Well, good morning, church. My name is Eli and the high school pastor here at Burnt Hickory. Appreciate y'all gassing me up this morning. Appreciate that. Obviously, that's the high school crowd over there. Man, I'm so glad that you guys decided to worship with us this morning if you're new. Welcome. Thank you for worshiping with us. I realize having kids and there's a phrase that brings a whole new meaning. Kids say the darndest things. Now, working with high school ministry like that should have come obvious right? But it wasn't until I had a kid of my own. I've got a little daughter. She's about to turn three in October, and it's amazing what she picks up. Just the other day, my wife came home with her and I was sitting in the living room. And when she came in, she said, Hey, babe, I'm home. I was like, What? So confused. Sweetheart, why are you saying that? And my wife's like, you say that literally every time you walk through these doors and like, no way. Just the other day, my wife and my daughter were playing in the playroom, and I was sitting with my son. And I heard in the other room, Mommy, get your finger out of your nose. We don't do that. And I was like, Oh, we're picking up on these things, huh? Right. It's funny. We were watching a TV show, and I have a very active three year old daughter. She's got bumps, scrapes, bruises all over the place. And she has one on her knee and the TV show. Somebody's got a bump or scrape on their knee and they bent down and they. Oh, and they started limping around. And so I'm not joking with you. For four days straight, every time my kid got up off the ground, she'd go, Oh, I got a boo boo. And like, would limp everywhere. And y you all think it's funny? After the second day, it becomes wildly annoying. Wildly annoying. You're trying to get somewhere. Come on, let's go. But it's great. So I learn this whole phrase of kids say the darndest things, and I realize it's because the parents say the darndest things first. Right. And I realized that my kid, what she was actually doing was intentionally watching me and taking up every single thing that I did. She was studying me. And you can see this if you're a parent, you know this. And when you're doing something, you're interacting with your wife and your kid is just locked in and she's looking at you and she asks all these things like, What does that mean? Or what does that mean? They're soaking it in. 

And today, in Ephesians chapter five, it tells us to be imitators of God. Just like our kids are imitators of who we are. And Ephesians five one and two, it says, therefore be imitators of God as dearly loved children. That's an identifying statement there and to live a life of love. Now if you've got your Bibles. Can you highlight and live a life of love? Because we're going to talk a lot about that today and it's going to be the whole back half of this. And just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and a sacrifice to God. And if you are new and you haven't been here, we've been walking through the Book of Ephesians and week one was chapter one shocker. And we found out because of who God is and what He has done for us by giving His son Jesus, as He is the perfect sacrifice for me and you to be able to have a relationship with God, that He has adopted us as sons and daughters, and now we have an eternal inheritance in him. So he's identified. If we are in a loving relationship with Christ, we've surrendered it to him. We are now adopted sons and daughters, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And in chapter two, he said, You were once spiritually dead. But because of what I've done, I've now made you alive in Christ. And then in chapter three, he says, Because you're alive in Christ, you now have freedom to no longer be in bondage, to sin. And lastly, Pastor Chip talked about this, and it's amazing. The gospel changes everything. Our heart, our soul and our minds. A good buddy of mine named Shane Pruitt says it like this. The gospel changes who you are, and it also changes what you do. It changes who you are, but it also changes what you do. Now, I think all the times we get this mixed up in our theology, the gospel changes what you do. Therefore you are. That's wrong. That nothing that you can do can ever take the place of the grace and the salvation that Christ's given you. You are no longer good. We need the blood of Jesus to wash his white as snow. It's because of what He does, that is who we are. That's why he tells us to be imitators of Christ. That's why if you continue to go on and Ephesians chapter five, verse eight and nine, says it like this for you were once darkness, but now you were light in the Lord live as children of the light. That's an identifying statement. You're a child of God. For the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness, and in truth. And so today I want to talk about how to be imitators of God. But if you know anything about Ephesians, he gives us his example in the first three chapters, he tells us who we are in Christ and in the back three chapters is how we live for Christ. And in chapter four, he says, the gospel changes everything: heart, soul, mind. And then he tells us how to be unified as the body of believers. Well, in chapter five, he takes to macro and he starts to go a little bit more into the micro. And so he tells us that we're supposed to be unified as one body, as believers in Christ, but also intermarriage. So how do we, the imitators of Christ, in our marriage? 

