It’s Hard Out Here For A Husband | Relationship-ology Pt. 7 | Dr. Dharius Daniels

your your wives. I want to ask you not to weaponize this sermon. As we unpack what the Scriptures have to say about the role and the responsibilities of a husband, it could be possible that you see gaps between the standard of Scripture and the place your husband's in. You got two choices with how you handle that gap. You can handle it with judgment or you can handle it with empathy and intercession. Are you judging someone for not being what they were never taught to be? Listen, a man can't change a woman and a woman can't change a man. Jehovah Macadish is the sanctifier. So you can feel it with empathy and with intercession that God would in his own way help the man become who the Scriptures are calling him to be. Does that make sense? And if you promise to do that for the men this week, I believe the men will promise. I hope the men will promise. I'm guessing the men will promise to do the same thing for you next week when we go into human knowledge because the Bible is an equal opportunity offender. It gets if you sit under long enough, it's gonna hit everybody's toes. I wish I had an amen right there. If he's just chapter 5 verse 25 says husbands love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing of the water through the Word and to present her to himself as a radiant church without stain or wrinkle or any blemish but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one hated their own body but they feed and care for their body just as Christ does the church for we are members of his body. For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and the two will become one flesh. This is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God. I want to talk from this subject in our time together. It's hard out here for a husband. It's hard out here for a husband. My son is currently a student athlete. He plays football at Tulane University but he started out at Syracuse and as I was preparing this preaching presentation, I reflected on the day in which we were setting up his room and dropping him off there and I noticed on a stand and I

pat and I noticed above the stand on the iPad a whiteboard. So I asked him what's up with the iPad because this iPad is different than the iPad that we actually got for you and he said no that's an iPad that the school gave me because this iPad houses my installs. I said was an install. He plays why a receiver and he says it's simply the plays that the coaches are progressively installing for the offense we're going to run. So he starts to show me these various plays and I being a strategically curious person ask the question you have to learn all of that and he said yes and this isn't even all the plays. I have to know what the play means when it's called and I have to know what I'm supposed to do within that play and this experience provided me with some information not just about football it provided me with some information about our faith. It led me to a conclusion for which I now have developed a deep conviction and it is this I believe at times coaches in football do a better job of preparing people for the field than churches do in preparing people for the faith. That a coach does not give someone a jersey put them out on the field without explaining to them their position making sure they're clear on their assignment and giving them a playbook that they can use to execute plays that will orchestrate an offense that's going to help them win but when it comes to the faith particularly in the context of marriage we have often given people ceremonies without strategies rings without responsibilities we've given them titles of a husband and wife with no training we have given people marriage jerseys without teaching them how to play their position. don't love each other, but because no one took the time to explain to them the place. They got premarital counseling, but no place, prayer and platitudes, but no place. And there is, ladies and gentlemen, no I in team. But there is an I in win. And if we're going to win as a team, we have to accept the fact that how we do collectively is impacted by how I perform individually. Are y'all here? I have learned so much about life by watching my son play football.

I play basketball all the way through college, and basketball has a degree of interdependence. But football is the most interdependence sport I have ever seen. If your friend can't shoot in basketball, you just take the ball and you just tell him you better play defense and rebound, don't you shoot? Am I making sense? You can take over the game, Kobe, you can just do your thing in basketball. But football is highly interdependent. If one person doesn't do their job, if one person doesn't play their position, then other individuals are impacted, come on here. My son plays wide receiver. His success is not just determined by his willingness to do his job. His success is determined by somebody else's willingness to do theirs. He can't catch a ball the quarterback don't throw. And the quarterback can't throw a ball that the center won't give to him. And the quarterback won't have time to throw if the offensive line doesn't know how to block. Our ability to win collectively is based on me playing my position individually. And we're sending people into the field of marriage. And they don't know if they're supposed to block, run, throw, or catch. And all of a sudden, we're expecting people to be fruitful, flourishing, and fulfilling in relationships. I need to know my position, and I need to know my place. I'm making sense. And whereas this is a struggle for contemporary churches and contemporary spiritual leadership, it was not a struggle for ancient churches and ancient spiritual leadership. Because an individual named the Apostle Paul recognized the importance of this, and he addresses this in a letter he writes to a group of believers in and around Ephesus called the book of Ephesians. He is writing individuals, watch this now, who have been introduced to a third way of living. And Ephesians, which is comprised of six chapters, is really in terms of stream of thought divided

