Spirit Filled Patriarchy

Providence Baptist Church iconProvidence Baptist Church

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Ephesians 5:25-33

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Man, thank you for that, Gunnar. One of my favorite preachers is
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Martin Lloyd -Jones. Martin Lloyd -Jones was a preacher in London.
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He passed away in 1981. But in 1973, he put into print a critique of American homes.
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Listen to what he says. 50 years ago this year, right? 1973 was 50 years ago.
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So 50 years ago, Lloyd -Jones says this. In the United States of America, you have what may more or less be called a matriarchal society.
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The man is becoming increasingly regarded merely as the one to provide the dollars, the wage earner, the man who brings in the necessary money.
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The woman, the mother, is the cultured person and the head of the home. The children look to her.
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This false unscriptural view of man and woman and father and mother leads to a matriarchal society, which it seems to me is most dangerous.
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The result is, of course, the growth of crime and all the terrible social problems with which they are grappling in that country.
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Then because they influence every other country through their films and in various other ways, this attitude is being spread throughout the entire world.
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A matriarchal society with the woman as the head and the center of the home is a denial of the biblical teaching and is indeed a repetition of the old sin of Eve.
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Now you hear that, and I know in some places, that maybe sounds quite offensive.
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What are you trying to say, preacher? Are you trying to say that the problems that we're in today is the fault of women?
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No, of course, that would be foolish to say that. Any more than you see, Eve's deception was laid upon her feet only.
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It was Adam, right, who was responsible for his wife. So too, in our society today, we must ask this question.
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Where are the men? And quite the foresight here from Dr.
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Lloyd -Jones, he nailed our society's decay 50 years ago. And of course, in those five decades since then, we have only grown worse and worse.
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We have collapsed the two genders into such a state that we've tried to eliminate today every distinction that there is.
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And we've taken away from both the glory of womanhood and the glory of manhood.
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So turn in your Bibles this morning, please, to Ephesians chapter five.
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We continue our exposition through this letter to the Ephesians. And how we think about the home matters.
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We've been looking at that for a couple of weeks. How we think about men and women in the home, it matters.
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Marriage roles, friends, matter. And so the title of today's sermon is Spirit -Filled
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Patriarchy. Pagan patriarchy is not the answer for today.
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Matriarchy is not the answer for today. But there is a calling from the word of God upon the leadership and headship of men in the home that is to be full of the spirit of God and rooted in love.
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And that will revolutionize our homes and our churches and our nation if we would just believe the
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Bible. Ephesians chapter five. We'll begin reading in verse 25.
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Would you stand with me as we honor the reading of God's word? We covered wives last week and now today.
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Paul says in verse 25, 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 in the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies.
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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're members of his body.
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Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh.
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This mystery is profound and I'm saying that it refers to Christ and the church.
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However, let each of you love his wife as himself and let the wife see that she respects her husband.
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Let's pray. Father, we pray that you would bless the reading and preaching of your word today. We pray that it would be honoring to Christ.
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We pray that it would be fruitful in our homes and that our homes would seek to ever conform to the standard of your word.
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We pray that it would creep into the churches and to society that we would have
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God honoring and Christ exalting institutions. We pray that we'd push back against the darkness of this world, that we would rightly see the glorifying purposes of a man, the glorifying purposes of a woman and the great and glorious gender roles that you've called each distinct two sexes to.
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We pray today that we would see the gospel in the text and that we'd rest ourselves in that.
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We pray it all in Jesus' name, amen. You may be seated. So let me start by explaining the title of today's sermon,
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Spirit -Filled Patriarchy, right? We get spirit -filled from verse 18 of the text where it says, if you gotta go back up a little bit, verse 18, it says, do not get drunk with wine for that is debauchery, but be filled with the spirit.
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So you need to understand that the feeling of the spirit for the Christian is not just about your personal spiritual disciplines, is not just about the gathered church, but Paul connects all this contextually being filled in the spirit in the home and in these relationships.
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A spirit -filled wife is a wife who honors and submits to her husband.
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And a spirit -filled husband is one who honors and cherishes and loves and leads his wife as Christ loves the church.
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A spirit -filled marriage is a marriage that is full of love between husband and wife.
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And then we use the word patriarchy on purpose, by the way. Some people hear patriarchy and they hear this.
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Some people hear patriarchy and they hear this definition, male authority system that oppresses and subordinates women through social, political, and economic institutions and practices.
