As we spent some time last week
dealing with the submission of wives unto their husbands. Some husbands went home, I'm
sure, after last service and said, see, I've been telling
you, you should have listened to the pastor. I'm tired of telling
you this. Our whole marriage, I've been
telling you, you need to submit, you need to obey, you need to submit, you need
to obey. And I told you, brothers, that your time in the Son was
coming and today it is. And so we are here now so that
for the next three Sundays your spouses can go see. I told you
you should listen. I don't make a joke of the thing,
but it is funny because we who profess Christ often forget that
Christ is indeed the Lord of our homes. The Lord of our marriage. The Lord of our children. Christ
is the Lord of his church, and Christ has has put into play
and put into the picture of the church and of the home, the gospel
of himself. God has established these these
institutions so that he would be seen clearly. And and as we
come today to the husband, we have to be careful because just
as I said that the simile or the metaphor, if you will, as
The church obeys Christ or submits to Christ so the wife submits
to her own husband. It's supposed to be that way.
It's the picture. But what we don't want to do
is just to go to such extremes. That means that in every way,
the church submits to Christ in some sense, that we take it
to a place that the Scripture doesn't call for it. For example,
when the husband wants the wife to obey in a way that is contrary
to Scripture, you're not to obey like that. You're not to submit.
We're not to submit when the Word of God is clearly against
that, just like when Paul says in Romans 13 to submit or subject
yourselves to the governing authorities that have been established by
God. But we are not so simplicit to think that if the government
says for us to kill our children, that we kill our children. Or
if the government says for us to pay for abortions, that we
pay for abortions. But then yet, then God, Jesus
himself says to give the Caesar what is Caesar's. So there's
not an easy way to deal with some text of the Bible yesterday
in our. Elder training, we we dealt with
some hermeneutical issues and one of those dealt with that
in particular and that we cannot take a metaphor or a simile or
a shadow or a tie to radical extremes, but we must understand
that there's some intrinsic complexities when it comes to the word of
God. And so such is what will happen here when we get to the
parallel of the husband and Jesus. Because what husbands like to
do is husbands like to say, yes, I'm like Jesus. Worship me. Bow down to me. Do what I say. I'm Jesus. And then it's not,
I'm like Jesus. I am Jesus. And the wife looks
and they see a husband that's saying he's Jesus, but he looks
like the devil. And so there's this big dichotomy boiling in
the home. So I want to try to help fix
that a little bit today. That was bugging me. So in that,
what I want you to understand as we go here is that the husband,
the reason it's going to take a few more weeks than just the
one sermon is, well, he's going to preach to the wives one time
and he's going to tear us a new one. But you know, the reality
is, is that Paul deals a little bit more at length with the understanding
of the headship of the home and the headship of the church than
he does with the church. Why? Because the picture of the
gospel in the marriage is supposed to point to that which is most
important, which is Christ. Now, the husband is not most
important in the marriage. The husband is indeed one flesh
with his wife. They are equal in dignity. They
are equal in affection. They are equal in redemption.
They are different in role and responsibility. They are different
in the picture. There is no hierarchy of lording
in a marriage, but rather there is a picture of the Lord in the
marriage. It's a big difference. And so
as we look today, turn to Ephesians 5 and let's look at what we've
already seen starting in verse 21. And for those of you who
haven't been here for the last two or three weeks, I would highly
suggest you go back and listen to the last two weeks of sermons
specifically because it'll help build. There's about two hours
of introduction to this sermon. So get ready for that. So you
may feel a little bit OK, and I'm not following. That's OK.
I can't preach everything all the way like I want it because
it's just not possible. So today it may seem you may
seem a loss. You may not. I hope you're not.
I pray that you're not. Either way, the content will be the
same in regard to how it affects the marriage. So in verse twenty
one of Ephesians five, We see the word submitting to one another. The command there in that sentence
is to be filled with the Spirit of God, submitting to one another
out of reverence for Christ. And so we spent a whole. couple
of weeks dealing with that. So the command is to be filled
with the Spirit of God. And the outcome of the filling
of the Spirit of God is that we submit to one another out
of reverence for Christ. The issue there, as we see in
the prologue and introduction to the letter, is that the church
is to be about praising the grace and the glory of God. So we are
to be about the praise of His glorious grace. And so because
of that, because the church is supposed to display and reflect
the grace of God and the glory of God and the power of God and
the beauty of God and the beauty of Christ and the gospel, therefore,
the marriage is also in the same way supposed to do that. And
so what we know is that we submit to one another as siblings in
the Lord. We are subject to one another.
But then Paul is not saying, that we're just in a mutual submission
relationship in the marriage. I want you to see that it is
not there and it is wrong to say that the husband has been
commanded to submit to the wife because in verse twenty one,
we're supposed to submit to one another out of reverence for
Christ. So as my sister, my wife, I submit to her in the sisterhood,
but I am not going to submit to her as a wife. It's backwards,
it's messed up. And you might go, well, I'm confused. You should be confused. Just
as though as the elders in the church are charged for overseeing
and ruling the church as the chief shepherd is Jesus Christ,
but yet I'm still a brother to you and we submit to one another
in brotherhood and sisterhood. But yet God has established a
role and responsibility for me as an elder and other men who
will soon be elders in this church to govern the church. And we
oversee the church. Not under compulsion and not
lording over, but gently correcting and teaching. And sometimes when
we govern, we say things that are going to hurt your feelings
because the Bible hurts your feelings. And the same thing would be true
is in the sense of brothers and sisters in the church. Sometimes
some of them may come up to you and you whine about some sin
in your life and you whine. And I'm not going to make fun
of people who whine. We all whine, which is a sin. Do all things
without grumbling and complaining. Why? So that you would show as
a light that you're a new creation and a crooked and wicked generation.
