Well, this morning we've come to the passage in the book of Ephesians, which I think, I was trying to think through the whole book, I think this has to be the most controversial and most counter-cultural passage in the entire book of Ephesians. And that is in Ephesians chapter five. Go ahead and find a Bible, turn to Ephesians chapter five, and the verse is this one that it starts with, Ephesians 5.22, wives, submit to your own husbands. Just saying that verse, depending on where you're at or who you're with, what company you're in, that might be a bomb dropped right there. We live in a society here in America and in the Western world that is just anti-authority, anti-submission, pretty much in every way. I was reading John Stott's commentary this week. He was an evangelical Anglican pastor. And he wrote this in his commentary, he says, the very notion of submission and authority is out of fashion today. Almost nothing is calculated to arouse more angry protests than talks of submission. And guess when he wrote those words? 50 years ago, in 1979. So if he thought that in 1979, man, that you start talking about submission, people are immediately gonna be enraged. How about 50 years later? It definitely hasn't improved since then. Our society is anti-submission. And forget about even the world at large, but this is a passage that's not even popular among many Christians. I think there are many true Christians who follow Christ, but do not, can't wrap their mind around this passage. So this morning we're gonna look at scripture and there's one question I want us to answer this morning and something else that I hope will be accomplished. We're gonna look at scripture and try to answer this question. What does this command mean? It says wives submit to your husbands. What does this mean? What does this look like? We need to be crystal clear on what this command is all about. First of all so we can follow it well. If this is a command that God has given us in his word we want to follow it, we want to do it right. But also, if we're going to believe this very counter-cultural thing, if we're gonna actually live in light of this verse, we need to know exactly what it means, be clear on what it means, so we can explain it to people who are gonna hate this verse when you tell it to them. So that's our main task this morning, is to figure out what this verse is talking about, wives submit to your husbands. But I hope, along the way, it's my prayer for us this morning, that we wouldn't just believe that scripture teaches this and go, okay, yeah, that's right, yeah, I think that is what scripture says about this. Not that we would just believe it and kind of do it because we have to, because Scripture says it, but that we would actually love it, that we would love God's law, because there is not a word in Scripture that is wasted. There's not anything in there that's arbitrary or just to throw in as extra rules for us. Scripture is there for our good. This command, the way marriage is supposed to work, according to Scripture, it's for our good. And I want Scripture this morning, it's my prayer that Scripture will shape our hearts not just to obey it, but to love what it says there in this chapter. I'm first gonna start by reading the whole section on marriage and explain what I think the whole point of the passage is. And then we're just gonna zero in on one half of the equation here for wives and see what is this command for wives in marriage. And husbands, we'll come back to you next week. So we've got a two-parter. This week, we're gonna talk about wives. Next week, husbands. But first, let's just read this whole passage, starting in Ephesians 5. I'm gonna start in verse 21, actually, which is where we finished last week. Let me read the whole thing and explain what we think the whole point is. Here's Ephesians 5 verse 21, Submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. 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 must submit in everything to their husbands. 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, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is profound, and I am 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. This is the word of the Lord. So here's the point of this whole passage. Husbands and wives should fulfill their marriage roles because marriage is a picture of the gospel. That's Paul's main point in this passage, and I just wanted to point out the flow of where we've gone from this passage. If you look back at verse 18, there's this command, be filled with the Spirit, And then verses 19 through 21 are ways that we are filled with the Spirit. Like Pastor Paul preached on last week. So, be filled with the Spirit by addressing one another, singing, giving thanks to the Lord, and, verse 21, by submitting to one another. And then verse 21 forms this sort of hinge verse. It finishes the idea of be filled with the Spirit by submitting to one another. And then Paul launches into what does that look like? Okay, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. First of all, wives and husbands, what does that look like? Second of all, children and parents, what does that look like? Third of all, servants and masters, what does that look like? So Paul is going to give three examples of Submission in the church. What should this look like? What does it look like to submit to one another out of reverence for Christ? The first example he gives is what should our marriages look like in light of this? So that's what we're looking at this morning. He gives a command to wives to submit to their husbands, a command to husbands to love their wives, and then here's the reason for this whole thing. Here's the culminating point of the whole passage. Look again at verse 31. Paul quotes Genesis 2.24. Verse 31 here is a direct quote of Genesis 2.24. And his culminating point here in this passage is to quote Genesis and then say, hey guys, this is a mystery. This refers to Christ in the church. So what's the mystery here? The mystery is that from the very beginning of time, from that first week of creation, when God created men and women and created marriage, the whole point of it was to point towards this cosmic redemption that he was going to fulfill in Christ. This is really what the whole book of Ephesians has been about this whole time, which makes sense why Paul goes here, but remember as we've gone through this book, the whole first three chapters are about how we used to be dead in our trespasses, we used to have no inheritance, not be a people, and then from before the foundation of the world, God decided to send his son to create a people for himself, to take these people who are lost and dead, bring