1. "Too often today we don't distinguish much between authority and authoritarianism. We often present authority as something suspect, kind of guilty until proven innocent."

2. "Any leadership someone else has is an implicit condemnation of our self-sufficiency, isn't it? It seems to suggest that if someone didn't tell us what the right thing to do is and hold us accountable for it, we might mess up."

3. "There's something about knowing that there is that greater authority that is unerring, that enables you to give yourself in trust, ultimately, of God."

4. "Christ's love for the church was not motivated by the church's loveliness; rather his motive was to make us lovely. So too with our wives, the ground of our love for them must be found ultimately in God and his love for us, and not in some attribute we husbands require of our wives in order to love them."

5. "Friend, husband, your wife isn't in your way. Your wife is your way. That's what the Lord has called you to. That's your calling more certainly than that thing you imagine, that ministry you think you should be doing, or that job you think you should take."

6. "Don't view your wife oppositionally. Let her prosperity be a North Star that helps to guide you in the decisions you make for what is best for your family in the service of the Lord."

7. "Good authority blesses those who are underneath it. You know that from being in school and all the kids want to go over to the house with the good parents. Everybody wants to be in the class with a good teacher or the team with a good coach."

8. "A happy practice of and care not to abuse authority can be a powerful picture of the gospel."

9. "God makes His people splendid. Christ has loved us not because we were lovely, but in order to make us lovely, to express His wisdom, but also to delight Himself."

10. "The previews of that great tomorrow are to be our marriages today."

Observation Questions

1. According to Ephesians 5:22-24, to whom are wives instructed to submit, and what comparison does Paul use to describe the husband's role as "head" of the wife?

2. In Ephesians 5:25-27, what specific action did Christ perform for the church, and what is the stated purpose or goal of that action (what does He intend the church to become)?

3. What does Ephesians 5:28-29 say about how husbands should love their wives, and what natural human behavior does Paul use as an analogy for this love?

4. In Ephesians 5:31, Paul quotes Genesis 2:24. What three actions does this verse describe as part of the marriage relationship?

5. According to Ephesians 5:32-33, what does Paul say this "mystery" of marriage ultimately refers to, and what are the two summarizing commands he gives to husbands and wives respectively?

6. Looking back at Ephesians 5:21, what phrase does Paul use to describe the motivation or manner in which believers are to submit to one another?

Interpretation Questions

1. Why do you think Paul emphasizes that the wife's submission is to be "as to the Lord" (v. 22) and "out of reverence for Christ" (v. 21)? How does this change the nature or motivation of submission compared to mere obedience to a human authority?

2. The sermon noted that the command for husbands to love their wives sacrificially was countercultural in Paul's day. Why is it significant that Christ's love for the church—not the church's loveliness—is the model and motivation for a husband's love (vv. 25-27)?

3. How does Paul's statement that "he who loves his wife loves himself" (v. 28) and the concept of "one flesh" (v. 31) reshape how we should understand the relationship between a husband's self-interest and his care for his wife?

4. Paul calls marriage a "profound mystery" that "refers to Christ and the church" (v. 32). What does this suggest about God's original purpose in designing marriage, and how should this affect the way Christians view their own marriages?

5. How does the contrast between the abusive shepherds in Ezekiel 34:1-10 and the Lord's promise to shepherd His people Himself (Ezekiel 34:11-15) help us understand the danger of authority without love and the hope we have in Christ's leadership of the church?

Application Questions

1. Wives, what is one specific area in your marriage where you find it difficult to trust your husband's leadership? How might viewing your submission as ultimately an act of reverence for Christ help you respond differently this week?

2. Husbands, the sermon described loving your wife as being as natural and urgent as feeding yourself when hungry. What is one practical way you could "nourish and cherish" your wife this week—spiritually, emotionally, or physically—that you may have been neglecting?

3. For couples: The sermon urged husbands to view their wife's prosperity as a "North Star" for decision-making. What is one decision currently facing your family where you could more intentionally seek your spouse's input and prioritize their flourishing?

4. Whether married or single, how can you use the picture of Christ's sacrificial love for the church to encourage someone in your community who is struggling with disillusionment about authority, relationships, or God's goodness?

5. The sermon mentioned that good marriages in the church serve as "breadcrumbs of evidence" of God's faithfulness to those who are hurting or doubting. What is one way your small group or church community could better support and celebrate healthy marriages as a witness to the gospel?

Additional Bible Reading

1. Genesis 2:18-25 — This passage records the creation of woman and the institution of marriage, which Paul directly quotes in Ephesians 5:31 to ground his teaching on the one-flesh union.

2. 1 Peter 3:1-7 — Peter gives parallel instructions to wives and husbands, emphasizing inner beauty, respectful submission, and husbands honoring their wives as fellow heirs of grace.

3. 1 Corinthians 7:1-16, 25-40 — Paul addresses questions about marriage and singleness, providing further wisdom on the goodness of both callings and the importance of spiritual unity in marriage.

4. Ezekiel 34:1-16 — This passage contrasts the failure of Israel's shepherds with God's promise to shepherd His people Himself, illustrating the danger of abusive authority and the hope found in God's faithful care.

5. Revelation 19:6-9; 21:1-4 — These passages describe the marriage supper of the Lamb and the new creation, showing the ultimate fulfillment of the marriage imagery as Christ presents His bride, the church, in splendor.

