Vintage, Not Outdated

There is a message for the modern man and that mass message is sacrificial love. Look back at the text. Verse 25, husbands, you're doing a great job. Keep up the good work. No, that's not what he says. Come on. Love your wives just as Christ loved the church. Husbands, your model is not a king in his castle. Your model is Christ on the cross. That's what marriage is to be modeled for the husband. A husband's love is meant to be sacrificial. [00:20:49] (48 seconds)  #LoveLikeChrist

I I love her, so okay, I'll give it. That's a giving in kind of love. That's passive, guys. We are not called to be passive. We're called to be in pursuit. We're called to be active, to actively, proactively love our wives. And so it is not enough that we would give in. It is a giving up kind of love. We give up our selfishness. We give up our harshness. We give up watching pornography. We give up our laziness. We give up who we are so that our family will flourish. [00:22:39] (37 seconds)  #ActiveSacrificialLove

Guys, you need to ask yourself some questions about your leadership in your home. Here's one of them. Does my wife experience my leadership as protection or pressure? Does my wife experience my leadership in the home as protection? That I'm standing between my family, my wife, my kids? Does she experience that I'm standing between her and an outside world and an evil one and influences that will be harmful? Does she experience my leadership as protection or when I walk in, is my leadership pressure? Pressure to perform, pressure to be perfect, pressure for everything to be right. Which way does she experience your leadership? [00:23:16] (45 seconds)  #ProtectDontPressure

If you obey your command, you'll have plenty to do that you won't have to worry about enforcing his or her command. You are not responsible for the obedience of another person. You are responsible for your obedience. Start obeying your command. Love her sacrificially whether you feel that she respects you or not because your job is sacrificial love. Respect him, honor him whether he actually deserves it or not. He might grow into the man that you want him to be. Who's worthy of respect? Obey your command. Replace reaction with obedience to the Lord. [00:33:36] (58 seconds)  #ObedienceOverReaction

You can study your wife and live with her in an understanding way. Guys, I'm gonna give you four questions. What makes her laugh out loud? What makes your wife laugh out loud? What makes her cry? At my house, that list is too long. If she had a day to do absolutely anything, what would she do? And here's my fourth question. What is she silently carrying right now? What burden is she bearing right now that you could, at the very least, pray for her about? If you can't answer those questions, are you living with your wife in an understanding way? [00:28:23] (51 seconds)  #KnowHerHeart

We are experimenting with marriage. We're trying to figure out a better way to do marriage and I would say go back to the blueprint. Last week, we went back to the blueprint of Genesis chapter two. Marriage is rooted in the creation story and it is a part of God's design. But today, we're going to turn to Ephesians chapter five where we see marriage as part of the redemption story. And the two great stories of the Bible, which are really one, are creation and redemption. [00:06:07] (35 seconds)  #MarriageBlueprint

And in in our culture right now, there is this desire sometimes for things that are a little bit older and we have a word for that that we use a lot, that something is vintage. Well, the biblical marriage isn't garbage. Biblical marriage is vintage. Yes, it is old. It is as old as the Garden of Eden. We learned that last week. But it's not old in the sense that it has expired. It's old in the sense that it has endured. [00:03:20] (30 seconds)  #BiblicalMarriageEndures

Marriage doesn't work, so let's forget about this whole idea of covenant and just kinda be on a contract basis. by doing that, what we're seeing is not that people's lives are getting better, but there is more fear, there is more anxiety, there is more uncertainty. People are not flourishing in our culture. And so there is a a simple statement that I made last week that I'm gonna keep making because I believe it to be true, that God's design is better than culture's experiment. [00:05:31] (35 seconds)  #GodsDesignIsBetter

Be the spiritual leader of your home. Repent first. Be the spiritual leader of your home. Lead your family in prayer. Be the spiritual leader of your home. Do the Bible study. It doesn't have to be elaborate. Just read a verse of scripture and say, this is something that that I read in my Bible study this morning. It really meant a lot to me. And finally, man, glad you're here this morning. Lead your family to church. You be the first one that gets up on Sunday morning and gets ready to go. [00:27:09] (26 seconds)  #BeSpiritualLeader

And by the crazy cycle, he means simply this. She doesn't respect him, so he doesn't love her sacrificially, which leads her not to respect him, so he doesn't respond in love. And it just becomes this endless crazy cycle. But if you begin to say, you know what, I'm going to obey the Lord. It's not about what I do for my spouse. It's about what I do for Jesus. Speak to your spouse in their God given language. [00:34:48] (29 seconds)  #BreakTheCrazyCycle

