My friends, would you please stand with me as we hear the Lord's Word read from Colossians 3. Colossians 3, verses 12 through 25, we are looking at only verse 19 today. Again, this is the Lord's Word. So as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving each other whoever has a complaint against anyone. Just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you. Beyond all these things, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body, and be thankful. Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms in hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God. Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father. Wives, be subject to your husbands as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and do not be embittered against them. Children, be obedient to your parents in all things, For this is well pleasing to the Lord. Fathers, do not exasperate your children so that they will not lose heart. Slaves, in all things obey those who are your masters on earth, not with external service as those who merely please men, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. Whatever you do, do your work heartily as for the Lord rather than for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance. It is the Lord Christ whom you serve. For he who does wrong will receive the consequences of the wrong which he has done, and that without partiality. This is the Lord's word. Would you please be seated, friends? Again, oh Lord, we thank you for your word and pray that your blessing be upon it now. As it goes forward, I pray that your blessing be upon the servant of yours. I pray that you will Bless the word to go forward faithfully and with clarity. I pray that you would keep the evil one from stealing away the seed of the gospel. And I pray that you would be with your people to give them ears to hear. I pray, Lord, that pride in the flesh that wages war against the truth. We pray, Lord, that these things would be kept at bay and that we would be tender as children sitting at the knees of their father who loves them, and we ask, Lord, that you would cause the kingdom of Satan great injury today as you minister now to your people. We entrust all these matters to you in Jesus' name, amen. Do these things and you will find favor in the eyes of God. This was the message of the false teachers. Holy living being the way to God. This is the message that they taught. The burden of salvation then being on the back of the individual, truly a burden as no man and no woman can bear up under that rightly. as the Lord himself demands more than just being good, right? We always tend to think in our Hallmarkian age that good people go to heaven and bad people go to hell. The truth is good people go to hell too. Righteous people go to heaven. Perfect people go to heaven. That's the truth, not good people. We know Lander and Riverton are full of many, many good people. but there will be many good people in hell. The Lord himself demands, my friends, perfection. He demands a righteousness wherein a man can stand in his presence and not be consumed. The question is who can do this? Their message of the message of the false teachers was not good news. Their message is actually a death sentence. Still, the same today, those who preach this message that if you try hard enough, you will find out that you can be good enough for God, that's a death sentence. For anyone to believe that is cockamamie. And yet, that's how perverted we are in our understanding of our own human natures, right? There is none good, says Paul. Our first mistake is that we believe the whole self-esteem movement, that we're all good people. We're not. I maintain that if you leave a child alone in a room by himself, he will end up ultimately punching himself in the nose. Because we're not good. We're not good. But this was the message of the false teachers. Their message, again, being a death sentence. They're always instructing people to perform, and you can never be good enough. What did our Savior say? In Matthew 11, 28, and 29, he says, come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. How can Jesus Christ say these things? How can he say this? It's because your salvation does not and cannot, must not depend upon your work, but it depends upon his work. It depends upon his labor. That's why the gospel is called good news. It has nothing to do with your performance. The service that we render to him, my friends, is motivated by a gratitude for who he is and what he has done for us. The false teachers, however, destroyed the gospel by insisting that Christ and his work were not enough. But this is not at all what the apostle says. In chapter 2, he says this, I read this by way of reminder, in case People are prone to think that as we go through these commands, we are somehow changing the gospel. Paul says this, the letter hangs together. See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world rather than according to Christ. For in him, all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form. And in him, you have been made complete and he is head over all rule and authority. While they say, do these things and you will find favor, the apostle says, because you have found favor, by grace you have been saved, now do these things. Do these things now because you have tasted of the grace of God. But in the modern church, many will say, well, therefore, because I'm saved by grace, I can do as I please. Shall I sin that grace may abound? And what is Paul's answer to that? May it never be, no, no. The gospel is not an excuse to indulge our flesh. but it is the reason and power behind why we now live differently. We belong now to the Lord. We are indwelt by the spirit of God. We are new creatures and called now to new attitudes and new behaviors and new ethics. The truth of God, God's truth brings order. God's truth restores life. Quite the opposite of what we're hearing in our culture. Oh, those Bible thumpers. Oh, those people who are stuck upon the Bible. They're old-fashioned. They're antiquated, really. How's it working for you to reject the Bible? Anyone read the news this week? Anyone