HOLY MARRIAGE

Ephesians 5:21-33

Introduction

Sunday school. Practice for Christmas play. Just be mindful…

First half of Ephesians. Gospel in the Air. High and glorious theology and praise for God and his amazing grace. Mind bending doctrine. The foundation for everything we do.

Second half of Ephesians. 4-6, Gospel on the Ground. Rubber meets the road. Practical theology. How we grow. How we change into the holy society we have been called into. We were called out of darkness to be the light. How can we actually be the church?! How can we shed off the sin in our lives and have our minds renewed so we can put on the way of life of Jesus. This is the Christian Life.

Relating to God.

Relating to one another. Relationships with each other.

Marriage is his first key relationship Paul teaches on.

Why get married? Why stay married? Is marriage even necessary anymore? Is it antiquated and outdated? Gender roles? Who cares it’s 2024. Men and Women are hardly different and gender is so stifling…

The bedrock relationship of a society and nation is the marriage relationship.

Husband and Wife relationship makes or breaks a society.

studies show lower crime rates, healthier and better adjusted children, economic stability and wealth transfer and accumulation, mental stability, and emotional and physiological health are all drastically improved in areas and in children coming from families with stable marriages.

Please don’t feel like if this isn’t you or you’re divorced or single or what have you… that there is no hope. God’s grace is extended to everyone and anyone who calls on him. I’m merely suggesting that across the board for societal impact and data, you can trace much of the ills of a society to stable homes and stable marriages or unstable homes and broken marriages. I also realize there are other factors…

Yet, across the board, modern culture makes a mockery of marriage.

mocks men who settle for just one sexual partner. how ridiculous. real men get what they want and when they want.

mocks women who want to settle down to raise children. how outdated of you, you are wasting your potential by staying at home. Don’t you want more for you life?

Love is twisted and misunderstood and perverted.

Myths and Stereotypes Around Marriage Distorting Our View of Marriage

Poor examples and perversions:

Homer Simpson or Peter Griffin on Family Guy. The classic Dad, who is nothing more than a man-sized toddler. Man-child.

James Bond character. Dashing. Capable. Smart. Reckless kind of a man, taking what wants whenever he wants… taking advantage of weak women.

Desperate housewives, idiotic trophy wife.

Bachelor and Bachelorette on fake marriage and fake love for drama and show business. Glitz, glamor, sex, and beauty. All fading… with these marriages and relationships all just as empty and fake as their plastic surgeries.

Victorian society. Extreme oppression of women. The horrendous notion that “women are to be seen and not heard.”

Feminism: men are the problem with the world. White men in particular are the cause of all problems in the world. This is a radical simplification. Men should then in turn get out of the way and let women rule for a while, this would fix the worlds problems and allow for society to flourish. Exchanging on power structure for another.

Male Chauvinism: excessive or prejudiced support for men as better than women. That men are the only ones capable of doing certain things in society. Women have no place in the work force and shouldn’t vote or learn theology or study the bible or teach it. They are to cook and clean and not speak out of turn. This is stupid, selfish and bigoted.

Sanitize our preconceived notions for today’s topics and terms.

Christian Marriage, a holy marriage, Authority and headship and submission must be qualified before we walk into this land mine of cultural political incorrectness.

Marriage biblically speaking is between one man and one woman. This is woven the fabric of God’s design and in his created order that reamins unchanged, no matter what some government might say and seek to redefine.

Myths around Love:

romantic love. happily ever after love. Sexual love. Emotionally driven love. Falling in love. Falling out of love. You can love food and sports. You can love shopping. But you can also love your spouse or your kids?!

Love interpreted wildly different ways. Take for instance some of the top movies and shows with Love in the title over the last 20 years and think about how the word LOVE is used: Love Actually. Crazy. Stupid. Love. P.S. I Love You. Love Island. Love, Simon. Bachelor in Paradise: Love Games.

What even is love anymore?

today, love means sexual attraction and nothing more than that.

Ephesians 5:22–24 “Wives, 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 its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.”

Myths Around Submission

What Biblical Submission Is Not:

1. Not Blind Obedience: It does not mean a wife must follow her husband into sin, compromise her faith, or surrender her moral and spiritual convictions. Submission is bounded by one’s higher allegiance to God (Acts 5:29).You must obey God rather than men.

2. Not Abuse Endorsement: The Bible never condones or supports abuse or coercion in any form. Submission does not give husbands license to control, manipulate, or harm their wives. Husbands are called to love as Christ loves, laying down their lives (Ephesians 5:25).

