The Family in the Imperative Land Husbands Love Your Wives

LaRue Baptist Church, OH

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Today's Old Testament reading is from the book of Proverbs chapter 5. Please stand for the reading of God's Word.

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It's also found on page 530 of the Pew Bible. Proverbs chapter 5 verses 18 and 19.

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Let your fountain be blessed and rejoice in the wife of your youth, a lovely dear, a graceful doe.

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Let her breast fill you at all times with the light. Be intoxicated always in her love.

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The New Testament reading is in Colossians chapter 3 verse 18 and 19. Wives, submit to your husbands as is fitting in the

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Lord. Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them. You may be seated.

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Well, good morning. I'm going to start learning good morning in different languages, so I don't say the same thing when

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I come up here every time. Open your Bibles to Ephesians chapter 5, please. Ephesians chapter 5.

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Ephesians chapter 5 verse 21. We'll read to the end of the chapter.

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Submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ, 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

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Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

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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, 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 are 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 one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

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Let us pray. Oh Father in heaven, what a delight it is to have your word open to us on this

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Lord's Day morning, God, to have the freedom to worship you without having to worry about repercussions of physical harm, and to be able to just focus upon your word together,

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God. But even still, we know that distractions abound in our hearts and around, so I pray that you would help us all,

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Father, to be extra focused in this next few minutes. Lord in heaven, that you would help me to be focused as I proclaim your word.

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May there be a value to it for the edification of the saints before me. God in heaven,

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I pray that you would be with the saints as they hear, Lord, that they would grab hold of something of value, that the

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Spirit works with it, Lord, and change in light of what they hear of your truth.

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God in heaven, I pray that you would help us in this endeavor. It is a blessed, wonderful endeavor, but a difficult one indeed because of our sin that plagues us.

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But we know, Lord, that we serve a Savior who loves us and died for us and cleansed us from this defilement.

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And so may we claim Christ now as we look to Him as we walk in the righteousness that He has enabled by His blood.

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We thank you for the Savior of the world. We thank you for our husband, and let us, Lord, listen with hearts filled with praise and worship to our great

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Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. It's in His name we pray. Amen. Well, it seems like every election year, when we get closer to the great ordeal in November, I tend to like to read the book

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Animal Farm by George Orwell. It's a very good book. And if you've ever read it, the first time

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I ever, I was supposed to read it in high school, but I didn't because I was a fool. But ever since I bought it, and I really enjoy the book, but if you never read it,

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Animal Farm is about animals who essentially revolt against the authority of the people running the farm.

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And so essentially the animals take over the farm. And instead of the humans having authority, they are ran out.

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Pigs get the authority in the farm. And so pigs began, the authority switches from the humans to the pigs, in which they are supposed to run the farm much more, much better and more fair for the animals.

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But what's interesting about the book and what makes it so clever and good is over time, the pigs start to look more like the humans.

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As they receive that authority, they use that authority not for the people, not to serve the people, but rather to be served.

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And in fact, at the end of the book, as a spoiler alert, the pigs essentially become humans once more.

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And that's, there's a whole thing behind that with communism, socialism and liberalism that I don't need to get into.

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But what we do, what I am trying to point out, is the interesting fact that the pigs, although they receive the authority to supposedly serve the other animals, instead they use it for selfish gain.

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And that reminded me of where we're at now in the family life, in the imperative land.

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Where we're at in, you know, we're in this imperative land of Christ, that he's won for us, right? His wonderful, beautiful laws enabled by grace.

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And we're in the family land, or the family life portion of that land. It is a beautiful part of scripture about how the family should function under the reign of grace.

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And we started that with verse 21, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.

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And that's kind of like the verse, the platform going forth now into the family land that's, or in the family life, that we are to submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

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And we moved into wives, submit to your own husbands in everything.

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So we talked about how submission is the mechanism for a happy, godly, healthy family.

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You cannot have a happy, healthy, godly family without proper submission.

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And so we saw that wives were to submit in everything to their husbands. And that's where they get their meaning, their fulfillment, their happiness.

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But notice now as we get to verse 25, he says, he, well at least he doesn't tell husbands, enjoy the good life from the sweat of the brow of your submissive wife now.

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Like the pigs in Animal Farm, but instead he says in verse 25, husbands love your wives.

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And so he goes, wives submit to your husbands and now husbands, he says, love your wives.

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Now that word love, everyone knows that word love. Everyone knows that word love.

