SPEAKER_00: I believe the Bible describes the role of husbands is that of a federal husband.
SPEAKER_00: And the word federal is a uh it is a biblical concept, it's a Latin word, uh, but it is a biblical concept that means, and I would expect you all to know what it means because we live in Washington, D.C., and yet uh I am concerned that far too many people involved in government actually know what the word federal even means.
SPEAKER_00: Um the word federal is from uh the Latin word fodius, which means covenant or pact.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and it's the idea that people make a covenant with one another to operate in a certain way.
SPEAKER_00: Our government is called a federal government, of course, because the states have entered into a compact with the national government, and there are certain uh rights and there are certain responsibilities each party plays in that kind of arrangement, and it's an arrangement that has obligations to it.
SPEAKER_00: So it is very much a covenantal arrangement in that sense, it's a federal government.
SPEAKER_00: Well, marriage operates in the same way.
SPEAKER_00: When a husband and a wife join, they join so covenantally.
SPEAKER_00: And you may not have used the word covenant at your marriage, but the concept of a covenant is where there's two parties that enter into an arrangement with one another with certain rights and responsibilities that each take on and a commitment that comes out of that pact, out of that covenant.
SPEAKER_00: You say, you look into each other's eyes and you say, I do.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, I usually joke at the rehearsal with the couple.
SPEAKER_00: I'll say, you know, you don't need to right now we're not going to go over every phrase in it, but tomorrow, your job is to be quiet and listen until I say, if so, say I do, and then you say, I do.
SPEAKER_00: You listen, and your response is to commit to that.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the nature of a covenantal or a federal marriage.
SPEAKER_00: And the husband, in the sense, is the federal husband in that he stands as the representative of his family.
SPEAKER_00: He is the leader of his family.
SPEAKER_00: And you see this described in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: We spent several weeks uh going over this already, is I don't want to plow the same ground again, except to say that the husband is the representative of his family.
SPEAKER_00: He stands before his wife and his children.
SPEAKER_00: Uh when his he marries his wife, she takes his name.
SPEAKER_00: He is the one, scripture says, leaves his father and his mother to hold fast to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.
SPEAKER_00: They make a new family unit.
SPEAKER_00: And it's not just saying that the husband is the initiator or the husband is the leader, but he is the, in the sense, the one that stands in the place of those obligations.
SPEAKER_00: I've had several people mention to me last week after my introduction about, you know, everybody, the line on your third marriage, everybody gets a prenup.
SPEAKER_00: Some people came up to me and said, you know, the divorce rate in the church is just as bad as it is in the world.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm sure many people have heard that said before, and and I don't think that's true.
SPEAKER_00: Um, I think, you know, the kind of surveys that say Christians get divorced at the same rate as the world gets divorced, those surveys usually also come with lines like, you know, and 60% of Christians don't believe in the virgin birth kind of line, also.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I start to grow pretty skeptical of how studies like that or surveys like that define Christians, you know.
SPEAKER_00: 50% of Christians believe the Bible is true.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what those other half are, but they ain't Christians.
SPEAKER_00: You know, the divorce rate in the world is the same as that in the church, not true.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I know there's many divorced people in the church, and that's because the church is a hospital for the sick and for the wounded, and yet certainly a marriage in the Lord has those kind of covenantal commitments, it has those kind of stipulations, those kind of commitments that the husband and wife make to each other.
SPEAKER_00: Last week I said that as I described the command to wives to submit to their husbands, I made an appeal, especially the singles in the congregation, that if you weren't going to subject yourself to that kind of description of marriage that the Bible lays out for it, then it perhaps might be good for you to stay single rather than to enter into marriage outside of God's pattern and design for it, outside of his instructions for it.
SPEAKER_00: And I would say the same this morning to husbands.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible describes the kind of commitment and life that the husband will lead in marriage.
SPEAKER_00: And it is uh not easy.
SPEAKER_00: These commitments are not low, they are not slight.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, they are all-consuming.
SPEAKER_00: They demand all of your life.
SPEAKER_00: In the context of Ephesians 5, it's about the spirit-filled life, where Paul says, Don't be drunk with wine, but rather be filled with the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And then out of that description comes uh indications of what the spirit-filled life looks like, singing to one another, praying, addressing one another with psalms and hymns and giving thanks, verse 20, for everything in God the Father.
SPEAKER_00: And then there's a kind of submission to God's design for the family, for God's design for society that comes in the Christian spirit-filled life.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul begins working through examples of that kind of spirit-filled life.
SPEAKER_00: And he begins with wives submitting their own husbands in verse 22.
SPEAKER_00: And we looked at that last week.
SPEAKER_00: Now we get to husbands, verse 25, and it says, just simply, husbands love your wives.
SPEAKER_00: Husbands, love your wives.
SPEAKER_00: The word is unexpected there.
SPEAKER_00: Husbands love your wives.
SPEAKER_00: That's not what you would have anticipated.
SPEAKER_00: If you were writing Ephesians, that's likely not what you would have put there.
SPEAKER_00: Coming right out of wives, be submissive to your husbands.
SPEAKER_00: You would imagine that the line for husbands would be husbands, lead your wives.
SPEAKER_00: Husbands, step up and be the leader, is what you would anticipate there.
SPEAKER_00: It's the flip side of submission.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul doesn't say that.
SPEAKER_00: Now, of course, that doesn't mean that husbands aren't the leader of their family.
