How to Get a New Husband: Finding Harmony in the Home

Hey, everybody, you're listening to A New Beginning, which is a podcast made possible by Harvest Partners. If this program has impacted you, I'd love to hear from you. So just send an email to me at gregatharvest.org. Again, it's gregatharvest.org.

You can learn more about becoming a Harvest Partner by going to harvest.org. Wives, you want to become a virtuous woman. And there's so little said about this in culture today. So much of the focus of all of the women's magazines that are out there are on your appearance.

Don't make that your primary focus. Be the best version of you that you can be. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound. Again, you hear all the angels are singing. This is the day, the day when life begins.

A 20th century playwright wrote, if you use just a little tadpole, don't you try to be the frog? Don't you be what you ain't, just you be what you is. If a man is what he isn't, then he isn't what he is. Today on A New Beginning, Pastor Greg Laurie helps husbands and wives in particular be the people God created them to be. It's good counsel from God's Word today on how men and women can work together to enjoy more harmony in the home.

It's the day, the day when life begins. All right. We're in our series that we're calling Home Sweet Home where we're talking about the family.

How many of you are married? Raise your hand up. Okay.

Good. How many of you have a home sweet home? Raise up your hand.

How many of you could use some help in your home sweet home? Well let's grab our Bibles. We're going to turn to 1 Peter chapter 3. 1 Peter chapter 3 and the title of my message is How to Get a New Husband. So ladies are you happy you came to church today? Guys are you unhappy you came? Like what is this message?

I think it will be okay for both of you. I heard a story. I told you this one before about a guy that was walking down a beach here in Southern California and saw something shiny coming out of the sand so he stooped down and reached down and picked it up and it was a lamp and he was rubbing it off the sand and a genie appears.

True story. And the genie says, oh master I will give you one wish whatever you want I will give it to you. The guy says, one wish? What happened to three wishes? Hey the economy.

It is just hard these days. We are down to one wish. Wow.

One wish. God thought about it for a moment and said, you know I have always wanted to go to Hawaii. I have heard it is beautiful. I have seen photos.

I have seen film. But I have a fear of flying and I don't want to get in an airplane. So if you could build a bridge from California to Hawaii so I could drive over and see the islands that would be awesome genie. That is my wish. And genie says, what are you crazy? Do you know how much work that is? How much expense is involved in building a bridge from California to Hawaii?

The concrete alone would cost so much. There is no way I can do that. Wish for something else. The guy thinks about it for a moment. He says, well you know what genie? I have never been able to understand women. And I especially don't understand my wife. So here is my wish genie. From this point forward I want to be able to understand women. Genie says, back to the bridge.

Two lanes are four. You know despite 42 years of marriage I can't say that I understand women. I think in general for guys girls are a mystery to us. But here is what I have also found.

Sometimes girls are a mystery to girls. Ok. But I know someone who does understand you very well. And that is God Himself who created you. So let's see what the Scripture has to say about the role of the woman and specifically the wife in marriage. 1 Peter 3.

And I am reading from the New Living Translation by the way for this particular portion. We will stop there. So what do we learn here about getting a new husband?

Point number one. Be the best version of you that you can be. Be the best version of you that you can be.

First and foremost for a girl you want to be godly. You want to become a virtuous woman. I hope you have read Proverbs 31.

But if you haven't go read that later. And it tells you all about what a woman of virtue looks like. By the way the word virtue is not purely a feminine word. I think we might think of it in a feminine context only. But in the Bible it is also used to describe men in certain instances. So the word virtuous is a word that actually means purity, strength, force, and value. It doesn't mean weakness. It means purity, strength, force, and value. It speaks of a balanced woman who is strong in every way. She is a woman that is beautiful on the outside and also on the inside. And there is so little said about this in culture today. So much of the focus of all of the women's magazines that are out there are on your appearance.

How to lose X amount of pounds by summer. How to have better sex. You know it is all in the outward. When is the last time in the cover of Cosmo or some other women's magazine you read this headline. How to be a godly girl. An in-depth look at Proverbs 31. Never-er-er. And you never will see it.

Because that is not the focus of culture today. It is all in the way that you look. As age kicks in some girls are frustrated by the fact that they don't look the way they used to look. And so they are a little bit concerned. A little bit worried about that.

The pull of gravity is kicking in. And maybe your striking beauty is no longer there. But here is the thing.

If you concentrate on being a beautiful woman on the inside as well as the outside you will be more attractive for the passing of yours. Not less so. There is something very special about a godly girl. And that is why I think many times nonbelievers are attracted to Christian women. Because they don't find those values in the other girls out there. So they come to the Christian woman. They see that virtue. They see that quality.

