Colossians - The Path To True Blessing In Marriage

God Centered Theology

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According to an article by Alex Strock on Bible .org, Hurricane Andrew was one of the worst hurricanes to hit the

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Caribbean islands and Florida. After the hurricane, news reports witnessed tens of thousands of homes flattened to the ground.

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As they were filming, they still saw one house standing. They went to that house and the owner was cleaning up his front yard and asked him, they said, how is it that your house is still standing?

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He said, well, I built this house and I followed the

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Florida state code for hurricanes. If the code called for 12 inch beams,

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I put 12 inch beams. If it called for a metal brace to the beams,

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I put a metal brace. I built the house according to the code and the house withstood the hurricane.

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The true path to any blessing in any walk of life is to be in submission to God and His Word.

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To walk in obedience to God's Word is to bring blessing, growth, success. To ignore, disobey, or think that you have come up with a better plan or way is to bring decline in absence of blessing and destruction.

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God's Word is our prescription for life, for marriage, for church, for family, for everything.

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God has His blueprint and we would be wise to be in submission to it.

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With the intrusion of secular humanistic thought and the satanic rebellion against God's ordained authority,

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God's standards and His blueprint for marriage, even the church itself is seen by the world as being outdated, offensive, won't work, just one's interpretation in many cases.

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The lack of knowledge and submission to God's blueprint for specific areas of life has caused great sorrow, decline, and destruction for sure.

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The divorce rate among Christians is certainly a result of a lack of submission to God's ordained blueprint for marriage that we find in His Word.

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But there is a path to blessing, and there is a path to success in marriage, and we would be wise to heed the call of inspired scripture on the matter.

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So many assume that if they stand tall or stand firm in the political arena on God's marriage being between one man and one woman, and it is, that they have somehow completed their work.

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They can pat themselves on the back, go home, because after all, they've done a job well done.

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However, that is not all God has said on the subject. So what is God's blueprint?

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What has God commanded in the area of marriage and other places?

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Well, our text this morning is Colossians chapter three, and in this last section of Colossians chapter three, you're going to see

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God deal with the home in terms of marriage, with children, with the employer -employee relationship before we move into chapter four.

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So after dealing with everything that Paul has on the subject and nature of Christ and His supremacy and His supreme authority, he now looks at how that plays out in certain relationships that we all have.

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So for the marriage relationship, he says in verse number 18 of chapter three, wives be subject to your husbands as is fitting in the

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Lord. Husband, love your wives and do not be embittered against them. The first thing that we must have in order to have a biblical marriage is the correct foundation.

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If you don't have the correct foundation, you will surely, surely fail. In Matthew chapter seven in verse 24, it says, therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them and notice that it says, not only do you hear the words of Jesus, but you act on them.

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You obey them. They may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock and the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and slammed against the house and yet it did not fall for it had been founded on the rock.

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Everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.

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The rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and slammed against the house and it fell and great was its fall.

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It's not enough to know what to do if you don't do it. Love, true love, specifically in a marriage relationship, true love always acts.

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The foundation for the true path to blessing in a Christian marriage begins and ends with obedience to God and His Word, just like it does in all areas of Christian life.

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Skipping back to Colossians 3, it's 18. Notice at the end of the verse there it says, wise be subject to your husbands as is fitting in the

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Lord. Ephesians chapter 5, and we're going to probably spend a lot of our time this morning, but Ephesians chapter 5 and 22 it says something similar it says, wise be subject to your own husbands as to the

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Lord. 23 it says, for the husband is the head of the wife is

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Christ also the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body. Christ is the head of the church, the church is subject to Christ.

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We are sola scriptura, the Bible, the scriptures, the rule of faith of the Christian church is the only authority in the scripture in the

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Christian church. Christ is the head of the church, it is His church, it is He who reigns supreme and it is

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Christ who is the ultimate authority. And He says in like fashion in the home the wife is to be subject to the leadership of the husband.

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We're going to look at what that looks like in a few minutes. This all goes back to Genesis chapter 2.

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In Genesis chapter 2 and verse 21 it says, so the Lord caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man and he slept.

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Then he took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. The Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which

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He had taken from the man and brought her to the man. And the man said, this is now bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh, she shall be called woman because she was taken out of man.

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For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined or cleaved. Remember a couple of weeks back we talked about the word cleaved, the word meaning glue, cemented.

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And we talked about gorilla glue. Same concept here, you are to cleave, you are to be glued, you are to be cemented to your wife and they shall become one flesh.

