Christ-Centered Marriages

Introduction

“The greatest source of security our children have in this world is a God-honoring, Christ-centered marriage between their parents!”

Last week we introduced and ended our service talking about Paul’s call for Christians to submit to one another. We saw how the only way that people can submit to one another in any relationship is with the help of the Holy Spirit because submission and putting someone else’s needs above your own is not our natural human tendency! We desperately need the Holy Spirit to help us in this process and the marriage covenant is no different. In fact, the current state of marriage is crumbling in our society. People have no idea what a marriage is or what it was supposed to look like.

David Jones and Andreas Kostenberger had this to say in their book entitled God, Marriage, and Family: Rebuilding the Biblical Foundation. “For the first time in its history, Western civilization is confronted with the need to define the meaning of the terms “marriage” and “family.” What until now has been considered a “normal” family, made up of a father, mother, and a number of children, has in recent years begun to be viewed as one among several options.”

Church, make no mistake about it, we are in the midst of a spiritual war, not simply a cultural one! The enemy is trying to attack and destroy God’s plan for marriage.

John Stott says that the Biblical idea of marriage is: “An exclusive covenant between one man and one woman, ordained and sealed by God, preceded by the leaving of parents, consummated in union, issuing in a permanent mutually supportive partnership, and normally crowned with the gift of children.”

Our culture says that marriage is an option for a couple in the same way that shacking up or sleeping around us. Our culture also says that marriage does not have to be between one man and one woman. The fact of the matter is that Marriage is good and it is also a covenant. We think of it as a contract often times, but it is much bigger than a contract, it is a covenant. It is permanent, sacred, exclusive and mutual. The thing that married Christians must keep in mind, though, is that Jesus Christ comes first. You might be thinking that as a husband or wife, you are to put your spouse before yourself (essentially putting them first), but according to what we see in Scripture is that you are to put Christ first, your spouse next and yourself last. That’s not always easy to do, is it? What we see, though, is that this is exactly what Jesus Christ did and Christian marriage is supposed to be a picture of Christ’s love for the church.

What Paul does in this text is lay out the responsibilities for wives and for husbands. This is a passage of Scripture that people can get bent out of shape due to one word, however this text is important and extremely timely for our society. We might say that we will order our marriages however we want to, but from Scripture we see that God has already ordered marriages and given each party responsibilities, rather than going against God’s decree let our prayer be filled with the Spirit and imitate God.

Ephesians 5:21–33 NASB95

21 and be subject to one another in the fear of Christ. 22 Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body. 24 But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything. 25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, 26 so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless. 28 So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; 29 for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, 30 because we are members of His body. 31 For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. 32 This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church. 33 Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband.

Ephesians 5:22-33

Spirit-Filled Wives

This passage of Scripture is one of the most contested in Scripture because of the idea that wives are to submit to their husbands. With our culture moving in a direction where submission is a foreign concept and linked with suppressing and controlling someone, even Christians aren’t quite sure what to do with this word. We looked last week at verse 21 and we talked about how the Christian life is marked by submission. We are to be filled with the Holy Spirit and we are to submit to one another in the fear of Christ! The Christian life is all about submitting! The wife, in this passage, is called to submit to her husband that is willing to die for her! That is someone worth submitting to, I’d say. Kostenberger says, “Some may view submitting to one’s husband’s authority as something negative, a more accurate way of looking at marital roles is to understand that wives are called to follow their husband’s loving leadership.” A Christian husband should be the first to say I’m sorry. The first to say I love you. The first person to serve the other. We get that out of order, sometimes, but it is the order that God has designed from the beginning. We see this idea all the way back in Genesis, male and female with Adam being the head of the family. This is a theme throughout Scripture, but we get it misunderstood often times. We can easily think that it means that wives are less than their husbands and this can lead to all sorts of abuse and hurt feelings. The bottom line is that we are all equal before God, we simply have different roles within marriage. Both roles are incredibly important and necessary for a Godly marriage to exist and thrive.

Some of the problem with this passage stems from the fact that we simply don’t like it. We talked about this during our Wednesday night Bible study through regarding true and false wisdom. False wisdom says that it’s all about your happiness and that you know better than God. True wisdom says that God has ordained a specific way for things to work. True wisdom says that it’s all about His glory - especially a Christian marriage. We must understand that God is infinitely wise and He works all things together for our good, therefore if His Word says to do something or that things are ordered in a certain manner, we are to follow that order.

