I want to expand just slightly what I said last week about priorities. I had several people say that they wanted a little bit more on that.

I suggested to you that for the Christian, the priorities to which we owe allegiance are first and foremost to the Lord Himself, to God and to Christ, then secondly to our spouse, our husband or wife if we find ourselves married, then to our children, then to our country, then to our job, and finally to our ministry.

It may help just to stop and define the word priority. Dictionary definition is having a prior right or a higher allegiance, an order of precedence. I think we see this most easily in terms of what if there's a conflict between what one authority is telling me and what another authority is telling me. Which one do I obey? I think that's how we begin to sort it out.

For instance, when I say that our jobs come before our ministries, that may surprise some of you. You may have trouble with that. You say, well, if I'm going to be responsive to the Lord Jesus and I feel that He's leading me into a situation, or I can minister to somebody, surely that would take precedence over my secular job.

I'm not sure that there's any such obvious precedence there. It seems to me that our jobs, generally speaking, generally speaking, our jobs would come before our ministries for at least two reasons. Number one, they involve contracts. we're putting our reputation,

and in the process, Christ's reputation, on the line. When we take on a job and the responsibilities of it, we're making promises. And if our word is not good, then we're casting aspersion on the character of Christ.

Secondly, I'd bring to your attention this statement in 1 Timothy chapter 5. Paul writes, if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his own family, he has disowned the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

So here, if we have a commitment to our families, if that's part of the order of priority, you see that involves a responsibility to be providing for them. And certainly for the great majority of us, that's going to come via our jobs. There may be a few in our midst who are independently wealthy and don't need a job, but I suspect that's not too many of us. So for at least those two reasons, number one, it's a matter of reputation, the very reputation of Christ is at stake, and number two, there is a corollary obligation in terms of the priority that our family has.

another way or another level the state both Old and New Testament has authority to interrupt our commitment to our job

if the state orders me to go off and fight for my country it has the right to take me away from my job so I have an order there of its priority coming ahead of that to my job Now,

similarly, above all else, if I find myself coming into conflict with what God has clearly said in His Word, then that's the thing that takes ultimate priority over everything else. We're going to be talking tonight about the husband and wife relationship. And there is a certain authority that the husband is to exercise within the family. But like any other authority, he could misuse that. If the husband or the father were to ask of his family that which God has said they must not do, then at that very point, their allegiance is owed to the higher authority of what God has already said in His Word.

So this is where I got that list from. God is first and foremost second only unto that, to the authority that God Himself would expect of each one of us, would come our relationship with our husbands and our wives. Our kids come after that. Then the state has a right to interpose its claim upon our lives, even before that of our jobs. But then I'm suggesting to us that our jobs have a prior claim on us most of the time, as a general rule, before we find ourselves free than to go about giving ourselves to what we would understand our ministry to be.

All of which is simply to say that God puts us into these structures of authority. Somebody came up after the lecture last week and he said, you left out the most important one. You're talking about structures of authority. The most important one is obviously to God Himself.

Well, I'm assuming that, but my presupposition is that for the most part, God is dealing with us through the structures of human intermediaries. And this is the order in which I believe they have claims upon our lives.

It's fairly easy to articulate all of this. You may not have thought it through, but I think most of us, once we do think it through, will not have a whole lot of trouble agreeing with what I've said by way of a general outline. It's easy to say it.

The way to test it, to see where your commitments and your priorities really lie, is simply to ask yourself, how does this hit my schedule?

How does this hit my schedule? It's very easy to say that my priority involves my family above my job. But look at your schedule. where are you spending your quality time we've got to be very honest with ourselves rigorously honest and in fact I'm not sure we can do it by ourselves we need the help of the Holy Spirit sifting us to raise the question you know so many fathers for instance would claim that what they're doing is providing for their families whilst they're giving themselves to impossible demands of their jobs that are taking them away from their families and the end result is that it's destructive rather than supportive.

You've seen that too many times. That we're justifying an excessive involvement in job on the basis of this is providing for my family when maybe what God would have is my settling for perhaps a less luxurious level of lifestyle that wouldn't demand so much time away from my family because they need me, they need my time, more than they need my money.

