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We're going to be Ephesians chapter 5 today. So if you want to take your Bibles, let's go to Ephesians chapter 5 for our Bible study this morning. And I've got a lot of ground to cover, so I'm going to be speaking rapidly. Please try to listen rapidly. We got a lot of material to cover here. And I'm going to start in Ephesians chapter 5 by reading just two verses, if you have your Bibles there, to Ephesians 5. This is verse 21, 20 and 21. Ephesians 5, verse 20 and 21. And I want you to have your Bibles open because we're going to go through much more than these two verses. But just so that we have it in front of us, I will put these two verses on the screen. Here's what it says in the middle of a sentence. Verse 20 says, Giving thanks always for all things to God the Father, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 21. Submitting to 1 another in the fear of God. Submitting to one another in the fear of God. Now, you might as well replace the period at the end of that sentence with a colon, because the verses that follow are built on this foundational verse. And so Ephesians 5, verse 22 through chapter 6, verse 9 outlines God's prescription for healthy biblical relationships and in marriage, in the family and in the workplace. So this is what we're going to look at today as we dig out chapter five and a little bit into chapter six. Let's first pause and have a word of prayer. Father in heaven, we just want to thank you for your love, grace and mercy extended toward us today. Thank you that your mercies are new with every morning and your compassions, they fail not great is your faithfulness. We just pray God that you would use your Word now to speak to our hearts, to draw us closer to you. And our desire is, of course, to always be more like Jesus. So help us, Lord, to apply these verses to our own lives. And we give you thanks in Jesus name. And everyone said Amen. Well, here in the last part of chapter five and into the first part of chapter six, Paul lays down God's outline for healthy biblical relationships between husbands and wives, between children and parents, and between employees and employers. And he is going to tell us that God has designed a structure or an order to these different relational groups in order to bring as much harmony and unity to these relationships as possible. God desires for there to be his harmony, his unity between spouses, between parents and Children between co workers. And so God outlines these things here through the pen of the apostle Paul. Now why does God have to even give us these instructions? And the answer is because these things do not come naturally to us. I mean, you have to realize that every time God commands something in the Bible, it's because it doesn't come naturally to us. So he has to instruct us, he has to teach us. I mean, you'll notice that you don't read in the Bible. God commands us to laugh when something is funny. That's just what we do. He doesn't command us to cry when something is sad. He doesn't command us to eat when we're hungry. There are certain physiological things and emotional things that happen quite naturally, but not so much with our spirit because our spirit is in conflict with our flesh. And, and we have a base fleshly sinful nature. And God needs to instruct and train our spirit to be stronger than our base fleshly, sinful nature. Because when we talk about interpersonal relationships like marriage, family and the workplace, there is the tendency in all of us to default to that sinful nature, to that selfish fleshly nature. And so God has to instruct us. Hey, here's what you need to know about not doing what comes natural to you and what comes natural to us in interpersonal relationships. Well, I mean, I put together a list of some things. Perhaps you'll see yourself hear yourself in this list sometimes. Because we can give over to our sin nature. We're selfish, proud, we want to be happy more than holy. We want to be served. We don't really want to be told what to do. We often end up thinking, well, what about me? We often believe it's the other person's problem. We often blame others more than assume responsibility. We can be stubborn, we can be unforgiving. Did I hit one of yours yet? Well, in case I didn't, I have a few more. In our sin nature, we can be quick to judge. We can be slow to listen. We can want the other person to apologize first. We can keep a record of wrongs. We can bring up the past. We can be unloving, critical and disrespectful. And there's probably a lot more things that could be said, but that is the default because of our propensity to give in to our fleshly nature. And I don't know about you, but I don't want to be a default person. I want to be a disciplined person under the lordship of Jesus Christ. Amen. Shouldn't that Be. What we all want is not to. Not to just default, but we want to be disciplined under the lordship of Jesus Christ. And so Jesus and his Word must instruct us and train us to get our spirits in shape if we are to have the kind of harmony and unity that God desires in a marriage, in a family, and in a workplace. And what it will require is for imperfect, sinful people submitting to God before we can submit to one another. I mean, this is why in the verse there, in verse 21, he said, submitting to one another in the fear of the Lord. The, the idea is we have to first be submitting to God and fear God before we can understand what it means to submit to one another. And so this is an important thing for us to realize here. Every example that Paul gives, and we'll read through, just highlight. I'm just going to highlight first all these different relationships that