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Welcome to the podcast where we prod the sheep and beat the wolf.
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This is episode 16 love like men.
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Over the last couple of weeks. We've been talking about the fact that there is a masculinity crisis in this
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And nowhere is that felt more profoundly than marriages?
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You can think about it this way.
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If a healthy marriage is the bedrock of a community and healthy communities unite together to form vibrant
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Then the best way to topple a society is to attack its marriages.
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If you break that grand Institution down into pieces if you spoil the marriage, then you will
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And there's no better place for Satan to begin that all -out war on Marriage then to focus on the one that
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God has called to lead in the marriage and that is the man.
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And I want you to think about it this way if manliness godly masculinity a man's role in his home is a targeted attack.
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Launched consistently by Satan then what we really need to know and understand is how to fight back.
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First of all, we need to understand that the attack is coming.
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Second we need to know and understand how to fight back and we don't fight with swords and
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We don't fight with domination and aggression.
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We fight by orienting our lives around what the Bible says by doing
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what it tells us to do and by Refusing to be moved when the fiery arrows of Satan come.
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That is our warfare brothers to know and understand what the Bible says and to orient
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our lives in that Godward Direction and then to refuse to be moved off that spot.
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The enemy may win back ground in our culture in our society, but he will not win on us.
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He will not win in the arena of masculinity and marriage.
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He will not move us from our purpose from being biblical masculine men.
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That's the way we got to think and there's no better passage on earth to teach us about
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this then Ephesians 5 23 through 33 and we're gonna learn five things about what it means to be
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a man and to love like men in this passage.
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The first is that we're gonna have a shepherding kind of love.
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Ephesians 5 23 through 24 says this.
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For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is also head of the church He himself being the Savior of the body.
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But as the church is subject to Christ, so also wives ought to be to their husbands in
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everything the first aspect of manly love
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Men have been called to lead in their homes in the same way that Christ provides love and leadership to his church.
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And that's not a suggestion.
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That is a biblical command.
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Think about it like this.
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The church is blessed because the leadership of Christ.
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We don't moan and groan under his sovereign rule in care.
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We flourish under his Leadership and Christ is not waiting for any of us to lead.
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We're the follower and that's what brings life and health to the church.
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Because we're no longer wandering around in the spiritual valleys anymore.
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We've been brought into his strong life giving stabilizing love and leadership and we're better off for it in the same way.
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We joyfully follow him out of death and enjoy the life -giving benefits of his rule without a whimper
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And in that way us as men We don't just enjoy that benefit as
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We're called to imitate that Benefit and diligently lead in our homes.
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He's called you and I to bring your family together under the under your leadership under your
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He's commanded that you bring life into your home through your godly care and your godly
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He has called you to provide the same kind of benefits that Christ has brought into his church.
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I'll be it in a very temporal way.
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Suffice it to say your family ought to flourish spiritually speaking under your consistent
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godly Christ honoring active leadership not
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passive but active committed leadership.
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If You're leading correctly, then your family will thrive.
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And if your family is spiritually weak emotionally sick Relationally at each other's throats experiencing
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interpersonal decay chaos in fighting rampant immorality or is declining in any
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other perceivable metric then your leadership needs adjusting
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and repentance because the buck stops with you, sir, if You've been
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called to be the leader than the health of your family is a direct result of your leadership.
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If your family is healthy, or if your family is growing in the direction of health, then continue doing what you're doing
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Repent when you fall short.
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Praise the Lord but if your family is unhealthy or growing in the direction of unhealth if
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chaos is infused itself in your family, then you need to take a really long hard look and
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Repent, it's not enough for you to do like Adam and point your finger at your wife and kids and say they're the problem.
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You're not gonna succeed as a husband that way you're not called to be a family head in that way.
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If you adopt Adam's Passive leadership style you're not going to succeed.
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You have to stand up buck up grow up man up and lead.
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You have to take a look at your family and ask yourself some hard questions.
