back to indexEphesians Bible Study Lesson 21
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Welcome to another session of our Ephesians Bible study. 00:00:14.520 |
Pray for His blessing as we jump into the text. 00:00:20.760 |
Lord, we think about all the various difficult things that we must do in our lives. 00:00:27.280 |
We think about all the various things you have blessed us with, especially our families. 00:00:33.360 |
And we pray, Father, that we would hold those gifts and blessings with great thankfulness, 00:00:43.200 |
And God, as you challenge us to be more like you, to be like Christ in the home, I pray, 00:00:49.160 |
Father, that we would be all the more inspired by your word and instruction, that we would 00:00:54.320 |
be inspired by your spirit, that God, ultimately, it would be to your glory and good pleasure 00:01:00.000 |
to see your children, Lord, build and continue to love as you do. 00:01:05.440 |
Lord, we thank you again for your instruction. 00:01:12.520 |
Well, let's jump right in and read our passage. 00:01:16.600 |
I'm gonna start from verse 21 and make our way down to verse 33. 00:01:22.800 |
And the passage says, "And be subject to one another in the fear of Christ. 00:01:27.960 |
Wives, be subject to your own husbands as to the Lord. 00:01:31.920 |
For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, he 00:01:40.400 |
But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands 00:01:46.120 |
Husbands, love your wives as, just as Christ also loved the church and gave 00:01:52.480 |
himself up for her, so that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of 00:01:57.840 |
water with the word, that he might present to himself the church in all her glory, having 00:02:03.320 |
no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she would be holy and blameless. 00:02:08.800 |
So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. 00:02:12.720 |
He who loves his own wife loves himself, for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes 00:02:18.840 |
and cherishes it just as Christ also does the church, because we are members of his 00:02:25.480 |
For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall be joined to his wife, 00:02:33.000 |
This mystery is great, but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church. 00:02:38.320 |
Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife even as himself, and 00:02:43.800 |
the wife must see to it that she respects her husband. 00:02:48.960 |
Again, we just always try to typically do a quick review and connection that when you 00:02:54.080 |
think about submission, you are placing yourself under, right? 00:02:59.520 |
And what you realize is there is a regular pattern in our lives as Christians to diminish 00:03:06.320 |
And the scriptures literally tell us in other passages to regard others as much more important 00:03:12.960 |
And the needs of others in greater priority than yourself. 00:03:16.920 |
But within that also, in the home, God has designed it that there be levels of leadership 00:03:25.160 |
And what we realize from the previous passage is that the role that God has for the husband 00:03:31.080 |
is that he should reflect Christ's headship over the church. 00:03:35.840 |
And so if we're trying to think of conceptually, how do I envision the role of the husband, 00:03:42.780 |
you should be meditating about what does it mean for Christ to be head, right? 00:03:47.920 |
What does it mean for the husband to be head of the house? 00:03:51.640 |
And all those different things, because obviously one paragraph isn't going to give you every 00:03:59.120 |
But what we realize is when we get a big vision and a picture of what we are supposed to be, 00:04:05.240 |
then all the little steps then we can think about and apply. 00:04:08.640 |
So the idea here is that the husbands have an incredibly great role to play when it comes 00:04:19.200 |
Now what's kind of funny is when I think about the role of husband and the role of wife, 00:04:23.280 |
I think about some of the weddings that I've been to and the interesting and fun, cliche-ish 00:04:29.640 |
I've heard it said, you know, a husband say, "Happy wife, happy life," right? 00:04:34.440 |
Now all of that is just a little bit of just, I guess you could say idioms that we say for 00:04:42.100 |
And another thing that I've heard at weddings is there are three rings in marriage, engagement 00:04:51.120 |
And it's like, "Ha ha," and everybody laughs. 00:04:52.920 |
And it's been a little bit overplayed, so people don't say it anymore. 00:04:56.800 |
When it comes to even the husband's role and the wife's role, I heard somebody say within 00:05:01.140 |
a wedding context that the husband is the head, but I am the neck that turns the head. 00:05:06.240 |
