The Marriage Dance "Wired 4 Relationships" Tim Mackie (The Bible Project) 8/29/2010

all right uh we are diving into uh week five of the teaching series that we're in right now called wired for relationship we have been exploring all of the different facets and kinds of relationships that we have in our lives as christ followers we've explored friendship and family and parenting next week chris is going to talk about the challenge that the sunday crowd can pose for us to forming relationships here in the church community the benefits and the challenges of our large gatherings here but today we're going to be focusing on the relationship of marriage so this ought to be simple right wrap this up real quick uh if if there is a cultural institution in our society today that is the subject of confusion and controversy it is marriage two months ago uh in my favorite news addiction magazine newsweek they uh they published an essay by uh two young kind of 30-something female journalists it's caused kind of a stir in the blogosphere and so on it's called i don't the case against marriage fascinating and the cultural observations that these two young journalists made about american culture and the status of marriage absolutely fascinating we'll just read the first paragraph here in our culture today the idea of marriage has become so tainted and simultaneously so idealized that we are simply hesitant to engage in it the baby boomers may have been the first children of widespread divorce but ours is a generation for whom multiple households were the norm we grew up shepherded between bedrooms minivans and dinner tables with step parents half siblings and highly complicated holiday schedules you can imagine then amid incessant high profile adultery scandals that we would be somewhat cynical about the institution the question is not why fewer people are getting married which is true but why are so many still getting married it's fascinating so catch what they're saying here they're saying children of the 70s 80s and 90s right we have been the generations that are kind of living amidst the fallout of our parents sexual revolution in the 60s and the 70s and the divorce revolution that uh that followed from that woodstock may have been a blast right but as my generations younger they're paying for the fallout and what they're saying is there is a deep cynicism in these coming generations about the idea of not just of getting married but especially of staying married for life where are the stories of healthy flourishing growing marriages can you name that reality show you know what i'm saying can you name that movie yeah the story's just they're really not being told these days we're much more entertained by watching people ruin their lives than build loving marriages and so there's this cynicism i was the weirdo in high school because my parents were still married and actually liked each other and got along well my friends noticed when they came to my house because there was just no one on their map that had parents like that i was the odd man out and if you're my age or younger you know exactly what i'm talking about our culture and the generations that are coming i think are having fewer and fewer compelling reasons if not to fall in love and get married because as a culture we still love the idea of getting at least having a wedding we love that idea it's a big big business but the idea of staying married for life it's a deep cynicism in our culture and as christ followers we are heirs to a vision of marriage and relationships that is so beautiful and that is filled with such hope for a culture like ours it's a vision of marriage and relationships that's rooted in the gospel it sees marriage as a reenactment of grace and of the story of of christ's self-giving love and that's what we're looking at today if you have your bibles once you turn with me to ephesians chapter five and uh if you're using the brown bibles we've got here that's on page 829. ephesians chapter 5. we're going to jump in at verse 21. ephesians 5 21 to one another out of reverence for christ wives submit to your husbands as to the lord for the husband is the head of the wife as christ is the head of the church his body of which he is the savior now as the church submits to christ so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything husbands love your wives just as christ loved the church and gave himself up for her pause with me real quick how you guys doing all right some of us have uh grown up or are familiar with uh this passage in ephesians five and you're just like yeah it's ephesians five others of us may be familiar with it we may not be but actually you stopped listening after you heard this these phrases wives submit and husband is the head of the wife and what is coming to our minds when we hear language like this we think of stories immediately we think of people we know stories we've heard of amazing amazing women who have been squashed by their husbands we think of how these verses or at least the language or the ideas in these verses have been used throughout history by christian men as a power play over their wives to get what they want i imagine there are people in the room who have been wounded with this language before what is going on here and we think we're we live in the 21st century like didn't we aren't we beyond this as a response first thing i want to say is i so get where you're coming from as a young christ follower years ago when i started reading for the bible reading bible for the first time and i came across ephesians 