them to life, and make them into his body, the church. That has been God's cosmic plan of redemption from the very beginning. He accomplished it in Christ on the cross. And right now, more and more people are coming into this body. This is us, guys. We are the people Christ has purchased to be his body. And what Paul is saying is, Marriage, which God instituted in the very beginning, God always meant for this to reveal part of this mysterious thing that's been revealed to us now, that Christ is going to have a people for himself that are going to be his people, he's gonna be united with them. And one day, when Christ returns, there will be a great marriage supper where finally, we as his church will join him as the husband and be united with him for all eternity. Paul says, alright guys, the point of marriage, here's the reason why I'm giving you these rules, here's the reason why there's these roles and different things in marriage, it's because it's supposed to point to the reality that Christ saves his church, Christ loves his church, and that church in turn loves and submits to Christ. So that's the point of the whole passage. So now, we're gonna spend the rest of our time this morning just looking at one half of that, which is what is the wife's role in this equation? If marriage is supposed to be a picture of the gospel, What is the wives half of the role here? Now it's gonna be really hard to talk just about wives and not bring the husbands into it because they're very interconnected in this passage. It's not isolated commands. They're commands to both. The commands work together. But I'm gonna try my best to just stick with wives and save the husband stuff for next week. But I also, as we read this, If you're not a wife in here this morning, now is not the time to check out. This passage also applies to you. Of course, if you are a wife, it applies to you. If you have a wife, it applies to you. If you want to be a wife one day, it definitely applies to you. If you want to have a wife one day, it definitely applies to you. And if you are in our church and you go, I don't know man, I'm not gonna get married, or I'm a widow or a widower. It also applies to you too, because this passage has to do with the church. It has to do with how all of us live together as Christ's people, proclaiming the gospel with how we live together as a church. So let's get into it, let's see what this passage has to say about the role of the wife in marriage. So let me just read it again, verses 21 to 24. submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. 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." Here's the point for wives, okay? This is the main point of this for wives. It's pretty clear. It's right there in the text. Because the husband is the head of the wife, the wife should submit to her husband. That's exactly what it says. I think that's the clear point of the text. And I'm putting it in that order. Because the husband is the head, then the wife should submit, because that's Paul's logic here. Look at these verses. Verse 23 starts with, for the husband is the head of the wife. That's because, because the husband's the head of the wife, that's why he's giving this command about submission. So I wanna start first with the reality that Paul's telling us, which is that the husband's the head of the wife. Then we'll get into the command Paul's giving, which is to submit, okay? So here's the reality. Verse 23, we're going to start with just verse 23, the husband is the head of the wife. This means that, this is a reality that Paul is teaching, and it means that the husband has some sort of authoritative, ruling, leadership role in marriage. You can think about, if you think about marriage, you think about a husband and a wife, think about them as sort of offices that God has created, or maybe a job that God has created, where they're not exactly the same. There's an office of husband, an office of wife, and if you read the job description for the two, they're not exactly the same, and the way they relate to each other are not exactly the same, and they're not interchangeable. Only men can apply for the one, only women can apply for the other and get that job, And the jobs don't switch. And so he's gonna explain what the two roles and jobs are, the office of husband and wife. But one thing that is true about the office of husband in every marriage is that the husband has a leadership role over the wife. That's what this word head of the wife means. And we know that's what it means because he compares it to Christ in the church. Verse 23, husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church. So in what way is Christ the head of his church? Well, we've already seen Paul talk about this in the book of Ephesians. If you have your Bibles, flip back just a few pages to Ephesians 1. Ephesians 1, I'm going to start reading starting in verse 20, and listen for the word head to show up here. Ephesians 1, verse 20. So he's talking about the immeasurable greatness of his power, Verse 20, that God worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and above every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come. And he put all things under his feet and he gave Jesus as head over all things to the church. This verse is talking about how Jesus has been given authority over everything. I mean, I don't think Paul could have said it any more clearly. What about rule? Yeah, he's over that. Authority? Yep, he's over that. Power? Dominion? He just keeps going. Everything's been put under his feet. And now that he's the rule of everything, he's been given as the head of the church. So the word, of course there's been many debates in church history, not necessarily church history, in the last 70 years about what this word head means, but I think you look at how Christ compares it. He says Christ is the head of the church, the husband is the head of the wife. In what way is Christ the head of the church? He's its savior, it says in verse 24. It's his body. He purchased it with his own blood. He is the master of the church. He is the shepherd of the church. He's the king of the church. Christ has an authoritative role in his church, and Paul is saying, in a similar way, husbands have the authoritative role in marriage. I want to point out one more thing about verse 23, which I think is very interesting. Notice what Paul says. He says the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church. Paul's not giving a command, husbands, how about you act like the head of your wife, or the husband's the head of his wife whenever he is doing a good job and knows that he's, no, he just is. Inherent in marriage from the very