Sermon Tone Analysis

Following the pattern of this sermon series, I’ve titled today’s sermon, “Marriage Beyond Imagination.”

So I want to do a little bit of a thought experiment with you today: If I were to ask you to stand up here and give a talk with that title based on what YOU think makes marriage beyond imagination, what would be on your list of priorities to talk about?

Stellar Communication...

Becoming best friends with your spouse or marrying your best friend in the first place...

Learning to laugh together...

Physical Intimacy...

How to not fight over finances in marriage...

Prioritizing Date Nights...

Filling your husband's “respect tank” and your wife's “love tank” (that one is even derived out of the text we are studying today)...

Maybe if you get real spiritual, Praying or doing devotions together every day or every week… keeping Jesus at the center...

And listen… all of those things are GREAT!

You could even say some of them are NECESSARY… But they all miss what makes a marriage “beyond imagination.”

Because to understand how marriage is “beyond imagination,” you have to look beyond the marriage to what it represents.

A marriage that is beyond imagination is not one that makes the husband or wife the focal point… a marriage beyond imagination is one that spotlights Christ and his bride, the church.

Today we are learning to view marriage from a heavenly… cosmic perspective… to see that God has designed EACH marriage to point to his Son… and his Son’s bride, the church.

And until we get THAT, we will miss the meaning of marriage.

The Lord wants us to...

Big Idea: Use the marriage union to spotlight Christ's beautiful union with his church.

Your Bibles are open to Ephesians chapter 5… let’s see that right from the words of scripture in verses 22-33 together.

We’ve been saying that the purpose of our study in Ephesians, AND the purpose of Paul’s letter is so that we would “Pursue God’s unimaginable vision for his CHURCH so that God might receive much glory.”

So far, everything in the letter has been very focused in that direction: God’s big, cosmic plan for his church… and about how the believers participate as members of that larger plan in the context of their own local church.

He laid out all the theology in chapters 1-3 and is now applying it in chapters 4-6…

But in the section we are studying today, it might seem to SOME... like he takes a sharp left turn off course.

From a 21st Century perspective, it’s like he just goes from CHURCH CHURCH CHURCH CHURCH… to marriage.

I mean, there’s not even a conjunction to indicate a shift in topic.

That seems very foreign to us… because in today’s society, we very much separate those two ideas: family life and church life.

So how do we follow Paul’s train of thought here?

How does this section on Marriage that we are going to read fit with the whole purpose of Ephesians about God’s vision for his church?

Well to Paul and to his original audience, they would have understood exactly what he was doing: he uses a familiar literary style of their day called “a household code” which extends all the way through chapter 6:9, talking about Children and Parents and Slaves and Masters.

This style was common in the Roman world because the Romans understood that “as goes the household, so goes the society.”

And Paul understood that too… in fact, this was a reflection of God’s design: “as goes the household, so goes the church.”

We say it this way here at Oak Hill: “Healthy families make up healthy churches, so healthy churches promote healthy families.”

The household is a major place where our WALK as believers gets lived out.

But I want you to understand that even though Paul adopted a STYLE common to his day, he does not adopt the content of the Roman household codes.

Instead, he gives us a uniquely Christian understanding of marriage… one that is not even understood by Jews of his day...

...because of the mystery that Paul is given to reveal in the present age: the mystery of Christ and his church.

Paul is giving us the uniquely Christian understanding of marriage… and I want to point out that he is giving this to the WHOLE CHURCH.

This is for married couples to understand for sure...

But this is also for unmarried people to understand...

Paul didn’t say, “OK… I’m going to NOW address the topic of marriage.

If anyone is listening to this letter being read in your church who is NOT married, feel free to take a bathroom break or check your cell phones at this time.”

NO, this teaching on marriage is ESSENTIAL for the WHOLE CHURCH to undersand.

Some unmarried people might WANT to get married at some point…

if that’s you here today, you need to get this priority figured out NOW… before you even start picking someone to date.

Because your spiritual health depends on it… and that means that the spiritual health of our CHURCH depends on you understanding this right here if we are members one of another.

