John Piper

Marriage: A Matrix of Christian Hedonism

May 10, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

by John Piper – Listen

Ephesians 5:21-33

21) Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ. 22) Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord. 23) For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. 24) As the church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands. 25) Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26) that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27) 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. 28) Even so husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29) For no man ever hates his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, as Christ does the church, 30) because we are members of his body. 31) “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32) This mystery is a profound one, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church; 33) however, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

Paul’s theology of marriage starts with the Word of God: The Word of God who is Jesus Christ; and the Word of God which is the inspired Old Testament. And since God is not a God of confusion, his Word is coherent. It has unity. So when Paul wants to understand marriage, he looks to the Word of God—to Jesus and to the Scriptures. When he brings Christ and Scripture together to hear God’s Word on marriage, what he hears is a profound mystery with intensely practical implications. And what I would like to do with you this morning is to explore that mystery and apply two of its practical implications to our lives.

Marriage in Genesis

Ephesians 5:31 is a quotation of Genesis 2:24, “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh.” Then Paul adds in verse 32, “This is a great mystery, and I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church.” Paul knew something about Christ and the church which caused him to see in Genesis 2:24 a mystery in marriage. Let’s go back to Genesis 2:24 and look more closely at the context of this verse and its connection with creation.

According to Genesis 2, God created Adam first and put him in the garden alone. Then in verse 18 the Lord said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make a helper fit for him.” I don’t think this is an indictment of Adam’s fellowship with God; nor is it a hint that the garden was too hard to take care of. The point is that God made man to be a sharer. God created us not to be cul-de-sacs of his bounty, but conduits. No man is complete unless he is conducting grace (like electricity) between God and another person. (No single person should conclude that this can only happen in marriage.) It must be another person not an animal. So in Genesis 2:19–20 God paraded the animals before Adam to show him that animals would never do as a “helper fit for him.” O, animals help plenty! But only a person can be a fellow-heir of the grace of life (1 Peter 1:4–7). Only a person can receive and appreciate and enjoy grace. What man needs is another person with whom he can share the love of God. Animals will not do! There is an infinite difference between sharing the northern lights with your beloved and sharing them with your dog.

Therefore, according to verse 21, “The Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh; and the rib which the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.” Having shown the man that no animal would do for his helper, God made another human from man’s own flesh and bone to be like him—and yet very unlike him. He did not create another man. He created a woman. And Adam recognized in her the perfect counterpart to himself—utterly different from the animals: “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.”

By creating a person like Adam yet very unlike Adam, God provided the possibility of a profound unity that would otherwise have been impossible. There is a different kind of unity enjoyed by the joining of diverse counterparts than is enjoyed by joining two things just alike. When we all sing the same melody line, it is called “unison,” which means “one sound.” But when we unite diverse lines of soprano and alto and tenor and bass, we call it harmony, and everyone who has an ear to hear knows that something deeper in us is touched by great harmony than by unison. So God made a woman and not another man. He created heterosexuality, not homosexuality. God’s first institution was marriage, not the fraternity.

Notice the connection between verses 23 and 24, signaled by the word “therefore” in verse 24. In verse 23 the focus is on two things: objectively, the fact that woman is part of man’s flesh and bone; subjectively, the joy Adam has in being presented with the woman. “At last this is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh!” From these two things the writer draws an inference about marriage in verse 24: “Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh.” In other words, in the beginning God took woman out of man as bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh, and then God presented her back to the man to discover in living fellowship what it means to be one flesh. Then verse 24 draws out the lesson that marriage is just that: a man leaving father and mother because God has given him another, a cleaving to this woman and no other, and discovering the experience of being one flesh. That’s what Paul saw when he looked at the Word of God in Scripture.

The Mystery of Marriage

But Paul knew another Word of God—Jesus Christ. He knew him deeply and intimately. He had learned from Jesus that the church is Christ’s body (Ephesians 1:23). By faith a person is joined to Jesus Christ and to other believers so that we “are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). Believers in Christ are the body of Christ—we are the organism through which he manifests his life and in which his Spirit dwells. Knowing this about the relationship between Christ and the church, Paul sees a parallel here with marriage. He sees that husband and wife become one flesh (according to 2:24) and that Christ and the church become one body. So he is willing to say to the church, for example in 2 Corinthians 11:2, “I feel a divine jealousy for you, for I betrothed you to Christ to present you as a pure bride to her one husband.” He pictures Christ as the husband, the church as the bride, and their conversion as an act of betrothal which he had helped bring about. The presentation of the bride to her husband will probably happen at the second coming of the Lord. That’s described in Ephesians 5:27 as well. So it looks as though Paul uses the relationship of human marriage, learned from Genesis 2, to describe and explain the relationship between Christ and the church.

But when we say it like that, something very important is overlooked. This brings us back to where we started at Ephesians 5:32. After quoting Genesis 2:24 about the man and woman becoming one flesh, Paul says, “This is a great mystery, and I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church.” Marriage is a mystery. There is more here than meets the eye. What is it? I think it’s this: God didn’t create the union of Christ and the church after the pattern of human marriage; just the reverse, he created human marriage on the pattern of Christ’s relation to the church. The mystery of Genesis 2:24 is that the marriage it describes is a parable or symbol of Christ’s relation to his people. God doesn’t do things willy-nilly. Everything has purpose and meaning. When God engaged to create man and woman and to ordain the union of marriage, he didn’t roll dice or draw straws or flip a coin. He patterned marriage very purposefully after the relationship between his Son and the church, which he planned from eternity. And therefore marriage is a mystery—it contains and conceals a meaning far greater than what we see on the outside. What God has joined together in marriage is to be a reflection of the union between the Son of God and his bride the church. Those of us who are married need to ponder again and again how mysterious and wonderful it is that we are granted by God the privilege to image forth stupendous divine realities infinitely bigger and greater than ourselves.

Imaging Christ and the Church

Now what are some of the practical implications of this mystery of marriage? I’ll mention the two which seem to dominate the passage in Ephesians. One is that husbands and wives should consciously copy the relationship God intended for Christ and his church. The other is that in marriage each partner should pursue his or her own joy in the joy of the other; that is, marriage should be a matrix of Christian Hedonism.

First, then, what pattern did God intend for husbands and wives when he ordained marriage as a mysterious parable or image of the relation between Christ and the church? Paul mentions two things, one to the wife and one to the husband. To the wife he says in verses 22–24,

Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. As the church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands.

According to the divine pattern wives are to take their unique cue from the purpose of the church. As the church submits to Christ, so wives are to submit to their husbands. The church submits to Christ as her head. Verse 23: “The husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church.” Headship implies at least two things: Christ is supplier or Savior, and Christ is authority or leader. “Head” is used two other times in Ephesians. Ephesians 4:15, 16 illustrates the head as supplier and Ephesians 1:20–23 illustrates the head as authority.

Speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every joint with which it is supplied, when each part is working properly, makes bodily growth and upbuilds itself in love. (4:15, 16)

The head is the goal to which we grow and the supply to enable the growth. Then consider Ephesians 1:20–23,

God raised him from the dead and made him sit at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above every rule and authority and power and dominion and above every name that is named not only in this age but also in the age to come, and he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

When God raised Christ from the dead, he made him head in the sense of giving him power and authority over all other rule and authority and power and dominion. Therefore, from the context of Ephesians, the headship of the husband implies that as far as possible he should accept greater responsibility for supplying the needs of his wife (including material needs, but also protection and care) and he should accept greater responsibility of authority and leadership in the family.

Then when it says in verse 24, “As the church is subject to Christ, so let wives be subject in everything to their husbands,” the basic meaning of submission would be: recognize and honor the greater responsibility of your husband to supply your protection and sustenance; be disposed to yield to his authority in Christ and be inclined to follow his leadership. The reason I say that submission means a disposition to yield and an inclination to follow is that the little phrase “as to the Lord” in verse 22 limits the scope of submission. No wife should replace the authority of Christ with the authority of her husband. She cannot yield or follow her husband into sin. But even where a Christian wife may have to stand with Christ against the sinful will of her husband, she can still have a spirit of submission. She can show by her attitude and behavior that she does not like resisting his will and that she longs for him to forsake sin and lead in righteousness so that her disposition to honor him as head can again produce harmony. So in this mysterious parable of marriage the wife is to take her special cue from God’s purpose to the church in its relation to Christ.

Now to the husbands, Paul says, take your special cue from Christ. Verse 25, “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” If the husband is the head of the wife as verse 23 says, let it be very plain to all husbands that this means primarily leading out in the kind of love that is willing to die to give her life. As Jesus says in Luke 22:26, “Let the leader become as one who serves.” The husband who plops himself down in front of the TV and orders his wife around like a slave has abandoned Christ in favor of Archie Bunker. Christ bound himself with a towel and washed the apostles’ feet. If you want to be a Christian husband, copy Jesus not Jabba the Hutt.

It is true that verse 21 puts this whole section under the sign of mutual submission. “Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.” But it is utterly unwarranted to infer from this verse that the way Christ submits himself to the church and the way the church submits herself to Christ are the same. The church submits to Christ by a disposition to follow his leadership. Christ submits to the church by a disposition to exercise his leadership in humble service to the church. When Christ said, “Let the leader become as one who serves,” he did not mean, let the leader cease to be leader. Even while he was on his knees washing their feet, no one doubted who the leader was. Nor should any Christian husband shirk his responsibility under God to provide moral vision and spiritual leadership as the humble servant of his wife and family.

So the first implication of the mystery of marriage as a reflection of Christ’s relation to the church is that wives should take their special cue from the church and husbands should take their special cue from Christ. And wherever you find a marriage like that, you find two of the happiest people in the world, because their lives conform to the Word of God in Scripture and the Word of God in Jesus Christ.

Pursuing Joy in the Joy of the Other

One final, practical implication of the mystery of marriage: a husband and wife should pursue their own joy in the joy of each other. There is scarcely a more hedonistic passage in the Bible than Ephesians 5:25–30. This text makes very clear that the reason there is so much misery in marriages is not that husbands and wives are seeking their own pleasure, but that they are not seeking it in the pleasure of their spouses. But this text commands us to do just that because Christ does just that.

First, notice the example of Christ in verses 25–27:

Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, (Why did he?) that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, (Why did he cleanse her?) 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.

Christ died for the church in order that he might present to himself a beautiful bride. He endured the cross for the joy of marriage that was set before him. But what is the ultimate joy of the church? Is it not to be presented as a bride to the sovereign Christ? So Christ sought his own joy in the joy of the church. Therefore, the example Christ sets for husbands is to seek their joy in the joy of their wives.

Verse 28 makes this application explicit. “Even so, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no man ever hates his own flesh but nourishes and cherishes it.” Paul acknowledges one of the foundation stones of Christian Hedonism: “No man ever hates his own flesh.” Even those who commit suicide do it to escape misery. By nature we love ourselves, that is, we do what we think in the moment will make us happy. And Paul does not build a dam against the river of hedonism; he builds a channel for it. He says, “Husbands and wives, recognize that in marriage you have become one flesh; therefore, if you live for your private pleasure at the expense of your spouse, you are living against yourself and destroying your own highest joy. But if you devote yourself with all your heart to the holy joy of your spouse, you will also be living for your joy and making a marriage after the image of Christ and his church.”

Not that my personal testimony could add anything of weight to the Word of God, yet I want to bear witness anyway. I discovered Christian Hedonism the same year I got married, in 1968. For fifteen years Noël and I, in obedience to Jesus Christ, have pursued as passionately as we could the deepest, most lasting joys possible. All too imperfectly, all too half-heartedly at times, we have stalked our own joy like a hunter, in the joy of each other. And we can testify together: that’s where the prize is found. And we believe that in making marriage a matrix of Christian hedonism, each fulfilling the ordained role, the mystery of marriage as a parable of Christ and the church becomes manifest for his great glory. Amen.

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Used by permission: John Piper. © Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org

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Lionhearted and Lamblike: The Christian Husband as Head, Part 2

May 10, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

by John Piper – Listen | Watch

Ephesians 5:21-33

Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. 22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. 25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 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. 28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 30 because we are members of his body. 31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. 33 However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

Jesus—The Pattern for Manhood

The reason I am using the title “Lionhearted and Lamblike” to refer to the Christian husband as head of his wife is because the husband is called to lead like Jesus who is the Lion of Judah (Revelation 5:5) and the Lamb of God (Revelation 5:6)—he was lionhearted and lamblike, strong and meek, tough and tender, aggressive and responsive, bold and brokenhearted. He sets the pattern for manhood.

But it may not yet be crystal clear to some that the concept of headship involves leadership as its main meaning. That is what I think is the case. The key verse on headship here is Ephesians 5:23: “The husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior.” So the husband is to take his unique cues in marriage from Christ in his relationship to his church. I take that to mean that the husband bears a unique responsibility for leadership in the marriage.

The Husband as Leader

I suggested last time that a biblical definition of headship would be: Headship is the divine calling of a husband to take primary responsibility for Christ-like, servant leadership, protection, and provision in the home. The more I have thought about those three facets of headship—leadership, protection, and provision—the more it seems to me that they really resolve into one thing with two expressions. Leadership is the one thing, and protection and provision are the two expressions. In other words, a husband’s leadership expresses itself in taking the lead in seeing to it that the family is protected and provided for. So protection and provision are not separate from leadership. They are the two most fundamental areas where the husband is called upon to bear primary responsibility.

So what we need to do is see the support for this in the text and then some application or illustration of what it means. Let’s give a few arguments from the text for why we think the word head in verse 23 involves a unique responsibility of leadership.

The Husband as Head

1) Head is used for leader in the Old Testament. For example, Judges 11:11, “So Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead, and the people made him head and leader over them (eis kephalēn kai eis archēgon).” (See also 10:18; 11:8, 9; 2 Samuel 22:44; Psalm 18:43; Isaiah 7:8.)

2) Ephesians 1:21–23 says that Christ is “above every name that is named . . . and God has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body.” The focus in this text is on Christ’s rule and authority when he is called head of the church. So the emphasis falls on his leadership over the church.

3) In Ephesians 5:25, Paul says, “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” While the stress here falls on Christ’s sacrifice for his bride and so tells the husband to love like this, we must not miss the inescapable truth that Christ took an absolutely decisive action here. He was not responding to the church. The church did not plan its salvation and sanctification. Christ did. This is leadership of the most exalted kind. But it is servant leadership. Christ is taking the lead to save his bride, and he is doing it by suffering for her.

But we see leadership in Christ’s sacrifice not just because he planned it and took the initiative rather than responding to her initiative, but also in the fact that he died to give an example to us. Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24). In other words, I have taken the lead in suffering for love’s sake; now you take up your cross and follow me. This is why leadership is not mainly a right and privilege, but a burden and a responsibility.

4) Finally, in view of these three reasons why headship involves leadership, the fourth argument is that the concept of submission, when related to headship, implies that headship is leadership. Paul says in verses 22-23, “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife.” When the ground of submission is expressed as the headship of the husband, it is clear that headship involves the kind of leadership that a woman can honor.

The definition of submission that we will unfold after Easer is: “Submission is the divine calling of a wife to honor and affirm her husband’s leadership and help carry it through according to her gifts.” The point today is simply that when submission is correlated with headship, it implies that headship involves leadership. The wife honors and affirms her husband’s leadership and helps carry it through according to her gifts.

So from these four observations—and there are more for other parts of the Bible that we could look at—I conclude that headship is the divine calling of a husband to take primary responsibility for Christ-like, servant leadership, protection, and provision in the home.

