Ephesians 5:22-24 Part 2

And verse number 22, actually, this is going

to be part two of the same text that I

preached

from last week, and let's read verses 22 to 24

to get started.

The Bible says, wise be subject to your own

husbands as to the Lord, for the husband is

the head of the wife.

As Christ also is the head of the church, he

himself being the savior of the body.

But as the church is subject to Christ, so

also the wives ought to be to their husbands

in everything.

Now, as we've been saying, completely counter-

cultural in our day.

These instructions right here are very simply

God's design.

God working through his spirit inspired the

apostle Paul to call all Christian wives to

submit to their husbands.

That is God's design for the wife's blessing,

for the husband's blessing, for the blessing

of the children, and for the blessing of the

church.

Most women in our society hear these words,

and they recoil at these words.

Leftist feminism has had such an influence in

our nation, especially over the last sixty

years or so, that this idea of wives submit to

your own husbands is laughed at in our

culture.

It's mocked, it's ridiculed, treated with

complete scorn and really utter hatred.

And as with many things, this attitude has

also infected the church and has for many

years now.

Not so much as visceral as we see it with the

unbelieving leftist feminist, but certainly

maybe with what we could call a soft feminism,

maybe we could label it that way, that at

a minimum either outright disagrees with this

or has a different interpretation of which

there are multiple, or just does not deal with

this clear command at all.

Let's just pretend like it's not there, talk

about other things.

A Christian writer named Laura Miller wrote

the following that I think rightly understands

verse 22 here, "Wives be subject to your own

husbands as to the Lord."

She writes this, "I was created to be a helpme

at."

That was the stated purposes in Genesis 2.18

when God gave woman to man to rid man of his

loneliness and to be a helper to him.

Just as when I most perfectly fulfill my

purpose as a human, when I am glorifying and

enjoying

God, when I am a helpmeat, I am most perfectly

fulfilling my purpose as a woman.

By being a helper, I am not a lesser person

than my husband.

My femaleness certainly does not hinder God in

his sovereign design to call me to himself,

nor does it bind me to a lesser relationship

with him.

Indeed, Scripture demonstrates that God did

not consider my gender when he saved me.

For there is neither Jew nor Greek.

There is neither slave nor free.

There is neither male nor female.

For you are all one in Christ Jesus.

In his placing me within the economic

hierarchy of the church family, my womanhood

was inherently

involved in the calling, but in choosing me to

receive the call, being a woman was incidental

.

That was just so well said.

And such a very clear sense of identity as

defined by Scripture is really rejected by

many women even in the church today.

You know why?

Because this text is so misunderstood by so

many in the church today.

They fail to understand the difference women

do in many cases in the church today between

what they are in the kingdom and what they are

in the family and what their God ordained

role is.

And they fail to submit to the purpose that,

think of it, God has uniquely designed for

women.

And a large part of the reason for this is

because in so much of the American evangelical

ism

during the same exact time period that we have

seen the rise of leftist feminism, as

you well know, we have witnessed a departure

in our pulpits away from verse by verse exp

ository

preaching, rooted and sounded and ground

doctrine in favor of what?

Watered down, man-centered, topical, moral

istic, therapeutic deism in our pulpits.

That's what has happened.

There's two things happening at the same time,

have made in so much of the church in America

just women to not even understand what's being

said in these verses.

And so I want to continue to help us

understand them biblically today.

Last time we started with our first point from

verse 22, the matter of submission.

Look at verse 22 again, "Wives be subject to

your own husbands."

Now we discussed that, and if you didn't,

weren't here last time, go back and watch

that.

I don't have time to go back through all of

that.

But I want to take you down to part two, point

two, the manner of submission.

Not only is the woman designed by God to

submit, but there is even a way in which she

should

submit.

There is a manner to her submission.

Look next in verse 22, "As to the Lord."

This means respond to your husband submiss

ively as if you were responding to Christ.

Now that is intense, right?

Think about that.

Think of this.

That is the will of Christ.

