This is the seventh message in the series,
Understanding Marriage, from Ephesians chapter 5.
The title of this teaching is, The Shared
Life.
Let's join our teacher, Pastor David Guzik, speaking
at Calvary Chapel of Simi Valley.
The text before us is Ephesians chapter 5,
beginning at verse 25.
I'll read through the whole text and then
we'll take a look and examine some of
the prominent themes.
We're not able this morning to really go
phrase by phrase and make a careful examination
of everything in the text.
We'll have to save that for this week
and the next and even beyond two weeks
after today, but this morning we can take
a look at some of the major themes
in this passage.
Ephesians chapter 5, verse 25.
Husbands, love your wives just as Christ also
loved the church and gave himself for it,
that he might sanctify and cleanse it with
the washing of water by the word, that
he might present it to himself a glorious
church, not having spot or wrinkle or any
such thing, but that it should be holy
and without blemish.
So husbands ought to love their own 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 the
Lord does the church.
For we are members of his body, of
his flesh and of his bones.
For this reason a man shall leave his
father and mother and be joined to his
wife and the two shall become one flesh.
This is a great mystery but I speak
concerning Christ and the church.
This is an amazing passage from the book
of Ephesians speaking to us about marriage and
most specifically the husband's role and duty in
the marital relationship.
What I think is significant about this is
that it's so different than what we usually
read in books or hear in many teachings
about marriage today.
As I've had the opportunity to read a
lot of books that you might find in
a Christian bookstore or messages that you might
read from Christian ministries regarding marriage today, many
of them seem to ignore what I think
are the most important foundational aspects for a
Christian marriage.
In other words, they're filled with great advice.
Have a date night every week.
Be nicer to each other.
Develop communication skills and all those things are
wonderful and necessary for a healthy marriage.
But they're not the foundation for a really
Christian marriage.
The foundation for a Christian marriage is found
for us in this text right here.
Maybe we should remember the context by which
Paul comes to this topic.
He's been talking to us in the broader
context of life in the spirit.
What does it mean to have the spirit
of God in your life and to live
a life that's really dominated by the Holy
Spirit?
The first thing he mentioned was in verse
19.
He said a life in the spirit will
be a life dominated by praise.
You'll want to worship God.
He secondly says in verse 20 that life
in the spirit will be dominated by attitude
of thanksgiving.
You'll have a gratitude in your heart towards
the Lord.
Then he says in verse 21 that life
in the spirit will be marked by a
heart of submission and a mutual submission one
to another.
And then he begins in the marital relationship
to describe a relationship in which there's a
special duty for submission.
And he brings up the place of submission
that wives have in the marital relationship.
That's in verses 22, 23 and 24.
And we spoke about this in previous weeks.
I'd recommend the tape to you if you'd
like to hear some of that teaching in
greater depth.
But Paul knows that you can't speak to
the wives about what they need to focus
on without also speaking to the husbands.
Otherwise, somebody would get the idea that that
marriage is just a one way street and
that only one partner has the obligations.
Only one partner has the responsibilities.
Paul doesn't want anybody to be left with
that impression.
And so, yes, he spoke to the wife
because the general context was submission.
But after dealing with the wives, then he
focuses in on the husbands.
And in verse 25, he says, Husbands, love
your wives.
That's challenging enough in and of itself, especially
when we took a look last week at
what it means to love.
I mean, it's not just the kind of
love that the world talks about.
He's not talking about that the romantic violins
playing in the background and the beautiful music
and and all just the very emotional kind
of love.
That love is wonderful and precious and it
has its place in the marital relationship.
But what Paul's talking about is a kind
of love described by the ancient Greek word
agape.
And it has at its root a self
-sacrifice, a self-giving.
And he says, Now, listen, husbands, love your
wives.
But now Paul takes it in the next
few words in verse 25 and lifts it
up to an entirely different level.
Look at it there.
It's amazing.
He says, verse 25, Husbands, love your wives,
just as Christ also loved the church and
gave himself for it.
Those words, words which should haunt every man,
every husband here this morning, are those words
just as.
In other words, he says, here's a pattern
for you.
Here's an example.
Jesus has a relationship with his people, with
the church.
And just as Jesus loves the church, husbands,
that's how you're supposed to love your wives.
