Owe Nothing to Your Marriage

Introduction

Good morning, skeleton crew. We’re happy to have everybody here. We’ve got visitors and we’re so glad you’ve come. We want to invite you to come back anytime you have an opportunity. We will meet again this afternoon at five o’clock. Normally on Sunday afternoon we have Bible classes because of all the people that are gone today taking their kids to camp. We will have a singing tonight. So we welcome you back for that. And then we have Bible classes Wednesdays at 7 30. We’re here to worship God. We’re glad you’ve joined us. Let’s start with a word of prayer. Our Holy Father, we praise your name, Father. We are here to give you glory and honor to worship you. We’re so thankful for this opportunity for the facility we have to meet in where we can worship you in comfort and ease.

Help us to redirect our minds but solely to you, Father, to put aside the things of the world and focus on the singing we’re gonna we’re gonna give to you and to one another and hear your word preached and pray that we’ll all be edified and you’ll be glorified this morning. Pray all these things in Jesus’ name. Amen. Oh, one other thing before we start. Kids, this stage is a construction area, so please stay off. I just don’t want anybody to be hurt, so that’s it. So glad to see everybody this morning. We’ll begin our song service with I Know That My Redeemer Lives. One of my favorite things to think about and to read about and even to sing about is the idea of seeing one day the face of Jesus.

And so I hope that I’ll invite you to find that theme in the songs that we’re singing this morning. Seeing the face of Jesus. We’ll begin with, I know that my redeemer lives.

I know that my redeemer lives and have it praise glory. I am eternal like years from sin and so I know I know that my bear is I know I know eternal like me. I know I mean I should know my word in deep when I’m face facing when this earth might be I know I know that my bees I know I know eternal life deep I know that I know this I mean I know I know that only understand for me on my house I may have smaller for sea I know I know that my bears I know I know eternal life I know that This time we’ll be led in prayer, followed by the scripture reading, followed by the flesh. Let’s pray. Heavenly Father, we are so grateful to be here together as a family.

We are so blessed to be able to have this facility to come and worship you freely.

When we turn to you and lay our sins at your feet and our cares and our worries and our stress, anxieties, what we suffer from, the things that we deal with, the pain, that once we leave it at your feet, we know we can walk away. And you will handle it for us, Lord. We ask that you please be with our family members that are not here today, those that are on the road, heading to camp this week, Lord. We ask that you please watch over them, keep them safe, let the journeys tuned from be successful.

Please be with their counselors and their teachers and those that have worked hard on the lessons to guide their minds, their hearts. Lord God, we ask that you please be with the parents as some of the kids are away. That stress is true as well, and we ask that you please let them grow to be lights into the world.

Hear our worship and accept it as a sacrifice to you and sweet aroma. Lord God, we ask you please be with the ones struggling, the ones suffering, and the ones who don’t know what to do with their lives. Only way and the only hope.

We pray this in your son’s name. Amen.

You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor do people put a light, nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

He has blessed us so much, and we take this time to give back to Him that this work might here might prosper. Would you bow with me, please? Our most gracious and loving Heavenly Father, what you have done for us is beyond our words. The blessings that you give us, the blessings that we enjoy from you, from the sacrifice of your son, the gift of eternal life that you have promised us. Father, the gifts that you allow us to use while we are here on earth. We know that they come from you, and we acknowledge that. We pray, Father, that we would always use what you have given to us here on earth to honor you, to glorify your name, to show you to the world.

And at this time, Father, we give back to you, and we pray that this work might prosper here, and that what we give might further that spreading of your word and the work that we do here as the congregation of your people. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

Our next song is Purer in Heart. Oh, God. Number five hundred and eighty if you’re using the books.

Song of encouragement after the sermon this morning is eight hundred thirty-nine. If you’re marking your song books, Jesus. I come. Before that lesson, we’ll sing number one hundred and seventy-two. To God be the glory. I’ll invite you to stand as we sing this song together.

So let me the world let me give us his son.

I am like all the hands.

Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Let me earn his voice. Praise the Lord.

Let the choice.

I am giving my glory. Great things he has done.

