Redeeming Parenthood & Childhood: Ephesians 6:1-4 (Part 2)

Last week we began by looking at some foundational ideas when it comes to procreation in the Bible. The big idea there was simply to connect the fact that children were originally meant to expand God's kingdom (Genesis 1:28) with the Great Commission to expand God's kingdom in the New Testament (Matthew 28:19-20). When we put those two together, we arrived at the idea that our mission in marriage is ultimately to make disciples of Jesus Christ out of our children. We then looked at the first instruction to children in Ephesians 6:1-4 and we will pick up here with the second one:

i) GOD’S CALL UPON CHILDREN (6:1-3)

(1) OBEDIENCE (1): “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.” We pointed out that in obeying their parents, children are ultimately obeying the Lord and we saw how this command brought out the issue of authority.

(2) HONOR (2-3) – “Honor your father and your mother (this is the first commandment with a promise), that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.”

What does it mean to honor one’s parents? We have already seen that honor entails obedience (6:1), but it also means a lot more. One can obey their parents in a way that doesn’t honor them. Honoring means respecting our parents (verbally at times: Prov. 31:28) and that their counsel holds weight with us. In the Old and New Testament times, honor also meant helping around the house with various chores. Honor also extended as far as loving and caring for your parents as they get older (Matt. 15:1-9, 1 Tim. 5:8), and still does.

Now in telling children to honor their parents, Paul is quoting Exodus 20:12, which is the fifth commandment of the Ten Commandments, but is the first horizontal commandment and is the only one with a promise attached to it. The promise is that they would experience longevity in the land and the inference is that if they did not honor their parents, then they would not experience longevity, but judgment. How does this translate today?

Paul universalizes this promise as legitimate for all in one sense, but there is another that I would like you to consider. I would say that in the New Testament, the stakes are actually higher than living long in the land because Christians are not promised a piece of land. Instead of being promised a piece of land, what is at stake in the New Testament is eternal life in Christ or eternal judgment from Him. So in a sense this means that the promise of eternal life is attached to children who honor their parents. We have to be careful here. This is not teaching a works based salvation, but is saying that what is characteristic of children who have received eternal life through the gospel is that they honor their parents. In other words, people who have a problem with authority and will not honor their parents should be concerned about their souls, because to rebel against authority is to act like a person who is on their way to hell.

ii) GOD’S CALL UPON PARENTS (6:4)

The first thing I want you to notice about God’s call upon you parents is that “Fathers” have a leading responsibility in the raising of their children. In other words, their headship is extended to every relationship within the home.

(1) THE NEGATIVE (4a): “Do not provoke your children to anger”

Of all the things that God could have cautioned parents to not provoke in their children, why does God single out “anger”? Piper says it is because, “Anger is the most common emotion of the sinful heart when it confronts authority. Dad embodies authority. Apart from Christ, the child embodies self-will. And when the two meet, anger flares.”[1]

Now this does not mean that if our children ever get angry with us that we are doing something wrong, but this does mean that we are not supposed to “provoke” anger in our children in ways that are unnecessary. We are to deal with them, even in confrontation, in a way that is tender and gracious and minimizes the potential for anger in them.

How do we do this? One way is by keeping our own anger in check. For some of you what I just said about tenderness and graciousness sounded like a foreign language. It didn’t sound foreign because you couldn’t understand it, but because you have no idea what it means to confront or discipline your children in a tender or gracious way. Your automatic default when confronting resistance in your children is to raise your voice, point your fingers, and enter into this harsh, “drill sergeant” mode. I would caution you to remember the words of James 1:19-20, that “the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.” Hear this: your anger will not bring about God’s righteous end in your children, only the gospel will. So one way you avoid provoking your children to anger is by overcoming anger in your own heart, and this too only happens through the cross, where God overcame His righteous anger toward us.

A couple of other ways that children are provoked to anger in the Bible are favoritism and passiveness. We see favoritism provoking Joseph’s brothers to the point of hating and wanting to kill him in Genesis 37. David’s passiveness in dealing with the rape of Absalom’s sister leads to Absalom’s murder of Amnon and his rebellion in 2 Samuel 13-18 (See also Jacob and Dinah in Genesis 34).

Another way that we avoid anger in our children is by seeking to avoid hypocrisy. Deut. 6:4-6, that great passage on parenting in the Old Testament, begins with the call for parents to worship God themselves with all their hearts, minds, souls, and strength. The words of God are to be on and in their hearts before they can be on and in the hearts of their children. The idea, I think, is that you can’t reproduce what you do not have and that you can’t fake passion for Christ because it is by definition something that isn’t fake. And one of the quickest ways to frustrate your children is to fake something you don’t have, because your children will not be fooled when everyone else is. What we all need is to replace hypocrisy with humility and let our children see us confess our sins to them and repent of them and constantly hope in the gospel. Our children don’t need parents who are good at playing church, they need parents who have tasted and see that the Lord is good.