paying attention? How does it work for us as a nation when we thumb our nose at the Almighty and we turn our back on his word? How's it working? Divorce rates, are they going down? Perversion rates, suicide rates, drug abuse? Greed, idolatry, these things, are they waning? They are not. Why? Because we've turned our back on the word of God, the truth of God's word. The truth of God's word, the gospel, my friends, brings life. And you see its destructive influence and how it has affected the American home. We've decided Practically speaking, though many people wouldn't say it, the Bible is antiquated when it comes to the roles of men and women. We need to try this new way. Scientists tell us it works. I'm not going there. The commands that the apostle gives here to the Christians is in the broader context of the gospel. And so chapter three, he is speaking of how the gospel affects the body of Christ. And then even more narrowly now, he comes to the point of saying how the gospel applies to the home. The truth of Christ, the gospel of grace must and will have a bearing on our homes. It must have a bearing on our homes, the relationship of wives towards their husbands, as we saw a couple of weeks back, and of husbands toward their wives. And here now in verse 19, the apostle writes to exhort the Christian men, though it applies to all men, yet he is specifically addressing Christian men to love their wives and not to be embittered against them. We're looking at this and answering this question, how does being renewed in Christ affect the husband toward his wife? It's pertinent to us. If the gospel, and we've said this before, a politician, what good is a politician who says, I don't allow my faith to influence my policymaking? You have no faith. Imagine what a person, a man or a woman would say, well, yes, I'm a Christian, but I don't allow my faith to influence my interactions at home. Would you do such a thing? You oughtn't do such a thing. He speaks here directly to husbands. Husbands should be affected by the gospel. Husbands, love your wives and do not be embittered against them. As he has addressed wives, so now he is addressing husbands, both female and male. And again, some of this will be overlapped from two weeks ago. But again, notice there's just men and women in the world. You shouldn't have to say this, but apparently we do because we have people going off the rails with this. Both male and female are to fulfill their roles as the recipients of grace. So I ask this question, what is a husband? What is a husband? And again, the mindset is that, well, a husband is someone who sires children. He's the king of this home. And everyone and all things in the home revolve around him. Now, if that's your definition of a husband, we have some learning to do. What is a husband? I want you to recall. what we consider two weeks ago from the book of Genesis. In Genesis 2-7, we are told this, the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living being. In 2-15, Moses writes, then the Lord God took the man and put him into the Garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. According to Genesis 1, we know that man is made after the image of God in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness. The Lord has placed the man in the garden to cultivate it, that is, to work it, and to keep it, that is, to have charge of it. Man is given a job. He is to take dominion over the created world, and work, we must understand, is a sacred calling. Work is not the product of the fall. Work was instituted before the fall. Work is good. However, now when we work, we have weeds in the garden. We have problems. We work by the sweat of our brow. But this is things, men, brothers, that the Lord calls us to get busy and go to work. We are not to be freeloaders off the government. Get busy. You may not make a lot of money. The amount of money has nothing to do with whether or not your work is valuable. I say that as a pastor. The work's important. The calling is important. God created you for a purpose. Work is a sacred calling. But as we continue to read here in Genesis, it was not good for the man to be alone. We are told in 2.18, then the Lord God said, it is not good for the man to be alone. I will make him a helper suitable for him. Among all of the animals that Adam had passed before him and that he named, there was not one match for Adam. Not a ranch dog, not a horse could compete. They were not a fit. So we are told in Genesis 2, 21 through 25, so the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man and he slept. Then he took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. The Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which he had taken from the man and brought her to the man. The man said, this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. Moses adding this comment, for this reason, a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife and they shall become one flesh. Again, my friends, she was taken from his side. She was not taken, constructed from a bone from his foot. in order to be stepped upon, nor from a plate in his skull to be over him. But she was taken from a rib out of his side, because this is where she belongs, at his side, under his protective arm, near to his heart, to be his helper in the work that he was called to do. And as I pointed out a couple weeks back, I want you to notice that he has named, Adam has named all the other creatures, and here he names her as well, she shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. In the Hebrew, the word for man is ish and the word for woman is ishah. She was taken out of the man. As we read these scriptures, it demonstrates that man's headship, man has headship over the woman. And it's a fact that the apostle refers to when giving instructions to the church regarding the role of men and women. He writes in 1 Timothy 2, 12 and 13, but I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet, for it was Adam who was first created and then Eve. And then elsewhere in Ephesians 5, Paul writes, for the husband is the head of the wife as Christ also is the head of the church. So