Extreme Marriage Pt. 1

Well, between shoveling snow and going back and forth, we've gotten our initial exercise for the morning. Let's pray first, because we really need it. And we'll get started here. Okay? Lord, we thank you for the chance to gather here and for the things that you've laid out in your word. We thank you for the truths that you've revealed for our benefit. So we just entrust our time to you and look to you to guide and lead us and direct our thoughts. We just pray in Jesus' name. Amen. So an initial question for you. If you have Two Christians that are married, do you have automatically a Christian marriage?

I don't think so. Okay, why do you say no? What's the difference? There's a plan I think for that. Okay. that two people just because they're Christians don't necessarily know and understand. Okay, alright. So there's just being, you know, two Christians that get married doesn't automatically give you a Christian marriage.

And the reason is there are things that you need to know, right? It's just knowing some things all you need. Well, that's the beginning. Okay, it's the beginning because until you know what God's Word says about marriage, you can't act in faith on it. Right? Yes. Wisdom, the application of your knowledge. Yes, okay, yeah. In other words, okay, I know this stuff. Yeah, I got all these verses. I got them all memorized. Now what do I do? Right? Yeah, how do I put this thing in gear? So, I think that's an important thing.

Just because you have two Christians doesn't mean you have a Christian marriage. As a matter of fact, the statistics on Christians In terms of success of marriage versus non-Christians, it's just about equal. Various surveys show that they differ a little more than about 2%. And sometimes the statistics for Christians are worse. So just being a Christian doesn't make any difference by itself. So this will at least introduce what's the difference between two Christians getting married and Christian marriage.

Let's start, I'm going to read Ephesians 5, 21-33. And be subject to one another in the fear of Christ. Wise, be subject to your own husbands as the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, he being himself the Savior of the body. But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her, so that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that he might present to himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she would be holy and blameless. So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, because we are members of his body.

For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is great, but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church. Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife even as himself and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband. Now, you might have noticed that men and women are different. Men are fairly simple and straightforward. Women are more complicated, right? And then here's the typical thing as well.

If you go, if the mission is to go to Gap at the mall there and buy a pair of pants. The men are all about conquering the pants. Go in there, head for a gap, get the pants, get out of there, I conquered the pants. That's what the guy's all about. For the gal, it's a little bit more indirect. She's got to go and check out all the other possibilities and eventually, after a while, she'll get the pants. But she's not all about conquering the pants.

Studies of humans in our day show that many differences between men and women. Several decades ago, the message came from feminists that men and women are just anatomically different, but really not that much different inside. And the main difference is just, you know, men and women have different aspects in the reproductive process. Beyond that, they just said that men and women are pretty much the same.

Well, research has shown that that's not the case. Here's just a quick example. In men, look at where the emotions are processed. Two areas on one side of the brain. Look where emotions are processed in women. All over the place and on both sides of the brain. Spread all over. Men and women both have emotions, but they process them very differently.

And when you think about it, what does Genesis chapter 1 say? In the beginning God created the male and female. And it's not just anatomical reproductive things, but it's other things about how they think. Here is the left hemisphere of the brain and the right hemisphere and they have different functions. Here's what's interesting, the cross-connection between one half and the other half is much higher, the capacity is much higher in females. Women have a much higher capacity between those two halves. Isn't that interesting? So when you talk about half a brain, I guess maybe there's something to that.

So anyway, men and women think very differently. They feel things differently. So that's just quick sampling. We don't go through a lot of that. But just the reality is men and women are made different. And as you're probably well aware, there are differences between, you know, among women and among men as well. So, The real question, and what we'll be looking at here, what God has revealed is what we'll be examining. What did God intend? When He made them male and female, what did He have in mind? God created Adam first, then He created Eve. Now, think about it. What are the four ways that human beings have come into existence? What are the four ways that human beings have come into existence? What was the first one?

Okay, it's Adam and he was made of the dust of the ground. Okay, and then Eve, was she made the same way? No. She's made from Adam, okay, and then how about Christ? From woman, a virgin birth. So you have three individuals who have a unique way that they've come into existence, and everybody else the usual way, right? So you have four ways, three individuals unique, and then everybody else the same way. God created differently the husband and wife, but they are intended by God to be complementary to one another. The problem with the feminist model, which was I remember when Nancy and I were in college, that was kind of blasted to everybody, oh they're all the same except for a few anatomical differences for reproduction, and that's not the case. But God's intent is that male and female be complementary to one another, not in competition, and not just very slight variations on the same theme.

