Husbands and Wives Before God #3

The point: Follow the sermon by reading Ephesians 5:25 to the end of the chapter.

Martin recounts his earlier attempts to cover all biblical teaching on a subject in a few messages, leading to mental exhaustion and audience weariness, illustrating the wisdom of focusing on one major passage.

Our theme, husbands and wives before God. In our first session, I sought to introduce the subject by approaching this key passage in the New Testament, which gives us a watershed of biblical instruction, concerning how a husband ought to walk before God in relationship to his wife, and how a wife ought to walk before God in relationship to her husband. Now this passage does not exhaust all of the teaching of the word of God on the duties of husbands and wives. And there was a time when in attempting to speak on a subject like this at a family conference, I would have sought to explain, that I ...

2:10 - 3:29 Read in full sermon

The point: Be continually filled with the Spirit to experience purposeful affection and love.

He distinguishes between 'love of complacency' (delight in the object) and purposeful affection, using the command to 'love your enemies' as an example where delight may be absent but purposeful good is still commanded.

When God says love your enemies He does not mean delight in them. What the old writers call the love of complacency. That is a love in which you look with delight upon your object. I cannot look with delight upon my enemies but I'm commanded to love them.

11:34 - 11:54 Read in full sermon

The point: Never allow your love for your wife to be diminished because you discern faults, sins, and weaknesses in her.

He contrasts Christ's 'realistic love' for the church, seeing all its vileness, with the 'blind love' of honeymooners who cannot conceive of faults, emphasizing that husbands must love their wives despite discerning flaws.

but we are to strive to a qualitative reflection of that love for his love was divine love and the infinite can never become the finite no matter how much it grows and develops so the even as has to do not with quantitative but qualitative and what are the characteristics of the love wherewith Christ loved and continues to love the church well let me give you four of them that are in the passage quickly number one it is a realistic love love your wives as Christ loved the church when the father had by some other means sanctified it cleansed it and made it presentable no he loved us in the lang...

23:01 - 24:27 Read in full sermon

The point: Cultivate an exclusive and particularistic love for your wife, a 'sacred garden' into which no one else enters in fantasies, desires, relationships, looks, touches, or words.

Martin uses the absence of 'pet names' in a marriage as a 'litmus test' for marital health, illustrating how exclusive love creates its own unique vocabulary, looks, touches, and signals within the 'sacred garden' of marriage.

in our looks in our touches and in our words within the sacred garden of marital love a man should have looks that none but his own beloved wife sees and fully understands in terms of endearment it's one of the little litmus tests I make with couples that obviously have a bad marriage giving away one of my trade secrets I say in the midst of a counseling session by the way let's do a little role play when you're addressing her and by the way what are some of your pet names by which you address her and when a couple looks at me with a blank stare and says pet names what do you mean well you kno...

30:18 - 31:45 Read in full sermon

The point: Ensure that your wife can attest to your exceptional gentleness, consideration, and thoughtfulness towards her, surpassing what you show to others.

He illustrates a tragic scenario where a husband (especially a pastor) reserves his gentlemanly nobility, tenderness, and sensitivity for others (secretary, neighbor's wife, church women) but has none left for his own wife, highlighting a failure of exclusive love.

I tell you who sees her husband more a gentleman to his secretary and to his neighbor's wife than to her has got a raw deal when a man saves gentlemanly nobility for his secretary for the neighbor's wife for the other brothers and sisters at the church and listen to me it's intensified a hundred times more when it's the wife of a pastor and he is the epitome of grace at the door every Sunday when he greets the women of the church he is the epitome of tenderness in the counseling room when women come with needs and his wife says he must exhaust all of his tenderness and all of his love and all ...

31:45 - 33:13 Read in full sermon

The point: Joyfully sacrifice lawful self-interests to perfect your wife in some area, understanding that this self-giving love wins her joyful submission.

