What He Must Be - Marriage Conference Part 2

It is good to be back, you know. Interestingly enough, I was watching all of the political action back in two thousand and four, and I just got to kick out of one particular instance. You know, Arnold the governator, he was making his run in two thousand and four, the governor of California and everything, and he you know, came and spoke at the Republican National Convention and all. And it was funny to listen on talk radio after that, all these people saying, man, we just we ought to get Arnold to run and oh wait for president and all this. And regardless of how you feel about that politically, and how you feel about him politically, that's not the point. The point is that these radio folks over and over and over again had to explain to people that, you know, that's that's fine, and I'm sure Arnold's glad you feel that way. But there's this little obstacle in a way of him running for president. It's called a constitution. See, he wasn't born here in order to run for president. Constitution says he has to be born here. He can go be the governator. Don't have to be born here to be the governator. But if you want to be a president of these United States of America constitution says has to be born here, to which people would usually respond and okay, since when do we pay attention to that thing? But interestingly enough, that is not unlike what we're dealing with here today. God has laid out for us what a godly husband ought to look like, what a godly man ought to look like, what the requirements are, what he must be, not what he could be, not what would be nice, but what he must be if he's going to be qualified to be a husband. As the father of a teenage daughter, I have a daughter who's sixteen years old. This is near and dear to my heart, and these are things that I have been sharing with her, she would say over and over and over again, because it's so incredibly important. The Bible outlines for us clearly what any man must be if he's going to call himself a husband. And unfortunately, in many instances, in a very large number of instances, women who love Jesus, who want to follow the Lord, who call themselves Christian, are either ignorant of or willfully abandon these biblical principles about what he must be. And I want to share with you this morning. The top five reasons that women abandon these princes and go forward and marry men who are unqualified from a biblical perspective. Five top five reasons. Reason Number one lust lust. I know he's not what the Bible says he ought to be, but he's just fine. I had to have him. It's the reason number one. He just he just does something for me, just and we ignore those biblical qualifications because of whatever reason, because of whatever it is that we're attracted to. There's the second reason, reason number four, desperation. Desperation, get desperate. You know, young women start out, you know, about age fourteen, and they're thinking about their husband and they want him to have Spiritually, they want him to be kind of a mix between you know, Billy Graham and Mother Teresa, you know, spiritually, just all of the spiritual package. And then physically they want him to be a mix of you know, Dnjel Washington, Brad Pitt, Sean Connery and Vote Bacham or something. You know, Yeah, I know, Brad Pitt's too short to be on that list, but that wasn't supposed to be that funny. But physically, you know, they want all these characteristics, and so when they're fourteen, they're looking for that whole package. They're still single. Around twenty four, it just turns into I just really want a good ugly man. They're still singer around thirty four. Okay, if the brother knows where a church is, and we start moving toward desperation and ignore the biblical standard, reason number three, there's time invested. There's an investment that they feel like they can't give up. You see, we have young women, you know, as young as fourteen, fifteen, sixteen years old, who give themselves away to young men. He's my boyfriend, I'm his girlfriend, and they have these intimate exclusive relationships with one another, and they enter into these intimate exclusive relationships that are incredibly dangerous. They're dangerous. Why are they dangerous? I've told you before. It's dangerous when you enter into those relationships like that, when you're not ready to satisfy those relationships through marriage. It's sort of like going shopping without any money. Either you're gonna leave frustrated or take something that doesn't belong to you. Those are your only two choices. And they get involved in these relationships early on, and then sometimes they have somebody that they've been dating since they were sixteen or seventeen, and they look up and they're twenty two, twenty three, twenty four, and it's like, I've invested a huge chunk of my life into this individual, and no, he doesn't qualify biblically, but I'm not just gonna throw away this investment and try to start all over again. So just because of the time that's invested, they ignore the Biblical mandate. Number two materialism, materialism. No, he may not be all of those things that the Bible says he must be, but he'll provide a good life for me, and that overrides all of those other requirements. Number One mysticism. Mysticism. This is far and away the most common reason given, the most common excuse given for not obeying the biblical mandate. You know, well, no, he may not be all those things as the Bible says he's supposed to be, but I prayed about it and I have a peace about it. Help you, let me see if I understand this. God states something clearly in his word. You disobey his word, but it's okay because you and God worked out your disobedience. Or this