Humility and Self-Forgetfulness, Part 2

Introduction: The Call to Unity in Philippians 2

0:02 This sermon was preached on Sunday morning, March 22nd, 1981, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. We return again this morning to our studies in Paul's letter to the church at Philippi, that portion of the Word of God that we commonly call the Book of Philippians, more properly understood as the letter to the Philippians. And I shall read, as I did last Lord's Day morning, chapter 2, verses 1 through 4. Philippians chapter 2, verses 1 through 4.

0:40 If there is therefore any exhortation in Christ, if any consolation of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any tender mercies and compassions, make full my joy. That ye be of the same. Of the same mind, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind, doing nothing through faction or through vain glory, better translated, doing nothing through selfish ambition or empty conceit, but in lowliness of mind, each counting other better than himself,

1:23 not looking each of you to his own things, but each of you also to the faithful. The grace of God has brought to every believing sinner amazing privileges, utterly undeserved, and yet wonderfully gracious. But with those amazing privileges come serious and demanding responsibilities. And one such responsibility which comes to every recipient of the grace of God, in Christ,

2:05 is that which is articulated by the Apostle in verse 27 of chapter 1 in Philippians, only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ. That's a responsibility laid upon everyone who has embraced the gospel and tasted the privileges which the gospel conveys. And as the Apostle fleshes out that, exaltation, in the latter part of chapter 1, he does so with primary reference to the recipient of the gospel with his face towards an unbelieving and a hostile world.

2:51 And a life worthy of the gospel with its face towards the world is a life marked by those qualities of steadfastness, aggressiveness, and undaunted courage. Then in chapter 2, carrying on that broad exhortation, the Apostle concentrates now upon the believer with his face not towards the world, but towards his brethren. And the great responsibility which the believer has with respect to his brethren is to dwell together in unity with them. And so this paragraph, beginning with verse 1,

3:35 and concluding with, with verse 11 in chapter 2, is a call to Christian unity. The setting of the call is given in the first verse, and in the first part of the second verse. The substance of the call, the remainder of verse 2 through verse 4, and then the pattern of the grace is essential to obedience to that call, verses 5 through 11. Now particularly for the benefit of those who have not been with us in the previous studies, I have, I have attempted to open up the meaning of the call to unity, both its framework, its substance, and the attendant graces dealt with in these first four verses.

4:19 And then last week we went back for an extended application with respect to these twin graces set before us in verses 3 and 4, the graces of humility and self-forgetfulness. The apostle clearly understood that the call to unity in verse 2, a call to oneness of disposition, oneness of love, oneness of soul, oneness of goal, that these great aspects of unity could not be realized without the support system, as it were, of humility and self-forgetfulness.

Applying Humility and Self-Forgetfulness to the Family

5:02 And I attempted last Lord's Day, to show in the concrete realities of church life, how essential are these graces of humility and self-forgetfulness, if we are both to attain, maintain, and increase in true unity. Now what I propose to do this morning, is to make another application of that great principle. This morning the application will focus upon the life of the family, and what I propose to do this morning, I'm going to attempt to do is to demonstrate that the same humility and self-forgetfulness

5:44 which are essential to unity in the church are essential to unity in the family. Now it should not surprise us that there is a very natural parallel between the principles operative in the family and those that are operative in the church. The church is called the family or the household of God. In 1 Timothy 3 we are told that confidence in domestic or family rule is a prerequisite and an index of a man's confidence for rule in the church

6:23 of Jesus Christ. And so I am not making an artificial or an unwarranted extension of these principles in the light of the general teaching of the word of God. It is precisely proper to see these parallels. And so this morning our study will focus upon an attempt to demonstrate the necessity of the graces of humility and self-forgetfulness if we are to experience true biblical unity in our families. In other words, emblazoned over every single

7:03 doorway of every room in our home. Our home should be these words, each of you counting other better than himself. Each of you not looking to his own things, but to the things of the other. Printed on every wall of every room in our home should be this summons to humility and self-forgetfulness if our families are to know that kind of unity.

