In the sermon titled 'The Fiduciary Duty of Christian Husbands,' Jason Dohm emphasizes the deep connection between Christian marriage and the Gospel. He asserts that marriage is a reflection of Jesus Christ's sacrificial love for His Church, as highlighted in Ephesians 5. Dohm warns that without being born again and indwelt by the Spirit, one cannot fully embody the Gospel in marriage. He contrasts self-help approaches with biblical teachings, underscoring that Christian marriage should be a compelling demonstration of the Gospel to the world. The sermon explores two parables from Matthew 24 and 25, applying them to marriage, particularly to the husband's role. The first parable, of the faithful and wise servant, illustrates the husband's duty to steward his household as entrusted by God, emphasizing provision, protection, and service. The second parable, of the talents, highlights the expectation of gain and profit for the Kingdom, urging husbands to manage their resources, including their wives, for kingdom advancement. Dohm calls for husbands to humble themselves, recognizing their wives as precious gifts and fellow servants, and to work jointly with them for the Gospel's gain. The sermon concludes with a call to holy dreaming and the pursuit of joy through faithful stewardship, aiming to create marriages that are a magnetic and beautiful testament to the Gospel.

So we are taking a week out of Nehemiah. This Sunday I simply was not prepared to do justice to the text. So I will be going back to something I preached at the conference last weekend. And so it is a message about marriage. And specifically about one of a husband's duties in marriage.

A husband is given multiple places where he has a duty before God in His marriage and this is one of them. So it is a message about marriage, but the foundation of it is the Gospel. Because if you talk about marriage and If you preach about marriage and you don't make the connection to Jesus Christ who came and laid down his life for the bride, then you've done everyone there a great disservice. Marriage is about the Gospel and what Jesus has done in giving his life to cleanse a bride and to present her to himself. Glorious, as Ephesians 5 says.

I want to begin by making a declaration. Here's the declaration. If you're not born again, if you're not indwelt by the Spirit of God, then you might like the biblical teaching of marriage and the parallel to the Gospel. It might be pleasant sounding to you, but you will never have the power to play that role. It's a tremendously demanding role for both a husband and a wife to look at the Gospel and to play it out in the home over a period of years.

You might be able to approximate it for a day or a week or a month, but you can never do this over the long term unless you've been born again and cleansed and given spiritual power. This is really what separates the Bible from self-help. The world is drowning in self-help about marriage. Even in the average Christian bookstore, if you go in and grab whatever book off the marriage shelf or shelves about marriage, it seems to be weighted towards self-help. Now Don't get me wrong, the Bible has practical wisdom for marriage.

So much practical wisdom. It's true and it's helpful in ways where the greatest unbeliever from the dawn of time can grab a hold of principles from the scriptures and be helped in that sense. They'll have a more harmonious home. Will have a more peaceful marriage. But fundamentally the Bible isn't about marriage tips that make your home more peaceful and your marriage more efficient and pleasant.

It does have wisdom that will do all those things, but those serve something so much greater, which is a man joined to a woman to live out the Gospel before the world and to present the world something beautiful and compelling that can only be done when you're building on the Gospel. So the question When you come to teaching about marriage, if you strip a redeeming Christ out, what's left? That's the difference between marriage tips, even marriage tips from the Bible, and a full-orbed, beautiful, compelling, biblical teaching of marriage. In most marriage books, you can strip out, even Christian marriage books, you can strip out Christ and be left with most of the book. And that's a shame.

So I hope today to leave you with something beautiful, and compelling, and wonderful, which only makes sense in the context of the Gospel. Really, the marriages that we are trying to build and live out in our homes should only make sense in the context of the Gospel. In other words, people who don't have a direct relationship with the Gospel should be puzzled. Because they don't understand what it's really all about. Paul in Ephesians 5 says so clearly that human marriage is a picture of the heavenly marriage.

So a human man and a human woman being joined together and made one in marriage is just a picture. It's an imperfect picture. It's sort of a dim picture of the glory of the eternal truth that it's really representing, which is Jesus Christ and His Church. But it's a gift of God. Marriage is a gift of God.

First it is a gift to a husband and wife. I feel like I understand the Gospel of Jesus Christ coming and dying for his bride and then nourishing and cherishing his bride. I feel like I understand the depth of that so much better having been married for a couple of decades and seeing what it's like to try to replicate that in the home. It gives you such a sense of what Jesus has really done. It is a gift to me and my wife that this mystery has been revealed that marriage is really a picture of Jesus and His Church.