he talks about here. In every example that Paul gives about marriage, about family and about the workplace, he predicates it upon each of us first, submitting to the Lord. Just look at your Bibles with me if you have them still open there. Chapter 5, verse 22, he says, Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. You see that verse 25, husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church. Look at chapter six, verse one, where he addresses children. Chapter six one, children, obey your parents in the Lord. And verse four, further down there, chapter six, verse four. And you fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord. Then in verse five, he talks about bondservants, which really in our vernacular today, would be employees. I'll explain it later when we get to it. But notice he says, bondservants, be obedient to those who are your masters or employers according to the flesh, with fear and trembling insincerity of heart as to Christ. And then verse nine, and you masters or employers do the same things to them, giving up, threatening, knowing that your own master, that's Jesus, also is in heaven. So realize this. In order for us to submit to one another in the fear of the Lord, we have to first be walking in the fear of the Lord. That's why in every relational example he gives, Paul infuses that phrase in the Lord or as to the Lord, or as unto the Lord, because he's saying to us, look, you got to get that right, submission to the Lord before you're going to know how to relate to or respond to one another. In These various relationships in a marriage or in a family or in the world workplace. You see, the fact is, I hear too many times people making their responsibility dependent upon somebody else's responsibility. And that's just not what the Bible instructs us. You know, sometimes wives will say things like, well, if he were just more Christlike, I could submit to him and respect him. But the truth of the matter is your responsibility to submit and respect is based on your walk with the Lord, not his. And when a man says, well, I could just love her like Christ loves the church, if she'd look a little bit more like Christ, well, you don't understand that loving her is about your walk with the Lord, not hers. And you can go on down the list. I'd be a better parent if my kid behaved more like Jesus. Or, well, I'd be a better kid if my parent was more like Jesus. I'd be a better employer. I'd be a better employee. Look, what Paul is saying here is this is. This is not conditional on how someone else responds or reacts. This is. This is unconditional in our submission to Jesus. And then we ask him to help us, train us, instruct us to be the men and women and children and parents and employees and employers that he wants us to be in a way that honors Him. And when we get that part right, Lord, I want to be a husband or a wife. I want to be a child or a parent, an employee or an employer who honors you. I want to walk in the fear of the Lord. Then he will help us, instruct us, train us how to relate to and respond to one another in a way that honors each other, because we're first honoring Him. But please know we are all in process in this. No one has arrived, so we need to give each other grace. Because we each want grace, don't we? Okay. There is no perfect boss. There is no perfect employee. There is no perfect husband or perfect wife. There is no perfect kid. There is no perfect parent. We are all in process, so we must give grace to one another. As much as we want to receive grace. If you're. If you're just waiting for someone else to get their act together so that you can treat them the right way. You're going to wait till the cows come home, and you won't be acting in the way that God has called you to act. So this is not conditional submission to one another. This is unconditional submission to Jesus. And then the Lord will help train us, teach us, shape us, and grow us to Be the men and women that he wants us to be. Now, I say all of that as the introduction, okay? No extra charge. Now, as to the instruction. Everybody look in your Bibles here. This is the instruction God gives here through Paul. First to the wives, it's chapter five. It's verse 22 down to verse 24. And here's what he says. Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord, for the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church and he is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Now, I heard a funny story about this, a true story about a pastor named Dr. Lewis Talbot. Dr. Lewis Talbot actually used to be the president of Biola University. He died in 1976, but he tells of this story that he was preaching from this text about wives submitting to their husbands at the Church of the Open Door in Los Angeles, California in the late 1940s. Dr. Talbot said after he got through preaching this message, a lady in the congregation came up to him, angry. Dr. Talbot, she said to him, if you were my husband, I would put poison in your tea. To which Dr. Talbot responded, and ma', am, if you were my wife, I would drink it. Now look, everybody, nobody has to die over this passage. But it sure can conjure up a lot of negative emotion, particularly among women who have been harshly treated by a man or who think that biblical submission means you are less than or inferior to someone else. And that is not what biblical submission means. I have my own story about this passage. Actually, about 30 plus years ago, my cousin asked me to read this passage about wives submitting to their husbands, and then the following verses about husbands loving their wives. She asked me to read this at her wedding. Now, I wasn't conducting the wedding. I was a