physically, but I don't feel like that you're here with me emotionally and spiritually.
SPEAKER_00: She said, Um, she said, you feel distant.
SPEAKER_00: She said, I don't feel pursued by you.
SPEAKER_00: She said, I don't feel cherished by you.
SPEAKER_00: She said, when we were dating, you you pursued me, but then we got married and you planted the church and you stopped.
SPEAKER_00: She said, I feel like you're interested in everybody but me.
SPEAKER_00: She said, I feel like you're interested in everybody's walk with Jesus as a pastor, but mine.
SPEAKER_00: She said, I'm just I'm not doing okay.
SPEAKER_00: And then she told me a story that um, man, it got my attention.
SPEAKER_00: She uh she said that that Sunday she was at church, and our kids were little at the time, and and um, and so you know, I'm I'm at church, I've been preaching, I'm doing my thing, I'm greeting everybody after the service, and she had to get the kids to the car by herself, and she was she's got two um little ones and one in a stroller, and she was just having trouble getting them all corralled and getting in the in the car, and some guy came up to her, and he probably realized that that was my wife and just wanted to help her out, and he sort of just helped her get the kids in the car and and sort of just opened the door while she got in and said thanks and closed the door, and that was it.
SPEAKER_00: And she looked at me and she made the statement again.
SPEAKER_00: She goes, Matt, I I love Jesus too much to ever divorce you or to ever leave you, but I need you to know how good it felt for simply for a man to pay attention to me, and that got my attention.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And I kind of woke up to the fact that there was more to this being a husband thing than I realized.
SPEAKER_00: And at the same time, I was counseling a few couples that were walking through a divorce or were trying to decide if they were gonna have a divorce, and and and the three couples at the time were because the women was the woman was having an affair, which I'm seeing more and more of, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: And during counseling, all three of the women basically said something to the equivalent of this, real similar things.
SPEAKER_00: The the woman that had committed affair, almost every time at some point in the counseling, would point at her husband and say, He's the one that I actually love.
SPEAKER_00: He's the one that I love.
SPEAKER_00: But then she'd say something like, But he's just so distant.
SPEAKER_00: And he's so into his work, or he's so into whatever hobby that he's into.
SPEAKER_00: And then she'd say something like, He doesn't pursue me anymore, he doesn't cherish me, he doesn't communicate to me about how he feels, and then inevitably the next thing out of her mouth would be, but there was this guy at work who did.
SPEAKER_00: And then one thing led to another, and dot dot dot, you know the rest of the story.
SPEAKER_00: And I remember about the third time I heard this, and my wife had said the basically the same thing.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, what is the deal with this pursuing cherishing thing that women keep talking about?
SPEAKER_00: What is going on?
SPEAKER_00: And that was about the same time, this was this was about the same time as that movie and book series came out called Twilight.
SPEAKER_00: Do y'all remember that?
SPEAKER_00: Twilight, it was um, if you don't know what Twilight is, if you don't, just thank Jesus that you don't because it's garbage, it's satanic.
SPEAKER_00: But it's a story of a vampire that falls in love with a woman.
SPEAKER_00: And and here's the thing.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, bottom line, I'm gonna sum it up for you really quickly.
SPEAKER_00: Every woman in America read that book.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, every woman from 10 years old to 90 till death, they had read the book.
SPEAKER_00: My wife is not a voracious reader.
SPEAKER_00: And um, and I asked her to, I was like, can you go buy the book and see what it's about and just read it?
SPEAKER_00: She read all three in two weeks.
SPEAKER_00: And to give you a concept about how many women were reading this book, and in the year 2008 to 2009 alone, that is in one year, 51 million copies were sold in the United States alone.
SPEAKER_00: And that's not counting worldwide, that's just in America.
SPEAKER_00: That's one year.
SPEAKER_00: And so, and I, you know, so every woman in America is reading this book series.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, what is going on?
SPEAKER_00: I walked through the office one day, and there's a group of about six girls that were on staff, and they were sitting around talking about Twilight and how they were all reading it, and I stopped and I just asked them and I said, Hey, I was like, What's the deal?
SPEAKER_00: Why, why is every woman in the world reading this book?
SPEAKER_00: My wife just read all of them in three days.
SPEAKER_00: Y'all are talking about it.
SPEAKER_00: What's the big deal?
