Dancing to the Beat of Your Purpose

Automated transcript of the sermon audio, generated with OpenAI Whisper (small.en). It has not been checked against the recording and may contain errors, especially in names and Scripture references.

As I was preparing my notes, and I was even reviewing them this afternoon, I thought, boy, I’m in trouble because I have in front of me the quantity of notes that I would usually use for about one and a third messages, and I’ve got time for one. So I’m going to have to talk fast. I’ll have a few slides for you to follow on, so hopefully it’ll help you at least know where I think I’m at in my conversation. Then also, my topic is on roles and goals, but that’s a really big topic. doesn’t lend itself to cramming everything you can say on that topic in 50 minutes. So my topic will be largely a surface pass over it. I’ll hit plenty of meaty enough things that if you do well on everything I’m talking about today, you can feel pretty good that your marriage is nice and solid.

But I admit right up front that you’re going to say, well, what about this? What about that? There’s going to be a lot of points I probably could have spoken to, but didn’t. So without further ado, let’s go ahead and get into it as the rest of the crowds pouring in. According to a recent Pew Research paper, they say that 42% of all American adults in 2017 lived without a spouse or a cohabitating partner. 42% of the adult population was living alone. The number actually goes up to 61% for adults under the age of 35. Think about that. Four out of 10 adults you pass on the street live without a partner, whether married or just living together.

Four out of 10 adults you pass live without a partner, or in the case of those under age 35, 6 and 10. Those are the statistics in 2017. Now of those 42% that were living without a partner, 58% of those people had never ever married, 21% were divorced and the rest were then either widowed or living separated from their partner. So we can extrapolate from that data that 24% of the adult population in America in 2017 had never ever married.

One quarter of the population as of last year had never married. Since the In the 1960s, we have seen a steady rise in the age at which men and women marry for the first time. In 2015, just a couple years ago, the average age for the first time marriage for men was 29 years and for women, 27. If you go back to the pre-1960s, the average man, the average age for a man was 22 when he got married and it was 20 for women. We’ve gone from 22 and 20 all the way up to 29 and 27 now. Now our concern is with what these trends may or may not indicate. For what it’s worth, they all seem to show a significant shift, these trend lines, starting in about 1960.

And if any of you have been alive that long, that’s when the so-called sexual revolution was just taking off. And ever since then, we’ve seen this graph start to rise higher and higher with people delaying marriage. Several key social and political changes have created this skid away, this shift away from traditional marriage. The rise of third wave feminism, abandonment of faith-based morals, no-fault divorce laws, abortion on demand. These are all contributing factors that have led to this trend that we see going on. There isn’t time to dive into these factors and see how they have contributed to the current state of affairs.

But suffice it to say that the more we liberate ourselves from biblical standards, the more unhinged our culture becomes from anything that has a sustainable future. And I’m not just using a hyperbole, but it’s actually a historical fact. Wherever you go and see these trends, it’s not long before that culture is going to pretty much shrivel up and go away and morph into something else we don’t recognize. Note that in all this cultural shift going on, The call to celibacy hasn’t grown. Sexual sin has increased and manifests itself in increasingly perverse ways. What has been lost in all this upheaval is a care for, let alone an understanding of what marriage was created for.

If God said it is not good for man to be alone, then it seems like a problem when so many choose to be alone, except to indulge their sexual desires. The goal of this message then is to explore the roles and goals that God has given to men and women from the beginning and see how marriage is intended to be the primary avenue for which these carry out. That’ll be one of my propositions is that God designed marriage specifically for these purposes that our culture seems to be casting off. I titled this message, Dancing to the Beat of Your Purpose. I was trying to think of a metaphor that scratched at what I was hoping to communicate.

Now, when I say dancing, I am not thinking of the typical dancing that you see at concerts or weddings today, where everybody is just be bopping around, bouncing and waving their arms and doing their own thing. Yes, to all you young people rolling your eyes right now, I am old. I want you instead to be thinking about Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers and young people, you can look them up on YouTube later. When you watch a couple like that dance, you quickly become entranced by the beauty and the grace. You don’t focus on them as individuals, as much as you look at them as a team. It works because Fred does such a good job of leading, and Ginger does such a good job of following.

