In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of loving God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. He uses a fishing analogy to illustrate how God's goodness is evident in the beauty of nature. The preacher also highlights the significance of teaching this one thing to our children, rather than getting caught up in theological complexities. He warns against the danger of building our faith on false foundations and encourages believers to focus on being conformed to the image of Christ.

We'll just go ahead and get started. Try. Try to get started. I heard some absolutely amazing stories during our fellowship break. You know, there are certain stories that you will only hear in the state of Alabama. You will not hear stories like that any other place in the world, I can assure you. I laughed and laughed and laughed. Do not let this man take your children out anywhere. Everybody already knows that. No, because I think he would probably act more like a boy than they do. Man, did I hear some funny stories. I've never met a man that's been shot in the head with an arrow that was using a RC cap as a broad point. Or a broadhead. And then run all the way home with it still stuck in his head. The problem is you can't tell these stories outside the state of Alabama because no one would believe you. I've always said, though, there has to be something good about the South if Hollywood hates it so much. It's indeed a pleasure, again, to be here. But it's a pleasure also to look at the concern on your faces. I honestly believe that just a large group of men, Christians, all over this country, we're kind of at a stage where we don't know exactly what's right, but we know something's wrong. And it's not just in the area of family or manhood or children, it's in the area of everything. And that's a good place to be. The dangerous place to be is that satisfied, we're okay place. Everything's alright. But I want to tell you something. God is doing some amazing things in this land. Shaking up churches and shaking up men and shaking up families. And like I said, we're kind of at that point where, you know, I don't know exactly what I'm supposed to be doing or how church is supposed to be or how family is supposed to be. But I know this, there's something we're missing. Something we're not doing or something that we're doing we shouldn't be doing and we need to get back to Scripture. If a group of men like yourself will just make a commitment that if it's in the Bible, we're going to seek to do it, that's a good place to be. Is it in Scripture? Then we're going to seek to do it. And that goes along with the families. Now, when I'm teaching on missions, one of the things that I always teach is that missions is not about sending missionaries. Missions is about sending truth through missionaries. You can send out all the missionaries in the world, but they may be just baptized Peace Corps workers. What we need is truth. What the church needs today is truth. It doesn't need eloquent speakers necessarily. It doesn't necessarily need gifted leadership. It needs truth. Just the plain, simple communication of truth. That's what your wife needs. That's what your wife needs. That's what your children need. The truth is all we have. And the truth is only found in one book. Now, I think one of the greatest problems in Christianity today is this. Although, for the most part, our denomination, other groups, other denominations have come to believe that the Bible is infallible. And that's wonderful. But that's not good enough. It's not good enough. It's not just that the Bible is infallible. The next question we have to ask ourselves is, is it sufficient? Everything that we need to grow in godliness and be the men before God that we ought to be, is it found in the Bible? It most certainly is. Everything a pastor needs is found in the Bible. Everything a father and a husband needs is found in Scripture. It is inspired. It is the infallible Word of God. And it will well equip the man of God for every good work. But we have to take it seriously. We have to listen to it. It's not poetry. Even though it uses poetry. It's not just to elate our souls. Or to feed on it. Or to do it. It's like the preacher who's up there preaching in a small church. And he can see all the way back to the back door in the small foyer. Just a little country church. And he's preaching in the middle of the sermon. A man walks in the back and begins to steal all the coats off the coat rack. And the preacher says, there's a man. He just walked in the back door and he's stealing all the coats. And everyone in the congregation, amen. No, there's a man who's stealing all the coats. Someone needs to do something. Amen. After his service, they all go back. The coats are all gone. And they said, our coats are gone. He said, I told you they were gone. I told you we had to do something. They said, we just thought you were preaching. That when you preach, I don't have to respond. I don't have to obey. I heard of one preacher who stood up and he just had grown tired. I mean, his church was pretty much successful. Everyone, they were asking him to go around and speak in conferences and things like that. And one night, it seemed like the Lord just visited him and seemed to lay on his heart that what he'd done just wasn't pleasing. That the church was built on false foundations. And God began to deal with his heart. And he got up one Sunday to preach. And the Lord had laid something on his heart. And so he goes to church. The music minister gets up there and starts leading the worship. And it was powerful. And then the worship leader said, and now our pastor's going to come with the Word of God. The pastor walked up and he said, love one another as Christ loved you. And sat down. Music minister jumped up and said, well, after that introduction, we're going to have another song and then the pastor's going to come and preach. And they had another song. And then he finished it. Pastor, now come. And the pastor stood up there and said, love one another as Christ loved you. Sat down. He did that for a few weeks. Same thing. That's it. Sunday morning, Sunday night. And he said, after several weeks, he said that. And a deacon on the front row turned around to a deacon on the row behind him and says, you know, I think I figured out what he's trying to tell us. We need to love one another. And they started serving one another and helping one another and visiting one another. You see, when my dad told me to go bush hog a certain field, it wasn't, as David Miller says, it wasn't rocket surgery. It was just, you know, put the PTO on, hook the bush hog up and go mow the field. It's a diesel tractor, so make sure you strain the fuel before it goes in. It just, there wasn't, just go do it. You know, we make Scripture so complicated, don't we? You know, there's a sense, and you know, I'm big about preaching. We need theology and we need truth, and we do. But there's another sense in which we've already got more truth than we'll ever live out. And I think we just need to go back to saying, look, am I obeying? Now, let's go to, first of all, Ephesians, and then I'm going to go to the passage that I spoke about. I'm going to try to cover a lot of ground here. I want to talk about your relationship with your wife. And, actually, another text that's brought to mind, before we go to Ephesians, I want to just run over to Romans 8 real quick. Romans 8, 28. And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren. What is the purpose of marriage? A lot of books today will tell you, you know, Christian books, the purpose of marriage, a little bit of heaven on earth, you know. So many things they tell us. Let me tell you the primary purpose of marriage. The primary purpose of marriage just happens to be the primary purpose of absolutely everything else. Your conformity to Jesus Christ. Now, a lot of people talk about the sovereignty of God today, about the sovereignty of God and salvation and all