Live Free with Josh Howerton - #1 Secret to a Christian Marriage (It’s NOT What You Think) | Live Free with Josh Howerton

Episode Date: February 24, 2025

Marriage is amazing—but it can also be really hard. Pastor Josh and Jana Howerton sit down with Pastor Josh and Sharon McPherson of Grace City Church for an honest, unfiltered conversation about what makes marriages thrive (and what can tear them apart). They break down biblical truths about leaving and cleaving, headship and submission, and what it looks like to lead and support each other well. Plus, they get into the tough stuff—setting boundaries with in-laws, handling emotions, and why so many couples struggle in the same areas. Whether you’re newly married or years in, this conversation is packed with wisdom and honesty you won’t want to miss.   👇 DON’T MISS OUT!   💍 Marriage Weekend Bonus Resources: Everything you need for a stronger marriage—real conversations, fun date night questions and practical tools to grow together: https://lakepointe.church/marriage-weekend-resources/    📣 Join us for Movement on Friday, February 28—an evening to celebrate all you do and hear from special guest, Pastor Joby Martin. Register now: https://lp.social/movement   👥 Ready to build a deeper community? Join a Life Group at Lakepointe Church: https://lakepointe.church/groups/     STAY CONNECTED 🌐 Website / https://www.lakepointe.church/  👍 Facebook / https://lp.social/facebook  📸  Instagram / https://lp.social/instagram  🎥  YouTube / www.youtube.com/@LakepointeChurch   🎧 LISTEN ON THE GO! ▶️ Spotify / https://open.spotify.com/show/353ryGdZNlebaiqkCcy3Yc?si=27e3a6f93a024897  ▶️ Apple Podcasts / https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/live-free-with-josh-howerton/id1669321198   ⛪ ABOUT LAKEPOINTE CHURCH: We believe that Lakepointe is a movement for all people to Know God, Find Freedom, Discover their Calling, and Make a Difference. With 6 DFW locations and programs for all ages, there's something for everyone.    🤝 To support this ministry and help us reach more people with the Gospel, start here: https://lakepointe.church/give

Welcome to Live Free with Pastor Josh Howardton. Lake Point Church is a movement for all people to know Jesus, live free, and make a difference with their lives. And our prayer is these deep dive conversations about the Word of God equip you to live free in Christ. This is a test drive and we'll decide whether or not to do more seasons based on engagement. So if this is helpful to you, if you could rate, review, or share, that will help us to know what's helpful. For more digital content, visit lakepoint.church slash livefeworthy. free. And now, let's dive into today's episode. All right, welcome to the Marriage Weekend podcast.

Let's go. This is great, man. We have our good friends, Josh and Sarah McPherson. We're so happy you're here. All the way in from the People's Republic of Washington. We made it. You made it to the great nation of Texas. It was snowing when we left. Was it really? Doing your favorite thing. Just for you. The white stuff. Oh, the white stuff. It's the best. Hey, man, it's 11 degrees as of the recording of this podcast. Yeah. Dude, Texas is trying. It's cold.

Yeah. I was looking at the weather app. It was 11 degrees a day. It's supposed to be like 70 on Monday. Yeah, the joke is... That's a 50-degree swing. The joke is that Texas weather is like a winning powerball number. 84, 11, 75, 26.

Totally. Take up your mind. Okay, you guys want to talk about marriage? Let's go. So we just finished an absolutely amazing weekend, marriage weekend at like, 24,000 people just... We're healing some marriages, ma'am. It's amazing.

Awesome. And for anybody that's listening, this is, let me give you a heads up on what you're listening to because you, if there's anybody in the United States that Jan and I want to listen to to talk about marriage and parenting, it's these two people. So true. We literally, and this is not a joke, we literally planned a vacation around coming to the McPherson household because we were like, we want a family like that. That's right. So honestly, like, I just, from the bottom of my heart, we honor you. You have blessed my family. My family is better because of you.

and it's just honestly it's an honor to be here with you. Well, we feel the same, Josh. We feel the same about you. Thank you. It's a big deal. So let me just give a heads up to our listeners and what you're about to listen to. Actually, so can I have all of us to repeat something?

So I'm going to have everyone here. Maybe. I'm going to have all of us to repeat something. And if you're in the car or working out listening to this, I would like you to repeat this to these. You're going to help leave me. So you all repeat after me. Okay.

We're doing this. Because I am a disciple of. of Jesus. Because I am a disciple of Jesus. If it is biblically correct. If it is biblically correct. You guys are doing great. But politically incorrect. But politically incorrect. I still want to hear it. I still want to hear it. Okay. So this is everyone that is listening has just said, hey, if the Bible says it, I'm out. They're in. Awesome. So this is what just happened. We just made this commitment because in the next few minutes, we're going to have a, like, just honestly, a very raw, frank conversation about God honoring marriages.

And, you know, we'll hit some sensitive things. Some of it, we got two or three hundred user submitted questions. Wow. Wow. They are very raw. Yeah. And I've just found, you guys know this, Josh, obviously, pastor is an amazing church. Josh and Sharon Patrick lead an amazing church in Washington, reaching unbelievable, you know, people there.

And you guys know this is like, if you, won't go to the raw places, they can't get healed. And so, you know, hey, just expect that. The next few minutes you're listening. Let me also just give a quick heads up. Here's how to use this. And then let me give a warning and then we're going to dive right in. How to use this. If church members are listening to this, here's what I might suggest. What if you and your spouse listen to this either together on the way to or from a date in the car and maybe talk about it over dinner or hey maybe you guys listen to it separate during workouts but then on the or whatever during a walk whatever you do yeah but then on date night hey look we're gonna let's process it together you can do that

last thing um an enormous now for first all biblically this is necessary and then an enormous number of user submitted questions had to do with sex and intimacy so i want to give a heads up obviously you can't talk marriage without talking that yep so i want to give a heads up to our parents what we're going to do is in general, we may touch on some of those things during the beginning of the pod, but I'm going to in general save those user submitted questions around intimacy for the last section, and we'll give you a heads up. Hey, PG-13 warning coming for the next part of the pod. Does that sound good? Yeah, sounds good. All right, let's stop in. Okay, Josh, your parents have been married 54 years. Yep. They have been teaching marriage and parenting family things for 54 years almost.

Yep. Yep. You grew up around this. It is no surprise to me that your family is what it is because you came from a wonderful family. Yep. And then now you, Josh, you have a ministry called Stronger Man Nation, and Sharon is a very integral part of that. So Ben wants to go deeper. They can go find Stronger Man Nation. So let's just, let's start talking, man. All right. All right. So we're going to start right here and then we'll jump off. And all of us, we can just, we have no idea what's going to happen. If I get stuck, I'm just going to kick at the Jana. She's so excited about that. This could be great. We should warn people like, this isn't scripted.

You haven't registered questions. No, they don't even know what I'm asking. Yeah, in our defense, we're going to this totally blind. That's it. All right. They're flying blind. It's going to be really fun. And I will say just to start off, the questions are super encouraging.

You were telling me you got hundreds and hundreds of questions and they're raw. And I was just thinking some people might be discouraged by the questions they're asking. I was encouraged by the nature of the questions because when they're raw, means they still care. Yeah. That's right, Josh. If you stop caring, then you're not asking anymore. You're like, yeah, whatever.

And so even if your questions are raw or hard, it's indicative that you still care, that you want to make it work that you're in the fight. And so just a generic thought I had as you were talking. It's like the question is maybe raw, but even the nature of the questions themselves, I think, are encouraging. Amen. People are in the game. So good job, people, for caring and asking questions.

So you'll never grow wise unless you're asking. right questions. So I think it's really encouraging. Amen. Well, let's ask some questions. Yeah. I'm not saying we've got answers, but great job asking questions. Yeah, all right. Let's dive in. So Josh, Jan and I were on a vacation at the beach and we listened to you and Sharon's. You did a whole series of podcasts on marriage. Yeah. You remember doing this? Yeah. Vaguely. Yeah. And we listened to every single one of them and talked about them on our vacation. I don't know if you guys knew that. No. Very cool. Yeah. They were great. We did. It was amazing. You did this thing where you were like, hey, man, let's start right here. You did this thing where you took biblical principles and you went, here are the eight laws. A biblical marriage, a God glorifying marriage, a thriving marriage, there are eight laws. And use the word laws. And I like the word laws because like the law of gravity. It's like, hey, man, you can deny this all you want. But if you jump off a building, you're going to splat. These laws function like that. So why don't you start here and let's very briefly hit the eight laws and then we can kind of chime in and move. Are you kidding?

me? Yeah, at the top of my head. You have 30 seconds to cover the... Well, I got to remember all of them, bro. Let's see how many you can get. Let's see how many we can get. So go to my YouTube. So the law of preeminence, Christ overall. So the most important person in your marriage isn't you or your spouse, it's Christ. So we unpack that. And so we talked about, I think we went to John and I'm working off memory here. We went to John where he was talking with the woman at well. And he's like, you've got five hundred. husbands and you're living with the six. Your problem isn't the men. Your problem is you're looking to men to be something they can't, namely a functional savior. And so your relationship

problems won't get fixed until you get the relationship problem fixed, which is you with your savior. So we unpacked a lot of preeminence, that if Jesus Christ isn't preeminent in the relationship, you're going to inevitably be putting things on your spouse that only Christ can carry, and then the relationship is broken. And it's not fair to expect Janet to be Jesus because she's not or vice versa. And so you may think Janice failing or she may think you're failing, but actually each of you are the problem that you put an expectation on the other that they couldn't meet.

So that was a law of preeminence, and you can help me out here. The next was the law of... By the way, we can... Josh is going to riff through these, but at any moment, we can hop in and let's add some color. Here's where that becomes a problem. Here's what that looks like when that's happening, that kind of thing. Yeah, yep.

So that was law of preeminence. Yeah. Next was the law of promise, and that's understanding the foundation of marriage is covenant. It's not contractual. It's not feeling. And so we define marriage as a sexual relationship protected by covenant. What's a covenant? A covenant is a sacred vow administered by God with attending blessings and curses, meaning it's sacred, it's holy, it's done in his presence.

It's something that he does. It's not a piece of paper. It's something that he enacts. And when he does it, it births a new being. in the world. And the being is now, it's not me, it's not thee, it's we. There is now a new one. The two have become one.

It's a mystery. It's a miracle. It's the work of God, Genesis chapter 2. So we unpacked the law of promise that that's the foundation. And we talked about, oftentimes, you think, oh, sex protects the covenant. No, covenant protects the powerful gift of sex. Covenant was given because sex is such a powerful, powerful gift. It requires protection.

And we can go into that later if we want. And then, so that was a law of promise. The third was, I've got to work here. Priority. The law of priority. Yep. And so that was leave, cleave become on flesh. And so there we unpack a very common problem.

And that's a problem of in-laws and outlaws. Wow. And outlaws. Yeah, in-laws become outlaws. And honestly, we get that question almost warning our question. Okay, you just want to go there. Let's start there. Yeah.

So let me just say, like, of all the user submitted questions, there were three things that was like not even close. Like, these three things were the three things in-law questions. Actually, can I just read you? Let me read them to you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Here's two different ways this was asked. Let's talk about it.

Okay. Somebody said, how do I honor my parents while starting a new family with my husband? Which, by the way, I actually love how that question is ordered. It's a very biblical question. Okay. Okay. Second question, another way it's worded. The key of that question was we're on or not obey. Okay.

Because we're required to honor our parents for a lifetime. We are not required to obey our appearance for a lifetime. That's right. And delineating between the two is a very important distinction to make. So she asked you a good question, how can I honor them? And sometimes one of the way you honor them is not letting them control your relationship. But let's keep going. Okay.

