Christ, Love, and Husbands #2

Welcome to The Truth Pulpit with Don Green, Founding Pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Hello again, I'm Bill Wright. It is our joy to continue our commitment to teaching God's people God's Word. Today, Don is continuing with the second part of a message we started last time.

So let's get right to it. Open your Bible as we join Don now in The Truth Pulpit. Now, let's think about Christ, shall we? Let's think about Christ in light of this passage, and in light of the privilege that we have coming up so soon to remember Him and the ordinance that He appointed.

And this really does change the way that you talk about, even the way that you talk about marriage, the way that you preach about marriage, when you view it through the lens of Christ rather than, you know, trying to come up with hands about what men should or shouldn't do. Let's think about His sacrificial love for a moment, shall we? This is a subpoint, the way you value Christ, and then I'm going to give you three subpoints here.

And all of you ladies can benefit from these things as well, whether you are a widow, you're single, you're married, all of these things benefit you as well because they help you reflect on how you're going to respond to Christ Himself in your own heart. So let's think about His sacrificial love. The way you value Christ and subpoint A, His sacrificial love, because Paul uses the love of Christ to illustrate how husbands are to love their wives.

Look at verse 25 with me again. Meaning that he sought the best interests of the church. It's not that Christ had a sentimental affection for the church, a passing emotion that made Him kind of weepy or anything like that, not the love of the world, not the love of media or anything like that. Christ looked on His people, as it were, from all of eternity and said, I will secure their well-being.

I will secure their benefit because they can't secure the benefit on their own. And so Christ, in love, in obedience to the Father, set Himself on a course whereby He would come to earth, live a perfect life, go to the cross and offer atoning blood for the sake of redeeming love in order to rescue His people from the bondage to sin and to Satan in which they were in, to deliver them from spiritual death from the kingdom of Satan and deliver them over to the kingdom of Christ, deliver them over to new life, deliver them over to forgiveness and righteousness and justification and sanctification and one day glorification, all out of redeeming love, all decided and determined to be accomplished before you or I were even born. And so when we consider the love of Christ, we see first of all that it's very exceedingly transcendent and we also see just how sacrificial it is.

Look at there again at the end of verse 25. Christ loved the church and and gave Himself up for her. And if we just focused on the, you know, we could talk about His, the incarnation, He came from heaven and earth from, He came from heaven to earth in order to be born as a man, but let's just focus, let's just focus on those final events of of His life and of His crucifixion as He stood unjustly accused before six different trials and the soldiers mocked Him and spat upon Him and plucked His beard and thrust a painful crown into His head and then forced Him to carry His cross to to Calvary and and then He hung on the cross and and bore the weight of our sins as as light was extinguished as the wrath of God was poured down upon Him. And in the process of that He had He had taken care of His mother and He had forgiven a thief on by His side who who cried out to Him for forgiveness and prayed that God would forgive those who were who were crucifying Him.

And the other matters of the seven sayings on the cross, I thirst, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Now look, beloved, when when Christ died the earth shook, there was a great earthquake, I believe it's Matthew 27 tells us, and as we contemplate these things in our hearts today there's not going to be a literal earthquake as I speak, but there should be an earthquake and a shaking in your heart as once again you are you are brought face to face with the with the evidence of redeeming love. This wasn't Christ simply saying I love you and then going away, this is Christ saying I love you with a redeeming love, and for 30 some years He lived His life with His face set toward Jerusalem knowing that that would be the outcome, that He would lay Himself down on our behalf, He would give Himself for us in the most in the most profound way that the mind of God even could fathom. Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her in complete painful self-denial, self-sacrifice for people who had rejected and hated Him, rebels just like you and me.

That's who He did it for. He laid down His life so that we might be redeemed. Think of that, that holy innocent life the eternal Son of God gave Himself up for such a wretch as you and me. That is sacrificial love. That is love in the language and the spirit of Philippians 2 that does not insist on what it deserves but rather gives up what it has for the sake of the one that it loves.

In fact let's turn to Philippians 2 for just a moment so I can remind you of that. Philippians chapter 2, just a couple of pages over in your Bible, Ephesians and then Philippians, Paul writes this to the church generally about life in the church but it is certainly the mind that would mark a godly husband as well when we contemplate these things. Ephesians chapter 2 verse 5, have this mind among yourselves which is yours in Christ Jesus who although He was in the form of God did not account equality with God a thing to be grasped but made Himself nothing taking the form of a servant being born in the likeness of men and being found in human form He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death even death on a cross.

