Love always takes the first step, especially in the context of marriage, and that’s the cornerstone of our discussion today. We delve into how true, Christlike love isn’t reactive; it doesn’t wait for the other person to show worthiness or appreciation before it acts. Instead, it embodies a proactive spirit, driven by compassion and a commitment to serve, even when conditions aren't ideal. We explore how this principle of sacrificial leadership shapes the dynamic between husbands and wives, emphasizing that genuine love requires initiative and a willingness to bear the cost of caring for one another. So, whether you’re navigating the complexities of a relationship or simply curious about the depths of love, join us as we unpack these essential ideas and encourage a shift from self-serving expectations to a more enduring, selfless commitment.

Takeaways:

• The essence of love in marriage is rooted in taking initiative, reflecting Christ's proactive love.
• A husband's love should not be reactionary; it must act first, irrespective of his wife's behavior.
• True leadership in a marriage requires sacrificial love, mirroring the selflessness of Christ.
• Love is not merely a response to what is received; it is a deliberate choice to give and support.
• In relationships, it's crucial to pursue understanding and restoration over simply exposing faults.
• A loving partner prioritizes the well-being of their spouse, actively creating an environment of support.

And welcome again to our study.

We've been talking about the relationship of the husband and wife in building a case for the spiritual man.

This is where men should learn to be conformed to the image of Christ.

It's where the challenges are the greatest.

And so we will use that relationship to, I guess, help us to build that kind of love that Christ expects and the leadership that Christ expects and the spirituality that Christ expects from men.

Today I want to talk about the fact that love will always move first.

In other words, it always takes the initiative.

In fact, when you look at the use of the word leader, oftentimes leadership is, is really defined best by seeing that it is always the individual that takes initiative.

They are actively engaged.

So we want to build a case for this sacrificial leadership that we've begun to talk about.

And the basic claim of our lesson is that Christlike love is never reactionary.

In other words, it doesn't wait to see whether the other person is going to be worthy or responsive, or whether they're appreciative or respectful or easy to love before it acts.

If a man is to love his wife like Christ loved the called out, then he needs to love this way.

This is the standard.

The standard is set high, but it's not based on how one feels.

It's a choice.

It's not based on emotions.

It was a choice that was based on preserving redemption, a redemptive life.

And this is one of the essential ingredients that's shared by true love.

Spiritual mindedness and biblical leadership.

All of them take initiative.

Love takes initiative, spiritual mindedness takes initiative, and true leadership takes initiative.

It doesn't sit back in pride and fold its arms and say, well, I'll move when they move first.

Nor does it negotiate terms as if to say, well, if you're, you know, if you'll obey me first, then I'll perform for you.

It's not on the basis of how well the other person performs at all.

It doesn't wait for the ideal conditions to exist before doing what's right.

And so the ideal man, in a very similar way, he's not waiting for his wife to respect him or to submit to him, a statement that is so abused and misunderstood, I might add.

But the love revealed in God that's then demonstrated in Christ and commanded of husbands is love that always acts first.

So Paul doesn't allow a husband to define love by what feels natural to him or what costs him the least.

We've already noted the characteristic feature of love that is known by Giving its life.

In fact, we emphasize that that love is sacrificial.

Jesus or Paul told the Ephesian saints to love like Christ love and gave himself.

So it costs the greatest, not the least.

And so we've noted that already it costs a tremendous amount.

But the standard here is Christ.

That means the husband must look at the way Christ loved and then ask whether his own love bears that pattern.

You see, Christ's love was not merely affectionate, it was active.

In fact, I don't read anywhere where God really says to anybody, to mankind in general, or any one person and says, I love you.

I don't see it as being verbally expressed.

That's true.

We have statements like God so loved the world, but it's in the third person.

I mean, I don't remember a time where God says to anybody, I love you.

He doesn't have to.

He shows it, he demonstrates it.

And that is true love.

Love is, we might define it as some have active goodwill.

And so it was costly and it was not responsive to anybody's loveliness or their worthiness.

It was rather something that was moved to others because of their need and usually based on compassion and a concern for their well being.

And so a husband's calling is not merely to respond when marriage is easy or, you know, or when things are going so smoothly, but he's to take initiative for the good of the one that he's promised to love.

And so now think about this for a while.

Think about this thought that if that's true love and you are aware of her responsibility toward God's will, then you would do all that's within your power to make it easy for her to be a respectful helper and supporter in marriage.

In other words, if she has a responsibility that she has to perform, then you would make it easier for her, not harder.

You would want to make it easier for her to be a follower instead of a leader and to submit and to be engaged in initiating certain acts of love for her benefit.

So one of the most important passages that established this principle is found in Matthew 5.

Jesus says in 43, you have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.

