Well, I'm glad we've got old married folks, not quite as old married folks, young married folks and single folks so we can just talk about marriage together and hopefully the Lord will enable us to learn some things together. We're going to look in Ephesians five in a few minutes, but first what I wanna do is take you
01:10
a bit of an excursus on some things that.
01:15
That Karen I've been learning in marriage and I and I'll say thanks. I've been learning in marriage I think Karen would agree with me on these But they're they're written from my perspective rather than than hers When we had our 39th anniversary in 2014, so we are the old married folks I Sat down in my I was having my quiet time and I thought you know, this is a significant day December 28 2014 I'm just gonna start writing
01:45
Lord been teaching me about marriage and so I just started writing and writing. In my 48th year which was this past December I came back and tweaked a few things a little bit. So let me just talk about some things in general and then I want to look at the roots of a Christ-centered marriage out of Ephesians
02:14
the kind of marriage that we're talking about. When we pledged our lives together 48 years ago, we began a journey that's unique to husbands and wives. We did not know what was ahead of us. We did not know the things that we had faced. We didn't know the issues that would arise in our lives, in the circumstances of our lives. But...
02:39
We realize, and after all this reflection, I realized two very important things, that both of us are sinners, and both of us need the grace of God.
02:51
And you're gonna keep that right at the heart of marriage. You've gotta recognize your own propensity for sin in being complacent or even causing problems in the marriage, but you also recognize the wonderful mercy and grace of God that is provided. So out of that, here are some things that I've been learning in this humbling and glorious experience of marriage. And there are 16.
03:21
of them. First is the marriage picture, the marriage picture and that is the Lord intends marriage to be a picture of the gospel in its beauty. We're not to be like our marriage photo album that has faded. We haven't looked at in a long time because all the pictures faded in it. That's not what it's supposed to look like. Rather as the years grow our commitment to each other grows and the
03:51
grows. To me, one of the worst things in the world is to see an older married couple that are not enjoying each other. They're just kind of cranky and complaining all the time. That's not the way marriage is to be. That's not relationship to Christ and the church. I mean, if you read Ephesians 5, right at the end, Paul gives this description starting in verse 22 through the end of
04:21
but then he says, but I'm speaking with reference to Christ in the church. So in other words, if you're going to understand about marriage, you've got to understand about Christ in the church. And the more we get that into our marital DNA, the more it helps us restrain our tongues and battle our self-centeredness that's endemic to our nature. So in other words,
04:47
We, if you have kids, your kids, our church, our extended family, our friends, need to see a reflection of Jesus and his bride in our marriage. That needs to be a daily goal. Second, weaknesses and deficiencies get exposed. Weaknesses and deficiencies get exposed. So all of my weaknesses and deficiencies are exposed in that relationship, that covenantal relationship that I have with Karen.
05:17
efficiencies are exposed to me because marriage is the most sanctifying human relationship because
05:26
is where we can't cover up our fault lines. We can try for a while, but sooner or later those fault lines are gonna come out. I remember doing pre-marriage counseling with a couple who's wedding I did years ago, and I told them, I said, marriage is a laboratory for sanctification, and they were members of another church at that time, and so I saw the couple later, and that guy said, boy, you were right. Because he was seeing that in his own life.
05:56
get exposed and that's good since we've made a covenant with each other for better or for worse little knowing that all of us have some measure of the for worse in us
06:10
It's there with our sin, with our weak frame. So, marriage not only exposes the weaknesses, but it provides the framework to help us in Christ as we learn to build up one another in the Lord. Third is grace for inadequacies, grace for inadequacies. And so in this, I've been learning that my need for grace in marriage is not because my wife is deficient.
06:38
It is because I am inadequate to love her as Christ loves the church.
06:45
And so this grace in Christ reminds me that I'm not to lean upon my abilities to love my wife, but upon that supernatural enablement of grace. Now, we all, I mean, you could take somebody just totally pagan, they're married, they love each other, they care about each other. Thank God, this is part of the image of God being reflected in them. But there are gonna be points in their lives where their inadequacies come up
07:15
which to lean.
07:17
That's why we learn that marriage is really, the way it needs to be, a supernatural relationship. It means we are learning to love on a deeper level. And so we have to fight, not with each other, but we have to fight against pointing our fingers at each other in marriage. Your spouse has her deficiencies, his deficiencies,
07:47
but they pale in comparison to your own. And that's the way you have to approach it. You need to realize you have to be diligent to see your own heart in the mirror of God's word.
