Marriage and Redemption (b)

Introduction: A Note on Rhetoric and English Grammar

0:04 Now, before we turn to the reading and exposition of God's Word, an older, mature, and greatly respected brother in the church spoke to me this morning and expressed his judgment that I was using the word ain't too frequently, and my purpose in doing that is rhetorical effect. But I know that many of you are working diligently with your children and young people, and some not so young people, to respect the canons of the English language. And some of you know that I'm a stickler about that, that my wife jokes that she's lived with another woman for 46 years in our marriage,

0:45 a woman by the name of Miss Reynolds, who was my English teacher in the 8th and 9th grade and who drummed the fundamentals of English grammar into me. But I do...

0:55 I do want to be a good example in all things, and if in any way I undermine the effort of any of you parents to pass on to your children a correct sense of the use of the English language, I want you to know that that's the last thing I'd want to do, is to undermine your efforts, and I will seek to be more judicious and restrained in using the word ain't for rhetorical effect when seeking to speak to the level of the young people, and to... to the children.

Scripture Reading and Prayer for Illumination

1:26 Now we turn again to the book of Ephesians, Ephesians chapter 4 tonight, Ephesians chapter 4, and I shall read verses 17 to 24, and then chapter 5, verses 15 to 21. Ephesians chapter 4 and verse 17. This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you no longer...

1:57 walk as the Gentiles also walk, in the vanity of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardening of their heart, who being past feeling, gave themselves up to lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness. But you did not so learn Christ. It so be...

2:27 It so be that you heard him, and were taught in him, even as truth is in Jesus, that you put away as concerning your former manner of life the old man that waxes corrupt after the lusts of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new man that after God has been created in righteousness and holiness of truth. Chapter 5, verse 15. Look therefore carefully how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.

3:09 Wherefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not be drunk with wine wherein is riot, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking one to another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father, submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of Christ. Now let us again ask the help of God the Holy Spirit as we undertake to understand his word.

3:50 Our Father, we would again consciously acknowledge the truth of the words of our Lord Jesus, our Father, we would again consciously acknowledge the truth of the words of our Lord Jesus, Our Father, we would again consciously acknowledge the truth of the words of our Lord Jesus, Our Father, we would again consciously acknowledge the truth of the words of our Lord Jesus, who told his disciples, Without me you can do nothing. And we desire to embrace those words in all of their blunt, stark reality, and own our utter helplessness to do anything of spiritual worth apart from your presence and your power operative among us. Lord Jesus, out of your fullness, give us this night, Lord Jesus, out of your fullness, give us this night,

4:30 Lord Jesus, out of your fullness, give us this night, all that we need to understand and rightly to receive and respond to your word of truth. We plead this for the good of our souls and for the glory of your name. Amen. For those of you who regularly attend upon this ministry know that we come tonight to the seventh message in a series which I have entitled, In Praise and Defense of Marriage, Motherhood, and the Holy Spirit.

Recap: The Series on Marriage, Motherhood, and the Holy Spirit

5:00 In Praise and Defense of Marriage, Motherhood, and the Holy Spirit. In Praise and Defense of Marriage, Motherhood, and the Holy Spirit. In Praise and Defense of Marriage, Motherhood, and the Holy Spirit. In Praise and Defense of Marriage, Motherhood, and the Holy Spirit.

5:05 In Praise and Defense of Marriage, Motherhood, and the Holy Spirit. In Praise and Defense of Marriage, Motherhood, and the Holy Spirit. In Praise and Defense of Marriage, Motherhood, and the Holy Spirit. In Praise and Defense of Marriage, Motherhood, and the Holy Spirit.

5:09 In Praise and Defense of Marriage, Motherhood, and the Holy Spirit. In Praise and Defense of Marriage, Motherhood, and the Holy Spirit. In Praise and Defense of Marriage, Motherhood, and the Holy Spirit. In Praise and Defense of Marriage, Motherhood, and the Holy Spirit.

