Spirit Filled - A Husbands Love - Part 4
Notes
Transcript
Welcome- Prepare hearts and Worship 100% of the time, His little feet.
I am looking for a couple of people who would want to be available at the end of service to answer questions and meet any body that has questions. If this is something you might want to participate in please let me know.
Call to Worship Romans 6:1-14
Prayer
Worship through Song
Sermon
Scripture reading
Prayer
Communion - See Communion outline
Worship through Song
Benediction
Introduction
Introduction
Good morning everyone. I am so thankful that you are all here today. I am Pastor Kyle for anyone who may be visiting us today or who may be watching online.
I hope that each of you had the opportunity to spend some quite time with God this week. That you had a chance to slow down and really get into his word and spend some quality time with him in prayer and meditation.
Today we will be continuing with Paul’s teachings on the Christian house hold. He is using the house hold develop his message that believers are to live Spirit filled lives submitting to each other. The last couple of weeks we have been looking at the scriptures relating to wives and today we will start with the husbands. Next week is Palm Sunday with the following Sunday being Resurrection Sunday. So be praying about who you can invite to church the next couple of weeks.
Our Father God and Lord Jesus, we come to you this morning to see you. We come here broken, confused, critical, bitter, envious and prideful. Each and every moment we need to be reminded of the Good News that you brought to the world. The good news that there is hope for those whom come to believe in you. They see the sinful state they are in and receive the blessed grace that you have given freely. That by your sacrifice that we are saved and have your Holy Spirit alive and living inside of us. Let us come today to sit under the authority of your holy word. May we be made new today. Let us rejoice in the teaching of you words today.
Amen
Let us turn to the Ephesians 5:25 stand with me.
25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her with the washing of water by the word. 27 He did this to present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or anything like that, but holy and blameless. 28 In the same way, husbands are to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hates his own flesh but provides and cares for it, just as Christ does for the church, 30 since we are members of his body. 31 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. 32 This mystery is profound, but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33 To sum up, each one of you is to love his wife as himself, and the wife is to respect her husband.
As Christ Loved the Church
As Christ Loved the Church
25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her
How did and how does Jesus love the Church. Both of the words for love here are agapao: To have great affection or care for or loyalty towards someone or something. to have a strong, non-sexual affection and love for a person and their good as understood by God’s moral character; especially characterized by a willing forfeiture of rights or privileges in another person’s behalf.
Husbands are to love there wives the same way as Jesus loved the church. This is a love that does not depend on the merit of the other person. For jesus loved us and dies for his people even though they did not have anything to offer in return. Jesus describes is love as the good Shepard.
11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12 The hired hand, since he is not the shepherd and doesn’t own the sheep, leaves them and runs away when he sees a wolf coming. The wolf then snatches and scatters them. 13 This happens because he is a hired hand and doesn’t care about the sheep. 14 “I am the good shepherd. I know my own, and my own know me, 15 just as the Father knows me, and I know the Father. I lay down my life for the sheep. 16 But I have other sheep that are not from this sheep pen; I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. Then there will be one flock, one shepherd. 17 This is why the Father loves me, because I lay down my life so that I may take it up again. 18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own. I have the right to lay it down, and I have the right to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father.”
Jesus laid down his life for his sheep. He knows them and they know him. He is attentive, caring, protective. Without the Shepard the sheep will certainty die. Jesus came to save the world through love.
16 For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
We are only capable of this type of love because Jesus first loved us. Because of the Holy Spirit we have the ability to love in this way. We will never love completely and perfectly as He does but he has given us a measure to do so.
Jesus came willingly and freely. He came to love his children even though they could never earn that love.
Paul continues with the motivation of Jesus:
26 to make her holy, cleansing her with the washing of water by the word. 27 He did this to present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or anything like that, but holy and blameless.
Paul uses two metaphors here to describe what Jesus came and did. The first is that he uses the ceremonial cleansing of the washing of the water by the word. And marriage. Some commentators believe the washing of the water refers the the ceremonial washing that a bride would do before here wedding day and other believe it refers to the ceremonial cleansing that Isreal was accustomed to and that the pharisees had added to. You see the bride of the church could never be presented to the bridegroom Jesus without first being cleansed. It was because that Jesus was the perfect sinless sacrifice that atoned, or made made man right with God again, that made the bride of the church to come to the bridegroom.