Sermon Main Topics

I. The Question of Authority and Our Natural Resistance to It

II. God's Will for the Wife: To Submit (Ephesians 5:22-24, 33)

III. God's Will for the Husband: To Love (Ephesians 5:25-30, 33)

IV. God's Will for the Couple: To Hold Fast (Ephesians 5:31)

V. God's Will for the Church: To Discern Wisdom for Life Together and in the World (Ephesians 5:21, 32)

VI. Marriage as God's Picture of Hope: Christ and His Glorious Bride (Ezekiel 34:11-15; Revelation 19:6-8; 21:1-4)

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Detailed Sermon Outline

So how do you react to authority? I mean, when someone else is given authority, do you tend to distrust their competence or their intentions or even suspect their motives?

Too often today we don't distinguish much between authority and authoritarianism. We often present authority as something suspect, kind of guilty until proven innocent. Some of this is healthy. What was the American Revolution if not a war over the proper understanding of authority?

Whether our nation would be able to govern itself.

What was the Civil War if not a struggle over authority, whether of the states individually or of the millions of humans impressed as slaves? What were the world wars of the first half of the 20th century if not struggles against great and terrible, abusive, authoritarian regimes?

And what was the Cold War, if not a struggle against a tyrannizing totalitarianism that abused anything that it could, authority at almost every level?

Authority and the questions of its right use are important.

But that's not true of us. Simply nationally. I mean, it's true of us personally as well. Whether it's politics in the office or at church or in the family or among friends, who makes decisions and how closely we understand how they're made affects us. Even in the military, officers receive reviews from people below them in rank.

In corporate America, the idea of a 360 review, that is including those to evaluate your performance not just above you but the comments of those who work for you is common. Certainly academics these days are concerned not just with what their peers will think of their publications but with how students will rate them in teacher, student evaluations and politicians. Well, I mean, politicians are elected after all. Personally though, something in us seems to buck at our being told to do or not do something.

After all, any leadership someone else has is an implicit condemnation of our self-sufficiency, isn't it? It seems to suggest that if someone didn't tell us what the right thing to do is and hold us accountable for it, we might mess up. We want desperately to be our own boss, to have only elective classes, designer coffees, individualized health care plans, authority that would tell us to do this or not do that runs afoul of this basic impulse in us. So what should we as Christians think about submitting to authority, and particularly this week in our passage? What should we think about marriage?

Well, to think more about all this, we come to our next study in the book of Ephesians, beginning at chapter 5, verse 22. So if you're looking at the Bibles provided, you'll find our passage beginning on page 978, page 978. Let's remind ourselves first of the last verse we looked at last week. Chapter 5, verse 21, Paul had instructed them back up in verse 15, so look carefully how you walk. He challenged them in verse 17 to understand what the will of the Lord is.

And then in verse 18, to be filled with the Spirit. And we noticed, you remember, three marks of being filled with the Spirit that followed. Verse 19, addressing one another in Psalms. Verse 20, giving thanks always. And verse 21, submitting to one another.

These verses 18 to 21, here in chapter five are one long sentence. And we thought about these evidences of our addressing one another in song and our praising and giving thanks to God last week. And at the very end, we introduced the topic of submitting. Verse 21, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. But as I said, such submitting is not natural to our fallen human natures.

By our nature, we are rebellious against authority, against God. And against that which is good. Now, there are schools of thought today that encourage us to think of all distinctions of power as by nature coercive and oppressive. Differing levels of power are seen as inherently unjust. And while such distortions of God's design typify our fallen world, they don't fundamentally define it.

God's power and goodness, after all, are the means which He employs to save us, to love us. We can trust good authority. Some people have read this verse, chapter 5:21, and they've said that this teaches that all Christians are to submit to all other Christians, that we are said to practice mutual submission. And certainly we are to love one another, we are to serve one another, We are to consider others better than ourselves. But friends, nowhere in the Bible are we told to submit to one another in the sense of each Christian submitting to every other Christian.

Now it's better to read this phrase here in verse 21 as another evidence of the filling of the Spirit and as bridging over into the specific investigation of how we to walk worthily in the world as children of light, not like the Gentiles walk.

So if you think of Ephesians as a sort of graph of light, you move from the shining brightness in chapter 1 of God's eternal plan and His love for us, all the way to the very end of the book in chapter 6 with the warfare, you know, with the armor of God as we're contesting with the evil one. And as we're getting close to the end of the book here, he's looking from the church out into three specific ways that members of the church are going to be interacting with authority, and authority that could be held by non-Christians. An authority that could be challenging to us. And that's what he's getting to here, I think, in this section in chapter 5. Paul tells the Ephesians that nothing he said should be taken as undermining their marriages or the families or the jobs that they've been a part of or held when they came to Christ.

So among Christians, even though we are reconciled and one with Christ, this doesn't imply that there's no authority. No, he's saying even among us Christians with earthly ethnic distinctions submerged in our new spiritual unity, like he talked about back in chapter 2, in chapter 3, we should be seeing submitting to others even in these evil days and in all the relationships we find ourselves in when we're converted in these ways he talks about. By the way, I think even the order in which Paul addresses these three pairs is significant. He begins with marriage, and then he has children, the family, and then he has work. Because I think marriage is the most generative and seminal, both literally and figuratively, of these relationships.

From this all the other institutions of our life spring. In each situation in vision, Paul admonishes both the one under authority and in authority. His emphasis is on the first one each time, on part on the part of the one submitting that he's to play, perhaps because that would be the most easily misconstrued or misunderstood or even rejected. So Paul exhorts them how they should respect the authorities outside the church as being from God. Just beginning to get into it here.

Let's go to chapter 5. Let me start reading with verse 22. Ephesians chapter 5 verse 22. Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord.

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. 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 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. 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'm saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. Just one quick note, lest you be confused, this is not a sermon on gender.

