God calls men and women in the covenant marriage to live to a high standard. The standard is a reflection of the relationship Christ has with his bride, the Church. Husbands, reflecting the role of Christ, are to love their wives in a unique and special way. The standard is Christ's love - a self-sacrificing, all-encompassing love where the husband lays down his own life for the good of his wife. This laying down of a husband's life is not only a dramatic, one time event of literally laying down ones life (though some men may have to do that), but an ongoing denying of oneself for the benefit of his bride.

It is a great blessing to be here with you. I'm very thankful to the Lord for many answered prayers that my wife Myra and I could be with you this week. So we are delighted to be here. If you'd open your Bibles with me to a very well-worn passage in our circles, Ephesians chapter 5. All of us here have probably heard a hundred sermons from this passage, But it's always important for us to go back and think through it carefully.

Ephesians chapter five, we're going to read verses 25 through 31. Normally we read 22 through 33, but for our purposes this morning we're just going to read 25 through 31. I normally ask for the Lord's people to stand when we read the Word of God since everyone's so tight you can just stay seated. You stand in your heart. Okay, Let's give our attention to the Word of God.

Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it. That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word. That he might present it to himself a glorious church not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing but that it should be holy and without blemish so ought men to love their wives as their own bodies he that loveth his wife loveth himself for no man ever yet hated his own flesh but nourishes and cherishes it even as the Lord the church for we are members of his body of his flesh and of his bones for this cause shall a man leave his father and mother and shall be joined unto his wife and they too shall be one flesh amen holy father we do pray with all our hearts that thou which come in the mighty power of thy spirit and move in the hearts of all those that thou has gathered here today we are weak and feeble we are sinful and in need of thy cleansing now Lord blessed Christ thou art the bridegroom and we plead come come this morning come to thy bride we are here gathered before thee we long to hear from thee we long for the presence of the one that loves our souls.

Lord this is about Thee and Thy love and we weak and feeble men attempting to walk in that path. Wouldst Thou, the very model of this, come with power and help us to understand that we might bring the glory in it and that our wives might prosper as we thy church prosper from thy love we prayed in thy holy name amen inspired by the Holy Spirit the Apostle Paul gave men an overwhelming task husbands love your wives even even as Christ also loved the church and to obey that command we must rely entirely upon the Holy Spirit and God's Word to teach us what that love is and what it does. Now we can say without hesitation that it is not what the world usually calls love. It is especially not what Hollywood vomits up. The love that Paul refers to arises solely from two things.

One, the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit in a husband's heart. This does not arise from the flesh of any human being, ever. There may be times when lost people can approximate some of the things here because we're made in the image of God after all. There will be flashes and currents of it. Even some lost people have better looking marriages than some professing Christians, much to our shame, but this is the work of the Holy Spirit of God.

Number two, it is the love of Jesus Christ revealed in the Holy Scriptures you can't imagine this love it doesn't come naturally from the fallen human mind it comes from the revelation of Almighty God So you're hopeless unless you have the Spirit of God and the Word of God. But with those, you're fully equipped to do what Paul commands here, fully equipped. Husbands, you can do this. Sometimes it may seem utterly impossible, but I can tell you, you can love your wife, and it can be a Christ-like love. So our theme is a husband's love and I pray that our gracious and loving Heavenly Father will grant us the illuminating and transforming power of the Holy Spirit so that we might understand and believe the love that the Lord Jesus Christ has for his people so that we might understand a husband's love for his wife.

This is real, and it is something that I trust every man here will lay hold of by the power of the Spirit and the guidance of God's Word. So first, let us consider Paul's command to husbands. Husbands love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church. This is not an option. This is not a suggestion.

This is not a happy step to make great memories, the kind of junk you buy in the bookstores. This is revelation from God. The head of the church has told every single man that bears the name of Christ to love his wife this way. This is a divine imperative. This is a specific command to husbands.

This is not addressed to wives. Of course they love their husbands, God willing. But this is a specific love from a specific person. Men joined to women in the covenant of marriage. The command itself is simple, Love your wives.

You don't have to have a dictionary, even the Urban Dictionary. Of course I might have to practice some stupidity here, right? But hope not. I know I've needed it for years. Who needs the Oxford English Dictionary?

