Tools to be a Godly Husband Pastor Koby Orr

Transcription

1 Series: Home Improvement October 12, 2014 Tools to be a Godly Husband Pastor Koby Orr Good morning, everyone! My name is Koby. I'm one of the worship pastors here on staff. I always count it a great privilege and joy to get to share God's Word, when given the opportunity. I'd love for you guys to open your Bibles to Ephesians, chapter 5. As Pastor Steve said in the video today, we're kicking off our new message series, Home Improvement, with the topic, Tools to be a Godly Husband. I kind of laughed when I found out this was going to be the topic for me to preach, mostly because I'm one of the youngest pastors on staff and I know I have the youngest marriage of the pastors on staff. That made me very grateful and thankful for the sufficiency and completeness of God's Word, because really, this morning, what you don't need is my opinion on what it means to be a godly husband. You don't need any man's opinion. We need God's opinion, and so that's what we're going to look at. However, with that in mind, in an effort to gain a little bit of credibility, I made sure to put on my big boy pants and make another run at a mustache, but it turns out I shoot for this once a decade and it still is not going well, so hopefully the pants help. That's about all I can offer. Sorry. Before we really start diving into our topic for the morning, there are just a couple of things we have to get out there and on the same page. First, we are all in process. Some of you men here already are godly husbands, and that's good. Today's message is meant to encourage you. It's meant to maybe show you a few areas where you need to improve. Yet there are other people in this room who have a long way to go. What I want us to take away, as we begin here today, is we are all works in progress. The truth is Scripture is not meant to make us feel better about ourselves, and so, as we look at God's Word this morning, hopefully, we will all be convicted. Hopefully, we will all be made a little bit uncomfortable. Hopefully, eventually, we will all begin to see some change in our lives. In just a moment of transparency, I actually have to admit to you that when I was assigned this topic, I actually put off preparing for a few days because I knew as I started looking into what it meant to be a godly husband, I was going to see all the ways I was falling short, not all the ways Canyon Hills Community Church 1

2 I was nailing it. I preach this as one who is in process with you, a sinner who is changing. I just want you to hear that from me. I by no means think I have arrived in this. Secondly, no matter who you are or what stage of life you're in, this message is important for you to hear. There are a lot of people in this room who don't meet the criteria of husband, so if you are a woman in the room and you are married, my encouragement to you is this is the standard to which you should hold and expect of your husband. If you are unmarried in the room, by the grace of God, we hope one day you will be married, and these are the qualities you should be looking for in a husband. If you are a man in the room who is not yet married, these are the traits we need to be developing now to be godly husbands down the road. Whatever stage of life you're in, this is an important message for you to hear. Thirdly, the godly husband is the man who recognizes where he has come up short and humbly seeks to grow and change. The godly husband is not the man who does perfectly everything we're about to cover. This is key. This is as much for the women in the room to hear as the men. With that said, will you stand out of respect for the Word of God? Let's read together Ephesians, chapter 5. We will begin in verse 22. "Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. 'Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.'" Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your Word. We thank you for your truth. God, I pray for all the husbands in the room and all the men who will one day be husbands. God, I pray that you would soften and prepare our hearts for your Word, that we would be convicted and changed. God, I pray that you would give me clear words and articulate thoughts, that your Word would be preached boldly in grace and truth. God, we give this time to you. In Christ's name, amen. 1. The godly husband loves his wife. Men, I want to challenge you to take notes today. The first step to being a godly husband is showing your wife you care, so pull out a piece of paper, pull out a pen, and write some of these things down. All right? The godly husband loves his wife. Canyon Hills Community Church 2

