Thank you, Mark, for leading us again this morning, and welcome to everybody. Good to see everybody here this morning. Maybe we're going to see the sun today, I hope. Mark told me there was rain in the forecast. I told him he's looking at the wrong forecast, so we got hay to make. 

All right, we're continuing our study in the book of Ephesians in chapter 5, and this is a very practical section of the letter with Paul building on the indicatives, the truths, of who we are in Christ. He says that we are to walk in consistency with who we are, equal weighed at 4-1, because of our salvation, our regeneration, being placed into Christ, and now living not by the letter, but by the spirit and Christ's life in us. 

These truths impact every facet and detail of our lives and are manifest in the various relationships that God has designed in which we live. And so Paul, starting with the marriage relationship and husbands and wives, makes practical application of how God intends that we should relate to one another. 

Last week, we looked at the admonition of verse 21, submitting to one another, and in particular, at the instruction to the wives and the spirit of submission. Wives, submit to your own husbands. This attitude or spirit of submission is vital in every relationship in which we exist, as we're going to see as we move through the book or as we study passages like 1 Peter. 

And as we saw in our study last week, it is ultimately not submission to our husbands, our bosses, our government, but to our Lord. It is this mind, this attitude that was also in Christ, and here we find God's way for us to live and have fruit and bring him glory. It's wholly contrary to our world, wholly contrary to the man and Adam. 

But the way that Jesus has shown us, has taught us to live, is with an attitude of submission, a heart to love God and love others as he has commanded. And we find a great example of this teaching, so contrary to man, to Adam in Matthew chapter 20. 

I just wanted to ask you to turn to Matthew 20 as we begin at verse 20. Matthew 20, 20 says, then the mother of Zebedee's sons came to him with her sons, kneeling down and asking something from him. And he said to her, what do you wish? She said to him, grant that these two sons of mine may sit one on your right hand and the other on your left in your kingdom. 

But Jesus answered and said, you do not know what you ask. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with? And they said to him, we are able. So he said to them, you will indeed drink my cup and be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with. But to sit on my right hand and on my left is not mine to give, but it is for those for whom it is prepared by my father. 

And when the 10 heard it, they were greatly displeased with the two brothers. But Jesus called them to himself and said, you know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them. And those who are great exercise authority over them. Yet it shall not be so among you. But whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave, just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. 

We're going to see Paul set Jesus and his sacrifice for his bride and his love for his body as an example for the husband and wife. He loved her and gave himself for her, that he might sanctify her and present her blameless, his body, his church. So the husbands are to love their own wives as Christ loved the church. This is only possible in the new creation, the new birth. 

And we will see in our study this morning the theological doctrinal basis for this in the transformation from the man in Adam to the man in Christ. We now in Christ are able to love, to live our lives for the good of others. And in the marriage relationship, this becomes a natural love, as we will see, for our own flesh, as the two have become one flesh. The husband is the head and the wife the body, just as Christ and his bride, the church. 

Paul paints a beautiful picture here, and it teaches us about marriage, about the role of the husband and the role of the wife, the attitude of submission, the type of Christ and his church, and the example that Jesus gives, the standard he sets for the husband, the new creation, the man in Christ. 

Let's look at our text together in Ephesians 5, verse 25. 

Husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for her, that he might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that he might present her to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she 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 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. Nevertheless, let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. 

Well, I've given you five points on your outline this morning. First, the New Testament imperative. Second, as Christ loved the church. Third, for her good. Fourth, a natural love. And fifth, God's plan for marriage. 

As we have been observing and discussing Paul's instructions, practical applications, are firmly founded on doctrinal truth, who we are, what we have in Christ. He spent three chapters laying these truths out, and then in 4.1 began to encourage us to apply these truths in how we live unto holiness and righteousness, manifest in submission and love toward one another. 

The instruction to husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her is a particularly profound picture of the manifestation of Christ's life in us, as we are in him and live by his life and power through us. 

I want to take a little time and go back to this new covenant truth and draw a contrast between the man in Adam and the man in Christ, and consider the command of the new covenant found in 1 John 3.23, as well as Romans 13, and much of Jesus' teaching. We need to renew our minds to these foundational truths continually. They're sometimes hard to hold on to. 

And God's provision and intention in saving us is for us to live a new kind of life. And if we're really to understand what Paul's saying to the husbands in our text and about Christ and his church, we have to have a firm grasp of the truth that underlies the admonition. So let's start with the man in Adam, and we could look at a multitude of texts, but let's stay close in context and go back to Ephesians 4 at verse 17, where Paul gives a characterization of the man outside of Christ. 

