God Glorifying Wives

Amen.

Sacred mission.

My name is Justin.

I'm one of the pastors here, and it's my joy and privilege to be able to bring God's word to you this morning.

Last week we kicked off this sermon series called Till Death Do We Part.

Pastor Tim did a phenomenal job laying the groundwork of how our uh marriages are portraits and images of the gospel, right?

It's it points to something transcendently bigger uh than just our own happiness and the ways that what we get out of one another for our own fulfillment and satisfaction.

It is to be that this beautiful reflection and representation of the reality of Jesus and his church and the covenant that he has made to her, right?

And so now we're gonna dive into some specific instructions that Paul lays out in the book of Ephesians uh for this relationship of husbands and wives, right?

And we get to start this morning with wives.

If it was uh if I was writing Ephesians, I would have probably started with men, but that wasn't my thing.

Paul did wives first, so we're gonna just go in order that he laid it out.

But I'm excited about uh speaking to the men next week.

Uh but this week we're gonna be speaking to the women.

And here's what I want us to start off with.

If we can take a deep breath and think through this reality, God's word is good.

And God's word is good for us.

If we don't come to the text with that perspective, uh, we're going to be tempted to look at this instruction and do something with it that makes it not what it actually is.

And so some of us are gonna come with a sense of uh of pride and arrogance toward this text.

Some of us are gonna come with timidity and fear toward this text.

We're gonna approach it from different ways.

But what we've got to do is strive to labor in that we approach it as good and good for us.

Jesus wants you to flourish.

He wants you to be everything that he has created and designed you to be.

And it's in submission to his word, it's in obedience to his command that we actually experience that flourishing.

So if we can come with that heart posture and mindset to the text, I think we're gonna get something good out of what Paul's instructing us in this morning.

But as we go into Ephesians 5, 22 through 24, we need to see its instruction in the bigger context of what Paul's instructing the church collectively in.

He doesn't just start with this, wives, submit to your husbands.

In fact, in 5, 1, he actually starts with the church collectively.

And this is kind of the way that he blankets this instruction and it nests within it.

It says this in Ephesians 5, 1 through 2.

Therefore, be imitators of God as beloved children, and walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us a fragrant offering and sacrifice.

So it's from that, right?

Flowing from that, that Paul's going to instruct the church collectively, and then he's going to start working through distinct relationships.

Husbands and wives are the first ones, children and parents, slaves and masters.

Uh, but but it is from this sacrificial love that works itself out for the ultimate good of the church, where the church is called to turn away from sin so that it might be preserved and kept pure, and where it's called to turn toward righteousness, to encourage and strengthen and build her up in the faith.

That's where this command is flowing from.

And it's enveloped in this love that prefers others, that sacrifices self-interest, that labors for the good of others.

We come to the instruction for the church collectively in Ephesians 5, 20 through 21.

Says this giving thanks always for everything to God, the Father, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.

There is no gospel reality where every single person is not called to submit.

We're all called to submit in the different relationships that we have and the different ways that we are to walk alongside and with one another.

And the purpose of my submission to you as a member of the body of Christ is ultimately for your glory and for your flourishing.

Let me help us understand this.

You see, Paul's calling the church collectively into a posture of submission to one another that flows from a heart of thankfulness.

And it's grounded in the reverence that they should have for Jesus.

We are to foster a deep respect for one another, a respect that values each other's contributions to the body, that values the roles that each of us play in her health and maturation, and sees one another here in this space as necessary and invaluable to the greater good of the church.

This humble posture of submission, like I said, accomplishes two things.

The first thing it does, it ascribes glory to the other.

Glory means weight or substance.

When I submit to you as a member of the body of Christ, I put substance in your presence.

It means that you matter here.

It means that you have a place that's invaluable to the overall health of the body of Christ.

It allows for a weightiness to be in your presence.

But it doesn't just ascribe glory to the other, it works to complement their place in the body.

Ultimately, my submission to you is strength supplemented.

Because you have a vital role to play in the body that I don't play.

I'm not trying to be the hand that you are, and you're not trying to be the foot that I am.

You have an invaluable place in the body, but your member, your part, your role is not the totality of the body of Christ.

Therefore, as I come in and submit to you, I'm supplementing a strength that's currently absent in you.

Both of these things.

The adding of weight to your presence, the supplement of strength in your weakness, both of these things happen for the ultimate good of the church and for the flourishing of mission.

You see, the church and its relationships, both inside and outside, are to be marked by an eagerness, an eagerness for the flourishing of the whole.

