Christ Centered Relationships Francis Chan Part 3

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1 Christ Centered Relationships Francis Chan Part 3 Three weeks ago we talked about that there is something bigger than marriage and we talked out of 1 Corinthians 7. We explained that marriage is not eternal. Marriage is going to last a few years, and then it is done. Then we come into heaven and this eternal relationship with God. We are all family at this time. We also talked about there is something bigger than marriage and it is our mission here on earth. The mission is not to have a big home on this earth, but the mission is to reflect Jesus Christ. To show the world how great Jesus Christ is not just to talk about it. I want to show it by the way I love other people. This week I m addressing the men specifically and how we can display Jesus Christ by the way that we treat our wives and and maybe some practical ways we can do this. I struggle with teaching this because I don t want to set myself up as the example of the perfect husband. In fact, at times you feel inadequate to preach on certain things. Yesterday I was at a funeral of a pastor in town who died last week. He was an amazing family man. His wife of 30 something years got up to speak and she made this statement, In all our years of marriage, never once did I hear an unkind word come out of his mouth toward me. My first response was, Come on. Honestly. And yet knowing Glen, it s true. I would watch him interact with his wife and I would think that it wasn t even in him to say something malicious to his wife and his daughters. There is a little part of me that gets angry at God, wondering why He didn t bless me with that type of patience. I would watch him showing the kindness, the patience, the warmth which was a picture of Jesus Christ. That s the way Jesus Christ loves me. For many of us men, we look at ourselves and say, I am so far from that. I look at myself. One of my biggest struggles is with patience. I get irritated with people. They bug me. A couple of years ago, my wife asked me what I loved the most about her. I looked at her and said, Of every person on this planet, you bug me the least. Isn t that romantic? She actually took it as this great compliment, which it really was, because she knows me and knows my frustrations and weaknesses. This is to say we re all working together. Don t look at me as the perfect example. At the same time let s not make excuses like I m not wired that way. We strive after this and by the power of the Holy Spirit we seek to be Christ and a picture of Christ Beginning at Ephesians 5:25, it says Husbands love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to Himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish but holy and blameless. In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies.. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church--for we are members of His body. For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and the two will become one flesh. This is a profound mystery--but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you must also love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

2 I ve taught this passage many times and I have made a huge error in teaching this passage. The error was in the early part of my ministry, I would leave out verse 32 where it says, this is a profound mystery but I am talking about Christ and the church. It s easy to talk about relationships and everyone during weddings goes to Ephesians 5. In family conferences, we ll go to Ephesians 5. We ll read the whole passage, Husbands love your wives. Emphasizing this part. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and the two will become one flesh. But we ll breeze through this part: This is a profound mystery I am talking about Christ and the church. The truth is, if you miss verse 32, you miss the crux of this whole passage. You miss the point of this whole passage about this profound mystery. Paul quotes from Genesis that the whole idea of a man leaving his mother and cleaving to his wife becoming one flesh. And then he says, That s a profound mystery. And we stop there and say, Yes that s a mystery that God sees us two people as one. But that s not the mystery. It s a profound mystery is something greater. He goes on to say, I m talking about Christ and the Church. It s this picture you have in the Old Testament of a man and a woman becoming one flesh. There s no mystery if that s all it is. The mystery is that this coming together of man and woman and becoming one flesh is pointing toward something greater. It is a picture of how Christ and us as his church somehow become one. It is pointing to something greater. Let me explain this concept to you. If you have your Bibles, turn to Hebrews 9. Hopefully I can give you some Biblical examples to explain this profound mystery, because we ve got to get this. We ve got to understand this. In the Old Testament, there is one part where they are building the temple and it bores you to death because you read of all these measurements on and on and on. There are chapters and chapters and you think What is this all about? They wanted all these perfect specifications for this temple. Let s read in Hebrews 9:23. In Hebrews 9:23, it is talking about the temple. It was necessary, then, for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with the sacrifices, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ did not enter a man-made sanctuary that was only a copy of the true one; He entered heaven itself now to appear for us in God s presence. He is talking about this temple. In talking about the temple, he explains that it is a copy of something that is in heaven. Why was God so specific about all these dimensions? Because it is a picture of something far greater. This temple that God wanted man to build on earth, this Holy of Holies, the sanctuary that is here. The temple building is a copy of something that is in heaven greater than what we could see on earth. God wanted this replica to look really good and really precise, so he specified this has to be gold. This has to be ivory. He specified all of this because it is a picture of something greater.