And so you have to begin to ask yourself a question. Not did I say it, not did I express it, but did they understand it? Does my wife experience and understand my love? Does my husband experience and understand my respect? And finally, remember that every marriage requires the gospel. The gospel is about sacrifice. It is about humility. It is about repentance and it is about forgiveness. Every marriage needs the gospel, and every married couple needs Jesus because a cord of three strands is not easily torn apart. Let's pray together. [00:36:10] (41 seconds)  #GospelAtTheCenter

Some people would say, well, that sounds like the nineteen fifties. I'm not trying to take us back to the nineteen fifties. I'm trying to take us back two thousand years to the New Testament. I'm trying to take you back five thousand years to or six thousand years to creation. I'm trying to take you back to the to the Bible, not to some cultural model of Ward and June Cleaver and leave it to Beaver. That that's not where we're going. What we wanna see is what God has in store for us. [00:10:34] (27 seconds)  #BackToTheBible

That's that's primarily what you're doing. You're obeying Jesus when you do this. When you say, I'm going to let my husband lead. I'm going to fall under. I'm I'm I'm going to support his leadership. It is submission as an act of obedience to the Lord. But let me say this to you. There It also is a limitation to this commandment. And here's the limitation. If your husband says we're going to do something and that something is sinful, there are moments in life when you have to say, oh, say we must obey God and not man. And ladies, that's one of them. [00:17:57] (37 seconds)  #SubmitToGodNotMan

What we do to young girls and to young women is we put pressure upon them to look younger, to be thinner, to be more curated. And ladies, what what Peter and what Paul are saying here, what the New Testament is saying to you is that there is a beauty that you can cultivate that has nothing to do with how you look outwardly. I would say to you that every husband wants to see his wife look beautiful. It's just true. You give your husband a gift when you do. But what Peter is saying is, what the New Testament is saying is the greater quality of beauty is what you cultivate inside. [00:16:56] (37 seconds)  #CultivateInnerBeauty

He apologized but the look on his face is not what mattered. It was the look on her face. That in that moment, I got something right. I did not allow her to be dishonored without addressing it. I held her in honor in doing that. Husbands, it doesn't have to be some waiter had an inappropriate sense of humor, probably. We meant nothing by it. But men, we are called to honor our wives. You see, if you honor her, if you sacrificially love her, that submission command to her gets a lot easier. It gets a lot easier for her. [00:31:48] (60 seconds)  #ProtectAndHonorHer

Now, it is true that no husband can do that completely for his wife. I mean, that's Jesus' job to wash us from our sins. But let me tell you the challenge that I believe Paul is laying out practically for husbands here. He's calling us to be the spiritual leaders of our home. When I call men to leadership, I see them kinda stick out their chest. They like that. They wanna be leaders. I'm glad you wanna be leaders, guys. I I really am. And that's a good thing. But unfortunately, what many men want is the role of leadership without the responsibility of leadership. [00:25:52] (40 seconds)  #LeadershipWithResponsibility

Guys, when we walk into a situation, when we walk into a conflict maybe in our home, does our presence, does when we step into that, does it bring peace to the situation or does it add to the tension of the situation? You see, we are called to a sacrificial kind of love and the answers to those questions will point you to if you're doing it right or not. [00:24:52] (29 seconds)  #BringPeaceNotTension

See, I believe that our culture is beginning to see marriage not as a covenant that protects love and leads to flourishing, but it sees marriage as this constraint that keeps people in some sort of antiquated role. But this morning, what I want us to do is to unpack what God says about marriage. You see, our culture is saying to us now that marriage doesn't work. And so let's just try living together. Let's try cohabitation. Marriage doesn't work, so let's make it easy to get a divorce. [00:04:56] (36 seconds)  #MarriageForFlourishing

And here's the truth, that many times it is our wives who are spiritual leading our homes. Most most of the spiritual leadership in the home is the wife getting up and saying we're going to church. Most of the spiritual leadership in the home is the wife helping the children to memorize a verse for Wednesday nights. Most of the leadership in the home is a wife leading in prayer. That is not the way the picture should be painted. Guys, if you wanna be the spiritual leader of your home, then first of all, you gotta be the lead repenter. you do something wrong, when you step out of line, you gotta apologize and make it right. [00:26:31] (38 seconds)  #LeadRepentFirst

God's love is a love that is poured out even if there is no response to his love. God's love is love that sent his son as a sacrifice for our sins. Husbands, we are called to sacrificially love our spouse. Many times we see that as okay, that means I have to give in. Like, I wanna watch baseball this afternoon and she wants to go look furniture. Okay. We'll go look at furniture. I'll I'll love y'all. I'll give in. She wants to go visit her parents and you just love going to the in laws. You'd rather go out with your friends and go hunting or go fishing, but you give in. [00:21:50] (49 seconds)  #LoveBeyondGivingIn