Things can change after you're married.  I don't know if any of you realize that, but after you're married things can change.  Before marriage a man might say to his wife, "I will climb the highest mountain for you."  Then after marriage, he might not have the motivation to carry the laundry up the stairs.  Well, before marriage, a man might tell his wife, "Darling, I will swim the deepest seas for you, my love."  But then after marriage, he doesn't want to get his hands in the dishwater to wash the dishes. 
                                                                                                                                 
Well I remember a story when I was first married when I really impressed my wife the first time that she saw our new apartment.  We lived 1,000 miles apart before we were married.  We were married in Wyoming where she was living and I had rented an apartment for us in Indiana which she had not seen until about after a week after our wedding.  I remember the first night I brought her home and how impressed she was because I had installed for her a night light in every room in that apartment because in one of our telephone conversations several months earlier, she had confessed to me that she was afraid of the dark (it was a deep dark secret of hers) and then, without anything further being said on that subject, I had bought these night lights so she would feel more comfortable when I brought her home.  To this day I still get good reviews from having that done that for her.  She might have told some of you that story – of how great I was.  But, I wanted to do whatever I could at that time to accommodate my new wife and make her comfortable, to attend to her every need. 

Well, now if we fast forward to this past year, we moved to Ohio after 16 years of marriage.  My wife was still living back in Indiana and most weeks I was over here living and working in a new house and not seeing her.  So, one weekend I invited her to come over and visit and I decided I would make dinner for her and the boys in our new kitchen.  Well, my wife got there and she started looking around and she looked around the kitchen and she asked me quietly.  She said:  "Why did you move the silverware to another drawer?  I had it right where I wanted it."  Well, I answered her, I said:  "Well Catherine, the place where you had it was stupid. It didn't make any sense. It obviously belongs across from the sink."  Well, let's just say that I was quickly educated, that there were better – there were more tactful ways –   that I could have approached that conversation with my wife.

Well, as many of you know, when you're married, you're going to have both bad and good experiences.  You and your spouse will do wonderful caring things for each other and you're also going to make some mistakes and you're going to mistreat each other from time to time.  It's inevitable that you're going to have some conflicts in your marriage. 

Now as a husband, I try to show love to my wife.  Let's turn to Paul's letter to the Ephesians, chapter 5 and look at how we can do that; how we should show love to our wives.  Paul says:

Ephesians 5:25  Husbands, love your wives.

Over the years in the church I've heard this phrase, I've heard this verse read many times and it says:  Husbands, love your wives.  I've heard many more times than I can count.  So I made that the title of my sermon this afternoon, "Husbands Love Your Wives."

So in this verse, Verse 25:  Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself  for it.

I heard this passage used to encourage or remind husbands the importance of showing love in our marriages.  It's an important thing we need to do.  This afternoon I want to look into how we, as husbands can show that love to our wives.  Now before getting too far into the sermon, I want to make a little disclaimer, I want to make it clear that when I talk to husbands about our wives, this still only means only one wife per husband.  I realize that language can get a little bit ambiguous there so I want to make that clear in advance because it sounds like such a simple statement, love your wives.  What does it mean to love?  What does it look like to love someone?  Love isn't really an action, love isn't a task that you can have on your list of things to do on Tuesday and say: "Yep, I love my wife, I'm done with that."  You know, it's an attitude, it's a way of interacting with other people, one of those fuzzy things.

Fortunately, Paul give us an analogy.  He give us an explanation of what that love of a husband and wife looks like.  He tells us to look at Christ's love for the church.  So if you aren't a husband and I realize some of you here are not husbands, then don't think that you can tune out the rest of the sermon.  You should still stay awake because there's a lot that we can still learn about how Christ loves us, His bride to be, the church.  If you're someone who is not married yet, I hope the gentlemen will take the instruction to heart and plan to develop in these areas and I hope the ladies will think about these criteria and use them to evaluate the man that they might want to spend the rest of their lives with. 

So recently, while hearing this passage about husbands love your wives in another sermon, I realized that while Paul tells us in this passage to love our wives as Christ loved the church, I realized that I myself  hadn't sat down, I hadn't thought about the many ways that Christ loves the church.  How does Christ love the church?  So today I'm going to present to you seven ways that Christ loves the church.  These are all ways that as husbands, we can love our wives.  In this passage in Ephesians chapter 5, Paul gives us a template or an outline of what a husband's love looks like.  That template, that model, that we should strive for is the love of Christ for the church.  So in Ephesians chapter 5, verse 25, we read that Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her.