It's very easy to say that God has the ultimate claim upon my life, but let's be honest with ourselves. How much time are we really spending with Him in prayer, in His Word, just enjoying Him? The Westminster Confession says that the chief duty of man is to worship, to serve God, and to enjoy Him forever. How much time are we spending really enjoying God?

And please, don't think that being a clergyman gives me an escape from the dilemma that I've just outlined. I've said many times that I think most clergy have this list of priorities exactly backward. Most clergy are running around trying so hard to minister their ministry and their job that they have no time left for their family and literally no time left for God. You know, this seems an ironic statement, but that is true. That the quality time spent with God, just in His Word and praying and seeking His face and enjoying Him, It just evaporates because they're so vulnerable to all the demands, the tyranny of the urgencies of the moment.

So it's easy to say, but it's a constant battle. I confess that to you in my life, and I know in Joes and Rods and virtually every other clergyman I know. So that's just by way of elaborating the introductory statement of last time. It's a matter of carving out sufficient time to allow those priorities to hit our schedules. And I'm battling with that just as hard as any of you are. Trying to find time for my Lord and my family, and then to make sense of my job in the light of that.

Well, we're talking tonight about the husband-wife relationship.

And whatever else this is, it is an authority relationship.

It takes the place when we get married, it moves the authority claim of parents into a new dimension.

Book of Genesis, they're commanded, for this cause a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife. Leaving and cleaving. We're leaving one set of relationships, not abandoning them, but they're changing. I said last week that it changes from what Bill Cothard calls a chain of command to a chain of counsel. We still would seek our parents' wisdom and their encouragement, certainly, their prayers.

And we'd touch base with them, but they're not in the same authority relationship when we move out and form our own family and begin a new relationship. The wife in particular.

This is not simply an idle piece of superstition when in the marriage service we ask, who gives this woman to be married to this man? A lot of churches are abandoning that. I don't want to abandon that. We're not treating the woman at this point as a piece of chattel property. That's not at all what's being implied. But what we're recognizing, we're recognizing publicly, is that under God, up to this point in her life, her principal allegiance has been to Father.

And now it's being transferred. Father is still, and forever will be, a most important figure in her life, but no longer is he going to be her principal allegiance under God. And hopefully, hopefully the marriage takes place with the blessing and the consent of parents. And so when they say, I do, or her mother and I do, there's something terribly special that's being proclaimed here.

She's moving from one authority relationship into another.

Now, our two generalizations about authority both hold. I said, first of all, that in all these relations, it is not a matter of I'll meet you halfway. You do your part and I'll do my part. It is not a reciprocal relationship. It is not 50-50. We saw that last time. The children are under certain obligations to their parents, even if the parents are very bad parents.

The parents are under certain obligations toward their children, even if the children are very bad children. It's not 50-50, it's 100-100. similarly and even more dramatically so when we come to husband and wife what we're going to see in just a moment is that there are certain things that God says to the Christian wife that are not dependent upon her husband acting in the way that she wishes he would

but she's to do it anyway similarly the husband has certain things said to him it's not if and only if his wife behaves the way he wishes she would It's 100%. And those are fairly good odds. I prefer that to 50-50. When you have 100%, 100%, you've got a lot more going for you.

As we saw last week, it's the one in authority to whom the far greater amount is said in the pages of Scripture.

Second generalization was, and I've already alluded to it, that our obligation ceases at the point when the authority in our lives demands something that God forbids, or forbids something that God commands. So, for instance, if the wife is married to a secular husband, who demands that they go to a wife-swapping party, her obligation to his authority ends at that very point. If she's married to a husband who says, you may not go to church, I don't want any part of that Christianity business in our family, her obligation to him stops at that very point.

There's the higher allegiance principle coming in.

The critical passage, the key passage, and I know most of you are already familiar with this, is in Ephesians chapter 5. I'd like us to look together at this.

