Marriage

[0:00] If you'll turn to Colossians chapter 3, verse 18 and 19. You know, what we're doing here, it's called expository preaching, verse-by-verse preaching.

[0:13] It's the kind of preaching that makes you go section-by-section without skipping anything. Because here's what happens a lot. We as pastors like certain topics.

[0:24] And if we did not hold our feet to the fire by making sure we cover everything, we would leave a lot of topics that are difficult, topics that are confusing or whatever off just to hit the things that we enjoy and love.

[0:39] Now, there's a lot of people who say that they preach verse-by-verse when in reality what they do is they read the Bible, make a few comments, and then they run off and talk about other things. What we're trying to do is take the meaning of the passage to be the message of the sermon.

[0:58] The meaning of the passage to be the message of the sermon. You should be able to follow what I'm doing and verify and see for yourself that the things that I'm saying are true by looking at the very passage that we read and talk about.

[1:17] What I'm not trying to do is put my opinions in it. Now, I'm a sinful guy, and sometimes that's going to happen. But that's where you come in to check me, to watch me, to be sure.

[1:29] No, this is what the word says. This is what the word means. And then this is how we need to apply it. What I'm not doing is asking the question, what does this mean to me?

[1:43] Because that's a terrible question. We don't need to know what it means to me. We need to know what God intended for us to understand from this passage.

[1:55] And as we do so then and seek for that, let's read. It's just two verses this morning. I'll read it. We'll pray. We'll put it into context and see where we're headed this morning.

[2:08] Verse 18 says, Let's pray.

[2:22] Father, we thank you for your great grace and for your mercy. And we are thankful that you have given us your word. We're thankful that it is powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, able to pierce all the way to the joint and to the marrow, and to show us our thoughts and our intentions, convicting us, equipping us to help us live in a way that honors you.

[2:53] And we pray that you would give us understanding. We pray your spirit would illuminate us. We pray that your spirit would fill us, and that you would empower us to live in a way that demonstrates to this world your greatness.

[3:07] And we pray this in Christ's name. Amen. And as we walk into this text this morning, one of the things, or I guess a couple of things that I just want to say before we get going is that, number one, I believe very strongly that God is a sovereign God and that you are not here by accident.

[3:29] A lot of people might look at this and say, well, you know, I mean, everybody here, like this marriage stuff, we've all got this. We know this. Why would we all need to have this preached to us?

[3:40] Well, in God's sovereignty, this was the plan, and you are the people, and God has brought us together. And so we trust the Lord in that. And so we're going to preach on this because this is what the Lord has for us today.

[3:53] But secondly, we've got to get to this place where we interpret life by Scripture. And what I mean by that is this. What we're going to preach about today is something we've talked about and hit on in a few places throughout the time that I've been here.

[4:09] But one of the things that's easy to do is to say, but the world around us says this. And the world around us has these thoughts about these things.

[4:20] And the world around us would say that this is sort of like, you know, ancient times. And this is something that's gone by the wayside. But what we want to do is we want to say, either the Scripture interprets life for us, or stop reading the Scriptures and stop following Christ.

[4:41] Because He's the one who gives us the pathway for what life is supposed to be like. And so I think you'll understand as we get into this, you'll understand why I'm saying these things, because the world does not like what we're going to talk about today.

[4:57] And if you end up not liking what I'm talking about today and what this Scripture says, then either you've been infected by the world so much that you can't see your own biases, or perhaps you're not a Christian after all.

[5:18] Because Jesus says in John 10, My sheep hear My voice. And the question is, will you hear the voice of Christ in His Word today?

[5:30] Now, it's interesting, because we've been talking about in Colossians this whole problem that they have with these false teachers. These false teachers have come in, and they're saying, Listen, you've got Jesus.

[5:42] You've trusted Jesus. That's great. But He's not enough. Let us. Let us fulfill your training, right? If you've ever watched Star Wars, it's a little bit like some sort of, you know, dark Jedi coming in saying, like, let me fulfill your training.

