Husbands, Love Your Wives (part 4) - [Ephesians 5:25-32]

Our Father in heaven, Lord, you are a good God. You are filled with loving kindness, which you pour out on us, your children.

Father, we thank you for that. We thank you for the Lord Jesus Christ, for his perfect life, for his death in our place, for his glorious resurrection.

Father, we thank you for your Spirit, how he caused us to be born again, how he granted us new hearts, new desires, how he indwells us, guides us.

Father, we thank you for your word, that we might know you better. And as we look to your word this morning,

I pray that you would strengthen us, that you would lead us, that you would refresh us, in the sense that we could leave our troubles and this weary world behind for just a while, and focus on the

Lord Jesus Christ and on his glory. We pray for these things in Jesus' name.

Amen. Well, this will be fun. Hmm. Okay.

So we've been talking about marriage and husbands in particular, and I thought what

I would just start with here is not really a review, but just to say this.

When we talk about husbands, and we've mentioned briefly what the culture says about husbands, which is they're disposable, they're stupid, there are a lot of things.

What does the Bible say about husbands? Where does the Bible place husbands?

What's that? As the head of the wife. Okay? Now, in what sense is he the head of the wife?

I mean, what do we mean? If Steve Cooley is the head of the corporation of Bethlehem Bible Church, what does that mean?

Nothing, except for I have a lot of legal responsibility. And I have to meet with the neighbors who want to argue about things.

Yes, Andrew? Okay, it means taking responsibility for everything that happens.

Some people don't like that, because if you have responsibility, then what does that mean? You necessarily need to have the ability to be responsible, right?

I mean, in other words, great responsibility, no ability to run things. Is there a disconnect?

I'm responsible for everything bad that happens, but I don't get to make decisions. Accountability, yes,

Brian. Okay, if God has called you to that position,

He's certainly going to give you the means to perform the task that He's given you. Reasonable enough.

Yes, Andrew? Okay, I said the word perform, which implies, it doesn't actually imply anything.

It says, you know, being a husband is an affirmative responsibility.

It's a job. It's a position. It comes with responsibilities, right? The world says, nobody's in charge of your home.

It's a democracy. And in fact, these days, I would argue that if you, and I'm not saying that you should, but if you read or consume any kind of secular news sources, everybody's in charge.

Your three -year -old is just as much in charge as you are. And if that three -year -old says, no liver and onions for dinner, then that's just the way it is.

The Bible says, husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the church.

So you have that responsibility. We've discussed that. What does it mean, though?

When the rubber hits the road, what does it mean, Charlie? A reluctant, benevolent dictatorship, says

Ilduchie. Reluctant, benevolent dictatorship.

Okay. Okay, it's a guiding, loving, instructional relationship. I mean, just imagine if you had to be involved in all the decision -making in the house, what would that look like?

Hey, Steve, carrots or rutabagas? Carrots.

Duh. I mean, if every decision has to be made by me, then what am

I doing all the time? I'm making decisions, I'm answering the phone, I'm, you know,

I couldn't do much else, right? At least when we had kids,

I couldn't do much else. We delegate responsibility. And when you delegate responsibility, what happens?

Sometimes things happen that you wish hadn't happened.

Sometimes things don't go exactly the way, well, I wouldn't have done that. And what's the retort to that?

I'm not you. You weren't there. I had to make the decision. You gave me this, you delegated this responsibility to me, and I did something else with it.

And Corey says, this is why I've fired Karen on multiple occasions.

No, no. Okay. Yeah, delegation doesn't mean, well, it's completely off my plate.

It means, you know, your wife, most likely, has the authority to do something, and you probably need to sometimes check up on things, depending on how important it is.

Carrots, rutabagas, not the big deal. But don't ever bring home rutabagas.

That's all I can say. Well, bring home as many rutabagas as you want to eat. That's what I say. And not one more.

Okay. Okay, good point. Christ has a plan, has a direction, has a blueprint, as it were, for the church revealed in the

New Testament. Likewise, husbands need to have a blueprint, a plan, some principles by which the family is run, right?

I mean, if you don't and you delegate authority, then you have no idea what's going to happen. But one of the reasons

I want to, and I'll get to Andrew in just a second, one of the reasons I want to bring this up is we, you know, the world says husbands are dispensable.

In fact, you know, some of them look forward to the day in which, what? There are no husbands in the home.

You know, I mean, we've already seen the government kind of usurp the role.

You know, why do we have so many out -of -wedlock births? Because the government says you don't need a husband, we'll support you, right?

And that has, in every demographic, meaning every ethnicity, those percentages have just gone up since the 60s, since this whole thing started.