This has been a tremendously controversial passage in the last several years. The whole women's liberation movement has castigated the New Testament and Paul in particular for what we're going to read in this passage.

The problem is that both pro and con have started with verse 22 instead of verse 21.

Verse 22 says, Wives, be subject to your husbands as to the Lord.

Interestingly enough, that's the only thing. that it says to the wife. That's a fairly encompassing statement. But that's the only thing that it lays upon the wife in terms of her responsibility. Be subject to your husband as unto the Lord. Come back to that in just a moment. What I want us to notice before we even deal with that is that the immediately preceding sentence is be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.

I am not an anti-women's liberationist. I think the women have had a very legitimate complaint against a whole lot of male chauvinists who have taken this passage and many others and twisted and warped them into something very different from what the New Testament originally was saying.

But let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater. The fact that people have misused the Scripture doesn't mean that the Scripture itself is in error. Let's take a good hard look before we conclude that the chauvinists have been right. What it says is, be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.

I would like to apologize for every man and every preacher and every husband who has, in the name of his Christianity, claimed to be head of his household.

I don't believe the New Testament teaches that. What the New Testament says is that the husband is the head of the wife.

And immediately goes on, as we're going to see in just a moment, to specify that that means her servant. It does not say that he's the head of the household. For the Christian, Jesus Christ is the head of the household. And under His headship, we are called to mutual submission. Wives, be subject to your husbands as unto the Lord, yes. But husbands, be subject to your wives as well.

And this has been tremendously abused.

We've made a great deal in this parish about a mutual submission within the leadership of the church. That, for instance, on the vestry, we don't make any decisions except by waiting upon the Lord until we come to unanimous agreement. So too in our marriage, Karen and I.

We submit ourselves to each other. I seek her wisdom. I seek her counsel. And with very, very rare exception, would I take it upon myself to make a decision to do something apart from her agreement with me? We'd rather wait. If we're not in agreement, somebody hasn't listened to the Lord.

It is inconceivable that God could say one thing to me and something else to Karen.

I mean, think about that. Does God or does He not have a will? is he or is he not able to communicate that will?

If he has a will for our family, and if he's able to communicate, in fact, more anxious to tell us what that will is usually than we are to listen, and if we're in disagreement, the problem is not with God. The problem is with us.

And it says, submit yourselves to one another.

There is no warrant here for husbands standing up and saying, I'm the head of the household, we're going to do it my way, that's all there is to it. And lording it over his family, that's not to be found in the New Testament. What's to be found here is a pattern of mutually seeking what is God's will for our marriage, for our family, and when we come to agreement, we move into it.

Now it does say, and there is a leadership role given to the husband, the wife's responsibility.

Let me say one other thing. This is rather interesting. I want to elaborate here. It does not say in RSV, be subject to your own husbands, but that's what the Greek says. Be subject to your own husbands.

I want to just put a footnote on here. There are those teachers that have tried to extract from this passage some kind of a general warrant of all women to be subject to all men. That also cannot be found. There is, there is given a public leadership role within the church to men.

That is not the same thing as headship. The men are no more head of the church than the husbands are head of the household. Jesus Christ is the head. There is a leadership role, a public leadership role. But what is said in this passage is, Wives, be subject to your own husband. What we're talking about is something that pertains only within the marital situation. Interestingly enough, the Greek word for own is idios, from which we get idiosyncrasy. You know, your own unique husband.

Or from which we also get idiot.

Which I'll leave you to work out for yourself.

Karen takes a lot of pleasure in that. The wife's responsibility is, yes, submit herself to her husband as unto the Lord. That's an incredibly heavy statement. Wives, treat your husbands as if they were the Lord Jesus Himself.

that's your responsibility notice please it does not say treat them as if they were Jesus when they act like it

I mean if you wait till then it may be a very long wait

it says treat them as if they were the Lord Jesus

treat them as if they were the Lord Jesus what would it be like to be married to him

if he asks you to clean the bathroom

or to please take your nylons off the shower rod I mean would your attitude be such that you could do that would it make a difference

that's what is laid upon the wife treat your husband as if he were the Lord Jesus himself not only when he acts like it but when he acts least like it very very heavy obligation

for the rest of my lecture I want to talk about the husband's responsibility and I think by the time we get done most of you will agree that the husband's responsibility is deeper and heavier than the wife's and that's as it should be. Let's read the passage. The husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior.