5:13 In Praise and Defense of Marriage, Motherhood, and the Holy Spirit. In Praise and Defense of Marriage, Motherhood, and the Holy Spirit. In Praise and Defense of Marriage, Motherhood, and the Holy Spirit. very vital biblical qualifications that need constantly to be kept in mind when dealing with the subject of marriage, of motherhood, and homemaking.

5:29 I then asserted that we are to think as we ought, and right thinking precedes right acting, as we've seen again in the Ephesians 4 passage, that we must think within the biblical categories of creation, fall, and redemption. We must bring everything that we are wrestling with to that which Scripture teaches in the early chapters of Genesis with respect to what the thing looked like when it came from the hand of our Creator God, what His purposes were with respect to that thing in the original creation.

6:09 Then what happened to that thing in the tragic defection of our first parents, and then what happened to that thing in the tragic defection of our first parents, and then what happened What has God purposed to do with that thing in His restorative grace? Thinking in the categories of creation, of fall, thinking in the light of the fall, we began this morning to consider these matters in the light of redemption.

The Foundational Prerequisite: Participation in Salvation (Ephesians 1-2)

6:49 Using the term redemption in its broadest sense, the entire scope of God's gracious, sovereign grace stated that the most definitive, extensive passage is Ephesians chapter 5 verses 22 to 30. And in that passage we have God's dissonance of a redeemed marriage.

7:26 We have the directives given by the Apostle Paul and to husbands, in which there is set before a marvelous picture of a redeemed marriage reflecting as a mirror image really through Christ and the Church, her Savior. I asserted. With equal dogmatism that Ephesians 5 cannot be transposed with Ephesians 1 and 2. When Paul writes in Ephesians 5 verse 22, wives, and he writes in verse 25, husbands,

8:08 he is thinking of these wives and husbands in terms of what he is all concerning them generically as believers. In their identity as wives and husbands is overlaid. It is overlaid upon what he has said to them generically as Christians. And so I use the image of a redeemed marriage.

8:39 Nation and superstructure asserted this morning that we would consider the prerequisites for a redeemed marriage in terms of the foundational prerequisite and then the superstructural prerequisites. I have identified the foundational prerequisite for a redeemed marriage in this way. It is the foundation. It is nothing more, nothing less, than a real life-changing participation in the salvation described in chapters 1 and 2.

9:18 It is because these wives and husbands are what they are in grace that the apostle can direct them to be what they ought to be in the marriage relationship. And the latter is dependent upon the former. The apostle can assume that the marriage relationship is dependent upon the former. The apostle can assume that the marriage relationship is dependent upon the former.

9:36 He can assume that the dynamics of grace is the opposite. I would like to pretend in these wives who are called upon to be submissive to their husbands as unto the Lord, who are called upon to be an accurate mirror image of the Church's submission to Christ, upon the husbands to love their wives. As Christ loved the Church, gave himself for the church, as he nourishes and cherishes his church, he, as I say, can be a mirror image of the love of Christ for his faithful family, their own life, and their own life. I would like to be sure that the church can be our mirror image of the love of Christ as He gave himself for the church.

10:09 I would like to confirm that the church can be a mirror image of the love of Christ for to his church because of what they are in Christ.

10:21 Two chapters looking at those seven major aspects that these wives and husbands had experienced and continue to experience. I simply buy this tonight that as far as I know were not with us this morning. You must never plunk down directly in Ephesians 5 and have a seminar among indiscriminate people on how to have a God-honoring marriage unless the realities of that glorious salvation that is located in Christ

11:02 and that salvation that issues in new creatures in Christ to what I'm calling the superstructural prerequisites for a redeemed marriage. If we look upon that foundational prerequisite, this real life-transforming participation in the salvation described in Ephesians 1 and 2, we look upon that as the foundational slab and the footings. If we're to have a redeemed marriage built, there must also be a superstructure upon that foundation.

11:46 And only upon that foundation and that superstructure can we see a redeemed marriage.

