You know, the preaching of the Word accomplishes at least two things. You know, the Scriptures say that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. And so God's people are instructed. The other thing it does for me is it's a very humbling, humiliating experience to stand before people and to try to proclaim the Word of the Lord. This morning I want to appeal to his help because it reminds me of how really inadequate I am. And so, let's seek the Lord. come before you this morning thanking you for this new day and this song that we have sung that reminds us of your mercies and how they are new every morning. And we're so thankful for this day because, God, you have shown your mercy and that today we get an opportunity to fellowship with you again. and that we have the opportunity to study Your Word and to know You dearer, and that our children and those who don't yet know You have yet another opportunity to hear Your Word proclaimed. And so today, Lord, I confess my inadequacy. I desperately need You to speak through me, Lord. I have nothing, no advice, nothing of my own to say that will benefit us and our families. And so I pray that Your Spirit have full sway, that you will speak through your word this morning. And Lord, I pray that you will guard my heart against the desire to be well-pleasing, to impress anyone. But Lord, I also pray that you will protect me against, Lord, a desire to be afraid to speak your truth. And so I pray that your Spirit will just control my lips today and that you will speak through me a word that will be beneficial, that will enable us through your gospel and through the power of your spirit to raise up families that will love you and that will honor you and will glorify you. And so I appeal to you this morning and I thank you for the help that you give through your grace. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. In Ephesians 5, Paul tells us to look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise, making the best use of the time because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. You know, we are here this weekend because hopefully we desire to raise families that are different. We don't want our families to be just like the rest of American culture. We want our families to be different. We want our children to grow up to honor God, to be very different than the walk of those around us. And Paul urges us to look carefully and to be very wise in the way we walk, in the way we raise our families. I had the privilege of hearing John Piper speak one time in person, and he preached his famous boast only in the cross sermon. I recommend you listen to that if you've never heard that. I heard him preach that live in 2000. And he said something that was riveting to me at the time, and I want to just briefly quote that. He said, if you want your life to count, if you want the ripple effect of the pebbles you drop to become waves that reach the ends of the earth and roll on for centuries into eternity, you don't have to have a high IQ or EQ. You don't have to have good looks or riches. You don't have to come from a fine family or a fine school. You have to know a few great, majestic, unchanging, obvious, simple, glorious things and be set on fire by them. And I don't know about you that that grips me today because I don't want my children just to grow up to be average children. to go out and live average lives. I don't want our family just to be another American family that is about working and having nice stuff and a nice house and nice vacations and live a good life and enjoy life and hopefully escape hell. I want our family to glorify God and to live for something far different than our culture is spending billions of dollars to get us to buy into. And to live for the glory of God as a family requires that we die to the idea of being an average American family. Because God has called us to something far greater. He has called us to not live as unwise, but to live as wise, making the best use of the time we have, which we know, as we watch our children grow up quickly, is fleeting. And so let's redeem that time. Fathers, in order to raise a family that will not just be an average American family, that requires us to die to the idea of living our lives primarily of having a fulfilling career. God has not called us to be just successful in our careers. He has called us to raise godly families who live radically different lives for more than the fleeting pleasures of Egypt. Mothers, God has not called you to be the perfect woman with the perfect body, clothes, career and trophy children. God has called you to adorn yourselves with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and a quiet spirit which, in God's sight, is very precious. 