But the statistics show that if you want your kids to stay out of jail, you want them to succeed in life, yada, yada, yada, what do you do,

Jonathan? You have a two -parent home, male and female. I mean, if you have, you know, what if you have, well,

I don't even want to go down that road. You know, but they're trying, scientists trying like crazy to make babies, and I think they've even maybe on the verge of doing this.

I mean, who knows what they're doing, really? You know, you look at some of these countries with like zero ethics, and they're always like, well, let's see what happens if we put a human and a goat together.

You know, I mean, they're just always trying to do something, merge all these different types of cells or whatever, but they're trying to make babies without male input.

You know, and I just think, well, this is just the way it's going. You know, I mean, men are the problem.

We all know that. That's what the world says. I mean, everybody brings something different to them.

You know, here's a horrible idea for a marriage. Marrying your clone.

I mean, literally your clone would be a horrible idea. But, you know, what if there was a female who was just like you in every respect, every respect, but she was female and had always been a female?

These days that's important to clarify. You know, should you get married?

I've mentioned this before, but instead of having then varying skill sets and varying abilities and varying likes and dislikes and everything else, you're going to be exactly the same, which might seem really great until you realize that there are some things you can't do at all.

And then you go, honey, would you do that? And she goes, I can't do that. Then what? You know,

I guess hire somebody to do it. I don't know. Or somebody has to learn.

But part of the point is, you know, it's good to have varying skill sets. But ultimately what I want to bring out is men are important.

And why is it important then for men to do this job well, to run their households well?

Well, first of all, the Bible says it. You know, if we look at 1 Timothy chapter 3 and it says run your household well, what does that mean?

It means an elder is supposed to run this household well, but that doesn't make him any different than anyone else.

You know, elders have to run their households well. Everybody else, chaos is fine.

And there was so much rejoicing, Charlie. That's right.

That's right. We shouldn't pit the female against the male. You know, which one is smarter ultimately isn't the pinnacle issue.

I mean, what's... Yes, you can add, as long as it has to do with intake manifold. Okay. Charlie says men have become so deferential to their wives and they've so abdicated their responsibility that they've lost their barbarism.

I think that was a good summary. Okay. Yeah, in society generally.

You know, the theme of things tends to be that what a woman values is the most important thing there is, right?

But if we instead view things as, you know, the man...

I mean, we live obviously in a non -agrarian society and a society that's far different than when the

Bible was written. And why is that important? Well, it's important in this sense. The women and the children aren't around to see the husband going out and working in the fields and doing all these kind of things because we're doing, you know, different things and we're just gone.

We might be unless we're working from home. But, you know, whether it's digging ditches or, you know, being a fireman or driving a truck or whatever it is, typically we're not around our families during the day.

So we have this kind of bifurcation of worlds, which now in some cases can mean that when the husband comes home, it seems like, you know, he's been on some sort of vacation and, you know, then comes home and, you know, things shift into that sort of discussion.

But I just wanted to stress this, a couple of things. One is it is essential for the well -being of the family and the kids that the husband, first of all, be in the home.

But secondly, he stay in the home. And thirdly, that there be this sort of authority, this sort of respect for the position, right?

And he can defer. He can delegate. He can do all these things. But ultimately, you know, he's responsible for what goes on in the home.

Other thoughts on that before I go back, Corey? Yeah, and if I could say something about that, that's a great point,

Corey. You know, respect. If your children don't learn to respect you, who are they going to respect, right?

So, I mean, there were a few things in our home that were just unacceptable.

And one of them was to, you know, disrespect Janet. But, I mean, I think the first occasion of disrespect that I remember was, you know, my son talking to me.

And he, you know, at the dinner table, I think he was maybe seven, he called me by my first name.

That didn't go over too well. I mean, I just thought, I go, you know, where is that coming from?

And I didn't really care what was coming from. I was not saved. And I think I said something to him like, come with me.

We went into the back of the house and I said, you know, when you can take me out back and take care of business, you can call me

Steve. I said, until then it will be, you know, dad, father, sir, or Mr.

Cooley. You know, those are your options. It never happened again, not to this day.

So, but, yeah, talking, I mean,

I am so amazed at what goes on. I mean, I don't know that how education takes place in the schools, because if you're allowed to refer to your teacher however you want and use curse words and whatnot toward them, and there are few, if any, consequences,

I mean, I'm sure there are some consequences at some point, but all that starts at home.

If you can talk to your parents like that, of course, part of that is, if parents are exchanging profanities, then why wouldn't the kids exchange profanities?

And if the parents are disrespectful to one another, then why wouldn't they be disrespectful to one parent or the other?