3 Verse 25 and verse 31 say, "Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 'Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.'" Now this may seem like a no-brainer. Godly husbands should love their wives, but if this was a no-brainer, more men would actually do it. The truth is our culture and media have painted a picture of what it means to love our wives that stands in stark contrast with the picture God paints of how we are to love our wives. I know no self-respecting man in the room would ever openly admit to watching or liking a good romantic comedy. I'm giving you all the benefit of the doubt. Our pastor, our fearless leader, a couple of months ago, from the pulpit, openly admitted to, not just liking, but loving Downton Abbey. Being a man of faith and giving you all the benefit of the doubt, I would like to believe our pastor's passion for estrogen-infused television is the exception in the room, not the rule. I believe better in all of you. It's a good thing we don't record these, or I could be in trouble. If you are a good husband, at some point in time, you have probably watched one or two of these romantic comedies. If you have, it doesn't take long to see what our society calls love. Love is that magical connection between two people who have never met. Love is finding out you are passionate about all the same things and you laugh about all the same things. Love is about finding your soul mate. Underneath it all, love is an emotionally-driven, sexually-charged union in which both parties' selfish needs are intuitively met without ever needing to be expressed. I hate to bring us all crashing down to earth this early in the morning, but that's not love. That's certainly not the love God has called us to and that Paul is calling us to this morning. Godly, true, biblical love is two things. Men, I want you to write this down. A. True, biblical love is a decision. The word in the original language here translated as love implies a decision of the will and the mind. It is not a romantic love. It is not a fleeting love, but a decided love. This love includes emotion and feeling, but it is not dependent on either of those things. Biblical love is not something we can just fall in and out of. You've heard someone say, I'm sure, over the years, "You know what? I've just fallen out of love with my spouse." That is a false statement. When someone says that, what they are really saying is, "My spouse is no longer meeting my selfish needs, the way I want them met, when I want them met." True love cannot be fallen into and out of. Christ is our example. Let's just be real for a moment. Christ doesn't love us because we are exceptionally loveable. If we were honest with ourselves and had an accurate view of our sin, we would recognize God loves us, not because we're awesome, but in our guilt, shame, and sin. That's Romans, chapter 5: " that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." As Christ loves us, as he chose to love us in spite of us, we also choose to love our wives. B. True, biblical love is permanent. Write that down. Verse 31 commands us to leave our fathers and mothers as we establish a new home, to hold fast to one another and become one flesh. This idea of holding fast is as if two objects were to be bound together with glue or cement. They are Canyon Hills Community Church 3

4 inseparable. If ever broken apart, it's as if one body were to be split in two, leaving a trail of blood, gore, and carnage behind. Again, Christ is our example. Romans 8 makes the clear case: nothing will ever separate us from the love of God. God will not divorce us, even though we deserve it daily. I don't know about you, but that is a truth for which I am so thankful. If God divorced us the way we divorce in our culture, we would be in a lot of trouble. He is our example. What does this look like for us as husbands in the room? I hope today's message will be very practical and give us ways to implement these truths even today. The first practical application point of the day is we choose to love our wives. Men, write this down. We choose to love our wives. We just do it, not because they've earned it, but simply because God has commanded us to. There will be times when our wives are easily loveable, and there will be times when our wives are difficult to love. Yet the truth is we, as men, as godly husbands, do not have the luxury of allowing our feelings to dictate when and how we love our wives. Notice Paul says, " love your wives, as Christ loved the church " He doesn't say, "Love your wives as Christ loved the church as long as your wives are fulfilling their duty to love and respect you." Our call to love them stands independent of their call to love us. That means if you are married to a Disney princess or the Wicked Witch of the West, your call remains the same. For some of you, that's funny. For some of you, that's terrifying. In a moment of seriousness, I know there are some men here in the room who are married to a genuinely difficult woman. Your call, your encouragement from the Lord this morning is you need to stay the course. You need to remain faithful and love that wife as Christ has chosen to love you. That is our call. John MacArthur summed up this biblical love by writing, "A husband is not commanded to love his wife because of what she is or is not. He is commanded to love her because it is God's will for him to love her. It is certainly intended for a husband to admire and be attracted by his wife's beauty, winsomeness, kindness, gentleness, or any other positive quality or virtue. But though such things bring great blessing and enjoyment, they are not the bond of marriage. If every appealing characteristic and every virtue of his wife disappears, a husband is still under just as great an obligation to love her. If anything, he is under greater obligation, because her need for the healing and restorative power of his selfless love is greater. That is the kind of love Christ has for His church and is therefore the kind of love every Christian husband is to have for his wife." 2. The godly husband leads his wife. Verse 23: "For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior." God has given authority to the husband to lead his wife and family. This may be one of our greatest failures as men, because some of us have become lazy. Some of us have become unengaged. Some of us have been guilty of simply choosing the path of least resistance when it comes to our marriages, rather than standing up for what is right and true. Canyon Hills Community Church 4

