In his sermon on 'Headship and Submission,' Scott Brown explores the biblical principles of marriage as outlined in Ephesians 5. He emphasizes that marriage is a beautiful kingdom when governed by God's word, highlighting that the roles of husband and wife are distinct yet complementary. Brown discusses the concept of headship and submission, explaining that the husband is to love his wife as Christ loves the church, with an affectionate authority, while the wife is to respect and submit to her husband. The sermon addresses common conflicts arising from differences between men and women, such as communication and emotional dynamics, and stresses the importance of recognizing and honoring these differences. Brown uses the metaphor of a tandem bicycle to illustrate the interdependent roles in marriage, where the husband leads but both partners contribute to the journey. He underscores the sanctifying purpose of marriage, where both partners grow in holiness through their relationship, and concludes with practical advice for nourishing and cherishing one another.

Welcome to a new day. Here we go. We're going to continue in Ephesians, Chapter five about God's holy institution. You know, this song we just sang, The King and All His Beauty. The king's institutions are beautiful when they're governed by him.

And that's what marriage is. It's a beautiful kingdom. When you govern your marriage by the word of God, you actually end up creating a beautiful kingdom. And that's what we're here to talk about. So open again to Ephesians chapter five and find verse 22.

I'm gonna read the whole text and then walk through some of the implications of it. And verse 22, Ephesians five. Verse 22, Ephesians 5. Wives, submit to your own husbands 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.

Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her. That he might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word. That he might present her to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.

For no one ever hated his own flesh but nourishes and cherishes it just as the Lord does the Church. For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless, let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

Let's pray. Lord, Lord, we're so thankful for instruction from heaven, from your holy throne room into our living rooms, Lord. Thank you for breathing words of life to us, even this morning, even though they're familiar, they're so profound and so helpful, Lord, I praise you for them, Amen. Okay, this morning in this first session I want to introduce Ephesians 5 22 to 33. I want to talk about some of the points of conflict that are implied here in terms of the differences between men and women because it's very clear that you have differences, difference of role and function.

And then I want to walk through each verse of the text and then I want to conclude with an illustration that I hope is helpful. And what these verses are about is how to live together in love. Here's a different way to say it. How to make marriage easier. How to make marriage more beautiful.

How do you care for one another's souls by doing the things that are here, How does a husband exercise affectionate authority? How does a husband stir up love? How does a wife stir up love in her marriage? So that's what's really here. And being married is a little bit like riding a bicycle built for two.

The husband does the steering and both are doing the pedaling. And the wife is in a more vulnerable position on that bicycle. And where he goes, she goes. And he doesn't always make the best decisions on that bicycle. And this is all implied here.

So I want to talk about some of the conflict points before we get into this text between men and women. Here's how it works. Every woman wants to find a good man. She wants to find a reliable man. She wants to find a godly man.

Hopefully she wants to find that, But the problem is he is a man. And so often you have wives that find themselves disappointed. And it happens when a woman finds a good man, a reliable man, and she becomes disappointed, dissatisfied with him. And the reason that she becomes dissatisfied with that man typically is that he's a man. He thinks differently.

He feels differently. He moves differently. He looks at you differently. This takes me back to what Elizabeth Elliott said, you know, you marry a man, you marry a sinner, and you marry a human being with different gifts and interests and habits and things like that. But a man, a man typically, and I know this is not universal, but it's nearly universal.

A man thinks through problems differently. A man feels about problems differently. A man creates solutions that are different, typically, than women do. A man communicates about the solutions to those problems differently. And they look like men, they act like men.

Elizabeth Elliott says, you marry an unruly creature. Rough edges. She says, he doesn't use a washcloth. That's what she said. What makes her cry doesn't make him cry.

And the wife thinks, I'm not sure my husband understands me. He doesn't. He hardly ever cries the same way that I cry. You know, there's frankly there's nothing more baffling to a man, there's nothing more confusing to a man to encounter his wife who's crying and she doesn't know why she's crying. In this book, Elizabeth, I just reread this book about three weeks ago.

