A Fantastic Family Wife and Mom

 

A Fantastic Family Wife and Mom
Ephesians 5:21-24
 
Families, in America, are in a great deal of trouble. Children, in America, are in a great deal of trouble. Very often, problem children are the result of problem parents. When parents are fighting, quarreling, selfish, and dysfunctional, they tend to let loose on society children who are quarreling, fighting, selfish and dysfunctional.
 
The key to children in the family is always the parents in the family and the husband and wife relationship. So a great deal of Scripture has to do with husband and wife relationship, the responsibilities of the parents, because that impacts what the children learn and the lessons they are given.
 
Last week I talked about how to be a fantastic husband and dad. The primary responsibility for the home, interestingly enough, is placed upon the man. We have discovered that the Bible teaches very clearly that the man is to be a sacrificial kind of person. The Bible tells us that the man is to love his wife, he is to love his family, and he is to do so sacrificially. Men are to love their wife and family as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for it. It's a love which is a sacrificial love.
 
So the key word in terms of the responsibility of the man is the word "sacrifice," a sacrificing love.
 
There is a key word in terms of the responsibility of the wife and it is the word submission.
 
You will find it in several places in the Scriptures as I'm going to show you this morning.    I have looked at the word in all translations. I have looked at the Greek meaning of the word. I have tried to find some way to soften the situation. But I have discovered that there is no way around it.
 
Remember that I'm the postman. I just deliver the message. If you don't like the letter, don't get mad at the postman. Get mad at the person who sent the letter. Better yet, consider the truth of the message and benefit from it.
 
Do you understand where I'm coming from? I want to get out of here alive.
 
This word is like a red light flashing in our culture today. It is a very controversial word. It occurs three times in the verses I an going to read this morning.
 
Let’s look at this text: Ephesians 5:21-24
 
Look at verse 21. "Submitting to one another." Verse 22 says, "Wives, submit to your own husbands." Verse 24 says, "As the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything." Submission!
 
The teaching of the Bible is that the way for a lady to be a fantastic wife and mother is to learn the importance and to respond to God's teaching about the matter of submission.
 
This whole concept of submission has really been brought under a great deal of attack.
 
 
There are some people who say that this conjures up images of subjugation and it is an archaic concept and anti-woman. They have said this won't do. We just can't have this. This is a teaching that needs to be removed. Wives are not to be submissive to their husbands."
 
So the whole concept of submission has been attacked.
 
Not only that, but it has also been abused. There are some men who have abused the concept of submission. Some men take the Bible teaching of submission to mean that they can be tyrants; that they can run roughshod over their wife and the wife just becomes something of a servant to them. Some men have misunderstood the concept of submission.
 
And yet, after studying this subject all over again in recent days and weeks, and certainly in light of all the attack and abuse, I am more convinced than ever that the key for a woman to be a fantastic wife and mom is submission.
 
It is something that goes all the way back to Genesis 3. I want to point out something for you. If you remember, things were going quite well for the family of Adam and Eve in Genesis 2. But when you come to chapter 3, you have the entrance of sin into the human family. If you track it in the rest of the book of Genesis, even the Bible families had a great deal of turmoil and conflict because sin negatively impacted every area of their life.
 
So the husband and wife relationship is negatively impacted.
 
Genesis 3:16
 
We looked at these verses recently on a Sunday night in our study of divorce speaks of her desire to control her husband or have authority over the husband.
 
He, in response to her desire to control will respond with a domineering attempt to rule his wife. So from the very beginning there seems to have been a rebellion against the whole concept of the headship of the man and the leadership role of the man and an attempt on the part of the wife to usurp the role of the man and an attempt on the part of the man to domineer and rule over the wife. That conflict, as result of our sinful nature, has come all the way down to the year 2009.
 
So, for those of you who are already getting defensive, just take a deep breath and don't prejudge what I'm going to say. Let me just walk you through what I believe the Bible means when it teaches the truth of submission.
 
Let's go back to Ephesians 5. The first thing I want to point out to you is that submission is,
 
I.       A Spiritual Truth.
 
It is placed in the context of the teachings of the Bible. You have to understand the context of the book of Ephesians. You have to understand that we are dealing with spiritual truth. It is God who is giving us this truth.
 
 
 
Some folks say, "I'm sorry, I don't agree with that. I don't like that and I argue against that and I refuse to accept that. That is not something that is going to be acceptable in modern culture today."
 
Then you have a greater problem than submitting to your husband. You are in rebellion against the authority of God. You have to decide this. What is going to be your authority? Is your authority going to be what God says or is it going to be what the culture says or what other sources say?
 
