Wives - God's Design for the Family

So let's take our Bible. I want you to turn back to Ephesians chapter 5. I mentioned earlier that we'll be in verses 22 to 24. That'll take us a few minutes to get to the verses. So just be patient with me. Have your Bible turned there. I will let you know when it's time for us to look at the verses. Well, I think everybody here knows that for three weeks we've been looking at God's design for the family back in Genesis chapter 1 and chapter 2. Now I titled these past three messages the building blocks for the family and I did that because I wanted us to see very basic but very vital information.

This is all about building God's family, God's way, and these are basic building blocks, vital building blocks. Now ultimately we saw that God stepped forward in these verses. Think about what we looked at. In Genesis chapter 2, verse 24, God stepped forward and He made this grand marriage declaration. God said that man and woman, they were to leave their father and their mother and they were to cleave to one another. And He said that the two shall become one. There's this mysterious work of God here. And in His divine declaration, God describes this divine institution that we call Christian marriage today.

Not only did God step out and make this grand marriage declaration, God stepped out and He gave this first married couple to us. This is Adam and Eve. This is exhibit A. Adam and Eve did not have earthly parents to leave. We know that. But they did cleave to one another and God Himself, He was the one that united them in this first marriage union. The two became one. Now notice all that is taking place here. In this divine marriage declaration, we have what God said. But in this divine marriage union, we have what God did. And then we have in this divinely married couple, because it was God that performed the ceremony, we have what God made.

You see? In all that we've studied, we have what God said, we have what God did, and we have what God made. There's Adam and Eve, that first couple. Now a practical question that I want us to ponder. What was all this for? Why did God do all this? I have three reasons and I want to give you these reasons and this relates to us today. And you probably could add to this list. First of all, marriage was and is for man's happiness. This might surprise you. This was for Adam's happiness. Remember Adam was alone. I mean everything was good, but yet Adam was alone. There was nothing in the creation that corresponded to him.

And so when God brought Eve to Adam, ultimately it was Adam who named her, that is what completed Adam. He was complete. He was happy. And then second, marriage was and is to fill the earth. What did we see in chapter one? God called Adam and Eve to have children, to fill the earth. And this was for their children and their children's children. We saw this even after God judged the earth with Noah and his family. So marriage was for procreation, that the earth would be filled. And then ultimately marriage was and is for God's glory. What did we see at the end of day six? God said that it was good, it was very good.

This is all centered around God and his will and his purposes. Ultimately this is all for God's glory. Now of course all that we studied really was pre-fall, pre-genesis chapter three. But those three reasons, those practical reasons for marriage do apply to us today. Marriage is for our happiness, it is for our fulfillment. Scripture says it's not good for man to be alone. And what I mean by that is this, many times we will see a man and a woman and when God brings them together, they are complete. There is fulfillment. And ultimately there is happiness in that marriage union. Of course it's not perfect because we have sin in the fall.

And then marriage is to fill the earth with godly people. That means us. Listen folks, we should be producing godly people to do what? To go out and bring glory and honor to the Lord. And the arena, the place where that happens the most is in the work of the local church and then taking the gospel around the world and then that births more local churches. You see, that is the arena whereby God gets glory in the family. And then ultimately this is all for God's glory. This isn't just for us folks. Look, the family isn't for us so that we can live the American dream. No. We've got to realize that this is all for God's glory.

And that applies to what we've studied and what we will study. Now as you pastor I want to call you to do two things here. First, I want you to evaluate your marriage according to what we've studied. Now if you've missed this you need to go back and get it. I'm calling you to evaluate your marriage, evaluate everything about your marriage according to what we have studied. Now you're gonna have to go do some study on your own. I haven't covered it all. So I've left you some homework. And then second, we've got to teach these truths to our children and teenagers.

We must impress these things into the minds and into the hearts and into the lives of our young people just like our lives and their lives depend on it because they do. Remember the example of Lot and his family in Sodom? We've got to see folks that were living in Sodom and literally the men of Sodom are knocking on the doors of our homes. And they want what's inside. Now at this point in the series I want to study the husband and the wife individually. I think you know that because of the scripture reading earlier. I want to zero in here on the first wife and then I I mean I want to zero in here on the wife first and then the husband.

