Are You Thankful for Your Wife?

Well, good morning again, brethren. It's always a delight to be able to come up and see all of you. Glad we have almost everyone here today, so that's good.

I was thinking when I was here several weeks ago... I have to look back and see on my calendar where I was, because I can't remember. But I was here a few weeks ago, and Dr. Hasselton gave a sermon on biblical headship. Obviously, this was in connection with a series of sermons he's given on marriage.

And it stood out to me whenever he went through that description of how it is that husbands should be properly the right type of head as far as in their home.

It stood out to me whenever he mentioned that there's a need to restore an understanding of God's intended purposes in marriage. And of course, as we all know, marriage right now is under attack, whether it's even a definition of marriage or clearly the roles in marriage. We are at a great disadvantage today. A great disadvantage as far as the whole world is concerned, because they can't figure out what God says about marriage, about his definition, about the roles that God created and designed, or even about the benefits or the necessity or the purpose of marriage. And yet, thankfully, we see through much of that.

And yet, what stood out to me was that I don't know that I had thought about the fact that the roles of a husband and wife in marriage have really been just so corrupted, and they began to be corrupted in Genesis 3. Genesis 3, of course, records the first human sin. Satan was sinning long before that, and he was causing the angels to sin as they would follow his rebellion against God.

But what we see in Genesis 3, after God had lovingly created Adam and then Eve and the institution of marriage, we see Satan corrupting everything. Corrupting not only a disrespect for God and his rule, his law, his authority, but even what he intended for Adam to properly be ahead in his home and for Eve to properly be able to support that. And I just don't know if I had not thought about it in that way, so I thank Brian for bringing that up, because that's really the case. We're 6,000 years down the tube as far as misunderstanding.

And of course, we want to try to learn what the Bible says. We want to try to learn how the Bible clearly gives us instruction and then how we can properly apply that. What Satan did in Genesis 3 was create a disrespect for God, encourage disobedience, and of course that led to the first human sin, a defiance. It's actually, and it's really important, it's remarkably important concept for us to grasp how the world became corrupted and directly about even marriage, how that that has been corrupted. It really is described in Romans 8, verse 6 and 7.

See, I believe most of you would be familiar with what Romans 8, verse 6 and 7 says.

But see, actually, what we read in Genesis 3 about a dysfunction in the family, in the marriage, in a husband's or a wife's role and responsibility in a marriage, it really began to be corrupted then and Paul writes about it here in Romans 8. In verse 6 he says, to set your mind on the flesh is going to lead to sin and death, but to set your mind on the Spirit.

To set your mind on the Spirit is going to cause life and peace. For this reason, the mind that's set on the flesh in verse 7 is enmity. It's hostile to God.

It doesn't submit to God's law. Indeed, it can't. Now, you know, that has to be one of the first verses that I remember learning 50 years ago about what's the truth. Well, the truth is described right here. I have a carnal mind. I'm corrupted and I don't know. I hope I'm trying to come to myself, according to our sermonette, to understand better about how the carnal mind is hostile toward God and toward his law. But that's exactly what started there in Genesis 3.

It started there and it's important for us to recognize it. Now, as I mentioned, I know several sermons about marriage have been given here in Fulton, and I'm sure there's going to be more, I would assume. You know, there may yet be more that would be covered. And I just want to focus today on one thing that comes to my mind as far as how I could enhance my marriage.

And be able to relate more fully to the Creator God who designed marriage and who designed men and women and put us together for a purpose. I want to focus on how to enhance our marriage in order to draw closer to God and draw closer to our elder brother, Jesus Christ. And so, in essence, the title of what I'm going to talk about or what I'm going to encourage today is just how thankful are you for your wife?

Just how thankful are you for your wife?

Now, I'm not just talking to those of you who are husbands and who are currently married. You know, the rest of you take a break and go eat cake or whatever else we might do here, snacks.

Now, I'm not saying all the rest of you are out of here, but it obviously affects me directly as far as my marriage is enhanced. If I think about how thankful I should be for my wife, and I think about and I can think about numerous things that she does and that she will do and that she is that I can be thankful for. But there's even more that I'm thankful for when I see what God is doing in her life and in my life. When I see that, when I fully understand that, I have a lot to be thankful for. But just how thankful are you for your wife? Now, as I said, not just talking to husbands, but to all of us as Christians. And as the Church of God today, there's a spiritual application to what we learn about being a proper husband or being a correct or proper wife. Those instructions, we can read them and we can read them and we can read them and we can read them some more and we can quote them and we can even know them.

