The Husband’s Role – Part 2

I heard the story about a wife who developed a holiday tradition. Every Christmas she would buy her husband a large puzzle that had all those hundreds of tiny little pieces. It was a big puzzle with all those little pieces—I’m not a puzzle guy. I don’t do puzzles unless they are little puzzles I put together with my granddaughter. You see these big boxes with all these pieces. It takes about 20 years to put together. I just don’t have the patience to do that. Well, one year she bought a puzzle, and her husband began trying to put it together, but she would do something. She would always take the lid with the picture and hide it. So, you had to put the puzzle together without the picture. One year he was working on this puzzle and he was just frustrated for days. He couldn’t get it to fit, and he couldn’t put it together. That year, though, she had purposely bought two puzzles, and she had switched the puzzle lids. This time she left the lids on the puzzles. So, he started on the first but had an inaccurate picture. Looking at that picture trying to make the puzzle fit made him frustrated. It just didn't work. It just didn’t come together. Well, that little story illustrates how many people get frustrated because they're trying to make the little pieces fit together in their marriage, but they are looking at the wrong picture. They are taking their cue or their picture from the world and from the ideas of the world or philosophies of the world. We need to look at God’s Word, the Bible, to find out what God’s picture of marriage is. Many people today are frustrated because they are trying to follow the wrong picture or the wrong pattern. Our goal on Wednesday nights has been to look at the picture, the pattern and the principles that God has given to us in His Word so that all the pieces fit together, and we can enjoy marriage as God designed it.

We’ve seen marriage as God created it in Genesis 2. He said, “For this cause a man will leave his father and his mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” In that key verse, and all the Bible’s teaching on marriage, it actually says there that because a man is married that he leave father and mother, cleave to his wife and the two become one flesh. So, there is leaving, there is cleaving, and there is one flesh. There is intimacy and permanency. We learned how Satan has corrupted marriage and sought to distort the picture and the pattern that God designed. Then we learned how to correct it, Ephesians 5. We saw the Spirit-filled wife submitting and the Spirit-filled husband loving his wife sincerely, unconditionally, sacrificially, sanctifyingly, affectionately and exclusively.

We’re not done looking at the husband’s role or “duty” in the marriage relationship. There are basically three more things that a husband needs to do. He needs to not only love his wife, but he needs to dwell with her and honor her. Tonight I am going to look at those two aspects, dwelling with your wife and honoring your wife. Now, you might be thinking, “You’re going to preach a whole message on dwelling with your wife and honoring your wife?” That’s exactly what I’m going to do. Dwelling with your wife and honoring your wife is what this passage tells us. In 1 Peter 3:7 says, “Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them…,” who? Your wife, he just finished talking about the wives in verses 1-6. “…according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered.” Now, I want to read to you the same verse in the New Living Translation. “In the same way, you husbands must give honor to your wives. Treat your wife with understanding as you live together. She may be weaker than you are, but she is your equal partner in God’s gift of new life. Treat her as you should so your prayers will not be hindered.” In this one verse, there is a whole lot of important information for the husband in his role toward his wife. There are two basic categories. First, dwell with them understandingly and then second, honor them very highly. So what is a husband to do with his wife? Dwell with her understandingly and honor her very highly. Go back with me to verse 7, let’s break this down.

Notice the phrase, “Likewise ye husbands.” What does that little phrase mean? Well, basically, if you back up into chapter 2 verse 18, I’ll show you what he’s talking about. “Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward.” So, he’s talking to servants telling them to be submissive. Be obedient and submissive to your masters. Now, look at chapter 3, verse 1. “Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands.” So, servants obey your masters. Wives, obey your husbands. Then, in verse 7, “Likewise, ye husbands.” So the “likewise” goes all the way back to chapter 2. Like the servant is subject to his master, and like the wife is subject to her husband, so you husbands are to be subject to your wife. I honestly believe that is what he is saying. He is saying, “You men need to die to yourself, and you need to practice and learn submission.” Submit to God and His will, die to yourself, love and honor your wife, and dwell with your wife. The moment you get married, you must die to yourself. “That’s why I love you, only I don’t want to get married.” But listen to me, dying to yourself is a good thing because you’re messed up. I just thought I would encourage you all tonight. When you get married you have to die to yourself. The two become one. You die to what you want. It’s no longer just, “I’m gonna do what I want. I’m gonna go where I want. I’m gonna buy what I want. I’m gonna live where I want.” No. There’s two of you now, and the two become one. The husband has to die to self. We’ve already seen the husband has to love his wife, right? The husband is to love his wife as Christ loved the church. That’s a standard and that’s the goal. It is so high and so lofty and so holy that no one could ever fully attain that this side of heaven, but we are to make it our goal, we are to make it our ambition. As Christ loved the church and gave Himself for it, sacrificially, self-denyingly, exclusively we are to love our wives. So, “likewise” conveys the idea that we are to be submissive to the plan and the purpose of God in our marriage relationships. The same Holy Spirit that makes a wife meek and quiet, verse 4 of chapter 3, would make the husband kind and attentive. You got that? The same Holy Spirit that makes a wife kind, attentive and submissive, also makes a husband kind, loving and attentive to his wife.

