Dear brothers and sisters,
Last weekend Bec and I were privileged to lead a marriage conference for Providence Bible Church of Denver (the church that our son Jim and his wife Amelia attend). On Friday evening, we began the conference by calling everyone to focus on this: Marriages that are growing in healthiness and happiness are enjoyed by those men and women who, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, are committing and re-committing themselves to growing in healthiness and happiness as individual disciples of Jesus. We followed this statement with the following quote from a book that was given to Bec and me when we were first married, The Marriage Affair edited by Rev. J. Allan Peterson. Rev. Peterson writes,
The journey toward a happy marriage is the journey from childishness to maturity, from egocentricity to the commitment of love. . . . . Maturity delivers a person from a childish preoccupation with himself and the use of his partner to
satisfy his own desires and needs. Maturity gives a person the ability and willingness to act. The mature one acceptsresponsibility and the consequences of his own decisions. Such a person is able to take the long look and patiently
persevere while looking for a way through his present difficulties – not a way out of them. (p. 6, italics mine)
Brothers and sisters, to grow in marriage you must heed Paul’s words to Timothy: “Give careful attention to yourself” (1 Timothy 4:16). To put it in the Southern vernacular: Y’all can’t grow as a couple unless you as individuals “give careful attention” to your own walk with Jesus.
In Ephesians 5 (well known because of its teaching on marriage), Paul spends the first 21 verses addressing the walk of the individual disciple in his or her devotion to God. Then in the last 12 verses, he talks about the walk of married disciples in their devotion to one another. He says that this devotion to one another in marriage portrays the profound mystery of the relationship between Christ and His bride, the Church. The following is an abbreviated and slightly edited form of our outline of Ephesians 5. I hope that you will find it helpful in your own mediation on this text.
I. God has first called you to walk in devotion to Him. (Ephesians 5:1-21)
A. Walk like God your Father. “Be imitators of God, as beloved children.” (vs 1)
B. Walk in love. “Walk in love, just as Christ also loved you.” (vs 2)
C. Walk in purity and truth. “Walk as children of light.” (vs. 3-14)
D. Walk in wisdom. “. . . walk, not as unwise men, but as wise.” (vs. 15-17)
E. Walk in the power of the Holy Spirit. “Be filled with the Spirit.” (vs. 18-20)
F. Walk in submission to one another, as you reverence Christ. “Be subject to one another.” (vs. 21)
II. As His disciple, you are also to walk in daily devotion to your spouse, and thereby portray the
incomparable beauty of the relationship between Christ and His bride, the Church. (vs. 22-33)
A. Wives, you are to portray the loving response of the Church to the leadership of Christ. (vs. 22-24)
1. Confidently follow your husband’s leadership, placing your trust in the Lord’s
work through him. “Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord.” (vs. 22)
Note: You are no more inferior to your husband than Christ is to His Father. (1 Cor. 11:3)
2. You are to submit to your husband in all areas of life. “in everything.” (vs. 24)
B. Husbands are to portray Christ’s great love for His Church, His Bride. (vs. 25-31)
1. Your love is to be a preserving and protecting love. “Savior of the body.” (vs. 23)
Kent Hughes calls us to ask, “Is my wife more like Christ because she is married to me? Or is she like Christ in spite of me? Has she shrunk from His likeness because of me? Do I sanctify her or hold her back? Is she a better woman because she is married to me? Is she a better friend? A better mother?”
Robert Lewis says that the husband should be “devoted to the advancement and completion of the beauty of her character.”
4. Your love is to be self-love. “He who loves his wife loves himself.” (vs. 28-31)
C. Because this is such a great mystery that we are depicting – “Christ and the Church”, it must be said
again: Husbands, love your wives as yourself, and wives respect your husbands. (vs. 32-33)
How will you be able to walk in this devotion to God and to one another? In Luke 11:13, Jesus says, “If you being evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?” Jesus is saying that our Father will “give the experience of the ministry, influence, and blessings of the Holy Spirit” to us, if we will ask. (Dr. J. I. Packer, Keep in Step with the Spirit, p. 227)
Go well in the Holy Spirit!
Rod and Bec
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