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I do this all the time when I think about my family and how they struggle as a result of my pitiful
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Ask yourself things like are they struggling because of my passive leadership because of my failed leadership because of
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Are there things that I need to stop doing that are causing harm to my family?
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Or are there things that I need to start doing that would bring life to my family, but I'm not doing them.
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Are there things that I need to do so that I can be more like Jesus a better head over my family so that my Clan my
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people my tribe can more faithfully honor God.
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I know these are hard questions, but again the buck stops with you.
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You did not marry into a democracy where everything is decided upon spirited debates on a Senate floor.
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You are a God -appointed King.
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You sir have been called to rule with love and affection like Christ.
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For the good and health of your family if you fail the family will suffer if you repent.
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And if you move in the direction of Christ your family will flourish.
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That's the first aspect of what it means to love like a man.
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It means to have the guts to lead like Christ.
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No running away from that.
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Just simply putting your head down to the pages of Scripture.
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Understanding what Christ calls you and doing it to have a shepherding kind of love for your family.
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The second aspect of loving like a man is to have a sacrificial Sacrificing kind of
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love to look at verse 25 of this incredible passage where it lays this out.
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It says husbands love your wives just as Christ Jesus also loved the church and he gave
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himself up for her here the love that Christ has for the church is qualified
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in his desire and joy to give himself up for her.
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His love was demonstrated by his willingness to give his life for her and her life her health her
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vitality would be Impossible without him dying to his life his
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life Sacrificed for her gave her life.
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These are wonderful and glorious truths that we celebrate every single week about the gospel.
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We personally we love this and we as men we look to Christ and we praise him for the for
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For us as men, but it doesn't stop there if you're a man.
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What we often forget is that these things have not only been done for us they've been required of
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Paul begins with husbands love your wives and Just in case we're not clear what that means he
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makes it abundantly clear what he means that we are to love our wives like Jesus loves the church and
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That we are to give ourselves up for her just like he gave himself up for us.
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That means that your leadership cannot be in cannot be used to advance your own agenda.
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You wake up your family you go to work for your family you provide for your family you serve your family.
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You go to sleep protecting your family.
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You repeat that for a lifetime.
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You die and honor like a man and.
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You're known as someone who gave it all for his family just like Jesus gave it all for his and.
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Not just in those physical ways, although those are important and we'll talk about those in the weeks ahead.
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Think about what Jesus has done.
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He gave his life for the spiritual well -being of his family.
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For the spiritual well -being of his bride.
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That means that manly love Sacrifices everything to make sure the people around us
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are thriving not just physically but more importantly spiritually.
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It means here's some examples praying for your wife men.
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Do you pray for your wife?
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Do you pray with your wife?
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It means leading family worship with your kids men.
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Do you grab a Bible and grab your family and sit them down together and show them who Christ is and show them what?
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The gospel is do you do that?
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It means making them go to church even when they don't want to go.
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Do you make your family sit with you in church and listen to the gospel every single week?
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Do you put them in front of faithful teaching?
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It means modeling Christ like leadership when others want to cut corners in your family.
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You don't cut corners you showcase the character of Christ.
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It means pointing to Jesus in Everything that you do it means pointing to Jesus when you
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discipline your children.
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You don't discipline them out of anger and out of revenge and out of frustration and out of exasperation.
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You discipline them because you want them to know who Christ is and you want them to understand that they've fallen short of the gospel.
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But that in the gospel, there's hope there's healing and there's Reconciliation.
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It means, you know comforting your wife and your children with the gospel in everything when they are
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You show them the hope and the joy that there is in Jesus when they're angry.
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You show them that that God's anger was poured out on Christ so that our anger could be forgiven so that we can live at Peace with
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It's showing the implications of the gospel to our family.
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It means sacrificing ourself putting ourselves second so that our family can benefit first.
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Being a loving leader of your home means being sacrificial to the ones that you love.
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You sacrifice so that your family can see Jesus know Jesus love Jesus and follow
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You show your boys how to lead.
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By serving you show your daughters the kind of men that they're supposed to marry through serving.