We're supposed to be the light of the world, not the disco ball. We're not just supposed to sit
there and drum to the same beat as the rest of the people of
the world. Christians are empowered to love one another supernaturally
through the gospel of Jesus Christ, through His glory, And if we
don't love each other, we're liars. We're absolute liars.
We are not going to heaven. We do not have the Spirit of
God in us. We do not have eternal life. Christ is not our Lord.
He's some puppet on a string that we've shoved up the rear
end of our own desire. And we think we have Him in a
package to carry Him to the gates of heaven and say, I got Jesus
in here. Let me in. And He's not going to let you
in. Maybe a little graphic in the image there, but that's how
I feel about it. Because that's where some of
that stuff comes from, right out of our butts. Isn't that
an idiom that we understand? Got the kids' attention. We do not have eternal life if
we do not love one another. Period. And oh, how I wanted to jump
up today and just say, and by the way, some of you were liars,
you know, this morning. But I didn't. That wasn't my
time. That's okay. You're wicked when you don't
love. You're wicked when you don't submit. You're wicked when
you don't die. And if we continue to be wicked, John says, if you
profess to walk in the light, but you walk in darkness, that
you're a liar and the truth is not in you. Friends, that is evident,
not because of your love for God, but it's evident because
of your love for the brethren. It's evident for your obedience
to Christ. It's evident that you love God by your love for
his word. And it is not a burden to you.
You do not get up and go, man, I hate having to do this. You
obey with joy because you're free to obey. Don't you understand
that when Christ saves you, he frees you to obey him? You are
no longer bound to sin. You're no longer bound to the
flesh. You're no longer dead, rotting in the corpse of decay
and depravity. But you are alive in Christ.
For He's taken the substance of your judgment on Himself,
and God has destroyed Him. And you're forgiven. Nobody continues to practice
sinfulness and strive for sinfulness who is rebirthed. It doesn't work. And I get really,
really hard here. I promise you, this is my least
favorite place to preach in Ephesians, so I have to preach it passionately.
Why is it my least? Because I don't want to be told
this. I don't want to reflect as I sit here and say, I'm going
to tell all these men out there I love their wives. And I have to commit
to checking myself against what I'm about to say. And I hate
that. I hate that. But it's what the
Word of God does. It is going to fill us up with
conviction and then it's going to help us to stand under that
because Christ has taken it. And so, brothers and sisters,
as you find yourself today waning, and you will, it is about continuing
to persevere in the pursuit of righteousness in the power of
the cross that you will be presented blameless and spotless before
God. Let us not follow the traditions of our day or the days before
us or the days before them. Let us see the Word of God clearly.
And be as the Bereans, look at what I teach you today and understand
clearly that if you disagree, check it. And if what you believe
is not what you read, then who's wrong? God is wrong. No, you
are wrong. If I say something that's not
here, who's wrong? I am wrong. Check that which
you hear, not against traditions, not against the writings of our
forefathers, but against the word active in living and breathing
in your heart that has been made new by Christ. Not the heart
of the flesh, but the heart of the spirit. And so let's look
at this text submitting to one another is the action of worship. It's the action of being filled
with the spirit of God. And so we saw that if we're not
submitting, it means that we're not filled with the spirit of
God or that we're not worshiping Christ both in and the same,
I believe. And then wives, verse 22, submit. And we know there that the phrase
is submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ,
wives to your own husbands as to the Lord. And that means you
submit to him when he's wicked, when he's mean, when he's nasty
and when he's gross. When he's unloving, when he's
uncaring, when he's un-Christlike. That's what we do. Lots. And
people go, that's not right. That's feminism. If you think
that's not right, you're a feminist, not a Christian. Be careful.
Write it down. I am a feminist. And then scratch
it out. I want to be right with God. It doesn't mean you can't
have feministic ideals. I have feministic ideals. I don't
like that before I saw what it was. We live in a different world
today. We live in a world where women
ought to have equal authority. They're equal, but in the marriage
they're not in role and authority. Why? Because God has established
that way. But they're equal in glory. They're equal in all ways.
They're, matter of fact, the same thing in flesh. They're
the same person. Husband and wife are one body.
It's one person. But yet there is an establishment of The woman,
the wife submitting not to all men. It does not say that. I
remind you of that, ladies. It does not say wives submit
to all men. It does not say women submit
to all men. It says wives submit to your
own husbands. As to Christ. For verse twenty
three, the husband is the head of the wife, even as in the present
active, even as Christ is the head of the church, his body
and himself its savior. Now, as the church submits to
Christ, so also wives submit everything to their husbands.