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The whole world knows that word love, but few can actually define it. Without a definition, it becomes only understood as an abstract good feeling brought on by another.

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Without it being properly defined within us, it just becomes an abstract good feeling that someone brings about within our hearts.

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It reminds me of Justice Stewart in the 1960s whenever he was trying to define obscene, obscenity, obscenity,

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I'm sorry, obscenity, and he says, I cannot define it, but I know it when I see it.

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I don't know if you've ever learned about that or if you're around for that. That's how he defined it. I cannot define it, but I know it when

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I see it. Well society today when it comes to love, they could say something like, I cannot define it, but I know it when

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I feel it. This becomes something that's within the feelings. But when love is only a good feeling produced by someone else, it becomes a selfish affair.

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I love someone when they make me feel good. That's essentially what it is. And if that's all it is, then when husbands are told, husbands love your wife, it actually becomes a very selfish thing for husbands to do.

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Wives are to do the most unselfish thing, submit to your husbands, and then husbands simply, you must love your wives or have that good feeling within you that your wife is to produce.

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Of course, that's not the definition of love, although that is what we are told from society. See, the church has reacted to this kind of new definition of love that we've received these past few decades with saying that love is not an action or love is not a feeling but an action.

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You see the reaction there is, well, love's not even a feeling. It's simply an action and that's helpful in some respects.

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It's a helpful thing because it's helpful because then Paul is essentially saying here, wives submit to your husbands, husbands love or serve your wife that's getting into the proper direction of what love is, but that's still an incomplete definition of love.

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So the way to respond to the way the world has defined love as especially an affection or a feeling, to respond with saying it's not a feeling at all.

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It's simply just action. It's just not quite complete. It's not going to enable you to actually practice love in a meaningful way.

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So thankfully Paul points us to a complete definition of love as he points us to the

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Lord Jesus Christ. Look again at verse 25 when he says husbands, so he says wives submit and everything to your husbands, husbands love your wives and then he defines it as Christ as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.

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So there's the definition there as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her and what we see in that is love is a warm affection for another.

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That's that feeling we're talking about. It is a warm affection for another. We cannot deny that. It's a warm affection for another that drives you to do the greatest good for the one whom you love even to your greatest expense.

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Let me say that again and we're going to see that from this text and going to others that what love is, as Paul tells husbands to love their wife, it is a warm affection for another and it drives you with that warm affection to do the greatest good for that person whom you love even at your greatest expense.

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That's what love is. And so let's start off with that. Love is a warm affection for another.

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We cannot throw that over the boat, whatever the saying is, in order because we're reacting to the world because we see here in verse 25 again, he says as Christ loved the church.

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What he's highlighting there is an affection that Christ has for the church.

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He then goes on to the action and gave himself up for her, but we cannot go quickly to the action without appreciating the affection of Christ for his church.

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He loved with an affection for the church. We see this in Romans 5 .8.

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We see this in Romans 5 .8 when Paul writes, So that is a love of affection that God, that Christ had for us, that even when we were sinners, he had that affection for us and then he showed that love in his action of dying for us.

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But nevertheless, we must underline that love is an affection. God had love, an affectionate love, that feeling of love in his heart for the church even before Jesus died for the church.

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In fact, we see in Ephesians 1, verse 4 and 5, go there, Ephesians 1 verse 4 and 5.

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Look at the very end of the verse there. He says, God predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his will.

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So we see that in love is that affectionate, that affection he had within himself because God is love, in which then he acts.

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Or if you look at chapter 2 of Ephesians, we're going to read this a couple times, but we see in verse 3,

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I'm sorry, verse 4, but God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us.

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Again, that's an affectionate love. That's a feeling of affection that he has.

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In which he goes on to say, even when we were dead in our trespasses, he made us alive together with Christ.

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What is amazing to the bride of Christ is that God would have an affection of love and that feeling of affection for a people that was in sin.

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That should boggle our mind, but we cannot say that love is just purely an action when it is found in God to be an affection or a feeling that he has for his bride even before they were redeemed or even before the cross.

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So we must understand that love is an affection and it's understood in God as we see that.

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And that drives God, it drives Christ to do the greatest good for his bride, even at his greatest expense.

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Right? Go back to Ephesians 5, 25. Husband, love your wives as Christ loved the church and thus it drove him, gave himself up for her.

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So from that feeling of affection, that love for the church, it drove him to give himself for the church.

