 We're in chapter three this morning, Colossians chapter three. We're gonna be looking at verses 18 and 19. Verse 18 is a command to wives, as it says, to submit to their husbands. We'll be spending 45 minutes there and then I'll just ignore verse 19. But reading at verses 18 and 19, wives submit to your own husbands as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands love your wives and do not be bitter toward them. So let me lay a foundation, again, awaking you to the context and then look to put verses 18 and 19 into a personal application. So as we've started and have studied through the book of Colossians, I have mentioned to you that the first two chapters of Colossians, chapters one and two, are chapters that are laying down doctrinal truths. That's because belief always directs behavior. So doctrine teaching, doctrine comes before doing. So for two chapters, he's been teaching the Colossians and us who we are in Christ and he's been giving us the doctrine that relates to who Jesus is, what he has done, and all of that. So by the time we get to chapter three, he begins to give personal application, things that we're supposed to do. So in chapter three, the first verses that he gives to us commands us to take off the old life and put on a new life. And he has begun to share with us in chapter three the things that were to take off or to put to doubt. And so he said this. He said put to death fornication, uncleanness, evil passions and desires. And he said put to death covetousness. Now all of those sins that were mentioned are associated with unlawful sexual conduct. When he moves into verses eight and nine, he says that believers are also to put off a variety of other sins. We're to put off anger and wrath. We're to put off malice and blasphemy. We're to put off filthy language and lying. And this is because the old life has been put to death, it's been put away. And because we're new in Christ, we have a new life. You see we need to remember that when we came to faith in Christ, when we were born again, the old life was put to death. Paul speaks of that in the book of Romans in chapter six verse six when he says knowing this that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin. So that old man refers to our old manner of life, a manner of life that was in rebellion to God and a manner of life that was in spiritual bondage. And so he's saying in Christ, we're no longer slaves to and no longer to be dominated by our sin. Now that's made possible because we're ruled by Jesus and now in Christ we're free. Remember in John chapter eight verses 34 through 36, Jesus was speaking and he answered them. And he said most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin and a slave does not abide in the house forever. But a son abides forever. Therefore, if the son makes you free, you shall be free indeed. And so we've been set free. Sin is not to dominate us any longer. We're now walking what he calls newness of life and that is made possible by the power of the Holy Spirit. See you can't walk in a new life in your own flesh, in your own attempts. You can't do that. You need help. And so God has provided not only the command, but also the power. He's not giving me something I can't do. He gives me the power. He equips me to be able to do those things that he commands me to do. And that power is the same power that raised Christ from the dead. In Ephesians one 19 and 20, he says the exceeding greatness of his power towards us who believe according to the working of his mighty power, which he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at the right hand in heavenly places. Do you realize that that today, if you're a born again believer, the temple of the Holy Spirit, do you realize today that God is giving you the power to be able to live for him, to be recognizing yourself as as crucified in Christ and yet alive? I was sharing just last week. We had a wonderful, wonderful Sunday service as you who are here with us know. I was teaching on marriage. Then we had a wedding ceremony and five couples who had been living together for some time. Some of them had gotten right with the Lord and we performed their wedding form and then on Sunday night, we had our baptism and three of those couples got baptized on Sunday night. You know, and that's a great day of ministry. It's a wonderful thing. And as I was sharing with everybody Sunday night, I was sharing how that when you're baptized, it's a picture of death, burial and resurrection. And so you're dead in Christ. And so I was sharing you go down into the water. It's a picture of death and burial. But then you're raised again. But the way that you're raised again is by the power of the Holy Spirit who raised Christ himself from the dead. If you're born again, you need to grab hold of this because if you're born again, that power that raised Christ from the dead dwells in you. And if you understand that, that gives you that place, that foundation of living for Christ in a way so that sin will no longer have domination over you. A lot of times we'll say, I can't help myself. Oh, you're right. You can't help yourself completely. But with God, with Christ, I can do all things. So I can walk in the spirit. I can recognize myself to be dead to sin, yet alive in Christ. And I can have a victorious Christian life, not because I try so hard, but because he made it possible for me to by the death, burial, resurrection of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit that now lives within me. And that's a new life. And this new life is evidence of Christian is a believer. This is the evidence that you know the Lord. You're going to be holy and you're beloved by God himself. And so this new life is known for certain things. It's known for compassion. It's