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Like Jesus you rely on the strength of your father to joyfully care for and lead the ones that he has given you.
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You don't complain about it.
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You don't take days off you fight your sinful flesh.
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You slay it you bury it and you stand up and you serve your family like Christ has served the church and cared for
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That's the second aspect of what it means to have a manly love is you lead and you serve.
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The third aspect of masculine love is a sanctifying kind of love and.
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This builds off what we just learned in verse 25 and it continues on into verse 26 and 27.
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Notice in verse 25 Paul tells us that our sacrificial love Comes
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and it's based off of the perfect archetype with this Jesus.
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It says just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her.
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Then the question that we need to ask is why why did he do that?
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Well Paul continues in 26 talking about the sanctifying love of Christ and he says he did that so that
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Jesus loved the church and gave himself up for her so that he would Sanctify her having
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cleansed her by the washing of the water of the word that he might present to himself the church in all her glory
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having no spot having no wrinkle or any such thing, but that she would be made holy and
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blameless under his leadership.
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You see men we not only love our brides enough or our fiance's in the future that we're gonna be
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We not only love them enough to lead them like Jesus with sacrificial leadership like Jesus.
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We also have a God -defined vision for her life.
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You don't marry your wife for who she is today.
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You married her for the woman that she's going to be in eternity with Jesus.
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You married her with the goal of helping her get ready to meet her true husband Christ.
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Who you are going to worship alongside of her for an eternity when your feet touch that celestial shore
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and One of the greatest privileges you have to understand this one of the greatest privileges of your life is
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It's contributing to her growth in Jesus so that when you hand her over to Christ after a
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lifetime of faithful leadership.
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She looks more like Jesus because of your leadership.
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Just as Jesus gave up his own life to sanctify his bride you are called to self
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Leadership that ought to be leading your bride towards greater sanctification in Christ and by that the word
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Sanctification means set apart which tells us that under your leadership.
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Your bride ought to be growing more set apart into God more Holy more sanctified and
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She ought to be thriving instead of moving in the opposite direction.
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Under your royal servant leadership.
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She is to be growing to be more like Jesus and this does not by the way
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Absolve her of her own responsibility.
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She's gonna sin and she's got to stand before the Lord on that but in the same way.
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Just like your leadership is not going to absolve her of her guiltiness.
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Christ leadership does not not absolve us of our sin.
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When we sin we have to repent.
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When we sin we have to go to the throne of grace.
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Well in the same way your leadership is not an excuse for your wife.
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Your leadership is there as a benefit for your wife.
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Your goal brother is To give her rich Gospel soil to grow in
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to water her in the word to pray with her and for her to study the scriptures.
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Diligently to plow in those scriptures so that so that you can remove the stony parts of her heart so that you can
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so that You can help her sister walk with her lead her help her Grow more in
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love with Jesus more set apart to God more.
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Those are the things that you are looking to help her accomplish in her life in the time that you've been given with her.
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You'll be studying the scriptures diligently so that you can answer any question that she might have sir point her in the right direction.
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You're gonna be developing a robust biblical worldview so that you can make wise choices and tough seasons of your
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life that you're gonna face as a couple.
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So that she'll have trust that you have her.
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Best interest at heart in the family's best interest at heart and you're not leading in a posture of selfishness.
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You're gonna take her to church a faithful church where she can hear the word.
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Preached faithfully and regularly to her so that she can grow up in Christ.
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You're gonna let her see you meeting God in his word leading your children.
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Praying off and growing in the wisdom and maturity so that she feels secure under your care.
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You're gonna help her learn what it means to follow Jesus in every aspect of her life.
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And you're gonna not be a hypocrite because you're gonna let her see you doing it as well.
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You're gonna love her like Christ loves her and trust me brother.
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Your bride will flourish under that kind of leadership.
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Now I know that there's women listening to this episode who are listening to this and saying amen praise God Lord.
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Give me that help my husband.
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Become that and the reason is not to shame you brother.
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The reason is that her heart was designed by God to be under your leadership in that way.
