 Ephesians 5. We're going to be looking at the wonderful creation of God called the husband. Yeah. Okay. Ephesians 5. We're going to be reading verses 25 through 33. Husbands, love your wives. Just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for her, that he might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that he might present her to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy without blemish. So 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. For we are members of his body of his flesh and of his bones. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless, let each one of you in particular, so love his own wife as himself and let the wife see that she respects her husband. And so as we look at this, we're going to be looking at the topic of Christian husbands. So I'll begin by saying that God designed marriage to have husbands in the leadership role and the role finds its origin in creation and is intended to ensure order in a home. In 1 Corinthians 11 verse 3, the apostle Paul wrote to the the church at Corinth, and this is what he said. He said, I want you to know that the head of every man is Christ. The head of woman is man and the head of Christ is God. This speaks of leadership and order. Though intended by God to lead some men have a difficult time doing so, and there are various reasons why. One of the reasons is that some wives simply refuse to be led because they believe themselves to be more capable of leadership. Some wives have led for so long that yielding power to her husband is too difficult. And that creates tension, especially when the husband tries to take the lead. Sometimes in frustration he might even try to force his leadership on the wife, and that only causes more stress. There are those husbands who don't know how to lead. They weren't trained to lead. Some had no fathers or they had improper leadership role models. And with the tragic breakup of so many homes, the lack of fathers is obvious in our nation. Somebody wrote fatherlessness is the root issue being so many ills that plague society today. Statistically speaking, a child who grows up without a father in the home is more likely to experience homelessness, commit crime, serve time in prison, abuse drugs, drop out of school, be obese, and suffer from poverty. The United States has the highest share of single parenting in the world. Now all we need to do is take a look at how our nation is doing to see that this is true. Now there are husbands who are afraid to take the lead because some of them are simply afraid to fail. Others don't want the struggles, they don't want the responsibility, and they don't want the work that this requires. So leading the wife and leading the home isn't the easiest thing to do. And finally, there are those who just don't want to make decisions. They think things are going fine. So why rock the boat? With that said, God has vested in men the responsibility of leadership in the home. This is something that God told husbands to do, and this is what he holds us accountable for. When Paul was writing to Timothy in 1st Timothy 5, verse 8, he said, if anyone doesn't provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. And so God has called men to leadership, to lead the home. And that's a position that is maintained by love. And that's why Paul begins with the command for husbands to love the wife. Notice how he says in verse 25, husbands love your wives. Now, this command is repeated three times in this chapter. It's seen in verse 25, verse 28, as well as verse 33. So why would Paul command the husband to love the wife? Well, he had just commanded the wives to submit to their own husbands. You see, without love for her, he could use this position to oppress her. He could use this position to hurt her. If she's submitting to him as to the Lord, he could take advantage of her. So Paul commands husbands, love your wives. Now, he commands husbands to love the wife, but he didn't command the wives to love their husband. Isn't that interesting? Being a husband isn't necessarily something that all men are prepared to be. Not many little boys grow up dreaming of their wedding day. Have you ever noticed that? They don't grow up just thinking, oh, it's going to be wonderful to have a family. But on the other hand, many little girls have grown up playing what we used to call playing house with their friends. My two-year-old daughter has a baby, a baby doll that she carries around. I hope she doesn't do that to the real thing because she tortures that little thing by grabbing around the neck and dragging it around. But she already, at the age of two, is carrying a doll and loving it and kissing it and feeding it. If my little boy did that, I'd be nervous. But the little, my little, my granddaughter does it. And she's already learning right now to be a mommy. When little girls, even to this day, when little girls are thinking of life and all and they're beginning to grow up, one of the things that becomes very important to them, and many of you women in this room may agree with this, is they begin to imagine their wedding day. They begin to imagine it. They begin to think of the things that pertain to it, the church service. They think of the reception. They already have a dress picked out. They have a dream for their wedding day. They're just looking for the victim. Somebody once said that the greatest day of a woman's life is her wedding day. And there's a lot of truth to that. As a matter of fact, after they get married, should they have actually had a wedding, that would have required a wedding dress and all, they will take that wedding dress and some of you ladies did this and they pack it up. It's the last time they'll wear it. And then they store it. But little boys, are you kidding me? They never think of such things. They