Colossians 3:18

Colossians chapter 3 and verse 18 for our first text, Wives, submit yourselves under your own husbands as it is fit in the Lord. And then if you would, turn with me to the book of Ephesians, chapter 5 and verses 22 through 24. And then we’ll read verse 33. Ephesians 5 22 to 24. Wives submit yourselves under your own husbands as unto the Lord. But the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, and he is the Savior of the body. Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands and everything. Verse 33. Nevertheless, let everyone, one of you in particular so love his wife, even as himself, and the wife see that she reverence her husband. May God bless to us the reading of his sacred and holy word this morning. Xanthippe was the wife of the Greek philosopher Socrates, and according to all accounts, she had a very violent temper. once she released on him all the reproaches her fury could devise as he sat before the door of his house. Now his calm demeanor so agitated her that she ran upstairs and emptied a vessel water from the upstairs window on top of his head. Laughing, Socrates observed so much thunder must produce a shower. Scripture says it’s better to dwell in the wilderness than with a contentious and angry woman. And certainly, that is true. Paul now addresses the special duties of wives and husbands, parents and children, and slaves and masters. He has dealt with the general duties, as we looked at here in chapter 3, and now he’s going to be more specific and more tailored to particular individuals in the church. He begins discussing in verses 18 and 19 the marriage relationship, and he begins first with the wife and her role in the marriage relationship. How vastly different you are to behave than that of Socrates’ wife, as the text indicates to us. Marriage troubles and divorce are very common in our society. Someone has said that all marriages are happy. It’s the living together afterwards that causes all the trouble. And it’s because people don’t live according to the principles of God’s word that there are problems in the marriage. A happy marriage requires both. the husband and the wife to follow the principles and what Paul commands here in the word of God. Now, we should recognize that the church is not a debating society where we get to put our two cents in on what we think is the best situation for husbands and wives and how they should treat one another and so forth and give our personal opinion on the matter. What makes a good marriage? We gather for the purpose of considering here and studying what God commands about how we are to behave as husbands and wives toward one another and the marriage relationship. Now what is said here? We must recognize it’s said by God himself. This is the key to right thinking and right acting. that we take this as God’s word, God’s message to us, and not see it merely as one man’s opinion about how people should live. Now, as a wife, you may struggle with what God commands here, but fully realize this is what God requires you to do as a wife. The scripture says here, wives, submit yourselves under your own husbands as it is fit in the Lord. So I will begin with this thought. Your duty as a Christian wife is to be submissive to your husband. You are commanded to place yourself under the headship of your husband. Submit yourselves. And as we’ve read in your own, Ephesians 5, the husband is the head of the house. And you are submit yourself unto him. Now you’ll notice here the Bible teaches you are to make yourself submissive. The very idea of submission, I think, would cause some people, some women perhaps, to bristle in today’s society. It’s a dirty word in a day when we have women’s liberation that’s dominating the thinking. of people. The Greek word for submit here means to willingly place yourself under the authority of another. This is a voluntary action. In response to God’s will, you’re to give up your right to live independently and live under the headship or the leadership of your husband. Now, the husband is not required here to physically force the wife to be submissive. It’s not like we have the cavemen mentality where you bop the woman on top of the head and drag her off to the cave and enslave her or something of that nature. But each wife is to submit by choice here to our own husband. Now let me make this observation because I think this is important. If you can’t willingly submit to a particular man, you should never marry him. You should weigh that matter before you ever marry. Can I, as a Christian woman, submit to this man? Because that’s what God is going to require of you. And don’t marry him if you don’t feel that you can submit to his leadership. Now, obviously, there are different types of husbands. Under your own husbands indicates there are different types of husbands. Your submission, however, is not based upon the way your particular husband treats you. Whether he’s cruel or considerate, whether he’s wise or foolish, whether he’s saved or unsaved, whether he’s educated or unschooled, doesn’t really factor into this matter. The Bible has