that, that's good, but what bothers me is I think that we ought to talk about the sovereignty of God in the rest of our life. And what do I mean? Now, I know that humans make decisions. And I know that men make choices. And I know they're real choices. And I know that men can make good choices and bad choices. I believe that. I don't understand it all. But I also believe God's sovereign. And in the lives of His people, even before their conversion, He's sovereign. And He's working. And He works everything together for the good, for those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose. Now, why do I say that? Your marriage has to be based on that fact. It has to be based on the fact God is sovereign. And He has been sovereign in your marriage. Because so many people today don't believe that, so they think that somehow they can get a loophole out of their marriage because they just made the wrong choice. A young couple came to a dear friend of mine out in Texas, who's got quite a wit about him, and they came to the pastor and they said, Pastor, we've decided it wasn't God's will when we got married. And he said, well, maybe it wasn't God's will then, but it's God's will now. Listen, life and God's work is not about you getting your best life now, even though a man who does the will of God will find his best life possible. But it's not about you getting your best life now. What it's about, it's about you being conformed to the image of Christ. You go talk to a brother, a dear friend of mine, who coming back from the mission feel his wife and two children were going to pick him up at the airport. When he arrived, someone else met him at the airport because his wife was killed on the way. You go tell him that it's all about his best life now. You go tell a man whose body is screaming at him with pain every time he moves, and tell him it's all about his best life now. You talk to a man who has married a very, very difficult woman, or a woman who's married a very, very difficult man that's literally put her life through hell, and tell her it's all about her best life now. Or come to her with something stronger. Come to your own self with something stronger. God is sovereign in my life. And no matter what is going on, there's a purpose in it, and God is using it for the greatest good, and that is to conform me to the image of Christ. Now, marriage is just like a calling. It is a calling. It's not only a calling, but the basis of it is a calling. My marriage, the rock foundation of my marriage is this. God has called Paul Washer with an irrevocable calling to lay down his life for a daughter of his named Charo. That's it. That's the foundation. God has called me to lay down my life for a certain daughter of his. That's it. That's the basis of my marriage. Now, you've heard the stories. They don't tell them as much anymore as they used to, about, you know, that man was called to preach, and he's just walked away from the Pope, and he's not preaching. God's going to kill him. You can't deny your calling. Once you've been called to preach, you don't preach, God will kill you. We always hear those stories. Well, I don't know if God will kill him, but I know he'd enter into a time of discipline, that's for sure. But I know this. What makes you think that your calling is any different? You have been called to be a steward of a daughter, God's daughter. Let's say you worked for my company, and you were a young salesman, and you were the worst thing that ever hit my company. I'm probably going to have pity on you, even though you're the worst worker I've ever had, and try to bring you along a little bit. I'm not going to fire you right off the bat. But if you were married to my daughter, and you were the best salesman in my company, 90% of all the income came from you, and you were married to my daughter, and I found out you were mistreating my daughter, I wouldn't care how much my company depended on you. Don't think that your ministry is that important. Don't think that even what you do in the church is this overarching instrument or means by which God is going to judge you. Think about this. If a man worked for you and didn't do a good job, you'd have pretty much mercy on him, wouldn't you? If he mistreated your daughter, well, just realize something. The woman you're married to is somebody's daughter, and that somebody is God. And He loves her with a zeal and a passion that we cannot understand. Pity the man who touches God's daughter. God has entrusted you with a daughter. And it doesn't matter how good she is or how difficult she is. It doesn't matter anything. He has entrusted you with a daughter. And no selfish, self-centered excuse is going to wash. He's given you a daughter. He has sovereignly given you His daughter. And He expects you to do what He commands you to do with regard to His daughter, and that is lay down your life for her. But here's the thing that I want you to understand. You know all these dating services that find you a mate that's compatible? I can tell you right now they're not God's will. Why? Because for the most part it's not God's will to give you a mate that's compatible. You feel better now about your marriage, don't you? You're going, whoa, this is a revelation. Here this whole time I thought I would... No, it's not God's will. By and large, God will give you a mate that is strong in all the areas where she must be strong so that you are not tempted beyond what you can bear. I can say the same thing for her. But God has also given you a mate where He has carefully orchestrated, sovereignly bent over her weaknesses. He has given you a woman who is weak in many of the areas where you most want her to be strong. Now think about this. God has specifically given you a woman that is weak and lacking in many of the areas where you most wanted her not to be weak and lacking. I don't know about you, but this is a great comfort. Now why has He done that? To conform you to the image of Christ. Now when we talk about being conformed to the image of Christ, when you think about Jesus Christ, what are the characteristics that most just pop into your head? What are the ones we sing about? I mean, we don't sing a whole lot about the wrath of Jesus, even though He does have wrath, the wrath of the Lamb. We don't sing a whole lot about these things. What do we sing about? We sing about His unconditional love, His mercy, His compassion, His pity, His grace, don't we? Those are the things that just stand out, and they ought to. Don't think you're wrong. They ought to stand out. Alright, so you becoming like Christ doesn't mean just that you dot all the i's and cross all the t's. It means that you reflect these things that He most reflects. Now, let me ask you a question. How can you ever learn unconditional love if you're married to a wife who meets all the conditions? If you were married to a woman that met every condition that your selfish heart put forward, would you ever learn unconditional love? If you were married to a perfect woman, would you ever learn mercy? Would you ever learn grace? No! Don't you see? God's wisdom is so much greater than ours. The only question you have to ask yourself is what do you want? Do you want what God wants, which is to be made conformed to the image of Christ, or do you want what the worldly man wants? A woman that's five foot ten, weighs six pounds, and has a six-finger salary. What do you want? The perfect woman, the trophy wife, this, that. What do you want? If your heart is right, you want to be conformed to the image of Christ. And so, in these things that the world tells you, your marriage might not be right because there's so much incompatibility. You're not compatible. Your wife doesn't like to do some of the things you like to do. Your wife's personality's different than yours. Your wife may be difficult, almost as difficult as you, and back and forward, and you're wondering, is my marriage even God's will? Have I been stuck with some kind of a thing that