Sermon preview, week of June 4, 2024
Turning Headship On Its Head
This Sunday’s order
- Sunday
- Reading
- Ephesians 5:21-33
- Series
- Kingdom Family Values
- Preaching
- Jonathan Balmer
This is a sermon preview for the third week of our Kingdom Family Values series. Visit FBCM’s website to listen to our livestream.
The readingEphesians 5:21-33
“Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ ….’For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ This is a profound mystery, but I am talking about Christ and the church. ”, from Ephesians 5:21-33 (NIV)
Read Ephesians 5:21-33
21Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. 22Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. 23For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, His body, of which He is the Savior. 24Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. 25Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her 26to sanctify her, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27and to present her to Himself as a glorious church, without stain or wrinkle or any such blemish, but holy and blameless. 28In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29Indeed, no one ever hated his own body, but he nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church. 30For 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.” 32This mystery is profound, but I am speaking about Christ and the church. 33Nevertheless, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
Berean Standard Bible, public domain
When it comes to family, a lot of us are going to think about marriage. Which made me think: there’s two kind of stories, in traditional Western theater. From the Greeks to Shakespeare. There are tragedies and there are comedies.
Tragedies end in death. And comedies aren’t like our modern comedies, except maybe our "Rom-Coms". They end in marriage.
The astounding thing about the Gospel is that it is both. There is a great tragedy. What happens at the end of the Gospels? Jesus dies a horrible death on a cross. Of course, Christians believe the story doesn’t end there. But Jesus rose again, he ascended to heaven, and we believe he will return.
But it’s not just a comedy because terrible things do not have the last word.
The Gospel story is also like a comedy because it ends in marriage. At the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, John the Baptist says about Jesus, “Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world!” (John 1:29). And at the very end of the New Testament, we read about rejoicing in heaven and an angel saying: “Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!” (Rev. 19:9)
The return of Jesus, the coming of the Kingdom of God in fullness, is pictured as a marriage. There are stories, parables, Jesus tells about the waiting on the bridegroom to talk about his return. There is a marriage, a union, of heaven and earth: of Christ and the church.
Ephesians 5 is an oft-cited passage when it comes to marriage. Some Christians see it as promoting a husband's "headship" (interpreted as final authority) in marriage.
But what if Paul isn't advocating that only husbands are in charge, while wives only submit to their husbands? In fact, Paul turns headship on its head, and shows us how authority and submission work differently in the Kingdom of God.
Join us this Sunday as we discover how mutual love and service in marriage becomes a profound mystery, a picture of Christ's love for the church. Paul is so shaped by Christ in his thinking, so shaped by Christ’s love for his church, that even in giving instruction on households, Paul cannot help but preach the Gospel.
Marriage, lived out in faithfulness and in service, becomes a sign which points to something much greater than marriage: Christ’s love for the church.
Reflection Questions:
- What teaching about marriage have you heard? Has the idea of mutual service in marriage been something you heard taught? Or was the idea of submission only one-way?
- Why do you think marriage is one symbol (among many) to talk about Christ’s relationship to the church?
- This passage talks about serving one another, honoring one another, submitting to one another. It has a very different focus than so much of our depictions of romance. Faithfulness becomes the defining mark of Christian marriage, and that is what points to Christ’s unyielding love. What does faithfulness look like in the Christ-honoring marriages you have seen?
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