 With that said, we're in Ephesians today, chapter five. I'm going to take you into verses 22 through 24. And what we've done is last week we began a series in marriage and the family. I gave an introductory teaching last week, just giving the foundations and basics of marriage. And so today we're going to be looking at out of Ephesians five, we're going to be looking at the role of the Christian wife. And so what we'll do today is we'll look at verses 22 through 24 of chapter five. And then for the next 27 weeks I'll give you more studies for women. And never give one for a man because we just don't need it. So what we'll do is we'll be looking at these verses today. Next week we'll look at the man, the role of the husband. We'll also be looking at the raising children to fear and love the Lord. But today we're looking at the Christian wife. So let's begin reading in Ephesians five at verse 22. We'll read to verse 24 and we'll get into our study. Christian wives, Ephesians five, 22 through 24. Paul writes, wives submit to your own husbands. Oh, that felt good. As to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife as also Christ is head of the church and he is the savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. And so I'm gonna begin with a riddle. Give you a moment to think and to come to a conclusion but here's a riddle. Once upon a time, a perfect man and a perfect woman met. After a perfect courtship, they had a perfect wedding. Their life together was of course perfect. One snowy stormy Christmas Eve, this perfect couple was driving their perfect car along a winding road when they noticed someone at the side of the road in distress. Being the perfect couple, they stopped to help. There stood Santa Claus with a huge bundle of toys. Not wanting to disappoint any children on the eve of Christmas, the perfect couple loaded Santa and his toys into their vehicle. Soon they were driving along, delivering the toys. Unfortunately, the driving conditions worsened and the perfect couple and Santa Claus had an accident. Only one of them survived the accident. Who was it? The answer? The perfect woman of course. I hear clapping over there. I'm not through. She's the only one who really existed in the first place. Everyone knows there's no Santa Claus and there is no such thing as a perfect man. So if there's no perfect man and no Santa Claus, the woman must have been driving. Which explains the car accident. Okay, there we go. Did I start off on the right foot? We'll find out. So as we begin, we're gonna be looking today at the role of the Christian wife. We're especially gonna spend some time looking at submission. And because of that, I want to first establish a context. Those of you who come to this fellowship know that I like to lay a foundation in order to make the teaching as clear as possible. So to understand why Paul would be saying wives submit to your own husbands as to the Lord and why he would say in verse 24 as the church is subject to Christ, let the wives be to their own husbands and everything. And in order to understand the context of that, why would he be saying something like that? We need to lay a foundation, establish a context and that way we're gonna be able to see the flow of his message and just why he'd be saying that. And so Paul has been instructing in the book of Ephesians. Paul has been instructing in the last couple of chapters preceding to these verses, the church concerning the evidences of a spirit filled life. And what he was doing is he was contrasting, walking in the flesh with what is called walking in the spirit. He had said that the airmarks of walking in the flesh were described in chapters four and five in this way. He said they walked in a spiritually dark way, spiritually dark way of thinking. And the spiritually dark way of thinking was evidenced by various sins. And the various sins that he began to list were hardened hearts, licentiousness, uncleanness, lying, stealing, obscenity, sexual sins. And these sins that he had been outlining characterized the pagan religious system that the unsaved Ephesians practiced. Included in those practices was the festival of Bacchus, which was a drunken orgy. So in contrast, Paul went on to describe a life filled with the Holy Spirit. And he said it is filled with fellowship, it's worshipful, it's thankful, it's a life that's centered on Jesus Christ, and it's earmarked by submission, submission to one another. Notice what he said in verse 21. He had said submitting to one another in the fear of God. So a life that's spirit filled is a life of submission. A believer walking in the spirit loves other believers and he lives at peace with them and is willing to be submitted. Paul knew that the church could split of pride and self-seeking invaded it, so there needed to be an attitude of willing submission to other brothers and sisters. To be effective, the church must live in love, in humility, and needs to avoid selfish ambition. So these qualities that he wrote about are called the fruit of the spirit. And that's how the spirit works in the general fellowship. So now he's approaching the subject of the work of the spirit in the family. And he begins by addressing Christian wives. In verse 21, Paul exhorts the church to submit to one another in the fear of God, calling for mutual submission, but his call for mutual submission flows into his instruction concerning marriage. You see, submission is part of God's intention for an orderly home, for an orderly church, and for society in general. And the principle of submission characterizes the entire Christian life. When you read James chapter four, verse seven, it says we are submitted to God, to be submitted to God. In Hebrews 13, verse 17, we are to be submitted to biblical leadership. In