CS Lewis has a really good role for life.
You can take it as your own if you've never heard it before.
He says it's a good role after reading a new book to never
allow yourself another new one until you've read an old one.
It's great wisdom. He says that because we are
great at seeing things from our point of view, We're really good
at seeing things from our perspective from within our own
cultural tradition and ideas worked out according to our
assumptions. But we read old books because
historical distance can be a corrective.
We can read old people and realize that our perspective
might be wrong and the dead can provide wisdom to the living.
So in that line of thought, we're going to go back 300 years
and want to wash over you the the wisdom of marriage from the
Puritans and then go back even further 1700 years before that
to the wisdom that God provides in his word.
Even 300 years ago, the church spoke of biblical marriage,
calling it an inextinguishable flame of love.
And the church Speaking of marriage says it's a virtuous
friendship. And what they meant by a
virtuous friendship is is 2 people that are seeking the
highest good in the other person.
They want what's best in the other.
Thomas Adams wrote there is no such fountain of comfort on
earth as marriage. Edward Taylor said it's a
curious knot that was tied in paradise.
Robert Cleaver There could be no greater society or company than
is between a man and his wife. And this is the only
relationship in existence where the 2 become one flesh.
It's the only one we can rightly say that is the only
relationship under heaven that is a covenant.
And I read last week about true friendships and this author said
that true friendships is like one soul inhabiting 2 bodies at
the same time. And we say if that's true about
friendships, how much more can we say that of marriage where
it's one soul in two bodies? It's the highest and best
relationship that God has given us in this world, which is why
another Puritan, Thomas Hooker, says the man whose heart is
endeared to the woman he loves hath her in his eye in
apprehension when he awakes, muses on her as he sits at the
table, walks with her when he travels and converses with her
in each place where he comes. She lies in his heart and his
heart trusts in her, which forces all to confess that the
stream of his affection, like a mighty current, runs with full
tide and strength. Richard Baxter It's a mercy to
have a faithful friend that loves you entirely and is as
true to you as yourself, to whom you may open your mind and
communicate your affairs. And who would be ready to
strengthen you and divide the cares of your affairs and family
with you. And to help you bear your
burdens and comfort you and your sorrows, and be the daily
companion of your lives and partaker of your joys and your
sorrows. And it is a mercy to have so
near a friend to be a helper to your soul.
So whatever the Puritans believed marriage was, it was
beautiful. It's a very, very precious
thing. And I want to say as hope for
you, as hope for your marriage, their ideal can be your ideal.
And the Bible's design for marriage can be your design.
The the fruit that Bible gives for marriage can be your fruit.
Your marriages can be sweet and tender and full of trust and
passion and playfulness if you submit to the Word of God.
But it takes hearing God's Word and doing God's Word.
Matthew 724 will appropriate it. As He says, to build your house
on the rock, will say to build your household on the rock.
That is Jesus Christ in His Word.
Jesus says Everyone who hears these words of mine and does
them will be like a wise man who built his house upon the rock.
And the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat
on that house, but it did not fall because it had been founded
on the rock. And for those husbands and wives
who despise and ignore the wisdom of God in this area, or
who choose to build their marriage on the wisdom of the
culture, the goals for marriage, of the culture, they're designed
for marriage. They're ordering of the
household. And do that instead.
Jesus says you will be like a foolish man who built his house
on the sand and the rain fell and the floods came and the wind
blew and beat against that house and it fell and great was the
fall of it. Fast forward 300 years.
What happens to houses that are built on the sand?
What is What does it look like practically?
What Jesus is saying to build your house on the sand?
It looks like 37% of American children growing without
biological parents in their household, the highest figure in
the Western world. It looks like 40 to 45% of
marriages ending in divorce and a divorce rate here that's three
times higher than the world average.
The average duration of first marriage is lasting less than
eight years. And it looks like only 46% of
adults right now are married at all.
To which we say, surely this is not God's standard.
Do not build your house on the sand, but with those with ears
to hear. Remember, God created this
institution. God created marriage and He
designed it. He designed it to picture to the
world something about his love for his church.
He designed it, He made it, and he called it very good.
And to those who follow the wisdom of the Bible and the
pattern that God has ordained, He promises this.
You will be blessed. So the closest passage in the
Bible, if we were going to look for a manual on marriage, the
closest thing we can come to is Ephesians 5.
It's called the the household code.
You can turn to Ephesians 522 to 33, which is the longest
handling of the ordering of a Christian marriage.
We say particularly for husbands.
That's found anywhere in Scripture, and it teaches the
most basic truths of marriage. This is the ABC's of marriage,
the absolute foundation that you have to build your marriage on.
