Life Together: The Meaning of Marriage

Hey guys, Pastor James Murray here, and I want to welcome you to the Abide Sydney podcast. This whole podcast is designed to help you on the journey of discipleship, and our mission is to make disciples of the people of Sydney. But maybe not from Sydney, we hope this blesses you, so sit back, relax, and enjoy this podcast. Let's move into the scriptures. Today we begin a brand new series. In fact, we just finished 13 weeks through the letter of one John. Did you enjoy that? Now it's amazing. So in a couple of weeks time, we actually begin a five week series on the person of the Holy Spirit. Okay, so that's going to be beginning in a couple of weeks' times, but as we prayed, really, pastoring and leading a church community is a great honor and privilege, but what we're trying to do, and what I'm trying to do is shepherd our church. Okay, God, where's the next green pasture? What would help our church continue to grow in followership of you? And one of the things that became abundantly clear was we need to speak into relationships. We need to give a couple of weeks, and let's talk about the relationships in the life of the church. Does anyone else think that's a good idea? Yeah? Okay, so we wanted to make sure that we did our best, and in hindsight, now that we've prepared it, I'm like, we probably should have done like six weeks, because there is so much we could talk about. Today particularly is a message that I could preach over four weeks. So I'm going to try and get four weeks of content in the next three hours. That's a joke. I'm joking. I was like, "Well, I got lunch plans. Take it easy." No, I'm not. It's the next few moments, but today I want to speak around the topic of marriage. Now, maybe you are married. If you're married, give me a little wave here this morning. Married people. Yes. How many people are engaged this morning? Any people engaged? Oh, yes. Couple engaged people. How many people are like, it's on the cards, but I'm going to spoil it right now by telling him. No, okay, that's sneaky. I was trying to be sneaky. I was looking. Who is it? But maybe you're, again, you're in a season of your life or you're single. All of this is going to be very helpful. So do not think, "Well, I'm not married. This doesn't matter." No, I think this will prepare you for marriage. It'll even make you, maybe even assess, "Am I ready for marriage? Am I ready?" Because it's important that you are ready for this big, huge covenant commitment that is called marriage. And so here we go. We're going to cover the topic of marriage today. Let's turn to Ephesians chapter 5. Ephesians chapter 5 and verse 21. And we start at verse 21 because this helps us with the context of the next few verses. Paul the Apostle says, "Submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ." Everyone say submitting. It's a really, really important word. Submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. Verse 22, he goes on to say, "Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord." For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. And Paul is for a sec there because I can see people like, "Where's this going? I knew it." Like, this take it easy because when we understand this word submit, it'll make perfect sense as to what Paul is saying here and encouraging us through God's word. But now, let's go to husbands. He says, "Husbands, love your wives as Christ loves the church and gave himself up for her." That he might sanctify her having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word 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. In the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but watch this, nourishes and cherishes it just as Christ does the church because we are members of his body. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. Everyone say one. That's really important. This mystery is profound and that's really helpful for me because what Paul is saying here is to try and explain what this means, Christ and the church marriage. It's got a mystery to it and you've got to sit in that mystery to a degree. But he goes on to say, "However, let each one of you love his wife as himself and let the wife see that she respects her husband." This is God's word. I want to speak to you this morning, the first part of our life to get a series around this topic, the meaning of marriage. The meaning of marriage, because there is a meaning. It's a deep meaning to this and I have a big point I want to make and I hope this really helps you. I believe it will today. Marriage is not too incomplete people demanding fulfillment from each other, but two people learning the self-giving way of Jesus. One more time. See the word there? Learning. It's a journey, but this is not about, again, I'm trying to get, no, no, this is about us learning a self-giving way of Jesus and marriage is the best place in which this is meant to be seen. Are you ready for this? Are you sure? All right. It's too late. You're here now. We locked the doors. Okay, so let's pray and let's commit these moments to the Lord. So Lord, we just thank you for today. We thank you for your word. And as we come around your word, look, we thank you that you, we are so gifted to open this book. It's known as the book of life because it does. It shows us what true life is and helps us to abide, to live, to walk in true life and life and abundance. And so we thank you for the scriptures today. Help us not just to be here as of the word but doers, as in we unpack this, this really beautiful topic. We just ask which you come Holy Spirit. Come Holy Spirit. Help us not just to take this into our heads but let it go deep into our hearts and then outwork into our lives. So we thank you. We give you all the praise and all the glory in Jesus' mighty name. We pray, amen, amen, amen. As you grab your seats, it's turned up in the next person next to you and say it's time to submit. Yep. Oh, be careful. You said that too. I just thought about that. All