So number one, Christian wife, how can you

reject that?

How can you reject what that says?

When you are submitting to your husband, it's

the same as if you are submitting to Jesus.

That is what this phrase means.

In the same way that you submit to Jesus, you

are to submit to your husband.

It's heavy.

So that's the manner of submission.

That's the highest standard possible that the

apostle Paul is calling Christian wives

to, "As to the Lord."

Remember, I didn't write the mail, ladies.

I'm just a mailman, okay?

If you've got a problem with that right there,

your problem is not with me.

Your problem is with the Word of God.

I'm just telling you what the Word of God

clearly says and what it means.

Now next, we have point three.

What is the motive for this submission?

Look at the start of verse 23, "For the

husband is the head of the wife."

Boy, the feminists, they lose their mind.

This is God's word.

That's the design of God.

That's the divine plan.

Try this illustration on for size.

A body submits to the brain, right?

Which is in the head.

The brain is here by God's design.

In the same way when a wife follows God's

design in marriage, she submits to her husband

,

who is the head.

Remember, we talked about his role of

authority in the family last time.

Now you see a body that's not responding to

the brain, to the head.

What do you see?

Well, you see a deformity.

You see something that's not normal.

You see a dysfunctional person.

And the same is true in a marriage.

When a wife does not submit to her husband and

thereby she does not submit to God's design,

there is and will be dysfunction, distortion.

God has designed the body to respond to the

head.

And verse 23 is telling us that the husband is

the head of the wife.

Now, number four, in line with this, the model

of submission.

Look at verse 23.

Takes it up another notch.

As Christ also is the head of the church.

So you see the comparison here?

In other words, wives, you are to submit to

your own husbands as the church submits to

Christ.

God has an order of things.

As I've been telling you through this whole

passage, with the same willing heart that the

church has in obeying Christ, the wife is to

submit to her husband.

That's what Paul is teaching us here.

And again, Paul continues to give us this very

high standard.

Think of it in the same willing, joyful way in

which the church is to submit to Christ.

So you wives are to submit to your husband and

they look next.

Look next.

He himself being the savior of the body.

As Christians, we joyfully submit to the one

who saves us, right?

King Jesus.

That's what is our new desire after we become

saved and regenerate.

The church very willingly, gladly submits to

Christ.

I mean, we understand, we begin to understand

our weakness once we come to Christ, right?

And we understand his strength in a way we

never did.

We understand that apart from Christ, we can

do absolutely nothing, right?

We submit our weakness to his strength in the

church.

And so the comparison that Paul is trying to

make here or is making is the same thing

as to happen in marriage.

That's intense, right?

Just like Jesus delivered the church from the

dangers of sin and death and hell.

So the husband in his role is to provide,

protect, preserve and love his wife, leading

her to blessing as Christ leads the church to

blessing as we submit.

Number five, the magnitude of submission.

Look at verse 24.

But as the church is subject to Christ, so

also the wives ought to be subject to their

husbands.

Same word.

Remember their submit in everything.

Now that's some magnitude right there, isn't

it?

In what?

Everything.

That's God's design in everything, except, of

course, if you were here last time.

If the husband wants the wife to do something

that dishonors God, she doesn't submit at

that point.

That's obvious, right?

But how does this submission work out?

Let's talk about that.

And I want to use a biblical example to show

you this.

There are several to choose from, there's one

in Timothy, but I want to look at Titus.

And I think this is a great example.

First let's read it and then we'll get into it

.

What does biblical submission from a wife look

like, right?

Well, over in Titus chapter two and verses

three through five, Paul's giving out some

instruction for the women and the men in the

church and all that.

Let's just read this one little section in

three to five.

He's speaking to the older women in the church

here and look what he says.

Older women likewise are to be reverent in

their behavior, not malicious gopsups, nor

enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good

so that they may encourage the young women

to love their husbands, to love their children

, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind,

being subject to their own husbands so that

the word of God will not be dishonored.

