Amen. Thank you Justin and the worship team for leading us to the feet of Jesus. Good to see you all. Go ahead and grab your Bibles and let’s open them to Ephesians chapter 5. Ephesians chapter 5. Today we’re going to be in verses 22-24 and we’re continuing in our series called Divinely Designed. Now I heard from several last week after “The Divinely Designed Role of a Husband,” that’s what we looked at.
And just real quickly let me note, you probably are noticing, we’re going to finish chapter 5 today. But you notice I took it backwards, and that’s because I’ve come to appreciate the inspired form of Scripture, taking each verse after one another as it was inspired by God. But because we took a break for Easter and then we’ve honed in on marriage, I wanted to draw out the theology of marriage as it was given to us at the beginning of creation. That’s where Paul lands at the end of chapter 5. And then we looked at the role of a husband, which is what God created first. And then today we’re looking at the role of the wife, which is where Paul went first in Ephesians chapter 5, but I’ll give you the context of why he went there first in just a moment.
But I heard lots of different comments last week as we looked at the divine role of a husband. Several men had said, “Man, that is a convicting call.” And the second half of Ephesians has been a bit like a two by four to the cranium, which is sometimes what we need as followers of Jesus, certainly as men. I saw one husband’s notes after the whole like fine china thing. In his notes he emphasized, “Be sure to put my wife in a big box in the dining room.” And so every illustration breaks down. Don’t take it too literally, all right?
But I also heard from some of the women, and the general consensus was what a beautiful picture the role of a husband is. And you know, that’s a great response. We are indeed as husbands called to play the role of Jesus in this parable of Jesus loving the church. A husband loves his wife as Christ loves the church.
Let me just remind you husbands, you are not Jesus. So don’t think too highly of yourself. Take the form of a servant. And wives, you’re not married to Jesus, so you’re going to need to extend a little bit of grace there. And then singles who are waiting to get married, Jesus ain’t coming to marry you, ok? So you’re going to have to find somebody and settle for them. All we have are sinful men and sinful women that God joins together. And when the Spirit of God fills us, we can fulfill our role in the process.
But another thing I heard from a few ladies was man, the role of a husband is a high calling. I’m so glad I am not a husband. And as I thought about that response I thought that is an appropriate response to what the Bible teaches for a wife to view her husband as the biblical mandate to husbands is not meant to cause rivalry among men and women, but rather challenge us as men and women to joyfully move into our divinely designed roles in which His grace is always sufficient for.
So when a wife sees the biblical mandate to husbands, it should cause her to joyfully follow his lead because he ultimately answers to Christ for his love and leadership, because Christ is the head of every man and every husband. Now I enjoy socking it to the men of the church because I need it just as much as anybody. But I trust that you’ve been praying for me as I seek to address the wives in the room today. And I’m going to let God’s Word do the talking so that my wife doesn’t lock me in the big box in the dining room. Ok? So we’ll let God’s Word do the talking.
The title of today’s message is “The Divinely Designed Role of a Wife.” And the big idea that I want to drill down on is this: wives who submit to their husbands reflect the glory of a church that follows Christ. Wives who submit to their husbands reflect the glory of a church that follows Christ. Why don’t you get your eyes on a copy of Ephesians chapter 5, and I’m going to read verses 22-24. Let’s hear God’s Word speak today. Hear the Word of the Lord.
Paul writes, Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. (Ephesians 5:22-24)
So this is God’s Word for us today. And before I dive into the text, let’s just talk about this word that gets a lot of heat, that gets a lot of smoke in our culture today. It’s the second word in the text. It says, “wives, submit.” And the word submit has kind of become a bit of a repulsive word in the culture that we live in, in the world that we live in as sin has risen up and as we have gone throughout culture and history. This word is kind of looked down upon. It’s not a word that we should look down upon. The word submit is from the Greek word hupotasso. And it’s a military term. Not so much like a sergeant barking orders at someone to get down and give me twenty. Just think of it as a military term in the sense of the hierarchy established for the sake of health, for the sake of mission accomplishment, for the sake of moving through this life in an orderly fashion.
