Follow God’s Plan for Holding Marriage Together
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The Word of Truth through which the Holy Spirit guides us is Ephesians 5:21-31
[And keep being filled with the Spirit] as you submit yourselves to one another in the fear of God.
Wives: Submit yourselves to your own husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as also Christ is the head of the church. He himself is the Savior of the body. Nevertheless, just as the church submits itself to Christ, so also wives are to submit themselves to their own husbands in everything.
Husbands: Love your own wives, just as also Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for it. [He did it] in order to set it apart as holy by cleansing it with the washing of water in the word. [He did it] in order to present it to himself as the Church, which is glorious, without stain or wrinkle or any such thing, but to be holy and blameless. In this way, husbands are to keep loving their own wives as their own bodies. The one who loves his own wife loves himself. No one ever hated his own flesh, but he feeds it and keeps it warm – just as also Christ [does for] the Church, because we are parts of his body. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be closely united to his wife. The two will be one flesh.”( Ephesians 5:21-31)
Dear friends, who belong to Christ’s Church,
Thousands, even tens of thousands, of dollars goes into a wedding. Months, even years, of planning precede it. The future bride and groom talk it over again and again. Reservations are set for the church, the hall, the band, the photographer, the flowers, the cake. People commit to helping out in one way or another. Maybe many of you may have a more simple wedding, but it still was day you remembered. Much planning goes into holding the wedding together.
Sadly not nearly as much planning goes to holding the marriage together. Each year over a million marriages in the United States end in divorce. And this doesn’t even account for the countless marriages that survive, but are anything but what the bride and groom dreamed of on their wedding day – marriages plagued with lovelessness or abuse.
What is the glue that holds good marriages together? Maybe the most popular answer is love. But love can mean so many different things to different people that it really isn’t an answer at all. Considering the focus of the worship today, maybe you’d answer that God’s Word is the glue that holds good marriages together. That answer is a good start, but we need to dig deeper. We need to ask: What does God’s Word show us about God’s plan for holding marriage together?
That brings us to theme for this sermon: Follow God’s Plan for Holding Marriage Together. In his Word God reveals his plan and he has specific words to address to wives and other specific words to address to husbands. And take note that God does not tell the husband to make sure that his wife carries out her role and he does not tell the wife to make sure the husband does his. God wants the wife to examine herself and the husband to examine himself.
1.
God’s plan for wives
a) What God says
First, let’s look at God’s plan for wives. Husbands, these words are not addressed to you. If you want to take a nap now, that’s fine. God’s Word for you will come next.
Now, wives, I realize that I have a couple strikes against me in talking to you about your role in your marriage. First, I’m a man so it’s easy to simply dismiss what I say as male chauvinism. Second, what I’m going to say is contrary to what our society teaches. They would label me as bigoted and backwards. But please take note that I’m simply speaking what God says. These are not ideas that I or some other man invented. This is what your God has revealed to us. He designed you as a woman. He created marriage. And as I stand her in the pulpit, it is his Word that I am speaking. Listen to his plan for you in marriage.
Your God says, “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord” (Ephesians 5:22 NIV). Submit – that’s a strong word. Maybe we can understand it better if we first examine what God is not saying. Submitting does not mean that you are a slave and your husband is your master. That’s an entirely different relationship which has nothing to do with a Christian marriage. Submitting does not mean that you have less value, less importance, less skill, less intelligence. For example, when a truck drive stops for 12-year old crossing guard in a school zone, he is submitting. That doesn’t mean he is less valuable or important or intelligent. (From Sermon Studies on the Epistles (ILCW Series B), ed. Richard Balge, Northwestern Publishing House:1993, p. 243Likewise, in no way is the wife of lesser value than her husband. The Bible highly praise the value of a good wife.
What does submitting mean? It means that you recognize a God-appointed order in your family life. You recognize that husband as your head, just as Jesus is the head of the church, and therefore you trust and respect him as your head.
That’s hard for a modern woman to swallow. But remember it is not me as a man or husband who says this. God’s word says, “The husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything” (Ephesians 5:23 NIV).
One part of God’s glue for holding marriage together is the wife willingly submitting herself to her husband. That’s how you can show how much you love him. Submit to him as the church submits to Christ.
b) Failure
How well have you followed your role and fully submitted? It is not my place as a husband to evaluate how well my wife or someone else’s wife follows her role. But as your pastor, I urge you to take a honest look at your heart and married life. Do you treat your husband as your head? Do you show him the kind of respect and submission that you as a member of the Church would show to Jesus Christ? Do you gladly respect his decisions even when he can not convince you why? Or do you at times think of him or even treat him as if he were a child you had to take care of? Does nagging, yelling, criticism sometimes spoil the bond between you? Do you occasionally complain to others about his failings or gossip about him?
You could excuse yourself by saying, “He deserves it because of the way he acts!” But notice that God does not says, “Submit to your husband if he acts correctly.” You could excuse yourself by dismissing these words as primitive thinking from an age when women were mistreated. But these are not words from human thinking. These are God’s timeless words. Rather than excuse yourself, see your sin. See your thoughts, words, and actions that have failed to show respect for your husband. See how your failures works against your marriage.
c) Christ is your Savior
Then see Jesus Christ as your Savior. If you make excuses, I can not tell you that your sins are forgiven because you don’t see your sins. But to you who see your failure: You are forgiven. Jesus is your Savior. He has rescued you from death and hell. Don’t think about your past failures any more – those times that you failed to submit and show respect. Jesus has wiped the slate clean. You have a new record. You have Jesus’ perfect record freely credited to you. He is your Savior.
