“Husbands – Wives – Oneness” – Part Two
Ephesians 5:22-33
Open: Today we are going to be continuing the topic we started on last week – marriage and oneness. Someone has said that marriage often follows a predictable cycle - we first fall in love with a person who we think is ideal, after getting to now them it turns into an ordeal and eventually we want a new deal. Last week we talked about the hard times that have fallen upon marriage. It’s no secret to anyone that marriage and family are under attack. Which is kind of strange when you stop to think about it, isn’t it? Why would any society attack the most basic fundamental structures that bring us the most joy and satisfaction in life? In spite of the hard times marriage is facing. 96 percent of all men and 94 percent of all women will say “I do.” And then most of them, sooner or later in our culture, will say, “I don't,” and get divorced. But the fact of the matter is, well over 90 percent of the people still pursue marriage. The sad reality is they can't make it work and the collapse of marriage and family relationships is certainly predictable in our culture.
Last week we talked about some foundational issues regarding marriage and then took a look the instructions to the wives. Today we are going to be talking to the men. Ill of talking to guys who will want to talk about submission. They’ll go to Eph. 5:22 and point out that it says “Wives submit to your husbands” I’ll have them focus on the first word. “What’s the first word in that verse?” “It’s wives.” “Then that verse has nothing to do with you. That’s for wives not for husbands. Let’s drop down a couple of verses and talk about the husband’s role and responsibility and focus on that.”
Your Marriage is About Something Greater Than Your Marriage.
To properly understand the roles in marriage we’ve got to get a handle on the bigger picture.
For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This is a profound mystery - but I am talking about Christ and the church. (Eph 5:21-32)
Now last week we talked about God’s intent in marriage and we talked about the issue of oneness. Being and staying married is not the goal. I know of couples that have been married for years but still missed God’s intent. Do you know of any couples that manage some kind of co-existence under the same roof but have never lived as one? We all do. The goal is not staying married but living in oneness with each other. You can stay married for an entire lifetime and still not accomplish oneness.
Oneness is the goal – but it is not the highest goal – the point of this whole passage is verse 32. Here’s this profound statement - quoting Gen – saying it is a profound mystery – the mystery is not Oneness – the mystery is not what comes before but after - the mystery is that he’s talking about Christ and his church. The mystery is that marriage union - man and woman - is pointing forward to something greater than the marriage itself. The marriage union between man and wife is pointing forward that somehow in the future that Christ and His bride become one. Marriage is about something greater than your relationship. It’s about the picture of Christ and His church becoming One. Something is going to drive your relationship with your wife – it will either be the foundation that God provides in His word or something of your creation. - the problem that you may be having in relationship is not necessarily rooted in being married to the wrong person – but trying to do marriage the wrong way.
- God very often places pictures of something on earth to demonstrate the reality of some greater future fulfillment of that which is being pictured. (He’s into Power Point) Ill – of the tabernacle & temple and the sacrificial system – why the shedding of blood? Heb. 10:4 says the shedding of the blood of bulls and goats cannot provide the remission of sin? So why the shedding of blood – because God was providing a picture of what was to come through the cross of Jesus Christ. Paul is saying that the marriage union is to be a picture of something greater that is to come in the future. – the wedding of Christ and His bride the Church. - understand that your marriage is not about your marriage. Just like the temple was pointing to something greater – just like the sacrifices were pointing to something greater.
- we can’t afford to have crummy marriages – Ill of God not accepting the three legged blind diseased sheep in Malachi – it was offensive to him – he said bring your best – no disease – to spots - no deformity. Why because that was a picture of what God was going to offer at Calvary. He gave his very very best - a lamb without spot or blemish. So when you give you give your best. Don’t mock what God did. So he says when it comes to your marriage as believers don’t settle for anything less than your best – because it is painting a distorted picture of how Christ relates to his church. This isn’t just about having a happy family – it’s about something much bigger. So we’re talking about very serious issues. These are not just foundational to marriage but foundational to Christianity itself. Something is bigger than your marriage - This is our mission -
-we are called to paint a picture of Jesus Christ – Our mission is to show Jesus Christ to this world by the way that we love each other.