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So we see that the foundation for marriage, the foundation for God's marriage and the foundation upon which we are to build our marriages is not only starts and ends with God, but it starts and ends with His Word.

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And He not only defines it, He commands it. He commands the way in which it must be entered and how all aspects of marriage are to be viewed.

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And it is at the bottom line of it all as to the Lord. So you must have the correct foundation.

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Number two, you must have the correct roles, the correct roles in marriage. Now we are going to start in Galatians chapter 3 because we need to start with this concept.

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Galatians chapter 3 and verse 28 says, there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free man, neither male nor female for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

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The ground is level at the foot of the cross. Spiritually among Christians we are all in Christ.

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There are no distinctions spiritually among the brethren. We are all adopted into the same family.

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We all have the same Savior. We all have the same access to that Savior. You don't need a priest or a pastor, although some people enjoy to have their pastor pray for them.

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You don't need your pastor to pray for you. You have direct access to the throne of grace,

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Hebrews chapter 4, and you can take all of your worries, all of your doubts, and all of your fears, everything that is a trial for you, and you can take it straight to God.

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That dividing wall is broken down. You don't need your mommy. You don't need your daddy. You don't need your husband.

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You don't need your pastor. You don't need anybody. Now we certainly partake in those relationships with each other.

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We obviously would want to come along one another and pray with one another. That goes without saying. But fundamentally we all have the same access to God, because we have the same

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Savior. We all, husbands and wives alike, that have placed their faith and trust in Jesus Christ, have the same justification.

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We all have the same standing before God. We have the same righteousness, because Christ has imputed

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His righteousness to every single believer. The same adoption.

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We also have the same future promises of our inheritance. We're all going to inherit it all.

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What may trouble us in this life, what may bring us trial in this life, those things are hard and they're difficult.

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And if you want to do some study, I suggest you go to the book of James and study what our response to trial should be.

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And while we should be growing in patience and steadfastness to a mature man, a mature self, a mature

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Christian in handling these things well, it doesn't mean these things don't happen. It doesn't mean they aren't hard.

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But we need to recognize they're for this life and not for the next. Our future inheritance is set.

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If we get a chance at some point this year, I hope to preach something to the effect of what exactly the resurrection of Jesus Christ established for the believer.

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There are so many things that are settled in the mind of God that cannot be changed. They cannot be altered.

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And every single person that is in Christ partakes of these spiritual blessings. So, there should never be a time where a husband looks at himself as being superior to his wife.

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You're not. A wife should never look to her husband as being superior to her husband.

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You're not. However, in certain situations and in certain relationships in the

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Word of God, inspired scripture, God has prescribed certain roles and certain functions that are being performed, in certain cases submitted to these distinctions and roles and function and authority.

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They do not negate or erase our equal standing before God as Christians, that is

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His children and His elect. But they do show that God has a plan. He has structure.

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He has a blueprint of how certain things are supposed to operate. And God expects and commands

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His people to operate and obey His instruction. To obey

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God in these areas brings great blessing. Obedience always brings blessing in the life of the believer.

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So, if you're ever sitting there saying, I want to experience the blessings of God. I want to see God's blessing on my life.

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Obey Him. See what He's told you in His Word and obey. To not obey will not bring blessing for God always blesses obedience and does not bless disobedience.

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So, God has blueprint. He has roles. Some examples of this. God has ordained the structure as how government authority, the world rulers rule over the people that are under their jurisdiction.

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And we're commanded to obey and submit to those that have the rule over us according to Romans 13, 1 -3.

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The only time we're allowed to disobey a governmental authority is if they instruct us to do something that is against God's Word, or contrary to God's Word.

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So, we would naturally, if they told us that we would have to do certain things, and sadly

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I wish this was not the case, but I think there is a day coming where we're going to see not only an allowance for, but a specific direction from governmental authorities that you must, probably very close to what

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China does, that you must abort and murder children. And in those cases we would have to disobey the

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God ordained governmental authorities because they've gone against God's Word. But beside that we're commanded to obey and submit to those governmental authorities.

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A policeman comes to your house, you obey and submit to that policeman's authority. We obey and submit to that.

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That's one aspect of that governmental structure, and the roles and functions, and the relationships they have.

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Because even though we're not of the world, we're in the world, we have a certain relationship to the governmental factors, and to the governments and nations of this world.

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God is also given and delegated while He is in Heaven authority and oversight over His congregations through eldership and pastoral leadership, according to 1

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Timothy 3, Titus 1, 1 Peter 5, several places throughout the book of Acts, and other epistles.