Here's why this is so important. Because your marriage matters. It matters. What we're going to read today and you'll see this in a little bit. Your marriage is a direct representation of the gospel for everybody to see. You are the metaphor of Christ to the church. That is your marriage. When the two become one, you are the example to the rest of the world of what God has done for His people. In ancient Rome, hypersexual society was worse than we ever thought about today. Oversexualized. The Gospel of Christ comes on to the scene. People start giving their life to Christ. Then they come into a Christian marriage when the two now become one. They love each other and people are like, Whoa, whoa, wait a minute. You mean there's something different than what the world has to offer? And Christian marriage comes on the scene. And one of the ways that the Gospel of Jesus blew up in ancient Rome was because of godly marriages. Your marriage matters. Your marriage matters to your kids, to your family, and to the rest of this world. And so I appreciate Matt giving me Ephesians chapter five today, and you'll see why here in 3 seconds. So if you turn with me, we're going to camp out in Ephesians five verses 22 through 33. Here we go. Says this verse 22. Wives, submit to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. And it's like, Oh, here it is. Here we go baby. We're starting off strong today, right? Everybody kind of recluses, kind of sucks back, hears that word, wives submit and everybody gets clammy and everybody gets nervous. And what's he going to say? You know why? Hear my heart on this because this may be one of the most misused and abused passages that we've ever had right here. We've taken this completely out of context. And can I say this? This is a caveat and this is maybe more for me than for you guys. It's very specific. Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands, because I work with high school and college and young adults. Can I say this to the singles out there? That's not the same for your dating relationship. Can you stop giving a boy or a girl the privileges that only a married couple have? Now, some of us here would have less pain, less scars if we stopped giving a boy or a girl the privilege that only a husband and wife should have. It's for married couples. You're the representations of Christ in the church. Not if you're. I don't care how long you've been dating. When you make a covenant with God, the two separate now become one under Christ. That's what we're saying here. We're submitting ourselves under the Lordship of Christ. Both of us are submitting to Christ. Now, the picture of Christ in the church is the wife submitting to the husband. And here's what I want to do before we talk about what that word submit even means. Let me tell you what it doesn't mean, because that's a whole lot easier. I think we're going to free it up a little bit here. Number one, what does that word not mean? Number one, it does not mean the wife isn't equal. Let me say that again. It doesn't mean that your wife isn't equal to you. For some reason, we've equated roles and function as hierarchy in authority, Roles and function do not negate equality. You're equal in the eyes of God. Here's the thing: We serve a Triune God. Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Three and one God. The Father sent God the Son who sent the Holy Spirit. Matter of fact, God, The Father sent Jesus to come down here. Humble himself was the dirt guck and poop off the disciples feet. Does that make him any less equal than God, the Father? Absolutely not. The Triune God. So, man, husband, wife, equal. You don't believe me? Galatians Chapter 3:26 - 28. You were all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For all of you who are baptized into Christ have clothed yourself with Him. There's the identifier. There is neither Jew nor Greek slave, nor free, male or female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. All of you. We have different roles. We have different functions in marriage. 

