This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

I want to welcome you to day four of our look together through Ephesians chapter
five in daily drive time devotions. You might remember yesterday we began to
look at the evidences of being filled with God's Spirit, and we looked at a
couple of them, speaking in Psalms and Scriptures, what's communicating in our
hearts, and thanking God in our hearts. There's a third way in the language of
the Greek that's used in this chapter that comes out very clearly.

We're filled with the Spirit, and the evidence is in our speaking, in our
thanking, and it's also in verse 21, it's in our submitting. As we take a look
at verse 21, we're really talking about what God says is the one thing that
makes our relationships work. Ephesians 5, 21 says this, "Submit to one another
out of reverence for Christ.

" Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Just that one verse we're
going to focus on today, because if you understand this verse, everything after
it makes so much more sense. After this verse, Paul's going to talk about some
different relationships, the husband and wife, parent and children, slave and
free, he's going to talk about relationships.

But to understand the practical things he says in the following verses, you have
to understand this verse. Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
This is for every one of us.

Every one of us is to submit to others out of our reverence for Christ. That's
what makes relationships work. What does God ask of us?

He asks for submission. Now, that's a confusing word to many of us, because we
think of it as some kind of slavery or something that there's no choice in us.
But that's not the meaning of this word.

The meaning is radical unselfishness. When you hear the word submission, think
radical unselfishness. And what is the motivation for this kind of
unselfishness?

The motivation is reverence for Christ. Submit to one another out of your
reverence for Christ, because I love Christ, because I honor Him. That's why I
have this unselfishness towards others.

And who is the object of this? One another. Every other person in your life,
especially every other believer.

Now, Paul talks about this submission, and he talks about it as a mutual thing.
I just said, Paul gives these three examples. We're going to look at one of them
this week and two of them next week in our study of Ephesians.

This week, we're going to talk about husband and wife relationships. We'll talk
about that tomorrow. Next week, we'll talk about parents and children and slave
and owner.

But I want you to realize from the beginning that in all three of these
relationships that he uses as examples, the truth is the same. We are mutually
submissive to one another in our relationships as believers. A wife is to be
submissive to her husband in the way that she responds to him.

But a husband is to be submissive to his wife in the way that he sacrifices for
her. A child is to be submissive to a parent in the way that that child obeys
the parent. But a parent is to be submissive to the child in the way that that
parent raises the child.

A slave is to be submissive to an owner. And an owner is to be submissive even
to the slave in the way that the relationship works. You see, Ephesians 5 is
talking about unselfishness, and it doesn't say that it's the part of just one
person in a relationship.

It's to be all of our jobs. As we continue to walk through Ephesians 5, it gives
some specific direction to unselfishness in our marriages. And we're going to
look at that tomorrow, but I want to set that up a bit today.

How in the world can a marriage survive the pressures that are put on it today?
Not only survive, but begin to thrive with growth. A survey was done a while ago
in Christianity Today that found out of the 28% of people who took this survey
who said they had definitely considered divorce.

Nine of ten said and not gotten divorced. Nine of ten of those people said it
was their belief in the Christian teaching, the Bible's teaching about marriage,
that helped them to stay together. Only one in ten said it was other people's
advice or encouragement.

So that says to me that truly understanding what God says here has the power to
save a relationship and to restore a relationship. Understanding the specific
actions of unselfishness that I can take towards my husband or towards my wife.
That is the PowerPoint in a marriage relationship.

That is the simplest definition of what love in a marriage is all about. And so
even before we begin to talk about, okay, here's specifically what a wife is to
do and specifically what is a husband to do, I want to tell you where we're
headed. These verses tell us that here's the gifts you can give.

Wives, these verses challenge, give your husband the gift of unselfish respect.
And husbands, give to your wives the gift of unselfish sacrifice. Wives, give
that gift of unselfish respect.

Now respect is not fawning adoration of his total perfection. Respect is genuine
gratefulness for the good qualities and the growth points in his life that God
has given this person into your life. That God is working in that person's life,
in your husband's life.

That's respect. And respect for what God is doing spiritually in his life and
the leadership that grows out of what God is doing spiritually. Give that gift.

And husbands, give to your wives the gift of unselfish sacrifice. Now sacrifice
means giving up a part of yourself in order to meet another person's need.
Husbands, your wife has a tremendous need for your unselfish sacrifice.

It shouts, "I love you. " Wives, your husband has a tremendous need for your
unselfish respect. It shouts, "I love you.

" If you don't meet these needs, then all the other needs that are met are going
to pale compared to these two, biblically. That's what God says. There's a lot
of studies on needs in our marriage that reflect our culture.

And they're valuable. Oh, you need this kind of time and you need to do these
kinds of things and go on these kinds of vacations. Those are valuable.

But don't miss these main needs, the need for respect, the need for sacrifice.
And if you're single and you're listening to this and you're thinking, "This has
nothing to do with me," it has everything to do with you. First, you may be
married someday.

Second, you're encouraging the marriages of people in your life. And third, your
understanding of what God says about marriage is going to help every other
relationship in your life. Now when we talk about these ideas of submitting to
one another in a marriage, submission and sacrifice, respect and sacrifice, let
me just say from the beginning, before we get into this tomorrow, that there are
three strikes against this marriage-changing truth.