Romans 13, verse one, we are submitted to governmental authority. And then again, in Ephesians five, two and one, as we just read, we're submitted to one another in the fear of God. And so submission is a principle that you find in scripture, and believers are called to submit in a variety of ways throughout our lives. Somebody says, why should I be submissive? And then we say, well, just use us an example, Jesus Christ. Because Jesus himself is a model of perfect submission because he was submitted to his father. In John six, verse 38, Jesus said, I came down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. And so Jesus was perfectly submitted to his father. And we see that it was evident to any who would see and anyone who had listened to him. We have an example of this when Jesus healed a Centurion's young servant. When you read the story concerning that, this man's servant whom he loved was paralyzed in terrible pain. And so this Centurion, this Roman officer, came to Jesus and asked Jesus for help. And he said, my servant is lying in terrible pain. And Jesus said, I will come to him and I'll minister to him. Well, when Jesus said that, according to Matthew eight, verses eight and nine, the Centurion answered and said, Lord, I'm not worthy that you should come under my roof, but only speak a word and my servant will be healed. He went on to say, for I also am a man under authority, having soldiers under me. I say to this one, go, he goes, to another, come, and he comes to my servant, do this, he does it. And so he said, I am a man under authority, but it's interesting how he put that. He said, I also am a man under authority. Thus he was noticing that Jesus was under authority himself. So submission to proper authority helps to create orderly society, church, and family. In the home, God has given leadership authority to the husband and the father. In 1 Corinthians 11.3, Paul said, I want you to know that the head of every man is Christ, the head of woman is man, and the head of Christ is God. So here's scripture commands wives to submit. Now notice to their own husbands as to the Lord. Now this command has engendered tremendous controversy. We already know that. Many women rebel against the notion that they're to submit to their husbands. They reject submitting for fear of being dominated or suppressed. The woman's afraid of being made less of a person with no opinions, no valid feelings. And she's fighting, she's fighting against male domination. She rejects the notion of male leadership. And the rejection of male leadership is demonstrated today by our society by the acceptance of male bashing. And you see that quite commonly today. You see it in media, you see it in entertainment. It's an opinion that is expressed openly. It's a rejection of masculinity. And today the rejection of masculinity very often is referred to as toxic masculinity. So to avoid charges of male domination, men actually are stripped of authority. And men can become ashamed of being a man and actually become feminized. What needs to be remembered is men and women are regarded before God as equals. In Galatians 3 28, Paul said there's neither Jew nor Greek. There's neither slave nor free. There's neither male nor female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. So in marriage, the context of submission is not one of a slave and a servant. It's between the one who loves and the one who's being loved. It's a picture of sacrificial service and that service is to the Lord. And Paul makes that clear when he speaks to husbands in verse 25 and says that husbands are to love their wives sacrificially. I was reading something in an article put out by Focus on the Family. And they I think address this point well. They write Paul's instruction to wives has to be read in tandem with his exhortation to men. Husbands love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for her. It should also be understood under the umbrella of the apostles introductory admonition to all Christians of both sexes. Submit to one another, he says, in the fear of God. So in this context, it's been pointed out that the woman submitting to the husband is a woman demonstrating love for her husband. You see the way that she shows love is by respecting her husband. And the way the husband reveals love for his wife is by sacrificially nourishing and cherishing his wife. So in this context Christian wives submit to they respect their husbands. And this is something that's repeated in verse 22, verse 24 as all the way down to verse 33. This is a point that's pointed out. So in a spiritual way, a wife's submission to her husband is a picture of Jesus and his church. I still remember a woman who was speaking to me about this on one occasion. We're having a conversation and there was a difficulty and we're speaking out of verse 22 here where it said wives submit to your own husband as to the Lord. And I'll never forget when we're speaking about that. She was having such a tough time that she said, I will, I will submit. I will submit to my husband as to the Lord when he becomes like the Lord. Which is another way of saying, ain't gonna happen. Because on this side of heaven he's never gonna be exactly like the Lord. So she was looking for a loophole. What we need to know is we need to know that the word submit, also we see it as translated the word subject, is used in two basic ways. One of the ways that this word is used normally is it's a military term that refers to arranging troop divisions under the command of a leader. But it also speaks of a voluntary attitude of cooperating, yielding to. It even speaks of carrying a burden. So in marriage, biblical submission is not intended to make the wife inferior. It is not to degrade a woman, it's not to make her weaker. When