A husband who doesn't love their wives would be a good Mother's Day gift. That's not entirely sideways of what's on our mind. As you open there, Ephesians 5 is repeated verses 25 to 33. Here the Apostle Paul writes, Husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the Church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the Word, that He might present to Himself the Church in all her glory. having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she would be holy and blameless. So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, because we are members of his body. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is great. but I'm speaking with reference to Christ and the Church. Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife, even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband. The old nursery rhyme puts it that Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall, and Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. And not all the king's horses, nor all the king's men could ever put Humpty back together again. It's amazing how some of those four-line stories capture so much, but this world, this fallen world, this fractured world, can feel like that. There is so much that seems to be and certainly feels to be fractured beyond repair. But the doctrine of this book, the Epistle of Paul to the Ephesians, is that God is reuniting. all things in Christ that have been fractured in the fall. How many things? Well, remember the theme verse is chapter 1, verse 10. Everything God is doing is with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times. That is the summing up and that is to reunite again all things in Christ. Things in the heavens and things on the earth. So one doctrine, and there have been six responses thus far that we see to this doctrine. The first is praise to God for it. And that's why Paul begins that way from chapter 1, verse 3, all the way to verse 14. This is what he's praising God for. This is what he's encouraged about, even though he's in prison. Paul said we ought to pray to God for it. That was verse 15 to the end of the chapter. It's not something we always see. So it's something we should pray that God would give us eyes to see. We're, as we said, often like Elisha's servant, blind to what God is doing. And we need Him to open our eyes that we may see and have encouragement. And then there should be preaching on it. That was chapter 2 and 3 where Paul goes into how God has reunited the things that are in heaven. Man's relationship to God through the cross. And then how God has made a way to reunite any human relationship where sin has broken in through the cross, the things on the earth. And then chapter 3 shows the invincibility of this purpose of God, to make it all the way to the end and be successful. And thus ends the preaching about it. So, praise it, pray for it, preach it, if God is doing this. And then the fourth was, preserve it. Chapter 4, verses 1-6. that we are to preserve it with one another, we're already united because of this reunification that God has already done, that some of it has already occurred. But then verse 7 of chapter 4 all the way to chapter 5 verse 14 was about pushing it out into the world, because some of it is not yet Some of it in me is not yet. Some of it in your family is not yet. Some of it in this church is not yet. And certainly some of it out in the world is not yet. There is fracture that is yet needing to be reunited. And so we are to give ourselves to pushing this unity that God has already done out in the world. And then we came to verse 15 of chapter 5. Which is where Paul sums the letter up with exhorting us to purpose it. To purpose it in our mind. To live for this one purpose. To interpret everything in our life as spokes on this center. And that is to be living for the reunification of all things that is yet to be done. And he made that point. We said we were using the 3, 3, 3 memory device of this. So there are three contrasts, and then on the third contrast you get three consequences, and then on the third consequence you get three contexts. And so this is his conclusion to the letter, therefore, verse 15 of chapter 5. And the one thing we are to do is almost like it's screwed in three times with these three contrasts. Not as unwise, but wise. Not being foolish, but understanding what the will of the Lord is. Not being drunk with wine as though life has no purpose, but be fueled. with the Holy Spirit, be carried on by the Spirit of God to redeem the creation of God. Wisdom in this book refers to God's plan. The will of God in this book is He's working all things after the counsel of His will. Being filled in this book means being filled by the Spirit and the Word and the Gospel and carried on in this work. So those three contrasts were to tell us to be careful how you live, be pointed how you live, focus on the one thing. And then there were three consequences to that. It's not hard to see, we said, who is focused on this one thing and who is waking up every day purposing this as their one purpose. He says they'll be speaking. Everyone in the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit came upon, typically began blurting out something. Even in the New Testament, they began blurting