What a Woman Needs from a Man
Tom Shrader examines God's design for husbands through Ephesians 5, identifying four biblical roles: provider, teacher, leader, and lover. He demonstrates how Christ's sacrificial, cleansing, nurturing, and permanent love for the church serves as the model for how husbands should love their wives, arguing that God's job description for husbands directly corresponds to wives' greatest needs.
“If you really love her and you've chosen to love her then here's what you want for her: you want the best for her and that's her holiness and her purity.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: His Needs/Her Needs
Recorded: July 20, 2000
Duration: 44 min
Themes: marriage, love, leadership, sacrifice, provision, teaching, nurturing, commitment, husband, married man, new husband, struggling marriage, marriage counseling, family provider, spiritual leader, father
Scripture: Ephesians 5:23-31, 1 Timothy 5:8, 2 Thessalonians 3:10, 1 Corinthians 14:35, Philippians 2:5-8, 1 Timothy 3:4-5
Theological Themes: ephesians, biblical marriage, christlike love, husband roles, sacrificial love, biblical headship, covenant marriage, sanctification
Full Transcript
Two weeks from now we'll do something that I asked last week if we had done this here, and you said yes, several of you. The answer to that is no, we have not. We looked all over for tapes. I know we've made reference to this here, but I'm very confident we haven't done the study here. I don't have any overheads, and I don't have any handouts, yet it's going to be something that you're going to want to probably take some notes on, so we've provided you the paper so that you can go ahead and do that.
What we're going to do next week is what a man needs from a woman, probably better put what a husband needs from a wife. That's probably a better way to put that. This week, we look at what a woman needs from a man, probably better stated what a wife needs from a husband.
Very interesting moment Tuesday. Susan and I were sitting around, and we were talking, and she said, "What are you going to teach this week?" I said, "I'm going to teach what a woman needs from a man." I'm not sure how to interpret her snicker. I'm not sure what it meant, but it does feed into a theory I have, and it's a really simple theory, and it's 100% accurate: men understand women better than women understand men. Thank you very much.
The Imbalance in Teaching About Marriage
The reason for that isn't that men are inherently brighter than women, although an argument might be made for that as well. Not by me - I would not make that argument. I do believe that what has happened is over the years, especially those who have been around church or things like this, the guys have taken such a beating on what women need, and the women get a free ride.
For example, on Mother's Day, the message is "M is for the million things." It's always this fluff with a flower. Then on Father's Day, they beat these fathers like a dog: you don't do this, you don't do this, you don't do this, you don't do this. I think that's symptomatic of what's happened for the last 20 or 30 years. There are all these books on how to understand women and wives, but rarely is it talked about how to understand a man.
So having alienated 50% of you, we'll talk to the other 50% about what a wife needs from a husband.
Five Common Needs According to Research
There's a book called His Needs, Her Needs. It's a pretty good book, and in there, the author has five things that a woman needs. Let me make this statement up front, because I want you to get this: I'll frequently say what a woman needs from a man, but what I mean is what a wife needs from a husband. That's the relationship we're talking about here.
Here's what he says - the five things a wife needs from a husband in order of importance. Number one: affection. Number two: conversation. Number three: honesty and openness. Number four: financial support. Number five: a commitment to family. Affection, conversation, openness and honesty, financial support, family commitment.
God's Job Description for Husbands
Here's what we're going to do, and I think this is pretty smart. We're going to look at what God says a husband ought to do and what a husband ought to be, because my assumption is God tells a husband what to do and be because those meet the needs of what a woman has - a woman's greatest needs. You see what I'm saying?
When God says "be this," the reason He says "be this, do this," is because a wife needs that. So rather than listen to what some survey says, or rather than listen to what some scholar says, why don't we just go and see what God's job description for a husband is, with the understanding that that probably is the vehicle God uses to meet the needs of that wife.
Four Types of Husbands Not to Be
Sometimes we always start with a little negative. Here's what a husband ought not be. This is from a book, a really good book that I enjoyed by Dr. Ed Young called Pure Sex. In this, he talks about the husband-wife relationship and the sexual relationship. I will also tell you, I have had several guys who were single in the studies who really did benefit from that book. So it's a pretty good book that I think is still in print and around.