And I invite you to turn that passage again as we read
together Ephesians 5, beginning in verse 22.
Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, writes, 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.
Verse 25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the
Church, and gave Himself up for her, that He might sanctify her,
having cleansed her by the washing of water with the Word,
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. In the same way husbands should
love their wives as their own bodies.
He who loves his wife loves himself.
For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and
cherishes it, just as Christ does the Church, because we are
members of His body. Therefore a man shall leave his
father and mother and hold fast to his wife.
Then the two shall become one flesh.
This mystery is profound, and I'm saying that it refers to
Christ and the Church. However, let each one of you
love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she
respects her husband. Write this down and remember it.
Satan hates marriage. And in the garden, if you go all
the way back to the beginning, he was there immediately.
He wasted no time. God said that marriage was very
good. He had said it as a a picture of
the the gospel itself. And so Satan was there in the
beginning opposing it and he set his heart to destroy it.
Genesis 224 said therefore a man shall leave his father and hold
fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
Very next verse Genesis 225 and the man and his wife were naked,
and we're not ashamed. Very next verse chapter 3 verse
one. Now the serpent was more crafty
than all the other beasts of the field.
He wastes no time and he whispered lies into the ears of
Eve saying, you don't need to submit to your husband and you
don't. You don't need to submit to God
who is your heavenly husband. There's a better way than
marriage as God designed it. Eat the apple.
And she saw, and she took and she ate.
And where was her husband? Her husband was was there and he
was abdicating his responsibility.
And he watched, and then he took, and then he ate.
Genesis records it in chapter 3. When the woman saw that the tree
was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and
that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of
its fruit and ate, and she gave some to her husband who was with
her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were
opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig
leaves together and made themselves loincloths, and they
heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the
cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the
presence of the Lord God. So Satan has hated marriage from
the very beginning, and he relishes in extending singleness
as long as he can. And he relishes in separation,
and he relishes in divorce. And he doesn't just hate
marriage. Satan hates your marriage.
He wants you divorced and he wants your children vulnerable.
He wants you living as roommates and not as lovers.
He wants you sleeping in different rooms.
He hates when you kiss. He hates when you hold hands.
He hates weekend retreats. He hates date nights.
He equally loves when husbands abdicate their leadership roles
to their wives. He loves when husbands work long
hours, and he loves both chauvinism and feminism because
he is the author of both. And he whispers into the ears of
the woman saying, surely God did not make man the leader of his
household. And he writes into television
scripts. You've seen it.
And he writes into comedy skits that fathers are stupid and
they're not worthy of the respect of their families and
his desires that wives not respect their husbands.
And the outcome is that we believe a real woman is
independent and she doesn't need a man.
And so we confuse freedom and independence with biblical
strength. And so women become weak rather
than strong. And then Satan whispers into the
ears of men. He says, look at your strength
and your stature and your authority.
Surely you are meant to rule over your wife.
And his desire is that husbands do not love their wives.
And so strength becomes humility.
Not humility and servitude, but domination and control and
unilateral decision making. And so the outcome is dominance
and control are confused with biblical strength.
And men again become weak rather than strong.
And to both husbands and wives, Satan whispers in their ears
saying your spouse exists for you to get what you want out of
life. And what's the outcome of that?
If we believe marriage primarily exists to make us happy, and
then we're not happy, then we disregard marriage because it's
not fulfilling its purpose. So the truth of Ephesians 5 is
that marriage is not about you at all, has very little to do
first and foremost with you. Paul says in verse 32, our
marriage is a mystery. And as a mystery, it's
communicating something else. It's communicating something
that has nothing to do with you. It's first and foremost about
Jesus Christ and his love for his church.
So the strength of your marriage is first, not in your its
ability to make you happy. It's its ability to point to the
gospel and the love that Jesus has for his church.
That's first and foremost the strength of your marriage.
And the second is its capacity to make you not happy, to make
you holy. It pictures Jesus Christ and it
makes you like Jesus Christ, which is why Paul Tripp says of
marriages. They're not vehicles for
happiness, but instruments for redemption.
And when you look at it as an opportunity for it to sanctify
you and to wash you, all of a sudden it becomes something very
beautiful. And when these marriages are
ordered correctly, then there's seasons, seasons where you are
tremendously happy, which is why there's a London Baptist named
Samuel Stennett. He says the woman was created
and given to the man in marriage, not merely for the
purpose of propagating the species.
It's not just a means to an end, he says, but for that of
promoting his and her own Felicity.
That is their highest happiness. Marriage has the ability in a,
in its season to make you tremendously happy.
And the design of marriage, as you've seen, has been there from
the beginning, since before the fall.
