Husbands, Love Your Wives As Christ Loved the Church
Minister: |
Rev. Ronald Van Overloop |
Date: |
5/26/2019 AM
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Text:
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Ephesians 5:25-27
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Psalters: |
88, 330, 124, 125 |
Sacrament of Baptism |
- The love.
- The love God commands is NOT first and primarily emotional feelings of attraction and the desire to be near.
- The great duty of the converted man who is a husband is to agape his God-given wife.
- Agape is the love which excels, for while it includes/assumes powerful fondness and physical/sexual desires, it is more.
- It begins with knowledge, first of God’s love for His own in election, in redemption (justification) and in sanctification.
- Then it is the determination to see myself and my wife the way in which God sees me, i.e., in Christ.
- Because of this knowledge and determination agape is the great desire to be with in sweet fellowship.
- Husbands learn to love when they know Christ’s great love for them.
- Marital agape is to reflect the love of Jesus for His church.
- Jesus’ love for His church begins with:
- Jesus’ love for His church is an obedient, returning love to God which gives Himself in love for those given Him of the Father.
- His headship is rooted in His sacrificial love for His people. He stooped down and humbled Himself to show us His love.
- She did not attract Him to herself, for she was a filthy sinner; He loved us while we were yet sinners (Rom. 5:8).
- So the believing husband is to love his wife.
- Agape knows her as a fellow-saint, as bought with Jesus’ blood, as clothed with His righteousness, as bound for heaven.
- Similarly a husband’s headship stems from his sacrificial love for his wife.
- He knows that, if he does not love her, he is disobedient to the Lord.
- Love’s purpose is to sanctify and cleanse her – not simply to satisfy her nor just to keep peace, but to make holy or godly.
- The purpose of Christ’s love is to make her perfect, individually and as a whole.
- A man sets his love on one woman, sets her apart for himself, to be his own unique treasure.