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That's not what we're talking about. We're using Wayne Grudem's more succinct definition when he says, according to scripture, patriarchy is responsible male leadership in the home and in the church.
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Responsible male leadership. And I would only add this, not only in the home and in the church, but also in society as well.
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Well, where do we get this idea? Well, look at verse 23 that we talked about last week. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its savior.
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In other words, Christ is the ultimate provider and protector and pastor of the church.
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So too, the husband is the provider and the protector and the pastor of his wife.
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And God holds, men, God holds us responsible for these duties.
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Ladies, you are responsible for your actions, but there is a measure of responsibility that the husband holds before God as the head of his wife.
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And if you look at the text, the husband here in verse 25 is commanded to love his wife.
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Commanded, this is an imperative. Friends, I wanna tell you this. It is not an option.
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He does not love his wife with strings attached. I love you in order to get something, right?
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That's not love, that is manipulation. A husband who wants to teach his wife how to submit to Christ by submitting to him can best do so by submitting to Christ in loving his wife.
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Let me put it to you this way. Husbands, we're very, very tempted to pull out
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Ephesians 5 and to tell our wives, you need to submit to me.
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But may I suggest that a better way to model this for your wife is to show your wife what submission looks like by submitting yourself to Christ, by obeying what this text commands.
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Does that make sense? In other words, for you to say, and I'm not saying there's never a time for a husband to say to his wife, hey, look, the
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Bible says you need to submit. And I'm not saying there's never a time for a wife to say to her husband, hey, look, the Bible says that you should love me as Christ loved the church.
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What I am saying though is sometimes husbands, you want to stand up here and you want to say, you need to submit to me.
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But what you fail to realize is your wife, she's confused about what submission looks like because you haven't modeled it for her.
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Make sense? She doesn't know what submission looks like in a sense because you're not submitting to the
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Bible. So you submit to the Bible and help your wife to understand what her submission is to look like.
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When we model this submission of Christ by submitting ourselves as husbands to the text, it goes a long way in teaching our wives what biblical submission looks like.
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So again, verse 25, husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.
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This leads me to an observation in Ephesians 5, something I want you to think about. Maybe I'm not right, but it's an observation.
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I want to share it with you. Paul seems to leave here in the text what is natural to us as unsaid and commands what is more unnatural.
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So here's what I mean. In the text, wives are not commanded to love their husbands.
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Should wives love their husbands? Absolutely, right? But Paul doesn't command.
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Paul doesn't say, wives, love your husbands. Rather, I think this is because this is more natural, right?
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What is harder for a wife is submission. And so that's what Paul commands.
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So he doesn't say, wife, love your husband, because she says, I love my husband, right? Rather, he commands what is harder, which is submission.
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So two husbands are not commanded in this text. Husbands are not commanded to be an authority over their wives.
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Why is that? Well, I think probably that in natural relations, it just comes more natural.
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So what is commanded, should husbands be an authority over their wives? Yes, but what is commanded is sacrificial love, which is what?
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This is what's more difficult. So wives are to love their husbands and husbands are to lead their wives, but the command is not for husbands to lead because that seems to be more of a natural thing.
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The command is for wives to submit because that seems to be more unnatural. And the command is for husbands to love their wives because that seems to be more unnatural.
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Hopefully all that makes sense. So consider this again, verse 22. Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the
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Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, his body and is himself its savior.
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Now, as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.
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We see here now then the gospel's impact upon a marriage and the continued dependence of both parties upon Christ and upon his grace.
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If you read this text and you say, I can do, if husbands, you read it and say, I can do this, by the way, there's a lot more about the husband's role in this text, isn't it?
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You would imagine that because the husband is the leader. A lot more about the husband's role in this text than there is the wife.
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If you look at this text and you say, I can do this on my own, I don't need the help of Jesus, then you don't understand the text.
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That's for wives and husbands. One more side note, the
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Bible knows nothing of marriage apart from husbands and wives. It's why
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I slip at this sometimes, but I wanna encourage you with this. Don't say the word gay marriage.
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I try my best not to say that. Why? Because it doesn't exist.
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It would be like you saying, hey, let's walk around and let's talk about round squares. Wait, it's absurd, but what's happened in our culture is we've allowed this thing that doesn't exist.