right. Has anyone ever seen this movie before? Let's chuck this up on the screen. You remember this movie? Yeah. Jerry McGuire. Jerry McGuire, classic kind of romance movie. Now this movie is based on the title, based on a guy called Jerry McGuire, who is a, he's a sports agent. So he is in charge of managing all of these sports stars. Now he works for a big firm but he has like this awakening, this epiphany. He's like, oh, you know, I don't think we're doing business the right way. I don't think we're treating our clients well. And so he proceeds to write like a new mission statement for the business and he circulates it around the whole company. And he says, guys, we need to give, we need to have less customers or less clients. And we need to give more attention to our existing clients. And let's treat them even better. And he puts it out there thinking, everyone's going to go, yep, you're right. Unfortunately, it massively backfires. And he gets fired for putting out this manifesto over this mission statement. And as he's leaving, he kind of, he throws a bit of a, a bit of a tantrum and he's like, I can't believe he's upset. He's collecting all this stuff. And he says, who's with me? Who's with me? He's thinking the whole company will come out with him to join this new way of doing business. Unfortunately, everyone just looks at him awkwardly except for one girl who's this single mother who stands, who names Dorothy in the movie. And she's like, I'll go with you. And he's like, okay, Dorothy Carmen. So they walk out. And then this is the movie. You know, this, if you haven't seen the movie, it's like 20 years old. So that's on you. But the movie goes that they're trying to establish this business. But Dorothy starts falling in love with, we're gerry with Jeremy Quiet. Tom Cruise the character, yeah. And you see this relationship starting to happen. But he's still so caught up in his business. But then at the very end of the movie, he realizes, oh my gosh, like, I need this woman in my life. And so what you think is going to be the end of the relationship, he busts into what is like a bunch of women doing like a book club. He interrupts it. And he's trying to find Dorothy. And then he, everyone's looking thinking, what is he going to say? What's he going to say? And then he, and then he comes out with these words. Ready? This is the words. This is the classic line. He says, you, it's on the screen. You, you complete me. And then she's like, she actually says, shut up, shut up. But I want to put it in there. So I said it instead. So she says, you had me at hello, right? And everyone looks in this tears and this crying and the movie ends. Now, the reason why I bring up this particular story or this film as an opening analogy here is that you complete me would have to be one of the most horrific things you can say to another person. I'm sorry. You complete me? See, here's the thing. This is one of the greatest relational problems we haven't society today is that we've romanticized the idea that another person can complete us. We've romanticized it. That this person is the one that can complete us. In other words, I need you to complete me. But here's the thing. No one can carry the weight that was net, that never designed to carry. They're not meant to carry that. You're completing me weight. In fact, two incomplete people don't magically make one complete person. I'm sorry. In fact, if you need someone else to give you identity, worth, security and happiness, love quickly turns into dependency. I'm dependent on that person in an unhealthy way. Hear me? That's not intimacy, that's two people feeding off each other. The best way I could put this, it's like a tick on a dog except it's two ticks and there's no dog. Yeah, we're just trying to get life out of each other, trying to listen. It is a horrible way to look at what relationships were designed to be, in fact, watch this. Marriage is not too halves trying to become whole. It's two people finding their wholeness in Christ and learning to give themselves to one another. Let's say that again, ready? Marriage is not too halves trying to make a whole. We've found wholeness. That's what Christ has offered you and I, we've got wholeness already now, I'm learning to what? Give of myself to that person, because I'm already whole, it's not you complete me, it's I'm complete, but together we can do something. In fact, if I was to do that Jeremiah scene, the way I see it in Scripture, it would more look like this, ready? You can tell me to be more like Jesus. Do you go to abide? Okay, no, no, no, no, it would be more like, yes, I, I played out so well in my mind as well. No, it would be more like this, ready? You can tell me to be more like Jesus, let's compel each other. Let's compel each other. This is the idea of what marriage is meant to be, in fact, biblical marriage isn't simply finding someone who makes you happy. It's giving yourself to someone and helping each other become more like Jesus. So again, we must remove, oh man, they just make me happy, I'm telling you, if it's just based on that alone, it will find its tensions and struggles and maybe even its demise. You must recognize the way marriage was designed by the Lord and come back to that, so why? We can live marriage in a way that is healthy and flourishing, does anyone else want that in their life, yeah? No one put their hand up, okay, that's why I'm preaching this today, here we go. So Ephesians, this is where Paul the Apostle writes the church in Ephesus, and we probably will do a series on Ephesians eventually, it's a beautiful book in Scripture. Paul's writing to this church in Ephesus, "The first couple of chapters are really about what Christ is doing in you and what he will do through you." So it's very, it's him writing, saying, "This is what God does, this is what Jesus does for us, what the gospel is doing inside of us." So it's very much about the individual, but then you get to chapter five of Ephesians and it's like he zooms out and he