Well, good morning, Cross of Grace. I'd like to invite you guys to open up your Bibles to Ephesians chapter 5, starting in verse 25. Church, my name is Alec. I serve as one of the deacons here on staff at Cross of Grace. Some of the functions that I serve in at the church are just overseeing our community groups as well as our Sunday teams, so all of our volunteers, just helping people get plugged in at the church.
Let's jump into the passage. Ephesians chapter 5, starting in verse 25.
Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way, husbands, love your wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself, for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.
However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.
Father, we thank you for your word. Lord, all throughout our week we hear chatter and chatter and chatter But Lord, today we get to stand under your word or to hear your voice. So Father, give us eyes to see clearly. Lord, give us ears to hear rightly what it is that you have for us today in this passage.
Lord, thank you for being with us. Lord, thank you for your great love for us. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Well, church, I would like to introduce you to someone named Bob.
Bob is a husband. Bob is a father. Bob loves the Lord. Bob is someone at work that his coworkers can rely on. He's a dependable guy, gets things done.
Bob loves to be productive. He loves responsibility. Bob also serves in his church. He loves to volunteer. He's a guy in the church that other men look up to for discipleship.
Everyone loves Bob. But Bob is also a man who has struggles in his marriage. He often feels that as a husband, he is not doing enough to be the spiritual leader in the home. Or he doesn't think that what he's doing is good. Feels like the target is always moving and he can't seem to hit it.
And he can be discouraged. All the confidence that Bob has in the workplace and in the church seems to disappear as soon as he enters into his home.
Husbands, perhaps you, like myself, can relate to Bob. In one way or another. And oftentimes we are just unsure, how do we lead our wives? How do we love our wives? Sometimes we can feel this sort of pressure about whether we're doing it well, doing it right or not.
And sometimes as that pressure builds up, we see some common ways that men, that husbands respond. Don't we?
And bear with me, my wife and I have been watching a lot of Marvel movies lately, so this illustration I think is helpful. But on one end of the spectrum, we have husband number 1, who I'm calling Hulk mode, Hulk husband, right? On this end of the spectrum, we get the husband who responds to this pressure by claiming control. And when he claims control, everything just gets destroyed, right? This is the husband who gets in the driver's seat and says that all the decisions become my way or the highway, out of my way.
Any sort of input from his wife, he feels threatened.
This is a husband that when he gets into Hulk mode, it's destructive.
The environment in the home becomes tense and unstable. But on the other end of the spectrum, the other extreme, we have Bruce Banner mode. Now, for those of you who are like, "Who's Bruce Banner?" When the Hulk is not the big, scary, green monster guy, he turns into Bruce Banner, the nerdy scientist who is brilliant. But if you remember, if you recall in the movie "The Age of Ultron," At the very end, Bruce Banner, the Hulk, retreats, and everyone's like, "Where'd this guy go?" This is the opposite end of the spectrum. This is a husband who, upon hearing the plea from his wife to be the spiritual leader, retreats, throws in the towel, gives up.
He pulls away at the things that seem too much. Are too overwhelming to him. He may be home, but he's an empty shell of the man his wife married. Anything brought to him from his wife is met with a, "Eh, sure, yeah, we'll do that." There's never any follow-up or follow-through, right? It's just a simple brush to get his wife to leave him be.
On this end of the spectrum, We have a passive, disinterested, and removed husband who has retreated from his role as the husband. Both are clearly sinful and wrong, right? And we've all been husbands on one of those spectrums, if not both of them.
6 · Establishes the sermon's main thesis by contrasting the two destructive patterns with Christ as the third way, then exposits the sacrificial nature of Christ's love through historical context, theological exposition, and cross-references to Matthew and Galatians
But our text today introduces a third type of husband. We want a husband who looks to Christ to learn how Christ loved His church.
A husband who looks to Christ to learn what it means to love, to lead, and to serve his wife. So church, what I hope you walk away with today is this: how Jesus loves His church is how husbands are to love their wives. How Jesus loves His church is how husbands— that's how we are to love our wives. We're going to look at two examples of how Jesus loved His Church, as well as just— we're going to conclude and wrap up with some application. But the first example of how Christ loves, point number one: husbands love as Christ loved the church.
