In his sermon titled 'How to Be a Husband Lover,' Scott Brown explores the biblical guidance found in Titus 2, focusing on the roles and duties of women within marriage. He emphasizes the importance of older women teaching younger women to love their husbands and adhere to a lifestyle that honors sound doctrine, thus preventing the word of God from being blasphemed. Brown highlights cultural challenges, particularly the influence of feminism, which often distorts or rejects these biblical roles. He uses the metaphor of a marriage as a plant, requiring care and attention to thrive, and outlines eight practical ways for women to be 'husband lovers,' including understanding, respecting, and encouraging their husbands. The sermon underscores the transformative power of the gospel and grace in shaping personal and communal life, stressing that both men and women must learn to love in accordance with God's design.

Open your Bibles to Titus chapter 2 and find verse 1. Well welcome to the first day of the week, what Isaiah called the Day of Delight. I pray this that for all of us today, an entire day just meditating on the goodness of God. This is the inerrant all-sufficient sweeter-than-honey Word of God. Verse 1, but as for you speak the things which are proper for sound doctrine, that the older men be sober, temperate, reverent, sound in faith, in love, in patience, that they admonish the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands that the word of God may not be blasphemed.

The grass withers and the flower fades but the word of our God stands forever. Let's pray. Lord we thank you for your word for this transforming power of the Holy Spirit working through your people in the world. I thank you for these people in the world that are in this church. I'm so grateful that these things have been taken to heart and I pray that you just spur us on This morning to love and good deeds Amen Please be seated So I've got kind of a laser beam focus here this morning.

My subject really is the first words of Titus 2, 4 that they admonish the young women to love their husbands. I want to talk about how to love a husband, how to be a husband lover. Anybody have a husband around here? This actually stands at the head of a seven-point list that commands what older women are to teach the younger women. And first to be a lover of your husband, be a lover of your children.

Second, third, be self-controlled. Fourth, be pure. Be homemakers. Sixth, be good. Seventh, be obedient to husbands.

This morning though, my focus is really just upon the very first and the last point in this verse. First to be a lover of your husband and then the final one in the list to be obedient to husbands. Right off the bat, let me say, a husband is not being called here in this passage to force his wife to submit. This command of submission is given to the wife and it is a voluntary grace that a wife grants toward her husband. Now, if a wife is not submitting, if she's rebellious, a husband needs to ask himself a few questions.

Like, am I being nice to her? Am I actually caring for her? Am I leading her to the rivers of living water am I fulfilling my responsibilities so with that said it's very clear the Bible says particularly in in Ephesians chapter 5 the husband is the head of the wife. It's not like, well, y'all husbands ought to be better heads. No, you are the head and you're either a good head or a bad head.

You might be a knucklehead, but you're the head. And that's the idea here. Now, by the end of this message, wait for it, I'm gonna bring eight ways that a wife can be a husband lover. And this really is a picture of the continuous and transforming power of the gospel in the hearts of the elect. That's who this is addressed to.

And the influence on the family, the influence on the church, the influence on the nation is considerable and this really is a gold mine of culture shaping commands. Shaping the culture of your heart, shaping the culture of your family, shaping the culture of your church, and shaping the culture of your your city and your nation and so much rests upon what women do with their lives and particularly in this case what women do to their do with their husbands and it really describes the powerful influence of a woman. It's remarkable. Now let me just be the master of the painfully obvious for a minute. There are reasons that these ideas here are rejected in our culture.

There are usually about three responses to this text in our culture, in Christian culture. First, it's ignored because it's too countercultural. You know, preachers skip over this type of thing all the time. Second, it's intentionally misrepresented and compromised by preachers who frankly they drank a little bit too much feminist poison and they're actually afraid to act like men and say what the word of God says plainly without qualification. It doesn't need ten qualifications.

The third reason is that it's hated. Because feminism was and is the suicide pill that both men and women have been taking for the past. Well, you could go back to first wave feminism 150 years ago, and it's just been escalating, and now we don't even know what a man is or a woman is. So the insanity has really gripped the culture. John MacArthur said it like this, he said, no biblical standard is more viciously attacked today than the God-ordained role of women in society.

And then he says this about this verse, and no passage is more ridiculed and reinterpreted by assailants within the church than these two verses. Well that's that's true I think we know that but he's he's talking about what it means to be a good wife and and what what he's saying he's saying that a wife has a tremendous responsibility in her marriage. And let me illustrate it by the care and feeding of a plant. Years ago, there was a talk show in Southern California, Laura Schlesinger, and she wrote this book called The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands. It's a great title.

