Marriage serves as a profound illustration of our spiritual growth, emphasizing that true transformation begins at home, particularly in how we treat our spouses. In our discussion today, we dive into the challenging yet essential concept of sacrificial love as delineated in Ephesians 5, where the call for husbands to love their wives mirrors Christ's love for the called-out, which is a standard that inevitably raises the bar on accountability. We’ll explore how many men might mistakenly equate leadership with control, only to find that genuine responsibility lies in selfless love and service. This episode isn’t just a theological exercise; it’s a reminder that love isn’t merely a feeling or a series of gestures, but a radical commitment to prioritize the well-being of our partners over our comfort. So, buckle up as we untangle these nuanced dynamics, aiming for a deeper understanding of what it means to love sacrificially in our marriages.

Takeaways:

• Marriage is not just a relationship but a profound opportunity for spiritual transformation, reflecting Christ's love.
• The essence of leadership in marriage is rooted in sacrificial love, which requires accountability rather than authority.
• Understanding love in marriage means examining one’s actions and intentions, rather than just societal norms or personal comfort.
• True sacrificial love is expressed through daily choices that prioritize the spouse's needs over one’s own desires and convenience.

Well, welcome to our study.

We have been looking at the subject of marriage primarily as an effort to help us conform ourselves after the image of Christ and to not be conformed by this world, but be transformed.

Transformation really occurs when a man can examine himself in his home and how he treats his family and in particular, his wife.

And so, as we looked at that, we're using the marriage relationship as an example for spirituality and maturity rather than being carnally minded.

Marriage begins with love, and that's what we want to emphasize in the next few lessons.

One of the things that stands out in this text in Ephesians 5 is that marriage is a sacrificial love.

Christ loved the called out and gave himself.

Men are not to leave their homes or told rather to leave their homes.

But sometimes I think that meaning is unclear.

They hear complaints and conversations with other men about the need to control their wives, or you need to have better control of your kids, or some idea to that effect.

And that interprets leadership as an authority or someone who can gain control over others.

Others, I think, have grown or learned to withdraw from the responsibility altogether, believing that peace is most important.

And so they just go into more of a silence mode and with the influence of society, who makes no distinction between men and women, that the Bible makes the confusion even is worse.

And in this confusion, the command to love one's wife can easily be reduced to just an occasional gesture of affection, or in some cases, just saying, well, listen, I work, you know, overtime and I put in a lot of hours because I love you.

Or he may see her as simply a sex object, the worst kind of definition for love.

Well, we've noted that the Scripture consistently places a heavier responsibility upon the man, and that this responsibility is marked not by privilege, but by accountability.

From the very beginning, Adam was held answerable for the condition of the garden.

Even though Eve was the first to commit sin and violate that, it was still that responsibility was entrusted to him.

And so this pattern continues throughout the New Testament.

And while Ephesians 5 says that wives are to respect, or actually Colossians does that, Ephesians 5 teaches that she's to submit.

Husbands are given an extended command that reaches far deeper.

They have to love their wives as Christ loved the called out.

So that comparison alone reveals the weight of the demand.

Because as we look to Christ, he submitted.

He put himself under the Father's will and took on the role of a servant.

So it's not surprising to find in the passages that we've looked at, and we'll be looking at that describe qualifications of men for spiritual leadership, that the man's ability to govern his house is treated as the proving ground of his character.

These examples are found in 1st Timothy 3, for example, and verses 4 and 5, as well as Titus chapter 1.

These are examples that show that biblical leadership is not defined by wielding someone's right to issue orders or demand respect, but by the burden of placing, by really taking the responsibility.

The standard applied to him is therefore higher and more demanding because the stability and the direction and the spiritual tone of the home are repeatedly tied to his strength of character.

And so when you look at Ephesians 5, we want to focus this morning on or today on sacrificial love.

When Paul speaks to the Ephesians in chapter five or when he writes this letter, he does something that should immediately get our attention.

He doesn't begin with the husband's authority.

In fact, that doesn't explain the man's role in marriage.

He doesn't begin by telling the husband how to secure obedience or how to enforce order and gain control of his children, or how he can make sure his place in the home is recognized.

He just says, you need to love like Christ loved.

Now, that's not accidental.

It tells us that whatever biblical leadership means in marriage, it can't be separated from love.

You know, you can talk about headship and order and responsibility and pass over that pretty quickly, but if you've, if you've missed it, if you've not emphasized and seen love, you've already misunderstood the spirit of the passage.

The command is simple, and yet it's very searching.

It's simple because every husband can understand the word love at some level.

But it's searching because Paul doesn't allow the husband to define love like, well, that's just the way I love.

Oh, that's the way I show love.

People do this.

He doesn't love.