He's saying this is an illustration.
Here's a picture of relationship, the relationship between
Jesus and his people.
And I want your marriage to illustrate that
relationship.
It's a staggering thing.
This takes the marriage relationship and utterly transforms
it.
It makes the Christian marriage completely different.
Paul didn't write.
Now, you two start getting along or have
a date night every week or or now
you'll both have to give a little bit
more and be nicer to each other.
All of those things might be great.
It would be an improvement in marriage for
probably many of us.
But they don't come close to fulfilling the
high place that God has for the Christian
marriage.
You see what Paul is saying?
He's saying, listen, here's your relationship to where
it is.
And and here's where you're at with yourself.
You see your deficiencies, your faults, your failures.
You're critical towards one another.
Both of you, you're standing on your own
rights.
You condemn and you quarrel and and you're
separate.
You may live together, but you're separate under
the same roof.
And why?
Because you have not remembered your own relationship
with Jesus Christ and use that as the
model upon which to build your marital relationship.
You see, there's many things you can do
in the marital relationship, good things, sort of
the list of handy hints to improve your
marriage, wonderful things.
But you need to get back to that
foundation.
You need to look at the relationship between
Jesus and his church, and you need to
let that be the model.
Let that be your example for the marital
relationship.
And so that's why he says in verse
twenty five, Husbands, love your wives.
This is Christ.
Also love the church and gave himself for
it.
You see those words just as in verse
twenty eight.
He says so husbands ought to love his
own wives.
In other words, so after the pattern of
Jesus.
And then in verse twenty nine, he says,
for no one ever hated his own flesh,
but nourishes and cherishes it just as the
Lord does the church.
Here you go again.
The just as stated for us again, there's
a pattern given to us, a pattern for
the husband's love to the wife and a
pattern for the entire marriage relationship.
You know what I think is amazing about
this passage is this is a passage which
more than many passages in the Bible teaches
us on two different tracks, because first of
all, it teaches us about the marital relationship.
It says here, let me teach you about
the marital relationship by showing you the relationship
between Jesus and the church.
But as it shows us the relationship between
Jesus and the church, it teaches us about
that as well.
See, there's something for everybody to grab hold
of this morning.
Maybe you're married.
Maybe you're not married.
Maybe you'll never be married.
Yet this message has application to you because
you need to have, if you don't already,
a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
And this tells you what kind of relationship
Jesus wants to have with you.
You see, many people have distant and cold
and separate lives, kind of marriages, and that's
the kind of relationship they have with Jesus
Christ as well.
He doesn't want it to be that way
on either scene.
Look at it, first of all, how he
describes the attitude that Jesus has towards the
church.
That's our pattern.
Verse twenty five.
What's he say?
Husbands love your wives just as Christ also
loved the church.
Jesus loves the church.
He loves his people.
Now, when you think of God's people together
before standing before Jesus and you can think
of yourself as an individual or yourself as
the great company of believers, they're standing before
God.
When you think of that and think of
Jesus's love towards the church, we know why
Jesus loves the church, right?
It's because the church is so perfect.
It's because the church is so committed to
him and never fails him and never lets
him down.
It's because the church individual Christians are in
perfect submission to the Lord Jesus.
And and we know that that's the reason
why.
Right?
Well, of course not.
Why does he love the church?
He loves the church despite the church's failings,
despite the church's sins.
You see, this is love given to the
undeserving.
Now, husbands, here's where it gets challenging.
That's your pattern for loving your wife.
You've been standing back thinking you've been justified
in having a hardened attitude towards your wife.
Why?
Well, because she deserves it.
I mean, look at it.
Look at how she is right.
You could go on and on and on.
And of course, you begin to exaggerate and
create things.
But let's say you're not.
Let's say you're totally on the mark.
Let's say the wife is totally undeserving of
your love.
God would look you square in the eye
this morning and say, so what?
Love her as Jesus loves the church.
That really doesn't give us any ground to
stand on, does it?
It doesn't give us any ground to excuse,
to justify hardness of heart or bitterness towards
our wives.
No, none at all.
They could be the most undeserving wives in
the world where they could have a contest
for undeserving wives and they could be the
champion.
It's irrelevant, isn't it?
Because the church is undeserving of the love
of Jesus Christ, yet he gives it just
the same.
