The Storm-Proof Shelter of a Husband’s Love - Part A

The husband is the head of the home, but according to this, he's to provide a heart for the home, his love.

Now let me mess with your mind a little bit. Not because I want to, because I don't know if you notice this or not in the text, but you'll never find once where the text says, for wives to love their husbands. Now it helps if they do.

It's good if they do. A husband's role of leader is about more than just authority. It's a high calling to love.

And in today's teaching, Skip Heitzig examines what scripture says about how husbands are to love their wives. But before we hear that, we want to tell you about this month's special resource, a bundle that's great to bless you or a special mother in your life. Someone once estimated the cost of the services that mothers perform.

The amount was huge. We know moms don't do it for money. They do it out of love.

While we can't repay our mothers, we can honor them. Here's a great suggestion. It's a special bundle of resources we're calling the heart songs package. It features heart songs. There's a Psalm for that, a powerful five-part series led by Lenya and Janae Heitzig designed to teach you to depend on God's love, power, and comfort in every season of life. You'll explore what the Psalms say about love, jealousy, fear, security, and longing.

Maybe you can think of a time when you really, really wanted something. This Psalm is kind of about that. It's this longing, this desire, this hunger that the Psalmist is expressing and his longing is for home. In addition to this encouraging series, you'll also receive the Sheology Quiet Time Journal, perfect for daily Bible reading to make notes as you follow the heart song series or for your personal prayer time. Plus, you'll get a bag of Skip's Library Roast Coffee, the coffee Pastor Skip chooses when he studies in his personal library. The heart songs package is our thanks for your gift to support the broadcast ministry of Connect with Skip Heitzig.

So request your heart songs package today when you give online securely at connectwithskip.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888. Now let's turn to Ephesians 5 as we join Skip for today's lesson. Let me tell you a story about a pastor that I know of who was speaking in Chicago at Moody Bible Institute. He must have been speaking about marriage. He was a guest speaker and while he was back there, somebody from there handed him a letter, a gal, and said, Dear Pastor, I've never really struggled with my future. I've left my future into the hands of God.

I really want to be married but I believe that the Lord has all of that in His control. But, she wrote in her note, every night I kneel down at the foot of my bed after I've hung a pair of men's pants at the foot of the bed and she said, I pray this prayer. Father in heaven, hear my prayer and grant it if you can. I've hung a pair of trousers here.

Please fill them with a man. It's a great prayer. He loved that so much that when he the following week got back to his own congregation, he wanted to share that with them even though it didn't really fit with his sermon. He did it anyway and his congregation loved it. They laughed. They thought it was such a great note but he noticed that there was a family toward the front of the auditorium where he was speaking in his church and it was a man, a father, with his oldest son. His wife, however, wasn't with him. She was at home attending to a sick daughter and he noticed when he told the story that I just told you and the congregation laughed that the father loved it and he laughed but the oldest son, the teenage son, just was as serious as all get out. Eyes fixed on what he was hearing but no humorous reaction at all. A few weeks later, the same pastor got a note from that oldest boy's mother who wasn't at the service, the wife of that man, and the letter said, Dear Pastor, she said, Should I be worrying?

Every night when my son goes to bed, he hangs a bikini at the foot of the bed. You know, I don't know what you expected when you got married, what role you expected your spouse to fill in that marriage. But I will tell you this, that there are enough storms that come into relationships and marriage that a pair of pants or a bikini just won't cut it.

It takes deep commitment. It was Benjamin Franklin who gave this wise advice, Keep your eyes wide open before marriage and half shut afterwards. Let's look in Ephesians 5 and open our eyes to the roles of the husband and wife once again and this week we want to look at the role of the husband. It's simply put, before we even get to it, it says husbands love your wives. Typically when people get married that love is there, it's strong, it's uncompromising, but there is a tendency for over time that love to wane.

Let me give you a fun illustration. Years ago in the Saturday Evening Post they ran a little article called The Seven Ages of the Married Cold. That is seven years worth of a husband responding to his wife when she gets a cold.

The first year of their marriage he says, Sugar, I'm really worried about my little baby girl. You've got a bad sniffle. I want to put you in the hospital for a complete checkup. I know the food is lousy but I've arranged for your meals to be sent up from Rosini's.

It's all arranged. But the second year he says, Listen honey, I don't like the sound of that cough. I've called Dr. Miller and he's going to rush right over. Now will you go to bed and just rest for me there please? Third year, Maybe you better lie down honey. Nothing like a little rest if you're feeling bad. I'll bring you something to eat. Got any soup in the house? Fourth year, Look dear, be sensible.

