God's Messy Plan, Part 3: An Intro to Ephesians 5:21-6:9 | Listen to Sermon Audio
An Intro to Ephesians 5:21-6:9 - SERMON NOTES
Below are Pastor Ben's sermon notes from this past Sunday, in case they may be helpful for further study. To listen to the sermon, click the link above.
Intro: (1) overview of past two sermon series (2) themes around spiritual birth in ch.1-3 (3) themes around spiritual growth in ch.4:1-5:21 (4) the third big section (5:21-6:9) applies these truths to real world relational contexts (5) big three of marriage, parenting, work — define/frame each of these (6) address who are not married, don’t have kids, and/or don’t “work”
Embracing Reality (5:15): (1) each of these areas come under the heading “look carefully then how you walk” followed by reference to wisdom (cf. Proverbs) (2) wisdom also connected to being “filled with the Spirit” (cf. 1:17) — what does wisdom (i.e. being filled with the Spirit) look like in marriage, parenting, and work? (3) Proverbs verses — 5:18, 21:9, 22:6, 29:15, 14:4, 14:35 (4) v.17 wisdom is understanding “what the will of the Lord is” — applying this to marriage, parenting, and work
Embracing Humility (5:21a): (1) “submitting” connected to “be filled” — a general sense of living humbly toward one another (2) “to be arranged under” (cf. military, sports team) — not a “value” word or connected to oppression (3) app to marriage, parenting, work (cf. church, government) (4) “reverence for Christ” — other NT usages point to day of judgment (5) danger of rejecting authority — traffic laws (6) rejecting the world’s dismissal of authority, accepting God’s authority and earthly manifestations of it
Embracing Messy (5:16): (1) these three categories ground us in the reality of normal everyday life (2) importance of embracing place — Ezekiel 1-2, Jonah, John 1:14 (3) temptation to sensationalize Christianity — camps/conferences, Eph. 1:1-4 vs. Eph. 5:21-6:9 (cf. Mrs. Jellyby) (4) premarital counseling categories —lifestyle expectations, friends/hobbies, personality, personal struggles, communication, decision-making, spiritual practices, extended family, sex, money (5) is in these that m/p/w gets messy
Embracing Mutuality (5:21b): (1) spiritual growth can’t happen in isolation (cf. “one another’s”) —group projects in school (2) what prevents us from reducing others is “reverence for Christ” (cf. Genesis 1:27) — otherwise we reduce others (4) old man, nagging wife, ankle-biter, boss — words without intimacy (cf. relationship of body parts in 4:15-16) (5) “I-It” (objectifying — technology) vs. “Us vs. Them” (competition —politics) vs. “I-You” (relationship — m/p/w) (6) church teaches us how to redeem relationships
Conclusion: prayer exercise