In this sermon, the speaker addresses the importance of husbands taking the lead in creating a godly environment in their homes. He emphasizes that it is the husband's role to bring the standard into the home and that wives should submit to their husbands in this matter. The speaker also mentions the potential challenges that may arise, such as resistance from the wife or materialism. He encourages couples to obey what God has called them to do in their roles, as this can lead to a blessed and fulfilling marriage.

We come once again this evening to our series within a series that we began last week, the series on marriage and the family. And I want to read to you once again Ephesians 5 beginning in verse 22 through 33. We're going to read these verses every week so you'll know them by memory by the time we're done with this series we're doing here. Verse 22 Ephesians 5 Paul says, wives submit to your own husbands as to the Lord for the husband is head of the wife as also Christ is head of the church and he is the savior of the body. Therefore just as the church is subject to Christ so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Husbands love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for her that he might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word that he might present her to himself a glorious church not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing but that she should be holy and without blemish. So husbands ought to love their own 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 the Lord does the church for we are members of his body of his flesh and of his bones for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. This is a great mystery but I speak concerning Christ and the church nevertheless let each one of you in particular so love his wife as himself and let the wife see that she respects her husband and so when we began our series last week the message that we shared last week was entitled God and Marriage and you remember perhaps if you were with us or maybe those of you listening on the radio that we talked about the fact that marriage is an institution that was ordained by God. It originated with him we talked about how marriage is sacred for the very reason that it originated in God and then we talked about the fact that marriage is permanent intended to be permanent by God and then we went on to talk a little bit about the purpose of marriage and we saw that the primary purpose of marriage is companionship that we might have a companion someone that we can relate to closely spiritually and emotionally and mentally and physically then we saw that procreation is another purpose in marriage that the human race might be perpetuated and then we saw also that God through the marriage relationship is wanting to set forth an example to people of the relationship that he shares with his people and then finally we looked at ways to assure a God-glorifying marriage and that if we are submitted to the lordship of Jesus Christ if we are walking in the spirit and if we are obeying explicitly what we are called to do then we can anticipate a marriage that's going to glorify God so that's an overview of what we did in our first study we're going to move on tonight to speak on the wonderful topic of wives submitting to their husbands one of my favorite topics in all of the bible i'm just joking this of course is a topic that is a controversial topic it shouldn't be really but it is because there has been a great misrepresentation of what the bible actually teaches on this subject there has been a misrepresentation on the part of men regarding what it is to be the head over the household or over the woman and so forth and the misrepresentations have caused confusion and frustration and resentment and things like that so we hopefully can give a good balanced biblical understanding of the subject so that everyone involved is blessed so that the ladies here among us this evening can go home saying God I thank you that the bible says submit to my husband because as we're going to see this is really God's plan and it's it's the best God everything God does is the best every plan he has is the best possible plan so if in your mind there's a negative you know sort of a thing that comes up when you hear this verse quoted then know that you're misunderstanding what the bible teaches and what God has in mind and God wants you to be able to rejoice in his word in this area so let's just look once again at these verses verse 22 wives submit to your own husbands as unto the lord for the husband is head of the wife is also Christ is head of the church and he is the savior of the body therefore just as the church is subject to Christ so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything now the word submit it is a strong word and there are those who try to um sort of you know get away from what's really being taught here by saying well you know this word submit doesn't really mean what people give the impression that it means that you're actually you know supposed to subordinate yourself to your husband well that is exactly what the word means the word that's translated submit into english the greek word hupotasso was actually a military term primarily used in a military context meaning to place oneself under the authority of another as in subordination to a superior officer and so paul begins his practical instruction here in marriage with calling the wives to be submissive to their own husbands now many have accused paul of being sexist many have accused paul of being against women and that sort of thing and many just flat out reject his teaching here and they say that this isn't god's teaching this is just paul's teaching because he grew up in a male