The Foundation of Family
May 19, 2024
Preached by Benjamin Vrbicek
Scripture Reading
Ephesians 5:22-6:4
5:22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.
25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. 28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 30 because we are members of his body. 31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. 33 However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.
6:1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2 “Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), 3 “that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.” 4 Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
Some of you like to know where our preaching is heading. Next week we’ll finish Ephesians, and then all summer we’ll be preaching through the Old Testament book of Jeremiah. Let’s pray as we begin.
“Dear Heavenly Father . . .”
For the last few weeks, we’ve been preaching passages from the letter the apostle Paul wrote called Ephesians. Rather than moving sequentially, we’re giving special attention to a particular theme in the letter, namely, walking as children of light in a world darkened by lies. I’ll read the theme verse for the series. It comes from this same chapter but further up in vv. 11–14. They go like this,
11 Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. 12 For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret. 13 But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, 14 for anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says,
“Awake, O sleeper,
and arise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you.”
Here, we see that God commands us through Paul’s letter to be people who expose darkness, whether darkness out in the world, in church, or in our hearts. This exposure is neither done with glee nor smugness. Rather, we expose with discretion and contrition.
Across the series each week, our pastors have strived to narrow down the lie (or lies) into a tight sentence or two. That effort to be as specific as possible helps all of us see how God’s Word contrasts with the lie and how God’s truth is better.
And yet this morning as we come to the topic of marriage and family, we struggled—I struggled—to frame this sermon in terms of just one or perhaps two lies. In other words, it’s not as though there is one principle from God about marriage and family and that principle from God is good and true and beautiful, and that principle is being pulled by a single lie in a single direction. It’s not that at all.
To picture the way it is, imagine a huge, strong, beautiful column of granite in the ground. The granite is not simply being pushed forward or backward, left or right. That’s not what’s happening. Instead, it’s like that column of granite, that column of goodness, truth, and beauty has a hundred ropes attached to it, and each rope is pulled by a hundred people in a hundred directions, all of them surging out of rhythm this way and that way. And at the same time all the ground underneath is eroding. The column hasn’t moved or cracked, but some think it might be starting to shake.
1. The Many Lies—not One Lie
This brings us to my first point of the sermon. The first point is that lies around marriage and family abound. As a preaching staff, we spent extended time discussing this. Consider a sample of our conversation.
On the one hand, there are those who would say that marriage and family are obsolete institutions. Even to frame marriage so narrowly as a man and a woman feels to some people bigoted and backward. Besides, the last thing someone would want to do is get married. And if someone does get married, the very last thing they’d ever do is have children. This is because, it’s said, commitment to one spouse and having children will necessarily hinder your happiness, freedom, and personal growth.
While some undervalue marriage or disparage marriage, certainly many pull in the opposite direction. Many of us overvalue marriage. This sounds like someone saying not that “marriage is the last thing I want,” but rather “marriage is the only thing I want; and if I can’t have it, I’ll never be complete and happy, and I’ll always be a second-class citizen.”
If we’re honest, often our Christian churches have been less than helpful on this point. The singles among us (whether the never-married or the divorced or widowed) come on a Sunday, and they don’t know who they should sit with or if anyone will sit with them. Churches like ours that preach about marriage and families and have regular child dedications can unintentionally communicate the lie that singles are wrong or deficient or weird. We forget that Jesus was single his whole life and he was the fullest human who ever lived—fully God, fully man, we say. And never mind that the author of Ephesians was also single. We have a ton of information about Paul through his writings and the book of Acts, and there is no indication he ever married. But I’m getting ahead of myself exposing lies instead of just naming them. I’ll keep naming them.
There are other lies related to marriage. For example, that there are no differences in how God made men and women. We can so overstress our equality that the mention of God’s design in our differences feels antiquated, like we’re social dinosaurs.