- this isn’t about rules and regulations & no romance – I’m actually a very romantic guy. I remember my wife asking me the question: “All of all the people on the earthy why do you love me?” my answer: “Of all the people that God has placed on the face of the earth, you bug me the least.” - isn’t that romantic?
Love Your Wife Through Sacrificial Love
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her
– what your wife wants the most is you to love her. Ill of seeing couples smooching in a public place. What do you think when you see that? They aren’t married yet. They are still kissing each other like that in a public place so affectionate towards one another – either they just met – or are involved in courtship of some nature – but they definitely aren’t married yet because affection like that stops when you get married. That’s true isn’t it? That’s the way us guys think. We work hard in the process leading up to the marriage, but once we win the prize – it’s on to the next conquest in life. And that in most marriages in the guy throwing himself into his work. That’s why so many woman as asking themselves a year after the wedding, “what happened to the romance?”
Husbands love your wives just as Christ loved the Church – in the exact same way as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her– you love your wives. “You be Christ for her.” Sometimes wives will complain with the teaching on being submissive, “We’ve got the harder role.” Right – all us guys have to do is be Jesus.
- He’s talking about how the husbands are to be leaders. Husbands are the head – but he doesn’t presume that us guys will actually understand how to express headship/leadership in the home. He tells us – Jesus modeled leadership style in the home – he gave himself up for the church – so you go and do thus wise.
Jesus gave and gave and gave and gave and gave and gave – he was a giver. He was a servant – he served and served and served and served and served. He never stopped serving. He’s the Son of God who comes down to earth and says “I didn’t come down here to be served – I came here to serve and to give my life as a ransom for many.” The Bible says – that’s the way I want you to be – that’s the picture I want you to show to the world. I want you to show an accurate picture of Christ to the world. And the way that you do that is to start in the home. I want you to love – I want you to serve – I want you to give yourself up for her because that’s what he did for the Church. I have heard people - and I suppose they have good intentions when they say it, say about their wife, “I love her too much,” - you can promptly reply, “Do you love her as much as Christ loved the church, if you don't, then you don't love her enough.” That’s the standard. Jesus modeled servant-leadership.
Now here’s what that requires – You have to die to self.
How many know a country tune called “I wantto talk about me”? (I wanna talk about me Wanna talk about I Wanna talk about number one Oh my me my. What I think. What I like. What I know. What I want. What I see. I like talking about you usually But occasionally I wanna talk about me me, me, me, me I wanna talk about me me, me) That’s not what marriage is all about. That’s not what being a Christian is all about. When you became a believer - baptism you declared to the world that I am dying to self – it’s not about me any more. Now it’s about Jesus.
I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Gal. 2:20)
And in the same way, when we get married we are saying it’s not about me any more. The Son of God comes down to earth and serves his creation– He’s the leader – but he comes down and he’s the servant. It’s a stunning picture – and he says to the men – this is now your responsibility. It’s the whole point of marriage – the only way it works is to die to self and become a servant to your wife. No authority is compromised – none at all – Being a servant to others doesn’t mean you throw leadership out the window. But being a servant is the only way you can paint an accurate picture for the world to understand. We’re talking about our life’s purpose – about putting Jesus Christ on display to the world – by doing marriage the way the Bible prescribes. Through the way that you love your wife God intends other people to see the way you love your wife and they will think “Does God love me the way that he loves his wife? Is that how God loves me” That’s the way people should be talking about us.
