Envy is everywhere you look. It’s when you see someone in the workplace get the promotion that you wanted. It’s when you see someone win the lottery and you didn't. Its when you see the married couple that is so cute but your marriage is struggling. Its when you're in the slow lane and people are zipping by you. Its anytime you fail to rejoice with someone because you want what they have. Envy always causes dis-unity, and the disunity caused by envy is always sin.
This is the exact temptation that John the Baptist was confronted with in this text. A Jew has tried to pin John the Baptist against Jesus because all of John’s followers were leaving him and flocking to Christ. At one point John the Baptist was the most influential person in his region and now he is becoming a “nobody,” except Jesus' cousin. That said, John shows incredible humility as he continues to rejoice in Christ's rising influence and his declining influence. For John the Baptist, life wasn't about winning a popularity competition or trying to win "Pastor of the Year". For John, life was about making Jesus the Hero. John was more interested in being faithful than being famous.
Later in the text, there is an odd turn as John the gospel writer talks about the relationship between belief and obedience.
Scripture is clear that It is impossible for a person to consistently act in a way that is contradictory to the belief that they hold in their heart. Anyone who calls them-self a Christian but is able to continue deliberately sinning with no remorse or repentance may find that Jesus will tell them that He does not know them as His followers or as having been under His blood covering. True repentance comes to our life by the Holy Spirit convicting us of our sins and us then changing our daily life so that we no longer commit those sins. When we do sin there should be a heart-held grief that causes us to repent of the sin and try to change our life so that we can be free of the sin in the future. When we love God, our relationship with Him makes us want to please and obey Him. Therefore, we show our love for God by living our life in a way that is pleasing to Him, through our obedience to His instructions for our life.
1Let brotherly love continue. 2 Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. 3 Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body....For he has said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you." 6So we can confidently say,
"The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?"
I can remember times in my life where the Lord was impressing things upon my heart in such a clear way that I was sure it was Him. Some more recent events have been times where I was to say something to someone or confront someone's sin, do something for my wife, or even just to evangelize the lost. One thing that I have noticed is that in all of those moments, obedience, is not my natural response. My natural response has recently been to retreat and neglect what God was leading me into.
Knowing the state of the heart and the effects of sin on mankind, I know that I am not alone in my journey. Following the Lord and being obedient to what he calls us into is not natural or easy. My heart is constantly warring against what I know is right and good.
In the first 6 verses of this text we are given 5 commands.
Love your brother.
Show hospitality.
Remember Christians who are mistreated and imprisoned for their faith.
Honor your marriage sexually. Good sex inside marriage, NO sex outside of it.
Be content with what you have.
Now, if we are honest. This list is not natural. Often times, it is so easy for me to not show brotherly love or get annoyed to open my home to others. Living in the safety of America, it is a rare occurrence that I think of other Christians who have it hard because of their faith. Having a sweet and God honoring marriage bed is something that my wife and I need to work on, and being content in what I have is something I am constantly having to guard for.
Then in verse 5 and 6, God gives us a way to help with our obedience.
One of the reasons that this is so difficult for me is simply because I do not always sense His presence. In those moments where I am sensing His presence and there is a natural awareness that He is near, obedience becomes very easy. But what about when it feels like Christ has departed from me an has left me astray? Arent there those moments where we feel lonely? David is the perfect example of this. He is constantly makeing comments like "Oh, Lord. Where are you? Why have you forsaken me? Why have you departed your presence.?"
In those moments, I have realized that I must trust the scriptures. I have to remember that verse 5 and 6 are true. For he has said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you." 6So we can confidently say, "The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?"
God promises to never leave us nor forsake us. He is our helper in our time of need. In those moments where I am faced with the hard reality to be obedient, I must remember that the Lord is my helper in the ever-present time of need. I need not be obedient on my own, there is help and power granted to me by the Holy Spirit who dwells in my soul. I shall not fear anything, especially man. What can man ever do to me? Besides that, it is for my greatest joy to be obedient to Christ. He never leads me in directions that will destroy my joy, rather he is constantly leading me into an opportunity for a greater eternal joy. My soul and standing is secure in Christ and Christ alone. To him be all glory, honor and praise. Forever.
For this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, by submitting to their own husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord. And you are her children, if you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening.
Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.
