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The role of husbands in marriage: To take the initiative (wife is to respond)

Husband?s responsibilities:

Love Your Wife

Receive Input

Make Decisions

Initiate Action

Nourish and Cherish

Now, it?s good if the husband and wife know this and are working towards filling their individual roles but what if they fail ? what if it doesn?t work?

A well-known evangelical minister and his wife were sharing with the author of Husbands and Fathers, Derek Prince, some of the struggles they had experienced in making their marriage work. At one point the wife was recounting that their inner tensions had exploded one day into an angry argument in their bedroom.

The husband had been emphasizing ? as husbands often do ? the scriptural command to wives to be submissive to their husbands. The wife had been emphasizing ? as wives often do ? that she did not see why she should submit to him. ?After all,? she told him, ?you don?t have a good track record. You?ve made some pretty stupid decisions!?

At this point they both realized they were not acting like Christians. Spontaneously they knelt down on opposite sides of their bed to pray.

?As we did that,? the wife recalled to Derek, ?it was as if a cold wind blew through our bedroom. Somehow it impressed on each of our hearts the phrase from Ephesians 5:21, ?submitting to one another in the fear of God?. We both recognized there was something missing in our relationship to each other ? the fear of God. We?d been acting as if our relationship was only on the human level. We had left God out of it.?

When they saw this, both repented of their failures and asked forgiveness of God and of each other. That was the beginning of a new relationship between them ? a relationship in which they both accepted the place God had allotted to each of them.

Let?s think of this scene as a diagnosis explaining why so many marriages between Christians never attain to the standard set forth clearly in the New Testament! It is because they are leaving out one essential ingredient: the fear of the Lord.

ILLUSTRATION OF PIZZA WITHOUT TOMATO SAUCE (OR CHEESE OR MEAT!) ? a pizza just isn?t a pizza without the sauce.

How does this apply? The pizza sauce is the ?fear of the Lord? Without that distinctive ingredient the marriage is on the same level as one between unbelievers. It can never become what God intends. It will lack that special flavor that should distinguish it from marriages between unbelievers.

RESPECT, REVERENCE AND AWE

Unfortunately many contemporary Christians have a wrong concept of what the Bible means by the fear of the Lord.

They disdain it as something outdated that belongs only in the Old Testament and has no place in New Testament Christianity.

ACTUALLY, the fear of the Lord carries a higher priority in the character requirements of the New Testament than in those of the Old.

What does the Bible mean by the expression, the fear of the Lord?

it covers three related English words: respect, reverence and awe.

Fearing God IS NOT a cringing, slavish attitude. It is the appropriate response of the creature to the Creator ? to His omnipotence, His majesty, His glory and His holiness.

Psalm 19:9 (NIV)

9 The fear of the LORD is pure, enduring forever. The ordinances of the LORD are sure and altogether righteous.

Something that in all ages, God looks for in His people.

In Isaiah 11:2, the prophet predicted the sevenfold anointing of the Holy Spirit that was to mark Jesus as the promised Messiah, the Anointed One:

Isaiah 11:2 (NIV)

2 The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him– the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of power, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD–

We might have assumed that there was no place for the fear of the Lord in Jesus, God?s beloved Son. Yet Isaiah 11:2 reveals the fear of the Lord as the final seal marking Jesus as being truly the Messiah and the Son of God. If Jesus was thus marked by the fear of the Lord, how can we, as His disciples, ever feel that such fear has no place in us?

Recognizing the Cost of Our Redemption

Christians sometimes adopt the attitude that because God in His love has received us and made us His children, there is no place for the fear of the Lord in our lives. Actually the opposite is true. The very fact that God has redeemed us at the infinite cost of His Son?s most precious blood should inspire in us an awesome sense of our responsibility to lead lives that give Him the glory that is His due.

1 Peter 1:17-19 (NIV)

17 Since you call on a Father who judges each man’s work impartially, live your lives as strangers here in reverent fear (fear of the Lord). 18 For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.

Peter emphasizes that that the fear of the Lord is our only appropriate response!!

Let?s think about this for a moment ? what should the impact of that fear be?

Imagine standing at the top of a steep, rugged cliff overlooking a rock-strewn valley hundreds of feet below. A guardrail keeps you from venturing too close to the edge. Now picture that guardrail as the warnings of Scripture and its demands for holy living. Then ask yourself, Suppose I were to be presumptuous, climb over the guardrail and take my stand on the very edge of a cliff? After that, just one step more would precipitate me to final, irretrievable disaster! Now, how do you feel as you entertain that thought? For me, the muscles of my stomach tighten up involuntarily and a cold chill runs down my spine. I recall the words of warning written to the Hebrew Christians:

Hebrews 10:31 (NIV)

31 It is a dreadful (or fearful) thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

This attitude of reverent awe should govern not only our attitude toward God Himself, but also toward His Word, the Scripture.