Many non-Christians say that Christianity has it backwards and is anti-women because of verses like this, however if we look back in Scripture we see that Jesus was one of the most pro-women individuals in human history. Paul was as well as he recommended a woman to be a deacon and routinely taught how Christians are one and united and equal in the eyes of God because we are all adopted into the family of God. There are Christians who reject this passage and instead say that Paul was simply talking about his context rather than a template to be followed by people 2 thousand years later. If Paul were the only individual who mentioned this, then they might have a case, but again, this is something that is seen all the way back by God Himself in the Garden of Eden. This is something that has a strong Scriptural basis and is something that we must do our best to understand.

Paul gives some instructions for both wives and husbands, let’s examine the responsibilities given to wives first. In verse 33, Paul states that the wife is to respect her husband. In verse 21, we see that we are to submit out of the fear of Christ - it is the same idea here. The word fear should not be thought of as a fear of violence or a fear of terror. We do not fear that from Christ, but we respect Him. says that there is no fear in love. Wives should not fear their husbands, but they should respect them. Women crave love and attention, men crave respect. In a study by Psychology Today of 400 males, 74% said that they would rather feel alone and unloved than disrespected and inadequate. A very similar number of women were found to rather feel disrespected and inadequate instead of feeling alone and unloved. We are different people with different wirings. As my former pastor called it, you are 2 sinners living under one roof! That is going to naturally lead to some problems. We must understand that we are simply wired differently and that when Paul says that wives are to respect their husband, that is something that a husband desperately needs from his wife more so than anyone in his life. A husband desperately needs a wife who respects, prays for and loves him. What we see in is that sin ruined the natural harmony in marriage. It twisted men from having a humble and loving leadership into being hostile or lazy in some instances. It twisted women from willingly submitting into being defiant in some instances. Sin did not create submission and headship, it twisted those terms and the consequences of that first sin is still being felt in our world today!

The next word that we see regarding the responsibility of a wife is submit in verse 22. Again, we see this idea throughout the Old and New Testament (, , , , ) all come to mind. Let’s look close at this verse. Does Paul call women to submit to all men? Does Paul say that women are inferior to men? No. He says to submit to your husband. The husband in verse 23 is the head of the wife. The husband is not the head of every woman. This is not submission that is done out of fear or danger, but it is voluntary! This is not a “slavery” relationship or a relationship where the wife has to obey every command her husband says without discussion or questioning. That is not what this is saying. Whenever Lindsey and I are at home watching the Cardinals play and Lindsey asks if I want anything from the kitchen (such as a chocolate chip cookie), she does not do this because she is afraid of upsetting me, she does so because she loves me and wants to make sure that I’m not wanting a snack.

There is a close connection between submission and love. Stott says, “The wife’s submission is but another aspect of love… What does it mean to submit? It is to give oneself up to somebody. What does it mean to love? It is to give oneself up to somebody.” To submit to someone is to put the will of someone above the will of yourself. To love someone is to put the needs of someone above the needs of yourself. These things are almost identical. In fact, mention both in the same passage. The reason behind this action is as to the Lord in verse 22. The reason that a Christian wife would willingly submit to and respect her husband is to glorify Jesus Christ. Again, this is something that our world does not do by and large. Other people might see this as “strange” or “odd”, however a Christian sees it as part of becoming more like Christ.

With all of this said, how on earth do we make sense of verse 24? What are we to do with the “submit in everything”?

Kostenberger rightly notes that there is a difference between a “traditional marriage” and a “Biblical marriage”. A traditional marriage says the following: the woman is responsible for doing the laundry, cooking, cleaning and babysitting while the man is responsible for the outside work and bringing home the bread - certainly there are exceptions, but this is the template for a traditional marriage. This is a traditional marriage, but there is freedom in Jesus Christ. A Biblical marriage does not always follow this model and that is 100% ok! A Biblical marriage does not require the woman to follow the husband into a sinful practice or decision. A Biblical marriage does not require the woman to make less than her husband. A Biblical marriage does not require the woman to make every meal and do every single load of laundry. There was a time where Lindsey was making more money than I was during college, does that mean that we were doing something wrong? Certainly not. The part that matters in a marriage is that the couple yields to the pattern of the husband serving as the head and the wife serving as the helper who submits to her husband’s leadership - this does not mean that she cannot be smarter intelligence wise or that she cannot earn more money than her husband, in fact in many Christian marriages this is the case today. What matters is following the order in which we see God ordain.