So the first way that Christ loved the church, is that He gave Himself, He gave Himself for the church.  We know that Jesus Christ literally gave up His human life as a sacrifice for us that we might all have eternal life.  What we see here is a type of love that is a sacrificial love.  It's a serving love.  We see that model here and not a selfish love.  Christ didn't give Himself as a sacrifice to bring glory to Himself.  He didn't give Himself as a sacrifice to impress the Father.  He didn't have selfish motives.  He didn't lay down His life for His own salvation, it was for our salvation.  As it says in:

John 15:13  Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends. 

Christ's sacrifice was for our benefit.  He did it so that we could have life and to have it more abundantly.  His death was for the ultimate good of the church.   Do we show that type of love in our marriage relationships?  Do we show the type of love that it's for the ultimate good of our spouse?  It doesn't say in this verse, husbands make your wives happy.  It's not about sacrificing yourself to make your wife happy.  When Christ gave Himself for the church, it wasn't to make the church happy.  It wasn't about Him necessarily making the life easier for us, for  those in the church.  It was more about doing something that was going to be best for the church in the long run, in the future that we can barely even see at this point.  It's doing something for her ultimate good.  So this sacrificial love that we see modeled here is more than just performing acts of kindness to somebody in marriage.  Now we certainly do want to be responsive, we want to be kind to our spouses and make our wives happy, but ultimately our sacrifice and our focus should be about giving of ourselves in a way that makes our wives better people.  Now when I say makes our wives better people, I want to be clear that this doesn't mean nagging her to lose weight or telling her she should go take some cooking lessons.  It's about making her a better person in terms of her character and being a Christian.  Some husbands try to sacrifice by giving themselves for the family by working endless hours.  They spend hours and hours away from home each week trying to provide for their family, even when perhaps they have enough money already.  You know many husbands become workaholics and think that the more that they work, the more time that they spend away from home earning money for their family, it will make their family and their wives happier.  That's not always the case.  A workaholic husband needs to provide his family more than just money.  His family needs him and as husbands, when we give of ourselves, when we sacrifice for our families, we need to understand that we also need to serve our family as Christ did.  We serve our families by meeting their needs, not just their financial needs but their emotional needs and their social needs.  They need to be around as the father and as the husband.  When we give ourselves for our wives in some sort of sacrificial way, do we expect something back from them in return?  We shouldn't expect some sort of payback for the things that we do for our spouse.  Love doesn't keep a record of wrongs.  When we give ourselves sacrificially, when we give ourselves in love, we need to make sure we don't start adding up all the times that we did nice things.  We shouldn't say things like, well you got to go out with your friends last weekend while I had to watch the kids, so it's only fair that tonight's my turn.  That's not love, that's not sacrifice when we keep a score book and we have to balance out, I can't do a nice thing so you do another nice thing.  We don't want to be repaid in return for our good deeds. 

So what are some ways that a husband can give himself for his wife?  I thought maybe I'd share a personal example from the time when my wife was working a full time job, working in an elementary school and she was also enrolled as a full time student trying to finish her college degree.  At a certain point in the semester she started to get really busy, really stressed out and I told my wife, I know that this coming week, this finals week, and I know that there's a lot going on at your job and a lot going on in the courses you're taking and that you really need the time to study because I can tell you're getting stressed out.  So, why don't I do all the shopping this week, why don't I plan the menus, I make the dinners and then you can come home and eat and then spend the night working on your studies.  So I did that that week, and it meant a lot to my wife.  She told me several times, this has been so great, I don't know how I would have done it otherwise and it lowered her stress levels immensely.  I never did come back to her later and say remember how I did that for you that entire week, now you need to pay me back in some way.  Well Jesus Christ knows the church can never pay Him back.  We can't pay Him back for what He's done for us; for the sacrifice He made on our behalf.  We can't earn that gift that He's given us.  Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her.  A husband should love his wife and give himself for her.

Ephesians 5:26  That He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,
Verse 27:  that He might present it to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that it should be holy and without blemish.