As the church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands.

Now, gentlemen,

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, 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. Even so, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself, For no man ever hates his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body.

For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is a profound one, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. Paul has the really shocking audacity to compare the relationship of the Lord Jesus with his church to the marital relationship. And in fact, I think we would be repelled from this were God himself not to include it in the scripture. In fact, not only to the marital relationship, but to the sexual expression thereof.

Which ought to tell us a very great deal about what God intends the sexual relationship to be. The sexual relationship is to be the physical expression of the total quality of the relationship between husband and wife.

The manifestation of everything that we're about to say. What is the husband's responsibility? Number one, first and foremost, to love his wife.

Most of you will be aware that the New Testament uses three separate words for which we translate love. Three separate Greek verbs. All of which in English turn out to be love. They don't mean exactly the same thing. When Paul here says, husbands love your wives, he is not saying eros. He's not using the word eros from which we get erotic or passionate love.

It's very nice if that's present. But he's not talking about that. He's not commanding that. He's not using the word phileo from which we get brotherly affection. Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love, comes from Phileo. He's not talking about affection. He's not talking about feelings. He is not saying husbands feel a certain way toward your wife.

Affectionate or physically attracted. He's not talking about either one of those. The word here is agape.

Originally, it's a word used exclusively of the love of Jesus Christ. And then it's taken over as a commandment for other Christian love relationships. What's being said here is a love measured by self-sacrifice. It's a doing rather than a feeling love.

Jesus Christ's love was an unstinting self-denial on behalf of others.

It was a gift of servanthood.

Jesus Himself said, Greater love has no man than this, that He lay down His life for His friends. Turned right around with the next breath and said, You are my friends. And by implication, He said, I'm going to demonstrate how much I love you by laying down my life for you. That's agape love.

Choosing to lay down my life for somebody else. and that's what's being said here Paul is not for one moment talking about feeling he's talking about an act of the will a volitional choice to lay down my life for my wife now as I said it's much more pleasant if I do feel passionately toward her but regardless of my feelings I come under that commandment

some of you may have heard me tell this story A friend of mine is a very capable counselor and has an awful lot of folks come to see him with marital difficulties. And frequently he has husbands come in and say, you know, all the love has gone out of our marriage. I can hardly stand that woman anymore. What can I do? My friend consistently comes back with the simple statement, love your wife.

Love your wife. most husbands at that point begin pulling their hair out. They say, didn't you hear what I just said?

All the love has gone out of our relationship. We don't feel anything for each other.

My friend then says, well, tell me.

Leave aside the fact that you're married to her. He says, who would you say is your closest neighbor on the face of the earth? They sort of scratch their heads and they say, well, Obviously my wife.

He says, well, if you can't love her as your wife, love her as your neighbor.

It's the same word. Love your neighbor as yourself. He says, love her as my neighbor. I can't stand her. She's my enemy.

He takes him into the Sermon on the Mount. Love your enemy.

It's the same word. That's a dramatic way of illustrating the point. It is not dependent on feeling a certain way toward this other person. If she's my enemy, God forbid that she is, but if she's my enemy, I'm still to love her with agape love. Now the marvelous thing, and I know that many of you could witness to this, the marvelous thing is that when we do the act of love in the absence of feelings,

the feelings tend to follow along behind. The best cure to love going out of the marriage is simply going through the expression of love as if I felt it.

And lo and behold, my feelings begin to follow along behind. Same exact thing is true in relationship to God. You know, it's one thing to praise Him when I'm feeling just, you know, up. when things are really going right, my life is cheery, I'm just receiving blessing, I've gone through the Life in the Spirit seminar and it's been dynamic, you know, and I can hardly keep it in.

I praise the Lord.

