Sermon Transcript
Good morning, everyone. My privilege to be with you today and next Sunday as well. I’m going to be continuing our series in the book of Colossians, and so if you have your Bible, you can turn there. We’re actually only looking at one verse from Colossians today, and then we’ll be looking at a couple other things as well. Hope you’re doing well.
I want to introduce you to a young man that I have yet to meet, but he’s actually about to be part of my family. His name is Trey. Trey Zoran. We have a photo of him I want to show you. Trey is from Burundi, and he’s about to become my nephew.
Trey is a young man who is about to be adopted by my sister-in-law, and so Shannon, my wife, is on her way to go pick him up with her sister. And this has been something that they’ve been planning for a long time, and We’ve been really looking forward as family, as extended family, to celebrate with Heather, my sister-in-law, this incredible opportunity because Trey is going to be her first child. And we’ve been preparing for this for a long time. And having gone through adoption ourselves, it brings a lot of things back in terms of memories for Shannon and I, having adopted 3 kids ourselves, watching Heather go through this process. And it reminds me of a couple different things because this trip to Burundi has been in the process of being planned for a long time.
And it keeps getting delayed and it keeps getting delayed. And so Shannon’s just on this first leg of this trip as they’re going to be heading to Africa here. She’s actually just in Texas right now in preparation for the go-ahead to get to go to Africa. And it reminds me of how something that seemingly should be rather simple can become complicated. And yet the sacrifice is all worth it.
It reminds me of Shannon and I being ready to take in our 3 kids, and our kids, it seemed like, were ready to be adopted. And yet you have the paperwork and you have all the red tape and you have the delays and the delays and the delays, and yet it’s worth it all in the end. But man, it’s complicated. And with Trey being in another country, you can imagine how complicated this can be. For somebody from the United States to be able to go there.
And this has been a long process. And whether your children were born to you naturally or however they’ve arrived in your home, you know as a parent that there’s this tension between what is ideal and what is real. What is ideal is that your children will be grateful to be in your home. What is ideal is, is that your children will always love to come home, even as adult children. What is ideal is, is that they will discover the gifts that God has for them and will have a great relationship with God themselves that you model for them.
And yet what is real is that it’s more complicated than that, right? And anytime you find somebody that you desire to marry, it seems like you’re just carried along by those warm feelings and by this affection that you feel for one another, and you don’t have to engineer that. It just— it’s stirred up within you. And yet it’s more complicated than that. And the longer that you’re married and the longer that your story as a couple becomes, you know that it’s more complicated than that.
And I’m reminded of the fact that there’s this tension between, again, what is ideal and what is real. What is real is that marriage is a lot harder than what we often think whenever we first get married. What is real is that parenting is hard. What is real is that growing up in this world is complicated. And I’m reminded that God is a God of order and he’s a God of peace.
He’s not a God of confusion. He’s not a God of chaos. And God’s desire is to simplify things, not to complicate things for us. Jesus was talking to a group of people. He said, listen, come to me if you’re burdened, if you’re weary, you feel heavy laden right now.
Take my yoke upon you because my burden is light. Jesus didn’t come to put a heavy burden upon us. And so we’re calling the next few weeks, as we continue our series in the book of Colossians, Uncomplicated. It’s this idea that the Bible, when it speaks about relationships and when it speaks about relationship with God as well as with one another, it’s a It’s a lot simpler than you and I make it sometimes. The Bible actually says very little in the grand scheme of the narrative about marriage and about parenting.
It says very little over the course of the 66 books, but what it says is powerful. And so we’re gonna take a look over the course of 4 weeks at relationships, and we’re just gonna go one verse at a time because Paul in the book of Colossians just simply addresses relationships in one verse after another. And we’re gonna take a look this week and next at the topic of marriage. Now, why are we talking about marriage when not everybody is married? We’re talking about it— and I was thinking about this— because I want to communicate to you, and I know Pastor Dave would want to communicate to you, we want you to have great relationships.
We want you to have great relationships. We want to cast a vision for something as a church for something that our culture doesn’t always do a very good job of. We want to give you hope if you are married, if you hope to be married someday, and recognizing that all of us come from different, diverse backgrounds. Some of you are married for a second time or a third time, or some of you were widowed, or some of you have a family member who is going through a difficult time right now in their marriage, or maybe you are. And we want to give hope to people that marriage can work.
