The Duality of Humility & Exaltation in Marriage

A few years ago, there was a man by the name of Robert McQuilkin who passed away.

And probably a lot of you have no idea who this individual was.

And when he passed away, an interesting story came out that was shared around his funeral and about his marriage.

And while uh what happened was he was elected as the president of Columbia Bible College.

And when this took place, his wife already had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's.

And so what the school did was they decided to uh, because she needed around the clock kind of care for her in this situation she was in.

So what they did was they decided to hire a companion full-time to be with her as he was away at the office so he could serve the duties of the president of this Bible college there.

Her name was Muriel.

And so he would go each day.

And during the two years, he only lasted as the president for two years.

Because every day, during those two years that he would leave, it became more and more difficult for her to be without him.

He talked about the fact that when he was with her, she was content, but when he left the house, there were times she would literally run out after him where the companion could not stop her.

They told stories of the fact that she would even become terrified when he wasn't present there, afraid.

He talked about the fact in one article that when he would get her ready for bed at night, he would even find her feet bloody because of the distress she was in and running across the road to get to him.

And he came to the conclusion that it was time for him, he needed to resign and be with her full time after only two years of being the president of this college.

And what I found interesting was that he actually uh his resignation speech to the students at the college was recorded, and here's what he said.

I haven't in my life experienced easy decision making on major decisions, but uh one of the simplest and clearest decisions I've had to make is this one because circumstances dictated it.

Muriel now in the last couple of months, seems to be almost happy when with me, and almost never happy when not with me.

In fact, she seems to feel trapped, becomes very fearful, sometimes almost terror, and when she can't get to me, it can be angry.

She's in distress.

But when I'm with her, she's happy and contented.

And so I must be with her at all times.

You see, it's not only my promise in sickness and in health till death to us.

And I'm a man of my words.

As I have said, I don't know with this group, but I've said publicly it's the only fair thing she sacrificed for me for 40 years to make my life possible.

So if I kid 40 years, I'd still be a much more.

It's not that I have to, that I get to.

I love her very dearly, and you can tell it's not easy to talk about.

She's a delight.

It's a great honor to care for such a wonderful person.

She has cared for me fully and sacrificially all these years.

If I cared for her for the next 40 years, I would not be out of her debt.

It's not that I have to, it's that I get to.

What an incredible picture of a godly marriage.

Robert McQuilkin, on the one hand, he was all in in this marriage.

Muriel McQuilkin, she was all in on this marriage.

And when we come to Ephesians 5.33, this is what we see.

We see a husband that is all in, and we see a wife that is all in.

And when we see this take place, what we are going to discover and learn today is that when a husband loves his wife and a wife respects her husband, a marriage is both humbling and exalting.

So let's jump into this final verse of the marriage section in Ephesians 5, 33 this morning.

So up to this point, the Apostle Paul had been writing about the marriage relationship in verses 22 through 32.

And Pastor Justin did a great job of walking us through what it looks like for a husband to love his wife and what it looked like for a wife to submit to her husband.

And Pastor Tim even did a phenomenal job our first week in the series of pointing to the fact that uh how Paul talks about the marriage is a profound mystery pointing to Christ and his bride, the church.

And then we come to verse 33, and Paul starts out with, however, almost as a reminder.

Okay, this is what marriage is.

Ultimately, it points to Christ and his bride.

That's what we imitate.

But let's go back, let's have a just let me touch base once again for this, real quick, as a just a reminder.

Don't forget, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

So let's start this morning with the first half of verse 33, with this, our summary being love your wife.

Love your wife.

When Paul started the section of the letter, he first addressed wives, then the husbands.

Then he moved into explaining the marriage representing the relationship between Christ and the church.

But then when he concludes in verse 33, what he does is he starts with the husband first as he concludes it and summarizes this.

However, let each one of you love his wife as himself.

And what does Paul stress here in this first half of verse 33?

The issue of love.

