Husbands

Alright, well good morning and welcome to The Chapel. We are glad that you're with us this morning. Whether you're here at CrossPoint or one of the other campuses or joining online, we're excited that you're here. If you don't know me, my name is Dan. I'm the campus pastor here at CrossPoint. I'm excited to be with you continuing in our sermon series that we've been in over the last couple weeks that we're calling Family Matters. Family Matters. You know, the family is important to God. He's the one who created it after all, and he cares about the family. And so we have been diving into what God says about the family and in particular the different roles within the family that God speaks to each and every one of them in His word. And so today we come to the role of husbands. Husbands. I was not asked to speak today because I'm some expert practitioner as a husband, I'm no expert, but I am a husband. I've been married to my wife for 14 years. My beautiful wife, Krista, I brought a picture of her here on the screen. I thought it was important to bring a picture of my wife because a couple weeks ago on Mother's Day, I did the announcements with Laura Lewis and apparently a little confusion took place with some people in the church about who my wife was. And so it's not Laura Lewis. It's Krista Davis, that's my wife. She's here on the screen. I talked to Laura this morning and she has the same hairdo this morning as Krista has in this picture on the screen. And so we don't want to cause any more confusion, but this is my wife Krista, and I would love for you to meet her sometime. She's here, over there this morning. But anyways, she is my wife. She has been for 14 years and it's been a great time. She is a wonderful woman of God who loves Jesus, who loves my children and most difficult, she loves me. And so I am thankful for all of those things. But now we often talk about the state of marriage and how the state of marriage has gotten really bad in our country, in our world, even in the church. And we kind of bring up these statistics sometimes about how high the divorce rate has gotten and all these different things that have been going on within the state of marriage in our world, in our country, in our churches. And we often say like, look how bad marriage has gotten. It's just gone off the rails from when I was a kid or from when my grandparents were first getting married or whatever it is. And the truth is, yes, it is getting bad, it is getting worse. I'm not denying that. But the truth is that the state of marriage has been going wrong ever since the first man and woman sinned. That's when the state of marriage started going wrong. God created marriage to be a good thing. He created marriage to create the family unit and to create all these good things that happened within marriage and within the world because of marriage. He created it to be good. But sin has distorted the state of marriage. Sin has distorted the picture of marriage and all that marriage is supposed to be. And that happened all the way back at the beginning of time, all the way back in the Garden of Eden, all the way back to Adam and Eve. And although God made marriage to be a good thing, it got distorted because of sin. And sin brings effects, doesn't it? It brings effects of brokenness. It brings effects of distortion. It brings it into the world in all sorts of ways, but it brings it into relationships as well. And it specifically does bring it into the relationship of marriage. And in fact, when God said to the woman after she first sinned, he was speaking a curse over Satan, over the man and woman, over the ground even. And he said to the woman, your desire will be for your husband and he will rule over you. In the context here is more that he will dominate you. He will dominate you in the relationship and your longing for him will be an unhealthy longing to take his role and to have him in in ways that you cannot. The relationship got distorted all the way back then, but God's design for the role of a husband is better than that domineering relationship that sin has turned it into. And it's better than a passive relationship that sin sometimes turns it into. God's design is that the husband will be the leader of the family. It's not because women are incapable of leading, they're humanly incapable or anything like that. It's because God has chosen to give the role of leadership to the husband. And husbands, we have to take that seriously. We have to take that seriously. It is God's design that we will be the leaders of the family. That leadership is not a domineering, totalitarian, get whatever I want kind of leadership. That's not leadership in the Bible. That's not loving leadership. What God's design is, is a leadership that does not seek our own self-interest and desires, but leadership that leads his wife and his family closer to Jesus. A leadership that leads his wife and family closer to Jesus. Today we're gonna be in Ephesians chapter five, Ephesians chapter five verses 25 through 32, 25 through 32. And we're gonna see that in Jesus' salvation, he has come and he has reversed the curse. He has come and he has begun to reverse the effects of sin in our world. He has forgiven us of our sin when we put our trust in him. But then he begins working on us to reverse the effects of sin in our world, in our hearts, in our marriages. And we're gonna look specifically at the role of husbands today. We're gonna get to wives in just a couple of weeks. All right, so y'all just hold on. We're gonna get there. We're not leaving you out. But we see in this passage today, him speaking to husbands. And what we see is that husbands are to love their wives as Christ love the church. Husbands are to love their wives as Christ love the church. In the same way that Jesus loved the church, the husband is to love his wife. And so we're gonna look at two principles for God honoring Christ centered marriages and God honoring and Christ centered husbands to live