dominant culture and he was just speaking for his culture we're going to see in a moment that there's nothing further from the truth but what we need to understand is when the bible calls the wife to submit to the husband it's not because the wife is inferior to the husband it doesn't mean that she is spiritually or mentally inferior and the bible does not teach at all that women are spiritually or mentally inferior to men but often just you know when this teaching of submission comes up immediately that's the conclusion that people begin to draw and i would suggest that that's not a fair conclusion let me ask you a couple of questions is jesus inferior to god the father because he submits to him if we know anything about what the bible says we would have to answer no the bible teaches that there is an absolute equality between god the father god the son and god the holy spirit here's another question are church members inferior to church elders because they are called to submit to them the obvious answer there is no there's no inferiority on the part of church members to church elders they're both people but there's a difference in position and you see god is a god of order and he has structured things in a certain way because this is the way they work best god knows what works best he created the whole system of life and so he knows the proper order and the wife is not inferior to the husband any more than christ is superior inferior to the father or church members are inferior to church elders it's just a matter of an order that god has established so that things can function the best way possible that's what the intention is man and woman are equal in the sense that they both bear the image of god equally when we go back to the very beginning of creation the creation of man and the creation of woman we find there that god said let us make man in our image and according to our likeness and then god created them male and female he created them in his image so man and woman equally bear the image of god now in the marital relationship what we have is a partnership of two spiritually equal human beings man and woman but the man is called to bear the primary responsibility to lead the partnership in a god-glorifying direction because that's the way god has established it and the wisest thing that anyone could ever do is submit to god's order in things it's when we refuse to follow god's directions that life becomes miserable so know this god did not give this instruction here to make you miserable as a christian wife he gave this instruction to bless you this is when marriage is going to be at its best when the wife is doing what she's called to do and the husband is called doing what he's called to do now the wife's call to submit shows the biblical principle of male headship this is a biblical principle male headship which is modeled after christ who is the head of the church now this is the biblical teaching male headship modeled after christ who is the head of the church the antithesis of male headship is male dominance there's a vast difference between those two things male headship is biblical modeled after christ who is the head of the church male dominance is sin and there's been much sin in this area generally speaking throughout human history and there has even been sin in the church in this regard where men have dominated women rather than held that place of headship over them and that has certainly been wrong let me just define what male dominance is it's the assertion of the man's will over the woman's will heedless of her spiritual equality her rights and her values the bible does not teach or condone in any way male dominance now you see we so often hear that the bible is a sexist book the you know the apostle was sexist and you know and and quite often they will point to examples of male oppression over women in the context of the church but you see what they're failing to distinguish is that that's not what the bible teaches that's a misrepresentation of what the bible teaches the bible does not teach or condone male dominance it condemns it and i think it's important that we understand that today because there's all kinds of confusion out in the world today and there's all kinds of accusations being put forth against the teaching of scripture and yet quite often it's not really the scriptures people are actually against they think they are because they they look at you know what they see in the christian community and say oh well you know this obviously is what the bible teaches no not necessarily true many times it's a distortion of what the bible teaches and paul himself his teaching here it really flew right in the face of the view generally held at his time now this whole thing of male dominance is not a new thing this has been going on for centuries and it was the general manner of life at the time that paul wrote so when paul wrote about there being neither male nor female in christ but all are one when paul wrote that the husband was to love his wife as christ loved the church and gave himself for it these were things that were flying in the face of the culture that paul was brought up in both the jewish culture and the greco-roman culture he was really standing against the tide of his day among the jews the rabbis had taught that women were basically servants in fact the rabbis taught the men to pray this prayer god i thank you that i am not a gentile a slave or a woman amen so that was the general attitude among the jews at the time the greeks demosthenes an athenian orator and statesman he said this he said we have courtesans for the sake of pleasure we have concubines for the sake of daily cohabitation and we have wives for the purpose of having children legitimately