We all could use some encouragement, and we'll find it together today in the Bible-based preaching of Dr. Don Wilton with a message about living well with each other. That's right, living well with one another is our topic today on The Encouraging Word with Dr. Don Wilton, well-known author, evangelist, seminary professor, and pastor. And today, as he opens God's Word, we gain insight on the relationships that are the most important to us, the ones that are nearby.
As we study the Word, know that we'd be able to pray with you about your relationships. At this phone number, jot it down, store it in your cell, 866-899-WORD. That's 866-899-9673. That'll connect with one of us 24 hours a day. Also online at www.tewonline.org.
That's www.tewonline.org. And now today's message with Dr. Don Wilton. Please take a copy of God's Word this morning and turn with me to Paul's letter to the Ephesians chapter 5. Here it is, living well with one another. It's hard to avoid people, isn't it?
People are everywhere. In fact, I don't know that we would want to avoid one another. Some people have tried jolly hard to miss one another.
You get all kinds of hermits and people who withdraw from society and become recluses, but it's hard to avoid one another. Where would we be without one another? Our family and our friends and loved ones, what a joy to be together. God's family here at First Baptist Church. God tells us how to get along with one another. The Bible outlines very clearly and most distinctively God's divine order. And perhaps the root of many of the problems that we experience today, whether in our marriages or at the workplace or in our nation, is because we don't understand or we neglect to follow God's divine order. And verse 21 is the pivotal verse.
Submit to one another out of reverence for the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, it goes without saying that if you don't know the Lord Jesus Christ, that's going to have no meaning or significance for you whatsoever. Paul is talking to those who have trusted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. And I've got some wonderful news for you this morning. You can give your heart and life to Jesus Christ right now. You don't have to wait for the end of the service. You don't have to wait to speak to your pastor or your minister. You can open your heart to Jesus right now.
The Bible puts it like this. They that call upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ shall be saved. You can just in your heart right now say, Lord Jesus, I want to receive you as my Lord and Savior.
I'm sorry for all of my sin and by faith I trust in you. Paul here in verse 21, having spoken about the fact in the verses preceding that, that we need to be filled with the Spirit of God. Now, how can you be filled with the Spirit of God in verse 18 of chapter 5 if you don't know Jesus Christ?
Bible says God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are three in one. When you receive Jesus Christ, you receive God the Father, you receive God the Son, and you receive God the Spirit. You become filled with the Spirit of God. God's Spirit indwells you and on a day by day basis because of your relationship with God, you are being continually filled with the Spirit of God. Now, it is possible to be a born again believer and be indwelt by the Spirit of God and yet not to be living in the fullness of the Spirit of God. There's a difference between being indwelt and being filled by the Spirit. To be filled by the Spirit means that you are living a life which is pleasing to God, that you are on a daily basis confessing your sin. Bible says if we confess our sin, Jesus Christ is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And when God's Word begins to talk about relationships, the fundamental basis of all of our relationships rests its case entirely and completely on the fact that we are filled with God's Spirit.
God's Spirit is the one who controls us and who gives us the wherewithal and the means to be able to interact and to love one another according to the way in which God sets for us. So let me read this passage for you and we're going to go right through chapter 6 and verse 9. Verse 21, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord Jesus, for the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the church, his body of which he is the Savior. Now, as Christ, as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word and to present her to himself as a radiant church without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church, for we are members of his body. Now, for this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and the two will become one flesh.
This is a profound mystery, but I'm talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself and the wife must respect her husband. Now, children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with a promise that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.
Fathers, mothers, do not exasperate your children. Instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord, slaves. Obey your earthly masters with respect and fear and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but like slaves of Christ doing the will of God from your heart, serve wholeheartedly as if you were serving the Lord, not men, because you know that the Lord will reward everyone for whatever he does, whether he is a slave or whether he is free, whether he is an employer or an employee. Masters, treat your slaves in the same way.
