| Home Page | Grace Baptist Church View related sermons Click here |
TEXT: Titus 2:4
SUBJECT: Family Life #2: Love Your Husband
Last month I began a series on Family Life. From the Proverb, I urged every husband to enjoy his wife--to "rejoice" in her and to "be always intoxicated with her love".
Are you brothers doing this? Are you trying to, at least? If not, you're a "hearer of the word and not a doer". If you've forgotten these words, I urge you to think them over again. And this time, to act upon them in faith, looking to God to enable you to do what you can't do on your own.
Today, I speak to you wives. Not to you only, of course, for the Word is profitable to everyone. But to you wives chiefly.
THE DUTY
What does the Lord want you to do? He wants you to "love your husband". This is the plain meaning of the text; and there's nothing in the context to suggest Paul meant anything else. He assumes that older women already "love their husbands"; he wants them to teach the young ladies how to do the same.
This is a good assignment for ladies, young and old. If you think you've got nothing to do at church, think again. If you've been married a few years, God commands you to help your younger sisters. If you're a new bride, God commands you to study your older sisters and to follow their good examples.
This is the only verse in the New Testament that specifically commands women to love their husbands. One might think, therefore, that wifely love is not too important to God. But if you think this, you're wrong. For:
--A saving knowledge of God assumes love. "If a man says he loves God and hates his brother, he is a liar! For he who loves not his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?" (I John 4:20). The brotherly love John thinks we have does not apply to everyone but your husband! As "heirs together of the grace of life", you should love him with a double love!
--Discipleship assumes love. "By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one for another" (John 13:35). If you don't love your husband, you don't follow Jesus Christ. I don't care how often you come to church or how much you give the poor. It is not church-going and charity that prove your discipleship; it is love.
--The Christian Rule is love. "Love works no ill toward its neighbor, therefore, love is the fulfilling of the Law" (Romans 13:10).
Make no mistake about it: Jesus Christ wants you to love your husband. He wants you to love your husband with "a fervent love".
Do you? No one will publicly admit to not loving her husband. But answer it in your soul: Do you love your husband? Do you? Really? God knows. Coming clean with Him is the first step to recovery.
THE WAY
The Lord wants you to love your husband in a certain way. How is that? Theologians are helpful here. They have divided "love" into two kinds:
The love of complacency. This means approval, appreciation, or pleasure. You see something beautiful or sublime, and you can't help loving it.
The love of benevolence. This refers to the desire to do good; to pity; to help; to be generous.
Ideally, you should love your husband in both ways. You should admire him and do him good.
But let's face it: Not every husband earns the respect and approval of his wife. Some flaws are so great, they can't be ignored; some graces are so lacking, no woman could pretend they were there.
If your husband is this way, you're still obliged to love him. Maybe you can't admire him, but you can do him good! And you must do him good!
This sort of love, this benevolence, is wonderfully described in I Corinthians 13.
It is not a warm feeling, but a way of conducting yourself. It's not a passing fancy, but a fixed way of life. True love is a disposition that
--"Suffers long". This means "to hold your temper". It assumes your husband does things you don't like. And how does it respond to him? It does not lambaste him; it does not sneer at him; it does not sulk or talk behind his back. That's love. If you do these things, you're not loving him.
--"Kind". This refers to affection and goodness. Love speaks courteously; love smiles; love is helpful and supportive. Are you "kind" to him? If not, you're not loving your husband.
--"Does not rejoice in iniquity". The loving wife takes no pleasure in her husband's faults. She's grieved by them--and doesn't say, "I told you so".
--"Does not parade itself; is not puffed up". The loving wife does not assume a superior air. She doesn't feel better than her husband, and doesn't tell him she is.
This is a small sample of "what love is". If these words don't describe you--whatever the provocations--you're not living in love.
And so, for a second time, I ask you wives: Do you love your husband? I know your love is not perfect, but is it real? It is real only insofar as it "suffers long, is kind" and so on. No love without these things.
THE OBJECTION
Many wives will not like what I've said. In theory, they agree with me, but..."You don't know my husband"!
Most complaints fall into one of two categories:
1."He's so cold and withdrawn, I hardly know him any more". This is very common among believing men. If it's true of you, I pray you'll repent of your sin and return to your "first love". But ladies, if your husband is this way, the Lord Jesus has something to say to you: "Love your neighbor as yourself". A neighbor is someone you know, but not someone who's especially close to you. If your husband is no more than your neighbor, then love him--"love him as yourself".
