A God Honoring Marriage In a Broken World, Part 5

Marriage is a perpetual test of character.

Anonymous

Marriage is more than finding the right person; it is being the right person.

Anonymous

Husbands, Love Your WIves As Your Own Bodies (vs. 28)

Soma?...

When You Love Your Wife, You Show You Love Yourself (vs. 28)

No One Has Hated His Own Flesh (vs. 29)

Sarx?...

To Nourishes and Cherish (vs 29)

As Christ Does The Church

Nourish

Cherish

To cherish - a bird metaphor meaning “to warm” in the sense of caring for and stewarding

Christ is our Good Shepherd.

Husbands are stewards of their wives gifts as well as their own.

What are you doing to further your wife’s interests and talents?

To nourish - a bird metaphor meaning “to feed to maturity”, in the sense of training and educating.

The goal of our growth is Christlikeness, which would be a restoration of the Fall.

The spiritual leader of the home must seek the maturity of each member of the family in Christ.

What are you doing to foster a home of spiritual growth and maturity?

The subjunctive mood gives these phrases a sense of contingency, of “if, then” power.

As the church must cooperate in the sanctification process, so must the wife cooperate with the husband as he stands up for her.

This where the voluntary submission comes in.

Wives, if you are in the wrong, admit it.

Don’t throw your husbands under the bus.

Headship means self-sacrificing love.

It’s makes it one’s goal in liberating and exalting the one under them.

It’s taking the prisoner and setting them free.

It’s taking the poor and making them rich.

It’s taking the weak and making them strong.

How can I raise up, praise up, and prop up my wife?

And it’s doing it even if she doesn’t acknowledge or recognize it.

When the husband sacrificially loves his wife, he is showing that he loves himself, since she is one flesh with him.

In making one’s wife prosper, a husband prospers himself.

Dare I say, happy wife, happy life?

But a wife is not to take advantage of that, nor demand that, but rather submit to how the husband feels it is appropriate to bring that about.

I Peter 3

Again, comes on the heels of a description of what Christ did for us.

This time in relation to not responding when treated badly.

Not reviling when reviled.

Submissive - In The Same Way - mutual submission

Christianity is the only religion in the world that elevates women to their proper role as co-image bearers.

In the ancient world wives possessed no authority or influence beside their husbands.

This authority had to be accompanied by deference and courtesy.

Women were without rights and considered of inferior status.

Christ elevates that

Galatians 3:28 NASB95

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Four things that men show their wives:

Understanding instead of thoughtlessness.

Compassion over “weaknesses” rather than belittling.

Consideration rather than dismissal - just a woman...

honor rather than exploitation

Grace rather than judgment

Gracious gift of life

brought to life by God’s will and design.

Re-birthed by God’s sacrifice and Holy Spirit empowerment.

Four differences:

Different receptacles: bodies - we had no choice in this.

Different physical makeup

Different psychological makeup

Different roles: primary vs. exclusive

Different responsibilities -

Different responses -

Because We Are Members of His Body (vs 30)

Soma?...