Have you ever wondered how we would ever get an orchestra or a choir at Preston City Bible Church? That's what it's going to take. We actually have, every week we have lessons being taught in the basement of our church building in violin, and one of the students Only one of the one student is my son Isaiah. And you have the responsibility, I'm asking for you to assume the responsibility to help me train him to play in front of a group. And we've decided, we've been working on this for so long, it's going to help him so much if he could share with you once a month on a Wednesday night something he's working on with Miss Dora. And I think this is going to be a blessing to him. in a way that he's gonna really suffer and have to work through. But for us, it's a blessing to watch him mature. And when he gets that scholarship and we all say, look what the Lord did, we'll say, look what the Lord allowed us to be part of. So I'm gonna invite Isaiah up. Why don't you take your stand right here where everyone can see you really well. Now wait a second. I have responsibilities in addition to being the pastor. Great. Well done. Now pick all that up. What I meant to say was let me help you get that stuff. I said, Isaiah, we gotta pick a song that will work with what we're doing in church. And when we introduced his fiddling and his violin art to the church, we have to pick something that's going with what we're doing. And obviously, we all need to relax. We need to take it easy a little bit, and we need to recognize the Lord has us responsible to serve him, but his burden is easy, and his yoke is light, and so we can lightly row with what the Lord has required from us. Actually, that's what Isaiah has ready, and I've asked him to help us next time. I would love to hear, can I do a request? I think maybe we could work on Jesus Loves Me. And then, it's on to The Good News Club with you, and Jesus Loves Me on the violin. I'm on Beachwood, that's right. We have many venues for you to develop your craft. The Lord Jesus says in John chapter 10 verses 27 through 30, my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me and I give eternal life to them and they will never perish and no one will ever snatch them out of my hand. My Father, Jesus says, who has given them to me is greater than all and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. I and the Father are one. The Apostle Paul of the Lord Jesus Christ in Romans eight verse one says, therefore there is now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. He goes on to say in verse 10, but if the, If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness, but if the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his spirit who dwells in you, so then, brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you are living according to the flesh, you must die, but if by the spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God. For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, Abba, Father. The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him, so that we may also be glorified with him. Paul then goes on in Romans 8, 31 and following to say, what then shall we say to these things if God is for us, Who is against us? He who did not spare his own son, but delivered him over for us all, how will he not also with him freely give us all things? Who will bring a charge against God's elect? God is the one who justifies. Who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is he who died, yes, rather, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword, just as it is written, for your sake we are being put to death all day long, we were considered as sheep to be slaughtered. But in all these things, we overwhelmingly conquer through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Hebrews 7 says, therefore He, Jesus, is able also to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them. And finally, the Apostle Paul, again in Ephesians 4, tells us that we must not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom we were sealed for the day of redemption. If the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit cannot secure you, you cannot be secured. But make no mistake, we have responsibilities in this life. The Apostle Paul in Ephesians 4.30 says, do not grieve the Holy Spirit, and he's talking in the context of personal sin. The question is not, are my sins bad enough to take away my salvation? The question is, am I enjoying the benefits of salvation as I walk by the Spirit, which we're studying tonight in Ephesians chapter five. Let's take a moment for silent prayer, make sure we indeed are walking by the Spirit, let's pray. Our Father, we submit to you as our Heavenly Father with gratitude, with joy, little babies barely walking, but walking by your Spirit, toddling straight to our Father's arms. Abba, Father, we thank you that we have eternal life through your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the firstborn among many brethren. We thank you for this so great salvation. We do not neglect it, but embrace it tonight and ask that you'd build in us more and more the character of your Son as we pay attention to your word. We pray it in Jesus' name, amen. If you turn your Bibles, please, to Ephesians 5. Ephesians 5, we're continuing our discussion of Christian spirituality with the concerns of household. The concerns of household. Our message tonight is entitled, Focus on Submission. A Focus on Submission. And it's all about everyone. It's not just wives, it's not just children, it's not just slaves, it's everyone is responsible in Ephesians 5.21 to submit one to another in the fear of Christ. Now, let's review. Ephesians 5.18 is your summary command that governs everything that happens until Ephesians 6.9. 518, be filled by the Spirit, results of how you speak to one another, how you relate in your internal soundtrack to Jesus, to the Lord. We're singing and making melody in our hearts to the Lord. We're filled with the Spirit with the result that we give thanks to the Father at all times for all things in the name of the Son. We're filled with the Spirit with the result that we submit one to another in the fear of Christ. Now, I've said before, and I tried to get into it a little bit Sunday morning, first hour, which is also a continuation of this series of the Christian spirituality discussion. I talked a little bit about submission and we had a disruption. We had a necessary family pause where we prayed and we fellowshiped. But in discussing submission, it is a very unpopular thing to describe biblical traditional marriage and say this is still binding on us, on believers, that we're supposed to have wives submit to their husbands as to the Lord. This is exactly what Paul says, but it's not popular. It's very unpopular because of our civilizational