young pastor, and she just asked me to be a part of it by reading this passage. So I went to the rehearsal, read the passage. As she asked me. After the rehearsal was over, the pastor of the church where the wedding was being performed, and he was actually doing the wedding ceremony. He approaches me after the rehearsal and he says, listen, tomorrow when the wedding happens, I don't want you to go reading that verse. I said, what verse is that? He says, the part about wives submitting to their husbands. I said, you don't want me to read that? He said, no, just read the part about husbands loving their wives. And I said, why don't you want me to read that other part? And he says, because, listen, that was written by the Apostle Paul. That was the first century A.D. it's antiquated stuff. We don't believe that anymore. I don't want you to read that in my church. Now, like I said, I was a young pastor. This is 30 years ago. I didn't really have an attitude like I do now. I wasn't all that snarky like I am now. So I just listened to him, and it just like, oh, wow, okay. So I kept thinking at the rehearsal dinner about it. Like. Like, this doesn't. This doesn't set right with me. I mean, you know, we're parsing out God's Word. We're editing God's Word. I don't like this. Plus, my cousin asked me to read these verses. So when the wedding day came, I did something I shouldn't have done. I read all those verses. I read all those verses. Now, that's not the part I shouldn't have done. I should have done that part. And I did. The part I shouldn't have done was after I read those verses, I closed my Bible, I looked over at the pastor, and I winked and nodded. Isn't that terrible? Now, do you know, as I was thinking about that story again in prep for this teaching, I looked up that church. I won't say what the church was. It was in Arlington. It was a Methodist church. I looked it up just the other day. That church closed in 2021. Now, I suspect God closed it and not because of that one incident, but I suspect that that one incident was indicative of other times that they've edited God's Word. And. And how many of you understand God's not going to bless you when you edit out His Word. We have to embrace all of it. And some parts of God's word goes down like ice cream, and some parts of God's word goes down like Brussels sprouts. But it's good for you, even the parts that are hard to swallow. And for some of you, this is a hard passage to swallow. But let me try to diffuse some of the anxiety around this word submit. Let me just give you the definition. As the original Greek language of the New Testament explains it, the word submit in the Greek is hupotasso. Hupotasso is from two Greek words. Hupo, H U P O meaning under tasso T A S S O meaning to arrange in an orderly manner. That's all the word means. Submission means that God has arranged things in an orderly manner. Submission does not mean subservient. Submission means that God has an order to things in order to bring about the best opportunity for his harmony and unity in whatever situation. And in this case, in a marriage. And so he says, I have a structure. I have an order of how things should function so that there might be the most harmony and unity. And Jesus is the head of the marriage. And then the Lord appoints a husband as the head of the home, because any two headed thing is a monster, that lady gets it. Any two headed thing is a monster. So God says, in order for there to be unity and harmony, there's going to be a head that's the lordship of Jesus. And then there's going to be a leader that's the husband. And so wives are asked to submit and to respect, but it doesn't mean to be subservient to wherever you do not have harmony and unity, you will have the opposite. You will have disharmony, you will have disunity, you will have division, you will have anarchy, you will have discord, you will have strife. And so God wants us to minimize all of that and to come under this order and structure that he has put in place. Now keep that in mind for just a minute, because now it's time for the husbands. In verse 25. In verse 25, he says, Husbands, love your wives. Just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for her, that he might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the Word, and that he might present her to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife, loves himself, for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church. For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. And then notice verse 31, he's going to quote from Genesis. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the Church. Nevertheless, let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself. And let the wife see that she respects her husband. All right, your attention. Allow me to point out something obvious, but I think it's worth mentioning that what I just read there about husbands, there are nine verses for the husbands and only three verses for the wives. Yeah, the ladies are clapping. Yeah, man, look, we have three times the work to do in this marriage. And, and how can husbands love their wives as Christ loves the church? You talk about a high bar. How. How does a. How is a husband supposed to love his wife? To like Christ loves us? Well, we can at least try to think about and set as a goal the example of Christ. How does he love you? In what ways has Christ demonstrated his love for you? Well, I can think of a few words. Unconditionally. I didn't have to do anything to earn his love. I didn't have to perform in some way for God to love me. I didn't have to act a certain way, behave a certain way. He just loves me. Now, of course, God never loves my sin. That's why