5 Listen. The truth is there is no call in Scripture None of us have been challenged to master video games, NFL trivia, or the golf course. You're not going to find that anywhere. However, we have been called to lead our families. Here's the scary truth. One day, every single one of us, as men, are going to stand before a holy God. On that day, we aren't going to be holding him accountable for the caliber and quality of the wives he provided us. On that day, we will be held accountable for how we shepherded, stewarded, and loved the wives he gave us. There is no room for laziness when it comes to our leadership. One of the greatest temptations for us, as men, is to lay down our mantle of leadership in the name of making our wives happy or simply not rocking the boat. Listen. We have been called to more than that. Guys, I want you to look at me in the eyes when I say this because this is key. Choosing the path of least resistance, when it comes to leading in our marriages, is not heroic. It is cowardly. You've all heard the phrase, "Happy wife, happy life," but it's not our job to make sure our wives are happy. There are some things that will bring them happiness and enjoyment that are not beneficial to them, nor honoring to the Lord. It is not our job to make them happy. It is our job to lead them in becoming godly women, pursuing Christ, in spite of what they think may make them happy. Our example is Adam and Eve. Both of them sinned. Adam was held responsible. Am I saying our wives are incapable of making these decisions without us? They need us to do this? Absolutely not. I would say, in most cases, our wives are probably more discerning than we are, but I am saying, at the end of the day, you and I are the ones who are held responsible, and so we need to act. We need to move. That being said, am I saying we are to not make our wives happy? No. The godly husband will find it his joy to see his wife fulfilled, happy, and joyful, but her happiness will not be our primary goal. Our primary goal will be honoring the Lord in all things, first and foremost, and our wives' happiness will be a byproduct of that primary goal. What does this look like, practically speaking? Men, I want you to write this down. It's not rocket science. It starts with this: we lead by example. If we are to lead our wives in the right way, we must lead them by example. As we make the Lord our priority, worshiping, following, and serving him, our wives will follow us. This means we need to be growing and changing into the men the Lord has called us to be. We can't call them to live a God-honoring life if we ourselves are not seeking that same end. This takes humility. This takes discipline. It is a decision, and by the grace of God, it is doable. Another way we lead our families is Canyon Hills Community Church 5

6 Men, we may have to do some housecleaning. We have to look at our homes and establish what we, by example, are saying is acceptable in our homes. The movies we watch, the movies our wives watch, the movies our kids watch It is our job to make the hard call and get rid of anything that would undermine the God-honoring values and principles of our home. Men, this means we may not be able to watch Game of Thrones. This means our wives may not be able to watch The Bachelorette. This means we may have to throw out romance novels, tabloids, or whatever it is that may be undermining our God-honoring homes. It is our job to make the hard call and do some housecleaning. That's how we lead by example. That's how we lead our families and our wives. 3. The godly husband sacrifices for his wife. Men, I want you to write that one down. A godly husband sacrifices for his wife. Verse 25: "Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her " This is a really tough one. At least, it is for me. Why? It's because I'm a selfish person. I think God use marriage as a spotlight into my sinful heart. I think he uses children as a laser beam into the center of my selfish heart. We are, by nature, selfish people. I remember when my daughter was about 3 weeks old, and she was up at about 3:00 in the morning. She's screaming her head off and I am mad. In my head, the conversation I'm having is, "Child, you are being unreasonable." With a 3-week-old I'm sitting here thinking, "Your life consists of nursing and sleeping. What could you possibly be crying about right now?" I'm up, I'm sleep-deprived, and for some reason I'm hungry, and the only thing that will put her to sleep is this move, which you can only keep up for so long. In that moment, my anger was not justified. My kid was doing nothing wrong. I was angry because my child wasn't living up to my expectations. I did not want to sacrifice my sleep. I did not want to sacrifice whatever these muscles are, here, that I didn't know were there until I had to rock her that way. Yet I have been called, you have been called We, as godly husbands, have been called to live lives of sacrifice. This passage sets the precedent. Skill-testing question What did Christ give up for the church? Everything. Thank you. Someone didn't whisper, and I appreciate that. Everything. So in light of what Christ did for us, our takeaway is there is nothing we should not be willing to sacrifice for the betterment of our wives. What does this look like? What is the day-to-day application for us in daily sacrifice? Well, this list is far from comprehensive, but we sacrifice our time, money, interests, and desires. That could be football games, motorcycle rides, time out with the guys, or money spent on hobbies, whatever is necessary. A good question to evaluate your attitude when it comes to sacrificing for your wife would be, "If Christ were to be willing to sacrifice for me the way my history shows I am willing to sacrifice for my wife, where would I be?" That should convict us. 4. The godly husband cares spiritually for his wife. Men, write this one down and highlight it. One of the primary responsibilities of the godly husband is to care for the purity of our wives. Canyon Hills Community Church 6

