Ephesians 5:21-6:9, Defining Relationships

Ephesians 5:21-6:9 and the Shape of Christian Relationships

Ephesians chapter 5 verse 21 to chapter 6 verse 9. Hear the Word of the Lord submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. 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 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 in the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

Children obey your parents in the Lord, but this is right honor your father and mother. This is the first commandment with a promise that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.

Fathers do not provoke your children to anger but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Slaves obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling. With a sincere heart as you would Christ not by way of eye service as people pleasers.

But as servants of Christ doing the will of God from the heart. Rendering service with a goodwill as to the Lord and not to man knowing that whatever good anyone does This he will receive back from the Lord whether he is a slave or free.

Masters do the same to them and stop your threatening knowing he Who is both their master and yours is in heaven and that there is no partiality with him. May the Lord had his blessings for the reading of his Holy Word.

Are People Defined by Their Relationships?

Are you defined by your relationships? Now some people are so empty of a meaning and value they think that they're not anybody if they're not somebody's somebody. Relationships define us so much that now people will often define themselves by their preferred Relationships, it's who they are.

They are people who like These kinds of relationships heterosexual or homosexual or others and that status at least we were told for like 20 years. Till the past few years was unchangeable. It's like race that's incredibly ironic because People now are being told that the definition of who we are is entirely up to us.

We are told simultaneously that we define ourselves and That our relationships define us. We choose whether we want to be masculine or feminine regardless of whether we are biologically male or female.

We choose whether we will be a wife or a husband and we pick and choose like selecting food at a buffet. What exactly our relationships will look like like what kind of wife or kind of husband we will be.

I'll take a big helping of love. Maybe a spoonful of honor. I'll skip on the obey. I don't want any of that our identity and relationships are like a hamburger at Burger King. Have it your way. So what seems innocent to many people the practice?

We have the fashion now of couples often writing their own Wedding vows as though marriage is something that they kind of kind of custom make for themselves. No wonder than that so many people think that there can be such a thing as a homosexual marriage.

It's as though marriage are being male or female or the Y chromosome or the sexual organs. They don't mean anything. Except the meaning that we give to them. It's all up for our personal Reinterpretation as we like it.

So we're told now that the gender is a social construct now. That's shocking to many people who have assumed that gender and sex are synonyms. The same thing but at least since I was in college. We were taught that gender refers to the forms of the customs that our culture tells us.

What it means to be male or female? Into a certain degree. I I concede that particularly because I'm in a I'm in a marriage in which my wife is of another culture. It's obvious that there are things a culture tells you what it means to be masculine or feminine.

Some of those change in different cultures. Okay, so Grant that to a degree gender is being masculine or feminine while being male and female is sex. So gender is a social construct. It's something society makes up.

It's like using a fork or a chopstick. That's a social construct right your culture teaches you this is how you eat. With a fork or maybe it teaches you pick up those sticks. This is how you eat. And so they say well, that's the same thing with with gender teaches you.

This is how you be a female or this is how you be a male you do these things society has. Told you that it's imposed that on you. And well, that's what they say and I'm not going to argue over the definition of a word the word gender.

But I've noticed something about the advocates of transgenderism. They start out by saying Gender is a social construct. It's about wearing lipstick or long hair or short hair or wearing a dress or not.

And no, you know, okay shrug my shoulder maybe and so you can choose then whether to be masculine or feminine or not. And okay, so, you know, I'm following I get it, but then they'll switch to talking about sex.

They say they're talking about gender, but then they start talking about sex about male and female about calling a male of she. Maybe we can call someone a she we're saying she's she's female. So why are you telling me to call a male she?

Having medical Treatments to make a female look like a male or vice versa. You don't do medicine to change social constructs. No one goes to the doctors and says, you know I've been eating with a fork all my life and I want to switch to chopsticks doctor.

Can you help me? What are you talking about? Go see Nancy and Mike they'll teach you how to use chopsticks. So you don't go to the you don't go get medical treatment for that or have males participate in female athletics.

