Eph 5-22-33 Wives and Husbands (1) - Enriching Relationships
Eph 5-22-33 Wives and Husbands (1) - Enriching Relationships
Eph 5-22-33 Wives and Husbands (1) - Enriching Relationships
(Ephesians 5:22-33)
Truth is, all people who have issues. Maybe us too! Sometimes it is enough
to make us feel that we just don’t want to be around people anymore. So –
what should we do? Move into a monastery? I don’t think so, and the
reason I say that is that God, in His Word, anticipates relationships. In fact,
He invented them. They go wrong because of the effects of the Fall, but
God’s goal is not therefore to do away with them. His goal as stated in Eph
1:10 is to ultimately “to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things
on earth.” God is not about ending relationships. He is about restoring
them in Christ. It is part of his plan to reverse the curse. The cross made
reconciliation possible between God and man. Simultaneously it made
possible the restoration of relationships between people. Relationships are
about living in the shadow of the cross. The great mystery that Paul refers
to throughout His epistles is that broken relationships between Jew and
Gentile are mended in Christ. Christianity is never merely a matter of the
me and God – it always involves other persons, It is in relationships that
God demonstrates His character and His love in a visible manner.
If you are only a Sunday morning Christian, it is very likely that you are not
a Christian at all. That’s what Jesus was saying to those Pharisees who
were much more faithful than any of us to make the Sabbath Day and keep
thousands of other prescriptions that they thought made them holy as well.
But their heart did not belong to God. If your heart belongs to God it will
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affect your daily life. Life is not lived in compartments. We cannot be a
Christian on Sunday morning and live our secular life the rest of the week
without reference to our faith. Christianity must enter the business phase of
my life, the marriage phase of my life, the entertainment phase of my life –
every phase of my life. That is the burden of Paul’s message here.
Which means -- you cannot expect to gain anything from the teaching in
the next few weeks if you are anything less than a committed Christian.
God didn’t just throw out a few words of advice about marriage and
children and bosses in isolation. These words are for those who desire
wisdom – who long for God’s control in their lives. The instruction will be
hard at times. The Bible comforts and afflicts – sometimes at the same
time. But those who are wise will take heed. I pray that is us. Changed
lives, not deeper knowledge, is the test of obedience over the next weeks.
Now, the key word for Eph 5:15 through 6:9. It is found in verse 21,
“submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.” The key word?
--submission. As we saw last week, a concept that is out of fashion today –
politically incorrect – in fact, political suicide. It is totally at variance with
contemporary attitudes of permissiveness and freedom. Sociologist and
theologian, David Wells, has written that sometime in the 1960’s,
something decisive happened in American culture. Along with the social
upheavals, the antiwar sentiment, and the student revolts, a new way of
looking at life emerged. Most people missed it at the time. It lay hidden
beneath the surface unrest. What happened was more than social turbulence.
Is it any wonder that in this environment that the word submission is taken
as a personal affront? Ours is an age of liberation (not least for women,
children and workers), and anything savoring of oppression is deeply
resented and strongly resisted. How are Christians to react to this modern
mood? First, we must say much of the change is welcome. Women in
many cultures have been and are being exploited, being treated like
servants in their own home and far worse in much of our modern world.
Conditions are despicable. In the past children have often been suppressed
and squashed, not least in Victorian England in which they were supposed
to be ‘seen and not heard’. And workers have been unjustly treated, being
given inadequate wages and working conditions, and an insufficient share in
responsible decision-making, not to mention the appalling injustices and
barbarities of slavery and the slave trade.
Nothing in the paragraphs we are about to study is inconsistent with the true
liberation of human beings from all humiliation, exploitation and
oppression. On the contrary, to whom do women, children and workers
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chiefly owe their liberation? Is it not to Jesus Christ? It is Jesus Christ who
treated women with courtesy and honor in an age in which they were
despised. It is Jesus Christ who said ‘Let the children come to me’ in a
period of history in which unwanted babies were consigned to the local
rubbish dump (as they are today to the hospital incinerator), or abandoned
in the Forum for anybody to pick up and rear for slavery or prostitution.
And it is Jesus Christ who taught the dignity of manual labor by working
himself as a carpenter, washing his disciples’ feet and saying, ‘I am among
you as one who serves.’
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Refusal to obey is to be insanely foolish -- like Joe Blow. Joe was a young
real estate salesman – intensely proud of his new red Cadillac. But he
cruised into the bad part of town. At a stoplight a giant thug hauled him out
of the driver’s seat, drew a circle around him in the road, and told him not
to step out of the circle on penalty of his life. The highjacker then started to
demolish the Caddie, beginning with the headlights and windows. He heard
Joe snickering, but he moved on to the body and engine. The giggles
continued. Finally, he came over with his crowbar and said, “What are you
laughin’ at? Your fancy car’s never gonna run again.” Snickering, the
young man replied, “So? Ever since you’ve been tearing up my car, I’ve
been stepping in and out of this circle the whole time.”