out, John the Baptist kicked, Elizabeth spoke, Zacharias spoke. And so, it's not hard to see. If you're a silent person, never exhorting, never singing, never texting verses, It is just constantly wanting creation redeemed and putting the truth out there. That's what the Holy Spirit calls us. And here it means mainly in speaking and in singing. So as we're singing, even if we're singing to the Lord in a song, we are really addressing one another by doing that. We're reminding one another, as I come to worship and I see you worship God, I am reminded about God, that maybe what's true in your life can be true in mine. And so this singing, and then this thanking God for all of life. You see how this makes sense? For all things, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, to God the Father, because He's summing up all things. He's working all things to this end, so I can have this thankful attitude throughout life. And then finally was the third consequence, submitting. submitting as a result of being filled with the Spirit. I was just hearing two old men talk just yesterday in the coffee shop about a certain church and he was saying the same line again. Those people really worship. But a lot of times we can focus on a meeting and get all emotional and then just be completely disobedient in our lives. And that's not what it is to be filled with the Spirit. To be filled with the Spirit is, yes, experiential, but ultimately it aims at obedience, to produce it. And so then you have that third consequence. But on that third consequence, to be subject, to submit to one another in the fear of Christ, there were then given three contexts. Wives to husbands, children to fathers, and slaves to masters. And what we have already covered is the contrast, the consequences, and we've begun covering this context, the first being wives to husbands. And just to remind you what we saw about the wife's mission, was the command, the comparison, and the completeness of it. And that therefore, if a wife wants to change this world according to Paul, in the flow of this book, the one thing she needs to do and give herself to is to submit to her husband. And we saw the example of Augustine's mother and what her submission to her husband caused in his life and how that blessed the world. And now, in verses 25-33, Paul turns his attention to husbands and he gives us the one thing that we can do to change the world. And that one thing is love our ones. So I invite you to look with me Love. And Paul covers it in almost the exact same three perspectives as he did the wife's mission. First of all, we see the command of the husband's love in the beginning of verse 25. Then from 25b all the way to verse 32 we see the comparison. of the husband's love, Christ. And then in verse 33 we see the conclusion to the husband's love. So, the command, the comparison, and the conclusion. So first of all then, verse 25 at the beginning, the command of the husband's love, Paul begins with a noun of direct address saying husbands. So he's addressing husbands directly, specifically as it was prayed in the prayer meeting. So this passage is not directly relevant to everyone, to all men, but only those who are classified as husbands. However, you could indirectly use this if you were aspiring to be a husband one day. Or if you are a woman who has a husband. Or if you are a woman who is aspiring to have a husband. Why? In order to know what to look for. Either in yourself, in a present husband, in the future husband that you wish to be, or what you look for in a future man that you wish To Mary, Paul sums up what to look for. It's not hard. Winston Churchill said, the great things, all the great things in life can be summed up in a single word. Truth. Justice. Perseverance. Love. Love is one of them. Paul sums up the one single thing to look for in a man is love. So the command is, love your wives. And I just want to observe that love is commanded here. It's in the imperative mood. John tells us, let us not love in word or tongue, but in deed and in truth. In other words, true love is an act of the will, not just an emotion. It is a decision. It is an issue of obedience or disobedience, and therefore it's commanded. Our culture doesn't think of it this way entirely. And if you had to, in a sermon like this, give a full definition of the word, it's difficult. But to love, to save time, if you bring in the etymology and the full scriptural scope, it is something like what Paul is saying is regard her as the most precious being on the planet. with actions that follow that estimation. That's what this command means. View the wife as the most precious human being on earth, with all the actions that follow such an estimation. But that is just the question, isn't it? What are the actions? Because throughout my Christian life, this is the first time I've preached from these texts, but as I've heard this text referred to, there's a problem. We fall into just quoting the very beginning here, the command, and then using it as a proof text. to inject any meaning that we think is love into it. So, it becomes something like, Paul said, Husbands, love your wives, and this is what love means, and therefore I'm quoting this verse to you. And we just assume that we can quote