Ephesians 5:21-33 • Gospel Husbands
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(This transcript was prepared using software tools and has not been reviewed for complete accuracy.)
Well, extraordinary times give us an opportunity to do some different things. So today we're welcoming you into our living… No, it's not really our living room, but a wonderful set arranged by our technicians and musicians to give us the ability to connect with God's people in a special way. So this particular day I'm going to be explaining the Bible just as normal, but I've asked my wife, Kathy, to come and to give us some illustrations from our lives that might give us some understanding of what these Scriptures mean. We are going through the Bible in a year, and where we are in the Scriptures is recognizing that Christ has commissioned His church to take the message, the good news of the gospel, into the world.
But last week we saw if the church speaks of Jesus and smells like the world, that witness will not work.
And we recognize, as did the Apostle Paul, that our families are the heartbeat of the church. And if our families are not working, then our witness does not work either. And so the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 5, and I'll ask that you look in your Bible at Ephesians chapter 5, we'll be looking at verses 21 through 33, though I'm just going to focus on those dealing with husbands this day. In the future we'll deal with wives and parents because Paul also addresses those things. We'll be talking about what it means to be a family with a witness for Christ wherever He calls us. Do we need such?
Well, just what's in the news. In this time of a world pandemic, we understand that the news told us this last week that 50 percent of all American families have been affected by job loss.
And at the same time we heard just this last week that those families who are being affected by domestic violence as they shelter in place, that has increased by 50 percent over the norm. It's a time to talk about families and how the Lord may help us all. Family stress, sheltering in place, they make life different in lots of ways. And for our marriages here's one example of a different way life started.
In the midst of social distancing on a global pandemic, columnist Sophia Lee writes, "Last week I married my best friend. It was just David, me, and our church pastor all standing about six feet away from each other with about 150 people watching us through live streaming.
When the pastor asked our witnesses if they would uphold our marriage, people typed, "We will" in a chat box on the screen.
I had no bouquet. We had no wedding aisle to walk. We had no photographers. So our friends took screenshots from the live stream.
My father couldn't walk me down the aisle. We couldn't have a worship band play as we planned. We couldn't have my cousin's son be the ring bearer. We tried my cat, Shalom, but the naughty creature wiggled away.
It was a wonderfully strange wedding ceremony.
I couldn't see the faces of my loved ones, which meant the only face I looked at was my future husband's. God in all His sweet wisdom stripped our wedding of all the Pinterest envy, the chiffon, and the flowers and taught us to focus on what our marriage is really about, a man and a woman making a lifetime covenant with one another no matter what.
So that was a wonderfully strange wedding, strange we get, but wonderful in this way, that because of all the social distancing and all the effects of that, Sophia focused on the face of her husband and in doing so saw the sweetness of her Lord.
You know, that's the way it's supposed to work, that husbands and wives are the face of Jesus to one another in our marriages. And what the Apostle Paul is doing in helping us understand how we help one another, support one another in good times or bad is understanding what it means to be that face of Jesus to one another, because we recognize when Jesus' face shines through us, His heart becomes known to the world as well as to one another. And so let's see how the Apostle Paul talked about that. Today just that portion of Scripture dealing with husbands, Ephesians chapter 5 and verse 23, Paul says, "For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, His body, and is Himself its Savior."
Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything,
husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her.
What we understand in this passage, of course, is what it means to be a gospel husband. That's the name of this message, gospel husbands. And maybe it's just helpful to remember that gospel just means good news.
What would it mean, husbands, to be a good news husband in your home? When you come through the door, that's good news to your family and to your spouse. Is that always the way it is? Well, in honesty, all of us would have to say at times, "That's not always the way it is. I'm not always a good news husband."
And perhaps some would say, "That's the way it once was, but not anymore." Someone close to us once said, "When I was 25, I could not wait for my husband's face when he came home.
When I was 35, I couldn't stand it when he came home.
And when I was 45, I didn't even know if he was home."
Sometimes if our faces are to reflect the good news of Jesus in our home, then what we have to recognize is the Bible is giving us through the Apostle Paul certain responsibilities and reasons and resources to be the head of a Christian home. Now head of a home that there is an out-of-date and not very popular concept. Where does that come from? Well, right in this passage.
Even as we are learning that parents are certainly heading the lives of their children, the Apostle Paul says, "The husband," verse 23, "is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior."
