A Husband by Design - Part A
Scripture Reference: 1 Peter 3:7
Visit the series page: Exiles: A study in 1 Peter
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Sermon Series: Spiritual Exiles
Message: A Husband By Design
Airdate: 10/12 –10/13/26
Programs: 2376 and 2377
Well, again, good morning. Good morning to our Cedar Lake campus. And I stand before you today excited about what I get to talk about. And part of the excitement that I have is that over the years I have spoken many times on the role of a husband. And all of those I did as a single man.
This is the very first time I am speaking on this subject as a husband myself. And to move from the more sort of biblical theoretical to being in the battle myself to make this truth practical in my own marriage and in my own life. So, I want to say that on the front end as we get into this that I am, I am in the struggle of all these things just as much as anybody here. And, it is very convicting to me and very helpful to spend this time, getting ready and looking at God's design for a a biblical husband. I have found marriage to be people ask me, how's it going?
What do you think about marriage? You were single for so many years. I what I say often is that marriage has for me been the the single greatest mechanism for spiritual growth in my entire life. And what I mean by that is that the things that marriage requires are and primarily dying to myself is big thing. But those qualities that marriage requires align very closely with what Christ's likeness looks like.
So as I find myself trying to be a good husband, the changes that single Steve is having to make to be married Steve is making me a better Steve overall and making me, I think, hopefully, more mature Christian man, which I want very much. So as we come to this today and we look at God's blueprint for marriage and specifically for for a husband, I just again want to say, I'm in it with you. What does it mean to lead, love, and serve our wives? What does it mean to be a husband? These are all things that I'm struggling with living out every single day.
So I hope God blesses this. I think this message has tremendous potential to make a profound difference in the homes and in the marriages of our of our church. Let me also add this. All of Scripture is profitable, and so it doesn't matter if you're married or single. This is God's truth, and we all need to listen to it.
And I know that well, having preached it many years as a single man myself. So with that said, let's take a look. We're just studying one verse today. It's all that Peter has to say about the Christian husband. Let's take a look at this one verse and then just milk it for everything that we can.
Here is first Peter chapter three verse seven. Here's what it says. “Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.” K? There it is.
K? Let's take this apart. And you'll notice the first word in that verse is the word likewise. We saw the same first word in chapter three verse one. He says, “likewise, wives.”
And we find that this is just part of a a sequence, a chain of teaching that goes all the way back to chapter two verse 11 where Peter basically says, hey, what does it look like to be a Christian living in a hostile world, living as an exile? It means that you are working so that your life is earning the respect of unbelievers who may not like what you say about Jesus, but they can't but help but respect the life that you're living. Or to say it another way, that our our our walk needs to sound and look like our talk. And when those two align together, there is a very powerful apologetic for the claims of Christianity. And so we've seen him describe relationships that Christians find themselves in and what what does that look like then.
So he began with a Christian citizen in relationship to government, that we are to be subject, submissive to government authorities. And then we looked at the employer employee relationship and that a Christian employee is to be a the best employee in that entire company and to have respect for the leadership that is over him. And then we saw in chapter three last week, what does it look like for a Christian woman to be married to an unbelieving spouse? And we talked about how as the gospel went across Asia Minor, you had these marital relationships where a woman believes in Jesus and the husband then does not. How does that Christian woman relate to the husband?
It was last week's message. I won't preach it all over again. So this week, how does a Christian husband conduct himself in a marriage? And the assumption here is that he is married to a Christian wife. And the assumption is based on the culture of the day where if a man, as the kind of leader of the household, if he converted to whatever, was expected everybody else in the house would as well.
K? So a Christian man who is following Jesus, the the assumption was that his wife would become a Christian, that his that his children and everybody would be a Christian household. Now there are exceptions to that, and maybe you know exceptions to that, where you have a Christian man who's married to an unbelieving wife. We maybe we all know at least maybe somebody like that, but those are rare. K?