And everyone, "Ha ha," you know, it's pretty funny. 00:05:08.520 |
Well, when I think about that, obviously it's funny because there's an element of the human 00:05:13.480 |
observation of life and says, "Yeah, these are kind of funny. 00:05:16.640 |
I know they're not like life rules to live by, but they're just funny observations about 00:05:22.980 |
And there's another one I want to add to this because today I just want to summarize. 00:05:27.720 |
There's this little teaching and rhyme I want to say. 00:05:37.600 |
I realize within this passage, there's going to be such a significance. 00:05:44.800 |
We can't say enough about how important it is that there be strong leadership. 00:05:52.480 |
Again, we talked about every institution of man, there is some kind of leadership and 00:06:00.600 |
Well, when you think about the importance of leadership, one of the things that I mentioned 00:06:05.800 |
was whether it's a dance class, whether it's a sport and you have a coach, one of the major 00:06:11.640 |
factors that makes it so fun and one of the major factors that makes it so enjoyable and 00:06:18.120 |
one of the factors that actually makes the team or the organization work is to make sure 00:06:25.480 |
that there's strong leadership because where there is no leadership, there's going to be 00:06:30.520 |
a massive contributor to all the wrongs that we see in any kind of institution and even 00:06:38.440 |
So I can't emphasize enough how important strong leadership is. 00:06:43.520 |
And so when I think about that, actually, one of the greatest challenges that I think 00:06:49.080 |
every young man needs to hear is that at some point or another, we need to get ourselves 00:06:59.440 |
There is a temptation to not want that kind of responsibility on our shoulders. 00:07:04.720 |
There's a temptation to expect other people to lead you. 00:07:08.040 |
There are some people who want basically in the home, the other party to do their fair 00:07:13.200 |
share of decision making and just make sure that no other extra burden comes on me. 00:07:19.840 |
And I think that kind of mentality is all wrong. 00:07:22.640 |
There is this attitude that needs to be garnered, which is to say not in a prideful way, but 00:07:29.320 |
if God has so designed me to take upon this role, even if my personality doesn't lend 00:07:34.240 |
to strong leadership, or even if my life experiences doesn't naturally guide me to be a strong 00:07:46.800 |
That God has called for the husbands in the home to be example setting, role playing leaders 00:07:55.680 |
who has been given a title by Christ, an incredibly serious title to say, "You are to reflect 00:08:06.520 |
And I have both given you then the proper example, which is Christ himself, the proper 00:08:12.120 |
resources, which is the scriptures and the spirit. 00:08:14.760 |
And I've also given the commandment to those who are underneath your leadership to submit 00:08:21.000 |
I have to then as a first step say, "Okay, although I am super fallible, although I am 00:08:26.560 |
deficient in so many ways, this is a specific calling that God has given to me." 00:08:35.360 |
Now, as we continue to meditate and ask the question then about what does headship over 00:08:40.720 |
the church, what does headship over the wife, what does that mean for the husband? 00:08:45.600 |
We learned that Christ calls the husband to love like Jesus loves. 00:08:54.560 |
And he says, "Husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself 00:09:02.400 |
And the commandment is very simple that we need to be lovers. 00:09:06.880 |
And just as a immediate kind of meditation and thinking about that, I recognize the fact 00:09:14.280 |
that yes, I think what's more natural to a lot of men is we are naturally workers. 00:09:22.940 |
We are kind of naturally bent on having certain, maybe just thinking like engineers or something 00:09:30.000 |
like that to take a problem and fix it or whatever it may be. 00:09:33.680 |
But when it comes to relational love, that's an area that perhaps doesn't come as naturally. 00:09:41.360 |
And this is in such massive contrast to what has been then in the history of mankind, right? 00:09:47.760 |
Last week we described how yes, it is a difficult thing that in terms of history, we acknowledge 00:09:54.240 |
the fact that throughout history, women have been mistreated. 00:09:58.480 |
There have been sinful men who have viewed women more so like property throughout history. 00:10:04.880 |
And the thing about it is the whole shebang of the concept of what authority means, right? 00:10:09.920 |
What that should look like has been misconstrued by man without God. 00:10:14.880 |
Within God's understanding of authority, that authority is used to love. 00:10:20.080 |
That leadership is more so described and depicted as somebody who knows how to love much. 00:10:27.100 |
