Transcript

Take your Bibles and let’s go back to Titus this morning as we resume our work through this New Testament epistle, as Titus is the recipient of the letter that we call Titus, of course, and it’s from the Apostle Paul, and he’s instructing Titus in how to literally, from the text, set things straight in the churches on the island of Crete. I’ve never been to the island of Crete. Preaching through this, I’d love to go. Pam and I got to go to Greece, you know, a while back, and it was very, very, um very much a blessing as we walked many of the paths the Apostle Paul walked and ministered, but I just think it would be interesting to sit there on an island and think about Titus getting this letter and uh taking Paul’s instructions to straighten out the problems in the churches on the island of Crete and it’s so marvelous as we look through this because the problems they had 2,000 years ago parallel perfectly the problems the church has today 2,000 years later. Only the Bible is like that. And I did not know when I began Titus that I would be spending so much time on the role of women, the role of men, both in culture, society, in the home, in marriage, the role of children and now this morning we’re gonna talk about young men. Young men, need to put our title up if you would uh, “Young Men Must Be Biblically Sensible.”

Let’s look at it together. Titus chapter 2, and I’m going to start in verse 2 to get the flow of all the family and uh uh areas of the church Paul wants to speak to in this section. First of all, verse 2, “Older men are to be temperate, dignified, sensible, sound in faith, in love, in perseverance.” We preached on all of that. “Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good.” Verse 4, older ladies, because you’ve got an important ministry in your latter years. Verse 4, “so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored. Likewise, urge the young men to be sensible.” That’s where we are, verse 6. He tells the young men here, young men are to be sensible. Now, he he likes that word because in Titus 2:2, he says, you older men, among other things, must be sensible, and then in Titus 2:5, he tells the older ladies to teach the young ladies, you must be sensible, and now in Titus 2:6, he says, now the young men, you’re to be sensible. Literally, you could translate sensible in all things.

Now, the dictionary would tell tell us that the word sensible is the idea of sound judgment and that’s good here, too. Sound judgment. Young men be sensible. Have sound judgment in all things. Now, I would define sensibility this way from from our Christian perspective, all right? Godly or true godly sensibility is to embrace and align our behavior with the Creator’s constructs and the Christian perfection of those constructs. Remember the word construct means there are several parts and it’s put together to form a a new whole or a new thing and a new function. So God made men, he made women, he made families, he made this and that and he puts these pieces together according to his holy perfect wisdom and we’re to function the way he constructed things. Young men particularly have to be biblical thinking on how has God put things together to work and to function. I want to embrace those and I want to strive to live out that sound judgment.

All right. Let me talk just a moment about the Christian perfection of God’s constructs. I’ve said it before many times about marriage in particular that the the duties of marriage were laid out clearly under the Old Testament law and that has not changed. Marriage has not changed because God cannot change and marriage is of his wisdom. It’s his idea. But when you get to the New Testament and you get to the new birth, which means the Spirit of God comes into you and the love of God is shed abroad in your heart by the Holy Spirit, then you have the capacity as husband and wife not just to live out the marriage relationship according to the cold letter of duty, but a warm heart of love. The wife submits to her husband and honors her husband, not just because it’s the cold law duty, but because she loves her husband. And the husband doesn’t just sacrifice himself to care for, protect and meet the needs of his wife as the Bible requires, he does it now out of the warm heart of love. See, Christianity perfects everything, takes God’s original duties under law and brings them, if you will, to a perfection. I use that word in the sense of a maturity.

So when God made the first creation, heavens and earth, Adam and Eve, garden of Eden, all of that, we know that these things find their maturity, if you would, their perfection in Christ, in His glory, in His work. 2 Corinthians 5:17, for example, says, “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” So God created everything one time, that as we are converted, we’re part of a new creation, which is in every way in glory, in power, in wonder, in majesty, in every way the new creation God’s doing through Christ is superior to the old creation. Now, again, the Old Testament law is perfect and righteous and good, but we never found righteousness in the law, did we? You can do the law all you want and you don’t improve your standing before God. Matter of fact, the more you look at the law, the more you find you’re condemned. But it’s in Christ, not the old law, that we find righteousness. Christ perfected what the law could not do. Christ brought to completion or maturity what the law could not do.

