It's a pleasure to be here with all of you. It seems a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, I began a sermon series entitled Confronting the Culture in which I have taken aim at equipping you as the people of God to be salt and light in the midst of the decay and darkness of this dying culture. so that you will withstand the attacks of a vehement secularism that demands that you surrender your Christian worldview. And so that you will be able to confront the lies of that culture with the truth and with the saving gospel that redeems it. And that series began by vindicating the concept of truth against the culture's lie that there's no such thing as truth. Soon after that, we turn to the Bible's teaching on the identity of man, the identity of mankind, because there is no category of Christian theology more under attack today than the biblical doctrine of man. And to understand the fundamental nature and identity of man, we went back to the beginning, to Genesis chapter one, and learned that most fundamentally, man is a creature Man is an image bearer and man is gendered. Genesis 127, God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them. Creature, image bearer, and gendered. And from there, we confronted the satanic deception of the transgender movement. demonstrating that though men and women are alike in their humanity, unified as equal image bearers of Almighty God, yet they are distinct in their gender, complimenting one another as a harmony of praise to the God who created them. And then, on the basis of that distinction, we found that men and women honor the glory and beauty of God's good design by presenting our physical appearance in accordance with the distinctiveness of our biological sex. And that led to the following conclusion, sort of a key conclusion of the past messages. Men ought to carry themselves in a masculine way and not an effeminate way. And women ought to carry themselves in a feminine way and not a masculine way. And so not only does that rule out transgenderism, it also means that men glorify God when they look and speak and behave like men. And women glorify God when they look and speak and behave like women. But then we asked, well, what does it mean according to scripture to behave like a man or like a woman? Aside from the obvious biological differences, what does it mean to be a biblical man and not a woman? What does it mean to be a biblical woman and not a man? And that launched us into a study of biblical manhood and womanhood. If there is glory in our distinctiveness, if God's pre-fall, before the curse, very good design of male and female differentiation is not just true, but beautiful, then it's fitting for us to devote ourselves to understanding the beauty of those distinctions preeminently so that we can order our lives according to the Bible's prescriptions and thereby bring honor and glory to our God. I've said it a couple times, but it's like an orchestra. It's one thing to hear skilled musicians all play in unison, but there's a higher strain of beauty that you behold in music when each musician plays distinct notes which nevertheless harmonize perfectly with one another. As men and women who follow Christ, we need to learn to play our parts, our distinct parts, so that we harmonize in a way that brings glory and honor to the beauty of God's good design. And before our Sundays in July break, we had three sermons exploring nine marks of biblical manhood. And I won't review those here except to state them. We found that the biblical man is a leader, a lover, a provider, a protector, and that he is strong, sensible, dignified, sound in doctrine, and sound in speech. And I would encourage you, especially if you haven't heard those messages, and especially if you are a man, to listen to those three sermons on the nine marks of biblical manhood. Today, we begin a series on nine marks of biblical womanhood. And before I jump right in, I want to say, as I did when we began with biblical manhood, that these marks of biblical womanhood relate most often to how a wife relates to her husband. But that does not mean that you are less of a woman if you are not married. Being single puts you at no disadvantage to living out the calling of your womanhood any more than being single put Jesus at a disadvantage of living out his manhood. No, there are biblical appropriate expressions of femininity from single women even toward the men in your life who are not your husband. and I'll seek to make application along those lines as we go throughout this series. But I also want to reiterate that marriage is the norm for mankind. As soon as we hear male and female in Genesis 127, we hear about being fruitful and multiplying in Genesis 128. That means marriage is in order. Multiplying requires an act which can only be done in the confines of the covenant of marriage. As soon as we see that woman is man's suitable helper in Genesis 2.22 and 23, we hear about the two becoming one flesh in Genesis 2.24. And so marriage is the norm. And because of that, much of scripture's teaching on masculinity and femininity speaks to how we conduct ourselves in the marriage relationship or how we are to prepare ourselves for that relationship. And so much application will have to do with marriage. But if you are single, as a woman, this is what you are to aspire to. If you are single, this is how you are to examine your own character as you interact with all people and not just who might be a husband. Single guys. This picture, these nine marks of biblical womanhood is a picture of the kind of woman you want to pursue for marriage, the kind of woman you want to give your life away for in serving and loving and leading and providing for and protecting. Married guys, as I said to the ladies in May, this is not intended to be a club to beat your wife over the head with, right? But it's meant anytime anybody hears a sermon and their first instinct is, oh, that's good for so and so, right? You can be sure that God is actually chastening you, right? Anytime you hear the word of God, it's intended for your instruction and your edification, your repentance and your sanctification. Nevertheless, of course, there is an appropriate application that a married man would hear a sermon series on biblical womanhood and angle it toward his wife in the sense that this is how you are to pray for her. This is how you are to encourage her. This is how you are to lead her towards with the design of washing her with the water of the word, laboring for