But You can compare a marriage like a plant. And every plant needs water, it needs good soil, it needs the right temperature, it needs sun. And if the plant is wilting, there's something that needs to be done. If the plant is being eaten by bugs, you know, what should you do if the plant of your marriage is being eaten by various bugs? Or if the plant is getting bent over by the wind, what should you do?

If the air around the plant is freezing and killing that plant, what are you going to do about the temperature around that plant? And marriage is a little bit like a plant. It needs water and soil and sun and it needs the right temperature. And you need to identify what is going to maybe even kill that plant, because the marriage killers are everywhere in our society. By the way, if you're married, you have a target on your back by the devil.

He wants to destroy your marriage and isn't it interesting that the very first attack on man and woman was against a marriage in the Garden of Eden. The devil's not stupid. He goes after the best targets. So but the truth is a spouse Can wilt a marriage a husband can wilt a marriage and a wife? Can also wilt a marriage and allow the bugs and the wind you know to bend bend it over And so this is so critical because the well-being of everything hinges upon what happens in a marriage.

Here's what Richard Baxter said, the well-being of the world depends on the continuous godly progression of generations. Each generation has a duty. And he's speaking specifically here in this passage, if the older women, the generation of the older women have a duty to the generation of the younger women. He said this, godliness flows like a river through successive generations and the children become better than their parents. That's Richard Baxter quoted in a book called urgent call that actually I just published.

But this means that women in the cultures of their homes may need encouragement to buck the system because the system is against all of these things. The system even of your own heart and the system of your friends and maybe your family members. But this morning the focus is to be a lover of your husband and the purpose is stated in verse 5 it's a purpose statement that the word of God may not be blaspheming the idea is when people reject these things stuff happens in your life that causes the word of God to be discredited. You can discredit the word of God by your lifestyle. That's the idea there.

And so obviously we've spoken about this you know numerous times in our study in Titus. This letter was written in about 60 AD by the Apostle Paul to Titus who was charged to set things in order on the island of Crete. The island of Crete was a very messed up culture. Don't you love what what is said about it? Epimenides said, yes all cretins are always liars, evil beasts, and lazy gluttons.

Well guess what? The church exists in this kind of culture And this is a culturally transforming principle. And Titus is charged to set families in order, to set things in order, so that they adorn the doctrine, they become a living picture of the doctrine you wear the doctrine on your sleeves it shows up in the way that you live it's not just intellectual propositions that you carry around in your head as such a good reformed Christian no if it doesn't hit your feet and your hands and your mouth and your if it doesn't hit there it ain't hit yet and that's what he's saying that the doctrine is meant to change your life. Now this is really important There's an assumption that underlies these commands to older men, older women, younger women, and younger men, and workers. There's an assumption that stands underneath it, and Paul speaks about this in the very first chapter in the very first verse that this is the faith of God's elect I'm just quoting the text this with a new heart the the elect and they are They are laden with the truth which accords to godliness, empowered by the Spirit.

Even old men and old women and young men and young women begin to reflect the glory of God, their creator and their Redeemer that's what underlies this entire section so he's talking about the elect the the converted woman in this in this context so this is the this is actually the whole theological argument of Titus it It is the life of those who live according to the truth which accords with godliness. Now look at verse 11 in chapter 2. We're gonna get to this in a while but here you find what really is the Apostles greatest argument for the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lust, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present age. And this is a happy life, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from every lawless deed and to purify for himself his own special people zealous For good works. This is all the the result of grace.

This is the grace of God that works in the heart. I hope you're thankful for the grace of God. Remember what John Newton wrote? He said, "'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear and grace my fears relieved. That's the Apostles argument that the Christian life is actually an overflow of grace.

It's the grace of God that's implanted in the soul. What a beautiful thing it is. And in this case husbands are to be loved by their wives. Now you know we're gonna get you have you have husband lovers and you have children lovers. We're going to get to that later.

The children lovers. That's probably that's probably next week. Now let's talk about the significance of the command older women are teachers. It says the another purpose clause that they may teach the younger women. They are teachers of good things.

That means that this is a woman who is inculcating practical truth, impressing practical truth on the minds of the younger women. This has to do with the importance of spiritual mothers in the church who make younger women strong and make them spiritual mothers. It's a it's a generational cycle. It must be in place in a church. One of the tragedies of the 21st century church is there are very few Titus II women and because so many women did not embrace these things when they were young there it's very difficult for them to be this kind of woman so get it while you're young this is for you young girls okay these principles are for you and I pray that you know that the teenage young women in this church will become the Titus II women of the next generation.

