We'll take your Bibles this morning, if you will, to Ephesians chapter number 5. Ephesians chapter number 5. We'll begin looking at verse 21 and follow through the end of the chapter. So Ephesians chapter number 5. The title of the message this morning is Marriage for God's Glory. Marriage for God's Glory. Ephesians chapter number 5. As we come to our text this morning, we see a shift in the Apostle Paul's focus to how Christians should function within various societal structures. He begins here with the family and specifically with the relationship between husband and wife. As we read our text this morning, it should become obvious that marriage has a purpose far beyond the mere commitment each spouse pledges to their partner. As God does throughout His creation, God established marriage to teach us about Himself, specifically about the Son and our relationship with Him as believers. If you'll begin reading there with me in verse 21, we'll read through the end of the chapter. As is our custom, upon reading our text, I will invite us to remind ourselves of the significance here Through prayer, I will say to remind us, this is the word of the Lord and ask you to repeat with me in prayer, may he who gave it be praised, at which point I will remind us that it was given for our admonition, for our instruction. I'll ask you to repeat again, together in prayer, may we who hear it obey. Ephesians chapter number five, beginning in verse 21. Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God, wives submit yourselves unto your own husbands as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, and he is the Savior of the body. Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man even yet hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord, the church. For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they too shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless. Let every one of you, in particular, so love his wife, even as himself, and the wife see that she reverence her husband. This is the word of the Lord. May he who gave it be praised. And it was given for our admonition. So may we who hear it obey. Heavenly Father, as we come before your word this morning, I pray that we do so with hearts ready to receive the truths that you have for us. Guide our time together in your word Guard my lips, help me not to add or detract in any way from the truth that you have for us here this morning. May the comments made by way of explanation and application be in line with the principles that are here in the text. And Father, as we seek to live this out, may we do so in a way that is honoring to you, that is faithful to the text that you have given, because it is your word that is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. We ask these things in your precious name. Amen. Well, as we consider what this text teaches us about marriage this morning, we must begin by acknowledging that marriage in our modern American culture is under attack. And I'm not talking primarily about the sexual perversions of pornography, homosexuality, and the like that are destroying marriages, though they are. No, this morning, we must recognize that marriage is under attack because it is not given the honor and even the reverence that it deserves, that God designed it to have. Unfortunately, this is often true even in the church. We see this in statistical analyses when comparing marriage rates today to those from the past. We see, for example, that if my clicker works, for example, that nearly 100 years in our country From the 1890s to the 1990s, most Americans got married in and around their early 20s. Men typically marry women who are a little bit younger. And thus, the average age for men is typically a couple years older than that of women for when they first marry. And we see the lowest average age for men and women in the 60s, with men marrying on average at age 22, and women on average at age 24, or age 20, excuse me. Since then, however, we see a sharp upward curve as both numbers have gone up by eight years. Today, the average man in America doesn't get married until after he's turned 30. And the average woman gets married around 28 years of age. Now, not only does this disparagement of marriage show up in the timeframe of marriage that in and of itself could have any number of explanations, but we see the same trend in divorce rates as well. According to the Census Bureau records from 1900, if this will work for me, there we go. 1900, about four out of every 1,000 women who had ever been married, were currently divorced, four in every 1,000. That number peaked at 22 of every 1,000 in the 80s, and it still sits just above 14, and that's the one on the left there. And it, at first glance, looks like the trend is going back in the right direction, but the numbers may be misleading, as that may be due in recent decades to many simply avoiding marriage altogether. and cohabitating with their respective partners outside of marriage. The rise of feminism is largely responsible for devaluing marriage in the esteem of women over the past 50 years, but young men are also being dissuaded from marriage by many today. So-called menosphere influencers like Andrew Tate, Bryan Atlas, and Pearl Davis openly advise men not to get married, claiming that marriage isn't worth the risk. Now, these individuals, of course, are not encouraging unmarried men to abstain from the pleasures of marriage, if you will. No, just