This design and ordering has been there in the beginning.
God created Adam. The highest and best of God's
creation was male and female. He brought them together in the
institution of marriage and he called it very good.
He made woman to be man's helpmate, his azer.
We're going to speak on that, and this design of marriage is
what our passage in Ephesians 5 is communicating, and it teaches
this design of marriage in the context of living a spirit
filled life. So the spirit filled life,
praise God, is not lived in a vacuum.
This is not something that's theoretical.
This is not something that theological.
But God takes these grand truths and the beauty of Ephesians 4 to
6, as He says, and now it has implications for how you joke
with your friends and what you do at work and how you talk to
one another and for your life and for your interaction with
your children, your friendships, your relationships.
And the main verb that came all the way back in verse 18, you
could look back. The main verb is be filled with
the Spirit, and that verb endures through section headings
and paragraph markers, and it works its way all the way down
into this passage. And we said two weeks ago that
these participles that are depending on this main verb are
related to it in one of two ways.
It's either result, meaning that because we're filled with the
spirit, then we communicate to one another in psalms, hymns,
and spiritual songs, and we express gratitude and we're not
filled with much wine. And children are obeying their
parents, and wives are submitting to their husbands,
and husbands are loving their wives.
Or it's communicating means, meaning if you do these things,
if you are addressing to one another in psalms, hymns, and
spiritual songs, if you are refraining from much wine, if
you are submitting to your husbands and loving your wives,
then you will be filled with the Spirit.
So whether being filled with the Spirit is the root or the fruit,
in this case, it makes no difference for you.
Ephesians 522 to 33 is the pattern for your household,
whether it's the root or the fruit, this is your life.
When somebody looks at you, they should say, I've seen this
before. I've seen it in Paul.
And so he takes the spirit filled life and now it gets very
personal. He brings it into your
household, your relationship with your children, as Chris
preached last week, your relationship with your wife,
your relationship with your husband.
And if your cry is that I don't feel like my life is blessed in
these areas, then this morning's the opportunity to examine
whether you're living to these bedrock, foundationable
principles for marriage. This is a chance to examine your
life, examine your heart, examine your marriage, and see
whether they conform to God's standard.
So Paul's going to address husbands and wives.
He starts with the wives. So we'll start with the wives
and he gives them wisdom for how to live successfully, for how to
live well in their own household.
And we'll follow this pattern. There's a, a repeating theme.
You're going to see what we'll follow it through with the wives
and then we'll go back and follow it through with the
husbands. He gives the address who he's
talking to. Then he gives the imperative or
the a command that is to be obeyed.
Then he gives amplification, he amplifies it and then he gives
the motivation for it. So we'll see the addressee, the
imperative, the amplification, and the motivation, beginning
first with the wives. Read verses 22 to 24 with me
again. We'll refresh our memory.
He says, wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord.
For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ, as 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.
So the address is to the wives. That's clear.
And and the imperative that he gives is submit to your
husband's, submit to your husband's as the leaders of your
households. And that word submission is very
important. It means to to put into
subjection to be under the authority of or to take a
subordinate place of or position to and this was a military word
which meant literally to fall under rank.
And it's important to to understand that what Paul is
asking is you say, do I have to do everything my husband tells
me to? Paul says this is volitional.
This is of the will. He's saying as a as an extension
of your service to Jesus Christ, submit your your will to your
husband's. He's saying it's, it's
volitional. Enjoy submit yourself.
And it's also important to understand that this is
something that Paul's not just commanding the wives.
This is something he commands of all of us.
You go back one verse to verse 21.
He says all of you submit to one another.
This is what we do as a local church.
We do it every time we have a membership here.
Do you submit to these individuals as they are
submitting to you to keep us believing, to keep us oriented
toward Christ even when we follow the way.
This is something that we're all called to submissions.
The pattern of every believer. And when you come to Ephesians
522, you'll see that that verb is even missing.
It doesn't say wives submit to your husbands.
It's actually literally reading this way, submitting to one
another out of reverence for Christ, wives to your own
husbands. And so he's saying generally,
there's a general sense in which we all submit to one another.
And then there's a specific sense in this household that God
has ordained in this nuclear family that the wives submit to
their own husbands. And she says also that she
submits as an aside to her own husband.
That word is there and and husbands are leaders of their
own wives. This is not saying that every
wife has to submit to everybody else's husband in this nuclear
family that you have entered into A1 flesh covenant with.
This is what you're agreeing to. This is what you're signing on
for. And it's also helpful to see
what submission does not mean. Submission does not mean that
the wife has no voice in marriage and is not allowed to
disagree with her husband's decisions or even has the
ability to warn her husband about the direction the family's
going. But it does mean that the
husband is going to bear the weight of responsibility for the
decisions that he makes for with respect to his family.