Those are rare. Much more common to have a woman who's a Christian married to an unbelieving husband, which I think is why Peter addresses it as he did at the beginning of chapter three. Now we find here that Peter highlights two qualities of the Christian husband and two reasons that that ought to be important to him. Okay? Two qualities of the Christian husband and two reasons that that ought to be important to him.
Notice quality number one. Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way. Live with your wives. Let's start right there. Now this might seem self evident, but the Bible says that husbands need to live with their wives.
Okay? So this is a command of address. This is geography. This is proximity. This is what it means.
The King James says dwell together, that husbands and wives are to dwell together. I the other day, just drove right around the corner from our Crown Point campus here. There's a little there's a little store that sells decor decor for a home, and it says that on the sign. And the name of the store is Dwellings. Okay?
Dwellings. That's where you go for stuff in your home and and knickknacks and all of that. And so what this is saying is that in the home, the husband's the knick and the wife is the knack. Right? They are knickknacks in the same home.
In fact, that word for live is a word in antiquity that had sexual overtones to it. It means to be a husband and wife in such proximity and in such closeness where intimacy is not only possible but probable. You are not living at separate addresses. It is not simply a contract where, yeah, I've got a wife and she lives in Oregon somewhere. I, as a husband, am dwelling together.
I am living together with my wife. Not just even under the same roof. They live together and they sleep together. Now this is more important than you may realize. And one of the reasons for that is that over the years, I have come across situations where there are married couples where the one spouse has left and has said, you know what?
I don't I don't want to divorce you. I just don't want to live with you anymore. And off they go. And the divorce doesn't happen for, like, years. Doesn't happen.
And I want you to see in this passage, that is not Christian marriage. That is not marriage, to just simply be illegally married and not dwelling together. How should the church handle a situation like that? The church ought to discipline the spouse that has left, and it frees then the remaining spouse to divorce biblically the the one who left for abandonment as first Corinthians seven teaches. And when that doesn't happen, it leaves normally the woman, the wife in the house, wondering for years what is going to come of this.
And that is a very real thing in churches and is a sad thing, and it ought not to happen. Further, I would say this. If you are thinking about getting married to somebody, realize that that person is going to be in your space and in your face for the rest of your life. Choose wisely. To be married is to dwell together for the rest of your life.
Notice also with this that to be a husband to a Christian wife, it's not that you're just simply roommates. You're not just kind of you happen to live at the same place where, okay, these are your sort of duties around here and these are my sort of duties around here. It's not an episode of friends where we're just sort of you know, we happen to be at the same place. Rather, he says here that the husband is to live with the wife in a quote understanding way. Literally, the word means according to knowledge.
Husbands, did you get that? We live with our wives in a way that we are seeking to understand them. We are seeking to know them, to understand what it is that God has wired them to be, what their likes and dislikes, what their preferences and non preferences, what gets them excited and what is discouraging to them, what their dreams are, etcetera, etcetera. A husband is called to live with his wife not as a roommate, but as a student, as a PhD student of his wife to seek to understand her. Now I got a book here somebody gave me years ago.
And I don't if here you can see the title of that. Everything Men Know About Women. And if you look at the top, Fully Reveals the Shocking Truth, Daily News. K? And then you open it up, and there's nothing in it.
Everything men know about women. Now that's a joke. Right? But if this is true for a Christian husband, that is a very, very sad marriage. That is a very, very sad wife that he is married to.
Why? Because to be a husband is to be a student of your wife. Listen to a well known theologian and and a very experienced husband, Wayne Grudem, on this passage says this, the knowledge Peter intends here may include any knowledge that would be beneficial to the husband wife relationship, knowledge of God's purposes and principles for marriage, Knowledge of the wife's desires, goals, and frustrations. Knowledge of her strengths and weaknesses in the physical, emotional, and spiritual realms. A husband who lives according to knowledge will greatly enrich his marriage relationship.
