The Role of a Husband (Part 5) | Adult Sunday School

We good? We're good? Welcome. Happy New Year. Am I the first person to wish you a happy New Year today?

For some at least. Good. 2023 went fast.

Man. Yeah. Just the fumes.

Just the fumes. Yeah. 2024 upon us. Wow. Amazing.

Amazing. Well, let's do this. Let's pray and then we will dive in. So our great

God and father, once again, this morning we come and we humble our hearts before you that we might receive instruction by your spirit and through his word.

Father, enable us to hear your word this morning in a, in a skillful way to put it into practice in our lives to be transformed by what we hear.

Our father at the end of the year and the time of new year's resolutions, as it were, may we resolve to follow

Christ for his glory and his alone. Amen.

All right. Well, open your Bibles back up to the fifth chapter of Ephesians, Ephesians chapter five,

Ephesians chapter five. And we return again to the text this morning for our fifth message in this series on the role of the husband.

This is number five with regard to that. Beloved, there are fundamentally two kinds of leaders in the world, fundamentally two kinds of leaders.

There are those who lead from the front and those who lead from the rear and those who lead from the front are those who say, follow me.

And those who lead from the rear are those who say, do what I tell you, do what

I tell you. And as we have demonstrated repeatedly over these past weeks, a husband is a leader.

A husband is a leader. That's an unavoidable reality of being a husband. And the question then becomes, is what kind of a leader are we?

What kind of a leader are we? And we are called in the New Testament as husbands to model

Christ, to model Christ. He is our example. He is our example.

And his entire life and ministry is characterized by that of servant leadership, servant leadership.

And that is what we are called to. We've been looking together in this series and observing what

I'm calling 14 characteristics of a husband's authority so that we might understand it, that we might appreciate it, and that we might exercise it in our marriages in a

God -honoring fashion. So we arrive this morning at the sixth of those characteristics.

So it's characteristic number six, as we begin together, and it is this, that a husband's authority is sacrificial.

The husband's authority is sacrificial. Verse 25 here in Ephesians chapter 5,

Paul writes, husbands love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her.

Now, wives make many sacrifices, many sacrifices for their husbands and their children.

However, however, they are never explicitly called to do so as a result of their commitment to Christ.

They're never explicitly called to do so as a result of their commitment to Christ, but that's not true of husbands.

That is not true of husbands. This command here, to love your wives as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her, is a call to total sacrifice, a call to total sacrifice.

And this call to total sacrifice brings balance to the sweeping nature of Paul's command in verse 24, where he says to the wives that they are to be subject to their husbands in everything.

That is a sweeping command for the wife, as we looked at some months ago. And so this command to total sacrifice on the part of the husband brings balance to this equation, brings balance.

Christ was a servant leader. Christ was a servant leader. And that means that we as husbands are called to that same kind of servant leadership, the same kind of servant leadership.

And that begs the question, doesn't it? It begs the question is, what is a servant? If we are called to servant leadership, then we have to ask and answer a fundamental question.

What is a servant? What is a servant? A servant is a person, here's my definition for you, a servant is a person whose life is not their own.

A servant is a person whose life is not their own. In other words, it's their duty to make other people's lives easier.

It's their duty to make other people's lives easier. This is the life of a servant.

We can see this over in Luke, it's worth turning there, Luke 17.

I'll just turn you back there to remind you of this reality here. That as husbands we are called to the life of a servant.

Luke 17, we'll just pick it up in verse 7, where Jesus says, which of you having a slave plowing or tending sheep will say to him when he has come in from the field, come immediately and sit down to eat.

But will he not say to him, prepare something for me to eat and properly clothe yourself and serve me while I eat and drink and afterward you may eat and drink.

He does not thank the slave because he did the things which are commanded, does he? So you too, when you do all the things which are commanded of you, say we are unworthy slaves, we have done only that which we ought to have done.

