Love Your Wives
Transcript
Good morning. My name is Spencer Carey. I'm a pastor in training here with Mill City Church. You may not know this about me, but I am not super handy. Which may come as a shock to some of you that a man that drives a Prius would not know his way around the garage. But I just, it's not like I didn't have the opportunity growing up.
My stepdad here in a body shop, he tried to teach me things. And I knew the basics of taking care of our yard and stuff like that. But he tried to teach me these things and I just said, look, this stuff doesn't just, it interests me. So like if you, like one day I'm going to be an attorney, I'll make lots of money, I'm going to pay people to do this. It's going to be awesome, don't worry. And after a while he just kind of gave up.
And that was a really bad plan because I'm not an attorney and I don't make lots of money. So I had to figure out, like, how do I do some of these things that I missed out on? And one of the things that's been really helpful is YouTube. Like you can go to YouTube and plug in anything, any house or project, and you're going to see like 10 different how-to videos come up. And so finally, like when I got married, I was like, this is great. So I just started projects and learning how to do things.
And about six months ago, my wife said, you know, it would be great if we extended the concrete pad in our backyard. And I was like, yeah, you know what? So I got on YouTube, got really excited. I was like, I can do this. So I hopped in the minivan, got to Home Depot, loaded the swagger wagon down with as much concrete as it could handle.
It was like this far off the ground. Came back home and about two hours into the project, realized that this wasn't going well. The YouTube didn't make it as easy as it seemed to be. And then I finished, like this looks terrible, tried to fix it. It was still terrible. And for six months, it's still in my backyard, this horrible looking concrete pad that I'm stuck with.
And I feel like a lot of times we jump into marriage with kind of the same like mindset. We get excited. We fall in love. We get to the wedding. It's an exciting occasion. And then all of a sudden, a year in, we're like, man, this is a lot more difficult than I thought it was going to be.
Like I've never met anyone in their first year of marriage that said, yeah, you know what? We made it. We breezed through it. We crushed it. It was awesome. Super easy.
It's like, no, it's hard and it's costly. And we've been in Ephesians 5 for a minute walking through marriage and what it looks like. And we've been walking through this cycle of love and respect that we introduced last week. Husbands, love their wives. And wives, respect and submit to your husbands. And there's a last week introduced.
This is from a book called Love and Respect. And when we are functioning the way we're supposed to, when wives are submitting and respecting their husbands and husbands are loving their wives, we're flourishing in how we're supposed to be. But we're not. It turns into a crazy cycle. So last week we addressed wives.
This week we're going to address husbands. So last week he said, you know, he said, wives, I'm preaching to you, husbands. Don't elbow. Don't make obvious signs. And the same thing we say this week. Wives, no sad eyes.
No elbowing. Don't take like obvious notes so that he can see. This morning we're preaching to husbands. And we ask that you would be respectful as we walk through this. Now, husbands, you might think, oh, love your wife. I mean, that's how I love her every day.
Like, we're good. Let's go to Ephesians 6. The more that we press into this, the more we're going to see the weight of what's actually happening here. So in Ephesians 5, verses 25 through 33, we're going to see two main aspects of how we're supposed to love our wives. That firstly, our husbands, we are called to love our wives with love that is costly. That our love is meant to be costly.
And secondly, that our love is meant to be considerate. And when we are doing these things, we are modeling the gospel in our marriages. So that's what we're going to walk through today. We're going to start out in verse 25. He says, Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. That he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of the water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.
In the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it just as Christ does the church. Because we are members of his body. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is profound.
And I'm saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. Let's pray. We'll dive in. God, I'm thankful for your word. I pray that for the men that came in today, if they are wanting to be married, if they're engaged, for the husbands in the room, that we would sit back and we'd listen.
That we wouldn't put up defenses. That you would help us see what it looks like to love wives like Christ loved the church. Amen. Alright, so he starts out, Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. So I want to quickly, we're going to go deeper into this, but I want to quickly on the surface define what love is.
Because our culture reduces love down to affection, to warm feelings. And that's an aspect of love, but that's not what it is at its core. That at its core, love is sacrificial. It is shown here as that Jesus died and loved the bride, loved the church. We might reflect that same love to our wives. It is meant to be costly.