We are living in a culture today which takes the position that if there is something we find in the Bible that we disagree with or is contrary to the teaching of the culture, we just throw the Bible out.
 
But if you are a Christian, according to the dictates of your Christian faith, the Bible is your final authority. What God says, and not what culture says, is ultimately definitive and authoritative for you. It is God who has designed the family and it is God who has set forth the roles in the family and it is God who gives us the guidelines about how the family is to function.
 
Lisa’s truck is out there in the parking lot that we bought a few months ago. I'm one of those guys who likes all those gadgets. That truck has all kinds of gadgets on it. You unlock the doors with the key thing, and depending on which one you use, it automatically adjusts the steering wheel and the pedals and the seats. 
 
It’s got a dvd, and a navigation system and all kinds of gadgets.   The problem is, when we bought it, I didn't know how to use any of them.
So they provide you with an instruction manual. That manual was put together by the company that built the car. The people who built the car have put out this manual which tells me how the car is to operate. If I want to operate the car correctly, then I have to go according to the teachings of the instruction manual. Does that make sense to you?
 
God is the One who has designed the family. He has put together the husband and the wife in marriage with the children in the family. God has given us an instruction manual, the Bible. When we go to the Bible, we find the spiritual truth of submission.
 
It is given in the book of Ephesians, and we will find some other places also. Let's get the overall context of the book of Ephesians.
 
Now here while back, I spent 43 weeks on the book of Ephesians, and we looked in-depth at the book and its context, but a couple of things are in play here. One is that some of you have joined since I did that study, and didn’t get to hear it, and others of you don’t think Wednesday night Bible study is important so you don’t come. So I’ll spend a little time here making sure you understand a little about the book. 
 
The first thing you need to notice is in Ephesians 1, verse 1.
 
Verse 1
 
That's the first thing you have to understand. These are guidelines and instructions that have to do with those who are IN Christ Jesus. This is for the saved ones. This is for born again people.
This is for those who have received Jesus Christ as their personal Savior.
 
Go back to chapter 5, verse 18, and get a little closer context to what I'm dealing with. "And be not drunk with wine wherein is excess, but be ye filled with the Spirit."
 
The context here is that this is for not only saved believers, but for believers who are filled with the Spirit. They are committed to the control of the Holy Spirit.
 
Look at an even closer context in verse 21. "Submitting yourselves ONE TO ANOTHER, in the fear of God."
 
See the progression? Not just saved, but saved and committed to the control of the Holy Spirit and demonstrating that control by submitting to one another. 
 
The Bible teaches mutual submission. It is not something that is just a one-way street. That means that there are settings when the husband is submissive to the wife and the wife is submissive to the husband. It is a mutual kind of thing.
 
I'll get to the meaning of submission a little bit later, but I'm trying to give the context.
 
Another thing you will find here is that it is giving a parallel that the wife's submission to the husband is compared to the submission of the church to the Lord Jesus Christ.
 
Look at verse 24.
The church is to submit to Christ. Is it detrimental for the church to want to follow the leadership and the headship of the Lord Jesus Christ? Of course not! He loved it so much that He died on the cross to make it possible for us to be saved.
 
So there is a context of this whole matter of submission.
 
Not only is there a context, but it is placed within the whole area of the family.
 
A wife and mom who refuses to go by the Bible teaching on submission is going to have trouble in several directions.
 
Number one, she is going to have trouble with the Lord. Submission is something we are told that is to be done as unto the Lord. It is a matter of obedience to the Lord. Titus 2, verse 5, says that the wife is to be obedient to their husbands that the Word of God be not blasphemed. There are problems with the Lord!
 
You will have problems with your husband. The husband is to take the leadership in the family. When a wife is unwilling to allow him to do this, it creates wrong responses in the husband.
 
There will be problems with the Lord. There will be problems with the husband. There will be problems with the children.
 
You have to be under authority in order to exercise authority. A man cannot exercise leadership unless he is under the leadership of the Lord.
 
A wife and mom cannot exercise leadership with her children unless she is under authority. It gets wrong responses from the children. When the children see rebellion on the part of their mom toward their dad, it creates wrong responses in the children.
 
Then it creates problems with yourself. God has designed each of us in a particular manner. And I want to tell you something: It doesn’t matter who it is, or what the pecking order, when we are contrary to what God teaches us to be, it creates frustrations, resentments, hostilities, and there are problems on the inside.
 