and being faithful guardians for our household affairs and the romans they were very similar in their view to the greeks they took much of their culture from the greek culture so as paul comes onto the scene as the apostle of jesus christ and he's talking about this equality and no distinction between men and women and really elevating women in a way that they had never known historically you see paul was anything but against women he is not the one to blame for the sexist attitude that has sometimes been found among christians it's a distortion of paul's teaching paul taught male headship modeled after christ the head of the church a distortion of that is male dominance so the bible elevates women to a most honorable place and a wife submitting to her husband is god's good plan for women so with that let's look specifically at this whole thing of submission wives submit to your husbands remember the idea is to subordinate yourself put yourself under their leadership so many questions arise when we start talking about submission one of the first questions is what if i disagree with my husband am i still to go along with him am i still to give him the lead well that would definitely be submission now if you just go along with everything he says that you agree with then it's hard to see in that any real act of submission you see it's when you might not totally agree and you say okay nevertheless dear i'm going to trust god and do what he called me to do in this situation that's when you're really obeying this command here to be submissive now you might say but that's frightening because my husband doesn't always make the best decisions and as a matter of fact i'm a lot smarter than he is and i'm afraid if i just submit in this area that he's going to get us into all kinds of trouble listen this is where you get the opportunity to live by faith this is where you get an opportunity to trust the lord and you can say lord i think this is really a lame move on the part of my husband and lord i'm going to trust you to convince him that he's not supposed to go in this direction and you know god is good he's going to take care of him he's going to help out in the situation but this is the the position the wife is to take even if you disagree with your husband's decisions you see god has called him to lead and if he's making the wrong decision you must trust that god is able to communicate that to him and he is hopefully going to submit to god in that area and if he doesn't you're going to just have to trust that god's going to deal with him as well now what if my husband asked me to do something against scripture a wife might say well that of course would be where you would have to draw the line on submission god is not going to call you to submit to your husband to the point that you end up disobeying him and so it's important to understand that i heard just recently of a man a christian man a man who was in ministry actually who had a problem and sexually and he was wanting his wife to get involved in all of these bizarre things that were helping him supposedly enjoy that aspect of his life more and the stuff that he was asking her to get into was just absolutely wrong it was clearly sinful and in this particular case the woman went along with it thinking well you know i'm supposed to submit to my husband not to that extent that's not what the bible's talking about you know it's sort of like the the command in the old testament for children to honor their parents many times people will you know ask the question well what about my parents you know they're atheists they're hostile to christianity they persecute me and they're you know and then they'll they'll go on and kind of describe the situation and am i supposed to be obedient and submissive in that area and you know you have to remember that those commandments were given in the context of a of a nation that was set apart for god and the commandment for the children to honor their parents was given on the assumption that the parent was honoring god and so when a parent is not honoring god then it you know how do you say you know i'm not talking about small children i'm talking about many times adult children will ask those questions and and likewise the context of ephesians here is the christian marriage the the relationship between a christian man and a christian woman and so hopefully the christian man is going to be a christian to the extent that he's not going to be asking his wife to do anything that's going to violate god's command on her life and the scriptures but if that were to be the case which it is sometimes that is a place where you draw the line and you do not submit to that extent now what if my husband asked me to do something that violates my conscience maybe scripture doesn't say anything about it but i just don't feel like i can do it well that's something that you need to really take seriously before the lord and you know if it's something like you know it violates your conscience to cook dinner five nights a week that's just something that you cannot really you know bring yourself to do uh i think you probably lost on that one but uh you know if it's something that isn't specifically dealt with in scripture all joking aside that you just feel like now you know i just do not feel as a christian that i can do that then i think you know that's where you would draw the line as well now many times uh a woman will say well what if my husband isn't obeying the lord my husband's a christian but yet he's not really obeying the lord in certain areas what am i to do then well peter gives us the answer to that he said in the third chapter of his first epistle verse one he said wives be submissive to your husbands that even if some do