Okay, we are going to go on with talking about how we can love our husbands. So we've talked about the area of submission and about that being God's plan for order. And I think I also touched on the fact that the reason why we can submit to our husbands is because ultimately we believe that God is in control of our lives and we are submitting ourselves to God first. Because God's standard for submission is not just enduring our husband's authority, but it also means that we respect him. That we treat him with respect regardless of whether we feel like he deserves it. because that's how God loves us. He loves us not on the basis of what we've done, but on the basis of who he is. See in the world, respect is seen as being earned, not given. It's an emotion or an action responsive to a situation. And when a husband's actions deserve respect, then he will receive respect. But that's not God's definition or God's desire for a wife. Many of us marry to have our own needs met. I did. I thought, well, I want a companion. I want someone to love me. I want someone to take care of. I want my own home. I met John. We were both involved in the same student ministry when we were at the university. I served him about 9 million cookies before he noticed me. But God worked it out. We fell in love. We got married. And I thought, great. Now all my needs are met. I'm a complete woman. Well, God is the one who meets our needs. Even the most loving, wonderful husband in the world is not going to meet all your needs because he's a finite person. He doesn't know your needs. He doesn't know how to do it. He will never understand you completely. I remember the day that that hit me, kind of like this, because I thought, surely, again, here I am with the talk. If only I described to him enough, then he will understand me. Well, he doesn't have the ability to do that. Only God does. God's created us that way. So, We are saying, when we are willing to submit first to God and then our husbands, and also commit ourselves to respecting our husbands, we are saying, God, I trust you with my life. You are Lord. You are sovereign. You are committed to my good because you love me. Psalm 62, 5, and 6 says, my soul, wait in silence for God only, for my hope is from Him. He only is my rock and my salvation, my stronghold. I shall not be shaken. When we are willing to learn how to put our trust in God, He gives us that solid ground on which to stand. And that becomes the basis for our marriage relationship too, because I'm no longer seeking to maneuver things or manipulate or argue or whatever to get my needs met, because I'm looking to God to meet those. And that is a learning process. I am not there yet, but I have learned some things. Communication is very important. I've talked about what our words want to do, but at the same time, it is important to communicate to our husbands what we like and what pleases us and express appreciation and all of those positive things. I have to tell you a funny story here. We have been married, actually, it's about 45 and a half years. We were married in 1975. Every Christmas since then, I have made this special cookie. They're called raspberry roll-ups. When I was growing up, my grandmother made them every year, my mother made them, I made them with her, I made them with my children, and I made them for my husband. Guess what I found out this last year? He doesn't like them. He does not like them. He never said anything, because he didn't want to hurt my feelings. My children love them. So he said, don't stop making them, because they're our kids' favorite cookies. My daughters all make them for their own families now. So the tradition continues. But I just had to laugh, thinking, you think you know someone. And then you find out for 45 years that sweet man has been eating a cookie he really doesn't like. And so I said, well, you are free from eating raspberry roll-ups. Just consider that a done deal. You know, when you're first married, you know you don't know each other. You know that. But after you've been married a while, you kind of can get the feeling that you know each other well enough that you don't have to communicate anymore. You don't have to ask. You can assume that you know what they're thinking or what they want. That's not true. I just told you why it's not true. So anyhow, talking about respect. I think you guys should have two handouts by now. These are for you to take home and just do on your own. When I did these, they really helped me kind of get a little deeper understanding and make application of these areas. So there's one on submission. It talks about the world's perspective. And then it gives us the biblical perspective for that. Then there's one on respect. Who can read for me Ephesians 533? I think these have been passed out, right? Okay, thank you. 