While all married people are gendered, not all gendered people are married. We will definitely encounter some of the same issues, but our focus and understanding this portion of God's Word is far more narrow. We want to understand marriage, more of what it is and why it is. So kids, doing this will help you to understand what your parents experience. And we'll show you what many of you will do when you grow up.

Young people, this will help you to know what kind of husband or wife you should aim at being and what you should be looking for in someone you would marry.

If you're here as a single person, this will help you to understand what many of those around you are called to, and so equip you to help them.

If you're divorced, This may help to reestablish a clearer idea of God's design after the confusion you've experienced so painfully. If you're in the middle of a long Christian marriage, this may remind you who you are and what you're doing.

And if you're widowed, this can help you to recall God's kindnesses in your life for a season, and trust him as he calls you now to wait on him in a different way.

Most directly, if you're married, whether to a Christian or to a non-Christian, this will be some simple, clear instruction from God's Word for you. What is God's will for marriage?

What is God's will for marriage? First, to the wife. First to the wife. It is to submit. This is his wisdom for the wife.

If she is to understand what the will of the Lord is, what is wisdom in her lot, her duty. Paul expresses the wife's duty repeatedly in our passage, verse 22, Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife. The wife is presented as being the one under the authority of her head, as Paul calls the husband here. Paul begins by talking especially to those, as I say, in the weaker position who are called to submit or to obey. So especially if the master or the parents of those in the Ephesian congregation were not Christians, the Christians may well have wondered, well, I've become a Christian now, so does this dissolve the obligations that I had?

That I had taken before I came to Christ, that I'm now under to those who are not Christians? Does this somehow absolve my relationship with them and the authority they have? I can imagine that could be a very pressing question on many in the Ephesian congregation. Paul is clear here in verse 22, Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. It's interesting, even by the the tense of the verb.

You can tell the submission is something that can't be taken, it has to be given. That's why he addresses the wives directly. Wives submit. The question people ask today sometimes incredulously, not believing that such an idea could even be on our minds, is saying, Are you saying that wives should obey their husbands? And the answer here is clearly, Yes.

Wives, the Bible teaches that you are to obey and to submit to your husband. This is no reason for following your husband into sin or to submit to abuse. Those are quite different questions. But the gist of this passage is that if you are here this morning as a married woman, you are to submit yourself to your husband.

That doesn't mean that all women should submit to all men. That's not what this is teaching. It's not like women are privates and men are sergeants. It's not saying that a woman should submit to all husbands. No, look at what he says here.

He says, Wives, submit to your husband. There's no inferiority taught in submitting. You see that on in chapter 6, there's no suggestion that children are inferior to their parents, that bond servants are inferior to their masters. Here, too, husbands and wives have equal dignity. Both are created in the image of God, both when they're saved or indwelt by the same Spirit.

Peter at one point in 1 Peter 3 talks about your wives being heirs with you of the grace of life.

In marriage, though, our roles are different. Note that phrase there at the end of verse 22, As to the Lord, this is how you're to submit to your husband. Are you wondering how you can pray to understand that and do that better? Pray the Lord will show you how you can submit to your husband as to the Lord. What does that mean?

Well, I think it's as much about the manner of obedience from the heart as it is about the scope of it. Lives, this is part of your duty to the Lord.

So you notice up in verse 21, the verse right before that, when Paul had just said there in 5:21, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.

You see, when you and I obey these commands in Scripture, that's ultimately showing are trusted, this is God's Word that we want to obey Him and follow what He says. It's His credit that ultimately we're being asked to trust and to rely on and to spend into.

Notice that phrase then and consider what it would mean for you today to behave out of reverence for Christ. In this way to your husband. It reminds me again in 1 Peter 3 of the way Peter seems to connect the way Sarah obeyed Abraham and the women of old obeyed their husbands because they were hoping in God. There's something about that knowing that there is that greater authority that is unerring, that enables you to give yourself in trust, ultimately, of God. This submission is not a complete and entire obedience like the kind that is due only to God, but it's the normal stance you should take towards your husband because, as we read here in verse 23, the husband is the head of the wife.

You can go back to Genesis 1 and 2 this afternoon. And read of the creation of man and woman by God, read of God's instituting marriage. And at marriage, man is made the head of the wife, even in the way he was made first, and his work seemed to define hers. In Genesis 2:24, Paul quotes down to verse 31 in our passage. You'll notice that it's the husband who's charged with the leaving, the husband is charged with the cleaving.

The holding fast. So the husband is the one who's presented as being the moving spirit in beginning this new family and the wife submits to the husband's role in this. She was literally made for him. We read in Genesis 2:18 to be his helper. She is to help her husband keep God's commands.

The head's leadership comes to fruition in the wife's submission. And the result is a coordinated action in all of life's labors, from marriage to parenting, from home to work, from local church to reaching the neighbors to reaching the nations. Paul repeats this basic instruction to wives in verse 24, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything and that everything is striking. It's been the point of some questions that have come. This means that the wife's submission is not limited by her husband's love or her husband's character, but only by whether submitting to him in whatever particular would require the wife to go against the Lord.

So, sister, if you think that you are being charged by your husband to do something wrong, then you should take your Bible this afternoon and look at Acts chapter 5 and look at what the apostles did there in chapter 5 of Acts, verses 27, 28, 29, when they were charged by legitimate authorities not to speak in the name of Christ. What did they do? Well, they disobeyed those legitimate authorities because of this still higher authority that was being contradicted. So why if that's the passage that you should go to, to consider that. Nothing harmful or unjust or ungodly should be done in the name of obedience to your husband because that would involve you in not obeying Christ.