But on another day, when everything has gone wrong, you know, and I woke up on the wrong side of the bed and, you know, had four people yelling at me before breakfast and I got bills I can't pay and everything is down, then to praise the Lord is not an expression of feeling at all.

But it's a matter of His worthiness. I praise Him because He's praiseworthy. How many of you know that the very best cure for spiritual depression is praising the Lord?

More of you ought to try that. When you're down in the dumps and things are going rotten, praise God. As an act of the will, you don't feel like it at all, start praising Him. Sing hymns of praise. Just say, praise the Lord.

Go through the experience of lifting up your heart. That's what we do liturgically. I say to you, lift up your hearts. That's a command. You can do it. Lift them up. That's your choice. And of course, you respond enthusiastically. We lift them up unto the Lord.

But when you choose to do that, I choose to lift up my heart. I choose to praise God, not because I feel like it, but precisely because I don't feel like it, the incredible thing is, I begin to feel like it. That's lovely. That tells you something about the nature of feelings. Feelings are supposed to be subject to our wills.

We're supposed to take authority over our feelings. Most of us don't. Most of us don't even know how to do that. We just go with whatever we're feeling. If it feels good, do it. If it feels bad, don't do it. And we're leading a very shallow life because of that. Take authority over our feelings, and that could be nowhere truer than in relationship with our husbands and our wives.

Husbands, choose to love your wife. Go through the experience of loving her as an act of agape self-sacrifice, and the beautiful thing is, It will restore the feelings if the feelings have begun to depart. Larry Christensen said, The husband is to exercise a divine and spiritual authority rooted in the sacrifice of himself.

Secondly, care for her spiritual welfare. Care for her spiritual welfare. A number of related words are used here. the analogy now is Christ's love for the church is like the love of a husband for his wife any good analogy cuts in both directions so we can learn something about Christ's love for the church by looking at a good marriage we can also learn something about what a good marriage is supposed to be by looking at how Christ loves the church it says he sanctifies his church husbands are to sanctify their wives.

That's a ministry the husband is to perform for his wife. Whatever else that might mean, it certainly involves prayer for her and with her.

To sanctify something is to set it aside for God's purposes. It's to bring it to God. We could take this lectern, ordinary lectern, we bring it into the church and we dedicate it to the Lord. We give it to Him for Him to do it as He sees fit. It's sanctified. It is made holy by virtue of the one to whom it's given.

Husbands are to bring their wives to the Lord for Him to do it as He sees fit. That tacitly means the acknowledgement of the Lord's right to supersede my own wants and desires in my wife's life. I'm bringing her day by day in prayer to the Lord. And also I'm praying with her.

Leading her in that process of coming to the Lord. Second word, cleanse her. It says Christ cleanses the church by the washing of water and the Word. This is a priestly ministry. A ministry of cleansing someone from guilt. Real or imagined. It involves bringing that person into the light of God's Word, the cleansing of the Word, that's how we get clean, is by the application of God's Word to our lives.

But it also means, again, a pastoral, a prayer ministry of intercession for her.

How many husbands tend to take a back seat to their wife's spiritual leadership within the family

because they don't have as much time as she does to get involved, Because constitutionally, somehow, religion is for women and children. And we men are too strong for that sort of thing. And so we say, even if I tried, I could never catch up with her anyway. You know, she's miles down the road from me. Husbands, you're charged by the Lord.

Wherever you are along the road, this is your responsibility. However inadequate you think you may be. You're the one He's chosen to do it. And if you don't, it won't get done. a ministry of cleansing a priestly ministry releasing from guilt let me press this just a little bit

probably there's nowhere where this is more needed than in the bedroom

and yet how many men reverse exactly what is being said here by demanding of their wives as an expression of your love for me something which violates her conscience. Do you see that that's the exact opposite of the obligation that Christ has entrusted to us? Rather than insisting that she do something that would please me, I'm to cater to her sensibilities in this area.

And again, mutual submission.

The third word is nourish her. These are related. Nourish her. Spiritually means to teach her, to lead her. And if you can't do that, if you can't provide for her spiritual nourishment, if she's already ahead of you, catch up. Catch up. Catch up with her.

