Masterpiece of a God Honoring Marriage (2)

Last week Conclusion to Authority and Submission

vs. 21 “Submitting to one another out of Reverence for Christ”

The very idea of submission to authority today is out of fashion and according to our cultures contemporary view we see permissiveness and Freedom as the norm.

Almost nothing brings more anger and resentment then when we talk about the idea of “subjection”

The God of the Bible is a God of order, and in his ordering of human life (in the context of the family unity) he has established certain authority or leadership roles. The authority though exercised by human beings, is delegated to them by God.

Be subject (submit) to one another in Fear of Christ.

SUBMISSION: Submission is a humble recognition of the divine ordering of society by God.

Ephesians 5:22–33 (ESV)

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.

NOTE: One of the greatest markers of spiritual maturity is someone who has a strong marriage and lots of healthy relationship.

Wives Duty is to Submit as to the Lord

Wives ----- Submit to your Husbands as to the Lord

Wives ---- Submit in everything to husbands and the Church submits to Christ

All of the submission for wives is in relationship to Christ and the Church.

Note: It is important to understand on the outset that submission does not equate to absolute servitude or imply inferiority. It is the voluntary joyful decision of an equal as we read in 1 Peter 3:7, “we are joint-heirs in the grace of life,” to place themselves under the authority of one another.

It does not mean that the authority of husbands, parents and masters is unlimited, or that wives, children and workers are required to give unconditional obedience. This submission is required under God’s authority delegated to human beings. If the person abuses their god given authority then our duty is to no longer submit.

1. A God Honoring Marriage is Mutually Submissive

Note: One of the reasons for so many failed marriages today is a lack of Biblical understanding and application of our Biblical roles in marriage.

Believers of both sexes are equally created in God’s image and are heirs of eternal life together in Christ as “fellow heirs, fellow body members, and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.

Genesis 1:16-18 “Created in God’s image male and female, after His likeness.”

*Wives are to submit like Jesus

The Choice of Submission So, why did Paul tell wives to submit to husbands when they were in submission already? The clue is in the grammar. The verb "submit" is in the middle voice. Literally, it means "place yourself in submission." Sit down on the inside as well as the outside. You've been sitting down on the outside because you had no choice.

Now we give you this voluntary choice, this act of will rather than this legal requirement. Paul was after a heart attitude, a spirit of humility by choice, not coercion. Paul is pro-choice where woman are concerned: the choice to lay down our lives for our brothers, sisters, husbands, and children, because we have laid it down for Christ

Wives should want a husband who leads them well.

Headship: the weight is on the man, he is responsible as headship for how the marriage succeeds or fails, it is on your shoulders men.

1 Corinthians 11:3 ESV

3 But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.

If you think that it’s impossible for a mortal woman to submit to a mortal and fallible man in marriage, I would suggest that it is actually more impossible, in human terms for the husband to fulfill the second part of the command “.... to love your wife as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her.”

This is absolute and total self-sacrifice. Christ was not saying, “Grovel, submit, bow down.” He was saying, “I love you . I want to show it. I will die for you. It goes on to say,” …gave himself up for her, that He might sanctify her by the washing of water with the word.” In other words, Christ sanctifies the Church as spiritual leader. He provides husbands with the model of how they are to live out their own love for their wives as husbands imitating Christ.

Life is not possible without ones head attached

The Husband as Head

Submission is the divine calling of a wife to honor and affirm her husband’s leadership and help carry it through according to her gifts. The point today is simply that when submission is correlated with headship, it implies that headship involves leadership.

EGALITARIANISM: Gender roles are done away with.

Complementarianism

masculinity and femininity are ordained and created by God, therefore, men and women are created to complement, or complete, each other.

It all goes back to Genesis 1:26-27 where God created gender roles male and female, in His own image.

The Husband now has a role of headship to nurture his wife and lead his family lovingly, and sacrificially. The wife has the role of nurturing her children and intentionally willingly submitting to her husband’s leadership.

When both are complementing each other in this way, Christ is honored.

We are in a crisis of masculinity and spirituality.

(Gillet Video)

The youtube version went viral with over 25 million vies. There was much backlash over the commercial, the negative comments outweigh the positive ones 2 to 1. (watch the clip)

Much of the commercial has redemptive qualities. It shows everything from bullying and sexual harassment attempting to point to a better image of man, one that uses his power to help and protect others, never to degrade and destroy men.

It rightly suggests that boys are always watching men for their cues on what in means to be a man. What is done in front of them shouts a louder message than anything words could do.

The problem that I find is at the ending which left a huge questions mark. The call to action is to become the best a man can be. Although well-meaning, that best is just not good enough.

Masculinity is seen as a certain behavior, role or action. Masculinity is to be found in the world of the seen.

Masculinity and femininity are spiritual realities that intersect and cut through the created order. That’s because it is all a part of the very being and creation of God.

A Call to Protect and Provide

(1) Protection

Note: Look at the example of headship that took the initiative to protect his bride with his life. So, when Paul calls husbands to be the head of his wife by loving like Christ when he leads, whatever else he means, he means: Protect her at all costs.

