Titus chapter two, verse one. But as for you, speak to things which are proper for sound doctrine, that the older men may be sober, reverent, temperate, sounding faith in love, in patience. The older women likewise, that they may be reverent in behavior, not slanderers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things, that they admonish the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be blasphemed. Let's pray. Most glorious God and Father, life is hard. We struggle day in and day out with many things. And the truth of the matter is, is our struggle. The foundation of it lies in our disobedience. Lies in the fact that we don't trust what you tell us in your word. I pray this morning, Father, that as we continue to look into your word and we we we take from it your order, your design. Your commands to your glory. to display our love for you. Father, I need help this morning. I've been given the task to minister to these people, to speak these things that are proper for sound doctrine. And Father, I cannot but admit that I am but a man, and I am weak. Therefore, Lord, I ask in the presence of all that you would give me strength and you would give me an utterance that is accurate and consistent to your word. And the father, your Holy Spirit would be the one who truly ministers to your people, that your word would be made alive, that it would be convicting, but convicting to a point of joy, repentance, and love toward you. Father, we praise you this morning and thank you for this opportunity. Help us, Father, to live in light of your word. It is in Christ's name that I pray. Amen. Relationships are hard. Every relationship that we have in this world is very difficult. But what makes it difficult is not the person that you're relating to. It's you. You are the problem with your relationships. And so we get out of Titus the whole aspect of what God says about each one of these distinct people that he mentions and how we are to act in line with that, not react to the people next to you. This involves every relationship. It doesn't matter. We make every relationship we have subjected to our interpretation of that relationship. We base it upon how we feel about that relationship. We base it upon what we think about that person. But the Word of God doesn't allow that. The Word of God commands us to glorify Him. I mean, we can't glorify Him when we are selfish. We can't glorify God when we make every issue about the other person. Because the reality is is that Our relations are to reflect Christ. And what did Christ do for us? He saved us while we were still sinners. He loved us because he loved us, not because we loved him. And he gave the greatest sacrifice for all things, for all people that he has called into himself. That's what our relationships are to reflect, which means they're gonna be hard. because we have to bear sin. We have to bear the things, and so how do we deal with that? How do we deal with those things? We deal with those things by obeying Christ. We obey those things by loving Christ. You see, I can talk about this message today and make it all about women and their problems, their difficulties, their sins. I can make it all about them. I can tell you how bad women can be. And I may say things that are accurate, but the reality is it's not about wives and it's not about husbands. It's about Christ. John 14, 15 says, if you love me, keep my commandments. If we disobey God, in his calling for us as individual members of one another. And boy, when we talk about a marriage, that's extremely unified. And it represents the salvation, the unity of Christ and his church, the bond, the relationship that the church has with Christ and what Christ has with the church. You see, it's not about us. When it's about us, everything becomes subjected to our ideas, our desires, our wants, our opinions. And whether you get tired of hearing this or not, our opinions don't matter. We must take every thought captive to the word of God. And if our thoughts are left wanting, if our thoughts and our opinions and our ideas fall short of obedience to the word of God, then we must repent, we must change. Because we do not glorify God. As a matter of fact, what we end up doing is just what it says in verse five. We blaspheme the word of God. And so the question we have to ask ourselves about our relationships, the question we have to ask ourselves about loving Christ is do we have a greater desire that my desires are fulfilled or that I express my love to Christ in obeying his commands? In John 14, 23, he says, Jesus answered and said to him, if anybody loves me, he will keep my word. And my father will love him. And we will come to him and make our home with him. He who does not love me does not keep my words. And the word which you hear is not mine, but the father's who sent me." Everything we're talking about, it is not just bound up in the relationship between husband and wife. or being precise, it's not just bound up in how a wife is to love her husband. It's bound up in how we love Christ. That's what it's bound up in. And so I want that foundation laid because in my opinion, So many sermons that I have heard over the years, when it comes to the aspect of women submitting, loving their husbands, etc., and so on, it comes across as such a legalistic, oppressive way of seeing it. But that's not how God expresses it. It is about