SPEAKER_00: The fact that Paul goes in a different direction doesn't mean the leadership's not there.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, the leadership concept is rolled up in submission from earlier.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, because it's so evident from the word submission, it's likely that Paul is going in a more profound way.
SPEAKER_00: This is often the way he reasons.
SPEAKER_00: He'll give you one side of an argument, and then you would expect the other side, but instead of him just saying the same thing in reverse, he goes much deeper in the other direction.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what he's doing here.
SPEAKER_00: Wives, be submissive to your own husbands, as to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Husbands, he doesn't say lead, he says, husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church.
SPEAKER_00: And gave himself up for her.
SPEAKER_00: The word love in these verses here, verses 25 down through verse 31, is what we'll look at this morning.
SPEAKER_00: The word love here is the most common word that is used.
SPEAKER_00: It's used six times in this passage.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, let me read it right now.
SPEAKER_00: Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church, and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.
SPEAKER_00: In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies.
SPEAKER_00: He who loves his wife loves himself, for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes it and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we're members of his body.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.
SPEAKER_00: This mystery is profound, and I'm saying it refers to Christ and the church.
SPEAKER_00: However, each one of you love his wife as himself.
SPEAKER_00: Let the wife see that she respects her husband.
SPEAKER_00: Six times the word love is used in that passage.
SPEAKER_00: We'll save verses 32 and 33 for next week, but for this week, just marvel at the fact that Paul addresses husbands by saying, Your primary calling in the context of marriage is to love your wives as Christ loved the church.
SPEAKER_00: Now, are wives supposed to love their husband?
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: But it's a reciprocal kind of love, but it's not reciprocal in its roles.
SPEAKER_00: Husbands are supposed to be submissive in some sense to the structures that God has placed in society, and yet wives are supposed to be submissive to their husbands.
SPEAKER_00: Wives are supposed to love their husbands, but husbands are supposed to love their wives as Christ loved the church in this sacrificial, self-denial kind of way.
SPEAKER_00: This is leadership by love.
SPEAKER_00: Leadership by love.
SPEAKER_00: The Christian strength is seen in love.
SPEAKER_00: This is not the way the world defines masculinity, of course.
SPEAKER_00: The world teeter-totters with, you know, you know, on one side you get the kind of the toxic masculinity thrust in the world where, you know, men are wicked, and any kind of masculinity or leadership is poison.
SPEAKER_00: That's, you know, the root of all this wrong in society.
SPEAKER_00: And on the other side of the equation, you know, if you don't fall off that side of the horse, you fall off the other side of the horse, which is kind of the cage fight masculinity, the my wife exists to bring me nachos kind of masculinity, and you know, this machismo, the wild at heart, I'm a dragon slayer in my bones kind of masculinity.
SPEAKER_00: And neither the biblical concept of masculinity.
SPEAKER_00: The biblical concept of male leadership is that of self-denying love.
SPEAKER_00: And you see this all over, but one of the clearest places you see this taught is 1 Timothy 1, verse 7, where Paul says that God did not give us a spirit of fear, but rather, and you think, what's the opposite of fear?
SPEAKER_00: He gave us a spirit of power, of boldness, seen in our love.
SPEAKER_00: And so Paul takes the flip side of fear and says, the flip side of fear is courage, of course, but true courage, the antithesis of fear, true courage is not slaying the dragons.
SPEAKER_00: True courage is seen in love.
SPEAKER_00: And this is how you see leadership in the church.
SPEAKER_00: Leadership in the church is founded, rooted, and expressed through love.
SPEAKER_00: And if there is one thing our world is confused about, it is love.
SPEAKER_00: Everyone has their own idea about what love is.
SPEAKER_00: Every generation of Disney movies come out, and every generation of Disney movies has different concepts of love.
SPEAKER_00: Our society is confused about love, music is confused about love, movies are confused about love.
SPEAKER_00: But fortunately, the Bible is not confused about love.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible gives you a very clear understanding of what Paul means when he says husbands love your wives, because he gives you an example, a pretty concrete example, as Christ loved the church.
SPEAKER_00: And so this passage, verses 25 all the way down through verse 33, is interwoven here between how Christ loves the church and how husbands are to love their wives.
SPEAKER_00: It's very difficult to extract the two.
SPEAKER_00: We're talking about that in our elders' prayer this morning.
SPEAKER_00: It's very difficult to distinguish between which of these examples are designed for husbands to follow, and which are designed for Christ to follow, which is an expression of Christ's love to the church, which is an expression of a husband's love towards his wife.
SPEAKER_00: They're so interwoven it's hard to extract.
SPEAKER_00: As I mentioned, it's peppered with the word love.
SPEAKER_00: It seems like verses 26 and 27 are describing Christ's love for the church.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 28 becomes the bridge.
SPEAKER_00: Husbands love their wives in the same way.
SPEAKER_00: But the fact that he says in the same way in verse 28 is letting you know there's not a hard and fast distinction between the two here.
SPEAKER_00: Rather, husbands are supposed to have an approach to their marriage as Christ has an approach to his church.
SPEAKER_00: And of course, Christ approaches his church, in that sense, covenantally, he approaches his church through the new covenant.
SPEAKER_00: He approaches his church not only through the new covenant, but out of love.
SPEAKER_00: Christ doesn't only love his elect because the Father told him to.
SPEAKER_00: Christ loves his elect because he loves them.
