HUSBANDS LOVE YOUR WIVES

Lift up your voices, lift up your praise, join with the heavens declaring the wonders of this faithfulness forever.

Sing of the victory, the hope of the world, the Saviour has risen, the

Spirit has come to reign. I sing this with you, forever we are.

Oh, we are a people of God with the freedom of hope in our hearts, how great is the love of the

Father. Lifted from darkness and into the light, the sons and the daughters of the

Devil, Christ our God, and we will sing this song forever.

Oh, we are a people of God with the freedom of hope in our hearts, how great is the love of the

Father. So let's sing this song. This is the song of the redeemed, the ransomed and the given life at such a price.

Oh, this is love, oh, this is love. When the Father calls us home and we see

Him on the throne, hear the voices sing as one, oh, this is love, oh, this is love.

Oh, we are a people of God with the freedom of hope in our hearts, how great is the love of the

Father. Oh, we are a people of God with the freedom of hope in our hearts, how great is the love of the

Father. Oh, we are a people of God with the freedom of hope in our hearts, how great is the love of the

Father. Oh, we are a people of God with the freedom of hope in our hearts, how great is the love of the Father. Thank you for walking in the

Spirit and utilizing. I, for one, reap great benefits from you utilizing those gifts and I pray the same for you.

And I want to remind you this morning because sometimes we forget, we know it intellectually but we forget, you are loved.

Saint, you are loved. You're loved by the Father who chose you before the foundations of the world.

You realize that, right? Think about that for a second. The Father loved you before He had even created anything in this whole universe.

He loved you with a deep love. He was going to redeem you. He does so through the love of the

Son, Jesus Christ who purchased you by blood ransom, laid down His life to buy you, to free you, to righteousness.

And you are loved by the Holy Spirit that right now at this very moment is in you.

The power of the Holy Spirit in you as a seal, as a guarantee of that glorious inheritance one day that we will obtain.

I don't hear any amens. That's a big amen, guys. Right? Come on.

The Holy Spirit is sealing you right now as a guarantee, guys, of this glorious inheritance that the

Father's love set upon you and the Son accomplished. Amen. Amen. So thank you.

Thank you for being here to worship the great God that loves us so dearly and that we love.

I also want to say thank you to our guests, those of you that are regular attenders or even first -time guests.

Thank you for being here. We are encouraged by your presence today and we hope that you too would grow in the fear and knowledge of the

Lord. And I want you to know that you are loved by the people of God because we are greatly loved.

You know, David declared in Psalm 122, he says, I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the house of the

Lord. And as he was there in the house of the Lord, he went on to say, he said, for my brothers' and companions' sake,

I will say, peace be with you. Because those of us that are in Christ today, we truly have peace and rest.

Peace with the triune God and each other through the blood of Christ. We have great reason to rejoice.

And for those of you in here that may not be in Christ, you may not be in Christ, yet for some reason, you're here.

One reason or another, whatever it is, tradition, somebody drug you here, you think you may need to go to church, you've chosen to join us today.

Be thankful. Be thankful. All of this may seem odd to you that we do for worship, but you're most certainly going to hear the only truth that there is.

The truth that will set you free and give you peace. So if you wouldn't mind, before we go into our worship and a call of worship, we always pray for another local church, right?

This morning, I want us to bow and pray for Grace Baptist over in Perigold. As a matter of fact, Pastor Jeremiah is currently there preaching now.

Pastor Michael Selesky is the pastor over there and he had surgery this week, so we need to keep him in our prayers.

And he reached out and said, hey, can any of you guys come and fill the pulpit? And we said, absolutely. And Jeremiah pounced on it before Keith could.

And so Keith's a little upset. He wishes he could have gone to preach, but next time we'll get him to go.

But Pastor Jeremiah is there. We want to pray for them. I just want you to know, too, we have a deep, great relationship with Grace Baptist.

We pray for all types of churches and differing theological persuasions and whatnot as brothers in Christ.

But this one is unique because this one is another Reformed Baptist church. They are the only other

Reformed Baptist church in the whole of the area. And so you can imagine we have great relationship with them.

So let's pray for them this morning that God will be honored in their worship. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you.

Lord, we thank you this morning that we get together. But we also thank you that our brothers and sisters elsewhere get together.

That we come on the Lord's Day. We give this day to you. It is yours. It's a day of rest that we get to be reminded of the great rest that we have in Christ Jesus, who is the

Sabbath. And Lord, we pray for our brothers and sisters at Grace Baptist this morning as they gather.

We pray that you would do the great work in them, that you are working in us. That you would sanctify them.

That you would encourage them. That you would challenge them. That you would mold them. That you would continue to set them apart as a people unto yourself.

That you are adding to their numbers saints that are found. Lord, we pray for Michael this morning as he heals from surgery.

Lord, we pray that there would be smooth and quick healing so that he could be back and shepherding that flock.

Lord, I pray for Pastor Jeremiah this morning as he proclaims the truth of your word to those brothers and sisters.

I give him boldness and clarity. I pray that you would be worshipped in spirit and in truth there this morning.

And that you would continue to do that great work through your word.

We thank you for them. Bless them. Grow them. Work mightily in their hearts.

In Christ's name. Amen. Let's stand for our call to worship this morning, which is adapted from 1

Corinthians 13. Very well known passage. You hear it a lot in weddings.

But I want us to think in terms of a call to worship this morning as we think of this great love.

Where Paul says, if I speak in the tongues of men and of angels but have not love.

And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge. And if I have all faith so as to remove mountains but have not love.

If I give away all I have. And if I deliver up my body to be burned but have not love.

Love is patient and kind. Love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant or rude.

It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful.

