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You’re tired.
Not just physically; though yeah, that too.
You’re tired in your bones. In your soul.
Trying to be a steady husband, an intentional dad, a man of God… but deep down, you feel like you’re falling short. Like you’re carrying more than you know how to hold.
Dad Tired is a podcast for men who are ready to stop pretending and start healing.
Not with self-help tips or religious platitudes, but by anchoring their lives in something (and Someone) stronger.
Hosted by Jerrad Lopes, a husband, dad of four, and fellow struggler, this show is a weekly invitation to find rest for your soul, clarity for your calling, and the courage to lead your family well.
Through honest stories, biblical truth, and deep conversations you’ll be reminded:
You’re not alone. You’re not too far gone. And the man you want to be is only found in Jesus.
This isn’t about trying harder.
It’s about coming home.
We just got home from our annual dad tired retreat, and if you missed it, man, it was so powerful. If you don't follow on Instagram, I highly recommend you go over there. And check out the video I posted. I just, during one of the sessions, I just pulled out my phone and recorded us singing. There's very few things, more powerful than 300 guys packed into a room with an acoustic guitar singing at the top of their lungs, unashamed.
They don't care at all what other people are thinking about. They're just singing their hearts out. And it was a powerful moment, as it always is at our retreat. So I just recorded it, I posted it on Instagram, it went viral. It's already had millions of views on that post. And the reason is because the very, very few places can you go see men unashamed just chasing after Jesus as hard as they can.
And so we really, really want you guys there, but I wanna tell you two things. That happened at that retreat that I think are just so powerful. Dude, the first one is a couple years ago we were doing this annual retreat, and this guy, a couple weeks prior to the retreat had heard, he had started listening to the podcast.
I, I don't know if he had just searched, you know, podcasts for dads or men or whatever, and the dads hired podcast came up. He started to listen to it. He enjoyed it, and he heard that we were doing this annual retreat, and so he decided to sign up to go to it. He's a counselor and so he signs up to go to this retreat and we have like carpooling ways that you can meet with up with other guys near you and jump in a car and, and that way all the guys don't have to fly or you don't have to all drive together.
You can carpool together. So he finds this group that's carpooling guys that he's never met before. He finds this group and he signs up to ride with him. The ride to the retreat was 12 hours long. Okay, so he just discovered the podcast, just discovered that it's helpful to him and that there's a retreat coming up.
So he signs up to do a 12 hour car ride with strangers. His wife is taking him to this barbecue joint where they're gonna meet before they get in the car and go drive 12 hours. And as she's driving to go drop him off, she says, are you gonna die? Like, is this it for you? Like, is this the last time I'm ever gonna see you again?
You're telling me that you found this podcast, a podcast by the way. Like you didn't go to a church, a podcast, you just listened to somebody, and then you got so compelled by the podcast that you went to sign up for a retreat, which is already kind of crazy enough. And now you're gonna get in a car with strangers for 12 hours.
Like this is for sure your death. Turns out those guys have become some of his best friends. Their families all do things together now. The retreat was incredibly impactful for him. So impactful that he as a counselor, when he went back, started to recommend Dad tired. The ministry to other, as clients would come in and they were struggling, whether it was a man or in their marriage, if they were experiencing crisis, he would say, you should listen to the Dad Tired podcast.
One of the clients, as he recommended this guy, was so far from God, so far from God, nowhere near. Being a follower of Jesus or a leader of his family, the counselor who had experienced the Dati retreat said, you should listen to the DRE podcast. This guy goes home, listens to the podcast, he says that he's in his front yard.
He breaks down, weeping, realizing I have never really loved my wife. I. I don't know what it's like to actually love my wife and to serve my family. He ends up committing his life to Jesus. As a result, she ends up committing her life to Jesus. Their marriage is restored. Their daughter commits her life to Jesus.
He's now serving at his church, leading the men's ministry in insane dude. Insane the way that God is just using this technology to draw the hearts of men back to himself. Insane. There was two guys who met on our dad's tired. We have like a free online community that you can be part of. So two guys met on there and said, listen, I wanna be the guy God's called me to be.
I wanna be the man God's called me to be. And so I just need to confess into you about, specifically about my addictions, addictions to pornography. And I want you to hold me accountable because I really want to be the man that God's called me to be. They started to find freedom from their addictions to pornography as a result of that.
14 guys join that group. So our, they have now have a group of 14 guys who all just meet online from around the country and they started encouraging each other. I also want to be the man God's called me to be. Let's meet together regularly online, confess our sin, hold each other accountable so that we can be the husband's, fathers, disciples that God has called us to be.
Those guys met each other at the retreat for the first time in person this last weekend. They were encouraging each other as they were meeting, just enjoying each other's company 'cause they've been meeting online. They met at, or seven o'clock in the morning at the retreat. They're all sitting in a circle.
Three guys pass by who are also part of the retreat and say, what are you guys doing? What's up? You know everyone at the Dad Tire retreat. It's so cool. There's like no jockey, there's no dude trying to be cooler than the other dude. It's just like, hey, I could, I'm probably gonna sit next to my best friend who's a stranger.
Like I'm, everyone's cool at the dad tired retreat. So they see this group of guys and they're like, whatcha guys doing? They're like, oh, we've been meeting confessing sin. You know, just, just so they're sharing vulnerably. These three guys confessed their sin to a bunch of strangers that they had never met, said, I also wanna find freedom in this.