When he addressed the wife earlier, he called her to submit, and that the husband was the head of the wife.

The husband is the leader of the marriage and the family.

It could have been very easy for the husband to hear this and with this idea of authority and take it in the wrong direction.

I can do whatever I want.

But Paul shows us how the authority of the husband is lived out in the marriage.

It's not domineering, it's not in authoritarian, it's in love.

That's the root, that's the base, that's the foundation for the husband.

And how did Paul show us earlier in the text what love is?

Listen to Ephesians 5.25.

Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.

How was the love of Christ lived out for his bride, the church?

He gave himself up for her.

It was the ultimate sacrifice.

But what does Paul say in verse 33 about how a husband should love their wife?

Let each one of you love his wife as himself.

Paul addressed this earlier in verses 28 through 29, the recent weeks that we looked at.

In the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies.

He who loves his wife loves himself.

For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church.

So how should you love your wife?

As you love yourself, Paul says.

Now think about this for a moment.

Paul clarified earlier that no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it.

And he says, this is how you should love your wife.

Now, how do you nourish and cherish your own body?

Your own flesh?

You feed yourself, you eat, you drink, you nourish your body, you take care of yourself.

Even the most lazy man in the world will take care of himself.

You can't deny that.

But answer the question for me.

If you are at home and you are thirsty or hungry, men, will you get yourself something to eat or drink?

Yep.

What about this question though?

What if your wife is hungry or thirsty and asks you for something?

Will you happily serve her as your own flesh?

Men, do you do whatever you want without a care in the world for how it will impact your wife?

Or do you not really care?

She'll get over it.

Then you have missed what loving your wife actually means.

Listen to how Paul caps off verse 29.

For no one ever hated his own flesh but nourishes and cherishes it just as Christ does the church.

By connecting this type of love a husband should have to his wife with how Jesus loved his bride, the church.

Men, you want to love your wife well?

Paul gives you the answer.

Love her the way you love yourself.

Men, do you want a wife who respects you?

Pastor Justin talked about this.

The ultimate desire of every man is respect.

I was listening to a man on a podcast, and he's not a believer.

He's just been very successful in the business world.

And but he shared about this time where he was engaged to who his wife is today.

And he said he had just lost like$100,000 in a business venture, basically broke, had nothing to his name.

He's living in the basement of her parents' home and like just terrible.

And he literally turned to her and he said, I want you to know you can walk away from me right now.

I would not be upset.

I would not be angry.

You don't deserve this.

And she said, I would live with you under a bridge if that's what it took.

And he said, That's all I needed.

And that's all he needed for himself.

Men desire respect, but do you know what it looks like to have a wife who respects you?

Do you want that?

Then start by loving her as much as you love yourself.

Look to Jesus as your example.

How did he love his bride?

It wasn't through demands and threats.

He didn't come onto the scene making all these demands and threats and being domineering and authoritarian.

It was by laying down his life.

In the Gospel of Mark, we read in Mark 10, 45, for even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.

Men, your home is not a place for just peace and relaxation, but a place to serve.

Don't use the excuse, I've gone to work and I worked hard all day, so I deserve to come home and do nothing.

Look for ways to serve your wife.

Maybe you can help do the dishes.

Maybe you can help with your kids.

I always love when you talk to a mom and she's like, Yeah, I have to, I'm watching the kids, I'm taking care of the kids.

Uh you know, he's out, he has to go do something or whatever.

But then when you talk to the husband, people will be like, Oh, are you babysitting your kids tonight?

No, no, no, you're parenting.

You're not babysitting.

They are your children.

Maybe you can ask your wife for ways that she could use help in the home.

And I also want to challenge you to be crazy in love with your wife.

Like, love her.

That's what she longs for.

The end of Proverbs 5.19 says this be intoxicated always in her love.

I could keep going on, but Chelsea told me not to talk about the rest of the verse this morning.

Your wife needs to know that she is love and loved and cherished.