what we see is that marriage was established in the garden before sin, before the fall, with the mandates of working, taking dominion, and of multiplying, that is procreating, having children. And we are told that of all that God had done in Genesis 1.31, God saw all that he had made and behold, it was very good. Paul then is addressing husbands, men who are married to women, who are heads of their homes, whose calling it is to serve the Lord by working, by raising children in this world with a woman by his side. Why do I labor this point? Because the family, the home, maleness and femaleness, sex and children and babies and work, thus affecting purpose, the roles have become so attacked and so perverted that our society is virtually on the verge of collapsing. It is. In the garden, you have the first man, the first woman, you have the first church, the first home, the first society. And in our culture, all of these things have been thrown into the earth, cast aside, and undermined. And we're all supposed to just be nice and say nothing. Friends, the barn is on fire, and we're sitting in the barn. We should not be silent about these things. The church must come back to the truth of God's word. And friends, you must start embracing it. You must. It is wrong for you to see these things going on and to remain silent. It's wrong. Our country is on the verge of collapse because of these very things. We are thumbing our nose. You think I'm kidding. When I'm praying, Lord, be merciful to us, you realize he's destroyed countries. He's destroyed cities because of the very things that we are hardened in our pride and celebrating. Is it more important for you to be truthful or to be nice at this point? I'm all for being kind. I really am. But I have realized that being nice is just a fat idol that we've had established for us. And that's the greatest virtue, apparently, in the Lord's Church nowadays, just be nice and don't say anything. You don't want to rock the boat. The man's walking in fishnet stockings and his soul is bound for hell. And you don't care? What's wrong with us? I labor this because things are bad. They're bleak right now. We have made men effeminate. We raise our little boys to behave like little girls. Listen, if your little girls act like little girls, celebrate it. I had four daughters, have four daughters. They twirled. They dressed up. They were absolutely lovely. And my little boy, He acted just like a little boy should act. He was loud. He jumped around. He was fidgety. He did and was what a little boy should be. This is God's design. It's God's design. But when we have men dancing around in women's clothes, scriptures are very plain in Deuteronomy 22.5 that it's perverse and it is an abomination to the Lord. And I can't believe it that these drag shows even have people in attendance. Please, friends, be humble enough to understand that God, in his word, says exactly what we ought to be believing. It is not enlightenment to take your child to a drag show. It is perversion, and you ought not. No Christian ought to ever take their children to one of these godless shows while men parade around in barely anything. It's godlessness, and it should stop. And you and I should not be promoting these things, allowing them to exist. My friends, my brothers in particular, men are called, if you are a husband, you are called to be a leader. And as a leader, you are to be strong because you are. You are to be strong. This isn't the toxic masculinity that you hear in our culture. Men need to be men. I remember after 9-11 occurred, Peggy Noonan, I believe, wrote an excellent article about the men who ran into the face of danger to rescue lives. And then she's talked about a man who took his wife to the beach. And it was very picturesque. The man's wife got attacked by a shark. And you know what the man did? This is awesome. He jumped in the water and he continued to beat the shark with his fists. He wailed on that shark until that shark released his wife and he saved his life. Men are supposed to be strong, not sissies. I'm serious. For a man to run away from a fight is, we used to call it being a sissy. It's called being a coward. And this is what our culture wants us to be. The phrase, soy boys. We're replacing good food with soybeans, and what it's doing is testosterone is down 50% in the last 40 years. I'm sorry. I'm not into the cultural engineering that's taking place. And my brothers, you're called to be strong and to lead. Paul writes this, be on the alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Men are to be strong. Be kind, but be strong. Stand up against evil. Speak against evil. Warn people of the judgment that is coming upon their souls. Warn your children. Lead your wives. Die for them. That's what it means to be strong. That's what the Lord calls us to. Not this comfort zone, not convenience, not being primped and pretty and having everything go our way, the smooth and suave debonair. That's not what he calls us to. A lover, a fighter, sweaty, grimy, giving yourself up for someone else, that's what he calls us to. You are the ones who should be stepping up To the plate in society, my brothers, you should be the ones leading in the home. You should be the ones leading your children to the Lord. You should be the ones praying with them. You should be the one saying we're not watching this. We're not doing that. Bear in mind you have a helpmate. Consider what she says. She's there to help you. But the buck stops with you, and I'm speaking specifically to my Christian brothers. Because you know what way is right, and you know what way is wrong, and you know better than any what this society needs. Too many men have abdicated their calling as husbands and as men, just as Adam in the garden did not fulfill his calling and allowed his wife to be deceived. My friends, you are responsible for your wife and your children. And you will, and I will, we will answer to the Lord on that final day. Now this is probably making some of you want to freak out inside. It's frightening, because it sounds as if Paul has just cut the leash and has given men the OK to be brutes. But