11:54 You see, Ephesians 5 verses 22 to 32 do not follow immediately upon the end of chapter 3. The end. At the end of chapter 3, Paul has given this marvelous description of this great salvation, not only in its individual application in chapter 2, but its application corporately in forming the new humanity in Jesus Christ. In the unfolding mystery of the scripture reading this morning in Ephesians chapter 3, that Jew and Gentile would be constituted one new humanity in our Lord Jesus and become the very, the very first, the very first, the very first, the very first, the very first, the very first, the very first, the very first, the very first, the very first,

12:39 the manifold wisdom of God is to principalities and to powers. Now, if possessing that salvation was needed, then the Apostle Paul would not have gone on to give further generic descriptions of the lifestyle these saints must be and to give a to them as believing men and women regardless of their role and identity as wives and husbands. So when he writes to the Bible, he writes to the Bible, he writes to the Bible, he writes to the Bible, he writes to the Bible, in chapter 5 and verse 22 and following,

13:22 he is not only assuming and have participated in the great salvation of chapters 1 and 2, that they have laid to heart the directives that he began to give concerning a pattern of living set forth in chapter 4 and verse 1 and following. The Apostle Paul must be given credit, wise author. He knew what he was writing and the sequence of what he was writing. what he was writing and the interconnectedness of it is not until he has laid not only the foundation their participation in this great salvation

14:05 but built up a structure of structural prerequisites that he then tells wives do I want us to identify three components in that soup would you have a redeem marriage you must start with being a redeemed individual you yourself must lay hold CD centers in participation in that salvation gives

Superstructural Prerequisite 1: Vital Integration into a Biblically Ordered Church

14:48 the basic a redeemed marriage their principles that must be operative in in my life you have to see the kind of marriage set for in Ephesians 5 as our experience identify three components of that structural element we are to see the kind of marriage we have to identify three components of that service MK 3 of the structural elementές of the structural element are the prerequisites for a redeemed marriage. Number one, ordinarily, you ought to be vitally integrated into the life and ministry of a biblically.

15:27 Ordinarily, ought to be vitally integrated into the life and ministry of a biblically. In the original notes I had, you must be. I reflected there are times when providentially it is impossible for an individual wife or husband to be vitally integrated into the life and ministry of a biblically ordered church. Maybe such a church does not exist within reasonable proximity.

16:03 Or if it does exist, there may be factors that make it impossible for a given wife or husband to be integrated into that church. And so I've chosen my words carefully that I will not go beyond or fall short of the teaching of this very epistle. Ordinarily. One ought to be vitally integrated into the life and ministry of a biblically ordered church.

16:28 Now why do I say that? Why am I insisting that when Paul wrote Ephesians 5, wives, be in subjection to your husbands, husbands love your wives. How dare I assert that Paul is conscious, he's writing to church members who are vitally integrated into the life of biblically ordered churches. Well, for the simple reason, that he wrote chapter 4, verses 1 to 16, the answer is very simple.

16:57 No sooner does he finish that marvelous panoramic description of our great salvation as the one new humanity in Christ, conclude his prayer in chapter 3 that they might know the unknowable, and then again the marvelous doxology unto this great God who is able to do exceeding abundantly above all we ask or think, unto him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus unto all generations forever and ever. Amen. Then he says, I therefore, in the light of all that you are and have in Christ, in this great salvation,

17:39 I therefore the prisoner in the Lord beseech you to walk worthily of the calling wherewith you were called, and then the moment he begins to describe the nature and the particulars of a walk, in the Christian experience, that in some way is worthy of the marvelous calling that they have in the grace of Christ, but he focuses upon their life together in the church, with all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing one another in love, not as marriage partners, but as fellow members in Christ's church, giving diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond,

18:22 and peace, and then he describes the ground of that unity, the oneness that is given to them in Christ, in the fellowship of the church, and then he begins to describe that well-ordered church that is gifted by Christ with pastors and teachers for the perfecting, for the mending of the saints unto works of service, and then he goes on to describe that church as a healthy, functioning, growing body, the poison of false doctrine kept out by an adequate ministry of instruction and teaching. There is interpersonal interaction as they speak the truth in love,

19:05 they grow up into him in all things, verse 16, from whom all the body fitly framed and knit together through that which every joint supplies, according to the working and due measure of each several part, makes the increase of the body unto the building up of itself in love. The apostle assumes, when he writes Ephesians 5, 22 to 33, that those particular wives at Ephesus, and those particular husbands at Ephesus, are vitally integrated into the life and ministry of a biblically ordered church.