So submission is not a diminishing role; first hear that. And submission is not just a role for married women. Make sure you get that. And submission is at the heart of what it means to be a Christ-follower. So every follower of Christ is closed to submit every single day. If you claim to follow Jesus, if Jesus is Lord of your life, you have been placed on a road of submission until you get to heaven.
I said in the big idea that wives who submit to their husbands reflect the glory of a church that follows Christ. Now we learned from Ephesians 3:21 Paul prayed this prayer: Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or seek, to him be glory in the church.
Now how do you suppose we get glory in this thing called the Church? Not a building, but the people, right? You are the church, and we have been joined together. And we are one Body. And Paul prays that there would be glory in the church. The glory of God is seen in the people of God through the unity of the Body as together we all do everything that we’ve been learning in the book of Ephesians. So we become fellow citizens with the saints and the members of the household of God. That was Ephesians chapter 2.
The dividing wall of hostility has been torn down. The glory is seen in the church when we boast about our salvation to the praise of His glorious grace, when we take hold of every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places together (that’s Ephesians chapter 1). The glory of God is seen in the church when we put off sin and renew our minds and put on the likeness of Christ and walk in the way that we learned Christ. That was Ephesians chapter 4. And the glory of God is seen when we continually, all of us, be being filled with the Spirit of God and giving thanks to God in everything.
And then this is where Paul ended right before he ran into his discourse on marriage, right before he asked wives to submit to their husbands or rights on behalf of God. look at what it says in verse 21. Chapter 5 verse 21. Paul landed at submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.
Every follower of Jesus who has been joined to the Body of Christ is called to submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. This is not spiritual inferiority. This is not wives submitting to men or women submitting to men. This is not some individuals lording over others. This is what it looks like to stand shoulder to shoulder in the kingdom of God. Remember we said that. We’re all standing shoulder to shoulder as sons and daughters of God.
Paul wrote this in Galatians 3:28: There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave[g] nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
Now does that mean that because of Jesus gender has gone away and the roles of men and women have now gone away? No. As far as the divine creation and the divine design goes, God very purposely created men and created women to carry out their roles in the world. But when it comes to salvation, this is what Paul is writing in Galatians. When it comes to you being in Christ, there is no male or female. We are all one.
Men are not looking down on women and women are not superior to men. We stand shoulder to shoulder in the kingdom of God, and our oneness is displayed when all of us in the Body submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. It’s hupotasso. Find yourself in the hierarchy of joyful, willful submission to Christ and one another. Why? Because it leads to a worshiping life, because worship is total submission to God, and we all want to be that. It leads to a humble believer. Who doesn’t want to be a humble believer in the room?
Humility is deliberate submission to the will, rule and priorities of God. We’re all called to that. It leads to a serving life when we submit to one another out of reverence for Christ, because service is submission to Christ’s example of considering others as more significant than yourself.
So submission, not a word that you should be repulsed by. Not a word that you should stiff-arm. Submission will not hinder what God wants to do in and through your life. Rather, it will be a vehicle that releases you into the purposes that God has for your life.
You want to follow God? Submit to Him. You want to know Christ? Submit to His Word. You want Him to carry out His plans in your life? Submit to the almighty God of glory to the praise of His glorious grace.
Now that’s my little devotion on submission from Ephesians chapter 4 and going into 5. But now in the context of this, in the context of all believers submitting to one another as brothers and sisters in the faith, Paul writes this in verse 22: Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.
Now read in isolation, this verse has gotten, like I said, it’s been kind of stiff-armed and downplayed and all of that. I heard a woman say to me after the first service, “I’ve always hated that verse, but hearing it in context actually softened me and helped me a lot.” She said that she’s seen the abuse of a verse like that used in Christianity and in the faith. And understand that this is not a verse to use like a sledgehammer or beating down or as a weapon. This is the Word of God.
So let’s notice what it doesn’t say. It does not say wives should submit to someone else’s husband. So wives, you don’t submit to someone else’s husband. It says submit to your own husband. It does not say that women should submit to men as if women are inferior to men.
