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.
In other words brothers instead of seeking to find fault in her we need to tend to some of our own faults and shortcomings first.
Satan has tricked many of us into believing that we know enough to be able to handle the small stuff without hearing from God. We go into certain ventures without even seeking his face. Ohh what a mistake, we should always consult with God before each decision we make brothers just as we would expect our wives to consult with us.
Men we really need to try this at home. We need to try treating God how we want our wives to treat us. This will seem strange and awkward at first but the power gained from such action is phenomenal.
Satan has tricked so many men into thinking that they are more (or less) than what they really are. We are who God says that we are and we can do what he says that we can do. I remember watching the movie ¡°Men in Black¡± every time someone would see more than what they needed to see the special agents would take out these little gismos and flash their memory so that they would never be able to remember what happened again. I would like to use one of those devices right now to flash all of the misleading television programming and everything else that is not needed out and replace that with the knowledge of God that we may know who we really are.
Many of us have forgotten who we are. We think that we desire to be married for financial stability, child raising, intimacy, etc. Though all of these things are favors of marriage from the Lord they are not enough to lead us into happy marriages. Some people think that they are only with their spouse because of things other than love when really they have simply forgotten what love is. Not only have they forgotten what love is they have forgotten who they are.
You need to remember what that one person was trying to tell you while you were growing up. ¡°Don¡¯t depend on nobody but God¡±. God will save you and God can keep you. I realize that the bible says that for this cause sons and daughters shall leave their fathers and mothers and cling to their wives. However when we are sure that our spouses are varying in the word of God left or right straying from what we know to be true. We must always be ready and willing to lift them up in prayer.
Warning: Because your spouse is not where you think that they should be in the word of God does not constitute a right for divorce.
In the book of Acts chapter 5 we see a married couple trying to trick the man of God. To some this may seem quite possible and we may even get away with it by the church but are we really getting away with it. Has Satan tricked us into thinking that we are something that we are not. I wonder did Sapphira pray for her husbands¡¯ safety. What if before she started talking to Peter she did the right thing and prayed first. Would God have directed her paths unto righteousness?
For those that desire to be and are married for financial reasons, be careful. You may find yourself in a situation where you lose everything (see Job); just so God can prove to you that it is because of him that you are married to this person. Remember that you vowed to God and before man that in sickness and in health, for better or for worse, for richer or poorer till death do you part that you would love and cherish your spouse. I often find myself reminding couples of this covenant that they made with God when they first got married.
Truly marriage has a way of challenging everything that you believe to be true. We were all raised with different values and beliefs and many times we try to do the same thing that our role model did and we expect the same or somewhat similar results. We bring our beliefs into our marriage and try to use those same beliefs from childhood to express ourselves to our spouses.
For example, ¡°I made this money before I met you. What do you mean joint bank account?¡± Or ¡°Why shouldn¡¯t I listen to my mother she has never been wrong before.¡±
There are many different things that we were raised from childhood to believe. They all lose a great deal of importance when we exchange marriage vows. I am not implying that you have to handle your finances any certain way to be successful or that now because you are married your mother is always wrong. However, our process of consideration has to change in accordance to our new covenant we made with our spouse through God. So anytime we abuse or misuse our marriage privileges we are first abusing and misusing God.
Anytime we break a covenant with our spouses we are first breaking our covenant with God. Remember when God showed you all that you would need to know about your spouse before you were married but you were so in love that you were willing to overlook whatever it was. If you used the Spirit of God to help you overlook the unattractive things while you were choosing your spouse, then you must use the same Spirit of God in the same manner to keep them.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, we should always be mindful to remember who we are and what God has assigned us to do. I am sure that if every time I sinned God threatened to throw me out then I would question his true love for me. I am also sure that if his heart was not in our relationship then I would lose interest. If God showed more interest toward you than he did me even when I did what he asked then I would probably not want to seve this God with my whole heart.
Once we confess with our mouths we have made a contract with God. Once we confess we have given our seal and we must keep our word to God¡¯s church. We must always remember who we are and what God has done for us when we are dealing with our spouses. We need to let our yes be yes and our no be no. When we give our spouse a word that is not true we are not only lying to our spouses but we are also lying to God. We absolutely must stop lying to God.
