Love & Respect

Good morning, Church.

This is from Ephesians 5, 22 through 33.

Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord.

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

Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with a word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.

In the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies.

He who loves his wife loves himself.

For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body.

Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.

This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ in the church.

However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

Thank you all.

Maybe seated.

Thanks for joining us this morning.

Welcome to church.

My name is James Rathman.

I'm the pastor here at Redemption Church Denver, and I'm happy to be here with you all in this chilly, well-air-conditioned room.

I guess I'm not the only one that noticed.

So yeah, thanks, thanks so much for joining us.

Let's pray, and then we'll move into our text for the day.

Lord Jesus, when we consider your love towards us, and we consider that you laid down your life for your church because of the depth of your love.

Lord, I pray that that would encourage our hearts.

He who did not spare his own son, but delivered him up for us all, how will he not also with him freely give us all things?

What hope we have.

And that they might inform our marriages, our relationships, our hopefulness.

Lord, let the truth that out of the depth of your love for us you laid your life down.

Encourage our hearts, Lord, to trust in you.

Lift this up in Jesus' name.

Amen.

So this is the ninth week of our marriage series that we've been moving through this summer, and it's going to be a 10-week series.

So the final sermon is next week, but this is we're finally getting to Ephesians 5.

Uh, it took a while to get here, uh, but we've really earned it.

This is probably one of the most famous passages on marriage in all of the scriptures.

And so today we finally get to, after nine weeks, we turn to like the marriage passage in the New Testament.

Now, this is in Paul's letter to the Ephesians.

And this this letter uh is one of those we we studied it in our Bible studies uh last year, and it's one of those books where it just soars to such incredible heights, it's almost hard to uh even engage with.

It's it's so profound and amazing.

And as I was rereading the book this week, uh this passage right in Ephesians 1 jumped out to me, and I want this to sort of frame how we hear our marriage instruction in Ephesians 5 today.

In Ephesians 1, verses 7 through 10, listen to this.

Ephesians 1:7–10

This is worth the price of admission.

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

Now that passage, like I I I it I know it sounds just like a bunch of Bible words, and so it can just kind of bounce off of you because you're like, yeah, that's kind of what I expect the Bible to sound like.

But things think things that you just heard were things like you've been redeemed, you've been purchased by God through his blood.

That's pretty that's I don't know.

Do you like stuff like I like stuff like that?

We we have the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to what?

According to like, we he just barely made it over the line so that our trespasses could be forgiven, according to the riches of his grace, which is, by the way, a lot.

He lavished them upon us.

Do you know the last time uh think of the last time something was lavished upon you?

When I think of the last time something was lavished upon me, you know what comes to mind?

Nothing.

I don't know what the I don't e I don't I haven't had that experience.

Like I'm not like in a, I don't know, the Princess Diaries or something.

That's the time where something like that happens.

And then listen to this.

This is just I'm preaching another sermon on this accidentally here up front, but what is it what does this make known to us?

Like what is this event of Christ and his purchasing us by his grace?

What is this reveal to us?

Making known to us the mystery of his will.

You might know the the mystery that's been hidden in God.

You're getting to hear what it is right now.

You you are right now, whoever you are, are getting to hear the mystery of God's will.

And what is it?

He said he set it forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time.

So when the fullness of time comes, to unite all things in him.

Things in heaven and things on earth.

You know, you can picture like a like I don't know, someone like dressed in all black, slouching outside of a coffee shop, some like lithe, the person where you'd use the word lithe to describe them, and they would use that word.

They're smoking a long cigarette, and they're saying, What does it all mean?

What does any of it mean?

And they and they seem like worldly and impressive.

And then you, because you've been here this morning, you say, What does it all mean?

And it it and they they're asking it in terms of like, this can never be answered.

Obviously, this can never be known.

None of us know what any of why any of us are even here or what's happening out here.

And then you, whoever you are, could walk by and said, you know, all things are going to be united in Jesus Christ.

All things will be united in him.

That the the summary of the meaning of everything finds its resolution in union with Jesus Christ.

And he would say, Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's, you know, whatever.

That's a naive little religious, you haven't shaken off your religious trappings yet.

And he would say, How could that even be in this man Jesus Christ?

And you'd say, Well, don't you understand he was that man Jesus Christ was God.

He became incarnate as man.

And then he died for the sins of his people.