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Her heart sings when you step into this kind of leadership and when you fail.
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It actually affects her and it affects the entire family.
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That's what I'm trying to say.
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Again you need to take an honest look at your wife.
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But this passage mainly talking about your wife.
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You need to take an honest.
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Look at her and Identify whether or not she is growing.
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Is she growing in the right direction?
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Because of your leadership or she growing in the opposite direction because of your leadership and before you pass blame on
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And you talk about how she's stubborn and she doesn't listen and she doesn't allow you to lead and she's always trying to take over.
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Before you do any of that.
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I want you to ask yourself some hard questions.
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Am I actually leading her?
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Am I taking an active role?
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That is an important question because Adam Modeled for us all men
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after him a passive and weak sort of leadership.
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He let his wife go to the tree.
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He let his wife inspect the fruit.
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He let his wife eat the fruit and he let his wife give him the fruit and then he acquiesced to her.
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Men that is not what kind of leadership you've been called to you're the one who leads you're the one who's out
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You're active and you need to ask yourself the question.
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Am I making excuses for myself?
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Am I saying that she's too hard to lead?
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That's that's a pretty funny question if you think about it because Jesus never said that about you and Yet
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he leads you and he cares for you and he's doing that for you and you my friend are much more difficult to lead
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You can ask yourself the question Am I am I making excuses for myself?
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Another thing you could do is ask your wife what areas would she like to grow in this year next year and in the
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You take that information and you go to your prayer closet you pray for your wife.
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You bring it up in conversations and you ask her how she's doing with that particular area.
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You encourage her with scriptures.
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Maybe you do a Bible study on that topic.
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You find out the ways that your wife wants to grow and you also through scripture.
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Identify areas where your wife and you and your family need to grow and as the leader of the family
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you set the path for the way that your family ought to go as A leader you set the
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pace for your family and the buck stops with you.
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And let me just say one more word about this.
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We live in a society that treat men like imbeciles.
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Who can't find themselves out of a wet paper bag.
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And if that were true, then you could very easily be a whining loser who shirks responsibility.
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And let your wife shoulder a burden that she was not designed to carry.
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But those things are not true of you.
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Stop letting society beat you over the head.
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Stop letting the world tell you that you're a loser and that you're you have no value because you're a man.
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Stop listening to all of the voices and submit to God's vision.
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He made you for this and if he made you for this then he's gonna assist you with this and he's gonna help you with This you
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got to trust his plan brother because God has called you to this he's gonna help you with this and you get the
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rare opportunity that if you'll just submit to this and Do what the Bible has called you to do then you will get to
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see your family flourishing under your leadership.
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The question is will you do it?
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That's the third aspect of man masculine love that you love her enough to lead her.
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That you love her enough to sacrifice for her and you love her enough to participate in her Sanctification by encouraging and
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helping her so that one day you can present her flawless beautiful to her true
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That's the third you have a shepherding love sanctifying love and a sacrificial love for your bride.
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The fourth aspect of manly love in this passage is a synthesizing kind of love.
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You're the one who's responsible for bringing her together with you for holding her Together with you and
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maintaining the unity that God has supernaturally given to both of you.
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Look at verses 21 through 38.
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So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies.
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He who loves his own wife loves himself.
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For no one has ever hated his own flesh.
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But nourishes and cherishes his flesh just as Christ also does the church because we are members of his
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For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother and shall be joined to his wife and the two shall become one
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flesh as We've already mentioned a husband's role is to love his wife
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selflessly even as he loves his own body and The reason that that is true first and
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foremost is because the miracle of marriage.
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He really is when he loves her.
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He really is loving his own flesh because in marriage God weaves together two dissimilar human
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bodies into a single Unit united together under his lordship and under his
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covenantal affections for you bound to one another for a lifetime joined together by Unbreakable
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bonds and less some great damage tears you asunder you have been brought into one
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No one hates his own flesh, but he feeds his flesh clothes his flesh.
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But bathes his flesh provides for his flesh.