the formalities. Just avoid the legal contract. Avoid the commitment. The obvious worldview problem present in both of these errant views of marriage is that both encourage young people to evaluate marriage on the basis of what they can get out of it. How does getting married help me achieve my goals? How will this benefit me personally? See, too many look at marriage the same way that they look at almost everything else in life, with the question, what's in it for me? As we consider this text, I think you'll find that biblical marriage and selfishness are diametrically opposed. They are incompatible pursuits. Our culture devalues marriage because we don't understand what marriage is meant to be. I trust that you'll see from our text this morning that marriage is far more than a human contract. Marriage is God's design to display God's glory. Paul gives us the two key elements necessary for a healthy marriage here in this text. One is primarily the responsibility and the struggle of the wife, and the other is the primary responsibility and struggle of the husband. And then he explains why Christians in particular should hold marriage in high regard. As we turn to our text, looking at verse Number 21, we'll see the first responsibility, the first key elements to a healthy marriage is humble submission. Humble submission. We read in verse 21, submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God. We see here that humble submission is God's directive. It is God's instruction. It is his command upon humanity. And as we consider verse 21, we see first of all that humble submission is God's desire for all believers. Verse 21 is not speaking specifically to wives yet, it's speaking to all of us. Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God, And then Paul fleshes that out. Paul uses the progressive here because as Christians who live in a holy reverence of God, proper submission to one another should be normal. This is not something that... should be new as a believer. This is something you ought to be doing every day. This should be characteristic of your life as a Christian, because part of being a Christian is being submissive to Christ. You are being subordinate to Christ, putting upon yourself his name. And if you're not doing that, guess what? You're not Christian. You cannot have Christ as savior, as it's been put. and reject him as your Lord. This is how we ought to be living each and every day, in submission to Jesus Christ. As Christians, all of us are called to live in humble submission, first and foremost to God, and secondly, to all those who are in positions of authority over us. Unfortunately, however, some attempt to use verse 21 to completely disregard all of the rest of what Paul is about to say. They argue that among Christians, there shouldn't be any hierarchy of authority because we are all to live in submission to one another. Everyone submits to everyone, that's the idea. And that's how they interpret verse 21. Well, the other way of understanding this, and I believe the proper way based on the rest of the text, is that there is a legitimate hierarchy among Christians, and we all must live in submission, but primarily submission to those who are in authority over us. Now, we have a submissive spirit, that's basic humility with one another. Right? We are not governed by pride. We are not governed by arrogance. That shouldn't be characteristic of Christians. We should live humbly towards one another. But when we talk about submission, about literally the term means to rank yourself or position yourself according to rank in the military is where the term comes from. Everyone submits to everyone, or everyone submits to those who are in authority over us. Does Paul mean that everyone must submit to everyone, or is he saying that everyone must submit to someone? Well, this word submit carries, as I mentioned, the idea of soldiers properly filing into the ranks that they have in a military. Does the captain submit to the private? Or does it work the other way around? It means literally to bring under control. So submitting yourselves is bringing yourself under the control of, of course, first and foremost, God, but also one another, one to another. Friends, those who argue that this is teaching complete mutual submission and that every believer must submit to every other Christian place a massive burden on the church, one that actually makes it impossible for the church to function. Imagine that someone comes in here one Sunday and says, hey, Pastor, you just take a seat. God's given me a message to preach this week. Or should I step down and sit on the front row and we'll listen to whatever this individual has to say? Someone else gets up and says, well, God told me we shouldn't have a message at all. Let's just take open our hymnals and sing for the next hour. Then a third person chimes in. An hour? God told me we got to wrap this up in 20 minutes. Well, who do we listen to? Are we all supposed to submit to just whoever says the last thing? Who do we submit to? You see, the concept of complete mutual submission in practice becomes chaotic. We're getting a bit ahead of ourselves here, but did you know that this kind of complete mutual submission doesn't even exist among the three persons of the Trinity? The Son submits to the Father, but God the Father's posture toward the Son is not one of submission. The father loves the son and the son loves the father, but it is the son's