C. Hierarchy of Submission
Now, I want us to see one more thing this morning and that is that there are
what I would call “levels” of submission for lack of a better term.
1. General Submission
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principle. Most people enter marriage thinking it is their job to meet the
other person half way, but the Bible’s position goes way beyond that.
The Bible says “each for the other.” My will subordinated to that of my
partner. That doesn’t mean I am required to help them down a road that is
not good for them. It is their “interests”, not their “desires” that I am to
look out for. But that is submission – putting the will of others above my
own. Giving up my rights to enable others in their Christian walk.
In the summer of 1986, two ships collided in the Black Sea off the coast of
Russia. Hundreds died as they were hurled into the icy waters below. The
cause? It wasn’t a technology problem or even thick fog. The cause was
human stubbornness. Each captain was aware of the other’s presence. Both
could have steered clear, but according to news reports, neither captain
would give way to the other. They were playing Chicken on the Black Sea.
Just like people insisting on their rights in marriage are playing chicken
with their relationship! By the time they came to their senses, it is likely to
be too late, like it was for the captains on the Black Sea. That is what the
Lord is asking us to avoid when He asks us to be submitting to one another
out of reverence for Christ. It is the same thing Christ was asking when He
asked us to turn the other cheek, to go the second mile, and to give your
shirt, too, to the one who takes your coat. Be a giver, not a taker. Bury
your rights right there with your old sin nature. Tough assignment.
General submission.
2. Specific submission
But then God also requires more specific submission to specific authorities
He has created. In the passage before us, we see wives being asked to
submit to husbands. In Romans 13:1, “1) Let every person be subject (same
word) to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from
God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.” Then we get an
even more emphatic requirement in other relationships. Submission
intensified, if you will. In Ephesians 6:1: “Children, obey (an imperative
form of submission) obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.” In 6:5:
“5) Slaves (or we could substitute employees), obey your earthly masters
with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ.”
Authority is built into the warp and woof of society. Without it we would
have chaos. For it all to function, there must be submission. Now the
authority has an awesome responsibility which we will talk about, but
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before we worry about authorities, we must get our minds around God’s
requirement for submission. It is key to the whole thing. It even exists in
the church. Hebrews 13:17, “17) Obey your leaders and submit to them, for
they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an
account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be
of no advantage to you.” It’s almost like God knew the church would have
more trouble with this than anyone and so he uses both the word obey and
submit! But please notice it is all to our advantage. God never asks us to
do something to our detriment. Can you begin to glimpse what a difference
it would make in our relationships if we actually put this into practice?!
Conclusion
Submission of our most stubborn wills is at the heart of all the gospel
teaching. Even the shape of the Lord’s Prayer distinguishes it from all other
prayers: it begins in heaven and comes down to earth. Our prayers move in
the opposite direction. They begin on earth and go toward heaven. But
Jesus Christ goes in the other direction. He reverses the heavenly ladder of
all the Pharisees in the world. Instead of asking God to do what we want,
the Lord’s prayer puts us at His service, listening for His instructions.
“Your will, not ours, yours! be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” Life is
about the subordination of my will, not the exercise of it.
Paul Tournier, in his wonderful book, The Person Reborn, says this, “The
truth of the paradox of the Gospel can be verified, that whoever seeks to
gain his life will lose it, and vice versa. It is what John Stuart Mill said
about happiness, that the only way to achieve it is not to seek it.” Tournier
quotes an elderly unmarried woman: “The more I try to leave my brother
and sister-in-law in the intimacy they are so jealous of, the more they
press me to join them.” He goes on to tell of a young woman who told him
this story: “I went for a walk in the country, and found some excellent
little wild fruit on a bush. I was thinking that it was a sort of present from
God, when I heard the sound of approaching footsteps. My first reaction
was to move away so as not to reveal my find to anyone else and so have
to share it. At once a battle took place in me – my new attitude meant
sharing everything. I spoke to the lady who had come up to me, and she
replied, to my delighted surprise: “Just over there you’ll find a lot more
even better ones!” He concludes that the more we practice true submission,
the day comes when we realize that the more we give up the more we
receive. Relationships are tough – but as we begin to deal with them
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according to God’s principles, they can become great builders of
character, great means of demonstrating the God we serve, and great
means of experiencing God’s grace. We’re going to be very practical and
thorough in the weeks to come. There will be repetition. But that’s because
the latest studies show that people only remember 5% of what they heard 3
days later. That’s average. With my sermons that could be as low as 1%,
so I never worry about repetition. But I urge you to be here. We have
much to learn and much to put into practice, beginning with submission to
one another. Let’s pray.