Now here we get into some specific

instructions for the women in the church.

Look at verse three.

"Older women likewise are to be reverent in

their behavior, not malicious gopsups, nor

enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good."

So first thing that Paul does here is that he

establishes what is to be the godly behavior

of the older women in the church and he uses

those categories as a good example of how

the older women are to behave.

But here's what I really want to focus on for

this illustration's purpose.

Look at that last phrase in verse three, "Te

aching what is good."

Because that takes us into verse four and five

.

What Paul is considering here after their

years of raising a family are over, the older

women are to then take this role upon

themselves of being teachers and mentors to

the younger

women in the church.

And that's a great thought, right?

That's a great thing for the older women to do

.

A generation of godly older women instructing

and mentoring a new generation of younger

women, women with young children.

And again, at the end of verse three, look

what it says, teaching what is good, literally

that which is noble, that which is excellent,

that which is lofty.

By the way they live their daily lives, by the

way that they conduct themselves, they

are to pass down Christian virtue in their

behavior to these younger women.

That's what he's getting at.

And boy, do we sure need this today in the

church.

Would you agree?

The first phrase in verse four shows how

important this really is.

Look what it says.

So that they may encourage the younger women.

Other words could be used there like admonish,

instruct.

In fact, in the Greek word here literally

means this, to train in self-control,

encourage.

This means to teach someone self-control, self

-discipline, sensibility.

So what a great responsibility this is for the

older women in the church.

Now let's go on to verse four to see the

specifics and what is first?

Encourage the young women to love their

husbands.

And we're going to see, coming up, men get

yourselves ready and later in Ephesians five,

husbands love your wives.

Look at what this says, encourage the young

women to love their husbands.

So there's a mutual love.

Just like I taught you in the first two

messages about a mutual submission that there

must

be between husband and wife as the ground

floor.

Before we ever get to the roles, there has to

be mutual love and mutual submission.

And this is a command.

This is not a suggestion.

And a command demands obedience and it also

assumes the possibility of obedience.

This is something that can be done no matter

how the husband is acting.

Remember we talked about that last time.

Now think about that, a command.

Well, what about a lady who says, "Well, I

just don't love my husband anymore.

I mean, I used to love him when we had the

butterflies and the fireworks.

I mean, but now I think I just kind of fell

out of love with him.

You got to know him."

Now for Christians, with this right here being

a command, that excuse isn't going to

cut it either, is it?

I just don't love him anymore.

Well, wait a minute.

What makes a marriage is a commitment to love

your spouse.

Not to love your spouse is a sin.

And what we're talking about here is not

Hollywood love.

That's fake.

It has nothing to do with Christian love.

What we're talking about here is mature

Christian agape sacrificial love that holds

the other

as more important than yourself.

Of course the butterflies fly away.

That happens pretty quick, right?

Christian love is that which grows deep and

strong and is above all things the number

one characteristic.

I'll say it over and over and over and over

and over until I die.

Sacrificial love, that is the key to biblical

marital love.

So policy and it's the responsibility of the

older women to teach that reality to the

younger

women and that's the heart of actually what a

woman needs in order to be able to submit

to her husband.

If you love your husband rightly, this whole

submit to your own husband sure works out

a lot better for you if you love him, right?

And then next, in verse four, the older women

are encouraged, look at it, the young women

to love their children for the wife beyond the

overarching purpose of life and being

and existence on earth, which is living for

the glory of God.

Her life is her husband, her life is her

children.

And guess what?

When that is lived out rightly, that does

bring glory to God.

So you're accomplishing both of those things,

the overarching purpose and bring glory to

God through loving your husband, through

loving your children.

A woman, as we saw earlier message, led the

human race into sin in the garden and yet

it is women who influence the next generation

in their motherhood, especially in the younger

years of a child's life.

Think of it a mother's godliness, a mother's

virtue has a profound effect on the life of

her children.

The rearing of children is one of the greatest

contributions that a woman can make.

Obviously God does not have that as a plan for

all women.

