Ephesians
5:26-27
Marriage
God’s Way: A Husband’s Love, Part C
Introduction:
I read about a tombstone that had
the words of a man who apparently did not enjoy marriage while he was alive:
Beneath these stones do lie,
Back to back, my wife and I!
When the last trumpet the air shall fill
If she gets up, I'll just lie still.
We have seen
that a husband’s love for his wife must 1) make him lead her, and, 2) produce
sacrifice for her. This week we are
looking at the 3rd product of a husband’s love. A Husband’s love must promote spiritual
growth in his wife.
Notice verses 26-27, “………”
Paul is giving instructions for marriage, but, he speaks
about Christ and the Church. That is
because the marriage of Christ to His Church defines marriage between a man and
a woman. It is the prototype marriage
after which every marriage is to conform to.
What do we see? We
see that the Church prospers under Christ’s love. Notice how Paul describes what the Church is
because of Christ: holy, blameless,
cleansed, washed, without stain, spot or wrinkle, radiant. The Church, the Bride, prospers under
Christ’s love. And, so, a wife should
spiritually prosper under her husband’s love.
A husband’s love must promote spiritual growth in his wife.
Love does promote spiritual growth. When there is real, biblical love, it will promote
spiritual growth. That happens in a
marriage, a family, and a church. Paul
spoke of this back in Ephesians 3:17-19.
Look back there with me.
(Read). Paul’s point is
simple: Knowing God’s love better and
better causes us to grow more and more.
Love promotes spiritual growth.
He said this again in Ephesians 4:15-16.
Wherever there is love, there is growth.
Love promotes spiritual growth.
We see this connection between love and spiritual growth
in chapter 5 verses 25 and 26. This time
it its between a husband and a wife. “Christ
loved the Church and gave Himself up for her TO…” Verse 28 says “In the same way husbands ought to
love their wives…”
The premise is simple:
love fuels our spiritual growth.
In a similar way, a wife prospers under her husband’s love.
3 Timely Reasons for promoting our wife’s
spiritual growth:
Notice in this passage that there is a progression of
time. Verse 25 is in the past, verse 26
relates to now, and verse 27 speaks of the future. This gives us 3 important perspectives on
loving our wives.
First notice verse 25 speaks of the past – Christ died for His
church. This is in the past. He already did it - He gave Himself for
her. He died for your wife men. He loved her so much He sacrificed His own
life for her. Love her because Christ
loved her and died for her.
Then in verse 26 it relates to her today in the present. Christ is sanctifying her and working in her
life today. Philippians 1:6 says “God,
who began a good work in you will continue it until the Day of our Lord Jesus
Christ.” Christ is at work in
your wife right now. Second Corinthians
3:18, “And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being
transformed into His likeness with ever-increasing glory…” His interest in her has to do with her
becoming more like Him. Our interest
therefore is also her becoming more like Him.
Finally, we don’t just look back at the past and we
don’t just look at her today. We are
supposed to be looking forward for her as well.
We are looking forward at who she will be on the day she stands in front
of her Savior. Men, we must have in our
hearts a joyful hope of her being “radiant, without stain or wrinkle or any
other blemish, holy and blameless.”
And if that is in our hearts, then we will work to help them be
everything Christ is making them to be.
Tim Chester in his book, “The Gospel-Centered Marriage” says, “We don’t love them because they are radiant,
we love them to make them radiant” (Chester, pg. 40).
3 Practical Applications for promoting our
wife’s spiritual growth:
If that is what we hope for then it is what we will work
for. Now, how do we do that? Let me offer several suggestions (see also
Chester pg40)
First, start implementing the
9 applications discussed the other week.
You can go back and listen to that message to get those 9 applications,
but, one is worth repeating here: be the
example of Christ-likeness to her. When
a husband loves his wife, he will promote her spiritual growth, and he will do
it by setting an example worth following, “Follow my example as I follow the example of
Christ.” (1 Cor. 11:1). A wife
needs to know her husband is following Christ.
First Corinthians 11:3 says, “Now I want you to realize that the head of
every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man…”
Illustration: A man once bought
a new radio, brought it home, placed it on the refrigerator, plugged it in,
turned it to WSM in Nashville (home of the Grand Ole Opry), and then pulled
all the knobs off! He had already
tuned in all he ever wanted or expected to hear. Sometimes husbands are running in ruts that
have been dug out over years of unwillingness to change. “This is how I am and that’s how it’s going
to be!”
