Fullness & Freedom - Colossians

Thanks, Anne. A 7 year old, we'll keep just keep those passages open. And let me tell you the story about this 7 year old girl. She she had just seen the film Cinderella and she was testing her neighbor who was an older lady on on the story of Cinderella. And the neighbor anxious to sort of show that she knew about Cinderella said to the little girl, well, I actually I actually know what happens at the end.

And the little girl said, well, what? And the neighbor says, well, Cinderella and the prince lived happily ever after. And the little girl said, no. You've you've got it so wrong. They got married.

Now, It's a totally innocent and sort of unknowing cynicism. But to her, I guess, This story of Cinderella starts with a young girl in slavery and sadness and unfulfilled potential and ends the same way. In marriage. And I think sadly many marriages give that impression, but the Christian marriage is not to. The Christian marriage is be a witness to the world.

And as the world gives up on marriage, this should be a stronger and stronger light. To the world. It's a window, really. It's a window to the world about the wonder of Christ his power and his love. It's a display.

See, the church, the church of God, that's real Christians that meet together, is sort of God's great exhibition center. But 1 of the displays in the exhibition center is marriage. Is what the church thinks of marriage what the church thinks about husbands and wives and their roles, the roles of husbands and wives. What is the wife? What is the wife who has Christ's love and peace and word?

Dwelling in her meant to look like, as we've just read in colossians chapter 3. What is the wife? Who has Christ love, peace and word dwelling ritually in her to be like. What is she to be like? What is her character, her aim, her ambition, to be.

What are her at her attitudes to be, to men, and particularly to her husband? What has she gotta be like in order for that little 7 year old girl to change to change her mind about the ending of Cinderella. And what does a husband who has Christ's love and peace and word dwelling in him richly to be like, what what's his character to be like. What's his aims and his ambitions? What's his attitude to women and particularly to his wife to be like?

What is the man, the husband, gotta be like, in order to change that 7 year old girl's opinion of what happened at the end of Cinderella. Well, that's we're really thinking about tonight. Husbands and wives. On your tables and those of you at the back, if you could squash into tables, you'll see some some quotes on there. From a book that is absolutely wonderful by John Piper on marriage, it's called momentary marriage.

And I recommend that all couples get it and read it. Look at the quotes, quote 1 and 2, I'm gonna read. If if you could just see it, it will be helpful. This is what he says. God designed marriage.

It's the first and second quote. God designed marriage. There'll be a picture. That makes me ask myself how clear and well focused is the portrait of Jesus that our marriage is displaying. I love using my tiny digital camera, but the larger and more complex a subject, the more nearly impossible able it is to represent it well and completely.

No single photograph can show someone how magnificent the Grand Canyon is. It's true that my shortcomings as a photographer do nothing to change the majesty of that natural wonder. Still, some snapshots do give a better idea than others of the grandeur. I wanna take the clearer kind of picture of the Grand Canyon. And that's the kind of image of Jesus.

I want our marriage to portray. He wants to show the 7 year old girl that marriage is great. It's it's God on display. Look at the second quote. Marriage is meant by God to put the gospel.

That's the message about Jesus. The gospel reality on display in the world. That is why we are married. We are married. To display something of God to the world.

No less than that. So that the 7 year girl says the end of Cinderella is wonderful. Okay. I've got a number of points to say and we've got some stuff to get through. Here's the first thing, there's a context to the verses that we read in colossians and also Ephesians.

But in colossians 3, you get those 2 lines. Now we've been going through colossians in the evening, and this is where we're at. But look at verse, 18 and 19 of colossians chapter three.wives submit to your husband's as he's fitting in the lord husband's love your wives and do not be harsh with them. Now if you just take those sentences out of the context of colossians, then you they're just like laws. In fact, unfortunately, the NIV has all of these horrible little titles that are not in the bible at all, and it's got things like rules for Christian households.

Has it got that in your NIV? That is not in the bible and should never be in there. And it separates those verses from the rest to the context. Now what is the context of those 2 verses?wives submit to your husband as he's fitting in the lord? Husbands love your wives.

What's the context. Well, the context is actually all about Jesus and what he's done. Now, I can't go into great detail because we've done a whole series on this But look at chapter 3, just look at verse 1. Paul says, since then you have been raised with Christ, set your things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. So he talks about people that have had this miracle in their lives.

