[MUSIC PLAYING] Start building the home
of your future today-- smart home. Would you turn in your Bibles-- I trust you have one, or
there's one close to you, or you can borrow
somebody you don't know, but you will as soon as
you start reading over their shoulder-- and
turn in your Bibles to the book of
Ephesians, chapter 5. That's where we had
your turn last week. And we discovered
that Ephesians 5-- we called it the Home
Depot of the smart home, that it gives to us tools for
strengthening the roles that we have within the
marriage relationship. So we're going to look
at Ephesians, chapter 5. Now, last week, I got some
feedback after the message to husbands, and it was positive
feedback not just from women, not just from gals
going, man, I'm glad you socked it
to my husband today. But I got a lot of
feedback from men saying how grateful they were for it. But today, I am going
to be addressing wives, so I trust you'll be praying
for me during the delivery of this message. I asked my wife to look
over my notes to cut out anything that was hard to hear. So in conclusion-- [LAUGHTER] Listen, there's one
word in our text that becomes the difficult word. It is the second
word in in verse 22, and that is the word "submit." It's difficult to
hear because it is a hard word in a marriage
relationship for anyone to give up anything. And I understand that
submission-- the word, the idea, the concept-- has become sort of a
lightning-rod issue. I was reading a
news article from, I think it was ABC
News, that said a wife's submission to a
husband is a dangerous thing to hear, or to even say, or
postulate, or believe in. And it was written
by some theologian who believed the Bible doesn't
say what the Bible says. Listen, when it
comes down to it, I don't think we should
ever be frightened of whatever the Bible says. We serve a loving God who has
our best interests at heart. And he doesn't want to hurt us. He wants things
to flow smoothly. And he always thinks and
wants the highest for us. So we never have to runaway
or shy away from the Bible. Nor should we ever
think that we need to manipulate the Bible to
accommodate it to make it say whatever we want it to say. We who have been given the
Bible should never be the ones to try to change the Bible. So it kind of comes
down to this-- what does the church
think of the Bible? Or to be a little more
direct, what does this church think of the Bible? Or to be even more direct,
what do you think of the Bible? What do I think of the Bible? Do we believe it's
God's inspired word? And if we do, we don't
shy away from it, but we embrace it because
we want to discover what God's interest is for us. Now, all of that said,
the reason people bristle against the
idea of submission is because this text
has been abused. It has been abused by couch
potato tyrants who sort of feel like they're like the Taliban
Lord, able to just sort of give out orders, bark out orders to
the wife that is in his house. There are some men who have
the domestic prowess of Jabba the Hutt, and they
believe the Bible kind of condones an overbearing
attitude, which it does not. And what happens when
a husband is that way-- and I know I'm supposed
to be addressing wives. But what happens is
a wife shuts down because it crushes her spirit. And so she is silent, and
she suffers in silence. And her being in silence--
sometimes the man likes that, so he kind of
resorts to silence back. And you can have a relationship
of a husband and wife who are not communicating. And I bet some of you have
gone through that treatment, the silent treatment, right? We all do in our
learning how to relate. I heard about a couple
who gave each other the silent treatment for like
four or five straight days-- wouldn't say a
word to each other, were leaving notes to
each other, wouldn't talk. At the end of that
little five-day stint, the man had to go out of town. So he wrote a note to his wife
saying, I have to leave town. I want you to wake me up at
5 o'clock tomorrow morning. The next day, 5 o'clock came. 6 o'clock came. 7 o'clock came. 8 o'clock came. 9 o'clock in the morning,
he sits up in bed. Sunlight is coming
through the windows. He knows that he has
missed his flight. He's so angry. He's about to lay into
his wife verbally, and he sees a note that's
over on the bed stand. And he goes over to the note,
and it read, it's 5 o'clock. Wake up. [LAUGHTER] I am not going to
take the text that we are going to consider
today and use it as a club to berate women. That's not going to happen. Neither am I going to shy away
from what the text plainly says. What I'm going to
endeavor to do-- I hope you've come
to expect this-- is to bring to you what
the Holy Spirit has said through the pen
of the apostle Paul. Let's begin by
looking at verse 22-- "Wives, submit to your own
husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is