Now does any of that sound natural? No it isn’t – none of this comes easily to us guys. We come home after working all day and facing a multitude of stressful situations and just tired physically and emotionally and the very last thing that is on our minds is “Wow, now I get to start serving my wife. Isn’t that just great? I’ve been waiting to serve her all day long.” “I can’t wait to get home and start helping my wife to become holy and blameless before the Lord.” That’s not how we think is it? We come home and what’s on our mind – Now I need a little “me” time. I’ve worked hard all day – I deserve that, don’t I? Man I’ve just put in my shift and now I’m just wore out and I come in the door and what does my wife want to do? She wants to talk. Talk? Man the last thing in the world that I really want to do is talk. Be honest – how many guys as you are driving home after a long hard day at work – as you are driving home you’re thinking to yourself, “Man I just can’t wait to get into the door so that I can talk.” How many guys have that thought process? Or how about “I just can’t wait to get home so that I can get involved in some kind of disciplinary situation with one of my children.” Anybody? What we will do is say “Hey you know if it ever came to it and I needed to do it – I’d take a bullet for her. I’d give my life. I’d step in from the speeding train or give her my parachute if there was only one on the plane and we were going down.” I don’t think I’ve met the guy wouldn’t say that. But guys your wife probably hasn’t asked you for your parachute even once in the entirety of your marriage. Instead she’s just asking for a little help with the dishes or you to pick up your socks or to help out a little with the kids.
None of this comes normally or easily – it’s not what comes naturally to the flesh - it happens as we make the decision to be servants. And it’s not optional by the way – this is all commanded – and none of it is my ideas – don’t send me the hate mail – I didn’t come up with this – I struggle with it just the same as the rest – but it’s the only way that we are going to get the message across to the world. We’re not on this earth to please ourselves - Can I say it simply, gentlemen? The Spirit-filled husband loves his wife not for what she can do for him, but what he can do for her. That's how Christ's love worked and works. He loves us not because there's something in us that attracts Him, He loves us because He determined to love us in spite of our unattractiveness. He loves us with a love that seeks not to tyrannize us, a love that seeks rather to meet our needs, to understand us, to provide strength for us. It's not a question of deserving. We didn't do anything to earn Christ's love. It wasn't because we were more desirable than other people that He set His affection on us. We don't deserve His love. There's nothing attractive in us. God doesn't look over the world and pick out the people who somehow draw out His affection. He simply choose to love us and expressed that love by serving us on the cross.
I’ve yet to meet a woman who is disappointed in a servant leader. I’ve met lots of women who are disappointed because their husbands are servants but are not leaders. (passivity but no real leadership) “I wish my husband would just do something!” I’ve met lots of women who are disappointed because their husbands are leaders but they are not servants. (authority but no servant heart) “I wish my husband would just listen to me!” But I’ve not met the woman who is disappointed that her husband is a servant leader. I’ve never had a woman say to me, “You know he’s such a great leader and he serves me so much – he just driving me crazy!” Guys you want more affection coming your way? Do this and see how she responds to you. Swallow your pride, swallow your personal desires, swallow your personal ambitions, swallow your fantasies and dreams about how life might have been with someone else, or under some other circumstances, put all of that aside, it is all meaningless, it only boils down to temptation. And love your wives with a love that knows nothing of self and only of her and her needs and her concerns and her heart and sacrifice your life on her behalf.
Second: Love Your Wife Through A Purifying Love.
to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.
Jesus devoted his time on earth to making us pure. And that’s a picture for us as men that our task on earth is the purification of our wives. And that’s why it is so awful for those who are in dating relationships where the man pressures the woman and actually does the exact opposite - instead of having a holy influence on her and bringing before God this beautiful and pure woman - he does just the opposite and defiles her. We are supposed to be giving our lives to the purity of these women. And that means that I need to be encouraging her towards the things of God and not towards the things of the world. There’s two aspect of purifying love:
Be Proactive:
He loves His church enough to cleanse her. He loves His church enough to present her without spot or wrinkle or any such thing but holy and blameless. What does it mean? It means He seeks the church's purity. The NIV says so that he can present her to himself as a radiant church. KJV says: That he might present it to himself a glorious church. Luke 7:25 translates it “gorgeously apparelled,” as if she were a queen. Christlike beauty it's talking about, the beauty of purity, the splendor of holiness and virtue without spot, that means stain, without wrinkle, or flaw. When Christ takes His church to be His bride, gives His life for His church, and then He seeks the purity of His church. Christ is the purifier of the church. He’s proactive in that ministry. And that is the way we are to be toward our wives. We are to do everything we can to lead them to holiness and to purity.
