[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the preaching ministry of the Agape of Baptist Church in George South Africa.
[SPEAKER_00]: Good morning, church.
[SPEAKER_00]: Good to see you all here today.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you want to be finding your places and Ephesians chapter five, that's going to be the main passage that we're going to be looking at this morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: Alright, I'm up here to find a place, you can sit on the front row there if you want to, or here you're doing alright, well I wanted to share a little illustration with you that as part of the message I'm going to have for your parents this morning, I saw a TV commercial about a car that I thought you would enjoy.
[SPEAKER_00]: This man the father drives up in the driveway.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is home with this new car and he gets out and he walks into the house And he looks out the window and his little son.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's about looks like he's about five or six He's out there playing in the front front garden and he's pretending to be a super hero He's got a cape on and he's got his lightsaber and he's pretending to be one of the star wars, you know, he rose
[SPEAKER_00]: and so he's out there and he goes and he stands in the driveway in front of this car and he puts out his hands like this like he's going to use the force to do something to this car and as the father's watching he takes his remote control and it's a commercial is showing how this remote control can start the car and so he pushes the button on that remote and the car starts up the lights come on and that little boy looks and he thinks, well I did something
[SPEAKER_00]: Now children, they started the car, the dad, the dad, the dad started the car, but the boy thought he did it all by himself, didn't he?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, in the best of just morning to your parents, we're talking about the family, about the husband and the wife and the parents and the children and the children, how they
[SPEAKER_00]: how they treat each other, and it applies to all of our relationships, all of our friends, people that we have made it school or whatever, and how we get along together.
[SPEAKER_00]: And one of the things that the Bible teaches us is that we need to depend upon our father, upon the Lord, Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: We can't do the what God tells us to do in our own strength.
[SPEAKER_00]: And just like that little boy, he couldn't do anything to start to carve by himself.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he didn't realize that he thought he did it himself.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the lesson for your parents are the lesson is that we need to depend upon God.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you also need to depend upon God to help you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the Spirit of God will help us when we trust Him and we ask Him when we pray.
[SPEAKER_00]: to treat other people the way they should be treated, and to do what is right, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, you can be this missed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Get your class, thank you.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, we're in Ephesians chapter five, and we have many series that we have started last Sunday, and we're talking about God's plans for the family and the focus on,
[SPEAKER_00]: the family and the relationships within the family.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'd like for us to continue with that this morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: And related to this illustration I had for the children, if you've ever considered seriously the requirements of God upon your Christian life, and especially as it relates to relationships within the home.
[SPEAKER_00]: husband wife, parents, children, you realize you've quickly come to the conclusion that you have huge limitations within your own power to obey God.
[SPEAKER_00]: And some people have come to the conclusion that, well, I can't do that, so I just quit trying.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that is obviously the wrong conclusion.
[SPEAKER_00]: The right conclusion is yes, we can't do that in our own strength.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the right reaction is to turn to God in dependence upon him and faith in him.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we see the Lord teaching us about that in the context of Ephesians chapter 5.
[SPEAKER_00]: Without like it would do injustice to what we find from beginning in verse 22 on the husband and wife relationship to just jump into that without spending some time in the introduction talking about what preceded that in chapter 5 as it relates to the necessity of spirit
[SPEAKER_00]: in order to obey God, order to be what God wants us to be.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you notice in chapter five, in the beginning of that chapter, he says, therefore be imitators of God as beloved children, imitators of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: And right off the bat, we realize that we can't do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: We can't be like God.
[SPEAKER_00]: We can't imitate the Lord Jesus Christ
[SPEAKER_00]: And so right away, we see the need.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as he moves through that first part of chapter five, verses one and two, he immediately says that we are to walk in love.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as we try to live and grow in our Christian life, to be more like Christ,
[SPEAKER_00]: one of those things that come forward is love.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then a long section from verse 3 to 14, he says, and commands that we are to walk in light.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what he means by that, you can easily see in the context that he means to live holy, live separated from the sins of the world, dedicating ourselves to walking in righteousness.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then in the last part,
[SPEAKER_00]: and wisdom of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: In that section, he commands that we would be filled with the Spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're talking about this necessity of Spirit filled living.
[SPEAKER_00]: Notice for 17, I'll just read that section.
