Husbands Love Your Wives

Husbands Love Your Wives

Ephesians 5:25-33

How many of you are married? Single? Want to be married?

Today we are going to focus on what Paul has to say about Marriage…God designed Marriage…It is not our role to change it, yet our culture is attacking it from all angles.

Society gives the allusion to single people that the perfect person is out there waiting for you. You really need someone who loves the Lord and is pursuing Him. They are walking in the Spirit filled life with joy.

Marriage doesn’t have to be a conflict – life is full of them however, and the scripture promises us trials. They do not have to divide our homes.

Great General Montgomery; “Gentleman don’t even think about marriage until you’ve mastered the art of war” 🙂

Genesis 1:27-28Reminds us that God created man in His own image, male and female, that He blessed them, and said be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth…

READ Genesis 2:18-24;

• Imagine that; Adam woke up and was married

Why should we get married?

1) To have children

2) Eliminate solitude – “not good for man to be alone” -we all need accountability in our lives

3) Prevent Immorality;

I Cor. 7:2;But because of immoralities, each man is to have his own wife, and each woman is to have her own husband.

• Build Godly character

4) Minister together – in what I call for the sake of the Gospel. Marriage is patterned after Christ’s covenant commitment to His church; Eph. 32.

➢Take personal inventory against that list in your marriage. If you are single I am really glad you are here.

• After the Fall – Satan & wars begin – things come apart in the balance of Genesis – Corruption comes fast.
• Amazingly similar to our world today when it comes to marriage and family.
• Men and Women are still sinners after the flood – But imagine pre-flood – people lived to be 900 yrs. old! Hard to grasp all that we are talking about and working on in marriage and relationships if we lived that long.
• After Jesus came – we now need to make our marriages work for under 1 Century.
• Why do marital problems cause such intense pain in our families today? Should you choose to be married this becomes your most important human relationship. Again, if you choose marriage, be married for the reasons given for God to conform your character & better reflect Him.

ILLUSTRATION: One of our most frequent issues in Pre-Marital Counseling – The current generation has few role models for marriage. The Culture is full of fantasies about love & looks and broken families.

How about this Marriage idea; Bliss till death– Do you believe it can happen – I’m here to tell you it can happen. But In Christ, must be the answer

ILLUSTRATION: Personally, over the years I have from time to time had to reorder my wants or needs to help meet my family’s needs – my #1 priority was to set my life’s course to do that. God chose to –

• Bless me with 35 years of marriage.
• Equip Sherri to be a dedicated wife & mother as my career moved us from coast to coast.
• Use that blessed marriage to raise 7 children – all professing Christ in their lives – including the oldest at 32 making that decision just a week ago – some in this church have been praying for him for years. And finally, the legacy of knowing our lives, marriage and family has impacted other’s relationships with the Lord.

PERSONAL: Who would have thought 20 years ago when we came to this church, I a business guy with a large family along with Sherri, a stay-at-home mom, that the Lord would in this day have me on staff, counseling couples for years now, speaking about marriage in places like China…and on it goes…we are no different than many of you – we’ve simply done our best to do it God’s way and been willing to ask Him to help and use us.

Ladies – I’m taking it easy on you today. You are to be for your husband or future husband what the church is to Christ.

• Filled with love and respect, humility and service. We’ll speak about these things another time. With our remaining time I want to focus on the husbands.

I KNOW GUYS – WOW PASTOR SHAWN, SURE AM GLAD I CAME TODAY.

• So, personalize the message; Paul is writing to the church at Calvary Chapel, to all of you, believers who already understand submission and do not get tripped up or in conflict over it.

➢Where are each of you on this topic? Paul, I am right there with you man – teach me how to raise the bar as a husband…

• If you are single, this is particularly beneficial to you as you search for how to be a Godly man or woman in relationships.
• I. HUSBANDS LOVE YOUR WIVES

READ EPHESIANS 5:25-33

➢Now we can say, “Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her.” How did He love the church? He died on the cross, giving Himself up for the church whom He loved.

• A single command
• Not authority over, rule over, not to order around
• Head of the home – YES – not her boss
• The lesson here is recognizing the need to submit to one another

➢Behind all of this starting in vs18-21; God calls us to be walking in the Spirit, to be born again so we can do that and to be submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.