So that we are reconciled to God.

There is a God.

He laid himself down for us, he became a man, he took on flesh.

All things will be united in him.

This is this is unthinkable, uh unimaginable.

Like you you just got the answer for what does it all mean?

And it is that all things will be united in Jesus.

Now, that's that's just in chapter one of this book, but I want us to hold this idea of union with Christ as the point of it all.

It's the purpose of everything, is union with Jesus.

And with that as our backdrop, we're going to move into Paul's instructions in this letter for wives and husbands.

And you'll see that he is expressing this very same theme as he's describing to us the union of wives and husbands.

Because he describes it to us in terms of our union with Christ.

So with this uh mind-blowing backdrop of this book, let's let's jump into our text for today, which is Ephesians 5.22 to 33.

And we'll begin with Ephesians 5.22.

These are instructions for wives.

Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord.

Now, if you've been with us through the whole series, this is a familiar refrain.

This has something that's this is a pattern that's been made evident since the creation of marriage.

The breakdown of this pattern is what we see in the fall of marriage.

The restoration of this pattern is what we see in the redemption of marriage.

The final culmination and resolution of this pattern is what we see in our future hope, that glorious marriage between Christ and his church and the new heavens and the new earth.

And so we see this same call, the same, basically the same phrase that we saw last week in 1 Peter when we looked at a similar passage.

The call for wives is wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord.

What I want to emphasize for us here is that as to the Lord.

So what is the submission of the wife meant to be?

As to the Lord, it cannot mean submit to your husband as though he is the Lord.

So it's submit to your submit to your uh I'm very distracted now.

After my light queue.

This is why I was never a good stage actor.

So as to the Lord, it cannot mean submit to your husband.

We have uh just by the way, so you know what's going on, we had a power outage this week and it completely destroyed our whole system.

And so we don't know, we like no, we're like, what's going on?

We're trying to figure things out.

So welcome to church.

Uh so we um uh as to the Lord, it of course cannot mean it's submit to your husband as though he is the Lord.

Because this command of Scripture is not like submit to your husband by violating the first commandment.

That doesn't that doesn't make any sense to be read that way.

It is you are submitting to your husband, and your submission to your husband is finally, it terminates, its ultimate end is submission to the Lord.

Why do you submit to your husband?

Because you submit to the Lord.

And so as He calls you to submit to as the Lord calls you to submit to your husband, then your your submission to your husband is grounded in submission to the Lord.

So this means that you do not submit to your husband as though he is the Lord.

He is not Lord over you, but because you submit to the Lord, you submit to your husband.

Now, why is this?

Well, the text goes on.

It says, 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.

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

So the reason that you submit to your husband is that this is the very the very pattern of this relationship is just as Christ is the head of the church, so the husband is the head of the wife.

So there is an authority structure which we are being shown here.

And the reason that there's this call to submission, and that this should all start to be coming together, all that we've been building throughout this series should be coming together in these texts, because what we see here is that the shape of unity is found in participation in the hierarchy.

And so there's a call to submission, because in order for unity between the husband and wife to be established, it cannot be, you cannot have the wife who is in rebellion.

Because that's the destruction of the unity of the marriage.

So this unity requires submission.

Now it is, there's a bit that I want to say on submission, because now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit and everything to their husbands.

One thing that's important to grasp about this is that submission is not a dissolving into.

Submission is not like the the wife is able to say, uh, because it's submitting finally to the Lord, the wife is not able to say, just whatever he says, we'll just do.

And I and you're able to, in a sense, abdicate your own personhood to your husband.

That's not what's that's not what's being uh that's that's not what you do.

Instead, you must actually have a person who is submitted to the Lord, and in the wife's submission to the Lord, she is finally seeking to be obedient to him.

And so that means that there is a real person here who submits themselves consciously to your husband.

This is the mystery of the unity of marriage.

It is not that one person dissolves into the other person.

And you can kind of see when this sort of thing happens.

We can uh think of it, you know, have you seen the movie Runaway Bride?

All of my references for this are just rom-coms from starring Julia Roberts, actually.

Very formative age when these came out.

So uh Runaway Bride, she's engaged like five times.

And I think the plot is a reporter comes to write a story about that.

That's a weird plot now that I think about it.

I gotta lead.

Woman struggles to get married.

That's a weird that's a weird plot.

