In a self-centered, self-promoting world, how is it possible for a husband to love his wife in a way that glorifies God? Aleister Begg points us to the perfect role model today on Truth for Life as he continues his series titled The Christian Family. We're studying Colossians chapter 3, focusing on verse 19. The Lordship of Jesus Christ is then to be on display not simply in the church as it gathers. but is to be on display in the home life of the members of the church.
That's the hard part. You can get away with a lot here on a Sunday. or whenever day you want to be together. And quite frankly, so can I. But I have to go home.
I said to somebody tonight, I don't know whether it would be better to have no wife. than to have a wife And to have to preach on the role of a husband. You don't think I get up here like, yeah, I get a free pass. No, I go home. And I came from a home.
And so do you. Because at home For better or for worse. One is oneself. Yeah. We have to take seriously what the Bible is conveying.
Earlier, we noted that for the wife to submit to her husband in this way is somewhat necessarily conditioned, if you like. and conditioned significantly by the demand which then follows here in verse 19.
So, wives, you submit to your husbands as is fitting in the Lord, and husbands, you love your wives and don't be harsh with them. This is the two pieces, if you like, of the puzzle. That's why we read 1 Peter 3. That's why we read Ephesians chapter 5.
So, you have submission and you have love.
Now we might ponder why it is that these things are set in juxtaposition to one another in this way. I think It may be because if we are honest, Uh we understand the particular susceptibility uh of each member in marriage. namely the susceptibility of the wife to chafe and pushed back under the leadership of her husband. and the susceptibility of the husband. to seek to abuse his leadership role.
And giving direction to the family and seeking to love his wife.
Now, again, I'm going to keep saying this because it is so vitally important that these admonitions are not culturally bound, they are permanently valid. And the countercultural element to what Paul is writing here, countercultural in his day, before we even think about it in our own. is what he has to say concerning the love that a husband is to show. All of those ethical codes, whether Greco or Roman or Judaistic, Would all have very clear building blocks for how the family should fit together. What would be so striking to people who were familiar with these kinds of ethical demands was what he says here.
This is what husbands are to do. Husbands, you are to love your wives. To love your wives. You who are the beloved of God, up there in verse 12, put on then as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved. That's the same verb, actually, agapao.
It's agape. You who are beloved. are to put on love in verse 14. And if you want to really know where the hit will come, why don't you put it on in relationship to yourself? Your wife.
At home.
Now, let's just say Let's just acknowledge that he puts this both positively and negatively. Positively, to love your wife means that we must do sacrificially. Sacrificially, the model, the measure of a husband's love is to be Jesus' love for his people.
Okay. Couldn't we have made it a little harder? Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved. The church. When Paul writes in Philippians 2, in that amazing passage about Christ, who did not think equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself of no reputation, in that context Paul makes these exhortations: In humility, count others better than yourselves.
Look out for the interests of others rather than your own. And remember, when you're tempted to say, but I don't want to do that, that your example is Jesus, who was prepared to give up himself sacrificially, even to death, on a cross.
So in other words, the love The love that a husband is to give to his wife. is actually Extending The love that he has for himself. to embrace her as well.
Now we have to think that out because this comes back again to the Genesis 2 passage, doesn't it? That in some profound way, a man's wife. Is part and parcel of his living frame. Yes, she has a unique personality. Yes, she is a separate entity, and so on, but somehow in a way that is both mystical and yet real.
This reality that exists between us is like nothing else in the entire world, and the closest thing that we can come to it is when we think in gospel terms, in atonement terms, in terms of the union of Christ with his people. This, of course, has huge ramifications for all of our fiddling around with divorces and separations and trying to find excuse clauses and escape clauses to run away from things, as if somehow or another we just have joined in a casual relationship with each other, which if it goes south on us, we can always break it up and move on to somewhere else. Oh no, you can't. Oh no you can't. And the reason that Jesus makes an exception Is so that we would understand that he is not providing loopholes in every other area that we try to contrive.
That's why he says you got one shot at it and this is it. One flash. One flash. Some kind of mystical reality.
Now, what do we mean when we say that we love as we love our own flesh?
Well Listen to this. No one Unless he is psychotic, or at least unbalanced. hates his own body. True. I mean, you don't get up in the morning.
Take your shaving raisin, try and cut yourself with it. I mean, if you cut yourself, you go, oh, that was a mistake. Then you call for your wife. Could you please help me? Could could you please submit by getting me?
All right. She says, Is that an order or suggested? We just leave that alone for now. No one unless he's psychotic or at least unbalanced hates his own body. For a husband not to love his wife, who has become one flesh with him, is not simply to be a poor husband, it is to be a dysfunctional Christian.
That pretty well says it, doesn't it?