a woman submits, she's actually showing strength because it requires strong character on the part of the wife to do so. Submission is an attitude, an attitude that actually serves to help her to live a comfortable life of peace with her husband. It also reveals a respect for her husband. It limits the amounts of arguments. You see, the wife isn't a doormat. It's not, she's not someone with no opinion of her own. She has a responsibility of sharing her feelings. She has a responsibility of being open and sharing her thoughts with her husband. It's not just permissible. It's extremely important for her to be able to do so. She just needs to learn what to share, when to share, where to share, how to share, and how often to share. But that's just part of life. You know, when I was a kid, my dad would come home from work. It was almost like an invading army was coming into the home. My mom would say, here comes your father. Give him some time to relax. Don't bother him. He needs to unwind. He loves you, but hide. You know, it was, it was, we had to learn when my dad came into the house to give him room to unwind. That's exactly what my mom said. She would say, don't go and bother him. He just came in from a hard day's work. My father was a truck driver who was on the road for hours. He was unloading trucks and, you know, in the traffic. And he would come home tense. And so my mom would say to us, give your father some space to unwind. My mom would never walk up to my dad when dad walked in the door and say, you know, I'm glad you're here. It's my time to take off because these kids have been monsters today. It's on you, I'm gonna get a massage. My mom never did anything like that. What we learned to do is give him some time because my mom taught us to do that. My mom actually had a respect for him and she knew when to bring things up and when to share things. And anybody here knows that sometimes you'll be coming home maybe from work. I've come home from the office before when my children were young. And I remember, this happened many times, I'd be driving and I'd be thinking, you know, I should thank you, Lord, for my wife, I thank you for our kids. I love our children and I would pull in and I'd go walking up the front and I'd be about to open the door and then I'd be hearing noise and on the other side of that door, the kids, he hit me, she looked at me, those kinds of conversations. You'd hear that and I'd be standing there at the door, holding the handle and I'd be thinking, they don't know I'm here. I could get back in that car, go back to the office, God is calling me, you know, but so I would walk in and Marie would tell the kids, give your dad some space, give him a moment to unwind, just like my mom used to do. Give him some room so that he can put on daddy hat because he's been wearing a different hat all day long. And so it's wise to share and it's important to share. You need to share your feelings, you need to share your opinions, your thoughts, the things that matter, that's important. I need to know these things. I told Marie a long time ago when we were first married, I said, you know, there are things I can do and some things I can't. And one of the things I can't do is I can't read minds. I have to hear what's important to you. You need to tell me because my wife came from a background where many of her feelings are kept to herself. She isn't a person that just openly shares things. Now me, I came from the opposite. My family was filled with opinions and we were more than happy to give you as many as you want. I mean, that was my family. You know, you could come to a table and you'd hear us talking, you'd think we were fighting. And we were just visiting. You know, whereas Marie's is quiet. And so she had to learn these things. And so for me and our family, I needed to ask, I needed to ask Marie, what is it that you think about this? How do you feel about this? When it came to the division of labor, quote, unquote that you have, you know, we never saw it. I've never seen as women have work and men have work. I just say women have all the work and men. No, I would say there's no division of labor. It's not like women's work and men's work. It's just work that we do. We perform in the house together. So I don't have a problem doing some things that traditionally other people would say, well, isn't that something a woman does? Because we've never seen that to be true. In our home, we had to discover what I should do, what she does, how we can do this together so that the home operates better. And so a long time ago, Marie and I began to learn how to communicate, how to share, this is what I feel. Me, I'm very open with my feelings. Marie's a little more closed. We had to learn how to do that, how to work these things out. And so a wife is not supposed to be a doormat. She's not disrespected. Her opinions and her thoughts, her feelings, her history, everything's important. And the husband has to have the ability to listen to understand these things in order so that they can grow together. Because a lot of times today it seems that when people speak of a submission in a home that they have a tendency of thinking that that makes the wife a doormat with no opinions and that's not true, that's certainly not biblical and it just doesn't work, it's not effective. She learns, she needs to learn what to say, she needs to learn when to say it, that matters. She needs to know where to say these things, how and how often, but she needs to be able to do that. You see some thoughts, some ideas, some suggestions aren't really necessary to share anyway. And sometimes some comments are not looked at as a comment, they're looked at as a criticism. And if Marie has a comment to make to me, there are times when I might think that she's