Beeson Podcast, Episode 368
Hayden Walker
November 28, 2017

Announcer: Welcome to the Beeson podcast, coming to you from Beeson Divinity School on the campus of Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. Now your host, Timothy George.

Timothy George:	Welcome to today's Beeson podcast. We get to hear a sermon today by Hayden Walker. Hayden is a graduate of Beeson Divinity School. She serves as minister to students at Mountain Brook Baptist Church in Birmingham. She's a wonderful woman of faith. Graduated from our school in 2013 with a Master of Divinity degree and we like her so well we've kept her around as the assistant project director of the Lilly Grant we've received on excellence in preaching. She encourages preaching through that grant but she can also do it and we're going to get to hear her preach a sermon given right here at Beeson Divinity School this past spring on showing Christ's love in the family. Dr. Smith.

Robert Smith Jr: Thank you, Dean George. Hayden can do it. Her proposition, which she repeats in some form throughout the sermon in various places is Christ's sacrificial love and submission to the Father sets us apart to love and serve one another through the power of the Spirit. So there's intra-Trinitarian presence. She combines accurate exegesis and practical application throughout the sermon. She indicts us for creating a false dichotomy between the church life and the family life. She says that does not exist, so she's courageous. She's courageous in that she does not allow any particular agenda to form her thoughts. The text forms her thoughts and her words. So she's not trying to represent an egalitarian or complementarian position. She lets the text speak.
	Ephesians 5:18, she deals with the theology of the Spirit, which informs everything that she has to say. The five participles, pay attention to that, which serve as a picture of a Spirit-filled life. The guiding, controlling theme is Christ, the center. This sermon is highly Christological. In fact, she closes in a Christological way. She's quite eclectic in that she is using different sources, the biblical text, personal illustrations. This wonderful person illustration about kneeling will be very, very encouraging and helpful. 
	I'm amazed that she had the whole passage read and treated the whole passage from chapter 5 verse 21 to chapter 6 verse number 9. She closes her sermon with a powerful reference to Jesus and shows him as an individual who was submissive to the Father, who was a great servant, who was the king of kings, and an individual who is the husband to the church. The church is his bride, and concludes with the marriage supper of the Lamb, which is typical of her to close in the eschaton in celebrating what God has done and what God has prepared for those who love him.

Timothy George:	A great sermon saturated with the great acts of God in redemptive history. So let's go to Hodges chapel and listen to this sermon. It was preached as a part of a series on the book of Ephesians, in one body through the cross in the spring of 2017. We listen to our friend and colleague Hayden Walker.

Reader:	A reading from the Book of Ephesians, beginning in chapter 5, verse 21. "Submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. 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. This mystery is profound, and I'm saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband."
	"Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. ‘Honor your father and 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.’ Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Bond servants, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart as you would Christ, not by the way of eye service, as people pleasers, but as bond servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to man, knowing that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether he is a bond servant or free. Masters, do the same to them and stop your threatening, knowing that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and that there is no partiality with him." The Word of the Lord.

Congregation: Thanks be to God.

Hayden Walker: Will you pray with me? Oh Father, even now, would you speak to your servants, only unto you, in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen. 

Congregation: Amen.