Now, if you want it more quaintly, in the 19th century, And whether you do or you don't, you're about to receive it. This is Charles Hodge. Married love is as much a dictate of nature as self-love. And it is just as unnatural for a man to hate his wife as it would be for him to hate himself or his own body. A man may have a body which does not altogether suit him.
Okay. He may wish it were handsomer. healthier. Stronger. or more active.
But still It is his body. It is himself. And he feeds it and cherishes it. as tenderly as if it were the best and most lovely in the world.
So a man may have a wife. whom he could wish to be better? Or more beautiful. or more agreeable? Still she is his wife.
And by the constitution of nature, and the ordinance of God, a part of himself. In rejecting her, or abusing her. He violates the laws of nature. As well, As the laws of God. Sacrificially and also exclusively.
For a husband to love his wife in this way involves sacrifice, and it also recognizes the exclusive nature of what's going on. In the same way that the love of Jesus for the church is an exclusive love, so the husband's affection for his wife is also to be marked by exclusivity. In other words, the relationship I have with my wife, I sustain with no one else. And neither must any one of us. Richard Baxter, I mentioned him already, in the middle of that big book.
He gives directions both to husbands and wives. He says it is our common duty to maintain these things, and he says to help. to keep conjugal chastity and fidelity. and to avoid all unseemly and immodest conduct. Boy, if that isn't a kind of uh that's have anybody under the age of one hundred and twelve is looking for a dictionary in relationship to those words.
The idea of uh conjugal chastity and fidelity being a common duty. and the notion of unseemly and immodest conduct. It's almost... It it's amazing, isn't it? I mean, the entire advertising world is based on unseemly and immodest conduct.
I say that with great respect to all the advertising people who are here. I don't mean to throw you all under the bus. But we can go from Um Backstory in the 17th century. To Men's Health magazine. In 1996.
You see why it's important to keep Yeah. Keep files. Can you believe this? Listen to this. This is men's health.
1996. He's writing to men. Whoever he is. The key is to make your mind monogamous. When you've promised to drink only from one spring, It's water.
will be sweet. Surely When a woman knows that she is it for you. That she is the Alpha and Omega. of your erotic world. She will be emboldened by it.
So whether you want seventeenth century Baxter or twentieth century men's health. Let's be absolutely clear. That the exclusivity of the marriage bond is not up for debate. or for option. And it is imperative that we recognize this.
I know that you're not impressed by most of my quotes, but this is. This is uh from uh I think this is Baby, I'm down to my last teardrop this time. by that little lady who was involved with Glen Campbell for a while. Can't remember her name, doesn't matter. But it begins like this.
They said They said, your love life's in trouble. in a magazine I read. When the one you love is hanging off of his side. of the bed.
Okay, that's that little lady. This is Charles Bridges. Tender well regulated Domestic affection. is the best Defence. against the vagrant desires.
of unlawful Passion.
Now you don't need me to interpret that for you. This is biblical. You can read it in 1 Corinthians 7 for yourselves in the first five verses. And in the time that I have been in pastoral ministry, It is not an uncommon story. To discover that the seeds and the roots of declension, not simply in the physical realm.
But in the entire notion of a one-flesh union within marriage. can be traced. to a downright selfishness. in relationship to that very area of life.
So men's health gets it. The seventeenth century gets it. And if we're honest, we get it too.
Now I've spent too long on that, just a word or two on the negative side. Husbands, love your wives. How shall we do it?
Well, we will do it sacrificially. We must do it exclusively. and we mustn't be harsh with them. The basic verb here. means to make bitter.
or to make sour. Hence the paraphrase that I quoted earlier from JB Phillips, don't allow bitterness or resentment to spoil your marriage.
Now it's an important word, isn't it? Because if we're not alert to this, or even if we are alert to it, but tempted to disregard it. It is possible for us as husbands to cultivate, amongst other things that we would like to be rid of, a harsh tone. a harsh tone. Fueled Uh by bitterness.
a sourness. which may stem from a sense of disappointment. Often a disappointment with ourselves that is disguised by explaining how disappointed we are with everything else and everyone else. I'm disappointed with life. I'm disappointed with expectations.
I have unrealistic ideals for my wife and how she should be. And before we know it, suddenly We have slipped into a tone that is certainly not conducive to anybody saying Wow. Look how these people love. Each other.
Now this requirement, of course, is necessary. C.S. Lewis, if the home is to be a means of grace. It must be a place of rules. The alternative to rule is not freedom.
by the often unconscious tyranny of the most selfish member in the house. Oh. And may I say Not in a shy way. Oh no. No, not me.
I did it my way. Yeah, there's the problem for some of us. Our husbandly role of loving our wives is not to be exercised. Harshly. selfishly but loving thee.
which will mean at least in part being prepared to put my wife's interests ahead of my own. being prepared to recognize That I don't need to have the last word in every conversation. And recognizing that we come to this as husbands, as do our wives in verse 18. in the awareness that the framework is laid out in such a way that entering into it by God's help we may rejoice in it. It's a biblical framework.