Colossians 2:10, for ” in Him you have been made complete,” y ou have been perfected, if you will. Literally the idea is you’re crammed full. You can’t get any more right with God than Jesus makes you right with God. You can go look at all the law you want, the law is perfect and holy, but by trying to observe it, you cannot improve your standing. Some of you Christians live every week with anxiety because you think somehow I’ve got to improve my standing. You can’t improve on what Christ has established for you on your behalf before the Father. That’s better than the old law by itself, is it not?

So in Christ, we exceed the original design that Adam and Eve had in the garden of Eden and we exceed what Moses could do for us by giving us the law. In Christ, we are not just restored to Eden. I guess in a sense you could say that, but you can’t leave it there. It’s far more than that. In Christ, we are not just restored to Eden, but we are placed in the kingdom of God and of his Son. Are you hearing me, church? Get over the dressing and the silly ball game. This is good stuff. You’re part of something exceedingly more glorious than what Adam and Eve had in the garden because you’re placed in the kingdom of the beloved Son of God. So so in Christ, what Christ has done in this new creation, creating individuals new, creating a new concept in the earth, the local church, what he’s doing through all of those things is far superior, more glorious, more powerful, more wondrous than anything that was done in the first creation. This is all a part of God’s eternal purpose playing out. We just we just got in on the end of it, the church age. The last thing God’s going to do before he returns in the person Jesus Christ is build his churches.

So let me say something about local churches here. Now listen, think there’s so little competition. In totality, I should say in the totality of the functions and fellowship of a true local church is the embryotic or beginning stage of God’s new creation, his new kingdom. Far more than God being just interested in individuals being saved, that’s wonderful, God’s purpose is that, of course, but it’s beyond that. God is not just about individuals being saved. God has always been about having for himself a people and you as God’s local church, that’s the people. Christianity is never to be separated from the local church body, fellowship, ministry, interaction, caring for one another, etc. etc. etc. We we get a taste, we get a touch of the kingdom, what it’s gonna be like when he returns and and puts his perfect kingdom on the earth. We get a touch or a taste of that down here as we minister biblically in his local churches.

Now, back to being sensible. So sensibility, if if the older men are going to be sensible, if the women are going to be sensible, now the young men have to be sensible, then let’s get a kind of a broad idea of what God means by sensibility. And by the way, our concept of sensibility is the true concept because it’s the biblical concept. We’re not sensible in the same way the world would say they’re sensible. The world would look at all that’s going on and say, “Oh, now we got a good percentage of people who believe this in our country so let’s be sensible, let’s embrace and include them.” No, not if it’s unbiblical. It’s no longer sensible if it’s unbiblical. Are you with me, church? So when we define sensibility, we stay with God and his eternal, absolute, holy truth, not with the the varying shades and and flows and aspects of what the culture is doing or thinking. We do not flow with the culture and we will not be condemned with the culture.

All right. Just generally running through quickly, let’s look at some verses that have this word sensible in it; different Greek or Hebrew words are used, but they generally have the idea of good judgment as God defines good judgment. Proverbs 14:8, again we’ll run quickly. “The wisdom of the sensible is to understand his way, But the foolish of fools is deceit.” In other words, the man who is sensible understands things the way God understands things. You can say he views things the way God views things.

Proverbs 15:5, “A fool rejects his father’s discipline, But he who complies with rebuke is sensible.” I’m sorry, I jumped away ahead. Let me go, let me jump back. Proverbs 14:15 should be next. “The naive believes everything, But the sensible person considers his steps.” Well, that’s a good word for today. The naive believes everything. We live in a world that has exalted fallen, fickle, and evil human emotions as truth. If I feel it, it’s right. I heard recently that it was probably Oprah Winfrey who who first came out with the concept of “my truth.” There is no my truth. There’s only one truth and that’s Jesus Christ and he is the way the truth and the life. Truth doesn’t change and it’s objective. It’s not subjective to your feelings. So he says that the the sensible man gets that and he’s not chasing everything that comes down the pike. Young men need to be sensible that way, do they not?