It does not rejoice in wrongdoing. Love bears all things.

Hopes all things. So now faith, hope and love abide.

These three. And we only know love.

And we have seen his love. In and through Jesus Christ.

God is love. And we are to be a people that reflect that great goodness of God.

As a people of love. And that is our call to worship this morning. Is that we would be a people that reflect the love of God.

Not our interpretation of love but the very love. That is one of the many attributes of God.

That God is love and we worship him as such this morning. And we are grateful for that love.

We are recipients of that love. Let's pray a prayer of adoration to that great God. Dear Heavenly Father we come to you once again.

And we just thank you. We thank you for who you are. God if you were just simply a

God of wrath. We would all be without hope. If you were simply a

God of justice. How would we stand? But you are also a

God of love. It's not that you just simply show love

God. It doesn't work like that. You show love because you are love. And we can only experience love because that is who you are

God. We can only know love because of who you are. Because of the great love that you are.

And then it is expressed through your creation. It is expressed through the fact that we rebels.

Rebels against your will that were once in darkness. And in our trespasses and in our sins.

We are redeemed out of a great love and grace and mercy. That you have bestowed upon your people.

And we are so grateful for who you are God. You are good. You are worthy of praise. And we ask this morning as we sing these songs.

As we sing about how great you are. As we sing about how great your love is. As we sing about Christ the true and better Adam coming to redeem us.

And as we sing about how deep your love is for us. That our hearts would be stirred and awakened by that great truth.

Lord that we would grow in our knowledge and fear of you. Be honored in our worship this morning.

In Christ's name. Amen. Your name will be revealed.

You're strong in my demons. You are always me.

Oh God most high. Your name will be revealed. It's the

Lord. And great need to be praised. How great is the

Lord our God. How great is the

Lord. And great need to be praised. You're gracious and full of grace.

Your mercy runs through fire and sand. When we call out to you.

You hear our cry. And all our need your gracious hand provide.

How great is the Lord. And great need to be praised.

How great is the Lord our God. How great is the

Lord. And great need to be praised.

For a nation will rejoice.

When works of wickedness. Will be destroyed.

Your power will proclaim. Till Christ descends.

And you will reign forever without end.

How great is the Lord. And great need to be praised.

How great is the Lord our God. How great is the

Lord. And great need to be praised. Darkness.

Call this darkness.

Your mercy came. You called me out.

Lifted me up. Is your love.

You broke my weakness. You took my shame.

Buried my burdens. In fields of grace.

You called me out. Lifted me up.

How great is your love. From the heights of heaven.

You stepped down to earth. Innocent perfection.

You gave your life for us. And we are amazed. We stand in awe.

We have been changed. By the power of the cross.

How great. How great. How great is your love.

How great. How great. How great is your love.

How great. How great. How great is your love for us.

How great is your love. From the heights.

The heights of heaven.

You stepped down to earth. Innocent perfection.

Gave your life for us. And we are amazed. We stand in awe.

We have been changed. By the power of the cross.

How great. How great. How great is your love.

How great. How great. How great is your love.

How great is your love for us. But there.

There will never be. A God like you.

A love so true. There has never been.

There will never be. A God like you.

A love so true. There has never been. There will never be.

A God like you. A love so true.

How great. How great. How great. How great is your love.

How great. How great. How great is your love.

How great. How great is your love.

How great.

How great is your love. How great.

How great. How great is your love for us.

A great and loving God that we serve. Our scripture reading comes from Ecclesiastes chapter 9.

Verses 7 through 10. It says go. Eat your bread with joy and drink your wine with a merry heart.

For God has already approved what you do. Let your garments be always white.

Let not oil be lacking on your head. Enjoy life with the wife whom you love.

All the days of your vain life he has given you under the sun.

Because that is your portion in life. And in your toil at which you toil under the sun.

Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might. For there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom and shield to which you are going.

At first that seems pretty gloom and doom, doesn't it? But that is a great grace and truth from a good and loving father.

That even in this broken world we have great gifts. We have the gift of food.

We have the gift of wine. We have the gift of being able to be together. We have the gift of our spouse.

We're going to be talking about husbands loving your wives today. What a wonderful, wonderful gift that is in this world.

God's love isn't just a love for the future. God's love for you and I is not just a future grace.

It's a here and now grace. God's goodness, he is redeemed. To the lost world all that they do, all the vain work that they do on the earth is to nothing.

It's to no avail. It is vanity of vanities. But to us it has eternal meaning and purpose.

And we can honor and worship our heavenly father and his good and gracious gifts.

And all God's people said, Amen. I want to pray a prayer this morning, a pastoral prayer of protection over our families.

Pastor Keith actually brought this to the table and asked if we could do that this week. I thought what an excellent idea because as overseers, him and Jeremiah and myself, we are seeing as we're going through this series,

God's Design for the Family, I can't tell you how many attacks right at the forefront of our families there have been over just a handful of weeks.

It is overwhelming and obvious for anyone. And if you're feeling that, if you're feeling attacked in your family during this time, come speak with us.

Go talk to a brother or sister. Don't try and fight that battle alone. But what we want to pray for you as pastors, that God would give protection over us during this time as we are seeking to honor him with our families.

So pray with me. Oh, dear heavenly father, we bow before you once again,

God. And now specifically, we want to plead with you.

We want to come and intercede for each other on behalf of our families. God, your great love and grace and mercy has given us families.

It sustains our families. It allows us as husbands to love as we ought. It allows the wives to submit as they ought.

It allows the children to obey as they ought to, Lord. But our sinful flesh continues to be at war within us.

You know that. That's why you've given us the Holy Spirit. And we ask this morning that we would be able to walk in the

Spirit. To be filled with the Spirit. So that we can love as we should.