So the second way that Christ loved the church is that He sanctifies and He cleanses her.  Christ cleanses the church by the washing of water by the word is what it tells us.  In the New Living translation says it, that the church is washed by the cleansing of God's word.  So God's word cleanses us.  You can turn to John chapter 15 for a moment and keep your place in Ephesians, we'll definitely be back. God's word cleans and sanctifies the church and speaking to His disciples Jesus told them:

John 15:3  "You are already clean.  (And why were they clean?)  because of the word which I have spoken to you."
So that word has the ability to make us clean.  So what is that word that He's spoken of? 

John 17:17  "Sanctify them by your truth.  Your word is truth."

So we're talking about the word of truth.  Truth sets us free.  The truth cleanses us.  The truth sanctifies us.  When God opens our minds to understand the truth that Jesus Christ has laid out in front of us in scripture, and when we act on that truth we have a way that we can be cleansed.  We have a way that we can be sanctified and because we can be cleansed and because our sins can be forgiven, Christ has given the church a way to be holy, a way to be without blemish as His bride. 

So what can a husband do to sanctify and cleanse his wife?  We do this when we lead our lives to become holy and without blemish.  We can help our wives to have full access to the truth of God's word and to help them to live by that word.  As husbands we need to provide guidance to our wives and not leave them helpless.  We should take an active role in leading the family.  We should lead or wives to the truth.  We should lead them to God's word, but not in a demanding, overpowering or forceful way.  We should lead them there with gentleness and lead them there with care.  I should also consider my wife's schedule.  We're all so busy these days.  We need to make sure you wife has enough time away from her job, away from the chores of the household so that she has sufficient time to devote to prayer and to bible study.  We also need to make sure that God is a part of our relationship on days beside the Sabbath.  We need to make God and His will a part of our decisions, a part of our conversations, part of our every day life.  Another way that we can help sanctify and cleanse our wives is through the example, throughout our own example and the conduct of how we ought to live.  The more that we allow God's Spirit to develop within us, the character of Jesus Christ, the more our wives will follow suit when they see that.  As husbands we also often run into difficult situations and as the leader in the marriage relationship, we always need to remember that in a decision, holiness trumps happiness.  There are sometimes when we need to make decisions and go in certain directions, not because it's going to make our lives happier, but we go in the direction that will make our wives holier.  Remember, Jesus Christ wants us to be holy more than He wants us to be happy.  Another thing husbands should keep in mind, we should be careful that we don't provoke spiritual problems for our wives.  We need to recognize that our wives have a direct relationship with Jesus Christ and anything that we do that hampers that, there's a problem.  We're there to encourage that relationship.  Remember what Jesus said of someone who caused one of these little ones to believe in Me to stumble?  Jesus said that it would better for him if a milestone were hung around his neck who was thrown into the sea.  That's pretty serious consequences.  We need to make sure that in our marriages that we don't create a spiritual stumbling block or create some sort of a hurdle for our spouse that in doing so would create dire consequences for us as Jesus described.  Also, when we stand against Christ, and we repent, when we're forgiven, what happens to that sin that we had?  Does Christ bring it up again, does He remind us of it all the time?  No, He removes our transgressions from us as far as east is from the west.  So when our wives seek our forgiveness, we should follow God's example and do the same thing.  No need to bring that up again.  Christ gave Himself for the church so 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.  The husband should also sanctify and cleanse his wife.

Ephesians 5:28  So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself.
Verse 29:  For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church. 

In verse 29 here we see two ways that we treat our own bodies.  Two ways that are also ways that Christ cares for the church.  It says that He nourishes and He cherishes the church.  I want to look at these two different aspects separately.  Let's look first at nourishing.

So the third way that Christ loves the church is that He nourishes her.  Nourishing is meeting needs.  Now if you have a plant that you'd like to grow, you nourish that plant.  You give it the things, the ingredients that it needs to grow and to develop.  Sunlight, water and we physically, we receive our nourishment from God.  He give us the things that we need to survive.  He gives us food, drink, clothing, shelter, all those things come from Him.  We receive that nourishment when we seek God's kingdom, Christ said in Matthew 6, verse 33 when He said:  "Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things, (all the things that we need to be nourished) will be added to us."