Neither is preeminent, neither is more important to equal partners, performing their individual roles to perfection. and when they come together, it’s just a beautiful thing to watch. What makes their dance routine extra special is how well they move with the music. You can say the music gives order or purpose to their dance moves. This is the core idea that I want you to keep in mind in this session. Marriage fulfills its intended design when a husband and a wife live their lives as one unit with a common purpose and are fulfilling their unique role in it.

Meryl chaos is likely when there is no clear purpose or the roles in the partnership become confused So as we dig into the roles and goals of marriage you can keep in mind then the image of Fred and ginger Floating across the floor complementing each other’s moves as they dance to the rhythm of the music So you got Fred and ginger in your mind you want to keep it there right there up there in the corner in case you forget Okay Before we can begin to look at the roles and goals of marriage though, we need to take a step back and ask a few basic questions. What is marriage? Where did the idea come from? Is the definition of marriage open to interpretation?

Is it just a social construct that we can change whenever we want? These questions are important to answer because if marriage is simply a social construct, then it becomes pointless to discuss marital topics like roles and goals. Why would anything you or I say rise above opinion or suggestion if marriage is just a fluid idea created by man? Marriages are not called to be cookie cutter cutouts of each other, but at the same time, there are specific non-negotiable ingredients that should go into every marital cookie, if it’s to be a biblical one. Clearly, our culture today wants to argue that marriage is a human-made institution, and thus it can be molded, shaped, and evolved into whatever we want it to be.

Egalitarians who swear off any differences between the sexes except for biology see, quote, traditional husband-wife roles as artifacts of past sometimes abusive patriarchal societies. The rise of feminism has caused many women to feel somehow cheated or less than fulfilled if they don’t have careers outside the home. The widespread approval of all manners of sexual expression makes traditional marriage just one of many acceptable in our culture acceptable options today. The church has recognized less and less as a moral authority by the culture. Any Elvis impersonator can perform marriage ceremonies today. An example of the church’s diminishing influence can be seen by comparing Webster’s dictionary definition of marriage in in 1828 with Merriam-Webster’s definition today.

So here’s what the Merriam-Webster’s dictionary said in 1828, marriage was. The legal union of a man and a woman for life, marriage is a contract both civil and religious, by which the parties engaged live together in mutual affection and fidelity till death shall separate them. Marriage was instituted by God himself for the purpose of preventing the promiscuous intercourse of the sexes, for promoting domestic felicity or happiness, and for securing the maintenance and education of children. Can you imagine that definition being in the dictionary today? They would be out burning all dictionaries. Here’s the current definition.

The state of being united as spouses in a consensual and contractual relationship recognized by the law. Note how the definition went from God to being the one who instituted marriage to the law. Notice the lack of clarity on who can marry and for what purpose. As an aside, did you notice in the 1828 definition that one of the purposes for marriage was for securing the maintenance and education of children? Just another example of how we have allowed government to subsume more authority into its sphere than it should. When marriage becomes a human construct it is only a matter of time before any type of pairing Becomes a legitimate marriage in the eyes of the law you can go around the world there are cases today of people Marrying animals it is and and just because you know not not necessarily in a perverse way But they just somehow have a relationship that they think deems a marriage Our church stance is that civil courts can recognize marriage but only the church can define what marriage is.

Any civil court recognized pairing that does not conform to the biblical definition of marriage is not a marriage and will not be recognized by us as such. Now, in case you haven’t surmised by now, we believe that marriage is not a social construct. It was instituted by God for his reasons and therefore any man and woman wishing to have a marriage blessed by God must endeavor to discern and follow his instructions for marriage. It’s real simple. God made it. God designed it. He had a purpose. You want to be married. You want a successful marriage. You better figure out what the owner’s manual says and follow it.

All that’s left, all that is left up for us to do is the simple task of discerning what God expects from our marriages. Now the starting point for our claim that God instituted marriage is found in Genesis 2 18. Up to the point, I’m not going to go through the whole creation story, but up to the point in this story, we read over and over God saying, it is good as he goes about creating. But then following the creation of man, we run into a problem. God says, it’s not good. Ladies, he wasn’t referring to the man, but he said, it is not good. But what was not good? It’s not good that the man should be alone. You know the rest of the story, God creates woman and presents her to man and then declares that his creation is very good.