You can be, you can be a tremendous resource. You know what? They are a blessing. I don't know how many women my wife has talked off the ledge because of just because of years of experience and walking with the Lord. So older women are get this to be change agents in the younger women in the church to to focus the younger women on the very most important things of their life not the cyber world but their world the the relationships most closest to them that's what the Apostle does Go and focus on the power punch of your life and that is the relationships that you are close with.

Everything proceeds from a home And why would young women need to be taught? This is one of the other interesting things about this. Women need to be taught. Here's what this means. You can be taught how to love.

It doesn't come naturally. You need to be taught. And it's the grace of God through the word of God that teaches you how to love. And that's the whole thing. False views of love prevail in our hearts and all around us.

We are told, live your truth. Find yourself. Don't do what anybody else wants you to do. You just forget other people and you know all all through even the own meditations of our hearts, love is challenged. But the work of a spiritual mother is to call younger women back to love, to be lovers of their husbands.

And this has to do something that really flows from the creation order. Perhaps one of the most important doctrines that's neglected today, the creation order. Older women are charged to teach younger women to walk according to their design. This is how God created the world and to help younger women adjust their desires to God's design and I hope you're that kind of a woman that you so desire your desires to be shaped by God's design, not the design that's flowing around in your head in all of your creativity. Now, let me just parenthesis this with young men.

This is the kind of woman you need to be looking to marry, the kind of woman who has her focus on these kind of priorities. So they are to teach, now how do they do it? Well, verse four, that they admonish the young women, that they admonish. So very interesting word that the Apostle uses here. It means literally to bring to one's senses.

To restore, well one commentator said to restore senses to those who are raging, raving I'm sorry. One commentator says it's a sobering slap in the face. A slang expression wise up. Years ago there was a commercial where there was a slap and somebody says, responds, thanks, I needed that. That's kind of what he's saying there.

By the way, there's a really great book that was written last year by Rachel Jankovic, I think, called No Time to Be Dumb. It's written to teenage girls. No Time to Be Dumb. It's a great book. But older women are there in the world, more experienced to correct passions, to moderate extremes and to help help younger women avoid the extremes that they might be feeling, to teach them elements of discernment and and teach them elements of self control in this area in their in their lives with their husbands because they're gonna need it okay every young wife needs it to some degree or another and they they need to be brought up to be husband lovers this is the heart of the home love it's a heart of everything you know the Apostle told us in first Corinthians 13 that the greatest of these is love It is the greatest thing and whatever output of your family is it ought to be love for sure.

Interesting I read a book a couple three-ish weeks ago called Families and Faith How religion is passed down across generations. This guy for 40 years they studied families and children they tracked it for 40 years of children who continued in the faith and continued that and who did not continue in the faith and what do you think was the reason that they concluded that caused a child to walk in the faith of their fathers and mothers it was love It was love between the husband and the wife. It's so important. Whatever you're doing in your life and in your marriage, pay attention to love. Here he's saying young wives need to come to school and to come to the school of love and of marriage and children because love is something that can be taught.

There's this whole idea of ordered loves you We love those who are closest to us. You know, it's a pretty important principle. Love the one you're with, you know. But this just requires the fruit of love, which is equivalent to the fruit of the Holy Spirit. And every husband and wife have to ask, am I filled with the Holy Spirit?

Am I filled with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control? Is that what I'm doing right now? Is that what I'm feeling right now? Because those things are meant to teach you how to feel and what to do about it. It's the filling of the Holy Spirit.

Somebody asked Charles Spurgeon, why do you always talk about the filling of the Holy Spirit? He said, because I leak. Because I leak. Everybody is leaking and so we need to be filled with the spirit maybe let me say it this way falling in love is easy Learning to love is where love shines the brightest. And that's what he's talking about.

And this is where a woman changes her world and the world of her children and actually the world of her church. You know, you've got churches where the women are falling apart. I don't see that in our church. I'm super thankful for that. They're not falling apart because because I'm not saying anything that most of you don't already believe.

I recognize that. This is review. But where where the filling of the Holy Spirit is there's the oil of kindness and gentleness that's what makes relationships work and so That's the assumption and the significance of the command. But there's a problem in marriage. One of the great problems for every wife is that she married a man.