08:02
And so concentrate on your deficiencies before the Lord rather than your spouse's deficiencies. That's why we daily examine ourselves in the word. That's why we need to walk with the Lord. I'll talk more about that in a little bit. That's why we need to work with the Holy Spirit to be humbled in seeing how inadequate we are and yet how God gives grace. Probably...
08:27
The biggest hallmark of fractures in marriage is right at this point of blaming our spouse for why we don't have better harmony in marriage and why things aren't going better. And we tend to want to point the finger at our spouse's inadequacies. What I'm saying in this is own your own weaknesses.
08:48
Take care of your weaknesses and a lot of times your spouse's weaknesses aren't quite as weak in your eyes. A fourth thing, turn off the autopilot. Turn off the autopilot. So by that I mean developing relationships, not something you're going to do automatically in marriage. It takes time and effort and openness and humility and kindness and communication and forgiveness. Nothing happens on autopilot.
09:18
I think sometimes couples believe, if I said I do and the preacher pronounces, husband, wife, everything's fine, we're just gonna rock along. But no, you have to be intentional. You've gotta be deliberate in seeing the mind of Christ formed in both of you by the grace of God. And this is where, and I really wanna exhort you in this. Be patient with your spouse.
09:47
but be patient with yourself. It's so important that we're patient with ourselves as well as being patient with our spouses because you have areas that you regularly need the application of the gospel. Karen and I were talking on the way down, or maybe it was earlier this afternoon about how when we were younger in marriage, we probably were at each other a little bit more and said stuff.
10:16
in harsher ways that we would tend to do now. And I think part of that was just learning this rhythm of marriage, learning the challenges of marriage. So those of you who are single, the Lord opens opportunity to be married, those are things that you'll be learning along the way. And so you get into the relationship with patience. You have areas where Jesus' character is sometimes hidden, so you gotta be patient until those things begin to show up.
10:46
And this is where you ask the Holy Spirit to expose sin, to strengthen your disciplines, and to give grace to walk in humble obedience. Fifth, joys multiply in covenant relationship.
11:01
joys multiply in covenant relationship. The joys that I experience are far multiplied because of the covenant that Karen and I have with each other. And so marriage is a covenant relationship. You're joining your lives together. You're pledging yourselves to each other for mutual happiness. I mean, consider the marriage vows, typical marriage vows. I do promise in covenant before God and these witnesses
11:31
and faithful husband, faithful wife, from this day forward, for better, for worse. I mean, that's just the normal, isn't it? For richer, for poorer. Oh, we're always going to be richer. Doesn't always happen. For in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish till death do us part. Well, whoever wrote those originally, they were really smart.
12:00
Because that's the description of life. You know, you never think things are gonna go bad. You never think you're gonna get sick. You never think you're gonna have issues where things kind of fall apart and you struggle. You never think any of those things are gonna happen. But the reality is those things can happen. And so what you do, you aim for joy together.
12:26
If you're going to aim for joy, you've got to battle the joy robbers in your soul. One reason...
12:34
that some couples fail to experience joy in marriage is due to not aiming for joy. Aim for joy. Get it in your focus. Let that be your target. And that joy should be the normal overflow of covenanting together in marriage. But there are joy robbers that will stifle that. And this is why this battle for joy is spiritual warfare.
13:03
this going on. So let me just rattle off a list. You can jot down a few of them maybe. Selfishness, self-centeredness, self-importance, pride, arrogance, ingratitude, laziness, presumption, that is when you take for granted your spouse, an unforgiving spirit, bitterness, holding a grudge, anger, outburst of anger.
13:33
having unrealistic expectations of your spouse, all those kind of things, and you could add to the list.
13:39
Beware of joy robbers. Six, prioritize service, prioritize service. That the Christian life of service is the best developed in the covenant of marriage. And sometimes I'll have people say, give me one thing that I really need to know about marriage and I'll tell them learn to serve each other. I think that that's right at the top. And you may be good at serving in all kinds of settings. So you serve stuff with your, with kids,
14:09
your kids or other people's kids or in school or in church, but do you serve each other?