And that's what we dealt with last week. And so now we get
to come to verse twenty five and we come to a place that we
go, yee haw. Now, what do we do? What we can't
do is wives can't say, well, unless you do this, I'm not doing
this. And husbands can't say, well, unless you do that, I'm
not doing this. You can't do that. If you're filled with the
Spirit of God, if you love the Lord Jesus Christ, wives, you'll
submit. Husbands, you'll love. That's
what it says. Look at it. Husbands, love your
wife as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her,
that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of
water in the Word, so that He might present her The church
to himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or blemish. She
might be holy. 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 it and cherishes it just as Christ does the church,
because we are members of. Excuse me, of his body, therefore,
A man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast
to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh." And this mystery
is profound, and I'm saying that it refers to Christ and the church.
So you see why I've got two more weeks. Because what I want you to see
here is that wives are to submit to their husbands. And if you
look on down a little bit, what does it say? Verse 33. However, let each one of you
love his wife as himself and let his wife, let the wife see
that she respects her husband. And so that's a closing statement. It's a recapitulation. Love your
wife as yourself and wife, respect your husband. So submitting is
bound up in respect and honor and obedience. And love is bound up in what
we just saw here, and I want to show it to you. Love. And next week, maybe I will go
to First Corinthians 13 and just deal with love as Paul paints
it for them. There were unloving people and
he painted it for them. And so I want you to see today
that love as commanded by God, this isn't a suggestion. Understand
that the headship of the home is not an option. Do you hear
this? It's a really bad thing for anyone
to say, husband, you should be the head of your home. That's
dumb. That's like opening up your head
and going, hey, that gray matter, you should be the brain. It is
the brain. The question is, are you using it? Husband, you are
the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the church. So it's not an option. It's not,
are you the head? It's, are you a godly head? Are you a Christlike head? Are
you the devil's head? Which are you? Because you're
either one or the other. You're not an almost godly husband.
You're not halfway there. You're not sometimes. You're
either a godly head of your home or you're the head of your home
that is wrecking your home and wrecking the gospel and wrecking
the church and wrecking the world. So you are the head husband.
And the scripture says, love your wife, husband, the word
there, andross, head. Head. Love your wives. So we all go, well, I love my
wife. I feel love for her dearly. Feelings got nothing to do with
anything. Nothing at all. Emotional love
is not love at all. Jesus says there's no greater
love than this, that a man lay down his life for his brother.
And I'll talk about that in a minute. John, Jesus says to Nicodemus
in John 3, God loved the world in this way. That's what it means.
So love in the manner of love. God so loved the world that he
gave his only son. So God loved the world in this
way that he gave his son to what to be killed. To be killed, and
so now the love God is love. God is who describes love. Love doesn't describe God. Because,
see, we think love is something different than it is. We come
to the idea of thinking, yes, I feel emotionally attached,
or I feel loving toward that person. Let them spit in your
face. How do you feel? Nah. Don't lie. Well, I still
love them. No, you don't love them. I don't
care who it is. The cutest little baby in the
world, if it picks up a hammer and says, shut up, and hits you
in the head, for just a split second, you're going to think,
I'm going to choke it. Little terrible twos, and terrible
threes, and what is that? Feral fours, and you come on
up. What is it at 15? Frightening
15? I don't know. Silly 16? What is it when we're 50? Or
70? I don't know what it is, but
there's always a reason to not love somebody. There's always
a cause to not love somebody. Romans 5, 8, for God, while we
were enemies, loved us. There's a reason. for us to not
be loved. But God loved us in the way that
He loved us. Do you think God has affection,
emotional driven affection, for wickedness? No! No! God does not love anything
that is wicked. So, what do we do with love? Love your lives! Love your wife. How? As Christ loved the church. Oh, so Jesus loves the church. See, see, we have a extreme. See, one thing about the psychology
of learning is when you have a belief system that's already
established, you everybody has a belief system from birth to
whatever. to Bert the Billion, we have
a belief system that is formed in us every moment of every day
and it's continually changing and all. But the older we get,
the harder the foundation of what we believe is true is there. Now, the weird thing about it,
and I love this part of thinking about how people think about
thinking, is this, is that we don't think about our belief
system. It's just there. Like, none of
us are timing our breaths right now. You ever actually started
thinking about breathing? It almost hurts. Or blinking? You ever thought
about blinking? Am I blinking? And then all of
a sudden you're blinking all the time. And you can't stop. And then
your eyes water. And then they're dry. Now I'm going to do it. It just
happens. Our belief system is that same
way. It's there. It's planted. It's got roots. And the roots
go out to everything that we are. And we just sort of hold
on to it. And if somebody says, hey, tractor trailer, our belief
system has a play with that. And so then when we hear words,
that belief system conjoins with the words and subconsciously
it creates an image in our mind which creates emotion and the
emotion drives our feet and arms and legs and our thoughts and
then we consciously act respond or plan to do what we do. And so there is, in a sense,
a very short, cheap, free PhD in psychology and learning. So
here we go in that regard. So let's just think about that
for a minute. What is your belief system about love? What is your
belief system about Christ? How did Christ love the church?
And see, we're all thinking bad. We're thinking bad because some
of us are thinking, well, He healed them and He cried for them and
He hugged them and He kissed them and hugged them and named
them George. You know, what is that old cartoon? Pet him and pat
him. And we've got this weird, bizarre,
Americanized, white, blue-eyed, blonde-haired, hippie Jesus. We've got this picture of Jesus.