never play wedding. Have you ever seen your sons playing wedding? Hey, let's play wedding. I'll be the husband. You be the wife. You tell me everything I'm doing wrong. Their wedding day is the furthest thing from their minds. A woman will work on and think about and everything for her wedding dress. And it's going to be hers. It has to be hers. But when a man gets married, they rent a suit that somebody had used a few days before. And that's the truth. You see, not all men are prepared or are preparing for their wedding day. Now, there are some men who are more prepared for marriage than others. A woman once said, I think men who have a pierced ear are better prepared for marriage. They've experienced pain and have bought jewelry. And so that may be true. But I see in verse 25 that it's interesting how Paul made this command. Notice again, husbands love your wife. And again, he didn't command the woman to love her husband. You see in Titus, the book of Titus, Paul wrote a command and he wrote this command to older women in the church. In Titus chapter two, verse four, speaking to the older women, he said that they were to admonish young women, admonish young women to love their husbands. Now the word admonish means to train or encourage, to urge or to teach. Older women are intended in the church, are intended to teach the younger women how to love their husbands. You see, the older women had a special role of training the younger women. Younger women were being saved and they could be resistant to their husband. But the older women were to teach the younger women concerning marriage. Now, women aren't commanded to love but they are taught how to love their husbands. Because in loving their husbands, God's word will not be blasphemed. In Titus chapter two, verse five, we see that. And so he says in verse 25, love your wives. Husbands, love your wives. Notice just as Christ also loved us. Now, this command is given in other letters that Paul wrote. 1 Corinthians 7 verse 3, let the husband render to his wife the affection that is due her. Colossians 3 verse 19, husbands, love your wives. Do not be bitter toward them. Now, the Greek language primarily used three words that we translate by the single word love. One of those words is eros. We all know that word erotic. It speaks of sexual love. There's a second word, phileo. Phileo refers to a friendship or a companion love, a brotherly love. And then you have what is called agapao or agape. And that speaks of God's sacrificial expression of love. In this particular verse, Paul doesn't use the word eros. He doesn't use the word phileo. He uses the word agapao. He uses the word agape. They are to agape or to sacrificially express their love for their wife. And we're going to see this as we go through that there are various ways that they will love their wives. They're going to love their wives in a sacrificial way. They're going to love their wives in a way that sanctifies them. They're going to love their wives in a way that shows that they care for them. They're going to love their wives in a way that stabilizes them. And they're going to love their wives in a very deeply spiritual way. And so we'll look at those things as we go through this chapter. So first, a husband loves his wife sacrificially, even as Jesus loved his bride. He says to us in verse 25, love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for her. So a husband shows his wife his love by his sacrifice. Jesus laid down his life even though he knew the majority of people would reject him. In 1 John 3.16 it says, by this we know love because he laid down his life for us and we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. You see in marriage sacrificial love is a necessary ingredient. Some men have difficulty with that concept because they believe that if they live in a sacrificial way, if they love in a sacrificial way that that's really a weakness and not a strength. But the Bible teaches us that the essence of love is self-denial. And one of the things about real love is it trusts and real love holds nothing back. In John 15.13 greater love has no man than this that a man laid down his life for his friends. And so we need to see the value of consistently laying down our lives for our wives. And we have to trust her enough. If we didn't trust her we shouldn't have married her. We need to trust her enough to consistently demonstrate a sacrificial attitude towards her. For me and for a lot of men that I know and perhaps some in this room are watching this online right now. The idea of showing weakness or acting in a sacrificial way was not really one of the things that I felt real comfortable with. As a matter of fact the idea of saying I love you let alone showing it for me especially when I began to become serious with the girl who became my wife. I still felt that if I show the depth that I'm starting to experience that I in a way was giving up something that she might use against me. I didn't trust. I didn't have a lot of trust. I didn't know how to do that. And so I wouldn't tell my girlfriend Marie who became my wife Marie. I didn't use the word I love you. That might be interesting to some who've been in this church for a while and see the amount of love I do have for my wife. But it wasn't exactly like that at the beginning. At the beginning it was more a matter of just kind of doling out a little bit of affection but not yielding completely. It took a long time for me to finally just completely trust her. That's just the way it is. I didn't want to and didn't know how to say I love you. I figured that if I said it once how many times do you have to hear it right? I mean I said it once. Look at when I said I do, I did. What else do you want? I've said this before but I do remember I was working, we were newlyweds, I was