But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.

Then he gives the reason so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven.

You see, there is a love that is reciprocal.

You love your friends, you love those that love you.

But to love as the Father loved is to love those in your enemies.

It's to love the people that rejected you, who spoke against you, who hurt you.

See, Jesus points to the Father and he says, he makes his Son to rise on the evil and on the good, and he sends the rain on the just and the unjust.

Now that's crucial because Jesus is not merely calling people to be nicer.

He's revealing the nature of a father like love.

The Father's benevolence is not merely a reaction to human goodness because he sends the sun and the rain even to those who do not honor him.

His goodness acts from his own character.

And that's exactly what men are called to do for their wives.

But then Jesus presses the point even further when he says, for if you love those that love you, what reward have you do not even the tax gatherers or publicans do the same.

Now he's talking to a Jewish audience.

There's not too many Jews of that day who had a very good opinion about the tax collectors, but Jesus saying, they even do that.

So this statement exposes the limits of reactionary love.

Loving people who already love us back is not the highest evidence of spiritual maturity.

It's natural, but it's.

I mean, it's of the carnal kind.

It's socially acceptable.

It may be satisfying in an emotional way, but Jesus says, even tax gatherers do that.

In fact, everybody does that.

Even those with no deep spiritual understanding can return affection for affection and kindness, for kindness and greeting for greeting.

The love that reflects the Father, though, goes beyond reciprocity.

It's not a matter of, you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours.

And so it must not be controlled by the question, what am I receiving from this person?

That doesn't even enter into the equation.

But really what determines it is by a higher question, what does the character of my Father require of me?

And so this passage directly confronts the kind of love that waits to be activated by favorable treatment.

A husband that's gentle only because he was spoken to gently or he was given what he wanted.

The husband that's attentive to his wife when she feels appreciative and is thankful to him and shows him respect.

Or the man that repents only when his wife apologizes first.

He hasn't reached the standard described by Jesus here, and he may be practicing just human reciprocity.

It's a natural carnal way of approaching or dealing with human relationships.

But he's not demonstrating the distinct quality of godlike love.

And that's what we have in Ephesians 5.

Christlike love doesn't merely mirror the treatment that it receives.

It acts from a deeper source.

It's governed by godlike love.

John teaches this same truth in 1 John 4 when he says in this is love not that we've loved God, but that he loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

Now, notice the order here.

It matters.

John doesn't define love by beginning with man's movement toward God.

He defines love by God's movement toward man, not that we have loved him, but that he loved us.

Now that's initiating love.

God didn't wait until mankind produced enough love to deserve the sending of His Son.

He first loved and he acted out of love.

In the same chapter of John this same passage, John later says, we love because he first loved us.

Notice it.

He first loved us.

That's foundational.

Human love at its best is a response to divine initiative.

God's love came first, he acted first, he gave first, and he created the possibility then of our loving him in return.

In Romans, chapter five, we looked at this before and mentioned it from time to time already.

But this passage strengthens this argument that we're making.

This point that we're trying to stress today is that love always acts first.

Paul says, for while we were still weak at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly.

Then he continues, God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Now these words should be handled carefully, because what they do is they prove that Christ's love was not a negotiated account.

He didn't die for the worthy or the strong and the already obedient.

He didn't die for those who already improved.

Paul says, when we were weak and ungodly and sinners in that condition, God showed His love.

Now this doesn't mean at all that God approves of sin because he shows love.

It means his love moved towards sinners to accomplish redemption for them.

You see, the love of Christ is never reactionary.

It acts while the need was still great and before the response was ever present.

In a similar way, we find passages that we're well acquainted with, like John 3:16.

It adds the same movement and just in a different way of saying it.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son.

Again, love gives love acts, and love acts first.

God didn't send His Son because the world had already repaired itself.

He sent His Son because the world needed saving.

Verse 17 says that God didn't send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

Now, that shows us what we're trying to describe here about love.

It makes the first move.

It's not sentimental.

It's not indifference toward evil.

It's just love moving toward a ruined world to provide the remedy that the world could not provide for itself.

That's love.

So this pattern is visibly seen in the very beginning.

You remember in Genesis 3, after Adam and Eve sinned, notice they didn't run toward God.

They did the opposite.

They hid.

They covered themselves with fig leaves.

They withdrew in shame and fear.

And yet God came walking in the garden in the cool of the day and called out to man, where are you?

Now, that question wasn't asked because God didn't know that he lacked the information.

It was the language of divine pursuit.

And I say to you men, you husbands, you need to pursue your wife.

In a similar way, human sin produced hiding, but divine love moved toward the hiding center.

God didn't remain silent until Adam found his own way back.

And in fact, he asked the question.

He initiated the conversation.