love that is expressed through submission to the father's will. You see, mutual love for one another, meaning every believer must love everyone else, that is biblical and it is the reflection of God's triune love for himself. But mutual submission, meaning everyone submits to everybody, is not biblical and does not reflect God's triune nature. And that doesn't mean that we are allowed to avoid the commands in scripture to have a submissive or a humble spirit. But there is a difference between being humble and submissive characteristically and submitting to authority that's illegitimate. Authority that is only there in pretense. And friends, if I could go a step further, I would encourage you to be discerning in this matter. In general, I think that you'll find in actual practice, the idea that every Christian must submit to every other Christian quickly just becomes an excuse not to submit to anyone in particular. Well, verse 21 says we all need to submit to one another. quickly becomes an excuse not to submit to the people that are clearly the authority figures. Clearly given the responsibility in the home, in the church. I can't submit to my pastor, he doesn't submit to me. And we're all supposed to be submitting to one another. I don't have to submit to my husband, because he doesn't submit to me. So we're not actually practicing mutual submission to one another, we're using it as an excuse to not submit to one another. If our interpretation of one verse causes us to ignore all the verses that follow it, our interpretation is wrong. You see that humble submission is God's directive. Secondly, here, humble submission is God's desire In verse 22, specifically in the context of marriage, Paul says, All Christians are commanded to live in humble submission to God and others, but within marriage, God's desire in particular for the wife is for her to humbly submit to her husband. Now, this doesn't mean that all Christian women must submit to all Christian men. Doesn't mean that all women everywhere need to submit to all men everywhere. Nor does it mean that every married woman has to submit to every married man. Paul is specifically stating, wives must submit to their own husbands. This is God's desire for your marriage. I see as well that humble submission is God's design. It shouldn't surprise us that God's desire is perfectly aligned with his design. God created man and women, and he created us differently, and he created us to complement one another's strengths and weaknesses. And in conformity with God's design, the wife is to submit to her husband. Not only has God told wives to submit to their husbands, but God desires this because he knows this is how marriage works best. in a marriage where the husband fulfills his primary responsibility well, which we'll get to in a few moments, and where the wife fulfills her primary responsibility of humbly submitting to her husband, this is the best kind of marriage possible. It brings about a more joyful marriage, a more loving marriage, the most fulfilling marriage comes when you as the wife live humbly and submissively toward your husband in recognition of the fact that he is the head of your home. Too many wives seek to manage and control their husbands. If he's the head, then I'm the neck, and he'll go wherever I want him to. Well, that's not the picture, right? The picture is the head and body. Christ, the head of the church, we the body. What does the body do when the head's not there? It dies. The head doesn't do much by itself either. So don't look at your marriage as a competition. It's a great way to destroy your marriage because it communicates to your husband that you don't trust his leadership. Well, if I let him manage everything, if I let him lead, he's gonna go make a mess of it. Yeah, he will at times. But you know what? That's how God's going to teach him. The final thing that we see here is that humble submission is God's demonstration. Your submission to your husband is an illustration of how believers are to live in submission to Jesus Christ. Paul says in verse 23, the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, and he is the savior of the body. Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Ma'am, do you want your children to follow Christ the same way that you follow your husband? Or would that lead them down a terrible path? That's the image that you're modeling for them. And everyone else through your relationship with your husband sees a picture It's supposed to see a picture of how the church is to honor Christ. Paul turns next in verse 25 to husbands, giving us men our primary responsibility within marriage. We read in verse 25, as we see, sacrificial love is the primary responsibility and struggle of husbands. Verse 25, husbands love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself, a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish. We see here very similarly that sacrificial love is God's directive. The beginning of verse 25 is very clear. Husbands, love your wives. God said it, so do it. Just as humble submission is the primary responsibility of the wife, sacrificial love is the primary responsibility of the husband. As our creator, God knows how we function best and how we are most inclined to temptation in the context of marriage. For men, our tendency is to be unloving in the use of our time, affection, and resources, just as the tendency in a wife is to be unloving through a desire to take