Latest / Bayside Davis Podcast / Ephesians 5:25-33 | Removing the Idol of Me

Transcript

Ephesians 5:25-33 | Removing the Idol of Me · Bayside Davis Podcast

• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Baside Davis Podcast.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: You're listening to our current teaching series, Ephesians.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: We are still in the book of Ephesians.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: If uh if you're if you're new, if you're just showing up, or maybe you're just jumping in, uh, we've been walking through the book of Ephesians, one of my favorite books of the Bible.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and uh, we're taking like a little couple weeks to do a mini-series on what we're calling relationship goals.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: So here's the one I want to say.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we're talking about marriage today.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but if you are single, if you're dating, um, or if you're like, I'm never going to be in a relationship ever again, uh, there's a lot of great stuff that we can all pull out of this because we could all use better relationships, yes?
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: We could all use better friendships, we could all use better work relationships, and all of that is gonna be found distilled in the text that we cover today, but there is an emphasis on marriage, and there's a weight that's placed on marriage, and we're gonna see why as we uh unpack the text.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: But the first thing that I want to kind of lay out is that to properly understand where Paul is going in Ephesians chapter 5, which is where we're gonna be, uh, we have to first understand that we have an enemy number one.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: All of us have an enemy number one in our lives.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: All of us have a rival, an opponent, an opposition.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's like the one person who has messed your life up more than anybody else.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that person is you.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: Not like you for me.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like the person for me is me.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's us.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: Like I am my own biggest enemy because nobody lies to me more than me, right?
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody so like Halloween is next week.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and regardless of where you stand theologically on Halloween, our kids are gonna come home with candy.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: Halloween after Halloween, I have believed the lie that Cameron, you can in fact live with Halloween candy in the house and not go eat Reese's at midnight when everybody else is asleep.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: I've told myself that many times, and I've believed myself.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody has sabotaged my own life more than me.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I've had some really broken people intersect with my life that have done some terrible things, but like time and time again, I am my own worst enemy.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so as you start to unpack the gospel, you start to really understand, man, I really need Jesus.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: And you start to understand that the goodness of God in your life is not that God is working in your neighbor's life, He's not just working in the person who's sitting next to you, He's working in your life, right?
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: And when you start to adopt the framework and the understanding and the theology that, like, man, I'm messed up, but not as much as him.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: Like, thank God you're in church today, man, because you really need Jesus.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing against you personally, I don't know you.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: Probably a great guy.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: But we run into a problem because when I start to believe that you need Jesus more than I do, you know what it gets really hard to do?
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Love you well, forgive you, extend grace to you.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: But if I adopt a theology and a worldview like Paul, who all throughout his letters, now I don't know everybody in this room, I know a lot of you because I've been down here uh many, many times.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but I'm willing to bet that Paul, after he found Jesus, uh was a better person than you.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because uh he's a better person than me.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'm willing to bet that Paul understood scripture better than you, mostly because he wrote a lot of it.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: But like Paul was a better person, he understood scripture, he had theology, he clearly got what Jesus was trying for to get across to us, and yet, all throughout his letters in the New Testament, you find similar things that he writes.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: He'll say, I, Paul, chief of sinners, I, Paul, the worst of the worst.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: Because Paul understood that nobody needed the cross of Christ more than Paul.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: And when you understand that, it becomes so much easier to love the world around you.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: Because when I come into contact with you, I go, Yeah, you you are pretty broken and messed up, but not as much as me.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody needs Jesus more than me.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: So if he can forgive me, I can forgive you.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: And it starts to change the way that you interact with your world.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so we have to understand that the person that lies to you the most in your life was not your mom, not your dad, not your ex-best friend, not your ex.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's you.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: And the person who gets in your way more than anybody else is you.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: And when you really start to understand that, you could fully start to grasp the picture that Paul is painting in Ephesians chapter 5.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to back up a few verses.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: Pastor Wesley covered this last week, but I believe that this is the heartbeat of all of Ephesians 5.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: Ephesians 5, 18, Paul writes, instead, be filled with the Spirit.