How to Cultivate a Marriage

What is the root of our nations deepest problems? Listen to us. Welcome to Love Worth Finding. Pastor, teacher, and author Adrian Rogers said we can never be over those things that God wants to be under us until we get under those things that God has put over us. In order to learn how to grow and nurture a healthy home, we first need to understand godly authority. If you have your Bible, turn to Ephesians chapter 5 will begin in verse 23 as Adrian Rogers reveals how to cultivate a marriage. Would you take God's word and find Ephesians chapter 5, please?

And just a moment, we're going to look at verse 23, and then we're going to look at some more verses. But I want to talk to you about kingdom authority and the home. And literally, headship in the home. Now some of us are disappointed in our homes. Somebody has said that the difference between courtship and marriage is the difference between the pictures in the seed catalog and what comes up. Perhaps we need to learn a little bit more about how to cultivate a marriage.

Even as Christ is the head of the church, and he, Christ, is the savior of the body, and the husband is to be like that to the home. May I tell you what the problem is in America today? The problem is in the family.

And may I sharpen the focus? The problem is primarily with the husband. Stu Weber has said the problem in America is failure in the highest office of the land. That office being husband and father.

That's the problem in America. And we want to point fingers somewhere else, but the problem is that we have not understood responsibilities and kingdom authority in the home. We need to see as fathers, as husbands, as dads, our responsibilities, not our rights. When the Bible speaks of a husband being the head of a home, that's not speaking of his rights.

It's speaking of his responsibilities. Marriage is a covenant, not a contract. If you think of marriage as a contract, you're going to be looking for loopholes.

Ways to break that contract. But marriage is a covenant between a man or woman and God, and it brings with it awesome responsibilities. There are three major responsibilities that deal with headship in the home. Now I want to say to the husband that if you do not exercise the kingdom authority that God has given to you, your home is not going to be a wonderful home. Your marriage will not be a magnificent home.

It's not going to be a magnificent marriage. I want to say to our ladies, if you do not understand your proper place, God's assigned responsibility in the home, you're going to miss an incredible blessing. Now let me tell you what those three major responsibilities are that the husband has as we're talking about kingdom authority and headship in the home.

The first responsibility that the husband has is this. He is responsible for servant leadership. Now, I've chosen to put those words together. Servant leadership. Those words are not exclusive.

They go together. When the Bible says that the husband is the head of the home, it does not say he is the dictator. It says that he is the head. That does not mean, therefore, that he's a top sergeant using the Bible as a club rather than a sword to beat his wife over the head with it. He is the one who is responsible. Who is the head of the church? Jesus Christ.

True. The husband is to be the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church. Well, I want you to think about Jesus who is the head of the church. That is, he is the sovereign Lord of the church. He is your Lord.

I want to ask you a question. Has Jesus Christ ever, ever that forced you to do anything, not one time. And yet, Jesus is the head of the church and He is the Lord of my life, and if I know my heart, I would die for Jesus Christ. And yet, He is not, He is not the dictator of the church.

He is the head of the church. And this is what a husband needs to be. Now, you see, headship means to have responsibility. So, if you as a husband say, I am the head of the home, then your wife, who is to be submissive to you, listen, has every right to look to you, to meet her every need that she has as a wife in the home.

Doesn't mean she's to kowtow to you, it means you're responsible to meet her needs. As the Lord Jesus Christ is responsible to meet the needs of the church. We hear so much of the chain of command. It's not primarily a chain of command, it is a line of responsibility.

To be the head of a corporation, as we have some here today, means that you are responsible for that corporation. Now, here's a key verse. A key verse, put it in your margin. 1 Corinthians 11 and verse 3, now listen to it. But I would have you to know that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is the man, and the head of Christ is God. Now, if you put that verse right down along Ephesians 5, verse 23, you'll have it all figured out.

All right, now, listen. The Lord Jesus was a leader that served. John 13, verse 13, Jesus has washed his disciples' feet.

I mean, he is their Lord and Master. And he says in verse 13, Ye call me Master and Lord, and ye say, Well, for so I am. If I then your Lord and Master have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example that ye should do as I have done unto you. Mister, you want to be the head of your home?

Wash your wife's feet. That's the way to be the head of the home. Jesus, the Lord and Master, set the example for us. You see, what is headship? Headship is responsibility assumed, not primarily a chain of command. It is a line of responsibility. You stick out your big chest and you say, Well, I am the head of the home. I know my rights.

