Love & Respect - His Needs 1 of 2

Good morning and welcome to Lesson 7 in our “Love and Respect” series. Today is the first of two lessons on the subject of “His Needs”, and this follows the two lessons on the topic of “Her Needs” which were so well covered by Cheryl and Sandy. I think it needs to be said up front today that the ladies are going to be challenged by what gets said this morning. We are in chapters 16, 17 and 18 of our book, which discuss the difficult subjects of Conquest, Hierarchy and Authority, and are called “needs of men”. I am reasonably sure that our discussion today will provoke some lively reactions.

I want to start with a simple question. Do you believe God? What does this mean to you? This is a serious issue! As a teacher I am charged with pointing everyone here toward God. This is the first question that God has laid on my heart and mind for today. I want to re-ask it, do you believe God?

· Is He always right?
· Is He right if our culture agrees with Him?
· Is He right if I agree with Him?

What if you don’t agree with Him? If He says you need to quit your job, will you? If He says, “go feed the homeless” will you? If He says, “stay with your nagging wife, will you?” If He says, “stay with your deadbeat husband, will you”? How do you want to answer that question? (Discuss)

I know that this question can be a little confrontative when asked, and that is because it causes us to look at who we really are and what we really believe. I want to take a look at a familiar Scripture, Lk 9:23-26.

And He was saying to them all, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it. For what is a man profited if he gains the whole world, and loses or forfeits himself? For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when He comes in His glory, and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. NASU

By now some of us are probably asking, “What has this got to do with men’s needs? I’m glad you asked! What is at stake here is our spiritual life, our spiritual growth and our spiritual health. Although we are going to look at what the author calls “men’s needs”, what we are actually going to be studying is “God’s design of men”. What is the difference, and why is it important to us?

What is a “need”, Webster’s says this:

· A lack of something necessary or desirable.

What is implied here is that there is some kind of deficiency present. Well, is that actually true for the six characteristics we are covering? If we really stretch our minds we could say yes, but no is a better answer, and this is why. All the characteristics are part of every man; they are designed in! It is not a deficiency issue it is an exercise issue. By this I mean, does he get to use, or exercise, all his designer parts.

This brings us back to the original question. Do you believe God? Someone who does not will reject all of part of these next two lessons. The choice we all face today is to decide to accept that God is right, or not. Is this clear to everybody, because I don’t want to move on unless we all understand this point clearly?

Before we all get up and leave because we can’t meet this standard of complete and utter acceptance and belief in what God says, I want to let us off the hook a little. There is only one man who has ever matched the absolute standard, and who was that? Jesus! So while I’m sure that God would like us to believe Him and place our lives under His Will, He is a realist, because He really knows that we are fallen individuals. The message to us today is therefore this:

· Understand and acknowledge that God has laid out His design for a man in His word.
· Be honest in your attempts to accept what He says a man needs.
· Seek Him and His power to overcome the social and cultural barriers that have been placed in your Mind, Heart and Will over your lifetime, so that you can accept God’s design for a man

Now it is time to lighten up things, I’m going to read a short story called “Consideration” about a husband and wife relationship that demonstrates love and respect in action. (Show the golf club and read the story)

Okay it is time to look at what us men need!

Conquest

The first need covered, which is found in Chapter 16, is called “Conquest”, and when I first saw that word I thought, you are going to get all the men on your side, but lose the women! Fortunately, the author explains himself. Let us start with the scriptural basis for this “need” or as I prefer, this “designer part”. Open your Bibles to Genesis 2:15. Could someone read it please?

Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the Garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. NASU

In the chronology of Genesis was the man working in the first vegetable patch before or after the woman appeared? Before! What is the implication of this in the context of work? God designed the first man, and every man since then, to work. It was after this that God created the Woman, because as God says in verse 18, it is not good for man to be alone. Let’s read it:

Then the Lord God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him." NASU

Did God say, “I will make a companion”? How about this, didn’t God say, “I’ll give Adam a personal servant!” Maybe God said, “I know I’ll make Adam his own special robot!” No, none of these, God said, “I’ll make him a helper!” The Hebrew word for “helper” is “ezer”, and it is only ever used in the sense of personal one-on-one help in the OT. So Eve was made to be Adam’s personal special helper. Let’s look at the situation in the Garden before the serpent arrived.