And Christ is the supreme authority over every husband.

Now, what if you're not yet married? What does this mean for you?

Well, one thing would certainly be this, stop hanging out with that guy that you wouldn't be happy to submit to. Why would you lead on someone that you really would have no interest in giving your life over to? And that kind of amazing, even breathtaking trust. I don't mean be uncivil to them in the hall, but I'm just saying, sisters, Look, kindness is one thing, but just leave it there. Be discriminating in who you would encourage in their affections towards you.

Look down at Paul's summary in verse 33. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. The verb is different there than the verb earlier for submit, but I think the sphere of meaning is the same.

Very simply put, the wife has a duty, we read here, to respect and out of respect to submit to her husband. Or, here's the amplified version, how the amplified version puts it. The amplified version is the old American Standard Version of 1901 with some people's ideas of every other translation they could think of for the particular words thrown in. So here's Ephesians 5:33 in the amplified version. You could memorize it if it's helpful.

But I would suggest that it be memorized by the wives, not by the husbands. Let the wife see that she respects and reverences her husband, that she notices him, regards him, honors him, prefers him, venerates and esteems him, and that she defers to him, praises him, and loves and admires him exceedingly.

Yeah, I laughed when I first read that. And then as I thought about it, I thought, that's not a bad list.

I mean, which one of those do I hope any of you as wives couldn't do toward your husband?

So take that to pray. To consider. Friends, consider God's wonderful provision in marriage. Those of you who are not married, trust Him for His provision for you. If you're a widow or a widower, those who are otherwise through circumstances or decision unmarried, pray to see how your singleness can be a platform for your trust in God and His loving provision for you.

And do notice the blessing all this is to the church. By submitting to Christ, the wife is sanctified and cleansed. She's washed and made splendid. Verse 27, Without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy, without blemish. That's what we're promised as part of the church.

So friends, understand the high calling of submission. And of course, remember that this is a calling that the Lord Jesus well understands. What do we read in Luke 2? But that when He was incarnated, He submitted Himself to His parents.

Or of course, in Mark chapter 14, Jesus says to His heavenly Father, Not what I will, but what you will.

So this is God's will for wives in marriage: to submit.

What's God's will for marriage? For the husband. Well, this is number two: to love, to love. This is the duty that the husband should undertake in his wisdom of how to walk in the world. Husband, you are by the nature of your relationship to provide leadership in your relationship.

That doesn't mean that your wife is to have no opinions, that she's to have nothing to say or no input, nor that you husband are never wrong. As my wife says lovingly and admiringly about me, always confident, sometimes right, you know.

She knows me well. And I think she would have a high estimate of the number of times I'm right, but she certainly doesn't believe they're infinite. A wise husband will know when his wife is right or is more competent in a particular matter than he is. But what this says by this kind of positional language is that the husband has a role or responsibility that he cannot finally delegate. He is the one who is to guide.

He is the one who will specially answer for his marriage and his wife and his family. And it's all rolled up in this simple command here in verse 25, Husband, Love youe Wives.

Now this may seem like such an obvious command that you are really staggered at the thought that it would even be written down or really admiring of me that I could have anything to say about it. It just seems so obvious. Husband, love your wives. But friends, I have to tell you, when this letter was written, what would have been obvious was the wives submit to your husbands. That would have been socially reinforced everywhere.

But this command to husbands to love their wives, this was not common among Jews or Greeks or Romans. This was the added bit. Do what? Why? I want to make sure that I have an heir for all of my accomplishments in life, but other than that, How should I regard this person?

Paul here under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit says, Husbands, love your wives.

In the call for wives to submit, there wouldn't have been a surprise among the Ephesian Christians. But in hearing this, they would have heard a note of the newness of the kind of life we're called to in Christ. Certainly in the kind of consuming way that Paul describes the love here. I think when people understand this, it still surprises many today.

Look at what this refers to. Notice the nature of the love throughout this passage. In verse 28, In the same way husbands should love their wives, as everybody... Well, what way is that? Well, friends, look at verses 25 and 6 and 7 right before it.

As Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her. Husbands should love the wives as Christ loved the church. Husbands should love their wives as their own body. He who loves his wife loves himself, for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it. John Calvin said that, quote, the man who does not love his wife is a monster, close quote.

Calvin wasn't thinking of a Hollywood movie when he said monster. No, his characterization is so accurate. He's thinking of the distortion that happens when authority is exercised without love and wisdom. What would be good examples in your own life of that kind of monstrous authority? Or if that's too close, in Scripture, what would be some examples?

Well, Adam's acting in the garden, shoving responsibility over to his wife for what he did wrong. Or even beyond that, Satan himself acting with such malice in his direction to Adam and Eve, to disobey the command of God and promising false things. There's no wisdom, no love in that. Friends, God's Word is clear. Leviticus 19:18, you, shall love your neighbor as yourself.

When the lawyer in the last week of Jesus' earthly ministry in Mark 12 asked Jesus which was the greatest commandment, Jesus said, It's to love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. And then He gave him a second that the lawyer didn't even ask for. And you shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than than these. Friends, this is the basic command on all of us as Christians to love like this.

I love how Augustine amplified that command. He said, Now you love yourself suitably when you love God better than yourself. What then you aim at in yourself, to love God better than yourself, you must aim at in your neighbor. Namely, that he may love God with a perfect affection. For you do not love him as yourself unless you try to draw him to that good which you are yourself pursuing.

