83. Freedom in Marriage Part 2

Welcome to the For Freedom Podcast. This podcast exists to bring the freedom of the gospel for everyday Christians with everyday issues. Now here are your hosts, John Holyfield and James Saifert. Alright James, so we're getting back into Ephesians. We're talking about the foundations of marriage. We're talking about husbands and wives, Ephesians 5. We covered the wives. Now let's let the husbands have it. Let's jump into it. You know, this is where I struggle with being harder on the husbands. I want to give the wives a break. I guess because I've seen husbands, and in our backgrounds we see this a lot. What do they always say? Mother's Day you get the loving sermon. Father's Day you get the rip their face off sermon. And so often that's how it is. And I think, I don't know, I guess in my mindset, John, I do want to be more loving to the wives because, like you said, I know the abuse that they've had to go through in the past. And not all women have went through abuse. But we do see the overbearing, over-controlling husbands. And, you know, just to be super vulnerable here, you know, looking back now, even at this last Christmas, talking through our childhood, I never experienced any abuse. I never experienced anything like that from our family, from our parents. But my mom would even say, you know, my dad would give her $100 for five kids to get clothes and we would go to Goodwill. And that would be our clothes. But yet he would spend $500, $600 on motorcycle parts. And if she spent anything over the $100 for clothes or groceries or whatever it may be, she would get reamed out because, you know, he was the one working and she didn't work and she was raising kids. So I saw this a little bit and then we talked about it a little bit at Christmastime. And so I do want to be more loving towards the wives and more, you know, gentle in that sense. And I want to rip face for the husbands because, you know, oftentimes we do see the abuse from that side and we do see the hurt that the husbands misuse scripture to say, listen, I'm in control. And so there is this balance that we have to go through. And so this is where we get in this part of the next part of Ephesians. And quite honestly, the greater responsibility is on the husbands. Yeah. I think that's why more passage is given to the husbands because they have the harder responsibility because they're going to stand accountable. And who are they representing? Yep. Absolutely. They're representing Christ with the church. Yeah. So let's begin in verse 25. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved 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 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. This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ in the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself. So I said last time that there's really two responsibilities for the wife that you submit and respect, and I like to simplify and summarize. There's two responsibilities in this passage for the husband, and the one is pretty obvious. The first one is love your wife. But this begs the question, James, how do we love our wives? What is this talking about? What kind of love is this talking about? You know, for me, when I was studying through this, John, I went to 1 Corinthians 13, 1-8. Classic passage. We know it. We've read it. We've heard it at weddings. We've heard it so often. But even studying through this for myself, when I went to that, it gives through what love should mean. You know, if you're okay, I'll read it, John. We can sort of talk through it a little bit. It says, And so as I looked through those verses, I began to see the way that we should love our wives, the way that we should love our wives, the way the Lord describes biblically, that it doesn't amount to much of what we should do. It's just simply loving in a way that does not lift ourselves up, but lifts up others. And that's where it begins to give this prescription of how we should love our wives in this scenario of loving others. Yeah. Yeah. And a good homework assignment for men would be to take these verses, verses 4 through 7. Write them on a 3x5 card. Memorize them. Ask yourself, is this how I'm loving my wife? Am I believing all things because I love her? Am I hoping all things because I love her? Am I bearing all things because I love her? Am I not quick to get angry because I love her? And just put that in your mind and let that mull over your mind. Meditate it and let the Word of God transform and renew your mind in that passage. Max Andrews said this, When a husband loves his wife so completely, the wife need never fear submission. Yeah. Well, and John, as I even read through that, and I found nine questions for husbands to ask themselves. And it was profound for me, things that I've been thinking about and pondering. These are the nine questions through these verses that it says, Are you kind to her even when it hurts? And husbands, these are things we can ask ourselves. Are you envious of her talents or gifts? Do you consider yourself smarter or better than her in any way? Are you being rude to her? Can she count on the fact that you will do without in order to put her first? The fifth question, sixth question, does she have to walk on eggshells around you? Or is she comfortable being herself? Does it make you happy when she fails? Or is it embarrassed or is embarrassed by something or someone? Are you being patient with her? And then number nine, do you make every effort for her to succeed in every area of life? Yeah. I said this when I preached this at our church. I said, you know, you men all want a Proverbs 31 woman. Yeah. But are you being a Proverbs 31 husband that's encouraging your wife to be able to do what the Proverbs 31 woman does? Yeah. You know, they all want the Proverbs 31 woman, but they don't want to be the Proverbs 31 man. That's right. And so Stuart Scott said this about a definition of love. He defined it this way. He said, a selfless, enduring commitment of the will to care about and benefit another person by righteous, truthful, and compassionate thoughts, words, and actions. So as we're thinking about this concept of loving your wives, it says this. How do you love your wife? You love your wife as Christ loved the church. All right? How did Christ love the church? Philippians 2, 4 through 8. Look it up. Read it. Meditate on it. In humility, he humbled himself, took on the form