When A Man Loves A Woman - [Ephesians 5:25-33]

I return to Ephesians chapter 5, verses 25 -33, and let me talk to the men on when a man loves a woman, how to be the husband

God meant you to be. It's very interesting that God gives a more extensive assignment to the men in this text in terms of the number of verses that are committed, and again, the two -fold theme that drives a man's responsibility is loving his wife and knowing his wife.

And I find it utterly fascinating that God grounds his theology of marriage, and in particular his theology of being a husband, in the atonement.

And what he basically says is, gentlemen, you want to know how to love your wife?

Then look to the cross. And there seeing our Savior bearing in His body the full penalty of our sin is the basis and the ground for how you are to love this lady.

And so he says in Ephesians 5, 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. 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.

Let me pause for a moment. He grounds our love for our mate in the atonement, but he also grounds it, secondly, in creation.

And I think it's very instructive for us to note that the text that he cites here is pre -fall.

He is looking at Genesis chapter 2. And so sometimes those of an egalitarian, feminist agenda will often say, well, wives did not submit before the fall in Genesis 3, and that is absolutely incorrect.

Genesis 3 is the beginning of the battle of the sexes, and there a godly man and a godly woman's assignment gets messed up.

It gets depraved. It gets marred. And so what we see in Ephesians, I believe, is restoration back to a pre -fallen relationship.

This is how a man and a woman related before the fall. And so in redemption in Christ, we are restored to the pre -fall creational context.

And so this is where Paul grounds his understanding of the marital relationship. So again, he says in verse 29, no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourished it and cherished it just as Christ does the church.

We are members of His body, and therefore, Genesis 2 .24, a man shall leave his father and mother, be joined, hold fast to his wife, cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.

This mystery is profound, and I am saying this 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.

There are five aspects of the way a man is to love his wife that develop in this text by the

Apostle Paul. So let me walk you through them quickly. Number one, he says your love should be sacrificial.

Verse 25, husbands, love your wives, how Paul, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.

The word love is an imperative, it's a word of command. God is not asking or suggesting.

God commands a man, you love your wife. It's in the present tense, which means this is to be the pattern, the habit, the continuous nature in which you, and the continuous way in which you love this woman.

Now, if you're me, you want to say, wait a minute, Paul, time out, question. How can you, in verse 25, command an emotion?

How can you command us to have a certain kind of feeling for our wives?

Feelings by their very nature really cannot be commanded. And Paul will respond by saying, you're right, and that's not the kind of love

I'm talking about. Paul is not talking here about the emotional component of love, and there is an emotional component to love.

I don't want to deny that. I, again, married almost 34 years. Even this morning as I was crawling, actually,

I crawled out of bed at 4 .45 because my biological clock is all messed up. I just got back from Istanbul, Turkey, where I spent a week with a number of our students who are in this program that we have called the 2

Plus 2 program. It's a great program of missionary preparation. You're two years on our campus, knock out 60 hours of your

Master of Divinity degree. Then you're two years on the mission field in partnership with the

International Mission Board. And at the end of those two years, you get your MDiv degree, and then you're actually eligible for career appointment with our

International Mission Board. And so we were there with about 22 students, and you'd be so proud, serving in Afghanistan, serving in Turkey, serving in Yemen, serving in Egypt, serving in the

Sudan, serving in Bahrain, and then the easy countries of Portugal and Czechoslovakia, which is basically atheistic.

But they don't tend to kill Christians in Czechoslovakia like they do in those other places. And so we were there, and my biological clock is still trying to get itself fixed and understood.

But this morning, I got out of bed at 4 .45, and as I was getting ready to jump in the shower, this voice over from the bed says, come back and lay down with me for a minute.

Well, I mean, only a brain -dead fool would turn an invitation like that down, and so I crawled back in bed with her and snuggled up to her.

And again, my heart picks up its rate, and my hair on my neck goes up, and I get goosebumps on my arms.

And I'm 54 years old, and I still get goosebumps and a butterfly in my stomach when I'm snuggling up against this lady.

I just do. And so there is an emotional component to love that I do not want to deny, but Paul's not talking about an emotion here.

He's talking about volition. He's talking about a decision, a choice, to say it very plainly, an act of your will, whereby you choose to love this woman.

You choose to seek her best interest, whether you feel like it or not.

Now guys, I just need to be honest with you. I have very little patience. No, that's not fair.

