Colossians 3:19 | Husbands

Fiona

Catechism:

Q: Of what advantage to us is Christ’s Ascension?

A: Christ is now advocating for us in the precense of His Father and also sends us his Holy Spirit.

Intro

This morning we continue to make our way through the blueprint for a godly home in colossians.

We have looked at:

what it is to be human (gen 1)

How God made all people equal as image bearers, yet different as male and female (Gen 2)

ascribing different roles that are not interchangeable yet mean that we are all equally necessary for fulfilling the mission of God

Last week we saw how God’s word speaks first to wives, giving them the honour and dignity of playing an indespensible role in living for the glory of Jesus- and in the home specifcally, by submitting to the order which God has designed - submitting to their husbands.

All of which necessitates, that the person that the wife submit’s to, equally plays thier part.

SO that is where the text turns to next, addressing the head!

Husbands.

Colossians 3:19

19 Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them.

As we did last week we are going to make our way through this command peice by peice and draw out it’s implications.

Pray

—-

Every man has a space of some sort… a place they go to.

In that place there isnt anything of real significance. There’s nothing bad there, there is nothing good there. It’s just a space.

There is a window in one wall, but we have never looked out it.

We don’t live there, but we drop by from time to time.

This space, is in our heads.

This is where we are when wives, you ask your husband… ‘hey what you thinking about,’ = and he goes, ‘nothun’.

Just to be clear that is the truest answer. He just is!

And I get that is completely unfathomable to you. Becuase in your mind, everything is connected.

(I’m definitely generalising here - but, let’s have some fun).

But in your mind there are clear walls that mark one space from another. Instead everything is connected, From that person you have to reply to, and where the kids have to be at, and the comment she made last week, to what you are going to wear to the event on the weekend, You have small concerns, big concerns, medium concerns and they are all connected, and they are connected to the dream you had last night and the meal plan for the week and wondering what he is thinking about.

and he’s thinking about nothing.

Now, I don’t know why God made us different in this way… but he did.

For us, there are clear lines between all the important stuff in our lives.

What I do know, that this can be used for good, or for evil.

A man, can use his nothing space as a place of retreat, and therefor be absent, unattentive, passive and therefore unloving. A selfish space that is detrimental to others.

or, it can be a space that provides the clear breaks between other times of hyper focus that create a [place for intentional decisiveness, considered compassation, and therefore great love. A space, that shows how God has wired us, so that we might lead well as we ovey and glorify Jesus, and love others.

Our text this morning addresses now, the head of the home.

Heads - Husbands

As we saw last week in Ephesians 5

22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body

The one who has been given the responsibility of Authority in the home.

Despite Today’s cultural charactatures of a man, that are often all too real becuase of the corruption of sin - God has placed the husband as the head of the home in his good Order.

the daft baffoon - the Homer Simpson image

or the man who is a danger - you know, becuase you would rather send your daughter out alone with a grizzly bear than a male.

or the macho man - who takes what he wants and will use and abuse anyone along the way becuase he is the biggest gorilla in the jungle. He might be built like a fridge - but he is cold on the inside.

or the impotent man - the man who wastes away his life and strength and virtue by avoiding reponsibility and instead lives glued to his pleasures as if they are the IV drip keeping him alive.

Despite these ideas, that are often real abuses of masculinity, God has determined, that according to his good design, men have been given the responsbility of authority.

This is the order that God has given.

Specifically - in the home, the husband is the head.

Before we go any further: Men -

Sin has corrupted everything. But by faith in Jesus you are filled with his Spirit, and you are no longer bound to the cultural generalisations.

SO you can live according to God’s good design!

you are created and called to lead well. To look to the king and trust him and obey him. You were created for more than just coasting - but to glorify God (along with the helper you need) in taking domion and ruling under his reign, and filling the earth with others you raise to know and love the Lord your God.

Don’t be like Adam - who stood by whilst his wife was devieced and then followed her lead.

Don’t be Passive (physically present, but altogether absent)

beucase in doing so you place the burden on others.

According to God’s good order, husbands you have been given the responsibility of authority. So look to the greater Adam. JESUS!

The king has given you a post, so man your post! - if you are married, God the Father has entrusted to you a beloved daughter - if you aren’t married then work in everything to grow in discipline and self control and utter dependence upon God in obedience to his word.

This is a task you can’t do this but by the grace of God and the Spirit within you!