So I told that story at the retreat. I know, I'm like, I'm coming out the gate hot here. Hang with me. I told that retreat at the story and I said, listen, if any of you guys want to be part of that, they're gonna meet again tomorrow. They ended up doubling their group. 28 guys the next morning met together, sat in a circle, confessed their sin, said, hold me accountable.
How can we meet regularly so that I can find freedom and be the man that God calling Beal? All that to say, these are just very short little snippets of things that I hear every single day of what's happening in this ministry. I came home, Layla was asking me how the retreat was. I was telling her a little bit about it.
For years, I've always felt like I kind of like the size of dad, tired people. It's big. Like we got thousands of guys who listen around the world. But I kind of like that it's always been a little bit smaller that we're kind of flying under the radar. And one of the things that I felt the Lord, just, again, you know me, dude, I'm, I'm not quick to like speak on behalf of the Lord or God told me this.
I don't like that kind of thing. I don't wanna abuse that kind of thing. But I have been sensing in my spirit and my gut that this is now a new season for Dad. Tired. That we have stepped into a new season and as much as I've tried to kind of hold in the reigns of like. It's a small little quaint thing that we do in our little corner of the internet and we're just, we're just a few guys kind of pushing each other to be what God's called us to be for the Lord.
I don't know if it's cultural timing. I don't know. I don't know what it is, but I just get the sense that we have stepped into a new season and this is no longer going to be a quaint little thing. That a few of us guys do to encourage each other to be husbands. God's called us to be men. God's called us to be father's.
God's called us to be. I have a feeling that things are about to explode, that God is going to, I can't, I don't like using this like hyperbolic language, big, you know, dramatic language, but I think God is about to explode What is happening at Dad, tired for His glory. I think tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of guys are going to start to experience the same kind of thing that those three guys experienced.
I. That they said, what's happening over here? Oh dang. I want that too. It's the reason that that video I posted of just a bunch of men singing worship song went viral. Millions of people have been watching that and saying, how can I get involved? I just think that there's so, there's such a hunger for authentic like, dude, I don't want spiritual fluff.
I don't want, just like religion for the sake of religion. There's so many lies going on in our world. There's so much evil and darkness like, please, somebody point me to the truth and point me to the light. And they're getting a glimpse of that through Dad's Tire. Like God is using this ministry for guys to find freedom, real joy, real healing, real power.
God is displaying and I think it's about to explode. And so I very rarely do this. Very rarely, I don't think I've done this one time this year. We're in about to hit October. We are a nonprofit and I never ask for donations. I do that on purpose 'cause I just want, you know, I, I want you guys to just listen.
We're a bunch of young dads. But listen, God has put on my heart dreams for this ministry that are way, way bigger than the budget. And so if you have been impacted by this or you're in a spot where it's like, dude, I wanna toss my money towards kingdom things, I actually wanna see more of this. I'm asking you to partner with us again, I never do this on purpose.
Usually at the end of the year we do a campaign, but I just feel like, I don't know, dude, I think we're on the cusp of something. At the very least. Jump in, get involved, like be part of this 'cause God's doing something big. But for some of you, you're looking for ways to use your. Physical resources to see the glory of God.
The Kingdom of Heaven invade Earth, and I'm just asking you if you would partner with us dad tire.com/giver. Just look for the donate button. It might be slash donate. I don't know. I probably should have prepped that bigger. I, I'm just kind of like really excited right now. I just go the Dad's tire website, look for the donate button, become a partner with us.
I have a feeling. And it's not. Ah man, I don't wanna be dramatic. I just really sense, dude. I don't know if it's cultural thing. I don't know if it's God just was preparing, preparing, preparing, and now is like the time, but we are on the brink of something big. I think that a lot of guys are going to be a part of it.
I don't want to keep rambling, but I think you get my heart. That's howard.com/donate. If you would become a partner with us, I think we are onto something really big. Alright. Today we're talking about our wives and what it looks like for us as men to love our wives well. So we're gonna jump into that.
Now I love you guys. Let's jump in two one.
Layla and I got married when I was about 22 years old. Uh, which in hindsight feels crazy. Just didn't feel. Like I was mature enough in, in many ways, I was not mature enough to get married. But by God's grace, here we are 15 years later. But I remember there was this guy from the church, he was an older guy.
He's probably, you know, I don't know, maybe his mid to late sixties. And I remember right after I got married he said, Hey, I wanna take you to lunch. I. And when you're 20 something years old, you'll take every free lunch you can get. And so I went to lunch with him and you know, he was three times my age at that point in my life.
And he had been married a long time and he had several kids, I think they had like six or seven kids and all of whom were awesome. And I just really respected him and looked up to him. And I remember we sat down, he is like, how are things going? And at that point I was still, you know, a newly wed. I was.
Totally infatuated with my wife and loved being married. And so I was like, it's good. I think everything's good. It's still kind of in that honeymoon phase. And, and uh, I remember the fir like the next thing he said after I said that was. Well just know the sex is gonna get even better. And I was like, you know, you're a 22-year-old kid and we're at lunch like in a restaurant, and he just drops this line outta nowhere.