3 Remember how they had all those sacrifices in the Old Testament? They would have all these specifics. Take this bull and kill him on this day. I want the blood to go here. I want you to take a ram and do this with the ram. He goes on and on and on. If you read in Hebrews 10:4, it is talking about these sacrifices. God explains It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sin. In the Old Testament God had man bring bulls and goats. That was a picture of something else paying the sacrifice for man s sins. Those animals did not pay for the sin. It isn t possible to take a bull and have it pay for sin. But you understand that it was a picture. It was a picture of something that was to come later, a picture of something greater. It was this mystery of something that was prophesied in the Old Testament that was to come. It was a perfect sacrifice. It was a symbol of Jesus on the cross. So the point of those bulls and those sheep was pointing to this future sacrifice that was the real thing and would actually take away their sin. It was all a pictures of something to come. My point is that just like you have this temple that is a little replica of something greater that is in heaven. These sacrifices of animal were all pointing to a picture of something greater which was going to be Christ on the cross. Paul explains that this marriage and this union of a man and a woman coming together and becoming one flesh was just a picture of something far greater. It is the thought that God and I would become one. Just like the thought that one man and one woman come together, somehow there is a reality that me, this rotten little flesh and blood human being, could become one with my Creator. That is an amazing thought. That is a profound mystery. That somehow Christ and his church would become one in this marriage and they would be one flesh in the same way a husband and wife become one flesh. So understand that this is not about your marriage. Your marriage is pointing to something greater just like the temple and the sacrifices were pointing to something greater. That is why in the Old Testament when the priests would bring these crummy sacrifices, God said I want the best one year old ram without blemish or spot. Bring it to the temple where I want it sacrificed. It has to be perfect. It has to be beautiful. Why? Because it was a picture of Jesus Christ. He was the spotless one, the perfect one, who was truly going to take our sin away. So, when the priests would bring these threelegged, dirty sheep to the altar, God was disgusted with that, because it was painting a very ugly picture of Jesus Christ. In the same way, if our marriages are supposed to paint a picture of Christ and the Church, we can t afford to have crummy marriages as believers. It paints a distorted picture of Christ s relationship with the church. That s why this material is important. This isn t just about having a happy marriage so you can have a happy family. We are involved in something much bigger here than creating a home down here on earth. I am supposed to show the world a picture of Jesus Christ by the way I love my wife. That is why it says in Ephesians 5:25, Husbands love your wives just as Christ loved the Church. In the exact same way as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her.

4 We know how Jesus loved the church and gave himself up for her. Now he says, Husbands now you do that with your wives. You be Christ to her. It is funny when we do marriage seminars, the complaints come from the wives. They say, Wives are to be submissive to the husbands. We ve got the harder role. I think, Sure. As the husband, I ve go to be Jesus. That s a no-brainer. Husbands love your wives just as Christ loved the church. It is interesting that immediately after Paul explains that husbands are to lead their wives he explains leadership. Jesus modeled it for us. Do it the way Jesus did it. Jesus gave, gave, gave, gave 24/7. Giver, Giver, Giver. Servant, Servant, Servant. Son of God who comes down to serve not to be served. He came to give his life as a ransom for many. Jesus got on his knees and washed the feet of those he created. Yet, while he was serving, there was no question of who was in authority. The bible says, Husbands, that is the way I want you to be. That is the picture I want you to show to the Church and to the world, because it is an accurate picture of Christ to the Church. I want you to serve. I want you to love. I want you to give of yourself to her because that is what I did for the Church. This whole idea of Jesus giving himself up for us goes right along with something my wife spoke about last week. Remember the phrase die to self? It is not just in marriage that you die to self, but it is about being a Christian. When you became a believer and were baptized, you were saying, It s not just about me anymore. It is about Jesus. And when you get married, it is not about me anymore. I am dying to myself and coming under this authority. In the same way, Jesus came to earth not to boss the Church around but to serve the church. He gave Himself up for the Church. He died for the Church. The point is why did he give Himself up for Her? In Ephesians 5:26, it says, To make Her holy. Jesus died to make us holy. He gave Himself up to make us holy. Cleansing Her by the washing with water through the word and to present her to himself as a radiant church without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish but holy and blameless. Jesus devoted his time on earth to making us pure. That is a picture to us as men that our task on earth is the purification of our wives. That is what is awful for those who are in dating relationships where the man pressures the woman and actually does the opposite of purifying her and bringing before God as this beautiful pure woman. He does the opposite and defiles her. We are supposed to give our lives to the purity of this woman and that s the picture of Jesus. He gave everything. That means if I am to give myself to my wife s holiness, I encourage her toward the things of God. At times I even confront her toward the things of God because that is my task on earth. It is to help purify her and lead her I the ways of God. I know as I talk about this, some of you may say, In my home it is different. In our home, what works for us is for her to be the leader, because she has been a believer longer. She is the better Christian. She studies the Bible more, so she is the spiritual leader and it works for us. There s harmony in our family and it works that way. Let