head of the wife, as also Christ is
head of the church; and he is the
Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the
church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their
own husbands in everything." Now, this section
of scripture is dealing with the family, and
in particular, family roles. So chapter 5, verse 22
down to chapter 6, verse 4, he addresses different
sections of a family-- wives, husbands,
parents, children, even servants that were
prevalent in that day and age. And one thing that is striking
to us as we go through the list and we read through this
short little section is that it is just that. It is short. It is not lengthy. Winston Churchill once
said that great concepts are simple and can be
expressed in single words. And so Paul just says,
husbands, love your wives. That's the one word-- love. That's the word that prevails. Husbands, love your wives. And then he adds flavor to
it-- as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it. He didn't say,
husbands, rake the yard. Mow the grass. Fix the car, or the
chariot in those days. He just says, love your wives. Then he addresses the wives. And again, it's simple. He doesn't say, wives,
clean the house. Pay the bills. Wash the clothes. Do the groceries. One word he gives-- submit to your own husbands. Let me put this on the
table to begin with and say that submission
is not oppression. It is not slavery. It is not a right for
somebody to abuse that. It is, in fact,
a dignified role. I had a woman who came up
after the first service and gave me a little card. And she said, thank you. I came to this service nervous
about what we were discussing, but I walked away blessed. I hope that you will walk
away blessed, and that, women, you will see your role as
a wife as an elevated role, a dignified role given dignity
by the Lord Jesus Christ himself. Now, I am aware that not
everybody here is married. And some people, whenever
you do a family series, they roll their eyes,
and go, oh, great, a series about
husbands and wives. I don't fit in that category. Some of you are single. I understand. You've never married. Others of you are divorced. Therefore, you're single. Others of you are single
because you've lost a spouse. They've died, and you have no
plans on getting remarried. I want you to know this
section of scripture is also for you
because what it does is reinforce the response
that we, the church, are to have toward
the Lord Jesus Christ. Because marriage, says Paul,
is to be a reflection of that. Also, another note-- the
rules, though stated simply, can be difficult to pull off. It's simple to say,
husbands, love your wives. But now try loving your wife
like Jesus loved the church. To say submit is
easy to say, but try submitting to your
husbands as unto the Lord. And because of that
difficulty in that, many people, even
Christian people, are forestalling marriage. They go, wow, I just
haven't found anybody yet. Nobody's quite up to
par, up to the standard. You know that I've met--
for years, I've heard this. We have a pretty large
church, about 15,000 people. I hear people all the
time-- young people go, I can't find a Christian woman. Or women who say, man,
there's no good men around. Well, I understand where
you're coming from. But women, you're
going to have to stop waiting for the Messiah. He came and went. So you're going to have
to settle for somebody less than Jesus or Paul. And part of the magic
is marrying a person, discovering that person, and
learning to adjust in life. It is a grand adventure
in more ways than one. It's a wonderful adventure. What I want to do, though,
in these three verses is look at submission and
give you four attributes of biblical submission. First, submission is personal. It is personal. Wives, writes Paul, submit
to your own husbands as to the Lord. Now, what is submission? Submission is a military term. Don't let that scare you. I'll explain that in a minute. But it means the idea is
to place one's self under, to subordinate one's self. And it is written in the
Greek language in what is called the middle voice. Why is that important? The middle voice means that
the subject is the one that acts himself or herself. So the idea of the
middle voice is it is something you do yourself. You're not forced to do it. You're not coerced to do it. It is something
you willingly do. You yield yourself
willingly to another. Now, before I get
a little deeper into the meaning
of that word, I do believe it's important for us
to get the background of the New Testament era to understand the
role of women in ancient times. Women, let me sum
it up by saying, you owe your liberation, you owe
your liberation not to Gloria Steinem, not to Kate Millet, but
to the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave dignity and honor to
women in an era in which women were not just
