Husbands and Wives from Ephesians 5 - Part 3

The basic command for husbands in Ephesians 5 is "Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her..." 5:25.

This tells us that our love for our wives is to be SACRIFICIAL, like Christ's for us.

Giving "himself up for her" refers to Christ's crucifixion. His love was a TOTAL, HOLDING NOTHING BACK kind of love.

James M. Boice writes of a story from the Greek histories:

"...The wife of one of the generals of Cyrus, the ruler of Persia, was accused of treachery and was condemned to die. At first her husband did not know what was taking place. But as soon as he heard about it he rushed to the palace and burst into the throne room. He threw himself on the floor before the king and cried out, 'Oh, my Lord Cyrus, take my life instead of hers. Let me die in her place.'
"Cyrus, who by all historical accounts was a noble and extremely sensitive man, was touched by this offer. He said, 'Love like that must not be spoiled by death.' Then he gave the husband and wife back to each other and let the wife go free."
"As they walked away happily the husband said to his wife, 'Did you notice how kindly the king looked at us when he gave you the pardon?' The wife replied, 'I had no eyes for the king. I saw only the man who was willing to die in my place.'" Ephesians, p.200

This wonderful story illustrates how the SACRIFICIAL LOVE of Christ wins the heart of the church and how that same kind of love will win the hearts of our wives.

Jesus said, "Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friend" John 15:13.

Of course, men, we are not called on too often to go to a cross for our wives or to throw ourselves down before the king to offer ourselves in their condemned place. The SACRIFICIAL LOVE we are called on to make is a day by day, moment by moment, situation by situation love that DIES TO OUR OWN PLANS and COMFORT for the good of our wife.

While we steadfastly insist that we are willing to DIE for our wife, she may be wondering if we are willing to LIVE for her. Will we fold the laundry? Will we take up the slack after arriving home from work? Will we listen to her as she shares the details of her day? Will we share with her the details of OUR day? Are we willing to talk for another 15 minutes when our inner alarm says "BEDTIME!"?

How often in the past week have you asked yourself, "What will serve my wife at this moment?"

It is a HIGH and HOLY love that we are called to show our wives. It is a love which follows Jesus to the cross...daily.

But this kind of love will make it a JOY for our wives to SUBMIT to our leadership and will give her eyes ONLY FOR US.

Husbands and Wives from Ephesians 5 - Part 2

Christian marriage means that those who have convenanted together are IN CHRIST. God has chosen them to be in His Son and so to have all the spiritual blessings needed to know and please HIM and one's spouse in marriage.

Being in Christ, according to Paul's letter to the Ephesians, includes the following benefits that flow into the marriage relationship:

• We are made part of the ONE BODY OF CHRIST (Ephesians 2:12ff). We are no longer "lone ranger" sinners. We are members of the church and as members of the church we are to become OTHER-minded and OTHER-centered. Life in the church is to be a life where we learn to live with humility, gentleness, and patience...4:2...towards others. It is a life where we learn to use our gifts and talents for THE GOOD OF OTHERS...4:12-16. All of this other-centeredness is the perfect preparation for the deeper and more intimate relationship of marriage.
• We are indwelt by the HOLY SPIRIT (1:13,14; 3:16; 5:18). The Spirit fills us and we are to be filled with the Spirit, be under His control, so that we can KNOW CHRIST's LOVE, so that we can properly build up one another (5:19), and so that we can SUBMIT to one another in the way that fulfills Christ's will (5:21). We are IN CHRIST and the Holy Spirit is CHRIST IN US.

So, brothers and sisters who are in a Christian marriage, rejoice that you can submit to your own husband and love your own wife IN CHRIST as a part of the OTHER-CENTERED BODY OF CHRIST and INDWELT by the SPIRIT OF CHRIST. You DO NOT NEED more than God in Christ has already supplied for your marriage.

Husbands and Wives from Ephesians 5 - Part 1

The most detailed passage in the Bible on God's design for marriage is found in Ephesians 5:22-33. Three verses address the wife (22-24). Eight verses address the husband (25-32). One summary verse addresses both (33).

ALL of these verses are set in the context of Paul's letter to the Ephesians. This has great consequence. It means that all that is taught BEFORE this passage to husbands and wives has a direct bearing on how the passage is to be understood and how it can be obeyed.