You might ask, pastor, why does this matter so much? Marriages are crumbling around us and the very foundation of a marriage is being brought into question by people around the globe. Now more than ever there is an attack on the marriage covenant and it is the duty of wives and husbands to show the world what a Biblical marriage looks like. It’s not perfect. It’s the hardest thing in the world, but it’s sanctifying. It is God-honoring and Christ-centered.

Wives, according to verse 24 shows us, give a picture of what the church is to the world in that they submit to their husband as the church willingly submits to Christ. The husband gives a picture to the world of Jesus Christ. Husbands, that is a tremendous responsibility and one that should cause you to legitimately pause and ask yourself, “how am I reflecting Jesus Christ in the way that I treat my wife and my family?”

We see that Jesus Christ:

Loved the church

2) gave Himself up for the church

Gave Himself up for the church

2) Sanctified the church

Sanctified the church

Cleansed the church

Presented the church without spot or wrinkle and

Provides and cares for the church

Husbands are to reflect that to the world - no pressure!

Everything in the marriage is about bringing glory to Christ. If we start our marriage upon ourselves or our emotions or even our love for one another, we start marriage on something that cannot be at the center. We see that marriage exists for Christ’s glory! Our marriages must exist to magnify and glorify Christ. I love my wife and I knew that long before we got married, but as much as I love her, I could never love her enough on my own for that feeling to be at the center of our relationship. It must be even deeper than love. You could say that what is at the center of a Biblical marriage is a brother and sister in Christ, not two people who “love” the other person. Christ is at the center of your relationship, and because of that whenever hard times come around and your feelings and emotions clout your judgment, Christ is the rock on which your foundation is built and you both come back to Him in those tough times. You forgive and serve one another as Christ has loved and served us - this is our testimony to the world.

The final piece of this illustration used by Paul in the middle of this passage of how Christ loved the church is the fact that Jesus Christ died for the church… Have you ever heard of a perfect marriage? Not the Hallmark Christmas movie, but a legitimate marriage that people would call perfect? Of course not, it doesn’t exist! The reason why? Sin. Sin causes problems, it causes a problem between us and God certainly but it also causes problems between us and other people - even our spouse. The glorious hope that we find in this text is that Jesus died for the church. If your marriage is rooted in Christ, if that is your center then you have hope in the good times and the rough times of marriage. While some people turn to addictions, habits, former friends or their work whenever marriage gets difficult, we turn to the cross of Christ. Whenever we look at the cross, we have hope and we have a purpose - to point other people to Him as well. We cannot lose sight of that, even when things are difficult.

Spirit-Filled Husbands

Now all you females in the room are saying, isn’t it time to pick on the husbands and guys? I suppose we have enough time and should probably do so. We see in verse 25 that husbands are to love their wife as Christ gave Himself up for the church. Men, marriage is a call to die. That’s pretty heavy stuff, but it’s true. Jesus Christ not only died but He was beaten, battered and bruised beyond description. He had to carry the cross with a crown of thorns crushing into his head. He did all of this because He loved His church. That is how you are to love your wife. You are to demonstrate that type of love and also the type of sacrificial love that Jesus displayed numerous times during His earthly ministry. The times where He washed the feet of others. We see that Christ came to serve, not to be served. That is the call for Christian husbands as well!

It means that you put to death your sinful desires. Your passions and ambitions, sometimes even the good ones, in order to sacrificially love your wife in the manner in which Christ loved the church. Maybe it means cooking dinner whenever your wife is having a long day. Maybe it means watching that movie that she loves. Maybe it means, dare I say it, that you wash her feet! It certainly means putting to death the desires of our flesh and serving our spouse constantly. And whenever that time comes, it means trying to enjoy the service. Whenever you’re watching that Hallmark movie (for the 12th Christmas in a row!) you try to actually enjoy it instead of having a resentful attitude and telling your wife that you’d rather have paid $40 to go to the movie theater instead of watching “Northpole” for the millionth time.