And, but she tells a story about a woman who's complaining about her husband snoring. And Elizabeth Elliott, her husband was murdered by the Alka Indians back in the late 50s. And she writes in this book, she says, snoring is the sweetest music in the world. Ask any widow. Even.

Even so, men, men bear burdens differently. Widow, even so. Men bear burdens differently. Most men carry their burdens silently or almost silently, and they carry a silent mental load. You don't, a wife doesn't think he cares, a wife doesn't think he's dealing with it but he is probably dealing with it, but he's dealing with it alone.

That's how men are. They bear financial burdens, often alone and very differently. They bear relational burdens differently. They bear their work burdens differently. And they bear household burdens and emotional burdens.

And most men kind of tuck their burdens away. And most men hide the pressure. But part of that is that they tend to be more resilient. So at the same time, it's important that a man communicates with his wife about financial goals and financial burdens and relational burdens. In that sense a man just has to be aware of how different he is compared to his wife.

And he shouldn't despise his wife for the difference. In fact, Peter says, honor your wife. Honor, honor what? Honor her that she is the weaker vessel. In other words, don't despise it.

Recognize that there's a difference that's there. And you know, this is why when a wife comes to her husband with a problem that she's grappling with, it's tearing her apart, and she tells the story of what's bothering her. Every man here knows exactly what he's going to do. He is going to try to fix it. He's going to try to fix it right now.

He is going to give a three-point solution for how to fix her problem. But that doesn't fix the problem, And she doesn't even want him to fix the problem. She just wants him to hear about it and sympathize with her. But the problem is. Men don't tend to be.

Particularly sympathetic beings. God actually made them that way. And that's why a nagging wife, as the scripture describes, is like a constant dripping. Proverbs twenty seven, fifteen, a quarrelsome wife is like a constant dripping on a rainy day. But a woman, you know, responding to this man, she concludes he doesn't care.

You know, he's disconnected from my feelings. He doesn't know how to get in touch, you know, with my heart. And she's thinking, I don't even think he hears my heart. And she's wondering how to get him on her wavelength, You know, how is she going to get him in touch with her heart? That's a tough proposition for a man.

You know, and She wants to know what can she say to him to make him wake up. All of these things that are operating in a marriage make it clear that there are a few things that make marriage work. First of all is this recognition between the difference between men and women. That has to be understood. That you really, you know, you marry, as a wife you married a being who's different than you and as a husband you married a being who's different than you.

And authors have tried to describe this using language. Is it an ontological difference? It kind of is, because men and women were made for different things. And that's really the glory of God. And that's why there are about five things that are really critical for the success of any marriage.

And the first is grace, and the second is flexibility, and the third is understanding, and the fourth is honor, and the fifth is just trusting God. Those things are pivotal in a marriage. And that's why a spirit of dishonor just destroys happiness in marriage. And that's why there's so many commands to love respect to honor to cherish to nourish there are all these things that rolled up in what husbands and wives ought to do, to create this beautiful kingdom that God has created. And Paul tells husbands to nourish and cherish their wives as Christ does the church.

And to cherish her, even though she's different. And for the wife to respect her husband even though he's different. These are just matters of Christian maturity to recognize these differences that you really did marry somebody that's very very different than you. But when women say they want a good man and they find one, then they realize that they spend years adjusting, because they married a very different being. Here's another thing about men.

Women, you already know this. He often doesn't enter into your emotional chaos. Many men don't even know how to enter into a woman's emotional chaos. He doesn't tend to shift his mood. He doesn't respond to drama very well.

But is he detached? Is he selfish? I think the Bible would just tell you to think the best of him. And the same way with a husband toward his wife. God made men to rule, to move with conviction, and not to respond to every emotional jag.

That's how God built men. Men are like a stabilizing force in a woman's life, and they're guided by conviction. Hopefully, they are God's holy convictions. But men, I think men serve in women's lives from time to time as sort of like ballast in a ship in the middle of a storm. They stabilize it.

A wife is disturbed. She's distraught. She's at her wit's end. And what a wife typically needs to hear but often doesn't wanna hear is, "'Honey, it's gonna be okay. "'We're gonna get through this.'" A good man is a boring man.