19:49 It is within the life of the church, it is within the life of the church, that those dynamics of spiritual maturation God has ordained to be operative. For example, in another key passage that we'll consider in a subsequent study, when Paul writes to Titus, telling him to give these specific directions to the various age groupings within the church, old men, young men, older women, younger women, etc. It's in that setting that he speaks of the older women helping the younger women to think soberly with respect to marriage, motherhood, and home-making.

20:33 But he does not envision older women running around the country holding seminars, but older women within the life of the church. Because Titus is a churchman working in the churches of Crete. Chapter 1 in verse 5, For this cause I left you in Crete, that you should set in order the things that are lacking, and ordain elders in all the churches, as I gave you charge, so that all of the directives to Titus are funneled into the life of the church. Paul does not envision religious ministries in marriage, motherhood, and home-making

21:17 outside the ministry of the church. I'm not saying, he does not envision that there will be interaction among church members in some other place other than the church building. But I am saying this, that the Bible envisions the directives to wives and to husbands, coming to husbands and wives, whose tap-roots of spiritual nurture are within the church. For the church, 1 Timothy 3.15,

21:46 is pillar and ground of the truth. The apostle knows no being united to Christ and the salvation that is in Him that is not paralleled with being united to His church. In fact, in my recent devotional reading through the book of Acts, I have been struck with the fact that those terms are used interchangeably. Added to the Lord, believing in the Lord, added to Christ, being found incorporated into His church.

22:19 One such example is chapter 5 of the book of Acts. Others could be cited. Verse 12, we read, And the hands of the apostles, by the hands of the apostles, were many signs and wonders wrought among the people. And they were all with one accord in Solomon's portico.

22:36 The church would gather for its corporate gatherings in that large expansive place there in the temple, Solomon's portico. But of the rest, no man dared join himself to them. There was a repelling influence. People heard, Look, if you're not real, and you play games with their God and their Christ, He may kill you.

23:01 He killed two of their church members. Their God killed them because they were liars and hypocrites. So no man dared join himself to them, that is, to the church, albeit the people magnified them. But now notice, And believers were the more added to the Lord.

23:20 Multitudes of both men and women. How did they know they were added to the Lord? That's an invisible operation of grace. They knew it when they found them added to the church.

23:31 To be added to the church is to be added to the Lord. To be added to the Lord is to be added to the church. And we must think biblically in this matter as we anticipate moving into the specific directives that are given for a redeemed marriage and think with these biblical categories, there was not a wife to whom Paul spoke that he did not assume that that wife was not only vitally, had vitally experienced this marvelous salvation described in chapters 1 and 2, but that that wife would be vitally integrated into the life and ministry of a biblically ordered church

Superstructural Prerequisite 2: Serious Commitment to a Universally Radical Alternative Lifestyle

24:13 and likewise with the husbands. But then secondly, in the superstructural prerequisites, not only, ordinarily, ought you to be vitally integrated into the life and ministry of a biblically ordered church, but secondly, you must be seriously committed to the pursuit. And here again I worked at my words, whited them out, rewrote them, looked them up in the dictionary. I don't throw these words out just to sound impressive, dear people.

24:43 Words convey thought and they either convey it accurately or inaccurately. Listen carefully and I'll explain why I chose these words. You must be seriously committed to the pursuit of a universally radical alternative lifestyle. You must be seriously committed.

25:03 Now you know the difference between half-hearted and serious commitment. They say of someone, he is a serious golfer. What do we mean? Well he doesn't just go out once in a while to the golf range and whack a few balls and hook some and slice some and top some and miss some.

25:20 I mean he's out there on that golf course whenever he can be out there and he's working on his swing and he's getting his hips and his shoulders right. He's a serious golfer. He takes his golfing seriously. He can mumble in his dreams his scores for the last ten rounds of golf.