I knew an older man at one point in a previous church who would make the statement a lot.

I told my wife when we got married I loved her.

And I told her if that ever changed, I'd let her know.

Don't do that.

Don't do that.

Because I also knew his wife, and she desperately longed for his love.

She would talk to other women in women's Bible studies about how much she wanted his love.

Tell your wife you love her every day.

Tell her you love her throughout the day.

Guess what?

We live in a time in history where we have technology and we have phones and we can text one another and we can send uh pictures to each other.

Like it's crazy we live in this day and age.

And you can text your wife that you love her, that you're thinking about her, even in the midst of your busy day.

And I promise you, if you love your wife the way that Christ loved his bride, the church, then guess what?

I promise you this it will be easy for your wife to respect you.

Why?

Because she knows at the end of the day, every decision you make, everything you do to lead the family well will be for her good and the glory of God.

And this brings us to our second part of verse 33 today, with our summary being this: respect your husband as Paul addresses the wives.

Earlier, starting in verse 22, Paul started out by addressing the wife first and then the husband.

But then he comes to verse 33 and he reverses it, addressing the husband, the wife second here.

When he starts with the husband, he essentially tells the husband the same thing he said earlier in the passage.

He doesn't really change up.

He tells us the husbands to love your wives.

But here in verse 33, he does something a little different for the wives than he did earlier in the passage.

In verses 22 through 24, he talked about wives, submit to your own husbands.

But here in verse 33, he switches a little bit.

He calls wives to respect their husband.

The word here, respect, if we go back to the original language and we were translated and we go back to the alternative translations here, it can be translated either as fear, respect, or even reverence.

And it all comes down to the context that this word is in.

So literally, the wife could be, it could be translated that she is called to fear her husband.

But before we go down that path of shock and disbelief and frustration and anger, right now, women, let's understand what Paul is doing and why he's doing it here, what he's getting at.

Right before we get to verse 22, we would have read Ephesians 5.21, where Paul says, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.

And when Paul says out of reverence for Christ, the word reverence here that Paul uses in the original language is the same word that Paul uses down in Ephesians 5.33.

So it could have been said, submitting to one another out of fear for Christ.

So the idea of respect here in verse 33 for the wife is linked back to verse 21.

Christians, because we are called in verse 21 to submit to one another as followers of Christ out of reverence for Christ.

Paul then connects us to the relationship of the wife to the husband.

The wife's command here in verse 33 of respecting her husband flows out of the general call for followers of Christ to submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

The respect here for the wife that she is called to show is part of her obligation to Jesus, her obligation to Christ.

It's vertical, it's not horizontal.

The wife can respect her husband because she first respects Jesus Christ.

This obligation, though, is not just for the wife, it's also for the husband.

The husband has been given the authority as the head of the family in the home from Christ.

It's not an authority in and of himself.

It's not just because he's a man, it's because God has given it to him.

The wife's respect flows from her relationship with Jesus Christ.

Here's what's interesting, though, about what Paul has just said to not only the wife, to also the husband.

In the first century, when women would have been hearing this read, so when Paul wrote this letter to the church in Ephesus, and it was being read out loud, as women would have been hearing this read for that she was to submit, respect, or even fear her husband, this would have not been shocking for her to hear.

It was expected.

Culture demanded it, even in terrible ways.

But when this letter would have been read and a woman would have heard this being read, it would have actually brought her freedom.

Because Paul is redeeming submission here in this passage.

What would have been shocking is when men would have heard this read.

The husband is commanded to love his wife sacrificially, to use his authority for the benefit of his wife, not for the benefit of himself, as it would have been very common in the first century.

The reason for this is because the husband, wife relationship, it flows out of the relationship between Christ and his bride, the church.

And this makes complete sense because after Paul talks about the role of the wife and the husband, he goes into the mystery of the marriage in Ephesians 5.32, right before we get to verse 33.