What are the responsibilities of the head of a Christian home? What are the responsibilities of a Christian husband?
Well, we recognize that's debatable in this culture. Many would not even find the term acceptable anymore. So let's be real, let's be honest.
What does it mean to be the head of a home? We got to start with what does it not mean? What can it not possibly mean? It means husbands, you do not get a potato pass. And what do I mean by that? I mean, you don't, by being the head of a home, get a pass to be a couch potato. Is that because you're the head of the home, there are no responsibilities?
There's no care that has to be shown?
Everybody obeys your command while you take a rest on the couch?
That is not what the Apostle means. How do we know that? Because he talks about how Jesus, as the head of the church, is fulfilling the responsibilities of being a Savior. And what does that mean? Judges 25 through 27 are explaining what that means. Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her, that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the Word, so that He might present the church to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing that she might be holy and without blemish.
In the same way, says the Apostle, that's how husbands are to be dealing with their spouses. What does that mean? Rather than just kind of a passive letting life go by and making other people serve us, the Apostle said this headship of Christ was acting as a Savior. There's an active engagement of certain things. They're sacrificial giving, giving oneself for another. Christ loved and gave Himself for the church.
It's also sanctifying living.
Christ lived to make His bride holy, having cleansed her by the washing with water. And the Word, here's the Apostle taking two thoughts together, the washing with water, reminding us of baptism, that we are committing ourselves not only to live for Christ, but to die to self.
And this is being done by the instruction of the Word, that to act as Savior is to make another person so important that we would die to self for the sake of that one and be guided by the Word. So much so that there is a sense of the treasure of the wife being grasped by her by the way she is treated by her spouse. Christ did all this so that He might present His bride to Himself in splendor. Some of your Bibles say that she would be radiant. Here is that sense that what it means to be a head of a home is sacrificial giving, sanctifying living and treasure instilling. That we are living in such a way that another knows the fullness of grace in her life. There's this wonderful sense, all those things that God is doing that He's loving, that He's sanctifying, He's pardoning from sin, that He is showing another person their treasure before Him. Loving, forgiving, treasuring, those are all the operations of grace.
That what a husband is doing as the head of a home is having another person understand the fullness of grace in their lives. That's not just being a couch potato.
It's something else. It's not being crowned as king. That because I am the head of the home, that what I am enabled to do as one who simply takes over is that I rule with irresponsibility.
We've seen that happen too. Somebody who says because I'm in charge I can just be negligent. I can take a pass and make everyone else serve me. And Kathy, we've seen that with a family that we love but had some problems when the husband just said being irresponsible is my privilege.
Our friends John and Mary had three children, the same ages of our older three children, so the families interacted together. And you're going to say their names aren't really John and Mary. No. We will not use real names. It sounds as though all of our friends are named John and Mary and that is not so.
But there you are.
One day in tears as we watched our children play together, Mary shared with me her struggles. She said, "John comes and goes without even telling me.
He works for this news organization that requires travel entirely at his discretion, but he doesn't even tell me anymore when he's coming and going. He hasn't made a decision in years regarding our family.
The kids don't even know him.
He's totally passive. He takes no responsibility because he says he's the head. He feels he can do whatever or nothing that he wants to."
She said, "Kathy, I don't have three children. I have four."
Being a kid without responsibility is not what it means to be the head of a home. And being a king who just orders other people around for your own selfish pleasure is also not what it means to be the head of a home. How do we know that? Because the Bible says that what God is doing through His Son is He serving the world. He who is king over all things, the God who reigns, Christ our Lord, nonetheless gave Himself for the sake of others. You recognize that what Paul is doing when he says that Jesus is acting as the Savior, but when he acts as the Savior, he is loving his spouse. That he cannot possibly mean, "I'm taking advantage of you. I'm the king. Meet Tarzan, you doormat."
That cannot possibly be biblical love that Christ is expressing. And we know because the same Apostle Paul described what biblical love is. Kathy, I ask you to look that up ahead of time. What is it? 1 Corinthians 13. "Love is patient and kind. Love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant nor rude. It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."
Love does not insist on its own way, said the Apostle.