In practice, that means if, if the husband is offered a job on
the far corners of the country making a few thousand extra
dollars, he first talks to his wife and he considers her.
And he says, am I really going to uproot my, my wife and my
kids from their context and their friends and their family
and her job just to go and make a few thousand extra dollars?
And he says no. And he, he, he submits that and
he lays that down for what's best for his wife.
And in the same way, when the wife sees a call on the life of
her husband to be an entrepreneur or to be a
missionary or to be a church planter, she says, where you go,
I will go because God has designed me to be your helpmate.
And there she will be with him. And it also means that the
decision, even if it's the wrong decision, even if it was the
idea of the wife is ultimately the responsibility of the
husband. That's right.
And so in scripture, our, our culture says that there's a, a
dependency, a mutual submission of the husbands and the wives.
And we, we don't see that here. There's an ordering of the
family. We see a, a mutual dependence
on, on men and women, but not at the level of leadership.
You see it in the beginning when the design was set, God says
that he took woman out of man and then man would then come
from woman. And there you have this mutual
dependence, as as woman got her being from man, and then man
gets his being from woman. And there's other principles
that that Scripture pulls on from the creation and even from
the beginning it's it says that in life and in marriage, Adam
was created 1st and then Eve. And that's an important
principle. Scripture makes much of of this
principle as you work through the Bible.
It says it has application for how we order our worship
services and it has application for how we order our marriages.
This principle, the Adam was first and then Eve, first
Timothy 211 to 13. Let a woman learn quietly and
here's our word with all submissiveness in the context of
worship service. I do not permit a woman to teach
for Adam was formed first, then Eve and extremely important at
at this point is to bring another principle that's been
there from the beginning to say that does that mean if if a
woman is to submit to the leadership of the man that a
woman is somehow less than man and right there at the
beginning, God provides his truth.
Genesis 127 the highest, most beautiful part all of Genesis
127 you ask any Hebrew scholar, he'll say the language is
pointing to this, The grammar is pointing to this.
You can't wait until you get to 127 the height of creation.
So God created man in his own image and the image of God, he
created him male and female, He created them.
We are equally glorious. The height of God's creation, of
equal dignity, of equal worth after His likeness made in the
image of God, equally sinners in need of a Savior.
Men, male and female, are equal, but we say they are different in
their roles. Men taking on the role of leader
and woman taking on the role of helper in marriage.
And problems come when we despise God's design.
That's the AB CS of marriage. And I've I've heard the role of
leadership and marriage likened to the one who drives the car.
And so the the illustration goes like this.
The husband drives the car and he begins to lose his way.
He quits asking for directions, he quits taking instruction,
begins to get distracted, and he crashes the family into a ditch.
And like in any marriage, tensions get high, arguments
ensue, and the wife becomes frustrated.
And the husband in that moment could say, fine, if you think
that you can do it better than what you drive, that would be
the abdication of the leadership role rather than repenting of
bad leadership and, and saying, I want to try again and I want
to do this better. And he surrenders his leadership
responsibilities. And then the opposite can be
true in a marriage. If, if, if the husband here we
go, the car's in the ditch again.
And now the wife can say, if this is where your leadership
has taken us, then move over. I'm driving now and you would
have a complete reversal of the leadership roles, a reordering
of the leadership. And so when a, when a husband's
leadership fails, the design of Scripture is not to go find a
new leader. That's not what happens with
with Jesus and his disciples. When the 11 disciples fail like
cowards, he doesn't say, well, it's time to start over.
I'm going to get 11 new disciples.
He comes and he restores them. He puts them back to their task
and when the failure of leadership happens, what is to
happen is the husband has to confess I missed it.
I wasn't attentive. I wasn't leading well and I
wasn't leading you well. He confesses this to his wife
and you say help me see clearly, stay with me.
I'm responsible for getting us home.
And the wife must likewise take responsibility and confess I
missed it too. I have not been the helpmate
that God designed me to be. I was I still trust you and I
still want you to lead us in the image of Ephesians 5 is that the
wife takes the hands of the husband and puts them back on
the wheel and says lead us again.
I will help you and together we'll get where we're going.
We will do better from this day forward.
That's biblical marriage and biblical leadership.
If you saw the the addressee, you see the the command of the
wife and now the amplification as he impresses in the
significance of this. He says wives are to submit to
their husbands as to the Lord and I pray the weight of that
will rest on your shoulders and what he's saying to that.
What he means by that is he's saying there's a higher
authority than the husband and it's Jesus Christ.
