Indeed, this is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. And we will do that at this time by continuing to worship our God and opening up His Word. So I do invite you to do just that. And for those of you who are visiting, we have been systematically working through the book of 1 Peter. And this morning we find ourselves in 1 Peter 3, verse 7. We've spent the last two weeks working through verses one through six in the directives and instructions given to Christian wives. And now we are going to consider verse seven. So if you can find in your Bible, first Peter chapter three, verse seven. And if you're looking on a pew Bible, you could find that on page 1015, 1015. So let's give our attention this morning to the reading of God's word. One verse. Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered. That's Father reading of God's word. The grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of our Lord stands forever. Let's ask the Lord for help this morning. Father God, we thank you for this gorgeous morning that you have given to us, Lord. As we often say, it reminds us of your divine power. The sun and all its boldness and brilliance is yet a creation of your hand. Your handiwork, as the psalmist says. And Father, we pray this morning that with that same hand, that hand of sovereignty, that hand of might, that you would reach into every one of our hearts and cause our hearts to be soft, to listen to your word. I especially lift up to you my brothers and even my own heart this morning, Father, that as we listen to this word that is specifically tailored by a pastor some 2,000 years ago under the divine guidance of the Holy Spirit to Christian husbands, that, Father, we would have ears to hear and eyes to see, that, Father, I pray this morning we would not, as foolish men, fight against your Word. We are apt to do that, Father, and we pray that you would forgive us for such fighting. Father, we want to fight against anyone who would harm our family. We want to fight against sin within, but Father, may we not fight against your word, especially when it calls us to give honor to you in how we honor our wives. Father, give us grace this morning. May the river of grace pass through this place in such a way that buckets and buckets are picked up by your spirit and applied to our miserable hearts. For your honor and your glory, we pray, amen. Well, for a period of about four years, my wife and I, as many of you know, were members of a small church in California that we helped plant. This was many, many moons ago. And during those four years, if you were to have gone to my wife and asked her, Christina, what is your favorite day of the week? She would, without wincing, say it was Wednesday. You might ask why? Thursday, okay. Live with your wife in an understanding way. Thursday, that's right, it was Thursday. And you might ask, so that's a funny day of the week to be your favorite day. Why was it Thursday? Well, the reason why is because on Wednesday evening, every single week, I would get together with a group of men, some of them pastors, some of them members of the church, and we would have a brief time of prayer, and then we would have a time of accountability. A time of accountability where there would be no holds barred questions asked about any area in each and every one of our lives and inevitably the conversation would come around to the question, how are you treating your wife? And I thank God for those times. I thank God that there were men in my life that cared so much about me, cared so much about my marriage, and more importantly, cared so much about the testimony of Christ in my life and in my marriage that they had enough guts, if you will, to ask the hard questions. And can I just say as an aside, it's a good thing to have men of valor in your life, men, who are willing to speak into your life. And that's a dangerous thing to do. It's a very dangerous thing to speak into the life of another man with the Word of God. Even though the Word of God is clear on some things, yet we have sinful hearts and we often fight against it. But these men spoke into my life. My appreciation for my wife, my love for my wife, my gratitude for my wife, my awareness of the many little things that she did in my household throughout the week and throughout the month were exalted through the roof on those Wednesday nights such that when I went home and went to sleep and got up the next morning, I had praise to give to her, I had gifts to give to her, and she loved Thursday. Thursday was her favorite day of the week. And it is very easy within the rhythms and routines of life for husbands to overlook the tremendous gift and blessing that we have in our wives whom the Lord has given us, isn't it? It's easy for us to just assume things. The man who gave premarital counseling to my wife and me told me something that I'll never forget, and my wife has certainly never forgotten it. He said, men tend to be, and by the way, this is bad English, bad grammar, but I'm gonna say it anyway. Men tend to be conquerors and mover honors. And he told us that in the context of premarital counseling because that's exactly what men are apt to do. In those early days of dating, our wives, we can't get enough of her. We think about her every moment of the day. We