Marriage

I really believe that the God rejoices over you in song, that's from Zechariah, another place that Zechariah the prophet says that God rejoices over you in song, right now God loves us so much He rejoices, He's singing over us, that's what the gospel reminds us of. With that, let's go and hear from the Word of the God who rejoices over us in song. Let's look at verse 22. Why I've submit to your own husbands, I'm sorry, Ephesians 5, oh bad, I just got all excited about singing Ephesians 5, verse 22. Why I've 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, it's 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, but he might sanctify her having cleansed her by the washing of water with the words so that he might present the church to himself and splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing that she might be holy and without blemish. And the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies, he who loves his wife loves himself for no one has 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. 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, the grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of the Lord stands forever. Let's pray. Lord, it is hard for us to believe that you rejoice over us in song because we know ourselves and we know that there is nothing in us that's worth rejoicing over because we have failed you and we've sinned and we don't we don't even know why sometimes and what your gospel tells us we come clothed in the righteousness of Jesus. We come before you radiant and beautiful just as we just have read and that you do not see us the way the world sees us, you don't see us the way we see ourselves but you see us as radiant and glorious and forgiven because Jesus is that and so we come to you in his name, we come to you boldly to your throne of grace. We come to you as a father, father who longs to meet with his children. Lord, we are apart from you as we are in the body as your word tells us to be in the body as to be away from you and so Lord, we do suffer in this body a lot and there are those who are here today who suffer those they are confused and are waited down. Lord Jesus, it's so good for us to know that you still care for people just like that the way that you cared 2,000 years ago, you're still the same yesterday, today and forever. So would you meet with us by your spirit, would you Holy Spirit give us the ministry of Jesus as we think about marriage. Encourage those who are not married, encourage those who have lost spouses. Lord, encourage those especially of us who are in marriage and help us live as lights in a dark world in Jesus' name on in. When I got to the passage this week, I know what I'm going to preach every week. I had this real heaviness, it was one of those sermons that you knew was coming with, it was almost like this cloud that was like, oh man, I don't preach on marriage. It was one of those, you come to places like that, you can talk to pastors as they preach through scripture, you come to certain things, I'm just heaviness and I wonder why I had such a heaviness about it, why I was so, because I love marriage, I mean I'm a big fan, it's not because I'm so happy I'm married and I really mean that it's not just because my wife goes to this church. The reason I felt so heavy about this is because folks, there's so much hurt in marriages in our church. This is where we're really being attacked. I mean not a week goes by that one of your pastors don't hear about someone that wants out, it's over, someone having an affair or something, so this is, this is the tip of the point here folks, the tip of the knife. This is like this is the most this is where we're being attacked the most, so what I think about all the problems there are in marriage then I got to my pastor this week and I realized that that Paul doesn't start with the problems of marriage. He starts with God's vision for marriage, he doesn't start with what's wrong with marriage is a much bigger picture. We have to start that same place if we're going to understand how to be married, how to have a gospel in our marriage. It's all about the lens that you come with. If you come to marriage thinking that marriage is about satisfying you, it's for you, it's about you being emotionally fulfilled, right? That marriage is going to fulfill you mostly, if that's the reason you come to marriage you're going to be disappointed, that's not the gospel, that's not how the gospel wants you to see the marriage. Or maybe you see it more as a social thing, a social fulfillment, that being married is going to get me to where I need where I want to be, it's going to get me to the place I want to be in society, that's also not the way the Bible wants you to see marriage.

The purpose of marriage, and this is from Tim Keller who's done great work in his book Meaning of Marriage, purpose of marriage is to serve your spouse with a vision for his or her future glory. Marriage is not first and foremost about you. Marriage is a picture, a living picture of what God is doing in the whole world. That's what Paul is saying that in verse 32, this mystery is profound and I'm saying that it refers to Christ and the church. We have understood the world understands marriage, that the way the city of man, as we talk about, city of man, city of God, the city of man sees marriage as something that's for me. If you start there, you're going to have a broken marriage. You're always going to be defeated. But the gospel says that marriage is for what God is doing in this person's life. That we have to have a new lens. We are part of the process of enabling this person to become all that God wants her or him to be. You see how different that is? And so we have to say something like, I want to be part of the process of what God is doing in you. So that means you're not just looking at the person who's here, you're looking at who that person is going to be and how you can contribute to that. You're saying I want to be emotionally involved. I care about seeing you become all that God wants you to be. Because ultimately that's what God is doing with the whole world. He is moving everything to one point, all to the ultimate glory of Jesus to a new heavens and a new earth and marriage is a picture of this. That's how he's saying. Do you know that it was in the beginning that it was a broken marriage that led to the fall of mankind. It was an attorney upside down of the relationship of marriage that led to the fall. So everything was broken starting with the marriage. But here's an amazing thing about God. God is actually going to renew everything through a marriage. The marriage of Christ and His church. So we're looking at three things this morning. Hopefully one of the things before I go to the outline, I hope that the burden of trying to have our marriage fix us and fulfill us and complete us. I hope that's lifted off of us. And I hope we start seeing our marriage as an opportunity for us to love someone for the glory of Christ. Three things. First, we're talking about wives, ladies first. Then we're going to talk about husbands. And then we're going to ask the question, how do we do this? How does a gospel, what does the gospel in your marriage mean? What does it mean to be a wife? What does it mean to be a husband? And then how do we do it? How are we unable to do it? So let's begin with wives. See what Paul says in verse 22. Wives submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. Well, the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is ahead 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. Okay, ladies, let's just get it out there. You're already kind of mad at me right now, some of you. And don't get mad at me, let the Word of God offend you, but what it says here, okay, that's a cop out of it.