What's Paul requiring of wives here to submit as to the Lord.
You can look ahead to chapter 6, verse seven.
He makes it even more clear, talking in the context of what
Chris preached of of children and and servants, it says they
are to render service with a goodwill as to the Lord and not
to man. And so here the idea comes
clearly. Wives are submitting to their
husbands with Christ as their primary authority.
And so they're asked to submit to their husbands because a
derivative authority has been given from God to the husbands
and they're actually submitting to their husband as part of
their service to Jesus Christ. That's what it's saying, which
means that when Paul says submit in everything, he doesn't mean,
including when your husband asks you to do something sinful, he's
saying there's a higher authority that you're obliged
to. Christ is your ultimate
authority. Your husband has a derivative
authority that God has given him.
And so she submits to her husband as part of her love for
Christ and her responsibility to serve him.
And we can stop here. And I can hear the objections of
women. You can raise your own saying,
but have you met my husband? Do you know him?
Have you? You want me to submit to him?
He's an imperfect man in every way.
And verse 22 to 24 gives the response, Jesus is the only
perfect leader. Amen.
We are imperfect. So all women face the challenge
of following imperfect leadership in the home.
Nancy Lay Demas says we don't live in an ideal world with
ideal men who perfectly follow the Ephesian instruction to love
their wives as Christ loved the Church and laid down his life
for her. Like Adam, many husbands fail to
lead or sacrificially love, she goes on.
And like Eve, many wives rationalize about submission,
inwardly mouthing Satan's condescending question.
Surely God didn't say that and so this is counter cultural and
often counter intuitive. But it's true that there is
great power in submitting to an imperfect husband.
First Corinthians 714 is the test case for this.
It says that the submissive conduct of a wife toward her
husband coupled with her Christ like character has the power to
sanctify a house and God can use it to heal and actually restore
and save the soul of her husband.
Paul says for the unbelieving husband is sanctified through
his wife, for otherwise your children are unclean, but now
they are holy. Should a wife submit to her
backslidden or unbelieving husband?
The answer is yes. Elizabeth George, our submission
to our husbands preaches a lovelier and more powerful
sermon than our mouths ever could.
And so if you're a wife and you're struggling with this
issue, God knows, God knows he put wisdom for this, such a
thing as this in his word. First, Peter 3 is more of the
household code, a little bit different perspective versus one
to six. Let this wash over you.
Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husband's, so that even
if some do not obey the word, they may be 1 without a word by
the conduct of their wives, when they see your respectful and
pure conduct. Don't let your adorning be
external, the braiding of your hair, or the putting on of gold
jewelry, or the clothing that you wear.
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 holy women hoped
in God, who hoped in God, used to adorn themselves by
submitting to their own husbands, as Sarah obeyed
Abraham, calling him Lord. And you are her children.
If you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening, we
move. Lastly, what's your motivation
to do this? If that wasn't motivation
enough, Paul gives a motivation. He says as the church submits to
Christ, that's your motivation. So wives should submit and
everything to their husbands. So the motivation is this is
about how you image the gospel. That's what's at stake here.
Wives follow the leadership of their husbands even as the
church follows the leadership of Christ.
And I hope again that the weight of that will will rest on you.
It will be sobering. Husbands, this ought to be the
most sobering passage in the entire Bible for you, that God
has called your wife to submit to you and you are the only
leader. If she remains faithful to you
that she will ever have, you're all she gets and you are.
She's relying on you as your provider, as her provider, as
her protector, as her lover, as the shepherd and the leader of
her family. And you are subject to God for
how well you lead her. Which is why the spotlight now
shifts to the husbands in Ephesians 525 to 33.
Read with me and we'll remind ourselves of the duty of the
husbands. Husbands, love your wives as
Christ loved the Church, and gave Himself up for her, so that
He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of
water with the Word, so that he might present the Church to
himself and splendor without spot or wrinkle, or any such
thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.
In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own
bodies, for he who loves his wife loves himself.
No one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it,
just as Christ does the Church, because we are members of His
body. Therefore, a man shall leave
father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall
become one flesh. This mystery is profound, and
I'm saying that it refers to Christ and the Church.
However, let each one of you love his wife and himself, and
let the wife see that she respects her husband.
The same pattern we're going to follow, the same pattern you
follow with the wives. We follow with the husband.
Address imperative, amplification, motivation.
He now addresses the husbands. Listen up.
The most comprehensive passage in the Bible on the ordering of
the household with the husband, with, I mean by far some 120
words in the original language. And what's the imperative to
you? Love your wives, Love your wives
above all things, what's to categorize you?
And this relationship with your wife is love.