shower her with gifts and notes and whisper sweet nothings into her ears. But then when the wedding band is on, we forget that wooing still plays a part in marriage, doesn't it? It's an ongoing thing. She doesn't cease to be your helpmate. She doesn't cease to be the love of your life. She doesn't cease to be your romantic and lifelong partner. She is a woman. who needs a man to love her. And so understanding honor and service still play a central role in the marriage long after that ceremony that you had at the beginning. Now this is true of any marriage, but in the context of 1 Peter 3.7, there's also something else going on. Not just cultivating a fertile and strong and stable marriage, but there's something else going on that's just as important as a healthy marriage. In the context of the whole book, Peter exhorts us that no matter what relationship we find ourselves in, whether it is our relationship to governors or bosses or wives, we as Christians are to put on display, listen, the saving work of God in Jesus Christ so that a watching world might be attracted to us. So it doesn't just stop in your work. It doesn't just stop in your submission to government. It doesn't just stop in your treatment of your children, but it continues in how you treat your wife. People see how you treat your wife. They take note of how you treat your wife. And you know what else they take note of? that you have the sign of baptism upon you, that you have the name of Christian upon you. And I've told you time and time again, what does it mean to be a Christian? It means to be a little Christ, a follower of Christ. And so when you have, I'm a Christian and I'm a husband, people put those two things together and the way in which you treat your wife, they catalog in your mind, well, that must be how Christians treat their wives. And so it is a very high calling, is it not? So turn back just a page, you might not even need to turn your Bible to 1 Peter 2, 11 and 12, because Peter gives a sort of opening salvo for this whole practical section of what our witness is to be and why in all of these relationships. And he says in 1 Peter 2, 11 and 12, Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. So it's loving your wives, honoring your wives, living with your wives in an understanding way is much more than just the benefit that comes out of that and how it contributes to a healthy marriage, but it also has to do with your witness in the world. And so husbands, I have a question for you this morning that I want to try and answer from the word of God. And here's the question, it's very simple. How do you live as a married man in such a way that you cultivate two things, marital joy and put on display the transforming work of the gospel? So I wanna consider that question and the answer that the word of God gives us to that question under three headings this morning. And the first one is this, a preliminary consolation for husbands, okay? So let's just consider this for a moment because I know, I know, I've been where you're sitting before where marriage series are given from the pulpit and there's a sermon for the husbands and a sermon for the wives, maybe sermon for the children and it could be tough. It can be tough, and what we need to remember is that Peter is speaking not simply to husbands as husbands, but to husbands as Christians. He was speaking to Christian wives, and now he's speaking to Christian husbands, and that's why the first word you see in 1 Peter 3, 7 is likewise. He's turning his attention to Christian husbands. Now, why am I making a big deal of that? Because we should not pass this over with giving it its due worth. As Christian husbands, he is assuming that they possess all the benefits, privileges, and graces of life as a child of God that enable them to do the two things that he's gonna call them to do. Live with your wife according to knowledge and honor them as a co-heir of the grace of life. Now I know that if you're like me, husbands, you don't have a perfect track record in doing that. I know that if you're like me, you sometimes get frustrated in the fact that you don't have a perfect track record. You get frustrated that your wife, even if she does so in a very loving, caring, and respectful way, will perhaps sometimes come to you and say, hey, can we talk about this? Can we talk about how you speak to me? Can we talk about how you speak to me in front of the children? Can we talk about the fact that you don't really let me have a voice sometimes in the decisions that are made? And that can be frustrating. But we need to remember that through Christ, God has given us, and listen very carefully, a grace-produced motive inclining us to obey and a grace-produced power enabling us to obey. So Peter is not coming to you this morning, dear congregation, and specifically dear men, as a marriage counselor, or Tony Robbins, or a life coach, or a motivational speaker who is telling you to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and just get it done. Just do it in your own native strength. That's not what Peter is. No, he comes to us, first of all, as an apostle of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And it is in that gospel power, which has already transformed you from a miserable worm to an heir of the grace of