And it's in contrast to I think today's day, today's concept of what marriage should be. 00:10:33.080 |
Because in today's eyes, marriage should be fulfilling. 00:10:36.440 |
And so there are those who are so disappointed with marriage, they'll say certain statements 00:10:41.840 |
This marriage thing, it just failed to meet my needs." 00:10:44.900 |
And what I say again is we are looking at that picture the wrong way. 00:10:52.920 |
You know, I know we're supposed to be doing this project for our work, but man, my team 00:11:04.720 |
You go into class, you come out and you say, "You know what? 00:11:06.680 |
This class is horrible because this class does not fill my needs." 00:11:15.040 |
Do you see how this, just this command of loving the wives and exercising headship over 00:11:21.200 |
that home and exercising headship in relation to the wife, it has within a worldview which 00:11:32.080 |
And what's crazy about all this is the manner and the model by which Christ gave this commandment 00:11:37.480 |
is to say that we need to love the church as He did and gave Himself up for her. 00:11:42.480 |
You know, last week I asked an interesting question, which was, "Who do you think has 00:11:46.860 |
Who has a tougher responsibility and a tougher job? 00:11:53.320 |
And I will concede that it is arguably the sisters. 00:12:03.380 |
You're just following a shadow of the actual reality, right? 00:12:08.040 |
We said it's very difficult and last week we didn't get to talk about what are some 00:12:12.280 |
different circumstances, exceptions, are there any? 00:12:14.920 |
We didn't get to talk about all those kind of things, but we recognize the fact that 00:12:18.280 |
the responsibility to submit to a, yes, redeemed Christian man, but still in his flesh, is 00:12:27.680 |
But here, and arguably, again, the correct answer to that original question is, "Man, 00:12:35.000 |
But arguably, let's meditate and think about this command to love like Christ and to love 00:12:43.200 |
You think about the model of Christ in his incredible, lavishing, humble love. 00:12:48.440 |
I mean, just take a scroll back in Ephesians and think about chapter one and two. 00:13:00.880 |
You know, one of the things that never ceases to amaze me is to dwell and meditate on this 00:13:08.760 |
That the idea of loving us did not originate with my nagging and with my pleas and with 00:13:20.680 |
Like God's design to love, his desire to redeem wasn't because he heard us like, "What 00:13:33.040 |
The fact of the matter is we were so entrenched in our wretchedness and we were so entrenched 00:13:39.280 |
in our pride that sinful man wouldn't even cry out for help. 00:13:43.120 |
I mean, just take a moment to think about that. 00:13:46.440 |
My soul, because of the stain of sin, resists to repent even last week if I sinned. 00:13:53.920 |
To think that it was our cry for help that caused Christ to come down, that's not reality. 00:14:00.040 |
But the truth of the matter is, in these realities, Christ took the first step. 00:14:08.120 |
He initiated and from his own accord, he loved us. 00:14:12.200 |
There was nobody kicking him under the table, nobody giving him reminders. 00:14:21.200 |
The aspect of his love that is incredibly profound is his willingness to self-sacrifice 00:14:29.920 |
The wife could look at the husband and say, "Wow, you really need to learn how to die." 00:14:38.080 |
The calling for the husband is to die to self, to lay down personal preferences, rights, 00:14:44.560 |
to lay down personal priorities so that he might love his wife sacrificially as Christ 00:14:51.400 |
That he might give freely, willingly, and graciously as an encouragement to the single 00:14:59.160 |
There are ways to build up our character because essentially that element in us, a loving heart 00:15:07.080 |
that is willing to sacrifice will build character. 00:15:11.320 |
Think about how you can develop a heart that sees needs and takes the first step. 00:15:18.360 |
Think about how you can be observant to not just simply yourself and your wellbeing, but 00:15:23.440 |
the wellbeing of the people around you and actually say, "Let me do that." 00:15:32.600 |
I did it all through my college years here at Berean. 00:15:39.360 |
As a welcoming team member, you're not just the person who passes a program. 00:15:44.200 |
You're supposed to see people as they come in and be an incredible host. 00:15:50.200 |
We had some amazing welcome team members through the years and so thankful for them. 00:15:55.960 |
Back then we used to do a lot of stuff at church. 00:15:59.840 |
The education department, they would always carry the boxes because we were out of school. 00:16:04.640 |
One time I was like, "I should help," so I ran over. 00:16:09.200 |