Verse 25: husbands "Love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her." Have you ever heard something that was just so strange or bizarre or maybe even just rude that it forced you to, like, cock your head to the side and you're like, "Can you say that again? Like, I don't know if I heard you quite clearly." This, the first two words of verse 25, "Husbands," love would have been received that way during the time of this writing. The culture in that day taught that the husband was to rule his wife. The wife was seen as someone to help supplement her husband's greatness, to help her husband be elevated. The wife was not someone with a lot of freedoms.
She was almost, some people say, like a slave in that day, all for the good of her husband. Most of the time marriages were arranged and brought together for almost like a business transaction to help that husband politically. It was not mutual love or romance that brought a husband and wife together.
What Scripture introduces to us still is countercultural like it was back in that day. Husbands, love your wives. And then Paul continues and tells us how: as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her. Now I just want to take a brief pause and just get us to take a quick step back, because today we're going to be talking a lot about husbands. But before we do that, I want to make sure that the whole church is understanding what Paul is laying out here when he talks about how Christ loved the church.
My hope is that the truths that are to be laid out right now freshly affect your heart. Paul is using a simile in verse 25 to connect a husband's love to something, Jesus' love for his church. Church, look at our example. Look at Christ. Jesus, the one who has all authority, the one who has all knowledge, the one who has all rule and dominion, laid all of these things aside to give himself up.
Another way to put it is Jesus gave himself over to death.
He did this on a cross. Suffering the most painful, agonizing, and humiliating death known to mankind. But not just the physical brutality of being nailed to a piece of wood, not just the precursory beatings that happened before the hanging on the cross, but the overall absorption of God's justice, of God's wrath toward the one who knew no sin, but became sin for us. Jesus' giving up of himself relates to the death on the cross in many New Testament references. He says in Matthew 20:28 that the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many.
Galatians says that grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins.
The kind of love Jesus loved with was sacrificial love. Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.
7 · Identifies the church (the 'her' of verse 25) as all believers and contrasts the church's pre-salvation condition—described in Ephesians 2 as dead, sinful, and alienated—with the unworthiness of Christ's love recipients
Notice who the her is. That is us, his church. That's husbands, that's wives, that's our singles, all who profess and claim Christ as their Lord and Savior.
He gave up his whole self for you, for us.
Look at how we were described in Ephesians 2. We were sinful, disobedient, hopeless, dead in our trespasses and sins, alienated, impure. These are not the kind of words that you would type into a dating app. I'm looking for someone who's dead dead in their trespasses. Someone who's disobedient, wrathful.
Probably not common tags you would use in a search engine. But this is who Jesus aimed His sacrificial love toward. Us.
8 · Exposits verses 26-27 to show that Christ's sacrificial love had a purpose—to sanctify, cleanse, and present the church to himself in splendor—and cross-references Ephesians 1 to demonstrate the totality of spiritual blessings believers receive in Christ
And His sacrificial love had a purpose. Turn your eyes to verse 26.
That He might sanctify her. Having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. What is the result of Jesus' sacrificial love on the cross? Guys, remember Ephesians chapter 1. In Christ.
We have every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. In Christ, we were chosen before the foundation of the world. In Christ, we were made holy and blameless, adopted as children, redeemed and forgiven. Listen, Jesus didn't give himself up when we were cleaned up pretty and lovely. No.
He gave himself over to death so that his church would be cleaned up pretty and lovely, presented in splendor. Jesus loved sacrificially for his church's flourishing.
9 · Pastoral reflection on the universal human attraction to sacrificial love, using cultural examples to make Christ's sacrifice emotionally accessible, and appealing to Hebrews 12:2 to show that Christ's sacrifice was motivated by joy in the church's future flourishing
How does that fall on you today?
I hope that truth hasn't grown stale in your heart. But I hope instead it makes you just want to worship and thank the Lord for his goodness for us.
