Ephesians chapter 5, if you would. Again, we're going to talk about marriage tonight. What I wanted to say is that God requires leadership. God has made us and God has required us as men to be the head of our home. And we're to exhibit leadership in spiritual areas. We're to exhibit leadership in physical areas. We're to exhibit leadership all around. And that leadership is through the headship of Jesus Christ. Listen, you can't be the loose cannon husband. Or you're out, you know, I know what to do and I know how to do it. No, you need to have God's leadership and God's wisdom and God's direction. In fact, keep your finger there in Ephesians 5, but go to 1 Corinthians 11. And we looked at this a couple of weeks back, but I want to just point this out again. In 1 Corinthians 11 and verse number 3, The Bible says, but I would have you know that the head of every man is Christ. The head of every man is Christ. Can I ask you a question tonight, men, whether you're married or not, who's your head? Who's your leadership? Better be the Lord Jesus Christ. Can't be you. It can't be what you think is right. It's got to be, OK, you know what? I want Jesus to lead me. I want God to lead me. I need God's help. I need His wisdom. And that better be what you're praying every day. Brother Josh, it better be when you get up in the morning praying, God, give me wisdom today as a man to make the right decision. Brother Orlando, God, give me wisdom today. Lord, I want you to be the head of my life. I've tried it with Orlando as the head of my life. Doesn't work. I've tried it as Pastor Teasdale as the head. It makes a mess. But when Jesus is the Head, and we allow Him to be the Head, we allow Him to be the Lord of our lives, we have the certainty of the promises of His book. We have the certainty of the promise. Proverbs 3, 5, and 6. You know that one, Brother Josh? With all thine heart and what? And all thy... He shall direct thy path. God says, listen, if you'll put me first, if you'll make me Lord, if you'll let me direct you, if you'll just trust in me, Brother Lando, I will guide you. I was watching, they have this show on, I think it's Discovery or whatever, it's Ice Road Truckers. You guys ever seen those? Well, they normally drive a truck in Canada on these roads. Basically, there's packed snow and ice. Well, they have this special and they're driving these trucks in the Himalayas. I mean, it's in the Himalayas mountains. I mean, and you're going to think these trucks are nothing like the trucks we have here. Basically, it's a metal chassis. and a little bit of metal framing, but all of it's wood. So you get in a wreck of one of these trucks, it's bad news. So here these folks are and they get in these trucks and they like, man, they're going up these mountain highways. I mean, you look down the side of it, right, Andrew? What do you see? Like 3,000 to 4,000 foot drops. Every trucker has a spotter, someone to guide them, to show them the way. And that's a lot like life, I'm reminded of that. Life is a lot of times pretty precarious, isn't it? Make one wrong decision, ruin, destruction. But we have a spotter. We have one that leads the way, and that's our Lord Jesus Christ, our God, if we'll follow Him. And then we've got to follow Him if we're going to be the kind of leaders God wants us to be. Let's go back to our text in Ephesians chapter 5. And I want to talk a little bit tonight about love and the common goal in marriage. Andrew, naturally, your natural desire, is it to care about others or is it concern about yourself? Concern about yourself, right? Right? I mean, that's man's natural inclination. Man's fleshly inclination Not biblical love, but what? Fleshly love. Biblical love. Brother Landy, do you remember what biblical love is or charity? Do you remember a basic definition of it? Basically, yeah. Exactly. Love is seeking to meet the needs of others rather than my own needs. Looking for the betterment of other people rather than myself. We find love defined and exemplified for us through Jesus Christ. Did Jesus come seeking His own? No. The Bible says in Philippians 2, the Bible says, "...let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who..." What? "...made Himself of no reputation, took upon Himself the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men. Being found in the fashion of man, as a man He..." What? "...humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the..." Why? Why did He die? Hey, to save us! He died, as it says in John 3.16, "...for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." The example of love that we have is Jesus. He loved us so much that He gave Himself for us. And here in Ephesians chapter 5, we find that example used in the context of relationships, of the husband and wife relationship. Now, I want you to listen to me tonight. Whether you're married or not, whether you're a young person, maybe you're Andrew's age, going to be 9 years old, you say, Pastor, Daddy, marriage is a long way off. Maybe your brother Josh and you're not dating right now, but like to someday, like to get married someday. Or maybe you're Mrs. Luthen's and your husband's gone on to glory, but you know what? You're here to be a blessing to others. There's something for all of us today. For all of us, whether we are looking to be married, whether we are married, or whether we have been, there's something we can do. We can encourage one another to do what is right. Listen, I'll tell you, our church will only be as strong as our families. If we do not have strong families within our church, we will not have a