Ep. 109 - The Servanthood Snare...Why Serving Your Wife is NOT the Magic Fix

Christian husbands have been told the answer is simple: serve your wife more, sacrifice more, try harder, be more loving. But what if that advice is missing the foundation? What if the problem isn’t the act of serving… but the place you’re serving from?

In this video, I’m breaking down the difference between serving from strength and serving from insecurity, why over-serving can actually kill attraction, and the 3 pillars a husband needs if he wants to love his wife like Jesus actually did.

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Chapters

00:00 The Foundation of Serving in Marriage
03:03 The Servanthood Trap
12:09 Understanding Identity and Authority
19:52 The Importance of Knowing Your Worth
29:40 Three Pillars for Stronger Marriages

Creators and Guests

Host

Matt Hallock

Founder of Man Warrior King and author of The DNA of a Man

What is The Man Warrior King Podcast - Confident Christian Men and Passionate Marriages?

Faith and masculinity meet kingdom living to help Christian husbands rebuild their confidence and masculine strength, so they can enjoy attraction-filled and passionate marriages.

You want to live a life on fire and on mission.

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...And you want to know just how to get there.

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You've been taught to serve your wife the way Jesus served his disciples. Wash her feet, lay down your needs, put her first.

Sacrifice the way Christ sacrificed.

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And I'm not here to tell you that all that's wrong. I believe it. The Bible says it and I teach it.

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But I wanna ask you one question, and I want you to sit with it, because the way you answer it is going to mean everything for how you think about this dynamic in your marriage.

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What was happening in Jesus before he picked up the towel and got the wash basin and bent down to start washing his disciples feet?

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because John 13 doesn't actually start with Jesus doing the washing. It starts with something that I've never heard any pastor, any marriage teacher, any book, no nothing ever teach about.

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They skip over, in my opinion, what's the most important thing in order to get to this washing feet and serving part.

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You see, John 13 says this, Jesus knew that the Father had put all things into his hands.

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and that he had come from God and was returning to God.

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And then it says this important word, so. So he got up from the meal.

and he began to wash his disciples' feet.

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Did you catch that?

Jesus didn't serve from emptiness.

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He didn't serve to earn something back.

He didn't serve because he was afraid of what would happen if he didn't, or because he was afraid that he might not get something from his bride if he didn't.

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He served from a place of complete and total unshakable security in who he was.

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And he knew where he came from. And he knew where he was going.

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But when Christian husbands like you and I, when we try to serve our wives, it's not what we're doing.

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Most of us, we're serving from a place of fear or neediness because we desperately want our wife to like us.

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We're serving from a weak identity.

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We're serving from a weak identity that fluctuates. It ebbs and flows with the momentary mood of our wife and what she thinks of us.

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But this difference, serving out of strength versus serving out of weakness.

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It's the key to this whole thing even working. And that's what we're going to unpack today.

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All right, here is what your average Christian, well-meaning, super loving, wanting to earn his wife's love and retraction and everything, all that. This is what your average Christian husband does. Okay, so in this hypothetical example, but not so hypothetical because it's very common and it's rampant across our culture today. But in this marriage, the wife is cold,

She's distant. She doesn't display any kind of excitement when you come home from work or anything like that. let's just use you language because this is probably applicable to you if you're watching the video. So your wife.

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distant cold, all of that. doesn't really want you anymore. Okay. So here's typically what happens. If you are a believer, you go to church and you look for solutions for how God wants to fix your marriage. At church, you will typically hear things like serve your wife more or serve her better or serve her the way that Jesus serves the church.

So you're like, okay, I can do that. And you go home and you crank up the effort level on your serving. You serve her even harder.

Now, all the while, I guess a couple of things can be going on for you. You could be the husband who has been super self-involved, super inconsiderate, like just a jerk, you don't care about your wife's needs at all. And if you start doing this, you might actually see some progress.

But let's say you're the husband who does care about your wife. You have been attempting to love her well.