Hayden Walker: Our text this morning is Ephesians 5:21-6:9. I want to throw a number out at you. 1.8 billion. 1.8 billion people, that's a quarter of the world's population, that is how many people are on the world's most popular social networking site, Facebook. If you are on Facebook, you can connect with anyone in the world or 25% of anyone to be more accurate and share with them any part of your life that you would like.
	Social media has given people a platform to speak their minds, a platform to connect with others and a platform that unfortunately often leads to self-centeredness and pride. On social media, we so frequently can be deceived into believing that life is about us. We can believe that what we say is the most important and most authoritative word. Social media is a prime place for self-centeredness to grow and thrive, a hotbed for pride.
	But this is not the way that we see Christ has called us to. Christ has not called us to a life of self-promotion but a life of self-sacrifice. He's not called us to a life seeking likes and shares, but a life following the way of the cross, a cruciform life, giving ourselves for the sake of the other, a selfless life, but not a selfie life.
	This is what we see in our text this morning. Following the pattern of Christ, we see a selfless display of love and service to one another. It is Christ's sacrificial love and his submission to the Father that teaches us to set aside our pride and serve one another by the power of the Spirit. 
	Our text begins in chapter 5, verse 21, and it reads, "Submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ." Now it seems like we have picked up in the middle of a sentence, and that is because we have. This is the end of a sentence that began in verse 15, talking about being careful how we walk. In verse 18, Paul says that we need to be filled with the Spirit, and then follows that with five participles that display what the Spirit-filled life should look like.
	He says we address one another in songs, hymns and spiritual songs. We sing, we make melody, we give thanks, always and for everything, to God the Father, and we submit to one another. Now this may seem disconnected because the rest of these participles, these previous four are talking about community life and the church, worship, corporate worship but we must remember that the Ephesian church hearing this letter read, would have been in a house church, and they made little distinction between church life and home life. 
	It flowed together. So it's very natural for Paul here to go from talking about praise and the community life of the church to submission in the family life. This is a beautiful unity that we see in this text and oftentimes, it's something that is absent from our lives. We create a false dichotomy between our church life and our family life, and it is that very separation that can cause problems for many ministers. 
	Paul leaves no room for separation between the church life and the family life. Who you are in Christ is consistent throughout your calling. Submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. The submission is this self-sacrifice, not self-seeking. It is freely giving of the self for the sake of one another. It is what we have seen most clearly in Christ, who gave himself for us, on the cross. One another, this is a phrase that we've seen throughout the book of Ephesians. Be kind to one another, bear with one another, and now submitting to one another. It's not about you. It's about one another. 
	This submitting, this other mindedness has a purpose that we see here in verse 21, that will inform the rest of our passage. See, Paul says this is out of reverence for Christ. This is not just the golden rule. This is not just do the right thing and serve one another, so that you feel good about it. This is service to one another out of reverence for Christ. Christ is the center. Christ is the purpose. Christ is the example. Christ is the power by which we are able to submit to one another. It is all about Jesus.
	When our eyes are fixed upon him, when we are in a posture of praise to him, that is when we are able to serve one another. My husband Cody and I have recently moved. We've been doing some work in our flower bed, trying to get it ready for spring and looking fresh and happy. When you get home from work and I get out of the car, I can see a couple weeds in the flower bed, and I think, "I'll just stop for two seconds and pull this one weed here and move on." You know what happens. You bend down to pull the one weed and once you get there, you see about eight more that need to be plucked. Then you see that the soil needs to be nourished. You see that it needs to be fertilized. You see the flowers that need to have the dead flowers pruned from them.
	You see so many more tasks once you have kneeled. You see all of these opportunities to work, once you have kneeled. It's the same way in our reverence for Christ. It is when we are on our knees in worship of Him that we can truly see the needs of others around us. We must kneel in worship and reverence and fear of Christ. It is that posture of praise that will enable us to truly submit and serve one another.  
	This is the controlling theme that Paul has for the rest of this text this morning. Verse 22 through 6:9 constitutes this household code. This was a kind of traditional form that the people in the Greco-Roman world would have been familiar with. This was probably originally a form that Aristotle used, this three-part pairing, husbands and wives, children and parents, bond servants and masters. So Paul is using this structure that would have been very familiar in the Greco-Roman world, but he is infusing it with Jesus.