But nonetheless, that's the plot of the movie.

And she uh he discovers that uh whoever she happened to be engaged to at the time, that's how she ordered her eggs.

Okay?

So, like for the one husband that she or fiance that she was with, he liked his eggs scrambled, and so she ordered scrambled eggs.

And for the other, she liked his eggs uh um uh poached, for example.

You know, and so she liked her eggs poached.

Uh the point was that there was no person there.

She was just she was vanishing.

Now that's not that's that's not Christian unity.

That's this this is the strange mystery of Christian unity, is it's not a dissolving into instead, it's a maintenance of a true you are submitted to Christ.

And then from that position, you lay, you, you consciously submit yourself to your husband.

And then it don't you see how now that person becomes a help?

They become like the descriptions of what we see of the great women throughout scripture, where they they are this help to their husbands.

Because there's a there's a whole person there who consciously understands themselves in submission to the Lord, and that's what they're participating in.

And this is how the church submits to Christ.

When we submit to Christ, it is not the it is not that we dissolve, like we do not all become uh the the same thing or the same person as we become the body of Christ.

That's not the way it works.

In fact, we're many members in our unity.

And the Holy Spirit works enough and it brings out this diversity of gifts.

But the unity is shown in the way that that diversity of gifts relate to one another towards the same end.

And so when you're submitting to Christ, excuse me, when you are submitting to your husband as though you are submitting to Christ, you know, it it as a as a way of showing your submission to Christ, then you are united because you're you're aiming towards the same ends.

You're you're not you're united in purpose.

This is more what Christian unity is like.

Now it says, now as the church submits to Christ in verse 24, as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

So I've got a list of things that this includes submission to.

It's a very long list.

Submit in um everything to their husbands.

Now what does that mean?

Well, it it a uh what the way that you should think of this is this is not um uh a degree of submission, this is the extent of submission.

And here's a way to understand this.

Uh of what categories of your life does your marriage relationship involve?

Yeah, all of them.

All of them.

There are not marriage categories when you are married, and then non-marriage categories.

Uh you can tell because uh just try and schedule all your non-marriage categories and then just report back.

You'll discover all all kinds all kinds of them.

This is why often like the first couple of years of marriage can be so challenging.

Because it was like, well, I didn't used to have to ask to go see a movie, but now you do.

Because the going and seeing a movie part of your life it's part of that's a marriage category, part of your life.

And so this is it's submitting everything because it's a recognition that in your marriage this includes all aspects of your life.

All aspects of your life.

And this is the way.

That the church submits to Christ.

That's how we participate in that unity.

So that's our instruction for wives.

The initial call is submission, and the pattern is Christ in the church.

Submission as to the Lord.

When you hear that, you think this is a religious submission.

This is an act of service to the Lord.

That's why you're able to submit.

Ephesians 5, 25 to 27 says, Husbands love your wives.

Now we're an instruction for husbands.

Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.

So the call of the husband is not submission, but love.

And what is the pattern of the love?

It is the pattern of the love that Christ showed for the church, because he loved her and he gave himself up for her.

Now I don't want to rush away from that too quickly.

Husbands.

Husbands, love your wives in such a way that you would die for her.

This is the call.

Now I I'm I'm tempted because I'm a normal preacher to like, of course you die, you know, but will you get up off the couch?

You know, that's the way, I don't know if you've heard sermons on this text before, but that's the that's kind of what you're supposed to do.

But before we go there, I want to I want to first of all, I I want to take take the moment to recognize Jesus did not theoretically die for the church.

He it was not a it was not a uh we know we know that he was willing in his heart.

But he was legitimately willing to die for us, for his bride.

So, husbands, I want you to take a take a moment, explore your heart.

Consider the call that's being called of you.

You must be willing to die.

You must be willing to die.

If you are not willing to die for her, don't get married.

You're playing a different sport.

You must be willing to die.

And then if you're willing to die, then you're able to make vows where you say things like for better or for worse.

Because if you had to die, would that be for better or for worse?

You know, I that's for worse.

That's for worse.

And the way that scripture describes us to ourselves is it's not like um, if I know that I can trust you with a lot, then I'll entrust you with a little.

You know, it's the opposite, right?

It's uh if I know that I can trust you with a little, then I'll begin to trust you with more.

And I think as husbands, we often think like, well, of course I'd die.

