Don¨ˆt Forget Who You Are Series

Don¡¯t Forget Who You Are

Stop lying to God

Sermon Scripture Ephesians 5:22-33

Ephesians 5:22-33 22 Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. 24 Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. 25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; 26 That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, 27 That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. 28 So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. 29 For no man ever yet hateth his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: 30 For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. 31 For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. 32 This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church. 33 Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband.

Do you realize that you are a child of God? Do you realize that God has your best interest in mind in everything that you do? Although many of us do have a pretty good idea on the answer to the first two question it is the third question that we are going to discuss today. Do you understand how important your marriage is to God? This is what we must talk about right now. Somehow Satan has made us begin to think that our marriage is not as important to God as we think it should be.

In this passage of scripture God compares the relationship in a marriage to his relationship to the church. If you have been around a couple of churches or met a few people in churches then you know that the church is always in need of some serious work. I am not talking about the lights, walls, roof, lawn, etc. even though those things are vital they are not what I am talking about right now. I am talking about the people in the church. For God to stay married to us he has to be able to put up with some serious issues.

God realized that when a man and woman attempts to live in holy matrimony then they will need some of the same things that it takes to keep the church together. Are we willing to do what it takes to keep the marriage as God is willing to keep the church? What if for every church that did wrong God decided he wanted a divorce? Or what if God decided that one day because he is God and all things are subject to him that he wanted to go out and have an affair with another church? Saints we really need to ponder these questions. What if God treated us how we treated our marriages? Where would we be?

As I read this scripture in preparation to preach this sermon I realized that this is the single most sought after and misunderstood scripture used by men in marriages today. You know what I am talking about. The part where it tells the wives to submit to there husbands.

I have come to realize that a woman when she is really in her natural state has the desire to be submissive to her husband. She is willing and able to submit to her husband without hesitation or reservation. After I studied this a couple of times I was shocked to realize this to be true. The problem, however, I have come to find out is not with the wives submitting to the man but the problem comes because the man does not submit to God.

So many women would like to give their own interpretation or simply skip this scripture all together. They say, ¡°There is no way that God could have meant this.¡± To be honest I know exactly what they are talking about. I wonder could I really handle being the savoir of my wife¡¯s body. I am having a hard enough time saving my own body.

There is no way that a man can handle the responsibility and authority of having his wife totally submit to him without him totally and completely submitting to God. I marvel at any man that is foolish enough to even try. I also marvel at any man that is foolish enough to think that he could trick even me to think that he has his body under enough subjection as to where he can render any type of judgment to the actions of his wife.