SPEAKER_00: And I kid you not, one of the girls looked at me and she said, Matt, the reason every woman in America is reading this is because Edward, which is the name of the vampire, she said this.
SPEAKER_00: She goes, Because Edward is the perfect man.
SPEAKER_00: And I looked at her and I was like, What do you mean he's the perfect man?
SPEAKER_00: He's an albino vampire.
SPEAKER_00: How is he the perfect man?
SPEAKER_00: And this is what she said.
SPEAKER_00: Well, she said the main character, who's this girl, I can't remember her name or whatever, said Edward is just so into her.
SPEAKER_00: He he's just he just uh what did she say?
SPEAKER_00: So into her.
SPEAKER_00: He just cherishes her.
SPEAKER_00: He just pursues her.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, there it is again.
SPEAKER_00: On the same day, kid you not, same day I read an article from USA Today, and it was on the success of Twilight and why it had swept the nation in such a way, and every woman in the country was reading it.
SPEAKER_00: And here's a direct quote from this article.
SPEAKER_00: Check this out.
SPEAKER_00: It says, the success of Twilight is a testament to the failure of the American marriage and men's inability to understand and meet the deep needs of a woman's heart.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna read that again.
SPEAKER_00: The success of Twilight is a testament to the failure of the American marriage and men's inability to understand and meet the deep needs of a woman's heart.
SPEAKER_00: Every woman in America is reading it, and the thesis is that that's because we stink, right?
SPEAKER_00: I got a wife saying you're not pursuing and cherishing me.
SPEAKER_00: I got women having affairs in my church because their husbands aren't pursuing and cherishing me.
SPEAKER_00: And I got women all over the church reading a book about a vampire because he pursues and cherishes a girl.
SPEAKER_00: And but here's the point there's something to be learned from all that, and that's this that man, there's a deep need in the soul of your wife to be pursued and to be cherished and to be loved and to be pointed to Jesus by the man that God has placed in her life.
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't believe me that she has that need, go ask her tonight.
SPEAKER_00: See what she says.
SPEAKER_00: Do you want me to pursue you and cherish you and point you to Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: Just ask her, see what she says.
SPEAKER_00: Well, the good news today is that the Bible actually gives us some pretty good um some pretty good ideas about what this is sort of supposed to look like.
SPEAKER_00: And so let's look quickly.
SPEAKER_00: Ephesians 5.23.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says, for the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and himself its savior.
SPEAKER_00: Now, as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.
SPEAKER_00: Now he begins to speak to us.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Husbands, love your wife.
SPEAKER_00: Now you all know this verse, but tune into it.
SPEAKER_00: Husbands, love, that's an action, love your wives.
SPEAKER_00: As Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.
SPEAKER_00: So the first commandment that verse 25 tells us, he says, husbands, you need to love agape your wife.
SPEAKER_00: And then he goes on.
SPEAKER_00: He tells us how we're supposed to love our wives, because that begs a question.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says you've got to love your wife, you gotta raise your hand and go, okay, how am I supposed to love my wife?
SPEAKER_00: He tells us, he says, love your wife in the way that Christ loved the church.
SPEAKER_00: Now that begs another question.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, if I'm supposed to love my wife in the way that Christ loved the church, how did Jesus love the church?
SPEAKER_00: Well, there's countless ways.
SPEAKER_00: That Jesus loved the church, but there's one that stands out to me, and that Jesus loved us the church.
SPEAKER_00: And hear this, he loved us first.
SPEAKER_00: He loved us first.
SPEAKER_00: Write that down.
SPEAKER_00: He loved us first.
SPEAKER_00: When we were still in our sin, when we were broken, when we were in our dysfunction.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't sort of fold his arms back in heaven and look down at us and say, Hey, get your stuff together, and then maybe I'll love you.
SPEAKER_00: The scripture says that he came to us and he died for us even in the midst of our sin.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus came to us and loved us first.
SPEAKER_00: That's why 1 John 4.9 says, We love because what?
SPEAKER_00: He first loved us.
SPEAKER_00: In the first 10 years of my marriage, I was doing the opposite of that.
SPEAKER_00: I realized I was doing the opposite of that.
SPEAKER_00: My attitude, I don't know if I would have ever said it, but my attitude was, Jennifer, I need you to love me.
SPEAKER_00: And I need you to pursue me, and I need you to meet my needs, and I need you to act the way I want you to do.
SPEAKER_00: And again, I would have never said that, but that's what I was doing.