When we approach it from God’s perspective. And today’s topic that we’re looking at is a— I have to admit, I’ve never actually sat and heard a message on before, and it’s a word that’s a very, very loaded word. And in fact, we call it the S-word: submission. Oh my goodness, submission. Hey, it’s in the Bible, so we’re gonna talk about it, but it is a loaded word that’s complicated.
Or at least we’ve complicated it. And yet I think that there’s some simple truths that we can draw out, whether you’re married or you’re not. There are some general principles that I think that Paul would have us to take a look at. And we want to be able to, again, give hope as we look at these topics by digging out what these principles are as well as what they are not. You see, submission is one of these words that has a lot of baggage with it.
We hear the word and certain things come to mind. And I think that we can agree that most cultures, if not all cultures, have taken this idea of submission and have misused it, or they’ve abused it in some way, especially in a way that will marginalize or oppress women. And that’s not in the heart of God. At all. So we have 3 options whenever we have a topic like submission that we don’t fully understand, or that we immediately come in with our kind of agendas and our preferences and our opinions already formed.
We have 3 options. We can just ignore the teaching altogether, and many people have done that. We’re just gonna rip that page right out of the Bible. We’re going to ignore it altogether. That’s a first-century teaching.
It doesn’t apply to us today. That’s one option. We can just plow right through and try to apply it without fully understanding it. We’ve seen people do that too, and that’s where abuse happens. That’s where oppression takes place.
Our third option is to wrestle with it from a biblical perspective and say, why is this in here? It’s not just in here one time, but it’s in here multiple times. So we’re gonna be specifically looking at the topic of submission this week. Next week we’ll be taking a look at love, which is a little bit more comfortable of a topic. But let’s look at Colossians chapter 3 and see what Paul would say in verse 3, or chapter 3, verse 18.
It says, wives, chapter 3, verse 18 of Colossians, wives, submit yourselves to your husbands as is fitting in the Lord.
Now, we could just stop at that one verse, but I want to take a look at a couple other verses from other teachings in Scripture that also talk about this idea of submission to be able to draw out a clear understanding of what this is. So we’re gonna also look at Ephesians 5 In a familiar passage on the book of— on the topic of marriage, chapter 5, where in verse 22 it says, wives, same thing, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. 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. Now, as the church submits to Christ, So also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. 1 Peter is one other passage that I want to take a look at.
1 Peter chapter 3, to give us one more perspective. Wives, in the same way, submit yourselves to your own husbands so that if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives when they see the purity and reverence of your lives. Anytime you see the word submit or submission in the New Testament, every single incidence of that, it means the same thing, and it comes from the same Greek word. I’m not even going to try to pronounce this word, but the first part of the word means under. The second part of the word means to arrange, to arrange under.
And it’s a military term that refers to arranging military troops in a military fashion under the command of a leader or a group of leaders, and it conveys the sense of order and hierarchy. When you join the military, I’m told— I’ve never been in the military, many of you have been— it seems that there’s a sense in which you surrender your independence and you’re unable to make decisions on your own because somebody else is making the decisions for you about when you get up and when you go to bed and what you are to do and what your tactics are in battle. What you are to eat, when you are to eat, and how you’re to conduct yourself. And that’s the idea of submission, is this idea of hierarchy and of order. Why does submission exist?
Because you can’t have multiple generals, you can’t have multiple people trying to decide what it is that we’re trying to do. There has to be this sort of sense of order in order to be able to accomplish a task. But taking those 3 passages that we just took a look at, I want to focus on, first of all, the principle of submission. The principle of submission, what it is not as well as what it is. And again, these are drawn just simply from those 3 passages.
What is submission not? What is it not? First of all, submission is not inferiority. Submission is not inferiority. If you look at the whole canon of Scripture, especially going back to the book of Genesis, you see that When God created man and woman, they were both equally created in the image of God.
They both have equal value.
They both have equal access to God. They both were equally blessed by God. The man not more so than the woman. They were both equally given the opportunity to be able to walk and talk with God and equally given dominion over the earth. So it’s not inferiority.
Submission is also not the sense of total agreement, because if you look at that 1 Peter passage, you see that Paul— or excuse me, Peter is talking to wives who are believers and their husbands are not. And the reality is, is we’ve seen that take place. And so Peter’s telling them to submit even though he knows that they’re not going to believe in the same things. They’re not going to have the same perspective on ultimate reality. So submission is not total agreement.
