How Jesus Won The Battle

Text: Ephesians 5:21-33
Focus: How Jesus won us to Himself
Function: To help people see that the path to victory is through service, not domination.
Form: Bible study

Intro:

In this series on spiritual warfare, we are going to look at one of the most contested battlefields today: the family home.

Look at (SHOW) 1 Peter 3:7: The same goes for you husbands: Be good husbands to your wives. Honor them, delight in them. As women they lack some of your advantages. But in the new life of God's grace, you're equals. Treat your wives, then, as equals so your prayers don't run aground.

Prayers run aground. I like the way Peterson paraphrases it. Your prayers don’t make it to heaven, they run aground. Cain and Abel both prayed and offered sacrifices. The smoke from Abel’s went up to heaven, but God was displeased with the heart of Cain and the smoke from his didn’t rise. It ran aground.

His prayer, his sacrifice didn’t get through.
Do you remember the importance of prayer in Spiritual warfare?

The problem is, when there is discord in the home, when there is disunity at home, we get a sort of road-block to our prayers.

I remember this scripture coming to play when I was a student in Bible College.

Our kids were young, and getting 4 children ready for Church was a chore.

So here was my practice: I would get up, get the newspaper, get coffee and read the funny papers, then I would bathe and dress for Church and turn to Kathy, with 4 kids to manage breakfast, dressing, wiping noses and changing diapers and say to her: “are you ready yet, DEAR?” For some reason, adding “dear” to that question didn’t help!

One Sunday, she finally had enough of it and she let me know how insensitive I was. Now you have got to understand that this woman is an incredible manager and organizer. Most of the time, if I tried to help, I just got in the way. But I was being a jerk.

And she let me have it. And I responded in kind and we get to church, fuming at each other trying to walk through the doors, put on a smiling face, forget about everything else and worship God.

This is a point of hypocrisy. We dropped the kids off at SS and waited for our own class to start and she is giving me the silent treatment. And God just lays a heavy one on my heart about how I am called by God to live with her, nurturing and caring for her as she does me and our children. I was really convicted and I leaned over to her and confessed that I had been insensitive for many years and asked her forgiveness, with a promise of repentance.

And quickly, she forgave me and I don’t know how to explain it, but I felt the air clear.

Not only did the air clear between us, but I also knew the air cleared between God and me. It is true: if we are living in discord, our prayers are hindered.

And it happened in the nick of time. All of a sudden, I was called on to lead the class in prayer. Now, I don’t know how you feel about it, but prayer is a pretty important job. More than anything, I depend upon God to lead me by His Spirit as I am leading the congregation in corporate prayer.

The most significant work we do for the Kingdom is done in prayer. And that verse was haunting me, how could I come to worship when I had offended my wife. How could I pray when my wife had a legitimate grievance against me? Even if one feels the grievance is not legitimate, the spiritual unity, the sense of one-ness in the flesh is altogether important to our prayer life.

Because: when we made our wedding vows together BEFORE GOD we promised God that we would love, honor, respect and cherish each other. Listen, the Bible says better not to vow than to vow and not pay it. Now, all of a sudden, God had an issue with me because I wasn’t performing the vow I had made to Him.

Husbands and wives, it is job ONE for you.

(SHOW) To love, honor, respect and cherish your spouse is JOB ONE for you.

1 Corinthians 7 says it may be easier to serve the Lord as a single person because you are not distracted by this priority in your life.
God places that priority right up there with our service to Him.

That is why the Roman Catholic Church does not permit their clergy to be married.

Now to be careful and correct, 1 Corinthians 7 also says that a husband or wife is powerless to change their spouse and sometimes given a lot of effort, it just doesn’t work. (SHOW) Here is an underlying principle about how God wants Christians to live at home: God has called us to live in peace.

He says this to the people whose marriages might fail, or already have failed.

This morning, I want to focus on that peace. When I think of Spiritual warfare, I think of two spiritual kingdoms colliding in war.

They are the Kingdom of Light, the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of Heaven set against the Kingdom of Darkness, Satan’s domain.