There is no place for self-glory seekers within the church.

All of my actions, all of my labor, all of the ways in which I walk alongside you are to be for the glory and good of the whole.

We're to cast off any sense of pride, selfish ambition, envy, covetousness that would jeopardize the fullness of the glory of the whole from being seen and known in the world.

You see, it's from this foundation that Paul begins to address distinct relationships within the church and how they distinctly model the gospel reality.

And so, grounded in the gospel, we'll see how each of us labor for the ultimate good of the whole rather for the good of rather than for the good of one at the detriment of another.

So that's kind of our propensity, right?

Our propensity is that we labor for our own good at the detriment of those around us.

That's not the call of gospel community.

The call of gospel community is that we labor together for the good of something greater than ourself.

And then he's gonna say marriage is a microcosm of that reality.

And men and women play distinct roles in accomplishing that end.

So let's dive in from that foundation.

Paul starts in verse 22.

Wives, submit to your own husbands.

So the relationship that Paul addresses first as this of husband and wives, and the instructions is for wives to carry that same humble posture of submission into their marriage and offer it as a gift to their own husband.

Think about the way that that's supposed to foster intimacy and it's supposed to fortify your covenant one with another.

That's not a submission shared with just any other man.

It's an intimate submission that's shared with just your covenant partner, your husband.

You're not at the submission just because you're a female to every man sitting in this room.

There's nothing in the scripture that would actually lend us to believe such a thing.

If anything, when it talks about the broader body of Christ, it's us submitting to one another out of preference for the other person in front of us, whether male or female.

But in this specific situation, in the relationship of husband and wife, there is difference in role and function, and it addresses itself toward each gender.

And the wife is supposed to submit only to her own husband, to fortify covenant, to foster intimacy.

It's a precious gift that she offers to her husband alone and is not available to any other man.

First, we have to understand that.

Ultimately, the way that we engage with our human relationships are grounded in the gospel.

The way that we interact with one another, the way that we engage with one another, has to be grounded in the gospel first.

We do not operate in a life that's contingent or codependent to what has or has not been done to us.

We don't operate in a life that waits for the other person's move before we decide how we have a relationship with them.

We do not operate in a life that is fueled or formed by unmet or uncommunicated expectations out of the other person.

You see, our relationships flow from what has been done to us in the gospel rather than what we're waiting for to be done to us by someone else.

I don't love you because of the way you treat me.

I love you because Jesus loves me and gave himself up for me.

I don't submit to you because you've been kind to me and because you have uh preferred me over yourself.

I submit to you because Christ submitted to the Father.

You see, it's the gospel that has to shape and form our relationships with one another.

Or else it's just simply gonna be transactional.

If you do for me, I'll do for you.

If you give to me or you benefit me or you satisfy me, then I'm gonna work in your favor.

And if you don't, then I'm not going.

That's transactional.

That's secular.

That's not the gospel.

We're not waiting for what should be done to us.

We are working from what has been done to us, for us in Christ.

And Paul is saying that a Christian's wife's submission, in its final regard, is not really to her husband at all, but it is to the Lord, and it's fueled and formed and shaped by what he has done for us.

You don't submit to your husband, and that's its final end.

You submit to the Lord, and that causes you to submit to your husband.

You see, our posture of submission, or even our posture of defiance, is actually first known in our posture toward Jesus.

Here's what I mean by that.

Our relationship with Jesus is going to fuel and form our relationship with one another.

If we refuse, if we have problems, if we have difficulty submitting parts of our life to Jesus, do you think that that's going to live itself out in easy submission to other people that we're supposed to have a relationship with?

By no means.

Because here's what I can guarantee that if our hearts have defiance toward Jesus in any aspect of our lives, we will live out defiance toward one another.

And a wife who has defiance against her husband, I can guarantee you that that behavior is not isolated to their relationship.

It's being fueled by her relationship with Jesus.

And so again, we have to work from a foundation of the gospel.

We have to work from a place where our relationship with Jesus is fully submitted unto his lordship, or else we're never going to be able to truly and joyfully submit to one another.

23.

For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its savior.

I love what the apostle does here, and he does it so eloquently is he answers the why for us.

You see, he doesn't just give us instruction that seems cold and sterile.

And it's always rooted and grounded in the gospel of Jesus.

Marriage is a portrait of the covenant that Jesus has with his bride, the church.

And the church submits to Jesus as her head to ascribe glory to his name and to complement him in the flourishing of mission.

That's why we submit to Jesus, right?