Let me also point out that the husband is also to dwell with his wife. Notice verse 7, “Likewise, ye husbands…,” this is the first commandment, “…you dwell with them according to knowledge.” Now we learn from this verse that the husband’s relationship with his wife covers four areas. This outline is going to be a little challenging for you to follow, so let me explain it. I have two main points. The two main points are that you dwell with them understandingly, and secondly, you honor them highly. Underneath those two points are four categories of relationship between a husband and a wife. The first category is physical, dwell with them. It is a good idea for a husband and wife to live together. Now, isn’t that profound? I studied all week to figure that out. I know that in our modern age we have a wife that lives in Los Angeles and the husband lives in New York. They get together once a week or once a month or every few months. Sorry, that’s not a marriage, something’s gotta give. I know there are times when guys in the military have to go out on business. When our kids were young and we were newly married, I was busy in the ministry. I used to fly around the world all the time. I’d be gone three or four times a year for three or four weeks at a time. If I had it to do over again, I wouldn’t do that. I would stay a lot closer to home.

This is what this word is conveying. There is a lot conveyed in this word, but it is actually saying we get our concept of cohabitation from this word dwell. It means to settle down and be at home. You actually need to live with your spouse, physically. Now, it’s much more than sharing the same address. The compound verb “dwell with” occurs only here in the New Testament. In a general sense, the idea is to live with, and more specifically, to cohabit with; to live together constantly with your wife, to cohabit with your wife and her alone. Marriage is to be a physical cohabitation of one man and one woman. They live together, they dwell together, the two become one flesh. Next Wednesday night, this is going to be my entire subject, and we are going to talk about conjugal rights and intimacy in marriage. That is what this word conveys, the idea that you live together, that you are cohabiting together, that there is intimacy together, and that you are one intimately, sexually with one another. I’ll say it next week, but I’ll give you a little preview—if you don’t want to have sex, you shouldn’t get married. I know that may cause people to chuckle a little bit. I’ve been around long enough to know that some people get married and they don’t want to be intimate with their wife, or they will withhold that from their marriage partner. That’s not what marriage is. You need to be ready to fulfill your conjugal rights in a marriage relationship if you’re going to get married. Now, all the men will say, “Amen, Brother! Preach it!” Some of the ladies are saying, “I don’t think I’ll come next week.” It’s in the Bible. It’s in God’s Word, and it is an important aspect of your marriage. So next Wednesday, we are going to look at 1 Corinthians 7:1-5. So, It does have the idea of physical intimacy, cohabiting in one place with your wife. The general meaning though is that you live together.

It also conveys the idea of the husband being the provider and the protector. In 1 Timothy 5:8, it says, “If any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.” I do think that a man, when he takes on a wife, should assume the responsibility for providing for his wife. Now, this may sound kind of old school, it happened to me when I was 24 and Kristy and I were dating or courting. We were hoping to get married, and we waited quite a few years before we got married. I was already a pastor and had a congregation, a church, and I am a single pastor. I waited until the church could afford to pay me enough that I could get a place that we could live and I could provide for a wife. That may seem kind of old school, but I think it’s important that you provide for your wife, that you take care of your wife, that you have a place to live with your wife. Some people say, “Oh, we’ll just get married and live with my mom and dad,” or “We’re going to go live in a camper.” You can do that if you want, but the idea is that you cohabit, you live together, you build a home together.