He's more emotionally regulated. He's less susceptible to bending, you know, under external pressure. And I know that there are exceptions to this in all of our lives. You know, I can see exceptions in my life, and I'm sure you do too. And that's why it's really pivotal for both men and women to understand how to talk to one another.

I'm going to talk in detail about this later on today. But how a woman talks is really pivotal in relating with her husband. One of the most counterproductive things women do when they talk to their husbands is to raise their tone of voice, to speak in a frustrated tone, to complain, and to express dissatisfaction. That actually debilitates a man. Men kind of shut down under that.

And it causes a brain freeze. Men's minds go to mush when their wives are complaining to them. I don't know why that is, it just is. And you know what? They don't know what to say.

They don't know how to respond when their wife is in an emotional collapse, they don't know what to say because they don't know what to say and they fear that whatever they say isn't going to work anyway. Okay? So these are these are just some realities. Again, some of you are smiling. Some of you, I don't know what you're thinking, but these are just generalizations about manhood, womanhood.

But the Bible bears witness to the difference between men and women. You know, one of the dangerous things is if a woman, you know, has been very vociferous about the weaknesses of her husband, she might stop talking, and her silence isn't always a sign of peace. She may just be checking out. Now, that's really dangerous. If you're a husband and you've caused your wife to just check out, that's a danger to both of you.

You know, the game of he's not hearing my heart, he doesn't care, you know, the game of who's doing more, you know, in this relationship. A woman, she starts telling herself things like that, she's really headed into the wilderness and she's gonna take everybody with her. So That's when resentment and contempt tends to grow. And so the solution often is to go seek counseling, hours and hours of counseling. And in my experience, just looking at couples over the years have spent hours and hours in counseling, it often doesn't help that much.

So because they've just been caught in a mire of dissatisfaction, and they're not recognizing the way that God created the world, and the specific commands. And that woman, that woman, you know, may wanna file for divorce. By the way, who's initiating divorce today? 75% of women initiate divorce today. And I think a lot of it just, it has to go back to a misunderstanding of this ontological difference between men and women.

And of course, I'm not trying to minimize the presence of sin and things like that in men's lives that cause women want to divorce them, because often that is the case as well. So Ephesians five has all the answers to these things. And so let's go into this. And I don't want us to miss this in Ephesians 5. Notice where the heavy responsibility lies in Ephesians 5.

It lies on the husband. The wife only has two things to do. The husband has a boatload of things that he's to do with his wife. So let's just, I'm just gonna take this verse by verse. Verse 22, it starts out with a command for wives.

Wives submit to your own husbands as to the Lord." And you know theologians have asked, why does he start with the wife? Why doesn't he start with the head of the family? I like the way that William Gooshe supposes that this is the case, without a husband's headship, the leadership of the family falls apart. The family loses a leader. And actually, the family loses the creation order.

When a wife refuses to submit to her husband, she's really tearing her whole house down. She's tearing the whole authority structure of a family apart. And so it's really, really critical. And the problem with that is a wife that doesn't submit to her husband, she takes a lot of people with her. She takes her children with her as well.

So it begins with the command for wives to submit to their own husbands as to the Lord. That phrase, as to the Lord, is pivotal. What does that mean? Does That mean that she submits to absolutely everything that her husband desires, even if it's evil. No, it cannot mean that.

I think he's saying that when you turn to the Lord, you want to obey him. You see that his kingdom is the best kingdom. That's why you became a Christian. And you want to serve the Lord. And in the same way, a wife would want to serve her husband by submitting to him.

A Christian submits out of delight. And a wife, I think he's saying that a wife should submit out of delight, delight in the creation order. So then he, in verse 23, in the next verse, there's really a description of this creation order, for the husband is head of the wife as also Christ is head of the church and he is the Savior of the body. This matter of the creation order is so critical to in understanding our marriages. In fact, maybe many of you know this, I'm doing a conference in May called Manhood and Womanhood, the Glory of God in the Creation Order.