glorifying Him. It is about loving and again I have stated this before I cannot talk about this phrase how a wife is to love her husband without talking about the husband because they are one flesh and to divorce who the husband is in the marriage and just point a finger at the wife and say you're wrong You should do this, this, and this, and not see it in light of God's order. It's not about my marriage. It's about Christ and his church. It's about the glory of God. It's about expressing our love to God. When we do not live according to our callings, it is God that we don't love. not our spouse. So the significance of all this has to do with how we love God. Now, I'm going to attempt something today that I don't think I can, I really don't believe I'm going to be able to achieve. I have a strong feeling that this is going to turn into two sermons. Because there's just so much. There really is so much on this aspect of what it means for spouses to love one another. But our love for one another is not based upon our personalities. It's not based upon our strengths and our weakness. It's not based upon any earthly factor. It literally is a gospel matter. How often do you hear that? about a husband and a wife. Marriage is a very unique relationship. It's a very particular relationship. And I can tell, I can look out right here and look at every married couple, including my wife and I, and I can guarantee that every one of us fail. And it strictly comes down to the fact We fail because we're selfish. We fail because I'm thinking about myself today, not thinking about what I am responsible for in my calling. Wives the same way. There should be no real friction in a household. Not really. Not when we obey our calling. It won't be there, not as a way of life. We live in a fallen world. We have sinful natures, and we are always going to fall into those things. We are always going to be seeing sin knocking upon our door. But it's not about that. It's about repentance. So first of all, marriage is a life of repentance before God. Yeah, spouses should apologize to each other when they have not lived up to these things. But the real repentance goes to God because we are denying, we are blaspheming his word. So whether someone understands the word of God, when they despise aspects of it, they're despising God. Even when they don't understand it. I mean, wow, you know, Anymore Because the worldly culture has seeped so much in the church That to use the word submission That a wife is required by god to submit to her husband That is an evil statement in churches today but to do anything else than to do that according to scripture, not according to a man-made construct. But to the scripture, and I'm gonna tell you right now, it's really, I mean, when I say that I might be spreading this out in two sermons, it's that there's so much I don't even have in front of me right now to understand this, because nobody goes close to exhausting the reality of that relationship, because they just breeze over these things, and they don't really, Talk about it. And you know what? That's to the folly of the elder. I am commanded. Remember, everything we see here, every bit of this, the command is to who? It is to me. An older woman cannot teach these things to the younger women unless they are taught by the elders. That's the focus of this text. And so my job is to teach these things, not just to say, older women, hey, you should be admonishing. You should be teaching the other women how to love your husbands. If I left it at that, and I took all the older women in this room, and took one of the younger women in this room, put the younger woman in the room with one of the women, and she asked the question, how do I love my husband? And then she sits with the next one, how do I love my husband? And the third one, how do I love my husband? They will come out confused, because each one of them are going to have a subjective outlook to it. They're gonna base it purely upon their experience. That's what happens so much. And that means that the older women need to be able to learn and have an objective truth to teach what God says about these things. Because to do otherwise is to blaspheme the word of God and to not love Christ. Because it's hard, because we relate so much with our experiences, instead of taking our experiences and subjecting them to the Word of God. We can learn a lot through our experiences, but really we only learn from our experiences when we subject them to the truth of God's Word. And so that's what we have to do. And so when we look at this text this morning, Just like I said already, the context here is me teaching, and I'm teaching right now. So every woman, every man, do not be distracted by the fact that this text says that wives are to love their husbands. If you husbands are sitting there saying, yeah, you should love me. I can promise you right now, there's not a husband in this room, including me, who deserves to be loved by his wife. Therefore, there has to be an objective truth to it. There has to be a wrong way of loving your spouse. Loving your spouse does not depend upon your ideas. Now you hear me talking here, I'm not talking, like I said, I do not divorce the men from this sermon. This has to do with who we are in Christ and how we are to love, just like I already went through the whole aspect of what love is. Now how do we do that with