We're just doing what we're supposed to do. There's no special commendation that comes with it.

And for us as husbands, that's our reality. There is no special commendation that comes to us for our sacrificial love to our wives other than at the end of it all, a well -done good and faithful servant enter into your master's rest.

That will be our final commendation. Now, here back in Ephesians chapter 5, we notice in verses 28 and 29 that Paul refers to a universal truth here, like 28 and 29, so husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies.

He who loves his own wife loves himself. No one ever hated his own flesh but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church.

We notice here a universal truth. The universal truth is that people naturally love themselves.

They naturally love themselves, they naturally care for themselves, and that is to act as a motivator to us to naturally love and care for our wives.

Paul's drawing on this reality that, hey, you know what? We all showed up here this morning, and you took care of yourself before you showed up.

Some took better care than others, admittedly, but you all took some measure of care for yourself here before you showed up.

It's natural. It's natural. And that is the way it is to be for us.

And the reason that is is because through marriage, look at verse 31, we have become one flesh.

The two shall become one flesh. It's natural. It's natural to care for your flesh.

It is natural as a husband to care for his wife, for she is one flesh with him.

Now, think with me about the greatest servant of all, the Lord Jesus Christ, right?

Who out of love for the Father and love for the church gave up his rightful place and glory, and he came in order to save and sanctify his bride.

He came to serve and in serving to save and sanctify his bride.

Philippians, for example, Philippians chapter 2, in verse 4, men did not merely, oh sorry,

I didn't say men, but I am, men did not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.

Have this attitude in yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a bondservant and being made in the likeness of men, being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

This is our example. This is our example. He humbled himself in order to serve us, in order to serve us, in order to draw us to the

Father. Now, as I think about this, this idea, men, that our love is to be a sacrificial love,

I think rather than give a list of duties, rather than give you a whole long list of duties,

I think it's better to encourage you to think deeply upon the implications of Jesus's servanthood, to think about that, and then use that because it is the model for our own sacrificial love.

So, I could give you a whole list of things, you know, you should be doing this, you shouldn't be doing that, you know, but I think it's far more profitable to just meditate, to meditate on the implications of Jesus's servanthood, his

Philippians 2 servanthood. Let me ask you this question.

What have you, what have you, or are you willing to give up in order to minister to and bless your wife?

What have you ever given up in order to minister to or bless your wife?

Can you think of something? Is that a regular occurrence, not a question to ask and answer once?

Well, yeah, I gave up singleness when I married her. Okay, that's a start, that's a start, but have you made any progress from there?

I mean, when's the last time, when is the last time that you can think of something that you gave up in order to minister to and bless your wife?

It's an answer not to ask an answer once in a lifetime, but it's to be part of regular biblical self -reflection.

That time alone with the Lord when we say, you know, kind of Psalm 139, search me, see if there'd be any evil way within me.

Consider the various spheres, spheres of your marital relationship, and ask the

Spirit to help you to think about your involvement in them as a servant.

So think about the spheres of your marital relationship and ask the

Spirit to help you to think about them with regard to your involvement in them as a servant.

So, categories, I'll give you categories, at least get you started. How about the spiritual growth in Christ for you as a couple, for you as a couple?

You are one flesh, you are one flesh. Spiritual growth in Christ. How are you functioning as a servant in that area?

Family finances, family finances. How are you functioning as a servant in the area of the family's finances?

How about the raising of your children? Or if your children have grown and left the home, how about your influence upon your grandchildren?

How do you think about those with regard to the heart of a servant? What does a servant look like with the raising of the children, the influence on the grandchildren?

What does it look like? Keeping the home, hospitality, recreational activities, romance and intimacy.

How does the role of the servant play out there? Perhaps you might want to sit down with your wife and ask her, how can

I serve you in this area? You might be surprised what she would say.

You might be surprised. Man, if we think something is beneath us, if we think some aspect of this relationship, this one flesh relationship is beneath us as a servant, then we're probably not thinking correctly about our leadership.