You've got to start in Genesis and then work your way through the theme that carries all the way to the end. But men, men are given the role of leadership. Men lead, men initiate, men rule, and men cherish. That's what men do in this scheme in Ephesians 5. Women they follow, they adapt, they submit, and they inspire their husbands by respecting them.

You know there are various titles for the husband in the Bible. In 1 Peter 3, 6, he is called Lord. In Proverbs 2, verse 7, he's called a guide. In 1 Corinthians 11, 3, he's called the head, just like here in Ephesians 5. In Esther 1, 7, he's called master.

In 1 Corinthians 12, 17, he's called the image and glory of God. In Ephesians 5-23, he's the representative of Jesus Christ. So God places a husband in the home to be the head. And the language that the apostle uses is military language of a higher rank, a higher authority. And it follows, doesn't it?

With more authority comes more responsibility, and that's what you see. There are more details to attend to for those who are in authority. And, you know, William Gouge, he says this, he talks about this authority in a really helpful way. He said that it's, all of this authority is seasoned by love. He describes it like a seasoning that you would add to a dish to make it more tasteful.

And it's love. You know, authority without love is just tyranny. And so you find this whole matter of a husband's gentleness, accepting what the wife is able to do, accepting what the wife is willing to do, Yielding, yielding even to her, granting her her interests and things like that. A husband's too much strictness is no help in a marriage either. And so you have in verse 23, the reality of the creation order, and then the implications of the wife are in verse 24.

Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything." So here it's very clear a woman is not to submit to every man, but she submit to her own husband. You know, God does not make a woman subject to every male, but he concentrates her focus toward her husband. This is part of the beauty of a marriage, because you have her interests, her prayers, her service, her gifts, they're focused on her husband. This is the glory of God in marriage. And she submits, Again, he says it again, just as the church is subject to Christ, that's willingly and thankfully.

And then the heart of headship is declared in verse 25, husbands love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for her. Many years ago, I did a conference called Love the church. And when I opened up the conference, I itemized various ways that Christ loves the church. And I probably had 50 things in my notes that where the Bible explicitly says how it is that Christ loves his church and he communicates with her, he carries her, he does all kinds of things for her and but that's the heart of headship is this affectionate authority. And then in verse 26, there's this sanctifying influence.

What the apostle is saying in verse 26 is that the husband is a providential sanctifying influence on his wife, that he might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of the water by the word. So that he might, God, he's talking about God, God is the one that is sanctifying and cleansing her by something that her husband is doing. Do you get the drift there? The husband is an agent in the sanctification of the wife. The husband is a means of sanctification and there are probably a lot of different levels to that.

Part of that sanctification is his man, his just basic raw manhood. And another part of it is that he's also a human being And another part of it is that he's also a human being. And another part of it is that he's a sinner. God uses all those things together to sanctify the wife. Yes, even your sins as a husband, God is using to sanctify your wife.

Even your blind spots, God is using to sanctify your wife. Even your blind spots, God is using to sanctify your wife. Even your dumb ideas that you grew up with and brought into your marriage, God has designed to use those. So you can rest, you can rest in the imperfections of your spouse. But God here in verse 26, God has a goal for a woman and that is to cleanse her with the washing of water by the Word and God does that by putting a man in her life who is her head.

And then in verse 27 you have God's objective that he again might present her to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. So God is doing something in the life of a wife through her husband and he has an eschatological objective because he is he wants he's going to present her the wife to himself a glorious church in the same way that Christ is doing that with his own church the gathered body of believers But God's objective is that she should be holy and without blemish. So the sanctification that God is looking for in a wife through the marriage, through the ups and downs of marriage, through the imperfections of marriage, is that she should be holy. So all of those imperfections are designed to make you holy, you wives. That she should be holy and without blemish.

And so in, it's very interesting that you have a wife at the end of her life that she's without blemish. After all these years of being married, her blemishes decrease. It's actually the opposite in the natural world. So many of you haven't been married very long, so you don't have wrinkles and blemishes, you know. That will change.

