Let's turn together now in our Bibles to the book of Ephesians chapter 5. For those of you visiting with us today, I've been preaching through the book of Ephesians and a couple weeks back we came at last to chapter 5 and the section of chapter 5 that deals with marriage. This morning will be the third sermon in that little mini-series within the book of Ephesians. The first sermon looked at Paul's theology of marriage as a whole, verses 22 through 33. That was two Lord's Days ago and then last Lord's Day, we looked at verses 22 through 24, specifically considering the role of the wife within the marriage relationship. And now, this morning, we come to verses 25 and following, which deal specifically now with the role of the husband. The role of the husband within the marriage relationship. So we'll read together now Ephesians chapter 5 verses 25 through 33. Let's now hear again the word of our God. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her, that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the Word, so that He might present the church to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way, Husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of His body. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself. and let the wife see that she respects her husband. Well, let's pray together as we do now, ask for the Lord's blessing upon our time in His Word. Our God and our Father, we praise You that You have not left us to our own imaginations as to the meaning and purpose of marriage. And the meaning and purpose of wife and husband within the marriage relationship. You have revealed these things to us. And so, Father, we pray that you would richly bless us now with this passage. And that by the Spirit you would take the Word of God and plant it deep within our hearts and cause it to bear fruit for the glory of our heavenly Bridegroom, who is Jesus Christ. Father, be with us all now in the reading and preaching of your Word and bring glory to Jesus. We pray this in His name. Amen. Well, husbands, this Lord's Day, my questions go out to you as they went out to the wives last Lord's Day. As we come to these verses, Do you have a posture of excitement and anticipation? Do you have a posture of faith and of repentance and of joy in the Holy Spirit? Our text this morning speaks to you in particular. And the Holy Spirit wishes to instruct you and to sanctify you with these verses. The Holy Spirit is revealing to you this morning in these verses how you might better glorify Jesus Christ as a Christian husband. And so again, do you have a posture of excitement and anticipation? Do you have a posture of faith and of repentance and of joy in the Holy Spirit? And let's do a similar exercise to what we did last week with verses 22 through 24. As we come now to verses 25 and following, let's pretend, husbands and would-be husbands, that you have no idea what Paul is about to say to you. All you know is that he is about to reveal to you God's will concerning that which lies at the very heart of the husband's duty to his wife. So there you are sitting on the edge of your seat in bristling anticipation and let's say all I do is read you the first four words of verse 25. Husbands, love your wives. How do you think we would be prone to react to that? If that was all Paul had to say to us, Husbands, love your wives. Well, I think we would be prone to congratulate ourselves. Give ourselves a little pat on the back. Sure, we might say to ourselves we we could probably of course love our wives better, but But we do love them. So we must be doing pretty good And we would be prone to that sort of reaction I think because all human beings have the tendency especially with the word love We all have the tendency to fill that word with our own meaning. And so very often as we are supplying our own definition to the word love, we end up supplying a definition, surprise, surprise, that is in hearty agreement with our current behavior and with our current manner of life. We want to think of ourselves as loving, and so we define love in such a way that we fit the definition. But Paul, of course, does not merely say, husbands, love your wives. He doesn't leave us to define the concept of love however we please. He doesn't leave us to say, well, I think love is this, or I think love means such and such. The love that Paul commands here, indeed the Holy Spirit commands here, is not a movable standard that we are allowed to adjust according to our personal preference. Paul defines the love to which the husband is called very carefully. And He fixes for us an absolute, unmovable standard by which this love must be understood, if it is to be understood at all. Husbands, love your wives? Yes, Lord, great. I'm ready to do it. Wait, Paul says. Let me finish. Husbands, love your wives? as Christ loved the church. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. Without a single hint of exaggeration, Let me suggest that a proper initial response to this command would be to clap your hand over your mouth in shock. Something is the matter with you if this command does not take you aback and astound you on account of its magnitude. And here we discover how perfectly these two commands fit together, how perfectly they complement one another and correspond to one another, the command to the wife and now the command to the husband. This passage on marriage is not, it is absolutely not, Wives, submit to your husbands without any corresponding duty required of husbands. Yes, it is a radical call that is made upon the wife. But as we move now from the guiding principle of the wife's role within the marriage to now the guiding principle of the husband's role within the marriage, what do we find? What we find is that the call made to the husbands is certainly at least as radical. Verse 25, husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church. And so if we are ever to understand anything of the magnitude of this command, the question that we must answer then is this, How has Christ loved the church? How has Christ loved the church? And to the end of answering that question, we will consider this morning three ways that Christ has loved the church. And therefore, three ways that husbands are called to love their wives. Three ways that Christ has loved the church, and therefore three ways that husbands are called to love their wives. First, a sacrificial love. Second, a sanctifying love. And third, a singular love. A sacrificial love, a sanctifying love, and a singular love. Verse 25, Husbands, love your wives as Christ has loved the church. And now here's the sacrificial parts of the equation. And gave Himself up for her. How has Christ loved the church? He has loved her by dying for her. He has loved her by dying for her. And as Christ has laid down His life for His bride, so the husband is called to lay down his life for his bride. What we must realize, though, is that this sacrificial love is actually far more radical than just the idea of perhaps giving up your physical life in some extraordinary moment of need. This kind of love would include that. Physical self-sacrifice would be a subset of this sacrificial love and is included within it, but actually, the totality of what we're talking about here is something far more demanding. When Paul says that the husband is to lay down his life for his bride, He is talking about something that should happen and that needs to happen every single day of the marriage. Every single day, husbands, you are called to die for your bride. That is, every single day you are called to put to death your own interests. You are called to die to self and seek the good of your wife. in all things. You are called to seek her good above your own, and you are called to satisfy her needs above your own. And the problem with that is, of course, that we are selfish sinners. And our flesh doesn't want to seek anybody's good above our own. Our flesh doesn't want to satisfy anybody's needs above our own. And it's hard enough when you're single. Before I was married, I knew that I was selfish. I would not have hesitated to say, yes, I can be a very selfish person. But after I was married, the Lord revealed to me deaths of selfishness that I didn't even know existed in my fallen nature. Because in our fallen nature, we are not like Christ. And we do not love like Him. We are like Adam, who blamed both God and Eve for his own miserable failure. who sought to protect himself and sacrifice his wife rather than sacrifice himself to protect his wife. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. When we come to this command, it is no place, it is no place for mindless bravado or boastful machismo. Because all of that is destined to fail. In the face of this command, we must run to Christ in faith and in repentance. And we must cry out for cleansing and for forgiveness and we must cry out for the strength of the Holy Spirit and the power of the Holy Spirit. Because only the Spirit of Christ can enable a husband to love with the sacrificial love of Christ. Only the Spirit of Christ can enable a man to give himself up for his wife as Christ gave himself up for the church. And by God's grace, that sacrificial love is used by the Holy Spirit as a sanctifying love as well. Point number one, a sacrificial love, and now point number two, a sanctifying love. Why is it that Christ died for His bride? What goal was He attempting to accomplish, and indeed did accomplish, through His death? Well, verse 26, and following, He gave Himself up for her, that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the Word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing that she might be holy and without blemish. He died to sanctify her. He died to array the church in the splendor of holiness. And such ought to be the goal of the husband's love for his wife. Not, of course, that the love of the husband is the cause of the wife's sanctification. Only the Spirit of Christ is the cause of sanctification. But by God's grace, the husband's sacrificial love is a powerful tool that is used by the Spirit. to sanctify the wife. That their relationship might indeed be that beautiful picture of the way in which