says, "Now let's talk about church together or life together as a community." And what he does here is he actually talks about, what does a spirit-filled gospel-shaped life look like? That's what he's doing in Ephesians chapter five, but then he goes from there into, "Now let's talk about marriage." So he's talking about church community life together, but then he's like, "Okay, let's talk about those who are married in the church community, and this is where we're going to go from today." Point number one, what does the Scripture tell us about marriage? Well, first things first, every relationship should be shaped by spirit-fueled submission. This is not just marriage, every relationship should be fueled by, should be shaped, sorry, by spirit-fueled submission. That's why I've got you to read verse 21 first. He says this, "Submit to one another." What? Out of reference for Christ. Submit to what? Who? One another. It's everyone. We're all learning this to submit to one another. Now this is really, really important to understand the next few verses. So submitting. Okay. My brother-in-law is a builder and he was, he'd taken, they have two cars, he has a truck and then the family car, and he'd taken the family car somewhere, but his wife, my sister-in-law, had to take the car to go, so he would take the truck, so she took the truck. She didn't realize that it had a very low petrol, so she pulled into the petrol station to fill up the truck. She starts filling up the truck, she goes to drive-off, and as she starts driving in the road, the thing starts to go, go, go, go, go, and then it stops. She's like, "What's wrong with the truck?" She turns it over again, go, go, go, get something wrong with the truck, and so she calls her husband, my brother-in-law, says, "Hey, is there something wrong with the truck?" She's like, "No, there shouldn't be anything wrong, I just went and got some petrol." And he says, "What petrol did you put it?" She said, "Oh, unleaded." He's like, "No, no, no, that's a diesel truck. It does not run on that type of fuel, and so they had to then get someone in to actually pump out the fuel that was put in so that they could put the right fuel in. And in the same way, hear me, when it comes to Jesus, you need to let his spirit and truth pump out the fuel you were putting into your relationships first." First things first. We have fueled our relationships on things that they were never meant to run off. And when you come to Christ, it's like, "Okay, well, we're going to get that out." Because this does not run on this. In fact, what are some of the wrong fuels we put into our relationships you're ready for them? Because they're not good, and they won't help you. First thing, selfishness. When am I going to get out of this? It's the wrong fuel. Pride. Why should be the one to apologize? Or change? A couple of examples here. Control. Okay, I want consumerism, you exist to meet my needs, comparison. Why can't you be more like them? Unrealistic expectations, expecting another person to fulfill what only God can in security, needing constant affirmation to feel secure, lust, using someone rather than loving them, manipulation, using guilt, silence, anger, or affection to get my way, and then culture, allowing society, social media, family patterns, or algorithms to define relationships rather than Jesus. All these things, hymn, are what many people are fueling their relationships with. So they want this thing to work, but what they're doing is they're using selfishness as a fuel, or pride, or control, or manipulation, or this culture. And it's fueling relationships, but here's the thing, just like my brother-in-law's truck, it will run for a little bit, and eventually it'll conquer out. Because it's not meant to run on that, relationships aren't meant to run on that. In fact, Jesus, when you come to him, he doesn't just reshape our relationships. He replaces the fuel that drives them. That's what he's doing, he's replacing it. So Lehimi, if you don't let the gospel get into your heart and start pumping some things out, relationships in church won't work. Your marriage will find its tensions and struggles, why? Because maybe you still got fuel in there, that it was never meant to run on, and Jesus wants to change that. And that's what's happening. So what is the fuel our relationships will run on? Here we go. The fuel of a gospel-compelled relationship is submission modeled by Jesus and power given by the Holy Spirit. Submission, given, modeled by Jesus, and power given by the Holy Spirit. This is what Paul is saying, he's saying, "Hey, the way this is going to work is that you submit to one another out of reference for Christ." So first things first. Let's say the word submission, like when I said husband, submit to your wives, and how many people are like, "Oh, that word robs me," you know, that's a trigger word for me. Submission. But submission, many people, when they hear the word submission, this is often the picture image you get. This is what some people think when they think of submission, right? Like, "Oh, yeah, submit." You know, "Well, I've submitted to your husband," like that is not the view of submission we should have. In any setting, submitting to spiritual authority, submitting to one another, it's not this. In fact, the way that you should see submission is more like this. Mother Teresa, if you don't know her story, she was actually operating in like a girl's boarding school, was doing really, really well, very comfortable life, very successful there, but she suddenly felt compelled, "No, I need to go and serve the down and out in Calcutta." And what she did is what, she submitted herself to actually want to serve people who could never do anything in return. That word "submit," it's her potassium ingredient, it means what? Placing oneself under, what's that, placing oneself under, not being forced, placing under a yielding or voluntary given preference to another. So catch this. There's a difference between worldly submission and