You may get in trouble. Marriage rights are like traffic rights. Somebody wrote these words, Here lies the body of Benjamin May, who died defending the right of way.

He was right, dead right as he sped along, but just as dead as if he were wrong. Now, Mister, you can get in serious trouble just sticking out your chest and saying, I am the head of the home. Now, home means a head, and the Bible says that the husband is the head.

He has responsibilities, and I've told you before that anything with no head is dead and anything with two heads is a freak. God has put headship in the home, and that is the husband's responsibility. That does not mean at all that the wife is inferior to the husband. Everybody knows that a woman is superior to a man at being a woman. A man is superior to a woman at being a man, but in Christ we equal.

Galatians 3, verse 28, There's neither Jew nor Greek, neither is there bond nor free, neither is there male or female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus, one in Christ. But equality does not mean sameness. Friend, God made the male and female in the beginning, and why did God make us different that He might make us one?

That's why. And the devil under the guise of making us equal has tried to make us the same, but the Bible is against she-men and he-women. A man is a man.

A woman is a woman. And God created that, and God made us different, but God did not make us unequal. When the husband is the head of the home, that doesn't mean he's superior to his wife. His wife may be superior to him in many things. My wife is superior to me in many things.

I freely confess it. She made much better grades than I made. Of course, she's smart in everything but her choice of men.

When I was a teenager, she beat me in a better speaker's tournament. That's church history. It doesn't mean that one is inferior, one is superior when God has put headship in the home. When the quarterback calls the play, that doesn't mean he's inferior to the running back. It's just there has to be somebody to call the play, so you're all going in the same direction. And who says who calls the play? The coach. Who says that the husband is the head of the home?

Almighty God. It doesn't mean that the husband is superior. It doesn't mean that the wife is inferior. But there must be authority. Folks, do you know what we're having today? We're having some crazy thing called mutual submission. That is absolute nonsense. Now, there are times when you may submit to her and she may submit to you on certain issues. That's not the point. But mutual submission on any point is not submission at all. Let me tell you what Admiral Rickover had to say.

Listen to it. Responsibility is a unique concept. It can only reside and inherit in a single individual. You may share it with others, but your portion is not diminished. You may delegate it, but it's still with you.

You may disclaim it, but you cannot divest yourself of it. If you do not recognize it or admit its presence, you cannot escape it. If responsibility is rightfully yours, no evasion or ignorance or passing the blame can shift the burden to someone else. Unless you can point your finger at the man who is responsible when something goes wrong, then you've never had anyone really responsible. And I'm telling you gentlemen, in the home of responsibility is on the husband. On the husband.

And you cannot dodge it. The major problem in America today is not feminism and rebellious wives. It is slacker husbands who are not doing what God called them to do for the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church and that is loving, serving leadership. A leader who serves. But now remember, no man can be the head of his home until he's under the headship of Christ.

If he's not willing to be under, what right does he have and what expectation does he have to have the anointing and the power of God to be the husband that God wants him to be? Here's the second thing he's responsible for. The first thing, serving leadership. Got it? Serving leadership. Okay.

Here's the second thing. Sacrificial love. Now I didn't say just love. I said sacrificial love. I didn't say just leadership.

I said serving leadership. What is sacrificial love? Well, how are you to love your wives?

Look, if you will, in verse 25. Husbands love your wives as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it. That's not mere love. That's sacrificial love. How am I to love Joyce?

I love Joyce as Jesus loved the church and he died for the church. What kind of love is sacrificial love? Well, number one, it is passionate love. It is passionate love. When I'm talking about passion, I'm not talking here about sexual passion. That's a part of married love, but I'm talking about something far deeper than that.

I'm talking about emotion and commitment that comes from the deepest part of your being. You are to love sacrificially. That is, there's nothing, nothing too precious for me to give up for my wife except my relationship with God, nothing. I am her husband.

She is my highest love on this earth, apart from the Lord Jesus. Jesus gave himself up for the church. What does a man owe his wife? Passionate love, but not only passionate love, purifying love.

Look, if you will, now in verses 26 and following. Why did he do it? He sanctified and cleansed it with the washing of water by the word that he might present it to himself, a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish. Jesus loves the church with a passionate love and with a purifying love.