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And so we can conclude that this affectionate love that Jesus has, it drove him to do the greatest good for that church, that group of people he loved, which was at the expense, the greatest expense of himself.

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So love has action indeed. Love is a feeling of affection, surely.

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And it drives that, that feeling of affection drives a, I will give up everything for the people whom

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I love for their good. And this is a full -bodied, a full -rounded view of what love is.

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It's amazing to think that our Lord Jesus Christ in affectionate love for us gave himself up for us because he knew it was our greatest good.

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It's not like Jesus says, I love you so much. I will do what's kind of good for you as long as it's not that bad for me.

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But instead Jesus came and he said I am going to do the greatest good for you even at the greatest expense of me because that's what love is.

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Every ounce of blood shed by our Lord was shed because of his affection for you.

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The slaps he endured, the thorns he received, the whips, the nails, all the blood that was shed was because he had a love for you, an affectionate care for you.

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We cannot be robotic or unfeeling Calvinists in which we think, no,

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God had no love for me when I was in my sin. You got to know that Jesus was driven by an affection for you, oh follower of Christ, a love for you, which drove him to shed his blood for you.

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And the blood, the nails, the whips, the slaps, the thorns, it culminated, the love of Jesus for you, culminated to receiving

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God's complete wrath on the cross for you. We got to understand as ugly as the cross is, it's painting a picture of just how terrible it is to receive

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God's wrath. Now, I believe just certainly that Jesus truly received the physical punishment of the cross and it's supposed to draw a picture of just how terrible

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God's wrath is and complete. I think hell is a true physical place with true fire.

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But if your mind just stops at the physical pain, you missed the point. Hell is so awful because it's the full wrath of God placed on the sinner.

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And the imagery of hellfire and the physical imagery is supposed to paint that deeper spiritual picture that is the receiving of God's complete wrath.

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So Jesus, the affection that he has for you is revealed, culminates in the fact that he received the complete wrath of God for you because that's what you needed the most.

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Jesus received your eternal hell in a few hours on the cross. He received your eternal hell that you deserve in a few hours on the cross.

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I have no idea how that looks or what that is like to receive. That your eternal hell was received by him in a few hours on the cross.

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That reveals the power of Jesus and what he went through in those hours that we cannot even fathom.

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That when he cried out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? That was with such pain that you can never fathom because he's receiving the wrath of yours for eternity.

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In that time, not just you, but the whole church because he has that love for you.

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We have no idea what that was like. And beloved, you never will because Jesus received it for you as you place your faith in him.

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Jesus had an affection for his bride which drove him to receive the greatest ungood for your good.

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This is the love of Christ driven by that affection to action. Jesus's love of affection revealed and action was not just a past thing either.

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But it's a present reality in our lives and it's a future one as well. What do

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I mean by that? Well, look at Paul goes on from what Jesus did with his love that he had for us and giving himself up the past tense in which that threw open the floodgates of love to you present tense in your life today.

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Look at verse 26, that he might, again Ephesians 5, 26, that he might with that death on the cross in the past that he might sanctify her, this bride of Christ, sanctify her having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word.

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So that great display of love that he did in the past with his death opened the door of love revealed to you today and your experiences today and that this death sanctifies you today, cleanses you today of the washing of the water with the word.

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What do those things mean? Well, look at that word sanctify. Again, with the back of your mind, this is God's love and action from his affection for you on display.

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Sanctify is a setting apart. So his love is revealed to you and setting you apart.

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You know, his death enabled to then pull you and set you apart. Now, why is that a loving display?

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Because where were you at before Jesus set you apart, oh sinner? What were you doing?

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Everything that you're ashamed of today, I hope. In fact, again, let's go to Ephesians 2 verses 1 through 3.

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We see what we were pulled, sanctified away from or pulled away from. You remember that?

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And you were, Ephesians 2, and you were dead. This is where you were at. You were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sense of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the mind and the body, and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind.

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That is not a pleasant place to be. That is a miserable life indeed. The non -Christian, they have a miserable life because they are a child of wrath.

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That is where they're at. They do these sins because it is delightful to them, even as these sins drag them to wrath.

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And it's important to see that this love that Jesus displayed is that he died for the church so that he could pull you from that position of being a child of wrath in that system of wrath led by the prince of the power of the air and bring you somewhere else.

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And for those of you who spent a great deal of time in that system, you know how great it is that you are no longer part of that system, don't you?