It can’t be that. They’re going to disagree on the most important thing in life, of God himself. So submission is not never objecting, and it’s not complete agreement. It’s also not passivity. Submission is not passivity.
It’s that rather than a wife being told, hey, you’re to give up your will, wives are actually being told, no, choose, use your will to actually come alongside that of your husband. Use your will to conform your will to his as a means of uniting with him. There’s something similar happens whenever a husband sacrifices for his wife. As I sacrifice, I’m using my will, I’m choosing— I’m not giving up my will, I’m choosing to take my will, and I’m coming alongside my wife in order to conform my will to hers as a means of uniting with her, because ultimately that’s what God wants, is he wants oneness. So Submission is not passivity.
It’s a means of uniting with one another, and it’s also not unconditional obedience.
Wives are not told to submit to anything that is wrong, that is unlawful, or that is not God-honoring. A wife is not to submit to abuse because it’s not right, it’s not lawful, it’s not God-honoring. A wife is not to assist her husband or aid her husband or submit to her husband in something that God forbids. So there are conditions in which Paul and Peter would say a wife is not to submit. But let’s take a look at what submission is rather than focusing anymore on what it is not.
What is it? First of all, it’s personal.
First of all, it’s personal. Submission is a principle that you and I, men and women, are to apply to ourselves and to take responsibility for applying to ourselves, not to somebody else. I’ve been in circles Where I’ve heard other people say, well, she just ought to submit. I’ve never said that. I would never say that because first of all, that wouldn’t work.
I’ve never used the word submission with my wife. I’ve never needed to. But what’s interesting to me is I’ve been in circles in which people have said, well, she needs to submit in this relationship.
But if you look at the first word in all 3 of those passages that we looked at, what is the first word? Do you remember? Wives.
It’s wives. So men, if you’re looking at this passage and saying, yeah, she ought to submit, my wife ought to submit, I’d love for her to submit, I’m gonna tell her to submit— these passages were not addressed to you.
It would be wiser, husbands, to focus on the verses that were actually addressed to you. We’re going to do that next week. Instead of worrying so much about having somebody else submit— submission is personal. You can’t force somebody to submit. Take responsibility for what you are being charged with.
Husbands, that is to love your wives as Christ loved the church. Again, we’ll get into that next week. But submission is a personal thing. Wives, submit to your husbands. It’s also mutual.
Submission is not just personal, but it’s mutual. We see in Ephesians 5:21 where we’re— there’s a sense in which we are all to submit to one another, not just husbands and wives, all of us as Christ followers. If you are a follower of Christ, you’ve put your hope and trust in Jesus alone for salvation, we’re to submit to one another. Every family member is to submit to one another. That’s not too complicated.
It’s a very simple teaching. We’re to submit to one another. What is the motivation? Well, this is the third thing, is that submission is motivated by respect for Christ.
If you respect Christ, you will submit.
You may not respect the person, or you may not feel respect towards the person to which you are being told to submit, whether it’s an authority figure or in marriage But you don’t— you can still choose to submit, not because you respect that person, but because you respect God. And submission to an authority figure, or submission to somebody who is over you, is submission to God.
So it’s personal and it’s mutual. It’s also motivated by respect for God.
And Colossians 3:18 says, to submit as is fitting in the Lord. So when you submit, you’re doing something that God is honored by. But it’s also evidence of a new life, of a changed life. If you read these verses in their context, we’ve just been spending time in Colossians. The verses immediately preceding that talks about how since then you’ve been raised with Christ, since you’ve been changed, set your mind, set your hearts on things above.
Don’t be like the rest of the world. Set your mind on eternal things. Set your heart on eternal things. Put off the old self that was like the rest of the world. Put off the old self.
Put off falsehood, put off deception, put off bitterness and envy and strife, and put on the new self that has been created like God. Put on compassion and kindness and humility, and put on gentleness and put on patience. And over all these things, Paul is telling us in the book of Colossians Put on love, because love summarizes all of those other words. Forgive each other as Christ has forgiven you. You are to let peace rule in your hearts.
You’re to be thankful. You’re to, in whatever you do, in word or deed, as Pastor Dave spoke to us last week, whatever you do, you’re to do it as unto the Lord and in the name of Jesus, giving thanks to God. All of these things are evidence of a new self. In Ephesians 5, in that passage, right before it says to submit, it says, be filled with the Holy Spirit. There seems to be a sense in which these things are only possible— the idea of submission is only possible through divine empowerment and through a changed life.
