Counter-Cultural Marriage
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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.
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.
Ephesians 5:22-
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.
Ephesians
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.
Let me address an immediate apprehension many of you will have with this sermon. Many of you may be saying to yourself, and possibly to others, “What good does a 23 year old who has been married for a mere 4 years have to tell us.” This is a reasonable and fair apprehension and complaint. As a green and unseasoned young man, I have little to nothing to offer you to improve upon your marriage. However, this book I hold in my hand is several thousands of years old and was written by the very breath of the One who instituted marriage in the beginning. Therefore, it will be my intention this morning draw upon not my own authority but upon His and to share with you only what He says about marriage. It is quite likely that what I say this morning will upset some of you; move some of you; and make many of you feel uncomfortable So, please know, right out of the gate that if you have issue with what I say this morning and seek to make a complaint, your issue will be with Him and your complaint will be with Him. Because I only seek to show you what He said was true about matrimony.
Ephesians 5:25-
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.
Ephesians 5:29-
We live in a day and time that is exhibiting a rapid moral decline.
As Christians, we like to point out all of the reasons for this moral decay - taking prayer out of school, etc. - but could I suggest that we are the problem?
All kinds of different scholarship have studied the family unit, and they almost all universally agree that when the family unit disintegrates, the moral fabric of society disintegrates.
And the issue with the family unit is not outside the Church - it comes from within the church
Divorce rates are higher in the Bible belt than they are anywhere else in the country.
And it starts with the Husband/Wife relationship
Our issue is that married Christian women do not submit to their husbands and married Christian men do not love their wives like Christ loved the Church.
I am not just being melodramatic when I say that if we could just figure this out, we would see a radical swing and shift in the moral fabric of our society.
I want to show you, from the Bible, how to be married.
This applies to those who have been married, to those who just got married, to those who are about to get married, and to those who will one day get married.
First, I want to show you what’s at stake.
Marriage Represents the Gospel
Marriage Represents the Gospel
Has it ever occurred to you that God could have created procreation any way He wanted? Plant life reproduces by dropping seeds into the ground that germinate and sprout new plants, why didn’t God create human procreation that way?
Why is that when Carissa and I decided to have a child I didn’t go down to Farmtown in Sardis or the Co-op and get little baby seeds, dig a hole in the ground, put fertilizer in it, cover it up, make sure it was watered adequately, and wait until a little Lincoln sprouted? Why did God create procreation in humans to be a intimate encounter with another human being so that the two become one flesh that produces offspring?
Similarly, why do humans seem to be the only creatures that are drawn to the concept of marriage?
Sure penguins and seahorses have monogamous relationships that last their entire lives, but we don’t see little penguins in a white dress and tux standing in front of a penguin minister out and about in nature?
So, we must take note that if God created something totally unique in human matrimony that is foreign to all other creation, there must be something more important underneath the surface.
We must realize that there is a deeper meaning than simply two humans living together and deciding to have babies.
Ephesians 5:31-32
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.
God created procreation to come about by the physical union of one man and one woman who have been married in the sight of the Lord because the union of a man and a woman is overwhelmingly symbolic and representative of the life giving Gospel!
Marriage represents the Gospel
The Husband symbolizes and represents Christ who loved and sacrificed Himself for the Church
The Wife symbolizes and represents the blood bought bride of Christ - the Church - who is to delightfully seek to submit to her groom
When a man and woman come together and become one flesh, life is born.
When the Groom (Christ) comes and unites with His wife (the Church) eternal life is born.
Geoffrey Bromiley puts it this way:
“As God made man in His own image, so He made earthly marriage in the image of His own eternal marriage with His people.”
Paul calls this a mystery in verse 32, but it is not a mystery in the sense we know they word mystery. When Paul says mystery, he does not mean that marriage is something that cannot be figured out.
In the NT, the word “Mystery” means “a secret revealed by God” and refers to something that previously did not make sense but now makes sense in light of Christ.
What Paul is saying is that until Christ, God withheld what marriage ultimately meant and what it represented was unknown to the whole world. But now, since Christ, the mystery has been lifted and mankind now knows that marriage is a majestic symbol and representation of the life giving truth of the Gospel.
single greatest redemptive story in history of the universe.
When you decide to get married, you are deciding to represent the single greatest redemptive story in history of the universe.