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: Be filled with the Spirit.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: In life, you can be filled with one of two things.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: You could be filled with the Spirit, or you could be filled with self.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: That I could be filled up on what God is trying to leak into my life, and I can be filled with the Holy Spirit, and I could let God use me and shape me and mold me, or I could be filled with more and more Cameron.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: And the more I'm filled with me, the less I'm filled with him.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: Which is why Paul writes, right, he must increase and I must decrease.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: Because the more Cameron I can get out of me, the more room there is for the Holy Spirit to fill me up.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: You could be filled with one of two things self or the spirit.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: And Paul's prayer for the church in Ephesians 5 is that you would be filled with the Spirit.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: My pastor friend Brandon Short said it like this.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: This is relationships reimagined under the reign of Jesus.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: Because then in Ephesians chapter 5, verse 21, Paul writes this submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: And this is the problem.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: We don't like the S word.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: We don't like submit.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: We don't like talking about it, we don't like thinking about it, we don't like saying it.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: It feels like a swear word, if we're honest, in 2025.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to talk about submitting, don't want to think about it, certainly don't want Jesus to tell me to do it.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: But we have to step outside of us so we can start to pick up what God is trying to hand us.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: And the problem is that we go to scripture and we think all of this was written to us and for us, and we're like, man, God, you really love me and you've done all these great things for me.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: You must really like me.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: Or like we used to say when I was in sixth grade, God, you must like like me, right?
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: When you weren't ready to commit to the love word, we go, I like like you.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: For a sixth grader, like you might as well be ready to propose.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: God like likes me.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: Look at the things that He writes about me.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever been to a three-year-old's birthday party?
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: So my wife and I, we've got a six-year-old and a three-year-old, so we go to a lot of little kids' birthday parties.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe you have kids, or maybe you've got kids in your family.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: The thing about going to a three-year-old's birthday party, and I've found this every time to be true, is that every kid at that party thinks it's their party.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: And every birthday, I'm like, honey, babe, no, no, that's not your cake.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: Nope, we gotta wait.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: Those are not your presents.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: You cannot open those.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: Every kid is like, whoa, thank you guys for bringing me all these.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: My birthday was last month, but we can do it again.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: And every kid there thinks it's for them.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: And we approach scripture and we open up God's word and we're like, wow, God, this is all for me.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: What does God want you to do?
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: He wants you to lay yourself down, be not filled with self, but be filled with the spirit, so that he can start to mold and shape and use you.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: And the problem is that everything that I think is through the filter of Cameron.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: Everything that I see is through the filter of Cameron.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: Everything that I hear and feel, it's through the filter of me.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: What Paul is pleading with the church is to not let you be the filter in which you see the world.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: But let Jesus, let the Spirit in you, be that filter.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: Which means that I have to empty me of me so I can be filled with more of Him.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: Dallas Wood, one of my favorite theologians, he wrote it like this.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: He said, Jesus didn't die on the cross so that we don't have to.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: He died on the cross so that we would join him.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, the cross was not just something that Jesus saved me with, it's something that he saved me to.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: That I have to pick up my cross and follow him.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: Christianity is not a spectator sport.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know where you're coming from or where you're going after this, but we did not all walk into this place to hear something to make us feel better about our lives and then go on with our lives.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: The gospel, the good news of Jesus demands a response.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: My life has to change, things have to be different.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so when Paul writes to submit to one another out of reverence for Christ, it's going to be uncomfortable.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: But this is the way of Jesus.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, it's why Paul, in another one of his letters, Romans chapter 12, verse 1, he writes, This, therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: This is your true and proper worship.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: Did you know that Paul is saying the songs that we just sang a few minutes ago?
