The Christian Family: God's Directives to Husbands

Driving home: First, functional responsibility is one thing. Inherent dignity is another. And we must never let those things be confused.

The analogy of a baseball team (pitcher, first baseman) illustrates the concept of functional responsibility within the family, distinct from inherent human dignity.

And we must never let those things be confused. Every man on the ball field has the same dignity as a human being, but one is the pitcher, not all nine. One is the first baseman, not all nine. There is functional responsibility, and so it is within the structure of the family.

0:43 - 1:03 Read in full sermon

The point: Learn how to love your wife in this biblical sense, beyond mere infatuation.

Martin distinguishes infatuation from biblical love, describing infatuation as an 'oozy, squishy kind of something' that cannot sustain marriage, unlike commanded biblical love.

My friend, whatever that love was that you had when you married your wife, that capital is soon expended down to the last penny. And if you don't begin to learn how to love your wife in this biblical sense, you will not be a biblical husband. So we've got to take a moment to try to apply or define the kind of love Paul is talking about. He's not talking about infatuation. You see, infatuation can't be commanded. All of a sudden, Mr. Right or Miss Right comes by your path and there your heart and your emotions get all upset and turned upside down. And you say, I fell in love. Now, what you mean...

5:19 - 6:21 Read in full sermon

The point: Learn how to love your wife in this biblical sense, beyond mere infatuation.

He dismisses the 'I can't live without you, baby' sentiment of rock singers as mere hormonal arousal, not biblical love, comparing it to animals in heat.

thing. But marriages cannot be built upon infatuation. And that's the great curse of the whole approach to marriage in our own American culture. That's why one third of the marriages end up in the divorce courts. And the only thing that hangs together, the remaining, most of the remaining two thirds are other considerations, or else they too would end up in the divorce courts. No, when the Bible uses the word love, it's not talking about infatuation, nor is it talking about that stuff that the rock singers poke about. I can't live without you, baby. That has nothing to do with love. What it me...

6:21 - 7:19 Read in full sermon

The point: Do not be a 'little Uriah heap' always backing down, failing to take your position of headship.

He describes husbands who are 'little wackies' to their domineering wives, like Uriah Heaps, as failing to take their headship, leading to negative family dynamics.

into either of those terribly unbiblical categories. Men who are nothing but the little wackies of every frown and whim of their domineering wives. Yes, dear. Oh, yes, yes, yes, dear.

11:55 - 12:10 Read in full sermon

The point: Do not be a tight-fisted, cruel, hard, insensitive, unfeeling 'boss' in your home.

He describes husbands who are 'tight-fisted, cruel, hard, insensitive, unfeeling' bosses, failing to exercise headship in love, which is equally unbiblical.

Tight-fisted, cruel, hard, insensitive, unfeeling. I'm the boss.

13:02 - 13:07 Read in full sermon

The point: Do not allow your love to be diminished because you discern faults and sins and weaknesses in your wives.

The illustration from Ezekiel 16 of God finding Israel as an unwashed, newborn baby is used to demonstrate Christ's realistic love for us in our fallen state.

He saw me ruined in the fall, yet loved me notwithstanding all. Read Ezekiel 16, where the love of Jehovah to Israel is likened to that of a man who passed by and finds an unwashing baby that's just been born. Its navel is not cut, and it hasn't been washed. And God says, But that's what you were when I found you.

16:45 - 17:09 Read in full sermon

The point: Do not allow your love to be diminished because you discern faults and sins and weaknesses in your wives.

The analogy of buying a 'cream puff' car that turns out to be a 'lemon' illustrates the discovery of unexpected faults in a spouse after marriage, leading to potential bitterness.

You don't discover the whole person. And when you discover the whole person, many times there's an awful lot of baggage that gets carried into that marriage that you didn't know anything about. And it's just like when you get a car. You know, it was a cream puff.

18:44 - 18:55 Read in full sermon

The point: Young ladies, ask young men who say 'I love you' if they are ready to give up their circle of friends so you become their closest friend.

