Slide 1
How we rate things:
Did this meet my expectations?

Slide 2
A consumer relationship says:
“I will stay as long as this continues delivering what I expected.”

Slide 3
Covenant says:
“I have bound myself to you, including through circumstances neither of us can presently imagine.”

Slide 4
Marriage requires a radical reorientation away from self.

Slide 5
“Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands…”

Slide 6
Ephesians 5:1-2
Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. 2 And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

Slide 7
Our starting point: Jesus

Slide 8
Verse 15: Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise…

Slide 9
Verse 18: …Be filled with the Spirit…

Slide 10
Verse 21: …submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Slide 11
Verse 2: Walk in love as Christ gave Himself up.
Verse 18: Be filled with the Spirit.
Verse 21: Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
Verse 22: Wives…
Verse 25: Husbands…

Slide 12
Paul does not begin by telling us how to manage our spouse.

Slide 13
He begins by telling us how to follow Jesus.

Slide 14
Ephesians 5:21-33
21 submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.
22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 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. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. 25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 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. 28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 30 because we are members of his body. 31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. 33 However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

Slide 15
Aristotle (350 BC): Household relationships were ordered by a “natural” hierarchy:
1. Husband and wife
2. Father and children
3. Master and slave

Slide 16
Paul: Household relationships were reordered under the lordship and self-giving love of Christ.

Slide 17
Christian community is characterized by a posture of humility and self-giving toward one another.

Slide 18
22: “Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands…”
33: “let the wife see that she respects her husband.”

Slide 19
Biblical submission does not mean:
“My husband gives orders and I obey.”

Slide 20
Biblical submission does not mean:
Inferiority.
Less intelligent.
Less capable.
Less valuable.
Less spiritual.
Never disagree.
Passivity.

Slide 21
Ephesians 5 absolutely does not mean tolerating abuse, coercion, violence, manipulation or sin.

Slide 22
Biblical submission is a voluntary posture towards unity rather than rivalry.

Slide 23
25: Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her

Slide 24
Jesus was a radically different kind of leader:
– He sacrificed.
– He served.
– He protected.
– He cherished.
– He used His strength for the good of His bride.

Slide 25
When a father worships, prays, talks about faith, and visibly treats following Jesus as central to his life, his children are significantly more likely to carry faith into adulthood. – Institute for Family Studies

Slide 26
Spiritual leadership means going first toward Jesus:
– Go first in repentance.
– Go first in prayer.
– Go first in sacrifice.
– Go first in forgiveness.
– Go first in serving.

Slide 27
Every rating system puts me in the center:
– Did I like it?
– Did it satisfy me?
– Did it meet my expectations?
– Would I recommend it?

Slide 28
My spouse is not:
– Affectionate enough.
– Successful enough.
– Spiritual enough.
– Romantic enough.
– Clean enough.

Slide 29
Vows:
For better, for worse,
For richer, for poorer,
In sickness and health,
To love and to cherish,
Till death do us part.

Slide 30
Verse 21: Submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Slide 31
My Mom’s discipline method:
“What is something you could have done differently?”

Slide 32
“The key is that there is usually always something each person could have done differently. Each person has some control.” – Mom

Slide 33
A question for yourself:
What’s one thing I could do that would make it better to be married to me?

Slide 34
A question to ask your spouse:
What would loving you well look like in this season?

One of the things that has changed pretty radically from the time that I was a kid till now is we live in a culture now that rates everything. You go to a restaurant and you can look up its rating on Yelp or on Google reviews. You go to a church and you can go check out the rating and the review. And we always have an opinion on what we though and what we think. And especially is that true when we are buying stuff online? You go look at Amazon, everything that you buy has a rating to it. I, I don’t know about you, I’m a little bit of a rating stop. Like if it’s below a four star, I, I won’t even look at that. Like that trash is not for me. I’m looking for four, five plus. , I’m not gonna be deceived by somebody that only has like seven reviews.

I don’t care if it’s five star, if there’s only seven. I’m looking for 10,000 reviews of 4.5 or above stars. That, that’s my typical go-to. I do find it funny though, if you go read some of the reviews. And I often do before I buy something, I’m looking at the reviews. I’m trying to read what people say. And some of them are great and, and very helpful. And then some of them are a little bit crazy. I came across some funny reviews this week. , One of them was of a, a review of this. And this is a, a fence for a dollhouse. And it says it very clearly in the description. It’s a miniature fence garden decor. A, a couple different times. It, it makes it very clear. , One of the reviews gave it a one star and they say, “Terrible. Not advertised well, wasn’t told it was tiny.” Apparently that person thought they were getting a full-blown picket fence for their house and they were disappointed.

