A Nashville newspaper carried a tongue-in-cheek story about a Mrs. Lila Craig who hadn’t missed attending church in 1,040 Sundays (20 years). The editor commented, “It makes one wonder, what’s the matter with Mrs. Craig? Doesn’t it ever rain or snow in her town on Sunday? Doesn’t she ever have unexpected company? How is it that she never goes anywhere on Saturday night so that she’s too tired to attend the worship service the next morning? Doesn’t she ever ’beg off’ to attend picnics or family reunions, or have headaches or need time to read her Sunday newspaper? Hasn’t she ever become angry at the minister or had her feelings hurt by someone and felt justified in staying home to hear a good sermon on the radio or television? WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH MRS. CRAIG ANYWAY?”
What’s the matter with Mrs. Craig? Well it could be that she is just overly religious that she is striving through human effort to be pleasing to God. But imagine 20 years without missing a Sunday; I don’t think even the best human effort can be perfect for that long.
What’s the matter with Mrs. Craig? Could it be that nothing is wrong with her, but instead everything is right with her? I believe she may have had a love affair with the Lord Jesus!
Does having a love affair with Jesus strike you as unrealistic or unusual? Can you not imagine having an intimate and passionate relationship with Christ? My desire is that you will fall head over heals in love with Jesus–that you will be so passionate about Christ that 20 years from now the Beacon Journal or Record Courier could be wondering what’s the matter with you!
Look with me at Ephesians 5:21-32. What would it look like to have a love affair with Jesus; how can we know if as individuals –how can we know if we as a church–are truly passionate in our relationship with Christ? I believe Paul shows us what the Church should be like that is deeply in love with Jesus. (Remember, the Church isn’t made up of bricks and mortar, but of individual believers joined together by the Holy Spirit. Therefore, as Paul describes the love relationship between the Church and Christ, he describes what our love affair with Jesus should be like.)
✞ Ephesians 5:21-31 21Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. 22Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. 23For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. 25Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church--30for we are members of his body. 31"For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." 32This is a profound mystery–but I am talking about Christ and the church (NIV)
Now some of you may be asking yourself, “what does that have to do with a love affair with Jesus?” I’m glad you asked. Within the passion and love of a husband and wife relationship is the love affair between the Church and Christ. What is the profound mystery that Paul describes in verse 32. Paul says, “I am talking about Christ and the church;” the Holy Spirit is showing us that the way husbands and wives should relate to each other is how the Church and Christ should relate to each other. Our relationship with Christ is not dead cold religion; instead it is a mysterious love affair filled with deep passion overflowing into every area of our lives.
Think for a moment about the mystery of the husband and wife relationship: the two become one flesh. Intellectually this is impossible, but for those of us who are married we have experienced the union of two made one. This union is greater than just joining together physically; the husband and wife are united in body and spirit. They are one.
Remember now, the mystery Paul is talking about is Christ and His Church. Think of it–God takes each of us who believes and unites us with Christ. Furthermore, God unites believers from around the world and throughout time into the body of Christ; He makes us one this morning!
Now what is the greater mystery? Is it for God to unite the husband and wife–the two are made one? Or is the greater mystery that God unites the countless multitude of believers throughout the ages into the body of Christ? This is the mysterious love affair–the passion–between Christ and His Church; the many are made one in Him.
So what does a love affair with Jesus look like? How is the Church to relate to Christ and one another? I believe Ephesians 5 shows us four ways Christ’s love is working within the Church through the mystery of the husband wife relationship. Jesus makes the passionate Church [1] a Submissive Church, [2] a Loving Church, [3] a Radiant and Glorious Church, and [4] a Nurturing Church.
1. A Submissive Church.
> In a Peanuts cartoon, Lucy demands that Linus change TV channels and then threatens him with her fist if he doesn’t. "What makes you think you can walk right in here and take over?" asks Linus. "These five fingers," says Lucy. "Individually they are nothing, but when I curl them together like this into a single unit, they form a weapon that is terrible to behold." "What channel do you want?" asks Linus. Turning away, he looks at his fingers and says, "Why can’’t you guys get organized like that?"