After you fed the kids and washed the dishes you better hit the sack. Fifth year, Why don't you take a couple aspirin? Sixth year, If you just gargle or something instead of sitting around barking like a seal, can you tell it's getting worse? Seventh year, For heaven's sake stop sneezing. What are you trying to do?

Give me pneumonia? Now that's funny but all humor aside here's the principle and here's what I want you to walk away with, self-included. Any relationship left untended will deteriorate over time and become less satisfying. Any relationship left untended will deteriorate over time and become less satisfying.

I've always believed that every person on earth is incompatible with every other person on earth. Just give it time they'll discover that and the question then comes when you discover, oh what do you do now? Robert Anderson writes, In any marriage more than a week old there are grounds for divorce. The trick is to find and continue to find grounds for marriage.

It's my prayer that that will happen in this series of series. It has been our prayer of our team all along that good marriages would be made better and marriages that are on shaky ground a spark would be put inside of those relationships to make them not only survive but thrive. Today we begin in verse 25 and look at a husband's love for his wife. It's the husband's role. Verse 25, husbands love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for her that he might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of the water by the word that he might present her to himself a glorious church not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing but that she should be holy and without blemish. So husbands ought to love their own 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 the Lord does the church for we are members of his body of his flesh of his bones for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh this is a great mystery but I speak concerning Christ and the church nevertheless let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself and let the wife see that she respects her husband there's three things that I want to look at based upon what we just read what is the meaning of a husband's love second what is the manner of a husband's love what is it to look like when it says love your wives like what like how and then finally the mission of a husband's love what is the goal and purpose now as we consider what it means for a man to love his wife there's just something obvious again I want you to look at like we did last time you will notice that more written real estate is given to husbands than to wives only three verses he writes to wives verse 22 23 and 24 but three times that amount are devoted to husbands verse 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 nine verses as I said last week you can draw your own conclusions as to why that is it's my belief that it's because the real key rests with the husband I will explain what I mean by that the meaning of a husband's love well let's begin by the meaning of a husband did you know that the original term husband means one who works the soil a tiller of the ground you may remember John 15 where Jesus said I am the true vine and my father is the vine dresser or the NIV says gardener but the old king James version says I am the true vine and my father is the husband man he's the one who works the ground he's the tiller cultivator of the soil I checked with Webster on the definition of a husband first definition is a married man duh but here's the second definition getting back to the original meaning a prudent or frugal manager ah now that's suggestive you see a husband is one who cultivates the marriage relationship he's the one who wisely manages the home men are to be initiators and can I just speak men on behalf of women they want that they want you to be the spiritual leader to initiate in the relationship and I will tell you again these roles though simply stated are not easy this is tough there's an old Chinese proverb that says it's harder to lead a family than it is to rule a nation every now and then I'll hear people say we need more Christian leaders in politics yeah I believe that but can I just say I think we need way more Christian leaders in families that's where it begins in families so husbands cultivators farmers of relationships love the ink from Paul's pen hasn't even dried on the word husband when he writes the second word a strong word love agapate second person plural present active imperative if that helps it's a command in other words and the word agape love you remember that's that full orb love that extraordinary far-reaching love so the husband is the head of the home but according to this he's to provide a heart for the home his love now let me mess with your mind a little bit not because I want to because I don't know if you notice this or not in the text but you'll never find once where the text says for wives to love their husbands now it helps if they do it's good if they do but what I do want you to notice is a husband is commanded it is in the imperative it is in the imperative Eugene Peterson in his translation the message translates it husbands go all out in your love for your wives that's a great picture for your mind go all out in your love for your wives doesn't say husbands rule over your wives husbands subjugate and conquer your wives go all out be lavish in your love for your wives in other words his authority is to be mixed with his affection and a wife responds to her husband's love you know what happens if you take a piece of iron and rub it against a magnet what happens to the iron becomes magnetized I think relationships are like that I think that love in a marriage relationship is more caught than it is taught and that one burning heart ignites another burning heart a husband's love causes a wife to respond to that so husbands heads cultivators gardeners love lavishly your wives look if you have a husband who's a leader but not a lover you have a tyrant if you have a husband who's a lover but not a leader he's a sentimental sap you combine somebody who leads but who does it lovingly as a servant leader as a tender warrior you've got a man that's a husband have you noticed that valuable things take time and the more valuable they are the more time they take to manage to cultivate to maintain my grandparents were farmers they they managed to farm in very harsh climate in Laramie County Wyoming it was during the homestead days when you could take a piece of property and claim it as your own and work the land so I have pictures of my grandpa butchering the hogs and working the land when grandpa died my father moved my grandmother out to California and put her in a nice little house but it had like a