We've got the Urban Dictionary. But the Command itself is simple. You don't need a commentary as such. You don't need to go out and spend a lot of money on that. What you do need is the revelation of God.

Though the words are simple, we need God's revelation for the definition and the application of it. Otherwise, left to ourselves, it's not gonna look like Christ. Mm-hmm. The apostle then draws a comparison. Even as Christ also loved the church.

Those words, even as. So God in His love for us, that wonderful Heavenly Father, does what a good father should do. He doesn't just tell us to do something. He gives us a model for how. He tells us what?

Love your wives. How? Like my son does. This is it. This is great love.

This is great love. And husbands, you should be encouraged. The Lord hasn't said love your wives and then left you dangling. He loves you so that he's given you a model. And not only has he given you a model but he's given you perfect model even as amazing simple words but overwhelming to the husband who knows what he is outside of Christ.

Well the resurrected Lord of glory Jesus Christ commands every husband to love his wife as Jesus himself loved his bride the church. The first thing we must consider then is this there is a pattern of love in the Bible. There's a pattern that takes some time to sit down and read through, but you can see it. It emerges as you continue to soak your mind and your heart in the truth of Almighty God. The Apostle John tells us God is love.

That is, love is the nature of the triune God, the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. Love itself has existed in and as the person of Almighty God from all eternity and that love expresses itself. It is not inert. It doesn't sit still so because God is love God has always loved his eternal Son Jesus knew it and he said the Father loveth the Son and hath given all things into his hand and the love that the Father and the Son expressed to one another from all eternity, they also showed to sinful human beings such as we. For God so loved the world that He gave, that's the operative word here, that he gave his only begotten Son.

Now notice, God's love gives. Now you can remember that. God's love gives. And what are the results of that? We love him because he first loved us, right?

And that's what the scriptures tell us. We love him. There's something reciprocal. There's something that goes back to God because he gives a love to us, and we love him back. And then Jesus said, a new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another as I have loved you.

Now I think everybody here that's ever read the New Testament has seen these verses. You've seen them, they're in there. Now I want you to notice God's love to notice God's love gives, that love given to us does two things, it goes back to God, we love him back, and it also goes to other human beings. It goes up and it goes out, right? Yeah.

So, when sinners taste the love of God. They in turn love others. This commandment have we from him, says John, the apostle of love, that he who loveth God love his brother also. Now this will sound a little odd, but you'll understand. Your wife is your brother.

That's not a contemporary statement, by the way. That has nothing to... That has nothing to do with the confusion that's out there today. In case you're confused, let me make sure we get this right. Well, what that means is, when we talk about brother in the biblical sense, it means someone else who has been born of God's Spirit.

Someone else who is a child of God, someone else who has felt the mighty power of God opening their hearts and bringing them into union with Christ. Your wife is your brother, your wife is your sister in the Lord. Now let me put it this way. If you don't remember anything else that I'm saying, marriage is just the expression of being a Christian. It is that simple.

Be a solid Christian, you'll be a good husband. That's all it means because it all comes from one source, the love of God. The love of God has come to us, he has given to us. He's given us his son. That's how much he loves us.

And when we see that glorious treasure given to us, we love him back and we love others who have experienced the same thing. And that includes your wife. And you know what? Husbands forget that a lot. Any pastor will tell you that.

It shouldn't be that way, and pastors themselves know it from their own experience. From their own experience. So, here's the pattern. God is love. And God's love gives sacrificially.

If we know that love, we will love God and we will love others, and in this context, that's our wives. Men, that's simple. Now you'll spend the rest of your days hammering that out, but it is that simple. If you know God, and if you know his love in Christ, you can love that wife. So, that's the kind of love Paul's talking about husbands love your Husbands love your wives.

He's not saying have a Hollywood emotive session. Have just huge emotions for your wife. He is never talking about that when he's talking about love. He is talking about reflecting the love of God to that woman regardless of how you feel. As a matter of fact, biblical love doesn't always feel good.

Look at Christ upon the cross. His love for us cost him unimaginable anguish. It didn't feel good to be on the cross, but it was the love of God manifest in all its glory. So that's what should be happening, husbands, in our marriages and in the marriages of our sons and daughters. And that is a supernatural love that comes only from a heart transformed by God's grace in Christ.