one, this is one of my favorites. What I did was, I just said, Okay, Lord, if you don't want me with this guy, just close the doors. God didn't close the doors, so I just kept walking through the doors. Wonderful doesn't work. Imagine if you will. You know, here, I am my son, and I are going back to Houston to night, and we're in the airport and a woman starts eyeing me, and I pray, Lord, if you don't want me to pursue her, just close the door. That door closed seventeen years ago. Amen. God's not the only one open doors around here, folks. And so that whole idea. You know, I'm just gonna keep on moving forward. And if God doesn't do something to absolutely force me against my will to not pursue this thing, then he must be saying go for it. That's what I got for you. I get letters and emails from people all the time on this subject, on this issue. Yes, I realize that he's supposed to be blah blah blah blah blah blah, this, that and the other. And then I get all of these sort of spiritualized mystical reasons for overriding a clear biblical mandate and that dog won't hunt. There are some things scripturally that a man simply must be and I want to share this with you from this perspective. I want to share this with you as a father, and I want to tell you like I tell my sixteen year old daughter. And if you're here today and you're a woman who's not married, just for these next few minutes, I just want to stand in the stead of your father and talk to you like him. If you're a man here today and you're looking for a wife, I won't want to let you eavesdrop on what it sounds like when a man who is intent on standing in his role as a father. As a father, my role is to be priest, profit, provider and protector for all of those in my home and for my daughters. What that means is as a father, I am not allowed to give her away to a man unless and until I have found someone who can take my job as priest, profit provider and protector. If I give my daughter to a man who cannot uphold all four of those things, that means I have failed because God commanded that I take care of those four areas. So I absolutely refuse under any circumstances as a father to compromise when it comes to giving away my daughter. So I said, man, you get the eavesdrop. You get to hear what I'm saying to my daughters, so that you know whether or not you need to even bother me. Not that I would do bad things to you, but my daughter is one of the few things in this world that could make me start a prison ministry immediately. Ephesians chapter five, Phesians chapter five, beginning of verse twenty five. Fijians five, beginning verse twenty five. Husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the Church and gave himself up for her, so that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that he might present to himself the Church and all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she would be holy and blameless. So husbands ought to love their own wives 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, because we are members of his body. For this reason shall a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. That all sound familiar, because that's exactly what we read last week in the Genesis two passage. This mystery is great, but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the Church. Nevertheless, each individual vigil among you also is still love his own wife as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respect her husband. You remember we looked at those two purposes last week. That first purpose, that purpose of procreation, which we said was more than just bringing children into the world, but bringing them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. That second purpose was illustration to paint a picture of the relationship between Christ and his Church, which is precisely what we see here in this text. Now, ladies, if you're paying attention, I know you're astute Bible scholars. You know that what she must be what we're talking about next week, is in the verses that precede these verses. It's before, ladies first, right, not we get to you last. We finish up with you that way. I don't have to come back if I make you mad. No, we do it this way. Because we really cannot understand the wife and her role in the marriage relationship unless and until we get a picture of what it is that God has called husbands to be and to do in this relationship that mirrors the relationship between Christ and his church. And it's summed up in one word, and that word is headship. Headship. God calls men to be the head of their marriage, and the head of their family and the head of their home. Now we may not like that word, but here's the deal. Somebody's got to be the head. Anything with two heads as a monster, we either need to put it behind glass and stare at it or kill it. Okay, no two heads here, there's one head. And God has called men to be the head, to be the leader in the marriage relationship and in the family. Now, men, before you stick your chest out and pound on it, me, mind you, woman, Me speak you obey. No, Wait a minute, wait, just like last week, but I told you, don't run and get married till you get finished with the series. Here's my deal. Don't you try to exert your headship right now until you finish hearing what I'm talking about, because if you do it, you be in trouble. How are we to lead? First of all, we're to lead in love. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also love the Church and gave themselves up for her love. From a biblical perspective, not from a cultural perspective. Culturally, we are completely wrong on love because we have bought into the Greco Roman myth of romantic love. Now, the Greco Roman myth of romantic love says love is an overwhelming force, an uncontrollable force, and when this force comes upon you, there's nothing you can do about it. The symbol of the Greco Roman myth of romantic love is Cupid, and when Cupid hits you with his arrow, you're done for. And that's why when we talk about this Greco Roman myth of romantic love, we use phrases like this thing is bigger than both of us. You have to see it like that. To her, it doesn't work. You know, we don't choose who we fall in love with. I like that news flash, and then you fall intil you climb out of amen. Or how about this one, it's my favorite. I don't understand it at all. The heart wants what it wants. Okay. Those all represent the Greco Roman myth of romantic love. The problem with the Greco Roman myth of romantic love is that that kind of love is completely insecure. If love is just this overwhelming, uncontrollable force, no marriage is safe because who's to say that you won't be walking down the street. Cupid's aiming for the guy next to you who doesn't have a wife. You've already got one. Bam, he gets you. What are you gonna do? Peg, Look, love you, and I love the kids and everything, but I'm not coming home because this thing's bigger than both of us. We don't choose who we fall in love with. The heart wants what it wants. Can you send me my stuff? It's ridiculous, but that's how we operate in our culture. It happens all the time, and people look at you like, you know, I'm sure you understand, you know, I just it's a love thing. No, that's not love. That is a Greco Roman myth. It's a lie that we've bought into. The problem with that kind of love. By the way, when we buy into that kind of love, that's why a lot of people get scared when they have their second child, because if you believe that love is just this overwhelming, uncontrollable force. Here's the question you have to ask, Are we gonna love the next baby as much as we love this one? But ever heard that question before? People always ask that question our adopted child and whoever we're getting ready to adopt next. People are always asking do you I mean, do you guys ever worry that maybe you won't, you know, love this baby like you love the other? Why do we think that way? Because we've bought the lie and we believe that love is an overwhelming, uncontrollable force. And if it's an overwhelming uncontrollable force, we've just got a hope that we get zapped with the second child as much as we got zapped with the first one, or we get zapped with an adopted child as much as we get sapped with a biological child. It just doesn't work. But biblical love, on the other hand, is different. The kind of love in which husbands are called to lead is biblical love. Now, for the sake of time, let me just give you this definition. It's derived from Deuteronomy chapter six and Matthew twenty two. Jesus is quoting Deuteronomy six when he's asked about the greatest commandment, love the Lord your God. In Deuteronomy six, love the Lord of God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength. Jesus, however, adds a dimension. He adds the dimension of the mind, because the Hebrew word that's translated as heart there in Deuteronomy six encompasses this idea of the mind. Well, when you put those words together, and when you put that picture together of how Jesus and Moses have told us the word to love God, he basically gives us a definition of biblical love. And here it is. It is an act of the will accompanied by emotion that leads to action on behalf of its object. I'll say that again, Biblical love is an act of the will to choice. We do choose. It is an act of the will accompanied by emotion, not led by emotion, not void of emotion, and it leads to action on behalf of its object. That's biblical love. We do choose. It is an act of the will. And so if we're looking for or an individual for a man who leads in love, who leads in biblical love, we're looking for a man who loves this way a man who loves first of all and foremost as an act of the will. It is not whimsical. And so if you're running too a man who falls in love every week with a different woman, he's missed the mark. Okay, it is an act of the will. It is something that we control. What we're looking for is the kind of man who understands what it means to love biblically as an act of the will, a choice secondly accompanied by emotion, accompanied by emotion, which means that it's not led by emotion, Ladies, amen, not led by love that's led by emotion. It's fickle. Love that's led by emotion is a roller coaster. Love cannot be led by emotion, hear me, especially if we got teenage girls in the room. Y'all have this disease. I don't know what the name of the disease is other than who I love him because he's hot, iteis. But it's just you know, it is completely led by emotion. I love him. Do you know him? Nobody? I love him? Have you ever met him? Nobody? I love him? No wrong. It is the act of the will accompanied by emotion, not led by emotion, and it's also not void of emotion. Man, this emotionless love thing. And I might mess it up for some guys in the room, But here's the deal, this whole. You know, I'm just not an emotional man. Sell that somewhere else. I'm not believing. I can't believe, ladies, that you let men get away with that stuff. I'm just not an emotional man. Because here's what I know. If he's on the golf course and he shanks one, he doesn't stand there and say it seems to have hit that one poorly. When he's watching a ball game and his team's getting beat like a tied up goat, he doesn't just sit there and say, oh, they appear to have far more points than we do. At this time. We are incredibly emotional about things that matter to us. Biblical love is an act of the will, and it is accompanied by emotion, and it leads to