SPEAKER_00: He gives his life up to the elect because he's chosen them in love.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says this in Ephesians 1.
SPEAKER_00: In love, he predestined us for adoption as sons.
SPEAKER_00: In love, Christ sets his heart and his affections on us.
SPEAKER_00: So in love he comes and redeems us.
SPEAKER_00: So do you see how Ephesians 1 is the really the backbone here of husbands to your wives?
SPEAKER_00: You have to understand, back in Ephesians 1, Paul already established that Christ has set his love on the church.
SPEAKER_00: And where did that love get him?
SPEAKER_00: Well, it got him to the cross.
SPEAKER_00: It got him crucified, dead, buried, resurrected on the third day where he reigns in newness of life.
SPEAKER_00: That is the husband's approach to marriage.
SPEAKER_00: Let me give you an outline this morning for God-given expressions of a husband's call to love his wife.
SPEAKER_00: I think there's four verbal participles through here.
SPEAKER_00: There's four expressions of love.
SPEAKER_00: There's four different words that Paul uses in these verses that are showing you how Christ expressed his love to the church, and therefore how a husband is supposed to express his God-mandated love to his wife.
SPEAKER_00: Repetition here.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to be a Christian to enjoy marriage.
SPEAKER_00: Non-Christians can be married and can have happy marriages and happy families.
SPEAKER_00: And this is God's common grace to the world, Peter says.
SPEAKER_00: It's God's gift of life.
SPEAKER_00: It's a form of common grace that tribes, nations, ethnicities, language groups, everyone in world history basically has this access to marriage and it is the gift of life.
SPEAKER_00: Nevertheless, for marriage to be maximized or fully enjoyed, it helps to read the instruction manual.
SPEAKER_00: And the instruction manual ties the role of husbands to the sacrificial love of Christ in the church.
SPEAKER_00: So you cannot rightly understand how husbands are supposed to conduct themselves in marriage unless you first understand what Christ has done for his church.
SPEAKER_00: First description of this is giving.
SPEAKER_00: But do you remember the verse right before that?
SPEAKER_00: Greater love has no one than this, that a man lay his life down for his friends.
SPEAKER_00: You cannot confuse the order.
SPEAKER_00: The love of Christ, of course, is seen in the church being submissive to Christ, but before the church gets there, it's seen in Jesus laying his life down for his elect.
SPEAKER_00: That's one thing to say, you know, husbands are supposed to protect their family.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: You get that, right?
SPEAKER_00: And so in the husband's mind, you're like, yeah, there's an armed intruder in our house, I'm gonna go after that guy, you know.
SPEAKER_00: I got my gun.
SPEAKER_00: No one's gonna get to my family.
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna get to my family, it's gonna be through me.
SPEAKER_00: I'm the protector of this household, my castle.
SPEAKER_00: That limits the giving of yourself to kind of a one-time hypothetical action.
SPEAKER_00: That one time in the future, if something very unusual, not impossible, but very unusual were to happen, I'm ready.
SPEAKER_00: Honey, just so you know I love you.
SPEAKER_00: If that ever happens, wake me up and I'm there.
SPEAKER_00: But the giving that's described here is more of a lifelong pattern that the husband is continually giving himself to his wife.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus did not give himself to the church because the church was worthy.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus gave himself to the church because he set his love on the church.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus chose the church, and in light of that, he gives himself to the church.
SPEAKER_00: This is how husbands are supposed to live for their wives.
SPEAKER_00: They're supposed to be giving their life away to their wives and to their family.
SPEAKER_00: And it is not predicated on the wives' worthiness.
SPEAKER_00: So a husband can't say, My wife doesn't seem to appreciate all that I do for the family, so I'm not going to do it anymore.
SPEAKER_00: Or my wife doesn't seem to be loving me in return, therefore I'm not going to be providing or leading or all the other things that are going to come on our list in a second.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to withhold my fatherly and my husbandly affection and love for my family because they don't appreciate it.
SPEAKER_00: They don't seem worth it.
SPEAKER_00: If you knew how my wife treated me, you would know how hard it is to love her.
SPEAKER_00: Those kind of lines.
SPEAKER_00: But again, the biblical example is that the husband loves his wife as Christ loved the church, and Christ did not love the church because the church appreciated it at the time.
SPEAKER_00: We were enemies to God when Christ laid his life down for us.
SPEAKER_00: We were opposed to him, we were hostile towards him.
SPEAKER_00: He laid his life down for some of the very people who crucified him.
SPEAKER_00: This is the image of Hosea who goes and sells all that he has to buy his wife back out of sexual slavery.
SPEAKER_00: Well, what is she doing there?
SPEAKER_00: She sold herself there.
SPEAKER_00: Was she worthy of being redeemed?
SPEAKER_00: No, not by her own worth, but by the fact that Hosea had married her.
SPEAKER_00: He had to go redeem her.
SPEAKER_00: And so Christ has that approach to the church.
SPEAKER_00: He redeems his elect because he chose us.
SPEAKER_00: And there's nothing in us that merits choosing.
SPEAKER_00: God didn't look at all of humanity and say, and this is where to understand Ephesians 1 is so critical to understand this.
SPEAKER_00: God didn't look at all of humanity and say, you know what, these guys are good enough to save, I'll go get them.
SPEAKER_00: No, he set his heart on us and saves us by giving his life for us.
SPEAKER_00: So, husbands, you're married.
SPEAKER_00: You chose your wife.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's the bottom line.
