Introduction:
A. One day a little girl and a little boy were playing in the yard.
1. The girl asked the boy, “Hey Billy, do you want to play house?”
2. Little Billy said, “Sure! What role do you want me to play? Do you want me to be the husband, the son, or the brother?”
3. Little Sally replied, “I want you to communicate your feelings.”
4. “Communicate my feelings?” little Billy said in bewilderment, “I have no idea what that means.”
5. Little Sally nodded and said, “Perfect. You can be the husband.”
6. Oh, the roles of husbands and wives in marriage…we can poke a lot of fun at it, but it is actually a very important and serious matter.
B. Today, we are continuing in our Marriage Matters series.
1. I hope you have been finding the lessons to be thought provoking and marriage transforming.
2. If you haven’t heard all of the previous lessons, then I would encourage you to go to our website or our YouTube channel and watch or listen to the sermons you missed.
3. So far we have learned that marriage ain’t easy, but with work every marriage can be improved.
4. We have also learned that marriage belongs to God. And because God created marriage, He has a right to define it and that following His plan for marriage will make it the best it can be.
5. Last week, we explored the need for forgiveness in marriage and we learned about the blessing of having a grace-filled marriage.
C. Today, we want to explore and embrace God’s design for husbands and wives.
1. God has created man and woman for marriage, and God has created us to carry out very specific roles that will make our marriages healthy and fulfilling.
2. On the sermon slides for today, you will notice that I’ve chosen an image of a man and a woman dancing, which I think is an excellent illustration of the unique roles in marriage.
3. A dancing couple must know their steps and fulfill their role for the dance to work.
a. The steps and the movements are designed for a leader and a follower, and are appropriate for each of their unique shape and strength.
4. And so it is in marriage…God has made husbands and wives to live in a balanced and symbiotic way.
a. The husband and wife are uniquely designed as man and woman to carry out their God-given roles.
b. When the husband and wife know their steps and fulfill their role then the marriage dance is beautiful and successful.
5. Today, let’s endeaver to understand and embrace God’s design for husbands and wives.
I. God’s Design for Husbands and Wives
A. The Apostle Paul describes God’s design for husbands and wives in Ephesians 5:21-33.
1. This text was read as our Scripture Reading for today, and it is also a text that we spent time with in the second sermon in this series as we sought to understand how marriage is picture of the relationship between God and His people (the church).
2. One of the things that is crystal clear in Ephesians 5 is that the roles of husband and wife in marriage are not arbitrarily assigned and that they are not reversible any more than the role of Christ and the role of the church are reversible.
a. The roles of husband and wife are rooted in the distinctive roles of Christ and His church.
3. Paul wrote: 22 Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. (5:22-24)
4. As you are probably aware, these words and concepts are not welcome in our day and age.
a. They are truly countercultural and are considered politically incorrect.
b. I can just hear someone saying, “Are you serious?...The husband is the head of the wife?... And wives should submit to their husbands?...Are you serious?”
5. Yes, I am serious, because God is serious, and God is good.
6. In our limited understanding and in a context where these words have been abused, many people hear words and phrases like these in Ephesians 5, and recoil in disgust.
7. But if we will just pause for a moment and consider the picture of marriage from God’s perspective and design, then our reaction may be different.
B. When the Bible says that “the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church,” we immediately need to ask the question, “What does it mean for Christ to be the head of the church?”
1. The Apostle Paul answers that question by writing, “…Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.” (Eph. 5:25-27)
2. What a breathtaking picture is that!
3. As the head of the church, Christ gives up everything He has for the good of the church.
a. Christ takes responsibility for the beauty of His bride, and He is ready to lay aside His rights and is willing to lay down His life for the sake of her splendor.
4. So this is who God has designed a husband to be: a man who gives everything he has for the good of his wife.
a. A husband is to be a man who takes responsibility for the beauty and wellbeing of his bride, and he is ready to lay aside his rights and is willing to lay down his life for the sake of her splendor.
5. God has designed a husband to be the head of his wife like this so that in a husband’s love for his wife, the world might see a picture of Christ’s love for His people.
C. Look with me again at verse 24, “Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.” (Eph. 5:24)
1. As soon as we hear the word “submission” alongside the previous picture of “headship,” we immediately think in terms of inferiority and superiority, of subordination and domination.
2. But that is nowhere close to what the Bible means with these terms.
3. As I proclaimed in an earlier sermon, God make clear from the start of creation that men and women are equal in dignity, value, and worth.
4. Submission is not about denigrating the value of another’s life.
a. Instead, this biblical word means to yield to another in love.
