Ephesians 5:25-33
Marriage God's Way, A Husband's Love, Part A
***Includes 9 Practical Suggestions for leading as a husband***
In our sermons lately we are looking at Ephesians 5:22-33...the famous marriage passage. The series is called: Marriage God’s
Way. What does the Bible say
about husbands? Who are we? What do we do? Why?
Looking at Ephesians 5:25 we see that the chief characteristic of a husband is
love. Look with me at the verse, “Husbands,
love your wives, just as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself up for
her.” Then notice verse 28, “In
the same way, husbands ought to love their wives…” Then in verse 33, “However, each of you also must love
his wife…”
Illustration: A while back there was a
lawyer named Joseph H. Choate. He was
known to be a real gentleman and to have a quick wit. This made him a favorite for journalists to
quote. Someone once asked him, "Mr. Choate, if you were not yourself,
who would you most like to be?"
Without a
second's hesitation Choate replied, "Mrs. Choate's second husband."
Husbands are to
be known by their love. God is known by
love, He is love (1 John 4:8).
Christians are to be known by love (John 13:35). Husbands are to be known to by their wives
for their love.
Do our wives know
us by our love, men? I should create an
environment of love. She should be
surrounded by my love; she should know without a doubt that I love her. We are the primary picture to her of Christ’s
love for her, “...love your wives just as Christ loved the Church…”
You know what
that means? That means we as husbands
are the vehicle by which Christ wants to show our wives His love for them. That is both a responsibility to Christ, but,
it is also an incredible privilege to represent Him. Let us live worthy of our calling as
Christians (4:1), and, let us be husbands worthy of Christ.
We looked hard at
a wife’s submission last week. But, we
as husband’s need to understand this:
Love makes submission safe. Your
love for her tells her it’s safe to submit to you. If you’re saying, “My wife doesn’t submit to me!” then the first thing you should
examine is your love for her. Your love
drives out any fear she may have of submitting to you. First John 4:18 says, “Perfect love drives out fear…”
But I’m not
talking about any ole definition of love.
I’m talking about Biblical love. I
want us to look at 4 Biblical marks of a husband’s love. You’ll notice there in the passage that the
word “love” is a verb. It’s an
action. Saying “I love you” isn’t what Paul is talking about here. Now, wives need to hear that, and hear it
often. But, it needs to be constantly
reinforced with action. This Ephesians
5:25 kind of love is love in action.
It’s the “Honey, I’m showing you I
love you” kind of love. So let’s
look at 4 things that must be going on for us husbands to really be loving like
Christ.
The
first Mark of a husband’s love is that his love makes him lead. A Husband’s love must make him lead. This is evident from verses 22-24,
(Read). A husband’s love must make him
lead his wife.
Leading
does not mean lording it over her.
Biblical leadership, whether in the church or in the home, is never
lording. Turn with me to Mark 10:42-43a. Leading God’s way is never
lording. Ephesians 5 never tells a
husband to force his wife submit to him.
I was talking to someone last week and they made a great statement about
this issue: “Leading your wife doesn’t mean bossing her around, but, being the kind
of husband that inspires her to be the best wife she can be.”
If
you’re going to be that kind of husband, it means rather than lording it over
her, and treating her like your servant, you become her servant. Leading her means serving her. Let’s look at some practical suggestions for
leading:
#1: Be the example of Christ-likeness to
her. We can’t live expecting more from
our wives than we expect from ourselves.
She needs to see us having a sincere desire for God’s glory and pursuing
Christ-likeness for ourselves. Paul said
to his followers, “imitate me because I imitate Christ” (1 Cor. 11:1). Husbands should lead this way. Model godliness to your wife. This means that you don’t wait for her to
grow first, you start growing yourself.
#2:
Set the tone in your home with your attitude. Is your house going to be one of
irritability, tension, resentment, laziness, ungratefulness? Or, is it going to be a home characterized by
peace, loving-kindness, humility, and gratefulness? Husband’s lead by setting the tone with their
attitude in the home.
#3:
Be diligent about taking care of household things. I saw a funny saying one time that went like
this: “Women, if a man says he’ll fix it he will: there is no need to remind him every six
months about it.” We laugh at that,
but, a husband needs to pro-actively give attention to the home. It can create quite a bit of frustration and
insecurity in a wife whose husband doesn’t do this. Ecclesiastes 10:18 says, “When
a man is lazy the rafters sag; if his hands are idle, the house leaks.” Take out the trash. Fix the sink.
