Know Your Role
BIG IDEA:
Both the Husband and Wife’s role within marriage is twofold:
- To serve and love God with all of their heart, mind, and soul.
- To challenge their spouse to do the same.
21 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. 22 Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. 25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word,27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— 30 for we are members of his body. 31 “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." 32 This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. Ephesians 5:21-33
Wives
Submission shows you respect your husband's authority and leadership.
Better to live on a corner of the roof than share a house with a quarrelsome wife. Proverbs 25:24
Wives aren't doormats in their marriages when they're submitting to a man chasing after God harder than himself or even her.
Wives have to trust that God is leading their husbands and he's being obedient to submit to His ultimate authority.
The Holy Spirit is there to see you win in your marriage. God wants strong healthy marriages that point people back to Him.
If submitting to your husband is a challenge for you, are you truly submitting to God?
Practically submission is more than a passive attitude, but a total surrender and full support of his leadership. There's a team aspect to marriage in every decision, but he has the ultimate say.
Husbands
Your biggest responsibility in life if to make sure that you have an incredibly strong walk with the Lord, because when you get married, you are responsible for leading and loving your wife in a way that points her to pursue God.
Paul teaches in Ephesians 5 that husbands have 2 responsibilies:
1. LEAD (V.23)
For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Ephesians 5:23
For husbands, leading your family is not a suggestion, it is a command.
The idea of husbands leading isn't a new concept in scripture:
"Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” Genesis 3:16
"But I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God." 1 Corinthians 11:3
"Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers." 1 Peter 3:7
2. LOVE (VV.25-30)
A husband's love for his wife is not summed up in flowers, chocolates, or doing dishes, but something much more eternal.
"Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless." Ephesians 5:25-27
The reality is that loving your wife in a way that prepares her for heaven is always expected, but it is rarely easy.
Practical Tools for your Marriage:
One Extrodinary Marriage: 6 Pillars of Intimacy
5 Love Languages
Ultimate Intimacy App