into two sections. The first section, chapters one through three, is where Paul deals with their identity. So watch this, in the first three chapters, he's trying to reintroduce them to themselves. It's too quiet. I said he's trying to reintroduce them to themselves. Because how far you go and how much you grow is not just determined by what you believe about God. It's equally impacted by what you believe about you. And some people are stuck, not because their belief about God is wrong. They're stuck because their belief about themselves isn't right. Did you hear what I just said? Oh, I got Bible. It's like the Israelites in Numbers 13, who did not occupy the Promised Land. Because they said we are like grasshoppers in their sight and in our own sight also. They did not lose to the giants out there. They lost to the grasshopper in here. And your grasshopper is bigger than any giant. The problem isn't the giant obstacle. The problem isn't the giant opportunity. The problem is the way you see you as a grasshopper is inhibiting your ability to actively and effectively engage the giant. So Paul's like, I can't deal with your behavior until I deal with your belief. I can't deal with your activity until I deal with your identity. There's another you inside of you that you don't even know. Whew. Hallelujah. And he's like, I want to introduce you to that you. I want to introduce you to Peter, a rock. Come on in here. Yeah, come here Gideon.

I want to introduce you to a mighty man of valor. Come here, Abram. I want to introduce you to Abraham. There's a you on the inside of you that you hadn't met yet. A focus you, a holy you, a discipline you, a whole of you, a happy you, a joy field you. Some of you have been visiting joy, and it's time to stay. Did you hear what I just said? You've been visiting joy. It's time to move in. So it's been the first three chapters dealing with identity, praying for in chapter one, revelation, that they would see themselves right, that they would see the glorious inheritance that's available to them, as children of God. But then he moves from belief to behavior. He moves from identity to activity. He moves from orthodoxy to orthopraxis. Because biblical Christianity is not just biblically faithful, it's highly practical. You're not deep unless you can do it. Did you hear what I just said? Yeah, you're not deep unless you can do it. You deep when you can love your enemies. You deep when they can use you and you pray for them. You deep when you say, God, here's the first 10%. I believe you can do more with 90% than I can do with 100%. That's when you deep, not when you can fast for three days. (audience cheering)

And so in chapter five, he starts dealing with how what is going on with you spiritually should show up differently in how you manage yourself relationally. And so in chapters five and six, he's following a literary practice that is seen in a lot of the Greco-Roman world at that time called household codes. So this is the modus operandi. This is the way we operate as parents, as children, as employers and employees. So when he mentions slavery in the Bible, it's translated slavery by the King Jack. Okay, Alice. (audience cheering) It's translated slavery, but it's propaganda. 'Cause the word there is dullos, which means servant. So he's really speaking to employ your employee relationships, not condoning chattel slavery. (audience cheering) Okay, anyway, here's the point. Here's the point. You see this in Ephesians five and Ephesians six, and in this part of Ephesians five, he deals specifically with a covenant of marriage. And what he does is he installs an offense for husband and wives. He says, y'all got a jersey, but I need to teach you to play. 'Cause if you get jerseys without plays, you will assume your only responsibility is fidelity.

So you'll think, 'cause if I'm not, you'll then think if I'm not doing something wrong, I'm doing everything right. So the standard for a good marriage is not cheating. That's just common sense to me. That's, I hope you want a little bit more than that. Let me go over here to this side. (audience cheering) That's all you want? (audience cheering) You want to come down, come on forward and say, "Baby, I ain't cheap today." (audience cheering) He installs plays. He says, y'all went through premarital, and you got prayer and platitudes and no plays. So you plan while I receive it and nobody even told you what that means. And you running hard, but that doesn't mean you running a route right. (audience cheering) You're going to hurt, right passion, wrong route. (audience cheering) It's hard out here for a husband 'cause you judged, you evaluated, you on podcast, you on YouTube, they talking about your own TikTok, Some of you are being judged for what you never even saw. You didn't have a father in the home, or you had one that wasn't a good example. He's been quiet like this all day, y'all just thinking today, okay, all right, maybe. So Paul says, I love Paul, because he's highly biblical, very practical, shows the implications

