Two Words for a God-Glorifying Marriage:
- A word for wives: SUBMIT. (Eph 5:22)
- It’s Exclusive. (Eph 5:22-23)
- It’s Exhaustive. (Eph 5:24)
- A Word for Husbands: LOVE. (Eph 5:25)
- It’s Unselfish. (Eph 5:25-30)
- It’s Unstoppable. (Eph 5:31-32)
How? Like the church does to Christ!
How? Like Christ does for the church!
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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00:00-00:07
So, turn in your Bibles with me, please, to Ephesians chapter 5.
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Ephesians chapter 5.
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Now, how many people, by show of hands, how many people watched that Steeler game last night?
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Okay, it looks like most people watched the Steeler game.
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If you DVR'd it, and were planning on watching it today, you might want to plug your ears, because spoiler alert.
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I was working on a couple things in the house and was watching especially the last half of the last quarter.
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It was quite a dramatic game.
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It got down to just a couple minutes left and Bengals with the interception.
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You guys remember this?
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Do you remember after the interception when those five guys ran into the locker room?
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Did you see that?
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Like the bengal players, they made the interception and they just ran into the locker room.
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It's over!
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Well, I've got to confess something to you.
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I want you to hold your booze for a second, okay?
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But when they ran into the locker room, I stood up off of my couch and I just kind of threw the remote down and I said, "Well, I'm done watching too." Hold on!
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I started to walk away, and then I thought, "Well, there's only a couple minutes left.
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Who knows?" So I sat back down, and if you saw the game, those last couple of minutes were two of the craziest minutes of sports I've ever seen.
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And somehow, the Steelers won.
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Or more appropriately, you could say, somehow the Bengals lost.
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But here's my point in sharing that with you.
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If I would have walked away after that interception, Bengals in the lead, game over, if I would have walked away, turned the TV off, done, I would have, the rest of the night, been thinking, "That was a terrible game.
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That was a terrible game.
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That was a terrible game.
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That was a terrible game.
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We lost, we lost, we lost." Because I was willing to sit down and wait until the end, I saw that it wasn't such a terrible game, because we won!
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So go ahead and get your booze out for me trying to walk away before the game ended.
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Go ahead.
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You guys are so gracious.
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But why am I sharing that with you?
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Because I'm about to share a passage with you that is extremely controversial.
02:46-03:00
And here's the thing, if you only listen to the first part of the message and then you check out, whether you decide you're going to stop listening or you might decide to get up and walk out the door, it would be like when I almost walked out of the game.
03:03-03:15
But if you're willing to stay and listen to the whole message, then you're going to leave with quite a different attitude about the passage.
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So as I start, I want to make you a deal.
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I'll preach the text and you stay for the whole thing.
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Do we have a deal?
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Okay, deal.
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All right, Ephesians chapter 5.
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Last week we talked about God's plan for marriage.
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The foundation of marriage is really just one verse.
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Genesis 2, 24.
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"For this purpose a man shall leave his father and mother and shall claim to his wife and the two shall become one flesh." verse in the Bible about marriage.
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Remember Matthew 19, you know, the Pharisees came, "Hey Jesus, is it alright to divorce your wife for any reason?" And Jesus' answer was like, "Hey, what does Genesis 2.24 say?
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Have you ever read that?" The most important verse in the Bible about marriage.
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When Paul was writing to the Corinthians and the Ephesians, and he was giving them instructions about marriage, in both passages he quoted Genesis 2.24.
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So that's God's plan for marriage.
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Today we're going to look at God's picture for marriage.
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But before we look at this text in Ephesians 5, I want you to look at verse 18.
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Because this is important.
04:27-04:58
It says, "Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit." Now that last phrase, "be filled with the Spirit." Everything that we're going to be talking about concerning marriage is going to be built on being filled with the Spirit, meaning this, if you don't know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, if you're not born again, if the Holy Spirit's not residing within you, you cannot in the flesh fulfill these things that Paul is writing about marriage.