beginning, from Genesis chapter two, when God instituted this as an institution, marriage, with a husband and a wife as the two offices of marriage, the husband is the leader in that marriage. That's the reality. Even if people don't recognize it, even if they're a non-believer walking down the street, they've never heard of this before, that just is what it says. That is the reality. So even if the husband's not living up to his headship, whatever the case may be, the reality is the husband is the head of his wife. That's what it means to be a husband. That's what it means to be a wife. That's the two roles. Okay. So it's in light of this reality that Paul then starts talking about submission. Why is Paul talking about submission? It's because the husband is the head of the wife. That's the logic of this paragraph. Now, I think this should raise a lot of questions in our mind when you think about this. Like, okay, so if this is true, that the husband is the head of the wife, what does that look like? In what way does he exercise his authority? Does the wife just have no responsibilities? Is she just passively along for the ride? Is she supposed to just be quiet and not do anything? What does this mean? How does this work out? That's what Paul's gonna talk about. That's his command in verses 22 and 24. So, again, the point is, because the husband's the head of the wife, wives should submit. That's what he says in verses 22 and 24. So, he commands wives to submit. I think this means that the wife should willingly submit to her husband's leadership in the marriage. He says in verse 22 that this is as to the Lord, which is really interesting, submit to the husband as to the Lord. I don't think this means in the exact same way you submit to Jesus, of course not. Jesus is your Lord and Savior, your creator, your master. You listen and obey to everything Jesus says, because he's your master. So it's not exactly what it means for wives to husbands as to the Lord, but verse 22, I think that as to the Lord means submitting to your husband is part and parcel of submitting to Christ. When you come under the Lordship of Christ, when you are saved, and he has washed you clean of your sins and you have committed your life to him. One of the ways that you serve him as your master is to submit to your own husband. That's what it means to be with the Lord. This has to do with the gospel. This is not unconnected from our Christianity. Part of being a saved person is obeying Jesus as to the Lord. That means that part of that is submitting to your own husbands. Now in verse 24 he then says, it should look like as the church submits to Christ, and not just in anything, in everything in verse 24. I mean, that's kind of crazy when you read it, you go, in everything, in everything, wives are supposed to submit to their husbands. I think Charles Hodge explains this clearer than I can, so I'm just gonna read what he says about this in everything. He says, this of course does not mean that the authority of the husband is unlimited. It teaches its extent, not its degree. It extends over all departments, but it is limited in all. So you can think about it as as you're in this one flesh union, a man and a wife, you've come together to be this one flesh, serving the Lord together, as you're working together and living together and loving each other, in every area of your life, the wife should be following the husband's lead. There shouldn't be some area where she gets to do her own thing, you know, and just not care what her husband thinks. But in every area, you're working together as a couple with the husband taking the lead. So again, to summarize the command, I think this is wives willingly, you know, joyfully submitting to the leadership of their husband. And again, I think, you know, for all of the different arguments that have been thrown out against this passage, that can't be what it means. You know, in everything as to the church, is that really what it means? I think when you look at this idea of submission, this is all over the Bible. It's not just wives to husbands. The idea of submission is everywhere in Scripture. It's all over the place. For example, Luke 2, verse 51, Jesus, as a boy, submits to his parents because that's right, that's how God set it up. Luke 10, verse 17, the demons submit to the apostles because Christ has given them authority over the demons. Romans 13, every Christian is to be subject to the government. All of us Christians, same word, are to submit to the government. So it's all over scripture, the idea of submission. And one way that people try to soften the blow of this, like we go, wow, man, this is pretty serious, submit your husbands. They say, well, look at verse 21. Verse 21 says, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. So they go, hey, wives should submit to their husbands, but husbands should also submit to their wives. It's mutual submission. It's sort of one of the main arguments that's used in this passage to soften the meaning of the word submission. And I agree wholeheartedly that verse 21 does mean mutual submission. And the idea of mutual submission among Christians is all over the New Testament, it's everywhere. 1 Peter 5, 5 says that we should be humble towards one another. Actually in 1 Corinthians 7, there's this passage where it talks about how in marriage, the wife has authority over her husband's body and vice versa. Even in marriage, there's a mutual submission between husband and wife. How about Jesus washing his disciples' feet? He is God, he's the God of the universe. And he submits himself, condescends, lowers himself to wash his disciples' feet. We should absolutely walk in an attitude of humbleness towards one another as Christians, we absolutely should. But mutual submission does not mean totally equal submission in all circumstances. and it doesn't wipe out the distinction between offices, right? Jesus clearly still has authority over the disciples even as he condescends to wash their feet. If you just look down at the beginning of chapter six of this passage, children and parents are under the same heading of mutual submission. So in what way do parents submit to their children? Pastor Paul gave us an example last week of the mom who subjugates her own wants and desires for the desires and wants of her kid. The needs of her kid come before her needs, and in that way she's submitting to love her child. But that does not wipe out the authority between a parent and a child. I don't think anybody argues that. you know, hey, parents have authority. But hey, mutual submission. Parents, submit to your children. I mean, it just, nobody talks like that because mutual submission is true. It