Series: Desperate Households
Message: Desperate Wives
Date: 11/27/05
On July 29, 1981, one of the most highly publicized and glamorous weddings in history took place.
• Britain’s Prince Charles married Lady Diana
• An estimated audience of 750 million people worldwide.
• 4500 pots of fresh flowers lined the route to St. Paul’s cathedral.
• 2500 people crowded that grand church where more than 75 technicians with 21 cameras worked to enable the world to watch this wedding.
• For many people, this was a modern fairy tale. A royal prince weds a lovely lady in a grand cathedral surrounded by adoring subjects.
• They were the envy of millions. They were rich, young, handsome. It was a "marriage made in heaven."
• Sadly, we know that the fairy tale became a nightmare. The couple grew more and more distant.
• Affairs ensued. The storybook marriage made in heaven eventually collapsed into adultery and divorce.
It takes more than a prince, a lady, and a palace to make a happy marriage.
• As someone said, "marriages may be made in heaven but the maintenance must be done on earth."
• For marriages to survive, they require regular maintenance. They require effort.
When we enter into marriage we enter in with the best hopes and intentions. We enter this relationship desiring joy, fun, excitement, and deep love. A love like we talked about last week:
Raya – Friend or companion, somebody you hang out with
Ahava – making a decision to join your life to the life of another, this is commitment
Dode – physical, sexual element of a relationship
“One flame burning all by itself will never be as hot as all the flames burning together. We were created for all the flames to burn one. When you separate the flames, it can never really satisfy. It’s like you’re living outside of how God wired you to live.” – Rob Bell
Our desire is to have this love that burns deeply. A love that will not be broken.
But what happens?
Why do so many marriages fall apart?
End in divorce?
Are unhappy?
It’s because we enter the marriage relationship to lightly.
• Marriages require effort! But they require a certain kind of effort.
• We must do the right things to have a successful marriage.
• God’s Word tells us what those things are.
• God presents His program for a happy marriage in the Scriptures.
• Marriage works well only when we pay attention to the roles and responsibilities God has mapped out for us.
In Ephesians 5:22-23 (turn your Bible to this passage) the Apostle Paul gives us the picture of a Christian marriage. In this key passage about marriage, we see the God-given roles and responsibilities of husbands and wives.
We must remember the context when looking at this passage.
It is important for us to remember the context in which these instructions are given.
• Paul has been describing the Spirit-filled life.
• In vv. 19-21, he uses several descriptive participles to define the activity of the Spirit-filled life.
• One of those activities, found in v. 21, lays the groundwork for what follows.
• Spirit-filled believers submit to one another because of Christ.
• They humbly seek to serve one another.
• In what follows, Paul describes how this mutual submission is played out in the home.
Let me make a couple of remarks about this passage before I read it.
1. This passage describes marriage in the context of our commitment to Jesus Christ. Our commitment to our spouse is a function of our commitment to Him.
2. Equality is not the focus of the passage. Function is. This passage in no way diminishes the equality of women as subservient or less than men. The focus is on God-given roles and functions.
3. The husband and wife are called to obedience by God. Nowhere is the wife instructed to enforce these commitments on her husband or the husband on the wife. We need to focus on our own obedience and responsibility.
Ephesians 5:22-33
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[a] 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."[b] 32This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
Let me talk to the men for moment. I want to reiterate what we said last week. For those who were here last week, I know this is a repeat, but guys, let’s just be honest. We need to hear things two or three times before it sinks in. And for those who were not here last week I just want to give you a chance to get caught up.
Husbands are commanded three times in this passage to “love your wives”?
The Greek verb used for love is “agapao” which is a God love,
• Agapao – to esteem, to love indicating a direction of the will and finding one’s joy in something or someone, to love someone in their best interest.
• Agapao love will do what is best for your wife and says you are to love your wife in spite of what she does.
Two ways to love your wife in her best interest:
1. Encourage and guide her in her walk with Christ
2. Love her through her love language
The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman
• Acts of Service
• Words of Affirmation
• Quality Time
• Physical Touch
• Receiving Gifts
Marriages grow together two ways. One way works and the other doesn’t.
Triangle Illustration
Triangle 1
Triangle 2
Triangle 3
Triangle 4
Now let’s talk to the ladies. I want Briana to talk to the ladies about this often misunderstood direction in this passage. The word “submit.”
Briana Teaches
So what happens when we start talking about the word submit?
Men sit back and start thinking “You go Briana, my wife needs to hear this!”
Married women sit up in theirs chairs clench their fist together and start thinking about what they will say to their husbands on the way home.
You see these reactions happen because we don’t really understand what will happen in our marriages when we as wives are ready to submit to our husbands the way God intended.