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. Okay. That's very good. Talking about respect. Someone read for me on the top of the page you've got, the handout you've got on respect. That has that verse written in Amplified, I believe, at the top. Would you mind reading? I'm sorry, I don't know your name. Diane. Okay. Would you mind reading that in the Amplified? And the wife must see to it that she respects and delights in her husband and that she knows treasuring him, honoring him, and holding him dear. Okay, this, the amplified version, takes the translation and extrapolates on it. Just expands it out and adds words to it because the literal Greek is respect. That's used in Ephesians 5.33. But when you take that word respect and divide it up and pull out different aspects of that, that's what these other words are. And what I did, with this in Bible study is I took each of these and I first, I figured out what does that mean in terms of my relationship with my husband? What does it mean to delight in him? You know, it means enjoying him. It means, um, being with him. It means appreciating him. And then I tried to figure out now, how can I do this? How can I express my delight in him to him? Well, leaving little notes, telling him I try to send him off each day, making sure that I have told him I love him before he leaves. Something that's very important to him is physical affection. In my family, we didn't do that much physical affection, hugs and, you know, that kind of stuff. We just weren't very demonstrative like that. So as a wife, I had to learn that that was important to him. So I needed to do it, whether I actually felt comfortable with it, if that makes sense. I noticed some of you, that sounds crazy, but that's that was my background. And that's kind of the way I was. So it's important to him when he comes in the room for me to go to him and stop what I'm doing, go to him and hug him. and not be, not say, Oh, I can't do this right now, or, or wait just a minute, but to immediately stop what I'm doing and be available to him. Does that make sense? That's important to him. So that's a way I can show the light in him. So go through this list sometime on your own, maybe in a quiet time or something. I know you're getting beaucoup stuff from us. Don't let it be a frustration. Just spread it out over a period of time and work on something. Some of these quiet times you can work on together with your husband. Some of this stuff I would encourage you to do on your own. And then you can surprise him with little applications. I did this with a wife once. There's seven of these things. And I said, pick one of them every day this next week. and figure out what it means and then how you're going to express this towards your husband. And he loved it. You know, you don't have to tell him what you're doing. You can. And then someone asked me one time, they said, well, isn't that kind of artificial? You know, making it a project? And I was like, well, I'm trying to learn how to do something that I don't know how to do, and I'm not doing it. So it's going to be a little bit artificial, just like I said, by learning how to be more physically demonstrative. You know, that's okay. If I'm learning how to do something that God wants me to do, then Do it. Just do it. You know, just do it. And after a while, what is artificial or uncomfortable becomes more comfortable. Okay? So let's talk some more about this area of respect. Who has Proverbs 12 verse 4? I love word pictures and scripture is full of word pictures that help us understand what things mean. Now, what would it be, what would be the, what's the picture you get in your mind of a husband with a crown on his head? What's the result of a husband or what's the perception, public perception of a husband with a crown on his head? A king, okay, someone who's in a position of honor, Someone who is respected. Someone who is valued. Okay? You can think of other words probably to describe what a crown would be. And scripture says that an excellent wife is this for her husband. We are his crown. But she who shames him is as rottenness in his bones. Shaming is pretty much the opposite of showing respect because showing respect is showing honor. Shaming is showing dishonor. And many of us can get in the habit, and we found in our own relationship, we got into a habit of exchanging a lot of sarcastic comments with each other. I like British dry humor, but I have had to try to train myself not to do it because it's too easy for me to slip into sarcastic. and then it becomes words that wound rather than words that heal. I have seen situations where a husband was teaching a Sunday school class and he was writing verses up on the board and his wife was constantly correcting him that, no, it's not that verse, it's this verse, or you spelled this word wrong. She was meaning to be helpful, I think, but it really was shaming him. It was not showing him respect in public. And this says, an excellent wife is the crown of her husband, but she who shames him has rottenness in his bones. So I think, in Eleanor's paraphrase, I would say, you can choose whether you are going to be a crown or a cancer. Cancer eats us up from the inside, doesn't it? And that's what shame does. Shame affects anyone, but our husbands are especially vulnerable to shame that originates from us. Your husband has shared more intimately with you than any other person in the world. You are the one who is in the position to wound him the most. but you're also in the position to build him up and have the strongest effect on his life from anyone else who has ever been a part of his life, even his mother. You know, his mother has a huge influence over him, but you are the current top woman in his life. I can remember when my son got married, he came over to see us for some reason and he started to say something and then he said, oh no, That's a wifey thing, isn't it? And we said, yeah, yeah, that's something for you to share with your wife and not with us. So he was learning that to become one thing, he was learning, wasn't he? So your relationship with your husband is a very, very special one, and you can choose to be a crown and not a cancer. Shame, a one-time, Making a mistake and doing something that hurts your husband one time is not going to wound him forever. You realize what you've done, you ask his forgiveness, you make up, and you can go on from there. But if shame becomes repetitive, it becomes a pattern