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Okay, so this is very important. If you don't know Christ, you have a bigger problem than your marriage.
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Okay, so that's step one. Be filled with the Spirit. Literally, the Greek is "be being filled." It's a constant thing.
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What does that look like?
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It's like a sailboat.
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You know, when that sail is being filled with the wind, that sailboat is moving because the sail is constantly being filled with the wind.
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And that's the picture of the Christian life as God's Holy Spirit filling and filling and filling and filling us like the boat giving us the energy to do what God's called us to do so that is a foundation jump down to verse 22 this is the picture that God has designed for marriage and in this picture what you're going to see in the text wives represent the church and husbands represent Jesus Christ right Right now the men are like, "Oh, so the Bible says I'm God." Hang on.
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Don't leave the game too soon, Cincinnati Bengals, all right?
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Hold on.
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Did you wonder what those players that ran to the locker room, like, what happened to them?
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Like, imagine what they found out.
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Anyways, don't leave the room too soon.
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Are you with me?
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On your outline, two words for a God-glorifying marriage.
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Two words.
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two words for you today and it's actually easier than that.
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Wives, I got one word for you and husbands, I got one word for you.
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Number one, a word for wives.
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Submit.
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How?
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Like the church does to Christ.
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Look at Ephesians 5 verse 22.
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says wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. And as soon as we say submit, the objections are raised. Already there might be some ladies saying, oh, here we go. Well, listen, Pastor Jeff, I'll be seeing you in step one. I'm going to tell you something right now. I don't submit to no man. I don't do it. I don't submit. There's some people thinking that well first of all i would say it's what the bible says i've made a commitment to christ in nineteen ninety five i made a commitment that i would preach his word we get the passages like this and we get a commitment still stands is what the bible says that but here's the thing nobody understands what submit actually needs because people don't understand what authority actually means and that's what we want to clear up today Don't leave the game too soon.
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First of all, the word "submit" is a Greek word, "hupotasso." And that's actually a compound word.
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"Hupo" means "under," and "tasso" means "arrange." It literally means to put yourself under, like a military thing, like a private would put himself under his sergeant.
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That's what the Greek word means for "submit," put yourself under.
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and the picture that we have is the way the church puts herself under Jesus Christ.
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If you can understand that picture, then you can understand the way that the wife is to treat the husband, the way the church responds to Jesus Christ.
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Now, as soon as we say submit, again, immediately, there are people that are like, submit, I don't submit.
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I don't submit.
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I don't say, yes, you do submit.
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All of a sudden, you know, it's kind of funny because we're people that we submit to the government, right?
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And we submit to our bosses at work, and we submit to the elders in the church, and we submit to God.
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And we're like, "Yeah, those are areas in which we submit." But as soon as we get to this passage, for some reason it's much harder to swallow.
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So let's see what it actually means for wives.
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First of all, jot these two things down.
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letter A. It's exclusive.
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It's exclusive.
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Look at verses 22 and 23.
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It says, "Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior." Let's stop there for a second.
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It's exclusive, meaning the Bible doesn't say all women should submit to all men.
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Your Bible says, "Wives should submit to your own husbands." We're going to talk more about that next week.
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Submitting to your husband exclusively.
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You see the picture with the Church and with Christ.
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The Church doesn't submit to Allah or Krishna or Shiva or any other God.
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The Church only submits to one God.
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We submit as a Church, as the Bride of Christ, we submit ourselves to Christ exclusively.
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And in this picture, wives submit themselves exclusively to their husbands.
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So first of all, it's exclusive.
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Secondly, it's exhaustive.
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It's exhaustive.
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Verse 24 says, "Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit..." What does your Bible say next?
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Everybody's like, "I'm not reading it." In everything to their husbands.
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Does your Bible say that?
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My Bible says that.
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Don't leave the game too soon.
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You know, it's funny, I went to a small group.