decay where we have disintegrated in our thinking away from the plain statements of Scripture. And I think there's been a big mistake that's happened in terms of Christian marriage. When Paul tells husbands to love their wives self-sacrificially like Christ loved the church, so that means dying on the cross for the church. That means wholly, completely committed to the service for the church as the church's head. He's self-sacrificial, leading, giving the example, and dying for us. When he tells husbands that, and they don't do it, wives still are responsible to submit to their husbands as to the Lord, because that's what the scriptures say. But then somehow in our minds we get this idea that that is the picture the Bible paints is a husband who doesn't self-sacrifice, who isn't submissive to God and therefore servant to his wife in the sense that Christ has served the church. And therefore, we've been labeled as those who reinforce failing husbands and then slavish wives. Now here's the problem. In the fall, in the curse, in Genesis chapter three, we're told when God curses the woman, when he gives her her curse, before he gets to man and his curse is his labor, there's a curse for the woman in her labor. I'm gonna multiply your pain in childbirth. I don't think it just means labor pains. I think it means this is gonna hurt all your life in the raising and development of children, but it starts off with a doozy. Now, that's not all that's gonna happen. Your desire will be for your husband, and some say that means she really wants to be around him, and others say that means she wants to take his place, and I'm of the latter category. I think that's what it's talking about, because that same word, desire, is sin is crashing in the doors, desire is for you, God tells Cain. The desire is not a good desire. It's not a, oh, I just really wanna be with my husband. It's more a usurpation. There is a battle that's going to rage between you because of your sinfulness, because of your selfishness, because of the consequences of sin. But he will rule over you. He will rule over you. Lord it over you. There is no model of leadership in the scriptures where Jesus has commended us the responsibility of lording it over. The one who calls himself Lord over us, the one that we call Lord, does not teach to lord it over. That is not the biblical picture of headship. But it is, headship does have authority. And so what's happened is we haven't, people who don't want to hear from God anyway, don't listen to what he's saying. And then they superimpose what's cursed and say, well, we're insisting that the curse continue. Now, the curse isn't completely undone through spiritual, the Holy Spirit's empowerment. You still have a sin nature. You're still going to have your Genesis 3.16 moments. It's always going to be a battle. And you're always fighting yourself. I mean, think about this. If I'm in your corner, if you're in my corner, we're pulling for each other, we want to encourage each other and help each other out. Think about this. That means that I'm opposed to the person that's bringing you down. That means that I'm on your side and I'm against them. The problem is it's you. You're your own worst enemy, and so am I. We're dealing with the inner problem of ourselves, of our flesh. And so there's something about you that I'm completely opposed to for your sake because I'm pulling for you. Isn't that true? Isn't that the complexity of dealing with each other? Here's what we do. You come after me and say, here's what I see about the part of you that's pulling you down. And I say, you're judging me. Wait a second, no, I'm talking about the part of you that's pulling you down from you. And so, in my sinfulness, well, that's talking about me. Well, yeah, but I'm for you. See, that's the problem, we're all broken. I keep saying that, we're all broken. And this is the problem of marriage. You're gonna have a Genesis 3.16 cursed moments of the battle of the sexes, but we're not saying that's the norm for Christian praxis. In fact, it's not. In fact, we're not supposed to live like that. You're not supposed to lord it over your wives, gentlemen and wives. You're not supposed to be vying for control, and I'm gonna make the decision. I wanna talk about authority as we get into Ephesians 5.22-24, wives submit to your husbands as to the Lord. I wanna say this, authority is not a bad word, but people that don't want to submit to authority hate that word. Tonight is the night to look at yourself, to judge yourself and say, do I love the Lord Jesus Christ enough to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ? And if I do, then the thought of someone having authority over me, that he has placed an authority over me, needs to become a blessing to me that I embrace, that I cherish, that I fight for. If you are supposed to be under authority, go for it! And that's submission. That's the right approach to the blessings that God has given us. But it's a question of, will I really submit this aspect of my life to the obedience of Christ? That's what Paul's doing. He's tearing down all the fortresses raised up and all the lofty things raised up against the knowledge of God, and he's taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. And that's what he does as he preaches. And so I know this is a huge challenge. I've said it many times. The household code, husbands, wives, children, parents, slaves, masters, or management, labor, this is the hardest stuff in life. because it shows me my sinfulness, my limitations, my weakness, my brokenness, my tendencies, like no other aspect of life. It's much easier to go associate with people that don't really know me and don't let them know much because the more people will get to know me, the more they'll see, hey, there's some stuff that doesn't smell quite right over here because we're broken. Again, I don't come to just have therapy for me. I just know what the scriptures say, and I see it in myself to the extent that He allows me to. And I pray that you see it in yourselves. I pray that you can see there is a plank that hangs out of all of our eyes, and we've got to constantly remove it. The Holy Spirit gives us blessing through the Word of God to equip us to do that. And so what we're saying is that we need to embrace submission to duly constituted authority wherever we find it. If you have a boss, you need to thank God for the boss, and you need to serve God in how you deal with the boss. That means you're thinking. It doesn't mean you're just going through emotions. Well, the boss wants this, and you're not mirroring the boss's emotions, and you're not acting like the boss wants you to act necessarily. You're serving God as you submit to the authority of the person in the position. That's gonna be what he talks about slaves and masters. But