Boss, CEO, owner of the company, treat those who work for you in the same way. Do not threaten them, since you know that he who is both their master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him. May the Lord write his word upon our hearts this morning. It seems to me that Paul is spending a great deal of time talking first of all about our relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. And then Paul says that based upon our relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, our relationships with one another are going to fall in line with God's divine order, that God's divine order is contingent upon God's scheme of things, God's way of doing things. And what Paul here is magnifying in the fifth chapter and the beginning of the sixth chapter of his letter to the church at Ephesus is that there is a proverbial battle that goes on between the self and the Spirit of God. Now friends, before Jesus Christ came into my heart, the three most important people in my life were I, me and myself.
When Jesus came into my heart, I abdicated the throne of my life and I invited Jesus to be Lord of my life. But I have one struggle. I, me and myself constantly want to dethrone God.
I, me and myself constantly want to take charge. And in fact, if you and I were to go back and we were to graph our life's progress and the journey that we are moving through in this life, I believe that we would discover that perhaps some of the greatest struggles that we encounter in our marriages and homes and workplaces because I, me and myself has got in the way of who God is. We've tried to replace the will of God with the will of man. Now there are three results of a Spirit-filled life according to God's Word. The first is lowliness. Jesus spoke about this. And Jesus demonstrated this to us repeatedly throughout Scripture and right throughout his earthly ministry. Lowliness.
What God's Word was teaching here was that a byproduct of being filled with the Spirit of God is a Spirit-filled humility that men and women and boys and girls have in their hearts and lives because of the Lord Jesus. Number two, subservience. Now the word subservience is interesting. Paul speaks about it repeatedly right throughout the Pastoral Epistles when he said, I am a servant of all servants.
I am a doulos. I am a bond slave. I am the servant of the servant.
That's getting pretty down to grassroots level, isn't it? And what the Apostle Paul was saying is just simply this, that if we are going to be led and guided by the Spirit of God, we're not only going to be given to lowliness, and that is a God-given humility, but we're going to be given to subservience. In other words, that is going to lead to the third dynamic of a Spirit-filled life, that whatever we do is going to want to lift and elevate someone else rather than ourselves. This is God's order. Now folks, if we are going to try and understand this, we need to understand some basic fundamentals that Paul teaches us here. In verse 22, there is a word there that causes the jitterbugs all over America today. Wives submit horror upon horrors. What about the Constitution of the United States of America?
There is no way that I'm going to submit. He's saying, yes, everybody is equal. You see, friends, the word submit there, or better translated to be subject, the word actually submit is a derivative here of the word hupitasso in the Greek New Testament, which means to be subject to. And when you are subject to, what Paul is using here is a military term whereby he is ranking in order of a certain order in order to accomplish an ultimate goal or purpose that God has set before us. We spend a great deal of time honoring our veterans, and rightly we should do so.
I love to study history and the battlefields, see how great wars were won. I'm going to say to you, my friends, that there's never been a battle that hasn't been won that was not based upon a fundamental military order. Otherwise, you'll never win the battle. You see, what Paul is saying here is that if we understand the vital essence of what it means to hupitasso, what it means to be subject to one another as unto the Lord Jesus Christ, it means, my friends, that we are never going to have absolute efficiency in our relationships, we are never going to enjoy a smooth working in our relationships, and we are never going to experience complete and ultimate victory in our relationships. What God is saying here is, listen, if you want to know how to get along with one another, you need to understand God's order. You're listening to Dr. Don Wilton, our teacher here on The Encouraging Word.
Please don't go away. He'll be back with more of today's message, Living Well with One Another, in just a moment, but he wants me to remind you that this is not just a presentation, it's a conversation, and we would love to pray with you about what God stirs in your heart as God's Word is being presented and taught, we're here 24 hours a day at 866-899-WORD, jot the number down, store it in your cell, it's 866-899-9673, and any time, day or night, we'll connect you with one of us, happy to talk or listen or pray or connect you with wonderful resources. You need to know we're here to encourage you, but many of you are asking, how can you encourage us, prayerfully and financially?
