AI OVERVIEW: Hey, Cornerstone. How you doing? Last week of our marriage series together. Uh before we jump in, just two things to say out loud. So, we've actually got more people being baptized out on the patio right after this service. If you're in this service and you're one of the people getting baptized, then at the end of the service when I start to pray, feel absolutely free. You can get up. You can start heading out that way so you can get ready uh to be baptized. And then for us in the room, guys, it's a big deal when people stand up and say, "Look, I don't care who knows. I don't care what people think about me. I'm going to declare out loud that I love Jesus." And so, I just think it'd be a really cool thing if you would hang for a couple minutes, cheer those people on, tell them you're proud of them uh for taking a stand for Jesus. And then the second thing to say today is uh as we have this conversation, if if you're in an abusive relationship, if you're in a manipulative relationship, then then what we're going to say together does not apply. That that's a completely different conversation that needs to happen. What we're assuming today is that your marriage is somewhere in the spectrum of okay. uh it might be able to be better, but it's it's okay. And hopefully today, because of the things we're going to say, you're going to move that much closer to something that is vibrant and thrilling in your relationships together. All right. There is a uh Christian author, her name is Shante Feldhan. Uh she's the author of 31 books. Uh she did her post-graduate work at Harvard University. But if you take a look at her books, almost half of them are about this idea that men and women receive love completely different from each other. Uh this journey began for her when she was a teenager at youth camp. And on this particular day, the speaker got up front and said, "Hey, we're going to let everybody in the room take a vote and you're going to decide what kind of a life you want to live." He said, "Option number one is this. If you want to have a life where you do something remarkable, you do something that changes the lives of a whole bunch of people around you, you're you're going to be admired and respected for what you've done. When you walk in the room, people are going to appreciate you for what you've accomplished. But you'll never know true genuine love. Option number two is you will never do anything astounding. You will probably never be truly noticed, but you will know deep deep satisfying love with somebody else. And he said, if you if you want to be on the respected side, you want to do something admired, but you don't know love, you're going to go to that side. If if you say, "No, I choose love and I don't care if nobody notices me, you go to that side. Go." And literally in that moment, every boy walked over to the respected, do something worth being admired side. Every girl in the room walked over, I want to know true, genuine, deep love. And instantly, she said, "Wow, it is very apparent that men and women are wired completely different and we receive fulfillment and love in completely different ways. Here's what you need to know. God knew that, too. It's why when we get to Ephesians and it gives us the job descriptions for husbands and wives, the job descriptions are wildly different because God knew what fills the heart of a woman and God knew what fills the heart of a man. And so, he gave different job descriptions to the husband and to the wife. So, here we go. Grab your Bibles. Ephesians chapter 5. If you're not familiar, if you go to the back of your Bible, you start working to the left, you're going to find this book of Ephesians. Uh we've said out loud, this literally is uh scriptures marriage chapter in the Bible. It gives us the most thorough and complete explanation of how wives and husbands are to behave with each other. [snorts] Last week, as we talked to the men and said, "Hey, uh here's what your wife needs." Three times in the passage, it said, "Love the girl. Love the girl. Love the girl. That's if you do nothing else right. Do that well. Ladies, today as he talks about your job description, he's actually going to say two things twice and then he's going to say something different the third time. It's going to be a little more complex. God was willing to do that because ladies, he knew you were smarter than us men. Okay? So, lean in. see what God has to say. I'm going to ask you at the end. Here we go. Ephesians chapter 5, starting in verse 21. Here's what it says. It says, "Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the church, his body of which he is the savior. Now, as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy and cleansing her by the washing with water through the word and to present to her to himself as a radiant church without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. Amen. It is incumbent upon you knowing what we talked about last week. Go first. Even if you're in a relationship and a marriage and go, you know, it's not what it is and I wish my wife was different or I wish she treated me different. Go first. Take headship. Take leadership in this moment. And and this remember this passage says, "Hey, who who loves his wife loves himself." You understand that the way that God created her that if she ever feels genuinely and fully loved, she cannot help but respond to you, it's how she is as a woman. And you going first will change everything in your marriage. Ladies, this does not let you off the hook. uh there's a chance uh that your husband just doesn't grasp this, doesn't get this yet, and so he's going to be hesitant to go first, then you go first. I wish I could tell you how many husbands I've met who would say, "Lynn, I know. I know I wasn't the husband I should be. I know I wasn't treating my wife the way that she deserved to be treated. But the thing that changed me was the way she treated me in her kindness, in her Christlikkeness. And I was filled with conviction because of my wife's love and attitude for me. And it is the thing that brought me to Jesus. So ladies, if if if he can't quite get there, go first. Go first. Back to the passage. Verse 29. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but they feed and care for it just as Christ does the church. For we are members of one body. For this reason, a man will leave his father and his mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This is a profound mystery, but I'm talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. Okay, ladies, did you catch what God asked you to do? What did he say you were to do for your husband? All right, I know this is painful cuz lady, here's what you're all thinking. All he has to do is love somebody as wonderful as me. And then look at the challenge God gives me toward him. Two things. You ready? He says, "Hey, respect your husband." And then he says, [laughter] submit to him. Okay, ladies, before before you check out, God is not asking you to be a doormat. That is not what this passage is saying. Have you met my wife? My wife is a woman fully growed. Uh she is a strong woman. She is an absolutely capable woman. Here's what God is asking. He's saying, "Hey wives, when you go to your husband and say, "Hey, wait, whoa, whoa. If I were making that decision, I would do it differently. Uh actually uh what would really fill my heart is if we and when you go in that moment go respectfully. And then you ready? If he doesn't take your advice, give him the privilege of failure. just go, you know what? You made a decision. I'm with you. Can I tell you that one of the most incredible things that Lisa does in my life is in the moments when I say, "Lisa, I've heard you. I understand what you're saying. I I just truly believe we should go in this direction." And in that moment, she gives me the privilege of failure. When he says, "I think we ought to go the other way." And you go, "I'm with you." Now, when it fails, and it probably will, cuz you were probably right. Men hate failure. And if you haven't complained, if you haven't made a big deal along the way, guess what he's going to think to himself? You know what? My wife is smarter than I thought. And there's a really, really good chance that the next time your words will have that much more impact on him. But if you go kicking and screaming, if you go the whole way saying, "This not going to work. It's not going to work. It's not going to work." Guess when he's going to admit failure? Never. He will go to his grave trying to make that bad idea work. It's one of the reasons that God says, "Hey, in that moment, be respectful. Tell him what your heart is. Tell him what you would want to tell him how he could thrill you. And if he goes a different way, I'm with you. I will give you the privilege of failure." So, remember last week we talked about, "Hey, God said, love the girl. Love the girl, man. If you don't do anything else right, love the girl." And then we said, "How does a man love the girl?" And we said, "She wants to be seen." That's this whole idea of communication. She wants you to hear her heart. She wants you to know her story. She's seen by you. And then secondly, she wants to know she's safe with you. That your strength will always be leveraged for her advantage. Ladies, when it comes to men, their hearts are filled when they receive respect. That's the thing. That's the thing that props them up. That's the thing that makes them feel good and fulfilled in their life. And the way that you show a man respect, you ready, admiration. You knew. You knew. Did you notice that just now it was the women that none of the men did. The men are like, "Yeah, exactly." Right. We we we'll get we'll get to both of them. Ladies, when little boys play games, what games do they play? They play army. They play superhero. They play video games. And ladies, sometimes you get really worried. You go, you know, I don't know. It's so violent. You know, they're shooting everybody and and they're punching everybody. You're looking at the wrong thing. The fascination that your son or that little boy has with those games is not about the guns. It's about pushing the bad guys back. It's about being the hero of his story. And ladies, what you need to know is that every little boy longs to be a hero. And that little boy still lives in the heart of your husband. This desire to be the hero of his story. I'm seven years old. I'm walking home from church with my grandmother. My grandfather was a Baptist pastor. His house was not very far from the church. We were walking home Sunday night after church. And my grandmother turns to me and she says,"Lynn, you're walking on the wrong side of the sidewalk." I said, 'What do you mean?' She said, 'Well, you're a young man now, and so you need to walk on the side that has the cars because if a car was to come wildly out of control, you need to rescue me. Can I tell you that the rest of the way home, I was prepared. Matter of fact, you ready for this? We got to my grandmother's HOUSE. I WAS DISAPPOINTED THAT there hadn't been a wild, outofcrol car that I could be a hero. I never even paused for a minute to think about the pain that would have been caused if I'd had to wrestle an outofcrol car. I had missed my opportunity to be a hero. It is the deepest longing of every man. Can I be the hero of the story? Ladies, here's what you need to know. On your wedding day, he had come to this conclusion. I'm probably not going to be a superhero. I'm probably not going to stop zombie apocalypse. No one's going to know that I cured cancer. But when you walked down that aisle, his heart said, "I was hoping I could be the hero of our story. I was hoping that's what you'd let me be." And ladies, when that sinks and when you begin to understand that that is the desperate, desperate, desperate desire of his heart, that that little boy still lives inside of him that says, "Can I be the hero of our story?" So, the first thing you need to know, ladies, is that he desperately desperately hopes that you will admire him. That that you will have the moment where he'll say, "I'm I'm just so proud you're my husband and and I'm so thankful for the father you are to our children and just just the way that you provide and and the depth of your character." He's hoping that you will have admiration for him. Every man, every man longs for approval from two people. His dad and his wife.
YOUTUBE DESCRIPTION: --- In the final week of our Marriage Series, we look at Ephesians 5 and explore how God designed husbands and wives to experience love and connection differently. For husbands, Scripture gives a clear command to love their wives. For wives, it points toward respect—and this mess...