We're probably not thinking correctly about our leadership.

We are called to a sacrificial authority, a sacrificial leadership.

7. A husband's authority is protective. A husband's authority is protective.

It is sacrificial and it is protective. In John chapter 15 and verse 13,

Jesus says, greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.

We'll lay down our life for our friends and we would certainly lay down our life for our wives.

Again, verse 25 in Ephesians, five husbands love your wives just as Christ also loved the church, check it out, and gave himself up for her and gave himself up for her.

Now, being a physically stronger man, it is axiomatic that God has designed men to protect women.

I feel like I shouldn't even have to say that, but I do. It is axiomatic.

Men are called to protect women in general and one man to protect one woman in particular.

It's axiomatic and it used to be incontestable. We can easily observe the rightness of this when we observe little boys at play.

When we observe little boys at play who are hardwired with a protector instinct.

It is hardwired within them. Furthermore, the very nature of men and women point to this reality.

There is a natural theology here, if you like. Women are life givers.

Women are life givers. They carry the next generation within their own bodies.

They are life givers. Men, by virtue of their receipt of the dominion mandate, are hardwired for the righteous use of force and violence.

They are hardwired for the righteous use of force and violence.

This is a creation reality. This is a creation reality.

And this creation reality, by the way, is spoken of by Moses back in Deuteronomy chapter 22 and verse 5.

You can turn there. In Deuteronomy chapter 22 and verse 5, it's spoken of by Moses there when he is preparing the people to enter in and conquer the promised land.

And the reality that men are called to be the protectors was never in question in the

Western world until the advent of the sexual revolution of the 1960s in which we are now living in the sewage overflow of it.

Look at Deuteronomy 22 .5. Again, these are the words of Moses preparing a people to conquer the land.

A woman shall not wear man's clothing, nor shall a man put on a woman's clothing, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the

Lord your God. This is not a passage about women wearing blue jeans, okay?

It's not about that, even though fundamentalism seemed to think it was about that for quite a long time.

The words used here, the Hebrew men's clothing, a woman shall not wear men's clothing.

Kali gavur is the Hebrew, and it literally means the implements or tools of a man as strong.

Kali is the implements or tools, and gavur is the strong man. In fact, it's closely related to gavur, which is the mighty man of scripture, the mighty man.

So as Brown Driver Briggs in their classic Hebrew lexicon says, that Kali gavur, it refers to the implements or tools of a man as strong, distinguished from a woman, children and non -combatants whom he is to defend.

These implements of war are not to be worn by a woman,

Moses says. Nor was a man to wear the clothing designated for a woman, as suited a woman.

And again, I don't want to get lost in this, but there's a different word for man here, gavur, and the woman is a general word, isha.

So it's woman is women, it's man is strong, is the contrast being drawn. It's the contrast being drawn here.

We can say it this way, a woman who is designed by God to be a life giver is not to place herself in the role of a warrior, contrary to Marvel's latest movie.

The exception of Deborah and Ja 'il in Judges chapter four only proves the point.

It only proves the point. The whole point of the book of Judges are that these are very failed individuals who have been raised to a position of leadership as a judgment on the nation itself.

Men are hardwired by God to be the protector of women.

But we have a blemished track record, men. We have a very blemished track record in fulfilling our roles as protectors.

And it begins where all mischief begins, back in the garden, doesn't it?

With Adam's failure to protect Eve. In Genesis chapter two and verse 16, we read that the

Lord God commanded the man saying, from any tree of the garden you may eat freely, but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat.

For in the day that you eat from it, you will surely die. It's pretty plain.

It's pretty plain. And it was given to Adam and it was given to Adam before Eve was, before Eve was.

It was Adam's responsibility to protect his wife, to pass on this prohibition to her.

And yet we read here in chapter three, right? Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field, which the

Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, indeed, as God said, you shall not eat from any tree of the garden.

