EPHESIANS 5:21-31CHRIST – THE HEART OF MARRIAGE!

21Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. 22Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. 23For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is

the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

25Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27and to present her to himself as a radi-ant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church– 30for we are members of his body. 31"For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh."I understand any reluctance there may be to do that. However, before you reject God’s plan, consider the kind of husband the Lord expects – no, demands – that man to be. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.

It kind of sticks out of our sermon text like a sore thumb, doesn’t it! You can’t ignore it and it hurts when you read it! It’s that word submit. Submit to one another. Submit to your husbands – not once, but twice! Submit to Christ. It seems as if this entire section about marriage is built on the theme of submission. And we don’t like that very much.

For most of us, in most situations, the word submit has a nasty, unsavory taste to it. In fact submit, in common usage, is an ugly word, a word we certainly don’t want applied to us. In a world in which everyone we meet is essentially selfish, the thought of submitting to one another is frightening. We can never be sure of what they might do to us.

Women, who have as much self-respect as anyone, don’t much countenance the idea of submitting to a man, any man, even their husband. They’ve worked so hard, so long, to deny themselves and their own personhood. Even the idea of submitting to Christ may make us uncomfortable. We prefer to think of ourselves as free, 100% free of anyone’s control.

Overall, I’m not sure that even we, as Christians, care to embrace this portion of Scripture, even though we be-lieve it to be the inspired Word of God! Any such thoughts, however, have no place in our hearts and minds be-cause submit is not the most important word in our sermon text. It isn’t the word that should grab our attention or form our opinion about the Lord’s prescription for a happy marriage.

The word that should grab our attention is Christ! The word that should shape our attitude about this portion of the Bible is Christ. We read it 5 times in our text. And it is that word which makes all the difference in the way we hear Paul’s description of a God-pleasing marriage. Christ changes the way we understand the word sub-mit.

The proper submission to be found between human beings, finds it true meaning and pattern of behavior from the submission we owe Christ. We learn what it means to submit to one another, to our husbands, from the way the Holy Spirit leads us to submit to Christ. We dare not define this concept without Christ! Without Christ, submission is a far different thing than it is with Christ. So, what is that submission? Should we be filled with dread that our worst fears will come true? What attitude of submission do we find in Christ?

Well, let me answer those questions with a question. Can you really imagine that the Christ who gave up the joys and privileges of heaven for our sake, the Christ who humbled himself and lived in our world as one of us for us, the holy Christ who took our sins as his own and suffered for them, can you really imagine this same Christ putting his heavy boot on your delicate neck demanding that you do as he says … or else?

Examine the evidence. In our sermon text, you and I are referred to as both the church and the body of Christ. And this is what we read that Christ did for his church and his body. Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. Christ feeds and cares for the church, his body.

Do you really imagine that this Christ of love would suddenly change into a snarling beast, some kind of terrible monster, and demand a selfish submission to him after doing all that? Could he, would he, ever step away from the kind of love he’s already shown us? I don’t think so!

So, that odious kind of submission is not at all the type of submission he is looking for in your relationship to him, or in a wife’s relationship with her husband. Rather, this is what he expects.

The Lord expects us to see Christ as our loving Savior who had proven his love in many ways, on many occa-sions, in a manner that we simply have a hard time believing because it is so wonderful. He wants us to see Christ as a precious gift of God, called and set aside by a gracious Father to do for us what we could never do for ourselves. He wants us to live in a gratitude that recognizes what he’s already done for us and believes his promise to continue into the future.

He wants us to be confident in his love, his wisdom, and his power, certain that the direction he gives for this life will always work out for our eternal good, even if we have a hard time seeing it. Like a blind person who trusts his guide dog to lead him safely across a dangerous intersection, so we are to trust him and submit to his guidance through this life.

It is a submission that surrenders totally into Christ’s care. That’s the kind of loving, even willing submission he wants from us. It is a submission of peace and release from the worries of life. It is the kind of submission Christ looks for in our relationship to other Christians. It is the kind of submission Christ expects in a wife’s re-lationship with her husband.

What may indeed seem to be a foolish, impossible, unwise, ill-advised, even dangerous gamble, is transformed into a blessed reality when both you and that other person are in Christ! Without Christ, it would be a foolish risk. But in Christ it is not only possible, not only worth the gamble, it is the Lord’s personal design for a won-derful life in his earthly church and in his institution of marriage. It is his gift to you!

So, Paul writes Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For 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. As noted earlier, these can be difficult words to accept and live by.

In our society, the very idea of marriage is being challenged. It certainly does not want to accept the Lord’s de-cree about the role of husband and wife in marriage. Humanly speaking, no one wants a head over them. No one likes to feel as if they have less value than anybody else. But let’s not forget the model of submission al-ready existing between every Christian and Christ! Let’s apply it to marriage.

A godly husband who has reverence for Christ, is to be accepted as the gift of a loving God who wants only the best for you. He should be seen as a brilliant facet of God’s love sent to support you in every way possible, pro-viding for all your needs. He is a precious symbol of just how valuable you are to the Lord. And he wants you to acknowledge your husband as the head of the marriage and your family.

Please don’t ask me why that is his will for your marriage. I don’t know. I don’t know why he doesn’t allow couples to fight among themselves to establish who will be the head. Maybe that’s the reason – to spare mar-riages the harm such a struggle can produce. But you’ll have to ask him when you get to heaven. Until then, the husband must be accepted as the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church.

Husbands, before you get visions of grandeur about being head of your wife, consider the role Christ assumed as head of the church. When his church was in need, there was no question in his mind, no delay in his actions, he did whatever it took, he did everything it took, to make things right for the people he loved, even if they didn’t deserve it! He didn’t just give them his time or money or attention, he gave himself.

This is what it means to be the head of your wife. You are to pay close attention to her needs. Once a need is identified, you are to act on it and use every resource you have to remedy the need. It requires a selfless giving of yourself – nothing less. Put another way, Paul says, think of your wife as your body, just as Christ considers the church to be his body.

Men like to feed and care for their physical bodies. We make sure it gets everything it needs and as much as it wants, according to our means. Treat you wife with the same sort of indulgence! Make it the priority of your life to meet not only her physical needs, but her psychological and emotional needs as well. Understand in no uncertain terms that this is what Christ does for us and what we must do for the women we are so blessed to have as our wives.

With this kind of husband, wives may willingly, even eagerly, submit to them and enjoy the peace that comes from loving someone who is totally devoted to them. Granted, it may not always be an easy relationship. Sins still lives within you both and disrupts even the best Christian relationship.

But wives, persevere in your submission to your husband as to the Lord! Husbands, love you wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for it. Make Christ the heart of your marriage and yours will be the best possible marriage it can be!

Amen.