The Husband's Role: Headship and the Dangers of Pride

7:38 Now this morning I want to begin with some detailed application to that most pivotal dimension of the Christian family, the husband-wife relationship. Now this relationship is ordained of God to be a relationship between the husband and the wife. The relationship between the husband and the wife is a relationship between the husband and the wife. The relationship is to reflect the most profound relationship of intimacy in all the universe next to the

8:18 intimacy that exists within the persons of the Godhead. And that intimacy is the intimacy between Christ and his church. And that great truth is opened up explicitly in Ephesians 5 verses 24 to the end of the chapter. husband-wife relationship is in any way to mirror the relationship between Christ and His church if it is to reflect something of the kind of unity outlined in Philippians 2.2,

8:54 a husband and wife who are of the same mind, having the same love, being of one accord, seeking the one thing, then these graces of humility and self-forgetfulness must be dominant graces both in the husband as he relates to his wife and in the wife as she relates to her husband. Now let's pick on the husbands first of all. According to the word of God, the husband is assigned the role of the administrative head in the marriage relationship.

9:37 Anyone who is honest with Scripture can come to no other conclusion. The husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church. And whatever else Christ's headship involves with respect to the church, it involves administrative responsibility and authority. It involves authority.

10:04 It involves many other things, but certainly by no stretch of the imagination can it exclude administrative responsibility. However, if selfish ambition and empty conceit reign in the heart of a husband, that husband cannot but relinquish or abuse this assigned role and its weighty obligations. His headship will become either a tyranny of insensitivity, unreasonableness and inflexibility,

10:43 or a travesty of non-assertiveness and indifference.

10:51 It is only as the graces outlined in Philippians 2, 3, and 4 are brought to some measure of flourishing existence in the heart of a husband that he can lead that husband-wife relationship to the kind of unity described in verse 2. If there is unmortified pride in the heart of a husband, it will give birth to such things as resentment in the face of his wife's legitimate, gracious, and constructive criticisms either of his personal or his wife's. either of his personal or his wife's. either of his personal or his wife's.

11:33 or his performance as a husband.

11:38 And he will bristle, if his wife so much as dares, graciously, lovingly, constructively, to point out a fault, he'll simply retreat into pulling rank. Say, I'm the head of this home. No criticisms are welcomed. Why?

11:58 Because he is full of selfish ambition and vainglory.

12:05 Vainglory. Seat. That he is beyond the necessity of needing the gracious input of his wife's criticisms. It matters not that God has given him that wife to be a help answering to his need, and that part of his need is to see himself through the eyes of another, and in particular, through the eyes of the one who knows him better than anyone else, apart from God.

12:31 Rather than welcome the input of the accurate, loving insight of that one, and be posited by God to be a help answering to his need, even the need of seeing that defect, even the need of seeing that abnormality, that deformity. But so blinded by empty conceit is that husband that the unity of the relationship is fractured any time his wife dares to offer constructive, helpful, godly criticism. This unmortified pride will squelch the development of his wife's gifts,

13:17 of her mind, of her own sensitivity, whether it's in an artistic or a musical realm, whatever realm it may be. Why? Because he is so filled with empty conceit that he dares not have his wife, he dare not have his wife outshine him in any area, for he'll feel threatened. Rather than being a head after the pattern of Christ, who nourishes and cherishes his church and seeks to bring his church to full maturity in himself, there are Christian husbands who are constantly squelching the full development of a wife's glory as an image-bearer of God,

14:01 because there is still a great measure of unmortified, selfish ambition and empty conceit.

The Husband's Role: Self-Centeredness and Insensitivity

14:12 Furthermore, if self-centeredness, verse 4, looking always upon his own things and not the things of his wife, if self-centeredness reigns, it will make a husband think only of his own problems and his own preferences in everything from food to color schemes to the place and activities on a vacation to the choice of TV programs. And I don't want you to laugh. You ought to weep if you do anything. One of the elders, one of the elders recently had a deal with a situation in which the catalyst that caused a woman to leave her husband according to the testimony of the couple involved was that he was determined to watch sports programs

14:58 while she wanted to watch My Three Sons.

15:03 And a man is willing,

15:10 because he's so determined, to think his own things. What a tragedy. Though I trust there is no such tragedy to that extreme represented here this morning, I would be a fool not to think that there are not areas, in some cases, of very severe tension in certain husband-wife relationships in this place because there are husbands who are always looking upon their own things, judging and evaluating everything in the administration of the household in terms of your own personal preferences.

15:54 Centeredness, then, makes you insensitive to the fact that you are not alone. You are not alone. You are not alone. You are not alone.

15:58 You are not alone. You are not alone. You are not alone. You are not alone.

15:59 You are not alone. You are not alone. To the consideration that ought to be given to your wife's taste in food and color and TV programs and surely self-centeredness will make a husband a beast in the marriage bed, always preoccupied with his needs and his desires. And what happens?

