What Will Submission to My Husband Look Like?

[Music] [Applause] we have a lot of young listeners who are heading into marriage without a lot of examples in their lives to learn from and they are asking some really good questions about the basics of marriage one such listener is cassie who writes in to ask this hello Pastor John I'm engaged and need practical advice what does it mean and look like for me to submit to my husband God loves his people God loves Cassie and does not command us things that are bad for us that's just so basic in this issue God is a good father he knows manhood he knows womanhood he knows them deeply and he knows how deeply life can be beautiful together when these things are lived out according to his good purposes he has given us he's given to you Cassie amazing gifts of sexuality and amazing gifts of difference between manhood and womanhood that go deeper than sexual organs we are male and female all the way down and this is so great and so precious and so pervasive and so profound and so powerful that I think we would be foolish to experiment with it from generation to generation the way the world does like I just make something new out of what women are let's just make something new out of what men are we would be wise with only one life to live to listen to our maker our designer our father our friend our Redeemer and bring our manhood and womanhood into line with what he has revealed so we only have time here for a few comments but I've written a whole book on marriage that I would point you to and I've written what's the difference of manhood at womanhood and I've added a big blue book on this issue so I'll if this feels inadequate it it's because it is inadequate never ever stop learning and growing I'm not going to do any exegesis for example any Bible interpretation in this I'm just going to apply things I've studied but if you want to study I'm taking it almost all from Genesis one two three Ephesians 5:21 233 first Peter 3 1 2 7 2nd Timothy 2:8 215 first Corinthians 11:1 216 and the way the New Testament shows Christ and His Church interacting so here are what I think I wrote down to three things maybe the first is is this about the meaning of wife's biblical submission namely it is a happy response to a husband's biblical leadership or as Ephesians 5 calls it headship and the the point of starting here is that when men are doing what God calls men to do in a relationship and they're doing it rightly biblically most women love it and are happy to respond to it supportively so so my main effort in ministry is to help your fiance but he's not he's not you didn't ask about him you asked about you so I will try to say something directly to you but really this is so important be sure you marry a man who understands his role and has the maturity and the humility to grow in the rest of his life into this role into this leadership and headship it will be very difficult for you to live out your life of godly submissiveness if he's not a godly leader it's not impossible and the Bible talks about that but it will be harder and you don't want to choose that at the front end of your relationships here's the second thing I would say that submission means an intelligent happy wise support for the leadership of your husband and that means a few key things from him this simply means you you love it when he leads and by leading here comes the qualification so you know what what you're aiming at by leading I don't mean he makes unilateral decisions without talking to you and caring what you think that would contradict your role as a fellow heir of the grace of life it would contradict his role as a fallible follower of Jesus he's not Jesus he's not your ultimate Lord Jesus is and he knows that and he wants to honor that and encourage you in your personal submission to and following of Jesus so he doesn't put himself in the place of your your all controlling Lord he knows Jesus alone holds that so what I mean by his leadership is that he takes initiative he says let's most often that's sometimes a little little thing I say to a couple I say who says let's most often in this relationship and if she's the one who has to concentrate let's do this and let's do this and let's do this and let's do this and he's just a slough off then that's a problem he he should be taking initiative in family devotions he should be taking an initiative in the discipline of the children he should be taking initiative in financial responsibility he should be taking initiative in the moral standards of the home in in patterns of giving in church life and on and on and on when I say he takes initiative I don't mean that he takes charge in any detailed way as if as if he should run everything well he shouldn't run everything here's a here's an example let me try to make it concrete if I say take initiative in finances man don't drag your feet with regard to how the money is made how the money is saved how the money is invested how the money is spent how the money is given don't drag your feet here and expect your wife to solve all these problems you are the one that should take initiative and what I mean by initiative is he says things like can we talk about our finances to make sure that we're living in our means and honoring the Lord with our money and then he might say you know I'm not very good with these numbers and you were a math major so how about you keep the checkbook and and write the checks for the utilities and so on in other words leadership doesn't mean doing it all leadership means sitting down at the table taking the initiative to put things in motion that solve problems women love to have their husbands take initiative to put things in motion to get problem solved of course they want to be part of the solution and ought to be a part of the solution but oh how sad it is when they have to drag their husbands to the table to get something going like that in other words a good wife a submissive wife may have more competency than her husband in lots of areas she might they both recognize that and they set up the management of the home in various ways that show that leadership doesn't mean superior competencies goodnight you know I'm a pastor I was surrounded by people with superior competencies then I was but I was leader it was my job maximize those competency figure out a way to solve the problems here and set the tone here and cast a vision here that releases those competencies so submission wants a husband to lead he wants she wants him to make things happen put things in motion take initiative here's the last thing I would say that besides being an intelligent happy washe support for the leadership of the husband that way submission means that in principle in the rare cases where the two of you after arguing for days about what should be done it's a draw and you haven't persuaded him and he hasn't persuaded you the submissive wife says to the husband I'm gonna trust you to do what's right here and she may disagree with which way he's going but she is going to end those and I think they're very rare those situations are probably very rare she's gonna yield in principle to whatever he says and the reason I say in principle because it's because a good husband at that moment might use that privilege to go her way he may love her he may want to be gracious to her he may not want to take that authority here and and wield it in the direction she doesn't want to go because he loves her and so he he may just say no we'll do it your way but she has sent the message loud and clear to him I will not put my foot down and say you must do it my way we're gonna go your way and I'm gonna trust you to do what's right and and I would just end by qualifying that two ways one a good husband will sometimes yield even though she has given him the privilege so she yields and the second qualification is a wife never follows her husband into sin so the headship of the husband is not ultimate headship Christ is open headship and she will always seek to do the right thing and not sin if her husband calls her to follow him into sin so here's my my summary for Cassie number one God knows what's best for us and his way of submission and headship is the path of joy number two be sure to marry a man mature enough and humble enough to lead biblically number three submission is mainly an intelligent happy wise support for that leadership for which me that submission is a responsiveness to his initiative taking which is not comprehensive control but involves you in the planning of the family life five submission means that in a draw you say I trust you to do what's best and six submission means ultimately submission to Jesus so that you never follow your husband into sin very helpful outline thank you Pastor John and thank you Cassie for the great question if you have a question please send it in to us via email at a special John at desiring God org and you've probably learned by now great questions are essential to what we do so please keep sending them in to us in this episode Pastor John mentioned three books all of them can be downloaded and read for free from desiring God org and when we say that you can download and read them for free we always mean you can download the entire book for free not just a chapter or an excerpt but the whole thing those titles are these this momentary marriage what's the difference in recovering biblical manhood and womanhood this momentary marriage what's the difference and recovering biblical manhood and womanhood you can download each of those three books for free from our site desiring God org click on the books tab tomorrow is Friday and we have a question about prayer inspired from our series we did with Tim Keller I'm your host Tony ranky thanks for listening to the a special John podcast you

Channel: Desiring God

Views: 48,227

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Keywords: Desiring God, John Piper, God, Jesus Christ, Christianity, Christian Hedonism

Id: Uq6qadD1mo0

Length: 12min 42sec (762 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 20 2017