the distinctives of our callings? That's the question. And that's what these texts are answering to us. You know, some of you may even be going, gosh, how long is he gonna keep preaching on this one verse? My answer is, as long as it takes. As long as it takes to teach this. I am not going to rush through it for your convenience. That means I'm disobeying the word of God. And if I can't set the example that he says for me to do in this passage, then why should I expect anybody in this room to obey it? You see, nothing's divorced from each other. And even the relationship between the husband and wife is not divorced from the entire body of Christ. They're all linked organically. They all have reflections. So you may ask us, why do you use the word reflection so much? Because it is a reflection more than it is a representation. That's why, because you hear this all the time, well, it represents this. I want you to understand, it reflects it. Because when you look in a mirror, you get a reflection. You get the similarity, not just the mere likeness. So we should be looking like what the scripture says. That's the point. Everything about our lives has a reflection to something about God, something about the gospel. In marriage, there is no doubt because the scripture is direct about that reality. So I want to start off by understanding that Let me read what I wrote. I've just not even, I'll probably repeat some things. To love, whether it is your husband or your wife or your friend, your brother or sister in Christ, to love those with particular callings, love is not a subjective action. It is an objective truth and is based solely upon God's word. So one cannot claim to love their husband if they do not love him according to her calling in Christ, and which is directed by the scripture. In the same way, a husband cannot love his wife if he does not love her according to his calling as a husband. Loving your spouse is not based in sentimentality. It is not based in the way we feel about each other emotionally. That changes all the time, doesn't it? The explosive nature of a marriage is always there. You've got two individuals that have become one. And we all have our individual thoughts, which must be subject to the Word of God. And so we're always gonna have some friction there. The question is, is it good friction or bad friction? Good friction causes warmth. It builds a flame that builds us up, that shows us reality, or it's a flame that turns into an inferno and burns us down. So we can't think that a marriage doesn't have friction. It's going to because we're sinners. That's why marriage requires a lot of repentance. A lot. That doesn't mean all the repentance goes to your spouse. It means repenting before God because that's who we're glorifying in our marriage. So it's not basically an emotional bond. Those are fruits. Those are fruits of obedience to God in this matter. I believe that the reason we struggle in our marriages is because one or both are not acting according to their calling but according to their own desires, their own opinions, instead of submitting ourselves willingly to the faithful word of God to do anything else is to blaspheme the word of God. And so when we think about the idea of loving your husband, this is a very distinct thing once again. The idea here is Loving your husband. That's what it means. It's a word that says, and it's only used here again. I really don't know why Paul has done this. I mean, he's written a lot, right? And he's written a lot on these topics. But in this text, he shows uniqueness, distinction in the way he writes this. Very distinctive words. which have much weight behind them. And I think a lot of it is, is that Paul here is elevating women. Now, some people go, what? What do you mean he's elevating women? Doesn't he command them to obey their husbands? Yeah. That's not putting them under tyranny. It's telling them how they glorify God. It's telling them the significance of what that looks like. And so when we look at this, we have to realize that there's an affection about it. But the affection, the love, is not based upon their emotion. It has to do with the familiarity of that relationship. And there is no relationship in this world between people that is more familiar than a marriage. That's going to be important. Really important, because that represents how familiar Christ is with his church. He knows each one of us by name. He loves each one of us as an individual member of one another. The significance of a wife loving her husband and a husband loving her wife is not based upon them. It's based upon God and how we are to reflect Him in that relationship. So we need to see how the Word of God directs a wife to love her husband. Now as I've said, when we speak of a wife, we cannot speak of a wife in any context separating her from her husband. And we're gonna see more of why we can't do that as we go through some things. Because they're one flesh with the simplest answer. I mean, if we're talking about a wife and divorce that context from her husband, then she's no longer a wife. And so we gotta see it in that light. So even though we're speaking of the wife loving her husband, we are also speaking about the husband loving his wife. So the first thing we need to think about is to understand that loving someone is not subject to the individual's ideas or opinions. Love is