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God has not prescribed congregational rule or any democratic process. See what we see specifically in a lot of American churches, they make the mistake of thinking that churches is of the people, by the people, and for the people.

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It's not biblical. It's of God, by God, and for God. That's the only thing we should be concerned about is it's of God, by God, and for God.

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What He has said is how we are supposed to dictate our lives, specifically in the church. Churches that are in submission to this leadership have a solid biblical foundation.

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They'll see growth, and blessing, success. They'll stand firm when hard times come, much like in Matthew chapter 7 when you saw the guy that built the foundation on the rock, and it stood when the winds and the rain came, and it stood.

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Well, churches that are not and are in disobedience to this will see decline, absence of blessing, and eventual death.

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God also has roles and functions for employer and employee relationship. We'll see this as we get down to the end of chapter 3 in Colossians here in a couple of weeks.

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He has a distinction. If you're in the job, or whether you're a boss, or whether you're an employee, you have certain functions and certain roles you're to play based on the prescription of the

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Word of God in that relationship. So if you're an employee, you're to obey and to submit to the leadership and the authority of your boss.

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But you will also see when we get to Colossians chapter 4 verse 1, and it's not just there, it's in other places in Scripture, but God has very strong language for those that are in the authority.

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We're going to see this very much for husbands here in a moment. But you as masters, as employers, the way you treat your employees, you will be judged, you will be dealt with by God for that.

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He will hold you accountable for how you exercise your authority and how you implement it on your employees.

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But there's that relationship there. And God finally also has roles for the family.

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He has roles for people to play in marriage. He has roles for children. He gives the authority and the leadership to the husband over the wife, and to parents over the children.

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The model and blueprint that God uses in the home largely mirrors a lot of ways in the church as well, and it's to a degree.

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But in Colossians chapter 3 verse 18, once again it will tell you, wives be subject to your husbands as is fitting to the

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Lord. Husbands love your wives, and do not be embittered against them. We see that the roles in marriage are that the husband is to be the leader, have the authority and oversight over the wife, and the wife is to be in subjection to that husband's leadership.

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Now if that's where the Bible ended, you'd have many things like in an independent fundamentalism where women were treated as servants, they were treated as slaves, they were treated as somebody inferior, and they were not in balance and not in submission to the

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Word of God. You had husbands acting like complete words I can't say properly in a sermon. But they would act in certain ways that they needed to be taken out back to the woodshed and dealt with harshly, to put it as nicely as I can.

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But it isn't where it stops because even though God has certain roles and functions that we are to play in certain relationships, it does not do you any good if you don't go to what is number three.

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Number three is the correct execution of those roles. Now we obviously can't cover all those things

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I've covered today from government relationships, church relationships, protestant congregation relationships.

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We're going to cover children and parents at some point. We're going to cover employee. But we can't cover all of them.

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But we are going to cover today the marriage one, the correct execution of those roles. Ephesians chapter 5, and this is where we're going to spend the remainder of our time this morning if you want to park there.

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But Ephesians chapter 5 verse 24 it says, but as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought also to be to their husbands in everything.

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This word be subject means to place or rank under. It does not imply inferiority, but it's a willing submission to a rank.

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You could look at this in military terms. You'd have certain people that would rank higher than others and they'd have certain levels of authority and responsibility and leadership, so on and so forth.

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That's what's in picture here. It's the willing submission of oneself under that leadership. We see this in the church and we see this in the home.

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The wife is not commanded, and we'll note this too, the wife is not commanded to obey the husband in the same way children are commanded to obey their parents, because the husband and the wife are spiritually equal.

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They're equal in the eyes of God. So the husband is not to treat his wife as a servant, or someone to obey his every command.

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Although if my wife kindly suggests for me to take the trash out, I would suggest it would be well in your home if you did so.

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But you're to view your wife as someone that deserves your love and your care and your respect, your provision and your protection.

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You see the Bible tells the wife in verses 22 through 24 of Ephesians chapter 5 to be subject to the leadership of her husband.

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But then it goes on to explain what that leadership looks like. So men you've had roughly 12 to 15 minutes to get yourself ready.

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If you're not ready yet, God help you, because now it's your turn. Ephesians 5 chapter 25, husbands love your wives.

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Present imperative Greek verb meaning ongoing action, and it's not a suggestion.

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God's not saying well if you get around to it, or if she cleaned up and made you a good meal, then maybe you can love her.