much to say about the husband’s role in marriage. But the principal taught here is a voluntary submission of the wife. I realize that it is by the work of the Holy Spirit within us that we submit ourselves one onto another as we read in the book of Ephesians chapter 5. And he’ll talk about all the different submissions in chapter 5 and he mentions them here in less detail here in Colossians chapter 3. How does the slave submit to the master? He does it by the work of the Holy Spirit. Spirit in his life as a Christian slave, he says, this is what God would have me to do. So I’m not a rebellious slave. How do wives submit to their husband? How the children submit to their parents? They should all be following the same principle that the Holy Spirit within us should cause us to realize this is what would be pleasing in the eyes of God. And therefore, we willingly do it. So you’re commanded to place yourself under the headship of your husband. Now, your submission is to be total. In Ephesians 524, it says, in everything. Now, what this tells me is we can’t be selective in this matter. We can’t say, well, I’ll do it in some areas, but I’m not going to do it in others. I’ll pay my husband who comes to raising the children, but when it comes to finances, no, I’m not going to submit to him in that. When it comes to picking a school district, that’s okay. He can be the leader there. But when it comes to choosing a church, I’m going to be the one that makes that decision. Or when I agree with him, I will be submissive to him. But when I don’t, I won’t, I won’t. None of that is permissible. It seems like in all times in every situation here, the idea is to be submissive to the husband. And what this basically means is that the bottom line is, not that you can’t have input, but the buck stops with your husband. has to be responsible ultimately for the decisions that are made in that household before God, and God’s going to hold him responsible for what is being done in that household. Now, you may protest this morning and say, surely, Pastor, you don’t mean everything. Let me ask you this. Isn’t your submission to your husband supposed to reflect Christ’s submission or the church’s submission to Christ? How extensive is the church’s submission to Christ? If you answer that question, then you know how extensive your submission should be to your husband. It’s not that difficult if we just follow the principle here of Scripture. Doesn’t the church submit totally, fully, completely? Let me make this observation. Many times when there is trouble in the marriage, there is an unsubmissive wife. And that can lead to all kinds of problems. You can’t have two heads in the home. One has to be the head. You remember in the book of Esther, or in the book of Esther, it relates how the wife of King Azuarez through a whole kingdom and disarrayed by disobedience to her husband. Remember the king was holding this great feast with all his nobles, all his princes of the Medes and the Persians being present. and he was in a jolly mood. And he decided he would have Queen Vasty to come before this multitude so they all could behold her beauty. Well, up to this point, she may have been submissive to the king, but she embarrassed him by refusing to appear and disobeyed his command. And the concern was that all the wives of the kingdom are going to see this, and then they are going to do the same thing with regard to them. husbands. This is how it stated in the Esther 117. For this deed of the queen shall come abroad unto all women so that they shall despise their husbands in their eyes when it shall be reported. So Vashdie has to be punished. She has to be removed from being queen. Lest wives, everyone, everywhere would be rebellious too. We see that when a wife, rules the ruse, then what happens is the whole family gets thrown into chaos. So your submission is to be totaled. It’s in everything. Now, your submission is part of your duty to the Lord. You’ll notice how he says here, as it is fit in the Lord. It’s the will of God that you be submissive to your husband. Now, the scripture indicates to us this is part of the creation order. Look with me at First Timothy, if you would. The book of First Timothy, chapter 2 and verses 11 to 15. It says here, let the woman learn in silence with all subjection, but I suffer not a woman to teach nor usurp authority over the man but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, and then Eve, and Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression, notwithstanding. She shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith. and charity and holiness with sobriety. There is a creation order, and because of the creation order, Paul indicates to us it is such that the man being created first is created with the idea of headship, leadership, and authority. The woman being made as a help, meet, or suitable to the man is to, is to be submissive to him. Now, if you as a wife fight against God’s creation order, then you’re being disobedient to God’s revealed will is what we find. So your submission is part of your duty to the