Today, we're diving into the profound and often misunderstood subject of love, specifically the kind of love that Scripture urges husbands to emulate in their marriages. Drawing from Ephesians 5, we explore the powerful directive for husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the Church—a standard that goes beyond mere emotion or personal temperament. Instead, it calls for a disciplined, self-governing love that shines through even in the most challenging circumstances. As we unpack this ideal, we'll reflect on how Christ's ability to respond with restraint amidst hostility serves as a model for cultivating a stable and nurturing home environment. So, whether you're a husband looking to up your love game or just someone curious about the deeper meanings of love in relationships, this conversation is packed with insights that might just change how we approach our commitments.

Takeaways:

• The essence of love in marriage is often misunderstood, particularly the love husbands are commanded to show their wives.
• Christ's love exemplifies a disciplined approach, showing that true love is revealed through controlled responses, especially under pressure.
• Strength in marriage isn't about dominance or aggression; it's about self-governance and the ability to remain calm amidst turmoil.
• A husband's reactions can shape the emotional climate of the home, making self-discipline essential for a peaceful family atmosphere.

And good day to you.

I want to begin a series of lessons with you all about a subject that touches just about every marriage and every home, every disciple.

And yet it's so often misunderstood.

And that's the subject of love, specifically the kind of love the Scriptures command a husband to practice within his marriage.

When the apostle Paul writes about marriage and about the husband and wife relationship in Ephesians 5, he gives one of the most searching commands found anywhere in the New Testament when he says, husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church, the Ecclesia, the called out body, and gave himself for her.

Now, that statement defines the measure of a husband's love.

It doesn't appeal to his personality, to his temperament, nor does it appeal to any romantic feeling.

In fact, love has nothing to do with that.

It directs our attention rather to Christ.

So husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the called out.

The standard for a husband's love is the love of Christ himself.

Now, that means if we want to understand what love looks like in a marriage, then we have to examine how Christ loved.

And when we look carefully at the life of Christ, I think we will find something very important that becomes clearer to us.

His love was not defined primarily by emotion.

It was revealed through disciplined responses and often under pressure.

In fact, I think there is a real good way of looking or posturing ourselves as individual Christians and to growing and to transforming by the renewing of our mind, by looking at marriage as the opportunity or the training ground for really developing the kind of heart that we ought to have.

And that's looking at Christ as our example.

He loved despite the situation that he was in, the tension, the pressure, the misunderstanding, the frustrations, all of that that are typically experienced in a home, in a marriage in particular, Christ experienced.

And yet he continued to love.

And so, as we think about that, it was revealed, that is his loving others through discipline.

Responses.

Christ faced hostility throughout his ministry.

He was insulted.

He was accused of blasphemy and violation of the law.

He was misunderstood by the Jewish leadership.

In fact, he was misunderstood by his own disciples.

He was despised and rejected.

Isaiah says, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.

His own village that he grew up in, in Nazareth rejected him, believing him to be just a recognized young man that grew up in the city.

No one of great power or anything, but just an ordinary kid.

And yet the remarkable feature of his life is not merely that he endured those things, though that would have been accomplishment by itself.

But more than that, it's how he responded to them.

And that's what I want us to focus on.

The Apostle Peter describes this with remarkable clarity when he speaks about Christ.

Peter says, when he was reviled, he did not revile in return.

When he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.

That single verse reveals something very profound about the character of Christ.

He didn't return insult for insult.

He was mistreated, but he didn't threaten retaliation.

Instead, he governed himself.

Keep that in mind, please.

Self discipline, government.

Because that introduces the first principle of love, this sacrificial love.

And that is love requires self government, a self discipline.

You know, human beings are naturally reactive.

In fact, this is one of the things that I hope that we can get through as we think about the husband and wife relationship in this stage of development, personal development, is that most human beings who are on this horizontal plane, what I call a very carnal minded approach to life, are more reactive than they are active.

In other words, their lives are pretty passive until something gets them going and they react to it.

In the home, it's that way in business, whatever it is, rather than initiating a proper response and leading a good example and being proactive about fruitful things, we are more reactive.

When someone criticizes us, we instinctively defend ourselves.

And again, that's that carnal nature within us.

And when someone raises their voice, we feel the urge to raise ours.

Sometimes when someone speaks sharply to us, we often answer sharply in return.

Reaction happens quickly, it feels natural, it requires almost no discipline.