SPEAKER_00: You chose her.
SPEAKER_00: For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife.
SPEAKER_00: You chose her.
SPEAKER_00: You proposed.
SPEAKER_00: You likely got on one knee.
SPEAKER_00: And you asked, Will you marry me?
SPEAKER_00: You bought the ring.
SPEAKER_00: You stood in front of me or another pastor or somebody, and you said, I do.
SPEAKER_00: You did the choosing.
SPEAKER_00: You set your heart on her.
SPEAKER_00: You entered that relationship with her.
SPEAKER_00: And now you've committed as part of that marriage to give your life away to her.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, the primary sphere of this is in the husband's provision for his family to work and to provide.
SPEAKER_00: It's not only financial, it's not only food, but that's of course a primary component of this.
SPEAKER_00: But it's more than simply bringing home the bacon, so to speak.
SPEAKER_00: It's about giving your love to your family, giving your life to your family, that your whole life now is going to be lived in the context of this family that you started, that you entered into by your choice, by setting your love on this woman.
SPEAKER_00: Now, it's very hard to understand in Deuteronomy 7, for example, as God talks about this with Israel, it's very hard to understand what comes first, the choosing or the love or the covenant, and it seems like they're all so interwoven in Deuteronomy 7.
SPEAKER_00: Deuteronomy 7 is where Yahweh says to Israel, I love you because I chose you.
SPEAKER_00: And I chose you because I loved you.
SPEAKER_00: And God says, I didn't choose you because you were more numerous than the other nations.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't look at all the nations of the earth and say, you know what, Israel has the best army.
SPEAKER_00: Jerusalem is pretty secure up there in the mountains.
SPEAKER_00: I'll defend that one.
SPEAKER_00: He says, I chose you, Israel, because I loved you, and I loved you because I chose you.
SPEAKER_00: It's very hard to disentangle those two.
SPEAKER_00: And so it is with marriage.
SPEAKER_00: It's very hard for a husband to say, I love my wife because I committed to love her, or I committed to love her because I loved her.
SPEAKER_00: You can't really disentangle those two.
SPEAKER_00: They're both true.
SPEAKER_00: And when one falters, you go back on the other one.
SPEAKER_00: When you say, I don't feel like loving my wife today, you remember, but well, I said I do.
SPEAKER_00: I'm in.
SPEAKER_00: Now that's not a sign of a healthy marriage.
SPEAKER_00: If you're, you know, the normal pattern of your life is I don't feel like loving my wife, but I made a commitment, so here we go.
SPEAKER_00: Day number 492.
SPEAKER_00: The healthy pattern of marriage is that you recognize the commitment, and that covenantal commitment produces an affection and a love in your heart.
SPEAKER_00: This is normal Christian affections.
SPEAKER_00: This is true in every area of sanctification.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, we don't have time for all that this morning, but it is specifically true in marriage.
SPEAKER_00: That's why you give your life to her.
SPEAKER_00: You pour out your life for her.
SPEAKER_00: Your family is your life.
SPEAKER_00: You don't cultivate another life outside of your family.
SPEAKER_00: You give your life at home and your provision to your family, and your affections to your family, your relationships in your family.
SPEAKER_00: People often ask me, Who's your best friend?
SPEAKER_00: And I always say, Deedra.
SPEAKER_00: And I it's always weirded me out a little bit when guys have a Different answer to that question than their wife.
SPEAKER_00: Who's your best friend?
SPEAKER_00: Oh, Fred over there.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I think there's a importance for men to have friendships.
SPEAKER_00: Male friendship is, I think, is important and a missing, a huge missing factor in our society.
SPEAKER_00: I think those friendships in the church encourage one another to love and good deeds.
SPEAKER_00: Proverbs has a lot to say about godly men having godly friendships.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, I'm not diminishing that, but I'm saying your primary source of relationships and affection and fulfillment is in the home.
SPEAKER_00: That's what it means to give yourself out.
SPEAKER_00: You pour yourself out in the home.
SPEAKER_00: It's the most immediate expression of the Lord's will in your life, is your family.
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, the giving, sanctifying.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 26, Christ gave himself for the church that he might sanctify her.
SPEAKER_00: Now, the so that phrase is noteworthy.
SPEAKER_00: Christ gave himself to the church so that he can sanctify her.
SPEAKER_00: It's another surprising turn of phrase by Paul.
SPEAKER_00: Is that what you would have said?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, do you ever say that?
SPEAKER_00: Why did Jesus die on the cross?
SPEAKER_00: Why did Jesus go to the cross?
SPEAKER_00: When you tell your kids, why did Jesus have to die on the cross?
SPEAKER_00: You say, probably not to sanctify you.
SPEAKER_00: It's not the normal way you'd answer the question.
SPEAKER_00: You would probably say to save us, to bear our penalty for sin.
SPEAKER_00: Our answers usually focus on justification, don't they?
SPEAKER_00: That we are aliens from God and we're enemies of God.
SPEAKER_00: We have sin.
SPEAKER_00: We deserve God's wrath and judgment.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus takes our sin from us, dies on the cross, so that through faith we can be saved.
SPEAKER_00: We can be justified.
SPEAKER_00: God declares our sin is no more because of our faith in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: The power of sin is broken on us.
SPEAKER_00: We stand righteous before God, justified.
SPEAKER_00: That's normally how we describe why Jesus died, so that we can be saved.