5 and i was like what is going on here holy cow i hope that if you have been coming to blackhawk for a while and the way that we read and engage with scripture i hope is beginning to rub off on you i hope that when you read a text like this in your puzzle what is is going on i hope your first responses are something like i know i know that scripture has a message for me scripture was written for me but it was not written to me does anyone happen to live in first century ephesus right now no no what was the context who were the people that it was written this was written to what was their setting what would these words have meant and when we begin to ask those questions the picture completely changes completely changes what we find is that in the midst of a first century roman culture which was very patriarchal a deeply oppressive environment for women what paul is doing here in the larger context of ephesians here is a life-giving empowering word especially to women some of you don't believe me yet it's my job to convince you right now uh go with me to the beginning of chapter five first sentences of chapter five paul is addressing uh the entire community of christ followers he challenges them he says be imitators of god therefore as dearly loved children and live a life of love just as christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to god pause real quick here just by word repetition what's the key idea here love three times we get this phrase god has loved us therefore we are called to live a life of love because god has come among us as christ and has loved us and how has he loved us how do we know he's given his life for us okay now a few hurdles here and we've been in this territory before the fuzziness of the english word love right so when we read this this does not mean god and christ have the warm fuzzies for us okay because in english love is primarily an emotion word it's a feeling for the biblical authors in the jewish scriptural tradition love is not primarily a feeling it's something you do it's an action it's a commitment so a very quick paraphrase of what the biblical authors mean when they use this word is a commitment to act for the well-being of another person god is committed to the well-being of his creation christ was committed to the well-being of a broken world and he gave his life so that others may live and paul says if you're a jesus community if if the gospel is your grounding narrative then you will live that kind of story and kind you will be committed to each other's well-being and the rest of ephesians 5 he's exploring what that looks like for them in 1st century roman culture and at the end of the section in verse 21 he kind of rolls this all up into a principle here and we read this right after verse 21 he rolls it all together but he doesn't say love one another again what does he say submit to one another out of reverence for christ who's he talking to here the entire community of christ followers okay now let's do a little vote here all right i say the english word submit submission how many of you have positive feelings when i say the word submit or submission let's vote by hand come on it's okay all right good there's like four of you honest you're honest right how many of you have negative associations when you hear the word submit or submission okay now this just english language this is just language changes right in contemporary english the word submit has primarily negative associations for us so we think of we think of passivity we think of weakness we think of allowing yourself to be overpowered or dominated by someone in our minds many of us associate submission with the loss of your dignity or freedom or something like that and that is just not at all what paul is getting at here it's very different submission as paul challenges the whole community is like the flip side of the coin of love if love is committing yourself to act for the well-being of another submit in greek and english all it means is to put under when you submit to someone you're putting your interests and your well-being under theirs you're prioritizing the other person you're considering them more important their well-being their interests you're putting yourself under you elevate the other person right so this is what paul challenged all of the christ-following communities to do so for example philippians chapter 2 is almost like a paraphrase of what he means right here he's challenging the philippians he says stop acting out of selfish motives or a desire to impress act out of humility consider others more important than yourselves don't just look out for your own interests but also the interests of others and why should we do that because of our foundation story as a community the story of the gospel our attitude to others we should be the same as that of christ jesus and in philippians 2 he just goes on and he retells the story of the gospel so this is the logic here's love and submission love and submission jesus communities should be communities of people that are so grounded in the story of jesus that they prioritize each other's well-being above their own and they commit to actually doing something about it actually like doing things to elevate someone else and their needs above my own communities of love and you could say in verse 21 we're talking about mutual submission i guess tracking with me here okay so english word submission is tricky maybe we should find a different word in the next version of the niv you know i'm saying but it's the word that we have it's the