of the gospel in every area of a person's life, and he gives place. Next week, I'm going to talk about the plays that he gave to women, and the route wives are supposed to be running. But today, we're going to talk about the routes that he gave to husbands, and he lays out, in Ephesians 5, five responsibilities for husbands, five routes that husbands should be running, who are trying to do this the king's way. Five responsibilities. Can I show you them in a text and then we're going home? Okay. Next, the first responsibility he lays out in the text is this, a husband is supposed to plant. Somebody say plant. You may be wondering, Pastor, where do you see the word plant? It's in Ephesians 5, verse number 25. Watch what he says, husbands, that's it? Husbands. Do you know what husband? Do you know where husband has some etymological roots? Come on here, Jesus says in John 15, "I'm divine, you're the branches. My father is the husband." So husband is not a romantic term. It's an agricultural term. He's saying when you become a husband, you become a gardener. When you say I do, you don't say I do to a girl, you say I do to a garden. So you got to deal with weeds and you got to deal with foxes and you got to pull up some stuff that don't belong there and you've got to plant some stuff that belongs there. It's not there because you're supposed to put it there. When you get married, you don't just get a spouse, you get soil. Are you hearing me? Yeah.

This is your gardener. You're a gardener. You signed up for soil and you want perfect soil. You want soil without problems. Y'all, gosh, you won't soil without weeds and there's no such thing as weed-free soil. But when you cultivate that soil and you nurture that soil and you nourish that soil, then the soil starts to produce a less of what shouldn't be there. I'm trying not to run deal this, but it begins to produce more of what should be there because certain things can't survive in certain kind of soil. And when you start tilling that soil and cultivating that soil, that attitude now can't survive and all of that mouth, it can't survive and that combativeness, it can't survive. You have loved her into safety. You have loved her into security. You have loved her out of her insecurity. She walking different now because you have planted so many compliments into the soil of her heart. She knows she a baddie now. It's in the text, husbands, plant love. Where's that in the text? Husbands love your wives. Plant and love. Now when he says love here, here's what's interesting, right? When he says love, he doesn't use the Greeks hat like multiple words for love. In English, we got one. Love is love. I love my cat. I love my wife. don't mean the same thing I love my dog wait a minute I love him okay This is how second way I am. I didn't know, I'm second way, I'm getting delivered, here it is.

I got, we got a dog, and our dog is a mutt, that's what he is. He was supposed to be a multi-poo, because my wife and I both have to have hypoallergenic dogs, so we want a multi-poo. And I go out of town to preach, this was like seven years ago, and I come back home, I was preaching in Missouri, I come back home, she picked me up, she gave me a dog as a surprise. I'm like, I love it, because I like dogs, right? And so we both just sneezing, though, like, man, I'm hugging this dog, but I'm sneezing, my eyes are watering, she sneezing, and then I'm trying to train the dog, and I've had a Yorkie before, and he was giving me Yorkie energy. I say, you've got a spirit of disobedience on you, so I'm trying to, this has nothing to do with my sermon, but I'm trying to, I'm trying to train this dog, and I tell her, I say, he acting too much like a Yorkie, and we both sneezing, so she does a DNA test. This dog got eight things in it, but he's been my best dog. Watch this, y'all missed it. I have fallen in love with him before I learned the things about him that made me itch. But I love him so much, I'd rather scratch around you than have anybody else. And there are gonna be some things you discover about the person you love that make you itch. So he's a little dog, I feed him everything, so he overweight, and he's got some, some, some spinal issues now. So our precious vet, she goes to the, I don't call her name, because I don't want to overwhelm her with cause, but our vet goes here, and so she worked hard on that dog for her bishop. My wife was like, let me take this dog, because he was just in so much pain, we could tell. She was like, let me take this, let me get this dog to the vet, because if something happened to this dog, change, you don't have to be without my husband for about three weeks as he go through mourning. And the dog was in so much pain. One day, I just, he's laying by my bed, and I looked over, P.S. was asleep, cause I ain't want nobody to see it. Tails, I'm so second way, I laid hands on that dog. Do you hear me?

I laid hands on that dog. And between the steroids, the vet gave him, and the spirit working, that dog running around here all right now. Even though I'm allergic, love gave me empathy. Like love, I got a plan, love is patient, love is kind, love does not envy, love does not boast, love is not proud, love doesn't dishonor, love's not self-seeking, love's not easily angered, love keeps no record of wrongs. He's saying husbands, plant that, but here's the text, here's the text, because there are a number of different works for loves, but he doesn't use the word eros, which is eroticism, he used the word agape, which is the decision, it's a sacrificial love. He says, give me the text again. He says, husbands love your wives as Christ, love the church, and gave himself up for her. So he's saying, here's your motivation for planting in her. Your motivation for planting in her is considering what I planted in you. So the way my love shows up for you, you need to be a visible instrument that shows love to her. So when you think about how many times you tired of saying this to her, I want you to think about. It's hard out here for us, I want you to think about how many times he's tired of saying that to you. [MUSIC PLAYING] When you think about why haven't you changed this by now? I want you to think about how many times God could've said. (audience cheering) This is why I don't think you can live a spiritual life without spiritual maturity. Doing this is a dead man walking. (audience laughing) You need the spirit of God. Am I making sense?