They've been resurrected They've been raised with Christ as Christ died on the cross for the sins of the world and rose again, then the Christian is in Christ and has risen again. You're in this position of the heavenly realms. You've been raised with Christ. That's the context. Go down to verse 5.

Look, therefore because you've been raised with Christ, put to death therefore, whatever belongs to the earthly nature imerality, impurity, lust evil desires, greed, idolatry, and so forth. Put to death those things, because you've been raised with pressure a new creature in Christ, You've been made god's child because of that put to death this stuff. Then look at verse 12. Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy, dearly loved, clothe yourself with compassion and kindness humility, gentleness, and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against 1 another.

Forgive us the Lord forgave you. Because you've been forgiven, because you've been raised with Christ, therefore put to death this earthly stuff. Don't don't start submitting to that anymore. And live as god's holy people and have compassion and kindness and gentleness and love and forgive you've been forgiven. So forgive.

Then verse 15, nuke of chapter 3 of colossians. Let the peace of Christ rule in your heart 16, let the word of Christ dwell in you. So Paul, writing here the context of verses 8 and 19 wives submit to your husbands, husbands love your wives. The context is this wider context The context is what we would call the gospel in summary, is what Jesus has done for us. The king who has died for us, forgiven us, risen again, and we're in Christ make new creatures.

The ages for those 2 verses submit your husbands, love your wives, the engine in order to be able to do that is none other than the power of God to forgive you on the cross and to rise again. None other than the power of God. It's none other than the power of the 1 who came into the world and loved the world and serve the world and lay down his life, it's that power that works in us within the context of wives submitting and husband's love They're like 2 railway lines. Verse 18 is 1 railway line, while I've submit, 1 of the lines, and verse 19 is another railway line. Husbands love their 2 railway lines.

In order though for the marriage to work, there's got to be an engine that goes along those 2 lines. They're not just rules. You're empowered to go along those lines by what Jesus has done for us. Look at those quotes again from Piper. The fourth quote of the fifth quote.

The fourth quote, marriage was designed from the beginning to display the new covenant between Christ and the Church. We have seen this in Ephesians 5 31 to 32. The very essence of this new covenant is that Christ passes over the sins of his bride. His bride is free from shame, not because she is perfect. Forget that that little 34 there.

Not because she is perfect. But because she has no fear that her lover will condemn her or shame her because of her sin. This is why the doctrine of justification by faith by grace through faith is the very heart of what makes marriage work. The way God designed it. Justification creates peace with God, vertical in spite of our sin.

And when experienced horizontally, it creates shame free peace between an imperfect man and an imperfect woman. Look at the next quote, under forgiveness. Why this emphasis on forgiving and forbearing 1 another. Say, on romance and enjoying each other. Why are we going on about forgiveness rather than sort of this whole love and enjoying each other?

And this is what he says. I think this is brilliant. I gave I gave 3 reasons. 1, because there is going to be conflict based on sin. We need to forgive sin and forbear strangeness.

You know, it's your partner might be a bit strange. You have to forbear that. See, I have a lot of forbearing to do when when I look at that. Because there's going to be conflict based on sin. We need to forgive sin and for bear strangeness, and sometimes you won't even agree on which is which.

Is she just strange? Or have I got to forgive her? Second thing, because hard, rugged work of forgiving and forbearing is what makes it for infections to flourish when they seem to have died. In other words, the way you have romance in your life is through forgiveness. You will not have romance.

You will not enjoy each other. If you're not forgiving, you can't. It's horrible. Thirdly, because god gets glory when 2 very different and very imperfect people forge a life of faithfulness in the furnace of affliction by relying on Christ. So there's a context to wives submit husband's love.

It's the gospel. It's forgiveness. It's what Christ has done for you. There's the context of how are we It's not just submit. It's in this whole thing of this good news of Christ.

That's my first point. Second point, the context of marriage. Context as we've just seen, but my second point is context again. The context of marriage God's designed for relationships. God's designed relationships.

It's God who designed them. And god has ordered things in a particular way. He has a blueprint, a way that relationship should work. And when we move out of that blueprint, things go wrong. When we move away from the plan, n of the creator that he has over relationships, things go wrong.

And that's 1 of the reasons why we dysfunction. Because we think that our idea of relationship is better than god. So what do I mean by that? Well, when you read And when women today read, colossians chapter 3 verse 18 where it says wives submit to your husband When we read that, we say no way. There's no way.