That love for our wives is meant to be costly. Now here's the deal. I feel like most of us generally get this. Like I think most husbands, I don't know many husbands who on their wedding day stood up and thought, you know what, this wedding, this marriage, it's going to be all about me. Like I asked my sister-in-law, she's a wedding photographer, I was like, have you ever had any groomzillas? And she said, no.
I haven't had any groomzillas yet. I'm not saying it won't happen, I just haven't had it happen yet. Because I think most of us generally understand that that day is not about us and that marriage is not going to be about us as well. It's going to be a little bit sacrificial and costly. But I don't think we fully grasp how costly our love is supposed to be.
I think most of us approach marriage like approaching a fine restaurant with the kind of restaurant that doesn't have prices on the menu. Like you go and you think like this is going to be kind of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, a once-in-a-lifetime experience. And you roll in and the restaurant is exciting, you're feeling the vibe, everyone's dressed up. And you sit down and you open the menus and you're like, baby, don't worry, like this is a special occasion. We're getting appetizers, we're getting entrees, we're going to get drinks, we're going to get desserts, it's going to be awesome. And then all of a sudden, the bill comes.
And you didn't know that appetizers could be $30. Like you didn't know that entrees could be three figures, that market price meant like black market selling a kidney price. Like you didn't realize how much was coming on the bill. And I don't think we fully realize how costly it is. And the more that we press into this, the more that we press into this, we're going to see how costly it is. That our calling is meant to reflect the cost of our Savior.
Which was His life being laid down for the bride. Sacrificing it all. Like that's the calling, the model for our love for our wives is the cross. That's it. Our model is the cross. And somewhere in all of this, we've gotten confused, I think between two really polar extremes.
Like on one end, on one end we shift into, some of us may shift into domineering leadership. Like the way we love and lead our wives is domineering. And the other end of the extreme, you have husbands that are more like doormats. That passively are abdicating leadership, a responsibility, and somewhere between the doormat and domineering, we've lost what it is, the model of the cross. So let me address husbands that may fall into this first extreme.
Domineering leadership. The world stereotype of what we talk about in Ephesians 5, what we talk about headship, is this. It's domineering leadership. This is where we get accused of having patriarchal, archaic understanding of marriage. And it's the stereotypical picture of a husband who comes home, after a long day at work, and kicks off his shoes, and sits in his favorite chair, and he's like, I'm dumb. Like, you, you can take care of the food, you can take care of the house, you can take care of the kids, I've done my part.
He's going to check out, and he's going to be in his favorite chair, and he's going to watch sports, or he's going to be on his phone, and he's going to be lost, and he's not going to care, because he's done his part. He's gone to work, and she can do the rest. This kind of husband, if you fall into this zone, this is the kind of husband that might check out for all of hunting season. Like, as soon as hunting season comes, they're gone. As soon as football season comes, everything's got to revolve around college football. Her needs, her everything is going to revolve around this.
If you're this kind of husband, you may approach arguments, like battles to be won. Like, it's good to have constructive arguments, like you shouldn't just avoid conflict. That's not healthy in marriage. There's a fair way to talk stuff out, but if you fall more in this zone of domination, it is a battle, and every argument's a battle that you've got to win, and if you can't out convince her, you can get louder, and talk her down, until finally she just gives up. If you're more in this zone of leadership, like, you may have a pattern of wanting to suppress your wife's emotions. Like, you don't want to deal with that.
If I'm honest, this is kind of more where I lean, when I'm functioning as an unhealthy husband, I lean more towards this zone. When I was dating my wife in college, we were starting to fall in love, and I said, baby, I got, I was like, this is, this is going really well, but I just want to be honest with you. I don't know how to handle emotions. I don't know how to, I don't know how to handle crying. So it would be great, if you just didn't cry.
And she, if you don't know my wife, she's, she's an emotional person. Like, she experiences other people's emotions for them. Like, we can be in a situation, where somebody is yelling at somebody else, and she is experiencing their fears, their sadness, their pain, all in that moment. And I just told her, I was like, it'd be great if you just didn't cry. I was, I was real smooth, in the dating process. And then it came up, premarital counseling, and I was like, oh wow, like this is really damaging.