really doesn't work for me? Like other guys who get better marriages, and me, I've just got the short end of the stick. Well, if you're thinking that way, I can guarantee it's your wife that got the short end of the stick. But what you need to see is, no, this has been perfectly orchestrated. God knows exactly what you need to be conformed to His image. Now, I don't like talking this way because it kind of lends to the fact that we're these really superior guys who God is working in, and so He gives us a wife that has some problems. But if I was teaching the women, I'd be saying the same thing, don't you see? She has also been given a man who is strong in the areas where he must be strong, that she's not tempted beyond what she can bear, but whose weaknesses are also sovereignly orchestrated, that she might learn to love as Christ loves. This is wonderful, though, because it shows us that our marriages are right. And it gives meaning, not only in those wonderful times when we're just walking together in perfect harmony, but when there's conflict, and when there's problems, and when we feel like, man, there's so much strife, it lets us know this is iron sharpening iron. And God, revealing to us the selfishness of our heart as men, and He's calling us to repent. And when we rail against our wife, when we have problems with the woman that God has given us, we are not railing against His daughter, we're railing against Him. I don't like what you've done, you see? Marriage, it's purpose, if you just see it's purpose, it becomes so strong. Also, if you know that marriage is a calling, then if my wife... See, here's the thing, let me put it this way. Young men will come to me and they say, you know, I'm in love with this girl and I want to marry her. And I say, well, tell me about it. And they say, well, you know, I just love being around her, and she's just so beautiful, and we can talk, and together I feel so good, and I just want to marry her. And so I always say, okay, let me see if I understand you. You want to marry this girl because she meets all your selfish, self-centered needs. Is that what you're telling me? And they go, no, that's not what I mean. That's exactly what you're saying. You want to marry her because she's beautiful. What happens when she's not beautiful anymore? What happens when someone comes around that's more beautiful than she is? And they will. You say that you can really talk with her, so you want to marry her. What happens when you can't talk to her? Or what happens when someone comes around you can talk to a lot better than you can your own wife? Where are you going? You feel good around her. What happens when you don't feel good around her? You feel better around someone else. You see, those are not basis for marriage. The basis for marriage is God has sovereignly called me to lay down His life for His daughter. You see, guys, we have this mindset that it's all about us getting our felt needs met. And so we spend our lives chasing to selfishly feed ourselves. But it is surrendering to the will of God. And in that, finding joy. Now, again, realize, I said this is the basis of marriage. It's the foundation of it. But it doesn't mean that that's all marriage is. I mean, marriage just isn't iron sharpening iron. You're filled with the Holy Spirit and walking with God, you're going to have wonderful blessed times with your wife. You're going to realize that she's a great gift from God. But the point that I'm trying to get across is the foundation is the calling and the purpose. So, if she's beautiful, glory to God. If she's in an accident and tragically deformed, I'm not going anywhere. As a matter of fact, I'm more committed now than ever because she needs me more. If she's easy to get along with, praise the Lord. And if she's not, there's purpose, even in this battle that I'm going through. It's all about being conformed to the image of Christ. And what was Christ? The servant of God. The steward of God. And that's what marriage is about. Now, one of the purposes. We talked about that the man is to dedicate himself to this kingdom principle, to go out and subdue the world, that God's name would be hallowed, that the kingdom would come, that God's will would be done. But where does it start? It doesn't start in a man's discipleship group. It doesn't start necessarily in a congregation. If you're a man and you're married, it starts with you and your wife. If I'm sitting on a plane, and I often do, and someone asks me, what do you do? I love it when they ask me that question. Because I really don't know what I do. They say, what do you do? I say, oh, I'm a husband. And they go, no, I mean, what else do you do? I'm a father. Well, yeah, but what else do you do? If I have any time left over, I'm a minister. Where does my obedience begin? If I'm a single guy and I don't have a wife, it can begin in all sorts of places. But it begins with my wife. That's where it begins. I think a good question for anyone who maybe wants to serve in the church or teach in the church or be a deacon or pastor is one of the questions and accountability things that ought to always be brought up is, are you caring for your wife? Are you teaching your wife? Are you discipling your wife? Because if not, you don't qualify. You just don't qualify. Then it goes on, are you teaching your children? I love it when a church has, let's say, a hundred families in it, and someone asks the pastor, how many staff do you have in the youth ministry? And the pastor says 200, 200 on staff. What do you mean 200? That's a big church, not 200. We have a hundred families, 200 counting fathers and mothers. They're our youth ministry. They're our staff. They're our youth directors. How many women teachers do you have? Well, we have a hundred wives in a perfect situation. Well, we have a hundred husbands. They're the primary ones obligated to teach their wives, not just some woman. The husband. Now, let's look at Ephesians 5. It says in 22, Wives, be subject to your own husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body. Now, we see two things here in this leadership model. We see, first of all, that the husband is the head. You know, where the head goes, the rest of the body goes. The head makes the decisions for the rest of the body. The head is the leader. The head is the catalyst, the initiator. And in a sense, we're to be all those things. Now, this does not mean that I make decisions independently of my wife. Let me just put it in this, just a brief scenario. If we have to make a decision that affects our entire family, I'm not going to make it without talking to my wife. Now, if I talk to my wife and we're not in agreement, that's immediately a red flag for me. Because I trust also the sovereignty of God in the woman that He's given me. I've seen her life. I know she's godly. So, if my wife's not in agreement, that's a red flag for me. And if possible, what I'm going to do is I'm going to wait on making that decision. I'm going to pray with her. We're going to go over it. And I'm going to stall as long as I can until there's some unity. Why? I really respect the woman. And I'm going to wait until there's unity. But let's say that a decision finally has to be made and she's still not in agreement. It's my responsibility to make that decision. After doing everything I can do. But if I'm pressed into a corner and the decision has to be made, it's my job to lead. Now, if I make the right decision, I don't come back to her and flaunt that right decision. And if I make a wrong decision, she does not come to me and nag. Because she's realizing how difficult it is to be a man. And to make these difficult decisions. So, when I talk about leadership, I'm not talking about the model of the Roman Empire. I'm talking about the model of Jesus Christ. He leads. He leads. But oh, what a compassionate, loving, gentle leader. What a leader, so concerned with knowing what's in our hearts. So concerned with us. So when we talk about headship, the problem