And it puts us in a tension here because we recognize that Jesus is Lord, and at the same time he came to serve. And that tension is something that depending on your generation and depending on the culture in which you live, all families struggle with. I put on our smart board here the spectrum that we recognize that often cultures struggle with. It's between the P and the P. One is men believing, "I have absolute privilege. I'm the king because I'm the head of the household." The other is total passivity, that I just don't have to do anything because I'm the head of the household. Now that's the nice way of saying it. Sometimes the P and the P become something between abandonment, "I just don't have to do anything," and total authoritarianism. I tell my wife when she could get up, what she should wear, what she should do, when she should talk, and we become kings, tyrants as it were, because we're the head of the home.
And the Apostle Paul is not allowing that. When Kathy and I first wrote the book, "Each for the Other," we recognized we were dealing with a generation that struggled much more with the authoritarian side of things. Now so much a younger generation has reacted against that that often the idea is not that the husband is the boss, but he's just a brother. No more, no less responsibility.
And that's not what the Apostle is saying either. What does headship mean? If it does not mean I get a potato pass or a king's crown, what does it mean? It is clearly an expression of authority. I'll take you back to verses 23 through 25 of this passage.
The husband is to be the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church. Now that example, whatever you perceive it to be is saying as Christ leads his church, that is the example that is being given to husbands. And there's an expectation, verse 24 right at the beginning, "As the church submits to Christ, so should wives submit to their husbands." It's not just an abstract example, but as the church honors the Lord. So a wife is expected to honor her husband because he's the head of that marriage.
And the extent of that is described.
As the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. It doesn't say just in church, just on odd Fridays. It says, "No, in everything."
Unquestionably there's an expression of authority in what it means to be the head of a home. And yet, yet right with that, there is an expression of service. Again, verse 25, "Christ is the head of the church." Yes, but what was happening? He gave himself for his church. What does that mean?
He came and lived a life in humility.
He died upon a cross with cruel suffering for our sin, taking the weight of our sin upon himself. He absolutely gave himself for the good of another. And again, we don't have to guess what that means to have kingly authority and to use it for the sake of another. Kathy, again, I ask you to look up Philippians chapter 2. What does it mean for Christ to have authority but give himself for another?
Philippians 2, 6 through 8 says, "Though he was in the form of God, Jesus did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even the death on a cross."
Biblical headship involves being a leader in your home, and in exactly the same moment it means serving others' well-being and welfare in the home, to be a servant leader.
Now those sound like opposite concepts, that I would be king and that I would be a servant at the same time. But there was somebody in the Bible who were a servant leader. Well, I'm teasing, of course, because there is someone in the Bible who was a servant leader, and that is the Lord Jesus. You must recognize that what the Apostle is doing when he identifies males, husbands, as the head of the home, is he's doing nothing that would be unacceptable in the Roman culture in which he is writing and living and serving. I mean, in Roman culture, the husband's authority was absolute and authoritarian, and Paul does not take away the authority, the husband.
He totally redefined it because Roman authority was selfish, self-absorbed, it was dictatorial. I could take advantage of my wife, I could take advantage of my children, I could have any woman I wanted, but she had to stay pure.
There was this sense of total use of another person.
And what the Apostle is doing is he's saying there's still authority, but it is being used for the well-being of another person. It's one of the things that made Christianity so attractive in the early Christian world, in the ancient world, because what Paul was doing was he was taking something ugly, secular marriage, and he was making it beautiful, where a husband would take the authority that seemed natural in that society, and he would be using it for the sake of his spouse and his children living for their sakes. That's actually what biblical headship is. It is not an abandonment of authority, it is the use of authority for the well-being of another. It is spiritual leadership. It is saying to another, "With the authority that God has given me, even though it's a privilege to be the head of the... I'm not going to take advantage of my privilege, but I will see that our home follows the Lord." That's going to be my example. That's going to be my energy, my effort. What authority I have as you, my spouse, help me understand my responsibility before the Lord is I will use my authority for the spiritual leadership of this home. What does that mean?
Well, I'm going to, again, take you back to those verses that we covered before.
What did Jesus do?
He reminded us that we were baptized by the washing of water with the Word, that a husband, if he is following Christ's example, is washing with water. That is, his own baptism is becoming clear to his wife and family. I'm devoted to the Lord and dying to self.
I'm going to see that the way I conduct myself and the way this family works is we are going to be devoted to the Lord, but that means I'm going to start dying to myself. This is not for my privilege. This is not just so that I can use another person. This is setting the example. It's with the Word. We're going to honor the Word of the Lord in this house in the way that we worship, in the way that we do devotions at home, and with our kids, in the way that we pray together, we are going to honor the Word.