is also not wiping out the distinctions and the offices that are clear in scripture. So, hopefully you can see that in this passage, this is clear. There is an authority the husband has and the wife's role in marriage is to willingly put herself under that authority and follow his lead. So that's the point of the passage. I now want to offer for you guys, I've been trying to... I want to flesh this out a little bit and clarify a little bit so we can just be really crystal clear on what does this look like? What does this really mean? Let's not take this the wrong way. You know, let's get this right. So I've come up with six... denials and affirmations that explain what submission is. Sometimes in a creed, you can look this up later, but you know our Christology Creed we read sometimes? I believe in, I don't have it memorized actually, but the Christology Creed we read, the word may flush, there it is. On their website, if you go to their website, in addition to the creed, they also have affirmations and denials. They go, for example, we affirm that Christ is God, we deny that Christ was ever created, something like that. So that's what I've come up with for this. I have six of them. what submission is not and what it is instead. Okay, so here's six. Hopefully these will clarify what this means for us. Okay, so number one. Submission is not every woman to every man, it's just wives to husbands. This passage does not teach that submission is all men and women everywhere. This passage is teaching it's wives to their own husbands. Hopefully this was clear as we read through it, but Paul made it as clear as possible. He could have just said in verse 22, wives, submit to your husbands. But instead in verse 22 he says, wives, submit to your own husbands. Okay, he puts a whole extra word in there, a whole possessive pronoun to say, we're talking about your husbands. So this passage is about marriage. It's about submission within a marriage, within the roles of marriage. Now there might be other passages that expand on that. And you go, well what about this scenario? Or what about in this arena? You should talk about those passages this week at your growth group. That'd be a great topic to get into if you have time at growth group this week. But this passage is only talking about in marriage. Okay, that's the first denial and affirmation. Okay, here's the second. Submission is not inferiority. It is an equally important role. So submission doesn't mean the wife is inferior to her husband in any way. Submission means she has an equally important role in the marriage. The Bible is, I mean, there could not be a more clear idea in the Bible that all human beings are created in God's image. That's Genesis 127, male and female created in God's image. Also extremely clear in the New Testament is the idea that there is no male and female in Christ, that's Galatians 3, and that we are all co-heirs together. 1 Peter 3 specifically says husbands and wives are co-heirs in the gospel. So, the fact that there's two different roles in marriage and that one of them has authority does not mean that the wife is somehow less than, less important, less human, less whatever. That's utterly clear in scripture. But on top of that, this passage is not teaching that the husband's role is more important. In this passage, Paul is addressing wives and husbands on equal footing. Both the wife and the husband have a role that they have to do in marriage, and both roles are equally important. This would have been, if this passage is counter-cultural for us today, in the sort of anti-submission direction, if people are like, whoa, submission, this passage would have been counter-cultural to the Ephesians in the opposite direction, like, whoa, the wife has a role? They would have been like, what, you're talking to the wives? In the culture of the Roman Empire, it was husbands and that's it, man. There were household codes that were written around the same time. You can look them up. Aristotle wrote some of them. And in those, they'll talk to husbands, and they'll talk to, you know, slave owners, you know, and they'll talk to parents. But there's none of this. Wives also... For wives, what are you supposed to do? No, they had... It was a very ultra-authoritarian society, too far in that direction. So this is not saying that the husband has this great role. What Paul is doing here is by addressing wives first and by addressing wives equally with their husbands. They both have a role to play here. Paul is saying this is an important role for you to play. It's an equally important role. We need both for this to work. You can't just have one or the other. One of them's not more important than the other. You need both for these things to happen. So submission doesn't mean this is somehow lesser. Submission is actually your active thing that you're supposed to do for your marriage, equally as important as what your husband is doing. Okay, that's number two. Number three. Submission is not by force. It is willing and joyful. This passage makes it very clear that submission is not something that's forced or coerced for the wife. Submission should be willing on the wife's own volition. And this follows right on the heels of what I was just talking about, the fact that he talks to husbands and wives on equal footing. You each have a thing to do in the marriage. Well, for wives, this is a command for you to do. It's a command given to the wife that the wife has to actually do. The husband can't do it for her. The husband is not commanded to make or submit. He's not talking to husbands right at this exact moment. He's talking to wives and he's saying, It is a command you're supposed to do, but it's a command you yourself have to follow. No one can make you follow this command. You have to willingly do it. And we can also see this as you read through the passage. You get to chapter 6 on parents and children. You get to chapter 7 on masters and servants. It's a different word given there than the word here. If you look down at 6.1, it says, children, obey your parents. That's not the same word as submit. That word means hear a command, do the command. That's obedience for children. Your parent tells you to do something, you do it. That's what verse 6.1 is talking about. This says submission, submit to your husband. It does not have the connotation of hear a command and follow it. It has the connotation of place yourself under that person's authority. Follow that person. Again, not because he's forcing you, because you want to follow him. That's the idea here. This command is never given in reverse in scripture. You will not find a verse that says, husbands, subject your wives. Husbands, make