We have to completely remove this idea of
deserving from it.
It also shows us that God wants marriages
to be full of love, doesn't it?
The loveless marriage doesn't please God.
It doesn't fulfill his purpose.
God wants marriages to be full of love,
full of that compassion, full of that care
one for another.
It also shows us that the love that
Jesus has towards the church is love that's
given first.
It gives first in the initiative.
Husbands may be standing back and saying, well,
I'm ready to love my wife as soon
as she softens up a bit, as soon
as she changes her attitude.
No, you go in there and you take
the initiative, husband.
What does the Bible say about our love
relationship with Jesus Christ?
It says we love him because he first
loved us.
So, husband, get out there and take the
initiative and demonstrate love towards your wife.
And I know what you're thinking.
You're saying, well, listen, I've tried to do
that and that love has been rejected.
I've tried to do things and she's thrown
it back in my face.
We'll go back to the love of Jesus
for his church.
Don't we as Christians sometimes reject the love
of Jesus as it's offered to us?
You know, we sing that song sometimes.
It's a beautiful song in the chorus to
it goes, oh, Lord, I receive your love
because we need to receive the love of
Jesus, don't we?
And sometimes, as it were, Jesus is trying
to pour out his love upon us and
we're pushing it away for whatever reason.
Sometimes we're just in a bad mood.
Sometimes we demand to feel worthy of his
love before we'll receive it.
And sometimes we do all those things and
we need to consciously receive the love of
Jesus.
But even when we reject his love, he
still brings it forth, doesn't he?
He still brings it out.
This is high ground for us to walk
on, right?
I don't know if there's a man here
among us who can say, well, yes, I
live all this.
Can we go on to something else?
I filled all these check marks.
No, this is very high ground for us
to achieve, but certainly it's the ground that
the Lord calls us to.
You see, it's not only attitude that's described
in verse 25.
Husbands, love your wives just as Christ also
loved the church.
No, if I could say, and just from
a, you know, sort of a selfish male
perspective, it gets worse in the end part
of verse 25, where he won't relegate it,
just the attitude of attitude.
He says it has to do with action.
Look at it there, verse 25.
Husband, love your wives as Christ also loved
the church and gave himself for it.
That's Jesus's action towards the church.
Oh, how we wish that the love could
just be, you know, the feeling in our
heart or a kindness that we show here
and there.
No, but what agape love is all about
is about self-sacrificing love.
This is what the world, this is what
our popular culture doesn't understand at all.
You know, when, when our popular culture speaks
about love and they speak about love so
much in the movies and in the songs
and in television programs, everything that you think
the popular culture is, they're experts on love,
right?
Everybody knows all about love for all.
They talk about it for all.
They seem to understand it for all that,
but they don't understand anything about love.
They'll talk about love and how wonderful the
love is and this and that.
And the next thing, the love is gone.
It's disappeared because they don't know anything about
love.
They don't understand love as it is in
agape love and that is self-sacrificing love.
But Jesus knew what it was to sacrifice.
He said, verse 25, he gave himself for
it.
That's what love really is.
That's how it acts out in the marital
relationship.
When the husband will deny himself, will sacrifice
himself with a self-sacrificing love for the
sake of his wife.
Do you want to see how this worked
out in the life of Jesus?
Well, keep a finger there in Ephesians chapter
five, turn ahead just a few pages in
your Bible to Philippians chapter two.
Philippians is the book immediately after Ephesians.
And in Philippians chapter two, verses five through
eight, we find this dramatic statement from the
pen of the apostle Paul, where he says,
let this mind be in you, which was
also in Christ Jesus, who being in the
form of God did not consider it robbery
to be equal with God, but made himself
of no reputation, taking the form of a
bond servant and coming in the likeness of
men and being found in appearance as a
man.
He humbled himself and became obedient to the
point of death, even the death of the
cross.
Well, how about that for a pattern for
husbands?
You see that?
Take a look at it there.
Verse five again of Philippians chapter two, let
this mind be in you, which was also
in Christ Jesus, who being in the form
of God did not consider it robbery to
be equal with God, but made himself of
no reputation.
In other words, he lowered himself.
Husbands, you need to get off your high
horse and get down on the same level
as your wife and be there as her
partner.
That's what Jesus did.