And how is a man to love his wife? What responsibility does he have? Christ is pastor, priest, and prophet to the church. The husband is to be prophet, priest, and pastor to his wife. He is to intercede for her. He is to teach her. He is to lead her. He is to protect her spiritually.

Look, if you will, in verse 28. So ought men to love their wives as their own body. What do you do with your body?

You protect it. A man is sick who does not care for his own body. And a home is sick when a husband does not protect his wife. Peter tells us in 1 Peter 3, verse 7 that the wife is the weaker vessel. Doesn't mean she's inferior. Gold is weaker than steel. It's not inferior. Silk is weaker than blue denim. It's not inferior. It's more refined. It's more fragile.

It's more intrinsically beautiful. God made you to be a man of steel. He made her to be an ornament of gold. But he made her as the weaker vessel. And you need to protect the wife, not only physically. And I've told you before, I'm not the man I used to be.

And I might not be able to do it. But if you touch my wife, if I can, I'll put you on the ground so quick you won't know what happened. Because God has given me an instinct to protect her. But not only to protect her physically. My responsibility, protect her emotionally.

And to protect her spiritually. Did you know, mister, that Satan can't get at your family unless he has to come through you? Because you're the head. You're the doorkeeper. God made you to keep the garden. That means to protect it. You can't rob a man to a strong man's house except you're first buying the strong man. And Satan wants to get at your wife and your children. But if he can go through you, he can get at them easily. But if you stand at your place where God has put you, then you're the protector. You say, but wait a minute, I don't have what it takes.

I'm glad you recognize that. Because that's all the more reason that you, as you assume your responsibility, must understand that you have to be under the one who is going to assume his responsibility to take care of you. See, you can't be over until you are under.

Now here's the last and the final thing. What does responsibility mean? What does headship mean?

What does the Bible mean when it says in Ephesians 5, verse 23, that the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church? It means serving leadership. It means sacrificial love. And it means steadfast loyalty.

Steadfast loyalty. Look, if you will, in verses 30 and 33. We are members of his body, of his flesh, of his bones.

He's talking about the church in Christ. And you see, that's the reason that woman was made from Adam's side because he's teaching us that she is a member of our body. Just as the church is taken out of the wounded side of Christ, woman was taken out of the wounded side of man. And so the Bible says, for this cause shall a man leave his father and his mother and shall be joined unto his wife and they too shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless, let every one of you in particular so love his wife, even as himself and the wife see that she reverence her husband.

For this cause a man will leave his father and his mother and leave unto his wife steadfast loyalty. Now, if you're the head of your wife as Christ is the head of the church, let me ask you a question. When is Jesus going to walk out on the church? When is Jesus ever going to walk out on the church?

He will not. Amen? You see, we have men who stand at the marriage altar and make a holy vow, a covenant, not a contract, a covenant. And then they walk out.

God, have mercy on them. You say, well, I owe it to myself to be happy. You owe it to God to keep your promise. You owe it to your wife who came to be your wife. You owe it to your children. You say, well, it'd be better for the children. Why don't you ask the children about that? You say, well, I have prayed about it and God told me it was all right.

You're a liar. God does not transgress His Word. Don't walk out on your wife. Lover as Christ loved the church.

The husband is the head of the wife. Servant leadership, sacrificial love, steadfast loyalty. And when we begin to live that way and men get under the authority over them, they can have the authority that God has put under them and wives can submit to a man who is willing to die for her and shows it by the way he lives for her.

And homes will be what God wants them to be one more time. What a convicting and timely message for each of us today. You know, at Love Worth Finding, we love to hear how the ministry and the messages of Adrian Rogers have inspired you in your faith journey. If you can go online to lwf.org slash my LWF story. You can submit your testimony or read others who've shared their stories with us. We often select these stories to share throughout our Love Worth Finding community. And we'll always protect your privacy if that's what you desire. We can't wait to hear from you.

Again, go to lwf.org slash my LWF story. Now, if you'd like to order a copy of today's message, you can call us at 1-877-LOVEGOD. The title of the message is How to Cultivate a Marriage. This lesson is also part of the insightful series, The Incredible Power of Kingdom Authority. For that complete collection, all nine powerful messages, call 877-LOVEGOD, or you can order online at lwf.org slash radio.

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