, Another one was of a sandwich container set. It was a set of three. , This person gave it a four-star, so not quite five. Why, why only four star? They say, “Did not come with the sandwiches like the photos showed. Otherwise good product.” They though, “I’m getting Tupperware and a very high-end sandwich.” And they were very disappointed. My favorite review though was of an air mattress. So this is a picture of the air mattress. It got a one-star review from Adam back in 2016. He simply said, “Beds should look like beds.” And then if you read his detailed review, here’s why he thought that. He says, “I ordered this at 2:00 AM because I though it was a giant ice cream sandwich.” <laugh> He, he, he says, “It is not. It’s a bed and not the $150 ice cream sandwich I wanted.” <laugh> And, and so we are in this habit of reviewing things.

And, and that can be normal and fine in, in certain circumstances, but it can be unhealthy when we review everything, including our relationships. Why? , because think about how we rate things. That primarily when we rate something, we are asking this question. Did this meet my expectations? He wanted a giant ice cream sandwich. He was very disappointed when he didn’t get a giant ice cream sandwich. So his expectations were high. Reality was different than expectations, which led to disappointment. And sometimes we will do the same thing with the relationships we have in our life. We have these expectations. These are what I’m expecting to happen. These are the ways that I’m expecting you to behave or expecting you to treat me. And when those things don’t happen, when my expectations aren’t met, I am disappointed. And we can apply this same thing to marriage. That when we think of marriage and we think of it through this lens and through this understanding of being a consumer, we, we think of it like this.

We say, “I will stay as long as this continues delivering what I expected. As long as almost like some type of a contract. And we’ve signed a contract, you’re supposed to do those things. I’m supposed to do these things. As soon as you don’t do your things, then this is over. This isn’t going to work.” And when we turn marriage into a consumer relationship, it drifts away from what scripture teaches it’s meant to be, because what does the Bible teach us? That it’s a covenant relationship. And here’s what a covenant says. It says, “I have bound myself to you, including through circumstances that neither of us can presently imagine.” That’s what a covenant is. Today, we’re going to unpack Ephesians chapter five. And in Ephesians chapter five, Paul talks us through what it looks like to be a Christian in a marriage relationship. So he doesn’t just talk about marriage, he talks about the life of a Christian.

And he uses that as a setting to say, “When Jesus is at the center of your marriage, here’s what the overflow should look like.” And the heart of it is this idea that marriage requires a radical reorientation away from self. Then instead of just focusing on what do I get, that consumer mentality of me, me, me, instead, a biblical marriage reorients it and has this picture of a radical distancing from myself, someone else’s needs above my needs. Now, before we dive in, here’s what I wanna recognize. Not everybody in the room is married. And some of you, maybe you have feelings tied to marriage that are, are really hurtful, painful feelings. Maybe you’ve been divorced or maybe you come from a broken home. Maybe you’re in here and you’re a widow or a widower. Maybe you’re in your, and you’re a student and you’re like, “Hey, man, I got a long time before any of this applies to me.” Hey, here’s the good news.

When Paul writes the letter of Ephesians to the church at Ephesus, he’s writing it to all the Christians. And he would be very aware that while they were reading this section, there would be people in the room that were not married. And yet, he, he doesn’t say, “Hey, tell the, tell the married, only the married people need to, to hear this. Tell the non-married people to go ahead and leave the room.” Because at the center of a godly marriage, here’s what it’s gonna tell us, that the gospel is at the center. So even if you’re not married in this room, everything about today’s teaching, because it’s all rooted in God’s word, will help us point and reorient our hearts back to Jesus. Now, today we’re gonna teach through Ephesians chapter five, and right smack dab in the middle of Ephesians chapter five is a verse that makes a lot of people uncomfortable.

And so we’re gonna start with that verse. Here’s what the verse is. It says, “Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands.” No one culturally today likes that verse. As a matter of fact, somebody in the room right now, like you brought somebody and they’re here for the very first time and you’re leaning over saying, “I am so sorry. Like, I didn’t know he was covering this.” Like probably there’s not a single wife in the room that you’ve got that as a bumper sticker. <Laugh> If there is a husband that has that as a bumper sticker, that’s a whole separate conversation because you shouldn’t have that either. But, but this phrase, this verse, it brings up all kinds of emotions and feelings. And so here would be my challenge for you today, is probably there are some preconceived ideas that you have about this verse. Maybe it’s based off of your childhood, maybe it’s based off of a teaching.

And so rather, wh- whether you have a really healthy view of the church, , that verse or a very unhealthy view of that verse, if we could just all approach it with open hands. Because I think if we peel back the layers, there is absolutely something beautiful in God’s design for marriage when we get it right. But I think sometimes uncomfortable feelings cause us to, to distance ourselves so we don’t experience what it really means. So if you’ve got a Bible, turn to the book of Ephesians. We’re gonna be in chapter five. We’re gonna start at the very beginning though, starting in Ephesians chapter five: one. Everything that we hear about marriage later on in the chapter comes out of the ideas that we see in verses one and verses two. It says, “Therefore, be imitators of God as beloved children and walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” , here’s what it’s trying to get us to understand, that if you are a Christian, if you are a follower of Jesus, then this is what our life is supposed to look like.