Well, yeah, we're going to click on this. Yeah, yeah. The other way this was asked is, how do I get my husband to back me with his parents when he always takes their side against me? bro. Okay, so why don't you guys, let's talk about it. We're talking, you're going, hey, all right. Here we go. All right, so you're talking about, you know, law of priority.

Yeah. Let's just, let's apply it to this very obviously high felt need area. Yeah. For sure. We can jump in when you want, but like, speaking to that question right there, just for all the clueless dudes out there listening, if your wife feels like you're prioritizing your mom or your dad over her, she's not going to be sexually open to you, emotionally open to you.

Like, you are torpedoing your marriage from the guys. I go, because you're violating one of the most important commands God's given his word. And here's what we were talking about earlier that we didn't get to. The second command God gave. The first command God gave to Adam and Eve, you know, they're in Genesis too. It's a big deal. The second command he gives is you got to leave your parents. It's the second command.

So the first command is don't eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. or don't experientially learn of evil by doing it. That's the first command given to humans by God. The second command, and all of the Bible of humans is, ditch the in-laws when you get married. It's a big deal. Genesis 2. I think it's 224. 227.

2-27. Leave your therefore match. Leave his father or mother. Yep. 224, 25, 26, somewhere in there. So the three phases. Leave father or mother, cleave to wife, become one flesh. Leave cleave become one flesh.

The second two don't happen if you don't get the first done. And so that's leaving emotion. that's leaving physically, the house, leaving spiritually, leaving relationally, leaving financially, and it's not dishonoring, but it's disconnecting. It's very, very important. And so it's not that when I got, we got married, it's not like Sharon joined my parents' family. We started our own family.

And now the wise parents will encourage their kids to do that. They're going to, they're not going to allow their kids to stay emotionally connected. They're pushing them out. But the unhealthy, the immature, the ungodly, the, the, the, um, How should I say it? Well, just the relation and healthy, especially on the women's side. So we can go over the map here, but the most tense relationship in any given family system is going to normally be between the new young wife and the husband's mom.

Why do you think that is? That's been your experience? Oh, not your experience. I'm saying, like, as you're leading hundreds and thousands of people, in marriage things, you're going, that's what we've seen. So I'm saying like, man, that's what you've seen. Why do you think that is? So because moms have daughters, intuitively know the daughter's going to stay close

because she's going to have a baby and need to know how breastfeeding goes and how the, and so she's going to stay close to the mom. Mom's intuitively sense, boys are going to leave. And so they're working hard to keep those boys close. And so they're mothering, they're overprotect. They're doing these things. And the husband's like, hey, if I can have a wife that gives me sex and a mom that washes my clothes, I get the best of all worlds.

And so they're not realizing. And then the mom can emotionally sabotage or the man to feel guilty. And so it's the wives, like for instance, when we got married, my mom, she said it in a kind of joking manner. But the day of our wedding, she turned to sharing. She said, well, he's your problem now. Absolutely. The day of our wedding.

There's actually something healthy. Yeah. There's actually something healthy about that. Very beautiful. And so. I think part of the challenge too is a lot of times, I think part of the reason that is one of the most challenging relationships with the mom and the new daughter-in-law is because the mom is having to let her son go. And I think sadly there's been a lot of relationships where we see that original marriage, that mom and dad is not healthy. So the wife is looking to her son for a lot of emotional support and help.

So she's not able to talk to her emotionally unavailable husband. So she's now has this great relationship with her son and now he's leaving. And I think then she's stuck now back in the marriage that they weren't investing in. to begin with. I just feel like that happens over and over and over again. And so these moms are still holding on to this relationship that's unique with a boy. I have two boys and two girls. And my relationships with them are different. My boys are different than my girls. And I can see how a mom is wanting to kind of hold on to some relational health that she's found there, except that we're relationally healthy. So I can let my boys go, which is what his mom did so well. She had

relational health in her own marriage. So then when she came time to launch her boys, she's good. She's not worried about what's going to happen in her own marriage. She doesn't need her boys for emotional health. And I think that's been a big problem. And a lot of moms, I think find their identity for sure. In their kids. And so your identity is in your kid and he's leaving. Now you have a law, you don't know who you are. Yeah. So if the marriage isn't healthy, you can't let your kids go. And now that now, then you get like the jealousy. Yeah. And like the wife feels like she's competing for the attention of her husband with her mother-in-law. And he's like, well, it's just my mom. What's the big deal? And he doesn't understand the natural tendency for women, because women are

territorial and he's been her territory as a mom. And now he's moving and that wife needs to stake out her new territory, her home, pick out her curtains. So my mom's been very, very intentional. She's like, I'm not going to tell Sharon, how does she word it? She's like, I don't point out things that I like or don't like. Interesting choice of curtains. You know, they just instant pressure. So she doesn't do that. She's just affirming and loving and like letting Sharon build our own home because women are territorial. And oftentimes, like, we're in Texas, right? So you fight over water because water is life, right?

In relationships, women are territorial and they fight over the men. The affection and tensions of the men because they're like water. It's like how I survive. I get attention from this man. And if the wife, the mother has been getting more attention from the son than the husband, she can't let them go because her identity's wrapped up in that. So if marriage is unhealthy, that unhealth transfers down to the next generation of marriages because they can't let them go.

Wow. So then like, okay, so, you know, it's kind of that principle of like when something's out of order and you've only experienced out of order, what's wrong feels right and what's right feels harsh like in this situation. If somebody's only experienced maybe dysfunction in that relationship. Let me say that one more time. If somebody's only experienced dysfunction in that relationship where it's out of order, then what's then out of order feels.

correct. Disfunction feels normal. Disfunction feels normal. Yeah. And then then maybe setting appropriate boundaries would feel harsh. So can you guys like maybe just level set for people? And this will be helpful both if you're the generation up with the grown parents who are married. Yeah. It's like, oh, let's help give normal. But then also for people who are on the generation down to help them, like can you guys just talk to like, hey, here's some examples of common things people do that shouldn't be normal. And then here's some examples.

of some things that it's like, man, that would actually be a win. Yeah. That people would be like, whoa, wait, you can do that? Yeah. That's a good question. You can jump in. I mean, I would start by saying, like, it's never unloving to obey God. And so it's like the second commandment God gave to humanity was to leave your parents,

cleave to your wife and become one flesh. And you can't hold on to two things. So the law of priority was like you can't make two things a priority. It's either your wife or your mom, but it's a chance. can be both. So if you're trying to do both, you're failing. It goes for the wife too. It's either your husband, you can't be your husband or your parents. Like it has to be your husband. So it's not, we're not just talking to the dudes here. Yeah. Women can have a challenge with this as well. She calls her mom first before she talks to her husband. Whoops. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

That's a massive byline. That would be a great practical example of like ladies, don't run to your mom first. Yeah. You know what I mean? To talk about your marriage problems. To talk about your marriage problems. Before you've gone to your husband and talked to him and trying to work stuff out. Why is it Sharon? Why is that wrong? Because I do think, First of all, as a pastor, like, that's a thing. Sure. Like, do you see that? I think a lot of people like, what are you talking about?

Like, me and my mom are so close. Like, aren't you supposed to be close to your mom? She's a godly woman. Sure. Why is it wrong? And what's it do? Well, I think there's an emotionally healthy way to be close to your family, right? And there's nothing wrong.

We talk about how women need female relationships and friendships, right? Because there's a level of support that they can receive there. I think what's challenging is when you're talking about things to your mom that you haven't talked to your husband first. I think that's where you start to get into the problem. You can jump into on what you think here. But I think that's part of the rub. Like, are you calling your mom first? Complaining about all the things that your husband's doing. You haven't even talked to him yet. Or have you prayed about it? I don't know. Talk to Jesus about it first. Or are you going other places to, you know, air your dirty laundry before you're talking to your husband. So I would say

that is not right. That's not good and right. And that's not part of prioritizing your husband or that relationship by any stretch. I mean, parents can put expectations on their kids that are, It's like, well, if I don't come mom, she'll be disappointed. If I don't come mom, she'll feel left out. If I don't come, and they're feeling this kind of passive, aggressive, emotional manipulation from the parents above. And they don't want to be jerks. They don't want to be mean.

But at the end of the day, like, I tell guys, like, guys, you can't have two women in your life. You can only have one. And here's what you're doing. When you're allowing your mom to tread on some of those boundaries that God established for you, the health of your marriage, you're not only hurting your own marriage. You're aiding abetting the hurting of your parents' marriage. because it's not good for your mom to be doing that either. And so the problem is if you're, if, like I've encouraged guys,

hey, if your mom's an issue, go talk to your dad. Say, dad, we've got an issue here. Let's go to the leader of the family. Go to the head of the household, honor the authority structures of God's put in place. I mean, how this conversation. And then I think we should caveat, like, oftentimes when we talk about this,

it sounds like we're being harsh. We have a very close relationship with our parents. Yeah. Let me just. Like, for listeners. They live in our house. Yeah, that's right. They live in a house.

You live in a house. on your property in their separate space. In their separate space. And we rarely see them because they're so busy. And they're like, no, we're good. We're out tonight. And I'm like, oh, come over. But they've understood boundaries.

And from early on in our marriage, it's like, hey, you guys call us. We're not going to call you. So we're here if you'd like. But we don't need from you something that you need to feel pressured to give. And so when our parents kind of step back and the whole emmeshment thing, right, we're like there's just the unspoken expectations. You'll beat every holiday. we're going to keep all the same family traditions.

We're just adding Sharon now. And we're not able to start our own traditions. It's like, that would be very awkward. And so I've never had to have those hard conversation with my parents where it's like, hey, mom and dad, we're not going to be doing that this time. Mom's always like, here's what we're doing Christmas. We'd love to have you if you can make it. If you can't, no problem.

It's like, well, now we feel free to step into it because it's not coming with strings attached. Right. Or are you answering your question about practical things? This is fantastic. What were you going to say, Sharon? Well, I was just going to say, I think, too, one of the things that happens a lot that I think is not healthy is is that a mother-in-law will put expectations, especially on the daughter-in-law. Maybe they're the ones talking about schedule or holidays or whatever.

And the daughter-in-law feels like, I don't feel like we should do this. Or I don't think we want to do this. Or I didn't like how your mom talked to me. She talks to her husband and their husband says, get over it. It's just my mom. Like, I feel like that happens a lot in that relationship where a husband says, it's not that big of a deal. It's just the way my mom is. And a husband can make excuses for, I would even say sometimes the sin of his mom.

and then a wife doesn't feel protected or prioritized or taking care of. And I think that happens a lot. And wives just think, well, I need to just suck it up and just deal with it. And I think that's an area would be like, no, no, that's not okay. That's not prioritizing your marriage. Men, you need to step up, which you would have lots to say about that. Step up and protect your wife and go to your parents. You can't be talking like this.

This is how we're going to work. So anyway. Yeah. Man, I'll add three things. And then maybe you guys can riff and then we can move on to the next principle. I'm sure you guys see the same thing, Josh. You mentioned it is you'll see. especially younger men,

and they're struggling with this, you know, the deal with the in-laws or whatever it is, with his parents. And the phrase comes out when a wife is like, man,

I think we need to draw a boundary. We need this, it's time for us to set up our own holidays, our own traditions, our own, and I say, yeah,

but it's my family. And I think what that guy's guy needs to hear is actually, man, it's not. Yeah. You left that family. Yeah.

And you started a new family. That's right. Your family is your wife. That's your immediate family is your wife. And if you have them, you have children. That's your family. The minute that you got married, your parents became no longer your immediate family. That's now your extended family.

And your job is to prioritize your immediate family over your extended family. So one, hey, let's watch out for that phrase, but it's my family. Actually, it might not be in the sense that you're saying it. The other thing, you said this, Josh, is like, you'll see this, we're on prayer teams. this is, you hear this, is, man, it's that thing, man, you know, my mom, my mom would feel so hurt. She'd be so hurt, that kind of thing. And it is, hey man, make sure you're not trying to do your dad's job for it. That's right.

Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Because you guys know this. One of the peak moments for people to get married, it's not actually your one, three, or seven. One of the peak moments for, oh, sorry, to get divorced. It's not one three or seven. One of the peak divorce moments is actually like year 20. 25 or 30. Because what you got it is because either mom or dad or both made their whole life about

getting their emotional needs met by sons or daughters. Yeah. Sons or daughters leave. And then all of a sudden what the marriage was about is now gone. Yeah. Well, now they don't, they didn't develop an emotionally intimate. So then you get that spot where you said it. Now mom is trying to get emotional needs met by son or daughter, whoever it is. And what he can't do that anymore because he's got a woman in his life now. Yeah. And watch out, man. Don't try to carry the emotional burden of your dad's job. That's your dad's job.

That's right. Don't try to prop it up. Were you going to say something, Jan? No, I was just thinking. Like, I mean, it kind of, if there are, you know, parents, like, listening and your parent, your children just got married. Like, don't put that emotional, like, manipulation on your kids. Like, I think this is a chance to, like, oh, wow, I've done that.

I need to repent. And I need to let them leave and cleave and, you know, and reaffirm your marriage and focus on your marriage in this new season. Yeah. That's great. It's wow. We've been giving all this counsel for years. And you know, hear from mom and dad, experience it ourselves. Well, we're just entering into the season where our, and you guys notice, our oldest kids are, you know, exploring and finding some folks.

Interesting. Yeah, Levi's got a girl and she's super special. And they're in an intentional friendship guided by the wisdom of their parents. working towards a God-honoring marriage. And I've already, I'm just, this is raw. This is me being like, real-time. Vernible here.

I'm like, well, they're going to be here for Christmas, right? Yeah. I'm already, yeah, and I'm like, whoa, this is right? Wait, wait just a second. Yeah. So it can be hard to let your kids go in a way that's healthy and right and good. And then I stop and go, okay, no, I know the principles of God. I know the wisdom.

So I got to apply my own preaching to, the life of my kids, but it's been a funny little experience where it's like, wait, they're over there tonight, but we're going to watch family movie tonight. And then like, I've caught myself a couple times like doing the whole, like, that's cool, bro, you go over there, that's fine, we'll watch her. And I'm like, I'm being passive aggressive right now. So, hey, we have some sympathy. Yeah, so I understand. So it sounds like dads have to process and do it? 100%. So we're in this with all of you folks out there. Yeah. It's not easy, but it's worth it. And I would say, too, it's like as a parent,

You want to be wise counsel for your kids. And if you're smothering them, they won't come to you for a council. They're going to be trying to constantly trying to avoid you. And so having the self-control and restraint like my parents did to let them go is what will guarantee they want to come back. If you chase them, man, they'll just keep running. So interesting. We're going to say this and move on.

So for those who don't know, I did not obviously plant Lake Point or Star Lake Point. I had a successor, wonderful godly man, Pastor Steve Stroop, love Pastor. Steve. And early on, we had to figure out, because honestly, passing off a church, it's a little bit like having a kid that you're passing off to somebody. Yeah, yeah, for sure. He's used before. Yeah. And we had to figure out early on, here's what we figured out, is that when, when Pastor Steve's energy was to press into what was now my sphere of responsibility and ownership, my natural energy was to push away. Yes. And then there came a moment where we had a grown man conversation. about, hey, who's is whose and where's the other thing?

And he's such a humble man. He switched. Yes. And his energy became release, give Josh's space. And it was the second he did that, I was like, wait, come back. Where are you going? Let's get breakfast.

Can we, let me build you an office right next to my office. Can we talk? So it's like, it's some of that same principle. Absolutely. If your energy is to, is to invade their space, their energy is going to be, yeah. The second, you have a release energy, it makes space for them to have a pole. That's right.

And I would just tell like, so if you're a husband and wife in this situation right now where there are overbearing, emotionally manipulative, line crossing boundary, shattering in-laws, we're not saying be jerks, right? We're not saying like, send them about just screw you text, you know, and pull out. Have a conversation. Husband go to the dad or the far along. Be like, look, here's what we're experienced. Here's what we're feeling.

No harm intended, but we need some boundaries here for the same. sake of our own relationship, would you be willing to help us with that? And then invite them in the process of helping your marriage and then give them a chance to honor that. And if they keep violating it because they're just dysfunctional or ungodly, okay, then you set up increasingly firm boundaries. And at some point, it might be a cutoff scenario. But again, you'll never invite the blessing of God by violating the laws of God. And God says to leave and to cleave and become one flesh. And if you haven't left your parents, you can't cleave to your wife. She won't feel safe, protected, cared for, or prioritize, and bro, you're in for a long haul. That marriage will not

thrive. And having those clear conversation is it gives you the opportunity to bring unity into your relationship with your parents as well. Absolutely. You're inviting them to help. Here's what we're trying to accomplish prioritizing relationship. Here's the things we could give them things to do. Would you guys be willing to X, Y, Z? Because oftentimes it can be well-intended parents that haven't been taught or trained or equipped with biblical principles. They're just trying. And their experience was every time a kid gets married, we're inviting them into our family. The family's just growing. They've never heard the concept that, no, we didn't bring Sharon into your family.

We started our own family, like you were saying. And so you could help teach and instruct. And they might be like, that makes perfect sense. Thank you. And actually, your health could work up the generational tree. And your godliness could become their godliness. Your wisdom could become their wisdom. So don't go in all hot and like, I listen to a podcast.

I'm just going to take you guys out. Like, no, be godly, be honoring. right, you know, but draw some lines. And so to the guy who is like weak, coward, passive, indifferent, clueless, hey, bro, get in the game. You're actively hurting your wife. Take some shots. And to the guy who tends to be maybe more harsh or mean spirits, like, whoa, whoa, be gentle.

Your parents, you know, give them some space and some grace and some time and invite them into the process that you outlined for them. And that's a great test. If they're like, it was like, would you guys like to help our marriage? Anything. Yeah. What would you like, well, it would be helpful if you guys would honor these boundaries and do these things. Could you do that?

We'd love to. They just help them. Because you can expose their heart. It was like, you guys want to help our marriage? Well, I don't know. It depends. Yeah. Would you be willing to give us some space?

And then they get all offended? Well, now you're exposing what's there. Yeah. And so, so be wise about it. Don't go in hot and heavy because you heard a podcast on it. You know, ask for the Lord's help. And be decisive for the guy out there who's wish you watch. your wife needs to be protected.

For sure. And for the wife, your husband needs to be prioritized. If you're calling your mom before you call him, oh, that's a quick way to turn him off. Totally inappropriate to process. By the way, under normal circumstances, we're not talking about, you know, physical abuse situate, that kind of thing.

Everybody knows all the caveats. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But totally inappropriate under normal circumstances for a wife to call mom and process marriage problems. Because when you do that, you're inviting mom into a level of intimacy and putting mom in between you and your husband. That's exactly right. No, he's, when you get married, you draw a circle that only you and your husband are allowed inside.

That's right. That's allowed inside. That's well said. Yeah. I would just add dad too, because, you know, daughters and fathers have a unique relationship as well. So that also includes your dad. Yep. That's good, yeah.

Okay, so law of priority. Yeah, that's really good. Yeah, it is. Don't call dad to come fix the tire before you've given your husband a shot at it. Yeah, he can feel very threatened, especially young, young marriage. That's really good, yeah. And then your dad doesn't he be reaching out to your husband because his daughter's upset over something. Yeah. That's not helping.

That's a whole other. Yeah. We'll leave the little of that Pandora's box. The law of priority. Keep them in order. It's God first, then your spouse, then your children, and then everything else. Yeah, that's good. All right.

Keep going on our laws. Law of preeminence, law of promise, it's covenant, law of priority. And then I think the next one is the law of his. power and the law of her power. All right. So this is where biblically correct, politically, and correct happens. Yeah. Let's talk about the words you're not, quote, unquote, not allowed to talk about, but

that the Bible does. Yeah. We're talking headship and submission. All right, go for it. Well, the law of her power. So. Just keep on. The law of her power.

When I've taught on this before, I've used the word rolls. His role, her role. And I found that people were kind of defensive or resistant. Well, I don't stuff me in that role. It's like, okay. You know, obviously God's called the husband's to be the head. God's called the wife to be the helper. And those are unique and distinct roles that work for the flourishing of the marriage.

We live in this culture where, what does that mean? I got to submit blah, blah, blah. It's like, okay. Let's reframe this. I want to hear from you guys in a second on that reaction. So I'll just bookmark that. Okay. Okay.

Yeah, that's not the reaction over here, but cultural or large, it's the Genesis 3 response, right? And so for my church family, I reframed it, not the law of roles, but the law of his and her power. And the way I framed it was God has given the wife and the husband unique and distinct power, that they're called to exercise for the health and the strength and the flourishing of that marriage. and whenever they wield that in a toxic way, it damages the marriage, whenever they lay it down and fail to wield it in a passive way, the marriage is weakened. So it's like, okay, the woman now has a unique and distinct power

to either damage or weakened or strengthen the marriage, and the husband can do the same. So it just kind of changed the framing of the conversation because the point is the goal is to infuse both roles, the husband and the wife play, with dignity. Because when we say, well, the wife has a helper, for whatever reason, well, we know it's a tactic of the enemy to frame it as demeaning and belittling and lesser than. It's like, well, no, no.

The third member of the Trinity calls himself the helper. The Holy Spirit is the helper. God. You literally have your job title named after the Holy Spirit. The one of Jesus said, it's better than I leave than he comes, you know? And so it infuses it with dignity and value and influence and power. You want to say something I can tell? Yeah.

I'm just like if God himself says he is our helper like I mean like wow we should take that as a great honor because it is and it's like you know like that word in Hebrew it's like actually like a military term and it's like a trusted like ally. And so it's like I think we should take that up and see like what a high calling that is. It's not a low calling or a secondary calling. That's a high calling because you are on the same team. You are fighting this battle together. there is companionship in it. So there's a lot of value there.

That's really good. One of the things that I pointed out in the her power sermon was, ladies, it may be that your husband's failing because his helper's failing. Yeah, man, whoops. Yeah, yeah. And so you and I both have a value of speaking truth to all of God's people. And so there's kind of been this weird thing where pastors can talk to dudes,

but not the chicks. It's like, well, it's really dishonoring to the women. That's right. Because they're thinking human beings, right? And so we say this not in a demeaning way, but to a way to elevate the women, it's like, we're all going to have a conversation here about our jobs. And it's not, again, we're caveat in like the toxic,

you know, the husband's an abusive idiot. Okay, Josh won't be the first guy to shoot that guy and hang him in the town square and light him on fire. That's not what we're talking about. But to just the kind of the average run-of-the-mill grumbling wife, he was like, well, my husband should do this and that more. It's like, no, no, God gave you him because when God saw him by himself in the garden,

It's the first thing that God had created, he said, that's not good. That's not going to make it. Literally, Adam by himself was not a good thing. So God made Eve for Adam to complete him as his helper. And so, ladies, if your husband's struggling, this isn't a guilt or a shame thing because his decisions are his own, he's responsible for his actions, and there's a role that's built in the name of the role that says if you don't do your job, he will struggle and he will fail.

Right. So, okay, so let's get practical. Let's get practical. Yeah. Like, let's make it touch the ground. So, all right, so the words are headship and helper. Let's talk to, let's do headship first, and then let's talk helper. Okay, husband is the head of the home, head of the family and the merit. What does that mean? What does that not mean? What does that mean he should do? What should he not do? Thoughts.

Well, I mean, I don't keep talking to me. You interrupt me what you want. No, it's good. Can I torpedo the phrase that I said was bugging me earlier here? So there's this phrase called servant leadership. Okay, let's, you're going there. Okay, we're going to get spicy. Is that okay if we go there? Absolutely.