But every single person in this room is on that same even playing field. That's it. Your wife is as equal a part to you as you are to her. Number two, it doesn't mean that your wife must always agree with her husband, obviously. Right. I don't think we need a chocolate Aussiedoodle, but my wife disagrees with me. Right. We had that conversation all week long this week. Right? Now, I know it's funny, but it's true. Husbands, your wife is not always going to agree with you. And can I put this caveat, especially if you haven't put yourself under the lordship of Christ, Your wife is not always going to agree with you. Now, I'm going to say this because I talked about this on Father's Day, and I want to get this caveat. I love my dad and I don't have a great relationship with my dad. But my mother loves, loves, loves the Lord. I don't know if my dad does or not. Just going to be fully transparent with you. I don't know. To this day. I watched my mom share Christ day in and day out. Does that mean that every single thing is because of my dad's leadership that she should give in to? Absolutely not. Acts chapter 5 verse 29 tells us that we must obey God rather than men. There's some of you out here that are in relationships that are wildly and unequally yoked. They are one of you who loves the Lord. One of you doesn't, and sometimes flip flops in relationships and times and places, and you're not walking with God and vice versa. Are we going to have disagreements and arguments in marriage? 1,000%. Can I ask you a question, though? Married couples here. Do you get into arguments or fights or disagreements to argue to be right or argue to what's the best thing for our relationship? That's the difference there. When you argue just to be right, you're separating yourself away from the faithful covenant and bondage of marriage rather than having disagreements and arguments about what is the best thing for our family. 

To many of us, if we would just lay our pride down, we would have less disagreements and less arguments because we're not. We're arguing because we think we're some sort of a hierarchical God that knows everything. Let's just table that. And can we fight for our marriage and our relationships? What's best for the family? What is the best thing for us? Not individually. For us. Does that mean the wife will always agree with her husband? Point number three It does not mean that wives don't have influence over their husbands. Read with me first, Peter chapter three, verse one. It says this. Likewise. Wives, be subject. There's that word to submit again to your own husbands so that even if some do not obey, talking about the men don't obey the Word of God. They may be won without word, but by the conduct of their wives. That we had influence over you. You have massive influence over your husband. A lot of times when I get into a situation and I don't know what to do, I may have already acted upon it. Guess who's my catalyst for whether or not I made a stupid decision or not? My wife and I'll go to her like, Sweetheart, here's what's going on. I will tell her what I did and I just want to hear what she has to say. And I quickly realized I made a bad decision. Maybe I should go ask for forgiveness over here because my wife has influence over our relationship. Ladies, you have massive influence over your relationship. So what then, does this word submit mean? I looked it up in the Greek. The Greek word here is hypnotizing and it's a military Greek term saying to arrange by formation or by rank. Right. But I'm very interested in this nonmilitary use and I want to dive into this as a voluntary attitude of giving in cooperating, assuming responsibility. It is your responsibility for you to come alongside your husband and to help and to help carry a burden. This has nothing to do with authority or position. It's responsibility. So what does that look like actively in our relationship? How then or was supposed to submit to the husband? What does that look like? Giving you two things. Number one, it is to honor and to affirm his godly leadership. Wives can I tell you? The only thing I want to hear out of my wife's mouth is like, Hey, you're doing a great job. You know, because I don't know what I'm doing, right? Like dudes, the only thing I want to hear is like, Hey, I see you. I know how hard you're working. I'm coming alongside you. What do you need from me? And I know I see it to affirm it. 

How do we do that? Point number two. You help him carry it through your gifts and your talents. I'm going to do us a quick favor. Hey husbands, look at your wife for me. Go ahead. Look at them and say I need help. Yeah, go ahead. It's cool. Yeah, you can say it. It's fine. You know why I need help? My gifts are my talents are the people I want to talk to you. The walk, life with you, all these things. What I'm not gifted with is any sort of administration organization. I'm ADD. I got piles everywhere. I'm a bum, right when it comes to that kind of stuff. Well, guess what? My wife is administrative. She's really well organized, and she keeps me straight. Right. Guess what? My wife is not. My wife is not an extrovert. She is an introvert. And so how can I help her? I come alongside her and we walk into massive crowds like this. Or we walk into a social event and we come alongside each other. We help husbands. We need help. You cannot do this alone. I know it's a macho thing to do. I got this. No, you don't. No, no. You're just being honest with yourself. You need help. Right. Ladies, you have gifts and talents that we never even thought about. Never even thought about. We need your help. Desperately. Desperately. Let's keep reading. Ephesians 5:23 through 24 says this for the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church. His body for which he is the savior. Now, as the church submits to Christ, wives should submit to their husbands in everything that we do. Husbands, You are the head of your household. You are the leader. This leadership is not passive. This is not if you don't do it, your wife will. It is on you. And can I just. I'm going to throw this out there. You will stand before a holy God one day and answer for how well you lead and shepherd your wife and your kids' hearts. 