You can go to all the seminars you want, spend all the money on mp3s and DVDs. I mean you can wear your eyes out on the internet in marriage counseling, but until you have a new heart, it's not gonna do any good. You might get a little better as a husband, you might figure out a few new tricks to do and surprise her, but you will never love as God commands through Paul until you have been transformed by the love of God through the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's the first thing. If you don't have that, everything else really doesn't matter.

So, having looked at this pattern, what is love? Numerous secular and theological definitions exist on this single four-letter word. We will not take time, because we don't have it, to survey the different Greek words for love and the various meanings of this much used, much misused, and often abused word. But a careful consideration of the biblical usage suggests something like this. Love is our treating a person according to the law of God for that person's good at our own expense.

Now, that may not sound romantic to you, but this is love. I'll repeat it. Love is our treating a person according to the law of God. For that person's good at our own expense, It will cost us to show this love because that's the kind of love Jesus showed to us. He didn't come into the world to emote over us.

One of the great tragedies of our modern movie brainwashed culture, and including professing Christians, is that Love is always attached to these great, swelling tides of feeling. Now, true love, this kind of love, is often accompanied with the greatest and highest feelings. Don't mistake me, but those emotions are not love itself. This is love. When you, for someone's well-being, deny yourself and treat them according to what God says.

Now husbands, when you start doing this, you'll be in obedience to what Paul is commanding. Well you know, the thrill's gone in my marriage. Well that might be a good thing because you'll stop living in that fiction, and you'll start dealing with what you need to deal with. So, you may think, where did you get a definition like that? Well, first of all, this may be shocking, the life of Christ laid out in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

This is how he lived. And Paul articulates that in Romans chapter 13 verses eight and nine. He says, he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness, thou shalt not covet, and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this, Namely, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. When you have the opportunity to commit adultery either in your heart or physically and you say I will not dishonor the God who loved me and I will be faithful to my wife you have just loved her the way Paul is commanding The world doesn't get close to this.

They don't understand that. They want the feelings, they want the thrill, they want the pleasure, and everyone here has been contaminated with that. But when you start thinking according to the word of God, that radically changes. Husbands, if you're tracking with me, you understand then, you can't do this without a new heart. You won't do this without a new heart.

You must be born again. And then you can love your wife as Christ loves the church. Now, as I said, love is not a feeling, though it may be accompanied by the greatest, the sweetest of feelings. Those can pass, and you can still love your wife. So for our purpose, I realize this is limited, but for our purpose, a husband's love is this.

The Christ-like choice of setting your affections upon your wife and treating her according to the law of God, giving yourself sacrificially for her well-being, which means selflessly providing for her spiritual and physical needs. That's the kind of thing Paul means. The Christ-like choice of setting your affections upon your wife, ornery as she might be. There might not be anyone like that here. But regardless of her weakness, regardless of her failings, regardless of the fact that perhaps some days she's standing on the last functioning nerve that you have, you can do this.

I am telling you, it is a Christ-like choice of setting your affections upon that woman that you covenanted with before God and treating her according to the law of God, giving yourself sacrificially for her well-being. Now women may be getting a little uncomfortable at this point saying, boy, that's about the most unromantic thing I've ever heard. I mean, I want him to feel something for me. Let me tell you something. If it's the Christ-like affection, that's the model, remember, love your wives as Christ loved the church, it must always be a heartfelt thing.

It's not an emotionless and sterile mechanical thing This is because you've tasted the love of God and you know your own perversion, your backwardsness, your sinfulness before God, and yet he loved you so much to give his son for you. How dare you withhold your love from that woman ever? And when you do, which you will, repent. There's always healing. There's always gospel balm for your failings, always.

Now you're acting like a Christian. Okay, well, I hope that definition at least gives you some idea. Christlike choice of setting your affections upon your wife and treating her according to the law of God, giving yourself sacrificially for her well-being, which means selflessly providing for her spiritual and physical needs. That is what Christ did, that is what Christ does for His bride. Oh, we wouldn't be sitting here.

He loves us. He always has, he always will. Well then, we want to look at that command one more time. Love your wives. If we have a little more insight into it, I trust you can say, all right, I see that a little more clearly.