14:16
The most important area of service apart from our walk with the Lord and our servant the Lord is learning to serve each other in marriage and I've found that my self-importance and my self-centeredness and my pride get in the way of that rhythm so that I have to battle to keep that cycle going of serve give share be thankful serve give share be thankful number seven children
14:46
our hearts together. Children bind our hearts together. The sharing and bringing new children into the world, if the Lord permits, binds our hearts together, our emotions together, our energies together, as well as wearing out all of those things too. By the way, just so you'll know, our youngest son and his wife sent us a text last night. They're expecting number two.
15:09
Yeah, so that'll be number eight grandkids. So we're excited about that. Well, children are a joy, children are a challenge. We share both of those in parenting. The funny thing about it, our children share our DNA with all of the positive traits, but also with some of the negative traits too. And so it means all hands on deck.
15:35
we've got to make the most of this brief opportunity of parenting. And each of us contributes, the husband and wife, the mom and the dad, each contributes in that nurturing, in that training. And so we have to guard against what happens sometimes in families where one parent maybe does most of the parenting, the other one just kind of watches.
16:02
There's gotta be all hands on deck. And yes, I've seen it where the wife is watching and the husband is doing most everything. We're all busy. And for the ladies who've been stay at home moms, if you think she's not busy, then go do her job for one day. You'll go, oh, now I understand that much better. But this is where our kids are looking to us to see an example. They wanna know, how do we deal with life?
16:32
with the relationship that we have with each other. And I don't think that we're as conscious as maybe we should be sometimes in the way our example comes into play with our children. Remember when our youngest son was a...
16:52
was a teenager, I forgot what year he was in school, but we were talking, you know, as a dad, you got teenage kids and they go over to someone's house, you wanna find out about what's going on. So I said, hey, tell me about your friend's parents and what's going on and you know, what are, do they, do the parents get along, do they treat and treat each other well? And he said, dad, you and mom have the best relationship of anyone I know. It just floored me.
17:22
But I realize he's watching everything and learning. And now that he has his own son and getting ready to have another son or daughter next spring, Lord willing, then he needs to know that example has got to be shown in his life.
17:40
And with all the child training, the most important priority that you can do with your children is focus on your marriage. The thing they need to see in you is that you delight in each other.
17:55
Yes, you delight in the Lord. They need to see that. But in terms of the relationships that they're eyeballing, they need to see a healthy, joyful marriage. Number eight, two parents multiply energy. Two parents multiply energy. That's when the nurturing, the training, the need for wisdom, I mean, you gotta have both those perspectives. And this is where our kids need that in character formation. They need to see,
18:25
the dad and the mom, they need to see the way they function in their gender roles, they need to see their servant heartedness, their faithfulness to Christ. And realistically in parenting, if you've never felt your weakness, then I need to meet you. Because every parent that I've been around, we always feel our weaknesses. There are things that we don't know what to do. That's normal.
18:52
And it's okay to feel that because it causes you to lean upon your spouse and both of you to lean upon the Lord. Number nine, long marriage brings sweeter joys. That long run provides some of the sweetest joys on earth without which,
19:17
our lives would be incomplete. I mean, think about what was happening in the Garden of Eden, Genesis chapter two, God made Adam, everything was great, God said it was very good, and then you get to a little farther down in Genesis two, and God said, it's not good that the man be alone. I will make him a helper, a completer, and that's what God did.
19:45
And so it wasn't that he was not experiencing all kinds of wonderful things. He was. But the Lord said he needed a completer. And so the Lord gave him that completer.
19:59
And these joys grow in the midst of the providences of life, the sweet providences, but also the bitter providence. I was praying today for a friend of mine whose house got totally gutted with a hurricane yesterday. And I was praying that the Lord would help him walk through this time where his theology is really coming into play.
20:29
but he's also able to talk to his wife and his children and help them see in this bitter province. I mean I've got a video of it, it's gutted, it just you know it's mind-boggling. Well those are hard things to walk through.
20:45
but the Lord gives us those relationships in marriage so that we are able to walk through those together and out of suffering, it seems that the Lord gives us new energies to help us experience joy. Number 10, God's design is always best. God's design is always best. And this is where we have this...
21:09
complimenting of our lives together in marriage, the weaving of our lives together, and it demonstrates the design of one man and one woman. That the Lord didn't bomb and shaping our spouse, but he works in us so that we learn selflessness and servant-heartedness. And the tapestry of our lives should aim from manifesting the Lord's wisdom and sometimes his humor in putting us together.