life, and has given you the Spirit of God to enable you to do these things. There's no magic here. I'm not going to give you five steps to a happier marriage. I'm going to give you the gospel this morning. And then in the context of the gospel, I'm going to give you an imperative, a command that Peter is giving. And what I want you to remember is that you have the gospel grace to carry out this command for the glory of God and for the good of your wife. So I have a question for you this morning, man. Another question. as you've been anticipating coming to this passage, because you've known that it's coming, what has been your attitude? What has been your attitude as you know that we're coming to 1 Peter 3.7? You've sat through two Sundays of the Word of God speaking directly to women, and hopefully you were mature as you were listening to that. But has it been one of eagerness? Have you had an attitude of eagerness as we've anticipated 1 Peter 3.7, or has it been one of dread? Have you considered going on vacation this week because you knew that the section of husbands was coming up and you didn't want to deal with it? Here is what your attitude ought to be. Whenever I understand more fully the demands of the Christian life, listen, it is to the end that I may know more of the glory of the grace and strength of Christ to meet that demand. That is what your attitude should be this morning. That's why Paul could say in Philippians 4, 13, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. That's why he says in Philippians 2, 12 through 13, work out your salvation with fear and trembling. Direct command, you husbands, you wives, everyone, work out your salvation with fear and trembling. But then he comes on the backside and he says what? For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. God is working out His plan of redemption in your life, and He's not done, husbands. He's not done doing that in your life. He's not done doing that in your individual life, and He's not done doing that in your marriage life. The demands of the Christian life are ultimately demands not upon our pathetically weak and perverse humanity. but upon the grace of God toward us in Christ. So when we anticipate more our duty in the Christian life, we can also anticipate more grace from God to carry out these demands. So that's the first preliminary, I hope, word of consolation to you husbands. What we're going to consider this morning, yes, it is a challenge. In a post-fall world, it is a challenge to live with our wives according to knowledge, but God is gracious and He is faithful to give you the grace. And I just wanna encourage you one last time, go to the gospel, go to the cross, go to the foot of the cross where there is an unending, eternal fount of grace bubbling up for you to harness for God's glory and the good of your wife. Now the structure of this verse is very simple. Peter gives two commands. The first one is, live with your wife according to knowledge. And he gives a reason for it, because she is the weaker vessel, and we're going to look at that in a moment. And then he says, honor your wives as co-heirs of the grace of life. So two commands, and then he gives a crowning incentive in the last part of verse seven, so that your prayers may not be hindered. And here's what we're gonna do over the course of this week and next week. This week we are simply going to deal with the first command, live with your wives according to knowledge. And the next week we'll deal with honor them as co-heirs of the grace of life and the crowning incentive. So let's look secondly now then at this command in verse 3-7a. Live with your wives according to God's creative blueprint. Live with your wives according to God's creative blueprints. Now, the text says in your ESV translations, likewise husbands live with your wives in an understanding way. Now, literally in the Greek, what it's saying is live according to knowledge. Live or cohabitate according to knowledge, okay, as unto the weaker vessel, the wifely one. Okay, that is a very wooden, very literal translation. And what I wanna ask this morning is what does he mean by live according to knowledge? Well, I would submit to you this morning that what he's getting at is not necessarily or primarily the knowledge of your wife, though it does include that, but what he's saying is live according to the knowledge that God gives about your wife. In other words, and we see this in the verse, live with your wife according to how he has designed her. And one of the ways he has designed her is as the weaker vessel, and we're gonna touch on that in a moment, but I think that that gives proof that what he's getting at here is live according to the knowledge of God in how he has created your wife so that your cohabitation with her will be pleasant. So that's what's going on here. Live according to God's, as I've said, creative blueprint for your wife. Now, who has he made our wives to be? And it says in verse seven, a very controversial thing, it doesn't have to be, but he says, live with him according to knowledge as unto the weaker vessel. Now, is Peter being demeaning here? Is Peter being disrespectful? Well, no he's not, and let me tell you why. The word vessel is often used in the Bible to refer to both men and women. You see