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And it's because of the loving arm of Jesus that said, you are no longer going to find your life there anymore.

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That is your death. I'm bringing you here. The death of Christ is what sanctified you, brought you away from that unto salvation.

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So we see again, go back to Ephesians 5, 26, this death of Christ that he might sanctify her, put her in another to set you apart unto holiness, not to be in the system of wickedness.

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This is the love revealed to you at present in your life today, is that he pulled you, he sanctified you out of that wretched condition.

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And notice he did this having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word.

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He did this, how he did it is he cleansed you from your sin. He grabbed you out of the system of sin, washed you off and put you into a different location.

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And this washing of the water is the spirit's work in you that washed you clean of your sins.

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That Jesus died on the cross in the past, and the Holy Spirit takes that wonderful loving work and applies it to you today, cleansing you from your sin, bringing you out of that condition of sin unto holiness.

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He has brought the spirit to apply the loving work that he has done. We see this in 1

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Corinthians. It's worth going there. 1 Corinthians chapter 6, look at verse 9.

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1 Corinthians chapter 6 verse 9. Or do you not know, Paul says, that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God.

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How could they? They're still in that system. They haven't been sanctified away from it. He says, do not be deceived.

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Neither the sexual immoral nor idolaters nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, nor will inherit the kingdom of God.

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And here it is. And such were some of you, but you were washed. You were sanctified.

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You were justified in the name of the Lord. Why? Because he's the one that died and enabled it by his death. And it's by the spirit of our

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God. It is the spirit that applies the work of Jesus to wash you of that sin and bring you onto a better land.

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This is what Jesus has done to display his love to you at present. Is that by the work of the spirit, he takes you out of that sinful condition and brings you unto to be his church.

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But notice we cannot escape what he says in verse 26 when he says, by the washing of the water with the word, with the word.

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So the work of the spirit as he applies the loving work of Jesus, the work of the spirit is done on the chariots of the word.

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The vehicle the spirit works to regenerate you, to wash you, is the vehicle of the word of God proclaimed.

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Again, let that be another reminder of why the word proclaimed is so vital.

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It's because the spirit has chosen to use that as the vehicle to apply the loving work of Jesus' death on your life.

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The word is the vehicle the spirit uses to wash you of your sins.

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This work doesn't just happen at random. The spirit uses the word preach to deliver the loving death of Jesus to your soul.

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And we must understand this word, the gospel, Jesus Christ, the good news of Christ our

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Lord, this word to the bride of Christ is the word of an affectionate husband.

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To those whom he has chosen to be his bride, the word comes forth from Christ through the minister, through the

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Bible, as the words of an affectionate, caring husband. Before you were sanctified and cleansed from your sin, your husband was

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Moses who, with the law, spoke very roughly with you.

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You were under the law of God and it was a rough taskmaster, a rough husband. He did not shy away at all from telling you of your sinful, miserable state.

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He spoke of your wickedness, your dirtiness, and unworthiness, revealing your guilt, highlighting your shame.

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And it was one of a rough husband indeed. And worst of all, it was all very true about you.

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But in your filth, even unable to see through the grime, you heard the words of love spoken by Jesus Christ, the

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Lord. It was a words of endearment, of love, of affection from a savior.

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You heard the words of the gospel as the bride of Christ, and you said, that sounds good to me.

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Now, we must understand that the non -elect, the ones that aren't the bride, they hear that word and it sounds like just more of Moses.

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But to you who have been chosen out of the world, Jesus showed his love to you that those words of the gospel, it was from an affectionate, loving husband.

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This is what you heard in your filth, unable to see through the grime.

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You heard the words of love that spoke of forgiveness and you were shocked when you saw with eyes of faith that this cleansing came from a man who had as much suffering as he had love for you.

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You heard and you all of a sudden with eyes of faith saw this suffering, loving husband that gave up everything for you.

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That all the sin, all the grime, all the filth was placed upon this husband of yours because of his love that he's revealed in that.

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This affection of Jesus revealed in action is seen in the past with his death at present in your life as it's applied to you and in the future in eternity when all is complete.

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Look at verse 27. So that, now he's moving forward to the future now, right? The past was in 25, present in verse 26 and the future display of the love of Jesus to you is found in 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor.

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That is a marvelous sentence right there. That he has done all this so that in the future he would present you the bride to himself in splendor.

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Jesus' affection for you began when you were a filthy, dirty sinner but on the wedding day in the future and into eternity it will be on you who is dressed in splendor and glory and beauty.