Because the the male says he's female they're no longer than talking about gender even by their own definition. They may say they are but they're not really they're talking about sex. And so they are effectively saying that sex is a social construct.

That we make it up and we make up what it means. To be male and female and we can kind of go back and forth between the sexes as we feel like it is. It's up to us. It's like it's like you can go back and forth between eating with forks and chopsticks.

And so you can go back and forth between Being masculine or feminine or male and female. I guess so if I if I choose I can say my sex is female and and you Have to go along with that that's swallowing up sex.

Which is biological reality with gender which is okay. It's a social construct. But you're not really talking about gender anymore. I find this very interesting Athletics part of it coming from my track and cross-country background because we did in fact often run with the women.

You know, we train and compete on the on the same tracks. We're training at the same time I bet each other and we run on the same courses. Track meets are together. We travel together and we see each other compete male and female.

It's obvious that the differences between male and female are not just social constructs. Not just merely cultural Expectations that have been imposed on to people the women are running slower because culture is telling them to run slower.

Is that what's going on? I was a mediocre college runner come coming in third of about a dozen runners at Western Carolina, West Carolina. But then the very next week third to last in Mississippi State, you know SEC school better competition just to let you know where I was kind of in the in the hierarchy of runners in college, right?

Third at West Carolina third to last at Mississippi State now if I had been a woman running the same times I Could have been running to make it to the Olympics. It's a woman athlete. You you can compare the times or the distances of Olympic events for men or for women.

There are high school boys that can run faster than the fastest women. The differences are stark. Now I'm all for female athletics and I'm certainly not saying that all all men are or faster or stronger than all women.

Okay, that's obviously not true. Just a couple months ago. I was I was swimming and I could see two lanes over, you know. When you're swimming you can't see out of your peripheral vision a little kind of looking at the bottom of the pool.

But you can kind of see on the sides. I see a woman came in about two lanes over and I think I'm gonna try to keep up with her. And I really couldn't. She's as fast as it was When I finished Swimming but Again, I'm all for female athletics, but let's stop pretending that they're the same as men indeed.

We have female athletics precisely because There are differences that are not just social constructs. I mean, that's the reason we divide them. You know, it's not it's not a holdover from the days of segregation.

Understand like black and white used to be separated just because we keep it the black people down. We're like doing the same thing for the female. No, it's actually it's the reverse. We're creating opportunities for women by having separate women athletics.

Women don't get pregnant and give birth because society tells them to it imposes that gender role on them but because biology does the fact is that male and female are different and those differences determine what kind of relationships you will be in and Those relationships will to a degree Define you.

Wives, Husbands, and the Meaning of Submission

Here Paul deals with six kinds of people in three pairs each defined by their relationships wives and husbands children and parents. Workers and bosses now first wives and this flows directly from what he was saying before.

That's why he read verse 21. Although your Bibles like mine has a little sub heading there makes it look like he's starting all over. But actually in Greek is he's continuing from verse 21 where he said submit to each other talking to the church submit to each other out of reverence for Christ and.

Then now how do you do that? How do you submit to each other you Christians out of reverence for Christ? What does that look like for each of us? Well in part that depends on whether Your wife or husband a child or a parent a worker or a boss for wives that looks like this.

Submit to your husband's now some today's say well, that's just the culture of their day. They were kind of backward then not like us. We're so advanced and moral today. We know better but notice Paul says to the wives submit as to the Lord then and then very next verse for the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church the Relationship between Christ and the church is the foundation and the model for the husband and the wife that relationship is not based on Culture.

It's not a social construct. The church will always eternally be in submission to Christ doesn't matter how democratic and egalitarian our society becomes. Jesus is still Lord and he always will be. It's not just our partner, right?

We in the we in Jesus are not just partners. He's the Lord. That relationship to Jesus as Lord then defines us. But I've had women in Bible college classes and asked me why should why should I be restricted from some roles in the church just Because I'm a woman.