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So to the husband is called to provide for his bride in the way that he would even care for himself that
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is the first reason that this is true and I pray that all the men listening to this will let that sink in as
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consistently listen as Consistently as you take care of yourself.
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You must take care of her.
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For instance when you drop everything to use the bathroom when you prioritize you when you want to go to sleep
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when you drop other things to eat when you Save up your resources to buy that toy or that or that widget
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or whenever you however you or whatever You tend to do to provide for yourself and to
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You must be the kind of man that's doing that for her.
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In all the ways you care for you now, you've been called to care for her.
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Loving her like Jesus loves the church will be the hardest and Yet the most rewarding thing that you will
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You will never do it perfectly.
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But to the degree that you grow in this the more and more that you grow
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in this Will be to the degree that your family thrives under your care.
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Of course, there are no guarantees.
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But if God commanded you to do it then I believe that you can believe and trust that if you do it It's what he
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It's what he wants for your wife.
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It's what he wants for your family and Eventually your family will for flourish under that kind of care.
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It's the way God designed it that's the first reason that we have a Synthesizing kind of love
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because you love her like your own body knowing that she and you have become one flesh under God.
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You're to love her like you love yourself.
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The second reason that you do this gets a little deeper down into the fabric of the gospel.
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Which Paul takes up in our final section that I'm calling sacred love.
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This is what Paul says in verses 32 through 33.
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But I'm speaking with reference to Christ and the church nevertheless each individual among you Also
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is to love his own wife even as himself and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband.
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The second and most Important more important part of this is that you don't just love her because you've been
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You love her you lead her you sacrifice to her you sanctify her you bind her together in unity with
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Because you are acting out a picture of the gospel.
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Just like Jesus from heaven He came and sought her the church to be his only bride and with his own blood he bought
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her and for her life He died.
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He is sanctifying her and Synthesizing her into his own body so that the church has become
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members of his own flesh his own body.
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Just like the wife has become united with her own husband when you lead your wife.
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You reenact the gospel when you pursue your wife.
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You reenact the gospel when you sacrifice for your wife.
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You're reenacting the gospel when you labor for her Sanctification and you put her in front of the gospel and you
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help her and you pray for her and you study with her and you Cherish her.
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You're reenacting the gospel when you provide a loving home where she and you and all of your children can grow up
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in Peace and unity and strength and stability you are reenacting the gospel.
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Your job brother is not to love her with a carnal unbridled Romantic sensate
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emotional effeminate kind of love.
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You were to love her like Jesus.
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You were to love her enough to give yourself for her provide for her and act out the gospel to her.
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That is what it means for you to love her like a man.
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Far too often society is trying to teach men to love women like women.
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We're to love her like men.
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We're to adopt a biblical vision of how to love her like Christ loves the church when we fall short.
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But we strive towards that vision.
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Do not let the enemy win in your marriage brother.
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Don't let society to find your marriage brother.
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Don't let the enemy tell you how to love your wife.
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Don't let movies and culture tell you how to love your wife.
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Don't accept the vision that just because you're a man that you're less than or you're some sort of toxic
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patriarchy or masculinity.
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Reject all of that and adopt the biblical vision that God has given you here in Ephesians
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5 to love your Wife like Christ has loved the church and when you do that
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repenting when you fall short.
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Standing up for that vision trusting in the Lord obeying his word when you do that.
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They'll get to see Christ on you and the world will get to see Christ on them and
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That's all I got today gents until next time I want you to go love a woman like Jesus and together as we do that
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If you like this episode and you enjoyed its content, please like share and repost it on social media the way that the
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Algorithms work is that the content that is liked and shared the most is gonna get distributed the most so if we want to get this
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out to as many men as we can because we want men to grab a vision of what Biblical masculinity is then we
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This is not about building a platform for the Shepherd's Church.
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This is about getting godly content out to men who need it who need to be encouraged in the
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gospel who need to be encouraged in their masculinity and who need To understand the biblical vision for how to love a woman
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God bless you and have a great day.