5 me just say this is not just about making things work. It s about painting a picture of Christ for the Church. See, in the Old Testament if you had wanted to just make things work, you could have put the ark of the covenant in a shed and said, Don t go by that shed. The ark is in there. That would be acceptable. After all God can inhabit anything. But they didn t do that. They said We are making a replica of something in heaven so we have to make this thing perfectly as God said. In our family, in the same way we could say, Well we ll just let her be the leader or we ll have no leader. It works for No, no,no. We re trying to paint a picture of something far greater, the profound mystery. The mystery is that the Son of God, this amazing Creator of the world comes down and serves His creation. He is the leader, but, he is also the servant. It is a beautiful picture. It is an amazing picture. It s a stunning picture of how the Son of God could go through that cross for me. Now He s saying the point of marriage is to display it to the world. The only way it works is if you say, I am the authority in my home. I am the head of the house and as the head of the house, I make my decisions for my wife. I make my decisions for her purity. I make my decision to serve her and to love her because I want to paint a picture of Christ to the world. It s something bigger. It s not just about getting along and working together. We re talking about our life s purpose. We re talking about the whole reason why we exist. It s to put Jesus Christ on display to the world. We do that, husbands, by the way we love our wives. Hopefully people say, He is so enamored with her. He is so in love with her. And they think to themselves, Does God love me like that? Does God love me the way he loves his wife? That s the way people should be talking about us. That s the picture we paint. Let me just say this, because sometimes we have misconceptions of people and when I teach this, people can assume This is the stuff that comes naturally to him. My wife threw out one of our secrets last week when she told you I wasn t perfect. I have to say this whole responsibility and challenge of leading her to holiness in Christ and being the one who purifies her, being that example. That is something I dislike. I don t like the responsibility and challenge of being the leader at home. That may surprise you. I don t like the burden or responsibility of trying to lead her to holiness or lead my kids toward holiness. Honestly, after work or after traveling coming home, my mind does not naturally gravitate to, Oh, I get to go home and serve my family. You know, I have expectations. It s a time when I just think, I have expectations. I have wants. I have desires. I deserve this. I deserve that. I m not thinking, Oh, I can t wait to get home and serve them and love them, and lead them, and make them holy and blameless by my leadership. Like most other guys, I struggle with the stress thing and the weight of other responsibilities. I come home sometimes and I don t even want to deal with problems. I just want everyone to laugh and have a good time. Let s just not fight about anything. I don t want to have to discipline anyone. I don t want to lead anyone. I just want to relax when I get back. And then I have this other weird side of me where I have so much baggage from my childhood. I grew up in a home where we didn t talk. It s was considered a waste of time. You just do your thing and we never, ever talk in the family. So, this is a very

6 weird thing to have conversations with the family. I can talk to you. You come in and share your life with me, and I ll share my heart with you. But there s this weird block with family stuff. I m sharing this with you because I m willing to bet there are some of you in this room where it s weird to talk about God with family. It s weird-this is so hard to say-it s weird for me to pray with my wife. It feels completely awkward to me. It is something I force myself to do because I know it s right. It s just something where I grew up and we don t talk about. I can pray with you. You come in my office and you cry and we pray. But family is just this weird thing. When I first got to know Lisa. I meet her family. I remember the first time I introduced her to my aunt. My aunt told her, When you come to my house, just know we don t really talk to each other. We sometimes just look at each other and eat and go home. That s just the way our family is, so don t feel weird about it. Then I go to her family and it was just bizarre. You talk and you hug. They are offended if I don t hug somebody on the way out, and I need to make sure I hug everyone. It s a weird relationship thing. I look at these passages and I think, I am responsible and I am the one. I can t get angry at my wife or disappointed in her if she s not living a certain way, because I am the one that s supposed to lead her that way. I m frustrated with my kid. I m supposed to lead them that way. And I don t crave that responsibility or feel thankful for. That responsibility is not something that is optional. It s something I must do because I so badly want to reflect Jesus Christ. This goes against my nature. It s not the norm for me. It s not what comes naturally in the flesh, and yet by the Spirit of God, and I see the weight. But I am not on the earth to please Frances. I need to die to myself. I am on this earth to reflect Jesus Christ. As I do these things, it is amazing how the marriage comes together and how the family comes together. My wife was speaking last week and she said to the wives, If we lived this way, we d be hard pressed to find a husband who does not appreciate that and become more endeared to you, if you live out these principles of being this quiet, gentle spirit, this beautiful person of the heart coming alongside and believing and supporting everything else. In the same way I would say I have counseled many couples and I have yet to meet a woman who is disappointed in a servant leader. I ve met many women who are weeping because their husbands are leaders and not servants. And I ve met many women who were weeping because their husbands were servants but not leaders. They were weak, and they wanted that strength. But I ve never met a woman who said, You know, he is such a great leader, but he serves me too much and it s driving me crazy. It doesn t happen. It s this picture of Jesus, of servant leadership. My wife said it s like this side benefit, this fringe benefit. Trying to become Christ, your husband will have more of an affection toward you. In the same way as we seek to be like Christ, you d be hard pressed to find a woman who doesn t appreciate and love a leader who is also a servant.