In a few moments, we’ll take a closer look at the instructions that God gave the man and the woman when we talk about roles and goals. For now, the point is that God created a man and a woman and put them together in a special relationship we call marriage. Now, if this was the only verse that we could point to, one could argue that the claim that God is the creator of marriage is weak. If that’s all I could throw at you, Some of you might say, eh, that’s not enough arguments. However, Jesus makes this claim much stronger while answering the Pharisees’ questions on divorce. Over in Matthew 19.3, starting there, we read, and the Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?

And he answered, have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female? And said, therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall be made one flesh. So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” There are a couple of important things that we can glean from that passage. First, God did not put just Adam and Eve together in a union. What Jesus is saying is when any man and woman are joined in marriage, they become one. It’s an act of God, whether they recognize it or not, they are following a biblical pattern, God ordained, and let no man separate them.

And then second thing we can observe, He created them male and female and intentionally put them together. This implies that He has a reason or a purpose behind it. And that purpose, as we’ll see, goes beyond just solving man’s aloneness problem. There’s more that we could look at to support the claim that God instituted marriage, but that should suffice for now. So then, if God instituted marriage, It is not some social construct we can alter at will. In addition, we need to figure out what his purpose is for marriage and what, if any, roles he has specifically assigned to the man and the woman in fulfilling that purpose.

So now that we’ve established that marriage is instituted by God, it follows that we are under compulsion to follow his design for it. And so we need to understand what his goals for marriage are. As I see it, and for sake of discussion today, there perhaps could be more goals, but I’ve identified four basic goals for marriage. Companionship, procreation, modeling the love relationship between Christ and the church, and taking dominion of the earth and subduing it. When you’re done with those things, come back and report, and I’ll give you some more. But that should keep you busy for a while. Now, most of these are fairly straightforward and don’t need a lot of explanation.

So I’m just going to go through each one and then offer some things to think about regarding each one as you consider your own marriage. First, marriage is for the sake of companionship. We’ve already seen the text that directly states this in Genesis 2.18. Then the Lord said, it is not good that man should be alone. I will make him a helper fit for him. This part of the creationist story could have read something like, God saw that man was alone and made a helper for him a Verse like that could leave room for a man to view a helper as something optional Something not vital but okay to include if he was so inclined The fact that God declared it was not good for man to be up alone adds a lot of force to the verse and the point That man should not be alone Although we are not told why it wasn’t good for man to be alone. We can surmise a few likely reasons First, it wasn’t good for man to be alone because of God’s yet to be given command to procreate.

That would be problematic without the woman. Second, perhaps God knew that man, being a finite being, could use someone like him for the sake of consulting with and sharing the workload as he began his dominion taking responsibilities. Third, and very significant, was that if man was going to reflect the image of the triune God, he had to have someone like him to have a relationship with. He was created for fellowship. It was against his design specs to be alone. Every married person here today needs to consider the importance of not letting your relationship with your spouse fade into two alone people sharing the same house.

There’s a tendency to let familiarity and or unresolved conflict to kill this important goal of marriage. Now Sean’s going to talk about conflict resolution later in the seminar, but suffice it to say that it takes work to keep a marital relationship alive and growing. It is not good for man or woman to be alone, even if they are married, but they’re living essentially separated. The second goal of marriage is procreation. We get this from Genesis 1.28, and God blessed them, and God said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. You would think this goal of marriage would be a duh point, but unfortunately, many couples today are reluctant to have children, even in the Christian community.

Nowhere in the verse are we told how many children we are to have, but we are told to be fruitful and multiply. The sense of the verse is that having multiple children is a good thing. Now the point I’m stressing is not how many children a couple has, but what their mindset is when they’re deciding whether or not to have children. I’ve heard numerous young marrieds worry about bringing a child into a world as crazy as ours.

You hear people today, when Gail and I were newly married, people were worried about those issues. Well, boy, I just can’t imagine bringing a child into this world. Look how bad it is. That’s not a new concern. And guess what? They’ll be talking about that for generations to come. So have kids. Some wonder if they can afford the cost of raising a child with some estimates now around $250,000 per child. I’ll give you a hint. I’ve raised four. I put four through college. They’re all now in their 30s and having babies. You cannot afford children. But you will. Trust me. It somehow works. All sorts of thoughts about having children can flood one’s mind.