· God, the creator, made and owns the garden.
· Adam, the man, works in the Garden, and is responsible for taking care of it. He is the steward or manager, serving God.
· Eve, the woman, was made for the man and is to help him.

As a confirmation of this last point let us look at 1 Cor 11:9:

For indeed man was not created for the woman's sake, but woman for the man's sake. NASU

The bottom line for our lesson is that man was made from the very beginning to work and bring home the bacon! He is hard wired to work, and get things done.

Now we come to the downside of this for a man. There are several things that a woman ought to try to remember about a man and his work. This is particularly important for wives in relating to their husbands, but can also be applied in any adult female to adult male relationship. Let us go through the list, this is the practical application of what we have been learning:

· Getting fired or laid off. This is like a death sentence for the Soul of a man. Does anybody have an example of this they are willing to share?
· Appreciation. A man wants his “work” efforts to be genuinely appreciated. Honest gratefulness is an important issue here. It doesn’t matter if it the work is a major or minor project, mowing the grass, fixing the faucet and putting out the trash are all work. When a man’s work is not appreciated, he cannot feel close.
· Making a mess of things. Not performing well at work leads to feelings of failure. Not achieving goals or getting a bad appraisal are equivalent disasters for a man.
· Communication. A lot of women would love their men to communicate more. Well, men will normally be happy to talk about their work. Even if is boring to a woman she would be very well served to become interested. If a woman shuts a man down about his work by indicating disinterest in some way, she might as well kiss communication goodbye.

Are there any comments on this list or maybe additions to it? If not we will move on to the next “need”, Hierarchy.

Hierarchy

Another cultural minefield! In our society, and popular culture, it is common to believe that the Bible says that men are to be rulers over woman, or something like that. Just look at how the SBC was derided a few years ago when it talked about women submitting to men. The problem then was that it was ignorant people doing the reporting. They failed to get all the facts and were not Bible literate. So what does the Bible say about this subject? We need to go to Ephesians 5:22-24:

Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body. But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything. NASU

I know we must have some strong opinions here this morning on this subject, so let’s hear them! We don’t really have time today to study the issue of submission. I am prepared to do a lesson on it some time in the future, if you would like that. For now I want you to notice something. In this biblical statement and instruction the same order appears as we found in the “Conquest” discussion above. That is:

· Christ is the head of the church, which means all believers.
· The husband is head of the wife, but subject to Christ.
· The wife is subject to the husband.

Again, this is God designed, and He put this hierarchical sequence in place, where the man is the head of the woman. Let’s look at this situation from the perspective of the downside to the man.

· When the woman won’t submit. Very awkward for the man, because he is hard wired to be the provider and protector. How does he provide and protect when the woman doesn’t want him to? Women who do this non-submitting thing put their spouse in a totally no win situation. God tells him to protect and provide, to take care of the woman. The woman says no way, and he cannot force her to accept his provision. If any women don’t want their husbands to provide and protect them, think again. Ephesians 5:22 tells it all! (Discuss)
· The Princess Syndrome. Some women want the man to treat them like a princess. The man is to satisfy all their needs, he is to provide and protect to the extreme. There is just one problem, every princess has a father, and he is the King. So when a woman wants to be a princess she is forcing her husband into being her “father”. I suppose the question here is “ladies do you want a husband or a father?”
· Public behavior. When women choose to not submit, it comes out in their public behavior. Ladies, it is impossible to hide any disrespect you may have toward your husband. You will slip, even if you are trying to hide it. If you slip, especially in public, when your husband is present, don’t expect him to feel loving toward you for a long time, you will have demeaned him in the worst possible way. The hurt that is generated inside him is deep and lasts a long time.
· Communication. If a woman wants to be able to have an intimate relationship with her mate, appropriate submission is a pre-requisite. Always remember that God has pre-wired him to want to take care of you, if you don’t let him, he won’t talk to you in deep ways.