of behavior, and it can beat someone down to the point where it is very, very difficult for them to recover. We don't want to do that with our husbands. We want to be a cram. OK? Proverbs 31, 26 and 27. And I appreciate you all reading. It's fun for me to hear your voices, and it also makes us flow nicely. It is that she opens her mouth in wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue. She looks well to the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of others. Proverbs 31, 26 has become my life verse. I pray this for myself daily because I would guess if I were gonna have to do a statistic, which is totally not based on fact, just on my own mind, I would say that 99% of the things I say that are hurtful, I say without thinking first. You know, if I can learn how to stop and think about something before I say it, I will prevent a lot of difficulty that occurs when I speak without thinking. So, 26, she opens her mouth in wisdom. Wisdom is applied knowledge, isn't it? And the teaching of kindness is on her tongue. Instead of being one who shames my husband, I want to be wise, I want to teach kindness, I want that to be characteristic. And then it also says she looks well to the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. That's a part of respecting our husbands, too, is taking good care of the house in the way he wants it to be cared for. My husband, doesn't mind controlled mess. Does that make sense? He is not the kind of guy who wants everything in its place. Like when our children were little, I had friends who trained their children to go get a toy, play with it, and when they were finished, go put it up and get another one. You know, that's fine. But in our house, they could get out whatever they wanted, and then before lunch, we put it all up. And then after lunch and naps, they could get out whatever they wanted again. And then before dinner, they would put it all up again. So in other words, you can decide how your household needs to work in order for it to work well for you and your husband. I had a friend whose husband wanted to come home from work, and in the days when everybody still took a newspaper, he wanted his newspaper folded and in this special little newspaper base in the living room. Now to him, and when he came in, he sat down in his chair and read the newspaper for a little bit. It was kind of his reentry thing before getting back involved in family life, okay? So that was what she did. She made sure that he had a little quiet time in his chair with his newspaper when he first got home from work. Now my husband, when he came from work, he wanted the king's welcome. So everybody, including the dog, goes running to daddy and hugs him and loves on him and exclaims over him and then goes back to whatever their activities were and he kind of settles in and does whatever he's gonna do to help with the kids, okay? So in other words, there's no right or wrong in this. It's figuring out what makes your husband feel comfortable in doing that. We already looked at 1 Peter 3. Did I give that to someone else again for this? Yes, you want me to read it? Please. In the same way, you wives, be submissive to your husbands so that even if any of them are disobedient, Okay, so it's not our words it's our behavior and specifically our chase and Respectful behavior out of all the different kinds of behaviors God could have chosen to emphasize here respectful is one of the two So respect is important to our husbands. I If I believe that God is committed to my good because he loves me, that his intentions towards me are good, and that ultimately his plans for my life are good, then my respect for my husband is a commitment based on my trust in God, and it frees my husband to fail as part of the learning process. God has assumed responsibility for us and God will take care of us. Nothing will develop my husband's heart for God and for me, like experiencing failure in some aspect of his life and also experiencing me supporting him through it. Let me give you an example. We had been married maybe a little less than a year. I had a car that my parents had helped me buy right at the end of college. And he had an older car too. So we decided both of, this was when gas started getting really high. And our cars were both gas guzzlers. So we sold them and decided we would buy a car that was less expensive to operate. So he went, he saw a good deal in the paper, went out by himself and bought a car. Well, that car ended up being a pile of junk. It was a manual transmission. The transmission, the housing, or whatever you call it, the part that screws into the floor, came undone. And when we took it through the repair shop, the guy told us that someone had put in all the wrong parts that didn't fit, and that's why it wasn't working. There was no seal. It was a hatchback. There was no seal in the back of the hatchback. So when we took it through the, Car wash with my mother in the car. The water just went right down through the back of the car, just completely. It was a pile of junk. God, in his grace, sealed my lips. I think it was a miracle. Not to fuss about that decision that was made. He was sincere. He thought it would be a good deal. Neither of us had ever bought a car before. It was a learning thing. But nevertheless, it was a debt of a car. Well, a couple of days after we realized that we were going to have to just junk it and try to come up with the money to purchase something else, he came to me and said, you know, I will never again purchase, make a major purchase without including you in on it because he's the big picture kind of guy and I'm the detail person. And