The part of me was like, "Oh, I feel so good about helping." 00:16:11.520 |
Then there was this other moment when there was a much older sister at church. 00:16:18.840 |
I was like, "Let me get that for you," but I said it as I was a machismo guy. 00:16:29.160 |
Ladies, if a guy tries to help out, just let him do it. 00:16:43.240 |
The idea is it's better to lean for guys on the side of taking initiative. 00:16:49.880 |
Are you going to look a little cocky, a little bit like, "Oh, okay, maybe." 00:16:55.640 |
It's better than looking like you have no sight. 00:17:01.640 |
If you're so afraid, like, "I don't want to infringe. 00:17:13.400 |
Again, for me, I'm an incredibly passive guy by nature. 00:17:17.900 |
This is something for me, I just like regularly trying to remind myself, "God desires for 00:17:28.220 |
Now, so we see then this calling to love like Christ and it moves forward into other elements 00:17:38.620 |
Notice that here it's still describing Christ's love. 00:17:45.180 |
The rest of the passage, as it describes the love that a husband should show to the wife, 00:17:49.660 |
the whole time he's actually describing Christ's love at the majority of it. 00:17:54.060 |
So here, even though he's talking about the sanctifying, cleansing, all that kind of stuff, 00:17:58.380 |
you can really clearly tell he's more so talking about Christ's love for the church. 00:18:03.100 |
But moving forward, notice I highlighted for you these terms. 00:18:08.100 |
It is so that, and then verse 27, that, and then right in the middle of it, but that. 00:18:14.240 |
And all of those prepositions, excuse me, all of those prepositions help us to understand 00:18:23.900 |
that there is a purpose behind Christ's love. 00:18:28.580 |
God's love is purposeful and therefore you must love with purpose. 00:18:33.080 |
He says that His purpose is to sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water 00:18:41.500 |
His purpose is to sacrificially love for the good of the church, that the church would 00:18:53.300 |
His desire is to cleanse her of all unrighteousness, to cause the church to live in greater accordance 00:19:07.040 |
You know, sometimes I counsel people and husbands, wives, it goes both ways. 00:19:11.680 |
They start complaining about each other of how ungodly they are. 00:19:19.720 |
Start living with them and next thing you know, they're lazy. 00:19:27.400 |
Sometimes they don't, da da da da, and they're not careful with their words. 00:19:30.000 |
And you just realize people are so much more sinful than you presume, you know? 00:19:38.120 |
And then when you think about that, I want you to understand, well, it comes back to 00:19:45.300 |
Is Christ complaining about how sinful his church is, his bride is? 00:19:51.880 |
Or is he being the man and taking upon that responsibility to wash her? 00:20:00.600 |
He is going to be the greatest agent of cleansing in her life by inspiring and teaching the 00:20:08.520 |
knowledge of the scriptures and the application of the scriptures. 00:20:11.760 |
So whose responsibility is it now that you see either laziness in your spouse? 00:20:18.480 |
Whose responsibility is it now when you see that ungodliness of their words in your spouse? 00:20:26.720 |
Good leaders are not going to be just okay with ungodliness. 00:20:30.720 |
And I think this is something that is important, right? 00:20:35.000 |
Husbands has to have a level of working knowledge of the scriptures that they're able to see 00:20:39.600 |
not because of personal irritation, but because of the standard of God, that's not holy. 00:20:46.160 |
And not because of what it does to me, but more so because of what it does in relationship 00:20:54.600 |
That takes strength and courage because some people will say, "Well, I don't want to say 00:20:58.200 |
anything because man, happy wife is happy life." 00:21:03.880 |
Then all of a sudden you concede your leadership. 00:21:07.360 |
That's something that again is a huge challenge. 00:21:13.320 |
Because I would say 95% of people do not want to get into conflict. 00:21:18.120 |
But the husband should not get into conflict for his own preferences. 00:21:22.200 |
He should get into conflict for the standard of God. 00:21:28.440 |
Because look at this verse 27, "That he might present to himself the church in all her glory, 00:21:33.960 |
having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she would be holy and blameless." 00:21:45.560 |
I thought my wife was supposed to be, I thought my wife was supposed to be a help meat." 00:21:51.480 |
If you're conservative churches and you learned about husband and wife roles, they've learned 00:21:56.480 |
You're the one that comes along and you're supposed to support the husband in my endeavor 00:22:00.760 |