I have no patience with men who try to say to me, well, I just don't love her anymore.

That doesn't cut it. That doesn't cut it at all for me, and it certainly doesn't cut it with God.

Because what you're saying is I'm choosing not to love her. I'm choosing not to seek what's best for her.

You see, emotions come and go. You want to have an emotional feeling, go ride a roller coaster, and you'll get all the emotional feeling that you need, especially if it's the

Kraken down there in Orlando, which only a fool would ever get on a second time. And so, if you want to have a feeling, ride a roller coaster, all right?

But this type of love that he is talking about is a choice that you make, it's a decision that you make.

Just a couple of years ago, I observed a wedding of a young couple from the seminary that had been very dear and close to Charlotte and me, and I'll never forget that at the point in the wedding where the young man pledged his vows, he looked at Catherine, and Matthew said,

Catherine, I promise you before God, I will never, ever divorce you. He said it that plainly in the sermon,

I will never divorce you. What he's saying is I'm making a conscious decision, an act of my will, to love you in a very particular kind of a way.

And so, here he is talking about a love that is not emotional, but a love that is volitional, and a love that is grounded in the sacrifice of Christ.

Christ loved his church, and he gave himself up for her. He died for her.

He shed his blood for her. He bore in his body her sin. Do you love your wife in that kind of a way?

Do I love Charlotte in that kind of a way? Do I look to the cross daily and say,

God, in the same way you have loved me, I will love this lady.

That means I love her whether she's lovely or not. I even love her when she's having those bad days.

I love her even when I don't like her. Because he loved you when you had no likeability.

You had nothing to offer, nothing he needed, and yet as an act of grace and love, he chose to love you.

And I'll tell you, I need that kind of challenge to love her through the thick and thin of marriage. I just do.

And so he begins by saying, you love her sacrificially. You love her in a cross -like kind of way.

All right. But secondly, love her in a sanctifying kind of a way.

He says there in verse 26, 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, in majesty, in glory.

She would not have a spot, a wrinkle, any such thing. But she will be a holy and without blemish lady.

You see the words there, sanctify her, cleanse her. She's holy and she is without blemish.

You say, Danny, what does he mean by this when it comes to marriage? I understand how this works with Christ and the church.

He wants a holy church. He wants a church that's cleansed. He wants a church that's majestic and glorious and splendorous.

What does this mean in marriage? And it means this. You love your wife in such a way that she is encouraged, enabled.

I don't like the word a whole lot. It's overused, but empowered to grow to be more like Christ.

The word sanctification, that big theological term, simply means in its progressive sense to grow in Christlikeness.

So here's a question, guys, that every one of us should ask ourselves repeatedly. Because this woman is married to me, does that help her or hinder her in growing to be more like Jesus?

Check up time, boys. Because this lady is married to me, is she helped or hindered, encouraged or discouraged to become more like Christ?

Do you pray with her? Do you read the word with her? Do you make sure that the family is here for corporate worship unless there's some type of emergency?

Or, you know, I come and it's convenient. It doesn't take much for me to say, well, we'll just go next week.

Do you live out a life before her that demonstrates an uncompromising commitment to the things of God?

See, I'll talk about in a minute, but I'll jump ahead. One of the great ways a man can bless his wife is by just being a man of God.

Just be a man of God. Now, sometimes guys say, wait, hold on,

I'm out, I'm out. Not the intellectual type, not the scholarly type,

I don't have a Ph .D., a master's degree, I don't have a college degree. Let me tell you something. I do what

I do now in my life because of the influence of a man who had a fifth grade education and was a dirt farmer in Douglasville, Georgia, and that man was my granddaddy.

My granddaddy, Galloway, my mother's father, fifth grade education, dirt farmer.

Died when I was 14, but when I was 25 years old,

I went back and preached at the Victory Baptist Church in Douglasville, Georgia, in front of the hill where my grandfather and now my grandmother, my dad, and my mom are buried, and 11 years after his death, when

I got up to preach, they introduced me as Mr. Galloway's grandson. He'd been dead 10 years, 11 years.

When you've been dead 11 years, what will people say about you? They will remember you. They remember my granddaddy, and he was a godly, godly, godly man.

Fifth grade education. You say, well, so what are you saying, Danny? You're saying what? I'm saying you don't have to have a great mind to be a man of God, just a great heart.