So submission is evidence of a changed life. If you’re reluctant to submit, then you haven’t fully embraced the new self that God has created for you.
As evidenced by a submissive spirit.
And because submission goes against the grain of human nature— it does, we all want to be in charge, we all want what we want. I’m that way, you’re that way— then submission is necessary because it helps us to demonstrate this new life in divine empowerment, that we’re relying upon God for something that doesn’t come naturally to us. Because we want what we want.
Submission is also mirroring, or it mirrors, the church’s submission to Christ. You may have noticed that in the Ephesians passage. Just as Christ laid himself down for us, then the church submits to Christ, so the wife is to submit to her husband. So again, this is a teaching that is a very general teaching that gives a specific application here for wives in marriage. But the last thing that submission is, is that it’s a continual choice.
It’s a continual choice. The word that is used there again for submission is in the continuing form of the verb, which means to keep on doing. So keep on submitting. It’s not a one-time act, it’s a daily decision. It’s a moment-by-moment decision to arrange yourself under the leadership of another, and you will have to make that choice.
Again, you can’t control what the other person does. You can’t control whether or not they are a respectful person, a respectable person. You can’t control what’s in their heart, but you and I can take the responsibility to respond. It’s a continual choice.
Now I started thinking about, so what is the motivation for submission? Why Why the principle of submission? Why did Paul and Peter put this in there? Why did the Lord allow this teaching of submission to be in there? Is it just because it’s a first-century teaching, or is there something else at work here as we understand human nature?
Why does anybody have to be in charge? Why can’t both equally be the head, so to speak? And it reminds me of— I was on Friday, I had the privilege of being given a tour of the Google campus. I’ve been here now for a while and I’ve never actually gotten to tour the Google campus, and they had these bikes that are there that perhaps you’ve seen. They’re called a conference bike, and they’re a 7-person bike essentially where everybody’s pedaling.
It’s this round bike. There’s a picture of it, and there’s 7 people on it. Notice how many steering wheels there are.
Not all can steer. And so why does anybody have to submit? Why does there have to be order? Why can’t we just get along? Because ultimately there will be chaos and confusion if everybody is trying to steer.
And so God has ordained a sense of order, but that still doesn’t necessarily explain why submission is in there. Why does— why can’t couples just be this idea of this perfect egalitarian 50/50 split? Well, you and I know that 50/50 splits don’t happen. Ultimately, there’s always one person in the relationship who’s going to, at any moment, be doing a little bit more than the other person. Marriage is not 50/50.
Sometimes it’s 100/0.
And this idea of a perfect 50/50 split sounds ideal, but it’s not in reality, because then you start keeping score and a person starts measuring, well, I’m doing more than this person. Who can serve the other person more? Who can sacrifice for the other person more? So there has to be, again, something else here. Why, why does the man get to be the head and not the woman?
I’ve asked a number of women this the last couple weeks. Some of you here in the room I’ve even had this conversation with. I’ve wanted to pick your brain, and many of you have said, well, that’s just the order of creation. The man was created first. Well, there is that.
The scripture talks about that.
One person reminded me of the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Some of you have seen the sequel of that, and there’s a scene in which, in this very traditional family, Tula, the main character, is lamenting the fact that the husband is the head of the family, and the mother says, Tula, let me tell you, the man is the head, but the woman is the neck, and she can turn the head any way she wants.
Why is the man the head?
We can look at the order of creation. We can go all the way back to creation and see how in the Garden of Eden we saw in Eve a woman seeking to control and to take control of the situation and to manipulate a situation. And we can certainly look at how over time, in situations where men have been reluctant to lead, women have just stepped forward and have led in ways that God hasn’t necessarily always honored. And we could look at, well, perhaps there’s some truth to that, but ultimately I think the simplest way to be able to explain it is I’ve been able to look at Scripture, a specific reason as to why man and not woman. The simplest truth is that we really don’t know what was exactly in the heart of God.
But as we look at a passage, I started thinking about a message that I preached last semester, and you may have been here as we were going through the, the book of Philippians. I started thinking about Philippians 2, and I preached about a message about how you and I all have an I problem.
The letter I, the fact that we all put ourselves naturally over others. Our needs, our wants, our desires, our feelings. We naturally look out for ourselves. And so Paul in Philippians 2 tells us, in your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus. In your marriage, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus.