2."He's mean and cruel, treats me like garbage". This is also common in Christian families, alas! Brothers, if you're this way, I pray God will take away your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh". But ladies, if your husband is like this, the Lord has something for you, too: "Love your enemies". Who are your enemies? People who "curse you, hate you, spitefully use and persecute you". What do you do with these scoundrels? You "bless them, pray for them, and do them good".
Our Lord is very sympathetic toward your plight. And He understands it, for He too was "hated without a cause". Yet the ugliness others show does not permit us to do the same. "Vengeance is Mine, I will repay--says the LORD". Not you! If your rotten husband "hungers, feed him"; it that no good cretin "thirsts, give him a drink". "Do not be overcome with evil, but overcome evil with good".
How, dear ladies, can you hear your Savior praying, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do" and then retaliate against your husband? This is not love.
For the third time, now: Do you love your husband. Just as he is? Not as you wish he'd be or thought he was, but your husband...the real man?
THE REASON
Why should the wife love her husband? Especially if he has disappointed her? And is not the man she hoped he would be?
Loving him is good for you. No one ever lost out by obeying God. Speaking of His commandments, David sang, "and in keeping of them there is great reward". Now. And later. It is only as we "love one another" that our "joy becomes full". This is true--but not the reason attached to our verse.
Loving him will do him good. Some men don't believe the Gospel and cannot be changed by preaching! But they can be changed as by their wives' "chaste conduct, coupled with fear". The wife who lives a holy life and respects her husband can justly hope for his spiritual improvement. That too is true--but not the reason Paul gives here.
Loving him will do others good. It will set a good example for other wives. It will qualify you to help other ladies. It will earn the respect of other believers. Another true use of the doctrine--but not the one here.
What is Paul's reason for loving your husband? We needn't guess, v.5b tells us: "...that the word of God may not be blasphemed".
If your neighbors hear you screaming at your husband, they won't blame you, they'll blame God! You provoked them to do it. And so you're guilty of blasphemy! You dragged the Sacred Name in the mud! Because you didn't love your husband!
By his adultery, David "Gave the enemies of the LORD cause to blaspheme". Ample cause to laugh at and scorn the One Blessed Forever. The wife can do the same by not loving her husband.
I won't close on this negative note. But add a positive one. The reverse of Paul's warning is a promise. If the wife loves her husband, the word of God will be praised.
Unbelievers want happy marriages too. But because they're so selfish, they can't have them. But you can. If you love your husband, the unsaved will "sit up and take notice". And, who knows? Maybe they'll ask "a reason for the hope that is in you". Maybe they'll see Christ in you. And want Him for themselves.
A loving marriage is a powerful witness. Tracts can be tossed in the garbage; radio sermons can be tuned-out; churches can be avoided. But no one can miss a loving marriage. In today's dark world, it's "a city that is set on a hill".
By loving your husband, you "Let your light so shine before men that they see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven".
Loving your husband honors God; not loving him blasphemes Him. And so, once again: Do you love your husband? husband?
THE HELP
It's not easy loving anyone. Not even your husband. To help you do it, let me close with five brief thoughts.
If you want to love your husband more, think on your own faults more. Nothing makes a wife despise her husband more than pride! The only cure for pride is close and honest self-examination. If you spot the "beam in your own eye", you won't be so quick to point out the "speck" in his.
If you want to love your husband more, think on the verses that command it. John 15:9 is a good place to start: "As the Father has loved Me, so have I loved you; continue in My love".
Pray for love. Maybe you "have not because you ask not". If God gives "wisdom liberally to everyone who asks for it", don't you think He'll give "love" on the same terms?
Meditate on God's love. "But God commended His love toward us, in that--while we were yet sinners--Christ died for us", cf. Ephesians 4:32.
Practice love! Maybe you're not very good at it because you don't practice enough! Start working on it. Today. With the Lord's blessing, you'll love him more tomorrow. Go on from there. "Grow in the grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ".
Dear wives--for the last time today--I'm going to put the question to you: Do you love your husband? God make you love him, for Christ's sake. Amen.
| Home Page |
Sermons provided by www.GraceBaptist.ws |