The Ultimate Relationship in Life (Ephesians 5:21-33)
Delight Yourself in the Lord
The Ultimate Relationship in Life
Ephesians 5:21–33
 
We have been exploring what it means to "Delight Yourself in the Lord". I think everyone knows that Christianity finds its ultimate fulfillment after life on this earth is over. That is where the eternal reality of Psalm 16:11 is discovered. The Psalmist said, "In the presence of God, there is fullness of joy; at Your right hand there are pleasures forevermore."
 
And upon the authority of God's Word, I can declare to you, without any fear of argument or debate, nothing on this earth can ever compare with what we have waiting for us when life on earth is over.
 
But this study is not about heaven. And that is not to say there isn't any joy or happiness to be found here in the meantime. In fact, it is my conviction that when God enters our life and establishes an eternal relationship, His intention is for us to start enjoying life to the fullest at that moment.
 
Is that not what Jesus said in John 10:10 when He said, "I have come so that my sheep can have life and have it in abundance"? Our mistake is that we think happiness and pleasure can only be found in material possessions and money and stuff.
 
But God has a lot of happiness and pleasure and abundance in store for us right now, if we just had enough sense to claim it. To that end, we've identified the ultimate pleasure in life to be knowing God, and enjoying the relationship that He promises.
 
It is available only through Jesus. Therefore, He is the ultimate treasure in life, and we are to be willing to sell everything we have in order to have Him.
 
The ultimate experience in life is living in a spirit and atmosphere of worship that brings to God the glory He deserves and desires and brings to us, grace, glory and every good thing.
 
And the ultimate gift of life is found in God's love for us and the privilege we have of letting that love spill out of us to meet the needs of others, which means the ultimate wealth in life is when we learn to use what God has shared with us so we can be a blessing to others and at the same time, lay up treasures in heaven.
 
I don't know if you've ever thought about it or not, but James, the half-brother of the Lord, said in the book in the New Testament that bears his name that every good gift and perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of Lights.
 
Two different words for gift are used in that verse to tell us that not only is the gift that is given good and perfect, but the fact that God gives to us is also good and perfect. It's not just the gift, it's the act of giving in and of itself. That is the nature of God. he is a Good and Giving God.
 
Not think about that. Everything good in our life comes from God and is given for us to use and enjoy. It is part and parcel of being in relationship with Him. And obviously, we are thinking in terms of post-salvation. None of us would argue that salvation is the greatest gift anyone could ever receive. After all, that is the ultimate treasure.
But very often, when we think about God's gifts to us on earth, we tend to think in purely material terms, such as money and houses and possession. That is primarily a Western Christianity mindset. We tend to equate our wealth and possessions with God's goodness, but that doesn't preach too well in most of the rest of the world.
 
If we dig a little deeper, we might even talk about health and children and fulfillment and purpose and a lot of less materialistic things that we evaluate as God's best gifts to us.
 
  1. I would suggest at the top of that list of gifts belongs God's gift of marriage. In my estimation, it is the ultimate relationship that any human can experience on earth outside of our relationship with God.
 
Now, when Paul write his letter to Ephesus, and wants to help his hearers understand marriage, he looks to the Word of God, and in particular, he talks about what Jesus and the Scriptures had to say about it. And when he brings Christ and Scripture together to hear God’s Word on marriage, what he hears is a profound mystery with intensely practical implications.
 
Ephesians 5:21-33
 
What I would like to do with you this evening is to explore this mystery that Paul references in our text and then, apply two of its practical implications to our lives in light of what it means to delight ourselves in the Lord so He can give us the desires of our heart. Let's start with
 
1. Marriage in Genesis
 
Ephesians 5:31 is a quotation of Genesis 2:24: “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh.”
 
Then, in verse 32, Paul adds, “This is a great mystery, and I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church.”
 
Paul knew something about Christ and the church that caused him to see, based on Genesis 2:24, a mystery in marriage. So let’s go back to Genesis 2:24 and look more closely at the context of this verse and its connection with creation.
 
We know the story. According to Genesis 2, God created Adam first and put him in the garden alone. Then in verse 18 the Lord said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make a helper comparable or suitable for him.”
 