he died for me. But there's no condition upon me. In order to be loved by God, we need to love our wives unconditionally. Of course, another word that comes to my mind is sacrificially. That's how Jesus loves us. Sacrificially. Sacrificed his life for us. And of course, we can mean that in various ways, how men should be sacrificial in the family and for his wife. But you know, supremely, Jesus gave his life for the church. Every man worth his salt should be ready to die for his wife. Should put his own life on the line for her safety and her protection. Unconditional love. Sacrificial love. Faithful love. Jesus loves us completely, faithfully and loyally to us. A husband's love should be faithful toward his wife. There are many words that could describe it. One other thing that comes to mind that the Lord just put on my heart a few years ago was the idea of how Jesus expressed his love for the church by leaving the glory of heaven and coming to earth, divesting himself of his glory, laying down his life for the sake of the church that he loves. And it speaks to me about how God entered our world. And I think one way we can show love to our wives is to enter her world is to notice the things that she likes, notice the things that she loves, notice the places she likes to go and enter her world. Now, guys, I know this will mean from time to time an extra rom com chick flick. I know. Or you might be making trips to Hobby Lobby while you sit in the car. It's okay. She might throw you a bone and say, let's go over to Home Depot while we're here, all right? You might end up going into stores that you hope none of your buddies see you in. You might have to climb over A sea of pillows to get into bed. But it's about learning what she likes, learning where she likes to go, the things that make her smile and enter her world from time to time. First Peter 3:7. I like the King James version of 1 Peter 3:7. It says, Dwell with your wives according to knowledge, giving honor unto your wife. Dwell with your wife according to knowledge. Like, we have to know our wives. It doesn't matter how another wife is with her husband in terms of her desires or her interests. It only matters about your wife. So don't compare her. Know her. And guys, in order to know your wife, you need Jesus. Oh, you do? You need divine revelation, ladies. You're hard to figure out. We need divine revelation from above to know you. Amen. Look, ladies, have some grace for us. Because when God put Adam in a deep sleep and extracted DNA from him and fashioned woman, the part that God took out was any understanding of women whatsoever. And it was just extracted and given all to her. So all you ladies know each other, like how you work. You can finish each other's sentences. We don't understand. And as soon as we think we figured it out, you change it up on us and then we're back to square one. So we need the revelation of Jesus. But look, putting this together, what he says about wives, what he says about husbands, God is saying, I have a structure in the home to bring about the best harmony and unity. And here's the structure in the summary. You ready for this? Here it is. Jesus is Lord of the marriage. And he calls a husband to lead with love for his wife. And he calls a wife to submit with respect for her husband. And they both do this as unto the Lord. Okay, I'm going to say it again, putting all this together. The idea is Jesus is Lord of the marriage. And he calls a husband to lead with love for his wife. And he calls a wife to submit with respect for her husband. And they both do this as unto the Lord. But God has put this structure in place for a reason. Every marriage should do their best as husband and wife to mutually and prayerfully agree on things, especially the big things. But where there is an impasse, God has put in a tiebreaker. And the tiebreaker is the man has to lead. And there are passive men, and on the other side of the spectrum, there are harsh men. And we need to find that sweet spot to be most like Jesus, to lead with love, but to not shirk our responsibility. Because that's on us, guys. But it also means, ladies to be praying for your husbands, because with responsibility comes accountability. And every husband is going to have to give an account before the Lord about how he led his wife and led his family. And so therefore, we need your prayers because it isn't easy always. It's sometimes difficult. And we, like you, can lapse into our own fleshly instincts and not look very much like Jesus. That's why we need to be praying for one another and honoring the Lord as the head of the marriage. The Lord moves on now through the pen of Paul to talk about children and parents. If you look into chapter six, verse one, he addresses children. Obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Obey them. This is a different word. He doesn't tell wives to obey. He says wives submit. But he changes the word here. This word for obey is hupakuo. Hupakua was from hupo, meaning under, and akuo, meaning to listen like, pay attention and heed and do what they say. He goes on there. In verse two, he quotes from the Ten Commandments, honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment, with promise that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth. And you fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord. And so he says to children, you need to obey and honor your parents. Obey and honor them. Listen to them, do what they say. And it is one of the Ten Commandments. It's commandment number five, and it's the only one that ends with this promise that it may be well with you and that you may live long on the earth. Now, I personally understand that. Why does