Men this is a call for you to take your place of responsibility as a spiritual leader in your household. So sad to have men come to me and say, “I don't know what went wrong but all of a sudden my wife is gone and she ran off with...whoever.” And I often have to say, “Of course you understand that's not the beginning of something, that's the end of something. And what it is the end of is a long developed pattern of sin and neglect before a person makes that move.
What have you been doing to disciple your wife so that that doesn't happen? Gentlemen, if you do anything in the life of your wife, expose her to the Word of God. Bring her under the hearing of the Word of God that she might be daily, routinely cleansed That's spiritual leadership as a joint heir, as one who is equal to you in Christ. What are you doing to strengthen her spiritually? Bring her under the sound preaching and teaching of God's Word, expose her to great truth out of Scripture, call her to purity, never do anything that could lead her to be tempted. Don't put her in a position to be tempted.
Be Protective:
you want to be certain that you never lead your wife into any sin. You never expose her to any evil. Don't draw her in to those things which are going to tempt her. Don't take her to some form of entertainment that's going to expose her to sinful feelings. Don't irritate her, or exacerbate, or embitter her so that she falls to the temptation of anger. And you know where the buttons are, don't you? You can say to her, “Oh you're just like your...fill in the blank...mother,” and you know what that does. Or you can drag up that same deal out of the past that always elicits the same hostility when you're ready to really wound. Don't do that. If you seek her purity, if you seek her holiness, if you seek her to be spotless and without stain and without flaw, to be cleansed and holy and blameless, then you would never lead her into anything that would produce iniquity. You would never expose her to anything that would produce strong temptation.
Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers. (1 Peter 3:7)
“In the same way” refers back to the context we talked about last week. As Peter lists out different structural settings in which we are to practice submission – governments and political settings, jobs and unreasonable bosses. “Well if they don’t treat me fairly?” - all the more reason to submit to them. And then he gives us the pattern of Christ who did not retaliate, or insult or strike back. So husbands in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives. I wonder how many problems would be solved in the home is we did just the first part of that verse – be considerate. Don’t call your wife “honey” and then act like vinegar. “weaker partner” is similar to our word “vase.” This particular word was used of priceless, fragile china. It was also used of sacred vessels used in the temple for the worship of God. If you have a priceless vessel like that you protect it. I’ve seen guys who are a great deal more protective about their cars than their wives. She’s God’s greatest gift to you – protect her.
Third: Love Your Wife With a Caring Love.
In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church - for we are members of his body.
Caring and providing for our wives just as we care for and provide for our own bodies. What does it mean? Well when my stomach is hungry I feed it – when my hand gets a splinter I respond to it. What ever needs presents itself in my body – I respond to it. If it's sick, we put it down in bed so it can get better. If it's thirsty, we give it to drink. If it's disheveled, we clean it. (well most of us do) If there is a hurt in my body – only a fool would ignore it that it gets to the point of turning gangrene. Who would do that? So the idea is do the same towards our wives. But it doesn’t end there – because you have to catch this – verse 30 – for we are member of his body. What this is saying is this is exactly how Christ sees us. He sees us as an extension of his own body. The God of the universe sees us as valuable as an extension of His body? That he responds to each of us the same way he would respond to his own body? We’re that valuable to Him? He’s going to care for you just like he will care for himself. If you want to paint a correct picture for the world to see – than you love your wife and care for our wife the exact way that you love and care for your own body – and then the world will know and understand his church.
Be responsive to her needs.