21:36
because some couples are so different from each other and you look at and you go, just the grace of God that they love being with each other. Number 11 is I need to fulfill my wife to finish well. I need to fulfill my wife to finish well. And that is we want to...
21:59
we're in the latter stages of our lives and we know that. And we don't mind saying that and talking about that because our hope is in Christ. I think it's kind of healthy to be able to talk about that. But we want to finish well in our relationship together. And the last six years has probably been the most challenging season of our lives. We've had other times where it was really challenging, but both of us had cancer diagnoses and...
22:29
I went through chemotherapy and isolation and some nasty stuff. Karen went through surgery just last year and then the complications arising from that and then we transitioned for what we had spent 44 years of our lives doing with me pastoring and Karen's the first lady in the church and serving in whatever ways the Lord appointed to her and then that stopped.
22:55
Those are pretty big things to walk through. And we've had other seasons along the way, but the Lord has enabled us to see our love deepen in midst of those times where there were adversities and hardships, and we've enjoyed each other. And our happiness in marriage has grown as we've suffered together.
23:21
and we've learned together that we're to live in the hope that is in Christ. Number 12.
23:29
is profound gratitude to the Lord. Profound gratitude to the Lord. I'm thankful to the Lord for bringing Kieran to me so that we would have the joy of getting married. I was serving in a church in Bayou La Batre, Alabama. I don't know if any of you have been to the Bayou, as we call it. It's right down on the bottom of Alabama. It's a fishing boat building town. And I had absolutely no thought
23:59
would find my wife there. A lot of the folks there just didn't have the same interest that I had in life, in every way of life. And so I was discipling Karen's cousin and he had been a Roman Catholic and he'd come to know the Lord and so he kept saying, I want you to meet my cousin. I said sure, sure and I thought
24:27
if she's anything like you, I mean I really love you brother, but I couldn't spend my life with you, you know? And so he brought her to a church service one night in Mobile. I was a college student, she was a college student in Tuscaloosa. And so she was home on spring break. And I brought another young lady to that service that night and Karen
24:57
along with her cousin and then I think we maybe got together one more time and then I stopped by I was going home and had to go through Tuscaloosa stopped by and visited with her. This is in March of 1975 and we got engaged August the 1st and got married in December.
25:19
rock and roll baby, go for this. And I look at that and I think, what an incredibly sweet providence that here was this guy that I was discipling. He died, I don't know, a year or so ago, maybe two years ago now. And here I'm discipling him in this town where I never expect you to find a wife, and here she is. And I still remember.
25:46
I ran into one of my buddies I hadn't seen all summer, toward the end of the summer, we were in a bookstore, and I said, Wayne, I found God's woman for me. And sure enough, we got married. Number 13, we complete each other.
26:05
we complete each other. That's where the weaving of our lives together, emotionally, mentally, physically, spiritually, means that we hold the key to building up and encouraging the other. That's something of that completer idea. And by that, no one can boost confidence and spur good action more than the one with whom I'm joined in covenant.
26:35
words, facial expressions, body language, intimacy, conversations, attentiveness, all that works together. It either builds up or it tears down. And so neglecting to cultivate every aspect of our lives together means that we affect the marriage. And so think about this thing of being a completer. That's the way it's described in Genesis 2.
27:05
The power of words, the power of words. The words we speak lift the spirit of the bring it low.
27:13
So guarding our tongues in marriage is more important than all the other relationships because of that covenant relationship that we have. And really, our marriage relationship can be a barometer of all the other relationships. It's the worst hypocrisy to neglect that covenant relationship and give more attention to lesser relationships.
27:38
So the tongue is a gauge of the heart that can affect marriage with either great joy or deep heart. And I've had times I've wounded Karen with her words and she's had times where she's wounded me with her words. And we've had to humble ourselves and apologize. That's why a good marriage is a long spiritual process. And I think when you're younger.
28:05
you maybe do a little bit more of that wounding as long as you're growing of the Lord. And I have seen some older couples that seem to do a lot of wounding and I'm thinking, what are you doing? That's nuts, don't do that. I mean, we're learning to die of sin. We're learning to live in resurrection power. We'll talk about that more tomorrow. And that affects our speech. And maybe...
