Wives, Cheer Your Man

And so then I meet Anne and she says, of all the men in the world, I choose you.

So she's like, you're the man, you're the man, right? We get married. And then it's like, you come home and you walk in the door and all you hear is boo. Honestly, at that time in our marriage, it felt like when I walked in the door, I didn't do that good enough.

I should do more of this. Long story short, is she the next day got on her knees and said to God, do I boo Dave? And thank God, God said yes.

That was 30 some years ago. She beginning then, and now for the last 30 some years is my biggest cheerleader. Welcome to Family Life Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Anne Wilson. And I'm Dave Wilson. And you can find us at familylifetoday.com or on our Family Life app. This is Family Life Today. So we have another great day today with my favorite communicator, speaker, preacher. You better say that.

If you say anything else. We have Dave Wilson in the house giving a message. Actually, I was in another house. It was Discovery Church down in Orlando, Florida, walking through Ephesians 5.

They were in a series and their pastor's a friend of mine, Don Cousins. And he asked me to come speak on Ephesians 5. And this is the second half of your message.

Yeah. Here's the great thing about not just this message, but the things that I get into in this message are the kind of things we talk about at the Weekend to Remember. And the reason I'm telling you that the marriage getaways with Family Life called Weekend to Remembers are all over the country. There's going to be one probably near where you live. And if you sign up right now, you get a half off deal.

Okay. That's pretty remarkable. Oh, that's awesome. You can get a half off deal if you sign up. So go to familylifetoday.com and sign up.

And I mean sign up right now. And we can guarantee you, it will change your marriage. And hopefully this message will as well.

It's going to. If you go back to the passage, he goes into verse 26 and he says that, He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word. I got to be honest with you. I've been teaching on marriage for almost 40 years. I'm not sure I really ever understood this verse. What does it mean to wash her by the water with the word that 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. Holy and without blemish. Here's what Paul is saying to husbands. You're to love her in such a way that she is sanctified.

Some of you know this, but the word sanctified, hagios in the Greek, is set apart. That your wife feels set apart by the way you cherish and love her. That she is special. That she is number one. It's like everything else in your life, your wife.

Jesus, your wife. It's like set apart, holy and blame. It says to wash her. It means to wash her so that she is holy and pure.

Holy, holy, set apart, pure. That is a man's role, a husband's role in his wife's life. And what does it really mean? It means lead her spiritually to Christ. It doesn't mean lead her to Christ. It means as you're her partner in her life, you are called by God, men. We are called by God to lead her spiritually to Christ, her savior. And that doesn't mean we're a dictator, but it means we lead her in such a way. We cherish her and love her in such a way that we draw her to become the best version of herself. She comes alive because of the way her husband loves and cherishes her.

That's a beautiful picture of marriage. And here's the action step, right? Just write this down. Hit your knees.

Hit your knees. I'll never forget, one Sunday night at about 1130, I was crawling into bed and I was exhausted. Here's what happened that weekend, 15 years ago. Saturday night, I preached at my church. Just like you have a Saturday night service, Saturday night service. I then drive down to the team hotel for the Lions, downtown Detroit, was 30 miles away. And I speak to the team at their chapel service. I go home, go to bed, get up next morning, do three services at church, get in my car, drive down to Ford Field, change into my sideline gear, run onto the field at the end of the first quarter, acting like I've been there the whole day, but I've been preaching all day, walk on, do the game, do all the stuff after the game, basically grief, counseling, because we got beat again. So I do that thing in the locker room.

Kidding. And I drive home. So it's a long weekend, right? And I'm crawling into bed, just exhausted. It's been a great weekend, but I'm exhausted. And just as I'm about to close my eyes, I'm smiling because this isn't a funny moment, but here's what happens. I'm just about to fall asleep.

I'm just so exhausted. And Anne says to me, laying right beside me in the bed, she says, man, oh man, I sure wish the guy who led our church lived here. And I said, what'd you just say? Then again, I wish she was here to tell you her version, but here's how I heard it. And she said something like, you know, you lead so strong a church, you pray with passion, you worship, you preach with a fervor, and then you come home and you're just tired. And I just wish the way you led our church is the way you led me.

Okay, let's go to sleep. And I'll never forget. I wish I could have just said, thank you, honey.

That's something I needed to know. And I'm going to do better. I got to be honest.

I literally jumped out of the bed. I said, do you know how good you got it? I know what other husbands are like.

You've got the best husband you could ever imagine. I didn't do that, but I did something like that. Like sort of like, you don't realize. And then the next day I got in my study. I closed the door. I literally got on my knees.