Pay the bills. Help with the
dishes.
***It
doesn’t matter who manages the money, vacuums, takes out the trash, etc. As husbands we just need to make sure it is
getting done. Rather than just ignoring
them, we need to sit down with our wives and pro-actively plan how these things
will get done.
#4:
Be pro-active and initiate attention to relationship issues. Do not ignore or avoid issues in the marriage
that need to be dealt with. Take the
initiative and bring them up. We need to
show our wives that she matters, and that the quality of the marriage matters
by talking about the marriage. If we
care, we will talk about it. Nothing
says we don’t care more than silence.
Last week I talked about a wife’s need to be silent and not nag. If we want to help her out in that, then we
need to be giving attention to relationship issues. Is there an offense that needs to be
resolved? Is there a discipline issue
with the kids? Whatever it is, pay
attention and give attention to what’s going on in your marriage. Proverbs says “Pay careful attention to your
flocks..” Husbands are the
shepherds of their own homes, and, we need to pay attention to the flock under
our roof.
#5:
Provide an atmosphere of safe communication. Non-communication and bad communication has
been the death of many marriages. A wife
needs to know that she can trust you so much that she can talk to you about
anything. A wife should not live in fear
of her husband’s reaction – flying off the handle, exploding, criticizing,
putting down, dismissing, ignoring and so on.
A wife should live in confidence that her husband will listen to her,
care about what she is saying, and genuinely try to please her regarding what
she is saying. You create trust by
giving her a safe environment to talk.
If my wife isn’t talking to me then I am not loving her the way Christ
loves the Church. What makes an
environment safe is love. Your love
creates trust. My love should give her
every reason to trust me. You set the
tone in your home.
#6:
Respect her both publicly and privately.
In other words, do not put your wife down, talk down about her,
disrespect her, or be dismissive of her in front of others. And don’t do it in private either. In private means at home with your family,
and it means when you’re all by yourself.
It means don’t dishonor your wife
to yourself. Don’t run spiteful thoughts
over and over again in your mind. Your
mind should have every thought captive and obedient to Christ (2 Cor.
10:5). Your mind should be set on the
things of the Spirit, which is life (Rom 8).
Your mind should be honoring her above yourself (Phil. 2:4). Discipline your mind to honor your wife.
***You
may be angry over something she said or did.
You may be heated after an argument.
You may want to put her in her place and show her how bad she is. You may want to withdraw. You may want to be very unkind to her in your
speech. But none of this is a license to
stop loving her. Her flaws do not mean
you don’t have to love her. Christ’s
love for us is not based on our perfection - because we are not perfect. His love for us is unconditional. He loved us beyond our flaws, failures and
weaknesses. He loved us even though we
aren’t much to look at ourselves. He loved us even though we certainly did not
and have not lived up to His love.
Therefore, if that is how Christ loved us, and this is how He commands
us to love our wives, then that is how we should love them. I would say that loving like Christ loves
isn’t actually occurring until we are faced with our wife’s weaknesses and
flaws. In other words, when her weaknesses
and insecurities and flaws surface I need to surround her with love. Our love for our wives does not depend on them
being perfect. Her flaws are more
reasons why I should love her.
#7:
Have integrity. In other words,
be at home what you present to the public.
Would your wife’s testimony of who you are at home be the same as the
public’s testimony of who you are? As
men we seem to think that at home we can give less consideration to our
families as we would a stranger, or, a fellow-church member. Many children have grown up resenting parents
who weren’t everything they pretended to be in church. Let none of us have wives who resent us for
living a double-life, one at home and one in public.
#8: Make decisions. Do not defer decisions that your wife is
looking to you for leadership on. Do not
neglect making decisions. Take ownership
of your responsibility to lead in decision making for your home.
How will you discipline the kids?
How will you prioritize your time?
How will you spend your money? Do
your wife and kids get you out of bed and drag you to church, or, do you get
everyone going? What media is allowed in
your home? Friendships, activities,
clothing, devotions, etc. - Are you making decisions regarding children’s
education and so on. Regardless of what
is going on in your home, are you leading the decisions about what is going on?
#9:
Be humble. Be able to admit when
you’re wrong. Nothing shows true
leadership more than when you can admit you’re wrong. When we act like we’re perfect, even though
everyone else in the home knows we’re not, we are cooking up trouble. Be humble.
If you lead the way in this, it will teach everyone else in the home the
right way to respond when they are in the wrong, and, it will make it safe to
do so.
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