not obey the word they without a word may be won by the manner of life of their wife so it's the submissive spirit that peter says is a great witness and many times when a man is not obeying the lord the tendency of the wife is to then rebel against the husband but that's not the biblical instruction the biblical instruction is to be submissive now paul says here wife submit to your own husbands notice as to the lord now what does he mean by as to the lord you know there are certain things that at times we have to do as to the lord we have to look past the situation and do it as unto the lord you know what i mean there are a number of things that you know sometimes there's something that you don't want to do but you just say well you know i'm going to do this as unto the lord i don't really want to do it but i'm going to do it for the lord's sake and that's what paul is talking about here wife submit to your own husbands as unto the lord remember here's the the important point ladies remember that this is what god calls you to do so even if it goes against the grain with you you have to look beyond your husband the situation and you have to say lord i'm going to do this as part of my obedience to you as a christian there are times when god calls us to obey him and it doesn't necessarily go along with our plan or our thinking on something or doesn't fit in with our agenda so what do we do do we just say well i'm not going to obey god in this area because no we don't do that we submit to the lord and regardless of how we feel about something we say okay i'm going to as unto the lord and that's what paul is talking about here wives submitting to your husbands as unto the lord put the lord before you and realize that this is part of my duty as a christian wife you have certain things that you're called to do as a christian wife your husband has certain things that he's called to do as a christian husband now remember in our first study in the series last week we talked about the importance of obeying explicitly what god has instructed you concerning your role in the marriage and i brought up the problem that we often have in the church of concentrating on what the other person is supposed to do and neglecting to really consider what we are supposed to do and this is where that kind of thing really comes into play because my husband isn't doing what i think he ought to do spiritually then i'm gonna hold off submission until he gets his act together you see what you're doing is you're allowing his failure to cause you to fail and you're not supposed to do that you are supposed to continue steadfast in obedience to the lord regardless of what the other person is doing and then trusting that god is going to deal with the other person god is going to take care of it now my wife learned a long time ago that a lot of times the the worst thing she could possibly do is try to force me to do something and she nicknamed me the rock that is her way of saying that i am immovable at certain times but then she coined this little prayer lord speak to the rock and uh you know i'll tell you the lord speaks to the rock and she might not be able to move me but when she prays for me and god speaks to me i get moved i get convicted i you know and actually you know she's even moving me a little these days i'm not as stubborn as i used to be in my younger years but you see ladies that's the thing it's turning them over to the lord trusting god god you deal with this god this my husband's you know he's doing this or he's not doing this or he's requiring this or he's making this decision here and again you know we we all have a tendency to want to control things you ever heard the term control freak almost everybody i know is a control freak i used to think that was sort of just an isolated thing you know a few people here and there but i realize as time goes on everybody is like that you know that's just human nature we want to control everything and yet some of the stuff that's just beyond our control it's out of our hands and so we have got to trust the lord ladies trust the lord do it as unto the lord look to the lord look beyond your husband now going back here to verse 23 for the husband is head of the wife is also christ is the head of the church why do you do this because the husband is the head why is the husband the head we've already pointed out not because he's superior not because he's smarter not because he's more spiritual but because this is the way god has established it this is what we find going all the way back to the beginning when god created man when he created the man and the woman remembered that adam was created first wasn't it adam was created first and then what did god say he said that the loneliness of man was not good so he decided to create a helper that was suitable for man comparable to him like him create another creature like the man who was suitable able to help the man so the woman was made from the man remember the woman was taken from the man and made for the man and also man and woman together are called man not woman now i say this because there are those today who really want to turn this whole thing upside down not just people outside in the system of the world steeped in the feminist movement there are people in the church who are influenced by the world who want to come into the church and they want to reverse the biblical order and we have within the body of christ today we have what are known as evangelical feminists these are women and men who believe the bible to be the word of god they say they do but they have also been greatly influenced by modern thinkers on the subject of feminism for example and so they try to bring in ideas from these thinkers and and in doing so they