25:36 He can tell you what his handicap is. He's always reading in Golf Digest. What's the latest nuance with this particular golf ball that gets another five yards over another one and the weight is kind of weighted. He's serious.

25:52 Golfing is an all absorbing issue to him. You can't be around him long before you know this guy and golfing, they're one. Serious. What I'm saying is according to the passage we're going to look at if you're going to have a redeemed marriage you must first of all be seriously committed to the pursuit.

26:16 When you're pursuing something you're dead serious about getting it. Not hoping it'll somehow just come across your path someday when you're looking up at the moon or looking up at the sun or admiring cumulus clouds floating by. No, no. Your energies are focused and what I'm saying is according to the passage we're going to look at if you're going to have the prerequisite essential to a truly ongoing redeemed marriage you must be seriously committed to pursue something.

26:49 And what is that? A universally radical alternative lifestyle. Universally it touches every area in your life. Radical, that word comes from a Latin word the root of which means something that's radical is something that has to do with root.

27:10 It has to do with the very deep tap roots of an issue. So I'm speaking about something that touches all of life that goes to the root of issues and what it is is an alternative lifestyle. That is you are committed that there will be no area of your life in which you're not willing to seriously pursue and now we come to the passage in Ephesians what Paul describes in Ephesians 4.17 This I say therefore and testify in the Lord that you no longer walk

27:53 as the Gentiles also walk. The Gentiles, that is the unconverted pagans around you they have a lifestyle. It is manifested in the little things and the big things. They have a coherent lifestyle and Paul says I am calling you in the Lord Jesus that you no longer walk as the Gentiles walk.

28:21 And the way they walk is a reflection of how they think. They walk in the vanity of their mind being darkened in their understanding alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them because of the hardening of their heart who being past feeling have given themselves up to lasciviousness to work all unclean work. to work all uncleanness with greediness but you did not so learn Christ if so be that you heard him and were taught in him even as the truth is in Jesus. Paul said in coming to Jesus you were not taught of Jesus

29:06 to still walk like the Gentiles do. No, you were taught something altogether different from that. You were taught from Jesus that you put away as concerning your former manner of life the old man the totality of what you were in Adam not just one or two of the appendages of the old man the grosser manifestations of some dimensions of what you were as old man but you put away the old man the totality of what you were in Adam you put concerning your former manner of life

29:49 the old man that waxes corrupt after the lust of deceit spirit of your mind and put on the new man God in his infinite unsullied purity and holiness that after God has been created in righteousness Hussle is calling these people to the salvation described in the earlier chapters. He does not assume that there will be an automatic natural unthought worked out

30:31 salvation into the totality of life without them listening to his exhortation that they no longer walk that there be this total radical commitment to an alternative lifestyle the lifestyle of what they are as new man in Christ and goes on to out into many particulars look at verse 25 wherefore putting away falsehood speak truth let him that stole thine

31:10 let no verse 31 let all patient and all uncovetous let it not even be named filthiness foolish talking or jesting which are not befitting he goes on in verse 11

31:53 have no fellowship how you walk is wise be not foolish get the sense of what the apostle is saying he is saying to these Ephesian Christians on the foundation of all of the mighty work of God in bringing you into the indwelt by the Holy Spirit your hearts

32:31 and get seriously committed to the pursuit of a universally to carry over that into an ever growing for it is one radical

33:09 fears may be unfounded I don't think at this stage in my life in my many years among you it will be 40 years God willing this July that I drove into North Carolina Jersey and I've been here ever since and I don't think I'm out of touch but one of my greatest fears is that too many of us have learned a kind of comfortable comfortable conformity a standard of holiness

33:51 that marks us out as a little more serious than the average evangelical but nowhere near as serious we would not think of either flirting with or justifying and rationalizing some of the grosser expressions of the walk of the we will avoid the grossest manifestations of the walk of the gentile