Yet such knowledge can only be gained through regular study of God's word and regular unhurried times of private fellowship together as husband and wife. Husbands, I want to ask you a question right now. What do you feel in your heart when you see or hear a paragraph like this that is calling you to not only care but to seek to understand the way that your wife is wired. Because I'm going to guess many of us see that, and there is inside this negative response to that. There is inside this resistance to wanting to invest the kind of time and energy that it would take to come to know and understand your wife?
Where does that like oh, what is that actually? And I'll tell you what it is because I know it in my own heart. It is the worship of me. It is me ism. And a man, we're wired to be independent.
We think. We're wired to kind of we want to do our own thing. We want to do it in our own way. And then you get married, And now you have somebody who is in your space and is in your face. And you look in the Bible and you realize, I can't just live independent.
We're just not roommates. I'm called biblically. This is the Christian husband that's gonna care what God has to say about something. I'm called to care for my wife and to actually try to understand her. And that resistance flows from pride.
And that is what the Holy Spirit is working in the life of the Christian man to destroy. And that is why I say Christian marriage, husbands, and single men thinking about getting married, it is the death of self. What does it mean to be a Christian husband? It is the death of self. And we men, we don't want to die.
We're made to fight for life. We're made to survive. We don't want to see who I am die. And yet, as C. S.
Lewis said, it is only through death that something can be resurrected. It is not the death of ourselves and then that's it. It is the death of me and the resurrection of a new me. A new me that is not independent, is not only thinking about myself, is not only thinking about my needs, but rather a new me that is interdependent with this feminine beauty that God has placed in my life where now I am intertwined with somebody else. And their needs and their concerns are now my needs and my concerns.
And through that resurrection, there is a better me, a more Christ like me, a more loving me. Because what is the essence of love? To live independently, to live for my own needs, or rather to live for the joy of somebody else and to give of myself sacrificially for their joy, which is what Jesus did for us, isn't it? Or it's what Todd Coster did for Brenda to give his own kidney so that she could live. Jesus gives us life so that we can live.
And we see that through marriage. And as hard as this is for us and trust me, there are days for me where I I'm not like, yay, die to self. I gotta remind myself what my big priority is, Christ likeness. Romans eight, conform to the likeness of Christ. This is what I want.
Even though inside, I don't want to die to myself. But as I do, I know that God is doing a good work inside of me, and, therefore, this is a good thing. And husbands, we have to embrace what God is doing in us, creating us in the likeness of Jesus who died for us. So what does it mean to be a a Christian husband? Number one, I live with my wife.
Number two, I live in a manner where I'm seeking to understand her truly. But notice he goes on now, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel. Showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel. Now ladies, please do not bristle at that weaker vessel thing. Because what he is pointing out here is what is, I would say, fairly universally seen and understand is that generally speaking, men are physically stronger than women.
Now that said, there's a few sisters here in the church I wouldn't want to make mad. Okay? And we'd have a few contenders for the arm wrestling champion, probably even amongst the ladies in our church. But generally speaking, women are men are physically stronger than women. Now what does that create in the carnal man's heart?
The carnal man sees the weakness in women and sees it as an opportunity to exploit them. And if you look down through history at the exploitation of women, it is generally men who are abusing their strength and the woman's weakness for their own selfish needs and their own selfish gains. And we can include things like rape, wife abuse, human trafficking, online predators, and any number of exploitive male activities and actions against women, and all of them are wrong. All of them are not God's will. So physically, we see how men can see that weakness and seek to exploit it.
But I think this goes beyond just the physical that women are the weaker vessel to also the emotional. And again, broad stroke here and there are exceptions to this, but generally speaking, women are emotionally more fragile than men are. Again, men look at that and see weakness as maybe something to be exploited. We look in the Bible and see that as being feminine beauty created by the by the wisdom of God. More emotionally fragile.
You say, I don't know about that. Ask a parent of daughters. Or if you have daughters and sons, who's more fragile and who's not? Or ask an eighth grade girl's basketball coach. Are those girls a little fragile there in the eighth grade?