husbands and wives is very mercurial. See, no one wore their white blazer tonight to demonstrate solidarity that there are indeed a woman. And I'm glad that God made half of us or a little more than half of us in the world women. And I apologize for the rest of us being men and all that and how awful it is that we exist. I'm just kidding. I like being a man. I like men. I like women. God's good in what He did. I love God, and I love His works. But men and women are broken, and they don't get a special corner on victimhood of being broken. Everybody's victimized by the sin nature. Everybody's victimized by their own inner lusts and giving in to our lusts. In other words, we destroy ourselves. and it's by our choice, and that's what I wanna get to on authority. Authority, as I understand it from scripture, authority doesn't mean that you have to put rose petals on the road before I walk on it. Authority doesn't mean that my coffee better be ready before I even want it. That's not authority, that's lording it over, that's slaves and masters. Authority is very simple. Authority is the right, the right, and responsibility to make the decision. Authority. See, this is what we don't understand about citizenship and the franchise in our country. We have done something horrible to ourselves by losing track of virtue. Because virtue is the only check on the unbelievable authority placed in the hands of everyone who's just born here. Everyone who just becomes a citizen, naturalized citizen here, has the ability to make a decision. Many decisions about governance and what that will entail. We even put referenda in front of people so they can decide what should the government choose in terms of legislation. It's amazing the power we have in this country just by way of example. But the franchise, the ability to vote, is authority. It's the right and responsibility to make decisions. My illustration is voting. Let's get out of politics, please. Okay. Well, this sinking ship needs to go this way. Well, this sinking ship needs to go this way. Titanic's gonna sink, and maybe we're the band playing the song as it goes down, but near my God to thee is where we wanna be. So let's not worry about these silly things, let's talk about eternity. Your decision today and how you submit to the Lord Jesus Christ, and therefore to the authority structures he's delegated, and how you submit to the duly constituted, immediate authority, the boss, the husband, parents and their children. How you submit to duly constituted authority is going to show up in how Jesus judges you for eternity because he's required this of us. That's the deal. So in a way, if you have someone in authority over you, if you have, ladies, you have a head as a husband that has the right to make certain decisions, like a head makes decisions, The most important one probably is to listen to the help God has provided him so that you have two fully functional human brains working on the problem instead of competing with our wives and say, you go over there and work on the problem, I'll be over here working on the problem, let's see who has the best answer. That's so stupid. Let's get together and work on this thing together. Are you good at this? Yeah. Well, I'm not. Well, maybe you work on this part, and I'll work on this part. That's not a problem for headship. Feet walk. Hands clap. Okay? If your eyebrows are responsible for clapping, you're in a lot of trouble. Everybody's got their different job. Some of us can do that, but not all of us. We'll work on that a little bit. Authority is a blessing, but it's under hard times because all authority proceeds from God, says Romans 13. And man doesn't wanna submit to God, so we sure aren't gonna submit to those that he's delegated in authority over us. It's a hard thing. If you don't know this of yourself, that when someone tells you what to do, and they have the right to tell you and say, this is the decision, let's go with it. If they don't say it just right, like you wanna hear it, put a chocolate on your pillow and everything, You probably know that little rancor that kinda rises up in you that, wait a second, you're gonna tell me? Yeah, I'm your dad, I'm your father, and I'm telling you that's how it is. Authority. Now, I've said it before, I've said it many times, for some people who are arrogant, who don't want to submit to God or any other authority, any exercise of that authority, that right to make decisions, that responsibility to say this is the decision, this is the turn we're gonna take, this is the direction we're gonna go. Any exercise of authority will be considered an abuse of authority. Do you know people like that? Who feel like, well, I can't believe they said that. It was their decision to make. It was their call. It was their responsibility. I think we are often in sympathy, we tend towards sympathy for those who don't have higher authority. Our sympathies are for those that are struggling under the yoke of the person with the higher authority. We feel sorry for Joseph in the prison, right? As he's imprisoned and he's a slave and he rises in the ranks in prison. We feel sorry for him because he's at the bottom. And that's good because he's got sinful people over him making decisions for his life. So we should, we should feel sorry for Joseph. But he's got a really hard job when it comes to being the prime minister. He's got to make decisions that are going to affect the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. And it's on him. It's his load. It's his responsibility. And my point in this is, I think everybody is burdened with the sin nature and everybody struggles with it. privations, with its destruction. And so, yeah, we need to look at what the people without authority are enduring, but also look at the person in authority. It's hard. It's supposed to be hard. This is why passive males, this is why husbands say, forget it. You're gonna Genesis 3.16 me? Okay, I'm gonna go sit down and drink a beer. Then all of a sudden, the Berenstain bears are born. Everybody read the Bear and the Same Bears? When it first came out, I don't know what it is today, the old ones that we still got from when I was a kid. Mama Bear's the preacher, the Papa Bear's the idiot. He barely has any vocational skills. He can make furniture, but he has no life skills at all. And basically, the kids learn how not to live by watching dad as mom unlearns the lessons that dad taught us. Passive male, he works hard, but washing machines work hard. We're not gonna think, I mean that would require thinking. And that's not an okay reaction to the Genesis 3.16 usurpation. However, I can understand it. The point I'm making is that nobody has an easy road. So dividing into groups, well I'm this special group, I'm this person that's hurt because I'm in this group, that's