word that we have so let's at least make sure we're on the same page for what it means which is very different than contemporary english okay now go back to these first sentences of chapter five here paul is verse one and two he's calling uh the whole community to live a life of love that's the first side of the coin and who's this challenge given to the entire community does this include husbands loving their wives yes does it include wives loving their husbands yes go down to verse 21 submit to one another out of reverence for christ does this include wives submitting to their husbands yes does this include husbands submitting to their wives say yes are husbands a part of everyone yes okay so all we're doing is we haven't even done cultural background yet right so we're just looking at like the logic of the passage mutual submission so love and submission are the two words that paul uses when he's addressing the whole community and then this section below he's addressing wives specifically and what key word does he use there verse 22 wives submit verse 25 husbands love now when he calls wives to submit in the sense we've described it does it mean they're not supposed to love no of course they are because everyone in the community is supposed to love when he addresses husbands and tells them to love does he mean that they are not supposed to submit no of course they're supposed to every it's a community of mutual submission he picks up the two key words and he spells out the example in in marriage and marriage here communities of love and submission and marriages are to be a reenactment a little microcosm of the story of the gospel of this mutual love and mutual submission okay now verse 23 the husband is the head what on earth is going on here what does this mean okay in first century roman cultures very it's it's almost hard for us to imagine how different of a world this was the first century roman culture was built on a very rigid kind of social hierarchy of power and authority there's a very small amount of individuals who actually have the power right so at the top of the food chain is one man right the emperor the caesar the emperors in fact in this time period were considered to be embodiments of the divine they were deified and recognized as the god come among us caesar the emperor was called the son of god at his coronary his crowning institution underneath him at his word everyone lives or dies and underneath him is a very small uh group of people representing about four percent of the population the ruling elite and these are families of course headed by uh powerful men they hold all the wealth all of the political power and then there are the masses right the rest of the 96 percent of the population roman society was constructed or kind of divided up into household multi-generational three four generational households and at the head of each of those households is a man a patriarch okay at his word everyone below him lives or dies a roman man would acquire a wife right which means you go to another man and you buy his daughter this is an agreement between families usually you make this agreement so that your family can get a status step up the ladder and so on the average age of a roman man to be married like my age like 30 early 30s average age of a roman woman to be married okay imagine leonardo dicaprio getting married to hannah montana 15 15 14 15. this is like a young girl this adult man is taking in to his home it's illegal in our culture not to mention creepy okay so all right so but that's just our cultural background right let's just uh that's just our culture talking so imagine imagine this this is teenage girl this adult man and what is her value to the household her value is bound up in what she offers to running the household food all these kinds of things managing the children slaves are all property this is how roman society works you don't violate the food chain okay into this culture bursts a people movement in the middle of the first century they're called followers of the way or of the nazarene strange people and they're telling the story that the one true god is on a mission to renew and restore his broken creation and he's he's making a new family of people who are all brothers and sisters together connected to their head who is jesus of nazareth and in this community they they don't do things according to the roman ladder the roman social ladder got completely dismantled in these early jesus communities the organizing principle of these early jesus communities that's expressed all over the new testament paul the apostle gives a beautiful expression of it in his letter to the galatians galatians chapter 3. for you are all children of god through faith in christ jesus all of you were united with christ in baptism and have clothed yourselves with christ there is no longer jew or a gentile slave or free male or female you are all one in christ jesus can i get an amen this is all of the ways that roman society divided people up into the ladder these people have more value than these people these people have special privileges that those people do not get in the early jesus communities this is completely dismantled with the gospel the gospel is this message that every single human being is of inestimable value every human being is of of utmost worth that the son of god would die the son of god someone to the level of the caesar or the emperor would die for the lowest slave the early christians were seen as social deviants they're upsetting the social order go back to ephesians 5 