God's Beautiful Design for Women: Living Out Titus 2:1-5Make Your Husband a Priority

Leslie Basham: Nancy Leigh DeMoss says that in the fast pace of life, wives need to check their priorities.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: First you’re a wife, and then you’re a mother. I’ve seen wives put their children above their husbands, just in terms of their priorities, and end up with children out of the nest and no marriage.

Leslie: This is Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss. It’s Monday, October 20.

God has a beautiful design for women. That’s clear from the second chapter of Titus—a passage we’ve been studying for several weeks. If you missed any of it, you can catch up at ReviveOurHeartsRadio.com.

Today we’ll see what the Bible says about priorities. Who’s more important: your child or your husband?

Nancy: How many of you have seen Fiddler on the Roof? Most in this room. If you’re not familiar with it, it’s a musical that is set in Tzarist Russia in 1905.

Tevye and Golde, the married couple in the story, struggle to adjust to changing times as their three oldest daughters resist the traditional idea of arranged marriages. Instead, they go for this very modern notion that you meet and fall in love with a young man, and then you marry him. That’s a very hard thing for this 1905 couple, the parents, to get.

When their second daughter gets engaged, Tevye comes home and tells his wife,

Tevye: Golde, I’ve decided to give Perchik permission to become engaged to our daughter Hodel.

Golde: What? He’s poor. He has nothing, absolutely nothing.

Tevye: He’s a good man, Golde. I like him, and what’s more important, Hodel likes him. Hodel loves him. So, what can we do? It’s a new world. Love. Golde, do you love me?

Golde: Do I what?

Tevye: Do you love me?”

Golde: Do I love you? For 25 years I’ve washed your clothes, cooked your meals, cleaned your house, given you children, milked the cow. After 25 years, why talk about love right now? [This is all in one of the most familiar songs in that musical.]

Tevye: Golde, the first time I met you was on our wedding day. [You can imagine that’s the way it was in many of those marriages.] I was scared, but my father and my mother said we’d learn to love each other, and now I’m asking, Golde, do you love me?

Golde: I’m your wife!

Tevye: I know, but do you love me?

Golde: Do I love him? For 25 years I’ve lived with him, fought him, starved with him. For 25 years my bed is his. If that’s not love, what is?

Now, they go on to decide they really do love each other, though they probably hadn’t used those terms before. I thought about that song as I was reflecting on this passage in Titus chapter 2, where we’re told that older women “are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children (verses 3-4).

Before I move on here, I want Mary Anne to tell us something she told me a few minutes ago.

Mary Anne: When I first read this Scripture in my early Bible study years, I was appalled. I didn’t understand why anyone had to be taught to love their husband and children. I thought everyone did—until I was tested.

Then I realized I needed to learn from other women how to forgive, how to reconcile, and how to show love and mercy as I had received love and mercy from the Lord. But it was a big question. Why would anyone need to be taught how to love their husbands? Then I found out that men need respect and affirmation and praise more than they need sex, and that was a big surprise.

Men are told to love us, but we’re told to reverence our husbands. Men are not being reverenced, which has led to an emasculation of men. I wish young women knew how to reverence and adore their husbands, to protect their reputations, and to affirm them in public. Men just blossom when you do that.

It’s a hard thing for a woman to give praise when sometimes they wish their husbands would take out the garbage without being told, or they wish they’d do something else, or they feel that their expectations are not being met. Then I started studying about expectations—and only Jesus meets our expectations.

Nancy: Good word. Thank you, Mary Anne.

Older women are “to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children.” Now, loving husbands and loving children—those are actually just two words in the Greek language. The first word is philandros. It means a “husband-lover.” The second word is philoteknos, which means a “child-lover.” It’s just a single compound word in each case—one who loves children and one who loves a husband.

This is the only place these words are used in the New Testament, but sometimes we find these words written on the tombs of women of this era. Philandros—she loved her husband; she was a husband-lover. She was fond of her husband. Philoteknos—loving her children. That’s what was said of a woman in many cases after she died—she loved her husband; she loved her children.

This kind of love should be natural, but sin kills love in marriages. That’s why this kind of love has to be learned.