kingdom submission. worldly submission is what? The stronger dominating the weaker, but kingdom submission is the stronger, willingly surrender their strength to serve and lift others up. You see the difference? So when the Bible says submit, it's not that you aren't strong, it's taking your strength and saying, "I am willingly saying, I will serve you with my strength. I will put you before me. It's a choice. It's voluntary not forced." And he says this, this motive should actually come from what? Firstly, reference for Christ. He says, "Submit to one another, why? Out of reference for Christ." The word "reference" is this Greek word "phobos" where you get the word "phobia." So it has this element of fear, but it's got more than fear, it means reference or profound respect. And so when Paul says, "Hey, submit to one another, your example, the one you look to to actually go, "Well, why should I? It's Christ." I love this image, it's an old painting of Jesus washing the disciples feet. This is the last thing he did before the cross. He has the last supper and he sits down with the disciples, the Lord of the universe, the one who is omniscient, all powerful, all knowing, every present, he is restricted himself to flesh and then he comes and he's like, "Guys, before I go to the cross, I'm going to do the job that is the lowest job in society at that time, the lowest job." And he takes off his adagum and he washes his disciples feet and you can imagine them going, "What? What did he do with his strength?" He submitted it in that moment and said, "I'm going to use my strength to show you you. What love really looks like. I'm submitting my strength in that moment. So, when it comes to submitting to one another, if you're always come back to, hey, Christ did it for me. Christ, he submitted himself and he brought himself low. Who am I to think that anything is beneath me? I'm doing that because I've seen the example of our Savior. In other words, let the wonder and example of Jesus' submission fuel yours. And if you're not actually coming back to Jesus, you will drift from the reason I should submit to one another, right? Because I've missed my reverence or I've lost my reverence for what Christ has done. In fact, worldly submission and Jesus' submission are radically different. Worldly submission uses power to dominate. Jesus uses power to serve. Worldly submission elevates the strong over the week. Jesus' submission lays down strength for the week. Worldly power says submit to me. Jesus' power says, "I'll lay myself down for you." The world uses strength to control. Jesus uses strength to sacrifice. Worldly submission is power over others. Jesus' shape submission is power poured out for others. You see the difference here. That's what we've signed up. This kingdom we're a part of is what? We have strength and power, but we submit it for others. This is amazing. Now, side note here, I felt really pressed to and encouraged to put this point in here. I'll put on the screen to see you understand here. Attention, attention, right? Christian submission can never legitimately be used to justify coercion, abuse, violence, manipulation, or demands to participate in sin. Never. So if there are people like you've got to submit because I'm a spiritual authority or I'm the head of the house and that's happening? No, you don't. Because Christian submission, true submission, will never do that if it's in the name of Christ or in the heart of Christ. So I just want to make that really clear. Are we good with that? Cool. Here we go. Let's move on. So from there, we must recognize that reverence is fueling our submission, but also there's a power that does it. It's actually the Holy Spirit. You can never truly submit ourselves out of reference to Christ without the Holy Spirit. You can't. This is really important because when we read Ephesians 5, I wrote this down already, you cannot live out an Ephesians 5 relationship or marriage without an Ephesians 5 filling. You can't, which takes us back to what? Ephesians 5, 18. Paul says this before all this relationship talk comes up, he says, and do not get drunk with wine for it. That is debauchery, but be filled with the spirit. So hear me. What he's saying here is he's not just giving instructions for marriage. He's giving that before he gives instructions for marriage, he gives power for marriage. He's saying you need the Holy Spirit in your marriage. And many people are like, I just need the Holy Spirit from my own personal spirituality and development and more Christ's likeness. Yeah, you do, but you also need the Holy Spirit in your marriage and in your relationships just like every other area of your life. Right? I had this full transparency last night. I was on the central coast near the entrance for my nieces 18th. I hate driving. I hate driving. And I hate driving. I hate being out late on a Saturday night because it's a school night for me. Because I get up early and I got to preach a couple of times. My wife knows this, but we had a family event up there. And I'll give you honest with you, I'm like, I just didn't really want to do the drive. It was fun to see the family, but I'm driving back. And I'm like, it was late. And I knew how to get up early and do this. And I'm driving the car. And my wife's like, what's wrong? What's going on? Like, she says, wait, why are you rage driving? I'm like, I'm not rage driving. Now, when I get up set, I actually get quiet. And she knows be well enough to know that. And then soon she says, why are you rage driving? Why are you doing this? I'm like, man, I've got a preach on submitting to one another tomorrow. This is really great. I'm like, I better be sorry because I got to share this with the church. And honestly, my first response, full transparency was like, I better say sorry and going to get my head back in the game here because I got to talk about the church tomorrow. Now, that's straight away is the worst motive. Let me correct that because I don't want to be a hypocrite to you. No, in