charge of the family. To put it simply, women desire authority when they shouldn't, and men neglect responsibility when they shouldn't. That is our tendency as fallen human beings. It's not the same tendency, all right? Men and women are equal, but not identical. We both struggle with sin, but that does not mean we struggle equally with the same kinds of sin. There are sins with which men are far more easily tempted. and far more frequently destroyed. And there are sins with which women struggle more frequently and are more often destroyed. And marriage in large part provides you with someone who you can trust and confide in and live together with, who knows you better than anyone else on the face of this planet, whose weaknesses and strengths combined with yours, provide a more solid protection against those things to which you are most inclined to fall into. I remember hearing Paul Washer describe it like this. He said, I don't need my wife to touch my face and tell me she loves me. Our wives need affection. They need us to surprise them with flowers every once in a while. Not just on Valentine's Day, or on your anniversary, or the day after your anniversary because you messed up. By all means, buy her flowers for that, but it's not going to help much. The old adage, how do you avoid forgetting your anniversary? Do it once. No, our wives need our affection. They need us to just come home and say, honey, we're going out to dinner tonight. They need a warm hug at times, an open ear as they recount the difficulties of their day. As men, we don't need that the way they do. If I have a rough day at work, the last thing that I really want to do is come talk about it with my husband for an hour. I don't need to vent my frustrations to her. My wife needs that from me. Sometimes my wife will spend the afternoon with a friend or relative and she'll come home just heavy with the emotional baggage of the things that this individual has opened up about. She comes home weighed down by these things and her heavy heart needs to share them. By the way, that's one of the reasons that women don't make good pastors. If you share something with me, I might share it with my wife. I might not. I won't if it's something that's going to burden her. There's nothing wrong with sharing things with your wife. That's a good way of communication. As men, we don't have to weigh our wives down with the emotional burdens that are upon us because, frankly, secondhand emotional hardships of others, they don't weigh as heavily on us as men as they do on our wives. If your best friend is struggling in his marriage, as a guy, I hear that and I'm happy to pray with him. I might take a trip to go talk with him. but it's not gonna destroy my heart for the weak like it will my wife. It's not gonna weigh on me emotionally in the same way. Our wives need us to lovingly bear their burdens alongside them. If you have a wife who feels like she can't go to you with these emotional struggles, these spiritual weights that are on our soul, Your job is to be there for her and to help her bear her burdens. Too often as men, we look at our wives and those needs that we don't share in the same way and we think, just get over it. No. God didn't design her to get over it. God designed you to help her through it. This is why we are told to love our wives. They need us to lovingly bear their burdens alongside of them. So we think of this directive, I think Vodibachan, who passed just recently, put it so well when he would preach about marriage and manhood. I remember coming across this as a young man, maybe 19 or 20, and it was instrumental in my spiritual growth along these lines. Of course, not married yet, but looking to that Bauckham had four Ps to explain what a godly man must be before he's ready for marriage. In fact, he wrote a book, What He Must Be If He Wants to Marry My Daughter. And he had some son-in-laws, so some men met the task. He said, a man must be a priest, a prophet, a provider, and a protector. A priest, a prophet, a provider, and a protector. A priest represents his family before God. It is the husband's responsibility to fervently pray for his family. A prophet represented God to his people. And it is the husband's responsibility to teach and model the character of God to his family. A provider works hard to ensure every need of those under his care is met. And it is the husband's responsibility to provide for the needs of his family. And a protector stands between those in his care and anything that threatens to bring harm to them. It is the husband's responsibility to stand up and defend his wife and children from any and every threat to his family. Sir, if you're married, you are called to lovingly sacrifice your time in prayer for your spouse and your children. You are called to lovingly sacrifice your time in studying God's word to accurately lead your wife and teach your children the truth. You are called to lovingly sacrifice your time and your strength and to break your back to put food on the table, a roof over their heads, and all the other stuff that consumes your paycheck that your family needs. And you are called to lovingly sacrifice yourself. to stand between them and every danger that arises, and if it comes to it, you are called to lay down your life for your family. Sir, that is your calling, and that is exactly what Jesus Christ did for you. Sacrificial love is God's directive. We also see that it is God's desire. God