- Hello, everyone. Welcome to another session of our Ephesians Bible study. Let's take a moment to go before the Lord. Pray for His blessing as we jump into the text. Let's pray. God, we thank you for your grace. Lord, we think about all the various difficult things that we must do in our lives.

We think about all the various things you have blessed us with, especially our families. And we pray, Father, that we would hold those gifts and blessings with great thankfulness, but also a weightiness of responsibility. And God, as you challenge us to be more like you, to be like Christ in the home, I pray, Father, that we would be all the more inspired by your word and instruction, that we would be inspired by your spirit, that God, ultimately, it would be to your glory and good pleasure to see your children, Lord, build and continue to love as you do.

Lord, we thank you again for your instruction. It's in Christ's name we pray. Amen. Okay. Well, let's jump right in and read our passage. I'm gonna start from verse 21 and make our way down to verse 33. And the passage says, "And be subject to one another in the fear of Christ.

Wives, be subject to your own husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, he himself being the savior of the body. But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything." Husbands, love your wives as, just as Christ also 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 to himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she would be holy and blameless.

So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself, for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it just as Christ also does the church, because we are members of his body. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.

This mystery is great, but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church. Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband. Again, we just always try to typically do a quick review and connection that when you think about submission, you are placing yourself under, right?

And what you realize is there is a regular pattern in our lives as Christians to diminish our own significance. And the scriptures literally tell us in other passages to regard others as much more important than yourself. And the needs of others in greater priority than yourself. But within that also, in the home, God has designed it that there be levels of leadership and submission within the home.

And what we realize from the previous passage is that the role that God has for the husband is that he should reflect Christ's headship over the church. And so if we're trying to think of conceptually, how do I envision the role of the husband, you should be meditating about what does it mean for Christ to be head, right?

What does it mean for the husband to be head of the house? And all those different things, because obviously one paragraph isn't going to give you every element of what that role entails. But what we realize is when we get a big vision and a picture of what we are supposed to be, then all the little steps then we can think about and apply.

So the idea here is that the husbands have an incredibly great role to play when it comes to leadership as a husband and as father. Now what's kind of funny is when I think about the role of husband and the role of wife, I think about some of the weddings that I've been to and the interesting and fun, cliche-ish things that people say.

I've heard it said, you know, a husband say, "Happy wife, happy life," right? Now all of that is just a little bit of just, I guess you could say idioms that we say for fun. And another thing that I've heard at weddings is there are three rings in marriage, engagement ring, wedding ring, and suffering.

And it's like, "Ha ha," and everybody laughs. And it's been a little bit overplayed, so people don't say it anymore. When it comes to even the husband's role and the wife's role, I heard somebody say within a wedding context that the husband is the head, but I am the neck that turns the head.

And everyone, "Ha ha," you know, it's pretty funny. Well, when I think about that, obviously it's funny because there's an element of the human observation of life and says, "Yeah, these are kind of funny. I know they're not like life rules to live by, but they're just funny observations about our relationship." And there's another one I want to add to this because today I just want to summarize.

There's this little teaching and rhyme I want to say. I made this up myself, okay? He who has no head is dead. Okay? Now, what I mean by that is this. I realize within this passage, there's going to be such a significance. We can't say enough about how important it is that there be strong leadership.

Again, we talked about every institution of man, there is some kind of leadership and there's authority and there is subjection. Well, when you think about the importance of leadership, one of the things that I mentioned was whether it's a dance class, whether it's a sport and you have a coach, one of the major factors that makes it so fun and one of the major factors that makes it so enjoyable and one of the factors that actually makes the team or the organization work is to make sure that there's strong leadership because where there is no leadership, there's going to be a massive contributor to all the wrongs that we see in any kind of institution and even society at large.

So I can't emphasize enough how important strong leadership is. And so when I think about that, actually, one of the greatest challenges that I think every young man needs to hear is that at some point or another, we need to get ourselves ready to adopt and accept that role.

There is a temptation to not want that kind of responsibility on our shoulders. There's a temptation to expect other people to lead you. There are some people who want basically in the home, the other party to do their fair share of decision making and just make sure that no other extra burden comes on me.