Protection

Now where in this text do we see the idea that this leadership takes special responsibility for protection and provision in the family? First, consider protection. In verses 25-27, Paul shows the husband how to love his wife—that is, how to exercise the kind of servant leadership that Christ did: “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 water with the 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 words “gave himself up for her,” we hear the saving sacrifice of Jesus Christ. When Christ gave himself up for us, he took our place. He bore our sins (1 Peter 2:24) and became a curse for us (Galatians 3:13) and died for us (Romans 5:8); and because of all this we are reconciled to God and saved from his wrath. Romans 5:10: “If while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.”

If there ever was an example of leadership that took the initiative to protect his bride, this is it. So when Paul calls a husband to be the head of his wife by loving like Christ when he leads, whatever else he means, he means: Protect her at all costs.

Provision

And what about provision? I am contending that headship is the divine calling of a husband to take primary responsibility for Christ-like, servant leadership, protection, and provision in the home. Are there evidences in this text that a husband’s leadership should take primary responsibility for the provision for his wife and family? Yes. If anything, this is even more explicit. Consider verses 28-29: “In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church.”

The words “nourish and cherish” are significant. The word nourish (ektrephei) is most often used in the Bible for raising children and providing them with what they need, but the part of that meaning that applies here is not that the husband is a parent but that he is a caring provider. It’s used more in the sense of Genesis 45:11 where Joseph says to his brothers, “There I will provide (ekthrepsō) for you, for there are yet five years of famine to come.” So the point is at least that the husband who leads like Christ takes the initiative to see to it that the needs of his wife and children are met. He provides for them.

Similarly, the other word in verse 29 points in the same direction but even more tenderly. The husband “nourishes and cherishes (thalpei) it [his body, his wife], just as Christ does the church.” This word for cherishing is used by Paul one other time, namely, to refer to his tender love for the church in Thessalonica. He compares himself to a mother caring for her infant. First Thessalonians 2:7: “We were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children.” The point was not at all to belittle the church; the point was to emphasize his tender care and that he would do anything he could for them the way a mother does her child.

So I conclude that there is good reason just from Ephesians 5—not to mention Genesis 1-3 and elsewhere—to lift up the divine calling of the husband as bearing a primary responsibility for Christ-like, servant leadership, protection, and provision in the home.

Life Hangs on Protection and Provision

Now notice something about protection and provision. The reason they stand out is that they are so basic. Without protection and provision, life itself is threatened. So the reason these two rise to the surface so quickly is that if a husband fails in his leadership here, there may not be any other place to exercise it. The life of the family hangs on protection and provision. Life itself must be protected and nourished, or it ceases to exist.

But there is another reason these two stand out. Protection and provision both have a physical and a spiritual meaning. There is physical food that needs to be provided, and there is spiritual food that needs to be provided. Husbands need to protect against physical threats to the life of the family and spiritual threats to the life of the family. So when you think it through, virtually everything a husband is called upon to do in his leadership is summed up in one of these four ways: 1) physical provision (like food and shelter), 2) spiritual provision (like the word of God and spiritual guidance, instruction, and encouragement), 3) physical protection (as from intruders or natural disasters or disease), and 4) spiritual protection (like prayer and warnings and keeping certain influences out of the home). Provision: physical and spiritual. Protection: physical and spiritual.

Encouragement of Husbands

Before I give some examples, let me give a word of encouragement and caution. The encouragement is to men. If this sounds new and overwhelming, be encouraged that Christ does not call you to do what he won’t empower you to do. My father loved to quote to us as a family Philippians 4:13, “I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” Husbands are called to do some very hard things. Leadership is not easy. That’s part of what being a Christian means: Take up your cross and follow me. But with every command comes a promise. “Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand” (Isaiah 41:10). So be encouraged. Leadership is hard. But you’re a man. You’re a man. If your father never taught you how to lead, your heavenly Father will.

A Caution to Wives

The caution is to women. You cannot demand that your husband take leadership. For several reasons: 1) Demanding is contradictory to the very thing for which you long. It is out of character. If you become the demander, he’s not the leader. 2) Demanding will be counterproductive because if he had any impulse to try harder, your demanding will take the heart out of it, because it won’t feel like leading any more; it will feel like acquiescence. 3) It has to come from inside him worked by the word of God and the Spirit of God. So, instead of demanding, 1) pray earnestly for him that God would awaken his true manhood. 2) Ask him for a time when the two of you alone, when you are neither tired nor angry, can talk about your heart’s desires. When you express your longings, do it without sounding any ultimatums, and with a sense of hope grounded in God, not man. Express appreciation and honor for any ways that he is leading.

Examples and Explanations

That’s the encouragement and the caution. Now some examples and explanations. These must be brief and provocative rather than complete and an attempt to answer all your questions. Consider what leadership is in each of the four spheres mentioned earlier.

1. Leadership in Spiritual Provision

To provide spiritual food for the family, you must know spiritual food. This means that a man must go hard after God. You can only lead spiritually if you are growing in your own knowledge of God and love for God. If you are feeding your soul with the word of God, you will be drawn to feed your wife and your children.

Gather your wife and children for family devotions everyday—call it whatever you want: family prayers, family worship, family Bible time. Take the initiative to gather them. If you don’t know what to do, ask some brothers what they do. Or ask your wife what she would like to do. You don’t have to be a loner here. Remember, headship takes primary responsibility, not sole responsibility. The wife, we pray, is always supporting and helping. And regularly has gifts that the husband doesn’t. What women rightly long for is spiritual and moral initiative, from a man, not spiritual and moral domination.

And remember there is no necessary connection between being an effective leader and being more intellectual or more competent than your wife. Leadership does not assume it is superior. It assumes it should take initiatives. See that the family prays and reads the Bible and goes to church and discusses spiritual and moral issues, and learns to use the means of grace and grows in knowledge, and watches your example in all these things.

2. Leadership in Physical Provision

The husband bears the primary responsibility to put bread on the table. Again the word primary is important. Both husbands and wives always work. But their normal spheres of work are man: breadwinner; wife: domestic manager, designer, nurturer. And that never has meant that there are not seasons in life when a wife cannot work outside the home or that the husband cannot share the domestic burdens. But it does mean that a man compromises his own soul and sends the wrong message to his wife and children when he does not position himself as the one who lays down his life to put bread on the table. He may be disabled and unable to do what his heart longs to do. He may be temporarily in school while she supports the family. But in any case his heart, and, if possible, his body, is moving toward the use of his mind and his hands to provide physically for his wife and children.

3. Leadership in Spiritual Protection

The spiritual dangers that beset the family today are innumerable and subtle. We need valiant warriors like never before. Not with spears and shields, but with biblical discernment and courage. First, husbands, pray for your family everyday, “Lead them not into temptation but deliver them from evil.” Fight for them in prayer against the devil and the world and the flesh. Pray the prayers of the Bible for them. Don’t grow weary. God hears and answers prayer for our wives and children.

Set standards for your wife and children. Work them through with your wife. Remember the path of leadership here is primary responsibility, not sole responsibility. Wives are eager to help here, but what frustrates them is when we don’t take any initiative and they are left to try to determine and enforce the standards alone. Take the initiative in thinking through what will be allowed on TV. What movies you and the children will go to. What music will be listened to. And how low your daughter’s necklines will be. I am tempted to preach a whole message on the relationship between dads and the way their daughters dress. Yes, mom is the key player here in helping a young woman learn the meaning of modesty and beauty. But dad’s role for both of them is indispensable both in celebrating what they look like and telling them when the way they dress means what they don’t think it means. Dads, you know exactly what I mean. What you need here is courage. Don’t be afraid here. This is your daughter, and she must hear from you what she is saying to men with her clothes.

One other example of leadership in spiritual protection: Paul says in Ephesians 4:26-27, “Do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil.” In other words, one wide open door to the devil in your house is unresolved anger as you go to bed. In the children and in the marriage. Leadership means we must take the lead in reconciliation.

I don’t mean that wives should never say they are sorry. But in the relation between Christ and his church, who took the initiative to make all things new? Who left the comfort and security of his throne of justice to put mercy to work at Calvary? Who came back to Peter first after three denials? Who has returned to you again and again forgiving you and offering his fellowship afresh? So husbands, your headship means: Go ahead. Take the lead. It does not matter if it is her fault. That didn’t stop Christ. Who will break the icy silence first? Who will choke out the words, “I’m sorry, I want it to be better”? Or: “Can we talk? I’d like things to be better.” She might beat you to it. That’s okay. But woe to you if you think that, since it’s her fault, she’s obliged to say the first reconciling word. Headship is not easy. It is the hardest, most humbling work in the world. Protect your family. Strive, as much as it lies within you, to make peace before the sun goes down.

4. Leadership in Physical Protection

This is too obvious to need illustration—I wish. If there is a sound downstairs during the night and it might be a burglar, you don’t say to her: This is an egalitarian marriage, so it’s your turn to go check it out. I went last time.” And I mean that even if your wife has a black belt in karate. After you’ve tried, she may finish off the burglar with one good kick to the solar plexus. But you better be unconscious on the floor, or you’re no man. That’s written on your soul, brother, by God Almighty. Big or little, strong or weak, night or day, you go up against the enemy first. Woe to the husband—and woe to the nation—that send their women to fight their battles.

For God’s Glory and Our Good

When Adam and Eve sinned in the garden and God came to call them to account, it didn’t matter that Eve had sinned first. God said, “Adam, where are you?” (Genesis 3:9). That’s God’s word to the family today: Adam, husband, father, where are you? If something is not working right at your house and Jesus comes knocking on the door, he may have an issue with your wife, but the first thing he’s going to say when she opens the door is, “Is the man of the house home?”

When a man joyfully bears the primary God-given responsibility for Christ-like, servant leadership and provision and protection in the home—for the spiritual well-being of the family, for the discipline and education of the children, for the stewardship of money, for holding of a steady job, for the healing of discord—I have never met a wife who is sorry she married such a man. Because when God designs a thing (like marriage), he designs it for his glory and our good.

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Used by permission: John Piper. © Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org

Lionhearted and Lamblike: The Christian Husband as Head, Part 1

May 10, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

by John Piper - Listen | Watch

Ephesians 5:21-33

Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. 22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. 25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 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. 28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 30 because we are members of his body. 31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. 33 However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

If the Lord wills, both today and next week we will focus on what it means for a married man to be the head of his wife and of his home. We focus on this for two reasons. One is that the Bible says in Ephesians 5:23, “The husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church.” We need to know what the Bible means by this statement so that we can exult in it and obey.

The other reason is that few things are more broken in our day than manhood and headship in relation to women and families. And the price of this brokenness is enormous and touches almost every facet of life. So for the sake of faithful biblical exposition and exultation, and for the sake of recovering biblical manhood and Christ-exalting family structures, we will, Lord willing, spend two weeks on this important issue of headship.

First Things First

Our emphasis in these weeks so far has been that staying married is not mainly about staying in love, but about keeping covenant. We did eventually come around to saying that precisely by this unwavering covenant-keeping the possibility of being profoundly in love in forty years is much greater than if you think of the task of marriage is first staying in love. Keeping first things first makes second things better. Staying in love isn’t the first task of marriage. It is a happy overflow of covenant-keeping for Christ’s sake.

We have spent most of our effort in these five messages so far pondering the foundations of covenant-keeping in the way Christ keeps covenant with us. We have looked at marriage as a showcase of covenant-keeping grace and as a combination of forgiveness and forbearance. And the last time we were together we took up the question: Can you help each other change? And if so, how do you do that graciously?

Headship Seen in Light of the Gospel

Up till now we have spent little time on the distinct roles of husband and wife—headship and submission. This was intentional. Foundations in the gospel are needed before these things can shine with the beauty they really have. There is nothing ugly or undesirable in these distinctions of headship and submission when they’re seen in the light of the gospel of grace.

So now the question presses on us: What is headship? And what is submission? The plan is to deal with headship in the next two weeks and then after Easter deal with submission and other issues relating to marriage.

This week will be largely foundation for headship, and next week will be largely application. What does it actually look like in practice?

The Mystery Revealed

Let’s move into this text at verse 31. It’s a quote from Genesis 2:24: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” In the next verse (v. 32), Paul looks back on this quote and says, “This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.”

Now why is the coming together of a man and woman to form one flesh in marriage called a mystery? Mystery in the New Testament does not mean something too complex or deep or obscure or distant for humans to understand. It refers to a hidden purpose of God that is now revealed for our understanding and enjoyment. Paul explains what the mystery is in verse 32. The marriage union is a mystery, he says, because its deepest meaning has been concealed by God during the Old Testament history, but is now being openly revealed by the apostle, namely, that marriage is an image of Christ and the church. Verse 32: “I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.”

So marriage is like a metaphor or an image or a picture or a parable or a model that stands for something more than a man and a woman becoming one flesh. It stands for the relationship between Christ and the church. That’s the deepest meaning of marriage. It’s meant to be a living drama of how Christ and the church relate to each other.

The Parallel Between One Body and One Flesh

You can see how this is confirmed in verses 28-30. They describe the parallel between Christ and the church being one body andthe husband and wife being one flesh. Verses 28-29: “In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it . . . .” In other words, the one-flesh union between man and wife means that in a sense they are now one body so that the care a husband has for his wife he, in that very act, has for himself. They are one. What he does for her he does for himself.

Then he compares this to Christ’s care for the church. Verses 29-30: “No one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body.” Be sure to see the parallel: Christ nourishes and cherishes the church because we are members (that is, arms and legs and hands and feet) of his body. And husbands nourish and cherish their wives “as their own bodies.” No one ever hated his own flesh. Wives are our own flesh as the church is Christ’s own body. Just as the husband is one flesh with his wife so Christ is one body with the church. When the husband cherishes and nourishes his wife, he cherishes and nourishes himself; and when Christ cherishes and nourishes the church, he cherishes and nourishes himself.

All of this underlines what Paul calls a “profound mystery”—that marriage, in its deepest meaning, is a copy of Christ and the church. If you want to understand God’s meaning for marriage you have to grasp that we are dealing with a copy of a greater original, a metaphor of a greater reality and parable and a greater truth. And the original, the reality, the truth is God’s marriage to his people, or now in the New Testament, we see it as Christ’s marriage to the church. And the copy, the metaphor, the parable is human marriage between a husband and a wife. Geoffrey Bromiley says, “As God made man in His own image, so He made earthly marriage in the image of His own eternal marriage with His people” (God and Marriage, pg 43). I think that is exactly right. And it is one of the most profound things you can say about human life.

The Roles Are Distinct

One of the things to learn from this mystery is that the roles of husband and wife in marriage are distinct. Consider the way Ephesians 5:22–25 unpacks the role of husband and the role of wife in the mystery of marriage as a copy of Christ and the church: “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 is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” Husbands are compared to Christ; wives are compared to the church. Husbands are compared to the head; wives are compared to the body. Husbands are commanded to love as Christ loved; wives are commanded to submit as the church is to submit to Christ.

It is astonishing how many people do not see this when they deal with this passage. Or, seeing it, neglect it. I have in mind those who would be called egalitarians—the ones who reject the idea that men are called to be leaders in the home. They put all the emphasis on verse 21 and the teaching of mutual submission. All agree that verse 21 is overflow from verse 18 where Paul commands us to be filled with the Spirit. Verses 18b-21: “Be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.”

So submitting to one another is seen as an expression of being filled with the Holy Spirit. Husbands and wives who are filled with the Holy Spirit serve one another. They humble themselves and get down low to lift the other up. They find ways to submit their immediate preferences for comfort to the need of the other. Amen to that! May it happen more and more. I have no desire to minimize the mutuality of submission and servanthood.