criticizing me and so she's had to learn that there is a way to approach me, the way that I've had to learn how to approach and broach subjects with her. And so in the process of learning these things, Paul is making it clear in verse 22 that the wife is to submit, but she is to do that to her own husbands as to the Lord. Now, why would he begin with wives? Wives submit to your own husbands. Why does he begin when he's speaking about roles of a husband and a wife in a home, why does he begin with the wife? Well, we need to understand that her situation during that day was far more difficult. You see, at that time that the husband was saved, it wouldn't necessarily create a problem in the home. His wife would come to church automatically. She couldn't refuse to do that. On the other hand, if the wife got saved but her husband did not, it could actually be dangerous. Her husband would consider her unfaithful to him and his religious beliefs. And that caused tremendous problems in the home. It still does. It could be dangerous for a wife. She had no rights. At that time, a Jewish woman changing her religion was unthinkable. A Greek woman, according to Greek culture and society, a Greek woman's duty was to remain indoors, to bear children and to be obedient. The Roman woman had no rights and under law was regarded as a child. Before marriage, she was under her father's authority and her father had the power of life or death. When she married, this right was automatically transferred to her husband. There's a Roman cotto the censor who wrote, if you catch your wife in an act of infidelity, you can kill her with impunity without a trial. The atmosphere of the ancient world was that a woman was incapable of caring for herself. So you can see how brave a woman would be to come to faith in Christ. So Paul writes and he says, submit to your husbands but notice as to the Lord. He doesn't say divorce him. He doesn't say argue with him. He doesn't say preach to him. He doesn't say give him ultimatums because sometimes unfortunately that might happen in the house. The husband is unsaved, the wife's concerned for him. So she makes lunch for him, say he takes the lunch to work. He opens up, starts to eat his sandwich, bites into the sandwich. It tastes funny, he opens it up. There's a piece of paper there. Man does not live by bread alone. He's not gonna be really happy about that. You have to be careful how you approach him. It's interesting how he says the wife is to submit. So we need to understand something about submission. Biblical submission is spiritual in nature. We need to also understand that the enemy, Satan is destroying, he's attempting to destroy homes. He's destroying marriages. And that's because marriage is intended to produce godly offspring who are gonna transmit their faith to future generations. So the battle for marriage at its core is a battle for future generations. He especially works to undermine and destroy the Christian home. That's because marriage is a type of Jesus Christ and the church. In verse 32 of chapter five here, he said, this is a great mystery. I speak concerning Christ and the church. Marriage is a picture of the believer with Jesus Christ. And so it's a spiritual battle. And so marriage is really a demonstration of the relationship Christ has with us. But somebody asked, well, what about homes where the husband's not a believer? Why would a wife submit to someone like that? This man doesn't know Christ. Well, the apostle Peter repeated this command for wives to be submitted to their husbands. And in his case, he was writing concerning believing wives and unbelieving husbands. He writes in 1 Peter 3, 1 and 2, wives likewise be submissive to your own husbands that even if some do not obey the word, they without a word may be waned by the conduct of their wives when they observe your chaste conduct accompanied by fear. So Peter's emphasis in that passage is the value of her husband's soul. Why should she submit? He says it in order that they may, they may be waned to Christ. It's not a guarantee, it's a potential. And he's saying, listen, if you care about your husband being unsaved, if you care about him going to hell and not going to heaven, then this is what you need to do, submit to your own husbands. He says, because they're gonna watch you, they're gonna see your lifestyle and that will impact them. And so again, the emphasis in the passage that the apostle is writing, the apostle Peter is the value of a husband's soul because they may be waned to Christ. Notice how he says, and I just read this, even if some do not obey the word, when he writes do not obey, that's not a mild disobedience, that's an aggressive disobedience. You see some husbands are aggressively against the Lord, they're against their wives following Jesus. Some husbands keep their wife and the kids from fellowship, from serving God, from growing, from personal study. There are husbands whose desire for them is to sin and it can be strong and insistent, they can be upset because she at one time used to do the things he liked to do. Hey, we're gonna take off for the weekend, we'll leave the kids with your mom and we'll go to Vegas and we'll just party for three days. And at one time, that was the life. But the wife went to church, she heard the gospel, she got saved, her life has changed. She don't wanna do that anymore. And now he's upset because she won't do the things that he wants her to do anymore and he gets upset. And that wife, especially when they're recently saved, will come and they'll speak, they'll hear things and they'll speak the things they're hearing and they wanna talk about the things that the Lord has done. God saved her and she's excited about that. She wants to share that with her husband. Her heart's