Ephesians 5:22-24 "The Principle of Submission"pt.2

Introduction:

This may be the most frightening sermon I have ever had to preach at Crete Church. Perhaps it may be good to begin with expressing a caveat or two. First, Ladies of all ages and and wives and singles listen closely and with hold judgement until all the sermons in this section are preached. I will try to be as thorough as I can in a series of sermons on marriage. I will not be able to cover all the particular situations that arrive in the life of a Christian in marriage.

Marriages can be very complicated and full of components that are often somewhat unique to a couples circumstances. I can’t cover them all but I am happy to talk at another time in another setting to address specific concerns.

Second caveat is to the men, husbands and singles it is not wise to listen to the first sermon in series on marriage and use that sermon on the way home or at the table at Lunch to help your wife to apply it to her life. You may want to wait until the pastor preaches on verses 25-30 because she may return the favor of being your help mate and assist you in application as well. So be wise and wait for the Lord to challenge you before you are going to challenge your wife.

The third caveat is simply that this text is not here in Scripture to primarily learn how to treat one another in marriage. The primary purpose of this instruction has to do with how we live out our life in Christ before God for His glorification. We saw last Sunday the principle of submission being expressed in the context of the community of faith. Then we see this morning that it is being stated in another context look back at verse 22:

I. The Principle Stated (22).

The principle is stated here in verse 22 in the context of marriage. But the word “submit” doesn’t appear in the Greek text in verse 22 at all. So the action is derived from the verbal participle in verse 21, “submitting”. The point is that the ESV translates submit as if it were a command. But there is no imperative command in verse 22.

So what does this grammatical stuff mean? It means that the verbal idea of submission is derived from verse 21 where “submitting” is being carried out as a reflection of a life transformed by Jesus Christ. A life that has been redeemed from the world and is now a child of the light of Christ. It is a life that seeks to live for God’s glory not just in the church but also in the home.

This is talking about a wife’s submission out of a reverence to Christ that in turn seeks to secondarily honor her husband out of her primary honor for Christ. So the principle of verse 21 regarding our relationships in the church is being stated now in the context of marriage. There may be an added heading break in your Bible but there is no such break in the Greek text. It is a continual flowing description of life in the Spirit transformed by the gospel. And it flows from the church to the home in marriage.

I once had a man tell me that he was wanting to come to me for some marriage counseling so that I could straiten his wife out because she would not submit to him. When I questioned him on what he meant, he simply said she has no respect for me and I need you to explain to her that she has to respect her husband.

My reply to him was that respect is not something that can be commanded at a human level. Your wife may respect you more if you adjust your actions in such a way as to be worthy of her respect. I already knew the guy had issues.

But wife understand, this principle of submission here in verse 22 is not driven by the reflection of your reverence and honor for your husband, but this submission is driven by a honor and reverence for Christ. That is the force behind: “as to the Lord” and it is a reflection of a transformed life. All you have to do is read Ephesians 5 in context.

So why is this such a hard thing at times to maintain in the institution of marriage?

Because most often something else is given the priority over and above Christ and His gospel. Basically this is the sin of idolatry being manifest in marriage.

Like when you embrace a personal subjective plan and purpose for your marriage distinctly contrary to God’s plan and purpose for marriage. People go into marriage all the time thinking that their new spouse is going to bring them ultimate fulfillment, meaning and purpose. We try to sell that idea in our culture to young people. Think of Disney’s Cinderella where she was abused by her step mother and step sisters only to be rescued by her handsome prince charming and they live happily ever after. Hallmark movies do the same thing. And they sow the seeds of false expectations in our lives.

It is because these presentations are orchestrated by writers that try to minimize or eliminate the reality of sin in the lives of fallen people. It ‘s like Prince charming doesn’t have a sin nature to contend with. A better and more real depiction would be if you took Cinderella and mixed it together with with Beauty and the Beast and some elements with Sleeping Beauty.

You see the problem with false expectations are that they tend to lead to disappointment in the end because they can’t deliver the ultimate fulfillment that you are hoping to find in your relationship with another person. And we like to say you must have and keep Christ at the center of your marriage.

But what does that mean? Well Christian it is not a subjective idea but something that the Bible instructs us in. It is where husband and wife live for the glory of God out of passionate obedience and thanksgiving for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ (See verse 20). And wives this includes submitting to your own husbands as to the Lord.