Of course we really can't study one without dealing with the other. We can't. Paul has it all mixed up in a good way here. And then when we're done examining the husband and the wife we're gonna look at children and then we'll move to wrapping things up. Now before we get into the verses I need to point out what is going on here starting in Ephesians 5 verse 22 and going into chapter 6. Actually Paul is doing two things here. This is very important for us to see. He's doing two things in this teaching. First of all from chapter 5 verse 22 on into chapter 6 Paul is dealing with marriage. He's dealing with the family.

And this is all very practical. It might be offensive to some but it is very practical. And it's easy for us to see this practical teaching. But then second Paul is dealing with some very deep very profound truths concerning the Christian faith. And Paul uses this practical teaching on marriage to explain these deep truths, these profound truths. This will be easy for you to see in the verses but it might be hard for you to understand. Now I've got to give you a disclaimer here. You probably hear this coming, see this coming. I'm not gonna be exhaustive here. That's not the point of this series.

I will focus more also on Paul's practical teaching. So if you want me to dive deep into this profound teaching concerning the faith in these verses, you're gonna have to wait a little while. I've already announced that in our fall series we're gonna begin the study of the book of Ephesians. And I was sharing with one of the men even last night that it'll be a little while before we get into chapter 5. I think most of you know that by the way I preach and teach. So I want us to look at what I am calling wives, God's design for the family. God's design for the family is the title of the series.

And I've just pulled that title from the series and that's what we're gonna carry on through these verses. Again we're zeroing in on wives here. And ladies I'll go ahead and tell you if you're mad because I'm starting with you Paul starts with you. So get mad. Get mad at the Apostle Paul. That's the way the verses fall together. So we're looking at God's design for the family and we're zeroing in on wives. Now remember our challenge here. I really gave this to you in the first sermon. I'm assuming that you believe in the sufficiency and the authority of the Scriptures.

Listen folks, it's one thing for us to say we believe the Bible but when it challenges us, if we don't line up, we've got to adjust ourselves to the authority of the Scriptures no matter the cost. And remember that challenge? Will you adjust? Will you repent? Will you change? If you find that your life is not lining up with the Scriptures and you know we can look like this sometimes we can say something like this. Pastor, I've always known I had a problem here. Well you gotta step up and repent. But sometimes it works out like this. A man or a woman or a family might say you know Pastor I never saw my family like that before until today.

Well if that's the case you repent. That's the challenge. That's the challenge. Now let's go back and read our verses. I want us to read them. I know I get you to read verses quite a few times in a message. I do that on purpose. Maybe it's just me. I feel like I need to read them over and over. So let's look at verse 22 and I'm going to highlight one difference between the New American and the English Standard Version. Wives, be subject to your own husbands as to the Lord. The English Standard Version reads wives submit to your own husbands as to the Lord.

I think you see the difference but I think you understand it communicates the same thing. Verse 23, "For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ also is the head of the church. He himself being the Savior of the body." And this is our last verse, "But as the church is subject to Christ so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything." Now before we dive into the verses, there are two very basic things we must understand here. And I'm covering this because I want to dispel any confusion and I want to push back from the culture. Alright? We've got to push back from society and the sinfulness of our culture.

First of all, that word gender. Remember that word gender? We spent quite a bit of time on this word gender. What we must see is this, the husband here in these verses is male. You might say, "Pastor, that's obvious." We've got to emphasize that. The wife here in these verses, that is female. God created man, what? Male and female. Adam was a man, Eve was a woman. Man or mankind was created male and female and both were created in the image and the likeness of God.

Now listen close folks, if you pay attention to the world's definition of the family there are thousands of opinions and experts that will tell you that a family just may be something besides male and female and some perversion of male and female. And look folks, that's satanic. It's demonic. And listen church, since the time of Adam satan has been trying to destroy everything that God created and the family is on the top of the list. You gotta see that. I think I've mentioned this in one of the previous messages. I did a little Google search here. I think I mentioned that before. We have to be careful with our Google searches, do we not?