stupid. Everybody's a broken sinner. You're your own worst enemy. You have nobody coming after you like you destroy yourself through personal sin, through thinking more highly of yourself than you ought to think, through neglecting the word of God as a believer who say, I'm gonna go do work all day, but I'm gonna do it on an empty tank of gas. No gas tank, no gas in the tank. I'm just gonna run and just see how far it goes. And the word never comes into our thinking. We're not walking by the spirit. We're not filled by the spirit. We are in this way our own worst enemy. And this is why, even in the church, this passage, Ephesians 5, 22 through 24, is unpopular, it's undesirable, and it's not even understood. The one thing it should be under is understood. but we don't. So let's do that, let's understand what he's saying to the wives. Because you have the Holy Spirit of God, the third person of the Trinity in you, filling you with the word of Christ, so it's richly dwelling within you, because you're saturated with the scriptures and you're speaking to one another spiritually, you're singing, making melody in your heart to the Lord, you're giving thanks to the Father at all times for all things in the name of the Son, you're submitting one to another in the fear of Christ, because of that work of the Spirit now, Let's talk about how that works its way out into the household, wives to your husbands. So let me pull this up on the screen here. That's what we wanted. Those are eagles, okay. If you say Mr. Eagle fast enough, it almost sounds like Mr. Eagle. Here's my translation of 522 through 24. Wives, to your own husbands be submissive as unto the Lord. I think that's what the New American Standard takes that construction to mean, and this is a really hard verse. I'll show you why in a second when we look at it in some more detail. But it's a hard verse for a lot of reasons. One, it's hard grammatically. Two, it's hard to do, because look at him. Sometimes he's stupid. Sometimes he's angry, and anger makes us stupid. Sometimes he's selfish. I mean, a lot of times. There are all kinds of reasons why you can think of why you shouldn't have to do this. except that I've got one why you should, because God said, and we're gonna take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. And then he gives you the explanation, because the husband is the head of the wife. Notice, position, role, responsibility. It's not him, it's his position. It's your fault in this culture that you chose what you chose. Well, I didn't know. Nobody knows, nobody could ever know. But I thought I knew. Yeah, we try to tell you, you didn't know. That's what everyone that loves you tells you, that you can't really know, but you know God and you trust him and you walk with him. And so, in other words, we're all getting to know each other as we go. And so, wives, this is hard to do, but the Lord says to do it because of the position, because he's the head. of the wife, just as Christ is also the head of the church and he is the savior of the body. But as the church is subject to Christ, in the same way also the wives to their own husbands and everything. See, this is, let me say to you who are not married, this is the most powerful thing. You're the most benefited group. I mean, you have single woman privilege, those of you ladies who are single right now. I'm thinking in terms of popular political speak now. You have single woman privilege. All of us who are married, we're not as privileged. What's the word? Less underprivileged or underprivileged? Underprivileged, because we can't make any choices like you can make now, like don't do this to yourself. Now, of course, I am very happily married, and God did something for me that I could never have done for myself, and that's what I told him. God, I'm not good at choosing. I don't know what I need. You know what I need. And that was the wisest thing I probably did. ever. So God blessed me. And I'm very thankful for that. And he continues to bless me. But I didn't know. I didn't know I had an idea of things. But challenges we go through now. We didn't know what was coming. Sometimes I feel like Indiana Jones running through that that temple in the very beginning of Raiders where step here and a poison dart goes this way and you go this way and there's light and a big thing comes out and tries to spear you and then you You do what you're trying to do, and all of a sudden, it's not quite right, and the big ball comes and starts chasing you down. You're like, I'm just reacting. I'm just reacting to what's going on. I mean, that's, you don't know what's coming. You got an idea. We had a treasure map. We kind of got here. You know, we only lost three guides on the way. But when we got there, it was way worse than we expected, but way better, too. It was awesome. Anyway, that's how life is, my little summary. But it's really hard to do this. And so, you super privileged single women. You don't have to submit to somebody that's not your head. But you do have, if you're gonna do it Jesus way, you're gonna have to submit to someone who is your head. So watch it. I'm not trying to scare you into single eunuchdom where you'll never be married. I just want you to be very careful about how you do this. Watch. Pay close attention. He's not going to change his real tendencies, and you need to spend enough time before you commit yourself to know what the real tendencies are, because you're going to submit to that. It's going to be how it is. And so, he's going to do his best. We all do this. We all put on our date suit, our date person. This is who I am on a date. Wow, that person's great. It's hard to maintain that. You kind of suck in, you kind of show up. Hey, they're in shape. Then you get done and you let it all out. You're kind of like, it's hard to know what you're really going to be dealing with until you actually spend time and you ask the real questions. The question you want to ask is, do I want to follow that? This was always my thing when I was young. When I was a young man, I said, I will know the one because she follows me. And I did. I did. That was the question, because I know it's an awful thing to have to do. But that's the thing. And so is he someone you want to follow? And do you know enough about his character to make that assessment? Because this is what you're in for. See how much I love you? That's the best thing that anyone can ever tell you about this. Yeah, he needs to do all the things he needs to do. But is he a savior of the body? Is he gonna protect you? Is he gonna provide for you? Is he gonna be the man that God is calling him out to be? See, this is the beautiful thing about our church. It's a small church, but we're really, I'm interested in us all being the metal stock, and the Lord is just using His hammer with His word, and the