➢It’s the fruit of the Spirit that we long for; these are the good things we want to bring forth out of the good treasures of our heart.

➢The heart that is filled with the Spirit has regard for others.

➢In marriage, the Holy Spirit is our power supply as we run into roles – with it we can serve and support one another – without it we are focused on ourselves, our wants, needs & desires.

Acts 13:52;And the disciples were continually filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.

➢Submission is not reserved for our wives ‘men’ – it exists in all relationships throughout life. Are you able to say -?

o I humble myself to serve others

o to assist others

o to submit to help meet the needs of our flock here at Calvary 

Mark 10:42-44;“You know that those who are rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them…But it is not this way among you, whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant; and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be the servant of all.”

➢ Never a Rule of Authority – not Biblical

➢This flows right into our marriage study – All of us Husbands need to submit to the Lord and His teaching.

➢There is an authority structure that God has established so there can be order and peace in our relationships.

o Husbands – humble yourselves to help meet your wife’s needs

o Men are often too eager about the wives submitting

o Husbands almost always are the ones in counseling who ask, “how do I”

• Do all these things for the family?
• Meet her every need as much as possible?
• ILLUSTRATION: This reminds me of the story of a husband and wife coming in for counseling…

Engage your heart and engage your life. Many wives are asking for their husbands to be more engaged in their marriage and in their family.

• An Amazing Love

Agape Love – the most intense, sacrificial love – it’s a love of the “will” – you do it because it is right.

• God loved us despite our messy lives – He gave His life for you!

Rom 8:35;Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?

• Think about loving your wife that way – How Christ loved the Church – Your marriage will transform.
• The words you speak and the things you do come back to you either as good fruit or bitter. What do you do if you’ve been sowing bitter things in the marriage?
• Be Understanding & Honorable
  • Repent. Turnaround; go the other way. Start speaking words of life and by faith know that you will reap good fruit if you just keep sowing what is good.

  I Peter 3:7; You husbands in the same way, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with someone weaker, since she is a woman; and show her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life, so that your prayers will not be hindered.

  • Verses prior to 3:7 again draws attention to wives submitting to their husbands
  • Over the years of listening to couples talk it is not unusual to hear this from the wives;
  • I wish he listened more
  • I wish he knew me better
  • I wish he understood me
  • I wish he knew what I was thinking…
  • Men – our responsibility is to become an expert on your one woman! When you do that these comments will go away.

  II. TAKE CARE TO NOURISH & CHERISH

  • How do you Love your wives as Christ loves the Church? It requires:
  • Sacrificial Love
  • Purifying Love
  • Caring Love
  • Permanently Love
  • Vs 28; The Lord takes care of His church – you are to take care of yourselves – your wives deserve that you take care of yourself.
  • Vs 29; Nourish your wife – Cherish her – Like a treasure…you would never toss aside.

Personal: Son-In-Law requesting daughter’s hand in marriage

The Marriage is Sacred

Vs 31; Leaving your father and mother; the two shall become one flesh – Leave father and mother, but also leave anything from the past that will drive a wedge between you. And then cleave…

• Notice that this is a command. Do this because God asks you to, and the two will become one. Where you put your treasure, your heart will follow.
• Mark 10:9;What God has joined together let not man separate– Unwavering commitment – Nothing can separate the Church from Christ
  • Vs 32; The Mystery is profound it says – recognizing that the relationship between Christ and the Church is sacred – and marriage is described to us as following the same pattern.

Wives Respect Your Husbands

• Marriage is an illustration of the relationship that we have with Christ.
• This is not necessarily a principal that everyone appreciates or agrees with. But God has established that there must be order within the family as a building block of the church.
• Vs 33; Summary of the chapter – finished with instruction to the wives to see that you respect your husbands – note this is not conditional ladies – God’s instructions do not assume your husband is earning this respect, but that you are freely offering it as onto the Lord Himself.

PERSONAL: One of our favorite and most effective marriage bible study and counseling tools is Dr. Emerson Eggerichs material called, Love and Respect. The subtitle is powerful; The Love She Most Desires; The Respect He Desperately Needs.

• When husbands love their wives as Christ loved the church and they give that love out of reverence for God, they bless their wives also, and receive a blessing in return.
• In the same way, when wives respect their husbands out of reverence for God, they bless their husbands and receive a blessing in return.