And I've got friends who are Chinese and they've got this
short and yellow skin and black haired slanted eyed Jesus with
a big thing on His head like this. What is that thing called? I don't remember. It doesn't
matter. And then other cultures have
a Jesus. There's a black Jesus and there's a green Jesus and
there's a Hispanic Jesus. I saw a Hispanic Jesus. Crazy
he had blue eyes in the picture. It's sort of weird. And I've
seen renditions of Palestinian Jesus, which He was Palestinian.
He was Nazarene. He was a Jew from Palestine. That's where they lived. We have this idea. We have been
impressed in our belief system. So when you think about it, when
you think about God, when you think about love, we have that
and it's all working within us and we don't realize it. And
so we've got to learn to step out of that for a minute and
go, why do I believe that? Where did I get that? And even when
I see what the Scripture teaches me, am I willing to do war with
that that I believe that the Scripture is telling me so that
I might have the right understanding of love? Husbands, love your
wife as Christ loved the church. Well, see, the good thing about
what the Bible does is the Bible is not a philosophical book.
The Bible is not going to leave us hanging there to propose what
Paul might be trying to say. But Paul then lays it very clearly
out for us. He said, love your wives as Christ
loved the church and gave himself up for her. Gave himself up for her. Oh, now we're thinking, that
isn't love. That's not how I love. Because
in my marriage, my wife does what I say. And she better. That's what we're thinking. Is
that giving ourselves up? If I want to buy that, I buy
that. I give her permission to buy
that. What does Proverbs 31 talk about?
A woman who makes a lot of money for her family. Buying fields and selling them.
Buying fields, growing a vineyard, selling the grapes, selling the
wine. Buying scarlet, making clothes, selling them at the
gates. Buying clothes, doing this. Making bedspreads for a
family in scarlet, not knapsack. Scarlet. Wow. You know what I was taught as
a child? That a woman should never work. Ever. Even in the
home, shouldn't work. I'm not saying from my mom now.
That woman works. But that's the culture. There's
old men that always sat up, that you always looked at and you
wonder if their ears were really that big or if they have a prosthetic. You
know when you're little kids, you think about that and you
look at them and you're like, wow. And then they turn around and talk,
hey boy. And their ears are wobbling.
Don't ever let your woman work. It's bad for them. Keep them
in check. Lock them in the closet on your
way to work. Let them out when you get home and if supper ain't
cooked through the wall, beat her. I mean, you know, that's
the attitude of generations past. That's not loving your wife as
Christ loved the church, who gave himself up for her. So let's
look at two things. Let's look at the character of
Jesus' love for the church. That's what I want to do. And
then I want to look at the cost of Jesus' love to the church.
And then I want us to compare and then we move into next week
to see if we as husbands indeed love that way. Well, the character
of Jesus love, Jesus love, and these aren't necessarily organized
specifically, but Jesus love. Let's look. So he 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 blameless without blemish.
In the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own
bodies, he who loves his wife, loves himself. Does Jesus love
himself? Absolutely. Do you know who Jesus
loves more than himself? The Father. Do you know who he
loves more than the Father? Nothing. Sorry, folks, we come
in a good third. Do you know who God loves more
than himself? Nothing. Because he's most lovable. He's
most deserving of that statement has got me in trouble more than
anything I've ever said from a pulpit. And it enrages people. God loves Himself more than He
will ever love us. But even in that, God loves us
in the way of giving His Son to die for us who are unlovable. In the same way, husband, love
your wife. So let's think about the character
of the love of Christ. Christ, who is God, lowered himself to the earth,
created a womb in a young girl named Mary, created the womb and was born
from it, and then was born. Now, I don't even want to talk
about birth. But I subject to you that
the God-infant Jesus in His humanity was as aware as any other human
in here about birth. Unaware. God establishes it. You know, even when a child is
turned the wrong way, it still turns and cocks its head back
the right way when it comes out of the birth canal. It's a miracle. I can't wait till November to
see another birth. It's going to be beautiful. It's
great. Maybe not so, but either way,
I think it's a miracle. I'm not saying that the infant
Jesus had conscious thought, but God, the God infant, experienced
birth. What's that mean? I don't know,
and I'd rather not deal with it. Why? Just something to consider. Jesus left glory and was born. Making himself like a normal
child. Making himself just like everybody
else. Except that his father was the
Spirit. And he was not born in sin. And his mother was a virgin. So Jesus lowered himself to earth
out of glory. Do we love our wives like that?
You know what most men want? Glory. You know what Jesus did? He removed Himself from glory. Another character of the love
of Jesus for the church is that Jesus then submitted to the will
of the Father. Jesus lowered Himself from glory to earth. He removed Himself from glory. He loved the church, so He removed
Himself from glory. He loved the church, so He submitted
to the Father. This is the God of the universe.
walking amongst creation that He made, saying, I'm here to
love you. Come to Me. And they spit on
Him. He came to His own and His own
did not receive Him. And He looks out over Jerusalem and He weeps.
He bawls His eyes out. The very nature of that text
talks about the weeping of Jesus. He's not sitting there with a
little tear Oh, that was a little touching. He's weeping because of the unbelief of Israel. The unbelief of the Pharisees
and the Sadducees, the unbelief of the Jews, and Jesus is so
in love. Let me tell you now, be very
careful. Listen to this whole sermon.
With his church, knowing full well that so many would not be
of it, and it still weeps Him. It still grieves Him. He wept. And He submitted. Do you know what? I believe the
human Jesus because He's perfect. He had love for His enemies.