Now apparently God is thinking about what is best for Adam. That statement about being alone is not about Adam’s fellowship with God or that the garden was too hard to take care of by himself.
 
The point is that God made man to be a sharer. God created us, not to be cisterns of His blessing, but channels or conduits of His blessing. And there wasn't anyone on earth with whom Adam could relate to and share his life.
 
And the truth is, no man is complete unless he is conducting grace between God and another person. That is not to say that can only happen in marriage. That's not true. If you're single, you can still transfer God's grace with another human being, but only in appropriate ways. And the most intimate of ways in which that can happen is in the confines of marriage.
 
And what Genesis 2 is telling us first and foremost is that this transfer of mutual grace and blessing must be human to human and not human to animal. Adam was in a world filled with life and animals, but he was alone in that world.
 
So in Genesis 2:19–20 God paraded the animals before Adam to show him that animals would never do as a “helper comparable to him.” And by the way, that was obvious. Adam looked them all over and his conclusion was there is nothing here like me. There is nothing in the created world so far with whom I can share God's blessing and pleasure.
 
Now before all the pet-lovers get all stirred up, animals can help plenty. They can be a comfort and offer a degree of companionship, but only a person can be a fellow-heir of the grace of life. Only a person can receive and appreciate and enjoy grace. Give a Bible to a dog, and he'll chew it up! Share a salvation track with a cat, and you'll find it in the litter box.
 
What man needs is another person with whom he can share the love of God. Animals will not do! There is an infinite difference between sharing the beauty of the Grand Canyon or the Majesty of the Rockies with your beloved and sharing them with your dog.
 
Therefore, according to verse 21,
 
The Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh; and the rib which the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.
 
So having shown the man that no animal would do for his helper, God then made another human from man’s own flesh and bone to be like him — and yet very unlike him. He did not create another man. He created a woman.
 
And Adam recognized in her the perfect counterpart to himself — She was utterly different from the animals: “This is now, at last, finally, bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.”
 
By creating a person like Adam yet very unlike Adam, God provided the possibility of a profound unity that would otherwise have been impossible. There is a different kind of unity enjoyed by the joining of diverse counterparts than is enjoyed by joining two things just alike.
 
When we all sing the same melody line, it is called “unison,” which means “one sound.” But when we unite diverse lines of soprano and alto and tenor and bass, we call it harmony, and everyone who has an ear to hear knows that something deeper in us is touched by great harmony than by unison.
 
So God made a woman and not another man. He created heterosexuality, not homosexuality. God’s first institution was marriage, not a fraternity.
 
Now notice the connection between verses 23 and 24, signaled by the word “therefore” in verse 24. In verse 23 the focus is on two things: objectively, the fact that woman is part of man’s flesh and bone; subjectively, the joy Adam has in being presented with the woman.
 
verse 23
 
"This is now. . ." Finally! At last!, this is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh!”
 
Then, from these two things the writer draws a conclusion about marriage in
 
verse 24
 
In other words, in the beginning God took woman out of man as bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh, and then God gave her back to the man to discover in living fellowship what it means to be one flesh.
 
Then verse 24 draws out the lesson that marriage is just that: a man leaves his father and mother because God has given him another, he cleaves to this woman and no other, and in that relationship he discovers the experience of being one flesh. That’s what Paul saw when he looked at the Word of God in Scripture.
 
But Paul knew another Word of God, and that was the Living Word, Jesus Christ. In fact, He knew him deeply and intimately, and he had learned from Jesus that the church is Christ’s body. How do I know he had learned that? I know it because of what Paul wrote in
 
Ephesians 1:23
 
By faith a person is joined to Jesus Christ and to other believers so that we “are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28) Believers in Christ are the body of Christ. In other words, we are the organism through which he manifests his life and in which his Spirit dwells. You say, okay, so what?
 
Well, knowing this about the relationship between Christ and the church, Paul sees in that a parallel with marriage. Notice what he says about
 
2. The Mystery of Marriage
 
According to Genesis 2:24, the husband and wife become one flesh, and in that same way, through salvation, Christ and the church become one body.
 
In fact, so real was this comparison to Paul, he said to the church in Corinth in 2 Corinthians 11:2, “I feel a divine jealousy for you, for I betrothed you to Christ to present you as a pure bride to her one husband.”
 