[SPEAKER_00]: Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is, and do not get drunk with wine for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in songs and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always for everything to God, the Father, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: out of reverence for Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, you'll notice in that section, it Paul does not describe what he means, or he doesn't explain what he means by being filled with the Spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: And note out, he expected these church, these believers, to know what he meant.
[SPEAKER_00]: He had been with them for three years, and had taught them
[SPEAKER_00]: And they obviously knew what it looked like for somebody to be filled with wine, to the point of being drunken.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they knew what it meant, or they knew what it looked like for someone to be filled with the spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: But just in case we don't quite understand that,
[SPEAKER_00]: or have questions about that, I want us to think just for a little bit in our introduction, what does that mean to be filled with the spirit?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, one of the first things we see there is that it's a command.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not a suggestion, it's not something that you can do if you really want to go to the extra mile.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, this is part of who we are, as believers, this requirement, this necessity of being filled with the Spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's also a passive command, it's an interesting thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's passive.
[SPEAKER_00]: In other words, it's something that happens to us.
[SPEAKER_00]: This being filled is something that happens to us.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so it's a passive command.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in the context, it's a divine passive.
[SPEAKER_00]: In other words, it's God's work that he does in us.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that doesn't imply that we are not to be active.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are to put ourselves in the place where God can do this work in us.
[SPEAKER_00]: making use of the means of grace, the things that God has given us, the Word of God, prayer, the corporate fellowship, the singing, all of these things that God has given us to help us, to grow, are the means by which God accomplishes these purposes and He's commanded
[SPEAKER_00]: uh... this blessing well this is vital for us is the reason i'm blabbering it this morning before i really get into the message about the family is because it is vital to family relationships it's vital the spirit feeling being fully yielded under control the spirit is vital to these relationships
[SPEAKER_00]: It is a day by day, in a moment by moment, a necessity in our Christian life that would be filled with the Spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus said it this way in John 15 or five.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am the vine, you are the branches, whoever abides in me and I and him, he it is that bears much fruit.
[SPEAKER_00]: For a part from me, you can do nothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, Jesus is talking about abiding in Him and he abiding in us, but that's the same thing as being filled with the Spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus abides with us in the person of the Spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when we yield our wills to Him, walk with Him, we are abiding in Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so the Spirit of God, He is with us, He empowers us,
[SPEAKER_00]: and we must yield our will to his.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, another area that I just want to briefly talk about is this word being filled because that can easily be misunderstood to imply that we need more of the spirit of God, like you can fill out a glass with water.
[SPEAKER_00]: with the Spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Spirit of God lives within us as believers, and we can't have more of the Spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is a person.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's not portioned out in bits and pieces that we can eventually get all of him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now we have all of the Spirit, but what he's talking about is having more
[SPEAKER_00]: the controlling influence in our life.
[SPEAKER_00]: In other words, God can have more of us.
[SPEAKER_00]: We need to yield our life fully to Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: This word that's translated field is often used to speak in other ways of this control, this total control.
[SPEAKER_00]: For example, we also use it to talk about sorrow, or fear, or anger,
[SPEAKER_00]: So that a person could be said, he's filled with anger, or he's filled with fear.
[SPEAKER_00]: In other words, it's a controlling influence in their life.
[SPEAKER_00]: In Acts 5, they're where Ananias, you remember, in his wife, lie about the gift that they were giving.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Peter says to Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart
[SPEAKER_00]: In other words, Ananiah said, come under this controlling influence of the Spirit so that he would openly make himself look good before the church and lie in his wife together about how much they were giving or how much they had given about a sale of a property.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, Paul is talking about this feeling of the Spirit as this influence in our life, this controlling influence, so that we are yielded to him, we keep in step with him.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in verse 19 to 21, although he doesn't explain
[SPEAKER_00]: what it means to be filled with the Spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: He does give us characteristics.
[SPEAKER_00]: What it looks like.
[SPEAKER_00]: There could be other things that he could list about characteristics of spiritual living, but we have three here in this section.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just want to listen, listen for you quickly.
[SPEAKER_00]: Verse 19, characteristic of being fear-spilled, spirit-filled is to have joy.
