Walking in the Revealed Will of God (Marriage)
- Michael Dennis
- Jun 20, 2010
- Series: Ephesians: Alive
Welcome to North Village Church. My name is Michael and we are glad to have you here this morning. This morning we are teaching through Ephesians 5:15-33 so you are going to need your Bible.
At the end of gathering this morning we are going to spend a few minutes capturing what God has done and celebrating how gracious He has been to our church over the last 9 months. Let’s get started in Ephesians 5:15:
15 Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, 16 making the most of your time, because the days are evil. 17 So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.
In the previous passage Scripture just talked about walking in Holiness, being imitators of God, and in verse 15 it gets really practical. In verse 15 in compassion and love it commands us to be careful how we walk, be careful how we live because we live in a broken world. A world where hurricanes destroy cities, where oil is destroying our oceans, where there is lying, deception, murder, and there is an ample amount of evil and wicked opportunities. Be careful because through faith in Christ our eyes have been opened and in verse 17 it tells us how to be careful.
“Do not be foolish, but understand the will of the Lord” so many times we sit and struggle with what is the will of the Lord. Should I take this job, marry this girl, buy this house, and we make it really complicated. The will of the Lord isn’t complicated. 90% of God’s will is revealed in Scripture. His will is for us to know Him, love Him, repent of our sin, and grow in our understanding.
Sometimes we get really frustrated if God doesn’t show us His specific will because we want to overlook His revealed will and know His specific will on specific things like who to date, job to take, car to buy, where to go on vacation, which lottery numbers to pick, and we will lose sleep over wanting to know His specific will. Wringing our hands about what we should do, but when it comes to His revealed will we will completely overlook it. I have found when I am being careful and walking in His revealed will of knowing Him and loving Him it makes it a lot easier to discern the specific will.
Because when we ignore His revealed will we will end up making decisions based on our will, how we feel, what we think is right and often times we will find ourselves in a painful places. We will over commit, over extend, we do too much, we will get worn out, frustrated, tired, so we end up making impulse decision. We put a vacation on a credit card, we buy a new car to make ourselves feel better, we start dating different guys to try something new, we pull away from Scripture and Godly counsel, we stop coming to church, and we are no longer walking in God’s will revealed will of knowing Him, loving Him, but instead walking in our exhaustion.
Some of us have found ourselves in a place of exhaustion so often that we become scared to make any decisions so we decide not to do anything. It’s like we keep opening doors and getting slapped in the face so we just decide to stop opening doors and are afraid to make any choices. We want to listen to Scripture and verses 18-20 teach us how to walk in His will:
18 And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit, 19 speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord; 20 always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father;
Why do we get drunk? To escape problems, stress, and we go beyond drinking to celebrate and we drink to get drunk to escape. Verse 18 is teaching us instead of filling our stomachs with alcohol, be filled with the Spirit. Verse 19 speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord. What does that mean?
That means walking in His revealed will like knowing Him, loving Him, repenting of sin and growing in our understanding. This morning Scripture is going to begin to apply it to our personal lives and specifically in the area of marriages. We need to be careful in our marriages and Scripture will start with our marriages, our relationships, then our children, our jobs, and it gets really practical.
In verses 22-33 we are going to see Scripture focus on the importance of having marriages that are filled with the Spirit and experience knowing Him and loving Him. Not all of us are married, but it is likely that we will be and marriage is really important to God. Marriage shows up throughout both the Old and New Testament. We see marriage as early as Genesis 2 when man and woman are created to leave and cleave to one another. God has designed it for man and woman to come together and experience something supernatural marriage.
Some of us may not feel like our marriages are supernatural, but more so super exhausting and this morning Scripture is going to give us some really practical insight into experiencing a dynamic marriage. Let’s start with verses 22-24:
22 Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body. 24 But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything.
Sometimes verses 22-24 can be a little controversial because we see the word “subject” and immediately our antenna goes up because it tends to rub us the wrong way and I think it is largely because of our cultural history.
In the 1950’s in the US there was a hierarchical approach to marriage where the marriage was dominated by a strong male figure, which largely determined and dictated the direction of the family. As a result this mitigated the female role and she experienced little to no influence, lack of voice, lack of worth, and as a result there was an oppression of females in our country.