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Ben and Sarah were talking about Lincoln's memory verse was, they said, "Lincoln, what's your memory verse?" He goes, "Children are but your parents." And Sarah said, "In everything." do a poll for parents to say, "Parents, when the Bible says children obey your parents in everything, what does in everything mean?" Parents would be like, "What means in everything?" Okay, when the Bible says wives submit to your husbands in everything, what does that mean? Like, "Oh, that doesn't mean in everything." So I want you to write these down. This is very important. Men, you need to listen to this. Ladies as well, obviously, but men, attention to this. I want you to write these things down. Submission does not mean...
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Submission does not mean... Please listen to this. This is so important.
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Submission does not mean, first of all, wives are put in their place. The reason we have a problem with submission is we've all heard these horror stories of husbands that have abused their wives. And you're not allowed to have any friends, you're not allowed to you're not allowed to leave the house.
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We've heard those horrible stories of abuse in the name of "she is supposed to submit to me." That is not submission.
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Putting your wife in her place is not submission.
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As we talk about authority, listen church, authority does not mean lording over.
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We are not a pack of dogs where one of us has to assert authority over the other.
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authority and be the alpha male and keep the other ones down and it doesn't work like that in your home you're not the alpha dog in your home that you have to assert your authority that is not what that means authority is not about lording over listen authority is about protection that's what authority is about authority is about protection Meaning what?
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Let me put it in terms of the church.
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You know, we have three elders and myself, and we have authority in the church.
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But you're not going to see the elders of this church walking around saying, "Randy, I don't like that shirt. Don't ever wear it again." They're like, "We have the authority in the church." That's not authority.
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What do the elders do with the authority?
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What the elders do with our authority is we have to make decisions for the good of those that are under our care.
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So we have elder meetings.
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We're not trying to grab for power.
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We're thinking about you saying, "What are the best decisions that we can make for this church?" That's what authority is about, protecting the people under your care.
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Husbands, your authority is about protecting the people under your care.
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Something else I'll say, wives are not to be put in their place.
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Something else I'll say about that, the whole idea of submission, you know, the Bible never, ever, ever, ever tells anyone in a position of authority to make people submit.
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The Bible doesn't teach submission that way.
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You'll never see, you know, husbands make your wives submit.
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Church leaders make your church submit.
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You know, government, make your citizens submit.
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You don't see that kind of teaching in the Bible.
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Submission is always taught the other way, from the humility perspective.
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You need to submit yourself to the people that God has placed in authority over you because that is for your protection.
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So first of all, wives are not to be put in their place.
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Submission does not mean, submission does not mean, submission does not mean.
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Secondly, wives follow mindlessly.
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You do what I say, woman, you don't ever question me.
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don't have a say in this relationship that's abuse. Wives fall in mindlessly. We talked about this last week. We work as a team. Husbands and wives have to discuss and make decisions together and it's not the wife's job to sit there and be the yes man for her husband. Wives fall in mindlessly. That is not what submission means. Submission does not mean thirdly, letter C in your outline, wives are not equal with their husbands. Wives are not equal with their husbands. Submission does not mean that. Are men and women, husbands and wives, are they equal? Yes. Are they the same? No.
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Just because we have different roles to fulfill doesn't mean that we're not equal. In letter Number D, submission does not mean wives tolerate abuse.
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If you're in an abusive relationship or you know somebody that is, you need to come and talk to me or talk to one of our elders and we want to help you.
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We can point you to other people who can help you.
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But don't get this twisted thinking that, "Well, he's my authority so I have to tolerate his abuse." in an abusive situation, that is not God's design.
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So why should wives submit?
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Well, it's not because your husband deserves it.
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It's because submission pleases God.
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And ultimately, submission is not a thing between you and your husband.
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Ultimately, submission is a thing between you and God, as you're obedient to Him in this.
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Submission is not weakness.
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Submission is faith.
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Submission is saying, "God has this structure, this plan, this picture for marriage, and I'm going to trust Him by allowing my husband to take the leadership in our home." That's submission.
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Submission is not weakness.
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In fact, I would suggest to you that submission is actually strength.