	So we move into this household code but with Christ at the center. We remember that it is only as we look to Christ, the one who is self-sacrificed, the one who has submitted himself to the Father, that we learn how to set aside our pride and serve one another by the power of the Spirit. Verses 22 to 24 focus on wives. Paul writes, "Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord." You see that refrain again, as to the Lord, and it will be repeated throughout each of these three sections. As to the Lord.
	The wife's submission to her husband is ultimately a submission to Christ. It's not so much about the husband as it is about Jesus. This is a joyful submission because it is what God has called us to. It says the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is head of the church. We've seen this in Ephesians chapter 1, verses 22 to 23. Paul writes, "He put all things under his feet, and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body. The fullness of him who fills all in all."
	This is the type of headship that we see modeled in Christ. Not a domination. Not authority seeking, but service. Christ has given himself for the body and Paul will tease this out a bit more in verses to come. Verse 24, "As the church submits to Christ, so wives should submit in everything to their husbands." In everything, in everything, Christ is glorified. Now we must remember our controlling thought is that this is all happening out of reverence for Christ.
	If everything is not in line with who Jesus has called us to be, then there is no substantiation for submission outside of the will of God. There is no submission to something that is counter to what Christ has revealed to us. Unfortunately, these verses have been used as a herald of submission, even in ways that are patriarchal and frankly bullying, but this is not what we see here in the text. In fact, in verses 22 and 24, Paul doesn't even use the verb submit when he's talking to wives. In verse 22, you have to draw it out from verse 21 and in 24, you have to draw it from the first part of the sentence where he says the church submits to Christ. 
	Paul is really showing a gentle way of submission, a way that acknowledges there may be some situations that are tricky for wives. It's a gracious approach from Paul. Verse 25, he says, "Husbands, love your wives." This is the self-sacrifice that is coupled with the wife's submission. "Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church." Then Paul launches into this seven verse exposition of Christ and the church. I just love this about him because he can't stay away from Jesus.
	Don't you wish that your speech was seasoned like this? That everything that you said, every thought, every word that came out of your mouth was glorifying to Christ and pointing back to him? I want my speech to be more like this. Paul goes on to say that Christ loved the church. He gave himself up for her. This qualifies the type of love that the husband is supposed to show to his wife, self-sacrificial love.
	Verse 26, "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." Now Paul probably has in view here, in verses 26 and 27, are rituals to get ready for a wedding. He describes this bridal bath that a bride would take before she was married. Hopefully we all who are married, bathed on our wedding day and there was no exception in the Greco-Roman world. They had a specific bridal bath ritual that they followed. The beauty here is that Paul tells us Jesus is the one who has bathed his bride. 
	He is the only one that could present an efficacious bath for her because we needed to be bathed in his blood. He says that he does this in order that he might present the bride to himself in splendor. This is kind of a description of what you might imagine a bride to wear on her wedding day, a beautiful gown, a veil, prepared for the special event. Paul probably has an Old Testament passage in view here. He's probably thinking of Ezekiel chapter 16, verse 8 to 14. 
	In this passage, in Ezekiel 16, we see that God calls his people his bride. He says that he has washed his bride, in verse 9. In verse 10, he's clothed his bride, wrapped her in silk. Verse 11, adorned with ornaments and bracelets, adorned with gold and silver. Verse 14, "And your renown went forth among the nations because of your beauty, for it was perfect through the splendor that I had bestowed on you," declares the Lord God.
	But this bride that God has prepared for himself, the people of Israel that God has prepared for himself, does not stay faithful to the covenant. The rest of chapter 16 goes on to talk about how this bride becomes a bride of harlotry. She becomes a bride seeking evil. She becomes a bride searching after wickedness and her own desires. She becomes a bride who is filthy, though she was once clothed in splendor. 
	It is these images here from Ezekiel 16 that Paul reverses for us by Christ in Ephesians 5. You see, we are the bride of Christ. Unlike this bride in Ezekiel 16, we start out filthy. We start out dirty and in need of cleansing. We start out dead in the trespasses and the sins, which we once walked, following the prince of the power of the air. We start out in need of cleansing. 
	It is Christ who cleanses us, washed in the water by word, cleansed by his blood, so that our righteousness comes from him. So that our purity is only by his mercy, so that our spotlessness is only because we have been washed by his blood. We see this image of Ezekiel 16 reversed by Christ, that we might become this bride, holy and without blemish. 
	In verse 28, Paul returns to the husbands and says, "It is in this same way that husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself." This is the higher calling, my friends. This is a hard calling, to love someone else more than you love yourself. To serve someone else above yourself. It's pattern of Christ, Mark 10:45, "For the Son of man did not come to be served but to serve, to give his life as a ransom for many."We love because he first loved us, but we also serve because he first served us. 