[5:56] Like, it's just, like, terrible. You know, we don't need that kind of a stuff. We just need Christ and what He has spoken and what He has given to us through His apostles. But yet, here they are trying to say, listen, this is the truth of things.

[6:12] As we do this, Paul has made this argument the whole way that Christ is supreme. And it's all about the supremacy of Christ, that Christ is the one who we owe allegiance to, that Christ is the center of all things, that Christ is the one who empowers us to live the way He's called us to live.

[6:31] And like many other ancient sort of worldviews and philosophies, a lot of these worldviews, if you go back and you read some of the old Greek philosophies, you read some of the other people, they all have these things called household tables.

[6:49] Household tables. It was a place in their writing where they would take all their philosophical ramblings and come down to saying, this is what this looks like in the marriage and in parenting and at home.

[7:05] And so they would all try to take their big philosophical ideas and then bring them right to the household. Well, the scriptures do the same thing. We see this in several places in the New Testament where the writers get to this household table showing us what Christ has to say about the household.

[7:24] I mean, this is where the rubber meets the road. It's marriage, it's parenting, right? And so one of the things about this that reminds me of going back to what I said at the beginning is that we need to listen to the word is that there are a lot of people out there, psychologists and relationship gurus who will tell you this is what marriage is, this is how to make a marriage work, but I'm here to tell you that Christianity has its own view on these things and it is distinct and it is glorious and it is very different from everything else that we're being taught in the general population.

[7:59] As a matter of fact, according to one commentator, the one thing that's very different or the three things that's very different about the way Christianity handles the home versus every other worldview is this, that Christianity supplies the power to be able to carry out the duties in the home because the spirit of Christ is our power.

[8:21] Christianity supplies the purpose for why we should carry out our duties in the home because it's for the sake of Christ's name and Christianity supplies the pattern for how to carry out these duties and that is the life of Jesus Christ himself.

[8:39] This is what we have in Christianity, the power, the purpose, and the pattern for how the home ought to be organized. And now for some of you, you might be saying to yourself, it's like, well, but I'm single.

[8:52] I'm the only person in my home. Again, I just come back to this. These are truths from the scripture that you needed to hear today because there are people in your life that you need to disciple.

[9:04] There are children and grandchildren who look up to you and who love you and you need to be able to have the information you need to be able to uphold the biblical path of marriage and the home.

[9:18] And so maybe it's not for ordering your own home, but it is for the ordering of other people's homes. And lest you say to me, but listen, I'm single and what can I say to people who are married?

[9:29] I just say to you this, so was Paul the apostle. So was Paul the apostle. He was single, so was Jesus. And they had a lot to say on the topic.

[9:41] So I want us to look then at marriage and what marriage is supposed to be. And these two verses, we're going to just take one at a time. And the first point in verse 18 is just submit. This is the role of the wife is to submit to her husband.

[9:56] Now let me say a couple of things about this idea of submission. Number one, being submissive is not a bad thing.

[10:07] Like I kind of want to stand up here as tall as I can and say, you know what I'm saying? Like being submissive is not a bad thing. And if you find yourself a little gun shy at saying something like wives ought to be submissive to their husbands and you're kind of going like, well wives ought to be submissive to their husbands.

[10:26] A little nervous about saying that out loud. I just want you to have the confidence to understand, do not be afraid. This is what scripture teaches. If the world has a problem with it, then that's the problem of the world.

[10:40] What does scripture tell us? Well, first of all, all Christians, men and women, are told to be submissive. It's the same exact Greek word in several different instances.

[10:53] Let me give you a few. I'll rattle off some of the scripture passages, but we won't read them, right? So for instance, Christians are called to submit to governing authorities like in Romans 13, Titus 3, and 1 Peter 2, right?

[11:08] We're to submit to the governing authorities. It's the exact same Greek word. Christians are called to submit to their Christian leaders. Did you know that I as a pastor am your leader, at least in part, and the scriptures tell you in 1 Corinthians 16, 1 Peter 5, Hebrews 13, that you're to submit to me?

[11:32] That's a scary place to be for you. I'm just saying. The scriptures also tell Christians to be submissive to Jesus Christ.

[11:44] Ephesians 5, Christians are to be submissive to God the Father. Hebrews 12, and James 4. Now, those two, we're all good with. But it seems as though when we get into thinking about submission to other humans, our prideful garden fall arrogance begins to get into the mix going like, well, I don't have to submit to anybody.

[12:07] It's like, well, then you're going to end up in jail. That's what happens to people who submit to no one. You know that, right? Okay, just checking.

[12:18] Well, here's another reason why submission is not a bad thing, and it's this. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was submissive to His Father. Now, I'll show you three passages.

[12:31] Hebrews 5, verse 8, that was on the screen earlier. Although He was a son, He learned obedience through what He suffered.

[12:42] He learned obedience through what He suffered. Let me give you another one. Matthew 26, 39. And going a little farther, He fell on His face and prayed, Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me.

[12:56] Nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will. Submitting His will to His Father. Let me give you one more. Philippians 2, verse 8, being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

[13:21] Becoming obedient to whom? To His Father. It was His Father's will that He die upon the cross. So He submitted Himself to His Father's will.

[13:31] You see, here's the thing. Submission does not lessen the essence of a person. Submission to other human individuals does not lessen your humanness.

[13:47] it is about the roles. Second thing I want to say about submission is that submission is not subservience. Submission is not subservience.

[13:57] Now, what do we mean by subservience? Well, if you kind of look at the culture at large, I think they mean two things. One, when people think of subservience and then therefore think of submission, they have a tendency to think that this subservience is a willingness to obey someone unquestioningly.

[14:17] I don't know if I could have said that more confusing, but let's do it again, right? Subservience is this willingness to obey someone unquestioningly. Now, that's subservience. And a lot of people think that submission is that, but submission is not that.

[14:33] Submission is not obeying unquestioningly. You know what I mean when I say unquestioningly? Okay. I saw a shaking of one head, so that counts for all of you.

[14:45] There are two passages I want to point you to that will help you understand that even if you are to submit to a particular authority, it is not an absolute authority.

[14:57] In Romans chapter 13 verse 1 it says, let every person be subject to the governing authorities for there is no authority except from God and those that exist have been instituted by God.

[15:11] You see the only reason we're to submit to the governing authorities is because God established the governing authority. And yet you can look through the book of Acts, you can look at several other places where the governing authorities are challenged people.

[15:28] They're being challenged and told that what they're doing is not correct. As a matter of fact, there's an example in Peter, Acts chapter 5 verse 29, Peter and the apostles answered the governing authorities, we must obey God rather than men because they were saying stop preaching in the name of Jesus.

[15:47] So there is not, submission is not about an unquestioning absolute authority. There is a limit to the authority of a husband.

[15:59] A husband has what we call sphere authority and it is in his husbanding duties that he has this authority but he does not have the authority to tell his wife to sin because that's the authority of God and he cannot supersede that.

[16:16] It happens with governments. Governments often, often overstep their bounds telling us that we ought to do something or we have to do something.

[16:28] Mandating a vaccine, now it doesn't matter what you think about the vaccine but mandating a vaccine is the government overstepping its authority. That was fear authority that was transgressed and it should be called out.

[16:44] We should never remain silent in the face of authority being abused. submission does not mean obeying unquestioningly.

[16:55] The other thing about subservience is that when people think of this idea of subservience usually it's the idea that if you are being submissive to someone it means that you're less important than the one that you're obeying the one that you're submitting to.

[17:12] Well that is not what submission is either. Submission in the Bible is never about an inferior human submitting to a superior human.

[17:25] A wife submitting to her husband does not at all ever state that the husband is superior to her in any manner. Instead they are equals before God because they were both created in the image of God and they are co-heirs with one another before God in their salvation.

[17:46] It is just someone who is taking a particular role. I mean let me ask you this do you think you're less human than the governing authorities of Texas?

[17:58] Then why in the world would we say that submission of a wife to her husband is subservience? It's not at all. It doesn't make Christ any less either.

[18:13] Now third thing that I want to say about submission is this. The text says submission is as fitting as fitting in the Lord.

[18:24] The word fitting here has the sense of proper. It's like a hand in a glove. It fits. It's proper. They go together. So a Christian wife's submission to her husband is as fitting in the Lord.

[18:38] And you remember from last week as we saw do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ this in the Lord has the same sort of connotation that she is submitting to the Lord by the authority of God and it's fitting and proper for her to live in this way.

[18:52] She's submitting in conformity to the character of Christ. So she's living the way Christ lived because he was submissive to his father and she's doing it in honor of the Lord Jesus.

[19:05] That is that she's submitting so that Christ Jesus gets the glory. that's what it means for her to be submissive to her husband as is fitting in the Lord.

[19:18] Now the world hates this. The world hates this and why is that? Why do you think the world hates this concept? It's because they hate God.

[19:33] They hate God because they do not want God to tell them what to do and so begins the feminist movement that has now brought chaos into our world as we seek to try to say that there is no God through overturning power structures overturning biology.

[19:53] It's all from the same pit. The world hates this because they hate for God to be in charge of them. They hate for anyone to be in charge of them and so they push against it.

[20:09] And the world will seek to counterfeit this kind of a thing. They don't just hate it but they'll try to counterfeit it because what will happen is that you'll have for a season the culture will push one direction that sort of seems very rebellious against these concepts.

[20:24] Then they'll push another direction that almost seems to be the same thing but not quite. Like there's these two movements that are going on right now. You may have never heard of either one of them and it's okay that you haven't heard of these things but just so you understand there's not just the feminist movement now that's pushing this way but there's another movement called the red pill movement that's sort of pushing things backwards this way as well as what's called the trad wife movement.

[20:49] Traditional wife, trad wife. wife. But here's the thing. The world again is just seeking to copy what's there. What our goal is as Christians is to look at the word and see what the word says and live in that way.

[21:06] We don't take our marching orders from the world whether they seem rebellious or in step with where we are. So Christians let me say to you and I'm going to talk specifically to wives.

[21:20] I want to talk then how can you grow in submissiveness and all of this comes out of understanding the concept of submission. How can you grow in your submissiveness to your husband and as a single person how can you help other women other wives grow in submission to the Lord.

[21:43] here's three things. Number one. Learn to love Jesus Christ. Learn to love Jesus Christ.

[21:55] To love him with all your heart, soul and mind. Spend massive amounts of time in his word. Saturate your heart with his word and the more that you have his word and your heart and your mind the more you will think his thoughts after him the more that you will come to appreciate him and the more that you come to appreciate him the more you will love him.

[22:25] You do not grow in submission apart from love for Jesus Christ because this is not a trad wife movement. This is women who love Jesus Christ so much and who trust him so much that they willingly put themselves into the hands of their Savior.

[22:44] Secondly, grow in humility. Grow in humility. Humility is not thinking less of ourselves, but it's thinking of ourselves less.

[23:01] Did you catch that? That's clever. I don't care who you are. I'm just kidding. I love this thought because this captures it.

[23:12] Humility is not thinking less of ourselves. It's not degrading ourselves. It's not saying, oh, I'm terrible, I'm bad, I'm this. It's thinking of ourselves less. We're just not in our minds.

[23:25] If you got someone who's all about themselves thinking they're great, then they're all up in their minds. If you got someone who's thinking, oh, I'm terrible, I'm terrible, I'm terrible, then they're all up in their minds. You need to get yourself out of your mind and get the Lord in your mind.

[23:39] Humility comes by thinking about ourselves less. Pride is when we are uppermost in our own thoughts. If you want to grow in submission, then you have to grow in humility.

[23:53] Without humility, you can never submit to anyone. You might look like submission on the outside, but it will not be submission because it will just be coming from external actions instead of from a heart that's been changed.