Proverbs 14:15. I’m sorry, Proverbs 14:18, “The naive inherit foolishness, But the sensible are crowned with knowledge.” Just a simple idea of a sensible man, a biblically sensible man wants to know what God thinks about it. He has the knowledge of God concerning the issue. He embraces it. He wants to put his actions into behavior based on it.

Proverbs 15:5, “A fool rejects his father’s discipline, But he who complies with rebuke is sensible.” That means he’s willing to be corrected and change his path. You can’t be a good Christian, you can’t be an average Christian if you don’t come to church every week with the concept, “Lord, what can I change? Lord, what am I thinking is not sound and what am I behavior is not on the right track? God help me be a repenter every week,” especially on Sunday when you’re under the preaching of the word, but all week long as we’re in the word on our own. So he’s a sensible man as a man who’s humble and correctable.

Matthew 24:45, “Who then is the faithful and sensible slave whom his master will put in charge of household slaves to give them their food at the proper time?” The point here, the sensible young man will rise above the rest. He’ll be one that the master can put in charge of more responsibilities, more people, higher wages, if he’s biblically sensible. I love it when our young men are successful, but they’ve done it by honoring the word of God. And I think God sits in heaven just waiting, young men, to pour out blessings on you if you’ll be biblically sensible. All right?

I. I have seven areas that I’ve picked out and been working on this a long time, but actually I wrote the bulk of this out in a tree stand in the state of Illinois, deer hunting. Proverbs 14:29, well let’s start with the main point, being sensible by balancing strength with self-control. Young men need to be sensible by balancing the strength and the vigor of being a young man with godly self-control. Young men are strong. It it’s the peak of their their strength and it’s also the peak of their emotional and their their their drive and their initiative and and that’s a strength, but it needs to be balanced with biblical truth. Young men can get carried away with their power sometimes and act foolishly, that is act unbalanced. And when a young man goes forth with his young man’s strength, he can and he’s not wise, he’s not sensible, that is, and he’s not balanced, he can certainly harm others and do harm to himself.

Proverbs 14:29, the one “who is slow to anger has great understanding, But the one who is quick-tempered exalts foolishness.” Young men are much more prone to respond and let the passions fly and maybe fly into anger. You have to learn. Be sensible young men. Nothing wrong with your young man’s strength and your masculinity and your manliness but balance it with self-control.

I I’ll never forget hearing the story of a herd of elephants in South Africa. I assume I heard it down there because I used to go down there a lot in our church planting efforts down there, and um something happened that had never happened before, these bull elephants were trampling a lot of the villages that were scattered throughout that region of the country. It never happened before. Elephants are quite intelligent, and they they just kept their space from the people and never damaged anything. But all of a sudden, there’s these rogue elephants that are trampling villages. Well, those that outcry to exterminate them, that may have been the right thing or the right thing, but the biologist said, let us look at it first. And they begin to study and found out that the bulls that were doing the things like that, rampaging these villages, were the young, older adolescent bulls and they had gotten separated from the older bulls in the herd. And once they put the younger bulls back in the herd with the older bulls, the older bulls said, “You guys better stop this stuff.” Well, they didn’t really say that but the older bulls kept the younger bulls in check. You know what they taught them? They taught them, “Be sensible. You have great power as a great animal that you are, but we don’t go stomping on villages all around where we graze and eat.” Young men need to be sensible.

Now, talking about sensibility, we understand there’s a great power and a corresponding gentleness in sensibility. Actually, these have always been twin virtues in God’s wisdom, and and God ordained them to always flow together. It was said about Abraham Lincoln that he was still velvet. He knew when to be tough and hard and strong, but he knew how to be kind and gentle and controlled. Twin virtues. But in this fallen world, so many things become unbalanced. Another word that I have grown fond of thinking about and studying on recently that ties in very closely is the word meek or the word meekness. Meekness is that idea of strength, but with righteous self-control combined with it. Christ was meek. The Apostle Paul said, “I was meek when I was with you.” Matthew 5:5 says, “Blessed are the meek,” or the gentle, “for they will inherit the earth.” Translate that word either way, gentle or meek.