in. The first is this, love your wives. Love your wives. Three simple words that because of our own selfish desires can be very difficult to carry out sometimes. Because of our own sinfulness can be very difficult to carry out just those three simple words. Take a look at what the beginning of verse 25 says in Ephesians five. "Husbands, love your wives." You see where I got it from, right? I don't make it up, I just say what it says. And he's going to repeat this command two more times throughout this passage. He says it at the very beginning, he says it in the very middle. He's gonna say it at the very end. Just a little help with reading your bible here. A little bit of context clues. If a passage says something at the beginning, the middle and the end, it's probably what that passage is about. It's probably trying to communicate this thing to you, right? Paul is trying to communicate to husbands to love your wives. And we'll get to those other verses in just a little bit. But Paul here starts with this command. Now a lot of people have different opinions, different thoughts about what love is, right? A lot of people think it's just that nice feeling, those butterflies, those emotions that you feel when somebody is around or they think that it's just when there's another person who makes them happy when they're around them. In all sorts of things that people get wrong about love. Now, all those things may be involved, they may all be involved, but that's not the whole of what love is. If that's all you have, that's not love. That's a feeling. It's an emotion, it's a desire. But there's more to love than feelings and emotions. A lot of people have different ideas about what love is. A lot of people have different ideas about how to love someone and a lot of men have different ideas about how to love their wives. But here's the thing, is that no matter where you stand, the Bible teaches us what love is and how to love. And it teaches husbands in this passage and some others, about how to love our wives. Paul doesn't just say love your wives. He gives us three different ways that he wants us to love our wives, to understand what love is. The first is this: love is a sacrificial service. Love is a sacrificial service. It is sacrificially serving another person. Look at verse 25 here. Husbands love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. Men, I wanna tell you right off the bat, the calling of a husband is a very high calling. It's a high calling from the Lord and it's a high privilege, but also with great privilege comes great responsibility. We always have to remember that. We might have a great privilege of the call to love and to lead our wives. It's a great privilege, but with great privilege comes great responsibility. As I was on my way driving here this morning, it hit me just how many husbands I'm gonna be speaking to today and how many young men who will one day be husbands I'm gonna be speaking to today, and how many wives and young women and people of all ages that I'm going to be speaking to today. Whether it's in this building or at another campus or online or whatever it is, the high privilege that I have of speaking about this issue, about the word of God and what it says, great privilege, and yet it comes with great responsibility. And it comes with a great weight on it. Each and every week that I get to stand up here, it comes with a great privilege, but a great responsibility as well. But husbands, here's the thing. You have an even greater privilege and greater responsibility than I do standing on this stage. It's to love your wives, it's to lead your wives. It's to picture Christ in the way that you relate to your wife. That is a high privilege. That is a high calling. That is a great responsibility. It's a responsibility that I have. It's a responsibility that each of you husbands have and it's a high calling from the Lord. But here's the thing about a high calling from the Lord, is that usually, well, not usually always, when the Lord gives someone a high calling, it always involves lowering yourself beneath another person. A high calling from the Lord is a calling to lower yourself beneath others. In fact, he compares it to Christ. You might remember that this is exactly what Jesus did. Jesus, God, the son from eternity past, who lived face to face with the Father, with the Holy Spirit, one of the three persons of the Trinity, gave himself. He stepped in, he lowered himself to the place of a servant. He lowered himself in order to save others. He says he came not to be served, but to serve. He came not to be served but to serve. He had a high calling to save the world. He had a high calling to purchase the church by his blood and save people from every tribe, tongue, and nation throughout this entire world, for all of history. It's a high calling and yet it was a calling to lower himself, to serve. That's the calling of a husband with his wife. Philippians two tells us that all believers should have this mindset of lowering ourselves beneath one another, not putting our own interest first, but serving the interest of others first, doing what is good for them first. But for husbands, the call is even more so with your wife. It is to serve her, to do what is best for her before doing what you think is best for you. Jesus loved the church and therefore he gave himself up for her. He laid his life down. Jesus took our sin upon himself. He who knew no sin became sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God. He took that on himself. He lowered himself to the lowest place. He took on our sin and he took it to the cross and he paid for it and he paid for it in full by taking the full wrath of the Father for sin on himself. That is the lowest place that one can be and he put himself there. Why? Because he didn't come to be served. He came to serve. He came to serve us. If you're here today and you're not a follower of Christ, that's the message I want you to hear. That's the message I want