With the assumption that being a woman are our man's it's kind of a minor characteristic. Yeah, just just this minor little thing. I have why should it make me different like being a woman? It's a minor thing like the color of your hair or how tall you were or it's social construct.

It's something culture just made up so we can now remake it as we like it. And so they assume that they can make their sex mean anything. They want it to mean that we're all Not at all defined by being a being a woman.

But that we will define for ourselves what being a woman will mean. I've heard Christian married women say I'm not defined by my husband really. Here the inspired Apostle says in verse 22 why submit to your husband's as to the Lord.

Now some Christian women who don't want to Play fast and loose with the Bible. They're trying to take it seriously. We'll say okay. That means that when it comes to the difference of opinion. He's the tiebreaker right Democratic.

They gotta have a tiebreaker if you have two people. There's got somebody's got to break the tie if he says X and I say why well I'll have to settle for X because I'm gonna be submissive now first. I think that's true.

But I think that's only the most superficial thing that this means you can be submissive when it comes to specific differences of opinion. You kind of give in but still essentially unsubmissive. Some women will say, you know, my husband's the head.

But I'm the neck that turns the head. He wears the pants. But I lay them out. Others will just live their own life. They're living a marriage like two detached individuals. Basically, their roommates just happen to be of the opposite sex.

Submit means here to take a subordinate role in Relation to the other to the one you're submitting to. It's not when decisions not just I should say when decisions arise. You go with him. I Want to eat Chinese food, but he wants to eat Mexican.

So we'll go with Mexican. It's far greater than that it has to do with your role. How the relationship defines you. The role of the wife is here is To submit or from Genesis chapter 2 to be a helper now sure husband should often help their wives.

Whenever they can they should do that too. But at the heart of being a wife is the role of being a helper which is different Than the role of the husband. I've seen this like this meme on Facebook some people but you know, they have a marriage with no gender roles and I thought really.

Let's see when you decide to have children which ended which one to end up you which one of you ends up having the child. Which one of you ends up getting pregnant? You could have good honey. You had the baby last time next time.

I'll have it. It doesn't work that way. So God has arranged things his way that there are some roles. That you just have to submit to for a woman committing to be married to a man then Committee, I'm gonna help this man and that will in part define you.

So one of the main questions for a woman when considering if she was to marry a man is is this a man? I want to help is it worth investing my life in Assisting him. Are we he just wasted on? Is he what is what he is living for?

Something I'm eager to help him live for. It's not what the feminists tell girls and their delusions that their their female role in marriages. This is totally up to them. It's feminism. That's a social construct not the supportive role of the wife.

This is not to say that girls should be taught that they're really not anything. They're not worth anything. They have no identity really until they get married and it's all about the husband. That that they get all their meaning and all their worth from who they are in a relationship with that it's hurtful to girls.

That's foolish. Don't teach girls that don't teach boys out either for the matter. But don't especially not girls. William Booth the founder of the Salvation Army when back when it was a real evangelistic force a real Evangelical movement wrote quote don't instill or allow anybody else to instill in the heart of your girls.

The idea that marriage is the chief end of life if you do. Don't be surprised if they end up getting engaged the first empty useless fool they come across. Don't teach girls that the meaning of life is all about getting married.

The supportive role of the wife is not just a social construct. Paul dwells on their role for three verses. Essentially repeating in each verse from verses 22 to 24 the same idea giving eternal principles to support it principles that are not dependent on time or culture and so are not a Social construct something constructed by society.

Submit he writes at the end of verse 24 be in a helpful relationship in Everything the next is husbands. Now they too are to submit remember this the heading for all this submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

How does that look for husbands? Well, how does a husband revere Jesus first husbands love your wives now on the surface of it? That sounds like the easiest command in the Bible to obey right there. It's like commanding breathe.