this verse, leave the rest of the text, launch off into an article or a talk or a podcast, or even a conversation, and just assume that our definition of love, our own subjective one, maybe that we picked up from the culture, is what Paul means. And so when Paul said, husbands, love your wives, this is what he meant. What if I told you, do the right thing? Or what if I gave you another general exhortation like, tell the truth? Or, be good? Do you see how there could be so many different interpretations of that? And that each one of those could refer back to my words and say, what he said, be good. So be good. And this is the interpretation that you're using. This can become the standard by which people judge their own husbands. Or they judge other husbands. The standard by which they value men. So when Paul commands husbands to love their wives rather than inject it with any of the definitions and notions and connotations that we've picked up in our own minor culture. when He says, Husbands, love your wives. And that's what point two is all about, isn't it? So we move there from the command of the husband's love to the comparison of the husband's love. And this is the heart of the text. It goes from the end of verse 25 all the way to 32. Now notice how Paul begins to tell us exactly what he has in mind when he says, husbands, love your wives. It's like 1 Corinthians 13. He says, love is this, and it is not this, and it is this, and it is not... He doesn't just leave it for us to define. So the Bible specifically defines love. And it does so here as well. Notice how right after saying that, he says, just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her. So number one, it means giving yourself up for her. Literally, Paul means the ultimate sacrifice of life itself. A husband should be literally willing to lose his physical life and enter eternity if called upon. But then come three purpose statements explaining what for her means. What does it mean to give yourself for her? Does it mean a date? Does it mean a getaway? Does it mean buy the cabinets that she's been wanting? Buy the house, the car, the fence, the property? Clothes? What does it mean? You see how we can start to inject things in here. Does it mean work so many hours? Does it mean make so very much money? No. The glory of the Christian life is it can be lived in any circumstance. We have all seen the classic a dirty man at the store buying some flowers for his wife. He doesn't have to be a millionaire to love his wife, does he? So no, this is something that can be done in any circumstance. The three purpose statements, notice the so that and the that and the that as the goal of the self giving. He says, so that he might sanctify her. having cleansed her by the washing of water with the Word, that he might present to himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing." And that is not talking about her skin. That is not talking about her garments, physically. It is an analogy of that. I mean, when you get married and your wife is in the prime of her youth, I mean, her skin is as soft as it ever will be. It's as wrinkle-less as it ever will be. But Paul is saying that's a metaphor for something else. That physical beauty is a metaphor for something else. that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing." And then the third purpose statement, "...but that she would be holy and blameless." Now just let me ask you, is holiness in any of the Netflix romance stories and movies? Does our culture give us this mindset? of true love. What's amazing to me, it was immediately amazing to me, I've told some of y'all already, that upon studying this for the first time, it was immediately self-evident amazing to me that Paul never even mentions any of those things. He doesn't mention dates. He doesn't mention anniversary trips. He doesn't mention what you buy for, what you don't buy for. Those things, none of them I'm knocking as bad or shouldn't be pursued. I hope as many physical blessings as you can have, pursue them. They're not evil or bad. But this is sort of like where Paul tells Timothy that bodily discipline, like exercise, is good, but it's a micro profit in reference to the bigger issue. That's the idea here. So it doesn't even get mentioned. Every time the New Testament addresses women, think of Peter. He's turning attention away from the external. Let it not be the external, he says, but the internal. What does he say in Timothy? Let it not be all this elaborate display, this pageantry, this signaling of something valuable, but let it be something lastingly valuable in the heart. And so here, there's no mention of her physical beauty at all. Notice there's no mention of the husband's physical handsomeness at all as the value. The value of the man is in his concern for her heart. That's the value. Paul says to husbands here, give yourself to your wife's moral beauty, to her character. I think this froze up here. There we go. There we go. To her moral beauty, to her character, to her faith. To the hope in her heart. To the love in her heart. In a word, to her redemption qualities. Her holiness. Her sanctification, to put it in systematic theological terms. Her future glory. In one word, her glorification. in Christ. So women, is this how you measure the worth of a man? The care of a man, the value of him, that above all else, every single tool in his cabinet, every single fishing rod, every single hunting trip, every possible career he could have, He is consumed that there be hope and faith and love of Christ in your heart. And you be settled and rooted and grounded and ready for the terrible day to come. And men, when you're considering a woman to marry, are you looking for one who wants to be sanctified? who wants to be cleansed, or is it as Proverbs 31.30 says, that's guiding your life? Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised. What does that mean? That's the valuable thing. Now women, It is no secret. Both sexes have their problems about the external here, but it is no secret that women suffer continuously their entire life by our own assessment of what is beautiful and valuable, at least to a godly man. If he's godly, he values the internal above the external. And He falls more and more in love with you over time for those beauties. Such that over the course, as the external fades and the inner man is renewed, as Paul says, the love speeds up toward the end. Not by Botox and surgery and unending work and 40 layers of makeup and 20 filters. If somebody loves you for that reason, they do not love you. They love the picture of you. Find all these little diddly foolish things shared. Find the one who does this and find the one, these little things that are shared. Find the one that actually loves you. Goodness gracious, I like, do not get married to somebody who doesn't actually love you. And they just love the appearance of you. Don't live under that. And then notice the means of this. He says, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the Word. This is something. Read the Bible with your wife. Even if you've never done it before. Because listen to this, if you're a married man, your words to your wife come out in pounds Don't fall into the trap of thinking, oh, it's just the pastor. And oh, yes, make sure your wife has all the books and wonderful podcast access and everything she could have to get the word in there. But there is no replacement. No replacement. initiating reading the Bible with his wife. There's nothing that compares to it in magnitude. Wow. Because that's how God designed it. It's no different than the real father investing in the kid. Can you have all kinds of other people? Yes. But you only have one father. And it's different. Same for the mother. So just read the Bible with your own eyes. Read through the New Testament. You don't even have to say anything. Maybe one night you judge her based on how you lead her, based on how she is and where she's at in her sanctification. You feel like you need to make a comment. You feel like you've been going too long and she's fallen asleep because you're turning Bible reading into two sermons. You know, don't say anything. Just read the text. Just to simply just read the text and say nothing and say, alright, back to what we were doing. And don't think that because, here's another danger, if your wife is further along than you in her knowledge of God, that you feel humiliated by it. You need to embrace the humiliation and love your wife anyway. And do it. Because she's been craving for you to do it all these years anyway. God made her that way to yield to that and to long for that. And then talk about it with her. Be aware of her internal state, of her heart and her relationship with the Lord. Does she have assurance? Is she waning in her assurance? Is she balanced in her approach to this and that? The idea is you are just You are concerned with where this is. It's the air condition. You're just turning it up sometimes, low. The maintenance and the nourishment is constant. One word can sum up the goal of the husband's love, and that is like Christ, and that is glory. Concern for that. G.K. Chesterton. I was reminded about this. Just think about what this implies. The washing the water in order that she may become this thing that you value, what does that imply? She's not that yet. And that's what we get backwards as husbands. Like, I want you to respond a certain way, but it's my job to wash you into that way that you respond that way. Chesterton said this about Rome in his book, Orthodoxy. He said, they did not love Rome because she had glory. Rome became glorious because they loved her. Is this not how Christ found the church? In all our sin and filth, there's a background here in Ezekiel of God finding His bride filthy and washing her and cleaning her and putting garments on her. He washed us with the word of His gospel. That's what the word means, the gospel. And in that way, a course of marriage is to look not like the husband loving her because of her present glory, but the husband loving her for the sake of her future glory. The husband loving her for the future version of her that he is building. every hobby, every sport. Jobs are to be passed over because of this. Trips are to be passed over because of this. All preferences are to be passed over because of this. This is first and everything else is last. And that also is a question, isn't it? For what in the world could ever motivate a red-blooded, meat-eating man to give His whole life away to this. And I