Plant. Number two, protect. In the same way husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife also loves himself. I want you to hear this family. You know, the assumption behind this statement is that when something threatens your body, you instinctively respond. If something flies in your face, you duck. If your hand touches something hot, you pull it back. This protection isn't a decision you make. It's a reflex you actually have. And Paul is saying, take that automatic instinct that you already have towards your own flesh and extend it to the spouse. He is redirecting instinct that you already have. Am I making sense? He's saying your wife is not an accessory attached to your life through covenant. She's become one with you. So what wounds her, wounds you, and what diminishes her, disturbs you. What damages her, damages you. A gardener does not plant and then walk away assuming that the garden is gonna defend itself. Solomon says, catch now the foxes, the little foxes that spoil the vine. Did you hear what I just said? Now when people here protect,

they often think protect physically. That's not incorrect, but if you're a Christian, that's incomplete. Now if you're not a Christian, do what you want. But if you're a Christian, that's incomplete. Because it's common sense for any man to wanna protect his wife physically. That's a part of it. But for the Christian man, protecting is much more comprehensive than protecting from physical danger. It's not just protecting physically. Watch this, it's protecting emotionally. (audience chattering) It means there are gonna be a lot of places where you get your heart broke. My job is to make sure your heart is broken this place. In this place, as less as possible. (audience chattering) I'm not gonna be a threat to the well-being of your heart. (audience chattering) It's quiet, it's quiet, it's quiet, it's quiet. So, excuse me, I'm gonna protect you physically and then wreck you emotional? (audience chattering) Once you've been vulnerable with me about your weaknesses, am I gonna weaponize them now? (audience chattering) Once you tell me about your mother wound and your abandonment issues,

then when you act, when you feel like I've abandoned you, am I about to throw that back in your face? (audience chattering) Oh gosh, it's cool. (audience chattering) We gotta protect emotionally. We gotta protect relationally. It means, and sisters, I want you to hear me too, God did not reduce discernment to the female gender. (audience chattering) You're not the only ones that can discern. (audience chattering) And sometimes God is showing your husband things about what's happening in your relational circle. And you need to be open enough when he says, "I know that's your sister." (audience chattering) And I'm not asking you to throw her away, but she's exploiting your success guilt. (audience chattering) You made it, she didn't. (audience chattering) And you feel guilty when the truth of the matter is, God gave her a good mind and a good body. Wherever she's at, she earned. (audience chattering) It's like Cain and Abel. God is saying, if you would do good, wouldn't you be okay too? They didn't do what you did and they're mad

that you got the results that you got. (audience chattering) Say, "Hey, I know that's your friend." You get real spicy though after you done talking to her. (audience chattering) It's like your honor decreases. She not with a man, she respect, and now all of a sudden, it's showing up in the way. (audience chattering) She don't respect hers. He don't have any backbone. (audience chattering) So he gonna take that. I'm going, y'all, I'm just, y'all don't wanna hear. (audience cheering) No, no, no. Oh, we're gonna talk about this next week. Respect is relative. You don't get to determine what I see as disrespectful. (audience cheering) That's not disrespectful to you. If a man talked to me that way, we would have a problem. That's disrespectful. (audience cheering) Wow, I'm not leaving, but I don't want you to lose me. (audience cheering) 'Cause just 'cause I didn't leave, doesn't mean I ain't left. (audience cheering) And when you talk to me that way, the only way I can stay is if I leave.

(audience cheering) You disengaged, I had to. Whoo! (audience cheering) So sometimes the husband's like, "Hey, that, that, "Mm-mm, mm-mm, mm-mm. "Mm-mm, so it's not just protection "in terms of her relational circle, "but your protection in terms of your relational circle "as a husband, in terms of what you allow her "to be exposed to with people that are in relationship "with you, it means it's illogical "for a Christian husband to literally be willing "to fight a stranger to protect your wife, "but you won't check your mom or your sister." (audience cheering) You know your sister acting petty? (audience cheering) Let me go over here, but you know, you know you, you, you, you were raised with your sister. You know her. (audience cheering) You got to pull a sister in the room and say, "Now listen." Okay, let me give you this one. Get ready to play tennis 'cause this is, I don't even know what, here it is. (laughing) We got to protect emotionally. We got to protect relationally. Hey, you can't disrespect my wife.