You start out marriage with very few physical blemishes, but you have internal blemishes. And God is dealing with your internal blemishes so that even as you grow old, you're going to pick up external blemishes, but your internal blemishes are on the retreat. Because you're living out this picture of marriage where the husband is a tool and the wife of a life in the life of a wife to sanctify and cleanse her by the washing of water, by the word. So it's the word of God that keeps a woman steady in this process of living with this man, this unruly creature that she married. And then the apostle, he keeps piling up these illustrations, moving from this picture of sanctification of the wife.

Then he turns to husbands in verse 28 and he gives a really graphic illustration to husbands. It's like a slap in the face for a husband. He says, So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself, for no one ever hated his own flesh but nourishes and cherishes it just as the Lord does the church. So a husband has to recognize his duty in this sanctification process.

His duty is to love his wife's body like it's his own body. He is so close to her that he views her as kind of an extension of his body because she actually is. Because remember the two have become one flesh. The assumption of course is that a husband is gonna take care of his body. And so as a result of that, because you take care of your body, you should take care of your wife who is one body with you.

So a husband cannot dismiss or ignore his wife, but to actually recognize the closeness that God has designed for him. And then he elaborates it even more in verse 30. And again, the metaphor is all melting together. Christ in the church, husband and wife. Verse 30, for we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of his bones.

So he tells the husband, she's a member of your body. And then he tells both of them, we are members of Christ's body of his flesh and of his bones. And then he concludes by saying, for this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. And let's just make it really plain.

He's talking about the sexual relationship. He's talking about the two becoming one. He's talking about sexual intimacy is a picture of Christ's love for the church. That's exactly what he's saying. And I heard Joe Beeke a long time ago, he talked about the sexual relationship as a means of sanctification and he said it like this, through sexual sanctification not just satisfaction do we demonstrate the love of Christ?

Of course, you know, Joe Beeke is a Puritan scholar, and he understood, you know, the Puritans actually celebrated sexual intimacy and wrote lots of books about it. They were actually overturning the Roman Catholic doctrine of marriage. The Roman Church had established 260 days of abstinence from sexual intimacy because they actually believe that the sexual union was carried with its sin and the reformers Calvin and Luther and then the the Puritans really were overturning the Roman Catholic doctrine of marriage and particularly sexuality. And that the sexual union was a purifying union, a sanctifying union. And I think it goes back to this principle that I talked about last night, that the husband doesn't have authority over his own body and the wife doesn't have authority over her own body, they have authority over one another's bodies.

I think that what he's saying is that this is a sanctifying relationship. As you work those things out together, you are made holy. And, you know, cultivating a friendship and sexual intimacy, you know, submitting to various providential sufferings that enter into the sexual relationship, acknowledging weakness in either one of the parties. These are sanctifying things. Even, you know, coming into marriage with different ideas about sexual intimacy, it's a sanctifying thing.

Because both a husband and wife need to end up getting on the same page. But they need to get on the Bible page about sexual intimacy and not their own thoughts about it. And then Paul ends this in verse 33 by distinguishing between the husband and wife, and this is really important. He said, nevertheless, let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. What Paul does in this very last verse is he kind of separates the husband and wife now and he speaks directly to each one of them individually, independently of one another.

And he's saying that the husband has independent responsibilities, not dependent on what his wife is thinking or doing. And the wife has independent responsibilities toward her husband, regardless of what he is doing. And in other words, if your husband is a jerk, don't you be a jerk. If your wife is being a jerk, don't you be a jerk. Because you both have individual independent responsibilities regardless of what your spouse is doing.

It's no excuse to say, yeah but she. That's not an excuse. The apostle Paul is saying, nevertheless, let each one of you in particular, so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. So Ephesians 5 speaks to so many of the different misunderstandings and conflicts that we have in marriage and it gives really helpful solutions. Last night, we went through 10 passages of scripture that speak directly to marriage, and I think those things are also remedial to our particular marriage problems.

But you have these two different roles that are given to a husband and a wife. And a while back I read an article by a young woman named Tilly Dillehay. She wrote an article called Wife, Double His Strength. And I just want to close with some of the things that she wrote there, and I'm just going to quote what she wrote. She gives an illustration of riding on a bicycle built for two as an illustration of a husband and wife living together.