From this precept proceed the duties of human society. Well friends, if this is how we're taught to love others, husbands, if that's true with your neighbor, how much more with the one who has promised to love you so completely and trustingly? This is how Paul gets to his simple reason there in verse 29, For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it. That nourishes and cherishes is the image of like a mother with her newborn in 1 Thessalonians, or a pastor among his people, or even here over in chapter 6 verse 4 where the fathers are exhorted to care for the children by bringing them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. That as their own bodies there in verse 28 I think is an especially strong statement in these days when there is so much concern about health Friends, how many men are vitally concerned, consumingly concerned, about their own bodies, even about their appearance?

Think of the time and resources, husband, you put into doctor's visits and health plans or meal planning or the time at the gym.

And now can you imagine being devoted to your wife like that.

That's the kind of love you're being called to here. I take it from Paul's words here that our desire to love our wives well should be as basic to us as the impulse hunger gives us to feed ourselves. That basic should be, husband, your desire to love your wife. And you can see why perversion of this is particularly heinous, or as Calvin said, monstrous. I mean a relationship specifically made for the blessing of wives and through them of all people being turned to benefit instead himself.

And at the cost of those, the authority was given to protect and bless.

As somebody who thinks a lot about pastors and pastoral ministry, I just thought of Ezekiel 34. Just turn over to Ezekiel 34 for a moment. It's such a striking example of this. And I think because it's away from what sometimes is the fraught memories of your marriage, you may see something more clearly by analogy at first. Over in Ezekiel 34, the word of the Lord came to me, Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel.

That's the leaders of Israel. Prophesy and say to them, 'Even to the shepherds, thus says the Lord God: Ah, shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep? You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fat ones, but you do not feed the sheep. The weak you have not strengthened, the sick you have not healed, the injured you have not bound up, the strayed you have not brought back, the lost you have not sought.

And with force and harshness you have ruled them. So they were scattered because there was no shepherd, and they became food for all the wild beasts. My sheep were scattered. They wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill. My sheep were scattered over all the face of the earth with none to search or seek for them.

Therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: As I live, declares the Lord God, surely because my sheep have become a prey and my sheep have become food for all the wild beasts, since there was no shepherd, and because my shepherds have not searched for my sheep, but the shepherds have fed themselves and have not fed my sheep, therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: Thus says the Lord God, Behold, I am against against the shepherds.

You're saying, But didn't God raise the shepherds up to care for his sheep? Yes, He did. But then the shepherds were disobedient to their calling. Friends, that is not how husbands are to love. If you look back in our passage, you look at the second half of verse 29, and you see that wonderful truth again.

Second half of verse 29, Just as Christ does the church. So Christ now cares for us as his church as he cares for himself. So here in our passage Paul instructs husbands, this is how you care for your wife. Look at verse 25, Husbands, love your wives. Or verse 28 again, In this same way 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, but he feeds and cares for it. Paul is exhorting husbands to have a nourishing, cherishing, tender care for their wives, just like he repeats in the summary down there in verse 33, However, let each one of you love his wife as himself. So, husband, this is the high duty that God gives to you in marriage. And it strikes me, too, that Christ's love for the church was not motivated by the church's loveliness, rather his motive was to make us lovely.

So too with our wives, the ground of our love for them must be found ultimately in God and his love for us. And not in some attribute we husbands require of our wives in order to love them.

When they give themselves in covenant to us, they have our heart, our loyalty, our love. And when we love them like this, we, as Paul says here in verse 28, we love ourselves, because when they prosper, we prosper.

Brother, are you the kind of guy who a godly woman can submit to and trust?

Is this the kind of man you see God working in your character to make you to be?

Husbands, our love for our wives is to extend way beyond simply bringing home a paycheck. We're to love them in such a way that we help to protect them from sin's ravages and free them from sin's dominion and help them escape sin's temptations. And as we do this, we remind those around us without husbands of the much greater work that they can trust God to do in their own lives. We become sort of little breadcrumbs of evidence left in our marriages that other people who are doubting God's goodness can see and can understand and maybe begin to trust God again.

If you're listening to this and you're not a Christian, the crucial bit here is that phrase in verse 25 about Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her. You see, in the Bible we find not merely a teacher like the Buddha or a prophet like Muhammad. Rather, we find a Savior who offers Himself up literally and physically as a sacrifice on the cross, substituting for all of us who would ever turn from our sins and trust in Him.

Here, Christ gave Himself up for her. Christ died for those whom He would save. He took our punishment. So, friend, if you're here today and you want to have a relationship with God where your sins are forgiven, where you can know this kind of love coming at you, repent of your sins. Their sweetness is short, and their way is to lie to you as surely as the serpent did to Adam and Eve.

Repent and trust Christ for the forgiveness and salvation he brings. If you want to know more about that, talk to any of the hundreds of people in this room who are members of this church. Talk to any of us at the doors on the way out. We would love to help you understand more of what it means. For you to know this new life in Jesus Christ.

Husbands, you've known what it's like in your own life to be in submission, so remember that when you're in leadership with your wife. Remember how you've been submitted to your parents, to your boss, to a teacher, to a coach, to the elders. Let that inform how you use your authority in your wife's life.

Life.

I have many times had a young husband come to me frustrated with something about his wife, because he wants to do this, and she's not like that or not up for that or doesn't want to do that, and he feels frustrated. And he may start thinking about words like submission, and he may start wondering, so what can I do to get to this? Why is she standing in my way?

Friend, husband, your wife isn't in your way. Your wife is your way. That's what the Lord has called you to. That's your calling more certainly than that thing you imagine, that ministry you think you should be doing, or that job you think you should take, or that move you think you should make. Print, your wife is your charge under God.