In your relationships with your kids, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus. In your working relationships, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus. In your relationships at church, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus. In your relationship with your enemy, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus, who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to 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. What did Jesus do here? Jesus willingly set aside his rights and his privileges as God. He could have played the God card. But he set that aside.
He set aside his privileges. He emptied himself, it says. He made himself nothing.
He willingly became a servant, and he willingly surrendered his life for the sake of others. Why, why is a woman told to submit? Why, why, why this idea of headship? Again, the simplest answer is that we don’t necessarily know the specific answer to that.
But we can also ask the same thing here. Why did Jesus have to surrender? Why did Jesus have to submit his will? Why not the Father? Why not the Holy Spirit?
Why not one of the disciples? Why did Jesus have to come and serve? Why couldn’t he be served? Again, the answer there is similar. We don’t know.
But the fact that he did surrender, the fact that he did submit his will to that of the Father, the fact that he did empty himself is not a sign of his weakness but a sign of his greatness. You see, here’s what I know. We can talk about gender differences, and we can talk about gender roles, and we can talk about headship and submission. Here’s the crux of it. But you have a kingdom and I have a kingdom, and each of us has our own little individual kingdoms that are made up of our wants, our needs, our feelings, our agendas.
And ultimately, God’s kingdom is what we are to orient our minds and our lives around— his agenda and his purposes. Man, woman, husband, wife, it doesn’t matter. It’s to lay aside your kingdom for the sake of what God’s purposes, where the principle of submission is lived out within each of us. The principle of sacrifice is to be lived out within each of us because Jesus is our model. Jesus is our model for submission.
Jesus is our model for service. Jesus is our model for sacrifice. We both get to play in a marriage the role of Jesus. Why did Jesus have to do that? We don’t know, but it was a sign of his greatness, not his weakness.
If you were here last week, Pastor Dave just explored Colossians 3:17, this passage of whatever you do, whether your word or deed, whatever hat you wear, do it all in the name of Jesus. And he concluded that verse by saying, don’t just do it. You know this passage, just do it. Don’t Listen, don’t just do it. Do it like Jesus would.
And we can say something similar about submission. Don’t just submit. Submit like Jesus did. Submit like Jesus did. Now, here’s a really important truth when it comes to the implications of submission.
I want to talk about the implications and how this is practically lived out. There’s something that husbands and wives need to recognize, and that is while the principle is clear in Scripture that there’s an authority. Christ is the head of the church. Christ is the head of man. Husbands, the head of wives.
While there’s a sense of order and the principle is clear and it’s consistent throughout Scripture, the actual concrete how this is lived out types of applications are really not found. There’s very little on that so that there is some flexibility here. Into what this looks like, but I do have some suggestions. But it does seem as if Paul is less concerned about men saying women submit, and he’s more concerned about us being filled with God’s Spirit. He’s more concerned with us just willingly surrendering our will to that of our Heavenly Father.
And if couples are doing that, we will have the mind of Christ. We will instinctively seek to serve and to sacrifice and to submit for one another.
But on a practical daily basis, what does submission look like? I have some suggestions, and I think that these are all very scriptural. One is, women, I would remind you of something that you probably already have recognized if you are married, and that is husbands speak a language of respect. And one of the ways to submit is to offer respect. Respect is very closely linked with that of submission.
And you can say, well, I, I don’t respect him, I do not feel respect for him.
But I remind us again of Ephesians 5:21, where we submit out of reverence for Christ and out of respect for him. And there are ways that you can choose to make that continual choice of respect.
And specifically, I think you have an opportunity for dialogue. About 5 years ago, I preached a message actually on Ephesians 5:21. I don’t expect anyone to remember, but I went back and I took a look at it, and there’s a point at which I just said, wives, if you really want to know what your husband thinks, ask him. Ask him, do you feel respected? On the way home from church today, ask him, do I respect you?
See what he says. Don’t get defensive, just ask him. You may say, well, no, I respect him, I respect him, and you can list all the ways. Does he feel respected?
And wives, you need to know, I’m gonna turn the tables next week as we talk to husbands about loving and sacrificing and laying down his life. But I’m specifically talking here about the principle of submission as we’ve read here in the scriptures. And I would say, does your husband know that he’s respected? Does he feel respected, or does he feel controlled? Does he feel manipulated?
Does he feel henpecked? Does he feel that the moment that he makes a decision, you’re going to be barking in his ear and telling him what he’s doing wrong?