A 60 something year old man. Everything about it felt weird. Everything about it felt awkward. Like, okay, check please. You know, I don't know what to say to that. You know, first of all, I don't want to. To even hear you use those words and with, and think about that with your wife and also like what, like, and to be totally honest with you, if I'm like being completely transparent, which you guys know, I try to be as often as I can.
I remember thinking like that can't actually be true. I mean, I was a young 20 something. You wanna talk about hormones, bro? Like have to, I was, I'm freshly married and I was excited about my wife and all the things. I'm trying not to give you too much information here. This is turning into a weird introduction.
I apologize. But I just remember thinking like there's no way that what he just said is true. And what I think after talking to him for a while, and especially now being married for 15 years, I think what he was trying to say in his unique way was, I. That things are gonna get, like intimacy is gonna grow.
And for a dude, and many of us, kind of top of our list when we think of intimacy is we think of physical intimacy. And for sure, like that's a big part of being married. And it's something that for us as guys, we think about often we, but it's not just that the physical intimacy grows, it's that the, there's a longer process, the longer you're married, you have the opportunity.
To become more and more known that my spouse has seen me deeply, that there are now more years, more experiences, more heartache, more pain, more sin, more failures, more opportunities for my wife to look at me and say, I should have bailed. I could have bailed on you and I'm not going to. And when your spouse does that, when your spouse sees all of who you are and continues to say, I'm not going anywhere, you grow in intimacy.
This is the purpose of marriage, by the way. This is the whole goal. The goal of marriage is that you would be a picture to the world. You would be a picture to each other. You would be a picture to your kids. This kind of love that you see here in front of you wife, this kind of love that you see here, husband, this kind of love that you see here, kids and neighbors.
This is the kind of love that God has for you. God's purpose in marriage was that you would give each other and the world around you a glimpse of his love for you. Which is sacrificial and unconditional and loving and faithful, and that is the point of marriage to show each other what God's love is like.
And so the more years that you have to do that, I. The more opportunities that you have to say, I'm broken. I'm messed up. I don't deserve your love. I don't deserve your forgiveness. We actually give each other glimpses constantly of the gospel over and over and over again. And so I think that that's what he was.
Saying, I don't, maybe I'm, I'm probably like giving him too much credit, to be honest with you. Maybe he just literally meant like, sex is gonna get better and maybe in his marriage that's all he meant. And it is. Not everyone is experiencing that. By the way. I've met many guys who have been married a long time or longer, and they would not agree with that statement.
And so I want to make the case that it can get better. Intimacy can grow. If you see your goal in marriage. If your goal is to point each other to Jesus and to give each other a glimpse of the gospel, I want to get to know you more deeply and intimately, not just physically. I wanna get to know you more deeply as a human, as a person, as a follower of Jesus as a woman.
And she would say the same thing for you as a man. I wanna get to know you deeply. And as you grow an emotional connection and, um, spiritual connection, that that would kind of culminate in physical connection. And so anyway, that's the goal of marriage, that we would get to know each other deeply and there is a possibility, I will agree with him.
There is a possibility that intimacy on all levels can actually get better. And so that is the something I've been thinking about lately. I talked about, I think last week about how I. I just wanna get more intentional about saying yes to the things that matter and no, to the things that don't necessarily matter in this season of life.
And right now, my goal is to get to know my wife better and to say yes to her more, to really say, what are the things that I'm saying yes to that don't make sense or that don't matter. And as a result of me saying yes to things like that, I'm short changing the places where I feel called. And one of the biggest places I feel called is to be a husband to my.
Wife, a good husband to my wife. We just got done. We, I told you that we have been taking our kids to this, um, these like hybrid classes. So on Tuesdays and Thursdays we take our kids to a hybrid school, and this is brand new for us 'cause we've been homeschooling forever. And so since we've had kids, we've been homeschooling them.
So to have like a day of the week where we're not with the kids. I work primarily from home if I'm not traveling and Layla works just part-time as a nurse, so she gets a lot of days off. And so we are home on certain days of the week, just her and I together, which is insane, dude. And so we've been trying to, once a week start up these weekly date we'd go to breakfast together again, which is, we haven't been able to do those weekly date nights in a long time or weekly dates.
So it's been really special to us. We just got done with that. I literally just came from breakfast and came up here to record the podcast, but as I was sitting down with her, sometimes it's hard because you, the first thing you wanna do is just talk about the kids, and I think that that's okay. That's normal.
I remember hearing people say, like, when you go on a date, don't talk about the kids. I get it. I totally get what you're trying to say, but also, kids are such a huge part of our lives right now. It's hard. It's almost impossible not to, and in some ways I think we're having kind of a business meeting plus a date.
I think if it turns into just a business meeting, we're short changing that time, and so I don't want to just talk to her about, I. The kids, but that's also pretty normal. Anyway, we're sitting down and we talk about some kids stuff as we normally would do, and then I was telling her about the dad tired retreat and all this kind of invigoration that I have for the dad tired ministry and all these dreams I have, and I'm just like, man, God has put a whole new fresh wind in my sails for this ministry of just all the life change that we're seeing all the.
The marriages and the the cool things that God is doing in this ministry. I just, I told her, I'm like, I think that this is the next, like God is taking us into the next phase for ministry, for dad tired. And so I'm talking, talking, talking. And then I realize like I have not asked my bride one thing about her life.