(2) THE POSITIVE (4b): “Bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.”

(a) Discipline:

The word “discipline” here refers to training our children in general, but also encompasses discipline for wrongdoing. While this latter sense is not popular in our culture today, no one can honestly read the Bible and not see that the Bible repeatedly calls for parents to discipline their children and warns of the consequences for not doing so. Here are several examples from the book of Proverbs:

· Proverbs 13:24 – “Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him.”

· Proverbs 22:15 – “Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline drives it far from him.”

· Proverbs 23:13-14 – “Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you strike him with the rod, he will not die. If you strike him with a rod, you will save his soul from Sheol.”

· Proverbs 29:15 – “The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself brings shame to his mother.”

So it is pretty clear that parents should discipline their children, but what should we discipline for? Corrective discipline is for rebellion (disobedience) against God. This statement helps us understand when a situation merits discipline and when it doesn’t. If a two year old spills something, it may or may not merit discipline. If they have spilled something as an accident or touched something that you haven’t told them not to, there isn’t rebellion involved. But if you have clearly given an understandable directive and they have disobeyed it, then it is a matter of discipline.

Rebellion occurs and should be met with discipline in two broad areas: God’s rules and the Parent’s rules. A child or teenager should be disciplined accordingly if they don’t comply with a standard that the parents have established in the home or if they have defied the commands of scripture. If Sam hits Lily, he needs discipline because has rebelled against the command to love his neighbor. Likewise, the Bible may not touch every rule in the house that needs to be established. That’s what the general command of obey you parents is for.

At this point, I would like to revisit this thing of lowering the “bar.” If God sets the bar, then lowering it is rebellion. We may feel better about it, but in reality, all we have done is joined with our child in rebellion. So on one level, lowering the bar is rebellion on our part, but on another level, some instances of lowering the bar is simply illogical. I have in mind here those things that parents don’t enforce because “they don’t want their kids to resent them/it.” Let’s take church attendance for example. A parent may say, “I don’t force my children to go to church because I don’t want them to resent it.” My reply is simply do you operate under the same mentality when it comes to their education? “I don’t make them go to Algebra because I really want them to like Algebra.” I didn’t think so. Why not? Because it is completely illogical. So why do we operate that way in the areas that matter most in our children’s lives (church, dating, etc.)?

Let me tell you why your children will not want to go to church. It will be one of two reasons. The first one will be if they are a fallen sinner. If this is the case, they won’t love God and won’t want to be there. And what does a lost sinner need? They need the gospel. So why would you not place them in the one place they are going to repeatedly hear it preached? The Second reason would be if the version of Christianity you have sold them as parents was distasteful to them. If you haven’t modeled true Christianity and love for the bride that Jesus died for, then yes, they will not love her either. God give the church some parents like Joshua, who said in Joshua 24:15 that “as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”

One more thing we need to be careful with here is raising the bar higher than God does or failing to bring the gospel alongside of it. We call that legalism. As we said earlier, enforcing the “bar” is intended to bring about this sense of desperation that we apply the gospel to. To not do so without applying the gospel to their shortcomings is to provoke our children to either pride or despair.

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[1] Piper, John, “This Momentary Marriage,” pg. 150

Redeeming Parenthood & Childhood: Ephesians 6:1-4 (Part 1)

Today we are turning a corner in this series. So far we have focused exclusively on the marriage union and have seen the purpose, pattern, & problem of marriage followed by a look at how God is redeeming marriage through and for the gospel (manhood, womanhood, sexual intimacy, etc.). The reason for this exclusive focus is because the ultimate purpose of the marriage union is to display the covenant love between Christ and His bride, the Church. There is however a secondary purpose to the marriage union that we have not mentioned, and that is procreation. Ideally, the marriage union is meant to result in children. We read in Genesis 1:28 that after God created man and woman in His image, He gave them the command to “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” This duty to procreate that is also part of God’s original pattern for marriage was also corrupted by the fall and is in need of redemption. So after a laying an introductory foundation, we are going to focus on what redeemed parenthood and childhood look like in these next two messages.

FOUNDATIONAL PRINCIPLES:

i) Children were meant to expand God’s Kingdom (Genesis 1:28)

Before we deal with what parenthood and childhood is supposed to look like, we need to take a second and put procreation in its place within the framework of the Bible as a whole. We need to understand that before the fall, procreation was intended to fill the earth with worshippers of God so that God’s glory would be multiplied to the ends of the earth. Children were meant to expand God’s kingdom. And before the fall, Adam and Eve would have reproduced both physically and spiritually at the same time by having children. This is not the case after the fall, as man dies spiritually and God’s image is corrupted in man. The fall wrecks this design.

ii) God’s Kingdom now expands through spiritual Children (Matthew 28:19-20)