But such reaction is not strength.

Reaction is impulsive, but true.

Strength is something else.

It's the ability to pause between some stimulus that's caused us to have a certain emotion, and between that stimulus and the response.

There's something.

It's the ability to pause between that.

In other words, to restrain that anger, to speak thoughtfully rather than impulsively.

To refuse retaliation, even when retaliation feels justified.

There's something that allows us to pause before we react in those situations.

And the kind of strength is what we see repeatedly in the life of Christ.

So he becomes our example.

And while we're talking about husbands in particular, I want us to keep in mind that Jesus is the example of what we ought to be as loving husbands.

He possessed authority, as we have been given that task as well, that position.

It's more than a position, it's a responsibility.

But he possessed power.

He possessed the ability to silence his critics instantly.

And yet, as we think about Christ, he chose restraint.

And that restraint was not weakness.

It was a disciplined strength.

But the world often defines strength as either being aggressive or dominant.

The scripture doesn't present that.

In fact, it presents a very different picture.

We have looked in proverbs, the proverbs we read before, that better a man who rules his spirit than the one who takes the city.

Now think about the comparison being made there.

You conquer a city, and while you come back as a military genius or some you've had shown military power and strategy and force.

And if you're a leader of an army, you might get a medal for that.

Or if you've done some great heroic thing where you saved the lives of many men, you'll be recognized for that.

But ruling one's spirit requires mastery over something even more difficult.

And that's our own emotions.

That is the strength that Christ demonstrated.

So as we think about the home and our topic today as self government, think about the power of self government in the home, about controlling ourselves and disciplining ourselves.

Consider what this means in the context of marriage for a moment.

As I've said before, the climate of a home is at least emotionally shaped by the responses of the husband.

He is the head of the house, and just by his responses, he can set the whole tone of the family.

Not because he's the only one responsible for being an example and for peace in the home, but because his reactions often set the tone for everybody else.

Imagine a very common situation.

A husband comes home after a long day.

There's some financial difficulties.

He goes to the mailbox and sees a bill that is long overdue, and they've already.

Taking some action against him.

And he has an overdrawn bank account.

And some difficulties at work.

Work's been very demanding of late.

Traffic on the way home was so frustrating, people were turning in front of him.

And the day was very, very stressful.

When he walks through the door, a small problem appears.

Perhaps a bill has been forgotten again.

Or perhaps a child is misbehaving.

Perhaps a conversation begins about something that needs to be addressed.

The wife is talking to him about a misbehaved child or some other issue.

And in that moment, irritation rises quickly.

The instinctive reaction might be sharp words or raised voice.

Perhaps he withdraws into silence and goes into his little cave where he's by himself, perhaps frustrated.

He that tone of voice.

The whole home feels that frustration through maybe his look, through his actions as he throws something to the floor.

Or perhaps, as I say, his tone of voice.

So immediately the emotional climate of the house can change.

Everyone feels it.

Children grow quiet, conversations become maybe a bit tense.

So the atmosphere shifts from calm to uneasy.

But just imagine the same situation handled differently.

The irritation still there, the frustration is still there, the emotions are still there.

But the husband feels.

While he feels the same frustration, he feels a calmness.

Instead of reacting impulsively, he governs his reactions and his emotions.

First he pauses.

And this is just taking James advice and his teaching practically be slow to speak, slow to wrath.

But what?

Very attentive in listening, quick to hear, slow to wrath, slow to speak.

So here he is, he's paused.

He listens to what is being said so that he understands the problem.

He speaks calmly.

And that single act of restraint can stabilize the entire environment.

Nothing dramatic has happened, no speech has been given.

But something very important has occurred there.

Because if he can govern himself, that self government has protected the atmosphere of the home.

Now that's a sacrificial love.

In practice, Christ's conduct was often under great hostility.

A great more than you or I have ever experienced in any environment, let alone the home.

The life of Christ provides countless examples of that kind of difficulties.

And yet he does it with great restraint.

Consider how frequently he was challenged publicly by the religious teachers of his day.

Of the Jewish nation.

The religious leaders often tempted and tried to entrap him with difficult questions.

He knew the force of their efforts and what they were trying to do.

They tried to force him into statements that they could then use against him, try to find some inconsistency in him.

And yet Christ never reacted impulsively.

He calmly answered their questions with clarity, with great precision.

He expressed some concern for their honesty.

He exposed their reasoning without descending into any kind of hostility.