in Romans chapter nine, that great chapter that talks about election and predestination and the whole golden chain. Well, after chapter eight, the golden chain of salvation. But chapter nine, he talks about vessels for honor and vessels for wrath. He's talking about all people as vessels. But not only that, He calls her the weaker vessel, which if you know anything about grammar, that's the diminutive, which means that she is weaker than someone else. Well, who do you think that is? That is the husband, which means to say the husband is also a vessel. So both men and women are vessels, but now in this context of marriage, he's saying of the two vessels, one is weaker than the other, and he is pointing to the wife. Now, furthermore, we might wanna ask the question, to what is this referring then? In what way is she weaker? Perhaps you've had that question. I remember sitting in my New Testament Greek class in seminary, and we were going through the book of 1 Peter, and we came to chapter three, verse seven, and I was very much anticipating my professor telling me what it meant, because I had long time had questions about what it meant, and we got there, and he just frankly said, after sighing for a long time, I have no idea what this verse means. I was about to go to the registrar's office and see if I can get my money back for that course, but I didn't. But what does it mean? What does it mean that she is the weaker vessel? Well, Paul actually gives us some help. Because Paul, in 2 Corinthians 4, 7, he talks about us as vessels or jars of clay. He says we have these treasures in earthen vessels or jars of clay. It's the exact same word that's used. And what is he getting at? He's saying we have the gospel inside these vessels. What do you think vessels are? It's our body, you see. And so Paul gives us some help in steering our focus of weaker vessel to the body of the woman, her physical makeup. And so with many commentators, I would submit to you, commentators both ancient and modern, I think it is clear that weaker vessel here refers to her physical strength. So he is not saying that she is morally inferior. He is not saying that she is spiritually inferior. He's not even saying that she's emotionally inferior. After all, he used Sarah as an example of a fearless woman, a fearless woman of God who submitted to her husband when he did stupid things. Women have to do that all the time. So I don't think that they're emotionally inferior. Women are not emotionally inferior to men. In fact, at the birth of both of my children, it was not my wife that cried, it was this guy right here. And my wife had to slap me and tell me to pull myself out of it and help her breathe. Okay, so women are not emotionally inferior to men. So I think this refers to her physical makeup, and I just think it's just scientifically proven that women are physically weaker than men. Now, we all know that there are exceptions, okay? My first CrossFit instructor was a female. and she could do a shotgun squat at the drop of a hat. You know what a shotgun squat is? It is doing a squat with one leg. I'm not gonna do it because I'll fall down. But I guarantee you, by the way, my CrossFit instructor is here today, I guarantee you that most men in this congregation could not do a shotgun squat, but she could. And we also think of women bodybuilders and on and on and on. But by and large, it is the case that women are physically weaker than men. It's just the way the Lord made us. And you know what? The world has savagely exploited this weakness in a woman. And Peter's saying very clearly and very explicitly here that ought not to be the case with you men. The men of the world exploit this in a thousand different ways, but you Christian men, you are not to exploit this. You are to care for her tenderly as the weaker vessel. So the man is to protect and nourish his wife. And this is where, this is where the concept of an egalitarian 50-50 marriage just falls flat on its face and shows itself to be utterly unworkable. When a husband and wife are lying in bed at night and they hear a window break or a door crash in, what needs to happen? Does the husband look at the wife and say, you know, last time it happened, I got it. So you need to get up this time and do it. No, I don't care if she has a third degree black belt in jujitsu, hopkido, and karate. You are the one that needs to get up and go face the intruder. This is what it means to be a protector. And if you get knocked out, then she comes with a third degree black belt and she can take care of it. But first, you need to go. Her physical position, her physical state, however, is only one example of how she is different than you. And listen to me very carefully. Your wife is different than you in a variety of different ways. And as a God-fearing, scripture-believing Christian, we accept and appreciate and celebrate the differences between women and men, do we not? We want to see differences in men and women because that's how God made us. We expect it, and we not only see it as wrong for men to act like or try to become women, and women trying to act like or become men, but we think it's contrary to nature itself. So men, take that appreciation of the differences between men and women and apply it to living with your wife next time