And so, while wives are struggling with SUBMISSION and husbands are struggling with LOVE, they (we!) need to be reminded that the letter doesn't START there! It starts with GOD and CHRIST and what God has done for us IN CHRIST. Of course, Paul reminds us of this throughout this passage as he teaches, "Wives, submit to your own husbands, AS TO THE LORD" (v.22) and, "Husbands, love your wives, AS CHRIST LOVED THE CHURCH" (v.25).

Before we look at any details or talk about practical HOW TOs in regard to submission or love, we need to go back and be reminded WHY it is possible for us to obey these commands. Today we'll briefly consider the fact that we are IN CHRIST.

Ephesians 5 talks about marriage IN CHRIST. It looks at God's will for wives and husbands in CHRISTIAN marriage. The difference between a secular marriage and a Christian marriage is not just that in a Christian marriage Christians are married. In a Christian marriage the husband and wife are IN CHRIST. They have been blessed with every spritiual blessing in the heavenly places IN CHRIST (1:3). When they were dead in trespasses and sins they were made alive by God's mercy and grace IN CHRIST (2:1-5). They are God's creations, created IN CHRIST JESUS for good works (2:10). They have been made members of the same ONE family of God, the body of Christ, the church through the CROSS OF CHRIST (2:11-22). They are God's children, they have God's inheritance, God's hope, God's power, God's Spirit, and know God's love IN CHRIST. And all of this makes them NEW CREATIONS IN CHRIST. Christian husbands and wives DO NOT face marriage day by day and the commands to love and submit with the limited resources of an ordinary sinner. All they will ever need to submit and love has been supplied to them IN CHRIST. They are joined to Christ, they are part of Christ, and therefore all that Christ is and has and has done is made available to them for marriage.

Before you think about WHAT you are to do, remember and believe WHOSE YOU ARE, WHO YOU ARE, and WHAT YOU HAVE...IN CHRIST.

Loving Jesus by Being WITH Jesus

Luke records for us a little "in house" encounter of Jesus in 10:38-42. Jesus was a couple of miles from Jerusalem and visited the home of Martha and Mary (and Lazarus). BOTH of these women loved Jesus and Jesus loved them. The immediate context before this home visit was Jesus' parable of the Good Samaritan, shared with an expert in the law who wanted to "save face" before others by asking Jesus "who then is my neighbor?" Jesus then told this true to life story, making the point that loving our neighbor means to help and serve those with needs around us.

But what does it mean to love GOD with all of our heart? What does it mean to love Jesus? Perhaps Luke includes this story or Martha and Mary to illustrate the first part of the Great Commandment.

Realize that when Jesus showed up at Martha's home, He had at least the 12 inner circle disciples in tow. This means there are at least 26 extra feet to wash and 13 extra plates to set. Martha, being a good and conscientious Jewish hostess, has some WORK to do! She apparently gladly welcomes Jesus into her home...and then gets to it. She knew what a privilege it was to have Jesus present as guest and knew what she wanted to do to show Him how much she valued His presence.

Mary, Martha's sister, shows her love for Jesus in a different way. Breaking the mold for Jewish women with a Rabbi present, she CHOOSES to sit at Jesus' feet and listen to Him, just like one of the 12, just like she is His disciple herself. Jesus breaks the Rabbi and religious leader mold by WELCOMING HER and treating her like she IS a disciple, though she is a woman.

Martha is not happy with this scenario. She is busting her gut to serve Jesus and His disciples and Mary is sitting there enjoying the Lord LIKE THERE IS NOTHING TO DO IN THE KITCHEN! So, like the take charge gal she is, Martha comes to Jesus...but NOT to listen and NOT to sit at His feet. "Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me" v.40.

Whoa! "...Do you not care...?"! It is easy to think the Lord doesn't care when you are busting YOUR guts to do good and others are just "enjoying the Lord." "Why is Mary just sitting there like there is nothing to do?!" But...WASN'T Mary doing something?

What Martha was doing WAS important. And it wasn't WHAT she was doing that Jesus highlights in His response... "Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary." 41,42. Martha sought to show her love by the EXTENT to which she was making preparations. She wanted to put out the BEST spread possible. No simple one or two course meal at Martha's! She wanted Jesus to KNOW how much she valued His presence in her home. Now...WHY can't Mary see this and seek to show the same kind of love?