You know if we have a question, we just run the Google search, isn't that right? We have to be careful if we're dealing with a health care issue. Google will tell us we're about to die. You know when I was studying and preparing and putting this part of the message together a name came to my mind. Some of you know who I'm talking about. Bruce Jenner. He won the decathlon I think in the 1976 Olympics if I remember it right. We know I googled Bruce Jenner and another name came up. It came up Kaitlyn Jenner. And some of you know about Kaitlyn Jenner. He is running for governor of the state of California right now.

But he is dressed up like a woman. And if you do a little research on his bio, you'll see that he played football and won the decathlon. I mean he was born a male but he is quote-unquote "transition to be a female" and he did all that while he was married. Of course it didn't work out. And what am I trying to show you? I mean here's this perversion of what male and female would be and even what the family would be. And it's everywhere. It's all around us and it's gonna happen more and more and more. So we must see gender. When we look at these verses this is male and female. Wife and husband.

Second I want us to see another word that I haven't mentioned yet. Polygamy. This word polygamy. See God's plan from the beginning has been one man being married to one woman. Not any form of polygamy. We see this taught in Genesis 2.24. "Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother in whole fasts or cleave to his wife and they shall become one flesh." Jesus repeats the same standard in Matthew 19.5. You know what's interesting? When there was a crisis about marriage before Jesus from the religious leaders, he goes all the way back to the beginning too. And he quoted what? Genesis 2.24.

And we see this also dealt with in 1 Corinthians 7.2 when Paul is addressing sexual immorality. Paul says, and I'm quoting, "But because of the temptation to sexual immorality each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband." Now if you do some language study in Genesis 2.24 Matthew 19.5 and 1 Corinthians 7.2 you'll see that it is all singular. Now a question. What about these Old Testament saints that had multiple wives? Some of you know your Old Testament. Some of them even had concubines. Well that's a hot question. Especially if you're in a setting with teenagers. How do you deal with that?

And that's a legitimate question. See if we look at the Old Testament patriarchs and even some of the kings we see that many of them had multiple wives and even concubines. The great father of the faith, Abraham. He had multiple wives. Then even King David. He was a man after God's own heart and he had multiple wives. And listen it was the many wives of Solomon that led to his downfall. Now think about it. Solomon was the wisest man that ever lived and he became the biggest fool because of the influence of his foreign wives. Now there are many more examples that we could get into here but that would take up too much of our time.

But I want to give you a brief explanation about this. First of all the Old Testament saints who had multiple wives, they had concubines, were adopting a very common pagan practice. A cultural practice. Simply polygamy and keeping concubines. That was a common thing in the pagan world in that day. So what we have here is these Old Testament saints. They took up common cultural practices and they did this for various reasons. I'll give you an example. Abraham, he had a problem producing an heir. He didn't believe God's promise. So what did he do? He took a second. Why? So as to produce an heir. That was just a common cultural practice.

And then second, the Scriptures never commend the practice of polygamy. But really the opposite. The Scriptures speak against the practice. And if you do your study of the Old Testament saints who fell into the sin of polygamy, you will find that it produced all types of sin. The ramifications for these actions were sinful. Well, I gotta make a confession here. I did a little Google search here as well. I Google the word polygamy. Of course a definition comes up. But then immediately all these reality TV shows come up about all of these polygamous families. I mean, they're reality TV shows. You've seen them.

And did you know that the state of Utah struck down laws against polygamy in 2020? Now I'm not a prophet or a son of a prophet, but more of that's coming. So what's my point here? We must see that the husband here is male. It's a man, folks. And the wife here is a female, a woman. And Paul is speaking of a one man, one woman marriage. Biblically speaking, only a one man, one woman marriage is accepted by God. Anything else is sinned. And this has always been challenged. It will be challenged. Culture is always trying to redefine it in so many ways.

All we've gotta do, folks, is just hold on to what the Scriptures say and ignore everything else that comes our way. Now as we turn our attention to the verses, here we will see that Paul is addressing the roles, the responsibilities of the wife as she relates to her husband and his authority in the Christian marriage. So what we're gonna look at is all about roles, all about responsibilities, and relationships. Those would be some good words for you to write down. This is all about roles. This is all about relationships and responsibilities. This is within the household, okay? This is within the family. What do we study?