working on a new job and I used to answer the phone, make phone calls and things like that. I was part of an organization that did a lot of shipping and all of that. And so I was part of the industry that was shipping everything out. So I had a phone and I could receive phone calls anytime I wanted. And Marie and I had been married maybe a little over a year or so somewhere around that. I don't remember now maybe a little more than a year. But I still hadn't gotten to the habit of saying I love you or anything like that. And I still remember her calling my office because she could do so as around lunchtime and I answered the phone and some of you may not understand this one. And I spoke to her and she says how are you doing, you know that kind of thing, like I'm on the job, come on. How are you doing? I'm doing fine. Well, everything going fine? Yeah, everything's going good. And my boss is sitting right next to me. She says okay, are you busy? I said of course. And then she says okay, well I'll let you go. I said that's good. And so she says okay, I love you. And I said yeah. And she said I'm not going to hang up until you say I love you back. And I said come on. And this is true. I said come on, come on. You know. And my boss who had been married for some time turns to me and says listen, tell her you love her or she'll never get off the phone. And so I had to do that. I said yeah, but I didn't know how to do that. I didn't want to do that because I had learned in the world that the one who loves less has the most power. If I could get someone to care for me more than I cared for them, I could control that person. The one who loves less has most power. That's the world, man. That's the way the world is. But God didn't love that way. God so loved the world he gave his only begotten Son. He loved the greatest and yielded in that way. So I had to begin to learn that and that's something that husbands need to learn also. We need to lay down our lives for our wives. You see it isn't just the huge issues that will undermine our marriage. Sometimes the issues that begin to undermine our relationship are the small things that are left unsaid or left undone and it erodes the foundations. Like Song of Solomon says in Song of Solomon 2.15 he said it's the little foxes that spoil the vines. It's the small things. You see our wives see our love for them by the sacrifice that we give for them. Now we go to work, we help care for the home, we encourage them, we protect them, and we tell them how deeply we love them. He says in verse 26 that he might sanctify and cleanse her by the washing of water by the word that he might present her to himself a glorious church not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing but that she should be holy without blemish. So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies. See who loves his wife loves himself. And so we love our wives also with a sanctifying love, a purifying love. See God's love towards us cleanses us and it makes us beautiful for him. And the bride is sanctified, the bride is cleansed. Notice he speaks of the bride being without spot or wrinkle that the bride is holy and without blemish. Now I found that interesting, I did a little research on that. And during that day before a bride was married she would go through a purifying and cleansing ritual. She would bathe, costly perfumes and ointments would be applied to her and that was done to purify her and prepare her for her husband. You see something like that in the Old Testament book of Esther. You see before Esther was brought to the king she actually went through purification. In the book of Esther chapter 2 verse 12 in the Old Testament, before a young woman's turn came to go into King Xerxes she had to complete 12 months of beauty treatments prescribed for the women, six months with oil of myrrh and six with perfumes and cosmetics, a full year of preparation. Someone said the initial six month treatment with oil of myrrh was meant to purify her. Oil of myrrh was commonly used for antiseptic purposes and as a deodorant. Therefore the first six months of her preparation were for cleansing, healing and purification. Once they were certain she was free of disease they spent the next six months maximizing her beauty. So the idea being conveyed in Esther is that purification precedes beautification. So when the Lord saved us he began that work in us and that's the type of how husbands are with the wife. You see the bride is the one who is set apart. The bride is the one who is cleansed and it's a bride that is purified. That obviously is a picture of the church purified and cleansed by God's word and it's not an outward beauty it's an inward beauty that is produced by the word of God. You see the word cleanses us because it provides forgiveness of sins. In John 15 verse 3 it says, you are clean through the word that I have spoken to you. When it says you are clean through the word that here that word that is used in the Greek to be translated by the English word word is loron or it's the logos. It speaks of the entire teaching of Jesus and so when Jesus was speaking and he spoke concerning being made clean by his word he was speaking of the fact that as we adhere to the things he teaches us our lives are purified but there's another application. You see it's by the washing of the word that we're cleansed to become his bride but the other application is is that she is sanctified and cleansed by the washing of water when he says by the word in here that word is different. Let me share it with you for just a moment. When it speaks concerning the the bride being cleansed by the word the word that is used here that is the Greek word is not the word loron it's the word remari also called rema. The word rema is used to refer to the spoken word it means an utterance. It's