Because, as Jesus says, "Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her" v.42. Mary chose to BE WITH JESUS and to LISTEN TO JESUS. Her heart was to be with Him, to be near Him. Her food was to take in the bread of life from the Bread of Life. In the immediate determination of values that Mary made, perhaps without conscious deliberation, as Jesus entered their home, she CHOSE to get as close and stay as close as she could to the Master.

This is not really a tale of the worker versus the contemplative. It is rather a tale of HOW JESUS WANTS TO BE LOVED by us. He wants us to work. He saved us to do good works - Ephesians 2:10. But the works are not to replace or crowd out our BEING WITH HIM and LISTENING TO HIM as a loving disciple. Work CAN be a poor replacement for relationship. Work CAN be a poor replacement for PRESENCE. Work CAN say, "I love you, but I'm afraid to be close to You."

How do YOU love Jesus? There is no magic formula for how much time we are to spend with Jesus or how that time is to be spent. But there are several musts:

• We MUST spend time with Jesus listening to Him through His WORD. That is the ONLY place where His voice comes through loud and clear without error every time.
• We MUST spend time with Jesus talking to Him in prayer. He listens. He wants two-way relationship.
• We MUST spend time with Jesus in CHURCH. That is where we sit at His feet together with other loving, listening disciples. This is where it is confirmed that it is really Jesus we are spending time with and not a Jesus of my own making who is saying things that are not in line with reality.
• Our WORK for Jesus, and there MUST be work in the life of a loving disciple, will be a work of fruitful love when it follows and is empowered by being with Jesus in the Word and Prayer FIRST of all. Work FOR Jesus pleases Him when it flows out of BEING WITH Jesus.

What a privilege to have Jesus Christ, Lord and Maker of the universe, seeking fellowship with the likes of us daily. Let us find, let us MAKE, let us like Mary CHOOSE to sit at His feet and listen as He speaks just as powerfully and personally today through His inerrant Word.

Lessons from Vacation

A few things I learned while on vacation:

• I am NOT in Heaven yet! When you travel nearly 5,000 miles and sleep in 10-12 different places you tend to feel like a displaced alien. I am. Though I THOROUGHLY ENJOYED our VACATION, I really looked forward to getting home, where my office is and my garage is and my sock drawer is and my church family is. This longing for permanence, I realized, was a faint whisper of my soul's longing to be with Jesus in Heaven forever. God has destined us for a PLACE and a PURPOSE and a PERSON that is PERMANENT. Bring it on!
• I am a WRETCH with DIVINE RESOURCES. I left for vacation with the prayer that God would use me to serve and bless those I was with: family, friends, and sovereign encounters. I am not sure I was out of the driveway at home before I was struggling with the selfish flesh. I got perturbed with my wife, my girls, the truck drivers on I-80 (and I-90, I-94, I-39, I-70...), the too-steep hills of western PA, the too-long dipper for ice-cream at Penn Alps restaraunt, and the fact that my family didn't share my love for a loud fan at night. And that's only the "I'm not as bad a you think" list! But a glorious reality burst into my consciouness over and over during those days: "I am NOT who I used to be. I am in Christ Jesus. He is my Lord and Savior and Strength and Provider who lives in me by His Spirit. I can say "No!" to my selfish, irritated, critical spirit and "Yes!" to Christ and the Spirit and love." Wow! It IS true: "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation" 2 Corinthians 5:17.
• My FATHER in Heaven is LAVISH. I know from the Scriptures that He has lavished grace on us through Christ, Ephesians 1:7-8, and that is AWESOME. But as we travelled from MN to PA to NJ to MD to DC to VA to NC and from mountains to ocean and from stormy to cloudless days, I saw my Father's lavishness over and over and over. Waterfalls. Raging rivers. Berry bushes heavy with fruit. Deer frolicking at dusk. A full moon rising over the mountains. Corn with tassels over my head. Valleys lush and green with crops and trees and grasses. Peacocks guarding the barn door of a remote farm. God could have made this world gray and fruitless and blossomless. But He has made it FULL of color and smells and shapes and sounds and panoramas that fill the mind and heart with wonder...at HIM. What a lavishness...for YOU and ME to enjoy...and to turn to WORSHIP.
• My times are in HIS HANDS. My oldest daughter and I were having a great time bobbing the waves at Va Beach. We had been in the water for about an hour. Suddenly, a wave passed by and we were TWICE as FAR from the beach as we had been a moment earlier! We were caught in a rip tide...my first. I was soon in water too deep to touch the bottom and keep my nose above the surface. We could both swim, but we are both "dead weight" type swimmers and we tire quickly. There was a quick realization that we were in trouble and we struggled to swim towards shore. We only seemed to be moving backwards. We talked to each other. I tried to keep Briana from panicking. What do you do in times like this? "Lord, help!" That was about it. He DID help. After a few moments a couple of waves came in that pushed us JUST far enough for me to touch bottom and have the footing to push my daughter forward until we both were safe. Exhausted we trudged onto the beach, THANKED GOD, and enjoyed the sand for awhile.