to be a successful, I don't know, career guy, whatever it may be, a successful lawyer, successful 00:22:07.720 |
policeman, successful educator, whatever it may be. 00:22:10.520 |
I need to make sure that I'm doing that well. 00:22:12.360 |
I need to be successful and you're supposed to come around and help me. 00:22:18.520 |
But then this picture is like all the way around, like I'm supposed to be almost supporting 00:22:22.160 |
you to be the best that God desires you to be, for you to be holy, for you to be growing. 00:22:31.120 |
It is interesting because clearly I think what this challenges us to think about is, 00:22:38.960 |
yes, the scripture already commanded the wife to submit to the husband, but the husband's 00:22:44.080 |
desire is for the good of the wife and in that way, her well-being, her godliness, her 00:22:51.360 |
holiness, he is serving that purpose and in that way he's subjecting. 00:22:58.000 |
But you know what's really interesting, the way I want to put it, is that Christ has a 00:23:05.760 |
And so husbands, let me ask you, those of you who are watching for husbands, do you 00:23:24.120 |
I want to see in my vision of my wife is to picture her in all her glory, that there would 00:23:32.520 |
not even be a spot or wrinkle or any such thing. 00:23:36.280 |
And yes, when I was studying this passage, I was like, "Ooh, we can break this down. 00:23:40.040 |
What does it mean to have no spot, no wrinkle or any such thing?" 00:23:42.480 |
And then I laughed because my mind is really simple. 00:23:44.920 |
It's like, "Maybe I should buy her that skin cream, make her glow to address those sun 00:23:50.920 |
She spent too much time in the sun playing sports or something like that." 00:23:55.800 |
At least bare minimum, you got that application down. 00:23:58.360 |
But obviously it's talking about so much more. 00:24:03.320 |
And I apologize for using this example, but I feel like maybe some guys might be like, 00:24:11.920 |
Because there are guys who have project cars. 00:24:15.200 |
They have project this, project that, project this and project that. 00:24:19.160 |
And we know what it means to get something and take it with all of its imperfections 00:24:24.240 |
and then start buffing things out and putting your elbow grease and sweat, waxing the car, 00:24:29.720 |
putting protection over it, vacuuming the insides. 00:24:32.360 |
And we do details, detail-oriented things, dusters and all that kind of stuff. 00:24:45.280 |
Sometimes after you do that work, you invest, you take a step back and you watch your project 00:24:50.840 |
And it gives you pleasure because you've invested yourself in there. 00:24:56.360 |
There are times when I counsel couples and all the wife desires is to receive that kind 00:25:01.960 |
of investment, personal attention from the wife. 00:25:09.720 |
Oh gosh, you know, like we got busy, we had kids, all that stuff. 00:25:16.440 |
Husbands need to learn to have this glorious vision for the one that they love and be able 00:25:24.120 |
to give that kind of personal investment, to show affection, to show care, to be able 00:25:29.880 |
to see where are the areas that my wife needs that support. 00:25:35.280 |
So husbands, again, you got this desire to see no spring, no wrinkle, no spot, no such 00:25:47.720 |
Because now, you know, husbands feel like sometimes men feel like, okay, I'm going to, 00:25:57.160 |
It didn't say go, you know, like train and whip them into shape. 00:26:04.400 |
Scripture many times talks about showing an instruction and giving guidance and stuff 00:26:09.440 |
And many times it's not so much manipulation or force, but it's inspiration through example. 00:26:15.440 |
You now have to think about how are you going to lead to this end goal of spiritually providing 00:26:22.360 |
For the spiritual provision as God, I mean, think about God, like God desiring to take 00:26:29.600 |
He wants you to be that pocket small group leader, so to speak in your home. 00:26:34.280 |
And you supposed to be that example setting individual who is loving the word, lead by 00:26:38.920 |
example to cherish scripture, to apply, lead by example of how you're going to deal with 00:26:45.560 |
You lead by example of how are you going to use your spare time? 00:26:49.040 |
You lead by example of how are you going to deal with that stress, the stress upon you 00:26:52.840 |
at work, you're going to come home and take it all out. 00:26:56.480 |
You lead by example of how are you going to absorb the hits of life and not retaliate. 00:27:03.240 |
I know some of us, man, we struggle with the thoughts of like, how am I going to provide 00:27:09.760 |
This here in terms of providing that spiritual personal investment, that should be at the 00:27:17.200 |
So we've learned that much that our love should be sanctifying and glorifying as husbands. 00:27:24.240 |