of a servant, and went to the cross. What did Jesus do with the disciples? Well, how did Jesus show the disciples that this is how we're supposed to treat each other? In John 13, husbands need to be so familiar with John 13. This is how you lead. This is what leadership and love looks like as the head of your household. He girded himself up as a slave, and he sat down and washed their feet and said, go and do this to each other. I did it as an example for you to serve each other. It's humility. It's humility. It is not pride. It's not I'm the man of the house. It is humility. It's a Christ-centered manhood, not a John Wayne-centered manhood. And listen, I love my John Wayne movies, but I think too much of the caricature of John Wayne has replaced godly manhood. And what we need is Christ-centered manhood in our homes. But why are we to love as Christ in the church? Verse 26 gets into that. That we might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water of the word. So the first responsibility is this. Love your wife. Yeah. Second responsibility is that you need to wash her with the word. Meaning this. This is how it gives us some theology about the church. But you can't miss the aspect. I think this is missed a lot. You can't miss the aspect that what he's given us about the church is an aspect of the husband and wife relationship and the responsibility of the husband. What he's saying that Christ does to the church by washing her with the word, sanctifying her. Well, how does it go to John 17? Jesus said, sanctify them to God in the truth. Your word is truth. Men, it is your responsibility, according to this passage, to be leading your wives and your homes in the word of God. You say, well, I'm not a studied person. My wife's much better. I get that. And sometimes that's the case. That does not relieve you of your responsibility. Exactly. It's there. And as I began looking through this, John, I also made the comparison here, even in verse 25, if you go back a minute there, as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it, it was the example of the love of Jesus, but also the commitment that Jesus has to his bride. He gives this example of the commitment that Jesus is so committed to the church, to his bride, that he is sanctifying and cleansing her with the washing. And it begins to ask the question to us, are we committed in that same way to our bride? Are we committed to seeing them grow and to grow in the knowledge that the Lord has for them so that they can be without blemish, so that they can be, you know, give this path for the wife to follow through? Oh, 100%. 100%. You've got to be growing, so you, the over, you know, it's spilling out and you're leading. That's absolutely right. Yeah. One other aspect is this, in verse 25, love your wives as Christ loved the church and what? Gave. Gave. All through scripture, you see that the manifestation of love is this, giving. What is John 3.16? God so loved that he what? Gave. All right. An outward manifestation of your love is giving. And I'm not talking about the five love languages, love language of giving gifts. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about giving. Are you giving of yourself to your spouse? Are you giving of yourself to your wife? Your love, a manifestation of your love is giving to them, giving to them life, giving to them time, giving to them what they need. Yeah. Giving to them spiritual vitality. You mentioned John 3. You mentioned John 13. Let's go a step further to John 15, verse 13. Note, greater love does no man have than a man lay down his life for his friends. We'll replace this. Greater love does no man have than he lay down his life for his wife. Okay. And that's the thought here is you want to show love to your wife. You want to show this path of leading in love. Lay down your life. Give your life for the sake of your wife. And that is where we begin to see this love that is so greatly shown here of loving your wives. Okay. Love also gives and gives your own life for the sake of your wife's success. Yeah. And so sticking with the text, then we get to the logic. And I like this part because Paul just gives some straight up logic to the readers of how this happens. He says, verse 28, you should love your wives as your own bodies. And he says, he who loves his wife loves himself. No one ever hated his own flesh but nourishes and cherishes it just as Christ does the church. He says, guys, you love her because you're one. Yeah. Who just out of nowhere decides they don't like their arm anymore and decides to cut it off, hack it off? He said, that's not sane. That's not sanity. You nourish. That's why you eat. Yeah. That's why you seek warmth. That's why you seek cool for the summertime because you want to nourish your body. Well, and John, even in this own particular passage in verse 28, Paul refers back to what he said at the very beginning. Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands. He says there again, husbands, love your own wives. He gives this same thought back and forth. And, you know, why is it so often even in our social media era where we will begin to look at someone else's marriage and we will say, well, I wish my wife was like that wife. And we begin to compare. And Paul is saying, no, look at your own wives and say, I am going to love my own wife as my own body. I don't care what someone else's wife's doing. I don't care what someone else is doing with their life and their time. I'm going to love what God has given me right here as my own body. And I'm going to love my own wife who God gave me to love and honor and respect. I want to look into these. When I preached on this, I did some research into the two words, nourishes and cherishes it. And I want to give some things in here because I think this will be beneficial to our husbands. Nourish is the Greek term ektrepho. It means to feed, to bring into maturity, to – and I wrote a couple quotes down about this. To nourish a wife is to provide for her needs, to give that which helps her grow and mature in favor with God and man. That's nourishing. Are we nourishing our wives in that way? Cherishing is the word thalpo. It means to keep warm, to cherish with tender care, to foster and manifest tender care. To cherish her is to use tender love and physical affection to give her warmth, comfort, protection, and security. Chuck Swindoll said a godly husband will help his wife feel fulfilled, grow toward maturity, and