Mutual Submission in Christ • Ephesians Chapter 5

Mutual Submission in ChristNovember 7 2021 • Ephesians • Week 5Teacher: Dave Brown---Ephesians 5:21-23 NIVSubmit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, 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. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body. "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. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.Ephesians 5:21 NIV Ephesians 5:22, 25 NLT"Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. For wives, this means submit to your husbands as to the Lord... For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church."1. Husbands2. Wives3. The ChurchOur wives are the daughters of the most high King.To love our wives like Christ loved the church means to sacrifice ourselves in such a way that enables them to be everything that God created them to be.1 Peter 2:21-3:2 NIVTo this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. "He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth." When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. "He himself bore our sins" in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; "by his wounds you have been healed." For "you were like sheep going astray," but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls. 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.Wives, in the same way submit...A better example of marital submission is our submission to Christ's headship.In the context of marriage, submission is not about dominance. It's about love and respect.1. Headship2. Submission3. FreedomEphesians 1:22 NIV"And God placed all things under [Jesus'] feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way."When I submit to Christ as the head of the body, I can live into the absolute fullness of who God has created me to be.When a husband loves his wife like Christ loved the church, he enables her to live into the absolute fullness of who God has created her to be.