filled with joy, filled with love. He's been good to her, she's saved. It's kinda like what Acts 4.20 says, where the apostle said, we cannot but speak the things which you've seen and heard. I mean, we'll wanna talk about the Lord. God did something in our life and so she comes to church. She hears messages that encourage her to share her faith and she goes home and she shares with him but he doesn't wanna hear. He gets angry, he's aggressively disobedient. He does not obey. They're opposed to the changes. Sometimes the religion they haven't practiced in years becomes very important to them. And finally they say, don't talk to me about this anymore. I don't wanna hear it anymore. Well, what can be done? Well, the apostle says they, without a word, may be won by the conduct of their wives. So if you're married to an unsaved mate, your life is the testimony of the gospel and it can very often communicate the power of its message. A husband observes, it says they observe your chaste conduct without, or rather they observe your chaste conduct accompanied by fear. The word observe, the word observe when he says they observe your pure and reverent lifestyle, the word observe speaks about intense scrutiny. They look at it very closely is what he's saying. I call it instant replay concentration. So your husband's watching the game and it's an important game. It's a baseball game, we'll say. And somebody has just slid in and it looks like they were tagged out but then again he may have been safe. And so the commentators begin to say, well they're disputing the call, we're gonna have to go to instant replay. And so when this is taking place, the husband is watching this because it's his team that's gonna benefit from the call. Is that a good time for you to walk in and turn the TV off and say, honey I got a couple sandwiches for you. I don't think so. That's not a good time. Why? Because he's there intensely scrutinizing. He's looking closely at what he's watching and yes, husbands can see when they want to. Sometimes the wife say, oh you don't really look at me. No he does when he wants to. It just depends. But he is watching you. And you get to know your wife. That's what husbands do. And a wife's husband learns to intensely scrutinize. He gets to learn her ways. The things that matter to her. He hears her stories. He watches her when she's doing things and he'll see a face. She'll make a face at certain times. And he knows where that face is going. He knows what that means. I know that with my wife. I know just when she gives a certain face I go, oh here we go, I gotta have vitamins. Here we go. I mean I'll know she's got that face. And just yesterday where I'm sitting down, we had been out, we came back. I'm sitting in the couch. And I see my wife and I know my wife. I know what she's doing. She'll walk into the kitchen. She's kind of wandering around. But I know she's looking for something. So I'll say, what are you looking for? I'm looking for my phone. That's another way of saying I'm about to leave. And so I don't even say, are you going somewhere? I'll just say, where are you going? And all of that, why? Because I watch her. Because I hear her. I've learned her vocabulary. I've learned the things that matter to her because I observe her. And an unbeliever does the same kind of thing. He knows his wife. If he's been with her for a while, he knows the things that she does, the things she doesn't even have to say it. And he knows where she's going with that. He knows where this conversation's gonna go when a certain word is used. But he also knows what's gonna happen. He knows these things. And so, you know, my wife, Marie and I, and sometimes we have some very dear friends, Randy and Jeanette Walls, and there's a lot of times when Randy and I will be walking and the wives will be walking in front of us. And you know, we're well trained. You know, we'll be walking and I know what they're gonna do. He knows what they're gonna do. They're gonna walk into a store. They're gonna do that because they torture us. They hate us, they really do. And so they'll walk in the store and we always know our post. We always take our post. I've had people from our church walk by and they'll see Randy and me. I've had this more than once. They'll say, oh, the lady's in the shop, yeah, yeah. Because they know, they have told the story before. Oh, there, I say, yeah, they're in there. But I got the wallet. She ain't buying anything. So, you know what I mean? There are things you learn the language. You learn one another's language. And even unbelieving husbands, well, they do the same kind of thing. They watch you. They're gonna get a picture of you. But he's saying they're gonna observe your behavior in order to get an idea of what Jesus is like because you can't preach to them anymore. But the way you live, that's the gospel. So live in such a way that they get a clear picture. And they observe two things. One, they observe your chaste behavior. The word chaste speaks of a modest. It speaks of a behavior that is pure from faulted. And secondly, they see your fear. That fear is also a respect. It's a reverence for the Lord and the respect that you have for them. They're gonna see, in other words, your genuine admiration for them. A woman and a man can hear the word love in two different ways. When Paul speaks about it, we'll see it next week. Paul speaks of nourishing and cherishing. He speaks of sacrifice. He speaks of a prophetic element of a husband's life in the wife's, in their marriage. His life that he shares with his wife is prophetic. You will see this. But for him, he's saying that men will love and cherish and nourish their wife. No man has ever hated his own flesh. But he nourishes and cherishes it. The point he's making is that we have