Husband, Love Your Wife

It's great to See all of you here this morning and And it's a blessing to gather together to worship God through song and also To, come together and open our hearts and to hear God as he speaks to us through His word. And that's what we'll be doing, over the, the coming moments. Let me invite you to turn in your Bibles to Ephesians chapter 5, Ephesians chapter 5 for our time of study in the word this morning, we'll be looking at verses 25 through 33 as a part of our series on marriage and if you want to give a title to the message this morning, it would be Husband.

Love your wife Husband, love your, wife, and I hope this message will be, challenging for us as men, but also an encouragement, to us and for all of us as a church, body.

when a person falls in love and becomes smitten, By the love of another person, it's almost inevitable that they start singing, right? take me, for instance. I don't have a good singing voice, but when Donna became, who's my wife, when she became interested in me, When I was 17 years old, she literally brought music into my life. She was the most beautiful girl that I had ever seen and thoughts of her had filled my head for about 2 years.

Prior to that point and now at the age of 17 that I heard that she was interested in me, I literally began singing privately. In my car. And as I did my work as a janitor at Knights, which was my first job. When she broke up with me on 2 occasions.

During the first two years of our relationship, I sang Barry Manilow songs of, of heartbreak and longing while driving in my car and while I did my work as a janitor at night. If you could have heard me singing on those occasions, you would have observed that Donna was my song. She was the center of my life and she was really the only song that I had. So when I lost her after our second breakup when I was 18 years old, Life felt achingly hollow to me.

I was literally a shell of my former self and all the color had gone out of my world. Eventually, I stopped singing altogether. My mom's reflection back on that time period is I went an entire month without smiling once to anybody. It was during this time of emptiness that I attended a Christian conference and it was on the last night of this conference that God got a hold of my heart and brought me to a place of surrender to him and to his love.

And on November 13, 1982, I gave my life to Christ and I came home from that conference and I wrote out a prayer to God surrendering my life to Him. And it was at that point, I believe, at the age of 18 that Christ became the center of my life. And what? True story, I started singing again while driving in my car and as I did my work as a janitor.

At night. Only this time, my songs were about Jesus, who was now the center of my life and the love of my heart. The hymns that we sang at church suddenly came alive to me. I grabbed some of my parents' cassette tapes, you remember those?

cassette tapes of Christian music and I would sing with them as I drove in my car. About a month and a half after I had surrendered my life to Christ, Donna came home from college for Christmas break and And we saw each other for the first time since our breakup. And she came up to me and asked me how I was doing, and we had a lovely little chat. And after a few minutes, we said goodbye and she turned and walked away from me and she rounded the corner and then disappeared from view.

And it was then that something amazing happened. As I turned, right after she disappeared from view, as I turned to walk in the other direction. I caught in my peripheral vision. A glimpse of Donna peeking her head back around the corner.

And looking back at me. And it was a split second before she disappeared again, but in that moment, I knew what was up. And in my heart I smiled. For two reasons.

First of all, I smiled at the realization that Donna evidently was still digging me. But even more, I smiled inside because I realized that I did not need her to come back to me for me to be happy. I was already happy and full. In Christ.

Over the next few weeks, God did bring Donna and I back together, but things were different this time. Jesus was at the center. Of my heart, not Donna, and Donna would tell you that she liked. The Christ-centered version of me better.

Far better than the earlier version of me. The new version of me was no longer jealous and possessive, insecure and clingy. I was now ready to love her as my girlfriend and not as my God. And I share this at the outset to say that I totally get why Paul spends the first few chapters of Ephesians trying to capture our hearts with the greatest love story of all time.

He speaks to us about the great love of God that is in Christ. He tells us that we have our hands full. Enough trying to figure out the height, and the breadth and the length and the depth of the love of Christ, which surpasses our ability to understand. And comprehend.

In Ephesians 5:18, we saw last Sunday, how Paul speaking to us as Christians, commands us all Christians to be filled with the Spirit, with the blessings of the love of Christ that Paul has been reviewing in the gospel, to let these realities be poured into us. Leaving our hearts in a state of saturation and fullness in Christ. That's where we left off last week and what guys, not surprisingly, it is right at this point of the book of Ephesians that the singing starts. Paul is a single man.