directed by God and is of God. Therefore, there are ways to say, I love someone, but in reality, it is only a subjective matter. It is not truly love. It's not based upon the word of God, but based upon our own fancy of our own mind. So if we're gonna understand how a wife is to love her husband, I think it's important to see how you're not to love your spouse. You realize there's a passage of scripture that tells us. Turn to 1 Corinthians 7. So let's start in verse 29 of chapter 7. I mean, there's a lot here we could talk about through the entire chapter, but again, we'd be then breaking this up into four or five sermons because there's just so much here. There's a single point that I want us to pull out of this in understanding how not to love your spouse. And the way Paul uniquely sets this up is fascinating, because he talks about it in light of both the wife and the husband. He doesn't put the pressure only on one here, in this direction, he puts it upon both of them. Now, Verse 29, we camp out there for a second, says, but this I say, brethren, the time is short. So that from now on, even those who have wives should be as though they had none. How is that a biblical statement? What in the world is Paul talking about? Just a few paragraphs above, he says that a wife should fulfill her obligations to her husband and a husband must fulfill his obligations to his wife. So now he says, live as though you had none. Live as a single person. Is that what he's saying? Paul's contradicting everything he says everywhere else in that statement. So it can't mean that. It means we got to do a lot more work. We've got to understand this. So what he does is this, and he broadens out this statement. Think about what he's doing here. You know, so many times when you read Paul, you think he's like, what is wrong with this guy? He's talking, what's he talking about here? He's talking about people being married. Living as though you're not. And then all of a sudden he jumps to this other stuff. Those who weep as though they did not weep. What? What's that got to do with someone living as though they're not married? This is confusing. Those who weep as though they did not weep. Those who rejoice as though they did not rejoice. Those who buy as though they did not possess. To those who use the world as not misusing it. For the form of this world is passing away. So in these few passages here, he's literally dealing with every area of life. But what's he talking about? If I mourn, don't mourn. If I buy, and I kind of like the NIV, if I can remember it exactly, when it says, you know, Those who buy as though they do not possess. It actually gives you a better clarification as though not possessed by it. Something like that. I mean, that's the indication of it. Because we are not to be possessed by the things of the world. We're not to be governed by the way of the world. And so this is what this is all indication of, and I can clarify that as we continue to go down, because he says, those who weep as though they did not weep. What does that mean? The scripture, doesn't the scripture tell us to weep with those who weep? Well, here he's saying, don't weep. Well, then how can I fulfill my responsibilities if I'm not weeping with those who are weeping? Weeping must be a sin. That's not the case here. It's what they're weeping for. It's what their focus is. It's where are they looking? And where they're looking is at the things of the world. I'm weeping over the loss of something temporary. I am rejoicing over the things of the world. I am buying things and being possessed by them. Because those who use this world as not misusing it. For the form of this world is passing away. What's it about? It's about worldly living. It's about the form of this world he's talking about. So when we talk about living as though we're not married, what is it we're talking about? Don't live in your marriage like the world. Well, that's an opinion. No, it's not. Because when you go through this, it says, I want you to be without care. Care of what? I shouldn't be concerned about my wife? That's a complete disobedience to Ephesians 5. An utter denial of the gospel itself. Now, some people look at this text and they go, well, this is just telling you about the problems in marriage. No, it's telling you there's a wrong way to relate marriage. It's telling you this is not a good thing. I want you to be without care. He who is unmarried cares for the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord. But he who is married cares about the things of the world, how he may please his wife. So that's the second time we've seen the entrance of the world. The world. So what does this mean? If your If the dynamic of your marriage is how you please your spouse, your marriage is worldly. We're going to look at that more when we look at Ephesians in a moment, if we get that far. Because most of us tend to live more in the worldly side in different ways. I just don't want to make my wife mad. I said, world leave you. I don't want to deal with my husband on this. World leave you. Now, how do we overcome those things? Let's find out. But he who is married cares about the things of the world, how he may please his wife. So he's saying that the things that he's caring about in this world is how he pleases his spouse. And here's the great thing is he turns it around and goes back to a woman. He