The husband also needs to be at home when he is home. A lot of guys get home and they’re not home, right Ladies? He’s in front of the television, his nose is in a magazine, or he’s working in the garage. I remember one time I was flipping through a magazine and my wife was talking. She asked, “Are you listening to me?” “Yeah, yeah. I’m listening.” I was flipping the pages, and I wasn’t looking at her. She asked, “What did I say?” I said, “I don’t have any idea.” I’m really not listening. I know you work hard out on the job. Wives work today a lot too, and they come home, and you’re not really communicating. There was a survey done showing that the average American married couple talks or communicates with each other an average of 37 minutes a week. It’s almost like you forget what it is to just talk about how your day was, how’d things go, or talking about issues. We’re either working or watching television or dealing with the kids, or a husband comes home and has work on his mind. So, when it says, “Husbands, you dwell with your wives,” it means that you actually come home from work. You don’t stop by the Fuzzy Frog for a while to get liquored up before you come home. You get home, and you want to be home, and you’re excited to be with your wife, and you dwell with her.

The second category under this first heading of dwell with your wives, understandingly, moves from the physical to the intellectual. Notice it in verse 7. How do you dwell with your wife? According to knowledge. Some of the guys are saying, “Okay, okay, I’ll come home and I will stay home, and I will be home, but I am never going to understand her. As long as I live, I’m never going to understand a wife. I’m never going to understand this woman.” The Bible says that we try to know her and understand her, that we dwell with her according to knowledge, even though you are a man, you are to seek to understand your wife who is a woman. Some translations have, “be understanding” or “live in an understanding way.” Charles Swindoll says, “The success of your dwelling with your wife will be in direct proportion to your knowledge of her.” So you need to know her fears, her cares, her disappointments, her expectations, her hopes, her dreams, her joys. There is really only one way to get to know her and that is to actually talk. “How you doing? What are you thinking? What do you want to do? What do you think about this?” Bring your wife into your world. Anything that affects you as a husband affects your wife. Anything that affects you on the job, affects your wife. Any concerns that you have concern your wife. The two become one. You have to share your burdens. You have to talk with each other. You have to share what’s going on in your life. It’s too easy to begin to live in two different worlds. Again, if the wife is working outside the home, and the husband is working outside the home, it is so easy for you to drift apart. You get involved in your own little worlds, and you don’t bring those worlds together and work together as a team. So, it takes communication, and it takes careful listening and sensitivity.

The idea is that you are considerate of her. What is your wife’s favorite color? What is your wife’s favorite food? What is your wife’s favorite flower? What restaurant would your wife like to go to? Where would she like to go on vacation? I chuckle a little bit because I like to go to the beach and my wife likes the mountains, but once in a while we’ll go to the mountains. This past couple of weeks we went to the beach and the desert. You learn what will make your wife happy and what she wants to do. Again, I am going to die to myself, and I’ll go to the mountains and I’ll go to the beach or I’ll go somewhere I don’t want to go because I know it blesses her and makes her happy. You find out what her likes and dislikes are, her joys and her dreams, her fears and her challenges. You as a husband need to show consideration to her and understanding toward her. I love that translation, be considerate or thoughtful of her feelings. It also teaches us that a husband needs an understanding of the Christian principles found in the Bible that directly affect the marriage relationship. A lot of men don’t ever look at the Bible and say, “What does God want me to do as a husband?” This is a verse that is overlooked in a lot of marriage books and a lot of preaching. Everyone goes to Ephesians 5, “Love your wives as Christ loved the church,” but we miss 1 Peter 3:7 where we are to dwell with them in an understanding way.

Not only are you to dwell with your wife in an understanding way, physically, intimately and intellectually get to know your wife, understand her moods, communicate with her, but the second main point I want to make is that you are to honor your wife very highly. So, dwell with her understandingly and, here’s an important point, value her very highly. A lot of men will take their wives for granted. Not until it’s too late do they discover that they have neglected their wife or mistreated their wife or taken her for granted. I can’t tell you the heartbreak in all the times that I’ve seen that men have come to their senses, when it’s too late. Tragic, tragic situations. Don’t let that happen to you. Ask God right now as you are listening to me preach, say, “God, help me to value my wife. Help me to esteem her very highly. Help me to see her as a prize and as a precious gift. Help me to see her as my most important asset and how valuable she is to me and not to take her for granted.”