Or think about, you know, at the college that I went to, we had our our our dorms. This is you know, sounds crazy now in our our contemporary world. But back in the stone age, when I went to college, the Christian college that I attended, the boys had a dorm and the girls had dorms. They were not together. I know it sounds crazy, but yes, they were not together.
And there were always resident directors that were there, kind of these mature adults to keep the inmates under control. And you had men, the resident directors in the men's dorms, resident directors in the women's dorms. I would hate to be a resident director in a woman's dorm. I mean, for all the male craziness, the drama in the female dorm. Talk to somebody like that, and they'll they'll ask you for a job probably.
They want out as quick as possible. What is all of that? Well, all of that, I think, speaks to what Peter is getting at here. And that is that emotionally, that sort of intuitive, nonphysical side of women, there is what I what I would call there is a delicate beauty there, like a flower. Right?
That part of its beauty or fine China, part of its beauty is that it is so delicate. That's part of what makes it so beautiful and so valuable. And, again, men, carnally thinking men, will seek to exploit that weakness and that delicate feminine beauty. But you see Peter here calling Christian husbands to do the opposite of what the carnal man wants to do with that weakness. Rather than exploiting it, the husband is called in this passage to honor it.
That's right, men. We honor the feminine, delicate beauty that God made in Christian wives. We don't exploit it. We don't resent it. And that's hard to say at times, but I'll say it.
We don't resent it, but rather we seek to honor it. Now you might be here, maybe you're a guy and you're like, I'm a dude. Like, I don't even like flowers. Right? I don't like fine China.
That illustration means nothing to me. I'm a dude. Like, I'm into dude things. Dudes aren't into honoring delicate things. Really.
I have a friend who is into cars. And when he was in high school, he had a Dodge Challenger. And so when Dodge came out, this is like 'eight, 'nine, came out with a new version of the Dodge Challenger. Maybe you've probably seen them on the road, muscle car type thing. He just had to have one.
So he buys this Dodge Challenger. And it's really cool. It's really powerful and all of that. But this guy is like you talk to him, he could tell you every detail about this car. Right?
He knows all the wires. He knows all the knobs. He knows all the specs on this thing. And he takes such immaculate care of this car. I mean, you know, when it pulls up, it's just shimmering.
You could do brain surgery in the reflection on the wax. Right? It's just like a mirror. It's just so beautiful. And and why does he take such care of it?
Well, he takes care of it because he loves it. Right? He loves that car. And so every knob is polished and and every the, you know, the grille is beautiful and the and the rims are all just perfect. And the finish on that thing, I mean, it's so easy to scratch a car like this.
So that's why we never drive it. It's like that nice china at the house. But we don't eat off of this china. It's too valuable. We honor it so much, we never eat off of it.
We love this car so much, we never drive it. Because if you drive it, there's the possibility that a molecule of dust could land on the car somehow. And so you drive it around the block and then you wash and wax it all over again. That's kind of the way that this goes. That guy who is honoring that car and all of its little things in that car walks into the house from the garage and finds emotionally delicate wife struggling somehow.
Maybe comes to his mind this passage and he thinks to himself, I just don't want to deal with that. I don't have patience for that. I'm a guy. You're a woman and all your drama. I'm going back to my car.
And he thinks to himself, I can't I can't show honor to something that is delicate. And yet shows all this honor to his car. And you see, we show we take care of things that we value. And the issue is not the woman's delicate beauty. The issue is the man's heart not honoring it.
And that's why Peter says, don't look at the weakness that you see in your wife, how she's different than you physically, emotionally, and seek it and ignore it or resent it or exploit it. Rather, you are to honor it and as a husband to protect it. Wives are like flowers in this world, and that flower looks great on a sunny day, on a beautiful day. That flower can just bloom in all of its beauty. But what happens when the hailstorm comes?