And she's just so graciously like she's actually listening. She's fully engaged with what I'm saying. She's hanging on to my words. And I'm like, I haven't listened to, like, I haven't even asked her one thing about herself. So I was fortunate enough in the moment to be self-aware enough to realize like, dude, stop being an idiot and talk about yourself the whole time.
Ask your wife how she's doing. So I asked her how she's doing and I'm gonna be totally honest with you. She's downstairs right now, homeschooling our 13-year-old. And so hopefully she doesn't hear me say this, but dude, I am so. Innately selfish that as she started to tell me some of the things that are on her heart, my mind just started to wander, bro.
I was not in that moment a good listener, like I'm trying my best to be fully engaged, to be like, give her every, all my attention, and yet here I am, as she just got done listening to me talk about all my dreams for however many minutes, and now I'm just trying to listen to what's on her heart. It was hard for me again, if I'm being honest, to like be fully present to actually care about what she was saying.
To not want to jump the conversation back to whatever's happening in my life. And I was just feeling that feeling of like, am I loving my bride the way that Christ loves the church? Now, if you have been a Christian for longer than like five days, you've probably heard somebody say that in some context.
Love your wife the way Christ loves the church. Love your wife the way Christ loves your church. And if you hear that, it just become, anytime you hear something over and over, you kind of become numb to it. Like, what does that even mean to love your wife the way that Christ loves the church. And so I was thinking about like, what does that actually mean?
Like when we say love your wife, the way Christ loves the church, and here's why theology is important. Theology meaning we have a proper understanding of who God is. I've said this a million times, but I just wanna reiterate, if we don't actually read the scriptures. We make up who we want God to be like in our heads.
And so we kind of make assumptions. I think I know what God is like and that stops us from reading the scripture. It stops us pursuing God because we're just like, eh, I, I think I get it. I think I kind of know what he's like. And what happens is all of us are susceptible to this. We start to make up.
Really what we think God is like and truly like if we started to kind of dig into that, if somebody came and asked us what God is like all of a sudden we would start to find ourselves saying that God is a lot like us. He's tolerant towards the things we're tolerant towards. He laughs at the things we laugh at.
He really doesn't like the people we don't like. He's into the things we're into. And he's not into the things we're not into like he's, he starts to look a lot like us and friends. If I can just be honest with all of us for a second, that's called idolatry. We're not actually worshiping the God of the Bible.
We're just worshiping ourselves. We've made up a God in our head and we think that Jesus is our homeboy. Like, no, he's cool 'cause he's me. You're not actually worshiping God. You're worshiping yourself and you just put the title of God of the Bible on him, but it's not actually God of the Bible. You're just worshiping yourself.
And so we want to, all of us, by the way. Every one of us are susceptible to that. And so that's why we study the word of God, to really get an understanding who is he? Like, who is he and what is he like? What's his reputation like? What does he actually do in certain situations? How does he respond? What does he say?
When is he quiet? And when is he not quiet? How does he respond to sin? And you start to get an idea of God's reputation, what he's actually like. And so what I mean by that, where I'm going with all that is sometimes you can just make the assumption when you hear love your wife the way Christ loves the church, you can start to make the assumption that.
I think I know what he means by that. I think I get it. And usually on just kind of a narrow, if we're just thinking about this narrowly, we probably think to ourselves, I should be nicer to my wife because God's nice to me. And that's a great start. Like if that's the first thought that pops in your brain or some variation of that, that's a great start for sure.
You're playing not even in the shallow end, you're playing in the kitty pool. Like you haven't even jumped really into the pool. If that is your theology, if your theology is to love your wife the way that Christ loves the church and that the conclusion of that is I just need to be nice to my wife because God is nice to me.
You're playing in the shallow end and at least. You're splashing around. I mean, you are in water, you're, you're not like hating your wife or you know, thinking about leaving her. So I guess you're walking in the right direction, but you're just sprinkling in the water, like you're pulling in the sprinklers.
Maybe that's a better example and there's deeper water for you. And so I want to just kind of dive in. I want to move us past the sprinklers that we've turned on in the backyard and we're just kind of splashing around and God's nice to me, so I'm gonna be nice to my wife again. Great Start. We're in the water.
It's the right water, just not deep enough waters. And so I wanna move us into deeper waters. When the Bible says, what is it to love your wife the way that Christ loves his church? What does that actually mean? And so I just wanna give some examples of what I think that means. If you open the scriptures, you see that that passage when it says, love your wife the way Christ loves his church.
You see that in Ephesians 5 25, which by the way, just from a high level perspective, again, this is the point of marriage. Gee, the, even the fact that we see this in Ephesians, love, husbands love your wife as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. God is spec and very intentionally trying to point your eyes towards his relationship with us through your marriage.
So when I say our marriages are an example or a reflection of God's love for us. These are the kind of passages that I make that claim on. My thesis is based on that claim are these kind of verses that God has very intentionally set up the marriage relationship to mimic or to mirror or to show off what his relationship with us is like, and we get that.
Thought that I didn't just like pull that outta the sky. We get that thought when God says things like this husbands love your wife, so we're talking about a marriage as Christ loves the church. So he's making that comparison and, and there's several verses like that, but that's where we build that theology is like, okay.