The myth of servant leadership. Yeah, it plays in this role of headship in a very unhelpful way. So, and not to get like niche Christianese conversation, but in Christian circles, husbands are called to be head. And then this phrase servant leadership has been kind of thrown around. and, you know, Christ came not to be served, but to serve, gives life ransom for many, towels with the disciples, blah, blah, blah. Yes, and amen. Yeah.

All that's good stuff, yeah. But what it has become is husbands lead by serving. And I'm not necessarily sure that's ultimately biblical. And it gets translated to it. That means husbands should do the dishes and husbands should whatever. And again, I don't want to fight about particulars. Husbands should do dishes. That'd be a great act of love for your wife.

But God has called husbands not to primarily lead through serving, but to serve through leading. Wow. So you're serving your wife by leading your wife. And the phrase through leadership, again, maybe we're more nuanced than folks can track here. But what I'm seeing is, guys, you use it as an excuse not to lead. I'm just going to be a doormat and I'm going to do the dishes and I'm going to make sure she gets her nails done and make sure it's like, no, no, no, no. you serve her by leading, right? So even when Jesus took a crown of thorns,

he was doing it to go to the cross, to sacrificeally give up his life, to then victoriously take it up again in the third day, so that he might, what, lead his bride out of her foolish, rebellious, sinful, and righteousness and into the glory of the inheritance he'd purchased for her. So his act of service was done as an expression of his leadership. And so when I think about a husband's,

role as head, it means it's your job to lead. Spiritually, it's your job to lead financially. It's your job to take the first shot, to have the first idea, to start the conversation, to be the one initiating the relationship toward health, towards wisdom. And what it doesn't mean is that you make every decision and that you have the best ideas or that you see everything. So for us, and boy, ladies interrupt me here because I don't want to talk too much. For us, it's like, okay, we need to help one of our kids work through something.

So I'm taking the initiative to deal with this problem. And then typically, the next thing is, so what do you think we should do? Yeah, that's what, yeah, that's it. So I initiate his head. Now help. Help me. Yeah, help me. Yeah, that's, Jan, I want you to talk here in a second because, like, I do think some

people think that's what headship is. Okay, well, he just makes all the decisions and he's, and her job is just a whatever. used by wives who are being lazy and indifferent to put more on a husband than God intended. Wow. Okay. Whoa. That was a fastball. Yeah. So like I don't think people realize like, Jana, we say this without shame. Like I lead our family. Yes. That is, we don't have any shame about that. We're not a bearer. Like, that's a glory and a joy for us. Oh, there's an expectation here. Yeah. She's not like submitting to that. Like, I guess Josh has lead. She's like, get out there, if you don't lead, I'm going to put a boot, you know where. Get out there, bud. Yeah, yeah, let's go. You can do it.

But what I do think. But what I do think. the misconception, like Jan and I literally, every single night, we take a walk together when the kids go down, we walk for 30, 40 minutes. I'm processing every decision in our family. Like, because why? Because God gave me that helper. That's right. And I can't do my job until I hear the amazing ideas, the spirit-filled wisdom that she has. So I'm not just like walking out and like, all right, babe, here's what we're doing. Hope you like it. No, it's like, no, no, I need your help here. Let's process this. What were you going to say? And I think that there's such a misconception on submission is just like he tells me what to do. He makes the calls and that is in our marriage,

that's not how it functions. Like whenever we're making big decisions, we come together, we talk about it. And then if there is disagreement, which I mean, we are almost never, like in disagreement. We like, we're prayerful about it. We pray about unity being on the same page. But, you know, if there's ever a time where it's like, okay, we're not exactly on the same page, he makes that call. But it's always been something that has been for my benefit, for the family's benefit, something that I may have not seen in the moment. But later on, I'm like, oh, yeah, he was right and I was wrong. Like, it's always been that. And so, but it's a very mutual, we talk through things.

We talk through each thing that we're processing. and, you know, usually God has unified our hearts and put us in the same place. That's good. Yep. Yep. Yeah. And out of that, babe. Well, I was going to say, I think to some women, too, listening, like, there's also

the other side where a lot of women want to be like, no, I want to lead or I want to be out in front. But then there's also the women that say, well, I don't want to bug him. Like, he's going to be. So if we're speaking from experience, this was more my role when we first, or more my, my, my, my M.O. When we first got married, my default was to be like, well, I don't want to bug him or I don't want to bring stuff up and I didn't understand the role as help or being proactive, right? And being like, no, to help means I need to speak up sometimes and I need to be clear about things. And he wants to

hear my opinion and he wants to hear what I think. And I think early on it was, you would even come to me and be like, what do you think about this or whatever? And I'd be like, I don't know, whatever. Or I'd feel the need to carry some things without telling him, thinking that I need to fix them. I'm like, oh, he has enough on his plate. I got to fix this thing. And we finally had a conversation where he's like, I am the captain of our ship. And if there is a hole in the back of the boat that you know about and we are taking on water, you have to tell me. Yeah. I cannot steer this ship and wonder why it's listing and then be like, what the heck? You mean you've been looking at that hole in the boat for the last year? I didn't see it. Yes. That's right. I'm making decisions

thinking there's no hole in our boat. Whatever that might be, depending on what the woman is, you know, maybe in charge of, maybe it's a kid thing and an attitude that you keep thinking you're going to have to navigate on your own. No, talk to your husband about it. And be, you know, a helper in bringing it to the head of your home and say, I need help with this. Or maybe it's a financial thing. Or maybe it's something you see in his life. Maybe it's a habit of something that's turning into sin that you're like, this is not okay. I don't like this direction. That's your job as a helper. I had one point spot one time. Yeah. Just once. That's all it to. Just one. It was very helpful. I love you. It was a wonderful. We're about six months in. But I mean, that's a helper's role as well,

is for her to step in and say, no, Lord has called me to this. So it's with a lot of prayer on the front end as a wife. Lord help me know what I need to say. When would be the right time to say it? When would be, when should I bring this up or whatever? Now, if you're taking a walk every night, sweet, that's just like built in. Hey, let's do that. That's a hack right there.

If you walk 30 minutes tonight, good chance you're in the same page. But I would say, too, to add on that, it's the husband's job to initiate conversations so you feel invited to help. Bingo. That's a huge deal. If she feel like she's got to navigate like emotional fragility where I'm going to be like hurt and wounded and withdraw or get angry and blow up, like that's that's a horrible place as a leader to put your wife. You're being a terrible head. It's like, so part of my job as head is to like is to make her feel like she has an open invitation to speak into my life in areas I'm not seen or I need help.

And I haven't always done that very well. I can get defensive and I can get, well, and I'm more verbal. And so I had to learn I could verbally bury her. So she could be right and I could win the argument. Yes. Well, that doesn't help anybody. Yeah. So what have I just taught her?

I've just ringing any bells here? Yeah, that's right. So how are you guys doing? That's right. Can we cut this? We're getting some counseling here. Oh, brother. But when that happened, that trained her in, I'm not,

willing to listen and what she has to say isn't worth hearing. Well, that's a huge loss for me because I just muted the voice of the helper God gave me to point out the things I'm missing. And so I had to learn to grow in humility. And it's to this day, like no guy likes to be pointed out that he's failing. It's not like I'm still good at this, but I've, I've experienced the manifest benefit in glory that enters into our home, our marriage, our life when I listen to it. And honestly, we'll give you. We'll get talking about the kids. I mean, our kid, we've got 14 years now, so all the things.

College and friends and boyfriends and girlfriends and future and marriage and all the things. And we're talking. And I just marvel at her wisdom. I'm like, because wives are, they're emotionally, relationally intuitive. They see things we miss. And I, there have been countless scenarios where I would have gone into a situation thinking I saw everything. And because I missed one thing, I really saw nothing. and I would have completely screwed it up

and I have and then she would be like, honey and she does this she doesn't do in front of the kids so she spares my dignity back in the room honey actually what you miss was before you came in

Levi had actually said this and not this which reframed the whole scenario and then I go back and go actually I hung the innocent person and let the guilty one go free I'm sorry let's switch this here

that's the role of the helper and so it's as a head it's not I see all things know all things and I just give you a to-do list. It's I initiate and inviting you into my life to help me do my job. So let me add two things here,

and then I'd love to, you guys, riff on this. Number one, and this is one of those, you know, politically and correct things. My theory, like when I used to do premarral counseling, this was my working theory, and I still, guys, I'd disciple. I'm like, hey, watch out for this. Young men, agree or disagree. Okay. Most young men walk into their marriage, scared of their wife's emotions.

Yes. Okay. I agree. I strongly believe that. Most young men walk into their marriage, scared of the wife's emotions. If he does not conquer that fear, her emotions, not his leadership, will dominate the house. Very true. So then you go back to what you said earlier about, man, how some people will misuse the phrase servant leadership.

What that guy will a lot of times do that's scared of his wife's emotions and actually never learn to lead in the face of his wife's emotions, he will reframe any of her. he thinks, oh, quote, unquote, servant leadership is me just, like, agreeing with and coddling any emotion she has. Affirming the wrong thing. That's affirming the wrong things. He's making the problem worse. And calling the servant leadership. And calling it serving. So then like, man, it's always love. You always listen. That's right. Absolutely. But like, dude, it's actually part of a husband's job to lead his wife's emotions sometimes. That's right. Hey, man. That's right. Hey, you're, hey, let me actually man, I think your emotions are maybe overriding your logic. Let me be a man for a second.

I love you. I listen. But there does come a moment where it's like, hey, babe, let me help you think. What if we thought about it this way? Now, Sharon, you're reacting, so I'm not going to get to my second thing. Don't go for it. Sharon and Jana, agree, disagree additional comments here. Yeah.

Yeah, I agree. I would say. You're allowed to disagree, by the way. Not at all. But he's right. I think that honestly, it's a call to women to like, you know, like, we're disciples of Christ. Like we we want to grow. We want to become more like Christ. You know, that should be our aim. That should be our goal. And so like if that is an area where like you really struggle with your

emotions or maybe emotionally manipulating, like one, I would be, you know, pray, pray over that, repent, turn from it, you know, like ask for accountability in that area. But like think about it in terms of, you know, no one wants men to be upset or, you know, they want them to control. their emotions whenever you bring something to them. But you have to think about yourself and you have to learn to control yourself and steward yourself. So even training your kids, you want your kids to know how to emotionally control themselves. Like you need to be that example.

You need to work on that yourself. And so I would just say like if you're in that situation and like your husband needs to talk to you about something that is hard for you to hear, like, you know, don't just immediately react. Like maybe just say like, hey, I need a second and go and pray through it. Like calm yourself down. But see that he is coming to you. Like you are a team.

You are unified. There you is not fighting against you. He's fighting for you. Let's go. That's fighting for your marriage. This is good. Like honestly, it takes a lot of, I mean, kind of just guts to want to approach a woman whenever you're afraid of how she's going to react.

And so I, you know, I think. just take a second and to really listen to what he is saying to you because sometimes you are reacting because it's made you feel a certain way. But he's not even saying what you're reacting to. So you might need to get clarity there. Like, hey, this is what I'm hearing. Is this what you're saying to know, like, how to respond? And just to approach it like, you know, okay, like, Lord, I want to be able to receive this.

I want to grow from this, help me. Like if you're struggling, call out for help. Ask God to help you in that and grow from it. That's great, yeah. That's good. So the second, oh, I'd follow up. Go. Do you have anything out of that?