D. Such submission throughout Scripture is a wonderful and inevitable part of human relationships.
1. For example, I am a dad of three daughters - They are no longer young and two of them have husbands of their own and no longer live under my roof.
a. When they were younger, they were in a position of submission in their relationship to me.
b. But this was not a bad thing, rather, it was a good position for them as I loved, led, served, protected and provided for them.
c. Their submission to me in no way implied that I was superior to them.
d. Instead, their submission showed that they trusted my love for them.
2. And such submission is not limited to human relationships – it is also true of the divine.
a. The Bible describes one God who is revealed in three persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
b. These three persons are equally divine – The Father is fully God, the Son is fully God and the Holy Spirit is fully God.
c. They are all equally worthy of eternal worship, with no person in the Godhead being superior to another.
3. But even though this is the case, we see the Son of God submitted Himself to God the Father while the Son was on the earth.
a. Jesus said, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.” (Jn. 4:34)
b. When facing the cross, Jesus said, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” (Lk. 22:42)
E. In addition to the passage we have been looking at in Ephesians 5, Paul also explained God’s designed order in 1 Corinthians 11:3, which reads, “Now I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.” (1 Cor. 11:3)
1. Certainly this doesn’t mean that God the Father dominates and that God the Son is cruelly forced into subordination.
a. Rather, the Son gladly submits to the Father in the context of their close relationship.
2. This, then, is what Paul means when he talks about the church submitting to Christ.
a. As followers of Christ, we, the church, are in a position of submission to Christ.
b. Is this a bad thing for us? Certainly not!
c. It’s a great thing for us, because Christ loves, leads, serves, protects, and provides for us.
d. We gladly submit to Him in the context of our close relationship with Christ.
3. God has designed marriage to display this relationship.
a. God wants people to know that following Him is not a matter of begrudging subordination to a domineering deity.
b. Rather, God longs for people to know that following Him is a matter of glad submission to a loving Father.
4. In the same way, God calls a wife to submit to the loving leadership of a husband who lays down his life for her good.
II. Our Obedience to God’s Design as Husbands and Wives
A. So what is a husband’s headship and a wives’ submission supposed to look like in everyday life?
1. I like the way John Piper defines the roles of husbands and wives.
a. Of husbands, he says, “Headship is the diving calling of a husband to take primary responsibility for Christ-like, servant leadership, protection, and provision in the home.”
b. Of wives, 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.”
B. First, let’s consider what a husband’s headship looks like in everyday life.
1. John Piper suggests that husbands need to strive to be lionhearted and lamblike.
a. Husbands are called to lead like Jesus who is both the Lion of Judah (Rev. 5:5) and is the Lamb of God (Rev. 5:6).
b. Jesus is lionhearted and lamblike – He is strong and meek, tough and tender, aggressive and responsive, bold and gentle.
2. Husbands are to lead their wives and families, and provision and protection are two primary expressions of their leadership.
a. This is easily deduced from the words “feeds and cares” from Eph. 5:29.
3. Without provision and protection, life itself is threatened.
a. Notice that provision and protection have both a physical and spiritual meaning.
b. There is physical and spiritual food that needs to be provided.
c. There are physical and spiritual threats to the family the husband needs to protect against.
4. Consider a husband’s leadership in spiritual provision.
a. Husbands must take the lead in ensuring that the family is spiritually fed.
b. He must lead in ensuring that the family is involved in worship and study with the body.
c. He must lead in ensuring that the home has a spiritual atmosphere – he must lead in family prayer, Bible reading, devotionals, and a Christian example.
d. Remember that headship takes primary responsibility, but not sole responsibility, the wise husband will encourage his wife to support and help him in the family’s spiritual provision.
e. The wife often has gifts that the husband doesn’t and should be employed.
f. What women rightly long for from their husbands is spiritual initiative, not domination.
g. Guys, keep in mind that being an effective spiritual leader in the home doesn’t mean being smarter or more competent than your wife – leadership requires initiative not superiority.
5. Consider a husband’s leadership in physical provision.
a. The husband must bear the primary responsibility for keeping bread on the table and a roof overhead - The word “primary” is important, because both husbands and wives have work to do, and a woman may also work outside the home.
b. A man may be disabled, or in school, or unable to do what his heart longs to do, but in any case, his heart and mind, and if possible, his body must be used to provide physically for his wife and family.
c. A man compromises his soul and jeopardizes his family when he does not position himself to lay down his life to physically provide for his family.
d. Remember, Paul wrote in 1 Timothy 5:8 that if a man does not provide for his family, he is worse than an unbeliever.
6. Consider a husband’s leadership in spiritual protection.
a. The spiritual dangers that beset the family today are innumerable and subtle.
1. Husbands must be spiritual warriors and pray for their families.
2. Together with their wives, husbands must set spiritual standards for their families, including what will be watched on TV, music that will be listened to, games that will be played, and how the internet will be used.
b. Another aspect of spiritual protection is in the area of taking the lead in reconciliation.