That we are meant to imitate Jesus, that I should live a life like Jesus lived. Now, that doesn’t mean that I’m gonna do exactly what Jesus did in terms of the miracles and, and the, the, the ministry that he had. But in terms of the lifestyles, the values that he had, the ideals that he had, it’s telling me that I need to take those ideals, those values. I need to apply them to my life and how I live. And then it goes on to tell me what that looks like. It says that I should live a life of love just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us. That if I could accomplish this in my life, that is what it means to be a Christian, that I’m living this selfless life that’s imitating Jesus, that’s loving others, that’s living sacrificially. And, and so ultimately, when we get into the conversation about marriage and husbands and wives, Paul wants us to understand that there is a starting point and our starting point is Jesus.

Everything when it comes down to a Christian godly marriage, the starting point is Jesus. And now if you skip down a little bit, look at verse 15. Verse 15 says this, “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise.” So before we get to marriage, he, he’s trying to get us to understand as Christians, this is how we operate. This is how we live. This is what wisdom in our lifestyle looks like. Then in verse 18, he says, “To be filled with the spirit.” He does this interesting thing where he compares it to alcohol. He says, “Do not get intoxicated by wine. Don’t get drunk. But instead, be filled with the Holy Spirit.” He, he’s saying when, when someone gets intoxicated, that their thoughts, their words, their actions are being influenced by an outside source. And, and he’s saying, yes, that, that drunkenness is wrong.

We see that throughout scripture, but that’s not the point of, of that passage. The point of the passage is he’s using that to compare to what life through the power of the Holy Spirit is supposed to look like. That through the power of the Holy Spirit, that my thoughts, my words, my actions should be influenced by something outside of myself, and that is the Holy Spirit. So in this idea of living as a Christian, chasing after Jesus, I should be filled with the Holy Spirit. And then verse 21 says, “Submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.” This is not talking about wives. This is talking about all Christians, that all Christians, we should be submitting to one another, not because they deserve to be submitted to, but out of reverence for Christ. It’s this spiritual act of worship. So if we look at all of those things together, verse two tells us to walk in love as Christ gave himself up.

Verse 18 says, “To be filled with the spirit.” Verse 21 says, “To submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” And then we get to verses 22, talking about wives, and verses 25, talking about husbands. And now here’s something really important to understand before we dive in. Paul does not begin by telling us how to manage our spouse. Hey, he doesn’t just dive in and says, “All right, here’s how you manage your spouse.” As a matter of fact, there is never in here a line that he gives husbands to tell their wives or wives to tell their husbands. Let, let me reiterate. He does not say, “Husbands, tell your wives that they need to submit.” And later on, an equally challenging, difficult passage is it talks about husbands loving their wives just as Christ loved the church. And he does not say, “Wives, remind your husbands that they need to sacrificially love you in every area of their life.” , that’s not where he begins.

Instead, where does he begin? He begins by telling us how to follow Jesus. He’s saying, “This is what it looks like when someone loves Jesus and is chasing after Jesus wholeheartedly with their life.” So underneath that context then, he tells us what a marriage looks like. Look at verse, starting in verse 21. It says, “Submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.” That’s all Christians submitting to one another. Then verse 22 says, “Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord.” The reason you have to start with 21 in order to, to, to say verse 22 is because in the Greek, those verses are tied together. Now, now likely, if you’ve got your Bible open right now, likely verse 21 and verse 22 get separated out. The 21 is in one section, and then 22 is the beginning of a new section titled something about households or something about wives and husbands.

The reason you can’t do that is because in the Greek, the verb submit in verse 22 is not in verse 22. It, it’s an accurate translation, but what, what happens in the Greek is the verb is in verse 21. He tells us, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. And then essentially the Greek is pulling down that, that Greek word submit from verse 21 down to verse 22, essentially saying, like wives, in the same way, wives submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. Notice that it doesn’t say, , submit to your own husbands because they deserve it or they’re great or they’re amazing. He’s saying you’re doing it as to the Lord. Th- this is, again, the spiritual act of worship. 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.

Now, as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. 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. 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, because we are members of his body. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. He’s quoting directly there from Genesis chapter two.

, We looked at that last week, the, the ordination, the creation of the family. Verse 32, “This mystery is profound, and I’m saying that it refers to Christ in the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself and let the wife see that she respects her husband.” And now let me pause because it gets a little bit confusing at the end. The point of this passage is not that the husband is Jesus. All right? So let’s just clarify that right off the bat. And, and towards the very end, in, in verse 32, he says, “There is this mystery that exists inside of a marriage where he’s saying that a marriage is reflecting back on itself, the relationship between Jesus and the church.” , another way to look at this is that marriage, when done right, when, when two people love Jesus and are all in and falling after Jesus in their marriage and putting Jesus first, that that marriage is reflecting the gospel to the world around them.

