Ephesians 5:21-31 (NIV) 21 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. 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. 25 Husbands, love your wives, just as 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. 28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church— 30 for 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.”
Dear friends in Christ,
Two of Jesus’ disciples came up to him one day. “Teacher,” they said, “we want you to do for us whatever we ask.” “What do you want me to do for you?” he asked. They replied, “Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory.” When the other disciples heard about this, they were not happy. In fact, they were pretty angry with James and John. When this happened, Jesus said, “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:35-45 TNIV). James and John were asking for special favors, and they made the other disciples jealous. Their selfish actions were having a negative impact on their team. They were interested in serving themselves. They were not interested in serving Jesus, nor were they interested in serving each other. Jesus reminded all the disciples that the way to greatness was through having a servant attitude, just as he came to serve and to offer his life as a ransom for many.
What was true for Jesus’ disciples is also true for our families. It can be very difficult to impart a servant attitude in our families when our culture often gets focused on self-gratification as the way to happiness. How can we build that servant attitude in our own families? How can we teach children that if they want to be great, they must be good servants? How can we teach our children that if they want to be first, they must be slaves of all? In order for children to have a servant attitude, they need to see it modeled, to be put into practice by their parents. Through the Apostle Paul, God teaches us how husbands and wives can develop and build a servant-attitude relationship. As we consider this text today, we pray that Jesus will bless us with the attitude that he had when he came to serve and offer his life as a ransom for many. From Jesus, let’s learn what it takes to:
BUILD A SERVANT-ATTTITUDE FAMILY
1. Wives willingly submit to their husbands as to the Lord
2. Husbands love their wives as Christ loved the church
What is the most challenging verse of this text? Is it “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord”? Is it, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her”? I don’t think so. I think the most challenging verse of this text is this: “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” If we don’t understand this verse, it is truly impossible to understand the rest of this text. What does it mean that we are to submit to one another out of reverence for Christ?
Just imagine that you had to bear the punishment for your sins. Through Isaiah, the Lord speaks:
9See, the day of the LORD is coming
—a cruel day, with wrath and fierce anger—
to make the land desolate
and destroy the sinners within it.
10The stars of heaven and their constellations
will not show their light.
The rising sun will be darkened
and the moon will not give its light.
11I will punish the world for its evil,
the wicked for their sins.
I will put an end to the arrogance of the haughty
and will humble the pride of the ruthless. (Isaiah 13:9-11 TNIV)
If you and I had to pay for our own sins, the punishment would go forever. You and I have a Savior, though, One who has rescued us from the punishment we deserved. The punishment for our sins was laid on him. Jesus Christ willingly took the load of our sins off of us and took all that punishment on himself. Jesus submitted his will to the will of his Father. Consider the attitude of Jesus when he died for our sins, “Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a human being, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross! (Philippians 2:6-8 TNIV).” Jesus willingly submitted himself to the punishment that we deserved!
That’s why I find this verse the most challenging verse of the text: “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” It is only when we have respect for what Jesus Christ did for us that we can have any hope of developing the servant attitude amongst ourselves. Notice, even the disciples struggled with the servant attitude. They wanted to boss each other around and rule over each other. Jesus reminded them that they were not to be like that, but that instead they were to cultivate a servant attitude toward each other. The whole idea of submit here is to do whatever is in the best interest of others, to serve them, to love them. To serve one another in love, to submit to one another, this is to be the whole life of every Christian. It is his loving submission to carry the load of our sins that inspires an attitude of submission and service in our families. The servant attitude in our families can only properly be built on the servant attitude of Jesus Christ toward us. It is respect for Jesus Christ that leads us to willingly submit to one another and to submit to his will for our lives.
It is only the general attitude of submission that all Christians are to have towards one another that can lead us to a proper understanding of this next section, “Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. 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. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything (Ephesians 5:22-24 TNIV).” These are challenging verses in our world today, aren’t they? We know that there are many people that don’t like these verses, and that the sinful world for the most part rejects the idea that wives are to submit to their own husbands.
Submission is given, not taken. When Jesus Christ was asked to serve as our Substitute and pay for our sins, he willingly submitted to his the will of his heavenly Father. It wasn’t always easy. In fact, the difficulty of submitting to the burden of our sins was easy to see in the Garden of Gethsemane. Yet Jesus willingly submitted himself to the load of our sins because he loved us. I have heard of husbands attempting to force their wives to do this, but this type of submission can’t be taken by force. Then it is not done in love. This submission of a wife to her husband is something she willingly gives out of respect for Jesus
Submission trusts in a husband’s love. Jesus trusted that his Father knew what was best for everyone, so he willingly submitted to his Father’s will. As believers in Jesus, we submit to him in everything. We don’t pick and choose when we want to follow Jesus. Jesus says that we are his disciples if we follow everything he has told us. In the same way, a wife trusts that her husband is always acting in the best interest of the family, and follows him in everything. The only time a wife would not listen to her husband is the same as when any authority figure asks us to go against God’s will. When an authority figure asks us to go against God’s will, then we can say no. Otherwise, God wants us to obey our leaders and submit to their authority. One way that a wife demonstrates her love for her husband is to trust in his love and submit to him in everything.