often thought of as what we would call a word for the moment it has a prophetic element to it so that gives us insight into the husband's spiritual influence. This encourages husbands to be the spiritual leader in a priestly manner. Husband God has commanded you to feed your wife the word of God and your wife ought to see you as the one who feeds her spiritually. So husbands study God's word husbands are to be taught God's word but husbands also are to minister God's word to the family and when the husband is walking in the spirit the woman begins to regard him as her spiritual leader and in a very practical way he becomes prophetic in the marriage. When I met Marie she came to a Bible study I was teaching and my brother had gotten saved he wasn't being followed up on he wasn't growing in the things of the Lord he had gotten saved in August of 1974 I think it was and I got concerned for him because he wasn't going to church and so I started driving from Norwalk where I lived into Ontario where he was living so I could give him a Bible study and it was at that Bible study that I met the young girl who became my wife that's where I met Marie. Marie had come to faith in Christ through my sister Madeline who after a Bible study I think the third time or so second or third time Marie had been there she my sister Madeline had taken Marie aside began to speak to her my wife to be the girl I was not even dating yet came to faith in Christ through my sister Madeline sharing the gospel with her and so Marie has her entire relationship with me from all the way back then to where it is right now has sat under my ministry she has known me all of these years as not simply her husband she has known me as being her pastor she has known me as being her leader in the spiritual sense because she was introduced to me through the teaching of the word of God and I've mentioned this to you I've mentioned how that that uh the day I met her I knew that this was the woman God had prepared for me and and all of that but she had yet to be saved she got saved and I was free to date or I began to date her but even before I dated her after she got saved I was one of these guys you women would have hated and there's no doubt about it God has just one woman for me nobody else would have taken me but I used to like I still do I would tease just mess around I always mess around and so we were in the Bible study she'll remember this we were in the Bible study I hardly knew her she don't this is like her second or third time in the Bible study she was in the kitchen and it and I was sitting in the living room that may sound like a long way but it was maybe 15 feet away it was a very small apartment and so Marie was standing by the refrigerator and I looked at her and I didn't know her from Eve I did not know this woman I just felt like messing with her so I said Marie and she looks at me and she gives me and she goes yeah I said I drink root beer and I just looked down and she goes what I said oh you didn't hear me I drink root beer I was just seeing what she'd do I was goofing with her you know what she did she went to the refrigerator open it up got a can of root beer got some ice put it in the glass walked to me handed it to me and said here your majesty here's your root beer and I was messing with her I but later I began to realize when we began to date and we began to care for each other and obviously marriage was on the horizon the Lord reminded me of that and and I remembered that is a woman the kind of woman I need in my life somebody who has a heart to serve because God has called me to serve as a pastor and if I didn't have a wife who had a heart of service it would have undermined my ministry I've told you before some of you may know this but it comes to mind as I share Marie and I are dating I was living in Pomona she and I drove to my parents house in Norwalk my parents were not home at the moment when we showed up to visit them but I had two cousins who were there two two ladies young ladies who were there two of my cousins who lived in in the Venice area Culver City area and some of you if you think of Culver City now you may be thinking of a nice place because Culver City has some real nice areas this was not the nice place Culver City also some of you know this is filled with gangs and my my relatives were in the gangs and so there's two of them who were at my house when I come walking in and as I'm sitting there at the table they begin to I'm their cousin they're talking to me about life and my cousin Bernice says this to me I'll never forget Marie sitting right next to me and my cousin Bernice says yeah my husband's in prison he didn't kill him and I'm just in there oh welcome to the family Marie now this is common stuff this is what we would talk about amongst our family this is family stuff you know and it wasn't uncommon they were part of the gang system I mean that's where they were from that was their life you know and and I'm looking and and she's saying yeah and she's starting to tell us her story and you know at first I'm a little uptight because Marie was not raised around that and it's not that I was but I did have a lot of relatives who who were and in gangs and all so it was something I was used to through the family but she wasn't so I started thinking I hope this doesn't I don't know how she's gonna respond to these things because she's talking about prison and murder and this and that and you know common table talk and and so I so I kind of turned and I looked at her and tears were coming down the side from the corner of her eye tears were coming down I'll never forget that and and there are moments the spirit speaks in a very very loud voice and he said this is what you need because I had heard so much of this kind of thing all my life that I had become kind