Here are four types of husbands not to be. As Young says, four types of husbands we typically see. Number one is the dictator guy. Tell you what to wear, tell you what to do, tell you what to think. It probably flows in some Christian circles from a misunderstanding of what it means when it says wives submit to your husbands. This is the dictator. This says, you know, "me Tarzan, you Jane," kind of a spiritual Attila the Hun. That's not right.
The second one is this powder puff husband, the word he uses. I know I've told you this story before, but I'm in a bookstore one day, Christian bookstore, and a lady came up to me. I'm just standing there, and I've never seen this woman before in my life, and I don't know that I've seen her since. I'm standing there minding my own business, reading a book.
She comes up and she says to me, "You're Tom Schrader, aren't you?" And I said, "Yes, I am." That's my first contact with her, and the next words were, "You know what's wrong with men today?" That was her first statement to me. I looked down and she had a wedding ring, and I thought, "Well, I know one guy's problem. I know what he's got. I'm married to you." But I didn't say that. I just said, "No, ma'am, I don't."
She said, "I'll tell you what's wrong with men today. They're wimps." Now, I happen to think that she's right. Because guys - ladies, I assume you understand this - guys are going to try to be what they think you want them to be in terms of relationship. We went through this 20 years or so when the ladies in the movement (I always say radical feminist movement, and then I realize that's redundant), but in the feminist movement, wanted men to be...
know what they needed. Guys were confused for 20 or 30 years on what to be. So they tried to be sensitive, and they tried to be gentle, and they tried to be this. Now, oftentimes, what you find attractive, ladies, in a date is not what you find attractive in a spouse. There's nothing virtuous about sitting in a relationship where the guy can't make a decision and he can't lead. What happens there is, in that vacuum, the woman will move in and she'll lead. What's really sad is after that process starts, then the guy will just stop and just say, "Go ahead and do it." We don't want that.
Here's the third type: the playboy husband. That's the sexually driven, continually sexually driven guy. I had a guy who said, "I think my wife is frigid." Now, I've heard this a lot. I said, "Why would you think that?" He said, "Because we only have sex five times a week." I said, "Wow, yeah, she's an iceberg." Some guys just see this marriage relationship in sexual terms. The reason I say what a man needs from a woman is I know, ladies, you think it's sex and we can do this 45-minute lesson in 20 seconds next week. But it is a little more profound than that.
Here's the last thing, and this is the subtle one. This is the wrong model for husband, and yet it's probably the most easily camouflaged in our culture: the driven husband. That's the guy who is career-oriented, business-oriented, success-oriented. He's an achiever. He's recognized for that success. He's admired, probably even envied by others, and yet His drivenness becomes an excuse to not be the man God would have Him be in the marital relationship.
The Driven Husband's Deception
So He's frequently very wealthy, even in material things, but He's relationally bankrupt. Yet people are standing around going, "Isn't He really something?" Here's what this guy will do. When you push Him on it, He'll say, "I'm doing it for you. I'm doing it for the kids." That's a lie. He's doing it for His own selfish pride and ego and material gratification.
There are four types of husbands that we would hold up that you see around. We could spend a ton of time on each one of those. Here's what we want to do. We want to take and look at God's job description for a godly husband and see that the job description fits the task.
God's Job Description for a Husband
We'll give you four things. Number one, the man is to be—and this is going to sound almost Neanderthal, I'm sure, to some—but the man is to be the provider. First Timothy 5, verse 8: "If a man does not provide for His own, especially for those of His household, He's denied His faith and worse is an unbeliever." In Second Thessalonians 3, Paul writes to this church and says, "If a man does not work, then He ought not eat."
I was talking to a guy the other day that was a stay-at-home dad, and I have to tell you that I think Scripture argues against that. It says it's the man's responsibility to provide for that family, and when a man shrinks that responsibility, He's deficient in the job description that God's given for the husband in the relationship. Are there times, obviously, in transition? I understand there are times when a guy's in transition for career and some other things, but what we're talking about here is the ultimate responsibility of the man to provide the basic needs of life for the family. That's a key phrase: the basic needs of life. We're going to come back to that in a context in a minute.
The Husband as Teacher
Here's the second thing a man's to be. He's to be a teacher in the home. "If a woman wants to learn something, let them ask their husbands at home." Paul says in First Corinthians 14. What He's saying there is, the man is to be the teacher in the home.