When we do, we add glory, weight, and substance to his name, whom he deserves all the glory.

And we complement him in the flourishing of mission that he's called us into.

We say all the time at Sacred Mission that a disciple is not someone who's just reconciled to God through Jesus, but you're also reconciled to his people and to his mission.

You have been gifted by the Spirit, you have been strengthened by the Spirit, you have been equipped for mission because you're coming in, brought intimately near by Jesus to partner with him, being joined to him to complement him in the flourishing of his mission, to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Spirit, teaching them to obey all that he has commanded to us.

That is our purpose as the church, and the church submits to Christ for its flourishing.

It's in this divine relationship that's full of beauty and grace that we see our own relationship in marriage.

The wife displaying the image of the church and the husband displaying the image of Christ the head.

Man, women, what privilege it is that your unique role is to display the glory and beauty of the church.

Think about the church.

Is the church some weak, pathetic partner of Christ?

Did Christ bring her in to put her down?

That she might be some kind of subservient slave to him?

No, the church is powerful.

The church is gifted.

The church is courageous.

The church storms the gates of hell.

The church is emboldened for men.

Think about the strength and power of the church.

In all of her giftedness, in all of her courage and power and strength and splendor.

The church doesn't contend for the place of the head, but she submits to Christ the head to compliment him and see the fullness of mission, the making and maturing of the church come to be.

That's what you reflect, that's what you resemble in your role in marriage and submitting to your husband.

The splendor of the church.

And here again, we're shown that the life we lead is not for our own benefit, but it considers itself less for the greatness of the whole.

Our marriages are not for our own glory, but it's for the glory of the gospel.

To reflect a truth that's transcendent to the watching world around us, where your and I marriage reality communicates his marriage mystery.

And as the world looks into, gazes into yours and ours marriages, right?

There should be an envy that stirs up in their heart.

There should be a desire to have what we have.

And it should point them to Christ.

Verse 24.

Now, as the church submits to Christ, he says, here we see the nature of the submission that wives are to live out with their husbands.

It's a submissiveness that reflects the church's submission to Jesus, a submission to his loving leading, to his call to righteous living, and to his glorious mission.

This submission ascribes glory to his name.

This reality is what forms and shapes a wife's submission to her husband.

It's not simply just to permit your husband to lead, it's to encourage and to champion his leading while you joyfully follow.

It's to embrace the righteousness that he calls his family into and strives to live out himself.

It's to enjoin yourself on mission and complement his strength in gifting with your own.

He goes on to say, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

So also wives should submit to everything in their husbands.

Let me say what Paul's not saying.

Subjugation is for someone to exercise total control over you.

We confuse submission and subjugation too much with inside the church.

That's not what Paul's calling us to.

He's calling us to a vulnerable and intentional submission, one that is total in your personhood, not leaving one aspect of yourself restrained or restricted from him.

Listen, you're not supposed to obey everything your husband tells you.

If your husband tells you to sin, should you obey?

By no means.

If your husband was an unbeliever and he tried to get you to leave Christ and your faith in him, should you obey?

By no means.

It's not communicating that we are subjugated or in total control of our husbands.

It's communicating that we are lovingly submitted to him in everything that we are.

It is her everything that Paul is communicating, not his everything.

There's not one area of your life that should be closed off from your husband.

There is no part of your life that is selfishly reserved for yourself and told to your husband, you have no place here.

You see, the work of redemption is to get back to the garden where we were naked and unashamed.

That communicates vulnerability and intentionality between you and your spouse.

You should be naked and unashamed in the way that you submit to him, that every aspect of your personhood is given to him as a gift.

Not one part of you is kept back for yourself.

I have to reiterate, there is no call to subjugation with inside the scriptures.

You see, the church does not become a weaker, meager slave to Jesus.

When Jesus calls the church to himself, does the church become less than they were or more than they were?

You can answer.

More.

The church becomes radically, supernaturally more than they ever were when they are submitted to Jesus.

They don't become, we don't become, as the church, lesser versions of ourself as we're submitted to Him.

The church becomes an empowered, gifted, priestly helper in joyful submission to Him.

So the wife is not called to become a more pitiful version of herself under the headship of her husband.

She's called to be the strength that he lacks, the giftedness that supports him, the helper that he could not do without.

Because submission fulfills the purpose of completion.

You see, submission is the pouring out of oneself into the completion of another.

Where you have lack, I supplement strength and giftedness.

When I submit to you as a member of the body of Christ, that's what's happening there.

I'm pouring myself out to complete what is absent in you.