with me you are you're a roman male you've taken a 14 year old girl into your home and paul you you claim to be a christ follower paul the apostle challenges you this verse 25 husbands love your wives as christ loved the church and gave himself up for her the head of the household should have what relationship to his wife he should put himself under her you give your life for that girl she does not exist to serve you you are there to serve her holy cow you will be the laughingstock of all your friends if you're a roman male doing this kind of thing this is a whole new way of organizing society so in contrast to this uh roman hierarchy i love this thing you have this new family which paul calls the church crystal work on defining what this word means next week and who is at the head of this new family we use paul's words here christ i have been perfecting my backwards writing skills now paul says the husband is the head of the wife as christ is the head of the church what does it mean for christ to be the head what what does that mean what does paul appeal to he says well he appeals to the story of the gospel he says jesus's headship is exercised by love and submission by putting himself under others so that their well-being is prioritized he gives of his life for others do you see this here this the story tells live a life of love just as christ loved us and gave himself up for us frank and aroma sacrifice offering to god this is what it the early christians redefined the word head paul goes on and he says husbands this one's a little trickier husbands i'm on a roll better not stop okay husbands the husband is the head of the wife as christ is the head of the church what does that mean see i think for generations of christian readers using plucking these verses out of context or whatever generations have taken the word head and they have inserted into ephesians 5 whatever definition of male authority was supplied by them by their cultural upbringing well husbands are to be the leaders in the home if the husband and wife disagree the husband's opinion has final say the husbands must lead the trajectory for the family the husbands do the finances the husbands does paul say any of those things what is the one description he gives of what the word head means i think that's just insane is this this is the definition right here this this is the christian meaning oops i was about to start this is what head means for the early christians what did jesus say the last shall be first the one who wants to be greatest among you you go to the bottom and you be everyone's servant this is just astounding and it's rooted in the gospel it's a whole different vision of what it means to be a society so what uh paul envisions here is that husbands if they have the priority to do anything it's the priority to lay down their well-being for the well-being of their wives that's good news for us and what does he challenge the wives to do to reciprocate so you could say it's sort of like this yeah husbands and wives if husbands have the priority in their christian version of headship it is to lay down their well-being for their wives so their wives can flourish and then the wives are challenged to reciprocate and he envisions marriage it's like this gospel dance like this back and forth mutual submission mutual love and on down it goes it's like this dance this back and forth and when both couples when both husband and wife are following christ if both people are prioritizing and elevating the other who loses when you have to submit nobody no one gets squashed everyone gets elevated this it seems to me is the vision of marriage that paul lays out in ephesians chapter five is this beautiful vision this text actually challenges male abuse of authority it does not underwrite it it's challenging it's inviting us into this dance of mutual love and and submission this is a this is a vision that is beautiful and full of hope for a culture like ours amen now how do you live this let's move to the 21st century right well don't mistake me for somebody who's figured it out first of all so what we could say first of all is is that the core issues that paul are exploring here are actually not about marriage at all who's he talking to at the beginning of chapter five just married couples no the entire community so what paul is is challenging us to as a community really has nothing to do with marriage it has to do does my life tell this story does how i relate to my roommate how i relate to my co-worker does it tell the story of the gospel does it reenact the drama of christ's self giving love am i becoming this kind of person that is the question that ephesians 5 has put to every single one of us you do not have to be married to become this kind of christ follower correct correct jesus was single right paul who wrote a third of the new testament he was single we make a huge category mistake when we think that getting married is what makes you a fulfilled or flourishing human becoming a flourishing human is about becoming like christ and retelling the story with my life numerically if we count all of the adults and young adults who are part of our our church community here at black hog the majority are not married and this is the question is my life telling this story every single one of us but then paul goes on and explores the story and gives it further kind of explication in the marriage relationship how do you do this in in marriage wow last month my wife jessica and i we we celebrated nine years of being married which is not you know it's not 20 or 