that moment, I'm like, man, shoot, I'm lacking the Holy Spirit right now. That's honestly, I'm like, no, this is not me. Just need to be better for you. I need to be better because I need the Holy Spirit in me to be the husband and the father that he's asked me to be. And so, so this is just so you know, I bring you into that because I'm not here as a professional saying, guys, crushing it. Sit, listen, learn, young Padawan. Let me show you how this works. Not at all. Without Jesus, I am a massive jerk. Massive. And I need the Holy Spirit and there's times where I find myself not submitting through the power of the Spirit. And I need to come back to that all the time and I need to deeply depend on that. Why? Because the fuel of gospel compelled relationships is submission exemplified by Jesus and powered by the Holy Spirit. So we need to recognize that's for all of us. Submit to who? Why not another out of reverence with Christ, but what fuel by the Spirit? Which then we need to lay that groundwork because then we get to point two. Point number two is this, wives must look to Jesus to learn loving submission and husbands must look to Jesus to learn sacrificial love. Say it again, wives must look to Jesus to learn loving submission, husbands must look to Jesus to learn sacrificial love. This is what Paul would now go into. It's saying in verse 22, wives submit to your husbands as to the Lord, but then he also go in verse 25, husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church. Now this is big because this is attention in our current cultural climate because you're like, man, it sounds like there's some type of hierarchy here and what, what, like hemi, this, the Bible is very clear about equality amongst men and women. In fact, in the day in which it was written, it was a profound countercultural letter or a teaching to be given out. Women were, they were secondary in that ancient time, right? And gospel came along, Jesus came along, and he actually, he brought great and radical liberty to women all around the world and still does today, all right? So when we write this, you must understand, well, what's happening? What's he really saying here? Because the gospel is not about doing this weird hierarchy of value and importance, not at all. He's saying, no, there's something happening here you need to give attention to. Now, when people think of submission, husbands or wives to husbands, they kind of think of this era. If you've heard of the Victorian era, let's check this up on the screen. They think this, this is what it was like. This is what this, this healthy kind of wives submitting to husband dynamic look like, they would look to maybe the Victorian era of society. This is like 1800s, early 1900s. And what was that? It was like, well, the husband's the head. And in a Victorian society, the wife, she stays home. She takes care of the kids. She cooks the meals. The husband comes home. He's the one who's, he's the breadwinner, right? And so that kind of crept into the paradigm of modern day marriage and Christianity. That that's exactly how it should work. But it, he me, that's not. Now, it might be the way it works for some, but it's not necessarily the pattern. So this is what John is saying here. He's saying, we need to realize when Jesus said, like, husbands are head of the family or the wife, most people would think this, let's check this up on the screen. He would think, oh, it is a hierarchy like Christ is at the top. And then there's the husband. And then there's the wife. And this is the value in the, in the house. So Christ is there. And then the husband is second. And then the wife is third. If you read the scripture, all that scripture this way, you are missing what Paul is saying. Paul is not saying that in all, in fact, Paul is actually coming at it from a entirely different way. He's not talking about an order of rights and values. He's talking about roles and responsibilities. So not an order of rights and values. Women have, men have more rights, women have less, not at all. That's not what he's saying. It's an order of roles and responsibilities. So in other words, the best way I can put what Paul is saying here into a diagram is more like this. It's him actually saying, they're serving each other. So Christ is at the center of this thing called our marriage. And husbands, your love, the husband loves. In other words, he's giving himself to his wife because of Christ, right? And then the wife is also giving herself to a husband through that submission. So they're all working together, all feeding each other. It's not a hierarchy. It's this harmony that works with this marriage working together. In other words, Christ is the sinner. And the wife looks to Christ to learn submission. The husband looks to Christ to learn sacrificial love. But both give themselves for the good of the other. You see what I was doing there. It's like, no, I'm giving. It's not me. You're giving up to me. No, it's we give to each other. And we have a part and a role to play in that giving. In fact, Timicalis says like this, both men and women get to play the Jesus role in marriage. Jesus in his sacrificial authority and Jesus in his sacrificial submission. You see that? They're both giving. It's not about hierarchy. It's about giving and loving one another and recognizing the role that they play in the marriage. So this is where we're going to go a little deeper. Paul starts with wives and then he goes to husbands, but I'm going to start with husbands first. You ready for this? Men, all the husbands in the room, hear me? This is really, really big. Because Paul says, husbands, this is how you should function in a family. This is your role in this marriage, right? And I think this is really important now, day and age, because masculinity is under attack right now. It really is. And men have, they're looking to all the wrong places to discover what is true masculinity. What does it truly look like to be a man created and designed by God? I watched