You hear this advice from church and in the back of your mind, you might be thinking, I kind of feel like I've already been doing some of this, but you hear some good nuggets of wisdom from the sermon. You, you maybe pick up on some things that you hadn't really thought about before. Maybe you even get some practical examples of stuff to do. And while you're sitting there in church or wherever, right? You, if your wife is hearing the same thing, it feels kind of awkward because it's almost like

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You both know that your marriage is in a tough spot. And this is just super awkward because you hardly you have can't even really talk about it with each other without fighting. But meanwhile, you're gonna you're gonna take it in, you're going to activate it when you get home. So in the coming days, you look for ways to serve harder. You do more dishes, maybe, okay. You, you do other household cleaning chores that you don't normally do.

Maybe you double down on getting home from work on time and you make sure to be in charge of the kids several evenings of the week or whatever. And maybe you even encourage your wife to go out and spend some time with a friend or something like that. And maybe this is like new tactics that you haven't tried before, okay? You're doing all this kinds of stuff and maybe

One of these days you bring home flowers for her. It's been a while you do it again. Maybe you even, you you're just so overwhelmed. You're overcome with like this swell of love for your wife that you write her a letter and you confess about how you must have hurt her so bad all the years of your marriage. And even after all this stuff, you are you are madly in love with her and you choose her and you think man who wouldn't fall in love with this kind of sentiment.

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And here's the problem. You do all that, nothing changes. you know what? Probably it might even get worse.

So then you go to God and you're confused and you say, I'm doing what you told me to do God. Why in the world doesn't it work? Why are you not working? Why are you not helping me? I thought you were supposed to bring a breakthrough transformation.

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But here's what tragically so many Christian teachers, authors, whatever, don't tell you. Maybe some of those behaviors were right. Now, maybe not, because there are some wives who don't actually experience this love from those things.

I'm not going to get into all that at the moment, but let's pretend that you're doing the right behaviors. Maybe you did it a little too much. You came on too strong, whatever, but they were good behaviors.

So you do the right behaviors, but you missed the foundation that those behaviors stand on.

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And if you miss that foundation, then all of your good effort will produce negative results, the opposite of what you want to see happen. A man who is caught in this servant hood trap.

He's very much like a guy who is covered with mud and he doesn't know it. And being covered with mud, he's going through the whole house and he's cleaning it, cleaning it, cleaning it. He's got all the right tools, the brooms, the dusters, the rags, the magic erasers, the, the cleaning sprays, every kind for every surface. And he's cleaning everything with all the right tools, all the right technique.

And he's so disillusioned because after he's done in one area, he steps back to admire his work and he just sees mud everywhere. It's like nothing ever happened.

And he unknowingly was just leaving behind mud everywhere he went. In fact, the more he tried to clean, the worse it got because the mud flung off harder. The more places in his house he tried to go clean, the worse it got. He just spread it all over the place. This is this is what a man who is trapped in the servant hoods is that he experiences.

and it's maddening because he doesn't see the mud that's covering him and he's doing everything right and why is it not?

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The servanthood behavior is like trying to put a roof on a house before you've built the foundation.

And I okay, let's say okay, Matt, so, so you're telling me the serving isn't working very well. What about the romance? Maybe I should should focus in on the romantic behaviors. Maybe I should. I've read books that suggest this and my wife mocks them openly. Maybe I should, you know, plan some super romantic dates and like do this surprising thing where I send her a bunch of flowers at work, or I take her out on a date and I do this planning and I have this, this little like

Bluetooth speaker with me, and I and we dance on the pier at the beach in public and we don't care who's watching and we dance to like, honestly, I I've literally have read a book that describes that. And I cringe at the thought of doing that today. Whereas at one point, I thought, maybe that's worth trying kind of rekindle the flame. So whether you're thinking of serving or sparking romance, both of those things.

Both types of behaviors are like building the roof on a house before you even have the foundation, let alone the walls. So I'm telling you, if your marriage is in a place like what I'm describing here, do not go for those things right now. Do not look at those as your solution. Are some of them that aren't super ooey gooey warm and fuzzy and like, honestly, beta from the husband?

Are some of those things good and okay? Sure. But like I said, I wouldn't go full throttle down those roads. Romance looks different than what you might have thought about from movies or whatever.

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So let's just dig in because I want to help you know what to do. So let's dig in to what John 13 actually says. Okay. Let's see here.

So it says that Jesus knew.