God's design for the family. Now I want us to examine one major truth here. Really one major, one preeminent truth, and then I'm going to highlight that truth with some other truth. I don't know if this analogy works. I kind of envisioned it like a Christmas tree. See, we're gonna decorate it, okay? We've got this one major truth we've gotta see, and then we're gonna come along and highlight that truth and look at what this truth looks like. And we're gonna decorate it with other biblical truth. So number one, I want us to see the reality of submission. The reality of submission. Go back to the verse.

The first part of the verse, "Wives be subject." The English standard says, "Wives submit to your own husbands." Now for us to see what Paul is saying in verse 22, we need to see what Paul is doing in verse 21. In verse 21, Paul is laying out the foundational principle of submission within the body of Christ. Remember, this is all written to the church. This is all for the body of Christ. Look back up at verse 21. It's a small verse, short verse. What does he say?

Writing to the church, "And be subject, submit to one another in the fear of Christ." Now first off, we need to understand the meaning of the word "submitting" or "be subject to" here in verse 21. At its basic level, this means to relinquish one's rights. This speaks up a voluntary submission of one's rights to another. In this case, starting in verse 22, it's a wife to a husband. I think we see that. But we must see what Paul is saying and doing in verse 21, not just the meaning of the word. Paul is giving one of the greatest marks of true Christian spirituality. I need to repeat that.

Paul in verse 21 is giving one of the greatest marks of true Christian spirituality. And that is mutual submission to one another in Christ, in the body, in the church. This speaks of a humility and a willingness to steer clear from disputes among one another. This speaks to a gentleness towards one another and bearing one another's burdens willingly, lovingly, gladly. This is a submission to one another as brothers and sisters in the body for the good of one another, for the good of the body, and for the good of the church. And this is all done in the fear of Christ.

Go back to verse 21, "And be subject to one another in the fear or the respect, the love of Christ." Now question. I want you to think with me here, folks. Have you ever submitted to others in the body or the local church in this way? Have you ever had a circumstance among brothers, among sisters, whereby you were challenged? There was conflict. There was question. Oh, it could be a rift. It could be an issue between you and a brother. And were you ever challenged to come to the place whereby you submitted to one another? You overlooked a fence. You forgave sin. You extended a love, kind hand, a warm hug of Christian fellowship. You see?

Have you ever been in a place within the church, the local body, where you have lovingly, willingly submitted one to another? Only one can't do that. It takes two, three, four, five. It takes a group, the body. Have you ever? I've been in church conflict where it was fight. I mean, folks just wouldn't forgive and extend grace. But yet I've been in circumstances where brothers loved one another and they submitted to one another and they reached out to one another and they forgave one another and they carried each other's burden. You see? Well, starting in verse 22, Paul is applying this type of submission to wives within their marriage union.

And he is saying to wives, "You must be willing to submit to or be subject to your husband in the manner in which we see in verse 21." Now notice something in the verse. There is no condition laid out here in this command. There are no exceptions given for the wife and no exceptions given for the husband here. There are no excuses. There are no exemptions given. No matter their education or intelligence. No matter their social standing or lack thereof. No matter their ability or inability. No matter their spiritual maturity or spiritual immaturity. No matter their ability or the lack of ability.

There are no conditions or exemptions given in the command. Wives are commanded and called to, submit to, to be subject to their husbands. You see? So we need to pause right here in the progression of these verses. And we need to see the reality of this command. It's short. And if we're not careful, we'll go over it. We might even be offended and say, "Folks, Pastor Church, I'm not going there." Paul gives this command to wives to be submissive to their husbands. It's not sugar coated. There's no getting around it. Now I don't know if this will resonate with you, but it has resonated with me this week.

I want to help you in applying this teaching by seeing that this verse is against two cultural backgrounds. See, we always come to the scripture with our cultural background. We have ours and theirs. Our cultural background and their cultural background. Now I'll be short here. I'll have to abbreviate a lot, but I think this will help you. First of all, for us, we live in a day of women's liberation, feminism, the equality of the sexes. Of course, women's liberation is very broad and it is diverse in its meaning, but at its very basic level, this would mean political, economic, and social equality for women.

And that is the day in which we live. Women are seen as equal to men in all walks of life in the political world. Don't we have women running for our political office and attaining that office? Women are seen as equal in the world of economics. It's been a while, but I saw a news article where the women's soccer or the United States soccer team, professional soccer team was pretty upset. They weren't getting paid as much as the men. They were demanding equality. We also see that women are seen equal to men in all segments of society and even in the home, folks, you see?