nothing could be further from the truth. Nothing could be further from the truth. Of course, there has been abuse in the past. There certainly has. I will not stand up here and deny it. Some of you have experienced terrible things, and I am so sorry for it. But we throw the baby out with the bathwater when we say men are to be emasculated, and they should not be esteemed. I don't care what The View says. I don't care what Washington D says. I don't care what science says. I know what the Bible says. You were created in the image of God. You were created to take dominion, to have children, and raise them to fear the Lord, and you were called to die. That's what we are called to do, brothers. Die. Lay your lives down. This is what he says. Husbands are to love their wives. Husbands, love your wives and do not be embittered against them. My friends, the gospel changes men. We have a friend, Andrew and I have a friend, who was a missionary in Africa and he would talk about how the tribes, these tribes that they worked with in Africa, the women did all the work. They found the wood, they cut the wood, they found the meals, the food, they cooked the food, they cleaned, they raised the children. And what did the men do? They sat in the city gate and they drank coffee and they talked. And this missionary said that when the men, they knew that the men were being born again, when all of a sudden they started getting up from the fire where they would sit, and they started to get their wives cups of coffee. He said, that's when we started to understand that they were getting the gospel, they were understanding it. You see, the gospel changes us. The gospel changes us. He commands these Christians, these married men in particular, to love their wives. In our culture, love has been distorted. It has become limited in meaning, and it means something like to be attracted to somebody or to have a strong affection for somebody. The problem with these definitions is being that if you no longer find them attractive, or when they don't return your affection, when they act unlovely, then the love stops. The love stops and families fall apart, marriages dissolve at worst, or they become bitter homes. The love here spoken of is a love that surpasses all other kinds of love. It's not merely a romantic love, nor is it the kind that is a warm affection, though there is a place for these in marriage, of course. But this love is that deep and sacrificial love such as we see in Jesus Christ our Lord, such as is demonstrated. I want you to just look at this table for a second. We have a tray of bread and we have trays of wine or grape juice, the fruit of the vine. And what are these? They are pictures of one who died to redeem you. That is the picture of love that husbands, you are to mimic in relationship with your wives. The Apostle Paul spoke of this in Ephesians 5, 25 through 27 saying, 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." And the picture, my brothers, here is not that of a heavy-handed, domineering, harsh, and demanding headship of our wives, but a picture of true manliness, that of power and position used to bless those who are not in the position or having the power to do it themselves. Consider for a second what the church is called in the scriptures. We were referred to as being helpless in Romans 5, 6. We are called sinners in Romans 5, 8. In Romans 5, 10, we are called enemies. In Ephesians 2, 1, it was said of us that we were dead in our trespasses and sins. In Ephesians 2, 12, we are said to have had no hope. And then understand, while we were unlovely, uncaring, cold, indifferent, and even hating God, that is precisely when Jesus Christ came and died for us. Nothing lovely about us. Nothing that made him go, they're so beautiful, I think I'll save them. It was when we were the most unbeautiful, most unlovely, when we were enemies and haters of God, that God looked upon us in his pity and he gave his son so that we would find life. That's love. That's the love you're called to demonstrate for your wife. And so our savior left glory, the glory he had with the father and listen to these, these words, these terms. that he came to serve, to die, to wash, to sanctify, to secure for us the hope of entrance into his eternal kingdom. This is the kind of love to which we are called, that we are called to demonstrate for our wives. And my sisters, I know, I said a couple of weeks back, that being in subjection to your husband is a difficult thing to live. It is difficult to subject yourself to another, but do you know what is even more difficult than living for your husband? It is dying for your wife. I hear too many women complain about their husbands. That needs to stop. And you husbands, you're called to die for them. So my sisters, you actually got the better side of the deal. He's supposed to die for you. One commentator said this, to give oneself up to death for the beloved is a more extreme expression of devotion than the wife is called upon to make. Brothers, you are called to love your wives like Christ loved the church and gave his life up for her in order that she might be delivered. That's a command from our God. Finally, though, he says that you are not and you are not to be embittered against them. Husbands love your wives and do not be embittered against them. Some of your translations read, love your wives and do not be harsh with them. And in fairness, most commentators approach the text this way, as if the man is being exhorted not to treat his wife harshly. This command then is that they should not treat them harshly. He is to be a gentle leader, making his headship over her, a blessing instead of a curse. And these things, of course, are true. My problem with this understanding, and even with that translation of the NIV and the ESV, is that he has just said this in so many words when he says, love your wives. I prefer the translation that I read, the New American Standard or the New King James. The New American Standard says, and do not be embittered against them. And the New King James says, and do not be bitter towards them. Why? Why say this? Because bitterness is that which