Well, it's by becoming an encourager. The month of July reminds us to be thankful for the freedoms that we enjoy as citizens of this great country. Romans 6, 18 reminds us that the death of Jesus on the cross has set us free from sin. It reads, You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness. We want everyone to be set free from the bondage of sin. We want to proclaim the good news of Christ to all who will listen.
Will you join us in proclaiming the good news that Jesus offers us freedom from our sin? We need your support. Become an encourager today.
Call us at 866-899-WORD. That's 866-899-9673 to request information on how you can help support the work of the Encouraging Word. The Encouraging Word is a viewer and listener supported ministry. Thank you for listening today. Thanks again for many of you who are already encouragers, but know that we believe God has called all of us to encourage one another.
Now back to today's great teaching with Dr. Don Wilson. Many years ago, during the Los Angeles riots, Rodney King, who was beaten up brutally by the police, went on television and he said, and we will never forget, let's just get along. Can't we just get along with one another? And the apostle Paul is saying here, listen, the reason why people don't get along is because of I, me and myself. And when you subject I, me and myself under the Lordship of Jesus Christ, and you understand the spiritual dynamic of what it means to be subject to one another out of reverence for the Lord, guess what's going to happen?
You're going to have complete victory. Most marital problems come down to this issue. Most problems in the workplace come down to this issue.
Problems at school on the faculty come down to this issue. Problems in the church can come down to this issue. Much of conflict resolution, even in the church of God, my friend, is when people begin to assume ascendancy over the Lordship and the headship of Jesus Christ. And many people in the church today say that the church is a democracy where everybody has a right. The Bible says the church is not a democracy. It's a theocracy in which Jesus Christ is the head of the church. Jesus Christ is the head of the church. What is Paul saying? He's saying here that the whole idea behind our relationships with one another must carry with it the complete relinquishing of our rights to one another. 1 Corinthians 16, 16, Paul said, Be in subjection to faithful ministers and to everyone who helps.
In 1 Peter chapter 2 verses 13 through 15, Submit ourselves for the Lord's sake, for such is the will of God. Nations who have no order result in anarchy. Folks, I've been around some of those nations.
20 years ago, I was in some of those nations. Anarchy. When order begins to break down, anarchy breaks loose.
That's when we usually have to send in the United States troops and try to arouse the United Nations from their lethargy to do something about it and all these things. Anarchy breaks loose because there's no order and God says if you want to get along with one another, follow my order of things. The writer to the Hebrews in chapter 13 and verse 17 talking about the church put it like this. He said, Obey our leaders and submit to them.
Why? Because they watch over our souls as those who will give account. And so God takes these principles and he applies them to the home.
What does he say? Husbands, love your wives. Wives, submit to your husbands. Children, obey your parents.
Employees, submit to your employers. That's what God says. And he uses as his illustration the church. Now because of political correctness and nervous tension, the question of authority has become misdirected and distorted. It's become sometimes abused and misused in the home. In other words, friends, how can anybody expect a wife who is being abused by ungodly behavior on the part of her husband to submit to him?
How can you? How can anybody, Paul says, how can anybody expect a child to obey parents when those parents are exasperating their children and are abusing them in whatever form or fashion that might take? You see, friends, not even the smallest household can function if each member demands his or her own way all the time.
It's not going to happen. And here Paul explains that the structural function of the family, like the church, requires two things, authority and submission. There you have it.
Now listen carefully. You take those two things out of your home, out of your school, out of your workplace, out of your nation, out of your state, and you've got the ground root of major problems, authority and mutual submission. Now you can work it any way you want to. You can throw the Constitution of America at it. You can conjure up the ACLU to bring about a lawsuit.
You can devise every kind of plan and strategy ever known to man. But I'm going to say to you, beloved friends, what God is saying is this. You take authority and submission out of reverence for the Lord, out of any institution, and you've got the makings for chaos.
