B. The duty of the husband: Love your wife.(Eph. 5:25–33)

     Now the word Paul uses here for "love" is the Greek word agape—the strongest, most intimate, far-reaching, comprehensive, fulfilling term for love. Yes, there is authority in a marriage. Yes, the husband is the head, and the wife is the one who follows. But verse 25 doesn't say,
 "Husbands, rule your wives,"
  "Husbands, order your wives around,"
  "Husbands, subject your wives,"
  "Husbands, command your wives, exercise authority over them, and dominate them."

    Paul says, "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church"  How do we do this?

 1. How did Christ love the church?
READ: Romans 5:8, Acts 20:28

Question: How did Christ love the church (us)?

 -Christ gave the greatest gift for the most unworthy people. That is how Christ loved the church.

READ: Romans 8:35–39

Question: How did Christ love the church (us)?

 -Men, nothing can separate us from Christ's love, and we are to love our wives as Christ loves His church. That's a command of God. It's an act of your will. If you decide you're not going to do it, you won't, but if you decide to love her by the grace of God as Jesus loves the church, then no matter what happens, you'll love her.

ILL: A man once feared he was loving his wife too much. When a Christian asked him if he loved her as much as Christ loved the church, he answered, "No, not nearly as much." His friend replied, "Then you'd better love her more."

 2. Love is not an emotion.

  When Paul says in Ephesians 5:25, "Husbands, love your wives," he's not saying  "love her because she deserves it";
  he's saying "love her even if she doesn't deserve it. Love her enough to die for her, whether she's worth dying for or not."

  We are commanded to love our wives. It isn't an issue of attraction; it's an issue of a binding commandment from God. However, I believe you will become greatly attracted to what you choose to love. Agape love, the kind of love we are to have for our wives is Sacrificial love and this kind of love  is undeserved, yet it goes to the furthest extremity, as exemplified in Christ. It says, "You don't deserve anything, but I'll give you everything. You don't deserve anything, but I'll die for you. You don't even deserve My best, but I'll give you My life."

  And Paul is saying that we are to say to our wives, "You may not deserve all those things, you may be a sinner, and you may not be all that you could be, but that is never the issue. I love you and commit myself to you, even if you are the least deserving. And I will give you everything I have—even to the point of dying for you." Love, as God defines it, is not an emotion. The world says, "When the feeling stops, the love is over."  The love of the Bible is not a feeling; it is an act of selfless sacrifice.

READ: John 13:34

Question: How did Jesus love His disciples?

 -Certainly not by feeling emotional. If anything, He probably felt pain because of their selfishness and sorrow because of their indifference. But in His sorrow and pain, He washed their feet. Love doesn't act out what it feels; it does what is right. Where there is a need, love acts. And in a marriage, it isn't a matter of whether your partner deserves your love; it's a matter of sharing love because it is right.

READ: Eph. 5:25

 -Paul basically says "That's the way I want you to love your wives." It's not emotion. Now, if you commit yourself to love you may become emotional, but you must first realize that love is always a verb. Love always acts, meets needs, does whatever has to be done. Men,  you will never know how to love until you've sacrificed yourself, crucified yourself, and died to yourself. Paul says that love "seeketh not its own" (1 Cor. 13:5). As long as you're looking for what you can get out of marriage, you will never know what it is to love your wife as Christ loved the church. And you will be continually out of God's will.

QUESTIONS:
When is the last time I sacrificed myself for my wife?
When is the last time, when we both wanted to do different things, that I said,
"Honey, I think what you want to do is what we ought to do"?
When is the last time I set aside my own carefully laid out plans to do what my wife suddenly decided   she wanted to do?

 3. Love Considers his wife

READ: 1 Peter 3:7a

Question: Men, what is this saying about our duty to love our wife?

 The word 'understanding' carries with it the idea of 'insight and tactfulness'. No one enjoys being misunderstood.  If you're going to love your wife, you must be sensitive, understanding, and considerate.

ILL: Women often say to me, "My husband never understands me. He doesn't know where I'm at. He's insensitive to my needs. We never talk. He doesn't know what I feel. He doesn't know what I'm thinking about. He doesn't understand my hurts."

 I hear that over and over again. It builds a wall in marriages. When Peter said, "Dwell with them according to knowledge," he was saying, "Be sensitive, be understanding, feel what she feels." It isn't what you get out of marriage; it's what you give that God is after.

 3. Love is Chivalrous

READ: 1 Peter 3:7

Question: Men, what is this saying about our duty to love our wife?