Sin separates. The hardest relationship in the world is the marriage. Two people trying to come together and do life as if they are one is an element of disaster, however, this is God’s plan. The problem with this is that we are a selfish and sinful people who desire to have things the way “we” want when “we” want them. Since that is the case, anytime you bring two people together to exist in the manner that God calls us, there are many obstacles to overcome.
Over the years, thru reading scripture and personal experience, I have come to understand something about marriage. I will call this more of an observation than something that I have mastered, because God knows that I haven’t figured this out at all. I often wondered why God is so big on women submitting to their husbands and husbands being “loving and gentle” with their wives. I mean, of all the things that God could have told men and women to do in his Book, why choose to tell husbands to “love” their wives and women to “submit” to their husbands?
To help get a grasp on this, I think it is necessary to first understand what the gospel (good news) of Jesus Christ is. Jesus is one of the three Godheads of the Trinity, referred to as the Son. He has always been and always will be. He is the head of the church; He is our mediator to the Father and the sender of the Holy Spirit. He is creator and Isaiah says he sits at the right hand of the Father, receiving worship from all of heaven. In Genesis, as the Trinity was making creation, it says that Jesus was there in beautiful rhythmic harmony with the Father and the Spirit, as man was being created in His image. After sin enters into the world in Genesis 3; Jesus, in order to save Gods elect and enter into relationship with Him; leaves the comforts of home (Heaven) and enters into His creation to live as a sinless, humble man; under humble circumstances; live the life that humanity could not live, and die the death that humanity deserves, only to be raised back to life on the third day; overcoming sin, death and absorbing the wrath of God because of our rebellion.
The crazy part of this story is that God did this for self-glorifying people who were God haters, selfish, proud sinners and on their best day had nothing to offer God. The bible states that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. It says that Christ who knew no sin, became sin, so that sinners could be the righteousness of God. This is a beautiful story of loving the unlovable; one in which just about every great movie or novel is about. This is a story of a man giving up his life so that others may receive life. In essence, Jesus is our Hero.
How does this affect a marriage? The main reason we see God often speaking about how a man should “Love” and “Be Gentle” with his wife is because that is counterintuitive with our sinful nature. The same is true for a woman. God tells the wife to “Submit” to her husband, because a women’s natural sinful tendency is to lord over her husband and run his show.
As a husband, my natural desire is not to be gentle with my wife. Actually the opposite is true. My natural tendency as a sinful man is to be harsh with my words, brash with my attitude, and manipulative with my ways. Concerning how I love my wife; as a sinful man, my initial tendency is to love her when it is only convenient for me. I choose to love her when I want something from her or I will love her because of what she has to offer me. My natural tendency is never to love my wife because of who I am. Instead, I choose to love her for selfish motives. This is why it is so easy to say unloving things when husbands don’t get their way, to emotionally disengage, or in the worst of cases, become physically overbearing to a wife who is physically much weaker than her husband.
The wife, is not too different in her sin. A wives sin typically revolves around her desire for headship and leadership in a home. This has been going on since our first parents Adam and Eve walked the earth. As a matter of fact, sin first enters into the world, because Eve desires leadership, therefore sins, and then leads her husband to sin as well. God himself says in Genesis 3 that although a man will be called to lead his wife; the wife will desire to have the husband’s role as the leader of the marriage. Because of this, many wives are considered a nag. Proverbs compares a woman like this to the annoyance of a leak in the roof on a rainy day. This typically plays out in all sorts of ways. Most often because a wife cannot be physically superior; she becomes her husband’s greatest critic. Constantly criticizing every things he does; from his driving, the way he eats, the way he dresses, the way he parents, the way he pursues sex, the way he provides, the way he talks to her, and even his motives when he decides to love her well. Again, because her ultimate desire to lead, she will continually nag at his leadership and undermine the way that he does everything.
How can a marriage overcome this? To be honest, it almost seems hopeless and too broken of a system to overcome. However, Christ is in the business of reconciliation man to himself and his ways. 2 Corinthians puts it this way in chapter 5 “In Christ, God is reconciling the world to himself.” In other words, as we look at Christ and centralize the gospel in our lives, we will find God’s original intention and order for all of our ways. That being said, we now have to look at Christ in order to understand how marriage can work.