Just a great heart that is set on Christ. And so, guys,

I often say this to men. If you, all men, all believers, but all men are called to be disciples.

You're called to be engaged in discipleship, alright? If you disciple no one but one, make sure that one that you disciple is your mate.

And after that, if you actually can add in a couple of others, then you make sure that the next group that you disciple is your children.

Your mate, your children, and then go from there. I'll tell you what. If you do a good job discipling your mate and your children, you will please the

Heavenly Father. And so you disciple her by loving her in a sanctifying kind of a way, so that not in spite of you, but because of you, she is encouraged and enabled and motivated and empowered to grow to be more like Jesus.

So you love her sacrificially. You love her in a sanctifying way.

Now number three, you love her in a sensitive kind of a way. Your love is sensitive.

Look at what he says there in verse 28. Why, Paul?

Well, this is self -evident. The one who loves his wife is actually loving himself.

Paul's argument is something like this. You take care of you. You are sensitive to you.

You know when you're having a good day or a bad day. You know when your spirits are up or when they're down.

And so in the same way that you pay real close attention to you, you need to pay close attention to your wife.

That's why the second admonition to a husband, in addition to loving his wife, is that you are to know your wife.

And you say, where do you get that? First Peter 3 .7. Husbands, live with your wives, the

King James said, according to knowledge. The NIV and some other translations say, live with your wives with understanding.

Both of them catch the nuance of the Greek word there. You're to know this woman in an understanding kind of a way.

Now, I have a metaphor that I use here to help guys out. What you are called upon by God to do is to develop a marital radar system.

A marital radar system. And you are sending out sonar signals and you're picking up vibrations, incoming, enemy, no, but you're picking up things that come back from this woman that you are now married to.

You say, all right, you got married 2119, that's right. You had a radar system.

Well, yeah, but it wasn't even constructed yet. I mean, I had the raw material for it, but that thing was not put together.

Now 33 years later, it's doing okay. Every now and then it has a breakdown, but no, for the most part, it's doing better because I have learned by watching her and studying her a lot about her.

Now, guys, let me put you into something so that it puts you in perspective. You'll never be perfect at this, okay?

You'll never fully understand this creature called a woman.

In fact, I'm quite convinced that every man in this room will be on his deathbed perhaps and God will appear to you and say, time to come home.

And you will say, Lord, wait a minute, I can't, I'm ready to come to heaven. I want to come to heaven, but I can't come to heaven because in your word, you commanded me to know and understand my wife and I don't understand her.

And Jesus will say, that's okay, I don't understand her either. No, he won't. I'm kidding.

I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I think he actually does understand them, so I'm just kidding about that, okay?

So just set that over here, okay? But the fact of the matter is, it's something that you will be working at all of your life.

And I can tell you this, my radar is so much better at this stage than it was in prior days.

She can walk into the room and I can tell you by her walking into the room, happy girl, unhappy girl.

I see the look in her eyes, oh my goodness, I know. Approach her, stay away. Tone of her voice, uh -oh, not going to be good today, or hey, going to be a good day.

Body language, eyes, tone of the voice, it's there, it's there. And I have figured this out now, having watched her carefully for 33 plus years.

The problem with some of you guys here tonight is you don't study her. You don't spend time with her, you don't study her, you don't talk to her, you don't watch her, you don't pay attention.

Well, I just can't figure her out. Well, why don't you start paying attention? I mean, some guys are just dull as rocks.

And you have no one to blame in this area, but I don't care how you're wired. See, I hate it, I am so sick and tired of men being babies, a bunch of crybabies.

Wait until the morning, tomorrow guys, it's going to be brutal. Tomorrow is brutalize the men morning, and I'm going to wear you out.

I'm just tired of men being sorry. I'm just fed up with men being sorry. It's time to put our big boy pants on, it's time for little boys to sit down and men to stand up, and let's be the men that God called us and saved us to be.

I'm just fed up with it. And when I see a real man of God, man, it just sticks out, it stands out, and our world, our churches, our families are desperate for them.

And part of being a man of God, a man's man, is becoming a student of your wife, and loving her in a sensitive kind of a way, alright?

Number four, your love should be satisfying. Verse 29, no one, and the implication is no one in his right mind, no one ever hated his own flesh, but he nourishes and he cherishes it, just as Christ does the church because we are members of his body.

Now, if you take notes or mark your Bible, you ought to underline the word nourishes and the word cherishes.