So too, wives are pouring themselves into the completion of their husband.

It's the sacrificing of self to make relationship and those in it whole.

I think one thing that we have to get clear in our understanding, in our theology, is that to be lower never means to be lesser.

To be lower never means to be lesser.

Jesus became low, but he never became less.

He remained equal.

But here's the reality.

Here's what we have to wrap our minds around.

In his equality with God, he never counted that as something to be white-knuckled.

And see, that's what we want to do.

We want to see our equality with one another in our dignity, value, and worth.

And we want to white knuckle that thing.

And what happens is it never creates sameness, it always creates one that goes above the other and leverages whatever this person has for their own good and gain.

When we try to hold on to that equality, when we try to hold on to something that doesn't even belong to us, we are only equal because we are made in the image of God.

And Christ, who shows us how we ought to live, though he was equal with God, counted as something not to be grasped, to be white-knuckled.

Praise God that he let go, not becoming less God, but being willing to serve us that we might know his salvation.

Philippians 2, 5 through 7 reveals this great mystery to us.

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, white-knuckled, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.

You see, Jesus submitted himself for the greater good of the whole.

So, men, we're gonna get to you next week.

And there's gonna be some things that I even say where I'm gonna be like, oh, I just want to start preaching to the men.

I'm gonna try and stay tightly connected to the wives here this morning, the women in our church.

But but before we get, oh, the glory of the man, okay.

No, there's a co-laboring for the glory of one another that we're gonna see with inside of this passage.

But for this morning, the distinct role that wives play within marriage is that they submit for the glory of their husband and the flourishing of mission.

When I say glory, what do I mean?

We said this at the beginning of the sermon.

Glory means weight or substance.

Weight or substance.

Your submission places substance in your husband.

It places weight into his presence.

Let me help us understand this.

Every man desires to be respected.

If every woman desires to be loved, every man desires to be respected.

It's fundamental to our design in nature.

We long for those that we love, those that we care for to respect us, to have an admiration for our giftedness and our ability and the strength that we bring to the relationship.

There's nothing that delights me more than when one of my family members or my wife can't fix something and she needs to call me in to provide this ability, this ableness to fix something for her.

Usually she just pressed the wrong button on the remote, but hey, here I come to the rescue, baby.

Right?

But it's not just an admiration for their ability, it's a sincere regard for the vision that they have for their family.

Men long for that.

A sincere regard for the vision that they have for their family.

You see, this respect, this admiration and this sincere regard, it builds weight and substance into the chest of your husband.

It puts something inside of him that you can tell now there's a man there.

And what do we have in society today?

We have men with empty chests.

These empty cavities that walk around in the former resemblance of what a man should be.

And typically it's because the people around them that they love and care for so much has reached in and just stripped it out.

You see, this reverence should put weight, but to deny him this is to empty his chest, so to speak.

It becomes this weightless cavity, and the shadow of a man is all that remains.

Every Christian wife who grasps and understands the gospel will respect her husband as her head.

And it's in that respect that she glorifies her husband, and her complimentary presence supplies the weight and substance to his own.

If we need more men in culture, if we need more men in society, we need more women who work to place it in their chest.

And it's when you respect men, when you respect your husband's man, that they become the men that God called them to be.

But it's not just to glory your husband or put glory into your husband.

Marriage is also mission.

Marriage is mission.

Let me tell you something, men.

A man with no mission needs no helper.

A man with no mission needs no helper.

Here's where a lot of the frustration in modern marriages is taking place is a woman was designed to be a helper, to come alongside a man and enjoin herself to him in one flesh that they may accomplish a mission that God gave to them.

Why was Eve ever taken out of Adam's side, his rib?

First off, because God gave him a mission.

He said, to subdue, to exercise dominion, to cause to flourish all of the creation of which I have created.

Adam, I want you to do this thing.

Adam said, I can't do this alone.

He said, That's right.

Here's Eve.

She's gonna help you in this.

Adam had a mission before he had a helper.

And what's frustrating in marriages today is that there's too many women being called to help you be lazy when you get home.

There's too many women being called to help you have fun with your friends while they're stuck at home doing the things that they're doing to cause their family to function rightly.

There's too many men calling their wives to make them sandwiches and grab them a beer out of the fridge.

That's not mission.

She was designed, she was created, she was put in your life for greater things than that.

Men, we need to recapture mission.

Because we have a powerful helper waiting right next to us to get the job done.

Marriage doesn't exist for the greatness of the husband, nor does it exist for the greatness of the wife, but for something greater than either one.