[24:06] It is humility that God gives grace to and it is pride that he rejects. The third thing, if you want to grow in submission, and I would say that this growing in submission would count for submission to governing authorities and everything else, you need to get a grasp on the heart of the gospel.

[24:29] You need to get a grasp on the heart of the gospel. What is the gospel message? The gospel message is about enemies. It's about enemies and haters of God who from time to time have broken God's law again and again.

[24:42] They've broken it arrogantly, unsubmissively, rejecting his rule. It's about the rejection of submission to law. These enemies have rejected his rule, have rejected all that he has to say.

[24:58] They refuse to submit themselves to him. It's about enemies like that, God sending his son to die for. God put his son into this world and he willingly submitted himself not just to his father but to the terrible aspect of human flesh.

[25:23] God and in that act of submission he paid the price for all of the rebels. And so in submission to one another, in submission to your husband, you have to see that Christ has already paid the price for your rebellion by his own submission and then empowers you by that same act so that through the Holy Spirit you might willingly submit to your husband.

[26:02] As a matter of fact, you could say it this way, your submission to your husband is simply a side effect of your submission to Jesus Christ when he saved you.

[26:16] When he saved you. Well, that's verse 18. Let's take a look at verse 19. The message to husbands. My apologies.

[26:30] Go and drop. Husbands are to love their wives.

[26:44] They're to love. They're not to be harsh. Let me talk about this love for just a second. Here in Colossians, it's about loving them and not leading. Paul doesn't bring up the idea of leadership here, not because it's not important, but because he's talking about love.

[26:58] He wants to focus in on husbands loving their wives. Second thing is that this love is unconditional. This word for love here is the same word that is used for God's love.

[27:11] It's agape, right? It's a word that means to love without condition. We do not say as husbands, I will love her if she, I will love her better if she, there's no fill in the blank for us.

[27:25] We're to love our wives unconditionally and it is a love for her even when she is unlovely, even when she's acting selfishly, even when she's acting pridefully, we are to love our wives and the only condition upon which our love is to be given to our wives is the simple fact that Christ has commanded it.

[27:46] It is not about anything in her that draws our love but it is to be given without receiving in return. We're to love unconditionally.

[27:58] Third, this love is for our wives, it is something that is to keep going. In other words, it's written in such a way as to expect a continual action. It's not something that can be there but like, listen, if she starts acting in a very selfish way, I don't have to love her in those moments.

[28:14] No, those are the moments that you need, the Holy Spirit in you, to be able to love her because she's not doing anything to make it easy. There should never be a time that our love decreases for our wives.

[28:30] And the fourth thing is this love is to never be harsh. It's to never be harsh. Now, this word is interesting. There's a story behind this word and the story reaches all the way back into the Old Testament.

[28:42] And it comes from the place in Exodus chapter 17 where there is this story about God's people who've left Egypt. They've gone out so far, they've gotten past the Red Sea and they get to these waters and they want to take a drink because they're thirsty but they can't drink the waters because the waters are bitter.

[29:01] And that bitter water, because they can't drink it, the people begin to complain and murmur and become embittered against God.

[29:13] They begin to say, we were better off in slavery. Now, just think about that for a second. God has shown up with his ten plagues, he's parted the Red Sea, and you're on the other side and you say to yourself, because I can't have a drink, I'm better off in slavery.

[29:35] We should go back. They basically were saying God is not good, God doesn't love us, God is not here for us, so they railed against him. In their embittered state, they began to rail against God plotting a return.

[29:49] And here's the thing, this story is captured in one of the Psalms, we're not going to read it, but Psalms 95 talks about today if you will hear his voice and do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.

[30:01] And there's that word. It means this idea that you become embittered against someone because of something that they don't do that you expect for them to do, and that embitteredness, that harshness is this rebellious sort of attitude that rails against and rebels against and walks away and treats harshly.

[30:27] It's how Israel, treated God because they didn't have anything to drink. Men are to love their wives in such a way as to not be harsh to them, as to not grow frustrated because of her lack of submission, to not grow frustrated and embittered because maybe she lacks respect, or to grow embittered and frustrated with her because maybe she lacks in some other way.