34:28 white swan the graphic movies the list goes on that's gross does your lifestyle when examined to the things you laugh at the things you look at the things you will tolerate coming into the ears and eyes of your family on the television with your videos when you go to the movie theaters will those things match up to the content of even those few verses

35:11 I've read from chapter 4 and 5 of the book of Ephesians someone tracing out the patterns of your life for the past month would they describe it with any degree of accuracy by saying you are someone seriously committed to the pursuit of a universally radical alternative lifestyle not a marginally different comfortable easy going lifestyle of respectable Christianity I only ask the question you've got to take the question

35:56 into the deep chambers of your heart in the presence of God and wrestle with its answer and Paul says wives husbands his assumption is they haven't stuffed their ears to chapter 4 and verse 17 no longer walk as the Gentiles walk no falsehood no stealing no corrupt speech no bitterness no gossip no anger none of it the conscience before God and man I'll pray that I may walk as a child of the light

36:40 that I will have no fellowship no koinonia no chosen partnership with the untruthful works of darkness in any area if darkness is going to intrude upon my life it'll have to invade me against my will I won't choose it as my entertainment I won't choose it as my pastime I will choose to redeem the time to buy up the opportunities I will recognize to be holy in the midst of an ungodly society to nurture communion with Christ when there is precious little around me

37:25 to encourage it it's a warfare and I'm going to seize my spare moments not to indulge in that which others may recall respectable liberties but to cut off the edge of my spiritual hunger and thirst in my delight in God and in His ways carelessness about my Saturday evenings and the ordering of my Saturday evening family life so I and my people come Sunday morning and there's no alertness of mind and body to sing with gusto the preacher may preach his guts out and there you are dripping off dripping off to sleep droop the eyes why? because there's no commitment

38:09 to the pursuit of a universally radical alternative lifestyle that's the fundamental issue and if this here in this place goes down the drain like so many have it will not start by blatant heresy or rank immorality coming in the front door and being entertained overnight in the pews it will start by something less than serious commitment to the pursuit of universally radical alternative thoroughly Christian lifestyle but you see when that's our pursuit

38:54 and Romans 12 2 is where we live I refuse to be squeezed into the world's mold I'm determined to be continually transformed by the renewing of my mind even the emphasis here in chapter 4 Paul traces the way the Gentiles live to the way they think and I realize as a Christian my life will be an extension of my thoughts as a man thinks in his heart so is he guard your heart above all that you guard you are proud of it of the issues of life there will be that determination that we will think in this category of the radical the serious pursuit of a universal

39:39 and radical alternative Christian lifestyle then when we come to read wives be in subjection to your own husbands let the wife see that she fear her husband that won't be such a big deal but you see if you drop down into the demands of Ephesians 5 out of the context of an easy going laid back half-hearted pursuit of an alternative lifestyle Ephesians 5 is going to be too much for you to handle it's going to be too much for you to handle because that's radical stuff that goes to the very root

40:21 of what sin has done in the marriage relationship remember what God said when he comes to deal with Adam and Eve Eve this is what's going to happen your desire is going to be to your husband you're going to try to throw off the yoke of his headship and now you're called to that headship mirrored not after the original pattern of creation after the redemptive submission of the church to Christ what a standard and you see if you're not committed to the kind of radical alternative Christian life the totality of your Christian experience there's more than you can hack if you've got the laid back

41:05 easy going Christian experience of so many men you read husbands love your wife as Christ loved the church gave himself up for it across the grain of every unmortified cell of selfishness in your spirit you're not going to hack it unless you're committed in the totality of life to living this universally radical alternative Christian lifestyle but then thirdly looking at the super structural

Superstructural Prerequisite 3: Continuous Appropriation of the Holy Spirit's Enabling Grace

41:48 prerequisites not only ordinarily ought you to be vitally integrated into the life and ministry of a biblically ordered church you must be seriously committed to the pursuit of a universally radical alternative lifestyle thirdly you must be continuously appropriating the enabling grace and power of the Holy Spirit you must be continually appropriating the enabling grace and power of the Holy Spirit look again at the Ephesians 5 passage up until verse 22 all of the directives have been generic