Let’s define submission:
1: “A Greek military term meaning “to arrange [troop divisions] in a military fashion under the command of a leader.”
2: “a voluntary attitude of giving in, or cooperating.”
As we can see by reading the definition, submission means what we all thought it means. We as wives are to put ourselves under the authority of our husbands. Just like we put ourselves under the authority of Christ. One way of submitting to Christ is through our husbands.
Submission may not seem very liberating, Satan has work for thousands of years hoping we are blind to this liberation, but in reality as a Christian wife our submission to our husbands enables us to grow in faith, strength and power.
Let’s talk about how Satan has tried to distort submission on earth.
1. He makes submission seems ridiculous – I mean really, how could God make such intelligent, stimulating and accomplished creatures (married women) subservient and inferior to their husbands?
2. He wants husbands to believe they are some kind of “macho” beings not in need of anyone’s advice but their own.
3. He wants all of us to believe that we are here to please no one but ourselves, that we are in charge of our own lives because everyone else in our past has messed it up too bad. We can’t trust anyone to look out for our best interest.
I think this is working, not only have we refused to surrender to God’s word in this area of our lives, we produce a list of justifications to cover every situation.
Why is submission so dangerous to Satan? Why is it so powerful? Because we exercise it in blind faith, and faith DEFEATS Satan every time.
When we go against our feelings, thoughts and opinions and yield to authority (i.e., our Lord, God’s Word, our husband,) and when we turn the results over to God, we step out in faith. We are making a statement that we believe God knows every detail of our circumstances and that He cares.
Hebrews 11:6 Without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.
Does Biblical submission mean you don’t express how you feel? NO. It means you do! It means when there is a difference of opinion with your husband, you share how you feel with due respect and love. Then, if your husband continues to disagree, you turn the whole issue over to God in faith. SUBMISSION GIVES GOD SPACE TO SHOW US WHO IS RIGHT.
Here is the big question:
What if after I have submitted myself to my husband he makes a mistake?
The Old Testament book of Ruth demonstrates one of the countless ways God can rectify a
situation after a woman submits to her husband’s decisions. In chapter 1 we read that there
was a famine in Bethlehem. Elimelech decided to move his wife, Naomi, and her two sons to
moab, a heathen nation. God had sent the famine because of Israel’s sin. But Elimelech had
chosen to run from the chastening of God and to seek relief in a heathen land—clearly a foolish
decision.
Naomi was in Moab for ten years. After her two sons married Moabite women, both they and Elimelech died. When heartsick Naomi heard that God was once again blessing Israel, she decided to return to Bethlehem. Ruth, one of her daughters-in-law, clung to Naomi and pleaded to go with her. Ruth finally convinced her mother-in-law that she wanted Naomi’s people to be her people and Naomi’s God to be her God.
Once in Bethlem, Ruth went to the barley fields to glean food for herself and her mother-in-law. Through her diligence and faithfulness, she came to the attention of Boaz, a wealthy kinsman of Naomi’s. Eventually Boaz married Ruth.
In obedience to her husband’s bad decision, Naomi had left her happy home for Moab, only to return to Bethlehem a destitute widow with no surviving children or grandchildren. But now she was wealthy – wealthier than before, and Ruth’s first born son became hers because of Jewish Law. Naomi was provided for all the rest of her life, and had a grandson to carry on the family name. That son was Obed, father of Jesse, who was the father of Israel’s might king David. Jesus Himself was born out of the lineage of Naomi.
Does this suggest that God will kill your husband if he makes a mistake? NO! That doesn’t mean we should either. But it does reveal how God takes care of us when we remain under the authority of God’s established order. Naomi’s relief didn’t come instantly, but eventually it happened.
We must remember to give God time. His timing is often different than our own. He will work things out in our lives.
So the question was “What if after I have submitted myself to my husband he makes a mistake? The answer is…..he will make a mistake because he is human. The second question is “Are you willing to exercise your faith and believe that whatever the mistake is God will fix it?” I hope your answer is “YES.”
I want to close by reading a few passages about our role as wives.
1Peter 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.
Ephesians 5:22 – Wives submit to your husbands as to the Lord.
Ephesians 5:33 -- …and the wife must respect her husband.
Colossians 3:18 – Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.
I realize that because Satan works so hard to push the lie that submitting is weak and that we should never submit to a man that it can sometimes seem like a huge obstacle to overcome. The freedom is realizing that it is a lie. The strength comes when we rely on the Holy Spirit within us to help us to submit first to Christ and then our husbands.
The question I want to leave you with is this:
Do you trust God’s word or do you trust your will?
Back To Brian to close and wrap up