We might not do them or we do them in degrees. We actually probably even do them only as we understand, not just know about, but we understand and are grateful for what God has actually provided for us. I want us to look in Proverbs 31. Now, you thought I was talking to husbands today, but now I'm really going to talk about both husbands and wives. But in Proverbs 31, again, we all know, Proverbs 31 gives, from verse 10 down to verse 31, the end of the chapter, Proverbs 31, the very end of the book of Proverbs, from verse 10 down to the end of the chapter, enumerates what would be described and probably headed in your Bible as the virtuous woman or a virtuous wife. And whenever you read through this description, now it's a remarkable description.

In some ways, it's very in-depth description because, you know, there are a whole lot of very, very good qualities that are mentioned in that section. And again, perhaps it's not my purpose to go through and read all of those. But clearly, this woman that's being written about is, you know, incredibly able. She does just about everything right, it sounds like.

Of course, I hope we understand that this is, you know, this is an ideal. This is something that we could shoot toward, but it's not something that we actually, you know, probably achieve, maybe in any of the ways that we might want. And perhaps you could even look at this and say, this is pretty unreachable. Well, on our own it is, but with God's help, you know, many of these things certainly are reachable. This lady in Proverbs 31, I guess I should say this wife, because she is directly related to a husband, she is truly committed to and upholds and supports the husband in her life. She's obviously very diligent, she's very industrious, she's very hardworking, she has a great deal of concern for others, she lovingly cares for her household. And see, all of those could directly apply to any given wife in their own home, but the spiritual application of all of those applies to each of us, not just the women, but also the men. The spiritual application of commitment, if we think about the fact that we are to be the bride of Christ, we are preparing as a bride for a marriage, well then we've got to understand the value of commitment, of support for our head, Jesus Christ. Wanting to be diligent, wanting to be industrious, being hardworking, growing in love or concern, growing in nurturing and care. See, those are applied directly, in this case, to this woman, or this wife, I will say, but they apply to all of us as far as how we are to be drawing closer to Jesus Christ. Now what I want to point out here is after all of her wonderful qualities are described here in verse 25, it says, strength and dignity are her clothing. Verse 26, she opens her mouth with wisdom. Again, you know, these are all qualities that would be ones that could easily be sought. But what I want to focus on, and in connection with what I said, the title of this sermon is, are we thankful for our wives? Down in verse 28, it says, her children rise up and call her happy. Now I'm reading the New Revised Standard, so the New King James is a little bit different, but it's obvious that her children are responding to her, in this case. They are appreciating her. They are acknowledging her role in their life and the fact that she was directly involved in them even being. But it goes on to say, in verse 28, her husband, her husband too, he praises her, saying, many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all.

Talks in verse 30 about a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. See, now that's talking about something the husband ought to do.

He ought to be, and I ought to be. We should, as husbands learn, to be thankful for our wives. And I think we'd find that that will enhance our relationship with our wives, but it'll enhance our relationship with God, because whenever we're truly thankful and thankful and even praying to God to be thankful for our wives, then we find that God enables us to understand things in a different way. Perhaps He even opens up opportunity for us to see ways that we can do what He says. He says, praise, encourage, uplift our wives. How extremely valuable is an appreciative husband who willingly offers up praise and expresses gratitude for his wife, who fears the Lord?

See, how beneficial is that? I want us to look at another verse, and this one is in 1 Peter chapter 3.

1 Peter chapter 3 is, of course, a section that for Peter talks about husbands and wives. He describes wives' roles, husbands' roles. And I think we should tie this together with what we read in Proverbs 31, verse 28 and verse 29, about how a husband should encourage and express gratitude for his wife because he truly is truly thankful for the woman that God has given him. Now here in 1 Peter 3, you see numerous things that I'm not going to take time to go into here. But I want to drop down in verse 7, because it talks about wives to begin with, in verse 1. But then in verse 7, it says, husbands in the same way. And so Peter is saying, one, both have responsibility, both have opportunity, both have benefit from truly drawing together in a loving way. A way, perhaps, that God designed that was corrupted in Genesis 3. See, I would have to say that I would think that I'm affected and I would imagine many of us are affected by that corruption. We're affected by the way the world thinks about how a husband should be the leader or head in his home. And certainly women are promoted today as wanting to take responsibility for things that God doesn't directly say that would be in your best interest. You know, there are a lot of out of bounds ideas today, and that we can easily be affected by those. But here in 1 Peter 3, it says husbands in the same way show consideration for your wives in your life together, show consideration, giving honor or paying honor to the woman or to the wife as a weaker vessel.