There’s something about how they are living that is causing people to take note and see the gospel and how that marriage functions day in and day out. And now there’s a, a couple things that we miss culturally that they would not have missed culturally in the first century. Like we hear this all culturally, and there’s a lot of it that we’re like, “Oh, we’re shocked and we’re surprised and I can’t believe this because we are hearing all of this through the lens of our families, the childhood you grew up in, TV shows that we’ve watched growing up. Like we have this preconceived idea of what family and marriage is supposed to look like. The first century also had this preconceived idea. It largely came from Aristotle. So, so back, all the way back in 350 BC, roughly 400 years before Paul’s writing this, , a long time ago, you have Aristotle in, in, in his teachings, in his philosophy, in his writings, he talks about the household relationships.

And largely, he says that the household relationships are given to us by a natural order. And he would describe the natural order as these three different relationships, all revolving around the man of the house. By the way, side note, I’m not saying this is right. I’m saying culturally, this was the understanding. So that the man of the household, that he was also the husband of the wife. And he was superior in that relationship because of the natural order of things. He was physically bigger, he was physically stronger, and therefore nature had to determine, had determined that he was in charge. The same thing with the father and the children. Hey, this, the guy’s bigger, he’s stronger, he’s the caretaker. And so children are subservient to the Father. And in the same way, that same person over his household was the master and the slaves would’ve been subservient to that person.

And he’s saying that this is the natural order of things. Now, what Paul does is Paul takes a concept that everyone in the first century just though of that, yeah, this is the natural order of things. Here’s who’s the boss, here’s who’s in charge. Now Paul, he inverts this. He, he takes it, he says, “Okay, you’ve heard this. This is how you think that the world operates.” And now Paul is going to subvert it and say, “Actually, it’s designed in a very different way.” That whereas Aristotle’s teaching was, this is just the natural order of things. This is the way that’s supposed to happen, that basically everybody else is inferior to the naturally superior person. But for Paul, his household looks very, very different. That for Paul, household relationships get reordered and they get reordered not underneath the natural order of whoever’s physically superior, but instead reordered underneath the lordship of Jesus, the self-giving love of Christ.

And so where you and I hear things and we’re like, “Oh, I, I can’t believe he said that.” That in the first century, it was just yeah, yeah. But their shock was not when he says, wives, submit to your husbands. Their shock was when he ties that into lordship to Jesus. And so if you wanna characterize Paul’s radical transformation of the household, here’s how he characterizes it. The Christian community is characterized by a posture of humility and self-giving toward one another, which to you and I, that sounds very normal. That, that sounds like the expectation. But in the first century, that was not. In the first century, that was radical. And so now let’s look specifically then with wives and with husbands, and let’s, let’s talk about what those things actually mean. In verse 22, it says, “Wife, submit yourself to your own husbands.” Verse 33, it says, “Let the wife see that she respects her husband.” Whenever I do premarital counseling, a- and I don’t do nearly as many weddings as I used to, but I used to be a youth pastor, and the nature of being a youth pastor is a lot of those kids grow up and they get married.

And so as a youth pastor, you officiate a lot of weddings. And anytime I’d sit down with a couple and do premarital counseling, we typically do about four sessions over the course of a handful of months. In that first session, I was really just trying to point out to them that both of them had preconceived ideas and notions, and they needed to sort through some of that junk before they got into it, , to, to be married to one another. Before they got into their marriage, they needed to know, “Oh, hey, we have different views and different perspectives on things.” Because they needed to wrestle in premarital counseling. , The thing that I would tell people in premarital counseling is, “Hey, there’s gonna be some things that I’m gonna try and stir up some controversy, but I promise you, if something in premarital counseling causes you to not get married, that’s a good thing.

Because if I bring up something that causes you to not want to get married to, to one another, that’s preventing you from having the same thing come up at some point, but after you’re married. You much rather prefer to know that now as opposed to after your wedding day.” And so one of the things that I do is I, I give them both kind of a, a notebook and piece of paper and I’d ask them questions and they write down answer and they’d have to flip around and show the other person. So it, so here’s one you can try at home today. , One of the questions I’d say is, “How much money can you spend without your partner, your spouse, having to give you permission to spend that? Like, what, what’s your limit? Could you spend $1,000, $10,000, $100,000, a million?” And so they’d write down a number and then I say, “Okay, one, two, three, now show the number to the other person.

And can I just tell you, spouses, , husbands, wives give radically different answers from each other, like all o – like, like 10X what one writes and the other write.” And both times they’re shocked. They’re like, “Wait, what?” And so that causes some, a little bit of controversy. But I remember one couple, I asked them, “Hey, write down how many kids do you wanna have one day?” And they said, “One, two, three.” And they both slipped. And her number was seven, big number. His number was zero. And I didn’t say anything. I just kinda sat there, like, talk amongst yourself. <Laugh> And, and he looked at her and he said, “We’ve had this conversation. I told you I don’t wanna have kids.” And she said, “Yeah, I know you’ve said that, but I figured someday after we get married, eventually you’re gonna wanna have kids and I wanna have seven.” And I didn’t say anything.