42:32 to all believers of all sexes all ages and the climactic directive in verse 18 two imperatives do not a present imperative was sometimes with the negative means stop what you're doing stop being drunk with wine wherein is riot but be being filled a present passive imperative be being filled with the Spirit and then that imperative verb is followed by five participles and I like to think of the five participles as the five streams that flow out from a life continually being filled with the Spirit

43:17 controlled by the Spirit the believer living in conscious joyful dependence upon Christ abiding in Christ constantly seeking the grace and the enablement of Christ to be what he's called to be one such believer being filled with the Spirit these are the five streams that flow out from such a believer look at them be being filled with the Spirit speaking one to another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord giving thanks for always for all things in the name

44:00 of our Lord Jesus Christ to God even the Father and notice the fifth part participle subjecting or submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of Christ and then as though someone says but Paul in what categories is there to be this submitting one to another and then he gives what some of the New Testament scholars call which was common in other literature he gives a family table or a table of family laws and he writes wives and if you have the 1901 or some other translations the verb is not there there is no verb

44:45 be in subjection or be submissive to it's carried down from the participle and has an imperative force wise be in submission to your husbands husbands love your wives what's the apostle saying he is saying if you are even to begin to comply with these directives it will only be as you are a man or a woman not drunk with wine but continually filled with the spirit your life will be a life of continuously appropriating the enabling grace and power of the Holy Spirit these directives cannot be fulfilled

45:30 in the stuff of your own strength they can only be fulfilled by the enabling grace of the Holy Spirit the fruit of the Spirit is what love joy peace long suffering gentleness goodness faith or faithfulness meekness self control do you need any of those to be a consistently submissive wife new wives do you need any of those do you need love what kind of love 1 Corinthians 13 that bears all things all the things about him that cause you to know

46:15 you're going to have to bear something to live with that bear love bears things think of all the things you got to put up with what will help you enable you to put up with love love bears all things love believes all things love hopes all things love is kind patient all things love means love but do you need any of that stuff to live with that guy you need oodles of it

47:00 where does it come from it is love it is his grace working in us that gives us that quality of love new husbands if you do love her as Christ loved the church knowing the worst about her And there's a realism that sets in after a while. And you say, that simply ain't going to change. That's as much a part of her as the shape of her nose. Now, the shape of her nose could be changed by the plastic surgeon.

47:33 But there ain't no surgeon but God that's going to change this thing about her. And you've come to recognize that. Do you need the love that is patient, that is kind, that bears all things, that suffers long? Yes. If you're the lover, as Christ loved the church, you and I need that love.

47:54 Where does it come from? The fruit of the Spirit is love. Or take the teaching of Romans 8.13.

48:02 If you live after the flesh, you must die. But if you, by the Spirit, do put to death the deeds of the body, you shall live. How many things in the marital relationship need daily to be mortified if it's to be a redeemed marriage? That when you look at the mirror over your house, people see, ah, that's how Christ loves His church.

48:30 That's how His church, trustingly, lovingly submits to Christ. How many sins need to be mortified every day? Where is the power for that mortification? Paul tells us, if you, by the Spirit, yes, we mortify.

48:47 But it's by the Spirit. That we mortify the deeds of the body. And we could trace that out in a number of ways. I'm simply trying to point you in the direction of the emphasis of this passage.

49:01 When Paul writes, wives, be in subjection. Husbands, love your wives. He's envisioning husbands and wives who have taken seriously His injunction. Do not be drunk with wine, but be being continually filled with the Spirit.

49:20 Do not be drunk with wine, but be being continually filled with the Spirit. And in the power of the Spirit, and in the graces of the Spirit, enabling and empowering, then you are given the needed wherewithal to have a redeemed marriage. So we come around full circle to where we began this morning. Would we look at these directives for a redeemed marriage as Paul wrote them?