Ask the question. Ask the question.
But another sort of daily implication as I think about not just this idea of how, you know, how do I respect this person not only in front of other people but also in the private moments. I think both of those environments are really important.
It’s one thing to respect at home, but it’s also another thing to respect in front of other people by not undermining the other person. Showing respect by not second-guessing in front of other people or embarrassing. That may not be your intent, but again, ask, do I respect you in that way? Another implication when it comes to this idea of submission that came to mind is this idea of teamwork. If you’re familiar with the book of Genesis, you know that in the creation account it says that, that, that the woman was given to man as his helper.
And we hear that word helper and we think Well, it reminds me of whenever my kids were little and I would have them helping me with a variety of different chores when they really weren’t helping. They were just sort of in the way. I could have done these things, and people would say, oh, that’s cute, you brought along your little helper. Well, that’s not what that word helper actually means. It’s, it’s a pretty weak word.
What it actually means is the word ezer, E-Z-E-R, in Genesis, and it’s a word that is actually often used for God himself. And it’s also a military term, this idea of helper, and that is reinforcements in the face of battle. So it’s not, hey, I have a helper who can— who’s alongside here to serve me or to watch me as I do things as I can do. No, it’s the sense of complementarity. We’re complementing one another.
Strengths and weaknesses. I’ve enjoyed this season, really the last few seasons, watching the Golden State Warriors and watching how they play together.
Having watched and played basketball for my entire life, I understand there’s simply no way that that team could function the way that it does without some sort of sense of people working together and a sense of hierarchy and a of order and recognizing that not everybody is going to be Steph Curry.
And there has to be a sense of working together. So submission on a daily basis in families, to me, what I would suggest in this is approaching it from a sense of teamwork rather than coming up with strict sort of roles of, well, my dad did this, and so therefore I as a husband am going to do this, or my, my mother did this, and therefore the woman should do such and such. I would throw that out the window if that’s part of your thinking, and rather I would approach it as to how can we assist and complement one another on a daily basis. And I’m grateful for a wife who brings all of the resources that she does into our relationship, and I lean on her heavily. And I would humbly say, because she has told me this, that there are ways that I complement and come alongside her.
She just sent me a text the yesterday about that. I don’t say that to pat myself on the back, but there’s a very real sense in which we need one another. And so I don’t have to use this— the S-word. I don’t have to say, women submit. First of all, again, that would never work.
But it’s the sense of we need each other, and my strengths balance out her weaknesses, and her strengths balance out my weaknesses. And that’s what I think ultimately will enable an environment overall of mutual submission to flourish is that of teamwork and establishing that when it comes to getting work done and responsibilities and tasks. But here’s the big implication, and it’s really in terms of decision-making and leadership. When there are only 2 votes in this marriage, what happens when you are not in agreement?
Wives, I have to tell you that I empathize with and I recognize the fact as much as I possibly can as a man. I recognize the fact that this idea of submission in those moments is going to be really, really challenging. That as you try out of the goodness of your heart to follow your husband’s leadership, you will have to make sacrifices. You will have to take risks. You will have to swallow your pride at times.
You may have to keep your mouth closed when you really want to say something. And it’s because, let’s be honest, there’s a couple different factors here. One is you may be a better leader than he is. It’s very possible that you could do something better than what he could, or you could make a quicker decision than him. It’s very possible.
At the same time, God’s will is for us to work together in terms of team, and this is the order that he’s given us. And so when it comes to decision-making, how do we put this together?
Shannon and I have had a few moments in our marriage where we’re not on the same page, and typically we’re able to just over time work towards agreement and understanding, and it’s because I want to be able to please her, or she wants to be able to please me. And one of us gives way, or one of us has a change of perspective, but usually we’re able to reach a decision through unanimous agreement. But in those moments that we don’t, what do we do? You can do what I do. You can pray, and you can say, oh God, I know that Shannon is wrong.
I know that I am right, and you know that I’m right. So I pray, God, that you would change her heart, and I pray you would convict her. But if by some miracle she’s right and I’m wrong, and if on the off chance that she’s right and I’m wrong, then change my heart, God, because I will do whatever you want even though she’s wrong. You could pray that prayer. Actually, I’ve never prayed that prayer.