Now what I want you to understand is the culture that Paul is writing this into was a Roman culture, and women were seen as far inferior to men in Roman culture. If you had a daughter…So Julius Caesar had a daughter. He named his first daughter Julia. So she took his name. But it wasn’t a son. He eventually needed a son. But he had a second daughter. He named her Secundo, which means “second.” And then he named his third daughter Third. The girls didn’t even get names in this culture; they were so inferior to men.
And marriage, it was purely contractual. So it wasn’t this holy covenant like we’ve been talking about for a lifetime. It was actually looked down upon for a man to love a woman. It was looked down upon for a man to love his wife. And so this contractual marriage was purely so that they could have sons and pass their family name.
So get this. Many have tried to say that Paul was egotistical or that Paul was chauvinistic or diminishing of women. But everything that Paul is writing in Ephesians chapter 5 is actually highly elevating marriage in a culture that tore marriage down. Everything that Paul is writing, he is actually elevating women in a culture where it was unheard of to love your wife. And yet Paul says love your wife like Jesus gave up His life for the Church.
But beyond Paul’s words, (remember Paul is merely a vessel writing on behalf of God) these are God’s words. And so certainly that which is hard in Scripture is still meant for our good because God is always good and has our best interests in mind.
Now what you have to understand about this word hupotasso, it’s different than the word obedience. Paul does not write, “Wives, obey your husbands.” Ok? And in chapter 6 verse 1 where we’ll go next week, he writes, “Children, obey your parents.” So it’s two different words. Submission is different than obedience. It’s an important distinction, because a wife is not a child being disciplined and commanded to obey. This submission to a loving, Spirit-filled husband is willful, is purposeful, and it should be a joy for the wife in the context of a Spirit-filled marriage. It won’t be easy all the time. It’ll be hard sometimes. But it should be willful, purposeful, and a joy.
I want to give you what John Piper says. Here’s a definition of a wife’s submission in marriage. He says, “Submission is the divine calling of a wife to honor and affirm her husband’s leadership and help carry it through according to her gifts.” So a few things to note from that. Submission by a wife is a divine calling. It’s a calling given to you by God to honor and affirm your husband’s leadership. So your husband does have some leadership in the covenant love of marriage, and we looked at that last week very specifically. But a wife is called to honor that and to affirm his leadership and to help his leadership, respect his leadership. But to help carry it through according to her gifts.
Now remember we’ve talked about giftedness. Every believer in the Body of Christ who stands shoulder to shoulder with one another has been given a unique spiritual gift for building up the Body. You get to use your gifts in your marriage in the divine role that God has called you to.
Now I’m aware that there are some very gifted women in front of me right now. There are some very gifted women in this church. There are some very gifted wives. Some of you have extraordinary gifts in leadership. Some of you have extraordinary gifts in administration or problem solving or finance or teaching, you name it. Scripture is not saying that wives who submit to their husbands have to forfeit their gifts of leadership or have to forfeit their gifts of administration or have to forfeit their gifts of problem solving or finances.
The call for a wife to submit to her husband is the call to come under his loving, God-given covering and allow him to deploy your gifts for the family and for the glory of God, versus you usurping his role and tearing him down and using your gifts to lead the way. You see the difference?
And yet that tension can easily happen in marriages all the time. This is what Piper goes on. His book This Momentary Marriage, I would recommend it to you. But he goes on, he says, “A wife’s submission is an attitude that says,” (get the tone of this) “A wife’s submission is an attitude that says, ‘I delight for you to take the initiative in our family. I am glad when you take responsibility for things and lead with love. I don’t flourish in the relationship when you are passive and I have to make sure the family works.’”
So this isn’t an attitude, a disposition, an inclination, of a wife who submits to her husband. Now understand this. A wife won’t always agree with her husband. A wife won’t always see eye to eye with her husband. A wife may have a better idea than her husband. And my wife in my case, she has lots of better ideas than I do. A wife may need to challenge her husband or ask him to reconsider at times. A wife may be more spiritually mature than her husband. But these do not describe biblical submission. This is not what Paul is talking about, what God’s Word is talking about.
There is a disposition and a posture in all of these circumstances that can be taken by a wife that desires to honor God as she comes under the leadership and the covering of her husband.