And everyone was crying at that point. If you lean more towards this, or maybe you've seen this, maybe you grew up with a dad that was like this. This is not leading, and loving your wife. Like, if you want to be married, or if you're in the process of being engaged, or you are married, this is not, the model that we have. The cross, and sacrificing, and laying down, from the moment that you say I do, it's not about you, it's about sacrificing, laying down your life for your wife. That's the model that we have.
That's why we as a church, we talk about being men of the second shift. That, yeah, you may have a long day at work, but when you clock out, you gather yourself together, because when you come home, you clock back in. If you don't have kids, it means helping around the house. If you do have kids, it means taking, we have little ones right now, so when I come in, it's time for me to step up, it's time for me to pitch in, it's time for me to take the kids off of her hands. If you have older kids, that means running errands, taking kids to practice. And yeah, that might mean that you wake up at six in the morning, and that you work your tail off all day.
And that by the time you finally get to rest, it's nine o'clock. Yeah, that's hard, but that's what we signed up for, when we said I do. Being men of the second shift. It means, that for us as men, like we're not entitled, to midlife crisis, or as, as now in our generation, we get like a quarter life crisis. Like I turned 30, this year, and I'm entitled now, to my quarter life crisis, that I could just, blow up our family's budget, that I could just go, and buy toys, because yeah, life is hard, I need something else to get by. No, that means, I mean, yeah, it's hard, but we press on, this is what we signed up for.
It means, that as husbands, you don't get to just check out, on your phones. Man, this is a big one for me. I do real estate, I have to have my phone, I have to answer emails, and phone calls, and text messages, that's how I make money. But man, that rolls over, to some really bad habits. Where my wife, and my kids, are trying to get my attention, and I'm just surfing, ignoring, and I've tried to reform, over the last year, my patterns of this. It means, it means you don't get to check out, on your phones.
It means, that when you get in an argument, you apologize first. You don't do this weird power play, where she's got to be the one, that apologizes first, and when she comes to me, and apologizes, then maybe I'll say, I'm sorry you got upset. I'm sorry that you got hysterical. I'm sorry that you got your feelings hurt. It means that, we step up, we sacrifice, we come first, and say, baby, I'm sorry. Will you forgive me?
It means, the picture that we're going for here, there are two kinds of kings, that fight wars. There are kings, that fight from the throne. They lead the battle from the throne. They're back, slump back, this is where David, in the Old Testament, got in trouble. He used to fight his battles, on the field, with his men, beside them, sacrificing, laying it down. The moment he stepped in, said, no, I'm just going to lead the battles, from the throne, is when he got into that mess, with Bathsheba.
That's when he ended up, having an affair, and having someone killed. We're called to get our hands dirty, to sacrifice, to lay it down. That's the model of the cross, that we have. And I'd contend, honestly, that's the model that women want. I saw a Facebook post, a couple weeks ago, and it was of an older man, and his wife was in a hospital bed, and his wife was elderly, and he was combing her hair. Taking care of her.
And y'all should, it was a viral post, y'all should have seen the comments, that came below it. Of women who were like, losing their minds, like this is amazing. It was like they, they were looking at a solar eclipse, that came only once, every couple hundred years. They were so excited to see this, and they were so blown away. That's why when Up came out, the first ten minutes, slayed everybody. Because it was like, man, seeing this kind of love, where a husband would sacrifice, and stay beside his wife.
I mean that, that's what women want. And that's what women need. That's what our wives need. That kind of costly love. Now, you may fall into this zone, but you might be on the other end of the spectrum. You might be leading more like a doormat.
What I mean is, that you are passively giving up leadership, deferring to your wife. If you're in this zone, you might be the kind of wife, that might be the kind of husband, that leads really hard, into happy wife, happy life. Like, that's generally true. Okay, but, I've seen some people, that's like their, that's their anthem. Happy wife, happy life. Like, don't, don't want to stir the pot.
Don't want to, like, just, as long as she's happy, I don't want to push back on things. If you're this kind of, a husband, it may be very easy for you, just to pass the buck, to let her take the reins, to let her lead, in a lot of different areas. And you may justify yourself, with saying, well, you know, I'm just trying to keep the peace. I don't want to stir the pot. As long as I have a peaceful house, I'll just let her take the lead on things. And you're consistently giving up leadership, that you were designed, to take.