She starts the article like this, who's going to ride in front, I asked my sister. We were standing on a Florida sidewalk staring at a beautiful sky blue tandem bike. It was ours for the next four hours. I will, she said confidently, and I was secretly glad. The proverbial bicycle built for two was somewhat scary in person.

How on earth are we going to make it go without falling over? I thought. I carefully lifted my leg over the back wheels and grabbed hold of the non-functioning handlebars in front of me. She jumped under the front seat and aimed the wheel toward highway 30A ready to begin our teenage adventure biking down to town for lunch. Marrying a man is like climbing onto the back of a tandem bike.

You already knew how to ride a normal bike. That was second nature. It was simple. If you crashed, you crashed. But you were the only person who got a skinned knee and you were the only person to blame for the fall.

But when you marry a man, you climb off that solo bike and voluntarily climb onto the back of a tandem bike. Like it or not, your husband has been set on the front end and he is responsible for what happens on that bike. You have now entered into a relationship of leadership and response in which you both experience the falls, the views, and the victories together. Being in the front seat of a tandem bike is tough, but as it turns out the back seat is a terrifying challenge of its own. While riding with my sister I quickly learned that the second position on a tandem bike requires fearlessness, hard work and skill.

To get moving you have to pick up your feet without knowing exactly what the person in front is about to do. Then you have to pedal hard, as hard as if you were the solo biker, but without steering. Then you have to develop the art of learning, leaning with the person in front, putting your feet back down just as the brakes are being applied, and watching the leader's head for signs of the next turn. Following a man's lead requires even more fearlessness, hard work and skill. But when the relationship of leadership and response is working well, it is as head turning as the sky blue tandem bicycle sailing down the boardwalk.

And when a man's strength is directed toward a goal, like building a church or a home or a ministry or a business, you as a wife will soon discover that you're in a unique position to double that strength. You also discover that if you were to choose to work against him, your position on the tandem bike makes it easy for you to do so. All you'd have to do is put your feet down. He may be able to muscle the bike forward, but the going will be slow, frustrating, and awkward. If you really wanted, you might even be able to stop him in his tracks.

You can tear your own house down with your bare hands, Proverbs 14, 1. It's easy to ride in the second position poorly. Many women do. Sapping the strength of a man is easy. And then In the article, she gives three ways a wife can double rather than hinder her husband's strength.

And the first is cheer him on. Has she forgotten that you catch more flies with honey? And then she says, pedal hard in your gifts. The rear position on the bike is anything but passive. And she talks about the Proverbs 31 woman and then she finally says follow his lead.

She says that's where the rubber meets the road. Can we trust the direction when he points the steering wheel down a street on which we'd rather not go or when he misses the turn we assumed he wanted to take. Does he want your whole family, and if she gives all these examples, does he want your family to do this or that? So that's the principle. I think it's a great illustration for what it's like for a wife particularly they have to live with a husband if he crashes she's gonna crash with him it's actually the way God has designed it and he has a helper So let me just conclude by saying, you know, husbands, you can't just saddle up and throw your wife on the bike.

You need to tell her where you're going. And you need to see if she's getting tired in the peddling, and you need to encourage her and actually honor her weakness and her vulnerability. So There are these differences between men and women and Ephesians 5 is a brilliant way to describe it and it shows you how to make marriage easier. It shows you how to make marriage more beautiful. You know I've said this many times before, the calmest, stately-est, strongest women I've ever known are the women who learned how to submit to their husbands.

They really are, because you know what? They know that God will take care of that man. They actually believe God is sovereign. And they don't fear their husbands. They fear God.

And that's what marriages really need. And marriages need husbands who nourish and cherish their wives like Christ does the church. So I'm going to give you an assignment. Before you go home, and maybe you can do this in the cracks of time, I want you to write down 10 things that you admire about your spouse. 10 things that you admire about your spouse.

Okay, let's pray. Lord, Lord, we thank you for your word, for how practical it is, how beautiful it is. Lord, I pray that you give us help from heaven to put it into practice. Amen.