That's gonna happen. Yeah? Because we think we've got a better design. We think we know how relationships work better than God. So we say nowhere and we say things like this.

Paul hasn't met my husband. He was just writing in prison. He never met my husband. Always say, well, you're poor. You don't know my wife.

How can I love her? You just Paul, if you met her, I think you'd say husbands love your wives, but, you know, you all let off her for something she's a witch, you know. But it doesn't say that. Does it? So we think we know better about relationships.

We think that there shouldn't be roles in relationship. We think there shouldn't be someone who's the head and someone who submits. We we don't like that sort of stuff today. But God says, no, I've established an order of authority and submission. And when you think about it, that's every relationship.

Isn't it? I will drive home tonight and I will submit to the red light, even if there's no 1 around, even if there's no CCTV camera on the thing, on the traffic light, or no poppers around or no traffic around, I stop a red light. I have to submit to it. It's the best thing to do, isn't it? Unless, of course, I was a copper and I had a 9 9 9 call to go to, then I don't have to submit to the red light.

I can go across it. You see that? There's always authority and submission. I get on a train. I I get on the train.

I have to submit Don't tie every relationship. Even the relationship of getting on the train to the train company I have to submit. You know, those seats are made to sit on, not to get a knife and rip up. You know, the little thing that you pull ups to train isn't for my convenience because it's near a home than the platform if I pull it now. I submit to its rules.

There's always a authority and submission. And when when you break that life def is is dysfunctional. When I say no, I like my knife going into the seat on the train, and ripping it up. There is dysfunction going on. When I say no, I like pulling that.

There's dysfunction when I don't submit, when I should submit, when I go over the traffic lights, when I shouldn't go over the traffic lights, there's accidents. That's what happens. So when husbands refused to lovingly lead their wives there will be dysfunction. Their wives can become frustrated or lose respect. And when wives refused to follow the maker's instructions and submit to the leadership of their husband, bears disintegrate.

Frustration. There's frustration. Just go, let's do a little bit of work here. Go back to Genesis chapter 2 verses 15. Now I'm not going to read all these verses.

You could read them at home later, but Genesis chapter 2 15 to 25. I just want to point some verses out and I read them as we go along. Now remember we're thinking about context of marriage in god's design for relationship. So it's worth going right back to the beginning of creation. And here in Genesis chapter 2.

What page numbers that are? 4. Page 4. When you go back to the beginning, first book of the bible, book of beginnings, Gen this, you see the focus is on the creation of humans. So the creation of male and the creation of female.

So here, I think we're gonna see the very essence of the makeup of maleness and the very essence of the makeup of femaleness. Masculinity, femininity will be defined here in the creation. This is how God made us. So verse 15 of Genesis 2, the Lord God took the man, that's Adam, and put him in the Garden of Eden, to work it and take care of it. Now this is before Eve is on the scene.

Okay? So Eve isn't around. So this distinctly for the man because he isn't around yet. It's only man, male. So this is describing the makeup of masculinity male less.

So verse 15, the lord God took the man, put him in the garden to work it, take care of it, and the Lord God commanded the man, gave the man a word. You are free to eat from any tree in the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. So the distinctive mark of maleness, no female around at the moment, the distinctive mark of mailness at the creation of the first man, Adam, is that he is to move out into God's world. Under God's word, the command, to work God's world, to go into God's world, under God's word, to do God's work, to rule over creation to rule over. He's the lord of all creation under god.

So that's the distinctiveness of male. It's got it? We go into god's world to do god's work under his word. Now look at the essence of femaleness, femininity verse 18. The Lord God said, It is not good for man to be alone.

I will make a helper suitable for him Now in a very large book, which is a very good book called recovering biblical manhood and womanhood. The writers, as a number of writers say this. And let me read this. Amid all of the stunning perfection in the garden of Eden, God said there is something wrong here. The man ought not to be alone.

God put his finger on it, Sorry, God put his finger on the 1 deficiency in paradise. The man needed a helper suitable for him. Surprisingly, however, the writer say, God did not immediately create this helper Instead, god paraded the animals before man for him to name them. Why? Because the man did not yet see the problem of his aloneness.

This is how stupid man is. He didn't see his problem of aloneness. And so, god, translated the man's objective aloneness into a feeling of personal aloneness by setting him to the task. Now this is the line I wanted to get to in that quote. In serving god, man Adam, encountered his own need.