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Because Matthew 26, 39, I can give you countless other passages through the Gospel of John.
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You know, Jesus was constantly talking about how he was submitting to the will of the Father.
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So how many people here would say that Jesus was a weak person because he submitted?
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Anybody? Anybody want to make that suggestion?
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"Oh Jesus, you're so weak because you submitted." Submission is strength. Submission is faith.
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Submission is trust.
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Jesus wasn't weak. In fact, do you know Hebrews 1.8?
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God the Father calls Jesus God. Did you know that?
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God the Father calls God the Son. He calls Him God.
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He says, "You're my God." So submission isn't weakness.
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Submission is strength.
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So church, wives specifically, as long as you misunderstand what submission actually means, as long as you see it as a weakness, and as long as men abuse it, it's always going to be a battle to try to understand what God actually said, what submission actually means, and how submission to your husband is going to bless your marriage.
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Don't leave.
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Because number two on your outline, I want you to write this down, and husbands, you've got to listen to this.
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Here's a word for husbands.
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The word is love.
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How?
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Like Christ does for the church.
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Look at verse 25.
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Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.
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See the real problem, the reason people struggle with this is because husbands are not taking the lead.
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Husbands are not initiating these biblical roles in the marriage.
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Wives have a hard time following a husband because husbands aren't loving their wives the way Christ loved the church.
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That's the problem.
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Husbands if you love your wives the way Jesus Christ loved the church, she will have no problem following your leadership. But when you act like a knucklehead, and then you wonder why your wife is so reluctant and has such a hard time following you, you're the problem guys. So how does a husband love the wife like Christ loved the church? Two words of explanation for there underneath that. First of all, write this down. It's unselfish. It's selfish love.
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Look at verses 25-30.
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Again, "Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way, Husbands should love their wives as their own bodies.
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He who loves his wife loves himself.
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For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body.
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First of all, it's unselfish.
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You know, there's different words for love in the Greek.
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It's hard in English because we have one word for love.
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And what's hard about that is we use it for a lot of different things.
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I can say, you know, I love comic books, I love pizza, I love the Pittsburgh Penguins, I love my dog and I love my wife.
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I don't love all of those things in the same way.
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And in the Greek, there were very different words for love.
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Like, for example, the word eros.
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That's where we get the word erotic.
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That's a kind of love.
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Get your parents to explain that one to you.
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Another word is phileo.
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That's where we get Philadelphia.
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That's brotherly love.
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That's the kind of love I have for a friend of mine that I don't have for Joe Stranger on the street that I've never met before.
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It's a friendship love.
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The highest form of love is agape.
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That is you ahead of me kind of love.
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That is self-sacrificing love.
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That's the kind of love that God has demonstrated for us in Jesus Christ.
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Agape love.
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It's the Christ kind of love in husbands.
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It's the kind of love that the Bible commands you to exhibit to your wife.
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Unselfish.
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It's the kind of love that says things like this.
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How can I serve you?
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How can I lift you up?
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What can I do to benefit you?
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How can I bless you?
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Did you see the picture that Paul gives here? I love this.
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He says, "Husbands should love their wives," verse 28, "as their own bodies." As their own bodies.
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Mark, whose teeth did you brush today?
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Yours, right?
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You didn't need much coaching on that, did you?
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It's automatic. You've got to take care of yourself, right?
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Right?
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Like, Greg, whose hair did you comb today?
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Who did you take care of this morning, Greg?
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Okay, except for your hair, you took care of yourself.
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You probably got a shower, and I see that you dressed yourself, I'm assuming.
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Okay, that's automatic.
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And that's what he's saying about husbands.
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You should be as automatic about looking after the needs of your wife as you are about brushing your own teeth or putting on your own clothes or doing whatever Greg does to his head.
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It should be that automatic. You should be doing that for your wives.
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That's the picture. It's unselfish, natural, and automatic.
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Like Jesus, right? Jesus put himself first.