does not separate this as though this is just on one side of the calling of a marriage. There is a difference between a wife and a virgin. The unmarried woman cares about the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit. But she who is married cares about the things of the world, how she may please her husband. So we got the same thing. Now I want you to think about something for a moment. Singleness. We look at this and we go, really? I know a lot of single people. I do not see a trend in single people. I seek to please the Lord. I see a lot of single people being extremely selfish, not willing to take the chance of what a relationship is really about. And I'm not talking about just marriage, because their relationships are based on their selfishness. It's ungodly. I don't see them devoting themselves. I think see very few for that matter, but truly devote themselves to the things of God, to pleasing God. But he's not talking about that right now. He's talking about marriage. And he's making an indication that if you are distracted from God in your marriage and focusing on the things of the world, You should live as though you're not married. And you should follow the example he's showing for a single person. Because marriage is a challenge. There is no such thing as a Cinderella marriage. None. There is no worldly happily ever after. None. You see, and that's what we look for in our marriages. I mean, let's be honest about it. A husband wants his wife to please him. A wife wants her husband to please her. If you think that way, your marriage is worldly. And the calling of the individual parts of that marriage is based on their calling in undivided devotion to God. Now, you gotta think about this, because that's what he says. He says, and this I say for your profit. Are you listening? I want you to listen to this. Are you listening to what's being said here? What I am teaching today is for your profit, for your good. not for your demise. So do not live like you are married in the world. So how should we live? This I say for your own profit, not that I may put a leash on you, but for what is proper. what is proper, the order of God. And that you may serve the Lord without distraction. Our spouses distract us all the time, in one way or another. But if we live in a distracted marriage, one or both of us are not living according to our undivided devotion to God. So in other words, when we look at this, our unity is not based upon our agreement, all right? There is no 50-50 in a marriage. There's only a hundred percent, a hundred percent in the marriage. My wife is responsible 100% for her calling in the marriage. I am 100% for my calling in the marriage. And those callings are different. In the same way that the church is different from Christ, so is the husband and the wife. Distinctly different. And yet, completely unified. See, this is to God's glory. Think about what I'm saying here. This isn't a legalistic aspect of marriage. This is about how we love according to God's order and prescription for the health of marriage. So therefore, my job is to be in undivided devotion. to God, which means the way I relate to my wife should be, I'm very careful to say should be, I do not want anyone to think that I represent the perfect husband. You can ask my wife, I don't. I fail, but I should repent before God and pursue what is proper. that I may serve the Lord without distraction. And I can't blame my wife. If my wife is acting totally out of her calling, it doesn't give me an excuse. And the same thing goes the other way. If I am acting out of my calling, it doesn't give my wife an excuse to act outside of hers. we don't have that flexibility. Because what God tells us about marriage is not an option. It is not a suggestion of what might be good. It is what is proper for a marriage. So when we look at this, we can see that there is something, because we cannot look at this We cannot look at this as though Paul is literally saying something opposite to everything else he has said. Otherwise, we have direct contradiction. And I'm telling you, there's a lot of people that take this really weirdly. I mean, if you think about it, some people talk about, well, this is about the situation that we're under, you know, it's persecution. So look, guys, if we're under persecution, we no longer have to obey God. We're free from obeying God at that point and do it differently. I no longer have to be responsible for my wife. I'm gonna live like I'm not married. I don't have responsibility anymore. How does that make sense? And how does it make sense to say, these are just, you know, guys, this is just telling you it's gonna be hard when you're married. No, it's telling you that if you live this way, you're living toward the world. And furthermore, if we think this has to do with the time element of what was going on and where things were, let's see how he states it. But brethren, the time is short, so that from now on, even those who have wives should be as though they had none. Well, how much shorter is the time now? That makes no sense. It's not an exception. It's an explanation of what we are to forsake in our marriage. We do not forsake our marriage. We forsake the worldly idea of marriage. That's what we forsake. Well, let's get started on Ephesians because otherwise we are just left wondering, cliffhanger. My gosh, this is what's