That we can submit as we should. We can obey and serve each other as we should.

And honor to you. The enemy is obviously attacking our families.

As we go through your word and see it clearly laid out as to how we should live and function as your people.

The enemy wants nothing to do with it. He wants to distort it. He wants to destroy it. He wants to decimate it right before our eyes.

To seek to crush our faith. And distort the gospel.

The good gospel that the family portrays. And we ask this morning for the protection to guard us.

We ask that you would guard us from our own flesh that is drawn away by its own desires and enticed in giving birth to sin.

Oh be gracious to us Heavenly Father. Forgive us where we fail you.

Forgive us husbands for not loving as Christ loves the church. God forgive us. Forgive the wives this morning that they have not been able to submit as the church is called to submit to Christ.

Forgive the children this morning that are in you that do not obey their parents as they ought to.

Lord forgive us. Help us. Convict us. Help us to rest in the freedom of the righteousness of Christ this morning.

We thank you. In Christ's name. Ever sin.

He who makes the many righteous. Brings us back to life again.

Dying he reversed the curse. Then rising crushed the serpent's head.

Christ the true and better rising.

Humble son of sacrifice. Who would climb the fearful mountain.

There to offer up his life. Lay with faith upon the altar.

Father's joy and only son.

That salvation was provided. Oh what full and boundless love.

Amen, amen. From beginning to end.

Christ the story. Is the glory.

Hallelujah. Sing it together.

Christ the true and better Moses. Called to lead a people on.

Standing tall to earthly powers. God's great glory to be known.

With his arms stretched wide to heaven. See the waters pining to.

See the veil is torn forever. Cleansed with blood we pass now through you.

Amen, amen. From beginning to end.

Christ the story. Is the glory. Hallelujah, amen.

Christ the true and holy shepherd.

Mighty king. He the champion.

Where old death is now thy sting. In thy place he led and conquered.

Crown him lord of majesty. He shall be the throne forever.

We shall there his people be. Amen, amen.

From beginning to end. Christ the story.

Is the glory. Hallelujah, amen.

Christ the story. Is the glory. How deep the father's love for us.

How vast beyond all measure. That he should give his only son.

To make a wretch his treasure. How great the pain of searing loss.

The father shows his gracious way.

As wounds which bar the chosen ones.

Bring many sons to the lord. Behold the man upon the cross.

My sin upon his shoulders. Ashamed I hear my mocking voice.

Called out among the scoffers.

If it was my sin that held him there.

Until it was accomplished. His dying breath has brought me up.

I know that it is finished. I will not boast in anything.

No gifts, no power, no wisdom. But I will boast in Jesus Christ.

His death and resurrection. Why should

I gain from his reward? I cannot give an answer.

But this I know with all my heart. Paid my ransom.

Why should I gain from his reward? I cannot give an answer.

But this I know with all my heart.

His wounds have paid my ransom. But this

I know with all my heart.

His wounds have paid my ransom. Amen. Father, lord, we thank you so much, father, this morning for this amazing opportunity, lord, that you blessed us with to come and gather as saints.

Father, lord, and worship you and praise you. And proclaim these truths. These aren't just chords and keys and words on a screen.

and these are truths that we're proclaiming this morning and worshiping you. How can we not to get excited,

Father? Lord, I pray this morning, Lord, as we just continue with this service,

Lord, I pray that you would bless me. Just be with Pastor Nathan, Lord, as he comes and preaches and brings your word,

Lord. Lord, as we learn how a husband ought to be and how he should love his wife,

Lord, I just pray that you'd bless this offering this morning, Father, Jesus. Bless this offering and bless the giver.

We love you, we praise you. We ask all these things of your son, Jesus Christ, precious and holy name, and all of God's people said, amen.

I wanna repeat what I've been saying so far in this service, so it's etched in our brains.

We only know love because he is love. And that deep abiding love expressed through the gospel is what we want to see this morning in his word.

So go ahead and open up God's copy or your copy of God's word to Ephesians chapter five.

Ephesians chapter five, verse 25. If you have God's copy, we probably need to put that in the museum, right?

It's your copy of God's word. Ephesians chapter five, starting verse 25, as we continue our study through Ephesians that we have really been in for well over a year now and more recently going into week five of our little mini series within this,

God's design for the family. Ephesians chapter five,

Paul, starting in verse 25, he says, he says, husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.

That he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing that she might be holy and without blemish.

The same way husbands should love their 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 Christ does the church, because we are members of his body.

Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.

Oh, this mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

This is the reading of God's holy, inspired, perfect, clear word. Let's pray that we can understand it.

Bow with me, Lord. We come to you once more. We thank you for your word.

We thank you for its clarity. We thank you for your precepts. We thank you for your law. We thank you for the goodness of it.

Help us not to distort it. Help our sinful flesh to not get in the way of us hearing it and being doers of that word, not just hearers only.

Help us not to hear it in a distorted way and perceive it the way we ought not to. Help us to understand it as you have presented it to us and help us to obey it as your people.

Now, we pray that you were honored in this message this morning. Christ's name, amen.

Well, last week we saw in the previous verses, verses 22 through 24, how wives are to submit to their own husbands.

And that happened to land on Mother's Day. So again, I apologize, that wasn't planned, but there it was, it happened.

And wives are to submit to their own husbands for the husband is the head of the wife, as Paul says.

And you see, this idea of headship is not a command. All right.

We do not see male headship commanded anywhere in all of scripture.

Think I was gonna say that, did you? You don't see it commanded anywhere. Here's the thing.

This statement of a husband's headship is an indicative. What do

I mean by that? It means that it's written as a statement of fact. It's not a suggestion.