He's to go into god's world to do god's work under god's word, and as he goes in, he realizes death spiritually, he is in need of help. So do you see what's going on here? As he distinctively does that witch a male was called to do. He realizes he's alone and he can't do it alone. He needs a helper.

So what does God do? God says, Adam's son, you know, you lie down there. Close your eyes. Go to sleep. And he goes into a great sleep you know, he's it's not it's not a local anesthetic that's gonna go on here.

It's a general 1. So he's a typical man. I don't know if you're gonna take a rib out. I don't want local I wanna go ride out. So he's ride out.

And then the creator goes to work, opens up his side, removes a rib, close the womb, builds a woman. And there she stands perfectly gorgeous uniquely suited to meet his needs, and the Lord says daughter, you just stand over there for a little while. Then he touches the man, wakes the man up, and he says, I'd like you to see 1 more being. You've seen all of the animal there's 1 more I I would like you to have a look at, see what you think. And man opens his eyes, sees this gorgeous thing.

Members just completely naked, and he bursts into song. He bursts into poetry, and it's the first recorded words of man. The first recorded words of man of verse 23 of Genesis 2. This is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh, she shall be called woman for she was taken out of man. This creature alone god meets my need for a companion she alone is my e core.

She's my very flesh. I identify with her. I love her. I'll call her woman for she comes out of me. And of course, when man and woman are reunited in marriage, the 2 become 1 flesh again, we're told.

So they're equal, but they have different roles. That's what we're being taught in this Genesis passage. Just like god the father is equal to god the sun and god the sun is equal to god the father and god the spirit is equal to god the father and god a sun, this great triune god. There is an equality there. They're they're the same god.

They're equal. But there's different roles. The man is the leader to go into God's world to do God work under god's word and the woman is to help him do that and he needs her to help him do that. It quality, but different roles. He needs that helper.

Now, you may notice when you look around this world that something's wrong. Something's wrong. And that comes to the next chapter of Genesis just turn over to Genesis chapter 3. Now again, we could speak for hours on this stuff and I'm skimming it, but I wanna give you this whole overview because something's wrong, and we're told in Genesis 3 what went wrong. And we've got the picture of what we call the Fall of Mankind.

And if you skim down that chapter, you'll see that the a devil comes in the form of a serpent, a creature. The devil comes as a creature. He is a creature. And he comes in the form of a servant. And who does he come to?

Not Adam. You see what's going on here? He comes to Eve. He undermines the authority, the 1 that is to lead, the 1 that has God's word, the 1 that is to teach God's word, don't take of that tree. So the devil as a serpent, a creature, very clearly a creature, temps Eve comes to Eve, and she breaks the word of God by listening to the word of the creature, and so you've got everything upside down.

That's what it's showing us. E. Leads her husband to break God's word by the word of a creature. It's the very opposite. Man male was to go into god's world with god's words to do god's work to rule over the creatures and now you've got a complete turning on the head.

Now because of that sin, because of the fall, god judges them with a curse that is in line with what each of them has done. Now this is all really important when we come to husband and wives. That's why I'm giving you this background. Because they've turned earned everything on its head and sinned and broken God's word. God judges them.

But their judgment fits the crime. Look at verse 17 of Genesis 3. To Adam, he said, because you listen to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you not to eat. Because you let your wife lead because you let your wife lead when she should have been your helper. You broke my word and because of that.

Because because you've broken your male and this identity. Because of that, here's the curse on you. Look at it. Cursed is the ground because of you. Through painful toil, you will eat of it, or the days of your life, it will produce thorns and thissles.

Look at verse 19, by the sweat of your brow, you will eat your food. It's now going to be a problem and a frustration for you to be a male. You see that? Your very role is now gonna be a cut because there's weeds and thorns. It's going to be really hard to be a man.

You're in a world where it's tough to be a man. That's what he's saying here. Because you because you let the helper lead and you didn't lead the helper, now it's gonna be tough. Yeah? You broke my word.

In fact, It will be the death of you. Dust to dust ashes to ashes. To dust you will return. So that's the first thing. I want you to get this.

That whole background is here for a reason because now it's gonna be really hard and frustrating for you to be male. In fact, you wouldn't be able do it on your own. Okay. Look at verse 16. Let's go to the woman.