Let me tell you the obvious: I can't teach something I don't know. So what that means is, a man is to be the spiritual leader of the house, which means a man needs to be the spiritual teacher in the home. What it means is, gentlemen, you need to not just recognize the importance of studying God's Word, but you need to be able to know it and to be able to apply it. Oftentimes, here's what we see: the women are more advanced in their walk—I shouldn't even say in their walk, but in their knowledge of Scripture and what God has to say—than the men. What happens is, again, with that vacuum, the woman is tempted to take the lead. The Scripture doesn't stutter. The woman is to be taught in the home by the man.
The Husband as Leader
Here's the third thing. The man is to be the leader in the home. Ephesians 5: if you have Bibles with you, that's where we're going to spend the majority of the rest of the time. Ephesians 5: "For the husband is the head of the wife, as also Christ is the head of the church. Christ is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so the wives should be subject to their own husbands."
He says, here is the role model here. The model is that the husband is to lead. He says, here's an illustration. You want an example? Just as Christ is the head of the church, just as Christ gives directions to the church, just as Christ leads the church, the husband is to give direction to the home. Christ is the perfect provider, protector of the church. Man is to be the leader in the home. Ultimately, when we look at the home, it is the man, the husband, that we hold responsible for that condition.
The Husband as Lover
So here's what we've said. The job description of a godly husband is to be a provider (First Timothy 5:8), a teacher (First Corinthians 14:35), a leader (Ephesians 5:23 and 24), and here's the last thing: a lover (Ephesians 5:25 through 31). We're going to spend a lot of time on this.
Here's what Paul writes: "Husbands love your wives." Now He tells us how to love our wives. He says, "just as Christ also loved the church." He said, it's real simple. If we want to boil these roles
When we boil it down to its simplest form, you've heard this before: husbands love your wives, wives submit to your husbands. What type of love are we talking about? We don't have to guess. Paul says this: I want you to love just as Christ loved the church. And now he gives us, at least in my mind, four distinct characteristics of this love.
Sacrificial Love
Number one, this love that we have is to be sacrificial. Husbands love your wife as Christ loved the church. And here's what he says in verse 25, Ephesians 5: "He gave Himself up for her," speaking of Christ. Christ gave Himself up for the church.
Let me just read to you from Philippians chapter 2 verse 5. Paul's talking about how we're to live. He talks about doing nothing from selfish ambition, nothing in a selfish way. And he says this, Philippians 2:5: "Have this attitude in yourselves, which is also in Christ Jesus." One of the translations says, "Have the mind of you that's also in Christ."
Now here's the mind: "Who although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but He emptied Himself, taking the form of a bondservant, and being made in the likeness of man, being made in the appearance of man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross." The love that we have, gentlemen, for our wives is to not be a worldly love, but it is a godly love that begins with an attitude of sacrifice.
Love as a Choice
See what it starts with—you've heard this—when we're talking about love, we're talking about choosing to love. Here's a phrase that bugs me a little bit: "I've fallen in love." "We just fell in love." It's kind of like we just got the measles. It just happened. And what does that mean? Well, I can't really describe it. It's an indescribable thing, a feeling thing.
Well, let's take all that and put it aside and say there's something there and I don't know what it is. She makes me tingle and he excites me and all this stuff. At its core though, we now stand—I'm doing a wedding Saturday—and at that point on this wedding on Saturday, they will stand there and they'll take whatever those feelings are and in one sense, confirm them and in another sense, put them aside. They'll confirm that those feelings now have led to a commitment, but they'll also say these feelings are not what's going to drive this relationship. We're going to commit right now, right here today to love forever.
So gentlemen, when you talk about love, you're talking about loving in a sacrificial way. It's a choice. It seems to me it's kind of a life principle: what you choose to love and deem important indeed becomes important and attractive to you.
The Power of Choosing to See Beauty
Haven't you had these experiences? I have. We had a situation one day where we had a bunch of these hot rod cars at church and guys were fixing them up and doing all the other stuff, and the guys that owned them—I mean, they're really into that. It's like the guys that have the Harleys or they're just into those bikes and the stuff. And this guy's out there with his car and I said, "Man, you know, that's really nice." And here's what he said. He said, "She's a real beauty."