We're talking about a partner who was made specifically for him emotionally psychologically physically and it was supposed to submit to him. What is there? What is there not to love about that? I mean if you're a man telling us to love that almost seems like a waste of words, of course, of course.

We're gonna love that. But then Paul doesn't just leave the command there. He gets very specific about how husbands are to love their wives love them as Christ loved the church. Then you got to think how did Jesus love the church?

And Paul gets even more specific. He knew how selfish we men could be especially after reading those verses about wives to submit. Try to take advantage of that for your own selfishness. And so he makes it clear what this kind of love looks like with the love just like the one who gave himself up for the church.

Yes, the woman has to submit. That's an eternal principle, but you men you have to do something to to love. Yes, and in the Bible love is it just a feeling a sentiment a kind of a thrill you get from from another person that you May have fallen into.

It's a commitment to do good to them to be loyal. To seek their welfare even at the expense of your own here Christ himself is the model of that love. How did he love he gave up? Himself. Yes, the wife's have to submit.

But men You have to die. In verses 26 and 27 Jesus gave himself up for the church. He gave up everything gave up heaven the rights of godhood all the wealth of the universe life. To set her apart. To cleanse her to make her pure first.

He redeems her by buying her with his blood as we saw in chapter 2 of Ephesians. And then here he says he washes her. That's the washing of water with the word. He is still serving his people by by cleaning them and he does that through his word when we read it when we sing it.

When we hear it taught we are preached and allow it to wash away the rebelliousness that self-centeredness that comes so naturally to us. I'll define myself and my relationships as I want the attitude.

Oh, she has to submit. I'll take advantage of her. We keep hearing and applying the word Jesus gave us until it washes away all our spots and blemishes. Jesus came to serve us by giving up his blood and His word and because that's what we that's what we needed.

He gave us what we needed. Not what he just wanted. And in verse 28 husbands have to love the same way when we talk up when we're talking about how Wives should submit to their husbands something. Well that.

They think of a selfish Abusive husband and just recoil at horror that we would suggest to submit to such a one. And the truth is that such a man who would even abuse his own wife is as insane and Self-destructive as the man who abuses his own body cuts himself or some kind of irrational thing.

That is irrational. It's a violation of the very heart of the covenant. That is marriage. Jesus the model for the husband. Gives himself up. For her good now as much as some people were coil at the idea of submission.

But to a husband who was like that. Sacrificing giving giving himself up. Isn't it reasonable? Even desirable. To submit. Verse 31 Paul mentions one specific way in which a man has to die. He must leave his father and mother.

He must be separated from them and be united with his wife. He must leave and cleave as the old saying goes the old family must be put in the past. For a man to be worthy of a new family. Have you ever noticed that that command is is only for?

Only for the man. It's only addressed to the husband. It's something that he has to die to. This idea that he can arrange all of life around himself. You know keep mama around to pick up the dirty socks off the floor and do the cooking and then have his wife there, too.

And it's all there conveniently arranged all around himself. And here he said no you have to leave that. It's not going to be arranged all around you the way Christ loved his church was to leave his home.

He give himself up for it seek the purity the perfection the benefit of his bride for which he came. Jesus on the cross is the model for the husband. Husbands revered Jesus by serving their wives. Just like Jesus served us all.

Willing to die. Now this is the mystery what Paul calls this this great mystery. It's a truth and hidden may be hinted at here and there and the Old Testament. But not fully revealed until now that the unity of Christ with his people now.

Why is it a why is it a mystery talk about marriage here? This is a mystery. Why is it? What's mysterious about it? It's that word mystery ring a bell here in Ephesians remember chapter 3 verse 4 and 6.

The mystery now revealed is that all kinds of people from all nations are united in one body the church. That's that mystery and here Paul is saying that marriage was made by God. To be an example to be a model of the unity of the church with each other and with Christ.

Good marriages are meant to show what God had in mind. For the church from the beginning. So even after so beautifully and idealistically portraying marriage Paul the single man Is most in love with Christ?