How will a child affect my budget, my lifestyle, my body, my mind? They all crowd into our thinking. We can easily begin to think of having children in the same way we think about getting a new car, a house, or a boat. It’s just another commodity to add to my life. Perhaps some of these things are appropriate to consider when deciding to have children, but they must not take precedence over the simple truth of what God has said. Children are a gift from him. Psalm 127.3 reads, Behold, children are a gift of the Lord. The fruit of the womb is a reward. Psalm 127, 4 through 5, like arrows in the hands of a warrior, so are the children of the ones youth.

How blessed is a man whose quiver is full of them. They shall not be ashamed when they speak with their enemies in the gates. We here at the church regularly seeing Psalm 128 that speaks of a man who is blessed by God. Part of that blessing is found in verse 3. Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house. Your children will be like olive shoots around your table. Did you kind of hear the word blessing? blessed in there a lot. Passages like these make you wonder if our cultural attitudes about children aren’t just a bit askew. Now, of course, having children entails much more than just bringing them up in the world.

Raising them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, caring for their personal needs, overseeing their education, and generally equipping them to be responsible adults, requires lots of attention and work. So many parents have neglected these basic duties for their various reasons that sadly many children today are for all practical purposes wards of the state during their waking hours. Out of curiosity I went and Googled daycare centers near me. I came up with about 40 daycare centers in the Marysville area alone. Then I went out, I said, okay, how many in the state? So I went out to the Washington State website for the Department of Early Learning, is what the department’s called.

They say that they have issued over 6,000 daycare licenses in this state alone. This doesn’t include all of the before and after school programs that are available to our kids. Make of that data what you will, but it doesn’t seem to suggest that everyone is as engaged in the rearing of their children, as this marital goal would suggest. The third goal of marriage is to be a picture or model of the love between Christ and the church. This goal is found in the latter half of Ephesians 5, where Paul is giving instructions to the husbands and wives. Near the end of that section, Paul writes something odd about a mystery.

He slips out a strange sentence in there. But starting in verse 31, we read, For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother and shall cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” And then all of a sudden he says, it’s like he switches gear. He says, this mystery is great, but I am speaking of the reference to Christ and the church. And then back to the husband and wife, he says in 33, nevertheless, let each individual among you also love his own wife, even as himself, and let the wife see to it that she respects her husband. In verse 31, Paul quotes from Genesis 2.24 about the two becoming one flesh.

In verse 33, he reiterates his instructions that a man should love his wife, and a wife should respect her husband. But oddly then, he inserts this thing about a mystery in verse 32. And he says the mystery has to do with the relationship between Christ and the church. The implication is that there is a parallel between the husband-wife relationship and the relationship between Christ and the church. What I conclude from this is that in some way, a Christian marriage models to the world what their love relationship between Christ and the church looks like. Now, you don’t have to ponder that very long to realize what an incredibly high bar that sets for our marital relationship.

How many of us would be OK with saying, examine my marital relationship if you want to understand the relationship between Christ and the church? Ouch. That’s a high bar. The fourth goal of marriage to consider is also found in Genesis 1.28. Fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heaven and over every living thing that moves on the earth. Anybody finished doing that yet? Not only is marriage to have an inward focus on relationship and child rearing, it is to have an outward focus as well. There are three basic spheres of responsibility that God ordained, the church, the family, and the government.

Included in the list of family responsibilities is the advancement of culture as it takes dominion. Imagine for a moment a society made up of numerous nuclear families, each living on their own 10-acre spread and having nothing to do with each other. You can quickly see that such a culture is basically unworkable. For a culture to thrive and grow, It requires nuclear families to come together in a cooperative way to better the lives of all. This doesn’t mean that all families will take dominion in the same way. The whole earth is a big place and there are lots of things that need to have dominion taken over. As an aside though, note how Satan tries to thwart this goal today.

We are obsessed with talks of climate change and dwindling resources and there’s even some whacked out groups like the Hemlock Society suggesting that humans should start killing themselves off so as to let Mother Earth restore herself to her once pristine condition. I always chuckle when I listen to those guys because they never lead by example, but they just suggest what we should do. The false notion in this thinking is that the Earth, post-fall, ever had a pristine condition. Apparently, God had something in mind when He says we’re to take dominion and subdue the Earth. Implied in that call is the idea that the world is not in its ideal state.