It goes back to what we've been saying through this entire, there are two cities. There's the city of man and the city of God. The city of man, this is St. Augustine, the city of man is marked by the self, the love of self and the desires of self. The city of God is marked by the love of God and the glory of God and the love and the care for other people. There are two different cities. Now the city of God wins, but see, we live in the city of man and the city God at the same time. Now, depending on what lens you're looking through, the word submission will look different. If you're looking, if we look at the word submission through the city of man, which is marked by power, those who have it and those who oppress those who don't, that's the city of man. Submission is weakness, it's vulnerability to abuse. That's why the word submission is a bad word to the city of man. I will not submit. I will be equal. It will be exactly the same and there will be no difference because submission means I'll be abused. And some of you even have examples of how people have used biblical teaching on submission to be terrible people. You've seen it in your family.

But if you see it through the city of God, if you see the word submission, you see that that's actually how God arranged things, that it's a beautiful thing. It's part of the order of things. And it's part of the way things must work. That if it doesn't work this way, there'll be an up, the things will be upset and be turned upside down. So what does he mean? By what is the city of God, the kingdom, the light, how do we how do we to understand submission? Because if you're mad, it's because you're looking at submission, you're defining it through the city of the city of man. You're thinking about who has power, who's going to be oppressed. That's not what God's interested at all. God's interested in giving power away. So what does the biblical, the gospel perspective of submission mean? It Paul tells us to submit the way that church does to Christ. That submission is to submit to leadership joyfully with love. It does not mean to be a doormat. It does not mean to check your intelligence at the door. Has nothing to do with that. It also doesn't mean that all women in the church are to submit to all men. Doesn't mean that. It means to your own husband. It also means it doesn't mean that you have to do everything that your husband says no matter what. So if a husband is abusive, a husband wants you to sin or a husband wants you to disobey God, but that's okay. That's not what it means. That's an abuse of this teaching. It means to submit lovingly out of joy the way the church. Imagine this. The church's relationship to Jesus. To the leadership of Jesus, and he's saying the same way, the church wants to follow Jesus.

Why are they to submit? That's the second question. Why? Verse 23, the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its savior. And every time this word head is used in Scripture, it always means it's important that someone is over someone else. That's what it means. Does it mean source? Some people think it means the source of the woman, that's not what it means. The reason that your husband's wife, the reason that your husband is head is only this because God said he was. It's not because he's qualified. It's not because God said, I'm going to make a creature and he's going to be smarter. He's going to be better. He's going to be everything and I'm going to put him in charge. That's the city of man. The reason the husband is the head is because God said, this is the way I'm designing it to be. Men are the head because God has ordered that way. It's a living picture. It is a living, it's a play. It's a drama of God's relationship, Jesus' relationship with the church. And so that's what's happening in a marriage. We're actually playing out before the world, the relationship with the church. That's what marriage is for. He's not about you. It's not about us. Not about what we feel. It's about God showing his love to the world, showing his glory, his character of the world in marriage and we're not playing this out before the world, before our children. And so the man plays the part of Jesus and the wife plays the part of the church. That's what Paul's saying because God designed it to work that way. C.S. Lewis gave this picture of a dance. This is the image he used. He said, if we were dancing side by side, I'm not going to dance for you. I know we're present here. If we were dancing side by side, we could make equal simultaneous movements. We could move right at the same time. We could move left at the same time. He said, but that's not marriage. It's the most intimate relationship. We're actually facing one another. And so our movements have to be harmonious. So as one person moves forward, the other person has to move back. That if you ever tried to dance when both of you're trying to lead, sore toes, right? That's the picture of submission. It's not identity. It's not that means everything is identical. It doesn't mean we have equivalent movements. It means that movements are complimentary and harmonious. Lewis goes on to say that just as that man and woman are physically created to interlock, they're physically created. We are spiritually created in God's image to spiritually interlock. That's what he's saying. That's why we submit. That's why women submit. That's why. So the next question is, how can I follow the leadership of this dude, right? Who's like, you've seen him at some pretty inglorious moments, right? How do you follow someone who's imperfect, who's not like Jesus? Look at verse 22. Wives submit to your own husbands as to the Lord.