No, go for it. Well, the text came to mind when you were talking is, so to restate this is one of the problems is men can be afraid of their wives' emotions. If they don't conquer those emotions, those emotions will steer the home rather than them leading the home, the husband. In 1-Peter, in the same text, it says two things. It says, live with your wives in an understanding way. So this gets a little bit into the differences between men and women. And one of the things that we teach is, you will have a healthy marriage if you take responsibility for your own actions. And then secondly, if you celebrate the

differences that God made in you. That's great. And oftentimes, we see it as design flaw rather than design. What's the word I'm looking for? Starts with F. Feature. Feature. It's a, hey,

it's a feature, not a bug. Yeah. This is a feature, not a bug. She's so complicated and hard to understand and so emotional. It's like, hey, bro, that's not a flaw. That's a feature. God made her that way. She sees things you don't see.

She intuit things you don't into it. She feels things. And it also keeps you curious and keeps you on your toes. if she was this one-dimensional, non-emotional, you'd be bored in three weeks. But there's a lifetime of beauty to explore in this magisterial, glorious creation that keeps, so that's the design feature enough law, don't resent it. And then wives can come along and be like, he's always just trying to fix stuff. And so the funny analogy that my brother and my sister-in-law give is the wife will come to the husband

and she'll be like, oh, she's got a nail sticking out of her head. She's like, I had this pain in my head, but it's kind of, it's worked down my leg. and now my foot's just killing me. And the husband's like, hey, sweetheart. Don't talk to me right now. My foot's killing me. And it's like, well, sweet art. And then they do this funny little thing

where it's like the husband's trying to fix a problem. And she's like, I just want you to listen with this huge spike. She's like, I can help you. Not fixed. Just listen. My foot's hurting me. And it's like, if you let me pull the spike out of your head, the nerve would stop firing the pain in your foot and it'd be better.

Right? It's a funny analogy they do when they teach on this. But it makes the point, don't always resent him trying to fix things. God wired him to fix stuff. And you have things he needs to fix, and he could fix it pretty quickly, and then the pain would be gone.

Feature not a flaw. Feature not a flaw. And so don't resent the differences that God is built into the men and the women and men, just to encourage the men. And this, if you want to get politically and correct the guys and edit out later if they want,

sometimes the emotions of your wife can drive her to a place where she sees and feels something is real, and she's dead wrong. And it's not. Okay, this is important for everybody. Yes. But it is possible to have real feelings based on wrong thinking.

That's right. You better understand that. That's right. And so... Yeah, I was going to say, which I think comes from dealing with your wife in an understanding way. There's a listening.

There's a... Okay, babe, tell me what you're feeling. What are you experiencing? And time and time again, I'm not even a highly emotional woman. Like, I'm not off the charts. I'm pretty even keeled. But there have been time

where things of emotional nature have got me out in the pawpaw patch as far as my thinking. And I'm not thinking rightly about a situation or people, especially those that maybe have attacked my husband or things of that nature.

And he can see I'm moving steadily towards sin in my heart. Okay? Let's just say there are some people who are lucky to be alive. Because Sharon McPherson. Yeah. War paint.

And so he has been very helpful to step into a very highly emotionally charged situation for me and say, Babe, we need to think about this rightly. And, I mean, I was just saying,

but that is, and that can be a man's strength. Absolutely. Because he's not, he's not, he's not tangled up in the emotion. So to that husband, I think what I want to say

and they can edit out if they want to do later, but you need to tell her she's wrong. Yep. And don't be afraid of, like, because I hear her, like, well, I want to gospel her heart, and I want to make sure it's like,

bro, you're 10 miles past that stop sign. Tell her she's wrong. And the sooner you do that, the quicker you can get back on the good road. And so I'm not saying in a harsh way, but I'll, okay, why are you thinking that again? Help me understand. I'll ask you a question.

Then there's a off time. I'll be like, I don't think so. And here's why. And she'll be like, oh, yeah. Okay, thank you. And then we're back on the same page. And so don't, in the name of servant leadership in loving your wife, follow her down a road of wrong thinking that's being driven by emotion.

Impostation. Be willing to say the right. thing. I'm not saying harsh, but I guess it's probably because the guys I've been talking to recently, so I don't want this to be weighted out of order, but I just talk a lot of husbands who are, who are tiptoeing. It's like, it's like, son, you need to stop tiptoeing and start telling her that the nail is in her head and as soon as you pull it out, things get better. And so just to give husbands that permission, all in the context of loving, godly, gracious, spirit-filled, blah, blah, blah, right? But don't let the wife drown.

in her emotion unnecessarily and then jump in it and drown yourself. Wow. Pull them out. What were you going to say? Yeah, as you were talking, it was just making me think, like, you know, if you're talking about thinking, well, if you keep having wrong thinking, it's going to lead to wrong, like, living. So sinful behavior.

That's right. That's right. Like, while it's just in your thoughts, you don't want to just give freedom there. That's good. The truth sets you free. Right. The truth is free. It's for your good, for your benefit.

Yeah. So respond to this phrase. and then let's move on to the next laws. This is like, you know, you've been a pastor. You've, you guys have heard this thousands of times. Respond to this phrase, but my husband just isn't a spiritual leader or my husband won't spiritually lead.

I've got some thoughts, but this is like, there are not enough tally marks in the world for me to, you know, count up the number of times that I've heard that. Yeah. What would you guys say? Well, I'll say in a sentence, and I'll give it to the ladies. More often than not, it's said from a wife who has a standard that even Jesus couldn't meet.

Wow. And so it's like, well, he's not leading according to your standards, but your standards, nobody could match. And oh, by the way, they're constantly moving. And sometimes it feels like it's coming from a threatening position where I don't actually want him to lead. And so I'm going to say he's not doing it well, so it gives me the excuse to do it myself. Wow. because that's not all this situation but that can be up with it sometimes.

I would ask like are you letting him? Like he is the leader whether you're letting him or not. But it's just like are you seeing where he's trying to lead and you're just not listening? Yeah. You know? So he's not leading. Well, are you following?

Yeah. Maybe he's been trying. You're not willing to let him. Man, so I'd say a couple things here. I want to caveat by that. Like there are men who aren't leading. That's where I was going to go. Yeah.

Yeah. So one I would say like, hey man, you can't hit a target. that nobody drew for you. Yeah. So, man, if you're a guy, you're a younger guy, you're a newly married, you're a new Christian. Yeah.

Man, if you want to target, man, here you go. Yeah. Lead with Let's. Like, honestly, just lead with lets. First of all, hey, hey, I'll get to that in a second. Lead with lets. Like, be the guy that's like, let's go to church this week. Yeah.

Be the guy. Hey, let's pray. Yeah. Hey, you know, let's say, but you're having a conversation and you realize your family is in a sinful pattern and this moving in a direction that's harmful. You be the one that initiates that, hey, let's not, what if we, let's not do that. What if we did this a different way?

Just lead with less. Like, you know, just start there. The other thing I would say to wives is, man, here's a gentle watch out for wives. Yeah. Watch out that, to your point, Josh, that your mental image of spiritual leadership is, is either, is not either, him being like an in-house, full-time pastor therapist. That's one. Or that your mental image of him being a spiritual leader is acting like a woman. And what I mean by that is, so I really mean this.

So I think that some people look at me and Jana because we have a, you know, we got a lot of faults. We got a great marriage. We got a lot of fault. We got a great marriage. I think some people think, man, if I could just be a spiritual leader like Josh, that'd be great. and they think that I'm like walking downstairs with a family devotion every day. My kids are waking up with like pens.

Teach us, Daddy, you know, gather. Let's sing a him. Notes under their poll every night. No, that's like, not it, man. It's like, no, it's just, it's just, I'm in the house, hopefully as a Jesusy, graceful presence. Yeah. It's little stuff.

Hey, let's pray tonight. Hey, let's all go into Hudson's room and read the Bible story together tonight. Hey, let's have this conversation. But it's not like, six family devotions per week. And I know if you do that, awesome. I'm just saying it doesn't always have to look like that.

And then like I said, the other thing is make sure your expectation of spiritual leadership isn't that he acts like a woman. And what I mean by that is, like, you think that every day a spiritual leader sits down, you know, at a chair that's eight inches away from you and just looks right at you and like, tell me all of your thoughts and feelings. and let me do like biblical therapy for you. And I do think there are some women that think that, dude, my mom made this point at the conference we did last weekend.

And I never thought of it before. But she said women have legitimate emotional needs that only been met by women, other women, not in the, I have the girlfriend's little black dress night. That's dumb. But they have emotional needs that are more easily met by women. And when they don't have close girlfriends, they transfer that need to their husband. And so the analogy my mom gave was, I think it was from a book from James Dobson, 30 years ago, whatever. But it's only in the last hundred years of human history where women have been isolated into their own homes because of dishwashers and vacuum cleaners and mobile societies where they do these things on their own.

For the vast majority of human history, they wash clothes together, they cook together, they skin animals together. It took a tribe of women to keep a tribe alive, right? And so they got those emotional needs met. When the husband came home, they wanted what a woman can provide. They were ready. They were talking about it. We're getting that in a second. They wanted a man to be a man.

They weren't expecting a man to be a woman because they got their woman time. That's a really good insight. If you don't have godly close friends who are women, and again, my wife doesn't need 30 girls, she's got two or three. And her, she's just not a drama girl. She's not a, I shouldn't say it. You're not trying to say that women aren't nice. But my wife was not the girl in the team that needed everyone to comb her hair. Don't touch me.

You know what I mean? We don't do a little black dress nights. It's like she's got a few close friends. Who love Jesus, who are pushing me towards godliness. And her tank is full. It's good. So when she comes to me, she's not needing me to be a woman, to your point. It's a huge deal.

That's good. You were going to talk about. Anything else you guys, I would love to hear from you guys on And Janet, you spoke to us and it was so good. Man, he just, he's just not a spiritual leader. Yeah. Well, I would say, you hit on like, okay, so if he, he says, let's go to church. Let's pray together.

I mean, yes, yes, yes. You applaud him all the way. Like, you don't need to give him 10 reasons why that's just not going to work for you. Like, follow that. Or it's too late or whatever. Yes. Yes. Like, I just, you know, just encourage him in that.

and come alongside of him and, I mean, just do it. Yeah. Yeah, your response is all the difference. And your response is going to speak a lot to your children too. So if you want your husband to be the head of your home, your response to him, especially like in front of the kids, if he's doing all the lets, like all of a sudden he's like flipped a switch and like, let's do this.

And you jump in with both feet. Yeah, babe, that's a great idea. Praise your man in front of your kids. Praise your man so your own mouth hears it. Like when he's doing something, something small, get on board with it immediately. So I totally agree with Jana. And then talk about it. Like, talk about it to your kids. Speak over, speak to your husband in front of your children about how great he's doing. Isn't this awesome? We're so excited. Thanks, dad, for leading us in prayer. Thanks for

leading our home. Just the words a wife speaks of respect and honor to her husband. I mean, just go a really long ways. And, um, and especially if it's something new that he hasn't done before. There can't be, well, you've never done this before. That immediately is speaking to your kids. You can't be like, well, it's about dang time. You know what I mean? Like there's just there's so much that a woman can draw out of a man. Yeah, I can draw out of a man with her respect and with her words and what she can bring about, especially when you have kids in the home.

And he will be able to start rising up more and more in that area. I don't know. I got something I want to say, and again, you can edit this all you want. And I want to say. You always say that. Well, I know, because it's his podcast and I might be talking crazy. Who knows? And I want to say it's very carefully because, because,

This is not permission to abusive husbands. That's not what this. And this is not shame on wives who are married to jerks. That's what we're talking about. But it's worth considering, and this may not be for all the women, but for a few who have asked, what do I do, my husband's not leading. It might be worth considering prayerfully if part of his failure is yours. And I say that gently.

I'm not saying that, like, your response for his decisions, right? So I say very pastorally and very gently. But we have seen many scenarios where the husband is trying, but it's not up to her expectations or not in the way that she likes. And so she's unaware of how she's undercutting his attempts. And so he doesn't get any credit for trying because it's not doing the way her dad did or the way she thinks it should be or the way that whatever she's comparing him to. And so she's actually undermining his success in leading them.