There are many contributions a woman can make

to advance the kingdom of God besides rearing

children that are indeed very important and

very necessary.

But it is the role that a mother plays in a

very short period of time of being an

influence

in a child's life when it's a child and it

shapes who that child will be in adulthood.

And of course, there are no absolute

guarantees with that, right?

We know that.

We've seen that.

You can do everything you can possibly do to

the best of your ability to raise your

children,

right?

But at the end of the day, it is still the

responsibility of that grown adult that you

raise as a child to live their life for the

glory of God, but also in many cases, God uses

that special relationship of a godly mother to

shape who that child will be for his glory.

So the older women in the church are to teach

the younger women in the church to love their

husbands, to love their children, and then

look next, verse five, to be sensible.

Oh, man, I love that one right there.

That's a good one.

It's so sad to think about this world in which

we live today having so many women who just

don't think right at all.

I mean, they can't think straight.

I mean, just this past week, examples about

grown adult professional women with high

degrees

of learning across the board, nurses, doctors,

business women going out of their way to make

videos, to post online celebrating the murder

and assassination of Charlie Kirk.

You're not thinking straight.

And I'll bring up AOC again on the floor of

the House of Representatives, voting no to

a simple resolution to honor the memory of

Charlie Kirk, but purposely, severely mischar

acterizing

who he was and what he stood for and twisting

his words and taking them completely out of

context to make him look like an ignorant,

racist and bigot.

So many women, literally half of the voting

women in our country, have lost the ability

to make sound judgments.

They've lost common sense.

So here in verse five is just the most basic

thing, teach the younger women to be sensible.

Next, look what it says, teach them to be pure

, agnus.

It means chased.

They are to be faithful to their husbands in

every conceivable way.

Now I want to give you another illustration, 1

Timothy 2, 9 to 10.

Likewise, I want women, this is Paul instruct

ing Timothy in the church there and he's past

oring,

likewise I want women to adorn themselves with

proper clothing, modestly and discreetly,

not with braided hair and gold or pearls or

costly garments, but rather by means of good

works as is proper for women, making a claim

to godliness, godliness.

Now there's no need to take that legal

istically.

Take it sensibly.

How do we begin in this day and age in 2025 to

take that sensibly?

Well remember to look up the historical

context, just like we did last time in 1

Corinthians

with the head coverings.

In Paul's day, and this church that he's

writing to, there were women in that church

who were

making distractions and they were sewing

discord in that church and what they would do

is they

would actually weave gold and pearls and other

jewelry into their hairstyles in order

to call attention to themselves.

So they showed up to church with these gold

and jewels weaved in their hair and the same

was true, you see the phrase there, "costly

garments."

They would draw attention to themselves with

their costly clothing and what would that

do for the poorer women, we would make them en

vious, just stirring up all kind of stuff.

And what's Paul's point?

Paul's point was all of that is distracting

away from why we're here at the church.

We're here to worship God and y'all are

causing distraction, you're sewing discord

unnecessarily

in the church and by way of application also

under the exhortation of being pure.

Think about how some women dress today.

I mean a trip to Walmart can really be an eye-

opener in our day and I won't make reference to

certain

geographical locations being more intense in

that situation than other geographical

locations

but as previous jokes of mine have been you

can guess the particular Walmorts that I'm

thinking about right now and I'm being

sensible, not naming it.

But blending sensible and pure together, it's

real simple, this is rocket science, godly

women are to dress in such a way that calls

attention to their virtue and to their god

liness

and not to themselves.

You're going to come to church, dress nice, it

's good to dress nice but you're not going

to come in here like you're walking down the

red carpet at the Grammys, right?

That's calling attention to yourself, that's

not legalism.

Now some churches make that legalism with

dress and all the rest but of course we don't.

This is just sensible.

Look now, next in verse five we get down to

the real nitty gritty.

This is the place where the leftist feminists

lose their ever-loving minds right here.

Look next, workers at home, oh boy, literally

a house worker.