her good and not lording it over her as a tyrant. If you forgot about that go back to those three messages on manhood. With all that said let's come to our first mark of biblical womanhood and that is number one a biblical woman is a helper. She is a helper and we find that in Genesis Chapter 2 at the very inception of the woman's creation. After God has created the man, after he has placed him in the garden to cultivate and keep it, after he has given man his law prohibiting him from eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, then Genesis 2.18 says, Yahweh God said, it is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him. That is the first time in the creation narrative that God has said something is not good. All throughout chapter one, we have the refrain, and God saw that it was good, and God saw that it was good. Into chapter two, every tree is good for food, verse nine. Verse 12, the gold of the land is good, but all of a sudden, verse 18 arrests you with the declaration that there is something about the paradise of Eden that is not good. It is not good that the man has no helper. And so God brings every animal one by one to the man so he'll name them. But of all these other creatures, verse 20 says, for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him. No one corresponding to him as his equal counterpart. But then he puts the man to sleep and takes a rib from his side and makes the helper suitable for Adam. He makes the woman. And I don't know if there's a greater honor that can be bestowed upon women than to realize that God himself declared that his own perfect created paradise was not good until she was created to compliment the man. Women are not unimportant. Women are not second class or inferior. Women are so essential that paradise itself is in a sense incomplete without her. Man is incomplete without her. He needs someone to be a helper suitable for him in the way that no other creature was. Someone who will bring unique gifts and talents and strengths to the human race that will enable mankind to glorify God in obedience to his commands in a way unlike if God created another man. Don't miss this. God's design in creating the woman is that she would be a helper suitable for the man to carry out the divine mandate given in chapter one verse 28 to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. The foundation of what it means to be a woman is to be one who can suitably help a man to walk in obedience to the calling that God has placed on his life. and that helpfulness, the wife's putting herself at the disposal of her husband, yielding her gifts and strengths unto his benefit, that is at the heart of what scripture often refers to as submission. In complementarity, in beautiful, glorious harmony with the man's headship is this concept of submission. Two image bearers equal in status and dignity before God with distinct roles. The husband leads and the wife helps. The husband initiates and the wife responds in submission to the husband's leadership. And we mentioned when we studied it then that at the heart of biblical leadership for a man is the concept of responsibility. It's not license, it's not lordship, it's responsibility. Leadership is a stewardship to lead in a way that honors God and benefits those under his charge. A biblical man takes responsibility. He eschews passivity, he provides a general pattern of initiative in the relationship. Well, corresponding to that, a biblical woman submissively responds to the pattern of initiatives established by mature masculinity in a way that honors and affirms rather than usurps or challenges his leadership. I'm gonna say that again. Corresponding to biblical leadership, a biblical woman submissively responds to the pattern of initiatives established by mature masculinity in a way that honors and affirms rather than usurps or challenges his leadership. Now, in a culture dominated by expressive individualism, which we spoke about some months ago, where the chief virtue is to vent every thought and desire you've ever had, right, where fighting your basest impulses is derided as inauthenticity, in that culture, submission has been turned into a four-letter word. But Christians should have no problem with the concept of submission. Our entire worldview is grounded upon submission to the Lordship of Jesus. We're not singling out wives here. We want everybody to submit to the Lordship of Christ. We want everybody to be brought into willing subjection to the will of God. Citizens submit to the governing authorities in the civil sphere. Church members submit to elders in the ecclesiastical sphere. Children obey their parents in the familial sphere. And so also, according to the word of Christ for life in his church, so also do wives submit to their husbands. Now there is much to say about a woman's fundamental identity as a helper, much to say about submission as a defining mark of biblical womanhood, so much so that I'm gonna spend the rest of this sermon exploring the Bible's teaching on just this one point. And we'll have to move quickly, don't laugh, because we're gonna see no fewer than nine features of biblical submission. Oh, that was very self-disciplined. You didn't laugh, that was good. I don't know why nine is coming up, it just seems to be that this is what I'm discovering as I study the word. I have no numerological commitment to the number nine, but it does seem how it's shaking out. Well, first, let us consider the divine design of submission. The divine design. We hit on this when we spoke about male headship, but it bears repeating. This beautiful harmony of the roles of male headship and female submission was the divine design of our holy, sovereign, and wise God from the beginning of creation. We see that already in Genesis 2.18, which speaks of a woman being created to be a helper before the fall, before the curse. But we also hear of it in the categorical statements of the New Testament as well under the redemption of Christ as he restores all things to the original pattern and even better than the original pattern that we had in Ephesians chapter five verses 22 to 24 we hear, wives, be subject to your own husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ also is the head of the church, he himself being the savior of the body. But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything. And in 1 Corinthians 11 3, which speaks even more broadly than the husband-wife relationship, Paul says, but I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man and the man is the head of a woman. A few verses later in 1 Corinthians 11, 9, Paul says, for indeed man was not created for the woman's sake, but woman for the man's sake. God created the woman for the man to be his helper. And this divine design of submission is evident even in the events of the fall of man. The man's abdication of his headship. and the woman's unsubmissive usurpation of that headship are what mankind's first sin consisted in. God addressed the man first and gave him the command not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and then Eve was created after that, which is one of the many indications of man's headship that we're given in the garden in Genesis 2 and 3. But Satan, Genesis 3-1, shows up in the garden and he said to the woman, indeed has God said. Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field and he puts his craftiness on display when he speaks to the woman first. Doing what? Inverting the God-ordained design of headship and submission. He asks Eve, has God said you, plural, shall not eat from any tree of the garden? And Eve answers, verse two, we, plural, may eat. What's happened? Satan has made Eve the spokesman and representative of the family. You decide, Eve. You lead the way. This was an immediate subtle subversion by our enemy of the very good created order of God defined in the loving headship and sweet submission of man and woman in marriage. Isn't it something that mankind's fall into sin itself was an occasion of contravening the divine design of headship and submission? How fundamental to the identity of man and woman must these realities be? Well, these texts and the many others we've gone to when we spoke on manhood communicate the truth of the complementary roles of male headship and female submission. And because these roles originated with the creation of man and woman, they do not have their origin in the fall, as is so often alleged. They are not the result of sin's corruption of our relationships. No, they are rooted in God's very good creation of man and woman as man and woman. And so fundamental to the identity of man and woman from the very beginning of their existence before corruption and before the fall into sin is that the biblical man is a leader and the biblical woman is a helper. Secondly, consider not only the divine design of submission, but number two, the cursed difficulty of submission. The cursed difficulty of submission. Given that submission is the design of God for woman from the very moment of her creation, given that it's fundamental to her identity, it's fair to ask, why is it so difficult for women to embrace that role? And it is, isn't it? Just as men struggle to embrace their role of loving, sacrificial headship and either passively neglect responsibility or cruelly assert authority, so also women struggle mightily with the temptation to seize the role of leadership for themselves and exercise authority over men. We see this played out especially in the marriage relationship. As pastors, we are constantly exhorting men to step up and embrace the responsibility of being a leader and exhorting women to step back and embrace the responsibility of yielding to their husband's leadership rather than seizing it for themselves. Why is that such a common thread in human relationships when God created us to do just the opposite? Well, it's because we fell from that state of blessedness in which God originally created mankind. In fact, Genesis 3.17 tells us that it's precisely because Adam listened to the voice of his wife, precisely because he abdicated his leadership and submitted to Eve's leadership, that the curse of God comes upon the serpent, comes upon the woman, comes upon the man, and comes upon creation itself. And we read of the curse of God upon the woman in Genesis 3, 16. To the woman God said, I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth, in pain you will bring forth children. Then notice this phrase, your desire will be for your husband, but he will rule over you. Now what does that mean? Well, the same two words, desire and to rule or master, appear in the next chapter, in Genesis chapter four and verse seven. And the context of that passage makes plain the meaning of these two words when they're coupled together like they are in Genesis 3.16. In Genesis 4, Cain's countenance has fallen because God has had no regard for his offering, and God responds to Cain's anger and sadness by urging him to battle temptation and to do righteousness. Middle of verse seven of Genesis 4. And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door, and its desire is for you, but you must rule over it. Same two words. What's God saying? He's saying that sin is like a roaring animal waiting to strike Cain at the proper time. Sin's desire is to exert mastery over Cain, to rule him, to reign in his life. And if Cain passively refuses to withstand it, that'll overtake him. But instead of that, the Lord exhorts Cain that he must rule over sin. Cain must exert mastery over sin. Well, if we apply the sense of desire and rule gleaned in Genesis 4-7 to the interpretation of the same terms back in Genesis 3-16, we find that the meaning becomes clear. Part of the curse upon Eve is that a woman's desire would be to exert mastery over her husband, to rule over him in the way sin wanted to rule over Cain. but instead of man yielding to woman's desire, he would withstand it in the same way that Cain was to resist sin's desire over him. Now you see, where God had designed the beauty of headship and submission to sing together in glorious, peaceful harmony, now the curse of dissonance and conflict would reign in the relationship between man and woman. One commentator writes, God gives the woman up to a desire to have her way with her husband. Because she usurped his headship in the temptation, God hands her over to the misery of competition with her rightful head. And so we may say, without irony or sarcasm, that the feminist movement is satanic. The philosophy and worldview of especially second and third wave feminism seduces women into eschewing submission and casting off the role of helper and into seizing authority and asserting their dominance. Feminism confuses equal rights with identical roles. And in that, feminism is nothing more than the recitation of the tempter's deception of the first woman. And so, my dear sisters, that inclination that you have wherein it seems almost natural to buck against the loving authority of your husband, that is not a trifling