What's the curse on the woman? Well, verse 16 to woman, God said, I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing with pain you will give birth to children, your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you. Now, what's this is the punishment is fitting the crime. That's what I'm trying to show you. And what's what's What's it to be a feminine?

What's it to be the woman? Well, it's all about relationship women were meant to be helpless to the man real national. He's alone, remember. He can't function without taking away the aloneness. We're in the realm of relation ship here.

Yeah? And so the curse on the woman has gotta do with relationship. It's not just now how having babies where they'll be pain. Of course, they'll be pain, but that whole baby is the relation realm. The very fact that you'll have you'll be the 1 that will go through pain in having that child that comes into relationship.

You'll be the 1 that will worry at night when she or he isn't back at night at the right time, you'll be the 1 that will will take up all the relational problems and worry about all things going on. It's not just childbearing. It's all about relationship. And also, look what it says your desire will be for your husband. Now if you follow that word through desire into the next chapter, you see that that sin desired to take over Kain in Genesis chapter 4 verse 7.

It's it's It's a ruling word. It's a ruling word. That's what it means. So your your desire to rule your husband. In other words, the very thing that that you you were created to be a helper, now there's frustrationous and tension and and there'll be arguments and you'll wanna rule.

Do you see what's going on? The punishment fits the crime. And so the husband will either say, I'll let let a woman ever, hey, just sit back and, you know, take the easy route. And what because there's tensions now. It's hard for him to be a male.

It's hard for her to be a female and there's tensioned, or he'd be a domineering man that will put put the woman's little woman down in an an ungodly way. So do you get it? Now all of this is really important. I know it's hard work here this evening. You've got the context of submission and love, which is the gospel.

You've now got the context which is relationships that god designed authority submission. He's designed those roles but it's all gone wrong, so we're now back to what does God do about it. Well, God so loved us, he had this plan. He sent his perfect son to bring us back into relation with him vertically so that horizontally we can have relationship. With each other.

So that now go back to colossians chapter 3. Turn back to that. So now in colossians to 3 because of Jesus. We've done the work here already. Let the peace of Christ rule in your heart verse 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish 1 another, verse 17, and whatever you do, whether in were, or deed, do it all in the name of the lord Jesus Christ.

God breaks into our lives in the person of Jesus Christ. And changes begins to change the effect of the curse in us so that now by his race, by who he is, I can start to be the man I was intended to be, and now by his presence, by his grace by who Jesus is in my life that I'm in Christ, I can start to be the woman that God created me to be, if you're a woman. Sure. That's my second point. Back to context, it's the gospel.

You got all that? Anybody, are you alive or you're just completely numb? Big stuff, really important stuff. If we're gonna understand what those 2 verses mean, submit and love, we've got to do that stuff. Okay?

Very important. Okay. Third point, husbands. But in order to break it up a little bit, I thought we would show a husband Now this was something that we videoed for a conference we were doing called ihuman. And And I thought I would show it's just a short little clip and Susan will go mad when she sees this.

She'll just fall in love yet again with this very wonderful man. So can we turn it off? We're gonna see Matt Dreyer chatting away. Matt, you can close your eyes. We just turn the lights off and then get this going.

Hi. I'm Matt. I'm a web developer, and as you can tell, I'm a man. I'm made in the image of God, the bible tells me. I'm made to work, made to rule his world under his word.

And as a man made to lead, lead and love, god's people to encourage them to to know god better. However, because of sin, I become lazy. I don't take responsibility for my god given rules and sometimes I slouch around. Not wanting to lead my wife or God's people. A lot of times I can just be overly harsh.

Either way, I abandoned the word of God and I tried to be a self made man, proud, and wanting to rule without god in in place of god. But in the bible, we can read about the Lord Jesus Christ who shows us what it is like to be a real man. In fact, he is the ultimate example of the perfect man, living in perfect obedience to his father. Preferly dependent upon him, and he is the perfect example of a servant. He came not to be served, but to serve us.

In his death and resurrection. And it's his spirit which restores me to be the man I was made to be. Okay. Matt summarized what took me off and how to do So that was great. So let's have a think about husbands.

Okay? We'll have a break in a minute. We've done the lion's share of the stuff, so husbands. Okay. Well, the husband is to be the head of the home.

So in Ephesians 5 verse 22, we read wives submit to your husbands as to the lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church. Hedge headship. Again, it's something that people get all worked up about. Now it says, is the head of the church not the dictator?

