Passage: Ephesians 5:22-24
The Big Idea
For a Christian, marriage isn’t mainly about what you get; it’s the most practical place to follow Jesus by pouring out your life for someone else. Jesus said the greatest are those who serve, and no one gives you more opportunities to serve than the person you live with. Wives are called to the ministry of loving submission and respect, husbands to self-sacrificing love. Neither is possible by trying harder. Marriage needs the Holy Spirit.
Marriage Is Tough
Thousands of Americans get married every day. What are they all thinking? Marriage is tough!
I was at lunch with a couple of other married couples once, and they started swapping stories about spouses who sleepwalk. One husband had been punched repeatedly in the night by his sleeping wife. Another husband, sound asleep, once dragged his wife across the bed to “save” her from a building he dreamed was collapsing. And that’s just what happens while married people are asleep!
Someone once quipped, “Marriage is nature’s way of keeping people from fighting with strangers.” Another line, often attributed to Abraham Lincoln: “Marriage is neither heaven nor hell; it is simply purgatory.”
And some of marriage’s trouble is no joke at all. Global studies suggest more than a third of women who are murdered are killed by an intimate partner. (If you are in danger at home, please get to safety and get help. Nothing in this study asks you to stay in harm’s way.)
With all the trouble that comes with marriage, you might wonder why anyone bothers.
The answer depends on who you are. An unbeliever may see marriage as honorable, safe, or just how things work, or a way to get ahead, to have someone to provide meals, money, pleasure or companionship.
A believer sees it differently. Christians marry as part of a life that glorifies God by pouring out their life for the sake of another. Marriage is the most practical way to show the world, and yourself, that you’re following Jesus Christ.
Who’s the Greatest? (Mark 9:33-35)
In Capernaum, Jesus asked His disciples what they’d been arguing about on the road. They went quiet, because they’d been arguing about who was the greatest. Jesus sat down, called the Twelve and said, “If anyone wants to be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.”
Jesus didn’t scold them for wanting to be His best followers. It isn’t wrong to want to please God and live in a way that’s rewarded in heaven. He taught them how.
And He didn’t say, “Become a pastor or missionary to get the big prizes.” He turned it around: the greatest honor will go to those who serve the most, who see every person as someone to serve.
In Matthew 25, Jesus describes the day He’ll show His true servants that they served and loved Him by serving others, and show false followers that they ignored Him by ignoring the people around them.
Serving relationships are Jesus’ test of whether someone truly knows and loves Him.
And marriage is the best opportunity you’ll ever have to see the power of serving love in your life, to please Jesus and love Him in the deepest way possible.
Why is marriage a better opportunity? Because serving someone on the street or at work has its challenges, but you don’t go home and share a bed with them. You never get away from your spouse. They’re always there, and they aren’t always pleasant. You see the worst parts of their personality, their flesh and their bodies: when they’re tired, burned out, angry, venting, or taking out their stressful day on you.
That’s exactly when you can honor the Lord and make Him glad by serving them in love.
Keep your eyes on the Lord, on His face, and your marriage will be transformed!
People pay a lot for marriage counseling (and good counseling is worth it). But don’t miss that God’s wisdom is calling out to you from His Word, whether you’re preparing for marriage or struggling in a hard one.
Christians marry for the Lord, not just for themselves. So let’s see how Jesus gives us, through marriage, the best opportunity to honor Him, store up treasure in heaven, and picture God’s serving, loving heart to an unbelieving world.
Wives (Ephesians 5:22-24)
Paul writes: Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, as Christ is head of the church, His body, of which He is the Savior. So as the church submits to Christ, let wives submit to their own husbands in everything.
Wives have a wonderful opportunity to honor God because of the nature of their role. As we saw last time, submission is close to Jesus’ own heart. A wife can have many opportunities each day to honor God by honoring her husband.
“But what if my husband is mean, or a jerk? What if I disagree with the ridiculous things he says?” Paul doesn’t make those exceptions.
But there are real limits. A wife is never called to follow her husband into sin or to dishonor the Lord (Acts 5:29). And submission never means accepting abuse or staying in danger. Unfaithfulness and abuse are grave violations of the marriage covenant; if that’s your situation, get safe and get help from your church and the proper authorities.
If you’re not married yet, remember: you’re signing up to serve. So look for a man who is on a mission to glorify God. Then serving him means double reward: serving God by serving him, and helping him serve the Lord!
David Guzik makes the point that submission doesn’t mean inferiority or silence. Think of it as “sub-mission”: the Christian marriage has a mission, which is obeying and glorifying God. A wife says, in effect, “I’m putting myself under that mission. It’s more important than my individual desires. I’m not putting myself below my husband; I’m putting myself below the mission God has for our marriage and my life.”
When Christian wives excel in this ministry, Paul says, they get to share in evangelizing the world. By their example they show how the Church follows the Lord and listens to His voice, and how He in turn provides everything we need. How many people have come to Christ because they watched a mother, or any woman, follow Jesus in humility and faith (1 Peter 3:1-2)?
