Good morning. Turn with me to
Ephesians chapter 5. I want to look at verses 21 through
33. That's the rest of chapter 5. Now Paul
is continuing in some practical instruction and it regards here
the marriage between a husband and his wife, a man and a woman. And Paul is speaking regarding
the expectations that are put upon the wife and the expectations
upon the husband. And what we see him doing here
is he always ties it back to the Lord Jesus Christ. It's anchored
in our Savior. We're given a view, a spiritual
view of our Lord and what he did for us. And so What we see
here is the love that Christ has for the Church. The Church is the Bride of Christ. And she's called the Bride, the
Lamb's Wife over in Revelation 21.9. And so the Spirit here
is tying the word, this word here, to Christ because the more
that we see of our Savior, the more that we see Him, and understand
how he's effecting and controlling all things, including in our
relationships with people in this world and our relationships
with family members and friends and bosses and all the relationships
that we have. The more we see of him and trust
him, the easier it is for us to hear the exhortation that
Paul is giving here. in regards to submitting and
loving. And the more we see Christ, the
less of a burden it is upon us. And so we can apply the understanding
that we receive here, we can apply this same understanding
to all the relationships that we have in this life. I've titled
the message, Concerning Christ and the Church. And I want to
begin with seeing that our God is sovereign. Our God is sovereign. He is in
control of all things. All things. And so, the place
where the believer begins here is with an understanding that
our God is in control of everything. He's sovereign. He's ruling and
reigning all things right now. He is the sovereign God, the
King of all. Now look at verse 21, Ephesians
5, 21. Submitting yourselves one to
another in the fear of God. Submitting yourselves to one
another in the fear of God. Now, submission is not something
that comes easy to most people. And when we think of submission,
it makes us uncomfortable. And it can even make us cringe
when we think about submitting to another. because it involves
one yielding their will and their actions to the will of another. One of the easiest illustrations
I can give is with our children. Our children submit to their
parents. Their will and their actions
are overruled often by the will of their parents. And so no one
as an adult really likes to be put in that position where where
perhaps they feel like a child. But I think most would agree
with this, that the more we respect a person, the more we respect
their authority and who they are, the easier it is to submit
to their will than if they were someone that we didn't respect.
It gets much more difficult if there's someone in a position
of authority having some form of rule over us, such as a boss,
if we don't respect them. It can be very hard and very
challenging to do that. So to those that are in authority,
including parents, including husbands, respect is something
that's earned. It's not something that that
is just given, it's earned, and therefore those that respect
you will have a much easier time of hearing what you're saying
and submitting to what you're saying to them. Now in the context
here that Paul uses it, he's appealing to the believer's confidence
in the Lord. if you notice. He's appealing
to our confidence in the Lord. He says, in the fear of God,
in reverence to your Lord. Submit yourselves one to another
in reverence, in fear of God. What he's saying there is, as
believers, we know that our God is sovereign. He's ruling and
reigning over all. There's no greater authority,
and all authorities here on earth have their head, which goes all
the way up to the father. There's no one higher than him. He rules over all. Daniel 4,
verse 35. We read, God doeth according
to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of
the earth, and none can stay his hand or say unto him, what
doest thou? So that when God purposes to
do a thing, it shall be done. what He wills, we shall do. It shall be done according to
His will. You can see a little of this in Ephesians 1 verse
9. 1 verse 9 says, having made known unto us the mystery of
his will according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed
in himself. So our God is sovereign. And
that means he's ruling and reigning over every detail in our lives. He tells us that a sparrow doesn't
even fall from the sky without our Father willing it, without
Him overruling and controlling all things. He says, our hairs,
the hairs of our head, are all numbered. There's not a one that
falls out of our head without the Father knowing it and willing
it to come to pass. That's my new fine little details
that he is completely in control and has authority over. And that
means that our job. our influence, our station here
in life, the children that we have, the children that we don't
have, where we live, what we do, our neighbors, to whom we're
married to or not married to, to your local congregation and
to your pastor. These are all things which are
in control of the father. And we that trust him and believe
him look to him And trust that he's in control of all things,