And they want that quality. But of course girls just a little word of advice. Don't ever hook up with an ungodly man. When you are looking for a guy if you are single you want to find one that loves the Lord. And if you are already married to a guy that isn't as godly as you want him to be well find out what you should do in this message right here. But the godly woman focuses primarily on the internal but does not forget the external.

Let me say that again. The godly woman focuses on the internal, the spiritual, but does not forget about the external, the physical. And it is interesting the word that is used here in verse 3 let your adornment not be merely outward.

The word adorning is from the Greek word cosmos. We get our word cosmetic from it. Don't focus primarily on cosmetics.

It doesn't say don't use them at all. You know sometimes the question is asked should a Christian girl wear makeup. Simple answer. If a house needs painting hey paint it. So this is not a put down of outward beauty. This is not a criticism of doing everything you can to be attractive.

It is saying don't make that your primary focus. Actually as you look in Scripture you will find the Bible does not forbid women to look attractive. It even encourages it. The bride of Solomon and the song of Solomon chapter 1 verse 10 is described as a woman of beauty that wears beautiful clothing. The same is said in Proverbs 31 22 of the virtuous woman. God is not condemning a woman for trusting herself attractively. The criticism is being preoccupied with it.

The criticism is don't only think about that but we can go too far on either side right. We can be all about the spiritual and neglect the outward or we can be all about the outward and neglect the inward. We need to find the balance that is given to us in Scripture. Be the best version of you that you can be. Be as attractive as you can be. I think sometimes in the name of spirituality some Christian women neglect their appearance.

Christian men too. Being sloppy and unkempt is not a virtue. And you say well I am married now.

He needs to love me the way that I am. Uh yeah. But are you doing everything you can to be the most attractive woman you can be. Well Greg I am not a runway model ok. Yeah I know. And he is not George Clooney either or Brad Pitt. Yeah alright.

Got that. That is why I said be the best version of you that you can be. It is important to take care of the physical body that God has given to you. Don't think it is unspiritual to be concerned about weighing too much or being out of shape or neglecting yourself.

That is not an unspiritual thing at all. In fact Scripture tells us that bodily exercise is of some value but godliness has value for all things holding promise for the present life and the life to come. Yeah it is of some value.

It doesn't say it is of no value. So you want to find that right balance. Pastor Greg Laurie will have the second half of his message in just a moment. Hey everybody Greg Laurie here. You know my uncle Fred Jordan had one of the first Christian TV programs out there. It was called Church in the Home.

I remember watching it as a little boy when I was living with my grandparents. Well we have Church in the Home for you every weekend. It is called Harvest at Home and you can find it at Harvest.org.

We have worship and a message from God's word. So join us this weekend for Harvest at Home at Harvest.org. Well today Pastor Greg is bringing practical encouragement to Christian wives and husbands from his Christian family series called Home Sweet Home.

Let's continue now. Number two. Respect your man. Respect your man. R-e-s-p-e-c-t. That is what he needs from thee. Ok. Look at verse one.

Now I am reading from New King James. Be submissive to your own husbands and if even some do not obey the word they without a word may be won by the conduct of their wives while they observe your chaste and respectful. Respectful conduct accompanied by fear or a better word would be respect. You must respect your husband. Ephesians 5-33 says, Let each one of you men in particular love his wife as himself and let the wife see that she respects her husband. Ladies do you respect your husband?

Listen to this. Wives need love and husbands need respect. That is not to say that husbands don't need love and wives don't need respect. But it is to say Scripture very specifically says to wives respect your husband and very specifically says to husbands love your wives.

So I think we should pay attention to that. You know a woman needs to be affirmed. A woman needs to be encouraged.

She needs to know that you love her and appreciate her. You know sometimes men are mischaracterized as not being emotional. We will say women are emotional and men are not true at all. Men are just as emotional as women are. We just suppress it.

That is all. Because maybe we have the idea that is not masculine. And I have two words for any man that thinks it is unmasculine to express emotion. Ready for the words? Jesus wept. You know Jesus was the man's man. There was never a more manly guy that walked the planet than Jesus Christ. But he expressed emotion, weeping, sorrow, joy, and all the rest.

But we will hold those things in. But we are feeling him. So sometimes a guy, you need to know this about your husband girls. He will look at you and think, wow she looks beautiful today. Or I love her so much. But he doesn't say anything. So guys step up your game and say it.

You know you look beautiful. Ok so women need love. But men need respect.

You know guys are pretty low maintenance when it is all said and done. I know this from my own wife who raised two boys and others that have raised boys and girls. I always say boys are so much easier to raise than girls.