Spirit is kind of the anvil, or the other way around, and we're just being shaped and formed, and it hurts. But as it happens, He's making something valuable out of us, and it's strong, it's tempered steel. And so, this is what we're called to be, man. I hope that the wives section is very convicting to the men, because he's gonna go through all these verses on husbands, but look what the wife has to look at. You're supposed to submit to the husband as the Christ, because Jesus is the head of the church, and you're like, it's head and body, and he's the savior of the body. All right, let's look at it in detail. Wives, to your own husbands be submissive, as unto the Lord. The reason this is a hard verse in grammar is this phrase right here. Sorry, this, not phrase, but this particle. Hos, H-O-S, long H-O-S is that. It's one of these things that could have several possible meanings, and so it's got a really long page, several pages in the dictionary to say how is this used. So in what sense is a wife to submit to her husband? Two main views have been proposed. The first one, the one that's wrong, that I'll serve up is that you serve your husband just like you serve the Lord so that it's like portraying worship. Like I'm to worship the Lord, and so I submit to him as part of the church, and so I'm submitting to the Lord. Like the way I, a man, submit to the Lord is the way a wife should submit to her husband with that kind of worship and reverence. No. I don't think that's what it means. That's why my translation says I've done to the Lord. The host here, the comparison, the thing that's being shown is that even though we are not Jesus, You submit to your husband for Jesus' sake, as unto the Lord. You're doing it what you do, and we're all to do all that we do for his sake. And this is the big picture that I started on Sunday with this idea. The thing missing from Christians in their Christian walk, the thing missing from Christian marriage is the filling of the spirit. It's the word of God saturating us. What I do here is a big no-no in churches. See, look around. It's a small church. Why isn't the Holy Spirit adding to our numbers? Why don't we have our building program? Why don't we get more people? Well, the reason we don't get more people is because we have a culture that we're offering a message that there's no market for. And the message is, hey, we've gotta make some changes. And God has to actually do it in us. And we're not good enough, but by His grace, He makes us capable. And that's not a popular message. And let me further make it more radical. And we have to be constantly saturated with the Scriptures, with the Word of God. The Word of Christ is to richly dwell within us. And that's what's missing from our Christian lives, and that's what's missing from our Christian marriages. that the Lord Jesus is so real to me that even though I've got somebody that's unfairly treating me or speaking harshly to me or missing it big time in his responsibilities, because of my rapport with God and my commitment to Jesus Christ, I can, for his sake, do this thing he's asked me to do. That's the spiritual life and that's the secret to powerful Christian womanhood. In other words, you can be a wife that God wants you to be even if your husband isn't the husband that God wants him to be. Do you believe that? I think he's saying that in this verse. Wives, be submissive to your own husbands as unto the Lord. For the Lord's sake is what I think Paul means there. You can do it. He doesn't deserve it. Sometimes you have to look right through him to Jesus. It's hard. It's awful. Let's throw all our excuses at this. Well, you just don't know what I'm going through. You don't know what the consequences are to what you're trying to say because if this, he can't drive, I gotta drive. Name your excuse. What are you afraid of? Well, we'll lose this or that. Maybe. Maybe Mr. supposed to represent Christ in the marriage is gonna step up because he has to. You know, this is a thing we deal with. At some point you have to get rid of the crutches when you're recovering because you need to strengthen. You know, walk it off, son, like they say. You got to strengthen up because if you keep the crutches, you are going to be weak in that leg that needs to get stronger. So it's a balance. You don't need to re-injure your leg. You've got to depend on it as you need it. But eventually, you're going to have to get rid of the crutches and be strong. How many crutches do we have in life? We're in a therapeutic safety net culture. Everything's got to be the safety net. Oh, I can't just make it. Oh, I couldn't possibly make it. You tell the pilgrims that. Let's go back to 1620, when they said, you know what, we're going to have a socialized property ownership by the Commonwealth, and everybody can work their plot, but we're going to bring in our portion all in together, and then everyone gets an equal share of what is produced by the multitude. They almost starved to death. It's one of the great stories of American founding, that these pilgrim fathers learned in the first year, that is a good way to starve to death. Because nobody's, everybody's like, well, it'll happen. But when it's on you to make your plot happen, like, hey, you get to eat what you produce, all of a sudden, everybody's working. Nobody's sitting around. Nobody has everyone's afraid because they've got to make it make it happen. So this is this is how it works. If you've got a crutch, you're probably going to lean on it too much and get lazy. Get that crutch out of there, and all of a sudden, somebody can rise to the occasion. Ladies, if you're the crutch, and your husband needs to be stronger, and you're always doing what he should be doing, you're always making all the decisions, because he can't make decisions. The reason he can't, in part, is because he doesn't have to. Oh, no. I'm not reacting to anyone personally. I'm just reacting to myself. See, but we love each other. We love one another. I don't want to see someone fall on their face. I'm not the person, I will never teach anyone to swim by throwing them in the deep end of the pool. That's a good way to give someone fear of swimming for the rest of their lives. I know that personally, not my own experience, but a loved one. You don't do that to someone. Now, I know John Wayne says to do it, but that's not really, it doesn't really work necessarily. It might work with some people, not with others, and you have to know what you're doing. What I'm saying is, I don't want to ever see anyone plots. I never want to see anyone take a digger. Let me tell you an illustration. We had, this is the hardest thing I think I've ever seen. One of, it's in the top ten anyway, because it's my own son. But little Nathan, he is the most aggressive little trapeze artist that we have. Of