28:29
Some don't take the words as seriously as they should. Maybe they think, well, you know, I've done some nice things. I cooked a favorite meal. I've taken out the trash. I've changed a baby's diaper. And all those things are good, but we need to realize that the seatfulness of our heart that will rip up our marriage. You can't compensate for failures with the tongue by doing other nice things. But Christ will...
28:57
in you will enable you to address your words in your manner of speaking. I think of how many times I've failed in that area and generally it's because of self-importance.
29:14
I would maybe say something because maybe Karen said something I didn't like the way she said it or did something The way I didn't want her to do it or didn't do something I way I wanted to do it Yeah, you know could be anything and it's generally something very very tiny and then just blurts something out And when it blurts out in really I'm going you are so dumb I'm saying that to me You know, why are you doing that?
29:41
I mean, most of the arguments that we have in marriage are over unimportant things. And yet failing to care for our hearts desensitizes us when it comes to...
29:55
issues of bitterness and selfishness raining in the heart. I like the way Zambian pastor, who's also a pillar pastor, Chopo Mwanza, warned, he said, the fact that marriage is God's plan means the devil has a plan and strategy for marriage in Christian couples. And I think one of those is to affect our tongues. 15.
30:17
Beware of marital presumption. Those times that I'd get lazy, that I was not disciplined would be exposed by the way I neglected healthy building up and life giving elements in marriage. And so being astute in other areas of life while neglecting marriage reveals shallowness and laziness.
30:47
on marriage. Early in our marriage, we've been married for three months and I thought everything was just going great and hunky-dory so I was serving in a church and I taught Sunday school on Sunday morning, preached fairly often either Sunday morning or Sunday night, taught on Sunday afternoon, did the Discipleship group on Monday night, another Discipleship group on Tuesday night, taught on Wednesday night, had visitation on Thursday night, and then did a
31:16
activity either Friday night or Saturday night. John, you would have pulled me aside and cleaned my clock. And you should. My pastor should have pulled me aside and cleaned my clock. But I was helping to pull the load. And so I walked in to our lovely pre-manufactured home. We had a trailer and it was really ugly. It had this nasty shag carpet in it. And she was sitting in the middle of the floor crying. And I thought, what's wrong with this woman?
31:46
and it was me because I was presumptuous. You know, you can't have that kind of schedule and keep a healthy marriage. And so I had to make some adjustments and the Lord was gracious in that. And I've had to do that along the way because I can slip back into presumption. Always be sensitive. That's why I have open communication with each other.
32:13
one of the funny things to me because I've had seasons along the way where I've had to work on this. So when I started working with the Pillar Network, my study was at home. I was accustomed to, for most of my 44 years of pastoring, having a study in office and all that and coming home at a certain time generally. And so I had my studies upstairs and I was loving what I'm doing. There's so many things. I mean, it was just wowed, all
32:43
And so I thought, hey, I'm here. And I just kept working. And so instead of coming home around 5.30, which was my norm, I would come down about 6.30 or something like that and Karen didn't say anything. I did that a few days and she said, oh, it's nice of you to come down. And that's all she said. And she said it very kindly. It was like, oh, I did the same stinking thing I did when I was 22 years old.
33:13
I got presumptuous.
33:15
And so I had to make some adjustments along the way. Number 16, we're in union to be like Christ. We're in union to be like Christ. If you think I am emphasizing the aim in marriage is to grow in grace with the result that your union with Christ and your spiritual walk as a couple is going to reflect that, you're right. You've caught on very quickly. It seems that a lot of marriages suffer because they have been superficial in their relationship
33:45
Christ. Don't play Christianity.
33:49
I mean, they say, yeah, I go to church, we do a little Bible reading, ask the blessing at meals and all that, those things are great. But that lack of intentionality and intensity in seeking Christ is gonna show up. The marriage covenant is a call to integrity in living in Christ together. Again, Chopo Mwanza gave a helpful perspective. He said, the nature of marriage is that couples will help or hold each other back.
34:20
They support or stifle. You either encourage or you enable each other for good or folly in sin. Don't underestimate the influence you have on your spouse. And then he asks, what kind of impact are you having on your spouse? Well, look into Ephesians five, and I'm gonna, I mean, looking at the time, I'm gonna walk through some of this, and if I get to a spot where I need to stop, I'll stop and pick up in the morning. And we'll just.