Of course, like if it came to that moment, I'd die for her.

But consider all of the sacrifices, the the little sacrifices that you wouldn't make.

Where you only considered your own self-interest, and you didn't lay those interests down on her behalf.

Those testify that you would not.

They testify that you would not.

But it doesn't have to go that way.

I think for the husbands in this room, as I as I look around and I see you and know you, I see lots of great sacrifices made.

And I think they testify the other way.

You should consider that.

You know, these are the these instructions that the scriptures give to us, sometimes they can be used as just like means of crushing us.

That's not the way that the Bible describes the instructions that the Lord gives to us.

These are not far away from you.

You don't have to go up into the heavens, you don't have to go across the ocean.

These are right here.

And so your ability to participate in this type of love for your wife, it's right there.

It's present to you.

You're capable of it and equipped for it.

And it I think that this is something that is so important to practice because you know, there's a for uh most of this church, you're in a time of life where it's a time of just additions.

You know, you're growing in your income, you're adding children to your family.

There's kind of this like the there's this uh excitement of this moment, which can kind of have this um uh which is beautiful, it's really beautiful and to be and to be celebrated.

And it provides lots of opportunities to practice this death.

And if you don't take advantage of these opportunities now to practice this death, when deaths start thrusting themselves upon you by sickness of your spouse, by waywardness of your children, by whatever it may be that life hurls at you, do not think you will rise to the occasion.

Growing old is not for the faint of heart.

It is very difficult, very challenging.

And it does not become less challenging to lay down yourself in love.

Time will reveal if you have not been practicing this, and you may find that you're unable to.

So now is a time where we might seize this moment to be laying ourselves down in love so that we might see it through the whole race.

And we have someone to look to in this.

In this section, it becomes difficult to tell, like, where is Paul talking to husbands, where is he talking about husbands, and where is Paul just talking about Jesus?

Because he says, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.

Now, those are all things that just Christ does.

You know, you you when you lay your life down for your wife, it's uh it doesn't atone for her, it doesn't cleanse her of her sins.

But there is a pattern that we're being shown here where the husband is called to participate in the sanctification of his wife.

And the way that he does this is by laying himself down for her sake.

Now, something we have to grasp about this is husbands and wives, listen to this description of what Christ did.

All of that has been done for you.

It's all been done for you.

Jesus laid himself down for you.

He cleansed you and washed you with the water of the Word.

Jesus has done this.

He will present his church to himself in splendor and glory, without spot or wrinkle.

We will be made perfect.

Jesus has fully accomplished that.

And so that means Paul is willing to lay this high call and give it directly to husbands, because he knows this has been done for you.

It's sort of like when Jesus calls us to forgive.

And he says the way to do this is to consider how much you've been forgiven.

And he does this very same thing here where he's like, when you are called to lay yourself down in love for your wife, well, consider how much what life has been laid down for you?

Christ Himself, his life has been laid down for you.

And it amounted to his glory and the glory of his church.

Do you think that the sacrifices that you make for your wife will not be rewarded?

That there will not be a benefit, that there will not be growth and beauty and sanctification for your wife, they will be effective.

Because Christ you've seen have been effective.

And he continues on in verses twenty-eight through thirty it says, In the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies.

He who loves his wife loves himself.

For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body.

So the call is to love your wife as your own body.

Now think about your own body for a second.

You're you're in it now.

And it may not have the shape you want.

It may not be the height that you would like.

But it's yours.

And so when your body is hungry, you don't say to your body, I'm gonna I'm gonna wait until you're a bit taller.

You know, more like I'd like, then I'll feed you.

No, when you're when your body is tired, you don't say, well, no, you're not you're not, you haven't been acting the way that I would like.

Once uh I'll wait until I'm not interested in giving you rest.

No, when your body's tired, you try and get rest.

When your body's threatened, you try and get protection.

So this is the way that husbands are meant to relate to their wives.

Why treat it with here's the here's the word that I want you to think of, husbands?

Jealousy.

Jealousy.

That's weird.

We think of that as so we think of that as just negative in uh our normal vernacular.

But in scripture, jealousy is almost exclusively positive.

Envy is negative.

Envy is bad, but jealousy, envy is like is like jealousy over something that's not yours.

It's a way to think of it.

But jealousy is is when it's yours and you treat it like it's yours.