There is lots of work to do to make this world reflect that it is under the lordship of Jesus Christ. It is irrefutable that much of the advances that we’ve seen in Western culture are as a result of Christian influence. We haven’t arrived yet, and thus we need to keep on working to that end. Godly families are the building blocks for this kind of change, and those families must start then with godly marriages. No one marriage or family is going to change the whole world nor are they supposed to. But they should be thinking about how they make a difference. Perhaps it is working to build a better sense of community in your own neighborhood.

Maybe helping address the needs of the poor. Perhaps some will raise up gifted children to be our future leaders in church and government. And if you don’t know where else to start, all of us can start taking dominion by just pulling the weeds in our front yard.

The point is there is something each family can do in regards to taking dominion and it doesn’t start with binge-watching on Netflix. Well now that we’ve considered the goals of marriage we can turn our attention to the topic of the roles that the husband and the wife play in a marriage. This is a hotly disputed topic even within Christian circles today and the vast number of books you can read or podcasts you can listen to usually just add to the confusion. Except for some really extreme views out there, there is widespread agreement that men and women are fully equal in essence or value or worth in God’s eyes. One sex is not more valuable or important than the other in a marriage relationship. Neither is a lesser class than the other. Where all the attention swirls is whether or not there should be any distinction in the roles men and women play in marriage. Should there be a leader follower pattern or should there be a co-leader pattern in the marriage? And then from that basic question flows other important matters such as who’s the primary wage earner,

who stays home with the kids, who’s responsible for necessary decisions when agreements can’t be reached, etc. etc. Advocates of the leader follower pattern are referred to as complementarians. They see the relationship between a husband and a wife as complementary to each other. Think Fred and Ginger. There they are, up in the corner. Those that believe in the co-leader pattern for marriage are called egalitarians. They define equality as being equal in essence and roles. The only distinction they recognize is biological differences. So in discussing roles in a marriage, it’s important that we figure out which view is more in keeping with Scripture because each view will lead to different conclusions about the marital roles.

Now you would think of the egalitarian view as the most correct view biblically, then there would be lots of examples in Scripture of men and women exercising various functions interchangeably, but there isn’t. There are some occasions of that, but the normal pattern we see demonstrates very distinct roles in the culture as a whole. Now, some will argue and push back, well, yeah, but that just shows the chauvinistic nature of these ancient paternalistic cultures. You’ll hear that said. Now, to which I say, really? Wouldn’t that somehow imply that God himself is chauvinistic, since all of the scriptures is his written word and is meant to teach us everything pertaining to life?

2 Timothy 3, 16, 17 tells us. There are numerous places and scriptures that are problematic to the egalitarian point of view. Just let me read quickly read through a few of them and see how they line up with a notion of equality in all regards. We’ve already seen Genesis 2.18. Then the Lord God said, it’s not good that man should be alone. I will make a helper fit for him. In Isaiah chapter 3, a very interesting section. It’s a time in Israel’s history when the wheels are coming off. They’re in total chaos. Everything’s in disarray. And God speaking says, oh, my people, there oppressors are children, and women rule over them.

And I don’t think God was a god.

I don’t think I was a woman hater when he said that but he was saying something when he said that Let a woman learn quietly and with all submissiveness I do not permit a woman to teach her to exercise authority over a man rather She’s to remain quiet for Adam was formed first then Eve and Adam was not deceived But the woman was deceived and became a transgressor first Timothy to 11 through 14 writing to women in first Peter Peter wrote but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty and and of a gentle and a quiet spirit which in God’s sight is very precious for this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to Adorn themselves by submitting to their own husbands as Sarah obeyed Abraham calling him Lord. I don’t know I should duck right now Or not, you know, but I had a bunch of egalitarian side to duck And I’m not advocating that late ladies don’t go home and just start calling your husband Lord, but you glean the sense of the text here, okay Continuing on, husbands, live with your wives in an

understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered. 1 Peter 3-7. And then lastly, wives submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and his himself its Savior. Now, as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit and everything to their husbands. Ephesians 5, 22 through 24. Now some will push back on these examples and they’ll say, well yeah, well you skipped over examples like Dinah, the prophet is Dinah, or when Priscilla along with her husband Aquila instructed Apollos regarding the gospel, or hey, what about when Paul says there’s no longer male nor female?