But next, the passage challenges us to love like you love yourself. 00:27:32.680 |
Verse 28 says, "So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies." 00:27:39.080 |
Now, so again, sometimes I sit and I just like, as I'm writing, I typically just break 00:27:45.700 |
down a verse and just start writing all my thoughts about it in each little section. 00:27:50.320 |
Part of me, I was like, well, truth be told, my body's clearly not being taken care of 00:27:55.520 |
Like I'm starting to develop a gut, I've got bad posture, I'm complaining about my bad 00:28:02.040 |
Okay, you can't give an excuse like, well, you know, I just don't care too much. 00:28:08.680 |
There is what you call an assumption of the norm here, an assumption of the norm. 00:28:15.600 |
The assumption of the norm is that we love ourselves. 00:28:19.900 |
The assumption of the norm is that in terms of who you're taking care of best, the majority 00:28:25.460 |
of individuals take care of their own bodies much, much better than anybody else. 00:28:36.100 |
If you are to love your wives as yourself, what are you supposed to be doing? 00:28:41.500 |
Now sometimes guys, I think a lot of guys, the way they think about love is like, well, 00:28:45.300 |
I buy myself a ton of toys, I'm going to buy my wife a toy, right? 00:28:48.780 |
Now if that's your application, again, very simplistic. 00:28:51.920 |
If that's your application, do it because at least you're doing something. 00:28:55.160 |
But scripture typically calls us to so much more than buying a wife toys. 00:29:03.320 |
Think about this principle and the rest of the passage, starting from verse 30. 00:29:07.740 |
In Ephesians chapter five, verse 30, the scripture says that we need to love our own wives. 00:29:13.980 |
There is this possessive, me and her are like, there's a possession there. 00:29:19.420 |
Like wives, your husband's yours and nobody else's. 00:29:23.380 |
Husbands, your wife is yours and nobody else's. 00:29:25.900 |
There is an exclusive, confined, covenantal love that guards you, the two of you. 00:29:35.980 |
Explanation is because we are members of his body. 00:29:40.700 |
For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife 00:29:48.180 |
This mystery is great, but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church. 00:29:54.260 |
What is he highlighting when he says, love your wives as your own body? 00:29:58.060 |
He's highlighting the spiritual truth that yes, you are two separate individuals coming 00:30:02.800 |
together in the holy matrimony of marriage, but there is a spiritual reality greater than 00:30:17.900 |
And it's from the beginning, the way that God has fashioned husband and wife is like 00:30:23.380 |
The principle is the Lord God fashioned into a woman, the rib, sorry, the Lord God fashioned 00:30:29.460 |
into a woman, the rib, which he had taken from the man and brought her to the man. 00:30:34.260 |
The man said, this is now bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. 00:30:39.780 |
She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. 00:30:44.180 |
For this reason, a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife and 00:30:52.020 |
And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. 00:30:56.140 |
I mean, wow, we could actually camp out there and think like, whoa, if you think about this, 00:31:05.860 |
And if you look at other passages, for example, first Corinthians chapter 11, it talks about 00:31:09.980 |
how, listen, two are different and yes, there's authority, but within this man comes from 00:31:17.140 |
the wife, but what's more, the wife came from the husband. 00:31:21.100 |
So when you think about it, there is this identity where you're bound together as one. 00:31:26.940 |
And I think we as husbands have to keep thinking on that level. 00:31:30.580 |
We are by nature and identity completely different once you're married. 00:31:37.060 |
You have to think about yourselves as one being. 00:31:41.060 |
You can't constantly think about it like, well, she's different. 00:31:48.020 |
We have to understand that we are in this desire to get married. 00:31:58.220 |
And I think when you take a look at husbands and wives who have been together for a long, 00:32:01.820 |
long time, and they've really tried, they've really tried to submit oneself to another 00:32:07.860 |
and to work together, there is a kind of mutual understanding and intimacy that's just like 00:32:16.380 |
You know it's a fruit of like long-term investment. 00:32:20.280 |
And that is not something that is just so commonplace. 00:32:25.260 |
What's the other thing about this is, again, there is an assumption. 00:32:34.980 |
Verse 29, "For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ 00:32:51.900 |