I’ll start out by saying I have never been a wife or a mother. As I’ve studied and prepared for these sessions, I have honestly felt a bit ill-equipped to teach on women loving husbands and loving children. I’m not exactly what you’d call an expert on either of those subjects. I’ve been a little hesitant to teach this passage because I realize that it’s one thing to be able to teach on this kind of subject, but it’s quite another to live it out, as many of you are doing in the context of everyday life.

But where the Scripture speaks, we need to be able to teach the whole counsel of God, and this is where the text takes us. So I realized that God would give me, by His Spirit, wisdom and grace to teach the text in a way that I hope will be profitable for your heart as a wife and mother.

Over the years, I’ve listened to hundreds, maybe thousands, of women. I’ve watched them. I’ve asked them questions, and I’ve seen some wonderful marriages—no easy ones, but some wonderful ones that reflect the love of God in amazing ways.

I’ve seen other marriages that are just the opposite—barely existing, characterized by hurt, bitterness and anger. I’ve seen a lot of marriages end in divorce, and then I’ve seen that probably the biggest category are a lot of marriages in the Christian world that have settled for mediocrity. They’re not getting divorced, but they’re not really experiencing what God intended for them in their marriage relationship.

The first thing that older women are to teach younger women, according to this passage, is to love their husbands. If you are a married woman, this is the number-one way that you demonstrate your commitment to sound doctrine. You can’t say you have sound doctrine if you despise or disregard your husband. Loving your husband flows out of the gospel, and this kind of love also flows out of a promise, a vow, a covenant.

Remember back to that day when you stood with your husband at an altar, and you made some vows before God? What did you say? Maybe it was something like this:

I take you to be my husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish from this day forward until death do us part.

Remember saying something like that? Those weren’t just words. This was a covenant. This was a vow. This was a promise.

It’s amazing to me how you can have these young couples who are dating or newly married and are madly in love with each other. And then years later you get with this same couple, and they’re grating on each other, or annoyed with each other, or there’s bitterness and hatred and deep hurt, and they can’t stand to be around each other.

And you say, “What happened?” Well, those young women needed to be trained how to love their husbands—not just when they were in the dating or courting or honeymoon stage, but in the warp and woof of everyday, real life post-marriage.

So what does it mean to love your husband? The word, as we said, is philandros, or husband-lover. It comes from two Greek words: philos, which means "friend or companion," loving as a friend, with a brotherly sort of love; and then aner, the word for "husband." So this describes a woman who is a friend to her husband. She’s fond of her husband; she’s devoted to her husband.

What is being described here is not primarily romantic or sexual love—though that is certainly addressed elsewhere in Scripture, an important part of marriage. This has to do with a wife treating her husband with affection, being fond of him, being attached to him.

By the way, when we say she’s fond of her husband, this suggests that it’s an exclusive kind of love. By implication, she is not fond of other men in the same way that she is of her husband. Your husband is to be the object of your affection in a way that is distinct and exclusive and different from the way that you are fond of any other man. This kind of love means more than just fulfilling your duties toward your husband. It means enjoying him. It means being his friend, taking pleasure in him.

I’ve met many wives who are extremely responsible women, and their behavior cannot be faulted. They serve their husbands faithfully. They do the things they’re supposed to do as wives and mothers. But in many cases, as I look at these women, I think, “Do you really enjoy your husband? I know you did when you were dating. I know you did when you were newlyweds, but now that you’ve been married 35 years, are you still enjoying him? Are you showing affection?”

Having already given the disclaimer that I have never been married, I just want to give, out of the observations I’ve made from talking and listening to married women, a few simple, practical suggestions in this session and the next one. I’m probably not going to say anything you don’t already know, but maybe there are some reminders here that will be helpful to you in relation to your marriage.

First of all, if you are a wife and a mother, next to your relationship with the Lord, your most important relationships are those with your husband and your children. But notice which comes first in verse 4. Love husbands or love children first—which is it? Love husbands. Loving your husband precedes loving your children.

I don’t mean to state the obvious, but your relationship with your husband comes before your relationship with your children. You need to elevate your relationship with your husband over your relationship with your children, and when you’ve got a lot of young children, that’s not an easy thing to do. It takes being intentional and focused. But first you’re a wife, and then you’re a mother.