sidelined, they were nonexistent in that culture. Now, let me explain that. 2,000 years ago in the Roman
culture and the Greek culture, the Greco-Roman culture,
the role of women publicly did not exist. Men were autocratic. Women were acquiescent. And that's the way society was
all around the time of Jesus. Women were excluded
from Roman citizenship. They were placed on the
level of a slave, of a child, and of a criminal. In early Roman
law, men, husbands, had the right to sell their
wives into slavery if they chose or to have them
executed, capital punishment, if they chose. One Roman statesmen named Cicero
said our ancestors made it a rule that women, because
of their weak intellects, should have guardians
to take care of them. Can you see what women were
up against 2,000 years ago? Women were not
included in a census. The population-- they
weren't even included. They didn't even count. And they didn't even
bear their own names. Rather, they simply
took the feminized form of their father's name. So if dad was named Julius,
as in Julius Caesar, the firstborn would
take the name Julia-- her dad's name. If the dad had a
second-born daughter, her name would often be Secunda,
which just means the second. If he had a third
daughter, Tertia, which just means the third. They didn't even
bear their own names. Nobody asked a bride and
a groom in that culture if they loved each other. Love each other? What does that have
to do with anything? It was so secondary
because marriage was merely contractual. A cynical Roman jest sort
of sums up this mentality. And I'm quoting, "Marriage,"
writes this person. "Marriage brings
only two happy days-- the day when the husband
first clasps his wife to his breast and the day
when he lays her in the tomb." That is the Greco-Roman
culture of 2,000 years ago. Now, let's leave that and
shift to another culture going on at the time,
the Jewish culture. That's the culture
of the New Testament. That's the culture of Jesus,
the gospels, Paul, et cetera. Theoretically, no nation had
a higher ideal of marriage than Judaism. But while they maintained
a high ideal of marriage, they had a very low ideal
of women in general. A morning prayer that
Jewish men prayed-- they prayed a lengthy prayer. Here's just a part of it. Part of it read, "Thank
you, God, that you made me not a Gentile, a
slave, or a woman." It's a prayer. Thank you, God, I'm not a chick. Amen. Now, part of that in Judaism
was because two rabbis I mentioned a couple
of weeks ago-- do you remember their names? Hillel was one of them,
and Akiba was another-- who believed that a
husband could divorce his wife for any reason at all. And all he had to do was give
two witnesses and a certificate of divorce, and she's gone. Whereas, a woman had absolutely
no rights whatsoever, least of all, the right
to divorce her husband. A woman could not
divorce her husband unless he became a
leper, an apostate, or engaged in a
disgusting trait. Other than that, she
was bound for life, whereas a husband could
divorce and remarry, and divorce and remarry at will. In the Roman world,
there was one instance of 24 wives a man had
one after the other. So it got crazy. Now, that's the culture. Now, enter Jesus Christ. And we see immediately as we
read the gospels that women played a huge role in his life. Luke says many
women followed him. Many women followed Jesus. Obviously, they
felt drawn to him. And can I add,
obviously, none of them had any problem submitting to
the Lord Jesus as their Lord. Also, in the New
Testament, women were treated by
Jesus with grace. Remember, the woman
caught in adultery, and how tender our Lord was
with her, but how scathing he was toward her accusers? Woman, where are your accusers? I have none. He said to them, you
men who are without sin, you cast the first stone. And embarrassing
them all, they left. Then, Jesus went to
the well of Samaria and was talking to
the woman at the well. And I don't know if
you ever caught this, but it says when the disciples
came from the city to the well, it says they marveled because
he spoke with a woman. You see, you just got to
know-- these Jewish guys went, I can't believe he's
talking to a woman publicly. Because that wasn't done. He's like the Messiah
talking to a woman. Yeah, no wonder they
felt drawn to him. It was a Syrophoenician
woman that Jesus singled out as having great faith. Women were the last to be
at the cross of Christ. They were the first to
be at the tomb of Jesus. And they were the
first to proclaim the resurrection of Christ. In the early church,
women were deaconesses. There were prophetesses,
the Bible tells us. And there were even
ministry couples, like Aquila and
his wife Priscilla. We know that. They're in the Bible. Paul summed it up in
Galatians 3:28 when he said, there is neither
Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free,