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: That's not actually your true and proper worship.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: Because you can show up to church and you can sing words to songs that you're not living out on a Monday.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: And Paul is saying, don't show up to church on Sunday and sing about the goodness of God if you're not living out the goodness of God on a Wednesday afternoon.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: That your true and proper worship, like your actual worship, is that you would be a living sacrifice, that every day of your life you go, God, I'm dying to me.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: Do what you will, where you will, how you will.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: I am yours.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: Remember a couple years ago, my wife and I got the privilege of going to Africa.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: And uh we go to Africa and one of these villages, and there's all these huts, and we walk into one of the huts, and it was kind of round like this, and in the center of this hut was this pedestal, it's like a little table, and on it was this carved wood uh statue almost, and everything in the house, like the seats, everything was facing the center of this hut, facing this statue.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: So we're outside and we asked one of our guides, we're like, hey, what's up with like everything facing the statue?
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: He said, Oh, well, here that that that's our God.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: And and everything in our home is arranged so that it's facing that which we worship.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, Isn't that the same for you back home?
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought to myself, I'm like, what in our home is everything facing?
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Well, this is embarrassing because it's the TV.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: Everything in our home has been curated and arranged so I can always see the TV.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: If I'm cooking at the stove, I have a sight line to the TV.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: Used to be a wall there.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, babe, get rid of the wall.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: Because I need to see the TV.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: Everything in our home.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's like no matter where you're at, you could be in the bathroom, you crack the door open, you can still see the TV.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: Everything is facing the TV.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, this is awkward.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: Promise we don't worship the TV.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: But I realized more than that, there's something in all of our lives that our entire lives have been arranged to face.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, if you let me into your bank account, I can show you that your money or lack thereof is facing this thing.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: Your relationships have been arranged to face this thing, your career has been arranged to face this thing.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: Everything in your life has been arranged to face the object at which you worship.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: And if we got really honest in church this morning, the object that I worship the most in my life is me.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: I spend the money on the things that I want to spend money on.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: I surround myself with relationships that make me feel better about me.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: I pursue things in life that make me feel better or benefit me in some way.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: And if I really audit and analyze my life, all of the furniture in my life is facing me.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: I am the object of my own worship.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: And Paul makes it very clear when he says that you must be a living sacrifice, that you cannot be the sacrifice if you're also the idol.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: That everything in my life essentially goes to worship Cameron.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: And Paul's saying, you gotta rearrange some stuff in your heart, you gotta rearrange some stuff in your soul so that your life is worshiping Jesus.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: Live a life that is a living sacrifice.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: You cannot be the sacrifice if you're also the idol.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: And mutual submission, as he writes about in verse 21, will remove the idol of you from your life.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: Because every day you will be asked to put something else down.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: So what does this look like practically?
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: I think we see a good picture of it in Philippians chapter 2, verse 3.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: Paul also writes this do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, rather, in humility, value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests, but each of you to the interests of the others.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: Not looking to your own interests, but each of you to the interests of the others.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I started doing as I'm trying to like live out this verse?
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you know, like when there's road work, because there's always road work on I-80.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: They're never gonna stop working on I-80.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what they're doing, but since the dawn of time, they have been working on, and so you know, five lanes come down to one lane, and then you have three million cars trying to merge into one lane.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: And there's always that car that has not been waiting in line, you know what I'm talking about?
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: And they go down the lane that should be closed, and they just they think they can bypass all of us good law-abiding citizens, and just skip into the line, and then they try to force their way in, and then it's like everybody who's been waiting is on the same page, and they're like, don't let this loser in.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: They need to pay for what they've done.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: And we all just like you're like, you can hit my car, I'm not letting you in.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I've started doing as I'm trying to live out Philippians chapter 2?
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: I just let them in.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: I sit on the brakes, I'm like, they don't even know what to do with themselves because they're so used to being rejected.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, please.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: Now, maybe in Davis, that's like on a bicycle, you're like, I'm gonna let I'm gonna let the other bicycle in.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: I know cycling's big out here.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: But I've just started letting them in because it's not about me.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: I've just started letting other people like you go.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: And they're like, I don't even know what to do with myself.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: They get out of their car and they're like, I found Jesus.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's that powerful.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: But what would happen if we started living lives that not looking to our own interests, but to the interests of others?
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: If you want better relationships in your life, single, work, friends, married, whatever, it starts with submission.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: You will not have good relationships in your life if that relationship exists to make your life better.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: Because consciously or subconsciously, all you're thinking about is what can I get out of this relationship?