he say, if you honor your parents, you're going to live long on the earth? Because I grew up in a home where if you dishonored your parents, you wouldn't live till see Thursday. Like, when I grew up, like, there wasn't any of this timeout stuff, and we didn't raise our kids that way either. Time out. That's a very modern thing. Timeout. We didn't have time out when I was growing up. We had time to confess, time to get a whooping, time to run for your life. But you didn't have time out. Time out? What is that? Like, sit over here. Tommy, Tommy, we're going to negotiate a little bit and try to figure out what went wrong there. What's the root of your hostility? Now, you just think about it over there in the corner. Don't be beating mom with a baseball bat anymore. Just think about why you're acting the way you are, then when you come back, I'll give you a snack. Like, why the negotiation? Look, you know, nobody's advocating be harsh with your kids. In fact, parents are warned here. Dads are warned not to exasperate your kids. But let me tell you something. When we don't teach our children when they are young how to obey and respect their parents, we are robbing them not only of the promise of God, but we are robbing them of the understanding of how to be respectful to authority when they get out of our homes. There's a lot of people in this generation that have grown up without any respect for authority. You know why? Because they didn't learn it in the homes. They didn't get the godly influence of what does it mean to be honoring your parents? What does it mean to be obeying your mom and dad? You can tell the difference between kids that have been raised with that understanding and kids who have not. And it is a stain on modern parenting. And we need to instill this in our children if we love them, to help them understand what does it mean to obey and to honor. But fathers, as I said, are warned here not to exasperate or provoke your children to anger or to wrath. And notice that the responsibility is placed on the backs of fathers. Now, obviously, if there's not a father in the home or if there's a passive dad or there's a dad who's not a believer, moms might have to step it up, obviously, and be both. But the main responsibility is on fathers. And he says here, do not exasperate. Don't drive them to anger. Don't like, be careful. In the process of disciplining kids, we have to always shower it with grace and love so that our children know our hearts are for them. We love them. We want to always do our best to model for them. Our Heavenly Father, the way he loves us, the way he forgives us, the way he's gracious to us. And so we are told here, don't exasperate them. Don't drive them to anger and frustration. But the other responsibility that dads have in particular is to be the spiritual leader and to train them, he says, and instruct them in the things of the Lord. That isn't to say that moms don't have a role in helping to do that. My wife has had a tremendous influence on our children growing up about the ways of the Lord in Scripture that she would read with them. But the point is that dads have that responsibility to make sure that they either lead it or it happens. And together, moms and dads in the homes can help instill these godly things in their children so that one day when they fly the nest, hopefully you've done all you can do and you entrust them to the Lord. Sometimes parents can do the very best and their kids still go off the rails. And sometimes parents don't do the very best and God picks up the slack and kids turn out great. It's all his grace. But we have to do our best and trust the Lord with the rest. The last category here is I've got to hasten through this because we're already out of time. But he talks about the workplace. And again in verse 5 here of chapter 6, he starts out talking about bondservants. So let me just explain this a minute. This word bondservants is the Greek word doulos. And don't think of slavery like the stain on American history. This is bondservants. In the Greco Roman culture, a bondservant was an indentured servant. It was a voluntary position and you were often paid for it, unless you were serving as a bondservant to pay off a debt and then it was credited to your account. But Paul even said about himself that he was a bond servant of Christ, using the same word doulos in Romans 1:1 and in Galatians 1:10. It's the idea of willingly surrendering to the authority. In Paul's case, the authority of Jesus Christ. A bondservant is submitting to the authority of an employer. But the language here is the culture of the day. And so bondservant or employee, he says here in verse five, be obedient to those who are your masters or employers, according to the flesh, with fear and trembling and sincerity of heart, as to Christ, not with eye service. I'll explain that as men pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart with goodwill, doing service as to the Lord, not to men, knowing that whatever good anyone does, he will receive the same from the Lord, whether he is a slave or free. And you masters or employers do the same things to them. Giving up, threatening, knowing that your own master Jesus also is in heaven and. And there is no partiality with him. So a couple of things here. First, he talks about employees, and he basically says, I want you to respect and obey your employers as you would Christ. Look, if you're in a workplace, a work situation where you know you're in a. In a bad spot. And you want to be disagreeable and cantankerous, like it's better if you just leave the company and get a job somewhere else. If it's that hard to work for that particular employer, get a job somewhere else