I told you my wife has better ideas than me all the time. There have actually been times when my wife has had to question some of the decisions or the direction of some of my decisions or where they were heading. But the tone, the communication. Now my wife and I, we’re both the oldest of six kids, so we know how to fight. We know how to go at it. We know how to have some tension. We know how to get our way.
But in our marriage, my wife has come to me often whenever she says something differently. And she might say something like this. “Hey, can we talk about that decision before it’s too set in stone?” Or she might say, “Hey, I have some concerns. I know you’re like leaning there, but I have some concerns. What do you think about talking about that later? Or could we pray about that later?”
And here’s the thing. I would be a fool, I would be a fool to not recognize that not only is my wife my helper but she is actually a sister in Christ that I stand shoulder to shoulder with and she is tapped into the Spirit of God, continually being filled with the Spirit of God. and she has the Word of God. I would be a fool to not stop and slow my role and listen to my wife and pray with my wife. And at times the Lord has led us in the different direction because of my wife’s intuition to trust the Spirit and to come to me and ask us to pray, ask us to talk. But there was a beautiful tone in that.
There have also been times that I have wished that she could make the tough decision. There have been times when we’ve had big moves or job things or life things where I’m like, “What do you want to do? What should we do? I don’t know what to do. I’ve rationalized it so much.”
And my wife has said this to me: “That is not my decision to make. I trust you to make that decision for our family and I will follow.” That’s a beautiful thing. That’s a beautiful thing of coming alongside helping, but trusting that I submit to Jesus, therefore it should be a joy for my wife to come and to follow me and to push me on and to know when it’s my decision to make. And I need to step up and be the man that God has called me to be at times in my marriage.
Now I want to give you three points that might be helpful to you applicational from the text. Ok? Number one is this. A wife’s submission magnifies her trust in Jesus as her Lord. A wife’s submission magnifies her trust in Jesus as her Lord. one more time. Verse 22. Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord.
Submission is different than obedience. Husbands should not be commanding their wives to submit, because the Word of God commanded you to love your wife as Christ loves the Church. Wives should not be demanding their husbands to love them because God’s Word commanded you to submit to your husband as to the Lord. But when a husband’s love for his wife, when a husband loves his wife like Christ loves the Church and when a wife submits to her husband as to the Lord, our obedience to the Lord will bring joy.
So understand this. Wives, your submission to your husband is obedience to Jesus who is your Lord. Remember we’ve talked about lordship in this church even over the last several weeks. But to make Jesus Lord of your life is to call Him King and to give Him everything. Your life is not your own. You follow Jesus Christ who gave up everything so that He could glorify His Father who is in heaven.
It made me think this week of Peter, who was arrested with the apostles in Acts chapter 5. And as they stood before the Sanhedrin he said to them, “We must obey God rather than man.” This is the response of anyone who claims Jesus as Lord of their life. I must obey God rather than man.
So when a wife submits to her husband, she is magnifying the lordship of Jesus Christ in her life. She magnifies that she trusts the Lord even over her own understanding and circumstances. She exalts Christ and His Word over her own feelings and emotions. She worships Christ the Lord who will have the final say. And understand that God says in Romans chapter 12, “‘Vengeance is mine,’ sayeth the Lord.”
And a lot of times I think it’s like I don’t want to submit to him. He’s being a jerk. Well guess what? If you obey Christ as if He is your Lord, every right will be turned wrong, every wrong will be made right in the end. “Vengeance is mine,” sayeth the Lord. We are not called to get vengeance in our marriage. Rather, a husband is called to love; a wife is called to submit. You play out your role and trust God with the rest.
Proverbs 31:10 says this: Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.
Get this. We live in a culture that would call the submissive wife weak. We live in a culture that calls male leadership chauvinistic or domineering. We live in a culture that says, “Get what you want or take what you want.” But God says a woman who fears the Lord, a woman who worships the Lord, a woman who exalts the Lord, is to be praised.
So just as you follow the Lord, wives, follow your husbands. Just as the Lord leads you through life, let your husband lead you through life. Never to disobey Christ. Never into a harmful circumstance. Never at the expense of your life and your safety. And it’s sad that we even have to say those kinds of things, but because of sin and because of the brokenness of this world, some of us find ourselves in very hard marriages, very hard covenants, where we’ve been sinned against greatly. And what are we to do? We are to be being filled with the Spirit of God, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ, obeying Christ and His Word. And where we can do it biblically, submit to our husbands as to the Lord.