Mutual Submission and Unique Roles

But the problem is that egalitarians seem to stop with mutual submission, as if that were all one needed to say about roles in marriage, or as if that is all that the text has to say. And when they stop there, most people today are left with great ambiguity and great confusion about the proper roles of husband and wife. Once you clarify for people that a husband and a wife should be mutually humble, and mutually ready to serve each other, and mutually eager to meet each other’s needs and build each other up—once you have said all that, there remains a great uncertainty as to what, if anything, distinguishes the role of husband and wife. Is it only the biological gift of childbearing that distinguishes the roles? Or is there something more pervasive?

What is so astonishing is that egalitarians don’t embrace what every ordinary reader can see in Ephesians 5. After declaring that there is mutual submission in verse 21, Paul devotes twelve verses to unfolding the difference in the way a husband and wife should serve each other. You don’t need to deny mutual submission to affirm the importance of the unique role of the husband as head and the unique calling of the wife to submit to that headship.

Jesus, the Bridegroom, Served His Bride

The simplest way to see this is to remember that Jesus himself bound himself with a towel and got down on the floor and washed this disciples’ feet (the bridegroom, serving the bride), but not for one minute did any of the apostles in that room doubt who the leader was in that moment. In other words, mutuality of submission and servanthood do not cancel out the reality of leadership or headship. Servanthood does not nullify leadership; it defines it. Jesus does not cease to be the Lion of Judah when he becomes the lamb-like servant of the church.

After calling attention to the mutuality of submission or servanthood in verse 21, Paul devotes the whole passage through verse 33 to making distinctions between the role of the husband and the role of the wife—between the loving headship of a husband who takes his cues from Christ, and the willing submission of a wife who takes her cues from how the church is to follow Christ.

What we need to hear from this text today is not just a call to mutual submission that leaves young men groping for what it means to be a husband and young women groping for what it means to be a wife. What we need to hear is what headship and submission mean. What are the positive, practical implications of being called head that give man his distinct role in marriage? It is not enough to say, “Serve one another.” That is true of Christ and his church—they serve each other. But they do not serve each other in all the same ways. Christ is Christ. We are the church. To confuse the distinctions would be doctrinally and spiritually devastating. So also the man is the Christ-portraying husband, and the woman is the church-portraying wife. And to confuse these God-intended distinctions, or to abandon them, results in more disillusionment and more divorce and more devastation.

The Roles Are Not Arbitrary or Reversible

One of the things that are crystal clear in Ephesians 5 is that the roles of husband and wife in marriage are not arbitrarily assigned and they are not reversible any more than the role of Christ and the church are reversible. The roles of husband and wife are rooted in the distinctive roles of Christ and his church. The revelation of this mystery is the recovery of the original intention of covenant marriage in the Garden of Eden.

You can see this most clearly when you ponder what sin did to headship and submission and how Paul’s teaching here in Ephesians 5 is so perfectly suited to remedy that corruption. When sin entered the world, it ruined the harmony of marriage not because it brought headship and submission into existence, but because it twisted man’s humble, loving headship into hostile domination in some men and lazy indifference in others. And it twisted woman’s intelligent, willing, happy, creative, articulate submission into manipulative obsequiousness or groveling in some women and brazen insubordination in others. Sin didn’t create headship and submission; it ruined them and distorted them and made them ugly and destructive.

Recovering Roles from the Ravages of Sin

Now if this is true, then the redemption we anticipate with the coming of Christ is not the dismantling of the original, created order of loving headship and willing submission, but a recovery of it from the ravages of sin. And that’s exactly what we find here in Ephesians 5:21-33. Wives, let your fallen submission be redeemed by modeling it after God’s intention for the church! Husbands, let your fallen headship be redeemed by modeling it after God’s intention for Christ!

Therefore, headship is not a right to control or to abuse or to neglect. (Christ’s sacrifice is the pattern.) Rather, it’s the responsibility to love like Christ in leading and protecting and providing for your wife and family. And submission is not slavish or coerced or cowering. That’s not the way Christ wants the church to respond to his leadership and protection and provision. He wants the submission of the church to be free and willing and glad and refining and strengthening.

In other words, what Ephesians 5:21-33 does is two things: It guards against the abuses of headship by telling husbands to love like Jesus, and it guards against the debasing of submission by telling wives to respond the way the church does to Christ.

Defining Headship and Submission

So let me close for now with brief definitions of headship and submission and then come back next week, Lord willing, with practical application of what this headship in particular looks like.

Headship is the divine calling of a husband to take primary responsibility for Christ-like, servant leadership, protection, and provision in the home. (See next week’s message for the biblical basis of the words “leadership, protection, and provision.”)

Submission is the divine calling of a wife to honor and affirm her husband’s leadership and help carry it through according to her gifts.

A good deal is at stake here. I hope you take it seriously whether you are single or married, old or young. Not just the fabric of society hangs on this, but the revelation of the covenant-keeping Christ and his covenant-keeping church.

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Used by permission: John Piper. © Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org

Jesus Is Precious as the Foundation of the Family

May 10, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

by John Piper – Listen

Ephesians 5:21-6:9

Jesus is precious because he removes our guilt. He is precious because he gives us eternal life. And he is precious because through him we become authentic. Jesus Christ is the most important man that ever lived. To know him is more valuable than knowing all the most famous and powerful people of history. To be known and loved by him is a greater honor than if all the heads of state were to bow in your presence. When this world is over and we all stand before the judgment seat of God, many of you will look back with shame and dismay at how small was the place granted to the Son of God in your daily lives: how seldom you spoke to him, how little of his Word you learned, how half-hearted your resolve to obey, how narrow the sphere of life in which you eagerly sought his lordship. And on that day you will wonder no more why you were so unhappy in this life: unhappy at work,, unhappy in school, unhappy at church, unhappy at home. It will all come clear: half-hearted allegiance to the lordship of Christ in the practical affairs of everyday life not only robs Jesus of the honor we owe him, but also robs us of joy and purpose.

The Lordship of Christ in the Home

If it is true, as we saw last week from Romans 14:9, that Jesus desires so much to be Lord in your life that he died for that purpose, then is it not plain that in every part of your life Jesus wants to be Lord? There is no time or place or activity in your daily routine where Jesus does not want to be your owner, your provider, and your commander. And you will never know joy and authenticity in the minute by minute doing of your daily duties until you are wholly surrendered to him. That is, until you say, “Anything you say, Jesus, at work. Anything you say, Jesus, at school. Anything you say, Jesus, at church. Jesus, I will do anything, anything you say at home.”

Everybody wants a happy home. And most people want a purposeful home—a home with a mission and destiny beyond the mere satisfaction of our own daily desires. We want homes where each person flowers rather than fades. Homes with the aroma of respect rather than the odor of continual belittling. Homes with laughter instead of bitterness, eye to eye conversations instead of sporadic comments, peace instead of conflict, a sense of common mission instead of festering introversion.

The importance of family life in society and church can scarcely be exaggerated. O how crucial in the development of a child’s personhood is the life of his family. And not only little children—but also the lives of husbands and wives are made more or less fruitful by their experience at home. We want a happy home and a family with a purpose and a mission. And my message today is that the lordship of Jesus Christ is the only lasting foundation of such a home. Trusting Christ as Savior, surrendering to him as Lord, and orienting all of your family relations on him, transforms the home into a little heaven on earth. And even if some member of your family is not a believer, there is more grace and power for your love under the lordship of Jesus than anywhere else. He is precious as the foundation of the family.

What I want to do this morning from our text in Ephesians 5 is make one main point and illustrate it briefly in the relationship of husband and wife. The main point is this: Christian family life is a work of God’s Spirit in the lives of those who do everything for Christ’s sake.

A Work of God’s Spirit

Ephesians 5:21–6:9 is a fairly familiar text. It deals with wives and husbands, children and fathers, slaves and masters. In a typical household of that time, those were the three dominant relationships that needed to be regulated. Paul was answering the question: what difference doers it make in a family when its members become Christians? The very existence of such a text in the New Testament (and there are several of them—Colossians 3:18–4:1; 1 Peter 2:18–3:7; Titus 2:4–10) shows that God is not indifferent about the ordinary give and take of home-life. If Christ is your Lord, he is Lord of all your daily life.

But what is not as familiar about this text is the context in which Paul puts it. Look back to verse 15: “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of the time because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit.” And then comes a series of phrases which tell us the effect of being filled with the Spirit of God: “addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart, always and for everything giving thanks in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father.” And then most of the English versions do something that makes it very hard to see Paul’s intention. They put a period or semicolon at the end of verse 20 and translate verse 21, “Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.” But in the original, “Be subject” is not a new sentence or a main verb. It is another participle like “addressing,” “singing,” “making melody,” and “giving thanks.” In other words, verse 21 belongs with verses 19–20 as an explanation of what it means to be filled with the Spirit in verse 18. Literally, then, the passage says: “Be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord in your heart, always and for everything giving thanks in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father, being subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.” The purpose of verses 19–21 is to spell out what happens when you are filled with the Holy Spirit. In verse 19 your heart overflows in song to each other and to the Lord. Verse 20 says that thankfulness is at the center of those heart songs. And verse 21 says that when you are filled with the Spirit, you will submit to one another.

When the Holy Spirit is holding full sway in your life, then your heart brims with a song of gratitude and your heart humbly submits to serve those around you. Submitting yourself to someone means not rebelling with a sense of superiority or a feeling that you are too good to stoop and help when someone puts upon you for service. It’s what Paul means when he says in Ephesians 4:1–2, “Lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called in all lowliness and meekness, with patience, forbearing one another in love.” And in Romans 15:2, “Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to edify him.” And Romans 12:10, “Outdo one another in showing honor.” And Philippians 2:3, “Do nothing from selfishness or conceit, but in lowliness count each other better than yourselves.” That kind of humility and readiness to serve rather than be served, to honor rather than be honored, is a fruit of the Spirit. And when we are filled with the Spirit, we will be submissive to each other in this way. That is the connection between verses 18 and 21.

But now comes the crucial connection with family life. Verses 22ff. are clearly an extension and application of the principle in verse 21. We know this mainly from the grammar of the text. The command in verse 22, “Wives be subject to your husbands,” has no verb in the original. It simply says, “Wives to your own husbands.” Which means it is a continuation of verse 21. The flow of thought then from verse 18 to 22 would be: “Be filled with the Spirit . . . submitting to each other out of reverence for Christ, wives to your own husbands as to the Lord.”

So now it should be evident where I got my main point: Christian family life is a work of God’s Spirit. The submission of a wife to her husband and a husband’s love to his wife (vv. 22–33),the obedience of children and their nurturing by parents (6:1–4), the obedience of servants and the forbearance of masters (6:5–9) all are expansions of the principle in 5:21: “submitting to each other in reverence to Christ.” And this submission in verse 21 is a description of how people act when they are filled with the Holy Spirit (v. 18). Therefore, all of Christian family life is a work of God’s Spirit.

In Those Who Do Everything for Christ’s Sake

But my main point had another part. I said, “Christian family life is a work of God’s Spirit in the lives of those who do everything for Christ’s sake.” Even though the Spirit of God is free to blow where he wills, there is a God-ordained correlation between submission to Jesus as Lord and the work of the Spirit. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 12:3, “No one speaking by the Spirit of God ever says ‘Jesus be accursed!’ and no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit.” Wherever a person bows in humility under the lordship of Christ, there the Spirit of God is at work. It is the mission of the Spirit to exalt Jesus Christ. Jesus said in John 16:14, when the Spirit comes, “He will glorify me.” Therefore, when we are filled with the Spirit, we are in love with the glory of Christ and we delight to bow to him as Lord. Or to put it the other way around, if we desire to see the Spirit of God transform our family life, we must surrender totally to Jesus as Lord and turn all our daily doings into an offering of worship to him. When the Spirit reigns in your life, you do everything with a view to honoring Jesus. And in that way Jesus becomes the foundation and focus and goal of the family, and life at home is transformed.

Notice the evidence for this in the text. After commanding us to be filled with the Spirit in verse 18, almost every verse that follows all the way to 6:9 shows that the Spirit’s work is to exalt Christ and orient all of life (especially family life) on him. Let’s follow his thought. First, in verse 19 the Spirit produces songs to the Lord (Jesus). Then, in verse 20 he produces gratitude to God in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then, in verse 21 he produces submission in reverence for Christ. In verse 22 wives submit themselves to their husbands as to the Lord. In verse 25 husbands love their wives as Christ loved the church. In 6:1 children obey their parents in the Lord. In verse 4 fathers bring up their children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. In verse 5 slaves obey their earthly masters in singleness of heart as to Christ. And in verse 9 masters leave off threatening because they too have a Master in heaven. When a family is filled with the Spirit, everything is oriented on Christ. Christian family life is a work of God’s Spirit in the lives of those who do everything for Christ’s sake. That’s the main point.

A Word to Husbands

And now I want to look briefly at two of Paul’s applications of this truth in our text: first a word to husbands, then to wives, then a closing challenge to us all to be filled with the Spirit, yielded to the lordship of Christ for the sake of our families. The word to husbands is this: Be filled with the Spirit! Yield to the lordship of Christ! And then recognize this: your God-appointed headship in the family is to be exercised in love on the pattern of Christ’s love for the church. I believe many people today make the mistake of saying that since mutual submission of all believers to each other is taught in verse 21, therefore there is no distinction between the roles of husband and wife. But the text simply will not allow this. What verses 22–33 do is spell out the peculiar forms that lowliness and submissiveness of husband and wife will take. And they are not the same. The wife is compared to the church, the husband compared to Christ. The husband is compared to the head, the wife is compared to his body (v. 28). If all Paul wanted to say was “Submit to each other,” he could have left out verses 22–33 altogether. But we know from other letters he wrote (1 Corinthians 11, 1 Timothy 2) that Paul sees in the created order a God-appointed distinction between male and female that makes the man’s headship or leadership in marriage fitting and beautiful.

But what the apostle stresses here in Ephesians 5:25–33 is that husbands should be filled with the Holy Spirit, eager to exalt Jesus Christ, and therefore ready to conform their leadership to Christ’s. Christ fulfilled his headship or leadership over the disciples through sacrificial service. Jesus did not cease to be the leader of the disciples when he stooped to wash their feet (John 13:13–15). And when he hung on the cross, the weakest of the weak for the sake of his bride, the church, he was no less her head. Woe to the husband who thinks that his maleness requires of him a domineering, demanding attitude toward his wife. This is not the mark of a Christ-like head but a childish bully.

But the subordinate point of this text for husbands is just as needed today as the main point, namely, you are to be the leader and head of your household under Christ. Do not let the rhetoric of contemporary feminism cow you into thinking that Christ-like leadership in the home is bad. It is what our homes need more than anything. Husbands, for all your meekness and all your servanthood and all your submission to your wife’s deep desires and needs, you are still the head, the leader. What I mean is this: it is you who should take the lead in the things of the Spirit; it is you who should lead the family in prayer, in the study of God’s Word, in worship; it is you who should lead out in giving the family a vision of its meaning and mission; it is you who should take the lead in shaping the moral fabric of the home and in governing its happy peace. I have never yet met a woman who chafes under such Christ-like leadership. But I know of many women whose lives are unhappy because their husbands have no moral vision, no spiritual conception of what a family is for, and therefore no desire to lead anyone anywhere.

Have you seen the Camel Cigarette billboards—the curly-headed, bronze-faced, muscular macho with the cigarette hanging out the side of his mouth? The sign says, “Where a man belongs.” You know what I pray when I think about that sign? I pray that Bethlehem will be filled with men who, when they see that sign, say, “To hell with such lies!”—men who know that where a man belongs is on his knees beside his wife, leading in prayer. Where a man belongs is at the bedside of his children, leading in devotion and prayer. Where a man belongs is in the driver’s seat, leading his family to the house of God. Where a man belongs is up early and alone with God, seeking vision and direction for the family. Men, I challenge you in the name of Jesus Christ our King, be where you belong!