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of what can I give this other person?
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: How can I bless this other person?
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: How can I love this other person?
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: And when you do that to them and they do that back to you, relationships flourish, but it all begins with submission.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: And then Paul really starts to drill down in the context of marriage.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: So it's kind of a broad stroke.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: He begins with submit to one another.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: All of us are to submit to one another.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: And then he starts to drill down in the context of marriage, and in verse 22, he writes this wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: 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.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: Now, as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: Aren't you glad you came to church?
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like we love this verse in 2025.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Pastor Wesley, for assigning me this passage.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: We can't help in the 21st century read this passage and be a little bit uncomfortable.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: Not gonna ask anybody to raise hands.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm guessing if you're a female sitting in this room and I read this passage again, it makes you a little bit uncomfortable.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: Submit to your husband.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: The man is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the church.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if I'm on board with this, Paul.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: This is not how I want to live my life, and this is not how I want to live out my marriage.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: And we see this as a little controversial, right?
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: You go, man, the Bible is hyper-traditional with gender roles and marriage and relationships, and it feels controversial to even hint or suggest that the man should take the lead.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: We're like, Paul, I don't know if I'm on board with this.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: What's crazy is that if you go all the way back to the first century, the hearers of this letter, the people that Paul was writing to when he wrote this letter from prison, would have also thought it controversial.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: They would have also seen this letter as wildly controversial, but for the exact opposite reason.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: You see, the cultural context at the time is that women were second-rate citizens.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: Women had no power, not only out and about, but in their own home.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: They solely existed to raise kids and take care of the house and do whatever the husband commanded.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: This was the familial structure at the time under the Roman Empire.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, due to these cultural norms and rules, Paul was breaking out in a radical way by even addressing women at all.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: Because what you should do, if you want to say anything to the women, you tell their husband because they are lord over the wife.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so he has already broken out of these gender norms and stereotypes by addressing the women.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: So the men in the room, right, they all gather, like Paul wrote us this letter, we're gonna sit and read this letter, and so he's talking, he's like, submit to one another, and they're like, Yeah, we're gonna submit to other men, right?
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: This is great.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: And then Paul goes, wives, and they're like, wait, why are you talking to my wife?
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: And it imbues in them and instills in them that they have their own agency, that the wife is not simply to be lorded over by the husband.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so the hearers of the letter in the first century would have also seen this as controversial, not because it put women down, but because it elevated women.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: And look what he says submit to yourselves to your own husbands.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: 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.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: Now, as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: And Paul addresses them as if they have a choice now.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: Because what used to be is that whatever the husband said goes, and here's how much power husbands had in first century Rome.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: If they deemed it so, they had so much power they could even put their own child to death.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: No questions asked.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: So you have this almost tyrannical power that the husband had over the family.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: And Paul addresses the women and then says, Submit to your husbands, as if they have a choice now, the husbands are thinking.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: And he elevates women, he gives them their own agency.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: And when he says, as you do to the Lord, he's not saying that you should submit to your husband like you submit to God.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: He's saying that when you submit to your husband, it's as if that is your offering to God.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: Because the first person that demonstrated true submission was Jesus when he went to the cross.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: And he prayed, Father, not my will, but your will be done.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so Paul in a radical way elevates women.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: And then we see all throughout scripture, women are a massive part of God's work in the story of humanity.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: They are all throughout the scriptures doing things that they should not have done at the time, hearing things that they should not have heard, receiving things that they should not have heard, teaching things that they should not have taught to the cultural moment.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: And Paul, in this letter.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Elevates women in a massive way.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I want you to notice it says, wives submit to your own husbands, not women submit to men.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: Because men have taken this passage and weaponized it against women.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't say women submit to men.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: He says, wives submit to your own husbands.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so Paul continues to give women agency, and he doesn't say submit because you're inferior.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't say submit because he's your boss.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: He says submit because that's what Christ has done for us.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: And it's out of reverence for that that we submit to one another.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: The Christian life itself, the way that you do your relationships, should itself be an invitation for others to see Jesus in your life.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: And he's talking to women who had been oppressed by this cultural moment, this structure, this family structure.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: And he's saying, Don't do it because you are inferior to husband.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: Don't do it because he lords that over you.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: Do it because I did it for you.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: And this is why the same breath, Paul writes that when you give, we should give cheerfully.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: Not out of duty.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: Not because God just wants my money, but because I understand what God has done for me.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: I remember when we first got married, we had friends who started having babies.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: And if you haven't had babies or you don't have like close friends who have had babies, it changes your entire life.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I used to look at my friends and I would think, you sad, strange people.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: This little 14-month-old child owns you.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: They determine how much money you have or how much money you don't have.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: They determine when you go out and for how long you go out.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: They determine when you sleep and how long you sleep.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like this little baby who just drools for a living, owns you.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: Who would sign up for that?