Oh, Christ, grant me the grace to do that. Because As Paul tells us, it's even as Christ loved the church, and Christ will grant us that blessing. The love that Jesus Christ had for us is a selfless, self-sacrificing love that moved him to lay down his life to guide her. Don't we need the Lord's guidance? Your wife needs your guidance.

This is not a question of intelligence. I mean, mentally, your wife may run circles around you, and that happens, but that's not the issue. You are to guide your home according to the word of God, you. I had a man who's now a member of our church, who came in and was telling me quite pleased with himself. He said, yeah, you know, my wife, she's really the smart one.

She went to college and got a degree and got all of this, and so I turned the kids over to her. I said, well, you're in the wrong place to announce that. I said, that's your responsibility. And you know, he got that kind of look like I just struck him. I hope the Lord did in his heart, but you know I had to tell him, I said, you're off base and you need to repent to your wife and right now start leading your family.

It's your responsibility. So my brothers, understand Christ's love for you and then daily look for ways to show it to your wife. This is one of the most creative spheres of life, because it's not gonna be the same for everybody. You need to learn your wife. Does not Christ know us?

He knows us. He knows us better than we know ourselves. And yet, it is stupefying to think that he loves us. He loved us from all eternity. He loves us now, and he will love us through all eternity and he knows you, your thoughts, your words, your deeds, he knows you and with that knowledge he deals with you in the gifts that he gives you and the rebukes that he gives you.

He knows you. And so you've got to know your wife. I'm not kidding when I say the following, take notes, learn your wife, understand her. One of your problems is you're constantly trying to drag her into the way you think. She came from a different place, and she is a different makeup.

And you need to learn about her. Yeah, I mean, how many guys have you seen? Yeah, women. Yeah, women, man, I don't get it. Well, part of your job is to start getting it.

Study your wife. Learn her. Take notes. What's her favorite food, do you know? What's her favorite flower?

What's her favorite? I mean, do you know her? Have you got any kind of pattern for when she's upset or when she's running off the rails or when she's sweet or when she's wise? Do you know that woman? Or are you still demanding that somehow she think like you?

Now you ultimately want to bring her to think like Christ, which is what you have to be doing. I Hope that makes sense. Understand Christ's love for you. That's where it begins. If you have a new heart, you're learning of Christ, you're learning from Christ, and as you do that, you want to love your wife like what you're learning from him.

It could be that one of the problems with your marriage, this won't be true for everybody, but it could be the very fact that you don't spend time with Christ getting to know him, that you have trouble getting to know your wife and your marriage. Husbands, the only way you can emulate the love of Christ is to know it, not know about it. You know all about the love of Christ and be another stranger to it, to know the love of Christ. And that what Paul prayed for the Ephesians? That you might know the love of Christ.

When that fills your heart, it will humble you and help you to love your wife as you deal with her in her limitations or in her weaknesses because the Lord of Heaven is dealing with you and yours. Okay, you will never understand this love unless the Lord gives you a new heart so there are four things you have to know. Four things you have to know. Number one is transformation. Transformation.

This is what we've been saying all along. Unless the Lord gives you a new heart, you will never understand this love and then show it to your wife. God is love, he shows it to us, and we show it to others. This is real, this is not make-believe. Number two, education.

Transformation leads to education. You must saturate your mind with Christ's love, and where do you get that? In the infallible revelation of God, the holy scriptures. If you're waiting just for a feeling to fall from heaven so that you can kind of vibe that feeling out, you're missing it. It is spirit and word.

Spirit and word. Husbands, you can't be the husband that Paul is talking about here without the Spirit and the Word and in God's love to you he's given you both so by faith you need to be using them transformation leads to education thirdly interaction Thirdly, interaction. It's not simply one way, there is interaction. You must commune with Christ in prayer. You want to be a wonderful husband?

Be a man of prayer. We're not talking about super-Christians. We're not talking about second-level, third- or fourth-tier Christians. We're just talking 101. Want to be a great husband?

Saturate your heart with the love of Christ and pray to the Christ of love daily. Lord look at me, look what I am. Listen y'all, I spent years in the rock and roll business if you want to know something that is absolutely suited to make you a block-headed self worshiper it is pop culture and that's what most men are their sex worshiping self worshipers But Christ can transform all of that. But you need to be in prayer. You need to be talking to him.