Now, I know that we've written about and we've tried to describe this. This is not talking about men being far superior to women. Of course, according to God's design, he created male and female. He created in his design of mankind great benefits for men and for women that can complement and actually build upon each other. But here it's talking about a wife as a weaker vessel, and we've described that, and I think correctly, given a better understanding of that, is being as a piece of fine china, a delicate china, not a beer mug, but a fine piece of china that should take a little more care than, you know, the huge coffee cup that some of you might have or that I have a few of. See, that's what this is talking about. It says, show consideration for your wife in your life together, giving honor to the wife as a weaker vessel or as the more delicate of the two, clearly. Often we're going to be less strong. That's irrelevant. That's not what it's talking about at all, but it is talking about a certain delicacy or a difference that God created.

Since, he said, they go on, they are both heirs together of the grace of life. We both have the potential of being in God's divine family. See, he didn't just intend for men to be in his family. He intends for women, sons and daughters, to be glorified in the kingdom of God. And, of course, you know, what more can you have besides eternal life in God's divine family?

But see, there are things that I need to learn from my wife. There are things I probably miss out on all the time, probably every day. I hope I'm getting a little better, but I still know there's plenty of room for improvement. And yet, some of that, as far as being able to do what it says, whenever it talks about praising your wife, or showing her consideration, or giving honor to your wife, you're going to be able to better do that if you are extremely thankful for her and for your life together. You actually see, of course, we can back up to Ephesians 5, and I'll just read verses that tie together husbands and wives, and how there is a connection to Christ and the Church. In verse 22 of Ephesians 5, wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord. So this ties it together that our marriage and how we function together should have a connection to how we are responsive to Jesus Christ. How it is that we understand that we have been bought with a price. How it is that we respond out of love and out of respect and out of a desire to obey the Lord. For the husband, verse 23, is head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the church. He is the body, talking about the church, the body of which He is the Savior. He is the Savior of the body. Now that's an awfully tall order.

Somebody's playing songs here. Mr. Jackson can lead. Jesse was looking at her person. I was looking at my briefcase.

Because I'm thinking, well, that's great. Anyway, where were we?

Verse 23, that's right. Somebody knows the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the church, as He is the Savior of the body. This is a really, really big concept for us to be mindful of in verse 24, just as the church is subject to Christ. So, wives ought to be in everything to their husbands. So, this is instruction that, again, I know we're familiar with. But when we think about it from the standpoint of, well, you know, my responsiveness as a wife to her husband or as a husband with his wife ought to be out of respect for God. It ought to be out of a gratitude for what God has done, and He has done that through Jesus Christ. And, of course, He is to be guiding and directing and instructing us, even today, as we, as members of the church of God, are able to benefit for that. And whenever you read that, and I read that and often think about it, obviously from a male view, and say, well, what does that mean to me? Well, that means I need to die. I need to be willing to die for my wife. I don't know if I'm there yet.

I haven't done it. You know, I'm still here, but I need to be willing to be put out for my wife. I need to be willing to nurture and care and love and do whatever I need to to help her or to encourage her. So it is an extremely tall order, and certainly in this world it's an impossible order, I will have to say. But with the help of the Spirit of God, with the help of God's Holy Spirit, and we could be guided, men could be guided to do a better job of appreciating their wives, and wives can also, with the help of the Spirit of God, be able to fulfill the responsibilities that God lays out in His Word. I want us to turn back to, let's quickly go to 1 Corinthians 7. Again, I'm hoping to try to include everyone in this discussion. 1 Corinthians 7 is a chapter that's about marriage. It's about a lot of different things dealing with marriage. Paul had been asked certain questions. He was trying to give instruction. And you see, in order to include all of us in the teaching about understanding marriage, understanding husbands and wives, and how we can be restored to what God intended by His Spirit being in us, we can read how Paul gives guidance to various married states. Here in verse 8, he says, he talks to the unmarried and to the widows. Again, he's going to section people and give different instructions for different categories. Verse 10, he says, to the married, meaning those who were both a part of the body, to those who are married, who happen to be, that would be some of us here. And he says in verse 12, to the rest. He's talking there about where a wife or a husband would be a part of the body, and yet their husband or wife is not yet a part of that. See, there's a lot of instruction that needs to be given regarding each of those situations.