When we follow God and we seek His kingdom, we also are given those physical things that we need to survive.  We're given that nourishment and God knows what we need before we ask Him for it.  In Matthew 6, verse 8 it says: Your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him.  He knows what we need to be nourished.

Well, do we know the things that our wives need, the things they have need of to be nourished?  Are we aware of how we can best support our wives, how we can best help them?  When we get to know our wives in a deep enough level so that we can begin to anticipate the needs that they have, then we can begin to meet those needs. 

I Peter 3:7  Likewise you husbands, dwell with them with understanding.
There's an element of understanding.  Christ understands the way that we think.  He understands how we feel.  He's our advocate, He's our intercessor, He's our High Priest, He knows all of His brothers and sisters in the church.  He has a very real relationship with us and He understands what we go through.  Christ also knows our needs and He understands our weaknesses because He became human and was in all points tempted as we are.  So do we strive to have that same level of understanding of our lives?  Do you know how your wife thinks?  Is she just a stranger in your house that does random things that you really don't understand why?  Or have you taken the time to understand what motivates her? What makes her happy?  What makes her sad?  As husbands, to nourish our wives, we need to understand them.  We should become students of our wives and learn what makes them tick.  When we have discussions we need to let our wives speak so that we can hear what they have to say, hear those needs that they have, even when we might disagree with what they have to say.  We need to understand our wives perspective just as Jesus Christ understands our perspective.  In those discussions, there can be a difference of opinion from time to time and we husbands must maintain humility and respect what our wives have to say.  The husband should get to make the final decision for the family, but you can usually make a better decision when you take your wife's counseling into account.  God created a wife for Adam.  He created her to be a helper, someone to stand along side, someone to help him to see those things that he can't see himself, someone to help him do those things that he can't do himself.  We must remember that our wives are here to help us and it's in our interest to hear them out.  In doing so we will understand our wives better.  We'll be able to help nourish them and provide for their needs more completely.  This will help our wives to reach their full potential as daughters of God. 

Another way that we can help nourish is to help our wives develop and utilize their gifts.  If your wife is good at music you can encourage her to sing or to play an instrument.  There's lots of ways to encourage them to use their gifts.  For instance my wife loves libraries, so where we used to live, a new library opened up near our home so I encouraged her to volunteer and go see if they needed help, see if you can put some books on the shelves.  Well, she really enjoyed it and she volunteered year after year and later it turned into a paying job for her.  We should know what our wives talents are.  We should encourage them to develop those talents and make use of them.

Another need for nourishment our wives have, they need to know we  love them.  Be sure that you find ways to tell your wife but more importantly be sure that you find ways to demonstrate to your wife how much you love her.  If you don't know how to show your wife that you love her, you might want to investigate the book called The Five Love Languages by Dr. Gary Chapman.  It's a very good book because we all feel love in different ways.  What makes me feel love may not be the same thing that makes another husband feel love.  For the five languages that Dr. Chapman identifies are:  words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service and physical touch.  Now if you don't know what makes your wife feel love, go find out.  My wife and I both feel loved when we have quality time together and learning that made it easier for us to plan special events or activities together as a couple, make sure our need to feel loved is being fulfilled. 

When Christ was sacrificed on our behalf for our sins, He was putting our needs before His own and in marriage a husband should place his wife's needs before his own.  When we nourish our wives, when we meet the needs that they have, we will discover that it's also going to meet our needs and it's also going to nourish us.  So Christ nourishes His body, the church and the husband should nourish his wife by providing for her needs.

Now let's look at cherishing, the other thing mentioned in verse 29.  The fourth way that Christ loved the church is that He cherishes her.  Christ cherishes the church.  Cherishing is to value something.  It's to prize that thing, it's to care for that thing, to protect it, to honor it for the value that it has to you.  Christ cherishes the church.  You see that type of love in often quoted John 3:16 which says God so loved the world.  There's a certain cherishing going on that God has for humanity.  He cherishes us, He cherishes the church and He places a high value on us.  We are important, we are esteemed to our Creator and a good wife is someone that we as husband should value greatly.  Now after many years of marriage, it's easy to perhaps take our wives for granted.  Have you thought about how your wife has impacted your life and what she adds to your life?  Do you consider your wife to be of great value?

Proverbs 31:10 Who can find a virtuous wife?  For her worth is far above rubies.