You've got the root or the seedbed of problems down the road. There are two factors which are vital in the home and the church. Number one, it must be controlled by love. And number two, it must be modified by mutual, and I want to emphasize, by mutual submission. You know, I love being a husband today because most husbands, boy, they love to talk about verse 22, but what we husbands don't seem to understand that if we're looking at ratio and proportion, far more time is spent in the fifth chapter talking about husbands than about wives.
I think there's a reason for it. What does Paul say? Paul says that the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church. The husband must love his wife in verse 25 just as Christ loved the church. The husband must love his wife in verse 28 and 33 just as he loves his own body.
And here's the clincher. This is the one where God just kind of goes overboard. He says the husband must give himself to his wife in the same way that Jesus Christ gave himself to his bride. Now, what did Jesus Christ do for his bride? He gave his life for her.
He gave his life for his church. Husbands, today, are you willing to give your life for your wife? Are you willing to submit to that extent? How far are we willing to go in order to submit to one another? The submission that God talks about in chapter five, my friend, is not a one-way street. God is not saying that wives need to get on their knees. He's talking about co-equal status in the glorious divine balance of the makeup of the female and the male. His wives, you submit to the headship of your husband in the home because and on the basis of the absolute sacrificial giving of the husband in love to his wife in the home.
If you don't do that, how can your wife submit to you as the leader of the home? Every obedient and spiritual Christian is a submitting Christian. That's what Paul is saying.
It's not just husbands or wives. And the husband who demands submission but does not recognize his own obligation to submit to his wife distorts God's standards and cannot be a godly husband. That's what Paul is saying.
Parents who demand the obedience of their children but are not adhering to God's standards are distorting God's divine order and are guilty of upsetting the wonderful balance that God has in store for his children. Now, Paul, right through the epistles and through his letters, talks about this. For example, in 1 Corinthians 7, he talks about the physical relationship between a husband and wife. And something very interesting that Paul says, now folks, listen very carefully this morning. You can go to a therapist.
You can go to a marriage counselor. You can read every book that's ever been printed about our physical relationships together. But here's what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 7. He gives us the secret. He gives us the key according to God's divine order of mutual submission.
What does he say? He says the husband is not in charge of his own body but the wife. And the wife is not in charge of her own body but the husband. What is Paul saying?
Paul is saying that if you want the key to absolute unity in marriage, physically, emotionally, spiritually, and in every other way, and in this instance he's talking about the physical relationship between a man and a woman, he says here's the key. Selfishness has no part. If you are selfish as a man or if you are selfish as a woman, you're going to have problems in your marriage.
That's what he's saying. You have to do what? You've got to deny yourself. You've got to say what I feel and what I want is absolutely irrelevant compared to what my spouse feels and what my spouse wants. It is a total abdication of I, me, and myself.
How? Because of the Spirit of God in honor of my spouse. That's what submission is all about. A powerful message from Dr. Don Wilton today but the concept of submission to each other as spouse starts with the submission to God as our maker creator. Perhaps you've been blessed by what Dr. Don has shared as he's been preaching from God's Word today but now he steps into the studio to share his heart. Are you ready to give your heart and life to the Lord Jesus Christ? Why don't you pray this prayer with me right now? Dear God, I know that I'm a sinner and I know that Jesus died for me on the cross. Today I repent of my sin and by faith I receive you into my heart. In Jesus' name. My friend, I welcome you today into the family of God.
This is exciting news. Today some of you have made a decision that will change the rest of your life. You prayed along with Dr. Wilton moments ago to give your life to Christ or rededicate your life to Jesus and we're so excited to welcome you to the family of God, to welcome you home, and to give you some resources that will help you grow.
You will absolutely free if you'll call and let us know that you made that decision today. Call us at 866-899-WORD. Again, the number is 866-899-9673 or you can contact us on our website at www.tewonline.org.
That's www.tewonline.org. We would love to encourage you today. Until next time, join us again for Dr. Don Wilton and the Encouraging Word. The Encouraging Word
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