So, we discover these two more dimensions of the husband and wife relationship. There’s first the physical, then the intellectual, and here’s the next two that make up the four categories, the emotional and the spiritual. First of all, the emotional. Go with me to 1 Peter 3:7, “…giving honour unto the wife.” So, dwell with her understandingly and give honor unto the wife. What does it mean to give honor unto your wife? Well, notice in the King James translation here, “giving” means to grant or to assign. It means to apportion to someone. You give to her, you grant to her, you assign to her honor. The term honor, and the same words used in verse 4 where it says, “…a meek and quiet spirit…,” when found in a wife, “…is of great price,” or is very precious. What you do is assign to her that she is very precious, that she is very valuable. Husbands are to keep assigning, it is in the present tense, great value to their wives because they are God’s precious gifts to you. A lot of guys will take great pride in their automobiles. They will spend hours rubbing them and waxing them, working on them and driving them, or maybe it’s some other hobby you have, but you don’t take that amount of time and investment in valuing your wife and giving to her, assigning to her, great value and great honor. Your wife is a gift. And, Guys, you ought to write that down, “My wife is a gift.” The Bible says, “Whoever finds a wife…,” listen to me very carefully I’m quoting Scripture, “…finds a good thing.” Husbands, you should turn to your wife right now and say, “You’re a good thing.” She is a good thing. You say, “I just can’t do that, she burnt the dinner tonight.” How often do you tell your wife, “You’re the best thing that ever happened to me. You’re a good thing! You’re a gift to me from the Lord.” So, you assign to her, you give to her honor by assigning her, “You’re valuable to me. You’re precious to me.” It shows that you appreciate your wife. So, Husbands, we need to do that.

Several weeks ago I quoted from JR Miller’s Home Beautiful, written in 1912. Let me quote from JR Miller again, from the book Home Beautiful. He says, “When a man offers his hand in marriage to a woman, he says by his act that his heart has made choice of her among all women, and that he has for her a deeper and tender affection than for any other. At the marriage alter, he solemnly pledges to her a continuance of that love until death. When the beauty has faded from her face, and the luster from her eyes, when old age has brought wrinkles or when sickness and care and sorrow hath left marks of wasting or marring, the faithful husband’s love is to remain deep and true as ever. His heart is still to choose his wife among all women and to find its truest delight in her.” That’s what it means to honor your wife. Give her what is due. So, my question to you tonight is, “Does your wife know that you value her?” A lot of guys never tell their wives, “I love you.” “She knows I love her, I eat her food. Oh, she knows I love her, I pay the mortgage. I eat the food, and I haven’t died yet. Yeah, she knows I love her.” But, do you tell her that. I’m preaching to my own heart right now. If your wife has to look at you and ask, “Do you love me?” Then shame on us husbands. She shouldn’t have to ask that, she should know that. “Do you love me? Well, why don’t you ever say so? Why don’t you ever tell me then?” It’s kinda that macho thing, it’s like, “I l-l-lov, oh you know I do.” We don’t even know how to say it because we’re men. “I love you. Thank you, I appreciate you.”

Back in Ephesians 5 where it says that if we’re filled with the Holy Spirit, we will be giving thanks. One of the signs of a Spirit-filled heart is thankfulness. I put on the top of that list, thankful for your spouse, thankful for your wife. You value them very highly. I love what Alistair Begg said, “There is no more precious gift entrusted to a man than the treasure of his wife. She is to be admired and prized above all others. She is to have first place in his heart, mind and affections. She is to be given special care and attention that leaves no doubt of her husband’s esteem and love. There is a danger today that you take your wife for granted, and you don’t really value her or appreciate her.” Now, this also conveys the idea of being gracious, courteous and generous. William Barclay, a New Testament scholar, says, “It conveys the idea of chivalry.” Chivalry should not be dead. Even though you’ve been married for 36 years, 37 years, 40 years, 50 years, it’s still okay to open the door for your wife, to be courteous to your wife, to pull the chair out and let her go first, to be chivalrous toward your wife no matter how long you’ve been married. Basically, you treat her like a woman and a precious gift that is given to you by God, the most precious gift that you possess on planet earth.

