The Godly Portrait Of Marriage, Pt. 3

“Sweet Surrender”

Let me sum up the perfect picture for marriage again: God wants each marriage to be a portrait of His love for His glory!

Romans 11:36 “For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be all the glory forever.”

Well, I knew today’s sermon was going to the hardest for me for 2 reasons: 1) I’m not a wife - I’m best at being a man. 2) Today I have to use the dreaded “S” word, which is found in our text this morning.

Read verse

The reason it is so important for a wife is because of this KEY: The wife who willingly submits to her husband’s leadership glorifies God.

I know that this statement is not the politically correct statement! I realize that Gloria Steinem, and every other radical feminist wants to fire bomb my home because of this statement! I also realize that some of you today may struggle with this statement!

A wife is an amazing person! She has a responsibility at home that is harder than a fortune 500 CEO. She has a responsibility of teaching, cleaning, loving, healing, and listening – all this is harder than sending a man to the moon!

Mrs. Campolo was getting tired of telling others that she was a stay at home mom and being looked down upon, so when asked, she came up with, “I’m socializing two Homo-sapiens in Judeo-Christian values so they’ll appropriate the eschatological values of utopia. What do you do?”

Let me ask, how many of you have been married for at least 1 year? Then men you know that your wife is a finely tuned, meticulously calibrated machine that needs to be handled with very great care! By the way, there is a philosophical reason for this that is as true as the Law of Gravity – as the old saying goes, “If Mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy!”

Let me ask the wives, how many of you are in a marriage that all the expectations you had for your marriage have never been met? Now if you raise your hand, I’m going to be in trouble! For example: you thought you were marrying prince charming and you got “Shrek”. You thought you were marrying a knight in shining armor and he won’t even wash the car. Or you thought, “After we’re married, I’ll change him!” - news flash wives- that only happens in Hollywood!

O.K. then if you are a wife today, or you still want to get married after this series,I’ve got some good news for you – this message today is not going to put more pressure on you, it’s going to take more pressure off of you! After we strip off the world’s expectations for you, after we pull away the in-laws expectations for you, after we peel back Oprah’s expectations for you, God only has one expectation for you: everyday submit to your husband’s leadership!

Ladies, always remember this LIFEPOINT: How you look at your husband will determine how you live with your husband! Respecting and submitting reflects how you look at him!

Here’s an example: Do you look at your husband as someone that God has placed in your life as the leader of your family, that you’re going to respect and that you’re going to follow regardless of, or in spite of all his faults, or do you look at your husband and say to him, “I will respect you and I will follow you if I think you deserve it, or if you meet certain conditions!”

Here’s the good news, there’s only 2 simple things you have to do to fulfill that:

1. Wives Are To Enable Their Husband’s Leadership. Vs. 18a

“Submit” = willingly place yourself under the authority of someone else.

Now I realize that some of you ladies are clinching your fists, grinding your teeth so that dust is coming out your mouth, your blood pressure has just rocketed upwards because I just used that dreaded “S” word! Please here me out!

Contrary to what some people will tell you, this is not a cultural issue, is not a philosophical issue, it is not a theological issue, it is not an intellectual issue – it’s a spiritual issue to the core! If I asked every one of you wives in here today, “Do you think you should love and follow your husbands as God says”, every one of you would say, “Yes!” - Then you can’t believe one truth and then conveniently toss out the other truth!

Now I must put this thought on the table – I am in no way implying that women are inferior to men, I proved that in part one! Just because someone is subject to the authority of someone else, that doesn’t make them less a person or diminish their roll destined for them! For example: