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I want to welcome you to day five of our look through Ephesians chapter five and
daily drive time devotions, verses 22 to 33 today. You might remember yesterday
we began a talk about unselfishness in relationships and what makes all
relationships work is unselfishness, motivated by God's Spirit who is filling
us. As I am filled with God's Spirit, God's Spirit, God is unselfishness, so he
helps me to live in unselfishness.

God is not selfish, so by his Spirit I can choose to not be selfish. I can
settle for the little bit of not selfishness I can engender in my own heart, but
that's not enough. It's only God that can truly bring unselfishness into my life
and grow it in my life.

And in verses 22 to 33, God talks about how this practically works in a
marriage. Now again, as we talked about yesterday, if you're single, as you
listen to this, recognize this is a good opportunity to pray for the marriages
of people that you know, even as you listen through this. These are some truths
you can encourage people that you know with.

Here's what you can do. You're even wiser maybe than some people that are
already married. This gets you ready for that day that you might be married if
that's God's will in your life.

But there are also truths here that can help you in every relationship in your
life. The focus in these verses is on wives and on husbands. First wives, verses
22 to 24, Ephesians 5, let me read those verses.

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, 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. Now remember, as I've just read these verses, that we
all submit to each other.

That's what runs our relationships. In a minute we're going to get to husbands,
but he starts with wives and he gives a picture of submission. At the end of
these verses we're going to talk about respect.

Submission has to do with respect. That's what he talks about here. Submit to
your husband as to the Lord.

Now notice it doesn't say as Lord. That doesn't mean you follow his every order,
even if it's not from the Bible. What this means is as to the Lord, it means in
response to your love for the Lord.

What this means is when you make the choice to love, even in a tough
relationship, you're not only loving that person, you are loving Jesus. And
there's reward for that into all of eternity. I know that some of you I'm
talking to, you're in a tough relationship right now.

You've done a lot of loving and not gotten a lot of love back. Will you ever get
it back? Yes, you will.

Yes, you will. Because it's as to the Lord and Jesus is being loved through your
love for that other person. Truth is, I got to submit to the Lord first.

I got to submit my heart and my will and my desires to him first. It's only as I
accept and receive his love for me, his forgiveness for my sins, that I'm able
to submit to anyone else. As a wife, it's only through that that you're able to
submit to your husband.

It's his power that makes this possible. The word here is submit to your
husband. And the idea behind this, as we come to the end of these verses, is you
respond to his position of spiritual leadership.

There must be a leader and God says, "I want the husband to give spiritual
leadership in a home. " Does that mean a wife can never lead in anything?
Obviously not.

Obviously outside of a home you can lead in a lot of things, but even within a
home there's a lot of leadership that can happen. But the Bible says, "I want
the guy to be the spiritual leader. " Headship, leadership in that way doesn't
mean that you as a husband do whatever you want, even if it's wrong.

It means that you listen to Christ and you lead as Christ would lead. And the
Bible says, "Respect that spiritual leadership. " Now when we talk about
spiritual leadership here, don't take this like some people have.

It doesn't mean that a woman couldn't be a leader of a man in work or in
government. This is talking about in a family. And in a home God calls upon men
to be the spiritual leaders.

I don't know all the reasons why, but I do trust God. And I know that someone
has to lead. Why can't we just share leadership?

Well, it doesn't work. You've got to have a head. If you have no head you're
deformed.

If you have two heads you're a monster. You've got to have a leader. And the
Bible says here to guys, "I want you to spiritually lead in your home.

" We'll talk about what that means in a minute. And the Bible says to wives, "In
that leadership, respond with a sense of respect for what he's doing. " Respect
that leadership.

We're not talking about some kind of weird dictatorship here. We're talking
about respecting your husband's spiritual leadership. Now does he have any
responsibilities in this?

You better believe he does. The leader has the first responsibility. So the
Bible says, "Husbands, you need to develop the attitude of sacrifice.

" Let me read verses 25 to 30. "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved
the church and gave himself up for her, to make her holy, cleansing her by the
washing of water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant
church, without stain or wrinkle or any 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 his own body,
but he feeds it and cares for it, just as Christ does the church, for we are
members of his body. " The Bible says here, "How do I submit as a husband to my
wife?

" The word is sacrifice. The picture is the way that Christ loved the church.
And how did Christ love the church?

By giving himself for us on the cross. That's the ultimate expression of his
love, is sacrifice. Look at what Jesus's love did for the church.

It sanctified her and made her holy. It brought her to himself. It cleansed her
by the washing of water through the word.

It brought forgiveness. I want you to be very careful here. He's not saying here
that a husband's sacrifice sanctifies a wife or makes her holy somehow.

That's what Jesus did for the church. What he's saying here is that for a
husband, the sacrifice of Jesus should be a model for us. And we should realize
good things come out of that sacrifice.

And he also says that for a husband to not sacrifice for his wife, it hurts you
as a husband as much as it more than it hurts her. You see, Jesus died for the
church. He sacrificed for the church because that is what it took to meet her
greatest need.

And the Bible says here, "Husbands, sacrifice to meet your wife's greatest need.
" Spiritual leadership, listen to this, spiritual leadership is all about
sacrifice. Now, how do you sacrifice?