[30:50] We're to not become like Israel and rail against our wives because men, we know we can at any moment tend to towards things like gossiping about our wives, degrading our wives, insulting our wives, and for some men, if that's left unchecked, can become abusive to their wives.

[31:13] And why is this? Because we have expectations of some sort of paradise in our relationship that we are not getting and we begin to murmur in our hearts about our wives.

[31:26] We're to love our wives, which means we have to give up the murmuring and the complaining and the harshness that sometimes maybe doesn't express itself externally but lives in the heart.

[31:45] We're to love our wives without this harshness. And here's the problem. The problem, if you look at the world around us, is that we are beset on every side as men.

[31:58] Not that women are not beset on every side, but I'm talking about men for right now. As men, we're beset on every side. Masculinity is a thing that is, in some quarters, the only good masculinity is a dead masculinity.

[32:17] And in other quarters, it's like masculinity is going to be measured by its acquisitions, spoils, and virility. And it idolizes masculinity, or in some cases, it's disdained.

[32:33] Which is why monogamous marriage relationships is something that is being just thrown out the window these days. You know, the divorce rate is falling, and the reason it's falling is because marriage rates are falling.

[32:45] people are not getting married anymore. And a part of that has to do with men who don't want to be trapped in their mindset. Or it has to do with women who want to have nothing to do with men.

[33:01] And that's a travesty. To take masculinity down a road that was never meant to go, measuring it by its acquisitions and virility or to disdain masculinity, both of those things.

[33:19] That's bad. It's bad because it destroys the purpose, the plan, and the promise, and the perfection of the family that God has in mind for men. Right?

[33:30] He has a plan for men to have this family that has a purpose and a plan. He wants men to be at the helm of their families, men who in their strength lead their wives and their children in a God honoring way.

[33:48] But this attitude towards masculinity tempts men either to give in to their base instincts or to try to get rid of their masculinity altogether.

[34:02] Men, I believe that the world is against masculinity. It doesn't like masculinity. Masculinity is a God-given, beautiful thing.

[34:14] And we should never ever give up the masculinity that we have. As I would say to women, you should not give up femininity, but here's the problem.

[34:25] We automatically have all kinds of definitions in our heads about what that is, but very basically, it is what it is because God has commanded what it should do. It is what it is because God has commanded it what it should do.

[34:37] What has God commanded men to do? He's commanded them to lead and to provide and to protect. That's masculinity. What has he commanded women to do? He's commanded them to help and to follow and to submit.

[34:52] And that is how you understand masculinity and femininity. And as the world is against all of this, men, I just want to encourage you that being a man is a worthwhile endeavor.

[35:05] Being a man is a good and glorious thing. It is men that the Lord authorized in the great commission to pass on what was taught by the Lord Jesus Christ. It is to men that he's left the office of pastor and deacon.

[35:18] It is to men that he's given the position of head of the home. It is to men who he will hold accountable as they lead their wives, as they lead their children, and as they lead their grandchildren.

[35:33] This world would not survive without men. we have a unique role that God has given us that he wants us to play.

[35:46] And so as a part of this, I'm calling on men, love your wives without the harshness. Love your wives and the world will hate you for it.

[36:00] Love your wives and the world will never thank you for it. But it is going to be the bedrock of the world forward. There is nothing else in this world that the world would tell us that we ought to do.

[36:14] There's no election, there's no financial state that is better for this culture than it is for godly men to love their wives as Christ loved the church.

[36:28] love. And so how can you grow in your love for your wife? Let me give you three things. Number one, embrace the word of God as your field manual.

[36:42] It tells you. It tells you how to love. It tells you what love is. It tells you what love looks like. Don't just think to yourself that because I'm saying the word love and you feel something that those two things are the same.

[36:55] Go look in the word of God. What is love? What is my love for my wife supposed to look like? Use the word of God to help you truly understand what it is to love your wife.

[37:08] Secondly, you need to grow in self control. You need to grow in self control. You need to gain mastery over your emotions. You need to gain mastery over your appetites.