He pictures Christ as the husband, the church as the bride, and their conversion as an act of betrothal which he had helped bring about. The presentation of the bride to her husband is what will happen at the second coming of the Lord, which, by the way, he describes in Ephesians 5:27 as well.
 
So it seems to me that Paul uses the relationship of human marriage, learned from Genesis 2, to describe and explain the relationship between Christ and the church.
 
But when we say it like that, something very important is overlooked which brings us back to where we started at Ephesians 5:32.
 
After quoting Genesis 2:24 about the man and woman becoming one flesh, Paul says, “This is a great mystery, and I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church.”
 
Marriage is a mystery. There is more here than meets the eye. What is it? I think it’s this: God didn’t create the union of Christ and the church after the pattern of human marriage. In fact, it was just the opposite. God created human marriage after the pattern of Christ’s relation to the church.
 
Follow my thinking: The mystery of Genesis 2:24 is that the marriage it describes is a picture or symbol of Christ’s relation to his people. God doesn’t do off the cuff or randomly. Everything has purpose and meaning.
 
When God decided to create man and woman and establish the union of marriage, he didn’t roll the dice or draw straws or flip a coin. He didn't just come up with a solution because Adam didn't have a helper. He patterned marriage very purposefully after the relationship between his Son and the church, which he planned from eternity.
 
Understand what I'm saying. God planned the relationship between Jesus and the church first, then put a physical model of that relationship on earth called marriage.
 
 
And therefore marriage is a mystery because it contains and conceals a meaning far greater than what we see on the outside. What God has joined together in marriage is to be a reflection of the union between the Son of God and His bride the church which means marriage is the ultimate relationship in which two humans could ever be involved.
 
And those of us who are married or considering marriage need to keep fresh in our minds how mysterious and wonderful it is that we are granted by God the privilege to image forth eternally divine realities that are infinitely bigger and greater than ourselves.
 
Imaging Christ and the Church
 
Now what are some of the practical implications of this mystery of marriage? I’ll mention the two which seem to dominate the passage in Ephesians.
 
One is that husbands and wives should consciously copy the relationship God intended for Christ and his church.
 
The other is that in marriage each partner should find their own joy in what brings joy to the other.
 
And in that regard, marriage should be a source of as well as a model of what it means to delight ourselves in the Lord.
 
First, let's look at what God intended for husbands and wives when he ordained marriage as a mysterious parable or image of the relation between Christ and the church.
 
Paul mentions two things, one to the wife and one to the husband. To the wife he says in
 
verses 22–24,
 
According to the divine pattern, wives are to take their unique cue from the purpose of the church. As the church submits to Christ, so wives are to submit to their husbands. The church submits to Christ as her head.
 
Read again verse 23. “The husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church.” Headship implies at least two things: Christ is supplier or Savior, and Christ is authority or leader.
 
“Head” is used two other times in Ephesians. One of those places is
 
Ephesians 4:15, 16 illustrates the head as supplier.
 
Ephesians 4:15-16
 
Here we see the head pictured as a supplier. In other words, the head is the supply that enables growth.
 
Then consider
 
Ephesians 1:20–23
 
When God raised Christ from the dead, He made him head in the sense of giving Him power and authority over all other rule and authority and power and dominion.
 
Therefore, from the context of Ephesians, the headship of the husband implies that as far as possible he should accept greater responsibility for supplying the needs of his wife (including material needs, but also protection and care) and he should accept greater responsibility of authority and leadership in the family.
 
Then, when it says in verse 24, “As the church is subject to Christ, so let wives be subject in everything to their husbands,” the basic meaning of submission would be to first of all, recognize and honor the greater responsibility of your husband to supply your protection and sustenance, and secondly, have an attitude that is willing to yield to his authority in Christ and be inclined to follow his leadership.
 
The reason I say that submission requires an attitude that is willing to submit and be inclined to follow is because that little phrase “as to the Lord” in verse 22 limits the scope of submission. No wife should replace the authority of Christ with the authority of her husband. She cannot yield or follow her husband into sin.
 