Second point that I’ll give to you is this. A wife’s submission models God’s divine design. A wife’s submission models God’s divine design. Look at verse 23. It says,
“For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body.” And let’s just stop there.
Now many would try to apologize for what God’s Word might say or command about this. Often culture tries to lay their circumstances over Scripture so that we could say, “This doesn’t apply anymore,” or “this has culturally changed” or “this can be interpreted differently now.” And so we try to take all of the bad circumstances in our world, all of the ever-changing circumstances, the things that the news are peddling and the things that we see or the things that we feel, and we try to lay that over Scripture and say that Scripture doesn’t stand.
That’s not how it goes. Scripture should lay over every circumstance. It’s kind of funny that like our culture we’re in now with the feminist movement and all of these things, that they would say, “You know, culture has changed. That’s an ancient book. It’s not the same today as it was then.” But it wasn’t the same when Paul was writing it as it was when God designed it 1,500 years before. God spoke it into existence; culture changed. It went from Jewish culture to Roman culture. And Paul speaks into existence, elevating the gift of marriage to the world.
So Psalm 19:7 says, The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul.
And Isaiah 40 says, The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of God stands forever. (Isaiah 40:8)
There is no reason to ever apologize for the God of glory’s commands in Scripture, even when we don’t like them. So no reason to apologize for God’s command for wives to submit to your husbands. Or the husband is the head of the wife. But I can, however, acknowledge that what God divinely designed and intended for the harmony of humanity has been massively marred and skewed by sin.
And this is exactly what God told us would happen. The war on gender and culture confusion and marriage and all of that right now is exactly what God’s Word said would happen at the fall. So we looked at the divine order. Man was created first, showing the headship. And then God saw it was not good for man to be alone so He created a woman to be his helper. Those are great words. Leader, man, helper, wife.
But I want to take you to chapter 3 of Genesis. Genesis chapter 3. You can turn if you want or just listen. But this is when sin came into the world. So we looked at that the first week that God created man. He said, “Therefore a man should leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife that the two shall become one flesh.” Well one chapter later Eve eats the fruit. And I want you to hear the things that God says to both Adam and then to Eve when sin entered into the world.
First, let’s take Adam. So Genesis 3:17. And to Adam he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” (Genesis 3:17-19)
So that’s pretty harsh. That’s pretty hard. Why is God yelling at Adam? He didn’t eat the fruit. And yet He says, “Cursed is the ground because of you.” And we know from the New Testament that sin came from one man. That one man was Adam. Adam was held responsible for the sin that cursed all of humanity because Adam wasn’t doing his job.
Adam became passive in the garden. Adam became passive about who his wife was talking to. Adam became passive about Satan getting into the garden. Adam became passive about protecting his territory and protecting his wife. And rather than stopping his wife from heading down a road that she shouldn’t head down, he accepted it, he took the fruit; he ate of it. Adam didn’t do his job, and therefore he’s been held responsible for sin. He answers to God for it ultimately, and every man will do the same when we fail to uphold our roles in society. Ok?
But I want you to see what God says to Eve, who did eat the fruit. She didn’t get off scot free. Verse 16 of 3 it says, To the woman he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children.
So if you’d had children (I’ve been up close and personal with that), it seems painful. Second half of the verse is this. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you.” (Genesis 3:16)
Your desire, because of sin, will now be contrary to your husband, but your husband will rule over you. Now get this. It was never meant to feel like ruling over. When God created man to lead and a woman to be his helper in marriage, it wasn’t meant to feel like ruling over. But when sin came into the world, it felt like the man had to take rulership and the woman would always be trying to fight against that rulership.
So sin has massively skewed a man’s ability to love his wife like Christ and a wife’s ability to submit to her husband. No secret Satan is attacking gender, marriage and God-designed roles because it is a foundational institution that reflects Christ and the church in the world. And if Satan can make your marriage look bad and if Satan can confuse us about our roles and about gender, then he can shape a culture that will always question God’s love for them. And that’s exactly where we are living.
