HUSBANDS, LOVE YOUR WIVES
Study Text: Ephesians 5: 22 – 30
Introduction:
- Husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. We ought to love our wives as part of ourselves. Every time you hurt your wife, you hurt yourself.
- We need to be devoted to our wives and provide for them emotionally, spiritually, and physically. This means "to provide for the development of and to attain the health of."
- The command is not hard to understand, but it's tremendously hard to do. It is to love your wife unconditionally. Our purpose in loving our wives is to help them become all God designed them to be.
- We shall discuss the topic under three sub-headings:
1. The Meaning of Loving your Wife
2. The Manner of Loving your Wife
3. The Measure for Loving your wife
1. The Meaning of Loving your Wife
- There is no relationship, spoken of in the entire Bible, as close as the relationship of a husband and wife.
- In Ephesians Chapter 5, the Bible says that the husband is the head of the wife, in what way? Not like the head of an organization. Do you know the difference between the head of an organization and the head of a physical body?
- The head of an organization may not have any interest in the members in that organization. But the head in your physical body has a very living interest in every part of the physical body, every member. That is the will of God.
- So the relationship between a husband and wife is pictured, as close and as intimate as the relationship between your physical head and the rest of your body. Can you think of a closer relationship than that?
- That is the closest, most intimate of relationships one can think of. Even a father and son are not described in the Bible as head and body. Mother and daughter are not described like that. Parents and children are not described like that. It is only a husband and wife. That is the closeness with which God wants a husband and wife to live.
- In other words, you should love one another more than you love every other relationship. If you love your children more, you are destroying your marriage. If you love your parents more, you are destroying your marriage. If you love your job more, you are destroying your marriage.
- Even if you love your ministry more, you are destroying your marriage. When the Bible says you must put the Lord first, it does not mean you must put the Lord's work first.
- No, there is a difference between the Lord and the Lord's work. Your relationship with the Lord is different from your service to the Lord. The latter is only meaningful when the former is acceptable.
- Many people don't understand that. There are people who ignore their wives, saying, 'I am doing the Lord's work.' What's the result? Their marriage gets destroyed, and finally their so-called Lord's work also gets destroyed.
2. The Manner of Loving your Wife
i. Be a leader and not a ruler.
- The Scriptures provide a clear organizational structure for a marriage. 1 Corinthians 11:3
- God placed ultimate responsibility with respect to the household on the shoulders of the husband.
- The Lord has assigned the wife the duty of obeying her husband yet, this obedience must be a voluntary submission on her part, and that only to her own husband, not to every man.
- "Head" does not mean male dominance, where a man lords it over a woman and demands her total obedience to his every wish and command. God never viewed women as second-class citizens. His Word clearly states that we are all equally His children and are of equal value and worth before Him. (Galatians 3:28).
- The teaching of the New Testament clearly shows that women are to be respected, revered, and treated as equals with men. Unfortunately, many husbands have not gotten the message. They degrade their wives by neglect or with insensitive and abusive treatment.
- Are you a leader? God has placed the husband in the position of responsibility. You are not demanding this position; on the contrary, God placed you there. You may not lead her perfectly, but you must care for your wife and family by serving them with perseverance.
ii. Love your wife unconditionally.
- Your unconditional acceptance of your wife is not based upon her performance, but on her worth as God's gift to you.
- One of the missing ingredients in male leadership in homes is sacrificial action. When was the last time you gave up something for your wife, something you genuinely valued?
- Sometimes you need to give up something you enjoy so your wife can have a break and see your love for her.
iii. Serve your wife.
- According to the New Testament, being head of your wife does not mean being her master, but her servant.
- Again, Christ is our model for this type of leadership. Jesus did not just talk about serving; He demonstrated it when he washed His disciples' feet (John 13:1-17).
- Christ, the Head of the Church, took on the very nature of a servant when He was made in human likeness (Philippians 2:7).
- One of the best ways to serve your wife is to understand her needs and try to meet them. These needs differ at different stages of life.