she processes disappointment differently than you. Keep that in mind, keep in mind that yes, we want distinctions. Men and women, they're different, they function differently, they act differently in different contexts. Keep that in mind, okay? When you have a really bad day at work and maybe you process it by going for a run or I don't know, punching a punching bag or whatever, but she may process it crying. She may process it by wanting to talk. And don't expect her to process it like you do. Many of us men, we encounter a problem and what do we want to do? We want to solve it. I've learned not to try to do that with my wife. Oftentimes I've found that when my wife is grieving over something and she shares it with me, she wants me to understand her and not necessarily fix the problem. This is living with your wife in an understanding way. This is trying to understand how she ticks, trying to understand how she operates, trying to understand what her likes and dislikes are, trying to understand how she approaches different things in life and catering to her and tailoring your words, tailoring your actions, tailoring your tone and your body language to what would make her happy. So this is what it means, I believe, to live according to knowledge with the wifely one, the weaker vessel. But now, finally, let me just give you, in trying to flesh this out and massage this out, let me try to give you six practical ways to live with your wife according to knowledge, okay? Six practical ways to live with your wife according to knowledge. We here, for you visitors at Grace Covenant Church, we believe that the Bible is not only to be taught, and that it's not only to direct us to Christ, which I hope we've done this morning, but it's also meant to be applied. And we here in the ministry of the word work hard during the week, not only in our study, in opening up the word of God, but on our face before the Lord and thinking about you. Not generic Christians, not what Christians are doing over in China, but Grace Covenant Church in thinking how this text can apply to us. And so consider these six, it's not the only things we could say, we could say a lot of things, but consider these six ways in which husbands let me encourage you to live with your wife according to knowledge. First one's this, change your hat before you come home. Husbands, after you've put in a long day at work with all the stress and challenges that come with it, it's important to disconnect from work when you come home and take off your worker hat and put on your husband hat, put on your father hat. Say you had a really tough day at work, you messed something up royally, your boss chewed you out, you worried you might lose your job, or perhaps you had to deal with an unruly employee and this employee is threatening to retaliate in some way. Perhaps they're slandering you, and you've got pressure weighing you down, but now you come home, and if you have small children, they are needy and they are clingy. Perhaps they're whining and complaining. Your wife is feverishly trying to get dinner on, and what are we tempted to do? We're tempted to take our aggression out on our family, and especially, especially our wife. And oftentimes we don't even realize that that's the reason that we're doing it. But we all know that they don't deserve that. What they deserve and need is their father and husband to come home and to tend to them as a tender shepherd. Some of your wives stay home. and some of them have small children. You know what that means? I'm not telling you anything you don't know, but it's good to be reminded. What that means is that they've been dealing with poopy diapers all day, urine on the bathroom floor, Cheerios strewn all over the floor, and two-year-olds, four-year-olds, six-year-olds, whatever, who have been talking to them about two-year-old, four-year-old, and six-year-old things. You know what they crave? They crave adult conversation. Don't they? Now you've been talking all day at work to what? Adults. And I think they did a study that men have so many words in a day and women had so many words. I don't remember the figures, but it's something like men have seven to 10,000 words in a day and women have like 15,000. But you get home, men, and you just want, what do you want to do? You want to check out. You want to take that remote control, you want to sit on the couch, and you just want to be hermetically sealed off from the rest of life. Well, guess what, that's not real life. That's a simulation that doesn't exist. And what your wife needs is she craves adult conversation. She craves you to get up and help. She craves for you to be the husband and the father and not the worker. And so one thing that a man told me many, many years ago that has stuck with me and I, I found it to be useful is as I'm driving home from work, I'm already starting to deprogram. I'm taking that hat off and I'm putting my husband hat on. I'm putting my father hat on and I'm getting into the mindset of being a father and a husband to my family. And it doesn't happen right away, right? It doesn't come with just a click. It's kind of like in the morning when you're waking up and you start the coffee and you get that cup of coffee and you need about 30 minutes or so to kind of ease into the