Well, that means that in our day, verses like this are antiquated at best, are very offensive at worst, you see? This type of teaching is vehemently rejected, maybe violently rejected by our culture and even rejected by some in the church. But in their day, it was the opposite. The Jews had a very, very low opinion of women. It wasn't scriptural. It was so low, their view of women, it would offend us today. Scholars tell us that a Jewish man, when he got up in the morning and he prayed, he would thank God that he wasn't a Gentile. He would thank God that he wasn't a woman.

As a matter of fact, some scholars say he would even thank God that he wasn't a slave. Get that. A pious Jewish man, getting up and looking up to God and say, "God, I thank you that I'm not a woman." A Jewish woman had no legal rights in Jesus' day. She was considered to be property of her husband. And within their legal system, she wasn't even viewed as a person. She was viewed as property. And if that wasn't bad enough, remember now they're influenced by the Greeks. The Greeks, they had an even worse view of women. We don't have time to get into that.

You might think, "Can it get worse?" Well, that means that in their day, verses like this were shocking. This would have been scandalous. This type of teaching would have been rejected by the culture. It would have been rejected by the Jews. They just couldn't see women as more than property. Now, what's my point here? I'm not trying to give you a history lesson. No matter the culture, no matter the cultural norm, we must evaluate it up against the scripture and we must adjust to the scriptures, you see? Now, remember my assumption. I have assumed that you believe that God's word is sufficient.

And it is sufficient and authoritative to instruct us in all matters of life. And if it is the authority, then we must adjust, no matter the culture. But remember my challenge. Oh, the challenge can be hard, folks. It's one thing to sit here and say, "Amen, pastor. Oh, I was taught that all my life." But to go home and close the door and work hard to change according to the scripture, you see? This assumption and this challenge. Now, a more specific question. Which cultural norm fits you? Think here. Ladies, wives, do you shrink back from this teaching this first because you have been influenced by the feminism of the day?

You might have even been taught that from your parents. Ladies, wives, is this liberating because you have been treated as property throughout your life and marriage? You know, there are people that are raised in those kind of environments, folks. You might say, "No, pastor. Oh, yes." See my question? Do you shrink back from this teaching, ladies, because you have been influenced by the feminism of the day? And listen, is this liberating to you because you have been treated like property all throughout your life, all throughout your marriage? I will never forget one time the testimony of a lady that I heard.

You know, she said it like this, "You know, I can never be Baptist. I don't believe in subordination." Now, she got the word wrong. What was she saying? I don't want that submissive stuff. But you know, years ago, years ago when I was first converted to Christ, I remember my home church pastor, Miss Vicki, talking about this passage, talking about submission. She said, "With a glow on her face and tears in her eyes," she says, "it is my joy to submit to my husband." Not just because of the Scripture, but because she lived out some of the teaching that we're going to get into. So what do we have?

This major truth, earth-shattering truth, this command. What does he say? "Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord." Now, I don't know if my analogy is good, but this is the Christmas tree. We're going to highlight it. We're going to decorate it. We're going to show you what that should look like through the rest of the verses. And you might say, "Pastor, the rest of the verses, you got a little ways to go. I promise we'll get there quicker than maybe you know." Now, here's where I want to shed a little light. What we see from the rest of verse 22 on down to verse 24 will really show us what this command should look like.

And I think this will dispel some misconceptions, some erroneous teaching. Now, I'm going to use three words here that I picked up from some John MacArthur material. I just couldn't get away from it. The word manner, the word motive, and the word model. All right, I'm taking some of his teaching and I'm making it my own. And we're going to look at the manner, the motive, and the model with all of this submission. You'll be able to follow me. I promise you. So first of all, I want us to see the manner. We see the manner of this submission. It's in the second part of verse 22.

"Wives, be subject to your own husbands as to the Lord." Now, notice this is to their own husband. This isn't to any man or any husband. Go back to the verse. "Wives, be subject to your own husbands." Now, this speaks of this very husband that she is bound to. She is bound to that husband in Christian love and in Christian marriage. And then notice this is as to the Lord. The verse says, "As to the Lord." The Christian life is lived for the Lord and unto the Lord. And two things should motivate the Christian life. First of all, our love for the Lord. And then also that we would want to give glory and honor through our life to the Lord.