She's not opposing you in the most fundamental sense. She is one of God's clearest ways of communicating with you. What can you do to bless her, to help her, to encourage her, to cause her to prosper spiritually? That's how you know what the Lord wants you to do.

Don't view your wife oppositionally. Let her prosperity be a North Star that helps to guide you in the decisions you make for what is best for your family in the service of the Lord.

What husband here has not sometimes wondered if your job, your career, is not detrimental to your wife's thriving? Well, brothers, those are good questions to ask. Talk about those with each other. Pray about those. Have honest conversations where your wife is encouraged to speak freely.

Wisdom in marriage for the husband is to love your wife.

So what is God's will in marriage for the couple? We've spent most of our time thinking about the wife, the husband. What about just backing up a little bit? For the couple together. Number three, it's to hold fast, to hold fast to each other.

We see the unity that we're called to in the working together. He wants us to be united in our homes. Look again at verse 31, Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. Husband, your concern for your wife is to be as natural as your concern for yourself. Because you are one.

Again, remember Paul's context. Paul is teaching a congregation of young Christians. It's likely that not all of them who were converted were single, but some of the people who got converted when Paul and Timothy and others preached the gospel in Ephesus were married. And these instructions underscore the nature of those marriages contracted outside of Christ and imply their continuing validity once one of the spouses is converted.

And it implies the wrongness of Christians seeking such a close union with someone who is not united to Christ. So yes, your marriage to a non-Christian is completely valid and the church wants to help you live in an honoring way to that spouse. But at the same time, you should not, if you're unmarried, seek such a connection where you try to unite yourself physically with someone from whom you are divided spiritually. I think both of these things are implied here. Directions for the wife with a non-Christian husband and yet the resistance of the idea of a Christian undertaking such a covenant.

We should desire that our physical unity in marriage reflects our spiritual unity in Christ. Brothers and sisters, marriage is a part of God's good provision for us. It reminds us that Christianity is inherently pro-body. We don't think we're some disembodied selves, that we're wrestling with a mismatch. But we think that God in His goodness has assigned us the bodies that are part of us now, in which when raised and glorified will be forever.

This is the religion that teaches that the Son of God Himself took on flesh and was born as a baby. He grew. Hungered and thirsted, He lived and died, He was bodily raised from the dead, He ascended visibly and will someday return in the same way. Our bodies are part of God's good plan for us. That is unusual wisdom today.

Pray for your pastors that we know how to teach this well and clearly. In strange times. The implication of this union from verse 29 is that the husband keeps and feeds his wife so that this headship is used for her good. And friends, that's to be true of all authority, any authority that you're given in this life, you're to use for the good of those who are under your authority. You think of David's dying words in 2 Samuel 23.

When one rules justly over men, ruling in the fear of God, you see that's just like Paul has said here up in verse 21, submitting out of reverence for Christ. Ruling in the fear of God, he dawns on them like the morning light, like sun shining forth on a cloudless morning, like rain that makes grass to sprout from the earth. Friends, you know inherently that good authority blesses those underneath it. You know that from being in school and all the kids want to go over to the house with the good parents. Everybody wants to be in the class with a good teacher or the team with a good coach.

When you're looking for a job, everybody wants to work for the good boss. Friends, good authority blesses those who are underneath it. What about those who are never united with others? In marriage. Friend, don't misunderstand this sermon.

You are no less in the image of God. You too are reflecting God's image in your being and in the way that God calls you to love himself and others. If you want some more Scripture to think of, go to 1 Corinthians chapter 7 this afternoon and reflect on what Paul says about singleness to the Corinthians. In verses 7 and 8 and 27 and 38, just read through that 1 Corinthians chapter 7 about the goodness of the gift of singleness and reflect on the fact that when God Himself was incarnated, He was single, perhaps as a prefiguring of His giving Himself entirely for His already arranged bride, the church. Thank God for the examples he's placed in our midst of couples and the unity we see.

They're all over the place in this congregation. We are rich in God's blessings here. Did you hear Chris and Beth Sweet sharing with us the Parkers a few Sunday nights ago? Or Joe and Bethany Brown? Or Bill and Claudia Anderson?

Matt and Eli Schmucker? Ethan and Wendy Reedy? Friends, I could go on and on, Steve and Donna Boyer, Roger and Caroline Simmons, Greg and Mary Brown, on and on and on with these rich examples that God has given to us. Perhaps you're someone who hasn't known this kind of unity in your marriage, in your life as a couple. Maybe it's been disappointing.

Perhaps you're feeling needy in your marriage, especially in the middle of a sermon on marriage.

Maybe your spouse has betrayed you in some way. Or maybe you've become unsatisfied because your spouse has been really wicked to you.

God hears and sees. This afternoon, take some time to read over three Psalms. Can you just jot down three Psalms? That I think might help you to find some words you're looking for. Psalm 17, and Psalm 55, and Psalm 140.

Psalm 17, and Psalm 55, and Psalm 140. Don't be embarrassed to write them down. You can tell someone you're writing them down for a friend.

See if you can find words in those Psalms to speak to God and to renew your trust in Him and to get wisdom about what you should do. Speak to me. I'll be at that door afterwards. Or any of the other pastors or counselors here about what you might do.

The final verse also reminds us that marriage is not just about one or the other, but it's about both working together there in verse 33. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife I see that she respects her husband. I pray that God will continue to use the marriages in this congregation to give encouragement and hope to those who are divorced and disillusioned today. Paul calls this a mystery here in verse 32, not because it's like how on earth could you have a good marriage? No, it's a mystery.

It just means it's something that he placed in creation that's now its purpose is open and clear. It was to point us to Christ and his church. Its purpose is now revealed.

