Sacrificial Husbands

Ephesians 5:25-33

Husbands are not told to submit their wives, even as wives are not called to sacrifice their husbands. Instead, husbands are commanded to submit to their wives and sacrifice themselves. Husbands are given the challenge, to love their wives as Christ loved the church: sacrificially, sanctifying and purifying.

This is effective self-sacrifice, not “Taking the High Ground”. This is doing the needed thing, always.

This is humanly impossible. This is a profound mystery. Let your marriage be a foretaste of heaven.

Skipping Verses

Last week was a hard sermon for me.

This is going to be a hard one for me. So we are just going to skip the verses. ;)

I am not a perfect husband. Not even close.

I don’t have a perfect marriage.

So I preach not from my store of wisdom and personal experience, but out of brokenness, looking to the Word of God, to the Holy Spirit, to be putting broken pieces back together. That is the ongoing process in my life, in my spiritual life, in all of my personal relationships…

… but especially, in a real and raw way, brokenness in my marriage.

I turn to Scripture to discover what love can look like. What life and true love looks like.

So… Marriage is what brings us together today… That blessed arrangement in love, true love.

What does true love look like in the face of broken reality?

Like last week, we are telescoped way in on one particular relationship. Last week it was wives, this week it is husbands. Most of us in this room are not husbands… but we will see that while some of what is here is very specific to husbands… there is truth here about Christ and his church and the love to which all of us are called.

What does true love look like in the face of broken reality?

Sacrificial Love – Unreasonable Standards

Ephesians 5:25-33

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. 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. 31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. 33 However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

Husbands, Submit Yourselves to Your Wives

Husbands, hearing verse 24, you already have the command to submit yourselves to one another… including your wife.

Like we saw last week, we go from the command to all Christians to say to one another “you outrank me” (that’s what submission means), and we telescope into human relationship. Husbands certainly have the responsibility to submit themselves to their wives.

And this is the radically counter-cultural thing.

That wives should submit themselves to their husbands is right in line with how these ethical philosophies usually go. The Household Code. Wives have responsibilities to their husbands. Children have responsibilities to their fathers. It really normally does not go the other direction. So Paul sets up the sucker punch with expected left jab.

And here is the knockout.

Husbands! Not only do you have the responsibility to submit to your wife as a fellow Christ-disciple… I am going to hold you up to an impossible standard of love.

Love your wife as Christ loved the Church

How Did Christ Love the Church?

Sacrificially – at great cost to himself.

Jesus, because of His great love, offered himself as a sacrifice for our sin. Rescuing and redeeming his bride at great personal cost. The pain of torture. The pain of death. The burden and guilt of sin. And we didn’t deserve it, we weren’t even onboard, we didn’t agree at the time, we didn’t get it, we didn’t understand, we certainly didn’t appreciate.

But none of that mattered. Jesus knew the cost… he just paid it anyway.

Effectively – Sanctifying her, cleansing her, present in splendor.

Jesus saw what the church actually needed. Not what it said it needed. No one was walking around looking for a Savior to die for their sins. What they wanted was political power and freedom. What they wanted was their brand of Justice. They wanted National superiority!

Jesus – God – saw with wisdom and clarity to the heart of their need. And gave everything, sacrificed himself, to meet that need.

Paul is saying something Christological here: this is how Jesus loved the Church. Husbands: your love is not going to be like Jesus’ love in cleansing your wife from sin: Jesus has already done that. Your love may be part of sanctifying your wife, but only as the Holy Spirit uses you in her life.

You don’t accomplish what Jesus’ love accomplished, you love with His kind of love.

Naturally – as if caring for his own body. Without question, without hesitation, without consideration, you do what you have to do to care for yourself. Jesus cares for the church that way. Husbands love your wife that way.

It isn’t “amazing.” It is obvious. Of course I would do that. I can’t believe you pulled that splinter out of your body! Of course I would do that, it was hurting me. I can’t believe you would rearrange your work schedule to clean the garage! Of course I would do that, it was hurting you. Same thing.