the documentary recently. It was called Inside the Manosphere. Have you heard of this one? Inside the Manosphere? It was on Netflix and as Louis Sorrow, who actually does this documentary and interviews all of these male influences who are getting this massive following around the world. It's quite fascinating to observe and the reason why why these men becoming so big and getting such attention from men all over the world is because they're promoting masculinity, fitness, money, dating, status, self-improvement, and they have got such a big following of people wanting, like they're yearning for someone to tell them what is a man really look like. Now, he makes a statement in the documentary that grabbed my attention. He said this, "Who is teaching young men what it means to be a man? With healthy communities and older men aren't providing answers, online influences are ready to fill the vacuum." They're ready to fill the vacuum. "Hey, men, it's time to step up. Time to step up." "Hey, older men, we need you. We have too many spiritual orphans in the church." Men who do not want it means to be a man. In fact, we must, again, post as you have to the church in Corinth, you have 10,000 teachers but you have no fathers. What is the job of a teacher? A teacher tells someone what to do, a father tells someone who they are. And we need men in firming one another and who we are in Christ and we need all the men who are actually going to affirm young men, "Hey, no, this is who you are in Christ. Why?" Because if they don't get it from us, they'll get it from somewhere else and it will be a toxic masculinity that creeps into the church. You with me? All right. So here we go. This is the thing. The role of a Christian husband is to demonstrate to his children and the world, his love for Jesus, watch this, through sacrificial love he shows to his wife. I'll say it again. The role of a Christian husband is to demonstrate to his children, first and foremost, and to the world, his love for Jesus, through sacrificial love for his, that he shows to his wife. See what he's saying there? When the marriage is actually a demonstration of the gospel. And the world should look at our marriages and go, "That is an example of the gospel message." What is the gospel message? A God who would one way love someone else, sacrifice his life for someone else, willingly and lovingly do that. And they look and go, "Wow, that's profound." And they see the gospel at work in marriages and what, sorry, what Paul would say here, husbands are called to love their wives in a certain way. You ready for this? He says it must be a sacrificial love, it must be a purifying love, and it must be a caring love. First things first, it's a sacrificial love. Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up her. So it's sacrificial. That, you know, the word for love that Paul uses, anyone know what it is? Yeah, Garpe. We talk about a lot in our church community. Garpe is what? One way sacrificial love. It's not a gender-driven, nor is it emotionally-driven. It's decision-driven. I'm going to, one way sacrificial show love, because that's the way Christ did it, and that's how husbands are called to love their wives. This thing, it must be a purifying love, that he might sanctify her, cleansing her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present her to the church himself and splendor with a spot or wrinkle or blemish. Now this, what he's saying here is that in the same way that Christ affirms the church through the word, we must also do that husband through our words. So our words matter, that the way you talk about your wife matters. And if your words are pointing out blemishes, you're not doing what the Bible says the husband should do, in fact, he should wash her with his words. You speak with him here, and I say this in love, but if you're a husband and you talk bad about your wife and front of your kids, you're not doing your kids any favors. You're not washing her in the word. You're actually pointing out blemishes again, and we all have our own mistakes and blemishes, do we not? Yeah? But husbands, you're meant to be with your words edifying and washing what to present her as holy without blemish. So it's a purifying love, the next ones are caring love. The same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He loves his wife, loves himself, no one hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it. The word nourishes means what, provide what is needed to grow and flourish. So the role of a husband for his wife is to create an environment where his wife can flourish. She flourishes in it, like I'm providing what you need to grow and to flourish. And then it says cherish, what does that mean, warmth and tenderness. So not only am I creating an environment of care where you are, you're actually going to grow and flourish, but also I'm going to be tender, I'm going to care for you. Now this is huge. William Barclay says this, he must love her as Christ loved the church and gave himself for the church. It must never be a selfish love. Christ loved the church, not that the church might do things for him, but that he might do things for the church. The husband is head of the wife, true, Paul said that, but he's also said that the husband must love the wife as Christ loved the church with a love which never exercises a tyranny of control, but which is ready to make any sacrifice for her good. That's what he's saying. John starts says the husband's headship of his wife, therefore, is a headship more of care than control, more of responsibility than of authority. So this is what husbands, you and I, we're meant to do now. How many husbands like, dang, shoot, yeah, yeah, I'm like, do I do that? No, no, I don't, but what is it should, what should it push us into? Not into do better, try harder. That is not the message here today. The message is, oh man, I really need the Holy Spirit. I really need the Holy Spirit because I don't, listen, without the Holy Spirit, you will live with what? The