And ultimately, you recognize that what the apostle was saying was that he would work in such a way that his wife believed she was splendid, a treasure to God. We're going to treasure one another, and whether or not you regard me such, I'm going to treat you as precious to God.
Taking that spiritual leadership where I'm guiding a family by my example of spiritual devotion, dying to self, letting my wife know her radiance, her glory to God in such a way as saying those old words of Joshua, "I don't know what others will choose, but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord."
And it is that husband's example that begins that way, using my authority, my life, my privileges as the head of a home, but not self-serving, does not insist on its own the biblical love, but for the sake of another. Now all of us in this society have certain decisions to make. We can say, "Is biblical headship just this social construct that biblical ancients imposed on the family but isn't real?"
Or can we say, through centuries and generations and across cultures, something intuitive seems to exist between men and women that it's typical most of the time that husbands are leaders in their families?
And is what the apostle doing, rather than taking away that instinct, that way that God has made us, instead of letting us use it to abuse another person, regulating biblical headship so that it's actually being used for the sake of another person?
That instinctive aspect of the Spirit in us, I think, was displayed in a study that was done by Focus on the Family some years ago, and here's what they discerned. They said that if a child is the first person in a family to become a Christian, then there's only a less than 4% chance that the rest of the family will become Christian.
If the wife is the first member of the family to become a Christian, then there's a 17% chance that the rest of the family will become Christian.
But if the husband is the first to become a Christian.
There is a 93% chance that the rest of the family will become a Christian.
How can that be?
Because there is something instinctive, intuitive, spiritual in us that the world cannot describe and does not know, whereby husbands are establishing spiritual dynamics for their homes. And what the apostle is doing is he's speaking to the power of that and saying to husbands, "Yes, you have a great privilege to be the head of a home, and you have great power within the home to express what that is, but it comes as you live in a Christlike way." When that is done, Christ mission becomes apparent. You become the face of Christ to your spouse and to your children as you are living in a Christlike manner. What are the reasons for this Christlikeness, this face of Christ to another? And the apostle Paul is careful to express that. Having said to husbands, "You have this great privilege of being the head of a home for the sake of others." I want you to understand, lest you express it in an abusive way or a take advantage way, what are the actual reasons for your headship? And the first reason is just to understand your headship is for the glory of another, to actually glorify your spouse. I read earlier, verses 25, they go on through verse 28, that a husband's role as Christ sanctified the church was to sanctify his wife, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the Word, that he might present the church to himself and splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way, husbands are to love their wives even as much as they love their own bodies.
Christ's goal is to make the church radiant, and husbands, even as the head of a home, our goal, the reason that we have this privilege is to make our wives know their radiance before God, to fill up their hearts with a sense of the grace of God in their behalf, that they would know how glorious, splendid they are to God by the way their own husbands are treating them.
Now I will well confess to you that's not everybody even in the church, not how their perception of what biblical headship is.
I think of a missionary friend of ours who wrote one time about the headship that her missionary husband expressed, and as a consequence she wrote, "I hate him.
I hate him for the way he made me feel about myself, a non-person, a slave. I can never do anything right in his sight. I can never do enough to please him."
And there are women listening to me right now who could echo those words. "Oh, my husband says he's the head of the home.
I do not feel radiant or glorious or splendid.
I just feel put down all the time." And it's so easy to move from an understanding of God has given me the privilege of being the head of the home, to slide without even perceiving it into using people rather than bless them. And Kathy, we know some of that.
During our first year of marriage, we lived on four part-time jobs in a very small house with a very little bank account.
At one point, our old secondhand Ken Moore wash machine died, and when I told Brian about it, he asked me to call a repairman, and then he left for work.
When Brian got home that evening, he asked what the repairman had said, and I said, "Well, I didn't get around to calling him." And he said, "Okay, well, be sure and call him tomorrow."
And tomorrow was the same story. I just, oh, I forgot I didn't get around to calling him.
This went on for several days until Brian, in exasperation, finally said, "What's the problem? Why are you not calling the repairman?"
That's when I broke into tears of embarrassment and shame.
I felt inadequate.
I felt unable.
I was afraid I would do it wrong, cost us money we did not have. I was afraid I would fail.
Now, Kathy, we do this in different marriage conferences.
