Your Best Love, 1: Ephesians 5:22-33
The 1st in a 5 Part Sermon Series on
Christian Marriage and Relationships
I. Purpose and Reason
A. Wednesday Morning HS Girls Bible Study
Praying for Your Husband
B. Statistics
HS Girls in Abusive Dating Relationships
Divorce Rate within the Christian Community
… Means marriages are in trouble
=> Breakdown of Family
=> Poverty Issues
=> Long-term behavioral Issues
=> Breakdown of future marriages
C. Boys and girls need both parents
D. Not purpose of sermon series
1. To instill guilt for past failures
2. To go home and tell spouse what they are doing wrong
E. You as one part of marriage relationship are to change yourself
To be best spouse
To build great marriage
II. Ephesians 5:22-33
A. The most unpopular and politically incorrect
B. Most important passage to get right
If to have a meaningful and happy marriage
C. Instructions to husbands and wives
Many never get past first phrase
Wives submit to your husbands
=> unexamined passage
D. Bulk of Paul’s guidance is for husbands
Thus will begin with them
III. Guidance to Husbands – Three Emphasis
Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church
and gave himself up for her, that:
That He might sanctify her,
having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word;
So that he might present the church to himself in splendor,
without spot or wrinkle or any such thing,
That she might be holy and without blemish.
In the same way
husbands should love their 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 Christ does the church,
because we are members of his body.
Let each husband love his wife as himself.
A. Basic Command
Love your wife as Christ loved the Church
3 ramifications
B. Jesus died for the church
He went to the mat, gave it all
Not when the church was perfect
But when we were imperfect
=> Romans 5: 6 and 8
For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Husband’s will give up all of their life for wife
C. Jesus died to present the church to God in all her beauty
=> Revelation 21:2 and 4
I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore.
Husband’s desire is to present wife at her best
Queen and princess
Build up, encourage, be a blessing to her
So, God and the world sees her at her best
No trash talking
D. Love your wife as yourself
Mindful of the great commandment
Marital love is never self-focused
Nourishes and cherishes her
Not worried about himself, his needs
IV. This understanding clarifies the nature of Paul’s Word to Wives
Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.
For the husband is the head of the wife even
as Christ is the head of the church,
his body, and is himself its Savior.
Now as the church submits to Christ,
so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.
Let the wife see that she respects her husband.
A. Basic command, submit to husband as you do to Jesus
B. About the word submit
It is not there in the Greek
The verb is assumed here
Most accurately could translate
Be to your husbands as to the Lord
Raises the question,
What is the presumed to be?
In verse 24 in describing Church be’ness to the Jesus
Paul tells us
Church submits to Jesus
=> Question: How did Jesus submit to the Church
2 answers
C. First aspect of Jesus’ submission
He died for the church
But not convinced this is command for wives
D. Second aspect of Jesus’ submission
Mark 10:42 and 45
You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
John 13:12-14 and 17
“Do you understand what I have done to you? 13 You call me Teacher and Lord, if I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.
These words are to husbands
The husband’s lordship is to be a servant
Wives, men, it is a joy to submit
To be in relationship with someone
Who’s life goal is to serve you
With a serving husband, submission should not be a problem
E. Paul’s words to wives to submit
presupposes the husband’s willingness to die
For his wife
F. Also, the Bible does not under-value the good wife
See Proverbs 31:10-31
Begins with these words:
An excellent wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels. The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain. She does him good, and not harm, all the days of her life.
Ends with praise for her
Industriousness and wisdom
Dedication and service
Blessing to husband and family and community
Go home and read it aloud to each other
=> every husband being willing
To die for his wife
To present her in beauty
To cherish and nourish her
V. Paul’s closing words
Ephesians 5:31-32 (quotes Genesis 2:24)
“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.
A husband and wife committed
to relating to each other God’s way
Husbands dying
Wives submitting
==> a perfect union and oneness
a profound mystery
A union reflective of Christ and the Church
Best expressed in Romans 8:35, 37-39
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Husbands if you will die to your wife
Wives if you will submit to your husband
You’ll have the best marriage
A marriage which endures into eternity
Bread Crumbs - Devotions for Life 
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