Young people, I pray that you too will see here that the leaving of father and mother, here in verse 31, is to happen before the holding fast and the becoming one flesh. So to switch from the ESV to more the NIV, get married before you have sex. That's what the Bible is teaching here. The covenant of marriage commitment is the context in which the physical union is meant to be supporting and expressing it. You want to know more about that?

Talk to your parents when you get home.

Dear couples, love each other, hold fast to each other, work together. Husbands, realize that your growth in loving will help your wife's submission. Wife, realize that your growth in submission will encourage your husband's loving.

And I pray that God will keep us united as couples and working together for everyone's good and for His glory.

Let me put one other lens on this. What's God's will for marriage, especially for the church? For the church, this would be number four. His wisdom for the church is to discern in our life together as a church in here and also to give us wisdom as we go out into the world. So look again at verse 21 up there when Paul says submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.

That's what we're talking about doing here. Getting marriages right helps the local church. Paul was concerned, you remember, about the unity of the church there in Ephesus. One of the most basic forms of unity is unity in the marriages of the church. It's really like cells being healthy.

In the body. Good marriages engender the ability to trust in other situations. So, husband, if your wife has had a hard time trusting, you are on the front lines of trying to clean up whatever toxic mess has been left in her life. You're on the front lines of showing her, imperfectly, I know, but really and truly, something of God's love. Of His faithfulness.

So here in the church where the congregation is led by a group of elders, and you'll note there are no women serving as one of the elders. Now our world would look at this and they would say, well, this is all wrong. This is a glass ceiling to be broken. The Bible presents this as God's design, as good for all of those. Who have the challenge to exercise authority for the good of all and for all of those who are called to trust and submit to such leadership, which includes the women in the church and most all of the men in the church.

And even as an elder, it includes all the elders in the church. Friends, just to give you a little insight into our mysterious elders meetings, We make decisions by prayer and searching the Scriptures and discussion, but then we finally do that most rational of activities, we vote. And guess what? Your beloved senior pastor pretty regularly loses votes. And when I lose votes, I assume it's the will of Almighty God.

And I go, Right, I now think differently about that matter. And we're not voting on the divinity of Christ. I mean, it's not that kind of stuff. We're voting on whether or not to encourage you as a congregation to sell a piece of property or to admit a certain member or the wisdom of doing a certain thing pastorally. And friends, that's where all of us, you'll notice in the elder vows, we always take with new elders, the first one where the guy responds, I do with God's help.

Is that vow where he promises to submit to his fellow elders in the Lord. Because brothers and sisters, this is a reality for all of us. So wives and husbands, you can lead the way for people in the church to grow in trust as you provide close-up examples in your own lives and homes. Just listen to the gossip in the hallways after a service. What selflessness there is.

In the way that husband is loving his wife. What humility in the way that wife is submitting to her husband. I think I see more of what this could mean for me in my life, in my marriage, here in the church. And look at how peace and goodness are spread in a troubled congregation as those loving come to know and understand and value Christ's love even more. And as those who are submitting come to know and understand and value what we're all called to do in the church toward Christ.

You see how marriage can actually act as a dynamo, charging up the church's resources to praise and thank God for what He has done for us in Christ. What a great gift a good wife is for her husband. And what a great gift a good husband is for his wife. And what a great gift a good couple is for this church and for those around them, and especially for any children God might give them.

So that's wisdom in our lives together as a church, but also then looking out. A good marriage ends up helping answer the very thing Paul's been pressing on the Ephesians since chapter 4 about how to walk worthy. All this should help us to have wisdom we need to walk in this world in a manner worthy of the calling we've been called to, no longer as the Gentiles do, but in love, trying to discern what pleases the Lord. You remember that up in 5:10, walking carefully and wisely, understanding what the Lord's will is up there in verse 17. Surely The love we learn here in the church, we can take into our marriages and families and workplaces.

The good authority we experience in our marriage is to be a mirror of the good authority that we experience in our church and that we try to embody and teach in the world. And you see why this is so important. Even as authority is abused in a church, and that can undermine and discourage authority being recognized and relied on, in a home, so authority, happily recognized and trusted and well used in a church. Particularly as we recognize Christ and humbly submit ourselves to His instructions and correction, such a church can encourage good practices of authority in our homes. And if we turn it around, we also see that good marriages can picture the gospel for others.

It can show people outside a way of beginning to think of life that they had never thought of. Friends, this is where a humble obedience and a joyful submission and evident self-giving care begin to undermine the challenges of the evil one's great lie that those in authority should never be trusted. Do you remember how Satan tempted Eve? She lied to him, suggesting that God was not good, that because he was telling them no, he couldn't really love them. That's what's behind all the concern at the end of the day for authority.

You see how this challenge... this challenge is the lonely individualism. The egalitarianism really weakens the love that God intends us to experience in so many areas of our lives as we trusts, and actually are treated well through it and helped through it. Brothers and sisters, it will never be perfect in this world, but it can really be good to people left isolated and in a distrustful, scared egalitarianism. A happy practice of and care not to abuse authority can be a powerful picture of the gospel.

Think of marriages you've known where the wife or the husband serves the other one just extraordinarily well. A friend mentioned last night the example of B.B. Warfield, whose wife was struck by lightning on their honeymoon, and for her whole life was bedridden. And Warfield, who normally would have had a ministry of much traveling and much activity, Warfield lectured at his class at Princeton Seminary and then walked back to his house. And stayed with his wife.

And he did that for decades. Or friends, read about pastors in China who spend years and even decades in prison and read of their faithful wives who stay faithful to them and love them and pray for them and keep their families.