Isaiah 66:2 (NIV)

2 Has not my hand made all these things, and so they came into being?” declares the LORD. “This is the one I esteem: he who is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at my word.

Why should we tremble? Because this is the way both God the Father and God the Son come into our lives.

John 14:23 (NIV)

23 Jesus replied, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.

Our attitude toward Scripture reveals how much we truly love Jesus and opens the way for God in His fullness to come into our lives. When we read, or hear, the Bible, our attitude should be the same as it would be if God the Father and God the Son were standing in person before us.

A KEY TO JOY AND FRUITFULLNESS

This attitude of reverence for God and His Word is key to experiencing the kind of joy that only God can give?

Psalm 2:11 (NIV)

11 Serve the LORD with fear and rejoice with trembling.

A beautiful balance is depicted here. We rejoice in God?s mercy and at the same time tremble at His awesomeness! This balance between fear and encouragement was reproduced in the New Testament Church?

Acts 9:31 (NIV)

31 Then the church throughout Judea, Galilee and Samaria enjoyed a time of peace. It was strengthened; and encouraged by the Holy Spirit, it grew in numbers, living in the fear of the Lord.

Isn?t this a strange combination ? strengthened and encouraged with fear? Yet this combination was the key to the vibrant life and explosive growth of the New Testament church!!

What does all this about the fear of the Lord have to do with the relationship between husbands and wives?

EVERYTHING!!!

Without the fear of the Lord in both husband and wife, a Christian marriage can never become what God intends it to be!!!!

This is the ingredient on which the flavor of the whole pizza depends. Both husband and wife may say all the right things, make all the right resolutions and even attend the best counseling sessions, but without the fear of the Lord as an active force at work in both of their lives, their marriage will never become what God intends it to be.

The only way this can happen the only one secure base for this kind of attitude in the husband and wife is that it depends on our personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. He graciously invites us into an intimate relationship with Himself, but never at the expense of our consciousness that He is the personal, majestic, awe-inspiring revelation of God the Father. He is our Savior but He is also our Judge, to whom we must all one day give an account. In the NT this is vividly illustrated in the account of two of His closest disciples, John and Paul

John:

John was so close to Jesus at the last supper that he could lean on His breast and whisper in His ear. Later, however, when John was suddenly confronted in a vision by the glorious, ascended Christ of God, he said,

?

Revelation 1:17 (NIV)

17 When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead

Paul:

He too enjoyed an ongoing relationship of intimate fellowship with the Lord. Yet he never lost the consciousness that one day he, like every other person would have to give an account of his life to Christ, who would then be seated on His judgment throne. In this context Paul wrote?

2 Corinthians 5:10-11 (NIV)

10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad. 11 Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade men. What we are is plain to God, and I hope it is also plain to your conscience.

It was Paul?s consciousness of the awesome majesty of Christ that made his message persuasive.

CONCLUSION

When man regulates his relationship with his wife by the all-pervading fear of the Lord, and when his wife responds in the same spirit, their marriage will fulfill the plan of God unfolded in Scripture.

Each will bear in mind the awesome responsibility placed on them.

The husband by his conduct toward his wife will make it his aim to depict the attitude of Christ toward His bride, the Church.

The wife will seek to respond to her husband as the Church responds to Christ, the Bridegroom.

Certainly there will be faults and failings on both sides. But these will be covered over as each repents and seeks forgiveness from the other.

* Like a cool breeze at the close of a hot and dusty day, the fear of the Lord will temper and dispel the various frustrations and disharmonies inevitable in any marriage. Both husband and wife will find fulfillment in their God-given roles and blend together in the kind of harmony God had in mind when He said, ?The two shall become one flesh.?

Two single men were talking. One remarked, “If I ever get married I want a wife who is an economist in the kitchen, a lady in the living room, and a bobcat in the bedroom.” He did marry several years later, and his chum asked him if he got what he wanted in a woman. “Yes, but garbled,” he replied. “My wife is a lady in the kitchen, a bobcat in the living room, and an economist in the bedroom.” (Stephen M. Crotts, Wearing The Wind, CSS Publishing, Lima, Ohio, 1999)

How about these quotes:

Marrying for money is the hardest way to earn it.

Marriage is a wonderful institution. If it weren?t for marriage, husbands and wives would have to fight with perfect strangers.