The mystery of marriage, as Pastor Tim preached in our first week in the series, was that marriage pictures our union with Christ.

One of the reasons the church submits or even fears Christ is not because Jesus was tyrannical, not because Jesus demanded it, but because Jesus loved his bride and gave his life for her.

And why the church can submit to Christ is because we know that Jesus will always do what is best for us.

So as a result, we submit and we respect Jesus.

So when women would have heard this being read, instead of a push to respect their husband, it would have been a drawing to respect their husband.

They would have been drawn to it.

I mean, think about how a magnet works.

You take two magnets, and depending on what direction they are or what way they're turned, they either repel each other or they draw each other together and literally snap together.

If you've ever messed with powerful magnets, it can even smash your fingers.

This is why Paul addressed the husband and the wife at the same time.

He's showing us how it's not just one side or the other.

It's not a 50-50 relationship.

I hate that when people say that.

Marriage is 50-50.

No, that's ridiculous.

Marriage is a hundred-hundred.

How is it 50-50?

Like, here's the husband over here, and well, I'm gonna go 50.

Or I'm gonna go 50.

And here's the wife over here, and she's like, well, I'm just gonna go part of the way, and I want him to come.

No, it's a hundred.

The wife comes all the way over to the husband, the husband comes all the way over to the wife, and they're they're not just meeting in the middle.

They're they're trying to outdo one another.

The husband loves his wife 100% in a way that is shocking to the world.

When he does this, the wife is drawn to respect him.

The wife respects her husband 100% in a way that's shocking to the world.

And guess what?

When she does this, he is drawn to love her.

Why?

Because it takes both the husband and the wife being all in to have a great marriage that is based in the relationship we see between Christ and his bride, the church.

Husbands, is it easy every day to love your wife?

No.

First service, they were quiet too, men.

Wives, is it easy every day to respect your husband?

No.

They were actually more vocal, like it was pretty shocking.

For this reason, men, it takes humility to love your wife the way that Christ loved his bride, the church.

Women, it takes humility to respect your husband the way that the church is called to submit in respect to Jesus.

Which is why we have our main idea today, and it's this a Christian marriage is both humbling and exalting.

A Christian marriage is both humbling and exalting.

We humble ourselves and our spouse exalts us.

Men, when you love your wife the way that Christ loved the church and sacrifice for her, you are exalting her.

But men, that takes humility.

It takes work, it takes discipline, it takes constant thinking.

You can't shut your brain off.

You have to move forward, you have to think.

Everything in you wants to be exalted.

Women, when you respect your husband the way Paul calls you to here in Ephesians 5, you are exalting him.

But women, guess what?

It also takes humility.

Everything in you also wants to be exalted instead of respecting your husband.

The problem we face in marriage is when we flip these around.

When we confuse or flip humility and exaltation.

When we interchange them.

When marriages start to fail, it's because humility is now gone and self-exaltation reigns supreme.

It's not about exalting ourselves, it's about humbling ourselves.

As followers of Christ, we are called to imitate Christ, to humble himself to the point of death, even death on a cross, as Paul tells us in Philippians 2.

The Apostle Paul he writes to the church in Colossae, and he was helping them understand that as a follower of Christ, there are things that you are called to put.

To death in your life.

But he doesn't just stop with what to put to death.

He goes on to talk about the things that you should put on, that you are called to.

Listen to what Paul says in Colossians 3, 12 through 14.

Put on, then as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another.

And if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other, as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.

And above all these, put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.

When Paul is addressing his bride or the bride of Christ here, the church, now we have to remember that as a Christian marriage, it's a microcosm representing a macrocosm of a bigger picture, the marriage between Jesus Christ and his bride.

So when Paul is addressing the church here, he's addressing all followers of Christ, each and every one of us, male or female.

And he's calling us to put on these qualities.

And one of the qualities that Paul calls out is humility.

It takes humility to be in a relationship with one another.

That's just a reality.

It takes humility to be in a relationship with anybody.