He doesn't leave it to one's temperament.

In other words, it certainly doesn't leave it to culture and family background.

He doesn't leave it to one's personality.

He doesn't say, husbands, love your wives in the way that comes natural for you.

He didn't say love them according to the standard of men around you.

He gives only one standard, and that standard is Christ.

So that's where the whole conversation about marriage leadership begins.

And so before man can ask whether he's being followed or respected or submitted to, he's got to ask whether he is loving in the way that Christ loved before.

He asked whether his wife respects him.

He's got to ask whether his life is becoming respectable under the rule of Christ.

And before he can appeal to his position in the home, he must examine the pattern of his conduct in that home.

So Paul doesn't allow the husband to claim a biblical role, yet ignore the biblical character that governs that role.

Well, I couldn't have said it any better.

That is the point.

And so it matters.

It matters because there are a lot of discussions about marriage that begins at the wrong end.

They begin with who's in charge.

They begin with who gets the final say.

That's the wrong place to start.

Christ's love is the measure, and that fact alone corrects a thousand distortions.

So many men might think, well, I provide for my family and that is proof of my love.

Or a man who refuses to provide when he's able has failed in a serious way.

I don't doubt that that's important.

But provision alone is not the full measure of Christ's love.

He may say, well, I'm faithful to her.

I don't cheat.

And faithfulness is essential, no doubt.

But avoiding adultery is not the full measure of Christlike love.

And he may say, well, I come home every night, I'm present.

And yet a man can be physically present but be absent.

He can be in the house and still fail to give himself the life of that, of that marriage to be a part of that relationship.

And so if Christ stands over the husband's definition of love and can correct it, he can correct him.

A man can't reduce love to whatever is comfortable for him.

He has to look at love the way Christ loved.

He can't reduce it to some kind of, you know, to financial provisions or some affection or kindness.

He can't hide behind the phrase, that's just the way I am.

Either.

He has to love like or as Christ loved and gave himself up for her.

That's the heart of this message today.

This tells us how that love is expressed.

Man's love becomes expressed like Christ's love became expressed.

It becomes visible through sacrifice.

It's not just announced, it moves, it initiates, and it accepts the cost required to secure the needs.

So when you think about love, biblically understood, always gives.

In other words, it sees the need of the occasion, gives not because giving is easy or not because the other person has always earned it, and certainly not because the cost is small.

It gives because the good of the one loved matters to them.

And Romans 5, 8 says, God shows his love toward us and that while we were still Sinners.

Christ died for us.

His love was demonstrated in it became visible.

It acted while we were still sinners without making ourselves worthy.

And before we had any opportunity to correct it or do anything about it, before we had even responded as we should, he loved us still.

And so when we apply that to marriage, that does something it doesn't mean that a man has no responsibility.

Excuse me, that a wife has no responsibility.

That's not it at all.

Paul speaks to wives as well.

And no honest reading of Scripture would allow one husband or spouse, either one man or woman, to just erase their obligations because of the other's failures.

In this verse, Paul is speaking directly to husbands, and that's our emphasis.

The husband can't dodge the weight of the command by pointing to his wife's failures.

It seems to me that this is exactly what Adam did.

He has to first stand under the word addressed to him.

And that's where many men, I think, are tested.

Much of what passes for love and marriage is actually more reactive.

If a man is, you know, comes home and his wife is warm, then he's warm.

If she's affectionate, then he's affectionate.

If she speaks gently and laughs and smiles and he's gentle, laughing and smiling.

If she shows respect, he becomes attentive.

But when she's tired or disappointed and critical, when she's distracted and emotionally distant, then what?

Does he withdraw?

Does he retaliate?

Does he.

Does he become cold?

If so, his conduct isn't governed by Christ.

It's being governed by her mood.

He's not leading in love.

He's mirroring the atmosphere around him.

You see, Christlike love isn't like that.

It's not controlled by the response of other people.

It's governed by faithfulness.

Christ loved when we were not so lovely, when we were sinners, when we were enemies.

He moved toward us when we couldn't save ourselves.

He gave himself when the cost was beyond calculation.

And that's why Paul's command to husbands is very, very serious.

He calls a man to become the kind of person whose love is anchored in Christ rather than our culture or convenience or just emotional ease.

And so to say that Christ gave himself is to say that his love carried some cost.

Sacrifice always carries cost, doesn't surrenders one's personal comforts, perhaps one's preference, convenience, one's own personal advantage or even rightful privilege for the good of another.

It's not merely losing something.

It's willingly giving something for a higher purpose.

And so it's love that can Put aside all preferences and personal desires so that the good of another person is.

Is placed above the ease of yourself.