Spirit of Self. There's a spirit there, regardless, it's either me focused on me or I'm living, letting the Holy Spirit do the work in me. So husbands, if you felt like challenged by this, welcome to the party. But also, don't let it beat you down, ask the Holy Spirit to build you up. Holy Spirit, help me to become that man because I want to love my wife like Christ, love the church. Now, ladies in the house, if a man was living like that, would you submit, and what I mean by submit, would you bring your strength under his in that system? I was expecting a yes, but evident, okay, three people are excited about that. Of course you would. If he is living a life of the self-given, caring, purifying, let me in, why wouldn't I want to trust that person? Why would I want to come use my strength and bring my strength into that dynamic? And that's why I wanted to say that first because when Paul says, why have submit to your husbands, you must understand that this is the type of husband he's trying to become. The God's calling to become. He's empowering him to become through the Holy Spirit. So come along with him as he does that. So when he says submit, now, again, trigger word for some, but we know now what submit means, right? I'm bringing my strength. I'm willfully bringing that under and into that dynamic. When wife's submitting to husbands, he's what it's not. He's what it's not. Submission is not inferiority, submission is not passivity, submission is not unquestioning obedience, and submission is not tolerating abuse, nor a submission the husband getting his own way. That is not submission. That's not. In fact, what wives submitting to your husband is, what that means is what, a wife freely honoring and supporting her husband's Christ-shaped responsibility within the marriage. Again, there's operative words there, freely honoring and supporting her husband's Christ-shaped responsibility within the marriage. So wives, your role in this is like, man, I see the man that God has designed you to be and is making you to be, and I'm going to come in there, and I'm going to champion that in you as you, as the head of our household, lead us. And we lead together? Don't we? Don't we? Yes. Yeah. There's not hierarchy. We're serving each other. It's all serving each other, but we're doing it why? Because we want to bring that out of each other to be more and more like Christ. And now, here, a wife's submission brings her strength alongside her husband, supporting, encouraging, and moving forward together. And on biblical marriage, neither husband nor wife uses their role for themselves. Both use their strength to serve the other. Marriage is not about who has more power, it's about how each person uses their strength to serve the other like Jesus. That's what marriage is. Can I say this? Marriage is one of the most sanctifying works you'll ever go through. It is. People are like, marriage is so romantic, really? It is. Is it times? 100%. But it's times like men, like we grind, and we're trying to, like, there's ups and downs. But what we're trying to do is weather those things out and keep coming back to who we are becoming in Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit and we're supporting one another. In fact, a great marriage is not built in a week. It's built over our lifetime. And together we're saying, let's commit to one another. Let's keep doing that. We're trying to do that again. And it's sanctifying us. In other words, it's transforming us to become those people, God called us to be. Number three, last but not least, your most important relationship is your spouse. Your most important relationship is your spouse. Or you should say your most important human relationship is your spouse. He says this verse 31, "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh." He says, "However, let, in verse 33, let each of you love his wife as himself and let her wife see that she respects her husband." Now this is really, really big. From the very beginning, the enemy's goal. What's it mean? Division. Division. How do I separate man from God? And then also, how do I separate man from wife? And he's always trying, and that's still his MO. He's still trying to do that even to this day. So hey, friends, if you feel tension and struggle in marriage, sometimes there's some practical things you need to change. We also need to recognize their spiritual dynamics to this. The enemy hates your marriage wife because it's a reflection of the gospel. Jesus loved for the church and the world should look at our marriage and go, wow, what is that? Is profound, what is that? Yeah, it's just an example of how Jesus loves these people. So the enemy will attack that all the time and this is why, Hemi, it's really important that you understand with your marriage, your most important relationship is actually between you and your spouse in the whole thing. Again, human relationship. So the best way I can put it is in a diagram, because you know you want one, is this. It's Jesus first, absolutely for both of you. But then it's your, it's you and your wife or you and your husband. Guess who comes after that? Your kids. And then after that, church, family, friends, work, etc. This is really, really big, because this is, in my opinion, a divine order. God first, and then my spouse. Now if you mess up this order, I promise you, you're going to invite trouble into your marriage. You are, you're going to invite trouble. So if you have, Hemi, some of you like, you put your kids above your spouse. Dangerous. It's dangerous. Why? Because your kids are meant to see how you interact with one another as husband and wife. Why? Guess what, this is what the role of a parent is with their kids. You know what the role is? To get rid of them. Now I don't mean that in a harsh way, but I mean in a way that one day, my kids are on the front row, sorry, it's like, I don't mean get rid of them, disown them. I mean one day they will also be married, having their own family. And what they need to see