He left the glory of heaven to come
and let go of all of his reputation,
all of his status and come in to
be right there next to his bride, who
he would take unto himself.
And then if you notice, he took the
form of a bond servant.
That's how he came.
Not as a Lord to say, Hey, everybody
obey me.
Everybody serve me.
No, he came to serve instead.
And then he humbled himself and he was
obedient to God, even to the point of
death, the death of the cross.
That's a self-sacrificing love described in the
strongest of terms.
That's what it means for a husband to
love his wife as Christ loved the church.
It's not a matter of just warm feelings.
It's a matter of self-sacrificing love.
You see, the focus of Jesus was on
the church.
It was for the church that he did
what he did.
It wasn't for himself.
He was buying her.
He was purchasing her.
He was thinking of nobody but the church.
It was not thinking about himself.
He was thinking of her.
And that's what husbands need to be able
to communicate to their wives.
I'm thinking of you.
I'm caring for you.
And when we read all this and we
think about the depths of love that Jesus
showed, and this is the pattern for husbands,
I wouldn't blame a few husbands out there
for sort of thinking, man, this is a
raw deal.
I mean, I thought it was going pretty
good when we were in verse 22 of
Ephesians chapter five, where it said, wives submit
to your own husbands as to the Lord.
I was saying, Amen, right along with that
one.
And that was right.
That was good.
And then in verse 23, it says that
the husband's the head of the wife.
Well, yes.
Amen, the husband says.
See, I'm the head, right?
That's what the husband's thing is.
I thought God said I was the head
of the home.
Well, you are the head.
Well, I thought God said that my wife
was supposed to submit to me.
She is supposed to submit to you.
Then why do I have to lay down
my life and sacrifice?
Why do I have to humble myself and
give away my high minded reputation and be
a servant?
I thought I was in charge.
Well, you see, there's only one answer to
that husband.
You understand headship and submission in a very
worldly way.
You don't understand it in a godly way
at all.
You see, worldly headship says I'm your head,
so you have to take your orders from
me and do whatever I want you to
do.
Godly headship says I am your head, so
I must care for you and serve you.
Worldly submission says you must submit to me.
So here are the things I want you
to do for me.
Godly submission says you must submit to me,
so I am accountable before God for you.
I must care for you and serve you.
You see the difference?
And this is not the height of romantic
love as the world knows it.
No, no, this is a different kind of
love than the world knows.
You know, the world knows romantic love based
on looks and image and the ability to
be suave and cool and wonderful and all
these great romantic things.
Look, the problem with that is that some
men aren't really capable of it, are they?
I mean, they try their best, but they're
never going to match up with the image
of the fellow on the TV who has
especially all the special lighting and the cameras
and the makeup person and all that.
And, you know, they can put the music
in the background and music doesn't follow you
around everywhere you go.
And, you know, look at the car he
drives and the restaurant he takes the woman
to.
And good heavens, you know that?
And they're never showing him pay the bill
and all that business.
You know, we just can't match this worldly
image of romance that's presented to us.
You can't live up to it.
But friends, every one of us as men
can fulfill this role of sacrificial love.
Doesn't matter how you look.
Isn't that refreshing for us men?
You don't have to worry about how you
look or any of those things.
That's irrelevant to this.
Every one of us as men can fulfill
this role of having a self-sacrificing love
towards our wife.
We can fulfill this role that Jesus speaks
about.
Now, there's several ways that this love expresses
itself.
It expresses itself, first of all, in the
way that Jesus chose his bride.
And that's what we need to do as
husbands, right?
Express to our wives that they're chosen.
I mean, that's what Jesus did when he
saw us, when he put his affection upon
us.
He chose us.
Do you understand that Jesus chose you before
you chose him?
He spoke to your heart before you ever
answered back to his heart.
And that's how it is in the marital
relationship.
A husband, he sets his affection on one
woman and he says, I choose you.
One woman out of every other woman on
this earth.
He says, I choose you.
It doesn't say I choose you and you
and you.
No, it's one.
I choose you.
And when the husband does that choosing, the
husband and the wife both, they're no longer
free to do some of the things they
did before.
The wife is to live for the husband
and the husband's to live for the wife.
The husband's not to look at other women
because the bride, his bride is the one
that he selected.