It's not an order. The husband is unequivocally and absolutely the head of the wife, either for the good or for the bad.

You see, the wife will either thrive under that headship and find freedom to use her

God -designed nature to create a home and beauty for her, her family, her husband, and all around her.

Or she will suffer under that headship and be left susceptible to her own sin nature's desire to usurp that husband's role, leaving her to be deceived by the evil one, just like her mother

Eve. And that's through that man either trying to derogate his role of headship.

Notice I say trying because many men will try. Many men will just give up and they'll say, here, here's the role on a silver platter and try and give it to the wife.

But somehow, every time the wife grabs it, he turns around and he finds it back in his pocket. He's like, I can't get rid of it.

I can't get, I try, but I can't get rid of the headship. I'm trying to get rid of it. He will either try to do that or he will implement his role of headship in an improper and priceless way.

And both of these are equally destructive. They're destructive for that wife. They're destructive for their children.

It's destructive for the whole of society around them, and it's most certainly destructive for him.

You see, his created nature to lead presupposes his role as husband and headship.

Yet, as we've spoken about over the last few weeks, his sin nature, if unredeemed, mind you, has that man enslaved to unrighteousness.

He's enslaved to it, leaving him thoroughly and completely incapable of carrying out his created design and role.

He's hopeless, meaning that that unregenerate, unsaved man, though he's still the head of his wife, cannot in any way lead her as he ought to.

Powerless to do so. And here's the problem.

Those very men are often the men that influence our view of husbands and fathers the most.

There's a lot more of them out there than there are us, right? And so the influence is heavy on our culture.

The influence of the husband in the movies. We've talked about this, right? Movies and television shows.

You see a husband portrayed in those, and you gotta realize that in that moment, that portrayal of that husband, that picture of a husband cannot in any way even scratch the surface of the actual role of a husband.

He's incapable of it. Thoroughly and completely in sin. Our neighbors, as we grew up and we hung out with our friends and went to our neighbors' houses and saw their families function, their fathers played a role in that.

Our coaches, our teachers, most of which are unbelievers that are trying to play house improperly.

For some of you, even your own unbelieving fathers, maybe you didn't grow up in a household where your father was a believer, or he claimed to be a believer, but obviously wasn't and didn't live as such.

And so this improper, imbalanced, distorted view, the way that they carried out that headship has tainted this

God -ordained position even within the church. The culture is constantly influencing the believers.

We're in this world, we may not be of this world, but we are still in this world. And Christian husbands often imitate the world and its version of headship instead of imitating the one that we should be looking to.

This goes for the whole of Christian life, isn't it? We often are influenced by outside sources, thinking that, well, that seems to function well,

I'll do that, instead of the source in which we should be influenced. After all, we do have this remaining flesh, we may be redeemed, we may be loved by God the

Father, redeemed by the Son and sealed with the Holy Spirit, but we, like Paul, say, oh, who will deliver me from this wretched flesh?

I do the things I don't wanna do, I don't do the things I want to do. There are war within us.

So what is the answer to this? How do we combat the flesh and the influence of a broken system and a broken world?

How do we do it, guys? Y 'all all know the answer, you know what my answer's gonna be, come on. How do we do it?

Through Christ. And how do we see Christ? Through the renewal of our minds by His Word, right?

We have to go back to the source, we have to continually remind ourselves, this is where our minds are renewed, this is it.

I'm going to use the same bullet points that I used for last week's sermon with the wives, and I wanna show you a similar pattern that Paul is laying out here as he addresses the husbands in this particular text.

And the first thing that we see in this husbands love your wives, and number one is the decree.

Remember the bullet point from last week, we see a decree, we see a command. There in verse 25, husbands love your wives.

Notice it doesn't say husbands lead your wives. Doesn't say husbands domineer over your wives.

What does it say? Husbands love your wives. This is the decree.

What we must be careful not to do is to carry over our sinful distorted understanding that has been influenced by the world and has been influenced by all of our entertainment, has been influenced by our own families and in our own flesh, right?

We have to be careful not to carry that understanding into our interpretation of what Paul is telling us here.

Meaning looking at a text like this and assuming that we even comprehend what Paul means by love.

We do that often. We say, husbands love your wives. I know what love is. I'll do that.

While just imitating the world, we have no idea what Paul's actually meaning. Again, sin is seeking to distort everything and it is most certainly distorted this idea of love

Our concept of love, at least within the relationship of a man and a woman today has been relegated to nothing more than an emotion, a feeling, something outside of yourself taking you over.

That's why we use phrases like falling in love. Dad, I'm in love.

I fell in love. We'll be married in the morning, right? We fall in love and we can't control it.

It has me now. It's something outside of me that just overwhelmed me. And then what happens in the world?

They fall in love. They're all happy. Everything's good. And then they wake up at the bottom of that pit that they just fell into and realize, oh no,

I'm trapped down here. That feeling of the falling is gone.

Now I'm trapped. I married this woman thinking she was always gonna be sweet with her makeup and her hair all done up just right all the time.

I thought that's what I was marrying. Or the ladies, I married this man thinking he was different than all the other guys.

I thought he understood me. And he never belched at the dinner table on our dates.

You know what I'm talking about? And this is when people either choose to stay in that pit out of some type of commitment maybe for the children or they stay in that pit for social purposes or just for the appearances of it.

They stay down there and what do they do? They simply suffer through it. This is my life now.

Or which is often the case today, they find a way to crawl out of that pit just to go looking for another pit to fall into.

And this is because love is nothing more than an emotion. And so being affected by this distortion,

Christian husbands, we read this text, we read this decree and we're confused by it.