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We talk about it, but it doesn't exist. Like gay marriage cannot exist, why? Because a marriage has to have a husband and a wife.
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And so God's design for marriage, and by the way, who's the author of marriage? Not man, God. God's design for marriage is between one man and one woman for life, and this is the ideal that we must defend.
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All right, side notes aside, here's what we're gonna do today. I wanna consider verse 25, husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church.
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And I want to lay out in today's sermon the type of love that a husband is commanded to have for his wife.
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Look at the text, there's a very strong parallel here. You understand, this is a comparison. Verse 25, husbands, love your wives, like how?
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Like Quatro loves fast food or something. No, that's not it, right?
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Like Gunner loves skateboarding or something. No, love your wife, how?
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As, important little word, Christ loves the church.
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That's a high standard, right? You can't get a higher standard than what is in this text. In one sense, the husband models the very gospel to his wife and to his home, to his children, in the way that he loves his wife.
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He is, in one sense, a picture of Christ. In other words, he looks at his wife, he looks at his children, and he says, would you like to know just a little taste of what it looks like for Christ to love the church?
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Look at me. Now, every husband falls infinitely short of this standard.
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Yet, we cannot escape the reality that there is a parallel here, there is a picture here.
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So, the godly husband, by grace through trusting Christ, is to live this way with his wife.
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All right, so what are the ways a husband is to love his wife as Christ loved the church?
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I have five words here to consider. First word, sovereign.
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First word, sovereign. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church.
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The word sovereign, now, I'm gonna get to my main point. There are some other things that you should consider.
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The word sovereign perhaps brings to your mind authority. So, this is true there. The husband must be willing to exercise godly and loving leadership over his wife and his home.
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Too many men are passive in this. This kind of leadership that the Bible calls us to, by the way, men, it's hard.
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And a lot of people are very lazy in this regard. This doesn't mean that you tell your wife, or that you make your wife tell you every decision that she makes throughout the day.
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A good leader is not a micromanager. He's in open discussion with his wife. He listens to his wife.
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He gleans valuable and necessary insight and wisdom from his wife that is going to affect the way that he leads and thinks and such.
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But there is no mistaking the parallel here. Christ is the head of the church, and the husband is the head of his wife.
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He must lead. He is responsible before God for his wife.
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Wives, you'll answer for your sins, and you'll answer for the way that you've raised your children.
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Husbands, you'll answer for your sins, and you'll answer for your wife, and for your children, and your home.
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Husbands, you're not Lord over your wife's conscience. There are important implications here.
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This is a silly illustration, but let's say, I use fast food as an example. Let's say your wife says in her mind, it's sin for her to eat fast food, because in some regards, it's not even really food, right?
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And so, you can't demand that she sins against her conscience. No, eat this food, you can't do that.
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But at the end of the day, a godly husband loves his wife well in leading her well.
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This will include, husbands, asking her questions and how you can lead better, how things are going with her day, how things are going with her soul, a text message or a phone call, just letting her know that you love her and are praying for her and appreciate her.
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Also, with this idea of authority, we think about protection. With authority comes responsibility.
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Understand, husband, we are the physical protectors of our wives. Now, we do not advocate
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Christian to be violent people, but hear me clearly.
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There is a place for Christian violence. When it comes to a man protecting his wife and his children.
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Okay, so the word sovereign brings to our mind authority, but that's not the real reason I chose this word.
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I chose this word for another reason. The real reason I chose this word is because by sovereign love, a husband should love his wife in a sovereign way.
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I mean, special love. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church.
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Here's what I mean. The husband must choose to love his wife.
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Two emphases here. First, you choose to love, right?
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The husband chooses to love. Lou Priolo notes, the opposite of love is selfishness.
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So a godly husband mortifies selfishness and chooses to love his wife.
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He chooses, verse 25, to obey what the Bible says. Husband, love your wives.
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But I don't feel like it. Or Reggie, her hair's messy or she's got morning sickness or she's not submitting like she's supposed to or, you know, hypothetical.
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She backed her vehicle into something else. Like, I don't feel like loving my wife today.
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It doesn't matter what you feel like. The Bible says that you are to love her.
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It's deeper than feeling, right? By the way, you cannot fall out of love if you choose to love every day, right?
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You can't come to me and say, and no one in here surely would ever do this, but you can't come to me and say, you know,
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Brother Quattro, I've just fallen out of love with my wife. I don't even understand what that means, right?