SPEAKER_00: Sanctification is, I guess, is part of salvation, but it's not often what we have in mind.
SPEAKER_00: Sanctification is the ongoing increasing in godliness in our life.
SPEAKER_00: From the moment of your justification, you are declared righteous, positionally before God.
SPEAKER_00: He forensic righteousness righteousness just means God declares you to be righteous.
SPEAKER_00: He imputes righteousness to you.
SPEAKER_00: He declares you not guilty of sin.
SPEAKER_00: You stand before him guiltless.
SPEAKER_00: But in practice, you are still walking in this world in sin.
SPEAKER_00: You have your old nature that's still there.
SPEAKER_00: You're fighting sin and you're growing in godliness.
SPEAKER_00: This is Ephesians 4, and then the first part of Ephesians 5.
SPEAKER_00: There's this progressive sanctification throughout your life until glory, when you're in glory, sanctification over, you're complete before Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Now, here Paul says, Christ gave himself up for that process.
SPEAKER_00: That process of sanctification is why Jesus gave himself to the church.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't focus on the cross, he focuses here on the lifelong process of sanctification.
SPEAKER_00: And it makes sense when you think about it, why?
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: What motivates you for how you care for your wife?
SPEAKER_00: Are you motivated by the wedding itself or by the ongoing life you have with this person?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, if you need to go back to the vows to motivate your love for your wife, do that.
SPEAKER_00: That was the first point.
SPEAKER_00: But a healthier marriage is not concerned about what happened five years ago or ten years ago or 42 years ago when I said I do.
SPEAKER_00: A healthier marriage is consumed by the ongoing progress of marriage, the ongoing living of life together, the ongoing sanctification.
SPEAKER_00: And that's obviously what Paul is concerned about in Ephesians 4, 5, and 6, is this ongoing sanctification in the Christian life.
SPEAKER_00: In chapter 6, which you're going to look at over the next few months, it's all about going to war against the devil.
SPEAKER_00: It's about pursuing righteousness, about growing in godliness, about putting on the belt of truth and, you know, just bringing the good news to the world and growing in godliness.
SPEAKER_00: Chapter 4, about being spirit-filled, the power of the resurrection in you as you fight sin.
SPEAKER_00: That's the context here is your growth in godliness.
SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus died so that you can grow in godliness throughout your life.
SPEAKER_00: That's this concept of sanctification.
SPEAKER_00: The word sanctification, and it's an Old Testament word.
SPEAKER_00: And it's what was used for the food and the utensils that were devoted to temple worship.
SPEAKER_00: The temple had certain basins and dishes and tongues and all kinds of stuff.
SPEAKER_00: They were sanctified.
SPEAKER_00: They could only be used in the temple.
SPEAKER_00: The priest can't take those dishes home to use them for supper.
SPEAKER_00: They belong in the temple, they're sanctified, they're holy.
SPEAKER_00: What's happening to your life through your conversion is you are being sanctified.
SPEAKER_00: You're getting ready to serve in the millennial kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: You're getting ready to serve with Christ throughout his kingdom for all eternity.
SPEAKER_00: That's why you're being sanctified so you can be temple servants in glory.
SPEAKER_00: That's sanctification.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus died to sanctify you.
SPEAKER_00: Husbands, you give your life away in your family for the purpose of sanctifying your wife.
SPEAKER_00: Titus 3, 5.
SPEAKER_00: God saved us, not because of works done in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration, the renewal of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: God washes us with his word through regeneration.
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit causes us to come alive.
SPEAKER_00: We're cleansed by the Word of God.
SPEAKER_00: The Word is a mirror.
SPEAKER_00: We look at it, it convicts us of sin, and we grow in righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: This is what Paul's talking about here in verse 26, so that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word.
SPEAKER_00: The same language he uses in Titus.
SPEAKER_00: John, the Gospel of John hasn't been written yet, but John is going to uh quote Jesus' language in John 3 that you are saved by the water and the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: The water of the Word cleanses you.
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit causes you to come alive.
SPEAKER_00: This is a common biblical analogy.
SPEAKER_00: The water and the word uh are synonymous for each other.
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit gives you spiritual life, and the word nourishes you and causes you to grow.
SPEAKER_00: So that's what Paul's saying.
SPEAKER_00: Husbands do to their families.
SPEAKER_00: You lead your family in the word.
SPEAKER_00: You're bathing them in the word.
SPEAKER_00: You're washing them in the word.
SPEAKER_00: You're saved by the word and the agency of the Holy Spirit causing you to come alive.
SPEAKER_00: And now you're sanctified to the progress of your Christian life through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and the devotion to the Word of God.
SPEAKER_00: So just take marriage out of it.
SPEAKER_00: Individually.
SPEAKER_00: How do you grow in godliness as an individual?
SPEAKER_00: You read the Word, you pray, and then you do what the Word said.
SPEAKER_00: It's like basic godliness right there.
SPEAKER_00: You could write a best-selling book on just the one sentence right there.
SPEAKER_00: Pray, read the Bible, do what it tells you to do, and you will grow in godliness.
SPEAKER_00: It's supernatural, of course.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus had to die.
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit has to dwell in you for that to happen.
SPEAKER_00: Husbands, love your wives in that way.
SPEAKER_00: It's so basic.
SPEAKER_00: You pray for your wife, you lead her to the word, and then the two of you do what it says.
SPEAKER_00: That's what you're supposed to do in marriage.
SPEAKER_00: That'd be a very short, best-selling book, I know.