What about those? I would say cases like Dinah and Priscilla were exceptions to the normal pattern we see in scripture. God admittedly used these godly women in unique situations to advance his purpose, no doubt. When God said there were neither male nor female, he was not ending the earthly distinction that exists between them any more than he was saying Jews and Greeks or slaves and freemen don’t exist anymore. Paul’s point was that we are all equal in essence in Christ. He was not abolishing race, gender, or social status. To those who feel that so-called inequality, this inequality they perceive is contrary to the character of God.

John Piper wrote the following in recovering biblical manhood and womanhood. Quote, this point is often missed by evangelical feminists. They conclude that a difference in function necessarily involves a difference in essence, i.e. if men are an authority over women, then women must be inferior. The relationship between Christ and the Father shows us that this reasoning is flawed. One can possess a different function and still be equal in essence and worth.

Women are equal to men in essence and in being there is no ontological Distinction and yet they may have a different function or role in church and home Such differences do not logically imply inequality or in the inferiority Just as Christ’s subjection to the father does not imply his Inferiority and a quote if Jesus himself took a functional role different than the father even though he was equal with God, then there really shouldn’t be any problem when God asks men and women to do the same. So then, how should we think about the marital roles of the husband and wife? I think they can broadly be summed up this way. Let’s see if I got a slide on that. Yep. Husbands are to take leadership responsibility and wiser to work cooperatively in support of that leadership. If I just had to kind of put it into a little elevator pitch, that’s That’s what I would say.

Now we need to drill down on exactly what that means and doesn’t mean for each of the two roles. But keep in mind that neither role is superior to the other role in making a marriage work. Both are critical. For husbands, taking leadership responsibly involves the following. First, loving your wife as Christ loved the church. Ephesians 5, 25 through 28. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of the water with a word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.

In the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. There is a benchmark a husband has to use in judging if he truly loves his wife. that benchmark is giving himself up for the sake of his wife, just as Christ gave himself up. A husband who is domineering or seeks his own interests above that of his wife is not following Christ’s example. We are told in Philippians 2.7 that Christ emptied himself of all of his rights as God and took on the form of a servant. Now, husbands, I’m going to clue you in on some. We don’t even come close to being gods. So how much more should we follow Jesus’ example?

Second, a husband needs to own or take responsibility for everyone in his household and everything that goes on. This means that under the concept of federal headship that a husband can’t pass the buck when someone or something under his responsibility messes up. He can’t grumble about the wife and the kids that God gave him and then wash his hands of any responsibility. And I’ve known husbands to do that. I’ve tried, there’s nothing I can do. I just got stuck with the lemons. I’m not responsible. That does not fly. Adam tried that in the garden when God asked him if he had eaten the forbidden fruit. Adam tried to shift responsibility by saying, the woman whom you gave to me to be with me, she gave me the fruit of the tree, and what could I do?

Implied in Adam’s response is that the faults somehow belong to God and or Eve.

The ECS school board just recently finished reading book titled Extreme Leadership. One of the first principles of leadership in there suggests that a leader takes the blame whenever the team messes up. As we discussed this we decided that we didn’t agree with the idea that the leader would take the blame necessarily but we did agree that the leader has to take the responsibility. We see this modeled by Christ himself when he took responsibility for our sins and died in our place on the cross. He wasn’t blameable for our sin in any way, but he took the consequences for our sin upon himself. Our problem became his problem. Now in reality, husbands often are blameable, to some degree, for problems in their homes, usually because of inattentiveness or, for example. Husbands don’t take responsibility for their wives’ sins in a salvific way like Christ did, but taking responsibility means they own whatever is not going right and under their headship and they work to lovingly step in and help fix it. They don’t just say you deal with it

and walk away. If a husband is supposed to take full responsibility then he better be leading the charge and discussing and planning how his family, marriage and family, is going to fulfill God’s purpose for it. Now this is actually where most husbands fall down. Husbands, we like it when everything is an autopilot at home and we don’t have to think about it. The wife’s happy, the The kids are happy, the dogs alive, the houses are on fire, the TV is working. We can relax. And I, wonderful. Of course, this almost never is the case. Even in those moments when everything is great, husbands still need to be leading in terms of helping the family grow in godliness and dominion taking opportunities.