And it's kind of humorous that there's only one time in
Scripture that wives are told to love their husbands.
It's in Titus 2. It's much more natural, I think,
for wives to love their husbands.
Or maybe husbands don't listen well.
So that's why in this passage, 8 verses, he has to tell us three
times, love your wives, love your wives, love your wives.
Ephesians 523 Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the
church. And a lot of you didn't hear it,
so I'm going to say it again. Ephesians 528 Husbands should
love their wives as their own bodies.
Ephesians 533, if you still haven't heard, let each one of
you love your wife as himself. As you go, he presses it in more
and more, and you can't escape the obligation that Paul is
putting on the shoulders of husbands.
He's pressing down on you to love your wife.
And then he gives this amplification as your own body,
love your wife as you love yourself more than you love
yourself. But there's one thing I know
I've been on this planet almost 37 years.
It's that people love themselves.
Anybody notice that? Everybody wants.
They want to talk about themselves, they want to seek
their highest good, they want their pleasure.
People care about themselves, they want their happiness, Paul
says in verse 29. No one ever hated his own flesh.
This is the natural tendency. We don't hate our own flesh by
nature, but we nourish it and we cherish it.
And Paul completely inverts the natural tendency of our own
hearts, or at least for the husbands.
And he says love your wife as you love yourself.
Love your wife more than you love yourself.
Put her first. So husband, you're going to want
to put yourself first. But he says she now comes first.
That's what you're signing up for.
If you're not married yet, this is what you're signing up for.
She comes first. You used to seek your own
welfare. Now you seek hers.
You seek her highest good. You seek her pleasure.
You treasure her, you exalt her, you honor her.
And there just as there wasn't a clause for wives that said
submit to your own husbands. As long as he's doing a really
good job and as long as your personality type is 1 of
submissiveness and as long as he deserves it.
So you're to submit to him. It's not what it says.
And men, there's not a little clause in here that says lead
your wife well as long as she's satisfying all of your needs and
as long as she deserves it. It says three times, it's a
command. You love her well and you do it
because God is commanding you right here.
You are to do it. It's a divine imperative.
And you love her well because she's your soulmate and she's
your helpmate given by God and you love her well because it's
her right to it and it's your joy to do it.
And if every husband looked out for his wife as much as he
looked out for himself, we'd have a lot more women that would
gladly submit themselves to their husbands.
We've a lot more healthy marriages in our church.
So the command of the husbands, just make it easy for your wife
to submit to your leadership by loving her.
So if you want to love her, well, husband scripture saying
if you want your wife to respect you and if you want your wife to
submit to you and serve you and bless you, go and win her heart.
Win her heart 1st and then ask her to follow you.
There's no great leader that comes to the front and says now
everybody's submit to me and my authority.
You'll never have anybody wanting to submit to a man like
that, a woman like that. Leaders are called great when
they first win the hearts of their people and they use the
authority as an opportunity to serve.
If you want an example for that, he says it's right here, it's
Jesus Christ, it's servant leadership.
So husbands, win the hearts of your wife, win the hearts of
your children, and then they'll follow you anywhere.
Make it easy for them by loving them well.
Don't make it harder than it has to be.
And by the way, if your wife struggles submitting to your
leadership, you can compare that with the example that Paul has
given to you here. How well do you submit to your
leader, Jesus Christ? How perfectly are you in
submission to the one that God has put in authority over you?
And we say, how much less or how much harder is it for your wife
to struggle to follow you, a Sinner.
Read well, love well, and give grace.
Give grace when she falls short. Grace upon grace.
And our culture looks at this pattern of marriage and they
call it pejoratively patriarchy. So this is power imbalance, this
is subjection, this is oppression, this is patriarchy.
I pulled a few quotes from the literature of our culture for
how they would describe this passage.
The CBE Christians for Biblical Equality published saying CB ES
mission is to eliminate the power imbalance between men and
women resulting from theological patriarchy.
One blog post said marriage is an unsalvageable lie designed to
keep women in service to patriarchy and away from
realizing our full our full potential.
We should reject it entirely, another said.
Patriarchy, sexism and misogyny affect every bride without
exception. So I want to go back another 300
years and read you a letter. This is 1 Puritan patriarch
writing to his oppressed and maltreated wife.
He starts. My dearest, I am now at the
greatest distance from you in person that I ever was, or hope
I ever shall be. Yet I've never been near to you
in affection, and perhaps never more sensible of my happiness.
And being so near to you in relation, I've often thought of
you this day, which has indeed been indeed been a very pleasant
one, and pleasant days I would especially desire to share with
you. Remember Me to the dear
children, and tell them I'm very glad to hear they're doing so
well, and that I pray for them every day.