Well, I mean, they learn what they're taught. They observe, they learn, and that's what they do.

We need to teach respect to our kids, and really it starts with them learning to respect their parents.

Yeah, you can. Bonus points. Yeah, respect the authorities and each other, yeah.

I mean, husbands and wives who don't respect each other are teaching their kids something whether they want to admit it or not.

Okay, so back to where we were last week. We were just talking about some of the verbs here in Ephesians 5, verse 25, talking about the

Lord Jesus says he gave himself up for her, gave himself up for the church.

So we talked a little bit about how husbands can do that, then sanctify her and cleansed her, talking about spiritual protection, choosing a church.

I think we closed with the idea of not leading your wife into sin. And then

I quoted a wife who said, I can't even remember the last time he complained. Another way he sets a good example for me.

By the way, my wife did not submit that one. Okay, so then we come to the next verb, which is husbands are to love their wives as their own bodies.

And I thought that's really interesting. Do you love your own body? And then some people could point to what their husbands consume and say, obviously he doesn't, because he wouldn't eat that stuff if he really cared about his body.

But the idea of nourishing and cherishing your wife as your own body.

One wife said this, she said, he's become the main chef in our house and loves to feed us.

And I thought, well, that's good. There's one guy who really cares about what goes on, assuming it's not mac and cheese.

Another wife said this, she said, he often tells me he loves me, which is so thoughtful when I don't feel lovable.

And no, I don't deserve it. Love their wives as their own bodies, nourish and cherish.

Another wife said, he also has guided us into church communities where the Bible is the focus and the truth to be in a community with women who take what the word seriously has allowed me to joyfully submit to my husband to let him lead and to respect him in doing so.

What a blessing. What does it mean to nourish and cherish your wife, to love your wife like you love your own body?

I mean, do you make sacrifices? Do you ever tell yourself I want to lose X amount of weight, you know, and I'm not talking about going on some girly men diet where you wind up, you know,

I weighed, I don't know, let's pick a number. 200 pounds sounds nice. And I, and I set a goal for myself to weigh 150.

And the way I'm going to get there is by eating like, you know, cabbage and kale.

That's, that's all I'm going to eat. You know, I, I'm six foot four and I weigh 200 pounds.

I want to get done at 150. Let's not be silly. We're not supermodels. That's not loving and nourishing your own body, but what does it mean?

You know, do you make sacrifices? I mean, some men do and some men don't, but do you exercise?

Do you watch what you eat? You know, all these kinds of things. Do you ever have any care when the doctor says, you know what?

If you don't do X, you're probably going to last about three months. Do you just go, ah, it's okay, doc.

So sacrificing yourself in your own time for her, for her own good, right?

Is that loving your wife like you would your own body? Well, it's a sacrifice that you were making for her spiritual mental health.

Jonathan. Okay. Put their own needs first, their needs first. Well, I mean, you, you know, here's the, the implicit statement here.

You love your own body. You know, if you look in the mirror and think

I'm fat, I'm skinny, I'm tall, I'm short, I'm old, whatever it is you think, you know, it's, it doesn't say love your own body.

It's like love your neighbor as yourself, right? There's, there's an implicit understanding there that you love yourself.

And at that same level, love your neighbor, right?

We don't do it. Just going to say that flat out. We don't do it.

So in the same way, Paul saying here, you know, the way you love your own body, the way you take care of yourself, take care of your wife like that.

Do you do it? Well, sometimes, okay. I mean,

I know we don't, we can try to do better, you know, and I, but I think there's a standard here.

Let's put it another way. Does Jesus fail to nourish and cherish the church?

And the answer is no. So again, there's the standard, but it's just good to have that reminder there to think, okay,

I need to love my wife as I do my own body.

Other thoughts before we move on? Yes. Okay. I really wish you'd stop reading my notes, but because there's a, there's a, there's a, there's a, there's a

Janet is a way to, I have to interrupt. There may be a reason that she tells husbands that I, that your wife is not your kitchen.

I don't wait, but wait, unless she asked for it.

Although, you know, things that will help us out is honey. Haven't you always wanted that hedge turner? You know, I mean, yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. If she, if she loves macaroni and cheese, especially if it's deluxe craft macaroni and cheese.

Yeah. Know your wife. So we come to first Peter chapter three, verse seven.

Let's read that. Likewise. And again, you know,

I understand this comes after the wife section. Don't really care. I'm talking to husbands. It just so happens.

The wives are here. Likewise. Husbands live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you at the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.

Now, this is an important verse. I mean, first of all, there is an equality that's stated here, right?

They are heirs with you of the grace of life. They inherit the same grace of life that you do.