	Paul goes on, in verses 31 and 32 to talk about this beautiful unity between Christ and the church, as displayed in marriage. He goes back and he quotes Genesis chapter 2, verses 24 and 25. And he says, "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and they shall become one flesh." This mystery is truly profound. It is staggering, because what Paul is talking about here is not husband and wife but Christ and the church, and marriage has been established from the beginning for the predominant purpose of teaching us about Christ and the church.
	In the same way that Old Testament sacrifices and rituals were implemented so that the people would be prepared for the knowledge of the atonement, marriage has been instituted from the beginning of time so that we might be prepared to understand Christ's relationship to the church. Proto-euangelion doesn't come in until Genesis 3, but we have a picture of Christ and his church in Genesis 2. 
	This is a profound mystery. Paul wraps up this section in verse 33 and reminds husbands and wives of their unique tasks. Love and respect, sacrifice and submission. Verses 1 to 4 in chapter 6 begin the children and parent component of our household code. Paul says, "Children obey your parents in the Lord for this is right. Honor your father and mother was the first commandment with a promise, that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land." 
	Now this can be a hard word because I know all too well, as many of you do also, that our children do not often live long. This was no mystery to Paul either. In fact, he wrote this in a time where 50% of children would die before age 10, so this is not a this-for-that kind of a promise. This is a general rule that we have that if when you listen to and obey your Godly parents, they are pointing you in a path of righteousness and wisdom that will usually lead to prolonged life.
	I saw a very practical example of this, this weekend. Our dear friends, Ben and Meredith, we were having lunch at the Pizitz Food Hall downtown, and they have a two-year-old son. He is precious. His name is Hudson. Hudson was playing around while we were eating and there were a couple of times where Hudson would just, he would be there and then he would be darting into the road, which warranted yells from his parents. “Hudson, get back. Come here. Come here.” Running after him because they did not want him to go into the road. He had no idea that there would be dangers awaiting him in the road.
	In a very practical way, obeying your parents can lead to a prolonged life. Paul turns to parents and says, "Fathers do not provoke your children to anger but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord." This is a parental call to faithful, spiritual instruction of your children. It does not say here, children's ministers, student ministers, you shall bring up these children in the knowledge of the Lord. This is a parental call to discipleship.
	Parents are the primary disciplers of their children. You cannot outsource your child's development and spirituality. Unless you say, "Hayden, I don't have any children, may never have any children," let us remember that family has been redefined in Christ. Matthew chapter 12, verse 48, Jesus said to the man who came and said your mother and brothers are out here waiting for you, Jesus said, "Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?" And stretching out his hands towards the disciples, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers, for whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother." 
	Later when Jesus is upon the cross, and he looks out and sees his mother, he sees his disciple John, he says to his mother, "Woman, behold your son." Then he said to the disciple, "Behold your mother," and from that hour, the disciple took her into his own home. Family has been redefined by Christ. 
	John Calvin had one son. He was born premature and died in infancy. It was a tragedy for Calvin and his family. Later on in his life, he reflected upon the experience and he said, "God hath taken my little boy, but I have myriads of sons in the Christian world." You and I may not have living children but we may have spiritual children over whom we can have influence and discipleship and parental opportunity. 
	We are the children of God. We are children by the love of God. This is a beautiful word. It continues in chapter 6, verses 5 to 9. Paul begins this section on bond servants and masters. Now this seems very repulsive to us in the American South especially. We cannot read these verses and rightfully so, without having the horrors of American slavery in our minds. But Paul certainly did not have something that terrible, a system of chattel slavery that was race-based in his mind when he wrote these words. He was not seeking to dismantle the Greco-Roman culture but he was seeking to infuse Christ into it.
	He says, "Bond servants," who would have been listening to this letter be read, as a part of the household of faith in the church community. "Bond servants, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ." For the third time, we see Christ being brought up as the predominant motivation for self-sacrifice and submission in the household code. Christ is the reason that these bond servants obey. Christ is the reason and the power by which they obey. They are not to serve by way of eye service, as people pleasers, but they are to serve as bond servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart.
	Now none of us, praise God, are in bondage, in service, but we have the temptation to work by way of eye service. We have the temptation to do things to please people instead of to please God. We have the proclivity to be people pleasers, rendering our work to man and not to God. Paul makes it very clear here that this is not the way of the cross. We are to set aside our pride, however challenging that may be, in order to serve one another, by the power of the Spirit.
