Living the Mystery

So this is the last of the Ephesians 5 series. I have at the bottom 28-31. That's not correct. It's 32-33. I put it in several different places and I didn't make it there. So anyway, that should be correct. So Ephesians 5, 32-33. Nancy, could I have you read that please? This mystery is great, but I am speaking with reference to Christ and 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. Okay. Without going into lots of detail here, the thing that comes out is this word mystery, the musterion. This is the one that I kept making fun of, the moose. Ultimately, in Colossians 1, he explains his use of the word mystery.

Verse 26, that is, the mystery which has been hidden from the past ages and generations, but has now been manifested to his saints, to whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of the mystery. That's what was manifested among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

So this word mystery, It is reversed from the pagan use, which was used in the mystery religions. It refers to a truth previously unknown, but which is now made known to all willing to hear. The mysteries of the pagan religions, you couldn't tell anybody.

Paul turns that around and says, here's something which wasn't known before, but I'm telling everybody who will listen. Kind of an aside here, this is why Christians have been so opposed to secret organizations. Yeah, well ultimately the spiritual truth of the gospel is to be made open. The secret is not... That's why he turns the word mystery upside down. It was a death sentence, supposedly, if you violated your oath about this deep dark secret. Paul turns it around and says, I'll tell anybody who will listen.

This is something made known, not something kept secret. Then comes a key point in verse 32. This mystery is great, but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the Church. He is not saying that this whole topic of husband and wife and Christ and the church is really, really mysterious. He is saying that the truth now revealed in this passage has far-reaching implications. It is a massive truth. It is a huge truth. That is the thing that I get excited about. when you bring it into the marriage realm. It's not that, boy, this is really, really foggy. This is really, really uncertain. But instead, he's saying, man, this is fantastic. This is really cool. It's one reason why I look at it. Here's the Apostle Paul.

This mystery is great. By the way, as far as I know, this is the only mystery he said was great. What he's saying here is this is a phenomenal insight. And it's one of the reasons why I get so excited about my marriage to Nancy is because I look at it and I say, this is phenomenal stuff. This is great. There are over a dozen places that the New Testament gives various mysteries, things revealed. This is the one that is called great. So what he is saying is that what is being revealed here, previously unrevealed, not that it is really mysterious, but what is being revealed here is phenomenal stuff. Really fantastic. As I put it here, it has far-reaching implications.

This is why he is telling us about God's design for marriage, a design that is in profound and marvelous contrast to anything this world has to offer with eternal significance. One thing I was thinking as Hal went home to be with the Lord that we talked before about, Hal has stepped into the reality. He and Lindy enjoyed living out this mystery, but he stepped into the reality. Before that, it's really fantastic to live the analogy, but to step into the reality, Before, he was picturing. That's great. It's funny, I saw Lindy first thing this morning. I thought, well, she's going to be all broken up. All she said to me was, I was happy, I'm happy. I'm a truly sad mistake, but that's pretty cool. This mystery is great. So that's a unique phrase that doesn't show up anywhere. But the next one has a pattern but it doesn't come across in English. But I am speaking. This is a combination of the words in the Greek. is the one that Christ used to say things, this is what I, speaking of God's authority. So when Paul says, but I am speaking, it isn't just, I'm giving you my opinion.

He's saying, this mystery is fantastic, which you don't find all mysteries called fantastic. Great. But, he says, this is a God-spoken thing. I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church. In Matthew 5, 43 and 44, this is examples of, you know, but I say to you, that's the same, you know, I am speaking. With reference to Christ and the Church, so what he's saying is this mystery, this revelation now revealed, not a thing really mysterious. This revelation now revealed is really great, it's fantastic, it's phenomenal. But I am speaking, making a God-spoken revelation with regards to the husband is to the wife as Christ is to the church.

He's underscoring that relationship. It's a deliberate revelation. There will be Christ in the church and that's the thing to look at. This is describing the reality. Loving eternally, totally unlimited, unhindered by time and space or any other constraints. That's the real marriage. We get to live it out as an illustration here.

Living the analogy with all the constraints of this world and the sin nature and everything else thrown in. The reality of Christ in the church. The reality of Christ in the church is one that is eternal, unhindered. It will be the fulfillment of the joy set before him for which he endured the cross.