SPEAKER_00: That was the attitude.
SPEAKER_00: And if you'll do those things, if you'll make me happy, meet my needs, then I'll pursue and cherish and love you.
SPEAKER_00: But that's literally the opposite of how Jesus loves the church.
SPEAKER_00: He says, we love because he took the first step.
SPEAKER_00: We love because he pursued us and cherished us first.
SPEAKER_00: And so, men, step one, that is our calling, is to love our wives that way.
SPEAKER_00: Which means that no matter what she's doing, no matter how she's acting, no matter what whether she deserves it or not, you love her and you love her first.
SPEAKER_00: That's what it means to love your wife like Christ, love the church.
SPEAKER_00: Even if you don't get anything in return.
SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, some of the practical ways I've sort of found to do this.
SPEAKER_00: Years ago, there was a book that came out called The Five Love Languages.
SPEAKER_00: Some of y'all may have heard of that.
SPEAKER_00: And the basic idea of the book is that there's five ways that all of us receive love and give love.
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, in other words, if someone does this thing for you, if that's your love language, then you really feel ministered to and loved.
SPEAKER_00: And that's and these are the five ways you can show other people love.
SPEAKER_00: They're acts of service.
SPEAKER_00: You serve your wife in some capacity, um, and she feels cherished and loved and pursued.
SPEAKER_00: Um, second is gifts.
SPEAKER_00: Some people, um, you can just give them a gift, a meaningful gift, and that really they feel cherished and loved and pursued.
SPEAKER_00: Um, physical touch, hold their hand, put your arm around them.
SPEAKER_00: Um, people receive and give love that way.
SPEAKER_00: That's their love language, physical touch.
SPEAKER_00: Uh four, words of affirmation.
SPEAKER_00: You speak value to them, you say something kind to them, you point out what they're good at and what you value about them.
SPEAKER_00: It's words of affirmation.
SPEAKER_00: And then quality time.
SPEAKER_00: That's when you're not just together, but you're spending time connecting quality time.
SPEAKER_00: That's the fifth level language.
SPEAKER_00: And the trick, guys, and this is huge, the trick is to discover the way that your wife receives love and then love her that way and do it first.
SPEAKER_00: That's that's the trick.
SPEAKER_00: Now, my problem was for years, is that I would try to show my wife love, but I would I would I would show her love in a way that she wouldn't receive it, and and it really didn't minister to, and she didn't really cherish and pursued.
SPEAKER_00: I have buddies that their wives, their love language is gifts, which to me sounds incredibly easy.
SPEAKER_00: You just go buy your wife something, and she's like, oh, and she feels so loved and pursued.
SPEAKER_00: And so I'd see that happen in some of my buddies' lives, and I'm thinking I can do that.
SPEAKER_00: So I'd get my wife flowers and stuff, and she would appreciate it.
SPEAKER_00: She she would really like them, but she it didn't really move her heart, if that makes sense.
SPEAKER_00: And I had um, I have one buddy, we're talking about this one day, and he said, My wife's love language is acts of service.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Man, if I will just get up and do the dishes after dinner, it's like guaranteed sex every single time.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm thinking to myself, I can do the dishes.
SPEAKER_00: I can do the dishes.
SPEAKER_00: That's easy, man.
SPEAKER_00: That's an easy trade-off.
SPEAKER_00: And so, sure, I mean, that evening, I cooked dinner.
SPEAKER_00: I did.
SPEAKER_00: I cooked dinner because I got skills.
SPEAKER_00: I cooked dinner, and then and then after dinner, she stands up and I'm like, no, no, no, sit down.
SPEAKER_00: And I got up and I did the dishes.
SPEAKER_00: I cleaned them, put them away, got the kitchen clean, everything, and I'm kind of looking around, looking at her, like, here we go.
SPEAKER_00: True story, she she looks at me, she goes, Matt, thank you so much for doing the dishes, and she walked off.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, what?
SPEAKER_00: Because, you know, like I say, she appreciated it, but really didn't meet the deep needs of her heart.
SPEAKER_00: Now, why is that happening?
SPEAKER_00: And and the answer is pretty simple, because her love language, unfortunately, is quality time and words of affirmation.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, quality time and words of affirmation.
SPEAKER_00: So if I like, take the time to write her a note, if I write her a handwritten note for whatever reason, just speak value to her, man, it melts her heart.