34:49
break into the other passage. So don't mind me chopping things up like that. Ephesians 5 22 to 33 is the primary text on marriage in the Bible. But this passage
35:09
is part of a bigger context here where Paul is talking about the whole work and warp and woof of our lives in Christ. So
35:21
Notice beginning in verse 15 that the first thing that we see starting in verse 15 going through verse 33 is that both husband and wife must nurture healthy spiritual lives. And there are five be attitudes and practices in the Christian walk that will help us at this point. The first one is be careful with your Christian walk. Be careful with your Christian walk.
35:50
to how you walk, not as unwise people, but as wise. Yeah, I'm gonna go into great explanation. Joshua will get to that Lord willing down the road. It's gonna be a while, but it's coming. But you're careful, you're not careless.
36:11
You're paying attention, it's a walk. So in other words, this is your ongoing daily journey. You have struggles with it, you have obstacles in the way, but he says, be careful about it. Pay attention to your, that's the first thing. Second, be a faithful steward of your time. Be a faithful steward of your time.
36:33
verse 16, making the most of the time because the days are evil. So being a good steward of your time, it means that you may not be able to do everything that you want to do. And so you learn how to be judicious. Karen will tell you if you say, you know, what are some of Phil's crazy proclivities?
36:59
And she'd probably say, well, he wants to do everything. And my mind whirls and I think of stuff. I wanna make this, I'm gonna work on this, I'm gonna go here, I'm gonna teach him this, I'm gonna write this. My mind is just constantly whirling. So what I have to do personally and what I'm exhorting you to do, be a steward of your time.
37:23
And right at the heart of that is your walk with the Lord and your marriage. Are you doing what you need to do to cultivate that walk with the Lord and to cultivate a good marriage? And so that means that you can't always do everything you want to do. And that's okay. And I'll say this, um, since all you guys are young, there were things I looked at. And when I was younger, I thought, Oh, if I don't get to do this, I won't ever get to do it.
37:52
One, some of those things you never think about again. Two, some of those things you'll be doing. You'll get the opportunity later. And you'll enjoy it even more because you haven't crammed your life together.
38:10
So that's where be patient about being a good steward of your time. Third, be attitude, be conscious of living in God's will, be conscious of living in God's will notice the contrast for 17. So don't be foolish, but understand what the Lord's will is.
38:30
Don't be foolish. So in other words, it is foolish if we're not seeking to consciously live in the will of God each day. So how do we do that? Well, we do that primarily by seeing the revelation of scripture. What has God said in his word? Let's live our lives by the word. What do we see in the life of Christ? Let's live our lives in living out the Christ's life. On those things where we say, well, I don't see anything in the word about this. Jesus wasn't involved in buying
39:00
or you know something like that what do I do we walk with the Lord we seek the face of the Lord we see where he gives us peace and we go forward and don't look back and don't second-guess yourself on everything seek the Lord use the sanctified
39:21
sense that he's given to you and be willing to move forward. Fourth, be daily filled with the Spirit. Be daily filled with the Spirit. Verse 18, and don't get drunk with wine, which leads to reckless living. But be filled with the Spirit. Literally.
39:43
be being filled with the Spirit. It's a passive voice, which means the Holy Spirit is already acting upon you. That's the norm of the Spirit to fill you. So what you're doing, you're consciously making sure nothing is in the way for the Holy Spirit filling your life. You're not focused on things that are dishonoring to the Lord. It literally means the idea that you're living under the Spirit's control.
40:13
It's this ongoing practice that is the norm for the Christian life, to be filled with the Holy Spirit. It conveys being under control and under influence. So he uses a contrast. What happens with someone that is drunk? They're out of control. They are controlled by something else. But I would submit to you that...
40:40
Drunkenness is not the only thing that can intoxicate us. It can be media. It can be our job. It can be our schedule.
40:53
It can be our peers. It can be other kinds of intoxicants. We can Get caught up in other things instead of being filled with the spirit. So we need to consciously live in the fullness of the spirit I love the the Statement that Michael Haken made about Martin Luther and his beloved Katie his wife Concerning their marriage. It said Luther had a deep sense of the joyfulness of the Christian life
41:20
and marriage simply exacerbated that. You live in the fullness of the Spirit and it overflows into the joy in marriage. And then the fifth, the fifth beatitude, be engaged with the church. Be engaged with the church. We see this beginning in verse 19, speaking to one another.