I ain't even saying you got to like her, but you can't disrespect her. So you're going to learn to fix that, or you're going to learn to do Thanksgiving without me. (audience cheering) Y'all not ready to see, come here. (audience cheering) Therefore, shell a man, leave. (audience cheering) And clean. (audience cheering) I bought, I got Bob for all this, I just don't have time. Moses got married, didn't he? And Miriam and Ayrin had something to say, didn't they? (audience cheering) (audience clapping) All right, let me give you this one. 'Cause we got to protect emotionally, physically, emotionally, relationally. And this is something, it got real quiet, but here's the thing about the truth of scripture. It exposes gaps on all of us. It's not judgment, it's no judgment in the church. It don't work. One, the judgment seat is a throne, not a couch. It's only room for one person. (audience cheering) And if your name is Jesus, you can't sit, unless your name is Jesus, you can't sit there. Two, it's not formative.

It doesn't actually work. It doesn't change people. It induces short-term behavior modification that's motivated by shame. But you still hadn't developed a spiritual muscle to actually sustain the change. This is why you're living at the altar about the same thing. (audience cheering) Lord, Lord, Lord, Lord, it's like you aren't gonna be able to stop that until you become the kind of person that can stop that. (audience cheering) Reputationally. We gotta protect repetitionally. Sometimes the honor a man feels in a marriage is the pristineness of the reputation of his wife. (audience cheering) A husband should want to extend that same kind of honor to his woman. To say, I'm not gonna have you walking around here looking like boo-booed the fool, 'cause of the way I'm handling and managing myself outside of you. (audience cheering) Come on, are y'all okay? It's hey, the way you interact with other women, the way you relate to other women. It's not a matter if it's right or wrong, it's does it honor the person I'm one with? Am I making sense? Just like you want to say, that's my woman.

She should be able to say, not our man. Number three, provide. No one has ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church where we are members of his body. Feed and care, that's provisional language. God's called us to provide. Now let me tell you what this means and what it doesn't mean. And I want to say something here, because I feel like every person should be honest about what you want in the spouse. So I don't think, just because a person says she wants a, just because a woman says she wants a man of means, I don't think that means she's lazy or shallow. It just means she wants financial security and she wants him to be responsible for it. So I think that's a personal preference a woman can have. My problem is when you make that personal preference a biblical standard. That's what you want. That's not what the Bible says every man has to be. When the Bible talks about a man being a provider, it means he is willing to do everything he can to use his time and his talents to bring into the house the provision that is actually needed. What a man cannot control is opportunity. This is why the Bible speaks against laziness. So a man should be willing, are y'all following me? To use his time and his talent. To say I'm going to do everything I can to bring resources into this house. But a man has to be sober enough to know there are some things that affect my ability to do that that are sometimes beyond my control. Sometimes I'm in an industry that is hit hard by the economy. And what I was able to do in one season, I can't do it in another. It doesn't mean I'm less of a man. Am I doing the best I can in the season I'm in with the resources I have available?

That's what it means. It doesn't always mean you're going to make the most money. If you don't want to be in a situation where that's not the case, there's nothing wrong with that. But you're not functioning in an unbiblical manner if that's not your reality. Because of seasons, your business booming and all of a sudden, it feels buried. Now the Bible gives parameters for marriage, principles for marriage, a pattern for marriage. And you're supposed to determine your practices in the context of those principles and those patterns, which means everyone isn't going to look the same. Because some of you, some men, you married in Abigail. Some men, and that's your assignment, and some men you married a Deborah or a Lydia or Proverbs 31 moment. It's just going to look different. And you have to know what that looks like for you. Am I making sense? But that's what it means to provide. Is that man going to do the best he can in the season he in with the resources he got available? Provide. Also, not just provide financially, but provide relationships. You promised God. You made a vow. You told God what she needs relationally that you say she could only get to me. I get from me. I'm supposed to give it to her. So when she say I need affection, and you say I'm not affectionate, you tell in God I ain't doing that part. Stay faithful, but I ain't doing that. Husbands render unto the wife do affection. What does that mean?