So while God’s Word is clear about God’s divine design of a husband being the head of his wife, it’s been under attack ever since God told Eve that her desires would be contrary to her husband. And this is why submission in our culture seems to be such a repulsive word. But let me give you three reasons why I think it seems to be repulsive. Here they are. I don’t have them on the screen.
But number one, wives are sinful. Wives are sinful. That’s why submission is such a hard word. Any desire from a wife to not willfully and joyfully submit to her husband is a direct result of the fall. Wives, there is an innate rebellion in your spirit that you need the blood of Jesus to save you from and to cover. Confess this to God. repent of this daily. Ask His Spirit to fill you and help you to follow the lead of your husband.
But submission is also a repulsive word because we have sinful husbands. Sinful husbands. Number two, following and submitting to a loving, Christ-like husband is one thing; following and submitting to a sinful husband, that’s another thing. That’s a hard thing. And many women find themselves in hard situations where husbands are not loving and leading like Jesus. But every wife finds herself in a marriage where a husband will not always love and lead like Jesus. And therefore, Scripture calls you to cast your cares upon the Lord, for He cares for you. Ask God for the grace of Christ in your marriage and remember that your submission to your husband is obedience to Christ, who is your Lord. We obey God rather than man.
And number three, sinful society is ruled by Satan. This is why we don’t like the word submission because sinful society, the world as we know it, is not good. The world around us is following the course of this world, the prince of the power of the air. And the bent of your sinful, fleshly nature is to get caught up in that flow.
So wives, you’ve got to take hold of every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. You’ve got to walk in a manner worthy of your calling every single day. You’e got to put off sin and you’ve got to put on Christlikeness. And part of the sin that you will always have to put off are the desires that are contrary to your husbands.
But when you obey Christ and submit to the headship of your husband, you are modeling God’s divine design for your husband, for your children, and for a world that desperately needs the picture of Jesus loving the church.
Nwo the third thing that I’ll give to you today, and this is where it turns us to Jesus (and everything in Scripture should turn us to Jesus) a wife’s submission boasts in a great Savior. A wife’s submission boasts in a great Savior. Look how verse 23 ends. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.
Submitting to your husband in everything. That sounds impossible. That sounds hard. But with God, all things are possible. God specializes in making the impossible complete. God specializes in making dead people alive. Therefore, He can take the most hell bent man and the most rebellious, independent woman and He can cause the man to love his wife like Christ loves the church and He can cause the woman to submit to her husband as to the Lord. and this becomes a picture to the world of a church that follows Christ. It boasts of a Savior who claims for Himself a bride and preserves her as she follows him.
It’s really a remarkable picture, a grace from God, the grace from life, Peter calls marriage on this earth. Because it’s just picturing the church and Jesus and that relationship that will go on for eternity.
1 Corinthians 11:3 Paul wrote this: But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.
Now a couple of things that I want you to see from that. Wives, you are not the only ones who have to submit. The head of every man is Christ, so every husband must submit directly to Jesus Christ. And they will be held accountable for how they submit to Christ. So wives, it should be easier for you to submit to your finite husband knowing that he will be held accountable for how he submits to the infinite Lord almighty. That’s real. That’s serious.
And so my wife has said sometimes to me, “You answer to God. I’ll gladly follow you.” And that’s a good response, and I fall short of it all the time.
But you also don’t serve a Savior who cannot sympathize with you. So get this. It’s beautiful. Even in the Trinity, there is submission because Jesus submits to God the Father. Was Jesus any less than God? No. Is Jesus any less divine than God? No. Is Jesus any less powerful than God? No. But Jesus submitted to God even in His own humiliation and suffering. And the submission of Jesus within the Trinity, it was voluntary and it was purposeful.
I want you to see this quote from Kathy Keller. It’s Pastor Tim Keller’s wife from The Meaning of Marriage, great book. You can grab it out there. She says this: “In Philippians 2 we are taught both the essential equality of the first and second persons of the Godhead, and yet the voluntary submission of the Son to the Father to secure our salvation. Let me emphasize that Jesus’ willing acceptance of this role was wholly voluntary, a gift to His Father. I discovered here that my submission in marriage was a gift I offered, not a duty coerced of me.”