are they're trying to really sort of you know get around or even undermine what the scripture is saying and so they actually teach that originally in the original creation when god created the man and the woman there was an absolute equality totally and completely there was no distinction in roles there was no you know man being above the woman in any sense whatsoever the woman wasn't created for the man they say and that's just really a denial of the plain teaching of scripture and you know they really go out on a limb with some of their interpretation and they come up with some some real crazy ideas they they actually teach believe it or not that because the woman was to be the helper to the man that that implies immediately the superiority of the woman because someone who helps someone else is obviously more capable than they are that's why they need their help because this person is superior to them and so they have pulled that out of genesis somehow and then they've actually taken uh one of the hebrew words and they've distorted the hebrew word to mean that the woman is superior to the man and you know it's it's a twisting but what it really is it's just a rebellion against god's established order and the human heart has a tendency toward rebellion and that's what's happening and so we find it in the church and then they go on you know having said all of that they go on to talk about the whole idea of a woman being subservient to a man is a is a result of the curse it's part of the punishment for sin and now here's where they go with that because it's part of the punishment for sin it's no longer relevant to christian women because jesus came and he undid what was done when adam and eve sinned so their conclusion is that under the new testament there is absolutely no place for women to be submissive to men you ask the obvious question then what is ephesians 5 all about but you see here's where it gets problematic they say oh well paul you see he was wrong paul was a product of his culture paul came from a patriarchal man-oriented culture and so he was just communicating what he had himself grown up in but you see in doing that they what they're really doing is they're really denying the inspiration and the authority of the apostle paul they're saying these are paul's words and he was wrong because he was influenced by his culture then what they're saying is that paul's epistles are not inspired by god they're not part of the inspired inerrant authoritative word of god i disagree paul did not write this as a person influenced by his culture paul wrote this under the inspiration of the spirit of god this is what god says this is god's order this is god's plan it's not paul's plan and that's what we really have to understand and if a person has a problem with anything in scripture they have ultimately a problem with god not with man so the scripture definitely teaches male headship and paul here is really just reaffirming the order of creation he's reaffirming the order of creation he's just going back to what was actually taught in genesis now here's an interesting thing to me from my own experience when i met my wife she had been a christian for many many many more years than i had she basically was brought up in the faith and if you ask her today you know when was she saved she has no recollection of a time that she wasn't saved now i on the other hand i had just come to the lord about a year before i met her so here she is she's grown up in the faith and i'm newly converted in many ways and we get together and even though there's that difference there she was older in the lord older spiritually more experienced knew the bible better than i did yet god ordained the man to be the head and it just naturally supernaturally went in that direction i never really had to say okay look now i know you've been a christian longer than i have but i'm in charge okay you know i never had to say that to her god just does what he does he just you know he gave me that role and she submitted to it and see you see sometimes that's that's the thinking of of certain women well i'm older in the lord than my husband or i'm more spiritual and unfortunately sometimes that is the case and because i'm more spiritual than my husband he obviously can't be the leader i've got to be the leader but this is where again a lot of trouble comes up in a marriage when a woman tries to be in the position god has not called her to be in that makes for trouble in the marriage and many times a man who might be battling with his own insecurity about his spiritual inferiority wanting to take the lead because the wife is usurping that position he never really does and there's just this imbalance all the way along in the marriage ladies you got to step out of the way and let your husband be the person that god's called him to be and even if he's not as old in the lord as you even if he's not as well versed as you are even if he doesn't pray as fervently as you do those things don't let those things influence you to get in a place that god doesn't want you to be a place that god hasn't called you to be when you take your position in the marriage that god has ordained that's when you're going to find that marriage is really a good thing this is the way it's supposed to be you see god knows the best and this thing of wives submitting to their husbands it's not a bad thing it's a good thing it's the best thing it's the way things are supposed to be think about this with me for a moment we all know who committed the first sin we all know in a sense what the first sin was it was partaking of the fruit that god had forbidden but you know it's interesting if you look closely at the story there in genesis 3 you know what eve did eve rebelled