I See You – Part 5

Review

• Shared circumstances
• Shared responsibility
• Share resources

To see you us to serve you.

Christian fellowship is a culture of submission and service.

• Philippians 2:3–5 (ESV) – ³ Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. ⁴ Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. ⁵ Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 
• Philippians 2:8 (ESV) – ⁸ And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
• John 13:35 (ESV): 35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
  • Matthew 20:26 (ESV): 26 It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant,
  • Ephesians 5:21 (ESV): 21 submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Charity Begins at Home

The principles of Christian fellowship are the same principles that govern the Christian marriage.

For the believer, Marriage is a mini Christian community.

All the ways that we defer to each other in a Christian community apply to marriage in concentrated form.

A commitment to marriage is a commitment to a life of submission and service.

Wives, Submit to Your Husbands

Ephesians 5:22 (ESV): 22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.

• Submission is first to the Lord.
• There is no greater expression of empowered femininity than a woman who is submitted to God.

Ephesians 5:23-24 (ESV): 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.

• • Acts 5:1–2 (ESV) – ¹ But a man named Ananias, with his wife Sapphira, sold a piece of property, ² and with his wife’s knowledge he kept back for himself some of the proceeds and brought only a part of it and laid it at the apostles’ feet.
  • 1 Samuel 25:18–19 (ESV) – ¹⁸ Then Abigail made haste and took two hundred loaves and two skins of wine and five sheep already prepared and five seahs of parched grain and a hundred clusters of raisins and two hundred cakes of figs, and laid them on donkeys. ¹⁹ And she said to her young men, “Go on before me; behold, I come after you.” But she did not tell her husband Nabal.
• The principle of submission does not negate the principle of mutual consent (1 Corinthians 7:5 (ESV) – ⁵ Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.)

Husbands, Love Your Wives

Ephesians 5:25(ESV): 25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,

Christian Husbands Are Countercultural

Ephesians 5:28-29 (ESV):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,

While wives must submit to their husbands in everything, husbands must privilege their wives’ interests in everything.

For husbands, service is explicit, while submission is implicit

For wives, submission is explicit while service is implicit.

Marriage is About Mutual Love and Respect

Ephesians 5:33 (ESV):33 However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

1 Corinthians 7:3–5 (ESV) – ³ The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. ⁴ For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. ⁵ Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

• Strong marriages require consistent social and sexual interaction.

© Joshua D. Smith, Ph.D., 2022