That God has designed us, as husbands, to be the ones, that lead. And we talked about it, a few weeks ago, if that throws you off, I encourage you, go back and listen to those, sermons. But God has designed us, uniquely designed us, to lead, and for our wives to follow. So if you lean more, in this zone, of passively giving up leadership, it's time for you, to step up, into who you were called to be, and to lead, in a few different areas. It means that you take the lead, on decisions. Like the small, the classic one is, is who picks the restaurant.
And if you're in this zone, you're always in the zone of, I don't really care. Like just pick somewhere. And that's small, but that rolls over, into much bigger decisions, where you're like, ah, just let her take it. Just let. No, you're called to step up, and lead. And yes, your wife, most of us are going to have, wives that are smarter than us, and have more wisdom, than us.
So you listen, and you take, you take a lot of what she is saying, and you run with it. But sometimes, you're going to come to a head, where you're going to have to make a decision. And you're going to have to take the step, you're going to have to step up, and take responsibility. Because ultimately, you're the one that's going to be, held accountable for the decisions, that are made, in your family. It means you step up, you lead in decisions. It also means you lead, in providing.
Now I want to be, careful with this, because there's always, extenuating circumstances. There's, sometimes you get laid off, sometimes husbands get sick. I get that. But God has designed us, to provide. All the way back in the garden, you see that we've been given, creative gifts, that we might cultivate the earth, and that we might provide, for our families. So that means, that sometimes, you've got to work hard.
Sometimes you've got to work late. And sometimes you've got to work two jobs. But you do what you can, and you grind it out, because that's what we, signed up for. It means that you're called to lead, and your family, and specifically, when it comes to parenting. God has designed our wives, for those who have children, that there's a maternal instinct, that is good. And that is right, I would say for a lot of cases, most of the time.
Like she's going to have, a lot more insight, a lot more connection, but that doesn't mean, you just fold on, every single parenting decision. There's a whole generation, of men my age, that, their moms were like, helicopter moms. Always on top of them. Smothering them. So the point where, I mean there's stories of guys, who went to apply, for their first jobs out of college, went to sin, and the mom is still making resumes, is calling employers, is arguing with employees.
What happened? Well there was a dad, in the background, who abdicated his responsibilities, and said, no I don't want to shake the boat, I don't want to rock the boat here. Instead of stepping in and saying, no you are going to keep this boy, a boy, it's time for him to step up, and be a man. There are going to be times, where you have to step in, and it's going to get dicey, and it's going to be difficult. But through prayer, and through discernment, you step up, and you help make, parenting decisions.
It means you're called, to take the lead on finances, that doesn't mean, that your wife doesn't have that, like Chet mentioned this last week, that his wife Anna, she works at a bank, and she's organized, and she helps organize finances. My wife's the same way, like she's very organized, and helps keep our budget in check. But the overall trajectory, of where our family is going financially, that falls on me, and that falls on you, to step up, and to give some vision, and to budget, and to help think through, where you're going as a family. It also means, that you step up, and you lead in discipling, your family.
That man, we are called, as heads of the household, to be responsible, for the spiritual direction, of our family. That we might, disciple our kids, and take the lead on that. I interned under, a youth director once, and he had parents, come up to him, when their kids got caught, at a party, and they said, where were you? What, how did you let this happen? And he flipped the script, he's like, where were you? Like, I'm not the one, who's primarily responsible, for the spiritual health, of your kids.
Like, that falls on you, to disciple your own, children. And man, that's where we step in, and we read Bible stories, to our kids. We help explain, the story of the gospel. That's where we step in, and we help our wives, love Jesus, and give them space, and encourage them, to have time, to read their Bibles, and to pray. Because ultimately, we are the ones, that are held accountable, for that. As we stand before God, held accountable, for the spiritual direction, of our families.
And that's what Paul, is pressing into, he gets into verse 25, he says, husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church, and gave himself up for her, that he might, sanctify her, having cleansed her, by the washing of the water, with the word, so that he might present, the church to himself, in splendor, without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, that she might be holy, and without blemish. That in the same way, as Jesus, presents the church, in splendor, and in glory, we are called, to mirror that, that we would present, our wives, that we would present, our families, before the Lord. Because we're the ones, that will be held accountable for it. Now that is a humbly, humble calling, and it is costly.