Note: Think about the act of taking a rib from Adam instead of God just grabbing another hand full of dirt to make Eve. He used the very part of Adams body that protected his most vital organs.

(2) Provision

The word nourish and cherish are significantly important in provision. We see this term most often used in the Bible in regards to raising your children. The husband that leads like Christ takes the initiative to see to it that his wife and children’s needs are met. He provides for them.

vs. 29 “But no one has hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it.”

Protection and Provision are both physical and spiritual

(There is physical food, and their is spiritual food)

Husbands need to protect against physical threats to the life of the family and spiritual threats to the life of the family.

ENCOURAGEMENT AND CAUTION

ENCOURAGEMENT TO MEN

God has not called you to something that he will not empower you to do.

CAUTION TO WOMEN

You cannot demand or force your husband into his headship role.

1) demanding is contradictory to the very act of sacrificial calling.

2) demanding will be counterproductive, because if he had the heart or impulse to try harder, your demanding will take the heart out of it, because it will not feel like leading anymore.

3) It has to come from inside him worked out by the word of God and the Spirit of God working in and through his life.

Spiritual Provision

Providing spiritual food for your family means that a man must go hard after God. You can only lead spiritually if you are growing in your own knowledge of God and love for God.

(1) Gather your wife and kids for family devotional time.

(2) Pray for your wife and children (let them hear you)

(3) Make Church and regular bible study a priority

Physical Provision

The husband bears the primary responsibility to put bread on the table. Again the word primary is important. Both husbands and wives always work. (Genesis 2) “Men are to work by the sweat of their brow.”

Spiritual Protection

The spiritual dangers that beset the family today are innumerable and subtle.

We need valiant warriors like never before. Not with spears and shields, but with biblical discernment and courage.

First, husbands, pray for your family everyday, “Lead them not into temptation but deliver them from evil.” Fight for them in prayer against the devil and the world and the flesh. Pray the prayers of the Bible for them. Don’t grow weary. God hears and answers prayer for our wives and children.

Physical Protection

This is too obvious to need illustration—I wish. If there is a sound downstairs during the night and it might be a burglar, you don’t say to her: This is an egalitarian marriage, so it’s your turn to go check it out. I went last time.” And I mean that even if your wife has a black belt in karate. After you’ve tried, she may finish off the burglar with one good kick to the solar plexus. But you better be unconscious on the floor, or you’re no man. That’s written on your soul, brother, by God Almighty. Big or little, strong or weak, night or day, you go up against the enemy first. Woe to the husband—and woe to the nation—that send their women to fight their battles.

(God took the rib out of man to make woman)

*Husbands Are to Lead Like Jesus

Jesus - The Pattern for Manhood

Paul puts the following in the context of mutual submission: husbands love wives as Christ loved the church, by willingly laying down their lives for them. Paul is going far above and beyond the cultural values.

Both husbands and wives must submit and love (5:2, 21).

The Holy Spirit Grows men up in Masculinity.

What happens when men refuse not to embrace their God-given role the family structure. (it begins to fall apart, women begin to try and fulfill those role s that were intended for their husbands to fulfill.)

Jesus addresses Divorce

Mark 10:1-12 Jesus addresses Divorce

Question: “And He left and went to the region of Judea beyond the Jordan. Crowds gathered to Him again, and and again, as His custom was, He taught them. And Pharisees came up in order to test Him and asked Him, ‘Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause?’

Now, something that you might not recognized, but it’s blatant there in the text is the geographical placement and the timing for the Pharisees question.

The Pharisees are deliberately targeting Jesus with the question not because they do not know the answer, but because they want to trap Jesus. The Pharisees deliberately wait until He is in the same region and now they approach and say, “Is it lawful to divorce your wife for any cause?”

Answer: “What did Moses command you?” They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and to put her away.” But Jesus said to them, “For your hardness of heart, he wrote you this commandment, but from the beginning of creation God made them male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh, so they are no longer two but one flesh. What, therefore, God has joined together, let not man separate.”

THE SANCTITY OF MARRIAGE IS UNDER ATTACK

Wives were married for the first time between the ages of 12-17.

Men tended Mary later 11-30 years older than women.

Women tended to live shorter lives due to serious health issues primarily an iron deficiency which lead to anemia particularly in pregnancy and child birth.

Paul is exhorting husbands to love in a self-sacrificial manner with their child-brides, who were often laid up in bed one week every month with health issues (i.e. “weaker vessels” ; 1 Pet 3:17).

Some are married to unbelieving Spouses

Paul addresses believing husbands and wives with an unbelieving spouse in 1 Corinthians 7:12-16

1 Corinthians 7:12–16 ESV

12 To the rest I say (I, not the Lord) that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her. 13 If any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him. 14 For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy. 15 But if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so. In such cases the brother or sister is not enslaved. God has called you to peace. 16 For how do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?

2. A God Honoring Marriage is a Mystery

vs. 31-32 “That the two shall become one flesh, this mystery is profound.”

Now Paul is establishing that marriage is a mystery in that it is has a sacrament relationship between Christ and the Church.

Marriage is Sacramental

Sacramental mystery reflects Christ and His relationship with the Church. Now that Christ has united himself perfectly and permanently to the Church as to His bride.