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A new

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So John 13 verse three says, Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power.

He knew.

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The word doesn't say that Jesus hoped or that he thought maybe or that he believed. It says he knew that the Father had put all things under his power.

And that's a really important distinction.

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He had done the work in his life to come to this place of security where he absolutely knew who he was. He was a son of the father. He was a son whose father had honored him.

entrusted him by putting all things under his power.

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That speaks to the importance of, of you and I outside of our marriage, apart from our wife, doing the work that it takes to learn who we are, doing the work that it takes to not only learn who we are, but to get established in our identity, to get established in who we are.

to get established in the idea that God may also trust you with authority. He may also trust you with the power that comes from being baptized in the Holy Spirit and being able to spread the kingdom wherever you go.

You don't just become a man who is totally secure and confident just in a couple of weeks worth of focusing on it. We know that Jesus made a habit of getting away with the Father, spending time with him. He knew the Word. He could quote it to the devil in the middle of the wilderness when he hadn't eaten for 40 days and his thinking was likely cloudy. He knew the Word well enough to be able to bring it to the table.

when he was tempted at his weakest point.

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He had spent time and put in effort to know who he was. And here's the problem with a lot of us husbands.

We have never truly known who we are. We've always been told that we are just poor wretched sinners saved by grace. So if anything, our perception of who we are is pretty low and meager. But because we're wired to have some higher view of ourselves than that, we secretly look to this hot and super desirable woman who comes into our life.

to elevate our perception of ourselves because we're not allowed to because that's prideful and arrogant, but we want our wife, this woman who gives me her femininity, we want that to fill me up and make me feel good. And so we go from a place of bankrupt identity to looking to have our identity defined from the wrong person. Jesus.

had his identity defined by the father.

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Then it says.

that he knew that the father had put all things under his power.

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all things. It says not some things, not just the things that he had earned, not just a few of the things that God decided to give him, but all things. The father had put all things under his power.

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He walked into that room.

already in a place of complete authority.

And you and I need to learn the same. And I know that that's going to strike some people out there totally the wrong way, because you're going to be like, how in the world can you claim that I am supposed to have the same awareness of authority that Jesus had? Either you are a heretic and an instrument of the devil, which I've been called many times, or you're just deceived and misguided.

That's going to be what some people think and that's okay. But here's the truth of it. Jesus told you that he gave you authority to trample on serpents and scorpions. And he told you that he gave you authority over all the power of the devil so that nothing would by any means harm you. He says in Romans that you and I are designed to reign, R-E-I-G-N, reign as kings in life.

through him. He also says in Ephesians, that we are seated with him in heavenly places. What does that mean? He's seated at the right hand of God at the throne. So you and I are seated with him. It sounds like you and I sit on the throne as well. that hurts somebody. But you don't have to believe it if you don't want. Excuse me, you don't have to believe it if you don't want to.

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But I'm telling you, Jesus, he humbled himself to say, come join me, sit with me, let me teach you how to reign. Why? Because from the very beginning, his whole plan was that you and I would reign over the earth. He said, take dominion of it and subdue it. So the whole work of salvation was designed to get us back into that original plan, into that original mission.

And I could point you to many other scriptures that talk about your authority. But it says in Ephesians also, the same book where it says you are seated with him in heavenly places. It says also that the same power that raised Jesus from the dead and raised him up to the heavenly places and seated him at the right hand of God, where God subjected all authorities, all powers, all rulers under his feet. It says that God

gave him to be the head of the church, which is his body. So if all rulers, powers, and authorities are put under the feet of Jesus and he's seated in heavenly places, you and I are seated in heavenly places and we are his body, therefore all those rulers, powers, and authorities are under us.

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Again, you have authority over every enemy. So in the same way that Jesus walked into that room and he knew that all things had been put into his power.

You and I should walk into any room and know that everything in that environment, I have authority to address every problem in existence. Wherever I go, even in a stranger's life, they have a cast on their wrist. I walk in to the grocery store and I see somebody in pain. I have authority.

to address that darkness. have authority over it. This is how you and I can even bring freedom to the captives like Jesus did. This is how you and I can spread the kingdom because we have authority to do so.