And if you fall, somewhere between, leading from a doormat, or being domineering, we're fighting, for modeling the cross. And that might be, really difficult, especially, if your wife, does not respect you, and does not submit, to your leadership. It'll be hard. I mean, if you've ever been, in a situation, where you're at a dinner party, and there's a bunch of, different husbands and wives, and all of a sudden, one of the wives, says something, that's so, like disrespectful, and embarrassing, and just completely, undercuts her husband. Here's how this falls, between those two extremes. On the one end, husbands that are more, lean into the zone, of leading from a doormat.
You see the same, like it's almost, a conditioned response. They hear it, their shoulders sink, they kind of, withdraw, and you can tell, this happened over, and over, and over again. He's not going to talk, about this later. He's just going to take it. Internally, he's starting to hate his wife. On the other end, of the spectrum, man, if you see this happen, with more of a domineering type husband, his immediate, his immediate response is, a what?
You said what? Oh no, and it turns into, a knock down, drag out, makes the whole occasion, super awkward. May I suggest, a third option. That if you're in a situation, where your wife, does not respect you, will not follow you. We have Jesus, as a model. Because when Jesus, was on the cross, he was mocked.
And in that moment, he could have easily, flexed his power. He could have called on, a legion of angels, to come in, and correct everything, that was happening. But Jesus displayed, his power, mightily. He endured, the fallenness, of the situation. He laid it down. He paid it all.
So you can endure, insults. You can endure it, with patience. And then later, patiently, you can go to your wife, and say, honey, I love you. And I want to love you, and sacrifice for you. But when you do things like that, you completely undercut me.
You dishonor me. And I want to love you, and I want you, to grow, and respect me. When you come out with it, with that posture, the hope is, is that by the hope of the gospel, you can love your wife, into this cycle, of love and respect. It is a costly calling, to love our wives. And it's good. And it's also, we are called to be, considerate in how we love them.
Paul continues, he says, in the same way, husbands should love their wives, as their own bodies. He who loves his wife, loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes, and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members, of his body. Jesus uses this, this body metaphor. He's the head of the church, he is united with the church, with the bride of Christ. He uses this body metaphor, to show that we should be, considerate, in how we love and care, for our wives.
When my wife has a headache, I say, my stock response is, have you taken something? Like, have you taken Tylenol? Have you taken Advil? Like, we don't do oils in our family, we just do medicine, that's us, you do you, we do us. Like, ask her, is she taking something? And once she takes something, I don't think about it anymore.
I've moved on, because I don't feel, her pain. But let me tell you something, when I have back pain, and that for me, is a regular occurrence. Like three weeks ago, I was in Lowe's, and I thought it was a good idea, to take 300 pounds of rock and stone, and push it across the entire store. And, that's, I'm right at the front, this woman comes out and says, hey, did you know we have forklifts for that? I was like, would it have mattered, you would have seen me push this, and just let me do it. And I pushed it across, and I hurt my back, and ever since then, I've been just, I've been trying to rehab, and I've been feeling it, and I am, I am aware of the back pain.
I am aware of what's going on, because it's my body, and I can feel it. And I know what kind of needs I have. And the picture here, is that you are one flesh with your wife. You would be considerate of her needs. You would be considerate of how she feels. And that's what we are called to as husbands.
So what I wanted to do, I want to walk through some practical ways, of how we can consider our wives. I consulted multiple wives in our church, to make this list, of ways that we can grow, in considering our wives. Firstly, understand how she feels love. We feel love, and experience love, in different ways. There's a man named Gary Chapman, he's a psychologist, he wrote a book called, The Five Love Languages. Some of you may be familiar with it.
I'm not a huge fan, of the overall thesis of the book, the overall trajectory of the book. He finally gets into a zone, of like we have these love tanks, and you've got to, kind of just do someone's love language, to fill it up. But you don't have to, take all of it. But you can take, the five practical things, that he lays out in this book. That there are five different, general ways, that each of us experience love. And he lays out on me, one of them is physical touch.
That your wife might, she might need to be held. Held in a way, that doesn't lead, to anything else. Just that she might need, physical contact, and just need to be held, or to be hugged. For others, it may be, words of affirmation. That maybe she's the kind of person, that really values, when you write notes. Or when you send text messages.
Or when you tell her, how much you love her. Another gift, another love language, is that he lays out as gifts. That for some people, it's, if you give them something, that shows them love. So for some of you, your wife might need flowers, or it might be chocolate, or it might be, small tokens of affection, that show her, that you love her. A fourth one he lays out, is Acts of service. That your wife might be, more of a show me person.
