In Ephesians 5:22-33, the message centers on marriage, sacrificial love, and honor. Explore Ephesians 5:22–33 and discover Paul’s vision for marriage, sacrificial love, honor, and the relationship between Christ and the church. Rather than treating the passage as abstract theology, the sermon traces what these truths reveal about God, the gospel, and the way followers of Jesus are called to live.
The sermon applies the text to relationships and Christian community, showing that spiritual maturity becomes visible in the way we love, honor, serve, forgive, and take responsibility for one another. Biblical conviction is connected to everyday choices rather than left at the level of ideas. The result is a call to build relationships that reflect the character of Christ and strengthen the people God has placed around us.
Along the way, the message engages themes including Ephesians 5:22-33, marriage, sacrificial love, and honor. These ideas help place the primary passage within the larger story of Scripture and show how its theology speaks to real spiritual formation. At its heart, the sermon helps answer questions such as: What does Ephesians 5:22-33 teach about marriage, sacrificial love, and honor? It also considers how should marriage, sacrificial love, and honor shape the way Christians live?
For someone studying this passage, exploring the Christian faith, or looking for practical biblical teaching, this sermon offers a clear path from the text to everyday discipleship. The invitation is to hear what Scripture says, receive it with humility, and take the next faithful step in following Jesus.
What does Ephesians 5:22-33 teach about marriage, sacrificial love, and honor? | How should marriage, sacrificial love, and honor shape the way Christians live? | How can believers apply Ephesians 5:22-33 in everyday life?
Ephesians 5:22-33, marriage, sacrificial love, and honor, ephesians 5, 2233 vision marriage, sacrificial love, relationship between christ church
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I kind of want to recap a little bit from last week and it's going to really introduce what we're about to get into. And uh it's really funny like I I feel like there's a a struggle sometimes with a lot of my pastor friends. We were talking this past week where it's like how can I be relevant uh to to culture and to where people are at but then also present the truth. And I'm like well Paul is a great example of this because check out this verse. We we read it last week but I'm going to read it again. It's in Ephesians 5:18 says, "And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery." But be filled with the spirit. It's kind of funny. He's making a comparison between a drunk and being spiritfilled. And and the reason that he does this is that Paul knew the people that he was talking to in that context. They all in in Ephesus, they all worshiped this god Artemis. And and whenever they had these festivals and these moments of worshiping this god, they were getting wasted. I mean, they were they were drinking. They were partying. There was all these things happening. And so, when he's talking about, you know, hey, don't don't drink and and fall into debauchery, but be filled with the spirit. And he's this comparison is is interesting because that word when it says be filled, it actually means continuously be filled. Everyone say continuously. >> It's not just a one-time filling. It's again and again and again. So Paul is saying like, hey, if you want to stay drunk, what do you do? You keep drinking. Right? Again, it it's a very crass way, but Paul said it, not me. Okay? Paul's making the the comparison. If you want to stay drunk, you keep drinking. If you want to stay filled with the spirit, keep being filled. >> It's not just when we come and gather here in this place that we're filled, but it should be every single day. It should be that we're constantly going to him and saying,"Lord, fill my life with your presence. That I can be spiritfilled in everything that I do." Right? And it talks about singing songs of praise among all the peoples that I'm around, you know, sharing psalms and scripture verses and living in a a life of thanksgiving. And again, it's it's hard to live out a spiritfilled life when we're not filled with the spirit. So again, Paul is very relevant today. I didn't say it. Paul said it. Keeping filled with the spirit. Having a spiritfilled family, having a spiritfilled life, that we would fill our homes with worship, that we would pray as a family. One of the things that that has really shifted my household recently is pretty much every morning my kids and I will sit and say the Lord's Prayer together. And it's like it it's one of those things now where it's kind of silly because they they know the words, but Levi doesn't know the words. Levi's the youngest one. So, I have to say it and then they repeat it. And it's just this whole funny thing, but the kids all know the words. And there was a moment recently where we were we were praying and we just were praying, you know, God forgive us our sins as we forgive those that have sinned against us. And Ally began to tear up because the words meant more to her in that moment. It wasn't just a prayer that she was praying. The spirit of God was there in that moment. And it and it may seem like this religious practice, but there's power in it when we pray that prayer together. We need to be spiritfilled so we can guard our homes, guard our hearts, and grow as a family and grow as followers of Jesus. So that's my intro to set up our shift. Today we are going into probably the most uh contested