That is a problem. And here's how it works. Every woman wants to find a good man. And she does. She finds a reliable man, but he's a man.

And she gets disappointed. And often you find wives with good men that get dissatisfied. And there are many reasons for it. He thinks different. He feels things different.

He moves different. He looks very differently. I'll never forget reading Elizabeth Elliott's book, Let Me Be a Woman. She wrote this book to her daughter who was getting ready to get married. It's a great book Let Me Be a Woman by Elizabeth Elliot and she's writing this letter and she says the problem with marriage is that you marry a man if that wasn't bad enough you marry a sinner and you marry a human being with particular gifts and interests and inclinations.

That's what you're headed for. That's exactly what you're headed for. And men think through problems differently than women typically. I don't think this is universal but it's almost universal. You know I've been hanging around men for a long time and men typically feel differently about problems.

Men create solutions that are different compared to women. Men They even look like, Elizabeth Elliott says, when you marry a man, you marry an unruly creature. Yeah, exactly. He's bigger, he's tougher, he's rougher around the edges. He's not as sensitive.

What makes you cry doesn't always make him cry. Elizabeth Elia says he doesn't even use a washcloth. Got that? Okay. A wife thinks A wife thinks this, I'm not sure my husband understands me.

He doesn't. A wife thinks he's not hearing my heart he's not he isn't now ladies you need to understand this there there's nothing more baffling to a man Nothing more confusing to a man is to find his wife crying and she doesn't know why. But you know that's because I mean men men are different. They bear burdens differently. Most men carry their burdens silently, and you don't think they care, but they're probably bearing it alone.

Men carry a silent mental loan typically. They carry financial burdens often silently. It's not that they don't care. They often carry relational and work burdens and household burdens and emotional burdens and they, his feelings even of an inadequacy, he tucks those burdens away and he hides them he's in this sense this makes him more resilient actually and sometimes more responsible now a man needs to recognize that about himself and he needs to communicate with his wife appropriately about financial burdens and relational burdens and all these kinds of things. A man can't just default to his nature.

He has responsibilities too. We could drop into Ephesians 5 and the responsibilities of a husband to nourish and cherish his wife, to love his wife like Christ loved the church, to be a sanctifying influence in her life. We could drop into all the responsibilities of a husband. Those don't go away. Those are actually meant to lead a man to deal with his nature as a man.

But this is why when a wife comes to her husband with a problem that she's grappling with, what's he going to do? He is going to try to fix it. And he's going to come with three bulletproof solutions to her problem. But she wasn't, she's not relating to that. She doesn't really want him to fix it.

She wants him to empathize with her. But there's a problem with that. He's not an empathetic being, typically. I know everybody's on the spectrum, right? But this is also why a nagging wife is an offense to her husband a quarrelsome wife is like a constant dripping on a rainy day, Proverbs 27, 15.

It's no help, it's no help to a man. You remember Adam and Eve and the curses that were placed upon them after the fall in Genesis chapter 3. What were the results of the fall? Well the results were two. We learned that Eve who is the representative of all women will experience pain in childbirth and she will seek to dominate her husband and her husband will encounter thorns and thistles and barriers to his ability to provide and I was I was told that someone once said this, I think it's brilliant.

Eve wants more from her husband than he can give and Adam wants more from the land that it can give. And that creates tension and difficulty in a marriage. Now in responding to this kind of man, the woman, she often concludes he doesn't care. He's disconnected. And so she wonders how she's going to get him on his wavelength.

So she begins to badger him and constantly talk about his weaknesses. She wants to make him wake up and care. Now, a woman should be able to do that to her husband to a degree, but there are warnings about how to do that in first Peter 3 particularly 1 through 7 wives likewise be submissive to your own husbands that even if some of some do not obey the word this is a woman who's got a husband who's not obeying the word in some area. I mean it's actually disobedience. That they without a word may be won by the conduct of their wives when they observe your chaste conduct accompanied by fear.

Do not let your adornment be merely outward, arranging the hair, wearing gold, and so forth. And he says this, in this manner, in former times, the holy women who trusted in God also adorned themselves, being submissive to their own husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord, whose daughters you are if you do good and are not afraid by any terror so the Apostle Peter is addressing wives and then he turns to husband and he says husbands likewise dwell with them in an understanding way, giving honor to the wife. So you have these reciprocal responsibilities for husbands and wives. And The underlying assumption of all this for men is that they love their wives like Christ loved the church. And every man needs to learn how to love too.