Well, first of all, I didn't see any genitalia on the thing to start with, so I didn't know it was a girl. I don't know how beautiful it was or wasn't to begin with, but here was the great illustration to me. He valued it in such a way that in his eyes, this bucket of bolts became a real beauty.
And what happens in the husband-wife relationship is that attraction that we have initially, if it's maintained and I choose to see things that way, that remains to be a real beauty. Here's what I wrote and I presume I copied this from someone else, but I don't know because I didn't put a name on here. So if you like it, it's of my mind: "Love does whatever needs to be done and doesn't count the costs. It reaches out and helps, leads, teaches, warns, or encourages—whatever is needed, it gives."
Focusing on Her Needs
When we talk about sacrificial love, we're talking about love that's focused on the other person. When I do this wedding ceremony on Saturday, I will make the point: your responsibility now as a wife is to meet his needs. Your responsibility as a husband is to meet her needs. When I choose to love sacrificially, here's what I'm doing. I'm saying you are my lover, and I will treat you and respect you and value you.
Guys, let me give you a tip here. You want a wife that's a 10? Then what you do is you view your wife as a 10. And it doesn't matter what anybody else thinks.
Yesterday early, getting ready for Promise Land in the morning, I had like 20 minutes, so I figured I'd go in and see what Imus was doing. So I went in and watched Imus. A commercial came on, I flipped over to ESPN, and they were doing the—I didn't get the year, I didn't stick around for the year—1999 or year 2000 Miss Fitness of America pageant. And these gals are coming out, and they're just another string of women who could beat me up, all marching out there—these big strong gals—and I know that there are guys going "ooze" and "ahs."
The Value You Assign
Guys, I'm going to ask you to do something. This is really hard, and to keep it to yourself will be even harder. But if one is 98.6, breathing and functioning, and 10 is—well, what's your wife? What is she? And you know what? If you say five, I'll tell you something: you're going to treat her like a five. You say she's a seven, you'll treat her like a seven. I'm not talking about mind games. I'm talking about valuing her.
If I bring in here a cup of dirt and next to it another cup of dirt, and I have all the chemists run all of these experiments on it and they say, "I don't know, it's dirt," but one of these cups of dirt is from the middle of the desert and the other cup of dirt represents the dirt at 24th and Camelback, we view this dirt at—
Valuing What We Love
This love we're talking about is a sacrificial love that flows from a decision to value. We view dirt at about $3,000 an acre, but we view this same dirt at about $30 a foot - not because it's different, but because we choose to value it that way.
We talk about this with kids all the time. I don't know many guys who wouldn't risk their life for their children. If your kid is in there drowning, any dad's going to jump in and try to save him. But that's not the issue, because very few of you are going to be called on to die for your kids. The issue is: will you live for them? That's the issue.
I find all sorts of guys that'll say "I'll die for my family." Who cares? Let me tell you something ironic - you're killing your family. You might be willing to die for them, but you're killing them. I'm not talking about dying for them. Will you live for them? That's the issue.
A Spiritual Issue, Not Just Human
Here's what you need to see: this isn't just a human issue. This is a spiritual issue. In 1 Timothy 3, Paul says when it's time to pick leaders for the church, here's what I want you to look at: look at this and this and this, and I want you to look at their families. I want you to look at their marriage relationship and their kids, because I'll give you a tip - if they can't function in their marriage relationship and their families at home, then they ought not be running a church.
I got a brochure not too long ago for a place where they were bringing in senior pastors who had rebellious children, and they were going to help them process this. Here's what I did: I said they ought to bring them in and help them get their résumé together. They ought not be in ministry. If you can't run your family, then you ought not be in the pulpit. This is 101.
I hear people say "that's not loving." I'll tell you what - we've substituted tolerance for love. God doesn't stutter. If you're going to oversee the church, you better have your family in order. When we cave on that, we're caving on everything. Is that a hard line? I don't know if it's a hard line or not - it's God's line.
I've told my girls, and Susan knows, and the family knows: if that family of mine falls out of order, I'm out. I'm clearly out of the church. That's God's standard. Gentlemen, this is a spiritual issue. Don't come running in talking about how much scripture you've memorized and the books you've read and how much you know and all this other stuff if your family's not in order. That's the proof of the pudding right there. What's the family look like?