He came to man, he confronted Adam.

He began the process of truth and judgment and mercy and ultimate promise.

Now, this is an important example because it shows that initiating love doesn't mean ignoring the wrong.

God didn't pretend nothing had happened.

He questioned Adam and Eve.

He exposed the truth, and he gave the consequences of it.

But his initiative was not just punitive.

You know, in the same chapter, he gave the first great promise of redemption, declaring that the seed of the woman would bruise the head of the serpent.

God's first movement toward fallen humanity contained both truth and hope.

And it's quite interesting that many of the prophets and the writings of the prophets end in a very similar way.

There's a hope of a restoration and a promise of a restoration, a future restoration.

In the same way, we need to expose the sin, not treat it haphazardly or with any indifference, but.

But at the same time offer hope.

In other words, the reason it's brought out is not to shame somebody or to just ruin them with guilt, but rather to bring them to repentance and to help them to that end.

And so God's movement toward fallen humanity contained truth and hope.

It's saying, yes, this could have been handled better or this was wrong.

I understand, and I know how you feel.

In other words, don't treat it as if you are above the possibility of sinning yourself, that you've reached some state of maturity and complete perfection, but rather just embrace the Truth as it is, with the idea of making some changes, or with the idea of bringing hope, of making all of that over and done with.

Think of the past so that we can move on for the future.

God's first movement was, yes, confronting the sin, but giving hope.

This is so important for marriage.

Establish truth, but end with hope.

Leadership is the same way whether it's in a marriage or whether any kind of leadership, because it protects us from those two errors.

Not ignoring sin in the name of peace.

But neither does it use sin as an excuse to withdraw or shame people or to abandon them.

Genesis 3:21 deepens this thought more.

When the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins, and he clothed them.

This is an interesting thought, but again, it supports our point today.

You remember when Adam and Eve tried to cover themselves with the fig leaves, God provided a better covering.

It wasn't adequate.

That's not just an image of kindness here.

Those garments of skin implies the death of the animal, so that the covering itself points to a cost.

God didn't leave them exposed in their shame.

He confronts them in their sin, but then he covers them.

You see that point?

He judged them, but he provided.

He spoke truth.

But he didn't leave them naked beneath their failures.

He covered them.

And that's a powerful truth taught in a number of different ways.

In a similar way Peter says in 1st Peter 4:8, above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.

Now, these passages don't mean that love lies about sin or excuses sin.

We're not trying to hide abuse.

If a husband's abusive, or that he avoids accountability, or that he pretends wrongdoing doesn't matter.

In Genesis 3 itself, it proves that true love can confront sin.

Honestly, we need to do that.

But love doesn't delight in exposing the sin just for the sake of exposing it.

Love does not rejoice in the shame that one feels.

Love does not take pleasure in another person's failures and then turn it into leverage, or in some cases for some people, almost appears to be for entertainment or to give them some sort of mark of identity.

To say that, well, you lied about that, you're a liar, or you stole that, now you're a thief, as if to label them and hide that over them.

Love doesn't do that.

Love seeks redemptive covering.

This Same thought fits first Corinthians 13 where Paul says that love does not rejoice at wrong, it rejoices with the truth.

And love isn't resentful, meaning it doesn't keep a record of wrongs.

There's a kind of stuff, sinful exposure, that enjoys having something over another person.

It's very carnally minded.

But a lot of carnally minded people are in positions they have no right being in and should not be in.

When you give yourself to another person as their head and as the husband in a relationship of marriage, then the one thing you should not be doing is exposing the wrong.

You should be hiding it and covering it and protecting it.

Remembers.

But this other love doesn't do that.

It kind of holds on to those things.

If it doesn't, well, it'll remember the wrong, but it'll also repeat the wrong when it needs to be.

It stores it, brings it out when it's useful for them.

See, this is not love.

It doesn't mention sin for healing, but for control.

And that's not love.

Love doesn't rejoice when another person fails because failure gives it power.

And in a marriage, this means a husband who loves, like Christ, should not be eager to expose her, to embarrass her, to humiliate his wife when she's wrong, and certainly not to talk to somebody else about those wrongs.

If truth must be spoken, it should be spoken for restoration purposes.

He should not collect these old failures as some sort of weapons for future arguments.

But yet we do that.

We weaponize others by their using their failures against them.

God's action in Genesis 3 shows truth and mercy.

He doesn't leave sin unnamed, but he also doesn't leave sinners uncovered.

And that is the Spirit that husbands have to learn.

Biblical leadership should not be eager to expose wrong, it should be eager to restore.

It should know when to speak the truth, but it should know why truth is being spoken.

Thinking about Paul's statement in Ephesians 4, speaking the truth in love may grow up in all things.