It's a gift to our children. If you're married and you have a Christian marriage, God has intended it to be a gift to your children that a husband's self-sacrifice in the home and a wife's reverence and honor of her husband in the home would be a gift to them to show these little ones how the gospel functions. What Jesus is, is he sacrifices himself for his bride and how the bride is supposed to relate to her husband. It's a gift to our children. It paints a picture of the Gospel and should give them something compelling and desirable.

In other words, our marriages should make our children long for the Gospel. And it's a gift to the world. An unbelieving world should look at our Christian marriages and not know what to make of it, but to want it. The Gospel in picture marriage is a gift to husbands and wives, to the children that God gives into that home, and to an unbelieving world who won't know what to make of it, but knows it's beautiful and compelling. Our marriages should be magnetic in that way.

Christian husbands have an important part to play in that. Today's sermon will have an application for everyone, but especially to men, married and unmarried. If you're not married, I want to set down a baseline. Make a declaration that this is what our church believes marriage is, and how husbands are to conduct themselves in their marriages. Because what is at stake is accurately portraying Jesus in the Gospel.

That's what's at stake. When we don't behave ourselves as the Bible calls us to, If we don't relate rightly to these duties that God presses on us through His Word, then we are giving the world, ourselves, and our children a warped picture of the Gospel. It is really a false teaching about the Gospel. We have an odd title to the sermon. It's the fiduciary duty of Christian husbands.

That's a fancy way to say stewardship. A fiduciary duty is a duty that someone takes on because something very precious is entrusted to them. You normally think about it in the context of money. A fiduciary is someone who has been entrusted with a lot of it, usually. A lot of money.

So, if something precious, money, has been entrusted to you, then you are a fiduciary. Meaning, that there is an expectation that comes with being entrusted with this very valuable thing. What the Bible teaches is that This is a duty of a husband. Something very precious is entrusted to him. So there are expectations that come along with that.

It's a stewardship. It's not for his own sake, but Something precious has been entrusted to him and therefore he is to behave himself in a certain way in this relationship that has been established by God. There are going to be two texts that we will go into. One is a parable from Matthew 24, so you might as well turn there. And then the next is a parable from Matthew 25, the very next chapter.

These are not typically marriage texts, and I'm not trying to turn them into something that they're not. I'm saying that Jesus intended them to be broadly applied and that one of many applications is in the context of marriage. As we come to these texts, let's pray. God, I pray that you would help us to be a faithful people. I pray that you would help us to grow in faithfulness.

We know, having served you for a period of time that we are more faithful now than we used to be and we're not as faithful as we should be and so we pray that you would help us to grow Lord. When we look at you and your faithfulness, we marvel and we desire to be conformed to that image, to become more faithful to you and more faithful in the duties that you've given to Christians as time passes. Use this text, these texts today Lord to help us, to spur us on, to give us a passion to serve you with all of our hearts. You are worthy of it. We have so much to be thankful for, and to live out a life of thankfulness.

So now help us to do it in Jesus' name, Amen. So the first parable is at the very end of Matthew 24. It's Matthew 24 verses 45 through 51. It's known as the parable of the faithful servant and the evil servant. So let me read the parable.

Again, Matthew 24, 45 to the end of the chapter. And then I'll comment on it. Jesus says this, Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his master made ruler over his household, to give them food in due season? Blessed is that servant, whom his master, when he comes, will find so doing. Surely, I say to you that he will make him ruler over all his goods.

But if that evil servant says in his heart, My master is delaying his coming and begins to beat his fellow servants and to eat and drink with the drunkards. The master of that servant will come on a day when he is not looking for him, and at an hour that he is not aware of, and will cut him in two, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Again when Jesus taught this, I think it's clear that it has a broad meaning, meaning that it applies to all believers. Any man, woman, or child who is a follower of Jesus Christ can come to this parable and it has applications for him or her, and Jesus meant it that way. There are two servants in the parable.

There's one set of circumstances and there are two very, very, very different outcomes. The first servant that is brought forward in the parable is a faithful servant. This faithful servant is entrusted with something precious. This faithful servant is entrusted with a household. The parable says that he is wise and faithful because he recognizes that he is the servant and the master is the Master.