Great things he has done. I am brave our joy sees us our son. My glory and high and praise will be our wonder our transformation. Praise the Lord.

Let me hear his voice.

Oh the Father will Jesus our son and give him my glory.

Good morning. It’s wonderful to be here with you this morning. I’m going to ask you to turn in your Bible to Romans chapter 13, Romans chapter 13, and we’re going to begin there in just one second. Very good to be with you all this morning, and I’m thankful to God that we have a chance to study the Word of God together. I don’t know what happened last week, where you know, everybody that was here last week is gone now. but I’ll try to do better, I guess, if that had anything to do with me. Romans 13, beginning in verse 7, the Bible says this. Render to all what is due them. Tax to whom tax is due, custom to whom custom, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor.

Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another. For he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. There, Paul tells us that we as Christians are supposed to be the kind of people who owe nothing to anyone. And in that context, he’s applying it to how we respond to the governing authorities, right? You make sure that because they are the governing authorities and they’ve been established by God, that you give them the things that are due to them. If you owe them taxes, you need to make sure you pay them. If you owe them honor, then you need to make sure that you honor them. And what we did last week is we took that idea and we kind of expanded it a little bit and we thought about what does that phrase mean?

Owe nothing to anyone. What does that mean when it comes to lost people? And we talked about how we feel this compulsion to pay other people back when we owe them something, don’t we? And that many times when someone has done a kindness to us, we feel compelled to pay them back, and it hangs in our mind, and we want to make sure we even those balances as quickly as we possibly can. If we owe something, we want to pay it. That’s how Christians are supposed to behave. But at the same time, while we understand wanting to pay someone back, we also understand that there are times when we may owe something to somebody, and we really don’t want to pay them back the way that they’re claiming they deserve to be paid back.

And there may be many reasons for that why we’re hesitant to give people what they’re due. Maybe we feel like the debt is unfair. You ever got a bill in the mail that you felt like was outrageous, and you looked at it and you’re like, there’s no way. There is no way that I actually owe that much money on my water bill this month. Or there’s no way my electric bill costs that much, even though it is the summer in Houston. Maybe we feel like the debt is unfair or the debt is too high. Or maybe we know that we owe that much to them. We just don’t like the way that they’re acting, and so we don’t want to pay them what we owe them.

Long time ago, when me and my brother were teenagers and we were in the stage of life where we acted like this, we went out to we went out to lunch one time. And I realized that after we had ordered our food that I’d forgotten my wallet. And so I looked over at my brother and I asked him to pay for me. And so, of course, he begrudgingly did, as an older brother is wont to do. And I think I remember somehow back in the days, what I ordered that day, I got the cheapest thing on the menu. It cost me like four bucks. So I owed my brother four bucks, and for the next two weeks, he hounded me, reminding me constantly: I paid for your food.

When are you gonna pay me back? Am I gonna get my money back? And he came after me constantly. Then finally, after about two weeks of that, I got the money that I owed him, and he knew about it, so he came right after me again. And he said, Hey, you owe me four bucks. I want my four bucks. So I put my wallet back in my pocket, refused to give him cash, and I wrote him a check for four dollars and one cent. So not only would he have to go cash the check at the bank, but also I thought it was funny the idea of the teller giving him four dollars and one penny. Anyway, I didn’t like the way he was acting, so I didn’t really want to give him what I owed him.

And sometimes that’s the way it is. It’s hard to give people what we owe them because there are feelings involved, and maybe their behavior hasn’t been perfect, and it’s not exactly something I feel compelled to do. Of course, Christians are called to live debt-free lives. We give other people what we owe them. And this morning, I want to think about how that relates to a situation in our lives where sometimes feelings are involved, and sometimes people haven’t behaved the way that they should, and yet still we are called to give people their due. I want to think about this morning what it means to owe nothing in your marriage. I want to encourage you to live your life in such a way that you can confidently say, in my marriage, I owe nothing to my spouse because I have given them what is rightfully theirs.