you to hear all throughout this sermon. That's the message that I want you to see. I hope when you look at the marriages of your friends who are believers, because it's to be a picture of Christ. I want you to hear that God the son became human in order that you might be saved, in order that you might be set in right relationship with God, in order that you could have new and eternal life with him forever. And if you're a believer, I want to call you and I wanna call myself to make our lives a picture of who Christ is and what Christ has done. It's how we can help every man, woman, and child hear and see the gospel of Jesus Christ. It's by living it out in our lives. And husbands, you have the highest calling to do so. You have the highest calling to do so. See, following Christ, it's a call to die. When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die. Not physical death necessarily, but dying to self. It is a call to die to self. It's a call to die to self and live to God. And when you enter into a marriage, you are dying to self in order to give yourself to another person. You are dying to self in order to give yourself to the other person. That's for both husband and wife. But the call is even greater for the husband. He is to go first in giving himself to others. Now, young people in the room and singles in the room, I wanna say this to you. You might be looking to get married one day. Maybe you're in here, you're already engaged to the person that you are looking to be married to. Maybe you've never met them yet. I don't know. There's a lot of people in this room, so I don't know all of you. But I want to say to you, when you are looking to enter into marriage, don't do it so that that person can serve you. Don't do it just so you can feel some happiness when they are around you. Don't do it for any of the superficial reasons, but do it in order to give yourself to the other person. That's what marriage is. That's what a godly marriage is, is you're giving yourself to the other person. Now, I know that there are several of you who got married before you were a believer. And now maybe your spouse, maybe you're a believer in your spouse is not. Maybe you're not even a believer yourself. You might be someone in this room who's even in what you might consider to be a loveless marriage. And that's hard. And I want you to know we wanna walk with you through whatever situation you may be in. We want you to know that we wanna walk with you through that. But wherever you find yourself, no matter where you find yourself, no matter what situation you may be in, marriage is a call to die for the good of the other person. It's a call to lay down yourself for the good of your spouse. And for the husbands in the room, you have the greater responsibility. You are to go first in that. No matter what your wife may or may not do, your role is not dependent on her. Your leadership in this area is not dependent on her. It's dependent on you following the Lord. And this is the call that he has placed on your life. Now the good news, the really, really good news is that in Jesus we not only have a model of what this looks like, but we have a savior who changes lives and we have a savior who empowers us to do the things he calls us to do. He does not call us to do anything that he does not empower us to do. We may do it imperfectly, we may have a long way to go in growing in it, but he empowers us by his spirit within us. He has modeled it, but he gives us his spirit when we trust in him that we may begin walking in it. And it may be a long journey to get all the way there and in fact it's gonna be the rest of your life to get all the way there. But he empowers us. He makes us new. He changes hearts and he moves us forward. Jesus models and empowers husbands to love with sacrificial service. But secondly, love is servant leadership. Love, husbands, is servant leadership for you. In the home, leadership can take on a distorted picture in one of two ways. It can become a domineering, totalitarian, I'm gonna get what I want, I'm gonna stay in control, kind of leadership. That's not biblical leadership. Or it could go to the other side of things, a totally passive mindset or even an abdication of your leadership. Neither one of these is what God designed. As Christ loved The church is neither domineering nor is it passive. Rather than domineering, a husband's love is to be through serving. God's design for leadership is, in a sense, submission. It is, in a sense, submission. It's first of all submission to Christ because you are submitting under his leadership. So it really doesn't matter what you want. It really doesn't matter how you think that you should love. You have submitted to his leadership. And it doesn't really matter what Dan would desire in his flesh for what takes place in his household or for his wife. What matters is what Jesus desires. And so I submit, I am to submit first of all to Christ and be under his leadership. But secondly, it is submission to whatever is best for your wife and your family. It's submission to what is best for your wife and your family. It might not always be the thing that she says should happen. It might not always be the thing that will make her happy in the moment. It is what is best to lead her to the Lord and to lead her forward in the ways of the Lord. And so we turn to scripture to find that. We turn to scripture to find it. But leadership is also not passive or the role of a husband is not to be passive. We don't live just saying, well, whatever she wants, I'll just go along with it. That's not the leadership that God calls us to. We live saying whatever is best for her in the Lord, according to his word, I will lead her by taking the initiative and moving us forward to the feet of Jesus. God's design is an active pursuit of a man leading his wife, but his leadership is through servant leadership just as Christ was. That means you take the initiative leading her spiritually. It means you take