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Because you're choosing to love every day. Does this not, friends, mimic the sovereign love of Christ for his bride?
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Did he not in eternity past choose her? Did he not lift her at her worst out of the miry clay?
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Did he not wash her clean though she was stained with foul garments?
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Did he not chase her down even as she ran from him? Does he not still love her though she remains in such an unglorified state?
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Husbands, so you too must choose to love every day. Secondly, you must choose to love her.
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And by this, I mean exclusively. Paul says, husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.
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Pause real quick. Who did Christ give himself up for? The church.
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It's there in the text. There's a special kind of love here. Christ's love for his bride is exclusive and special.
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So listen to this, men. Husbands, we are to love our children. A husband loves his family.
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He loves his church. He loves his friend. In a sense, he really loves all people.
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But none of that compares to the sovereign love that he has for his own bride.
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Only God has more love from the husband than his wife. She is the highest priority of a person that he is to love, higher than any other created being.
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And let me just give you the gospel here. Look at verse 26 and 27. Jesus loved the bride so much that he might sanctify her, die for her, 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.
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I might mention here, as you hear of Christ's sovereign love for the church, are you not compelled to come to him in saving faith?
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You say, you don't understand, preacher. You don't understand the things I've done wrong. You don't understand my hypocrisy.
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You don't understand I am unclean. How am I ever gonna get to Jesus if I am unclean?
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But you don't understand. Jesus is the fountain, right? Jesus is the fountain that you come to plunge in today, repent and believe this glorious gospel.
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What a sovereign love Christ has for his bride. And so too, husbands, in a sense, are to have a sovereign love for their wives.
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Secondly, it's not just a sovereign love, but it is a sacrificial love. Verse 25 says, husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church, and in this text, and gave himself up for her.
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What a glorious picture of the gospel here, friends. Christ's love for the church led him to a substitution.
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Jesus is our substitutionary atonement on the cross. He sacrificed himself for his bride.
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He was willing to be her legal representative. He took her sins upon himself on Calvary.
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He stood in her place. He laid down his life, bearing the wrath of God in order for her to receive the grace and mercy of God.
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He rose again, triumphant over death, hell, and the grave, and is king of the universe. In his kingship now, he commands, verse 25, husbands to love their wives how?
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Like this. The way that Christ loved the church, husbands are to love their wives.
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So Christ loved his bride to death. So too, the husband is called to lay down his life for his bride.
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This includes physical death. So dying for her, and in her place if necessary.
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If she's on the track, and her foot's stuck, and she can't get it untied, and the train's barreling down, and my only option is to push her with all my might out of the way and take the train myself, that's what
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I do. Why? Because she's more important than me, because God loves her more, because, no, no.
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No, it's because that's my role. That's my duty. That's what God has called me to do.
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If the bullets are firing, I don't run off and leave her. I don't have her, honey,
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I'm gonna get on the ground. Would you lay over me and shield me from the bullets? No, no, that's what
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I do for her. The boy goes down, so the girl goes free.
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And we have to recover this mentality. Don't you let your progressive friends and family tell you that this is degrading to women.
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I can take care of that myself. I can open the door for myself. No, no, we open the door for women. We help them if we see them with a heavy load.
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We come alongside them. Why? Because we, not because we degrade women, but because we honor them, and we understand the role that God has called us as men in the home, in the church, and in society.
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We don't dare tell a lady, hey, I'm gonna stay at home. You go and you fight the war for me.
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No. Why? Because we understand our biblical roles.
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You stay here, I go fight. Now, in a sense,
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I think that's probably easy, but there's more application here.
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So, husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.
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A husband's sacrifice for his wife is not only in physical death.
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You understand there's other, like, Jesus gave up, as it were, the glories of heaven to take on human flesh, to be called a man of sorrows, all for his bride.
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So, too, there is a dying daily for the husband, so to speak. There are regular times in a marriage where a husband must crucify his preferences or his desires for the good of his wife.
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He must, Peter says, live with her in an understanding way. Sometimes he has to die to the golf outing, the movie outing, the extra hours at work.
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Oh, honey, I gotta work late this week, but it's for the good of the family, and she's at home, and she's crying, and she's upset.
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He says, like, there are times that you need to be with her and not your job, the hobby, the game, whatever the case may be, in order to love your wife well.
