Submit to One Another

PASSAGE FOR THE DAY:
21 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

22 Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— 30 for we are members of his body. 31 “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” 32 This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. (Ephesians 5:21-33, NIV)


REFLECTIONS:
A little more than a week ago, I preached a sermon about this very passage. So as to not bore you a second time, today I will merely highlight a few important insights.

Verse 21—"Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ"—is generally viewed as an introductory statement to Paul's famous discussion of marriage. As such, it's generally rendered as a separate sentence. But a number of commentators I've read point out that this actually hides from us an important point that Paul is making. According to these commentators, in the Greek text, verse 21 is the last clause in the long previous sentence in which Paul describes several marks of a person who is "filled with the Spirit." 

So, it's important for us to understand verse 21 in light of the previous verses. And in those verses, Paul encourages us to "follow God's example" and to "walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God" (verses 1-2). He goes on to challenge us to turn away from all sorts of selfishness, greed, and pride (verses 3-7); and, instead, encourages us to "live as children of light," by which he means bearing the fruit of all goodness, righteousness, and truth. In a final summary statement, Paul encourages us: 

Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is. Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. And… Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. (verses 15-21)

So, in this passage in which Paul describes the lifestyle and character of those who are being "filled with the Spirit," the last descriptor he lists is a submissive lifestyle toward those around us—a willingness to set aside our own agenda and personal desires in an effort to humbly and selflessly and joyously serve others out of reverence for Christ.

 

From this Spirit-empowered submission of verse 21, Paul goes on to describe the marriage relationship. And in so doing, he gives us a very practical illustration of how we can and should live out this submissive others-centered mindset in the context of a relationship that is supposed to be based on unconditional love.

 

Based on all the surrounding context, we see that in verse 21 Paul is declaring that everything he is about to say about marriage assumes that the parties involved—both husband and wife—are being filled with God's Spirit. 

 

So, to state it as clearly as I can, the only way that you and I will be fully furnished to face the challenges of marriage in general is if we have the ministry of the Spirit working in our lives. And, only if we are continuously being "filled with the Spirit," will we have all we need to perform the duty of submissively serving our spouse with the spirit of love.

 

In verses 22-24, Paul says, controversially, that wives should submit to their husbands. Immediately, however, he tells husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the church and "gave himself up for her" (25-33), which is, if anything, a stronger appeal to abandon self-interest than was given to the woman.

 

Each marriage partner is called to sacrifice for the other in far-reaching ways. Whether we are husband or wife, we are not to live for ourselves but for the other. And that is the hardest yet single most important function of being a husband or a wife in marriage.

 

Essentially, what Paul is doing in these verses is applying to marriage a general principle about the Christian life—namely, that all Christians who really understand the gospel undergo a radical change in the way we relate to other people. If we really "get it" we will continuously be trans-formed and molded and shaped into people who reflect Christ's sacrificial, servant-hearted, others-centered way of love. Check out some of the following Scriptures: 

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. 

In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: 

Who, being in very nature God,

    did not consider equality with God something to be used to

        his own advantage;

rather, he made himself nothing

    by taking the very nature of a servant,

    being made in human likeness.

And being found in appearance as a man,

    he humbled himself

    by becoming obedient to death—

        even death on a cross! (Philippians 2:3-8) 

We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. Each of us should please our neighbors for their good, to build them up. For even Christ did not please himself… May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had, so that with one mind and one voice you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Romans 15:1-6) 

You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Galatians 5:13-14) 

Because Christ humbled himself and became a servant and met our needs, even at the cost of his own life, now we are now called and empowered by him to be servants—servants of one another.

 

The easiest, most clear and concise description of a servant is that he or she puts someone else's needs ahead of his or her own. That's how Christ lived. That's how all believers should now live with one another. And if all believers are to serve each other in this way, how much more intentionally and intensely should husbands and wives have this attitude toward one another?

 

 

POINT OF ACTION:

So, how do we practice this? How do we learn to live this out with consistency?

 

First of all, it's important for us to not try to serve others in our own strength and power. This is one of the first and greatest mistakes we often make. We hear the gospel message, understand that Jesus gave his life in service to us, and then decide that we are going to follow his example. But, because we do so in our own strength, we fail to live this out consistently. And then we get bogged down with guilt and shame at our inability to follow his example.

 

So, to avoid this danger, let us make it our ambition to be "filled with the Spirit" so that we might be inspired and empowered to begin serving others from the heart. To this end, we must make our relationship with God a priority in our lives. We carve out time in our daily schedules and make it a priority to worship the God in whose image we've been made. We pray for God to open our eyes, to soften our hearts, and to work powerfully within us to change us and transform us into Christ's likeness. We open our Bibles and read and meditate upon the life and ministry of Jesus, specifically his sacrificial actions of embracing the cross on our behalf. We pray that the Spirit of God might bring the gospel message home to our heart until we are empowered to love and sing and wonder. Then, out of this fullness of the Spirit, we can turn to our spouses and our neighbors and begin to do what we should do for them.

 

May God help us, by his grace, to live as servants of one another this day.

 

 

WHO AM I?

I am Tres Sansom, and I spent the weekend around Burkburnett celebrating the life of my Aunt Tweetie. She lost her battle with Pulmonary Fibrosis on Wednesday evening. She was an amazing woman, who loved Jesus and sought to model his others-centered lifestyle of service. I worked with Tweetie and my uncle Charles for two years on the wheat harvest when I was 16 and 17 years old. During that time, she played a foundational role in my life helping me to understand my value and my personal significance. I'll miss her terribly. Here's the only picture I could find of the two of us together. She and I are working together to help prepare the combine to be loaded onto the trailer before we moved on to the next location.