1 Peter 3, 4. Women who hope in God. And so living for the glory of God as a family requires dying to self and casting ourselves on Jesus Christ and His word, not Oprah or Dr. Phil, as the source of how to raise our family. We will not live for God's glory as a family unless we are very intentional and focused on the goal set for us by God in His Word. And so Paul calls us to urgency and to intentionality here in Ephesians chapter five by telling us to look carefully how you walk. Look carefully how you raise your children. Husbands, look carefully how you lead your wives. Wives, look carefully how you submit to your husbands and raise your children. And children, look carefully how you obey your parents. And so I would like us to turn to Ephesians chapter 5 and 6 this morning as we look into Scripture. Now, my wife asked me what I was going to preach on yesterday, and I told her the text. She said, well, why are you going to preach on that? And I didn't have the answer yet, but I felt that was the direction God wanted me to go. So this morning is my wife's public answer to what? Why? Why are you going to preach on this? Gentlemen, we can go ahead and take out our He-Man woman hater club cards and get rid of them this morning, because it won't be one of those messages, I hope, from the word. I want us to look at the why behind why should wives submit to their husbands? Why should husbands love their wives? And why should children obey God? And what does that have to do with being a family that glorifies God? Well, obviously, this passage is referring to families. We have a husband and a wife and we have children. And according to God's Word, that constitutes a family. And so that's where we want to look at. And so he says here in verse 17, Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. If we are to raise families that glorify God, we must understand what the will of God is for our families. How do we live wisely? How do we do that? Well, in order to do that, we must model our families after God's design that He gives us here in Ephesians 5-6. You know, this passage is very familiar to us. And with God's help, I want us to see the glory of Christ that is on display here in the Gospel, because that's what this passage is really about. The glory of Christ that is on display in a marriage. And so let's read this whole passage together and then we will go back through and with God's help, hopefully draw out some of the truths and see the glory of Christ. Your wives submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ. Christ should loom large here as Christ is the head of the church, his body and is himself its Savior, not now as the church submits to Christ. So also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands love your wives as Christ. loved the church and gave himself up for her that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word so that he might present the church to himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing that she might be holy and without blemish in the same way. In the same way as Christ, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies, He who loves his wife loves himself, for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is profound. And I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself and let the wife see that she respects her husband. Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother. This is the first commandment with a promise that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land. Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. On the surface, this may seem like it is primarily about husbands, wives and children and families. And yes, we are to see that. But primarily this passage is about Christ and it is about. His relationship. To the church. and the relationship that we see of the Trinity. And I don't want us to miss that. This passage is not how to have a happy home. If you follow these steps, this is the steps to a happy home. This is how to glorify Christ as a family. How to make much of Christ as a family. That's what it's about. And he begins here. And if you would ask yourself or you would ask Paul, Paul, how does a family glorify Christ? Paul starts with speaking to wives. And how do wives reflect or glorify Christ in your home? And he says to submit to your own husbands as to the Lord, For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church. And so wives that glorify God must die to themselves and they submit to their husbands as the church submits to Christ. This is about the relationship of the church to Christ. And so in submitting to your husband, You're not doing that just because, well, that's just the right thing to do. You're doing that because, well, as the old Sprite commercials used to say, image is everything. The relationship between a husband and a wife represents the relationship of Christ to His church. This is very serious that we not mar that. This is the way that God has purposed from way back in Genesis to display the gospel is through a family and a husband-wife relationship. And Paul fleshes that out here. Now, did you notice that interesting, maybe strange little expression that he puts in verse 32? This mystery is profound. And I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. What mystery is he talking about? The mystery is that back in Genesis, he established something called a family and a husband and a wife. For thousands of years, it went on and the meaning was not all that clear until Christ comes. And then the meaning is very clear. Oh, that's what you were talking about. That's the mystery that marriage is meant to reflect the gospel and to help us to see Jesus Christ and how he died for the church and how the church loves him above all else. and to see a living picture of that, the gospel lived out. And so this passage really forces us to be God centered, because being a wife, marriage, marriage is not about personal fulfillment. Being a wife is not about personal fulfillment. It is about the joy found only in living out the God centered purpose for marriage. And that's glorifying Christ. That's what marriage is designed to be. And so God has established marriage and he has granted that you should be married and be in a relationship with a man so that every day you