He contrasts a man trying to win his wife's love by physical appearance (going to a health club) with the true answer: self-giving love. He notes that women often love 'dumpy' men like Adonises because of their sacrificial qualities.

the church that's to love her love the church where you take where you take law creations and lawful self-interest and you joyfully sacrifice them that you might in some area perfect yourself your wife you see a self-centered selfish man can abuse the concept of headship but he can't mirror the headship of Christ because Christ headship according to the text is joined to his saving work he is head and savior and he could only save by giving himself and it's only when by the spirit we perceive the wonder of his self-giving love that we joyfully come under his headship and you see that redemptiv...

37:35 - 39:03 Read in full sermon

The point: Joyfully sacrifice lawful self-interests to perfect your wife in some area, understanding that this self-giving love wins her joyful submission.

Martin tells a hypothetical story of a husband sacrificing his desired Tuesday night activity with friends to enable his wife to take a macrame class she's always wanted, illustrating practical sacrificial love.

not the answer folks all of the advertising in body worship notwithstanding that's not the answer I've seen relationships where the guy was dumpy and out of shape where that woman loved him like he were an Adonis like he were a Greek God why? because she saw the qualities of self-giving love that made it her joy to be submissive to him when she knows you have liberty to take that Tuesday night and to do something good not with the guys down at the local pub but to do something that the other guys in the church are doing legitimate in itself but you happen to know from following the local paper...

39:03 - 40:31 Read in full sermon

The point: Address seemingly minor irritants, like leaving the toilet seat up, as practical expressions of sacrificial love, recognizing their impact on your wife.

He uses the common marital irritant of leaving the toilet seat up as a simple, yet profound, illustration of a husband's non-sacrificial self-love, arguing that it wounds the wife and hinders intimacy.

and now the time has come I want you to sign up for the macrame class you really do? yes I do oh but dear I don't want you to you have to I have to pull rank on you do I have to pull my head ship I am not doing that thing with the guys in the church I have chosen to say no to that and yes to the thing that would please you that's what it's talking about men just that practical how many times has your wife told you when she comes into the bathroom and you have left the toilet seat up it grinds her socks for some reason you say it is unreasonable beyond all comprehension why should 90 degrees di...

40:31 - 41:52 Read in full sermon

The point: Address seemingly minor irritants, like leaving the toilet seat up, as practical expressions of sacrificial love, recognizing their impact on your wife.

He contrasts grand heroic acts (running into a burning building) with the 'heroic' act of changing diapers, emphasizing that most sacrificial love is found in the 'little drip drip drip' of daily, mundane acts.

snuggly start whispering sweet nothings in her ears and she doesn't respond to you and you say she's cold no she's wounded by that practical expression of your non sacrificial self love because the only sacrifice was making yourself remember and you can a three by five cup with a red felt tip pen put on with a piece of masking tape buckle put the seat down ask your wife for permission to put it there until it becomes a habit now why do I use something that is so simple I hope you don't regard it as coarse because experience has shown me that that is a major irritant in many a Christian home a ...

41:52 - 43:22 Read in full sermon

The point: Address seemingly minor irritants, like leaving the toilet seat up, as practical expressions of sacrificial love, recognizing their impact on your wife.

He shares his personal habit of insisting on opening doors for women, even visitors in his home, as a small act of gentlemanly sacrificial love, noting it reveals much about what their husbands may not be doing.

never once having been a hero the most heroic thing you may ever do is change the diapers on your kids discourage but you see it's the little drip drip drip drip the stalagmite of the little things that show you love her with a sacrificial love ready to say no to what is natural to you and to do what is not natural or to what is natural and to choose what you know will please her and you who've got moonbeams in your eyeballs what do you really look for in a period of courtship and dating you look for the symbols that this man is ready to lay down his life for you and his life is his time his i...

43:22 - 44:50 Read in full sermon

The point: Ask your wife where you could sacrifice yourself to demonstrate true love for her.