Now, if we’re being honest, then we’re forced to admit that talking that way about marriage requires a radical shift from the way most people look at marriage. Even some Christians look at marriage. Because usually, when we look at when we think about marriage, we don’t think about what I owe somebody else. We think about marriage differently than that. Usually, when we think about how we’re gonna act in marriage, we think about that in two ways. First of all, we think about what they owe me. Isn’t that true? That’s what we think about. What is my husband owe me? What can I rightfully expect from him? Or what is my wife owe me? What is she supposed to give me? How does God demand that she treat me?

We think about what the other person owes me. And secondly, we think about how they make me feel. Do they make me happy or sad? Do they make me content or dissatisfied? Do they make me feel as loved or as valued as my parents did or a coworker does, or my kids do. And if we’re not careful, what we do is we end up letting the answers to those questions dictate our behavior. What if my wife doesn’t meet my expectations? What if she doesn’t give me the things that I think I deserve? Well, then I stop giving her the things that she thinks she deserves. What if my husband doesn’t give me the things that I think he’s supposed to give me? Well, then I’m not gonna play my part either.

What if they don’t make me feel happy or content or satisfied the way that I want to feel? If we’re not careful, our relationships get to the point where they’re dictated by a tally. We get to the point where we start keeping score and we tell ourselves that in my marriage, I’m only going to lift a finger or put in effort or make any kind of sacrifice once I’m cons I’m once I’m convinced that they have given me everything that I rightfully deserve in this relationship. And I hope you can see that is a recipe for disaster and misery in marriage. And I also hope you understand that there’s a fundamental problem with that idea. That marriage ultimately is not about what they owe me.

1. Marriage Is About What I Owe God and My Spouse

Marriage is about what I owe others. And that’s true in two ways, actually. First and foremost, I need to appreciate that marriage is about what I owe God. And sometimes we overlook that. When we talk about marriage, we usually use possessive language when we talk about that. When you talk about marriage, you talk about what? You talk about your marriage. I talk about my relationship, right? I talk about my marriage because we see marriage as something that belongs to us. And we miss the idea that marriage doesn’t belong to us at all. My marriage actually belongs to God. In the very beginning, God is the one who created this idea. God created the institution. He brought Eve to Adam. He brought them together and made sure they were one flesh.

And that means marriage is his invention. It’s his idea. And so when I get married, I’m not just agreeing to a partnership with somebody else. What I’m doing is I’m agreeing and making a covenant with God that me and this other person are going to do this thing God’s way. Because marriage is his thing. Marriage is about what you owe God. It does not belong to you. And secondly, we need to appreciate that marriage is also about what I owe my spouse. It’s not about what they owe me, it’s about what I owe them. Sometimes we forget, I think, that when we get married, we forget that we actually made promises to each other. We made covenants. We made vows. Did you do that when you got married?

I sure hope so. Because I’m thinking if you were if you refuse to make vows, you probably, you know, that preacher should have just walked off and not married you at all. If you weren’t gonna make any promises to each other. We all make vows when we get married to each other, right? And sometimes I worry we don’t take those vows very seriously. Do you remember the promises that you made? For richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, to forsake all others for as long as you both shall live.

I remember when I was getting married, me and Leah decided that we were gonna do like hybrid stuff. We like the old-fashioned vows, but we also wanted to make some like special vows to each other. So we mixed it up a little bit. We made the old-fashioned vows, and then we added like our personal vows to each other. And I’d written out all these vows and I’d given them to Philip Schumach, who is the one who is in charge of getting us married. And I wanted him to look over my vows, and he read my vows. And one of the vows that I made in my little personal unique vows was that I was gonna make Leah coffee every single morning. And he looked at that and said, You cannot say this.

And I said, why not? It’s it’s beautiful, like it’s really sweet, it’s gonna sound great, right? When I make this vow in front of people, he said, You cannot say this. He said, Jonathan, there is there is no way. There is absolutely no way. You are going to make your wife coffee every Saturday single morning for the rest of your lives together. Do you understand you’re making real promises that actually mean something and don’t just sound nice during the ceremony? That was an important moment for me. It helped me realize what’s actually happening. Not just saying things that sound nice. I’m making vows, promises, covenants. Marriage is about what you owe God. And it’s about what you owe your spouse. And so having said that, it’s worth asking ourselves the question what exactly do we owe in marriage?