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I used to pity them, like you sad, sad people with your sad, miserable lives.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: Until the day I held my son in my arms for the first time.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I looked down at his little face, and I realized that there is not a thing in this world I would not do for that boy.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: And it hit me.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: That when it's really love, it's not really sacrifice.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: And parents understand this.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: And when you really start to understand, when it's really love, it's not really a sacrifice.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's why Paul writes to give cheerfully, because it's not a sacrifice.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because I understand the depths at which God has loved me.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: How could I not help but give?
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so he writes to the wives.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: He says, When you understand what Jesus has done for you, it should free you up to love and serve your husband.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: Not out of duty, but because it's your delight, because Jesus delighted in serving you.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so Paul, in this passage, he elevates wives.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: And then he addresses the men.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: And the men he gives the weightier command.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: And you have to understand that women had duties towards their husbands and towards their families.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: Men did not have any duties towards their wives or towards their kids.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so then Paul starts addressing the men.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I imagine they're all starting to nod off at this point.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: And then Paul writes this 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 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.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: He who loves his wife loves himself.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: You have to understand that wives, women were almost more seen as a commodity at this time.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: Just something that helps you get through.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like they're gonna raise the kids and they're gonna take care of the home and they're gonna do whatever I tell them to do.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: They're there to support me.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: And then Paul begins to tell the husbands, like, love her as if she is of your own body.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: And he places an enormous amount of weight and significance and honor on the wife.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: And she goes from just being a piece of property to like part of my body, and it all goes back to Jesus.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: Because this is how Christ has loved us.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: When my wife and I did premarital counseling, we did it with an incredible man, incredible pastor, and this was actually the verse that we came to time and time and time again.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: He just beat me over the head with this verse.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: But I think about it all the time.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: He said, Cameron, your job is Ephesians chapter 5, verse 25.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: Love your wife as Christ has loved you and gave himself up.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: Cameron, your job is to make her holy, cleansing her, to present her as radiant without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know about you, but that cannot be true of what I do with my wife and how I love my wife if I'm lording something over my wife, if I'm treating my wife as lesser than.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: There is no way I can present my wife as radiant and spotless and clean if I'm lording something over for her.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: So instead, what is Paul right?
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: To love her as Christ loved the church, which is to what?