And you better believe that when you live with your spouse, humility better be present.

Because guess what?

You're going to see your spouse at their worst and at their best.

If humility is not present, your marriage is either already in trouble or is heading that direction as we speak.

It's like a train that can't be stopped.

A humble husband loves his wife the way Christ loved the church by giving his life for his bride, by sacrificing for her.

A humble wife respects her husband in the same way that the church respects Christ.

If we look back at the opposite of humility, what do we see?

We see pride.

We see self-exaltation.

A prideful husband will exalt himself over his bride and not cherish and love her the way Christ loved his bride.

A prideful wife will exalt herself over her husband and not respect him the way the church is called to respect Christ, the groom.

The reality, though, is that self-exaltation is not just a marriage issue.

It's a mankind issue.

It's a humanity issue that ultimately we bring into marriage.

It's hard to be humble.

It's easy to be prideful.

Which is why we have our story this morning, and it's this we pridefully exalt ourselves.

We make it all about ourselves.

When you think about it, self-exaltation is a result of pride.

Pride is the foundation of self-exaltation.

Pride is an attitude of independence from God.

It's a mindset of I don't need God.

In fact, it goes as far as believing that I actually know more than Him.

And when pride creeps into our marriage, it does the same thing.

We start to believe we are better than our spouse.

We start to believe even that we don't need our spouse or there's a better spouse out there for us.

I don't need them.

And it's because pride is so deceptive.

Think about it this way: pride is easy to spot in others and hard to spot in ourselves.

And at the same time, pride is so dangerous.

C.S.

Lewis, who's probably most well known for the Chronicles of Narnia, whether you read the books or watched the movies, and he authored another book called Mere Christianity, and he made this statement about pride in that book.

He said, according to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is pride.

Unchasteity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that are mere flea bites in comparison.

It was through pride that the devil became the devil.

Pride leads to every other vice.

It is the complete anti-God state of mind.

Did you catch what C.S.

Lewis compared pride to here?

Pride is the complete anti-God state of mind.

We read about it in even in the third chapter of Genesis.

The third chapter of the Bible, pride comes into play immediately.

When the serpent, who is the devil, slithers into the garden and with a hiss says, Did God actually say?

Instead of depending completely on God, an anti-God's state of mind depends completely on ourselves.

Instead of following after God, we follow after our own heart.

And that's the problem.

It seems like in the past couple of decades, this idea of you just need to follow your heart, you need to be true to your heart has just crept into everything.

Do what makes your heart happy.

It's everywhere.

It's in music, it's in movies, it's in everything you come across.

And that's the problem when we start following after our hearts.

Our hearts tell us to put ourselves first.

Our hearts tell us to exalt ourselves above our spouse.

Our hearts tell us that if we aren't happy in our marriage, then get out.

Our hearts tell us that there has to be someone else out there better for us than our spouse.

They're probably really our soulmate.

There's only one fish in the sea, and my spouse isn't it.

Do you know what God's word tells us about our hearts?

Jeremiah 17, 9 says this the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick.

Who can understand it?

Deceitful meaning our heart will always lead us astray.

Desperately sick meaning there is no cure.

There's no hope in us.

When I say there's no cure, there's no cure in us.

So instead of husbands exalting their wives by loving them, they end up crushing them under the weight of their own prideful self-exaltation.

Instead of wives exalting their husbands by respecting them, they end up crushing them under the weight of their own prideful exaltation.

But thankfully, Jesus.

From his birth to his death, think about it for a moment.

Everything Jesus did was an act of humility.

John 3 13 says, No one has ascended from heaven or into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.

He left heaven to come to earth.

He left glory to come to a place that is full of sin and wrecked by sin.

He came to live in a fallen world.

He wasn't even born into a home.

Luke 2, 7.

And she gave birth to her firstborn son, and they wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

There are animals around him.

There is no wealth.

As an adult, he even goes on to say, I have no place to lay my head.