So we know that Adam must've told her. The woman said to the serpent from the fruit of the trees of the garden, we may eat, but from the fruit of the tree, which is in the middle of the garden,

God has said, you shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die. Servant said to the woman, you surely will not die.

For God knows that in the day you eat from it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God knowing good and evil.

When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate.

And she gave also to her husband with her and he ate. Paul says in 1

Timothy 2 .14, that the woman being deceived fell into transgression.

She was deceived. Adam walked in with his eyes wide open.

The preposition with here, by the way, just indicates a general proximity, not a close proximity.

He was not standing next to her when this happened. He's in the general area, but he did not intercede for her.

He did not protect her. And in fact, just the opposite, he throws her under the bus, right?

It was the woman thou hath given to me. That's the problem. And men, we've been doing it that way ever since.

We've been doing it that way ever since. As Christian men possessed of the spirit of God, we are called upon to utilize our husbandly authority in ways that protect our wives and our families and not take advantage of them.

Our authority is to protect them, not to take advantage of them. A Christian husband protects his wife against, for example, his children's disrespectful attitudes.

A Christian husband will protect his wife against his children's disrespectful attitudes, responses, threats, or even acts of violence.

When your child is tempted to disrespect your wife and her mother, they should immediately see your looming hulk behind her and know for certain that judgment will be swift and fierce.

Do not disrespect, not your mother, my wife.

My wife. Because when you disrespect my wife, you've disrespected me. You've disrespected me.

A Christian husband will protect his wife from such things. A Christian husband will protect his wife from his or her in -law's intrusion into the marriage by offering unsolicited opinions, by their disapproval of his wife, or perhaps by unwarranted financial gifts.

These are all threats to the marriage that a Christian husband is called to intercede and protect against.

A Christian husband protects his wife against other people's expectations on his wife's time or energy or priorities.

A Christian husband protects his wife against false teachers, against false teachers.

He protects her against violent and dangerous people in society. He is called to protect her against violent and dangerous people in society.

I would suggest that he is called upon to protect her from over -involvement with social media, which can both absorb her time and energy and introduce anxieties into her life over particularly the current state of world affairs, such that she becomes besot with fears.

It is his responsibility to intercede and protect her from these things, which will draw her heart from Christ.

If she gives in to fear, hey, you know what? We are in a political free -for -all. 2024 is going to be an interesting year, an interesting year.

And as Christian husbands, we are called to make sure that our wives do not ingest more turmoil than they can handle.

Different women have different capacities. I am not setting any kind of rules here. I am just saying, do not let it happen to your wife that she falls away from Christ out of fear of what is happening around her.

A Christian husband protects his wife against financial ruin or forcing his wife into the workforce by prudently providing something for the family to fall back on in the event of unforeseen circumstances.

In other words, a Christian husband protects his wife and his family by having something to fall back on.

A prudent man sees the evil and hides himself, the Proverbs say. In other words, there is some kind of a fund, something set aside.

A Christian husband protects his wife against the intrusion of his own sin into the relationship by dealing with it rather than ignoring it or making excuses for it or covering it up.

Now, most men would say that they are willing to die for their wives. I would die for her.

I am willing to go out in a blaze of glory. They are 15 in each hand. Maybe.

But are you willing to live daily for her, sacrificially, for the next 50 or 60 years?

That is the real question. It is highly unlikely you will be called upon to go out in the blaze of glory.

Far more likely you will be called upon to die daily for the next five or six decades, depending on your age.

A husband's life authority is sacrificial. A husband's authority is protective.

Eighth, a husband's authority is life -giving. A husband's authority is life -giving.

Because the husband's authority is unavoidable, how he exercises it will be either life -giving or suffocating.

It will either be life -giving or it will be suffocating.

A husband's authority is life -giving when he provides an environment in which his wife can flourish in her role as a wife and a woman.

