A Challenge for the Men...

At the church where I serve, we have been looking at a letter that is recorded for us in the New Testament of our Bibles called the book of Ephesians. And as we look at this letter, our hope and our prayer has been that God would enable us to see our true identity, the identity that He designed us to live in, so that we would live our day to day lives in light of our true identity.

This week I would like for us to spend our time together by picking up where we left off last week. And as we jump back into the next section of this letter that the Apostle Paul wrote to early followers of Jesus at the church at Ephesus, I would like for us to focus like a laser beam on the men. So men, it is time for us to man up and put on our big boy pants.

I say that because, for me personally, this has been one of the most challenging sections of the Bible I have ever read. So let’s pick up where we left off last week, as Paul continues his conversation with the members of the church at Ephesus, in Ephesians 5:25:

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her,

Paul begins this section of his letter to the members of the church at Ephesus with a command to husbands. This is not a suggestion or a goal to strive for; this is a command: Husbands love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her”.  And here we see Paul reveal for us the reality that God commands us as husbands to love our wives the same way that Christ loved the church.

Paul is reminding the men throughout history, that they are so selflessly and sacrificially love their wives, just as Jesus selflessly and sacrificially loved humanity all the way to the cross. Jesus left the glory of Heaven, laid aside His position and His prominence and entered into humanity in order to live a life as a homeless man and die the most humiliating and painful death imaginable.

Men that is how we are to love our wives. We are to love our wives as Jesus loves His church. Paul then continues by unpacking the results that Jesus love has on His relationship with the church in verses 26-27: 

so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless.

Here we see Paul reveal two specific results that Christ’s selfless and sacrificial love had when it came to His relationship with the church. First, Paul states that Jesus loved the church selflessly and sacrificially so that He might sanctify her. Now this word sanctify that Paul uses here paints for us an amazing word picture. This word literally means to include a person in the inner circle of what is holy. This is a word picture of a person who was once an outsider now being made a part of the family.

Jesus love for His church resulted in those who were once on the outside when it came to having a relationship with God now being able to be an insider and a part of the family of God as a result of Jesus life, death, and resurrection.

When Paul uses the phrase, “having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, he is reminding the members of the church at Ephesus of what occurs at baptism. The phrase with the word refers to ones confession of faith that occurs during a baptism. At baptism, one publicly identifies themselves as being a follower of Jesus. And part of that process is sharing one’s testimony of how they became a follower of Jesus.

Paul’s point here is that the church reveals and reflects the relationship with God that they were created for and brought into as a result of Jesus selfless and sacrificial love when people publicly proclaim and identify themselves through baptism with the inward transformation that has changed their lives through believing, trusting, and following Jesus.

Second, Paul states that Jesus loved the church selflessly and sacrificially so that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless. In other words, Jesus love for the church was so that the church would be made glorious.

Jesus loves His church and desires that His bride the church would possess and inherent quality of splendor and purity that is extraordinary. Jesus loves the church so that the church would be without spot or stain or blemish. Jesus loves the church so that the church would be without any cracks or flaws. Jesus loves the church so that his bride the church would respond to His selfless and sacrificial love by being dedicated and devoted to Him. And Jesus loves His bride the church with the desire that His bride would respond to His love with a life that reflects His character and His conduct; a life that is faultlessly focused on pleasing Him.

Now men, here is a question for us to consider: Do we love our wives like that? Do we love our wives in a way that brings them closer to Christ? Do we treat our wives like an outsider or love them as an insider? Do we love our wives in a way that makes them glorious? 

Do we love our wives in a way that is motivated that they would become extraordinary women? Extraordinary in their spiritual splendor and purity? Do we love our wives in a way that results in pointing them to a deeper devotion to Jesus and the mission that He has given us? Do we love our wives in a way that provokes in them a desire to reveal and reflect Christ in their character and conduct?

And if those questions are not challenging enough, Paul continues by applying Christ’s love for the church even more clearly to the relationship between a husband and a wife in Ephesians 5:28-30.

We will spend our time there tomorrow…