It's confusing. We as men, we are not usually controlled by our emotions.

We like to consider ourselves very logical. Emotions don't play a role in this. Emotions don't have anything to do with this.

It's just logic. Give me the data, give me the information and I will deal with that and I'll just,

I'll hide my emotions. I'll suppress them down as hard as I can. That's typically men.

Yet we can't just make ourselves feel what we want to feel. That's impossible. You can't make yourself feel what you want to feel.

Almost as if, well, I guess I have to figure out how to fall again. We read this text, we read this decree, we say, husbands, love your wives.

If love is an emotion, then I gotta figure this out. And we start using pragmatic means.

We start thinking, okay, let's think of some practical things. I gotta take her out on some dates. We gotta go out on dates every week.

I gotta try to rekindle something from the past so that we can feel that falling experience again.

After all, that's what Jesus says I'm supposed to do. I gotta love my wife. So I gotta conjure this up again.

Now don't get me wrong, husbands do not go home and say, pastor said, I don't have to take you out on dates. We don't have to rekindle anything.

Dude, I did not say that. Those things are good things. You must do those things.

Those are absolute essentials in a marriage, okay? Take your wife out on a date every week at least, okay?

Woo her. The problem is these things done wrong and for the wrong motives, they're nothing more than bringing a

Bowie knife to a nuclear war. You get what I'm saying? You think fixing this by taking my wife out on dates and trying to rekindle some old feeling is gonna win this?

It's like charging into a nuclear war with a knife in hand, thinking that's gonna do it. It's wantonly inadequate for the task, guys.

And oftentimes when we've done these things and they don't produce the outcome that we want, what do we do?

We lose hope. We give up. We think, well, that feeling is gone.

It's gone for good. No time to go to work. We suppress the emotion and we just go to work, right?

That's what we do. We leave our wives vulnerable in that moment, realizing

I'm not being loved. We redefine what

Paul means by love. A lot of times in that moment when we give up, we just say, okay,

I gotta rethink this thing. Paul said to love your wife. So I swing the pendulum to another distortion.

You know how I like to communicate. I like to speak in, we often always do. Everybody's swinging the pendulum.

Like if we're over here, we're like, we don't need to be over here anymore. And we swing it way over to the other side and we go, that's the response.

But we do to another distortion and we think, what Paul must be saying in this decree is simply commitment.

When he says, husbands, love your wives, it's commitment.

Husbands, be committed to your wives. I've heard this interpreted in this way before.

This is something us men can understand, can't we? We understand commitment. We don't understand feelings, but we know commitment.

We are committed to our jobs. We are committed to our football team. We are committed to our families.

We go to work and we make sure that they're taken care of. We are committed, we're not going anywhere.

We stand flat footed and we think, see, I'm doing it. I'm loving my wife.

And when our wives see through that facade and they know that something's missing and they say something like,

I just don't feel like you love me anymore. Hey man, have you ever heard that from your wives? I just don't feel like you love me anymore.

That frustrates us and we think, of course I love you. I told you that and if that changes,

I'll let you know. We're committed, right? That's what

God called me to be. Husbands, committed to your wives. That's how I love you. All the while the wife and the children know something's missing.

This isn't as it should be. And again, it's because both of these are distortions.

Both of them missed the mark of what the husband is being called to do for the wife here by bringing in our preconceived interpretations into understanding the text.

But you see the word that Paul uses here in the Greek, there's a word phileo, which is translated to love, okay?

It indicates feelings of warm affection. It's a good word. There's another word for love that indicates a more of an erotic, like a kissing and that sort of thing.

There's another word for love in that. And so, okay, we can throw out our emotion interpretation.

Right, if Paul didn't use this word phileo or that other word, like, yeah, that he must mean commitment.

See, wives, I'm doing what God told me to. Hold up, husbands. The word that Paul does use makes this whole thing far more complex, a lot more difficult than you would imagine.

This word indicates a direction of the will, right?

A direction of the will, that's commitment, right? It's, I am determined to love you no matter what.

I am committed to you. And the husband's like, see, it says it's commitment. Problem is, is that's not all the word encompasses.

It also is finding one's joy in someone. Emotion, affection.

This love is commitment plus affection.

It made it more complex, didn't it? Now it just opened up a whole can of worms. Now, what do we do with that?

And we see this truth, actually, in the next phrase. Look at it, verse 25. He says, husbands, love your wives as, right, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.

See, there is no other example of this type of love at this level.

They're examples of a love of commitment. They're examples of a love of affection.

But nothing in the whole created universe exemplifies this decree of commitment plus affection like the relationship between Christ and his bride, his body, his people.

After all, remember what I said last week, that this entire relationship between the husband and the wife is designed and meant to point to this glorious reality.

As he says in verse 32, right? Look at it again. Hey, this mystery is profound. This relationship between the husband and the wife is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.

This is a picture of what the marriage is to be because that marriage is actually imagery of a greater spiritual reality.

So husbands, this call to love your wives has already been defined for us.

We don't have to redefine it. We are to do it as in the same way that Christ loved the church.

And what did he do for the church? What does Paul say there? He says he gave himself up for her.

He gave himself up for her. How did Christ do this? Let's remind ourselves.

Turn over to Matthew chapter 20. Matthew 20, 28. I want you to see Jesus's words here.

In the gospel of Matthew chapter 20, in verse 28, we see this imagery of what

Paul is referring to. Where Jesus, he's telling them, he says, even as, there in verse 28, the son of man himself, that's

Christ, right? Came not to be served. Hold on just a second.

Not to be served. I want you to, if you write in your Bibles, if you underline, underline that, guys.

He came not to be served, but to what? To serve. And to give, there he gave himself, right?