A Word to Wives

And now a brief word to wives. In its context Ephesians 5:22 means: if you are filled with the Spirit and yielded to the lordship of Christ, then you will be subject to your husbands as to the Lord. That little phrase “as to the Lord” has two implications. One is that a woman’s first and ultimate allegiance is to the Lord Jesus and that other allegiances are subordinate to and derivative from this one. The other implication is that, therefore, the subordinate allegiances are limited by the revealed will of Christ. This means that the form which a wife’s submission takes will vary according to the quality of her husband’s leadership.

If the husband is a godly man who has a biblical vision for the family and leads out in the things of the Spirit, a godly woman will rejoice in this leadership and support him in it. She will no more be squelched by this leadership than disciples are squelched by the leadership of Jesus. If she thinks his vision is distorted or his direction is unbiblical, she will not sit in dumb silence but query him in a spirit of meekness and may often save his foot from stumbling. For husband-headship does not mean infallibility or hostility to correction. Nor does the wife’s involvement in shaping the direction of the family involve insubordination.

But if a Christian woman is married to a man who provides no vision, gives no moral direction, takes no lead in the things of the Spirit, the form of her submission will be different. Under the lordship of Christ she will not join her husband in sin, even if he wants her to. And where she can, she will give a spiritual vision and moral direction to her children. But even in this she need not communicate a cocky spirit of insubordination. Even when she must, for Christ’s sake, do what her husband does not approve of, she can try to explain in a tranquil and gentle spirit that it is not because she wants to go against him but because she is bound to Christ. Yet it will do no good to preach at him. At the root of his being he is dreadfully guilty that he is not assuming the moral leadership of his house. You must give him room and in quietness win him by your powerful and sacrificial love (1 Peter 3:1–6).

In conclusion, there is a God-ordained pattern of headship and submission, of leadership and joyful support of that leadership, within the family. It has been conceived by God and revealed to us that we might discover happiness at home and a meaningful mission for our family. It is the work of the Spirit of God in the lives of those who do everything for Christ’s sake. Therefore, the question for you who want a happy home and a meaningful mission and destiny for your family is: Are you filled with the Spirit of God and yielded to the lordship of Christ?

If you would like to pray with one of the pastors and seek this spiritual enabling for new relations at home, I invite you to make that choice very definite by coming and meeting Pastor Glenn as we sing “Happy the Home Where God Is There.”

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Used by permission: John Piper. © Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org

Husbands Who Love Like Christ and the Wives Who Submit to Them

May 10, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

by John Piper – Listen

Ephesians 5:21-23; 1 Peter 3:1-7

Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord. For Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. As the church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands. 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 water with the word, 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. Even so husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no man ever hates his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is a profound one, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church; however, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.Likewise you wives, be submissive to your husbands, so that some, though they do not obey the word, may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives, when they see your reverent and chaste behavior. Let not yours be the outward adorning with braiding of hair, decoration of gold, and wearing of fine clothing, but let it be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable jewel of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious. So once the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves and were submissive to their husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord. And you are now her children if you do right and let nothing terrify you. Likewise you husbands, live considerately with your wives, bestowing honor on the woman as the weaker sex, since you are joint heirs of the grace of life, in order that your prayers may not be hindered.

Let’s jump into this text at verse 31. It’s a quote from Genesis 2:24, “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one.” In the next verse (v. 32) Paul looks back on this quote and says, “This mystery is a profound one, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.”

The Mystery of Marriage

Now why is the coming together of a man and woman to form one flesh in marriage a mystery? Paul’s answer in verse 32 is this: the marriage union is a mystery because its deepest meaning has been partially concealed, but is now being openly revealed by the apostle, namely, that marriage is an image of Christ and the church. Verse 32: “I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.”

So marriage is like a metaphor or an image or a picture or parable that stands for something more than a man and a woman becoming one flesh. It stands for the relationship between Christ and the church. That’s the deepest meaning of marriage. It’s meant to be a living drama of how Christ and the church relate to each other.

Notice how verses 28–30 describe the parallel between Christ and the church being one body and the husband and wife being one flesh. “Even so husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no man ever hates his own flesh but nourishes and cherishes it.” In other words, the one-flesh union between man and wife means that in a sense they are now one body so that the care a husband has for his wife he has for himself. They are one. What he does to her he does to himself. Then he compares this to Christ’s care for the church. Picking up near the end of verse 29, he says the husband nourishes and cherishes his own flesh, ” . . . as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body.” In other words, just as the husband is one flesh with his wife, so the church is one body with Christ. When the husband cherishes and nourishes his wife, he cherishes and nourishes himself; and when Christ cherishes and nourishes the church, he cherishes and nourishes himself.

If you want to understand God’s meaning for marriage, you have to grasp that we are dealing with a copy and an original, a metaphor and a reality, and parable and a truth. And the original, the reality, the truth is God’s marriage to his people, or Christ’s marriage to the church. While the copy, the metaphor, the parable is a husband’s marriage to his wife. Geoffrey Bromiley says, “As God made man in His own image, so He made earthly marriage in the image of His own eternal marriage with His people” (God and Marriage, p. 43).

The Roles of Husbands and Wives

One of the things to learn from this mystery is the roles of husband and wife in marriage. One of Paul’s points in this passage is that the roles of husband and wife in marriage are not arbitrarily assigned and they are not reversible without obscuring God’s purpose for marriage. The roles of husband and wife are rooted in the distinctive roles of Christ and his church. God means (by marriage) to say something about his Son and his church by the way husbands and wives relate to each other.

We see this in verses 23–25. Verse 24 speaks to the wife about her half of the metaphor and verses 23 and 25 speak about the husband’s half of the metaphor. Wives, find your distinctive role as a wife in keying off the way the church relates to Christ. Verse 24: “As the church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands.” Then to husbands: find your distinctive role as a husband in keying off the way Christ relates to the church. First verse 23: “The husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior.” Then verse 25: “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.”

The Redeeming of Headship and Submission

Think about this for a moment in relation to what we have seen so far in this series. I tried to show from Genesis 1–3 that the when sin entered the world, it ruined the harmony of marriage NOT because it brought headship and submission into existence, but because it twisted man’s humble, loving headship into hostile domination in some men and lazy indifference in others. And it twisted woman’s intelligent, willing submission into manipulative obsequiousness in some women and brazen insubordination in others. Sin didn’t create headship and submission; it ruined them and distorted them and made them ugly and destructive.

Now if this is true, then the redemption we anticipate with the coming of Christ is not the dismantling of the original, created order of loving headship and willing submission but a recovery of it from the ravages of sin. And that’s just what we find in Ephesians 5:21–33. Wives, let your fallen submission be redeemed by modeling it after God’s intention for the church! Husbands, let your fallen headship be redeemed by modeling it after God’s intention for Christ!

Therefore, headship is not a right to command and control. It’s a responsibility to love like Christ: to lay down your life for your wife in servant leadership. And submission is not slavish or coerced or cowering. That’s not the way Christ wants the church to respond to his leadership: he wants it to be free and willing and glad and refining and strengthening.

In other words what this passage of Scripture does is two things: it guards against the abuses of headship by telling husbands to love like Jesus; and it guards against the debasing of submission by telling wives to respond the way the church does to Christ.

Defining Headship and Submission

Maybe what would be most helpful here would be to give a crisp definition of headship and submission as I understand them from this text, and then raise an objection or two and close with some practical implications.

Headship is the divine calling of a husband to take primary responsibility for Christ-like servant leadership, protection, and provision in the home.
Submission is the divine calling of a wife to honor and affirm her husband’s leadership and help carry it through according to her gifts.

I’ll come back to some practical implications of those definitions in a moment. But first let me say a word about a couple common objections.

What About Mutual Submission in Ephesians 5:21?

The ideas of headship and submission are not popular today. The spirit of our society makes it very hard for people to even hear texts like this in a positive way. The most common objection to the picture I just painted of loving leadership and willing submission is that verse 21 teaches us to be mutually submissive to each other. “Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.”

So one writer says, “By definition, mutual submission rules out hierarchical differences” (Gilbert Bilezikian, Beyond Sex Roles, p. 154). In other words if mutual submission is a reality between husband and wife, then it’s a contradiction to say the husband has a special responsibility to lead and the wife a special responsibility to support that leadership and help carry it through.

What shall we say to this? I would say that it is simply not true. In fact the writer who said that mutual submission rules out all hierarchical relationships shows that it’s not true a page later when he says, “The church thrives on mutual subjection. In a Spirit-led church, the elders submit to the congregation in being accountable for their watch-care, and the congregation submits to the elders in accepting their guidance” (p. 155, on p. 251 he even says, “the congregations submit to their leaders by obeying . . . “). In other words, when it comes to the church, he has no trouble seeing how mutual submission is possible between two groups, one of whom has the specially responsibility to guide and the other of whom has the special responsibility to accept guidance.

And that’s right. There is no contradiction between mutual submission and a relationship of leadership and response. Mutual submission doesn’t mean that both partners must submit in exactly the same ways. Christ submitted himself to the church in one way, by a kind of servant-leadership that cost him his life. And the church submits herself to Christ in another way by honoring his leadership and following him on the Calvary road.

So it is not true that mutual submission rules out the family pattern of Christ-like leadership and church-like submission. Mutual submission doesn’t obliterate those roles; it transforms them.

Does the Term “Head” Even Refer to Leadership?

One other common objection to the pattern of leadership and submission is that the term “head” does not carry the meaning of leadership at all. Instead it means “source,” somewhat like we use the word “fountainhead” or the “head of a river” (Bilezikian, pp. 157–162). So to call a husband the head of his wife wouldn’t mean that he is to be a leader, but that he is in some sense her “source” or her “fountainhead.”

Now there are long studies to show that this is not a normal meaning for the word “head” in Paul’s day. But you’ll never read these articles because they are too technical. So let me try to show you something from these verses that everyone can see.

The husband is pictured as the head of his wife as Christ is pictured as the head of the church, his body (see vv. 29–30). Now if the head means “source,” then what is the husband the source of? What does the body get from the head? It gets nourishment (that’s mentioned in verse 29). And we can understand that because the mouth is in the head, and nourishment comes through the mouth to the body. But that’s not all the body gets from the head. It gets guidance because the eyes are in the head. And it gets alertness and protection because the ears are in the head.

In other words, if the husband as head is one flesh with his wife, his body, and if he is therefore her source of guidance and food and alertness, then the natural conclusion is that the head, the husband, has a primary responsibility for leadership and provision and protection.

So even if you give “head” the meaning “source” the most natural interpretation of these verses is that husbands are called by God to take primary responsibility for Christ-like, servant leadership and protection and provision in the home. And wives are called to honor and affirm the husband’s leadership and help carry it through according to her gifts.

Practical Implications

Now I said I would come back to some practical implications.

1. The Transformation of Leading

The call in verse 25 for husbands to “love their wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her” revolutionizes the way he leads. This is where we ended last week in Luke 22:26 where Jesus says, “Let the leader become as one who serves.” In other words, husbands, don’t stop leading, but turn all your leading into serving. The responsibility of leadership is given not to puff yourself up, but to build your family up.

2. The Transformation of Submission

Submission does not mean putting the husband in the place of Christ. Verse 21 says you submit out of reverence for Christ. Submission does not mean that the husband’s word is absolute. Only Christ’s word is absolute. No wife should follow a husband into sin. You can’t do that in reverence to Christ. Submission does not mean surrendering thought. It does not mean no input on decisions or no influence on her husband. It does not come from ignorance or incompetence. It comes from what is fitting and appropriate (Colossians 3:18) in God’s created order.

Submission is an inclination of the will to say yes to the husband’s leadership and a disposition of the spirit to support his initiatives. The reason I say it’s a disposition and an inclination is because there will be times when the most submissive wife will hesitate at a husband’s decision. It may look unwise to her. Suppose it’s Noël and I. I am about to decide something foolish for the family. At that moment Noël could express her submission something like this: “Johnny, I know you’ve thought a lot about this, and I love it when you take the initiative to plan for us and take the responsibility like this, but I really don’t have peace about this decision and I think we need to talk about it some more. Could we? Maybe tonight sometime?”

The reason that is a kind of biblical submission is because

Husbands, unlike Christ, are fallible and ought to admit it.
Husbands ought to want their wives to be excited about the family decisions, because Christ wants us to be excited about following his decisions and not just follow begrudgingly.
The way Noël expressed her misgivings communicated clearly that she endorses my leadership and affirms me in my role as head.

When a man senses a primary God-given responsibility for the spiritual life of the family, gathering the family for devotions, taking them to church, calling for prayer at meals—when he senses a primary God-given responsibility for the discipline and education of the children, the stewardship of money, the provision of food, the safety of the home, the healing of discord, that special sense of responsibility is not authoritarian or autocratic or domineering or bossy or oppressive or abusive. It is simply servant-leadership. And I have never met a wife who is sorry she is married to a man like that. Because when God designs a thing (like marriage), he designs it for his glory and our good.

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Used by permission: John Piper. © Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org

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Adam, Where Are You?

May 10, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

by John Piper – Listen

Ephesians 5:21-28

21) Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ. 22) Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord. 23) For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. 24) As the church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands. 25) Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26) that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27) 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. 28) Even so husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.

The question I want to raise and try to answer today is one that is repeatedly neglected in Christian feminist treatments of Ephesians 5, namely, What is the positive, practical difference in a marriage between the man’s role as compared to Christ the head, and the woman’s role as compared to the church, Christ’s body? Ephesians 5:22–23 says, “Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body.” Verse 25, “Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church, and gave himself up for her.” Husbands are compared to Christ; wives to the church; husbands to the head; wives to the body; husbands are commanded to love as Christ loved; wives are commanded to submit as the church to Christ. My question is: What are the positive, practical differences between a husband’s role and a wife’s role implied by these different comparisons?

The Important Question That Is Often Missed

As I read Christian feminist books and articles on this passage, my main disappointment is that they seldom get around to this question. They stop short of it. They point out correctly that verse 21 teaches a mutual submission; they stress correctly that Christ’s headship was not domineering but servant-like; and they emphasize that the church’s submission is not slavish but free and willing. But then they stop. (See Margaret Howe, Women and Church Leadership, p. 55; Patricia Gundry, Woman Be Free, p. 73.) And because they stop there, young people today are left with great ambiguity and confusion about the proper roles of husband and wife. Christian singles and young couples know that husbands and wives are not to lord it over each other; they know they are to serve each other and put the other’s interests first and not be mindless and obsequious. They know the pitfalls of domination and servility. But if you ask the average young man or woman today, who has been bombarded with feminist ideology for fifteen years, What is distinct about your God-intended role as husband? What is unique about your God-intended role as wife? What are some positive, practical implications of being called “head” that make the husband’s role different from his wife’s?—young people have a very hard time answering these questions. Interpretations of Ephesians 5 have been so defensive that very little help has been offered to young people in defining the biblical differences between the roles of husband and wife.