He's not like so many of us. They see this passage and all we can think about him wanting a relationship like that. Oh now with a husband or wife. Instead he sees this. Paul sees this and yes, it's beautiful.

But no matter how beautiful even the best marriage can be it is still an imperfect shadow of that perfect union of Christ with his people. Next in chapter 6 verse 1 children. The children are to submit to one another out of reverence for Christ and they are to do that by he says obey your parents.

In the Lord in verse 1 children can worship. Remember how this begins submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. How do you children do it? Children can worship respect Jesus by doing that because Jesus himself did it.

Luke chapter 2 verse 51 says that the Lord Jesus himself as a As a 12 year old boy was submissive to his parents. And so if a perfect Jesus could be submissive to his parents. So can you we don't have any children here?

I can point to and name I would if they were here. Children are to obey in the Lord that is insofar as the parents instructions lead them to the Lord. Which is most of the time even when the parents are telling you children who aren't here.

And I wish you were to do chores and clean your room or work at the family store. They are teaching you to contribute to the family. And not to be a brat who thinks mother exists to do all the cleaning and dad exists to make money for them.

It's someone else is always going to pick up their messes. The first obedience and then respect to parents is so important that it's one of the Ten Commandments the First commandment with a promise that it may go well with you.

If you obey and honor your parents unlike the Freudian approach. Is that you blame your parents for all your problems? The reason I got this problem is well, my mother did this or that my father did was absent or too close or whatever.

It's all their fault. That's dishonoring. To the parents and to the Lord instead have such a reverence for Christ that you do what Jesus did. Obey your parents now in verse 4 parents. Again remember submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.

How do you parents do that first? We have parents here. That's good. You show reverence for Christ by not provoking or exasperating your children now that don't provoke your children. I don't think it's just for fathers.

He addresses specifically the father's fathers. Don't provoke your children, but I don't think that implies that your mother you mothers are free to drive them up the wall. We fathers have to be patient, but you mothers you can just really Tear into them.

No, that's not what he's saying, but nurture and train them to as best as you as you can. Train them to know the Lord. As best as you can now, you cannot finally make a child be a Christian to make them believe.

They have that has to come for the Lord's working in their own heart. But as best you can expose them to God's Word to the gospel to the church. And the one easy and important way that you can do that is by bringing them to church.

So that can point to them and saying you need to obey the Lord. So that helps work which win-win that way parents aren't to be unnecessarily severe and disciplined unreasonably harsh or Unrealistically demanding, you know, like the tiger mother who looks at an all-age report card and complains.

This one a is only 98 What have you been doing? Too lazy. You shouldn't abuse your authority and simply use your kids as free labor. Or be arbitrary punishing one day for something that you ignored the day before.

Constantly nagging and condemning harping on weaknesses and mistakes humiliating your child. But he is she not as good as the child next door you that kid can play the piano better than you parents are called to be pastors to their children to bring them up as the as they grow up and do that in an environment of Experiencing discipline so that they are corrected for their mistakes or sins and not only taught verbally.

But when necessary punished. In Proverbs chapter 13 verse 24, it says whoever spares the rod hates his son but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him and That should be done with the instruction of the Lord from his word from the church teaching God's Word.

Teach your children the Bible and expose him or her. We read that just in the Church Covenant. Right. Remember near the end. Those who are under your care that's mostly in our culture now because most of us don't have servants to live with us our children.

Lead them in the nurture in the instruction of the Lord. Teach them to be faithful believers. As far as you can who will teach them God's Word and that means again an easy way to do that. Bring them to church.

Teach your children by word and example that serving the Lord is a is the most important thing. Tell them that they can't miss church just to do homework or go play baseball or volleyball. Or just make more money.

We do this because the Lord himself is bringing each of us up. Worst all still his children and subject to his discipline and we we need his discipline and the Lord disciplines every son or daughter. He receives and I may be unpleasant.