GOSPEL!!!

Jesus is the perfect man, so you don’t have to be.

Rest in his grace

Trust him when you fail,

Serve him with all that you have!

Certainly with the role that you have been called to.

But what is the nature of this authority, of this headship.

Well there is one explicit command here, and that is to:

Love your wives

Not once in God’s word does it say to ‘exercise your authority’ - but instead to love. For husbands, to love your wives.

This means that the authority that the husband has been given, is to be expressed and visible in the love they have for thier wife.

But what does this love mean, what does it entail?

Love is such a generic term! We say we love our family, and we love cricket, and you eat a schnitty, and we go.. ‘man I loved that,’ and some ya’ll love your cat… and we need to get you checked out.

So when Paul says - love your wives - is he using a generic term, be kind, acknowledge her… what sort of love, like the cat sort of love, or the schnitty sort of love?

Thankfully, we don’t have to pick between those two. Ephesians 5 from v 25 elaborates for us:

Ephesians 5:25–27

25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 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.

What sort of love?

1. (Self Sacrificial)! As Christ loves the church and gave himself up for her!

Hey people get thier heckles up about the call for wives to submit to thier husbands whilst forgetting that the husband is called to lay his life down for his bride.

But what does that mean, becuase as the remark goes - sure he is willing to run into a burning building to pull me out or scare off a grizzly bear… but those things almost never happen… I just want him to listen to me.

Now certainly, it does include those thing. Just as jesus literally gave up his life for his bride - the husband is to do the same if the need arise: If someone were to break into your home, or approach you both with ill-intent as your walking home in the dark alley… it is the husbands responsbility to stand between the danger and his wife - even if that requires the ultimate sacrifice.

but there is a broader principle - The love of the husband ought to be self-sacrifical - just like the love of Jesus.

As Jesus our king and saviour, willingly gave up his own interests, his own glory, his own riches, absolutely his own comfort for the benefit of his bride the church.

So the husband ought to love thier wives by giving up thier own self-serving interests, thier own desires, thier comforts, for the welfare and benefit of his wife.

A man that uses the responsibility and authority he has been given to get what he wants - making decisions for his benefit - is not loving his wife as Christ loves the church.

Just as Christ took responsbility for our sins against him, and paid the penalty that we might recieve forgiveness

So the love of the husband ought to be one that pursues forgiveness - even if they have been wronged.

If you have been wronged - living in that seperation and stewing on it - is not loving your wife and pursing her that you may forgive and reconcile is not like Christ does his bride.

Just as Jesus refused to take the easy path to exaltation when tempted by Satan in Matthew 4 - but instead obey God

So the love for his wife ought to compel the husband to do what is necessary.

The man who avoids the hard road is not loving his wife.

avoids the hard conversations, the hard tasks the hard decisions

maybe it’s avoiding the need to confront sin - or to confess sin

Just as Jesus remains faithful to his bride - forever - consistent.

Ordinary, ongoing faithfulness.

Husbands, the responsibility you have been given as the head of your wife, is to be expressed in the self-sacrifical love that we see in the humility, the life and death of Jesus.

Jesus who willingly went to the cross for you.

But there is a second clarifier that helps us understnad what this love is:

Ephesians 5:28-30

28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 30 because we are members of his body.

2. Husbands should love thier wives as their own bodies

In the union of marriage a couple become one flesh in this mystical union that points to Christ and the church.

So to love your wife is to love yourself.

A husbands authority ought to be defined by love that shows attentive concern for his wife, as he would himself.

This love,

nourishes: fosters growth and health and maturity (Physically, emotionally & Spiritually)

cherishes: it protects, provides for, and values

The words of the Apostle Peter help us here, in

1 Peter 3:7 (ESV)

7 Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.

live with your wives in an understanding way According to the knowledge of God’s will - fearing God and knowing the responsibility he had given you. According to the knowledge of your wife - studying her. You are called to nourish and cherish your wife - grow in your understanding of her, her temptations, her delights, so that you can nourish her for the glory of Jesus. [Negative example: Recently Judah sick - chaotic, next week, I was like yep switch off, move on] Timothy Keller said of his wife Kathy: “I have been married to marry different women over the years and all of them have been my wife.”

showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel What does it mean that the woman is the weaker vessel? - I don’t think it means in every way. - we know women are far stronger than men at dealing with a common cold. Literally, generally speaking men are built stronger physically than women. That doesn’t equate to a different value.