This the apostle Paul has said is to be the

primary sphere of a wife and a mother.

It's her domain, it's her kingdom, it's her

realm, it's Christie's Castle on Kerry Road.

That's what it is.

This phrase, workers at home, does not simply

refer to just scrubbing the floors and

cleaning

the bathrooms, it includes that but it's

broader than that.

It carries the idea that the home is the

sphere of all her labors, whatever they may be

.

It means that the home is her particular

divine assignment.

She is to be the home keeper and to take care

of her husband, to take care of her children

and her grandchildren in certain cases, right?

My guys, now, if I counsel a young couple just

starting out, I'm going to be very honest

with them and I always will be.

I will be quick to tell them that you cannot

follow the example that Christie and I carried

out in raising our children.

We were new Christians, we were coming from a

complete opposite realm of the church, the

Christian church and I would go back and

change everything that we did.

Starting with, just as an aside, I would have

never entered into the ministry without going

to a sound biblical seminary and any young man

that wants to go into the pastorate, I

would go learn the languages, go learn the

Greek, go learn the Hebrew, go to a saint,

well, we got a brand new seminary, Founder's

Seminary over in Florida where Vodibachem

is the president, a great seminary you can go

to, another one up in Arkansas.

There's a lot of liberal ones, but there's

great ones too.

Christie and I are very much anomalies.

Now obviously, I'm not against women working,

my own wife has been working in City Hall

for over 30 years, right, but I counsel young

couples.

I'm honest, I'm very quick to say, if you want

to go about the very best way possible

of raising a Christian family, follow these

verses and men, you do whatever you have to

do to make sure that your wife can stay at

home with those kids and raise those kids and

you've got to work three jobs, do that if

necessary.

Now after the kids are grown, you know, and

you want to get a job, no problem, but have

your woman, especially in those early years,

toddler, six, seven, eight, also don't ever

put your kids in a public school ever, okay.

I did, bad move, all right, and look, I

understand that there are certain situations

that cannot

be avoided, like for example, with my own

grandchildren, can't be avoided.

There's reasons, everybody's got different

situations.

I'm talking about the best, I'm talking about

the standard, I'm giving you the very best

way, the Christian standard, maybe it can't be

done, there are certain situations like

in ours where that can't be done, but if it

can be, if a woman is capable, homeschool

those

kids.

I'm telling you, that's the very best way.

If she's not capable, send them to one of

those co-ops.

As Vody Backem said, if you send your children

to pagan government schools, don't be

surprised

when they come home acting like Romans, okay,

because the biggest thing they're influenced

by is not only woke education, it's also the

children that happen to be there who come

from every walk of life imaginable in the

public school setting.

God's highest standard is giving right here in

verse five, look at it again.

Children are to be workers at home, rearing

those children, both spiritually and with

a solid, biblically based Christian education

along with all the other things that go into

running a solid Christian home.

Now, I cannot help but brag on my wife back

there.

She works a solid, solid 40 hours a week, and

she still comes home every day, cooks

a meal, cleans, does the lion's share of the

housework so that I have the opportunity to

sit at the desk and also keep up with the

outside and also 50% of the week also serving

the grandchildren as well, which is six, four

and two, quite a task.

Now, for sure, we have not ever followed the

highest pattern in this regard, and again,

I don't ever counsel anybody to follow what we

have done, both by way of ministry and

in the home, but God in His kindness and His

mercy has made this work out for us.

That's just God's grace.

That's just God's mercy in our life.

We are literally a team in what I do here in

ministry in every possible single sense

of that phrase, a team.

I could not do this without Christie, and that

is not any kind of hyperbole.

I couldn't.

I couldn't do it.

So, like the old saying goes, I'm saying to

young couples, do what I say and not what

I did and what I do, because guess what?

It may not work out for you as it did for us.

It's just God in His kindness has made it work

for us.

And as a Christian, you should want to go

about raising a family, striving to live

according

to the gold standard of God's Word.