It is a spiritual truth.
 
Here's the second thing: 
 
Not only is it a spiritual truth,, but it is,
 
II.     A Functional Truth.
 
Turn over to the book of Colossians chapter 3, verse 18. I'm aware of the fact that this is different from what you are going to hear in most places. Remember that I'm just the postman. I'm just delivering the mail.
 
Colossians 3:18
 
What does that mean? It is an organizational truth. Submission has nothing whatsoever to do with inferiority or inequality. The Bible makes it very clear that there is equality between male and female.
 
 
 
In Galatians 3, verse 28, we are told, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus."
 
Listen: He is saying there is absolute EQUALITY between man and woman. Equality between husband and wife. It has nothing to do with inferiority.
 
In fact when the Apostle Paul wrote what he had to write about the matter of submission, the status of women was greatly elevated by the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Christian faith.
 
If you want to talk about subjugation and inferiority and inequality, then you go to some of the Middle Eastern countries. Take a good look at what goes on in Iran and Iraq and Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Afghanistan. It is the Christian faith and especially the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ which has elevated womanhood to the pedestal where God intends women to be placed.
 
So, I'm not talking about inequality. The Bible does not. It's talking about a functional thing here. It is "in the Lord."
 
Every organization has to have a head. That's just the way organizations operate. A nation has a president. A state has a governor. A city has a mayor. A church has a pastor. Because you are not a president, a governor, a mayor, or a pastor does that mean you are inferior or unequal? Of course not. It just simply means that somebody has to be in charge. Somebody has to make decisions. It is a functional principle. It is an organizational principle.
 
In the design of God, there are certain assigned roles.
 
Let's look at this word submit. The word literally means to organize under. Or it means to take your proper role in the organization. God has said in the Bible that the man is to be the head of the family. That means that there are those occasions when he has to make the final decision. The husband is a wise husband if he will consult his wife.
 
What we often forget, is that when God puts husbands and wives together, it does it with completion in mind. Your wife will be a compliment to you and vice-versa and wise is the husband who includes his wife and her abilities and gifts in the decision making process.
 
I heard about a mayor of a city who was out on a tour and his wife was with him. They went to a construction sight and a construction worker there was a previous boyfriend of hers. They talked for a little bit and her husband was watching. When they got away from the construction sight, with a sly smile on his face, the mayor said, "Just think about it, honey, if you hadn't married me you would have been the wife of a construction worker."
 
She said, "Oh, no, you don't understand at all. If I had married him, he would be the mayor."
 
It is a functional decision and it has to do with how we organize. It is such a very practical thing.
 
 
 
 
Let me just read you a word from author Elizabeth Elliot. She said, "To submit doesn't mean to become a zero. It is a glad and voluntary obedience to your husband with each respecting the other, each sacrificing for the other."
 
The wife has unique abilities. The mom has unique abilities. The family functions better if there is someone who is the leader who makes the final decisions and if there are others who offer insight and support.
 
You say, "What if my husband is going to make a decision and we talked about it and we disagreed. What do I do?"
 
You have a marvelous recourse. It is the recourse of prayer. You can tell God on your husband. Tell God what a big mess he is fixing to make. I have seen it happen more than once. The wife prays about a matter and in a few days the old boy comes along and said, "You know, darling, I've been thinking about what we were deciding to do and I'm not sure we ought to do what I had thought. It was thinking more in terms (just exactly what she had proposed to do)." She says, "Darling, I think you are the smartest man on the earth. That's a wonderful decision you have made."
 
The Bible teaches that the wife has unique abilities and unique gifts when it comes to the matter of being a mom.
 
Turn over to Titus 2:5. This is so very interesting. He's talking about the role of the wife and mom in the family.
 
Verse 5
 
We know that a lot of wives and moms work out of the home today. In fact, they say now that over 50 per cent of the wives and moms work outside the home. There are circumstances where this is absolutely necessary. We have some single moms here this morning. I want to thank you single moms for every thing you are doing and for the load you are carrying. It is not easy to be a single mom.
 
Some of you not only have to make the living out in the world, but you also have to tend to the circumstances at home. When you get home the work is there. God bless you, and I'm not saying this to make you feel uncomfortable. I know there are circumstances where that's the way it has to be.
 
But all things being equal and if you possible can, it's a wonderful thing for mom to be at home. When I was a boy my mom was at home. I am so thankful for that. Nothing in the world can replace that. It may offend you, but grandparents, as great as they are cannot replace that.
 
Babysitters can’t replace that; tv and computers can’t replace that. Nothing can take the place of Mom.  
 