God's will for marriages in the church It's for them to be united and to help give us the wisdom that we need to walk carefully in this world. Let me conclude by helping us think about what God is doing in marriage. To pull the camera out just a little bit more, he is depicting hope for the hopeless.

Like he did in the days of those abusive shepherds of Israel, Let's just go back to Ezekiel 34 again.

Verse 7, and this is better than you think it's going to be. Go on and turn there. 34, beginning at verse 7, Therefore you shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: As I live, declares the Lord God, surely because My sheep have become a prey, and My sheep have become food for all the wild beasts, since there was no shepherd, And because my shepherds have not searched for my sheep, but the shepherds have fed themselves and have not fed my sheep, therefore you shepherds hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God, Behold, I am against the shepherds. And that's where I stopped when I read it to you earlier.

But friends, keep listening. And I will require my sheep at their hand, and put a stop to their feeding the sheep. No longer shall the shepherds feed themselves. I will rescue My sheep from their mouths, that they may not be food for them. For thus says the Lord God, 'Behold, I, I myself, will search for My sheep, and seek them out.

As a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered, so will I seek out My sheep, and I will rescue them from all the places where they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness, and I will bring them out from the peoples, and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their their own land, and I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the ravines and in all the inhabited places in the country. I will feed them with good pasture, and on the mountain heights of Israel shall be their grazing land. There they shall lie down in good grazing land, and on rich pastures they shall feed on the mountains of Israel. Friends, in marriage God has left us a picture of how He would come Himself to rescue us from our own rebellion against him. You see in verse 32 he says, the mystery is profound.

By that he means that the puzzle, it's not a puzzle to be solved, but this plan that was once hidden when creation happened now is discovered openly and spoken of and revealed. He says here, I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. So Genesis 2:24 that Paul quotes here was, among other things, God's creation analogy constructed in our very being to teach us about Christ and the church. God would come and give himself for us in love in Christ. And we would respond by submitting ourselves to him in answering trust, and so making us united to Christ by faith and adopted by the Father and indwelt by his Spirit.

And so two ends, even beyond the narrow confines of this world and this life, would be achieved. God would display his wisdom to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places, and he would delight himself in the blameless and holy, de-wrinkled and spotless splendor of the church. Do you see both of those things here? God would display his wisdom by his splendid work here. This is what Paul was talking about back up in Ephesians 3 verse 10, where he wrote that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.

Friends, that's talking about us. We are the way God will be shown to be wise to these rulers in the heavenly places. You see our sinful, embarrassed, hiding selves described here. Friend, God intends to present us without a blemish. He intends to present this fallible congregation as a part of His splendid, gloriously radiant bride.

That's why you never want to run down this church with your words. You don't want to run down any other true church with your words. That's a glorious bride of Christ. He who has far more grounds to be critical than you or I doesn't. He loves.

He gives himself in love. He intends to present this fallible congregation as part of his splendid, gloriously radiant bride. That's why he gave himself up for us, to make us holy in every sense. Christ so loves and cares for the church. And by this he displays his wisdom to others.

But there's still more. This other thing, did you know how he delights himself? He presents the church to himself in verse 27. Notice that phrase there. It's just, there's two little words you shouldn't miss.

So that he might present the church to himself in splendor. God makes His people splendid. Friends, Christ has loved us not because we were lovely, but in order to make us lovely, to express His wisdom, but also to delight Himself. I have a very bad habit of reading on Friday, usually at least one Spurgeon sermon on the text that I'm going to be preaching of. And I say bad habit because his sermons are about the best things I've ever read in language.

And I read them and I think, why do I bother to write sermons? I could save us all a lot of time and work. I read pretty well. Why don't I just grab a Spurgeon sermon and read it? I mean, I think we'd be far more edified.

There are theological problems with that. You can see me at the door. That's not the point of the sermon. But Spurgeon was preaching on this passage, and he's preaching as a young man when he's in his, like, around 30, I think, and he's preaching to this church that's just burgeoned. It's the hugest church the world had ever seen.

And he's preaching and he says about this, we have no glorious church on earth. And he talks about how, yes, the Lord's doing many good things here, but this church is not glorious. I know of sins and struggles in my own heart and the hearts of so many others here. And he says, the church in England is not glorious. The church around the globe today is not glorious.

But Christ is bringing us to be that, to be without spot or wrinkle or any such things. Friends, what a phrase, spots we can imagine getting out, but wrinkles, I mean, those seem a little bit more permanently marked in time's passage, but wrinkles, too, are gone. He says that she might be holy and without blemish. That's what he's about doing. That's what we have a dress rehearsal of.

In obedience to Jesus' command tonight, around his table. If you're a member of the church, please be here for that. As we act out a memorial of his last supper that he gave to us, and at the same time a dim preview of the marriage supper of the Lamb when he returns, when we will stand complete in him and he will delight to present us to himself Friends, this is how the Bible climaxes in some of the last words of the Bible over in Revelation 19, verse 6. Hallelujah, for the Lord our God the Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exult and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His bride has made herself ready.

It was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure. For the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints. And then on in chapter 21, Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man.

He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. Friends, the previews of that great tomorrow are to be our marriages. Today.

Let's pray.

Lord, which of us can come before youe as those fully obedient to the wisdom youn share with us here?

And yet, God, our hearts are moved by the wisdom of youf ancient plan and the heights of youf amazing promises in Christ.

We pray, Lord, that yout would work all the good of youf Word in us by youy Spirit. Help our marriages. We pray for our good. And the good of others, and to your glory. In Jesus' name, Amen.