[SPEAKER_00]: a singing heart he talks about when we have fellowship with the Lord we're walking with him there is a joy it doesn't mean that everything is working right many times it's in the midst of our most difficult times that we can have the greatest joy so we're not talking about happiness or everything going our way we're talking about a deep
[SPEAKER_00]: and related to that is singing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't say singing well, but singing, a joy that overflows, and when we come together, corporate like this, we are singing to the Lord, yes, but we're also encouraging one another in our singing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Honestly, sometimes Christians can be so pious and so reserved.
[SPEAKER_00]: that you get the impression they don't have anything to sing about.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whether we can sing well or not, we should have this overflowing joy in our heart that we want to praise God.
[SPEAKER_00]: And singing is one of those ways that we give testimony.
[SPEAKER_00]: My heart's to one another about the joy of the Lord for what is done.
[SPEAKER_00]: Singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: Secondly, a thankful heart to verse 20.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is all through the Scripture, this thankfulness.
[SPEAKER_00]: For who God is and what He's done for us, giving thanks always and for everything to God, the Father in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then thirdly, verse 21, a submissive heart, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this statement really serves as a transition to what is getting ready to say about the marriage and the home and the context is going into chapter six, also related to masters and slaves in that time, which could have put a plight to us most closely in the employer and police situations.
[SPEAKER_00]: this submitting to one another is is basic to Christianity and it's commanded.
[SPEAKER_00]: But there's honestly some people who just decided that submission doesn't suit them very well.
[SPEAKER_00]: It just doesn't fit their character or their personality and they use that as excuse to say,
[SPEAKER_00]: God wants to change you, and regardless of our personality type, we all have these areas where God is working to change us, and in this area of submission, it's an necessity that we submit to the Lord, and it's an outflowing of that submission we submit to one another in humility and
[SPEAKER_00]: And if we resist God in this way, we resist God and say, well, I just can't do that, or that's just not who I am.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or I just don't like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then we are the ones who suffer.
[SPEAKER_00]: We suffer the consequences and our relationships, and especially within the family.
[SPEAKER_00]: We become
[SPEAKER_00]: We suffer in the sense that we are often miserable in our life and in our relationships.
[SPEAKER_00]: And God has given us the plan.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's given us the blueprint for how to have families, even though we are sinners, we are safe sinners.
[SPEAKER_00]: And God is working in us and with us and He will help us in these relationships.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it is for our good and for His glory.
[SPEAKER_00]: Verse 21, Paul, he doesn't end there in verse 21 with his thoughts about walking in wisdom in the spirit of God, and he applies that truth immediately to the marriage relationship, husband and wife, and then the parent and child, and then master and slave, going into chapter 6.
[SPEAKER_00]: of this marriage family, as he begins there in verse 22, and he talk he's talking about, sorry, back up there, he's he's talking about, um, lost my place.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's talking about wives who respect their husbands with submission.
[SPEAKER_00]: Notice verse 22 and 24, he says, wives submit
[SPEAKER_00]: 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.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now as the church submits the Christ, so also wife should submit and everything to their husbands.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, that's that's very difficult.
[SPEAKER_00]: When we consider our own flesh, our own desires, our own wheels that runs direct and conflict with any kind of submission does.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just watch the husbands, but in each submission submission to one another, we have been by our flesh conditioned and by the world's attitudes conditioned to assert ourselves.
[SPEAKER_00]: Have our own way.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do what feels good.
[SPEAKER_00]: has been rejected and many even within the church have rejected this command and tried to explain it away to make it say something, make the clear teaching of scripture, say something other, then what the Lord is teaching us.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I want to address some of the reasons for the problems that
[SPEAKER_00]: It's quickly, I want to think about and help you to think about some of the reasons.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of the reasons is simply a lack of understanding about what the Scripture is teaching, what it means to submit.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have wrong ideas about that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes it's rejected because they've either been taught or they just think about it in
[SPEAKER_00]: And so a need for understanding of what the Scripture means.
[SPEAKER_00]: Another reason is just the fact that the sinful heart, sinful desires.
[SPEAKER_00]: By nature we reject authority by nature we are self-centered.
[SPEAKER_00]: And certainly that's true as it applies to the marriage relationship.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you try to get to the bottom, you always come to self-selfishness and self-centeredness, morning, morning things my way, and it's, so it's, it's by, it's very nature at the core of the problem.
[SPEAKER_00]: Another, another reason is wrong goals in the relationship.