A dictator is a very different thing. So in colossians, it says don't be harsh. So husbands love your wives, don't be harsh, and so headship and harshness are not to go together, not in the bible. When husbands are harsh and they act as a dig dictator, then the wife will feel oppressed like a slave, of course. But that's not what it's been to be, when husbands are loving, loving in their leadership, then submission is quite easy because it's really not oppression, it's freedom.

And the pattern for the role of headship in the marriage is not a caveman. It's not, you know, someone who brashes his wife on the head and demands that she does whatever he says. That's not what it is. That's not the pattern. Actually, actually in in in John Piper's book, The Momentary Marriage.

He he gives an ounce I mean, an an illustration I couldn't hardly believe when I read it. Someone in his church believed that his wife shouldn't even move from 1 room to the other in without asking his permission. And this bloke came into John Piper complaining about his wife, I don't know what paper did. I'd love to know. But, you know, I think I would say to him, you sit there and don't move until I give you permission.

But I mean, it's ridiculous. That's it's not a caveman. Who's who's our example of headship? Jesus. And where do you see his headship?

Well, when you read the gospels, you see that he is the leader of the disciples. And he is loving to his disciple. He speaks strongly to them when they need it, but it's always with love and intent for their goodness. I mean, when you when you read for instance Jesus in the Garden of gethsemane with his disciples, he he goes off to pray and they fall asleep and he wakes them up and he's patient with them and he understands their weakness. He ministers through them while he is going through massive trial.

He still cares for them. He keeps coming back to them, talking to them. He's not harsh. He's strong. He's a leader.

They know where they're going. He tells them where to go sometimes. He's clearly the leader, but he is loving. They love to be led by him. They want to be around him.

They want him as their king and ruler. And leader. So husbands, we are to lead. We are to lead our wives like iced leaves. His disciples, his wife, the church.

John Piper, I think, summarizes headship in the best way I've ever heard. That's why I'm quoting a lot from him. He oh, see, we tend to think of negatives. Here's the leader. Here's the head.

And he's telling all the time, go do that, you can't do that, you mustn't do this. And and it's just ridiculous that we think like that. And he says that actually the summary of headship is really that that the leader says that the head of the family says, let's let's more often than anybody else. Let's See, that's leadership. That's that's functioning as a head in the home.

Let's let's go to church. Let's support that mission. Let's give up some stuff so that we can be more generous to Christian work. Let's pray. Let's open our home up so people can be fed and we can encourage them in the Christian faith Let's not worry about that.

Let's not worry about that. Let's put the promises of God into action into our family. Let's love God. Let's teach our children about Jesus. Let's I love that.

That's headship. It's positive. It's not all negative. It's positive. And headship has this loving, responsibility.

We are to love the the our wives as Christ loves the church. Well, how did Christ love the church? Well, he gave his time to the church. The church was his number 1 priority church meets the group of God's people that he he's died for. So the church is his number 1 priority under the father.

He gives his time to the church. He gave truths to the church. He taught them so that they'd be free because he knows that truth brings freedom. He taught the church. That's how Christ loves the church.

That's responsible hedge ship. He gives his presence to the church. I mean, he didn't send a memo to the church. No. Just that.

He doesn't send a text You know? He actually comes. He doesn't say in his secretary. He comes. His pray presence is there.

He gives his love to the church. He forgave them. He looked after them. He gives his prayers for the church. He speaks to the father about them.

This is headship. He gave his forgiveness. He restores the failure, the sinner. He gives his leadership direction. Don't do that.

There's not way to go. No. Let's not go down that way. Let's go this way. He gives his inheritance.

He shares all of his wealth with the church. That's what leadership is. That's what headship is. He gives his life. He gives his spirit.

He gives his word. Christ loves his bride. He willingly gives up his strength and all his resources and all his masculinity to do her the church his bride, the highest good. He takes the initiative. He takes the responsibility for them.

He identifies with them. He queues up with them. He is identifying with the sinners because he loves them. You see that? That's that's headship.

That's leadership. He enjoys them. For the joy set before him, he endured the cross so he could present people to the father. He enjoys them. He wants to make them without blemish and without spot he wants to wash them with his word.

That's what a husband does. That's what headship is. You see that? It's lips. It's lip making my life for you.