Now, you have this on your handout there, this little number in the corner there. It tells you what page. Most translations and editions of the Bible place a division of sections, or at least sentences, between verses 21 and 22. You probably noticed that.

This is from the New American Standard where it has verse 22, and then it has this title, Marriage Like Christ and the Church, and then they start a separate sentence right and the separate sentence says wives be subject so being subject it's like that's something the wives must do right but um i'm here to tell you it's not quite like that the way paul wrote it in fact he didn't he didn't write verse numbers right you know okay that was verse numbers was like about uh 450 years ago And chapters is about like 800 years ago.

Before that, they didn't have verse numbers and chapters. That's why you'll have quotes of things out of the Old Testament that will say, somewhere it says, because there wasn't any way to reference things. So this was more like this, and the subject is not there. Not in the verse. More like, This, being subject to one another in the fear of Christ, wives to your own husbands as to the Lord. Now, being subject, that still doesn't tell you what he was supposed to do.

And the reality is the imperative, the must, is up here. Be filled, and that's where you have it on your handout on the second slide. Do not get drunk with wine for that is dissipation, but be filled, that is you must be filled with the Spirit and then there are five verbs in action as a result of being filled with the Spirit. See that? So the imperative, the must, is be filled with the Spirit. And as a result of being filled with the Spirit, which is the imperative, you'll have speaking and singing and making melody and giving thanks and being subject.

Now, why do I bring this up? How is it expected that the wife ought to be subject to the husband? Should we sit down and fold our arms and say, wife, you better be subject. Come on, get on it, right? Is that how we do it? How is the wife to be subject to her husband? Where's the starting point?

To be filled with the Spirit. And so this is one of the things that a lot of the church has not gotten it, partly because they've seen these as completely separate sections. And the translations look at it like, you know, you must And the reality is that the imperative is to be filled with the Spirit. It's a spiritual starting point.

Not, you know, make her be subject. There is nothing that says make her be subject. There is be filled with the Spirit. And it impacts the body in these five ways. These things are in action from being filled with the Spirit. So let's look at being filled with the Spirit.

We won't go into, here's how we got there, because we won't have time for that. But I do have the expanded and explained version there. But in sharp contrast to drunkenness, which is being foolish, being wise and understanding the will of the Lord looks like this.

The logic which is based on your eternal position in Christ can only come to one conclusion. You must be filled with the life and the living Word, which is Christ Himself, that being accomplished totally by means of the work of the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit's work that you express the life of Christ.

And what that results in is among those five outcomes, being subject to one another, and then it goes and spells out the first one of those being the wife being subject to the husband. So, a key point in here is realizing for the wife to be subject is not a matter of her saying, now I'm going to be subject.

It's not a matter of the husband or anybody else pressuring her. It is a matter of that's an outcome from her being filled with the Spirit. That's an outcome from that. So the answer is not to pressure her. The answer is not to twist her arm and shake the finger and tell her what to do. The answer is to lead her spiritually to be filled with the Spirit. That the life of Christ will express itself in her in that way.

Okay, you have this as the middle of page one. It's about half a page, right? And it's the passage that I read initially, but we've got it color and font and underline coded here. Notice in here the things that are... Here are the things for the wife. And it's blue, italic.

So, Wives, be subject to your own husbands as to the Lord. And then down here, so also the wives ought to be to their own husbands in everything. And then down here, the last part of verse 33, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband. That's all that's written to the wife in this passage.

Those three things. So what you get out of it is the wife being subject to her husbands, not as an imperative as most of the translations carry it out. but as a result of her being filled with the Spirit. And then down here, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband, and actually it's not written that way in the Greek either. Let me tell you what it's written like.

Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife as himself, and the wife that she respect her husband. So the imperative is carried up from up here, It's not built into that part of the sentence. So what's interesting is the wife being subject and the wife respecting her husband is stated, but in neither case is it stated directly. It is in each case either an outcome of being filled with the Spirit or it is carried over and implied here from this part of the sentence. Then you have, for the husband, there is much more written. For the husband is the head of the wife.

And here in verse 25, husbands love your wives. Then down to verse 28. So husbands all sort of love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself, for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it. And then verse 31, For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. And then finally, the first part of verse 33, Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife as himself.