There's something within all of us that draws us towards sacrificial love, right? Whenever we read a novel and we see the main character give his life up for the good of everyone else, there's something in us that's like, "Yes, that's good." Or when we watch a movie and the superhero lays down all his strength and power for for the good of everyone else, something in us is like, "That a boy!" Or that a girl if you watch Captain Marvel.
In war, when soldiers pay the ultimate sacrifice, we feel a connection to that person. We feel a gratitude to that person because of what they gave up and for who they gave it up for. Jesus' sacrificial death on the cross was his death, but it brought us life. All of Jesus was emptied so that his bride would flourish. All of his power, knowledge, strength laid aside for our good.
Guys, there is a very positive tone when you read this passage. Jesus isn't just like, oh man, these guys are filthy, I gotta clean them up. Oh man, Hebrews 12:2 He endured the cross. Jesus saw what was beyond the sacrifice. It was the joy of seeing us sanctified by the Spirit being presented to him one day.
10 · Pivots from the exposition of Christ's love for the church back to the application for husbands, summarizing the imitative principle
Husbands, let me bring this back to you. The way Jesus loved you is how you are called to love your wives. Wife. We are to exert our energy, our efforts for our wife's flourishing.
11 · Anticipates the objection that dying to self is too hard and responds with Jesus' paradoxical teaching from Matthew 16:25 that losing one's life for Christ's sake is the path to finding true life
You may be sitting there and you're like, but wait, Alec, come on, dying to myself all the time?
That sounds hard. That sounds painful. I don't know if I want to do that.
What Jesus says in Matthew 16:25, for whoever would save his life would will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
12 · Anticipates and directly refutes the objection that lack of feelings toward one's wife excuses disobedience, asserting instead that obedient action precedes and produces affection
You may be sitting here thinking, Alec, I just don't have any good feelings towards my wife anymore. Through all the years of resentment and anger and bitterness, all those feelings have been moved and pushed to the side. Husbands, lacking the feelings of love, is never, never a valid excuse for neglecting the actions of love.
One more time, husbands, lacking the feelings of love is never an excuse for neglecting the actions of love that we are to aim towards our wives. When we obey God's word and begin to love our wives sacrificially, I promise you the feelings will follow, but feelings should never trump our obedience to God's word.
13 · Historical example from 1990s China of a Christian farmer who, upon conversion and reading Ephesians 5:25, began literally carrying his paralyzed wife everywhere as an act of sacrificial obedience, resulting in restored mutual love and her conversion to Christianity
I was talking to Chuck the other day about this story that happened in China. I believe it was in the '90s, but there was a husband and a wife who were brought together in an arranged marriage, and this was a kind of marriage that neither of them wanted to be in this marriage. It was a marriage full of resentfulness.
Anger towards one another. They didn't like each other. It was one of those marriages. And the wife in this marriage was paralyzed from the waist down. So all the work he had to do on the farm was by himself.
It made life more difficult. And what happened one day is a handful of missionaries came through his area and they shared the gospel with this Chinese farmer. And the farmer became a Christian. So what did he do next? He started to read the Bible, and he came across Ephesians 5:25, "Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her." He really wanted to take his faith seriously, and he began to wonder, what are some ways that I can love my wife?
I want to love my wife the way Christ has loved me. And so he did something radical. He did something that he had never done before, and he decided from this day forward, everywhere I go, I will carry my wife with me. And so he would take her through the marketplaces with him. He would take her all throughout the property on the farm, all throughout the house.
He would just carry his wife for her.
And this is amazing. What happened is as he began doing that, just obeying God's word, he started to love his wife again. And then those feelings that were just hidden and pushed deep down, and just by sacrificing himself for the good of his wife, the love started to come back. And not only that, but as her husband would carry her, as she looked at just the sweat on his face, moving everywhere, carrying her all throughout the town, she began to love her husband again.
I can only imagine what his calves and quads looked like.
But not only did she begin to love her husband, but because of his sacrificial example, she became a Christian.
14 · Theological assertion that obedience is powered not by feelings but by Scripture and the indwelling Spirit
Husbands, see, it's not the feelings that drive us to love our wives. What drives us as husbands is the Word of God and the Holy Spirit that is within us.