He gave himself to her. And to give his life as a ransom for many.

Who are the many? Us, the church, the bride, his body. He gave himself for her.

So how, men, are we to love our wives? Are we to love them by letting them serve us?

Come on, guys. We are to love them by serving them.

This is the example. Was the church the initiator of that service?

Was the church the one? Was each individual going up and saying, I choose

Jesus? Or was it Jesus finding his sheep? He's the initiator.

He's the one that gave everything. She gave nothing. Nothing in return.

He gave everything. Does the bride, does the church, perfectly serve

Christ now? Now that she's been redeemed, now that we've been brought into glory, not to glory yet, but we've been brought into the promise of glory, we've been brought into new life, do we perfectly obey the head,

Christ? Of course not. Not even close. Not even close.

We don't even scratch the surface. Over in Galatians chapter one in verses three and four, Paul says, grace to you and peace from God our

Father and Lord Jesus Christ, who, here it is, gave himself for our sins and to deliver us from this present evil age.

He initiated, he gave himself up for us, for our iniquities.

What did we bring to the table? To your salvation, you know what you and I brought to the table? Sin. Enmity.

We brought rebellion to the table. He brought grace. He gave his life for us.

This is, and this is the example, husbands? He says this evil age, he delivered us from it.

This evil age that you and I were once part of. Remember when we were in Ephesians two, right? Paul actually, he talks about this in chapter two in verse one, he says, and you, you and I, each one of us that had been delivered but is now brought into the household of faith were dead in our trespasses and sins, and in which we once walked, following the course of this world, the present evil age, right?

We were in this, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.

You see, we see this magnificent truth of Christ's great sacrifice and continual grace bestowed upon us, a imperfect, often rebellious, sin -ridden people that he calls his body, that he has brought into perfect union with himself.

And how we, as husbands, are supposed to imitate that with our wives?

That's a lot, isn't it, guys? That's the picture? We're called to be like the giving, gracious Christ who initiates and keeps and sanctifies and works in and through us, who is at the right hand of the

Father, interceding for us at this moment, even in the midst of our rebellion in which he had already forgiven and given his life for.

But the moment our wives don't act as we want them to and are overtaken with sin, we draw the line there.

Oh, I drew the line, she crossed it. Jesus said, I'm to love her as Christ loved the church, but that's the line.

I can't bear her crossing that line. The moment that they do to us the same thing that we do to Christ on a daily, hourly, minute, second, moment by moment, we become like the unforgiving servant in Matthew 18, don't we?

You remember it? The servant who is standing in court and the king's looking at him and forgives him of a debt of like, it'd be of the equivalent of like billions of dollars for us right now.

Like, he couldn't pay that debt off with 1 ,000 lifetimes. And he's forgiven and he's let free, right?

You remember the story? He's let free and he's roaming down the streets and runs into his buddy, woes him 10 bucks. And the dude can't pay him back in the moment so he has him thrown in prison until he gives him his 10 bucks.

It's the unforgiving servant. We become like him, don't we, as husbands.

You did me wrong. I'm not gonna show you the same grace that I literally just was forgiven of 100 billion fold.

You're saying, yeah, I will love her with a commitment and an affection.

I will do so with this love as long as she is lovable. That's easy, isn't it?

Whenever she's lovable, I can be committed. I can be affectionate.

But the moment she acts like me, draw the line.

If she is giving me what I need, if she will give me what

I need in the bedroom, we'll be all right. If she'll make sure the laundry's done and put away the way

I want it done, we'll be all right. As long as that dinner table is exactly the time

I want it and when I want it and she's taking care of all of the things that I've told her to take care of, we'll be all right.

As long as she does these things, if she's being submissive and showing honor to me as she should, if she wouldn't question everything

I say, then I could love her. Does she not know that? All the while, we have and continue to be 100 billion times more lovable to our

Savior. You get that, right? You think, she's not being lovable, so I can't love her.

While being 100 trillion times more unlovable to Christ, yourself.

The one whose love of commitment and affection towards you remains unfazed, unmovable, and everlasting.

This is the kind of love that God is decreeing for husbands to have towards his wife.

What? Feels overwhelming, doesn't it, guys? You may say, pastor, how is this possible?

We're not Christ. How is this even possible? You're right, we fall very short of that standard.

We do. I do. That's why I believe Paul gives us the second thing

I want us to see in the text, and that is the motivation. The motivation, because we've seen how just leaving us with a decree feels hopeless.

You just tell us what has to be done, and we see the immensity of that, and we can feel crushed under the weight of it.

We need motivation. Look at verse, well, let's read verse 25 again on through.

Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.

That he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing that she might be holy and without blemish.

Okay. Where's the motivation? This right here, these couple of verses, this is not an explanation of what

Christ gave himself up for, but why he gave himself up for her.

These two verses are why he gave himself up for her. This is the purpose of him loving her.

As husbands, or anyone for that matter, by the way, I'm preaching to all of you today, but if you're a

Christian, laying down your life for an unseen purpose seems illogical, doesn't it?

To give up your life, to have that type of love of commitment plus affection, dying to self constantly, to give of your life to something, to someone or any cause seems illogical without understanding the why.

You see, there was certainly a difference in the mindset of the soldiers from World War II versus maybe some other wars, right?

Everyone knew when they were fighting against the Nazis in Japan, they knew what they were potentially giving their lives up for.

But there have been other cases in history where soldiers didn't really know why they were at war.

They didn't know why they were fighting this so -called enemy and laying down their life for that, that is a big ask.

Those are two very different things. And when a husband is called to love and lay down his life for his wife, knowing what this is going to cost him, he better know why he's doing it.