Men we should never let our hearts become so hard and
proud. Change is the point when you
belong to Christ. His Spirit works in us
to produce change. Today we don’t look
much like Christ, tomorrow, we will start to look like Him. The day after that we will look even more
like Him.
What does this have to do with our wives? When a man lives with Christ as his head, his
wife will live with him as hers. A man
who is himself submitted to the authority of Christ is a man worth submitting
to. This means that we as husbands must
be ourselves what Christ desires her to be.
A consistent godly example in front of his wife is a very attractive
thing for her to follow. As we said last
week, when our wives know we are following Christ there is nowhere they will
not follow us.
But, from time to time there is the tendency of a husband
to blame his lack of spiritual growth on his wife, “If she weren’t the way she is then I wouldn’t be like I am.” That’s not leading, and, that’s not
loving. When a husband loves his wife,
he will lead by setting an example worth following. He should be able to say to his wife what
Paul said in Philippians 4:9, “Whatever you have learned or received or
heard from me, or seen in me – put it into practice.”
Second, a husband promotes
his wife’s spiritual growth by the word of God.
Notice what verse 26 says, “to make her holy, cleansing her by the
washing with water through the word”.
A husband promoting his wife’s growth is making God’s word central in
the home. The Scriptures need to be a primary part of the marriage. Husbands
lead their wives in learning the Bible and living by it. Decisions for the family need Biblical
precedents. Everyone in the home should
see that the direction that the home is going is guided by the light of
Scripture. The culture in the
family-flock is shaped by God’s Word.
I think the target of 1 Corinthians
14:35 is husbands just as much as it is wives.
Paul says, “If a wife wants to inquire about something she should ask her own
husband at home…”
There’s a lot going on in this passage, but, before any man would
memorize this verse on his wife’s behalf we need to see what Paul is
saying. I think a key part of that verse
is “at home”. A husband needs to have
the ability to answer questions about the faith that his wife may have. There is a confidence our family should have
in us that should be second nature for them – a confidence that the leader of
the home will have the answer, or, he will make it a priority to find it. This means that a husband’s concern is that
he is understanding Scripture so that he can lead and help his wife so that she
does as well. Again, this is based on
creation. God created Adam first and
gave Adam the command before Eve was created.
Adam passed the command of God to his wife. He explained what God said.
This doesn’t mean that we write a
sermon for our wives each week and preach to her. It does mean that we take an interest in what
she is reading and learning. What is she
getting out of sermons and her own reading of the Bible? It does mean that conversations about God’s
Word are going on. It means we share
with her what we are reading and learning.
It means that God’s Word is taken seriously to shape our perspectives
about what’s going on our lives. It
means wrestling with passages together to figure out how to apply God’s Word to
your lives. It means mutually
challenging each other in areas of growth.
It means encouraging her in areas she needs encouragement in. Paul said to the Christians in Rome in Romans
1:11-12, “I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to
make you strong – that is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by
each other’s faith.” Husbands
and wives should be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith. A husband promotes his wife’s spiritual
growth by God’s Word.
Third, when promoting his
wife’s spiritual growth, a husband should devote himself to prayer. A husband
is the Head of his home. This means that
he is also the Pastor and Priest of his home.
Prayer, therefore, is one of his primary duties. It is one of the most effective means for
promoting spiritual growth in his home. Perhaps
you’ve heard that saying, “A couple that
prays together is a couple that stays together.” I made one up myself: “A
marriage without prayer is a marriage without a prayer.”
Now we have to ask ourselves, what is Jesus Christ
constantly doing for His Bride while He is in heaven? Romans 8:Just as Christ prays continually for
His Bride, so husbands pray for theirs.
A husband who prays is a husband who prays both with his
wife and for his wife. On the one hand
she is his prayer partner, and, by praying together they pray for one another’s
needs. On the other hand, he prays for
her in his own time as well. He is known by her as a man of prayer because he
involves her in prayer regularly and she knows he prays when she’s not
around. First Peter 3:7b and 1
Corinthians 7:5…
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