  We are to realize that physically and at times perhaps emotionally we are stronger than your wives. Whatever happened to chivalry? Whatever happened to the custom of opening the car door for your wife? You may be fifteen feet down the driveway while she still has one foot out the door! Husbands, practice chivalry with your wives.

 4. Love purifies his wife
READ: Eph. 5:26

Question: What do think this means?

  Did you know that marrying someone purifies her by taking her out of the world and apart from the past? Whatever relationships she may have had, whatever indulgences she may have had, or whatever other things she may have done, marriage sets her apart and purifies her. And not only in the act of marriage do you purify that person, but every day you live.

 If you really love your wife, you'll seek that which keeps her feet clean from the dust of the world.

 If you love your wife, you will do everything in your power to maintain her holiness, her virtue, her righteousness, and her purity every day you live.

 You'll never put her in a compromising situation where she would become angered, because that's a sin.

 You would never induce an argument out of her, because that's a sin.

 You would do nothing to defile her. You would never let her see anything, expose her to anything, or let her indulge in anything that would bring any impurity into her life.

 Love always seeks to purify.

ADVICE to the unmarried women

 If a man comes along and tells you he loves you and then tries to take away your virtue, that is not love. Don't ever believe that definition of love. Love lifts up, purifies, exalts, honors, makes holy, and sanctifies. Husband, if you love your wife, seek to lift her up, draw her to God, pour virtue into her life, and make her, in every possible way, like Christ. Husband, that's your spiritual responsibility—you're the purifier.

 5. Love Cares for his wife
READ: Eph. 5:28-30

Question: Men, what is this saying about our duty to love our wife?

 Men, we spend a lot of time on our bodies by jogging, exercising, eating the right foods, and wearing nice clothes. After all, a Christian's body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. We certainly don't want to mar it, so we take good care of it. What Paul is saying here is this: "Look, you ought to love your wives as you love your own body."

 Again, notice that love is not an emotion. When your body has needs, you meet them. Your wife also has needs, and you're to meet them too. And even though love is not an emotion, I believe that emotion can follow the meeting of a need. As you meet the needs of your wife, it's going to change your emotional response.

 Does the Lord care for the church? Does He take care of everything we need? The Bible doesn't say, "My God shall supply most of your needs … if you don't get too picky or make too many demands."

READ: Philippians 4:19

 If you need love, or joy, or peace, or strength, or wisdom, or anything else, He will give it to you. You will never do without what you need to fulfill His will.

Question: Men, what is this saying about our duty to love our wife?

 Men, God is saying that we are to give our wives every single thing they need.

 Now, maybe she needs to understand the difference between needs and wants. If so, help her to do that. But, what she needs, you must supply. Don't forget that. We are to care for our wives as we care for our own bodies—as Christ cares for the church. Something is wrong if you look at your wife as a cook, baby-sitter, clothes washer, and sex partner—and nothing more. She is a God-given treasure to be cared for, cherished, and nourished.

 Husband, your wife is one with you. Not to meet her needs is to commit spiritual suicide, because you are one. People who violate their marriage destroy themselves. The grace of God is amazing. God incorporates us into a body and says, "As Christ cares for His body, the church, and as a man cares for his own physical body, so is a husband to care for his wife—meeting her needs and providing all that is necessary."

  Men, God has a high view of women. They are to be exalted, honored, and lifted up. We're to submit to meeting their needs—even if we must die doing it—and cause them to be pure, honored, holy, and sanctified.

 6. Love is Unbreakable (v. 31)
     READ: Eph. 5:31

Question: Men, what is this saying about our duty to love our wife?

 That is a direct quote from Genesis 2:24. It is nothing new. People say, "You've got to get the Bible up to date. Times have changed." But that is a direct quote. The Bible was written over a period of 1500 years; nothing has changed. Thousands of years back, when God first created man, He said, "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife; and they shall be one flesh." Genesis 2:24 appears in Ephesians 5:31. Nothing has changed. It's the same standard; marriage is an unbreakable, indivisible union.

    C. Conclusion

 Our love for our mate in to be an "agape" form of love, since that is the kind of love Christ display toward the church.

ILL: Pastor John MacArthur says, "loving as Christ loves does not depend in the least in what others are in themselves, but entirely on what we are in Christ ."

 The husband who loves his wife for what she can give him loves as the world loves, not as Christ loves. The husband that loves his wife as Christ loves His church gives everything he has for his wife, including his life, if necessary.

 If a loving husband is willing to sacrifice his life for his wife, he is certainly willing to make lesser sacrifices for her. He puts his own likes, desires, opinions, preferences and welfare aside if that is required to please her and meet her needs. He dies to self in order to live for his wife, because that is what Christ's kind of love demands.