Let's drop down here. Let's see. Verse 13, if any woman has a husband who is not an unbeliever, and he can sense to live with her, she should not divorce him. Again, this is going into the whole topic of divorce and remarriage, and I'm not wanting to go into that right now, but it says in verse 14, the unbelieving husband is made holy for his wife. The unbelieving wife is made holy for her husband. That's a very important statement in that we understand the value of conversion. The value of being a recipient of the divine essence of God, the Holy Spirit, because it goes ahead to say, verse 16, wife, for all you know, you might save your husband. Husband, for all you know, you might save your wife. There is instruction for every different category of different conditions. Actually, we can move from one to another of the possible conditions that you might find within any given congregation. And so, I wanted to just point that out. I guess verse 14 is what I wanted to mention, how significant it is and how appreciative we could be for our wives. How thankful we could be for our wives that God is doing a work in my wife's life that I need to appreciate. He is the author of it. He's the one who is working in her life. He's the one who's guiding and helping her to grow and helping her to understand I have a role in that I'm supposed to be learning a proper way to lead or a proper way to serve, but I need to appreciate what God is doing in her life. Let's go on over, because this is really what got me thinking about this in 2 Corinthians 5. And we'll talk more about this next week, because like I said, Dr. Ward wrote about this, and it's a directive for us this year to really learn to live the Word. Not just read the Word, not just study. We'll have Dorm Monitor Robinson on us. If we just read the Word and then we read Gunson Emil later on, we want to appreciate what is spoken of about the whole message of reconciliation. There's far more to it than I know about yet. I'm looking forward to learning how it is that God wants us to become His divine children, and He wants us to be glorified in His family, but He doesn't want us to be rebels. He doesn't want us to think, I know everything. He doesn't want us to think, well, I can't learn anything, because He is working. That's what this is describing here in 2 Corinthians 5.

The whole section, starting in verse 11, is talking about how Paul was writing about his work and about what he was teaching and about how he was, in an actual fact, in 1 Corinthians, Paul was having to be very corrective. That's what the whole lesson of 1 Corinthians is. He was needing to write to the church who was very divided. They were going ever which direction. They were in confusion.

And he said, is Christ divided? That doesn't make sense. That's not correct. You need to be unified. You need to be drawing closer together. And they said in 1 Corinthians 3, well, you know, when you are not in unity, then you are just simply following carnal outlooks. And so he wants us to come to see things differently. But here he talks about Jesus Christ. Verse 14, the love of Christ urges us on because we are convinced that one has died for all, therefore all have died. Here he's talking about why we're even in the Church of God is because Jesus Christ has been introduced to us by the Father. You know, He's brought us to Jesus. He has brought us to where we can know Him and His Father. And we can be a part of that family. And He died in verse 15 for all. So that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died and was raised for them. And so it's not just my idea, my opinion, what I think, but it's what does Christ think. What does God say?

And in verse 16, from now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human standpoint or a human point of view. According to the flesh, I think is what the King James Version says.

Therefore, as Paul was talking to these Corinthians, we regard no one from a human point of view, even though we did once know Christ from a human point of view. He says, our understanding of even what God was doing was distorted. It needs to be straightened out. It needs to be clarified. But we know Him no longer in that way. So in verse 17, and here he makes a statement that struck me the other day as to how fabulous this is. How fabulous it is for God to choose to draw us to be a believer who is able then, with the help of the Spirit of God, to be different, to respond to the Word of God, and not just do me in my own way.

So if anyone is in Christ, in verse 17, they are a new creation, a new creature. And I thought about it because the wording says creation here in this new Revised Standard.

I thought about how incredible is that? How incredible is that that God is working in my wife's mind and heart to convert her? Now we can say, and often we do, you know, whenever we're baptized, we're converted. Well, we've started the process. You know, I don't think we've finished the process. The process is ongoing, and it's one where the potter has to mold and shape and sometimes even smash and reshape the clay. And yet, whenever I think about what God is doing, I can think about this collectively for all of us in each congregation or in the church as a whole, or however widely I might want to think about it, but when I think about it individually and just personally and read what it says I'm supposed to do, see what it says Pat is supposed to do, I see what God is doing in her mind, in her heart, in her thoughts, in her reactions, in her communion with God.

And I am incredibly thankful for that. Now, all of us would have similar and very dissimilar situations. But whenever I think about that, you know, it goes on if anyone is in Christ and they're a new creation.

Everything old is passed away. See, everything has become new. And of course, he goes ahead and verse 18 says, all of this comes from God. The whole understanding of reconciliation, which I said we'll probably go over next week, the whole process of being reconciled to God, that's the entire message of the gospel.

People who are defective and who are corrupt because of Satan have to be reconciled to the family of God. And as God does that amazing work, he says in verse 18, all of this is from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the message or ministry of reconciliation.