16:19 Friction is produced in that realm that ought to be the most glorious symbol and sacramental expression of oneness in Christ. becomes the occasion of what? Of friction. And of fracturing the relationship.

16:36 Because the husband's looking upon the things.

16:43 Centerness will make him shirk the responsibility and the burden of nurturing his wife. It takes time to truly understand her needs physically, emotionally, spiritually. And to give yourself to specific patterns of relationship and activities towards or in with her that will nurture her in the reality of her physical, psychological, emotional, and spiritual needs. Some of you have yourself so much fixed in your eyeballs that you can't see your wife's needs.

17:24 And what happens? She is hurt. She feels the pressure of that neglect. And it's hard for her to submerge these growing temptations.

17:35 Tendencies to resentment to you. And cynicism about the marriage relationship. And what happens to the unity? It is fractured by that resentment and that cynicism.

Practical Applications for Husbands and the 'King of the Hill' Mentality

17:47 Now, have I given you enough for instances to begin to get the picture of Christian husbands? Do you see why it is essential for you and for me as Christian husbands if we are to contribute what we must contribute to the unity of Philippians 2-2 in our marriages? If we are to contribute what we must contribute if we are to have a marriage that is somehow captured in these words we and our wives are of one mind having the same love of one accord nothing done through faction or vain glory how desperately we need the graces of humility and self-forgetfulness.

18:32 May I descend to something as practical as the amount of money you allot your wife for her food? Let me ask you husbands when's the last time you took down a reputable magazine or listened to a reputable program that gave the index of the percentage of increase in groceries over the past six months?

18:53 If you're the administrative head of the finances and have not delegated that to your wife which is perfectly proper to do and I know certain households in our church family in which it is done but if you're the one actually administering that have you been sensitive to that growing cost of the groceries or do you expect your wife not only to get on with what you gave her six months ago but the kids have gotten bigger on the food that she fed them six months ago and then you get irritated when she even suggests that maybe what you're giving her is not adequate? Why? You're just looking at your own things and not upon the things of your wife. You see this is carried out into every single aspect

19:36 of a marriage relationship and I say to you my brothers who are coming to me today who are coming to me today who are coming to me today Christian husbands do you see the relevance of this passage? If you and your wife are to be of the same mind the same disposition having the same love then over all of your dealings with her must be these words nothing done according to the principles of selfish ambition empty conceit over all of your dealings must be written the words regarding her better than yourself looking not upon your own things alone

20:19 but also upon the things of your wife.

20:24 Now we used to play a game when I was a kid and I think they still play it. I think I've seen kids playing it as recently as probably a year ago. We called it King of the Hill. Still play King of the Hill?

20:35 Some of you kids? You know what King of the Hill is? It's a little mound of earth somewhere or something else which raises you up above others and how do you become king? You become king of the hill only one way when you can throw down anyone else who challenges your position and the way you become king of the hill is to shove, kick, push, bite, scratch anything you can do to make sure that anyone who tries to clamber up to your position is pushed down and you reign as king of the hill at the expense of making everyone else little servant in the valley.

21:10 Now that's the concept some of you men have I fear of what headship is. King of the hill!

21:28 Stand to criticism I'm king of the hill!

21:34 You're king of a wicked concept wicked in the sight of God stole you gave yourself to cursing that cries out to heaven trust that God will lay his hand upon some of your hearts this morning and smite them with conviction.

22:04 Husbands the way to be king of the hill is to go down into the valley of humiliation in loving self-service self-giving service because that's exactly what verses 5 2 and 3 say. Verse 2-11 tell us He who was natively inherently king of the hill in the form of God thought it not a thing to be selfishly retained to be equal with God but made himself of no reputation taking upon him the form of a servant and being found in fashion as a man he humbled himself and became obedient unto death yea the death of the cross wherefore

22:47 God hath highly exalted him and you know that you know the surest way to be king of the hill in the biblical sense so that your wife will gladly and lovingly embrace your administrative headship you go down into the valley of self-giving love humility and self-forgetfulness and serve her you will find that she looks to you as her king of the hill and will thank God that he's put you in that position

23:26 nothing done through selfish ambition empty conceit no lowliness of mind each literally looking up to the other so you're not looking down upon your wife but looking up as one worthy to be loved with the sensitive patient self-denying love wherewith Christ loved his church and gave himself to the Lord for it now then let me turn to speak a word to you wives as clearly as the word of God assigns to the husband