Like what is the what is the think of it like this.

This is the way that you should think, husbands.

Like, what is the loveliness of your wife?

Well, it's because, you know, she's kind of like this and this person, and she's kind of like that and that person, and she's kind of, you know, if I i if the lighting's right and we get in this sort of way, then she kind of looks like you know, Julia Roberts in the late 90s.

I don't know if you guys have seen.

I'm just kidding, enough.

No, this is that's that's perfectly wrong.

This is the perfectly wrong way to be thinking about it.

That's not the way you that's not the way you think of your of your body.

Right?

You you uh you think of it as like, no, no, no, it's because she's her.

She's her.

It's it it's and it she's irreducible.

And and she is the one who's mine.

No one else's.

No one else's.

She's the only one who's mine.

And uh I love her like that.

This is the way that Christ treats his church.

You know, when he when he draws out Israel out from among the other nations, he's not like he wasn't, he tells them, he's not, he wasn't like looking around the nations and is like, oh, this is the best, this is the holiest nation, I'm gonna choose this one.

He's like, no, I chose he chose them because they were they were his.

And he loved them because they were his.

That's the way that we're, husbands, this is the way that we're meant to love.

No one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it.

Just as Christ does the church.

Because we are members of his body.

Nourish and cherish your wife.

Nourish and cherish your wife.

Nourish.

Nourishing is about provision.

Provide for needs.

This is your responsibility, husbands.

Provision is your responsibility.

That means in all kinds of ways, not least of which financial.

But you have a responsibility to provide for your wife.

Nourish her.

Other ways, you you you have a responsibility to be looking out for the nourishment of your wife and and your family.

So that means you're looking forward, you're looking at things like you're looking at things like calendars.

And you're saying this, this is I know.

This week is looks insane.

Maybe well, maybe I should call and cancel one of those dinners.

You might say something, you might look up as the husband and say something like that.

Another example is I know this week looks insane, but we're not in this marriage for our own comfort.

We're we're in this marriage to serve, and and we we know we wanted to be the type of place where we'd welcome people in.

We've said that we would do that in this way.

You know, we but either way, it's your responsibility to provide that nourishment.

Provision.

It must be a provision of nourishment of the word of God.

You have to be talking about and teaching and and and sharing the word of God with your wife and and in your family.

You you must you must be sharing this.

It's like uh imagine um you're gonna it's gonna be really hard to get your wife's respect if you're not sharing the word of God with her.

So this is essential.

It's essential.

And that is as simple as well, honestly, it should look something like just like leading your family in worship.

Reading the scriptures to your family, to your kids, and then praying with them.

These things are not far from you.

They're very, they're very simple.

They're right at your doorstep.

And then see if the word doesn't do the work.

See if the word doesn't provide nourishment for for your whole family, doesn't relieve anxiety.

So that's nourishing.

And then you're also called to cherish.

Cherish means enjoy and celebrate.

Husbands, you you must enjoy and and celebrate your wives.

This is it's in the Bible.

Cherish your wife.

Enjoy the the wife of your youth.

This is the one to celebrate.

And what might that look like?

It would be when you when you see things that are lovely, you call them lovely.

When you see her tend to your children and it's and it's beautiful, you say that's wonderful.

I love that.

When you see her forgive a friend, you celebrate that.

When you see her patience grow for your children, you celebrate that.

When you when she notices things that you don't care about, and then all and then you say, like, yeah, I probably should care about that, like a like a flower.

When we go, I I I've noticed that like my I don't think I use my eyes.

I think I just you walk around by memory of places that I've been before.

But then when I walk with Megan, she like sees all this stuff that's been out here the whole time.

And and I I should that's you should cherish that.

Should that should be cherished.

Nourish and cherish.

Husbands, Jesus nourishes and cherishes you.

He provides for your needs, all your needs.

You're you have this call, this weight of provision for your family.

How could you bear such a thing?

Well, you know that Jesus has taken the weight of provision for you.

So you entrust yourself to him.

You have this call to cherish.

Someone where you may you may not feel cherished back.

Jesus sees that.

He'll provide all of your needs, he'll make it fruitful.

Finally, verses 31 to 32, therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.

This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.

So Paul jumps right back to that essential text in Genesis 2 on what marriage is.

Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.

This is what's being pictured here.

Now, how is that possible?

What is that?