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It means at times you have to lay your wants aside. The husband comes home from a long day.
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She's been with the little kids. You know, he doesn't wanna talk. He doesn't wanna help. He's tired.
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He wants to just, for the love of all that is good, can I not just plop down in my chair and just chill for a minute?
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Well, sometimes, though, he can't do that. Why? Because he's called to love his wife sacrificially.
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You understand that sacrificially means it costs you something. This is hard. That's right.
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That's what sacrifice means, right? Take the kids, talk about your day, talk about her day, bring home a
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Dr. Pepper, or whatever it may be, kiss her on the forehead, love your wife sacrificially. Furthermore, sometimes sacrificing your preferences, husbands, means addressing something that might cause conflict.
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Maybe there are issues in the marriage that need to be addressed. Often a husband doesn't want to deal with those because it just makes the wife upset.
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It's just gonna cause strife and conflict. We've believed this lie, you could finish this for me, as though it's a
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Bible verse, but it's not. If mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.
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So this has caused us to retreat as men and to pacify our wives instead of leading, because leading is hard.
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Husbands, it's hard to lead in this way. It's difficult as a man to address sin or conflict in the home.
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It's easier, you know what I'm talking about, it's easier to just not bring things up sometimes, right?
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Like everything's cool, I'm not gonna, it's just easier not to bring this up. But there comes a time as leader of the home that you're responsible, man, you're responsible, husband, that when a behavior or a habit or an attitude or a decision needs to be lovingly and humbly addressed, you've got to address it.
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That's sacrificial in a sense. Well, husbands, love your wives sacrificially. Sacrifice is not just going to work.
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Well, I work. Right, that's your duty. The model sacrifice is Christ.
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Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.
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This is a sacrifice that was painful and costly, and it is the sacrifice that husbands are called to mimic in their marriages.
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Let me add this for the ladies. Today is not a good day at lunch to say to your husband, did you hear that message, right?
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That's what I've been saying. Not a good day for that. That's not a gentle and quiet spirit. Rather, let the word of God and the spirit of God work on us and do its work.
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Third point, a husband's love is sovereign, sacrificial. Thirdly, selflessly self -serving.
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Triple word score. Selflessly self -serving. Now listen to this.
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A husband's love is selflessly self -serving. That sounds weird, okay, but it's in the text. Listen to it.
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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.
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In the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies.
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He who loves his wife loves who? Himself, for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it just as Christ does the church.
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So a husband's love is selflessly self -serving. Here's the point.
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We're to love our wives selflessly. But when we love our wives, it also is self -serving in the sense that loving our wives selflessly is loving our own bodies.
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That's what 28 says. He, the end of it. He who loves his wife loves himself.
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So the order's important here. The opposite is not true, by the way, right?
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He who loves himself loves his wife, right? That's what we wanna do. We wanna flip these around, right?
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So you hear the phrase, love your neighbor as yourself. And so you have this mentality. Oh, I just need to love myself more and I'll love my neighbors better.
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Like, no, no, that's the point. You already love yourself too much, right? That's the point. So in this text, it's not love yourself better so you can love your wife better.
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No, no, no, it's when you love your wife well, when you're really loving your wife, you're loving yourself, right?
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Think about your body. You take care of your physical body. You make sacrifices. You eat well. You exercise well.
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You sleep well. But in serving your body, you're not just serving some other entity. You're serving yourself.
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Well, there's an analogy here. That's why Colossians 319 says for husbands, don't be harsh with your wives.
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Don't be harsh with your wife any more than you would take a hammer. And if you miss a nail or whatever, you just take your hammer and be like, all right, hand, whack.
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Right here, you're not gonna do that. Why? Because that would hurt. That would hurt your body. The same way we love and we nurture, verse 29, for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it just as Christ does to church.
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So this is our call to nourish and cherish our wives and honor our wives and protect and serve our wives in a selfless manner.
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But when we do this, it's ultimately part of bettering even ourselves because we're one flesh, verse 31.
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Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh.
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Listen to one commentator, Essenbal. He says, the husband is bound by love to ensure that his wife finds their marriage a source of rich fulfillment and joyful service to the
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Lord. Husbands and wives have different roles in marriage, but they are equally indispensable and worthy of honor in the body of Christ.
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So let me ask you something, husbands. If your wife found in marriage a source of rich fulfillment and joyful service to the
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Lord, would that not also benefit you? Not only would it benefit her, it would benefit you.