your wives submit. That's not in scripture. The idea, the picture here is of a wife who is happily submitting to a husband who's loving her and giving himself up for her. This is why it's hard to not talk about husbands on the other side of this. This is not the master-servant relationship. This is an equal footing relationship where the husband is dying for his wife, loving his wife, and the wife is ideally, happily like, oh yeah, I would love to follow this man. I would love to be under his leadership in this marriage. Okay, that was number three. Number four. Submission is not complacent, it is active. Submission does not mean that the wife just gets to sit back and do nothing, or even that she should sit back and do nothing, no. Submission means that the wife is actively fulfilling this command. And again, this falls on the heels of the other two. It's an equal role, it's a willing role, and it's actually a role. It's actually a job to do. You have to do something to do this. It's not just sit back and relax. It's get to work. And you can think about, in verse 24, it says, as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands. How does the church submit to Christ? Think about it. Christ is the head of the church. He's the authority. He's in charge, okay? He has complete authority in the church. So do we sit back and go, all right, Jesus, you're the authority, go ahead and get to work, thanks for saving us, glad you married us as your bride, you know, and we're gonna submit to you by just hanging out here and letting you get to work. No, no, the church actively submits to Christ. Submitting to Christ as a church means like getting to work, you know, it means evangelizing, it means doing his commands, it means loving God and loving neighbor, it means actively promoting the things of Christ. That's what our church is trying to do, is we submit to Christ, we're trying to get to work following Christ. So in the same way, the wife doesn't sit back and relax because she's not the head. The wife gets to work to further the aims of her family. As the husband leads the union, the wife is working together with him for the good of their marriage, for the good of their family, in line with his leadership. This is a famous passage on women in the Bible, Proverbs 31, I read it this week, preparing for this sermon. And what's amazing about the Proverbs 31 woman, I've obviously read the passage before, but it really stood out to me this week as I was reading it. Go read it sometime this week, we're not going to read it right now. Basically every single verse of that chapter of Proverbs is about how the wife is working. She's extremely active, she's not restless. Listen to just some of the things she's doing. She's seeking wool. She's working with her hands. She's getting up in the middle of the night to provide food. She's buying fields. She's serving the poor. She's making clothes and sheets. She's teaching people with wisdom. She is not idle, it says. Really, we didn't catch that after the first 20 verses of her doing stuff. This woman is not idle. and she has an excellent wife who is the crown of her husband. This is a picture of the Proverbs 31 woman actively doing this command. She's like, all right, submit to my husband. So that means let's get to work on behalf of my family to further the goals and to further provide for the family. This idea that submission is not complacent but it's active, also has to do with the fact that good leaders delegate stuff. Good leaders don't go, all right, I'm the leader, so I'm doing it all, and you just follow and don't do anything. Some leaders might do that, they're poor leaders. Christ doesn't do that for his church. He gives us a task to do to work with him to promote his kingdom, and in the same way, in a marriage relationship, the husband and wife are both working together towards a common goal. The good husband will delegate stuff to the wife. If a husband is terrible at math, he should delegate some of the financial stuff to his wife so they balance the checkbook right and don't get in big trouble. It's not wrong for the wife to be working together with the husband towards the good things of their marriage, and they're going to work together. They're going to do things together. The authority that the husband delegates doesn't mean he abdicates it. It's still under the authority of the husband, but as a family, as a couple, you're working together for the good of your family, for the good of the church, for Christ, for everything. And the husband is supposed to be the one leading the way. Again, we'll get to husbands next week. Which number am I on? Five, right, five? Here's number five, submission is not complete unthinking obedience to the husband. It is faithful obedience to God. So this verse does not mean that whatever the husband says, you have to do it, whether you like it or not, whether you think it's right or not. You just have to just go with him, he's in charge. That's not what this verse is talking about. It is talking about being faithful to the Lord. and as you follow God, so you are following him under your husband. This is obvious again throughout scripture when it talks about submission. When it's talking about submission to an earthly authority, it's an authority underneath God. In Romans 13, we're told to submit to the government. In Acts chapter 5, we're told to obey God rather than men. When the government told Peter to stop preaching, he kept preaching. He did not go, I'm subject to the government, I gotta stop preaching. No, we're supposed to obey God first and foremost. So, in marriage, insofar as the husband is leading in line with God's truth, you should follow him. You should go along with him. If your husband is starting to lead you astray, try to get you to do things that are sins, lead your family in a wrong direction, don't do those things. Don't sin because your husband said to sin. Do not. You obey God first and foremost. So it does not mean just quiet obedience no matter what you think. But it does mean still a sort of respectful conscientious disobedience. It means don't follow him into sin but also try to tell him and speak to him about the sin, especially if you're a Christian. I mean, you're a Christian couple in here this morning and your husband's doing something stupid, tell him that he's doing something stupid. Respectfully, just go to him and respectfully, you know, reason from Scripture and say, look, we shouldn't be going in this direction, man. You know, I'm following you, but we're going off the rails right now. Look at Scripture. So it's not that the wife just has no say, can't say anything to the husband. she just is supposed to do so in a respectful way. Now, this is one of the hardest parts of this passage. This is one of the parts that people really struggle with and don't like, and I understand it, is what if the husband's terrible, man? What if the husband is just terrible? What if he's not a believer? First of all, he could just be a non-believer, so that's one thing, wife's a believer, husband's a non-believer. But he could just be a believer who's not doing good, you know? Believers sin, believers mess up and are foolish. Amazingly, maybe this runs counter to what we might think, but he says, no, still submit. You still have to submit in that circumstance. And in fact, very clearly in 1 Peter 3, Peter says this thing even more clearly. This is 1 Peter 3, 1. Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives when they see your respectful and pure conduct. Peter's teaching that even when the husband's terrible, he's not leading, He's not doing what he's supposed to do. The wife's not supposed to kick him out of the car and take the wheel. The wife's supposed to continue to submit to him and win him over by her pure conduct. Besides being a scriptural command, I think this is just wise. This is just prudent and shrewd to go, how am I gonna actually get this guy to pay attention to me? He's probably not gonna be by trying to usurp him. Let me just lovingly submit to him and show him the error of his ways and let his conscience be seared by the fact that I'm still loving him despite the fact that he's an idiot. That's what this is talking about. Even if your husband's not doing his role as a head, there's still a way in which you can be deferential to him and win him over to the right way. And I just finally want to note that this passage is not a license for abuse. This passage does not mean, hey, you obey me and everything, and then you can just do whatever you want as a husband. If you think your husband is being abusive, you should tell someone and you should try to get help. You should not go, well, I have to submit to this. No, he has abdicated his authority when he starts abusing you. So tell someone and get out of there. This is not complete obedience to everything. It's wise following the Lord as you follow your husband. Okay, last one, number six, and then we'll close out with some, try to give some real life examples. So number six, this is the final one. It's just that submission is not easy. It's worthwhile work. It's not easy. It's hard work and it's good work. I think this is one of the many reasons why people might not like this passage, because, I mean, this is... It can be hard to hear, man. Are you sure I have to follow him? Are you sure I have to follow this guy? Even though he's dumb all the time, are you sure? We're told in scripture, actually, to expect that this will be hard. All the way back in Genesis 3, during the fall, Adam and Eve have eaten the fruit, they've fallen, God comes to tell them, what's going to happen? Well, now what happens, guys? You sinned, you messed up, there's going to be a curse. And do you remember what God said to Eve in the curse? He said that your desire will be contrary to or for your husband, however you want to translate that, and he shall rule over you. You know, we don't have time to get all the way into that passage, but what that passage is saying is sin messes up marriages, okay? Sin, when it got in the mix, it made this really hard. Pre-sin, this would have been easier to do. I think it still would have been work, but it would have been easier work to do because there wouldn't have been sin messing it up. But now, in a world post-fall, marred by sin, this is hard. It's hard because your husband is sinful. He's not going to be perfect. It's hard because you as a wife are sinful, and you're not going to be perfect, and your own flesh is going to fight against this because of the sin in you. We also know this is hard because remember that this whole passage is under verse 18. Look back at verse 18. It says, This whole thing is falling under the idea that we need to be filled with the Spirit. I think apart from the Holy Spirit, this is like impossible to truly do. I mean, who can do this? What wife can actually do this with these fallen husbands that we have? How could a wife ever do this? With the help of God's Spirit. Again, remember verse 1-2, as to the Lord, all of this is falling under the gospel. This is to Christians who have been redeemed and sanctified by Christ, and you have been given Christ's Spirit in your heart to empower you to do this. If you think you can't do this, you have been given the Spirit so that you might be able to, not on your strength, but on His strength. I think it's impossible without the Spirit, but as we are in God, in the Spirit, being filled with the Spirit, it is possible to do this. It is actually possible, not perfectly, but you have the ability to do this given to you by the Spirit. So it's not easy, it's gonna be hard, but it is worthwhile work that will be for our good. Okay, so that was my six affirmations and denials. Hopefully those were helpful just to flesh out what exactly this means. Now, I just want to spend some time before we close to get as practical as I can. Because I listened to a lot of sermons this week, trying to help me think through how to preach this, and I was a little disappointed that most of them did not actually give an example of, Real life. What does this look like? It's easy to say. What does it actually look like in real life? So I'm going to try to do that for us this morning. And I do have applications for all of us, like I said, not just wives. I think this applies to all of us. So, a lot of times when you hear this preach, it's like, alright, well, the husband, you know, he has the final say on stuff, and he has sort of the authority to say, you know, issue commands or something like that. And that's probably true. That might come up sometimes in a marriage. But I think day-to-day it looks a lot more like this, okay? I was looking around for examples and I found one that Abigail Dodds gives, Abigail Dodds, she's a Christian wife and mother and author and her husband's a pastor. And she was sort of like hesitant to give advice, because it's a principle, it's not gonna look the same for everybody. It's submit to your own husband, so, you know, Anna submitting to me is not gonna look the same as Beth submitting to Aaron, because me and Aaron are not the same. It's different in every relationship, it's a principle. So she's like, I don't really want to give a hard principle, but I'll give you an example from my marriage and show you how it might apply to other marriages. So she says, for example, her husband really loves to