TITLE: What’s So Scary about Submission?
TEXT: Ephesians 5:20-23
PROPOSITION: Marriage demands mutual submission.
QUESTION: What?
KEY WORD: Secrets
SCRIPTURE READING: Same
INTRODUCTION:
- Often marriage is a “tug-of-war” – struggle for power.
- Loser ends up in the mud.
- Many today dislike the word – SUBMISSION
- It is often a difficult, disliked, divisive word.
- The submission of the text is – MUTUAL
- Submit = I limit what I might do naturally in order to
benefit another.
What does submission look like?
- The husband makes all the important decisions –
financial, family, discipline.
- The husband and wife should discuss and work together,
but the husband has the final say.
- The husband is the president; the wife is the
vice-president.
- The husband should control the TV remote.
Six Secrets to Submission – Submission is:
- Personal
- You apply to yourself – not try to apply to others
- Wives – don’t tell you husband to step up or you take
charge
- Husbands – don’t tell you wife she has to obey your
orders
- Spiritual
- Submission only makes sense in our relationship to
Christ
- V. 21 – Out of reverence for Christ
- V. 24 – As church is subject to Christ
- Mutual
- V. 21 – To one another – mutual
- NOT – all give or all take
- People with power must submit to those with less power
- Beneficial
- Many think this is a terrible teaching of God
- Women’s lib says – Don’t submit to anyone
- Person with less power – has input, ideas, suggestions
- Person with more power – must listen, consider, submit
- Practical
- Some think this means they must stay in abusive
marriage
- “I’ll stay and submit to his beatings, if it kills
me.”
- Submission does not mean you stop thinking, give up
your brain
- Countercultural
- Today – emphasis is on personal freedom – selfish
needs are first
- Today – we don’t yield the right of way to anyone
- Submission is against the grain
- Submission demands that we consider other people
first.
- The Quest Study Bible – “A submissive spirit
runs counter to society’s values and it always has. However, it remains
God’s standard for all believers – male and female – for all time.”
Conclusion – “Show me a man who lays down his life
for his wife, and I’ll show you a wife who has no problem with submission.”