But every ordinary reader can see in Ephesians 5 what feminist scholars so often neglect: after declaring that there is mutual submission in verse 21, Paul devotes 12 verses to unfolding the difference in the way a husband and wife should serve each other. After verse 21 the whole passage is devoted to making distinctions between the loving headship of a Christ-like husband and the willing submission of a church-like wife. What we so desperately need to hear from this text today is not just what headship and submission don’t mean, but what they do mean and the difference between them. What are the positive, practical implications of being called “head” that give man his distinct role in marriage? It is not enough to say, “Serve one another.” That is true of Christ and his church—they serve each other. But they do not serve in all the same ways. Christ is Christ. We are the church. To confuse the distinctions would be doctrinally and spiritually devastating. So also the husband is the husband and the wife is the wife. And to confuse these God-intended distinctions harms personal, church, and social life over the long haul.

So what I want to do this Father’s Day is not rehearse all of what I’ve written in the Standard or said in earlier sermons, but rather spell out in practical terms some of what I think it means for a man to be the head of his household.

Four Reasons “Head” Means Leader

Again and again you hear feminists say that “head” does not mean leader. For example, Patricia Gundry writes, “The meaning of head is not that of ‘leader’ but of ‘source,’ ‘respect,’ and ‘responsibility’” (Woman Be Free, p. 71). I surely don’t want to disagree with those three words. The husband should be a source of strength and security and love for his wife. He should have her respect. He is uniquely responsible in the relationship. But surely those three truths are not the opposite of leadership but the expression of leadership.

There are at least four reasons why we should insist that headship does mean leadership in Ephesians 5.

1) It was commonly held in Paul’s day that since the head was on top of the body and had eyes, it was the leader of the body. Philo (a contemporary of Paul) said, “Nature conforms the leadership of the body on the head” (Special Laws, III, 184).

2) “Head” is used for leader in the Old Testament. For example, Judges 11:11, “So Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead, and the people made him head and leader over them.” (See also 10:18; 11:8, 9; 2 Samuel 22:44; Psalm 18:43; Isaiah 7:8.)

3) Ephesians 1:21–23 says that Christ is “above every name that is named . . . and God has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body.” Christ is not seen here as the source but the ruler over all things when he is called head.

4) In view of all this, when Paul says that a wife should be subject to her husband because he is head, headship must be something that makes submission especially appropriate. And what makes it appropriate is that God has ordained that man, as head, be the leader of his household.

God’s Beautiful Plan for Marriage

I’m convinced that as long as this Scripture stands, the efforts of feminist interpreters to flatten out husband-wife role distinctions and to empty headship of its leadership implications will continue to look like the Scripture-twisting we are all tempted to do when we don’t like what the Bible says.

But there is no good reason for husbands and wives not to like what the Bible says here. There is something deep in every man that comes into its own when he assumes the role of loving servant-leader in his family. And deep down he knows that part of his personhood is compromised if his wife has taken the leadership of the family. Likewise there is something deep in every woman which rejoices and flourishes when she can freely and creatively support and complement the leadership of her husband. God’s plan for marriage is beautiful and deeply fulfilling. It is not oppressive and fearful. It is freeing because it’s God’s deep design.

Four Areas in Which the Husband Should Lead

So let me spend the rest of our time this morning unpacking some of the specific applications of headship or leadership for husbands. I’ll focus on four things in which the husband should take the lead.

1. His Personal Relationship with God

The first is the pursuit of his own personal relation with God. No man will be a spiritual leader in his home if he is not going deep with God in his own private life. He may try to lead, but it will not be spiritual leadership; it will not be Christ-like leadership. Therefore every Christian man who hopes to be a biblical husband and father must go hard after God in the solitude of his own prayer life. He must devote himself daily to the Word and prayer. He must fight the fight of faith in his own soul before he can hope to lead his family in spiritual warfare.

Leadership is something you are as much as something you do. If you come out of your solitude with the aroma of Christ lingering in your life, your wife and children will sense intuitively that you are at the helm of the ship with God’s hand on your shoulder. Leadership techniques and strategies are all in vain if the man has not been with God. It’s what we become in solitude with God that makes us spiritual leaders. If we fail here, we fail utterly.

A Shared Responsibility

This first step of leadership is not like the other three because this one is shared equally by the wife. Every wife has the duty to go hard after God in her own soul. There is no borrowed or substitute spirituality. The daughters of God must have direct personal dealings with their heavenly Father. The husband’s spiritual life can never substitute for the wife’s. When Peter described the holy women of old who were submissive to their husbands, he described them as women who “hoped in God” (1 Peter 3:5). The foundation and goal of their lives was not their husband but God. While Noël and the boys were away the past ten days, I thought a lot about what it would be like if one of us died and left the other behind. It was a deep joy for me to know that if I die, the foundation and goal of my wife’s life will be unshaken, because it is not me. My sons would have the same spiritual rock to hold on to.

The Difference Between Husband and Wife

But there is a difference in the husband’s and wife’s pursuit of personal, spiritual strength. For the husband it is the foundation of his headship and the heart of his leadership. For the wife it is the foundation of her submission and support for her husband’s headship. Neither will be able to fulfill the role God has appointed without pursuing power with God in solitude. But the roles that grow out of this pursuit are not the same. The same fire can make one element firm and another element soft. And so the fire of God’s presence in solitude produces some distinct effects in the life of a husband and some distinct effects in the life of a wife. It refines them for their respective roles.

Do Not Abdicate Your Responsibility

Some men react all wrong to a wife who is growing spiritually. He may say, “Well I’m not into that, so I’ll let her be the spiritual leader in the family and I’ll make sure we stay afloat financially and have food on the table. She can put her head in the clouds. I’ll keep our feet on the ground.” This response is neither biblical nor satisfying for husband or wife in the long run. To abdicate leadership at the most important, all-encompassing level of spirituality is to abdicate Christian headship. What is left of headship when spiritual leadership is surrendered is a hollow shell. Instead, a husband who sees his wife going hard after God should humble himself, admit his need, and press on in his own pursuit of spiritual depth. This does not mean he has to be her intellectual superior. There is no necessary connection between being intellectual and being spiritual. It means he must not lag behind her in personal love for Christ and zeal for God’s will. Again and again I have seen that the abdication of spiritual leadership is owing to pride. Men are too proud to admit that spiritually they must play catch-up to their wives. So they just hang back and think of the spiritual life as “woman’s work” and so protect their egos. Brothers, that is childish. Our women know it is childish. Some of them will accept what you have surrendered and become your mother. The immature boy in you will like that. The mature man will revolt. So I urge you. Humble yourselves. Grow up. Become a godly man. Go hard after God in the solitude of your room, and I promise a new depth and joy in your relationship.

2. Shaping the Family’s Moral and Spiritual Vision

The second area in which the husband should take the lead is in shaping the moral and spiritual vision of the family. A leader is someone who takes the time and initiative to think about priorities and goals. You can’t lead anyone anywhere until you have thought about where you want to go. An aimless husband does not make a happy wife. The vast majority of wives love it when their husbands lead out in thinking about family priorities and goals. I say “lead out in” not “monopolize.” A good leader always takes the insight and needs and desires of his wife and the children into view. Leader and dictator are not synonymous.

What I have in mind here is that a husband take the initiative in forming goals for the family. This begins in private reflection and prayer about the family. It proceeds by discussion and study and prayer with the family members; and it culminates in a plan of action. The headship of a husband is compromised if he takes no initiative in setting goals and is constantly goaded by his wife to make some decisions. They may joke about his laid-back ways and her forcefulness. But deep down the respect and admiration for a competent servant leader will be missing from her heart; and his jokes will only barely cover up his sense of failure. A man knows in his heart he should be leading out in decisions about issues of lifestyle, and doctrine, and church affiliation, and financial policies, and the discipline of the children. Being the head does not mean that goals are established unilaterally. It means the husband has a special responsibility to lead the family to biblical decisions on these matters. He should not have to be nagged into action by an alert wife. He should take the lead in shaping the moral and spiritual vision of the family.

3. Gathering the Family for Prayer, Scripture, Worship

The third act of leadership comes out of the second. You might say it is a specific part of it. As the head the husband should take the lead in gathering the family for prayer and Scripture reading and worship. When a husband fails here and the wife has to constantly remind him or call the kids by herself, the soul of the marriage is in jeopardy. I would go so far as to say that this one act of leadership is so important that if you men would take the initiative here, almost all other leadership issues would fall into proper place.

I close every series of pre-marital counseling sessions with these words: Your devotional life together as a couple is the soul and heartbeat of your marriage. If it weakens, disease will occur in a dozen other areas with no apparent connection to the heart. You cannot be growing spiritually as a couple or a family without daily prayer and meditation together. And if you are not growing, you are dying. And, men, it is your responsibility. When Adam and Eve sinned in the garden and God came to call them to account, it didn’t matter that Eve had eaten first; God said, “Adam, where are you?” That’s God’s word to your family this morning: Adam, husband, father, where are you? He will seek an accounting from you first, not your wife, if the family has neglected prayer and put TV before the living God.

Here’s how to get started again. Humble yourselves and admit your failure. Confess to your wife your sin. Go apart with God and plan a week of devotions with her and the family. Announce to them that a new day is dawning on the home front. Then lead them to God. This is so threatening to some of you it makes you tense to think of it. You will have to swallow so much pride. But be courageous. Fear is a scrawny enemy. Do not let him conquer you. I promise you that once you have gotten over the first hill, a new world will open before you. The ugly guilt will be gone. The sense of failure will be gone. The uncertainty of your love for God and the family will be gone. And a dozen areas of tension in your marriage will be healed which you did not know had anything to do with family devotions.

4. Reconciliation

There is one last dimension of leadership I want to charge you men with. You should take the lead in reconciliation. I do not mean that wives should never say they are sorry. But in the relation between Christ and his church, who took the initiative to make all things new? Who left the comfort and security of his throne of justice to put mercy to work at Calvary? Who came back to Peter first after three denials? Who has returned to you again and again forgiving you and offering his fellowship afresh? So husbands, your headship means: Go ahead. Take the lead. It does not matter if it is her fault. That didn’t stop Christ. Who will break the icy silence first? Who will choke out the words, “I’m sorry, I want it to be better”? She might beat you to it. That’s OK. But woe to you if you think your headship entitles you to wait. On the contrary. Here, too, you should take the lead.

In summary, then, there is mutual serving in marriage. But the roles of husband and wife are not identical. The husband is to be the head, the leader.

He should lead out in the pursuit of his own personal relation with God.
He should take the lead in shaping the moral and spiritual goals of the family.
He should take the initiative to gather the family for prayer and Scripture reading and worship.
And he should consider it a special responsibility to take the lead in reconciliation.

When a man has the grace of humility and courage to do these things, the power of Christ is exalted and the heart of his wife rejoices and his children will rise up and call him blessed.

__________

Used by permission: John Piper. © Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org

Be Filled with the Spirit

May 10, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

by John Piper – Listen

Ephesians 5:18

And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit.

The apostle Paul commands in Ephesians 5:18 that we be filled with the Spirit. Therefore, I want to try to answer two questions today. What does it mean to be filled with the Spirit? And, how can we be filled with the Spirit? I think it might help you follow me if I tell you at the outset where I am going. So I’ll start with my conclusions and then give the biblical support. I think being filled with the Spirit means, basically, having great joy in God. And since the Bible teaches that “the joy of the Lord is our strength” (Nehemiah 8:10), it also means there will be power in this joy for overcoming besetting sins and for boldness in witness. But, basically, it means radiant joy, because the Spirit who fills us is the Spirit of joy that flows between God the Father and God the Son because of the delight they have in each other. Therefore, to be filled with the Spirit means to be caught into the joy that flows among the Holy Trinity and to love God the Father and God the Son with the very love with which they love each other. And then, in answer to the second question, the way to be filled with the Spirit is by trusting that the God of hope really reigns—that not a sparrow falls to the ground apart from his will (Matthew 10:29)—and that he runs the world for you and for all who trust his word. In believing that, you will be filled with the Holy Spirit and with joy.

With the spread of Pentecostalism in this country and in the third world, there has been a lot of discussion about the New Testament phrases “filled with the Spirit” and “baptized with the Spirit.” I feel some obligation, therefore, today not merely to interpret Ephesians 5:18 in its immediate context, but also to orient what I say in the wider New Testament teaching.

What Does “Baptize in the Holy Spirit” Mean?

The phrase “baptize in (or with) the Holy Spirit” was apparently coined by John the Baptist. All four of our gospels record that he said, “I have baptized you with water, but he (i.e., Jesus) will baptize you with the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 3:11; Mark 1:8; Luke 3:16; John 1:33). The only two writers in the New Testament who refer elsewhere to the phrase “baptize with the Spirit” are Luke in the book of Acts, and Paul in 1 Corinthians. Luke refers to it twice, quoting John each time (Acts 1:5; 11:16), and Paul refers to it once (1 Corinthians 12:13). But I don’t think Paul and Luke use this phrase to refer to the same thing. For Paul, it is virtually identical to regeneration or new birth (conversion). For Luke, it is essentially the same as being filled with the Spirit and refers to that first introductory experience of this fullness.

I’ll try to show very briefly why I think this. First, we must never assume that a particular phrase means exactly the same thing every place it occurs in Scripture. Good interpretation lets a word or phrase mean whatever the immediate context demands. What really matters in Scripture is not that a phrase everywhere have the same meaning, but that the reality which a phrase describes does not contradict other descriptions of reality in the Bible. So Paul and Luke need not use the phrase “baptized with the Spirit” in the very same sense.

Paul uses the phrase only once. He says in 1 Corinthians 12:12, 13:

Just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.

According to this one reference, Paul conceived of Spirit-baptism as the act by which the Spirit made us members of Christ’s body. Once we were alienated from God, cut off from Christ (Ephesians 2:12), but then the Holy Spirit swept over us and brought us to life by uniting us to the living Christ and thus to his people in one body. This is a once-for-all event. It is never repeated, and nowhere does Paul (or Luke) ever admonish a Christian to be baptized by the Spirit.

But Luke seems to mean something different by the phrase, namely, something essentially the same as being filled with the Spirit, which is not a once-for-all event (for Luke and for Paul) but an ongoing or repeated occurrence. The evidence for this comes from the book of Acts. In Acts 1:4, 5 Luke reports that Jesus, just before he ascended to the Father, told his apostles to stay in Jerusalem and wait for the promise of the Father which “you heard from me, for John baptized with water, but before many days you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” This was a clear reference to Pentecost. But when Pentecost comes in chapter 2, listen to how Luke describes it:

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly a sound came from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire, distributed and resting on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.

Jesus promises in chapter 1 that they will be baptized by the Spirit, and Luke describes the fulfillment of that promise in chapter 2 in terms of the filling of the Holy Spirit. Yet we know from Acts 11:15–17 that Luke does see Pentecost as a baptism with the Spirit. He reports there how Peter described his preaching to the Gentiles, in Cornelius’ house:

As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them just as on us at the beginning. And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he said, “John baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” If then God gave the same gift to them as he gave to us who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could withstand God?

So this later outpouring of the Spirit on the Gentiles (in Acts 10:44ff.) is equated with the first Pentecostal outpouring, and both are explained as a baptism with the Spirit. Therefore, Luke sees what happened at Pentecost as both a baptism with the Spirit and a filling with the Spirit. Since Luke refers later on to the disciples being filled again (Acts 4:8, 31; 13:4), but never refers to them as being baptized again with the Spirit, it seems to me that for Luke “baptism with the Spirit” refers to that initial filling by the Spirit after a person trusts in Christ. I don’t think Luke equates “baptism by the Spirit” with regeneration like Paul does. That would mean that all the apostles, who, with God’s help, had confessed Jesus to be the Christ (Luke 9:20; Matthew 16:17) and had seen him alive after his resurrection and had their minds opened by him to understand the Scriptures (Luke 24:45), were in fact dead in trespasses and sins and enslaved to the flesh during all their time with Jesus and up till Pentecost morning. If we asked Luke, “Is that what you mean?” I think he would say, “O no, they had already been born of the Spirit, just like all the great saints of the Old Testament, but they hadn’t yet experienced to the full what God could do through them by his Spirit. But now that Christ has come and through his death and resurrection purchased all the blessings of God, it is God’s purpose to call all his people to experience the fullness of the Holy Spirit.” When a person first experiences this fullness of the Spirit, that is what Luke means by being baptized with the Spirit. And that is different from Paul who, I think, uses the phrase to refer to regeneration (new birth or moment of conversion).