So that is the part directed to the husband quite a bit more than is directed to the wife. And then the rest of the passage that we have here in regular black font here is about Christ and the church. So real interesting, the way this passage works out, there is a lot using Christ and the church as the model, and we'll talk about that more. And then you've got the wife there with fairly minimal amount directed to her. and quite a bit directed to the husband.

So, what we say here is you do the math. You do the math. The math here is this. Not that stuff. The husband is to the wife as Christ is to the church. So that's the guiding relationship. That's all the black, non-italic font in the middle of the page there. That is the relationship that defines the relationship between Christ and the church. So the husband is to the wife as Christ is to the church. This simple guiding relationship helps us answer two very important questions.

How are we doing so far? Hold up okay? Baffled? Frozen? Warming up? Okay. How do we know what the husband and wife relationship is supposed to be like? What's that? That's what you want to know. The husband is to the wife as Christ is to the church. So Christ and Christ's relationship to the church is the model, the example used throughout the whole passage to show the relationship between husband and wife. No other passage in the Bible conveys this truth like this does. So, and then, what does the biblical husband and wife relationship communicate to all those around them? What does the husband-wife relationship communicate to everybody else? Yeah, in other words, what's happening is as the husband and the wife live out this truth, it's expressing the relationship between Christ and the Church to everybody else.

So, our marriages have a message. By God's intent, our marriages have a message. And there's nothing about this on the marriage license. You fill out the form, there's none of that on there. This is very unique stuff. Something else, the husband's love for his wife shows up four times.

And the first one, husbands love your wives. And then the last one, each individual among you, and that's intended to be the husbands, right? And by the way, why does Paul, you know, the first one is that husbands love your wives, which was great for me to tell the guys over in Uganda. One of the questions I got over there was, you know, what if a guy doesn't want to love all of his wives? I said, easy, husbands love your wives.

Okay, that's the answer, right? But this one here, each individual among you, pointing to the men, pointing to the husbands, is to love his own wife even as himself. So he's grabbing the men by the lapel, so to speak, and saying, yeah, I mean you, right? Each one, I mean you. Then you have, these are imperatives. This is constructively an imperative. It's said differently. Yeah.

In the culture, wasn't it kind of standard to have extramarital affairs and so forth? Yes, and that's something we'll talk about. It was in the Greco-Roman culture, that is the Greek and Roman culture, having all sorts of premarital and extramarital sex was just the norm. There were four different kinds of prostitutes, it was just standard operating procedure. And so that's something that he addresses in here. And so this is one thing that stands in great contrast, you know, in this passage here. So the second one there is we have the first and the fourth are both imperatives.

You must love your wives. And then this one here, ought also to love their own wives, is constructed a little differently in the Greek, but basically the same thing. And then finally, the last one here, he who loves his own wife loves himself. It's not an imperative, it's a statement.

So there's four loves of the husband for the wife in this passage. Four loves. and four kinds of love. So that's the thing. Four loves, four kinds of love. The first one is a sacrificial love based on the relationship of Christ to the church. Husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her. So this is a sacrificial love.

What does Galatians 2.20 say? that He loved and He gave.

Even John 3.16 is close, for God so loved the world that He gave. So loving and giving is the biblical sequence here. Husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her. Think about that. What is this sacrificial love like? Is it because we were so good and we were just worth it? We were so good that we deserved it and Christ felt just compelled that He had to give His life for us. Is that the way it worked? No. No, it's not the way it worked, right?

So if you look at this, this sacrificial love doesn't say, I will love you if... And the reality is our culture teaches a lot of I'll love you if. Even if you hear I love you because, is that sacrificial love? Is that the kind of love that's described? No, it's not. I love you because I like your hair, I like the way you look, I like the way you say things. Whatever it is, as long as it's a because, that's not this kind of love. Do you find because or if in here? It's not there.

So the husband is to live sacrificially for his wife. Now, here's something I have to admit it's unique. And that is, once a husband gives his life for his wife, he's done, right? I mean, he's through, right? You only get to do that once. So how do you live sacrificially? What does that look like? To live sacrificially, not just I'd die for you if the opportunity came up. What does it mean to love by living sacrificially?