[SPEAKER_00]: Many couples enter into marriage with wrong, gold, wrong expectations.
[SPEAKER_00]: And also again, a very self-centered approach many times with the marriage relationship.
[SPEAKER_00]: The focus being primarily on myself.
[SPEAKER_00]: What can I get out of this relationship?
[SPEAKER_00]: Does this person make me happy?
[SPEAKER_00]: goals and reasons and not submitting to the Lord and saying, Lord, what do you want for me?
[SPEAKER_00]: What is your will?
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that is certainly one of the reasons.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as we think about the work of the devil and demons in the world, world system,
[SPEAKER_00]: the general attitude about marriage, all of that works against us and is part of the part of the reason that people would have trouble with the idea of submitting because it just is so, is so foreign to the world's thinking and the honest, the church has become so worldly minded.
[SPEAKER_00]: that even in a church, when you say, why have you submit to your husband?
[SPEAKER_00]: It sounds like something awful.
[SPEAKER_00]: It sounds terrible.
[SPEAKER_00]: How could you say such a thing?
[SPEAKER_00]: And the reason why it seems so strange is because we, as believers, in general, make more worldly-minded than we do, biddly-minded.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you remember that Paul here, he's writing to Christians.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's writing to the church.
[SPEAKER_00]: And certainly unbelievers can benefit from following the plan that God has for marriage and relationship and children, but they are greatly limited because they do not have the spirit of God dwelling within them.
[SPEAKER_00]: They do not have the grace and power of God in their lives to enable them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so they are just trying to grid it out and try to do the best they can.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, there's also a gospel connection in this passage.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want you to see it that these commands and responsibilities that God lists here within the husband or wife relationship.
[SPEAKER_00]: They are connected to the gospel of Christ, so that the gospel becomes the basis and the motivation for our obedience.
[SPEAKER_00]: Many times I know this for a fact just because of being in the ministry as long as I have, when people come for marriage problems or some kind of other relationship problems, they obviously want it fixed.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the motivation, usually in their mind, is not help me to submit myself to the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: Help me to be what God wants me to be.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, it's usually, fix my husband, fix my wife, do something for my children.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's always to get what you want.
[SPEAKER_00]: But God wants us to think.
[SPEAKER_00]: primarily in our Christian lives about him, about the gospel.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that is our basis for relationships.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the basis for obedience.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's our motivation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ephesians 5 verse 22 says, why have submit yourselves unto your own husbands as unto the Lord?
[SPEAKER_00]: As unto the Lord, He's bringing the Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ into this relationship and into this command.
[SPEAKER_00]: He does the same thing, chapter 6 and verse 1 with children.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then also later in verse 5, 8 of chapter 6 with bond servants.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's all related to the Lord Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so He becomes the center of our thinking, the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: that which He has done for us in the cross, the good news, it's good news, for our salvation, it's also good news for our relationships.
[SPEAKER_00]: When we live for Him and put Him first, it goes back to chapter 5, verse 21.
[SPEAKER_00]: Notice there He says, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ,
[SPEAKER_00]: So we can't separate these commands from the Lord Jesus Christ and what He has done for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: He gives us a context, it gives us the motivation, it gives us the basis for our Christian living.
[SPEAKER_00]: And also the husband, for the wise, is not the primary focus of submission.
[SPEAKER_00]: He commenced the wife to submit to the husbands, but he's not the primary focus for that submission.
[SPEAKER_00]: First and foremost, she must be submitted to the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: Her submission to her husband is a reflection.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's an outflowing of her submission to the Lord Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: We find it said this way in Colossians 3, verse 18, why submit to your husbands as is fitting in the Lord?
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, he is the center.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's our focus, he's our motivation, he's our basis.
[SPEAKER_00]: You also see this gospel connection as Paul writes here about the analogy between the relationship of husband and wife
[SPEAKER_00]: And the relationship between the church and Christ, notice, notice in verse 23 through 24, he says, 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.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, as the church submits to Christ, so also, wives should submit in everything to their husbands.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so you can see here that he's going to develop this more as it gets into towards the end of this chapter.
[SPEAKER_00]: This relationship of husband and wife, it reflects a mystery.