And I'm not saying I always pray like this, but when I want to be in full submission, posture-wise, I just said, God, were you trying to talk to me last night through hand? And I heard, yep. And here's the thing. She was right. I can get on the stage and I can lead and I can cast vision and we're going here.

And I come home and I was just tired and exhausted and I was passive. And she was longing for her man to what? Lead her. Lead me like you lead them.

Just do that. And she didn't understand this, but that washes her. That draws her closer to Christ. That brings her to a holiness and a blank. And again, it's not all on me.

She has her own responsibility to walk with God, but she is longing for her man to lead her. And I got to be honest. And I said this in our parenting book. I find that it's easier to lead at church than at home because at church I know what to do. I walk in my family room like, I'm supposed to lead you guys?

I don't know what that looks like. My dad walked out when I was six years old with another woman. I didn't grow up in a Christian home.

And again, I'm not blaming all that, but there's no model for me to look back. So I got to figure this out. It was easier to figure out going to seminary and be trained, but who trains husbands how to love their wives as we're talking about today and sanctify them, just hit your knees and ask God for power to do this. You hear what I'm saying? One year after that at New Year's resolution, I said to her, honey, New Year's resolution this year, every night after we get the boys down to bed, and they were little at the time, I'm going to go into the office and I'm going to go into my knees and I'm just going to pray for them and their wives someday and all. I said, you don't need to join me, but that's my New Year's resolution. Here's the thing.

I did it 15 days, 16 days, 18 days. She's right there beside me. Because men, let me tell you something, when you lead spiritually, your wife is loving it. And I didn't tell you, you have to be, she's right there. We're both on our knees and pray. I'll never forget one night, like 18 days in a row. And again, it's like five minutes.

It doesn't take your whole life. It's like, we're just going to do this. And I'll never forget. She grabs my left arm. She's right beside me.

We're on her knees. She grabs my left arm and she's all excited. She goes, hey, I just got to tell you something right now. I go, yeah, what's that? She goes, this, just doing this every night with you? This is like a turn on. And I look at her, I go, what?

She goes, I don't know how to describe this. This is like romantic. This is like, you know, this is really like a turn on for me. And I did, I could see in her eye, I knew what she meant by turn on. So I looked at her and I didn't say this, but here's what I thought.

I thought, if this is how this works, I'm going to become the apostle Paul, you know? And so guys, I'm not saying that's how it's going to work, but am I right ladies? There's something romantic that happens in a woman's heart.

Women are clapping right now when her man leads her spiritually. And you can't fake this. This is an overflow. You can't fake parenting.

It's an overflow. So I'm just telling you, hit your knees. Okay, last couple of thoughts. I'm going to jump down to verse 33. Cause verse 33 talks to the wives and the husbands. But I've talked this whole time to the men. Let me talk to the women a little bit. Cause he says, husbands love your wives.

And then he says, what? Wives respect your husband. Husbands love, wives respect. And I think there's a difference because the core need of a man is affirmation, respect. And I don't even think we always understand that, but as men, we long to be affirmed and respected.

In fact, a man goes where he's respected. And I just call it cheer your man. Cheer your man. The action step I put there was cheer.

Respect is a firm with words and actions. The action is cheer. I'll share this. Years ago at Kensington, my wife was asked to come speak to the mothers of preschoolers. So all these moms, she said to me, Hey, you want to go with me and just, just add in.

I go, sure. We didn't talk about what I was going to say. I didn't know what I was going to say. I get up on stage and she's talking. And then you talk about what's respect look like. And I said this, I go, Hey ladies, I don't know if you understand this or not, but when a boy is a little boy, he usually has somebody in his life cheering for him. It's like his mom or his dad. It's like, you're good.

You're a good young man. And they're cheering something. And then as they get older, they find out what they're sort of good at.

And they have a teacher or a coach is sort of saying, you're good at this. And then, you know, as I got into college, I went to college on a college football scholarship as a quarterback. And so, you know, I had a hundred thousand people on Saturday afternoon cheering for me as the quarterback. Actually I played at Ball State.

So it was like 25,000. Anyway, they're cheering for you. Right. And so then I meet Ann and she says of all the men in the world, I choose you. So she's like, you're the man, you're the man.

Right. We get married. And again, I'm saying all this and I'm feeling like, Oh, this is coming out, you know, in a way I've never said it.

Ann's sitting over there in this little stool. And then I said, so then we get married. And then it's like, you come home and you walk in the door and all you hear is, boo. Boo. And when I say that, I turn like this and Ann's over there like, what? And so we're driving home and she's like, what was that? You think I boo you?