Jesus is not asking any wife to do anything that He was not willing to do. Jesus submitted to God the Father when He knew it meant taking the form of a suffering servant. Jesus submitted to God the Father when He took the disposition of the Garden of Gethsemane. “Not my will, but yours be done.”
And so while submission can be hard and for some of us it’s harder because of our earthly circumstances, recognize that Jesus was willingly submitting to a Father who poured out His wrath on Him so that He could be the Savior of the world and the Savior of your soul.
Jesus is an example to every wife that submission in everything is possible with the Spirit and by the grace of God, and it is able to make you flourish as a follower of Christ. Just as a husband’s love for his wife reflects the sacrificial love of Jesus, the submission to a husband of a wife reflects the submission of Jesus to God the Father. And back where we started, wives who submit to their husband reflect the glory of a church that follows Christ. It’s really a beautiful picture in this life.
Now I want to lose by taking you to 1 Peter chapter 3 just real quickly, because Peter, he gives a similar section in his letter talking to wives and talking to husbands. But uniquely he’s speaking to wives submitting to their own husbands, but in this case the husband is not a believer or the husband is not walking with the Lord or the husband is not obeying the Word of God. And I want you to see what Peter writes because it’s just a beautiful thing, and it could be an encouragement to you.
And just as Christ is your Savior, Christ can use a wife’s humble and beautiful submission to her husband in hard situations to be a vehicle for saving in the life of her husband. Look at what it says in chapter 3.
Peter writes, Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, when they see your respectful and pure conduct.
Verse 3. Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear— but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious. (1 Peter 3:1-4)
So wives, without even a word, without even trying to drag your husband to church, without even telling your husband the importance of reading the Bible, without even trying to tell your husband that he needs to get his life straight, just simply by your quiet and gentle spirit, you can lead him toward righteousness. You can lead him toward holiness.
And I love that it says, “Don’t let your adorning be external, but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit.” This is precious in the sight of the Lord.
I feel or empathize I think is the feeling for some of you who are in hard situations. And I just see it in our city. I see it in our world. I see wives who have been placed in hard situations where their husbands have blown out of the picture or their husbands have not loved like Christ loves the Church. And it’s heartbreaking. And if you’re feeling that pain today, know that Jesus sees your pain and Jesus has compassion on you and Jesus loves you. And He is able to fill you up so that you can be all of these things, so that you can submit to your husband in everything as to the Lord even if it’s not going well, even if you’re not getting out of it what you wish you were getting out of it. If you honor your covenant to the glory of God, He will honor you. And what He sees is very precious. Just understand that as you press into the Lord this day.
Why don’t we stand together and I want to pray for us. And then we’ll just sing a hymn in response. But let’s pray.
Father God, we just thank You for the intentionality that you have with us. So easily we get our eyes on the problems of this world or the circumstances that we’re facing. So easily we get our eyes on our own singleness or our own marriage or the things that we’re dissatisfied with. And yet Lord, your Word is so faithful to always show us Jesus, to always point us to Christ who was compassionate and kind and willing to do anything that we don’t want to do so that we could be His bride.
So Lord, I pray for the marriages in this church. I pray that my marriage and my friends’ marriages here would reflect Jesus and the Church in a world that desperately needs to see Him. And Lord, as culture is breaking down and as culture is running further and further from the truth of God’s Word, we thank You that it never fades and that it always stands and that Jesus is always the center of every relationship.
So Lord, I thank You for the wives and the women of this church. Lord, a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. And Lord, I just thank You for so many strong women here. I thank You for so many women who have surrendered their lives to the lordship of Jesus. Lord, I pray for the wives who are in hard situations and seeking to honor Jesus as their Lord in the submission to their husband. Lord, I pray that You would use it. I pray that You would full throttle it, that You might save husbands, that You might draw husbands to righteousness and repentance.
God, I pray that You would heal broken marriages. God, I pray that You would strengthen the marriages that we do have. And Lord, I pray that we would just continually radiate this beautiful picture of Jesus loving sinners like us for eternity. Thank You for the grace of life that is marriage. We honor Jesus because of it today. In your name we pray. C’mon, let’s sing this.
