Do not let the enemy win in your marriage. And do not let the enemy win in your season of preparing for marriage. Repent when you fall short. Stand up, trust the Lord, obey His Word, and repeat when you miss the mark. 

Introduction

Over the last couple of weeks we have been talking about the fact that there is a masculinity crisis in this world and nowhere is that felt more profoundly than in marriages. You can think about it this way: if healthy marriages are the bedrock of a community, and healthy communities unite together to form vibrant cultures, then the best way to topple a society is to attack its marriages. If you break that grand institution down, if you spoil the marriage, then you will cripple the nation. And there is no better place for Satan to begin an all out war on marriage, than to focus on the one God called to lead in the home, and that is man.

And, I want you to think about it this way, if manliness, godly masculinity, and a man’s role in the home is a targeted attack launched consistently by Satan, then what we really need to know and understand is how to fight back. And we do not fight with swords and shields…We do not fight with domination and aggression…We fight by orienting our life to what the Bible says, by doing what it tells us to do, and by refusing to be moved when the fiery arrows of Satan come! That is our warfare, brothers. To know and understand what the Bible says about Biblical manhood, to orient our lives in that Godward direction, and refuse to be moved from off that spot.

The enemy may attack and he may win a ground back in this culture. But we must be resolved that he will not win in this arena. He will not move us from our purpose as men. And there is no better passage to teach us about this than Ephesians 5:23-33, where we learn 5 ways that we must love like men!

And the first is that we must have a Shepherding kind of love. Ephesians 5:23-24 says this:

Shepherding Love (Eph. 5:23-24)

For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body. But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything.

The first aspect of manly love is godly leadership. Men have been called to lead in their homes in the same way Christ provides love and leadership to His church. And this is not a suggestion.

Think about it like this, the Church is blessed because of the leadership of Christ. We do not moan and groan under His sovereign rule; we flourish under it. And that is the case because we are no longer wandering in the valleys of the shadow of death, we have been brought into His strong, life-giving, stabilizing love, and we are infinitely better off because of it. We joyfully follow Him out of death and enjoy the life giving benefits of His rule without a whimper of objection.

Well… In the same way, men, God has called you to diligently lead in your homes. He has called you to bring your family together under your leadership. He has commanded you to bring life into your home through your godly care. He has called you to provide the same kind of benefits Christ brings to the church, albeit in a temporal way.

Suffice it to say, your family ought to flourish, spiritually speaking, under your consistent, godly, Christ honoring, active leadership. If you are leading correctly, your family will thrive. If your family is spiritually weak, emotionally sickly, relationally at each other’s throats, experiencing interpersonal decay, chaos, in-fighting, rampant immorality, or is declining in any perceivable metric, then your leadership needs adjusting and repentance.

It is not enough to point the finger at your wife and kids like Adam. And you certainly cannot succeed as a husband and family head if you adopt Adam’s passive care. You just can’t.

You have to stand up, buck up, grow up, man up, and lead. You have to take a look at your family and ask some hard questions about yourself. Are they struggling because of my failed leadership? Are there things I need to stop doing? Things I need to start doing? So that I can be more like Jesus, a better head over this family, and so that my clan can more faithfully honor God?

These are hard questions, but the buck stops with you. You did not marry into a democracy where everything is decided after spirited debates on a senate floor. You are a God appointed King, called to rule with the love and affection of Christ, for the good and health of your family. If you fail, the family will suffer. If you repent, the family will grow.

The first aspect of loving like a man, is having the guts to lead like Jesus. To shepherd like Jesus. To have a shepherd’s love.

The second aspect of Loving like a man, is to have a Sacrificing kind of love. Look at verse 25 of this incredible passage.

Sacrificing Love (Eph 5:25)

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

Here the love that Christ has for the Church is qualified in His desire, and joy, to give Himself up for her. His love was demonstrated by His willingness to give His life for her, and her life, health, and vitality, would be impossible without His sacrifice. These are wonderful and glorious truths of the Gospel that we celebrate and say amen to each week…

But what we as men often forget about is that these things have been required of us. Paul begins with “husbands love your wives”. And just in case you are not clear on what that means, it means being like Jesus and giving yourself up for her.

This means that your leadership cannot be used to advance your own agenda. You wake up for your family, go to work for your family, provide for your family, serve your family, go to sleep protecting your family, repeat and die in honor like a man who sacrificed for His family

And not just in those ways…Think about what Jesus did. He went to the cross! He gave His life for the spiritual well-being of His bride!

That means manly love sacrifices everything to make sure the people around us are thriving spiritually. It means praying with your wife. It means leading family worship with your kids. It means making them go to church when they do not want to go. It means modeling Christ like leadership when others want to cut corners. It means pointing to Jesus in the way you discipline… It means comforting your wife and children with the Gospel. It means putting yourself second so that someone else can benefit!

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