can show a lost world and your children what the gospel looks like. And the specific way, wives, that God intends for you to do that is that you reflect the relationship that the church has to Christ. The church shows that Christ is more valuable, more valuable than what I want to do. Therefore, I die to myself and I die to my selfishness and I submit to Christ. That's what the church is supposed to do in this analogy and this picture. And that's what wives are to do. That's why you are called on to submit, because that's what the church does. Wives, you die to selfishness and you say that Christ is better. And because Christ is better, I want my children to see that Christ is better than what I want to do. Therefore, I will submit. to this sinful man, this husband God has given me, because I want my children to see the gospel in my life and I want my children to see this is what God has called the church to do. And so when wives, you do not submit and you do not follow the commands of Scripture here. You are preaching a false gospel to your children. You're saying that what I want to do is more important. than what Christ or excuse me, what the church does in submitting to Christ. So think of that marriage. Marriage is designed to magnify the beauty of Jesus Christ and His gospel. And so, wives, that's what God is calling you to do when He says to be submissive to your husbands. Preach the gospel to your children. Show them what the church does in her love for Christ. Notice something else interesting. Verse thirty one, chapter five, verse thirty one. When teaching about marriage, Paul goes back to Genesis chapter two, did you did you? Did that verse seem familiar to you? That should cause you to look back to Genesis 2, back to the created order that God established right after He created Eve. Genesis 2, verse 4 is where he's quoting from here when he says in Ephesians 5, 31, Therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother and shall hold fast to his wife And the two shall become one flesh. He's quoting from Genesis chapter two. He is taking us back to how God established it. That is the roots and that is the design of marriage. Genesis chapter two. That's what he wants us to look back. And what does he say about this relationship? He says that the two shall become one flesh. Now, hold on to that thought. That's going to be really important. As we look at husbands and what he specifically commands husbands to do become one flesh. And so let's let's now look at the verses that he applies to husbands in verse twenty five. And husbands, as we read through this this passage, one thing that should really stand out to us is that Paul spends three times more space here on husbands than he does on wives. And that seems to be primarily because God holds us as accountable as the leaders in our homes. God will hold you accountable for the direction of your home and God will hold you accountable for raising a family that glorifies Him. And so he spends three times more verses Ladies, he does hit hard, but then he spends three times more on husbands. And let's notice what he what he says here. He says husbands to love your wives as Christ loved the church. Now, my purpose this morning is not to go into. Everything that he's talking about. I want us to see the purpose for marriage this morning. So that's that's my purpose. And that's primarily what I want to focus on. I want us to see that as a family and as a husband and a wife, we are to glorify God by proclaiming the gospel in our marriage. That's what I want to do. So I won't go into all the specific things that he is saying, but husbands, the first thing out of off of Paul's pen through the inspiration of the Spirit, is to love your wives. Of all the things that he could say that we should do, he says to love our wives. And why would he do that? Well, because Christ loved the church. Christ gave his life for the church. It is his bride. And what better picture of love is there than marriage? You know, the romance. the love songs, the sunny days, the picnics, the walks in the park, and all of these things that come to mind when we think of love. I mean, that's what Paul's talking about here, of course, isn't it? How to have a romance filled life. Now, romance is important. I'm not diminishing that. But is that what Paul has in mind here when he says husbands, love your wives? Love. When we hear that word in our culture today, we think of all those things, the flowers and the romance and the emotions and all of that. When Paul put down on paper, again, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, what love was, what was the first thing that came off of the pen? Love is patient. Love is patient. Husbands, do we need to hear that today? In loving our lives, Love is patient. Do you ever get impatient with the woman that God gave you? I yesterday was reading the Desiring God blog and John Bloom wrote something that I thought applied very well here. He said, ask the Apostle Paul to explain love and the first thing out of his mouth. Love is patient. 