The Wife's Role: Loving Submissiveness and the Dangers of Independence

24:11 the position and the role of administrative head it assigns to the wife the position and role of loving submissiveness to that headship now all of the jig dancing of modern so-called expositors notwithstanding if the Bible teaches anything it teaches nothing clearly it teaches that wives be subject to your husbands in everything as the church is subject to Christ so let the wives be to their husbands in everything now where selfish ambition and empty conceit take the ascendancy

24:54 dictating attitudes actions and reactions to a husband's headship you know what the result is? a woman will fight resist and resent her place and produce disunity in a marriage here is a husband taking the place in the valley of humility and self-giving service in order to fulfill his role of administrative head there's no contradiction in those two things not relinquish his role as administrative head to keep peace that would be to sin in order to avoid a discomfort and you see the disunity

25:39 that is produced when a wife resents resists and fights against the administration of his role let me get specific unmortified ambition and self-seeking will make a woman determined to conceive of and project her identity independent of her husband now this will go by some of the young and I don't care because I want the teenagers and the adults to get it and when you get it you reflect it in your attitudes and then you can teach it to the kids but now listen to me carefully listen carefully unmortified ambition selfish ambition empty conceit self-seeking

26:23 will make a married woman determined to conceive of and to project her identity independent of her husband you heard that before? the whole pressure of the modern feminist movement finds its most unbiblical expression precisely at this point do you know what the words MSR MS period means? not just an innocent social innovation you know what they are? they are a wicked attempt to say that a woman has full identity regardless of her identity regardless of her identity

27:08 of whether she's joined to a man in marriage because God says the two shall be one look at one factor in that fusion apart from the other and say I've understood its identity you tell me my significance is found in my personhood rubbish sheer rubbish the husband-wife relationship reflects the relationship of Christ and his people and I say it reverently in his position as the redeemer

27:53 of sinners Christ is never presented to us in the Bible apart from his people with whom he is one and they are never presented apart from him to whom they have been given and to whom they have been joined we were chosen in him before the foundation of the world think of it before God spoke worlds into being he conceived the relationship between Christ and his people his people and Christ and Christ was never ashamed of that relationship he gloried it

28:35 he does not want to be thought of apart from that relationship to his people and surely his people don't want to be thought of apart from their relationship to him at least I don't I don't want to be treated by God or man apart from my relationship to my Savior now the husband-wife relationship is to mirror that and when a woman is said I take you to be my husband and God says the two shall become one do you see the arrogance of saying I want my identity to be understood regardless of status

29:18 do you see something of a horror of it you teenage girls have been bombarded with this in this classroom you're bombarded with it in the popular magazines you dear mothers are bombarded with it you women are under constant and it feeds a cursed unmortified selfish ambition and self-seeking you didn't get that idea that being called Ms. is an innocent social innovation from the Bible you got it from Simone de Beauvoir or Betty Friedan or Gloria Steinem you didn't get it from or Gloria Steinem you didn't get it from your Bible

30:03 now I know we have single women here and am I saying that you have no true identity in your singleness no not at all and that's why I hope when you type the return address in your letters you won't do as so many Christian women do in their letters to me I don't know how to answer them I don't know how to address them they just say Mary Smith they don't say Mrs. they don't say Mrs. I'm tempted at times to say it and then just give the address I say Pastor you're just being fastidious over nothing I'm not being fastidious over nothing

30:47 because you see the mentality that says your personhood and identity is to be understood regardless of the marital relationship sets the framework for the whole idea of dual careers oh there's a biological problem we haven't overcome yet that only the woman has a womb and can give birth to the baby as soon as she's done that put the kid in the daycare center while she carries on her own career why she does not want to lose her identity amidst diapers and dishes and taking care of daddy and you're made to feel that there's something ignoble

31:31 and something scummy and backwoodsy about glorying in your identity as a wife and as a mother don't any of you ever say around me I'm just a housewife some of you have heard my little mini sermon some woman comes to you and says oh I found real fulfillment I have my career as I had mine a long time ago I'm on the call 24 hour a day psychologist I'm on the call not 24 hours a day but many hours of the day not only psychologist but mathematician