But when you do reach an impasse, somebody has to be able to give way. If you’ve ever reached a 4-way stop and people are sort of staring at one another, who’s gonna go first? Who’s gonna make the first move? What do you do in that moment? I have 2 questions.
First of all, when you reach that impasse and you can’t decide what to do, First of all, have you clearly and as unemotionally as possible communicated what you really feel without interrupting the other person when they share? Really trying to listen. I do this sometimes when I’m counseling with couples. I will have them just slow down and just one person talk, and the other person’s— all their job is, is to reflect back what it is that they hear. Not what they think that they hear, not what they feel, but just what they’ve heard.
And it feels so artificial to slow down the process like that, but it’s really, really powerful. And so to listen for understanding— have you clearly done that and communicated what you feel? Not shooting for agreement, because if that’s your goal, many times it’s not going to happen. If your goal is to win, that’s the wrong goal. But if your goal is understanding, if your goal is working together and to really understand— I want to put myself in this person’s shoes— that’s the first step.
But another question, and this is really the big one: do you trust God?
Do you trust that God is big enough to change your spouse’s heart?
Do you feel that God Do you trust that he’s big enough to have put you two together?
Do you trust that he’s able to take care of you in spite of your fears that making a certain decision will leave you vulnerable? Do you trust God’s arrangement? This isn’t about trusting the other person. This is about, do you trust in God’s sovereignty? Because that’s really what submission is about.
It’s, it’s an issue of trust in God. So listen to one another. But let’s say that— and I think that we definitely have examples of this in our culture— let’s say that you’re in an environment in which the husband is an unresponsive leader. He’s an unwilling leader. He’s a reluctant leader.
What do you do in those moments? I’ve prayed with many women who who’ve shared their stories with me in those moments. And what do you do? And again, I just have a couple thoughts on that. One is, does he know that you value his opinion?
Does he know that you want him to lead? Or has there been a track record where when he does lead out, you second-guess him?
Are you a good follower?
Have you gathered people around you to bathe this in prayer? I know— listen, I don’t mean to be insensitive in any way if you’re in an environment like this. I really— I’m burdened with you if you’re in this environment and you have an unresponsive husband who doesn’t lead and that hasn’t submitted himself to the Lord.
Have you entrusted this to the Lord and truly taking your hands off and allow God, through your submission and through your example, to minister to him, to minister to your husband.
We’re saying with God all things are possible. I really do believe that.
I really do believe that. And when he does lead out, express your appreciation. Express your appreciation for the differences between you two.
Instead of being frustrated over how the different ways you two lead, appreciate the fact that God has put 2 people together like 2 pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that complement one another, and you can balance each other well. Here’s the bottom line in all of this: life is complicated, right? Marriage is complicated. Relationships are complicated. This idea of submission can be complicated, and yet it seems so simple when you really boil it down.
Where do we start? Paul says start here. Start with having the mind of Christ and start by doing for your spouse what Christ did for you. Do for your spouse what Christ did for you. Don’t just submit, submit like Jesus did.
And the rest will follow. Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for the fact that you are so patient with us. We have topics like this that are really heavy and challenging, that you’re such a gracious teacher, so patient.
I pray that we would be able, Lord, to put aside our own preconceived thoughts on this topic for the sake of what Scripture really teaches here and for the sake of what you’re after, which is our heart. I thank you, Lord, for each marriage that’s represented here. I pray for an environment of mutual submission and order and simplicity in each relationship here.
Lord, this is also a heavy topic for those who are in difficult marriages right now, and I fully understand that. And I, I ask, God, that your Holy Spirit would bring comfort and peace and hope.
God, I ask that you would change hearts and turn the hearts of husbands and wives to each other. I pray that you would remind us, God, that we have an opportunity to, in front of a watching world, demonstrate a gospel-centered marriage, a marriage that puts Jesus and his sacrificial substitution on our behalf at the center of our relationship, that we have the privilege and the opportunity to daily choose to have the mind of Christ and to treat each other as Christ treated us and treats us every day. God, breathe your hope into these relationships.
I pray for, Lord, anyone here who has a need or a burden today, that they would cast it upon you because you are faithful and you’re gracious and you’re good. You’re a good Father. Lord, it’s been good to be here today. Draw us near to you. We pray in Jesus’ name.
Amen. I’m gonna be available after the service to pray with you if I can in any way, just over here to the the side. Please let me know if I can help in some way. And I’m gonna ask Missy, yeah, to come on up. She’s got a couple words of encouragement for us.