Though the Old Testament is constantly moving towards and anticipating redemption, this idea of God’s kingdom expanding to the ends of the earth doesn’t come to fruition again until the coming of Jesus Christ, Who Colossians 1:15 says “is the image of the invisible God.” And what Jesus Christ accomplishes in His life, death, and resurrection is that spiritually dead men and women can now be born again by faith in Himself and His finished work. And now with the gospel, God desires to expand His kingdom through the church by making disciples. Matthew 28:19-20 reads, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Now our mission is not to multiply physically, but spiritually by preaching the gospel and making disciples to the ends of the earth. This is essentially the same command to fill the earth with worshippers of God.

iii) Implications:

If we connect these two kingdom realities (procreation & missions), I think we come up with at least four very important implications that we need to consider before diving into out passage in Ephesians 6:1-4:

Our marriages have a mission, not ultimately to procreate, but to make disciples. God desires that our marriages result in spiritual children that expand His kingdom. The idea behind this series is not everyone having nice and neat little marriages and families, but that God’s glory would be displayed and multiplied in and from the homes of His people to the ends of the earth.

Though disciple making is ultimate, procreation must be seen as a valid way to make disciples. This point really serves the balance the first one and reminds us that having children is consistently celebrated in the Word of God. Psalm 127:3-5 is one such place: “Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver full of them! He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.” In the Bible, children considered a gift and blessing from God. And having and raising children is presented as a valid way to reproduce and preserve spiritual heritage. This does not mean that if a Christian family has a lot of children, that all of them will be saved and expand God’s kingdom. But I do think a child being reared in “discipline and instruction of the Lord” may be evidence that God is sovereignly at work to save that child and expand His kingdom through them, and in that sense, having and raising children can be a way that God expands His kingdom.

Because disciple making is ultimate, parenting is ultimately about disciple making. The point of parenting is to see God’s kingdom expanded for the glory of God. I know that you can’t save your children, but I do think that you can assume that since they belong to your home there is a good chance that God is at work to save them and that you will be one of the divine means that He uses to bring that about. So your ultimate focus should be on making disciples of your children. Your primary focus should be on their spiritual formation. This is seen here in Ephesians 6:4 and also in passages like Deuteronomy 6:4-7: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.” As John Piper so eloquently says, “Marriage is for making children into disciples of Jesus. The purpose of marriage is not merely to add more bodies to the planet. The point is to increase the number of followers of Jesus on the planet. God’s purpose in making marriage the place to have children was never merely to fill the earth with people, but to fill the earth with worshippers of the one true God.”[1] This also indicates that parents are the true children’s and youth ministers found in the Bible.

Because disciple making is ultimate, someone doesn’t have to be a parent to have and raise “children” in God’s family. I think this is some of point of Mark 10:29-30, where Jesus says, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions and in the age to come eternal life.” In the church, there can be spiritual parents to spiritual children, like we read about in Titus 2:3-5. So we see that someone doesn’t have to have children to make disciples of them. They can be a spiritual parent to children in the church and to “spiritual orphans” who don’t have godly parents to raise them in the “discipline and instruction of the Lord.” I would say that this also touches adoption, which is an area that the church should be leading the charge as a way to make disciples of orphans. But however this plays out, my desire for our church as a whole, and families in particular, is that we would be resolved to equip the next generation for the sake of God’s glory.

2) FOUNDATIONAL PASSAGE: Ephesians 6:1-4

It is important to understand that what is going on in this portion of Ephesians is the fleshing out of the Spirit-filled submission (5:18-21) of the new man (4:20-24) that springs from the new hearts that we have been given by the gospel.

i) GOD’S CALL UPON CHILDREN (6:1-3)

(1) OBEDIENCE (1) – “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.”

This is what Spirit-filled submission looks like in the heart of a son or daughter: them obeying their parents. In a parallel passage in Colossians 3:20, both the scope and the reasoning behind this command are amplified. There we read: “Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord.” The most fundamental and important thing for a child to understand is that their obedience to their parents “pleases the Lord.” Their obedience is “in the Lord” (6:1), which is equivalent to “as to the Lord” (6:5), means that in obeying their parents, children are ultimately obeying the Lord. This obedience is commanded by Scripture from cover to cover. Consider the following passages from the book of Proverbs alone:

· Proverbs 1:8-9 – “Hear, my son, your father’s instruction, and forsake not your mother’s teaching, for they are a graceful garland for your head and pendants for your neck.”

· Proverbs 6:20-24 – “My son, keep your father’s commandment, and forsake not your mother’s teaching. Bind them on your heart always; tie them around your neck. When you walk, they will lead you; when you lie down, they will watch over you; and when you awake, they will talk with you. For the commandment is a lamp and the teaching a light, and the reproofs of discipline are the way of life, to preserve you from the evil woman, from the smooth tongue of the adulteress.”

· Proverbs 23:22 – “Listen to your father who gave you life, and do not despise your mother when she is old.”

· Proverbs 30:17 – “The eye that mocks a father and scorns to obey a mother will be picked out by the ravens of the valley and eaten by vultures.”