known for kindness. It's known by humility and meekness, long suffering and forgiveness. And so as as Paul was speaking about those things, notice verse 14, he said, but above all these things, put on love, which is the bond of perfection. In other words, love is a final garment that completes the ensemble and binds everything together. It's real. It's real by the power of the Holy Spirit. It's not something you're putting on. You know, it's it's not that difficult to appear to have compassion or to have kindness and humility. It's not that hard to have the appearance of it, but in fact to be insincere, because if your motives are improper, the behavior is not the genuine fruit of the Spirit. Artificial fruit can appear real until you try to eat some of it. And if you do not have love as the outer garment, the rest of all of this is just outer appearances. So Paul concluded that section with the exhortation for us to do all in the name of the Lord Jesus. Now he's been speaking concerning their relationships that they have in the body of Christ. And now he's speaking about the relationship of a wife and her husband. So he begins in verse 18 by giving the command to the wife. Wife submit to your own husband's as is fitting in the Lord. Now we'll look at that for the next hour. Christians live under the principle of doing all things in the name of Jesus Christ. Our lives are to be lived in such a way that we are what are called living testimonies. In 1st Corinthians 1031, Paul said, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. In verse 23, in chapter three here, he says, whatever you do, do it heartily as to the Lord and not to men. So Paul is speaking about doing things as unto the Lord, doing things in the name of Jesus Christ. And he's giving practical teaching about doing everything in his name. And he begins with a home. He begins with a wife. And he builds on the foundation of submission. And he says, submit to your own husband, not somebody else's husband. Submit to your own husband is what he is saying in. We'll look at that. We need to remember that submission is what has been called a general Christian duty. It's actually something all Christians are called to do. In Ephesians 521, Paul said, submitting to one another in the fear of God. That's something that is a general condition of the church. This fellowship, this church would not be able to do anything if we didn't submit to one another, if we didn't work with one another and all of that. That's a general thing. But we need to remember that submission is something that is done according to Ephesians 521 in the fear of God. So in that context, a Christian wife's submission to her husband is part of what she as a Christian will do. Again, Christians are to be submissive to one another. But in the family, wives are working within the framework of biblical headship. In 1 Corinthians 11.3, Paul said, I would have you know that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is the man, and the head of Christ is God. That's an order of authority. So the attitude of submission is an attitude that encourages health and stability in the family. It establishes and helps to maintain a proper authority in the home. Now obviously marriage already existed prior to Christian marriage. Christian marriage at this time is really something brand new. So what Paul is doing is he's echoing the established norm and in his command to submit as this fitting in the Lord, what he's doing is he's baptizing marriage in Christ. And he's not suggesting that women are inferior. He's stating that God receives glory by this. Now the apostle Peter spoke of submission in a different way in 1 Peter 3 verse 1. He wrote that wives were to be submissive to their own husbands. This even included unbelieving husbands who would observe their way of life. Their submission Peter was saying was a fruit of their pure lives and the fear of the Lord. Because in the same passage in 1 Peter 3 he also commanded wives to cultivate what he called the hidden person of the heart. He spoke of the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit which is precious in the sight of God. He said that women have always adorned themselves in this manner. Holy women. Now this did not make women less. In reality it made them worthy of emulation. There were women of character. They were honoring the Lord by their lifestyle. They were cultivating a gentle and quiet spirit and that gave great honor to God as well as to the husband. Now in our day we're saturated with commercials that advertise outward beauty. According to one online research institute in 2018 the cosmetic industry spent 56 billion 875 million dollars in advertising. That is an awful lot of emphasis on cosmetics. Another thing that I found interesting is a recent survey done by Beauty E. Taylor Skin Store showed that women in the United States spend about 300,000 dollars just on their face during their lifetime. It's a lot of money. There are, I'll put it this way, how many ads have you seen commercials on television that promote the cultivation of inner beauty? How many have you seen? I don't think I've ever seen one. A commercial that specifically says we have something. We're selling you ladies that will make you beautiful on the inside. We don't have that because that's not a product that that people are actually looking to buy and there's nobody putting together any products that can do that. There are, I don't know, any ads that promote cultivating inner beauty. So what that has done is that simply has lent itself to the over emphasis of external beauty. The outward appearance. And that's what a lot of people work on. The outer appearance. And I understand that. I get it. I really do. I mean I would like to look as good as I could. I do