What does a wife owe her husband? And what does a husband owe his wife? Now I want you to go to Ephesians 5 with me. We’re going to spend the rest of our time here. And I want you to hear what Paul says in these passages, because, and I want you to look at it through the lens of what we owe one another in this relationship. Ephesians chapter 5, beginning in verse 22, Paul says this, wives, be subject to your own husbands as to the Lord. 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 their husbands in everything.

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her, 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. So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, because we are members of his body. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.

2. A Wife Owes Her Husband Submission

The mystery is great, but I am speaking with reference to Christ in the church. Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife even as himself. And the wife must see to it that she respects her husband. So let’s think about that passage and let’s think about what it means to owe nothing in our marriage. And let’s start by asking him this question. What exactly does a wife owe her husband? What does a wife owe God, given that she has entered into this covenant with her husband and with God? And the first thing that Paul says is that a wife owes her husband submission. Paul says in those verses in verses 22 through 24, that a wife is to be in subjection to her husband.

Now stop right there, because that sounds that sounds really rough and it sounds really harsh in our society, because we think about subjection and we think about someone putting their thumb on somebody else and holding them down and oppressing them and being mean to them. That is not at all the kind of thing that Paul is talking about here. What he’s saying is when a wife is to subject herself, he is saying she is supposed to put herself under his authority. That’s the idea here. When he says a wife is to submit to her husband, he’s not talking about a certain, you know, cruel oppression that she’s supposed to submit herself to. He’s not saying even that she’s supposed to subscribe to a certain number of chores or activities or responsibilities.

Paul is not saying, hey, in your marriage, make sure the guy mows the lawn and does the taxes and the woman does the dishes and folds the laundry. I sure hope not, because Leah does the taxes and I do the dishes in my house. Everybody always laughs at that. This is not about an activity. This is about an attitude. Where a woman is willing to say, I recognize that my husband is the head of this house. Is it an attitude that says, I completely accept his leadership of our family. That’s what a wife owes her husband. And take a look at what Paul says in verse 24. He says this, but as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands and everything.

Now, to be careful, I want to make sure you understand. He’s not saying that you should treat your husband exactly the same way that the church treats Christ. Your husband is not Christ. He is not your savior, he’s not your God, he’s not worthy of your worship. But he is saying that there is a certain symmetry between how a church treats Christ and how a wife is supposed to treat her husband. And let me explain what I mean by that. When you walk into a church, you can almost instantly tell, at least a sound church, that the people in this place are followers of Christ. Right? You walked into this church, you were a visitor, you’d be able to tell that by the way we sing and the things we talk about and the way we subscribe to the New Testament pattern in all of these different things.

In so many different ways, you would be able to tell, oh, these people, they’re not just doing their own thing. They are trying their best to follow Christ and submit to his leadership. And Paul is saying in the home, a wife should be able to exhibit the same kind of thing. She should be able to look at her behavior and her attitude and the way she carries herself, and there should be evidence that she can point to and see and recognize in this way I know that I am a follower of my husband’s leadership. And so it’s important for a wife to ask herself, in what way in my daily life do I demonstrate that I am subject to my husband? In what way in my daily life do I show him that I completely accept his leadership?

A wife owes her husband that.

3. A Wife Owes Her Husband Respect

Husband. And that term respect is a different but related idea, and it’s a challenging idea. That word, a wife must see to it that she respects her husband. Do you know what Greek word that is? It’s phobos, which is where we get our English word phobia, which is often translated in English to the word what? Fear. Now, when I was preparing this lesson and I found that was one of those moments where I’m like, oh, let’s pretend like I didn’t see that, and let’s move on and talk about something else. That makes me uncomfortable. Does it make you uncomfortable? That Paul is saying here, a wife must see to it, and you could correctly translate this to a wife must see to it that she fears her husband or reverences her husband.