I just let them continue to talk. And, and then eventually, I mean, we didn’t end there, but, but here’s what I told them. I, I, I said, “Hey, that’s a really big deal, but, but can I just urge you this? Never get married expecting the other person to change. Never get married thinking, well, my marriage is gonna be good once I change these parts about my spouse that I don’t like, like you’re marrying who you’re marrying, and you need to know that going into it.” And that couple did not get married. They did not come back for session two of premarital counseling. Because they realize that we are not compatible. , The other thing that I always do in the first session of premarital counseling is I read this text right here. I read through Ephesians five. And then I ask this simple question. I say to, to both of you, I want you to explain to me what does that mean?

And here’s, by and large, the answer that I’ve gotten the most is some version of this. They say, “Well, I think what it means for the wife to submit to the husband is that the husband should be the breadwinner, and that he should work, and the wife should stay home, and the wife should clean and cook and take care of the kids.” And I think that’s what that means. And, and they will say that. I’ve had, I’ve had ladies say that to me. I’ve had guys say that to me. And every time they say that, I say, “Wait, hold on a second. Like, you read something that I didn’t, because I said, show me which verse that came out of, because I, I, I don’t, I don’t really know.” And they really aren’t saying that because the Bible says that. They’re saying that because that’s, that’s a cultural context that they came from.

They, they though that that was right. And so they were taking a cultural idea and they were projecting that onto the Bible. Now, by the way, that’s not a bad thing. The, the, the, nothing about the traditional idea of husband and wife is a bad thing inside the, the house. Largely, my wife and I, that’s how we’ve operated. That, that when we had kids, she was a fourth grade teacher for, for seven years, and she got a master’s in education. And then, , she got pregnant. And once we had kids, she stayed home and she stayed home for, for a decade, over a decade. And then now that our kids are older, she’s gone back to school, she’s getting a, a master’s in counseling, a master, master’s in school counseling. , School counseling and licensed professional counseling. So, like, she’s going back into a career.

She’s got a lot of stuff ahead of her. But largely, you would look at, at, at our relationship in the workplace and you say, “Well, that’s kind of a traditional American model.” Now, that doesn’t mean that’s a bad thing. For us, it’s been a wonderful, beautiful, amazing thing. But what it’s not is a biblical mandate. The Bible does not give us instructions that this is exactly what it looks like. The husband is supposed to do exactly these things, and the wife is supposed to

Do exactly these things.

Tho- those can be good things, but we can’t

Get there because we say, “Well, the, the Bible tells us we have to do those things.” Just like the

Bible does not tell you

How to load the dishwasher.

Like, that’s between you and your spouse figuring it out. There’s not a verse that you can say, “Well, remember, the verse

Says that we’re supposed to.”

And, and so here’s the danger then. The danger is that we can take some cultural

Ideas

And we can project them onto scripture and say, “Hey,

This is what

That actually means,” when that’s not what that actually means.

So, so let’s start

With biblical submession does not mean. It does not mean my husband gives me orders and I obey. And, and I know sometimes people have taught that that’s what it means. Here, here’s why we know it doesn’t mean that.

Because the Greek word for obey, Paul is very aware of. He uses the Greek word for

Obey in chapter six when he’s talking to kids. When he says kids, you need to obey

Your parents. That’s the Greek word that he

Uses. That’s not the word

That he uses with, with wives.

He doesn’t say you need to

Obey

Your husbands. He, he says that you need to willingly submit.

So, so biblical

Submission does not mean that. It also does not mean the idea

That the

Wife is inferior

Or that the wife is less intelligent or that the wife is less capable or less valuable or less spiritual. It,

It also doesn’t mean that the wife should never disagree.

Like,

Like, there’s nothing about it that says,

“Hey, you just have to always

Agree with everything that your spouse

Says.” It also doesn’t say that the wife is supposed to be

Passive. None of those things are in that

Text.

And, and, and I, I also wanna go one step further and make something really abundantly clear

That, about

Ephesians chapter five,

Because all scripture

At different times can be used in a way that is harmful and not what scripture was intended for. We, we can, we can twist

Scripture

To our own desires all the time, and we don’t wanna do that

With this passage. So here’s what

Ephesians five absolutely does not mean. It does not mean in your marriage that you should

Tolerate abuse or

Coercion or violence or manipulation or sin. Absolutely not.

That

Those are things that you don’t say, “Oh, I’m submitting to those things.” No, those are things that are, are things that you gotta get away from. You need, you need to find help.

Especially if, if

Safety’s concerned, get out

And

Say, “Hey, I need someone to help me in this circumstance.” So don’t falsely connect what those things are not saying.

Okay.