of us is that's what husband and wife thing looks like. And that needs to be the example to our kids. And if you're always putting your kids first, it's dangerous because again, when the kids move out, what's going to happen to your marriage? I was built on them, not built on each other. We weren't becoming best friends. We're actually just helping raise these kids, but once the kids, and this happens all the time. Again, you put any of these things out of order. Church, I've done this. Yeah, I put church before my family sometimes. I have to repent of it. Lord, I'm sorry. It's so busy doing church stuff that I forget the priorities of my family. Again, I say all this not to say we're nailing it, but I'm saying we need to come back to God's divine plan for this, because when it works the way He designed it, it works better. It's life and abundance. But any of these things out of order? Yeah, you're inviting trouble. So, hear me, what you're trying to do in a marriage is, you must recognize that marriage isn't just about being lovers, it's about becoming best friends. Since Lewis, when he talked about marriage, he said, there's eros love, and then there's philos love. Eros means that that's where you get the word erotic from, so sexual love. And then you have philos love, which is like this brotherly love, this deep bond. He says, eros love is, if you said if you could paint it into a diagram, eros love is two people looking at each other. But philos love is two people standing side-by-side, looking into the future and journing their together. And he says marriage is predominantly about philos love, not eros. Should there be eros? Yeah, 100 is it. That's good. But you can't build a marriage on eros love. You can't build a marriage. And people build, they'll get married because of what sexual chemistry, attraction, that'll pass. They'll have its moments, he can't build it on that. You need to build it on, this is someone, it's my best friend. My best friend. I've met people and they get married because of attraction only, and then they realize, oh my gosh, we're not even friends. And that chemistry wears off, but I've met people who married their best friend. And those things come and go, attraction, the romance. It has its moments, and that's beautiful. But ideally what we're doing here is we're trying to be what? Best friends. Best friends. So your best friend should be your husband or your wife. Your best friend. What do you do with your best friend? Tell them everything. First person you call, when you've got something exciting to talk about. First person you call when things are not going so well. First person you tell, when you're struggling, first person to tell when you're selling, like it's just, that's what friends do. And you want to build a marriage on that. Why? Because when you get married, says this, the husband shall leave his father and mother, and the two shall become one flesh. So hear me, you're not, it's like you were becoming an entirely different person when you get married. It's not me trying to jam two worlds together, because we've all been there, right? They're family dynamic or family of origin, your family of origin, you're trying to make it work. My mom does this, your mom does this, your father does. It's like, no, no, we're trying to figure out, this is ours now. And we're best friends. And we want to do this for the life, the long journey that God has given us. But that is the most important relationship. If you get that right, your kids will flourish. All the other areas will flourish. You have your highs and lows, but it will flourish. Amen? So marriage is not, come back to that big point, it's not too incomplete people demanding for film it from each other. It's not. It's two people learning the self giving way of Jesus, the self giving way of Jesus. Why don't you stand at your feet as we come to a close here? Today, a couple of questions for reflection, and then we'll pray together. Where might be Jesus inviting you to lay down my way for the good of my spouse? What's that right now? Might be someone's like, yeah, you'll lay that down for the good of your spouse. What does my spouse need for me in this season to feel love supported and cherished? Different seasons, good question to ask. What is one area of our marriage where we need to invite the Holy Spirit to help us become more like Jesus together? So this is, again, I'd say that not one. I'm like, I think all areas of our marriage need that. But this is a journey, isn't it, marriage? But it is. It's trying to, it's recognized, they don't fulfill me. Then I'm not looking to them for that. I look to Christ with fulfillment. And then from there, I can give myself to that person. So we're going to pray prayer together, and they're going to pray for marriages as we close as well. But here's the prayer we'll pray together. Jesus, thank you for showing us what true love and submission look like. Fill us with your spirit. Help us to lay down our pride, serve one another, and use our strength for each other's good. May our marriages reflect your love and bring you glory in Jesus name. Well, we hope this podcast has inspired you on your journey of discipleship to Jesus. If you have any questions or any questions, let us know in the comments below. And we'll see you in the next video, if you have any questions, in the comments below. We'll see you in the next video, if you have any questions, in the comments below. Thank you for watching. We'll see you in the next video, if you have any questions, if you have any questions, let us know in the comments below. Thank you for joining us today, and we'll see you in the next video, and we'll see you in the next podcast has inspired you on your journey of discipleship to Jesus. If you want to know more about our church, just go to abide.cidney. We'd love to get to know you. If not, you're from another place. Hey, why don't you share this with someone else, and hopefully it helps them as they continue to follow Jesus. Have a great week.