There is no confusion in this servant's mind who is who. And that the household isn't his household, it's the Master's household and that he has been entrusted with something precious. And because he never loses sight of that, the parable calls him faithful and wise. He understands that and he acts that way through the course of the parable. So the parable speaks well of him.

He is faithful and he is wise. So this servant in his mind is saying this is not my household and these are not my resources. This is the master's household and these are the master's resources. And I'm here to care for my fellow servants and to advance my master's interests." He knows why he is what he is. He never loses sight of why he is what he is.

The parable says it is to give his fellow servants food, their food, the food allotted to them, the food intended for them in due season, meaning when they need it. There is another servant. This servant is an evil servant, but it is the same set of circumstances. This evil servant is also entrusted with something precious. He is entrusted with a household, but he has lost sight that he is a servant.

So he acts as if he is the master in the master's absence. It seems like it is no longer part of his consciousness that it's not his house and it's not his resources. So he acts like he's free to do anything with the house and anything with the resources that he wants to. For his own amusement and his own pleasure. And in fact, so far from caring for the other members in the household, he doesn't care for them.

And so far beyond that, he abuses them. He's abusive. He begins to beat them over time as he sees that the master doesn't return and that his mismanagement seems to have gone unnoticed. He interprets that as, it will always go unnoticed. There will never be an accounting for this.

You can see in the parable that over time, There is an increase in negligence to his duty, and the end point is that he just ends up abusive towards the people that he has actually been entrusted with the care of. It has turned on its head entirely. You know that can't end well. Jesus finishes the parable, but honestly, He wouldn't have to. You could stop it there and know that that can't end well.

The master of a household, someone who has entrusted another with something so precious as an entire household and left the care in the charge of one, you know they are going to come back and reckon the accounts. And so it is. And Jesus finishes out the parable in a really terrifying way. He says that the Master comes back, He cuts the servant in two and appoints him his place with the hypocrites where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. The evil servant in the parable actually goes to hell.

This applies to every believer. To every child of God, to every son and daughter of God. God entrusts many precious things in relationships, in goods, in occupations. And God entrusts those resources and vests with authority. This is not just men.

The women hearing this sermon spend most of the day in a position of authority. So of course it's not just the men that have been entrusted with resources and authority. The women in this room have been entrusted with both also. And we're to act on his behalf, the Master's behalf. We've been made stewards of something that's precious.

And there's an expectation that comes with that. And there's going to be an accounting, a day when the Master returns to settle accounts with all of his servants. That's the broad application. Now Is it appropriate to apply this directly to marriage? Of course it is!

It's inescapable. The application to marriage is inescapable. We must apply this to marriage. So let's do it, particularly to the husband and his stewardship responsibilities. If we take this parable and overlay marriage and particularly the husband's role, here's what we get.

The husband is the servant who has been given a household. That is not a stretch. It is a trust. The master has entrusted him with something very precious, a household, and the master is God. And so it's not the husband's household.

He doesn't own the household. He doesn't own the resources. It's his master's. So he's a head of household, but it's not his household in an ultimate sense. God has put this husband, his servant, over the household to give them food in due season.

Meaning to provide for the members of the household and protect the members of the household and to care for the members of the household and to advance the interests of the members of the household. So in one sense he is the head servant in that household. He has real authority in that household. But in another sense he is the servant of his fellow servants. He is there to serve them.

He is there to care for them. He is there to provide for them. And there is going to be a day when the accounts are settled. The Master is going to return and want to know what's been done with this household, in this household. This stewardship responsibility, this fiduciary duty, is true of all the members in the household.

He has to care, provide, and protect every member of the household. But it's especially true of your wife, husbands. No one is described as she is. You're only one flesh with one person in this wide world. You might have many, many members of your household, but you're only joined into an entity with one person in that household, and it's your wife.

So you have a fiduciary duty, a duty of stewardship, a trust with everyone in the household. But it's particularly true, especially true with your wife. Now It should be said that this is no common master. When you actually begin to bring the parable into reality, it starts to break down because the story can't bear the weight of the realities. Because the Master is God.

And no other Master that we've ever experienced is anything like God. So it's not a common Master. It's the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. So a man who applies this parable to his duty as a husband and to his marriage should come away with such a sense of the honor and the privilege to be given a household because the master who is entrusting the precious household to him is not a common master. It's the King of Kings and it's the Lord of Lords.