Christ's sacrificial love for His bride so efficaciously and so powerfully sanctifies the church. And so, husbands, the call to a sanctifying love is a call to invest yourself to invest yourself in the total and complete health and well-being of your wife. Both her physical health and well-being, but also her spiritual health and well-being also. And Paul ups the ante, so to speak, in verses 28 to 30. In the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. he who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. And then verse 31 from Genesis chapter 2, Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh." We are to nourish and cherish our wives. Why? Because we have become one flesh with Him in the covenant of marriage. Look back with me at verse 28. Paul isn't drawing a mere comparison there. He isn't merely saying, love your wife in a way that is like the way that you love yourself. Your own body. What Paul is doing here is drawing us into the profound truth of the one fleshness of the marriage covenant. Paul is saying to us, love your wife because she is your own body. Love your wife because you are one flesh with her. Which is made clear there in verse 29. He who loves his wife loves himself because of that profound and blessed one flesh relationship. So brothers, are you mindful day by day by day of the sacred unity that God has established in the marriage relationship? Are you aware, mindful day by day of the sacred unity that exists between you and your wife? Again, a sacred unity that is a temporal picture of the eternal unity that exists between Jesus and His church? And then do you so nourish and cherish your life as your own body? Because you are one flesh with her. What happens when someone's head stops nourishing and cherishing the rest of their body? Well, terrible things happen. Sickness. Self-harm. Suicide. So it is when the husband, as the head of that relationship, stops nourishing and cherishing his wife. Terrible things happen. Things that ought not to be. Things that tear down and mar and corrupt that picture of Christ and the church. Listen to this quote from John Calvin. No man can love himself without loving his wife. Therefore, the man who does not love his wife is a monster. Brothers, are you cherishing her? Are you nourishing her? Are you investing yourself in the holiness and in the spiritual splendor of your wife? Are you seeking to be a powerful tool in the hand of the Spirit unto her sanctification and her growth in grace? And again, this is no place for mindless bravado, because anything we do in our own strength is sure and destined to fail. In the face of this command, again, we must run to Christ in faith and in repentance, We must run to Him and cry out for cleansing and for forgiveness. And we must cry out to Him for the strength and the power of the Holy Spirit. Because only the Spirit of Christ can enable a man to love his wife with this sanctifying love. Even the sanctifying love of Christ. The Christ-like love that the husband is called to have toward his wife is a sacrificial love. It is a sanctifying love. And now, lastly, and to our third point, it is a singular love. It is a singular love. Husbands, you are called to love your wives with a singularly focused love. Which is to say that you must ensure that of everything in all of creation, everything in the whole of the created universe, you must ensure that your wife is your greatest love, and your greatest pursuit. Let's think again of Christ. Is there anything or anyone that Jesus loves more than the church? Answer being, yes, there is. Jesus loves God more than the church. But after His God, after His God, is there anything or anyone in the whole universe that Jesus loves more than the church? Answer being, no. There is not. After His God, there is nothing that Jesus loves in the whole universe more than His Bride, His Church, the apple of His eye. And so, husbands, so it is for us. After your God, after your God, There is nothing that you are ever to love more than your bride. Nothing. After your God, she is to be the primary love of your life, the primary pursuit. Verses 31 and 32, the husband holding fast to his wife, is to be a picture of Christ's holding fast to the church. And this has very, very practical implications. Your love for your wife must be a love that will tolerate no earthly rivals. A love that will tolerate no earthly rivals. not your father, not your mother, not any of your friends, not your job, not any of your interests or your hobbies, not any of the sports you play, and not even your child or your children. Your love for your wife is to be fierce, uncompromising and jealous. It is only subordinated, as it certainly must be, it is only subordinated to your love for the triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Not, of course, that you stop loving your parents or your friends. Not that you stop enjoying your job or the various pursuits that you have in this life that bring you joy. And it is certainly not that you stop loving your children. When you are married, you don't stop loving other things in