By providing that environment, she will thrive. He is life -giving.

You can think of it this way. As a garden flourishes when it is cared for by a skillful and hard -working farmer, so your wife will flourish when she is cared for by a skillful and hard -working husband.

A life -giving environment is one free from worry. A life -giving environment, gentlemen, is one that is free from worry.

Worry over your commitment to Christ as her husband. She should not have to worry about your commitment to Christ because your commitment to Christ should be the anchor of the family and the foundation on which the family's spiritual health is built.

If she's worried about your commitment to Christ, that's a suffocating environment.

That is not a life -giving environment. Not at all. A life -giving environment is one that is free from worry about your sexual fidelity.

Your sexual fidelity should never have to be her worry or her concern.

It should be one free from worry about your integrity. In other words, what you say you do.

You're a man of your word. She should never have to worry about your integrity nor your work ethic, nor your work ethic.

A life -giving environment, gentlemen, is an environment in which we work hard to provide, and there's no question about that.

God has given us different capacities to provide in different ways. That's not the point. The point is we work hard at it.

We work hard at it. A life -giving environment is one free from worry about your priorities and your commitments to your home and to your children.

What are your priorities? Confidence in her husband's character allows a wife to concern herself with her own role and her own domain, free from the burden of her husband's responsibilities.

She is called to a noble task that is a consuming task. To ask her to carry hers plus part of yours is not to serve.

That's to adopt the attitude of one who wants to be served. Verse 28.

So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself, for no one ever hated his own flesh but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church because we are members of his body.

Because the husband and wife are one flesh in a very profound spiritual physical reality, she is in a very real sense your own body.

She is your own body. And it is natural for you to care deeply and effectively for your own body.

Thus it is your call to deal deeply and effectively with the needs of your wife.

That's what it means. Notice specifically Paul uses two words to describe the husband's care for his own physical body here.

And that provides the metaphor for how his love is to be expressed for his wife.

All right, verse 21. No one ever hated his own flesh but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church.

Nourishes, ektrepho is the Greek. It means to nourish or promote health and strength.

It means to nourish or to promote health and strength. It's an interesting word. It's only used one other time in the

New Testament and it's used by the Apostle Paul in the same context in chapter six and verse four where it says, fathers do not provoke your children to anger.

It's translated in the NASB, but bring them up. It's literally the word ektrepho, you nurture them in the discipline and instruction of the

Lord. So it speaks about care. It speaks about care.

How one cares. Harold Hohner in his excellent commentary on Ephesians says, nurture is a broad word encompassing the physical, psychological, and spiritual nature of a person.

That's what it means to nurture her or to nurture your children, which we'll get to in a few more weeks.

The other word cherishes, right? Nourishes and cherishes.

The word is ektrepho and it means to impart warmth, to nurse, to foster, or to comfort.

Again, an interesting word because it only is used one other time in the New Testament. It's used by the Apostle Paul.

It's used over in First Thessalonians chapter two and verse seven, and it appears there alongside of a form of the word ektrepho, which speaks about Paul's compassionate care for the

Thessalonian believers when he's with them. First Thessalonians 2 .7, we proved to be gentle among you as a nursing.

The word is trephos. It comes from ektrepho. As a nursing mother tenderly cares, taupo, for her own children.

Paul says he cared for the Thessalonian believers like a mother has intimate care for her baby.

Just like a mother cares for her baby. I think we can extrapolate from this the idea of tenderness, right?

Wouldn't that be a good word? Tenderness, the tender care of a husband for his wife, the tender care of a husband for his wife.

And once again, we look to Christ to see the pattern of how to love and to lead.

Just as Christ presently cares for his church and as our head provides all that we need and for the building up of the body in love.

So as husbands, we provide the tender life giving care that our wives need. It doesn't mean, it does not mean that a husband can or does supply everything that his wife needs in terms of human relationships.