OK, so that last one was a little brutal. But are you beginning to see what a big deal this is to God that a child honors and obeys their parents? Did you know that excessive rebellion against parental authority actually carried the death penalty in the Old Testament (Leviticus 20:6)? Why is this command so important?

What we are really talking about here is one of the most important issues in life: the issue of authority. Scripture teaches that all authority comes from and is ordained by God (Rom. 13:1-2, 1 Pet. 2:13). This implies two things. First, God’s authority is always ultimate (this balances, “in everything”). Secondly, how we treat any horizontal authority is automatically a vertical issue, meaning that to rebel against authority is to rebel against God Himself. Authority exists to teach us submission to God, because if we can’t submit to horizontal authority that we can see, how are we going to submit to God?

I also want to point parents to this vertical reality as well. You must enforce your child’s obedience to you because a vertical issue is at stake when they are disobeying you. When your child disobeys you, they are disobeying God. This is why you should never lower the “bar” because the function of the “bar” is to teach them that there are consequences for disobedience and to show them their inability to measure up to the bar so that this hopeless & helpless desperation develops that sees the gospel as their only hope.

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[1] Piper, John, “This Momentary Marriage,” pg. 138-139

Redeeming Sexual Intimacy: 1 Corinthians 6:12-7:9

Lately we have been focusing our attention in this series on how God is redeeming various aspects of His original design for marriage through and for the gospel. In the redemption of marriage, we have seen how God wants to redeems manhood and womanhood so far. Today we are going to look at another aspect of God’s original design for marriage that He is redeeming through and for the gospel: sexual intimacy. God’s design for the first marriage was for a man and woman to “become one flesh,” being “naked and…not ashamed” (Genesis 2:24-25).

Now this is a touchy topic to address because there are extremes when it comes to thinking through sex in the church and in culture. Our culture represents one extreme, worshipping sex as god. Sex is everywhere in our culture and people worship it in many ways. I often notice this mentality in the fact that “sex” is the one word I can mention in a sermon that suddenly gets everyone’s attention! The other extreme that is very common in the church is that sex is gross. We treat it as a taboo topic, and as a result, many in the church deeply struggle with sexual sin alone, thinking they can't talk about this because we don't talk about it anywhere else in the church.

What I hope to do today is to simply show you the picture that the Word of God paints of sex as a good gift of God given to men and women in a marriage covenant for procreation, pleasure, protection, and the promotion of unity in their relationship. While we would all agree that sex is not to be god, we must also see from scripture that sex is not gross. Sex, in marriage, is celebrated in the Word of God. Proverbs 5:18-19 says, “Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth, as lovely deer, a graceful doe. Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight; be intoxicated always in her love.” In Song of Solomon 7:6-9, which is a book that celebrates married love and sexual intimacy between a husband and wife, we read, “How beautiful and pleasant you are, O loved one, with all your delights! Your stature is like a palm tree, and your breasts are like its clusters. I say I will climb the tree and lay hold of its fruit. Oh may your breasts be like clusters of the vine, and the scent of your breath like apples, and your mouth like the best wine.” Are you seeing this? Solomon says, "You're body is a tree and I'm gonna climb that tree!" That's puts a whole new spin on being a tree hugger doesn't it? This is the Bible painting this beautiful picture of sex in marriage! Coincidentally, in 1 Corinthians 6:12-7:9, Paul was also dealing with two extreme views on sex in His letter to the Corinthians.

1) The Prohibition of Sexual Immorality (6:12-20): Avoiding Extreme License

As an aside, it is important to know that in the book of 1 Corinthians, Paul is dealing both with things that the house of Chloe (1:11) has reported to him about the Corinthian church and issues that they have written to him about from the church as well (7:1). In dealing with both of these extremes on sex in and out of marriage, Paul begins by quoting what I’m going to call a “Corinthian Slogan,” which is something that some faction in the church at Corinth was saying. One thing that a group of people in the Corinthian church was saying was: “All things are lawful for me,” (6:12) and that “Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food” (6:13). What this slogan implies is that bodily appetites (such as hunger, fatigue, sex) are matters of indifference and therefore the body should be permitted to have whatever it desires. Basically, they were promoting an exploitation of the desires that God created the human body to have. They would contend that no sexual act (like taking a prostitute) could be called immoral because it is simply a craving that the body desires and the body should get what it wants. What is Paul’s response? I think Paul makes at least three points in response to this mindset:

i) All Things are Not Helpful (12)

While it is true that the body was created with appetites for food, rest, and sex, that doesn’t necessarily mean that these appetites are always helpful. They have been infected with sin since the fall. As a result, they can be exploited and we can become enslaved to them in our exploitation of them.

ii) All Things are Not Eternal (13-14)