15 · Pastoral interruption to prevent guilt and self-condemnation, reminding husbands of God's mercy and reframing failure as learning opportunity rather than defeat
And I just want to say very briefly, there may— I talked to a few husbands after the first service and some were just like, "Ah, put me on blast, man, that one hurt." Like, "Ah." That was rough. Husbands, we just sang His mercy is more. We just sang no more guilt to carry.
It was finished on the cross. So husbands, we don't win or lose. We win or we learn because we serve a God who takes all of our messiness, all of our failures, and uses it for our good. So husbands, hear me out. Please don't just beat yourself up today.
Instead, see your need for the Lord's help as a husband. It's so easy to do that.
16 · Summarizes the first point's application: husbands are to imitate Christ's sacrificial love for the church in their love for their wives, and promises joy as the result of obedience by God's grace
So our application from point 1, husbands, because Christ loved sacrificially for you and your good, you are to love sacrificially for the good of your wife. And by God's grace, when we do this, it brings us so much joy.
17 · Signals structural transition to the sermon's second major point: husbands loving their wives as their own bodies
In addition to loving our wives sacrificially as Christ loved the church, Paul lays out a second example for us.
Point number 2, husbands love as their own bodies.
18 · Exposits Ephesians 5:28-30, contrasting the impossibility of Christ's love (first simile) with the universal human experience of self-care (second simile), and applies Paul's logic that husbands must direct the same awareness and care toward their wives as they do toward their own bodies
Verse 28, in the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself, for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body.
Paul is very clever here in what he does. He first paints the first simile as something that just seems impossible to do, something that is the greatest love laid down ever in mankind's history. So he brings us here, but then he points us out in verse 28 to a love that we are all very, very familiar with. A love that is directed at ourselves. We can all feel that desire and that pull to worship the unholy trinity of me, myself, and I, right?
But the truth is, we all have an awareness of our needs, of our body's needs, and we are constantly monitoring them. We know when we're hungry, we know when we're thirsty, we know when we need sleep, we know what brings us joy, what irritates us. We are constantly monitoring ourselves and our body's needs, and Paul pushes on that. And Paul says, the same thought and energy and love that you aim towards yourself is the same thought and energy and love you need to direct at your wife.
19 · Connects sacrificial love to concrete service, identifies service as the first step of spiritual leadership, and grounds this in Jesus' self-description in Mark 10:45 as one who came to serve and give his life
Man. So rather than being aware of our needs and how others can help ourselves be loved, we need to be aware of our wife's needs and serve her. You'll notice throughout the Gospels that service and sacrifice go hand in hand. So remember Hulk and Bruce Banner, the two types of husbands who are on the opposite ends of the spectrum, just wondering, man, how do we do this? We've seen that that way just doesn't work.
It's destructive, it's hurtful. And spiritual leadership can be very broad, and it could be intimidating. It's like, what exactly does that mean? I want to point us to the first step of spiritual leadership today. But we learn from Jesus in Mark 10:45 that he modeled this perfectly for us.
He says that the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many.
20 · Outlines three benefits of adopting a servant mindset toward one's wife: developing outward focus (shifting from self-centered planning to wife-centered service), growing in intentionality (sustained motivation from seeing her flourish), and experiencing pressure relief (freedom from the burden of isolated self-sufficiency)
Husbands, when we serve, when we have that mindset of how do I just serve my wife, how do I love my wife by serving her, there are 3 really unique benefits that happen. First, we develop an outward focus, right? No longer do we have to just sit here and be like, all right, what's my plan? What's my strategy?
How am I going to be the spiritual leader for my wife and my family? But instead, we just look at, how do I serve my wife? What is going to bring her flourishing? What will be a blessing to her? We don't have to think about ourselves on this island and try to just come up with something.
We just simply serve our wives. The second benefit we see is it helps us be more intentional. We grow in our intentionality. When we give ourselves up for our wives and we see her flourishing, we just want to keep doing it. It's fuel.
It keeps us going because we are getting to do something that is much greater than ourselves. We begin to want to know, how can I maximize my wife's opportunities for her to use her gifts? How can I help her grow spiritually as a daughter of a king? Right? Intentionality.