[SPEAKER_00]: Something that, up to this point, had not really fully been revealed what God planned for husbands and wives and how they are to reflect, they are to demonstrate and give glory to the Lord and reflect the relationship of the church of God, the body of Christ, to Him and He to the
[SPEAKER_00]: as he does in verse 23 and 24 for the for the wives to center their thinking upon the Lord Jesus Christ and to demonstrate submission to our their husbands not because he is such a wonderful person not because he's deserving or he does all things right but because of the Lord and this is God's
[SPEAKER_00]: in the way that he wants to bless your relationship and help your husband.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, there's another thing here that I want you to see and that is what he's saying about submission and authority.
[SPEAKER_00]: Immediately in verse 22, he's instructing us about this meaning of submission and authority within the relationship, the marriage relationship.
[SPEAKER_00]: And just, it's just become common for people to,
[SPEAKER_00]: react to what God says about husbands and wife and the roles which they should have within the relationship.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is so counter-cultural that today, whether you're in the church or out of the church, there's a reaction to it, a negative reaction to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the idea that the wife is to submit
[SPEAKER_00]: to her husband and show him respect, is usually what people today react to.
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't tend to react to what he says about husbands.
[SPEAKER_00]: Obviously, the husband should love his wife and care for his wife.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that wasn't the case when Paul was writing.
[SPEAKER_00]: In Paul's day, the bigger reaction would have been his requirements upon the man
[SPEAKER_00]: That was, what did you say?
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm supposed to do what?
[SPEAKER_00]: No, Paul is saying, was true for them and it's true for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Cultural expectations and norms change, yes, put God's plan, does not change.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the first century, everyone accepted that the man was in the position of authority within the home.
[SPEAKER_00]: But what Paul is talking about is entirely different than what they believed, what the norm was in the culture for the man's authority or leadership in the home.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's going to qualify man's authority with sacrificial love and care, making himself a servant of Christ or a servant like Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that would be very strange for the average person to hear that and to understand what Paul is teaching about the authority or leadership in the home is way different than what they were used to thinking.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so Paul is turning that upside down.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just as he turns things upside down for us today in our culture and the expectations and norms.
[SPEAKER_00]: The husband is not told to force his wife into submission.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's not told to keep his wife under control.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, it's the wife's responsibility.
[SPEAKER_00]: He speaks to the wives to choose to obey the Lord freely and to submit herself to the headship of her husband.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm told that in the first century,
[SPEAKER_00]: a secular codes of conduct that applied to these relationships.
[SPEAKER_00]: Husbands, wives, parents, children, servants, masters.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were written codes about how that they should be conducted.
[SPEAKER_00]: But in those codes, it was only the people in authority that were addressed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Those that held this already, they're the ones that were instructed on how that relationship was to be conducted.
[SPEAKER_00]: But notice when God speaks to these relationships, he speaks first to the ones that are under authority.
[SPEAKER_00]: He honors them and shows their equal worth before God as believers we are all equal before God and have the same relationship to God through the Lord Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so he speaks to them, and it modishes them and their responsibility.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Christ, again, is our focus.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in the modern culture, as you well know, there's a big push has been for a long time to remove any distinctions between men and women.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's now to the point of absurdity and you know what I'm talking about.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't need to describe for you the absurdity of our modern culture trying to do away with he and she and let everyone just decide what gender they're supposed to be and all that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But even before that became popular there was a push
[SPEAKER_00]: women's liberation type movements to remove any sense of what the scripture is talking about here, that there's roles within the relationship, but there's responsibilities that are unique to the husband or to the wife.
[SPEAKER_00]: So for the many, many, including within the church, these
[SPEAKER_00]: commands of God seem old fashioned.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, they're just, that's 2,000 plus years ago, we live in a different time.
[SPEAKER_00]: As if God did not know what our time would be like today when He wrote the word.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so in many people's minds, it's just irrelevant for us today because it's old, because it's a different culture in a different time when it was written.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the reality is, in a time like ours, when everything is so dark, when we live among people who are groping in the darkness, looking for answers, going from one marriage relationship to the other, to the other, we need the bright light of God's truth, shining in our relationships, in our thinking, in our lives, more than ever,
[SPEAKER_00]: As believers, we must hold fast to the Word of God, to the wisdom of God, and allow it to conform our thinking rather than being conformed to the thinking of the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's noted earlier, one of the problems or the reasons for the problems that wives have with this command is that a lack of understanding about what submission is,
[SPEAKER_00]: as the Lord commands here.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I want us to think a little bit about what submission is, and one of the best ways to do that many times is to think about what it is not.