And I think that kind of mentality is all wrong. There is this attitude that needs to be garnered, which is to say not in a prideful way, but if God has so designed me to take upon this role, even if my personality doesn't lend to strong leadership, or even if my life experiences doesn't naturally guide me to be a strong leader in the home, nevertheless, so be it.

That's something I have to submit to. That God has called for the husbands in the home to be example setting, role playing leaders who has been given a title by Christ, an incredibly serious title to say, "You are to reflect my headship over the church in your home." And I have both given you then the proper example, which is Christ himself, the proper resources, which is the scriptures and the spirit.

And I've also given the commandment to those who are underneath your leadership to submit to you. Wow. I have to then as a first step say, "Okay, although I am super fallible, although I am deficient in so many ways, this is a specific calling that God has given to me." That's the way we need to think of it.

Now, as we continue to meditate and ask the question then about what does headship over the church, what does headship over the wife, what does that mean for the husband? We learned that Christ calls the husband to love like Jesus loves. God desires us to love like Christ loves.

And he says, "Husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her." And the commandment is very simple that we need to be lovers. And just as a immediate kind of meditation and thinking about that, I recognize the fact that yes, I think what's more natural to a lot of men is we are naturally workers.

We are naturally task oriented. We are kind of naturally bent on having certain, maybe just thinking like engineers or something like that to take a problem and fix it or whatever it may be. But when it comes to relational love, that's an area that perhaps doesn't come as naturally.

Nevertheless, that's a calling for us. And this is in such massive contrast to what has been then in the history of mankind, right? Last week we described how yes, it is a difficult thing that in terms of history, we acknowledge the fact that throughout history, women have been mistreated.

There have been sinful men who have viewed women more so like property throughout history. And the thing about it is the whole shebang of the concept of what authority means, right? What that should look like has been misconstrued by man without God. Within God's understanding of authority, that authority is used to love.

That leadership is more so described and depicted as somebody who knows how to love much. And it's in contrast to I think today's day, today's concept of what marriage should be. Because in today's eyes, marriage should be fulfilling. And so there are those who are so disappointed with marriage, they'll say certain statements like, "You know what?

This marriage thing, it just failed to meet my needs." And what I say again is we are looking at that picture the wrong way. Think about team leaders of a project. You know, I know we're supposed to be doing this project for our work, but man, my team just doesn't fill my needs.

But you're the team leader. I mean, think about it. If you were a school teacher, right? You're a biology teacher. You go into class, you come out and you say, "You know what? This class is horrible because this class does not fill my needs." But you're the teacher, right?

Do you see how this, just this command of loving the wives and exercising headship over that home and exercising headship in relation to the wife, it has within a worldview which is totally unlike the world. And what's crazy about all this is the manner and the model by which Christ gave this commandment is to say that we need to love the church as He did and gave Himself up for her.

You know, last week I asked an interesting question, which was, "Who do you think has it harder? Who has a tougher responsibility and a tougher job? Do ladies or do the men?" And I will concede that it is arguably the sisters. Why? Because you have to submit to sinners.

You have to follow fallible examples. You're just following a shadow of the actual reality, right? We said it's very difficult and last week we didn't get to talk about what are some different circumstances, exceptions, are there any? We didn't get to talk about all those kind of things, but we recognize the fact that the responsibility to submit to a, yes, redeemed Christian man, but still in his flesh, is a tall, tall order.

But here, and arguably, again, the correct answer to that original question is, "Man, you could, it's tough to say." But arguably, let's meditate and think about this command to love like Christ and to love sacrificially. You think about the model of Christ in his incredible, lavishing, humble love. I mean, just take a scroll back in Ephesians and think about chapter one and two.

You think about Christ's love. It was so intentional, so purposeful. You know, one of the things that never ceases to amaze me is to dwell and meditate on this fact. That the idea of loving us did not originate with my nagging and with my pleas and with my cries for help.