And he has spent all this time in Ephesians so far regaling us with the big love story. And here he basically says, I want every one of you to let the Spirit be filling you to such a degree. That you will find yourself speaking to one another in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord. Always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

There's the song. And there's the promise. If we allow our hearts to be romanced and filled by the great love of God in Christ, then we will have a song in our hearts, and everything in that song will be sung in the matchless name of Jesus Christ, who is the great love of our lives. This is why Christians sing.

This is why we spend 25 minutes on Sunday mornings singing. This is why we sing in our care groups. And throughout the day because the love of our lives has found us. And we will be married to him.

Forever. Keep in mind that Paul hasn't even gotten to the marriage passage yet in Ephesians. In fact, he brings us to this place of fullness and singing. Right before the marriage passage.

And he does this, I think, for several reasons, one of which is that he wants to deliver us from the mistake of thinking that we have to get married in order to experience fullness and love. Mark my words, marriage is not where you get your fullness from. You get your fullness from Jesus. Marriage is not where you find your song.

You find your song in Jesus and you will never be content as a single person. Nor will you ever be content in your marriage until deep in your bones that this is true. To our singles, I just wanna say a quick word here. If you let Paul, just, you let God work in your heart even through the flow of thought in the book of Ephesians.

And you let God bring you to this place of fullness in Christ by the Spirit of God. You will find yourself content as a single, for as long as God wants you to be a single person, because you already have Jesus. You already have the great love. You are already a meaningful part of the big love story that transcends all of human history.

Marriage is already A huge part of your life because you are a part of Christ's Church, who will be presented to Jesus Christ one day in a marriage ceremony. That beggars the human imagination. Some people view single Christians. As being in the junior varsity stage of life.

And they view marriage. As the varsity stage. I think the better way to view this is this way, all Christians, all Christians. are a part of the varsity marriage between Christ and the church.

This is true for every believer, whether you are married, single, divorced, or widowed. Whether you have marriage, earthly marriage in your future or not, all Christians are involved in the varsity marriage, and every one of our earthly marriages are merely the JV squads that point. To the varsity marriage between Jesus Christ and the church, that every Christian gets to be a delicious part of. This is why Paul, who was an unmarried man, can feel qualified to speak to husbands and wives about how they should behave in sight of their marriages.

Someone might have said to Paul reading Ephesians 5:22-33, they might have read this and said to Paul, Paul, you're just a single man. Who do you think you are giving me marital advice? What do about marriage? And Paul's response would be actually, I know a lot about marriage.

I'm a part of the ultimate love story. And I'm a part of the church that is betrothed to Jesus Christ and that makes me a part of the varsity marriage. of Jesus Christ and His church, and it is from that vantage point of involvement in that story that I can speak to you and tell you how to behave inside your JV marriage. In fact, that's all Paul does.

In Ephesians 5:22 through the end of the chapter, he just keeps pointing to the varsity marriage and draws his marital counsel for husbands and wives from there. This is what he does as he speaks to husbands in Ephesians 5:25 and following, where he speaks of essentially three ways that a husband can love his wife that are shaped by the big love story. of Christ and the church, and this is what I want to focus on. This morning as we focus on the apostle Paul's words to husbands in particular.

So are you ready, husbands? Doesn't sound like it. Wives, I do want to encourage you to be gentle as you listen, be gentle with the use. of your elbow, this morning.

My sermon to you is coming soon. So behave today as you would want your husband to behave when I'm preaching to you shortly. The way we're gonna break this passage down is we're going to observe three ways to love your wife, men. that are shaped by the big love story of Christ and His church.

And the first of these ways is love your wife, just as Christ loved the church. Love your wife just as Christ loved past tense. The church. It's fascinating to note that Paul gives to men three commands here in Ephesians 5:25-33, and the way he presents these three commands tells me that he understands men.

He understands that men need repetition. Amen. A man was once reading a newspaper and he said to his wife, honey, there's an article in here saying that women speak twice as many words. In their lifetime as men do.