It is to put on display the beauty of the gospel and to co-labor in new creation.

You see, the wife's submission is for the flourishing of the mission, not to compete with her head, but to complement it.

And in that complementarian state, she completes it.

It is by her gifts and calling that a wife completes her husband and enables him to fulfill God's purposes for himself and for their family.

The husband does this.

The husband desires a wife's respect, but a husband needs a wife's strength.

He desires her respect, but he needs her strength.

Without these things, his chest would be empty.

His mission would be toilsome.

You see, the church does not submit to Christ by simply singing softer or remaining quiet altogether, by exercising intelligence and gifting less or seeking to be of little to no influence in the world.

Rather, the church is called to arrange all of her energies, her strengths, her gifts and abilities under the grand purpose of glorifying the Savior and partner in his mission, to do anything less than this.

It would not be submission, it would be defiance.

Women, you are incredibly powerful, gifted and strong.

We need you.

Your husbands need every ounce of who you are.

You see, yet many of us still view submission as a word that we wish was simply just omitted from the scriptures.

One that we simply didn't have to deal with, that we could just simply move along and we could actually define our own understanding of healthy relational roles.

But since it resides within the scripture and it works as a prescription for healthy and gospel-centered relationships, we take it and often tend to have one of two approaches to it.

The first one is this we don't have a posture of submission, but of defiance.

We don't have a posture of submission, but of defiance.

Many of us were often more discipled by secular feminist culture than we are by the gospel.

And what we're told is this is that it's in your independence.

It's you not being dependent upon another that you actually find the liberation that your heart longs for.

You see, the culture wants to take submission and to turn it into defiance.

But the only thing that it's actually doing is fueling the woman's desire to take the place of her head, not to complement it.

We see this actually in the cursing of God upon Eve, upon all who would flow from her.

In the garden, when Adam and Eve fell, God walks up to them and he speaks to the serpent and to Adam and to Eve, and he begins to curse them.

And here's the curse that he gives to Eve in Genesis 3.16.

To the woman he said, I will surely multiply your pain and childbearing.

In pain you shall bring forth children.

Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you.

Here's what God said.

You're gonna want to reach for the head, but that head is gonna remain over top of you.

And there's gonna be a frustration that resides within you because of that.

Modern feminist culture fuels the curse.

The gospel transforms and shapes us.

We have to be discipled more by the gospel.

It restrains and reshapes that desire into joyful submission.

You see, the culture wants to take the submission, like we said, and turn it into defiance.

It promises that in that defiance your liberation is discovered.

That the fullness of self is just waiting on the other side of submission.

If you could just escape its bonds, to be independent is your greatest achievement.

That true equality means sameness.

But how's that working out?

How is the get how is the promises of modern feminism producing fruit in our culture today?

They're not able to pull through what they say they can.

They're not able to deliver on their promises.

If anything, modern feminism oppresses women even more.

They promise you liberation, but they deliver oppression.

Equality does not mean sameness.

There is a glory about you being a woman that no man can ever, ever embody.

And to allow them to try and demean you and strip that from you, that's not liberty.

That's slavery.

You see, the voice of culture is telling women to find their purpose and worth in their own independence, their own accomplishments, their own social status, but the gospel is telling them to find it in Christ, who submitted himself for the glory of the Father.

Some of us, though, we don't have a posture of submission, but we have a posture of subjugation.

Subjugation.

Subjugation means to have this authoritative control over someone.

Here's where I'm really nervous, if I can just be honest for a moment.

We've seen the church slide toward progressive ideology and modern feminism.

And we've tried to correct.

And in our over-correction, which is typically what we do, right?

When we correct, we overcorrect.

It's like you need to start eating healthy and then all of a sudden you're just not eating at all, right?

Or you're like, oh, I need to be a healthier person.

You're gonna do P90X.

Like most people don't ever make it through that because you over, like, brother, you didn't get off the couch for a month.

How are you gonna do P90X?

Anyway, we overcorrect, right?

When we correct, we overcorrect.

So what's happening?

In our correction against the church sliding into progressive ideology and secular feminism, we are overcorrecting to secular misogyny.

And it's gross.

And it's not calling women to submission, it's calling them to subjugation.

Where a man has control over her, and it's gross.

You see, misogyny fuels a man's propensity to demean women.

And when we demean women, we actually work to strip their value and worth from them.

We take dignity away from them.

Men, we have to understand our differences never downgrade our value.

A wife is not being called to be under your control, she's called to be your helpmate in a glorious mission.