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The problem is that too many of us have never been taught this and we've been actually been taught the opposite.

that we have no authority and there's nothing good that you and I can offer.

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And I hate that.

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So Jesus walked into that room with complete authority.

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and he could kneel down, get low, and wash his disciples' feet from knowing that incredible identity and authority that he carried.

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That's strength and power. But when you and I are instructed to serve our wives, the foundation that we are told to serve on top of is you have nothing good to offer.

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There's not much you can do to change this world. It's all up to God's decision.

and your job is to just learn how to submit and go along with whatever God decides. There's no instruction to step into authority and be an administrator of His heart in the earth.

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Passage goes on.

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to tell us that yes, the Father had put all things under his power and that he knew, Jesus knew that he had come from God.

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his identity, his worth, his security. It was rooted in where Jesus had come from.

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not in whether he would get approved of by his disciples, not in whether his bride would receive him.

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And this is classic, classic mistake. Your security.

when it comes to your home life. Now, let me clarify some things. You might not feel like this is that big of a deal for you when you're not at home. Many, many men feel way more confident, way more secure when they're outside of the house than when they walk through that front door.

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But when you get home, you enter back into that environment that has been where all this marital tension and distance and pain has existed. Suddenly you become insecure.

And this insecurity is because you're looking to be secured by the wrong person in the completely wrong realm. If you are looking for emotional security from your wife and how much she approves of you, you will be sorely disappointed for the rest of your life. Because even if she does her best to love you,

The fact that you are putting all that pressure on her, it will create a smothered sensation in her and she will have to squirm and recoil to try to get away and get some breathing room.

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So your attempts to win her will just push her away.

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See, you have to be able to serve and to, you know, promote the romance and all of that from this emotional place of strength where you can be okay and even happy and joyful, even if your wife rejects you in the moment.

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That is a skill of confidence that is extremely attractive to a woman. like pretty much every husband I've ever worked with has not known how to get into that.

And it's like you get triggered so badly that you're the pain and all these things just wash over you and take over. And you can't stay unshaken and thereby attract your wife. You get pushed over and a fight starts and you get pouty and you get needy and there's, everything just works against you. But see Jesus, he served.

his disciples, regardless of whether they would accept him or not. In fact, he knew they were all about to abandon him. And he even served, you know, he, he washed the feet of Judas who he knew would betray him.

So he wasn't rooted in whether his disciples received him, honored him, loved him, stayed with him, none of that. He was rooted in where he came from.

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So you need to be rooted in where you come from.

You are a son of the father.

You come from an original mission that told you to subdue the earth.

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By the way, if you are resonating with this discussion of identity and security and where you come from and all of that, and you're like, man, I do not bring this kind of strength to my marriage, will you pick up my book, The DNA of a Man? I don't have a copy.

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But I do have a copy of the workbook. See, this is actually the very first printing of it. It's the companion that goes with the DNA of a man. you can, man, it's really powerful. The book is really powerful. I've sold about 12,000 copies. Takes you through three parts, a man of identity, a man of principle, and a man on mission.

And no, it's not just a cheap, shallow little book that doesn't tell you much of anything, because it wants you to buy the bigger thing. The book is actually a book. It's real. It's powerful. It's life changing. I've had hundreds of men tell me just as much. I've read it two, three times underlining, like so many guys have said they've read it three times. And, and most of those guys have said that they have underlined more than they left not underlined. So please

Go pick up the book. The link is down below. It'll be in the description as well. Just go pick it up. Okay, back to John 13.

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It also says that he came from God and he was returning to God. So Jesus knew his future. He knew.

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that he would.

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He knew the outcome of his life was already settled. This is even though he had a huge insane amount of hardship in front of him. He knew that he was going to win. And you and I have a battle in that arena.

How do I win? And how do I know that I'm going to win? Because what if I

And this is where you digging into God's word is extremely important because your life and the people around you and the people in the pews at church may tell you, you can't trust that you're going to always win, but God's word tells you, will. And I'm telling you, if you know that as much as David knew that he was going to take out Goliath,

It will equip you and empower you to go boldly into the places of your life that have been too intimidating for you. It will empower you to serve from a place of joy and strength rather than emotional weakness.

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So let's recap.

