Bible Readings:
John 10:1 – 18, Ephesians 5:15 – 33
Sermon Outline:
Ephesians 5:22–24 (NKJV)
22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. 24 Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.
I The wife’s submission.
Galatians 3:26–28 (NKJV)
26 For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. 27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
II The husband’s headship.
Cf. Christ’s headship over the church in terms of union, source of life, provision, protection and direction.
John 6:55–56 (NKJV)
55 For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. 56 He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him.
1 John 3:8 (NKJV)
8 He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.
Psalm 119:105 (NKJV)
105 Your word is a lamp to my feet And a light to my path.
Each instance of a wife failing to defer to known wishes of her husband (unless those wishes oppose the moral law of God) subverts the divinely appointed order. — Walter J. Chantry