If truth is used to crush, to embarrass or secure a feeling of superiority, then it's been separated from love.

But if truth is spoken in order to heal, to restore, to protect that covenant, then it reflects the character of God.

There are many examples, and I don't know that we'll get to all of them.

But I think of a few examples from even the Old Testament.

I think of the Exodus story.

In chapter three, God says in verse seven, beginning, I've surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt.

And I've heard Their cry, I know their sufferings, he says, I've come down to deliver them.

Now notice the movement of the text.

God sees it, he hears, he knows, and then he comes down to deliver.

Divine love is not detached observation.

God doesn't just notice suffering and keep it at a distance or log it in some book.

He moves toward deliverance.

And true leadership is that way.

It pays attention.

It sees the burdens before they ever become unbearable.

It hears the distress, the tone.

It knows the condition of those under its care, and it moves toward help.

And in a marriage, a husband should, you know, he shouldn't have to be begged into every act of care.

He should develop an attention and be attentive.

And he should notice these times of fear or discouragement or pressures.

And sometimes it's seen by the way she acts.

And it may not always be so good.

But he ought to be able to determine the motive behind those statements and why those statements are mentioned.

A man who says, well, she never told me, may sometimes be telling the truth.

But love should not always need formal instruction before it acts.

It ought to be paying attention.

That's my point, and that's part of Peter's teaching in First Peter 3, that a man dwell with his wife according to knowledge.

He's learning, he's attentive, he's staying focused on the needs and leadership friends always notices.

The ministry of Christ reveals the same kind of forward moving love In Luke chapter 19, for instance, for the Son of man came to seek and save the lost.

That's the clearest description of initiating love in the work of Christ.

If he came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom.

For many lost people, by definition, they don't know the way home.

They need pursuit, they need rescue.

They need someone who will move toward them.

And Christ does that in the parable of the good Samaritan in Luke 10 gives us a practical picture of love moving toward a need.

The priests and Levites saw the wounded man passed by on the other side.

The Samaritan saw him, had compassion, went to him, bound up his wounds, poured oil and wined on them, set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn where he cared for him, paid for his care, and promised to return.

Now, friends, that cost something, but it was costly movement toward a need.

The Samaritan didn't wait to see whether the wounded man can repay him.

He didn't wait for the man to become useful.

He doesn't negotiate appreciation before he helps him.

You see, love always crosses the road and pays the cost.

That image can be applied carefully to a marriage.

Instead of saying, well, that's her problem, she can deal with it on her own.

Love crosses the road.

It moves toward the wounds.

In John 10, another essential picture where Jesus says, I am the good shepherd.

The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep, see?

And then later he says, no one takes me, takes this life from me.

I lay it down of my own accord.

Now this is critical because it shows that Christ's sacrifice was voluntary.

His love wasn't forced out of him.

It wasn't manipulated from him.

He laid down his life of his own accord.

And that's leadership.

Love in marriage, leadership.

This is a powerful pattern.

A husband is not called to exploit his role for comfort or control.

He's called to be shepherd, like willing to lay down his life.

If danger enters the home, whether spiritual, emotional or whatever it is, he should not flee, he should be present.

He should not abandon the relationship to whatever will happen, but he'll move toward the danger for the good of the beloved.

In Mark, chapter 10, you'll remember another example in verse 42 where it directly connects love and service and leadership.

Jesus tells his disciples that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over others.

He said, it won't be that way among you.

Whoever would be great must be a servant, and whoever must be first must be slave of all.

And then he gives himself as the pattern.

For even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many.

This, my friends, is one of the most important leadership passages in the New Testament.

He doesn't deny leadership, he defines it.

Because greatness in his kingdom isn't measured by how many people serve the leader and elevate them and praise them, but it's by how faithfully the leader gives himself in service.

So friends and husbands quit borrowing worldly models of power and cover them that cover them with biblical language.

I don't know how many times I've heard men tell other men, you need to get in control.

You need to control your why or you need to control your children.

They use that term as if that's their obligation and that describes their headship.

So leadership doesn't do that.

Didn't say I'm the head.

Therefore everybody exists to serve my comfort.

It says, because I have responsibility, I must give myself for the good of those that entrusted to my care.

It changes, you see the spirit in which authority is exercised.

Biblical leadership is not self glorying.

It's it's cross shaped.

It takes initiative to serve long before it demands.

Well, it doesn't demand to be served at all.

Well, we need to go on with this and I promise to continue with some of these examples because the Bible is full of this emphasis and we must not separate ourselves from it.

And as husbands who love their wives, as Christ loved the called out, this is a message that I hope you'll take to heart, really pray about it and make some changes in your life.

Thank you so much for listening.

Have a good day and a pleasant week ahead.