Marriage is neither heaven nor hell; it is simply purgatory. Abraham Lincoln

Only two things are necessary to keep one?s wife happy. One is to let her think she is having her own way, and the other, to let her have it. Lyndon B. Johnson

Love is blind, but marriage restores its sight. G.C. Lichtenberg

A good marriage should be between a blind wife and a deaf husband. Michel de Montaigne

The most difficult year of marriage is the one you?re in. Franklin P. Jones

Marriage is like horseradish ? men praise it with tears in their eyes!

One night a wife found her husband standing over their baby?s crib. Silently she watched him as he stood looking down at the sleeping infant, she saw on his face a mixture of emotions: disbelief, doubt, delight, amazement, enchantment, skepticism.

Touched by this unusual display and the deep emotions it aroused, with eyes glistening she slipped her arm around her husband.

“A penny for your thoughts,” she said.

“It?s amazing!” he replied. “I just can?t see how anybody can make a crib like that for only $46.50.”

Wife: I can?t sleep, dear. I keep thinking there?s a mouse under the bed.

Husband: Well, start thinking there?s a cat under the bed and go to sleep.

Today I?d like to spend a few minutes talking to you guys about the role of the husband in marriage. It is true and I believe that if husbands were to understand their God-given role in marriage and apply that understanding that their marriages will be exciting rewarding adventures in life rather than being?

Some history ? let?s go back to Adam and Eve

At the beginning of history God committed to Adam the first husband, a specific responsibility:

Genesis 2:15 (KJV)

15 And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.

The English does not convey the full meaning of the word translated “keep”

• It comes from a word of which the basic meaning is “to guard” or “protect”.
• The modern Hebrew word for “night watchman” is derived from this root.
• God held Adm responsible to “guard” the Garden. Guard it from what? From the entrance of any “beast of the field” (Genesis 2:20) that had no place in the Garden.

The very next chapter reveals that Adam failed in this responsibility. The serpent, who was a “beast of the field,” made his way into the Garden. (FAILURE #1)

Then Adam failed in his next obligation: to protect his wife from Stan?s cunning attack. Scripture does not reveal where Adam was at the moment, but it is clear that he left Eve on her own.

• At this point Eve added her sin to that of her husband. She entered into conversation with the serpent, succumbed to his deception and ate of the forbidden fruit. She also gave some to her husband, and he ate of it, too.

This reveals that the first two sins in human history were sins of omission. Adam failed not in what he did but in what he did not do.

Sins of omission then led to sins of commission. The third sin was committed by Eve, who was deceived by the serpent and ate of the forbidden fruit She also involved her husband. The primary sin of the man was the sin of omission; he was delinquent. Then Adam?s sin of omission opened the way for Eve?s sin of commission.

People tend to think of sins of omission as less serious that sins of commission. But this is not how Scripture represents them.

In Matthew 25:31-46 Jesus gives a prophetic parable concerning the judgment of the “sheep” and “goat” nations at the end of the age. To the goat nations He pronounces one of the most fearsome judgments ever to be uttered:

Matthew 25:41 (NIV)

41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.

What did those nations do to incur such a horrific judgment? The answer can be given in one word: nothing. They gave no food, no drink, no clothing; they showed no compassion. Yet for these sins of omission they were condemned to everlasting punishment.
The double failure of Adam and Eve set a pattern that has been repeated in every subsequent generation. The primary, characteristic sin of men is a sin of omission, not or commission. They fail in their responsibility ? first to their wives, then to their whole families. The characteristic sin of women is to go beyond the limits of their authority and to usurp the functions of men.

The failure of both Adam and Eve marred the perfection of the relationship that God planned for them to have toward each other. Nevertheless their failure did not set aside the basic principle on which God intended their relationship to be built. I call theirs a relationship of initiative and response. According to this pattern, Adam, as husband, was responsible to take the initiative, and Eve, his wife, was responsible to respond.

So what are some of the main areas in which a husband should take the initiative? The New Testament suggests six main responsibilities. And I?d like to highlight these with you this morning.

Love your wife (Ephesians 5:25)

This is not a suggestion or recommendation. It is a command?

Ephesians 5:25 (NIV)

25 Husbands, love your wives?

To put it simply: If you do not love your wife, you are disobedient to Scripture. The same verse also tells you the way to love her:

?, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her”

This is not a taking love but a giving love ? a self-giving love. It is the husband who should take the initiative in giving himself to and for his wife.

Many in our contemporary culture think of love as purely emotional. This is an incomplete picture. Genuine love is released by an act of the will.