We need to be constantly thinking about how we can press on and do more, take on more responsibility, more work. culture is how can I figure out how to get out of work. Husbands we got to be thinking about okay I’ve got that one under control where’s the next opportunity and lead the family in that. Third a husband is primarily responsible for meeting the family’s financial needs. First Timothy 5-8 reads but if anyone does not provide for his relatives and especially for the members of his own household he is denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. Now some Some will argue that the anyone and the he in that verse should be understood as gender neutral.

But when you combine this verse with Titus 2.5 where Paul calls for younger wives to be workers at home, it’s hard to escape the biblical pattern for husband-wife roles regarding work. It would be difficult now to argue that the Bible forbids anything but that pattern I just mentioned, suggested. Nonetheless, the tenor of the scripture is clear that the husband should be working hard to provide income for his home, and the wife should work hard to manage the daily affairs of the home. Now we could parse these roles for men into finer points, but for sake of time we’re going to leave it there. But before I move on to the wife, let me make a few comments about what these roles of the husband do not imply.

They do not imply that God called the husband to lead because he is somehow superior to the wife. God didn’t sit there and say, well, clearly the man’s got more going for him, so I’ll pick him. for whatever reasons that only he knows, he just said, you’re the man, you’re the dude, you’re the head of the home. God simply assigned these roles. Therefore, they should be done with an attitude of humility. They do not imply that the husband should think and act like a boss. The example we see in Christ is that of the lead servant, shepherd. A husband should have that mindset. I am just the lead servant in this home. Some husbands foolishly, mistakenly think headship means making all the decisions in isolation, handing out the assignments, and then micromanaging every little detail.

That is wrong thinking. The husband may not be the smartest or the most gifted person between the two. He should wisely utilize the gifts and talents God has given his wife and show her the respect that a fellow believer in Christ demands. Always remember that she has the same Holy Spirit residing in her that’s in you. If the husband and wife are not in agreement, then somebody is not listening to the Holy Spirit, and it’s time to take a time out and try to figure it out. When a husband forces a decision upon his wife, he is not exhibiting the right kind of responsible leadership. There may be occasions when the husband feels a decision needs to be made that’s not popular with his wife, but in those rare cases, he should proceed slowly, patiently, and if possible, with input from other godly counsel.

I would recommend, guys, if you’re at loggerheads with your wife, then it’s better to go talk to a couple other people and say, hey, here’s the dispute, can you help me think it through just in case maybe you’re off in the weeds and you’re thinking. Now, we turn our attention to the wife’s roles. But before I do, let me point out a strategic advantage the wife has in a marital relationship. Ladies, I really want you to get this point because I think it’s really a powerful point.

You have a strategic advantage in the marriage that the guy doesn’t have Because a wife is called to take on the role of follower in a marriage She does not bear the same responsibility the husband does if the leadership is bad What I mean is that it is possible for husband to get a d-minus in his leading While the wife gets an a plus in her following of course She must never follow her husband if it would cause her to enter into personal sin that that should be obvious Now this ought to bring some level of peace to the wife knowing that she can please Christ in every regard Even if her husband is leading them in foolish ways This assumes then of course that she’s not nagging or trying to take over the leadership This does not mean it will be easy to follow a foolish man But if her highest desire is to please God she does not own her husband’s foolishness in the same way he owns hers.

In extreme cases it might be necessary for a wife to step in when her husband is failing to lead, but those should be pretty rare and it’s again always wise to seek counsel if you feel like you need to do that. The story of Abigail and David is one example of a wife taking the lead because of her husband’s extreme foolishness. In that situation she knew that her household was about to be attacked and destroyed by David’s men because of her husband’s insult to David. For wives then, working cooperatively with a husband’s leadership involves the following, making sure her own household is well cared for. Now, as I wrote that sentence, I cringed at the blowback that I imagined I might receive from all of the egalitarian’s.