It's a permanent framework. It's a universal framework. And one of the reasons that we need The big family. to help us with our we family. is because of our own personal blind spots.
our own personal blind spots. We all have them. We don't really want to Uh deal with them. And so we are adept at hiding them. And so Somebody might be prepared.
to come along and point them out to us. This kind of thing. This is just from a novel. Um I made a note of it a long time ago. And this is an observation that is being made by a character in the novel.
The wife. A real relationship is based on trust and understanding. the sharing of little things. moments of happiness and laughter. Realizing you've both just had the same thought.
Or we're about to say the same thing. James and I, that's her husband in the novel. James and I shared nothing. Except for the same space. And even that, less and less often.
I grew to realize that his emotions were without substance. His obsession was with himself, not me. He'd be telling me about some big contract he'd signed.
some export deal to the US. And I'd realize he was watching his own reflection in the window as he told me. playing to his own imagined gallery. posing for photographs that weren't being taken. He was in love.
with the idea of me. But I was just another trophy. in a life. That was all about Him. I don't know, you say.
There you have it, huh? Yeah, well We all have it, if we're honest. I'm loath to tell you this. Maybe I told you before, in which case it won't matter, because I've already done it. But talking in terms of blind spots, I can't forget, it's a long time ago now.
and a long way away from here. I was out Playing golf with somebody. And in the course of the conversation, in just routine conversation. He said to me, Alistair, can I say something to you? Which is usually, that's not usually going to be.
Something like, hey, you're the finest person I've ever met.
So you got to be prepared if you're going to say yes to it to be prepared for it. And so I said, yeah. And he said, well, I've got to tell you this. You're awfully hard. On your wife.
I say really? He said, Yeah. Said you finish your sentences. When You are in the room. Her personality is quashed.
When you are out of the room, We all realize who she is. what she has. and what she means. He said, I'm telling you that. 'Cause I care about you.
And I care about her. And I tell you. I don't share that with you to impress you. It pains me yet. I say to you again, I don't know if it would be easier to have no wife.
or to have a wife. And I have to deal. with Colossians 3. And verse 19. Yeah.
You're listening to Alistair Begg on Truth for Life. He'll return in just a moment. We hope you've been benefiting from our study called The Christian Family. If you've missed any of the messages in this series, you can catch up online. You can even share this helpful five-sermon series with others in your church family.
All of Alistair's teaching can be streamed for free through our mobile app or on our website at truthforlife.org. And if you'd prefer, Alistair's teaching through this complete series is available for purchase on a USB at our cost of just $5. You can find the USB in our online store at truthforlife.org/slash store. And if you add a donation when you make a purchase, be sure to request the book we are currently recommending. It's titled Good News for Parents, How God Can Restore Our Joy and Relieve Our Burdens, and the book is our way of saying thanks for your support of this Bible teaching ministry.
This is a book that, rather than pressuring us to do more or be better, focuses on the fruit of the Spirit. and how we can look to God to increase our joy, our patience, our goodness, and our love as we walk through the challenges associated with parenting. The author writes I love that the Bible uses the family as a metaphor for God's gracious relationship with us. I want your family, and the way you feel about it, to be a beautiful model of the gospel. I hope that everywhere you turn in your home you will be constantly reminded of the grace of God.
Tomorrow's the last day we'll be recommending this Biblical parenting book, so request your copy to day when you donate to Truth for Life. You can give online at truthforlife dot org slash donate, or call us at eight eight eight five eight eight seven eight eight four.
Now here's Alastair with a closing prayer. Our gracious God, we thank you. That as we make our journey together. down the pathway of life. that we have a shepherd who loves and cares for the sheep.
That we have one who, when we wander and stray, woos us and brings us back. that we have one who when we've made a royal mess of things comes to pick us up. to restore us. to forgive us. Two.
enable us to get up. and get on. And Lord, as we think about what it means. Two. Live out the principles of your word.
Not just in the big place. in the crowd. but in the small place In the kitchen. In the bedroom. Lord, who is sufficient for these things?
Save that you come by the Holy Spirit. to quicken us, to renew us. to help us. And thank you that when we read these exhortations, They are not there as some list of that which we should strive to become. but that they are the very outworkings.
of those who are your beloved. who are learning progressively to put on love. and learning to do so. At the places where it demands the most. takes the most.
often hurts the most. and yet reveals often the most. of your work of grace. within our lives. Help us, Lord, to this end.
Thank you. for the promise of your grace in Jesus' name. Amen. We're glad you've joined us today. Who is responsible for teaching children God's word?
Is it the church, the Sunday school teacher? The parents We'll hear the answer tomorrow. The Bible teaching of Alastair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life. Where the Learning is for Living.