The holy innocent undefiled Son of God humbling Himself not demanding what was His own but became obedient to the point of death even death on a cross that's how He gave Himself for us. That is sacrificial love to the nth degree and so this kind of love obeys God, it obeys the Father and this kind of love serves to the point of sacrifice the one that it loves. That in very much shorthand condensed reference is what Paul is saying here when he says husbands you love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for. He's assuming that you'll take a few minutes to contemplate what Christ has done for the church and thereby what He has done for you as we're doing here this morning that that would sink in on your heart and soften it and mold it and direct its affections so that you have a similar mind toward your wife that Christ had toward the church. In the broadest of terms the Christian husband the godly man has and seeks out the spiritual needs of his wife the physical needs of his wife the relational needs of his wife because he's has a spirit of sacrifice animating him that he learned from Christ himself. Secondly how did and so and so I ask you before we go to the second sub point here so I ask you men what value do you attach to the sacrificial love of Jesus Christ because the value that you attach to that is going to inform the way that you respond to your wife. This really this is this is not difficult.

This is not a discussion of infralapsarianism versus supralapsarianism. This is not abstract theology. This is simply this we're simply addressing the fundamental most basic thing that should motivate you as a Christian is what how what assessment do you make of the sacrificial love of Jesus Christ.

Start there and then the matter of the way that you respond to your wife everything about it is informed by that. Now secondly how do you value his sanctifying love his sanctifying love. You know Christ and I hopefully if you've been at our church any length of time you don't diminish salvation to simply the fact that God saved me from hell.