That hail comes and now that flower is just is just it's destroyed. Right? What did it need? It needs protection for it to bloom in all of its beauty. And women and wives are like that.
God has wired them with a kind of delicate beauty, and they live in a world where their that beauty is exploited. And every time they walk to the car, they gotta look behind them. Is anybody following me? And they wonder at the office, and they wonder at the workplace, and they wonder at the school if maybe that person is trying to take advantage of them because they're not a man and they don't have the male voice and all the rest. They live their lives in a kind of wondering, is it safe for me to bloom?
And in Christian marriage, God says, husband, make it safe for her to bloom. Don't destroy that feminine beauty. Don't demean it. Protect it and honor it, and let it just blossom. And by the way, who's that good for?
It's good for her. It's also good for the husband. When his wife is a beautiful rose and feels safe to be all that God has made her to be. Honor means masculine deference to a woman's needs. Masculine deference to a woman's needs.
And if you can't if you feel like you can't treat her as good as Peter says here, at least treat her as good as the car in your garage, and we'll call that a step in the right direction. Right, ladies? Vroom, vroom. Okay? Vroom, vroom.
Now I'm gonna let me just go probe into the husband mind right now. You might be here right now and you can't say it. She's sitting next to you maybe. And you're you're leaning forward, acting interested because you think it earns points with her or something. But in your heart, I suspect that we have husbands here who are thinking to themselves, she's not worth the effort.
I know this woman. I've been around this block before. Okay. Let's talk about your needs again. Why would I why would I open that Pandora's box?
Why would I even go there in the first place? She is not worth it. Peter blunts this carnal thinking by pointing out something that maybe you've missed about that woman that is your wife. Again, look at the verse. “Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel since they are heirs with you of the grace of life and so that your prayers are not hindered.”
Peter gives two reasons that every husband here ought to care about what we're talking about right now. And I want take them in reverse order. First of all, so that God hears your prayers. Now what Peter is saying here is this, that you may not honor your wife, you may not cherish your wife, you may not value your wife, but God Almighty does. And when a husband mistreats his wife, does not honor his wife, doesn't care about her needs, God's in heaven seeing that.
That same Christian husband then goes in prayer about his business, goes in prayer about his career, goes in prayer about the health problem that he has, goes in prayer about some relationship with family or whatever it might be. And God's in heaven, and he's saying to himself, why should I listen to your prayer about some area that I have not revealed my will when you are ignoring where I have revealed my will, you are mistreating your wife. Just keep your prayers to yourself. You're wasting your breath right now. Go take care of your wife like you ought to.
That is the number one priority in relationship. Take care of your wife, and then come to me and talk to me about your business concern and your health problem and your whatever. And we find husbands, and this is what the text says, that our relationship with God is affected and our prayers are unheeded when we don't honor our wife. That's what it says. You say, well, it's not that important.
It's not that big a deal. She's not that big a deal. She is to God. And if she is to God, don't you think she should be to us too? One commentator, closest human relationship, the relationship to one's spouse must be carefully cherished if one wishes a close relationship with God.
And a Christian husband is a Christian man, and that ought to be a priority for him, his relationship with God. And we find that that horizontal relationship with the wife has a lot to do with this vertical relationship with God. So why should I honor her so God hears my prayers? But notice what he says right before that, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life. Why should I honor this woman that I see in the good, the bad, and the ugly that I see every single morning and every single night that I see in her ups and I see in her downs and her downs and her downs?
Why honor her? Because God saved her. God treasures her. God loves her. And God always will.
That's what that phrase means, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life. Basically, Peter is saying, Christian husband, you need to wake up to something. Don't let familiarity breed contempt. Don't let seeing her every single day. Don't let that allow you to miss who you are actually married to.