SPEAKER_00: She feels so valued, so loved, so cherished.
SPEAKER_00: She's kept every note I've ever given her.
SPEAKER_00: If I take the time to just say, hey, today, I want you to, I want you to know that I noticed the way that you handled uh Sammy and you stood that so well.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
SPEAKER_00: You're an incredible mother.
SPEAKER_00: That she feels so loved by that.
SPEAKER_00: Especially if I talk about her relationship with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Her others, quality time.
SPEAKER_00: So at night, if I'd actually, you know, it's one thing to be with her and be watching TV, but it's something altogether different to actually turn off the TV and to look at each other and to talk to her, and more importantly, to listen to her and to ask her questions about her day, to ask her questions about how her walk with Christ is going and her friendships, and she just feels so deeply pursued and cherished by that.
SPEAKER_00: It deeply ministers to her.
SPEAKER_00: But here's the problem, guys.
SPEAKER_00: Guess what?
SPEAKER_00: I hate writing notes.
SPEAKER_00: I don't like writing notes.
SPEAKER_00: And here's something else.
SPEAKER_00: Like, guys, I I am an introvert.
SPEAKER_00: I hate talking.
SPEAKER_00: And then I'm I have a job that that's what I do.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if y'all noticed, but I talk for a living.
SPEAKER_00: And so the la I mean, the last thing I want to do when I come home is to like talk.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to do that, but but here's the thing I do it.
SPEAKER_00: I do it.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because I love that woman.
SPEAKER_00: And I want her to know, and I want her to feel, and I want her to experience that I love her, and that is what I do.
SPEAKER_00: And I do it often because I want to love her like Christ loved the church.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so let's look at Ephesians 5.25.
SPEAKER_00: We'll get the second part of the verse there.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church, and gave himself up for her.
SPEAKER_00: So one of the ways that Jesus loved the church, the scripture says, was that he gave himself up for his bride to minister and to love his bride.
SPEAKER_00: Now that's gonna look differently for every single one of us in the room, but there are probably gonna be things that we have to give up and that we have to lay down in order for our wives to experience our love.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, for me, I've talked, I've talked a lot about that this morning was personal purity.
SPEAKER_00: Um, not only do I want to walk in integrity, because I'm a Christ follower and a pastor, but I want to walk in integrity so that she absolutely knows I'm a one-woman man.
SPEAKER_00: Her father cheated on her mother.
SPEAKER_00: And I want her to feel and experience that I love her in that way, that she can trust me and that I'm going to honor her in that.
SPEAKER_00: And so that's meant there have been some things that I've had to give up and walk away from over the years.
SPEAKER_00: I very, very rarely, never travel alone.
SPEAKER_00: If I'm outside of Texas, I always have my assistant with me, who's a guy.
SPEAKER_00: I just don't travel alone.
SPEAKER_00: Seeing too many guys taken out on business trips because they were alone.
SPEAKER_00: I have protective software on my computer and my phone.
SPEAKER_00: I have passwords on the television that blocks content.
SPEAKER_00: She's the only one that has the password.
SPEAKER_00: I um I give her access to my email.
SPEAKER_00: I give her access to my phone.
SPEAKER_00: I give her access to my social media accounts.
SPEAKER_00: She has the passwords to those.
SPEAKER_00: And again, because I want her to feel and experience that my eyes and my body are only for her.
SPEAKER_00: And you go, and a lot of guys hear that and they go, Matt, that's kind of excessive.
SPEAKER_00: But where I'm at, man, is maybe it's time we got a little excessive when it comes to personal purity.
SPEAKER_00: We've we've got a little excessive the other way.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe it's time that if we need to for our wives, we lay that stuff down.
SPEAKER_00: Guys, I gave up alcohol for her.
SPEAKER_00: And and I we some of us might have different views on drinking, and I I'm a pastor, and so I'm not supposed to be a man of much strong drink, so I wasn't.
SPEAKER_00: But I'd have a beer every once in a while.
SPEAKER_00: And one time I had had a beer, and we got into an argument, and the beer didn't even affect me at all, but she blamed the fact that I'd had a beer.
SPEAKER_00: And I quit drinking.
SPEAKER_00: I just quit because I don't want to ever be in a situation where anything that I'm doing is keeping me from loving her well.
SPEAKER_00: One area that I've had to lay down myself for her to show her that I love her is in the area of conflict.