Lord. Now, your submission is to reflect the church’s relationship to Christ. I find it interesting that Paul here, and he very carefully lays this out, In chapter 5, verses 23 and 24 of Ephesians, he says here, for the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, and he is the savior of the body, therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ, so let wise be to their own husbands and everything, notice verses 31 and 32, but this cause shall a man leave his father and mother and shall be joined unto his wife, and they too shall be one flesh, This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. It seems very clear to us, if you read this, that God has designed the marriage relationship to be a picture of Christ and his church. There’s no institution on earth more sacred than that. Your subordination to as a wife to your husband is to be patterned after that of the churches to Christ. Now, we as the people of God, submit to Christ out of love and devotion to him. And don’t you see that your submission to your husband, therefore, is an act of obedience then to Christ himself? It’s not a matter of how you feel about it to your husband, but a matter of love to Christ. Jesus said, if you love me, keep my commandments. And what is it one of his commandments? Wives, submit yourselves under your own husbands. Let me ask you this, do you reflect the relationship of the church to Christ by the way you are submissive to your husband? Because isn’t that what you’re supposed to be doing? Or is your relationship? to your husband such that no one in a million years would ever see a picture of Christ in the church in it. I’ll make this observation. Your submission to your husband is a witness. It is a testimony before the world, teaching them something about Christ in the church. And I wonder if we ever thought about that as Christian couples. So your submission is to reflect the church’s relationship to Christ. Your submission is limited to what is right in God’s sight. Now, the Bible teaches an exception to the general role that you are to obey your husband in everything because your submission does not obligate you to disobey the Lord. As it is fit in the Lord is added with that idea in mind as well. Obviously, if your husband asks you to violate God’s law, You can’t comply with that. We ought to always obey God rather than man. We ought to always obey the higher authority. And God is the higher authority over your husband. The head of every man is Christ, the Bible says. So we ought to obey God rather than man. You remember Ananias and Sapphira in the Book of Acts. Saphira should not have agreed. to follow her husband’s plan the lie to the church about giving all the proceeds of the land that they sold to the church. For Anna and I has secretly kept back a portion of those funds, but he wanted evidently to appear generous before the church. And so they lied about it. And Sapphire was willing to lie to lie to support her husband in this. and both, you recall, were struck dead by the Lord. Safara should have said, this is not fit in the Lord. I can’t do this. So if your husband asked you to cheat or defraud someone or steal or violate the law in some fashion or other, obviously, you are not to obey. So your duty as a Christian wife is to be submissive to your husband. You’re to place yourself under the head shipping of her husband. You’re to set yourself. submission is to be total in everything, and your submission is part of your duty to Christ, as is fit in the Lord. Now, secondly, your submission as a Christian wife involves respect and obedience. You are to respect your husband. In fact, chapter 5 of Ephesians, verse 33, the wife see that she reverts her husband. is what Paul says here. Literally, it has the idea of fear, but more in the respect aspect, to honor, to esteem him, and his authority is the head of the home. Happiness depends, and marriage depends upon you as a wife acknowledging your husband’s authority over to you and respecting that. Now, you notice that respect here, reflects your attitude toward your husband. And this is inward. It can, it will be reflected in outward actions, but it’s inward. It’s not enough to give lip service to your husband’s authority when you’re grudgingly complying with his wishes. In other words, we’re not to have a spirit of contempt for our husband and obey him out of, you know, just because I have to. The idea is to have a true. true reverence here for your husband. It’s true, and you might say with pastor, you don’t know my husband. Maybe you have an unsafe husband. Maybe he drinks. He gets drunk. Maybe he’s a difficult man to live with. You know, Abigail had an A ball, and we see the difficulty she had with him. Maybe he’s crude. Maybe he’s foul-mouthed. Maybe in some fashions, you know, he’s very abusive verbally with you. or something of this nature. But you’ll notice that Peter, when he talks about submitting to your husband in 1st Peter chapter 3, he says he talks about being, even if he’s unsaved, he may be won by the behavior of the wife. So this is part of your witness to him in this