matter. To reject the glorious, beautiful role of submission that God has ordained for you is to follow in the footsteps of Eve in the commission of the sin that plunged the human race into condemnation. And it is to live consistently with and yielding to the curse of sin that plagues the entire creation. And so, ladies, if you would live in a godly way, in a manner consistent with the blessedness of Genesis 1 and 2, rather than consistent with the curse of Genesis 3, you will resist sin's mastery over you, and therefore resist your inclination to usurp headship over your husband. In the third place, Consider the gospel-shaped motive for submission. The gospel-shaped motive for submission, and for this we turn to Ephesians chapter five. That great text, the most extended instruction on marriage in the New Testament. Paul writes in Ephesians five, starting in verse 22, wives, be subject to your own husbands as to the Lord. as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, he himself being the savior of the body. But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything. In this text, the Apostle Paul calls upon wives to submit themselves to their own husbands as to the Lord. Now, the term as expresses similarity, not identity. Paul is not teaching that a husband is the Lord over his wife in the same way that Christ is Lord over them both. Christ's authority is absolute. The husband's authority is not. Christ himself is a perfectly sinless leader who never needs to ask for forgiveness and who is always worthy of our trust. Husbands, sadly, are not. Nevertheless, while the term doesn't communicate identity, it does communicate similarity. A wife ought to be voluntarily yielding to her husband in love in a way that can be compared to the way that she voluntarily yields to the Lord Jesus in love. Because it's ultimately the command of the triune God for wives to submit to their husbands, therefore a wife's submission to her husband is her submitting to her Lord, Christ. And conversely, a wife's rebellion against her husband's legitimate authority is rebellion against the Lord Jesus. And notice that nothing in this entire passage makes the command for wifely submission contingent upon the husband's deserving the submission. The text does not say that a wife is to submit to her husband only when he does his part to love his wife like Christ loved the church. No more than it calls the husband to love his wife as Christ loved the church only when she's submitting to him. Now that, of course, is the ideal, right? And when that happens, you see the beauty of biblical complementarity. The husband gives his life away lovingly and sacrificially to provide for and protect his wife. And the wife gives her life away in joyful, eager submission to her husband's leadership. But we know that the standard for a wife's submission is not lessened when her husband fails to love her well. Because the apostle Peter issues this same call in 1 Peter 3, one and two, for wives to be submissive even to their husbands who are unbelievers. And so wives are called to submit to their husbands even when they don't deserve it. Why is that? Because loving headship and joyful submission in marriage are designed by God to be a picture of the gospel. of the covenant-keeping grace of Jesus Christ toward his bride, the church. Paul says, the husband pictures Christ, and the wife pictures the church, and so when a wife submits to her husband's leadership, she displays to the world what a joy it is for the church of Jesus Christ to submit to the leadership of her Lord. When she follows her husband's leadership with the gentle and quiet spirit of a respectful and supportive wife, she preaches to the watching world that Christ is so glorious, so satisfying, that His bride, the church, is happy to follow Him anywhere. Do you see how this gospel-shaped motive sweetens the duty of submission into a delight? Is it not a joy for you ladies as members of the body of Christ to submit to your bridegroom? Is he, Jesus, is he not a loving leader? Is he not full of wisdom to lead you into paths of righteousness and blessing? Is he not worthy of the joyful and eager submission of every person in the world? To say nothing of his people for whom he's shed his precious blood. Well of course he is worthy. And Paul says, when you submit to your own husband, you display that truth to the world. Oh fight the temptation to rebelliousness like that. When it's difficult to follow your husband, when he is proving unworthy of your submission, ask yourself if Jesus is worthy of your submission. Ask yourself if Jesus is worthy of his church's submission. There you will find the gloriously feminine strength to obey. In the fourth place, just briefly, consider the pervasive extent of submission. The pervasive extent of submission. We also see that in Ephesians 5 and specifically in verse 24. But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything. In everything. This means that all we've talked about concerning submission applies to every area of life. Some have contended that Paul's call to wifely submission is to be read as extending only to certain wifely duties. But the pervasiveness of the phrase in everything in Ephesians 5 24 won't allow for a narrow view of submission. Just as there is no aspect of the church's life that we may reserve from the lordship of Christ. Neither is there any aspect of a wife's life that she may reserve from her husband's headship." Now having said that though, we must observe, fifthly, the limits of biblical submission. The limits of biblical submission, number five. You say, what are you talking about? You just told me she has to submit in everything. Yes, but understand the intent that Paul has here. Charles Hodge made this observation, it's worth quoting. He says, though this does not mean that the wife is subject as to some things and independent as to others, neither does it mean that the authority of the husband is unlimited. "'It teaches its extent,' Hodge says, "'not its degree. "'It extends over all departments, "'but is limited in all, "'first, by the nature of the relation, "'and secondly, by the higher authority of God.'" End quote. And so in the first place, by calling a wife to submit to her husband in everything, Paul does not mean to include those thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors that are sinful. A wife must not follow her husband's leadership into sin. That goes without saying. We see the same pattern when Paul calls for Christian