the best I can when you don't have much to work with when you begin with. You do your best to touch it up. I get it. I get it. But no matter what the bottom line is is we used to talk about ladies having an hourglass figure. That's an old saying, right? An hourglass figure. Well we need to remember that the sand does shift to the bottom eventually. That just does. So you just have to be aware of that. I mean we can spend we can spend millions of dollars on the outside. And again there's there's absolutely nothing wrong with us doing the best we can to to work with what God has given to us. And I think that's a good thing. I'm I tease with you but I also want to emphasize what really matters at the end. In the end it's what kind of person you are. It's your character. That's what is important when it's all said and done. Beauty is fading. It's only temporary. We know that. We don't know that well when we're young. We know that when we get older and we realize that beauty was fading. And it is. That's just the nature of what it is. I mean you know I've lived long enough to see some women who were or they would say of them this is the most beautiful woman and in in her day she was a very beautiful woman. But she's going to be replaced by a woman younger than her. That's just the way it is in in the movies and all. You'll see someone oh she's so beautiful and this and that. And as I've had the privilege and blessing of the Lord to grow older I can remember women who when I was young who are older than I that were very beautiful women. They aged beautifully. The age you know but you still see them as older women and I've heard the actresses who have said you know I started out my career playing the beautiful young lady now I'm playing the grandmother. And the bottom line is at least you still got a job. But there's nothing wrong with being the grandmother. And sometimes perhaps we think there is something wrong. You know want to be the hottest grandma in town please. So something else has to be cultivated if you want to to be remembered. So Peter says it's the hidden person of the heart. And he made it clear that this kind of life might even win an unbelieving husband to Christ. When writing of Sarah's relationship to Abraham Peter said that she called him Lord in first Peter three six. It says Sarah obeyed Abraham calling him Lord. Now when she called him Lord that referred to her respect for him. It was a respect that she had for Abraham that came out of a godly heart. When you read about Sarah and Abraham I won't go through their story with you but other than to say when you read about it you'll see that Abraham had his moments. He uh he wasn't always the man that was as honorable as he became. And yet you see that she still showed him respect and showed him the love that a wife offers to a husband. And that's why Peter is making it very clear that she called him Lord because she reverenced and respected this man. And so Paul is speaking about a relationship between a husband and wife. And he is beginning with the wife when he does say in verse 18 submit to your own husbands as is fitting in the Lord. And so submit to your husbands. Notice as is fitting in the Lord. In Ephesians 522 that verse reads wife submit to your husband uh submit yourselves to your own husbands as to the Lord. So a wife's submission ultimately reveals a relationship to the Lord. Again this isn't less than the woman it increases the possibility of of ordering the home. One commentator said this speaks of the attitude of unselfish service emphasized by the special fact of man's ordained leadership. Her submission is also spoken of as fitting. That word fitting means proper or appropriate. It is fitting someone said both in regard of God's command as well as in the light of the evil that would arise from the neglect of this duty. And so I don't take submission lightly. It's it's one of the areas of marriage that is most difficult to actually practice. And and I understand that such an attitude is difficult to have and it creates conflict. I realize that. Fact is human nature being what it is we want what we want when we want it and it can become a battle that is waged in marriage. In some ways we see submission as giving up power to someone else and that's really the proper definition. But sometimes we don't trust them. Sometimes we've come to not have confidence in them and it's difficult to yield because you know in the past it hasn't always gone well. It can take years to finally find a place of mutual respect and compromise. But it's it's worth it because it helps us to have peace in our lives and peace in our homes. See as a kid I grew up in a home that was on occasion very difficult to live in. My mom battled with sicknesses of various sorts. I began when she was 24. My dad bought my mother a new car when she was 25. But for years she couldn't drive that brand new car. My mom had epilepsy. Her first epileptic seizure was when she was around 24 25 years old. My dad had just bought her a 55 Chevy. Brand new and he would leave the keys. He didn't take them and hide them so she wouldn't drive. He would leave the keys. She knew where they were. But my mom had a respect for the law because her driver's license had been taken from her. She couldn't drive because of her seizures that she was having so frequently. But my mom told me years later when I was in my teens my mom said to me you know your dad never hid the keys from me. I always knew exactly where they were but out of respect for my husband and the law I chose not to drive my brand new car. That's an attitude that I learned from. I saw how my mom was with my father. I saw that my mom had a submitted heart to him even as a non-believer. I'm not saying my mom was perfect. God knows she wasn't. She