Right? Like God's design to love, his desire to redeem wasn't because he heard us like, "What was that? Oh, my people are in need." Like that's not the story, is it? The fact of the matter is we were so entrenched in our wretchedness and we were so entrenched in our pride that sinful man wouldn't even cry out for help.

I mean, just take a moment to think about that. I think about this sometimes. My soul, because of the stain of sin, resists to repent even last week if I sinned. To think that it was our cry for help that caused Christ to come down, that's not reality. But the truth of the matter is, in these realities, Christ took the first step.

He loved first. He initiated and from his own accord, he loved us. There was nobody kicking him under the table, nobody giving him reminders. It was him. And what's more, this passage is very clear. The aspect of his love that is incredibly profound is his willingness to self-sacrifice and lay down his life.

The wife could look at the husband and say, "Wow, you really need to learn how to die." The calling for the husband is to die to self, to lay down personal preferences, rights, to lay down personal priorities so that he might love his wife sacrificially as Christ did. That he might give freely, willingly, and graciously as an encouragement to the single guys who aren't husbands yet.

There are ways to build up our character because essentially that element in us, a loving heart that is willing to sacrifice will build character. Think about how you can develop a heart that sees needs and takes the first step. Think about how you can be observant to not just simply yourself and your wellbeing, but the wellbeing of the people around you and actually say, "Let me do that." I want to tell you a funny story.

I used to do welcoming team for a long time. I did it all through my college years here at Berean. I loved it. One of the things was just that challenge. As a welcoming team member, you're not just the person who passes a program. You're supposed to see people as they come in and be an incredible host.

I remember taking upon that challenge. We had some amazing welcome team members through the years and so thankful for them. Back then we used to do lunch things. Back then we used to do a lot of stuff at church. People would be carrying their supplies. The education department, they would always carry the boxes because we were out of school.

One time I was like, "I should help," so I ran over. I said, "Let me get that." They were so thankful. The part of me was like, "Oh, I feel so good about helping." Then there was this other moment when there was a much older sister at church. She was carrying this heavy bag.

I ran over. I was like, "Let me get that for you," but I said it as I was a machismo guy. She was like, "Oh, I get it. Moon's like a man now, huh?" I was like, "Oh." I didn't know how to respond to that. Ladies, if a guy tries to help out, just let him do it.

I saw a little bit of pride there. That's for another sermon. But the idea is that just kind of shook me. I was like, "I don't know what to do now. Am I being prideful? Am I being helpful?" The idea is it's better to lean for guys on the side of taking initiative.

Are you going to look a little cocky, a little bit like, "Oh, okay, maybe." That's better than looking ignorant. It's better than looking like you have no sight. You're not observant. You don't care about other people. If you're so afraid, like, "I don't want to infringe. Can I help you?

Can I not?" Then just ask the question, "Can I help you? Is it okay if I do that for you?" Whatever it may be, but take that lead. I think that's important for us to learn. Again, for me, I'm an incredibly passive guy by nature. This is something for me, I just like regularly trying to remind myself, "God desires for you to be like Him, and so we must." Now, so we see then this calling to love like Christ and it moves forward into other elements of Christ's love.

Notice that here it's still describing Christ's love. I want to make that a point here. The rest of the passage, as it describes the love that a husband should show to the wife, the whole time he's actually describing Christ's love at the majority of it. So here, even though he's talking about the sanctifying, cleansing, all that kind of stuff, you can really clearly tell he's more so talking about Christ's love for the church.

But moving forward, notice I highlighted for you these terms. It is so that, and then verse 27, that, and then right in the middle of it, but that. And all of those prepositions, excuse me, all of those prepositions help us to understand that there is a purpose behind Christ's love.

God's love is purposeful and therefore you must love with purpose. He says that His purpose is to sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word. His purpose is to sacrificially love for the good of the church, that the church would be holy. Think about that.

His desire is to cleanse her of all unrighteousness, to cause the church to live in greater accordance to the high standard of God's word. Take a moment to think about that. You know, sometimes I counsel people and husbands, wives, it goes both ways. They start complaining about each other of how ungodly they are.