Pay attention – when a need is presented – it’s your responsibility to meet
that need. Have that same responsiveness towards her. When you got married you became one...you became one. So in a sense, you are one body. And if her needs are met, your needs are met. If her needs are not met, believe me, your needs won't be met either. Have you ever heard the old cliché: “If mamma ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.” How many know that’s true? If you want to be a happy husband – you better be about the business of making a happy wife. You give her the same care you give yourself. You take care of her as if she were you because you are one in an indivisible oneness. If you want your marriage to be blessed, you take care of your wife Husband – you take the initiative to keep romance in your marriage. Understand that wife definition of romance and your definition of romance is probably different. So you just might want to check in with her and let her give you her version of it – because my guess is she already knows your version of it. (dating, an occasional flower, little overnight vacation once in awhile) be romantic.
Fourth: Love Your Wife With An Unbreakable Love.
“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”
We talked about it last week – the word united means to be glued together – in an unbreakable bond.
Ill of vows –I’ve often thought that there is a need to expand on the vows the average wife and husband make to each other: Do you take so and so for better and worse? How about for better and really worse? How about incredibly worse? For as bad as you can possibly ever imagine it? OK, How about for richer and poorer? How about extremely poor? How about unbelievably poor? How about poorer than you could ever possibly ever imagine it - How about Old Mother Hubbard kind of poor? – you know where you work three jobs and he doesn’t work at all? You still do? “till death do us part” - Do you understand that as long as you are still inhaling air – you are not yet dead? And what I really want to do during the vows is ask an opened ended question – “At what point will you say, “I don’t”
How Is This Expressed?
By trusting in the power of God to overcome any and all problems that come your way.
- a lot of people are turning away from marriage and choosing either to remain single or to live together because what they’ve seen in the lives of married people they know doesn’t model anything for them that they want to go through. – couples whose parents have divorced or friends who have gone through ugly divorces an multiple relationships or sometimes it is the person themselves who have been through a married relationship and it didn’t work out – and their response is to recoil and say – “I’ve given up on this – it doesn’t work – I’ll do relationship on my own terms – not on God’s terms.” And that’s a very sad way to live – because God has designed marriage to offer to you the very best that life has to offer. What you may have seen from your parents – what you’ve seen from your friends – what you’ve seen from the world around you is not all that marriage is. You can’t give up on marriage because of what you’ve seen.
- Why we can’t take that attitude – It totally denies the power of God to bring about His plan in our lives. To turn your back on any of God’s plans places your wisdom above his. That’s the very essence of idolatry. It’s a direct violation of the first commandment. Who does that? Only non-believers, right? To say that my way is better than God’s way is a denial of God as ruler of creation.
You’ve got to get you mind on something bigger than the issues you are focusing on. Ill of trying to get people who are hurting to get away from the hurts they are experiencing and get to a place of focusing on God. They will want to rehearse the hurts and pain and the issues – but there is very little to gain by going over and over and over what happened 4 years ago. Here’s the issue – God is bigger than your marriage.
Close: All the husbands stand. I’m not going to offer a prayer that says – “If you would like to change in any of these areas” today. None of this optional. It’s what God expects from all of us.
Which of these areas to you need to improve to have the kind of marriage the Lord wants you to have?
Here’s a dangerous approach – why not ask your wife what area she wants you to improve in? How do you manifest that change?
- Decide to have a Christ centered marriage. The goal is not just to stay married. The goal isn’t even
to have a happy marriage – you can come to the end of your life after being married for 50 years and still find out that you didn’t please God. The Goal, it seems to me here is to have a Christ centered marriage. – Very different from what you will often hear in marriage seminars and read in marriage self-help books. Often it will be mentioned as a bullet point as one item in a list of ten other things you need to do in order to help your marriage - but If I understand the Bible our entire life needs to revolve around God. He needs to be at the center of everything – not just one thing in a list of ten.
CLOSE: – All Husbands Stand For Prayer