To them, it sounds like the typical barefoot pregnant and in the kitchen mindset that they think most men have. To those critics, I would push back and argue that a life oriented around the well-being of one’s home is actually one of the most powerful levers for culture shaping there ever was. Before I expand on that thought, let me rattle off a few Bible passages that support the idea that a wife’s calling orients itself around the home. Paul gave these instructions to older women. He told the older women to train the younger women to love their husbands and children to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind and submissive to their own husbands.

Proverbs 31, of which numerous women’s books has been written, asks a simple question, an excellent wife who can find. He goes on to give a description of that person. And here’s a real quick summary. The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain. She does him good and not harm all the days of her life. She looks well to the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. She’s industrious and contributes where where she can to the benefit of the household. Her home is a place of hospitality, and she looks for opportunity to assist the poor. Her children rise up and call her blessed, which implies she invested in their lives in ways that deeply impacted them for good.

She makes it possible for her husband to increase his responsibilities to the broader community. Her husband is known in the gates when he sits down among the elders of the land. A moment ago, I said a life oriented around the well-being of one’s home is actually one of the most powerful levers for culture shaping there ever was. Recall those three basic spheres of responsibility that God ordained, church, family, government. Of those three, church and family are the most indispensable ones. As goes the church and the family, so goes the entire culture. Ladies, devoting one’s life work to the nuclear family is not missing the boat of bigger and better opportunity.

It is sailing the biggest ship of opportunity there ever was. Our culture has lost sight of that, and we are paying for it dearly. The old saying at the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world has a lot of truth to it. When Proverbs 31 said, her husband is known in the gates when he sits on the elders of the land, that implies that the wife had a major role in helping her husband achieve the status necessary to sit among the elders. Without her prayers and counsel and work, he would likely not be able to serve in this way. She shares in the honor of her husband’s position in the community, and in a vicarious way, she is helping influence the community for good through him.

If my wife had not been the helpmate she’s been for all these years, there’s no way that I could have served as an elder for the last 34 years. To wrap up my comments on the role of the wife, let me address those whose life situation may not have allowed them to follow this pattern on describing to a T. I in no way wish to lay a guilt trip on you. There are situations where it may not be possible to follow this biblical pattern. All I hope for any sister listening today is that you not be sucked into the wisdom of our age, which is often expressed in feminist or egalitarian words. Do not let anyone tell you that just being a wife, a mom, and a homemaker is somehow less than your potential.

We all need to recognize the role of a wife is exhausting to be sure, but it’s also extremely noble, worthy of praise, and deeply fulfilling when received as a calling from God. So some final thoughts. The assault against biblical marriage is not an extension of the attack, is just an extension of the attack against the church that’s been going on since its inception. currently increasing in our place and time in history right now. Kelly Holloway, a freelance writer, wrote an article titled, The Conservative Definition of Family Values as BS. In her article, she summed up the progressive view on marriage this way.

Conservatives constantly bemoan changes in the American family structure as proof of moral failing, and they have long vilified families with working mothers, single parents, LGBT parents, and non-parental caregivers. But these type of families defy conservative stereotypes and outdated stigmas. What Ms. Holoway doesn’t get is that we do not oppose her views on family and marriage because we defy quote conservative stereotypes. We oppose her views because they defy what God has revealed in His word. To think that we can morph marriage into something according to our will is to invite serious harm into our personal homes as well as into our culture as a whole.

The reality is that all this tinkering with marriage will in the end fail miserably because it is of the devil and the gates of hell cannot prevail against the church. Therefore it is important that we who follow Christ make sure our homes are in order according to biblical precepts, so that when the world’s way collapses, we can make the culture jealous and hopefully be used by God to bring about their repentance and their salvation. And let’s pray. Father, we give you thanks for your word, which again truly is sufficient for all matters pertaining to life and godliness. We do live in a day and an age where our culture is kicking and screaming specifically against these ideas, this complementarian idea for the home.

And Father, I’ve seen it creep into the church at large. That thinking seems to be very predominant. I just ask that you would give us hearts that are open to receive what your word says. Wherever I’ve messed up the word, may you forgive me and strain it out in people’s Father, where people are feeling conviction of the Spirit, would they yield to that and not fight it? But Father, we would just make sure that our homes are in alignment and accorded with what You have said, and that we might receive the maximum blessing that You’ve promised for those who do so. We just pray this now in Jesus’ name, amen.