It's the one who spoke the worlds into existence by the power of His Word. We should have this great sense that it is an honor and a privilege. We shouldn't say, oh no, this is a job to do, This is work. We should say, what did God have in his mind with entrusting such a precious resource to me? What an honor!

What a privilege! And not only is the master no common master, the fellow servant in your wife is no common fellow servant. It is the master's daughter. When we bring the parable into reality and we overlay marriage and say okay now what's what God is the master and the fellow servant that you're to give food to in due season you're to look out for protect and provide for and to care for and to nourish and to cherish is the Master's daughter. He let you marry his daughter.

Now what kind of an honor is it? Now what kind of a privilege is it? That this Master has not only entrusted you with a household, but he's let you marry his daughter. So of course this just raises the duty of stewardship. Furthermore, To know this Master is to love this Master.

Here's another thing that the parable, the story, can't bear the weight of. Because Masters that we know and have worked with or for, they're not like this master. To know God is to love God. The more you know Him, the more you love Him. He is the kindest master, the most gracious master, the most patient Master.

And so this type of stewardship, a husband's stewardship, a stewardship where he says, this isn't a job, this is the greatest honor and privilege that could be given to me flows from knowing the master. It flows from having the heart of the master. The master's heart was, I'm entrusting this household to you, so that the members of this household will be well cared for. And the head servant in a household full of servants is to have the heart of the master. He is not just supposed to do as he is told, but he is not just to do as he is told, he is also to have the heart of the master and to know that the Master's intent is also His intent.

The Master wanted the fellow servants well cared for, well provided for, and so should the head servant. Husbands and future husbands, brothers, Know him. You only have one hope of doing your duty rightly. It's to know him. It's to seek Him and find Him, and have His heart imparted to you.

So that you cease to think of this as drudgery and grunt work, and just a job to be done, but you begin to love your fellow servants because he loves them and you love him. There's a transfer of heart here. The affections of the master become the affections of the servant. And so it's not drudgery to provide and care for the members of the household. It's a joy.

It's an honor. It's a privilege. So husbands, we have to know him. We have to seek Him. And then we take the resources that come from that, and those become the resources with which we provide for the other members of the household, our fellow servants in the household.

But it begins with being washed. It begins with being born again. Jesus said you must be born again. This is not a tweak to a life. Being born again is a whole new existence.

If you just want to turn over a new leaf, then the Gospel is not for you. The Bible says that you don't need to turn over a new leaf. You're dead and you need to be raised to life. It starts with being raised to life and being different. The natural man can't do this.

We're not born with a nature that's inclined to serve our fellow servants. The natural man, you're born with all of your inclinations bent away from that. You have to be born again, and so that your inclinations change. Or else you'll never be able to do this over the long haul. So here's a summary of where we are in this text.

Husbands, you are the head of household, but it's not your household. It's not your resources. And woe to you if you forget it and begin to act like it's your household and it's your resources. You must know that God is coming to reckon accounts. When he entrusts precious resources, he has an expectation.

The man who gets this is a humble man in his house. The husband who gets this is a humble husband in his house. He's not marching around, barking orders, and acting like a big shot. That view is completely incompatible with this parable, with what Jesus is teaching here. He doesn't give up his leadership at all.

In fact, he is a very strong leader because he knows God has entrusted something to him. So the weight of stewardship and of having a well-managed house, a well-led house, I would even say a strongly led house, presses on him every day. But he's tender-hearted, because he knows these people don't belong to me. These aren't my people, these aren't my resources, these are God's people, these are God's resources. And he's aware of the honor that has been bestowed on him.

Man, we want to act in our homes every day like we are aware of the honor that has been bestowed upon us. We should feel so privileged that the care of this woman has been given to us. This doesn't mean that she is not cared for by Christ directly. Of course she is. And yet God has given you, put you in this place to be a channel of His care.

One of the ways, and one of the big ways in which she is cared for and provided for. God wants his daughters well provided for. He loves his daughters. He wants them well cared for. We should be a channel for that.

God has made us to be a channel for that. So that's the first parable. It is broadly applied, but it applies so clearly, doesn't it? To marriage and a husband's duty in marriage. Now the second parable is in Matthew chapter 25, just a few verses later, beginning in verse 14, we have what is known as the parable of the talents.

It picks up and it continues the theme. In other words, it's the same stream of thought just further down the stream. If you take the same thought and you just keep developing it, you end up at this other parable. So let me read it. It's a bit long.