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Can you point me to any passage in the Bible where Jesus did anything out of a selfish motivation?
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Do you see any passage in the Bible where Jesus is like, "You know what, guys?
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Today's just for me. Okay, today's just for me. I've been preaching a lot and healing a lot. I'm gonna I'm gonna take some time off just for me Jesus couldn't even catch a nap. They interrupted him while he was praying his life was constantly constantly Constantly, how can I benefit others? How can I bless others? How can I encourage others?
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Jesus whole life was about that Jesus death was about that because he endured death on the cross so that you and I could be forgiven of our sins He went all the way with his love.
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Jesus wasn't like, "You know, I love the church to a point, but when it comes to giving my life for the church, that's a tall order." Jesus said, "I will go all the way to provide salvation for my church." Husbands, you need to love your wives like that.
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Your wife needs to know that you would give your life for her.
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I mean that metaphorically and I mean that literally.
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You should be willing to lay down your life for your wife.
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You should be willing to lay down yourself so that she is benefited and so that she is blessed if you're going to love your wife the way Christ loved the church.
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That's the kind of love you want to exhibit to your wife.
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First of all, it's unselfish, and secondly, it is unstoppable.
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Verse 31 says, "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother, and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh." Did you ever have deja vu?
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Didn't we just talk about that?
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Paul taking us back to Genesis 2.24.
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He says, "This mystery is profound, and I'm saying that it refers to Christ and the church." So not only is the love to be unselfish, it's to be unstoppable.
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That's why Paul quotes Genesis 2.24, "Two become one flesh." Meaning, two people are becoming one person.
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The love is unstoppable, unending, unceasing, unwavering.
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In other words, if we're going to get the picture, what would make Jesus stop loving the church?
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Can you think of anything?
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Can you think of a scenario where Jesus would say, "You know what?
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I don't love the church anymore." Can you think of a scenario?
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What if you decided you were just going to stop coming to church?
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Would Jesus stop loving the church?
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What if you committed a sin?
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What if you committed a really bad sin?
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What if you committed a bunch of really bad sins?
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Would that make Jesus stop loving the church?
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Absolutely not.
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His love is unending.
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In the same way, husbands, there should be nothing on this planet or beyond that makes you stop loving your wife the way Christ loved the church.
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Nothing.
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"I don't like the way my wife did this or did that or the way she spoke to me the other day." Nothing.
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Nothing.
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There is nothing that should enter your marriage that should bring you to the point where you say I don't love her anymore because we're to imitate the love of Christ.
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It's an unending, unselfish, and unstoppable love.
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That's the kind of love, men, that you need to be showing your wives.
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It doesn't matter what happens.
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You are mine.
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I am committed to you.
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Paul gives the summary in verse 33 where he says, "However, let each one of you love his wife as himself and let the wife see that she respects her husband." Paul's sort of giving a summary statement, but I want you to see the specific wording that was used.
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He says, "First of all, let each one of you," he's obviously talking to the husbands, "love his wife." In your Bible, circle the word "love." I actually took a red pen and drew a heart over the word "love." You're like, "That's sissy, Pastor Jeff." And I said, "I don't care.
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This is my Bible.
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Do what you want in your Bible." I drew a heart in mine.
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The husbands, love your wives.
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Men, I'm going to let you in on a little secret.
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Ladies, plug your ears for a second.
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The number one thing your wife is looking for from you men, she needs to know that you love her.
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She needs to know, men, that you are willing to lay down your life for her.
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That's what your wife is looking for from you.
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She needs to know, no matter what happens, your love isn't going to stop.
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Your love is going to go all the way.
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That's what she's looking for from you.
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Notice the wording.
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It doesn't say, husbands love your wives and wives love your husband.
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Very specific.
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It says, let the wife see that she respects her husband.
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So ladies, I'm going to let you on in a little secret.
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That is the number one thing your husband needs to know, is that you respect him.
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Your husband needs to know that you have his back.
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And you know what?
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I'm trusting your leadership.
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And life can be hard sometimes.