Like show me you love me. My wife used to be, in the physical touch zone, which is good, because that's kind of where I am. But then she, we had two kids, and they like touch her all day. And by the time I get home, she's just like, I don't want to be held, I just want to be left alone. I want you to do the laundry. I want you to do the kitchen.
I want you to do some things. So I've had to adjust on the fly, and realize that, oh, showing love to her, is me doing the laundry. That's how I show her love. And the last one he lays out, is quality time. And sometimes, your wife, if she falls in this zone, she just needs quality time. And quality is how she defines it.
Not, alright, well let's take some time and watch the game. Like, it's how she defines quality. And it's, and it's intentionally carving out times throughout the week that she might experience this. And it can change. It can change over time. And that's why it's important to study your wife.
And that's the second way you can, you can be considerate. Is to study your wife. Know her. her. Man, some of us are operating off the same playbook we had when we were dating. And we think we've got it all figured out. She changes.
Study. Get to know what, what, what she likes and what she doesn't like. What changes. My wife and I used to love Mexican food. We go to Mexican restaurants multiple times throughout the week. That was our thing.
And then our second kid came. And she threw up every single day for 12 weeks straight when she was pregnant. And she no longer loves Mexican food. It just, which is sad to me. I'm hoping about a third kid it'll just correct everything and we'll be back to loving Mexican food again. But it changed.
And it's taken me some time. I've tried, we went to a, we went to a restaurant this week and ate. She didn't feel good. I'm like, man, I'm still learning this. She's changing. So study your wives.
Thirdly, mine, your words. Your words matter. James 3 in the New Testament lays out how words can be used in a constructive way. He gives a positive example. It can be like the tiny rudder of a ship. And he makes the point that although it's, it's a tiny rudder, it directs the whole course of the ship through all kinds of seas.
But your words can also be like a spark that lights a forest fire. And the picture of that in marriage is that our words matter. You can build up your marriage. You can direct the course of your marriage with your words. or you can burn the house down. Your words matter. That's why she can remember things you said four years ago.
And there are real emotions that are attached to those words. Now there's forgiveness that has to happen there. Absolutely. But our words are important. So what you say matters.
Fifth, fourthly, anticipate her needs. This is a big one. Anticipate what her needs are. And this is another thing where you have to know and study your wife because those needs change. You anticipate. So like, one of the things that I picked up over the last six months, I got this from Matt Freeman, that he would go home and he would, he would see that his wife Katie needed help and he would say, you know what, I'm going to take the kids.
Why don't you take, why don't you go to Starbucks for a little bit? Gather yourself, have a quiet time. And I was like, that's really good. So I've been, over the last six months, I've been trying, I'll come home and I need to anticipate that my wife needs some space because we have a toddler and an infant. And I'll take the kids and I was like, why don't you go to Duncan? Why don't you just take some time?
For some of you, that means that you need to anticipate when your wife needs help. Maybe you need to take the lead on taking them to school on picking them up. That sometimes you need to anticipate what she needs on any given day and be in tune to that and to be asking about that. Fifth, you are called as the husband to pursue her. You are called to pursue your wife. When was the last time, hear this, when was the last time you did something nice that was not an anniversary, that wasn't Christmas, that wasn't a birthday?
When's the last time that you surprised her with something? When's the last time that you intentionally romanced her into intimacy instead of at the end of the night just giving the touch, giving the sign? How are you pursuing her? How are you wooing her, loving her, romancing her? Are you dating her? That's a big thing.
Every family is different on how many dates or what kind of that rhythm should look like. We have fought for that in our household. We try to have one date night a week. Kind of with kids right now it ends up being about three date nights a month. But that's something we fought for because we have crazy schedules.
I've had crazy schedules almost all seven years of our marriage. And we've had to fight for this, that I would date her, that I would pursue her. And I've gotten lazy in some areas, so this year I had a goal that once a quarter I would do a special date night that didn't look like the rest that I could work on intentionally pursuing her. Because she needs that. She needs you to care. So we are called to pursue our wives and lastly, we are called to be faithful.