But from the Lord is always loving and just so out of reverence for him. Raise your children in the same way you want the Lord to raise you. Next in verse 5 workers. Remember for verse 21 in fact chapter 5 verse 21 submit to one another a reverence for Christ.

How do you workers? Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Well workers should work in a way that shows they respect Jesus. Here we don't have time to get into the hole because he used the word slaves there and that kind of sounds really offensive in Our time we don't have time to get to the whole controversial issue about the Bible in slavery.

But know a couple things. One. There are different kinds of slavery. I don't think any of them are desirable. But there are some of them are worse than others. We Americans when we hear the word slavery connect it with racism and we have in mind that the mass Race based kind of color-coded slavery of the southern plantation.

That's not what Paul had in mind here in Paul's time slavery had nothing to do with race. It wasn't just for manual labor teachers even notable philosophers. Could be slaves. Slavery was a common condition for many workers and.

Economically, there probably wasn't an alternative to it at that time. Unlike in America where slavery was racist and there was an alternative. There was freedom you pay your workers. John Wesley the founder of the Methodist commented on the different kinds of slavery when as an old man, he wrote to William Wilberforce.

Encouraging him to go and work in the English Parliament to abolish slavery. Quote. Go on in the name of God and in the power of his might till even American slavery. The vilest that ever saw the Sun Shall vanish away before it.

Another point. Christians ended slavery. The principles here from verses 5 to 8 are relevant to us today in our jobs and relationships to our employers. How do you show respect for Jesus submit to one another out of reverence for Christ?

How do you do that in your job? By working for our bosses as we would work for Jesus himself not he says by just doing by eye service. You know when somebody's looking not like when I was a teenager. I had another guy.

We got a little job mowing the neighbor's grass and when we were done We rang the doorbell let the neighbor know that we were done get our pay and the other guy I was working with waited until. Till the neighbor would open the door just about open the door and he knelt down and started pull up the weeds like he had.

Been doing that, you know from the flowerbed like you've been doing that the whole time working for eye service. People pleasers work when a supervisor is looking over their shoulder when he goes away then out comes the computer games the long breaks the unnecessary conversations.

Now Christians shouldn't be lazy workers looking to get by with as little work as possible they should in the second half of verse 6 be be slaves be workers or employee or employees of Christ. Finally verse 9 bosses.

Bosses to are to treat their employees in a way that shows reverence for Christ. That's that just because. Because you're the boss you can get away. With being rude or threatening in a way that you could never get away with your boss or your family or friends.

Just because you can get away with it because they're they're your underlings. Does it mean you should? Even if you are the head honcho, even if you are the boss. Know that you have a boss and you and your workers have the same Lord and there's he says there's no partiality.

You know with the Lord the Lord's not going to treat you better. Just because you're the one with power and money. You know in the end. Our position your position here, is it going to give you any advantage?

When you're called up for your ultimate performance review. By your ultimate boss. How do you revere? Jesus. Well that depends in some ways on your relationships. God has given you relationships. He's given you people around you that you need that define for you how.

You will be a follower of Jesus those relationships are his Construct not just societies. It's not like Burger King. You can't have it your way. You can't redefine yourself in your relationships. Any way you choose?

So Jesus cared enough for us to leave his home. He was willing to submit to the father. He was willing he was willing to relocate. He even took on the form of a servant sacrificing for the good of those who call him Lord.

He did it not because he was lonely and you know, he kind of needed us to fulfill him. No, he was not single. He was a member of the Trinity. He was perfect. He was complete. He was content. He came not for what we could do for him.

But for what he would do for us not to be served but to serve to give to ransom to save us to cleanse us. We all need that cleansing to be washed first by his blood and so ransom from our guilt and then in the water of his word washed of our sins.

Maybe of some sinful attitudes that we picked up from the world. We need that Jesus came leaving home humbled. Giving up his rights. Giving his word Giving his life. So that we could have what we need now.

To a Lord like that. Isn't it reasonable? Even desirable.