He separated her unto himself.
That's how Jesus looks at the church.
That's how husbands must look at their wives.
Any way that a husband can communicate to
his wife, I choose you.
He needs to communicate.
Jesus demonstrated his love to his bride in
a significant once for all time action.
And that was when he died on the
cross.
As husbands, we do the same thing.
You could call it the marriage ceremony, right?
That's why weddings are important.
That's why marriage ceremonies are important.
It's a time of declaration where the husband
says, hey, I'm not ashamed.
I'll say it publicly.
I'll say it before witnesses.
This is the woman I've chosen.
By the way, that's why marriages are important
and marriage ceremonies are important.
Some people want to duck the legality of
marriage and just say, well, we'll be married
before God.
No, that doesn't count.
They say, well, what if we were on
a desert island and there was no law
courts or there was no pastor to marry
us?
And I say, well, then fine.
You can be married before God when you're
on the desert island, but you're not on
a desert island right now.
You live in Ventura County, California, and there's
a way you can get a marriage life.
We'll fix it all up for you.
You can leave the desert island scenario for
the desert island.
But right now there's a way that you
can declare just as Jesus declared.
I choose this woman.
I choose her to be mine.
And Jesus also cherishes his bride.
If you notice in verse 29 of Ephesians
chapter five, Paul writes, he says, no one
ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and
cherishes it just as the Lord does the
church.
A husband must cherish his wife as Jesus
cherishes his bride.
You know that that word cherishes.
It really has the idea of an affectionate
care.
It means that he cares for, he looks
after, he guards his wife.
And that's the sort of affectionate care that
a husband should be given to the wife.
You see, this is the true understanding of
the marital relationship that a husband should have
towards his wife.
Now, there's another great aspect that I'd like
to touch on in the last few minutes
that we're here together with.
Really, there's so much more that we need
to talk about regarding this passage, and we
will talk about it in next week and
in the week after.
But what I want to talk about is
how this reflects for us in the marital
relationship what Jesus shares with his bride.
You see, this is really, again, a teaching
on two tracks.
It shows us the glory of the Christian
marriage, but it also shows us the glory
of the Christian life.
And I think it's often because we don't
appreciate one that we don't appreciate the other.
And one of the fundamental truths of the
Christian life is that it must be lived
as a shared life, as a life shared
with Jesus Christ.
We should all understand that together, because sometimes
we don't.
Sometimes people accept Jesus, but they don't want
to share Jesus's life.
They accept Jesus in the way that you
might accept a soda pop.
Now, you see the advertisements on television for
this soda pop or that soda pop, and
they say, take this soda pop, and they
show all the people, and they're all having
fun.
Wow, are they having fun.
More fun than people should be allowed to
have, they're having.
And oh, look, they're just so happy.
And the whole message is this.
If you accept this soda pop, if you
take it, look at what it will add
to your life.
Now, you're not expected to live your life
around that soda pop.
You're just expected to buy it.
You buy it, it'll add something to your
life.
You know, that's the way a lot of
people approach Jesus.
I'll accept Jesus.
I'll come to him, and he'll add something
wonderful to my life.
But live my life around him?
Share my life with his?
No, what are you talking about?
You see, Jesus wants to go far, far
beyond just this idea of coming into our
life to add something good.
He wants to share his life with us.
He says in the word, he says, I
in you and you in me.
This idea of a shared life with Jesus
Christ is very powerful.
Now, it's powerful as it is in the
Christian life, but it's also powerful as it
relates to the married life, because what Jesus
shares with his bride relates to marriage.
You see, as we illustrate this, we need
to remember that husbands must take the initiative
in this shared life.
Some don't.
You see, what some husbands communicate to their
wives is, listen, wife, I'll live my life
and you live yours.
I mean, I want us to get along
just fine.
I want us to enjoy each other's company
and all.
I'll be nice to you.
You be nice to me.
But your life is yours.
My life is mine.
That's how it's going to be.
Now, let me ask you, could you imagine
Jesus speaking to his people that way?
It's incomprehensible, isn't it?
Jesus looks to his people and he says,
I want you to share my life.
Here's my life.
I want you to share in it.
Come, come be a part of my life.
The things that I want to accomplish, I
want you to be there accomplishing them with
me.
My goals, my aspirations.