I'm going to take a quick line from one of my counseling professors. 00:32:56.300 |
He says, "You know, honestly speaking, someone may disagree with me. 00:33:03.540 |
There are people who despise themselves, so to speak. 00:33:08.900 |
But a professor used to say, "Well, I disagree, number one, because scripture says typically, 00:33:15.180 |
And if you do hate yourself, it's kind of a perverted hate." 00:33:18.220 |
What he means by this is, he said, "There was a time when he was counseling somebody 00:33:21.460 |
and that person was somebody at the school that he was already ministering at. 00:33:28.140 |
And then that individual wrestled deeply with saying, I hate myself. 00:33:33.460 |
And he took notes down and he said, okay, I'm going to have to think about this and 00:33:37.100 |
But what he recognized was that when they went out to lunch, that individual was at 00:33:40.460 |
the salad bar and they were sitting there picking the best tomatoes. 00:33:43.460 |
And then he realized, I don't know if you really hate yourself, right? 00:33:48.620 |
Because the idea is you don't stand in a buffet line picking the best tomatoes for yourself 00:33:54.460 |
Because if you did truly hate yourself, you would just go ahead and eat dirt, right? 00:33:58.820 |
But no, you feed yourself sushi, you feed yourself on buffets, and then you say, I hate 00:34:05.060 |
The idea here is this, the assumption, the assumption is that we already have such a 00:34:12.380 |
vested interest on our self-preservation and our glory. 00:34:17.420 |
And when we disappoint our own vested interest, that's when we are disappointed in ourselves. 00:34:24.820 |
Because foolishly, this generation had this weird thought that if you are to really, really 00:34:28.660 |
love your wife, then you need to first be happy in your own skin. 00:34:33.140 |
Better yet, you need to love yourself in order to love the other person. 00:34:41.020 |
It's kind of one of those, oh, pretty cool to put on the Facebook and, you know, oh, 00:34:48.940 |
When he says you need to love yourself, sorry, you need to love your wife as yourself, the 00:34:53.940 |
assumption is you already nourish your own body. 00:34:59.580 |
He says, you already nourish and you cherish your body. 00:35:08.760 |
And so likewise, you husbands, you need to learn how to nourish and cherish your wives. 00:35:14.620 |
Really briefly, what does it mean to nourish? 00:35:17.620 |
There's a lot to say about this, but just really briefly, to nourish has this intensity 00:35:26.620 |
It's an ek is the intensive part and a trefo means to nurture, to feed, to rear, to bring 00:35:32.100 |
up to maturity, such as in the case of children. 00:35:41.940 |
But surely you're supposed to nourish her just like you would nourish yourself. 00:35:50.340 |
Cherish has a literal sense where if you're using it technically, it literally means to 00:35:56.900 |
So the next time your wife talks about how cold it is, but you're like, oh my goodness, 00:36:05.020 |
Figuratively, the idea is to cherish and the passage where it's used is 1 Thessalonians 00:36:10.140 |
chapter two, it says, but we prove to be gentle among you and a nursing mother tend as a nursing 00:36:17.100 |
mother who tenderly cares for her own children. 00:36:21.660 |
Interestingly enough, there's a term here, tenderly cares means to cherish. 00:36:28.740 |
You know, I think again, one of the dangers of being in a love relationship where you 00:36:32.860 |
see each other every single day from, you know, sunup to sundown and you go home is 00:36:38.020 |
you see all the things and you're so tempted to judge the other person like, oh, oh, right. 00:36:44.500 |
You get all irritated and you get all disappointed. 00:36:47.740 |
But the thing about it is we don't do that with our kids because our kids, they're selfish. 00:36:58.140 |
Sometimes they say things in ignorance, but you don't sit there like, oh, you arrogant 00:37:14.100 |
Husbands need to learn to do that with the adult wife you have. 00:37:18.300 |
Not in any kind of condescending, patronizing, chauvinistic way. 00:37:23.980 |
Not to demean people like children, but the fact of the matter is this element I feel 00:37:29.780 |
like I, you know, just again, such a challenge. 00:37:33.300 |
How do we as husband, as men learn to cherish people? 00:37:36.900 |
And I realized some of the people that I, that I respect most, sometimes they're like 00:37:40.940 |
really like they're a man's man, you know, like they wear the same jeans. 00:37:47.060 |
They're just like simple men who are not afraid to do anything. 00:37:53.740 |
If I can do it, if I did it wrong, that's fine. 00:37:54.820 |
I can be humble and say I did it wrong, but let's do it right. 00:37:56.940 |
Like they've got that, that kind of male courage. 00:38:01.700 |