At the very least, provide for her.

If you can't be the one that leads the family in family devotions, at least provide that they can get involved with them somewhere. Find out what are some good materials to begin to use in a family altar. Find a version of the Bible that you can share with your children at whatever age is appropriate. We've got one that we can share with Jessica at age two. It's called the Bible in Pictures for Little Eyes. One big picture and about that much print for any given day. And of course you have to go through the print seven or eight times and paraphrase it. Jessica is getting something out of Scripture. We have another one that's a little bit, just slightly more advanced for Jonathan.

We've got Catherine now reading the Scripture for herself every night and enjoying it. Enjoying it. Husbands, find creative ways to take leadership with your whole family, but especially with your wife. And if you're not yet able to take that kind of leadership, start coming regularly on Wednesday evenings or Sunday evenings or to Bible study in the neighborhood or whatever it is so that you can get into that position. of taking leadership.

Whatever you do, whatever you do, don't be jealous of her time spent with Christ. May I say to you, if there are any of you here under duress, and there may be,

don't pick a fight with Jesus Christ. It's one you can't possibly win. Don't be jealous of your wife's commitment to Christ. I guarantee you The closer she gets to Him, the more you're going to enjoy it. The better wife and mother she'll become. It may take some time of sifting it out and understanding the implications, but you're going to profit as your wife pursues her love affair with Christ.

Husbands, it's our responsibility to provide for our wives materially. And that's a parable of the responsibility to provide for them spiritually.

A couple of footnotes on that. I think that the norm is usually, therefore, for the husband to handle the budget. Usually. There may be some exceptions to that rule by mutual agreement. But this is an area of responsibility. If you choose to discharge it through your wife, still understand that you are responsible.

And also, may I suggest to us all that to become dependent upon the wife's income is really a violation of what we're looking at here. Now, if she chooses, she wants to have a job, and if she still has the freedom in her own schedule and personality to take care of house and family to the extent that it's required, that's something that you could agree upon. I'm not against that in the slightest. But what I'm saying is that if the husband and the family become dependent upon the wife's income, probably the time has come again to take another look at the lifestyle and question whether perhaps we could afford to live at a lesser level that would free the wife and would in turn free the husband to be the man that God is calling him to be.

Fourthly, accept responsibility for her. Accept responsibility for her. In Job, the first chapter, we see a beautiful picture of a father and a husband taking responsibility for his family. We read that Job went out every morning and offered sacrifices on behalf of his whole family. And he says, it may be that one of them has offended against God, even inadvertently.

And he wants to cover that offense. and he doesn't say, oh, that's his problem. He takes the responsibility for his whole family. Especially true with relationship to our wives. Take responsibility for them. It's not that she has botched it.

It's under the leadership which God has entrusted to me. Something has happened and I'm responsible for that. How can I help to sort it out?

it's a lovely picture of Moses exercising responsibility over the whole people of Israel in Numbers 11 particular point when they become very rebellious and they're complaining against his leadership and Moses' response to that is to go to God and in essence to ask him what is wrong with me that I would have created this rebellion amongst my people what is wrong with me

take responsibility just as the employer is responsible for the employee so the husband takes responsibility over his family

fifth, give yourself up for her it says Christ gave himself up for the church be crucified be crucified, lay down your life for her Donald Gray Barnhouse was one of the great preachers of the last generation. And at the wedding of his daughter, he gave a little homily, and in the midst of it, he made the comment, no woman will ever find it hard to submit to a man who is willing to be crucified.

This is the pattern of headship. Do you begin to see what's being said here? It says Jesus Christ is the model for us. What kind of headship did He exercise in relationship to the church? Did He lord it over the church? Did He consistently demand on having the church cater to Him? Be His servant. Attend His every need.

No, exactly the opposite. He gave Himself up for the church. He poured Himself out. He became the servant. He washed His disciples' feet. He went to the cross of crucifixion. That's headship. And it says, Husbands, love your wives after the same pattern that Jesus Christ loves the church.

He gave Himself up for the church.