It's not just women that need to learn how to love. Everybody needs to be taught how to love. And the Bible teaches you exactly how to love. And really when you when you step back and look at all the things that are said about marriage and and life together in that kind of relationship here's what you find. There there just a few really really important things that are I think are under the heading of love and that is grace and flexibility and understanding and honor and trust in God.

Those things are a big help in a marriage and that's why the apostle tells husbands to nourish and cherish their wives as Christ does the church. Now this woman who married a man she married a good man she will have to adjust. He might not enter into your chaos. He doesn't always shift just because of your mood. He doesn't always respond to drama very well.

And you think he's detached you might think he's selfish but actually what God has done with men he he has created a creature who has an ability to move according to conviction. And this is why men can go to war. This is why men can charge into the fire. And women really probably can't because they're thinking about 50 other things and a man is thinking about one thing. He has a one-track mind and that's true.

Some researchers have said that just before birth, I think I've said this before in this church, that there's a chemical that's released just before birth in a male child that actually damages a part of his brain. It's the part that has to do with feelings and emotions. Now obviously it doesn't damage at all but it does do some harm to him in that sense but that's the way God created him. So but a woman in order to love her husband, she should understand something that's very, very important about men. A man's job by nature is to help a woman to escape her emotional roller coasters.

Now you husbands, you fathers need to do this with your daughters as well. You need to help your daughters to escape their drama and their emotional roller coasters so then it becomes silly girls and to escape the 13 year old curse in our society because they can't escape it they actually can I know many many young girls who escaped silly 13 year old ism And so many of you in this church are that way too? And I praise God for it. A good man is a little bit boring in that sense. He's more emotionally regulated.

He's less susceptible to bend. And how a woman takes this is really pivotal. If she tries to deal with the rays of the tone of her voice, if she's speaking in a frustrated tone, if she's complaining, if she's always expressing her dissatisfaction, men often shut down. Their brains turn to mush in a lot of ways when you have a dripping complaining woman. They do And they don't know what they you know what they don't know what to say.

And their wives might say well what are you thinking? And the man says I don't know what to say. Has that ever happened to you? He doesn't know, okay? And he might be afraid to make it worse by saying something.

That's just how it works. A man's brain can freeze upon the constant dripping. Brain freeze can happen. I'm sure you wives have seen this, you know, from time to time. And the problem is A woman's dead silence is not always a sign of peace.

It may be she's just checked out. It may be she just has given up and she's getting bitter. So if silence means bitterness, then that's a bad trajectory. If silence means more dissatisfaction, I'm done. Then everybody is in trouble.

Because when a woman does this, the whole house comes down. The whole matter of affectionate authority and headship in a home falls apart if a woman is rejecting her husband's leadership in the home. And you know if a woman keeps telling herself he's not hearing my heart, if she keeps telling herself, he does not care, that woman has just started on a wilderness journey. And she's gonna go through this counselor and that counselor and it won't help either. And it may be she actually is married to an evil man.

That's possible. But she might start resisting her husband. She might start resenting her husband. And she might wanna just take control over the family. Say this man doesn't know how to do it and and she'll be caught in this this vortex of dissatisfaction she may have eventually she might start thinking about getting a divorce.

75% of women filed for divorce. And by the way, it's even older women who are divorcing their husbands right now. It's a remarkable cultural trend that women in their 50s are thinking about divorcing their husband. They've been married for 20 or 30 years and now they're ready to kick it in the head. I blame a feminist vision of life and also just our natural sin nature.

Ephesians five, it places the heavy responsibility on the husband to love his wife, to love his wife like Christ loves the church. Interesting, this is the only place that wives are explicitly told to love their husbands. In Ephesians 5, it's, I think, you'll have to check me on this, It's the only explicit place that husbands are commanded to love their wives. And this is just a reality of the creation order. For the husband is head of the wife as Christ is also head of the church and he is the Savior of the body and God made him for that.

Now in Ephesians 5 26 there's a very telling statement and you wives need to understand this. I really hope your wives are listening to this. This is extremely important that his presence, your husband's presence in your life is a divine placement for your sanctification. Ephesians 5 26, that he might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water with the word. Now that he, God, it's God that is sanctifying the wife through the washing of water by the word.

It means that the husband is God's agent in sanctification of your life. Whatever his weaknesses are, these are God's appointed sanctification points for your life. God is using your husband to sanctify you. That's what he's saying. And God's goal for a married woman is to give her a husband to accomplish his sanctification process in her life.