There is no passive when it comes to that. There's like, Whoops, I didn't know you have been called to lead your family spiritually, mentally, emotionally, physically, all of it. It's on you. You're the leader. You are it. How does that look though? Like all of my life, when I read this and I came to church, I gave my life to Christ and I was about to get married. Like, you got to be the leader of the family. You’ve got to be this. I'm like, I don't even know how to do that man. I've never seen that in my life. I don't know what that looks like. It's not been modeled for me. Well, it's pretty easy. Well, I should say it's easy. It's not. How does that look? Husbands love your wife. Well, I get that Ephesians 5:25 through 30. Husbands love your wife, right? It's right there. And then he gives the caveat, and I think this is the scary part. Jesus Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, holy, cleansing her by the washing with the water through the word it present her to himself as a radiant church without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless in the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He, who loves his wife, loves himself. After all, nobody has ever hated their own body. But he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church, for we are members of his body. One author puts it like this. The important point in focusing on mutual submission, highlight and underline that husband wife under mutual submission to God is the husband being the ahead does not result in some position or privilege. It's a position of responsibility, dudes. In which the husband is to love his wife, give himself up to care for her and nurture her. 

You know what I find really funny a lot of times? Guys are like, Oh, I'm not really good with those feeling things, you know? I'm like, You know, I really do Well, but I don't know how to express that. It's funny that scripture tells us that we're supposed to be the initiator of love. We men are the initiator of love. It doesn't say Here, wives love your husband, it says husband to love your wife as Christ loved his church. Now, I don't know about you dudes. That freaks me out a little bit. I don't know how loving you are, but I'm not loving to the point of sacrificial love. Well, I'm going to give my only son so that you can have a relationship with me. That type of love. But God's called us to be the initiator in this human relationship with your wife. You're the one supposed to initiate love, not vice versa. I beg to say, I think it's quite often in our relationships where the wife is initiating the love and vice versa. Husbands love your wife. Now, listen. I spent a ridiculous amount of time. I went from like 14 to 15 points down to seven. We've landed on five today. Okay, dudes. Like, if you know anything about baseball, if you get two out of five, you had a great day. You know, I'm saying, okay, so I know some of you in here are probably not going to get all five, but less key in to like two. You know what I'm saying? Like, that's good. It's like it's pretty good for baseball. So here we go. How then are we supposed to love our wife? How are we supposed to initiate that? All right. Number one, and we've already talked about this. It's a sacrificial love, sacrifice, sacrifice, sacrifice. You know, I get to do a lot of pre-marriage counseling because I get to marry a lot of couples. And the one theme that I try to get them to understand is you are two separate people joining yourself under one lordship Christ and the rest of your life is nothing but sacrifice. Your will, your once, your talents, your time, your emotions, your affections, all of it. Submission. Surrender. All of it. Dudes, when was the last time you looked at your life and was like, Man, it hurt me to do that. I had to sacrifice something. You realize there's a cost to following Jesus. The cost is not like the rest of the world. Same thing in our marriages. I would hope that the Church of God, the Christian marriage, would look wildly different than the rest of culture. I would hope the first and foremost thing that we must do is go, How can I sacrificially love my wife to the point where it hurts? Sacrifice. Love. Sacrificial love. Point number two, it's a serving love. 