Interacting with Pentecostal Theology

Now we are right at the heart of the charismatic controversy, and I want to try to sort out some things and let you know where I stand and why I think this stance is biblical. What is clear so far is at least this: if anyone ever asks you, “Have you been baptized with the Holy Spirit?” your first response should be to say, “What do you mean by baptism with the Holy Spirit?” So many of our arguments could be avoided if we just started off defining our terms. Suppose the definition they gave was this: “Baptism with the Holy Spirit is an experience you have with God after conversion in which the Holy Spirit falls upon you in such a way that your heart bursts forth in the utterance of tongues (some ecstatic speech or unknown language).” What would our answer be, then? Some of us would say, “Yes, I have experienced that.” Others would say, “No, I never have spoken in tongues.” But both of us should then say, “But, you know, that definition of baptism with the Spirit is not a biblical one.” There is no way to argue rightly from the book of Acts that God intends for baptism with the Spirit always to be accompanied by speaking in tongues. And Paul teaches plainly in 1 Corinthians 12:10 that God does not give the gift of tongues to everyone. Being baptized with the Holy Spirit may or may not result in glossalalia (tongues-speaking) and, therefore, speaking in tongues is not a necessary part of either Luke’s or Paul’s definition of baptism with the Spirit.

I want to stress here, though, that I do not reject the validity of the gift of tongues for our own day. It is wrong to insist that they are a necessary part of the baptism of the Spirit; it is not wrong to insist that they are a possible part of that experience today. When I was in high school, I listened to Mr. DeHaan on the radio. I was standing in my bedroom one morning, listening to him try to argue from the New Testament that the so-called sign gifts, like tongues and miracles and healing, were intended by God to come to an end at the close of the apostolic age, so that they are no longer valid today. And I can remember even in those early years saying to myself, “Mr. DeHaan, those arguments are not valid. All you are able to show is that if there are no tongues today, you can see some possible reasons for it. But nothing that you have said proves that God intends for these gifts to end before this age closes.” And now after 20 years of Bible study and friendships with charismatic believers I will say with even more assurance: Let us not reject or despise any of God’s gifts, including tongues.

But now back to the person who is asking if you have been baptized with the Spirit. If he uses Paul’s definition and means, “Have you been united to Christ by the Spirit so that you are part of His body (1 Corinthians 12:12)?”—then the answer of all believers should be, “Yes, I have indeed been baptized with the Spirit.” If he uses Luke’s definition and means, “Have you ever once been so filled by the Holy Spirit that you overflowed with joy, had victory over besetting sins, and were made bold to witness?”—then the answer should be and could be, “Yes,” for all Christians, but probably won’t be. The apostle Paul taught that there is such a thing as a babe in Christ, and he contrasted with the babe in Christ the person who is spiritual (1 Corinthians 3:1). Now, both Luke and Paul would have agreed that what this new, faltering babe in Christ needs is a great outpouring of the Holy Spirit into his life. Paul would have called this experience “being filled” with the Spirit. And Luke would have agreed, but then would have also called this first experience of the Spirit’s fullness the “baptism of the Holy Spirit.” So while the phrase “baptized with the Spirit” is used differently by Paul and Luke, they view man’s need and God’s action as basically the same.

Perhaps one other clarification of some Pentecostal teaching should be mentioned. We are sometimes urged to seek a “second blessing” or second experience of the Spirit after our initial conversion experience. Two things need to be said. First: the blessing of the fullness (or baptism) of the Holy Spirit may occur at the moment of conversion and leave nothing to be sought but its preservation and growth or repetition. Second: even if one does not experience the fullness of the Spirit at conversion, the thing to be sought is not “the second blessing,” as if that experience would be the end of our spiritual quest. What we should seek (and this applies to all Christians) is that God pour his Spirit out upon us so completely that we are filled with joy, victorious over sin, and bold to witness. And the ways he brings us to that fullness are probably as varied as people are. It may come in a tumultuous experience of ecstasy and tongues. It may come through a tumultuous experience of ecstasy and no tongues. It may come through a crisis of suffering when you abandon yourself totally to God. Or it may come gradually through a steady diet of God’s Word and prayer and fellowship and worship and service. However it comes, our first experience of the fullness of the Spirit is only the beginning of a life-long battle to stay filled with the Spirit.

Don’t Turn to Alcohol, Turn to the Spirit

And that brings us to Ephesians 5:18 where the present tense of the verb in Greek means just that: “Keep on being filled with the Spirit.” Let’s look at the context to see more specifically what this means (5:15–18).

Look carefully how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, redeeming the time because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not get drunk with wine for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, always and for everything giving thanks in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father.

The contrast with drunkenness is the key here. What do people go to alcohol for? For a happy hour. We all want to be happy, but there is a problem: “The days are evil.” Notice the logic of verses 16–18:

The days are evil. Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not get drunk . . . but be filled with the Spirit.

Where do you turn when the days are evil, when you are frightened or discouraged or depressed or anxious? Paul pleads with us: “Don’t turn to alcohol; turn to the Spirit. Anything of value that alcohol can bring you, God the Holy Spirit can bring more.”

There are people who can’t begin to whistle a happy tune or sing a song at work because they are so tense and anxious about life. But later in the evening at the tavern with a few drinks under their belt they can put their arms around each other and sing and laugh. All of us long to be carefree, uninhibited, happy. And the mounting tragedy of our own day, as in Paul’s, is that increasing numbers of people (even Christians) believe that the only way they can find this child-like freedom is by drugging themselves with alcohol or other mind-benders. Such behavior dishonors God, and so Paul says: There is a better way to cope with the evil days—be filled with the Spirit, stay filled with the Spirit. And you will know unmatched joy that sings and makes melody to the Lord.

The fundamental meaning of being filled with the Spirit is being filled with joy that comes from God and overflows in song. And Luke would agree with that, too, because he says in Acts 13:52, “The disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.” To be sure, one of the marks of a person filled with the Spirit is that he is made strong to witness in the face of opposition (Acts 4:8, 31; 7:55; 13:9). But the reason for this is that “the joy of the Lord is your strength” (Nehemiah 8:10). When you are happy in God, you are a strong and brave witness to his grace. So I repeat, whatever joy or peace you find in alcohol, the Spirit of God can give you more. Even the psalmist of the Old Testament had experienced this. He says in Psalm 4:7– 8:

You (O Lord) have put more joy in my heart than they have when their grain and wine abound. In peace I will both lie down and sleep; for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.

How to Do What Can Only Be Done for Us

And that psalm leads us now to our final, all-important question of how we can obey this command to be filled with the Spirit. We are in the same predicament we were in last week. We are commanded to be full, and yet we are not the filler; the Spirit is. The answer to this predicament in the New Testament is that God has ordained to move into our lives with fullness through faith. The pathway that the Spirit cuts through the jungle of our anxieties into the clearing of joy is the pathway of faith. Luke says of Stephen in Acts 6:5, that he was “a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit,” and he says of Barnabas in Acts 11:24 that he was “a good man full of the Holy Spirit and of faith,” The two go together. If a person is filled with faith, he will be filled with the Spirit, the Spirit of joy and peace.

The most important text in Paul’s writings to show this is Romans 15:13, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.” Notice that it is in or by believing that we are filled with joy and peace. And it is by the Spirit that we abound in hope. When we put those two halves of the verse together, what we see is that through our faith (our believing) the Spirit fills us with his hope and thus with his joy and peace. And, of course since hope is such an essential part of being filled with joy by the Spirit, what we have to believe is that God is, as Paul says, the God of hope. We have to rivet our faith on all that he has done and said to give us hope.

Nobody stays full of the Spirit all the time—no one is always totally joyful and submissive to God and empowered for service. But this should still be our aim, our goal, our great longing. “As a hart pants for the flowing streams, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God” (Psalm 42:1, 2). But in order to slake that thirst, we must fight the fight of faith. We must preach to our souls a sermon of hope:

Why are you downcast, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God. For I shall again praise him. He is my help and my God. (Psalm 42:5, 11; 43:5)

We must set before our own soul the banquet of promises that God has made to us and feed our faith to the full. Then it may be said of us as it was of Stephen and Barnabas: “They were filled with faith and with the Holy Spirit.”

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Used by permission: John Piper. © Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org

Filed Under: Blog, Mp3, Sermons Tagged With: audio, Ephesians 5:18, John Piper, Mp3, sermon

Singing And Making Melody To The Lord

May 10, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

by John Piper – Listen

Ephesians 5:17-20

So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. (18)And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit, (19) speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord; (20)always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father.

“The Christian Church was born in song.” Those are the words of Ralph Martin in his book called Worship in the Early Church. (London: Marshall, Morgan and Scott, 1964, p. 39). We are a singing people. And there is a reason for this. The reality of God and Christ and creation and salvation and heaven and hell are simply too great for mere speaking; they must also be sung. This means that the reality of God and his work is so great that we are not merely to think truly about it, but also feel duly about it. Think truly and feel duly -that is, feel with the kind and depth and intensity of emotion that is appropriate to the reality that is truly known.

If we think truly and do not feel duly, at best we render to God half the honor he is due. And if we feel strongly (I do not say “duly”because I think it is impossible to feel duly without thinking truly) – if we feel strongly,but do not think truly, we render to him even less than half the honor he is due.

Jonathan Edwards, who knew God’s reality with his head and passionately felt God’s reality in the love of his heart, is right when he says,

God glorifies Himself toward the creatures also in two ways:

1. By appearing to . . . their understanding.

2. In communicating Himself to their hearts,and in their rejoicing and delighting in, and enjoying, the manifestations which He makes of Himself. . . God is glorified not only by His glory’s being seen, but by its being rejoiced in. When those that see it delight in it, God is more glorified than if they only see it. His glory is then received by the whole soul, both by the understanding and by the heart.*

Once you see this – that the work of the heart (the emotions) is as important for reflecting the glory of God as the work of the head(understanding) is,then you will begin to see why music and singing is so important for Christian worship. The reason we sing is because there are depths and heights and intensities and kinds of emotion that will not be satisfactorily expressed by mere prosaic forms, or even poetic readings. There are realities that demand to break out of prose into poetry and some demand that poetry be stretched into song.

So music and singing are necessary to Christian faith and worship for the simple reason that the realities of God and Christ, creation and salvation,heaven and hell are so great that when they are known truly and felt duly,they demand more than discussion and analysis and description; they demand poetry and song and music. Singing is the Christian’s way of saying: God is so great that thinking will not suffice, there must be deep feeling;and talking will not suffice, there must be singing.

So what I want to do this morning is take these several verses from Ephesians 5:17-20 and make six brief statements about singing in corporate worship,which is what this text is about. Each of these six points could be developed for an hour easily, but I will only state them as a kind of outline for a basic theology of music in our worship. I hope you will take them and fill them up with more Bible and more experience and turn them into reality here at Bethlehem.

Singing is to be an Expression of the Fullness of the Holy Spirit.

Verses 18 and 19: “And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord.” You see how singing flows out of being filled with the Holy Spirit. This means that Christian singing is not natural, but supernatural. The Holy Spirit is God. He is supernatural. He comes and he fills his people and moves them to act in certain ways.

Singing about Christian things in Christian settings is not necessarily pleasing to the Lord. Recall Amos 5:23-24, “Take away from Me the noise of your songs; I will not even listen to the sound of your harps. But let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”There is religious singing that is offensive to the Lord, namely,singing that is not a work of the Holy Spirit along with his other fruit.

You get a glimpse of what being filled with the Holy Spirit is by the comparison in verse 18 with being drunk. “Don’t get drunk with wine, be filled with the Holy Spirit.” Getting drunk with wine means being controlled by wine. It masters you and makes you feel and act in certain ways. So being filled with the Spirit means being controlled by the Spirit so that you feel and actin certain ways, in this case with singing – and a certain kind of singing, as we will see in a minute.

How are we filled with the Holy Spirit? The clue to that question is in the question: How do you get drunk with wine? The answer is: by drinking a lot of it. So it is with the Holy Spirit. I don’t have time to develop it here, but I believe we could show from 1 Corinthians 2:12-16 and Romans 8:4-8 and Galatians 3:5 that the primary way to drink the Spirit is to read and meditate on and believe the breathings of the Spirit recorded in the Scripture. This is why, in the book of Acts, when people are filled with the Spirit, what spills over is the word of God (Acts 2:4,11; 4:8,31; 9:17,20;Colossians 3:16).

So Christian singing in corporate worship is to be the expression of the fullness of the Holy Spirit. That’s the first thing to say about it.

Singing is to be from the Heart.

Verse 19b: “. . . singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord.” The opposite of “singing and making melody with your heart” would be singing and making melody with your mouth and whatever willpower it takes to make the mouth move. But “with your heart” signifies that you mean it and that you feel it.

In other words, as we have seen for several weeks now, the essence of Christian worship is not mere liturgical actions – or any other kind – but an inner, authentic valuing of God in the heart.

Let me mention here that this does not mean that worship is authentic only when you are red-hot for God. It can mean that when you are not red-hot, your heart feels a longing for the passion that you once knew or want to know more of. That longing, offered to God, is also worship. Or it can mean remorse that even the longing is gone, and you are scarcely able to feel anything but sadness that you don’t feel what you should. That remorse,offered to God, is also worship. It says to God that he is the only hope for what you need. So don’t have an all-or-nothing attitude about worship. The heart can be real even if it is not as enflamed with zeal as it ought to be – which it never is in this life.

Singing is to be “to the Lord.”

Verse 19: “Speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord.” Now I am aware that the verse begins with “speaking to one another in psalms . . .” I will get to that in a minute. What is remarkable is that both are true and they are true in this one verse in the same singing: sing both to one another and to the Lord.

“To the Lord,” means that worship is to be God-centered, of Christ-centered(the “Lord” is Jesus, but notice in verse 20 that thanks are continually offered to God the Father in the name of the “Lord” Jesus). But not just God-centered in that everything in worship relates to God, but also God-centered in that everything in worship is done toward God – in the presence of God,with a view to God’s hearing it and seeing it, with a desire that God receive it into his hearing with approval and delight.

When you sing, whether you are singing directly to the Lord(“You, O Lord, area shield about me . . .”) or whether you are singing indirectly to the Lord(“A mighty fortress is our God . . .”), sing with a focus on the present hearing of Jesus and the Father.

But surely, this word will encourage us to sing many songs in the second person (“you”) rather than only the third person (“you,” rather than”he”).”Great is Thy faithfulness . . .”, “Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty! Early in the morning our song shall rise to thee . . .”, “Come, Thou Fount of every blessing, tune my heart to sing thy praise . . .”, “You are Lord .. .”, “I love you Lord . . .” We should want to linger in the presence of the Lord speaking to the Lord about what we think and feel in response to who he is and what he has done and what he promises to do and be for us. That’s what “to the Lord” means in verse 19b. Worship is fundamentally Godward, not manward.

These three have a powerful impact on the way we conceive worship: Spirit-driven, heartfelt, God-centered. This is not a time for trifling or joking or silliness or superficiality. Worship comes from roots that are too deep in God, and is meant to take root too deep in the human heart, and focuses so relentlessly on God himself that it has to be a seriously joyful (or joyfully serious) affair.