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That's what splendor is. It's glorious. And so the imagery is that, yes, you were taken from the muck but in the future, right, when all is complete he's going to present you to himself and you'll be dressed not in dirtiness, not in nastiness but in splendor and glory.

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And what that is, you know, so you understand and he goes to explain it further. He says what splendor means, it's without, look at verse 27 without spot or wrinkle or any such thing without blemish rather instead it's pure holiness is what your dress will be.

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No more sin, no more taint, no more ugliness but only beautiful, glorious holiness righteousness, lawfulness, a very good imagery of that of the bride in eternity being presented to the son with glorious dress is indeed a wedding today.

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The bride coming down, we've all been to one the bride comes down the aisle and all stands up and looks at her with amazement as she has that white dress on.

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And I'm a firm believer, wives spend like $20 ,000 on your dress. Spend, I don't have any daughters yet spend all the money on your dress because it is the imagery of what

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Jesus Christ has done for you that you will one day be appearing before your husband wearing the most beautiful dress you could ever fathom.

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And I love that imagery in weddings today. I love that, stand up, look at that wife that future bride coming down in the most beautiful dress you've ever seen and then picture the

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Lord Jesus Christ and what he has done for his people because lest you believe beloved we don't get this dress in eternity with money.

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We don't get it with our own works. We'll be marveling at our dress because who's the one who's given it to us?

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Jesus, we'll be marveling at Jesus. Jesus Christ is the one who provides that very expensive dress.

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His display of love was revealed in that dress of splendor, of glory. Because look at verse 27, you don't want to miss it when he says that verse 27 so that he might present the church to himself.

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He's the one that's presenting the church to himself. It's because he's the one who bought that dress. He's the one that made that dress that made that wife, that bride, us look beautiful.

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He's presenting us to himself because he's the one who's done it in his love, in his affection for us, in his action for us.

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He's what makes that dress possible. Christ is doing the presenting since it is his work and his dress that we are wearing for eternity.

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As the angels marvel at our dress, they are marveling at Christ and his affectionate love.

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We see this in Revelation 19. Do you want to go there?

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Revelation 19, Revelation 19, verse six.

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John says, then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters.

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That's like the roar of worship. And like the sound of mighty peals of thunder crying out, hallelujah.

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For the Lord, our God, the almighty reigns and let us rejoice and exalt and give him the glory for the marriage of the lamb has come.

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And his bride has made herself ready. It was granted to her. It was given to her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure.

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For the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints. Beloved, there is the dress that we have that was enabled by the love of Jesus Christ, our

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Lord. And verse nine, and the angel said to me, write this, blessed are those who are invited to this marriage supper of the lamb.

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Beloved, that's going to be the greatest marriage ceremony we've ever witnessed. And he said to me, these are the true words of God.

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You know, I honestly, I could be, I want to be careful. I'm not sure how Tim preached this,

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Pastor Tim preached this. But whenever we see in verse 10, then I fell down at his feet to worship the angel.

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But he said to me, you must not do that. I think he's so amazed by the beauty of the bride. So amazed by the glorious dress of Christ on her that he's just in a whirlwind and he starts worshiping the angel as if he was doing it.

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Nevertheless, it is in beautiful imagery. The bride and her dress enabled by the love of our

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Lord Jesus Christ is of the most beautiful imagery that we receive, that we see, that begins eternal life or eternity.

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We see in Matthew 22, it's worth looking at as well. Matthew 22, the importance that we receive that dress in order to look beautiful.

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In Matthew 22, remember, 11 through 14 is what I'll read. But if you remember, this is the parable of the wedding feast.

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And you remember the invitation, bring everyone, bring everyone out to this wedding that I'm holding for my son.

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Bring everyone out, all right? This is the imagery of the church age. Bring everyone, everyone's invited. Bring them in, bring them in.

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And remember, it's at the end now, the parable's kind of pointing to the end time in which the importance of receiving a dress.

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Matthew 22, verse 11, but when the king came in to look at the guests, he saw there a man who had no wedding garment.

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And he said to him, friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment? And he was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, bind him hand and foot and cast him to the outer darkness.

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In that place, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth for many are called to the wedding feast, but few are chosen to receive the dress.

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And so it's important here to see that this is a dress that we have that's beautiful, not by your work, not by your ability, but by the pure love and devotion of your savior.