This is what it's for. Say that. This is what it's for. There will be no longing for the best things of this world. Think of man, this is really great. When you say that, it makes me think how we consider gold so valuable, and that's the paving stones of heaven. You walk on them. Yeah, that's what you walk on. Even the things that were wonderful gifts of God here will not be removed to our disappointment, but will be overshadowed by the glory of Christ.

Then verse 33, nevertheless each individual among you also is to love his own wife even as himself. This is where he says to love the fourth time. But it's different. It's different in this respect that he makes it singular. Each individual one among you. Before it was a general statement to all of them. All you husbands. All y'all. Here it says each individual husband among you. is to love his own wife. It gets very individual and personal about it. Nobody can sidestep it. It's always just generalizing. Oh, that's just for the average guy. No. Each one.

And the wife must see to it that she respects her husband. This is a kind of a bookend reversal of the prior pattern. It starts off referring to the wife, then the bulk of the sandwich to the husband, and then now back to the wife. Both the husbands and the wives were plurals at the start, and now they finish off as in the singular. He's shifting his focus back to the wife. It's also consistent with the husband being told to initiate that unconditional love with his wife, and the wife is told to respect her husband.

So the key thing is not generalization, this is personal. This is across the board for all the church, but for each individual one. So he wants to get the point across that this isn't a generalization, but it's for the entire church. Now, something else to bring out before I step into what's on the page.

This love and respect thing that he brought out in this verse, that's something we've mentioned before and I want to bring it to the surface again. As you're thinking about your relationships, gals are quite often asking in their minds, whether they are consciously or not, they're asking the question, does he love me? All the time. They're asking the question, does he love me? Does he love me? Does he love me? Does he love me?

And it's amazing. We can give our wives all kinds of things. We can give them stuff. They give you ads on the TV. If you just buy this four-digit ring that glitters and sparkles, then she'll be happy. You can do anything you want, but the bottom line is she's asking the question, does he love me? That's front and center in her thinking, does he love me? Some years back, we were married but didn't have any kids, I was going to San Jose State and I would ride the bus back and forth to school because it was affordable.

But there was a guy who was an ambulance driver for that particular area in Silicon Valley. And so I sat down next to him one time and asked, I said, what are the primary categories of calls that you get? And he says, most people think of auto accidents. He says, we do those, but that isn't number one. He says, you know, a lot of it we have nuts and drunks. That's a lot of our stuff. But he says, one of the biggest categories, and this is what really surprised me, The area in the Silicon Valley that is sort of up in the air is Los Alamos Hills.

The homes there are double-digit million dollar homes now. They are very expensive homes. These are the people that have made it financially. If they are not, they are deep in the hock. There is the Los Altos Hills Country Club. Here is the five-car garage with Mercedes and Bentleys and everyone.

These are the folks that have really made it in the Silicon Valley. Here is the Silicon Valley, which is a big place of technology. He said, one of the biggest categories we have after the nuts and drunks is wives in Los Alamos Hills trying to commit suicide, attempting suicide. He said that is one of our biggest categories.

I was stunned. He said, because the wives have everything. But they don't know that their husbands love them. Wow. That's stunning. Anything you want. Fancy clothes, jewelry, the cars, the country club. Anything you like. Dinnerware is the finest. Everything is great. We have maids. butlers and everybody else hired to handle things around the house, people doing the yard.

Life is nice, but the wives are desperate because their husbands are so busy that their husbands don't convey that they love their wives. So the attempted suicide rate there is much, much higher than the people who live in the apartments in the Silicon Valley. That really struck me. And it's a key thing here.

The wife is asking the question, does he love me? Unconditionally. And for the husband, the question going through the guy's mind, yeah, he cares, does the wife love him? But we've talked about that. That's a love in return. But the guy is asking principally, does she respect me? Paul is not just dropping off some last-minute incidental details, but these are central and key things.

Frequently, when difficulties come between husband and wife, it's on those issues. He's all bent out of shape and she doesn't understand. The issue that's gotten him is he's thinking she doesn't respect me. At the same time, the wife is responding and she's got this message in her mind, he doesn't love me. Because she's answering that question in the negative, that's front and center. Same thing for the guy. Those questions are principle. We'll continue on. Those love and respect terms that Paul brought up, very important things.