This I say, therefore, he says, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart, who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness to work all uncleanness with greediness. It's a dim picture. 

We could look at Romans 3, 1 to 18. I mean, the same type of thing, characterizing the man in Adam apart from God, without the life of God in him. This characterizes him. This is the manifestation of who he is, and love, agape, self-sacrificial love, is not possible for him. 

There's also an interesting passage in 2 Timothy 3. Let's look at 2 Timothy 3 at verse 1. Paul says, but know this, that in the last days, perilous times will come. For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away. 

We're going to come back to this later in our study, but I want you to notice a word in verse 3, unloving. This word refers to a natural kind of love. Uist makes this comment. He said, it is a love that is a natural movement of the soul, something almost like gravitation or some other force of blind nature. It is the love of parents for children, children for parents, of husbands for wives, and wives for husbands. It is a love of obligatoriness. I never had seen that word before. The term being used here, not in its moral sense, but in a natural sense. 

It is a necessity under the circumstances. This is the binding factor by which any natural or social unit is held together. Well, guess what, my brothers and sisters? Our social unit is being blown apart because of a lack of natural familial love, love for those who are members of your natural family. Care for a wife or a child. This is common to man, but because man has been given over to his sin. 

And in these last days, Paul says, as we progress toward the end, we see this even go away. I'm always stunned thinking about a news story I read a few years ago in Minneapolis. A woman drowned her four children in the bathtub. Why did she do that? Because they stood in the way of something she wanted. Unnatural, unloving. 

What Paul is saying in this context in 2 Timothy 3, and I'm afraid we now see in our world, is that in these last days, man will become so wicked that he will not even have this natural familial love, but will become so selfish as to hate those of his own family in favor of his own selfish desires. The love that Paul talks about in our text, that Christ manifest at the cross, is so far beyond this natural familial kind of love, it is wholly impossible for the man and Adam to experience, to exercise in his life, because he is bound by the sin that dwells in him. 

And God, because of the man's own choices, has given him over to that sin. We see this characterized and contrasted in Romans 7 and 8. Let's look at Romans 7. Turn to Romans 7 with me. In verses 7 to 25, Paul's answering two questions that he raised in verse 5. Be a little precursor to our mini-conference here in a couple weeks for you. 

He's answering two questions that he raised in verse 5 concerning the law's relationship to indwelling sin and the law's relationship to death. In verse 5, he is characterizing the life of the man and Adam. He talks about how when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit unto death when we were in the flesh. And so in the questions coming out of verse 5, at verse 7 is the law sin, at verse 13 is what is good, the law become death to me, are in the context and the answers relate to the man and Adam. 

Romans 7.14, for we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, a slave to sin, sold under sin. This man is a slave to indwelling sin. Look at verse 23. He says, but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin, which is in my members. O wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death? 

This is the wretched man and Adam, the man whose members, whose body is continually manifesting fruit unto death, who is in bondage, captivity to the law of sin in his members. But I want you to notice the text that Mark read earlier, Romans 8, verse 1. There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus, what? Has made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh. 

On account of sin, he condemned sin in the flesh. Why? Why did God send Christ to do this? Why did Christ condemn sin in the flesh? In order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the spirit. 

This man, the man in Christ, has been made free from the law of sin and death in his members for a specific purpose in verse 4, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us. Notice the context is walking, how we live. The man in Christ contrasted with the man in Adam. 

Romans 13 tells us that the fulfillment of the law is what? Love. So what the man in Christ can do that the man in Adam cannot do is love. And this is the very reason God saved us, to pour His love out into our hearts, to equip us, to impart strength to our inner man by His Spirit who lives in us, to have Christ live His life in and through us as we walk by faith, abiding in Him, to have the fruit of love, Christ's love, flow out through us to God and to man so that the transforming power of the gospel might be shown in us so that God might be glorified in the church. 

And based on these great and profound doctrines, we find that love is the manifestation of who we are. And when we do not love, it's because we forget who we are and we choose not to trust what God says is true about us because of what He has done by His grace and power in us through Christ. Jesus summed this up in John 13. He said, a new commandment I give to you, that you love one another as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this, all will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. 

This is the New Testament imperative. First John 3.23 says, this is His commandment, that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another as He gave us commandment. 