Like it or not, the truth about each of us is that we all want our own way. Giving in to someone else is seen as a weakness. During the Revolutionary War an early U.S. flag had 13 red and white stripes with the image of rattle snake and the motto, “Don’t tread on me.” Are you more like Lucy who demands her own way, or the rattle snake who doesn’t pick a fight, but is deadly when provoked?
Submission does not come naturally to us.
✞ Romans 8:7 the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. (NIV)
If we are going learn to submit, then a supernatural transformation must take place within us. Only as our mind is renewed by Christ will we submit to God and one another.
✞ James 4:6-7 6But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble." 7Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. (NIV)
Submission is an act of God’s grace in our lives. The proud will not submit to anyone; pride fills the individual with arrogance and self-sufficiency. The proud looks down on others with disdain. You must come to the end of your superiority complex–pride must be broken within the individual before God will extend His grace into his/her life.
What does it mean to submit one’s self to another? Submission is to yield control; it is our stubborn will and pride bowing in humility. Submission places us in a position of obedience.
Notice that our submission to God is linked to standing firmly against the enemy of our souls. “Resist the devil.” Satan does not want to see you submit to God; he will oppose your surrendered life. Satan will sow seeds of pride into your life wanting you to take control of your life–to be independent. But as we resist the devil–as we live a life of obedience submitting ourselves to God–Satan will flee. God’s grace will continue to abound in our lives and the devil will be defeated.
Each of us may say that we submit to God, but then like Lucy, we demand our own way form our brother or sister, or when threatened we defend our rights. The evidence that we have submitted to God is shown as we learn to submit to one another. Paul said, “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” As long as we continue to put ourselves ahead of others pride continues to grow in our hearts, and God opposes the proud.
Often our difficulty with submission is that it is viewed as a weakness or defeat–to submit is to give in or surrender to someone else. But that is not the biblical understanding of submission within the Church (nor for husband and wife relationships). Biblically submission is not a negative, it’s not a defeat–submission is a virtue that each of us as believers should possess. Without a submissive heart we have none of God’s grace in our lives.
Many of us are blind to our own sins, but we can see the sin in others. Jesus said we can ignore the log within our own eye while we try to remove the speck from someone else’s eye. Jesus says we need to begin by taking the 2x4 out of our own eye, so we can see clearly to remove the speck from our brother’s eye (Read: Matthew 7:3-5).
So how do we remove the 2x4 from our eye? In a word: submission. We must submit to the conviction of the Holy Spirit and the cleansing of the Word of God in our lives. But it doesn’t stop there. Submission is not a “self-help to obedience.” God places spiritual leaders in our lives to enable us to grow in obedience.
✞ Hebrews 13:17 Obey your leaders and submit to their authority. They keep watch over you as men who must give an account. Obey them so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no advantage to you. (NIV)
When I or another leader offers biblical counsel, it is not to try to stroke our egos or prove that we are right. I’m not trying to gain the upper hand over people and put them in their place. I’m not wanting to harm or defeat you. I desire to see God’s best in your life; I want to help you and others avoid injury. As Hebrews says, I want to offer counsel to give you the advantage. If you believe that I, or anyone else, is just out to get another notch in our belt, then you won’t want to submit. But if you know that I must give an account to God and that I only want what is best for you, then you will find it much easier to submit.
Submission will never work when there is adversity and mistrust. You will never yield to someone you see as an enemy. Who have you made yourself accountable to? Who is your spiritual mentor or leader? None of us can make it alone; we all need someone to help us live a life of obedience.
Biblical submission is built upon a foundation of love. We submit to God because we know He loves us. Likewise we can submit to one another because of love.
Conclusion:
If we are going to have a love affair with Jesus, if as a Church we are going to be passionate in our relationship with Christ, then we must be a submissive church. In the weeks to come we will see what it means for the passionate church to be [2] a Loving Church, [3] a Radiant and Glorious Church, and [4] a Nurturing Church.
May God help us as we become passionate in our relationship with Jesus. Let’s really fall in love with Jesus and be a submissive church.
✞ James 4:8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. (NIV)
If it is your desire to be close to God then you need His grace to break the pride in your life. Only through submission can we come near to God. The choice is yours.