Which brings me to my point. Even girls don't understand girls. Right? Boys are kind of what you see is what you get. And guys don't need as much as you may think. Here is one thing a guy needs from you. Respect. See if a guy comes home from work and he is exhausted and you tell him all the things he needs to do and tell him all the things he is doing wrong and tell him how he is not measuring up. This can be harmful because you need to balance it with respect. And you don't have to do it every day. But every once in a while throw the guy a bone and just say, honey I don't know if I have said this to you lately but I love you. And I so respect you as a man, as a husband, and as a father. And I admire you. Wow you just got like days, maybe weeks of chores right there.

Boom! What the nagging would never accomplish. That little compliment will help you in more ways than you would ever realize. Husbands love your wives. Wives respect your husband.

Here is a problem. When a husband feels disrespected he has a natural tendency to react in ways that seem unloving to the wife. And when a wife feels unloved she has a tendency to react in ways that feel disrespectful to her husband. So here is what you need to do. Just do your part.

As I said before read your own mail. Don't quote verses to your husband about what he is supposed to do. Guys don't quote verses to your wife about what she is supposed to do.

Read the verses directed at you and do your part. Stop reading each other's mail. Don't wait until you feel love. Do loving things. Don't wait until you feel respect.

Show it in your actions. I heard about a woman that didn't want to be married anymore. She hated her husband.

So she went down to see a divorce attorney. Said, now listen I want to divorce him but I don't want to just divorce him. I want to hurt him. I want to devastate him. And I want you to help me know how to do that.

The attorney said hmm I have an idea. How about this. For the next three months I want you to tell your husband how much you love him. Tell him how much you respect him. And smother him with compliments. And just tell him about all the great things you see in him.

Do it for three months and he will be so built up and so encouraged and then just drop it on him. I am divorcing you. It will hit him like a bombshell.

She says hoo hoo evil laugh. I like that. And that is what she did for three months. Complimented him. Smothered him with affection. Told him how much he respected him. And now the three months are up the attorney kept it on his calendar.

He gave her a call. It is time to file for the divorce. She said divorce. What are you talking about.

We are going on our second honeymoon. What did she do. She just honored a simple biblical principle by respecting her husband.

Point number three. Submit to the leadership of your husband. Submit to the leadership of your husband. 1 Peter 3 one to two wives. Be submissive to your own husbands and even if some do not obey the word they without a word may be won by the conduct of their wives while they observe your chaste and respectful conduct accompanied by fear.

Now let's be honest. Nobody wants to submit to anyone in culture today. We are in a narcissistic me first culture. And we don't like the idea of submitting ourselves to any form of authority. So when we come to the Bible and read this word we don't like it. But let's understand something. We are all called to submit to God right.

Submit to God the Bible says resist the devil and he will flee from you. And then also in the marriage husbands and wives are both called to submit to each other. In an earlier message in this series I pointed out in Ephesians 5 how it says submit one to another and the reverence of God. So before a word is said to the wife about her submission to the husband we are told that both husband and wife should submit to one another. What does that mean? It means that you rank yourself under it.

It is a military term meaning that someone ranks over you. So the husband says I am going to submit to her. I am going to support her.

I am going to get underneath her and hold her up. She says the same thing for him. So first it starts with submission to God and then mutual submission to one another. But now there is a specific place for the roles of the man and the woman in the marriage. Now this is not in any way to suggest that a man is superior and a woman is inferior.

It is to say rather they belong to each other. Therefore when God calls a woman to submit to the leadership of the man he is not saying she is any less than a man because she isn't. Showing men and women have equal standing before God Paul writes in Galatians 3.28 In Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek. Slave nor free. Listen.

Male nor female. For you are all one in Christ. So though there is no difference between men and women and the nature of their salvation and standing with God there is a structure of authority that God has set in the marriage. 1 Corinthians 11.3 sums it up perfectly. Paul writes, I want you to know the head of every man is Christ and the head of a woman is man and the head of Christ is God.

Now let's understand what this verse means and I think we will get the bigger picture of how this all works. Notice it says the head of Christ is God. Now let's think for a moment about the Trinity. Father, Son, Holy Spirit.

Right? They are co-equal and they are co-eternal. The Father is not any more God than the Son is and the Son is not more God or more of a deity than the Spirit is. They are all God. They are all part of the Godhead. They all are deity.

But yet they have separate functions and roles. And Scripture teaches that God the Father is the head of Christ. Though Jesus was God when He walked this earth He submitted to the will of the Father didn't He? He lowered Himself. In fact Philippians says He laid aside His rights and privileges or emptied Himself from the Greek word kenosis.

The emptying. So He put the will of the Father even above the will of His own. Does that mean Jesus was less than the Father?