that he knows exactly what he's doing. And he uses these as various
instruments that he controls, whereby he teaches us. He teaches us about love, about
long suffering. He teaches us about being gracious
to one another. He teaches us of His power. He's revealing these scriptures
and bringing them to our understanding so that we have a knowledge of
who our God is and we see the truth of His word being worked
out in our lives. And, you know, we see Just anyone
that's had a job or when you work for a living, you know there's
various pressures that you're put in that can be hard upon
us. And there's relationships that
we have that can be difficult and put pressures upon us. It's made for our good, the believer's
good, because when there are difficulties and when there are
trials, it teaches us to really lean upon the Lord. It brings us to our knees when
there are difficulties and pressures that come about of things that
we care about, and people that we care about. It can be a challenge
to us. And so it causes us to seek our
Lord's grace in time of great need. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians
10, verse 13, he says, there is no temptation taken you, but
such as is common to man. But God is faithful, who will
not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able, but will
with the temptation also make a way to escape that ye may be
able to bear it. And so our God is in everything
that we go through, everything that we're experiencing and feeling,
and the challenges and difficulties, our Lord is there. we learn as
believers, as his children, to turn to him and cry out to him
and seek him for grace and mercy. And so some of these things,
we draw great happiness and comfort from a lot of these things. And
then we also have times of sorrow and sadness, but our Lord is
using it all for his will and purpose. And so trust your Lord,
trust your God. He is sovereign. Trust where
he's put you, trust the relationships he's put you in, and believe
him. It's all according to his will
and purpose. And so ever looking to your sovereign
Lord is going to help you in terms of submission. When he
says, submit yourselves one to another. Whether you're leaning
on a brother or sister in Christ, talking to your pastor, wives,
speaking and dealing with their husbands, trust your Lord. Because in submission to others,
where the Lord puts us in those, and we see it and understand
it, we're submitting to God. We're submitting to His authority
and His headship. He brings everything to pass.
He says in Ephesians 5 verse 20, giving thanks always for
all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ. So we learn to thank Him in doing
the will of our God because this is the will of God in Christ
Jesus concerning you." 1 Thessalonians 5.18. Alright, so with that understanding
that God is sovereign, that he's overruling and reigning in all
things, now we can look at the rest of these verses. And we
begin here with a word to the wives. The wife is a picture
of the church, and the church is the wife of Christ. Now whether you're a man or a
woman, Whether you're married or unmarried, you can hear this
exhortation as a believer. You can hear this. Men and women
can hear this exhortation as a believer in the Church of Christ.
Let's read verses 22 through 24. Wives, submit yourselves
unto your own husbands as unto the Lord. For the husband is
the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church. and he is the savior of the body.
Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives
be to their own husbands in everything." And so I was thinking of this,
and I was just thinking of scriptures, how the Lord teaches us as believers,
and then you wives, and you that are under authority, you can
take that understanding and apply it to your submission to another. For example, our Lord was teaching
the great commandment in Mark 12, verse 30. He said, thou shalt
love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul,
and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength. This is the
first commandment. And we see in the teaching of
the Lord by His grace, by His Spirit, believer, as a believer,
we strive to please the Lord in all things. We strive to serve
our Lord in all things with our heart and our mind. We desire
to please Him and do what He would have us to do. But we also
see how weak we are, how far short we come up in our service
to the Lord. But when we fail, when we don't
do that, when we don't serve the Lord as we ought to, we don't
give up and just throw our hands up and say, that's it, I'm not
going to even bother trying. But rather we seek Him. We seek
the Lord for strength. We seek him for guidance and
for help to do that which we're supposed to do in service to
the Lord. And so it's not, you know, we
do it in joy and in gladness serving our Lord because it's
not how well we serve the Lord that determines whether or not
we're saved or not. It's we have a desire because
he puts that desire in his people and we're his bride. regardless. So what we do is in love and
in thankfulness to him. So carry that over to marriage
now. And I am not saying that men, the husband, is God. Not
in any sense of the word am I saying that or trying to confuse that.