So then what is biblical submission? Biblical submission is a voluntary

Posture

Towards unity rather than rivalry. Biblical submission is this idea

Of,

“Hey, I’m gonna be your

Biggest

Cheerleader. I’m gonna find ways

To help you

Accomplish things that you couldn’t accomplish on your own.” , let me give you a, an example. In, in my household, in my household, my wife and I are very intentional

That we are

Always on the same page. We are on the same team. And, and you see this play

Itself out with our kids all the time because

Our kids will go to mom and they’ll say, “Hey, mom, can I have some candy?” And mom will say, “No, you may not have some candy.” And my kid doesn’t just walk off and say, “Well, they said no candy.” No

One said, “What does kid do?” They go

To dad and they say, “Dad, hey, can I have some candy?” They ask me the same question they just asked mom. And my natural response, ma- maybe even to a fault,

Is always, “Have you asked

This question to your mom?” And if they say yes, I say, “Well, what did mom say?” , and I say, “Mom and dad are always on the same page. We are on the same team, always in everything.” And practically how that plays that out is that

We

Are very intentional with one another

To always uplift

The other person and never tear down the other person. You, you will never hear me using my wife as the punchline of a joke. I will never talk down about my wife. I will never make fun of my wife in front of my kids. E- even just, “Oh, I was just being sarcastic. It’s not that big of a deal.” Like, I want the way I talk about my wife

To our kids to be a way that

They say, “Man, my dad loves my mom.” And, and he talks about how amazing she is all the time. And can I tell you the same is true for my wife with me? Like, she never talks negative about me, that she never rolls her eyes at me. She never to the kids while I’m at work says, “Oh,

Your dad,

He never does the

Dishes.”

Like, like, that is not a part of our relationship. Why?

Because she

Voluntarily

Has this posture of what

Does unity look

Like?

And she is my biggest

Cheerleader

In life. That doesn’t mean we, we never have conflict. It means that she’s intentional, that

She is

Projecting to the world around, “Hey, he’s my guy, and I am 100% behind him all the time in everything.” Now, he- here,

Here’s the crazy part

About when we look at that verse, and then what’s next, is in the first century, nobody would

Have looked

At that verse and been shocked by it.

Actually, what

They would have been shocked by

Is that Paul,

Over and over and over again in his writing, elevates women.

That he actually is

Writing to women. He, he doesn’t say, “Husbands, tell your wives they need to submit.” Which is a side note, husbands, write that down. This is not your bumper sticker. This is not your thing to tell your

Wife. Paul i- is

Elevating the ladies and saying, “Hey, wives, this is my message for

You.”

He’s giving them dignity and value by elevating them. He’s giving them agency, which is something that did not happen in the first century.

Here’s the

Radical thing, though, that Paul said, is what he says in verse 25. Verse 25, he says, “Husbands, love your wives as Christ

Loved the church

And gave himself

Up for her.”

And we read that and we’re like, “Yeah, that’s what

You’re supposed to do.”

But in the first century, that, that

Was crazy. , Because here’s what he was saying. He,

He was saying, “You aren’t just naturally superior. You’re, you’re not just the boss. In- instead,

The way that you treat your spouse

Is you need to love them in the same way that Jesus

Loved the

Church.” And, and they would’ve known, “Hey, Jesus died on the cross. He was crucified. He suffered for the church.” And so this is a radical idea of equating your leadership, husband, dad, to the same lifestyle that Jesus lived, because Jesus was a radically different kind of leader. In, in the first Your century, if you were Caesar, if you were the boss, everybody did what you said. The idea was that they served you. You were in charge. You were more important. And so they brought you things and served you hand and foot. That’s not who Jesus was at all. That, that Jesus instead he sacrificed and he served and he protected and he cherished and he used his strength for the good of his bride. That’s why anytime people have this idea where I, I’ve largely heard this taught somehow like this where they say, “Hey, here’s what the wife submitted the husband means.

It means that most of the time you’re just gonna decide together and agree on things. But if there’s ever a, a fifty fifty split where you’re not 100% sure, then ultimately the husband, he has the Trump card because wife has to submit.” But here’s the problem with interpreting it that way, is you could also interpret the verse for the guy in the same way. That well, wait a second. If it’s a fifty fifty tie, but the husband is supposed to love his wife in a way that is sacrificially loving her the same way that Jesus was crucified on the cross and loved the church, well, well then shouldn’t I be putting her needs first? And, and when it tells us to love the same way that Jesus loved, does it mean that we need to be willing to physically die for our wife and our family?

Yes, full stop. Absolutely. But it’s not just that. It means that we’re also meant to love and care for and serve in a way that is putting them first. , Five years ago when, when my wife and I, when we were having this conversation about potentially coming out to Colorado, there’s a lot of prayer involved, big decision. All of our family was back in Texas. And so we, we both had this interesting posture because she said over and over again, she would say, “Hey, listen, , this is a big deal. And so I, I just want you to know we’re praying for it. And if you ultimately tell me that you think this is the right thing for you and for our family, then I will say yes and I will do it.” And, and here’s what my response to her was. I said, “Hey, this is a big deal.