the initiative leading your family in the way it should go in all things. That's your God-given responsibility and that's what he will hold you accountable to when you stand before him. And we see all of this is the way that Jesus leads the church. Take a look at verses 26 and 27. "To make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word and to present her to himself as a radiant church without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless." Jesus was not domineering. He served by laying his life down. He was not passive, but he actively leads his bride into right relationship with God into continuing sanctification, into continually being more like him. That is what Jesus does. That is how Jesus leads and therefore we look to him so that we may do that for our wives as well. So husbands, let me ask you, where do you need to start leading your wife? Some of you in this room need to take a first step in leading your wife. Others in this room have taken way more steps than I ever have. You've been at this longer, you've been doing this better, you've taken a lot of steps. And yet, because we still are sinful, we still have more steps to take. So what is the step that you need to take to be leading your wife? Where do you need to take initiative? It may be that you need to start leading her spiritually. You need to take the initiative to open up the spiritual conversation in your home. You need to take the initiative to open up God's word in your home and to go to him in prayer in your home, not just by yourself, but together with your wife in your family. You may need to be the one to initiate coming to church rather than your wife always having to drag you. Or to be serving the Lord in whatever ways or engaging in community. You may need to be the one to initiate, y'all listening to me here now I'm gonna step on some toes. You may need to be the one to initiate singing when you're here at church. When I look around the room, it's usually the men who are sitting there. It's kind of funny, but it's kind of not. The Lord tells us to sing hymns and songs, and spiritual songs. That's what we're to do when we gather. And yet oftentimes the men abdicate and it's their wives who are singing without 'em. A lot of times in marriage counseling, it's the the wife who talked her husband into coming, if she could. It's very rarely I've found that it's the husband that initiates. Husbands, when you see the cracks in your marriage, you take the initiative. You lead, you lead her to Christ and you lead her to where you can come together as husband and wife. It's going to be difficult. It's gonna be hard. It's hard to face hard things. But we are called to take the initiative in that. Husbands, when you see the cracks in your marriage, you take the initiative, you lead, you lead her to Christ and you lead her to where you can come together as husband and wife. It's going to be difficult. It's gonna be hard. It's hard to face hard things. But we are called to take the initiative in that and we are called to take the initiative to lead spiritually. It may be that you need to start leading her in the way that your family goes about life. Don't be passive in just letting things happen that you don't wanna see in your home. You might need to take the initiative and lead the way in the way that technology doesn't get abused in your home. Or lead the way in cutting out bad habits that aren't good for your wife and children. Or lead the way in just starting good habits that are good for your wife and children. You may need to take the initiative to set the tone of your home and the way that everybody speaks to one another in your home. There's are all sorts of things that you may need to take the initiative on, but maybe the first thing you need to take the initiative on is a conversation of apology and repentance in the ways that you haven't done it. Maybe you haven't done it at all and you need to go before the Lord and repent of it. And you need to go to your wife and say, "I'm sorry if I haven't been doing this." Or maybe it's just a recent instance. Maybe it's just a recent instance that you need to go to your wife and apologize and turn from whatever you've done wrong. Maybe the conversation you can initiate today is asking your wife, How am I doing in my leadership with you and with our family? As you go home today on the car ride home, as you're around the dinner table tonight, wherever it may be, take the initiative, ask her. Now Ladies, don't bring out the whole list in the first time. Okay? Like save some for later. You know, like we don't wanna take the whole thing to him this morning. We wanna save a little bit. You want him to come back and ask you again, right? That's what we want. But men, initiate the conversation. Husbands initiate that with your wives. Come back to it later. In all of it, what we want to do more than just making ourselves look good, more than just making our wives happy, more than trying to earn good points with God or whatever it may be. We want to do this in pursuit of Jesus. Jesus has pursued his church by coming, purchasing her, taking her as his bride, taking us, the church, as his bride. Stepping out of heaven in order to purchase us by his blood. He has taken the initiative and we want to actively pursue following his leadership. Each and every one of us, whether husband, whether wife, whether child, whether single, no matter who you are, that should be our heart in all things. Husbands within your family, you're called to lead the way. And the way we do that is by looking to Christ. We open up his word. So fill yourself with Christ in his word every single day. Dwell on what he has done for you every single day. Look to the good husband that Jesus is every single day. Because like I always like to say, whatever you fill yourself up with, that's what you're full of, right? Whatever you fill yourself up with, that's what you're full of. Don't expect to fill yourself up with Netflix and scripture