Matthew 25, 14 through the end of the chapter and then I will talk about it. Jesus says, For the kingdom of heaven is like a man traveling to a far country, who called his own servants and delivered his goods to them. To one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one, to each according to his own ability. Immediately he went on a journey. Then he who had received the five talents went and traded with them, and made another five talents.

Likewise, he who had received two, gained two more also. But he who had received one went and dug in the ground and hid his Lord's money. After a long time, the Lord of those servants came and settled accounts with them. So he who had received the five talents came and brought five other talents, saying, Lord, you delivered to me five talents. Look, I have gained five more talents besides them.

His Lord said to him, Well done, good and faithful servant. You were faithful over a few things. I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your Lord." He also who had received two talents came and said, Lord you delivered to me two talents. Look I have gained two more talents besides them." His Lord said to him, Well done, good and faithful servant.

You have been faithful over a few things. I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your Lord. Then he who had received one talent came and said, Lord, I knew you to be a hard man reaping where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. I was afraid and went and hid your talent in the ground.

Look, there you have what is yours. But as Lord answered and said to him, You wicked and lazy servant, you knew that I reap where I have not sown, and gather where I have not scattered seed. So you ought to have deposited my money with bankers, and at my coming I would have received back my own with interest. So take the talent from him and give it to the one who has ten talents. For to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have an abundance.

But from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away, and cast the unprofitable servant into outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Again, like the other parable, this has a broad meaning. Meaning that it applies to all believers. Every man, every woman, every child who has trusted in Christ can come to this parable and know certain things about how they are to conduct themselves in their Christian life. In the parable, God obviously is the Lord, and He gives differing amounts of resources to all His people.

Everybody gets something, but it's in differing amounts based on the abilities that exist in the servant. It should be noted right away that it's not a small amount. Abundance is given in every case. We're Americans, we don't know about talents, and so to us it looks like 1 to 5, all small numbers, so not much has been entrusted. But that's not how Jesus' hearers would have heard this parable.

They would have come away shocked at the amount in every case that was entrusted. So let's enter the mind of one of Jesus' hearers of this parable and understand it better. A talent is equivalent to 20 years of labor for just an honest worker. A farmer who would be working in the fields, helping with the harvest. An honest day's work for an honest day's pay.

Now do that again and again for 20 years and when you get that pay for your 20 years work it would be a talent. So not one to five small numbers, not much entrusted. But the one who got the least was entrusted with 20 years worth of honest labor, the value of that. So a tremendous amount of resources, something precious, entrusted. And the one most, it's a hundred years of honest labor, the value of that entrusted to them.

First when we come to the parable we say, an abundance has been entrusted to every one of the servants. And the children of God, the sons and daughters of God should view it that way. You haven't counted your blessings recently if you think God hasn't entrusted me with much. You've got to get your mind out of just money. He may or may not have entrusted you with just money, but there are so many other categories in which God is entrusting things to his sons and daughters that are of great value.

So one of the things that the parables would teach us is that God really has entrusted us with an abundance. We should look hard to understand the abundance that God has given to us. So stewardship is in view, there is a trust. Great resources have been entrusted and with that is an expectation. And here is the expectation, that you put it to work for gain.

It wasn't yours. It was given by another and for a purpose. And the purpose is gain, Profit, increase. In the parable, the master gives almost boundless latitude. In other words, the master is not there micromanaging, saying, do this, do this, do this, do this every second.

He's going away on a long journey to a far country. I don't remember which it was. So there's not micromanagement. There's the exact opposite of that. There's great latitude given.

But the expectation is that you're going to bring him gain. You're not going to bury it in the ground. You're going to put it to work, all of it to work, to bring him gain, so that there will be profit and increase when he returns. The parable teaches that there will be a day of settling accounts, and it will be disastrous if you don't have gain, increase, profits to show. But as bad As the bad is, the good is that much better.

If you are faithful, if you put the precious resources that have been entrusted to work, then You get to hear the words, well done, good and faithful servant from God Himself. And you are actually entrusted with more. He entrusted you with some and you are faithful with it, so He gives you more. That is just like the first parable. And he ends by saying this, enter into the joy of your Lord.

So there's joy at the end if you're faithful. You get to enter into the happiness and the joy of your Lord. So broad application. Every believer is given resources, and God expects profit and gain. Again, this isn't monetary.