I always link to this phrase. Being a student of your wife. Husbands, you have an amazing opportunity every day to learn more about the woman that God has given you. That's amazing.
And lastly, the third benefit is the pressure disappears. It goes away. The pressure that Bruce Banner and the Hulk and that we as husbands can sometimes feel seems to dissipate when we just focus on our wife instead of what we can do, right? Because then we become freed up to do what Christ did for us, which was lay down our lives for our wife's good. No drawing boards, no plans, no strategies.
And I'm saying, well, you can have plans and strategies for how you want to serve your wife, but there's no more of this What do I need to do to help my family? There's no more of like, it's just on me. It's, oh man, I get to view it as I get to serve my wife, right?
21 · Reiterates the analogy between self-care and wife-care, then introduces the two operative verbs from verse 29—'nourishes' and 'cherishes'—beginning with a definition of 'nourish' as helping something grow or meeting a lacking need
Husbands, the way we often want to serve ourselves, that's how we are to love and serve our wives. Paul continues in this section with two unique words.
He says in verse 29, for no one ever hated his own flesh, but here are two words, but nourishes and cherishes it. Just as Christ does the church. That first word, nourish, means to simply help something grow or to meet a need that is lacking.
22 · Applies the concept of 'nourish' by drawing on earlier exposition (verses 25-26) to show how husbands nourish their wives: sacrificial love for their good, fostering an environment for holiness (e
We see this throughout our passage, a few hints of how we can nourish our wives. Verse 25, he starts right off the bat, husbands, love your wives sacrificially for their good.
Verse 26, he talks about sanctifying. Now husbands, that is not our role. We cannot be the ones that sanctify our wives. That is only the Holy Spirit. But as husbands, we can foster an environment that encourages and promotes our wife's holiness.
Man, and that can look— that can present itself in many, many different ways. But maybe a small example is just, honey, give me the next 30 minutes to put the kids down while you read your Bible and pray and journal. Promoting holiness in our wives. We want to encourage that as husbands. Also, he says in verse 26, washing with the word.
The core idea is that as husbands, we need to let the word of God be a present voice in our homes.
23 · Personal testimony from a church member (Sandy Marquette) whose husband committed to 'water her with the Word' daily by reading a Psalm or Proverb together nightly, offered as a concrete example of nourishing wives with Scripture
Man, it's been so great. I've been walking around, going to some of our different community groups throughout the town, and I was in the northeast with the Bars and the Parris's group, and Sandy Marquette just shared She just said, yeah, my husband just came up to me one day and said, honey, I just want to water you with the Word every day of my life as your husband. And what that looked like for them was just every night just going through a Psalm or a Proverb. Guys, we could do that, right? We can do that.
As husbands, we need to nourish ourselves with God's Word and help our wives by pointing them to the words that bring us life, to Scripture. A regular diet of Scripture is the responsibility of the husband and a key way to remind our wives of God's goodness.
24 · Defines 'cherish' using dictionary meanings (treasure, hold dearly, cultivate care and affection), then applies it by contrasting the attention husbands give to hobbies with the greater attention wives deserve as treasures, and argues that knowing a wife deeply is prerequisite to serving her well
Now that second word Paul uses is cherish. Husbands, man, I love how Paul includes these words because at this point you're just like, oh man, I just gotta die, die, die, die all to myself, like just keep Dying, but no, Paul adds, man, part of that dying is this amazing opportunity to cherish our wives.
That word cherish in the dictionary has a few different definitions, but to name a few, it's to treasure, to hold dearly, to cultivate care and affection. The bottom line is, the things that we cherish, husbands, are the things that receive our attention.
Husbands, we all have things we cherish. Sports, working out, working on cars, cooking, whatever that may be. How much more so do we need to be cherishing our wives? How much more so? Our wives are far more important.
They are far more valuable and absolutely worthy of our attention. Our wives are a treasure to us. We must, husbands, learn about her joys, learn about her strengths, learn about her weaknesses, what drains her, what fuels her, what serves her, because if we don't know these things about our wives, How can we help her flourish into who God has created her to be? How can we learn how to serve her best?