As we learn what our sinful tendencies in marriage are, we should be looking to choose to submit to Christ’s teachings in order to have a biblical marriage even as it gets hard. Looking at the gospel helps us endure when it seems too difficult. Before Christ was crucified for our sin, he went to the garden to wrestle with God. You see him pleading with God to change his ways and defeat sin in a way that did not require Him to separate from the Father and experience His wrath. However, after Christ wrestles with God, he humbles himself to God’s process. He does this out of Love for God and not love for Himself. If he loved Himself more than the Father, he would have avoided the cross and death and not have experienced the wrath and resurrection that saves sinful man. In the same way, we too need to wrestle with God. Gods design on a Godly marriage goes totally against our intuitive ways on how to go about relationships. In all honesty, God’s design for marriage is just too selfless.
Husbands and wives, dream with me for a minute.
Can you imagine a marriage that really fulfills Ephesians 5:21”Submit yourselves to one another out of reverence for Christ”? Husbands, what if you pursued never saying another harsh, unloving word to your wife again? What if you looked to continually encourage your wife without any selfish motive or self seeking reason? What if you were gentle with her and kept your tone low and honored God with your words, looking to build her up and lead her as if she were really God’s child? Wives, you’re not off of the hook either. What if you fought every desire to lead and criticize your husband knowing that blessing comes from submitting to your husband because that’s God design? What if you chose to follow his leading; allowing him to do things the way that he desires without manipulating him and urging him to do things the way that you want it done? What if you thought the best of your husband and believed that his motives were always in love and honor to both God and you?
How would this change your communication? The way you fight? The way you make love and desire each other? The way you parent together? The way you seek to give rather than receive?
The trick to all of this is found in the Gospel as well. Again, the Gospel says that all have sinned against God and fallen away; but despite our sin and while we were still sinners, Christ died. In other words, Christ didn’t love us because there was anything special about us, he loved us because there was something special about Him. In marriage, the same is true. We are commanded to “Love” and “Submit” not because your spouse is “Lovable” or “Submission Worthy”, but instead we are to Love and Submit despite their sinfulness at times. Doing this despite sin is the mark of a true Gospel Centered person who is more interested in being obedient to Christ than they are in responding to sin by sinning themselves. Let’s be honest, when a wife is trying to Lord over her husband because she feels that she can lead better, she is sinning. The same is true when a husband is choosing to not deal with his wife in a lovable way because she is being un-lovable. We are not free to sin because our spouse first sinned against us. That is when this gets really hard, because we want to treat people with an appropriate response to how we are being treated. But, the gospel says that Christ treats us with love while we are unloving towards him; He is our great example.
Typically a marriage gets stuck in a never ending spiral of, what I will call, “Responsive Doing.” In other words, because He is not leading well, She will respond by sinning and taking over. Because she has taken over, He will respond with sin and be harsh with her. Because he was harsh with me, I will nag him and criticize every thing he does. Because she’s always nagging and criticizing, I will not love her well. And the spiral goes on and on and on.
Wives, allow your husbands to lead not because he is a great leader, but because of your desire to love Christ and obey his commands. Husbands, love your wives well and be gentle with her, not because she is lovable, but because of your desire to love Christ and obey his commands. Wives, make it easy for your husbands to lead by not criticizing every thing he does. Husbands, make it easy for your wives to follow you by leading well. Do nothing out of selfishness, but consider your spouse better than yourself.
Ultimately, Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.
Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh." – Ephesians 5
Keep in mind, repent quickly and forgive graciously.
Today I pulled into McDonald's with a guy that I work with. As I was pulling into my parking spot I noticed 3 guys talking in the parking lot. Immediately the Holy Spirit said "Go Pray with them." It was just about as clear as I have ever heard God verbally speak to me. However, that seemed a little weird. Think about it, am I supposed to just role up and say "God wants me to pray for you"? Anyway, I took 1 step towards them and totally chickened out. I turned around and walked into McDonald's. As I get to the counter and order, God is just convicting me, and he's still telling me to go outside and pray for them. Finally I order and walk out there. It turns out that there was only 1 guy there still. So, I walked up to him and said, "I think that God wants me to pray for you", he said "Your about 3 minutes late. I was sharing theGospel with 2 guys and they just left." OH MY GOSH........
I was so upset and cannot stop think about what would have happened if this guy was sharing the Gospel with them and I just rolled up and said that God sent me to pray. Think about how the spiritual climate would have sky rocked and I could have been a part of something so cool.
So anyway, I was dis-obedient to the Holy Spirit and it sucks!!!!!!!!!