Isn't that interesting, honey? And the wife said, that's not surprising to me if you husbands would listen to us the first time we said something. We wouldn't need to repeat ourselves so often. And the husband said, I'm sorry, what'd you say?

So we need repetition, right? And so this is what Paul provides. Here are the three commands that we find in Ephesians 5:25-33. Love your wives, verse 25.

Verse 28, husbands ought to love their own wives and verse 33, let each individual among you love his own wife. So basically, Paul's three instructions to husbands are, love your wife. Number 2, love your wife, and number 3, love your wife. Paul knows that men need repetition and he provides it for them.

Paul also seems to know that men need more than simply a command. If all Paul said to men was, love your wife, most men would think, that's easy, I can do that. And we would come up with our own definition of love. And we would come up with all sorts of ways to love our wives that would fall short of the ideal of what Paul is after.

Well, Paul knows that men are visual and that men need pictures, so here's what he does each time. He tells men in this passage to love their wives, he attaches an expression like as or even as or just as to the command to ensure That men get the picture. In verse 25, Paul says, love your wives just as Christ also loved the church. In verse 28 and 29, he says, husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies, just as Christ also does the church.

And in verse 33, Paul says, let each individual among you also, in other words, just as Christ does, love his own wife even as Himself Paul is being very explicit with men, telling them not only to love their wives but also giving them a picture that tells them what their love for their wives should look like in its expression. And the first of his commands to love is in verse 25 where Paul says, husbands love your wives. And we husbands respond by saying, I can do that. But then Paul says, just as Christ also loved the church.

And gave himself up for her. Suddenly, Paul has just taken that command to love our wives to a whole different level. Paul is literally pointing husbands to the cross of Christ. And telling us husbands to look at the cross, to be a student of what happened there, and then to turn around and face our wives and be a living embodiment.

Of what Christ did on the cross as we relate to our wives. It turns out that the cross of Christ did not simply provide us all with atonement, it also provides us men with a pattern. For how to love our wives. Inside the context of our marriage.

Love your wives, Paul says, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. The verb that is translated gave up is frequently found in passages that talk about Christ's suffering at the cross and it could actually be rendered handed over. Or to give over. We learned in Romans 8:32 that God handed over Jesus in death on the cross.

Which as we know, involved the Father forsaking him to the cross, which is why Jesus cried out, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? We also learn in the Gospel accounts that Judas handed over, same Greek word, handed over Jesus to the Jewish authorities to be killed. In fact, over 30 times this very Greek word that is used here in Ephesians 5. I used To speak of betrayal.

It's translated as betray. In the New Testament And here in Ephesians 5:25, we're being told that Jesus handed over Himself. To die on the cross for the salvation. Of the church So let's get specific, men.

For a man to love his wife, the way that Christ loved the church and gave himself over, handed himself over for her is to love. His wife sacrificially. In other words, through the betrayal of himself and his own selfish agenda. Men, if you are truly going to love your wife, the way Christ loved the church, your selfish agenda, listen to me, should feel betrayed all the time.

Think about it this way, Jesus was completely entitled. to his life. He did not deserve to suffer and die. We deserve that, but Jesus surrendered what he was entitled to in order that the church would not have to suffer what she deserved to suffer.

So for me to love my wife the way Christ loved the church means that I should be willing to give up what I feel entitled to in order to serve my wife's ultimate good. In other words, husbands are not to have an entitlement mentality. In sight of their marriages. A husband is to have a betray my entitlement mentality.

Inside of his marriage. Christ could have said, because, to all of us, because of your sins and failures, I'm entitled to do nothing for you other than judge you and destroy you. But he betrayed. That entitlement.

He could have said, look at everything I've done for you already. The world could not contain the books. That could be written of all that I've already done, so I am entitled to do no more. But Jesus betrayed that entitlement and let himself die on the cross so that we would have salvation.

And if you are a Christian man, you are saved today. Because you have a savior who gave up his entitlements and surrendered himself over to death for the good of the church. And so I ask you men, is your heart truly romanced by Christ entitlement betraying love? If so, how can you withhold This love from your wife.