Here’s another one. We believe the lie that in marriage love and respect are something that must be earned. “I’ll love her when she’s lovely,” a husband might say. “And I’ll respect him when he’s respectable,” a wife might say. But that’s not what we’ll see in Ephesians. Sure, trust needs to be earned. But respect is commanded then given.
Here’s another lie: The best marriage happens when my spouse is most compatible with me. In other words, true love should be easy. Really? We would say that unconditional love is a good thing. We’re certainly happy to receive unconditional love from God. Yet how will you learn to love unconditionally if you have someone who meets all your conditions? Love is often not easy.
Consider a few lies around children. Many believe that a child inside a mother is a part of her body to such an extent that the mother has authority over that life. Not true.
Perhaps hitting closer to home in a church like ours, we believe the lie that a Christian parent is morally responsible for providing every opportunity for our children, and when I say, “we believe we must provide every opportunity,” I mean distinctly upper-middle-class opportunities. And if you don’t exhaust yourself with providing opportunities for your child, you’re a bad, unloving parent, the sentiment goes.
Many of us believe the lie that marriage and sex and children are three things that can be separated without any consequences, when the Bible does not separate them. Certainly, some married couples won’t be able to have children, and that can be a devastating experience. But the conscious choice of parents to choose the Pill and their freedom and flexibility and choose not to have children indefinitely is a foreign concept to the Bible.
And I haven’t even touched lies about manhood and womanhood. Some feel as though the terms manhood and womanhood are meaningless because there is no distinction, that a godly man and a godly woman are the exact same. Others feel cynical because a word like manhood has been hijacked by hyper-masculinity or toxic masculinity.
I said at the start that our pastors have found it helpful each week to frame the lie into one tight sentence. But when we come to marriage and family, the lies abound—with a hundred attempts to pull the structure to the ground.
I guess the best I could do is say this: when it comes to marriage and family, we are all kinds of wrong. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that every family and every church and every school and every city—from a biblical perspective—is only ever a hot mess. That’s too far. But I would say, in our moment, most people, Christians included, in most places, churches included, are pretty messy. I suspect that in Paul’s day, writing to believers freshly saved from the pagan culture in the ancient city of Ephesus, the same was true for them.
2. Filled and Submissive to the Spirit
What were they to do? So what are we to do? God has a plan. We might say there is a car with an engine and then a roadmap. Before Paul begins his treatment of marriage and family, he speaks of the necessity of all believers being filled with and submissive to the Holy Spirit and to one another. I call this a car with an engine. Look at vv. 17–21.
17 Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. 18 And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, 19 addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, 20 giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, 21 submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.
With respect to alcohol, we have the phrase “being under the influence.” This is when our judgment and thinking become impaired by alcohol. Paul is saying in a similar but different way that a believer should seek to be under the influence of the Spirit. Now, some Christians would say being under the influence of the Spirit leads to all sorts of fantastical expressions. But look how normal and wonderful being under the Spirit is: it leads to congregations who sing to one another, congregations who have a gospel melody in their hearts that spills out in thankfulness to God, and congregations with a reverence before Christ that causes them to submit to each other. That’s God’s solution.
Paul writes this about the Spirit before he says anything about marriage and family because he knows that a husband can have all the tips and principles about marriage, he can have a roadmap, but if he is not filled with the Spirit, then he has nothing. He’s got a car and a roadmap the car is missing the engine.
But if our cars have engines, if the Spirit of God is inside us, we might travel somewhere good, true, and beautiful. That’s why the next section is a map for husbands and wives and parents and children. I’d love to spend an hour on each, but we’ll spend a few minutes on wives and husbands and just a few minutes on children, and then we’ll close.
3. God’s Roadmap for Wives and Husbands in Marriage
Paul’s roadmap begins with wives and then speaks to husbands. It’s a long section. But I’ll read it all. Ephesians 5:22–31 says,
22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.
25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. 28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 30 because we are members of his body. 31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. 33 However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.