As you keep Jesus, your Savior, in your heart, you not only have the comfort of forgiveness, but he also strengthens you to be a better wife. One of the things that makes it so hard to submit is fear. Will my husband abuse his position of headship? Will he really keep my best interest in mind? Don’t I have to protect myself? But no matter what your husband does or doesn’t do, Jesus is still your Savior and that can take away your fear.
How can it do that? Your Savior has already rescued you from sin and death. He will certainly protect you in your married life. As your risen Savior, he rules all things,he certainly has the power to keep you safe. Keep his Word in your heart and life so that your faith is built on his promises. Trust your Savior, Jesus Christ. Trust him so much that you can gladly submit to your husband as to the Lord.
d)Conclusion for wives
One quick thought for you who are not married – you who are looking for a husband or may be looking for a husband one day. Don’t simply ask yourself, “Do I love this man?” or “Is he good for me?” Ask yourself, “Can I gladly submit to him as God wants me to?” That is so much easier to answer when he shares your faith and values.
As we conclude God’s Word to wives, women, please open your hymn books to page 142. Let’s look again at your marriage vow. Even though the words may be slightly different, the thoughts are the same.
2) God’s plans for husbands
a) What God’s Word says
Wives, you can wake up your husband’s now. It’s their turn to listen to what God says. You can take your break now.
Husbands, if you have been eves-dropping , it’s easy for us to think we can do what we want. Our wife has to submit. In fact this seems to be the one passage in Scripture that husbands most love to quote, even though it’s not meant for them. To bad they don’t read on.
What does God say to you and to me as husbands? He says, “Love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Ephesians 5:25 NIV). That’s the passage husbands ought to to quote. That tells us our role.
In our modern day with the emergence of the sensitive guy, it may be easier for men to say “I love you.” But God’s Word tells you and me that being a husband involves much, much more than just saying those words. “Love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (NIV). That’s a self-sacrificing love. Maybe you can even imagine yourself in some heroic act sacrificing your life to save your wife. It’s easy for us to imagine ourselves as heroes; it’s much hard to be one when the time comes. But that’s not all that is meant her either.
The kind of self-sacrificing love that you and I are to show to wives is like Christ’s love for us, his church. Jesus didn’t do one heroic act for us, he continually showed his self-sacrificing love for you. In the same way we need to continually love our wifes in a way that puts them before ourselves. We love them so that we sacrifice what we think is best for us in exchange for what is best for them.
This kind of love will constantly take care of all your wife’s needs, including her physical, emotional, and spiritual needs. Just as we take care of our bodies day after day, so also we are to take care of our wives because they are one flesh with us. God’s Word says, “Husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, bu he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church” (Ephesians 5:28, 29 NIV).
b) Our failure
We don’t have to look hard to see how we have failed to love our wives with Christ-like self-sacrificing love, do we? Losing our temper isn’t an act of love. Yelling or speaking hurtful words isn’t either. Making derogative comments or jokes about her to others has nothing to do with love. When we do such things, we are thinking about ourselves not her. At times we love our own sexual desires more than we love our wives. Sexual thoughts that are not focused on our wife or sexual fantasies are the opposite of loving our wife. Any kind of pornography is a self-love.
And it isn’t just the bad things that we say, think, or do that show our failure. How often aren’t we, husband, guilty of failing to listen when our wife needs to talk. We are guilty of not speaking words of encouragement and comfort when she needs them. We are guilty of all too often ignoring her because we are absorbed in work, or hobbies, or television, or hunting, or fishing. Is that loving your wife as Jesus loved you?
What are we to do? We could make excuses how our wife makes it so hard to love her. But that would just be another loveless act on our part, wouldn’t it? That just adds to our sin and blinds us to our only hope or rescue from hell. You and I need to see our many failings as a husband. We need to see that we have not loved our wives with self-sacrificing love.
c) Washed by Jesus
Then see Jesus wash all those sins away. At your baptism Jesus cleansed you from the stain of your sins. That’s what God’s Word says here when it talks about cleansing the church “by the washing with water through the word” (Ephesians 5:26 NIV). That means you. Those sins of lovelessness toward your wife, those sins that make you feel guilty, they are washed away. Do you doubt that? Remember your baptism. God promised you on that day that Jesus gave himself for you to wash you clean in his blood.
As you remember Jesus great love for you, that enables you and me as husband to love our wives more and more. Keep God’s Word a part of your life so that through his word he can strengthen you to love your wife even as Jesus loves you and gave himself up for you.
As you show self-sacrificing love toward wife, remember that you are not losing anything. Yes it may seem as if you are giving up what you want. But don’t worry. What you do for her, you are doing for yourself. You are one flesh. And no matter what you sacrifice, Jesus can give you much much more, when he presents you and all believers to himself as his glorious people, washed clean in his blood and clothed in his righteousness.
d)Conclusion for husbands
One quick thought for you who are not married – you who are looking for a wife or may be looking for a wife one day. Don’t simply ask yourself, “How does show look?” or “How does she make me feel?” Ask yourself, “Can I gladly sacrifice what I like most in order do what is best for her?” And that is so much easier to answer when she shares your faith and values.
As we conclude God’s Word to wives, women, please open your hymn books to page 141. Let’s look again at your marriage vow. Even though the words may be slightly different, the thoughts are the same.
Conclusion
Let’s wrap things with one final picture. This is for both wives and husbands. We began by asking what is God’s plan for holding a marriage together. We’ve seen from God’s Word that the glue that holds marriage together is not just some sort of generic love. But it is love on the part of the wife that submits herself and a love on the part of the husband that sacrifices himself.
Rather than a glue holding marriage together. This is more like an epoxy. An epoxy sticks things together like glue. But an epoxy has two parts. Neither part by itself holds the marriage together. Both parts are needed. The submitting love of the wife is one part. The sacrificing love of the husband is the other. When these two are mixed together in Christ Jesus, the marriage bond is strong.