SPEAKER_00: For years I had an anger problem, talked about it a little this morning.
SPEAKER_00: And just this idea of being kind to my wife has been massive.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to give you a verse that was really helpful for me to learn how to walk in kindness.
SPEAKER_00: Because there are going to be times when she upsets you.
SPEAKER_00: How do you walk in kindness in those times?
SPEAKER_00: 1 Peter 2.21.
SPEAKER_00: Such a powerful verse.
SPEAKER_00: Peter says, For to this you have been called.
SPEAKER_00: So if you're Christ's follower, you've been called to this.
SPEAKER_00: It says, Because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example so that you might follow in his steps.
SPEAKER_00: And so what Peter is saying is that when Christ suffered for us, he gave us an example of how to suffer so that we could follow in his steps.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what is the example that Jesus gave us when he was suffering?
SPEAKER_00: How we can follow him.
SPEAKER_00: In verse 22, it says, He committed no sin.
SPEAKER_00: Neither was deceit found in his mouth.
SPEAKER_00: And so when he's suffering on the cross, he never sinned, he never there was no deceit in his mouth.
SPEAKER_00: And he goes on, when he was reviled, he did not revile in return.
SPEAKER_00: When he suffered, he did not threaten.
SPEAKER_00: And here's the key.
SPEAKER_00: He says, but continued in trusting himself to him who judges justly.
SPEAKER_00: When Jesus was on the cross, he committed no sin, there was no deceit found in his mouth.
SPEAKER_00: When he was being reviled, he never reviled in return.
SPEAKER_00: When he was suffering, he never threatened.
SPEAKER_00: And the reason he was able to do that is because he kept trusting that there was a God in heaven that was going to judge the whole thing rightly.
SPEAKER_00: That's the key.
SPEAKER_00: When your wife is not treating you the way that you think she ought to treat you, what do you do?
SPEAKER_00: You love.
SPEAKER_00: When your wife is being contentious or she's insulting you or not respecting you, what do you do?
SPEAKER_00: You love.
SPEAKER_00: When she's not serving you, she's not taking care of your physical needs, what do you do?
SPEAKER_00: You love.
SPEAKER_00: Now, does that mean you never speak truth to your wife or gently correct your wife?
SPEAKER_00: No, that's not what that means.
SPEAKER_00: But what it means is that in conflict, men, you take the initiative to be the peacemaker.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Jesus did.
SPEAKER_00: That when things like the volume of voices and the harshness of words begin to escalate, you be the one to de-escalate.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Jesus did.
SPEAKER_00: As leaders and as men, we don't throw putches, we take punches, and we turn the other cheek, and when we do, we sure look a whole lot like Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, now so let's look at the last part of the verse here.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 525.
SPEAKER_00: Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church, and gave himself up for her.
SPEAKER_00: Now watch what he says.
SPEAKER_00: That he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.
SPEAKER_00: And so what the scripture just said is that the number one thing, or rather this, the the number one man that God intends to use in the sanctification process of your wife is you.
SPEAKER_00: The number one person, apart from Christ himself, but the number one person that God intends to use in the sanctification process of your wife is you.
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't tell Beth Moore to sanctify your wife.
SPEAKER_00: It's not Neil McClendon.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, he's your pastor, and that's key, but Neil McClendon ought not to be the number one man that's in the process of washing his wife in the water of the word.
SPEAKER_00: I think what that verse means is that as husbands, we need to care about and be concerned about things like our wife's prayer life.
SPEAKER_00: When's the last time you asked your wife about her prayer life and how that's going?
SPEAKER_00: I think it means that we care about our wives' devotional life.
SPEAKER_00: Not only are we walking with Jesus, but we care about if our wife's walking with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Is she growing in the knowledge of the Lord?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, do you even know what she's studying right now?
SPEAKER_00: Do you know what she's walking through?
SPEAKER_00: Do you know your wife's spiritual gift?
SPEAKER_00: And are you creating an environment and encouraging her to use that spiritual gift to build up the body of Christ in the church?
SPEAKER_00: Guys, check this out.
SPEAKER_00: What sort of hit me a long time ago is that way, hear this, don't miss this.
SPEAKER_00: Way too many women out there are widows spiritually.
SPEAKER_00: They're spiritual widows.
SPEAKER_00: You're still alive, but when it comes to their walk with Jesus, they are all alone.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul says, Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, have her cleansing, cleanse to her by the washing of the water of words, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I'll end with this.