Well, I don't know a lot about prayer. Oh, open up the Bible to the book of Psalms and just start praying along with David and he'll teach you to pray. He really will. Virtually Every emotion you can think of is right in there. And you'll start learning prayer before your God.

God so loves us, He gives us 150 Psalms and prayers by which to help store up our hearts to talk to God. Just go talk to God. Interaction, you've got to commune with the Lord. And fourthly then, submission. Transformation, education, interaction leads to submission, all right?

In other words, once you understand the truth, you must obey the truth. When you read in the Word of God, it's not so that you can say, okay, check, I read my chapter today. The point is to hear from God and then to talk to God. As a converted pagan once said, I open my Bible and God talks to me. I close my Bible and I talk to God.

How simple is that? I hear people say, you're too theological. Give me something practical. That's the best I can do. Go to the book, listen to God, and then pray.

Talk to the God you just learned something from. Even if you read the chapter and go, I didn't get anything out of this, help. That's a good prayer. Lord, I'm like the Sahara Desert today. I'm thick as a brick this morning, help.

He answers, I know. I know that he deals with blockheads. So then, what is Christ's love like? That's what we want to give the rest of our time to. What Is this love, this thing that we've been commanded, what's it like?

Well, it would be impossible to cover all the aspects of Christ's extraordinary love. Impossible in one message. Or maybe in a thousand messages. So we will only consider a few obvious ones from the text that we've read, and many more. But since we've been given this text, we're told a great deal about Christ's love here, We can draw a few things from it, and I know this will be a weak attempt, but I will try in the time remaining to lay some of these things before you.

The first one is the most obvious. Christ's love is self-sacrificing. Christ's love is self-sacrificing. Paul describes Christ's love in the words, and gave himself for it or for her, for the church, for us, his bride. In a self-centered, self-loving, self-righteous, and self-deifying culture it is difficult for us to imagine a self-denying, self-sacrificing love And that's why God in His love for us has given us the perfect model, the Lord Jesus.

Jesus said, if any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross, how often? Daily. Not, oh you know, when I feel like it. Not, oh, when it's convenient. I'm too busy to deny myself today.

No, if you're going to follow Christ, and this is the only way, that makes it simple. This is the only way, no options, plain and simple. If any man, any person will follow me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily, the instrument of death. By the way, when you say, oh, it's my cross, we've grown up in a culture where the wind blows through and blows all of our nice clean clothes off of the clothesline into the dirty yard, and we go, oh, well, it's just my cross to bear. That's actually blasphemy.

That's not your cross to bear. Oh, you had that rec last week. That's not your cross to bear. Your cross to bear is whatever it costs you to follow Christ. That's your cross to bear.

The instrument of yourself dying in order to go after him. Okay? So husbands, that'll look a little different for each of us. I might be able to do some things that would just make your wife as happy as possible and that might not make my wife happy at all. You've got to learn her and then love her where she is And that means you're gonna have to die to yourself, pastor or not.

In everything Christ did, He sacrificed Himself for His bride. His whole life was sacrificed for us. He that knew the praises of heaven and the unbroken, holy, and pure communion with his father in eternity loved us and gave himself to become a human being in this cesspool to leave the praises of heaven for the spittle of men. That's how much he loves his bride. Now, husbands, when you commune with him, you can learn some things about humbling yourself and loving your wife.

Because of the life that I led before our conversion, my wife had a great deal of trouble trusting me and having any confidence that I would do and be what I would say I would be. The profession that I made as a Christian, my covenant promise as a husband. That did not evaporate overnight when we became Christians. Unfortunately, our sins have a way of sullying our future, sometimes for a very long time. And you've got to live with it, guys.

Suck it up, what you do is gonna affect that marriage. And you can't just say, I'm a Christian now, or I'm sorry, I repent, and then expect everything to just be okay. In your wife's heart, of course, if she's truly a Christian, she'll forgive you, but there are just certain things that have to get worked out in time. And so I started trying to find creative ways of showing her that I cared about her opinion, that when she showed concerns I was actually hearing them. And one day after I cut our yard and it was a hot Florida summer in the evening we were walking.

I love the smell of the fresh-cut grass. And we were just walking for a few minutes. I'd gotten all cleaned up from doing the yard, hot and sweaty, now I was fresh and clean, we were gonna walk for a few minutes, and then I was gonna go back and finish up on my sermon for the next day. And as we walked by our shed, she happened to look down, and in a little bit of clearing in the grass, there was a little metal ring. She said, I wonder what that metal ring is.

