5.25 082408M
User Manual: 5.25
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Pastor Steven J. Cole
Flagstaff Christian Fellowship
123 S. Beaver Street
Flagstaff, Arizona 86001
www.fcfonline.org
DO YOU REALLY LOVE YOUR WIFE?
(Part 2)
Ephesians 5:25-33
By
Steven J. Cole
August 24, 2008
© Steven J. Cole, 2008
For access to previous sermons or to subscribe to weekly
sermons via email go to: www.fcfonline.org/sermons
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture
Quotations are from the New American
Standard Bible, Updated Edition
© The Lockman Foundation
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August 24, 2008
Ephesians Lesson 50
Do You Really Love Your Wife? (Part 2)
Ephesians 5:25-33
Kids sometimes have some humorous insights on love and
marriage. When asked, “How does a person decide who to
marry?” Allan (age 10) said, “You got to find somebody who likes
the same stuff. Like if you like sports, she should like it that you
like sports, and she should keep the chips and dip coming.” Kirsten
(age 10) replied, “No person really decides before they grow up
who they’re going to marry. God decides it all way before, and you
got to find out later who you’re stuck with.”
What do most people do on a date? Lynnette (age 8) says,
“Dates are for having fun, and people should use them to get to
know each other. Even boys have something to say if you listen
long enough.” Martin (age 10) has some youthful wisdom: “On the
first date, they just tell each other lies, and that usually gets them
interested enough to go for a second date.”
Is it better to be single or married? Anita (age 9) says, “It’s
better for girls to be single but not for boys. Boys need somebody
to clean up after them!” Kenny (age 7) says, “It gives me a head-
ache to think about that stuff. I’m just a kid. I don’t need that kind
of trouble.”
Why love happens between two people: Jan (age 9) says,
“No one is sure why it happens, but I heard it has something to do
with how you smell. That’s why perfume and deodorant are so
popular.” Harlen (age 8) says, “I think you’re supposed to get shot
with an arrow or something, but the rest of it isn’t supposed to be
so painful.”
What is falling in love like? Roger (age 9) says, “Like an
avalanche where you have to run for your life.” Greg (age 8) says,
“Love is the most important thing in the world, but baseball is
pretty good too.”
When is it okay to kiss someone? Pam (age 7) says, “When
they’re rich!” Curt (age 7) is more cautious: “The law says you have
to be 18, so I wouldn’t mess with that.” Howard (age 8) is a bit
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more responsible: “The rule goes like this: If you kiss someone,
then you should marry them and have kids with them. It’s the right
thing to do.” Jean (age 10) says, “It’s never okay to kiss a boy. They
always slobber all over you. That’s why I stopped doing it.”
How to make a marriage work: Ricky (age 7) says, “Tell
your wife that she looks pretty even if she looks like a truck!”
Bobby (age 9) says, “Be a good kisser. It might make your wife for-
get that you never take out the trash.” Roger (age 8) says, “Don’t
forget your wife’s name. That will mess up the love.”
We are considering the question, “Do you really love your
wife?” We have seen that…
Christlike love should characterize each husband’s
relationship with his wife.
Last time we saw that…
1. Love is the priority for husbands.
2. Love is possible for all husbands.
3. Love is portrayed as a self-sacrificing, caring commitment
that shows itself in seeking the highest good of the one
loved.
“Love is self-sacrificing,” just as “Christ loved the church and
gave Himself up for her” (5:25).
“Love is caring,” just as a man nourishes and cherishes his
own flesh, as Christ does the church (5:29).
“Love is a commitment,” as implied by the command to love,
by Christ’s covenant love for us, and by the analogy of the body.
“Love shows itself,” that is, it is not just words, but also
deeds, as seen by Christ’s going to the cross for us.
“Love seeks the highest good of the one loved,” just as Christ
died for us so that He might sanctify and cleanse us, to present us
to Himself in all our glory, as holy and blameless (5:26-27).
We also looked at two of ten contrasts to help understand
God’s perspective on a husband’s love for his wife:
(1) Love is sacrificial, not selfish.
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(2) Love is purposeful, not aimless, effortless ecstasy.
We saw that there is an exclusive purpose in married love (“sanc-
tified,” set apart exclusively unto God). There is a purifying purpose
(cleansed by the washing of water with the word). And, there is an
edifying purpose (no spot or wrinkle, but holy and blameless). We
continue now with the rest of the contrasts.
(3) Love is realistic, not blind.