wants us to be gentle and patient with our wives, strong for them, gentle with them. Too many men will hear the first instruction from the text and they quickly become cruel masters in their home. She must submit to me. Well, sir, let me ask you this question. If the marriage relationship is a picture of Christ and the church, which side is called to be more forgiving? You see, Christ put up with an awful lot of insubordination and rebellion on your part, even after your conversion. but Christ never failed to love you sacrificially and to meet every one of your needs. So if there is any allowance for falling short of these directives, it certainly isn't on your side, sir. We don't get that grace. So if it's wrong for the wife to say, well, I shouldn't have to submit because he doesn't love me rightly, it's way more wrong for us to say, I shouldn't have to love her because she doesn't submit. Because in the example of Christ in the church, who loved first long before anybody was submitting? God loved you sacrificially when you were entirely unlovely, a reprobate, a wicked sinner. Yet Jesus Christ came to this earth and died on a cross to bestow upon you the riches of his mercy. You dare suggest that your wife's behavior absolves you from your responsibility to love her? No, it does not. God wants us to love our wives, no matter how difficult that may become. Sacrificial love is God's directive, God's desire, and it is God's design. Again, God knows that this is how humanity functions best. The stronger and more practically minded man leads in love, and the gentler and more nurturing woman follows in submission. Without her, he would become calloused and crude, and without him, she would be vulnerable, both to physical harm and emotional deception. But together, they are able to create and maintain a relationship that illustrates Christ's love for the church and the church's love for him. In love, they produce children who are the firsthand witnesses of this beautiful picture of God's love for them. Again, we see that sacrificial love is God's demonstration. I trust you're beginning to see that this whole text is just dripping with this theological truth that marriage is meant to be a reflection of Jesus Christ's love for his church and our submission to him as his bride. Throughout church history, the dignity and honor and sacred purpose of marriage has often been diminished and even despised by those who, as leaders in the church, ought to have been the champions of biblical marriage. This is our responsibility as leaders in the church to say, no, no, no, the culture is wrong. The culture that says, hey, don't get married because stuff will get more expensive. Don't have kids because they cost a lot of money. Unfortunately, we've seen much weakness in this area in church history. In 251 AD, a moderately wealthy couple gave birth to a boy in Egypt and named him Anthony. Anthony's parents died when he was about 20 years old. He was tasked with the care of his younger sister. One Sunday, as he attended church, he was particularly convicted by the account of Jesus' words to the rich young ruler. And Anthony felt as though Christ's words were meant specifically for him. You see this in Matthew 19. Jesus said unto him, if thou will be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven, and come and follow me. If you remember the story, this rich young ruler says, Lord, what can I do? He says, keep the commandments. Well, I've done all of that for my youth. This one thing you lack, the Lord says. Sell what you have and give it to the poor. And it says that he went away sorrowful because he had much possession. Anthony was not the first to embrace a monastic lifestyle. But because he didn't want to fall into the same sin, he gave all of his wealth. And he put his sister, who is still young, made her a nun. And he went off to live in the desert alone to seek spiritual enlightenment. And his life became a model for future monastics. And his biography, written by Augustine, further popularized monastic living. Pretty soon, if you wanted to truly live for God, you were to put off worldly possession and earthly concerns, which included marriage and family. If you really, really want to be serious about your relationship with God, of course you're not going to get married. You're going to go live in the desert, or you're going to go join a monastery. You're going to be a monk. You're going to be a nun. As this tradition took hold and people increasingly believed that devotion to Christ required one to forego marriage, the church naturally began to seek out shepherds from this supposedly devoted class and forbid pastors and even deacons from marrying. Less than 200 years after St. Anthony, St. Epiphanius of Salamis, say, pastor, I don't think you're pronouncing that right. I don't either. But he said this. Quote, the Holy Church respects the dignity of the priesthood to such a point that she does not admit to the diaconate, the priesthood, or the episcopate, nor even to the subdiaconate, anyone still living in marriage and begetting children. Listen to the second part. She, the church, accepts only him who, if married, gives up his wife or has lost her by death, especially in those places where the ecclesiastical canons are strictly attended to. So if you're a single man and you want to serve in the church, guess what? Don't get married. And if you're a married man and you want to serve in the church, well, you're