41:45
Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs singing and making music with your heart to the Lord Giving thanks always for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ Submitting to one another in the fear of Christ that that's like Midtown's gotten together and had a worship service
42:03
And you're speaking, you're singing, you're giving thanks, you're exhorting, you're yielding yourself to each other. And so intentionally seek to add to the joy and knowledge of other believers through the means the Lord has given you. Speaking, worshiping, serving, gratitude, submission to one another.
42:27
That's the foundation before he starts talking about marriage. So let's move second to the second thing we see in this passage and that is both husband and wife must understand and grow in the complimentary partnership, complimentary partnership of marriage. Both husband and wife must understand and grow in the complimentary partnership of marriage. Some couples live in competition with each other.
42:56
One's always trying to get the edge on the other one or trying to dominate or trying to control or trying to get his way or her way, and that's destructive. Instead, there is this beautiful complementarity that's going on between the man and the woman. Kathy Killer wrote that in Genesis 1 and 2 on the complementarity of the man and the woman, that it suggests strongly that the sexes,
43:26
and worth are complementary. So we're not in competition to see who is better, who has more worth, who is more important. Those are destructive attitudes. Rather, in humility, we recognize God's design in marriage and we gratefully seek to walk in it, even in things that carry an air of mystery about him. So let's look at five aspects of marital life first.
43:56
see the roles in marriage as God's wise design given for our good. And so God's given these roles in marriage. He's done it wisely. He's done it for our good. In Ephesians five, there are 40 words addressed to the wives. 115 words addressed to the husbands. Yes, we are that dull. We are that hard headed and we need extra to get things across.
44:26
The wife is called a helper, a completer. So she makes up.
44:32
for where the man is lacking. And this is where we look at that first marriage in Genesis two and how magnificent and beautiful and glorious it was. They were romantic, they were joyful, they were happy. I mean, it was the kind of thing that I wish we could see with their clothes on of course, but I wish we could see with all that beautiful joy in the relationship.
45:02
you get to Genesis 3 and the fall came and affected it but it didn't change God's design. It just affected how we do things in marriage. We have corrupted what God has designed by selfishness.
45:22
instead of contributing in marriage the things that God has called for us to do. And so that's why verses 15 through 21 are so important. If we're going to function in the roles God has given to us in marriage, we need to be walking with the Lord. We need to be guarding our time. We need to be walking in the will of God. We need to be filled with the Spirit. We need to be engaged with the body of Christ. All that is necessary. Second is submission.
45:52
not subjugation. I couldn't remember, is that typed in your notes? I can't remember. Okay, so I don't have to repeat it. Submission is not subjugation nor mousiness nor an unwillingness to speak into your husband's life.
46:07
So what is submission? That's that word you're almost afraid to bring up in a lot of settings in our day. It's more an attitude and mindset than anything else. It's not taking a lesser role. It's not becoming invisible in the relationship or developing a mousy disposition. Turn over just a few pages to Philippians 2, beginning in verse five. And if we want to see what submission is,
46:37
This is the picture of submission. It says of Jesus, adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus who, existing in the form of God, did not.
46:49
consider equality with God as something to be exploited. Instead, he emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant, taking on the likeness of humanity. And when he had come as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Now, when you look at that, that's the picture of submission.
47:13
That's the model. We're to have that mind of Christ. It is a humble recognition of a God-given role to display the glory of God and to accomplish his purposes. And while that's true of Jesus in Philippians two, in the incarnation of the cross, it's also true in marriage. It's true the husband's complementarity of submission as a Christian, and it's true of the wife
47:43
in that complimentary relationship with her husband. It's modeling Jesus Christ. And so if we think submission is demeaning, go back and read this passage again.
47:54
The equality of Jesus and the Godhead did not end at the humbling submission in the incarnation of the cross. Instead, it was magnified by the love and obedience of Jesus toward the Father. And so any thought of inferiority with this, it totally misses what submission is. So what does submission look like? Well...
48:22
is an attitude of willingly trusting your husband's leadership. Instead of regularly questioning all of his decisions or making him feel like he's a dumbo, it's looking for ways to be an encouragement to him as he makes decisions that affect the family. Submission builds a husband up, not as an authoritarian, not as a dictator. God forbid he's to be a servant leader.