have people over for dinner. They've talked about it together as a couple. They go, we want to be a house where people can come over and we can share what we have with people. And we want our house to be filled with people in and out the door. And so Abigail Dodd says the way she submits to that desire of her husband is to invite people over. Set the calendars, text people, get the invites out so that they can come. Figure out what the meal's gonna be. It doesn't have to be cooking the meal necessarily, but make sure there's food when people come over to hang out. Get the house at least into some kind of order so people can come over and hang out. Get the stuff off the table so you can eat on the table. She's working together with her husband with this desire they have to be hospitable to others. And she's submitting to him actively working because she knows this is something that he wants to do, it's good, they're gonna do it together as a couple, work towards it together. And she, as you can tell probably the way this might not apply to other people, what if your husband doesn't want to have people over? And he's like, no, no, no, this is me time at night, okay, we're not having people over every night. Okay, so the example there would be to submit to that husband, so don't just start inviting people over, don't not tell him to go, well, I think we should have people over, boom, and invite them, even though he doesn't want them to come over. You know, ask, hey, can we have somebody over this Friday night? We should have somebody over, I think we should. And if he is still refusing and you think he's wrong, he might be wrong, he probably is. If he's like, no, I don't wanna be hospitable, that's a command, we're supposed to be hospitable. What if he's wrong about that? The answer is not, well, I'm submitting, so I guess we just aren't gonna have people over. It's to talk to him and reason with him and go, but have you seen this verse that says be hospitable? And what if we just did it one night? I mean, talk to him. Don't just not do anything about it. Work together with his desire and say, hey, even if you think he's wrong, you're trying to work together with him. As a couple, unified to work together towards a common good. Hopefully that is a helpful example. I thought of another one. Similarly, a husband might say, man, I've been doing a really bad job at leading our family spiritually. I want to start a family devotional time, a family Bible study time. Let's do it Saturday morning, he's talking to his wife, they're talking, man, we need to do a better job of leading our children, raising our children, let's do a Saturday morning Bible study. So for the wife to submit to that would be to help, don't sleep in on Saturday morning, get up, help get the kids ready, get everybody together, be with him, joining with him to get all the kids together to do this Bible study. You're thinking about ways that we wanna be better parents, we wanna be parents that spiritually raise up our children, Maybe the husband's really busy with stuff at night or something. And so you find, as a wife, a catechism that you can teach the kids at night before, you know, they go to bed. And you're trying to work together with this desire to raise your kids in the Lord. I think that's what it looks like most of the time. It's not like, hey, I'm commanding you to do this, wife, and you go, okay, well, I have to submit to that. It's like, together, as a couple, what are you trying to do? What are you trying to accomplish? Husband, lead the way on that, but then wife, help him with that. Help each other to do this. I don't think it looks like running every decision by your husband. I'm certain that Thomas Dodds does not check the grocery list when Abigail's shopping for that couple they're having over. It's not like every single thing has to run through the husband. You know what his desire is? Work towards that, you know? Work towards that as a couple. Get to work. You don't need to run everything by him. I think this is what it looks like day-to-day, more likely, than giving a command. I think it looks like working together with the husband, setting the tone of what we're gonna be doing. Again, this is a principle, so examplars are gonna look different, but you can think of some things that generally apply. Don't make a massive decision without consulting your husband. Now, the wise husband will also consult his wife. Again, I'm trying not to get too much into next week, but all of these can apply both ways. Operate in such a way that it promotes your husband. Don't tear him down. Think about the Proverb 31 woman who is working for the benefit of her family. You can and should speak to him in a respectful way even when you disagree with him. So those are sort of the principles of what this looks like. Hopefully that is at least a little helpful for what this might look like in your own marriage. And of course, growth groups, this would be a great time to hash this out and think what might this look like. If you're in here this morning and you feel like you're failing at this, you're like, man, well, I've been a wife for a while and I'm not sure I'm doing this. Or maybe you feel like you can't do it and you go, I don't know, my husband, I don't know if I can do this. I would encourage you first and foremost to pray. Pray and ask the Lord to help you. Ask for more of his spirit like we saw last week. We wanna desire more of his spirit. We wanna have more of the power of the spirit to help us do this. I was gonna say pray for your husband, but also pray with your husband. Just get together with him and pray together. I think he should be taking the lead on that, but if he's not, say, hey, can we pray together? Encourage him to do that together. And ask for help from other women in the church. If there's an older wife in the church or another wife in the church who is more mature, further along in the faith, go ask for help. Say, I'm really struggling with this. Please help me. How do you do this? What does it look like for you? Can you pray for me? We can help each other do this. So that's where I've talked enough about wives. I think we got through it. Now, what about for everybody else? For husbands, just briefly today and then more next week, you are the head of your wife whether you like it or not, so act like it. Take the lead, set the tone for your marriage in a way that the wife can be like, yeah, okay, let's do that. Let's do that together so she can come in and join together with you. Again, just a reminder, the command is not subject your wife, make her submit. We'll get into the command next week of love your wives. But for this week, be the head, lead