regard. The key point here is this. You must respect the position of authority your husband position. regardless of how unkind or even miserable he may be. He may not respect him for what he is. He may be a very poor husband. But because of his position of authority that he holds in the eyes of God, you show respect for him. We might put it in this way. You know, some police officers you may not like. Maybe they have a gruff personality. But you would respect the badge and the authority they have as representing the law. and the government. In the same way, you as a Christian wife must respect the leadership position of your husband, even if you don’t respect his poor personality traits. The army has a saying, you salute the uniform and not the man. Recognize the authority that one might have. So you are to respect your husband, and then you are to obey your husband. Now, let’s look at 1 Peter chapter 3, which I alluded to. earlier a moment ago. 1. Peter chapter 3 in verses 1 to 6. Likewise, you wise, be in subjection to your own husbands that if any obey not the word that they may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives. While they behold your chase conversation coupled with fear, who’s adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plating the hair and the wearing of gold or putting on apparel, but let it be the hidden man of the heart, that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which in the sight of God is a great price. For after this manner in old time, the holy women also, who trusted in God adorn themselves, being in subjection under their own husbands, even as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord, whose daughters ye are, as long as ye do. well and are not afraid with any amazement. Now you’ll notice that Peter here gives the example of Sarah and her submission to her husband, and it’s outward here, she is obedient to her husband. Now, we never read in the book of Genesis that Sarah was a slave, like Hagar, was a slave, but she willingly obeyed her husband’s commands on the account. occasion that’s mentioned. The incident referenced here is when Abraham had three visitors. One was the Lord and two were the other angels that went down to destroy Sodom, you remember, and they came in and appeared as men before him. He wanted to prepare a meal and he asked her to do that, and she immediately complied and did that. She willingly did it. This isn’t slavery, but obedient response to God’s appointed authority or head of the home. it would have been wrong for Sarah to refuse in this situation. Abraham’s request was reasonable, and she was obligated to obey it. As Genesis 315 says, Thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. Paul wrote to Titus that wise would be obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blaspheme. So while reverence deals more with your attitude, obedience deals with your actions. So that both are required of us. You like Sarah are to do well by being obedient to your husband. Disobedience, because of personal preference, would be wrong. Now this doesn’t mean you can’t respectfully voice your opinion and point out problems. And having explained your objections, you have to realize that the final decision rests with your husband. He ultimately is going to have to answer for those decisions that he makes. So your respect as a Christian life, or submission as a Christian wife involves respect and obedience. Lastly this morning, some objections you may have as a wife to being submissive. And the first objection that some people would raise is this. isn’t this all culture related? You might say, well, surely this only relates to Paul’s Day and the Roman culture and, you know, that society was very anti-women. We live in modern America. Women are no longer in such a debased position. We’ve been liberated. Well, I hope as a Christian wife, you would never think in that way, in that manner. You are, if you do this. this, you’re denying the universal application of the scripture to your life. This is a denial that all scripture applies to your life. That all scripture is profitable for doctrine and for correction and for our behavior in this life. This is not a matter of your opinion. It’s not a matter of my opinion. It’s a matter of submission to the scriptures. It is troubling when professing Christian women would reject Colossians 318 saying, well, that’s just culturally oriented. If Paul isn’t right about the wife submitting to the husband here, we have reason to question a lot of other things, he says. What about the raising of the children? What about the husband’s duty to the wife? What about the worker’s submission to the employer? What about the submission to the employer? What about the submission to church elders? What about discipline by the church? What about the sin of homosexuality and lesbianism? We can go on and on and on. Once we start unraveling this, we have all kinds of problems. What of the whole marriage relationship that’s revealed in Scripture? Maybe we’ve got, you know, what’s outdated? maybe we’ve just have live-in arrangements. We