I don’t like that. I want to change that. I want to make that into something else. I don’t want that to say that, but that’s what the text says. We’ve got to deal with that. Now, maybe it doesn’t make you as uncomfortable as it makes me, but you’re not the one up here who’s going to be immortalized online, saying that wives should reverence their husbands. But maybe if you feel uncomfortable like me, that should tell us something. Maybe our discomfort should show us that we’ve become so accustomed to the traditions of our society that God’s word on this matter has begun to sound foreign, strange, and illegitimate. But that’s what the text says. A wife must see to it that she reverence her husband. Now, to be clear, just in case there’s any confusion, when somebody gets up here and they talk about the fear of the Lord, no one would accuse them of saying, oh, we need to be scared of God and terrified because he’s some kind of malevolent ruler who’s gonna do us harm.

And by the same token, when we say you should reverence or fear your husband, nobody’s saying that’s the attitude a wife should have toward her husband.

But there is some symmetry between how a church reacts to God and how a wife reacts to her husband. There should be a sort of weight, a sort of respect, a sort of reverence in how she reacts to him. And I guess maybe you can call this a cop-out, maybe it is.

When Paul tells wives, you need to make sure you respect your husband, don’t you think that should have some influence on how a wife speaks to her husband? And don’t you think that should have some effect on how she speaks about him to other people? And don’t you think that should have some influence on the degree and the kind of support that she offers to him? And don’t you think that might affect the attitude that she carries throughout her house as she deals with him? Whether it’s one of gratitude and respect or grumbling and complaining, don’t you think that would affect those type of things? This is what a wife owes her husband submission and respect. And it’s important to remember that these are things a wife owes.

This is not something that a husband earns. It is not something he merits. It is also not something that he can demand or take by force. It is only something that you as a wife can freely choose to give.

4. A Husband Owes His Wife Leadership

But let’s flip that around. And let’s ask ourselves the question. What does a husband owe his wife? Because Paul’s going to go on and talk about that as well. And according to Paul, what a husband owes his wife is leadership. Now go on and read with me. Let’s read Ephesians 5 and verse 25 again. He says this husbands love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her, 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. So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies.

He who loves his own wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, because we are members of his body. Understand that Paul says a husband owes his wife his leadership. And what that means is that he must be willing to take up the helm and be the leader in his home. And I gotta tell you, when it comes to leadership, I think there are two myths that people commonly subscribe to that I think would be important for us to dispel this morning. One of them is that we believe about leadership is this that submitting to leadership is easy for women. So long as the man is a good leader. Isn’t that what we hear sometimes?

Well, I would submit to my husband if he was just the kind of man he’s supposed to be. It would be so much easier to submit to his leadership if he would just get his act together and do what he’s supposed to do. And I gotta tell you, I think that’s a myth. I don’t think that’s true at all. I think submitting to leadership is hard even when the husband is a good leader. I’ll tell you why I think that. It’s because submitting to leadership is hard for anyone. Is it easy for you to submit to your boss at work? Is it easy for your children to submit to you as a parent? No. It’s not easy for anyone to submit to leadership. And I think we also see, I think the text verifies this in Genesis chapter 3.

You remember, after the fall, and God is doling out consequences to Adam and Eve and the serpent for their part in that. Remember that God says to Eve that your desire shall be for your husband. And one way we can interpret that phrase is that she will desire his position of leadership. Because he goes on to say, your desire shall be for your husband, but he shall rule over you. In other words, it’s gonna be hard for women like Eve to subject themselves to their husband. It’s hard to submit to leadership. And I think we also believe this myth that assuming leadership is easy for men. And honestly, I don’t think either of those things is true. Now, to be fair, masculine leadership, I think, is natural for men.

But the temptation to abdicate that position is exceedingly common. Men are often tempted, even though it may be natural for them to be leaders, they are tempted to abandon their position of leadership. And I gotta tell you, that’s not just true in our age. That is a tale that’s as old as time, and you can see that happen again and again and again in the Bible story. Men who should be leaders shrinking, abandoning their posts, and their wives end up stepping up and taking over the home. We see this with Adam and Eve, right? This is what the man said, the woman who you gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate. The reason why everything goes wrong in the garden is because Adam doesn’t take leadership.