His own wife, I'd like to go to that one. his own wife. This phrase is consistent with his speaking to individual husbands, but he was also calling for Christian husbands to live quite contrary to the pagan culture of the time, where a desirable quality for a wife was one who didn't mind or pay any attention to the husband's relationship with other women. Some of the writers of the New Testament times wrote that this was one of the qualities that won the wife, that she doesn't say anything about the husband's other relationships. Even as himself, this kind of coming back to the message and the caring love, expressed as the husband widening the care he has for himself to include her within the care he has for himself.

This circle of care is put into real life action with three verbs, unconditional love, nourishes, cherishes. That's the character of that widened circle of love. And then he has the wife. This is the continuing focus on the individual husband and wife. The wife's part in the relationship is essential for the marriage to live out the full expression of the eternal relationship between Christ and the Church. This complementary oneness. The husband and the wife are to express together as one.

And this must see to it, or the King James's see, these words aren't actually directly in the Greek but are only implied by kind of rolling off of the imperative. So it's interesting that we mentioned earlier being subject to is not directly, the wife being subject to the husband is not directly in the Greek and in here the must see to it is not directly in the Greek either. Those are implied.

So Paul is telling the wife as subtly and yet, still saying it, as subtly as possible to submit to the husband and to respect the husband. Now this respects is the same word in 521 to be subject to one another in the fear, phobos. So this respect is to have, phobos is not trembling in fear, oh no, it's my husband. But instead it's an ultimate respect.

It's a regard for. Think of it, what's the opposite of respect? Well, other than the obvious disrespect. Kind of a disdain. Okay, a disdain. Alright. Can you think of any other words that come across that kind of communicate the other end of respect? Like apathy or... Yeah. Apathy. Okay, apathy. Okay, good. Anything else come to mind? Any other words? And yes, guys, you can respond. I can throw out another term, and I think all these shades of meaning are helpful. Disregard. What he says doesn't matter. How he feels doesn't matter. His view of things doesn't make any difference. You can think about all the different words that people have thrown out are good, but I think it's good to look at the opposite to get a sense of, by the negative definition, that tells you where you end up as well.

It's interesting, you know, you'll have books out there, what's one of the ones of recent years, you know, women are from Venus, men are from Mars, things like that. But ultimately, I don't know about you, I've never been to Mars, I've never been to Venus, but this love and respect issue is one that's real close to home, and it is a distinction between the guys and the gals. And it's something to ponder, if a husband and wife find themselves struggling over something, It's worth asking, what's the love and respect issue?

And he settles in on this point as well. Okay, page four. So it's just exactly why should the believing wife respect her husband? Bottom of page three. Because the husband's place in the relationship is an awesome love assignment. The basis of the wife's respect is not the worthiness of the husband on his own merit. The husband being charged with living out the character of Christ is Christ loved and loves and forever will love the church. The character of the husband's designed role is awesome in the extreme. Let's ask what happens if there is a breakdown and the husband is not conveying to the wife that he loves her, and then let's make it go full circle. The wife is not conveying that she respects her husband.

Where does the relationship go from there? Nowhere. If this is the loop that Paul has laid out here, the key is to oneness. Because what happens if that starts to degrade, if the wife is not conveying respect to the husband, the husband is not conveying love to the wife, then what happens is the relationship starts going downhill and instead of the oneness principle being played out, you begin to have two individuals. They might still be legally married, they might still be living in the same house, but you end up having two individuals instead of mutually communicating what the other needs. You have two individuals and the relationship starts degrading into separateness and the oneness is not there. Those two questions are key ones. ponder as I look at different relationships.

Nancy and I have a chance to sit down and talk with individual couples on different things. These come forward. If those things on either end or both are somehow lacking or even unclear, do you clearly understand that he loves you? It's a little foggy. Does he clearly understand that you respect him? Not so much. If that's what's showing up, then you're starting to see the degradation of the oneness principle.