3. Not a Denial of Gifts or Intelligence: Submission does not mean silencing a wife’s voice, talents, wisdom, or skills. In a biblical marriage, a wife’s input is valued, cherished, and welcomed in decision-making, just as Proverbs 31 portrays a wise, industrious, and influential woman. A wife can work outside the home, have authority over her own business and operate in a job, and pursue her own hobbies. Submission’s goal is not limitation… but rather flourishing within a team dynamic.

4. Not Conditional on a Husband’s Perfection: Biblical submission is not a passive response based on how “worthy” or “deserving” a husband might be but is rooted in faithfulness to God’s design. At the same time, it recognizes that a husband’s sacrificial leadership inspires and nurtures this response.

5. Not Subservience or Inferiority: It affirms a partnership that upholds dignity, where neither spouse is demeaned but both are called to Christ-centered love and respect.

What Biblical Submission Is:

1. A Voluntary Act of Respect: Submission is a willing and respectful posture of the wife toward her husband’s loving leadership, as she would unto the Lord (Ephesians 5:22). This implies a choice rooted in faith and love, not coerced obedience.

2. A Reflection of Order, Not Value: It does not imply inferiority, as both husband and wife are created equal in dignity, worth, and value (Genesis 1:27; Galatians 3:28). Instead, it emphasizes order within marriage, with roles designed to reflect God’s character and purpose and original design in the garden of Eden.

3. Modeled After Christ’s Submission to the Father: Just as Jesus submits to the Father without any loss of dignity or worth (Philippians 2:5-8), wives are called to embody a spirit of submission within marriage. It is a role that reveals God’s design without diminishing the wife’s individuality or contributions.

4. Mutual Responsibility: Biblical submission is part of the larger context of mutual care and responsibility, as Paul also commands husbands to love their wives sacrificially (Ephesians 5:25-28). Both partners are called to live in self-giving love, each seeking the other’s best interests in Christ-centered ways. The husband displays his love through sacrificial love and care and the wife shows love through giving her submissive support to her husband.

Submission in marriage definition:

SUBMISSION Voluntary placement of oneself under the authority and leadership of another (Gk. hupotasso). submission enables a unique Christian harmony, based on God’s good design. Randy Stinson

wifely submission must be connected to husbands love.

Jesus does not demand and coerce and manipulate your reverence and honor of him… he gave his life for you, out of love.

Love in marriage definition:

Agape, sacrificial and deferential love. Giving up oneself for the other in both provision and emotional loving kindness and truly cherishing the other as valued above all others. Involves a deep level of affection and intimacy. Within marriage, sexual enjoyment of one another is deeply rooting in the oneness of love, as two give themselves to each in openness, intimacy, and trust.

It’s a love that is not mere companionship, partnering, or friendliness. It’s not brotherly love but something far deeper.

For the husband, the love is a self-sacrificial love, likened to Jesus’ giving of himself on the cross to die for the church. So husbands are to give of themselves and sacrificially love their wives.

Christianity REVOLUTIONIZED culture

Christian marriage redefined the relationship between a husband and wife entirely and men and women in society.

You can read about the state of marriage in the roman society during this time period in history. Writings included men who were on their 21st marriage. They could use women like property.

Rather here, Christian marriage put men and women on equal footing and equal value. Revolutionary.

Elevated the dignity of womanhood, childhood, and servanthood. Jesus laid the groundwork here…

Galatians 3:28 “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

Equality before God of all human beings, as John Stott says, “irrespective of their race, rank, class, culture, sex or age, because all are made in God’s image.

John Stott goes on to say, “Husbands and wives, parents and children, masters and servants have equal dignity as God-like beings (God’s image), but different God-appointed roles.

J.H. Yoder says, “Equality of WORTH is not identity of ROLE.”

Wife

22-24 — submit to your own husband as to the Lord.

Submitting as a Gift

Submission is a gift, voluntarily offered as an act of obedience and worship for the Lord.

not to submission to a dictator or a king, who demands submission out of fear. A husband does not demand anything.

But submit, through a voluntary act of honor and respect that is given out of love, and is meant to be received and reciprocated in love and provision by the husband.

the wife gives submission… and gratefully receives the loving care of the husband.

Submitting within the Sphere

Sphere of submission

Bible doesn’t command submission of all women to all men in society.

The sphere of this kind of submission is meant directly for within marriage and the church.

Tim and Kathy Keller: “We are all familiar with stunts or action sequences on tv or in movies that come up with a “Do not try this at home.” Well, Gender roles are the exact opposite: Only try this at home or within a community of believers, the church.” It is only safe for us sinners to attempt to resume our royal heritage and our creation gifts of gender roles where resources such as repentance and forgiveness can be accessed.

submission to elders and submission to a husband.

Hebrews 13:17“Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.”

practiced with grace and humility and accountability within a church and within a christian marriage by the power of the Spirit.