submission to the government in the civil sphere. In Romans 13, Paul calls every person to be in subjection to the governing authorities and he includes no qualification in that passage. However, if civil authority commands a believer to disobey God, their response must be what Peter and the apostles answered the high priest in Acts 529, we must obey God rather than men. Paul himself defied the governing authorities in Acts 16, 35 to 40, when he disobeyed the chief magistrate's orders to leave the jail in Philippi. He says, come out, and he says, no indeed. Let them come and get us themselves. And so even where there is an unqualified command for pervasive submission, like there is in Romans 13, that does not give any Christian under any form of authority the license to follow that authority into sin. And so a wife not only may, but must refuse to submit to her husband if he were to demand that she do something that God forbids, like engage in deception or dishonesty. or get drunk with him or watch pornography with him or defile the marriage bed with him or engage in any sort of illegal activity. Similarly, she must refuse to follow his leadership if he were to forbid her to do something God commands like read her Bible or go to church or to evangelize. She will have to say no to that kind of headship because the authority of Christ over her life supersedes the authority of her husband. However, it's worth saying here that even when a wife must obey God rather than her husband, she must still express her inability to follow him in a spirit of submission rather than a spirit of rancor and rebellion. You could say, ladies, I'm not doing that. And it's disgusting that you would ask me to do that. It might be. But instead of using the opportunity to demean your husband's authority and in a way celebrate your disobedience to him, you ought to speak to him in a way that shows you're grieved that you have to disobey him because he's making you choose between submitting to him, which ordinarily you love to do, and obeying Christ which you also love to do and must do above all else. One writer gave voice to that kind of submissive disobedience like this. A wife could say, it grieves me when you venture into sinful acts and want to take me with you. You know I can't do that. I have no desire to resist you. On the contrary, I flourish most when I can respond joyfully to your lead, but I can't follow you into sin as much as I love to honor your leadership in our marriage. Christ is my king. That kind of respectful attitude shows the disposition of submission even where particular acts of obedience are not permitted because they would be acts of disobedience to Christ. And so one limit is wives don't submit in sin. And the second place, neither is a wife called to submit herself to being physically or sexually abused by her husband. So if a husband is so distorting and perverting the authority which he's been given to protect his wife into harming and even abusing his wife so that her physical safety is legitimately in danger, she is under no obligation to just sit there and take it. That is not what biblical submission means. No, in such a case where there is legitimate, imminent danger, she needs to call the police, notify the elders of her church and get to a place where she is safe. Now that may mean that a temporary separation is warranted. It may even mean that divorce is permissible, though that would depend on the details in each case and would need to be worked through under the oversight of that couple's elders. But in no way is a woman under any biblical warrant to subject herself to physical harm in the name of submission. And then a third limit to biblical submission is that scripture limits a wife's submission to her own husband. The Bible does not teach that all women are to submit to all men, except perhaps in the sense that all Christians are to be subject to one another in the fear of Christ, Ephesians 5, 21. Instead, scripture is explicit in calling wives to submit to their own husbands. Ephesians 5.22, wives be subject to your own husbands as to the Lord. Titus 2.5, being subject to their own husbands so that the word of God will not be dishonored. First Peter 3.1, in the same way you wives be submissive to your own husbands. Pastor John put it this way, women are, as a group, are not made serfs to men in general, and men aren't automatically elevated to a ruling class over all women. Having said that though, that's not to say that the only arena for a woman's submissiveness is in marriage. Just as there are appropriate ways for a biblical man to express his responsibility to lead and provide for and protect women who are not his wife, so also are there appropriate ways for a biblical woman to express her responsibility to affirm and nurture those expressions of worthy biblical masculinity. There is a submissiveness that marks a woman's character in a general sense, even beyond the husband-wife relationship. Though she's not to submit to all men in the same sense she would submit to her husband, she ought to have that prevailing disposition of affirming and supporting godly male headship in whatever proper sphere it is encountered. And we see that, for example, in 1 Timothy 2.11. In that letter, Paul is instructing the church at Ephesus how they ought to conduct themselves as the Lord's church, what life in the household of God is to be like. And there, Paul says, 1 Timothy 2.11, a woman must quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness. And that, again, is not because a woman is essentially inferior to a man. She is not. It is not because she may not be gifted to teach. She may be, many women are. It is simply because the design of God rooted in his created order is that there be equal image bearers functioning in distinct and yet harmonious roles to the praise of his glory. And so here we learn that that extends, those roles extend not only to the home but also to the church. The prevailing disposition of a biblical woman is to affirm worthy male headship in ways appropriate to her varying relationships. And that would include, for example, to her elders or the way that it would, you could extend it out to an officer of the law, right? We don't come with a rancor and with abusive speech, we come with submissiveness and respect. And so if a young man's responsibility to be a provider leads him to pay for his date's meal or movie ticket or walk his female friend to her car after dark to ensure her safety or walk on the street