Another example appears right during his trial.

You remember when false accusations were presented against him, there were witnesses that had come, false witnesses that had come before him.

And these witnesses were contradicting one another.

And yet Christ did not answer every charge.

The Gospel writers tell us that Pilate was astonished by his composure.

He marveled that Christ remained calm in facing such accusations.

Your nation has brought you to us.

Don't you have something to say?

That composure revealed extraordinary strength.

Christ's conduct was governed by purpose rather than by his own emotions.

Now I want to say something, a word or two about why reactions are so destructive.

Because they are dangerous.

It places emotions in control of sound judgment and good thinking.

When anger governs one's speech, words become weapons.

When irritation governs one's tone, the the relationships can become very unstable.

When frustrations govern, their decisions and judgments are clouded.

Within a home, this instability can spread real quick.

And so if a husband's response are unpredictable, the entire household becomes cautious.

You never know what to expect.

People begin to walk carefully around him.

Conversations can become guarded, not really sure if they should answer the question.

And if they do answer, they're going to be sure not to give him the whole story.

But when a man governs himself, something very different happens.

The home becomes steady.

People feel safe speaking honestly, difficult conversations can become possible.

And self government becomes a form of protection.

It protects the emotional environment in which the family lives.

And so they feel safe to express, to communicate, to share.

And that's what home's all about.

So we must learn then the discipline of restraint and self government.

It's not automatic, it's got to be learned and practiced.

It involves small but important habits.

For example, learning to pause before responding, being slow to speak.

It means listening carefully before forming any conclusions.

That is to say, not jumping to conclusions without getting the full facts, without listening to every detail.

It means refusing to answer anger with anger.

Now Christ demonstrated this discipline, consistently refusing to allow hostility to dictate his own behavior.

Peter tells us that he continued entrusting himself to him who judges righteously or justly.

Think about that for a second.

He entrusted himself to him who judges justly.

It wasn't for him to determine the fairness of a situation and then enact that judgment upon them, or to try to equalize or balance the scale of injustice himself.

He trusted that to be handled by God His Father.

And so he just gave it up.

He left it to him who will take care of that.

And that phrase is extremely important.

It's an attitude that we all should have that will help us not take such quick reaction reactionary statements and explosive comments and emotional feelings that just impulsively spurt out of our mouths without thinking.

And so we pause before responding and we trust and entrust to God who judges justly.

Christ didn't feel the need to prove himself right in every situation.

He trusted that justice ultimately rests in the hands of God.

And that trust just freed him from the need to react impulsively.

God will take care of it.

And that leads us to a final insight for our study today.

And that's that strength has to be redefined because it's so distorted today.

Many people believe that strength means control.

And they really believe that strength means dominating an argument or being quick witted and refusing to yield.

It's interesting how you can just walk down the hallway of a high school or any other elementary school nowadays and it all becomes just.

Who can cut the other one down the most, or say it's something that's wittier and smarter, that can put you on top and you can walk away saying, I took care of that situation.

And that's strength to a lot of people.

It means dominating that, refusing to yield.

You're not going to give up.

The life of Christ reveals altogether something different.

Strength is again not controlling others, not changing others, not trying to in any way coerce, persuade, or.

It's all about governing oneself.

It's restraint.

And that by itself is a leading example.

That's teaching not so much by what you say, but by.

But by what they see in your life.

And so as we think about strength being self government, therefore it is also restraint.

It is the ability to remain calm under those pressure situations.

Strength is the ability to pursue peace when pride demands victory.

This is the strength that sacrificial love requires.

And it is the strength that the apostle Paul calls husbands to practice when he says, husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the Church.

The love that Christ demonstrated was disciplined love.

It governed itself.

It remained steady under pressure, it refused retaliation.

That is the pattern that husbands are called to follow.

And it begins with one simple but demanding principle.

Strength is not the freedom to react.

Strength is the ability to govern yourself.

As we think about this, there's three other three total.

We'll look at two more examples before we're through with this little series.

But not only are we looking at how love is defined in the phrase husbands love your wives by looking at the conduct of Christ himself, but we're also going to be looking at two other examples of this love or description of this love.

And for next time, we're going to be talking about how Christ remained engaged, that is, he stayed present instead of withdrawing when difficult times came.

Now this is a common problem for husbands and heads of households is that a lot of men would just rather go to their man cave and just withdraw.