This is what is at stake.
Listen closely
God does want you to have happiness and pleasure, but He wants you to have happiness and pleasure in Him. And happiness and pleasure in Him means crucifying happiness and pleasure in anything else that is not in Him, for His sake.
So, having happiness and pleasure in Him means staying in a boring, mundane, and lifeless marriage that does not give you an earthly happiness and pleasure.
You will never find God ordaining anyone happiness and pleasure at the expense of holiness and the contradiction of His Word.
The representation of the Gospel is at stake with your marriage.
Before you marry, you should ask yourself,
“Do I want (or am I called) to represent the Gospel with this person for my entire life?”
I realize there are likely many divorced people here, today, and this sermon is not meant to guilt you or make you dwell on past mistakes. Jesus didn’t die on the cross for you to loathe and revel in your past mistakes. He died to cast them as far as the east is from the west and for you to move past and beyond them. So, apply this to your current life circumstances and situations and do not dabble with the guilt of the past. If you are redeemed, your divorce has been conquered.
So, we ask the question:
How do we represent the Gospel well with our marriages?
How do we represent the Gospel well with our marriages?
To the ladies:
Submit to Your Husbands
Submit to Your Husbands
We are living in a time and era that is pushing women (and men) to buy into what is called Egalitarianism.
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.
This is the belief that there are no distinguishing roles between men and women. Taken to its most extreme form, this belief says there are no differences between men and women at all and thus we have transgenderism.
The Christian view, however, the view of the Bible, is called Complementarianism.
Ephesians
This view states that though man and woman are equally loved by God, the husband and wife have differing roles that complement each other.
This is the view we see Paul describe in verses 22-24:
Ephesians 5:22
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.
Biblical
First off, this is not a divine call for a woman to abandon her sense of ability, freedom, and self-worth, put on an apron, get into the kitchen, take care of the kids, and satisfy her husbands domineering wants, pleasures, and needs.
But it does mean that she is to be totally submissive to her husband as the head and leader of the household.
Look what it says: “submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord… as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.”
Can you imagine God leading and guiding you to do something and asking you to submit to Him and Him being okay with you looking at Him and saying, “I don’t like that word submit and I don’t have to do everything You tell me to do!”
Biblical female submission is the acceptance of the distinguishing roles between a husband and his wife and her relinquishing him to be the leader of the household.
If you could never dream of saying something like that to God, why would you ever consider acting like that towards your husband?
Biblical female submission is the acceptance of the distinguishing roles between a husband and his wife and her relinquishing him to be the leader of the household.
John Piper describes it this way:
“Submission is the divine calling of a wife to honor and affirm her husband’s leadership and to help carry it through according to her gifts.”
Biblical female submission does not mean that she must check her brain at the door and gets no input in the decisions - men who have perverted this verse to mean they can boss their wives around unlovingly never truly understood this text to begin with.
This is the belief that there are no distinguishing roles between men and women. Taken to its most extreme form, this belief says there are no differences between men and women at all and thus we have transgenderism.
It means that a wife will so honor and respect her husband that she will allow him to lead her in everything they do together.
It means that a Christian woman wants a man that will lead her spiritually.
A submissive woman wants to use her gifts, but she wants a husband that will initiate and lead in those gifts.
- Every woman, before marrying a man, should ask herself,
Every woman, before marrying a man, should ask herself:
“Is he worth submitting to in everything and is his leadership worth following for the rest of my life?”
I have never met a more submissive woman than Carissa. She would follow me anywhere and would do anything I asked her to do. Not that she doesn’t have any input, but if I feel like that we should go in a certain direction, she will go. If you need advice in the department of Godly submission, come ask Carissa - she can help you. And this embarrasses her and makes her nervous because she thinks she has nothing to offer, but she is truly the greatest woman I have ever met and has more to offer than I do.
Look what it says: “submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord… as the church submits
The Christian view, however, the view of the Bible, is called complementarianism.