wrong, what's right? What are we supposed to do? So I'm gonna kind of briefly just quickly go over some of this in Ephesians, and then next week we will look at it much deeper. So how then does a wife, how is she to love her husband? That's the question of this text, right? How is a woman to learn? I mean, think about that for a second. It tells us in this text that a woman is to learn how to love her husband. It doesn't come natural. What comes natural is worldly ideas of marriage. So let's look at this. So, I think I'm only gonna hit one aspect of this just quickly. Okay, first of all, let me start by reading a few things. First of all, it says in 517, why are you starting way back there? Well, because it's the flow of thought. We get lost in the breaks in scripture that are not natural to the scripture. So what does it say here? Therefore, do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. Ah, if you do not understand the will of the Lord in your marriage, you are unwise. And I'll be honest with you, there's really not enough work done. You think all the Christian marriage books that have been written, there shouldn't be a question about it, is there? But honestly, most of those books are just... My wife is not to love me according to my love language. My, whatever that means, love language has no bearing on how my wife loves me. And my wife's love language has no bearing on how I love her. You know what that is? pleasing my wife, pleasing my husband. So if you've read that book and you've loved it, I've got bad news for you. It is not a scriptural book. That is a book that becomes subjective to your partner. What's his love language? Well, scripture tells us something totally different. I do not become drunk on wine, which is dispensate. I can't even talk. I can't say certain words today. I am sorry. That happens sometimes. Be filled with the Spirit. Speaking to one another in Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord. Giving thanks always, for all things, to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. That's not the end of that sentence. The next sentence is submitting to one another in the fear of God. Now, do not misrepresent this statement. This is basically a byline, if you will, of a more detailed description. So when it says submitting to one another in the fear of God, in the reverence of God, and respecting who God is. It has to do with everything that comes after that. You'll find that everything comes after that, even going into chapter six, gives detailed descriptions of who you submit to. That's what it's talking about. So it's not giving this overarching break that each individual in the church is to submit. Because to submit says you are putting yourself under somebody else's authority. How does that work? First of all, you men have no authority over my wife. Not a one of you. I don't think you do. Because if you think you do and you act like you do, Will Smith looks like he just gives love taps. She's my wife and nobody else's. And she is not commanded to submit to any other man other than her husband and her elders. That's it. And those submissions are different. They're according to those individual callings. The way my wife submits to me is not the same way she submits to the elders. There are distinctions in that. The relationship is different, and they're distinctive to the word of God. So wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord, and we'll go back over some of this next week. I just want to get to one point here. For the husband is the head of the wife as also Christ is head of the church. And He is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Here's the text I want to get to. He's already given us this distinction of the relationship in the aspect of who Christ is and who the church is. So in a marriage, my wife is the reflection of the church. I, as a husband, is the reflection of Christ. So that's what we are trying to reflect in the reality of the distinctions of our callings. So I represent in my home, well, it's more than a representation. It's more than reflection. It is the order that God prescribes for marriage because of what it reflects. You see, it's because of what it reflects that he gives these commands. And so he gives this aspect that the wife is to be as the church and the husband is to be as Christ in the home. Now that helps us a lot. and understanding of what the submission aspect is and the responsibility of the husband. It will, and we'll talk about that more. But we've got to clean that. I mean, if you want to understand this, go through the scripture in a diligent fashion and look about, look, how does Christ love his church? How is the church to submit to Christ? That's how we begin to understand submission. But we're going to get into that more at a later date. Husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the church. What does that mean for the wife? You realize there's no direct command in Ephesians for the wife to love her husband. You realize that, right? But what we have here, and when we connect it to Titus, what we have here is the aspect of the husband loving his wife as Christ loved the church. And if the wife is the church in the relationship, then she is to love her husband as the church is to love Christ. This is important, why? Because it's a gospel matter. The way we live our lives matters. And so when we ask