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I'm gonna challenge us today, husbands. Today, at some point, I want you to ask your wife, honey, do you find in our marriage a source of rich fulfillment and joyful service to the
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Lord? And ask her to be honest. And here's what I'm gonna tell you to do. That's kind of vulnerable.
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If she says no, then I simply want you to ask her, in what ways can
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I lead you better? Now, unless you stand today and you shake my hand at the back of the door today and you say,
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I didn't need that because I'm a perfect husband. As long as you're in agreement today that we're full in this church today of imperfect and sinful husbands, then you will agree with me that all of us could stand to ask our wives such a question.
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Sovereign, sacrificial, selflessly self -serving, fourthly, structural. Here's what
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I mean. Look at verse 25. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. Here's what
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I mean. A husband loves his wife well when he doesn't act like a distant
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CEO, okay? But he's a hands -on serving manager of the home.
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I'm not saying a micromanager, okay? But think for a moment of the Lord Jesus and the structural love that he has for the church.
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In other words, he has not left the church to figure out what he wants and how the church is to be ran, okay?
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So the church makes daily decisions about what time we're gonna meet and how many songs we're gonna sing and all those things.
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But we're not under unambiguous direction, okay? Because, or that's wrong.
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We're not under ambiguous direction. We're under the unambiguous direction of Christ as revealed in his word.
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In other words, Christ has shown us in the Bible how the leadership of the church is to be, how the worship of the church is to be, how the membership of the church is to be.
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Christ equips the church and he instructs the church. He doesn't just go off and say, here's how things,
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I hope you run the church well and I'll see you when I come back. No, he hasn't left us and just said, figure it out.
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Similarly then, a godly husband is to provide tangible structure to the home in his leadership.
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I'll give you an example. It's not, honey, homeschool the kids and I'll see you in 13 years.
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Now she will bear the brunt of homeschooling, no doubt, but not in a way that is separated from her husband's help and assistance and structural leadership.
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Okay, so husbands are to equip and provide this kind of leadership in the home, right?
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To be hands -on, as it were, to provide assistance and equip. Again, a husband is not a micromanager, but he does and he should help provide the overarching structure to the order of the home.
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He builds, as it were, the scaffolding, right? A husband that comes in and says, why is supper not ready?
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Why is this not done? Why is that not done without providing assistance or help or structure is not modeling
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Christlike love. No doubt, we talked about it last week, no doubt women are sinners, right?
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Sometimes a woman makes a poor choice during the day, no doubt, and she should repent, but a husband is to make sure that his wife has the most suitable environment and structure in order to fulfill her
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God -given duties with joy. A husband's love for his wife is sovereign, sacrificial, selflessly self -serving, structural, and finally, maybe the most important, all of these are important, but finally, sanctifying.
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Now listen to this. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, and now
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Paul's gonna journey off and talk about how Christ has loved the church. That he 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.
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You're like, okay, that's just talking about how Christ is sanctifying the church and all that, but look with me in verse 28.
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What does it say? In the same way.
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Isn't that interesting? So Christ has the church's soul, as it were, the souls of the church, as his greatest priority in terms of his love for the church.
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His greatest priority is the glory of God. Let me illustrate it this way. Does not Christ sometimes bring into our life or allow certain things in our life that are hard for us?
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Doesn't he do that? You say, well, why do you do that? Why didn't I get a raise?
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Billy across the road got a raise, I didn't get a raise. His car never breaks down.
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I'm going to the mechanic every day. Why have I had to deal with this sickness? Why do
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I have to deal with this sorrow? Well, the reason is because what the Lord Jesus cares above all in your life is he cares about your sanctification.
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So here's what I mean. Above the wife's body, above a man's desires, above everything else in a marriage, a husband's chief concern is for his wife's immortal soul.
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A godly man's great goal is not to have his wife worship him, that is idolatry.
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That is sin on both parties. No, no, your great goal is to be an aid to her increasing awe of our great and holy
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God. Let me say that again. Your great goal, husband, is for your wife, for her to increase in her awe and adoration and love for our great and awesome and holy
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God. Ladies, it's not that you can blame your husband if your walk with God is not where it should be.
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Okay, you can't be like, well, it's his fault. Well, that's not true. You can't blame him. You have to own that before God, but husbands, you are to be an instrument of sanctification in the life of your wife.