It also means that you have sanctifying love for your wife as we see in verses 26-27. Sanctification simply means to be made more like Christ. Ask yourself this question this morning, men, “Am I making my wife more like Christ or am I making her less like Christ?” Am I helping her and leading her to be more like Christ or is she becoming more like Christ because I am a thorn in her flesh? We are to love our wives and cleanse them by the washing of water with the word. You cannot take away the sins of your wife, but you can encourage and lead your wife to be more like Christ. It is thought that Paul might have been talking about a Jewish cleansing bath (from ) that took place before a wedding and the spiritual cleansing that took place in this moment. I’ll always remember my wedding day and how beautiful my wife looked as she walked down that isle! I remember that moment vividly and I remember thinking that this is the absolute best day of my life - it was better than I could have even imagined it would be. She was spotless. She was perfect. Having been married for a little bit of time, though, and reading Scripture, you realize that as a husband you have a responsibility for her spiritual well-being. As wonderful and amazing as that day was, that was also the moment that you became accountable to God for leading your wife to be more like Jesus Christ. That should scare the living daylight out of you, men. That is quite the responsibility.

This means that you should talk about theology with your wife. It can be easy to have the typical “how was your day” conversation whenever you see your spouse in the afternoon/evening, but how much deeper does it go? You should talk about the Word. Build one another up in the Word. Know how your wife is doing spiritually as well as emotionally and physically. We are such surface level individuals that it can be difficult for us to do this on a consistent basis. It might even feel awkward because you might not agree about everything theologically. What matters is that you care. That you are holding one another accountable to staying in the Word, being filled by the Spirit and serving in the church.

We also see that there is satisfying love in verses 28-31. Paul says that husbands should love their wife as they love their own bodies. This is pretty self-explanatory, but we are people of self-preservation. We will do whatever it takes to survive and stay alive. If that is how much we love ourselves, we are to love our wives to that same degree. That means that you provide nourishment for your spouse - spiritually! You care for her. We see this because Paul quotes here by saying that you are one flesh. You are responsible for the spiritual maturity of your spouse. You will be held accountable for your actions, certainly, but if your spouse is struggling and you do nothing to help them then you will be judged for that. You are one flesh, help your spouse out and build them up in God’s Word! Just as I long to satisfy my needs, I should also long to satisfy the needs of Lindsey. That’s why sometimes you watch those Hallmark movies or you go and shop at the mall for a whole day. Just as I long to be more Christlike myself, I should desire my wife to be as well.

So, men, how are you doing at nourishing your wife in God’s Word? Are you cherishing her? Are you serving her? Are you admiring her? Are you putting her needs above your own?

As John Piper said, “I’ve never met a wife who is sorry that she is married to a man who exercises servant-leadership in the spiritual life of the family.” Whenever God designs a thing like marriage, He designs it for His glory and for our good. We must remember that!

Conclusion

As I was studying for this sermon, I came across a story that put this idea in a very applicable manner: Wayne Grudem, faculty at Trinity University in Chicago, IL, alongside giants of the faith like DA Carson and Douglas Moo, was happily married to his wife who suffered from fibromyalgia. She could hardly walk without severe pain and even doing typical household things was difficult. There was next to no relief either because the cold weather only made things worse and Chicago is notorious for cold falls and winters. As time went on, Grudem and his wife traveled to Phoenix to get away and she discovered that in that climate the pain was not as bad and they were even able to ride bikes together for the first time in 10+ years. Grudem said, I wish there was a way for us to move here but there are simply no seminaries for me to teach at. Lo and behold, he discovered Phoenix Seminary and reached out. After praying about the situation, he asked himself, “If I were the one suffering like Margret, would I not want to move for the sake of my health?” He wanted to move. Yet, his wife did not because she recognized the fact that her husband had a very influential role at a large, respected university. He wanted to move for her sake, she wanted to stay for his sake. As one thing led to another, Phoenix called back and told him that if he came down there he would have a reduced workload and more time to write. This began the process of them coming to the same side. His wife said, “I’m going to trust you to make the decision.” Grudem left one of the most respected Christian schools in order for his wife to be in a better place for her wellbeing. That’s what it’s all about, sacrificing for your spouse.

Husband, love your wife like you do your own body. Nourish her. Protect her.

God ordained marriage. The great news for us today is that Christ died for those who could not keep the standard themselves. We have all sinned and fallen short. We will also fall short in our marriages. We will not do these things perfectly, but through the Holy Spirit we are renewed daily and empowered to look to Christ for grace and mercy for ourselves and for our spouse. Whenever our foundation is on Him, everything else falls into place.

In the words of Spurgeon, “Love between mortal and mortal is quite natural and comprehensible, but love between the Infinite God and us poor sinful finite creatures, though conceivable in one sense, is utterly inconceivable in another. Who can grasp such an idea? Who can fully understand it? Especially when it comes in this form, “He loved me and gave Himself up for me?” This is the miracle of miracles!

Let’s pray