I want you to take and come to
share my life.
That's what Jesus says to his people.
That's what the husband needs to say to
his wife.
And again, it also means that the wives
must respond to the shared life.
Some don't.
Some look to the husband and they say,
well, look, you can come share my life.
The husband says, well, no, no, that's not
the pattern here.
And some wives don't, just as some Christians
show little interest in a shared life with
Jesus.
I mean, for some Christians, their idea of
the Christian life is that Jesus is there
to help them live their lives, that the
main job of Jesus is to support them
and help them fulfill their own agenda.
But Jesus says, come to me and share
my life.
So the wife must come into the husband
and share his life.
And he needs to have that care and
that concern for his wife.
And you see how this works out in
the relationship with Jesus and his bride.
I mean, Jesus, first of all, he shares
his name with his bride, doesn't he?
He gives us his name.
And so we do the same thing in
our marriages, right?
In a marriage ceremony that the wife takes
on the name of the husband.
He put his name upon us as believers.
Well, there's no greater compliment than can be
paid.
And in the same way, when a woman
gets married, she gives up her name and
she takes on the name of her husband.
It's biblical.
It's a custom of the whole world.
It teaches us that the relationship between the
husband and the wife, it follows this pattern.
See here, Jesus gives us his name, but
more than that, far more than that, in
the broadest kind of way, you can say
that Jesus shares his life with his bride.
So husbands, we have to share our life
with our wife.
When a man marries a woman, he no
longer is to live just unto himself.
He's invited this woman to come in and
share his life.
And so Jesus shares his life with his
people.
Now, husbands, let's be very honest here.
There may be some men out here.
Let me speak, first of all, to a
single man here, perhaps.
And you as a single man, you're saying,
you know what?
I don't know what I want some woman
to share my life.
I like living my life the way I
want to live it and only being concerned
about myself and thinking about that.
And I can think of a lot of
good things that a woman could add to
my life, but I'm really not interested in
living a shared life with another woman.
Well, let me say you're not ready to
get married.
You're not.
Of course, well, a woman could add some
wonderful things to my life.
No, that's not what we're talking about.
We're talking about living a shared life.
And you, if you're already married, husbands, if
you're there, this is the fact of the
matter.
This is what God calls you to, to
have this mind in you, to go and
live your life and in sharing and companionship.
And a husband must never forget that he
shares his life with his wife.
And one example you could give, let's say
if a man feels called to the mission
field, that he doesn't consider, doesn't even think
about what his wife thinks or feels.
A man has no right to isolate himself
over a matter like that from his wife.
I mean, the two are one flesh.
God has made them together.
One, he has to consider his wife's view.
It's a very poor Christian who says, I
feel called to a particular work and it
doesn't matter what my wife says.
It does matter.
You share a life together.
That's how God has made it.
Not only do they share a life, Jesus
shares his dignity, his great, his glorious position
with his bride.
Whatever honor, whatever position we have, we share
it with our wives.
I take a man and he accomplishes things
and he gets compliments or awards or credit
to this.
He has every reason in the world as
a Christian man in a Christian marriage to
genuinely look at his wife and say, well,
she has deserved it too.
It's her honor as well.
It's not just my honor.
It's her honor.
It's not just my glory.
It's her glory.
It belongs to her as well.
Now, somebody might objectively and quite objectively analyze
the situation, come along and say, well, you
know, she doesn't deserve that honor.
She didn't do it.
He did it.
How can you say she deserves the honor?
She does.
She deserves the glory.
Well, first of all, the answers that are
twofold.
First of all, she did contribute in ways
that you can't imagine.
I mean, even if she didn't have a
hand in the actual work, she certainly supported
and helped in many other ways.
But the larger issue simply is this, is
that this is given completely apart from the
question of deserving.
I mean, when Jesus gives us his glory,
his honor, when Jesus gives us those things,
do we deserve it?
Is he waiting for us to deserve it?
It's completely irrelevant to the issue, isn't it?
And so the fact of the matter is
it doesn't matter if she deserves it or
not.
She's your wife.
She should share in the glory and the
honor and whatever dignity you receive.
She should share in it just because she
is your wife and you share these things
together as a couple.
Jesus also shares his plans, his heart with
his bride.
You know, he's revealed it to him as
a word, hasn't he?