7 One of the primary ways we do that is by caring for them spiritually. We take this from verses It says: "Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish." This is the set precedent. Christ didn't come into the world so we could remain in our sin. Christ came into the world, died on the cross, and was raised again so we, as his people, could be presented as holy and blameless before God. In the same way, we are to purify our wives and lead them in the process of becoming more and more like Christ. I admit to you, this morning, that of all the areas of godly leadership, this one is probably the most difficult one for me. I come to you this morning as a pastor. Of all the areas I'm supposed to have dialed in, this is probably the one, but as a man with his wife, this is really hard, because my wife sees me at my absolute best. She sees me at my dad-of-the-year moments and my husband-of-the-year moments, but my wife also sees me at my absolute worst. She sees me in my anger. She sees me in my selfishness. She sees me in my sin. At the end of the day, when I have been everything but a godly husband to her, it is so hard to finish the day out by saying, "Honey, would you pray with me?" because in that moment, I don't feel qualified to lead her spiritually. Men, I want your eyes on me for this, because this is absolutely essential in your understanding of what it is to be a godly husband. We feel hypocritical because we are hypocritical. That's not going to change. Why? Because we're not Jesus. The standard has been set by the sinless Son of God, so we are going to find ourselves in a constant state of failure in this. Yet the reality remains. The reality of our hypocrisy is not an excuse for spiritual laziness. How do we do this? How do we, as flawed, sinful human beings, lead our wives spiritually? Well, I think there are two facets to this. There's an element of protection and an element of provision. All of this falls under the heading of you not having to have a master's degree in theology to lead your wife spiritually. We're going to start just by looking at the provision side of caring for our wives spiritually. Here are just a couple of practical ideas. A. We lead our wives to church every Sunday. Not most Sundays, not the convenient Sundays We lead our wives to church every Sunday. This does not look like us leading our wives to church every Sunday there's not a 10:00 a.m. kickoff. What that says to our wives and families is, "God is important as long as there's nothing better going on." Whenever we are physically able, we get our families to church. When we are on vacation, we get our families to church. When we have people visiting from out of town, we take them with us to church. When we go visit family out of town, we find a church and make them go with us. We Canyon Hills Community Church 7

8 go to church every Sunday because it is our duty to make sure our wives are sitting under the consistent teaching of God's Word. B. We get our families in a Life Group. It is important that our wives spend time with other godly men and women with us. We need to be in study of the Scripture, and this will not happen to its fullest potential unless we, as the men, are leading the charge. We get our wives in a Life Group. C. We, as men, need to be reading our Bibles. This falls under the heading of leading by example. We should be in our Bibles. Men, our wives should know what our Bibles look like. They should see us reading them. They should see us wrestling with it. They should see us talking about it. A good idea is just to maybe get you and your wife on the same Bible reading plan. Google it. There are three-month Bible reading plans. There are three-year Bible reading plans, but it's a great way to get accountable in your Bible reading and give the two of you something meaningful to talk about. We read our Bibles. D. Make sure our wives have time to read their Bibles. We need to make sure our wives have time to read their Bibles, because life is nuts. If you have or ever have had children, you know there are some days when our wives literally don't have 15 minutes to themselves. There have been days when I have walked in the front door and, just based on the look on my wife's face, I know the win was keeping them alive. The fact that both of them are still breathing was the win, and that's okay. That means I may have to go out of my way to make time for her to read her Bible. Maybe that means when I come home I take the kids for 15 minutes or half an hour. We go out in the backyard and she gets some time to read. Maybe that means after the kids go down I say, "Sweetie, do you know what? I will clean the kitchen for you. You go read," knowing full well it will take me six times as long to clean that kitchen as it does her. Without fail, every time I take on the kitchen, she finishes doing what she's doing and I'm still staring at the dishwasher because there's this thing in there that looks like a torture instrument or something to exact a confession, not something for the culinary arts. I have no idea where it goes. But that doesn't mean we don't, in principle, still make time for our wives to read their Bibles. It is important. That's the provision side of things, but now there's also a protection element to leading our wives spiritually. I know there are a lot of men in the room who are trained and equipped to defend and protect their wives physically, and that is good, but I would ask the question, how many of us take seriously the responsibility of protecting our wives spiritually? E. We need to pray for our wives. The truth is our wives are in a battle every day against an Enemy who would love to see our God-honoring homes crushed, so we need to pray for our wives. That's the practical application here. How often do we pray for our wives? It should be consistent and often. Canyon Hills Community Church 8