No. They are equal. But it means that He took a different role for He Himself said I and the Father are one. So the relationship structure of Christ to God the Father is the same with marriage. Though the husband and wife are equal in their standing before God in order for the family to function in harmony the woman with no loss of dignity takes a place of submission to the headship of the husband. The husband models the way God loves the church. The wife models the way the church loves God. The husband has the God given responsibility to provide for, protect, and lead just as the Lord does the church. And the wife is to submit graciously to the servant leadership the husband provides just as the church submits willingly to the headship of Christ. Now listen. Any husband with half a brain will listen to his wife. I can think of a decision I have made in our marriage of 42 years where I have not consulted my wife Kathy.

What do you think of this? And I get her input. And there are many times when I think I want to go a certain way she will say one thing and I will say, Yeah you are right.

We will do it your way. Sometimes I don't like it. Sometimes I will walk away and say, No I am going to do it my way. And then I will think about it and go, No she is right.

I will go back. You are right. No I think your idea is better. Then there are times I will say, No we need to do this. And it turns out I am right. And there are times I say, We need to do this. And it turns out I am wrong. You see it works in many ways.

But the point is there has to be some kind of a structure. But if you are smart guys you will listen to your wife of the woman of virtue. In Proverbs 31 it says that her husband has full confidence in her.

He lacks nothing of value. She brings him good not harm. All the days of her life she speaks with wisdom and faithful instruction is on her tongue. Pastor Greg Laurie with great encouragement for Christian wives today in a message called How to Get a New Husband.

It's from his Christian family series Home Sweet Home. Well Pastor Greg let me ask you what do we do in those times when the bottom just absolutely falls out of our lives? And we wonder if maybe God wasn't paying attention.

If he was paying attention how would he let that happen? Help us think through those moments of crisis. Right.

Well let's pull the camera back and get the big picture. Our life has a beginning a middle and an end. God created us to walk with him and to know him. And God is also preparing us for heaven because heaven is a prepared place for a prepared people.

Jesus said I go to prepare a place for you. So God's end game if you will is to make you more like Jesus. You know we often quote Romans 8 28 in times of crisis but we forget there's a verse that follows. So Romans 8 28 says for we know that all things work together for good of those that love God and are the called according to his purpose. But then verse 29 says for whom he called he also did for know to be conformed into the image of his own dear son. So sometimes when we isolate Romans 8 28 we come to the conclusion of oh well this is a bad thing God will make it into a good thing.

That's not what the promise says. It says he'll cause all things to work together for good. But what is the ultimate good?

The removal of our problem. No the ultimate good is to be more like Jesus. So God has either done what is happening in your life or he has allowed it for his purposes. So that is the moment we must learn to trust him. And speaking of trusting him here's a family who has trusted God through great difficulty not only losing many family members in a short period of time. But losing the real matriarch of their family their mother and the wife of Tony Evans. I'm talking about Lois Evans and I'm talking about the Evans family. Tony is the dad and we have Crystal Priscilla Anthony and Jonathan all of them walking with the Lord that's a real tribute to not only Tony but especially to Lois. And the title of this book is Divine Disruption.

What's really unique about this book Dave is the whole family chimed in and participated and contributed to it. And this is a book that brings hope and encouragement. It's subtitled Holding on to Faith When Life Breaks Your Heart. Maybe I'm talking to somebody right now who has a broken heart. It makes no sense what has happened to you and you're wondering as Dave mentioned earlier is God paying attention?

The answer is yes he is. Because as I've often said the word oops is not in God's vocabulary. God's at work in your life. But let me share this book with you which will offer you a biblical perspective and honest words of encouragement. I say honest because the Evans family is candid as they discuss what it's like to lose someone as important as their mother and Tony speaking of losing his wife. But really do we really lose someone when we know where they are? They all know that she's in heaven.

They know they'll see her again and that is the hope of the Christian. Let me send you this book Divine Disruption for your gift of any size and whatever you send will be used to help us continue to bring the gospel to people that need to hear it and to bring words of hope to those who are feeling hopeless. Yeah that's right it's such an important resource for those who are facing these kinds of emotional challenges right now. Get this book for yourself or give it to someone you know who could use this biblical encouragement. Again it's called Divine Disruption and we'll send a copy your way to say thank you for your donation to help us continue these daily studies here on A New Beginning. We're completely listener supported and we so much appreciate those who partner with us.

You can call us at 1-800-821-3300 that's a 24 7 phone number 1-800-821-3300 or write A New Beginning Box 4000 Riverside California 92514 or go online to harvest.org. And don't forget if you've made a commitment to the Lord by listening to these studies drop Pastor Greg an email at Greg at harvest dot org. Well next time a special treat Pastor Greg is joined by his wife as they both discuss the Bible's encouragement to Christian wives and mothers. Join us here on A New Beginning with pastor and Bible teacher Greg Laurie. Thanks for listening to A New Beginning with Greg Laurie, a podcast made possible by Harvest Partners, helping people everywhere know God. Sign up for daily devotions and learn how to become a Harvest Partner at harvest.org