These are FOUR lessons I learned or re-learned or futher-learned during this vacation. All of life is God's glorious classroom. And, man, does He teach!

In Christ: Know It, Live It - 60 (How Change Begins and Continues - 3)

"...And to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness." Ephesians 4:24

Our old self, the person we were and the life we lived before Christ, was PUT OFF when we turned from our sin to trust in Christ. But there was not just a putting off, there was also, of necessity, a PUTTING ON - of a NEW SELF - created after GOD'S likeness. This "put on" is also an aorist, "put on once for all." We ARE NOT who we were anymore. We ARE new creations in Christ.

Conversion involves both the intentional putting off of the old and the putting on of the new, the turning away from sin and the turning to Christ. God's transforming power through the gospel and the Spirit makes this possible...and a permanent reality. If conversion is ONLY my choice, then my choice might change. I know how fickle I am...at my BEST moments. But when I understand that MY choice is the result of GOD'S choice of me from eternity past (Ephesians 1:4), I gain the confidence and ASSURANCE of a salvation, a putting off and putting on, that WILL NOT, CANNOT be reversed.

In other words, I am not just a new person because I CHOSE to be a new person. I am a new person PRIMARILY because God has transformed me by sovereign, divine power. I am not new when the toggle switch of my choice is YES towards Christ today, but am back to being the old me when I toggle back over to NO. God has given me a NEW switch in my will. My life as a whole is YES to Christ. Oh, there are certainly struggles with "no's", but not settled, direction-of-my-will-and- life no's. I have put off the old and put on the new.

Is this your mindset in life? Is this the gospel you heard and believed in? Has God really done what He promised in your life through the perfect life, sufficient death, and victorious resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ? If you have turned to trust the mighty Christ as your Lord and Savior, then YOU ARE NOT WHO YOU WERE. YOU ARE A NEW CREATION IN CHRIST! That is the fact of your identity.

Understanding this and standing on this makes all the difference in your WALK. If you are trying to be someone that you don't believe you are...you will flounder and wilt in the face of temptation. But if you KNOW who you are, you are equipped to trust Christ in every circumstance to empower you to be that new creation, created in the image of God.

In Christ: Know It, Live It - 59 (How Change Begins and Continues - 2)

"...Put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires..." Ephesians 4:22

When we become Christians, what is the deal with the old life? The deal is... PUT IT OFF. "Put off" in v.22 above is an aorist..."PUT IT OFF ONCE FOR ALL..." The proper tense for the habits of our life before Christ is PAST! Now, this is NOT the full story, but it IS the indispensable BEGINNING point. If we were taught the biblical gospel of Christ we were taught that we were rebels, dead in trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1-2) and alienated from God's life. This condition demanded REPENTANCE towards God and away from sin (Acts 20:21). There is NO teaching of the true gospel that states or intimates that we can continue in our sins and rebellion while seeking to trust Christ. TRUST (faith) cannot exist apart from TURNING (repentance). We are saved FROM sin TO a new life...in CHRIST.

However, if for one moment we think that in ourselves we can TURN from our sin by sheer willpower, we are gravely and miserably mistaken. We MUST repent, we are COMMANDED to repent (Acts 17:30), but this repentance unto life is a GIFT from God (Acts 11:18). God, through the preaching of the gospel and the work of the Spirit grants a deep conviction of sin...MY sin...MY sin that DAMNS...and along with it a passion to confess my sin and turn from my sin...now and and to the end of my life. Along with this desire to turn from our sin God grants a new heart that is BENT towards God and righteousness.

The new life starts with a decisive separation from the old life. Again, this desire to put away the old life and the decision to put away the old life are GIFTS from God, evidenced by our CHOICE to repent and obey.

If we are truly born again, we ARE NOT who we were, by God's divine work and our divinely-enabled choice.