sours love. Bitterness, or being indignant, being irritated with one's wife, causes resentment and anger, and it is that which undermines the sacrificial love we are called upon to demonstrate towards our beloved brides. I want you to ask yourself this, how well did you know your bride, my brothers, before you married her? Anyone? I knew my wife seven months prior to marrying her. We dated for three months. I actually told her I was going to marry her after three weeks. And of course, as the Lord's people, we don't live together. because the Lord forbids that and tells us to keep the marriage bed undefiled. So you're going out on dates, and every date, she's beautiful. Every single date, she's beautiful. We go out, and every single date, she's putting her best foot forward. I'm putting my best foot forward. She thinks she knows me. I think I'm knowing her. But then the marriage day, the wedding day comes, and we enter into this marriage covenant. And it is a covenant, it is not a contract. There is no expiration date on marriage. Only death, says the Apostle Paul, can separate a marriage, end it. The marriage covenant brings together two sinners and makes them one. And your first day with them, you begin to wonder, did somebody switch my bride on me? Who is this woman? I'm sure she's saying, who is this man? What have we done? Was this like one of the biggest colossal mistakes of our lives? Where have you been hiding? You start to get to know each other in such a different way. It's such a different thing when you, I mean, I'm thinking about these married couples. They wake up this morning and they're going, I didn't know this about you. You begin to wonder, and you learn so much more about them than you previously knew when you got married. There are ways she does things, mannerisms, emotions and feelings and attitudes you never knew. There are some matters of indifference, which way you put the silverware in the dishwasher, how you fold that towel. I mean, honestly, she received a credent when she married me. I was just push the towel over the bar and just stuff it through so it's all crinkled and nasty. And of course, she is a three-fold woman. You've got to fold it this way and then this way, then you put it over with the emblem if there is one facing outward. And I was like, this is going to kill me. But you know what I'm talking about. They're those little things. They're just little idiosyncrasies. You must know because you're all kind of giggling. Right? There are some matters of indifferences. Sometimes we consider them annoyances. There are some, you learn things about their disposition now in a way that you never knew. The disposition, their personality, their essence is so much deeper than you ever thought. And then there are things that come along that are sin. My point being is you come into this marriage, you get to know the person so much more, and you have just entered into a covenant to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer or poorer, and in sickness and in health. And it's just not as easy as you thought it was going to be. And so there are things that you embrace, who she is, her essence, her essential being. There are things you put up with, how she wants towels folded and silverware in the rack. And then there are those hurts and sins that anger you and resentment grows and chokes out love. That's why I think Paul is saying this. do not be embittered against them. Because a lifetime of marriage, and they start doing things that start to get under your skin, some are things they won't change, some are their essence, and some are sins that you have refused to talk about and address, and you're becoming bitter and angry towards your wife, and when that happens, you withhold and withdraw love. And when you withdraw and withhold love, what happens? The marriage begins to crumble. The home begins to fail. You start believing the lies. And no longer are you sacrificing yourself for this person. Now you've become self-protection mode, and I'm going to go all full American on you, and I'm going to live for me. and not for thee. My friends, my brothers, you are called to lead. And when we don't lead and address the issues, we become bitter and we withdraw our love from our brides. I would encourage you, if you have anything, problems that you have left unaddressed in your marriages, that you would take your wife out for a cup of coffee in some quiet corner somewhere. and you address those issues because the Lord has called us to love our brides as Christ has loved us. If these things hinder us from loving our wives as Christ has loved us, it ultimately demonstrates itself to be a love based upon convenience that has term limits and is not the love we are called to nor that our wives are to be subjected to. Rather, we are called to love our dear wives, our precious sisters, who are also joint heirs of the grace of life. We are called to love them as the Lord himself has loved us. And so, again, I point to the table here, friends, and I ask you, how far, my brothers, has Jesus Christ gone to love you? Aptly said, Clyde. How far has he gone? He went to the point of dying for you. And this is what we are called to do for our wives. And so when you are tempted to be angry, I just want to say, come back and remember how much the Lord has forgiven. And now go and love your wife still more. Let's pray. We thank you father for your word and we thank you for your kindness to us and I pray that you would help my brothers and myself as we are image bearers and to be heads and leaders in our homes that we would love our wives very well. We would love them and that we would lose our lives in order to ensure that they have wonderful and sweet lives, peaceful lives. We ask father that you would help us Again, not to do it because they are idols, but to do it because you are our God and have redeemed us by your grace. We ask that you would help us as we take this Lord's Supper in a few moments. We pray that we would be reminded again, once again, how great a love you have had for us and that we would go and return this love now to our wives. We ask in Jesus' name, amen.