Depends on the wife, whatever it is due to her. Not your last girlfriend. What does the wife need? All right, what's my next one? Prioritize. Therefore, for the husband, leave father and mother, it's not talking about abandoning your family of origin, it's saying rearrange your relational priorities. This is the most important relationship to me, and I'm going to treat it that way. Does that make sense? Now we've got to prioritize chronologically with our calendar. We've got to prioritize energetically with our energy. It's like, man, you know, one of the things I had to learn to start doing is ending my work day earlier on date night so I can Let me go to this side. All my words gone, I used them all. I've been talking all day. He's like, what's going on? Nothing, I'm tired. So it means prioritizing energy. I'm a busy man, so I prioritize objectively. My wife is the most important thing in my life besides God, but my wife understands she's not the only important thing in my life. I am the most important thing in my wife's life besides God, but I'm not the only important thing in her life. So I have to release her to be what God has called her to be, and that's more than a wife to me. Ooh, it's a wife first, but not wife only. It's some stuff in her heart that she's got to be old. It's some stuff God's given her to do that she's got to do.

And number five, partner, partner, partner, partner. Yes, husband, God has given you the responsibility of leadership. It's hard out here for a husband. And the only person that sees leadership as a privilege is somebody who ain't led, nothing. (audience laughs) All the leaders say, amen, the only person. You get the lead, I get the lead. (audience laughs) I was speaking at a conference in Nashville, Reggie on Friday, Friday morning. And it's this whole arena, Dave. I walk into the arena at this conference, and I know probably the people that are attending the conference, they just saw, oh my God, look at all these people, look at this building. As a leader, I walked in, I saw Beals. (audience laughs) I saw, oh, that back end is crazy. Oh, that LED up there, that's crazy. How many people in here, about 10,000 people in here? Oh, that's at least a thousand volunteers. Oh my God, how did they coordinate and train a thousand volunteers? How did they get a thousand people to actually take off work? How many days are they doing this? How many musicians do they need? How many worship leaders do they need?

How the hell did the parking lot? How did they get these people to lunch? How did they coordinate and all the guest speakers and green rooms? That is not privilege, it's pressure. (audience cheers) And the only people that see that as privilege as people are people who don't have a sense of self-worth outside of what they do. It means you weren't anybody before you became a leader, so being a leader makes you feel like you're somebody. (audience cheers) So yes, we lead, but it means Jesus. It means a leader knows when a partner. A leader knows when God has put a team around him to say, "You better at this than me." So I submit to your expertise here. And husbands, God's called you to partner. He's saying, "There are things I put in your wife "for y'all to win." And I need you to know when to partner so that you can release her to be the asset to you. She's called to be. Listen to me, brothers. I don't know anybody that does any of these five things perfectly, because I've been in church my whole life. There's never been a season, I've been out in church. 47 years, nine months, my whole life, I've been in church. I was never taught this, ever. So how are you supposed to do what you don't know?

And then information don't mean execution. Now that I just know what I'm supposed to do, now I need God to help me do it. (audience laughs) But your heart's desire should be, Lord, I simply want to be a man you can use not just for the world. I want to be a man you can use for my life. Ooh. If you can use anything, you can use me. (audience applauds) If you can use anything, Lord, you can use me. If you can use anything, Lord, you can use me. Take my hands, Lord, and my feet. Touch my heart, Lord, speak through me. Everybody, come on, just sit in that sink and talk If you can use anything, Lord, you can use me Here I am, if you can use anything, Lord, you can use me Take my hands, Lord, and my feet Touch my heart, Lord, speak through me If you can use anything, Lord, you can use me Brothers, this is the man God is inviting us to become And it's a man we can't become without him But he never instructs you to do something He hadn't equipped you to do I don't do none of this perfectly I do none of this perfectly, but my testimony is the testimony of Paul I don't count myself to have apprehended, but this one thing I do Forgetting those things that are behind, reaching for those things that are before me

I press, brother, I know his heart is hard out here for a husband We gettin' judged, and we never got trained Trust him I'm concluding this series next week I believe God's done a deep work in our hearts And may God raise up husbands and wives, potential husbands and wives Whose heart is, I just don't want to be pleased, I want to be used Poor by my heart, I want to be used I want you to use me To make the soil of the heart of my spouse I want to pray a benediction of you Benediction me, final blessing May the Lord bless you and keep you Cause his face of favor to shine upon you, may he be gracious to you May he protect you, may he provide for you And above all else may he grant you peace This is my prayer for your life In Jesus' name, amen God bless you, we'll see you next week