That woman that you are married to is a woman that Jesus died for, that Jesus gave his life for, that Jesus loves and always will love, that God the Father elected an eternity past, that God promises will grant to her glorified body, glorified status, will be forever a co heir with Jesus himself. Christian husband realized that woman that you see every day in the bad breath and the crazy hair in the morning and all of that is actually an object of the eternal love of God Almighty. You may not love her, but God does. And when I come to realize that this woman is not just a woman, she's not a piece of furniture in the house, when I see her as God sees her, I come to realize that I ought to treat her accordingly. And you might be saying, husband, not my wife.
That says more about you than it does her. And what that says is that you are not looking at your world and even your home through the grid of God's truth because God sees her as an object of saving grace. You know, I'm a long ways from my daughter going on a date with any young man, but I've already been thinking about it a little bit. Mostly in terms of surveillance and what ammo to buy is kind of how I've been thinking about it. That boy is going to fear for his life.
And if he doesn't, he's not going out with her. Now the reason I say that is that I want him to feel fear about going out with her. And I want that fear to flow from an understanding of how precious she is to me. And if he messes with her, he is in big trouble. Why?
Because that I love that. I love that little girl. Right? He is not going to treat her according to his hormones. He is not going to treat her according to his lust.
He is not going to treat her like arm candy for his status in the school or whatever. He is not going to do that. If he does that, he is not going to go out with her. That's it. It's done.
Pull up and honk. I'm calling the cops. You are not going out with my wife or my daughter. Because that disrespect tells me something about the kind of person you are. Get off of my property.
You are not going out with my my daughter. She is so I love her so much. She is so precious to me. She will only go out with a boy that I sense is going to treat her according to the way that I feel about her, not himself. I define that relationship until they get married, which is never happening.
Don't exploit her. Don't ignore her. Don't resent her. Don't fail to meet her needs. She is my daughter.
And Christian husband, you are married to the daughter of God. And if you treat her like she is just furniture, don't expect daddy to hear your prayers. Don't expect daddy to be happy with you. Don't expect daddy to bless your life. Why?
Because you are mistreating his daughter. She is a co heir with Jesus. She has exalted status because of what God says about her and how he feels about her. And a Christian husband will treat her accordingly. And what that means is that you live with her.
You seek to understand her. You love her in the ups and downs. Pursue her. Seek to meet her needs. And guess what happens as you do?
That feminine beauty, because God is working in her life as well, is allowed to blossom in your life and to be the blessing that God intended it to be. I wanna read to you a letter that I received years ago. It could have been ten years ago. I don't even know how long I've had this letter. I found it in a file this week.
And it was an anonymous letter. So I don't even know who this is from. K? They may or may not even be in our church anymore. I have no idea.
So I feel safe sharing it because they sent it anonymously. It's written from a wife describing her marriage, and she wrote it after I had preached on marital intimacy years ago. Listen to what she says. Pastor Steve, I found myself thinking about your words from Sunday's sermon. Usually, things are more complex than we think.
I know before I married, I never imagined the complexities of marriage and family that would occur. I am not faulting you for being single, but I do think the understanding is lacking. I have discovered that intimacy hinges on the emotional bond I feel for my husband. Over the years, he has changed and fallen into a pattern of work, sports, TV. Spiritually, he does not lead the family.
He does not pray, ask about my needs, direct our children into spiritual avenues. He does not attend Christian men's programs, opportunities, or ministries offered at the church. I feel alone in my spiritual life, not sharing discussion, goals, concerns because of his lack of communication or interest. God has met those needs through friends and a Bible study, which I am grateful. We do not have interests we share.
I'm not much of a TV watcher or sports nut. We have fallen into separate lives in the same home. I feel alone in the family life much of the time. He refuses to lead in finances. I handle the pressure of bills, savings, cutbacks, and our children's future needs for college.
He does not plan outings, vacations, or dates. Yes. I was the planner in the past, but I stopped hoping he would miss them, desire time, become more actively involved. Consequently, we have not done much together in years. Yes.
I have gone to counseling. Yes. I have prayed regularly. Yes. I feel guilty for not responding to his needs and intimacy.