I'd like to suggest some specifics that this might include.

Number one, be the first to beg forgiveness.

That would be a good contest in a marriage. To see who could be the first to beg forgiveness when a problem arises.

And in that regard, may I suggest to you that it's not enough simply to say, if I did something wrong, I'm sorry.

I was wrong. Will you forgive me?

Praise her. Praise her. Don't answer me.

but search through your mind and ask yourself when is the last time you praised your wife?

You see, Jim Keith did it this afternoon. He's rejoicing in that over there. He's the only one I saw. When's the last time you praised your wife? And we come and it talks in the liturgy about offering to God a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving that we choose to make a sacrifice of our lips, of our wills, of our hearts to praise Him. We're to praise our wives.

It says in Proverbs 31, in that marvelous chapter about the good wife, the end of the passage says, Her children rise up and call her blessed, her husband also, and He praises her. Many women have done excellently, but you surpassed them all.

Honor her. Honor her. This is all a matter of giving yourself up for her. Honor her. Choose to honor her. 1 Peter 3.7 says, You husbands are to live considerably with your wives, bestowing honor on the woman as the weaker sex, since you are joint heirs of the grace of life, in order that your prayers may not be hindered.

don't think that you can be right with God and wrong with your wife. You can't do it. It's an impossibility.

And the obligation, the responsibility here is to honor her, to seek to honor her. How many of us go off and even not really fully meaning it, we belittle our wives. Make fun of them. Criticize them in public, let alone in private. Honor them. That your prayers may not be hindered. Colossians 3.19 says Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them

And finally, serve them Serve her, serve your wife Jesus again is the model, the example Jesus serves the church

I think one of the most profound statements in all the New Testament is on the night just before he was betrayed The Last Supper has taken place. Judas has gone out to betray Jesus. And it says this, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, rose from table, stripped off his outer garments, dirted himself with a towel, and began to wash his disciples' feet.

I want you to get the order there. Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands. Jesus knew who He was. Jesus knew His authority. He knew His headship. He knew He was in charge. He wasn't dependent upon having His ego bolstered by somebody else stroking Him. He could afford to be vulnerable. He could afford to serve. Jesus knew His headship.

And he exercised it by taking the ignominious role of the lowest of the servants.

Do you see what I'm saying? The Christian church has been guilty for centuries of talking about headship as a prerogative for insisting upon my way. But what we find as we really take a look is it's exactly the opposite. Headship is servanthood. Servanthood. Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands. Yes. Husbands, more than that. Don't just be submissive, seeking the wisdom and the agreement of your wife.

It's not just that you would come to a point of mutual submission. More than that, be her servant.

Gird yourself with a towel and wash her feet.

I need to confess to you that I don't practice what I preach very well.

But I'm working on it.

I'd like to give you two very brief suggestions and then put a footnote for those who aren't yet married but might sometime get married. Two suggestions to the husbands. Number one, we talked last week about date your kids.

How about dating your wife?

Can you remember back, you know, to how it was?

Just call her up.

Probably shouldn't do this tomorrow afternoon, but soon.

Say, hi honey, what are you doing tonight? There'll be stunned silence and then she'll say, who is this?

And when she discovers that it's you, she'll say, same thing I'm doing every night, the dishes.

You know, the kids, the kids who say to us that marriage takes all the romance out of love really have a point.

That's an indictment of most of our marriages. You remember how it used to be. You know, flowers and surprise and excitement and dinner out and maybe the theater or whatever it was. You know, and yet we fall into a routine and the person that ought to matter most to us in all the world, we end up taking for granted. I had a couple in my office not too long ago. And for the third time, the husband had drifted into an adulterous situation.

And we began to look at what was wrong. And as we counseled together, I finally came to the conclusion. I said, you know, there is no major problem here.

It's just that you've taken each other for granted. You've been married for 22 years and you assume there isn't anything left to discover. And they both agreed that was so.

We've fallen into that rut. But we could rekindle that joy of romance. Date your wives. Do something unexpected and fun and surprising and romantic. Take the quality time and make it a priority.