25 · Historical example of theologian Wayne Grudem who, motivated by Ephesians 5:28, sacrificed professional prestige and recognition by leaving Trinity Seminary for a smaller Phoenix seminary so his wife's health could improve in Arizona's drier climate
Many of you may be familiar with Dr. Wayne Grudem.
Dr. Grudem is a theologian, author of 20+ books. If you are holding an ESV Bible in your hand, you can thank Dr. Grudem. He served as part of the translation oversight committee And if you also have an ESV Study Bible, you can thank him for that too. He was the general editor of that committee. So he was serving on staff in a prominent role at Trinity Seminary up in Chicago.
And in the 1990s, his wife was diagnosed with fibromyalgia. She lived in constant, unbearable chronic pain. And to this day, there's still no cure for that. He and his wife went on a few vacation trips out in Mesa, Arizona, and they noticed that every time they were there, her health would improve dramatically in the drier climate. One day they found in the Yellow Book pages a seminary that was hiring in Phoenix, Arizona.
It wasn't a large seminary, it had 3 full-time faculty members And it was quite the contrast to all the well-known seminaries located in the Midwest, along the East Coast, and in the southern part of the U.S. But this move, this potential move, would mean that his work might become less recognizable in the scholarly world. It meant that the awards that he was so often receiving may become less and less by moving to Phoenix, but it also meant that his wife's health could improve. And he thought, if I was in this sort of pain and I knew that there was something I could do to help, he's like, I would do it. And in his regular quiet time with the Lord, one morning he opened up to Ephesians 5:28.
And the deadline was approaching for when he had to make a decision And that morning solidified what had to be done. Ephesians 5:28, "In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself." So after 20 years of teaching at Trinity, Dr. Grudem and his wife moved to Phoenix Seminary in 2001.
26 · Summarizes the application of verses 28-29 by calling husbands to daily intentionality in learning about and serving their wives, redirecting self-focused energy toward wife-focused care
Husbands, every day, is an opportunity to be a student of your wife. Every day, you get to learn more about how can I serve this daughter of a king?
Every day. And the amount of energy and thought that we put to ourselves, God's word is telling us we need to aim that towards her.
27 · Signals transition to the sermon's final point: the cosmic, gospel-displaying purpose of marriage
When we love our wives, man, we point our marriages to something far more beautiful and astonishing and amazing. Our last point, what your marriage points to.
28 · Exposits Ephesians 5:31-33 to argue that marriage is not merely a private relationship but a public display of Christ's love for the church, visible to family, neighbors, and the watching world, and that every act of forgiveness, grace, and sacrifice in marriage points to the gospel
Verse 31, therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself.
And let the wife see that she respects her husband.
Husbands, if you think your marriage is just about you and your wife, your marriage needs to be broadened. Your view of marriage is too narrow. Your marriage is meant to be a display of Jesus's love for his people. People. So in your marriage, you are displaying what God has done on the cross for his people to one another, your spouse.
You are displaying that to your family. You're displaying it to your neighbors, to the parents of the kids' sports teams. You are displaying what Jesus has done on the cross for the world. Your marriage is much much bigger than just you and your wife.
And every time we display forgiveness, grace, self-giving sacrifice, cherishing, nurturing, and unity, and we're pointing to something much better than us, much greater than us. We're pointing to a love that the whole world is hungering for. We are casting a light into a dark world who just wants a taste of that love that Jesus offers for us. Your marriages, they're purposeful, they're meaningful. Yes, husbands, we're gonna make mistakes.
We got a lot of 'em. But the Lord is so good to use our mistakes for our good and for his glory.
29 · Signals transition to closing application section before communion
So just a few application points before we end in our time with communion.
30 · First application for husbands: imitate Christ by devouring and enjoying God's Word, learning to love by understanding the depths of Christ's love revealed in Scripture
Husbands, you're up first. Imitate Jesus as a beloved child, Ephesians 5:1.
Imitate Jesus as a beloved child. Learn how to love by devouring his word and understanding the depths of his love for you through this amazing love letter that he's given us.
