The Beauty and Glory of a Submissive Wife

Last week we started this series on marriage entitled “Meant to Be.” I wanted to take a look at God’s teaching on marriage because God has a grand design for marriage to give him glory and give us joy.

Series Title: Meant to Be

Prop: Christian wives glorify God by modeling the church’s submission to Christ in their relationship with their husbands.

Series Title: Meant to Be

Last week we started this series on marriage entitled “Meant to Be.” I wanted to take a look at God’s teaching on marriage because God has a grand design for marriage to give him glory and give us joy.

A lot of married people are not living in joy.

I heard Rodney Dangerfield say one time, “My wife and I were happy for twenty years. Then we met.” I thought to myself, “That’s funny because a lot of people can relate to that.”

So we need to ask, “Why is marriage in such poor shape in America?” And part of the answer we discovered last week is that we have gotten away from the purposes in which God created marriage in the first place.

So last week we began to take a look at what God’s purposes for marriage are. In looking at the beginning of marriage in we saw that marriage is to provide intimate fellowship, to produce oneness or unity between the partners, and to produce godly children, to influence the earth for his glory.

Then in , we found out that there was a more important purpose for marriage. One that had remained a mystery for thousands of years until Christ came and created a bride for himself, the church. Then the mystery could be revealed.

Ephesians 5:31–32 ESV

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.

The mystery is that the most important purpose of marriage is to glorify God by being a running illustration to reveal to our world what the relationship between Christ and his church looks like.

“ ‘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.” The mystery is that the most important purpose of marriage is to glorify God by being a running illustration to reveal to our world what the relationship between Christ and his church looks like.

Marriage provides hundreds of thousands of illustrations of Christ love for his church and his church’s trust and submission to his will based on who He is and the sacrificial love that He has shown them.

Husbands, if you have a wife is devoted to you like the church is devoted to Christ. You have a gift from God!

Proverbs 19:14 ESV

14 House and wealth are inherited from fathers, but a prudent wife is from the Lord.

“House and wealth are inherited from fathers, but a prudent wife is from the Lord.” ()

Here’s how I interpret that. You can get a inheritance that includes a house and money from your daddy. But, only God can give you a godly wife.

Today and next week we are going to talk about “The Beauty and Glory of a Submissive wife.”

I always hesitate a little to talk about this subject because of the big “S” word submission.” Many wives shrink away from this teaching because they think that this means they are suppose to be a slave to their husband and do whatever he says. That is not at all what is being taught here.

Actually, what is being taught is that submission between a husband and his wife is mutual. v.21 say that we are to be about the task of “submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.”

Ephesians 5:21 ESV

21 submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.

We know that this mutual submission applies to the husband and wife role of v. 22ff because in the Greek the word “submit” does not occur in v. 22. The verb is supplied from v. 21.

Both partners submit to each other in different ways. What that teaches us is that submission has nothing to do with personhood. is not a teaching that men are superior to women in any way.

Galatians 3:28 ESV

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.

says “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” We are all made in the image of God and all equal in personhood before God.

However, “Equality does not mean sameness.” We are equal in personhood, but different in our roles. Men and women complement each other in marriage. It’s what scholars call complementarianism.

We all know that men and women are different.

*A woman walked into the kitchen to find her husband stalking around with a fly swatter. “What are you doing?” she asked. “Hunting Flies” he responded. “Oh!, Killing any?” she asked. “yep, 3 males and 2 females”, he replied. Intrigued, she asked. “How can you tell?” He responded, “3 were on the TV remote and 2 were on the phone.” We are different because God made us different in order to fulfill the roles God gave us.

The different roles involve mutual submission.

The husband submits to his wife by providing Christ-like headship.

The wife submits through voluntary followship.

The word “submission” actually comes from the military meaning to line yourself up under the leadership of the one in command. But the one in command takes responsibility for the care of those he leads.

What both husbands and wives need to remember is that in marriage, being the right person is more important than finding the right person.

Today and next week, let’s look at what submission from a wife’s perspective looks like. After we finish with the wife’s role, we will move on and study the role of the husband.

Today let’s talk about why a godly wife submits to her husband.

I. A godly wife submits because it’s her responsibility (v.22)

Ephesians 5:22 ESV

22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.

Or we might say out of obedience to God. She does it because God told her to in the Scripture. He simply addresses in v. 22, “Wives, submit to your own husbands.” That’s important to note because some of you wives are thinking right now, “I’m more qualified to lead this family than my husband is. He’s an idiot and I’m way more godly than he is.” Maybe so, but he is the ungodly idiot that you married.

Education, intelligence, spiritual maturity, age, experience, or anything else does not change the wives responsibility.

If your husband is a godly man who has a biblical vision for his family and leads out in the things of God, a godly woman will rejoice in that leadership and support him in it. The problem is, “What if he is not kind of leader in the home?” You would never follow him in sinfulness. However, submission and respect for him as the leader is still God’s desire.