I’ve seen wives put their children above their husbands, in terms of their priorities, and end up with children out of the nest and no marriage. You’ve got to cultivate and focus on and prioritize your marriage.

It means putting your husband not only before your children, but before other priorities—work, friends, hobbies. If I could just suggest, insofar as it’s possible, when your husband is at home, be available. I know women who love to talk on the phone and have friendships they cultivate on the phone, but when their husband comes home, they’re off the phone. They’re available for their husband.

Now, that doesn’t mean that every waking moment you need to be at his side, but he needs to know that when he’s there, you are available for friendship, for talking, for enjoyment.

I was out to lunch, Vivian, with you and your sisters and your mother a few weeks ago—this is a friend of mine and her three adult daughters. All four of you were headed in different directions after lunch. Some of you were going out of town, and cell phones were ringing like crazy. Between all of you, you have—I don’t know how many children, but a lot of them—19 kids.

Kids were calling, husbands were calling while we were sitting around having lunch, and your sister told me, “Something important we learned from our mother was that if your husband calls, you always take the call.”

I thought, “Now, that’s a practical word of wisdom from an older woman who has trained these younger moms. If it’s your husband on the cell phone, take the call. If it’s somebody else, you can say, ‘They can wait,’ or ‘I’ll call them back.’ But if you’re talking to me, and your husband calls, you hang up with me and go take the call from your husband.”

It’s just a way of saying that your world and your schedule need to revolve around him. Don’t expect his world to revolve around you. You were made to be his helper.

Now, I’m going to say some things that are one-sided here because God didn’t call me to teach men or speak to men about their responsibilities as husbands. If you only heard this part, you could think this is imbalanced. That’s where men need to go to the Word of God and let the Lord instruct them as to how to love their wives. But I think it’s important for women to realize that their calling is to let their world revolve around blessing and ministering to and enjoying and serving and partnering with their husband.

That means that you need time with your husband without the children. It doesn’t have to be hours every day—it probably won’t be hours every day. But there need to be some activities that you and your husband have where it is you and him without the children, so you can cultivate friendship and companionship—do things together, have fun together.

Are you still doing that as a couple? No matter how long you’ve been married, you’ve got to be intentional about cultivating your relationship, and the best marriages do that. These wives look for fresh and creative ways to love their man, to enjoy him and to be his friend.

You might want to think back to what you did to cultivate your relationship in the early days. You dated each other. You took time for things like that. The simple acts of thoughtfulness and kindness can go a long way. They did when you were younger, they will today as well.

Back in those days when you were dating or courting, if he called at the last minute and said, “Can we go out to dinner tonight?” you probably didn’t say, “Oh, do we have to? I am so tired.” What did you say? “I would love to!” You dropped whatever you were doing, and you changed and freshened up in world-record time. You were eager to get time with him.

If he bought something for you, you didn’t say, “You know we can’t afford that,” or “I’ve already got two of those.” You were delighted. You thanked him for his thoughtfulness.

If he dropped his coat on a chair when he came in your house, you didn’t huff and puff about him needing to grow up and be more responsible with his belongings. Am I right? You were glad to hang it up for him. So why do you make a big deal about it now?

Now, I realize I’m going to get a few letters on that one. Marriage requires a different level of responsibility on the part of both husband and wife than when you were dating, but as a wife, you may need to go back to some of the attitudes you had when you were dating.

Be a student of your husband. Cultivate and show an interest in the things that interest him. Cheryl was telling me not too long ago how she took up golf so she could get time with her husband. He wanted her to learn to golf so they could golf together.

Now, to me, that is really true love—to take up golf in order to show love to your husband. But she was a student of her husband. He enjoyed golf, and she said, “I want to enjoy that with him.” Cheryl, you’ve gotten to really enjoy golf, haven’t you? You’ve gotten pretty good at it, and you probably enjoy it more than he does now. But that was because you wanted to be interested in the things that were of interest to him.

Invest in him. Invest in the relationship. I’ve seen this over and over and over again: “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21). The problem is that you start to take your mate for granted, and then you expect him to take care of you and please you. You stop being kind, thoughtful, and courteous, and then you find there are barriers and coldness in the relationship.