your wife in a way that she would want to actually do this. for single women here today who want to be married. Just a reminder that this passage is only for marriage, so right now, as you're a single woman, you shouldn't be submitting to anybody's husband, because they're not your husband. But one day, if you get married, this command will apply to you. So, as you're thinking about and considering who you want to marry, move this way up your priority list. Whatever your priorities are and the person you're looking for, do we like the same movies, what kind of car does he drive, whatever, whatever your list is. Move way up to the top, maybe he's a Christian is number one. Number two might be, can I respect this man? Can I follow this man? Would it be a joy and a privilege to follow this man, or would it not be? Is he gonna be a good leader? Is this gonna be a life of, Ben, this is gonna be tough to follow this guy. Before you're married, you have a chance to find a guy who you want to follow, who's gonna be a good leader, who's gonna love you, who's gonna give his life up for you. So make that way higher on your prayer list if it isn't already. Can I actually, lovingly, willingly follow this man. That should be a big category of trying to find a husband. And for single men who want to find a wife, I don't think you should go around going, all right, I need to find a woman who's gonna submit to me. All right, let me find a, you know. You should be in theological agreement, okay? You should, I mean, make sure she agrees that this passage means submission. That's something, but. I think you should worry a lot more about, if you've got a list of things you're thinking about, trying to find a wife, worry a lot more about being the kind of man who is worthy of respect. Be the kind of man who a wife would want to follow. That should be what you're working on, is you're seeking a wife, and the more you're working on that, being more Christ-like, being more loving, being more ready to die for your wife, that's gonna help you find a wife who actually wants to be married to you. For everyone else that we have here this morning in our congregation, you know, widows or widowers or older couples or any other, you know, single people in our church. We're in this together. You know, we can help each other do this. In Titus chapter 2, Paul commands the older women in the church to help teach the younger women how to do this. And he commands the older men in the church to help teach the younger men how to do this. So let's help each other. If you have wisdom to give, even if you're no longer married and your spouse has gone, give your wisdom to the younger couples. Help them figure out what this looks like. Younger couples, seek out their wisdom so you can do a better job of doing this in your marriage. So hopefully this command is clear and you've thought about ways it could apply in your life. but I wanna end us this morning by going back to the whole point of this and reminding us that this is not just like some arbitrary rule. We might, hopefully you believe this and agree with what I just said, that this is what this teaches, but it's definitely possible that you can believe it and not love it, though. Like, okay, I get it, all right, I'll submit. I think that's what it means. Okay, I'll lead, all right. I think we should love this passage, and I think that's why Paul culminates this whole thing in that Genesis 22 quote, or two quotes. So let's, as we close, just look at verse 31 one more time. Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. The reason why this matters, the reason why we should be excited to do this in our marriages, to lead and to follow, is because wives submitting to their husbands is a picture of the gospel. That's what this is. Paul goes back to Genesis here for at least two reasons, I think. He's reminding us that this is part of God's good design since the very beginning. God's laws aren't arbitrary. Paul's not making this up in Ephesians 5. From the very beginning, God has created these two offices for men and women to fill in marriage. And we should be excited about them because they're good for us. God doesn't command stuff that's bad for us. The more we do this, the more we're gonna be in line with the way God designed it, the better, hopefully, it will go as we try to faithfully follow God. But even on top of that, What's our motivation? How can we actually continue to do this? Being filled with spirit, how are we gonna continue to do this even when it gets hard, even when it's a lot of hard work, even when we don't wanna do it? The way we remember to do it and get excited about fulfilling these commands is to remember that this is a picture of the gospel. Christ has purchased his bride, cleansed her, completely purified her, and he is awaiting that final moment where we will join him forever in heaven. And our marriages should clearly show the love that Christ has for his church and the way the church loves Christ back. Can you imagine having a marriage where we're doing this so well, where the husband's actually leading well, and the wife is happy to follow him and be devoted to him and his vision for their marriage? Can you imagine the unbeliever who sees that and goes, what is going on here? What is happening? Think about how counter-cultural that is. It's totally opposite of anything in our entire culture. They're going to ask you, hopefully, how can you even do that? Wife, how can you submit to your husband? That seems impossible. Why would you do that? How can you do that? And you have the chance to tell them, man, it's the Holy Spirit. I can't do it. I needed Christ to change me and give me His Spirit for me to do this. They're gonna see your marriage and they're gonna go, man, what kind of man deserves this kind of devotion, deserves this kind of, you know, following from his wife? And you can answer, no kind of man except Jesus Christ. There is one man and his name is Jesus Christ. And because I follow him and because my husband follows him, I'm following my husband. This is a opportunity for us as a church to be a counter-cultural force in the world to show people just how incredible Christ's love is and how we can follow Christ totally with our whole lives. So as a church, let's do this together. Submission, again, it's a part of Christianity. We all submit to Christ. We submit to elders, we submit to governments, we submit to one another out of reverence for Christ, and wives submit to their husbands. And all of this, as we live this life, it is going to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ that he gave himself up for us so that we could be his bride and be wholly devoted to him.