side of the sidewalk, mature femininity isn't offended by those things as if they were an attack on her independence. No, it gladly, gratefully, and humbly receives those gentlemanly courtesies as appropriate expressions of masculine provision and protection. Well, in that vein, then number six, let's consider the practical outworking of submission. What does submission look like? the practical outworking. Well, the term itself is used in all those passages we've quoted, Ephesians 5, also Colossians 3, 18, Titus 2, 1 Peter 3, same word in all of them, it's the Greek word hupotasso. It literally means to place oneself under another. It is the idea of putting yourself at the disposal of someone else. yielding your desires, your will, your abilities and efforts to the service and benefit of another. It's precisely what we saw it meant to be a helper, which Genesis 2.18 identifies as most fundamental to a woman's identity. And that, I should say, as an aside, is not demeaning. Plenty of places in Scripture, God is called the helper of his people. And God is supreme over all things. In a wonderful, gracious display of condescension, God can be said to put himself at the disposal of those whom he helps. But it doesn't mean that he's an inferior being or worthy of less regard. It simply means that he's helping. Well as we said before the foundation of what it means to be a woman from Genesis 2 18 is to be one who can suitably help a man to walk in obedience to the calling that God has placed on his life by placing herself at the disposal of her husband's leadership yielding her gifts and strengths unto his benefit. Submission is a biblical woman's response to the pattern of initiatives established by mature masculinity in a way that honors and affirms rather than usurps and challenges his leadership. Now in their excellent book, Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, John Piper and Wayne Grudem put it this way. They said submission refers to a wife's divine calling to honor and affirm her husband's leadership and help carry it through according to her gifts. Elsewhere, Piper explains, a mature woman is glad when a respectful, caring, upright man offers sensitive strength and provides a pattern of appropriate initiatives in their relationship. She does not want to reverse these roles. She is glad when he is not passive. She feels herself enhanced and honored and freed by his caring strength and servant leadership. And so in terms of practical outworking, a submissive wife uses all of her unique gifts and strengths to make her husband the best leader he can be. If mature masculinity takes the initiative to be the spiritual leader, mature femininity does these things. There are several of them. It actively supports their family's meaningful and punctual participation in the local church. It eagerly participates in family devotions, Bible reading and prayer together. Mature femininity responds enthusiastically to her husband's suggestions about books to read or sermons to listen to together. It engages undistractedly in spiritual conversations. It invites her husband's spiritual oversight into her life and humbly receives the correction that he might bring. Mature femininity happily encourages her husband with words of kindness when he leads, protects, and provides for her well and when he makes discernible progress in his own sanctification. Mature femininity genuinely seeks his input on how to address behavioral issues with the children and then comes alongside him in implementing God-honoring discipline. It disciplines her own heart in the midst of conflict so that if he outdoes her in showing honor and seeks forgiveness first, which he should do, her heart is eager and ready to grant it when asked. as well as to seek forgiveness for her sin if there is any. Mature femininity defers with enthusiasm to his suggestions for date nights, family vacations, or fun weekend activities. It readily offers her prayerful and thoughtful input on any decisions that he brings to her for consideration. And if after patient discussion and prayer together, which there should be a lot of, if a husband and a wife disagree over the direction to take the family, and the choice isn't between sin and righteousness, but which is the wisest way of two lawful alternatives, submission means that the wife will humbly yield to her husband's leadership and affirm his decision. knowing that God will hold him accountable for the rightness or wrongness of the decision, but will hold her accountable for submitting to the authority that he's placed over her. And just as an aside, guys, good leaders don't pull rank like that as a habit. If you're calling your wife to submit to you, even in disagreement, often, or even as a regular pattern, you're not leading well because good leadership doesn't run people over. It engages them, seeks their input, calls for their participation, reasons with them, brings them along, leads them rather than drives them. I asked Jana this morning if she could remember any time that I said, look, we've talked about this for a long while and I've considered what you've said, I've prayed, I do believe this is the right way to go, I'm gonna ask you to follow me in this. How many times has that happened? And she said, maybe once. in 15 years, and neither of us could remember what that was about. That's the goal, where it takes longer, it takes patience on the part of the leader, and it takes humility on the part of the responder, but that's the design, and when it functions accordingly, God is honored and glorified, and life is enjoyed, it's enjoyed. Now, none of all of that is to say that submission means shutting off your brain and mindlessly agreeing with everything your husband says. It can't mean that because in the same breath that Peter calls wives to submit to their husbands in 1 Peter 3, he says do it so that you might win your husbands to faith in the gospel by your chaste and respectful behavior. So a submissive wife can't mindlessly agree with her unbelieving husband in everything. So submission does not mean that a woman ceases to have her own thoughts and opinions. No, it means that she will employ those thoughts and opinions in the service of her husband's leadership. It doesn't mean that you acquiesce to every word that your husband says. That wouldn't serve him well. And you are given to him to help him. Yes, men don't help good leaders. Yes, women don't either. Iron sharpens iron, but let it be that it's done with an obvious goal for benefit