Then you meet someone at work, and he shows an interest in you, and you respond. It’s something you haven’t done to your husband in a while. You start to invest time, interest, conversation, and a listening ear. You’re showing an interest in what interests that man at work, and before you know it, you’re “in love.” You're feeling things that you’ve not felt for your husband for a very long time.

What happened? You’ve been tending the soil of this new friendship and investing in it. Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

So what do I want to say here? Do the same thing in your marriage. Invest in that relationship—not in the guy at work, not in the guy on the Internet—invest in your husband, and you will find that that love will grow.

Ladies, what we’re talking about here, about loving your husbands, is not just some romantic notion. It’s also not an option. I don’t see any exceptions here. It doesn’t say depending on what kind of husband he is, or whether he’s responsible or caring or faithful—and by the way, the same thing could be said for husbands about loving their wives, but remember, I didn’t come to preach to the men.

No exceptions—and if you don’t love him, you can learn to love him. In fact, you must learn to love him. Remember, this kind of love is not primarily an emotion, though emotions will be involved. It’s a love you can fuel, you can cultivate, you can develop. As you start to choose to do loving actions toward him, you’ll find that your heart will follow.

Expect your love to be tested. If your husband were always loveable, there would be no reason for Scripture to exhort you to learn to love your husband. Am I right? So it assumes here that there are times when he’s not loveable, and there are things about him that are not loveable. So expect the love to be tested. That’s when you go to Christ and say, “Lord, I can’t love this man, but You can through me.” That’s when you apply to God for His grace and His power to love that husband.

Let me ask you a few questions, just to try and make this personal. For those of you who are married:

• Is your relationship with your husband the highest, most important priority and relationship in your life, next to your relationship with the Lord? How do you do on the priority thing?
• Does your husband know that you are committed to be faithful to him no matter what—that you will never divorce him? That’s part of a commitment to love.
• Do you put your husband’s needs and desires ahead of your own?
• Are you willing to adjust your schedule to meet his needs and desires, or do you expect him to drop his things and adjust his schedule? Now, I’m not saying he should never do that, and if he loves you, he will. But your expectation cannot be for him to do that. There needs to be the willingness for you to work around his schedule.
• Do you have common interests and friends, or are they all independent—you have your friends, and he has his friends; you have your hobbies and interests, and he has his? If that’s the case, then a little warning light should go off in your head. That doesn’t mean you should never have different interests or friends. But you want to make sure that you have interests and friends that you share in common—something, by the way, that I think my parents did incredibly well. They shared together their interests and their friends.
• Do you look for meaningful ways to bless and to please your husband?
• What have you done in the last week to cultivate love and friendship in your marriage, and what can you do today?

Leslie: Nancy Leigh DeMoss will return to pray for the marriages represented by our listeners today, listeners like the one who wrote from Ohio not long ago. She said,

You have helped me prioritize my role in this world to be my husband’s helper through God’s Word. Through Revive Our Hearts and His Word, you’ve encouraged me to make my home an invitation of comfort to my family.

Whether or not you were with us in Chicago, I hope you’ll get your copy of the True Woman ’08 Conference Audio Set. Look for it at ReviveOurHearts.com.

Well, if your teenagers were to talk to you the way you talk to your husband, would they ever be punished for disrespect? We’ll take a look at that tomorrow. Now, let’s pray with Nancy.

Nancy: Lord, as I look into the eyes of these women and think about those who are listening by means of the radio or internet, I know that there are a lot of wives who are really wanting to obey Your Word and to love their husbands in ways that are pleasing to You.

I pray for tailor-made grace, wisdom, creativity and desire. I pray that You would instill fresh desire, hope, friendship, companionship and fondness in many, many marriages represented by these women. O Lord, may the marriages of Your people reflect the wonder and the beauty of Your love for us and Christ’s love for His church. Thank You, Lord, for that awesome love and for the privilege to love others as You have loved us. I pray in Jesus’ name, amen.

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss is an outreach of Life Action Ministries.

All Scripture is taken from the English Standard Version.