rather than sowing seeds of discord and division. Because we are called to respect and obey our employers. And if you don't feel like you can do that, then you should be working somewhere else. The other thing he says here is don't do it. Don't work well and have a good work ethic just to be seen. That's what he means about not with eye service. Don't. Don't do your job just to be noticed. Do it even when they aren't looking, because you're doing it as unto the Lord, which is the last thing he says to employees. Work is unto the Lord and he will reward you. I truly believe this. I think that Christians should have the best work ethic of anyone else in the workforce. That people should know that we're believers because we have a different work ethic, a higher standard that we hold ourselves accountable to because we want to please the Lord. So we're not just always watching the clock. We want to do what is right because we want to honor the Lord. We want to go the extra mile, we want to honor our employer. We want to honor our co workers because we're doing this as unto the Lord. But then he also has a word for employers where he says, treat them, treat the employees in the same way. In other words, give them the same respect that you expect. It goes both ways. And he says there, do not threaten them. In other words, don't mistreat them or take advantage of them. Because he adds, God is both your master and theirs. In other words, what he's saying is God doesn't show partiality, he doesn't show favoritism. And so if God doesn't treat you unfairly, you shouldn't be treating your employees unfairly. You want the same grace that you get from the Lord yourself, so give the same to them. So these are very practical but important instructions for us. And let me just add one final caveat to all of this, okay? And then we'll close because this might be a question that some of you have where it talks about. For example, it mentioned about how wives need to honor their husbands in everything. Does everything mean everything? When children obey their parents, does it mean every single thing a parent says? So here's an important little caveat I have to say here at the end, the reason why Paul, by inspiration of the Spirit, infuses those similar phrases throughout all of this instruction. Phrases like as to the Lord in the Lord for the Lord. Okay, he's saying that for two reasons. The one we already talked about because we have to understand what it means to be in submission to the Lord before we can submit to one another in the fear of the Lord. But the other reason he says it is because he wants us to know our priority in all of these interpersonal relationships is in honoring the Lord. And God would never ask us to do anything that dishonors Him. Okay? And therefore. Therefore, if you are ever asked in any of these structures that are godly structures, but if you are ever asked to do anything ungodly that would dishonor him, you do not need to comply, because our first priority is in honoring the Lord. But as I say this, let me hasten to add, you better have a strong biblical basis for that. And it cannot be whimsical. I have heard too many people who get out from structures like these that God has put in place so that we might have the most harmony and unity. I've heard people say things like, well, I've prayed about it, and the Lord told me differently. I have a word from the Lord. Okay, you have a word from the Lord. Do you have a verse from the Lord? Because you better have a verse from the Lord. You better know why you're getting out from this structure with a biblical passage. Otherwise that's a whimsical, fleshly thing to say. Well, I prayed about. Lord told me differently. Or, you know, I just don't have a peace about it. Oh, you don't have a peace about it. Okay, that. That's not reason to get out from the structure and the order that God has put in place here. Because here's the bottom line, everybody. When we honor the Lord by honoring him, we're honoring one another. So that's what it's about. It's about honor. And God wants to be honored so he doesn't expect us to do something dishonoring to Him. But we better know our Bibles enough to know when to say no and when to comply. Because we want to honor the Lord supremely in all things. Amen. Amen and amen. Lord, help us in these areas, Lord, as we find ourselves, whether husbands, wives, children, parents, employees, or employers, we want to honor your. We want to follow what your word says. It's not always easy, but we know that when we obey you, that Our lives are blessed. And so, Father, we pray for your help. I ask, Lord, for your help for every marriage represented here. It can be difficult, Lord, and there are probably some marriages right now that are hanging on by a thread. And I pray, God, that you would move in a miraculous way to bring that couple together by your grace. And that you would help us as husbands and wives to walk in the ways of the Lord. So we would be our best at what you call us to. I pray for families. Maybe there's a splintered family right now. There's a prodigal child who's not even in the home. Lord, would you bring that child back home? And would you help the parents and the children to come together in the ways of the Lord in a way that honors one another? Let there be forgiveness and grace. I pray for every employee and employer here that you would help us in our various roles to honor you and to honor one another. And in all this, Lord, we pray that you would be most glorified. So we submit this to you and ask, Lord, that you would help us to submit to one another in the fear of the Lord. In Jesus name we pray. And everybody said amen and amen. God bless everybody.