Submitting as to the Lord (22)

AS to the Lord

submit as to the Lord, Jesus.

As you submit to Christ, your duty is to submit to your husband. This is part of fulfilling your calling as a christian wife.

This is a way of saying: part of christian life of obedience to Christ means to submit and follow your husband’s servant-leadership. It’s about honoring Jesus, and reverencing him first. So naturally, this would extend to wives doing the same for the husbands.

Similar with children’s role to their parents, in their position. Part of their obedience to God, is to respect and obey their parents.

Submitting Because…

1. husband is the head

Headship. There is order/hierarchy within a team. There is a captain of the team. Yet, both play on the same side and for the same goal. This is God’s design within the hierarchy of creation, his design for the world and how people are to live in harmony in a society.

We inherently know this and live this out. Not everyone can be a leader at the same time.

The church is the same, their is a hierarchy of service, (because elders are the first servants… not leaders or dictators)

You don’t become an elder lightly. Are you willing to shoulder the burden of caring for peoples souls? You will be judged to a higher standard.

Too often, pastoring, or eldering, in a church, has been made today in a celebrity appointment and celebrity status. That it is seen as an attractive place of power like a CEO of a company. I think as a whole we are losing the sense of elders as shepherds or are SERVING the church.

this used to be what you called politicians in the government. They were PUBLIC SERVANTS.

Husband is the head, and the head servant.

is to be a servant-leader for the wife, as she is a helper. (ezer, in Genesis)

Headship, means he is first line of defense and if anything goes wrong in his family. Who takes the heat?

If God were to ask you, hey why did your wife struggle so much with this and why do your kids not even know me? Who bears the responsibility for the mismanagement of a household?

2. Husband, Adam, was created first in order, and before the fall.

Submission, is not about ability, but order.

3 in 1 (trinity) hierarchy.

3 or 4 other places, even Jesus himself, sounds off on this same logical progression. Carrying this order and design back to original creation of Adam and eve and God’s intended design even before sin came into the world.

That’s why it is difficult to say this was just for original context and original time period because God’s design was for this in the beginning.

Similar to the slavery objection. Slavery was not something mentioned or intended for in God’s original design. Therefore, seeking to abolish slavery as it should be, is not the same thing as trying to abolish roles in marriage. Slavery is never something mentioned or intended in Genesis and it is not part of God’s good design. IT is a result of sin and it should be abolished.

3. Church is subject to Christ, wife should mirror this by being subject to her husband

Out of the love for Christ, their is a willing voluntary subjection of ourselves as the church to the loving sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

Wives should be giving this kind of humility to their husband.

Because when you do, it only helps to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ!

Husband

LOVE HER

3 times love her is repeated. vs. 25, 28, 33

Notice: a husband is never instructed to lead or rule their wives well. They are not instructed to ensure their wife submits or respects you. Instead, a different direction is taken, they are called to LOVE. Peter says, live with her in an understanding way. And to show her honor and provide.

Sacrificial-Love

3 kinds of love: sacrificial, sanctifying, nourishing.

gave himself up - Ephesians 5:2 and Ephesians 5:25

This means a husband is to sacrificially give up his life for the betterment and the flourishing of his wife.

This may look like laying down his life, but I would dare say, most men are willing to dive in front of a moving vehicle for someone we love. Most men are willing to die for someone else in a heroic way. We are built this way. God made us this way. We are men, when we bear responsibilty of protecting and caring for women and children and others in society.

But most of us men struggle to die to ourselves daily.

Doing the dishes is unglamorous way to give of yourself…

“Richard Coekin says, “it means dying to what is easiest for him in countless little ways–perhaps helping her with domestic chores, adapting his social or sporting commitments, helping more with the children… as well as spiritual initiatives like reading the Bible with the family at the dinner table or praying with his wife. A husband is to love his wife for better, for worse; for richer, for poorer; in sickness and in health– not just providing for her materially but giving himself to her physically, emotionally, and spiritually. And if his career or even his church ministry, is making this impossible, the he should consider changing it for the sake of his wife.”

Little things make big things grow.

It’s often the little decisions of dying to self daily, that most clearly demonstrate a giving of yourself for someone else out of sacrificial love.

Stack thousands of those kinds of loving interactions one upon the other and you have a successful thriving marriage.

Eliminate thousands of those small interactions and you will have a disastrous marriage. Or all it will take is one straw to break the camels back because your love is so thin…

It’s not big things most of the time. It’s just coming home early to help. It’s doing the dishes. It’s completing a task list. It’s choosing to listen and love and turn off your phone and be present, and stop pursuing your hobbies so much you forget you even have a family. Many of these minor things, not earth shattering things.