strong church. If there is a bunch of foolishness in our homes and unbiblical ideas in our homes, then our church will be full of foolishness and unbiblical ideas. So here in Ephesians 5, I want to talk about love tonight. Now we're going to talk next week and we're going to deal more with the wives next week and their role in the home. And we find that in verses 22 and 23. But in verse number 25, the command is given to husbands to do what? Husbands, without question, without any qualifiers, were to do what? Love your wife. Husbands, love your wives. And then we are given the example. We are given the standard by which we are to love. He doesn't say husbands, love your wives as the Apostle Peter loves his wife. He doesn't say, husbands, love your wives as the pastor loves his wife, does he? He doesn't say, husbands, love your wives, and it's commonly thought that Paul was married but his wife either passed away or something happened. Husbands, love your wives as I love my wife. He says, no, husbands, love your wives even as what? Christ loved the church. The example, the standard that we're given is the kind of love we are to try to meet and match and surpass if we can. And it's impossible, but we can strive to. The love that Jesus has for His church. The love that Jesus has for His saints. We find here, it says this, husbands, love your wives even as Christ also loved the church. And the first point tonight is this, and gave Himself for it. Listen to me now. Love within the marriage is sacrificial. It often requires a putting down of oneself and what we want, and a seeking after what is best for that other person. Jesus Christ gave Himself for His church. for His bride. And we are to love our wives, we are to love our spouses as Christ loved His church. Love has to be sacrificial. Why? We've lost the idea and the meaning of sacrifice today, haven't we? What is a sacrifice? Let's talk about that for a second. In the Old Testament, what was a sacrifice? Anybody? Brother Robert, do you remember? Okay. Well, think about talking about blood that was shed. That little lamb. That was often, or the bull or whatever they used was a sacrifice. Look, Josh, would you want to be the little lamb? No, I wouldn't. Why? Because that little lamb, that sacrifice was destined to what? to die, to give all. I may not have this illustration entirely right, but they have the chicken and the pig, and the chicken was complaining to the pig about how he had to lay eggs every day. And boy, the pig just got tired of listening to the chicken complain, I've got to lay eggs every day, and then the farmer comes in and takes all my eggs, and I've got to lay more, The pig said to the shingles, at least all you have to do is lay eggs. Why? Because the pig, in order to give what he had, had to die. Sacrifice. Sacrifice is not convenient, is it? It's never convenient. Sacrifice rarely fits into your schedule. Sacrifice rarely fits into your goals, if they're not God's goals. Go to Romans, please, chapter 12. Keep your finger there in Ephesians chapter 5. I want to sort of illustrate this idea of sacrifice a little more. In Romans chapter 12, the Bible says this, right? It says, in verse number 1, the Bible says, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God that you present your... what? Bodies a living sacrifice. I think the best illustration that I can muster up is the idea of, if you remember, Abraham and Isaac. God came to Abraham and said, Abraham, I want you to take your son, your only son Isaac, I want you to take him to the top of the mountain and I want you to use him and sacrifice him to me. That required some humility. It required a willingness on Isaac's part. Isaac wasn't a little boy. He was probably about a teenager. He gets to the top of the mountain. Daddy says, all right now, Isaac laid down on the wood. I'm going to tie you down, son. Now, the Bible doesn't, for what we know, Isaac just willingly laid himself down. And again, this is a picture of what Christ would do. Remember, God said to Abraham, Abraham asked, Lord, where's the lamb? And what did God say to Abraham? God will provide himself a lamb. But again, the idea of sacrifice is a laying down of one's life, a laying down of one's goals. And in the marriage context, that's how it has to be. And that's where the difficulty lies. Love is sacrificial. It can't be all about you. It will never work. It has to be all about the Lord. It has to be all about others. I like the little acronym, right? J-O-Y. You guys know that one? You know what J stands for? Jesus. What's O stand for? Others. What's the Y stand for? The only way to have joy is to put what? Jesus first, others second, and yourself last. That's love. We talked a couple weeks ago how our vertical relationship, our relationship with God must be right. But when it comes to how we're to treat our wives or our husbands, it's to be in a spirit of love. What does the Bible say? Brother Josh, what's the greatest commandment? All thy what? Soul and strength. Yeah, I mean, in different places in the Bible. And the second is likened to it. What? Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. So yes, we're to love God. First and foremost, what we ought to concentrate on, what will happen is we love God like we should, we begin to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. We begin to put them first. We begin to sacrifice ourselves for them. We have to say, okay, you know what? You're more important than me. God is more important than me. Love is sacrificial. Jesus Christ loved His church, and what did He do? How did He demonstrate that love? But He gave Himself for it. Let me ask you, men. Let me ask you, Brother Robert. being a married man here tonight. And maybe you have. I'm not saying you have or haven't. I'm just going to ask you this question. If you gave yourself entirely to your wife and said, I just want to be a blessing to you in any way I can, what I want is not important. What you want is important. How do you think your marriage would go? Yeah, but how would it end up? Would that please your wife? That would be a blessing here. She'd look at you. My wife would look at me and say, are you sick? Do you need help? Yeah. There's a catch here. But that's really how it ought to be every day. That's the attitude. It ought to be both on the side of the wife and the husband. Well, I say, well, you know, women are just naturally sacrificial and loving and nurturing. And that is true to a degree. I think more so than men. But you know what? Oftentimes, it is for selfish reasons. The motivations truly aren't self-sacrificial. Love is sacrificial. What is the mutual goal within the marriage? Let's go back to our text in Ephesians chapter 5. And listen, I'm telling you, whether you're married or not tonight, this is important. Get a hold of this. In Ephesians chapter 5, this is what God will bless in your marriage. And like I said this morning, I don't stand before you as a husband. My wife is here. She could testify to this as a husband who's got all this figured out. I mean, I've got it figured out. I just have a hard time sometimes doing it. Don't laugh too hard over there. I don't know what to do with her, Mrs. Lucy. That's true. Yeah, just love her. Amen. Love her in spite of it all. No, I don't stand before you as the perfect husband. I don't stand before you having it all figured out. I struggle a lot sometimes loving my wife as the Bible commands. But I'm telling you, when I do, our marriage is blessed. This is the key. So love, what is the goal of this? In sacrificing yourself for others, what is the end game? Well, let's read down. Look at verse 26. So our example, Jesus Christ, he loved the church. He gave himself for it and that he might what? Sanctify and what? Cleanse it with the washing of water by the word. Verse 27, that he may what? Present it to himself as a what kind of church? Glorious church. not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish." Verse 28, Paul takes it and turns this on its head and he says, "...but so ought men to..." What? "...love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself." You want to love yourself? You want to take care of yourself? Take care of your wife. Because God will bless you. Your home will be blessed. You'll have a happy marriage, a joyful marriage. Verse 29, for no man ever yet hated his own flesh, but what? Nourisheth it, and what? Cherisheth it, even as the Lord the Church. What is the command? What is the goal as we self-sacrifice and love Andrew? The goal, if you're going to be a husband someday, is to grow your wife. I don't mean physically, but to grow your Y'all didn't catch that. Or maybe you did and just didn't think it was funny. But to mature your wife. To mature your marriage. To where it can be presented to the Lord as a glorious marriage. It can be presented to the world, something that can be lifted up, not for our glory, right? The church, Jesus, what was His goal in saving the church and washing it and cleansing it? So that the church might be proud and we could walk around and say, boy, aren't we something special? No, so that it will honor God. So that in the world, what would it be? What does Jesus say we ought to be? We ought to be salt and what? Light. So that we could be a shining light city on a hill. You can't hide it. So when the world looks and says, there's something different at Faith Baptist Church, they're a little weird, but there's something different there. They're a little different, but there's something different there. And they begin to be curious and begin to understand that the difference is what Jesus has done for us, what Jesus is doing in our lives. And it's the same thing in our marriage, men and women. The goal in this love and this self-sacrificial idea is for mutual growth and holiness. What have you done? Or what will you do to help your spouse grow? Spiritually, emotionally, and mentally. That ought to be the goal. I want to just help you grow. I want to help you be more spiritual. That's a huge burden. I ask myself, and I'm ashamed to say that many times, I don't do a whole lot to help my wife grow spiritually. I need to do more. And we do. There's things that we work on. There's things that we talk about. There's things that I have to speak to her about and she has to speak to me about and we grow together. That's what God wants. Mutual growth and holiness. Again, going to the end goal being perfection and maturity in our marriage. I think a lot of folks think marriage just happens. Right, brother Lando? You know, you go to the church, you do, here comes the bride, you know, she comes down in all white, all beautiful and everything, you know, right? And she comes up there, you go through your vows, you kiss, woo, all right, we're done. That's all it takes. The rest of it's just cruise control, man. What do you think, Brother Josh? Is that how it works? Hopefully, you're wrong. That's not how it works. Wrong answer. What do you think, Brother Robert, is that how it works? No. I'm telling you, as a married man, that's not how it works. Ten years of marriage, that's not how it works. A lot of it, you know, what's sad is