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No, it says husbands love, keep on loving, love them today, tomorrow, the next day, next week, next month, next year, next decade, love your wives.

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Period. The husband's primary submission, because in marriage, there's a mutual submission.

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There's not wives just simply being subject to husbands, and the submission is only on her part.

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Same thing in the church, there's a mutual submission. There's a submission of the congregation to pastoral leadership, but there's certain things that the pastor is in submission to his congregation.

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There's a mutual submission. There's a mutual submission in marriage. Wife is to be subject to the leadership of the husband, but the husband's primary submission to his wife is to love her as his wife.

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And Jesus Christ is the ultimate and the divine role model for how a husband is to love his wife.

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So husbands, if you want to know how to love your wife, study what Jesus Christ did. Study how

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Jesus Christ loved the church. Notice he says, husbands love your wives just as Christ loved the church, and gave himself up for her.

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You know what that means, husbands? Everything's on the table, up to and including dying for your wife.

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I would submit to you if you're thinking about getting married, or if you're currently married and you haven't done this, if you're not willing to up and to and including dying for your wife, you don't love her correctly.

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You don't love her the way the Bible tells you to love her. Because God says, Jesus Christ, the second person of the

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Trinity, encased in human flesh, not only loved the church, but he loved it so much he gave himself up for it.

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And it specifically tells us here in Inspired Scripture, husbands love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her.

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He is our divine and ultimate role model. You see love is action.

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You look at the word love in the New Testament, you go and look at the original language, it's verbs, it's action words.

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There's feelings, there's emotions, but that doesn't dictate what you do. It's action.

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Whatever is needed, whatever, whenever, do it. This love that a husband is supposed to have for his wife will engage in self -sacrifice.

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It will protect from sin and harmful behavior. And sometimes a husband will have to do what is best and not what is wanted because of his leadership.

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But husbands, authority does not mean dictator. There is a way to go about lovingly guiding and leading your wife towards what is right and what is best without making her feel like what she wants and what she desires is not important to you.

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We're not going to get into this today, but when we get to the part with parents and children, same thing. There is a way to lovingly instruct and correct your children without exasperating them or making them feel like they're not important.

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Now some parents can go the other way, and this is something I struggled with early, and you over -validate.

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Everything is the best thing they've ever done. Well that's not true. But there's a way to handle this.

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There's a way to do it. A husband that is correctly loving his wife.

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Now let's go on and see what else it says. Verse 28, so husbands ought also, in light of the fact of what it said a few verses previous about loving your wife as Christ loved the church, now

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Paul turns his attention and he says, husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies.

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Husbands ought to love their wives like you would love your own body.

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It says, he who loves his own wife loves himself, for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it just as Christ also does the church because we are members of His body.

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A husband that is correctly loving his wife as Christ loved the church will create a marriage environment where the wife will gladly and willingly submit to the husband's leadership, because she'll find in that leadership, she will find someone that is truly looking out for her needs, and nourishing her, cherishing her in a biblical way.

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Any husband that is loving his wife as if it were his own body, there's not a single woman that would not want to be subject to that kind of leadership and authority.

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And see that's where the mutual submission plays in. My pastor back home was preaching a marriage sermon series one time, and he came in one time and brought this big old doormat like you would see at the front step of a door, and he would start off his sermon by walking up, walking with it, and he drops it on the floor.

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And he says, wives, you're not a doormat. And he started walking off.

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He's like, oh, I got more to preach than that. But he could have stopped right there. And any husband that treats his wife like a doormat is failing.

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You're sinning. You need to repent, and you need to love your wife. She's not a doormat.

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She's the being subject to your leadership, but if you're correctly loving her, I wouldn't want to follow that kind of leadership.

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All my needs are met. I'm being nourished and cherished. I'm being taken care of. That's how it works.

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Love her as if it's your own body. This means no excuses, men.

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We are to love our wives as Christ loved the Church, as we would love our own bodies.

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You see, God gives us the authority and the leadership to His elders in the

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Church, to governmental authorities, to employers. Why? Because when God gives leadership or authority to someone, it's because He expects certain things out of them.

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That's why the qualifications for a pastor are so high. That's why the qualification of what a biblical husband looks like is so high.

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He doesn't spend all his time talking about how a wife is supposed to be subject to the husband's leadership.

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He spends the whole time talking about how a husband is supposed to love his wife.

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If you've been given God -ordained leadership and authority, it's because God expects something more out of you.