But as John, I don't know if you guys have met John, but as John says, don't just devour God's word. And he said this as he was watching my daughter just demolish her donut the other day. He's like, this is something we can learn. He said, we don't wanna just devour God's word, we wanna enjoy it too. As husbands, imitate Christ as a beloved child through his word.
31 · Second application for husbands: be a student of your wife by learning her needs, asking how to serve her, praying with and for her, with a personal example of structured weekly prayer themes (Marriage Mondays, Toddler Tuesday)
Second, husbands, be a student of your wife. Your wife is the most precious treasure that you have. She is a gift from the Lord. Spend your days learning how to serve her, how to cherish her, how to nurture her.
And ask her, how can I serve you? Pray with her, pray for her. And maybe this is like graspable for you, but for my wife and I, we're definitely not perfect at it by any means, But we just, I'm very simple, I'm like, we gotta like make this easy for me so I can just remember it. But Mondays we just pray for our marriage, it's Marriage Mondays. Tuesdays we pray for our kids, our toddlers, Toddler Tuesday.
I know, you're like, wow, this guy's a genius. But just do, serve your wife, talk to her of like, how can I serve you, how can I love you in a way that's meeting her language?
32 · Third application for husbands: humbly ask for help from the Lord, from male friends, and from their wives
And lastly, husbands, humbly ask for help. Husbands, we need help. We need a lot of help.
Ask for help from the Lord, from a friend, and most importantly, your wife.
33 · Grounds the call to ask for help theologically in Ephesians 5:18 (Spirit-filling), then provides three concrete avenues for help: asking God via the Spirit's empowerment, seeking counsel from other husbands in the church, and asking one's wife directly for feedback
Remember, before this passage, Paul says in Ephesians 5:18, be filled with the Spirit. Husbands, we can love our wives this much, but when we're filled with God's life-giving Spirit, we love our wives like this much. Far greater than we could ever love her on our own strength, right? So let's ask God for his help.
Secondly, find a husband in this church. Say, hey man, can we just grab coffee? I just want to share where I'm stuck, or I just want— how did you handle this in your marriage? Learn from someone in the church that you respect and admire. And lastly, husbands, go on a date with your wife and just ask her, "Hey, how am I serving you well?
What are areas I can improve on?" Right? Ask your wife. I'm sure she'd love to engage in a conversation like that.
34 · Signals transition to application for wives by inviting them to recognize the weight of the husband's calling
Man.
See the load that your husband has to carry. See this great responsibility that's been placed on him.
35 · Application for wives: (1) humbly provide strength where husbands are weak, asking God for the desire if lacking; (2) encourage husbands when they do well, with personal testimony about the motivating power of Amanda's encouragement
Humbly provide strength where he's weak. And if you're just not feeling like doing that, ask the Lord to just give you a desire to help your husband.
Second point, this might be probably the most important one for our wives. Encourage your husbands when they do something well. Please, wives, you have no idea how encouraging that is for a husband. Man, when Amanda just says, "Hey, I noticed you've been working on this. I really appreciate it." Oh my gosh, man.
It's almost like the Energizer Bunny. I'm ready to keep doing it more 'cause I just love serving my wife. But I'm not perfect at it. But wives, let them know, hey, you're doing a great job. I see it, I appreciate it, thank you, I love you, right?
So wives, encourage them and don't be slow to point out the good things that they're doing.
36 · Application for singles: (1) single men should prepare for marriage by developing self-sacrificing habits now; (2) single women should look for a man who loves the Lord and is ready to lay down his life for her; (3) all singles should support their married friends by checking in and encouraging them
Singles, this is a passage that's in our Bibles for all of us. This is not just a passage that's in the Bibles for married people. This is for all of us. And if the Lord desires for you to be married one day, men, see the standard for how Christ is calling us to love our wives.
If you are ready to die to yourself repeatedly for the good of someone else, you might be ready for marriage.
Begin developing habits now for the good of someone else. Keep serving other people. Keep loving other people. Be outward-focused. Ladies, look for a man who loves and fears the Lord, who is ready to lay down his life for you in ways that point you to Jesus.
Regardless if you ever get married or not, Help your married friends honor their spouses. Marriage is very, very hard. Check in on your friends, encourage them in their marriages.