That's not a message in any way to pull you up short or make you feel guilty, but to help you see this and understand. Here's what one author wrote: "The man who plays the part of a spiritual shepherd in a church but who lacks love and care in his house is guilty of spiritual fraud."
The Cleansing Aspect of Love
The first characteristic of love is it's sacrificial. Here's the second thing: there's a cleansing in this process. Paul says, "Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave His life up for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He may present her to Himself as a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish."
Christ's love for the church purifies her, as your love for your wife should purify her. So you seek, gentlemen, you seek God's best for your wife. You seek through God's Word to purify her and to protect her from the contaminants of the world. You encourage her holiness, to be pure. You cause her to feel safe and secure, not filled with self-doubt.
Those of you that are dating, by the way, this is exactly why you never are involved sexually. If He really loves you, and guys, if you think you really love her, then what you desire most of all and should desire early is that her purity is the issue. You do nothing to harm her.
Ancient Purification and Modern Application
In ancient Greece, they would take the bride to a river and perform a ceremonial washing that demonstrated a cleansing of any of the things that would defile her from her past life and from this world. We don't have a ceremonial washing - we've got the person of Christ who does that. The husband ought to be the person who maintains and secures and has as his desire the purity of his wife.
How do you purify her? Here's what He says: "by the washing of the word" - by the gospel, by the Word of Christ, by understanding what God says in His word and allowing it to cleanse her life. If you really love her and you've chosen to love her, then here's what you want for her: you want the best for her, and that's her holiness and her purity.
Nurturing Love
So you love her in a sacrificial way, you love her in a cleansing way. Here's the third thing: in a nurturing way. Paul, still giving this illustration, says, "So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies." By the way, there's a lot of misunderstanding here - He's not saying you've got to love yourself before you love anybody else.
What He's saying is the most natural thing in the world is to take care of yourself and look out for yourself. So just as you are concerned about your own self - your own nourishment, your own eating, your own protection, your own enjoyment - just as that's natural for you, then you ought to have that same concern for your wife to meet those needs in her, to take care of her. Again, I just give you the ticket here: to value her as a ten and then treat her as that most valuable, precious commodity in your life.
Permanent Love
Here's the last thing: it's a sacrificial love and a cleansing love and a nurturing love. It's also permanent. Paul continues here: "For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh." That's God's standard for marriage. Actually, the word that we see is "cleave."
Cleave is one of those words that has two meanings that are exactly opposite. When we have a cleaver we cut and separate. But the way that it's used here, cleave means to bring together and to permanently seal. That's God's design for marriage.
God's design for marriage, you get it here, is for a man and a woman. So when you have to debate should homosexuals or lesbians be allowed to marry? No. Why? Because the guy who originated and designed marriage said it's for male and female. Real easy. Don't need a study from Stanford. Don't need to confuse it. That's what God says. So that's the end of that discussion. Don't need to think about it a bunch.
God's Pattern for Marriage
That's the reason a man and woman shall leave. In other words, I'm breaking all of these other relationships and the form they're in now to form this singular relationship. Again, in the marriage ceremony on Sunday or Saturday, I'll point out you are now one. You are now together. You are inseparable.
God's pattern and design for marriage is to be permanent, heterosexual, and monogamous. Here's what He says, gentlemen: you remove any of these obstacles that are going to threaten this marriage. God hates divorce. Why? Because this marriage relationship is a picture of Christ's relationship to the church.
How does Christ love the church? Christ loves—listen, if you're a Christian, how does Christ love you? If you're a Christian, Christ loves you unconditionally, meaning there's nothing you can do to sever or to break that relationship. And that's the picture that He's trying to demonstrate for us in this idea or this picture of marriage. Marriage is to be a permanent lifelong union.
The Husband's Role
So now what is it that God says a man should be? Well, he should be a provider and a teacher and a leader and a lover. When we talk about lover, he should love in a sacrificial, cleansing, nurturing, permanent way. Now let's look at how that job description fits the task and ultimately the needs.
He's the provider. He brings to the relationship the financial security. We hear this all the time about a woman versus a man in terms of some basic needs, and one of the things that women generally need is security.
That's why a guy buys a house, a woman buys a home. A guy says I need a place to put this car and I need a place for the golf clubs and I need a place to sleep, and kids can all be beige with me. Beige is good. I like beige, beige carpets, and that's perfect. And a woman says no no no no, we can't do that right now.