Listen to what Mark chapter 10 verse 45 says, For even the son of man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many/ Years ago, I was listening to a sermon by a guy named Matt Chandler and a man he was going in on. Dudes. I'm talking a little bit more angry than I am this morning. Right. And he was talking about the laziness of men. He said men, we should go to work. And you should work, work, work, work, work your tail off. You should get in your car. You should drive home, you should pull into your driveway. And before you walk into your house, you need to stop. Take a deep breath. Pray to God. God. I have absolutely no physical, mental or emotional stability left. God, I need your help to go inside right now to first check on my wife and then check on my kids heart. That's what service is. Not hey, I've come home. Honey, Where's dinner? Look at all these things that I've done. I worked all day long. God's called you husbands, to be initiator of love, to serve your wife. I know it's hard. I mean, I've been there. I know how tired it is. You talk about tired, coming off a student beach camp with 300 of these little jokers running around. Right. Everything I wanted to do is go inside and sleep instead. God's called me to go in to serve my wife, to check on her heart. Go, babe, I know you've been here all week long. I know you've taken care of our kids. I know you've done everything. How are you doing? Talk to me. Then my responsibility, Dad, is to go into the other room and take my little girl. Throw her off the couch, have a great time, wrestle with her and check on her heart. Serve, serve, serve. Do you catch yourself going. What can I take? Or what can I give? What can I take out of this relationship? Or what am I giving to this relationship? Am I loving? Am I caring? Am I honoring? Am I supporting my coming alongside of her? Am I leading her? Serve, serve, serve. Now we have got to start stepping up to the plate on this. You've got to serve your wife. Philippians two, three and four says Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, rather, underline this, in humility, value others above yourself not looking to your own interests, but to the interest of others. Life of service, a life of surrender, a life of sacrifice. You see a common theme here. It's how we are Christ to the church. 

Same in our relationship with the Lord. Number three, it's a faithful love. I've already said this, but I'm going to read it to you. Ephesians 5:31. For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and unite with his wife and the two shall become one flesh. It's faithful. It's a bond that you're standing in front of a holy God saying forever. It's forever. Not if I feel like it or if she makes me happy or all it is surrendering my life to the Lordship of Christ and my wife to go. I am faithful to you, to you only. I know that you make me mad and frustrated and angry. But I'm faithful to you. Says this in Lamentations 3:23 and 24 Because of the Lord's great love, we are not consumed for his compassions never fail. They are like new every morning. Great is his faithfulness. That's what we're supposed to model husband's right there. I don't know about you, but I'm wildly thankful that we have a God that doesn't count my wrongs and rather sees the blood of Jesus. Amen. So then why are we husbands making a list, checking it twice for every single thing our wife has done wrong, and then try to loiter it over her head when the right time poses itself. Faithful. Nobody in this room is perfect. You're faithful to her and her alone. That means forgiveness. And forgiveness is needed. That means showing mercy. Where mercy needs not showing grace when he doesn't even deserve it. That's the type of love that we're supposed to have. Which leads me to my fourth point. It's a caring love. Caring love. The most caring thing you can possibly do is continue to love her without any conditions. Romans 8:38-39 And I'm convinced that nothing. Listen, nothing can separate us from the love of God. Neither death nor life. No, Neither angels nor demons, neither fears of today or worries for tomorrow. Not even the powers of hell can separate us and the love of God because he's already overcome it. No power in the sky above or below indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate from the love of Christ, Jesus, our Lord. 

That's the love that we need to model. That's it. Fathers, we wouldn't have to teach our daughters how to date a good man if we're modeling it. If we look at that image and go, Man, I love the way that my dad loves my mom. It's unconditional. You don't believe me? Birth first Corinthians 13 four three, six. And you know this, but I want you to read this in the context of marriage. Love is patient. Some of us aren't patient. It's kind. Some of you are unkind. Does not envy, does not boast. It's not proud. It's not rude, dudes. It's not self-seeking. It's not easily angered. It keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with truth. Highlight this for your marriage. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes and always perseveres. Always in the context of a relationship with Christ. I don't care how fractured or broken that you think your relationship is. God is a God that mends and makes things whole. And that's what He wants to do. Why? Because he's faithful to you and to me in that context. And he wants husbands and wives to lovingly care for each other. My last one. And I won't even give you anything after this. Actually, I will, it's only one other point. But Colossians 3:19, I just let this speak for itself. Husbands love your wives and do not be harsh with them and do not be harsh with them. You want to talk about something that's convicting that verse right there and do not be harsh with them. Will you be angry? Will you be frustrated? Yes. Yes. Does that mean you need to be harsh with them? No. I need to remove myself and go. God, I feel it's swelling up. Right. Anger. Would you calm my mind, calm my attitude, calm my heart? So I can lovingly walk into the other room and fight for our marriage. That's what it looks like. Last one. Possibly one of the most important ones. It's a sanctifying love. That word sanctification can be boiled down to the process of looking more like Christ in our relationship with Jesus. When you give your life to the Lord, you don't. Just magically tomorrow morning I wake up and go, Oh, look, I look like Christ. No, it doesn't happen that way. 