Do you believe that this love that Jesus has shown you is amazing? The song we just sang about his Amazing Grace, do you really believe it's amazing? If you say yes, I would ask you, is it amazing enough to pass on? To your wife And if you're not passing it on to your wife, you are basically saying that Jesus' entitlement betraying love for you really isn't that amazing after all.

And that means that you've lost your sense of place in the big love story that you and all Christians are a part of Love your wife men more than your entitlements. That's what Christ's example teach you, teaches you. Also, to love our wife as Christ loved the church also means loving our wife with a righteous agenda. Loving our wives with a purpose.

Notice the language of purpose in Ephesians 5 in verse 25. Paul says, husbands love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her, and then literally, so that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, verse 27, so that he might present to himself the church and all her glory. Having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but so that she would be holy and blameless. Three times we see.

The conjunction that is translated so that Indicating purpose. In Christ's love. As Christian husbands, we don't just love our wives as an end in itself or without any agenda, but as a means to a greater end, and that is the holiness and the righteousness of our wife. Jesus betrayed.

His personal entitlements so that he could be the one who helps the church to become sanctified, cleansed and washed and glorious with no spots, no wrinkles, no defects. But be left holy and blameless. And in the same way our attitude as husbands should be that we would give up every personal entitlement necessary. In order to help our wife blossom into the beautiful and righteous woman that God has called her to be.

Man, I challenge you today, love your wife's sanctification more than you love your personal entitlements. To love our wife the way Christ loved the church also means that we love her with an eye upon her future self. Evidently when Christ saw the church and all of her filth, He did not simply see the church as she was in that moment. He saw the church for what she would become when she stood before him in glory without any spot or wrinkle or any such thing.

So if I'm to love my wife in the same way, then That means I have to go beyond just seeing my wife as she has been in the past. Or as she is in the present, I am also to have an eye on what she will be when she stands before Christ in glory. There's some husbands, even in our church, when you look at your wife, you're not even able to see her as she is in the present. All you see is what she's already done.

And then when she messes up, your thought is that figures, that's what she's always done, or when she does something that is good. You put a cynical interpretation on that because you interpret that in light of past sin history, some husbands cannot even see their wife in the present. The example of Christ is that you see your wife, not as she was in the past, nor as she is simply in the present, but as she will be in full blossom when she stands before Christ in glory. If your wife is a believer in Jesus, man, you gotta know she is going to be a dazzling spectacle in that future day when she stands before Christ and clothed in glory.

And as a husband, we are to be willing to endure anything and give up any selfish entitlements. To participate in and contribute to that glorious outcome. Love your wife today the way that you will wish you had loved her when you see her. Fully glorified To love your wife as Christ loved the church also means that you are to love her preemptively.

Preemptively is the best word that I could find to convey this. In warfare. the doctrine of preemption. How many of you ever heard that expression?

the doctrine of preemption is we will not wait for you to attack us. We will attack you before you have a chance to attack us. George W. Bush.

spoke of this doctrine of preemption and he applied. This doctrine when he attacked Iraq a number of years ago. But putting warfare aside, I love the term preemption. And I think the doctrine of preemption should be operative in all of our relationships and all of life as we seek to love one another and especially in marriage.

A man who is practicing the doctrine of preemption in his marriage, basically, here's his train of thought. I will not wait for my wife to love me first. I will not wait for her to clean up her act. I will not wait for her to fulfill her duties toward me before I will fulfill my duties toward her.

I will love her even before she has a chance to clean up her act, just like Jesus did. For me Many husbands, wives too, but we're talking to husbands today. Many husbands have what I think we could call a 50 yard line mentality in their marriage. They're basically standing on the 50 yard line waiting for their wives to meet them halfway.

And their mentality is when my wife starts doing her part, then I will do my part, and until then, I will not do my part. And when a man thinks this way, when a man thinks this way, his energies are divided. Part of his energies are focused on what it is that God wants him to do, and a part of his energies are focused on Constantly judging and evaluating how deserving his wife is of his good behavior. And then being very careful.

To only give his wife what she deserves in the moment. Being ever so careful never to do too much or go beyond what she deserves. All of us as husbands have thought this way and I, we're never more pathetic than when we're thinking this way. Aren't you glad Jesus didn't stand on the fifty-yard line and wait for us?