was a human being who had her own faults and problems. But my mom had a respect for my father and we'll look at that in just a moment. And that was what I learned. I watched that as I grew up. I watched that attitude. I saw her as she lived out. So many things that ultimately as she got older and got saved I saw it even more even clearer. But I saw these things that my mom was a woman who served. My mom was was that mother perhaps you had a mother like my mom maybe you are that mother. When my mom would when my mom would make dinner for the family and again remember as I mentioned my mom had been very ill but she still made made dinner for the family. She she she fought that illness as much as she could and and I can still I can tell you this that I don't remember as a child growing up. I don't remember my mom ever really sitting at the table eating dinner with us. My mom would stand next to the stove and she would take her plate and put it on the kitchen sink and as she ate standing my mom would look to my dad and say Frank do you need something? And my dad would look at his plate he'd say no I'm good. She'd go okay let me know and I watched that. I watched that as I grew up. I watched my mom do those kinds of things. I watched my mom serve my father and it and it taught me that that there's a relationship that you can have where where it's not a lesser if you're not being less than by caring for someone you're actually showing them that you love it man I saw that now I realize not every home's the same. And and we men who are married we're big boys we can we can serve ourselves I get that too but I happened to have been blessed to marry a woman that does the same thing. My wife Marie my wife Marie is still she she does the same thing. Now she fell down and broke her kneecap last two weeks ago she was carrying me and tripped. Come on work out. I'll get you a gym membership. No she was in the she was in the um and uh doing the wash and she picked up some things out of the out of the dryer and there was a box that I put I no there was a box that was there and she tripped over it and fell and and have she has a hairline fracture on her left knee and uh and yet yesterday at dinner dinner time she came and she sat down next to me she was eating next to me and was sitting on the couch and I start to stand up and the first thing she's saying is what do you need what do you need she's wanting to get up to go get me something and her kneecaps broken and I looked at her I said baby you know what you could have done it why didn't you no here you are sitting and eating and making me feel like a fool no I said baby I can't do it myself I don't but that's see I married a woman like that and uh I was with a friend of mine one time years ago I've said this before perhaps some of you may remember we're we were uh on a tour with a lot of pastors and and there were 300 people all together including the pastors and I sat down and there was a line of 300 people a line of the 300 people and I sat down and I was at a table and one of my friends the pastor friend of mine walks up and says um what are you doing I said yeah and I'm waiting he said before I said um I said Marie's getting me something to eat he said aren't you gonna get up and get in line I said no he said why not I said because my wife's getting me something she's getting me a plate he looks at me and he goes how'd you get her to do that I said to what this is a true story this is a true story how'd you get her to do that because his wife's there with her plate yeah you know true he said how'd you get her to do that do what how'd you get her to stand in line to get you a plate I said hmm I love her he goes yeah I know but how did you get her to get you see that's me I'm spoiled and I thank God for that every day I am I realize it you may not do that that's between it's not good it's not bad it just is I'm not judging you if you do or don't simply saying that I've learned a long time ago that when a husband loves the wife the wife wants to please the husband when the husband loves her and we'll see that in a minute man when the husband loves her there's not enough she can do for him and so standing in line with 300 people bring you a plate and then going back to get herself that's normal in my house that's the way it is because I was raised that way with an unbelieving mother who got saved when she was 40 but she knew that love for her husband was serviced to him she knew that again I'm not saying you're bad if you don't I'm simply saying you work things out it's like a dance every marriage eventually you have your own dance steps every marriage we have two sinks in our bedroom marie has to use mine and so she'll just come and step in front of me and I'll just take a step back and then she'll step away and I'll step forward you know front back cha cha cha that's what we do at the house all the time but it's a dance we don't even realize we're doing it we're just talking if she wants to be there fine I'll just slide there she'll slide there I slide there it's okay that's us you learn your own dance steps you learn how to communicate so the wife says I'm hungry let's get something and the husband says what well I like some tacos we had those last week the wife says okay how about a sandwich hmm I'm not hungry for a sandwich okay maybe some spaghetti hmm I don't want any spaghetti okay how about some chinese you know good idea get let's get chinese you always choose the best places I didn't choose anything I just whittled it down to you finally said that's how it worked right am I lying I'm not lying that's how it is that's how it is so is it bad is it good does it matter no it's us it works that way and so that's submission it's not it's not the ugly thing people think it is society