Far above rubies.  Our wives should be of higher value to us then the things of this physical world.  We must value our wives for a lot more than what we might selfishly get out of that relationship.  You don't need to value your wife just as a cook or a maid or a nanny, etc.  For some men, they look at their marriages in that way.  That's how they appreciate their wives.  Well, she's a good cook.  We need to value our wives as friends.  We need to value them as friends.  We need to honor and respect them as our intellectual equals.  Look at John chapter 15.  Your wife should be your best friend.  Jesus told His disciples:

John 15:15  No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.

Jesus Christ is made known to us. He's revealed all of the things that He heard from the Father.  He calls us all friends and we've all been given that knowledge that's been revealed of about what He's doing.  It's not secret.  He says that a friend knows what He's doing.  So a husband should also call his wife a friend.  We shouldn't be secretive towards our wives, not telling them what we're doing.  We should be open, we should invite them as Jesus did to understand and know what we're doing.  We should give them access to our innermost thoughts, not close them off.  We should work toward bonding with them intellectually and emotionally.  Have you ever owned something that was special to you, something that you cherished?  Did you take great care to keep that thing safe or give it special treatment so that it wouldn't get damaged?  When we were packing our things to move here, my wife had a special set of drinking glasses that had belonged to her grandmother and when we packed them to move, she stressed to me several times that I needed to wrap them very loosely and put them in a box in a certain way so they wouldn't break because they were very important to her.  They had sentimental value to her and they couldn't be replaced.  So we certainly might be able to find some that looked like them, but it wasn't like the ones her grandmother had given to her.  She cherishes those glasses.

Let's look at I Peter chapter 3, verse 7.  Peter wrote that we should show the same sort of care and honor to our wives, treating them with great respect.

I Peter 3:7  Likewise you husbands, 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.

For a weaker vessel is not an inferior vessel, but it's a vessel that's delicate.  Many valuable things are delicate and they require special handling so that they won't be damaged.  It might be a crystal vase, it might be those glasses that I was packing, it might be an art project from an elementary school student, those things can be really delicate.  Those are all weaker vessels that you might give special honor because we value them for what they mean to us.  Peter wrote that we are to give honor to our wives and again we see that we are to dwell with them with understanding.  When we take the time to understand our wives it not only nourishes their needs but it also demonstrates to them that we cherish them and it shows our deep affection for them.  Let's look at Christ's words in Matthew chapter 11, verses 28 to 30.  Let's see what level of demands that Christ puts on those who follow Him.  What demands does He put on us in the church in that relationship? 

Matthew 11: 28  "Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.
He will give us rest.
Verse 29:  Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
Verse 30:  For My yoke is easy and My burden is light."

Would your wife agree that her burden in your relationship is easy?  Do we follow Christ's example as husbands and work to make our wives loads lighter instead of heavier?  Do we give our wives rest like we read here.  Are we gentle and lowly in heart or are we puffed up and domineering?  Think about your marriage as you consider whether your yolk is easy and your burden is light.  Christ cherishes His body, the church and the husband should cherish his wife.

You can read further in Ephesians chapter 5.  We'll go back there and move on to our next point.  Paul writes:

Ephesians 5:30  For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones.
Verse 31  "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 two shall become one flesh.  So the fifth way that Christ loved the church is that He is one flesh with her and the use of that phrase, one flesh implies an unbreakable bond, the bond that Christ will share with the church will be unbreakable.   We will be joined forever to Him and we need to treat that bond that we form in our marriages with our wives as something that's also just as unbreakable.  We need to become one flesh.  We need, just like a body can't have its members torn apart, we can't tear an arm off of the body without causing a lot of pain.  The bond, and the covenant of our marriage is similar, it cannot be broken without much pain.  To be one flesh also implies that we must be loyal, we must be faithful to that relationship.  God was loyal and faithful to ancient Israel.  He's loyal and faithful to the church.  We must be loyal and faithful to that bond that brings us into one body, one flesh.  After the loyalty we have to God, our next loyalty to any human being should be to our spouse.  God tells us I will never leave you, nor forsake you.  We should never leave or forsake our wives.  We need to hang in there thru thick and thru thin.  Notice that it says that a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife.  What does it mean to leave your father and mother?  Well it means once you become a husband, that that new family unit that you form, that new family and especially your wife takes precedence is the most important family.  Your wife takes precedence over any family ties or relationships you had in the past.  That doesn't mean that you still shouldn't be the best son that you can be to your parents after your marriage.  Sometimes you will have to decide on a course of action.  When you're going to take a course of action that honors our parents, a different course of action that honors your wife.  When that concept of becoming one flesh and leaving your father and mother gives you the guidance to know which of those choices is the one that you should make.  There's some other applications in becoming one flesh with your wife.  To be one flesh, if you have children means that you should adopt the same approach or at least in a consistent way to discipline your children.  If Dad is maybe permissive with the kids, but Mom has to be the heavy and strict all the time, your children can use those differences to drive a wedge into that bond you have as one flesh.  They can tear it apart in addition to the bad effects such child rearing would have on your children.  If you have children, it's important that you work out those differences that you have in child rearing privately, not in front of the children, so that when you're with them you can present to them a united front.  This is the way that Mom and Dad both feel about this, so that they know the rules that you have are rules that don't change, you can't pit one parent against the other regardless of which one they're dealing with.  I think that's a good application of being one flesh.  Being one flesh means loyalty and faithfulness in other ways.  It implies that a wife shouldn't spread hurtful thoughts or spread gossip about her husband to her friends.  The husbands shouldn't gossip or betray his wife's confidences, especially not on face book.  There's a certain closeness in marriage, there are certain things that happen between the two of you.  There's  sharing of deep thoughts, there's sharing of secrets, sharing of your life that a part of that bond that develops over the years that makes you one flesh.  When you start to share and spread those private thoughts, who knows where, in conversation you may have with other people or you might begin to complain to other people about your spouse, that undermines the unity you have in that relationship.  Now I'm not talking about being quiet if you're in a situation where a wife or husband is being abused.  Obviously, in a case like that, you need to talk to somebody, but a good rule to keep in mind for everyone else is that if you can't say something nice about your spouse in public, it's probably better if nothing is said at all.  We need to treat the bond that we form with our wives as something that is unbreakable.  Christ is becoming one flesh with the church and a husband should be one flesh with his wife.  Going back to Ephesians chapter 5, this time let's go back several verses to verse 23.

 Verse 23:  For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is the head of the church and He is the Savior of the body.
Verse 24:  Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.

So the sixth way that Christ loved the church is that He is her head, He is her head.  A wife must submit to her husband just as a husband must submit to Jesus Christ.  So if we want to be good husbands, if we expect our wives to submit to us, it's of primary importance, it's critical that we learn to submit to Jesus Christ in everything we do.  Christ is the head of the church, but He's not an overlord over the church.  Christ directs, Christ serves the church, but He still lets us have free moral agency to make our own decisions and sometimes, many times we make mistakes.  The husband in the same way, not lord his headship over his wife and control her and make her behave in certain ways and do certain things.  Now, while we should lead, while we should direct our wives, we must still allow them to have free will as we do in the church.  Part of having free will is occasionally disagreeing about things.  Those who God has worked with and there are examples in the bible that you read where those He worked with have not always agreed with Him.  When God was upset with the Israelites when they refused to enter Canaan.  Do you remember the discussion that He had with Moses?  He told Moses this.  He said: "I will strike the Israelites with pestilence and disinherit them and I will make of you Moses a nation greater and mightier than they."  Well Moses, he didn't just say:  "O.K. God, if that's the way you want it."  Now he could have responded that way and things would have worked out according to God's plan, but he didn't do that.  Moses was a man who knew God face to face and he bargained with Him.  He pointed out to God that what he thought the consequences would be for such a turn of events.  He reasoned with God, but he did it in a way that was respectful.  He did it arguing that His decision should not stand.  But he did it in a way that was obedient and the way that it was submissive to God's will.  We see that God listened to Moses, He listened to what Moses had to say and He changed His mind.  He relented.  So as a husband I need to follow that example.  I need to allow my wife the right to disagree with me.  Not all my decisions are perfect.  She has the right to appeal decisions that I might make and just as Moses did, our wives need the freedom to argue the case for or against our decisions.  If they do it respectfully and if it's done in obedience to an ultimate determination.  We men were given wives as helpers because frankly, we need their help.  Our wives can see things that we don't see in situations and we need to develop a way that our relationship where our wives feel comfortable providing feedback, providing information to us and input respectfully and without any sort of fear.  Submission is also a way that we grow in love.  When the church submits to Jesus Christ, it grows in love, it abides in love.  You see that because Jesus Christ told us if you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love.  When we understand the proper relationship to those in authority over us, when we submit to them, we will abide in love.  A wife will abide in her husband's love when she submits the authority in the relationship, just like we abide in Christ's love when we keep His commandments.  Love and submission really do go together.  We can't have real love or a real relationship when there are elements of bitterness and rebellion in there.  Deuteronomy chapter 6 says that the Lord commanded us to observe all these statutes for our good.  We were given commandments for our good.  So the commandments that were given to the church were for our good.  As a husband, we make decisions or commands or tell our wives something in a certain matter, those commandments that we make, they must be for our wives good, they must not be for selfish ends.  So Christ is head of the church and a husband should be head of his wife. 