[SPEAKER_00]: What submission is not.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that's the approach I want to take a little bit this morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: or that she is less important in the relationship than the husband.
[SPEAKER_00]: The wife's submission does not imply that she is less important before God.
[SPEAKER_00]: She is equal, the scripture makes that clear.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's equal before God, but God is designed a different role within the relationship.
[SPEAKER_00]: go back to Genesis 2-18, the Lord God said, it is not good that man should be alone.
[SPEAKER_00]: I will make him a helper, fit or suitable for him, a helper.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, somebody even react to that, I don't want to be a helper.
[SPEAKER_00]: I won't that person to help me, I'm the one that needs, you know, the center of attention here.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the reality is being a helper does not mean that you are somehow less important.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, think about God.
[SPEAKER_00]: He refers to Himself as a helper to us.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Spirit of God is promised in John 146, calling Him a bare plateaus.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that word is sometimes translated to help her, a counselor, an encourager, one who mediates on our behalf.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is literally one called to our side.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's no accident that when God made woman, he made her from the side of man.
[SPEAKER_00]: But from the very beginning, God is not implying that she's somehow secondary or less than the man.
[SPEAKER_00]: When Corinthians 11 verse 3 says, but I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that verse alone should show us that God is not talking about inferiority.
[SPEAKER_00]: Within the Godhead, the Scripture clearly teaches that the three persons of the Godhead are equal, one God, that's a unity within the Godhead, and yet within the Godhead there are
[SPEAKER_00]: Scripture says that the head of Christ is God, and the head of the wife is her husband, and so this is what God is talking about.
[SPEAKER_00]: Secondly, submission does not imply blind obedience, and some have misused God's word in this way to treat their wives like a door mat,
[SPEAKER_00]: Abuse physically, verbally, emotionally, in different ways in which they are just treated as some kind of a secondary person and they in their sin will use God's word as it means to justify their sin and so God is not talking about that obviously.
[SPEAKER_00]: of the wife in a functioning relationship, the submission to her husband should have a voice in that relationship, an impact in that relationship, even in management responsibilities, within that relationship.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so submission doesn't apply anything like that, related to that, it doesn't mean
[SPEAKER_00]: that it's not a basis for forced kind of subjugation.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've already addressed that, but there's no place in the relationship for the husband to try to force his wife into submission.
[SPEAKER_00]: And many, many have done that in different ways or tried to do that in different ways.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, submission is not forced, the wife is commanded to freely choose, to submit herself to the Lord and to rank herself under the leadership of her husband.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's God's plan.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then, obviously, some have been mistaken in thinking that submission is part of the curse.
[SPEAKER_00]: The curse that came upon the world and the Adam and Eve that the wife is now to be submissive to her husband and I've heard all kinds of different ways of misusing what the scripture teaches to justify that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that is not the case.
[SPEAKER_00]: This was God's plan before the fall.
[SPEAKER_00]: This was, these roles that he's talking about is God's plan from the very beginning.
[SPEAKER_00]: Obviously, with the fall and sin and the marriage, relationship becomes much more difficult.
[SPEAKER_00]: Before the fall, Adam and Eve didn't struggle with this, he would have been very content to submit to our husband and take upon this role, but now there's a struggle.
[SPEAKER_00]: struggle within all of our relationships, but especially in the marriage or relationship oftentimes.
[SPEAKER_00]: And God pronounces that there will be that struggle.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that doesn't mean that submission is now that plan B of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: That was his plan from the beginning.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, we all struggle in our relationships.
[SPEAKER_00]: But because we are saved sinners, because of God's grace and power, when we submit to Him, we can have good marriages.
[SPEAKER_00]: We can't have marriages that we enjoy, that we receive the blessing from, and that honors the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: He wants our blessing and He's given all of these instructions so that we might have his wisdom about how to live together.
[SPEAKER_00]: If we let sin reign in our hearts, we distort God's plan in our marriage relationship, we are the ones who suffer the consequences of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: because it becomes evident.