And secondly, this one will really slay you.

Ask your wife to make a list of the things that she would like you to do around the house.

in order of priority

and commit yourself to doing them.

It may take a very long time to get through the list.

You'd be amazed to know how many things would be very easily done. You just never bothered to ask. And she didn't want to nag.

But commit yourself to doing those things if it takes five years. If the list has to be continually revised. But honey, I love you. I will give myself, as time and money allows, to getting done some of the things that you want done.

Two very simple suggestions.

Now, very quickly, to those who anticipate that one day they might get married,

our biggest problem in the middle of the 20th century, in my opinion, is impatience. We have instant everything.

and we want instant success in our social relationships.

Determined to wait upon God. Determined to wait upon God. There's an old phrase that says, God leaves the very best to those who leave the choice to Him.

I guarantee you do not want to get married outside of God's will.

If it's His will, in His timing, You have a foundation on which to build. If it's not, He may give you the grace to make some kind of a success of it anyway. But do you really want to take that chance? Determine to wait upon God. If your will is to know His will, I guarantee that He can make it known, if you'll be patient. If you want encouragement in this regard, I'd urge you to get a hold of the biography of Jim and Betty Elliot.

Under the shadow of the Almighty, they were missionaries to the Uca Indians about 20 years ago in Peru and Ecuador. A fantastic story of a couple waiting upon God for his timing. A friend of mine in seminary told me on the night before he got married, he made a statement that I have never forgotten. I have never heard anybody else make this statement. I wish I could have made it. He said, I am on the very best of terms with every girl I ever went with. what does that tell you? that tells you that he had a consistent commitment in his dating and social relationships not to run ahead of God to keep it within the boundaries of what is appropriate to a friendship so that if then it doesn't develop into a lifetime marital commitment is not the agony of breaking it off because we've gone too far in one way or another patience is the most important word I could give to you and secondly and finally

if God wants you to be married he has the person of his choosing and settling for somebody else

rushing into something else can only bring about unhappiness for everybody involved

people are under enormous social pressure to get into the dating and the going together stage and then to go beyond that and end up finding themselves in relationships in which things have just gone too far we might as well get married

I know very few people who end up marrying those they didn't date

I'd urge you if it's not too late already to make as the basis of your dating relationships what is God's will what sort of person does God want me to be investing my time with the sort of person who would help me to be the kind of man the kind of woman that he's calling me to be if I don't date the person who I know is going to take me away from God it's not likely I'm going to marry him so we come back to patience.

Final statement then is from Paul Tournier in a book called To Understand Each Other, speaking to those who are already married

and feeling a problem at some point. Tournier is a marvelous Christian psychologist. He's a Swiss psychologist. In this paragraph he says, So-called emotional incompatibility is a myth invented by jurists short of arguments for divorce

and a common excuse people use to hide their real feelings. I simply do not believe it exists. There are no emotional incompatibilities. There are misunderstandings and mistakes, however, which can be corrected where there is a willingness to do so.

When Jesus Christ becomes the head, when both partners have as their desire and commitment to be mutually submitted to his headship, and therefore in mutual submission to each other, we have the formula for success. Husbands, love your wives. Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. Let us pray together.

Father, in the light of this pattern in Scripture, we confess that every one of us is a miserable failure.

and yet we would renew our confidence and our hope that you can take even such as we

and you can reshape us after the very image of Christ

as we commit ourselves to such a pattern. Those of us, Lord, who are married would thank you right now for our husbands or our wives. We thank you for entrusting to us the privilege of sharing that other one's life.

What an incredible honor you've given to me to allow me to share Karen's life. Thank you for her.

I would pray for help in living out the pattern in relationship to her that I see the Lord Jesus Himself living out in relationship to His church. I pray for every one of us that You would help us to rebuild our marriages, to rekindle our love affairs.

And for those who are not now but might someday be married, we pray together, Lord, that You would give them the patience and the will to wait upon You for Your timing and Your choice that we might build together lives that are beautiful with the beauty of Christ. For we ask it in His name. Amen.

Amen.