when we are working in harmony with each other, it's great because he helps me move forward. I tend to get bogged down in the details, but I can point out stuff that he's missed. So the next car that we bought, we went together and each did our own thing and it was a great purchase. So that was 1975. So I can't tell you how many cars. We probably had, I don't know, 15 cars or something. Who knows if we bought since then. And each one he's included plus other things. He's included me and on the decision. So I gained much, much more by allowing him to make a poor decision and supporting him in it. You know, down the long run, then I would have if I had berated him for making such a dumb decision because he acknowledges that it was a dumb decision and it's interesting to hear him tell the story from his perspective. But so allow your husband to fail, allow him to dream, show him respect. There is nothing that will win his heart more than when he's blown it to see that your respect for him is not based on his performance. That's the way God treats us. That's what we can do for our husbands. Let God work a miracle with sealing your lips like he did mine. Remember, this is God's plan. He's the one committed to making it work. If I think about it, do I really want to plan my own life? Do I really want God to carry out my desires instead of his own? Sometimes what looks like a bad decision is really intended for good in our lives. That's what I've found out. It is a great gift we give our husbands. And if I am not gonna show him respect, just like if I am not gonna show him submission, who do I want to fill that role in his life? Because it is a need that God's created our men with, a need that they have that is created by God. Do I want him to look for respect away from me and our home? No, because there are other places, ladies, that they can find it. but we can actually save our husbands from poor decisions in that area by giving him what he needs ourselves. How do I show respect for my husband? Some of this we've already talked about. Ephesians 4.29, does someone have this verse? Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouth, but only such as is good, build it up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. we can show public honor, especially with our speech. And if you think I'm harping on the whole area of speech, that's because it is so important. We want our words to build up, not tear down, to suit the occasion and to make our husbands look good in the eyes of others. We don't need to interrupt him, use sarcasm, criticize him before others. If he tells a story and uses incorrect details, I don't need to correct him publicly. This kind of speech can become a habit. We just have to learn to think before we speak. I already talked about that. Okay? Proverbs 11, 22. Discretion means knowing when it is appropriate to share something. Avoid gripe sessions with other women. You may choose to share your heart with a close friend, but some things should not be shared with anyone else. There's some things are just for you and your husband to have with each other. Be careful of gossip sessions, which we call prayer. We were in a church years ago and I went to the ladies prayer meeting and basically it was everybody in the guise of asking prayer, sharing their complaints about their husbands. You know, pray that my husband will lead us spiritually. Pray that my husband will do this. My husband isn't doing this, pray for him. Well, besides it being sin to talk about your husband that way publicly, do you think any of those men were interested in coming to church when they knew that everybody there knew their business? No, they weren't. We have to be careful of gossip sessions, which we call prayer. Everybody shared their complaints, and then there was about a five-minute prayer at the end where basically somebody said, and God take care of all these needs, amen, in Jesus' name, amen. It wasn't truly a prayer session. It was letting off steam. I didn't go back. And John, I shared with John what it had been like. He talked with the church secretary, who I was still, in my twenties, then, so I was one of the younger women there. He shared with the church secretary, who was an older lady with grown kids, she went to the next prayer meeting, and when the same thing started, she stood up and said, you all need to go home and fix dinner for your husbands and stop gossiping like this. Proverbs 13, 20. It says, he who walks with wise men will be wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm. Walking on a daily basis with wisdom produces wisdom, but we become like the people we're around the most. So choose your friends carefully. It's fine to have good relationships with your non-believing neighbors, but be careful that the abundance of your time is spent with people who are like-minded because those are the people that you will become like. I'm doing Bible study with my neighbor across the street who's a new believer. It's really exciting to see her memorize scripture and She completes her Bible study every week. She's really growing in her relationship with the Lord, and it's neat to see that. But there's some other neighbors who are nice people, and we are cultivating relationships with them with the hope of being able to share our faith with them. But we do not spend all of our free time with them because He who walks with wise men will be wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm. Okay? Did I give someone Matthew 12, 34? I don't know if I did or I may not have, okay? But basically this says, for the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart. So what is