and argued section of Ephesians. Y'all ready? Husbands and wives. Oh, nudge your nudge your nudge your spouse next to you. Hey, they're talking about you today. Um, we're talking about husbands and wives. But here's what I need to say. I'm I'm I'm not just going to talk about about marriage today. I I need everyone in the room to be hearing this. Um, the goal of a Christian isn't to get married. >> Okay? Like like the goal is to become like Christ. >> And I I I think that sometimes in the church we have idolized marriage and we're like, "Okay, singles, you just go over there." You know, it's just like there there's this disdain that that sometimes we carry for single people like something is wrong with them and that marriage is the goal. But the goal is to become like Christ. And and let me just say this, marriage is hard. All my married people say, "Amen." >> But guess what? Being single is hard. All my single people say, "Amen." >> Come on. >> It's just a different kind of hard. And to say that one is harder than the other, I think is really wrong. It's all everything is hard. If we're going to grow to become like Jesus, it's going to be hard. It's just a different hard. Somebody say different hard. So, I just need to say this. I apologize as your pastor if I've ever made you feel as being single like you're not at some standard or at some level. I apologize. That's not the heart of this church. My goal is not to get you married. My goal is to get you looking like Jesus. >> Okay? God's desire is for you to grow. And let me just say, single people, if you want to get married, start growing. Don't think that marriage is going to like catalyze your growth. Like start becoming the man or woman of God you need to be right now. Amen. >> Let's go. So here we go. Ephesians 5:21. This is the last verse that we read um last week. It says, "Submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ." That's a fun word. Everybody says submitting. >> Sorry, I'm I'm doing a lot of repeats today. I'm going to try not to do that anymore. All right. But that word submitting, it it it's kind of a bad word to a lot of people, right? Like, but this is a part of the the Christian life. And and we read at the end of this chapter, verse 33, it says, "However, let each of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband." And so, we look at submission and then we look at respect, and we look at these things that the wife is supposed to do in the relationship. Right? But then we don't like that word submit because we think it means, you know, subjugated or inferior or whatever. And we're in America and we're all equal, right, in America. >> No. No. Okay. I got a couple amens. Here we go. But biblically, equality looks a lot different than it does in America. >> And and and when we look at scripture, it it defines it so well for us. I'm going to read this. Ephesians 5:22. says, "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. And 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 in the word. So good. Here's the thing. Like we talked about being spiritfilled and we we read this verse. We can't say and compartmentalize, I'm spiritfilled, but I hate my spouse. or I hate my brother and sister. And and and so often too when we look at submitting, we look at submission, there's lots of interpretations for that word. And a lot of people, a lot of denominations like to interpret this passage in different ways. Why? Because we don't like it. We don't like that word. Because again, the world has taken it and changed the definition of it and twisted it to fit different narratives. And but then we look at also we we we can jump back up to Ephesians 21. It says submitting to one another, right? Submitting to one another as a out of reverence for Christ. It says we're submit to each other one another the church. So husbands should submit to wives too. Make sure he's okay. So when we read this, should husbands submit to their wives? If it says we're all supposed to submit to each other, it says no. That's not what this passage is saying. And Paul makes this distinction. In the church, we submit and respect one another. But marriage looks entirely different. There's a huge reason for this. We submit to Christ as the church submits to Christ. But notice Jesus doesn't submit to the church. Let me say that again. Jesus does not submit to the church. And so we look at this relationship and again there's a huge reason. There's a huge purpose to all of this. We submit to one another and come under his word. It's not mutual. And I want to just get into this before we kind of talk more about marriage. When we read the word of God, not everything has to be interpreted. >> Like sometimes we read scripture and we go, what's the deeper meaning here? What it said is what it is. And I think so many times we've taken scriptures like this because we don't like it. we don't like how it makes us feel or we don't like these words because it's a trigger warning or whatever and we try to interpret it. And I want to look at kind of three different areas that we tend to misinterpret scripture before we really dive into this. We have to be careful when we're reading the Bible. Whether you're single or married, we need to check how we see it. So there's three areas. There's desire, there's logic, and then there's our experience. First is desire. Instead of reading through the power of the Holy Spirit, we often bring our desires or our opinions into the interpretation of what we're reading. Okay? It's hard to hear God's voice when we've already decided what he's going to say, >> right? There's this uh fun