Here, husbands and wives are told to do stuff, but it’s not the same stuff, at least here. What God commands to husbands and wives is asymmetrical; they are not the same commands.
Now, above, both husbands and wives, when they are believers filled with the Spirit—when they are under the influence of the Spirit—they do the same stuff, namely, seek to submit to each other. In a good marriage, as in a good local church, everyone is seeking to submit to each other. That much is clear from vv. 19–21. Having reverence for Christ leads to a posture of submission to each other, looking to the interest of others, and being selfless rather than selfish. That is said to both husbands and wives. The engine is the same for both: The Spirit produces selflessness.
And surely both should love each other. And both should respect each other. These are the same. Yet the way husbands and wives live out their submission to the Spirit looks similar but different, or in my word, asymmetrical. Both should love and both should respect—we know that from the whole Bible—but here God commands for a wife to respect her husband and to encourage his leading and for a husband to love his wife and sacrifice his rights for her well-being. These are different.
I’ve been to enough weddings that I can get them confused, but I remember one couple wanting to read this passage at their wedding, but they also knew someone in the family would bristle at the word submit, which is not surprising. Many of you do the same. So, I thought to myself, I should look at all the typical English translations, over a dozen of them. I couldn’t find one that didn’t use the word submit, even Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase called The Message has the word. So it’s there. But what does it mean?
It doesn’t mean obedience without thought and consideration. It doesn’t mean “stop being intelligent.” For when the church comes to Christ and obeys Christ, we come with thoughtfulness and consideration and intelligence.
It means that a wife should seek to try to follow the leading of her husband. Not the leading of all men, however. The passage says, “your own husbands.” And a wife should neither submit to abuse nor follow her husband into sin. Not at all. But in an ordinary marriage, this is God’s roadmap. Wives should work in their hearts to be respectful to their husbands. That’s not my command, but God’s. A wife can kill her husband through disrespect toward him, whether in private or public.
Paul says a wife displays to the world part of the mystery of the gospel, the role of the church. When I’m officiating a wedding, after my short sermon, I’ll sometimes give a final charge to both the bride and the groom. And I’ll look the bride in the eyes and say something like, “You have a high and honorable calling to display to the world part of the gospel.” I say that because it’s true.
What does Paul say to husbands? He tells them, in short, to be like Jesus in this regard: in his dying to himself. Ephesians 5:25, “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” If there is a crown that comes with being a husband, it is a crown of thorns. Husbands, your needs, your wants, your dreams, and your advancement do not come first. The needs, desires, and dreams of your wife come first. Your own thriving is bound up with your seeking to see that your wife is thriving, in the same way your own body thrives by caring for it. At the end of my wedding sermons, I’ll often look in the eyes of the groom and say, “You have a high and honorable calling to display to the world part of the gospel.” I say that because it’s true.
And it’s also true I’m preaching better than I live. Just because I have a roadmap doesn’t mean I’ve followed it well. I have so far to go; we have so far to go. But this is the roadmap, one established in creation, distorted in the fall, and redeemed in Christ.
4. God’s Roadmap for Parents and Children
What does God say about parents and children? Look with me at Ephesians 6:1–4
6 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2 “Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), 3 “that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.” 4 Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
The command to honor fathers and mothers came from God’s finger on the top of Mount Sinai and was carved on two tablets. The command to honor came with a promise of living long in the land. As Christians, we take that promise to mean blessings flow to us when we follow this roadmap.
But let’s think about the wording carefully. Paul writes that children are to obey their parents. Obedience is for a specific time, namely childhood. But honor is for a lifetime. You’re always a child of your parents but you’re not always a child. Even as adults, Christians should be people of honor toward our parents. Again, we note that this honor is commanded then given. It’s not that we say, When you’re honorable, I’ll respect you.
Clearly, across the Scriptures, both mothers and fathers have a role in raising children in the Lord. Paul says, “Children, obey your parents,” meaning both. Yet here as before, the commands are not fully symmetrical. “Fathers,” Paul writes, “do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” A Father has a special role in leading.