SPEAKER_00: You want to be a better husband?
SPEAKER_00: Lead your wife to the word.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to sit her down and read her the word.
SPEAKER_00: But you want to make sure she has time to read the word.
SPEAKER_00: You want to make sure she is reading.
SPEAKER_00: Ask her, what are you reading in the Bible?
SPEAKER_00: It's a very easy question.
SPEAKER_00: I know sometimes husbands don't like asking that question because they know it will be bounced right back to them.
SPEAKER_00: I read Psalm 119 this morning.
SPEAKER_00: What did you read?
SPEAKER_00: Proverbs 1-1.
SPEAKER_00: Bare minimum approach to marriage.
SPEAKER_00: Sanctify your wife by washing her in the word.
SPEAKER_00: Expose her to the word.
SPEAKER_00: The opposite of that would be exposing her to sin.
SPEAKER_00: Causing your wife to sin would be the worst thing you can do in marriage.
SPEAKER_00: Exposing her to sin?
SPEAKER_00: The worst thing you can do in marriage.
SPEAKER_00: The best thing you can do in marriage?
SPEAKER_00: Bring her to the word.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the lowest possible standard for marriage, Christian marriage.
SPEAKER_00: When you die, you stand before Jesus, and you can declare before God and the angels that this is my wife, and she's a little more godly now than when I found her.
SPEAKER_00: That's the lowest bar.
SPEAKER_00: Ideally, you would say, This is my wife, and I've poured out my life for her sanctification.
SPEAKER_00: I've done, I've made sacrifices, I've done things so that she can be in the word, so that she can grow in godliness.
SPEAKER_00: Knowing the Holy Spirit is at work in both of you, the word is at work in both of you, but you have a charge, husbands.
SPEAKER_00: To present, as Jesus in verse 27, to present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing.
SPEAKER_00: So she might be holy and without blemish.
SPEAKER_00: You think, why does Jesus not just, when you get saved, why doesn't he just rapture you at that moment?
SPEAKER_00: Because he's keeping you on the earth to do things, to confess sin, to read the word, to uh magnify the glory of God by saying no to sin and yes to Jesus, uh evangelism, sacrificial living.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's 10,000 things you're doing in this world that you won't be doing in heaven, and all of those things are producing sanctification to you, in you.
SPEAKER_00: They're causing you to grow in godliness.
SPEAKER_00: That's why you're here, so that you grow in godliness throughout this time, because God's glory is magnified as you put off sin and hold on to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Husbands are supposed to live that out in front of their wives, and they're supposed to help them do that.
SPEAKER_00: That God put husbands in this world to help their wives say no to sin and yes to Jesus, so that the glory of God can be magnified in your own marriage.
SPEAKER_00: So that as Jesus wants the church presented in godliness when when you die, husbands want their wives presented in godliness before the throne of Christ when they die.
SPEAKER_00: That's the parallel.
SPEAKER_00: Again, this is not easy.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, do you catch the cosmic scope of this?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus wants to present the church before the Father.
SPEAKER_00: 1 Corinthians 15 is going to present the church before the Father, spotless, blameless, so all things will be right in the universe is kind of the language of 1 Corinthians 15.
SPEAKER_00: Husbands want the same thing for their wives.
SPEAKER_00: That when they die, here's my wife, and she's godly.
SPEAKER_00: And I worked at that.
SPEAKER_00: I worked at it.
SPEAKER_00: Thirdly.
SPEAKER_00: Nourishing.
SPEAKER_00: We'll keep reading here.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 28.
SPEAKER_00: In the same way, and just what a dramatic phrase that is.
SPEAKER_00: In the same way as Jesus poured his life out for the church, denied himself for the church, sanctified his church, all that in the same way.
SPEAKER_00: Husbands should love their wives.
SPEAKER_00: There it's again repeated, as their own bodies.
SPEAKER_00: He who loves his wife loves himself.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so this is kind of a tautology here.
SPEAKER_00: You love yourself, love your wife like yourself.
SPEAKER_00: This is going to be played out a little bit more in the next few verses to come.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 29.
SPEAKER_00: No one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes it and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because remembers of his body.
SPEAKER_00: So the word picture here is that you and your wife are joined together, one flesh.
SPEAKER_00: He switches from the body metaphor to the flesh metaphor here.
SPEAKER_00: Body metaphor, he calls you part of your body because the church is the body of Christ, right?
SPEAKER_00: That's from Ephesians 4.
SPEAKER_00: Every believer is a brick in the building.
SPEAKER_00: We're all part of the body of Christ, remembers 1 Corinthians 12 of Christ, so all part of one body.
SPEAKER_00: Here he switches to flesh to hearken you back to Genesis 2.
SPEAKER_00: The husband and wife will become one flesh together.
SPEAKER_00: So you are part of the same body, you are part of the same flesh.
SPEAKER_00: That's the sexual union, of course, is in mind in Genesis 2, but it's more than that.
SPEAKER_00: In this instance, the act of intimacy is pointing to the larger reality of the one-flesh relationship.
SPEAKER_00: And what Paul's doing here is pretty remarkable.
SPEAKER_00: You don't be mean to your own body.
SPEAKER_00: Like if you hurt your leg, you limp.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, you favor that leg.
SPEAKER_00: You don't just say, I'm not gonna limp, so my leg learns to walk the right way.
SPEAKER_00: No, you faint, you you you favor it.