They're both present tense participles, which means this is something that you're continually doing.

You are continually nourishing her, and you are continually cherishing her.

The word nourish really has the idea of feeding, of feeding. So we'll put it in the form of a question, guys.

Does your wife feel fed by your love? Does your wife feel fed, nourished?

Or are you food and drink for your wife? Cherish has the idea of an honored position, of a special place.

So question, outside of the Lord Jesus, does your wife believe and feel that she has that cherished, honored, special, precious, unreserved place in your life?

A couple of years ago, I was invited to come to a church and do a marriage conference, and about a week before I got there, a lady sent me this card.

Now, think about it. You are so unhappy and heartbroken in your marriage.

Number one, you find out who I am. I'm not that well -known. Number two, you get my address, clandestined, without anybody knowing it.

And number three, you write me an anonymous card. You say, well, what did she write? I'm going to share what she wrote.

Dear Dr. Aiken, I hope you received my card before the marriage conference at our church.

I recently married a member of the church, and he will be attending the seminar this past Valentine's Day.

He did not acknowledge that romantic holiday, and I was very hurt. I watched as my co -workers received flowers.

To make things worse, he joked about it in front of one of my friends.

My mom told me I should have known what to expect, since he never gave me flowers while we were dating.

This may sound selfish and petty on my part. I am just so discouraged.

After I come home from my job, I do all the housework, the cooking and the shopping.

I wouldn't mind so much if he would just occasionally show his appreciation.

The only time he has ever given me a gift is on my birthday and Christmas.

It would mean so much to me if just once he would give me something just because he loves me.

I exercise, and I try to look nice. I iron all his clothes, and I cook his favorite meals.

He has thousands of dollars that he invests in the stock market, but he has never spent one dollar on a romantic gift for me.

I know flowers will eventually wilt, but they are so beautiful. I'm afraid my love will eventually wilt.

Will you pray for me? That's anonymous, so I won't know until I get to heaven who wrote it.

You know, I bet if I met that guy and I were to ask him, you know, do you love your wife?

I think he would probably say yes. Do you appreciate your wife? I think he would probably say yes. Do you bless your wife?

I bet he would probably say yes, but it's very clear that he doesn't. In other words, does she feel nourished by his love?

No. She's starving. She's dying.

Does she feel like outside of Jesus, she's in an honored place of affection and attention in his life?

No. Does she feel like he doesn't think about her at all? And guys,

I know, sometimes, you know, we don't mean to be like this, and I do, I understand, but see here's the deal.

The issue is not do you appreciate your wife, the issue is not do you think you're satisfying your wife, but the issue is does she feel appreciated, does she feel satisfied, does she feel cherished?

By the things you say and the things you do, day in and day out, does she sense and feel and believe that she does have, indeed, this very special place in your life?

Does she really believe that outside of Jesus, no one matters to you on this planet more than does she?

And that's what it means to love her in a satisfying kind of a way. Finally, your love should also be of a specific nature.

Look at what he says there in verse 31, quoting Genesis 2, 24,

Therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother, and the

ESV says, hold fast, cleave, be glued to his wife, and the two now become one flesh.

This mystery is profound, and I'm saying that it refers to Christ and the church, however, now look at this verse 33, however, let each one of you love his wife as himself.

Let each one of you love who? His wife as himself.

In other words, there is a specificity to the love that you have for this lady.

In other words, I can say it so many different ways so that I make my point, you are to love this woman in such a way that she knows, that your children know, that your friends know, even people who don't like you know, you are a one woman kind of man and that you are in love with, that you are committed to, and that you are devoted to one woman and only one woman, and that one woman is your wife.

When I married Charlotte, I didn't know it at the time, but I made a commitment to her that among ministers over the years has become known as the

Billy Graham rule, the Billy Graham rule. When Billy Graham, when

Dr. Graham married Ruth, he made a commitment to her that he wouldn't honor until her death, and his commitment was from this day forward and for the rest of my life,

I will never be alone with a woman other than you, and he honored that commitment until she died, and as a result, as we would all know this evening, never a scandal, never a question of his fidelity to his wife.

Now, I made that same commitment to Charlotte, and I've honored it for 33 years. I have in the process been accused by people of being a

Neanderthal, of being a sexist. In fact, when

I went to Southern Seminary to be the academic vice president and dean back in 1996,

Dr. Al Mohler received an anonymous letter, which means it came from a coward, and by the way, if you write anonymous letters, you are a coward, you have no guts, you have no courage, you're a wimp, you're a sissy, you're a baby, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself, okay?