mean that. Let's not romanticize it. Let's take man and men as they are. What is it? And it's so encouraging, if you're a man, to read the rest of this with me, what Paul has laid out here. What could motivate you? It's not me up here. Oh, Jeffrey said, no, no, no, no, no, no. Take something a whole lot deeper than that. But look at what he says, beginning in verse 28. If the key word in the first motive that your goal is her glory, the key word in the second motive on how to be motivated psychologically to produce it that way is body. Glory and body. The word is body. Key word here, verse 28. He says, so husbands ought also, and you might be expecting him to just What? Kind of bring home the exhortation by urging us to do it. So you ought to love your wife. Because this is what Christ has done. But He doesn't. He adds a second motive. The motive of our body to weave this in. And the implication is this is how Christ was motivated. So let's just say first of all as we try to wrap our mind around this, He says husbands ought to love their wives as their own body. Paul's not a weirdo. He knows that her body is not your body. He knows they have different bodies. But he has something deep and profound in mind. And this is the ultimate motive. So we need to try to wrap our minds around it as best we can. Mysterious passage, but I think we can get the fundamental idea. So let's just start with the thought that, okay, love then has your own body. Now, if that is true, and you can lay it down almost like a proverb, right? And that's what he does next. He who loves his wife, loves himself. If she's going to be identified with your body in the way that he's thinking, then whoever loves his wife is a man who loves himself. Now, notice why that will be effective. I think that's the next thought in his mind. He says, because no man ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes it and cherishes it. Sure, there's suicide. Sure, there's masochists in the world and sad people. But as a general rule, Paul is saying, people take care of the task of loving themselves. They get the basic default work done. Anytime you love another person, your love is on top of how they've already been caring for themselves. You brushed your teeth this morning, you loved yourself. You took a shower, you loved yourself. You cleaned yourself in any way, you loved yourself. You cared about how you dress and present yourself, you are loving yourself. The Bible assumes that. The love commandment assumes that. The exhortation to love others as you love yourself assumes it. And it doesn't assume it as a wicked thing. We got to be careful. We know of all the wrong self-love emphasis out there, but there is a good self-love. It is absolutely wicked to murder yourself. It is against the law of God. So our lives are not our own. We are to care for ourselves. and be concerned about it. And the assumption is we do, right? So there are exceptions, but the general rule is all people take care of themselves to the extent that they are as concerned as we were just saying. They are nourishing, they are cherishing, they are aware of what's going on. I've got a stomach ache, I need to go take some medicine. They're constantly aware of this body, intending to it. As a matter of fact, your biological body is kind of like the funny description of walking. It's just not falling down. That's what walking is. Because if you didn't stick your foot out, you would fall. So walking has been described as the art of not falling down. And just living is the art of not dying. Everything in the world and your body is just trying to die. And you're just eating, and exercising, and sleeping, and just, you're fighting the tendency to go down, always. Now, he says, this is as general rule the way people live, and men are no different. And apparently, this is the mic drop thing, nor is Christ. For then he says next, just as Christ also does the church because we are members of His body. Verse 30. Because we are members of His body. We have somewhat of a romanticized view of the cross, don't we? that Christ gave Himself up for us on the cross because of this and that and the other. Maybe we have motives in his mind. This is one of the motives. He did it because we're members of His body. And this has been emphasized since 123. The fullness of Him who fills all in all. He fills all things through His church. We are the members of His body on earth. So it's tied in with his mission. I mentioned before that someone can give you a rinkety-dink thing, it has no value in and of itself, and yet you'll put it on your mantle forever. And someone's like, what do you have there? Throw that thing away. And you find out, no, absolutely not. My great-great-grandmother gave me that thing. The value is in who gave it to you. And the Bible teaches the Father gave you to the Son as a gift. Like we give each other presents, we give physical inanimate things. I mean, sometimes we give an animal or something, but God gives gifts, He gives souls. The Father gives souls to the Son. And the Son redeems these souls because He is burning with seal for us to know how beautiful the Father is. But once we are chosen in Him, like chapter 1 says, now His very mission in being is tied into who we are. in the outcome of