Effective natural sacrificial love.

Hero vs. Slave vs. Lover

How does one actually do this?

Hero

Here is one way to do it wrong. This is my way M.O.

I can use this language of self-sacrifice to describe actions that I take in life and marriage, pat myself on the back, and declare myself the hero of the story. My friends can ooh and aah at how much I sacrifice for my wife and family.

Armed with that mythology, I am now immune: because the Hero is the Hero.

For example: I have had days of tremendous energy where I flew through the house and cleaned the entire thing. “Picked up” the entire thing (there is a level of cleaning I am blind to). The house is beautiful.

Now Anna gets home. She must be amazed at what I have done, my incredible act of self-sacrifice, or there will be sulking! She might be juggling kids when she arrives home, unloading groceries, but there is a countdown to her noticing and she better be amazed!

And the glow from that act of loving self-sacrifice had better last. A week or two. During that time I get a pass from all acts of self-sacrifical love. Because I am the hero.

Is that how Jesus loved the church? He made sure he got enough recognition... He refused to do more for His bride until His first act of love was properly appreciated.

Effective sacrificial love lays down my rights, my due praise, day after day after day. If she never notices… I did what was needed… and I will do it again tomorrow.

Slave

Let’s be crazy: push this to the extreme… you could make yourself a slave.

I am going to do whatever my wife wants. This is the SitCom husband. Whatever you want, dear. “She’s always right…” You could go through your whole life doing everything your wife wants… and there is a sacrifice to that. You are putting her wants and desires above your own. That is on the right track.

… but is that the kind of love that Christ modeled for the church? It completely dodges any question of anything that “headship” might mean. It not only abdicates leadership, it abdicates all responsibility as a partner, not just a leader. Jesus, with divine wisdom, sacrificed himself effectively for what the church actually needed.

You and I, husbands, we don’t have the perfect wisdom to perfectly identify that. But we cannot abandon the question: what is good for my wife? What does God want for my family? Struggle and seek after the answer… and then sacrifice for the sake of that! Rinse and repeat.

Not a Slave, but in the footsteps of Jesus, a true Lover.

True Love

You, as a true lover of your wife, submit to her by considering her needs above your own. What is God doing in her? What is her journey? What is her next step? What is her future?

Pursuing and asking for wisdom…

And then laying down everything you have and are for any part that you can play in that. To the death. Every day. Nothing held off the table.

I want, I strive, I desire to be that kind of husband. I am working on the wisdom piece… what is God doing in Anna’s life? What can I do to be a part of that?

But I will lay down my pride, my plans, my ambitions, my expectations… Not to be a hero (that’s my pride). Not just to please her (that would be slavery). But for her good as God gives me wisdom to see it.

We sing that song. “Everything I am, everything I long to be, I lay it down at your feet.”

Try singing that to your wife.

A Profound Mystery

“32. This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.”

Marriage is a living metaphor for how God loves his people.

The “two become one flesh” is a euphemism for sex, for total intimacy, mind, heart and body.

And that level of intimacy… the level at which we start getting really uncomfortable talking about it kind of level… that is the level of intimacy that parallels, points at, hints at, the kind of intimate connection Christ will have with His church.

A Church United

United in our grief. United in our anxiety. United in our faith. Submitting to one another in love. Loving one another sacrificially. “Greater love has no man than this: that he lay down his life for his friend.”

Laying down our lives for one another. One moment, one act, one day at a time.

And we live out the Kingdom of God, by doing the will, the dominion of the King.

And in this way we:

Ephesians 4:1b-6

… live a life worthy of the calling you have received. 2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. 3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

This is humanly impossible. Nobody loves this way. But because we are called, because we are saved by His sacrificial love, because and as we are filled with the Holy Spirit, our lives together are characterized by His kind of love, His kind of light.