It doesn't say though, that in every way, men and women are the same, that husbands and wives are exactly the same.

In fact, it doesn't say that at all. Let's read what, or I'll read what

R. Kent U says. Thus, we understand that giving ourselves for our bride involves prayerful intercession.

I like that part, right? I mean, do we, we, we know this, that we're to pray for our wives, but listen to what he says, men, do you pray for your wives with something more than the quote?

Bless good old Margaret in all she does. This is, that's kind of the best prayer that you have.

You are sinning against her and against God. Most Christian men who claim to love their wives never offer more than a perfunctory nod to their wives needs before God.

Men, you ought to have a list of her needs spoken and unspoken, which you passionately hold up to God out of love for her.

Praying is the marital work of a Christian husband. Now I can think of some other prayers that might not be the best

Lord. Would you please make my wife better? Teach her not to do these things.

I mean, okay. To some extent, I think that's okay, but I've said it before and I'll say it again.

I think the most important prayer, I'm not knocking what Hugh says here because he's that he's not excluding anything.

I think the most important thing that men can pray for with regard to their wives is what thanking

God for them always, whether the marriage is good or not, you're married exactly to the wife that God wanted you to have.

So you need to thank God and work from that place. I don't like my job.

Okay. Thank God that you have a job. I don't like my house.

Okay. But you have a house. I don't like, I don't like, I don't like, but, and yet when it comes to wives, you know,

I wonder if God thinks that you're honoring him, honoring the Lord, Jesus Christ, we're honoring your wife.

When you say, please overhaul my wife. How about father helped me to live with her in an understanding way.

How about help me to reach my wife so that we can get back to the relationship we had in the beginning.

Hughes goes on to say, I wanted to homeschool more than anything. Oh, sorry.

I should have, I should have noted that it wasn't our can't use. Cause I'm just like looking at the quotes and this is a wife.

I, my apologies. She says, I wanted to homeschool more than anything. Initially. He said, the husband said, no, we are not doing that.

She goes on. It was out of my control. I was disappointed and distraught in private.

I literally fell to my knees crying out to the Lord. Please move where I could not about a week later.

My husband came home one day from work and said, I've been thinking if you want to homeschool, we should find a way to do it.

And I don't mean you should find a way. I mean, we should find a way that meant a major sacrifice for him because at the time we needed both of our incomes, but he stood by his decision and it was the best move we could have made for our family.

I'm so grateful to the Lord and to my husband for his sacrifice in this way. Now let's think about what that means.

He could have said what? Absolutely not. We need the money, but he listened to what his wife said.

He thought about it. He prayed about it. And he came back and said, you know what? If it really means that much to you, let's do it.

I understand that things are going to have to be different, but I want to do that. I'm going to, he didn't say this.

He didn't say I'm going to live with you in an understanding way, but that's what he did. Here's another wife.

My husband asked me my opinion about things and shares what he's thinking. Not because he's incapable of making decisions, but because he genuinely cares about my thoughts and opinions.

I mean, there's an easy one. I mean, I say it's easy, but some husbands don't do that, right?

Well, I made the decision. That's that. MacArthur in the study

Bible says, a believing husband must submit to the loving duty of being sensitive to the needs, fears, and feelings of his wife.

In other words, a Christian husband needs to subordinate his needs to hers, whether she is a

Christian or not. Now notice what he doesn't say there. He doesn't say that a husband has to subordinate what he thinks is right to his wife.

He said, what he has to subordinate his needs to hers.

So if these things are there, they're on a tertiary level. In other words, they're not of such import that there there's a command or a biblical issue here.

You know, he wants this. She wants that.

And he runs through everything and he thinks, you know what? I mean, ultimately it's not a financial thing.

It's not this, that the other thing, it's not a biblical issue. She wants that. And there's no reason for me to say no.

So why wouldn't I just make her happy instead of me? Happy. I want the refrigerator. That's, you know, side by side, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

You know, I got all the bells and whistles. She's like, no, let's not do that. And of course she loses that because the store doesn't have any plain vanilla ones.

You have to buy the, all the bells and whistles. But, um, when I give her what she wants, that's a small issue there.

I'm sure there are bigger ones that will come up during the course of a marriage.

Kissed marker says, because Peter addresses believers, he wants the husbands to love their wives in a

Christian manner. That is, husbands ought to live with their spouses in accordance with Christian knowledge.

Knowing what we know about what scripture says, how should we live with them? He goes on to say in their marriage, they should demonstrate the love of Jesus that is revealed in the scriptures and thus be considerate and understanding.

Husbands must love and respect their wives in harmony with God's word.