of callous to it it's just something that goes on but watching Marie tear up for people she didn't even know that was another thing in my life the Holy Spirit taught me about being a husband a spiritual leader and having a wife that sits under your ministry men husbands you need to enact the prophetic role in your home your wife should love you not only because you provide and protect your wife should love you because you feed her the word of God because you're a man of God you know something that as a young man you may not realize but you grow older and you begin to realize all the things that you think are making you a man so many of those things are not what made you a man what makes you a man is tenderness and compassion what makes you a man is is a loving spirit a heart that's open a trusting it's different than than what we as as americans may think is is masculinity and and it includes the spiritual role of a of a husband who opens the word and and says honey the lord has placed us on my heart and actually shares a few things out of the bible and says these are the things i'm learning and the wife you know even though she may know more than he she gets a chance to go to women's studies he doesn't he's working or whatever she sits there and she listens why because that man has a heart for christ and that's what she wants in her man that's how it works and so with marie i wanted to be that i wanted to be her spiritual hero i wanted to be the one who fed her the things of god those things are especially important and that's scripture that's what the word of god that he might sanctify and cleanse her with the wash in water by the word that he might present her to himself a glory search not having spot a wrinkle or any such thing but that she should be holy without blemish so husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies he loves his wife loves himself you see when the husband walks in the spirit his wife sees him as a spiritual leader he becomes prophetic in the marriage when the wife is washed by the word she becomes a testimony of his ministry in first carinthians chapter 11 verse 7 it says that the woman is the glory of the man sometimes men have come up to me and shared with me that they want to be teachers of the word of god one of the very first things i will notice is how it is between them and their wife how is it between them and their wife because if he can't lead his wife he can't lead a church if he can't lead his family what makes him think he's going to lead people it starts in the home it starts with the wife and when you see a woman in a christian in a christian marriage and she has a loveliness to her much of that and this sounds some of you will think this is not right but it's true some of some of that is going to be a lot of that it will be the influence of the husband it will be that influence let me give you one more example in my own relationship with my girl marie anybody who knows my wife and and yeah i talk about her why not so anybody who knows my wife will know she's a very very kind person a very warm person those of you who know her that's the truth my wife is very warm she's very lovely she really is you may not know this she didn't hug anybody she was the kind of person who didn't want you near her if she was bugged and we were dating and something happened that caused her emotional pain and so i put my arm around her to comfort her you know the pattern and she pushed me away she put her hands on my chest and says i don't like being touched when i'm upset i said i don't care and i grabbed her and i held her and i said you need a hug and i'm giving you one and that how that marie was not that person marie actually learned to be warm and loving and this may sound weird but it's true through me because i got saved in the jesus movement we hugged everybody we hugged dogs i mean we are everybody we were just huggers marie came from a different background and so she wasn't used to that and so when we started dating and all i was the one who showed that kind of affection i was the one those are things that she learned through my ministry and there are many things that she would tell you were she given the opportunity that god has used me to help her to learn she of course has taught me many things of course but i have done the same for her and so i have become long before i was pastor david i already was her minister and and we are the ones the husbands are the ones that should be ministering the word to our wives we're the ones that she should really ask bible questions of like it says in first chrithians 1435 speaking of wives he says that they want to learn something let them ask their own husbands at home so the husband should be equipped enough to give the answer when a question is asked and so husbands learn to spend time with her in the bible learn to spend time with her in fellowship and in prayer and serving the lord do devotions and and live by god's word and watch what god will do he says in verse 29 no one ever hated his own flesh but nourishes and cherishes it just as the lord does the church so our love is also caring it's nourishing we demonstrated by cherishing when he says the love nourishes and cherishes the word nourish means to bring to maturity the word cherish literally means to keep warm to keep warm with love so cherishing implies concern it implies tenderness a recognition of her frailty so a husband loves in a gentle and a tender considerate manner as we become more seasoned in life we can appreciate in love more deeply you see the more we experience together the greater our bond of love will grow and think about it some of you who are veterans in marriage you know this you go through so many of lives ups and downs together you began by dating you married then you had to get a place to live so