You're not doing it for him. You're not submitting to your husband because he's superior to you. You're doing it out of love for Jesus. Who is superior to both of you? And if you wait until he's worthy, right? If you wait until their husband's worthy, it's like, Richie, I'm following going to submit to him when he gets his act together. I think he's ready to be submitted to. You're going to wait forever. Or if you're facing it on his performance, you're going to submit to him and you're going to resent him at the same time. That's not what God's talking about. He says, submit to the husband out of submission to Jesus, out of love for Jesus and how God has designed things to be because Jesus knows what's best for us, what's best for you, how he designed things to be.

This reveals our lens. This reveals what lens we're looking at. If you're bristling, if you're bristling, if you're kind of going, it reveals that you kind of think that submission is like Tammy Wynette, right? Do you remember Tammy Wynette? Great country singer. Kids, if you don't know who Tammy Wynette is, ask your parents. Stand by your man, all right? Stand by your man. It's a terrible song. It's a terrible song because you know what she says in it, like, after all, he's just a man. And basically, if you're listening to the song, the lyrics of the song, he's like, he may cheat on you, he may treat you, he won't treat you right, somebody, but stand by him, be a doormat. That's what, if you think it's Tammy Wynette, you're not looking at the gospel. Here's what he's saying, that the husband is to be treating you the way Jesus treats the church. Now, you can submit someone like that, can't you? The woman promised she based on scripture. The woman is most fully woman. Not when she's trying to be the head is most fully woman. When she's dancing her part, the living picture of God's design.

So I'll show you the question, what does that look like in your marriage? I don't know what they are. What are those tension points? Where is that? And for you and your husband to start asking, how can we, this is only why I should pray this. It's kind of weird being a man asking why I should pray this, but why I should pray this? How can I love Jesus? I love him more by the way that I submit to my husband and to ask him really searching questions about that, to follow his leadership out of reverence for Jesus. That's the way God designed. That's the way it is supposed to work. Husbands, and I said this in the first service, like, buckle up guys. There's just a lot more, this is our second point. There's a lot more about us than there is about the wife. Look at verse 25. Husbands loved her wise 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, that he might present the church to himself and splinter 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 him, he loves his wife loves himself from no one has ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it just as Christ does the church. So the woman plays the part, the wife plays the part of the church and the husband plays the part of Jesus. I mean, wise, you don't think your part's hard? We're playing Jesus? This whole week, I told Laura, I told my wife, I was like, I don't think I want you to come church on Sunday. That was serious because it was so searching for my own life to think about how selfish I've been in my own marriage. How much I wanted marriage to make me happy and how I did it just sort of, unknowingly, I just sort of thought that's what you're supposed to do. You just sort of lie marriages about me.

You say here that Jesus cares about you, church. Listen to me. Jesus cares about you, the church, the way that someone cares about their own body, who's mindful of, who cares for it. That Jesus Christ cares so much about the church that he sacrificed himself to make her beautiful. He gave his glory, he gave his perfect record and he covered us in it. He loves us in a way that's quite right, it's shocking to me. And now he says, husbands, you play this part. So what does it mean to love like Jesus? That we're called to do it. It's summed up in Mark 10, verse 45, I'll read it for you, which is really the summary of Mark's gospel. Most scholars believe that the son of man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. So what does it mean to love like Jesus loved? Husbands, listen to this. It means that our love is to be self-sacrificial.

It means that the kind of woman, the kind of wife that is to be following us, we are to be serving them.

Just as Jesus left the riches of heaven, to come down here to this place and he became the lowest of the low so that we might be lifted up. That's what he's saying. I want you to love your wife like this. Now he's not saying that we're our wives savior or anything like that. He's saying, I want you to play my part. I want you to show your family. I want you to show your family what love looks like. I want you to show them what my love looks like. They're going to see Jesus most of how you love your wife. That's what he's saying. The love of Jesus was self-sacrificial. Here's the second thing about the love of Jesus. Jesus in his love always went toward need and brokenness and weakness. That means that we are not here to exploit our wives and their weakness. We're not to manipulate. We are to move toward their need. We're to move toward their weakness. We are to see that as an opportunity to love them at their lowest. They're not to serve us in that way. We are serving first.