The other day I bought a big stone stiener, a big stone mug hand chizled in the mines of Kazad Dum, and a fine china tea cup.

Same value

Different purpose - if you ask the china tea cup to hold a pint of beer. You are asking of it something it was not made for. if you ask the steiner to make a baby

If you take the china tea cup and smash it onto the stone stiener… vice versa

Beucase of the different purpose, that is according to God’s good design, male and female have been made different. Equal in value

Husbands are to cherish thier wives, honouring and protecting the precious daughter of the king that she is!

Your strength can protect her or crush her.

Your words can encourage and exhort and sanctify her, or they can break her.

Your attention can consider her or it can neglect her

You leadership can lead to flourishing and joy for her, or it can lead to hurt and bitterness.

Knowing her and loving her… as your own body.

Let’s note again - Husbands, you are called to love Your wife’

Love:

Not every woman, not all women.

Love - know - Nourish and Cherish - 1 woman

A wise man once said that ‘if you love all women, you love no women. But if you truly love one woman, you love all women.’

Which is to say that if you let your heart, your affections, your physical desires be drawn by all women - If you follow the cultural lie that true masculinity is is seen in taking what your want, - then you love no women.

That man - may very well be a danger to women.

But if you truly love one woman, then you are a benefit, a blessing to all.

Apart from God in Christ, the One Woman that you are in covenant with under God, the wife that he has blessed you with is to be sole recipient of your love.

She ought to be the actress under the spotlight of all your affections. Of your emotional attention, of your pursuit.

Men, you have been made with a sexual drive, and that is a good thing, and is to be directed towards loving your wife.

How is this Authority defined by love to be used?

Well last week we said how wives ought to submit to thier husbands who lead in obeying God, and areas of Christian liberty, and NOT following a husband into sin. so let’s look a those from the husbands point of view -

As the head, husbands are to lead in obeying the word of God and living for his glory!

Joshua 24:14–15 (ESV)

14 “Now therefore fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. 15 And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

This ought to be the declaration of every Godly mans life. As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD!

Men, you must do this:

in the manner of your life - You are the leader, your wife if you are blessed, your children if so, your freinds - look to you as the Example of what it means to follow Jesus. (repentance, trusting in Christ) - can you say with Paul, follow me as I follow Jesus?

knowledge and love of God’s word - knowing God’s word and delighting in it, and obeying God’s word.

That will require you to Confront sin, in yourself, in your wife, in your family.

Obeying Christ Adam was to keep the Garden holy, to protect his wife from the dangers of temptation and to teach her to delight in and obey God - he was the pastor of the Garden. Husbands are the pastor of the home.

If the spiritual health of your home is decaying, then in some way, it is likely that you led it there.

Prayer - representing your family before God!

It is said of the godly man Job, that when his children would go and hold a feast,

Job 1:5 (ESV)

5 when the days of the feast had run their course, Job would send and consecrate them, and he would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For Job said, “It may be that my children have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts.” Thus Job did continually.

Job would intercede for his family!

2. Leading in the areas of Christian Liberty

The many decisions that we are faced with, husbands, for you and your home… is your responsbility.

Don’t place that burden upon your wife.

This requires that you be deeply attentive to the needs and desires of your household.

it means you must seek the wise counsel of the helper that God has given you.

But you are responsible to Do what is best, not necessarily what your wife wants.

What if I’m not married?

(Whether you aren’t married yet, or by God’s good providence he has decided that you would have the unique gift of serving Jesus without the distractions that inevitably come with marriage and family).

For the glory of Jesus - How are you taking responsibility?

For youself? self-control (desires, words, actions) using all for the exaltation of Christ

For others? (prayerfully helping others follow Jesus)

Be the kind of man, that the kind woman would want to marry, would want to marry.

3. NOT… leading your wife into sin.

and do not be harsh with them

do not rule over them Genesis 3:16 “To the woman he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you.”” Because of the fall, there is a potential, a temptation for a husband to abuse his authoirty over his wife.

Authority is received, you don’t deserve it… you don’t deserve her.

Strength is a virtue, a good masculine trait. And it is to be used for the benefit of others, especially your wife

The grace for men like you and me.

Christ is advocating for you before the throne of God.

You call is to trust him, and obey him and live for him, as your rest in his grace.