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And He expects you to love your wives the same way He commands you to, the same way

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Christ loved the Church, and the same way you would love your own body. Now sometimes in this life,

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I try to borrow statements, or I try to say things a certain way someone else done.

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And sometimes in life, there's just better to let people speak for themselves. So, I want to play a three -minute, roughly three -minute video for you of Dr.

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Vadi Bakum speaking on this subject. If you walk away from here this morning, husbands, and you're not convicted after this guy speaks, something's wrong.

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I look men dead in their eye. Go home and love your wife.

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No, you don't understand. We're just not in love anymore. I didn't ask you to be in love. I said go home and love your wife.

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The Bible commands you to. Husbands, love your wives. You're commanded to. Well, no, no, you just, I just, no,

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I just don't feel like that. Okay, fine. The Bible says love your neighbor as yourself. Your wife is your closest neighbor.

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Go love her because she's your closest neighbor. Yeah, well, she's not even my closest neighbor.

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I moved out. That's fine. Jesus said, by this all men will know that you're my disciples, that you have love one for another.

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So, love her because she's your sister in Christ. Well, I don't even know what she's saying. That's fine.

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The Bible says love your enemies. It is absolutely inexcusable for a man who follows

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Christ to stop loving his wife. It's a choice. It's an act of the will.

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And we walk away because we don't have a biblical worldview. And we say things like, well,

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I'm just not happy. And I just don't believe that God would want me to stay in a marriage and be unhappy.

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Are you serious? Let me see if I understand this correctly. Jesus Christ, the spotless, sinless lamb of God, was crushed and killed for the glory of the

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Father, but you he wouldn't want unhappy. You gotta suck it up and go home.

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It is an act of the will. It is a choice. It is accompanied by emotion, which means ladies, it's not led by emotion.

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That's that teenage girl love. Oh my God, I love him. Which ought to always be followed by this week.

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Amen. And men, it's not void of emotion. Biblical love is not void of emotion.

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And again, I talk to, I hear this from guys all the time. Like they can sell that stuff to me. I'm just not an emotional man.

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I'm just more of an analytical type. And she wants me to be emotional, and I'm just not a very emotional man.

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That's a lie from the pit of hell. Whoa, whoa, whoa, what do you mean? I mean, you don't even know me that well, and you're calling me a liar.

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And I just said I'm not a very emotional man. Why are you upset that I called you a liar if you're not emotional? Because here's another one

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I know. When you're out on the golf course and you shank one, you don't just stand there and say, I seem to have hit that one poorly.

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You're watching the ball game and your team getting beat like a tied up goat. You don't just sit there and say, they seem to have far more points than we do at this time.

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And if you went to work tomorrow and your stuff was on the sidewalk with a pink slip, you wouldn't stand there and say, well,

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I really have enjoyed my tenure. A man who looks at his wife and says he's just not emotional is actually saying to her, you don't matter as much as my golf game, my favorite team, or my job.

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Voddy don't play. A bush that Dr. Voddy Bakken would beat around, he gets straight to the point.

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So I don't really know of any other way to just let a man speak for himself, but I've come across that and I said, mm -hmm, yeah, my feet hurt.

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You see, there's a reason why I preach this so strongly, because there was a time where I didn't do this, man.

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There was a time where I didn't love my wife the way the Scripture tells me to. I do now.

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You notice he doesn't say, just like he said, you know, we come up with all these excuses.

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We justify sin so greatly. Well, she, listen, or she's this, or she's nagging me at this thing.

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No, it says, husbands love your wives. No excuses.

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Are there any areas in your marriage that need to be conformed to God's blueprint? Are there any areas where you need to repent for not obeying

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God's Word in your marriage? Husbands, we need to love our wives.

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Wives, you need to be in subjection to and lovingly follow your husband's leadership. You know,

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I can count on one hand, and probably not even use one finger on that hand, the number of times where I've had to put the proverbial foot down and say, this is what we're going to do,

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I don't care what you think. Don't do that because the Word of God says love your wives. And if you love her, you'll handle those situations a lot differently than what a dictator would.

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And in most cases, most arguments we have, I have to call her the next day and tell her how she was right and I was wrong. I don't particularly enjoy those phone conversations, but they happen.

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Don't neglect the wisdom that's in your wife. She's with you for a reason.

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No one else wanted you. But somehow by the grace and mercy of God, she chose you.

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The point to it all is that God has a blueprint, and it is in being obedient to God's Word that we do find the true path to blessing in Christian marriage.