Lord, How am I supposed to love this woman?
3/23/03
Minister Cedric Portis
Ephesians 5:21 Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.
Ephesians 5:22 Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.
Ephesians 5:23 For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.
Ephesians 5:24 Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.
Ephesians 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;
Ephesians 5:26 That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,
Ephesians 5:27 That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.
Ephesians 5:28 So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself.
Ephesians 5:29 For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church:
Ephesians 5:30 For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.
Ephesians 5:31 For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.
Before I get started I want to say something about the “Sunday Sermon.”
Every sermon you hear may not apply directly to a situation that may be going on in your life, this moment but one day it might, better yet I will tell you exactly what will happen. God is going to send someone into your life that needs the knowledge that you have gained from the Sunday Sermon. Remember, you never really understand what you have learned until you can teach someone what you know. With that I want to look at 2 verses from the passage of scripture I read earlier. Verses 22 and 25.
Lets look at what Paul is saying here, now most women don’t have a problem with the second phrase of verse 22, they have no problem with submitting to the Lordship of Jesus.
But looking closer at this passage, Paul is saying that the woman is to submit herself to her husband in the same manner as she would submit herself to Jesus. Now that is a powerful level of submission. That is giving to the Husband a significant level of authority. Read verse 23/24. So that in a manner similar to the way that Christ is the head of the church, the man is to be the head of the wife. The obvious meaning of headship in the New Testament and the Greek language is to be in a position of preeminence and a position of leadership.
And what I understand this passage of scripture to mean is that the husband is to be the head of the home. This is not a license for tyranny; this is not a license to demean the woman or to treat the woman as a slave but the responsibility for final authority and for leadership in the home is vested in the husband. And if the woman resist that, she is resisting God, it is God who gives that directive.
Now there has been teaching that I have heard that men have bought into the idea that the only way that God could tell women to submit to men is if men are naturally superior to women.
This is so very not true. Subordination in terms of the division of labor in the Bible never carries with it the idea of inferiority. Even our doctrine of the Godhead says that the Son is subordinate to the Father and the Holy Spirit is subordinate to the Son, and no otherwise do we infer from that, the idea of inferiority or there is any less dignity to the Holy Spirit that there is to Jesus Christ. So there is no less dignity, no less value to the woman than to the men.
Submit is not a dirty word, God is tell you that you are to submit to one another in reverence of Him. Anything you do for God is not shameful or degrading and should not be looked upon or thought of in that manner.
You hear constantly in our society the myth of the 50/50 marriage and I can’t think of anything worse because in a situation of a 50/50 marriage where there is no final authority, what fallen human beings tend to do is to be locked in perpetual power struggle to gain 51%.
Well, God settles that, God says final say; leadership is vested in the man. And before the grin gets to big on your face men, I’m not so sure that is as much a privilege as it is a weighty weighty responsibility.
It is God who has ordained the man as the leader, the head of the home. Understanding this statement lead me to another revelation that most men will not be comfortable with. “Every problem in the home or in the marriage is the responsibility of the Man.”
Now I did not say that it was the fault of the man, but as the leader, as the head of the home, it is the man’s responsibility to do something to make it right. To many times men want to just wait and see what happens, and all the while complaining about this not being right or that not being right, there is no peace around here, Well, leader what are you doing about it.
If a company has a problem with a product it is producing, do you think the president is going to sit back and just wish it gets better or hope it works itself out, no the president is going to make it right with some action.
We are losing too many marriages to the enemy with these wishing and hoping husbands. It is time out for wishing and hoping, it is time for action, and God says that action is initiated by the man because ultimately the man will be responsible for what goes on under his leadership.
Wife unhappy, what are you doing about it, kids not acting right, what are you doing about it, family doesn’t what to come to church what are you going to do about it. Listen men, you don’t want to answer God’s question of why was your family such a mess with well God, I was hoping and I was wishing it would get better.
Now if you buy a car, you want that car to perform the way it was designed, you want that car to last; therefore in order to make this happen, the first thing we do is we pull out this book called the owner’s manual and we look in a section called the manufacture’s recommendations.
