May 6, 2012 AD, by Pastor Ben Willis

Paul’s Letter To the Ephesians 5:21, 25-33 [NLTse]

21 …Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

25 For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up His life for her 26 to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God’s word. 27 He did this to present her to Himself as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish. Instead, she will be holy and without fault. 28 In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as they love their own bodies. For a man who loves his wife actually shows love for himself. 29 No one hates his own body but feeds and cares for it, just as Christ cares for the church. 30 And we are members of his body.

31 As the Scriptures say, “A man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.” 32 This is a great mystery, but it is an illustration of the way Christ and the church are one. 33 So again I say, each man must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

Two weeks ago we spoke about the role God has given women in the marriage covenant. Today I’d like to talk about the role God has given men. It was awkward to put the women’s responsibilities out there first because of the bad press the biblical idea of “submission” has gotten in our culture. And yet it was important for us to talk about the women first so we might describe men’s role in relation to the women’s role.

We just read, “For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church.” So Paul writes that we can better understand a husband’s submission to his wife by looking at Christ’s submission to the church. Yes, one might grumble and complain that, “All the Bible talks about is God wanting people to obey Him and submit to Him and surrender to Him. Yuck!” But having acknowledged that God does indeed want these things, we can look at God’s role and what He’s done:

  • giving up His life – His rights and privileges as eternal, God Almighty for us by becoming a human being and then even further by going to the cross;
  • doing everything we needed done so that we might be whole and complete, brought back into relationship with God the Father, and experience God’s shalom-fullness and abundant life; and,
  • nourishing us and caring for us day by day.

At first glance, our part in our relationship with God may appear slavish and oppressive, but when you then look at God’s part we can see that, in reality, we’ve got it easy, and our obedience, submission, and surrender gets to be lived out with such awe and thanksgiving!

So, wives are called to submit to their husbands as to the Lord, because the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church. But what exactly is the husband’s role?

First, as we’ve just seen, God calls us (and so remember, that means the Holy Spirit will empower us to carry it out!) God calls us, husbands, to give up our lives for our wives. When I think of Jesus giving up His life I think of Philippians 2:6-8…

“Though He [Jesus] was God, He did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, He gave up His divine privileges; He took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When He appeared in human form, He humbled Himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross.”

Jesus gave up His divine privileges for us. What privileges do we enjoy, husbands, that God is calling us to give up for our wives? Perhaps, what we want, when we want it, and as often as we want it? Is that a privilege we believe we have that the Lord God may be calling us to give up for our wife’s sake?

“MY WORD IS LAW AROUND HERE WOMAN! I WEAR THE PANTS IN THIS FAMILY!” Perhaps that kind of an Archie Bunker, tyrant’s attitude is one the Lord God might be calling us to give up for our wife’s sake?

That phrase, “gave up His divine privileges” most literally means that Jesus “emptied Himself”. But it’s the idea of emptiness the way you might say that your and a friend’s conversation was “empty” because you weren’t talking about anything substantial; you were just goofing and fooling around, “talking trash”; it was nothing. Empty. So the flavor of “giving up His divine privileges” means that Jesus – the Son of God, the Great I AM – took the risk of letting His creation see Him as a nobody. (Which, of course, is exactly what much of the world has done in their estimation of Jesus Christ.) And, husbands, that means we need to be willing to let “the guys” think she’s got us wrapped around her little finger, if that’s what they think as we are loving and giving up our lives for our wives. It means we need to let the other women around us see us as nothing: We’re not available to them; no flirting; no “playful” banter; nothing.

And the Lord Jesus gave up His life for us so that He might present the church to Himself “as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish. Instead, she will be holy and without fault.” This is the easiest one to gauge how we’re doing, husbands, though, perhaps, the hardest to carry out: Is your wife more “whole”, more “complete” now than when you married her? Is your wife closer to Christ now than she was when you married her, and (depending on how long you’ve been married) is she closer to Him and enjoying Him more than she was, say, five years ago? Is her life marked by greater, deeper, more abiding peace because you have been her husband? Is her life more abundant and exhibiting more of the Holy Spirit’s fruit because you have been her husband? That’s our role, husbands. And that’s God’s goal for us in our marriages.

Lastly, We’ve seen that, just as Christ nourishes and cares for us – the church – so we are called to nourish and tenderly care for our wives. I’ve said that Jesus “nourishes” us instead of “feeds” us, as is used in our reading, because the energy behind the word is not just to nourish or to feed but to bring to that which is nourishing, to bring to that which feeds. So, husbands, we need to be taking the lead with our wives. We need to be the spiritual heads of our marriages, or our families. That means we need to be initiating devotions, making church a priority, encouraging our wives and our children (if we have any or have any at home) to be part of a small group or Bible Study.

And we need to be willing to make the hard calls, asking our Father, “What do You want for my wife and I and (perhaps) our family here, Lord?” You need to make the difficult call: Is it a time for your wife to what you want, or a time to lay down your wants and do what she wants? We need to be asking the Lord, “Does it best serve Your purposes for my marriage, Lord, to go this direction or that?” “Which of us is expressing Your wisdom in this situation, Father, my wife or myself?” And these questions, and this servant leadership of our homes, takes discernment, and wisdom, and humility, and the willingness to ask forgiveness when we realize we’ve been wrong, and the willingness to freely give forgiveness when she asks for it.

The world has made a sad caricature out of the husband’s high and holy calling. Not us, men! The Holy Spirit has filled us so that we might show the world a much more compelling picture, and show them Christ and His love for His church while we’re at it.