The wife's respect for the husband's responsibility allows the husband to stand before God in the call to live out the sacrificial, sanctifying, caring, bonded love which is both modeled by and is from Christ. Her respect and prayerful support is not an invitation to be human doormat, but is her response of love and a challenge to the husband to live out the unconditional love that he is quite unequivocally called to live by faith in God. So what you have there is the wife's respect of the husband puts him in the spot of being responsible for the Lord. If she disregards him, what is she saying about his role? What happens is her disrespect for him communicates to him that his stance before the Lord is somehow not of real value, not of real consequence. So on here it says that it's a response to her respect is a response to his love. So then can a wife respect her husband if he doesn't love her? What this really looks at is the love of the husband for the wife, is that conditional or unconditional? Unconditional. It's unconditional. The wife may not always have grounds for respecting the husband conditionally.

What she is honoring is the place that God has given him. So there may be a need to examine that on the part of the wife. Look at the awesome role. One of the questions Gary had a time or two back was, when does the husband quit getting trounced on? And it's an appropriate question because if you think about it, there is a lot placed on the husband. And a part of the wife's respect perspective needs to be an understanding of, boy, look what the Lord has placed on this guy. There is a lot on his shoulders and the respect is not simply a matter of the wife looking at the husband and saying, is he respectable?

But looking at the role that the Lord has placed in him. Neither party is exempt from needing and being required to trust the Lord. That if a husband is not loving his wife unconditionally, her calling is still to respect her husband. Her calling from God is still to respect her husband. If she is not respecting her husband, he is still called to love her unconditionally. So neither one is exempt from their responsibility because the other partner is not fulfilling.

The next point we have here is this extreme marriage. Essentially, this is not just like an average marriage. This is marriage that is defined way outside of anything this world understands. It's incomprehensibly good. One of the things that Nancy and I will talk to couples about, remember we had kind of the picture, I think it was the last time we met, there's this foundation and there's a foundation of love in the relationship and then a companionship love and then a romantic love on top of that.

One of the questions that we that we present before people is, how do I as a husband and a wife, how do I protect love? Because that's a thing. How do I protect love in a relationship? Some of that is obviously expressed in positive ways, but often protecting love looks to how do I defend the love? relationship. What that often ends up doing is, what do you think of protecting? You protect something that is vulnerable. You protect something that is valuable. So as you look at this, here is this love and respect relationship, you want to look at it in terms of, how do I protect love? I guess just asking some questions, looking for your thoughts and input. What are some things that would damage love? What are some things that would hurt love? Unfaithfulness? Yeah. If you look at that, that's going to be a problem. What else?

The man not seeking God and having faith that he'll help the marriage, not trusting God to help. Since he's really the channel of love in the relationship, his relationship with the Lord is a protection of love, isn't it? The maintenance of his relationship with the Lord is a protection for love. Good point.

What are some other things that come to mind? How about sharp words? Are those hurtful? Sharp words. That can be a range of things. It can be anything from something that jabs real personally. You are this. You always do this. You never do that. Sharp, painful, hurtful words, those are things that are contrary to protecting love.

If love is this valuable but vulnerable thing, then how do we protect love? That's a key thing to look at here. It's worth pondering because it is vulnerable, isn't it? The Lord is always going to be there. We can't do anything to, quote, certainly we can grieve the Holy Spirit, but we can't hurt the Lord. That foundation is there biblically. But in terms of how it's carried out, worth our thinking about and even talking about is how do we protect love?

Let's look at the other part. How do we protect respect? That's the other thing that you've brought up. We've kind of asked the contrary. What's the opposite of respect? What hurts respect? One thing that was brought up earlier was apathy, like a disregard. Yeah, just ignoring. And really the same things that hurt love hurt respect. Isn't that something? There is a commonality between the two.

They come at the same thing from a different perspective. a different direction, but there is a commonality between love and respect. So it's important, and I think especially, the guy is often thought of as kind of a protector. And one of the things for a guy to ponder is, you know, it oftentimes seems fairly obvious to physically protect, but protecting love in the relationship. And on the wife's part, to look at how do I protect that respect? It's possible that could get damaged. But those things are worth pondering, worth discussing, worth talking about. And it's also a means of communication.

If I am talking to Nancy and at some point I recognize that really hurt love, I can go to her having an understanding Instead of just saying, gee, things aren't right and we're messed up or something, I can get specific. What's the issue that's really going on here? I have just said some things or failed to say some things that damaged love. So now I've got something I can get a handle on. And it's that issue.