Most of you don’t know how we ended up at Mt Vernon. I had been at Beulah for four years and Carissa and I both knew in our gut that it was time to leave. And within in a span of a month, we had seven options on where we should go and had to decide where God was leading us. Are we mishearing God and should stay at Beulah? Should we move to New Orleans to finish out my degree? Neal left and this position became available. When I got back from Lebanon we seriously considered moving there. Randall Stoner called and wanted to refer me to a church in Arab and a church in Collinsville. And then a friend called me and wanted me to move to Greenville, SC to be his Youth Pastor. Carissa was willing to submit and follow me to any one of those places. She had already started looking for places to give our dogs away so we could move to New Orleans. The night I told her about Greenville she started looking for houses and neighborhoods in that community. She was pregnant and was willing to give birth in a place where she knew absolutely no one. Before I even got back home from Lebanon, she asked me if I felt we might ought to move to the middle east.
This view states that though man and woman are equally loved by God, the husband and wife have different roles that complement each other.
Carissa is the picture of a submissive wife and represents the Gospel in a splendid way.
And that puts a heavy weight on my shoulders as her husband.
Which leads me to the gentlemen.
Men are called to love their wives as Christ loved the Church.
Love Your Wives
Love Your Wives
Men represent the Gospel in their marriage poorly unless they love their wives like Christ loved the Church.
What does that mean?
It means that men should sacrifice themselves by giving themselves to the service of being the head of their household.
What does this mean?
Piper puts it this way:
“Headship is the divine calling of a husband to take primary responsibility for Christ-like servant leadership, protection, and provision in the home.”
To be the head - the leader - of your of your wife and to love her like Christ loved the Church does not mean you get to be a domineering Tyrant, but that you are called to be a suffering servant for her that leads and guides her.
The call to be the head of your wife is a call to die to yourself - die to selfish desire and die to anger.
The Greek word used here for love is “Agapayo” and it means “to greet with affection, to entreat, to tolerate, to caress, to be fond of, to prize, to desire, to be well pleased.”
It is the same word to describe the relationship between God and His Church
To be the head of your wife means to protect her
Protect
Protect
25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,
Ephesians 5:25
Protection is the role of the husband, not the wife.
This is where egalitarianism would say the woman doesn’t need a man - she can get along in life without him.
The Bible says that one of my complementary roles as her husband is to protect her, regardless of my abilities as a macho man that can fight or her abilities as a fighting woman that shouldn’t be messed with.
It does not matter if she is a body builder that has been trained in the art of Ju Jitsu and you are a skinny noodle of a man - your role as husband is to protect her.
So, if you are walking down the sidewalk one evening after a date and another man jumps out at you and threatens your family, you protect your family. You may say, “She can fight better. She is trained!” and that may be so. But you better be knocked out cold on the ground before she has to step in, or you are not a man - you are a coward.
You may say, “She can fight better. She is trained!” and that may be so.
But you better be knocked out cold on the ground before she has to step in, or you are not a man - you are a coward.
Men are hardwired to protect their woman.
On Christmas day, I was reminded of this truth. It was late morning and Carissa went outside to get the mail. I was reading or doing something and I heard her talking to someone. So, I went to the screen door and looked out and there was some man standing there talking to her. And I stood there and watched them until they concluded their conversation and she came back in, but all the while, in my mind, I was thinking, “Make one step too close brother and I will come out there and rip your throat out.” Now listen, I did not harbor any ill feeling toward that man and I am not cynical about every man that approaches my wife. I didn’t even judge him. I had little to no expectation of him doing anything malicious to Carissa. But you would be sorely mistaken to think I wasn’t ready for if he tried.
To be the head is to be the protector.
To be the head is to cherish your wife.
Cherish
Cherish
29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church,
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,
Ephesians 5:
Carissa does a couple of things that drives me insane. I’ll tell you about one of them. Every night, almost without fail, I’ll get into the bed, stretch out, and pull the covers up over my shoulder. And just about the time I get perfectly cozy and warm, Carissa will slide two blocks of ice she calls her feet right up under me. I promise you, her feet are colder than the water the Titanic sank in. It used to make me so mad and I would kick her feet to the other side of the bed. But then, the thought occurred to me one night that there may come a day when I would be sitting in that bed all alone and I would give everything I had just to feel her ice cold feet up under me one more time.
I am learning more and more each day to cherish my wife like Christ cherishes the Church.
Do you still pursue your wife?
To cherish your wife means you desperately seek to meet her needs, care for her well-being, fulfill her longings, help her get close to God, and to sacrifice yourself so she finds happiness and pleasure in Christ Jesus.
Here is the honest model of the way most men think about getting a wife:
To cherish my wife means I get angry less frequent, complain about her less often, and serve and love her more.