37 · Concluding summary reiterating the main thesis: husbands are to imitate Jesus Christ, not the destructive extremes of the Hulk or Bruce Banner
So husbands, to wrap it up, Ephesians 5:25-33 gives us an amazing example, an amazing teacher in Jesus Christ. Jesus teaches us to love our wives sacrificially for their good.
Let us look to imitate Jesus, not the Hulk, not Bruce Banner, but Jesus Christ.
38 · Transitions to communion by inviting the congregation to reflect on Christ's sacrificial love
So in a moment, we're gonna take communion, but before we do that, I just wanna encourage you in our time of communion to just reflect on Jesus's great love for you, how he laid everything aside, how he gave himself over to death for you. Reflect on that.
39 · Final pastoral appeal to husbands before communion: if feelings are restraining love for one's wife, confess it and reflect on Christ's obedience-driven love, not feelings-driven love, that took him to the cross
And Chuck said so well at the worship night that if you love and know Jesus more today than you did a year ago, that is the continued work of the Holy Spirit in your life, sanctifying you, making you look more and more like Christ. Husbands, just a particular burden for you.
If you are restraining your love towards your wife because of how you feel. I want to encourage you to confess that to the Lord and to reflect on Jesus' love for you. It wasn't Jesus' feelings that took him to the cross. It was his obedience to God's will and his tremendous love for you.
40 · Closing prayer asking God to pour out grace on marriages and husbands, to fill husbands with the Spirit, and to empower them to lead and serve sacrificially in response to God's love
Church, let's pray.
Father, we ask that you pour out your grace on our marriages. Lord, we ask that you pour out your grace on our husbands. Father, we see that it is a tough task, but Lord, we also see your goodness that it is not a task that we do alone. Lord, you've given us a helper, not only in our wives but with your Spirit. So Father, I just pray that this week, or from this day forward, you continue filling our husbands up with your Spirit.
Lord, helping them to lead sacrificially. Lord, helping them to just wanna serve their wives, Lord, because of how you have served and loved us. Lord, we thank you for your word. We thank you that we get to gather as a church family to hear what you have for us. We pray these things in Jesus' name, amen.
41 · Communion preparation: invites the congregation to confess sin by quoting Psalm 51's language of mercy, transgressions, iniquity, and cleansing
Before we take communion, we want to pause to consider our need for the cross. Psalm 51 says, have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love, according to your abundant mercy. Blot out my transgressions, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. So let's take a moment to consider how we have rebelled against God this week.
42 · Assurance of pardon: quotes Titus 3 to declare that God saved us by his mercy, through regeneration and renewal by the Spirit, justifying us by grace so that we might become heirs of eternal life
The Bible also offers assurance of pardon, though. In Titus 3, it says, but when the goodness and loving-kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and the renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. The cross is sufficient.
43 · Communion fencing: quotes 1 Corinthians to warn against unworthy participation, calls for self-examination, invites believers to the Table, and gently invites unbelievers to observe and consider Christ
The Bible goes on to say in 1 Corinthians, whoever therefore eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup.
For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. So let's take a moment to examine our hearts. If you have believed in the name of Jesus and are a Christian, you're part of the family. We invite you to partake of this family meal. If you're not a Christian, if you're not part of the family, we ask that you merely observe But also consider what might be holding you back from putting your faith in Christ, and then put your faith in Christ, become part of the family, and then take communion with us to celebrate.
44 · Communion liturgy: recites the Words of Institution from the Last Supper, distributes the elements, and invites the congregation to stand and respond in song
So let's take the bread, take the elements. The Lord Jesus, on the night of his arrest, took bread, and after giving thanks to God, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, take, eat, this is my body given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.
In the same way, he took the cup, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant sealed in my blood, shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. Whenever you drink it, do this in remembrance of me.' Drink the cup.
Every time you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the saving death of the risen Lord until he comes. With thanksgiving, let us offer God our grateful praise. Let's stand.
Would you stand as we respond in song?
We've been reminded this morning of God's mercy in Christ, both in our marriages and just generally in life.