At this point in history there was a wave to gain equal rights and equal opportunity and it responded to the oppression of all women. This is a good thing. Scripture is very much in favor of removing any oppression of any people and if you look throughout history wherever the gospel has taken root it has only elevated and protected people instead of bringing oppression.
Nevertheless in the attempt to right a wrong of oppression and equality it swings so far to gain equality and it loses the uniqueness between male and female. In an effort to show that anything one can do the other can do also there is a loss of uniqueness between male and female.
The difficulty is that most of us have been influenced by these historical transitions through literature, television, movies, either knowingly or unknowingly and as a result it tends to skew the way in which we read Scripture today. We see the word “submit” and we reach for a baseball bat.
Scripture teaches us that both male and female are equal we see that in Genesis 1 at the creation of humanity. 1 Peter teaches they are both “equal heirs of the grace of God”. There isn’t varsity and JV Christians. We see that both male and female are valuable, both being created in the image of God. Scripture simply teaches male and female are given a uniqueness and different roles to compliment one another.
Our culture will say one of those roles is more important, however, Scripture teaches us both roles are equally valuable and equally important. When we start off in verse 22 see the word “subject” in the original language and it means to place ourselves under.
At first glance it could rub us the wrong way, however, if we jump back up to verse 21 we see Scripture teaches us to be subject to one another in the fear of Christ. There is naturally submission in our culture, however, in our culture it isn’t in the fear of Christ, but out of fear of physical brutality. People submit because they are intimidated by power, because one group undermines another intellectually, or even as basic as the measuring of accomplishments, but Scripture teaches we are subject ourselves to one another based on the fear of Christ, who is our ultimately authority. Verse 21 isn’t simply wife to husband or child to parent, but is everybody submitting to one another in the fear of Christ.
We don’t like the idea of submitting to others and we want everyone and everything to submit to us, however, that isn’t reality. Unless we are perfect and without flaw we are all going to submit to someone. We submit to our bosses, government, our debt, the law, and we are all going to submit in some capacity. Instead of submitting out of intimidation and abuse Scripture teaches we can submit to the one who is the head of all creation. Who spoke creation into existence! Who created us and knows what is best for us.
All of our submission is taking place under the authority of Christ and in marriage Scripture is teaching the wife is submitting to the husband. She isn’t submitting out of brutality, power, lack of intellect, or accomplishments, but she submits to the husband because God has put him there to lead, to care, protect, and provide for the marriage for the greater glory of God.
Consider 1 Corinthians 11:3, “Now I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.” Consider that last statement, “The head of Christ is God.” Think with me. Is God superior to Christ? No. Is God of a difference essence than Christ? No. Are God and Christ one? Yes. The statement simply means that in the economy of redemption Jesus submitted Himself to the purposes and plan and power of the Father for the greater glory of God. In every sense Jesus was equal and yet submissive.
Jesus was equal with God and yet submitted to God. He was over man, and yet submitted to man to meet man at our deepest need. In Scripture submission doesn’t determine value, but instead the importance of accomplishing the greater will and work of our heavenly Father. In verses 22-24 it isn’t showing that the wife has less value, but simply a different role for the greater glory of God in marriage. Does that mean the wife blindly follows her husband into sin? No. Does that mean she doesn’t have a voice? No. Does that mean her husband is perfect like Jesus? No. It means your husband has been given a high responsibility and God has given the wife to him to help him fulfill that responsibility. He desperately needs her help. Look at the responsibility of the husband in verses 25-27:
25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, 26 so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless.
The husband is given the responsibility of loving his wife as Christ loved the church. How did Christ love the church? He gives himself up for her, he makes her better through the word so that she is presented to God in all her glory with no spot or wrinkle. Wives can you imagine your husband presenting you without any spot or wrinkle? That is a husband that a wife can get excited about! It keeps going. Look at verses 28-29:
28 So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; 29 for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, 30 because we are members of His body.