Some wives have demeaning husbands.

And with all sobriety, I speak this way to understand I have an awareness of the things that you struggle with.

And when you look at the scriptures called to submission through the darkened eyes of being demeaned, you read subjugation.

You read that you're brought into control under your husband.

Man.

Men, let me tell you something.

Weak men need weak wives.

Do you understand that?

Weak men need weak wives.

Strong men need strong wives.

At this church, we're going to be a church of strong men.

And you know how the world will know that we are a church of strong men?

Because they look in and they see the strength, the power, the giftedness, the courage of our women.

When they are thriving and flourishing, when their spirit-given gifts are being exercised for the good of the whole of the church, when they are standing tall and proud of the fact of how God has designed them, made them, gifted them, wired them, then they'll look at us men and see us as strong also.

We won't foster a culture where we think strong men are defined by weak women.

That's a lie straight from the hell.

And unfortunately, the church has worked to propagate this twisted thought.

Man, there's dudes that I respect and I value that run in some of the same circles that we do.

And in church, I'm putting a warning out to you.

They're overcorrecting what the church has been slipping into modern feminism, they're overcorrecting with secular misogyny.

And we have to discern that reality.

If you're listening to dudes who are saying that your wife has to ask permission for everything she does, and she has to apologize for like, you know, not doing exactly what you want, or she's got to wash her face before she can present herself to her children, or any of this garbage that I'm hearing out there.

Man, that's not submission, that's subjugation, that's slavery, that's not empowering your wife.

I can't wait till next week.

When we see how Christ became even lower still, so that the church might be seen in radiant glory and splendor.

If your wife looks beat down and ragged and meager, man, you're not exercising biblical headship.

You're exercising secular oppression.

You see, the call to submit in the scripture is ultimately for our good.

The voice of the church is often, unfortunately, telling women to diminish or dismiss their purpose and worth in just remaining quiet.

That they should just hide in the shadows of men and be unused in their God-given gifts.

This is not the call of the scriptures.

The scriptures allow us to know and to function within God's good design for us.

And let me say this just as clear as I can because some of us were coming against this with anger and defiance.

Some of us are coming at this with fear and timidity.

Any harm, any suffering, any trauma that you have experienced in your life has never been because of biblical submission.

It has been either from a defiance against it or a perversion of it.

Did you hear me?

You've never experienced harm because of biblical submission.

You've experienced because someone defied against it or they perverted it altogether.

But our hope church.

Is not in how good you and I submit.

It's not in how much joy we find in our submission.

It's in Christ Jesus.

And our gospel conviction this morning is Jesus submitted himself to the glory of the Father in the fulfillment of the mission.

Jesus submitted himself to the glory of the Father in the fulfillment of the mission.

Imagine if Jesus would have white-knuckled his equality.

If he would have came to serve himself, if he would have came to accomplish his own self-centered desires.

Christ submitted himself for our ultimate good.

He had every reason to demand every knee bow, every tongue confess his lordship.

And that day's coming.

But it didn't come at Calvary.

On that day, he laid his life down for the good of the church.

He laid his life down for our ultimate good and for the glory of his Father.

You see, you and I can submit because we're working from the gospel that shapes and forms us to be able to joyfully submit to one another.

The way that I live my Christian life is not what I'm waiting for you to do to me or for me, but it's what has been done for me in the gospel.

And so my hope for us church is this that we would find joy in our gospel role of submission.

You see, there's not one person in this room that's not called to submit.

I'm called to submit.

As a lead pastor of this church, I'm called to submit to you.

Members of the body of Christ, one to another.

I'm called to submit to my plurality of elders.

I don't just get my way.

I don't just get to walk into the room and say, hey, I'm the lead dude.

I get to do what I want.

I've tried that, it doesn't work great.

And each one of us are called at different times and in different modes and for different purposes to submit.

But each one is rooted in the beauty of the gospel.

And so I pray that we can find joy in that.

I pray that we become a church that actually prefers one another over ourselves.

Because guess what?

If you get the light shined on you, man, I gain from that.

I gain from that.

Right?

I win when you succeed.

If I'm always trying to have the light shined on myself, it's always going to be at the detrimental cost of each and every one of you.

I pray that we never foster that culture here.

And that's for the church collective, but what about your marriages?

We're going to see next week, too.

Each of you should be almost fighting to cast the light on the other.

Because you're working not for your own greatness, but for the greatness of the kingdom of God, that all may see the beauty and glory of the gospel.

Let's pray.