pour out of you, right? That's not how it works. Fill yourself up with scripture. Fill yourself up with Jesus. And when it's time to pour out, that is what will come out of you. Spend time in his word every day. Look to Christ every day, and then lead your wife and your family to actively pursue Christ every day. The last thing that Paul shows us about what love is. Love is living in union. Love is living in union. Paul says something really interesting in verse 28. He says, "In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself." Why does he say that? Like in the same way husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. It's because when we put our faith in Christ, we are actually united with him. In a mysterious spiritual union with Christ, it is no longer I who lives but Christ who lives in me. We are united with him in his death, that the old self has passed away. We are united with him in his resurrection, that a new creation has come as we celebrated with baptism this morning. And we are united with him daily as we walk through this world, we are walking in him with his spirit living inside of us. There is a spiritual union in place in which we are one with Christ. Look at what he says in 29 and 30. "After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body just as Christ does the church, for we are members of his body." When we talk about being the body of Christ, we're not just saying it loosely. We are united with him. We are united with Christ. And in the same way a man is united with his wife, when they commit themselves in marriage before God. Verse 31. "For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." Paul quoting 1 Genesis here, when God first institutes marriage. The two becoming one flesh isn't referring to sex. It's referring to the spiritual union that takes place in the marriage covenant. It's referring to the uniting spiritually, becoming one unit that a man and woman have when they commit themselves before God to one another. Sex is simply the consummation of that uniting. It's the physical picture, the physical expression of what has already happened spiritually. That's why sex outside of marriage is wrong, or sex before marriage is wrong. It's because it's a good gift that God has given to those who have already given holy of themselves to the other, who have given themselves up spiritually as a person, died to self, to give themselves to another. Then and only then do we participate in the act of sex, the act of physical consummation. That's the design that God has given. But the two becoming one flesh is about uniting spiritually. It's about becoming one unit. That you're no longer me, but we. That you're an individual who is part of a unit with one other person. And Paul is pointing out the reality that we become one unit in marriage. Now, husbands, I wanna tell you this before the Lord, if you have committed yourself to somebody else in marriage before the Lord, you are united to your wife. The question is, are you living like it? Do you think like that? Is your heart set on that? Is your heart united with your wife? We have the spiritual reality. That's how God sees us. But are we living like it? That first and foremost means you're not uniting yourself to anyone else. It it doesn't matter if it's physically or emotionally or superficially like through flirting or fantasizing or anything like that. You're not giving yourself to anyone else. Jesus does not give him himself to anyone else. Jesus does not commit adultery with his bride. He holds onto her. He holds fast to her. He has created her. He has brought her in. He will never away from her. He will never turn away from us. That's not who he is. And that's not who we are to be either. Jesus loves his church with all of his heart. He has come and he has given himself to her. And we are to do the same with every fiber of our being, first to Christ and then to our wives. Second, being united with her, living as one united with her. It means you're doing what's best for your wife and doing what's best for her is doing what's best for you. We live in a culture that says, do what's best for you. If she's going off this way and you wanna go this way, well then just go for it. That's what's best for you, right? If she is keeping you from all of your hopes and dreams and you want to go off and find them, just go for it. That's what's best for you. And in every situation our culture teaches us, just do what's best for us. Jesus says through his apostle Paul, doing what's best for your wife is doing what's best for you because you're united with her. You are one unit with her. And so in treating her right, in loving her, in leading her, you are actually doing what is best for you. Living in union brings that out of us. Third, living in union means that you are working as a team. You're seeking to come together for the ways that you can best glorify God. You're coming together for what is best for your lives and your family. You are seeking to be of one mind in all things. You are seeking to be one in sharing life, in your friendships, in your finances, in in your parenting, in your goals, in all that you do. You are living united with your wife, not trying to hold her at a distance and hold the things that she wants at a distance, you are doing this together. But lastly, living in union means recognizing your union with your wife and walking in that union. When you do that, it will deepen your relationship with her. It will deepen your love for your wife. Do you treasure your wife? You might say you love her. Maybe you just say you tolerate her. That's sad. I mean, that is what I hear from people sometimes. Do you treasure her? Do you treasure her? Christ treasures his church. Do you treasure your wife? Maybe you say, "I just, I don't know how to do that. Like how do I make myself do that?" Live in union with her. Give yourself to her wholeheartedly. Look to her and to no other and you will grow in your of your wife. So husbands love your wives, love her through sacrificial service. Love her through servant leadership and love her through living in true union with her. And as we do so, we will fulfill the ultimate goal of marriage. It's to glorify God. Your marriage ultimately is to glorify God. It is first and foremost a picture of Christ and his church. What are you picturing today? Men, whatever your marriage is picturing, the call to you is to take the initiative to move it in the right direction. Now, it's not completely up to you, you're a unit. Both have to be in on this. And so wives, you have to look to your husbands, to let them lead you and serve you, to help them to do that. And letting them know what you need and what that might look like in your relationship. But husbands, you are to take the initiative in this. And I want you to know the way you love your wife through sacrificial service to her is gonna be showing the world who Jesus is. So if the only thing that people might know about Jesus is what they see with you and the way you love and treat your wife, what are they gonna think about Jesus? What are they gonna think about him? Whatever it is, we want to be on the road striving forward to be more like him, to walk in his ways. I know that this is gonna be a struggle for you. It's a struggle for me on a lot of days. It's a struggle for me at a lot of times. I can tell you I still have a lot of work to do here. But though it may be a struggle for you, I want you to know that is the life of a Christian. It's struggling and striving forward. It's struggling to put our sin behind us and striving to move forward to what lies ahead, striving to move forward in Christ. But let me encourage you in this men, there are other men in this church who are struggling and striving forward together too. And I wanna encourage you to do it together with other men because this is something that we don't do on our own. We don't just naturally grow in it on our own, but we want to come together alongside other men and struggle and strive forward in our relationship with Christ in all things, but especially in the way that we love our wives. Today we've got community group signups out in the atrium. I would encourage you, if you're not part of a community group, that is a great place to strive forward in Christ in all things together. And you can find other men, other husbands who are doing so as well. Walk alongside of them. I'm not talking about men who are doing it perfectly. You won't find them. I'm talking about men who are seeking, actively pursuing Jesus and actively pursuing their wives. Look for other men who are doing that. I've been encouraged in the year that I've been at this chapel to see many, many husbands doing this well. Striving to follow Christ, striving to love their wives, striving to picture Christ to the world in their marriages. Seek them out. Ask them to come alongside you, hold you accountable and push you forward together. Husbands, you have a high and privileged calling from the King. It's to model Christ to your family, to your wife, to your neighbors, to the world, in your marriage. With great privilege comes great responsibility. And with a high calling comes the call to lower yourself, to serve and to lead. Let's bow our heads. For husbands to be able to do this, it takes the power of Jesus. Maybe you're here today and you're not a believer in Jesus. You've never trusted him. You've never given yourself to him. I want you to know he's calling to you today. I want you to know that he is laid his life down and that if you trust in him, then all of your sins are washed away. He has taken them to the cross and he makes you new. To walk in his ways takes his power, and you must trust in him in order to receive that. Maybe you're here today and you are a believer, but you're not a husband. I wanna invite the entire church to be in prayer for the husbands in this church. As the husband goes in the way that he loves and leads his wife, so the marriage goes. And as the marriage goes, so the family goes. And as the family goes, so the church goes. And as the family and the church go, so the world goes. Sin entered into this world through Adam. He neglected his responsibility to lead his wife and that's when sin entered the world. But it was when Christ loved and gave himself to his bride, that salvation from sin came and we were made new. So church prayed for the husbands. Wives, I ask you to pray for your husbands as well. It's not an easy task to do what the Lord has called us to do. Pray for him wherever he may be at. I ask you to pray for him. And husbands, I wanna give you a three part prayer that I try to pray daily and strive to live in. First part of it is this, Lord, help me to be the man that you have called me to be today. The second part is, Lord, help me to be the man that my wife needs me to be today. And the third part of it is, Lord, help me to be the man that I want my daughters to one day marry, today. Or for you, it may be your sons to be like today. I invite you to pray that prayer every day and to strive to walk in it. Lord God, we are so thankful for salvation. We are so thankful for marriage and what it pictures, Lord, the deeper reality of the gospel that lies behind it. I pray, Lord, that you would help us in our marriages, that you would help the husbands in this room to picture the gospel in the way that we love and lead our wives, in the way that we live in union with them. And I pray, Lord, that as the world looks on, that they would see the gospel of Jesus Christ, that they would come to know you, that they would come to believe and they would come into salvation, and that their marriages and their lives would be transformed as well. Lord, we know that you are the all powerful God that you can turn, turn around the hardest situations that you can turn around the hardest hearts. You can soften them and make them new. I pray that you would do that today, Lord. It's in Jesus' name that I pray. Amen. Amen.