The key word is body and in verse 30 it refers to the church as the body of Christ. We saw that briefly in Ephesians 4 and 1 Corinthians compares us to being the body of Christ. In verses 25-30 it gives us a powerful picture that I want to try to capture for us and it is that the husband loves the wife as his own body just as Jesus loved the body of Christ.
Consider how Jesus loved the church, the body of Christ. Jesus does not come to us as the body of Christ, the church and speak words of condemnation. He doesn’t physically abuse. He doesn’t insult. When we come to him in prayer He isn’t watching sports or playing on His iphone. He doesn’t sit on the coach as we run around trying to make Him happy. No it says He didn’t come to be served, but to serve.
Even in the beginning Jesus didn’t chase after us because we were attractive, funny, great smile or enjoyed His hobbies. No, just the opposite! He chose a broken people, a people who rejected Him, ignored Him, hated Him and wanted nothing to do with Him. Jesus chased after us and set out to make us attractive and wise and faithful at the cost of his own life.
His love for us did not begin as a love of admiration. His first love for us was not a response to our beauty. We had none. Ephesians 2 teaches us we were spiritual dead in our sin and wanted nothing to do with Him.
Just as Christ tirelessly served and sacrificed for us as the body of Christ, so the husband is called to tirelessly serve and sacrifice for his wife. He is there to protect and elevate her and it isn’t because she is unable to protect or elevate herself, but because she is so valuable and precious.
There is a high calling for husbands in Scripture and it teaches us to love our wives as Christ loved the church. In verse 31 it teaches us in the union of marriage we become one flesh and it isn’t two foreign fleshes coming together, but two fleshes that come together and it feels right. They have been designed by God to fit together in their unique roles to bring glory to Him. We are one in flesh. This is what verse 28 means by loving our wives as we love our own bodies because when we devote ourselves with all our heart to the holy joy of our spouse then we are ultimately loving ourselves because we are one in flesh.
Isn’t that powerful? The wife isn’t called to submit because she is unable, but because she has been created by God to be a helper and she is helping her husband fulfill an amazing responsibility of loving her and loving the family as Christ loved the church and when this happens we will experience supernatural activity in our marriage.
There is a part of us that will read this and feel overwhelmed, but these roles aren’t fulfilled by our own strength, but through faith in the righteousness of Christ. We can’t be good husbands and wives apart from Christ. It is why the passage starts off with be careful, understand the will of the Lord, and be filled with the Spirit. We can’t accomplish this from reading books or trying really hard. This is supernatural activity.
There will be times when it doesn’t happen and we aren’t careful how we walk and we will speak harshly to our wives, we will disrespect our husbands, we will not be filled in the Spirit and when that happen we confess as quickly as possible. Confess to our spouses, confess to Jesus and continue to walk in faith of what Jesus is doing in our marriages.
Marriage is hard. We have been at it for 11 years and there are times when it feels like this isn’t working. In the beginning it is really exciting. Double in-come, no kids, traveling, late nights, and having a lot of fun. Then you decide to have children. Children are a lot of fun also, but they are a whole new layer of challenges.
You work so hard to get their heart so they trust you and obey because you care about them and know what is best, and then they go off to school. There is homework, friends, grades, getting to bed on time so you can get up on time, and life gets really busy.
And then it's Little League, soccer games, kickball, football, piano lessons, buying school clothes and it goes on and on till they start getting interested in the opposite sex and then all wheels are off.
In our marriages we are going to have a lot of opportunities to devote our time and energy to our careers, our hobbies, our children, our friends, but you want to know the most important. It isn’t your spouse. It is Jesus. Verse 15 be careful how you walk and chase after Jesus because it is Jesus who presents us without any spot or wrinkle. It is Jesus who enables. It is Jesus who gives us power through His work on the cross. This morning we may look at our marriages and feel like we have a whole lot of spots and wrinkles. We may look at our life and see a lot of mistakes.
Scripture teaches us to simply bring it to Jesus. Confess it to Him, draw close to Him, and be filled with the Spirit. He has overcome sin and through faith in Him we will too. We could look around and fill our hearts and minds with fear, inadequacies, discontent, and wicked thoughts so much so that we are drunk on it and Scripture teaches us to fill our hearts and minds with Jesus and we will experience supernatural marriages.