Otherwise, you will lose focus. You will lose sight of the task at hand, the battle that needs to be fought.

Because let's be honest, us guys, we are really good at cost analysis. You know what

I'm talking about, guys. How much effort is this going to cost me? And what is the return of investment?

We're designed like that. You know, we get back to God's design. Like if we're meant to go work, like let's say we go out and we see an area where we think we need to make a field and put a crop and there's rocks in the ground and there's stumps in the ground, there's everything.

And we do a cost analysis. How much effort versus how much crop am I gonna get in this versus this portion of land?

How much effort versus how much crop I'm gonna get? We are really good at cost analysis. And if the return doesn't outweigh the effort, we just don't engage.

And this is where our selfish, sinful, distorted natures show themselves once again.

Is everything good in our good nature gets distorted, right? What value does my laying down my life for this woman bring to me?

You see it? All the while forgetting that passage that we read last week from 1

Corinthians, for you were bought with a price to glorify

God in your body. Remember Christian, you are not your own.

Husband, you don't belong to yourself. You are not your own. Your life doesn't belong to you.

None of this is for you. You are fully and completely subservient to your master who owns you in full.

He paid for you and absolutely everything about your life is to be to the glory of and for the purpose of him and him alone, period.

Anything else is subordination. Your life doesn't belong to you, brother.

My life doesn't belong to me, though I try and claim it. We are to submit to him.

We are to submit to his will with the whole of our being. So what does that mean, guys? Ladies in here, young people in here, what does it mean?

What does this mean? How does it apply? Particularly, how does it apply here?

Well, let's think about it. Christ died for his bride.

So as he says in verse 26, that he might sanctify her.

What does sanctify mean? To set apart. To set apart unto himself, right?

Meaning he specifically chose her. That means every part that makes up the her, the whole, the bride, that's each one of us, has been specifically chosen in order to be sanctified unto himself.

Every individual. He goes on, he says, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word.

This is what Christ has done. He has sanctified her. Set her apart.

And then he has washed her with the water and the word. What does that mean? What is the washing of water? Well, I think he references it over in Titus chapter three.

He says, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the

Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior. That's the washing.

That's what he's done, isn't it, for the bride? He has washed us through regeneration with the word, Romans 10, 17, right?

So faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ. This is what

Paul's talking about here. This is what Christ has done for the bride. This means he justifies her.

He declares her righteous. Not only does he set her apart and sanctify her, he regenerates her through the power of the

Holy Spirit, and then he justifies her. He declares her righteous. Again, this means each individual part of the whole, every single saint.

That's you, husband. That's you, wife. That's you, young person. And every saint that's ever lived and ever will live.

We see this in verse 27. Look at it. So that, why did he sanctify her?

Why did he justify her? So that he might present the church to himself. To himself.

He's not presenting the church to you, husband. He's not presenting that woman to you, husband.

Wife, he's not presenting that husband to you or those children to you. He's doing it to himself, for himself, in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing that she, every individual within the whole of that bride, the body, might be holy and without blemish.

He's redeeming us for himself. And here's the thing, husband.

You're part of that body. Christ has done this for you. And guess what? That woman that he gave you, if she's in Christ, he did that for her also.

What does this mean? Means if you belong to him, if he purchased you by blood ransom and your life is not your own, he owns you, then the same goes for her.

She's not yours. She belongs to him.

And you know what? He loves her so much that he died for her. He found her and he sanctified her.

And he justified her. And now, as I said a moment ago, intercedes for her at the right hand of the father, the father who has adopted her as his very own daughter, a daughter whom he loved before the foundations of the world.

What other motivation do we need? When we see our true identity in him, it changes how we perceive our relationship with each other.

Within the marriage, within the church body, within everything, it changes everything.

Men, you have been given the task to lay down your life through a love of full commitment, full affection, and good stewardship of one of his beloved.

That weight bears on me. As I think of that, when I deal with my wife and I look at my precious wife as much as I love her, she was created by a good

God that set his love and affection upon her, found her, redeemed her, and has guaranteed her inheritance and called her daughter.

And I treat her in the ways that I do. Here we are, husbands, tempted to treat her as nothing more than an object to serve me.

When she doesn't, either physically or emotionally, I abandon her.

I abandon her to fend for herself. Yeah, we'll see what the king thinks of that, leaving one of his daughters vulnerable to the enemy.

Okay, she's not gonna give me the affection I want. I won't give her the affection she wants all the while. You know what?

The enemy has another man right over the way ready to give her that affection. And now you've primed her to be ready for that.

And it's your fault, man. By the way, this goes for you wives, too.

Well, that's something to say about that over in 1 Corinthians 7. You might wanna look that up. But you see, verses 26 and 27 aren't speaking of the role of the husband here.

We are not sanctifying her. We are not justifying her. We are caretakers of the one who did.

Yet I think there are some wonderful principles here, principles that are antithetical to the world's thoughts.

You see, as men, we think that force and will can change our spouse. The example of Christ showed us that he absorbed everything.

He gave everything so that she might be sanctified, justified, and ultimately glorified. He did it.

Husband, you want any hope that your wife will be molded into what she was designed for?

You want that, don't you? It's a good thing to want. You want her to be molded into what she was designed for in her

God -designed femininity as a wife? You want that. Well, guess what? It can only be achieved through you dying.

What do I mean by that? Guys, it's the upside -down way of the kingdom.

We saw that in the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount. A few years ago as we were walking through, what does

Jesus lay out at the beginning? The first shall be last. The poor shall be rich. The mourn shall be comforted.

The mourning. The meek shall inherit. The hungry will be satisfied. The merciful will receive mercy.