To meet him there. We weren't anywhere near the fifty-yard line. Guys, we weren't even in the stadium. Jesus had to go outside the stadium.

And into the lowest, darkest dungeon to find us, and he committed the ultimate act. of love and dying for us just to get us out of that dungeon and into the stadium. And he did all of that before we were the least bit lovely or deserving. And this is the way Paul tells us as husbands to love our wives.

You may say to me, Pastor Milton, I know, I know I need to do better than what I'm doing. It's just so hard, it's impossible. I know I'm supposed to love my wife. But I just can't do what I'm supposed to do until my wife starts doing what she is supposed to do.

Toward me Really? That's very interesting. Essentially what you're saying is, in order for me to obey God, I need two things. I need Jesus to do all that he did.

But that's not enough. I also need my wife to change her behavior. What you're saying is I need Jesus plus my wife's righteousness in order to be saved from my sinful behavior and from my selfishness and to be obedient to God inside of my marriage. That's actually heresy.

And yet, husbands, wives, brothers and sisters in the church in the context of our relationships, were guilty of this frequently. Loving our wives as Christ loved the church also means loving our wives with a Christ word focus. Jesus died for the church with this purpose in mind, verse 27, so that he might present to himself the church and all her glory. Notice the words to himself.

Christ's goal in loving the church is to present the church to himself. So if you love your wife with the same motive that Christ had, then you will love your wife with the intention, with the goal in mind that you might present her to him. To Jesus Christ, to whom she ultimately belongs. In the here and now husbands.

this is not really a manly way to describe it, but in the here and now, husbands, your job is to be your wife's number one beautician. who helps to get her ready for the day when you give her over to Jesus. Let that reality grip your heart. One day you're going to present your wife as a gift to him.

And are you loving her now with that day in mind? Are you loving your wife as Christ loved? The church There's another way that Paul tells husbands to love our wives, and this brings us to our next point, and that is love your wife. As your own body.

Just as Christ loves. Present tense, the church. Love your wife as your own body, men, just as Christ loves the church. Notice Paul's flow of thought here.

In verse 28, he says, so husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. I'll just ask you, man, do we love our bodies? Absolutely. Do we feed our bodies?

Absolutely. If we hit our thumb with a hammer while working on a project, the whole world stops, right? More importantly, if we as a man come down with a man cold. The whole household has to shut down and revolve around us, right?

When a wife gets sick, she has to keep moving because things need to get done. But when a man gets a man cold, that's an emergency. That entitles us men to days of pampering. And doting care from every member of the family, right?

Amen. Ladies, I don't, and I hear the snickers and it bothers me. I don't expect you to understand this, but you need to Google man cold. And do some research.

It's a more serious condition. Then you realize One website says that more men die from MCN, which is man called neglect. Than from rabbit attacks every year. So you need to bring yourself up to speed on this topic.

Actually, another name for this condition is E. coda. Which is defined as when a man has a cold but acts like he has Ebola. Only men get this and the recovery rate is very, very slow.

But man, there's no denying that we love our bodies. Paul knows this, so he is helping us, giving us a picture for how to go about loving our wives, and he tells us to love our wives as we do our own bodies. He then says in verse 28, he who loves his wife loves himself. Part of what he's saying is that when a man loves his wife, he is loving himself because he is in fact one flesh with her now that they are married.

Evidently when a man gets married, his definition of self needs to now expand to include his wife. Paul continues in verse 29 by saying, for no one ever hated his own flesh but nourishes and cherishes it. Literally, the idea is that every man Typically always makes sure that his body has the food and the warmth that it needs. And Paul points us to Christ and says, verse 29, this is just as Christ also does the church.

Because we are members of his body. So at first we think he's pointing us to how we love our bodies and saying love your wife in the same way. But what he's saying is love your wife as you do your own bodies, because actually that's exactly how Christ in an ongoing way loves the church. Follow his example.

In how you love your wife. How does Jesus love the church in the present? Let's just think of a few words that we find in the text here that serve to demonstrate how he loves the church and that's how we are to love our wives. First of all, from Paul's language, we see that Jesus doesn't hate the church.