Paul says here that both the body and the food it craves are going to eventually come to an end. Then he says, “The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.” I think what Paul is saying is that the body wasn’t meant driven by temporal appetites, but by one eternal appetite: the desire for JESUS CHRIST. We’re “meant” for one another. Christ satisfies in a way that no sex can, and we should live in the light of that eternal reality. As C.S. Lewis once said, our problem is not that we can't find satisfaction in life, but that we are far to easily pleased. Don't settle for sex, go hard after Christ.

iii) All Things are Not Lawful (15-20)

Finally, some things are just plain wrong. Paul clearly states that sexual immorality is a “sin” (6:18). It is not a neutral, or a “grey” area. Sexual immorality is morally wrong, and is so for at least three reasons. First, sexual immorality is a distortion of God’s good design in creation. The Greek word the New Testament uses for sexual immorality is “porneia,” and is a broad term used to refer to any sexual act that is not in line with God’s design in creation, such as fornication, adultery, polygamy, homosexuality, prostitution, rape, molestation, masturbation, etc. It is anything that defiles the marriage bed (Heb. 13:4-5). I would also add heavy making out to this list because it is going way further than the line Jesus drew for sexual immorality in Matthew 5:28. The second reason sexual immorality is sin is because it is a breach of our “one spirit” union with Christ (15-17). The only place a sexual act doesn’t do this is within covenant union of a husband and wife, where instead of breaching our relationship with Christ, it further displays it.

Finally, sexual immorality is a sin against our own body and the Lord Who owns it (18-20). All sins are not the same. Sexual sin is unique in that the body is at the same time the motive, the instrument, and the victim of the sin being committed. Please don’t miss the warning that Paul is communicating here. Sexual immorality affects you in a deeply physical, emotional, and spiritual way because you are becoming “one flesh” with someone else (6:16). This is why promiscuity can carry a ton of baggage into a marriage. I’m not saying that God through the gospel can’t redeem this baggage; He can, but I am saying that is a fire than doesn’t need to be played with. This is a most dangerous sin, and Paul reminds the Corinthians and us as well “your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit” and that “you are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body” (6:19-20). We are not our own. Our bodies were made for the glory of God. And because of the unique nature of sexual sin, Paul calls us to be like Joseph (Gen. 39:1-12) and “flee sexual immorality.”

2) The Promotion of Sexual Intimacy in Marriage (7:1-9): Avoiding Extreme Abstinence

The second “Corinthian Slogan” that Paul addresses is that another group of Corinthian believers were claiming “It is not good for a man to have sexual relations with a woman.” The Greek literally reads, “it is not good for a man to touch a woman,” with “touch” acting as a euphemism for any sexual activity. What this slogan was communicating was that abstinence was not only to be practiced outside of marriage, but inside as well, and that it is not good for even marriage partners to have sex with each other. They had basically hung a sign on the tree that said, "Don't Climb!" While this sounds silly, I have heard couples and even teaching along these lines. And what is more, many marriages unintentionally practice abstinence by neglecting sex. Now what Paul is going to do here is to basically affirm this slogan outside of marriage, but not affirm it among people who are married.

i) It is Good for a Man to have Sexual Relations with a Woman in Marriage (7:2-5)

God designed marriage to be the arena for the expression of human sexuality. As we said earlier, sex is a good gift of God to be enjoyed by married men and women. Paul promotes sexual relations in marriage for at least four reasons. First, sexual relations protect spouses from temptation (2,5). Paul says that “because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband” (7:2). This means that frequent sex is one of the God ordained means of overcoming sexual temptation for married people. John Piper says, “Faith uses sex against Satan.”[1]

The second reason that Paul promotes sex in marriage is because sexual relations are a spouse’s obligation to their marriage partner (3-4). “The husband should give to his wife her conjugal (sexual) rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.” Now I want to clarify something here: these verses are not giving a license for demanding sex. The point is not that marriage partners have the right to demand sexual gratification from the other, but that marriage partners are to use their bodies to outdo one another in seeking to serve and please the other. Remember Philippians 2:3-4? I think one thing Paul is doing here is saying that this principle applies in the bedroom as well. There should be this mutual offering of ourselves to the other with the understanding that our goal is to please our partner and not primarily ourselves. This means that a spouse should be always ready to offer themselves to the other as a way to love and serve their marriage partner and protect them from temptation. Paul is saying that if you are married, you should climb the tree as often as you can! I have no idea how this works as you get older, but I do know this means that as long as you can climb the tree, you should and that you should as often as you can! This point also implies that using sex as manipulation is wrong, whether one manipulates by giving or withholding.

Thirdly, we also learn here that sexual relations in marriage are a matter of obedience (5a). Paul explicitly says, “Do not deprive one another…” (7:5). He says the only reason that you should take a break is if you mutually decide to give yourselves over to prayer and fasting for a season, but that even that should be only for a “limited time.” Simply put, to neglect sex in marriage is to disobey scripture.

