Right Living: Family Matters

Ephesians 5:22–24 ESV

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.

Introduction:

I will never forget the first Youth Group trip we took to Six Flags in Atlanta Ga. It was my first time ever being at a theme park. My Youth Pastor manipulated me into getting on the Georgia Cyclone. It was the fastest roller coaster at the time at the park. As we began to go up the hill of the roller coaster my heart began to tremble. As we got to the very top and began to descend down the coaster my stomach left my body! All I wanted to do was get off and get off quickly. I had every reason in the world, yes justifiable reasons to get off. I wanted my stomach back! My life was under the authority of the one who was operating the roller coaster. I found out as the ride ended that this was not the first time that the operator of the roller coaster had operated the coaster. He knew what he was doing. Therefore I must submit to the things he commands such as put on the seat belt, hold onto the bar, and stay seated. Submission was vital if I was going to make it off that roller coaster. In the same way Paul wanted to the Ephesians to know the importance of submission. Submission is God’s design for the family. Jesus is the Lord of the roller coaster (the church) therefore we must submit to him and to those to whom he calls and commands us to submit to.

Central Point of Message: Because Jesus is the Lord of the church we submit to him and to those to whom he calls us to submit to.

Question: Why should wives must submit to their husbands?

Three Reason why wives must submit to their husbands.

1. Wives must submit because Jesus is in their heart (vs. 22)

Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (Eleventh Edition) (Submit)

1 a: to yield to governance or authority

a: to yield oneself to the authority or will of another: SURRENDER

b: to permit oneself to be subjected to something 〈had to submit to surgery〉

2: to defer to or consent to abide by the opinion or authority of another

This word “submit” is a word that in looked down on in our society today. There are a number of reasons why it is looked down on and why people in our culture people do not submit. One reason is that there has been a lot manipulation by those in authority who have made people submit to them. Manipulation and mistreatment by those in authority have not help with those are to come under their authority. This abuse has taken place even inside the church. Unfortunately abuse has even taken place in our own denomination we are dealing with this.

Sarah Pulliam Bailey writes, “Ronnie Floyd, the acting CEO of the business arm for the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, has resigned from his position as head of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee after a weeks-long internal battle over how the denomination should handle a sex abuse investigation. The SBC has been rocked by reports of hundreds of sexual abuse cases revealed in a 2019 investigation by the Houston Chronicle. It has ousted churches that employed pastors who were abusers and set up resources for churches to prevent sexual abuse. However, several sexual abuse survivors have said the denomination has not done enough to investigate and prevent more abuse from happening, because it does not have a way of tracking abusers within its network of churches.”

This is an example of the abuse by those in authority.

Another reason why submission is looked down on is individual selfishness. People are selfish and they do not want to do what those in authority say.

As the people of God we can not let the abuse from those in authority trump what God has designed from the beginning.

From the very beginning God has shown that he has authority and that we are to submit to his authority. The authority that He possesses is for our protection not out selfish motives. God's desire was for his creation to prosper, to be fruitful and to multiply. God had provided all that man needed. Because of man’s selfishness by not submitting to the authority of God, we too have found ourselves rebelling against this authority. (Genesis2:15-17; Genesis 3; Romans 3:23; 5:12-19).

It is imperative that the people of God understand that God calls and commands his people to submit to his authority and to submit to those who are in authority.

Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible gives good insight into God’s mind on authority when it shared what Paul drew from the Old Testament:

The apostle Paul drew from the OT metaphorical understanding of the term to express the authority of God over Christ, Christ over man, and man over woman.

This is God’s design. Women can not let the culture determine how they should live. The wife should operate from a changed heart. The curse of sin has been broken because of the finished work of Christ. Therefore she will submit to her husband because her heart has been transformed. There has been a heart transplant:

In Ezekiel:

Ezekiel 36:26–28 ESV

And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.

The wife can submit because she looks to the good work that the Lord has established in her. As she looks to the Lord, it is the Lord that motivates her to submit to her husband.

This is an everyday battle that the wife must fight. She must continue to look to the Lord not just because of (John 3:16), which speaks to the love that the Lord has for her but (Genesis 3:16). Here we see Eve wanting to be “Lord” of her own life and “Lord” of her husbands life as well. She will desire to rule over Adam. This is a result of the fall of man!

Genesis 3:16 Moses said, “Yet your desire will be for your husband, And he will rule over you.”

Although the culture will give every reason why she should not submit to her husband as to the Lord. She must remember who has her heart!

Wives, because Jesus has changed your heart, you have a heart to submit to the Lord and your husbands.

There is a second reason why wives must submit.

2. Wives must submit because Jesus is their head (vs.23)

The Head is a person who is in charge; understood as a head which is the uppermost part of a human body.