I want to finish Hierarchy here, are there any questions or comments?

Authority

Yet another thorny problem. This is obviously a close issue to that of submission, which we have just discussed. But it is not the same. Let’s look at one of the most troublesome verses in the entire Bible. 1 Tim 2:12, but to get proper context let’s look at 1 Tim 2:9-14:

Likewise, I want women to adorn themselves with proper clothing, modestly and discreetly, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly garments, but rather by means of good works, as is proper for women making a claim to godliness. A woman must quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness. But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet. For it was Adam who was first created, and then Eve. And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression. NASU

If there was such a thing as an ‘American Culture” Bible, would this verse even appear? Yet, there it is, clear as day, a woman is not allowed to exercise authority over a man. Even worse than that, she is to remain quiet! What does the class have to say about that? For the record, Paul, the author of this book, was only referring to public teaching, public authority and public quietness.

This Scripture refers us back to Genesis, but this time we need to consider the third chapter. Let’s review Gen 3:16 (b):

Yet your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you." NASU

After the rebellion and deception of Eve, and then Adam, God exercising his absolute authority, initiated the consequences of this rebellion. One of these consequences is that the woman will desire her husband and he will rule over her. Notice again the hierarchy of authority, spoken in a whole different way, but having the same meaning as we have already seen this morning.

· God initiates the consequences, exercising his authority over every person.
· Adam, the man, is placed between God and the woman, due to the woman’s desire for him.
· Eve, the woman, will desire Adam, and he will rule over her.

Our Scriptures are wholly and completely consistent on this subject! As an important side note, this authority structure does not take away, reduce or otherwise change the woman’s ability to have a direct one on one relationship with God.

All this comes down to this single point. The man is designed to exercise authority over the woman; the woman is designed to be subject to that authority.

What does that really mean? (Ask for answers) It means that the man is hard wired to be responsible for the decision-making in the family. He may delegate actual decisions to his wife, but he is still responsible for them. As the book says, the man is to serve and lead the family. Let’s look at the downside of this, when this authority structure is not in place.

· Stress. God designed the man/woman unit, which we call a family, so that the man is responsible for its health. He is to carry the burden, and will be the one to answer to the Lord about fulfilling his responsibility. If the woman chooses to usurp this design, she will then take on the stress of leading and serving the unit. He is made for it, she is not! Unanticipated problems will arise. (Examples are; discipline trouble with the kids, laziness of the man and physical distress, possibly illnesses, of the woman)
· Insignificance. If the man feels emasculated by his lack of authority in the relationship he will back off. By this I mean that he may let the woman take over completely. He would prefer not to deal with the lack of respect, because it hurts so much. He might sub-consciously say, “I’ll let her have the whole thing, she thinks she knows better.” He will actually begin to disengage from the relationship. One of the extremely important things to understand here is that, if the wife does this, the man will still be searching for his personal importance. He becomes very vulnerable to another woman making him feel like he is “king of the hill”, in other words, an affair.
· Service. The man is designed to serve the family, let him! If a woman discourages or demeans what a man does to serve his wife and kids he becomes deflated. How many deflations does it take before he gives up doing things for you? You can nag him, but does that really work? Using a guilt trip to force him into serving the family works for a short time, but it builds up major resentments, and puts distance between you and him. Is that what you want?
· Communication. Ladies, not allowing the husband to take his God ordained place of leadership, will put distance between the two of you. He is unlikely to demand that you follow him, and this is because he loves you too much to coerce you. He is also designed to let you make your own choice to follow. If you choose to not allow him to lead, you will also be making the choice to cut off communication between the two of you.

This is a good time to jump in with disagreements or questions.

I want to finalize today’s very difficult study with a provocative statement.

A woman that doesn’t submit, in a scriptural sense, to her husband, can’t submit to God!

That is for all of us to think about, in the context of Ephesians 5:22.


Next week, I will be covering chapters 19, 20 and 21, for the second part of men’s needs.