Conclusion: The Secret to a Redeemed Marriage

49:48 And as Paul intended, we look at them? Then we must realize there are these prerequisites, the foundational prerequisite, a real life transforming participation in the salvation described in chapters one and two. And then the superstructural prerequisites that we've looked at tonight, vitally, vitally involved in the life and ministry of a biblically ordered church, seriously committed to the pursuit of universal life. Universal, radical, alternative Christian lifestyle, continuously appropriating the enabling grace and power of the Holy Spirit.

50:31 When you boil it all down, what Paul is saying and what I've been trying to say, echoing Paul is this, the secret to a more redeemed marriage is to be more a redeemed man and more a redeemed woman. That's it. It's an open secret. You want to have more of a redeemed woman.

50:53 You want to be more of a redeemed man. You want to be more of a redeemed woman. That's it. And if you are not in Christ and you're outside the orbit of God's gracious redemptive work in Christ, you cannot have a redeemed marriage until you are a redeemed man, a redeemed woman.

51:16 To state it a bit differently, what's the greatest contribution every wife and every husband here can make to your marriage? That it will more and more be a redeemed marriage. That it will more and more be an accurate, powerful, mirror image of Christ and His church. What's the greatest contribution you can make to having a redeemed marriage?

51:39 It's your own day-by-day growth in grace and in holiness. That's it. You can run around the country and hear all the big shots who write all the books on ten steps to the happy, fulfilled marriage and what every woman wishes every man would know. And by the end of the day, that's it.

51:55 That's it. That's it. That's all I've got to give and remember that's the greatest purchased joy in marriage. I can't live with any of it because none of it is useful, because it's useless.

52:03 Anything I Sounds Whimoto may be impossible to make or makes, but it's always good as if it was. It's what a하� in death can bring to relationships, and it's what a 움직 remains. When I am in confession, I am soprattutto occupied. And I'm cut off by the great truth of the Holy Spirit.

52:24 It is the things that I wish to know and accomplish. It is the things. It's a dissonance. to heart. God willing

Looking Ahead: Specific Directives for Wives and Husbands

52:33 next Lord's Day, God sparing us we're then going to look in the morning at what a redeemed marriage looks like with respect to the wife, since Paul starts there, we're going to start there and then in the evening, God willing what a redeemed marriage looks like with regard to the man. Now you wives take comfort. One of the Greek scholars who's written an excellent commentary on Ephesians has counted up all the words in the original and he said there are exactly a hundred and fifteen words written to husbands in Ephesians 5 and only forty to the wives. So we men get almost three times as many.

53:12 Ah, but the kicker is this I took my Greek Testament and counted up Peter's words there's a hundred to the wives and only twenty-five to the man. So you do what you will with that. It's a four to one ratio from the man who was married and a three to one ratio to the one who wasn't married. But all I hope innocent bantering aside, God doesn't need to speak a thing in a lot of words for no word of God shall be void of power. May the Lord

Final Exhortation and Prayer

53:54 cause us during the week to check our prerequisites.

54:00 Some of you kids going off to college you see a given course such and such 102 prerequisite, such and such a course 101. No sense matriculating for 102 unless you can show your transcript you took 101. When you come to Ephesians chapter 5 prerequisites, personal redemption 101 commitment to a universally radical Christian lifestyle, engagement in the life of the church, dependence on the Holy Spirit redemptive marriage 102 then you can matriculate into Ephesians 5. May God

54:43 help us and minister graciously to all of our hearts. Let's pray.

54:52 Our Father we're so thankful that we have your word as a lamp to our feet and a light to our pathway and oh how we pray in this day of the demigrating of marriage, motherhood and homemaking, fracturing of marriages, divorce rates escalating, living relationships shamelessly carried on by the millions oh God what an opportunity you've given us to shine as lights with marriages that have all the wonderful earmarks of your redemptive grace and power and so we pray that none of this will be sloughed off today as just so much more to do about nothing

55:36 but that you will help us to lay to heart the things we've heard from the word and by your grace to have deep heart dealings with you, the living God speak to us, continue to have dealings with us may we know your blessing upon us as we go out into a lost and confused world may we be quick to seize every opportunity to speak of you may we so live that our lives will validate our words dismiss us then with your blessing