What is this?

He says, this mystery is profound.

And I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.

This is what marriage means.

It's what it's all about.

It's all about our unity with Christ, our union with Christ.

And this is how you picture it and participate in that.

You're like, what does that mean?

How do I even how how would I even participate in that?

Well, wives, begin submitting to your husbands.

And husbands, begin laying your life down for your wife in love.

And then you'll start to get this glimpse.

It'll like raise your gaze up into this glorious participation in faith of what Christ has done for the church.

He will equip you for it.

It is a deep and profound mystery, Christian unity.

Maybe the deepest of all mysteries.

It's right at the center of our faith, this strange paradox of the Trinity.

The one is three, the three is one.

How is there unity and diversity in the persons of the Trinity?

What is this?

How does that happen?

It breaks our minds, but we participate in that glory of that unity in our marriages when we see them patterned after Christ in the church.

So this final instruction: however, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

The call of the husband is to love your wife.

Love her.

Cherish her.

Nourish her.

Be jealous over her like you are your own body.

Love her the way that God loves his people.

Because she's mine.

None of the others are mine.

None of the others are mine.

This one's mine.

I love her.

Lay yourself down for her.

That particular one.

You don't, you know, when folks are getting married, they always are talking about marriage.

Like it's this generic thing, like they're gonna, you know, and then they'll finally like be participating in marriage.

And so they're wanting to learn about marriage.

But you don't, you know, you marry a person.

You don't marry marriage.

And the only way that you experience it is by fullness of commitment to that person.

That person.

That's where the marriage is.

It's in the particulars, it's only in the particulars.

Let each one of you love his wife as himself and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

This is like the culmination of how to participate in all the glories that we've seen in marriage.

Love and respect.

Husbands, love your wives.

Wives, respect your husbands.

It's like it will be like food to them.

Wives, you have no idea the power that you have to make your husband respectable by respecting him.

Husbands, you have no idea the power you have to make your wife beautiful and glorious.

By loving her.

This is the call.

You understand it because Christ has done it for you.

All that is required of you, he freely gives to you.

Let's pray.

Actually, are there any questions?

Great.

Let's do that.

Okay.

Can you give some practical examples of how a wife should submit to her husband in everything?

Grateful for a little focus on what submission is, not what it is not.

Um obedience.

I just wanted to say it.

It is uh in the biblical description, what we're looking at with submission, it's obedience.

Nobody likes that.

I went a whole marriage series, and I don't think I said it till now.

It's in the Bible.

It's plainly what plainly what submission is.

Now that heaviness that you're feeling, I promise you, wives, it's falling on the room equally.

It's falling on husbands just as much as it's falling on you.

Because it hits perfectly at the at what we've explored and the point of the fall.

And perfectly at the point of the fall is husbands don't want to take responsibility.

And so they don't want to plainly ask for what they need or want from you.

Because that would be taking full responsibility.

They don't want to do that.

They'd rather it be, they they'd they'd rather it be some collaboration where they'd be we'd be able to shift out of it at the end and say, well, this was kind of your idea if it doesn't work out.

And wives, this hits right at the point of the fall for you, because it's asking you to entrust yourself to someone who you know is fallen like you.

So it's at that point where the it's all of these points and it's uh I want to qualify it uh because uh I'm nervous to say this.

So I'm not gonna qualify it.

Um yeah, it is a radical taking of responsibility by husbands, and it is a uh agreeing with, um obeying the responsibility that's been taken by wives.

This is the this is the pattern that we see in the scriptures.

The shape of it is Christ in the church, which is really, really good.

Really, real really good.

This is the shape of the unity that we're called to.

So I know that's not like a particular example.

Um because I I I I'm, I don't know, having trouble coming up with one.

Uh and it is a responsibility that's to be held with extreme wisdom.

You have to have the wisdom of a judge.

Uh but it is glorious.

It is glorious.

So, great question.

Let's pray.

Lord Jesus Christ.

You say if anyone loves me, he'll keep my commandments.

Lord, we love you in obeying you.

And Holy Father, I pray that you would work in our hearts so that we might see the obedience that you call us to as glorious and beautiful, and that there is life in it.

Lord Jesus, all that you ask of us, you fully provide for us.

Let us see the glory of being united in you.

Would you work that fullness into our hearts?

In Jesus' name.

Amen.