So this tells us that God’s glory in Christ is not just theological jargon to make marriage sound like a spiritual institution but it is what defines it in regards to God’s plan and purpose. Atheist can have a wonderful marriage from their subjective standards. And on the final day their marriages will be judged by God and used as evidence in their own condemnation for all eternity. Because whether they know it or not they may have lived out aspects of moral law in relationship to one another while refusing to give glory to the law giver and the very one who instituted marriage in the first place.

But a true Christian will never find fulfillment in a marriage that is primarily about something less than God in Christ alone. The Holy Spirit will be busy sanctifying the idols out of your marriage until everything is pealed back and the supremacy of Christ shines in radiance to God’s glory. But why is the glory of God such a challenging motive to keep before us in our marriages?

Because subjective and idolatrous motives are driven by exploitation that in the end turns abusive to one degree or another. This is the pride factor that we all struggle with, even in the healthiest of marriages.

Oxford defines Exploitation as the action or fact of treating someone unfairly in order to benefit from their work (Oxford Languages 2023 Oxford University Press).

Exploitation is deals with the gratification of self at the expense of someone else. Human pride often measures the perceived benefit and contribution of a marriage depending on how it gratifies and fulfills their own desires and expectations. A husband may be driven in his relationship with his wife primarily by his sexual desire. And no, gratification in this sense does not just refer to sexual gratification.

Story about a woman who took her husbands money to buy jewelry. He hid it because she couldn’t stop spending it.

A woman that craves the security of material possessions may exploit the family finances and purchase her favorite jewelry.

In these type of contexts it may not be long that you may begin to feel like you are being used by your spouse and that life is all about them. And this type of abuse can go deep and become so dark that it can become emotionally and even physically dangerous. Because a lust for power over others for your own sinful gratification may be the highest form of human pride. And sometimes it manifest most clearly in the relationships of those who are closest to us. And I have seen men do it in marriage as well as women.

Christian wives and husbands at the heart of such desires and actions of exploitation is not a problem inherent to our sex in regards to us being male or female. The issue is that at the core of our nature, even though we may be born again the old man or the old woman is not sanctified out of us. And the gospel is the means by which we are regenerated and being progressively made new by the Holy Spirit applying the word of God to us.

And if Exploitation is the action or fact of treating someone unfairly in order to benefit from their work (Oxford Languages 2023 Oxford University Press); then we have to say that the greatest display of exploitation in the history of all of humanity is when Christ was treated unfairly in order that we might benefit from His work.

And this is the basis of God’s sovereign grace and mercy to us. And if we learn nothing else about the gospel we know that we are not loved by God because of our performance but by the sacrificial work of Christ on our behalf. And He gladly and willingly went to the place of bearing upon Himself our sin and submitted Himself to God the Father to endure the exploitation so that we can live in freedom from it.

That is what wives are being called to live free from and as we will see that husbands are being called to so that grace may saturate our relationships in the church but in marriage too.

Conclusion:

Unbeliever the only thing that can confront the reality of your heart of sin is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. You may think, no what I really need is for my wife to be submissive or for my husband to give me a sense of security. But in reality what you need even more is a Savior who can transform you and sanctify your heart in order to change your focus to be upon God’s glory.

I think the reason we like some of the classic fairy tales is that we all have a desire to be rescued from the dysfunction and bondage of a fallen world and our fallen natures. I actually believe that we have been hard-wired for it and we long for it but you can’t find it in this current situation. The gospel confronts us with the spiritual reality but it points us to the ultimate reality of eternity as our hope.

Wives, Ladies you may have suffered from abuse from the hands of men in your life. I want to tell you they didn’t get away with it. And learning to trust again can be tough and very hard and may seem to be downright impossible. But Christ will never fail you to keep you as His own and to bring justice to bear for what was done to you.

Abuse can make us hard inside and we can even find our hatred of our abusers to be medicating to our desire for vindication. That doesn’t make us free it makes us a prisoner. Augustine said hating someone is like drinking poison and expecting them to die. Christ will vindicate His justice and He can heal the pain from the abuse and set you free to live for His glory in your relationships.

Christian, His grace is sufficient for you. Confess your sin and receive from Him. He holds out His truth for our good. He does not come to do us harm but good.

And we will see in the weeks to come just how good His plan and purpose is in marriage. May we all strive to be submissive to Christ in living out the gospel in all of our relationships.

Let’s Pray!