ourselves those things, am I loving my wife as Christ loves church? So let me just jump down real fast and add to that. So husbands, I want you to think about what I'm saying here. Husbands. You arrogant, self-idolatry husbands. You need to think about how you treat your wife. How you love your wife. You see, Wow, we just really put the pressure on here. The wives are going, whew, got off of me for a while. Because here's the reality. The husband is the head. The husband is responsible. My wife is not responsible for me in any way, shape, or form. And we're gonna look at that later on in another text that helps us to understand that responsibility that clarifies it more for us. But listen to me, husbands. You know how foolish we can be when we don't understand the oneness of our relationship? So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For, listen to me, this is my words, not the scripture. For a husband to hate his wife, to treat her poorly, means that he hates himself because she is from him. I want you to think about this aspect of the oneness of a husband and a wife. The organic reality of that oneness is the same organic reality of Christ and His church. This is an indication of our salvation. The whole created order of a husband and a wife pointed to Christ and His church. This is nothing new. Everything we're reading here is all in the Old Testament. It all started in Genesis. And it's a beautiful reality if we don't have our self-arrogance boasting up in our own minds, thinking I'm something I'm not. I am not my wife's wife. She is not my husband. And for us to reverse our roles in any way is a blasphemy of the word of God. Now, I just said that to you guys. Does that mean we don't struggle with that? That would mean, I'm telling you, we are not sinful people and don't have to battle our flesh day in and day out and ignore and be a living sacrifice for the sake of God's glory. For no one ever hated his own flesh but nourishes and cherishes it just as the Lord does the church. Listen to the comparison. You know, we look at this, we look at this so surface level. When we think about it, okay, it's the husband's responsibility to make sure he puts food on the table. Is that what it means? We may not exclude that in the practical aspect of our lives, but that is not, that is just a surface level viewing of this text. Because what this text is telling us is just as the Lord does his church. If we ignore the reality of the union of a husband and a wife, we ignore the gospel itself. This is why it's so critical that we get this right. And we repent where we are wrong. And right now, I'm going to tell you, as we go through all of this, we better all be finding areas of repentance. Because I got news for you. We struggle in glorifying God in our marriages. We are so selfish. We allow our own emotions and our own desires. What I want. We live by the old country song more than we rely upon God's prescription for marriage. I want what I want, what I really, really want. That's how we think. No, I want this. instead of what am I supposed to give for the glory of God in this relationship. You see, when we talk about a wife being subject to her husband, does that make the husband the dictator ruler of his home? It makes him the ruler of his home. But his area of rule is governed to his subjection to God. That's why the husband doesn't just have an arbitrary aspect. He has to rule his own, just like it says in Titus, as a qualification for a husband, that he rules his home well. He is the Lord of his home. We can look in first Peter and see that analogy through Sarah. She called her husband Lord. Why? Because he is Lord of the home. That is how the scripture puts it. For we are members. Listen to how he does this. So let me back up again. So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes it and cherishes it just as the Lord does the church. Listen to what he does. Do we really listen to the text of scripture? Do we really follow its flow? The back and forth nature of this text to give us an understanding. For we are members of his body, of his flesh, of his bone. In the marriage, which is laid out in Genesis, the woman is of her husband. Flesh of his flesh, bone of his bone. She came for man, just as the church comes from Christ. And this represents the flesh, the fleshly representation of the incarnate Christ. And us being, see, think about this. This is all in reference to Christ, is it not? He says in verse 32, this is a great mystery, but I'm speaking, I speak concerning the Christ and the church. For this reason, back in 31, for this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. This is all reference to what happens in the church. We are of his flesh, of his bone. Now, if we don't live in light of our calling as a husband and a wife, It is much more than just error in our marriage. It is a blasphemy of the gospel. That's what it is. So we need to learn what all this is about. So in this, the general aspect of what we've looked at so far, because there's a lot more here that we need to deal with to help women understand how to love their husbands according to the scripture. I want you to just think about the one passage that we see in verse 25. Husbands, love your wife just as Christ also loved the church. The implication is, wives, love your husband just as the church is to love Christ. I think that's a wonderful