us. So the idea to lay hold of is His mission is tied in with you if you're a member of His body. Then to support the idea that this is true, Paul goes to Genesis 2.24 focusing particularly on the phrase, one flesh. Because this is apparently functioning in his mind as a synonym for body. Now Paul knows the literal meaning of this. The two become one, and one of them becomes two. That's how that works. So he's not ignorant of the literal meaning, but he has something else in mind, because he says that is a mystery in and of itself, which it still is. Even in modern science, you can look at cells, but they don't have any clue where the person comes from. When I look at you, you look at me, you know there's more here than meat. And you don't have a clue where it came from. Except somehow it comes about by two becoming one. And so Paul is saying this mystery is still great, and it still is in our day. the origin of the human personality is a profound mystery. But Paul says he's wanting us to think about it differently or in addition to that literal meaning, he says I'm speaking with reference to Christ and the church. So this union of husband and wife such that she now becomes bone of His bone, as Adam said, flesh of my flesh. She now becomes linked in as viewed as Him, in some kind of union, is an ultimate reference of the union of Christ and the Church. And that injects the literal, original union It was already a mystery. That was great. Now it becomes greater. So with all of that, let me try my best to get at what motive Paul is getting at here in telling husbands to love their wives for their future glory, but to do so as if it were your own body by saying this. I think if you could sum it up in one word what Paul's getting at here, the motive for man is Your wife is your legacy. Your wife is your mission on earth. She is your legacy. When you think of like the Titanic, and somebody has to stay on the boat and die, the Christians should think, it's not just, oh, well, we're from the South, and by golly, we let the women and children. No. Deeper thoughts. This is my legacy. I live for the sake of them. I am like Abraham planting this tree and called on the name of the Lord, it says in Genesis. This is my tree. This is my work. Everything I'm doing, the very meaning of my life is bound up in this. So, of course, I'm willing to sacrifice my life for it. That's why I'm living in it every day. For this. And so, if an invasion happens to the land, And war breaks out. You put them somewhere safe. You go get whatever you can get and you fight and you're even willing to die. If a danger comes, you get in the way to take it because this is your legacy. This is your mission on earth. This gives a man something to boast in and be what they call the right kind of proud of. Because you're leaving something behind on this earth that developed under your watch. And God views it that way and counts it that way, and it lasts for all of eternity. You know, you can go over here to different rooms and it's got plaques. It's like this. Your wife has a plaque on her with your name. So when you leave behind and you die in the work and you leave behind a wife who is holy and hopeful and a blessing to the world, that is your work. That's the true meaning of your life. That is the thing that endures. Your legacy is not a retirement. It's not 401K. It's her. The fact that she's going to be a blessing to your children and your grandchildren and the world around her gives you a sense of accomplishment, purpose, meaning, last into eternity. This is how you escape vanity. There's no other escape than vanity. All is vanity. Except what is being produced in us last where? It's working in the eternal way to glory. Remember Paul with the Philippians? He said, all the more gladly am I poured out as a drink offering, so that on the day of Christ I may have reason to glory. So what I hope will happen to us, if it hasn't ever happened in your heart, because here's what happens when you become a Christian, you're like, oh, boasting. You know, you've got to not boast, and you can boast to the Lord, and you don't boast. And then maybe if you're like me, you've wondered, You've always known there's something missing because Paul boasts in people. I mean, in persons. He says, you are our reason for glory on the last day. So somehow, boasting in that is right. And I think what this means is what Paul is saying, love her as your own body, as if it's you. is yes, whatever grace comes into her life while being married to you and the woman she becomes as being under your leadership, God did it. But He did it through you. And this is your reward. And this is your glory. This is what you have forever and ever. This is how you bless the earth. This is what you leave. At the bottom of the door, at Tampa Grind, it says, Legacy of Jeff Phillips. What a tragedy. Right? Just to think, if you're a man, you want to work. You want to accomplish something in life. And to think that this is it. This is it. This is the thing. That my wife is my legacy. that if anyone ever wants to know how good I was, or how devoted I was, or anything, look right there. Look at what she has become. And you are to boast in that, and glory in that, and get satisfaction in that, and then when