morning, right? You don't want anybody to talk to you, just leave me alone, I'm trying to wake up. That's the same way when you transition from your worker hat to your husband hat. You need time. And so as you're driving home, make that transition. When you get into the driveway, just stop, turn the car off and just pray, Lord, Help me to be a man of valor as a husband and a father as I go in. And you know what I found to be really helpful? Just, and this is especially for those of you who have little children, just expect chaos. If you expect chaos, then when it comes, you're just gonna be like, yeah, I saw that coming. But if you expect everything to be perfect and in order, you are going to be, you're gonna gravitate toward aggravation. So the first thing is change your hat before you come home. Here's a second thing, a second suggestion for how you can live with your wife according to knowledge. A professor once said, you haven't said thank you to your wife for dinner until you've helped her with the dishes. I know I'm meddling. There's a little poem that goes like this. I don't know who wrote it, don't really care, but it goes like this. The wife says, I like hugs and I like kisses, but what I really want is for you to do the dishes. My wife read an article that explained the difference between men and women. This study measured the cortisone levels of men and women during different activities. And cortisone levels, just for sake of clarity and brevity, kind of equate that with stress, OK? Cortisone levels, stress, they measured them. And a high cortisone level indicates, as I said, high stress. Low cortisone level, low stress. When a man sat down on the couch and watched TV or something, read a book, whatever, their cortisone levels lowered. When a woman sat down, they didn't lower. It wasn't until the wives saw their husbands helping with the kids, doing the dishes, taking out the trash, that their cortisone levels lowered. Keeping house is a full-time job. And for many women, I dare say most, husbands communicate their love to them in a most vivid way when they actually help out around the house. This is a very practical way that you can live with your wife in an understanding manner. It's not simply, it's simply a fleshing out of that first poetic piece of the Bible, she is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. Some of you have wives that work. And what you need to remember is that just as you've been in the grind of work all day, so has she. And so when she comes home after the grind of work, and you come home after the grind of work, and you just have this latent expectation that she does everything, are you not putting more on her than she needs to have? And can we not help them out? So secondly, you haven't said thank you to your wife for dinner until you've helped her with the dishes. Here's a third way. Third way to live with your wife, according to knowledge. I'm gonna expand this a little bit to the family. Remember that family time is the fertile soil out of which your children's marriages will blossom. Family time is the fertile soil out of which your children's marriages will blossom. Family time is important, and throughout the week, most of us, we just don't get much of it, right? And that's normal, like a man's gotta provide, he's gotta go to work, he's gotta pay the bills, that's expected, but those few hours of family time with your wife and children, they are critical, listen, critical venues where you are forming and fashioning the bond of familial love and the expectation of what your sons and daughters will look for in their spouses. It is in those times, husbands, that you are, whether you realize it or not, giving your young boys an example of what it means to be a husband. So if after dinner, you just kind of slip off into the room and you're just looking at the internet and hours pass by and you're not with the family, your son is going to say, that's what a husband does. Husband doesn't help mom. Husband doesn't help the family after dinner. Husband doesn't help out around. And so now when they get married, they're gonna take that expectation into the marriage with them. You are instilling in your young daughters an expectation of what they will look for and expect in a husband. It's no secret, is it not, that women tend to desire in a husband someone who conducts themselves like their father. What expectation are you giving your young daughters? The whole point is try to think outside of the now and think of the future. Think of what you're cultivating for examples in the life of your children. Fourthly, be slow to criticize your wife and do it with extreme care. This is a two-way street, right? None of us are perfect. I remember the title of, I think, Dave Harvey's book, When Sinners Say I Do. And the title says it all, right? When you get married, you're marrying a sinner. And that should set you up for what to expect. But there are times, husbands, and yes, we need to address something with our wives, but be careful how you do it and be careful when you do it. I'll give you an example. My wife and I love to host people. And sometimes when we have people over, again, we have a four-year-old and a two-year-old, so things are just crazy. Sometimes after hosting, I have some quips with how the hosting