He had love for His friends. He had love for the sheep. And
He had love for the goats. I believe had Jesus had a free
opportunity, a free, sinful, rebellious heart, and had not
submitted to the Father, Jesus would have tried to save everybody. He would have told the Father,
I don't care if they believe it or not, I'm saving them. You
see what I mean? This is just thinking. You see
how our belief systems can really mess up? Just think. Jesus loved
the church by submitting Himself to the will of the Father, which
was to come and seek and save the lost. We see in John 6 that
Jesus could not save anyone except the ones that the Father gave
Him. You see that? He was sent by the Father to
do the will of the Father for the love of the sheep. So the
sheep that are saved are the ones that the Father wants to
be saved. And I'm not sitting here, I'm
not going to deal with these doctrinal things today. We've got some
people who aren't here today because of this. But the Scripture teaches in
verbal language that no one comes to Christ except the Father will
it and grants it and push them in there. And if the Father pushes
them, Jesus grabs them. And if Jesus grabs them, nothing
can take them away. That's what the Scripture teaches. The character of Jesus' love
for the Church is that He submitted to the will of the Father. Husbands,
do you submit to the will of God? Do you submit to the will
of the Church? I mean, of the cross. Do you
submit to the will of the Word? Do you submit to the will of
God through the Word of God? And then the next thing that
I think is the character of Jesus' love of the church is Jesus obeyed
the law of God. Not only did He come from glory,
but He subjected Himself to the will of the Father, but He obeyed
the law of God. Jesus fully fulfilled all the
righteous requirements of the law. You know what that means?
That every fiber of Jesus' DNA loved the Father beyond all measure. And He obeyed Him beyond all
measure. He obeyed beyond obedience. That everything Jesus did, none
of it was for His own desire or His own flesh or His own glory
or His own passion. Jesus' passion was to be the
passion for the will of God. Do you see that? John 5. John 5 and the discourse with
the woman from Sychar, Samaritan. unclean, capital crime, talking
to a woman who is a Samaritan, who's not his wife. It could
be very, very ugly for him. And he asked her for water. And
she says, why do you ask me for water? You're a Jew. And he said,
if you knew who was asking you, you'd ask him and he'd give you
living water. And it would well up to eternal life. And then
that big discourse happens and then she can't see. And then
Jesus says, see, and she sees and she goes and she says, behold,
I met a man that told me everything I've ever done. Now, he didn't
do that, but he did do that. And his disciples came back and
they marveled. See, he was a rabbi. They would
dare not rebuke him, but they marveled that he was talking
to this woman. They were perplexed, puzzled. The same marvel that
happened in John 3 when Jesus said, you've got to be born again.
And Nicodemus goes, I can't. I'm too big. I can't go into
my mother's womb and come out again. I don't understand that.
Neither did this woman until Jesus told her to see. Look at
me. See me. And she saw. And they came back
and they said, do you want some food to Jesus? See, this is something
we miss. You want some food? And Jesus
says, I have food that you know not of. What? And they can see that He has
no food. And you know what they say? Who gave Him something to
eat? They didn't say that to Him.
They went over in the circle. And they're like, he's lost his mind.
He's talking to this woman. He's about to drink out of her
pitcher. He says he's got food. There's
no food. This guy's lost. We need to call the doctor. Where's
Luke? I mean, you know, something's wrong with Jesus. And Jesus says,
I have food that you know not of, for My food is to do the
will of the Father, the will of the One who sent Me. Do you
see that? In other words, everything that Jesus desired as a human
being was to do that which God desired of Him, period. So even
when it came to food, why do you think His temptation in the
wilderness for 40 days was tempted by turning stones into bread?
Well, the devil would have talked Him into it. That's so far off
the chart. Think about it. Was it bad to
eat? No. Was he in need of food? Absolutely. Absolutely. Did he have the power
to turn it? Oh yeah. But Jesus' desire for food was
nothing compared to His desire to glorify and obey the Father.
He would have rather died, and He did, then subjects himself
to disobedience. He obeyed the law of God. Jesus
loved by obeying the law of God. He is holy. Husbands, do we strive
to be holy? We can't love our lives if we're
not striving to be holy. Do we have secret sins in our
lives? Do we keep things? Do we lie? Well, let's think it another way. Let's
think to another point. The character of Jesus' love
for the church is that Jesus longed to see the church be birthed. His passion was to see his bride.
And still today, his passion is to come get his bride. His passion was to seek and save
the lost. His mission was to come into
the world and to take out of the world the children of God.
Friends, that's a beautiful picture. Sometimes, as Pastor Luke said
this morning, we come to Jesus because of what he can give us.
And we hear the words of Jesus in John 6. You've come after
me not because of my power and glory and signs and wonders,
but because you've got your stomach full of the loaves. Do not labor
for the bread that perishes, but labor for the food that endures
to eternal life. I am the bread that comes down
from heaven. There's a lot there. Do not labor for the bread that
perishes, but labor for the bread that endures to eternal life.