Martin describes taking half his day off to thoroughly clean his wife's gas stove, an act she never asked for but deeply appreciates, illustrating a practical, sacrificial act of love that brings delight.

or come in entertainment and we have time to go and we go down by the door and they run and they start to grab the door I say uh oh stop please will you allow me to be a gentleman in my own home it tells me worlds about what their husbands are not doing sacrificial love the sacrifice that on a Monday when everything in me wants to goof off and I know the six month period is up for the heavy cleaning on the old gas stove my wife never once has asked me to do it but she doesn't have even the physical strength to pull it out she doesn't have the arm strength to really scrub and I'm not a flowers ...

44:50 - 46:20 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: He transitions to the 'ground' of this love, which is the essential union of husband and wife, picturing the union of Christ and the church. This union is so vital that the wife…

He uses the analogy of a preacher getting 'shot into orbit' by a profound theological thought (union with Christ) and then having to 'get back to terra firma' (the practical subject) to explain Paul's digression in Ephesians 5:32.

yes the word ought is there even so ought a verb which means to be indebted to be under solemn obligation even so husbands are under solemn obligation to love their own wives so we might say the ground is revealed duty that's assumed another ground brought forward and amplified and that ground has to do with the whole concept of union with Christ the whole concept of the natural self care for our own flesh and let me try to sort it out by first of all addressing this key thought in its most elementary essence Paul says that the ground of the quality of love is the essential union of the husban...

53:42 - 55:11 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin uses an extended analogy of a third arm to illustrate the 'one flesh' concept, arguing that a husband should care for his wife as he cares for his own body, extending to…

Martin uses the hypothetical scenario of suddenly growing a third arm to illustrate the 'one flesh' concept. He argues that one would naturally care for this new arm as part of oneself, just as a husband should care for his wife as an extension of himself.

Let me put it this way. In my 58 years of human experience, I've always had regard for all the members of my body. If my toe got stubbed, I felt it, nursed it, cared for it. If my finger touched the stove, I nursed it and cared for it.

61:55 - 62:10 Read in full sermon

The point: Be as solicitous for your wife's well-being in her totality as you are for your own, including her spiritual nourishment and struggles.

He describes a man deliberately harming his own body (chopping off fingers, sticking skewers through himself) to illustrate the absurdity of 'hating his own flesh,' reinforcing the natural human instinct to nourish and cherish oneself, which should extend to one's wife.

Why? Why? And for a pastime, putting his hand on a piece of wood, and with an axe, saying, Well, what shall I lop off today? Oh, I think I'll take the front joint of my left index finger.

63:34 - 63:45 Read in full sermon

The point: Be as solicitous for your wife's well-being in her totality as you are for your own, including her spiritual nourishment and struggles.

He recounts a childhood memory of Sonny Yates, who, when 'shot' in play, would say 'I ain't killed, you're only ruined it.' This illustrates the natural human tendency to cherish one's own flesh, even when injured, and how his mother would comfort him with the same phrase.

Ka-plunk. And tomorrow, I think I'll take the front joint of my pink. and then you see him on wednesday and he's out there and he's got six inch skewers that he usually would use to his barbecuing and he's saying i think i'll stick this one through my left ear today and the next day he's out there and says i think it'd be nice to stick one through from the left cheek to the right cheek he said when did you see a man hating his own flesh maybe a crazy man maybe a demon possessed man who cut himself but no normal rational man what's he do why the stinker will act like he's dying if he just got a...

63:45 - 65:13 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: He provides personal examples, such as vacation planning and his wife's attendance at conferences, to demonstrate how the 'one flesh' reality should inform a husband's choices…

Martin explains why his wife often doesn't accompany him to conferences, not out of lack of love, but because he prioritizes her need for meaningful service and her desire to be present for their daughters, illustrating sacrificial love in practical decision-making.

What would make these two weeks most meaningful to her? I have a lot of people that don't understand why I don't take my wife with me when I go off in all these meetings. Especially. Especially when, as with your conference, she's graciously invited.

68:17 - 68:32 Read in full sermon