all the monkeys, he's the one that most likely to hang by his index toe and his big toe. I mean, upside down. The kid's amazing. Right? The kid's fantastic. I mean, he is jumping off the bed and doing dive rolls, you know, at least six weeks before anyone else did at that same age. All right. He had to have surgery in 18 months for a hernia. He's the only one that had that too, but he is just an aggressive little go-getter. So he's riding his bike, and we got him a balance bike. I actually had a balance bike for you, but it was Nathan's turn to ride it. And we had just repaired it and gotten a new wheel on the back, and so this was kind of the test run. And our hill we live on on our road is a little bit too steep for a test run. And so before we even have a chance really to say, hey, hey, He's down there. The others are running, and he's got to catch them. And that back wheel starts to wobble, and he doesn't really have good balance. He doesn't know what he's doing yet. And he goes over the front of those handlebars and catches most of it on his face. We've still got the pictures from what it did to his face. It was a long heel. It was a long time before he looked like himself again. So hard to see that. And yeah, I'm telling on myself. I mean, it's my responsibility. I should have stopped him. I should have controlled the situation better. All those things I should have done. It got away from me. Usually doesn't. Did one time. I'm a failure. But, okay. But I had to watch that. And sometimes we have to take a face plant. Now, he didn't need to do that in this case. And I should have stopped him. But he's four. Well, he was, was he two? He was three? Okay. He was just barely three. I mean, he wasn't doing a handstand on the thing, he probably wanted to. We never want to see our kids hurt. We never want to see our husbands or our wives face plant. You don't want to see someone you love fail. But sometimes they have to be able to fail. It has to be a real potential, or they won't work. They won't do what's necessary. Isn't that the whole premise of schooling? I mean, all the whole educational process of, hey, there is a real test. It's not open book. It's not open note. And if you don't know the stuff, and if you haven't studied and listened to the lectures, you will fail the course, and we will still take your money. That's the whole process in education. Right? And guess what it makes me do? Learn. It makes me study when I could do other things. Well, you know, I could go out with my friends or I could watch TV or I could, you know, weave a basket or whatever. You know, and it's not basket weaving class. Right? I'm going to do something besides what I need to do unless there's that chance of failure. And I'm making a long discussion of a very common excuse. He can't be the decision maker in this case because we'll fail. You're already failing if you're not going to submit to your husband and let him decide. It's a fail. Now, that's not for me. That's not something I would conclude on myself. I'm all about taking the IQ tests and seeing who's got the most on the ball. And also, we'll do some worldview analysis, because IQ doesn't necessarily mean you have any wisdom. And whoever's the wisest and best suited to make the decision, let's just make it a meritocracy and do it that way. But that's not what the scriptures say. Ladies, that's what you need to be doing, is you evaluate character before you pick someone to follow. Yeah, pick someone that you actually want to follow that you won't constantly be saying, oh, why do we do this? Oh, no, we're doing that. Oh, I can't believe we have to watch ourselves do it. And you just keep taking it to the Lord and you submit to your husband as to the Lord. Now, why? Why do wives submit to their husbands as unto the Lord? That's the command. It's a very clear command. Now, why do it? Because of position. Because the husband is the head of the wife, just as Christ is also the head of the body, and He's the Savior of the body. Hold the place. Let's go to Titus 2. I want you to see that Paul is not just joshing us by talking to the Ephesians about this. It's not just, well, this is a one-off. Paul thinks this is central to your gospel testimony, your effectiveness as a disciple of Jesus to make other disciples women. In Titus 2, you have the older women equipping the younger women to be wives and mothers. It's one of my favorite statements in all of Scripture because it thrashes my civilization as we disintegrate. Older women, verse three, likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips. Let's translate that as it should be devils, that's diaboloi, devils. Nor enslaved to much wine. It doesn't say teaching what is good, it says teachers of the good. It's an adjective, it just is. So that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, actually to be of sound mind, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject, same verb, hupotasso, to their own husbands, it means to submit to the higher authority, in this case, so that the word of God will not be dishonored. Your discipling others with the Word of God depends on your performance in the role God assigns you. The Word of God will be dishonored if we don't get this right. And that's the conclusion of what he says to the older women, for the younger women. This is not about whether they're compatible or hey, everybody's having a good time and our communication strategies are working. I love to help with that. I can help and talk you through some of that on how to communicate and how to enjoy time together. That's a really important thing to cultivate, especially husbands, be thinking about what your wives need. But this is not about you. It's about the word of God not being dishonored. Blasphemed is the actual word. So this is really back to the filling of the Holy Spirit. This is about serving God. This is about obeying Him. This is about being saturated with His word, and therefore will I do it. Now, in our hearts, here's the test of this. This is where I wanna actually address feelings. Do you feel when you hear this angst, angst, if we'll say it correctly, do you feel Oh, that's not just wrong. Do you feel like this is an irksome requirement that's placed on you? See, if you feel that way, you need to talk to the Lord about this because how you feel really does matter about how you perform. Have y'all ever listened to any Dave Ramsey? I know Dave Ramsey about how to handle money. Basically, you know, don't ever go in debt and pay off your debts and save money and live like no one else now so you can live like no one else later. I got all kinds. I like to listen to Dave Ramsey. He's very helpful. What Dave Ramsey says about how he's developed his strategy for success with money. So that if you get with him young and you are an industrious worker