But who says marriages are built in a day? They can certain fall in a day…. but usually if they do, hundreds and thousands of small selfish decisions were made leading up to that point, to ignore your wife and pursue loving yourself, for temporary pleasure while ignoring long term joy.

Men, this is what you’re built for, to bear responsibility for others, to nourish and protect, this is why you are built with a strong back, to care and protect and nurture and cherish all the while sacrificing yourself, bearing the responsibility not out of duty and obligation but out of love.

Jesus bore the cross… not dragging his feet or because he had too… but out of love. Eph. 5:2 - Christ loved us, and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

Sacrificial love is the key to a thriving marriage.

Sanctifying-Love

Jesus loved the church. Husbands love your wives.

Jesus gave himself up for the church. So should husbands give themselves up for their wives.

Jesus sacrificed himself in love to…(26-27)

1. make his people holy (that she might be holy)

2. to cleanse them from their sin (without blemishes, no wrinkles)

3. to present them holy before God on the last day. (he would present her in splendor)

Husbands sacrifice yourself in love to…

1. lead your wife in godliness and holiness.

2. Your love should lead your wife to love God more deeply and thereby be washed sanctified by your christlike leadership and loving sacrifice for her.

3. You must take the spiritual sanctification of those in your care seriously. As you love her through your leadership and care, she should grow in Christlikeness. We are to be concerned with her spiritual maturity before God and you should seek to lead your marriage in such a way that nourishes your wife’s spiritual health and spiritual growth.

Sanctifying-love.

Nourishing-Love

vs. 28 - love your wife as you love yourself? your own body?

High, glorious, heavenly kind of love… moves to … a low self-centered love? Seems strange.

I think… Paul understands that the fastest way to a mans heart is through his stomach… :)

meaning, when you’re hungry. Really hungry. You feed yourself. You nourish yourself. You care about your tummy ache. You get food. Feel better.

so vs. 28 - He who loves his wife loves himself.

vs. 29 - for no one hates his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the Church.

But… Paul knows, inherently, you do love yourself…

Because… in loving your wife, you are loving yourself. Since you are one flesh. You nourish and cherish your own body and thereby you should nourish and cherish your wife because you two are the same body.

If you are hungry in need of nourishment why would you starve yourself? That makes no sense. If your marriage is on the rocks, and feeling dry and stale… why you water it? Why would you ignore it and hold back love from your wife?? That’s like shooting yourself in the foot and trying to run a marathon. That was a dumb decision.

But this is how we act in our marriage.

Is your marriage is HANGRY. (hungry and angry).

And Husbands… instead of feeding your marriage and your wife with love, nourishment, and kindness… you starve it. You ignore it. It dies…

Instead of stoking the coals within your wife with the oxygen of sacrificial love… husbands… you throw a wet blanket on it. And wonder why there is no flame anymore, and everyone feels cold and distant.

Transition: Sacrificial love. Sanctifying love. and Nourishing love fuels the fires of oneness and intimacy in your marriage.

Oneness.

Ephesians 5:31–33 ““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 am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.”

Together

Unique not Exact

Each marriage is unique though. Each person is unique. You don’t lose your individuality.

This is not an exact science, with a formula. My marriage will look different than yours. But we are all united the same way and for the same mission

Tim and Kathy Keller“the basic roles-of leader and helper- are binding… but every couple must work out how that will be expressed within their marriage. The very process of making these decisions is a key part of what it is to think out and honor your gender differences. … the spectrum of how this plays out do vary. Some who personality tends to lead them to be more assertive need to work on being more passive.”

Oneness not Sameness.

Unity without uniformity.

they serve and love and submit but in different ways but with equal worth.

This is unity not uniformity. This is beauty in diversity. There is a grace in complementing the other.

Marriage is not a game to be won. It’s not chess. If you play it in competition, you both lose.

Marriage is dance.

Harmony not Dissonance

Bringing two people. Together. In beautiful harmony

PIANO Note. One note. One harmony.

ONE FLESH. ONE HARMONY. TWO NOTES.

Musical consonance refers to the harmonious combination of tones or notes that sound pleasant or stable together. It is a concept in music theory that contrasts with dissonance, which involves combinations that create tension or a need for resolution.

this is why some notes sound good together and some don’t. Yet, the notes are not the same notes but rather different ones, that when played together sound better, and in fact unify to be heard as ONE NOTE.

SLIDES

progression of slides.

Husband and wife. Submit and Love.

There is consonance here, it sounds pleasant and it is stable together. Unbalanced, or distorted or improper and you have something that is WARPED. It wobbles and does not stay together.

Triangle. Marriage bond together. Christ at the head. He is the focal point. we submit out of reverence for Christ.

Husband and Wife must be drawn to Christ individually in order to be drawn together corporately.