A Sermon on Ephesians 5:22-33 was delivered on May 3, 2026. Please visit our Sermon Archives for more sermons in this series.
Here’s a summary of the sermon on Ephesians 5:22-33 (The Husband’s Call to Love):
Introduction
This sermon addresses husbands first — deliberately out of Paul’s original order — so that the husband’s call to love gets its full weight rather than serving as a defensive shield against the wife’s call to submit. Paul spends more time addressing husbands than any other household role because as the husband goes, so goes the family — and as the family goes, so goes society.
Love Rooted in Union with Christ
The foundation of everything is this: a husband cannot love his wife the way God calls him to love her by sheer willpower alone. The power to love sacrificially, righteously, and actively flows directly from his union with Christ.
Paul uses two words to describe how a man cares for his own body — nourish (providing everything necessary for growth and maturity) and cherish (providing everything necessary for care and comfort). Because husband and wife have become one flesh, those same two things must flow toward the wife. And the model for both is Christ himself, who nourishes and cherishes his church in exactly this way.
The practical test for whether a man is united to Christ is straightforward: does he honestly know himself to be a sinner, understand that Jesus lived righteously in his place and took his punishment, and embrace that as his only hope before God? If so, he has the capability to love his wife as called — not in his own strength, but through Christ and the Holy Spirit.
The Purpose of Love: Holiness Through Sacrifice
Ephesians 5 and Philippians 2 together paint the picture clearly. Jesus emptied himself, took the form of a servant, and went to the cross — not to make his bride comfortable, but to make her holy. He is working to present the church to himself without spot or blemish, set apart in beauty and righteousness.
A husband’s sacrificial love works the same way. He cannot save his wife — but God uses his love and sacrifice as a tool to help sanctify her. That means when a husband stands in the way of his wife’s holiness — through selfishness, passivity, or self-absorption — he fails his primary calling. The goal of husbandly love isn’t happiness management; it’s helping his wife become more like Christ. One day in the new heavens and new earth, he will see his wife in the fullness of the holiness God has been building in her. The question now is whether he will have contributed to that or obstructed it.
Practical Applications for Husbands
The most important starting point: attend to your own holiness first. You cannot lead your wife somewhere you haven’t gone yourself. Seven specific applications follow:
- Take the initiative to end arguments — graciously, and usually apologetically, owning your own role in the conflict.
- Lead spiritually in the home — not by being the only one who prays or reads Scripture, but by setting the pace and direction.
- Play the long game — don’t try to fix everything at once. Sanctification is slow. Jesus is patient with you; extend that same patience to your wife and your marriage.
- Show patience and forgiveness — Jesus is infinitely patient with us. Husbands can afford to be generous with patience toward their wives.
- Listen when your wife points you toward holiness — that is hard, but God gave you a wife who cares about your growth. Receive that as a gift.
- Make your wife your number one priority — not your parents, your children, your job, or your hobbies. Your wife comes first among human relationships.
- Never use leadership to hurt or control — the model is a shepherd, not a ruler. A shepherd lays down his life for his sheep, tends to their wounds, and leads with a loving heart, not a heavy hand.
The Closing Challenge
Jonathan Lehman captures the whole sermon in one sentence: when a husband said “I do,” he said it to actively prepare his wife for her coming Redeemer by showing her what He looks like. A husband leads by being the first to die to his own desires — not so his wife’s desires win, but so God’s desires do.
A Word for Single People
Marriage doesn’t perfect us — only Christ does. Everything that marriage points toward, every longing for completeness and intimacy, finds its full answer in union with Christ. Singles don’t lack what matters most; they have it in him.
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