Letting the dog out at midnight. The reality is that that's something that each couple is probably going to have to to talk about and discover what does that look like. It's going to be different by culture and it's going to be different by couple. When I went over to Uganda, I gave the guys, there were 60 guys in the class, and I gave 10 groups of six. The assignment, this is the first kind of love, I said, here's all four. Now, you go and tell me in your groups what that looks like in your culture. I just think probably the examples I would give wouldn't work.

And they came up with all sorts of things. Imagine a culture where you've got mud walls and mud floor and grass roof. You can't open the car door. You can't even talk about a clock. They don't know what a clock means. So in that culture, what does it look like? And then, and they come up with some good answers for their culture.

For us, we would have different answers as to what sacrificial love looks like, and it would vary by each couple. Right? So that's why I put this with these nails I thee wed. We typically think of, you know, with this ring. But ultimately, that spells out the kind of love that he's talking about here. with these nails I thee wed." It's like, okay, here we're getting married and I'm going to give you three nails as a symbol of our love, right? As a symbol of my love for you. Then, a sanctifying love.

Now, here's what's interesting. This is all about the relationship between Christ and the church, but because Christ and the church is the example of the relationship between husband and wife, it also spells out what this kind of love looks like of the husband for the wife. So that he, that is Christ, might sanctify her, the church, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word. This word is not the printed word, it's rhema, the spoken word. that he, Christ, might present to himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she would be holy and blameless." Now it's not talking about, you know, no spot or wrinkle here, it's talking about spiritual character. And by the way, that set of words, holy and blameless, do you happen to recall where that showed up earlier in Ephesians? First chapter, He chose us to be holy and blameless, right? So here the word set shows up again. So think about this.

What does this mean for the husband-wife relationship? What it says is that the husband expresses love to the wife by having a care and concern for her spiritual health and growth and well-being. Why is that important? Why does that matter? Okay, that's one thing. In other words, yes.

Crystal needs to speak up because I can't hear her. I said because he wants her to be filled with the Holy Spirit so that she can submit. Yes, in other words, this relates to the first point we made in that if he's looking and saying, you know, she needs to be subject to me, you know, and so what does he do? Does he do a bunch of emotional arm twisting or say, look lady, you better knuckle under? Or does he say, you know, she's having trouble submitting I need to pursue God's spiritual solution. God's spiritual solution, not, boy, she needs a lot more pressure to submit. You see the difference there? But here's something else that means the husband is asking the question and he's conversing with her because he wants to find out where is her spiritual frontier. What is she learning? What are the things that she's learning right now? What are the things that she's even struggling with and wrestling with? Where's the next step in her growth?

You see that? It's looking for where her spiritual frontier is, and then the husband is to be her frontiersman. To be her frontiersman to say, okay, here we are at the frontier. Here's where we're growing. Here's where we're growing and going next. You see that? So it means an exploring by the husband of her spiritual heart. Where is she? Where does she need to go? Where are the next steps in her spiritual growth? What does she need to learn next?

You see that? So it says her growth, the husband is a part of that spiritual growth and leading her in that way. And what might that look like? I'm interested in some examples. How could the husband take part in being her frontiersman? What are some ways that they can work on this and he'd take the lead. Taking time to listen. Okay, taking time to listen, okay. That's good. That's a good start.

How about some other things? Yeah? Does that mean he, being on the frontier, I like that idea, but if you're on a frontier yourself, not knowing where you're going, how can you lead? How does a man lead when he's on the edge of the frontier? How do we know what's coming next?

Him being spiritually connected with Christ. First of all, it's part of his relationship with Christ. That's part one. And how do we know anything spiritually? We have the Word of God and we have in addition to that the Holy Spirit to help us understand that. So we have, even though we may not have experience going there, we do have some idea. What's the spiritual landscape? The Word of God spells out for us the spiritual landscape.

I would suggest, let's look at, what are some other ideas? Ways that they can be involved with one another where they're out on the spiritual frontier, the growing edge praying for and with. Okay, for and with. Yeah, that's another thing. It's talking to the Lord about, and maybe it's even wisdom. Lord, what's next here? Help me see what's next. So praying for and with. So there's an interaction there.

Well, if you're on a frontier, you have to be quite willing to bump along because it's not going to go like you think it is. Yeah, yeah. When we become believers, are we just on a smooth highway to heaven all the way and no off-ramps, no warning signs, no amber alerts? No, I'm afraid, yeah. It's a frontier. You're going to say, you know, why? It's a little rugged. Yeah. Yeah. They're going to be frontier-like aspects to it. I'd say there's one other major clue right at the end of verse 26.