30 like some of you but it's nothing to sneeze at you know nine years uh yeah thank you i appreciate that yeah we got married after college we met in late college and we dated for two years and you know after two years you think you know someone pretty well but here's the thing about getting married and about experiencing seasons of life together is that new seasons and new experiences bring things out of you that neither of you knew were in there in the first place right positive and negative of course for example jessica's father jack is the most amazing person i have ever met he is the quintessential renaissance man you know he's a high school math teacher was a biology teacher built his own house that jessica grew up in foundation to finish fixes his own cars has a flourishing vegetable and flower garden along with a small vineyard that he meticulously cares for in his backyard you know this kind of thing right i on the other hand uh the man that jessica married i am like the least handy uh person you have met if it has moving parts you don't want me involved kind of thing if it involves hammers and tools i'm third fourth person you want to call i'm okay all right i've had to teach myself because two years ago jessica and i bought our first house together and uh you know uh what we could afford was a smallish kind of fixer-upper every room needed to be turned over in some way and i had zeal for this for a while but i learned that i'm slow to pick up skills i make lots of mistakes and here i am two years later confessions man i just hate house projects i hate it's like punishment for me and it's not good you know i mean it's not good i procrastinate i put them off and it's hard for me to have a good attitude when the weekends come because we have to do we have to do house projects jessica loves house projects and she's good at them and it's like therapy for her and so in these last two years new seasons have brought out all these levels of conflict and frustration that we didn't know were there now i imagine for jessica growing up with someone like her dad that there is a certain level to put it generously there is a certain level of disappointment in me right i'm not jack and so we've had to do the dance and it's really hard and if you've got pointers for me i'm all ears so we try this dance and it works some weekends other weekends not so much it usually depends on my attitude and there are days when i have to bite the bullet and say i want to read with a cup of coffee for the next four hours and go for a bike ride and go to the skate park but i have to bite the bullet and sometimes i succeed and have a happy face while i'm putting in baseboard molding and other days other days i don't but here's the crazy thing is that when i actually am my happy face instead of mr krabby pants something happens to jessica when i just like suck it up and do it there's no romantic love driving me on saturday mornings when i'm putting in baseboard molding you know what i'm saying it's the act of the will but to see her response holy cow and it becomes this this dance and then i'm stoked that she's stoked she's stoked i'm stoked and it goes back and and then i do something lame and it all falls apart or something but but uh you know that's how it goes that's how it goes i don't know what your version of putting in baseboard molding is in your in your marriage but this this is the vision that paul calls us to and it is an act of the will it's a choice it's love right what's the biblical definition of love not the warm fuzzies it's a commitment to act for the well-being of the other person what does that look like for you we live in a culture especially the generations that are coming that have virtually no role models of healthy flourishing marriages and you have to think it's largely because the art of the gospel dance is just completely lost in our culture may it not be so here in our church community amen i realize there's lots of qualifications lots of complexities here there are stories behind the stories but this is the vision that paul calls us to we have a whole host of pastors and counselors here if you grab the connecting booklet and you feel like you need to take a next step in your own marriage relationship there are people here that would love to meet with you and talk with you about that there's too much at stake too much at stake i'm going to invite the music teams to come up in all the different rooms and as we move on kind of the rest of the service i would like you to ponder a few things if you're not married you are the audience of ephesians chapter five and i'd like us to ponder whether our lives are telling this story in the relationships in your lives if you are married i'd like to even be a little more specific i would challenge you to ponder whether your marriage is telling the story these days and i would highly encourage you today tomorrow at the latest to sit down with your spouse and ask them when's the last time you felt like we were dancing well together what was i doing what were you doing how can we do that more often and ask god to help help you communicate well and have vision and clarity for what uh what your relationship could become this gospel dance i'm going to leave the drawings up here and i just encourage you to ponder the questions for the rest of our time today

Channel: Bible Nerds & Tim Mackie Fans

Views: 28,344

Rating: 4.9290781 out of 5

Keywords: Tim Mackie, Bible Project

Id: 5UFP1GmDdow

Length: 38min 7sec (2287 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 01 2020