Can't be anything significant, I've been cutting over it for about 10 years, so it can't be a big deal. She said, I wonder what that is. And there was just something I knew in her voice, was like, okay, She's bothered about something. I said, well, let me take a look. I got down, I looked at it, and it stuck up about, maybe not quite.

Little, maybe three-eighths of an inch, maybe. My lawnmower would clear it with absolutely no problem. She said, it's metal? I said, yes. That could destroy the blades of the lawnmower.

I said, I've been cutting over it for 10 years. It's not gonna hit it. I can show you where the blade is and you can see how high it is above where that ring is. Lawn mowers are really expensive. Now, I could have been just a good old American guy and said, I've already told you, it's going to clear it.

Now, let's drop it. But I thought about my wife and she's got a lot of common sense. And I knew she was troubled about that and I thought, you know, even though I know that that thing is not going to be a problem, she's concerned that I'm not taking this seriously. Okay, I'll dig it out. It was a four-foot pipe, anchored in concrete.

It took me over an hour to dig out around it and to dig down to it. By then I was wet from the top of my head, back down to my shoes, it was hot. And as I continued to dig down and the pipe refused to move, it was like, okay, this is a solid item here. When I got down to the concrete, part of me said, well, I'm just not, I'm gonna fill the hole back up and say, listen, it's 3 8ths of an inch, it's not a problem. But I happened to have been teaching a marriage class at the time.

So I went into the shed and I got our wood splitter that had a big mallet head on the end and I went after the concrete. And I hit that thing, I don't know how long, and how hard, to where everything from the back of my head down to my back was hurting. And finally, when I was getting dizzy and about at the last hit, I finally hit that thing the concrete shattered, and I pulled it up, and I filled the hole back up, and my wife was amazed, Because I took her concern seriously. I've had guys say to me, I would have left it. But my wife understood what was happening.

And That changed a lot of things. You see, those are the kind of things you gotta look for. By the way, the pipe is in my backyard. I walk by it and I remember. Not with bitterness.

But look for those things that win your wife back to you because Christ won us to him. Right? So, I could tell you more stories, but we'll go on. Let's just say, regarding this wonderful self-sacrificing love, Jesus said, and the Scriptures over and over said things like this, I lay down my life for the sheep. Husbands, there's your model.

Can you say, I laid down my life? We're not talking about a bloody sacrifice. Christ has done that once for all, for our sins. Now there may be a time when you have to lay down your life for your wife, Perhaps to protect her, perhaps to give her your kidney or something else. But this is a giving of yourself that is tangible to her.

Tangible to her. You can say, I bring home the check. Well, you read off of it too, right? But there are things that you will do that are for her that her mind goes, he loves me. He cares about me.

He's doing something for me that I know is a sacrifice for him. In the garden, Jesus Christ said, Oh my father, if it be possible, Let this cup pass from me, nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt. Why did he say that? For his bride. I will for my bride.

I will for thy glory and for her. There's our model. It's right there. Spend time with this Christ. That is why all of God's children can say with Paul, he loved me and gave himself for me.

Do you think that way? You see, if you don't think that way, you're probably not thinking about your wife the way you want to, but if you can say, Father in heaven I love thee, for thou didst love me, I see thy son upon the cross. I see my filth. I see my wicked thoughts. I see my nasty deeds.

I see all that I've been and all that I've done that has nailed him to the cross. Thou didst love me and thou lovest me now and thou lovest me forever, I look at the cross, I look down in the empty tomb, I look up at thy right hand and I say, thou dost love me. Will you drink that in long enough? You'll learn some things about loving your wife, the way Christ is talking, of the way Paul is talking to us here. Husbands, can your wife say of you, we won't do this, But if I just were to start with wives, say, OK, ladies, would any of them say, I know that he loves me.

He gives himself for Me. For me. I don't get the sense that I'm just the object of his lust, but that he loves me, and He gives Himself for me. He often does things for me when He's just tired and worn out and would rather be doing something else. He does things that I know he does not like to do, but he does it because he loves me.