The word hate means to despise, to show indifference toward or to disregard out of spite or out of neglect. It doesn't just mean having a passionate hatred against someone, a flaming hatred. It just means to consider of no account. To disregard Out of spite or out of neglect.

Jesus doesn't hate the church. He doesn't ever hate you as a believer in Jesus. And do you realize what a relief it is that you never have to worry about Jesus hating you? Men, don't hate your wife, or as Paul says in Colossians 3:19, don't ever let yourself be embittered against them.

Paul also uses the word nourishes to speak of what Christ does in an ongoing way in loving the church. The root word translated nourishes means to fatten, to feed, Or to nourish. And the word Paul uses here is a compound word that literally means to nourish out. To nourish out, which means to nourish to the point of fullness.

With a nourishing that engenders a blossoming out of the person as they grow and flourish as a result of the nourishing that's been provided. Just as Jesus' goal for the church is that the church would have his fullness. Just as Christ's goal for us is that we would have his fullness. Men, our goal for our wives is to nourish them so that they experience fullness.

And as a result of that fullness that they would blossom out into the women. that God wants them to be. We see the word cherishes here. Which in some context has the idea of showing affection and tender care.

Paul uses this term in 1 Thessalonians 2:7 to speak of the way that a mother tenderly cares for her child while nursing her child. Literally, this word translated cherishes means to warm. To warm. And when used in a relational context, it means to warm from a position of closeness.

It speaks of drawing someone close to you so that you are warming them. Not throwing them a blanket so they can warm themselves, but you draw them in and move close to them so that you are warming them. I remember when our son Benjamin. He was a little kid, he would wake up on winter mornings and he would be cold.

And we would see him shivering in the mornings and we tell him, put more clothes on, but he usually did not do that and he would come into the kitchen and get some cereal and he would pour himself a bowl of cereal. That had cold milk in it. He's already cold, now he's pouring cold milk. And as he would eat the cereal, he would become even colder.

He would literally be shivering, doing his best to hold the spoon steady. As he tried to direct the spoon between his shivering purple lips. And in such moments, one of my favorite things to do as a dad. was to get up from where I was and to come over to him from behind.

And to wrap myself around him and to press him against me. And as I would hold him, I would feel him shivering, but then eventually the shivering would subside and go away. What happened? In that moment I saw that my son was cold.

I realized that I had something that he needed which was body heat. So instead of tossing him a blanket, I drew myself close to him. And I held him tight. And as I did so, the body heat that was in me passed from me to him.

In the context of closeness. And that's what this word means. This is how Christ cherishes and warms the church, not by tossing the church a blanket from a distance, but by drawing the church close to Himself and holding her close so that the good, so much good that is in him passes from him. To us In the context of close relationship, loving, tender relationship.

And Paul says the husbands, Love your wife in the same. Way This is so important for us as men because there are many times we husbands see something that is lacking in our wives and we try to toss them what they need from a distance. Our wife is hurting or anxious and rather than truly drawing close to them. In their pain, we remain at a distance and try to lecture them.

From a distance and try to explain to them why they should be in a different place. And how does that work out for us? When we lecture our wives from a distance, do they respond by saying, thank you so much for your wisdom. You are the best.

Lord, thank you for the gift that my husband is. I can hardly hear him because he's so far away from me, but I, I thank you Lord for his wisdom. Has it ever gone that way? No.

What we need to do is create a context in which we're cherishing our wives so that they feel loved and cherished. So that whenever we do speak to them, we do so from a position of closeness rather than distance. There are other words that Paul uses in this passage also, he speaks of how Christ sanctifies the church, which means to make her holy. He speaks about how Christ seeks to cleanse the church by the washing of water with the word.

The message, which is primarily the gospel word. Husbands, do we seek to cleanse our wives with the washing. Of the water of the gospel word. This is actually a central aspect of our husbanding, to minister the gospel word to our wives in order to nourish them and here to cleanse them.

