Together we were thinking of being filled with the fullness of the Spirit of God. And we ended our little study last week by just asking ourselves the question, are we filled with the Spirit of God, with the Holy Spirit? We noted that it's a command. It's not a suggestion. We're not in a position to be free to ignore it. We notice that it's a plural command. It applies to all believers. All are to demonstrate that the Holy Spirit lives within them. There's to be no drunkenness. In other words, no getting out of control. Controlled by the Holy Spirit is what Paul is encouraging us to be engaged in here. Thirdly, it is a command calling for us to be passive and to allow the Holy Spirit to fill and to flow out of us. We must turn from any known sin and open our hearts and our minds to the Word of God. We must yield to the Spirit. Then lastly, it is a present tense command. receiving the Holy Spirit as a once-for-all experience. As we are converted, as we are born again in the Spirit of God, we are nonetheless to allow the Spirit to continually fill us and to flow out of us and to allow us to demonstrate the graces inherent in the Holy Spirit. They are to be evident in our lives as they benefit us, as they benefit other believers, and as they benefit those still in their sin. We are those who have capacity for spiritual life and power beyond our wildest imaginings. So we come to verses 21 to 24 this evening, and we could entitle this little passage here, The Mystery of Marriage, Part One. because tonight we're going to be thinking particularly about wives. In the will of the Lord on another occasion, on a future occasion, we shall think of the husbands. Paul, it now seems, is going to become intensely practical. He's going to turn his attention to the Christian household. He's going to do that from verse 21 of chapter 5 right the way through to verse 9 of chapter 6. Luther called it a household table. In other words, he called it a table of duties that were incumbent upon those who live within that household. In the first few verses, 22 to 22, he talks about wives and husbands. Then he'll go on to talk about children and parents. And then he'll end up by speaking about slaves. and masters. In the verses I said, 22 to 24, he highlights the wives, and then in 25 to 33, he highlights the husbands. I approach this particular section with great care, even, dare I say, trepidation. Because as I've been studying it, it speaks very, very, very strongly, very personally to my own heart and my own life. You see, we're dealing with a subject here which, in the modern world in which we live, in popular modern society, it contains one particular, very incendiary word. A word that in today's society means oppression, subjugation, and it means domination. The word submit. Now when Paul used the word here, it wasn't used in such a strong way in the way in which we use it and understand it perhaps today. What we need to remember as we look at these few verses together is simply this. But what we are being instructed in in these subjects here that Paul takes up, we're being instructed in God's given order for the marriage relationship. Forget what the world thinks about marriage today and the way in which they treat it. We were at a marriage ceremony recently, weren't we, Colin? And there the words were said, not to be undertaken lightly or inadvisedly. But sadly today, that is not the way in which the world will approach marriage. I well remember that some years ago now, probably nearly 20 years ago, when my son was getting married, and he was going to get married to a particular girl, and I said to him, are you absolutely certain that this is the right partner for you for the rest of your life? And he said, well, Dad, if it's not right, I'll change and I'll have another one. Now, he was winding me up, of course, because he knew exactly what I thought about the sanctity of marriage, that marriage is to one person and it is for life. But that's the way the world treats it, of course, today. The truths here taught are easily perverted and used by men, and particularly the words here have been used down through the centuries by men to abuse their wives. Many marriages today seem to be built on self-fulfillment. They're built on a premise that it's an alliance to promote personal growth. It's all about me. I've heard many ladies particularly saying, the marriage day, the wedding day, it's my day. I'm going to do what I want to do. It's got to be all about me. This is how modern society promotes marriage. And as I say, when the difficulties arrive, when the problems come, then it's really a question, as they say in the world today, next. we'll move on, we'll have another go with somebody else. God says that is not the way that marriage should be treated. And it's difficult for us perhaps in the modern world as Christians, as believers, as those who take these words of Paul literally and absolutely as from God himself, it's difficult for us sometimes to defend our particular position. So I hope that, in a very simple way, I hope that I get across this evening something, something of the sanctity of marriage, something of the way in which a wife should behave in a marriage. God says marriage is ordered equality. Got that? It's exactly two equal persons, two people on an absolutely equal footing coming together, but ordered by God through the power of the Holy Spirit. There's nothing here degrading, nothing dehumanising. Rather, it's to be looked upon as God's way of enabling us to live in a married state and to be elevated by that state above the things of time and of sense. in those previous verses, 18 to 21, the command was that we were to be filled with the Spirit, and that was to be outflowing from our lives, and it was to be affecting other folks that we came into contact with, whether they be in our fellowship or outside of our fellowship, in our homes, all the rest of it. We were to be those who were recognised to be different, those who had a different control, a controlling influence in our lives. And those verses there culminated in verse 21, with all believers, it says, submitting one to another. As Paul says elsewhere, to be considering others, others better than ourselves. Something that is completely alien, perhaps, to our natures, to the very people we are. Something which is alien in the world in which we live today in modern society. And he speaks about wives, how they must submit to husbands, children to parents, slaves to masters, deferring and to be serving. each other in the spirit of Christ. Again and again you find those words in this passage in chapter 5. How that Christ is the one who is the example to us in all of these