32:14 interior decorator lover companion friend and you go on and tell them all the wonderful things that God has given you amidst the pressure of the mundane amidst those parking cares that at times make you feel like you're going to pull your hair out and screech and holler but oh dear women I trust that in none of you is that unmortified ambition and self-seeking that will ever cause you to try to conceive and project your identity independent of whether or not you are or are not joined to a husband furthermore unmortified pride will make a woman unwilling to embrace

32:58 the ultimate administrative authority of her husband she may be his equal or superior in intelligence in experience and in judgment formal education and inwardly she says how can I submit to this man I'm better educated than he is I'm more highly cultured than he is and you may be so what that gives you no grounds to reverse the roles it just gives you all the more responsibility to be a better help to your husband as he seeks to fulfill his administrative headship in self-giving love and one of the most beautiful things to me

33:43 on the face of the earth is to be in the presence of a couple where the woman obviously has got it all over the man in nine areas out of ten except maybe just brute physical strength she's smarter she's more attractive more cultured more educated and yet to see a woman like that supporting and building up her husband in his glorious and responsible administration of his headship in Christ it's a lovely thing to see and I tell you there are few things more ugly more ugly than a professing Christian woman who exudes her self-consciousness of her superiority and no man is going to look at her as something beneath him

34:27 why because it's preaching heresy the church does not stand shoulder to shoulder with Christ in debate as the church is subject to Christ so let the wives be to their husbands and everything and the Bible goes so far as to say let the wife see that she reverence her husband you won't learn that from Gloria Steinem you won't learn that from Betty Friedan neither will you be the God-blessed woman who does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly

35:12 but whose delight is in the law of the Lord unless you get some of that garbage out of your minds and out of your spirits and find not just a grudging reluctance in the embracing of your husband's administrative headship but find it your joy and your glory unmortified pride will make you utterly unwilling for that self-centeredness will make a woman utterly insensitive to her husband's needs I've given enough today in the care of the kids I've given enough today in the ordering of the whole I've given enough I've taken enough I don't care that he comes through the door with needs I've had it not looking each of you

35:57 to his own things but each of you to the things of others oh dear Christian wives who are to be of one disposition with your husbands having the same love having the same soul having the same ambition in the language of Philippians 2 do you see how this cannot be as long as selfish ambition and empty conceit are operative in your heart as long as self-centeredness surrounds you and envelops you like a cloud you simply cannot be the wife God says you ought to be I say to you dear unmarried women who aspire

36:41 to the married state as you pray that God will make you a woman worthy of a husband's Christ-like love pray that all of the carnal independence and all of this worldly concept of independent personhood and all of the rest will be consumed by the fire of God's purifying spirit and that all of that remaining darkness of worldly thought will be dissipated before the rising sun of God's truth it is a beautiful thing to see a marriage where husband and wife sustain a unity fed by the roots of humility

The Beauty of Humility in Marriage and Unmortified Pride in Wives

37:25 and self-forgetfulness in that marriage from the intimacy of the marriage bed to the marriage bed to the marriage bed 1 Corinthians 7 where each is not looking upon his own things but the things of the other that's a projection of this principle right into the marriage bed in 1 Corinthians 7 to the decisions regarding the rearing and the discipline and the training of children there is no king of the hill mentality rather you have the king and queen of the valley of humility and self-forgetfulness and I tell you it's more beautiful than any earthly church and it's more beautiful than any king or queen human eyes have ever beheld well I had hoped to address myself to the parent-child

Three Essential Questions for Compliance: Grace, Christ's Example, and God's Word

38:09 and child-to-child relationship with these perspectives but time will not permit it as I close this morning I want to bring three questions home to the conscience of my hearers or the consciences of my hearers this morning here are the questions question number one do you see the impossibility of true compliance with Philippians 2 2 to 4 do you see the impossibility of true compliance without the heart transforming power of the grace of God do you see it Jesus said you've got to make the tree good and then it's fruit good

38:53 or the tree corrupt and it's fruit corrupt you see self-centeredness empty conceit occupation with our own things you don't need to go even to kindergarten to learn those ugly things you're born with them in your heart and it's only in the school of grace that we learn how to turn from our king of the hill mentality from our selfish ambition and self-centeredness and begin to find our delight in accepting that whole perspective of humility and self-forgetfulness Paul wrote these things

39:38 not to a bunch of people who were just ordinary poor lost sons and daughters of Adam whom he is trying to patch up with a little religious council no no he was writing to people described in verse 1 as the saints that were in Christ Jesus by the grace of God they had been brought into vital union with the Lord Jesus and in Christ according to 2 Corinthians 5 17 they were in the new creation where there was the power of new life surging through them giving them both motivation and ability to live this kind of life if I'm speaking to a husband who sat here this morning and said preacher