You know that's just such a that's such a crass incomplete view of salvation. God saved you in order to make you his own. God God saved you so that you would belong to him that you would be in his family and and that that as it says in Titus chapter 2 that he would purify a people for himself who would glorify him and we see this reflected in as we consider the value that you place on the sanctifying love of Christ because the goal of Christ was to purify a people for himself. Look at verse 26 we just seen Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her sacrificial love and it was a sacrificial love that was also a sanctifying love. Verse 26 Christ loved the church gave himself up for her that unto this purpose in other words that he might sanctify her having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word so that he might present the church to himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing that she might be holy and without blameless. To sanctify is to set apart that's the meaning of that term to set something apart for and in this context for a condition of moral purity. Now men listen to me listen to the word of God here Christ did not love you because you were pure or because you had made yourself pure for him that is not the case Christ's love was not a response to your purity at all it was not a response to your self-effort his love came from his own nature from his own character he loved you when you were not pure he loved you he loved you when you were not pleasing in his sight he did not love you because you are pure he loved you in order to make you pure by the operation of his word and his spirit upon your heart and so Christ loved you to sanctify you and to make you holy not because you were holy salvation is by grace by redeeming love not by works and merit on the heart on the part of the one who is saved and what Paul says here is is that husbands you that sanctifying love is a picture of the way that you love your wife you know to seek out her holiness to foster an environment in in your marriage and in your home and in your family however you do that that that promotes spiritual growth that that your wife should be as a result of being married to you a better Christian than she was beforehand that should be the enduring nature of it that there should be a greater security in Christ that she has a greater settledness in it so you don't expose your wife to defilement you don't speak to her in defiling terms you don't expose her to defiling entertainment you couldn't you couldn't you couldn't if you had any respect for the high dignity that God's given to her you couldn't if you loved her with a sanctifying love and notice this men since Christ did not wait for you to get better before he loved you he loved you when you weren't better then in like manner you love your wife when she doesn't deserve it when she's exasperated you when she's exasperated you when she's annoyed you again you draw upon that deep well of the love of Christ and you pour that love out on her and you know we're talking in relational terms here but even in physical terms you know your wife's going to get older she's not going to have the same figure she had when you got married her hair is going to change color along the way and other things just for you know just remember that you know you're not exactly the same prince charming that you were on the day of your wedding either and so the point of sanctifying love is it transcends all of that in response to Christ he loved me to make me pure he loved me to sanctify me and that's the spirit I carry over into my marriage and the goal is simply to develop a natural reflex a natural care to her for her and for her needs look at verses 28 through 30 in the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies he who loves his wife loves himself for no one ever hated his own flesh but nourishes and cherishes it just as Christ does the church because we are members of his body we are members of his body and so you know it's probably good to ask yourself where it is where where do you lead your wife do you lead her into the teaching of the word of God somehow do you lead her into faithful participation in the body of Christ or something else she's going to be sanctified under the word and in response to the people of God you have to weigh out where sanctifying love plays out in the life priorities that you establish for your family men and so you seek to develop her spiritual maturity you help her use her giftedness and the whole spirit the whole spirit of this passage is it's an it's an atmosphere of tender love and tender care it's not demanding woman you submit to me i'm really getting kind of sick of some of the things i see coming out of of other kinds of ministries in the way that they speak about women and treat women and all of that listen listen the love the redeeming love of Christ upon his people is a tender sacrificial love that sets them apart to draw them even more into the knowledge and direct experience of his redeeming grace so that there is a sense of confidence and assurance and security of resting in the love of my beloved the love of the Lord Jesus Christ that i am secure i am safe in his hand and no one can pluck me there from and we men i say we men not you men we men we can be so selfish so rough so cold shame on us and so what do you do give to her talk with her be patient with her help her and here's the here's one of the best changes that i've made in the way that i preach on these things what i'm about to say right now far more effective i used to try to give illustrations of what a man should do or what a woman should do to show she loves her wife loves her love her husband what a man should do to you what a man should do to you want listen let me make this really really simple and put you in a position to succeed that has nothing to do with a suggestion from me don't ask me to illustrate for you how to love your wife don't don't look to me to do that ask her what would make your life better how can i help you today what what do ask her and let her tell you and then do it with a cheerful grateful loving heart this is what this is what love does don't try to buy her off with a you know with cheap flowers from costco because you responded in a bad way let her tell you what she wants what she needs and then respond to her that way and say of course dear you sanctify her you set her apart thirdly in christ we see a separate love you could say his separate love and let me just approach it this way christ the christ makes a distinction and a separation between between his people and everybody else you can that's easy enough to see just by knowing what's going to happen at the final judgment when christ separates the sheep from the goats there is a love of god a general grace of god that falls upon all men but for his people there is a unique separate love that goes beyond that to make them his own that christ gives to his people that he's given to us that is distinct and we have a love from christ that not everybody else has those who hate him and reject him are not the recipients of the same kind of love that we as his people have he separates us he loves us in a unique way with redeeming love purchase and in a unique way with redeeming love purchased by atoning blood well in like manner men in marriage there is a new structure that is in place look at verses 31 and following therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh you know that he's quoting from genesis 2 there to cleave to to become one flesh to hold fast it's it's the idea of like being glued together we are we are joined together in a way that does not belong to anyone else it it includes the union of intimacy but it goes far beyond that it's a relational exclusivity so that there is a sense in a human way that your your wife has the claim to your highest most exclusive affection in a way that goes beyond your parents beyond your children beyond your you know the buddies you hang out with so that if someone tries to drive a wedge between you and your wife you immediately actively