For one, you show up as a spiritual leader. You may feel uncomfortable with
that. You may feel uncomfortable with like long prayers or with like, "Okay,
let's have devotions and I'm going to read from the Bible for 20 minutes.

" Well, feeling uncomfortable is a part of the sacrifice. You have to break
through that. But you also have to realize that some of our pictures of
spiritual leadership are different.

Somebody else could read the Bible. Somebody else could pray the long prayer.
But when we talk about spiritual leadership, it's really the little daily things
that count, who you are more than anything.

Sometimes we think, "Well, one or two big sacrifices a year, that's going to
fulfill my quota. I used to think that with my wife, Shondell. Okay, big
sacrifice at the beginning of the month, that's going to last her all month
long.

" Well, the truth is, she nor any other human being is designed that way. We
need daily examples, not just one big example a year. It's the little sacrifices
that go a lot further.

So how do you be a spiritual leader? Praying at dinner is good. Leading your
family to go to church is extremely important, but more important than anything,
growing in Christ in your own life.

Exhibiting the food of the Spirit of patience and joy in your own family. Asking
for forgiveness when you mess up. Letting your family know, "I love Jesus
Christ.

I'm learning how to love Jesus Christ. " That is spiritual leadership. The Bible
says that we are to submit to one another.

Wives, submit to your husbands by respect. And husbands, submit to your wives by
sacrifice. In fact, listen to how Paul sums this up in verses 31 to 33.

"For this reason," quoting from the Old Testament, "a man will leave his father
and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. " And
then Paul says in verse 32, "This is a profound mystery, but I'm talking about
Christ and the Church. However, each one of you must also love his wife as he
loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

" This is the unifying power of unselfishness in our marriages. The decision to
sacrifice and the decision to respect. The one thing that makes marriages work
is the one thing that makes relationships work.

Unselfishness. Wives, give to your husband the gift of unselfish respect.
Husbands, give to your wives the gift of unselfish sacrifice.

If you're a wife, make a list of the things that you respect about your husband.
In fact, you might not be able to do that, but think through it and then tell
him, "Express it. " You'll never know what that respect is going to do.

You see, we get into these traps where we think, "Well, he's not worthy of my
respect because of what he's done," and then you show no respect and then you
wonder why he's acting like he is. Until you do what the Bible says, you don't
know that your lack of respect might be one of the things that's keeping him
from acting the way that you're praying and hoping that he will be. You don't
know that your lack of respect might be one of the things that's keeping him
from acting the way that you're praying and hoping that he would act.

I'm not saying he's going to instantly change just because you share respect or
that you're going to force him to change, but if you'll do what God says, you'll
find that many, many times God comes through, and that's an invitation for him
to sacrifice. If you're a husband, I encourage you, write down three small
sacrifices for your wife that you could make this week. You might think, "She
hasn't been respecting me lately.

How should I sacrifice for her? " You lead the way. You lead the way.

Spiritual leadership means you lead the way. If you're single, I encourage you
this week to pray for the husbands and wives that you know and pray for God's
leadership in your own life. As we end this look at marriage, I want you to
notice again verse 32 that we're talking about a lot more than just our
marriages.

This is a profound mystery. Paul says, "I'm talking about Christ and his church.
" You know what he's saying there?

He's saying that my marriage is more than just a place for my needs to be met.
My marriage can become a picture of the love of Christ. That amazes me.

Our imperfect marriages, where we argue all the time. I certainly do. Shondell
and I have arguments.

We've got to work things through. Our imperfect marriages, where we have
misunderstandings all the time. Even in that, as we work it through in unselfish
respect and unselfish sacrifice, it can be a picture of the love of Christ, of
the love of Christ for his body today, of the love of Christ for his body
throughout eternity, the bride of Christ.

No marriage is perfect. Mine certainly isn't. No marriage is perfect.

But it can be growing. It can be choosing to be unselfish. And you can choose to
be unselfish in some way, in some relationship today.

When you make this decision of unselfish respect, unselfish sacrifice, out of
your love for Jesus, it shows the love of Jesus in ways that are beyond your
thinking. So let me, as we end our look at these verses, let me pray for
marriages. Lord, I pray for husbands and I pray for wives.

Lord, we both need your strength to be unselfish. God, I pray for the wives that
are listening to this, that you would give them the strength to unselfishly
respect their husbands, to respect the spiritual leadership in his life. Even if
it's a tiny bit to respect that tiny bit, if it's a great amount to share and to
communicate that respect, knowing what it does for his heart.

Lord, I pray for husbands. I pray that we would lead the way through unselfish
sacrifice. Lord, it's so easy to get caught up in what I need, what I want, what
my needs are, getting my needs met.

Lord, we need your strength to set all that aside and to think about this gift
of this wife that you've given to us. Strengthen us to unselfishly sacrifice. We
pray this, Jesus.

We ask for this, Jesus, for our marriages, for our relationships, for
unselfishness through your spirit. We ask for it in Jesus' name. Amen.

Well, make sure to join us this next week. We're going to be looking at
Ephesians chapter six. It's all about parenting, it's about spiritual armor,
it's about revolutionary prayer.

Join us for Ephesians 6 next week.