Singing is to be Undergirded by a Deep, Biblical Theology of God’s Sovereign Goodness.

Why do I say this? Because in verse 20 Paul says, “. . . always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father.”Now giving thanks for all things is an outrageous idea unless you have a deep, Biblical theology of God’s sovereign goodness. I call this theology deep because it avoids superficial conclusions like a chipper praise-God-anyhow approach to pain. Paul said, “Weep with those who weep”(Romans 12:15). He said, “Abhor what is evil; cling to what is good” (Romans 12:9).

However it is that we may thank God for horrible circumstances of sickness or lostness or sinfulness, it is not in the same way we thank him for healing and salvation and holiness. Yet, there is, I think this text points out, a way to see in all things the hand of God moving for the glory of his name and the good of his people. And what we need is a theology that is deep and Biblical enough that we can hate and repudiate and oppose (in prayer and social work and evangelism) the evils of the world, and not cancel out the truth that in these very things and in our very hating of them, and working against them,and patiently enduring in them, there is also a ground for thanks (Romans 8:28; Genesis 50:20).

I say that our singing needs this deep, Biblical theology because this text on singing calls for such thanks, and because there is not a week that goes by in this church but that some people are dealing with horrible and painful things. There is a deep way to worship God with those people that quietly bears their burden with them, and quietly leads them to the all-sufficient God who is working for them in and through it all.

Understanding this and believing this makes for the greatest of all congregational singing – which is why “It is Well with my Soul” is almost like a theme song among us.

Singing is to be to Each Other.

Verse 19: “. . . speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord.” Here is one of the clearest mandates for corporate worship in the New Testament. You can’t obey this in solitude. God calls us to speak in song to one another.

This has at least three implications for us. One is that we should get together and sing as a congregation and as small groups. We should sing in each other’s hearing and want to be heard by each other. The second implication is that it is justifiable that many of our great hymns and newer worship songs are addressed not to God but to each other. “O Worship the King,” “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name,” “Crown Him with Many Crowns,”"Majesty, Worship His Majesty.”

The third implication is that the use of solos or musical groupings like worship teams and choirs can be part of this speaking to one another in songs. If it is good to speak to each other in songs as we do this in a Godward way,then we don’t always have to do it all at the same time, though we do think that congregational singing should be the defining sound of our worship. A choir can speak the word to us in song from the heart, filled with the Spirit,with a view to God’s presence and undergirded by a deep, Biblical theology of God’s sovereign goodness. And we can hear this and say Yes and Amen to the glory of God.

In 1 Corinthians 14:15-16 Paul says, “I will sing with the spirit and I will sing with the mind also. Otherwise if you bless in the spirit only, how will the one who fills the place of the ungifted say the ‘Amen’ at your giving of thanks?” In other words, God means for us to hear each other pray and sing so that there can be corporate responses of agreement – “Amen.”

There are reasons for this corporate dimension to worship. Being together and singing to each other, and not just alone, intensifies our emotions for God, communicates our witness to God, and unifies our corporate life around God(Romans 15:6).

Finally, Singing is to be Varied in its Forms.

Verse 19: “. . . speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord.”

Referring to these the words, “psalms and hymns and spiritual songs,” Ralph Martin says,

It is hard to draw any hard-and-fast distinction between these terms; and modern scholars are agreed that the various terms are used loosely to cover the various forms of musical composition. “Psalms” may refer to Christian odes patterned on the Old Testament Psalter. “Hymns” would be longer compositions and there is evidence that some actual specimens of these hymns may be found in the New Testament itself. “Spiritual songs” refer to snatches of spontaneous praise which the inspiring Spirit placed on the lips of the enraptured worshipper, as 1 Corinthians 14:15 implies. (p. 47)

Now there is a reason for different kinds of music. The main reason is that God is infinitely varied in his beauty and he relates to us in profoundly and wonderfully different ways. If you experience God in the death of your four daughters and your wife, in the sinking of a ship, you may write,”It Is Well with My Soul.” If you are overwhelmed with the truth of the incarnation at Christmas time, you may write “Joy to the World.” If God meets you simply and quietly in your prayer closet, you may write, “Father, I adore you,lay my life before you . . .” If you are stunned at the marvel that you are saved,you may write “Amazing grace! How sweet the sound . . .” If you area Sunday School teacher longing to teach your students profound things in simple ways,you may write, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. . .”

God meets us in high and holy ways. He meets us in lowly and meek ways. He meets us in thunderously glorious ways; he meets us in quiet, intimate ways. He meets us in complex ways and simple ways, furious ways and merciful ways. There are aspects of God’s character and relation to us that can only be expressed with high and fine expressions of music like Handel’s Messiah, and there are aspects of God’s character and relation to us that can only be expressed with more common and folk-like kinds of music like “Amazing Grace” and “Just a Closer Walk with Thee,” and “The B-I-B-L-E.”

Conclusion – Pray for your Worship Leaders

My pastoral exhortation is that we seek the Lord earnestly in all these things and go deeper with him in our understanding and experience of corporate worship each week. Pray for each other, and especially for Chuck and me as we try to flesh out this text from week to week. Pray:

1. that we would be filled with the Holy Spirit,

2. that all our worship would be “from the heart,”

3. that we would be radically God-focused and God-centered,

4. that all would be undergirded by deep, Biblical theology of God’s sovereign goodness,

5. that we would provide the most helpful ways for you to speak to each other with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, and

6. that we would embrace the variety of music and singing that is most helpful for this cultural setting and this great God.

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Filed Under: Blog, Mp3, Sermons Tagged With: audio, Ephesians 5:17, Ephesians 5:18, Ephesians 5:19, Ephesians 5:20, John Piper, Mp3, sermon

When Is Abortion Racism?

May 10, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

by John Piper – Listen

Ephesians 5:16-17

Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. 7 Therefore do not become partners with them; 8 for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light 9 (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), 10 and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. 11 Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. 12 For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret. 13 But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, 14 for anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” 15 Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, 16 making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. 17 Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.

For the sake of full disclosure let me tell you one of my main aims in this message: In the name of Jesus Christ and rooted in the gospel of his death and resurrection for sinners (including abortionists and pastors), my aim is to stigmatize abortion by associating it with racism. I would like you to link abortion and race the same way you link lynching and race.

Abortion and Racism

My aim is that those who abhor racism will abhor abortion—“Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good” (Romans 12:9). My aim is that abortion would be as culturally taboo as racism is. My aim is to hasten the day when being publicly pro-choice will be as reprehensible as being publicly racist. My aim is to hasten the day when declaring yourself pro-choice would be like declaring yourself a white supremacist.

My aim is that just as once even though the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case of 1857 held that Black slaves were property without rights as free persons, yet today we view that as unthinkable; so also even though the Supreme Court in the Roe v. Wade case of 1973 did not give the unborn the rights of free persons, nevertheless the day may come when that too is viewed as unthinkable. Racism might—and often did—result in the killing of innocent humans; in our history, it often did. But abortion always results in the killing of innocent humans. Between 1882 and 1968, 3,446 Black people were lynched in America. Today more Black babies are killed by white abortionists every three days than all who were lynched in those years (Life Education and Resource Network).

But I am getting ahead of myself. I simply want you to know where I am going, so that no one will say I made this association between abortion and racism in a sly or subtle way. It is not subtle. It is open and intentional and, I hope to show, justified. May God make the support of abortion in America and around the world as unthinkable as support for racism.

I don’t expect to escape misunderstanding or criticism for this message. But a few attacks might be avoided by quoting Randy Alcorn whose view I share:

I do not believe that most people who support abortion rights are racists, any more than I believe there are no racists among pro-lifers. I am simply suggesting that regardless of motives, a closer look at both the history and present strategies of the pro-choice movement suggests that “abortion for the minorities” may not serve the cause of equality as much as the cause of supremacy for the healthy, wealthy and white. (Eternal Perspectives, Sept.-Oct. 1993, p. 9)

Again my aim is to associate abortion and racism, not to equate them. Whether the association is justified, you will decide. It’s not a biblical declaration; it’s a cultural observation. But we must look at the Bible to see why I would venture to makes such an observation in a Christian sermon.

What Abortion Is

First, a word about what abortion is, and then a look at our text. I got an email last week from one of our apprentices who told me of a conversation he had with a junior high student: “He . . . had never heard of abortion, nor did he know what it was. That fact alone shocked me.” So if you don’t think you know enough to be an educator, think again. If you simply know what it is, you know enough to educate. And education really matters. There is mass ignorance. Merriam Webster defines abortion as “The termination of a pregnancy after, accompanied by, resulting in, or closely followed by the death of the embryo or fetus.” Defining abortion as the “termination of pregnancy” is like defining the death of your aged father as the “termination of hospice care.” Abortion is the intentional killing of unborn babies. It happens by inserting instruments into the mother’s womb pulling the babies into pieces and removing them. There are special clinics where it happens. There used to be over two thousand. Today there are about 740. They have killed forty-six million babies since abortion was legalized by the Supreme Court in 1973. Each year 1.2 million abortions happen in the U. S. You can watch an actual abortion online at The Center for Bioethical Reform [Editor's note: the video begins immediately and is very graphic.] One of the fullest and best sites for education on abortion is Abort73.com.

Abortion and the Gospel

Before we go further into abortion and race, let’s look at our text and put this issue in the context of the Christian gospel. In Ephesians 5:6, Paul writes, “Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.” “These things” refers back to verse 5: “You may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.” So the really great issue of the universe is described: People may enter the kingdom of Christ, or people may endure the wrath of God. The great issue of life is: How shall I escape the wrath of God and enter into the eternal life of Christ’s kingdom?

The answer has been fully presented in the first three chapters of Ephesians, and a summary is right here in Ephesians 4:32-5:2. “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. [1] Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. [2] And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” So put 5:2 together with verse 4:32. Verse 2: “Christ loved us and gave himself up for us.” In other words, Christ died for sinners—people who need forgiveness. Women in this room who have had abortions. Boyfriends, husbands, fathers, mothers, grandmothers who condoned or even demanded it. Doctors who urged it or performed it. And all the rest of us sinners in this room who will perish under the wrath of God (v. 6) if we reject God’s substitute for us, Jesus Christ.

Christ died for sinners—that’s what the phrase “gave himself up for us” means in verse 2. And then in 4:32, he says, “God in Christ forgave you.” The aim of his giving himself up for us was to forgive us. If we receive Christ as our only hope and guide and treasure, if we are “in him” by faith, then God’s forgiveness is ours. “God in Christ forgave you.” That means that we may escape the wrath that is coming and enter into the kingdom of Christ. O that every sinner in this room would hear this and believe this and feel this. Only in Jesus Christ is there salvation from the guilt of sin and the wrath of God. And that salvation is available for every abortionist and everyone involved in abortion at every level. There is nothing too hard for God.

In Jesus Christ, God Forgives Sinners

And lest anyone think that you are simply too sinful—that there have been too many sins for too long—listen to the way the great sinner, the apostle Paul, speaks to you—directly to you. This is 1 Timothy 1:15-16: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life.” In other words, if God can save me, the foremost (he was a murdering Christian-hater), then he can save anyone who comes to him. “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Romans 10:13).

Now with that spectacular good news in place, Paul calls us to walk in the light and expose the works of darkness: Ephesians 5:8-11, “For at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.” When a person is forgiven for all his sins, and escapes from God’s wrath, and enters the kingdom of Christ, he has a calling—to be light! To shine with the light of Christ in the world. To display the beauty of Christ and to expose the fruitlessness—the moral emptiness and deadly effects—of the works of darkness. We sang as children, “This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine. This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine, let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.” But have you ever sung, “Shine all over Planned Parenthood, I’m gonna let it shine . . .”?

Paul carries the image on through in a very hopeful way. His hope is not that the light of goodness and righteousness and truth simply expose and damn. His hope is that it expose and that the exposed will become light. That the spiritually dead will be quickened from the dead and call upon Jesus and join the forces of light. Ephesians 5:13-14, “But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, for anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, ‘Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.’”

Out of Darkness, Into Light

Paul’s aim—and our aim with him—is not damnation. Our aim is salvation. “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead and Christ will shine on you.” That is possible for pastors and abortionists and all who have been involved in abortion. And there is a very particular application here for the words, “When anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, for anything that becomes visible is light.” Some of the strongest witnesses to the light of life are women who have had abortions and come out of the darkness into the light of forgiveness and light. They have become light. They are shining with the truth. Let’s turn to one of them who had two abortions and listen.

Dr. Alveda C. King is the daughter of Rev. A. D. King, Martin Luther King’s brother. She is the founder of King for America. Her uncle had a dream that she loves. Here is her own dream:

We have been fueled by the fire of “women’s rights,” so long that we have become deaf to the outcry of the real victims whose rights are being trampled upon, the babies and the mothers. . . . What about the rights of each baby who is artificially breached before coming to term in his or her mother’s womb, only to have her skull punctured, and feel, yes agonizingly “feel” the life run out of her before she takes her first breath of freedom. What about of the rights of these women who have been called to pioneer the new frontiers of the new millennium only to have their lives snuffed out before the calendar even turns?

Oh, God, what would Martin Luther King, Jr., who dreamed of having his children judged by the content of their characters do if he’d lived to see the contents of thousands of children’s skulls emptied into the bottomless caverns of the abortionists pits?

It is time for America, perhaps the most blessed nation on earth to lead the world in repentance, and in restoration of life! . . . Abortion is at the forefront of our destruction. Partial Birth Abortion is perhaps the most heinous form of this legal genocide. . . . The only healing and redemption is in the blood of Jesus, blood willingly shed so that we could stand today and cry out for the blood of the unborn that is drenching the land of our children.

. . . [Martin Luther] King [Jr.] once said, “The Negro cannot win as long as he is willing to sacrifice the lives of his children for comfort and safety.” How can the “Dream” survive if we murder the children? Every aborted baby is like a slave in the womb of his or her mother. . . . If the Dream of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is to live, our babies must live. Our mothers must choose life. If we refuse to answer the cry of mercy from the unborn, and ignore the suffering of the mothers, then we are signing our own death warrants.

I too, like Martin Luther King, Jr., have a dream. I have a dream that the men and women, the boys and girls of America will come to our senses, and humble ourselves before God Almighty and pray for mercy, and receive His healing grace. I pray that this is the day, the hour of our deliverance. May God have mercy on us all.

Black Genocide

Ms. King refers to abortion as genocide. Rev. Clenard H. Childress, Jr. goes further and refers to black genocide. In 2002, he birthed a website by and for African Americans called Blackgenocide.org. The lament at that website reads like this (referring to statistics in 2002):

[The] incidence of abortion has resulted in a tremendous loss of life. It has been estimated that since 1973 Black women have had about 10 million abortions [probably up to 13 million now]. Michael Novak . . . calculated, “Since the number of current living Blacks (in the U.S.) is 31 million, the missing 10 million represents an enormous loss, for without abortion, America’s Black community would now number 41 million persons. It would be 35 percent larger than it is. Abortion has swept through the Black community like a scythe, cutting down every fourth member.”

A Vision to Do Something

Perhaps the best way I can put this is to let John Ensor describe the situation racially, not in the abstract, but in the context of his vision to do something about it. John founded five crisis pregnancy centers in Boston called A Woman’s Concern. That remarkable achievement is part of something amazing nationally. In the last thirty-five years, the Christian community has founded 2,300 pregnancy help centers. This means Christians ready to help women before, during, and after pregnancy, while saving the children.