story. Um, in high school, my junior year, I was in this writing class and they gave us this project where we went through all these different worldviews and we had to take a story and rewrite it from the perspective of that worldview. So, the story that I remember, this actually happened in my in my junior year. It was a story about a man finding an old carrot in a box. That was the story. and and we had to write it from all these different viewpoints. And so the feminist described the man as disgusting, like the old carrot in the box. The Marxist described him as poor but deserved more than an old carrot in the box. The romanticist described him as ruggedly handsome and he cherished that old carrot in the box. The pessimists described him as harsh, hating the carrot because it was old in a box. And then the atheists described the man's death in darkness like the carrot inside of the box. High school was awesome. That was great. And so I I I brought some stuff with me. I think sometimes we um when we go to scripture sometimes we like to put on different glasses and different filters. I like these ones a lot. These are blue tinted. How we doing? Handsome. Thank you. Hallelujah. Everything is looking very blue today as I look through these glasses. Right. I think sometimes we we can wear different filters in our lives and we can read scripture and start to take on a different viewpoint than what it was meant to be. Right? Like again, everything when you're wearing rosecolored glasses is red. Everything when we look at it and already decide these are awesome. These are my feminist glasses right here. We start to read things and we start to look at the word of God and we and we pull out meanings and interpretations from it that aren't actually there. It's our own opinion or maybe it's even the opinions of others. I wanted to wear these ones. These are my favorite. I like to wear these on overcast days because it makes everything feel much warmer and more inviting and just softens everything in scripture as well. Just makes everything happy. Everything's good. Nothing bad happens in scripture, right? We can ask God, this is so important for us to to look at. Are we reading with our politics? Are we reading scripture based on what we heard on social media? Is it our preference? Are we going with what's popular opinion today? All these things. What do we want this to say versus what does it say? And it's so important that before we even engage with the word of God that we say, "Lord, purify me. Purify my heart, God. That that when I read this, help me not to read into something that isn't meant to be there. Am I using biblical definitions for love, for respect, for submission? What does the word of God say? Not not the Webster's dictionary, but what does God define these things as? We need to check ourselves for that. So, we have a desire, then we have logic. God wouldn't say that, right? Or the constitution says we're equal. Or God is love. God is or love is good. God is good. Hell is bad. God isn't bad. That means there's no hell. And we can logic our way to a truth that isn't actually true. And again, we can't logic our way out of the truth of God's word. Isaiah 55:8 says, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord." And we can say, "I saw this clip online or this podcast said this or I heard this and it sounds logical, right? Or this doesn't make any sense to me." And I just have to ask like since when has God always made sense, right? like so much of his word and so many of the things that he asks people in the Bible to do is illogical to our ways of thinking. But it's truth that we find in here that's wildly lifechanging if we would just step out and trust him. We can't rationalize everything. Thirdly, experiences. This kind of goes into desires. They they kind of intermingle here, but I wanted to to highlight this separately because many times we can read scripture through through the glasses, through the viewpoint of trauma or we can read through the viewpoint of of our past experiences and what whatever it might be. And and two of these things and I and I've heard this from many friends of mine. Maybe you grew up in a home where your father justified hurting your mom because of this scripture. Woman, you better submit to me. I'm the man of this home. And then this shifts into abuse. And it filled your home with abuse, insecurity, and it changes how we even see God. God's not a loving father because look what my father did. >> Right? Or maybe your mom took this passage. I didn't I'm not leaving you out, ladies. Come on. Maybe your mom took this passage and misinterpreted it to justify not submitting to your father because he isn't doing what God told him to do. So therefore, I don't have to submit. Right? >> And then you live in this home where your mother is constantly undermining and verbally manipulating your father. And we go, "Is this what biblical submission is supposed to be?" I know. I know this is heavy, but it but it's real. So many times we're we're dealing with a broken viewpoint, broken glasses, reading the word of God. And I'm here to tell you today, he wants to heal you. He wants to take the glasses off of you. That you would see scripture for what it really is. That the word of God would come alive to you today. And that you could heal from those places of trauma and begin to understand the real truth of his word. It's hard. And I'm sorry if if there are experiences in your life that have shaped the way that you see God, but there is healing today. >> Come on, somebody say, "Amen." >> Submission doesn't mean subjugation. It's a willingness