	Paul does something pretty radical for the Greco-Roman world. He addresses masters as well. He tells them that they need to do the same thing. Exactly what he has commanded the bond servants to do, he expects of the masters. He expects them to be serving with a pure heart, selflessly, not pleasing people, not by way of eye service. He says stop your threatening, knowing that he who is both their master and yours, is in heaven and there is no partiality with him. Paul reminds the masters that the ground is level at the foot of the cross. Paul reminds the masters that they truly have no superiority over any other human being. He reminds them that Christ is the supreme authority. He is the head. He is the true master.
	This image of bond servant, of slavery, is something that Paul embraced. Romans chapter 1, verse 1, he says that he is a bond servant of Christ Jesus. This is true for us as well. Christ has set us free, not to freedom and licentiousness but he has set us free so that we may be slaves to righteousness. In Romans chapter 6, verse 17, he says, "Thanks be to God that you who were once slaves of sin, have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness."
	God doesn't free people to let them do nothing. When Moses went before Pharaoh and he spoke on behalf of the Lord, and he said, "Let my people go," there was a qualification. "Let my people go that they my serve me." Not to serve Pharaoh any longer, but to serve God. "Let my people go that they may serve me." You and I have been freed from the bondage of slavery to sin, so that we might serve Christ, so that we might therefore serve one another.
	This is our pattern of bondage and servitude in Christ. We are the bride. We are the children of God. We are the bond servants to the Spirit. But praise be to God, this happens because we have a faithful husband, a husband more faithful than Hosea. We have a gracious Father, a Father who is faithful in all of his words and kind in all of his works. We have a master, a king who is righteous and holy, the king over all kings. This is who we serve. This is who we submit to.
	We have a pattern of the true obedient Son. We have the pattern of a Son who submitted himself fully to the will of the Father. We have the pattern of a Son who even submitted himself to his earthly parents. Luke 2:51 says, “He went and He was submissive to them.”
	On the night that Christ was given up and taken by the powers and authorities at hand, to be crucified, he had been praying in the garden of Gethsemane. In Mark chapter 14 verse 36, it's recorded, he says, "Abba Father, all things are possible for you." He knew the power of his Father. "All things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me," and yet as an obedient Son, he prayed, "Not what I will but what you will." The obedient Son prayed himself into submission to the will of the Father. The obedient Son prayed himself right onto the cross of Calvary. 
	If Jesus had stopped at remove this cup from me, Pontius Pilate might have gotten a full night's sleep. If Jesus had stopped at remove this cup from me, two crosses would have been set up on Golgotha. If Jesus had stopped praying before he had submitted himself to the will of the Father, Joseph's tomb would have remained empty, but Christ has submitted himself as the obedient Son to the will of the Father so that you and I might be called children of God. This is the suffering servant. Christ is the obedient child. He is the suffering servant. 
	The passage that we read earlier, from Isaiah 49, shows us that this servant is despised, abhorred by the nations. And yet it wasn't enough for him to come for the people of Israel. He came as a light for the nations, that his salvation may reach to the ends of the earth, and one day we trust and we believe that the end of these verses will come to pass. That kings will see and arise. Princes, and they shall prostrate themselves before the Lord who is faithful. Before Christ the King, every knee will bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
	We await this day. We await this day with anticipation and with hope. We await this day like an engaged couple might away their wedding day, because we know that one day the bridegroom will return for us. We know that on that day, there will be the marriage supper of the lamb. Revelation 19 and 7 says, "Let us rejoice and exalt and give him the glory, for the marriage supper of the Lamb has come and his bride has made herself ready. It was granted to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure."
	We have been clothed by the righteousness of Christ and we await this day, that he will return, that the wedding feast will take place and that we will be together with him forever. It says that New Jerusalem will come down out of heaven like a bride adorned for her husband. We will be in restored creation and we will be a part of restored creation. Our broken bodies will be resurrected and restored and glorified like Christ's resurrected body on Easter morning.
	This will be a place with no more sadness, no more tears, no more pain, no more death, for the former things will have passed away. A glorious place where we will exist as the people of God into eternity. So we come awaiting this. The wedding countdown is on. Like Charles Wesley's hymn, “Love divine, all loves excelling, we pray, finish then thy new creation, pure and spotless let us be. Let us see that great salvation perfectly restored in thee. Changed from glory into glory, til in heaven we take our place, till we cast our crowns before thee, lost in wonder, love and praise.” Amen.

Announcer: You've been listening to the Beeson podcast, with host Timothy George. You can subscribe to the Beeson podcast at our website, beesondivinity.com. Beeson Divinity School is an interdenominational evangelical divinity school, training men and women in the service of Jesus Christ. We pray that this podcast will aid and encourage your work and we hope you will listen to each upcoming edition of the Beeson podcast.