rather than for rebellion. It means that you place your gifts and talents at his disposal to make him the best leader that he can be and then to follow him in the decisions he makes and the directions he takes for your family. So it doesn't mean shutting off your brain. It also doesn't mean that a wife couldn't appeal to her husband to change his mind about a decision that she's uneasy about. She can, but the way she expresses her concern ought to communicate that though she doesn't agree, she nevertheless endorses his leadership and affirms his role as her head. So for example, If a husband wants to invest a sizable portion of the family's savings in a particular venture that she doesn't feel comfortable with, she can say, she could say, nope, not going to do it. You're not doing it. We're equal partners in this marriage. That's my money too. And I'm not going to let you bankrupt this family with your foolishness or something like that. Or she could say, hey, I know that you've thought a lot about this. I'm so thankful that you're taking the initiative to plan for our future and care for us financially, and I know that we've talked a lot about this already, but I still can't shake this feeling of uneasiness, and I'd really like to talk about it again before we move forward. Could we set aside some time to do that? See how different those two are? The one belittles and demeans and usurps headship, the other encourages, edifies, and honors headship. And that leads to a seventh feature, namely, the respectful posture of submission. The respectful posture of submission. Back in Ephesians 5, at the end of that great passage on marriage, again, the most extended New Testament instruction on marriage at all, on the marriage relationship, it comes to a climax in verse 33, where Paul says, each individual among you also is to love his own wife even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband. So when Paul summarizes all that he's been teaching in this marvelous paragraph the conclusion he wants ringing in Christians ears is husbands love your wives as yourself and wives respect your husbands. Similarly, in Peter's instructions on this, in 1 Peter 3, he urges wives' submissions even to unbelieving husbands in the hopes that their gracious behavior would win their disobedient husbands to the truth. Listen to how he says it again, 1 Peter 3, 1 and 2, in the same way, you wives, be submissive to your own husbands. so that even if any of them are disobedient to the word, they may be won, W-O-N, without a word by the behavior of their wives as they observe your chaste and respectful behavior. I mean, that really is an astounding passage. Peter says a biblical wife will win over her disobedient, unbelieving husband, not by confronting him, not by arguing with him, not by nagging or badgering or needling him, but by respecting him. Even, we can assume, when he's not worthy of that respect. She can do it by being a living monument to the truth she professes to believe. by demonstrating in actions that the grace of Christ is powerful to subdue sin because it's empowered you to actually mortify that self-righteous, unmerciful, speck-picking spirit that constantly finds fault and to put on in its place a life of encouraging words that build up instead of tear down, kind service that never returns evil for evil, and an attitude and demeanor of respect. One of the greatest gifts a wife can give to her husband is the sure and certain confidence that he has her respect, to know that she trusts him and that he makes her feel safe as they lead their family, as he leads their family. You say, well, but what if he doesn't lead my family? How can I be submissive and responsive to my husband's leadership if he doesn't lead? Well, that is certainly a trial. And men, don't any of you in this room give your wife a reason to make that objection? But ladies, the way you help a man to embrace his role as leader is not to usurp his leadership by complaining and being contentious. You don't communicate that you desire to follow him by haranguing him to be a better leader. In that case, you would be leading him and doing a bad job of it at that because nagging and haranguing is not good leadership. Your pleas for godlier leadership have to sound like, I want you. Not, I can't stand you until you change. You say, honey, it is a delight for me to follow your leadership. The great longing of my heart is to follow you as you follow Christ. I really desire to place my own giftedness at your disposal in order to maximize divine blessing in our lives. And one area where I would love to see us make progress is, fill in the blank. That communicates, I want you. I want you to be all that you can be in Christ. We're on the same team. I'm in your corner. I'm ready to follow wherever it is that you lead us faithfully and biblically and honorably. Even when you disagree, even when you have to dissent, let it be an honorable dissenting rather than a demeaning one. The eighth feature of biblical submission is closely related to that. I'm gonna make this its own point in our next sermon, so here I'll only mention it. But that is number eight, the beautiful attitude of submission. The beautiful attitude of submission. And what is that? We find it in the next verses in 1 Peter 3, verses three and four. Peter says, your adornment must not be merely external, braiding the hair and wearing gold jewelry or putting on dresses, but let it be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in the sight of God. What do we learn? A submissive woman is not abrasive or loud. She is gentle and quiet. Her character, her attitude, her demeanor, her speech are marked by the inward imperishable beauty of gentleness and quietness. More to come on that next week. And finally, we'll consider ninth, the beautifying purpose of submission. The beautifying purpose of submission, and we see that in Titus chapter two and verse five, where Paul instructs the older women to teach the younger women to be subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored. You see, the word of God is so shot through with the truths of male headship and female submission. Those truths are so integral to the very design of God and his creative purposes that for a professing Christian woman, someone who claims to trust in and obey the word of God, for her not to be subject to her own husband would be to bring dishonor upon the word she professes to believe in. When any Christian proclaims at the top of her lungs that the grace of