The persecuted and the peacemakers will inherit the kingdom of heaven. You see, sin breeds sin, but righteousness breeds righteousness.

And righteousness is presented very different than what the world perceives as control and power.

You want your wife to be the godly, submissive wife she's called to be? Quit trying to fix her and be the godly leader, the

Christ -like servant leader you are called to be. Give your life up for her.

Be like Christ. And righteousness breeds righteousness.

The harder you push in sinful, pragmatic ways, the more her sinful flesh is gonna dig her heels in the sand.

And you see it all the time. Every time you sin a little, she sins a little more, which then leads you to sin a little more, then leads her to sin a little more.

And the next thing you know, it's snowballed. And by the time it's gotten halfway down the hill, it's an albatross of chaos that neither of you can control.

The third and lastly, we see the exhortation. Look at verse 28.

In the same way, as Christ has laid down his life to sanctify, to justify, and ultimately glorify, in the same way husbands should love their 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 Christ does the church because we are members of his body.

And then he quotes Genesis 2. He takes it all the way back to the creation mandate, right? Therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.

You see, there is a unique relationship that is unlike anything else in the created world between a husband and a wife.

We are all, if you're in Christ today, we're all brought into perfect union, right? We've been talking about that in Ephesians for over a year now.

We're brought into perfect union with one another in the body of Christ. There is no longer Jew nor Greek, male nor female, right?

We're all in this together. However, I am only one flesh with one of you.

You realize that, right? We are spiritually unified, but I am only one flesh with one of you.

My beautiful, godly, wonderful wife is part of me. The better part if you ask me. And whenever I begin to see her as opposition or as competition, this flesh is at odds with itself.

A body cannot fight against itself, can it? What happens in the body of Christ, right?

In a spiritual sense, we're the body of Christ. What happens when disunity comes into the midst?

When one body part is at odds with another body part, the whole body comes to a screeching halt.

The whole body. It destroys everything good.

And we have become one flesh, a husband and a wife in that covenant union.

Oftentimes we're at odds with each other. And there in verse 29, no one ever hated his own flesh.

What does he do though? What does someone do with their own flesh? We nourish and cherish it.

We nourish and cherish our own flesh. Some of us better than others. Brian takes care of himself better than I do.

But my point is, is we are to nourish and cherish it as we do ourselves, because she is part of us.

You know what, this helps us to better understand what Peter said over in 1 Peter 3, 7 actually. He says, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, right?

We're to nourish and cherish. You live with her in an understanding way. You're to show honor to the woman as the weaker vessel.

Why are we to do that? Why are we to cherish and nourish and understand and honor in this way?

Since they are heirs with you of the grace of life. I don't know if they've been brought into union with you and flesh.

They're co -heirs in this greater reality of a spiritual.

And he goes on there in 1 Peter 3, 7. As a matter of fact, I want to pinpoint this. There's consequences to not doing this, men.

He says, so that your prayers may not be hindered. Interesting that Peter puts that there, right?

He tells us to live with our wives in an understanding way. And then he says, so that your prayers may not be hindered. Think about it this way.

Husbands, you may be praying for God to change your wife. And I know that every one of you have done that at some level.

Wives, you may be doing the same, right? But you may be praying that God would change your wife, but you're not living in an understanding way.

You're not honoring her as the weaker vessel. You're not caring for her as the way that you ought.

You're not laying down your life for her, part of your own flesh. And so your prayers are being hindered.

Why would God answer you when you're not listening to him in the first place? Why are you going to completely ignore what he says and then expect him to give you an answer to another question?

Your prayers are hindered, guys. Paul knows our propensity. He said in Colossians 3, 19, he says, "'Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them.'"

Same thing that Peter's saying, right? Live in an understanding way. You see, here's the thing.

We sure do give ourselves a lot of grace, don't we? When we don't do as we ought to do, we give ourselves a tremendous amount of grace.

But when it comes to the other part of our flesh, our wives, do we give the same grace? They're our body.

We are one flesh together. This is Paul exhorting us to do so.

And Paul finishes up his thought with the passage that we mentioned a moment ago, verse 32.

He says, "'This mystery is profound, "'and

I'm saying that it refers to Christ and the church.'" Husband, this isn't about you.

Wife, this isn't about you. Young Christian, this isn't about you.

It's about him. We lose sight of that. This isn't about us.

But then in verse 33, what does Paul say? He says, "'However,' it's like he said, "'Hey, say, this isn't about you.'"

This is a greater reality. This is pointing to the gospel, something far greater spiritually. "'However,'

Paul doubles down on this command, "'let each one of you love his wife as himself, "'and let the wife see that she respects her husband.'"

Husband, wife, brother, sister, let us not distort the imagery of the gospel to this watching world.

Don't let us distort it, husbands, by not laying down our lives for our brides. Wives, don't distort the gospel by not submitting and respecting your husbands.

Husbands and wives display the beauty of Christ and his people. Those people, it's us, right?

Those of us who have been brought into Christ, whom he laid down his life for and lovingly and gently keeps and cares for.

And a people, us, who, though imperfectly, we seek to submit to him. Guys, this is the meaning of marriage.

This is what marriage is about. It's not about us, it's about him. In full, it's about his glorious grace in the gospel.

And you see, God takes this imagery very seriously, doesn't he? Just as he takes the imagery of what we're about to see in the

Lord's Supper. All this imagery is a tangible expression of a spiritual reality.

And I know that for many of us, after hearing of this great responsibility within marriage, as husbands specifically, we can have a sense of being overwhelmed.

How can I live up to this? So as we prepare our hearts to come to the table,

I've actually asked Justin if he would come up and lead us in singing, Yet Not I, but Christ in Me.