And what I've appreciated about sharing is she has, and I've appreciated. I don't know how you women do it. I mean, it's a, maybe that's an old podcast, but somehow you do it so that I want to lead better. Yeah. And so. Janet's so good. Yeah.

I mean, I've watched, I mean, I've been in your home a lot. I mean, I watched it. I was like, oh,

they got it too. And then, you know, and then, Josh does the thing. And then Josh is, it gets better. And how that work,

you know? But Sharon, like, there have been times where I have been failing as a leader or not, and she'll come to me and she'll come to me and she'll be like, sweet, I love when you lead. and we thrive and I want to help you do it.

So how could I help in this area? And she's not being a passive aggressive. She's not, but she's doing in such a way. It's like, ah, I need to get better at that. And she makes me want to lead better. And then she honors me in front of our kids. I, we have dealt a lot of couples where it's the wife saying this thing. And quite honestly, she's just griping.

And she's not a content woman. And she's not an easy woman to lead. And we get done. And I think, dear Lord, that would be a, a nightmare to be married to because she just is unsatisfiable. And honestly, go back to the law of preeminence. Like, she's looking for something in her husband. She only be getting from Jesus.

These expectations she's putting on him, no man could meet, right? And so, this one particular couple, I'm thinking of, you know, we have heard her run him down for 20 years. And ladies, don't underestimate the power of your words. She has prophetically broken. and she has prophetically spoken failure over his life for 20 years. You know what I mean? So he's just stopped trying because every time he tried it wasn't good enough or it was too late or whatever.

And so as she talks about how hard her marriage is and how he just won't lead, I sit there and I just think you are laying in the bed that you have made. God gave you the power to speak life over him and you spoke death. God gave you the power to be his helper and you spoke failure over his. life. And so I'm saying that gently. This is not all of the situations here, but something to prayerfully consider for some of them, it may be that part of his failure is also yours because God gave you to him as his helper. And so if he's not leading, ladies prayerfully consider God, how would you have me help him? If he's not heading, am I helping?

Yes, yes, yes. How could I help him step into all that he wants to be? And, you know, Peter talks about this in 1st Peter, where it's like, what do I do? And my husband is not a follower of Jesus. He's like, let him be won over by your inner beauty and by your character. And so it's not the nagging that's going to win him. It's without a word. That's right. That's moving towards him in love and character that will draw out of him what God's put there.

I'll say one last thing. And then I want you to speak to something before we move on. So, you know, sometimes what you'll hear is, man, I'll respect him when he's, when he deserves it. That's right. I'll respect him when he's respectable. And it's like, you'll notice this in Ephesians 5 and 1st Peter 3. That's right. It doesn't give a qualifier on wives respect your husbands. And oh, by the way, it does not give a qualifier on husbands love your wives. That's right. So a wife doesn't get to go, I'll respect him when he's respectable. And a husband doesn't get to go. I'll love her if she's lovely. That's right. Nope. It's like, hey man, it's exactly the opposite that give him a crown.

and he'll become a king. When you start doing what you just said, Jan is a master at this, about honoring him in front of the children, honoring him in front of people using your words, there's something in the heart of a man that goes, I want to be worthy of the thing she is saying in me. I'm going to become that guy.

That's right. So it's like give him a crown and he'll become a king. That's right. What would you guys say to this before we move on? For the guy, for the wife that's going, man, she's going, man, she's going, man, I agree with all this, but my husband is stepping in and like, he's making terrible financial decisions for our family.

And he's driving the ship right into the rocks. And then he's going, your job's to follow me because I'm the leader. What do we do there? Oh, man. Well, I mean, we talked about it earlier. I mean, you're first and foremost, boy, you get on your knees as a wife. And you start praying. And you start praying for your husband.

and you start praying for the situation, and it's like, that's not Christianese or like a waste, you know, just a, yeah, you should pray. Like, no, you should. You should absolutely be spending as much time as possible praying that the Lord would help in that situation for your husband, for wisdom and for your marriage specifically. Well, and you talk a lot in our podcast, it's, you have an allegiance to Jesus above your husband. Bigot. So we're not, wives are not called to follow their husbands into folly and sin.

wives have been called to help their husbands move away from folly and step out of sin. And so this whole idea of helper, it's like you're not to help him fail. You're not to help him sin. You're not to help him be an abuser. You're to help him be more godly. And so in a more drastic situation, like you're talking about Josh, you know, I think the first step, like you say, is you're, you are, that's a tragic situation, first of all. It is. Yeah.

And you're aggressively taking that to the Lord, Father, give me wisdom. And then you might need some strong help. Husband, I love you. I have grave concerns about decisions you're making and directions are going, help me understand how this is honoring to the Lord so I can help us do this. And you might need to expose him with your questions. And then I'll say this, I don't know how your church works. There may be a jurisdiction you need to appeal to outside of the marriage.

And you might need to get a pastor involved to bring the authority of the church. church to confront that man and to rebuke that man and to call him into repentance. Yeah. I think having biblical community is so important. That's why it's so important to have a life group, people you are doing life with, who are walking through things with you, who can speak into things. You need wisdom. And so if you lack it, well, one, God gives it graciously and generously.

And so receive that. But, like, you know, you have people around you who can be speaking into your situation and helping. Yeah. That's good. That's right, Janelle. Mm-hmm. All right, you want to do the rest of the laws real fast. So we are the law of preeminence, the law of promise, the law of priority, the law of her power, the law of his power.

And then the sixth one was the law of pleasure. And- Is that the sex one? That's the sex one. Oh, we'll get that one in a second. Okay. Keep going on. It's real important, though.

Okay. Yep. It's right at the center, I think. Then the next is the law of planning. Yeah. So all the best intentions in the world don't matter if you don't have a plan to make it work. So that's get a vision for your. your family, articulate your values, write them out, what's your vision, build your agreements.

That's the whole We Tree thing we unpack where it's like, have you identified your core values, do you share them, have you hammered them out, have you articulated them? And then while I'm going to come back to Wheatree. Okay. So you keep going. I got a specific question here. And then eighth law. Okay.

Law of planning. Then the last one was law of power. And that's where we unpack the nature of forgiveness. It's just a superpower. It's a superpower. It's a superpower. It is. And it's like there was more anointing on the life of Christ, in part because no one has forgiven as much as Christ did. And so it's like anointing follows forgiveness.

And so if a husband or a wife don't learn how to exercise that principle is game over. Yeah. Because guess what? Lead pastor of Lake Point Church, Josh Howardton, growing social media influence and voice in the nation is going to sin against Jana. that's going to happen. And Jana is going to sin against Josh. Because we're human, we're not Jesus. In that moment, if you don't have the anecdote,

if you don't have the balm of the gospel, if you're not able to extend forgiveness and receive it, you're toast. You are just dead in the water. So that was the last law, the law of power. All right, here's what we're going to do in the next few minutes,

and then we're going to shut her down with the PG-13 section. Because this, the law of power, the forgiveness deal, that leads me into this. The law of power. we're going to rapid fire some of the more sensitive user submitted questions. That one goes into one of the most common.

And tragically, here's one of the most common questions submitted. Either my husband or my wife had an infidelity in our marriage, trust completely broken. Yes. How do we restore the relationship? So this goes back to this law. Let's start right here. What would you say to the person in that situation? Well, it depends if it's a husband and to wife.

if there's details there. Jump in here, baby, if you want. But, you know, at our church, you know, there would be pastors involved, church leadership involved, and then we're looking for repentance. You have to start there. If, let's just say the husband's committed adultery, let's just put a real scenario on it. And the wife is wondering, should I trust him? If he's said he's sorry, that's not repentance. I'm sorry is closing down the conversation. Would you forgive me is opening up a different conversation? So you're looking for a repentance, starts with confession, confessing the sin, not defending it, not belittling it, not caveating it, confessing it.

I sinned before God, I sinned against you, I screwed up. So we start there with a confession. They moved to repentance. Would you forgive me? And then here's what I tell wives is you, at that point, if the husband has gotten there, he's confessed to sin and repented of a sin and asked you to forgive him, you have an obligation before God to forgive him. You actually don't have a right not to.

As a Christian, you have no right not to forgive your spouse. You don't. And that's where I think some wives get stuck. And they get stuck because they don't differentiate into this next point. You have an obligation before God to forgive him. You do not have an obligation before God to trust him and go. And once you make that delineation, it's like, okay, because they're withholding the forgiveness because they felt like it meant I had to trust him now.

So no, you can forgive him, and we can still draw huge boundaries here. You can forgive him and have him and turn him over to the authorities. And so forgiveness is not the same as trust. And so, but forgiveness has to happen, and here's why. One, it's obedience to God. Forgive as you've been forgiven. And I guarantee there's never been a wife who's had to forgive a husband more than God has forgiven her. Wow.

And man, when you're living in that reality and drawing that down, it gives you the ability to go, oh, because, and this is, I'm saying this gently because that is a, when a husband violates that covenant, it's, there's no greater, that, the betrayal, that's deep water stuff. And God would put it on the same par as the parable where it's like the king forgave the peasant of his bill for a billion dollars. And then the peasant went home and had the guy thrown in jail who owed him 50 bucks. He's using that, that parable. for situations like this. So just remember, God's forgiven more in you

than you would be required to forgive someone else. So forgive him as an act of faith. And then you do that not only to heal the relationship, but to heal you. Because if you don't forgive him, you're going to keep that bitterness inside. And then the whole caveat, right? Bitterness is me swallowing the poison,

expecting you to die. So you got to get it out of your own heart, sweetheart. You got to forgive him or it's going to eat you alive. And then once you've forgiven him, now with accountability, pastors, wise counsel community, we establish a path that she agrees to, that he can walk to give him. Okay, keep going. This is big.

Because she's been the one who's been violated against, so she needs to speak into the pace of the path, right? But it needs to be a path. Yeah. That he's moving down, she's moving down. And the grace she's extending him is she's giving him the opportunity to establish a new track record of faithfulness, therefore building her trust. That's right. That's a huge deal.

And that will take some time. But then here's what we have to often step in and say, you have to go to, you have to move down that pathway too. Because if a guy's screwed up and he's repented, I mean, we're dealing with a situation right now, the guy screwed up. No one's arguing that. I mean, and the men in his life were the first one to call him on the carpet.

He's broken. He's repentant. He's ruined. He's undone. And she's like, I don't know if I can trust him. Sweetheart, we don't have to trust him either. but you need to forgive him. I don't know if he deserves it.

Oh, now you're going to be in sin. Okay, now the problem is switched. Now the problem is switched. Yeah, yeah. So let's say she forgives him, doesn't trust him, she wants him on the couch. Okay, okay, that's fine. But that path needs to be shepherded with wise counsel

because he shouldn't be on the couch in six months. He shouldn't be on the couch in four months. And if you put him in purgatory, your marriage will not heal. That's right. So like to clarify this, in any situation like that, there's two jobs. Let's say you're the wife who's been transgressed against. It's your job to draw the targets by which he can regain trust and it's his job to hit him.

That's right. There's two things that aren't fair. It's not fair for him to be unwilling to hit your targets and just expect your trust back immediately. Not fair. But dude, here's the other thing that's not fair is for you to refuse to give him targets to hit and withhold forgiveness or withhold trust for the rest of his life and make him essentially you're your hostage. That's actually, that's not fair.

It's wicked and evil, and we've seen situations where a husband screwed up. He came back in brokenish repentance, walked the road, genuine repentance, genuine brokenness, walking road to faith in less. And 15 years later, she'll pull that out and hold it over his head. Sweetheart, that is, that is, That is not forgiveness.