Sometimes I see how soft and tender their heart is where there's loyalty, where they, 00:38:07.660 |
they feel that association with somebody and they cling to people because they love them. 00:38:13.260 |
And sometimes I realize like, oh man, as a young man, I need to learn how to do this, 00:38:21.420 |
I think for me, I have learned over the years to detach myself very quickly. 00:38:29.540 |
So I kind of envy people who have friends from high school and college years. 00:38:33.820 |
If you're not at my church, I don't have, honestly speaking. 00:38:38.500 |
The fact of the matter is though, if we are to be more like Christ, we should have this 00:38:43.820 |
huge heart that is capable of being turned to like a mushy mother, right? 00:38:52.820 |
Mushy father to care and love for the person who is closest to you. 00:38:57.540 |
And yet a lot of times when I counsel, I find that rather than this loyalty and this cherishing, 00:39:08.800 |
Like rather than the most detailed care and I want to present you wholly, it's like I 00:39:13.900 |
have the most detailed judgment and record of your wrong. 00:39:18.500 |
And then I realized, oh, we are very far from the expectations of God. 00:39:23.980 |
My conclusion, Paul says, "Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own 00:39:32.140 |
And the wife must see to it that she respects her husband." 00:39:36.740 |
When I think about this, I think about this idea. 00:39:39.500 |
He kind of sums up and says, "Nevertheless," right? 00:39:42.940 |
You're supposed to see the other person like your own body. 00:39:46.940 |
You're supposed to have a vision for her glory. 00:39:49.660 |
They're supposed to have a vision for her sanctification and blamelessness. 00:39:53.460 |
And in all this, you're supposed to love his own wife even as himself. 00:40:00.220 |
And so he brings it in and into that circle again of saying, the kind of love you are, 00:40:05.940 |
that we have in marriage is a very unique, intimate kind of exclusive love, protected 00:40:17.620 |
And so as a challenge, again, may we all desire to really just kind of rise from whatever 00:40:27.940 |
Understandably, we always have this and fights and disagreements and blah, blah, blah, blah, 00:40:32.460 |
And understandably, you know, wives and husbands, they're going to have a hard time. 00:40:34.580 |
And understandably, we don't understand each other. 00:40:36.340 |
And understandably, we do this and that kind of stuff." 00:40:40.980 |
But man, this picture that God has given for the love, let's make sure that we have that 00:40:47.700 |
I want to conclude by this challenge from 1 Peter 3 that says, "You husbands in the 00:40:52.660 |
same way, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with someone weaker since she is a 00:40:57.940 |
woman and show her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life, so that your prayers 00:41:09.900 |
If you neglect this portion of your role as a husband to your wife, your prayers will 00:41:18.340 |
What's more, to sum up, all of you be harmonious, sympathetic, brotherly, kindhearted, and humble 00:41:24.900 |
in spirit, not returning evil for evil or insult for insult, but giving a blessing instead. 00:41:31.500 |
For you were called for the very purpose that you might inherit a blessing." 00:41:39.780 |
Lord God, you have set a glorious example by loving first. 00:41:48.900 |
For that, we can do nothing but thank you, thank you, thank you. 00:41:52.540 |
But also we do want to say, God, we long to be more like you. 00:42:02.980 |
And then truthfully speaking, Lord, if we took a moment to do a thorough evaluation, 00:42:07.540 |
oh goodness, God, we would fail in so many ways. 00:42:12.660 |
But Father God, help us not to simply be discouraged by our failures, but all the more be inspired 00:42:21.000 |
We have so much opportunity to love in greater fashion. 00:42:25.340 |
We have so much opportunity to minister to our families. 00:42:30.180 |
And I pray, Father God, that you would strengthen us by your spirit to do that. 00:42:34.220 |
Lord, I presume, Father God, that sometimes some of the most difficult scenarios of life 00:42:44.500 |
And Father, we recognize that it is a weighty blessing you have given to us. 00:42:49.100 |
And because of that, Lord, sometimes when things go wrong, the pain and the heartache 00:42:54.180 |
But I pray, Father God, that rather than being jaded, you'd grant to us a desire to apply 00:43:01.980 |
And especially strengthen all the fathers and all the husbands in the home. 00:43:06.820 |
God, that you'd grant to them not the strength of the world, not the strength of their flesh, 00:43:11.660 |
but true spiritual vision and strength of faith that God, you have called us to emulate 00:43:19.780 |
So Father, would you to that end, guide us and lead us.