going to have to let go of your wife. That's the church. And yes, we're talking about the seeds of Catholicism, but we're also talking about 400 AD, long before the Catholic Church is really the Catholic Church. Already, marriage is something lesser. Well, that's for the common man, sure, but that's not for those who are really spiritual. Over the following centuries, the celibate priesthood went from anomaly to norm and eventually became mandatory. In Roman Catholicism, church leaders are still required to be unmarried and celibate today. That's not at all what Scripture teaches. This is, marriage is, meant to be a transcendent image of God's love, Christ's love for the church. We see that marriage reflects perfect unity. Verse 28, Paul says, So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it even as the Lord, the church. For we are members of his body, of his flesh and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother and shall be joined unto his wife, and they too shall be one flesh. The idea that pastors shouldn't marry is preposterous. In 1 Timothy 3, the Apostle Paul says, a bishop must be blameless, the husband of one wife, one that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity. Friends, as I've said before, according to the words of the New Testament, no Roman Catholic cardinal, bishop, priest, or even the Pope is qualified to lead a church. Not a single one of them. They're in violation of the qualifications laid out in scripture. But, Even many, and frankly most, Baptist churches hesitate to say what Scripture makes abundantly clear, that a pastor should be married. An unmarried man is not qualified based on 1 Timothy 3 or the parallel passage in Titus. And as I study this out, I am appalled by the fact that so many conservative Christians who will die on the hill of resisting female pastors based on this very same phrase in 1 Timothy, a one woman man, will completely ignore the fact that it rules out a no woman man. It's the same three words. You can't be dogmatic. about husband to be man, and ignore the fact that husband means married man. It is idiotic, and it is a Protestant poison brought in from the Catholic theology that dominated for over 1,000 years. We have to call it what it is. It's wrong. And yes, there are men in church history, and yes, there are people in the present who enter the pastorate before they get married. But you know what? For the good ones, as time tells, God brings them a wife pretty quick. What do we say about that? They started a little earlier than they should. Doesn't invalidate their ministry going forward? Absolutely not, it does not. But if you're ever looking for my replacement in the future or someone else, it's a pastor, a church that you're in, he needs to be married. That is what scripture says. God said what he means and he means what he said. And God says that marriage is good, honorable, and normative. Does God give some the gift of celibacy and singleness? Yes, he does. We must not disparage that gift either. And certainly we should hold those who have it in high respect, but we cannot ignore the tremendous honor that God gives to marriage. And it's because marriage points us to Christ. And I don't just mean that your marriage points you to Christ. I mean, marriage points people to Christ. It is a picture of Christ's love. Marriage is God's plan for most people, and it is a powerful and personal demonstration of his love. Through a relationship, we are more easily able to grasp. It is easier for us to experientially understand love between a husband and a wife than it is to experientially understand God's love for us. And God creates marriage in part to point to believers and say to men, I love you like you love your wife. And to women, I love you like your husband loves you. And when our marriages fall into chaos, we pervert that picture that is supposed to teach us about God's love for us. Josh Howerton. Get there in a second, I think. Oops, there we go. Josh Howerton, a pastor near Dallas, Texas, made waves about a week ago with a social media post attempting to give young men advice on how to live a fulfilling life. He says, if you're young, if you're a young man and want your life to be consequential and fulfilled, One, bend your knee to Jesus. Two, go to church. Three, read your Bible and pray every day and live it out. Four, find a cute girl who loves Jesus and get married young. Five, have at least one more kid than you think you can afford. Six, work hard to build something with your life instead of complaining. It is not the critic who counts, but the man in the arena for the glory of God. Well, you can probably guess where the controversy came from. Many people responded by criticizing points four and five. Find a cute girl who loves Jesus and get married. And have at least one more child than you think you can afford. All sorts of people are telling him that this is terrible advice. And I don't know much about Pastor Howerton other than that he's a pastor of a non-denominational church in Texas. I didn't know his name a month ago. And I might not have said what he said the same way, but it's true, is it not? That God's desire for most young men is that they marry and start a family. Now there are certainly people for whom God's will is going to look different. The apostle Paul is a clear example of this. And while I don't want to offend those who are single, whether out of obedience to God's calling or in