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The affection he had for you from before time began revealed in time and space as he died, revealed in your own life as he called you out with the word in which now you receive that beautiful dress in eternity.

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For many are called, but only few are chosen to receive that dress. For you, oh chosen bride,

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Christ has an affection that has revealed itself. He has provided you the greatest good that you could ever receive.

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And it was at the expense of his greatest hurt that he could ever receive. A sacrificial, affectionate love of our husband.

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With that, I hope Jesus was magnified there. Then husbands, read verse 28, in the same way husbands should love their wives.

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Now we'll get to as their own bodies next time. But let that just crush you for a moment, husbands, as you consider your husband's love for you.

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And Paul is saying in that same way, you are to love your bride.

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The bride is to be a submissive wife. And Paul doesn't say, and now enjoy your reign over her.

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He says, husbands love your wife. And that should be a most terrifying sight when he completes that and as Christ loved his.

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But before I hit that too hard, I hope you husbands, I want you to be overwhelmed.

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You need to be overwhelmed by that. You cannot look at the love of Jesus and not be overwhelmed by the call for you to love your wife.

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So I want you to be overwhelmed. It is good to feel overwhelmed because then as you feel that weight, as you in despair, oh,

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I don't love my wife anywhere near like that. It should drive you in that despair to look at your different spots, look at your different wrinkles, look at the different blemishes that you have and praise

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Jesus that yes, he died even for those sins. Yes, it was the delight of our great loving husband for to see your inability to do this great calling and say, yes,

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I died for that too. And dying for that not just means it is washed and cleansed, hallelujah, but also he will help you walk in love to your wife.

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And so as we're concluding this, enabled by the grace of Jesus and his love for you, husbands, you need to have a love of affection for your wife.

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Do not believe the lie that love is just purely an action. If you do not have affection for your wife, you will not have the engine, the oomph to love in action to your wife.

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You need to strive to have affection for your wife.

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Love is not just action, but it's affection as well. And we read this in Proverbs 5, 18 and 19.

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And it says, The Bible doesn't tell you very much to be drunk.

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In fact, let me correct that. The Bible never tells you to be drunk, except for one time, and that is with affection to your wife.

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You are called, commanded all husbands, to have an affection for your wife that is overwhelming to you.

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Because then what that does is then it drives you to have a self -sacrificing love of action to your wife.

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That from that affection, you can't help, you are so jealous over her. I want what's best for her.

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I'm going to work for her every day of my life. Let that affection that you are called to have drive you to action, even a self -sacrificing love for your wife for her good.

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I can't, I don't understand it when I hear a husband who's having a marital problem, sit there and say that he's not loving his wife because she's not deserving it, or she's not acting a certain way.

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Well, you should see my wife what she does. What did Jesus do for you? If Jesus did that, let it be that even if she proves to be the worst wife in the world, my self -sacrificial love gets to increase then, as Jesus did so for you.

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You need to be driven by the affection for your wife, and it's not dependent upon whether or not she's acting like a good submissive wife or not.

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That affection goes beyond that. It is a great love and desire for your wife that just propels you to minister to her, to serve her, and that looks like pastoring your wife with the word.

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We see that that's what Jesus used in her life today. In the bride, he uses the word to sanctify and to grow her.

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The greatest good for your wife is for her to be washed with the word each day of your life.

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Each day of her life as a husband, you want to wash her with that word, and that is both by your doing and by your teaching, by your words.

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You want to get up, husbands, and say, I am called to reveal the word of God with my life to my wife, and then back that up with the word of God too, and just wash her with it.

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And whenever you take the first step out of bed and she's not acting like she should, it should drive you all the more.

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I want to reveal the word of God to her, especially in light of her being difficult. With the love that we are to have and affection, we are to be,

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I want the greatest good for my wife, and that is for her to know and understand the word of God, husbands, you need to pastor your wife.

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Now, there's something that needs to be said about what happens when

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I don't have the affection. Because Jesus, he was perfect. He is perfect.

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He always had affection, and it was always completed in action. But we're sinners, aren't we?

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Husbands, sometimes you just don't have that affection for your wives. And so there is in that moment where it's like,

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God, I don't feel this love for her right now. I don't feel this love for her right now.

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And what God calls you to do, just like in every area, is do it anyway.

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It is act obediently to me in how you act with your wife anyway.