against her husband's authority she did not acknowledge his authority when satan came to eve eve should have directed the serpent to adam she should not have even conversed with him but she did converse with him and in a sense i'm not you know i don't want to stretch this but in a sense the first sins involved the man and the woman vacating their god-ordained positions not only with eve but with adam as well have you ever noticed when god pronounces judgment upon the man what he says to him he says because you listen to your wife because you obeyed her voice you see there's role reversal there and god is rebuking the man for his failure to be the head and eve was also guilty of a lack of submission in that she took it upon herself to deal directly with the serpent rather than deferring everything over to adam and have you noticed the outcome of that role reversal the human family has been a mess ever since and that is a warning to us that if we do not follow god's order of creation in our marital relationship then we are also going to find that our families are messed up we're going to find that we have got all kinds of trouble in the marriage relationship itself in the parenting relationship in dealing with just the various issues that arise within the context of the family and so wives are to be submissive i have seen and please don't think i'm just accusing wives here because it certainly goes both ways and i could tell stories going both directions but since we're specifically talking to the wives tonight i'll leave it to that but i have i have seen situations where the husband is wanting to go deeper with the lord the husband's wanting to get more serious about his relationship with god he's wanting to bring a new standard into the home he's wanting to make a fresh commitment and you know make some sacrifices and things and i have seen many wives rebel against that and i remember talking to one person about how god was really dealing with him about the whole environment at home and how you know everything was just really out of order the tv was on all the time the kids were always just glued to it and the wife was you know into it and he was feeling really strongly that god was saying you got to go in and clean up your you know your environment here that you live in and yet every time he tried to move in that direction there was great resistance coming from his wife you see that's the exact opposite of what the scriptures are teaching is the man is feeling convicted he's the one to bring the the standard into the home god's going to speak to the husband about that because that's his role and the wisest thing that you could possibly do as a wife is to submit to that and say yes that's a direction that we want to go in you're going to find that you're going to be blessed sometimes a wife will be caught up in materialism the husband will be saying you know i i feel like we need to make a change in our lives we need to you know dedicate ourselves more to fellowship and to the things of the spirit and you know maybe cut back on the overtime and things like that and oh no no we no we can't do that because we need those things and because the woman is living in a state of covetousness she's lusting after material things and so you know resisting the move toward the things of the spirit this is undermining your marriage this is undermining your family this is bringing your own house down on your own head you don't want to do that and so it goes on to say here therefore just as the church is subject to christ so let wives be to their own husbands in everything now let's be real frank here tonight this is right in the face of the culture we live in isn't it i mean this is in your face teaching for 2002 this is so contradictory to the mentality of the world you know what that right there ought to show you the divine nature of it this is just going completely against the tide of what's happening in our world today and you know there are a lot of things that it's funny there are a lot of things that we think just because we think them as modern men and women or post-modern men and women as technically the terminology now that it must be right well no not necessarily you know isn't it funny how you know sort of opinions on a lot of general things have really changed nowadays as though that everybody before this present generation was wrong about almost everything you know we hear about how you know there's all these new standards in child rearing and things like that today and you know you should never spank a child under any circumstances and you know the kind kinds of discipline that many of us who are you know middle age grew up with is seen as something that was you know just a horrible horrible thing in our culture and thank god it's changed you know and and the idea is that we are right in all of our opinions and everybody before us that did anything differently than we did it we're wrong and of course the bible is included in that view the bible's wrong about everything it says about raising children and after all it says beat your children with a rod and we know for sure that that's wrong you know it's funny i don't beat my children but you know i've often thought as i listen to the social service people and all these people you know pontificate on all of this stuff you know what what's the proof that your position is right is are the youth of today are they proof of the superiority of your position give me a break but there's also the mentality today that for a woman to submit to her husband that's just so wrong we have discovered in this generation that everything that everybody did before us was wrong and we've now got it all right we've got more divorce than we've ever had before we've got