That was probably the most convicting thing for me. Especially in the south. We kind of get away with it still like, yes, where is my this? Where is my that? My grandfather used to after this is horrible. After after after lunch the plate was lifted up and he would just wipe off the table. He'd be talking to him on the conversation. Just wipe off the table and then he'd get his fork and he'd tap it. That meant dessert. That's what I saw growing up. I'm not that bad but that is totally unlike Jesus

because Jesus at the last supper before he died. You know, think about it. He was about to die the most horrible death to experience the suffering in the garden of Gethsemane and all this was in his mind. He knew exactly where he was going. He took time and made a point to take off his outer garment and to clothe himself like the lowest servant like the lowest servant and to wash the feet of his disciples on the night before he died. Now you think that's a different kind of love. And folks, that has always been husband. That's always been countercultural. There's note that this is always countercultural. It was countercultural in Paul's day. In Paul's day in the first century to treat women this way, to love them this way, to love them like Christ would have been totally countercultural. This is what two scholars, two different New Testament scholars said that the Jews had very low views of women. Did you know that a Jewish man his prayer in the morning, his first prayer in the morning, was Lord, thank you, that I am not a Gentile, a slave, or a woman.

Women were seen as property. They were a thing. They had no legal rights. They were absolutely in her in their husband's possession. The Greek world was worse. The Greek man expected his wife to run his home to care for his legitimate children. And he found pleasure and companionship elsewhere. But here's Paul is saying here that our love and our leadership is to be marked by cherishing this person that God has given me. It's not about power. He's think this is about some machismo sort of like power trip. Then it's unlikely that you understand how the gospel has any application of marriage because that's not the gospel with Jesus Christ of all. We followed a man who was crucified. And what does it produce? That's what it looks like. What does it produce in a marriage? What it produce in a home? Do you see what he's describing in verse 26 and 27? He loves her like this, that he might sanctify her, having clinched her by the washing of water with the words, that he might present the church to himself in splendor. The husband decorates the Jesus decorates the church to present him to himself in splendor without spot or rink or any such thing that she might be holy and without blemish. Let me just get real honest with you with the men. Guys, we think I think a lot of us think that the meaning of life is to prove our worth, to prove that we're somebody, to be respected. We show that sometimes by the bigger house or more money or to have this reputation. Guys, that is not what God thinks is a successful life. It's like he's grabbing us by the shoulders and by the arms and just shaking us. What our family needs more than anything, what our sons and our daughters need more than anything is to be in the trenches loving our wives in everyday acts of service. That is the successful life because that is the way Jesus loves us. The best thing you can do for your children is to love their mother well. It's the best gift you can give to your children, to make much of her, to serve her, to pray for her. And here's what he's saying, it makes your family radiant. Here's what it's coming down to. The Christ-like love in our homes, if it's going to radiate in our homes, if it's going to grow in our homes, it starts with us. When you sit around watching all TV, it's like, well, I sure hope our family becomes a Christ-like. When my wife can get around to it, it starts with you. It starts with me. Where did it take the initiative? It produces sons and daughters that in an imperfect home, where they grow up, all homes are imperfect, but it produces sons and daughters that have a picture of Christ and his church. The hairy-chapen song, cats in the cradle, the silver spoon, kids, if you don't know what that is, I know I'm quoting a lot of 70 songs a day, I don't know a lot. But like, it's one of those songs that's so cliche, like, oh, whatever, roll our eyes about it. But every time a list to it, kind of sad, it's sad every time because at the end of it, the God's like waste his life and his son doesn't like him, don't want to hang out with him at all. And the reason it's sad, the reason it's sad is because you can waste your life. And you know it. And I remember how many people will come up to me when we started having kids that some of the older people, maybe in our church and other places, more mature people who've lived longer, and they'll say like, you know, something Richie, their grow up so fast, it's going to be over before you know it. And I'm always like, when I first, when my kids are small, I was like, whatever, old dude, I don't even know what you're talking about.