self-preservation. So one of the ways that a husband shows his wife out deeply, he loves her through his sacrifice and his tenderness. Peter said that we care for her for our wives are normally physically weaker than us. She's the weaker vessel. And it speaks to us as husbands as being the heroes in the home. That the husband is supposed to be the man of the house in the sense that she sees him as a protective figure in her life. She knows that he's there for her. So we are laying down our life for our wife. We moved into a home many years ago now and my children are very small. And when you move into a different home after being in another home for a while, you get used to the sounds of your old home but those of you who've moved more than once know what I mean. You move to another place and your new place has new sounds. So you'll hear creaks and you'll hear sounds like somebody's walking in or open a door. You'll hear that, especially the first of Saturday or the first few nights that you're there. So you kind of lay, men will lay kind of awake. And I can still remember when we moved into this particular home, our new home, our kids' rooms were just down the halls, you know, right from us and our bedroom door was open so you could hear any of the sounds and they were small. And I remember hearing this weird sound, you know. And I said, ah, it sounds like someone's in the house. So I said to myself, I still remember, there's somebody in the house, where's dad? I thought that, I was half asleep, where's dad? And then the thought hit me, you're dad. I didn't like that. So my wife's very submitted so I said, honey, could you get us some water? And if you scream, I'll come and help you. No, but you have that, you have that role. You know, and I didn't know that husbands had assigned places on the bed. I didn't know that, but mine has been by the door for a longest time until I finally realized if someone dies it's going to be me, why, because the kids need a mom. At least that's what Marie said. I remember, I remember an earthquake they hit and Marie jumped over me, ran down the hall to get the kids and she had them underneath the door. Well, I'm still laying there looking at them. And I asked her, I said, why didn't you save me? She says, you're a big boy, save yourself. And anyway, getting back to something that makes me feel loved when we, so the husband, the husband cares for the wife in a sacrificial loving, caring, nourishing way. And that's how love is demonstrated, the cherishing. But he says interestingly enough that the wife is to respect her husband. That's what it says in verse 33 of chapter five. See that the wife, see that she respects her husband. Why is that? Because for a man, normally, the way my wife shows me love is by respecting me. If my wife puts me down, if she's with friends and she says, oh, he never did this and he's that and he can't even, you know, I'm not loved. She could say all day long to me, oh honey, you know I love you, you know I love you. But me in the back of my mind, it'd be saying, that's not how you were speaking about me to your mom. That's not how you were speaking about me to your friends. You made me feel stupid. So in the back of my mind, I'm gonna be feeling unloved because I was disrespected. If I'm not tender to my wife, I can say to her all day long, baby, I love you, I love you, you know I love you. But the way she knows I love her is when I nourish her, I tenderly care for her, I show expressions of things. See, I didn't get that, I didn't get that. I was the guy who got married and when it says you promise a love and this and that, I said, yeah, yeah, I'll do that. And so we got married and I told her I loved her and so now she's gotta hear it again? I mean, how many times? What's wrong with you? I mean, I said it once, look at it. Honey, do you love me? Are you kidding me? Why are you asking me that? I still, I've told you this story before some of you remember it. I was working, I had a job and we had been married for about a year and my wife calls me because I was sitting in an office and she could, I answered the phone hello. She goes, hi honey, it's me. And I said, hi, how are you? She goes, I'm fine. And I said, great, I said, what's up? She says, nothing, just wanted to say hi. Okay, baby, you know, I gotta work. She says, okay, I love you. And I said, yeah, she says, yeah, tell me you love me. I said, huh, I could do that. Let me tell you, I love you. I said, yeah, you know that. She goes, no, I'm not hanging up to you, tell me you love me. And I said, that's something you know. And my boss who had been married 30, 40 years turns to me and he says, say you love her. She'll never hang up. So this is a man with experience. See, I had to learn to do that. I'm no expert, by the way, if my wife were out here, she could honestly tell you I'm not. I can come up like, you may think that I think I am an expert, I'm not. I'm a traveler just like you. But I've learned some things and that's why I can share the way I do. I've learned some things over the years. I've made a lot of mistakes. I've done a lot of wrong things. So that's what I basically share from, don't do this. It's Valentine's Day. I didn't get her a Valentine. I come home, she says, no Valentine for me. I said, yeah, okay. Didn't get me anything, not even a card. Yeah, you want something? No, I'm okay. So I go to the store and I bring some perfume, some cheap perfume. I got a gallon for $5, it must be. So I come in and this is the truth. I mean, we'd been married just three, four years. I came home and I slammed it like that. Here, here's your Valentine thing. You know what she did? She took it and she got a refund and she brought it back and gave me the money and she said, I don't need a gift like that. I