I got duped. What do you mean you got duped? I thought they were so godly. Start living with them and next thing you know, they're lazy. Sometimes they're so passive. Sometimes they don't care. Sometimes they don't pray. Sometimes they don't, da da da da, and they're not careful with their words.

And you just realize people are so much more sinful than you presume, you know? And then when you think about that, I want you to understand, well, it comes back to this idea. Is Christ complaining about how sinful his church is, his bride is? Or is he being the man and taking upon that responsibility to wash her?

Wow. He is going to be the greatest agent of cleansing in her life by inspiring and teaching the knowledge of the scriptures and the application of the scriptures. So whose responsibility is it now that you see either laziness in your spouse? Whose responsibility is it now when you see that ungodliness of their words in your spouse?

And the thing about it is good leaders. Good leaders are not going to be just okay with ungodliness. And I think this is something that is important, right? Husbands has to have a level of working knowledge of the scriptures that they're able to see not because of personal irritation, but because of the standard of God, that's not holy.

And not because of what it does to me, but more so because of what it does in relationship to God, you need to grow in this area. That takes strength and courage because some people will say, "Well, I don't want to say anything because man, happy wife is happy life." Uh-uh.

Then all of a sudden you concede your leadership. That's something that again is a huge challenge. That's something is such a huge challenge. Why? Because I would say 95% of people do not want to get into conflict. But the husband should not get into conflict for his own preferences.

He should get into conflict for the standard of God. Why? Why? Because look at this verse 27, "That he might present to himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she would be holy and blameless." Here is this strange turn of events.

Some husbands thought, "Wait a minute. I thought my wife was supposed to be, I thought my wife was supposed to be a help meat." If you're conservative churches and you learned about husband and wife roles, they've learned that term. You're the one that comes along and you're supposed to support the husband in my endeavor to be a successful, I don't know, career guy, whatever it may be, a successful lawyer, successful policeman, successful educator, whatever it may be.

I need to make sure that I'm doing that well. I need to be successful and you're supposed to come around and help me. You're supposed to be help meat. But then this picture is like all the way around, like I'm supposed to be almost supporting you to be the best that God desires you to be, for you to be holy, for you to be growing.

Is that the way it is now? It is interesting because clearly I think what this challenges us to think about is, yes, the scripture already commanded the wife to submit to the husband, but the husband's desire is for the good of the wife and in that way, her well-being, her godliness, her holiness, he is serving that purpose and in that way he's subjecting.

But you know what's really interesting, the way I want to put it, is that Christ has a glorious vision for his bride. And so husbands, let me ask you, those of you who are watching for husbands, do you have a glorious vision for your wife? Think about all this.

He wants to present her in all her glory. When was the last time we thought that? I want to see in my vision of my wife is to picture her in all her glory, that there would not even be a spot or wrinkle or any such thing. And yes, when I was studying this passage, I was like, "Ooh, we can break this down.

What does it mean to have no spot, no wrinkle or any such thing?" And then I laughed because my mind is really simple. It's like, "Maybe I should buy her that skin cream, make her glow to address those sun spots. She spent too much time in the sun playing sports or something like that." Okay, if you want to do that, do it.

At least bare minimum, you got that application down. But obviously it's talking about so much more. And I apologize for using this example, but I feel like maybe some guys might be like, "Oh, I don't know I'm supposed to do this." But we do. Why? Because there are guys who have project cars.

They have project this, project that, project this and project that. And we know what it means to get something and take it with all of its imperfections and then start buffing things out and putting your elbow grease and sweat, waxing the car, putting protection over it, vacuuming the insides.

And we do details, detail-oriented things, dusters and all that kind of stuff. We do ceramic coating. We do all this sort of stuff. And then we use different products. We know. We don't even need our friends to be around. Sometimes after you do that work, you invest, you take a step back and you watch your project shine.

And it gives you pleasure because you've invested yourself in there. There are times when I counsel couples and all the wife desires is to receive that kind of investment, personal attention from the wife. And yeah, we, husbands may have reasons. Oh gosh, you know, like we got busy, we had kids, all that stuff.

But that's where we need to learn and grow. Husbands need to learn to have this glorious vision for the one that they love and be able to give that kind of personal investment, to show affection, to show care, to be able to see where are the areas that my wife needs that support.