He had to do the work that the church could not do inorder to bring the church to himself. To make the Church Holy. Without spot or wrinkle. The church is full of spots and wrinkles but because of Jesus that has all been cleansed.
11 For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, 12 instructing us to deny godlessness and worldly lusts and to live in a sensible, righteous, and godly way in the present age, 13 while we wait for the blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. 14 He gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to cleanse for himself a people for his own possession, eager to do good works.
God’s Grace appeared. Manifested in Jesus, instruction us to do right while we wait for the hope of Glory to return. He gave himself to redeem us from lawlessness and cleanse for himself a people. A people eager to do good works.
I heard a quite a few sermons that related verses 26 and 27 to specific actions of the husband to the wife and though I think there are some possible correlations we have to be careful that we do not assign abilities to husband that do not have the authority to perform. The husband cannot cleanse his wife or present her holy. He cannot redeem her. That is the work of Jesus. The husband does not stand in between his wife and Jesus.
But what we can take from this is the characteristics of love that Jesus demonstrates though these acts.
His love is sacrificial. He cares deeply for the good of his bride. He is willing to die for his bride to be holy. The bible reveals that they are to willingly submit to there husbands and the husbands take on authority and responsibility because he is the head of the marriage as Jesus is the head of the Church. As far as it is in our power we live to support our wives as they grow in their relationship with Jesus. We are to provide a safe and stable home. We are to protect our wives.
A wife who is loved in this way will thrive in he walk with God and in her role as a wife.
Paul then re-enplanes this with a different analogy.
In The Same Way (love)
In The Same Way (love)
28 In the same way, husbands are to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hates his own flesh but provides and cares for it, just as Christ does for the church, 30 since we are members of his body.
The bride of Christ is described as his own body. Through the acts of Jesus the church is brought into oneness with Jesus. And through the love of the husband the wife is brought into oneness with her husband. One again Paul states that care is a part of this love for a man will care for himself naturally.
I find it interesting that each use of the word love still comes from the root Greek word agapao. That we love ourselves in a unique way that translates to the the love of our wives. Then he uses the negative that no one hates his own flesh but provides and cares for it. Hate to dislike intensely feel antipathy or aversion towards. There are those that struggle with feeling of dislike and aversion toward themselves but this is not typical of most men.
A husband is not independent of his wife. Coin analogy...
A husband that tears down his wife, who does not live in this way is tearing down a part of himself. He was not complete without his wife as Adam was not complete with out Eve. Adam needed something that only Eve could provide. Peter sis it this way
7 Husbands, in the same way, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with a weaker partner, showing them honor as coheirs of the grace of life, so that your prayers will not be hindered.
Husbands are to live with understanding. Understanding of who God made their wives to be. What is their responsibility and what is your responsibility. Our wives are coheirs of grace. Peter tells us that how we treat our wives can lead to our prayers not being answered.
This is a new concept for the people. Wives not so much. In the culture they were not thought of as co-anything.
One commentary put it this way: Granted that Paul’s admonition to wives to be subject to their husbands is not a radical notion given its historical and creational background, this imperative for husbands to love their wives is indeed countercultural in its day. As noted repeatedly above, husbands in the ancient world were very often marrying teenage girls one to three decades younger than themselves whom they may not have met personally before the wedding day. Marriage was for the purpose of raising legitimate children and heirs.
S. M. Baugh, Ephesians: Evangelical Exegetical Commentary, ed. Wayne H. House, Hall W. Harris III, and Andrew W. Pitts, Evangelical Exegetical Commentary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2015), 482–483.
This type of love was radical to them. It was a foreign concept to them. So the love of Christ would have been a very dramatic mirror held up to them.
But today we have the same battle in a different way. See the culture in Paul’s time saw women as possessions, as tools, as a means for their own objectives. They were valuable based on what they could do for them. They failed to experience the blessing that God had created marriage to be. They had legal unions based on transactions. They we very strict on violating the legal bounds of marriage but had zero relational value.