And I can come to Nancy because my place is protecting that love. and I can come to her and talk about that. I did some injury here, what do we need to do to heal it? And to try to convey to her what's really my heart and what's the truth and to lay those things out. So there's a place of protecting it, there's also a place of healing. and to think about those, and to remember in the husband-wife relationship.

Remember what Paul put his finger on it. What's the question that each one is asking, first and foremost? And the infidelity issue that you brought up as being one that's important. Guess where it hurts the gal? I'm not loved. For the guy, I'm not respected. Isn't that something? It's the same event. There's some commonality. Nancy's right. But it strikes each one in a different way.

This mystery which I am revealing by God's deliberate intent is great in spiritual significance both for your daily life now as well as for eternity. But in contrast to all that you have heard from any other quarter, I am here and now speaking in this passage with reference to the eternal romance of Christ and the Church. brought about through the fulfillment of God's eternal purpose in which Christ paid the bride price through his own blood and through which the church, his body, was purchased because of his love for us. Nevertheless, each and every individual husband among you is to unconditionally love his own wife even as an extension of the love he has for himself. And the wife likewise has the responsibility by the relationship the husband is to the wife as Christ is to the church, to see that she respects her husband, not by his earning and deserving it, but because of the awesome place he has been given by God, having the love of Christ for the church as his clear and singular model for daily life. Wonderings? Questions? Desperations? Well, just kind of a comment. This morning, I went online, and we don't take the newspaper, so occasionally I'll read articles online, and Tom and Katie got married. I know, Tom and Katie.

And so, I was reading this article about it, and they did a Scientology ceremony, which I thought, What does that mean? And finally, they kind of gave some definition, had some specific points of Scientology, they said. And then the one point that they actually brought out was that you don't go to bed without resolving issues you've had during the day. And I went, oh, you mean that biblical concept of don't let the sun burn down on your anger?

That's exactly what I thought. And I thought, how interesting that This wise science fiction writer found a biblical concept and put it in different words. People think it's cool now. Yes, that's funny. But it is a concept that I think, though it's not specifically stated in this passage, it applies here.

If there's been an issue throughout the day where she doesn't feel loved or he doesn't feel respected, It can be dealt with today instead of waiting until a week or a month or five years down the road where things have become pretty volatile and hostile. Anything else?

Something I was thinking, just looking ahead here, we're taking this next Sunday off, taking the weekend off and then returning back in December. First two Sundays in December and then taking some time off until next year. I think I'm going to switch the next passage and I'm going to go instead to 1 Corinthians 7. We'll still return to the passages we had planned there, but 1 Corinthians 7.

One of the reasons for that is that it relates to the last of the four kinds of love, the bonded love. This deals more with the physical relationship in the marriage. Typically Nancy and I will put that later. A lot of times that has to do with the sequence in the premarital counseling where the physical relationship ends up being a bigger point. One of the reasons why I bring that up, and I want to move it ahead of where I initially had in mind, is because of that fourth kind of love that Paul brings up, that bonded love. What does that look like? Try to give some better definition while it's there because we just had it last week. Rather than let that get a little cold, I'd rather go right into it for our purposes here.

It's interesting that the understanding of the physical relationship in marriage One of the things we saw is that the direction of the principles goes from the spiritual to the physical. Nonetheless, the love and respect issue ends up also being very intimately tied with the physical relationship in marriage as well. I'm going to move that ahead. We'll meet two Sundays from now and address that and shift the other things a little farther down. It also brings up another point in the marriage relationship and that is while Ephesians 5 The general directive to the wife is to submit to the husband.

This is an area where there's a mutual submission. It's like there's a different principle in play. So that's another reason for taking a look at it. And right behind this. So anyway, a change in schedule. But just to let you know what's coming down the line that we did the potluck this time. So two weeks from the day would be just to bring her on and usually end up hearing. Yeah.

Any other thoughts, questions? One other thing before we call it. If in the course of things, because I'll typically, like I do now, see any other thoughts, questions, that's fine. If you think of something later you'd like to have us talk about or me talk about, give me a call, send me an email, drop me in the street. put a note on my car, windshield, whatever you want to do.

But send those along too. Lord, we thank you that you've given us guidance and insight into these special and precious relationships. What's even more valuable and fantastic, Lord, is that these relationships are illustrations of our relationship with you. And we thank you for that. And we give you praise for it. And we ask you for wisdom in these things. In Jesus' name.