everything else in the world is crumbling, and you experience vanity everywhere else, you have this. You have this right here. And you're almost like Linus with his blanket. This is the one thing you have. Like, don't care. I have this. And it lasts. And everyone will know. Happened under my leadership. God will see to it. That gives a red-blooded, meat-eating man Purpose. Mission. Legacy. Your memory on earth. So what Paul says when he says, do it like it's your own body. Give yourself to her future glory. by means of the Word, and do it like it were your own body, and your own name, and your own mission, and your own legacy, and your own memory upon this earth, because it is. for the rest of her life and throughout eternity. So, what else can you say to that? So the final, small, neither point of the conclusion to the husband's love is in verse 33. He sums up this whole subunit on wives to husbands and husbands to wives by repeating and summarizing what he's told them both. The added thing to wives know is that they fear their husbands. And that makes it bookend with verse 21, remember? Be subject to one another in the fear of Christ. So that means a woman should have in her mind, this man's control is for my good, the spiritual, physical good of me and my children. and God has ordained this, and He ordained it to work, and He's loving me in this way, there should be awe about it. I was like, David, who am I? Who are my people that I have come? Just that I get to have a Christian family, it should be striking. And there should be fear and worship is the idea toward God about it. because she views this awesome responsibility on both of them as having a humongous impact for time and an eternity in light of how he is loving her in the family. I end with a story about Jonathan Edwards who left no small legacy on the earth. Books have been written about him on the earth, but typically they don't focus on his wife, Sarah Edwards. She got the news that Jonathan, when he had taken the presidency of Princeton College, took the smallpox vaccine, and in his 50s, contracted a fever and died. And there was only one daughter that was there with him when he died. And his mother, or his wife, her mother, Sarah, when she got word, she has written a letter to that surviving daughter, Esther. And we still have that letter. I want you to listen to this letter. My very dear child. Our holy and good God has covered us with a dark cloud. Oh, that we may kiss the rod and lay our hands on our mounds. The Lord has done it. He has made me adore His goodness that we have Him so long. But my God lives and He has my heart. Oh, what a legacy. my husband and your father has left us. We are all given to God and there I am and love to be your ever affectionate mother, Sarah Edwards. And God was everything else Jonathan Edwards left on this earth. That was his legacy. And that is mine that I get to leave on the earth, and yours, if you're a husband, that you get to leave on the earth. The type of woman you leave behind to bless the world. So may all present husbands heed this command. this comparison and this conclusion of a husband's love. And may all future husbands aspiring to be husbands be singularly focused on this one goal to love as it is described right here. And may all current wives that are assessing their husband or judging other husbands look for this one mark and this one standard to assess and value and rate, and may all future wives heed the commandment that if this man loves you, if it is true love, then it is this, beyond the skin, beyond the external beauty. What that proverb means when it says, charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman fears the Lord, she'll be praised, is you're going to live 80% of your life married to someone post-wrinkle. Be sure you're living it for the right thing. fear of the Lord, that she's able to bless the world, enjoy physical beauty while it lasts. Do so. To the max. But then, beyond that, and let the other, some of you don't believe this is possible, some younger ones, but the other can actually grow the physical. In a godly manner. Because this is what He wants. And may everyone who spreads ideas of romance and love spread this. This is the Word of God. There is no other attribute. It's this kind of love. And this is how. According to the Apostle Paul, husbands change the world. Let's pray. Father, thank You for Your Word. Thank You for the trembling, unspeakable privilege of life. Pray You forgive us for all of our massive failures. And thank You, Lord, that in amidst all our massive failures, The investments that we've made to the right thing and the people our wives become is a thing that lasts for eternity. And it gives us a sense of purpose, a boast, a pride. and a glory that can carry us all the way to the end. So I pray for all the husbands that they would tap into this motive and that it would carry them and strengthen them. And pray for all the wives that this is what they would look for. Pray for everyone in the church as we try to minister and help each other. This is the one thing we look at and exhort and encourage each other about. And finally, for those who are not yet married, that they would look to this and they would seek out this, that they may experience true love.