forcibly repudiate that and refuse the intrusion adulterous woman comes along through your computer screen or through some other means say uh-uh i cleave to my wife i hold fast to her a flirtatious woman comes along tries to woo you and to make you know make friends with you and all of that say no no not not simply in a physical sense but in an emotional relational sense there is an exclusivity that belongs to my wife that i do not give to anyone else and i don't mind reusing an illustration from the very earliest days of truth community church before we were church i had to in in honor of this principle and i wanted to do it one of the things that um i don't know that there are anyone there's anyone in the room that was affected by this and i'm not speaking about anyone in particular but one of the things that i had to establish as a new pastor coming into a new situation is that some of the women in the church found out that i do not hug them they tried to hug me i wasn't having anything to do with it and there were sometimes the one occasion in particular that was very very awkward when a woman approached me and she got an outstretched hand don't do that well part of the reason that you do that part of the reason that you do that is to honor this separate love principle you know i don't go around hugging i don't go around hugging women maybe maybe at a funeral maybe in a severe emotional crisis i'll put my arm around someone to comfort them but as a routine matter no way no way and if women think come to our church and think i'm cold because of that i can live with that i can live with that because there is a separate love that belongs to my wife and my wife alone and besides that i mean i know there i know there are huggy pastors and that's their problem but the last thing that i wanted and i i mean i don't that doesn't even appeal to me number one but also i did not i did not want a husband to be able to come to me and say why are you hugging my wife there's no there is no good answer to that question well i'm just being friendly no no no you you stand you you you keep boundaries in order to honor this principle of marriage to honor your own integrity and ministry to make it clear that you're wasting your time to try to puncture that and so that's just a practical illustration of the way it works out for someone in ministry it's not a regular part of what you do now all of that in response to christ because christ has loved us with redeeming love purchased with atoning blood christ has loved us with a sacrificial love he has loved us with a sanctifying love he has loved us with a separate love and what scripture says is you go to you go to christ for your salvation you go to him for redemption you go to him in repentance and faith and and and and have him save your soul and then if he has given you marriage or if he gives you marriage in the future you take you you borrow from him to say this is how i live within the institution of marriage that god created and that somehow this woman that you have given to me no longer saying that in the spirit of adam in a state of accusation against god in the garden why did you do that adam well this woman that you gave to me misled me no instead in humble faith and love and submission to christ himself you go to christ and you say oh this woman you gave me she's a woman of high dignity she's a woman who should be the object of my my love because i value her and i value you oh christ i value your sacrificial love your sanctifying love your separate love and lord i want to manifest that in the closest relationship that you've given to me for you first of all oh christ and then for her the woman that you have given to me and so we've had a there's a there's a mysterious joining of themes together here in this text and in this message that paul himself has to clarify in verses 32 and 33 as i've been speaking to you here this morning men i've been talking to you about christ and yet i've been talking to you about your wife as well and yet i've been talking to you about your wife as well paul says this mystery is profound i'm saying that it refers to christ in the church the way that you think about christ and his sanctifying sacrificial separate love determines the way that you think about all of these things and so we're really discussing christ and honoring him at the table and yet when you see it you realize this all pours over into marriage as well so that the two subjects almost become inseparable so we see the closing command there in verse 33 let each of you love his wife as himself and let the wife see to it that she respects her husband he breaks off the comparison to summarize all that he says so men with your marriage it comes down to this do you value women with high dignity do you value christ with all of your heart if you do then those fundamental principles filter through into everything else and you can interpret each situation each conversation each difficulty through the lens of sacrificial love sanctifying love separate love perhaps you're feeling like i am saying with me who is adequate for these things none of us are we need the spirit to help us we need christ to help us and in this remembrance of his body and blood we see that christ has already taken the initiative to provide that which we lack let's pray together as we prepare our hearts for communion and as the men come forward to prepare to serve us as you bow your heads our lord jesus paid a complete full redemption price so that you could go free and that's what we remember at this table this morning this is for the lord's people it's the lord's table it's his supper for his people it's his supper for his people if you're walking with christ we lovingly invite you to this table if you're not a christian if you're living in unrepentant sin if you're a man a husband and you say this has shattered my world and i realize how far short i need some time here maybe it's okay to let the elements pass this one time but if you're yielded to christ and receptive to him and you are a child of god through faith in christ we welcome all of you to take of the elements otherwise let them pass father thank you for the love of christ sacrificial sanctifying separate love behold what manner of love the father has given to us that we should be called the children of god and we are we remember that today and lord jesus we place you at the pinnacle of our deepest affections in this hour in this moment we thank you for your redeeming love we thank you for your atoning blood without which we would have no hope but with which were the air of all things including heaven itself so as we approach the table we do so with gratitude with expectation with submission and humility before you we love you lord but we boast not in that because we love you only because you first loved us in jesus name amen so my friend i want to let you know of a special ministry that we have at thetruthpulpit.com that's very near to my heart we have a ministry to those who are in prison and in the nature of life sometimes we have loved ones that go astray and find themselves behind bars and spending significant time in incarceration well we have a ministry to them we send them transcripts of messages that i've preached from the pulpit of truth community church we do it on a weekly basis they get mail every week if you have a loved one in prison that you would like to have us reach out to in that way do me a favor go to our website thetruthpulpit.com that's thetruthpulpit.com click on the link that says about and you'll see a drop down menu that will take you to our prison ministry you can fill out the form and we'll be happy to respond and then join in with you in ministering to that one who is outside the normal course of society so that's thetruthpulpit.com the about link for our prison ministry that will do it for today we'll see you next time on the truth pulpit that's don green founding pastor of truth community church in cincinnati ohio thank you so much for listening to the truth pulpit join us next time for more as we continue teaching god's people god's word you