My marriage is meant to show off what God's love is like for us. It's a contrast. It's an example. It's symbolic. My marriage is symbolic of what God has done for us. So that's where I get that. Ephesians 5 25. But listen to the how that whole verse plays out. Husbands love your wives as Christ, love the church.
So that's kind of where we end it, but there's one really important end into that sentence and gave himself up for her. And so you think through like God has not just loved us, but he has been sacrificial in his love. You see that in verses like John 10 11 that says, I am the good shepherd. The Good Shepherd lays down his life.
For the sheep. So it's not just that God is loving towards us, it's that his love is sacrificial. There's a sacrificial component to his love. You think about Romans five, eight, which says, but God showed his love for us. Okay, so God loves us. How did he show his love? Romans tells us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
So again, there's sacrifice involved with his love. And so it's not just that I'm going to be nice to my wife because God's nice to me. It's how is God loving towards us? Well, his love is actually very sacrificial. He has called us as husbands when he says, love your wife the way that I loved you. He, he's calling us to be sacrificial, that we would actually prioritize her needs, her desires, her wellbeing over our own comfort.
And I mean, just as practically as me sitting down at breakfast I'm that I would be, how would I love my wife at breakfast in this little date, the way that Christ has loved me? I would actually set aside my wellbeing, my preferences, my agenda for her, what is best for her? What does she want to say? What is deepest on her heart?
You could make the argument, I think you could make the argument with Jesus in Gethsemane, the Garden of Gethsemane, when he is praying and he's saying, God, if you would take this cup from me, essentially, is there any other way we could do this without me having to die brutally? And so Jesus is essentially saying like, I, I don't prefer this.
I'm going to be obedient and I will sacrifice my life for my, for the church, for the bride. But. This is a sacrifice. And you see that in the Garden of Gethsemane when he's saying like, my desire is not to be brutally beaten. I'll do it for the sake of God's glory to honor the Father, to be one with the Father, to go on with a plan that we have had since the foundations of the world, but also this is a sacrifice.
And so the application there for us when we think through it's, I'm not just gonna love my wife the way Christ loves the church. I'm going to sacrifice. For my wife, the way that God sacrificed for the church. And so for you just to think through that as a husband, like where am I sacrificing? Not just loving her, not just being nice to her, but where am I sacrificing?
The other way that we see God loving is his love is actually unconditional. You see things like in Romans verse 8 38 and 39, for I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come. Nor powers nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God and Christ Jesus our Lord.
Again, the goal isn't just I'm gonna love my wife the way I'm gonna be nice to my wife, the way that Jesus is nice towards me. First, I'm sacrificial in my love to, I'm laying down my life. I'm setting aside my needs, my desires, my preferences. Man, if only my wife did this for me, that is not how God approached you.
God approached you with, I'm going to lay down my preferences for your sake. I'm going to sacrifice for your sake, so it's sacrificial. It's also unconditional. We're called to love our wives unconditionally through difficult seasons. It endures the challenges. It forgives the faults just as Christ forgives us.
There's nothing that I would be able to look at my wife and say, there's nothing height and depth. Nothing is going to stop me from loving and pursuing my wife. Well, we're not in a good season. She doesn't sleep with me as much as I wish she slept with me, man, she nitpicks me to death. She doesn't do all the things that I feel like a good wife would do.
That is not the way that Christ loved you. He loved you unconditionally fit nor death, life nor death, nor hide. Nothing is going to stop God from chasing you down relentlessly. He's going to be faithful, unconditional, relentless pursuit of your heart. That is how Christ loved you. Can the same be true for us as husbands when it's when we look at our wives, can the same be true?
Can the same be said about us? That nothing would stop us from pursuing our heart. How else does God love us? He, his love for us is not just nice, it's sacrificial, it's unconditional, it's forgiving. Colossians three 13 bearing with one another, and if one has a complaint against one another, forgiving each other as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.
Then you look at verses like Luke 2334, and Jesus said, father, forgive them for they know not what they do. As husbands, we have to be quick to forgive our wives. We're not just nice for the sake of being nice. We love our wives. Like Jesus loves his church by forgiving her and bro, this, a huge part of this is refusing to hold grudges or to keep any kind of record of wrongs.
Just hear me on that again. Part of loving your wife, the way that Christ loves you is choosing to forgive her. To not hold grudges and to carry no record of wrongs. This is the way that God has loved you. He does not hold, man. He's not looking at you saying, yeah, I mean, I love you, but geez, why'd you do that again this week?
Or like, I, I remember your past. I mean, I love you for sure. You're going to heaven, but trust me, I didn't forget that thing you did. I'm kind of holding onto that one. I've got that thing you did back in the day in my back pocket, or the thing you did yesterday in my back pocket. Like I, I love you, but I'm not forgetting the things that I've, you've done.
Now listen, I get it, man. There will be times in your marriage there will be mistakes that you've made, mistakes that your wife has made that are going to be very, very difficult to heal from. And I'm not naive. I've been doing this ministry a long time. I've heard many of your stories. I've experienced my own pain.
I've made some dumb mistakes in my own marriage, and so this idea of forgetting doesn't mean that I'm just like, I'm gonna move on. We never talk about that again. I think that that actually can be really manipulative. I. What I don't want you to do is say, Hey, I made a mistake, and you can never talk to me about it again because you know, you just need to forget about it.
