SUMITTING YOURSELVES ONE TO ANOTHER (pt 2)
"The Priority and Protocol of Love and Marriage"
INTRO – One of the obstacles to the Christian marriage is misplaced and displaced priorities. The Word of God gives the outline and the guideline of how to keep everything in its proper place and our relationship with our spouse in proper perspective.
TEXT -Matthew 22:37-39
37Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
38This is the first and great commandment.
39And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
1. Love God
Matthew 22:37-38
37Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
38This is the first and great commandment.
Agape – undying, unchanging, unconditional love. The love of God is described in 1 Corinthians 13. After we recognize and receive the agape love of God we are then able to reflect and reciprocate that same love. We are able to love God the way He loves us. The love the Father has for us caused Him to sacrifice His Son for us. The love Jesus has for us causes Him to leave the 99 to go after the one that is lost. God puts us first. In order to love Him like He loves us, we must make him our highest priority. We must put Jesus Christ first in all things.
Colossians 1:17-18
17And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.
18And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence.
Jesus is to be the center and circumference, the base and the boundary, the balance and the beauty, the sum and the substance of our life. We are to seek Him first, which means we are to seek Him about all things, for all things and in all things. The moment we stop seeking Jesus first to seek something second, then that which was second becomes first.
Matthew 6:33
But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
First seek to please Him; first seek to fellowship with Him; first seek to learn of Him; first seek to love Him and everything else is an outflow and an overflow of our love for God. The way we seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness as we endeavor to do all we can do and be all we can be is by always asking ourselves the question, “How can God be glorified in this?” I can love Him because He first loved me. In addition to loving God because He first loved me, I can love me because He first loved me.
2. Love yourself –
Matthew 22:37-39
37Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
38This is the first and great commandment.
39And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
John 3:16 say that God so loved the world that He gave and forgave. Love is for giving and forgiving. As we learn the love of God and learn to love like God, we learn to love what He loves and like what He likes. God loves me! Also, God likes me. I must learn to like me and to love me so I can learn to forgive me. Developing a godly love for myself will enable me to love someone else. I cannot love anyone else if I don’t first learn to love myself.
3. Love you spouse
Ephesians 5 gives us a description of the difference between the expression of love needed by a husband from his wife and by a wife from her husband. There is a revelation of the difference between how the wife submits herself to the husband and how the husband submits himself to the wife. It’s the revelation of the difference between leadership and management. To lead is to guide on a way especially by going in advance; to direct on a course or in a direction; or to serve as a channel for. The husband is to be the leader of the home and the wife is to be the manager.
Ephesians 5:25-30
25Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;
26That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,
27That 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.
28So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself.
Leadership works for the people under them. As the leader, the husband’s job is to help the people under him to become who God has called them to be. This is evidence in his role as the father to train the children up in the way that they should go. It implies that leadership has insight into the way that those under them should go. The husband also leads his wife by giving her verbal acceptance, reassurance, and encouragement; a washing of water by your words. She needs to be told that he loves her. She needs to hear him say that she is beautiful and that she is smart. She needs to be told that he will never leave her nor forsake her so she can fearlessly go forward in life instead of always looking back to the days of her youth. She needs to know that he loves her, unconditionally, like he loves his own body. One of the major differences between men and women is that a woman can put on 15 pounds and feel insecure about it. A man can put on 50 pounds, pull pants below his belly and still believe every woman in the world thinks he is sexy. Husband, love your wife as your own body. Let her know that you think she is sexy. Let her know that you love her now more than ever and her best days are still to come.
Genesis 2:24
Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
Part of assuring the wife that her husband will never leave her nor forsake her is the leaving and cleaving process. The leaving and cleaving process is for the change in position and the change in priority so that she knows that he puts her before anyone else on earth. She needs to know that he is totally committed to her so she can be totally supportive of him
Ephesians 5:20-22
20Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ;
21Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.
22Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.
Submission for the wife is helping the husband to manage.
Manage means to handle or direct with a degree of skill or to exercise executive, administrative, and supervisory direction of something. In other words, the way the wife expresses her love for her husband is to be a helpmeet. She helps him meet his full potential.
Genesis 2:18
And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.
Management works for the person over them to help leadership meet the demand placed on them. Leadership works for the people under them to help them reach their full potential. The life of Joseph gives us a good example of management anointing. Whenever he was made an overseer of someone else’s estate and affairs, all that was placed in his hand prospered.
Leadership and management work hand in hand. The husband is trying to take the family higher and the wife holds things together until they get there. Both need each other to reach their full potential.
There is also a revelation of a difference between authority and power. Authority comes from leadership down but power comes from management up. The husband has authority. The husband has the spiritual authority to speak the word over his wife and change her life. He even has the authority to override and overturn her own words of fear, doubt, and unbelief that she has spoken over herself (Numbers 30:7-8). Jezebel’s problem was not the makeup that she wore. Her problem was that her husband did not exercise spiritual authority. She 450 false prophets to tell her what she wanted to hear when all she needed was one husband to tell her what she needed to hear. The husband has spiritual authority.
The wife has power. The wife has the power to determine whether or not the husband is a leader because a leader cannot lead if the people under him do not follow. Moses was one of the greatest leaders in history. He lead millions of the Children of Israel out of Egyptian bondage but later lead them in circles for 40 years because the Children of Israel refused to follow him. Both the authority of the husband and the power of the wife are necessary functional components of a successful marriage. Both the husband and the wife need the expressed love one for another and the submission one to another for the two to become one flesh and each become who God has ordained them to be. This is the priority and protocol of love in marriage.
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