That would be a good testimony, wouldn't it? There's your goal. If that isn't where you're thinking, I would challenge you to go spend time with Christ in his word and saying how do I need to live with this woman that she without coercion or him feeling just embarrassed in front of others could say, I know that man loves me. I'll follow him where he goes because that man gives himself for me. That's the model.

Christ is a particular love. I think someone turned my watch forward. Christ's love is a particular love. It's a particular love. Paul says emphatically, Christ loved the church and gave himself for it.

Repeatedly in scripture when the inspired author speaks specifically about those for whom Christ shed his blood, it is particular. He shall save his people, his bride, from their sins. The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give his life a ransom for many, his people, his bride, his church. Here in his love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us in this context, that's the church, and sent his son to be the propitiation for our, his bride, sins. When a man says, I do, to his wife, he says, I don't, to every other woman on the planet.

This is an exclusive relationship and that woman has every right to expect you have eyes for her. It is crucial that you develop your relationship with your wife and guard it jealously. Do not let any other relationship interfere with it. Christ loved his own to the very end. He loved his bride.

He didn't love the Pharisees to the end. He didn't love the scribes to the end, but he loved his bride to the very end. Husbands, does your love, do your words, do your deeds show your wife that She is the focus of your love, the desire of your eyes. That and I are in judgment would save his wife, my right arm and my right eye. Does she know that?

Through the years, my wife and I have often heard the quivering, breaking voice of a woman saying through tears, running down her nose and off of her chin, whenever we go anywhere, even to church, his eyes are always on other women. When we go anywhere, even to church, he'll leave me to go and speak with other women, but rarely says a word to me at home. Wish I could say, well, I read this in a book of examples. This is what pastors hear in their offices from men that call themselves Christians. This doesn't sound like the love of Christ for a wife.

Richard Steele, the Puritan says, "'The husband must honor his parents, "'but he must love his wife as himself, "'and must, yet with all prudence, "'prefer her in his respects "'whenever they come into competition. There will be things competing and people competing for your affections to your wife, and you've got to learn how to resist them. He must prefer her in his affection before his children, and rather love them for her sake than her for theirs. And before all others in the world. In short, he must so love her as to delight in her company above all others.

Be thou ravished always with Her love, Proverbs 5.19. While Christ's love is sanctifying and cleansing, I'm about out of time here, let me rush through these a little bit more. Five minutes, will that work? Okay. Paul told the Ephesians the purpose for which Christ gave himself, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word.

We are filthy, polluted, and corrupt in our sins, but as the prophet, priest, king, and head of his church, Jesus is intent. It is his everlasting goal, and he will accomplish it, to cleanse us and make us holy, and that begins in this world. That's not just something waiting later on. That'll be the perfection of it, but he's working right now today, husbands, to make you clean, sanctify you, set you apart for himself. He loves you above all others.

And you can show that to your wife. Jesus gave his blood to cleanse us, his resurrection life to quicken us, his spirit to empower us, his infallible word to instruct us, and his astonishing love to motivate us what kind of love is that is the greatest love the world has ever known and the greatest love that can fill the human heart and motivate him or her to anything and if you have that we can feeble as we are you can show that to your wife oh it'll be diminished it won't be as great as Christ's love but you know what your wife will know it's of the same pedigree Jesus gave his blood Oh husbands your wife is your closest partner in the journey to the celestial city. You must help encourage her and help her in your walk together by constantly pointing to Christ, learning his will daily, repenting when you sin against her instead of finding clever ways to make it her fault, and conforming your lives to his truth. And that especially goes for pastors. How are you gonna lead God's people when you're fudging on what you're supposed to be as a husband right We're to help guide them in the way.

You must encourage her. Paul says, be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind. Husbands, go to Christ, go to his word, go in prayer, that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. I can only list the last ones. Christ's love is an instructing love.

How does he sanctify? How does he set his wife apart? By the word, by the word, by the word. Some of you know exactly where I'm gonna go with this. This is precisely why you must establish family worship in your home.

I would love to lay this out, and I've got some notes here, you can hand them if you want them. But secondly, Christ's love is a transforming love. Let me tell you what, listen carefully. Your wife's countenance often is telling the world about your headship. Now some women just have to become actresses.

Oh, everything's great when she's dying inside. Pastors have to counsel those women. We're not speculating. Love, God's love transforms. It transforms us, doesn't it?