Their dear Mama has to make sure she is not forgotten.
I hope we shall have many comfortable days and Sabbaths
together, and in the meantime, let us, whether present or
absent from each other, own the Divine goodness in preserving us
so graciously thus long, and endeavour to prepare more and
more for that better world where so many of our dear friends are
awaiting us, and where there will be no more absence in the
pleasant views of it. I am, my dearest, your most
affectionate Philip Doddridge. Min How?
Many of your texts to your. Wife Sound.
Like that? How?
Many wives. Is this your response to your
husband's? Your letter, delightful as it
was, had a very different effect, and filled my mind with
great anxiety and concern, and made me almost tremble to think
that you're mortal. This fear was increased by much
by a consciousness of the extreme tenderness my heart
feels for you, which sometimes makes me dread lest I should
send you away by giving you the place in my heart which ought to
be sacred to God Alone, next to whom I'm believed I'm permitted
to love you. Pray I may rest there entirely
and affectionately yours, Mrs. Doddridge.
What a poor oppressed woman She is victim of the patriarchy.
Now she's loved and she's cherished and so husbands, as we
look to this text that is written for you, we see the
Bible knows your needs and they know God knew what you needed to
feel fulfilled. You are fulfilled when your wife
respects you. You are fulfilled when your wife
submits to your leadership and God wrote the the song of songs,
the greatest of all songs, which is celebrating the marriage bed
and you're fulfilled when when when there's shared intimacy and
scripture reminds husbands and wives never to withhold that
intimacy from one another. But men, you also have to
remember that in the same way your wives are fulfilled when
you verse 25 love her Elizabeth Elliott.
Said the greatest good A. Father can do for his children
is love their mother when you give yourself to her, serving
her. Verse 25, Verse 29, when you
cherish her and serve her. Verse 28, like Christ's bride,
she wants you to say in your eyes that she's the most
beautiful thing and there's no blemish or spot.
She wants to hear you speak words like this.
Peter says in first Peter 27 that you have to live with your
wife in an understanding way. What it means for that is your
wife feels fulfilled and she is fulfilled when you understand
her. If you were the leader of your
wife, how can you lead her well if you don't know her
weaknesses? How can you lead her if you
don't know her strengths so that you can Marshall those strengths
in service of Christchurch? You have to understand your
wives. You're commanded to learn about
her. You would do well to start a
file and your phone. These are the things my wife
loves and to look at it regularly, I.
Was heard a. Speaker at our counselling
training this week who kind of brings some sobering thought to
this. He says that rarely in Scripture
does God ever say stop praying. Rarely does he ever say I don't
want to hear your prayers anymore.
In the words of the speaker, He says rarely does he ever say
stop talking to me. I'm tired of hearing your
annoying voice. You look at this context of this
household. Code.
Peter says to husbands who fail to honor their wives, I will not
hear your prayers. Your prayers are hindered.
God says don't fail to lead your wife, don't fail to honor your
wife, don't fail to praise your wife and then come to me asking
for blessing. If you want blessing out of
relationship with your wife, with your wife, don't.
Don't make her compete for your love.
Don't make her compete with Sports Center and ESPN.
Don't make her stare at the back of your head while you watch TV
and scroll the Internet. Don't make her compete with
games. Don't make her compete with the
gym. Don't make her compete with your
long hours at work. There shouldn't be any confusion
if I ask your kids what you love.
It shouldn't be hard for your kids to say my dad loves my mom.
And it should flow out of you, Let love flow out of you and
make your wife feel like she's the most important thing in your
household because for you she is.
She is the most important thing to you.
And so men, do you honor your wife?
Do you pray? With her.
Do you love her? Do you praise her?
As Faith has already read and Proverbs 31, as the husband
praises his wife, saying many daughters have done nobly, but
you excel them all. You praise her publicly.
Do you serve her? Do you teach her?
Are you the? Man of your house or?
Is that the role of your wife? Do you have to have your wife
set your alarm to wake you up to be here for church?
Is your wife the one who instructs your kids in spiritual
things? Or is it you if you serve her
sacrificially, if you pursue her with strength and 4th force, if
you love her as the most cherished thing in your world so
far as it depends on you, your marriage will be blessed.
That's what Scripture's saying. And it will reignite in her that
passion and that desire to follow you wherever you go.
And so, if, if this has not been your marriage to this point, if
this is not you, if this passage does not describe you, today is
the day to reorder your marriage and to reorder your life to
prioritize your marriage. Husbands, if your leadership has
ended with your car on the ditch, today is the day to try
again. Wives, if your husband has done
a poor job of leading your family, today is the day to put
his hands back on the wheel and to say to him, we're going to do
better from this day forward because I am going to help you.