action on behalf of its object. In the words of that great theologian Janet Jackson, what have you done for me lately? Biblical love acts on behalf of its object. And so a man who leads in love is a man who leads by the will, who leads accompanied by emotion, a man who leads basically thinking first and foremost about the object of his love and what is best for the object of his love, that is biblical love. And so, first of all, headship leadership in the family context means that we must lead in biblical love. And so the first thing that he must be is a man who leads in biblical love. That's not up for discussion. He must be that. Secondly, and if you're wondering about the sort of example of this love, it's Jesus in the garden of Gassimone and he's praying, Father, if there's any other way, let this bitter cut pass from me. Pray so intiply that he sweats drops of blood. And at the end of his prayer, what does he say, nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done. That love that he expressed in the garden of Gassemone was an act of the will. It was accompanied by intense emotion, and it led to action on behalf of its object. He didn't go to the cross for himself, didn't need the cross. The cross was for those upon whom he said his love. He must lead in love. Secondly, look in the next part of this so that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word. He must lead in the word. He said that again he must lead in the word. Here's how I make it plain to my daughter. Until you find a man who you believe can disciple and mentor you biblically, you haven't found a man who's qualified to be your husband. You can't say a man you ought to say. Ouch. Here's how far we are off on this one. We actually have people and I get this all the time from women who have decided for one of those top five reasons that the man that they are going to marry is a man who just happens to not be a believer. What that would be unheard of? Just based on this principle not to mention the fact. If we turn left just a little bit and look at tewod Corinthians chapter six, beginning at verse fourteen, do not be bound together with unbelievers or unequally yoped together some of your translations have with unbelievers. For what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness? What fellowship has light and darkness? Or what harmony has Christ with Blio? What has a believer in common with an unbeliever, or what agreement has the Temple of God with idols? And so, first of all, we have a clear black and white mandate. In One Corinthians, chapter seven, when Paul talks about widows and whether or not widows are going to go and get married again, he says, the widow can go and get married again, but only in the Lord. The Bible could not be clearer on the subject. It is unbiblical and unacceptable under any circumstances for a believing woman to marry an unbelieving man, period. So don't even waste time pursuing people who don't qualify there. Yeah, but you know, I mean, I just but I just feel like maybe God will save them. Well, that's great. And then when he does and they are ready to lead in the Word as they're required, then go for it. But until then, here's what you do. Women, when you're pursuing a relationship with an unbelieving man. You're saying, God, I know you've given me a biblical mandate, and I spit on your biblical mandate, but could you please bless this relationship. He must lead in the Word and not just you. But look at chapter six in verse four. Back up the verse one, children will be your parents and the Lord. For this is right, honor your father and mother, which is a first commandment with a promise, so that it may be well with you and that you may live long on the earth. Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord who fathers. And so this individual that is going to be called husband is an individual who's going to be responsible for washing his wife by the water of the Word, leading her in the word, and setting the tone and leading in the discipleship of the children as well, which means women, if we are willing to pursue a man who's not a believer, or to pursue a man who's not mature in the faith, are committed to the faith enough to lead in this area of the world, that we are actually saying that it doesn't really matter all that much to us whether or not our children have the kind of discipleship that God intended for them to have. Again, I don't write the mail, I just deliver it if you're in a situation or a circumstance. Because I realized that me be women here and you know when you're saying, I just wish somebody who told me this before, because now I'm in a relationship where I'm married to a person who's not a believer. We're gonna deal with that on next week, okay, but for now, sufficing to say that hasn't caught God off guard. That hasn't caught God by surprise. Men, here's the deal. If you're hearing this this morning, you're saying, dude, that's just not me. I'm just not where my wife is in the word. Here's what I'm wanting. Because there's some men out there, and I forgot to tell you at the beginning. I'm crawling all up in your lap this morning. There's some of you out there, man. And here's what worries me. If you're on your job and somebody comes to you on your job and says we're gonna promote you, and you look at the promotion and the promotion is to a job that you're not quite ready or qualified for. Here's what you don't do. You don't say, you know what, that would be great, but I'm just really not quite there yet. So go on and give that promotion to somebody else. No, you say, I will do whatever it takes to master the requirements for that job, and I will do that job. But for the last ten years, you haven't been leading in the world, and