But what I do mean is that a wife who loves her husband, she does
use her strength and her diligence, her creativity, and her mind
to do those things in the household and for her husband with great
tenderness, great kindness. It's very beautiful when a woman
uses her abilities and strengths to serve in the household and
to help her husband in that way. And so she's doing all she can
do to help and to please her husband as his helpmate, as his
helpmate. And in Genesis 2, 18 tells us
why woman was created. It says there in 218, the Lord
God said, it's not good that the man should be alone. I will
make him and help me for him. And so we see the wife investing
her talents and her strengths in helping her husband. She does
what she can do as faithfully as she can. And husbands don't
ever betray that trust. Be thankful. Be appreciative
that your wife has a heart to do that. Be appreciative and
thankful because that's a gift of the Lord. And again, even
beyond wives, just in anyone who's in a position who has someone
of authority over them, just to strive, to be submissive in
whatever it is, to a boss, to do your job well, is a very thankworthy
thing to do, to help any way that you can with your strengths
and abilities. And one illustration I've seen
is, and I've seen a number of good illustrations, but there
is a wife whose husband has passed away, a faithful pastor. And
her whole life was devoted to Serving him to doing those things
which he then didn't have to do that. He might serve the Lord
more faithfully more fully in what what he needed to do, and
she just lifted those burdens, and she invested all her time
and energy in doing that for her husband, who served in the
ministry. And I see it in my own wife, who enjoys to do certain
things that just lift that burden, so I don't have to worry about
it. And if I do worry about it, she says, don't worry about it.
That's why I'm doing it. Just leave it with me. And so
it's a great relief and a comfort to me. It is for any husband
whose wife helps them and serves them in doing those things that
just lift that burden. So I realize, you know, especially
in today's household where very often it's two working adults
and it doesn't have to necessarily always fall out in the traditional
ways that people think of it, but couples who love each other,
they work those things out and they find things that work in
helping one another, and do it joyfully and with your strength. And so, and the same thing, a
wife is doing things that are important for her husband, you
men that love your wives, they tell you and communicate those
things that are important to them, and in love you do those
things for them, and it's reciprocated in a beautiful way. And so another
thing that we see here is when things don't go well for us providentially,
as believers now I'm talking, when things don't go well for
us providentially, we don't begin to curse God and speak ill of
him to others. We patiently bear with it and
we go to the Lord and we seek his face in it. And so in the
same way, wives, when your husband does something ignorant, when
he does something that really is not nice or is harsh or ought
not to do it. In the same respect, we don't
go and just speak to others about the ignorance of our husband
and call him out on it. We bear with it and pray, pray
to the Lord and trust that as he is gracious and kind and merciful
to you and is teaching you, the most loving thing we can do for
another, and this is true of us all, is to know and trust
that the Lord is also teaching them and being gracious to them
and correcting them and guiding them in the way that they ought
to go. And so trust your Lord even in submitting to difficult,
in difficult situations. And I'm not talking about extremes.
I'm not talking about extremes in the sense of there are people
that are monsters and that the Lord delivers us from and thankfully
we can be delivered from that. But I'm speaking in the general
sense of our weddings, where there's difficulties in every
marriage. There just are, and we learn and grow, especially
you believers in the Lord. The Lord teaches us, and trust
Him to do that. All right, now, we come to the
instruction given to the husbands. Verse 25, husbands, love your
wives even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for
it. And the more that a husband understands
this, so that his love for his bride is witnessed in their marriage,
in their relationship, It's easier and joyful for your wife to submit
to you. It just comes much more easily.