So husbands, again, you got this desire to see no spring, no wrinkle, no spot, no such thing that she would be blameless. And man, what a high calling that would be. Because now, you know, husbands feel like sometimes men feel like, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to train her.

And it didn't say train your wife. Okay. Let's just make that very clear. It didn't say go, you know, like train and whip them into shape. That is not what it said. Scripture many times talks about showing an instruction and giving guidance and stuff like that. And many times it's not so much manipulation or force, but it's inspiration through example.

You now have to think about how are you going to lead to this end goal of spiritually providing for her. For the spiritual provision as God, I mean, think about God, like God desiring to take care of his people. He wants you to be that pocket small group leader, so to speak in your home.

And you supposed to be that example setting individual who is loving the word, lead by example to cherish scripture, to apply, lead by example of how you're going to deal with fatigue. You lead by example of how are you going to use your spare time? You lead by example of how are you going to deal with that stress, the stress upon you at work, you're going to come home and take it all out.

You lead by example of how are you going to absorb the hits of life and not retaliate. You lead by example. I know some of us, man, we struggle with the thoughts of like, how am I going to provide for my wife? This here in terms of providing that spiritual personal investment, that should be at the top of our list.

So we've learned that much that our love should be sanctifying and glorifying as husbands. But next, the passage challenges us to love like you love yourself. Love like you love yourself. Verse 28 says, "So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies." Now, so again, sometimes I sit and I just like, as I'm writing, I typically just break down a verse and just start writing all my thoughts about it in each little section.

Part of me, I was like, well, truth be told, my body's clearly not being taken care of right now. Like I'm starting to develop a gut, I've got bad posture, I'm complaining about my bad back. Okay, you can't give an excuse like, well, you know, I just don't care too much.

No, no, no. There is what you call an assumption of the norm here, an assumption of the norm. What is the assumption of the norm? The assumption of the norm is that we love ourselves. The assumption of the norm is that in terms of who you're taking care of best, the majority of individuals take care of their own bodies much, much better than anybody else.

So husbands, think about this. How would you immediately apply this? If you are to love your wives as yourself, what are you supposed to be doing? Now sometimes guys, I think a lot of guys, the way they think about love is like, well, I buy myself a ton of toys, I'm going to buy my wife a toy, right?

Now if that's your application, again, very simplistic. If that's your application, do it because at least you're doing something. But scripture typically calls us to so much more than buying a wife toys. What is the principle here? Think about this principle and the rest of the passage, starting from verse 30.

In Ephesians chapter five, verse 30, the scripture says that we need to love our own wives. There is this possessive, me and her are like, there's a possession there. Like wives, your husband's yours and nobody else's. Husbands, your wife is yours and nobody else's. There is an exclusive, confined, covenantal love that guards you, the two of you.

But the scripture says more than that. Explanation is because we are members of his body. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife and the two shall become one. This mystery is great, but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church.

What is he highlighting when he says, love your wives as your own body? He's highlighting the spiritual truth that yes, you are two separate individuals coming together in the holy matrimony of marriage, but there is a spiritual reality greater than two people living in the same house. You are one body.

You're spiritually one. That's the way he describes it. And it's from the beginning, the way that God has fashioned husband and wife is like this. The principle is the Lord God fashioned into a woman, the rib, sorry, the Lord God fashioned into a woman, the rib, which he had taken from the man and brought her to the man.

The man said, this is now bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

I mean, wow, we could actually camp out there and think like, whoa, if you think about this, just recall we originated essentially. And if you look at other passages, for example, first Corinthians chapter 11, it talks about how, listen, two are different and yes, there's authority, but within this man comes from the wife, but what's more, the wife came from the husband.

So when you think about it, there is this identity where you're bound together as one. And I think we as husbands have to keep thinking on that level. We are by nature and identity completely different once you're married. And you have to think like that. You have to think about yourselves as one being.