SPEAKER_00: You get crutches, you do whatever is needed to happen to that leg.
SPEAKER_00: You're sick, you lay down, you know, drink water, go to sleep.
SPEAKER_00: You you say, I'm not feeling well, I'm gonna go lay down.
SPEAKER_00: You treat your own body well.
SPEAKER_00: You're hungry, you feed yourself.
SPEAKER_00: You're thirsty, you you you drink.
SPEAKER_00: You understand that.
SPEAKER_00: And you don't even have to be taught it.
SPEAKER_00: It's just instinctual that you take care of your own body.
SPEAKER_00: So the analogy is that husbands need to do that towards their wives as if they and their wives were one body because you are one body.
SPEAKER_00: So you're caring for your wife.
SPEAKER_00: That doesn't mean if her leg hurts, you limp.
SPEAKER_00: But it means if there's needs in the family, you meet them as if they were your own need.
SPEAKER_00: You know, you your wife needs something, and you provide it as if it was you that needed it, because guess what?
SPEAKER_00: It's you that needs it.
SPEAKER_00: When I say nourish here, that's the word Paul uses here in verse 29.
SPEAKER_00: He nourishes it.
SPEAKER_00: The word nourish literally means to like nurture since childhood, to bring up since the time it was a baby.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's translated to raise or to rear.
SPEAKER_00: It's the same word used in Ephesians 6, verse 4.
SPEAKER_00: We'll look at this in a month or so.
SPEAKER_00: Fathers, raise up your children.
SPEAKER_00: It's the same word as there.
SPEAKER_00: It takes you back to the Garden of Eden, by the way, and the garden man was supposed to cultivate and work the garden.
SPEAKER_00: And this has got kind of garden imagery to it.
SPEAKER_00: And then we're supposed to plant and you dig the ditch around it.
SPEAKER_00: This is Jesus talking in Luke 12.
SPEAKER_00: You dig a ditch around it, you fertilize it, you put effort into the tree to get the tree to grow.
SPEAKER_00: You can't just plant a tree and you know stare it out of your window.
SPEAKER_00: You got to work at the thing.
SPEAKER_00: Plant a trench around it, you know, nourish it, feed it, water it, get the weeds out of the way.
SPEAKER_00: Don't let the squirrels eat it.
SPEAKER_00: You take care of your trees.
SPEAKER_00: That same intentional, deliberate approach happens in marriage.
SPEAKER_00: You're supposed to cultivate your wife as you nurture her and cherish her in marriage.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a side project, it's fundamental and central to your calling in marriage.
SPEAKER_00: Just as Christ builds up his people, so a husband should build up his wife.
SPEAKER_00: This requires intentionality.
SPEAKER_00: You have to be aware of what's happening in your family and in your marriage.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna go a few minutes over today, and I'm not even apologizing.
SPEAKER_00: Number four, cherish.
SPEAKER_00: Not only are you nourishing her, but you're cherishing her.
SPEAKER_00: This is an affection that you have in your heart.
SPEAKER_00: The word cherish there literally means to keep warm.
SPEAKER_00: There's all kinds of cool uh uses of this in Greek, of a of a bird who brings the baby birds under her wings to warm them.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes this word is even used for melting.
SPEAKER_00: It's this, it's really an affectionate term.
SPEAKER_00: It's only used one other place in the New Testament, by the way, and that's the Thessalonians, 1 Thessalonians 2.7, where Paul says, I cared for you as a nursing mother cares for her children.
SPEAKER_00: Fascinating to me the two biblical uses of this word.
SPEAKER_00: It's a very feminine word, but they're both used of men.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says, I cared for you, Thessalonians, like a nursing mother would have cared for her child.
SPEAKER_00: Here he's using that word for husbands, care for your wives in that way, affectionately, not gruffly, but tenderly, cherishing her in a way that warms her, not in a way that colds her.
SPEAKER_00: I forgot the opposite of warms is there.
SPEAKER_00: In a way that softens her, not in a way that hardens her.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to be taught to do that to yourself.
SPEAKER_00: You care for yourself that way.
SPEAKER_00: Care for your wife that way, Paul says.
SPEAKER_00: A cross-reference here, 1 Peter 3, verse 7, likewise, husbands live with your wives in an understanding way.
SPEAKER_00: Showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you is the grace of life.
SPEAKER_00: So your prayers may not be hindered.
SPEAKER_00: When you think of this verse, two different commands in it, live with your wives in an understanding way.
SPEAKER_00: You got down living with your wives, you got that part.
SPEAKER_00: But now in an understanding way, you need to, it's the Greek word here is gnosis.
SPEAKER_00: Live with your wives with gnosis, knowledge.
SPEAKER_00: Understand what's happening.
SPEAKER_00: Understand what your wife does during the day.
SPEAKER_00: Understand where she is, understand what her concerns are.
SPEAKER_00: Understand what she's worried about.
SPEAKER_00: It's probably you.
SPEAKER_00: Understand what the difficulties are in the marriage.
SPEAKER_00: You have to know, that's what understanding means.
SPEAKER_00: You have to know what she's going to.
SPEAKER_00: You can't say, I went to work and now I'm home.
SPEAKER_00: That should be enough.
SPEAKER_00: No, that's not understanding.
SPEAKER_00: You have to have actual knowledge of her to live with her in an understanding way.
SPEAKER_00: And when you sp, which requires asking questions, it requires actual knowledge.