Paul quotes a passage from Genesis 1 and 2, to describe the mystery, “A man shall leave his mother and cleave to his wife.”

The OT gives to us a record of what happened after Adam’s sin and before Christ gave us the grace to live out the marriage covenant perfectly.

When you read Genesis, you read about rape Dinah, the seduction of Joseph, the homosexuality of Sodom, the adultery of Judah along with judah going to a prostitute. You read about the incest with Lot, Onan’s act of contraception, Lamech’s polygamy, Abraham’s concubinage— just about every sexual sin that one can imagine is there in the first three books of the Bible! Genesis shows us the realistic consequences that follow sins.

THE MYSTERY IS IN THE SPIRITUAL UNION

What does all of this have to do with Ephesians and the mystery of Marriage. It goes back to the very beginning of Genesis when God created many in His own image and likeness.

He created man, male and female, and the first utterance from God to man, male and female, is this blessing and then this command to be fruitful and multiply.

But God would not be commanding man, male and female, to be fruitful and multiply unless they were married.

Marriage therefore, is instituted by God and for God’s glory. The oneness in marriage is not merely a physical oneness it is a spiritual oneness that cannot happen outside of a relationship with Jesus Christ.

THE CURSE FOCUSES ON ASPECTS OF THE MARRIED LIFE

1. First they covered themselves with coverings. Why do we assume they were not covering their face, or elbows. Now where do we put the fig leaves? Why is it that we do not need to be told where they put the coverings. Why is this not read as just some 20th century sexual hang up? Because this is a reality. We know where they put them and hear the Lord describe the marriage relationship in Genesis 3 in terms that directly relate to their own sexual life together.

2. The woman multiplied pain in childbirth.

3. Adam will toil and labor for his produce. (concern for financial provision)

God is telling from the very beginning that he first thing that sin does is to destroy this marital covenant that God established when he first made us.

Note: The sanctity of marriage is being threatened, divorce rates are shamefully high, and same-sex unions are being legalized on a global scale, transgender wars are real, hormone suppression drugs given to 12 and 13 year old’s.

THE RESPONSIBILITY OF MEN TO STEP UP TO THE PLATE

When Adam and Eve sinned in the garden God came to call them to account, it did not matter that Eve had sinned first. God said, “Adam, where are you?” (Gen. 3:9) That’s God’s word to the family today: Adam, husband, father, where are you?

If something is not working right at your house and Jesus comes knocking on your door, he may have an issue with your wife, but the first thing he is going to say when she opens the door is, “Is the man of the house at home?”

Why is coming together of a man and woman to form a one flesh union such a mystery?

Paul’s answer to this question is in verse 32: the marriage union is a mystery because of its deepest implications and meaning has been partially concealed, but is now is being openly revealed by the apostle, namely, that marriage is an image of Christ and the Church.

So, marriage is like a metaphor or an image or a picture or a parable that stands for something far greater than just a man and woman deciding to get married. It stands for the relationship between Christ and the church. That is the deepest meaning in marriage. It is meant to be a visible living drama of how Christ and the church relate to each other.

So, when the world see’s you and your marriage they should see the very reflection of Christ and the Church.

Marriage is for God’s Glory and our Good

Valuing the glory of God above all things, including your spouse, is the key to living marriage to the glory of God. God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.

Two Ways God Shines His Glory Through our Marriage

(John Piper)

Structural Level

Then both spouses fulfill their God given roles as he intended for them to do. The man as head like Christ, the wife as advocate and follower of that Leadership. When those roles are lived out it is the Glory of God’s love and wisdom in Christ that is displayed for the world to see.

Foundational Level

This is where the glory of God shines the greatest. The power and impulse to carry through the self-denial and daily, monthly, yearly dying to self that required in loving an imperfect wife and loving an imperfect husband must come from a hope-giving, soul-sustaining, superior satisfaction in God.

Your Love and affection must delight more in God than in your marriage.

(If you get this you will understand what it looks like to have a God-honoring marriage)

Do you Love God First, and best?

We truly know how to Glorify God in our marriage when we love our spouse more by loving them less.

CONCLUSION

When a man joyfully bears the primary God-give responsibility for Christ-like, servant leadership and provision and protection in the home - for the spiritual well-being of his family, for the discipline and education of the children, for the stewardship of the finances, for holding a steady job and income for the family, for the healing of discord within the house, I have never met a wife who is sorry she married such a man, or say’s I want the old man back.

When God designs a thing (like marriage), he designs it for his glory and our Good.

1 Cor. 10:31 “Whatever you do, do it all for God’s glory.”

Taking the husband first, what Paul stresses is not his authority over his wife, but his love for her. Rather his authority is defined in terms of loving responsibility.

Marriages have never been under as great a fire as they are today. The sanctity of marriage is continually being driven into oblivion. Satan is working overtime to disrupt the Christian family. There has never been a time when the family was more important: in our age of rugged individualism and the sense of narcissistic entitlement that drives most people, the sacrificial love and servant heart of the Christian family are essential.

If you have not learned to Love Christ first and Best in your married relationship you will never be satisfied with your marriage.