that it's taken me about ten years to learn a little bit. I wish I'd learned more. I wish I'd understood the importance of some of these things. But I'm still learning. And that's why I'm trying to teach you, both you, us that are married, and you that are unmarried, whether it be Stormy, who someday might get married. Alright? She can snag some guy. Brother Lando? Brother Josh? Andrew? William? Elizabeth? David? Yeah! I know. I don't know if David will ever get married. As ornery as he is. No, I'm teasing him. It's fine if it did to attract us. David will buy food. Clean up his messes. But my point is that we need to say, ok, you know what, that's the goal. My goal should be as a husband to say, I want my wife to be more spiritual a year from now. This is what our goal ought to be, Brother Robert, Brother Preston, to say, I want my wife to be more spiritual a year from now than she is today. The goal of wife should be, Christy, to say, you know what? I want my husband to be more spiritual tomorrow than he is today. And I want to be a part of that. And I'm not saying you sit there and harp on your husband, right? Right, Storm? You're not going to make your husband spiritual by banging at him. Well, why don't you do this and why don't you do that? I know, let me sing a little song tonight. We went to summer camp when I was in college. We went and sang at a summer camp and they had a little chorus and I liked it. It's biblical. It's actually based on a proverb. You ready, Brother Linda? A continual dripping on a rainy day and a contentious woman are alike. So it goes like this. It goes, a continual dripping on a rainy day and a contentious woman are alike. And then you clap. A continual dripping on a rainy day, and a contentious woman our life. For one goes drip, drip, drip, and the other goes yak, yak, yak. One goes drip, drip, drip, and the other goes yak, yak, yak. Don't sing that to your wife. I did sing it to Sister Christie. She looked at me like, you know, I was teasing with her. But that's the truth. You're not going to change your husband by nagging him. It doesn't work that way. You know how you can change your husband? Praying for him. Being a blessing to him. Men, you want to know how you're going to change your wife? It's not by brow-beating her. I've tried that. It doesn't work. You know, getting after. And Sister Christi will tell you, there's times I have to get after and say, now, hey, we need to do this differently. But it has to be done in what kind of spirit? The spirit of pride? What do you think? Pride or meekness? What works better? You're almost ready to be married. You've got to figure it out. Meekness. Saying, you know, hun, I love you. This is what I feel needs to be done. How can I help you? And I fail at that many times. But that's what God wants. That's the kind of marriage we ought to desire to have. Look at verse 29 again. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh, but what, nourisheth it? What is the idea of nourish? Anybody? Yeah, give it what it needs. Feed it. Nourish it. No man ever yet hated his own flesh, but what did he do to it? He nourished it. He buys the frosty floats and the Big Macs. Yeah, the White Castle. He does that because that's what he does. And you know the Bible says that's what we ought to do to our marriage. We ought to feed it. Nourish it. Make it fat. Again, not physically, but in a spiritual sense. Look at the second thing. Nourish it and what? You got anything you cherish? What does it mean to cherish, anybody? Care for? What were you saying? To love? Okay. To put value upon, right? Well, Josh, is there anything you cherish? His phone. He likes his phone. He cherishes it. He values it. Rolando, is there anything you cherish? He does. Alright. Thank you, Brother Robert. You know? What do you do, man? You take care of it. You clean it. You oil it. Right, Brother Lando? You look at them. You know, you may not even shoot yourself. Right? I mean, you cherish it. You value it. And that's the kind of thing that God wants for our marriage. We value it. We cherish it. Then we look it over. We treat it as something of great value. Not something we can just throw away. That's why 60% of marriages end in divorce. Because no one cherishes their marriage. No one nourishes their marriages. They just think, man, it just happens. It doesn't just happen. It's hard work. What's the old saying? Anything worth having is worth what? Yeah, anything worth doing is worth doing right. I think that's really the thing. There's another one too, but I think I'll just cross them together. If it's worth having a great marriage, it's worth doing it right. Men and women, love is self-sacrificial. Beholding our example, Jesus Christ. We nourish, we feed, we cherish our marriages. And the end goal is perfection and maturity in our marriage. So that we might be, our marriages might honor God. Brother Lando? You ought to say, you know what, when I do get married, I want my marriage to honor the Lord. It doesn't matter to me what my in-laws think. It doesn't matter to me what my parents think. It doesn't matter to me what the world thinks about my marriage. It matters to me what God thinks about my marriage. And I want it to honor Him. Because some of the decisions you're going to make as a husband, guess what? Your in-laws aren't going to agree with them. Your friends may not do it. The world might say, you're crazy. But you know what? I want my marriage to honor God. I want to glorify God. I want it to be a biblical marriage. I want it to look like Jesus loving His church. That's me loving my wife.