She tells that with some embarrassment.
She tells it, and I feel pain.
And the reason I feel pain is because you must know how intelligent a lady is. She made a lot better grades than I did in college, and she was the outstanding musician in her university two years in a row. I mean, this is an amazingly able woman.
But I had to say to myself, "My word, Kathy, how is it that after only being married to me for a year, you feel so incapable that you cannot call a repairman?" And I thought back to the marriage in which I grew up, in which so often my mom felt inadequate and insignificant and wondered, "What had I picked up that I was doing to my own wife?" I didn't understand it entirely. It was a pattern of growth. I will tell you, this isn't very spiritual. The thing that got through to me was thinking in my grandmother's house, there was this old – this is terrible theology – there's old Victorian photograph – not photograph, picture. And the picture is of a boy at the wheel of a great ship that's at storm, and the winds are tearing apart the sails and the waves are coming over the bow of the ship, and the boy at the great steering wheel of the ship looks totally confident.
And the reason is because also pictured in that Victorian painting is the image of Jesus with his hand on the boy's shoulder, and the subtext is always, "Jesus is my co-pilot."
And the message was when Jesus is present with us, we never feel more confident, more strong.
And I had to ask, why is it that when I am with my wife, she never feels less confident
or strong?
That she's a perfectly capable driver until I'm in the car?
That she's perfectly confident in conversation until I join the conversation? And we had to go down a path of the dynamics between us where I was undermining her in ways that I didn't fully understand by living for myself rather than glorifying her. Now things have changed a little bit.
You want me to brag on you? You're going to brag on you. Oh, you brag on me. I like it.
So some years later, the washer broke again. Different washer. Different washer. Still broke. Still broke.
So the same wife who wouldn't call the repairman takes it apart, identifies the part that's wrong, calls the shop, orders the part, goes and picks it up, and repairs it herself just as she did with our water softener about five weeks ago here. And I said, "What a woman." You know. And she is.
But I recognize how easy it is to go in that evil math that builds me up by tearing her down.
And ultimately what that is doing is not only taking away the glory that God intends for her, it's taking away the wholeness that God intends for me. I mean it's so important in this passage where verses 31 through 33, the apostle saying, "You are one in the Lord." That what God is doing when he says, "If you love your wife, you're actually loving yourself." That sounds kind of selfish, I know. But he's saying, "I meant for the two of you to be one. And if what you're doing is you're diminishing your wife, you're actually damaging yourself,
I look at so much of how the Lord has blessed us and the privileges He's put in my life. But had Cathy not been the wife she's been, there's no way I'd be sitting in front of you now.
There's no way that we would be the couple that God intended. We've seen it work wrong with men all the while saying, "But I'm being a confident and consistent head of a home."
And in those same moments we're destroying not just their spouses, but ultimately destroying themselves. And we saw it in a parlor game one time.
During the years that we lived on the campus at Covenant Seminary in St. Louis, we would often gather with students and their wives for fellowship and game nights and refreshments.
One evening we were playing UNO. If you don't know this game, you accumulate and then you discard cards in a certain numbered order. And as you discard, when you get down to one last card and you're on the cusp of winning, you have to call out UNO so that other players have a chance to block your play. Well we began to notice that evening that Mary would get to having one card in her hand, but she would never call UNO.
And after a while we said, "Why are you not calling UNO?" And so John spoke up and said, "Well, Mary embarrassed me in public recently." And so we had a conversation and we decided that she would not speak in public again unless I gave her permission first.
And our first reaction to that was, "You cannot play UNO that way."
But then our second reaction was, "Oh my.
There is such ill health here."
And in fact, we later observed that without Mary's support and encouragement, he became his own worse self as time went on. Became more and more selfish and domineering and more and more depressed. He ended up leaving seminary and we never heard of him again.
He became his own worse self without her.
By diminishing her, he had damaged himself.
The two become one in the Lord. It's like saying, "I can just take the air out of one side of the basketball and it will work fine." It won't. That when we are called to make our spouses radiant, splendid before the God, to know the fullness of grace in God's life, it's wonderful for a spouse. That's our calling. But it's also necessary to be the persons that God intends for us to be. I think of what it was when my parents were struggling in my teenage years and how I just, being a sensitive kid, kind of artistic, went on numb, just not wanting to be hurt.