all your life, you can have a very nice retirement and it's not any problem to make a really good living. If you start young. But he says, My problem when I was first in debt, when I came to myself and said, I've got to get out of this, and my wife and I almost had a divorce, it's his story. He says, my problem wasn't math. My problem was my emotions. I can do math. If we get a credit card with a lower interest rate, then we can float that debt, you know, and do. But see, that's all true, but you won't do it because your emotions, how you feel about things are really, really more important than we tend to think. So he says, the method I've developed is basically serving your feelings as much as it's serving the math. In other words, his method is that you get debts paid off, you pay off little things and say, hey, we won, we got a win, and you get that feeling like we had a good outcome, and then you do some more, and you do some more, and you build momentum because you get kind of addicted to success. in how you feel, and that's his strategy, and I think that's why it's so successful. He's hit on something, this is just an illustration, but what I'm saying is, ladies, if you feel that to submit to a husband as your authority is a problem, is irksome, is undesirable, is something less than God's best for you, and we've misread it somehow, or you know, I know the Bible says that, and I just have to submit to that, and you haven't yet embraced it, you're still locked into a prison you've constructed for yourself. Maybe the world has tried to suggest that you go into this prison. I mean, that's what feminism is. First wave, second wave, it doesn't matter. Feminism has always been go into the prison of Genesis 3.16 and do not listen to God's design for household responsibilities and marriage roles. But see, God doesn't tell you this because this is the best you can do with the brokenness that we have. God tells you this because from the very beginning before the fall, man was the head of his wife, that's how God designed it. It's pre-fall, it's not the fall, it's the eternal design that God had for husbands and wives in terms of what we would do in this phase of life. It's always been, in other words, God's plan for us. If you feel like this is irksome to you, and there are women in the church I know that do, I'm certain of it. They just, oh, you men, you men get to run everything. And I'll show you in the Bible where it says, I do not allow women to teach or have authority over men. It's in 1 Timothy 2. We're careful about that because of the creation order God's talking about here. Well, if that's a problem, that's not a problem for this church, that's a problem for you in a prison you've made for yourself. In other words, when you find out that God is in charge, and he used to say, this is how I want it, you have hit the jackpot. You have found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, and most of the world is deceived into not even being able to spot it. Just as the church is submitted to Christ, so also wives to their husbands in everything. Just as the church is submitted to Christ, so also wives to their own husbands in ponte, on ponte, in everything. Well here is a comparison chart with the three statements in verses 22, 23, 24 that show you the two pieces, the illustrations being made. Wives to their husbands, the church to Christ is the two pieces. So wives to your husbands be submissive as unto the Lord which initializes the way to think about your role. If you are, by God's design, a wife, then be the wife God wants you to be. And so you do it as unto the Lord. That's the message. Because the husband's the head of the wife. Oh, that verse 23a. That is what's wrong with Western civilization. Men are in charge, but they are the head of the wife. That's what God made us to be. I wouldn't know that on my own. Believe me, I wouldn't know that. I've never won an argument. I know. I think this is how it is, and I'm always gonna end up wrong. I'm joking, but not really. Everyone looks at your pastor's wife and you're like, shouldn't have done that. Anyway, everyone in the room knows that you've never won an argument. And if you have, you did not. You think you did. What I'm saying is you need help. God knows we all need help. But this verse 23, the husband is the head of the wife, is that piece that God did this. And notice we've slid away from that. The world rejects it in your culture. What have we rejected now that God did? What's the new thing we rejected? Whether you are a boy or a girl. We have people that someone actually pays attention to what they say, because they can repeat lines other people write to pretend to be people they're not. They're called actors. You have actors out there saying, well, we are trying to raise our daughter in a non-gender specific way so that they can decide whatever Xer is when it's time, right? It's crazy, but this started with this roles thing. We can't be a husband or a wife. We've got to be interchangeable and reject this design of headship. So now we're going to reject the design of whether we're biologically male or female. Interestingly, it's, I even talk, I talk a lot about the X and Y chromosome thing. Men have an X and a Y, women have two X's. That's just your body. I think there's a male and female spiritual reality too. I think you're a male, female through and through. I don't think it's just in your body. I think there's a mysterious, invisible connection between the immaterial you, the soul, spirit, and the body, but I think you are what you are inside because you're made to be what you are. And I know that it's very challenging. Well, what about intersex people? That used to be called hermaphroditism. Now they call it intersex. Somebody that's born with both sexual organs. And the answer to that is let's, I think you go and look at the soul. start looking at this person and then you have to really be careful and trust the Lord with what you do. But that's just a picture of the curse of the fall. All the problems we have that are genetic malfunctions are results of the fall of the curse on the ground and on our experience on this world. Justice Christ is the head of the church and he is the savior of the body. I wanted to emphasize this part with you in this chart here. Justice Christ is also the head of the church. That headship is somehow earned by virtue of his work. He's the savior of his body, the church. The savior of his body. Again, I've done it, we've done like three laps through this, I know, but that slaps us down, doesn't it, man? In other words, You never deserve that position of headship. Nobody is Jesus except Jesus. But you have a model, you have an ideal, you have someone to key off of and to act like, the savior of the body. Headship is a high calling with great hardship. And