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But that doesn't mean, therefore, you can live a life now, no affections, and I'm just gonna slave along. That's not what the

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Bible says. What we are to do when we don't feel that love, and that's gonna happen, right, is that you say, well,

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I'm still gonna obey God and love my wife in action anyway, but don't, and then say, I'm okay with no affection.

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Say, oh Lord, that you would bring affections to come with this. That in my doing, affections would overwhelm me and would return to me again.

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This is, the imagery I thought of is like, because I hate planes, and I always feel like I'm going down in them, is that, think of like an airplane, right?

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When the engines go, or if they go, it's gonna coast for a while. It's gonna coast for a while.

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It's not gonna go down right away. It can coast, but the engines need to turn back on sometime soon, right?

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And so you can think of, if the affections, the engines go, your affections are gone for the moment, you can still coast and obey

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God pretty well, but they need to come back. And so it's good to, oh God, give me an affection for my wife, let this return, and so these things come together so that I can fly in the air and not crash and burn to the ground.

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And so that's a major thing, right? When we think about what love is, it's both affection and action, and really what affection does is that it makes our service to our wife enjoyable.

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That's what God has given you affection for, our husbands and wives as well, is it makes your service to your spouse enjoyable.

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Isn't it enjoyable to have such an overwhelming affection for your wife that you get to reveal in your action of love to your wife?

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God has given you those affections to make your service to your wife enjoyable. But that doesn't mean that when the affections are gone, you say, well,

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I don't need to love my wife anymore. It just simply means it's not gonna be as enjoyable as it was, and pray to God, oh, bring them back so it is a complete, enjoyable thing to serve, to love my wife.

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So, in keeping with 521, submitting,

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Ephesians 521, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ, Paul does not say, husbands, use and abuse your wife's role of submission for selfish passions.

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Paul says that as a wife submits to her husband, the husband loves or serves the wife.

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Self -sacrificial love for the best good, the greatest good of his wife, whatever that looks like in your particular circumstance.

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As the wife submits to her husband, asks to the Lord with joy and thanksgiving and happiness, we talked about that last week, so the husband's self -sacrificial love for his wife should be driven by a strong affection, which gives his role an underlying joy and happiness.

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And so the end result, as you are serving your wife, as you're loving her both with affection and with service, as she's submitting to you, ask the

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Lord with affection and love and enjoyment, has a way in which submission becomes, again, the health, the life, the joy, the happiness of the home.

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But as you consider these things, consider Jesus Christ our Lord, for his love is like no other.

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He has a love for you, O husbands, even in your failure, and he says that he will help you. He is a kind and loving husband, and he has revealed that even to us so we can partake in that kindness in being a loving husband to our own brides.

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Praise be to our Lord, for this is a hard work enabled by him. And this is one of those things to where there's a problem here, right?

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If you're a husband, you're like, I see the principles that you're laying out, but I don't know exactly how to converge them onto my own particular life.

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Come see help. That's why you have pastors. Come and talk. I see it, right?

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But then as I try to bring it down to my own particular life, I can't quite connect it. Well, that's what we're here for.

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We're always, no judgment, rather to help, to show you how to look to Jesus as you look to loving your wife.

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Let us pray. Oh, Father in heaven, we do thank you for Christ Jesus, our

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Lord. He is the example, but not only the example, but he's also the enabler.

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He's the ability, Lord, for us to know what does it mean to love our wives?

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What does it mean to love anyone for that matter? Lord, we know that it is one of having affection for one another and serving one another with that affection.

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So I pray, Lord, that this church here, this local assembly, would be filled with husbands that are so overwhelmed by their love for their brides, as they're looking to Jesus and his love for his bride, that they want to do everything that is needed for that self -sacrificial love to play out.

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And that looks like helping their wives grow in holiness, to wash them with the word by their actions and words.

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Lord in heaven, may we have husbands that are so pastoring their wives within their own home. This society that we're in,

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God, it's filled with the lie that husbands are useless to have any kind of leadership, any kind of pastoring, so to speak, role is demeaning.

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Lord, it's a lie of Satan. May we have husbands that are so determined to be a loving pastor to their wives, that they grow in this affection and action each day.

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God in heaven, may we keep our eyes upon Jesus. For without him, Lord, we are surely without hope.

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May we look to him each day to give us an affection for our wives and look to him each day to know exactly how to show that love each day to our wives as well.

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Oh Lord, help us. For we truly are weak people. But in Christ Jesus, we are made strong and we thank you for the love of Christ to his bride.