It says, washing of water with the Word, and that's spoken Word. Now this is something that doesn't come naturally for a lot of guys. But it says, talk to her about spiritual things founded in God's Word. Talk to her about spiritual things founded in God's Word.

You see, it isn't just a matter of, well look, I picked you to church, I gave you a study Bible for Christmas, you know, that ought to be good enough, right? We pray before meals, and we've got the bases covered, you know, isn't that enough? No. Talk to her about spiritual things that matter, based in God's Word. And what's the aim? We are looking towards our wife growing spiritually. We're saying, how is she doing spiritually? And participating in their spiritual growth and health and well-being.

And being a leader in that. One other thing. This is spiritual intimacy. Okay, spiritual intimacy. When we think of the word intimacy, we might think emotional intimacy, physical intimacy, but this is spiritual intimacy. And one of the things we'll notice is the emotional and physical intimacy come later. This is important stuff. understanding and exploring and talking about our identification with Christ. This is essential to spiritual growth. We've been identified with Christ. Does she understand what that means? Does he understand what that means? Talk about it together. The third kind of love is a caring love. Husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself.

It is meeting physical and emotional needs. So what are we doing? We're saying that the sanctifying love is meeting spiritual needs. This caring love meets physical and emotional needs. So there is provision for physical and emotional needs there. Okay. Nancy and I will often express that as we're talking to couples. This is the care that the husband would have for himself extended to include her and the children as they're involved. So this is the sanctifying love is spiritual provision. This one is physical and emotional provision.

Now, and the fourth one is, for this reason, here's where it quotes Genesis 2.24, right? For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is great, but I'm speaking with reference to Christ and the church.

This is what we call bonded love. This is the love that is physical intimacy. So, notice what you're looking at here. You've got spiritual intimacy. emotional intimacy, physical intimacy. So, both maleness and femaleness are a mode for earthly kinds. Now that's something to ponder.

Are we going to be male and female when we walk through heaven's gates? In Christ there is no male and there is no female. That's right. In Christ there is no male and female. Our maleness and femaleness are by God's intent and it is on purpose, but the difference will not pass through heaven's gates. So it's interesting that the Lord has set up male and female complementary roles, and even has husband is to love the wife and wife is to submit and respect. The way they act things out is by God's intent, but maleness and femaleness is on the physical side and will not pass through heaven's gates.

Okay. It's for earthly times. It's even now secondary to our nature as spiritual beings. We are primarily spiritual beings, the Bible says. It is important that we're physical beings and the male female distinction is a big part of that, but it's for earthly times. What's revealed nowhere else as clearly in this passage is that each husband and wife has the opportunity for a time to display in real life and real time, the unique and treasured relationship between Christ and the church.

It's an untarnished romance for eternity. It's not the classic romantic tragedy. You know, one of the things that I am repeatedly stunned by, and it's not It is nothing at all monotonous. And that is that every day that the Lord gives me and Nancy together, every day, right? The Lord gives us together is an opportunity to live out the untarnished romance between Christ and the church, which goes on in eternity. So it means every day has a connection to eternity, right? Every day has a connection to eternity. It's an opportunity in time to be a living illustration of the eternal romance between Christ and the Church by the energizing power of the life of Christ in both husband and wife.

What does the life of Christ look like in the wife? Submission and respect is the way it looks in the wife. How does it look from coming through the husband? Yeah, it looks like four kinds of love and four loves, right? And so what's interesting is that the life of Christ has a different but harmonious expression between the husband and the wife.

God's revealed for us in this passage here what the world cannot begin to comprehend. And part of that says that our marriages, by that I mean Christian marriages, ought to be baffling to people in the world. You see that? Ought to be baffling. They ought to be able to look at it and say, you know, I can't quite figure those two out. There's something there that is more than I can explain.

And it's because it's the life of Christ lived out harmoniously but differently in the husband and the wife. For the husband to display in real life and in fine detail the facets and character of the incomparable love that Christ had and has and forever will have for the church. for the wife to display in real life in fine detail the way that the grateful believer's response to the Lord of Glory characterizes the interaction of that eternal romance.

Think about it. Think about the sacrificial love of Christ. Does that make you wonder and kind of marvel? Are you amazed at how much the Lord loves you? Imagine, for the joy set before Him, He endured the cross. Oh yeah, put those nails in, it feels so good, right? No. He endured pain. Why?