So if you can't man up, put your name, or girl up, then just don't do it because you're a sissy, wimp, and you're pathetic.

You are pathetic. You need drugs and therapy. So anyway, he gets an anonymous letter, and it says you have obviously made a terrible mistake in calling this person to be our new dean.

In light of his position with respect to being alone with a woman, he has, quote, psychosexual hang -ups and is in need of serious therapy, close quote.

Now that'll bless you, won't it? Somebody says that you have psychosexual hang -ups and you are in need of therapy.

Now, I don't think I have psychosexual hang -ups. I don't think that I do, because I could be wrong.

And I don't think I need to be in therapy, but again, you could probably get a lot of people that would disagree with you on that.

But here's one thing I can tell you. I've never been accused of adultery, and I've never committed physical adultery.

I won't lie that my mind is a perverted mind that has to be dealt with daily. You say, so you have a bad mind.

All men have bad minds. One of my spiritual heroes was a man named Bence Havner that was probably one of the most gifted, godly preachers that ever walked the planet.

And when he was in his upper 80s, he was meeting with a bunch of young pastors, and one young smart aleck said, well,

Dr. Havner, now that you're an old man, how is it that you no longer have to struggle with sexual temptation?

Dr. Havner looked at him and those blue eyes of his flashed like flames, and he said, young man, when

I get up every morning, I drop to my knees and I say, dear Lord, help me today not to be a dirty old man.

And this was a champion for Christ. This was a hall of famer for Jesus. But I've never committed physical adultery because I figured out a brilliant thing.

If I'm never alone with a woman that I'm not married to, then I won't commit adultery.

You say, well, you must be scared of women. No, I'm not scared of women. I'm scared of me.

I don't trust me. And again, I'll just be plain, if you trust you, you're a fool.

Help me out. Bible says of a man named David, he was a man after God's own heart.

Wow, wouldn't that be a great thing for someone to say of you or me? Danny Akin is a man after God's own heart.

What more could you ask for? Now, stay with me. And this is something you just share with your kids.

This is for teenagers, too. I don't care how much you love Jesus. I do not care.

The wrong person plus the wrong place plus the wrong time will equal the wrong thing happening.

Just mark it down. Wrong person, wrong place, wrong time equals the wrong thing happening.

David, a man after God's own heart. Wrong person, wrong place, wrong time. What happened?

He committed adultery. He lied and he murdered. He murdered. Now, is there anyone here tonight who would be so arrogant as to say, but you don't understand,

Danny, I love God more than David. I wouldn't say that. You see, the fact of the matter is, your hormones can shut your brain down.

And you will do things you would never do in your right mind. That's a fact. So you just don't even need to be in the context where something like that can happen.

You need to have, as I do in my life, multiple barriers so that if for some stupid reason

I jump over one, I'm asking myself, what are you doing here? Get back over there, boy.

You don't belong there. And there's still several others down the road that I would have to jump before I would get there.

You say, well, doesn't that become sort of problematic in your ministry when it comes, for example, with how you deal with women in counseling sessions?

No, it's not problematic at all. Number one, I never counsel women alone.

The door stays open, and if they say I need to talk to you of a very personal nature, I bring in another woman, usually my wife.

Secondly, I only counsel women twice, and then I'm through with them. You say, why?

Well, I can tell you everything I know in my first meeting, that's really how limited I am. And if you're too dumb to get it,

I can bring you back a second time, I'll tell you the same stuff a second time, and then I'm done. I mean,

I've exhausted my counseling well, and you need an expert after that.

I mean, you need somebody that's like really good. And so, you get me twice, you get the same thing both times, and then

I'm done with you. Furthermore, now you listen to me, I'm absolutely convinced that the best person to counsel a woman is another woman, absolutely.

Just like the best person to counsel a man is another man. I understand men. You guys won't fool me.

I know how you lie, I know how you deceive, I know that depraved, evil, fallen, wicked mind that you have apart from the grace of God and the redemption of Jesus.

I know. So, I know what a slime ball you are. But women, you know, y 'all are conniving and sneaky and manipulative, and you know, you can fool us.

You can fool a man. We're so naive in this kind of area. And so, that's why the Bible says in Titus 2, healthy church has older godly men pouring their lives into younger men, and older godly women pouring their lives into younger women.