to support and honor. And let me just say this, too. I think sometimes we fight about submission. Submission or submitting to husbands, but we don't always hear a lot of fighting about loving our wives. Love your wife like Christ loved the church. That's so easy, right? Just be like Jesus. Husbands, all you got to do is be like Jesus. >> So easy, right? So just imagine be like Jesus. Jesus on the cross, he was spit on by people, ridiculed, beat bloody and maliciously entrapped. And he then became a sacrifice so that we can be free, that we can have an amazing life, >> right? So Paul is saying, "Love your wife like that. >> Lay your life down for your wife. Lay your life down for her so that she can have an amazing life." >> Right? >> Because again, it's it's not in men's nature to love like that. Just like it's not in women's nature to submit and even live in that place of respect, respecting men. Again, biblical love, it involves sacrifice, unconditional love, Christ's love to the church. It's selfless and steadfast. It's it's creating a safe and fulfilling environment for your wife. And it's not contingent upon her actions. It's the husband's obedience to God. Now, I understand this is sticky. And maybe you still have the glasses on, and that's okay. Maybe you're in a place where you say, "I married a man that's not leading like I need him to lead, and so I can't submit to him." Or maybe men in the room, I married a woman who's not submitting, and so I can't lead. And this is where we get into a lot of trouble. And so today, I need some help. And I want to invite to the platform my beautiful wife, Britney Surman. Can we give her a hand? >> We're going to tag team this a little bit. >> Do you want to wear these? Okay, got it. Just >> There you go. >> Without the filter. Okay. Um, yeah. So I'm more speaking on the females side of this and perspective of this. And the entire goal of this is to present a united front and to present the um the the united purpose in this scripture. And it's not just one person's side and opinions and glasses and filters sharing their thoughts, desires or needs. This truly has been something that the Lord has worked on us with. And this whole series with Ephesians has been all about unity in the body of Christ and positioning our hearts before the Lord. And this passage is no different. And so as I dig into the ladies portion of it, I hope that ladies, you will go there with me and make this all about positioning our hearts before the Lord so that we can present a united front in our homes and in this body of Christ. So, I mean, I will admit I have struggled with this particular chapter, this verse, these words of submit and respect. Um, it's been a sore spot before. It's been uh, you know, a source of struggle and confusion before. What does this mean? What am I supposed to do? And in no way do I have this scripture perfect? In no way have we figured this out completely yet. But I will say something that God has been doing has been working on both of our hearts. has been working on what this means and has been really showing us what this is like. So although we may not execute it perfectly every single time, I can genuinely say that the heart shift has happened and we really are united in opinion and in goal with this >> and it has changed everything. So when we look at this scripture, Nick talked about the lenses and it's good to kind of understand that men and women women speak differently, right? We we view these passages differently. Um, and we communicate differently. We speak different languages. And I'm not talking like men are from men are from Mars and women are from Jupiter kind of stuff. I'm talking about the language of love and respect. And while we both need love and respect, men more deeply need respect and women more deeply need love. And that's how we communicate as well. And so when whether you're married, whether you're single, whether you're a child still living under your parents' roof, understanding that this is how each other perceives and communicates as well can help us when we get to realizing and and trying to understand where wires get crossed on this. Um, but men more deeply need that respect, women more deeply need that love, and each party uses that method to communicate as well. And we usually fall into one of two cycles. There's the crazy cycle and there's the energizing cycle. The crazy cycle is more when love and respect are not being communicated. This is when the wife feels unloved, uncharished, and so her reactions and her actions turn out to be more um whether perceived or actually disrespectful. And when he feels disrespected, then he withdraws a little bit and he's communicating with less love and less affection towards her. And in turn then she feels even more unloved and then she acts more disrespectful and and it just keeps going in this ugly cycle. And the opposite the other cycle is the energizing cycle. This is when love and respect are being communicated well. And this is when he she respects him and he feels respected. So he pours out love more genuinely and more affectionately. This is when she feels more loved and cherished and she's acting and reacting more respectfully. And that cycle continues. But in order to get from the crazy cycle to the energizing cycle, someone has to break the cycle. Someone has to choose to speak the language of the other person first. And I don't care who that is, but I'm speaking from the women's perspective inside. So don't just let it be, oh, when he decides to start being more loving, I'll start being more respectful. Been there. I've I've I've