It is so wonderful if it is possible if you can be at home, mom. God has worked into your makeup certain abilities. God has given you gifts of verbal expression. God has given you sensitivity to your children. God has given you the ability to connect with them. You are the one who dries the tears from their eyes and kisses the bruises on their knees and all of those wonderful things.
Have you ever noticed, during the football game when the TV camera is scanning the boys on the sideline? Without except, when they get on the screen, what do they say? "Hi, Mom!" I have never heard a one of them say, "Hi, Dad!"
 
God has uniquely gifted you to have a role. You are going to impact that child. You are going to put values in that child. You are going to teach lessons to that child that no one else can do. The wives and moms are so sensitive to this.
 
It is a functional principle. It means to take the role God has given you. Not rank under in inferiority. It means to fulfill the responsibility which is yours. It is an organization principle. It is a very practical principle. It's a family principle.
 
How far does this matter of being submissive to your husband go? It goes to your husband. Every time it mentions submission of the wife in the Bible it says, "to your own husbands."
 
You say, "Maybe they want me to do something I should not do."
 
Look back at that verse in Colossians 3:18 again. 
 
If it is not fitting, you don't have to submit. If your husband wants you to go to the bars with him, you are not required by the Bible to submit to that. If your husband wants you to watch pornography with him, you are not required by Scripture to submit to that.
 
 
 
The key to submission is a spiritual truth. It is a functional truth. It is
 
III.    An Ornamental Truth.
 
There are some who suggest that Paul was a bachelor, or the reason he wrote all that stuff is that he was out of joint with women. He just didn't like women.
 
Well, let’s hear what someone else had to say about it. 
 
Let's find a married man and see what he says. What about Simon Peter?
 
Peter lived with two women. According to Scriptures he lived with his wife and his mother-in-law. Surely Simon Peter is going to have a different take on this thing. We'll get the real deal from a married man. He's been trained. He's been beaten down pretty good. We are going to get this straight now.
 
The first seven verses in chapter 3, Peter discusses the wife and the husband relationship. By the way, he has six verses for the wife and one for the husband. That means I'm supposed to preach six times longer to the women than I do to the men. Just kidding.
 
1 Peter 3:1-6
 
"Likewise ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands." There it is again. Why does he say that?
 
 
 
The first thing is that submission is a redemptive trait.
 
"That if any obey not the word (a lost husband), they may also without a word be won by the conversion (lifestyle) of the wives. While they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear. Whose adorning..."
 
The context here is a Christian wife and mom with a lost husband and he obeys not the Word. He's not saved and doesn't follow the teachings of God's Word. How can you be redemptive in that situation? How can you Christian wives live in such a way that you can be redemptive and win your husbands to the Lord?
 
"They obey not THE word, they may without A word win them."
 
Sometimes wives get over anxious for their lost husbands to be saved. They begin to preach and they begin to beg and they begin to nag. Someone has said, "A wife who has good horse sense never becomes a nag."
 
Sometimes being over aggressive doesn't win that lost husband. You don't win him by putting "Four Spiritual Laws" under his pillow every night. Or by putting John 3, verse 16, on his beer can. You don't win him by turning up the tapes of the preaching so loud he can't listen to the ball game.
 
"Without a word." It's not something you say, it's something you live.
 
 
You live Jesus in front of that old boy and let him see a submissive wife and because of your relationship with Jesus Christ, it will have a redemptive effect.
 
Verse 3 says, "Whose adorning..." That's where we come to the matter of an ornamental truth. I mean by that, it is something that is very beautiful. It ornaments a wife.
 
That word "adorning" is where we get the word "cosmetology." Now watch this: the root word to cosmetology is “cosmos”. Now that takes us back to creation. In the beginning the earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep. 
 
Do you know what that’s describing? Chaos. Then God began to bring cosmos out of chaos. It was organized, functional and beautiful. Cosmos means to put together. It's where we get our English word, "cosmetics." He's talking about the beauty of a wife.
 
Listen: hear is the point. For a woman to be submissive to her husband is not just about the mechanics and the function of the role and assignment. I'm trying to say that there is something very beautiful and attractive about a wife who decides that she is going to be a responder to her husband. She is going to be a completer and not a crippler to her husband. She is going to win her boys and girls and her family by the lifestyle she lives and by the testimony she bears by her actions and her behavior. When a wife and a mom is that kind of wife and mom, then she will be a Fantastic Family Woman. 
 
Let's bow our heads in prayer.