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three pillars that you need to adopt from this teaching. First pillar one, you need to know who you are, you need to know your identity, you need to know where you came from.

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So in the same way that Jesus knew that he had come from God and that all things had been put under his power, you must be anchored in who God has made you to be, not anchored in your wife.

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because if it's anchored in your wife, then when she's kind and loving and warm towards you, you feel good. If she gets cold, she has a bad day, may have nothing to do with you, you end up feeling like a failure. And so everything that she's going through becomes about you.

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and it's all selfish.

But the Bible says you're a son of God. It says that you are already accepted. You're not on probation. You're not looking to be accepted. You are in. And that doesn't change if your wife doesn't text you back. That doesn't change if your wife doesn't flirt with you. That doesn't change if you go a few weeks or a few months without sex in your marriage.

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When you know who you are before you serve her, then your serving is valuable. It's a gift to her. But if you're anchored to her, then your serving is simply a transactional manipulation. I give you this. So you give me what I need.

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Pillar two, know your authority.

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Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under His power.

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So God designed you to be a spiritual authority in your home. He designed your wife to also be one and those look like different things. This is not a dictatorship. This is not a, you know, head covering prairie Christianity where the husband is the ruler of the home and the wife just says, yes, dear. It's not what I'm saying, but you have authority.

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You have authority to stand over your wife as a covering to protect and defend her, not to dominate her.

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But here's what you've been doing. You've been handing over your authority to your wife.

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You've handed it over to her emotions to get her approval. You've handed your authority over to whether the marriage feels like it's okay or not. And you wonder why your wife doesn't follow your lead because you don't lead because you're so anchored to her.

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Jesus, when he served, didn't like ask, Hey, would it be okay if I wash your feet? He didn't ask, Hey, would it be all right if I do this miracle for you? He, he did it, whether she was happy about it or not. Now that let's, I want to, I want to explain that does not mean you do whatever you want.

whether your wife is happy about it or not. means you do what is good for the family and loving and caring and honoring even if your wife is uncomfortable with it at times.

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Hey, that might even mean you invite her to connection even if you know she doesn't want it.

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Third pillar, knowing where you're going.

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When you have faith.

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that you can lead your marriage to a good end when you have faith that you can be man enough to lead your life to a good destiny.

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Then you can start serving without an agenda trying because your service is not trying to get somewhere. Your service is just because that's who you are. You're a man who loves and a man who serves and you know what? I don't care if you don't like it.

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And I'm not saying to have that mean attitude. What I'm saying is it doesn't bother you whether your wife is in a good or bad mood. You already know where you're headed and you have faith that you're a man enough to lead the marriage in a good direction. So have to know where you're going.

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So what does this practically look like? How do these three pillars practically play out? All right, first thing, serve without monitoring your wife's response. So when you do something for her, stop looking to see whether what you did landed or not. Stop looking to get a warm and fuzzy reaction from

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Stop mulling over whether she said thank you.

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Just let go, stop being obsessed over the results. Second practical shift, you begin to lead even if she doesn't immediately follow.

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So you figure out what the marriage needs, you figure out what the family needs, and you know it's good for everybody, you know it's good for your wife, and you say, hey, I wanna instill this into our family, into our rhythm, and she's like, I don't know, like, it feels uncomfortable, but I can see that there could be beneficial, and you say, it's okay, trust me, this is where we're.

we're gonna go and it's gonna be really good.

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Third practical shift.

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you when you become secure you actually begin to be able to voice your own opinions even when they are different than hers and you don't obsess over the disagreement and you don't worry about whether she's going to ever agree with you or not

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If this is resonating with you.

In addition to picking up my book, I would like to invite you to get on my calendar for a call where we can discuss how much I can help you going forward. I have a couple of ways I work with men that are very intensive, very life changing. They take you out of a place of weakness and insecurity and into a place of unshakable confidence and strength.

So you become the kind of man who your wife can't help but respect. And she starts actually pulling you towards her rather than pulling away from you. If you need help with that process and you're like, I know I want to go deep with Matt. I know I want to do this intensive work. Then I want to encourage you to find the link in the description and get on my calendar. Let's have a conversation about how we can move forward together and get you winning in this thing.

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Love you.

You've got this.