their proper place. But you do not now hesitate. You do not now hesitate to consecrate your wife and to set her apart as the primary love of your life, the primary pursuit. Again, subordinated, of course, and as every pursuit in love must be, to your love for the one true and living God. How else How else can you demonstrate to a watching world the kind of love that Jesus Christ has for the church? If your family and friends and co-workers look at your relationship with your wife and it is plain to them that there is something or someone that you love more than you love your wife, Well, then you are functionally destroying your ability to show forth the love of Christ for the church. If the people who know you best can look at your life and say, that man loves his parents more than he loves his wife, or that man loves his job more than he loves his wife, or that man loves his friends, or his music, or his sports, or his cars, whatever else it may be, if that is the message that you are communicating to those around you, then you must repent. You are fundamentally undermining the whole picture of Christ and the church if you are loving some other earthly relationship or some other earthly pursuit or some earthly object more than you are loving and pursuing your wife. And here's how you can evaluate if this is perhaps the case. Remember the nourishing and the cherishing of verse 29. The nourishing and the cherishing. Is there any earthly relationship, any activity or pursuit that you are nourishing and cherishing to the detriment of your relationship with your wife? That which you nourish and cherish is that which you love. That which you nourish and cherish is that which you love. And then taking that to the next level, that which you most nourish and cherish is that which you most love. And so is there any earthly relationship, any activity or pursuit that you are nourishing and cherishing more than your relationship with your wife. Or that you are nourishing and cherishing to the detriment of your relationship with your wife. Brothers, the call of our text is to set apart our wives as the apple of our eye. The call of our text is to above all other earthly things The call of our text is to nourish her, and to cherish her, to love her, and to pursue her. Well, as we begin to close now this morning, let's talk a little bit about biblical manhood. What is it? Perhaps you've heard that Jesus Christ is the truest man who has ever lived. Well, what is it that makes Jesus Christ the truest man who has ever lived? You know, we are just as confused in our day and age about what it means to be a man as we are about what it means to be a woman. And relative to the concept of manhood, our society tends towards the two extremes. To the one extreme, you have men trying to be women. And to the other extreme, you have men who think manhood is about using women. And both extremes are utterly lost and confused. And they are both so very, very far from the biblical presentation of true manhood. What is it that makes Jesus Christ the truest man who has ever lived? Well, there are different ways to approach the answer to that question, but in the context of our passage this morning, it is this. His sacrificial, sanctifying, singular love for his wife. his sacrificial, sanctifying, singular love for his bride. Now, please don't misunderstand me. I am not saying that you need to be married in order to be a true man or to exhibit true manhood. There is absolutely and most certainly a way to express true manhood as a single person. That discussion, however, is for another sermon. Our text is addressed to husbands, and so in the context of married life, brothers, here is the burning core of true biblical manhood. In the context of married life, it is sacrificial, sanctifying, and singular love for your bride, such as the love that Jesus has for His bride, the Church. And so husbands, if you want to grow in your expression of this true, biblical, Christ-like masculinity, do not look to the culture, do not study the culture. You must look to Christ, and you must study Christ. You must study His sacrificial, sanctifying, all-consuming, singular love for his bride. Perhaps you've heard of the fear of commitment, the so-called fear of commitment is endemic in our society to the point of being considered normal or even acceptable for men. Oh well, he's a man, what do you expect? The fear of commitment is the antithesis of true masculinity. The fear of commitment, at least as we see it expressed so often in our own day and age, is nothing actually but selfishness and cowardice. Men are okay using women for their own pleasure. but want none of the responsibility that comes with truly loving them, and nourishing them, and cherishing them. Now again, if you are called to be single, or if the white woman simply has not yet come round, and you are conducting your relationships with women in a godly manner, I am not talking to you. But If you are okay using women for your own pleasure outside of the covenantal bonds of permanent, monogamous, covenantal marriage, you need to hear the truth