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but I am on your team and I have your back.
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No matter what happens, I have your back.
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Your wife needs, your husband rather, needs to know, ladies, your husband needs to know that you have his back no matter what.
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And you see, as Paul gives this recap, understand that this is either going to be something that compounds or this is gonna be something that deteriorates.
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Compounding meaning this, husbands, the more you love your wives, the more she's gonna respect you.
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Ladies, the more you respect your husband, the more he's going to love you.
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It's like this compounding thing.
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Husbands show more love, wives give more respect, and wives give more respect.
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So husbands show more love, and the wives are feeling the love, and they're like, "I'm going to give more respect." And the husband's like, "She really respects me. That makes me want to love her more." And it just grows and grows and grows and grows.
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But it can also deteriorate.
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You see, if the husband isn't loving his wife, the wife doesn't really feel like respecting him.
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And he feels like, "She doesn't really respect me." And that kind of makes him feel like loving her less.
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Now she's feeling less love and she's got less respect.
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And it's just rotting away.
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And you have some choices that you can make, husbands.
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You have some choices that you can make, wives, to which direction your marriage is going to go.
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Are we going to grow or are we going to decay?
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You know, when we talk about marriage, we're so concerned with our needs being met, what our spouse is doing.
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Today, today, we do something different.
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Instead of sitting here thinking, "Yes, but my wife this," or ladies are like, "Yeah, I understand, but my husband that." Let's evaluate what you're doing.
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Wives.
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Do you see yourself in a relationship like the church and Christ?
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Do you see yourself as the church?
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Do you see yourself giving the husband the respect that God says you should give him?
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Not because necessarily he inherently deserves it, but because God's established roles.
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And how are you doing, wives?
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And husbands, how are you doing at seeing yourself as Jesus Christ, the servant leader?
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How do you see yourself relating to your wife as she fulfills the role of the church in this dynamic?
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Do you have an unselfish daily laying my life down to minister to her needs?
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Do you have that kind of a love for your wife?
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Because the truth is church, the reason for God's picture in marriage is really the same reason that God has for everything else.
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It's about God's glory.
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God wants to display in your home the relationship that Jesus Christ has for the church.
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You see, God wants other people looking at your marriage and seeing this dynamic and seeing that this is the way that the church and the Lord of the church, Jesus Christ, this is the way that they function and this is what I see in their relationship and that's It's glorifying to God.
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Husbands as the servant leader, wives as the submissive helper.
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As we encourage you to reevaluate your marriage in light of this picture, especially as we encourage men to love like Jesus, I thought what an incredible opportunity as we've been talking about this relationship between Jesus and the church.
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What an incredible opportunity we have to take a very graphic and physical reminder that Jesus gave us.
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This is the kind of love that Jesus Christ has shown.
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He shed His blood.
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He took my place on that cross.
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You understand that?
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He took your place on the cross.
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And He was motivated by love.
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self-sacrificing love.
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So we as a church, when we're told as a church that we come under the authority of Jesus, we don't look at that as a bad thing because we say, "Look at how awesome our Savior is!" We want to subject ourselves to a God like that who would love us like that.
Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Read Ephesians 5:22-33
What does the word “submit” mean, in general terms? Why is this instruction given to wives? What are some things submit does NOT mean? How would you explain this concept to a young female friend that just got married?
Describe, in your own words, the picture of Christ and the church that is supposed to play out in marriage. Why did God design marriage to work that way?
Why does God tell men to LOVE their wives, but tell wives to RESPECT their husbands (Eph 5:33)? Why did God use these specific words?
Breakout Questions:
Please continue to pray for marriages in your small group and those you know who are struggling in their marriages. (church, family, friends, coworkers, whoever!)
Parents Children's Questions:
Discuss with your kids! What does authority mean? What does submit mean? How does Jesus treat the church? How should the church treat Jesus?
If the wife is supposed to be like the church, how should she treat her husband? If the husband is to be like Jesus, how should he treat his wife?