deepen her love for the Lord. He will tenderly and warmly affirm her through both emotional reassurance and physical affection. When she needs strength, he gives her strength. When she needs encouragement, he gives her encouragement. And can I say this, that James and I are sitting here telling you that we got this down. This is areas that we are working on as well, and the everyday in and outs of our home life as well. But it's things and it's convictions that we believe and are letting impact our lives and our homes and using to change us and transform us. And we believe that this is the scriptural truth for marriage relationship between one, should we say it, one naturally born man and one naturally born woman. Yeah. Yeah. And this is the way that God has given us, as the Mandalorian says. I was about to say, John Mandalorian quote there. This is the way. Okay? And I know our culture screams against this, and not just the secular culture, but some in the church culture is raising up and screaming against this. And we see that we hold to a standard of truth from God's word. Yeah. Well, and you know, you said it just now, and it's where my mind went to it. We began to, you know, you have an ailment, you have something wrong with you, you go to the doctor. I recently came back from a trip, and the mountain change from Tennessee to North Carolina, got an ear infection, somewhat of a sinus infection. And so I went to the doctor, they gave me some prednisone and some antibiotics, and they said, take this pill twice a day, take this pill once in the morning, once at night. You know, I went home, and what did I do? I set out my pills, I took them in the morning, I took it at night, I took it out as supposed to be. I got better because I followed the prescription of the doctor. We began to have marriage problems because we're sinful people, two sinful people coming together. The Bible gives us a prescription of how to have a marriage, and yet sometimes we don't follow that prescription, and we wonder why our marriages are messed up. Because husbands aren't loving their wives, because we're not doing the example that Christ laid out for us in Scripture as the prescription of how we should live our lives and our marriage. I'm not saying it's going to be completely perfect, but I'm saying if you begin to follow this prescription, you begin to love your wives, husbands, as Christ loved the church, you're going to see some great things happen in our lives and our marriages that we before wouldn't have seen. Yep. Yep. Yeah. I think of a situation that Professor Wayne Grudem, who wrote probably one of the most influential systematic theologies of the modern time, was teaching at a seminary in the Northwest, and it was sort of like an all-star cast of seminary professors there. Him, D.A. Carson, a guy named, I think, Daryl Block. These guys, you know, you buy some intense commentaries, and these guys' names are all of them. You buy systematic theologies, these guys, and they were all teaching there. And Wayne Grudem had taught there for 20 years. He had developed tenure there. But his wife had an autoimmune disease that really, she struggled with her health. And they took a trip to visit a friend in Arizona. They went on a two-week trip to Arizona. The climate and the weather there in Arizona was so beneficial for his wife that she was able to get out. It helped everything that she was struggling with health-wise. He said that for the first time in 20 years, they had gone on bicycle ride together, and he loved it. He said they went back, and the climate that they were back in, he just felt so burdened because he loved his wife, and he wanted her to be able to experience life like that. And he said if only there was a seminary in Arizona, he would gladly leave and move there for his wife. And then he was talking to somebody, and they told him, well, there's a new seminary startup. And so he looked into them, and he sent them an application. Of course, they were thinking, Wayne Grudem? Heck yeah. And so they're like, absolutely. And so they gave him an offer. He went to his wife, and she said, no, you'd be giving up so much. She's like, honey, I appreciate it, but no. And he said, honey, I want to do this for you because it would be so much more beneficial for your life. And she said, I don't think I could stand you giving up all that you've worked for and earned for for these past decades in your seminary career. She said, but if this is what you want to do, I will submit to you. And he said, this is what we're going to do. And so they, and this is a beautiful picture of the submission of love, the submission of man, of husbands, and loving their wives, and the submission of respect of wives. And so they've moved to Arizona, and he's been down there teaching at a seminary in Phoenix, Arizona for, you know, several years now. And, you know, they have a marriage. His wife's been doing better health-wise. But I just, I give that illustration because I think that that is sort of the idea of love and respect that's taught in this passage. Yes, sir. That's great. Well, that's just a little bit, I think, that James and I tried to take from Scripture to lay this foundation as we've talked about this, husbands and wives. And I know that not everybody's going to like what we have to say about it. But we're going to stop there. And then we've got a couple of interviews with some other biblical counselors coming around the corner on the same subject of marriage and family. But we appreciate everybody listening and sticking with us. And if you thought this was beneficial, we appreciate if you shared the podcast and helped us, you know, gain more listeners. And that's what we, if you think this will help somebody, you know, pass it along. But I think from now we're going to sign out, James. Let's do it. All right. To God be the glory, everybody. I found my new name. I found that good grace. I found that healing. And the tears fell down my face. When I found my beginning. That has no ending. I found that second chance. I found my best friend. I found my forgiveness. I found my happiness. I've been singing ever since. I found my freedom in you. Thanks for listening to the For Freedom podcast. If you enjoyed the content of the podcast, please do us a favor by liking, subscribing, or sharing the podcast on whatever podcast platform you listen to. Thank you. Thank you.

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