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: Which is that to die for her, that I've got to give up my life for her.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: This is the standard.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: That I have to love her the way that Christ has loved me.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: So wives, love and support and serve your husbands and husbands, die for your wives.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: And he's not just saying be willing to die.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: You have to die for them every day.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a living sacrifice.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: That means every day I put to death the things of Cameron.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: So I can love and wash clean and present my wife as holy and blameless and radiant.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like there is a weight to this in marriage.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, Cameron, this is your job.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: And when my daughter was born, this really clicked for me.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not up here pretending that we have a perfect marriage or that I crush all of this.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really bad at it.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: But when my daughter was born, it just it just came out of me.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like my son, I love my son, and there's nothing like the father-son relationship.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: But when my daughter was born, man, it just like it unlocked something in me.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I just shower her with love and praise.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: We sat down yesterday for a tea party.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: Elsa was there, our cat was there.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, I'm gonna make, I'm gonna come up, Bernice.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not coming tomorrow.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna be at this tea party for three days.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't want to be anywhere else.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I look at my daughter every day and I say, You're so beautiful, Zanaya.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: I love you.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: I love you with my whole heart.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna hold your hand forever and just shower her with love every day.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: My job in life, my goal is to make it impossible for her to get married.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: My goal is to set this bar so high that every guy she meets falls short.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so every day I just shower her with love because I love her.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: I can't, I can't help it.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: And this is what Paul says that Christ's love for us is like he can't help it.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: There was no way he wasn't gonna go to the cross.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: Because he loved me.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: And this is how I'm to treat my wife.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I realize, you know, pastors when they when they when they share stuff that they've done, or it's always like 20 years ago, and it was like, I used to get angry, and now I'm not.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: And you're like, well, I'm struggling here with real problems, Pastor.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: But like, let me just tell you, my daughter is not old.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: When my daughter was born, I realized I started doing this to my daughter.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: I realized that I was doing things for her that I was not doing for my wife.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: That I was showering my daughter with love, that I was presenting her as radiant and spotless, and I was doing things for her that I was not doing for my wife.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I realized I am not being the husband that my wife needs me to be.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: Because this is the standard, and the standard in marriage is high, because marriage is a metaphor and a picture for Christ's love for us.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: It should be high, and it should stay high, and that's why marriage matters.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: Because this is how Christ has loved us.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're single, you're dating, if you're like, man, I'm not married yet, here's what I need you to know.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: Submission does not begin on the wedding day.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_00: My wife and I, we went through years of a really hard relationship because it was the first time in my life I actually had to submit to somebody.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: Submission begins now.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: You mutually submit to one another with my friends, with my coworkers, with my family, so that if I get married one day, it's not the first time I've ever submitted to somebody.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_00: It begins now, and this is the picture that Paul paints of the church.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: This is how the church loves well, and this is how the church models Christ.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't just save me on the cross, he saved me to the cross, which is why in Matthew 16 he writes this.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: Then Jesus said to his disciples, Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow me.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: This is how you love people.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: You pick up your cross, you die to self, you empty yourself of you, and you get filled by the Spirit.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: You submit to one another.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I realize that in Christian culture, many people wear crosses, few people carry them.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: Paul is writing, Jesus wants his church to pick up their crosses.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_00: That I'm going to be a living sacrifice, and we're going to mutually submit to one another, which means that I'm going to put to death my preferences because your preferences are not the priority.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: People in the kingdom of God are the priority.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not easy to do.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_00: But I have to put my preferences to death.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I've learned so much of this through my marriage.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: When we first got married, I realized my wife and I are completely opposite people.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_00: This is how marriage works.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_00: You marry somebody who's nothing like you, and then you just suffer in silence for many years.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: And then by God's grace, you change.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: But we're very different people, and this is the beauty of marriage.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_00: And my wife used to say this thing early on in our marriage, and it was like a swear word in our house.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_00: Because I'm all about efficiency.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I want to get to where we're going, I want to accomplish what we came to accomplish.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: I want to do it well, and I want to maximize.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: My wife would say this thing that felt like a swear word in our home.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: Anytime we would go somewhere, like for instance, she would say, Let's go to the mall.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, we don't have money.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: She's like, let's just window shop.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, why would we do that?
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: Why do I want to look at things I can't afford to buy?
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's just gonna remind me how poor I am.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: Or we would go to Disneyland.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, all right, we gotta go to Space Mountain, we gotta get fast pass, then we gotta go here.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: If we do this, we'll get all of the rides done by noon.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: And then my wife would say the words that are like a swear word in our home.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: She would say, babe, let's just mosey.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, mosey?
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: Are we cowboys?
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_00: Are we like settling the West?
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_00: Who, A, who uses that word?
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_00: And B, why would we mosey?