While married love aims at the high ideal of a bride who is
without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, it is not unrealistic. A
godly husband accepts his wife for who she is and graciously, pa-
tiently works with her to help her become all that God intends for
her to be. The fact that a wife is far from perfect does not detract a
husband from his steadfast love for her.
As we saw, husbands are to love their wives just as Christ
loved the church (5:25). What kind of church did Christ love? Was
she perfect, or close to it? Hardly! Even as He went to the cross,
Jesus predicted Peter’s denials and that the disciples all would fall
away because of Him (Mark 14:27, 30). Read the New Testament
and you will easily see that the churches were far from perfect.
Look at your own life since coming to salvation. Have you
perfectly obeyed Jesus Christ? Has your love for Him always been
fervent? Have you always kept yourself pure and devoted only to
Him? And yet, in spite of your many failures, He loves you with a
steadfast, committed love!
One of the questions that I ask couples in premarital coun-
seling is, “Knowing that no one is perfect, name at least five faults
in your fiancé.” My aim is not to get couples to find fault with each
other, but rather to determine if they’re entering marriage with
their eyes wide open. If they can only name one or two faults,
they’re going to be in for a rude awakening after the honeymoon (if
not before!).
Invariably, when couples come in for marriage counseling,
they are blaming one another. He blames her for being angry and
she blames him for being indifferent or insensitive. Speaking to
husbands (because our text does), your wife is imperfect, just as the
church is imperfect. But Christ calls you to love her anyway with
the kind of steadfast love that helps her to grow in godliness. If you
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need an example, study Hosea, who loved an unfaithful wife as an
example of God’s love to adulterous Israel!
(4) Love is initiating, not dependent on a response.
The book of Ephesians (and all of Scripture) is clear that God
took the initiative in loving us and drawing us to salvation. One of
the most prevalent heresies of our day is that God’s sovereign
election only means that He looked down through history and saw
in advance that I would believe, so He chose me for salvation. But
that would mean that election was not based on God’s grace alone,
but on some good that He foresaw in me! But Scripture is plain
(Rom. 5:8), “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in
that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
Applied to husbands, this means that you must continually
initiate and demonstrate self-sacrificing love for your wife, regard-
less of her response. If you think, “Well, I’ll go 50-50, or even, 75-
25,” that’s not enough. You’ve got to give 100 percent love, even if
she’s being disagreeable or difficult to live with. If you respond to
her anger with your anger, it only escalates alienation. I encourage
every husband (and wife) to memorize 1 Peter 3:8-9, which follows
immediately on his counsel to wives and husbands: “To sum up, all
of you be harmonious, sympathetic, brotherly, kindhearted, and
humble in spirit, not returning evil for evil or insult for insult, but
giving a blessing instead; for you were called for the very purpose
that you might inherit a blessing.” Love takes the initiative; it is not
dependent on a response from the one loved.
(5) Love is unconditional, not conditioned on performance.
This is the outworking of the previous point. You not only
initiate love when it is undeserved. You also must steadily maintain
love over the long haul, even when your wife is not being particu-
larly lovely. I’ve heard many husbands complain, “She’s an angry
woman and she isn’t submissive to me! If she would just calm
down and submit as she is supposed to, I’d be able to love her.”
But, the husband’s job is not to get his wife to submit to him or to
love her only when she is lovable, but to love her just as Christ
loves an often disobedient church.
This does not mean that you never confront your wife with
regard to her sin. Many husbands err here. Perhaps his wife is fre-
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quently angry, but rather than patiently, lovingly helping her ac-
knowledge and overcome her anger, he runs for cover so that he
can get some relief. Or, he sinfully confronts her anger with his
fiercer anger, to let her know that she can’t intimidate him. Neither
approach is godly.
A Christlike husband is not quarrelsome, but kind and patient,
even when wronged (2 Tim. 2:24-25). He gently, but with determi-
nation comes alongside his wife and teaches her, “Your anger does
not glorify God. I want to help you be a godly woman. Let’s see
what God’s Word says about how to overcome anger.” By example
and by teaching, he helps her to grow in godliness. That’s how
Christ deals with His bride the church. That’s how a loving hus-
band must deal with his wife, even when she is not all that she is
supposed to be.
(6) Love is a total sharing of life, not two independent lives.