been in that place. Why do I have to start? Right? But it's important that if we want to get to that energizing cycle where both are benefiting and we're all in unity that someone starts to speak the other language. All right. So now let's look at the scripture in regards to the biblical form of submission. Um in the context of the biblical submission, it's wildly misinterpreted and misunderstood a lot of the time. As Nick mentioned, submission doesn't mean inferiority. It's not this hierarchy and talking about one being a lesser value than the other. Um it's it's really um rather the wife's willingness to support and honor the husband's leadership role in the marriage. Um ladies, the world has told us completely wrong. Completely wrong. This word submission comes to us and it ruffles our feathers. It tries to bring out that feminine that feminists kind of side of us and makes us want to put up a fight naturally. Um, but I used to think even that full submission meant I wasn't allowed to have a voice, wasn't allowed to have an opinion, and that I just had to be the silent puppy dog that just followed around. And I was not about that. I was not about that at all. But that's the wrong picture. That's the wrong perception, the wrong filter and glasses to have. That's what the world tries to tell us is that you have to fight. you have to try and be equal and that you can't fully submit or you're going to be giving up something that you you're not supposed to give up. Um, but the heart is in the wrong place when we view from this. The glasses are smudged when we look at it this way. Submission is actually a powerful choice, not a forced action. It's about recognizing the husband's role as the leader and supporting him in a loving and respectful way. after um when you read the scripture as is, if we're reading it without interpretations and all of that, it says, "Wives submit to your husbands in everything." That's a really hard word because that's not conditional. >> It's not conditional at all. It doesn't mean that I submit when I agree with him. It doesn't It doesn't mean that I submit only when I think he's doing a good job of leading or loving me. It doesn't mean that I only submit when things are are working out fine and that I understand the choices that he's make. If we're reading the same Bible, then it means no matter what, and I'm preaching to the choir here. I mean, I have to learn this as well. It's actually trusting God to be the one to hold him accountable and trusting God to be the one to help you submit. We are all, we were created to be under the umbrella of our husband's covering as the head of the home, which is actually a really beautiful picture of protection and covering that we get to live under. And I'm so grateful that we actually have that to live under. And it's it's not an umbrella that we live under only when we think that he's living up to that. whether we think he's living up to it or not, we are called to be under his umbrella and his covering. And more often than not, when a men is when when men are not living up to their leadership role, which remember God gave them and God put in them, it is in them. They have the ability to lead. And when they are not living up to that, more often than not, it's because a woman has come along and said at some point, "Lead me." and then criticized him, ridiculed him, publicly humiliated him, punished him for doing just that. This is one that I've been guilty of. I know I'm I'm I'm speaking to the choir. I'm not, you know, trying to preach down or say that I've got all this right. But as I mentioned before, that heart shift and the way that we perceive this scripture, the way that we look to the Lord and to our husbands is important. This heart shift helps to reshape our understanding of this. The husband's role according to the Bible is to love sacrificially the way that Christ loved as he mentioned. That comes with weight. That comes with an insane amount of responsibility and a very high standard to live up to. And when I'm looking at that, when I look at it from the way of Christ loving the church and he's trying to live up to being that kind of sacrificial loving over the house and over our home, it is much easier for me to step back and go, "Wow, he's carrying a lot. He has a weight on his shoulders. He is carrying a responsibility that I don't want to carry and that I was never meant to carry." But suddenly my perception shifts a little bit more understanding that because now I want with everything in me to help him and to be with him and support him and I'm I'm so grateful that it's him and I want to encourage him and help him do the work that the Lord has called him to do. It has drastically changed my heart and my desire to want to submit and respect from looking at it from this perspective. The second piece of that scripture is that respect piece. And that respect piece builds off of the submission. And respect is um for for a husband is giving him the freedom to lead in a loving manner. So, it's not blindly just agreeing with everything he says and having no opinion, but it's showing honor and and admiration and support in his role as the leader of the home and with the task that the Lord has given him. Biblical respect is about valuing his position as a leader of the home and trusting his leadership even when you disagree while also giving him the freedom to make mistakes and to learn in that leadership role. We all want grace. We all want freedom and he's not going to get it perfect 100% but the difference is how we react and how we we choose to come under him and follow that. I understand