And we understand that following the recommendations of the people who made the car about how the car should work; will give us our desired result.
In that same vein, if we understand that God instituted marriage, then you must understand that if you are not following His recommendations, His guidelines, you cannot expect for your marriage to work like it was designed to.
So with that, the question before us today is Lord how am I supposed to love this woman. Well let me tell you first, that if you don’t love the Lord, you cannot love your wife the way she needs and deserves to be loved.
I’m going to tell you that my wife gets more love from me as number 2 in my life than she would ever get at number one. Let me make it clear for you, with God as number one in my life, pleasing Him is synonymous with loving my wife.
The God I serve is the same yesterday today and forever, He never changes, but our spouses do. If we put our spouses in that number one position in our life, then as she changes, your love for her changes, you don’t have governing rules for a marriage where your spouse is number one in your life. God says in his most basic commandments, Have no other god before me. So when God instituted marriage, it was a secondary relationship to Himself. So if your spouse is number one in your life your marriage has no boundaries, no standards and is just an endless roller coaster of heart ache and heart break, frustration with no where to turn and not light at the end of the tunnel.
Because if God is number two, you are not going to use the standards of what is number two in your life to govern number one.
But the Word of God screams the command to the men, love our wives, as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it. What God is telling us husbands that if we don’t know Jesus Christ, then we don’t know how much Jesus loves the church; therefore we won’t know how we are to love our wives.
We already talked about men being the leader’s in the home, but verse 22 talks about submission of the wife to their husbands. As I stated earlier, this has been a sore subject for a lot of women for many years and I always wondered why, why is it so hard for some women to submit to their husbands as God has commanded in His Word, and then the Lord revealed it to me.
Let me ask a question, if women are supposed to submit to their husbands, where do they learn to submit from? I don’t see any instruction telling wives how to submit to their husbands, only the command to do so.
Let me tell you, wives learn to submit to their husbands from watching their husbands submit to the Lord. How fascinating is that, we submit to God and our wives watch us and learn to submit to us by watching us submit to God, and we turn around and love them like Christ loves the church. So then it was clear to me, it made sense, if a man is not submitting to the Lord, then there will be problems with his wife submitting to him. Why you ask, if a man is submitting to Jesus Christ as his leader, guide and Lord, then his wife does not have to worry about being physically beaten, being verbally abused, being neglected, being lead into an ambush, She does not have to worry about its late your not home and where you are and what you may be doing, because she knows that Jesus would never do that to the church.
Therefore a wife would have no problem submitting to the Godly leadership of her husband because there are boundaries, standards, morals set by God where she can live free from worry. If God in His Word tells us not to worry, then men we should not create situations of worry in the marriage because if she is spending a lot of time worrying, that is less time she can spend finding ways to further express her love to you.
Men are not just generic leaders, but they are the pastors of their home, they are the spiritual leaders and the prayer leaders.
So men to love our wives we must first love Jesus, and follow His direction for your lives.
Jesus also tells the church that he loves it. The Bible is an endless love story of the Lord telling us how much he loves us, the same way we must tell our wives that we love them.
The Bible tells us that what we believe in our heart, we confess with our mouth; therefore if you love your wife, you need to tell her. Don’t just tell he privately tell her publically.
One of the greatest things you can do for your children is let them know that you love their mother. And don’t stop there express your love before family members, coworkers let the world know that this is the woman God gave me, my queen, the mother of my children and the love of my life.
Don’t be like the man who’s wife was complaining to the pastor that she has been married for 20 years and her husband had never told her that he loved her. The pastor could not believe it; so he confronted the husband with this information and the husband replied, that’s right 20 years ago I told her that I loved her and if I change my mind, I will let her know. That’s no way to live.
Now Jesus also showed the church that He loves it by giving his life as a sacrificial atonement for sin on Calvary. Now many believe that
John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Is the greatest verse in the Bible because it shows the sacrificial love of God toward us. Our wives must feel that beyond the shadow of a doubt that we are prepared to die for them.
Does the calendar dictate your love for your spouse? Is the only time she receives special treatment; flowers, card etc, is Valentines Day, birthday, anniversary? Do you compliment her, keep her self esteem high, do you show her that behind Jesus she is the most important person to you on earth?