We find a beautiful woman
We date that beautiful woman and pursue her hard so she can see how much we want her
You will never cherish your wife until you realize deep down in your guts that God has given you a woman you woefully don’t deserve. When that realization kicks in, all bets are off and all your excuses for being a jerk become flimsy and go right out the door.
We win that beautiful woman’s heart
We marry that beautiful woman
We view our task as complete and stop pursuing her
To be the head is to provide for your wife
Provide
Provide
Initiative
Initiative
Ephesians 5:26-
Cherish
Cherish
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.
Husbands should physically provide for their families and be the primary bread winner of the home.
This does not mean that the wife cannot work outside of the home or that she cannot make more than the husband.
When Carissa and I first got married, I was a full time student and a part time Youth Pastor that brought home $700 a month. Carissa brought home the bacon
However, the man should bear the weight and the responsibility of taking care and providing for the family. If the wife desires to contribute to that, that is great, but she should never feel the full weight of providing for her family physically and monetarily.
But far greater than this, the man unequivocally is the provide for his wife and his family spiritually.
Men, when you marry a woman, you are no longer responsible only for your own spirituality. By becoming one with a woman you have decided to take on the weight of her spirituality as well.
What does that mean?
It means that if your kids and your wife are not growing and flourishing spiritually, it is not just her fault anymore; it is your fault too. And you will have to answer to God for it and it is your responsibility to resolve.
It means that it is your responsibility to get your wife and your kids to church, not your wife’s.
So many fathers stop bringing their kids to church because they say they don’t want to force them. If your kid gets to judgment day as an unrepentant heathen that does not make it to heaven, do you want that to be in any way your fault? If Lincoln denies Christ and God forbid goes to his death an unredeemed sinner, it will not be because his daddy neglected to force him to go to church and didn’t ram Jesus down his throat. I find that to be a complement. If he goes to hell it will be because he climbed over a mountain of reasons not to and he will arrive clawed and chewed up where his daddy begged him with everything he had to see the glory and the goodness and the beauty of Jesus Christ.
When a man marries a woman and takes leadership as head, it means that if there is an issue in the home, the husband - the dad - is responsible to address it and fix it, not wife, not mom.
If there is an issue in the Minor home, no matter what the issue may be and no matter who is at fault, and God comes knocking on our door, and if Carissa answers the door, God will say to her, “I have perceived that there are some issues. Where is the man of the house? I need to see how he has addressed the issue.” Even if Carissa is flat out the problem, even if Lincoln is flat out the problem, He wont go to her or him, He will go to Clay, He will go to me. Why? Because I am the head that bears the primary responsibility.
He did it that way in the garden. Eve spoke to the serpent first. Eve ate first. Eve gave the fruit to Adam to eat. Eve sinned first, but what was the first thing that God said? He said, “Adam, where are you?”
Listen to how Justin Buzzard describes it:
“The second he spotted the serpent, Adam should have crushed the Serpent. He should have rushed straight toward the intruder and eliminated him, keeping his wife safe and sound. But Adam just stood there. He let the serpent in. He let the lethal lover talk to his wife. He listened to their seductive and sinful conversation. He watched as his wife made the worst choice of her life. He just stood there. The cultivator. The guardian. He just stood there. When Adam first looked at Eve he fell in love. This time Adam looked at Eve and withheld his love. He stood still, abandoned his wife, his calling, and his manhood.”
Men, don’t just stand there!
Your wives need you!
Your children need you!
Your family needs you!
God has ordained you as there one and only spiritual leader of your home.
Don’t prioritize your job over her
The position at your work can be occupied by many men.
Don’t prioritize material items over her
The truck you drive can be driven by many men.
The house you live in can be lived in by many men.
The money you spend can be spent by many men.
But the wife you are called to lead can be lead by only one man - and that is you.
Don’t just stand there and watch your wife - your family - lack spiritually and decay morally.
Have a deep desire for your wife to be so obsessed and consumed with God that the devil shrieks and shivers when she wakes up and gets out of the bed in the morning.
Finally, here are some practical ways you can cultivate the spirituality of your wife and family:
Family Devotions
Send your wife to the STRONG Women’s events once a month
Say I’m Sorry
Pray with your family
You Can’t Do This
You Can’t Do This