So we see the manner of this submission. This is personal on two levels. The wife is submitting to the husband out of love because she is bound to her husband. She is bound to her husband in Christian marriage and in love. And just as they submit to the Lord, she submits to the Lord that it saved her. You see, it's very personal. Now, question ladies, wives, do you have this manner of submission in your home life? Do you submit to your husband because he is your husband? You're bound to him in Christian love. You're bound to him in Christian matrimony. And do you see submission as unto the Lord to the Lord that you love? Do you?

So my rhetorical question is this. What does your submission look like? And you just may need the Holy Spirit of God to take the word of God and what's been explained here and shine the light of the Spirit of God on the truth, the truth of how you live. What does your submission look like? What do you view it like? How do you live in this out? You might need to go home and discuss this with your husband. You might need to get into the word and pray. You might need to get a little counsel. So my question is this. What does your submission look like? Do you have this manner of submission? Second, I want us to see the motive.

I want us to see the motive for this submission. Here we see this at the beginning of verse 23. The beginning of verse 23. "For the husband is the head of the wife." The husband is the head of the wife. We've seen the manner of the submission. Now we see the motive. And this is all about the role. This is all about the relationships, you see? The husband is to be the head of the family, not just positionally, but functionally. Guys, not just positionally. You got to functionally be the head of the family. John MacArthur uses a physical body to illustrate this here. This is good, and I'm quoting, and I'm sure I'm changing his quotation.

He says, "A physical body that does not respond to the direction of the head is crippled, paralyzed, or spasmatic." Isn't that true? A physical body that does not respond to the head is crippled. It's paralyzed. It's sick. And that's true. Well, a wife that does not respond to the headship of her husband, then she is crippled. She is paralyzed just the same. One could make the case that the home is even crippled. The home is even paralyzed, you see? But not so with the wife who lovingly submits to the husband that she loves. Not so with the wife who submits to her husband as unto the Lord. See the manner?

So we see the motive of this submission. It is because her husband is the head of her, and her husband is the head of the family. And what is behind this motive? Her personal relationship with her husband, and her personal relationship to the Lord. She does all of this as unto the Lord. Now ladies, wives, what are your motives? What are your motives? Do you submit to your husband because he does a good job here? Or do you submit to your husband begrudgingly, gritting your teeth? You see? You've got to ask this question. What does your submission look like?

And you may need the Holy Spirit of God to illuminate the truth to you in light of the Word of God, and maybe in prayer, and maybe in seeking out some counsel, maybe being honest with your husband here. So what do we see the manner of this submission? Now we see the motive for this submission. And then third, we see the model of submission. Now I want to pause here, and I want to say the obvious. For some, even many, submission is really hard. I know some of you have thought this. It's really hard. Some of you are saying stuff like this, "Pastor, you don't know my situation." Some of you have it hard because you don't have godly husbands.

This is another subject for another day? Maybe a time to sit down with you? I mean, really, some of you, you don't have godly husbands. You don't even have halfway godly husbands. I know that's a reality. I'm not acting like this is a fairy tale. So my question for you men, I'm not getting ahead of the passages, but we've got to ask this question. Men husbands, is it hard for your wife to submit to you because you are not godly? Is it hard for your wives to submit to you because you are not trustworthy in your leadership? Are you leading well? Are you even halfway leading well?

It could be that your whole family life, your wife and your children being held back because of you. I know this is a big reality, and we're going to get into this as we continue. Well we need to look at this model of submission, okay? So here we see this supreme model. The supreme model of submission is Jesus. Let's look at verse 23, the second part. "For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church.

He himself being the savior of the body," that would be the church, "but as the church is subject to Christ, so also wives ought to be to their husbands in everything." First, we need to see this supreme model for submission, it's Jesus. Here we see the sinless savior who came into the world to save his body, to save the church. That's what the text says. He is the perfect picture for submission. At every crossroad, Christ did the will of the father perfectly, submitting to the will of the father. And Jesus is the perfect example, the perfect model for husbands and wives today, you see?