Finally, Paul promotes sex in marriage because sexual relations are meant for the physical pleasure of the marriage partners (5b). Paul says that abstinence can lead to a problem controlling an unfulfilled appetite that needs to be filled. The implication there is simply that the filling of this appetite in marriage is a good thing. Paul does affirm here that God created the human body with this massive capacity for pleasure. The issue is not that the desire for this pleasure is bad, but that how one goes about satisfying that desire can be. The marriage bed is meant to be the place where this appetite for pleasure is fed.

ii) It is Not Good for a Man to have Sexual Relations with a Woman Outside of Marriage (7:6-9)

As we said earlier, Paul doesn’t affirm that it is good for a man not to touch a woman in marriage, but He does affirm it if they are not married, and he does so here in a remarkable way. He basically says that both sex and singleness are a gift from God (7). While it is certainly true that single people have a greater capacity to serve the Lord without distraction, it is also true that God doesn’t grant everyone the gift of being single for life (9). I like to think of this as God knowing what will most glorify Himself and His kingdom in our lives. For some of us, that is marriage along with all the pleasures that come with it. For others, that is a life of being single and satisfied with Christ.

What I would like all single people to see is that singleness is a gift of God’s grace. And I believe this applies to both people who will never be married, but also to people who are simply not married at the moment. God’s grace is sufficient for you in your singleness and as we said earlier, He satisfies in a way that sex never could.

If I could close with a few passing thoughts, one would be this: parents, talk to children about these things. If they are here today, I have given you a great springboard. For older students and adults, I would caution you to mind what content you take in our culture. And to students and other single people, I know that even a sermon like this can be a temptation for you. I hope that you have seen sex as celebrated and exciting, but I also hope that you have seen it as sacred. The very book that celebrates sex in marriage more than any other in the Bible constantly warns against the danger of desires being awakened too soon (S.O.S. 2:7, 3:5, 8:4). For people who are either amassing or dealing with a lot of baggage from your past, I want you to know that through gospel there is hope and healing for you. Christ offers you forgiveness by the blood of His cross and a new heart that will renew your mind and get you past the baggage of your past.

Finally, I don’t want you to miss the way that even this aspect of marriage speaks of the pleasures that we are to enjoy as the bride of Christ in the age to come. Remember that heaven is the honeymoon of God and His people. If the ultimate meaning of marriage is to be a picture of Christ and His church, then the ultimate meaning of sex would be to picture the final delights between Christ and His Church. And as John Piper says, “we would do well to tell the world what it is that they love so much.”[2] The temporal pleasures of the physical intimacy between a husband and wife are but a shadow of the eternal fullness of joy that will be in His presence and the pleasures that we will experience forever more (Psalm 16:11).

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[1] Piper, John, “This Momentary Marriage,” pg. 133

[2] Piper, John, “This Momentary Marriage,” pg. 129

Created Male & Female: Biblical Womanhood (1 Peter 3:1-7)

I thought it would be a good thing to do today to take a second and do a little more extensive review to catch everyone up so we can all be on the same page as we dive in to today’s passage. In our first week together, we looked the Purpose of Marriage, and said that marriage exists to bring glory to God by displaying the covenant love between Jesus Christ and His bride, the church (Revelation 21:1-4, Ephesians 5:31-32). Next we looked at the Pattern for Marriage, and said that marriage is to be a monogamous, heterosexual covenant union entered into before God and consummated by sexual intercourse, in which the covenant partners, with their complementary roles, experience intimate companionship as a new union set apart from their parental bonds (Genesis 2:18-25). We then saw the Problem in Every Marriage: The problem every marriage has is sin: our acting in the place of God in rebellion against God. Because the first couple did this, every marriage now lives under the curse (Genesis 3).

A few weeks ago we begin looking at the Redemption of Marriage, and said that God is redeeming marriage through the gospel (vertically) and for the gospel (horizontally). This idea of God redeeming marriage is really where we are going to spend the remainder of our time in this series (with a few exceptions). We want to look specifically at what a redeemed picture of marriage looks like: manhood redeemed, womanhood redeemed, intimacy redeemed, parenthood redeemed, childhood redeemed, and singleness & dating redeemed. All of these are things that were corrupted by the fall and that God is redeeming through and for the gospel.

We began last week with what redeemed manhood looks like: God calls men to be leaders and lovers of His women (Ephesians 5:22-33). Again, if we had to pick one word to sum up the role of the husband, it would be headship. “Headship is the divine calling of a husband to take primary responsibility for Christ-like, servant leadership, protection, and provision in the home.”[1]

Today we are going to look at what redeemed womanhood looks like. To do this we will turn our attention to 1 Peter 3:1-7, where Peter shows us what the overflow of grace is supposed to look like from a woman to a man in marriage. This is one of the richest passages on womanhood in the entire Bible.