more family problems than we've ever had in the history of our country we've got more problems with juvenile delinquency than we've ever had so how is it that these people think they're right i read a book some years ago called the vision of the anointed written by an economics professor thomas soul and he says you know there are people in our country there are people in our culture the academic elite who have developed a worldview and simply because they hold that view they believe that it's right and anyone who rejects their view anyone who disagrees with their position is automatically wrong there's no two ways about it and so he he goes ahead and he talks about their vision for life their vision for the culture their vision for the country and he calls it the vision of the anointed because they believe that they are infallible that every view they hold on every single thing is the absolute right view and anyone who disagrees with their view is obviously wrong and of course all of their views are in total disagreement with the scriptures the scriptures that's our authority and when the scripture says wise be submissive to your husbands and everything that flies right in the face of the culture but let it fly we are not part of the culture we're not to be influenced by the culture if we're to do anything in regard to the culture we're to influence it not let it influence us it really bugs me when i see the church grabbing on to the things that are important in the culture and then christianizing those things evangelical feminism is just an example of it and we've got a variety of things you know we've got christians for a clean earth you know christians out trying to save the environment and so forth and you know i'm not saying that we should go out and throw our trash out the window as we're driving down the street but i mean these people are like this is their life you know you would think that the the gospel was go out and save a tree not go out and save a soul they're not interested in saving souls they're interested in saving bushes and bugs and birds and things like that no that's not the gospel mandate i'm sorry and you can just find in you know all of the little things that are happening in the culture there's sort of the christian version of it and that's wrong we if if we have any relationship to the culture at all it's to influence it toward god and to be a rebuke to it and to stand in the face of it and say you know what i don't care what you say i don't care what the feminist movement has to say about what women are supposed to do or not supposed to do most of them say today that all women are supposed to be lesbians so that's where that's headed don't take any of it don't touch any of it don't listen to any of it don't be influenced by any of it this is god's word this isn't paul's word this isn't the word of some out of touch politically incorrect person it's the word of god and it says that just as the church is subject to christ so let wives be to their own husbands and everything how is the church subject to christ well ideally we're to be totally and completely subject to christ we have our failures but yet we recognize when we fail and we say lord forgive me and let's get back on track and we struggle in our relationships we struggle in our marriages and wives struggle in submitting and husbands struggle in loving their wives as christ of the church but that's the goal that's the ideal that's the standard and we keep shooting for it if we miss we just you know say i'm going to do better next time and as we do that god blesses and he honors and it's possible to have a marriage even today when there are so many problems in this realm it is very possible completely within the realm of possibility to have a great marital experience it's all really dependent upon obeying explicitly what god has called you to do in your role so men this message was not for you so don't take anything home that i said and beat your wife over the head with it because she's going to get a lot more ammo in the weeks to come with which to beat you if you want to do that see you know this is hard i mean my wife should be up here talking about this not me but when we get to the men i can talk about that freely because i am right there and i've done all the stupid things that men generally do so when we look at the the command to love our wives as christ loved the church to cherish them as our own bodies and all of these things there's gonna be some heavy heavy stuff that we're gonna see we're accountable for so what i'm saying is this let the lord speak to your wife about these things and you don't worry you'll have plenty to concentrate on yourself as we carry on in the series but that's an important thing that we've got to keep in focus that if we will do ourselves what god called us to do then things will come together like he said they would and our marriages our families our home lives will be blessed that's what god desires and he's made it thoroughly possible wives be submissive to your husbands as to the lord let's pray lord we do pray that you would help us as your people to be submissive to you first of all and lord we just pray tonight that your word would be the authority in all of our lives lord that we would not be influenced by other things lord that we wouldn't be influenced by what we see on tv or what we read in a magazine or what we've heard in a classroom if it contradicts what you've already said help us to stand firmly fixed in the authority of your word and help us lord to know that these things that you have declared regarding relationships these things are not just opinions to be considered but they are absolute truths to be applied help us to do that we pray in jesus name amen