should recognize that Colossians 318 is God’s truth for all ages. We can’t. deny that. We don’t want to raise an axe against God’s word or take the knife and cut it out. Do you believe the scriptures are infallible? That they’re perfect, that they are the inspired word of God, then you have to accept this as what God wants for you, today, in this society, in this culture. The second thing is, well, doesn’t this make the woman inferior? Well, I have to say this. being in subjection to another person does not make you inferior to that other person. The woman is not considered inferior to the man. Well, I must say that some women, some wives in particular are wiser and more spiritual than their husbands. And there’s no question about that. The woman is the complement of the man. You possess qualities that your husband does not have but he needs. and you’re providing that for him. You’re to be a help suitable to your husband. It’s just that God has an order for the home. There has to be a head of the home. As I said, we can’t have two heads. So he has a role for both the man and the home, and he has a role for the woman in the home. It has nothing to do with whether you’re inferior or not. Look at, excuse me, 1 Corinthians 113, if you would, with me this morning. Notice how this is stated. Maybe this will help us. Paul says here, but I would have you know that the head of every man is Christ and the head of the woman is the man and the head of Christ is God. Are you catching the way he states this year? For the purpose of redemption, the son, who is co-equal with the father, places himself under the authority of the Father to carry out the plan of salvation, right? Is Christ inferior to the Father? Well, we’ve already studied, he has the full Godhead in Colossians 2-9. He’s co-equal with the Father. He doesn’t think it robbery to be called equal with the Father. But the Scripture says there’s an order or structure to the plan of redemption. And in order to keep it. carry that out. Jesus Christ submits himself to the Father. As he says, in John 530, I seek not my own will, but the will of the Father. And thus the head of Christ is God, he tells us. He submitted himself to his father’s authority. Now think about this. When Jesus was young, you remember at one point, I think he was 12 years old when they went to the temple and they went for a feast day at the temple and they were returning home and all everybody was returning and they thought that Christ was among the other relatives and he wasn’t. He stayed behind and he’s at the temple and he’s talking to the religious scribes and the Pharisees and the religious rulers. They finally find him and say, you know, how can you treat us like this? and he’s like, don’t you know I have to be about my father’s business? And then you read this, but he went with them and he said, you know, how can you treat us like this? he was subject under them. Is Christ inferior to Joseph and Mary? He’s the Godman. But because of his position, as a child, in the family, he submits himself to the headship of that family, which in this case are the parents. So he honored his father and mother following the commandments of the Lord. So ladies, you’re not inferior human beings. You’ve been assigned a different responsibility. Some wives are very brilliant and gifted women. In many cases, possessing much more spiritual graces than their husbands have. I’ve known wives who were more theologically astute than their husbands. They could run circles around their husbands, theologically. But this doesn’t change anything about the headship of the home, but what you have to do is you have to do is you, have to use your superior gifts to help your husband and to be of a compliment to him in some fashion. This is where you could be very useful. If you understand God’s word and you can bring some principle out that he may be overlooking or something of this nature and say, well, what about this? And bring this out to him. Obviously, your husband must make the final decision. But these are things that we must realize. these objections. Isn’t this all culture related? No. Does this make the woman inferior to the man? No. So let me close. Socrates’ wife, Zanthippe, was very disrespectful to her husband. She had a violent temple. She was not very submissive at all. That’s typical for the world in which we live. But that’s not the kind of wife you should be as a Christian wife. The wife’s role in marriage is very clear. Your duty is to be submissive of your husband, and your submission involves respect and obedience. Now, you might say, well, I don’t like all that. Well, wait till next week, gentlemen. You’ll hear what I have to say about your responsibility, which is much more demanding than you might think. But first we have to see what God says to the wife. And then to balance that, we have to see what God says to the husband. Because both are important. And, you know, many husbands are very quick to say, yeah, you be submissive. But they fail to realize their responsibility to their wife. And that is very important as well. Let’s close.