Okay, grow up so fast, it seems like really long to me because they're crying all the time. They've ruined my life. And it just shows the wisdom that age can bring you. It's so true. They're going to be gone before you know it. And God wants, God wants today for us to get on our knees, man. Start with us, for us to get on our knees and to say, Lord, make me that kind of person. Because I can't do it. See, what it did to me this week, it made me realize, so we get to the how part, our third point, how do we do this? Here's what it showed me. This is a miracle that God has to do in my heart. This is a, this is a miracle. And so Paul attaches every single bit of this to the work of Holy Spirit through this entire chapter. That's why he prays in Ephesians 3. He's praying that the Holy Spirit is praying for the church, for the husbands, for the wives, that they may be rooted. Remember that language months ago, rooted, built up, strengthened by the Holy Spirit. He's saying that all of this power to do this, to love like this, it had to submit to love. It has to be imported. You can't do this unless you're a Christian. That's a bold statement. I'm not saying that non-Christian marriage just can't be good. I'm not saying that. That's simplest state. What I am saying is you can't love like Christ unless you know Christ. Period. You have to receive the love of Christ. If you've never received the love of Christ and basked in the love of Jesus for you, there's no possible way you could show it. You've never experienced it. So what do we do? The response of this sermon is for us to just get on our knees, to just call out to God. Lord, fill me with your spirit because this is like the red sea. One preacher said it's like we need to tell people don't try this at home. This is not something that you can do. And so here's the point. It's something that is forcing you to rely on someone other than yourself. And God wants to do it because He so wants to show who He is in our marriage. This is the first thing. You have to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Can't do it. You don't have anything in you to do it. I don't need it. Second thing is we have to understand what a covenant is. A covenant, that old Bible term, what a covenant is. It was something that was binding. It was bigger. It's bigger than the individuals. And so a covenant of marriage is this really simply I am vowing to God to love you no matter what. For richer, for poor you know we do those vows every time in a wedding service. We do the vows and it's sort of like a pretty time we forget. We grew up to realize what that vow is saying. You're making a vow to God and to your friends and your family making a vow to this woman. And you're saying if you lose everything, if you lose your hair, if you lose your looks, if you, if we lose all our money, if we lose every single bit of this, I am covenanting with you to love you. This is bigger than my desires. It's bigger than our looks. It's bigger than sex. It's bigger than my emotional needs. It's bigger than us. We're vowing to love each other the way God has loved us. And folks, that is a safe place. A safe place. Because it allows us to be the broken, imperfect people. It allows us to be vulnerable in our marriages. You can come out of hiding. And by the way, that's going to happen. Your first year of marriage is that awesome year where you have really high highs and really low lows. It's really really fun and it's really, really terrifying. Right? And then after that, you start getting into the routine and you can't, you don't want, you're not in your, you're not on your A game anymore. Right? And some of those old patterns and old habits and stuff starts showing up. Some of the things that you thought you could hide. And a covenant says you can come out of hiding. You can be broken. And I'm going to love you no matter what. I can't tell you how much my marriage and every marriage in this church needs to be rocked by the idea of a covenant. Because only in a covenant kind of love, can you be truly known, truly known. Wives? Y'all know some stuff about your husband, that's huge, right? Husbands, you know some stuff about your wives. Are you using it against each other? Or are you forgiving each other? Do you see how different a covenant is? So the third thing that this passes is the takeaway, how do we do this? We have to understand that one size does not fit all. What I mean by that is Paul does not give us details. In scripture, it doesn't give us details about who works. It doesn't give us details about who mows the lawn or who cooks. We have to challenge maybe cultural definitions of masculinity or femininity or some of those things that are culturally bound. What works for you? And we can still honor God's command to submit and to love. I'm glad Paul doesn't give us these details. The fourth thing, the question that maybe some of you are having. What happens if my spouse doesn't submit or my spouse doesn't love? What if my spouse is not even a Christian? What do I do then? What do I do? How do I respond to that? And the simple answer is you can only take care of you in that situation. You're only responsible for your repentance. If you stay around waiting for that other person to get their act together, you're going to wait forever. God is calling you to believe and to obey in your marriage right now where you are. And he'll give you all the grace and strength and power that you need to do it.

So if we think that if this person would change, I say this every time I'm pre-meral counseling, if you think that the other person's sin is the biggest problem in your marriage, you're going to have a terrible marriage. But if you realize that you can only repent for you and that your job is to love this person and to serve this person for their future glory, then your marriage by the power of this spirit will be a picture of the gospel. They God give me and all of us the grace to do that. It's great. Lord, as we go now to this table, prepare our hearts to meet with you, the one who gave, you gave yourself for us. You literally gave yourself for us. Lord, there's some people here today. I know that really need to be reminded of how much you love them. They really need to taste and see that you're good. Lord, there are those here today who don't that don't know you. And I pray that they would see us around this table and they would long to have that same fellowship. So Lord bless us now as we go in Jesus' name. Amen.