The world almost loses its mind at the word submission. But it isn’t what they think. It isn’t weakness. It’s responding to the love of Jesus by loving the same way.
- Both husband and wife are called to die to self; submission is how the wife does it.
- Both are called to sacrifice; submission is how the wife does it.
- Both are called to see their marriage as a picture of Jesus and the Church; submission is how the wife honors that picture.
- Both are called to honor God’s design; submission is how the wife fulfills her place in it.
- Both are called to be motivated by the love and command of Jesus; submission is how the wife does that.
One word that really helps us understand a wife’s ministry is respect (Ephesians 5:33). Your husband was created with a built-in need, a kind of emptiness. Your ministry, if you choose to accept it, is to pour into him the respect he desperately needs. He doesn’t earn it. He has an empty reservoir designed to be filled by loving respect from his wife.
This isn’t what you do after you already have a great marriage. It’s the way to get there.
Marriage is never fifty-fifty. It’s one hundred percent from each person: the wife wholly committed to loving respect, and the husband wholly committed to self-sacrificing love and servant leadership. (Husbands, just wait till next time!)
We Can’t Do This
But as we close, I want to point out our deficiency. We can’t do this. We can’t lovingly submit to and lovingly lead each other. It’s impossible, unless the very power of God is working inside us. Our own efforts will mess it up every time.
At the Last Supper, Jesus gave a new commandment: love one another, just as He has loved us. That love is how everyone will know we are His disciples (John 13:34-35).
- That’s all you need to know, all you need to focus on, all God is calling you to be and do.
- And the measure? As I have loved you. Totally self-sacrificing. Submission requires a lot of self-sacrifice, and Jesus knows a thing or two about that.
- It’s the one unmistakable sign that you belong to Him.
Peter asked, “Lord, where are You going?” Jesus said, “Where I’m going you can’t follow now, but you’ll follow later.” Peter said, “Why can’t I follow You now? I’ll lay down my life for You!” Jesus answered, “Will you? Truly, before the rooster crows, you’ll deny Me three times” (John 13:36-38).
Peter realized Jesus was leaving. And that was a problem, because Peter knew Jesus was the Messiah, the only source of victory. With Jesus there was no fear or doubt. Without Him, the future looked bleak.
Poor Peter. He thought Jesus wanted an emotional commitment. “I’ll die for You!” And I’m sure he meant it. But Jesus wanted something different: for Peter, and all of us, to love one another.
Peter’s love was based on feeling. Jesus was looking for true love. And He knew Peter couldn’t love that way yet. Peter had what all of us have: desire. But desire falls far short of God’s commands, old or new. Desire alone always ends in failure.
If you want to experience that failure, here’s how: try as hard as you can in your marriage. Love as hard as you can, just like Peter. “I’d die for you, baby!” It sounds romantic, a love based on emotional desire. But what happens when the desire runs out, when the love gauge hits empty? What happens the first time the object of your affection is truly unlovable, acting like a jerk? The reservoir runs dry fast.
The Helper (John 14)
So Jesus told them what was coming.
“Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many rooms. I’m going to prepare a place for you, and I’ll come again and take you to Myself, so that where I am you may be also” (John 14:1-4). In other words: We’ll be reunited. I care more about your eternal experience than your temporary comfort.
Thomas said what we’re all thinking: “Lord, we don’t know where You’re going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (14:5-7).
Philip said, “Lord, just show us the Father, and that’ll be enough.” Jesus said, “Have I been with you so long and you still don’t know Me, Philip? Whoever has seen Me has seen the Father” (14:8-11). In effect: “I am God. My works prove it, including the extreme love I’ve shown. No mere man could love like this.”
Then Jesus promised that whoever believes in Him will do the works He did, and greater, because He’s going to the Father. Whatever we ask in His name, He’ll do. “If you love Me, keep My commandments” (14:12-15).
- Any loving work you want to do, Jesus will give you the love to do it.
- Anything you want to be faithful in to honor God, Jesus will enable you.
- Any command you want to obey because you love the Lord, Jesus will give you the power, if you ask Him.
How? “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, the Spirit of truth… He dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you” (John 14:16-18).
Peter didn’t need to try harder, or want it more, or be more emotionally committed. Peter needed the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, who would make him truly able to love God and love others.
Our marriages need the Holy Spirit too. Not more effort. Not emotional pleas. Not bigger promises. The actual Spirit of God enabling us to lay down our lives for each other. And we receive that by engaging with Jesus Himself.
Talk with Him every day, and specifically ask Him for grace to love your spouse the way He wants you to.
For wives, that means asking for His grace to live in loving submission and respect. For husbands… next time we’ll see how much help you need, and how impossible your ministry is without the Holy Spirit.
Grace Takeaway
Marriage is the front line of following Jesus, because no one gives you more chances to serve than your spouse. A wife’s loving submission and respect is a real ministry that pictures the Church’s trust in Christ, never a call to accept sin or abuse. But neither spouse can love this way by willpower; Peter’s passionate promises collapsed in a night. Ask Jesus every day for the Spirit’s grace to love your spouse as He has loved you.
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