here is only when we confuse the two kingdoms. When we talk about being a leader like the Roman Empire, like the Caesars, and the men of great power who had teeth of iron and trampled on people, that's not the model of Jesus Christ. But meek and lowly, binding himself with a towel. Knowing that he had all authority, knowing where he came from and where he was going, he girded himself with a towel and he served. You use your authority not for your own benefit, but as an open door to greater sacrifice for the benefit of your wife and your children. You make decisions for the advancement of the kingdom of God and the benefit of your wife and your children, no matter how much it's going to cost you. You don't make them for yourself. You don't. You don't. The advancement of the kingdom and the benefit of your wife and children. Now, he says here, not only headship, but look what he says. He himself, in verse 23, being the savior of the body. There is a real sense in which the husband should be the savior of his wife. Or let's put it, Savior, not in capital letters, but in small letters. We know that Jesus Christ is the Savior. But we know that when it talks about Jesus as the Savior, he has saved us in the past tense from the condemnation of sin, and he is saving us right now from the power of sin and sanctifying us, and one day he will save us entirely when we are glorified with him in heaven. You, in a sense, are to be, in a sense, a savior of your wife. Her life, because of you, should be more godly, should be more joyful, should be more prosperous. That the work of salvation is advancing in her life, and it is advancing at a much greater pace because God is using you as an instrument. You're not an obstacle to the saving work of God in her, but you're an instrument. She's becoming more whole, more complete, more beautiful, more assured in Christ, because of her life with you. Do you see that? Whoa, that's big, guys. We hear these testimonies, men getting up and say, you know, I am so fragmented and broken, Jesus made me whole. Could your wife say that she's becoming more whole because of her relationship to you? She's more complete. She's more like Christ. And let's not forget, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy. There's more joy. She's just freer. She's more secure, not in her self-esteem, but in the love of Christ and in the love of her husband. You see? We're to work. Now, this is not something that just kind of happens. But you're to work. You're to work at being a leader. How can you be a leader unless you know God's will? Because the only road map is God's will, His Word. So in order to properly direct your wife, in order to properly be a head, you have to saturate your life in the Word of God. And in order to be an instrument of salvation, you yourself must be constantly conformed more and more to the image of Christ. You see? This is big stuff, guys. This will take up a lot of time. A lot of time. Now, let me stop here. Let's not make this mistake that I've been hearing lately. I hear men who really start taking their family seriously. And then they say, I'm taking my family seriously and I just don't have as much time for church. But here's my problem. They still have time for golf. They still have time for all their extracurricular activities. Why is it that church is always the first thing that goes? In the book of Acts, they were meeting almost every day. Now, I know that isn't necessarily the standard, but what I'm saying is this. There's always these extremes. I know men who are all about the church and they neglect their family. I know men now because people have become more concerned about family who've dedicated themselves to discipling their wife and their children and they've totally abandoned the church. Both of these are wrong and they're unnecessary. We have a function. We have commands with regard to our wives and our children. We must obey them. We have commands with regard to the community of faith and we must obey them. And the will of God is perfect, which means you don't have to neglect one aspect of His will to fulfill another aspect of His will. You can do everything He wants you to do. If you cut something out of your life, the last two things to cut out of your life is time with your family and time with the people of God. If you have to cut things out, cut everything else out. But you won't have to. You won't have to. Now, He goes on and He says in verse 25, Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her. Now, notice here that He doesn't tell or command women to love their husbands, even though we know that they should. That's not the emphasis. What does He say? The women should submit to their husbands and respect their husbands. But it says the husbands should love their wives. Now, what's going on here? What's going on here is the wisdom of God who knows us better than we know ourselves. Guys, I don't know about you, but I do not need my wife calling me three times a day telling me that she loves me. I don't need her sending flowers to the office telling me that she loves me. I just don't need that. I don't. But she does. What do I need? I need her respect. I need her honor. If the whole world comes against me, they got signs out there down with Paul, I wake up in the morning, the whole yard is filled up with people who hate me. That's not going to mess me up that bad. But if I know my wife doesn't respect me and doesn't honor me, that's something a man cannot bear. As a matter of fact, your wives need to be taught that the greatest thing they can do to promote your godliness is to honor and respect you, even when you don't deserve it. But see, your wives aren't like you. They need not only your love, they need it affirmed, they need it told to them, they need it repeated. Don't come to me with these spiritual things, you know. Oh man, I just need to be in God's Word and I need to hear every day how much He loves me. Well, good. So does your wife. She needs to hear it from you. Well, my wife knows I love her and I'm just not that kind of guy. I know you're not. Repent and change. It's that easy, isn't it? Just repent. You know, that's what this whole thing's about. Repent. R-E-P. Now, also, she's not like you. You know, I gut a deer and all the guts. Look at that design. It looks kind of like the state of Minnesota. She doesn't get excited about stuff like that. I don't get excited about going to the mall. As a matter of fact, last time I went to the mall, I bumped into a church member and I went like this. I put up a frame in front of my face and I said, you know what this is? And they said, what? A picture of Paul Washer in hell. I don't like going to the mall. My wife stops and she sees something there with clothes and stuff and I don't know what it is about my right leg. My right leg just starts going like this and starts trying to get out of the store. But I've got to bring that right leg into submission and realize my wife likes this. I've given her five dollars. I've told her not to spend it all in one place. She is in there. She's in there for five hours looking at something she knows she can't buy. I don't understand that this is what she wants to do. And it's okay. At least in part. The question is not, what do I like to do? The question is dying to myself, what does she want to do? How can I bless her? How can I lead her? How can I just, for no apparent reason, demonstrate love? Do you see? She needs that love. She needs to hear it. She needs to hear, I love you. Now let me just throw this in. Just really quick. There's a few young guys in here, but if the only time you hug and kiss your wife is either before or after sex, I want you to know you make your wife feel cheap. I just want you to know that's the way she feels. She needs you to hold her hand. She needs you to hug her. She needs you to be intimate with her without having sex. Two. Is that all it is, is a prelude to something? I mean, do you see what I mean, men? You say, well I