This is God's program. God is sovereign. It was God who got you married. He got you married to the right person. You are married to the right person.

Don't even think about that. It was God who did it. He caused all these different interactions and relationships and situations and he got you married. You didn't control it. And he got you married.

Here's God's objective in verse 27 in Ephesians 5, that he might present her, that God might present her, the wife, to himself, a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing but that she should be holy and without blemish. That means that marriage is a means of sanctification in your life and he does it in many different ways. So husbands can't just saddle up their throw their wives on the back of their motorcycles and charge off they've actually got to lead and teach their wives what they're thinking They can't just sit in their own little manhood silence. They need to learn how to talk to their wives. And that's what Ephesians five actually is all about.

You need to tell her where you're going. You need to you need to see if she's scared. You need to encourage her in her vulnerability. She is the weaker vessel and you shouldn't despise it or chide it. You should honor it, honor her because she's the weaker vessel.

First Peter chapter three. And what is love? Well the Bible tells us what love is. Love is patient. Love is kind.

Go to first Corinthians 13. But wives need to know that when they get married they married a different kind of creature and that that should give you some sense of what God is doing when manhood and womanhood, it's so pivotal. I love this poem. I sent this to one of my kids who just had an anniversary. It's a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

As unto the bow the cord is, so unto the man is woman. Though she bends him, she obeys him. Though she draws him, yet she follows. Useless each without the other. That's how it is.

Useless each without the other. Okay I'm going to give you eight ways you can be a husband and lover and we'll and we'll wind up with this. Number one, understand him. Understand this creature that God made for his own glory and for your sanctification. Number two, respect him.

Paul in Ephesians five tells a woman, there's just two things for her to do. And that is to submit to him and respect him. There's nothing that empowers a man more than respect. If you don't respect him, everything falls apart. How do you live under the scowl of anybody in your home, in your work, anywhere?

You're going to end up living under the scowl of people in this world from time to time, but don't let that be at home. It's hard to live under somebody's scowl. Number three, encourage him and inspire him. Encourage him and inspire him. Set your life to be an inspirational machine to your husband.

Fourth, follow him and trust the Lord. Follow him and trust the Lord. Fifth, Help him. Help him. You are his helper.

Work hard in your creation order calling as helper. I read this somewhere. My husband takes care of the things that I didn't even know where to start and I take care of the things so the things he doesn't even think about. Same team, different positions. There's a lot of wisdom in that.

Same team, different positions, different perspectives. It's beautiful. It's really good actually when it's working. Number six, stop constant criticism. Just stop it.

It's not helpful. You can talk to him about his weaknesses. Okay, you are his helper, but there's a way that you do it and there's an amount. Number seven, maintain affection. So much of the commands about love have to do with affection.

And 1 Corinthians seven says that each spouse is due their affection. And he's talking about intimacy, sexual intimacy in marriage. It's something that you owe one another. You owe it. Number eight, focus on your own behavior rather than his.

This is really important. You know we people get all uptight about what other people are doing. You can't fix anybody. I you know look the elders the elders in this church can't fix you. And you can't fix us.

And focus on your own behavior. When I was running out the door this morning, my wife yelled at me as I was going through the garage and she said, tell them to have fun with their husbands. Okay, number nine. Number nine, make it fun. You can make it fun, but you're not gonna make it fun if you're like a dripping drip of water, always focusing on what's wrong.

Do you want to be that kind of you want to be the kind of person who's always focusing on what's wrong? Hey there's so much that's wrong. I think the wisdom of God is let God be God and take care of the wrong And you be a loving wife. Cultivate the garden in your marriage. It's like a plant.

It needs water. It needs sun. It needs soil. It needs temperature. And I hope this might help to identify what might strengthen or harm that plant of your marriage.

Keep that plant of your marriage thriving. You know, it was just, it was a couple days ago, I was reading in Luke chapter 13. He's talking about the kingdom of God. I'm going to close with this verse. It's Luke 13, 18.

Then he said, what is the kingdom of God like and to what shall I compare it? It is like a mustard seed. It's like a plant. It's like a mustard seed which a man took and put in his garden. This is God.

God plants. He plants the seed in his garden. And it grew and became a large tree and the birds of the air nested in its branches. Let that be the kingdom of God in your home, cultivating that plant that the birds of the air are nesting in its branches for all eternity. Would you pray with me?

Lord, Lord we stand amazed at your wisdom. I pray that you would pour your Holy Spirit, our leaky spirits, pour it out Lord and fill us with love. Amen.