Now one scholar pointed out one aspect of this word meek when he says this this meekness, which is the same idea as as sensibility in the sense of having strength but being under control, this disposition is the opposite of high-mindedness and quarrelsome and having a revengeful spirit. 1 Corinthians 6:7, it takes a wrong and suffers itself to be defrauded. Those times when to let someone get by with misusing you. You’re not supposed to retaliate every time. Uh Romans 12:19, it avenges not itself but rather gives place unto wrath. And when reviled, it reviles not again, it suffers. When it suffers, rather, it threatens not, but commits itself to him that judgeth righteously.

But now, that’s one side of the concept of meekness. There’s another side that the Greek scholar A. T. Robertson points out. He says this. He says the English word meek has lost the fine blend of spiritual poise and strength meant by the Master. I like that, spiritual poise but strength. Robertson continues meekness is the gentleness of strength not mere effeminacy. I think he’s hitting a home run there. He has the credentials to prove it. As a young Christian, a young pastor, I begin noticing that a percentage, it seemed like, of men went into the ministry because they were just weak men. They were somewhat effeminate and it just kind of fit that system. You know, you’re supposed to be this humble guy, etc. etc. But that’s not all that meek means. It means you can be gentle and you can be long-suffering. You can suffer a wrong when it’s righteous to do so. But you can also pull out the sword when it’s righteous to do so. It was none other than the meek Apostle Paul that says, “I’m meek when I’m with you,” but at another time he writes the Corinthians and said, “When I come to you, am I going to have to bring a rod, literally a rod and straighten you out?” He was meek in both cases. Jesus was meek and lowly and kind and gentle and compassionate and merciful but he went into the temple one day and saw the money changers and he grabbed a whip and he turned over the tables and he literally physically ran them out. That’s meekness. There was a righteous duty he was performing in using his manly strength to get that done. It’s both/and. So young men in particular, you haven’t had time, can I just say it bluntly, to get your teeth kicked in yet. You haven’t had your head smacked as much yet. So young men have to strive to learn to be sensible about my young manly strength, but also my need to have godly self-control.

Well, just one other quick thought there. The young man who walks in godly sensibility, i.e. meekness, is a man that most of the time will find himself rising above his peers. Remember Matthew 24:45, “Who then is the faithful and sensible slave whom his master put in charge of his household?” You work for another man, you work in such a way that he sees your godly sensibility and balance and he says, “This is the man I won’t running my company.” You will rise above and one of the most satanic and worthless things that’s happening in our world today is these Democrats and leftists that want to hand out everything to everybody. You shouldn’t have any problems. Everything’s going to be given to you. No, there’s a a goodness in reaching a point because you had to apply yourself with godly sensibility and long suffering. Well, got a little bit off track there.

II. Young men are to be sensible about the nature and need of work. Well, I was just on that, wasn’t I? But the nature and need of work. No, you do not deserve someone to pay off your student loan. Man up and pay it yourself. It’s beneath human dignity to bail people out all the time over their foolish choices. Some of you mamas need to pull back and let daddy have his way more in the way the boy needs to be raised to be a man. God bless you mamas. God gave you such compassion and sweetness and nurturing, you’d make little effeminate nothings out of your boys if if somebody didn’t step in sometimes. “Well, now they just…” No, they don’t just… Let them be a man.