That is not how God has acted towards you. And that is not how you were to act toward him. And she would do that as a power move, right, to control a mini-play. And so she was just always keeping him emotionally stunted. He could never move past that sin in order for their marriage to heal. And I had to tell her at some point, this is going to be hard for you to hear, but you are now the one in sin and you are the reason this marriage isn't healing. He initiated the situation 15 years ago with his heinous,

sin and God has forgiven it. And now you are committing an equally heinous sin in refusing to forgive one who's already forgiven. Wow. Because here's the wild thing. God's forgiven him. And then what came out of her heart was she resented God for forgiving him. Wow. Jana, Sharon, add anything here? Oh, no, that was all good.

It's all the things I would have said there. She was resenting God for forgiving him because she wanted him punished. There you go. For sure. And it's like, sweetheart, do you not realize? that his sin was already punished in the crucified Savior and you cannot improve on it.

And there was a release of like, she was like, I've been trying to play God here. And it just freed her. And then God brought the marriage back together. But that's, it's not easy. We're not saying it's easy, but it is required. And it's a faith-filled forgiveness. I've had women sit across me,

you know, Josh, we had like tears in their eyes, just found out their husband. You know what I mean? Doing terrible things. Tears my eyes across like, is there hope for my marriage? Yeah. running down her face.

And I've sitting there going, there's no prayer. You know, that's what you feel like, right? But then in faith you say, yes, there is. That's right. And bro, they're in our church this day. Sit next to her, holding the hands, amen, and lifting hands and holding. I mean, like, we had a couple in the front row of church last Sunday, who three months ago, he torpedoed their marriage,

and then to get back on him, she went out and shot another torpedo at their marriage. You know what I'm talking about here. Yes. You can do that? I'll do that just to spite him. And now they're just in it, right? And she got stubborn, divorced papers, and screw you and screw the passion. Who do you think you are, whatever?

And we confronted her in love. And God broke her heart and has brought them back together. And last Sunday, they were in the front row. Horshapes. Holy head lifted the praise of God's like, there is redemption available for those who submit their heart to the Lord. Man, so you cannot wreck your marriage so much that Christ cannot redeem it. Amen.

And two, we're talking big stuff. Obviously, we're talking like infidelity. That's what the question was. But dude, this comes down to little stuff like, man, I'm holding on to my, in my heart that she didn't take out the trash yesterday. Like this goes all the way down to the ground. A lot of people, they didn't fall out of love. They fell out of forgiveness. And you just got, hey, you're taking the trash out constantly.

You got to stop keeping that record of wrong. Yeah. You know, get rid of it. That's right. All right. Let's rapid fire some of these others. And then we'll get our PG-13 section in. How are we doing on time?

Do we care? We'll wrap it up. the next, yeah, we'll go 10, 15 minutes here. I'm fine. We're good. I'm good. We're good, man. Okay, let's rapid fire these. So we're going short, succinct machine gun answers here. No caveats. These are, no caveats. These are users submitted questions. I've come to Christ recently. My husband is still struggling with, struggling with doubt. How to handle debates. What's the best way to navigate a marriage where only one partner is in Christ? basically this is a what do I do when I'm unequally yoked question.

Sure. Go. Everybody turned to Sharon. Why? Yeah. Well, this is a girl question, right? Yeah. Well, first I would say to her, like, hey, don't get in those debates.

So, like, going back to that first Peter three passage about how he can be won over without a word. So it's like, hey, that's wise. Don't go there. Just like, honestly, show by your life, like how you've been changed by Christ. And so he's going to see that. He's going to see the difference in you. He's going to see how you love him differently, how you love your kids differently, the people around you.

And, I mean, pray for him. Like, there is nothing off the table with prayers. Like, pray about every single thing. And if you need help with that, there is a prayer book by Stormy O'Martian called The Power of Praying Wife. Her husband did one for the men, and he can be praying over his wife. But, like, if you don't know where to get started, there is literally a prayer over every single thing.

And so start there. And she can kind of show you how to pray. But be praying for him. But just don't get drawn into a fight because that's not going to help you. Just live your life for Christ. Love him. Respect him. You know, just keep pouring into your marriage.

Yeah, I was going to say, I think there's still ways for a wife, even in those situations, to be honoring and respectful of her husband. And as a wife, that's what we're called to do. So there's still a way to like, okay, Lord, help me find something to praise him in. Help me. I mean, we've had stories of a husband and wife, and this was exactly the scenario. And she just, she just worked really hard. Okay, I love what my husband does this when the kids.

I love it when he speaks this way to me. I love it. And she's like, Lord, help me find ways to praise him, to honor him, continue to honor him. She wasn't afraid to talk about her faith, obviously, but she didn't try and pick a fight or argue with him. Like, had to trust the Holy Spirit, Lord. Bring some other men into his life. Bring someone else. She didn't carry the full weight of trying to save her husband.

So I don't want to, I don't want to feel like that first Peter passage is being like, and now it's all on you. It's like, no, there's a community around. There's a lot of other people in his life. Pray the Lord would raise those people up to speak into his life. And then obviously pray that he would see your growth, which means you got to focus on your relationship with Jesus. And don't be afraid when he's talking to you or you're having a conversation to say, actually, babe, I don't know.

I actually don't know all the answers to this. You don't have to be the Bible answer gal, right? You don't have to all of a sudden be like short up every time so when he steps in you can like beat him back. That's probably not going to be the best scenario. So I totally agree with Jana. Don't try and pick those fights. You know,

don't let that be the thing. Let him see in you something that's changing. One over without a word. Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Just be an amazing life.

Yeah. Yeah. Do it. Move towards him sexually. Mm-hmm. And we'll get this section in a moment. Yeah. Say that.

like sexuality is at the center of God's design for marriage. And so don't pull away, move towards him. And again, the caveats, if he's abusive, no, okay, no, no. But if there's just a good guy. By the way, let me just get this out. When we're talking in general for the entire podcast, we're talking under normal circumstances. Not extremes.

So we can ditch the caveats. We all understand. Yeah, good, good. But we have situations and scenarios where the wife became a Christian, the husband wasn't, and he was very antagonistic to Christianity, but what he couldn't deny was that his marriage got better in every area, especially the most important ones. And I remember over lunch, he's like, well, I don't know what you've been telling my wife at church,

but it's like working. It was beneficial for him. He was like, this is amazing. I have the best wife I've ever had in my life. He's like, she used to be like this raving feminist, and now I'm like, she's just available and she's supportive. And he's like, I said, you do realize the irony that you're denying the existence of the one man who changed your wife for good, which is Jesus Christ.

And he literally, wow. Yeah, I mean, it was incredible. What preceded that conversation was, I said, would you like it if your wife followed your leadership? He said, I'd love that. I said, I bet she's going to if she's following Jesus because that's what Jesus would tell her to do. He's like, she'll never get there.

She's a raving, raving, you know, feminist lunatic. The next week, he comes back at lunch and he goes, because I said, if your wife voluntarily decide to follow your leadership, would you believe in Jesus? He's like, are you kidding me? only answer for it. It would be a miracle. The next week, he comes back to lunch. He's like, so she said she wants to follow my leadership. I'm like, see? He's real. The men, love him. Love him well. Love him into the kingdom. Okay, you talked about feminism. Let's ask a question that a feminist would probably not love y'all's answer to. There was a very shocking number

of user submitted questions from men uncomfortable with how their wives dress. This really surprised me actually. You mean like in a modest ways? Yes, wives dressing provocatively in ways that, and so I'll just read one, how can I ask my wife to honor me by how she dresses? What do I do if our quote unquote compromise on her dress, and this person explained that, and by the way, this was not an uncommon question. That's wild.

That's wild. He explained that the compromise was she wanted to wear things maybe a little more provocative than he was comfortable with. What do I do if our compromise makes her feel inconvenienced and me, her, sad, or uncomfortable? And again, I just want to emphasize this. This was not an uncommon question, and it really caught me off guard. Wow. So thoughts here.

Go. I got a Bible verse for it, but you guys can go for it. Oh, go for it. Well, your body's not your own. That's what I was going to say. First, first one. First, 15th. It's just like, it's not your body to make that decision.

And if how you're addressing it is making your husband feel dishonored, sweetheart, you got to make a change now. What are you doing? You would expect him to do the same. Yeah. If he was flirting and slapping the butt of every chick that walked by, I feel uncomfortable when you do that.

Well, it's just how I am. You would expect that response. No, your body's not your own. His body isn't his own. And so one of the ways you can honor him is with how you dress. Yeah, I think you have to really, the question is, okay, you're not dressing for him.

He doesn't want you to dress like that. So who are you dressing? Oh, Jan. That's so wise. What a wise question. Shazam. Hey, man, I got a good helper. Gotcha.

Yeah, that's it. Who are you? So who is it? Who is dressing for? That's right. Checkmate. That's a great question. Like, that's it.

Who's it for, sweetheart? Mm-hmm. There's a word that like, so for those of you're listening, somewhere along the way, it became socially unacceptable for male pastors to correct women. I don't know when that happened, but somewhere, like, I'll just tell you, like, if you want to have a hellish week as a pastor, like, like correct women in a sermon. Like I'll just tell you that.

Yeah. Seriously, that's somewhere along the way. And so, and this is one area like, hey man, this is not chauvinism. This is not promoting,

you know, whatever culture. This is a Bible, like modesty is a Bible word. That's right. This is a Bible word. Yeah. And,

you know, the reason the Bible does it is like, man, the way that you reveal and conceal your body is supposed to communicate to your husband, I'm available, and to everyone else, I'm not. That's right. That's right. That's good. There it is. Yeah. And part of how you're,

how you're revealing yourself out in the public, I feel like, is really a sign of where your heart is at, which goes back to what Jan is saying. Like, what is the heart behind this dear woman, ignoring her husband's ask, hey, babe, this makes me uncomfortable. I don't like it when you dress this way. What is going on in her own heart where she's pushing back and going, no, no, no, this is my wardrobe. This is what I wear. It's like, oh, who's a proof. is she looking for? What is she looking for in the world somewhere else that she's not having in her marriage maybe that she's not finding there? So man, you better make sure what are you saying to your wife, bro? Like make sure you're pouring into your wife. Make sure you're speaking. What is she

listening to? Be the leader. Be the head of your home and be like, what are you reading? What are you watching? Are you on Instagram all the time looking at women that are getting attention for this and this and you think you have to have that? Like, be a gatekeeper of your home a little bit and make sure your wife is hearing from the right voices, you know, because that's obviously impacting how she feels or what she thinks it looks like to be, I don't know, beautiful or whatever she thinks she's going for. So there's just so much going on at the heart there of a woman. And it is revealed by what she is wearing and the attention she's trying to garner from where. What are you laughing over there? No, I just had a thought. I probably shouldn't say it.

Okay. Maybe maybe not. No, it's funny. It's just to sound bad, but. Sometimes I'm like, come on, babe. Give me something. Come on, come on, go on, babe. Show what we got home. Not in a horrible way. But like for our conference, she's got this beautiful,

okay, turtleneck shirt that's very, it's a turtle neck. This is amazing. It's a turtleneck, it's very modest, but it reveals her feminine shape. And I'm like, that's awesome. And she put a coat over it.

I'm like, come on, we're on a date. come on, you know, and she's like, honey. No. And so that, we have these other problems. That's awesome. That's amazing. All right, let's do one last one here.

Just do rules of engagement. Like, the other top three thing was people can't figure out how to fight. Just conflict. They did conflict this way. We do conflict this way. Like, we just can never get to any resolution. Quick thoughts on conflict in marriage. I think most conflict arises.

in the moment because you haven't built agreements prior to the moment. In peacetime. Yeah. And so oftentimes, you know, there's whole books written on like how to fight and conflict. And I think it's kind of dumb. I'm like, if you build agreements, what do you know? You're not fighting as much. And so I want to go to the root and not just like, okay, make sure you fight fair.

You know, like, no, no. How about like build agreements so you have less fighting? And so that's kind of where we tend to go is, what's the source of the conflict in nine times out of ten, it's because either you didn't have an agreement in that area or you had an agreement and someone violated it.