40:23 I can't gainsay that what you said is in the Bible but there's no way I can live that way with my wife oh my friend if you've come to that discovery blessed discovery left to yourself there is no way you can live like that but in Christ you can live like that and the salvation of Christ is a salvation that breaks the back of our empty conceit of our selfish ambition of our self-centeredness looking always after number one and I and me and mine I say to any of you women married or unmarried who say I can never live like that I'll not

41:07 search my personhood in my husband I don't care if God says I will make a help answering to his needs it's a denial of the very creation of the woman she was not made to have independent identity that is not answering to his need her identity is to be found in relationship to her answerableness to Adam's needs if you say that's demeaning you're guilty of blasphemy because you're saying God didn't know what he was doing when he created woman we don't want blasphemers around here

41:49 that's blasphemy nothing less than blatant blasphemy some of you are blasphemers who need a new heart you need to have the grace of God come like a mighty tide and sweep out all the debris this poor confused Christ rejecting generation you've picked it up at school you've picked it up at college you've breathed it in the very atmosphere of this day you need the grace of God to sweep it all out to sea do you see

42:34 the impossibility of true compliance without the heart transforming power of the grace of God I hope you do second question is do you see the impossibility of compliance without the example of the pattern of the son of God you see how again and again we've gone back to Christ that's what Paul does in this very passage what is humility what is self forgetfulness humility is confidence is coming to its ultimate expression verses 5 to 11 it is the Lord Jesus stooping to become a man stooping as man to the place of a servant stooping in servanthood to the awful death of the

43:19 cross why he was committed to save the people you see the pattern of Christ in Ephesians 5 husbands love as Christ loved wives be subject to as the church is subject to Christ I hope you see the impossibility of compliance without the example and pattern of the son of God constantly in your mind you see the liberals have gone wild with the idea Christ is just an example my friend he cannot be an example whom we emulate until he is first of all to us the Savior in whom we trust we must enter into

44:03 the dynamics of the power of his grace and his salvation before we can begin to follow him but having entered into those dynamics by faith then he is to be our pattern we are constantly to keep him before us and when as a husband you are tempted to look upon your own things you say no no I cannot I am to reflect how my Savior loves his church he nourishes it he cherishes it his eye is ever upon it he is conscious of all of its needs its imperfections and rather than those needs and imperfections turning his heart away they just motivate him to greater self-giving love and nurturing care of his own

44:48 I am to be like him and when I have the king of the hill mentality emerging in my heart I am to go to Philippians 2 and sing oh no Lord give me the mind that was in my Savior who being king of the hill went down into the valley of humiliation oh Lord make me like him make me like him that is what you want me to do wives need bring the example of your Savior before you he is not ashamed to be identified now for all eternity in terms of his relationship to his people when John sees him in the glory in that apocalyptic vision he saw him as the lamb in the midst of the throne he is unashamed to be

45:33 that the lamb shall feed them they shall follow the lamb whithersoever he goes do you see the impossibility of compliance unless you fill your mind with the example of Christ throw out those books written by current writers on women's dignity and women's identity pray that the Holy Ghost will scour the chambers of your mind and rub off all that's been written there by the finger of open hostility and blasphemous antagonism to God and then my third and final

46:17 question is this do you see the impossibility of compliance without constant meditation upon the word of God do you see we're bombarded with all these other influences and if we are to fulfill this mandate in our married marriage relationships then we must as I've already alluded be that person of Psalm 1 who meditates in the law of God day and night he does not stand in the way of sinners he does not sit in the seat of scoffers he does not put himself willfully and deliberately under the counsel of the ungodly the tragic tragic

47:01 thing that has happened in our day is that whole segments of the evangelical church whole denominations have succumbed to the pressure of ungodliness in this area and church councils are making pronouncements that run utterly contrary to the word of God not because they've discovered some truth long overlooked in the Bible but because they have so succumbed to the pressure of the world they're trying now to squeeze the Bible into the mold that the world has made upon them that's the tragedy we don't live in a vacuum we're exposed to those influences and so I plead with you as the people of God to see the impossibility