And Christ remained engaged even when he might want to withdraw.

Now I understand there were times when he withdrew to go to the other side to pray.

It's a different thing.

He really wasn't withdrawing from communication, withdrawing altogether from everything, but rather he was withdrawing from the world to spend time with his Father and pray.

That's a little different.

But I'm talking about withdrawing from life altogether, withdrawing from responsibility, withdrawing from issues that must be addressed.

And this is another pattern in the life of Christ that's just as important that while hostility did not cause him to retreat from people.

That's what I'm getting At think about the circumstances that he faced.

And we'll be looking at that also for next week.

In addition to that, a third example we find in Christ is that he sought restoration instead of vindication.

It wasn't as if he felt a need to hope or wish any ill will on anybody because of how they did or how they treated another.

I hope they get what they deserve.

That wasn't his attitude.

It was always how he could mend those nets, how he could help somebody restore, instead of hostility and turned toward those others that treated him wrongfully.

So hostility and those kinds of treatments that others had shown him and their rejection of him, it didn't turn him toward revenge.

Many people wronged him, they lied about him, they abandoned him in the hour of suffering.

And yet his focus was never on providing himself right, or, I'm sorry, his purpose was always restoration.

We see this clearly after the resurrection when Christ meets Peter.

Peter had publicly denied him three times.

Now imagine how easily Christ could have humiliated him at that moment, or if he'd wanted to.

He, you know, he.

He could not only humiliate him, he could say, you know, I've had it with you.

You've never understood me.

You've always tried to contradict me.

I've told you what's going to happen, and yet you keep telling me it's not going to happen, that you're not going to let it.

He had told him several times.

He said one time, get behind me, Satan.

And so he could have said, I've had it with you, Peter.

And yet he didn't.

His purpose was restoration.

Even after Peter had denied him that he even knew him.

I think there's a reason for that.

We'll talk about it sometime.

But even after that, when the dust had settled and Peter, things kind of returned to normal as far as going back to the way things were before Christ had called them.

When the resurrection morning occurred.

And when they discovered that Jesus in fact was raised from the dead, there was evidence that pointed in that direction.

The women came and told the disciples that he has arisen and that.

And Jesus told Mary to tell them that he will go before them in Galilee.

And specifically Peter, he'll see you there too.

I think that's an impressive thing for Peter.

The last word or last communication, the last scene that we have of Peter with the Lord was when he said, I don't know the man.

And immediately the cock crew crowed.

And he looked.

Jesus looked at him.

They met, their eyes met and he went and wept bitter tears.

And now he hears a report, peter, I want to see you in Galilee.

And so I say to you, he restores him.

And then later, of course, John records in the last section of the Gospel of John, where Jesus asks him three times, peter, do you love me?

As if to confirm, to set beside his denying of him three times, to be able to give him the confirmation, yes, Lord, you know that I love you.

And in each instance, when he was confirmed that he loved the Lord, Jesus told him, feed my sheep.

The goal here was not to win an argument.

The goal here was not to humiliate him, to make him know how wrong he was.

The goal was to restore the relationship.

And that reveals another dimension of sacrificial love.

Love seeks repair, not victory.

And in many conflicts in marriage, it becomes a contest of justification, each one trying to prove that the other person was wrong and that they were right and had every reason or justification for what they did.

But love, measured by sacrifice, pursues something entirely different, something much higher.

It pursues reconciliation.

And so these three patterns of sacrificial love we want to be looking at in particular in the next two weeks as we look at some other thoughts when we step back and look at the conduct of Christ.

He governed himself rather than reacting.

He remained engaged rather than withdrawing.

And he pursued restoration rather than vindication.

Those responses were not accidental.

They were the expression of a disciplined, self governing love.

And that's why the apostle Paul points husbands to Christ as the model for marriage.

The command in Ephesians is not simply to care for one's wife or treat her kindly or show her affection.

It is to love as Christ loved the ekklesia.

That means the pattern of Christ becomes the pattern for the husband.

Just as Christ governed himself under insult, the husband must learn to govern himself under frustration.

Just as Christ remained patient under misunderstandings, the husband must remain engaged when relationships become difficult.

And just as Christ pursued restoration rather than retaliation, the husband must value reconciliation more than vindication.

That's our thought, that's our outline for the next couple weeks.

Thank you so much for your kind attention to these things.

And the challenge is on.

Men look to Christ.

Have a good day and a pleasant week ahead.