And so, there's the model that you have in Scripture, and so for me, it's simply a matter of conducting myself in a way that this just is not even going to happen.

And again, I thank God for women, I love women, I'm a huggy kind of person, but I know how to hug and not to hug.

I know where my hands belong, where they don't belong, and I know that I just don't need to be alone with a woman other than the woman that I am married to, who happens to have the name of Charlotte.

And here's where I'm coming from. What does adultery cost you?

Answer a lot, a lot. Number one, you bring shame to the name of Jesus.

Number two, you hurt your church, if you're a Christian. Number three, you break the heart of your mate, and you listen to him.

And number four, you lose forever the respect of your children.

In fact, at first, there'll be a fifth thing, they'll hate you. They'll hate you. Hopefully, by God's grace, they'll get over that and even be able to forgive you, but just mark it down, they will never, ever, ever look at you the same again.

So here we go. Shame to the name of Jesus, hurt my church, break the heart of my mate, lose respect of my children, a few moments of carnal pleasure, this is a no -brainer.

This is not hard. This is not a difficult decision to make. Now, I want to tell you something, folks. This is close to me.

Again, I was sharing with Mike before this service, in recent months, I've had a number of people in my life that have been, they still are dear to me, that have committed adultery against their mate and done irreparable damage to churches and to their children.

The young man right now that used to babysit for our four sons, they look up to him, stayed with me at Southeastern, came to Southern, did a

Master's and a PhD, went to Las Vegas to plant a church.

My wife and I made significant financial investment in him along with many others, built a church from scratch up to about six, seven hundred a week in attendance.

And about two months ago, it was found out that he's been having a year -long affair with another staff person, a woman, in the church.

So he goes to his wife and says, I don't love you anymore, and we're getting a divorce. Sits his three kids down and says, now listen to me, people get divorced all the time, and they're just fine.

And so, you're going to be fine too, and I do want to have a relationship with you, but it will be on my terms and you will accept my new wife.

If I could, I'd shoot him. I would. In Jesus' name, I'd blow his head off.

I'm so angry with him, and I've tried to contact him, he won't talk to his parents, he won't talk to his brother, he won't talk to his sister, he won't talk to any of the elders that were in the church with him, he won't talk to me,

Al Mohler, I can go down the list of people that have loved him, invested in him, and I'm just telling you, you talk about the power of sin to enslave someone, to make them a walking fool, and probably right now as I'm sharing this, some of you are thinking,

I know some people like that, and we don't look down our nose at them, but what we say is, God, by your grace,

I won't be one of those people. I will honor this sacred covenant until the day that I die.

And so I will conduct my life in such a way that, again, my wife knows, my kids know, my friends know, everybody knows,

I'm a one -woman kind of man, and I conduct my life and I live my life in such a way that that absolutely is a reality that no one can question or no one can debate.

Guys, when you love your wife like that, and when you take steps to love her in that kind of way,

I want to tell you something, it speaks to her heart, it speaks to her soul, it ministers to her in a way that really can't be put into words.

And it causes her then to believe in you, it causes her to trust you, it causes her then to gladly and joyfully submit to you, and thereby bring about the kind of blessed relationship that God designed and intended from the very beginning.

Heavenly Father, thank you so much for the wisdom of your Word. I thank you for the challenge, and it is a challenge that you put before men that in one sense is impossible, to love our wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.

And yet at the same time, it's a goal, it's a goal that we see and it is a goal that we strive to meet and we pursue it with a holy passion out of gospel gratitude all the days of our lives.

And Lord, if we've been so loved by you, then you have every right to expect us and to command us to love our wives in that kind of a way.

And Lord, we need a world where men love their wives like that, where it's on public display for all to see and there's no question about his fidelity, his devotion, and his love for that lady.

Lord, it shows again the strength and power of the gospel. I believe, Lord, it even reveals what a real man looks like, a strong man, courageous man, and a man of deep and abiding commitment.

And God, again, we acknowledge that in our own strength we cannot do this, but through the ministry of the spirit, we can.

And through the power of the gospel, we can. And out of gratitude for what Jesus has done for us, we will.

And so by your grace and for your glory and for the good of others, help us,

Lord, to love well our wives and help us, Lord, to work hard to know them that we might indeed be a marvelous, wonderful blessing to these precious ladies that you have given us.