you've never taken that kind of initiative in your homemoted you to the head the most important organization known demand. He has set you at the helm, and part of your responsibility at the helm of that organization is that you lead in the Word. And if you're not there yet, man up and get there, because future generations are depending on you getting there. That may mean that you got to get in the Word while she's sleeping so you can get ahead of her. Amen, she wakes up in the morning, you're all tired. Maybe why you're so tired. Got a job I'm trying to get ready for. Don't worry about it, because you must lead in the Word. It's not optional. Look at the next part of this text. That he might present to himself the Church and all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she would be holy and blameless. We're to lead in righteousness. We're to lead in righteousness. We lead in love, we leading the word, and we lead in righteousness and So what we're looking for, daughters is a man who leads you in righteousness. What we're looking for daughters, as you're listening to me this morning, all my daughters out here in the audience, here's what I want you to hear. If you find a man who is constantly pressuring you to do things that are unrighteous, you have not found a man who is ready or worthy to be your husband. If you have found a man who you're always trying to pull up to your level of righteousness rather than having him try to pull you up to his level of righteousness, you have not found a man who's ready to be your husband. And if I can just make this playing young women out there, if you've found a man who's trying to get you to sleep with him, you've not found a man who's ready to be your husband or who's worthy to be your husband. And one of the reasons we don't get that is because, ladies, you don't speak man. If you spoke man, you would realize how appalling that is. Let me translate for those of you who don't speak man. When he says, I would like for you to have a sexual relationship with me, but not be married to me when we had that relationship. You have to understand that this is what man men don't do. They don't sit around and say, man, I can't wait till that day. I stand at that aisle, those doors open up, the wedding march plays, and in she walks, strolling down the aisle in that beautiful, long flowing red dress. No, we want the doors to open and the music to play, and we want her to come through those doors in the white dress. Pure is the driven snow. So when a man asks you to sleep with him and not be married to him, here's what that sounds like. If you speak, man, I want to use you to satisfy my own selfish desires, thereby becoming the kind of woman that I neither want or respect for myself. He must be a man who leads in righteousness. He must. He must be a man who sets a righteous standard and pulls those around him up to that righteous standard. Did I say he has to be a man who lives in perfection. No, none of us would be married if that were the case. But he must be a man who leads in righteousness. He must be a man, for example, who knows his own limitations and doesn't put himself or you in situation where you would be given the opportunity to succumb to those limitations. He must lead in righteousness. He has to. He must walk with God. He must look at the next part of this, So husbands are to love their own wives 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 does the church, because we are members of His body. He must lead in selflessness, must lead in selflessness. I love this part of the text, nourishing and cherishing as though it were his own flesh. That you know, the motto ought to be. If anyone in the house is going to go without something, that's first. If anyone in the house is going to sacrifice something, that's first. If anyone in the house is gonna be asked to lay it down and lay it on the line, that's first. We must lead in selflessness. Can I tell you how hard this was for me. I grew up as an only child. My mother was a single teenage mother, and I was an only child. I have a sister who's fourteen years younger than I. Am. It was my mother and me. My mother who doated on me and still would if I let her. Like I'm just like the moon that you see at night. I hung that bad boy up there. Okay, you want to talk about somebody who struggle with selfishness right here, But marriage will knock that off of you real quick. It will chisel away expect you know there we were married, you know, my sophomore year in college. Ten months later he comes, jasmine myself. This meter was just going. I was rapidly moving toward the back of the line, coming to realize that my responsibility was to lead the family, through undergirding the family, through sacrificing for the family. He must be a man who leads in selflessness. He must be a man who puts himself at the back of the line. He must be. He must be, because if he's not, then he's shortsighted. He doesn't realize what you're building. He doesn't realize that we're building something for generations to come. And if I'm selfish, the only thing the marriage exists for, and the family exists for, is to satisfy me and my whims and my wishes. But if I'm self less. Then I understand that the vision is larger than me. It's larger than what I like, larger than and what I want. The vision is about us propelling future generations onward for the Kingdom of Christ. I only get that from a perspective of selflessness, nourishing and cherishing and looking out for the needs of others. Look at this last piece. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother. She'll be joined to his wife. The two should become one flesh. She'll lead an intimacy. And I know we look at that and we said intimacy. I get intimacy out of that, especially the men in the room, because culturally, as men, let's just go ahead and be honest. As men. In this culture, we have learned that intimacy is a three letter word that begins with S and ends with X. That's what we think intimacy is. We think intimacy has to involve this sort of physical expression. Let me explain to you what intimacy is. Intimacy happens every time I let somebody into a place in my life that's not readily accessed to everyone. We say that again, intimacy happens when I let someone into a place or places in my life that are not readily accessible to everyone. So if I share with you who I am and what I do, and that's just common knowledge, I'm not being intimate with you. But when I begin to tell you things that I don't just give out to everyone else, that's when I began to be intimate with you. By the way, that's where affairs get started. When you start telling a person of the opposite sex who is not your wife, you know what, I'm going to tell you this, and I've never told anyone else in the world this, you just began to open up an area of intimacy that could lead to something dangerous. That's what intimacy is. And so to lead an intimacy, we lead in creating that space, creating an environment wherein our spouse feels completely safe and protected. We do that by protecting them inwardly and outwardly. He says, for this cause, a man shall leave his mother, and his father shall leave his father, and his mother shall cut the apron strings. Remember my selfishness and my doting mother. One of the most difficult things that I had to grasp, and that she and I had to grasp together, was that she was no longer the primary woman in my life, nor could she be anymore as long as I was married to my wife, which would be until one of us died. And let Bridget tell you, worse comes to worse. That means me involuntarily and so my primary relationship in my world, besides my relationship with my lord, is my relationship with my wife. My relationship with my parents no longer my primary relationship. I love them, I honor them because the Bible tells me that I must. But my primary relationship is henceforth, now and forever more, my relationship with my wife. Footnote that means it's also prioritized over my relationship with my children. My relationship with my children cannot, will, not, must not be prioritized over my marriage for at least a couple of reasons. Reason number one, My responsibility, our responsibility is parents with our children, get them grown and get them gone. If we don't understand that, we end up like a lot of couples who get divorced after twenty twenty five and thirty years and leave people saying, what twenty five years you made it and you couldn't suck it up the rest of the way. You know what happens a lot of times in those situations, their priority and everything in their life and in their marriage was centered around those children. And when the children left, they had nothing. That's the first reason my marriage has to be prioritized over my children. Here's the second reason. My children's very security depends upon the strength of my marriage. Therefore, for me to prioritize them over my marriage is actually to jeopardize their security. Most important thing in my children's life, it's my marriage to my wife, My marriage to their mother, is the most important thing for them. That is their foundation, that is their security, that is their future, that is their model. So that when my daughter looks and sees what she ought to be looking for in a man, she ought to be looking at the way that I love her mother. When my son looks and sees what he has to be as a man, he ought to be looking at the way I love his mother. When the two of them look at what they ought to be and what they are to look for, the three of them, when they look at what they ought to be and look for in a wife or a mother, it's bridget So every day we're modeling for them. Every day, and the most secure thing in the world for them is it Dad in Mama love each other. They tell people like I told you last week, all the time my parents eh uh nop. My might pauson him one day, but she ain't leaving, and if she does, we know what is going with her. That is security. So when we begin to look out there for a man who's qualified to be a husband from a biblical perspective, we're looking for as a man who leads in biblical love and act of the will, accompanied by emotion that leads to action on behalf of its object. We're looking for a man who leads in the Word, who showers and bathes his wife and his family in the Word of God, who leads them in the Word of God. We're looking for a man who leads in righteousness. He is the one pulling his family up to a level of righteousness, not pulling them down. Looking for a man who leads in selflessness, who always places himself at the back of the line. We're looking for a man who leads an intimacy, who birth both within that relationship and without that relationship, prioritizes and protects his marriage above all. That is what he must be. No less than this can be accepted if our goal is marriage by desire. Let's pray, Father, thank you for your word, thank you for your truth. Thank you for not leaving us wandering aimlessly in the dark, for letting us know what it is that you expect and require of men who would call themselves husband. I pray, but the men in this room, myself included, would be inspired, motivated, even convicted to strive for all of these things. Women in this room who anxiously anticipate you giving them a husband, would have the patience, the courage, and the conviction to wait as long as it takes until you give them a man who is all the things that he must be. This is our prayer, we ask it in Christ's thing. Amen.