Psalm 18:1 (NIV)

1 I love you, O LORD, my strength.

David made a decision ? His love for the Lord was released by an act of his will. Furthermore the word David uses here for love is related to the Hebrew word that can be translated “bowels” or “womb” It was what we call in modern day speech “a gut feeling”. It included both David?s will and his emotions. That is the kind of love a husband should have for his wife!

In biblical times most marriages were arranged?That is still true in many parts of the world today. Yet the fact that a marriage was arranged did not mean there would not be warm, deep love between the husband and wife. In fact, countries that practice marriage by arrangement produce a higher ratio of successful marriages than the so-called “free” West, where the divorce rate sometimes approaches fifty-percent. This is not being said to advocate arranged marriages. The point is that successful marriages do not depend ultimately on how it was entered into, but on how a husband and wife conduct themselves after they are married. If both are faithful to fulfill their respective responsibilities as assigned to them by Scripture, the marriage will be successful and there will be genuine love between them.

Receive Input

The husband should always make room for his wife to speak her mind freely and be sensitive to what she is thinking or feeling, even when she does not express it in words. Her unspoken feelings are often her deepest, and the ones of which her husband needs to be most aware. Communication failure between husband and wife is probably the most common single factor in the breakdown of a marriage.

Wives have their own special kind of wisdom, often called “intuition”. He may work out some conclusion by a laborious process of reasoning, but when he communicated this to his wife, he may be surprised when she responds, “I knew that all along.”

Make Decisions

Once there has been free and respectful communication between husband and wife, they come to the place where a practical decision has to be made. At this point it is the husband?s responsibility to make the final decision. IN many cases, if there has been communication, the wife is happy to let her husband bear this responsibility.

Initiate Action

Generally this follows as a logical consequence of the decision making process just outlined. But normally the person responsible for taking the practical steps to carry out a decision is the husband.

The husband may need to delegate many practical daily tasks to his wife, but he should be careful to shoulder a reasonable portion of their shared responsibilities as a couple, especially if they are also parents.

The division of labor could be based, in part, on their spiritual gifting. In addition the wife should be able to count on her husband to be there behind her if she finds herself faced with a crisis she does not know how to handle.

Nourish and Cherish

One word should describe the attitude of every husband toward his wife: special. Every husband should say to himself, my wife is special ? there is no one else just like her. For this reason he should relate to her in a way that he relates to no other woman.

This does not apply merely to their sexual relationship; it should apply to the way he thinks about her, the way he talks about her, the way he treats her.

Ephesians 5:28-29 (NIV)

28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church?

Feeds and cares or nourish and cherish. These two words suggest an attitude of intimate concern that includes attention to what might appear to be small details.

A husband should be concerned about his wife?s health, her appearance, the way she does her hair, the perfume she uses. Everything that concerns her should concern him. She should always have the confidence that to her husband she is the most important person in the world next to Christ.

Let me assure you, husbands: If you sow into your wife in this way, you will reap an abundant harvest!

Nourish and cherish also refers to the spiritual instruction the husband should model and teach in his family.

Give Praise

The last part of the last chapter of Proverbs describes and extols the character of the “virtuous,” or excellent, wife. It points out her many achievements; then it closes with words of praise:

Proverbs 31:28-29 (NIV)

28 Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her: 29 “Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all.”

Some husbands are stingy with their words of praise. That is false economy! They would be surprised to discover how much a wife longs to be praised- and how she responds to it. Giving praise to your wife is one of the best investments you can ever make!

If a man has a faithful, committed wife, there is no way he can ever offer her in money what she is worth. As Solomon says in this passage, “Her worth is far above rubies” (verse 10). The least a husband can do is offer his wife words of heartfelt praise.

CONCLUSION

An experienced minister was once asked about a certain person, “Is he a good Christian?” The minister replied, “I don?t know. I can?t tell you yet. I haven?t met his wife.” That was a wise answer. A husband?s success is seen in his wife.

Why not apply this test to yourself as a husband? Perhaps you need to focus less on yourself and more on your wife. Ask yourself ? and her as well ? the following questions, in order to evaluate how you are doing: Is she secure and fulfilled? Do I feel proud of her? If the answers are yes, you are good husband! But if there are obvious areas in your wife?s personality that are incomplete, if she shows strain or insecurity, you need to check on your performance as a husband. Perhaps you would do well to read once more through the preceding list of your responsibilities as a husband. Then, if you see you have been delinquent, repent before the Lord and ask Him for the grace you need to do better.

Remember to live in your God-given role as a husband and take the initiative!

Love your wife, Receive input, Make Decisions, Initiate Action, Nourish and Cherish, Give Praise