particular things. Deferring to and serving each other in the spirit of Christ and in the way that he lived his life. So it's a call to spirit-filled mutual submission. Verse 22 tells us this. It says, Wives, submit yourselves unto your husbands as unto the Lord. Now if it didn't have that little phrase at the end of that verse, it would leave it wide open to us to interpret it as we saw fit. And as I say, for men to use it to abuse, or husbands to use it to abuse their wives. But it says right at the end, as unto the Lord. It's not that wives should expect and accept that they will be lorded over by their husbands, but rather that wives will submit, because it is their duty, because they owe it, to the Lord. So why this emphasis on wifely submission? And what does it entail? So first of all, the reason for this submission. Verse 23, the next verse, tells us why. It says, for the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church and he is the saviour of the body. The reason that a wife would submit to her husband. And it's all about headship. It's not difficult for us to understand that the head is the controller of the body. It's the authority. of the body. It was an accepted meaning in Paul's day that the head was that place of authority. The head, we would say today, of a corporation is the one who leads it, the one who heads it up, the one who makes the final decisions, the one who has on his desk the buck stops here. We have a head of a university. He's the leader of that university. He's the figurehead of that university. He's the one who exercises authority over that particular organization. And the analogy here is that in the words of Scripture, even as Christ is the head of the Church. We would accept that, would we not? That it's indisputable, as we read through the Scriptures, that the Lord Jesus Christ is the head of the Church, the head of the body. He has that undisputed authority over all of us, those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, those who are all of us who are truly born again He's the leader. He's our head. So what does it call the husband to be? Well, in verse 23 it tells us that Christ is the head of the body. The church, and he is the saviour of the body. Servant, leader. Christ is the saviour of the church, saviour of each and every one of us born-again believers, and he is its head. So, the scriptures say, is the husband to be. He must lead with a love, a love like Christ's. The husband must lead that family with a love like the Lord Jesus Christ, a love that is willing to die. for those, it's his followers. Jesus said, recorded for us in Mark chapter 10 and verse 45, Jesus said, For the Son of Man came not to be ministered or served, but to minister, to serve, but to give his life a ransom for many. And again in Luke he says, But he that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger and he that is chief as he that doth serve. So what's Paul teaching us here? Paul is saying headship, the leader of this family, it doesn't give him a license for dominance or for lording it over his wife. Headship has defined limits and it also has reciprocal duties. These two passages here, the instructions to the wife and the instructions to the husband, go hand in hand and they place responsibilities on each person in that relationship. Headship has divine limits and it has reciprocal duties. Husbands are to love their wives. Parents are to care for their children. Masters are to treat their slaves fairly. Headship is never to be used selfishly. Bullying is completely forbidden. Now over the ages of time and particularly perhaps as we look back to the Victorian era and even on into the Edwardian era and on, Men have tended to dominate women and to treat them unkindly and to treat them unfairly. The Scripture is saying here that is completely and utterly wrong. That is not God's idea of marriage relationship at all. It's a two-way contract between two people. You see, Mary, what cannot be commanded is what God forbids. And what God forbids can never be commanded. It has to be in line with God's holy, righteous person. It has to be in line with the perfect, sinless, righteous life that the Lord Jesus Christ lived. So both husbands and wives bear a mutual responsibility. But the husband, by his position, stands in the way of greater judgment. There's no denying it, you know, that, and I dare say the men here who have been in family relationships will have felt this at times in their experience, that this headship is something which is very, very difficult to hold in balance. It's something that is a fearful thing. It's a relationship, a part of the relationship, which is perhaps most difficult to handle. But Paul says this, it takes a husband, it requires a husband to take full counsel of his wife in his decision-making, and to do so in great humility and dependence on the Lord, recognising all the time his own fallibility. That's one of the great failings, it seems to me, of many, many men or husbands in relationships. They don't take into consideration their own fallibility. And we'll see something of that in a minute or two, perhaps. how that the wife has a role to play in maintaining the headship of her husband in that relationship. Again and again, as I say, it says here that this headship has to be modelled on the life of the Lord Jesus Christ, that perfect sinless life, the one who dealt with every situation fairly, honestly, truthfully, this is what the headship of the man in a family has to be modelled upon. It's what our homes should be like and it's what the world and its broken homes so desperately need today. We thought in the past in the Epistle to the Ephesians how that you and I have that responsibility to demonstrate to God, to the world rather, the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ through our lives. And so we have a responsibility here, I believe, to demonstrate to the world the truth of marriage as it is seen by God and how it is recorded for us in the Scriptures. Let us set the example in these particular things. So that then speaks about the reason for this particular submission of the wife to the husband. It's all to do with headship. It's all to do with the relationship of Christ and the Church. But then verse 24 tells us about the nature of that submission. Therefore it says, as the Church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. That again is another statement that can be taken completely wrongly. The reason for wifely submission is that the husband is the head of the wife, God says. And the character of that subjection is to be laid out for us here in verse 24. How can we understand this? Well, first of all, it doesn't