Christ ChurchKing's Cross
Strong & Kind Husbands (King’s Cross Moscow)
TEXT
“Husbands, likewise, dwell with them with understanding, giving honor to the wife, as to the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers may not be hindered” (1 Peter 3:7 NKJV).
INTRODUCTION
God, in His infinite wisdom, made men and women different. These differences are in accordance with our roles and duties, and in marriage, they complement each other. The glory of men is their strength. But this strength must be wielded rightly if you desire to glorify God and love your wife, as the Lord commands.
SUMMARY OF THE TEXT
After exhorting wives regarding their role in marriage and duty toward their husbands, the Apostle Peter turns his attention to husbands. He calls them to dwell with their wives with understanding – meaning a husband is to know his wife and be considerate of her. One way a husband demonstrates that he is endeavoring to do this is by giving her honor, respecting her as the weaker vessel but also as co-heir of the grace of life. The warning for husbands is that if they do not love and honor their wives, the Lord will not honor them and shut His ears to their prayers.
HOW HUSBANDS FAIL
There are two ways husbands fail in their duties toward their wives. The first is to be strong in a way that is selfish and has no benefit for your wife. The second is to be simply weak, allowing your wife’s weakness (both pure and sinful) to dominate the home. Both of these are an abdication of your God-given role as head and a failure of leadership.
JUST AS CHRIST LOVED THE CHURCH
But Christ shows men a better way. He demonstrated how husbands can both be strong and kind. How a husband can use his God-given strength to enter into his wife’s weakness with both compassion and truth.
CONCLUSION: “HOLY FRIENDSHIP”
John Calvin called marriage a “holy friendship.”
The German reformer Johannas Oecolampadius wrote, “…the woman was drawn out from the side of Adam, not from a higher part lest she be deemed more worthy, not from a lower part lest she be able to be regarded as worth less, but from the side so that she would be at his side and so be his helper.”
Your great duty in this life is to lead your wife and your family before the Lord. In this, you are to imitate your Head, Christ, entering into your wife’s struggles and laying down your life. When a husband truly leads and loves his wife, and when a wife honors and submits to her husband with full trust—there is an immense blessing and joy that fills your cup, and overflows to your children, your children’s children, and to the world.
Various Exhortations for Students & Families (King’s Cross)
The Image of the Triune God (King’s Cross)
INTRODUCTION
In the worship of our congregations, we have the practice of reciting the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Definition of Chalcedon. There are various implications of this, but one of the central things it means is that we are Trinitarian Christians. But what is that exactly? Why does it matter? And for our purposes this morning, what difference does it make in your marriage?
THE TEXT
“And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” (Genesis 1:26–28).
SUMMARY OF THE TEXT
In the course of the creation week, God declared that He was going to make man. But He says it this way. First He says, “Let us.” The creation of man proceeds from an us, and it doing to result in an us. “Let us make man in our image,” He said. He will be made “after our likeness” (Gen. 1:26). Man is made in the imago Dei, the image of God. The next thing has to do with the position and task of this created image. It is dominion over everything (v. 26). So then God did what He said He was going to do. He created man (Adam) in His own image, in the image of God He created him, male and female He created them (v. 27). Having done this, God blessed them, and set them to their task of dominion (v. 28).
WE MUST TAKE CARE
Christians are monotheists. We believe in one God. We are not tri-theists. We do not believe in three gods. At the same time, we hold that this Godhead eternally lives in three distinct persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. These are persons, and not mere aspects or modes of one unitarian god. Now we believe that this triune God can reveal truths about Himself in the created order (Rom. 1:20), but He does this without getting tangled up in the created order. As His image, we reflect Him. We do not contain Him.
“For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father [Pater] of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family [patria] in heaven and earth is named” (Eph. 3:14–15).
THE WORD IMAGE AND YOUR SALVATION
So Scripture is very clear that we were created as image-bearers. This is the way we were in our innocence. But God had placed a probationary tree in the Garden, and had prohibited them from eating the fruit of it. This they did anyway, and our race fell into darkness. The image of God was shattered, but not entirely eradicated or erased. A little later in Genesis, God assigns severe penalties for murder because the victim, whoever he was, was made in the image of God (Gen. 9:6).
Nevertheless, we know that the image was marred and defaced in us because it was the assigned task of the second Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ, to restore that image. Our growth in grace is the process of that great remodel project. The image of God is being restored in us. All the pieces are being put back together.
“But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Cor. 3:18).
“That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness” (Eph. 4:22–24).
So in our sanctification, we are not being turned into angels. Neither are we being transformed into some other kind of creature. What is God doing then? He is making us into human beings. What material is He using for this audacious project? He is using wreckage of human beings. He is using the debris field of Adam’s great crash.
THE TRIUNE GOD HAS AN IMAGE
We have no right to try to turn the glory of God into an image of man. That is the sin described in Romans.
“And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things” (Rom. 1:23).
Rather, God is establishing a glorious likeness of the incorruptible God, and He is making this image out of corruptible man. We refuse to drag God down, but we dare not refuse when He determines to lift man up.
INESCAPABLE PORTRAYAL
Now what this all means is that you all, in your marriages, are a walking Nicene Creed. Not only so, but you are also a walking Definition of Chalcedon. A godly marriage is a robust and clear statement of the truth. A marriage that is struggling along is a mumbled and garbled recital of the truth. A rancid marriage is the creed of heretics. But every marriage is doing something. It is not possible for any marriage to be silent.
A man and a woman, standing alongside each other, are saying, “This is what the triune God is like.” That is either going to be an expression of the truth, or it is going to be a lie. A man who speaking to his wife is saying through his words that this is how Christ loves the church. And that is either true or it is false. A wife who responds to her husband is saying that this is how the church is sweetly submissive to the Lord. And again, this confession will either be accurate . . .or inaccurate.
But if your marriage is resting upon the Word, and if you are trusting in Christ alone for your salvation, and if you honestly confess your sins, to God and to one another, it is not only possible for your marriage to become a glory . . . it will be a glory.
“For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man” (1 Corinthians 11:7).