You can't constantly think about it like, well, she's different. Well, she has different ideas. Well, she's this and she's that. We have to understand that we are in this desire to get married. We are moving towards oneness. We are moving towards unity. And I think when you take a look at husbands and wives who have been together for a long, long time, and they've really tried, they've really tried to submit oneself to another and to work together, there is a kind of mutual understanding and intimacy that's just like a treasure, right?

It's rare. You know it's a fruit of like long-term investment. And that is not something that is just so commonplace. What's the other thing about this is, again, there is an assumption. And here's the assumption. Verse 29, "For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church." So you see that?

The idea here is there is an assumption. There is nobody who hates themselves. I'm going to take a quick line from one of my counseling professors. He says, "You know, honestly speaking, someone may disagree with me. It's like, I hate myself. And there are people who hurt themselves. There are people who despise themselves, so to speak.

And they'll say, no, I hate myself." But a professor used to say, "Well, I disagree, number one, because scripture says typically, no, you don't really hate yourself. And if you do hate yourself, it's kind of a perverted hate." What he means by this is, he said, "There was a time when he was counseling somebody and that person was somebody at the school that he was already ministering at.

And then that individual wrestled deeply with saying, I hate myself. I just radically hate myself. And he took notes down and he said, okay, I'm going to have to think about this and come back." But what he recognized was that when they went out to lunch, that individual was at the salad bar and they were sitting there picking the best tomatoes.

And then he realized, I don't know if you really hate yourself, right? Because the idea is you don't stand in a buffet line picking the best tomatoes for yourself when you actually hate yourself. Because if you did truly hate yourself, you would just go ahead and eat dirt, right?

But no, you feed yourself sushi, you feed yourself on buffets, and then you say, I hate myself. The idea here is this, the assumption, the assumption is that we already have such a vested interest on our self-preservation and our glory. And when we disappoint our own vested interest, that's when we are disappointed in ourselves.

Now why am I talking about this? Because foolishly, this generation had this weird thought that if you are to really, really love your wife, then you need to first be happy in your own skin. Better yet, you need to love yourself in order to love the other person. That's just kind of backwards thinking.

It's kind of one of those, oh, pretty cool to put on the Facebook and, you know, oh, that might sound really profound. But actually it's not. When he says you need to love yourself, sorry, you need to love your wife as yourself, the assumption is you already nourish your own body.

Look at this. He says, you already nourish and you cherish your body. It's yours, so you take care of it. That's the assumption. And so likewise, you husbands, you need to learn how to nourish and cherish your wives. Really briefly, what does it mean to nourish? There's a lot to say about this, but just really briefly, to nourish has this intensity to it because it's a combo word.

It's ek trefo. Okay. It's an ek is the intensive part and a trefo means to nurture, to feed, to rear, to bring up to maturity, such as in the case of children. Uh-oh, are you supposed to baby your wife? No, you're not supposed to baby your wife. But surely you're supposed to nourish her just like you would nourish yourself.

What's more, the passage says to cherish. And you know what's really interesting? Cherish has a literal sense where if you're using it technically, it literally means to warm. So the next time your wife talks about how cold it is, but you're like, oh my goodness, but I'm sweaty and hot.

You need to warm your, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. Figuratively, the idea is to cherish and the passage where it's used is 1 Thessalonians chapter two, it says, but we prove to be gentle among you and a nursing mother tend as a nursing mother who tenderly cares for her own children.

Interestingly enough, there's a term here, tenderly cares means to cherish. I want you to think about that. You know, I think again, one of the dangers of being in a love relationship where you see each other every single day from, you know, sunup to sundown and you go home is you see all the things and you're so tempted to judge the other person like, oh, oh, right.

You get all irritated and you get all disappointed. But the thing about it is we don't do that with our kids because our kids, they're selfish. They're rowdy. They don't listen. They're rebellious. They're arrogant. Oh goodness. You know, sometimes they get arrogant. Sometimes they say things in ignorance, but you don't sit there like, oh, you arrogant synth like, right.

You still love and cherish. Why? That's your baby, right? That's, that's your pride and joy. Husbands need to learn to do that with the adult wife you have. Not in any kind of condescending, patronizing, chauvinistic way. Not to demean people like children, but the fact of the matter is this element I feel like I, you know, just again, such a challenge.