there is neither male nor female for you are all one in Christ. So now, with this
dignified, elevated role, Paul writes to women to
voluntarily submit themselves to their husbands. So it is personal. Submission is personal. Second, submission is practical. It says, wives, submit
to your own husbands. That is a practical role. He is not suggesting
that husbands are better. He is simply suggesting
that roles differ. Submission is practical. You know why? We all do it. We all have to
submit to someone, do something to go through life. Think of the Lord Jesus. First of all, he
submitted to his parents. We're told in Luke chapter 2,
He, Jesus, went down with them, came to Nazareth, and
was subject to them. So he obediently submitted
to his earthly parents, even though he's God. You know, Jesus never said,
mom and Joe, I'm God, OK? You're not. I can kind of do
whatever I want. Have you not figured
this out yet? No, he respected
their role enough to subject himself to them. Then, Jesus submitted
himself to his father. John 8:29-- I always do those
things that please the Father. Also, Jesus submitted
himself to other people. Mark 10:45-- the son
of man, said Jesus, did not come to be served, but
to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. That's the ultimate submission. He gave his life. Submission is a part of life. It's a part of everyone's life. And it certainly is a
part of the Christian in terms of our society. Romans 13 tells you and me,
everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities. Whoever rebels against that
authority rebels against God. On top of that,
Christians are called to respond to and submit
to church leadership. Hebrews 13, verse 17-- obey your leaders and
submit to their authority. They keep watch over you as
men who must give an account. Obey them so their work will
be a joy and not a burden. Chapter 6 verse, 1-- parents
are to keep their children in submission. Children are to be
subject to their parents. Here's the point. All of us are called to
submit, and none of us can ever fulfill God's
purpose in our lives without the spirit, the
attitude of submission. All of us need the attitude of
being submissive to something, someone, some authority. Charles Spurgeon
said, a man is not far from the gates
of heaven when he is fully submissive
to the Lord's will. So that's where we begin. How submissive are we
to the Lord Himself? I mean, the fact that
we call Him Lord implies we are submissive as
servants to his will. So back to this word, submit. I mentioned it's
a military term. Now, that scares
a lot of people. Just because it was
used in a military sense does not give the
husband the right to act like a
sergeant in the home. You mouthed off, woman-- 20 push ups. The word is, in
Greek, [NON-ENGLISH].. And it means to get in
order under someone. And as I mentioned, the idea
is to willingly relinquish one's rights. Interestingly, women are not
told to obey their husbands. I'm going to be
very careful here because I have husbands
giving me the little evil eye. What? It says submit. Isn't that good enough? Well, certainly submission
might include obedience. However, when Paul is
speaking to children, he uses the word obey. Children obey your parents-- different word. In Greek, it's [NON-ENGLISH]
but submit is [NON-ENGLISH].. [NON-ENGLISH] means obey. [NON-ENGLISH] means willingly
relinquish your rights-- different. When Paul speaks to slaves
obeying their masters, [NON-ENGLISH] is the word
he uses, not [NON-ENGLISH].. When he speaks to
wives, different word. Here's the point. Husbands, you cannot treat
your wives like children. You cannot treat your
wives like servants. They are partners with
you in the grace of life. So that's what the word means. [NON-ENGLISH]---- to
get up under someone. To relinquish one's
rights willingly. So submission is not about
the superiority of the male. It's about the functionality
of the marriage. Now, let me give you
a key verse that I hope unlocks it all for you. That is found in 1 Corinthians,
chapter 11, verse 3. Let me read it to you. Paul said, the head of
every man is Christ. The head of the woman is man. And the head of Christ is God. Once again, the head
of every man is Christ. The head of woman is man. The head of Christ is God. Now, the Father is the head
of Christ, Jesus Christ. God the Father has
authority over God the Son. Question-- does God
the Son have any less divinity than God the Father? No. Does he have any less
nature as God the Father? No. We believe that the Father,
the Son, and the Spirit are co-eternal, co-equal. They're all equal. They're all eternal. But one relinquishes
the rights to another. That's why Jesus said,
I always do those things that please the Father. He understood the
function and the role. So submission is personal,
and it is practical. Third attribute--
submission is purposeful. Verse 23, 4, he continues, the