half acre maybe an acre attached to it she planted a garden in it and put apple trees in it and when I think back to visiting grandma I remember finding her in one of two places sometimes the kitchen but rarely usually she was outside in that garden and usually when I came over I saw grandma in the garden with a gun and that a great picture my grandma usually a bb gun she was shooting the birds that would come in to take the apples she loved doing that so I come around the fence grandma yes dear so I that's how I remember my grandma she was outside in the yard working with the apples tending the garden or in the kitchen making the best apple pies in the state of California and I mean she provided the fruit and I mean she provided the fruit from her garden that she so tended and worked and brought it into the kitchen and made everything from scratch and gave that to us her family all of the time in the garden all of the time in the kitchen and 50 years later her grandson is bragging about her now husbands let's think of our roles like that tending a garden to bring forth fruit tending a garden because let's be honest marriage is the most challenging relationship on the planet and so God gives the pattern wives submit to your husbands husbands love your wives that's the pattern if something goes wrong in the relationship it's not because there's a problem with the pattern it's because somewhere along the line in the process we got tired and we've left the garden untended that's the meaning of a husband's love the cultivator with an extraordinary all-out love for his wife let's look at the second the manner of a husband's love now I want you to notice something because it'll all be based on this there are two analogies in the text that Paul uses to describe love and both of the analogies begin with the word as whenever you want to make a comparison you were use words such as like or as this is like that this is as that and there's two of them can you find them the first is in verse 25 husbands love your wives as that's the first comparison Christ loved the church now you know why he does this if Paul would have just said this husbands love your wives period what would we do men we would read that and we'd say I do love my wife I told her so 20 years ago I'm a man of my word but when he says no love your wives like Jesus loves us then it gives us pause we go oh that's the standard I can't attain so he gives us a standard also we can't attain in both of these he's going to demonstrate what he means he lowers it down says okay love your wives as you love yourself your own bodies so with those two analogies in mind let me make four statements that describe a husband's love a husband's love is to be sacrificial that's what it means sacrificial love your wives verse 25 as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her it was extraordinary love that motivated Jesus Christ to step out of heaven come to the earth take upon a form of the flesh and die on a cross and give us everlasting life love motivated him to do that it was sacrificial love and while he was here on earth he was rejected spat on mocked yelled at some of you are thinking sounds like a typical day in my home I hope not the key idea here is sacrifice he gave himself sacrifice men do you sacrifice for your wives if I love like Christ loved the church I'm willing to give something up for my wife now if I know the male mind we immediately go to the far extreme or the bottom line we say let me tell you something I'll take a bullet for my wife that's good that's the ultimate sacrifice Jesus gave his life for the church you're saying I'll take a bullet for my wife but think about that statement if you're willing to take a bullet the ultimate sacrifice for your wife doesn't that necessarily mean that you would be willing to make sacrifices short of the ultimate sacrifice I'll take a bullet for my wife but I won't give up that show that game that activity so to love means we sacrifice get into her orbit find out what she wants it's not easy furthermore to love like Christ loved the church means that we will love whether she fulfills her role or not whether she does what is right or not we'll love her irrespective of that Romans 5 God demonstrated his love toward us in that while we were sinners Christ died for us that's unconditional love that's irrevocable love that means I'll love my wife even when she fails or sins that's the whole point of this Jesus doesn't love people who deserve his love he loves them unconditionally it's not based upon their worthiness or their performance or how performance or how good they look or if they do everything that is right it is unconditional irrevocable love in other words sacrifice I always love to listen to kids and ask them questions and kids were asked the question what is love describe what love is one kid said love is when a girl wears perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other another child said love is all the things written in valentine's day cards and then he qualified it you know all the things you'd like to say to someone but you'd never be caught dead saying them but another child said this and I love it love was when my grandmother got arthritis and she couldn't bend over and paint her toenails anymore so my grandpa did it for her all the time even when his hands got arthritis too that's love well that is certainly sacrificial love so what is the manner of a husband's love as Christ loved the church in other words he gave himself he sacrificed here's the second statement a husband's love is to be sanctifying love look at the 26th verse that he might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word that he might present her to himself a glorious church not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing but that she should be holy and without blemish when you hear the word sanctify i know that you think of a religious word because you don't really hear that word when you go to a gas station sanctify is like a churchy word right it's like a religious thing but originally the term sanctify was a secular term that simply means to set something apart for its original purpose that concludes Skip heitzig's message from the series keep calm and marry on find the full message as well as books booklets and full teaching series at connectwithskip.com right now listen as Skip shares how you can keep messages like this one today coming to you and others prayer and study of god's word are vital keys to help believers grow in their relationship with god and this ministry exists to connect people around the world to god's word so they can experience closeness with god and take their prayer life to new heights we invite you to join us in 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