As Tim Chaley says, the heart of your husbanding, of being a display of Christ in marriage is washing your wife by the word of God. And he then asked Men, these questions, how do you do in that area? How is your devotional life together? Do what your wife is reading in her devotions now?

When was the last time you prayed with her? When was the last time you spoke gospel words to her? There is a responsibility, guys, that's being imposed on us as we're told to love our wives the way that Christ loves the church and to cleanse our wives with the water of the gospel word. But this passage should also encourage us because it's identifying the right equipment to use.

In cleansing our wives, and that is the word, the gospel word. If you want your wife to be nourished, and cherished and cleansed and washed, then as a husband, make rich and lavish use. Of the gospel word and your relationship with her, imparting the gospel to your wife, through the words that you speak to her, and to the man that you are. Towards her as you live as an embodiment of the grace and the mercy and love of the gospel toward her.

Don't try to cleanse your wife through distance. Don't try to cleanse your wife through rebukes and insults and put downs, and even physical abuse or threats of physical abuse. Cleanse your wife. Through the gospel word, that's the powerful thing.

Ministered in the context of a tender and a close relationship with her. This is what, just think about it, man, what has Jesus done for you? Turn around and be that for your wife. Does he insult you?

Does he put you down? Does he gauge his love and say, I'll only love you to the degree that you're deserving? Be a student of Christ, be a student of the gospel, and then turn to your wife and be that. To her Cleanse her With the powerful word, the gospel word.

All right, a third instruction that Paul gives to us as husbands. So that we can love our wives in a way that is shaped by the big love story, and this brings us to our final point that we'll look at just briefly, and that is love your wife as you do yourself just as Christ does the church. In Ephesians 5:31, Paul quotes from Genesis 2:24, and he says, for this cause, a man shall leave his father and mother and shall cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one. They shall become one flesh.

Paul then says, we talked about this last week, this mystery is great, but I'm speaking with reference to Christ and the church, clearly indicating that Jesus Christ Becomes truly one. With his bride. He so identifies with his bride that he views his bride as his body. And emerging from that connection, Paul tells each husband in verse 33, to love his own wife even as himself.

And in giving this instruction, Paul is teaching us as men how to think of their wives in relation to themselves. Paul is not simply telling me to love my wife the way that I observed that I usually love myself. That's a part of the idea, but Paul is after something more fundamental than that. He's teaching me here to actually understand myself broadly enough to now include my wife inside of myself.

I am one flesh with her, so I am now to allow my ego to expand and become large enough to now include her. Inside of it To the point where I realized that in loving her, I'm loving someone who is a part. Of me We tend to think of selfish people as the ones with the big egos. They're actually the ones with the smallest egos.

Their ego is so small that they're the only ones that can fit inside of it. The truly unselfish, loving people are the ones whose ego is so large that other people fit inside of it. A loving husband is a husband who looks at his wife and sees her as a part of himself. And that in loving her, he's loving himself.

How he treats her is how he's treating himself. Many of you may remember Ron Needham, who used to be the chairman of our elder board and I believe one of the founding members of Cornerstone. Sometimes when Ron would Here a man being unduly critical of his wife or putting her down, even if he was joking. He would say to the man, why are you hitting your thumb with a hammer?

Why are you hitting your thumb with a hammer? And I heard him say that at various moments to men and they would respond by saying, what are you talking about? And he would say, your wife is a part of your body. Why would you keep hitting a part of your body like that?

This is how much Paul is wanting us to think of our wives as a part of ourselves. Paul is also wanting us husbands to feel something of an assurance and a promise here in the language that he uses here. Part of what Paul is saying is this, if you really, men, if you really love yourself, One of the best things that you can do for yourself is to love your wife. Because you will experience God's blessing as a result, regardless of what your wife may do in the short term or not.

God will bless you. And usually sooner or later, your wife. will come around to reciprocate your love. At the very least we can say that most every man who truly loves his wife as he should ends up with a better wife.

than he would have otherwise had if he had not loved her as he should. This idea actually brings us full circle. Paul has told us at the outset to love our wives with a love that betrays our selfish agenda. But here he assures us that loving our wives with that love is actually the best thing that we can do for ourselves as men.