Is that sacrifice myself so that you'll be washed by the water of the word, so that I can present you to the father without staying or wrinkles it says, in Ephesians chapter 5. See, headship may mean power, but is power to repair, power to give their life for the other person, power to care, not to crush, power to serve. My wife's faults probably cannot be separated from me as a husband. I am the head. I am the 1 who is called by God to set the tone of godliness in the marriage.

Do you see that? I am called by God to go into God world, in this case, my marriage, with god's word, to rule. To put to death the ugly things in the marriage, and to set the tone and create the culture and have a gospel atmosphere And so every flaw that goes on to some degree, not totally, to some degree is my responsibility because my wife spiritual health is to some degree in my hands. We're like siamese twins. When you get married, you could done 1 flesh.

So what I am my wife is? You become like Siamese twins, where I go, she goes, that sort of thing. So no men lead. Take the initiative. Take the initiative in Godliness.

That's what myeliness is. You can't do it without God. You can't do it without the gospel in your heart. But when Christ lives in your heart, you begin to be the man that you am meant to be and there's freedom in that. Look at the John Piper quote again.

The tenth quote and the eleventh quote, I'm not sure which ones they are, but it begins with headship is, if you got that, quote number 10, I should have put numbers down. Headship is the divine calling of a husband to take primary responsibility for Christlikeness, servant leadership, protection, and provision in the home. Submission is the divine calling of a wife to honor and affirm her husband's leadership and help help carry it through according to her gifts. And then in that second quote, it's a bit long to read, and I'm not gonna read it out. He talks about protection and provision.

So he says that leadership is about protection and provision, but it's not just physical protection and provision that we should be giving. It's spiritual. As we want our wife to eat properly, as we want to provide for her and detect her as I would. I hope protect Anne from someone who was wanting to do her in. If I saw someone coming at Anne, I hope I would give my life to protect her.

As I would do that physically, I need to protect her. Spiritually. So I'm to go into my marriage under god's word to do god's work, to protect. So, headship. It means I must love like Christ love the church.

And of course, I'm not gonna deal with it. I know. I've dealt with it in other places of course, in order for her to know that she I love her, sometimes there's a language barrier, isn't there people talk about, you know, men or from Mars and women from Venus and there is a truth in that. There is sort of language learning So I have to learn how she hears me when I'm lovingly leading her. Now we're gonna have to think of think about wives.

But we're gonna have another look at a video, this very beautiful woman coming up. So we're gonna turn that light off and let's have a listen to Anne. Hi. My name is Anne, and I'm obviously a woman, at least I hope it's obvious to you. I'm a mother of 2 children, the wife of a guy called Pete Woodcock, and I work part time as an editor at the Good Book Company.

So in Genesis chapter 1, we see man and woman created together and they made equally in the image of God under his words, going out to do his work in his world which is going to be subduing the world around them, looking after it. That means taking care of it, encouraging it to grow and multiplying, having children. But then when we come to chapter 2, It's like a rewind. He goes back over the story of creation, but close-up in more detail. And here we see that the man is made differently to the woman the man was made first.

He was given the direct commands from God, and the woman was made later because it was not good for the man to be alone and she was made to be his helper. So the reason that there is confusion today about what a woman is, that's because God's enemy sows lies in this world. Now I read somewhere quite helpfully, I think. That God creates things good and the devil, he cannot create anything. He simply takes those good things and distorts them.

And he distorts them into usually 2 opposite errors. And that's what we see has happened with this whole question of what a woman is. So we've already seen that God made women to be equal to men but different. But if you look at the world today, you will see 1 error is that women are considered different to such an extent that they're not the same as as men. They're second class citizens.

They don't have the same rights. So there are many countries where women cannot get an education. Women are not allowed to go out freely. Women do all the manual labor. Women don't sometimes have access to hospitals, all sorts of really oppressive and terrible things that are put on women simply because they are considered as lesser beings.

Now you might think that we're free from that in our society, but actually there is in our society a tendency to view women not as fully human sometimes, but just as a sex object, an accessory that your your girlfriend is an accessory who looks good. There's a focus just on women's looks and and and no interest in the fact that a woman might have emotions or that she might have a brain and intellect that she might have needs and rights just as men do. So we see that in our society as well. That's 1 of the eras. The second era is that that women are equal because they're the same as men, that there's no difference.