47:45 of compliance with these directives as they touch the church as they touch the family unless we meditate in the law of God day and night and this is a hedonistic age that says think only of yourself I number one my itches my urges my appetites my feelings whereas God says looking each one of you not upon his own things but upon the things of others now let me get very very personal as I conclude I've asked the three general questions let me ask you husband too this morning I'm not going to ask you if you felt conviction if you listened at all you have to ask me if you listened at all you had to

Personal Application and Accountability for Husbands and Wives

48:30 I'm trying to preach these things this morning let me ask you what have you done with that conviction have you yielded to the pressure of it or are you resisting it are you sitting there now trying to rationalize and say no no God can't be expecting that of me yes he does yes he does nothing in your marriage relationship is to be done according to the principles of selfish ambition and empty conceit you're to regard your wife as better than yourself you're to regard her not to look only upon your things but also upon hers oh may some of you husbands have dealings with God

49:14 and frank dealings with your wives before the day is over what about you wives have some of you felt uncomfortable have you felt resentful I don't agree with that I don't believe I've manipulated this book this morning if you feel uncomfortable you have dealings with God if you've resisted resented fought against your husband attempts not from the king of the hill mentality but from the valley of selflessness and self-giving service has sought to be ahead in your home and there's been friction because down underneath

49:59 you have determined to maintain your independence that's wickedness that's wickedness I want to say something I've been waiting a long time to say this is a good place to say it this idea that it's being disloyal to your husband or wife if upon pointing these issues out and they don't deal with them that you should dare go and talk to an elder. That kind of loyalty is heresy too.

50:29 Any area to which the word of God explicitly addresses itself and any church member who violates that and is reproved and rebuked for it and doesn't comply Matthew 18 fits. If you see your brother sin, tell him his fault between thee and him alone. If your brother's your husband, if your brother or sister is your wife, point out the fault. If they hear you, you've gained them. If they won't, take two or three

50:53 others. This idea that the marriage relationship is in a no man's land and abnormalities and disobedience to biblical norms cannot be touched by the exhortation and admonition of elders precipitated by a broken hearted husband or wife coming and saying I've done my best to get my partner to see this aspect of biblical responsibility he or she will not deal with it. Not only is it not loyal to come, it is a noble act in a spirit of desire to see that person rectify his or her behavior and bring it into line

51:35 with the word of God. I had to be called some distance in recent weeks and face the tragic situation again where this false loyalty, where a husband or wife kept in for long periods of time, gross abnormalities that were made the matter of loving entreaty and exhortation. The idea if I tell anyone that's breaking the sacred pact of the marriage. You can't prove that from the bible knife.

52:17 That's a clever way to insulate yourself from being dealt with.

52:22 Some of us have our wives renew their vows periodically that if they see anything in life attitude, conduct that doesn't measure up to this book and if upon due admonition the issue's not rectified that they have vowed to go over our heads to our elders. You say, you're crazy. No, I'm not.

52:45 My wife sits here to call me a liar if that's not the truth. Forgive me indulging the personal testimony. I don't have that much confidence in my heart. I'm glad she feels an obligation to my soul that if I'll not hear her entreaty, she's going to call in somebody else to deal with me.

53:09 Do you have that kind of regard for your soul or you're so filled with pride of your reputation and love of your sin that you've insulated yourself from the kind of framework that you desperately need and that would be in your own best interest? Oh dear people of God, let nothing be done through strife or vain glory but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than himself. Let us pray. Father, we are very conscious

53:51 this morning that left to ourselves we are a mass of self-centeredness unmortified and ambition, pride, insensitivity, and a host of other sins for which we are ashamed in your presence. But we thank you that your grace is able to transform the human heart, that your grace is able to transform every human relationship and to give not only in the church but in the home these graces of humility and self-forgetfulness that will make our marriages, albeit not a

54:33 perfect, glorious of that great relationship of Christ. We pray that you'll have dealings with us who are husbands have dealings with the wives amongst us. May sins that have been pointed out this morning be dealt with. We pray for the dear young men and women, the youngsters, the teenagers amongst us.

55:02 Lord, don't allow them to come under the vicious influence of the blasphemous philosophy. And teaching of our own day. Preserve, we pray, your dear children from all of these influences. Write the word upon our hearts. Have mercy

55:25 upon those who cannot even begin to begin to live this way because their hearts are still committed to selfishness. We pray that you would draw them to that fountain open for sin and uncleanness and bring them out of themselves and into Christ. Here are prayers. Pray and seal the word to our hearts, we pray in Jesus' name.