We're not advocating this. We're not saying, hey, you know what? Your wife could only, should only have one relationship.

It's you. She ought to be happy with that. Okay. Newsflash, you're not that good. Okay.

You're not that good, but it should be a significant relationship. It should be a significant relationship.

I think it does mean though that the husband ought to be their primary source of good in their lives.

He ought to be their primary source of good. Not their only relationship, not their only meaningful relationship, but their primary source of good.

I think this is what it means to love her, to nourish her, to cherish her. Number nine, number nine, a husband's authority is convicting.

A husband's authority is convicting. As we have been studying authority and submission over the last couple of months, it has produced a number of conversations in the body here at KCC.

Some I've heard of, others I've not, but I can tell by what I have heard of that there's conversations going on.

And you know what? That's a good thing. That's a good thing. It's a good thing because as we wrestle with the scriptures and would seek where the

Lord would have us change, that's what it means to grow in Christ. As a husband, when we think about our role and our responsibilities, we're convicted.

We are convicted by the Spirit for our lack of love. If you've been sitting here for five weeks in a row, gentlemen, and you have not felt any conviction about your lack of love for your wife, then we need to put the heart thumpers on you.

You're cold. You're a flatliner. We've all felt the conviction.

All too often, all too often we have used our authority or neglected our authority for our own comfort, for our own control.

That's the reality of it. Men, the failure is before our own eyes.

It is before our own eyes. And we have to acknowledge it.

We have to acknowledge it. We have to not be self -satisfied. It's a fearful thing for the son of Adam to be placed in authority over others.

It's a fearful thing. We can never grow complacent, never grow complacent with the responsibilities that God has created for us.

A husband's authority is convicting. Can I get an amen?

Amen. And tenth and finally for this morning, a husband's authority is sanctifying.

I'll leave you on an up note. A husband's authority is a sanctifying authority.

I love Proverbs, and one of the reasons I love Proverbs is because they are riddles, any of them. So here's a riddle for you.

Men, do you want to be like Christ? Don't get married. Do you want to be like Christ?

Get married. Do you want to be like Christ? Don't get married.

Do you want to be like Christ? Get married. You can ponder that on your own.

A husband's authority is sanctifying because the Spirit convicts us about our shortcomings and drives us to Christ for help.

That is sanctifying. When we confess our shortcomings and our sin to God the

Father, and we cling to his promise for forgiveness because of the sacrifice of Christ on our behalf, that is what it means to live the

Christian life. We search the scriptures.

We learn what it means to love, to lead. We ask the

Father's help, strength, and courage to change. We believe the

Word. We believe the Word, and that by his Spirit, we are being transformed to the image of his

Son. God does not try to transform his people. God does transform his people.

Is that a chapter in your book, by the way? I think it is. I think it is.

Gentlemen, this is what sets us apart as Christian husbands. This is what sets us apart. It's the reality that our failure leads to our repentance.

Our repentance leads to our confession of faith in Christ. Our confession of faith in Christ moves us beyond the place where we are and progresses us in our likeness to our

Savior. Do you want to be like Christ? Don't get married.

But if you really want to be like Christ and learn what it means to sacrifice, get married.

Get married. Let's pray. Our Father, the same

Word that wounds also heals. And like a skillful surgeon, it lances the infection and exposes it to the sunlight, the

Word of God. And there we find our healing.

We pray, our Father, here at the close out of one calendar year, in the beginning of the next, that you would help us as men and women to renew our effort to live in this most significant part of our lives for the glory of Christ.

This is really the workshop. This is the proving ground for Christian growth and maturity.

It begins here. Father, may you use your

Word where it needs to be used in each and every one of us to help us to recognize where we are off the rails, where we must repent.

And then, like the prodigal father with his arms wide open, running to meet his son, may we find

Christ's arms wide open to us. We pray for his namesake.

Amen. Well, blessings on you. I'm going to see you next year.