place for us to finish this on this morning, because that's a lot to chew on. That is a lot to chew on. And we don't chew on this very much. We don't. We always make it just a legalistic aspect. Husbands, submit to your husbands. I mean, wives, submit to your husbands. Well, what does that even mean? This is what it means. It means love your husband as the church is to love Christ. That's what it means. It's about love. It's not about the hardness of submission. And if we don't like submission, then we despise Christ because no one has ever submitted themselves more than Christ has. Remember, this is something that you're told to do. It's something that we willingly are to do. Why submit willingly to your husbands? Like the church is to submit willingly to Christ. You see, the likeness that we need to look at when our marriage is, wait a minute, I represent the church. I'm to mirror this love between Christ and his church. And I am the reflection of the church. I'm the reflection of Christ. So husbands, Do you talk harshly to your wives? Do you beat them down physically or with your own words? Do you ridicule your wives? You despise yourself. That's who you despise. And in turn, you despise Christ. Your wife is of you. When you do not love her like Christ loves the church, You despise yourself. You hate yourself. A husband is to be, first of all, a husband should be striving to love his wife as Christ loved the church. And to do that means that we love them with patience, not a rod. The way Christ disciplines us as a church is not with a rod. It's with correction. It's with truth. Your husbands are going, I thought this was about wives. Well, sorry. You're responsible for your wife. You are. You are the one. Listen to me. I know I'm over it, but that's just the way it is. Husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the church. Listen to me, husbands. Is your wife out of whack? That's your fault. yours because it's your responsibility just as Christ just as Christ loves the church we are to love our wives that we may sanctify and cleanse her through the washing of the word of God that's your responsibility She needs to learn from you. Are you capable? Are you capable of doing that? Do you know the word of God well enough to do for your wife what Christ does for the church? That he might present her to himself. Hmm. a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. I want you to understand that a wife is not released from her personal responsibility in a marriage. But husband, you're responsible for every aspect of your wife, everything. We're going to see that more as we go through some of the text. Husbands, get it right. Love your wife in the same way Christ loves the church. Christ does not, he does not live in a pity party because his wife is not acting. And here's the thing, a husband says, she's not acting right according to me, how I think she should be acting. That's her calling. You're to teach her. You're to love her and to cherish her. You're to sanctify her. You're to bring the word of God into her life and to instruct, to wash, to cleanse, which means wives, you need to be in a position where you receive that because that's God's order. Christ died for his church. Christ gave everything for his church. He shed his own blood for his church. The church did not shed anything for her husband. Her husband did it all. So stop pointing your finger at your wives. Love your wife. help her to be blemish free, glorious. You think Christ is sitting up there going, I can't believe I got to deal with these people again. He loved us while we were still sinners. And he took responsibility for us to the point of paying the price for our sin. Husbands, bear the sin of your wives. If you're irresponsible husbands and you expect your wife to treat you a certain way, you might as well just throw it out the door. She's the passive aspect of the marriage. We're gonna look at that more later when we look at some of the things. She used to be passive in the marriage. Receiving. A lot of hard words today. We should all feel shame. We really should. Because our marriages are really based upon our own opinions. Instead of saying, it doesn't matter what my spouse does. I'm called to this. I will live with my spouse in undivided devotion to God. not devotion to my spouse. There is no devotion to your spouse if you're not devoted to God. There's only expectation. A heavy-handed husband and a rebellious wife. That's what you end up being. But it doesn't matter. If you have a rebellious wife, love her as Christ loved the church. Because I got news for you, the church is rebellious. Wives, love your husbands as the church is to love Christ, regardless to your husband. This is what we're called to be. reflection of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Let's pray. Gracious God and Father, I praise you today. I thank you for your text. It is a heavy text. It is something we need to be thinking about when we see the church overflowing in divorce. When we see so many serious issues in the church is because we're not devoted to you. We've made our marriages subject to our own wants and desires. But if we love you and we follow the calling you have given us, we'll find the joy and the peace. And our marriage is just like we find joy and peace in your church. I praise you, Father, for this time. It is in Christ's name I pray.