He doesn’t take ownership. He follows Eve’s lead instead of taking the leadership for himself. We see this also with Solomon and his wives, right? 1 Kings 11, verse 3, he had 700 wives, princesses, and 300 concubines, for his wives turned his heart away. For when Solomon was old, his wives turned his heart away after other gods, and his heart was not wholly devoted to the Lord his God as the heart of his father David had been. What happened with Solomon? The wisest man on earth. Well, he let his wives lead him into idolatry. He abandoned his position of leadership. We see this with Ahab and Jezebel, don’t we? Remember when Ahab comes home sad because he can’t have Naboth’s vineyard? And he’s pouting on his bed, and Jezebel decides, well, I’m gonna take up the helm.

I’ll be the leader of this family. And she decides to assassinate Naboth so that he can get the vineyard he wants. We see this in the New Testament with Herod and Herodias. When John the Baptist has accused Herod and Herodias of being in an unlawful, unscriptural marriage, and Herodias is upset about that. And so she ultimately calls for the head of John the Baptist, and it says this, and she went out to ask her mother, what shall I ask? And she said, the head of John the Baptist immediately she came in a hurry to the king and asked, saying, I want you to give me at once the head of John the Baptist on a platter. And although the king was very sorry, yet because of his oaths and because of his dinner guest, he was unwilling to refuse her.

There again, you see, a man who should do the right thing and knows the right thing, but will not, because he’s listening to the voice of his wife instead. Understand, brothers, that you owe your wife your leadership. You cannot shrink from it. You cannot pass the responsibility on to somebody else. You cannot throw up your hands and give up and say, I’m not gonna do this anymore when it gets hard to be a leader. And you must ask yourself the question In what way am I leading in my marriage? In what way am I taking ownership for the spiritual direction of my home? Paul goes on to say this not only does a husband owe his wife his leadership, he also owes his wife his love.

5. A Husband Owes His Wife Love That Involves Intense Sacrifice

And this is a kind of love that involves intense sacrifice. Look at what he says again, verses 25 through 27. Paul says this husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her 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 so that she would be holy and blameless. I want you to notice how in that passage, how it says Christ cleanses his church. And it shows us two ways, right? Christ cleanses his church through his teaching, but not only through his teaching, through his example of sacrifice. That’s how he cleansed us.

He taught us the truth, and then he gave himself on the cross and died for us so that we can be redeemed from our sins. And he says the same is true of husbands. That’s how you cleanse your wife. You teach her, yes. You study the Bible with her, yes. But he says, you also sacrifice for her, too. And he tells us those two things together, not just teaching, but sacrificing for her. That is what cleanses her and purifies her. And sometimes we overlook that. We think I’m being a good husband when I study the Bible with my family, and I make sure everybody’s at church, and I make sure I correct any wrong ideas about the Bible as they come up in conversation. No. That’s not the only way you cleanse your wife and cleanse your family.

You want to make your wife a better Christian? Don’t just teach her, die for her. And when she sees you giving yourself for her day after day after day, that example changes her. That’s what Paul is teaching. And I think it’s important that we appreciate that this kind of love he’s talking about here, it involves intensequence.

6. Love Your Wives as Your Own Bodies

Paul says that husbands should love their wives like their own bodies. I think that’s a deep thought and a high calling. Look at what he says here in verse 28. So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own body. He who loves his own wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it just as Christ also does the church. And so when Paul is talking about this relationship between the husband and wife, he goes all the way back to the beginning. And he goes back to that idea that a husband and wife are one flesh. And he says, we ought to act that way and appreciate that in our marriage. And he uses an example. He says, look, no one ever hates his own flesh.

He makes the point that everybody knows how to nourish and care for their own body. Do you know how to take care of your body? When your body needs something, do you know how to respond to it? When your body is hungry, what do you do?