1 Peter 3:1 ESV

1 Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives,

makes this clear, “Likewise, wives, be submissive to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives—when they see your respectful and pure conduct.”

So the way you act before your husband can be God’s way of bringing him to salvation. So instead of nagging, criticizing, and preaching to your husband because he is not the kind of Christian leader that he ought to be, a wife should set a godly example before him. Show him the power and beauty of the gospel through its effect on your own life.

How do you do you become a wife that gives the proper support to your godly husband and, if your husband is not a believer, have a godly influence on him that he might be saved while at the same time submitting to him?

II. A godly wife submits because it’s her glory.

1 Peter 3:3–5 ESV

3 Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear— 4 but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious. 5 For this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, by submitting to their own husbands,

“Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair, the wearing of gold, or the putting on of clothing—but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious. For this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, by submitting to their husbands.”

This is not an indictment against women that get their hair done, wear jewelry, or wear nice clothes. This is more of an indictment against the kind of thinking that says doing all those things is what makes you beautiful.

In America, women are groomed to think that nice hair, nice clothes, nice jewelry, added to this a nice body and wrinkle free skin is the definition of beauty.

None of that makes you attractive to God. This kind of beauty is external and it is temporal. He says, you should pursue the “imperishable beauty that comes from having a gentle and quiet spirit.” That is what is precious to God.

What does that mean? It means it’s beautiful to God to treat your husband like you believe in him. It’s not your job to upstage him or make him feel inferior about who he is or how he provides for your family. It means your recognize that he is the one that God brought into your family to lead it. It means you relate to your husband with humility, love, moral purity, kindness, and respect.

1 Peter 3:6 ESV

6 as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord. And you are her children, if you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening.

“As Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord.”

If Abraham is the father of believers, the Sarah is the mother. Sarah respected Abraham’s God given authority as leader in their family by calling him Lord. I’m not saying that you should call your husband ‘Lord.” That was the custom of that day. What I am saying that you should show him respect due to the fact that God placed him in a position to lead your family.

Some wives are so outspokenly disrespectful to their husbands, there is no way they can be lead.

*I once saw a cartoon that had a young boy asking, “My dad wants to know if a man speaks in a forest, and there’s no woman to hear him, is he still wrong?”

Some women make their husbands feel like nothing they can do is good enough for them. The Bible is clear that this is not only disrespectful to the husband, but it is also dishonoring to God.

III. A godly wife submits because it’s her joy.

Ephesians 5:22 ESV

22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.

In 5:22, the command “submit” is in the middle voice. This means the action is back onto the subject. The idea is that we are “to submit ourselves.” This is carried over from v. 21. In v. 21, the idea is that each partner should willingly submit to the role that God has place them in to the family.

So in the context of the wife he says, “Don’t do this begrudgingly, because you have to.” Motives matter to God. Do it because you want to. Do it because its what God’s design is. Do it because you trust God’s plan for your family. That makes it your joy to do.

*James S. Hewett tells a this story of a tyrannical husband that demanded his wife conform to rigid household standards of his choosing. She was to do certain things for him as a wife, mother, and homemaker.

In time she came to hate her husband as much as she hated his list of rules and regulations. Then, one day he died—mercifully as far as she was concerned.

Some time later, she fell in love with another man and married him.

She and her new husband lived on a perpetual honeymoon. Joyfully, she devoted herself to his happiness and welfare.

One day she ran across one of the sheets of dos and don’ts her first husband had written for her.

To her amazement she found that she was doing for her second husband all the things her first husband had demanded of her, even though her new husband had never once suggested them. She did them as an expression of her love for him and her desire to please him.”

IV. A godly wife submits because he’s her husband.

Ephesians 5:22 ESV

22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.

“Submit to your own husbands.”

This issue is not about men being superior over women. It is about men being placed in a position of authority in their own homes.

The President of the United States has been placed in a position of authority in America. But, if he goes to China, he has absolutely no authority.

Someone else’s husband has not been placed in authority over you. Your husband as the authority to lead in your home, not someone else’s husband. That’s important because some men think that this means that are in authority over all women. And, they are not. That’s one of the benefits of being married, by coming under the authority of your husband, you come under his protection from other men.

V. A godly wife submits because it’s her worship.

5:22 “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.”

Sometimes when this discussion comes up among women I hear things like, “I don’t have to submit to my husband. I’m not going to worship him. He’s not my savior, Jesus is.” Let’s be real honest for a minute hear. Many times they say this because there husband does not inspire respect from them. In two weeks, we will deal with the husbands role.

Whether or not her husband inspires respects from her or not, a spirit filled wife will respect her husband because she understands when she submits to her husband, she isn’t worshiping her husband. She is worshiping Christ.

She submits to her husband because in doing so she also submits to the will of Christ.