And I don’t want to do this where you’re not 100% on board. I, I want to love you. Jesus Christ loved the, the church and was willing to sacrifice. And so I want you to know that you have full veto power. And we are not going to do that. Even if I totally think this is the right thing, we are not gonna do this if you tell me, Hey, I’m uncomfortable. I don’t think this is the right decision. You have veto power at any given moment, no questions asked. If you say we shouldn’t do it, then we’re not doing it, period. And, and so it wasn’t this idea of there’s a tiebreaker and so one of us wins. It was both of us having this posture of saying, Hey, what does it look like to value you and care for you first? And in doing that, we come mutually to the same conclusion.

That, that largely, i- if you wanna look at this passage of what it’s challenging the men, the fathers, the dads to be, it’s challenging us to be the spiritual leaders in our home. Data would back up the value of what that means. , Look at research from the Institute for Family Studies. , This came out last year. It was based off of a whole lot of different research studies. But they say this, when a father worships, praise, talks about faith, and visibly treats following Jesus as central to his life, his children are significantly more likely to carry faith into adulthood. Now, the best combination is when mom and dad both love Jesus and demonstrate it, but they have found over and over again that there is something about how God designed a dad, how God designed a husband, how God designed you in such a way to be a spiritual leader of the household.

And when it’s done right, there is scientific studies that back that influence. So, so what does it mean to be the spiritual leader? ‘Cause I think we, we throw out that term. We say it all the time, well, hey, you should be the spiritual leader. What does that actually mean? I think simply spiritual leadership means going first toward Jesus. It means being the first person going towards repentance. It means the first person in prayer. It means go first in sacrifice. It means go first in forgiveness. It means go first in serving. Now what does it look like that to not, to, to not be the one that’s being drugged by everybody else, but instead be the one that is running and chasing ahead? Here I think is the biggest challenge we have when it comes to marriage, that we so often treat marriage the way that we treat everything else in life.

And that is with a consumer mentality. That every rating system, whether it’s Amazon or Yelp, they all have the same thing in the center, and that’s me. It’s all about me. Did I like it? Did it satisfy me? Did it meet my expectations? Would I recommend it to someone else? And here’s the danger of that when I bring that into my marriage, is that all of a sudden I can become very critical of my spouse about everything all the time. And you, you start to hear it, my thoughts and maybe even my words where I start to say to, to other people, “Well, my spouse, they’re just not affectionate enough. Or they’re not successful enough. Or they’re not spiritual enough. They’re not romantic enough. They’re not clean enough.” And so we take this consumer mentality into our marriage and it causes us to constantly look critical at the other person.

That’s the danger of consumerism. That’s the danger of looking at my marriage like it’s a contract. Because in a contract, once you don’t hold up, you’re into the bargain, I’m out. It’s done. It’s over. But marriage is meant to be a covenant. Remember the vows you made on your wedding day. They said for better or for worse. We love the for better part, but that worst part is challenging. For richer, for poorer.

And sickness and in health to love and to cherish till death do his part. That, that’s not consumerism. Biblical marriage is covenant. Biblical marriage, when done right. It’s a, it’s a wife saying, “I’m doing everything I can to support you and encourage you and, and be your biggest cheerleader.” And it’s the husband saying, “I’m doing everything I can to sacrificially love for you.” What does that look like? And, and it’s all underneath the umbrella of verse 21. And verse 21 says that we submit to one another, and it tells us why out of reverence for Christ. It’s saying that I love Jesus and because I love Jesus, I’m going to love my wife sacrificially. Notice what it doesn’t say in there. It never says in there, I’m gonna love her sacrificially because she deserves it. Never says, submit to your husband because he deserves it.

No, no, it says, “I am going to demonstrate this because I love Jesus. And because I love Jesus, here is how I’m gonna treat my spouse.” Growing up, my mom and my dad had very different discipline styles. So, so my dad, , he would like handle things instantaneously. And so he never screamed, he never yelled, but, but he was firm, if that makes sense. , His dad, , my grandpa was a Marine drill sergeant, so that’s what was modeled to him when he was growing up. So occasionally I’d say some joke that I wasn’t supposed to say, and my dad would just snap. He’d point to me, and then he’d do this. And then I’d follow him wherever he was going. Like I got, I got pulled onto the front porch before. I got pulled into the, the food pantry. And it wasn’t big. Like I, it was a very small space in there.

He’d pull me in there and he’d get down like on my level. Now, now I’m like five inches taller than him. But before that, it was down on my level. He’d make eye contact. A- and then he would basically just say, “Don’t ever do that again.” Or, or he’d, he’d lead with this line, “I’m very disappointed in you.” Which is the worst. You’re like, “Just get out the belt, man. I don’t want that.” And so that’s how my dad dealt with it. And it was over in 30 seconds. But my mom was very, very different. That when, when me and my brother, or me and my sisters, when we got into a fight, , she would come break up the fight, and then she’d take us into the living room, and there was these two chairs in the living room. She’d put one in one chair, one in the other chair.