9 F. We need to evaluate what is feeding our wives. We also have to know what they are reading because there is a lot of stuff out there, even under the heading of Christianity, that our wives and our children need to be protected from, and that is our duty. The point is Christ loved us with a purifying and holy love that saved us from the wrath of God and restored peace to our relationship with God. He has presented us as pure and holy before God and our love for our wives should seek the same end in them. 5. The godly husband cares physically for his wife. Men, write that down. Verses say, "In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body." The principle is simple. In the same way we love and care for ourselves, we are to love and care for our wives. One thing humanity is universally good at is self-love. When we are hungry, we find something to eat. When we are thirsty, we find something to drink. We identify needs we have and then we find ways of filling those needs. It's the same principle when it comes to loving our wives. We need to love them with the same consistency and intentionality with which we love ourselves. What does this look like, practically? Well, there are countless applications, but here are just a few I wanted to cover this morning. A. We work so they don't have to. Men, write that down. It is our job to provide for the needs of our wives, and that includes the physical needs. Notice there's a difference between providing the needs of our wives and families versus providing the wants of our wives and families. Do I think it's wrong for a woman to work? Absolutely not, but our wives should not have to work to provide luxuries at the expense of their caring for their husbands and their children. A wife working should only be to meet real needs, not just so we can own a boat. Titus makes the clear case. It is the man's job to provide the home. It is the woman's job to make the home. Men, what that looks like for us is we may have to work at a job long hours we don't like. Men, it may mean at times we have to work two jobs to make ends meet. It might mean (and this flies in the face of everything our culture tells us) we just have to live simpler lives. It may mean we don't get to live in as big of a house as we'd like in the neighborhood we like. Maybe it means we don't have the extra car or extra motorcycle, boat, or cable package we want. We have to make sacrifices to make sure we, as the men, are providing for our wives physically. That's the first way we do that. We work so they don't have to. B. We stand up for our wives. We protect them physically. This should be a no-brainer. We protect them from anything or anyone who would bring them harm, period. Men, we get this one. This is why we love movies like Braveheart, because we love the battle and fight. When it comes to the end and we have to throw our bodies down, that resonates with us. I heard this story just this last week. You guys probably remember; it was a couple of years back. There were these three boys who took their girlfriends to go see a movie at a theater in Colorado. Canyon Hills Community Church 9