For the joy set before Him, that relationship with you, the relationship with us, the church, eternally, He would endure the cross. So you look at that, we ought to marvel at how much the Lord loves us. We ought to be amazed at his grace. If that is the case and Christ and the church is the example, does it not make sense that the wife ought to be amazed at how much her husband loves her?

Does it make sense? Now, the wife, matter of fact, put it this way, guys, aim for your wife to be amazed at how much you love her. Matter of fact, if she can't figure it out, I don't know why he loves me so much. That's good. That's a good thing. If she's just kind of baffled and kind of marveled and and marveling and amazed at it all, that's good. That's a good thing. Aim for her to not have any good answers as to why you love her so much. So the world isn't going to understand it. The world's going to be baffled by it. Let's talk about some words here. Subject to.

Subject to isn't you know, the gal finally knuckles under. She's so pressured to submit that she's okay, you know, and finally relax. But it is a matter of her doing this as an act of will and as an act out of the filling of the Spirit, right? So as the wife is to place herself under the husband, he is called to look upon Christ as the model of the loving relationship. It's not her finally, you know, succumbing to the pressure, but God's model is that she is making herself subject to a man who loves her.

Four ways. Four loves, four ways. A man who is willing to die for her. You have this on page two of your handout. The husband and the wife each submit to the Lord Jesus Christ. That is the case because the husband and wife are each part of the church, the body of Christ. So then, the wife submits to the husband. So what is the wife doing when she submits? She's submitting to the Lord and to her husband who is submitting to the Lord.

That's God's ideal. Instructions to the wife in this passage are brief and simple. She says submit herself to her husband as a result of being filled with the Spirit. The majority instruction in this passage is directed to the husband, given in a fair amount of detail. There is no instruction to force the wife to submit. Husbands, make sure your wives submit. Impress that upon them. No, that's not there. A husband has his own directions, and those are summed up in the four loves. Four loves, four kinds. This love is a self-sacrificial kind of love.

You notice in this passage there are no ifs? Love her if her weight stays under a certain level. Love her as long as the number and depth of wrinkles stays below a certain factor, right? Love her as long as the hair length is what you'd like, right? No, there is no if in here.

Love absolutely, in fact here's one way to put it, love is an act of will, not a feeling. Our own culture typically conveys a love that is a feeling one falls into and out of. In contrast, this is the kind of love that is not from us and has Christ's love for the church as the pattern and Christ's life as the power. The world is not going to comprehend this. not going to get it.

How about this? Isn't the wife supposed to love as well? I mean there's all this husbands love your wife. How about the other way around? That's not necessary, right? All the expressions for love are directed to the husband. Why are these not directed to the wife as well?

Every behavior of the husband and wife in Ephesians 5, 22-33 is based on the husband and his relationship to the wife as Christ and the church. 1 John 4, 19, we love because He first loved us. So why does the wife love? She loves as a response to her husband's love. The relationship of husband and wife is as Christ's to the church. The husband loves his wife unconditionally since he is the living illustration of the love of Christ.

Her submission to his continuing loving leadership results in her loving him in response to him having initiated the unconditional love. That's why the imperatives to love are for the husband. He is the one to initiate love just as Christ initiated love. for the church and just like we as a church body love in response to his love for us, the wife loves in return based on the husband's love for her. So I put it this way. So the Lord loves the husband and the husband responds with love back to Christ. And the same for the Lord and the wife.

And then the relationship between husband and wife is he initiates love, she is the responder. Here's something that's key and we're going to see this some more and that is the husband is to be the initiator. The husband is to be the initiator. He is to take the initiative to love and to express it in these four ways. He's to take the initiative in the four kinds of love that we talked about. And there's another way that we'll see later on here. So if somebody says this is impossible, that's great. Okay. Because the person that tells me, oh, I can do this, is in deep yogurt. Right?

They're in trouble. They're in trouble. Because, why? What's the problem? Somebody says, I can do this. They have no idea what they're descending for. Yeah. They have not the foggiest notion of what this is calling for. How about, you know, Christ saying, hey, put the nails in. That's a piece of cake, right? No. It is humanly impossible to pull this off. This is to be done by the Lord's doing through the believer. This is gracious, not legal. Okay, with that, let's take a break.