Okay, let's talk about weaker vessel. What does that mean?

MacArthur says, Peter specifically notes consideration, chivalry or chivalry, depending on where, where you come from here and companionship says, talking about weaker vessel, while she is fully equal in Christ and not inferior spiritually because she is a woman, she is physically weaker, usually, and in need of protection, provision and strength from her husband.

Some people say, well, I don't need the provision for my husband. What about that?

I mean, what about, let's just say for the sake of argument, we've never, we've never had this issue in our home, but let's say for the sake of argument,

Janet can make twice as much money as me. You know, there's sudden run on quilting and she's just, you know, shy.

Should I have quit and stayed home and taking care of the kids? Why or why not?

Let's put it this way. What would the world say? The world would say, absolutely.

Why? Because money, money, money, and it works. It's fine.

She can make twice as much as you. So why not? Well, why not?

Does the Bible say to, did God say to Eve that you'll live basically by the sweat of your brow, that your job is to go out and toil and labor and sweat.

Does the Bible say, you know, men are to be workers at home.

Now, I'm not saying anything about women working here. What I am saying is when you reverse the order that God designed, that God commands, you're asking for trouble.

When you say, well, whatever works, works, that practicality is, it will weaken your family structure.

It has to. Well, at least physically. I think there's certainly truth to that, right?

Yeah. I mean, I think there are still some jobs, you know, I would argue not just in the military or, you know, the fire department or digging ditches or something where, you know, you really have to be physically strong.

But again, I think even as MacArthur says here, there, there are other aspects besides the physical strength.

But the good news is, Charlie, if I could just say this, the industrial revolution is about to come to a screeching halt and we're heading back to an agrarian society.

So, okay, it's not really good news. I just sort of threw that in there.

Well, we have to close, but let me close with this. One of the wives wrote this. She says, talking about her husband, of course, he prioritizes me.

I'm a pretty capable girl and get a lot done. But when I do ask for help with things, he will be there.

It's not often that it is urgent, but if I were to call him at work right now, I know he would try to come home if I really needed him to.

And I, I think there's just something to that, you know, knowing, and I, I'm not going to call it the panic button or anything else, but just knowing that there's that resource there is helpful, right?

Meaning I, I can do everything that I can do. And then knowing that my husband speaking as a wife will come home if I need him to kind of gives a little, a little bit of an extra boost.

You know, sometimes it's just a call or whatnot, but I, I want to go back and just close with this again.

I agree. The physically weaker thing isn't as important as it was, except it can be in certain situations.

You know, I mean, if you're being accosted by some people, you know, you wouldn't expect the wife to go.

I'm just as strong as you are. Stand behind me. I, I hope not.

I mean, maybe she's been taught Taekwondo or something. I don't know what, but there's more implied than just the physical, physically weaker part.

But I certainly think that that's, that's part of it. And the agrarian society that this was written to, it's certainly true.

And I think Peter's point ultimately is this, that she may be weaker physically.

She may be weaker emotionally, that's not his point.

His point is live with her in an understanding way. Knowing who she is, understanding who she is, as the word says there, live with her in that way.

When people say something like, I really don't understand women. I think, well, that's just a stupid statement.

I don't understand men. I don't understand the human race. Okay. But there are seven plus billion of those.

Each and every person true or false is different. Each and every woman is therefore different.

Each and every wife is different. You have one wife, thankfully, or, you know, one day maybe,

Lord willing, you will have a wife. Live with her in an understanding way.

Know her, know what she likes. You know, small example, and then we really have to close.

There are things that I could do for my wife, and a lot of you would say, well, that was really sweet. And my wife would go, she wouldn't say this, but in her mind, she would be saying, he knows

I don't like that. Why did he do that? Right? A lot of wives would think, that was great,

Steve, thank you so much. My wife is the only one that matters to me. I have to know what she wants, what she thinks, and I have to live in accordance with that knowledge.

And I'll just, I have to say one more thing. You know, somebody will say, well, then you're just kowtowing to your wife.

No, I'm living with her in accordance to knowledge. She doesn't push me around, but I want to make her happy.

In fact, the best part of life, is seeing my wife happy.

Let's pray. Father, thank you for this time this morning.

Thank you for your word, for what it tells us about relationships, about husbands and their roles, about being responsible, about being loving and understanding, about emulating the

Lord Jesus Christ, in that we don't insist on being the most important.

We don't insist on putting our own needs and our own good before those of our wives and kids.

And Father, we can do these things, because we see it in Christ.

We can do these things without making ourselves weak and emasculated.

Help each one here to better love our wives, as Christ loved the church, we pray in Jesus name.