Christ is powerful to transform lives, but then doesn't herself live that transformed life, what's that give cause for the unbeliever to say? Pfft, some sanctifying word you've got there. You say the Bible is true and authoritative and lovely and powerful. Why don't you do what it says? Jesus says it. Why do you call me Lord, Lord and don't do what I say? You talk a big game, but when it comes down to it, the Bible says you're supposed to submit yourself to your husband, be chaste and respectful, be gentle and quiet, and the unbeliever looks at you and says, you run roughshod over him more than I do my own husband. See, that's a dishonor that your behavior brings upon the Word of God. But on the other hand, just a few verses later, as Paul urges Christian slaves to be subject to their masters, he appends this purpose clause to his exhortations, Titus 2 and verse 10. So that they will adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in every respect. What he expresses negatively in verse five, that the word of God not be dishonored, he expresses positively in verse 10, that the doctrine of God will be adorned. Cosmeo, from which we get the term cosmetics. It means to beautify. Paul is saying that when a woman devotes herself to cultivating a disposition of free, glad, willing submissiveness, rather than dishonoring the word of God and making it look less glorious than it actually is, she adorns the doctrine of God. She beautifies it. She makes it look as glorious as it actually is. So my sisters, which one do you want to be marked by? Isn't it glorious to think that there's something that we can do to make the precious Word of God and the doctrine it teaches look beautiful in the eyes of believer and unbeliever alike? That is glorious. And let that thought, along with all we've spoken about today, strengthen your resolve to live your life in this distinctively feminine way of cultivating the beautiful disposition of glad submissiveness. And if you lack motivation, look to your Savior, who, though being in very nature God, in unlimited, unhindered worship of the saints of angels, equality with God the Father, Unimpaired by the limitations of a human existence of tiredness or hunger or thirst. Certainly above the humiliation of being spit upon and whipped and beaten and accused of lying and being executed as if a common criminal. That one had those rights and submitted himself to the loving rule of his father for the sake of benefiting you with the salvation you enjoy. There is no one who has ever been more submissive than the Lord Jesus Christ, and that in accomplishing your salvation, your redemption, your forgiveness from sins. So if you're going to live a life worthy of the gospel, if you're going to walk worthy of the God who calls you into his kingdom and glory, surely you can bend the grace that you've received vertically from him, from your submissive Lord. and you can bend that grace out horizontally to submit to those authorities that God has given you to submit to, especially, ladies, especially to the husband that he has given you, in which relationship you as the church and him as the picture of Christ displaying the glory of the gospel to the church and to the world. That is amazing. You know, when I pray, I'm gonna finish, but when I pray and prepare these messages, I'm longing in my prayers that Grace Church would be conformed to the image of Christ. I look behind me and I see decades of faithfulness, half a century plus of faithfulness, not just from Pastor John but from the congregation who followed the word that they heard and put it into practice with the kind of diligence that only the Spirit of God can lay upon a heart and work in a life. And I pray that God would be kind to do that again. That, I mean, I want John on the Moses plan. I hope he's here till 120. But if he's not, I want us to be taking seriously right now these fundamental truths that have made Grace Church what it was. This church will never be stronger than its marriages. that this church will never be stronger than godly leaders, men who are godly leaders, loving, sacrificial, wives who are chaste and respectful, quiet and gentle, happily submissive, so that there's harmony and not contention. What do you think? Do you want to be this next generation of faithfulness or do you want to look upon past faithfulness as in a museum and let God judge this land? I, as long as I'm here, want to be the former. And so follow us into the word with submissive hearts and pray that God would be gracious as he was in the past for the future. Let's pray. Father, would you hear our cries and do in our lives what we cannot do for ourselves. We hear this standard and hear the impossibility. We hear when we see how short we fall, both men as leaders and women as followers and nurturers of that leadership, and we pray that you would grant us eyes to see our sin in the light of the standard of your word, and that you would grant us eyes to see Christ in the beauty of his glory, that you would grant us repentance where necessary, and that we would put on a life of submission, a life of obedience, a life of headship where appropriate, a life of loving sacrifice so that we would indeed carry the standard flag of Christ and his lordship in this place for as long as you see fit to leave us here. We want to stake out a claim for the honor of King Jesus and we want that to be reflected in our lives, but how poor our lives are. And yet that drives us back to the cross, which saves us, frees us from our guilt, and sanctifies us so that we might walk worthy in the power of Almighty God, the Holy Spirit of God who works in us both to do and to will for your good pleasure. Be jealous for your own glory in the midst of the cesspool of this world. Make us shine bright in the darkness. Make us be seasoned, the seasoning of salt amidst the decay. And may it be that you use that example to adorn your doctrine, to make beautiful the word of Christ in this land, so that you might bring further more of the sheep of your son into the fold, because he has died for them, shed his precious blood for them, and deserves to have them. Would you grant, Father, the work of the spirit in regeneration, so that Christ would receive the reward of his sufferings, and may we be faithful to see that he gets it. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. For more information about the ministry of the Grace Life Pulpit, visit at www.thegracelifepulpit.com. Copyright by The Grace Life Pulpit. All rights reserved.