He's told us what the future will hold
and told us about his return, about the
coming glory that will come.
And this is how it is in a
healthy marriage relationship.
The husband tells his wife everything and she
knows every secret, every desire, every ambition, every
hope, every project that ever enters in his
mind.
She's one with him.
Husbands say, well, you know, I can't live
that kind of open life before my wife.
There's no way.
I mean, knowing who I am, knowing who
she is, it would never work.
Can I say that this is what God
wants to accomplish in your marriage?
You look at your marriage right now and
you say, boy, this isn't there.
I don't know if it can ever be
there.
You say, well, listen, this is what Jesus
Christ wants to accomplish in my life.
He wants you and your wife to have
a completely shared life where there are no
secrets, where there is nothing hidden, where you
can be completely open.
Or as I could take the terminology from
the book of Genesis, naked and unashamed, naked
in the sense there's nothing covering, nothing, nothing
here.
No, it's all out in the open.
And yet you're completely unashamed because she's one
with him.
So he'll tell her things that he wouldn't
say to anybody else and she shares everything
and there's nothing kept back, nothing hidden.
That should be the relationship between husband and
wife.
Might I say as well, it should be
the relationship between Jesus and his church, shouldn't
it?
You've been trying to hide things from your
Lord, haven't you?
Now, we all know how foolish it is
to try to hide things from our wives
because they find out, don't they?
How much more foolish is it to try
to hide things from our Saviour?
He knows it already.
It's not a matter of he will find
out.
He has found out.
He knows it.
So why do you keep that secret thing
locked up in your heart?
Why do you continue in that secret sin
thinking that nobody sees when all along the
Lord God sees?
Why don't you let the Lord shine the
light of his truth and his love upon?
See, that's how it should work in the
marriage and that's how it should also work
in the relationship between a believer and his
Lord.
You see, a wife worthy of the name,
she doesn't need to be encouraged to take
an interest in her husband's affairs.
She counts it as her greatest privilege to
help her husband.
She's vitally interested in everything that he does
and she wants it to succeed.
That's how it is between the bride of
Christ and Jesus and that's how it is
between a healthy relationship between husband and wife.
It's not only glory, it's not only plans,
it's not only all of that.
You know, there's another thing that Jesus shares
with his bride and that's his problems and
his sufferings.
You know, the Bible says that we have
the fellowship of his sufferings.
Now, that's a hard thing for us to
swallow, isn't it?
We'll share his glory, we'll share his exaltation,
we'll share his name, we'll share all those
wonderful things, but to share in his sufferings,
well, I don't know about that, but that's
what it is to live in the Christian
life and that's how it is in a
healthy marriage as well.
A wife worthy of the name suffers when
her husband suffers.
She suffers in her heart when she sees
him suffering.
She shares it with him, she bears it
with him and so the apostle Paul would
do in his relationship with Jesus and that's
how it is with the healthy relationship between
a husband and a wife as well.
Friends, Jesus Christ has a glorious destiny, a
glorious future, a glorious prospect.
That's how it should be in the relationship
between the believer and his Lord and the
husband and the wife.
We share in his future.
We recognize the glorious future that Jesus has
called us to.
I just want to say shame on us.
Shame on us for our weakness, our helplessness,
our complaining, our laziness.
The way sometimes we half envy the world
and the so-called riches or the so
-called love that they have, the so-called
wonderful life.
The world's passing away, it's under condemnation, but
you and I have a glorious future to
look forward to.
Every wife, she wants to marry a husband
who has a great future, right?
The husband says, well, honey, you know, we're
going to get married and, you know, in
a few years we're going to be on
the street and I would have a job
and we'll be disheveled and, you know, I
know a nice few soup kitchens down in
town and we can share those together and
you go on and on.
Well, that doesn't sound very appetizing to the
wife, does it?
Believer, I've got glorious news for you.
Your husband, Jesus Christ, has a tremendous future
and you get to share in it with
him.
There you go.
You have that glorious future with him.
You see, that's the destiny that he spoke
about here in verse 27.
And let's conclude with this verse and I
almost apologize.
It's a very incomplete understanding that we have
this passage.
We'll have to string it together over a
few weeks here, but let's conclude with this
thought from verse 27, where he says that
he might present it to himself a glorious
church, not having spot or wrinkle or any
such thing, but that should be holy and
without blemish.