And so in marriage, it simply means that a husband has to learn to say, not just with his mouth, but with his life, that my comfort and my ease and my satisfaction is not the highest good in this home.

My preference is not the final rule of this relationship.

My convenience is not the center around which this marriage must revolve.

But it's the good of my wife, the health of this covenant, and the honor of Christ that matters more than the satisfaction of my own desires.

That kind of love doesn't come naturally to the flesh.

The carnal man does not do that naturally.

In fact, the natural man does the very opposite.

He protects himself.

And when he's criticized, he justifies himself.

He wants appreciation.

And if he gets appreciation, he'll serve.

Then he wants respect.

But it comes with a price, and he's not willing to pay that price.

He doesn't want to be soft and affectionate before she gives him what he wants.

You know, he's not willing to give and make an apology before he thinks she needs to repent or change.

See, the flesh is asking, why should I give if I'm not getting what I want?

But Christ and the love of Christ asks a different question.

It's asking, what does faithfulness require of me?

And that shift changes the entire atmosphere of the marriage.

Sacrifice, you see, must not be confused with weakness In a lot of manly men, as we might put it in parentheses.

It's not so manly.

But the way the carnal man defines manliness.

Sacrifice might be perceived as being weak.

Some men hear the language of sacrifice and imagine that, you know, being.

It's passive and being timid and powerless and you're weenie.

Some men would say.

They think that if a man listens or if he apologizes or if he restrains his anger and serves quietly, that he somehow become less of a man.

But the Scripture doesn't measure strength like that.

It's not measured by how harsh and how stubborn you can be.

Or your ability to intimidate the other person and make them look small.

Scripture measures strength by the ability to govern yourself under God.

Listen to me.

This is so critical, and I don't believe that.

I saw that early on in my life.

The wise man said in the 16th proverb, verse 32, Whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty.

And he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city.

A man can be physically strong but weak in the Spirit.

He may Be forceful in speech and yet unable to control his tongue.

He's weak.

He may dominate a conversation and come out on top because he's won the debate and yet be defeated by his own temper.

So you can, you know, you can win an argument, but if you lose your wife's trust and her respect for you because of your treatment of her, you haven't won anything.

You're weak.

And the Scripture says the man that can rule his own spirit possesses a strength greater than the man that captures a city.

You see, the spiritual overwhelms and is greater than the carnal mind.

Sacrificial love that requires that.

It requires a self discipline.

And Jesus epitomizes this self discipline.

He came to do the Father's will and did it like none other.

If every frustration becomes anger to you and every disagreement becomes a battle where you're most defensive when anything is said and every disappointment you begin to withdraw, then the man you can claim love all you want, but his lack of discipline is working against that definition.

Love isn't merely what he feels when things are good and pleasant.

It's revealed by what governs him when things are not so pleasant.

You see?

And so a husband can't love like Christ while remaining ruled by his impulses and his flesh.

James tells us, let every person, or let every man be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger.

For the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.

Now we understand that there is a righteous anger.

In fact, we're told in the imperative mood.

Be ye angry and sin not, he would go on to say, but he's talking about the anger of man, the wrath of man.

He's talking about defining that carnal mind, and that never does work, the righteousness of God.

Those words belong in the center of marriage.

You need to think about what James is saying.

Because a husband who's quick to speak and slow to hear, he's reversed that wisdom.

A husband who's quick to anger, you know, he can think.

He's correcting the situation.

That's what I'm here for.

I'm the boss.

I'm the head of this house.

But James doesn't say that.

James says the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.

It can produce silence.

It might even produce fear and temporary compliance.

You may even end the argument, but it does not produce the righteousness of God.

A man can make his point in such a way that he damages the heart of the relationship.

He can be factually correct, but spiritually wrong.

In the way he speaks.

Do you remember Colossians 4.

6, Where the apostle Paul speaks or talks about speaking words of grace seasoned with salt, so you may know how to answer each one.

See, we can win the exchange but still weaken the bond.

And this is why sacrificial love requires a man to bring his reactions under the discipline of Christ.

He's got to care not only about whether he's right, but about whether his rightness is being expressed in a way that serves love and truth and peace, and does her good.

And so speaking words of grace seasoned with salt that we may know how to answer each one.

Read that sometime, Colossians 4.

6.

Meditate on it.

This doesn't mean that a husband never speaks firmly.

It doesn't mean that he avoids hard conversations.

In fact, we've talked about that before.

He needs to handle hard topics and not just abandon the situation and ignore.

Doesn't mean that he pretends everything is fine when it's not the love of Christ.

And being like Christ and being loving is not dishonest.

It does not flatter sin.

It doesn't ignore the seriousness of the problem.

But you see, friends, even firmness has to be governed by holiness.