don't need that. I know you don't. And I'm glad you don't. But she does. She does. She needs that. There is a sense, and the feminists who hear this tape are going to become very, very mad, but there is a sense she was made for you. She desires you. She wants your attention in a way that you can't really understand. That's what compassion is about. That's what thinking and putting her first is about. Do you see that? You're to love her. You're commanded to love her. Now how? Husbands, love your wife just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. Now, here's where we're really going to learn something. Now we're running out of time. Here's where we're going to learn something. He gave himself up for her. That was the expression of his love. Now, how are you to do that? Guys, whether we know it or not, or want to admit it or not, we live for ourselves. We get off work. We've got this built-in mentality. I have worked. I need to be able to rest. I need to be able to do some things I want to do. And that's true. Sometimes we need that. But you need to realize something. When the 5 o'clock whistle blows, the will of God has not been done for the day. You need to think about her. What does she need? What do your children need? We kind of have a rule in my house. It's a rule I made. And it's this. I'm gone. I try to leave for work really early in the morning so I can come back around 5 o'clock. I come back at 5 o'clock. The children are mine. Until I put them to bed. The children are mine. Now, if she wants to spend that time cleaning house, if she wants to go walk in the park, if she wants to talk to an adult, because that's what women need. When they're stuck in the house for 8 or 9 hours a day and all they're doing is talking to 4 year olds, they get a little weird. They repeat themselves. Hello, hello, stop that, stop that, stop that. They have to learn, once again, to talk to adults. So the rule is, come home, they're mine. They're mine. They're just mine. I saw good missionaries come off the mission field because their wives had nervous breakdowns. And it wasn't because their wives weren't godly. It was this. The wives were there in the mission house 24 hours a day. The missionary, yeah, he had to struggle and everything, but he was outside the house. He was visiting people. He was talking to adults. He was going to the hardware store. He was buying tires for the jeep. He was witnessing to people. All sorts of things. He was out. The woman was just in the house, in the house, in the house. Now I'm a firm believer that a woman ought to be in the house. If she has young children, she ought to be teaching those children. But at the same time, when I come home, they're mine. They're mine. But what about your friends? I have friends, but I don't get to do much with them. What about your free time? Children are not a burden, guys. It's not like at 5 o'clock I have to check into a slave labor camp. The children are a joy. The children are a joy. And my wife, my 6-year-old is this tall right now. I don't know what happened. He's some kind of a giant or something. And sometimes I'll still pick him up and carry him a little bit. My wife goes, what are you doing? He weighs 80-some pounds. And I go, I'm carrying him because in 2 more years I won't be able to. It goes that fast, guys. It goes that fast. Look, fishing is really great. But don't sell the soul of your boy for fishing. Golf, tennis, hunting, time with the boys, NASCAR, whatever. Those can all have a good... Don't sell your children for those things. Don't do that. And believe me this. I'm not talking about a monastic lifestyle either. I believe that God gives His children good things. And if we'll obey Him, He'll give us tons. And we can enjoy them. The children are yours. And you've got to be creative. If you live in a suburb or you live somewhere in a little backyard, you've got to be creative. And fathers, I'm not just talking about the boys. The girls need you just as much as the boys do, if not more. They need your love. They need your affection. They need to go out and do things with you. And when you go to bed at night, you'll go to bed tired. But you'll go to bed a man of God and with that peace. And again, come on, guys. We're not of the world. We don't believe children are a burden. We don't believe marriage is a burden. Remember, we're Christians. We buy into those lies. And they are lies. Now, I want you to look at something that's very important. Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her so that He might sanctify her. Now look, dying for your wife, giving your life away for the benefit of your wife does not mean that you lay down and do everything your wife wants to do or that you give your wife everything that she wants or you direct your home according to your wife. It doesn't mean that you lay down your life just to spoil this woman. He laid down His life in order to sanctify her. So you laid down your life in service to her sanctification. It doesn't mean you go, Honey, here's the credit card. Go out and, you know, make yourself happy. It doesn't mean that you say, Honey, yeah, go ahead and go out with those ladies, you know, when you don't approve. It means that you lay down your life so that in the end when she stands before God, when she stands before God and hears, Well done, my good and faithful servant, you serve her for her sanctification. You don't serve her so that she can just go out and run free with the lust of the flesh. And so there's times when you're going to have to tell your wife no. But it's not no because of your preference. It's no because in the Word of God it says no. And that same Word of God that you're applying to her, you apply to yourself. So you are working for her sanctification, that she be more like Christ. Honey, I've been noticing that you're on the internet too much, writing your friends and things, and in your free time you're not getting out, you're not exercising, you're not doing productive things that might help you, you're not in the Word. This needs to stop. You see what I mean? Now you're not some kind of thundering dictator, but you are a compassionate leader, and you are loving and firm. And let me say something about this. A woman who knows that you're living for the will of God, and that you're laying down your life for her benefit, and that many times you have given up privileges and rights for her benefit, when you have to say no, she's going to more take that into account. But if you're living as a selfish, self-centered man, who organizes the entire family for your own blessing, and you lay down the law on her, she's liable to rebel. Now if she does rebel, that's wrong, but your sin is in there too. You see? And so we're laying down our lives so that she might be sanctified. And then look what it says, it says, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the Word. What does your wife need? The Word of God. You can read it together. You can discuss it together. And I'm not talking about an hour-long Bible study every day where you preach to your wife. I'm talking about the Word of God being preached to both of you. You know, and some other time maybe we can discuss this, but with my discipleship with my boys and things like that, it's not like an hour a day. I pick up five and ten minutes here. Maybe at the end of the day. I pick up time here. And then I'm always looking for opportunities. Because we have to be very careful. A lot of men, I know a lot of men that are very legalistic, very domineering, and a lot of times unconverted, they will grab truths in Ephesians and use them to kill their family. Because they want to be domineering. They're just wicked men. This Ephesians 5 sets the platform for us to die to self. To serve our families. And we do it by the Word. Everything has to do with the Word, guys. Everything. There's just no other place. It's the Word. Saturating with the Word. Saturating our children with the Word. Now, we'll look at something very important