Sermon Tone Analysis

ATTN

SLIDE: Pic - Jesus teaching at 12

His voice spellbound the crowd.

O, it hadn’t started out that way.

Frankly the leaders of the church with their official titles and “churchy” suits weren’t the kind of people to be enamored with anyone.

Anyone but themselves, of course.

But this was different.

He was different.

He was sitting their with them talking to them like an equal . . .

and he most certainly wasn’t!

They’d have put him in his place, too, only they couldn’t.

Every question they threw at him he answered.

Every question he threw at them, they couldn’t.

They were helplessly torn between a hopeless desire to escape the continued embarrassment and a curious desire to keep listening.

So, they stayed, question after question, hour after hour.

It might have gone on forever, had it not been for that insistent shout they kept hearing in the distance.

“Jesus, Jesus; Jesus, where are you?

Jesus, Jesus . .

.”

The shout kept growing closer till the door burst open and everyone turned to see the flustered faces of Joseph and Mary.

Seeing the scribes leaning over to hear the 12 year old lad, Mary says with a little aggravation.

“Jesus, we’ve been looking for you for three days.

Where have you been?”

With a look of amazement he said, “Didn’t you realize that I am here to do my Father’s Business?”

Now if you didn’t know the rest of the story, at this point you might be tempted to think that Jesus declared his indepence from Mary and Joseph and started his ministry.

After all, He was the Son of God; after all, He was the smartest guy in the room; after all He had all the answers that the world needed and even at 12 years of age, he could keep the scribes spell bound.

That’s the way we might have written the story.

But not God.

He wrote it like this in : Then He went down with them (that’s Mary and Joseph) and came to Nazareth, and was subject to them.

Now make a mental note of that word “subject” in that verse and now let us read our text: for today.

:

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 (and you could supply “subject”) to their own husbands in everything.

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 (and you could supply “subject”) to their own husbands in everything.

The word “subject” is the same in both places.

It’s the “s” word that really is in bad taste in today’s culture.

Talk about biblical submission within a marriage and the press brands you a neanderthal Knuckle-dragger.

Independence and self-promotion rule our day and those who dare to speak of submission are ignorant at best and dangerous at worst.

NEED

ME

But television news anchors aren’t the only ones who have trouble with this “submission” thing.

I do too!

Forget the husband/wife stuff for a minute, I, simply as a disciple of Christ, have a lot of trouble submitting, even in little things.

SLIDE: Pic - Funeral

Sometime ago I was going to a graveside service, not as the minister, but simply to attend.

I was planning to go and needed to be able to get out quickly after it was over because I was supposed to be somewhere else.

I pulled into the drive way of the graveyard, and there was one of the funeral home guys directing traffic.

When I got up to him I motioned that I wanted to go in a direction other than the one in which he was directing me because I wanted to park closer to the entrance, but he wouldn’t have it and motioned for me to keep on moving in the direction I did not want to go.

I was mad.

How dare that guy tell me what to do.

Then the Lord convicted me.

He was in a position of authority and here I was refusing to submit.

I have trouble with submission.

YOU

I guess we all do, don’t we? Hey, that’s one reason your boss can’t do anything right.

Now, I know he really may be inept, but isn’t part of the problem you have with him simply the fact that he is telling you what to do? That’s one reason we hate politicians.

Certainly, many of them are beyond contempt, but I suspect that’s not the only reason.

Part of it has to do with the fact that they are in authority and we simply don’t like to submit.

That’s one reason you can’t stand highway patrolmen stopping you.

Notice my emphasis?

We’ll celebrate their work as long as the blue light isn’t flashing through our back windshield.

When it is, it becomes an authority thing, and we find it a whole lot harder to swallow.

So ladies, understand this morning: If you have a little trouble with this submission thing, you aren’t alone.

Everybody, no matter their gender and no matter what their marital status has a problem with submission.

It goes with the territory of being a sinner.

And, the truth is, you may feel really justified in refusing to submit yourself as a wife to your husband.

After all, wasn’t Paul writing to a culture that needed to hear that message, and aren’t things different today.

How can you take these hopelessly dated words and apply them to women in today’s America.

Why should a “new millenium” woman submit to her husband, even if she is a believer?

Well, let’s try to answer that question right from this passage.

Wives, why should you submit to your husbands?

Well, first of all

DIV 1:

YOU SUBMIT BECAUSE YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT SUBMISSION MEANS

EXPLANATION

Submission is subordinate.

In the first place, this submission is subordinate.

There is an element of order here.

Simply put, the wife is to allow the husband to lead.

Now this isn’t new with Paul.

No, it goes all the way back to the beginning.

In , God tells Eve after her sin that “your desire will be to your husband and he shall rule over thee.”

If you want to speak of a sports analogy, the husband is the captain and he is to lead.

Submission is dependent.

But this submission is also dependent.

V. 24 ends by restating this principle of submission, then adds something: “So let the wives be to their husbands, notice in everything.

Now I don’t believe that you should become extreme here but there is a definite idea that the wife is to be dependent.

There is the idea that the decisions of the wife are to be surrendered to the leadership of her husband.

The wife is to refuse to act independently.

Or you could say it like this: The husband is the captain, he is to lead and the wife is to follow his leadership.

ARGUMENTATION

Is it just me, or does that sound, well, a little weird?

Does that strike you as just a little strange?

Feel like you’re waking up in Oz and hearing strange little voices singing “We belong to the lollipop guild?”

Isn’t it interesting how, in just one generation, our whole perspective of the home has changed, so that now, even in a church like ours, speaking of submission sounds positively unrealistic.

John MacArthur writes:

I recognize that the issue of authority and submission in the home is not popular.

But do you know why?

Because we’ve been brainwashed.