[37:20] You need to gain mastery over your sexual desires. You need to gain mastery over your work ethic and your finances. You and I are called to take up the mission of Adam and that is to have dominion over the world.

[37:32] We're to take the resources of this world, reshape them in an excellent and good way so that it is for the good of society. That's what the job is that we have.

[37:43] And in doing so, to spread the glory of God throughout the whole earth. But men, even though that is our job, we have to realize and remember that we're insufficient to do this job without our wives.

[37:59] We're insufficient to do this job without our wives. And you cannot lead your wife well, you cannot inspire your wife with confidence, you cannot capture her heart for the mission of the world if you're still struggling to control your emotions and your appetites.

[38:18] self-control is a fruit of the spirit. Then for us to grow in that fruit of the spirit, we've got to be in the word, in prayer for him to work in us.

[38:29] And we will never grow in self-control by watching TV. We will only grow in self-control under the word. And the third thing is this, we must treat our wives with the love that Christ has for our wives.

[38:43] the love that Christ has for our wives. And really this is the whole point of loving our wives is to love like Christ loves the church.

[38:57] We're taking the love that Christ has given to us, therefore the love that Christ has given to our wives as the pattern and example for how we ought to also love our wives.

[39:10] And the reason this is important is because if we veer off of this and we just begin to treat our wives out of our instinctual nature or the way that our daddy treated us or whatever it is that comes to our mind, if we do that instead of what the word says, then it will completely impact and hinder our spiritual growth as men.

[39:32] This is super clear in scripture. God never says this to wives, but he says this to men. And I want you to listen to this. 1 Peter 3 verse 7.

[39:42] Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way. An understanding way. Understanding her nature, understanding your role, understanding how you need to lead her, 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.

[40:11] husband's who do not lead their wives well, who are harsh or who are apathetic with their wives, their spiritual walk is hindered because they are not leading as they ought to.

[40:26] Peter is calling our wives the weaker vessel, not as an insult, but as a warning to us to live, to live in this momentary marriage.

[40:37] You understand this is a momentary marriage. marriage. You're not married in eternity. It's till death do you part and once death does part you, you are no longer married.

[40:50] And when we go on to be with the Lord, I will not look at my wife and say there's my wife, but she is my sister in Christ and that's it. The marriage is for here, for now, not for then and there.

[41:02] And so in this momentary marriage, as Christ has loved her and saved her and given her to me, as a steward, she is on loan to me until he takes her away.

[41:17] And for that season of that loan, I have a responsibility to live with her in an understanding way, being careful, being concerned, being courageous to lead her in a way that she needs to be led, honoring her as my sister in Christ.

[41:40] Because otherwise, I will never grow in my own spiritual walk. So we're to love her as Christ loves her, treating her well with our words, treating her well with our inflection of our words, treating her well with our facial expressions with our words.

[42:03] because we know that we can all go like, oh yeah, I love you. Treating her well with our actions, treating her well in your thoughts and in your heart.

[42:18] Love your wives as Christ loves them. And to all Christians, let me give one final thought here. We need to be driven in all of our conduct by the glory of Christ last week and the mediation of Christ from last week.

[42:37] And if we're seeking for God to be glorified in all of our actions, then that is going to dramatically impact what happens in the home.

[42:48] So that we treat our spouse in conformity to the character of Christ, by the authority of Christ, and for the glory of Christ. And if we're driven by his mediation, then every time we falter and fail to be submissive, we run to Christ for forgiveness.

[43:08] And if we fail to love our wives the way Christ loved the church, then in that failure, we run to Christ. Because if our thanks and our prayers are tainted with sin and we have to come to God the Father through Jesus Christ to be covered in his righteousness, how much more is your submission to your husband and your love of your wife tainted by sin and needs to be done by the power and the righteousness of Christ.

[43:36] We need lives driven by this glory, by this mediation, so that we can submit and love the way he's called us to do so.

[43:48] May God be gracious and merciful to us in this. Let's pray. takeNING