about that activity. You are a man biologically, but spiritually, you are more a worm than a male. in the judgment of scripture where a man who loves a woman is to commit himself to her and nourish her and cherish her above all earthly things. If you are not ready or willing to marry her and nourish her and cherish her and love her with this Christ-like love then you have absolutely no right to use her for your pleasure And husbands then, you've married her, you've committed yourself to her. Great, wonderful, praise the Lord. But the fear of commitment isn't thereby totally eradicated, is it? Marriage is not, okay, ceremony's over, check the commitment box, that's done. A marriage is a commitment that needs to be renewed and rekindled every single day. Marriage is a call to exercise a kind of love that needs to be fought for on a daily basis. Perhaps you've noticed Your flesh is going to fight against this kind of Christ-like love. Your flesh is going to buck against this sacrificial, sanctifying, singular love. Well, husbands, we need to play the man and fight back. We need to play the man and fight back in the power of the Spirit and in total and complete reliance on the grace of God and for the glory of Jesus Christ, the heavenly Bridegroom. Remember again with me the first recorded words of Adam in the Bible. We looked at them two Lord's Days ago in Genesis chapter 2. Remember what he says there. When God, as it were, walked Eve down the aisle to him. Adam exclaims, at last! Finally! This is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. Adam looked at his bride and realized that he was now incomplete without her, so long as they both shall live. Brothers, are those your thoughts? when you wake up each morning next to the bride that the Lord God has brought to you. Lord God, I thank you and I praise you. This is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. And I am now incomplete without her so long as we both shall live Because rest assured, rest assured, that this is the love and the excitement that the heavenly bridegroom has for his bride. Day by day by day, he beholds the church from his throne of exalted majesty at the right hand of God. and says as he looks at her, this is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. And day by day by day, he never fails to renew his commitment to us. And his love for us is fierce. It is uncompromising and it is jealous. It is invincible and it is unquenchable. and day by day by day husbands, how far short we fall from the perfect love of Christ. How often we fail our wives, sometimes quite miserably. And yet day by day by day how eager Christ is to cleanse us and to forgive us as we cry out to Him in faith. And how eager He is to give us grace and strength that we might love our wives with a love that is more like unto His own perfect love. And so, humanly speaking, you can search the whole of this earth for a bridegroom who loves with a perfect love. You can search, and you can search, and you can search, and you will surely fail. Because there is only one perfectly loving heavenly bridegroom. There is only one perfectly loving bridegroom. And He is seated in glory and in majesty at the right hand of God in heaven. And His name is Jesus. Have you committed yourself to His love? The love that surpasses understanding? Do you know the love of Jesus Christ that surpasses all understanding, the most complete and fierce, invincible and unquenchable love in all the universe? The only love by which we can be saved eternally from sin and from death. Well, let us all study Him. Let us all trust in Him and cling to Him. And let us all rest in the infinite, eternal, and unchangeable love of our Heavenly Bridegroom. Let's pray together. Our God and our Father, having been called to such a high standard of love We praise You that with You there is forgiveness, for none of us will ever attain to this perfect love in this life. None of us perfectly love our wives as Christ has so perfectly and completely loved His church. But we do pray, Father, that for the glory of Christ, We would grow in that love. That we would not see it as some unattainable thing that we can then cast away. But that, Father, in the power of the Spirit and in reliance upon Your grace, and with our eyes fixed on the glory of Christ, may we pursue it. May we pursue that love as we do pursue to love our wives. Indeed, as Christ has loved the church, not for our own glory, but for His glory, that the gospel might shine forth from our relationship with our wives. Father, strengthen us to this end for the glory of Jesus Christ, the heavenly bridegroom. Forgive us, Father, for how miserably we fail. But give us grace to pursue that goal and to love our wives, to pursue them, to nourish them and cherish them as Christ does the church. And day by day, never let us forget what is at stake for this mystery is profound. It is about Christ and the church. It is about the grace and the glory of our Savior. And so let Him be glorified in all that we say and do as we seek His face. I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.