I'm like, well, obviously not literally, but yeah. She goes, I'm not booing you. I'm helping you. You know, I'm helping you be better. In fact, she denies this to this day, but she said, I'm the Holy Spirit in your life. She says, I never said that. I go, well, I think you did. But anyway, you know, it's like, you know, everybody else doesn't see all the flaws you have. I see them and I'm trying to, and I said, I know that's what you're trying to do, but it doesn't feel like that.

Cause honestly, at that time in our marriage, it felt like when I walked in the door, I got critiqued. I didn't do this good enough. I didn't do that good enough. I should do more of this. Often I just shut down. You know what I do? I go lead out there because they think I'm good.

I wouldn't lead here because all I do is get critiqued. Long story short, is she the next day got on her knees and said to God, do I boo Dave? And thank God God said yes. And she heard that.

And again, it's a long story, but here's all I got to tell you. That was 30 some years ago. She beginning then, and now for the last 30 some years is my biggest cheerleader. I am not kidding. I can't wait to get home tomorrow because when I walk in that door, she cheers me. I'm not saying she doesn't speak truth.

There are hard truths that we have to speak to one another to sharpen one another, to become like Christ. But generally 80% is you're the man. You're good.

Thank you. I tell you that lights a man up. Women, when you stop booing and start cheering, here's what will happen. The man becomes the man you're cheering that he isn't yet.

Does that make any sense? She started cheering me up like up here and I'm like, I'm not that good. And then I wanted to become what she said I was. And I started to become a better man and a better husband and a better father and a better spiritual leader. I'm just telling you women, you have power in your hands that can transform your man. But here's the last thing I want to say.

None of this is possible. Anything we said, loving your wife, cherishing your wife, respecting or cheering your man, none of this is possible without the power of God. The last thing there is we cannot do marriage God's way without his supernatural power today.

I rhymed it. That's what preachers do. But we can't do marriage God's way if we don't have a supernatural power today.

This whole passage comes out of Ephesians 5 18 where he says, keep being filled with the Holy Spirit. You can't do this. I can't do this.

We have to put him number one, God, and we submit to him. And by the way, you can't do that for your spouse. This is only you. If they do it as well, it's awesome. If they don't, it's you. You take care of you.

You get your power from the Holy Spirit. God will literally meet you and bring help and hope back to your marriage. I want to end with this, a video of Anne. I mean, I wish you could be here with me and you didn't get to appreciate what she's like. You'll see in this video, oh my goodness, this woman is a dynamo. She's amazing. And she always loves visuals when we teach. And so a few years back at our church, we were doing a marriage message on the weekend, and she said, I want to bring our tandem bike on stage and do something with it. She didn't even tell me what.

You'll tell. In this video, you'll say, I didn't know where this is going, but it's a powerful visual of how to put God first. Because you don't have any hope with just some nice marriage tips. You need God first for this to work. So watch this and then we'll close. I want to do this last illustration. You guys can probably tell I'm a visual learner.

That's why I did that thing with the brick. Last week we had the marble. Well, this week I'm going to have another visual because for me, I feel like in our lives, we're all on this journey of life. And we think we know what will bring us happiness.

No matter how old we are, we think, if I do these certain things, if I go to the right school and I have the same right friends and I'm married the right person. Oh my gosh. So this is my visual this week.

This tandem is going to be like our journey of life, right? So here we go for me. I got to fix the handlebars. This has literally been hanging up in our garage for 15 years.

I bought this with my, I saved pennies and bought it when I was 12 years old. So we're on this journey of life. I still don't know why we have this bike at all in our house. She wants to go get it all fixed up.

I'm like, no, please don't. Okay. So, so if I'm not in life, right, I think I know what's going to bring me happiness. So because as long as I'm in control, I'm in the front seat, I know where to go. I know what to do. And I know the things that will make me happy, bring me joy, bring me fulfillment. So I'm on this journey like, okay, this is good.

I'm going to date this guy. I'm going to go to this college and I'm going there and I'm realizing after a while, have you ever done this? You're like, you're after all your dreams. But when you get some of your dreams, it's exactly what we talked about.

I'm thinking that didn't do it. Oh, it just didn't bring me the joy and the fulfillment that I thought it would. And so I'm getting a little frustrated on my journey, but I think, okay, I'll try another route.

I'll try to go to another path that will bring me joy. And about that time, my seven, my sister came home from, she was living out of state. She was seven years older and she came home and she said, Anne, I'm telling you, I have found the most amazing secret to life basically. And she said, I have this relationship with Jesus Christ. I've understood now why he came, why he died, that he wants a relationship with us.