[SPEAKER_00]: We can claim the name of Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: But when we are openly treating our husband or treating our wife in a way that is not honoring to God, it hurts the name of Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: God wants marriages to bring glory to him, to honor him.
[SPEAKER_00]: even though we struggle in the relationships.
[SPEAKER_00]: When we submit ourselves to the Lord, the Lord can be honored and get glory from those relationships.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, in conclusion, I want you to notice verse 33 because it's a summary verse to what he says about husbands and wives in their role.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I want to pay attention to what he says to the wife
[SPEAKER_00]: Verse 33 says, however, that each one of you love his wife as himself, and they'll let the wife see that she respects her husband, let the wife see.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's like saying, see to it, make sure, let the wife make sure that this happens.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he, he putting some force behind this conclusion for the wife, he says, see to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: let the wife see that she respects her husband.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now what's what's Paul doing here is he introducing a new requirement.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's been talking for earlier.
[SPEAKER_00]: He talked about submission and his summary now is he introducing something different when he says respect.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now he's not going on to a new topic.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's summing up the submission by saying respect.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let the wife see to it that she holds her husband in a honor position, not because of who he is.
[SPEAKER_00]: Unfortunately, many godly wives have not so godly husbands.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that has been the case, I guess, throughout our history.
[SPEAKER_00]: that many times within the church, you'll have more godly wives, more wives your fate, for more wives who are members than you will godly men.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so it is common for a wife, a Christian wife, to have a husband who's not a believer or he, if he claims to be a believer, he doesn't act like a believer, he doesn't seek to obey God.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so,
[SPEAKER_00]: That is just a reality that many wives struggle with and have to deal with.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so he's not saying wives when your husband obeys show him respect.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the world's thinking, isn't it?
[SPEAKER_00]: The world's thinking is from the wife, well, I will show him respect when he
[SPEAKER_00]: does this or when he acts this way, when he deserves it, and the husband will say, and think, well, I will be sacrificial in my love when she does what she's supposed to do, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Aren't we?
[SPEAKER_00]: Isn't that in our flesh to think that way?
[SPEAKER_00]: When they do, right, I'll do, right.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the Lord cuts through all of that thinking.
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, he focuses our attention on the Lord Jesus Christ,
[SPEAKER_00]: And he says, honor me, submit to me, love me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when you love me, when you submit to me, when you abide in me, then these actions, these attitudes flow out of that relationship with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so he's calling upon the wife to have this disposition towards her husband.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not to doesn't mean that she would never disagree or never question or never say I really don't believe we should do that and seek to speak wisdom into that decision making and the things that are done and all of that that is part of the relationship part of the oneness of the marriage relationship.
[SPEAKER_00]: but God wants her to see her role within that relationship as ranking herself under his leadership, his authority.
[SPEAKER_00]: And let God be God in the relationship.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let God bear upon him the responsibility, the weight.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I want to close with a verse because it
[SPEAKER_00]: in one Peter 5, because it speaks to this in a general way.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not talking about marriage in particular here.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's talking about all of us.
[SPEAKER_00]: When it comes to humility towards one another, one Peter 5, or five to seven, likewise, you who are younger be subject to the elders.
[SPEAKER_00]: Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility towards one another, for God opposes the proud that gives grace to the humble,
[SPEAKER_00]: humble yourselves therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so that the proper time he may exalt you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I can maybe hear some wife saying, yes, I believe all of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I'm fearful about the seasons that my husband makes.
[SPEAKER_00]: I struggle with this.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have anxiety
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't like what my husband does, how do I deal with that?
[SPEAKER_00]: And the Lord continues there for seven, casting all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Father, we thank you this morning for marriage.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we know, Lord, that there's many here this morning in our congregation, our hearing,
[SPEAKER_00]: by means of the video that not everyone is married but what we are learning about our responsibility within marriage applies also to our general submission of one another and putting you first in our lives and making decisions and choosing to honor you with our with our desires, with
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not all about us, and we're not so self-focused Lord that we can't see the good that you would have for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I pray, Lord, you'd help us as we have a coarse correction and our thinking this morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as we're reminded of your purpose and your plan for us as your children, and how you desire to bless us and to change us,
[SPEAKER_00]: and to cause us to have lives and relationships that give you honor and give you glory.
[SPEAKER_00]: We pray for that in Jesus' name.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.