suggest spiritual inequality. In the sight of God, both sexes are absolutely equal. Both bear the image of God and both are equal in their standing and spiritual gifts for service. Absolutely and totally equal. Let me read you Galatians 3 and verse 27. For as many of you as have been baptised into Christ have put on Christ. This is what Paul says. There is neither Jew nor Greek There is neither bond nor free. There is neither male nor female. For ye are all one in Christ Jesus." Ordered equality in the family as it is in every sphere. So it doesn't suggest spiritual inequality. There's no superiority. There's no inferiority. It's simply differing roles. differing ways of serving God. Ordered equality. Secondly, it doesn't mean slavish obedience. The word that's been used so often, wrongly in this particular verse, is in everything. Now, it's not saying there that the wife has to support the husband, has to agree with everything that the husband does. That would be wrong, would it not? But if you've got a spiritual, God-fearing wife, how could she possibly support and own the headship of a husband who was taking part in sin of one sort or another? The example again here is given is the Church and Christ. The Church, of course, endeavours to live out the perfect sinless life of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what born-again believers are called upon to do. You call yourself a Christian, you should be Christ-like. This is what it's calling us to do. The everything enjoined here on the wife. is that it be tested against the sinless perfection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Everything that your husband does, if you are in a family relationship and you are endeavouring to honour him as the head of that family, has to be tested against that perfect sinless life of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I suggest that that is fairly frightening for husbands. to think that that is what we are being tested against. Tested against that perfect life of the Lord Jesus Christ. In other words, as I've said, the wife is not being given licence to engage in the sins of her husband. She has that ability, she has that right to demonstrate to her husband that he is in the wrong if he is going against and if he is living a life which is not exactly as that of the Lord Jesus Christ. In marriage, in the marriage bond, in her marriage bond, the Lord Jesus Christ is still the supreme authority, not her husband. She's being called to yield in a happy submission, in recognition of her husband's great responsibility in the position that he's been given by God to lead that home. She's being called to yield in happy submission to that. And no more so than when he is given godly leadership, strong moral loving headship in a family. That's the greatest support that a wife can give to her husband. That's the greatest demonstration of her submission to her husband is when he is operating in line with the Word of God and he is, in effect, Christ-like in that family. It's the greatest joy in her heart it should be to submit to him in that circumstance. Such submission is not going to result in being crushed, but rather it will elevate the wife. and it will enrich her life if she is able to support her husband because she sees him in the God-given position as head of that family, operating as if he were the Lord Jesus Christ. And I say it very reverently. I know none of us can ever live up to that level of life. But this is what she can do. This is how she can demonstrate her submission. So how does this mean that she should, sorry, this does not mean that she should sit in mute silence should her husband commit moral folly. In other words, should he be committing sin? It's not incumbent upon her just to accept the situation and to accept him doing what he's doing. As head of the family, The husband can in no way accuse the wife of a rebellious spirit if she seeks to point out the error of his ways by standing with Christ as her reason for doing that. You see, we're not talking here about superiority or inferiority. were operating on an equal playing field, as it were, recognizing each other's position and role in the family, in the marriage bond. So rather, she is acting then in love with the sole objective of indicating her longing to honor his headship. As she, by her way of life, By her very demeanour, perhaps by kind and considered words, she points out the error in his ways to the husband. What she is doing is honouring him and his headship. trying to encourage him to maintain that position that God has given him, trying to encourage him to be the one who can be looked up to as the head of that family. It's all about attitude, the way she behaves, the way she submits to him. When Adam fell in the garden and sin came into the world, It resulted in a disordered creation. God's ideal for marriage and for the headship of the husband in that family has been replaced by many families in the days in which we live with domination by the male over the wife or by passiveness by the male over the wife. submission which has resulted in usurpation and servility of the wife. So just to conclude these thoughts, the marriage relationship, Paul says here, is an exalted state. It's all about Christ and his Church being the model for our married state, for our married relationships. The couple must be full of the Holy Spirit if they stand any hope at all of fulfilling those vows that they make when they are married. Now I know today that there are modern versions of the marriage ceremony that don't have any of those particular vows in them at all these days. It pains my heart when I hear people making vows which they have absolutely no intention of living up to. And if, as we've, those of us who've been married, those who might be married in a time to come, as we make those vows, it's a very, very important part of that ceremony. The couple then must be full of the Holy Spirit if they stand any hope at all of living out those vows. Communicating with one another on a spiritual level, as we thought last week, being filled with the Spirit. Giving thanks to God continually for his goodness to them, for the position that they occupy within that family, and willingly submitting to one another in their God-appointed roles. The loving husband, can I suggest to you, should be the embodiment of the Lord Jesus Christ. And the submissive wife should be the embodiment of the church, the bride of Christ. Amen. Our hymn before we go to prayer, 842. 8-4-2. O happy home where thou art loved the dearest, thou loving friend and saviour of our race, and where among the guests there never cometh one who can hold such high and honoured place.