But then also we see the second model for submission, we see the second model for submission and that is verse 24, the church. "But as the church is subject to Christ, so also wives ought to be subject to their husbands in everything." Now listen, men, this is why it is so important to have your family in a true church. You hear me? Here we see and we will continue to see that the church is vital to the family. The church is to be a model, you see? It is to be a model. Go back to the verse. "But as the church is subject to Christ, so also wives ought to be to their husbands." There is this model. But one more detail.

Verse 24, "In everything," the English standard reads this, "so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands." And everything means everything, everything. So we see our model for submission. Christ is our supreme perfect model. And then we see our second model, this imperfect model, that is the church. And so my question for you ladies for wives is this, I want to call you to two forms of submission. First, this perfect submission. Christ is your example in every way. And you should strive to be Christ-like here. And then second, this imperfect example, this imperfect submission. The church is your example.

And the church is imperfect. And you will be imperfect. So this rhetorical question again, what does your submission look like? Ladies, wives? You just might need the Spirit of God to take what we've studied. Even things that I've not explained very thoroughly. And the Spirit might need to take what we've looked at here and just expose who you are. And you might need counsel here from an older lady. You might need counsel. You might need to discuss this in your home. Again, the challenge is evaluating our lives according to the Scriptures and adjusting. So we see these three M words. The manner of submission. I know I've been fast.

The motive for this submission and the model of this submission. Now I want to go back to our words. I'm moving towards the conclusion, folks. This is all about roles. This is all about responsibilities. This is all about relationships. And we will continue to look at these roles, responsibilities, and relationships within the family throughout the rest of the series. Now I want to close with one word. Now I don't have a story. I don't have an example. I don't have a real life story to illustrate this. I've got one word, authority. You might say, "Pastor, you've already given us a hard word.

It's called submission." Now you're going to give us another one that's hard, authority. And you need this more than you know. We must see that we are a people who live and operate under authority. And if we do not operate under authority, the authority that God has given, what do we have? We have rebellion. And rebellion is sin. I want you to see how this works out. Don't try to write it down. We're going to revisit it. If you want this information, I will get it to you. First, God. God is an authority. God is the supreme authority. God is an authority over all things, seen and unseen. And that includes all men, all people, all nations.

God is supreme. God is in authority. The world's not falling apart, people. It's falling right into God's hands. Go read Psalm 2. It'll make you feel better. God. God is in authority. And then also, second, earthly government. The scriptures teach us that earthly government is in authority over men and peoples and nations. And we might not understand why God would allow evil regimes in the world, and evil kings and queens and rulers, but he does. Earthly government is of God, and earthly government is in authority over men, over people, over nations. Then you have church officers. Many of you know these words.

These words all describe one office. You have elders, bishops, and pastors. Three New Testament words that describe one office. Those bishops and pastors, they are in authority over the church. Oh, but they don't get off the hook because Christ Jesus is in authority of those elders and bishops and pastors because he is in authority over the church. We've already read that. But then as we get into the verses, parents. Parents are in authority. Parents are in authority over their children. Don't we see that in the verses? Sorry, kids. We're getting there sooner or later. We're going to get there.

Parents, they're in authority over their children. And then Christ Jesus, he is in authority over the husbands in the home. Didn't we see that in the verses, you see? And then husbands, they're in authority over the family, and husbands, they're in authority over the wives. That might not be very palatable. It might not be a warm, fuzzy message, but it's biblical. Now remember the two different cultural backdrops that we have to push against. So what's the title of the message? It's just real simple, wives. This is God's design for the family. And listen, folks, it's either scriptural or it's not.

Some of your students of these verses, and you know I didn't cover it all. It's either scriptural or it's not. This is wives, God's design for the family. We see this calling. We see this command of submission. We see the reasons, it's because the husband is the head of the wife. And we see the scope of this submission. It's in all things. And then we see the manner of this submission. The wife submits to the husband that she loves. She loves because they are joined by God, and she does this because she loves the Jesus that she serves. Let's pray. Let's commit this to the Lord.

And then we'll sing not a closing song so as to forget, but a closing song so as to commit this teaching to God, hopefully to God and the Spirit to work in our lives accordingly.