SPEAKER_00: I as a man now that Jennifer are on the other side of that, and I'm so thankful she stuck it out with me, and I stuck it out with her.
SPEAKER_00: I realize now that I have I have two main goals in my life.
SPEAKER_00: And these weren't always my two goals, but they really are now.
SPEAKER_00: And the number one, not necessarily in this order, but goal number one is when I die and I'm laying there in that casket in the church, I want my children to be able to stand over my casket and say that was the godliest man I ever knew.
SPEAKER_00: I want them to be able to say that.
SPEAKER_00: And the other thing, my second goal in my life, is at the end of my life, as my wife stands over my casket, I want her to be able to say that if given the chance, she would marry me all over again.
SPEAKER_00: I figure if I've done those two things, then I've been a success in my life.
SPEAKER_00: Heard of Jonathan Edwards, who was a famous American theologian.
SPEAKER_00: And probably one of the smartest men alive at his time in the 1700s.
SPEAKER_00: He was an incredible preacher.
SPEAKER_00: His preaching sort of ushered in revival in the United States.
SPEAKER_00: He died suddenly.
SPEAKER_00: I think he was in his 50s, far too young.
SPEAKER_00: And at his death, when he passed away, Jonathan Edwards' wife wrote a letter to her daughter, Lucy, about her husband.
SPEAKER_00: And this is what she said.
SPEAKER_00: It's an incredible picture of a woman that has been loved well.
SPEAKER_00: It's an incredible picture of a woman that's been washed with the water of the word.
SPEAKER_00: And walked with a man that laid down his life for her.
SPEAKER_00: She wrote, Oh, my very dear child, what shall I say?
SPEAKER_00: Holy and good God has covered us with a dark cloud.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, that we may all kiss the rod and lay our hands on our mouths, for the Lord has been the one to do this.
SPEAKER_00: And he has made me adore his goodness that we had your father so long.
SPEAKER_00: But my God lives and God has my heart.
SPEAKER_00: And oh, what a legacy my husband and your father has left us.
SPEAKER_00: I love that.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, what a legacy your father and my husband has left us.
SPEAKER_00: Gentlemen, who among us at the end of our lives would not want our wives to say that about us?
SPEAKER_00: Oh, what a legacy your father and my husband has left for us.
SPEAKER_00: Let's be men that our wives can say that about us at the end of our lives.
SPEAKER_00: Alright?
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_00: With your heads bowed and your eyes closed, I don't want you to run past this too quickly.
SPEAKER_00: There may be someone here tonight that you have no idea how to love your wife like Christ loved the church because you've never received the love of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Man, if you're here this week and it just sort of hits you that I, man, I've been walking in this thing called religion and I've never believed in the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Would you go find Neil or would you find one of the pastors here and would you talk to him?
SPEAKER_00: Just, man, there's nothing in this world greater than Jesus Christ and his love for us.
SPEAKER_00: His love is better than life.
SPEAKER_00: This didn't happen overnight with my wife.
SPEAKER_00: I had to sit down, I had to write stuff down, I had to pray, I had to die to myself, I had to commit to it.
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't always easy, but I'm telling you, gentlemen, it bore fruit.
SPEAKER_00: It's changed our marriage.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you need to spend some time alone tonight.
SPEAKER_00: Praying through that.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you need to sit down and have a conversation with your wife.
SPEAKER_00: Ask her the question have I been loving you well?
SPEAKER_00: Have I been pursuing you well?
SPEAKER_00: Just pray that the Lord would give you the heart to answer that.
SPEAKER_00: Answer that with love and with grace.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever she says.
SPEAKER_00: I thank you for their love for you that is so obvious.
SPEAKER_00: Father, I thank you for Neil McClendon, the way he's pastored these men well.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I lift up this church to you.
SPEAKER_00: Father, I pray that you would bless them with your presence.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I pray that they would experience you in a profound and powerful way in the year to come.
SPEAKER_00: And I pray that, Lord, a year from now, that as we look back on this weekend, that there might be many of us that would say that was the weekend that we began to change and live our lives in a way that we never could have imagined for your kingdom, your glory, your name, and for our wives and our families.
SPEAKER_00: Father, you're the only one that can do that in us.
SPEAKER_00: So do what you need to do.
SPEAKER_00: And we ask that in Jesus' name.
unknown: Amen.