It's a constant. Every single day surrendering to Christ. Husbands, we are sole cultivators. Okay. It would be one thing to sit here and say that we would just shepherd attitudes. We're shepherding hearts, shepherding souls. Listen to what it says in Ephesians 526. It says, To make her holy. Cleansing her by the washing with the word and to present her to himself as a radiant church without stain or wrinkle or blemish, but holy and blameless. You will stand in front of God and you will give an account of how you shepherd your wife's heart. How you led her closer to the feet of Jesus. That's it. That's the whole thing of marriage. You want to lead your wife? Lead her to Jesus. That's the. That's all. That's all I know how to do. I'm no perfect man. There's nothing special about any of us other than the precious blood of Christ. Lead her to the feet of Jesus. Having sanctifying love that I yearn to see my wife grow. You want a slap in the face church? And I'll admit this until I'm blue in the face. I'll never forget this. When I got married, I woke up at 6 a.m. and my wife's in the other room. Bible wide open journaling. And it's just a gut punch. Gut punch. Because what am I doing to lead her to the feet? She's leading me. Husbands, we've got to get serious about our own personal walk with God in order to lead anybody elsewhere. You can't lead somebody where you've never been before. You can't. It's a sanctifying love. It's a love that pushes my family closer to Jesus. Not to us, but to him. 

So here's what I want to do today. A couple of minutes left. We're going to end this a little bit differently. Husbands, if you're in the room today, I want you to take your wife's hand. And in the next 2 to 3 minutes, I'm going to ask you two to sit here and to pray with each other. Guys, because we're the initiators of love. I want you to be the initiator of this prayer. And listen, I know we're Baptist, but you can go Pentecostal for a moment like you can pray out loud like it's God here, As a matter of fact, so do we. And we love it. Okay. I want you to pray out loud. Husbands, maybe you've realized today that you haven't been the godly leader that you need to be. Would you just confess that not to your wife, but to the Lord? Your wife knows. She knows. Would you just confess that to him? Maybe you realize you haven't been loving your wife well, and maybe you do need to confess that to her and to God today. Or maybe husbands. You realize that you don't even have a relationship with Christ. And here's the thing. In order for this relationship to work, you have to be mutually submitted under Jesus. Do not leave here husbands or wives without surrendering your life to Christ. This doesn't work unless you're both sold out for the Lord. Wives, I want you to pray. Maybe you realize that you haven't been affirming and honoring and supporting and using your gifts to come alongside to help your husband. 

Maybe you need to confess that today. Kids, I know there's a lot in here. And think about you, right? Can you pray for your mom and dad? Can you just pray for them? Can I just be really honest? The older I get kids, the more I realize how hard this whole parenting thing is. This whole adult thing is you should be praying for your parents. And I want you to see your parents praying for each other because I want you to. To pray for your children one day when they get married. If you're single here, would you pray that you're the Potters Clay, that God would mold you and shape you to become the husband or the wife that God desires you to be today? So during this next song, Let this be action, not just a sermon. Do something with it. Come to the feet of Jesus. Because here's what I know. God wants to restore your marriage. He wants to build it and flourish it for his kingdom. So I'm going to give it over to you guys. Dudes, be the initiator the next two or three moments. Would you guys just take a moment to pray together? And when you're done, would you just stand and honor and worship God as best you possibly can?