in verse 27. That He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she would be holy and blameless. So husbands ought also to love their own lives. Now, look at this. What is Christ doing? Christ gave His life for the sake of the church. To redeem the church. He rose again from the dead, and what is He doing? He's constantly working. He's working on behalf of the church to sanctify her. To make her holy. To make her beautiful. And what is the purpose of that? So that one day He can present the church to Himself and she'll be totally pleasing. You see that? That's your job also. Let me put it this way, gentlemen. If after 10 years of marriage your wife isn't pleasing to you, you failed. We lay down our life. We work in the sanctification of our wife through the teaching of the Word, that the Word would mold her. We invest our life in her so that when she's presented before us, she's pleasing to us. It's the same way with children. I see parents that get so disgusted with their children. Their boy is 15 years old and is an absolute idiot. I mean, he's just an idiot. He is. He's 15 years old. He's an idiot. The father goes, my son's an idiot. I don't know what's wrong with him. He's just immoral. He's this or that. I say, stop. How much time did you invest in your son? So that you could present your son to yourself when he came of age and he would be pleasing to you. Now we have to be careful here because there are some excellent biblical parents whose sons have turned into immoral fiends. And there are some parents in churches that were utter failures as parents and yet their sons and daughters turned out to be glorious missionaries for Christ. So I don't want you to think that a successful or biblical parent is one whose kids always come out right. You're a successful biblical parent simply because you've sought to submit your life and your family to the Word of God. But at the same time, remember this. You complain about your wife not being what she ought to be. You complain about your children not being what they ought to be. But how much have you invested your life in them so as to present them to yourself as something pleasing? Guys, this family thing, it is a lot of work. It's a lot of work. A tremendous amount of work. But it's good. It's good. It's good. Now, he says, So husbands ought also to love their own lives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church. Now, I want to put an error away, a heresy away. And that is this. We ought to love our neighbor as ourself. We know that. We ought to love our wives as ourself. So the psychologist comes back and says, If you don't love yourself, you can't love everybody else. That's not what Jesus is teaching. Jesus is not teaching when he says, Love your neighbor as yourself. He's not teaching you that you need to love yourself more so that you can love other people. Listen, you do not have a problem with loving yourself. Okay? If there's one commandment you got down, it's that you're in love with yourself. Okay? You don't need any more love. You're drowning in love for yourself. What he's saying is not that you need to love yourself more so that you can love others. He's just pointing out a fact. Men love themselves, but you need to love your neighbor that way. That's what he's teaching. Okay? So none of this cycle battle. Well, you know, I just don't love myself enough. If I go out and buy myself a bass boat, then I'll be able to love my wife in a greater way. That's not what he's teaching. Alright? He's saying you need to love her. You are one with her. You can never be whole apart from her. You just can't. She's unhealthy, you're unhealthy. If you're unhealthy, she'll be unhealthy. You see, everything's riding on you. Marriage, someone should have talked to you before you said, I do. Because now you have put yourself in a terrible predicament. You're going to stand before God. We have a thing in Peru. I've heard people say many times that a man who does not take seriously his biblical responsibilities as a father and a husband is like a blind man driving a speedboat down the Amazon drunk in the pitch black night, which is deadly. The Amazon, the deadly thing about the Amazon is you're going around there and there may be a tree this big around, four foot in diameter, submerged a foot under the water. I can't tell you the nights I've stood on the bows of boats hanging on just by a rope and telling the motorista, telling the guy driving the boat, izquierdo, izquierdo, to the left, to the left, derecho, derecho, to the right, to the right, guiding him off of those things. Because you run up on him, it's over. A friend of mine, a couple of friends with me one time came down from the States and they were in the boat and they were terrified. It was midnight and we're going down the river and they all put life jackets on. And I said, guys, get those life jackets off. They said, why? I said, if we wreck this boat down the middle of the Amazon, the last thing you want to do is survive. Oh, look at the floating bagel, the alligator said. You see how dangerous it is? You want to throw yourself away, go ahead and do it, but now you're going to take a wife and children with you. And that is what we need to see. We need to see this. And so he concludes down here. He says, verse 33, 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. A lot of times I like to teach men and women together because I want to put before them something. This obedience to God. It's not just unconditional love or commitment to one another. That's not going to sustain you. But unconditional obedience to the commandments of God. You must understand how much your wife needs your love. She must understand how much you need her honor and her respect. I know of a woman that after a dinner at her house, if you walk up to her and you say, this was just marvelous. The table, the dinner, everything. That woman will stand there and she will say, thank you very much. I've done this for the honor of my husband. She lives to honor her husband. That's amazing. That's amazing. Now I wanted, we're going to have to close here, but I wanted to get around to the children which is so very important and the passage that I was telling you about which is Deuteronomy 6. We're not going to go there, but that should be the focus of everything we do in the home. We teach our children, yes, but with what goal? Not that they become legalistic Pharisees. Not that they necessarily become missionaries or preachers. Or that they know more Bible verses. We teach them that they might love the Lord their God. Recognize that the Lord their God is one and they might love Him with all their heart, all their soul, all their strength. Okay, we'll run there really quick. Let's go to Deuteronomy. And this is what gives clarity. This gives so much clarity here to where you're supposed to go. So many times we get all these little commandments that are so important. I don't like to use the word little command, but we get all these little commandments without really knowing the direction of the whole thing and we just get confused and boggled down with a whole bunch of little intricacies without knowing what the big picture is. Why as men are we teaching our wives and teaching our children? In Deuteronomy 6, we'll just start in verse 4. Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God. Boy, just get that truth across to your wife and your children. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. There's one God here in this house. He says, the Lord is our God. Now, this in even disciplining and training children is so very important because you are not... If the child thinks you're imposing your rules upon him, then it's just one human imposing their opinions on another human. Do you see that? But if your child knows that you are simply dictating the law of God to them, the same law to which you must submit, everything changes. They can't use that on you anymore. They can't say, well, you just want to run everything like you want to run it. Just because you're the adult you can bully me. Well, this is just your opinion. This is just the way you want to go, but I'm not like you. I have my own free thinking, my own way of doing things. And if it's just your opinion against theirs, it's just two humans with their opinions and no moral authority. But if you start out with the Lord is our God, what I'm telling you I can go to text on. And it's the same thing, son, to which your father has to submit. This is not my opinion. I didn't create these rules. They're his. You see the difference? Then there's authority. It's like preaching sometimes. You know, I preach a lot and I really don't like watching me preach or hearing me preach because I see things, and I'm not talking about just to be humble. I see things that I really don't like a lot of times. What I think is passion comes out as anger sometimes. It really does. And I would like to develop more of a way of, instead of like this, looking right at the congregation and going right to them as though it was me speaking to them, I would like to turn sideways almost and go to the congregation. Did you just hear what he said to both of us? And that's the way it is with the children. It's not, Son, this is what I'm telling you to do. It's sitting down beside your son looking to God and saying, that's what God's telling both of us to do. So if you question my authority all day long if you want, this has little to do with my authority. That changes everything. So the first thing we establish in our home is the Lord is our God and the Lord is one. Now that means a lot of things. I think it can even involve the persons of the Trinity and all that. But our purpose here is that we are consolidated under one Lordship. Under one God. As this nation was. It has departed from many gods now. The one true God is the farthest God from us. But when it's consolidated, monopolized, there's only one God here. There's one Lord. His voice, His word, that's what we're going to submit to. That's what Joshua was all about when he says, that's for me and my house. But men, we know this. And as preachers, we know this. But as preachers, do you know we're called upon to preach a standard that many times we ourselves cannot live? You know that, don't you? A young man asked me, how can I preach the Word of God without being a hypocrite? I said, you preach the Word of God and you're not a hypocrite if you admit to the people that you struggle to obey these same commands. Take nothing away from the fact that we're called to do it and there's no excuse. Okay? So what I want you to say is that when you're going to set your children and set your wife under this supreme authority of God, you set yourself there. And when you fail to obey this God, make it known. Be willing to go to your child and say, I have not so much child, I have failed you. Even though you may have to say that. You got too angry. You may have to apologize. But you need to always focus it on this. Child, I have failed God. And I have made it right with Him. I want to make it right with you. Alright? Because as an authority, preachers can do this, politicians can do this, dads can do this. Anybody who has authority is going to have a tendency to do this. And that is, preach to everybody else, but feel like you're not bound to keep it. One of the ways that preachers fall, especially those who have some bit of so-called success in the ministry, is they begin to feel like they're somehow special, almost like God's spoiled rotten brat. And they don't have to keep the same rules everybody does. They're somehow above that. So you need to realize that this statement you're making to your family is a statement that they must see you submitting to. Now, what is the goal of everything? You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. Dad, what do you want from me? Son, I want you to be a preacher. I want you to be a missionary. I want you to be this. No, no, no, no, no, no. I tell my sons, and I pray to God in front of them, God, I don't care whatever you want to do with them. You want them to be janitors, you want them to be missionaries, you want them to be carpenters, you want them to be... I don't care. I want them to love you with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength. This is the goal. Here's what I want you to see. That's why he's talking about later, putting this on the doorpost, talking about it all the time. Look at this, guys. Christianity, in one sense, is not that complicated. Everything we do and everything we communicate, every activity should be all focused on one thing, that people might love the Lord their God with all their heart, with all their soul, with all their mind. Daddy, why do we have this Bible study? That you might love the Lord your God with all your heart, your soul, and your mind. Congregation, listen. We're going to have one goal here. It's not going to be to win the world. It's not going to be to have the biggest church. It's not going to be anything but this. My one goal is this, that we as a people love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, and strength. It simplifies things. It's solid, isn't it? It's just good. It just cuts away all the fluff. We're not a church that's running and gunning and growing and blowing and doing all these things, even though God may want us to do many things. We have found the nugget. We have found the true goal. And it's to do this. Son, this is what it's about. Son, it's not about rule keeping. It's not even primarily, son, about morality. It's about loving the Lord our God. And everything we do is this. Now, I want to show you something. This is in the context of education. Do you realize this? There is no education. All education is false unless it has as its primary goal to lead a person to love the Lord their God with all their heart, soul, and strength. I'm not even talking about mathematics. There are mathematicians that were just Pascal, for example, to do these complex equations and see the order in creation and the glory of God in it. To pass through a complicated mathematical formula and fall on your knees and worship a God of order. That there are rules to grammar is evidence that there's a God. Do you realize that? And that's why our educational system is so wrong and you can't fix it. Because it must have as its end that God, that we love Him with our heart, soul, and strength. Everything. And that's the way your house is to be focused. And now, let me stop there. This is very, very good. This part. You know, when I go around and preach, I have people who say, some people say, man, you're real strict and you're a legalist. But most of the part, a lot of people who come to hear me preach, after they get to know me, they go, man, you're not strict enough. I mean, people have rules. I mean, people just have all kinds of rules about Christianity. My wife didn't wear a skirt down to the floor. This, that. I mean, there's just all this crazy stuff. I don't think that a whole lot of this stuff matters. I think that clothing, yes, there are certain rules in Scripture. Decency, not sensual. Things like that. But we major on so many just little things that don't matter anything. When the whole thing comes down to what? Love the Lord your God. Recognize He and He alone, Him and Him alone as Lord. And love Him with all your heart, soul and strength. To have my boy watch me while I'm out in the woodshop one day, just kind of looking at his daddy. And all of a sudden, I start thinking maybe about a truth or how God had saved me back when I was younger and delivered me from so much wicked death. And I just start crying and raising my hands and saying, Hallelujah! Maybe dance a jig across the barn lot or something. That will do more for him than a ton of rules that God never meant to impose upon anybody. It's just like I catch some flack because there's a group of inner city rappers in Memphis and Philly and Chicago that I go up and teach them. I