If you really forgive me, you need to forget about it. That is not true, dude. Like it takes a long time to heal, and sometimes we need to bring things up again because there's still pain there. The difference is I'm not bringing things up for the sake of throwing it in your face. I'm not bringing things up because I'm, I'm using this as a tool in my back pocket to kind of shame you in the middle of an argument or to beat you in an argument.
If I'm bringing anything up in the past, it's because I, I genuinely want healing. And so maybe as a couple, if there is something that it has not been forgotten or as still being brought up, you say it in such a way that this thing is still. Just pricking at my soul, it still hurts. You know, the pain of your sin or the pain of my sin, the pain of our sin still hurts.
But I really do want to get over this. I'm just bringing it up so I don't have like any, I, I don't want any grudges against you. My goal is that I would have no grudges. I. I wanna forgive you and love you and, um, keep no record of wrongs. My goal isn't just to keep all these things on file to bring up to you.
I, I really wanna love you the way that God has loved us, that he would forgive us and move on, that he, he removes our sins as far as the east as from the west. I want that in our marriage. I truly want that. The only reason I'm bringing this up is because there, there's still some pain here, but I'm committed to trusting the Lord and bringing it to the Lord and.
Wrestling through it with you so that we can find healing. If you're ever going to bring something up, that is how you bring it up. You bring it up for the sake of healing. You bring it up for the sake of moving toward a place where you say, I, there's, there's, we want to get to a place where we have no record of wrongs, where we hold no grudges, because that's the way that God loved us.
I hope that makes sense. I know I'm kind of rambling through that, but I hope that that makes sense. I'm not naive enough to say. That you can just forget everything or that your wife should just forget everything you've done. That's not real healing. That's not even realistic. But we do move towards. Our goal is that we would hold no grudges, that we would have no records of wrong because that's how God loved us.
When God looks at you. He sees you as completely forgiven. Praise God. He does not hold any of your sin over your head. None of your past sins, none of the sins that you're gonna commit today, and none of the sins that you'll have tomorrow. I. He's not holding those over your head. He has forgiven you fully and completely.
There is no record of wrong if you are a follower of Jesus Christ. You have been totally and completely forgiven. Praise God. And again, to show that kind to be a symbol of that, to model that kind of love to your wife. I know we're swimming in deeper waters here. These are heavy things. But to model that kind of gospel love to your wife, to your kids, to your community, you have to be able to get to a spot where, say, I want that in our marriage again.
It's gonna take work. It's hard. You have to press through things. Hard conversations. It does not mean throwing things out or pushing them under the rug. It just means moving toward the goal of, I want to get to a place where we have no grudges. And when you approach your spouse that way, if you're bringing something up from the past and you approach it with a goal of, I want us to get to a spot where I have no grudges towards you, where I have no record of wrongs, and that's my goal, I wanna love you fully and completely the way that Christ has loved me and us, it's lot more palatable for the person that has to hear that again, so that they're not buried in their shame.
And just paralyzed by their shame, but they know that your heart really is to move on. God's love for us. Ephesians 5 26 and 27 is sanctifying. It is making us more like him. I. Ephesians 5 26 27, that we might sanctify her talking about the church having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word so that he might present the church to himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing that she might be holy and without blemish.
How cool is that? This is the picture that Christ is preparing his church to be presented. And then so when he says things like, now husbands love your wife the way Christ has loved his church. Well, how does he love her? Well, he sanctifies her. He cleansed her by the washing of water with the word so that she might, so that he might present her to himself and splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing that she might be holy and without blemish.
So what do we do as husbands? We encourage our wives and their spiritual growth. We're interested in where they're at with the Lord. We nurture their relationship with Jesus. We pray with them and for them. We share scripture together. We read the Bible together. We talk about the things of God. This is what it means to be a spiritual leader in our home.
I'm interested in where my wife is at spiritually. Why? Because Christ is interested in making his bride more holy. I want my bride to become more holy. That's part of the reason God paired you with your wife, that you would help her become more holy. I'm not leading her into sin. I'm not leading her in to make unwise decisions.
I'm not leading her to feel scared. I'm not leading her like I'm fully invested in her relationship with the Lord. I want her to become more holy and righteous. I'm gonna partner with God to lead her to become holy and righteous. Present her before God one day and say, here is your daughter. My bride, the woman that you've given to me as I had my time with her on earth, I did everything in my power to make her more holy, to make her more like you.
Every opportunity I had, I wanted to see her become more righteous. I wanna present your daughter, my bride, to you. Well, because that's what Jesus does for us. He sanctifies us. He continues to push us and our spiritual growth, he doesn't just save us and say, okay, you're good. See you in heaven one day. He like keeps nitpicking dude for the sake of holiness.
He'll, he'll keep getting into, to parts of our lives gently, graciously for the sake of holiness. And so we just keep, we keep pushing each other as spouses. I'm not, I'm not gonna nitpick you. Hey, you're not doing this or you're not very holy do. The last thing you wanna do is tell your wife she's not holy.
Oh man. Yeah, don't do that. Hey, I noticed these five areas of your life that are super sinful. I just wanted to point these out to you 'cause I'm trying to make you more like Jesus. Don't do that. Don't do that, bro. But what you can say is, Hey, I'm gonna study the scriptures. Do you wanna study them with me?