And then getting married on numb, becoming a pastor on numb, not knowing how to express emotions, not wanting to. Still a lot of that goes on in me.
And I look back and I think if Kathy had not been all she was for us, helping me to understand what it meant to love one another, to show affection, what kind of a father would I have been, what kind of a pastor would I have been? And I praise God for her and know that God put her in my life to water the fullness of grace in her so that I would know that same grace. Do you recognize so often in our marriages the intimate is the path to the transcendent? It's the way in which we care for one another, the way in which we hold one another that's teaching us of Christ's own care for us.
And knowing that, we not only praise God for His work between us, but we so much want to share it with other people. You know, if you say, "What are the resources that God has given us to be able to be the heads of homes that God intends?" It's not such a mystery, right? It's self-sacrifice. Verse 25, "What did Christ do for His bride? He loved her and gave Himself for her."
The first resource that we have for being the head of a home that God intends so that we are built up as well as building up our spouses is the willingness to engage in self-sacrifice. I will tell you, there are so many marriage manuals out there that try to say, "Here's what it means to be the head of the home. Who writes the checks? Who has the biggest paycheck? Who holds the remote? Who drives the car?" It's just silliness. I mean, there is no shortcut to saying, "This is what it means to be the head of a home. The man makes all the final decisions."
Where is that in the Bible?
I am not saying that it's not important that the man be engaged and perhaps as the two work through things to come to some final decision, but that is not the first step. What does it mean to listen to another, to love one another, to live for the sake of one another? That's not a shortcut. That is living life under Christ so that there is this daily devotion of two lives to Christ, and we listen to one another, and we serve one another. And ultimately the husband is saying, "Yes, me and my house, we will serve the Lord, and there will be spiritual leadership in this home by how we conduct ourselves." But ultimately it is saying, the man is saying, "I will take the lead in living for another."
Because that's what Christ did, which ultimately means that our resource for living as Christ intended is not just self-sacrifice. Ultimately it is Christ's sacrifice. Do you understand what Jesus has done? He has filled up our tanks with the grace of God so that we can run on the fuel of grace in our marriages. That's not selfishness.
That's living for another, and we take the lead, husbands, in living for another as God intends, and that can be a sacrifice. Kathy, we've seen that too. Dr. J. Robertson McQuilkin, well known as past president of the prestigious Columbia Bible College, he had been president for many years when his wife Muriel began to experience more and more the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease.
One of those symptoms was that she became desperate for his presence, and so she would walk the half-mile journey from their home to his office just to be with him, and then he'd have someone walk her back home again. It was a half-mile each way, often 10 times a day, until one evening as he was helping her get ready for bed, took off her shoes and socks and saw that her feet were bleeding from all the walking.
And as he washed her feet, he realized the next Christlike calling he would need to make in her behalf.
So he gave up his presidency.
He gave up himself for her.
We've told that story in this church before, and you may recall that after J. Robertson McQuilkin gave up his presidency, gave up himself for his wife, that people were astounded and some renewed marriage vows, having heard the account, some wrote letters of thanks. And at some point, McQuilkin, who was struggling with cancer himself, said to his oncologist, "Why does this make such a difference to people? I love my wife."
And the oncologist said, "It's not unusual for a woman to stand by her husband in serious health crisis.
It can be quite unusual for a man to give up of himself for the sake of his wife.
It is what Christ did."
The Apostle Paul concludes his instruction to husbands, saying, "This mystery is profound,
and I'm saying that it refers to Christ and the church.
However, let each one of you love his wife as himself."
Yeah, it is a mystery, but the path is not unclear, as in so many aspects of the Christian life. What it means to be the Christian head of a home, to be a gospel husband, a good news husband, the path of such a husband is the path of the cross.
As we live for another, we follow the path of Christ, and that is our calling to bring radiance to another, health to our marriages, and glory to Christ because we are walking his path too. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, I thank you for my wife who exudes the grace of Christ.
I thank you for my Savior who has taught us both what that means.
And pray even now, as we know, there are families who struggle in a time of anxiety and sheltering in place that you might just open eyes to Jesus, and seeing how he lived for another and gave himself for the church, we might begin to examine again, "Is that the way I'm living for my wife? Have I truly said, as for me and my house, we will follow the Lord because I'm going to follow the Lord, taking the spiritual lead for the sake of my family?"
Teach us through Christ, we pray, for we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.