This is for His Kingdom. Now, is it appropriate to apply it directly to marriage? Of course it is! Isn't it inescapable that one of the many, many, many areas of application of this parable would be marriages and particularly husbands? Of course, we must apply this to marriage.

So first I want to apply this to a husband, and then I want to apply it to the marriage as a whole. So we're going to overlay a husband on this parable and apply it to him, and then we're going to overlay the marriage, the union on the parable and apply it. Husbands, God has entrusted us with varying levels of resources, but all of us with an abundance. If you think differently, calibrate your mind to the Word of God. Whoever it is in the room who has been entrusted with the least has been entrusted with an abundance.

You cannot think of it any other way because this is what God says is true. And with that abundance there is an expectation of gain, of profit, of increase. And the most precious resource entrusted to you, husbands, is your wife. I don't care how much money you have, I don't care what job you have, I don't care your house, your cars, anything else. The most precious resource entrusted to you husbands is your wife.

Now don't misunderstand. I'm not saying a wife is property. The first parable made that abundantly clear and I'm not trying to say something different from that. Here's what I'm saying. In Genesis chapter 2 verse 18, it's the replaying of the creation account.

It says that God gave Adam a helper comparable to him. So, God gave a man a life, and he gave a man things to accomplish in this life, but he wasn't adequate in himself. He didn't fit the bill adequately by himself. There was a lack. So God in His goodness and in His grace gave the man a helper, someone to be a companion in this life.

Peter calls it, heirs together of the grace of life. In other words, you have inherited a gift together. A man and a woman, when they are brought into a marriage, have inherited a gift together. It's life. They are supposed to live it together.

They are supposed to enjoy it together. They are supposed to work in it together. They are supposed to produce, increase, gain, and profit for the kingdom of heaven together. It's a beautiful thought really. So God has given this gift to men who are married, a helper comparable, a companion, an heir together of the grace of life.

Someone who is suitable to join with them in the labors that God has given them in this life. Here is a useful question. How am I spending her life? So God has given me a helper comparable to me, an heir together of the grace of life. Janet Mazzell became Janet Dome.

How am I spending her life? You have to acknowledge that She's not free to spend her time and direct herself in the way that she would if she hadn't married me. When she took the last name, this dreadful last name, She lost much of the freedom she would have of directing her own life. She still has some, But it's not like it was the day before June 29th, 1991. And there is a sense in which, because we are living this life together, because God has given us work to do together, that I am spending her life.

There is a sense in which I am. And a husband should feel the weight of that. Because she is like everybody else in the world. She only gets one life and it is going to be spent one way. And there is going to be an accounting for this trust.

So husbands we have to ask ourselves, is my wife's life being spent for gain for the king? How's her life being spent? Is it for the gain of the king? Is it for kingdom profit? Kingdom increase.

It had better be. The men in this room have such godly wives. And I know it's their joy to labor for the gain of the king. I think men make two big mistakes in the spending of their wife's life in that sense. That sense has limitations.

I don't want to be misunderstood in saying that. Here's the first mistake. They have not really pointed their wife's life at profit for the kingdom. That profit for the kingdom. And it's mismanagement.

And it's poor stewardship. And the accounting is going to be painful. So That is a colossal mistake. A daughter of the king has been given one life, and you've pointed that life, not really for the gain of the king, maybe your own gain. That's a huge mistake that should be reversed.

If you've been doing that, you should pull down everything you've built and start again. The second mistake, which I think is more common, I hope it's more common, is that a husband is not helping his wife see the connection. Really, it is pointed at gain for the kingdom. But because Life can be very mundane, and the gain is so incrementally small, his wife begins to lose sight, and he is not helping her to connect the dots. So she really pointed in a good direction, a profitable direction for the kingdom.

Profit for the king, gain for the king, and yet on a day to day basis she is having a really hard time seeing it because the gain is so incremental, it is so little by little by little that she loses sight. Husbands, I think we have a duty not only to point the life of our wife at gain for our king, but also to help her see the little increments, to notice out loud the little increments. I think we are failing in our duty if we are not noticing out loud the little increments of profit for the kingdom of God that we see, especially in the lives of our children. They are spending and being spent for our children. And there are these little incremental gains that we see and never comment on.

And I think we're sinning against our wives in doing that. I think there's so much room to encourage them to connect the dots and help them to see the prophet for the kingdom of God that is coming about from their labors. So that is an application to husbands. Now let's apply this to your marriage as a whole if you are married. After all, you are not two but one.

