So think about it this way with me if you will for just a moment. Husbands, look at me very quickly. I really want you to picture this in your mind. You drive, husbands, whether you think you do or not, you do. You are driving the spiritual vehicle of your family. The question is this, Where are you going? Where are you going? Here’s another question I could ask you. Husband, if your wife, for an entire week, thought exactly what you think, looked at exactly what you looked at, said exactly what you say and did everything that you do, would they be more holy on Sunday morning? You are driving the car.
This morning I have a proposition for all of the men in the house. If you are man here would you say, I am a man. Got a little challenge for you. Look at me, with your eyeballs. Some of you felt like you had to convince somebody, but anyway. Here’s what I want to ask all of you husbands to do. I’m going to give this to you in the invitation in a moment. Jack’s going to be standing on this side. I’m going to be standing on this side. All of the husbands who want to accept the husbands challenge, Man vs. Wild. I’m going to invite you to come forward and take this little challenge out of my hand. Next week we will have one for the wife’s. This week it’s your turn husbands.
Husbands, here’s what I’m going to ask you to do this week. First I want you to list five ways Jesus displays love to you. Just list some out. Number two, I want you to read Ephesians 5:25. Then I want you to choose two ways from your list in number one to serve your wife this week.
Have you ever been riding on the highway and get behind the big rig and they are driving kind of like a maniac? You ever seen this? Then on the back of the car is says what? How’s my driving? That’s what you’re going to ask you wife this week. On a scale of one to 10, 10 being greatest, husband you are to answer the question, how is your spiritual driving? Following your answer and I want you to take a moment and sit down with your wife and ask her, how is my driving. Listen to her and seek to be the spiritual leader that your family needs you to be and God calls you to be.
Now look at me for just a second. The last one is going to be tough because some of you have never had a spiritual conversation with your wife before. Your thinking there is no way I’m doing this. I’m telling you, I’m challenging you. Believe it or not your wife wants you to. Your wife longs for your leadership. If you’ll step up, God will bless it and he’ll use it. Here’s what I want to say men. Your wife may say something to you that may hurt your feelings because you’re not being a good spiritual leader. Get over it, real fast. Then fix it. Does this make sense? Very easy. We are going to be men, we must be warriors, we must be investing in our relationship with Jesus and our wife. We must be lovers. Loving with our words. Loving with our actions. Then we must be drivers. We’ve got to lead our wife’s to know the Lord and to serve the Lord.
Now look at me. Some of you men here, some of you woman here, it would be absolutely impossible for you to be any kind of a spiritual leader. Look at me. Let me tell you why. Because the scripture says first, before you can be a spiritual leader, you’ve got to know Christ. You’ve got to know him. Here’s what I want to say, some of you men here, some of you ladies who are here, you have never genuinely placed your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Here’s what I want to ask you to do. I want you to listen to me very quickly. God created you to have a relationship with you but the bible is very plain that sin has destroyed the relationship. So because of your sin the bible says you deserve to be separated from God forever. Look at me, eyeball to eyeball, everybody. You should be separated from God for all eternity. For the wages of sin is death.
However, God says, I still love you and I still want to have a relationship with you. So instead of me, God speaking, pouring out my wrath on you because of your sin, I am going to send Christ, my son and he will go to a cross. And God says, and then I will pour out my wrath on Christ in your place. Jesus is your substitute. You deserve to die but Christ died for you. The bible says, he was buried, got up from the grave and now according to the scripture in order for you to become a spiritual leader you’ve got to first know Christ.
How do you do it? Be a good person? No! Go to church? No! Get baptized? No! Go to Sunday school? No! Listen to the preacher? No! How do you get saved? You’ve got to go to Christ and say forgive me of my sin. I want to walk with you. It is by grace that you are saved not by your own works, less any man should brag. You need Christ.
Some of you men and some of you women need to respond to that message today. So here’s the invitation, it’s twofold. Some of you today whenever we stand to our feet, you need to come forward and say, Levi, I need to give my heart to Jesus Christ today. We want to help you with that. We’ve got some guys who will be prepared to talk with you and encourage you.
But then secondly some of you women, some of you need to come forward today; you need to give your heart to Jesus Christ. We’ve also got some people who want to help you.
But husbands, I’m inviting you to accept the challenge this morning that we put before you. Jack will be standing here with a stack of cards in his hand. He’ll put it in your hand and you’ll simply take and you’ll go right back to your seat. Then put it into practice this week. So that’s our invitation.
Let’s have our heads bowed, our eyes closed. If you need to know Christ this morning. Say Levi, right there at the end, you were talking straight to me. Here’s what I want to say to you. If that’s how you felt, God was calling you to himself. And I even noticed that while I was speaking and sharing how you could know Christ some of you got real busy in your seat. Just because you’re real busy in your seat doesn’t mean the message is still not true. You still need to respond. Some of you have put Christ off too long. So today you can to give your heart to him. Here’s what I want you to do, if you say Levi I want to give my life to Christ. Some of you husbands, maybe your visiting, maybe you’re here, you’ve never given your heart to Christ but your saying, Levi, what you talked about today, that’s what I want to be. I want to say, you can’t be what I’ve talked about today without Christ. So what you need to do today is pray to receive him. Some of you ladies, some of you teenagers, some of you husbands, maybe just need to pray this prayer in your heart as I pray it out loud. Just something like this. Not a special prayer but if you mean it in your heart the bible teaches that you’ll be saved. You can pray this. Just say dear Lord, I know I’m a sinner. I know I need to be saved. I am not good enough to come into your presence. So I humble myself before you. And I ask you to forgive me. I am turning today from my old lifestyle of sin and I am placing my trust in you. Thank you for dieing for me on a cross. Thank you for getting up from the grave. Now be Lord in my life.
