Boy Meets Girl: The S-Word

Wives, this is the question I’m going to ask you, when you hear the passage, and you’ve heard this in church, "Wives, submit to husbands..." [Ephesians 5:22] Now when you hear that passage, because generally guys do a big, "Amen! High five John, thank you for saying that. I’ve been waiting for that passage, did you get that honey? Get it! Get it! Say it again Pastor!" When you hear, "Wives, submit to your husbands;" what comes in to your mind for real? What happens is, we misinterpret what God wants in this. Women, the one word for you is -- because you’re going to, I’m telling you, you’re going to leave. I told you; some of you packing up purses right now, just chill out! You want to hear the word of God and you want it to change your life, you got to hang tough thru it.

Men, the passage we just read? The passage before that passage that says, "Wives submit to husbands." Wait a second; Paul talks to husbands and he says, "Love your wives," and before that he says, "Wives submit to your husbands." And there’s a definite sense here, I mean, there’s authority in Scripture. In fact, I’m going to read a verse I haven’t read all weekend; First Corinthians eleven says, "Now, I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God." [1 Corinthians 11:3]

Now again, things are like, "Oh, I don’t like that and we’re egalitarian; we’re all equal in Christ." But there’s positions, and there’s authority, there’s a system that God has set up for things to work; and when it works the way God intended it to work, it’s beautiful. But when men start quoting verses like, "Women should submit..." If you have to tell your wife to submit to you, that’s a serious problem right from the start, okay? If you have to call out that verse to her? You’ve failed. The Bible says, "Submit one to another our of the fear of Christ, out of reverence for Christ." [Ephesians 5:21] Take a look at the verse again, Ephesians 5:21, we’re going to read it in one full voice: "Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ."

It doesn’t say, "Submit to each other because we’re perfect!" You want to worship Jesus? Reverence for Jesus is submitting to other people. See, that sets the foundation for every single other relationship in your world. For employees, if you’re a person that leads people; as Dad’s, you submit first to your kids before you expect them to submit to you. As husbands, and again, I’m just telling you; husbands, this is going to be, this is your week. Someone said, "Well, I’m glad my wife gets next week." Next week is going to be a little bit more for wives but, we’re failing.

Men are not leading their homes; homes are in tragedy because men are being wimps. Do you know what it means to be a courageous person for Jesus Christ? It is to surrender, and submit, and serve. Courage is not stepping up and yelling, "I’m the authority!" If you’ve got to start pulling the ’I’m in charge’ card, you’ve already lost respect. What you need to do is back up the authority train, and pull the carpet up and say, "What’s going on here," friends? God wired it to work a certain way, and when it works, it’s beautiful. It’s a picture; and there’s nothing that’s a better picture of the relationship of the church with Christ, than a Godly marriage. The church and Jesus; the picture of God as a husband and wife that are in unity, that love each other. But ’submission’ is a very misunderstood word, and I love dealing with misunderstood things in the Bible if it will help you.