Sermon Central
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Is Your Wife Married To A Man Or A Manikin Series
Contributed by Michael Quicke on Nov 28, 2017 (message contributor)
Summary: A real man HANGS OUT with SAVED friends. A man HUGS his wife lots. A man is HAPPY with his STUFF. He HOLDS his wife till "death-do-us-part."
“This is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it.”
When Sunday rolls around he says with his heart in Psalm 122:1,
“I rejoiced with those who said to me, "Let us go to the house of the LORD."
A family man hears the words of 1 John 2:15-17, and makes a decision about who he hangs with:
“15 Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world. 17 The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.”
A man is interested in one thing: doing the will of God from the heart.
KEY 2: A Man HUGS his wife lots.
A Manikin HIDES from his wife a lot.
We all know the verse in Ephesians 5:25, “Husbands, love your wives.” But how can a husband do this? Pay close attention to the Scriptures. We must go back to verse 18,
“Be filled with the Spirit.”
That means be Spirit-filled, or be controlled or dominated by the Holy Spirit. Sot eh first key to loving your wife is being a Spirit-filled man. Love is an overflow of the Spirit who is in you.
Secondly in verse 19, he loving man is a singing man. No it has nothing to do with the sound of his voice. It has to so with the beat of his heart. As Paul says,
“speaking to one another in psalms, hymns, spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord.”
A singing, joyful heart freely gives love to his wife. Then in verse 20, a loving man is a thankful man.
“Always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God even the Father.”
No matter what happens, no matter what goes wrong, no matter how you might be misunderstood or treated in a marriage, your heart is filled with thanks, even for your trials because you know they come from God and have a perfecting work.
This overflows into verse 21,
“To be subject to one another in the fear of Christ.”
Spirit-filled, singing, saying thanks and submitting. Those are the spiritual prerequisites for a successful man and marriage.
This is the type of man who let’s Ephesians 5:25 sink into his ears,
“Husbands, love your wives.”
Let me put some teeth into this Scripture by changing one word in this verse to make it read, “Husbands, hug your wives.” This begins to explain the word love. Paul is talking about how we feel towards our wives. God wants us to deeply connected to our partners. It has been that way since Adam and Eve.
Husbands are told to love their wives 6 times. In verse 28, Paul says, “Husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies” and in verse 33, “each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself.” (Wives are told to love only once, with the inferior word, phileo)
We love “as Christ loved the church.” This is a sacrificial, one way, I love you covenant love. God created Adam with the passion to love. When God put Adam in the Garden of Eden, He said in Genesis 2:18,