1) The Exhortation of Biblical Womanhood: (3:1-4)

The word, “LIKEWISE,” in 3:1 is a red flag reminding us that understanding the context of this passage is crucial to understanding the passage itself. Peter begins in 1 Peter 2:13-17 with the general command to “Be subject to every institution for the Lord’s sake…” Then Peter, like Paul, begins to gives categories of what this command looks like (2:18-25). What Peter is communicating is that we have all been called to submit even to the point of enduring unjust suffering as Christ did.

i) Biblical Womanhood is a Call to Helpful Submission (1-2)

“Wives, be subject to your own husbands.” This is the sum total of the New Testament’s instruction to wives in marriage: to submit to your own husbands (Eph. 5:22-24, Col. 3:18, Tit. 2:5). Now there is a great need here to understand both what submission is and what it isn’t. The Greek word used here for “be subject” is “hupotasso,” and it means “to subject or subordinate” (to an authority). Every passage in the New Testament directed to wives instructs them to submit to their husbands and uses this Greek word to do so. In an earlier message, we defined “helpful submission” as “the divine calling of a wife to honor and affirm her husband’s leadership and help carry it through according to her gifts.”[2]

While that is a sufficient definition, I want to also point out a few things that submission is from this passage. First of all, submission is as much an attitude as it is an action. It is “pure and respectful” (3:2). It is an inner adorning (3:5). It is an inward disposition, or inclination, to defer to and follow your husband’s leadership in everything (Eph. 5:24). Second, Submission entails respectful affirmation. Sarah respectfully and verbally affirmed her husband’s leadership, “calling him lord” (3:6). Thirdly, submission entails willing obedience. Sarah’s submission involved “obeying” Abraham (3:6). Now this is somewhat different than the command for children to obey their parents and for slaves to obey their masters, but obedience is entailed. This does not mean that a wife has no input on family decisions. On the contrary, a wife is to be her husband’s “helper” (Genesis 2:18). Decisions are supposed to be reached by mutual consensus between a husband and a wife and healthy, mature leadership should not seek to make unilateral decisions. But this does mean that there will be times when a husband and wife are in disagreement about an important family decision after much prayer and discussion and when that situation arises, a wife should willingly and respectfully defer to her husband’s leadership in the matter, trusting God to lead their family through him.

I want to also say two things about what submission is not. First, submission does not entail disobedience to Christ. Submission is for the Lord’s sake (2:13) and is ultimately to and for Him, so a wife’s submission to Christ may mean that she refuses to follow her husband into sin. That truth applies to any authority we are called to submit to under God. Secondly, submission does not imply inequality. Her call to submit to her husband does not imply inferiority, but is “an appeal to one who is equal by creation and redemption to submit to the authority God has ordained.”[3] The greatest example of this truth is the one we saw last week in the Trinity (1 Cor. 11:3). There we see both subordination and equality of being.

Probably the most profound thing about a wife’s submission to her husband is the power it wields upon her husband. Peter says that an unbelieving husband can be won without a word by the “respectful and pure conduct,” i.e. the submission, of their wives (3:1-2). Now this is where the context becomes extremely important. Peter is calling Christians to submit to every institution for the Lord’s sake, even if it means unjust suffering, and in that context calls Christian wives to submit to even unbelieving husbands. Andreas Kostenberger says that Peter’s counsel is “that winning an unbeliever to Christ is a greater cause than insisting on justice in our human relationships.”[4] In other words, your lost husband’s salvation is more important than how you deserve to be treated as a wife. That doesn’t mean that how you’re treated is not important, but it does mean that believers are called to suffer unjustly, following in the footsteps of Christ, in order to accomplish a greater good for God’s glory. I think this submission works out to win a husband in two ways: (1) His wife’s submission reminds him of his own lack of submission to an even greater authority (God) and (2) Her submission displays the love of Christ to Him (he experiences a grace from her that he does not deserve).

ii) Biblical Womanhood is a Call to Inner Adorning (3-4)

The word “adorning” here is referring to what one uses to make oneself beautiful. It is what a woman considers to be the source of her beauty. Peter says that a woman should not make the source of her beauty external (3:3 - hair, jewelry, clothes), but internal. He calls this internal source of beauty “the hidden person of the heart.” They are to adorn this person with the “imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit.” I want you to see two things about this inner adorning here in 3:4. The first thing is that it is imperishable. It is not subject to aging or decay. The second thing is that it is beautiful to God.

I want to make sure we give more than just an intellectual nod to this point. This is a call to inner beauty and this means that part of what it means to be a woman is to not be enslaved to a focus on external beauty. There is nothing wrong with looking nice, but there is everything wrong with thinking that looking nice is where true beauty is. 1 Timothy 2:9-10 reaffirms this call upon women to, firstly, dress modestly and, secondly, do so in an effort to draw attention to inner beauty rather than outer beauty.

Also, I think that an implication of women being called to pursue inner beauty is that men are called to prize it. Again, our culture is so upside down here. May God help His men in the church to have their minds renewed so that we treasure what He does, so that we call beautiful what He calls beautiful.