this is what always blows me away is the self-sacrificing wife Okay, the self-sacrificing wife who's providing and helping and trying to help her husband because she's been designed as his helpmate, Genesis 2, who doesn't have a savior of the body in her husband. She is lifting what he should be lifting. It happens, we've all seen it. but if you're living it, it's time to repent. It's time to change your thinking about your job, your role before the Lord. So also wives to their own husbands and everything, the order flips in verse 24. He goes to the church first and then goes to wives second to kind of invert and focus on this thing of the church and Christ as the focal discussion. There is a thing called evangelical It is the view that men and women no longer have specified sex roles in terms of authority in marriage because of Christ, because Jesus has done away with distinctions of male and female and slave and free and their one verse, I want you to remember this, is Galatians 3.28. The one verse is Galatians 3.28, there is no longer male or female or slave or free or Jew or Greek for we're all one in Christ. We're all children of God, literally sons of God in Greek by faith in Christ Jesus. And I think this is a horrible misuse of Galatians 3.28. What I'll tell you about Galatians 3.28 is that it could, that general statement could mean that there are no more authority positions in the body of Christ because of Christ. It could mean that, but it couldn't mean that in the light of Ephesians 5, 22 through 24. He reestablishes and emphasizes headship, bodyship, authority, submission. Now, if I was gonna issue you a quiz, it would be all about men's responsibilities tonight. Do you know why? Because Ephesians 5.21 says submit one to another in the fear of Christ. It doesn't mean husbands are no longer heads and wives are no longer the body and we don't have the Christ and church comparison. What does it mean? What does it mean if you submit to your wife? It means that you, like Jesus, put on the towel, you are the highest-ranking person in the room, and you do the job of the lowest-ranking person. That's what that means. You put on the towel, and you serve, and you wash their feet. You take care of them. You do that undesirable task for their sake, and Jesus says, I am the master of all of you, and the slave isn't greater than his master. You serve, you sacrifice, you are the savior of the body in that sense. That's the big quiz, how do you submit to your wives? It is not a matter of authority, it's something way more important. You don't change the fact that you are still responsible to make decisions, you better steer the ship and you better benefit from the help God gave you in doing that, called your wife. Doesn't change the authority thing, it just means that you take very seriously that shepherd responsibility to serve her needs, to put yourself out on her behalf. Now, there's a fine line, right, between mama wants to crack the whip and say, well, you didn't do the honeydew list and all that stuff. Berenstain Bears, now Mama Bear, you know, kind of running the show. And the husband who is making decisions and is assertive and righteous in his role as head, who is also the savior of the body and serves her needs. But it's pretty obvious, just stick in the Bible. Now here's my challenge also to the ladies. If you can conclude that you don't need headship and that there is no authority between husband and wife, or husband over wife, and just in terms of authority, if that doesn't exist, how in the world do you negotiate Christ and the church in Ephesians chapter five? Colossians 3.18 has got a very consistent pattern as we close. Wives, be submissive to your own husbands just as is fitting in the Lord. Colossians 3, 18. Interestingly, in the exact same pattern as we've seen, verse 19 says, husbands, love your wives, and do not be embittered against them. It's better to live in the corner of a house, in the corner of the roof than in a house with a contentious woman, says the Proverbs. But husbands, love your wives. Now wives, submit to your husbands. Husbands, love your wives. It's the same pattern in Colossians 3. In other words, he meant it in Ephesians 5, and he means it in Colossians 3. Here's my fear. I fear the shipwreck of your faith. I fear that this message of headship and authority will be misunderstood. misappropriated, we'll hear what we want to hear, and then I'll be accused, as the pastor and the speaker here, of saying something I haven't said. Like husbands can lord it over their wives if they've said the exact opposite. I'm afraid that I will be misunderstood, and it's a legitimate fear. I mean, in the Lord, I fear for your sake and the shipwreck of your faith that you'll say, the word of God, we're pushing the details too much, or something that basically amounts to a fudge that allows you to weasel out of this blessing. In other words, I fear for your outcome at the judgment seat of Christ that you don't make the choice right now in your heart, husbands, to serve self-sacrificially the needs of your wife as her head, and that wives, you don't choose right now in your heart to say, God is gonna have his way, and as unto the Lord Jesus Christ, I'm gonna submit to this man. I fear for you, I fear for you because of all the decisions that'll flow from those initial choices to the glory of God and your favorable outcome at the judgment seat of Christ. And my blessing, my prayer, my desire for you is for every possible blessing in the spiritual, in the disbursement of our inheritance when we do have our works tested by fire. Let me pray for you. Father, it is so easy to get this wrong. All we have to do is focus on ourselves or unduly focus on one another. To take our eyes off of you, off of your word, off of your expectations, off of the blessings that you've given us from speaking to us in your word and look at our problems, look at one another. He's not worth obeying and she's not worth sacrificing for. All the while we've left you out, Father, and disregarded your Son. Father, let everyone present, everyone in the hearing of my voice, be filled by your Spirit with the Word of Christ richly dwelling within us, embracing this high calling to submission, self-sacrifice, humility, considering one another better than ourselves, more important than ourselves. Father, let this be our heartbeat, our ethic, our watchword, humility. Let this humility so characterize us that this become the avenue where people say, what is going on with you and your life? Father, let the word not be blasphemed on our account here in this church because our wives do not understand the blessing of authority. At the same token, don't let our husbands consider themselves worthy of headship. even though they are responsible to carry it out. I pray it in Jesus' name, amen.