Just this last month, I read that where there is a record number of men aged 24 to 55 who are not in the workforce. Lugs. The Bible calls them sloths, living off the sacrifice and work of others because these politicians who are buying votes want to give your stuff to them so they can get their vote. He was the Harvard um economics professor who said that uh he never understood why it was it was not greed to take somebody’s money that they earned, but it was greedy to keep the money that you earned. What what what. He said what how is that a good definition of greed? It’s it’s greedy if you keep what you earned. It’s not greedy to keep what you earned. It’s right to keep what you earned. Now we all pay taxes. We understand that. But a record number of men in the prime of their employment opportunities are not working and an unusually high of them have claimed disability. Corresponding with that, suicide rates for young men is also at an all-time high but being sensible and knowing the nature and the need of work in your life, I think if we had a God-ordained sensibility about the construct, the purpose of work, that many anxious, depressed, maybe even suicidal men could find more peace and rest in their hearts if they were made to work. Quit thinking about your dilemma. Quit thinking about your crisis. Quit thinking about what’s been done wrong to you. We’ve all had things done wrong to us. Quit thinking about the offense that’s been done to you and get up in the morning and go to work. Take off your footy pajamas in mama’s basement and get out there and do something and you might feel better.

Do y’all remember Lester Roloff? A lot of y’all don’t remember Lester Roloff. They they would they wouldn’t let him on the air today. Lester Roloff had a home down in Corpus Christi, Texas, a Christian home. Now Lester Roloff was old school on steroids. And they would send, pastors all over America would send their roughest cases to Lester Roloff. Men, a lot of them had attempted murder. And he said, they’ll call me, old Lester, and say, who you got? And they’d tell him. He said, send them on down here. You know what Lester did? They’d get up early in the morning before sunrise. They’d have a worship service. They’d preach the word to them. Then they’d go out and work till lunch. They’d feed them at lunch, have another worship service. Then they’d work all afternoon long, come in at night, eat again, have another worship service. That was his therapy and he had a marvelous record of getting people back on track. He used to say that you don’t need any sleeping aids down here at my my homes. He said we use farm tranquilizers. You work and you’re ready to go to bed when you get through at the end of the day.

Now I’m being a little facetious, maybe a little extreme on one sense, but you know what I mean. Sensible young men grasp the high principle of the need and the nature of work and that is they understand and embrace the biblical exhortation to work for your employer like working unto the Lord. You young men should try to arrive early. You should always be willing to stay a little late. And you should be mindful and diligent while you are there to honor your employers. Others may not be honorable in their attitude, words and spirit, but you must be because you’re a Christian and you’re to be sensible, biblically sensible. Learn your employee’s purposes, his goals, what he’s about, and make sure he knows by your actions that you are there to advance him and bring him profit. Lose yourself in advancing your employer’s goals and gains.

I’ve told you many times when I was the associate pastor here, I sat down the senior pastor. Dr. Pittman, I said, “I want you to know my purpose here is to make you the most successful senior pastor in the Southern Baptist Convention.” And I meant it. I believe I lived it. Not perfectly, but I lived it. That’s the best way to gain. That’s biblical. See how that’s not worldly sensibility, is it? No, but that’s biblical sensibility. If you do this, you will far surpass your peers. You will advance further than they do. You will obtain more respect than they obtain. You’ll be put in responsibility for more and you will earn more than your peers.

3. Young men should be sensible about the nature and needs of your wife. She’s different than you. No, she’s very different from you. God made women different from men. I I I my vocabulary is deficient anyway, but I’m completely at a loss to verbalize the insidious, idiotic, stupid, irrational nonsense that’s being flaunted in our communities, in our country today. Like, men and women are the same. What freaking galaxy did you fly in on? There I go, losing the dignity of the pulpit. But sometimes, sometimes the Bible has some very crude and sarcastic things to point out something that’s very off. “Well, men and women are equal.” I don’t know a man that’s equal in a woman at conceiving children. There’s no man equal to a woman in the glorious, blessed, marvelous ministry duty and and glory of carrying a child to full term. No man is equal to a woman in birthing children. You can’t do it. You’re not made that way. Women are gloriously superior in this God-blessed, God-ordained wonder of bringing children into the world. And then no man comes close to being equal to a woman at nurturing and caring for a baby. I saw the grotesque wickedness of this these two homosexual men who were trying to let a baby nurse from their chest. That is evil! They ought to be locked up! That’s child abuse!