If you are loving and you're faithful in that regard, to show
her your love, it's much easier and more joyful for her to submit
to you, to your instruction and your care and guidance. And so
brethren, he that loveth not knoweth not God. He that loveth
not knoweth not God, for God is love. And so husbands who
know God, who believe God and are his child, They love their
wives. They love their wives and strive
to love them more and grow in that regard. And so there's something
here that we all can learn by the Lord's instruction in teaching
husbands to love their wives, because we're all called upon
to love our brethren. And so when we read Christ, who
also loved the church and gave himself for it, we're learning
something about love. It's sacrificial. It's giving
of yourself and laying your life down for another. And the love and the redemption
of our Savior for His church is the greatest love that we
can know. As we meditate on what He did
for us and how He laid down His life for us, loving us, that's
the greatest love that we can know. And so we see there the
whole Godhead was engaged to love the brethren. The whole
Godhead was engaged, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, in love
for the church, to save the church. And so we see this in God foreknowing
a people. God foreknew a people. It means he loved them beforehand. Some people try to say that word
foreknew or foreknow is in regards to our actions, that he knew
what we would do. But in the scriptures, we see
that he foreknew a people. He loved beforehand a people
whom he chose in Christ. And he betrothed his people to
his son. He betrothed them to be the bride
of Christ and gave them to Christ that he should care for them.
and provide for them, and in love come and sacrifice himself
for her salvation. Just as a husband loves the bride,
loves his bride, and will lay down his life for the bride he
loves. He's called the lamb slain from
the foundation of the world. His whole purpose in coming here
was to sacrifice himself for his people, that he would redeem
that people to himself, that she would be his bride for all
eternity, that she would not be lost to death. It says, whom he did foreknow
or love beforehand, he also did predestinate to be conformed
to the image of his son. When God chose the bride of His
Son, He ordained her to become one with Christ. Just as a man
and his wife are described as one flesh, so the bride of Christ
is one with her husband, one with her Lord. And the problem
is she fell. She fell in sin. All ordained
of the Lord. She fell in sin and lost everything. Lost everything. Lost fellowship
with the Lord. But rather than putting away
his betrothed wife, whom he loved, He came and redeemed her and
purchased her with His own blood. He gave His life for her. He loves His bride, and nothing's
going to change that. Nothing can take that away. Christ
loves His people. And so, He came and gave His
life for her. He humbled Himself when He took
upon Him this flesh. He humbled Himself in obedience
and submission to His God. submitting Himself even unto
death for His bride, when He propitiated her sins, covered
her sins, obtained forgiveness for her sins, we see the love
of our God and how He submitted and how He gave of Himself. And
so when we're called upon in love for our brethren to submit
and to believe the Lord and trust Him, that's of the Lord. He works
that in His people. John 3.16 says, For God so loved
the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever
believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. That's love that God has for
His people who were scattered in sin, scattered throughout
the world. He recovered them in the Son. And so He sent the Son. And the
Son came in the likeness of this flesh and was crucified, put
to death to shed His blood to cover our sins, and robed us
with the beautiful garment of His righteousness, whereby we
are spotless and holy. and acceptable unto our God because
of Christ. And that's what we see here in
Ephesians 5, 26 and 27. that he might sanctify and cleanse
it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present
it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or
any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish. And so our savior brought us
into union with himself because he loves his bride and he does
anything necessary for her salvation. Now there's actually a beautiful
picture of the oneness of the bride to her husband in Genesis. Turn over there to Genesis 2. Genesis 2 verse 20 through 23. Here we see Adam and when the
Lord created Eve. Genesis 2.20. And Adam gave names to all cattle,
and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field.