The opposite of war is peace.

God has called us to peace. He has called us to make peace.

So what does Ephesians 5:21-33 have to do with that?

Well, it is a description of how Jesus made peace between us and God. It is a description of how Jesus won the battle for our souls. And, he uses the family as a metaphor for the victory.

Vs. 21 is significant. (SHOW) Submit yourselves to one another in the fear of Christ.

The whole thing starts out of our relationship with Christ. And then continues with an attitude of mutual submission.

Here is something that I think is absolutely pathetic. Many Bibles have subject headings in them. They do this so that we can find things more easily. So, in Ephesians 5, it starts out with a section titled “Be Imitators of Christ.” That is verses 1-21. Then it goes to a section: “Marriage like Christ and the Church.”
Now, these headings are in italics. They are not the actual God-inspired, perfect words of the Holy Scripture that we believe the text to be.
They, along with Chapter and Verse numbers were added in order to help us reference the Bible. It is a good idea and there is nothing wrong with it.
But I find it pathetic that the people who added this heading decided to make the separation between verse 21 and 22.
Verse 22, Wives submit…
Verse 21, Submit to each other.
Verse 22 cannot be taken out of context with verse 21. The one follows the other. We start with Christ. We mutually submit to each other and then he discusses the order in the home.
And I can go into depth about the fact that the real submission talked about in the passage is on behalf of the men.
He draws the courtship illustration of a man trying to woo the love of a beautiful woman.
This guy does everything humanly possible to win her affection. If she says jump, he says “How high?”
He says it very clearly men: Love your wives to the point of death. Give up your own pleasure, wishes and dreams if they contrast with hers.
Be the first to go out of the way to sacrifice for her in order to make the marriage work.
Jesus did it for us.
Jesus lived sacrificially.
Through Jesus’ sacrifice, He literally purchased our salvation and won our hearts into this love relationship with Him.
(SHOW) One time the text says “wives submit….” Three times, the text says: “Husbands love your wives….”

Men, the responsibility, the burden is on your shoulders.

Husbands, turn to your wives and say: “my job is to love you.”

Look, women, this isn’t rocket science. If your husband loves you more than himself, then his choices will be in your best interest, not his. And following him will be to your advantage.

This isn’t about who is better, who is more equal, who has more power and authority.

Because what it says is: If the man has it, he will sacrificially give it to her.

We have this discussion when we want to eat out. Where do you want to go? I don’t know, where do you want to go? What are you hungry for? You know the conversation, each person is more interested in making the other person happy than choosing the place they want to go.

That is the sign of a good marriage. I want to say to my wife, “your wish is my command.” And the only time that changes is when the master of our destiny, the Lord Jesus, has called us to something different.

(SHOW) When a marriage is based on mutual submission, it becomes a place where prayer is powerful.

(SHOW) When a home is based on God’s peace, it becomes a powerful base of operations for spiritual warfare.

How did Jesus win the victory for us? He did it by dying for us. He did it through self-sacrifice. God demonstrated self-sacrifice for us.

Listen, I don’t understand all the dynamics and spiritual laws around this, but I have seen it work out in relationship to my own prayer life and success in prayer.

When we live and pray for others, when we are in absolute unconditional love for others, when we are in total forgiveness and free from bitterness, when we truly have that peace. We are rocks who are immovable in our prayer life.
The minute we hold back our love and forgiveness, we are hindered. This principle about living in unity in the home applies to the Church, to the work-place, to school. It applies to every facet of our lives. When we live that way, we are truly living by faith.

And I know this is true because the Devil will do everything he can to distract us from this kind of self-sacrifice. That is why through this series on Spiritual warfare, we keep looking at the conditions that are there to give us success.

It isn’t about formulas or special prayers; it’s about us preparing our lives to be living sacrifices.

Look at (SHOW) Romans 12:1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your spiritual act of worship.

Jesus won the victory by faith, by giving Himself up and entrusting Himself to God.

Listen, the commander in Chief is the God of the universe. The outcome of Spiritual warfare is Guaranteed.