When we know that God loves us in Christ, that changes everything. When the love of God came to my heart and God showed me that I was accepted to him, acceptable to him through the blood of his holy Son, I didn't need to stand on a stage and have 10, 000 people scream for me anymore. It evaporated. Take my guitar off and lay it down and say, goodbye, Baal. I have the real Lord.

It's transforming. Your love is affecting your wife this day and it's building her up or it's tearing her down. There's No middle ground. It's building her up and encouraging her in her walk with the Lord, or you're helping her just slip aside. She may be in her room getting sanctified, praying and saying, Lord, just give me the grace to live with him another day.

Do Christian wives pray like that? I hope there are none in this room, but I can tell you what, I've seen a lot of them. I've counseled a lot of them. You don't want your absence to be what's sanctifying her. You want your love to be that which is sanctifying her and encouraging her and building her up in the faith.

Gotta run on. There's more good stuff about that, but we have to go. Christ's love is a nourishing and cherishing love. Does your wife feel cherished? Cherished.

The word nourish means to provide food for with the implication of a considerable period of time in the food being adequate. The idea is you give her what she needs. You know what? A lot of husbands stop at the paycheck. Hey, I bring you home with Jack.

I'm a good provider. Well, at that point, you're a good provider. Praise the Lord, we don't have any argument with that. But your wife is a spiritual creature. She has needs far above the clothes on her back.

She needs encouragement in her soul, and she's made to receive it from you. And she gets it from other places, that's true. But you are the one, as Christ loves the church, that brings a love and an encouragement and a nourishment to her. It's a communicating love. Oh, I need another 40 minutes, but here's what we'll end with this.

It's a communicating love. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Our God is a God who communicates with us, and He communicates the most clearly through us in two things. The inscripturated word, the Bible, and the incarnate word, his son. And this book, the inscripturated word, is all about the incarnate word.

And he communicates with us, if I've heard anything over the years, break a pastor's heart, is to hear the women say, before we got married we talked all the time, we burned up the phone, we were always talking about stuff, we got married, and all of a sudden, everything went dead. And he comes home in the evening, and he sits down at his computer. Man, do yourself a favor. Turn that thing off and talk to your wife. You don't need a man cave.

You need to sit down and spend time talking to your wife. Listen, you want a great project? I'm telling you, and for many of you, some of you naturally may have this gift, but for many of you, this will be a hard won goal, but become the best listener in your house. Men don't do that well. Become the best listener in the world.

Sit down with anybody and say, you know what, sweetheart? Let me get some coffee here. Tell me about your day. She wants to know about yours, you know? Because she loves you and she wants to know what hardships you've been through and that person you're dealing with.

Sweetheart, tell me about your day. You hear about mine all the time. And listen. You find yourself falling asleep, stand up. Make her know.

I'm gonna listen if I fall on my face. Well, we gotta quit. Communication is the heart and soul of your marriage because communication is what Christ does with us every day. Listen, every man here, if he's born of God's Spirit, knows, he wants to know from God that God loves him. He wants to know that he's right with God today.

That's why we confess our sins, that's why we repent. You wanna know, well your bride wants to know. Well, she knows I'll have her bring home the check, you know, I take her on a vacation every year. So what she likes to hear it yes we die I love you You are the delight of my eyes. The Lord Jesus is a husband, and a husband, all husbands are a representation of him.

Therefore, husbands, you must always remember that you are a living picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. Your life and your relationship with your wife today is a testimony to the world about Jesus Christ. Now is your life and your relationship with your wife saying Jesus loves his bride Or is it lying? Is it saying, well, Jesus really isn't all that interested in his wife? You've got to know that.

And there's a savior, There's a Savior for your failures and your sin. Where you have failed in these things, repent. Trust Him. His cleansing blood washes away our failures as husbands daily. So look to him and learn this love.

Show a husband's love to your wife. That is a testimony of Christ to the world. Amen. Thank you, Father, for your word. It's beautiful, it's glorious, it's wonderful.

Help every husband here. Lord, we're all such feeble vessels of dust. Please help every husband here to love his wife and tell the world there is a Savior by the way we think of, the way we look at, and the way we walk with our wives. We Pray it in the name of Jesus, the great husband, the great bridegroom. Amen.