And then she’d say, “I just want you to sit there and think about what happened.” And then she’d leave. And then she’d be gone for 30 minutes, and we’d just be sitting there. And that was torturous. I mean, so painful. And then eventually mom would come back and mom would simply ask this question. See, she’d say, “What is something you could have done differently?” And when I got older, we’d, we’d answer sarcastically. I’d say, “Well, maybe I shouldn’t have let my brother punch me in the face. How about that, mom? That’s what I could have done differently.” But she always had this question to both of us. You had to unpack what’s the part of the relationship that you own that went wrong? I was talking to my mom yesterday, and my mom gave me this quote.This is a quote from Mary E- Ellen Taylor, my mom.

She said, “The key is that there is usually always something each person could have done differently. Each person has some control.” Can I, can I just tell you that true in every relationship? And maybe you’re in a marriage right now where 90% of it is your spouse’s fault. It would be so easy to come out of here and read the verse for them and say, “See, this is the problem in this relationship. And if you could just do that. But, but what is the piece that you can control just for you?” ‘Cause you can’t change somebody else. But through the power of the Holy Spirit, you can control your side of the equation. And, and so here’s a question that each one of us, I would challenge you to ask yourself this week. What’s one thing that I could do that would make it better to be married to me?

, It’s not about anybody else. It’s just about me. What is something that I can do? I can take ownership and control of that would make it better to be married to me? And then the second question is a question for your spouse at some point. A- ask them simply, what would loving you well look like in this season? How, how do I do a better job of loving you? And here’s what I found in this beautiful thing about marriage, that when one spouse, like if I just don’t control your part, I just control my part. But if I start loving you sacrificially the way that Jesus loved the church, and I start truly, genuinely, not, not just as this, this high calling verbiage word, but actually live that out in my life in the small ways, in the big ways. Can I just tell you the overflow of that is that that person starts treating me different because I’m doing everything I can to support them and love them and care for them.

And the same thing is true with the wife to the husband. There’s a, a beautiful quote that Tim Keller has in his book, The Meaning of Marriage, where he says this, “On the one hand, the experience of marriage will unveil the beauty and the depths of the gospel to you. It will drive you further into reliance on it. On the other hand, a greater understanding of the gospel will help you experience deeper union with each other as the years go on.” He’s getting at what Paul mentioned in Ephesians five, that if, if I have a healthy marriage where we’re chasing after Jesus, that marriage is gonna help reveal to me some pieces to the gospel that I’ve never understood before. And in the same way, that if I understand the gospel better and have a deeper relationship with Jesus, it’s gonna help reveal to me things about my marriage that I never understood before.

If you hear in our culture, the view of marriage tends to be pretty negative. That’s why people talk about marriage and they say, “Well, it’s the ball and chain, or it’s the burden.” Or if, if somebody gets engaged, I guarantee you, if somebody gets engaged, they’ll have a dozen people say, “Get out now while you still can.” Like that’s the joke about marriage. And, and here’s what Paul is saying. He’ saying, “If we do marriage right, it is actually proclaiming the gospel to the world around us.” What does that mean? That, that means that, that somebody looks at your marriage or my marriage and they say, “Man, they love each other so well.” There’s this mutual submission where the other person is constantly benefiting and helping their spouse and their spouse is constantly serving and benefiting them. And there, there’s just this back and forth.

And I never hear them talk negative. , I never hear them talk down. , I never hear them be sarcastic. Like I only hear them constantly encouraging and uplifting. Like there is something about them that both are accomplishing far more in life because of the partnership they have with each other than they could alone. Like what would it look like if that is what Cherry Hill’s marriage looked like? And the whole world looks at that and says, “I don’t know what that is, but man, I want that.” So often we, we look at this passage of scripture and we, we feel like it’s supposed to be a burden, but it’s not. It’s supposed to be wings that Jesus is trying to give us a gift that says, “If you can live this out, your marriage will be a gift unlike anything else in this world.” Let’s pray.

Heavenly Father, God, I thank you so much that you have given us marriage as a gift. God, I, I pray specifically for the people in this room that whether they’re single or, or they’re from a divorce or divorced home or they’re a widow or a widow or God, I, I pray that this message, that the gospel truth tied to this message would be real. That they can understand the love that you have for us, that sacrificial love that you came to demonstrate to the world how much you love us. Again, I pray for anyone in this room right now that their marriage has fallen apart, that their marriage is struggling. God, I pray that today would not be a burden, but instead it would be a hope. It would be an inspiration of what marriage could look like. God, help us to see that at the center of a godly marriage is the gospel.

It’s us chasing after you. We pray this in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.