You don’t know, I don’t know, I guess. Maybe we just move on. What do you do when your body is hungry? You feed it. When it’s thirsty, what do you do? You let it drink. That’s a, yeah, drink it. You can’t say that. It doesn’t work. When your body is tired, you take a nap. When your body is in pain, you know how to deal with that too. If you’re walking through your house and you don’t realize that the stove is on, right, and you put your hand on the stove and it starts burning your hand, instantly, what do you do? You take your hand off the stove, you go ow, then you go to the sink, you turn on the hot water, and you run your hand over it, and what you start doing is you nourish and you take care of and you tend the wound that you just sustained.

Because your body is hurting, and when your body is hurting, you know how to take care of it. When your body is hurting, you respond instantly and drop everything to make that pain stop and take care of what’s wrong. And Paul says, Husbands, treat your wives like they are an extension of your own body. Because they are.

That means her body is your body, and you react to what’s happening in her body as if it were happening in your body. And so that means that I should respond to my wife’s stress, her anxiety, her fear, her grief, her struggles, her pain, as if I were feeling the exact same things myself. Because she is a part of me. And so husbands should ask themselves, do I nourish and cherish my wife like she is an extension of my own flesh? And it’s important to remember, again, that these are things that we owe our wives. These are not things that she earns, not things that she merits. These are not things that we give her when we feel like she’s satisfied everything that I want her to do.

Conclusion

This is something that I owe her. And so may it be that you can look at what Paul says here in Ephesians 5 as a husband or a wife, and you can confidently say, I owe nothing in my marriage. Because I’ve given my spouse what I owe them. Of course, in Romans 13 in verse 8, Paul says, there is one thing that we owe everyone. He says, owe nothing to anyone except to love one another. And his point in saying that is that you can never give enough love. You try to love someone to the best of your ability, and when you wake up tomorrow, there is still more love to give. And so every day in our marriage, we should wake up with that sense of loving indebtedness.

I have loved them much, but I still can love them more.

And that is this. That as Christians, we should be excellent at this. Christians should be great at marriage. And too often I think we aim far short of that goal. We don’t aim nearly as high as we should when it comes to marriage. Sometimes we get into marriage and we think to ourselves, our aim, our goal is to survive, not cheat, not get divorced, and not kill each other over the course of our lives. And that is a pitifully low bar, brothers and sisters. It should be our goal to not just avoid disaster, but to do this relationship so well that the world is forced to take notice. We should be excellent at marriage. Because marriage is a reflection of a truth that we hold most dear.

Marriage is a symbol, it’s an illustration of the love that Christ has for the church and the church has for Christ. That’s what it’s all about at the end of the day.

And therefore, brothers and sisters, I can confidently say that Christians should do marriage better than anyone else. Do not aim low. Do not just try to get through and survive. We should be excellent at marriage. Make sure that you owe nothing in your marriage, except to love one another even more deeply than you already do. And also make sure this morning that you owe nothing to God. Maybe you’re sitting here and you realize that you may not be married, you may feel good about your marriage, but you’ve never given God what you owe him. You’ve never given him your life. The Bible says that we can be saved by his son if we’ll turn over our lives to him, if we’ll believe that he is the son of Jesus is the Son of God, if we’re willing to confess that faith before men and repent of our sins, we can be baptized in water to have our sins washed away.

We can give our lives to God and have the hope of heaven in our hearts for the rest of our days. If we can help you do that, if we can help you give God what you owe him this morning, we invite you to come to the front while we stand while we say.

Jesus, I come to me how thy sub Jesus I come to me.

For the Lord’s supper will sing. My eyes have seen your Lord.

I have seen you from my head in my heart struggle, but I have to go with goodness so If my heart crumbles with my joy for my no seals, my breath from the wall of my strength.

Before I begin, did everybody receive one of these whenever they walked in this morning? If not, would you please raise your hand and then we’ll have somebody bring one to you? Moving up to the front.

I’m running late for something. I don’t know what it was. Wasn’t important it’s not important now. But at the moment it felt incredibly important that I get there on time, and I realized I left something in my dorm room. I was already in the car, and the only place that was safe for me to park was across campus. There was no way in the world I could even make it to the event that I needed to be at if I parked where I was supposed to park, run all the way back to my dorm, go back. Well, as I was driving by, I saw a spot that I thought there’s nobody looking. And whenever I weighed the cost of, you know, what which is the worst of two evils here?