7 Here s the part that I have found so fascinating with this passage in Ephesians 5:28, In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church-for we are members of his body. I am supposed to love my wife as my own body. We become one flesh. We are one now. Her being hungry is the same as me being hungry. Her being thirsty is the same as me being thirsty. She is an extension of me. I am to treat her as my own body. That point I ve always taught. But here is the amazing thing about what this passage is saying: We treat our wives as we would the parts of our own bodies. We do that because Christ loves us like he loves his own body. The Bible says we love our wives like we love our own body. It would be like loving your own hand. We do this because we are members of Christ s body. That means that the God of the universe on his throne is looking down right now at me-flesh and blood, messed up, standing on this stage-and he loves me as though I were an extension of his body. Just like I would take care of my own finger, my own hand, my own liver, he looks down and says, That s the way I look at Frances Chan. The God of the universe sees me as an extension of him. I m his bride. Not only his bride but like a part of his body. He s going to care for me like his own body. I know you believe God loves you, but do you really believe he loves you that much? Like you are a part of Him? Like He can t help but love you? This is a fascinating picture and that s why we love our wives that way. He says, Love your wife like she s an extension of you. It s no different than you loving yourself. Now you are painting a correct picture of Christ loving the Church. Isn t that a beautiful thing, a fascinating thing. Having said all this, I know some people might leave a little disappointed, going, I thought he was going to focus more on things like doing the laundry and the marriage thing. Here is my concern and the reason I don t go there. I think this is something much bigger. I fear that some of you are at this church because you wanted a happy family. You wanted a happy marriage. You wanted happy kids. You wanted a good family relationship and you thought, I think God could grant me that. So let me go to church and ask him for that. And absolutely the God of the universe can grant you that. My concern is that if that is your motivation then God has become a means to an end for you. Your end has become wanting this healthy, secure, happy family with retirement and all that. Then God has become someone you use to achieve this means to an end rather than believing that God is the end in itself. If that is the way you think than family has become an idol and you are no different than the person who says, I want to be rich and I ve heard if I follow God, God will make me rich. And if I follow Jesus, I ve heard that I will never be sick again. You are no better than them. This whole health, wealth and prosperity thing you ve just switched to family. What God wants of us on earth is not to say, If I can have God then I ll get rich. He wants us to say, Because I have God I am rich. He doesn t want us to say, Maybe if I have God I ll get a good marriage. No. He wants us to say, I have God. I m in a good

8 marriage. I m the Bride of Christ. He doesn t want you to say, Maybe with God he ll give me a good family. No. He wants you to believe, Because I have God, I am a part of an amazing, amazing family. I am a son of God. I am an extension of him. I am His Bride. What more could I ask for. So now you ask, How can I use my family to put God on display? Flip this whole thing around. That s God s desire. I hope you feel rich, those of you who have an inheritance that won t spoil or fade. I hope you feel amazingly loved and in an amazing relationship and in an incredible marriage with us being the Bride of Christ. I hope you ve found everything in Christ. There are so many hurts in this room and I am telling you that Jesus really is enough. When my parents died I was in Junior High. God really became my dad. How many things he replaced. I m not saying I have never struggled with loneliness here and there but there is this truth that you can have this amazing relationship with the creator. To have the God of the universe love you as much as he loves himself or his own body is fascinating. That s what this church is about. That s what we want to be about: putting this on display and saying, This is an amazing God we have. That s what baptism is. It s like a marriage ceremony. It is greater than your marriage ceremony. It s a time when you publicly say, I m dying to myself and when I rise again I have this union with Jesus Christ, and I am part of this profound mystery of Christ and the Church. And now I want to love my wife or love my husband and put that on display for the rest of the world.