Today we have gone a different way. Our culture today believes that wives are unnecessary and can be traded out at any time. That there are no legal bounds. There are states that a spouse can process a divorce without the person even having a say. Many are choosing not to marry at at all. Marriage as an institution does not have any value or importance. Men do not understand that what we call love now days is actually defilement of women. We live in a time where men and women seek to cross as many boundaries as possible as fast as possible. The more boundaries you cross together the more we must love each other. True love will do everything in its power to build up the other person and not destroy the other person.
As we live in a church that has become apathetic toward Jesus. Man we do a lot of things in his name but do we sit with the Shepard? Do we spend time with him. Do we have a loving relationship with our shepherd? As men become increasingly apathetic toward the one who went to the cross to save their souls we have no ability to love our wives in this way because many do not know what the love of Jesus feels like.
Marriage and the roles of husband and wife are not trivial.
To Cleave
To Cleave
31 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.
Leave mother and father. Establish new authority and to be glued and cemented together. Mentally, physically, spiritually. Oneness
This is quote of
24 This is why a man leaves his father and mother and bonds with his wife, and they become one flesh.
They are to be glues and united into one entity. The marriage is no longer about you and me but us and we. When I have done premarital counselling one thing I notice how they speak about the this in their lives. Do they speak in the terms of his and hers or ours. This is a huge tell.
Paul sums it up with this statement
32 This mystery is profound, but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33 To sum up, each one of you is to love his wife as himself, and the wife is to respect her husband.
Until now marriage had not been explicitly tied to a picture of Christ and the church. This has been revealed. and he summarizes all that he has spoken of as love and respect. A christian home should be known for love and respect. Two believers that are submitting to Christ and walking in a God honoring way will demonstrate this type of love and respect. A love and respect that will look so different from the world around us and a love that with transform the family and bring blessings on the home.
Conclusion
Conclusion
In conclusion
1 What should we say then? Should we continue in sin so that grace may multiply? 2 Absolutely not! How can we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Or are you unaware that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been united with him in the likeness of his death, we will certainly also be in the likeness of his resurrection. 6 For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be rendered powerless so that we may no longer be enslaved to sin, 7 since a person who has died is freed from sin. 8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him, 9 because we know that Christ, having been raised from the dead, will not die again. Death no longer rules over him. 10 For the death he died, he died to sin once for all time; but the life he lives, he lives to God. 11 So, you too consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, so that you obey its desires. 13 And do not offer any parts of it to sin as weapons for unrighteousness. But as those who are alive from the dead, offer yourselves to God, and all the parts of yourselves to God as weapons for righteousness. 14 For sin will not rule over you, because you are not under the law but under grace.
We are to offer ourselves to God as weapons of righteousness. How can we go to battle with the world in Jesus name when we are at battle at home.
Where are you at today men? I must be honest that God has been really working in my heart on what it means to be a husband. Maybe you are here and like me you realize that as you look to Jesus’ love you fall tremendously short. You have been convicted that you do not love the way that Jesus loves. Maybe you are realizing that there is more to marriage than what our culture has been telling us. If this is you then first we must repent of the sins we have committed and ask for forgiveness of our wives and God as we have sinned against them. Wives be prepared to forgive if true repentance is presented. This will be one of the hardest things for men to do. And without forgiveness there will not be much to build off of.
Where do we start:
1. if you are not a Christian and you want to know more about Jesus or have this desire to be saved by him please come to me today. I would love to hear about where you are at. Without the saving love of Jesus you will not be able to love your wife in this way either today if you are married or in the future if you are not.
2. Maybe you want to love your wife but don’t know were to start. Start with spending time with Jesus. You cannot love you wife in a way that you have not experienced yourself. Realize that your love for your wife is not based on what she does for you. Your love for here is based on Christs love for you and your desire to glorify him by loving your wife the way you are loved.
Pray
Call To Worship
Call To Worship
16 For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
Jesus Invites
Jesus Invites
28 “Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take up my yoke and learn from me, because I am lowly and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
Jesus Declares
Jesus Declares
35 “I am the bread of life,” Jesus told them. “No one who comes to me will ever be hungry, and no one who believes in me will ever be thirsty again.
37 Everyone the Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me I will never cast out.
Institution
Institution
23 For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: On the night when he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” 25 In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, and said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
Benediction
13 Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you believe so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.