Now in our text, Paul makes application of these truths and gives this instruction to the husbands. Mark said, equal time, ladies, and my wife pointed out, no, he spends a lot more time on the husbands, and look, he repeats himself, so you'll hear. 

As Christ loved the church, it says. This is a weighty, truly overwhelming, and seemingly impossible command. The wife is to submit to her husband, to entrust herself to him and his leadership willingly. She is responsible to her husband. But the husband is responsible to Christ. Christ is the head of the man, and also His example. 

Love as Jesus loves. And how did Christ love the church? He gave Himself for her unto death, for her good. As we have seen, this command to love is based on the doctrine, the truths of what God has done in regeneration, our union with Jesus in His death, burial, and resurrection. The fact that we have been made free from the controlling power of indwelling sin, from the bondage of the law, from the fear of death, and are now empowered by the Spirit and Christ's life in us through faith to love as Jesus loved. 

And this is God's very intent for us in saving us. This is His expectation for you. What is your expectation every day in your life? It starts with understanding the truth. We can't apply it if we don't understand it. We can't apply it if we don't expect it. We can't apply it if we don't trust God to work it out. But we have to believe Him, and first we have to know. That's why Romans 6 says you have to know. Do you not know, Paul says. And then he tells us to count up those facts, to reckon it to be so, and then present our members as members of righteousness, unto righteousness. 

So first we must know. But God intended to make us holy, to make us like Jesus when He saved us, and it is the essence of being conformed to Christ's likeness of sanctification, this principle, this truth of love. God's love manifests in and through our lives. 

But there's even more going on in the text before us for our understanding, for our application in the context of marriage. Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her, a high standard indeed. 

I was thinking about, yesterday I was on the farm, what's this really mean? And I don't know if this is a good explanation or not, but the thought that came to my mind is, it means that when I walk past my socks laying on the floor, I stop and pick them up. Because at that point I make a decision, right? I know I'm supposed to pick them up. And sometimes I think, eh, and walk by and leave them, she'll pick them up. No, I need to pick them up. 

That's just a silly, but that was a thought that came to my mind, and that could be different in your life. I want you to notice how the marriage relationship typifies the relationship of Christ and His church. Look at verse 25 again, we're going to read our text. Husbands love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she 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. So we see here that certainly part of this love for our wives is to wash them in the water with the word, to lead them in holiness, to encourage them, to listen to them. Peter says dwell with them with understanding, right? Honor them. 

But guiding them spiritually is certainly part of this. Verse 29, for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes just as the Lord does the church, for we are members of His body, of His flesh and 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. 

Well first we see that Christ gave Himself for her, for her good, for her salvation, for her sanctification. This is self-sacrifice, this is agape love, and it's also a gift, a gift of Himself, His grace, His person, His sufficiency for all that He intends for His bride. 

But Paul draws a marvelous picture here that is so much deeper than what we might see at first. It is the principle we've seen him highlight before, that of the church being the body. Christ is the head, the church is the body, and there are many personal possession words in this text. 

You'll remember last week we saw that the wife is to submit to her own husband. Not any old husband, not all men, but her own husband, her own personal possession. And we see this language continue, emphasized in the original language, husbands love your wives, so husbands are to love their own wives as their own body. And the wife's own personal possession, her husband, is the head. 

This is Christ as the head of the church and the believers as his body. So the man is the head, the husband, the head of his own personal possession, his wife, and she is his body, one body, his own flesh, his own blood, as the two have become one flesh. This is an amazing statement on God's view of marriage, how the two become one, how they are so united and incorporated permanently as to typify Christ and His body, His church. 

Look at verse 28, 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. 

I think this is often understood in this way, love your wife as you love yourself. But there's much more here, a much deeper meaning, it's not just as yourself, as you would love yourself and take care of yourself, so love this other person over here, this totally independent person, your wife, as you would love your neighbor as yourself. 

What Paul is saying is that she is yourself. You have been wholly united to your wife through the covenant of marriage, and the two have become one flesh, and in this picture, this type, marriage signifies the union of Christ and His church. As Jesus is the head and the church is the body, and we have been united permanently together through death, burial, and resurrection. 

In marriage, the two become one flesh, wholly united together so that Paul describes the husband as the head and the wife as the body. And so when you love your wife, you love yourself, your own body, and cherish and nourish her as you would your own body. 