Martin shares a personal anecdote about telling his wife she is his best friend, illustrating the deep friendship that should exist in a marriage, mirroring Christ's friendship with believers.

Are you ready to give up your circle of friends so that I become your closest friend as well as your wife? I'm amazed how many husbands and wives are not good friends. Real good buddies. Just two weeks ago after the children were off to school and my wife and I sat and had coffee together and then talked over some church problems and then we got together.

26:53 - 27:14 Read in full sermon

The point: Forget your Monday night football game and sit down to talk with your wife when she needs to talk.

He uses the example of a husband choosing between watching a Monday night football game and talking with his wife about her problems to illustrate sacrificial love.

What about you husbands? Are you loving your wives with a sacrificial love? Do you plan to watch the Monday night football game? And your wife evidences that there's a particular problem and she's sending out those signals.

28:16 - 28:28 Read in full sermon

The point: Ask your wife, 'Dear, have I been a true priest to you? Have I been a true prophet to you? Have you come to know the Savior better because of me? Are you more like him because of me?'

He uses the analogy of a trained chimpanzee bringing home money to illustrate that merely providing financially is not enough for a Christian husband; true headship involves spiritual and emotional care.

If she can't say yes, you've been a failure to her, man. You've been a miserable failure to her. Oh, I bring home the bread. So could a trained chimpanzee go down and perform what the locals do and let the people throw the quarters and gather them up in a cup and come home and dump it on the table and then go in and take his paper and watch the food too.

32:43 - 33:02 Read in full sermon

Driving home: Now in the same way, a husband is so joined to his wife that from the consummation of the marriage he is no longer to regard that wife as something out there detached from him, but he is to regard his wife in the same wa…

The analogy of a man not hating his own flesh or hammering his own fingers illustrates how intimately a husband should care for his wife as part of himself.

That's the thought of the text. How do I love my own body? Does a man ever hate his own flesh? Stand around with a hammer banging his fingers until they're a bloody pulp?

37:18 - 37:28 Read in full sermon

The point: When your wife sends out signals of need and concern, don't meet it with a rebut, but cherish her as an extension of your very self.

The illustration of a metal chip in one's eye demonstrates how immediately and completely one attends to one's own body's needs, which should be mirrored in a husband's care for his wife.

Husbands, what happens if you get a metal chip in your eye? Do you say to your eye stop sending out those irritating signals until I've got time to take care of you? No, so you get a metal chip in your eye and I don't care what you're doing nothing matters until you get that chip out. Why?

42:32 - 42:47 Read in full sermon

The point: When your wife sends out signals of need and concern, don't meet it with a rebut, but cherish her as an extension of your very self.

A quotation from Charles Hodge explains that just as a man cherishes his own body despite its imperfections, so he should cherish his wife, who is part of himself.

You cherish you must begin to think in terms of her being an extension of your very self. Charles Hodge has a great comment on this passage he says a man may have a body which does not altogether suit him he may wish it were handsomer healthier stronger more active but still it's his body it is himself and he nourishes and cherishes it as though it were the best and loveliest a man ever had. So a man may have a wife whom he could wish were prettier more agreeable but she's still his wife and by the constitution of nature and the ordinance of God she is a part of himself in neglecting or ill us...

43:08 - 43:56 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin challenges husbands to live in such a way that their love for their wives would be a visible, albeit imperfect, picture of Christ's love for the church, urging both…

Martin poses a hypothetical scenario where a visitor, having no Bible, learns about Christ's love for the church by observing a Christian husband's relationship with his wife, challenging husbands to be living examples.

Let me close with asking a very pointed question tonight. Suppose for some reason all of the Bibles in Mount Olive were confiscated and there was no Bible from which we could read how much Jesus Christ loved his church and how he died for it and how he lives for its well-being. And someone would have come to me and say Preacher I heard in the past as a kid something about Christ loving his church and dying for it. Where can I find out about that kind of love that Christ has to his people?

44:40 - 45:08 Read in full sermon