How do we as husband, as men learn to cherish people? And I realized some of the people that I, that I respect most, sometimes they're like really like they're a man's man, you know, like they wear the same jeans. They only have one color t-shirt. They're just like simple men who are not afraid to do anything.

So just like, we need to take care of this. Okay. If I can do it, if I did it wrong, that's fine. I can be humble and say I did it wrong, but let's do it right. Like they've got that, that kind of male courage. Sometimes I see how soft and tender their heart is where there's loyalty, where they, they feel that association with somebody and they cling to people because they love them.

And sometimes I realize like, oh man, as a young man, I need to learn how to do this, to cherish somebody. I think for me, I have learned over the years to detach myself very quickly. Out of sight, out of mind. Right. So I kind of envy people who have friends from high school and college years.

If you're not at my church, I don't have, honestly speaking. Right. The fact of the matter is though, if we are to be more like Christ, we should have this huge heart that is capable of being turned to like a mushy mother, right? Mushy father to care and love for the person who is closest to you.

And yet a lot of times when I counsel, I find that rather than this loyalty and this cherishing, sometimes we have the harshest criticisms. The most, right? Like rather than the most detailed care and I want to present you wholly, it's like I have the most detailed judgment and record of your wrong.

Right. And then I realized, oh, we are very far from the expectations of God. My conclusion, Paul says, "Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife even as himself. And the wife must see to it that she respects her husband." When I think about this, I think about this idea.

He kind of sums up and says, "Nevertheless," right? Like, so you're supposed to do all this. You're supposed to see the other person like your own body. You're supposed to sacrifice. You're supposed to have a vision for her glory. They're supposed to have a vision for her sanctification and blamelessness.

And in all this, you're supposed to love his own wife even as himself. And so he brings it in and into that circle again of saying, the kind of love you are, that we have in marriage is a very unique, intimate kind of exclusive love, protected by God's own design.

And so as a challenge, again, may we all desire to really just kind of rise from whatever we feel is like, "Oh, understandable. Understandably, we always have this and fights and disagreements and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? And understandably, you know, wives and husbands, they're going to have a hard time.

And understandably, we don't understand each other. And understandably, we do this and that kind of stuff." Sure, we live in the flesh. But man, this picture that God has given for the love, let's make sure that we have that vision in our hearts. I want to conclude by this challenge from 1 Peter 3 that says, "You husbands in the same way, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with someone weaker since she is a woman and show her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life, so that your prayers will not be hindered.

If you neglect this portion of your role as a husband to your wife, your prayers will be hindered. What's more, to sum up, all of you be harmonious, sympathetic, brotherly, kindhearted, and humble in spirit, not returning evil for evil or insult for insult, but giving a blessing instead. For you were called for the very purpose that you might inherit a blessing." Let's take a moment to pray.

Lord God, you have set a glorious example by loving first. For that, we can do nothing but thank you, thank you, thank you. But also we do want to say, God, we long to be more like you. You are lovely, Lord. You are holy and pure. And we want to be more like you.

And then truthfully speaking, Lord, if we took a moment to do a thorough evaluation, oh goodness, God, we would fail in so many ways. But Father God, help us not to simply be discouraged by our failures, but all the more be inspired that God, we have much to learn.

We have so much opportunity to love in greater fashion. We have so much opportunity to minister to our families. And I pray, Father God, that you would strengthen us by your spirit to do that. Lord, I presume, Father God, that sometimes some of the most difficult scenarios of life happen in scenarios found in the home.

And Father, we recognize that it is a weighty blessing you have given to us. And because of that, Lord, sometimes when things go wrong, the pain and the heartache is deep. But I pray, Father God, that rather than being jaded, you'd grant to us a desire to apply your word.

And especially strengthen all the fathers and all the husbands in the home. God, that you'd grant to them not the strength of the world, not the strength of their flesh, but true spiritual vision and strength of faith that God, you have called us to emulate Christ in this life.

So Father, would you to that end, guide us and lead us. It's in Christ's name we pray, amen.