But for Adam there was not found and help meat for him. And the
Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept. And he took one of his ribs,
and closed up the flesh instead thereof." And so this deep sleep
that Adam was put into is a picture of the deep sleep that our Lord
and Savior went into when He was crucified and buried. Because in that crucifixion and
burial from which He awoke when He was raised again from the
dead by the power of God, He perfected His bride. He clothed
her with her righteousness. He obtained for her a beautiful
wedding garment, whereby she is pure, and spotless, and holy,
and acceptable unto the Father in Him. And it says, verse 22,
the rib which the Lord God had taken from man made he a woman
and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, this is now bone
of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because
she was taken out of man. That love that we see witnessed
in Adam's expression there, that's the love that our Savior, our
Lord has for you, His people, in whom He's revealed that faith
and love in your hearts for Him. And it all pictures the love,
the sweet love that He has. Can you imagine when Adam saw
Eve and what a blessing that was to him, having seen nothing
but the cattle and see that there was no bride for him and what
God did for him in bringing that beautiful bride to him. And he
loved her. And that's the love that Christ
has for you that are His people, that believe Him. And He reveals
that love to us and draws forth that same love and devotion from
us unto Him, to believe Him and trust Him. So, that's the love
we're to have, you husbands. That's the love we're to have
for our wives, for our wives, and to love them, to give our
lives for them, to be sweet on them, to delight in them. to
show our appreciation to them, to be affectionate, to seek her
happiness and to protect her and speak no ill of her. She's your bride. Love her in
all things and prefer her above your parents, prefer her above
your own children. Put her before any other. She's your bride. Love her. And
in doing that, her submission will be a joyful thing. It'll
be an easy thing for her then. Do anything so that it's easier
for her. Now, let me just say here in
Romans 8, 32, we see this. He that spared not his own son,
but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also
freely give us all things? And just keep in mind, that's
all things for our good, all things for good. And that's how
we love our wives as well. But we're mindful of their needs
and mindful of, of of what's important to them, and we help
them in that, where we can, which is still good for them and for
the relationship. But in like manner, provide that
which is good for your wife. As husbands, we're the spiritual
head of the household, and it ought to be most important thing
to us. We're to be faithful to the Lord
first, and then to our wives in all things. Faithful to the
Lord, and as the spiritual head, do that which is right and necessary
for the household there, because that's what you're called to
do. Alright, now let's read verses 28 through 32. So ought men to
love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife
loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his
own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord
the church. For we are members of his body,
of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave
his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and
they too shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery, but
I speak concerning Christ and the church." And so, brethren,
remember to seek Christ first in your homes. Seek Christ first
in your homes. Worship Him together as a family. Pray together and encourage one
another. Edify one another in the Lord.
It's the Spirit. It's the Spirit that teaches
us this. It's the Spirit that helps us
in this and leads us to Christ so that we, men and women, serve
and submit to our Lord because He's our life. And without Him,
we can do nothing. We can do nothing without Christ.
So walk by faith, seeking to do His will in all things. And submission and love, which
we are called upon to show to others, it'll be wrought by His
power and grace. and it'll be a joy to you in
serving the Lord. Verse 33, nevertheless, let every
one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself, and
the wife see that she reverence her husband. Amen. Let's close in prayer. Our gracious
Lord, Father, we thank you for your word, and we know there's
so much here, But Lord, help us to seek Christ first in all
things. Help us to behold the love of
our God and Savior for us, who submitted Himself and went to
death obediently in obedience to the Father to redeem His people,
His bride. Lord, help us to see the love
and the submission of our Lord and Savior to save us. and that
we would, Lord, find the strength and the willingness, the heart,
the desire, and the opportunities to serve one another and to love
one another in the spirit of grace and love that you've bestowed
upon us. Lord, We know that in ourselves
we cannot do these things, but help us to hear the Spirit of
Your Word. Help us to hear Your voice and
be led of You, and that You would bless our households, that You
would bless our families, bless the love and the relationships
that the husbands and wives have to one another, and every relationship
here in this body of believers, Lord, that it would be blessed
by your spirit of grace. It's in the name of our Lord
and Savior Jesus Christ that we pray this. Amen. Okay, brethren.