will not run in an organized way if we don't have it homes do not work if we don't have it and we just love each other enough to yield and god has made the man the responsible one before him I have to answer for my wife and the way that I did what I did it's a heavy responsibility on me and that's why it's such a blessing when my wife and I can work together to work out the order so that things can happen and so it's not lessening a woman it's not a weakness on her part it's an investment in her home you know as a man I'm not at war with women I love I love my church I love women in in general I I I love my my daughters I have two daughters I have two daughters in law several granddaughters I don't encourage them to be weak and helpless I want them to be all god made them to be but with that said the greatest desire I have for them is for them to be under the authority of god and I believe as a pastor my encouragement is for the married women to be good wives and good mothers I want them to be role models to the children that that's what the lord would have be role models for your children the children who will raise up eventually and bless you like it says in Proverbs 31 28 where it says of the virtuous woman her her children rise up and call her blessed her husband also and he praises her to have your children stand up and bless you to be able stand up and say I had the greatest mom I had the greatest mom hardworking loving faithful to my dad cared for us what's better than that what's better than that oh I had the sexiest mom come on you know now I had a good mom and so the children rise up and and call her blessed and so he says submit to your own husband says his fitting it's appropriate it's proper in the Lord there are blessings that come because of it and husbands verse 19 love your wives and do not be bitter toward them now it's interesting how paul told wives to submit but commanded men to love when he commanded men to love their wives that word love there is a greek word it's agapao it's a derivative of the word agape and it speaks of sacrificial or self-denying love in Ephesians 525 paul said to the church there husbands love your wives then he went on to say just as christ loved the church and gave himself up for her so he's speaking of sacrifice it's revealing that jesus loved his church so much he laid down his life for her now a husband doesn't save the wife but a husband takes upon himself the major part of the burden he willingly bears with her weaknesses he gives himself up for her and for her alone he gives himself to her he washes her with god's word he presents her to christ his love for the lord and for his wife is sacrificial in its total and that evidence is his love for her it secures as he's doing this it secures her love for him now peter also spoke of the husband's love for and relationship to his wife in 1 Peter 3 7 he said husbands likewise dwell with them with understanding giving honor to the wife as to the weaker vessel and as being heirs together of the grace of life that your prayers may not be hindered so in in what he says he gives insight into sacrificial love he says notice he says dwell with your wife dwell with them with understanding the word dwell with them speaks of taking an active interest in your wife he's saying get to know her needs be acquainted with the things happening in your home be considerate towards your wife appreciate the work she puts into making a house into a home learn to notice her efforts to make it personal as she uses her creative energy do not use your home as your hotel the place you come home to and just throw your hat and say where's my food make it a place where you show an interest you know your wife goes out and she chooses to put some flowers in a vase and put it in a place notice it say this is great say honey i really like it you really have made this this house into a home there's a difference between a house and a home a house is where people live a home is where a family lives and so i want to have a home and the way i have a home is i i i realize it's a place where my wife Marie will will express her creativity the little things that she does that that sometimes can go unnoticed i have to learn to to notice those things so i can appreciate them because i know it took time for her to do that and to tell her so dwell with them dwell with them with understanding make them your your your study it's it you know we we can see things around us and there are a lot of us men who who can speak concerning things we really like and appreciate and watch we can we can talk about sports all day long or a car that we like or or things of that nature material things but we don't even notice you know how our wife has dressed that day we don't notice the things that she did in the house we don't we don't appreciate and say thank you for those things and that's what he's saying Peter is saying you need to remember Peter was a married man and Peter understood and from a practical way he could say you need to dwell with your wife with understanding you need to make her your center of attention you need to appreciate the things and take notice of the things that she does that's what he's saying to us appreciate the work she puts into making that house into a home and he says give her honor give her honor as the weaker vessel now when he says giving honor that means assigned dignity to her now how do i assign dignity to my wife well i assign dignity by the way i speak to her and in the way we speak or i speak of her to other people that when he's speaking of assigning dignity to her honoring her in that way the way i speak to my wife encourages or diminishes her personal value Proverbs 12 18 says reckless words pierce like a sword but the tongue of the wise brings