The simple truth is hard to hear for a lot of people. Why is that? Well, strike
number one, the way that this scripture has so often been misapplied, with the
idea of submission being just something that, for instance, a wife does.

Husband can do whatever he wants, but a woman is supposed to submit. So you get
this sort of a submit woman kind of an idea. Now, of course, the Bible says that
as a husband, I'm supposed to sacrifice, even as Jesus sacrificed, He gave His
life.

So you could legitimately say to somebody who says, "Submit woman," you could
say, "Die for me, man. " You could legitimately say that if that's the direction
we're going to go, but that's not about selfishness. And sometimes people have
tried to apply just one half of these truths selfishly.

We're not going to do that. A second strike against this marriage-changing truth
is the culture that we live in, in a backlash against years of this submit woman
kind of attitude, we oftentimes swing too far to the other side. In fact, we now
see things maybe swinging back to the middle a little bit, but the truth is God
has caused us in marriage to be able to be mutually submissive to one another.

And that bothers some people in our culture, because any idea of submission to
any other person is abhorrent, especially to the person that's closest to you.
To be unselfish in my home means I have to be unselfish all the time. There's a
third strike against this marriage-changing truth, and it's the deepest one of
all.

The fact that I'm a selfish person, I don't want to submit to you, you don't
want to submit to me because I'm selfish. Warren Mearsby has said, "The root of
all marital problems is sin, and the root of all sin is selfishness. " That's
just the truth.

And until I've dealt with my own selfishness, I'm not going to be able to be
humble before anybody else to submit or to sacrifice to anyone else. I can make
one of two choices. I can try to build a successful marriage or relationship on
my own selfish nature and watch it fail time after time, or get limited results,
which is all I can get out of my selfish nature, or I can depend on what God has
done to change my nature.

The unselfishness that He's put into my heart by His Spirit, remember this whole
thing of being submissive to one another, is an outgrowth of being
Spirit-filled. To try to do this on your own power, that's a recipe for failure.
You do it based on His power.

Tomorrow as we begin to talk about marriage, there's a big question that all of
us have when it comes to marriage, and that is, let's just be honest, how do I
get my needs met in a marriage? That may sound selfish, but that is a question
that we start with. And let me just ask you, when you decided to get married,
when you met somebody and began to date them, and we're looking for the right
person, were you looking for somebody that you could meet their need, or were
you looking for somebody who could meet your needs?

Well, we usually begin with somebody who can meet my needs. It begins with some
selfishness, and I think God understands that. At the very beginning, did God
bring Eve to Adam because Adam had needs, or because Eve had needs?

Well, Eve didn't have any needs, she wasn't even created, but because Adam had
some needs, God created Eve and said, "Here, here is a woman, I expect you to
relate to each other, but you relate to each other in submission. " You see,
marriage began with Adam feeling his own need, and your marriage began with you
feeling your own needs, but how am I going to get my needs met in this marriage?
Here's the big answer.

If I'm going to get my needs met, I have to give myself to meeting her needs. I
have to give myself to meeting his needs. You see, there's the tricky part,
there's the paradox.

It's sort of like salvation, and salvation, I've got to give myself up totally
to Christ to find freedom in Christ. I decide to serve him, and then I become
truly free, and in marriage, do not miss this. I have to give myself to meeting
my spouse's needs if my needs are to be met.

That's the path, that's the plan of God for getting those needs met that drew
you into the marriage. When I talk about meeting each other's needs, this is a
lot more than just reciprocal service. Oh, you do something good for me, I do
something good for you.

It's much deeper than that. It's all about serving Christ. Your needs will
always be better met by following Christ's plan and direction for your life.

By the way, that's true, regardless of whatever other people do, however your
husband or wife responds to you making this decision for unselfishness,
regardless of what they do, when you do the right thing, your needs are going to
be better met, and your family's needs are going to be better met, and your
needs into eternity are going to be better met. You see, if you want to save a
marriage, or any other relationship, any relationship that's struggling, the
only way to do it is by following the direction of Christ, to truly save it.
Even one person making that decision gives that relationship a chance to
survive.

If you want to improve a marriage, one that's already growing, or improve any
other relationship that's growing, the way to do that is by following the
direction of Christ. And it begins, Jesus says, with unselfishness, with
humility. So before we look at some of the details about this tomorrow, let's
pray for God's Spirit to give us the strength to be humble today.

Lord, when we think about humility, when I think about humility, it's much
easier, I have to admit, to be humble with the people that I come across
throughout the day. I'm with them for five minutes, and then I can leave them
and get back to my own selfishness. But to be humble at home, to be unselfish at
home, God, that means it's a lifestyle, that means it's my whole life.

And that lets me know I cannot depend on myself to live this kind of way. It's
not just for a few minutes, it becomes who I am. And Jesus, I need who you are
in order for this to happen in my life.

So I pray that your Spirit would give me the strength to increasingly grow to be
unselfish. Lord, I want it. I don't want to live a selfish life, self-centered
life, I don't want to get to the end of my life and think it's been all about
me.

It is all about you, and because of who you are, you can do this in me so that I
can live unselfishly. God, help me to learn how to do that more and more each
day. I pray this in Jesus' name, amen.