The Security a Wife Needs
Well, that's not true. This illustration is almost true. As of last Friday in our family room we had three different colored walls, three different colors going because we're just not sure what we want in this room. And I'm saying, she said do you like this? I said Susan I like the other one. I don't care. Just don't screw up the TV. That's all I'm saying to you.
Do whatever you want to do. Paint it purple, paint it navy. I don't care. I honestly don't care. And she had it all finished in green. It was beige which I liked. She made it this green which made it I thought very comfortable. Oh it's too dark. And I said whatever. She said do you care if I paint it? I said here's what I want. I'm not going to paint anything. One, so you paint whatever you want. Don't please don't ask me to help you paint because I'm not going to do it. And two, and I'm serious, don't screw up the TV. That's all.
She said oh okay. Do you care if it's red? I said Susan paint it any color you want. I couldn't care less. But she agonizes. I'm not kidding. We got three different color walls and finally she said okay I'm going to go with this yellow, but I don't like it yellow. So she starts—if you go to Home Depot I'm told you can find thousands of colors of paint. Isn't that right? Sure, but none of them fit right. So she mixes her own color of paint. And I'm saying you better make sure you got enough of this. But I don't care. By the way, I don't think you did the trim, but see that's that difference.
Financial Security and Contentment
Guys, I believe and I believe the scripture teaches it—and I'll tell you what, I believe even society confirms it—that that wife needs financial security from you. There was a study that was done two years ago. CNN released it that 70% of working wives would like to quit their jobs. What makes it very interesting, Cosmopolitan just released a survey and Cosmopolitan discovered exactly the same number. 70% of working wives would like to quit their job, but they're working they say because they need two incomes.
That's a lie. That's not true. Remember when I said it's the husband's job to provide the basic needs? Now this gets a little dicey in here. Put down all your sharp objects. It's the wife's privilege to accept those basic needs and be content with them. And you live in a society that won't do this.
The Credit Trap
I'm home one day and I get the mail, and I never get the mail—it's always gone when I get there. I get whatever's left for me. But I'm there and I said Susan look at this, we just got approved for this like $25,000 titanium master visa. And she said Tom we get those all the time. I said you don't get them all the time. You can't get them all the time. And she said you don't get the mail, how would you know? And I said I just know you don't get these.
The next day—this is the next day's mail—there's four of them. I've saved them actually. She saved them for me with a couple of recommendations on where I could put these visa cards. And she had at one time had them stacked up. I said throw them away. But this was the next day. Here's a visa card. This is the next day. This is one day's mail.
Here's a visa card—instant credit, no deposit, already approved. Here's a GE select platinum master card, four and a half percent, credit line up to $50,000. Here are two—these look identical—these are Citibank platinum select cards with a four and a half, four point nine percent interest. They look identical.
A Warning About Consumer Culture
But they aren't one is addressed to me, the others addressed to Susan, with benefits I didn't open. A generous credit line. Well, all of a sudden you start getting this stuff in the mail and then you can buy furniture and not have any payments until 2002. You can. Now one of the car dealers the other day was running an ad: you can now buy a car and not have a payment till 2001.
You live in that world. That's a consumptive world. That's why you think you need two incomes. I'm going to tell you something: your house will run, generally speaking, I believe 90% of the time, probably maybe higher. Your house and your marriage and your relationship will be so enhanced with one income, His, that you can't even fathom it.
Being a Teacher Through Communication
Very quiet. Number two, you're to be a teacher. How does that fit what a woman needs? Well, let's go back to it: open and honest conversation. A teacher is the one who generates in response to the communication to one another.
See, when I want to know somebody, I communicate with him. When you say I want to know God, I might say what does that mean? Well, and now I think it's alarming, but that's just me. I may be way out of step. There's this move even among evangelicals - it's getting very mystical, very much experiential. Got to get away to kind of a desert thing and be out there for five days and find God. Not against it, but I'm a little ethereal for me.
How do you know God? Well, you pray to Him and He speaks to you in your work. And it seems to me you can do this work. Is there some value to get away? Sure. There's time to think and all that. But we're starting to put a premium, even in the Bible churches it seems to me, a premium on experience here that's a little bit too high.
How do you communicate? Well, you talk. Again, I come back: I must, this wedding ceremony must be better than I thought it was because in there I'll talk about you got to keep sharing your dreams. You've got to keep talking.