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Let's say that again. You are to be an instrument of sanctification in the wife of your life, life of your wife.
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By the way, not like Paul's thorn in his side was an instrument of sanctification, right?
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I'm not talking about like that. It's like, yeah, I'm an instrument of sanctification in my wife's life. I'm the thorn in her side.
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No, that's not what we're talking about. Your presence in your wife's life is meant to model
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Christ to her and to shepherd her, to grow in her love and devotion to Christ.
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And I cannot stress this enough. You are responsible before God for the sanctification of your wife.
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This has so many ramifications. It means that at times you need to carve out time so that your wife can have time with other godly women.
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Otherwise, how would Titus 2 ever take place? If you're always keeping your wife at home, you're never like, you're always the one going out.
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She's always at home with the kids. No, she needs time to be around godly women. Okay, so that might mean next
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Thursday, you've got to eat a frozen pizza or that you'll have to watch the kids or whatever, but your wife needs to be around godly women.
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Would you say, well, she don't like to go out, so that's fine. That means sometimes as a husband, you come home, you give her the money and you say, honey, not an option.
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You need to go out tonight. You need to go out with your godly friends and you need to grow because sometimes you say, no, no, no,
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I got so much to do, but you need to lead her in that and say, hey, you need time with other godly women.
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It means you need to read the Bible with your wife. You need to pray with your wife.
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You need to ask your wife, honey, how was your time with the
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Lord today or this week? And you need to share with her about how your time with the
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Lord has been going. This might feel weird for you. It might feel difficult for you.
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So be it. You aren't called to be a boy or a woman. You're called to be a man.
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And men sometimes have to do hard things. And you are an instrument, beloved, of godliness in your wife's life.
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Listen to 16th century reformer Martin Bootser. He says, you will sanctify your wife if you get her used to seeing in every created thing an invitation to contemplate, admire, and praise its
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Maker. If you get her used to attending sacred meetings, to rooting her woman's world not in gold, silver, and precious stones, but in virtue and in keeping
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God's commandments and confessing her sins and in doing works of mercy. What a great statement that is for husbands in the life of their wives.
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Help point your wife away from vanity and idolatry. Help her see the
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Lord's hand at work in the world, in everything. And for the glory of God, lead her in assembling with the church.
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You are over your home on Saturday night. Be over your home.
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Have it ready for Sunday morning. If you are in a marriage where your wife has to ask you if you're going to church this
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Sunday, you need to repent, men, and make church a priority in your home.
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This is the responsibility. Like it or not, man, God has called us to this. This is the responsibility that God has laid upon a man's shoulders.
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Like David says to Solomon, show yourself a man. Now listen, this is weighty and it's counter -cultural.
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So consider this too. Sanctifying love means that you need to model to your wife what repentance looks like.
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You need to lead out in saying, my dear, I've sinned.
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Please forgive me. Children, I raised my voice. I shouldn't have. Please forgive me.
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Husband, you are a sinner and you need the grace and strength of the Lord every day.
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So model this to your wife and to your home, your thoughts, your motivations, your actions, your attitudes, your laziness, your poor management, your harshness or cowardice, perhaps.
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You have sins that affect your wife and your home. And so you need to repent of those sins and show the gospel.
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Like if we believe the gospel, if we believe what Jesus has done for us, you believe in the atoning blood, you believe that you're washed in the blood, you believe that the sacrifice of Christ is sufficient to take away from all our sins, then if you do, stop holding back to your wife like you're not a sinner because you are a sinner.
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Now confess it and rest in Christ and grow and show your home what a man of God full of grace looks like.
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You believe the gospel, men and women, children, God's grace is big enough to forgive us of our sins and to fix brokenness in our homes, in our marriages, where we trust
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Christ and his cleansing power. So husbands, what I'm saying here is above your needs, above your wife's looks, above the way the home is kept, above it all, you are to shepherd your wife's soul.
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Okay, so in light of all this that we've talked about today, and there's so much more, I say this with the utmost seriousness.
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Bring back the patriarch. Yes, the Bible has a high view of women.
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Amen and amen. But it has a very high view of men too. And a home and a church and a society led by godly,
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God -fearing, humble, spirit -filled men is a glorious reality to pursue.
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Young ladies, I hope that you'll say this along with me in your heart, bring back the men.
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Young men, I hope that you'll aspire to this in your heart. Bring back the men, older men and dads and grandparents and uncles.