submission to his timing, as a pastor and furthermore as a Christian, I do want to encourage young people to hold marriage in high regard. If this is God's will for almost all of you, shouldn't it be something that the church lifts up as something good to pursue? Of course. A job is important, money is important, where you live is important. By following God's will in this matter of family, this is also important. And in fact, it's far more important than all these other things. And it's God's will for most. So if it's God's will for you to get married, that pursuit is just as important as pursuing a future career, or pursuing a future job, or pursuing whatever else. And if you're in college or you're entering the workforce, yes, by all means, devote yourself to your studies. Devote yourself to your career. But don't think the perfect wife is just going to fall in your lap. That's going to take some work, too. Just by way of anecdotal commentary, in my own life, when I got serious about looking into what it meant to be a godly husband, to be a godly man, that's when God led my wife to me, when he brought us together. Does that mean that that's always going to be the case? No. Sometimes the timing works out in a very abnormal way. But marriage is a good and godly and God-glorifying thing, and we should lift it up as such in the church. Marriage reflects perfect unity. Marriage points us to Christ. And finally, marriage requires love and respect. Yes, Paul brings his thoughts to a close in verse 32. He says, this is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Saying basically, look, you think I'm talking about marriage and you think I'm telling husbands how to live and I'm telling wives how to live, but what I'm really trying to tell you is how the church is supposed to honor Christ. And marriage is to be a picture of that. The more important thing in view here is the church and her submission to Christ because of his love for her. But, returning to practicality in verse 33, nevertheless, even though my main point, Paul's saying, is not marriage in particular, but Christ and the church in particular, nevertheless, let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself, and the wife see that she reverence her husband. lest we get so caught up in the transcendent imagery that we lose sight of our two basic instructions. Paul repeats them for us in verse 33. This is a reminder that this wonderful illustration of Christ's love for the church and the church's submission to him is achieved in very practical ways. Perhaps as a married man or woman here this morning, you say, pastor, this is quite the burden. You're telling me that my relationship with my husband, my relationship with my wife needs to be this glorious picture of Christ's love for the church. Obviously, as a man, I am gonna fall far short of Christ's perfect love for his bride. And depending on the church that you point at, but ladies, should be pointing to the church even in heaven. We're going to fall far short of the perfect submission that the church is called to practice in obedience to our Lord. So ma'am, if you're here frustrated because God tells you to submit to your husband, let me remind you that every call of submission that is placed upon you toward your husband is placed upon him to his Lord. Husbands are not over here running the show. We're not captains of our own ship. No, we are called to be in perfect submission to Christ. And as the heads of our home, that should weigh on us. That should be our focus. Don't focus, sir, on how your wife is not submissive to you. Focus on how you are not submissive to your Lord, because improvement is necessary in both relationships. That's exactly what Paul has said, right? He doesn't say, husbands, get your wives to submit. Wives, get your husbands to love you. Now, he directs to the person that can do it. Wives, submit to your husband, love your wife. In fact, in parallel passages, we see that even the unbelieving spouse, this is gonna look different for men and women. As a man, if you're a believer, and your wife is not a believer, you have every right and responsibility to say, as for me and my house, we're going to church this morning. But as a believing wife with an unbelieving husband, it's gonna look different. Honey, I'd really love it if you would come to church with me. I really wanna be able to share this part of my life with you. But you can't tell him to come with you. You submissively ask. This is how things play out. And Paul actually tells us the best way to win your unbelieving spouse is to be a good spouse to them. In conformity with God's instructions to you. This is a reminder that this wonderful illustration, as I've said, is worked out through the day-to-day practical decisions that we make. Sir, do you want your family to understand Jesus' compassion and affection for them? Then love your wife. Love your wife. Ma'am, do you want your family to understand the proper response they should have to Christ's love? Then submit to your husband. I'm not going to pretend it's easy, but it is simple. I feel like I say this all the time, and perhaps you're sick of hearing it, but it's true, so I'll say it again. Something that is simple is not necessarily something that's not difficult. In fact, many simple things are very difficult. But if something is simple, that is to say it is not complex. You don't have to get a PhD to learn how to submit to your husband. You don't