healing it's easy for a husband he may not physically abuse her but it's not hard for him to verbally abuse to say things that he knows are cutting in hurtful he can't hit her anymore it doesn't want to or whatever he's a christian now so what does he do he just belittles her he puts her down doesn't like her hair doesn't like the way she's gaining weight doesn't like the clothes she never does anything right well peter says no that's not that's not that's not loving your wife that's not that's not assigning dignity to her that's that's tearing her up you're piercing her like a sword so don't treat her that way she loves you speak to her with kindness tell her she's beautiful tell her how much you love her there's nothing weaker wrong about that fellas a lot of guys they don't know how to do it you know and again as a man i get it you know i'm i'm not mr soft when it comes to that kind of thing i understand you know i wasn't raised in a home that my father said i love you i don't even remember my father ever saying i love you to my mom i can tell you that i you know i'm standing here and just hit me i don't even remember him saying that or he may have i don't remember i don't remember he wasn't one who used that terminology he wasn't one who who said baby i love you he wasn't that guy my dad was the guy like many of our fathers in this room my dad was a guy who got up at the same time monday through friday went to work came home at the same time put food on the table shoes on your feet clothes on your back took care of you financially and for my dad that was saying i love you i had to learn my father's language of love in order for me to be able as a kid to say i was loved by my dad i had to learn that language because he never said it my father never said it till he till the very end he just showed it and i had to be that observer of my dad but i made a decision i'm going to be the guy who's going to break that i'm going to be the guy who says i love you now that wasn't easy that was very difficult because i'm not one in the early days of saying that to anybody i used to think that a guy who says i love you to a woman was just using it as some kind of key to try and get somewhere with her so i made a practice of not saying i love you and so even in our marriage i wouldn't say and rie wanted to hear those words and i thought you're needy i did i thought why not needy i don't ask you to say love you love me i know that you do why do you have to hear i love you man you know jesus is your daughter but man something's wrong something's wrong with this woman because i can't do that and you know what happened again you know people believe it or not i i had to take this to the lord and and and the lord through his word and by his spirit began to teach me there's no weakness in that that's what it is you're supposed to assign dignity to her husbands love your wife as a command notice there's no command wife love your husband notice that you won't find that in scripture someone says oh titus too no what titus too says that the older women are to teach the women how to love their husbands it doesn't say that they're to teach them to love their husbands but how to so the older women teach the younger women how to be a a homemaker a loving wife that's what older women do for the younger women the younger women aren't going to teach the younger women how to do it properly the older woman who's been through the wars and has grown over time and understands these things that's the one to talk to she's got experience and that's what titus too says right but it commands the husband why because the husband's occupied with other things adam was already cultivating and naming animals he was already working in a garden when god gave him a wife he had to learn to love his wife she was created to love him so wives will love you my wife loves me i had to learn how to say i love you and i have to be honest with you that was not in my vocabulary it really wasn't i had to force myself and i don't mean it as if oh it's so hard and it's not hard but i'm not verbal you'd be surprised because i talk right you'd be surprised i'm not verbal i don't say things if i'm hurt she doesn't know it i don't tell her most men don't why because she'll want me to go to the doctor that's the 11th commandment thou shall not go to the doctor and i keep that commandment i got a broken wrist i haven't gone yet it's been two and a half months i don't go to the doctor see so i'm that man forgive me ladies so i had to learn to say it to say it i love you and part of the reason i don't is i get emotional so got shoes got food i'm faithful that's it doesn't work that way so i had to learn husbands love your wives let them know assign dignity to them speak well of them to her as well as to other people the bible says in proverbs 18 22 he who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the lord so we're not to verbally bully her we're to share with her how we value her we don't bring up past sins we don't raise our voices yell at her we don't belittle her by caring for her we build up her sense of value and we provoke her to desire to care for us so as a husband we're to be gentle we're to be kind because we want to cherish her in Ephesians 5 28 and 29 Paul said husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies he who loves his wife loves himself for no one has ever hated his own flesh but nourishes and cherishes it just as the lord does the church so god loves us and jesus showed the depth of his love by yielding up his life for us and then peter refers to the wife as a weaker vessel she's called weaker because she's normally physically weaker but it's also a way of speaking of her tenderness so treat her gently is what he's saying lead her through love not