- Your wife has a different set of needs that you should try to meet. What is she worried about? What troubles her? What type of pressure does she feel? Learn the answers to questions like that, and then do what you can to reduce her worries, her troubles, and her pressures.
- Another way to serve your wife is to provide for her. This provision first involves assuming responsibility for meeting the material needs of the family. Paul tells us in 1 Timothy 5:8, "But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith, and is worse than an unbeliever."
- Providing for your wife also means taking the initiative in helping meet her spiritual needs. You do this by modelling godly character, by praying with her, by spending time together in God's Word, and by looking for ways to encourage her spiritually.
- To be a leader, a lover, and a servant is to accommodate your life to the gift God has given you—your wife. Give up your life for hers and, at the judgment seat of Christ, He will say, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant."
iv. Love your wife as your own body
- Love her just as you love yourself. You can’t get away from your body. When our bodies have some need, we don’t delay in taking care of them. So a husband should show the same care for his wife; he should be as sensitive to her as to himself.
- A husband must identify with his wife in her illness as he rejoices in her health. Whatever need or desire a wife may have, whether it be physical, spiritual, emotional, or relational a husband seeks to meet it according to his light and power. In this way he serves her and loves her as if this were his own body that he was dealing with.
v. Be considerate and Respectful as you live with your wife. (I Peter 3:7).
- There are two basic ideas here. The first is to be considerate. Consider your wife’s ideas and feelings, her needs and desires. Do everything you can to understand her better.
- The second command Peter gives is to treat your wife with respect. Honour your wife. Admire the way God made her. Take note of her good points. Compliment more than criticize.
- Don’t put her down or mock her. Never belittle her or shame her; never attack her dignity. Encourage her. Praise her. Build her up. Peter says to treat your wife with respect “as the weaker partner.”
vi. Love your wives and do not be harsh with them. Colossians 3:18.
- Don’t be harsh in your tone of voice and in your words. Don’t be harsh by making arbitrary decisions. And certainly, don’t be harsh and abusive in any physical way.
- Love is the very opposite of harshness. In 1 Corinthians 13:4-5 the Bible says this about love: “Love is patient, love is kind… It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.”
- That’s God’s kind of love, and it’s the kind of love husbands should have for their wives.
3. The Measure for Loving your wife
i. Husbands must love sacrificially
- Love your wife in a way that cost you something significant and precious. Don't love her with leftovers.
- We need to let them know that we are willing to sacrifice the most precious things we have: time, energy and money for them. It will produce a tremendous security and joy, in the long run, for both of you.
ii. Husbands must love their wives intentionally
- We are to help our wives develop intentionally. We talk a lot about discipleship in the church today, but the number-one person you need to disciple as a mutual co-heir of God's grace is your wife.
- Take the initiative to study with, pray with, and talk with your wife. Have you thought about how God might want her to grow, and what plans you might need to make, what time you might have to block off, in order to help her develop in those areas?
iii. Husbands need to love their wives with sensitivity
- This is where those little phrases "care for her, cherish her, keep her warm, and nourish her spiritual, emotional and physical needs" come into play.
- Women don’t have idea how hard this is for men to do. Your husband does not even know what you need sometimes - things like talking, listening, going on dates, planning weekends away, don't come naturally to most men.
- But a man out of care and concern can develop an attitude that is consciously sensitive to the need and the care of his wife.
iv. Husbands are to love their wives with Scriptural standard.
- The standard set before us is not with any figure in the Bible, for example, as Boaz loved Ruth, or as Isaac loved Rebekah.
- The standard is not with any person known or unknown in our days. It is far more sublime and heavenly and impossible a standard than that – “just as Christ loved the church.”
- Christ left his Father for all of that. He kept nothing back from his bride; he gave up all he had for her. His love was so generous; he gave his bride every spiritual blessing. He ordained that all things should be ours.
- He works all things together for our good because he loves us. He bestows the Spirit without measure. He is going to take her to a beautiful place, to enter into the glory that he’d had with God before.