That is what God designed me to do.
And you see in Scripture all the way in the beginning that God
says to wives, you are your husband's helpmate.
And this doesn't mean you're his helper like your 3 year old
helps you bake cookies in the kitchen.
That's it's your help mate. Like you are his armor bearer in
war. That's the context in Scripture.
This is a word that is, it's an honorable term and it's an
honorable position. It's one that God uses of
himself when he talks about his church.
Psalm 54, four, Behold, God is my helper.
The Lord is the sustainer of my soul.
First Samuel 712 Samuel took a stone and named it Ebenezer and
literally Evan Azer, a stone of help, saying the Lord is my
helper. Thus far the Lord has helped me.
Hebrews 13, six he says we confidently say the Lord is my
helper. I will not be afraid.
What can man do to me? So is the church's submission to
Jesus was the driving motivation for women.
Jesus Christ himself is the driving motivation for men.
You say, what's the motivation for men?
The gospel Jesus Christ is your motivation.
We look to him and we say what he has.
All authority, all authority on heaven and earth has been given
to me. What did Jesus do without
authority on behalf of his bride He laid down?
His life and became. The Savior of the church.
What is the husband to do with his authority?
He has to lay down his life and love and serve his wife.
And as the church gladly submits to a leader who loves and
pursues us, so in a healthy marriage, a wife will gladly
submit to her leader who loves and pursues her.
So husbands, don't be a tyrant. Don't advocate.
Abdicate your leadership. Jesus says that's how secular
faithless leaders do they. They dominate people.
He says it must not be so among you.
Be a bold and faithful Christian leader to your wives and your
children and your household. We'll be blessed.
Final words As you come into verse 31, I want you to see what
Paul quotes because he quotes this.
He takes you all the way back to the beginning, all the way back
to Genesis. He takes you to those few verses
right before the fall when Adam and Eve were living in a perfect
world and in a perfect marriage. And then these last verses, by
quoting Genesis 224, Paul actually actually takes you back
to the time before we were deceived.
And he reminds you that this has been his design for marriage and
his ideal from the very beginning.
And you see that as that change occurs, as the as the husband
failed and as the wife failed, it didn't go well for them.
There was upheaval and there was disorder.
But when you are a hearer and. A doer of God's word, wives
submitting to their husbands, Husbands loving their wives as
Christ loved the church. This is your closest experience
of Eden. I think that's what he's saying.
This is as close to Eden as it gets, which is why he says they
were naked and felt no shame. Their only place you can be in
this world where you are naked and feel no shame is in the
marriage room, in the marriage bed.
It's Eden revisited and your marriage is.
Even though it was marred by the fall, Paul's saying it's still a
beautiful and enduring picture of Jesus Christ.
It's pictured in Song of Solomon, 2-3 to four as an apple
tree among the trees of the forest.
So is my beloved among young men.
He brought me to his banqueting house, and his banner over me
was love, not domination or any other thing.
His banner over me was love. Chapter 3, verse four.
I found him and whom my soul loves.
Wives, make this your call. I held him, and I will never let
him go. And husbands of wives, you can
write songs. Solomon 86 On your doorpost of
your house and on your gate, Memorize it together.
He says, set as a seal, set me as a seal upon your heart and as
a seal upon your arm. For love is strong as death,
jealousy as fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire
and the very flame of the Lord. Many waters cannot quench love,
neither can floods drown it. If you're married and you're in
the room, I want you to look to your wife right now and say
this. Many waters cannot quench this
love. And Paul's final charge recaps
everything. He's taught Ephesians 533, Let
each one of you love his wife as himself and let the wife see
that she respects her husband. Church, pray with me, God help
us that you've given sinful men a responsibility in this world
to be leaders of churches and leaders of families.
And God, we know that we fall short every day.
And God, we pray for wives in the.
Room who you've called. To submit to sinful men who
truly we want what's best teach us we we say when we fall short.
To want what's best to to have this be a true friendship in the
ancient sense of the word. To want what's best in our
spouse. To seek their virtue and their
highest good God give women and wives grace when they fall
short. But may this be our standard
change our hearts Orient our hearts that this would be our
ideal. The ABC's the bedrock
foundations of our marriage that we would order it after your
love for the church. And I pray that when people look
at this church, when they look at heritage Church, they would
see the gospel because of the the love between husbands and
wives. This ordering God that you have
designed. May it be so here.
We pray that we may strengthen others, the marriages that are
failing not only here but in our culture.
Lord, that you would strengthen them, and we would be pictures
of the gospel in Christ name, Amen.