I am the bread. See, Jesus longs to see the church. Do we as husbands long to see
our wife grow holy and blameless and spotless? Do we see our wives
as that which we would die for? Not because some jerk makes a
pass at her and we're jealous. Love is not jealous. Love does not envy. Love keeps
no records of wrong. 1 Corinthians 13. We'll get to
it next week. Do we look at our wives as the
purpose for existing? I'm not talking about above Jesus
and above the gospel. I'm talking about in the marriage. Are our wives our church? Do we want her to be the pure
and holy bride? How do we treat them? Do we treat
them like that? Do we do what Jesus did and die for them that
they might be holy? Or when they sin, do we think
we're the judge? The character of Jesus' love. Jesus desired, longed for the
church to exist. He longed for the church to be
holy. And he desires the church to be holy through what? Through
His Word. So friends, I don't take lightly that Paul says there,
and I'm not trying to make a hermeneutic that's not necessarily there,
but I think we don't need to jump over the words, y'all. Paul
had absolute authority. The Spirit of God, when he opened
his mouth, God spoke. Come on, folks. And I mean, not
prophetically. Absolutely. It wasn't something
that we had to look at and go, what did he mean? And are we
looking forward to that? It's here. Here it is. Here's the
truth of God. When Paul wrote letters, God wrote letters. Friends,
I'm telling you, do not misunderstand what it means to have apostolic
authority. That's why there are no apostles today. They're dead
and gone. Well, they're alive, but their
bodies are gone. But their words are here. The Apostle Paul has
absolute authority. Whether we like it or not, the
Apostle Paul has absolute authority. And if we're born again and filled
with the Spirit of God, we like it, we love it. It is amazing
to us. We die for our wives. And one of the main ways we love
our wives is to watch them through the Word, not this way, but this way. We walk in it.
We answer from it. What are we going to do? We can't
pay the light bill. Why in the world? What's going
to happen, honey? I don't know. I don't know what we're going
to have. We can't feed the baby. We can't buy diapers. Sweetie, sweetie,
sweetie, I understand. It's OK. For God is able to make all grace
abound to you, so that having all sufficiency and all things
at all times, you may abound in every good work. Maybe we'll sit in the dark for
a little while, honey. We'll be fine. Christ is enough. Why did our son have to die?
Why? Because God is sufficient. He
purposed before the world began to cause that to work for our
good and for our joy and for His glory, Romans 8. Don't worry
about it, sweetie. Would you stop whining? Would
you hush? Every day you're always complaining
about something. The Bible says do all things
without complaining. As we complain to their face
about their complaining. That's not... And I say that even as a father
to my children. He has that scripture on pieces
of paper all over his house, on every wall, in every room,
in some respects, except the ones that have accidentally fallen
off. Stop complaining, I'm sick and
tired of y'all complaining. Oh yeah, I'm complaining about
you. How about you look at it, Dad? So that's the character of Jesus'
love, and let's look at it. I know we're moving into a place
where it's frustrating because everybody's going to be left
hanging. I promise you, you're going to leave here hanging.
It's like a puppet show, and I'm a musician, so when I was
in music school, A suspended cord is supposed
to resolve. You ever heard, you know what
I'm talking about? You might not, but anyway, you hear it and it's like, oh, yes,
and then you stop. And in our dictation, we had to do this
every day. We'd come into class in theory, and Dr. Matthews would
play something on the piano, four-part Bach chorale style
harmony, and it'd be eight to 12 measures of four beats per
measure. And we'd be listening, and we'd
have to dictate all four notes in time. So you do the bass line,
and then you do the up line, and then you know, based on the
rules of chord progression, how to fill in the middle notes.
It's automatic. It just sort of works. And he
would always irritate us sometimes, and he'd just resolve, he'd do
a suspended chord or a second chord, and it would never end. It's like... You want that... You want that!
You want the thing to end. Today, you were going to leave
suspended in mid-air. You were going to leave there.
I'm going to say something to you
that's very important. It may save your life, so please pay
close attention. When you are going outside today,
please see you tomorrow. I mean, what?
Wait, wait. That's how you're going to feel. I want to warn
you. And it's OK, because that's what the word of God wants you
to do right now. Quit trying to land your plane on sanctifying
yourself. Oh, I got that. I got the husbandry
down. I got the parental thing down.
I've got all this down, now I move on to the big things. I want
to be a scholar. Well, you're never going to get
any of it down. Brethren, sister, you're not. So we keep working
and let the Bible work in us. Let the Spirit of God brew for
a minute. You know the reason that people
don't like microwave meals? Because they taste terrible. Why? Because you can't take a
roast that's been seared and seasoned overnight and put back
in the refrigerator and then smoke for 12 hours and slice
it and you can almost get full on the fumes and then put a piece
of freeze-dried meat in there and go ding! And think it's going
to be the same. You can't do that in your spiritual
life. You can't put it in for two minutes, pop it out, peel
the wrapper off, burn your eyelids off, and then eat it and think
it's going to be good. And if you're living your spiritual
life as a microwave eater, you're going to be in bad shape. And
I say that to give you this. Christ's love looks like this,
let me just walk you through five or six passages of Scripture
briefly, you can write them down and go to them later. The first
one is that Christ's love is unmerited, Romans 5, 8. It is undeserving. We, nor anyone
else in this world, deserve the love of Jesus. So husbands love
your wife as Christ loved the church when she doesn't deserve
your love. Because you don't deserve her
submission and respect. You don't deserve the love of
God, but Christ loves us in that way, so husbands love your wives. And so what that really means
is when you don't love her in your heart, love her anyway.