You’ll notice it does not say, Fathers see that your children get Christian instruction from the Lord. Bringing up your children in the instruction of the Lord might include a Christian school (but certainly doesn’t have to), and it might include taking them to Sunday school and youth group. But instruction cannot simply be outsourced to others.
You’ll also notice the negative action to avoid, namely anger. Some translations say, “Do not exasperate or provoke your children.” There are so many ways to get this wrong, aren’t there? There are so many ways to exasperate our children.
At one of the nearby schools, the graduating seniors present a senior thesis paper. One of our own seniors presented a paper about emotions and she said something I thought was so helpful and simple and so challenging. She said parents must know the difference between mistakes and sins. Kids spill milk and slam doors and get holes in the knees of their pants when they trip. And those things could be willful disobedience and sin. But often, they are mistakes. And if parents don’t realize this, they will provoke their children to hate the Lord, not love him. Again, there are so many ways to get this wrong. But to get parenting right, that is a high and honorable calling.
5. A Word to the Church
This is heavy stuff. If this is God’s roadmap, if this kind of care and love and training leads us closer and closer to the blessings of the Garden of Eden, it’s safe to say that many of us feel like we’re east of Eden, somewhere far far away from the blessings of God’s design.
And that’s why I want to close with a word to the whole church. We’ve seen God’s words to husbands and wives and his words to parents and children. But we must end with God’s word to his church. Look with me again at vv. 25–30, not thinking so much about human marriage but about the gospel. Behold who Jesus is for his bride.
25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. 28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 30 because we are members of his body.
Notice v. 25: “as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” This does not say, “as Christ loved married people.” Nor does it say, “as Christ loves people who get the roadmap figured out and arrive where they ought.”
Christ loves people who made one wrong turn after another, after another, after another, and are too stubborn to ask for directions. He loves those who are all kinds of wrong and who live among people all kinds of wrong. Christ’s love keeps no record of wrongs, alluding to 1 Corinthians 13. Christ’s love is patient and kind. Christ’s love for you is not rude or arrogant or resentful. His love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
And that happens because, as we read in v. 25, Jesus did something special for his bride that he doesn’t do for everyone. Christ gave himself up for her; Jesus does something special for his bride.
That’s what Paul means by the mystery. In some mysterious, wonderful way, what we only get glimpses of in marriage, what we only see through a glass dimly, we see perfectly in the life, death, resurrection, and second coming of Christ. The book of Revelation even goes so far as to picture the return of Christ as a wedding party, where the bride is beautiful, the food is abundant, and the groom is strong and kind. And there is no more sin or sorrow. And if you are in Christ, that is your future. And it’s a good future.
Shortly after coming to this church, over ten years ago, a long-time member named Ricki Fackler passed away. She was old when she died but was still a pretty woman. I remember a detail her husband told me as we prepared for the memorial service, that Ricki had even won a beauty pageant when she was younger. At the close of her service, I told those attending that in the full presence of Christ Ricki looks more beautiful than she’s ever looked, without spot or wrinkle.
Church, there’s coming day when the whole bride of Christ will be more radiant and wonderful than we’ve ever been. And we’ll be that way forever.
That future might be hard to see. You’re experience of marriage and family and the church might make this future hard to even imagine. But in the good news of the gospel, that’s actually how God sees us now.
Let’s pray as we invite the music team up to close us in song.
“Dear heavenly Father…”
SermonDiscussion Questions
What are ways culture is “all kinds of wrong” when it comes to marriage and family? What are ways the church is “all kinds of wrong” when it comes to marriage and family?
How well do you think our church speaks to singleness and provides a place where singles can belong in meaningful ways? What can we do better?
In the home you grew up in, in what ways did your home reflect Eph. 5:22–6:4 and way ways did it not reflect God’s commands in these passages?
According to Ephesians 5, how does marriage reflect the gospel?
