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Wives and Fearless Submission

Family Matters: Message 2
Sunday, March 9, 2025
Pastor Jojo Ma

 

Eph 5:22-24 22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

I.         Understanding Biblical Submission
II.        Embracing a Fearless Submission
III.       Living a Respectful Submission

“A truly Christian marriage will mirror the relationship between Christ and his church…[This involves] both the husband loving his wife as Christ loves the church, and the wife gladly submitting to her husband as the church is to be subordinate to Christ. The two elements, love and submission, are non-negotiables within the relationship.”

I.         Understanding Biblical Submission
22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

In mankind’s first sin, everything got twisted. The woman yields to the creature (the snake), the man yields to the woman, and nobody yields to God. This was a total distortion of God’s good design.

Tim & Kathy Keller: “The tender, serving authority of a husband’s headship and the strong, gracious gift of a wife’s submission restore us to who we were meant to be at creation.”

A.        What biblical submission is
The word ‘submit’ literally means “to line up under”, or the closest modern day word would be “to sub-ordinate” oneself.

So when wives submit to their husbands, they are freely lining up under their husband’s headship, they are voluntarily subordinating themselves to his loving leadership.

Kathy Keller: “My submission in marriage was a gift I offered, not a duty forced on me.”

John Piper: “[Biblical submission] is the disposition to follow a husband’s authority, and an inclination to yield to his leadership. It is an attitude that says, ‘I delight for you to take the initiative in our family. I am glad when you take responsibility for things and lead with love. I don’t flourish in the relationship when you are passive and I have to make sure the family works.’”

  • Are you loving your husband by accepting his authority and respecting his role?

  • Do you have a willingness to honor and support and encourage your husband’s leadership?

  • Do you have a “disposition to follow” and an “inclination to yield” to his God-given headship?

24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

B.         What biblical submission isn't
First, biblical submission isn’t following your husband in sin.

Second, biblical submission isn’t accepting physical, sexual, or verbal abuse.

Third, biblical submission isn’t always agreeing with your husband.

Wives, your attitude of respect, your tone of voice, and the timing of the matter can go a long way.

II.        Embracing a Fearless Submission
1 Pet 3:1-6 1 Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, 2 when they see your respectful and pure conduct. 3 Do not let your adorning be external -- the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear -- 4 but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious. 5 For this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, by submitting to their own husbands, 6 as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord. And you are her children, if you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening.

So one huge way to embrace a fearless submission is to put your hope in God and cultivate a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious to God.

III.      Living a Respectful Submission
Eph 5:33 However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer: “With your marriage you are founding a home. That needs a rule of life, and this rule of life is so important that God establishes it Himself, because without it everything would be out of joint. You may order your home as you like, except in one thing: the wife is to be subject to her husband and the husband is to love his wife.” 

  • Do my attitudes, actions, and words enable and empower my husband to lead our family toward a deeper knowledge and trust in God?

  • Have I in everything truly submitted my life to this highest priority?

  • How am I expressing respect to my husband today?

  • Have I shown self-control in speech, patience in strife, and gentleness in voice?

  • Do I use my words to encourage my husband?

  • Does my husband see in me a “gentle and quiet spirit”?

  • When I’m disappointed or frustrated by him, do I choose to respond in love and kindness?

  • Have I shown interest in his interests, his joys, his fears? Does he know I care about these things?

  • How can I better pray for my husband? Have I asked him how I can pray for him recently?

  • Through all his faults and failures, do I build up my husband, and affirm his leadership role (and my desire to follow and yield)? Have I said this verbally to him recently?

 

John Piper: “If our marriages are going to tell the truth about Christ and his church, we cannot be indifferent to the meaning of headship and submission.”