God made men and women differently so guys, if you’re going to be sensible, you got to start off with, she’s very different than me. And some young men have to get married and say, “Pastor, I just think she’s crazy.” Well, in some ways she is and in some ways you are. Now, I’ve exhorted the ladies that they have to be careful. A whole lot of times when a lady talks about her needs, she casts on her husband something he’s not designed to give. She really needs to be getting that from other godly ladies to a degree. But since we’ve scattered men and women from their proper domains and got men and women mixing up together, now all of a sudden women think, “No, I’ve got to have a guy friend or a husband. He’s got to be just like me and understand me.” He can’t. In the same way men, my exhortation to you this morning is there’s unique needs and unique things about a lady that you need to be sensible about.

So women far superior to men in so many important God-ordained ways, but in balance it is the man who provides most of the security and the protection for the home. That ought to be his responsibility. That ought to be on his shoulders. He needs the pressure. How natural this is. Pam and I were traveling in a very remote area of South Africa. We were going from, oh, I think Zimbabwe down to another area. I forget the area. I preached at several places, but it was many miles through the remote brush, bush, I should say, of South Africa. And they told us, just make sure you’re not out there after dark. I didn’t ask them why. I didn’t know if it was lions, tigers, or the tribesmen or all the above. They did say that the tribal peoples are not as gracious and caring as they used to be. A spirit of uh uh of being embittered against the city folks has kind of settled in. It can be dangerous. So we’re with this man who’s driving us in an old, old uh pickup truck through the bush of South Africa. It’s probably 45 minutes from dark and I’m wondering where are we and how long will we be somewhere else? And uh his truck begins to act up and it boiled over, it got too hot and he grabbed a two liter bottle that had a soft drink in it at one time and we happened to stop right by this village area and he runs into the village and he said, “I got to go get water and I got to get back in a hurry.” So Pam and I are sitting there and literally there was more valuable things in our two suitcases in the back of his truck than most of those people would know in a lifetime. And it didn’t take a couple of minutes as the sun’s trying to go down for a group of young men to surround the truck. Probably were in age 12, 13 to 21 or 22, all physical specimens. And to add just a little drama to the situation, one of them had an axe head and he was sharpening it with a flintstone. So of course, I looked at Pam and said, “Now we’re 50-50, right? We’re equal, right? I’ll tell you what, you get out on your side, you take on those five guys. I’ll do the most. I’ll take the six on my side and we’ll see how this goes.” We’re not equal. It never entered her mind to get out of that truck but I thought to myself, if they’re going to take me and my wife, I’m going to get out and give them a little trouble first.

Now, quite honestly, I get out of the truck and I’m scared. I try not to act like it and I thought, what’s going to happen? They they talked into some sort of broken English. I could not understand it. And they really press in tight. If you’ve ever been in that part of the world, they just really get up in your grill. So I think there’s about 12 of these guys, physical specimens, they’re crowding around me. I locked the doors, left Pam in the truck, and I thought to myself, I’m about to get killed but those first two or three will know they’ve been in a fight before they get me. About that time our driver comes back, he’s got the water, he pours it, the hood was already up, he pours it in the truck, we jump in, take off as the sun was setting. But as I thought about that through the years, I thought it never entered her mind that she’s to protect me. It never entered my mind that I was not to protect her.

God made us different. I know I’ve hit on that a lot in the past, but here’s my point: young men, be sensible, your wife has needs and among all things and probably the most significant thing is a need to know in you she’s secure. He’ll protect me. He’ll care for me or he’ll die trying. Let me amplify that with some passages of Scripture because the Bible says as we are to love our wives, Ephesians 5:25, the way Christ loved the church. Whatever else that means, it means, “Baby, I’ve got this.” Christ wants his church to know, “I’ve got this. I you’re gonna be taken care of. You’re gonna be protected. Church, you’re secure because I, Jesus Christ, am your groom, your head. I’ve got this.” So men, you gotta understand, you’re responsible for your wife’s sense of security. Be sensible. The way you act, the way you respond, the way you say things, the way you approach her, you need to understand her need for security and what a evil disservice liberalism has done to teach our women in our culture, you don’t need a man, you need the federal government. That’s really what’s happened. The federal government has become the surrogate husband for the liberal woman. She’s still insecure. She still wants security. She just wants the government to be her new daddy, her new husband figure and take care of all her needs. And that’s why you hear them crying for everything, “Take care of this, cover that, take care of this, this benefit, that benefit.” Not that those are all wrong, but the point is God’s construct is that that is to be accomplished through your husband, not the government. And I want to tell you something, ladies, and it will always come true: the federal government makes a lousy husband in the long run. He’s not the man you want keeping you secure.