It's not that we get to heaven on doing the right things. It's being with him in relationship of surrendering your life to him. And as she started talking about that, I knew God in terms of, you know what it was? He was Elohim to me. I believed. If you'd asked me, am I a Christian? Yeah, I'm a Christian. I believe in Jesus, but I didn't know him.

I didn't have a relationship. So when she said that, I said, yes, I want to surrender my life to Jesus. So Jesus, come on.

I want you on this. You're Jesus. Come on, Jesus.

She picked the right guy to play Jesus. Yeah. So, so I'm on this journey, right? Like, okay, you ready? We're going like, you're going to get me to heaven, right? Yeah. Okay.

So we're going, I think this is awesome. Jesus is with me doing the things, but then I start going the same places that I always went. You know, I'm still trying to be in control.

I'm the one. And Jesus is like, no, I got this. Like I know where to go.

So I go to the same pass and I'm so frustrated. And now it's worse because Jesus is on the back and he sees where I'm going. So now I feel guilty.

So as I'm going, I think, Oh, this is terrible. And I feel this nudging of Jesus. And I feel like he's wanting to be here in control, taking me on this journey. And the more I discover who he is in the word, the more I'm realizing he loves me. He's designed me with a purpose and a plan. And what would it look like if I allowed him to be in total and complete control and to lead me on this journey?

And so I was so scared. I was so scared because I thought, where's he going? What path is he going to take? He might take me to Detroit. He might make me marry a pastor. You know, who knows what he would do.

He would never do that. But I date this prayer. I'm like, all right, Lord, I give you everything. I'm going to put you in total and complete control. I'm going to trust you.

It was so scary. But I thought, all right, but it felt good. Like, okay, here we go. I'm free. I can let him go wherever we want.

We're going. But then after a while, it's all good for a while, right? But then it's like, wait, why are we going down this road? Like I do not like that road. I don't want to go down there. It's scary. It's risky. It's awkward. So then I'm sorry. I'm starting to look over. I'm like, I'm being the backseat driver. I'm like, no, no, no.

I never said that I would go there. Nope. You know, I'm going to help you. Let me help you, Jesus.

I'm trying to get this egg. Like, Lord, no, no. Like, don't do that. Like, no, here, I'm going to help you.

Have you ever done this? I am good at helping Jesus. Like Jesus, no.

And I get so scared and I want to control it. And he's saying, Anne, trust me, just go where, let me take you where I know you will find joy and fulfillment. This is good, right?

Yeah. I didn't know you were going to crawl in my head. And I think what happens is when we're back here, it feels scary. And sometimes we don't want to do it. And I think sometimes God is saying, just cling to me. And there's sometimes it's so hard that I can't even pedal. And it's almost like I just want to cling to him, close my eyes and trust him for everything, because this is the scariest position at all.

And yet it's the safest, safest, most wonderful place we could ever be. What we've been listening to Dave and Anne Wilson talking about surrender, letting God take control of your life and not trying to pull back the handlebars. And let me just encourage you, all of us go through seasons in marriage where we have to recalibrate, where we have to pull back and say, OK, we've got some habits we've developed over the years, some patterns that are not healthy, some things that we're doing that are not helping us achieve oneness in our marriage. That's what the Weekend to Remember Marriage Getaway is all about. I've met with couples who have been to multiple getaways, some couples who make it an annual checkup for their marriage to attend a Weekend to Remember Marriage Getaway.

And they get something new out of it every year. We have about 30 of these events being hosted in cities all across the country this fall. And right now, Family Life Today listeners can register for an upcoming getaway and save 50% off the regular registration fee. We're making this available through next Monday. So if you want to take advantage of this special offer, today is the day for you to go online to familylifetoday.com or call 1-800-FL-TODAY. You can register by phone.

You can get more information on the website. Find out when a getaway is happening in a city near where you live. And then register online if you'd like.

Again, you'll save 50% off the regular registration fee as long as you sign up today. And the getaway is going to be a great weekend for both of you. So let me encourage you again.

Go to familylifetoday.com or call 1-800-FL-TODAY and join us for an upcoming Family Life Weekend to Remember Marriage Getaway. And with that, we've got to wrap things up for today. Thanks for joining us. Hope you have a great weekend. Hope you and your family are able to worship together with your local church congregation this weekend. And I hope you can join us on Monday. We're going to hear again from David Ann Wilson and how important it is for us to understand how big God is and the impact that can have on your marriage and your family. That comes up Monday. Hope you can join us for that. On behalf of our hosts, David Ann Wilson, I am Bob Lapine. Have a great weekend. We'll see you Monday for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a production of Family Life, a crew ministry, helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.