Matthew 8 20.

And Jesus said to them, Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.

The second person of the Trinity, fully God and fully man.

Remember in our series on John, right away in verse 3, all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.

Everything was created and made through Jesus.

It was for him.

If anyone deserved to exalt himself, it was Jesus, not us.

But Jesus didn't exalt himself.

He did the opposite.

He humbled himself.

Listen to what the gospel writer Matthew said in Matthew 20, 28.

Even as the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.

And how did Jesus do this?

And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross in Philippians 2.8.

You look at the complete life of Christ, and it is one act of humility after another.

In fact, he continually humbled himself over and over again.

He didn't exalt himself, but guess what?

God the Father did.

God the Father is the one who exalted Jesus.

Philippians 2.9 through 11.

Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name.

So that the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

Jesus didn't exalt himself.

Jesus humbled himself and the Father exalted him.

Because of Jesus Christ, we don't have to exalt ourselves.

Men, when you love your wives the way Christ loved his bride, the church, you are humbling yourself, lifting up your bride, exalting her, raising her up, but ultimately exalting Jesus.

Women, when you respect your husbands, you are humbling yourself.

You are exalting, lifting up your husband above yourself and ultimately exalting Jesus.

Our desire should always be that we exalt our Savior, Jesus Christ, and we can do that in our marriages.

And that's what our gospel vision is driving us to this morning.

It's this we exalt our Savior through our marriages.

We exalt our Savior, Jesus Christ, through our marriages.

Do you see how this works?

The husband and the wife are both simultaneously humbling themselves at the same time.

It can't just be one or the other.

It has to be both.

Robert McWilken and Muriel McWilkin, they both were all in, both humbling themselves.

It got to the point in sickness and in health, but in the sickness part that she could no longer humble herself in that way.

And so what did Robert McWilkin do?

He said, I'll meet you halfway.

No, no, no.

He gave up a rising career.

They talk about the fact that he was growing in his popularity as a theologian, as a writer, as someone who was going to have a big future, and he sacrificed it all.

Came to the end of her life in the late 90s, early 2000s, and they talk about the fact that she passed away in his arms, still loving her.

Some 20, 30, 40 years later, he cared for her.

See, it's not only about our marriages.

This is a general statement the Apostle Paul makes to all followers of Christ in Philippians 2, 3.

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.

And when you bring a humble mindset into your marriage, you will ultimately exalt Jesus.

Our marriages should reflect Christ and his bride.

Our marriages should point people to the relationship between Christ and his bride, the church.

So this morning, as we come to our conclusion, I have a few questions to leave you with.

First, husbands.

Do you love your wife the way that Paul has told you to?

Do you love her way, her, in the way that Christ sacrificed and gave his life for his bride?

If not, what needs to change this morning in your heart?

Where's the Spirit working at this morning?

What is he convicting you of?

And guess what?

The reason why I know he is is because I'm a man.

I'm a husband.

I know there are lots of things I need to work at as well.

Women, wives, do you respect your husband the way that Paul has called you to here in Ephesians 5, 33?

If not, what needs to change this morning?

Where is the Spirit working in your heart to convict you of sin and driving you to become more and more like Christ?

Don't leave this morning without committing to the marriage God has called you to.

It's a hundred-hundred, it's not 50-50.

If you are not all in, why?

You committed to that in your marriage vows, whether you like it or not.

You need to start living it out.

When you actually live out the marriage God has called you to, all you will do is exalt Jesus Christ.

The world will see, the world will wonder how you have a marriage that glorifies Jesus.

The world will ask questions because it's different.

You'll speak differently about your spouse.

You'll treat your spouse differently.

You will take care of them.

And ultimately that's our goal.

That's why Paul tells us this.

That's why he points us.

That's why he says the ultimate picture of marriage is Christ and his bride, the church.

Our marriages should point to Jesus.

And if it's not this morning, why not?

Let's pray.