Love her when she's not lovable, and love her when you feel like
choking her. Well, when was I ever going to
feel like choking my wife? Just to get married. And I promise
you that in times we might feel like choking our spouses, they're
thinking about choking us. As I see the two engaged couples
shaking their heads yes around here, that's going to have trouble.
When's our next meeting? The second way that Christ's
love is for the church, how it looks, is that it's submissive
love, and it's what we've been talking about. Philippians chapter
2. Have this mind among you which is yours in Christ Jesus. Christ,
though he was equal with God, did not take equality with God,
something to be grasped. Jesus didn't walk around the
world going, hey, I'm God, shut up and listen to me. Hey, hey,
you foolish Pharisees, hush. No, I mean, he was harsh with
them. He didn't point and say, do you know who I am? Do you
know I'm God? Do you know I'm going to blow you away? He didn't
do that. He didn't brag about his deity.
He pointed to God the Father. He shared it. He said he was the I Am, but
he did not push it. He didn't walk around floating
on clouds and shooting lightning bolts out of his hand. I mean,
everybody would have bowed down before him. I mean, that's just like
a sci-fi movie. That's not what Jesus did. Jesus
considered himself nothing. And the word doulos, Diakonos,
the form there, the word doulos, means slave, not servant. Jesus
became a slave, obedient to the Father, even unto death. And
not only just any death, but a criminal's death as an innocent
man on the cross. The most horrendous and most
God-awful death that you could ever have. It's like being accused
of being a serial child rapist. And you had not ever done a thing.
and they put you on the public square and they put it on Fox
News and CNN and NBC and they put you up there and they put
you on a cross and say, look at the child rapist. But he just
got exonerated. Why is he on there? It doesn't
matter. We hate him anyway. And they peel the skin off your
body and they destroy your flesh and then they let you sit there
and suffocate for six hours. And then you die. And that ain't
even close. Not just a death, but a criminal's
death. The word excruciating means of
the cross. You know that? How bad is the
pain on the thing from one to ten? Ten is excruciating. There
is no level of pain higher. That means of the cross. God's Christ's love for the church
is unmerited. It's submissive. It's eternal. John 13.1. It says, Jesus loved
them until the end. Jesus' love doesn't end. Till
death do you part. Do you understand why marriage
is not about us? Anybody who got married because
they wanted happiness is a fool. And I'm just going to say it
that way. Most people get married because they have that misconception
of what marriage is. Christians should not go that stupidly ignorant
into marriage. They should not be that blind
going into marriage. The church needs to stop standing
in front of people, reading the same sermon that they read every
time, taking a $50 honorarium, signing a marriage license, and
sending two people to disembowel the picture of the gospel of
Jesus Christ who bled and died to save His church. It's a joke. It's a joke. So-called gay marriage
is a joke. So-called unbelieving marriage
is a joke. It's a blasphemous joke. It spits in the face of
the gospel. But we need to love people. And
we need to be gentle with them. And we need to expect out of
each other to see the gospel and we need to display it. Why
does the world not think there's any difference in a regular heterosexual
marriage or a church marriage or a Christian marriage and a
pagan marriage or a so-called gay marriage? Because it doesn't
look any different. It's all about joy and happiness
and commitment and property. By golly, that's not what we're
learning today. And I'll never support it, just
so you know. It's an eternal love. Until death do you part, you
love your wife. Even when she leaves, you love her. And if she does leave you, because
of your faith, you love her. The fourth thing that I see about
what Christ's love looks like is it's an established love.
And what does it establish? John 16.33. It establishes peace. And not only does it establish
peace, it establishes victory. Victory over sin and death, victory
over failure, victory over hatred, victory over selfishness, victory
over the flesh. There is no more power in the
marriage of an unbeliever. I mean, of a believer. Excuse
me, there is no more power of sin in the life of a believer.
It's rattling around in there. There is. No one who is in Christ
who does not have the power to love their wives as Christ loved
the church. And if you can't do it, it's
because you're either stubborn or lost. You know what stubborn
feels like? Stubborn is when we mull over
those emotions and think, I can't believe she treats me that way.
I can't believe she said that to me. I can't believe she always
irritates me. I can't believe she won't get help. I can't believe
she won't stop doing that. I can't believe she said like that. Why
does she do that to me? Why do I have to deal with this?
Why do I have to put up with that? Why do I have to hear that? It's not what Jesus does to us.
It's not what Jesus did. He got on the cross and He just,
did He tear the cross up and thought, I'm not dying on this
thing. Oh, you bunch of complaining little pansy-wansy, whining all
the time. Forget y'all. I'm leaving. Shut the door to
heaven and walk out. It's not what Jesus did. It's
not what husbands do. That's what boys do. That's what boys do. Boys walk
out on their wives. Boys want their way in their
home. Boys want to be the glorious ruler and king. Men want Jesus
as king. Men want to submit on their face
to the king of kings. So the wife sees them and maybe
mocks at them and laughs at them. Women submit to their husbands,
even when they're cruel. And what Peter says is that sometimes
through submission and through silence and through godly humility,
God may save your husband. Through godly patience and love,
God may save your wife. Jesus' love is established in
peace and victory over sin and failure. There should not be
divorce in the church when we understand the Gospel. If we
don't understand the Gospel, it's going to happen. If we marry
unbelievers, it's going to happen. But even then, the church and
the world, there's no difference in marriage problems. Today,
statistically, Well, the fifth way that Christ's love looks,
it looks like this in the church, is sacrificial. In John 15, 13,
I recited it earlier, there's no greater love than this, that
a man should lay down his life for his friend. Dying to yourself,
husband, is loving your wife. Lay down that which you think
you need and want. And that goes deep implication. There's deep implications there.