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so we go to Disneyland.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: We're like, we're not running any rides, we're just moseying down Main Street.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm seeing all the other happy people that are getting on rides, but we're just moseying.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_00: And my wife, really, it was Jesus through my wife, because this is how marriage works, taught me a very important rule when it comes to relationships.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I believe this is at the heart of mutual submission.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: Is that God's greatest purpose and will for the relationships in your life, whether it be your friends, your coworkers, your classmates, your boyfriend, your fiance, your girlfriend, or your spouse, is not that you would live with greater efficiency.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_00: You are not built to be efficient, you are not built for efficiency, you are built for intimacy.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes the best thing that you can do for a relationship is be less efficient.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_00: You are created for intimacy.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_00: But how do we do that?
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: We by mutually submitting that I put to death my preferences and you put to death your preferences, and we lift each other up and we love each other well, and then doing so, we model the gospel of Jesus to the world around us.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_00: This is the beauty and the weight of marriage.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_00: And this is what Paul is pleading with the Ephesians to do.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_00: The very next verse in Matthew chapter 16 for whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_00: The more I try to control my environment, my relationships to my liking, the more I lose.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_00: Or one of the earliest lessons I learned in marriage.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_00: My wife loves plants.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_00: If you've been around Davis for a little while, you've probably heard of the plants.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_00: We have a lot of issues with plants.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_00: My wife loves plants, so we have thousands of plants.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: The problem started when she started bringing them inside the house.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I would go to take a shower, and there would be plants in our shower.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_00: Couldn't I couldn't take a shower because there's just a massive plant in our shower.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_00: And one day I told her, I can't live like this anymore.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_00: Plants are outside things, Cameron is an inside thing.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_00: The plants stay outside, Cameron stays inside.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember I went on a retreat up in Montana.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to a fishing retreat, we're fly fishing.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember the guides up there who take you all around, show you how to fish.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_00: They kept saying this thing.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_00: And they said, hey, whatever you want to do, whether you want to fish the river all day long, we'll we'll row you up and down the river.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to stay at the lodge, this beautiful lodge in the middle of Montana.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_00: So if you want to stay at the lodge and watch Netflix all day, we love that.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever you want to do, we love that.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_00: Because we love you.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_00: And in that moment, I realized I am a horrible husband.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_00: Because I have not loved the plants.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I came home and I built my wife a greenhouse.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_00: Because I wanted her to know that I love the plants.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_00: Not because I do, but because I love her.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: This is what mutual submission looks like I don't love you the way that I want to love you.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_00: I love you the way that you need to be loved.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_00: I love you the way that you want to be loved.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_00: But to do that, I have to give up more of myself.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_00: To do that, I have to put my preferences to death.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_00: And in doing so, in the context of marriage, we begin to model the gospel.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_00: That Jesus so loved me, a broken and messed up person, that he put his preferences to death.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_00: He submitted to the will of the Father to serve and love me, to serve and love you, so that you and I would know greater life.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_00: There's a weight to marriage.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_00: There's a high bar.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a good reason because it models the greatest love that's ever been demonstrated.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_00: I love this quote from John Piper.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_00: He says this marriage is momentary.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_00: A brief blessing.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_00: A great one, but not an ultimate one.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_00: A precious one, but not a permanent one.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_00: Marriage does not and should not meet all our needs.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_00: It should not take the place of Jesus Himself.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_00: Marriage is but for a moment.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus is for eternity.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_00: How we live in our marriages and our singleness will show if Jesus is our supreme treasure.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_00: He's saying that all of this goes back to Jesus.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_00: Which is why Paul closes out this section on marriage by writing this in verse 31 for this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_00: This is a profound mystery, but I am talking about Christ and the church.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_00: My job as a husband is to make sure that my family and my wife, above all else, treasures Jesus.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_00: This is what it's all about.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_00: It all goes back to Jesus.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason that these words feel controversial and feel a little bit weird is because what we know is this: if you miss the who, you will misuse the what.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_00: So many people have missed the fact that all of this goes back to Jesus, so they misuse what God has given us.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_00: Marriage always has been and always will be a metaphor, a physical demonstration of the gospel, God's love for you and me.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_00: But it all begins with me giving up me so that he may increase and I may decrease.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_00: And when I begin to do that, I begin to love others well.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_00: May we be a church that loves others well.