But even where a Christian wife may have to stand with Christ against the sinful will of her husband, she can still have a spirit of submission. She can show by her attitude and behavior that she does not like resisting his will and that she longs for him to forsake sin and lead in righteousness so that her disposition to honor him as head can again produce harmony.
 
So in this mysterious parable of marriage the wife is to take her special cue from God’s purpose for the church in its relation to Christ.
 
Now to the husbands, Paul says, take your special cue from Christ.
 
Verse 25
 
  1. the husband is the head of the wife as verse 23 says, let it be very plain to all husbands that this means primarily leading out in the kind of love that Jesus demonstrated when He was crucified.
 
I often say to grooms in wedding ceremonies, when referencing this verse, "Getting married is like dying on a cross!" The truth is, it is in that husbands ought to be willing to die to provide life for their wife. We are to love our wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her.
 
As Jesus says in Luke 22:26, “Let the leader become as one who serves.” The husband who plops himself down in front of the TV and orders his wife around like a slave has abandoned Christ in favor of Monday Night Football.
 
Christ bound himself with a towel and washed the apostle's feet. If you want to be a Christian husband, copy Jesus, not Archie Bunker!
 
Now, it is important to include verse 21 in this section because the entire discussion begins with this call for mutual submission. But it is equally important to understand that the way Christ submits himself to the church and the way the church submits herself to Christ are not the same.
The church submits to Christ through an attitude of following his leadership and Christ submits to the church by an attitude that humbly serves and protects and provides everything she needs.
 
When Christ said, “Let the leader become as one who serves,” he did not mean, let the leader cease to be leader. Even while he was on his knees washing their feet, no one doubted who the leader was. Nor should any Christian husband shirk his responsibility under God to provide the kind of moral and spiritual leadership a humble servant of his wife and family should provide.
 
So the first implication of the mystery of marriage as a reflection of Christ’s relation to the church is that wives should take their special cue from the church and husbands should take their special cue from Christ.
 
And wherever you find a marriage like that, you find two of the happiest people in the world, because their lives conform to the Word of God in Scripture and the Word of God in Jesus Christ.
 
There is one final, practical implication of the mystery of marriage that I want to make sure I mention because it is most pertinent to our study about delighting ourselves in the Lord and that is
 
Husbands and wives should pursue their own joy in the joy of each other.
 
I don't know if there is any passage of Scripture that is more explicit regarding the joy of marriage than what we read in this passage.
 
I say that because this text makes it very clear that the reason there is so much misery in marriages is not that husbands and wives are seeking their own pleasure, but that they are not seeking it in the pleasure of their spouses. But this text commands us to do just that because Christ does just that.
 
First, notice the example of Christ in verses 25–27:
 
Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. Why did He do that?
 
That he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word.
 
Why did he cleanse her?
 
That he might present the church to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.
 
Understand what Paul is saying: Christ died for the church so He could have a beautiful bride. He endured the cross for the joy of marriage that was set before him.
 
So what is the ultimate joy of the church? Is it not to be presented as a bride to the sovereign Christ? Christ pursued His own joy by pursuing the joy of the church. Therefore, the example Christ sets for husbands is to seek their joy in the joy of their wives.
 
Verse 28 makes this application crystal clear:
 
verse 28
 
By nature we love ourselves, that is, we do what we think in the moment will make us happy. And Paul does not erect a fence to keep that from happening. He just lays down a pathway for it to be pursued.
 
He says, “Husbands and wives, recognize that in marriage you have become one flesh; therefore, if you selfishly live for your private pleasure at the expense of your spouse, you are living against yourself and destroying your own highest joy. But if you devote yourself with all your heart to the holy joy of your spouse, you will also be living for your joy and making a marriage after the image of Christ and his church.”
 
Not that my personal testimony could add anything of weight to the Word of God, I want to just say, for almost 34 years, in obedience to Jesus Christ and because we are in love with one another, Lisa and I have pursued as passionately as we could the deepest, most lasting joys possible.
 
And we can testify together: that’s where the prize is found. And we believe that in each of us fulfilling our God-ordained role and seeking to bring pleasure to the other, we have found the ultimate relationship in life in the bounds of Holy Matrimony.
 
Let's pray.