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I hope that you'll echo this with me. Bring back the men. Bring back the dirty -faced, knee -scraping, bike -jumping -off -a -homemade -ramp little boys.
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And show those little boys that society has lied about men. They don't need to be medicated and doped up so they just sit in school like this.
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They need to run free, they need to have opportunity to play and to wrestle and to fight even.
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Men are not buffoons needing to be led around by their moms or their wives. Men are not the problem of society, friends.
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They are part of the solution. Raise those little boys then to be godly men who stand in the gap, who go down if necessary so that the girl goes free.
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Men who pursue a life in godliness for marriage and family and build a godly foundation for future generations who love their wives sovereignly and structurally and selflessly, self -serving in a sanctifying way, sacrificially for the good of their sanctification and for the glory of God.
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Christian men, think about this. The Spirit of God, He's in us. He's working in us toward these things.
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You are the knight in shining armor. Slay the dragon.
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Fight for your home and your marriage and the church. Put on the armor of God and wield the sword of the
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Spirit. Keep your mind sharp and your heart soft. Keep your feet grounded and your eyes on Christ.
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You are the chaplain of your home. Build altars, the family altar as it were, the place where the
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Bible's read and prayers are made and theology is learned and laughter is had and confession is made of sins and songs are sung and the gospel is known and rehearsed and lived and rejoiced in.
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As pastor of your home, set the tone for the regular and consistent commitment to the body of Christ as made visible in the local church.
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Every week, every week, every week, have a home that no one wakes up on Sunday morning and says, are we going to church today?
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They understand all week that's what you're doing. Men, you are the general of the army.
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Blow up the idols. Nuke them if necessary. This isn't a game. This is serious. Take extreme measures.
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Would you let your family play with grenades? Here you go, little boy, go play with this grenade. Oh, here's better.
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Here's some copperhead snakes. Play around with it. Of course, you wouldn't let them do them. Then why would you entertain idolatry?
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Be on your guard. Be on your guard with your own idolatry of self.
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One of the hardest idols you have to kill. Kill it. Don't be unwilling to sacrifice yourself, your preferences and your leisure for your family's betterment.
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Men, you are the captain of the ship. Chart the path through turbulent waters.
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Make the plan, set the course, not by barking orders, not by saying, woman, you better respect me, but rather by love, in love, for love, with love, with your heart full of love for Christ, knowing that you love him and you will answer to him in whom you desire to bring great glory.
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Men, the buck stops with you. Man the ship. Stand in the gap.
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Don't leave your station. Stand at the ready. Keep your eyes open. Keep your eyes open.
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Keep your eyes open. Don't abandon your post. Our society has made us soft, lazy.
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Throw off the cultural stigmas. Throw off pathetic expectations of manhood and let us take off the armor of God and let us be the husbands and the men that God has called us to be.
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Let us answer the call of the scriptures and show ourselves men. And I'm telling you today, there is grace for such men and husbands, wives, men, women, children.
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Let there be more repentance in our homes, more resolve and grace and forgiveness in our homes as we seek together to push back upon today's encroaching darkness.
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This is not a game. We have laid in slumber for too long church and it is time to wake up.
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And for decades, people have been knocking at our door. Wake up, it's coming. Wake up, it's coming. Wake up, it's coming.
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And we've said, leave us alone. We're so comfortable. Let us sleep. And now the enemy is at the door.
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And if you continue sleeping, your family will be destroyed and God will hold husbands responsible.
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This is waiting, but Christ is worthy and Christ is
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King. Sully Dale Gore. Father, we pray that you would help us with this weighty task.
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Help us to be husbands willing even this afternoon to confess for our wives, our desire to be godlier husbands, to lean harder on the gospel, to be motivated by grace, empowered by it.
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Lord, none of this is possible if husbands don't know Christ. And so I pray even today, if there is a husband in this room who doesn't know
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Christ, I pray that you would call him to yourself even now. We pray for the gospel to work in the hearts of the ladies.
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We pray that they would make it easy as it were on their husbands to lead and encourage leadership in the home instead of fighting for it.
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We pray for children and perhaps any in here who are unbelievers. May they see the beautiful design that Christ has for the home.
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May we submit ourselves to it, no matter what our culture or family or whatever may say. May we, as it were, surrender ourselves completely to Christ as King of our homes.