If a husband has to go, I'm the husband, and the Bible says,
so you, You've lost it. You've lost it. You've messed
up. You've ruined it. So what do
we do? Just trust in Christ and redeem.
You're redeemed, brother. You're redeemed. Don't beat yourself
up. Don't destroy. Don't not eat
tomorrow because you didn't eat today. Oh, you didn't get a chance. Your hot water ran out so you
couldn't rinse the soap out of your hair. Don't quit off and
chop it off and shave it and never grow hair again. Don't
be a fatalist. Understand the power of the gospel
and repent and believe the gospel. Look into the heart that God
is showing you and see the reality of you failing because you're
trying to do it in your flesh. And the flesh is of no use at
all. It's about the death of the flesh for life in the home. It was Jesus' death that redeemed
His bride. Just because he lived a holy
life didn't mean he redeemed humanity. He didn't redeem the
church because he was holy. He redeemed the church because
he died as holy. He satisfied the judgment of
it. But if he wasn't holy and he died, it was worthless. And
if he was holy and didn't die, it was worthless. Christ died
holy. So husbands just die. Trust that
God will work out even this sermon in your heart today for your
good and for the good of your wife. And one of the worst things
you could do was just get on the car ride home and say, man,
we need to talk and just spill your guts and just start doing
that which God has empowered you to do and don't tell anybody. Just do it. Just do it. Don't dig up old bones from yesterday
or last year or ten years from now. Just build new gospel-powered
memories. And that leads me to the last
thing in how Christ's love for the church looks. It looks powerful. It is powerful. It's a powerful
love. In verse 26 and 27 of this chapter
5, it says that He might sanctify her, cleansing her, presenting
her blameless and holy. So the love of Christ in us as
husbands is powerful. I can't tell you why or how except
that God be praised in it. But when a woman sees Christ's
power in her husband, she loves him. And if she doesn't, when
he holds fast, God will show her. I promise you, hold fast
to that. What if it takes 20 years for
your wife to come around? Husband. What if it takes 20
years for your husband to become godly wife? Are you willing to
wait? Because it costs Jesus everything. The cost of Jesus' love in closing
is that he suffered ridicule and sorrow and pain. He was hated. He was lied about. He was threatened
and arrested and beaten and crucified. Jesus says the church is his
body. The people that God has given
him. They're His. They're His body. They're one
flesh. And just as the first marriage was established by God,
He created all that He created. And it was good. And He created
Adam. And it said, it is not good that he be alone. And so,
out of Adam is the essence of Eve. He took Adam and He cut
open his side. And He took out Eve. And Adam says, flesh of my flesh
and bone of my bone. And then the Father gave the
bride to Adam, who gives this bride, that came out of His side. The
Father gives the bride to Jesus that was birthed out of the piercing
of His side. Your wife is your body. And the bride of Christ is His
body, which was broken for her. And we are the workmanship of
God in Christ Jesus. Therefore, love your wife as
Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her. The great
bridegroom who suffers The great Bridegroom who is gentle and
kind in His speech. The great Bridegroom who looks
after her own interests over His own. The great Bridegroom
who is not jealous and is not angry, but who builds up and
sanctifies and walks rightly before her. Why can't I do that, Pastor? Because you can't. Only Christ
can. You've got to have full faith
in Jesus. And you've got to be filled with
the Spirit of God, by His grace, through His Word, first to be
brought to life and be born again, and then to be continually molded
into the person of Jesus Christ. Even as He chose us in Him before
the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless
before Him. In love, He predestined us for
adoptions as sons through Christ Jesus according to the purpose
of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace with which
He has blessed us in the Beloved. In Him, We have redemption through
his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to
the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us in all wisdom
and insight, making known to us the mystery of his will, according
to his purpose when he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness
of time to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things
on earth. We have been predestined. Even as He chose us in Him before
the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless
before Him in love. So husbands, trust in Christ. Wives, trust in Christ. A loving, godly wife submits
to her husband. A loving, godly husband loves
her wife. They're not mutually interchangeable,
though we are called to submit and to love. But in the role
of the marriage, there is clear, present glory portrayed. Let's pray. God, there is no word. There
are no words. There's nothing really that I
can say except wow. Thank you. Thank you for the
power of the cross. Thank you for the power of the
gospel. Thank you for the power of forgiveness
that even as we fail to be husbands and wives after your heart. You
forgive us. And we find forgiveness. In Christ. God, help us to see the beauty
of Christ's sacrifice, the holiness of Christ's life, the glory of
the Father's love to send the Son to save His children, and
the pureness of marriage that should be held in high honor
by everyone who claims the name of Jesus. Help men to be the
heads of their home in the power of Christ. Help women to be reflection
of the church in submission to their husbands. And help the
marriage to show the one true flesh, two brought together as
one as Christ has brought us together to You, the Father. Thank You, Father. In Jesus'
name we pray, Amen.