that in with respect it's an understanding that my words have the most power over his life more than anyone else in his life. My power my words have power more so than his mom will more so than his children will more so than his best friend his boss. I have the power to speak life or death over him because of my position being with him. And I can choose not to destroy him. >> I can choose not to chastise him for his mistakes. I can choose even though I can I I can go and I can express my concerns, my initial concerns and my my doubt or my actual opinions about things respectfully behind the scenes at home and and I can I can express that. but then choose to stand by him no matter what. Even if he sometimes, which he will sometimes choose things that are not my opinion, I can express that opinion, but if he doesn't choose to make the decision based off my opinion because he knows something different or the Lord has called him or whatever it may be, I get to stand by him no matter what and choose to be there, however the chips may fall. And if you want more of a a really good depiction of this, like real life situations and stories and and more in depth on this, I suggest ladies that you go read the wise wife blueprint. It's a book that is amazing and it completely shattered all of my thinking on all of this. So if you want more on that, I really suggest that book. But a wife's respect more than anything else, her love, her her respect and her submission should come from a grounded commitment to the Lord. That's our focus. It's about us committing to the Lord, us being in one with him. And it's not about and it's not dependent upon her husband's performance or perfection. It's it's like he said, it's not a if you're doing a good job, I'm gonna reward you with my respect. It's not if you're if I think that you're doing great in this, it is regardless because my commitment to the Lord is to follow and to follow his word and what it says, then I'm going to give that love and give that respect regardless of his performance or perfection. This respect is not earned, but it is a choice that she makes to honor God's design for marriage. That's what it's about. It's about honoring God's design for marriage. Um, but by women communicating biblical submission and respect, we're communicating love to our spouse in their language. Part of that cycle. Um, all of this is possible only through the Holy Spirit's empowerment. We are not perfect. It is not in our nature just to just love and submit and respect and and all the things, but it is only through the Holy Spirit's empowerment. And neither person in the marriage can love well or sacrificially like we are called to. Um, this is a sacrificial counterculture kind of love and agreement and we can't do it without the Holy Spirit. So ladies, I pray that today as you walk away that instead of focusing on, oh well, you're not loving like Christ is loving and and his part to play that we would walk away and genuinely pray that we would be doing our part and that we would be the ones speaking in their language and breaking their cycle. So >> give her a hand. Your check is in the mail. Thank Thank you for saying all those nice things about me. Love it. I love what she said. Our spouse was not meant to be our source. >> If if your if your only method of receiving love is from your spouse like you are going to fail quickly. Our source needs to be the Holy Spirit. our source need Jesus needs to be at the center of our lives if we're single and our marriage if we're married today and for us to to think that oh I'm even thinking about singles in the room like if if you're only receiving love from your friends and not from God you're destined for failure and so he has to become the source it's the Holy Spirit that that empowers us as husbands to love and it empowers women and wives lives in this room to respect because again it's not in our nature. So we need the Holy Spirit to do it. And here's and and I love my wife said this already but we have to take responsibility for ourselves. >> And I I I heard I heard this and and I love this like marriage is not 50/50. >> It's 100 and 100. like I'm going all in and and doing the very best that I can do whether or not I feel like she's doing the best she can do. We give it our all because every time that we refuse to act Christlike towards someone else until they apologize, we're only becoming more bitter and more separated from God. That goes for everyone. We need to be urgently seeking unity within our church body, within our our our friendships, our relationships, and within our marriages. I love this. In 1 Peter 3:7, it says, "Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the, wait for it, trigger, weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you." Hey, we're heirs. Let's go. with you of the grace of life so that your prayers may not be hindered. I don't know if you if you caught that last part. Like if you want unhindered prayers, husbands, honor your wife. Create space for forgiveness. Matthew 6:14-15. If you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your father forgive your trespasses. >> Come on. If you want your spouse to forgive you, forgive them. Do they deserve it? No. Do you deserve it? No. We all deserve death. Jesus gave his life for us. Do we deserve that? No. So men, women, how are you using the role that God has given you in your home? Ephesians 5:26. Jonathan, I'm wrapping up here, man. Says that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the words, 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. Jesus sanctifies us. Amen. And so for
