He needs to honour her. 1 Peter 3:7, it says: honour your wife; otherwise - this is what God says - I'll see your prayers are messed up. You won't get anywhere with your praying. If you're praying for getting finance, it won't happen. If you're praying to get that raise, it won't happen. If you're praying your workplace will really go well, it won't happen, I'll see to it. Why? Because you're not honouring your wife. 1 Peter 3:7, you read it - to honour, it means you give her value, you bestow esteem on her, you speak words of comfort, and value, and love, and you treasure her. You don't run ahead of her, you walk alongside her, and you open the doors for her. You treat her like someone - this is an important person, written on her: V-I-P! [Laughter, applause] Some of the guys are looking around [laughter] you come from another planet or something? No, just the word of God! The problem is, if you haven't seen it, and you've never done it, this is all bizarre. Get into the word of God, and say: God, teach me how to honour my wife, begin to look at her again. See you're looking at her through the wrong eyes; you're looking at her through the faults, and the failings, everything's wrong. Stop it. Forgive her. Let grace go in there instead of judgement, and then you begin to start to do what God says for you to do, and she will become a very beautiful woman! [Laughter]
You see men get a lot of their value out of what they do, and their assignments in life; women get a lot of their value out of their relationship with their man; and if you don't value them, they become depressed and full of rejection, and we're praying and casting demons out every week. Sometimes instead of casting demons out, I should find where's the husband? [Laughter] You come and cast the wretched thing out, then apologise for letting it get in there, in the first place! [Laughter] Goodness me, now this is really where the rubber meets the road. This is where it really counts.
Okay, here's the last one. You need to give direction into your home, give it direction. Give it direction. That means, you set out who's going to do what, who's responsible for this thing. Some men, work, that's my thing; home, that's all yours. No, you take some initiative and involvement, see that there's responsibility. Set some values. What do you value in your family? Set some priorities. Now we've got some things we value and things we love to do, and we do them. They're there because I've set them in agreement with my wife, and we're fully in agreement with some of these things. There's many family holidays and times together, family nights, things like that; because you never build a family, if you don't stand for something.
Okay and the last one is, you need to preserve unity, particularly with your wife. You need to give yourself to protect the family unity. That means confront problems, sort things out on the way. Look, we've covered quite a bit. I just need to finish now. Let me just - here's one thing, and this has made people uncomfortable, I can see already. I've been trying to mess with the men, to get them to be men, because this is a godly man, is a Christ-like man, who does these things, now here. How many men felt challenged, a little, by what we've said? There's a few hands gone up, isn't that great? Okay then. Now let me say this. I wonder if you could take it the next step, one more step. We've been talking about the men's role: protect, deliver, make it safe for his wife. Now here's the thing I want every man here, who's game enough to do it.
I want you to take your wife, and give her a nice treat or something nice, and then ask her this question; and then I want you to zip your lip for the next half an hour. [Laughter] Just take down notes. You can let a little tear come in your eye, but no words in the mouth; because she'll only answer this one, if she feels it's safe; that you're not going to get huffy and puffy, and all defensive. Okay, here it is, here's the question you ask her. You take her out for a nice cup of coffee, a nice dinner, take her somewhere nice, you sit down and look in her eyes. You say: God's been speaking to me through these teachings on authority in the home, and I just wanted to ask you this: is there anything [laughter] that causes you to feel unsafe and insecure? She'll look at you, and she'll be thinking this immediately: I wonder if I dare tell him? [Laughter] Can he handle it?
Some will lie, and say: no. Unfortunately that'll be the truth - so men, won't you have enough gumption to find out how it really is, get a reality check; and give her a chance to say what really worries her; because we're tired of counselling your wives, when you ought to be doing it, teaching her the word of God, and loving and listening to her, and praying for her. That's why so many churches are burned out. It's time men stood up, and did the right thing. Are you game to do that? Take her out and ask her; just write down and take a note of the things, and think through how you might start to work on them one by one, to help her feel safe and secure. Let's just bow our heads.