you rented an apartment perhaps finally you bought a home and then you made a home you had your children you raised your children you released those children over time eventually perhaps had grandchildren you buried your parents together over time you share a lifetime of memories both sad and joyful and all of these things work together and all of these things will bind our hearts together my wife and I you know have shared so many things experiences so many things and one of the things that that I would tell you has been good for us is I still I still and I'll use the word date I still date her in the sense that I make time for her every day every day you can do that I found time out we'll get a cup of coffee every day before I come to the office we get up we go and get some coffee sit down together I have to eat those egg bites is that what they're called I eat them and we talk we talk a very first date that I ever had with this woman I picked her up at 11 in the morning and then spent the whole day with her and another couple dropped her off at her place and left her place at one in the morning 13 solid hours and all we did for those 13 hours was we talked for 13 hours and we still do we still talk we still visit we still talk about plans we want to do perhaps the Lord will allow we talk and we talk and we share we share we begin by sharing about us and eventually began share about our kids and we began eventually to share about our grandchildren but it's always in a constant flow of conversation husbands are to dwell with the wife according to knowledge Peter said in 1 Peter 3 7 that means that the husband makes the wife his his focus of attention he learns her ways he knows what pleases her he knows what doesn't please her he knows what he can do to irritate her and he knows what he shouldn't do he knows these things he learns these things by studying her watching her getting to know her I've been spending many years learning to do that and also romancing her and telling her that you love her and and showing her respect and and and even sometimes being the defense for her from those who would come against her and and and you learn to do things like like like telling her how beautiful she is and and and sharing your dreams and and all of those things because our wives is our gentle loving and considerate treatment that they may respond to so we cherish them and when we do that they feel and know that we deeply love them we need to remember that wives do not exist to make our dinners to clean our homes or to take care of the children our wives are to be our best friends and our wives are to be loved and our wives are to be respected why well because verses 30 through 32 for we are members of his body of his flesh and of his bones and for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother be joined to his wife the two shall become one flesh this is a great mystery but i speak concerning christ and the church we love in a deeply deeply spiritual way a love that reveals stability our love reveals a commitment in the in the old days they used to use the phrase in marriage ceremonies perhaps it was used in yours till death do us part in other words i will love you until the day i die i will love you until the day either you place me in the hands of jesus or i will place you in his hands that's an all or nothing proposition we we we love to the end many years ago marie and i decided that if we had to make choices in life we chose us it's an us thing and so that has given to us a um a sense of love that uh is complete you see jesus didn't commit himself half heartedly to the bride he committed himself totally then sang the songs once again chapter eight verse seven it says many waters cannot quench love nor can the floods drown it jesus said i will never leave you nor forsake you and so he's speaking in verse 32 of the church he's speaking of christ in the church and he had said it's not good that the man should be alone and because he had said that eve was given to adam and marriage was to be forever as jesus and his bride are to be together forever and because of this finally we love in a deeply spiritual way the two have become one representing christ's relationship to us jesus never forsakes us and we should remember our oneness in him and so we're to love one another like he says in verse 33 never the less let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself and let the wife see that she respects her husband husbands care for the wife but the same intensity that you care for yourself but wife respect and please your husband give him that proper respect and give him that proper care and that will keep you together i love my wife with a sacrificial love and the way my wife shows me that she loves me she respects me she could say all day long i love you but if she shows me disrespect she's telling me she doesn't love me when my wife shows me respect i know she's showing me her love and that's why husbands love their wives in a sacrificial way but the wife respect your husband and in a world where where men are now just the the butt of all the jokes all the commercials we're always stupid if we have oh and that's true if we have if we have a wife who shows us disrespect she's telling me i don't really love you but when my wife shows me respect it doesn't matter how anybody else feels about me i've got her and she loves me and finally just one last thought because we're gonna have communion many years ago i told my children this and i'll close by saying it this way i made it my aim to be the hero of my wife i never wanted her to ever think that there was ever another man on the face of planet earth that would have been a better man for her than me and i made my choice years ago i would be that man for her i believe i have succeeded i have been that man