Now the seventh way that Christ loved the church is that He empowers and praises her.  Christ empowers and praises her.  This last point is not one that's found directly in Ephesians 5, but I think it's one that's important to keep in mind.  Christ empowers and praises the church.  He's entrusted the church, He's given us certain responsibilities.  A good leader, somebody that's good at leading has to trust the people that he leads and he'll delegate various responsibilities.  When I was a computer programmer I had a manager who empowered me to make decisions, to do my work, but he wasn't the type of manager who wanted to maintain total control, stand behind me over my shoulder telling me now put this line here, do that, do this.  He would explain the assignment to me and then he would trust me to be competent, he trusted me to the work that I was assigned and that's what I was hired for.  He let me work independently for the most part, until the project was completed.  In the same way, Christ set the vision, Christ set the direction for the church just as the husband should set the vision and the direction for the family.  Once that vision and the direction is established, once it's communicated, others have the ability to help us carry out that vision.  In a corporation, even in our church organization, we have a strategic plan that's developed by the Council of Elders.  However, the operation plan, the day to day implementation of how that strategic plan gets accomplished is passed to the administration.  In a marriage the husband should be responsible for the strategic plan, but many aspects of the operation plan can be given to the wife and children.  Let's turn to Matthew chapter 16 and we will see that Jesus Christ set a vision for the church.  He gave us a vision and then He delegated responsibility to the church.  He's talking to Simon Peter and He says:

Matthew 16:18  "And I also say to you that you are Peter and on this rock I will build My church and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it."
But then in verse 19 he says:
Verse 19:  "And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven."

Christ gave the church the keys to the kingdom of heaven.  He gave us a responsibility and empowers us.  He says the church has the ability to bind things.  We have the ability to loose things and heaven will respect those decisions.  That's a tremendous act of delegation.  There's another clear example of Christ empowering the church to carry out His plan.  He commissioned us, He delegated to us, what we call the great commission.  He said:  "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature."  We are told to go into the world and to preach the gospel, but He doesn't say how.  Jesus Christ has trusted us with that responsibility and He's given us the freedom to determine what we think might be the best way to accomplish that goal as we talk among ourselves.  Let's turn to the book of Proverbs, chapter 14.  A husband should delegate responsibilities to his wife.  In many traditional marriage arrangements the wife is given responsibility over managing the household.  Things such as shopping, cleaning, meals, taking care of children has traditionally been the role of the woman.  In Proverbs we read:

Proverbs 14:1  Every wise woman builds her house, but the foolish pulls it down with her hands.

In this proverb we see that this wife has the responsibility, she has the capability to build her house.  She has the freedom to do it well and she can be an asset to her family or she can do it poorly and tear her home apart.  We need to empower, we need to encourage our wives so that they have the tools, so that they have the support that they need to build our houses and our families like a strong fortress.  If you'll turn to the end of proverbs in Proverbs 31, we have the familiar story of the virtuous wife, the one that we alluded to earlier whose worth was far more than rubies.  This story of the virtuous wife sets an example for us.  We can see that this woman was trusted and that her husband delegated responsibilities  to her. 

Verse 11:  The heart of her husband safely trusts her, so he will have no lack of gain.