said, great, you saved me some money. I don't care. I had to learn. See, so I'm real. I mean, that's the way I was. I used to say, why would I buy you a card? It's just a gimmick from the card companies. They're making up garbage. I mean, do you need some? Are you that insecure? You need to hear. So she's not that insecure. But me, I had to learn. I had to learn. I'm going into the husband's things. I shouldn't do it, huh guys? But I had to learn to cherish and nourish her. So it didn't matter whether I understood. It didn't matter whether I agreed. It didn't matter. None of that mattered. What mattered is it caused her joy and she knew she was loved. That's all that mattered. And I finally have learned, you know what? That's what I want to do. I want her to know she's cherished. I want her to know she's nourished. I want her to know she's loved, you know? And the way she shows me is by respecting me. By not putting me down. By not bad-mouthing me. By not gossiping about me to her friends. By not complaining, but showing me the respect that I as a man should earn but ought to retain but should also have. And that's what he says. Wives, this is how your husbands will know that you love them. Respect them. They're gonna watch the way that you live. And this attitude of submission, it's not just doing it because you can do something and your heart's not in it. You just did it. And a husband who observes the wife knows that this is just an action but not an attitude. It's like the little boy running around and the mom says to him, sit down, sit down. No, and he runs around, sit down. And she finally sits him down and says, you sit down. I don't want you standing. And he looks back at her and he says, I'm sitting down but in my heart, I'm standing up. Well, that's an attitude. You can physically sit down. You can physically do it, but if your heart isn't there, we see through it. It's just action and not heart. And so it's a heart attitude. Submission begins in the heart and it's demonstrated by behavior. And that reveals the beauty of her heart. First Peter three, verse four, Peter spoke of it as the hidden person of the heart, the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit which is very precious in the sight of God. So Paul commands wives to submit to their own husbands as to the Lord. That's a command to every Christian wife, regardless of her education, spiritual maturity, her gifts age or life experience. Again, someone says my husband isn't saved or he's not interested in growing as a Christian. Well, it's not built on a husband's attitude, character or even spiritual maturity. It's an attitude of your heart. I've been told, well, my husband won't lead. I don't have to submit. As a matter of fact, I have to tell him what to do or he won't do it. Again, when Marie and I were going through our first years of marriage, first couple of years, I can still remember having to work that out with her where she needed to learn that her opinions matter, but so do mine. We have to learn to work together and that's a hard thing to do. It's a difficult thing to do to learn to respect different opinions and to find out what in her opinion and mine what works best together is a difficult thing to do. It's something that takes time and effort, but you eventually learn that. You learn your language and you begin to do the things that are pleasing, but some people say, well, I have to tell my husband what to do. I heard a story in heaven that there were two lines that were lined up behind two signs and one sign said, men who were bossed by their wives. And the other sign said, men who weren't bossed by their wives. And there's a big line for the one that were bossed by their wives, but the man who was checking people's names in the book of life saw that there was only one man in the other line. So he told the guys to wait and he asked the man why he got in that line and the man answered because my wife told me to. So, the more mature you are, the more you wanna please the Lord. And spiritual maturity is demonstrated by obedience to the word, not the amount that you know about God. In John 15, 14, Jesus said, you're my friends, if you do, whatever I command you. So the command, submit to their own husbands as to the Lord. He's not teaching submission of all women to all men, but he's teaching submission of wives to their own husbands. She submits to her own husband because she owns him as her husband. She has personal allegiance, she has a loyalty and an intimacy with him. She willingly submits to him because she possesses him as her own husband. She says that one is mine. You see, in verse 23, the husband is head of the wife as also Christ is head of the church. He is the savior of the body. So, the husband is responsible to lead the home and we husbands are accountable to God. Submission is part of God's created order and in marriage is rooted in two things. One is priority of creation in that the man was created first and then the woman. And then second, it's a type of the church, the bride of Christ that is subject to Jesus. Marriage is a type of the church as Christ bride and we're submitted to the Lord. And then he finally says in verse 24, therefore just as the church is subject to Christ, let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. The church acknowledges the authority of Christ and we please him in all ways. Even so, the wife is to love and please her husband. And when wives are properly submitted to their husbands, a proper standard is established. Jesus is the role model for me as a husband. Husbands sacrifice for, provide for, protect, cherish, love and lead our wives. But the wife submits to the husband as unto the Lord. Because it demonstrates our relationship with Jesus Christ. When I'll close with this, when