Perfect example: Susan and I were dating, went down to Tucson to see a friend. And I mean all the way down, all the way back: chatter, chatter, chatter, chatter, chatter, chatter, chatter. "What do you think? What do you think about this? Whatever this?" Da da da da.
We'll get in the car now to drive to Tucson to see friends and we'll kind of get out and we'll get in the freeway. And I'll complain about that: "How can you have that casino sign? Way too big." And then about Picacho as it's coming up, I'll say, "You got to go to the bathroom?" "No." "You want coffee?" "No." "How about Dairy Queen? Want Dairy Queen?" "No." "Maybe a Dairy Queen? Maybe a blizzard?" We get to Tucson, I'll say, "Boy, I'm stiff." "You stiff?" "Yep."
Well, not a lot of conversation going on in that whole process. See, and part of it is a lot of the things we talked about going to Tucson when we were dating, a lot of those things were getting to know each other and prepared for life: "Do you want to have kids and when?" And now we've had it, we've done all that. But there's still this process of talking and communicating.
Gentlemen, a teacher leads to the area of communication.
Creating Security as a Leader
A leader - what does that mean? Well, that puts us right into this area. That puts us right into the area of security. It's your responsibility to create in the home an environment of security. And you know how you're going to know if it's a secure place? You're going to be able to look at your kids oftentimes and see: how do they respond? How do they handle things? What's the environment in the house? What do other people say as they come in?
Do you - I hope you understand chaos is not the norm in a home. But you create that environment that's secure.
I remember Larry, when I had been around very long, and Larry used to quote this. I don't know where he got it. I don't even know if it's true. But it said: "Gentlemen, for the first five years you're married, the wife you have is in a sense the product of her relationship with her dad. After five years, this is what you created."
You're sitting across the table having dinner and you're looking and you're saying, "We got 15 years of this. I'm not too happy." That's what you made. See, as the leader, you create an environment. I say it to you again: an environment that's secure. You protect her. You don't put her at risk.
True Romance and Intimacy
Here's the last thing, and I think it proves that the job description matches the task. We said the last thing: as a lover, what does a woman need? True intimacy. Remember the number one thing that Harley found in his study? Affection. Not sex, although that's part of it.
She needs real romance. She needs you to kiss her, to hug her, to call her during the day for no particular reason, to bring her a flower, to call her when you're going to be late. In short, to continue to do the things that you did when you were dating her, trying to win her.
All those things that you did that you thought you had to do to impress her, to get her into this relationship, and now you've got her in this relationship, and all of a sudden, when she says, "He's nothing like I thought he would be," she's exactly right. Because you were a fraud in the dating process. You put on a big show to win her, and now you've won her, and you'll just start treating her like an extra sand wedge, like a tool in the garden.
The Perfect Match
See, what you need - here you go - what does a wife need from a husband? Here's what she needs: She needs what God says a husband needs to be. She needs you to be the provider, the teacher, the leader, and the lover. And I think it's no accident that her needs and God's job description line up perfectly.
The other thing is, I think most guys in this room have heard all this stuff about 48 billion times, because I do think that's the culture we're in, especially in Christian circles. Next week, we're going to talk about, and this doesn't get talked about near enough, what a man needs from a woman. And sex is not number one. Kind of toward the top, but it's not number one. We'll talk about that next week.
Let's pray. Father, help us see this. God, I pray for the ladies that are in the room who have a husband...
And as they hear this, they say, "I want my husband to be this so badly. This is what I want so much." God, I pray that You will strengthen them to resist the temptation to try to change him or to try to make him into something that he isn't. They will love him and encourage him.
God, I pray especially for the men in the room and those that are married, that they would understand that what You've called them to be is the provider and the teacher and the leader and the lover in that relationship. And that those terms aren't defined by the world, but they're defined by Your word.
That we are to create in our wives a sense of security and safety. That our desire is to love her, not just in a physical way, but in a sacrificial way. Concern for her cleansing, nurturing her as we would our own bodies. Cleaving together in a lifelong, permanent relationship.
God, that's not natural. Our natural instinct is to be selfish and self-centered. That's why this is supernatural. So Father, we ask You to do this work in our life. We pray it to You this morning in Jesus' name. Amen.