A husband can be clear without being cruel.

See, he can be honest with the truth without being humiliating.

And that's what makes sacrifice a strength rather than a weakness, because it does not refuse responsibility.

It carries responsibility with the character of Christ.

And while it doesn't avoid hard things and taking leadership and making hard decisions, it teaches a man to use his strength as.

Well.

He's steady under any threat, as a serviceman would, rather than trying to seek some kind of self exaltation for how good a job he does.

He's service oriented, and most men can imagine that.

But most men, I would say I know that I went through this as well.

And I think most men think about sacrifice in dramatic terms.

In fact, most everything that is defined in marriage is imagined and defined by dramatic terms.

If asked whether you would protect your wife from danger or whether you'd be willing to give your life for your wife.

While I'm confident that many husbands would quickly say why, absolutely, you just try it and see.

If asked whether he would defend his family in a crisis, he'd likely imagine himself rising to the occasion.

Now, there's honor in that kind of courage.

I'm not tearing that down entirely.

A man should protect his wife and his family, and he should be willing to stand between them and harm.

But marriage usually tests this idea of sacrifice in less dramatic Ways, in more ordinary ways.

The husband may never be asked to die in one heroic moment, but he'll be asked to die to himself in a lot of smaller ways every day of his life.

So that's often the harder test, isn't it?

Because it doesn't come with applause.

And that's what the carnal mind is doing.

He's being moved and influenced by appearances.

And so if it doesn't come with applause and recognition, well, he's just not interested, you know?

No crowd cheers when he listens to his wife after a long day.

He's given no medal when he apologizes without defending himself.

No one writes a headline in the newspaper when he refuses the bitter sentence that would wound his wife but satisfy his pride.

And yet these quiet choices, they reveal the true condition of his love that's more accurately defined than some dramatic claim ever could.

Jesus said it this way.

If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.

The word daily is important here.

Discipleship is not about one grand surrender.

It's about repeated surrender of self to the will of God.

And marriage becomes one of the places where the daily surrender is tested most honestly, because marriage exposes what a man is like when he's tired and disappointed and misunderstood and unpraised.

A husband practices sacrificial love when he listens, when he's tired.

It seems ordinary, but it's not small at all.

And so, after a demanding day, a man wants silence and food and rest, and he wants to escape from the hustle and listening to situations and problems.

His mind may be full, his body may be worn down, but his wife may also be.

She may have carried the weight of the day as well.

She may need conversation, she may need encouragement.

She may just simply need the assurance that she's not alone.

And in that moment, sacrifice may not look like a great act of heroism.

But you see, it's quietly taking the role of meeting her needs.

And that's what sacrificial love is about.

Denying self, taking up the cross.

You see, that attention communicates something.

It says to her that, you're not just an interruption to my life.

You're part of the covenant that I'm called to cherish.

And so a wife who is repeatedly dismissed will eventually learn to protect herself from that disappointment.

And guess what?

She's going to stop sharing.

Not because she no longer has any thoughts, and certainly not because she has no more needs, but because experience has taught her that her heart will be treated as an inconvenience so you make the habit of listening with patience, even though it's imperfect.

You do that and you'll create a place where openness will survive.

Sacrificial love also appears in the humility required to apologize.

Pride resists apology.

Apology feels like lost to a lot of men.

It feels like giving up the desire to be seen as right.

It feels like surrendering the defense that the flesh has built so carefully.

But in marriage, see, pride says, I'm going to apologize when she apologizes, and I'll soften when she softens, and I'll say I'm sorry when she says I'm sorry, and I'll admit my part when she admits hers.

And that's not the pattern of Christ.

Christ didn't wait for worthiness before he moved toward us in mercy.

And there are times when a husband has to say, or he's got to say, I was wrong.

I was wrong in the way I spoke.

I let my frustration control me.

I made you feel unheard of or whatever.

Words like that, they're words of a man whose conscience is alive and a husband who can't repent, can't lead well, because biblical leadership requires humility.

A man who's never wrong, never sorry and never teachable, he can have authority.

He can be that, that strong as we perceive it as, as the natural man, as the carnal man perceives it.

He can be that presence of power.

But he lacks the moral tenderness that gives leadership its credibility.

And when he's that kind of person, that's not strength.

Philippians 2 says that Christ humbled himself.

He didn't cling to his rights in a self serving way, took the form of a servant, became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

If the sinless Son of God humbled himself for the good of others, then no sinful husband should imagine that humility is beneath him.

In fact, one of the ways a husband reflects Christ is by being quick to own your sinfulness, quick to own your sin without using your wife's failures as an excuse for your own.

Well, our time is up and I thank you so much for listening.

I pray you have a good day today and a pleasant week until we meet again.