It is to have authority:

Wayne Grudem said, “Christians have usually understood the word head to mean “authority over.” Thus, Christ is the authority over the church and a husband is the authority over his wife..”

As I have stated before many people inside the church and outside the church have abused this authority. Which this does not make it easy to come under someone else’s authority.

Alvera Mickelsen is one who opposes this meaning of head when said, “He argued that head in Greek usage “does not mean ‘boss’ or ‘final authority,’“ but that a “common meaning” was “source, or origin, as we use it in the ‘head of the Mississippi River.”

In order to understand what Paul is after here we must understand God’s design for headship. God is head over man. Just as we saw in Genesis that God has all the authority. He has also given man the authority in marriage. This is not authority that is Lording over the woman but protection her.

1 Peter 3:7 ESV

Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.

God has created man with broad shoulders for a reason. One of those reason is to protect and provide for his wife. Men are stronger physically for these reasons. He is to protect his wife from the enemy. God has designed men to be the head in this way, he is to lead his family. This is not to belittle women or to make woman feel weak. God has a divine purpose from man to be head of his wife.

Again we must look at what Christ has determined and not what the culture determines. Paul said in verse 23 that the man is head over his wife just as Christ is the head of the church.

This is not the first time we have heard Paul say that Christ is the head of the church in this book.

Ephesians 1:22–23 ESV

And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

Without Christ being the head over the church, the people of God would be lost and on their way to hell. We would still be dead in our trespasses and sins. Our lives still would be following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. (Ephesians 2:2).

We can not pick and choose the parts of the Bible that we want to obey. We believe He has designed Christ to be the head over the church and the husband to be head over his wife. Not as a dictator but as a one who sacrifices himself for her.

We are the body of Christ, and Christ is the head of the body. The head (Christ) tells the body what to do and it is not the other way around.

As the husband comes under the headship of Christ. He listens to the head and leads his family centered around what the Lord has said. This is the way God has designed it and this is why the wife must come up under the headship of her husband.

Harold Hoener said, “The husban has been given positional headship.”

It is important that we understand that Paul is not saying that the wife has no say in the marriage. She does have a say and the husband must be one who recognize that his wife hears from the Lord too. No decision is made for the family just by the husband.

R. Kent Huges said, “Indeed, both husband and wife bear mutual responsibility, but he, by his position, stands in the ay of greater judgement. Headship is a fearful thing. When a husband makes difficult decision, he should do so with the full counsel of his wife. And she should do so with great humility and dependence on the Lords, realizing his fallibility and responsibility.”

I heard one preacher say to his congregation at a fellowship meal that he is the head of his household. He said men need to be the head (the leaders) in their houses. I’m the head of my house. His wife is a quiet woman and plays the background as she serves the Lord. She quietly spoke up and said he is the head and I am the neck! Everyone laughed in the church. This is true the husband and wife complement each other. The man must lead his house!

My mentor once told me anything with two heads is a freak. I do not currently know of any organization that has two heads. I saw it in a local elementary school and it lasted for one school year! The school was very dysfunctional, there were major leadership issues. Some of the staff that worked for the school would complain because they agreed with one principle and disagreed with the other principle. They both were leading the people in two different directions chaos was the result.

The wife must submit because Christ is her head and the head tells her how to live.

Finally:

3. Wives must submit because Jesus has their hands (vs.24)

In the progression of God’s design we have seen that it starts with Christ submitting to God, husbands submitting to Christ, wives submitting to husbands, and the church submitting to Christ.

Finally Paul shows that wives must submit in “everything” to their husbands. Again this does not mean that husbands are superior to their wives. They both are equal but have different spiritual gifts and roles. They complement each other with their gifts.

The wife is to live a hands free life that is looking to the Lord and obeying him by coming under their husbands leadership.

In some sense the wife hands are open to the Lord’s will for her and her family’s life. She says, “Lord whatever you desire for my family I am willing to do.”

Again it is vitally important to remind ourselves that the husband is not to Lord over his wife but he sacrifices himself for her. As he sacrifices for her, this motives her to have open hands. That is open hands to submit to the Lord’s will, which is for her to submit to her husband.

You may be here this morning saying Pastor Q, I understand what the Bible says about submitting to my husband in “everything”, but you do not know my husband. He has abused me. He is not faithful to me. He Lords over me. I can not submit to him.

It is imperative that we understand that the Lord is not telling a wife to submit to her husband who is in living a life of sinful disobedience to God. Remember the context. Remember Paul said in verse 18 to “be filled with the Spirit.” Wives can only submit in everything to their husband only if they both are walking in the walking Holy Spirit.