went. And in the past, what I've done is as soon as those guests leave and the kids are in bed, I bring before my wife, okay, we did this wrong, we did this wrong, and we did this wrong. And my wife has very gently, sometimes not so gently, but I needed it, but very gently said, you know, could you give a little space between, maybe three days from now, bring those concerns to me? And that really resonated with me as a preacher, because there's a similar dictum in preaching, and that's if you wanna criticize a sermon, wait till Thursday to do it, not Monday. But if you're gonna criticize your wife, do it in a wise manner. And can I just give you one more thought? Smother her with affirmation before you get to the criticism, right? If you can build her up in all the wonderful things that she has done and then say, no, just one thought that I can contribute that I hope that you will take with humility and with an instructive heart and take it as constructive criticism, she's going to receive it a little bit better. Be slow to criticize your wife and do it with extreme care. And then number five, which is similar, praise your wife. Praise your wife. Give her words of affirmation. Give her texts and flowers and give her service. And I hope by now in your marriage you know what the love language of your wife is. What does that mean? Every woman, every man too, but every woman receives love in a different way. Some women receive love by acts of service. Some women receive love by gifts. You give them a gift, they get that you love them. Some women receive love by words of affirmation and praise. Some women receive love by just time. I just wanna be around my husband. We could just be looking at the stars at night after the kids go to bed, and we don't even need to say anything, but just that time next to him in his arms, that speaks and communicates love to me. Husbands, you know what your your wife's love language is. If you don't. Pursue that with your wife. How how do I communicate love, honey, to you? How do I communicate it to you in such a way that it just bam, it just comes off the page? Praise your wife. And then finally, finally, if your wife is saved, look at her through the lens of Christ's spotless perfection. At the end of the age, we will all congregate around the table for the marriage supper of the lamb. I can't wait. And do you know how God describes for us his bride? We read it in the response of reading, Mr. Crawford led us. Do you know how he describes his bride? As clothed in fine linen, Revelation 19, eight. Bright and pure, for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints. Wow! I don't know about you, but when I look at my life, and even the life of my wife, I can't say that our robes are spotless. But when Christ looks at us, when God looks at us, He does not see the blemishes, He does not see the errors, He does not see the fits and starts, He sees the spotless perfection of His Son. Christ's work takes precedent over all our failures and our shortcomings, and this is the gospel of Jesus Christ. As filthy as you are, as imperfect as you are in parenting and even your obedience, characterized as it is by fits and starts, the almighty God of creation comes to you and says, despite your failure, I will cover you with the spotless robe of my dear Son. Christ loves the church so much, and husbands, that is what we are called to do. He has given us a paradigm. He has given us a pattern. He has given us an example. As Christ loved the church, so husbands love your wives. So would you be courageous enough to live for her, not only in the heroic things, but in the mundane things, the dishes, the taking out of the garbage, the putting down of the toilet seat, in all these seemingly mundane things, you showcase to your wife and to the world a man whose heart has been captured by the grandeur and beauty of a loving Savior. May the Lord give us grace and help to love our wives according to knowledge for His glory and His honor. Let's pray. Father God, as you know, the old Puritans would often talk in the confines of a sermon of fire and ice, fire and ice. The fire of the law with all its seemingly impossible demands, and the ice and salve of the gospel, which not only covers our imperfections, but gives us the ability and the motive and the inclination to carry out your law. Father, we have heard fire and ice this morning. And Lord, I pray for each and every husband here that you would give us grace to, as it were, turn over a new leaf this morning. that as we take stock of our marriages, we take stock of how we speak to our wives, and treat our wives, and the tone with which we speak to them, and the way in which we love and caress them, or the absence of that, that Father, you would put a fire within our hearts to emulate the love that your Son has for the church in the context of our marriage, and not just for the well-being of our marriage, and not just for the witness of the gospel in the world, but Father, so that we could put before our children a living, breathing picture of the gospel. Father, help us to do that in the strength of the Spirit, not by might nor by strength, but by the Spirit of God, says the Lord of hosts. Give us grace this morning, Lord of hosts, to do that. We ask these things in your Son's name, amen.