1 Corinthians 13, 4. Forget the rest of his list for a moment. My work is already cut out for me. I'm prone to impatience. I can't honestly blame this merely on my temperament or my family of origin. Patience is a fruit of the Holy Spirit. Galatians 5, 22. Impatience is a fruit of selfishness. A self and selfish is simply an ugly, accurate description of my fallen, depraved nature, which wants all of creation to serve me. Selfishness is the real archenemy of love. What's the opposite of love? People would say hate. No, it's selfishness. The opposite of love is selfishness. Love is patient because patience is dying to selfishness. It is the belief that in this dying, we will find greater joy in the joy of the ones we are seeking to love. God and neighbors. It's one of the ways we fulfill the two greatest commandments in Matthew 22, 37-40. And a quote from Desiring God, Bloom goes on to say, Selfishness seeks its own private happiness at the expense of others. Love seeks its happiness in the happiness of the beloved. Love seeks its happiness in the happiness of the beloved. I will even suffer and die for the beloved in order that its joy might be full in the life, the purity of the beloved." Now, does that sound like any model husband you know? Maybe Christ in the dying to selfishness? And so husbands, when we are commanded to love, we are commanded to die to selfishness. Just as Christ did. And so when we are told to love our lives, we are told. To be like Christ, but I don't want us to get this idea of moralism, we don't need any more moralism if we can just obey these passages enough. then we're godly and we've arrived and our families will just be perfect, wonderful, happy people. I don't want us to get that idea at all. Again, this is about Christ. This is about Christ and what He did. And so, husbands, we proclaim the gospel to our wives, we display the gospel to our families when we love our wives as Christ loved the church and He gave Himself up for her. that He might sanctify her. That's where we see the selflessness, that He might sanctify her. That's where we see the patience. Isn't He so patient with us, church? We're not very pretty. We're not a very pretty bride most of the time, but He's very patient with us. And what is He doing? He is sanctifying us. That's what He goes on to say here, that He might sanctify her. As we love our wives, what are we doing? We are a means of God sanctifying our wives to further display the gospel to our families. Husbands, when we fail to love our wives as Christ loved the church, we are preaching a false gospel. Yes. And so image is very important. This thing called marriage is very important. That's why God doesn't just let us set our own terms and decide whatever we want to do for marriage, it's an affront to Him. He established it in Genesis. This is His created order. This is His purpose for it. That's why it's not okay for two men or two women to marry. Because God intends for marriage to reflect Him, His relationship to the church and the gospel. And anything short of that will mar the gospel. I want to go back to that thought about being one flesh. I mentioned that earlier, and this is where Paul deals with that. Husbands, we are to love our wives as our own bodies. Because of sin, because of the fallen nature, It does something to us and we get this crazy idea sometimes that our wives are the enemy. Selfishness tells us that I want what I want and I want to take care of myself and I want to take care of my flesh and make sure that I am pleased. Selfishness, right? Notice what God does when he lays down what a marriage Relationship is supposed to be. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and will hold fast, will cleave to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. One flesh. You're not two, but you're one flesh. Husbands, we should be one flesh. In loving our wives, we see ourselves as one flesh. She's not the enemy anymore. In loving her, you are loving yourself. Like Christ loved the church, became one flesh. That's the unity. That's why we do crazy things like wives taking the husband's name to display the unity that we have, that we are now one flesh. And that's the beauty of the intimacy of the marriage relationship. We become one flesh and that displays how we are loving. The church is loving Christ and Christ is loving his what? Body. The image he chose to teach about the church is his body. He loves his body. And that's what the church represents is his body. And so if you want to love yourself and you want yourself well taken care of, you love your wife and you love as Christ loved. Children, obey your parents. in the Lord, for this is right. Now, that should be and can be all that he has to say about that. Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. God doesn't really need to give you any other reasons than that, children, to obey your parents. God said to do this and therefore that's his command. But why, children, why does God command you to obey your parents? I remember not wanting to obey my parents, how frustrating and the older you got, the more frustrating their rules were. Why does God command you to obey your parents? Well, as I said, because God tells you to, but you have to submit, you have to learn to submit to Your parents. Why? Why must you learn to submit to your parents? Because if you never learn to submit to your parents, you will never learn to submit and obey God. And what happens, children, if you don't learn to submit to God and obey Him? You die in your sin. You die in your sin. And you spend eternity in hell. So obeying your parents is very, very important. And parents, that's why, and I wish I could have heard Tim speak, that's why it's so important that we teach our children. It's so easy to think, you know what, it's just really not worth this battle. Their eternity is riding on this battle. It's very important that we teach them to obey. The Bible says, Children, did you know the Bible says