through force treat her like a lady treat her as if she's the most important person in your life this teaches girls what to expect from a man and teaches boys how to treat a lady as your sons or your daughters watch the way you are with your wife the little girl's watching daddy how he treats her and he's she's saying within herself that's how men treat women and your son if you have a son he watches the way you treat your wife and he's saying within himself that's how men treat women that's how it works i remember speaking to a a young man who didn't cherish his wife and he had a young daughter and i knew that this young man really did love his little girl so i was speaking to him on one day and i i said to him this i said you you love your little girl don't you and he answered yes i do with all my heart so i asked him a simple question how are you going to feel when someone just like you treats your daughter the way that you are treating her mother and his face kind of like froze for a moment because i happened to know he wasn't treating that little girl his wife he was not treating his wife right one of these days i told him some guy just like you is going to take your baby out do you want him to treat her the way you treat her mother because the way you're doing it isn't right and it shocked him it shocked him but he needed to hear that he needed to hear that a husband cherishes and nourishes his wife she is god's gift to you and that's a that's a good thing you see as i've grown older i've become more aware of the fact that my wife is revealing my ministry she's the greatest reflection and open expression of my walk with jesus in first grintians 117 it says a woman is the glory of man and as we grow older we should be appreciating and loving one another more deeply the more we experience together the greater our bond of love can grow we go through all of life's ups and downs together we rent apartments we we buy our homes we have our kids we raise our kids we release our kids eventually we become grandparents we bury our parents we age together we have a lifetime of memories that draw us closer i my wife and i you know all we ever talk about basically is is the lord in the church and our kids and our grandkids that's pretty much our boring life not the lord but our kids but i talk about that all that's what we talk about that's what our life is it's our lord and our family people say oh pastor you know you you you ought to teach more on family in other places i don't like to teach on family that's not my thing believe it or not it's just what i do hold very dear and it comes out when i teach and it shows because i have been blessed and and and i speak of those things because god has been good it hasn't been easy we've worked a long time you know it's you know it's you know it's like i have my hand here with my fingers open in her hand and we have had to find a way for us to be able peace our lives together and it and it's it's work it isn't always easy sometimes we we bang into each other and we but it's worth it it's worth it at the end of the day when i put my head on my pillow my wife's next to me and i and i hear her snoring i tell her get me a burrito i'm hungry you know it's a good it's it's all good it's all good but we go through so many things we have a catalog of history song of solemn and chapter 8 verse 7 simply says many waters cannot quench love nor can the floods drown it you see we are heirs together the grace of life your wife is not less than you your wife and you both stand equally before god peter says we're heirs together we equally equally share in the need and the grace of god so as such i'm to encourage her walk in the lord and to endeavor to be the man she respects i can have the respect of men and people who don't know me and i appreciate it and i want to live in a way that people do respect me god knows that's true but the one i really want to respect me the most in my whole life is my wife i want her respect i want her respect more than the respect of anybody else she is my closest companion she lives with me she knows my heart she knows my secrets she knows everything so i want to live in a way that she can say i respect that man i was taught that by my father my father lived in a way he was respected my mom used to say he's a little man but he's highly respected and it's true because he had character he had integrity he's a hard worker and he loved us to the end that's what i want to be husbands love your wives love them yield to them serve them you can give her a hundred percent guess what she will give you a hundred and fifty percent back that's how it works in good marriages and so peter made it very clear for us to do that so our spiritual life will will grow don't lord it over her but lead her i serve her i care for her spiritual emotional and physical needs i have to deny myself and i learned to do that by degrees daily we have to pray together and fellowship we worship and read we serve together and then finally paul said don't be bitter towards him the word bitter means to render angry to make them indignant or to become irritated do not be ill tempered don't be rude it results in them doing the same to you instead love them treat them with gentleness and respect and i'll close with one question think about this how many divorces occur because the wife is submitted and the husband is too sacrificial how many divorces will occur because the wife is too submitted and the husband is too sacrificial i would say no divorces occur because the wife is submitted and the husband is sacrificial and that keeps them together in the lord father we would ask that you would work in us in such a way that we would love one another as a woman respects and submits may the husband sacrifice and serve