2) The Example of Biblical Womanhood: (3:5-6)

i) Holy Women Hope in God (5a)

Peter now transitions and gives an example of the kind of women that He has been calling wives to be. His example is “holy women,” presumably from the Old Testament, “who hoped in God.” I cannot over emphasize the important of that phrase: “who hoped in God.” That is the vertical spring from which godly womanhood flows to men, in marriage or in any other arena. John Piper calls this the deep, strong roots of biblical womanhood. He says, “She looks away from the troubles and miseries and obstacles of life that seem to make the future bleak, and she focuses her attention on the sovereign power and love of God who rules in heaven and does on earth whatever he pleases (Ps. 115:3). She knows her Bible, and she knows her theology of the sovereignty of God, and she knows his promise that he will be with her and will help her and strengthen her no matter what. This is the deep, unshakable root of Christian womanhood.”[5] This is the root. This is the spring. This is the place where it call comes from: her hope and trust in God.

ii) Holy Women, Out of Their Hope in God, Adorn Themselves with Submission (5b-6a)

They adorned themselves “by submitting to their own husbands” (3:5). Now we have already said a great deal about submission, but what is important here is that we see where submission comes from: a woman’s hope in God. It comes from the inside. It is the inner adorning that we spoke of earlier. And what’s more is that the submission being spoken of here is a continual pattern of submission. Sarah is the example given here: she “obeyed Abraham, calling him lord.” The reference here is probably to Genesis 18:12 and what is important about that reference is that this is something Sarah said to herself, when no one was listening. She wasn’t trying to put on a show for anyone so they would think that she was a submissive wife. She was in a tent, by herself, and had so clothed herself with submission that she was submissive even in the very thoughts that she was thinking. It was a window into her heart, showing us how second nature it was for her to refer to Abraham this way.

iii) Holy Women, Out of Their Hope in God, Do Good (6b)

Peter tells the women that he is giving this instruction to that they can become Sarah’s daughters. What he means is that women can follow in her footsteps of being a holy woman whose hope is in God. What will that look like for them? First, it will mean that they must “do good.” The first thing that good means in this passage is obvious: submit to your own husbands. Titus 2:3-5 is another place where what is “good” for a woman to do is described. Here, the good things that younger women are to be trained in are being “self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.” Proverbs 31:10-31 is another place where what it means for a woman to do good is described.

iv) Holy Women, Out of Their Hope in God, Do Not Fear in Anything that is Frightening (6c)

The second thing that women are to do to follow in the footsteps of the holy women who hoped in God is to “not fear in anything that is frightening” (3:6). When you stop to think about it, there really is much to fear for a woman in this call to Biblical womanhood (especially in biblical times). They are called in 3:7 the “weaker vessel.” That doesn’t mean inferior, but it means that women are more vulnerable than men in some areas that can be exploited by men. Physically, most men are stronger than their woman. Emotionally, women are much more sensitive than men, meaning that a husband can often cut a wife a lot deeper emotionally than a wife can a husband (another example: talking about marriage too soon in dating). Authoritatively, we have already seen that women are supposed to submit to men in marriage. What if a man decides to abuse that leadership? The idea here is that there can be much to fear for a woman who seeks to live in this type of submission, but not if her hope is in God! Listen to the words of Proverbs 31:25, “Strength and dignity are her clothing, and she laughs at the time to come.” Piper here says, “she laughs at everything the future could bring because she hopes in God.”[6] I love the words of Psalm 3:1-6, “O LORD, how many are my foes! Many are rising against me; many are saying to my soul, there is no salvation for him in God. But you, O LORD, are a shield about me, my glory, and the lifter of my head. I cried aloud to the LORD, and he answered me from his holy hill. I lay down and slept; I woke again, for the LORD sustained me. I will not be afraid of many thousands of people who have set themselves against me all around.” Wow. I will not be afraid of thousands of enemy troops that surround me. Why? Because the LORD is my shield and sustenance! Because the LORD is my hope!

I want to suggest to you that hope in God is not just the heart of Biblical womanhood, but is also the heart of any true, mature Christianity. If fear and anxiety rule and reign in your life, then (with the exception of special cases) you are either not a believer or have not come to understand the reality of Romans 8:32: that God in His sovereign power and goodness has not even spared His own Son for you. He has given Him up for you and will also with Him graciously give you all things necessary to be conformed to His image, no matter who you are married to, no matter how they treat you, and no matter whether you ever get married at all. Hope in that, live in that, and let it be the air that you breathe.

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[1] John Piper, “This Momentary Marriage: A Parable of Permanence,” pg. 80

[2] John Piper, “This Momentary Marriage: A Parable of Permanence,” pg. 80

[3] Knight, George W, III, “Recovering Biblical Manhood & Womanhood,” pg. 169

[4] Kostenberger, Andreas, “God, Marriage, & Family,” pg. 63

[5]John Piper, “This Momentary Marriage: A Parable of Permanence,” pg. 97

[6] John Piper, “This Momentary Marriage: A Parable of Permanence,” pg. 97