Okay, now we've got to talk about that. But my first impulse would be to go about, okay, what's the problem you're stuck on? Let's put that in hold, and let's back up to our values and our vision and then build an agreement that flow out of those two things than we really talk about.

So that now you're on the same page because agreements give you unity, direction, and purpose. And when you have unity, direction, purpose, guess what? You have a lot less disagreements. We don't fight that often. I mean, I don't say it's like brag, but it's like our home isn't like, I mean, and because we're unified, because we've done the hard work offline of building agreements. So, like, how to resolve conflict, that's the war, right? I'm like, win the war before you start the war, by not getting entangled

in the war because you built agreements. So that would be my first answer. Yeah. Ladies? I think one of the things that has helped me the most when we're in disagreements, just remembering like, hey, we're on the same team. Like, we want our team to win. And so it's like whenever you can go into it with that mindset, I think it really, it's not about he's winning or I'm winning. It's about, hey, we want us to win. And so just think about that whenever you enter into disagreement.

That's really good. That's great. That's good, good mindset. And we've talked about before if you're, I mean, if you have to, something you're continually quote unquote fighting about like if you keep biting heads on this one thing it's like like we said then in peacetime you need to say you know what we shouldn't probably discuss this right now we're both a little fiery like we're both a little hot like we need to put this let's wait and then we're going to come back let's put a time on the calendar we're going to sit down we're going to

talk about this situation and get to the bottom of it and that shouldn't be a fighting mode that should be a let's come together as a team because we're on the same team this isn't the enemy right you know Satan is the enemy who's trying to divide and destroy right not this guy he's not the one that's the me. So it's like, no, let's put a time on the calendar. It's be mature adults here and sit down and talk about why do we keep running into each other on this? Why can't we agree about fill in the blank, whatever it might be that you continually keep on heads on? It's probably because you have different visions on what should be done there. Yeah. And so you got to work through, you have a different, I mean, when we experience disagreements, it's like, well, why do you think that? Why? And it's like,

well, she's got reasons for it. Oh, okay, that's helpful. Well, I was looking at it from this perspective. So it's taking the temperature down. It's extending dignity and respect to the other. And I think what Janice said is very important. It's like we're on the same team here. And like, is it the whole oneness concept? It's like, guys, if your wife gets better, your life gets better. That's right.

And if your husband gets stronger, you get stronger. He loves his wife, loves himself. That's literally a Bible verse. We got verses for this. Yeah. And so it's like, why would I hate myself by pushing her away or making her life miserable or fill an X, Y, Z blank that a guy can do. It's like, no, literally, when she's thriving, I'm thriving. That's different than happy wife, happy life. That's, I don't

like that phrase. But, but, but when we're in disagreement, I don't win if I pull away and make her feel guilty and pull away emotionally and create some distance. So it's like, no, I'm hurting myself when I do that. And so even working with our doctrine and theology, get a good theology of oneness. Okay, I'm, myself is divided right now. And, and that isn't going to be good for my emotional health or my mental psyche. So we need to get united again. We need to get back on the same page and build agreements. That's good. Okay, let's finish. This is the PG-13 section. We're going to rapid-fire this. So enormous number of questions submitted all around sex and intimacy. So if you're a parent with kids in the car, this is for later. That's what I want to encourage.

Yeah, that's what I'm incurred. So let me just rapid fire these really quick. And then you guys can just add anything that it's like, man, this is just common, basic stuff that couples got to understand. Mary couple's got understand. So I'm just going to... For the record,

this stuff's hard to rapid fire. It is. It's tough. Just to defend ourselves here. Yeah. No, that's fair.

We don't want to appear callous in rapid fire in something that can be very sensitive and a source of pain. Yeah. That's great.

That's good, Josh. Yeah. That's good. By the way, it surprised me, most of these questions were submitted by women. For some reason,

that surprised me. Very common. Number one, how to handle when a spouse has no interest in intimacy? Well, it's different with men and women. Just by design. If the man doesn't have interest in intimacy, my suspicion is just because he's heavy into porn.

Okay, bingo. Because for a man not to have sexual interest is highly unusual. Like he would be like a unicorn physiologically. The sexual drive for men is like a river. The sexual drive for women is like an ocean. So river runs shallow and fast, an ocean is deep and ebbs and flows. And so husbands and wives need to understand the difference in their sexual drive so that they can come together.

Which is their makeup. Their hormones, everything physical. Yeah. So if a husband isn't interested in sex, I go, okay, either we have a unicorn situation where hormones are so far off, we're going to need some sort of medical intervention, or there's an outlet for somewhere else. For the wife, this is what we do teaching our conference, seven reasons why she retreating you advance, there could be a host of reasons.

A husband needs his wife naked and available and he's happy. Garden of Eden. Garden of Eden. It is much more complex by design for the woman. And so honestly, there could be a host of reasons because a man's brain is, my mom and dad explain it, you know, men are waffles, women are spaghetti. So waffles have compartments and spaghetti is all entangled. And so he gets up in the morning and she burns the toast and he's like,

typical, says some insensitive comment, leaves the house, he never gives it another thought. He goes out, slays four or five dragons, barely survives the day, comes home, cut, bruised, battered, dragon's blood dripping off his sword, and all his thing is like, oh, I want to be with... Comfort of his wife. And he comes home and eats dinner and turns to her and says, what do you think? And she's like, I don't always burn the children. I mean, her day stopped at... At 7.52 when you accused her burning the toast.

And because her life is like spaghetti, it's all connected. Or another way to think of it as men have compartments and women are studio apartments. They're open. And so she's been looking at that nasty comment all day long. It's gotten bigger. And it's gotten uglier. And she's just hoping the first thing you say when you come home is, my honey, I'm so sorry. What a horrible idiot.

And so until you deal with that infraction, she's not free to be intimate. So even understanding that. So I'm using that as an illustration to say there could be a lot of reasons. I mean, we were just with a couple, and she's like no interest in sex, none. She's like, I think I might just be one of those people that have a desire. And then the more she starts talking, it's like, well, when he comes home, he's on his phone, he works 60 hours a week. And when he's home, he's still on his phone. And I'm just like, okay, fine, you can have your phone.

It's not that you're not interested in sex. It's that you're not feeling pursued and loved. So it's the man's job to open the woman's heart to desire it. So women, again, we have like a two-hour session. We talk on this. But because how God's desire, here's the beauty of it. God has desired the woman. Designed.

Designed the woman, excuse me, to open her heart to a man physically when he's been pursuing her intimately. This is huge right here. So it's just by design, guys, he's made her to respond to your love in every area of life. That's why we teach, I think, sexualized right, the center of marriage. so marriage is a sexual relationship protected by covenant because sexuality is so powerful and so potent. And it's the one thing that's rarely talked about,

and it's probably the one thing that should be talked about the most because the area of sexual intimacy touches every other area of your marriage. If she's not feeling financially secure, she's not going to feel sexually open. If she's not feeling emotionally loved, she's not going to be open to intimacy. And so sexuality and intimacy really is the barometer by what you can measure the health of your marriage overall.

It's not the add-on, bulton, tertiary benefit if you get communication right. Get sexuality right and your communication will grow. What do you guess? Jan and I will often, we've had this conversation where it's like there's a, here's a difference men and women, husband's wives. is typically she is physically open after you have accessed her, after you have accessed her emotionally. It's the opposite for men.

That a lot of times he becomes more emotionally open as you access and a more available physically. Agree, disagree. I agree. I mean, and I would say that, did I jump in there too fast? No, I was like, yeah. You looked at me.

I was like, I'm very emotionally open. I think the point two needs to be said that, Guys, we're not saying you just need to be emotionally open to your wife like the day of. Don't just be like thinking, I'm going to do a bunch of chores today. And I'm going to be like, be really attentive to her like right now because then tonight maybe we can make it happen. It's a lifetime of a man pursuing his wife. And I think a woman can then open up quicker, faster, sooner, because she's being emotionally cared for. She's being, she's being protected.

She feels all those things. So the cool thing is, is a wife is actually wired, I think more sexually unique. and more, like, we got lots of tools. The woman is sexually superior species. We're pretty superior in this area, and we should be. And I think, so I think the cool thing is, is ladies, you don't know how always have to wait. I got to wait until he's wooed me just right. Sometimes you can actually kick it up and know that your husband is exhausted.

And the thing he needs from you actually is for you to be the aggressor, to be the initiator in sex. And then he can be able to be like, and then he's like, okay. It's rough. It's rough. I mean, I'm a survivor. Then after that, he's able to emotionally process maybe what's gone on with his day. So I think I think I would encourage, like, it can be done over weeks, months, years, a lifetime. If you haven't started that, then start now, men.

Start loving your wife in this way so that she can be emotionally open. We're not just talking about the day of. That's right. Because a wife, that's rough. She's going to do her best. But she's going to feel played. But she's going to feel like it's for something. I've been around guys where it's like Valentine's Day, game day, guys.

What do you mean game day? Dude, every day's freaking Valentine's out at our house, bro. Every day should be game day. And so, you know, get the car, get the flower, you know, this is the big night. Bro, she's going to feel used and she, that's lame. It's playing the long game. And then I'll just piggy back to what you said, and I affirm it is we talk about the benefits of sex. So there's the reality of sex.

There's the design for sex and there's the benefits of sex. One of the benefits of sex is sex brings comfort. sex cultivates unity, sex strengthens oneness. But one of the things that sex does is sex resolves conflict. And so oftentimes if the wife chooses to withhold that from her husband until conflict resolved, you've just made the conflict exponentially worse. And so what we have found is oftentimes we, because it's like, oh man, we fight like dogs,

but making up, so, I think, that's stupid. It's like my wife initiated pulling, marital intimacy to the front end of an argument. And then we'd get done and I'd be like, I came here we're fighting about it. I think I'm good. I think I'm good. I mean, it's incredible.

You know what I mean? You can do that is because you're in a covenant relationship. Like, keep on the forefront of your brain that this is covenant. This is, we are together. We're not going anywhere. Like, so, okay, well, this, let's be creative here. Let's just bring this to the front of a conflict then and see if this doesn't take. You'd be like, you're being idiot.

Come here. Yeah. And then all of a sudden I'm like, man, life is good. Yeah. I don't want to be an idiot anymore. I don't want to be an idiot. Sorry, honey. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, just two things I'll say. And there's actually a music playing because they're getting ready to do something in this building tonight. Okay. That's like, I think that's our cue to be done with the podcast. Off the stage. Two things I say, and then you guys can add anything is, you know, number one, again, we got biblical commands here. That's right. And you've got First Corinthians seven.

It's like, hey, man, like literally, hey, husbands and wives, your body does not belong to. you. That's right. In the marriage, like God has given it, given your body to him. He's given your body to her to serve bless and meet those needs. Oh, by the way, that he and she can only get met from you. That's correct. So it's like, hey, there's a, there's a part of this. Like, hey, man, this is a basic Christian discipleship thing. Yeah. So let's separate that. Obviously what no husband wants and no wife wants, but, you know, you don't want a situation where it's like, he's always playing offense and you're always playing defense. Like, let's get out of that as fast as we possibly can.

Well, ladies, one of the best defenses is a good offense. Absolutely. Oh, there you go, Josh. Worth the whole podcast, right? Did you have something, Jane? She says no. You got it. All right.

All right. I think we're done here, guys. Thanks for your time. We love you guys. I'm so glad you all came. We had a good time. It was good. All right, everybody, go and put all this into practice.

We love you. Peace. Thanks for joining us. For more biblical teaching and worship, join us for our Lake Point Church online live weekend services on Saturdays and Sundays. Also, if this podcast was helpful to you, would you be sure to rate, review, and share this podcast to help get the word out? For more information about all the digital resources of LakePoint, visit lakepoint.church slash live free.