I find it impossible at times to love him, give to him, enjoy him. So much is missing. The respect that women need to feel is so key to intimacy. Leadership in the home is an attractive thing. When you challenge men on Sunday to not be demanding but to give under their wives understanding, I thought you missed the point.
Yes. It is important to be gentle, understanding, caring during intimacy. The bigger picture is to be a leader in the home. Without it, the weight of leading is on the wife and is an overload of what God intended. A strong leader is appealing and attractive to women.
This lack of relationship in marriage produces guilt, and hearing your words on Sunday produced more. This type of relationship isn't what I signed up for. It isn't what I ever expected. The lack of intimacy has resulted from years of neglect, care, and unattended leadership. I'm not looking for you to address this.
I just want to give you some insights into our relationship and why the things have soured. I know that biblically, God gives us principles to live by, but I find it so hard to know how to change direction of my marriage. There are Scriptures for the unbelieving spouse, the adultery, and the abandoned spouse. But what do I do? I'm married to a man who is a Christian, but I haven't seen growth, change, or the leadership of a godly husband.
Thank you for reading this. I hope in some way this helped you see marriage and intimacy from my eyes. I wish it was as easy as you painted it this past week. And brothers, I just wanna ask you, if your wife wrote a letter, what would it say? How would she describe her experience living in the same home with you and being the recipient of your love?
What has that experience been like? You know, my wife, Jennifer, has written me both letters of encouragement and of admonishing me in areas of weakness that she sees in me. And these are hard to read, but they are a path forward, I think. And the path forward is always coming back to God's basic design. What does it mean to be a husband?
To lead, love, and to serve your wife as a servant leader, to love as Christ loved the church, to look at this passage and to say, wow, I've gotta seek to understand you and to care for you, to know you. If your marriage is broken, it's worth saving. If it's broken, it's worth saving. Husbands, you may everything in you doesn't want to go down that path again, and yet you're married to the daughter of almighty God. She is worth the effort.
She is worth honoring. She is worth cherishing. I would encourage you to start by just seeking understanding. Listen to her. Ask her questions.
Admit where you have failed. Repent. Ask her for grace for future failures that no doubt will come. But treat her with gentleness and with patience and with the kind of honoring that feminine beauty calls for. She's a daughter of the most high God.
Treat her accordingly. Now if I may, I could end right there. I have one other little final, final thought, if I could say this. And for many, many years, I have had a burden for single Christian sisters in the church, many of whom want to get married, and that may be you. And I wanna ask you a question.
What are you really looking for in a husband? And are you being attracted to the right kind of man? And by that, it has nothing to do with his money. It has nothing to do with his looks, figure, career. These kind of eharmony categories have nothing to do with what a Christian marriage is actually all about.
And I wanna ask you, are you attracted to that kind of a guy? And is that kind of a man the priority? Yes, Christian. Oh, he goes to church with me, and I've heard that a thousand times. And to see wonderful Christian girls that grow up and they marry deadbeat husbands spiritually is a burden to me.
And I just wanna say this weekend, make sure you're attracted to the right kind of qualities, and make sure they're the biblical ones. And you will save yourself a lifetime of heartache. Maybe that letter. Let that letter speak to you of what it means to marry a rich, good looking, nice car driving, nice clothes wearing, right cologne wearing guy. But if he doesn't lead you spiritually and if he doesn't dwell with you in an understanding way, you're gonna write a letter like that, and I wanna keep you from it.
I wanna keep you from it. Find a guy that'll love you as Christ loves the church. If he doesn't pray with you now, he's probably not gonna pray with you then. If he doesn't lead you spiritually now, he's probably not gonna lead you spiritually then. And don't let the wedding or anything else get in the way of you marrying the right kind of man.
End of excursions. Amen, congregation? Amen. Amen.
* This transcript was generated using AI transcription technology and reviewed for accuracy but may contain errors. Please refer to the original audio for precise wording.