10 In the midst of the movie, a gunman walked into the theater and just started opening fire on the people who were watching the movie. These boys' instinct Mind you, they were with their girlfriends, not with their fiancées, not with their wives. Their instinct was to throw them on the ground and to cover them with their bodies. That day, all three of those boys died, but every one of those girls lived because the bullets that were meant for their bodies were absorbed by those of their boyfriends. Guys, that is what we're called to do. If that was my son, Declan If he was one of those boys, I would be devastated, but you would not find a prouder daddy, because that is what we've been called to do. We protect them physically, but another way we stand up for our wives is not just physical. We also have to protect their character, and there are two main ways in which we do this. Firstly, we don't tolerate others speaking poorly about our wives. Men, you should write that one down. We don't tolerate others speaking poorly about our wives. Do you know where I think we put up with the most disrespect for our wives? In our own homes. When the kids talk back, men, we are to crush that. I've seen this too many times and it honestly saddens my heart. Children are blatantly disrespectful and disobedient to their moms, and the dad stands by and does nothing. Men, it is our duty to smash that, because the truth is, by our silence, when we don't, we are telling our children we are okay with it and we agree with it. Our children should know we are passionate about protecting and honoring and making our wives a priority. Not only that, but our wives should see us defend them. They should know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, their men have their backs, both inside the home and outside of the home. We don't tolerate anyone speaking poorly about them. Secondly, we don't speak poorly about them, period. When we are with our family, friends, coworkers Whoever we are with, we, as men, need to be committed to building up our wives verbally. We need to be committed to never speaking of them in a way that is disrespectful or dishonoring. The bottom line is we have been charged to protect our wives. We stand up for their safety and for their character. We as men are the shields God has placed in the lives of our wives. We protect them and honor them, first and foremost. This may seem a bit like a tangent, but I feel like we have to say a few words about sex, when it comes to protecting our wives physically. Sex is primarily an act of service we bring to our wives. It's not a selfish act; it's a selfless act. Sex is and should be mutually gratifying, but a healthy view of sex does not ask, "What do I need or get out of this?" It should be, "What does my wife need to get out of this?" First Corinthians 7 makes the clear case that sex is to be provided for both the man and the woman for the clear purpose of protecting them from temptation. We have the biblical mandate, Canyon Hills Community Church 10

11 for which I hope every man in this room is thankful, that sex is to be consistent and frequent in order to protect us from temptation. Yet in all of this, men, our focus should be on our wives, not on what we deserve or need. I wonder how much of the rampant sexual sin we see in our world and community would be avoided if we would stop viewing sex as something to fulfill our selfish needs and desires, but would start looking at it from the perspective of serving our wives and honoring God. The question I always like to finish with is What are we going to do about it? Today we have a choice, men. Will we hear these words and choose to ignore them or will we choose to be obedient to the call of God? James, chapter 1, paints this vivid picture. There's a man who stares in the face of God's Word. He stares into the mirror of God's Word. He sees where he has fallen short, and then he walks away and chooses to ignore what he has seen. James holds him up as an unsaved man. Their callousness toward the teaching and conviction of God proves they are not of God. Yet then there is an equally vivid picture of a man who stares intently into the Word of God, sees where he has fallen short, and then chooses to do something about it. James holds him up as the one who is truly saved. Every one of us men, you and I, have a decision to make, because the truth is being male is genetic. Being a man is a choice. Being a godly husband is a decision. Like I said before, the godly husband is not the one who does all of these things perfectly, but he is the one who will identify a problem and who will seek to change it. I want to challenge all of us as husbands here today. I trust you've been taking notes. I would love for you and challenge you to take those notes to your wife today and lay them out before her and say, "Honey, where on this page do I need to grow first and most? Where do I need to change?" You need to decide ahead of time, "I'm not going to be angry. I'm not going to be defensive, but I'm going to trust the Lord is going to speak through my wife in showing me where I need to change and grow as a man. The bottom-line truth here, though, is it will be impossible for you to love your wives as you have been called to love them if you have not first been loved by God in that same way. If you do not know Jesus, you cannot love your wife in the way you have been called to love, so if you're sitting here today and you do not yet know Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, there are people here who would love the opportunity to talk with you, pray with you, and tell you what that might look like. If you're here today and you are just burdened and need prayer, for whatever it may be, there are going to be people here. Please don't leave without giving them the opportunity to serve you and pray with you. We see what it is to be a godly husband. Now we just need to choose to do it. Let's pray. Canyon Hills Community Church 11

12 Father, thank you for your Word. Thank you for your truth. Thank you for your conviction. God, I pray that you would not permit us to walk away, forgetting what we've seen here today, but that we would choose to and be excited about growing into the men you have called us to be. Lord, it doesn't matter whether we are 7 years old or 77 years old. God, we all have room to grow, and it is never too late to begin that process, so I pray you would do a work in the hearts of the men and husbands of this church. In Christ's name, amen. All right guys. Have a great week. We'll see you back here next Sunday. Canyon Hills Community Church 12