48:51
but he needs to feel the weight of your trust as he leads. Now servant leadership, servant leadership goes against the natural bend of selfishness that's bound up in every man. Brothers, we've got that selfishness.
49:09
Healthy submission seeks to help and enable that husband towards that Christ's magnifying role of servant leadership. So how's that gonna work out? Let me give you a few things, and I'll probably need to shift to the Q&A. It's an attitude.
49:31
finding delight and satisfaction in your husband even as Christ as the church does with Christ he needs to know that you enjoy him for who he is with all of his weaknesses and all of his idiosyncrasies and all of his needs and he's got all those
49:49
He needs to know that your mission in life is not to reshape him into your mold, but to accept him as a gift from God and to encourage him as he matures and grows in the role of leading the home, which means this God given role is a means to fight pride in selfishness in your life, just as he has pride and selfishness in his life. And how do you, how do you do that?
50:19
How do we fight pride that majors on elevating self? We humbly place ourselves under another's leadership and authority.
50:29
I mean, that's why pastors need elder plurality so that men given to pride will be submissive to their fellow elders, battling their pride and helping them to walk in humble service. And so while being a leader in the home, he is also under submission to the body of Christ. That's what it says in verse 21. He's also.
50:54
under submission to the elders in the church. So he is learning to be a servant leader, but will lean into his laziness or to his authoritarianism if he's not also learning submission right in the middle of you being submitted to him.
51:15
This submission involves speaking in such a way as to build up your husband and instill confidence in him as he seeks to lead in marriage. And this is where your voice and the tone of your voice and your facial expression, your warmth, all of that raises his confidence level. In the reverse of that, if you're regularly demeaning him, downing him, I mean, I've had
51:45
those guys. I mean I pull them aside and I rebuke them but I've also heard ladies do that. I've had to say dear sister your husband needs something better than that. He needs you to build him up. You can tear him down more than anyone else.
52:01
And so this respect goes a long way in building up. Submission means yielding to and encouraging the husband as he leads with the desire to do all things that will benefit your lives together rather than him making every decision. The husband is not to be a machine that cranks out all the decisions. Live your lives together so that you trust each other's decisions.
52:28
in matters of daily life. He doesn't need you second guessing him on everything, but he also doesn't need you being complicit in agreeing to everything that he does. Sometimes the husband is gonna make a bad decision. Karen has kept me out of so many ditches. I wouldn't even be here. I'm serious, I wouldn't even be here. I would have done so many dumb things. And she's...
52:58
said, Phil, we can't do this. Oh, why can't we do this? And then she would try to have a reason and go, oh, I hadn't thought about it like that. You see, all right, ladies, I'll tell you something. The guys aren't listening on this, but part of our brain is dead and it's released, it's resurrected by you, by this beauty of submission. And it pulls things out of that man. And man, you get somebody that's resurrected, you got some life there.
53:28
And that's what happens the way you speak with grace and respect and in wisdom. You sharpen him, sharpen him. Don't metaphorically trying to hang him on the decision.
53:42
But instead sharpen him. This is is one Important area that we need to think about that the husband is not the fount of infinite wisdom and strength He needs your wisdom. He needs your intuitive counsel in leading the family Just as he needs a humble heart to seek your counsel and to confide in you with Transparency so that you might advise him and encourage him as he leads
54:12
We need each other if we're to be fulfilled in marriage. And then one last thing and I'll stop and talk to the guys in the morning. If the husband fails to discuss matters with you and just acts unilaterally, he's going rogue. Don't sit on your hands at that point. Speak into his life. He's having one of those brain dead moments.
54:39
and he needs you to speak into his life. Now, there may be an exception where something's gotta be done quickly, he makes a decision and you stick with it. But he needs your help. And so without rancor, without anger, without yelling, without bitterness, tell him how important it is for you to be included in the decision since you're sharing life together as a covenant couple.
55:07
You'll feel more of the beauty and intensity in this covenant as you open up and you're transparent in your decisions. I'm gonna stop there. I'll talk a little bit more about submission in the morning, but we'll talk more about headship tomorrow too. All right, we in good shape? I'll pray for us. Thank you Lord for the things we've been able to.
55:34
think about and we pray that you would teach us, we pray that Christ would be formed in us and out of that work of Christ that you would beautify our lives whether single or married, whether young married or old married that you would beautify our lives as those who are looking more and more like Christ. We pray that in Jesus' name, amen.