And I think that's something that we find particularly in our society today, women are expected for instance to enter the world of work on the same terms as men. No account is really taken of the fact that women need time off to have children. And that places a great stress and strain on many women who are trying to have a career, have a family, and it's well known that that puts pressures on women that that men are not subject to. So we can see that these things are not good because of the amount of stress and distress that they cause people. In our society, it's quite difficult to think that a woman can be different from a man and yet still equal.

But that's where this bible is really brilliant. It shows us through the relationship between Jesus and his father God that it is possible to be equal and different. So we know as Christians that 1 of the fundamental teachings of the bible is that Jesus was in very nature God. He was totally equal with God, but they do different things, God the father and God the son. So God the father is the 1 who planned the whole way of sinners being rescued.

Jesus is the 1 who came to this world. He was the 1 who served people and ultimately by suffering and dying on a cross. And this is used in the new testament as as the model of the relationship between men and women And actually, when men and women are like this, when they are living in a way where they treat each other equally and yet they acknowledge and they celebrate their differences. They are also showing something about what God is like. Now, as I've said, it's it's very difficult to live like this and certainly to say that this is what you believe in our society.

But really, the bible is just calling us to be like Jesus. That's the wonderful thing. So as a woman being equal, but knowing that you are different, you you are you are similar in many ways to to Jesus who is equal with God, but who also came to to serve and to help bring about God's plan of salvation. And that should really thrill us and that's what we should encourage each other to be like. Anne's really good at that thing where she can talk, but her lips go at a different speed.

I think she does that just to confuse me. So when she's lecturing me at night, I'm looking at her and I just I just give up and go to sleep. It's a very clever way of manipulating a man, I think. Okay.wives, it says, submit to your husband as fitting in the lord. She said, I want to cup a coffee.

He said, what's the magic word? She said now. It shouldn't be like that. It shouldn't be like that in in in marriage. For all of the that we've already laid.

Submission, wives, submit. Now, submission doesn't mean that the woman is less intelligent or less able or less gifted or less competent or less spiritual it doesn't mean that. And it doesn't actually mean that the woman should obey the husband in in everything in an unattached and unemotional way. You're just sort of like a robot, a step food wife, you know, you just obey. It doesn't mean that you a bay like that.

And it doesn't mean that you can't disagree. Submission doesn't mean that. It doesn't mean to say you can't try and influence your husband. It doesn't mean that you're not able to have an independent thought. It doesn't mean that.

It doesn't mean that you you actually do everything. He tells you, there are some things that actually you mustn't do. Submission I think is quite hard to sort of nail down. But I think, again, on Piper is right when he says that it's it's it's much more of a disposition. This is what he writes.

I think this is quite good. It's talking about submission. It's not on your quote, unfortunately. It's it's the disposition to follow a husband's authority and an inclination to yield to his leadership. Now remember what his leadership is, is to go into God's world, to god's work under god's word.

It is an attitude that says, I delight for you to take the initiative in our family. I am glad when you take responsibility for things and lead with love. I don't flourish in a relationship when you are passive and I have to make sure the family works. I think that's just terrific. Understanding of what submission is.

Let me pray, father. There are some terrific truths that we've we've seen. We've seen that you've created relationships because you're the God of relationships. We've seen that you've created order in relationship of authority and submission, of leadership, of love, of of helping, and we pray please for our marriages in this church. We pray that our marriages would be at a active signpost to how wonderful you are.

We pray that just the fact that we forgive and we stay that covenant relationship would actually say to a world that doesn't forgive and wants to get out at the first opportunity. That you are the god who doesn't get out. You're the god who's committed. We pray please that our marriages would actually say to those people with that 7 year old kid's mind that marriage is actually a good thing that Cinderella and the prince lived happily ever after because they got married. We pray for us men.

We're in a world where it's hard to be male. In fact, this whole subject would be laughed at by most people in this whole of this area. Many people in this area, many the students that have come would think we're crazy to talk like this. And so it's tough, but we want to believe your word and trust that you know best. And so this is a trust issue and so help the wives to submit and help the husbands to love help up the husbands to lead in that passionate way that we'd be saying, let us Let's go for God.

Let's go for God as a family. Let's put God first in our family. We'd pray that you'd help us to be like this. But give us so often we said, well, let's put education for our children above everything else. But give us that we've let's put pleasure and just slumming around as the great thing in our lives.

Forgive us for for not having that let us. So please cause us to have great marriages, beautiful marriages, marriages that are full of forgiveness and love, and that therefore where there will be. Passion and enjoyment. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.