Now Jesus shows that He loves me daily, giving me life, giving me answers to my problems, giving me strength the endure in the storm, He feeds me daily with His Word, He hears my prayers, He is there with me when I am at my highest and he picks me up when I am at my lowest, oh yes he shows me daily that He loves me. Is love a stranger in your house?
After work on day a man was invited over his Christian friend’s house for dinner. He was amazed and how nice his Christian friend treated his wife, he said please, thank you, he told her he loved her and he noticed how happy they were so he said “I am going to try this when I get home.”
When the man got home he opened the door and smothered his wife with kisses and told her that he loved her and she immediately burst into tears. Confused he asked what was wrong. She replied, your son got into a fight at school, the refrigerator broke and the food has spoiled and to top it all off you have come home drunk. Is love a stranger in your house?
Many men get so caught up in trying to provide monetarily for their family that they forsake what they need most, and that is love and leadership. And you cannot provide love and leadership if you are never home.
Listen very carefully men, your family need your presence more than they need your paycheck. There have been many deathbed confessions of I wish I had been a better husband, I wish I have been there more for my children. Well you don’t have to wish any longer, start showing love today.
As men need to adopt the phrase for our life of Good is not good enough. If you consider yourself a good husband, that is fine, but are you content, have your reached your plateau, do you think where you are right now will last, will it sustain your marriage.
A marriage relationship is never stagnant, either you are growing closer or you are growing apart. Just as our relationship with Christ is never stagnant, we are either growing closer to Christ or we are growing apart.
The world will tell us that a good husband just consists of paying the bills, cutting the grass, fixing on the cars and the house. Let me tell you something if you can be replaced as a husband by your wife with her getting a better paying job, a car with and extended warranty and a lawn care service, then I’m sorry men we are missing the boat.
But as Christian men we are not going to settle for a worldly view of what constitutes a good husband, our goal will be set on becoming the husbands God calls us to be and our wives need us to be.
If you don’t take an active role in showing your love for your wife, she will seek love somewhere else. Primarily from the world. What have we said about children, if you don’t raise them the world will, and it is no different when it comes to your wife, if you don’t, the world will.
Let’s for a moment explore the type of wife the world turns out.
• She Puts career before family needs.
• She Refuses to submit to her husband as a result of listening to her single and or divorced friends telling her that she don’t need a man, don’t need to depend on a man, get your own checking account and don’t put his name on it.
• Don’t spend all that time in the kitchen, if he wants something to eat, fix him a TV dinner.
• Constantly asking you, what have you done for me lately?
• She is going to start arguments every chance she get because that is the only way she can get your focused attention.
A worldly praised wife is miles apart from a Godly wife. So what are we going to do about it.
We need to praise her and not criticize her.
Pay attention to her; let her know she is special.
Let her know she is appreciated for all the things she does that we tend to take for granted
Tell her you love her
Make time to take her on a get a way vacation
Make your marriage a life long date. We all remember how excited we felt about the dating relationship, well the same things you did to get her are the same things and more you need to do to sustain her.
And finally, to love this woman we as men must pray, and pray and pray some more. Our wives need to see the source of your strength; your family needs to see the source of your strength. If your wife and your family think you are your strength, you have failed them, because what if something happens that takes you out of here?
Where is your family going to turn for strength? Your family needs to see you praying, you need to lead your family in prayer. In times of trial and times of tribulation everyone needs to turn to Christ in prayer.
Let me tell you I have not had an argument or disagreement that could not be solved with prayer.
You will be amazed at how calm the situation gets when you say, lets go to God with this problem in prayer. As I used in the analogy with the car and the owners manual. Well our manufacturer has given us 24 hour 7 day a week access to Him. But our God is a God that cannot be pleased without faith. You must believe that the situation in your life right now, the situation in your marriage right now can be fixed by God. You must believe that there is power in prayer, turn that problem over to God, turn that situation over to God, He can fix it, if you let Him.
Minister Cedric A. Portis
cedque8@cs.com