That's our work. That's our job for those that God would draw today. And it's our job in the millennium, and it's in our job beyond that, to teach a message of reconciliation, to teach an appreciation of what it is that God can do in changing a person's physical, fleshly, carnal mind that we all have to being a mind that says where to seek the mind of Christ. And sometimes, I think, again, from my own viewpoint, as a man or male, I think, oh, I can try to identify with Christ, or I try to think like he did, or I like to go fishing like he did.

Or that's only part of the story. See, women can relate to the mind of Christ in exactly the same way, and they would perhaps even understand things that I wouldn't understand. But see, we can be thankful for God's working in the lives of our wives, and then all of us collectively can be thankful for God's work in our lives, because, as it says in verse 18, this is God's doing. He's the one who began the process. He's the one who educates. He's the one who gives us the strength, the one who gives us the power and the love and the sound mindedness that comes from the Holy Spirit.

Now, again, all of us are at different progressions, and we can yet appreciate what it is that God is doing, how it is that he is creating a new creation. We want that for ourselves. That's why we often would think. And yet, I want that for my wife. I want that. I see that in her, and it is incredibly encouraging to me to thank God for what he's doing, to thank God for how he is helping her and me and all of you to grow in a closer relationship with God, because that's ultimately what he wants all of us to do, to have a closer relationship.

And God's design of marriage, whenever you destroy everything about marriage, which you have to say that's where we are in much of the thinking of the world today, whenever you destroy that, you're off base. You are in outer space. You have no clue what God is doing, what he is wanting to achieve, what he is wanting to cause to grow.

And so, and then sometimes, I guess, it might be hard for us, say, as men to really relate to, well, how is a woman's, if we're to be the bride of Christ, you know, how am I supposed to be the bride?

Well, I've got to figure that out. I've got to figure out how it is to be in subjection, in submission to Christ as my head. I've got to figure that out. And that's not, I mean, that's much easier to say than it is to do. It requires a desire. It requires a desire, a desire requires a motivation. It requires help from God to be able, you know, to see that.

So, whenever we read the verses, and these were the two verses that I wanted to focus on, in Proverbs 31, about verse 28 or 29, where a husband has said you should be praising your wife for not only what she's doing, but what God was doing in her.

And whenever we read here in 1 Peter 3, that husbands are to show consideration to their wives in their life together, paying honor to the wife as a more delicate vessel.

That has a lot of implications, and I'm perhaps not equipped to be able to even explain all of those. But I can see some of those whenever we see our mate pursuing conversion.

Truly yielding to God to be converted. So I guess you probably could look either way on that, but I'm directing it to what it says husbands are to do. And if they are truly thankful for their wives, then they're probably going to be learning ways to show praise, to show honor, to show encouragement, and to lift up their relationship together, but even to lift up their relationship with God. Because that is something we can help each other with. We can help each other with if someone is a believer. That's what we have the opportunity and blessing of doing.

So I thought about a number of different verses here that we could talk about, but I'm not going to go over those. I'd like for us to just think about what we've gone over already here, because it's really important that we understand that when God is causing a new creation to happen in someone's life, and particularly in our wives' lives, then that is one of the greatest joys that a husband should ever be able to appreciate and be thankful for. And, of course, being fashioned after Jesus Christ, after his mind, his love, his care, you know, those are all things you can easily identify that Jesus had more of that, even as a human being. We know he existed before he came to earth, and when he was here on the earth, he was God in the flesh. He was a human, yes, he took on a human form, and yet he did all the right things all the time, and yet more than that, his heart, his love, his care, his compassion, his connection with the Father. How connected did Jesus have to be to do what he did? To face year 33. I mean, that was, you know, the first 30 years, you know, it appears, you know, he was growing around Nazareth and working and, you know, getting bigger and having a family that was somewhat opposed to him. None of them thought anything about him. Mary knew, she knew, I know this little boy is different, and this young man is different. This young adult is very different. He's able to respond in the right way every time, all the time, without sin. And yet as he faced the last few, I guess, months at least, and clearly he was trying to tell his disciples what's going to happen. They just couldn't pick it up. But as he faced the last few weeks and then days and months, he knew what was going to happen. He knew how much he needed to be close to his Father. It's clear that he was praying consistently and regularly, and that he even, he knew that his Father was always going to be there. But how can we grow in that same mind?

See Philippians 2, verse 5 says, let this mind be in you, which was also in Jesus Christ.

If we had that, we'd be in good shape. I think we'd be extremely thankful. I think you find Jesus even expressing that in John 11, whenever he was going to raise Lazarus from the dead.

He says, Father, I know you always hear me. I thank you for doing that. I know you are with me. I know that we will raise Lazarus from the dead. And that, of course, is what happened. So, again, the topic today was simply how thankful are you for your wife?