Hey, I was just reading this verse and it convicted me. Like, what do you think about this? How's your heart with the Lord? Do you feel close to the Lord? Is there anything I can do to pray for you? Like, can I pray for you? I'm gonna be at work today, uh, working on whatever, and I just wanna be praying for you.
I wanna be thinking through your journey with the Lord. And so if there's something that you think that I could go to the Lord on your behalf, like hit me with it, text it to me and I'll just spend some time praying for you. I always say, bro, you send that kind of, you tell your wife that kind of thing as you're out on your way out to work, like you're just leaving for, just slip that in as you're leaving for work.
Like, Hey, I got some quiet time today as I'm sending in emails or working on this project or whatever. I wanna make sure that you're close to Jesus. Is there, what can I pray for you as I'm working? Bro, you say that to your wife as you're like slipping out the door. Holy moly. Careful. You're gonna be having more babies.
She's gonna be, I'm not sure there's anything your wife would love more. I'm not sure there's, uh, any other way that she would be like, you are leading me so well, dude. How else could your wife feel more loved than by you taking interest in her spiritual journey with God? And why do we do it? Not just because we wanna be nice, but because we're presenting our wives, we're, we're concerned about her sanctification, her holiness.
In the same way that God is concerned about ours. God is servant. He's servant hearted love. He's not just taking control. When I say, of course, God leads us and he calls us to lead, but it's servant leadership. John 13, one through 17, Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands and that he had come from God and was going back to God.
Rose from SUP supper. He laid aside his outer garments and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples feet. I mean, we could have spent the whole podcast on just this one. All the implications, the cultural implications, the fact that their feet were, they walked around in sandals, not close toed shoes.
Their feet were filthy. Jesus would've as a king, as a teacher, most definitely would not have been culturally appropriate for Jesus to get down on his knees and to wash these dirty feet. This was not things that Kings did or rabbis did, like this was not his role and the fact that he would lower himself and do the dirtiest of tasks for the sake of example, and then says, okay, husbands, now go do likewise.
Serve your wife selflessly. Take on the most humble tasks to show that you love and care. Wash the dishes, clean the toilets, change the diapers, wash the sheets. You know what I mean? Like do the things that you feel like are beneath you. Oh, I worked all day. I worked 40, 60 hours a day. What did you do? Man, praise God.
Jesus didn't talk to us like that, huh? Praise God. Jesus didn't have that kind of attitude when he was modeling for us what it looked like to love us. If there's anyone who deserves to be praised and deserves to be, have all the glory for us to just constantly bow down at his feet, I. It's Jesus. And yet he gets down on his knees and he washes disciple's, feet so that he can then look at you husband.
He can look at us husbands and say, now go do the li. Go do the same. Yes, you worked 40, 50, 60 hours a week. Change the diapers. Help out with the bedtime routine. Cook a meal, wash the dishes, do the laundry. Why? Not because we're trying to love our wives by being nice to her. Yes, but we're not just playing in sprinklers.
We want to swim in the deep waters of the gospel and the deep waters of the gospel is how did God love us? It was incredibly servant hearted. Put a towel around your waist. What can I do to serve my family? This is what it means to love God. This is what it means to love your wife as Christ. Love the church.
Lastly, protective. His love was protective. He protects his bride, John 10 28, in Matthew 1618. I give them eternal life and they will never perish and no one will snatch them outta my hand. My father, who has given them to me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the father's hand.
I and the father are one. Matthew 1618, and I tell you, you are Peter. And on this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. As husbands, we are called to protect our wives physically. For sure. Take care of your body, dude. Take care of your body. Learn, uh, I was gonna go in all kinds of directions, but, uh, I'll just say this, me and my, my son, 13 year olds, we've been going to the Range Weekly.
Um, so, you know, take that, I'm not trying to get banned off of any platform, but just. Take that for whatever you wanna take that for. Do some pushups. Eat right. I do all these things. Why? Because if somebody breaks into my house, I wanna be fully ready to protect my family. Why? Because correct protects his bride.
I'm gonna protect mine and I wanna make sure I'm fully ready to protect my bride physically. And listen, dude, I know every guy listening to this podcast. You feel that? It's like, dude, not nobody's coming between me and my bride. I get that. But also part of your protection of your wife, the way Christ protects his church.
It's emotionally and spiritually. Is your wife safe around you? Physically, I think for most of you, yes. Is your wife safe around you emotionally? Are you emotionally safe? So, yes. Uh, I go to the range, try to work out, have all the things around my house to make sure that our, our family is safe. Physically, but am I doing emotional work to make sure that my wife is emotionally safe around me?
Meaning, am I gonna go into areas of my life that are uncomfortable parts of my childhood, my insecurities, things that make me uncomfortable? Why? So that I can get my own emotions under control so that my wife feels safe around me emotionally? And bro, I've admitted this before. I'll admit it to you right now.
That has not been true for a lot of our marriage, if I'm being totally honest with you. I don't think Layla felt emotionally safe with me for a long time in our marriage, because I am emotional guy. I think early on in our marriage, I, you know, I can make all kinds of excuses, but the truth is like some days I could be passionate.
I could be really sad, I could be mad, and I feel like she probably thought, what version of Jared am I gonna get? And most certainly early on in our marriage. That was true, and I just, I have so much shame and regret around that. My hope is that I'm not that way anymore. I don't think Layla would say that's true about me.
Praise God. He is completing the work that he has started in me and he's taken that part of my life and he's making it new. Praise God. I, I feel confident in saying that. But there have been times in my life, man, where I was not emotionally safe, where I would've yelled at my wife. I would've said something to hurt her or just been irrational in my emotions.
And so it's taken work to really dig after things that are hard so that she, when she's around me, she feels emotionally safe. So take that for whatever it's worth, bro, whatever work you gotta do, so that she would feel emotionally safe, and then just spiritually. Am I pursuing Jesus so that when she's around me, she feels like she gets glimpses of Jesus?
Does she feel spiritually safe? Does she know that I'm not riding on the emotions of my spiritual journey? Well, I just hope I feel close to God in order to point you close to God. No, I'm just gonna be faithful. I'm just gonna be a man of God. I'm gonna keep studying the word and just do whether I feel it or not.
I'm just gonna keep pursuing Jesus for the sake of my leading my wife. What does protection look like? Yes, physically I wanna protect my wife the way that God protects me. I want to spiritually and emotionally, God is safe. There is none safer by the way. You could take anything. You could confess right now the darkest, most twisted sin that you have, and he can handle it.
It cannot outrun his grace for you. His power to make you new. Praise God. Not just that he could hear it and handle it emotionally. He can hear it and handle it emotionally, and he will, but also he has the power to make you new. He sees the problem and he fixes it. Dude, crazy, crazy man. This is the God we serve.
He is safe, and so are we safe. I know I'm beating a dead horse here, but I'm, I'm not just loving my wife. Because I wanna be nice because God's been nice to me. No, God is the safest being in all the universe. There is no one safer for you than God. And may that be true for us. When our wives think about us, may the same be said about us.
There's no one safer for your wife than you. You are the safest. I know I've been long-winded here and I apologize, but I want to kind of go through these verses real quick and I just wanna make them personal to you. I want you to hear these verses that I read and try to make them applicable as personal as you can.
So when you think through, like I read, Ephesians 5 25, husbands love your wife as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for you. I want you to make that into an I statement. So for you, I want this to be true for you. I want you to be able to say, I love my wife just as Christ loves his church. I give myself up for her, putting her needs above my own, sacrificing for her.
I. So just maybe just, I'll say it and maybe just pray that this is kind of spontaneous. I didn't plan this, but maybe just pray that, confess that, like say it out loud so that you can hear, if you're in the car, like just say wherever you're at, maybe just say it in your head. If you're not in a place right now, you're listening to this, or if you're on an airplane or whatever, it doesn't make sense where you to say it out loud, don't get kicked off a plan, or you know, somebody's gonna call the psych ward on you or something, you know, but just like however you can say it, you know what I mean?
In your mind or out loud. Make a declaration of it. So Ephesians 5 25. Again, husbands love your wife as Christ has loved the church and gave himself up for her. Just say this out loud. I love my wife as Christ loves this church. I give myself up for her putting her needs above my own and sacrificing for her.
John 10 11 said, I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep. So let's just make this per, let's just declare this as men to be personal for us. I am a good husband. I'm willing to lay my life down for my wife, always seeking her wellbeing above my own. Romans five, eight says, but God shows his love for us and that while we were still yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Just declare this, make it personal. I show love for my wife by loving her, even in her imperfections, just as Christ loves me and mine. And I'm willing to sacrifice for her. Romans 8 38 and 39 says, for I'm sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor death, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Let's just declare, let's just say it out loud. I am committed to my wife and nothing, no challenge or circumstance can separate my love for her. Remain steadfast in my love, just as Christ remains steadfast in his love for me. Colossians three 13 bearing with one another, and if one has a complaint against one another, forgiving each other as the Lord has forgiven you.
So you must also forgive. Just say this out loud. I will bear with my wife and if she has a complaint against me, I will forgive her just as God has forgiven me. I choose to let go of grievances. I choose to offer grace. John 10 28 30 says I give them eternal life that they will never perish and no one will snatch them out of my hand.
My father, who has given them to me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the father's hand. I and the father, I and the father are one, just proclaim this, I promise to protect and care for my wife. Ensuring that no one and nothing can take her away from my love and my care.
Ephesians 5 26 and 27 that he might sanctify her having cleansed her by the washing of the water with the word so that he might present the church to himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing that she might be wholly and without blemish. Just make this last declaration here. I I'll lead my wife spiritually.
I'll encourage her growth and holiness so that together we grow toward purity and christlikeness. This is what it means, uh, for us as husbands to pursue our wives the way that Christ has pursued us. Again, when we think through Love your wife, the way that Christ loves the church. It's not just let me be nice to her because God's been nice to me.
Has God been nice to you? For sure. But we don't wanna just play in the sprinklers. We wanna swim in the deep waters of the gospel. God's love for us has been sacrificial. It's been unconditional, it's been forgiving, it's been sanctifying, it's been servant hearted, it's been protective, and this is the way that we as gospel centered men wanna love our wives.
I love you guys. I hope this was helpful. I'll see you next week.