Being considerate of our wives is being faithful. Pornography can destroy your marriage. Can absolutely destroy your marriage. Because what you are doing is you are outsourcing love to other people online. What would it be like if she outsourced her respect to everyone else but you? One of the things I love about my wife is that she really fights for this, that she fights to show me respect.
It could have been very easy when I said, alright, I'll take on the concrete pat, let's do this. For her to step in in that moment and say, why are you even going to try? There's no way you're going to get this. You're going to mess it up. It's going to be sitting in our backyard for six months. You know what?
Why don't I call my granddad? Because her granddad's like a wizard that can fix anything. Why don't I call him? In fact, why don't I just go find some other men to come in and do this? Because obviously, you're not going to be able to handle this. How well would that have gone over to show that kind of disrespect?
And when you look at pornography, you are outsourcing love in the same way that she could outsource respect to anyone else but you. That mess can wreck your marriage. It causes her to question her self-value, her self-worth, her self-image. We are called to be faithful. That is how we can be considerate to our wives. I could keep going through all kinds of different examples, but here's the deal.
Every wife is different. God gave you your wife. He gave me mine. So she's going to be different than yours. So you need to learn how to be considerate.
And if that means just asking, ask. On the way home today from leaving here, ask, honey, what is a way, what are some ways that I can grow in considering you and loving you? We are called to consider our wives and when we love our wives in a way that is costly and a way that is considerate. We are moving into the zone. We are fulfilling this mysterious purpose of marriage that he is referencing in the last part of this passage. He says in verse 31, Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh.
This mystery is profound. And I'm saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself and let the wife see that she respects her husband. One of the, I'm not big into art but there is some types of art that I actually really like and one of the ones I like are mosaics. I think mosaics are really interesting and really cool that for thousands of years that mosaics have existed. That people would individually pick smaller objects and they would place them on a canvas, place them on a portrait and then as you backed up over time you would start to see the bigger picture of what was happening there.
And when photography came around that people would individually shrink down smaller photos and place them in a way. I remember seeing one when I was a kid of JFK that you looked closely and you saw individual pictures of JFK and his life and then you back up and you'd see his portrait. I love that kind of art. I did one, I realize you can do this online now. I took one of our family photos from Christmas and this took me like an hour. I just took the photos off my iPhone which is like all seven years of our marriage and uploaded them.
And if you look closer there are pictures of our marriage of our wedding of our kids being born of being silly and all kinds of happy moments but the farther you get back from it you see the picture of what's actually happening there. Mosaics our marriage is like a mosaic. They're like individual pictures that make up a greater picture the picture of the gospel that Paul is referencing here. A mystery that goes all the way back to the garden in Genesis 2 that's what he's quoting here. That in that moment two became one. They became one flesh like two metals being welded together into one object both distinct with different properties but together as one and stronger together.
And that over time the picture is that we grow old together as one flesh that even metals would rust and look the same together. And that picture of what happened in Genesis is pointing forward to the cross when Jesus would come down to pursue his bride and go to the cross. And that every marriage before then and every marriage after then is a picture of the gospel. That your marriage and my marriage are individual pictures that make up a greater picture of the gospel. So husbands we need to feel the weight of that.
That your marriage is a picture of the gospel because one of the biggest critiques that we have in our culture of the American church having a say in marriage one of the biggest critiques is how do you have a say? Y'all's divorce rates are crazy. And that's a fair critique. It's a fair critique when many of our marriages are calling it quits. It's a fair critique when there are husbands that are leading passively and abdicating leadership. It's a fair critique when other husbands are domineering and ruling over their wives.
We are called to model the cross. That's how we reflect the gospel. And marriages like mosaics they take time. Now we live in a culture where things happen like this. They happen instantly. Where I can take an art form that took for thousands of years that took so long and upload pictures in a moment and have it.
Man, it takes time. And you may be thinking man, this has been a rough week, a rough month, this has been a rough couple of years. And you may be thinking man, I don't know how much more fight I have left. I don't know how much more this can change. Our hope for you this morning is the gospel that it absolutely can. That there are stories of marriages in our church where husbands and wives have come together and have fought.
Where husbands have grown in loving their wives. Where wives have grown and respecting and following their husbands. Where they fought for it and they've come through the other side. There is hope. And that hope is found in Christ. That he would mold us into men who love our wives with a costly, considerate, pursuing love like Jesus had when he came down to redeem his bride.