There is a sense in which God sees you as one entity. A man leaves his father and his mother, and he cleaves to his wife. They are glued together and they are made one flesh. They are one in many ways. We in our marriages should be asking, how can we put these resources in play for gain?

This should be a joint exercise. This should be a one flesh, we've cleaved together exercise. So we're one now. How are we going to rally all the resources that God has entrusted to us to be profitable for the Kingdom of Heaven so that the Kingdom of Heaven expands and deepens and gains. So God has given us a house.

We are living in a house because God provided it for us. So it's a resource that's been entrusted. How can we squeeze more gain for the Kingdom out of this house? You should ask yourself that question. How can we squeeze more gain out of this house?

The last drop of gain out of what God has given us. God has given us a car and probably a big van. If you're listening to this sermon, probably God has given you a big van. How do we squeeze more gain for the Kingdom of God out of the big van? There's an answer to that question.

That will give you more gain than you produced up to this time. God's given us some computers. They're microchips floating around our houses. They're very powerful tools actually. You can learn pretty much anything you want to learn.

Okay, so a resource entrusted to us, how do we mobilize it for profit for the Kingdom of Heaven? Here's a couple of others. Okay, God has given us some money. How do we rally the money, the dollars that God has given us, to bring gain to His Kingdom? To expand the borders of His Kingdom.

So that When he comes back, there is profit. Remember, we love the King. We want His Kingdom expanding. We want more people coming into it. It's the difference between people living in darkness and people living in His marvelous light.

We always want His Kingdom expanding. Anyone who has received mercy wants the mercy continuing out into the world. Now here are a couple of resources we might not think of. Children. God has given us children.

He has joined us together in this marriage and now he's added to us. He's given us children. And they're resources for the kingdom. How do we squeeze more gain out of these children? Especially as they get older, you find out how much horsepower you really have under your roof.

So much competence under your roof, under utilized resources for the kingdom. I know that's true of the Dome House. I know we've got more resources than we use well. We're better than we used to be. We're not as good as we need to be.

We all have room for progress. But children, if you are not thinking of them as a resource for gain for the kingdom, then we are not thinking rightly about it. God has entrusted something precious to us, and with that comes an expectation that there is going to be profit for King Jesus. How about this? How about time?

Time is such a precious resource. How do we squeeze the last drop of profit for the kingdom out of the time that God has given us. Husbands and wives, if you are not thinking this way together, then it is a massive mistake. And husbands, it is your fault. You are to blame.

You are responsible to get with this helper that is comparable to you. This air together of the grace of life and say, dear wife, how do we squeeze more out for King Jesus of these resources that God has given us? That's an exercise that should be undertaken periodically in every marriage. Here's something sobering we get out of this parable. Maybe you are disappointed that God hasn't given you more.

Maybe you are disappointed in the resources entrusted to you. Maybe it's because you haven't been very faithful with what has already been entrusted to you. This is the sequence in both parables. A trust, something precious is entrusted, and with those who do well and are faithful with it, and produce gain for the kingdom, more is entrusted to them. So if we feel like, not very much has been entrusted to me, it should be sobering.

Because it might be a performance review. It might be that we haven't been as faithful as we should have been with what God has already entrusted to us. Maybe it's time to do something about that. Here's a summary of where we are with this parable. Husbands, think of the most precious person entrusted to your care for the game of the king here's a hint that person is a she it's your wife and Know this, there's going to be an accounting for this.

While we should feel the weight for that, understand there's the opportunity to hear, well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your Master and have more entrusted to you. Husbands, go for that. Go for it. Go for hearing The commendation of your Lord that you have been faithful with the precious things entrusted to you.

And go for the joy. We are promised joy from this. Do You want more joy? I want more joy. Here is one way where we get more joy.

To be faithful and then to feel the smile of our Master. To hear Him say, enter into the joy of your Master. Well done. Couples, go for it together. Imagine working side by side.

Imagine having been brought together and then laboring for a long period of time, however many years God gives you, And then at the end being able to present gain to your Lord. The joy of that. Together, God, you brought us together. God you gave us an abundance. God We know we should have done more, but we did this.

There is gain for your kingdom. And he says, well done, good and faithful servant. Wherever there is gain, he is smiling on it. Here is your homework. In closing, Some very specific ways to apply these two parables to our marriages.