This is why in verse 28, Paul can say he who loves his own wife loves himself. It turns out that Christ did the absolute best thing possible for himself when he chose to love the church with such sacrificial love. It turns out That self-sacrificial. Entitlement betraying love is not the end of the story.

It never is. In fact, it's the gateway to the wonderful things that come after. So love your wives, men. And keep in mind that Christ-like love is not some lame thing.

I think sometimes we men get frustrated in our marriages and we, we think about all the powerful things that we'd love to do, but then we're frustrated cause, well, I'm only allowed to use this weak thing of love. I've got a love like Christ does the church and so that's the only thing I'm allowed to do, as if that's the lame thing, as if that's the weak thing. But actually, Christ-like love is the most powerful force on earth. It literally changed the course of human history.

We date our calendars by the one man who came and showed this love to the world. And now men, you and I have a chance to exhibit this history altering love inside the context of our marriages and to show this Christ-like love to our wives. Christ-like love is the most powerful tool that you have at your disposal to do the greatest amount of good for your wife. And to bring about the blossoming.

that God wants to see in her. Ephesians 5:25-33 is a wonderful passage for husbands. If you've not memorized these verses, I would encourage you to memorize them, meditate upon them. Every time I come back to these verses, I'm dazzled by things that I see here that I never saw before.

This is our pattern for us as husbands as to how to love our wives. And the truth is that all of us, men and women, married and single, can apply this ethic. In all of our relationships, loving others the way that Christ has loved us, which is what Christ has commanded us to do anyway, right? And single guys, you don't have to wait until marriage to start loving others in this way, you could be doing that now.

Single gals you love in this way, the people that are in your life, and also keep your eye out. If it's in God's providence for you to get married for the man who will love you in this way. Speaking to the whole cornerstone body. I know that we all should want to encourage and protect the marriages within our church, and so it is well within each of our right.

And our duty to call husbands to these standards that we've looked at this morning in our church meetings, and our services, and our men's meetings and in our care groups. Let's all be faithful, not just as husbands, but let's be faithful, all of us to do our part in encouraging the men, the husbands to be loving their wives in this way. For those of us that are husbands, we've heard from the apostle Paul this morning loud and clear. His message is be comprehending, believing, and be ever mindful of the gospel as we learned last week.

Be continuously being filled by the Spirit as we learned last week until your heart is set to music. And then love, love, love. Love your wife, love your wife, Love your wife with the very love of Jesus and in the process, let your wife feel the deep music. Of the song that Christ has put in your heart.

And if you're a man here this morning and you have failed, as we all have, don't lose your song. Your sin now means your failure now means that you get to do this delicious thing called repentance. Jesus died for husbands' sins. He died for all of our sins.

And he will be pleasured to forgive you and lavish his grace upon you for all the ways that you fail as a husband. Repent of your sins, repent boldly and gladly and loudly and receive of His grace and let that grace melt your heart into deeper layers of loving obedience to Him. And to your wife Let's pray together If, if you as a man can hear this message this morning and not think of something to repent of, Then that would be very concerning. All of us should be humbled when When the love of Jesus is put before us on display with all of its beauty and glory and gravitas.

Man, don't, don't waste the opportunity this morning to respond to the Lord and say, God, I want to do better. I wanna love my wife. The way you love, and I repent of the ways that I've fallen short. Help us to repent where repentance is needed.

But never let us lose our hope. Because you are a gracious God who delights to forgive and then come alongside and help and empower us to do the very things that you call us to do. The women in our church. Our precious sisters in Christ, they belong to you, Jesus.

Help us as men to love them as we ought. May they taste Of Jesus Christ. In us from day to day. Help us to be a living embodiment of the good news, the grace and the truth and the mercy of the gospel to our wives.

With an eye toward that day when we will hand them over to you, Jesus, and say, here, she belongs to you, she's always belonged to you. And it's been a privilege. To be her partner in her journey to your throne. We thank you, Lord, for The opportunity to give of our offerings to you, we ask the Lord that you would receive the funds that we give, do much with every penny that is given for the glory of Jesus, the spread of this good news of salvation through Jesus Christ.

In whose name we pray. And all God's people said,