Submission does not equal inferior. Perhaps this is a big reason that people don’t like to submit in general, and that wives don’t like the idea of submitting to their husbands. When someone forces another to submit, they are making themselves superior. But that’s not the way God does it. Rather than forcing us to submit, Jesus submitted himself to the punishment our sins deserved. He did not do this to make us inferior. He did this to give each one of us the status of saint. That means that men and women have the same status in God’s sight. God calls on all of us to submit to one another, to serve one another in love. The idea of inferiority is no where to be found in this type of willing submission. In fact, as Jesus says, “Whoever wants to be great must be the servant of all.”
Sometimes, even after this explanation, there will be wives or future wives that just can’t quite come to terms with the idea of willingly submitting to their husbands. On these occasions, I have mentioned to these women, “I’m willing to let you ignore what God asks you to do here, if you are willing to let your husbands ignore what God asks them to do.” I haven’t yet had a wife take me up on that because of how Paul continues: “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church—for we are members of his body (Ephesians 5:25-30 NIV).” In my humble estimation, what God asks of wives here pales in comparison to what God here asks of husbands.
“Husbands, love your wives.” Why do we husbands need this reminder? It is pretty easy for husbands to have a one track mind. Sometimes it is easy for husbands to get focused on their jobs. It can become easy to let sports and recreation become more important than anything else. It becomes so easy for us to get focused on what the world thinks a man should be today that it is easy to lose sight of what God thinks a man should be today. Let’s take a look at what God asks of us here.
Husbands, what is the first love of your heart? What or who resides as your number one love? It can be the job for some of us, can’t it? We become so enamored of the praise or rewards we find through our employment, that work becomes more important to us than our families, ourselves, even our God. It can be very easy for us to sacrifice everything for our work. Sometimes men become more enamored of sports or recreation to the point where everything else is sacrificed, again, including family and God. I suppose with football season starting and hunting season around the corner, I don’t need to say any more about this. Isn’t it real easy to let something or someone else become the focus of our hearts and lives? When we let something or someone else occupy that first place in our hearts instead of God, we’ve broken the 1st Commandment, in which God says, “You shall have no other gods.” It’s not that all those things don’t have their place. They just aren’t to have first place. We remember what Jesus did in order to pay for our sins against him, right? Although we didn’t deserve it, Jesus loved us so much that he gave himself up for us to cleanse us of our sins so that we could stand in his presence. Did we do anything to deserve his love? No. Nothing. Jesus loves us because he loves us. We never have or will deserve his love.
“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless (Ephesians 5:25-27 NIV).” Certainly God is to have the first place in our hearts. Here God invites husbands to love their wives with the same love that Christ had for the church. This love is the self-sacrificing love which expects nothing in return. Sometimes a husband may do something for his wife expecting something in return. That is not the reason that Jesus loved us and sacrificed himself for us. Jesus first loved us when there was no reason to love us and when we were incapable of returning that love. Jesus gives us this love through baptism so that he does not see any of our faults, mistakes or wrinkles. Jesus sees us as holy and blameless because of the sacrifice that he made on our behalf. Has it ever happened in a marriage where one or the other partner, or perhaps both, start seeing only the faults, the shortcomings, the problems with their partner? It is so easy, isn’t it, for our sinful natures to focus on the faults of the other person. But love covers a multitude of sins. As the love of Jesus for us covers over all our sins, so a husband loves his wife, seeing her as a beautiful gift from God. One of the most beautiful gifts that husbands and wives can share with each other is the forgiving love of Christ, a love which finds its source in the love of God for us.
“In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church—for we are members of his body (Eph. 5:28-30 NIV).” Husbands, how do we care for our own bodies? We feed them and take care of them to the best of our ability. As you care for yourself, care for your wife. A husband that does not love his wife does not love himself, since God has made husband and wife one in marriage. Jesus Christ does the same for us. He feeds us through the Word and cares for our souls through the Sacrament. One of the greatest ways that husbands can care for their wives and families is to care for their families in the same way that Jesus cares for us. Husbands, love your wives by sharing the Word of God with them on a regular basis. In the morning when you wake up, in the evening before you close your eyes, after a meal, sometime during the day carve out a time and say, “This is God’s time. This is the time that God feeds us with his word and we remember that he loves us no matter what.” God asks husbands to demonstrate their love for their wives by sharing the Word with them on a regular basis.
When both husband and wife follow the directions that God gives here in his Word, they will build the servant-attitude family that God wants us to have. What a great blessing there is for the family that works to build this servant-attitude. What a great invitation and opportunity this is for all families to consider how to grow this attitude in their own families. Husbands, God invites you to love your wives just as Christ loved the church. This self-sacrificing love moves us to make decisions that are in the best interests of our families, not ourselves. Wives, God invites you to submit to your husbands as to the Lord. This is a love that you give to your husbands as you decide upon and work toward common goals. This whole servant attitude is based on the undeserved love which Jesus demonstrated for all of us when he willingly submitted himself to carry the load of our sins in our place.
As the disciples argued over positions of greatness and glory and power, the same can happen in any marriage. May Jesus help us and our families grow in the servant attitude he inspired. The more we view his servant attitude toward us, the more willing we will be submit to one another and serve one another in love. As we build servant attitude families and relationships, may these words of Jesus remain foremost in our minds: “Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many (Mark 10:44-45 TNIV).” Amen.