SPEAKER_00: You have to learn and study your wives so you can live with them in an understanding way.
SPEAKER_00: And when you do that, you'll be showing them honor.
SPEAKER_00: That's how you honor your wife.
SPEAKER_00: When you understand her differently than you understand everybody else in the world.
SPEAKER_00: She's honored.
SPEAKER_00: Because the source of her affection is you, of course.
SPEAKER_00: She loves you.
SPEAKER_00: So you demonstrate that love by studying, serving, and caring for her.
SPEAKER_00: By the way, showing her honor as the weaker vessel there, kind of an unfortunate translation, I think.
SPEAKER_00: Weaker vessel there, it's uh it's almost like a weaker, like a crystal vase would be, you know, as opposed to like a pot or a pan.
SPEAKER_00: Is the idea is that you're caring for your wife as if she were a vase, not a pasta pot, you know.
SPEAKER_00: In your house, you come over to your house, you don't have your cast iron skillet displayed on the coffee table, you know?
SPEAKER_00: Like, hey, welcome to my house, here's my favorite skillet.
SPEAKER_00: No, it's you welcome to my house, here's a vase that's very precious to us.
SPEAKER_00: Don't knock it over.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: I got kids with me, you put the vase up.
SPEAKER_00: You're caring for your wife in that way.
SPEAKER_00: You don't treat her like the skillet, you treat her like the vase.
SPEAKER_00: You understand what's important to her so that you can cherish her.
SPEAKER_00: This is all about affections.
SPEAKER_00: You're nurturing her.
SPEAKER_00: You're cherishing her.
SPEAKER_00: Recognizing the person that she's likely to need protection from the most is you and your callousness.
SPEAKER_00: So you pursue your wife with a heart towards understanding her, nourishing her, cherishing her.
SPEAKER_00: This is how Jesus approaches the church because we're members of his body.
SPEAKER_00: This is repeated from Genesis 2 again, verse 31.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore a man will leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.
SPEAKER_00: We're back to the one flesh argument.
SPEAKER_00: There's so much more I want to say, but time gets away from us.
SPEAKER_00: When it says that you'll leave your father and your mother there, in verse 31.
SPEAKER_00: That word leave, it's a Greek word.
SPEAKER_00: Genesis is written in Hebrew.
SPEAKER_00: This is a different word.
SPEAKER_00: This is a Greek word.
SPEAKER_00: It means abandon.
SPEAKER_00: That you leave like you've left your country.
SPEAKER_00: That's how it's used in other places.
SPEAKER_00: You've left your people, you've left your country.
SPEAKER_00: That's this word.
SPEAKER_00: You've abandoned your previous life and started a new one.
SPEAKER_00: The word cling or cleave here is the word for to be molded together.
SPEAKER_00: So it can't be extracted anymore.
SPEAKER_00: Glued together might be another way to render it.
SPEAKER_00: You're just stuck together.
SPEAKER_00: So you've abandoned your old life, you're now stuck with a new life, and the two of you become one flesh.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, this is all in the context of a husband leading and providing for his family, but the leading and providing that happens in the Christian family is that of sacrificial love.
SPEAKER_00: The best illustration of this is Matthew 20.
SPEAKER_00: And we'll close with you don't need to turn there.
SPEAKER_00: You can just listen.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus just explains to the apostles, to the disciples, the parable of the vineyard workers is some guys get hired in the morning, some guys get hired at night, they all get paid the same.
SPEAKER_00: He's gonna go be crucified.
SPEAKER_00: Two of the disciples start arguing, asking, can we have preeminent positions in the kingdom then?
SPEAKER_00: Since you're going to die, can we get good seats in the kingdom?
SPEAKER_00: It's an incredible, incredible conversation.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus' response to them is that the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom.
SPEAKER_00: What a powerful picture of the kind of Christian love that should be evident in a believer's life.
SPEAKER_00: That Jesus didn't come to be served, but to serve us by giving his life away.
SPEAKER_00: Husbands, God didn't make you and put you in marriage for you to be served in marriage.
SPEAKER_00: He made you and put you in marriage so that you can serve your wives through sacrificial love, through sanctifying them, through nourishing them and caring for their needs, and for cherishing them in your heart in an understanding way.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we're grateful for the gospel of Jesus Christ, the foundation of marriage and of life and of godliness.
SPEAKER_00: We're grateful how you've called us and how you send us into the world to live this kind of love for our wives.
SPEAKER_00: I know that there's many couples in difficult marriages or marriages in distress.
SPEAKER_00: I just pray their marriages would experience repentance and the grace that comes through faith in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: As husbands no longer cling to their own rights, but instead seek to serve their wives, as wives no longer cling to their own rights, but instead be submissive to their husbands.
SPEAKER_00: And in the godly pattern of marriage, we pray that as you love the church, husbands would love their wives.
SPEAKER_00: And as the church clings to Christ, wives would cling to their husband, and that our church would be marked by those kind of marriages.
SPEAKER_00: We give you thanks for this in Jesus' name.
unknown: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And now for a parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for joining us today.
SPEAKER_00: If you're in the Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_00: area, I would love to see you at Emmanuel Bible Church.
SPEAKER_00: Our service times and church information are on our website at ibc.church.
SPEAKER_00: For more information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_00: location, go to tms.edu.
SPEAKER_00: I hope this resource has been a blessing to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel of Jesus Christ with boldness.
SPEAKER_00: May the Lord bless you.