Paul says (5:28-29), “So husbands ought also to love their own
wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves him-
self; for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cher-
ishes it, just as Christ also does the church.” He is not encouraging
us to learn to love ourselves so that we can love our wives! That is
modern psychobabble. Rather, he is pointing out the fact that
normal people love their bodies, as seen by the way that we care
for our bodies and protect them from danger. His point is that
your wife is a part of your body, just as we (the church) are mem-
bers of Christ’s body (5:30). A husband and wife are one flesh
(5:31). When you love her, you are loving your own body.
It’s an amazing picture, that the wife actually is a part of the
husband’s body! Paul is probably going back to the creation of Eve,
who was not created out of the dust of the ground, as Adam was.
Rather, she was taken out of his body, bone of his bone and flesh
of his flesh (Gen. 2:23).
This has profound implications for Christian marriage. For
one thing, if your wife is hurting, you are hurting! If you are insen-
sitive to her pain, you are denying the fact that she is your body. If
you coldly ignore her feelings and say, “I couldn’t care less how
you feel,” you are ignoring yourself. If you attack her with harsh
words, you’re attacking yourself. It would be as if a man hit his
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thumb with a hammer and then said, “You stupid thumb! Why did
you get in the way? You deserve to hurt for being so dumb! I’m
going to hit you again, just to teach you a lesson!” That would be
crazy! And yet, that’s how many men treat their wives.
A husband who becomes so engrossed with his career that he
ignores his wife is committing the same error, of living independ-
ently of his wife. It’s like trying to live apart from your body. Some
years ago, a reporter asked the new head coach of a professional
football team if his wife objected to his 18-hour workdays. He re-
plied, “I don’t know. I don’t see her that much.” I don’t know if
they’re still married, but that coach was not sharing his life with his
wife as if she were his own body. At the very least, this analogy
means that a husband must spend a lot of time with his wife, shar-
ing his life with her and allowing her to share her life with him.
(7) Love is responsible, not irresponsible.
Paul writes (5:28-30) that husbands must nourish and cherish
their wives, “just as Christ also does the church, because we are
members of His body.” This reveals at least two ways that hus-
bands must demonstrate responsible love for their wives.
•Love provides; it is not lazy.
Nourish has the nuance of feeding. Every man feeds his own
body. Every husband is responsible to feed his wife. This includes
material provisions, such as the basic necessities of food and cov-
ering. A lazy man who refuses to work to provide for his family has
denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever (1 Tim. 5:8).
But beyond that, nourishing also implies that a husband cares
about his wife’s total well being and he exerts himself to provide
for her in every way. He makes the effort to provide for her emo-
tionally and spiritually. At the very least, this means taking the ini-
tiative to bring your wife and children to church every Sunday,
where you all can be fed nourishing food from God’s Word. Do
not go to a church that serves spiritual junk food. Go to a church
where your family gets fed and then talk later about the things you
are learning.
Also, read the Bible and pray together as a family. Read good
Christian books and talk about them. Listen to other sound Bible
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teachers, such as John Piper, John MacArthur, and others. Occa-
sionally, go to a good conference, such as the Ligonier Conference
that will be in Scottsdale in September. Take the initiative in pro-
viding spiritual food for your wife and children.
•Love is caring, not callous.
Love cherishes. The word means “warmth,” and pictures a
mother tenderly holding her infant against her to keep it warm
from the cold (Paul uses the Greek verb of a mother in 1 Thess.
2:7, where the NASB translates, “tenderly cares”). Again, this verb
stems from the analogy of the wife actually being part of the hus-
band’s body. If your hands get cold on a winter day, you don’t say,
“Stupid hands, stay out in the cold for all I care!” Rather, you put
them inside your coat and tenderly warm them again. Responsible
love nourishes and cherishes your wife.
(8) Love is emotionally mature, not immature.
In verse 31, Paul quotes Genesis 2:24, “For this reason a man
shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife,
and the two shall become one flesh.” This was written about Adam
and Eve, neither of whom had a mother or father! So it was given
for our instruction, to show us that a man must be mature enough
to leave his parents before he enters into marriage.
I’ve encountered husbands who expect the same treatment
from their wife as they got from their mother! They expect her to
clean the house, buy the groceries, manage the money, and gener-
ally take care of them, while they go play with their buddies. That is
immature, to say the least! A husband must leave his parents so
that he can be joined to his wife and lead her in a mature, responsi-
ble manner. He should be her leader, not her little boy!
(9) Love is a permanent commitment, not a temporary ar-
rangement.