Marie and I, when I met Marie, she was a visitor in our first Bible study, not our first, in a Bible study that I had here in Ontario, or actually in Ontario. And I didn't know her from Eve. I mean this, she came in to the study and I had visited with her and then a couple of weeks later, she had returned to the study. And the Bible study was over. I didn't know her. I had only spoken to her once. She came to the second study, studies over. There's only a handful of us in this place and she was in what would be called the kitchen area, probably 20 feet from me. It was a very small front room and she was standing next to the refrigerator and I just felt like messing with her. I didn't know her. I didn't know her. I'd only spoken to her once and I didn't know her but she was standing next to the refrigerator so I thought I'd mess around with her. So as she's standing next to the refrigerator, I looked over at her and I said, Marie, and she turns and looks at me. She goes, yeah. I said, I drink root beer. And she goes, yeah, so what? I said, I don't think you heard me. I drink root beer. I wanted to see what she'd do. I was being as rude and obnoxious as I could be. You know what she did? She opened the refrigerator. She got a can of root beer. She got a glass. She got ice. She opened the can, put the root beer in the can, out of the can into the glass, brought it to me, handed it to me and said, here you go, your majesty. And I said, well done. I was just goofing with her. I was just playing. There was nothing serious about that. I didn't really think about that for a while until I realized that in ministry, the perfect helper for me would be somebody who had a heart to serve. And Marie, as a new Christian, demonstrated a heart to serve. Do you know this is true? And I don't say this other than try again to illustrate. I realize everybody shows love in a different way. I get it. No, I don't think that this has to be in everybody's home. I'm just using an illustration. I grew up in a home where my mother at dinner would never sit down. My mother always stood. She was always by either the stove or the sink, which was really next to each other. We had a very small kitchen. My mom would take her plate and she would put her food on the plate, put it on the sink next to the water faucet there. And she would watch the table and she would turn to my dad and she'd say, honey, do you need anything? And my father would say, I could use whatever and she'd get it for him. And she did that all the time. If there was anything left over, the first thing my mother would do would say to my dad, honey, do you want something more? And if he was still hungry, he'd get all of what was left. Even if we kids were hungry. And so what my mom would say is your dad gets this, but you guys, if you're still hungry, I'll make you an egg. That's what you would say. I'll make you an egg. And I had a lot of eggs. See, that was my environment. My mom and my dad were unsaved the first 25 years of their marriage. They were married 53 years, but they were unsaved for the first half. Yet my mom respected my father. And my mom saw it as her joyful duty to care for this man. And she would teach us that. She said, your father works hard to provide for this family. You owe him respect and honor because he does that for you. He would say, I'm repeating words. You got shoes on your feet, your dad bottom. You got pants on your body, your daddy bottom. You don't forget that shirt. You're wearing your father. He worked and he bought that for you. That's how I was raised. Now I just was raised that way. My father never got up and made himself anything. He could, he did when he wanted to, but it would be when mom was somewhere and he would make chili beans. That's the only thing my dad ever made, chili beans and they're good. But that was my dad. Mama had, she did everything. Well, fast forward. I meet a girl named Marie. And Marie is exactly like that. If I want to, and this is true, if I want to get her upset, all I need to do, I'll be sitting down is get up to serve myself. That's all I have to do. She'll get mad. Where are you going? I said, I'm gonna meet my girlfriend in the front room. Now, where are you going? I say, I'm gonna get myself something. You don't sit down. You don't have to get yourself anything. She'll get angry at me. And I'll do that just to get her mad sometimes because it's kind of fun. Why am I telling you this? I'm telling you this because we learned each other. We learned, this is her way of saying, I love you. And believe it or not, when I sit down, it's my way of saying, and I love you. It's our conversation together. You need to learn the language of your lover. You need to learn. What is it that pleases them? And how does that work together for us? Because it's the us that matters. It's, I respect you and you cherish me. And when you have that love and respect in your marriage, it goes where God wants it to go. But when you've got this attitude, you don't tell me what to do. I've got my own mind. I've got my own opinion or the man saying, you be quiet. If I wanted your opinion, I'd give it to you. When you have that attitude, you've got nothing but conflict. But when you mutually respect one another, when you love one another, you observe one another. When you get to know each other's ways and you begin to intertwine, your life begins to be a dance and you learn the dance moves, the dance moves that work in that marriage. It's simply learning to love and to respect. And the woman's submission is to Jesus Christ first and foremost. And as she submits to him, then she learns to follow the authority God placed on the shoulder of a husband who has to give an answer for the way he led that family. And when we understand that, God blesses our marriages.