need an encyclopedia to figure out how to love your wife. And furthermore, you don't need to be married to appreciate the picture of Christ's love that God has given us through marriage. God brings every one of us into this world through the union of a man with a woman. That union at times comes about in sinful ways, and there are other extenuating circumstances that lead to difficult home situations. So I'm not saying that it's always the case for everyone, but it is true that most of us spend almost our first two decades in a family. seeing at least in part this picture play out. Your father and mother may not have had a healthy marriage, maybe they didn't stay married, perhaps they were never married at all, but God's desire, his plan, if you will, is for children to see the picture of his love in the family that raises them. Sir, one of the most powerful ways that you can evangelize your young children is by loving your wife. And one of the most powerful ways that you can evangelize your young children as a mother is by submitting to your husband. So that when they are old enough to grasp this picture, they will have a right picture. I've said before, some people who have such a poor relationship with their father, who had a father who was such a terrible example, maybe he abused him, whatever. Even just the phrase, God the father, leaves a bad taste in their mouth. Not because God is less to that person, but because the picture that God put in their life that was supposed to be a positive, that was supposed to teach them about God, failed miserably. Don't do that. Not with your marriage, not with your relationship to your children. Take this seriously. I trust you've seen from our text this morning that marriage is really about showing the world around us a picture of Christ's love and the church's obedience. If you're married or hope to be married someday, recognize that your marriage isn't all about you. Your marriage is all about Christ. If you're a wife, strive to humbly submit to your husband in the Lord. If you're a husband, strive to love your wife sacrificially as Christ loves you. As we draw to a close this morning, I would be foolish to end without acknowledging the obvious prerequisite of a biblical marriage, which is a right relationship with Jesus Christ. When God the Father, before time began, elected a bride for his son, he didn't select a beautiful, virtuous, holy bride, because there was none to be found. Instead, God loved the unlovely. He chose the wicked, the reprobate, the ungrateful, and the most undeserving people to call his own, to bring into the church. We rebelled against God, we worshipped other gods, we even worshipped ourselves as God. We spurned God's love for us and played the part of the harlot instead of seeking for God and righteousness. We loved sin and we became the devil's mistress. But as Paul would say in Romans 5, verse 8, but God commendeth his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Friend, if you're here this morning and you have not turned from your sin to your savior, if you have not been honest with yourself about your guilt before God, the weight of your sin, if you have not repented, and you still love your sin, I urge you this morning to turn from sin and trust in Jesus Christ today. He loves you. He died on the cross to save you. In our sin, we earned God's wrath, but through Christ's death, we are shown grace. And as a believer, fulfill the reality that marriage is intended to picture. You say, I'm not married. That doesn't matter. you can still fulfill the reality, the greater truth that marriage is a picture of, because as a Christian, you submit to your Lord. Submit to your Savior, your Lord, and your King, Jesus Christ. Follow him in total humble submission, because his love for you is perfect in every way. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I pray that this has been an encouragement to us, those of us who are married, to seriously consider the picture that our relationships with our spouse presents to the world around us, especially to those with whom we are closest. Lord, for one who is not married here this morning, I pray that this picture is seen and perhaps the family that they've grown up in, perhaps families that they see the Lord, that even if there isn't a positive earthly example that they've experienced, that they would see the truth, the joy, the glorious love that you. Christ have for us. Lord, we are so thankful to be your bride. to be made one with you. That is the glory that we look forward to as we will leave this life in some pain and agony, some distress. We will enter the presence of our Lord, our Savior, the true love of our life. Father, I pray that if there is one here who does not know you as their Savior, one who is not yet part of your bride, that you would draw them to yourself, that your love would overwhelm them as they recognize the severity of their sin, but they turn in repentance to Jesus Christ. Lord, for us who are believers, may we be faithful to humbly, submissively follow you in everything, even as is pictured here in our text. We thank you and praise you for giving us the good gift of marriage, and I pray that the church would return to lifting it high and celebrating it for the glorious gift that it is. And in our lives, may we live it out. in relationship to our spouses, but more importantly, in relationship to you, our Savior. We ask these things in your precious name. Amen.