But here’s the catch. Planned Parenthood is the largest abortion provider in America. They were founded by Margaret Sanger whose “Negro Project” in the 1930s was designed to reduce the births of black children (Randy Alcorn, “Planned Parenthood: a Closer Look At Its Founder and Philosophy, Eternal Perspectives, Sept.-Oct., 1993, pp. 8-9; see also George Grant, Killer Angel: A Short Biography of Planned Parenthood’s Founder, Margaret Sanger [Franklin, Tennessee: Ars Vitai Press, 2001). Today 78% of Planned Parenthood clinics are in minority communities. John Ensor takes this as the crucial challenge of the pro-life, crisis pregnancy center movement: Go to the urban centers. Here is what he says:

To date, the pregnancy center movement has grown mostly in rural and suburban areas. The great challenge now facing us is to respond to the abortion industry’s dominant business strategy of abandoning rural and suburban abortion facilities and targeting urban neighborhoods. For example, Planned Parenthood closed 17 abortion facilities in 2004. But they sold 20% more abortions. How did they do this? By targeting minority neighborhoods in major cites. Currently, 94% of America’s abortion facilities are in cities. And African-American women, who make up 13% of the female population account for 36% of all abortions.¹ Latino-American women makeup another 13% of the female population, but account for another 20% of all abortions. (See Susan Enouen, “Planned Parenthood Abortion Facilities Target African American Communities.”)

In other words, the de facto effect (I don’t call it the main cause, but net effect) of putting abortion clinics in the urban centers is that the abortion of Hispanic and Black babies is more than double their percentage of the population. Every day 1,300 black babies are killed in America. Seven hundred Hispanic babies die every day from abortion. Call this what you will—when the slaughter has an ethnic face and the percentages are double that of the white community and the killers are almost all white, something is going on here that ought to make the lovers of racial equality and racial harmony wake up.

John and his wife Kristin just moved temporarily from Boston to Miami to take up the challenge. Forty percent of all the abortions in Florida are done in Miami. There are forty abortion-selling centers in that city, but only one ultrasound equipped pregnancy center. John and Kristen hope to turn that around, not only there, but with CareNet and Focus on the Family, across the country.

Here is his closing dream: “The abolition of abortion is in sight, and will be looked back on by future generations the way we currently look back on slavery, when the pregnancy center movement is established in our cities and led by the Black, Latino and White Christian community.” I know that I am talking mainly to a white audience. But not only. Word spreads. One person could make all the difference.

O that the murderous effect of abortion in the Black and Latino communities, destroying tens of thousands at the hands of white abortionists, would explode with the same reprehensible reputation as lynching. May the Lord raise up from the African-American churches and the Hispanic-American churches a passion to seize the moral high ground against the slaughter of the little ones. Such leadership would sweep the field, and the white pro-choice establishment would fall before it. May it happen in the name of Christ and for his glory and for the good of all people until the Lord of glory comes. Amen.

¹ The African American leaders at Life Education and Resource Network ask, “Are we being targeted? Isn’t that genocide? We are the only minority in America that is on the decline in population. If the current trend continues, by 2038 the black vote will be insignificant.”

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Filed Under: Blog, Mp3, Sermons Tagged With: abortion, audio, Ephesians 5:16, Ephesians 5:17, John Piper, Mp3, sermon

Urgency and Gratitude

May 10, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

by John Piper – Listen

Ephesians 5:15-20

Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery; but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart, always and for everything giving thanks in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father.

One way to describe the Christian life is to say that it is made up of paradoxes. That means that there are things in our lives that don’t seem to make sense, don’t seem to fit with other things in our lives. And yet we Christians have seen enough of God’s power and wisdom and love that we believe with good reason that the paradoxes of our lives really do fit together in God’s mind, even if we can’t always figure them out now.

Paradoxes of the Christian Life

Let me illustrate some of the paradoxes of the Christian life by simply quoting the apostle Paul. He described his own life in 2 Corinthians 6:8–10 like this:

. . . as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything.

This is what I mean by the paradoxes of the Christian life. Paul says he is “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.” How can you be always rejoicing if you are sometimes sorrowful? There must be some kind of “sorrowful joy” and “joyful sorrow.” Indeed, there is—that is one of the deep paradoxes of life for those who rest in a sovereign God and live in a sinful world.

Paul says that he is “as having nothing, yet possessing everything.” You may recall that on Reformation Sunday—the last Sunday of October—I commended Martin Luther’s essay called “The Freedom of a Christian.” In that great essay Luther captures this particular paradox of the Christian life in two sentences. Paul said he has nothing, yet possesses everything. Luther put it this way,

A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none.

A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all.

In other words, when you are adopted into the royal family of God through faith in Jesus Christ, some of the same paradoxes that marked Jesus mark you as well. Having nothing yet possessing everything. Subject to no man, yet servant of all.

There is another place where Paul describes some of the paradoxes of the Christian life, namely, 1 Corinthians 7:29–31,

The time has grown very short; from now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no goods, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it.

If we obey these admonitions of the apostle, we husbands will love our wives with the faithfulness and firmness and tenderness of Christ and yet in a sense as though we had no wives. Those of us who grieve will grieve in a sense as though there were no tragedy. And when we do business with the world, we do it as though our dealings with the world were nothing.

So the Christian life is the living of many paradoxes. Little by little as we draw near to God, we begin to see the unity and harmony of it all. But in every case we see through a glass darkly. We know in part. And we wait until the last day when the secrets of the human heart will be made plain.

But I don’t think the Lord wants us to live in continual confusion and frustration. There is some light to shed on the paradoxes of our lives. And sometimes even just being aware that the paradox is biblical helps us live with it and even thrive on it.

Ready for Battle and Filled with Peace

So what I want to do today is focus our attention on the paradox I see in today’s text and simply ponder it with you and see how it applies to our lives. Let’s read the text (Ephesians 5:15–20):

Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery; but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart, always and for everything giving thanks in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father.

When I was pondering this as our Thanksgiving text back in August, I was gripped by the tension in the verses. Let me try to capture it for you.

Be Careful and Vigilant

On the one hand the text says, Watch carefully how you live, that is, be alert, be vigilant. Apply wisdom to redeem the time. That opportunity will never come again. The days are evil; opposition is great; be wise as serpents. Understand what the will of the Lord is. Don’t surrender your powers of judgment to alcohol.

These words ring with a sense of urgency. They are like the words of a platoon leader addressing his unit just before they enter combat. The air is tense and your heart is beating fast and, even if you love battle, your hands are sweaty. “Watch your step; be smart; don’t miss your opportunity; keep yourself lean for the battle!”

Sing and Make Melody with Thanksgiving

Then come verses 18b–20: Be filled with the Spirit, and sing to each other—sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. And let your heart fill up with melody where nobody else can hear but God. And let the golden thread of all your songs be thanksgiving to your heavenly Father—thanksgiving for everything!

Now it sounds like the war is over! The tension and vigilance of conflict are gone. We’re back home with the family. It’s Thanksgiving Day. There’s a fire in the fireplace and marshmallows on the skewers, and a game spread out on the dining room table; and sweet music is in the air.

And so I have called this message “Urgency and Gratitude.” And I want us to just meditate on this paradox of being a vigilant people at war and yet a thankful and singing people at peace. And even if we can’t fully explain how this can be, my prayer is that the mere awareness of it will help you live with it, and perhaps even thrive in it.

Three Ways to Express This Tension

So let me try to take the overall paradox that I see between urgency in verses 15–18a and gratitude in verses 18b–20 and break it up into three parts—three ways of expressing the tension of these verses.

1. Evil Days and Thanksgiving for Everything

First, there is the paradox here between the evil days in verse 16 and the call to be thankful for everything in verse 20. Verse 16: “Making the most of the time, because the days are evil.” Verse 20: “Always and for everything giving thanks.”

Evil Days

Paul is not naïve about the world. He says the days are evil. In Galatians 1:4 he said that “Christ gave himself for our sins to deliver us from this present evil age.” The age is evil because God gives Satan so much leash that he can be called “the god of this age” (2 Corinthians 4:4). The age is evil because God allows so much pride and wickedness in the human heart to go unrestrained for now. The age is evil because so many natural catastrophes bring suffering and misery on the world, on both the good and the bad.

And Paul knew all of this first hand. He was not an armchair critic. He wrestled with his own sin in Romans 7. He felt the sins of others when he was stoned and beaten with rods and imprisoned. He went without food and clothes and shelter. He was harassed in almost every city, never knowing when his life would be put out by a dagger beneath the robes of some mercenary.

And on top of everything, he suffered some kind of chronic ailment that God would not remove no matter how hard Paul prayed. Instead God taught Paul some of the purposes of struggling with sin and suffering.

One lesson he tells about in 2 Corinthians 12:9–10. Christ told him that his power was made perfect in Paul’s weakness. So Paul is given the grace and faith to say, “I will all the more gladly exult in my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”

Thanksgiving

And so when Paul gets to verse 20 of Ephesians 5, he is not in some dream world where all is easy and healthy and holy. He is not telling us to do any more than the Lord has given him grace to do: be thankful for everything. It does not say “in” everything (like it does in 1 Thessalonians 5:18). It says “for” everything.

But let us be very careful here. It doesn’t say you should dance around the coffin. It doesn’t say you can’t cry if you have cancer. It doesn’t say there is no place for anger against injustice. But it does say, “Always be thankful for everything.” And this is the word of God, not merely the word of man.

If it puzzles us, if it even provokes us, we must not become cynical or rebellious; we should be like Mary when the angel said she would conceive a son without a husband. She asked humbly, “How can this be?” And Gabriel gave her not a whole explanation, but all she needed: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you . . . with God nothing will be impossible.”

And is that not the same answer Paul would give to our perplexity here in Ephesians 5? Wouldn’t he say from verse 18: It is beyond your understanding and beyond your emotional ability to give thanks to God for all things; it comes with the filling of the Holy Spirit: “Be filled with the Spirit.”

For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God (1 Corinthians 2:10). If you trust him, he will unfold for you how your omnipotent and all-wise Father in heaven can even take the evils of the world and work them together for your eternal good.

And when he begins to teach you that lesson, you will experience the truth and the depth, and maybe even the unity, of this first paradox: the days are evil, but give thanks always for everything to God the Father. He is wise and he is sovereign and he is good.

2. Analysis and Exultation

The second way of expressing the paradox of these verses is to say that we must live in the tension between analysis and exultation. Let me try to explain what I mean.

Analysis

Verse 15 says, “Look carefully then how you walk.” Verse 17 says, “Do not be foolish but understand what the will of the Lord is.” So together these verses call us to use our minds in careful thought. Look carefully! Know yourself, know your enemy, know your commander, know the situation, apply your mind to understand what the Lord wills in this crucial time. This is what I mean by analysis. It is the use of the mind to scrutinize, to examine, to sort out distinctions and seek relationships and patterns and to draw conclusions and inferences.

Exultation

But then verse 19 says that we should be full of exultation. We should make melody to the Lord in our hearts. Our emotions, not just our minds, should be engaged. We should not merely scrutinize the providence of God; we should also be carried away by it. We should not just analyze the message of the Bible, we should be swept up into song when we read it. We shouldn’t be content to formulate a theory of salvation, we should be filled with thanksgiving that we are saved.

The Two Do Not Easily Fit Together

This is a burdensome paradox for us because the two states of mind don’t fit easily together and yet both are crucial: analysis and rigorous thought on the one hand and exultation and thanksgiving on the other. This is why we get concerned when our young people go off to college or seminary or graduate school. It’s not just because they will sometimes have unbelieving teachers and wrestle with secular ideas. It’s because we know that exultation and thanksgiving can be swallowed up by the analytic demands of academic work.

But on the other hand this paradox is why many of us are unimpressed by much charismatic renewal. It’s because the life of the emotions is often cultivated at the expense of the life of the mind. Careful thought and study and right doctrine is swallowed up by the ecstatic demands of the community.

An Admonition

My admonition this morning is this: Keep these two things alive and well in your life, the powers of analysis and the pleasures of exultation.

If you are all cerebral with little emotion, don’t brag about it. It’s a weakness not a strength. Strive to nurture your heart’s capacity for joy in God, lest you be stunted forever and have a little cup of joy all through eternity.

And if you are all emotional with little bent for study and analysis, don’t brag about it. It’s a weakness, not a strength. Strive to nurture your mind’s capacity for thinking and understanding the work of God.

Don’t surrender the paradox. It stands in Scripture. And without it your celebration of Thanksgiving will have exultation and yet be superficial or it may have intellectual depth and yet be lukewarm. Hold the paradox together and your heart may experience the deepest gratitude you’ve ever known because your mind has seen more of God’s truth than it has ever known.

3. Wartime Vigilance and Peacetime Thanks

The third way of describing the paradox of these verses is to say that we must live in the tension between being vigilant people at war and yet a thankful people at peace. Or another way to say it is that we must be careful about our walk in the world and yet carefree about the outcome of our lives. Vigilant yet secure. Careful yet carefree.

Vigilance

You can see the call for vigilance and carefulness in verse 15: “Look carefully then how you walk.” You can see it in verse 16: “Since the days are evil be alert how you can snatch up every opportunity for good.” You can see it in verse 17: “Don’t be foolish. Apply your mind. Think through what the will of the Lord is.”

In other words, the Christian life is a vigilant life, defensively guarding itself from the subtleties of the evil days and offensively redeeming the time to strike for love and righteousness again and again. We are a vigilant people at war with unbelief and evil.

Thankful Peace

But on the other hand you can see the restful, thankful peace, especially in verse 19. What amazes me about verse 19 is not that we are supposed to sing songs of thanks to God, but that we are to have a musical heart. I can imagine a wartime scene with a church surrounded by hostile forces. They have no escape and so the company commander (i.e., the minister of music) leads the church in hymn after hymn while the enemy closes in. I can imagine that.

But what is harder to imagine is that not only outwardly would the mouth be singing, but inwardly the heart would be singing. This is what I mean when I say we should be a thankful people at rest in God. Our hearts should be carefree about the outcome of our lives. This is what Paul says happens when a person becomes a Christian. A paradox is born:

vigilance and carefulness in the way we live our lives lest evil gain the upper hand, and yet
carefree restfulness and thankfulness that the out come of the battle will be victory.

“He who called us is faithful, and he will do it” (1 Thessalonians 5:24).

The Glue That Holds the Paradoxes Together

What is the glue that holds the pieces of these three paradoxes together?

the paradox between living in evil days and being thankful for everything.
the paradox between rigorous analysis and thankful exultation.
the paradox between being vigilant people at war and being thankful people at peace.

The glue that holds them all together is the work of the Holy Spirit: “Do not be drunk with wine, but be filled with the Spirit!” And God will uncover for you

the mystery of gratitude for all things, even when the days are evil,
the pleasures of exultation even in the midst of analysis,
and the peace that passes all understanding even in the vigilance of our daily conflict with evil.

Urgency and gratitude. Glued together in one heart by the work of the Holy Spirit. This morning we have been heavy on the side of urgency, analysis, and vigilance. Tonight we will pluck the fruit of our analysis and blow the roof off this old building with exultation in the sixth annual Festival of Thanksgiving.

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Filed Under: Blog, Mp3, Sermons Tagged With: audio, Ephesians 5:15, Ephesians 5:16, Ephesians 5:17, Ephesians 5:18, Ephesians 5:19, Ephesians 5:20, John Piper, Mp3, sermon, Thanksgiving

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Singing is to be from the Heart.

Singing is to be “to the Lord.”

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Finally, Singing is to be Varied in its Forms.

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The Glue That Holds the Paradoxes Together

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