husband is head of the wife, as also Christ as
head of the church. And he is Savior of the body,
the body of Christ, the church. Therefore, just as the
church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be
to their own husbands. Now, this is an
illustration of submission. Notice, the word "as." The husband is head
of the wife as-- that's a word of comparison. So he does this because
somebody is going to say, well, so what's that like? I mean, how is the
husband the head? Like this, like Jesus is
the head of the church. Now that shouldn't scare you. Ladies, verse 23
should bless you. Why? Because when you
have husbands lead like Christ leads the
church, submission is not a hard word to hear. It's very easy to hear. It's like, oh, yeah,
it's a response. It's a natural response. Husbands who lead their wives in
a domineering, self-serving way miss what Jesus has
done for the church. And wives who refuse to yield
to their husband's leadership hide how the church should
respond to Jesus Christ, both together. Now, I said it's purposeful. What does that mean? What's the purpose
of submission? Twofold, two reasons, two
purposes-- number one, submission enables leadership. If nobody submits, nobody leads. I know plenty of wives who
long, long for their husbands to lead, but they
don't let them lead. They're holding on hard
to that rope, crying out, lead, lead, lead. [GROWLING] Maybe the reason
the husband isn't a good leader is because the wife just isn't
a good follower of the leader. Remember, leadership
requires somebody to yield power and
control to a leader. It doesn't mean a leader is
any better than anybody else. Just like in a corporation,
you have a leader. Doesn't mean he's better,
but he is the leader. Now, some wives get so
frustrated with their husband's leadership that I've
almost heard them say, I've heard them come close to
saying, well, you know, if he'd just do what I tell
him, he'd be a great leader. Can you see the problem? Sometimes a wife has
the best husband. But usually, a wife makes the
best of the husband she has. We're all fallen people. We're all fallen creatures. We all make mistakes. But it enables leadership. It allows for that
to take place. Second purpose--
it points to Jesus. Verse 31-- go down
to that again. We looked at it last week. For this reason--
Paul is quoting Genesis 2-- for
this reason, a man will leave his father and
mother, be joined to his wife. The two shall become one flesh. Verse 32 is the key. This is a great mystery. But I speak concerning
Christ and the Church. In other words, what I
just said about marriage is an illustration of how
Christ and his church are one. So marriage is modeled
after redemption, but marriage points
to redemption. It shows it off. It shows how it works. Jesus's sacrificial love
is a model for husbands. The church's submission to
Christ is a model for wives. It's also like a human body. He says he is also the
Savior of the body. So let me ask you this. If a human body does not respond
to the direction of the head, we call that? A disease, a cripple,
it's paralyzed. If the body parts will not
respond to the direction that this part is giving
it, it's malfunctioning. So like the body
responds to the head, like the church responds
to the head, to Christ, so the wife has to respond
and to submit to the husband. Why? Because it reveals Christ. The purpose of marriage
is to reveal God. The purpose of marriage
is to make God look good. In how many marriages
does God look good? That's the purpose of it. Fourth and finally,
submission is provisional. What I mean by that is there's
boundaries to this submission. I know, some of
you have read it, and you go, uh, I don't
see any boundaries. I've looked at verse 24,
and it says, therefore, just as the church
is subject to Christ, so let the wives be subject
to their own husbands. What's the last two words? In everything-- that sounds like
without qualification, right? However, if that's the only
verse you read and walked away from this passage, you might
think that, but you'd be wrong. Because "in everything"
has context. Every text has context, right? If you separate text from
context, you have pre-text. You can make it say
anything you want. You can make a proof
text for anything. So there is something that
goes with the "in everything." If you go back to
verse 21, we are to submit to one another
out of reverence for God or in the fear of the Lord. That's a caveat of submission. Verse 22-- wives submit to
your husband as to the Lord or in correspondence
to the Lord. Verse 24-- as the church
is subject to Christ, let wives be to
their own husbands. Let me add another to the mix. It's not in this text, but
in the book of Colossians, Paul says basically
the same instruction. But he says-- Colossians
3, verse 18-- wives, submit to your husbands--
listen to this-- as is fitting in the Lord,