The first one is to husbands. Your homework is to hold up the faithful and wise servant. The wise and faithful servant from the first parable in Matthew 24. Who understood that it wasn't his house and it wasn't his resources and that he was there to give the members of the household their food and doces and to care for them. To provide for them and to protect them and to see that they flourished under his care.

That was always the intent of the Master and he was faithful with it. Now hold yourself up and how you conduct yourself in your household. Ask yourself, am I acting like a man who has been given a great honor and a great privilege. Just compare yourself. There's a wise and faithful servant, and he conducts himself in a certain way, and he's not too big for his britches in his household.

He operates as a humble man who's there to serve. It doesn't mean he doesn't lead. He leads strongly because something precious has been entrusted to him. So it must be a well-managed house. He must lead.

He understands that That spot is a spot of honor and privilege, and he is acting that way. I don't think I've said anything you haven't heard in this form or in another form. There is nothing new in this sermon. But to hear these things is a great opportunity for in-course corrections. We need to make a thousand times a thousand in-course corrections in this lifetime.

Meaning, this is what the Bible does. We read it and it calls for change. The perfect standard is lifted up and then we say, oh, I don't measure up to the perfect standard. And so we correct. Maybe not as much as we should every time, but we're always correcting towards the perfect standard.

This is the Christian life. It's not you repent once and then you're done repenting. No, aren't you repenting many times a day? I'm repenting many times a day. Probably missing many opportunities.

But we should be in course correcting, getting more on target all the time. And to hear the Word of God and to hear these two parables applied to marriage gives us an opportunity to correct, to be more on target with how we are pointing our lives. Let me say this, it will increase your joy. It will increase your joy, the joy of the other members of your household, to say, our household, we are here, we exist for the king's gain. That is a happy household that have all been rallied around this great end.

Jesus is worthy and we want his kingdom to profit from God showing compassion to us and bringing us together into a home. That's all I'm talking about here. You boil it down to that. Number two, couples. Embark on some holy dreaming.

Embark on some holy dreaming together. Two people who are heirs together of the grace of life having a powwow. A meeting to consider together how more good gain can be squeezed out of the resources that God has entrusted to you. Holy just means set aside for God's use, consecrated to God. It used to have all sorts of functions, but now it's set aside.

This is God's. That's the kind of dreaming we're talking about. Where you say, okay, God has given us these resources, let's reset our thinking about how we can get more gain for the kingdom out of this. God has given us a house and a car and a big van and some computers and some money and some children and some time. Now, how do we squeeze the last drop of good?

The last drop of gain and increase in profit for our King. Two helpful clarifications to end with. One, I'm talking about two people who have been cleansed and are just ready and happy to live thankful before God. Again, do not try this at home if you're not born again. The Gospel is the message for you.

You can try it. You will be ground to dust if you don't have the Holy Spirit. You will be ground into powder. Maybe that will be good. Maybe that will be the thing that brings you the Gospel.

This is really for people who have been cleansed and who have been made so happy because they knew what they were and they know what they are now because of the blood of Jesus Christ. They are free and their light is a feather and they are ready to give their lives to just being thankful to Jesus. Secondly, in terms of gain and squeezing the last drop out, I am talking about the long term. I am talking about your life long body of work. There is a way to go about this that squeezes the last drop of blood out of your wife and your children.

All of us have done this at some point. You go for the gain, and you drive them. You drive them. It's sort of a whip at their backs. No, no, no.

We're talking about a lifetime body of work of squeezing the last drop of gain out of your lifetime, and it's going to include times of rest. The way you spend this day is a big part of that. If you make this day a joy and a time of rest for your family, then the rest of the time you can really go for it. That's true. But I don't want me saying squeeze the last drop, to turn us all as husbands into slave drivers who are trying to do something that is really outside of our scope.

May God give us grace. May God give us marriages like this, that are a beautiful, compelling, magnetic force in the world to put on display the beauty of Jesus and his self-sacrificing love for his bride. Let's pray. God, I thank you for marriage. I pray for our marriages that you would help them to be a compelling vision for the world who looks on and desires it.

Doesn't understand it yet, but desires it because it is beautiful. To think that there is a picture in this world given as a gift of Jesus Christ and how He dies To purchase a bride is a beautiful thought. Give us this Lord, more of it, in Jesus name, amen.