Now, why should a husband give honor to his wife? Peter gives us three reasons in verse 7. Reason number one is the wife is the weaker vessel. Why should you dwell with your wife according to knowledge? Why should you give honor unto your wife? Reason number 1, she is the weaker vessel. I want you to notice that it is comparative. It doesn’t say, “She is the weak vessel,” inferring that you are the strong vessel. She’s weak, you’re strong. No, she is weaker. In other words, you are weak too. Man, a lot of guys are super weird. It’s the wife that many times shows the strength in the home. We need to man up. But, what does it mean weaker vessel? Well, I don’t believe that it means weaker intellectually or weaker morally or even necessarily weaker emotionally, which some have thought. I believe that it has two ideas. First, in a general sense not in every case, I’m sure there is probably more than one woman here tonight that’s physically stronger and fit, can run further and jump higher than I can, a man. In general, physically women are a weaker vessel, that men have more physical strength. I believe that what is being conveyed here, and I think that this is one of the most profound discoveries that was ever made in the Scriptures, is that she has a weaker position given the fact that she has taken the roll of being a wife who is to be subject or submitted to her husband. She has willingly voluntarily submitted herself to this big oaf, to her husband. I can relate to this, not only in my own marriage but I have three daughters. I had to give three daughters away in marriage. That was very difficult for me to do, to hand my daughters over to three dudes. You better take care of her! You better love her and provide for her and be kind to her. I can’t think of anything that would break my heart more than to think of them being disrespectful toward these girls of mine.

The great Greek scholar, D. Edmond Hiebert, says this, “The wife may be considered weak because of her role as wife. She, by marrying, has accepted a position where she submits herself to her husband. Such a position is venerable, open to exploitation. The husband is commanded not to take advantage of the woman’s vow of submission.” I love that. Don’t take advantage of your wife. “Submit! Do what I say. I’m the head of the house. You have to do what I tell you to do.” They try to dominate. Headship speaks of provision, care and protection. It doesn’t speak of dictatorship. The wife is the weaker vessel because she has voluntarily taken the role of wife. She has committed herself to this husband. Remember the words in the book of Ruth, “Where you go—I will go, and where you lodge—I will lodge. Your people will be my people. Your God will be my God.” That’s a commitment. You cut your ties with your parents and your family, and you cleave unto your husband. The two become one flesh. It’s like, “Okay, here we go, hand in hand in this journey before us.” “I hope this guy knows what he’s doing?” Which is why a woman ought to really know what she’s doing when she agrees to marry somebody. She ought to put him through a whole battery of tests, and so should the father. So the wife is the weaker vessel in her position that she has taken as a wife.

I want you to notice the second reason you are to honor your wife and dwell with your wife. It’s in verse 7, “…as being heirs together of the grace of life.” Dwell with your wife, honor your wife, understand your wife, and respect your wife because you are mutual heirs in the grace of life. Thirdly, notice in verse 7, “…that your prayers be not hindered.” You don’t want your prayers to be hindered. If you’re not right with your wife, you cannot be right with God. These two reasons lead us to the last two dimensions in the husband-wife relationship and that the first is spiritual. You are heirs together of the grace of life that your prayers be not hindered. Spiritual. This is the fourth dimension or category. Now, remember your wife is also your sister in Christ and a child of God. You both share in an equal standing, and God is your Father. I used to have a friend that when we used to pray together, he used to always pray for his wife as a sister in the Lord. It really struck me that he viewed her so much like, “Lord, she’s Your child. She’s precious to You. She belongs to You. She’s Your child, she’s my sister in the Lord.”

I want you guys to think about this for just a moment. This is why Christians should marry Christians. You should never marry outside of the Lord. A believer should never marry an unbeliever. If you are married and your wife is a Christian, she is God’s child. She is God’s daughter, you got that? Be careful how you treat God’s daughter. She belongs to the Lord. She has the same Father in heaven as you do. You both share an equal standing in your relationship with God. There’s a sense in which not only are you husband and wife but you are brothers and sisters in the Lord. That’s why you can share the things of God, you can read the Bible, and you can pray together because you are brother and sister in Christ as well as husband and wife. What a glorious thing that is! This is why a husband and a wife that have both been born again can have a deeper unity than non-Christians. Non-Christians become one flesh, but they don’t know that spiritual dimension. This is what’s missing in a lot of marriages today, a spiritual dimension. The ability to be able to pray together, to worship together, to serve God together, to read the Bible together, to understand the things of the Lord together. When God gives my wife great insight into His Word, I thank God for my wife’s love and relationship to Jesus Christ. I am a beneficiary of that. The spiritual atmosphere that she creates in our home, I thank God for that and I pray that I can be an encouragement to her in the things of God and in the Word of God and in the truth of God.