The argument Paul is making here is that this becomes a natural love. How different from the world and its view of marriage. In the world, marriage is just a piece of paper, just a formality. And so many are not getting married at all today. I remember years ago when I guided the guys from Sweden, no one gets married over there. And my good buddy Anders, who led those hunts and had that business in Stockholm, he came over one time and he told me, he said, I got married. Well, he already had four kids and he'd been with this woman for, you know, 20 years. I said, why'd you get married? He said, well, my wife wanted it for her 40th birthday, so I got married. 

People don't get married because there's no benefit to them personally. In fact, in our society and government, we penalize marriage, even in taxes. And if I do decide to get married, then I will stay with you as long as you meet my needs, as long as you fulfill me, as long as you don't annoy me too much. But if you fail to satisfy my desires, then I'll cast you away and I'll find a better one. 

This is how the selfishness of sin manifests itself in the family today, in the marriages of our world. But in God's creation, in His gift of marriage, where marriage is, as Peter says, the grace of life, the husband and wife are a type of Christ and His church. There's a union of the two into one flesh and they are so intertwined as to be compared to the death we experience of our old man, the crucifixion with Christ, burial and resurrection to a new life when we believe. 

And now Paul says the man and his wife are one, and in their respective roles in this union, the man is the head and the woman is the body. And the natural love that exists when one cares for his own body and nourishes it and cherishes it is the natural love of a husband for his wife. And even more than this, because of who we are and what we have in Christ, we as husbands can exhibit a supernatural love, the love of Christ, agape, self-sacrificial love for our wives as we walk in the Spirit and abide in Him by faith. 

It's not easy. Much easier to just act out my feelings, right? Think about what I want. It takes volition, it takes choice, it takes abiding, it takes dependence on Christ. There's a battle to this. This is God's plan for marriage. This is the picture of Christ and his church, for we are members of His body. 

For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. The mystery is great, Paul says, Christ and his body, the church, but marriage, husband and wife, is to be a picture of this very mystery. 

And Peter gives a similar instruction, with further insight, 1 Peter 3, we'll look at that text as we close here, 1 Peter 3 1, Peter says, Likewise, be submissive to your own husbands, that even if some do not obey the word," now that is most often taken as an unbeliever, and that's true, but it is also true that a believing husband cannot obey the word, even if they do not obey the word, they without a word may be won by the conduct of their wives, when they observe your chaste conduct accompanied by fear, do not let your adornment be merely outward, arranging the hair, wearing gold or putting on fine apparel, rather, let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God. 

For in this manner, in former times, the holy women who trusted in God also adorned themselves being submissive to their own husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord, whose daughters you are if you do good and are not afraid with any terror." 

We were talking about this on the way to Rhinelander the other day, Bobby and I, and we walked into Menards and I said something to her and she said, yes, Lord, I'm not sure about that. 

Verse 7, husbands, likewise, dwell with them with understanding, giving honor to the wife as to the weaker vessel and as being heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers may not be hindered. 

Peter pictures the husband and wife as co-heirs together of the grace of life, a team, a union closer than any other, even as one flesh, and he encourages the husbands here to dwell with them with understanding, giving honor to the wife. The husband is to dwell with the wife, remembering that she is an instrument of God, as well as the husband, a child of God, to be used by him for his glory, and to support her, to encourage her in that. 

If they're going to be effective witnesses for God, raising children in love and admonition concerning the Lord, if they're going to glorify God and be fruitful, then husbands and wives must fulfill their proper roles in this relationship as bond slaves of God, as those with submissive attitudes and loving hearts. 

Wives be submissive to your husbands and respect them, help, encourage them, pray for them, help them in wisdom. Husbands love your own wives as Jesus loved the church and gave himself for her, wash her in the word, give yourself to her and for her, and do what is best for her. 

It is the fulfillment of these roles that God has designed and commanded, that God's plan for marriage in which can be fulfilled, that we can live out who we are, that we can be a witness in this world. The world is darker now than ever. A biblical marriage of love is a witness, a biblical family is a witness, and most importantly in all this, we glorify God. 

Let's close in prayer. 

Father, we're so thankful, thankful for the new life in Christ, for the new covenant, for what You have done, changing us, transforming us, crucifying our old man with Jesus, that the body controlled by indwelling sin might be rendered powerless or done away with, that we might now live for the one who died for us. Help us to know these truths, to believe them, and Lord, for Your sake, for Your glory, for our good, help us to apply them in our lives, in our homes, in our marriages, so that we might glorify You. 

In Jesus' name, amen.