mean, these guys, I know about rap and everything, but people are getting saved. Gangbangers are getting saved. They're rapping the Westminster Confession. And I'm going, and people say, I go, there's life. I'm not going to deal in all the tiny little nuances. I'm going to deal in the fact that here's a bunch of young people who are going into the inner city where I would be terrified to go and they're preaching the Gospel in a correct and biblical way. And people are getting delivered and saved from prostitution and drug addiction and everything else. I'm not going to major on the minors. These people have taken their children and their families and their wives and moved into the worst part of town to be a witness. I don't know if I could do that. I'm not going to major on all these little things. Just look at a person and say, does he love the Lord? I'm not going to say he's too poor. I'm not going to say he's too rich. I'm not going to say he does this and he does that. The only thing I want to know is there life in him? Does he really love God? And that's what we want to convey to our children. Not a religion. Not God cooped up in this building and we let him out every Sunday. And no matter how hard the pastor preaches, he cannot prove otherwise unless what's preached here is carried out there into your family. Because that's the only place those children are going to see that what goes on in here is really real out there. You say, well, the pastor just needs to preach. No. He doesn't need to preach. You've already got enough preaching. You need to live. Isn't it amazing how you can get caught up in doing all these little things and see them as so important? Like the Pharisees dividing the mint and tithing on this herb and this spice and all these things. And then all these other things, the weightier matters of the law like teaching your children, being focused on teaching your children to love the Lord with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength is totally a million miles from you. Isn't it amazing? I don't know about you, but I can see that in my life. I will major on so many things that just don't matter. Now, he goes on and look what he says. In verse 5, Love the Lord your God with all your heart. We're going to end here. Your heart, with all your soul, with all your might. Now, guys, this is a verse. In my Bible, it's three lines. I don't know how many words are here, but I know there's not more than 20, I don't think. He's not giving us the Westminster Confession here. He's not giving us the 1689 London Confession. He's not giving us Grudem's systematic theology to memorize. He's given us one thing here. It just tells me if you get this one thing right, everything else will fall in place. And so these words, what words? That you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might, that the Lord is our God, the Lord is one, those things. He said these words, which I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons. You shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. You shall find them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. You shall write them on the door posts of your house and on your gates. Now, I want you to look at something. We will have every kind of book on raising children. We will go to every expert in the world on how to do this and that. We got all kinds of programs from Sunday school and everything else and God told us to do one thing and probably we've never done it. He said, I told you, I told you. I remember one time Dad told me to rake a certain field, just one field because right there I could rake it because it was on a high hill and it rained a couple of days prior but on that high hill with the wind the hay was dry. He said rake it. I raked everything else with that field. He got so mad at me. You raked up hay that's wet. It may be ruined. We can't bale it. We're going to have to scatter it all back out. Hopefully it will dry. We'll turn it over with the rake again tomorrow. I told you to do one thing and you did everything but the one thing I told you to do. If any of you have ever lived on a farm you know you've done the same. I don't know what it is about boys but we just get it wrong. We're so terrified, you know, when Dad tells us to do something we don't listen. Look what he did. He said, okay, this is what I want you to do with your children. I want you to teach them that there's one God and He's Lord. And I want you to teach them to love this Lord, this God, with all their heart, soul, and strength. Now this is the way you're going to do it. You're going to tell them about this, this one important thing, to love the Lord their God when they get up in the morning, when they go to bed, when you're walking in the way and when you come back in the house. This is going to be your emphasis. Daddy, what am I supposed to do? Son, love the Lord your God. Daddy, Daddy, look, I got a fish on. The bobber went under. I got the bobber under. Reel him in, son, reel him in. Can't reel him in, so he just turns around, puts a pole on his back and runs straight up the bank. Three pound bass comes flopping right out of the water. Daddy, look at this, look at this. Son, isn't God good? Isn't God good? We should love Him with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, son. Isn't He good? Daddy, look at the sunset. Son, let's praise Him. Who painted that thing? You see, it's not just, I believe in family devotions, but if all it is is a family devotion, it's a work of death. Look, you only got to teach Him one thing, guys. Isn't that glorious? I mean, sure, you're going to take them through all the Scripture, but you don't have to get bogged down. Man, I ain't that smart and I don't know theology that good. Did you understand this one text? That if over the next eighteen years or how many years you have with children, this is the one thing you teach them to do? What more do they need? What more do they need? The older I get, the dumber I get, because I see how complex I've made everything. It's frightening. I look at the Pharisees and think, how could you know you had what? I've heard somebody say, and I don't know how true this is, I'm not an expert in Pharisaical law, but there's something like 627 commandments for the Sabbath or something. I mean, they have a rule that you can't spit on the ground on the Sabbath because your saliva will hit the dirt and roll up and it's like plowing. And you'll guard that, but you'll crucify the Messiah with our children? I mean, guys! And see, this is just everywhere. It's every day. A lot of our children have been raised in front of television sets, and they've been raised playing video games, and they don't have calluses on their hands, they don't have scratches, they don't ever get poison ivy, their skin is almost like ivory. Get those boys out. Teach them. Get those girls out, but teach them. Everything is about the Lord. Everything. And it's so wonderful. It is like ripping the lid off of the tomb and filling it full of light. Everything now has meaning. And that's why I love what Michael Card wrote one time about discipleship. There is a joy in the journey and a light we can love on the way. There is a wonder and wildness to life and freedom for those who obey. Let's pray. Father, I come before you and I ask, Lord, that you would take these truths and implant them in a greater degree in my own heart and in the hearts of my brothers. And, Lord, that we will not take this and twist it into some legalistic mechanism to enslave our families, but that it will change us and that out of us they will see a desire to love the Lord our God Lord, help us not to concentrate on straightening out our wives or straightening out our children. Lord, help us to concentrate on straightening out ourselves and just be an example of this spring of life that bubbles up in a man when the Lord is his God and he loves the Lord his God with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength. In Jesus' name, Amen.