“Be joined to” (5:31) means, “to be glued to.” That means
when you get married, you’re stuck! Marriage creates a new, one-
flesh identity of head and body. It is the permanent commitment
that enables a couple to work through difficulties, as every couple
has to do. I advise every couple to remove the words “divorce” and
“separation” from your vocabularies. Even in the heated emotions
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of a disagreement, never threaten to leave! As we have seen, mar-
riage isn’t just about our happiness. It’s an earthly picture of Christ
and the church. For a husband to threaten to leave his wife when
there is a problem would be like Christ threatening to leave His
bride, the church. But (Heb. 13:5b), “He Himself has said, ‘I will
never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you.’”
(10) Love is growing, exclusive intimacy, not a casual relation-
ship.
Paul cites (5:31) Genesis 2:24, which lays the foundation of
marriage as a one flesh relationship. When God instituted marriage,
it was between a man and a woman, not between two people of the
same sex, which is an abomination to God. It was also between one
man and one woman, not between one man and many women,
whether at the same time or in serial fashion. Although God toler-
ated polygamy in the Old Testament, it never reflected His original
design for marriage and it always created problems. The same is
true of divorce. God’s design is that one man and one woman be
joined exclusively for life.
“One flesh” refers primarily to the sexual union. Paul says that
even when a man has sex with a prostitute, he becomes one flesh
with her (1 Cor. 6:16). God has designed the sexual union to create
this intimate, one flesh relationship, even when it is a one-time
event! But it is to be confined within the boundary of lifelong mar-
riage in order to deepen the relationship between a husband and
wife. Casual sex, outside of the permanence of marriage, is never an
expression of love, but only of lust.
Marriage is a great mystery, in that it is an earthly picture of
Christ and the church (5:32). Sex in the Bible is often described as a
man knowing his wife. A husband and wife’s sexual union is a sacred
picture of the intimate, face-to-face knowledge that we share with
our heavenly Bridegroom. Jesus said that there will not be any mar-
riage in heaven (Matt. 22:30). I’ve often said to Marla, “How can
heaven be heaven if I can’t be married to you?” The biblical answer
is, in heaven there will be no need for the picture, because the real-
ity will have come. We will be married to our heavenly Bridegroom
for all eternity. Therefore, we must guard ourselves so that we keep
ourselves sexually only for our mates. The picture of Christ and
His church is at stake!
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Conclusion
A husband was listening to a tape where the speaker cited the
biblical text about husbands being thoughtful of their wives. He
emphasized that love is an act of the will. A person can choose to
love. It convicted this husband, who realized that he had been
pretty selfish and insensitive. So as he drove to join his family at
their vacation cottage, he vowed that during the vacation, he would
try to be a totally loving husband. No excuses!
His resolve was immediately tested. After the long drive, he
wanted to sit and read, but his wife suggested a walk on the beach.
He started to refuse, but then he thought, “She’s been alone with
the kids all week and now she wants to be alone with me.” So he
went for the walk on the beach.
So it went for two weeks. He resisted the temptation to call
the Wall Street firm where he was director to check on things. He
agreed to a visit to the shell museum, although he usually hated
museums. He held his tongue when his wife’s slow getting ready
made them late for a dinner engagement. For two weeks, he kept
his vow to choose to love his wife.
But on the last night of the vacation, as they got ready for bed,
his wife stared at him with the saddest expression. “What’s the
matter?” he asked. Her voice filled with distress as she said, “Do
you know something I don’t?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well … that checkup I had several weeks ago … our doctor
…did he tell you something about me? You’ve been so good to me
… am I dying?”
After it all sank in, he burst out laughing and said, “No,
honey, you’re not dying; I’m just starting to live!” (Adapted from
Tom Anderson, Readers Digest [October, 1986], pp. 129-130.)
“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the
church and gave Himself up for her” (5:25). Do you love her even
as you love yourself (5:31)? If not, your assignment is clear. Get
started this week!
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Application Questions
1. Love accepts imperfections, but when a mate is repeatedly sin-
ful, isn’t there a point where you say, “That’s it”? Is divorce
ever justified when a mate is just plain difficult to live with?
2. What do you do when there is something about your mate that
you just don’t like? Is it ever right to try to change her/him?
3. How can a husband who feels spiritually inferior to his wife
provide for her spiritual well-being? Where does he begin?
4. What should a wife with an immature, irresponsible husband
do? Should she try to change him or just accept him as is?
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2008, All Rights Reserved.