And look, listen, please listen to me.

I understand that we could sit here for hours

and go through, well, what about this

situation

and what about that situation?

Of course, of course, though, there's all

kinds of situations where the Bible's pattern

for the home is something that can't be worked

out in the way that we might want it to.

There's situational circumstances that block

that from being able to happen.

We are example number one, but guess what my

job is to give you the best possible standard

from biblical principles to carry out as best

as you can to strive to live according to

the Word of God.

That's what I'm doing here today.

Now, I can't do anything other.

Just be completely honest with you about this

whole thing.

You have to use godly wisdom to act within the

situation that you're in and be discerning

as best you can to carry this out according to

God's precepts and understand to most most

of our society.

God's standard right here in this text for the

home is absolutely ridiculous.

But while they think that and you know this in

your own life of people that you know that

are not believers, look at the extreme level

of dysfunction that characterizes so many

people's households that we know who do not

follow this power, who do not believe in

Christ.

And because of the world's influence within

the church, and I've said this before, God's

way may even seem a little strange to us

because we've been so impacted by the world.

But what I'm telling you is, this is the Word

of God.

These words are plain and easy to understand.

Words have meaning and here they are and this

is what they mean.

Godly women are to be content at home, content

to love their husbands, content to love their

children and serving the Lord through serving

their families.

I promise you, I promise you, this is the best

way to live life in the family.

Look next in verse 5 of Titus 2.

Hmm, looks familiar, huh?

Being subject to their own husbands, same

exact thing in our text Ephesians 5-22.

Look at it.

Wives be subject to your own husbands.

Submit to your own husbands.

We saw it last week in Colossians.

It's over and over, Paul is repeating this

because he wants all Christian families to

get this, not to other men, you don't submit

to other men, ladies, to your own man.

Now look next in Titus 2-5.

So that the Word of God will not be dishonored

, literally so that it will not be blasphemed

or slandered.

So what's at stake here?

What's at stake is the honor of the Word of

God.

If we say we believe in the Word of God, if we

say we want to preach to you the gospel

of the Word of God and that the Bible has the

answers and that Christ is the answer,

but in our daily lives, in the many different

situations and circumstances that we may find

ourselves in, we are not striving as best we

can to live obedient to the Word of God.

Why should any person outside of the church

believe that it is as important as we claim

it is?

Why should they believe us?

The very honor of Scripture itself is at stake

is what Paul is saying.

I mean really just, even for an unbeliever, in

the land of just common sense, who can

argue with teach the young women to love their

husbands?

I mean teach them to love their children, to

be workers at home, be subject, I mean it's

just sensible.

That's not, is that confusing?

That's not confusing, that's what the Bible

says.

And if we are to be an example again to those

outside the church, that's the Bible's way

of raising a family is the best way, and guess

what?

We better have our own house in order or we're

not going to be an example, right?

This in itself is a form of evangelism.

This is something that God can use to draw a

lost people to himself.

So that's the biblical standard for the women,

men, you are next.

And I would advise you to come to church, next

time we're here in Ephesians 5, with

your steel toe boots on, you will be convicted

, and primarily because, as I've already laid

the groundwork for, your position is the

position of authority, and that carries with

it a much

higher responsibility.

Let's pray.

Father, we thank you, this clear instruction

from your Word, Inspiring Apostle Paul.

This is your design for how the mechanics of

the family is to work, and it's so counter

cultural,

and we've been so influenced by the world, and

even influences our thinking, the world

does.

But if we're going to say we believe the Bible

is the Word of God, then we have to conform

to what it says and not worry about what the

world thinks.

Clearly, it's not working on that side.

And so, Father, help us to be submissive

ourselves, all of us, to the teaching of the

Word of

God as to how we are to order our families,

and how we are to live obediently to you,

that it might be an example to others, that

the truth is the truth, that Christ alone is

the one and only Savior of sinners, and that

the Bible is your Word, all to your glory.

In Jesus' name we pray, amen.