A lot of men fail in this area because they don’t grow in their knowledge of the Word, they don’t grow as spiritual leaders in their home. The most important thing for you to do in your marriage is to be a spiritual leader. That’s why when I was teaching the other week I said, “Wives, give your Bibles to your husband,” because I assume a lot of guys don’t bring Bibles to church, the wife carries the Bible. A lot of times husbands will fold their arms and just look at me, and the wife has the Bible and is taking notes, and he is just looking at me. “Bless me, Preacher boy.” It’s like, “Dude, get a Bible! Take your own notes. Study God’s Word.” Don’t let your wife be the leader in the things of the Lord, you need to be committed to God and committed to His Word. We, Christians, need to be strong in our spiritual walk with God and relationship.

Now, Peter has assumed that the husband and wife would pray. Notice the second dimension of their spiritual relationship, “…that your prayers be not hindered.” Isn’t that amazing? Dwell with your wife understandingly and honor them very highly. You are sharing equally in the things of God, and you do not want your prayers to be hindered. Now, I want you to think with me very carefully. I know this point very well as a pastor. If you are out of sync in your marriage, you are out of sync with God. You cannot, listen to me very carefully, you cannot be right with God and wrong with your wife. You cannot be right with God and wrong with your wife, at least not on your part. First of all you have to make sure that you get right with God, get aligned with God, and then you need to get right with your wife. Sometimes that priority is reversed. Let me tell you what I mean. Jesus said it like this, “If you’re coming to church and you are going to worship God, you’re going to sing and you’re going to praise the Lord (I am paraphrasing this), if you are going to give your gifts to God, and you know that there is something in your heart toward someone else, or you have an “ought” with your brother, as the King James says, do you know what Jesus told us to do? He said, “Leave your gift right there at the alter and go your way first and get right with your brother. Get right with your brother, then you come back and you offer your gift to God.” So, to put it in shoe leather, you can’t argue, scream and yell, mistreat your wife and then come to church and say, “I love you, Lord. I don’t like my wife, but I sure love you!” Do you know what the Lord says? “I’m not listening. I don’t want to hear it.” You need to eat a little crow and go back and apologize to your wife and tell her you’re sorry, get things straightened out, then come offer your gift before the alter. You got that?

The reason why I know this point so well is because it happens to me. Do you know how many times on my way to church on a Sunday I have to call my wife, “I’m sorry, please forgive me. I was wrong, please forgive me. I gotta preach in an hour, please help me, please forgive me.” It’s like, man, I can’t get up here and preach if I’m not right with my wife. I can’t pray if I’m not right with my wife. I can’t worship God, I can’t lift my hands to God if I’m not dwelling with my wife, if I’m not honoring my wife, if I’m not respecting my wife. My prayers hit the ceiling, God doesn’t hear them. You know, this is one of many verses in the Bible where it actually says God will not hear your prayers. God will not answer your prayers. “Bless me, Lord, oh bless me! Not my wife, she’s all messed up, and I don’t like her, but I really want You to bless me.” Ain’t going to happen. God says, “You leave your gift here, and you get right with your wife, and then you can offer your gift.” How many times we think that we can avoid, scapegoat or circumvent that. “I don’t have to be nice to my wife, I can still be right with God.” No you can’t. It shuts the door to the ear of God. The Bible says, “God’s ear is not heavy that He cannot hear. His arm is not short that He cannot save, but your sins have separated you from God.” Many times, even in my own life, I’ve thought, “Lord, I don’t want anything to come between You and me. I don’t want anything to come between You and me and the priorities in my life with my relationship to God, my relationship to my wife, my relationship to my children, and then my relationship to the church. You guys are number four. I have to be right with God, I have to be right with my wife, I have to be right with my family, I have children still, even though adult children, I have grandchildren. They are the priority of my life, and we need to make sure that we get our priorities right.

In conclusion, if you’re here tonight, Guys, and you are wrong with your wife, get right. Ask God to forgive you and then quickly, as immediately as you can, beeline straight to your wife and say, “I’m sorry, I was wrong. Please forgive me.” Maybe even tonight when you go home and have some time together, the kids are finally in bed and the house gets quiet, the two of you go home (hopefully to the same house) and you say, “I’m sorry. I haven’t valued you. I haven’t made you the priority that I should. I haven’t told you that I love you, and I do appreciate you.” The older I get and the longer I am married, the more I appreciate and the more I value my wife, and the more God let’s me see my frailty and how dependent I am on her. So, Guys, in closing, I want to pray for you that God would take this one verse and He would just fuse it on your heart and your minds. Let’s pray.