Some unmarried people might NEVER plan to get married… I want you to know that is TOTALLY ACCEPTABLE…

and you can have a meaningful place in God’s unfolding plan for his church without being married.

In fact, God gives singleness as a GIFT to some so that they can accomplish even MORE for his Kingdom (that’s a topic for another day).

But ALL unmarried people need to understand marriage because you are members together in the same body with people who ARE married...

And you will need to speak truth in love to them...

And you don’t need to have experience in marriage to highlight the priorities we are studying… you can humbly stand on the authority of God’s word to encourage your brothers and sisters in their walk with the Lord as they relate to their spouse.

You just need to be able to value the marriage relationship for what God says it is, even if you don’t have it or want it yourself...

You need to be able to look at a married couple and understand what you are looking at… a reflection of Christ and his church…

I also want to acknowledge that there could be people here who have been divorced… or who have broken marriages… maybe some who are married to unbelievers...

God’s design for marriage is given to you so that you can look beyond your experience and see the beauty God intends.

I just want to acknowledge that this is HARD sometimes and in some circumstances.

We live in a broken, painful world… and it can be easy to give up on something God created simply because our experience didn’t play out that way.

But today, I would urge you to see the good beauty in what God designed.

Ultimately, God gave us marriage to get our eyes on the union of Christ and his church… and that’s something we ALL need.

We must all use the marriage union to spotlight Christ's beautiful union with his church.

This weekend, a lot of people started decorating their homes for Christmas… [show picture]

and I always loved as a kid going to the neighborhoods with the big houses and big budgets...

And one thing that people do when they have the budget to do it… is they don’t just use the little strings of Christmas lights...

They use SPOTLIGHTS to light up the whole house so you get the whole picture.

And they don’t just use ONE spotlight… they use MANY to highlight different parts.

And that’s what we see going on in Ephesians 5.

In this text, we can see...

3 Spotlights On Christ and the Church

…that shine from the marriage union… And the first is the spotlight of the wife:

1) Wives spotlight the church's humble submission to Christ.

(5:22-24)

[Read Eph 5:22-24]

Notice the wife’s primary purpose in her role: to mirror the church in her relationship to Christ.

That answers SO many questions when it comes to the word “submit” that no one really likes in today’s culture!

Does a wife really need to SUBMIT to her husband?

Well, let me answer that question with a question… “Does the church really need to submit to Christ?”

YES!!! On both counts!

But isn’t this just a reflection of the outdated culture of Paul’s day?

Again, let me answer with a question, “Is Christ’s relationship with his church outdated?”

OF COURSE NOT!

You see, the idea of submission is not rooted in the cultural perceptions of the day, but in the cosmic relationship to which it points.

And wives spotlight the church’s humble submission to Christ...

Why?

Because the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church.

There is a connection… deep within God’s design for marriage… between the husband and wife… and Christ and the church.

That means that the idea of “headship” here must be defined by what it means for CHRIST to be head of the church.

And to help us understand that, we can go back to Ephesians 1:22-23 where Paul uses the word “head” in the same way -

“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.”

(Eph.

1:22–23, ESV)

So for Christ to be head of the church means that he is OVER all things (he has authority over EVERYTHING)… and uses that authority to direct his Church, which is particularly his body.

Headship in context… means “authority” …or more particularly “authority applied for the benefit of the whole body.”

And the marriage relationship is a small picture of that bigger reality...

The husband is head… and the wife is part of his body… we will see this a lot in the later verses… that the two are “one flesh.”

Just as Christ has authority over all things… and uses that authority as head of his body, the Church...

The husband has authority over everything in the home… and uses that authority head of is body, his OWN wife.

Now before you husbands get too excited and you wives start to feel deflated… we have to pause and define “authority” from God’s perspective.

Too often we want to have a “CHRISTIAN” definition of marriage, but then adopt the WORLD’S definition of authority within that Christian marriage.

Here’s what I mean… and here’s what has happened too often in the church…

We say, “The husband has authority in the home”… (which is all well and good)

But then we use the world’s definition of authority that says, “Authority means absolute power and control to benefit yourself.”