1. In the relationship between Christ and the church, who took the initiative for reconciliation?
2. Like Christ, husbands must take the lead – it doesn’t matter if it wasn’t your fault – it wasn’t Christ’s fault!
3. Who will break the icy silence? Saying, “Can we talk? I’d like things to be better.”
4. A wife may beat her husband to breaking the silence, but he must make sure the sun doesn’t set before peace is made.
7. Finally, consider a husband’s leadership in physical protection.
a. What happens if there is a sound downstairs during the night?
b. Should a husband say to his wife, “This is an egalitarian marriage, it’s your turn to see if it is a burglar, I went last time.” It doesn’t matter if she is a black belt in karate.
c. Big or small, strong or weak, night or day, God has called us husbands to be the first to face the enemy and protect our family.
8. Let me give us men a word of exhortation: We are called by God to lead our families, and to refuse to lead our wives and children is a sin.
a. I’ve never met a woman, and I doubt I ever will, who is sorry she married a man who took the lead to lovingly provide and protect her and her children.
9. Men, let me give us a word of encouragement: if this kind of leadership sounds overwhelming, remember that God does not call us to do what He won’t empower us to do.
10. Ladies, let me give you a word of caution: you cannot demand that your husband lead.
a. If you become a demander, then he’s not the leader.
b. Pray for him that God will awaken his true manhood as a leader, and encourage his leadership, which is what we want to talk about now.
C. Now let’s consider what a wife’s submission looks like in everyday life.
1. I’m hoping that all of us, men and women, will see a woman’s call to submission as something strong and noble, something beautiful and dignified, something worthy of a woman’s highest spiritual efforts.
2. In addition to Paul’s repeated admonition for wives to submit to their husbands that we have seen in Ephesians 5, I want us to spend a minute with Peter’s instruction in 1 Peter 3: 1 Wives, in the same way be submissive to your husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives, 2 when they see the purity and reverence of your lives. 3 Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. 4 Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight. 5 For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to make themselves beautiful. They were submissive to their own husbands, 6 like Sarah, who obeyed Abraham and called him her master. You are her daughters if you do what is right and do not give way to fear (1 Peter 3:1-5).
a. There is so much here, and we don’t have time to elaborate on it all, but let’s touch on some of the important points that Peter made.
b. First, we notice that wives are to be submissive “in the same way.” Peter has been pointing out how the Christian should be submissive as citizens, as household servants, as church members to each other. All Christians are in subjection to God and to many others.
c. Second, we notice that a woman’s influence should not come from control and aggressiveness, but from a pure and reverent life that depends on inner beauty rather than outer beauty.
d. Third, we notice that this is how the holy women of the past used to put their hope in God.
e. Finally, that hope in God helped them to submit to their husbands without fear.
f. So in Peter’s description of a godly wife, we see a woman who puts her hope in God and His promises, rather than putting her hope in her husband or in her looks.
D. Let’s consider a few things that being submissive to your husbands is not.
1. Submission does not mean agreeing with everything your husband thinks.
2. Submission does not mean leaving your brain or your will at the wedding altar.
3. Submission does not mean putting the will of the husband ahead of the will of Christ.
4. Submission does not mean avoiding every effort to change your husband’s thoughts or actions, rather, Peter suggests a godly way a wife should you go about it - by example.
E. Wives, God’s command to you is “respect and be submissive to your husband.”
1. That is your responsibility, and God promises to give you the ability to obey his commands.
2. Your loving attitude of respect and practical following of your husband’s leadership honors God and is a testimony of your faith.
3. Any wife who degrades her husband, dominates their relationship, and controls him in assorted ways is not only being disobedient to God, she is doing what will destroy her and her family.
4. As I’ve said, submissiveness should characterize all Christians, but it must especially characterize a wife’s relationship with her husband.
5. A wife must give her husband the space and freedom to lead without being overly critical.
a. If a wife must disagree or make a suggestion, she should do so gently and respectively.
F. Marriage is not easy, that’s what I have been saying for a number of weeks.
1. Being a man and a husband is not easy. I know that from experience.
2. Being a woman and a wife is not easy. I can only imagine how difficult.
3. We must believe that God knew what he was doing when he created us, male and female, and when God designed specific roles for husbands and wives.
4. We must believe that when we respect God’s design and obey His commands we are blessed.
5. And when husbands and wives embrace God’s design, We bring glory to God and we proclaim to a watching world the relationship of Christ and His bride, the church.
Resources:
A Profound Mystery: The Gospel and Marriage, Chapter 6 from Counter Culture by David Platt,
Tyndale, 2015.
Lionhearted and Lamblike: The Christian Husband as Head (Parts 1 &2), by John Piper,
www.desiringgod.com.
The Beautiful Faith of Fearless Submission, by John Piper, www.desiringgod.com.