that Jesus learned obedience? When He was a child, He obeyed His parents. Guess what? He obeyed them perfectly. He never disobeyed them. He always obeyed them perfectly. Why are children supposed to obey their parents? What does that have to do with glorifying God in this passage? Children, you will glorify God when you obey your parents, because it shows that loving God and obeying Him is the most important thing in life. You obey your parents because God has told you to, because disobeying is very serious. In the Old Testament, rebellion and disobeying your parents, serious. In Exodus 21-15 and Leviticus 29, the Bible taught in the Old Testament that children who rebelled and cursed their parents should be put to death. Now, why would God require such a severe consequence for disobedience? Again, because the consequence for not obeying God and not submitting to him and believing his gospel is very severe. And so he is teaching you children through your parents that you must learn to submit to Christ. You must learn to obey because the penalty for not submitting to God is eternal punishment. Now, again, lest we veer off into this is a good moral lesson and children obey, and that's a good thing to do. And lest we veer off on that, where is the Gospel in all this? I don't want you to hear another law that I've laid down on you. Oh, I've got to submit to my husband, and if I don't, I'm preaching a false Gospel, and then what do I do? I don't love my wife like I ought to. And today I know I'm not going to love my wife like I ought to, so it's hopeless. I've messed up the gospel and where's the hope in that? The hope is found in that this is about Christ and his relationship to the church and how he died for the church. The gospel is all over this. Mercy is all over this, because it is only through the gospel changing us that wives, you can submit to your husband and husbands, you can love your wives. This is all about the gospel and what he has done. And it's all about proclaiming the gospel. And so it's not about a matter of us pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps and working hard to do this. No, this is falling on the mercy of God and realizing that it is only through His grace and through His gospel changing me, that I can reflect the gospel as a husband, as a wife, as a child. Children, I don't want to leave you in despair as far as obeying. Now, there are some large rocks up there, but I don't think that we're going to have to get them out and stone any children today. Not that some of them don't deserve it. So what does God do? He just writes that off. Well, that's Old Testament. We don't do that anymore. We just don't have to follow that anymore. That's just Old Testament. Is that why we don't pelt rocks at you until you're dead when you rebel and disobey your parents? Doesn't it say in Romans that the wages of sin is death? Isn't that why it was prescribed? Yes. The good news in the gospel, children, is that Jesus Christ obeyed perfectly. He did that not just to be a good moral example. He did that because that was necessary for our disobedience. Because I think that we were all children at one point. And I think we all have fallen short of the glory of God. And I think we have all disobeyed our parents. And I think we probably all deserve death. So how do we get out of the situation and how does God get us out of this? Where is the mercy in the past? Well, you remember Jesus Christ obeying perfectly. He did that so that He could fulfill perfect righteousness for those who believe in Him. Oh, and the stoning thing doesn't just get passed off either. He was put to death for disobedience. And so our sin cost Him His life. The Old Testament was fulfilled in Christ because He died for sin. and children, and husbands and wives, for all those who turn to Christ and look to Him, He has paid the penalty for our disobedience in the gospel. That's what the gospel is about. And so all who look to Christ and all who cling to Him for mercy will find forgiveness. That's the beauty of the gospel. How do we glorify God as a family? With God's help, we display the glory of Christ, the glory of the gospel in our families as husbands that love their wives, representing Christ, as wives that love their husbands who represent the church, and as obedient children who display that Christ is more than enough. our imperfect failures condemn us to hell. And so, hear the Word of the Lord. I pray that today's Word will be an encouragement to you and not a laying on of law, but you will see the beauty of Christ and realize that your family is called to something far greater than just vacations and homes and Fun times, but you're called to preach the gospel and display the gospel in your relationships. Father, we thank You for Your Word. How thankful we are for the mercy of Christ, that He took the punishment that our failures as husbands and failures as wives and disobedience as children deserve. Thank You for the beauty of the gospel. Thank You that You instituted a thing called marriage so that in some way we could see you, we could see Christ and the beauty of the cross clearer through this relationship. Help us, Lord. Our desire is not to live up to some high standard we can't attain. Our desire is to glorify you. and to be faithful so that our children will follow you and love you. And to have marriages that will also reflect you. So that's our prayer and that's our hope. And we cling to Christ for that help. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.