But Christ cares so for his church. Just running through these things quickly. Um Jeremiah 31:3, “The LORD appeared to him from afar, saying, ‘I have loved you with an everlasting love; Therefore I have drawn you with lovingkindness.'” You know what that is? That’s security. God says, “I’ve loved you from eternity past. I’ll love you through time. I’ll love you in the eternity future.” That’s security.

John 10:28 to 30, “I will give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” Do you know what that is, church? That’s security. My point is, do you see the lengths God goes to to show you that in Christ you’re secure? Well, young men, be sensible. God means for you to make sure your wife knows that, “I’ve got this, baby. I’m the warrior that’s gonna go out there and fight the fights and do the battle and take care of you and the babies.” Security.

John 14:2 and 3, “In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you.” And you see, these guys were insecure about Jesus leaving them and he says, “I’m only leaving to secure your future, to give you security. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.” That’s security.

Romans 8:38 and 39, “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” You know what that is? That’s security. Notice the lengths God goes to to make sure his bride, the church, knows they’re secure.

So young men, fellas, you’ve got to be careful that you exude the kind of spirit, the kind of words, the kind of behavior that lets your wife know, “I’ve got this. You’re gonna be taken care of.” Give her security.

This is gonna be a two-parter. Sorry, guys. Sorry, ladies. It’s gonna be a two-parter. One other quick thing under being wise, sensible about understanding your wife’s nature and needs, is a woman needs thoughtfulness/romance. It’s just part of her makeup.

I had a friend growing up who had just a marvelous mom. She’s just a wonderful lady and so devoted to her family and her husband was a good and faithful man in so many ways. He, I mean, I remember her telling me one day, she said, “You know, I never have to worry that when he comes is coming home, he’s going to stop at the package store or the bar and blow our money. It’s going to come home to me. It’s going to come home to pay the bills. It’s going to come home to take care of the babies.” But one thing, and I remember his family members saying this often, one thing he never did was to to romance his wife. He provided for her, but he he missed the nature of the wife needing thoughtfulness. “What’s her concerns? What’s her fears? What’s what’s her thoughts on things?”

Now, that’s really challenging for guys and I’m not saying guys had to become women because, you know, I I read one time when when a the washing machine goes out at your house, you know, Pam calls me about it. I don’t mean just Pam. I’m just using that illustration. But if the washing machine goes out, she calls. I say, “Call Frederickson to get another one.” I’m done in 10 seconds. It’s over. But to a lady, she went, “Oh, but our baby’s first clothes were washed in that washing machine. You know, one time the quilt that grandmother handmade for us…” She thinks emotionally through things in the way men do not.

So be thoughtful about her nature and her needs perhaps, should I say, perhaps some of us older men are better at that, but young men need to really learn to be sensible in these areas. Give her security but date your wife. Romance your wife. And wives, what was that a meme or something or did I just hear it as a joke one time, that a guy who’d done nothing for his wife and in this way, he’d not been romantic at all and thoughtful at all, and he got convicted, somebody talked to him about it. He got convicted and he comes in and he’s got flowers and candies and says, “I’m taking you out to the nicest restaurant.” And she just burst into tears and he said, “Well, what’s wrong? I thought you’d be happy.” She said, “I’ve had the most horrible day. The kids did this. The kids, it’s been so terrible. Now you come home drunk.” I don’t know why I said that, but it it is a good illustration.

Young men, older men help the younger men to be sensible about the nature and the needs of the wife. And we’ve got several more.