We're aware of this, aren't we, that a
couple, husbands and wives, as the years go
on, the spots and the blemishes increase, they
don't decrease.
But that's not how it is with the
relationship between Jesus and his bride.
As Jesus and his bride, as the believer
and their Lord grow closer and closer together,
the wrinkles diminish, the spots diminish.
No, they're not by any kind of age,
any kind of blemish, any imperfection.
And on that day, when we stand before
the Lord on that wedding day, our preparation
will be perfected and he'll present us all
to himself with all the angels, with all
the potentates of heaven looking on and they'll
scrutinize us and examine us.
And we, as the bride of Christ, will
be checked over from head to foot.
There won't be a single wrinkle, a single
spot will be imperfection before the Lord.
And that's the glorious destiny that he calls
us to.
So I don't know where to end this
message.
I don't know if I should end it
with the exhortation to the husbands.
Husbands, you have this picture in front of
you, don't you?
This is how you must love your wives.
This is the shared life you must live
with them.
I could end it there.
Or I could end it with believer, this
is the shared life that Jesus Christ wants
to have with you.
And look at the glorious destiny you have
in this shared life.
Well, let's leave it with that, shall we?
I mean, how should you feel knowing that
that's your destiny as a believer?
I'll tell you how you should feel.
You meet a engaged woman before her wedding.
And how does she feel?
Well, first of all, she's incredibly stressed because
she has to make all the arrangements with
the flowers and the photographer and the food
and all the arrangements.
But let's say we could wipe all of
that away because I assure you, Jesus is
not going to bother you with the flower
arrangements for your wedding day with him.
That day when you're united with Jesus Christ,
you don't have to worry about the photographer,
the catering.
He has it all arranged.
So if you were to eliminate all of
that from the scene, how does that engage
woman feel?
She's excited, isn't she?
She's almost dreamily excited with this prospect of
the wedding day and being joined to that
person that she'll share her life with forever.
Isn't that how believers should have that attitude
towards the Lord?
Have almost a dreamy excitement about being joined
together with that one that we're espoused to
being ready for that shared life that will
continue on for eternity.
And so here's my simple question for you
to conclude with.
Have you lost that?
Maybe at one time you had that side
of excitement, you look forward to that time,
you had this passionate expectation and desire to
be united with Jesus Christ and to live
with him in that way.
Maybe at one time you had that and
you don't have it anymore.
Shouldn't be that way.
You know, if it's real, it's true, then
you should be excited about it.
If you ran across a bride who was
completely unenthused about her wedding day, I hear
you're getting married in a month.
Yeah.
Well, you're excited, aren't you?
Well, you know, you'd think something's wrong, wouldn't
you?
You'd wonder about that marriage.
You'd say something's wrong with the relationship.
And honestly, now, if there's not an excitement
in your heart that rises up when you
consider your coming union with Jesus Christ, there's
something wrong with the relationship.
Today's the day to get it right.
Why not set it right?
And let's ask the Lord to do that
work in our heart right now.
Let's pray.
Father, I pray this morning and first of
all, I pray for myself and all the
husbands here.
It's so easy for us, Lord, to be
essentially selfish and to live a life separate
from our wives.
But Lord, we we want to follow the
pattern of Jesus and live a shared life
with our bride.
In everything that it means, God, forgive us
for not living up to that ideal, but
Lord, press us on to fulfill it in
the fullness of what it means.
Father, give us a passion for bringing this
to pass.
Do it as a work by your spirit
in our hearts.
But Father, I pray also not only for
the husbands, but for everybody here this morning
who has perhaps lost that excited expectation being
united with Jesus.
Lord, maybe they never had it, maybe they
had it at one time and now it's
gone.
Whatever that place, I pray that you would
restore it right now, even as I pray.
Even as they pray out to you, Lord,
agreeing with my prayer, that you'd give us
all that appropriate, excited expectation that coming day
of union with you and when that shared
life that we enjoy right now with Jesus,
in part, will one day be perfect.
We thank you for it, Lord, in Jesus'
name.
from Calvary Chapel of Simi Valley, call us
at 805-527-0199 or look us up
on the internet at calvarychapel.com slash simi
valley