as is fitting in the Lord. So therefore, the "everything"
in verse 24 of our text means everything that is
consistent with his character and not contrary
to his character. So if you have a husband
saying to his wife, don't read that Bible ever. Don't ever go to church ever. In fact, come out with me once
a week and get drunk at the bar, and neglect the kids
while you're at it. Her response to him is like
the apostles in Jerusalem. We must obey God
rather than men. There are boundaries. There are parameters. There is a provisional
statement here. Christ is the absolute authority
in a marriage, not a husband. Christ is. John Piper writes,
the husband does not replace Christ as the
woman's supreme authority. She must never follow her
husband's leadership into sin. But even where a
Christian wife may have to stand with
Christ against the sinful will of her husband,
she could still have a spirit of submission. She can show by her
attitude and behavior that she does not like
resisting his will, and that she longs for him
to forsake sin and lead in righteousness so
that her disposition to honor him as head can
again produce harmony. That's what Peter
meant, by the way, when Peter, 1 Peter
chapter 3, says, wives, be submissive to your husbands
so that if any of them-- that is your husbands-- do
not believe the word-- they're unbelievers. They may be won
over without words by the behavior of their wives. Look, I'm not going to
obey you in that sinful attitude or that sinful thing. I'm not going to
neglect my kids. I'm not going to go get
stoned with you every week. And I am going to read my Bible. But I really want
to submit to you, and I'm going to still
honor you as best as I can. That's a hard road
to walk, by the way. Sometimes submission
is very difficult. Let me move it down a notch. Let's take it away
from your husband telling you to get drunk
and abuse the kids. Of course you're not
going to do that. Let's just take it down a notch. Let's just say your husband is
exercising unwise leadership. What is a wife to do? How is a wife to respond if
the husband is overspending and dwindling family resources? What if he is neglecting
family priorities? What if he is avoiding
spiritual leadership? By submitting to leadership
like that that appears unwise, she is not saying it's OK. She's not saying,
I'm good with it. What she is saying is, I can't
deal with this, but God can. So what I'm going to do
is take it out of my hands and put it in God's hands. I'm putting you,
husband, in God's hands. When you cannot trust
visible leadership, you can trust
invisible leadership. Where you cannot
trust human authority, you can trust divine authority. And God will honor that. That's the idea of, as to
the Lord, I can trust him. I can trust God. And I can entrust
my husband to him. Now, I tell you what. If I were a husband, and I had
a wife who said, I got to say, I think you're making unwise
decisions, but I love you, and I will go along
with you, but I am placing all of what
you're doing on the Lord. You are responsible before God. And for me to feel
the weight of that? I'm going to be very
careful how I walk. Wives, submit to your husbands. Therefore, for a wife to rebel
against her husband's authority in the home as leader, she
is rebelling against God. So the idea here,
then, is what seems like the hardest
word in a marriage can actually become the
healthiest word in a marriage because even with a submissive
attitude toward unwise leadership by her willingness
to want to submit to him, that behavior can win
him over to the Lord or in the Lord win him
over to obedient direction from the Lord, even as
a believing husband. It can work wonders, and I've
seen it time and time again. Let me pray for marriages
as we close today. Father, I just want to thank
you for husbands and wives. They made a covenant
with each other. They've since discovered that
it's just not easy to do. It's not easy to
love as Christ loved. It's not easy to submit
as the church submits to Jesus because she realizes,
I didn't marry Jesus, and this man is not perfect. But Father, I pray that that
tenderhearted willingness and submissiveness
would rule the day, that even if some don't
believe the word as Peter said, they would be won over by
attitude, by willingness, even without words of a godly wife. I pray, Lord, you would
heal relationships. I pray you would
resolve difficulties. And I pray, Lord, that
at the end of our day, our relationships would
make you look good. In Jesus's name, amen. We hope you enjoyed this message
from Skip Heitzig of Calvary Church. How will you put the truths
that you learned into action in your life? Let us know. Email us at
mystory@calvarynm.church. And just a reminder-- you can
support this ministry with a financial gift at
calvarynm.church/gift. Thank you for joining us for
this teaching from Calvary Church.