in our heart is going to be revealed in what we talk about. So, uh, in this particular instance, Jesus was rebuking the Pharisees, people who said one thing, but did something else. We have to choose carefully what we are, what is our intake, what we read, what we watch, what we listen to TV, movies, music, books. We have to be careful of that intake because what is in our hearts is going to come out of our mouths. And if I listen to or watch shows on TV where the husband is not respected, that's going to be an influence on my speech. And there's some sitcoms that I don't watch, and they're funny. But they're funny at the expense of the husband. We didn't read our children Berenstain Bear's books because they were always making fun of the father bear and treating him as if he was kind of dumb. I work with my children to make sure that we are not telling funny stories about their dad that would paint him in a light. that is less than respectful. Does that make sense? It's easy to do that. You know, you all get together and you start laughing at dad's little personality quirks or something like that. But really, that doesn't accomplish anything positive. It's just cutting down dad. We don't need to do that. And our children love him. and do honor him. But it's a battle because we live in the world. We constantly have to make sure that the world's influence is not taking over our thoughts. Romans 12, 2 says, and do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind so that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. We have to allow God to renew our minds or we will be conformed to the world. One of the modern translations says, don't let the world squeeze you into its mold. But if you pour plaster into a wet mold and it hardens, then it becomes the shape of whatever that mold was. And that's, we will be shaped by the input that we allow our minds to have. Okay? Doesn't mean when we get together as a family with our kids and our grandkids, we are loud. Some of my kids, when they brought friends home from college, one of them, their friends told my child later on that, you all are like the Brady Bunch. And someone else said, you guys are like a circus. Because we're all laughing and talking. We're Irish. We're all laughing and talking at the same time. And someone doesn't finish a sentence because someone else is breaking in. But it's all done lovingly and happily. But if you come from a quiet family, it can be daunting. Our poor children's spouses had to learn how to join the fray. And now they just get in and participate like everybody else. But the issue is showing respect. And when I show respect for my husband, it overflows into the whole family. If I am not showing respect for my husband, if I'm seeking to manipulate him to get him what I want to do, then my kids are going to pick up on that. And then they are going to start manipulating, too, because they are learning that that's what you do in order to get something done. And I have seen grown children who grew up that way. And as adults, they are still doing the same things. Second Corinthians 517 says, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come. So we are not condemned to be products of our environment or our past. God gives us a new identity and a whole new creation when we become believers. But How much better if we can teach our children the right way to do things and create a positive atmosphere in our homes? And showing respect to our husbands is part of that. Let me add just a few thoughts and then we'll be finished. How do I show appreciation, honor, and preference in public and in private and with my family? Do I make jokes about my husband with others? Do I share embarrassing things he's done? Do I make fun of him? Do I ignore him or refuse his attempts at physical affection? I already talked about that. Do I criticize him or his family and friends? Do I complain about him? And I already stated I have more capacity to wound him with my comments and reactions than anyone else. We can feel better because we've shared a burden with someone else. But it's not what we should be doing. And let me add, don't talk about problems with your husband with your married children, if any of you have older children. Let that just be between the two of you. Don't make your children feel like they are caught in the middle. And basically, just don't correct your husband in public or private. if we do offer suggestions to each other and he'll ask me, you know, what did you think about that lesson? What would you recommend I change or do differently next time? And so then I feel free to offer that. But if it's in the context of showing respect, you can share something like that. But if all he ever sees is you putting him down, putting him down, putting him down, then when you share something, even if it's constructive in your eyes, it's destructive to him. because of the whole atmosphere you've created. Father, I thank you so much for how you so graciously teach us. Father, thank you for your gentleness and your persistence and your patience with us. And I just pray, Father, as we approach this whole area of relating to our husbands and showing our love for them, help us to respond in the way you would have us respond. Build into us qualities of trust and faith in you, help our dependence to be on you, so that we can give our husbands to be free to be the men that you want them to be. Father, thank you for these men you've brought into our lives and thank you that together we are stronger than we could be apart. Lord, I commit this time and thank you for all those who have worked so hard and we pray in Jesus name. Amen.