Well, when your wife shows herself trustworthy, then you should trust her.  It's that simple, and when you do there's no lack of gain.  The benefits of trusting your wife is tremendous, but if you keep doubting her, if you are micro-managing her in the way that she does things, after she's proven she's competent at managing things, it can damage your marriage, it can really break the bond that you have.  Now personally I must admit that it is tempting sometimes that after my wife has gone shopping to want to take the receipt for the grocery store out of the trash can and kind of look at it and give her some of my advice for how she could have spent money more wisely.  I might look at it - $5.00 for bananas, I don't even like bananas.  You know why are you wasting so much of our money on bananas?  You could have spent that on the shoes that the boys need.  Now I have to admit that there's a temptation to then continue going through all the purchases and critiquing them and offering my very important penny-pinching advice for her.  But, I've learned that it's better not to do that.  It's better just to give my wife an allowance and say:  "This is the amount of money you have for groceries."  However she spends that money, whatever she does with it, as long as we're not starving, it's her responsibility.  Now I've delegated that to her and she gets to keep all the money she doesn't spend so that's a motivation too I guess.  Let's move down the verse 27.

Verse 27:  She watches over the ways of her household, and does not eat the bread of idleness.

Here again we see a wife watching over the household, managing the affairs of the family.  The wife is the one who executes a good portion of the operation plan for the family.  It talks here about the bread of idleness  A wife should not be idle.  The wife takes on the roll of a helper to her husband when she marries him, so it's not good for either of them if the wife isn't engaged in helping somehow, in helping her husband, possibly by watching over the affairs that have been delegated to her.  So, how should we respond?  So the other half of this seventh point, how should we respond to our wives when we've empowered them as our helpers?  They're helping us and they've done a good job, they've fulfilled those responsibilities that we've given to them.  What do we do?  Let's look at verses 28 and 29.

Verse 28:  Her children rise up and call her blessed; Her husband also and he praises her.
So here's what her husband says to her:
Verse 29:  "Many daughters have done well, but you excel them all."

What wonderful praise.  Now when you perform a job well, don't you like to hear an acknowledgement for all that you've done?  We see this same behavior modeled in the successful delegation in the parable of the talents.  At the end of that parable the Lord said well done, good and faithful servant.  The Lord in that parable praised the faithful servant who had been empowered and entrusted with his treasure.  As members of the church, we also long to hear Jesus Christ give us praise when our work here is done and maybe with the same words that we read in the parable, well done, good and faithful servant.  

So for a happy marriage, you shouldn't underestimate the importance of praising your wife for all that she does.  A relationship that truly shows love, will find a way to demonstrate the appreciation that really is due.  Some husbands, some people I know only give their wives feedback when they have a criticism for them; "Well, you didn't do that right, you didn't do that right."  Our wives need feedback, not just when they do something wrong, but more than that, they need to hear that feedback when they've done something well.  Our wives need to hear our praise.

Christ has empowered and will praise the church and so also a husband should also empower and praise his wife.  So in conclusion, Paul gave us a template or outline modeling what a husband's love should look like in Ephesians 5, verse 32.

Ephesians 5:32  This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church.
Verse 33:  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.

So as we started out today, Paul said husbands love your wives just as Christ also loved the church.  Today we looked at some of the ways that Christ shows His love for the church and we've seen how that might translate to a man's love for his wife.

To quickly review these points in case you missed one.  Number one, He gave Himself for her.  Number two, He sanctified and cleanses her.  Number three, He nourishes her.  Number four, He cherishes her.  Number five, He's one flesh with her.  Number six, He is her head and Number seven, He empowers and praises her. 

So marriages are filled with experiences, both good experiences and bad experiences.  There will be some conflicts in every marriage, but a husband who tries to love his wife in the ways that we've looked at this afternoon, will go a long way towards contributing to a relationship that will be fulfilling for both the husband and fulfilling for the wife.  It's easy to follow a leader who loves us and has our best interest at heart.  Christ our leader has our best interest at heart and a husband who is going to have his wife's best interest at heart will find that his wife wants to follow his leadership.  Christ said that His yoke is easy and His burden is light.  Christ is perfect and we as husbands are not quite as perfect, but we should do our best with the help of God's Spirit to make the burden that we put on our wives as easy and as light as possible and we do that by loving our wives in the ways that we've looked at today, the ways that Jesus Christ loves us, the church.