Park somewhere for like five, maybe seven minutes. I’ll be in and out, nobody’ll know. Or potentially miss what it is I’m I’m speeding towards. I decided to try to pull a fast one. Five minutes later, I come back to my car, the engine’s still hot, and I’ve got a nice parking ticket sitting on my windshield. Now I spent the next couple of weeks stressing, worrying, how am I gonna pay this speeding ticket? Not speeding, I’m used to getting speeding tickets. How am I gonna get this parking ticket taken care of? I had no money. I asked all of my friends, hey, do you know of any jobs that I can do? Earn some money so that way I can pay this off. Nobody had anything. The day finally came whenever it was due.

And my strategy was to go before the registrar and beg for mercy. Was there anything that I could do to maybe set up a payment plan, extend the grace period? I walk in, talk to the registrar, and she has no record of any outstanding debt on my account. Thought, well, that can’t be right. I show her the parking ticket. I should have walked away, but I showed her the parking ticket because I didn’t understand it. I said, This is what I’m talking about. She looks it up and she says, Wouldn’t you know that’s been paid. Paid by who? She said, You don’t get it. They didn’t want you to know. It’s been paid. Now, we’re here to observe something very serious and somber. We’re here to proclaim the death, burial, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus.

You might be hearing my story and thinking ahead, saying, I see some of the correlations here. You also are probably all thinking, why are we busy talking about a parking ticket whenever we’re here to do something so much more important? But the reality is you have these moments in your life, and I’m sharing one with you now that reminds you of deeply held biblical truths and how real they truly are. Because you may not go before a registrar with absolutely no money to your name and a debt you cannot pay. But you will stand before the throne of God in judgment with a debt you cannot pay. And no matter who you are, the gravity of the situation, your instinct will be to beg for mercy.

But if you’ve placed your faith and your trust and your hope in Jesus, you’ll receive something so much more than mercy. You’ll receive grace. First Peter three, verse eighteen. For Christ also suffered once for sins. The righteous, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit. Jesus died my death. And he gave me life. Please pray with me as we thank God for the bread. Our Father, we thank you for this bread. To us, it reminds us of Jesus’ body that hung on the cross in our place. We thank you for this sacrifice. We thank you for the promise of redemption that comes with it. It’s in Jesus’ name we pray.

Amen.

Let’s pray for the cup. In like manner, Father, we thank you for this cup. It reminds us of the blood that Jesus spilled on our behalf. We continue to be thankful for the promise of salvation. That we could be considered righteous before you. Because your son was righteous and faithful in all things. And we have placed our faith in him. Amen.

Visitors, once again, we want to thank you for coming. We hope that you’ll stick around for a few minutes so we can get to know you.

Sherry is the mother of Jessica Bexley. So please welcome Sherry and make her feel at home. Group five meets tonight after services. And that’s all I have to we’ll have we’ll have a singing tonight. Anything else we may have missed? Okay, if you’ll be standing, we’ll have a song and a prayer. When we all get to heaven.

Heavenly Father, we come before you again this morning, thanking you for this opportunity to spend time in your word together, but most importantly to praise you in song and prayer and remember your son’s sacrifice on the cross for us. Father, we pray that we would carry this forward as we begin this week and remember what you’ve done for us and what you continually do for us, what Jesus has done for us and what he continually does for us. We pray that we would exemplify the love he has shown for his church in our marriages. Let us as husbands and wives do behave in such a way and treat each other as you would have us. Let us show the love you have for us in our marriages, and let us pay our obligations to each other and to you.

Father, we pray that you would help us to do that in all of our relationships. Help us to love our neighbor as ourselves in all things. And Father, we are so thankful that we’ve had this opportunity this morning. Please be with all of our number on the road. Please bring them back to us safely. And please be with continue to be with those of our number who are hurting in different ways. We pray these things in your son’s name. Amen.