Does anybody need a bulletin?
Yeah, there's Gentry.
You'll get some of them this week.
Pass them out to the people who raised their hands.
Sister Sheena, Pastor Cobb, and Sister Linda.
Thank you, Gentry.
Welcome to the Spring Cranes Baptist Church.
Today is January 18th.
Sunday morning service is 10.30 a.m.
Sunday evening, 4.30 p.m.
Wednesday service is 5.30 p.m.
And then our sole wedding time is at 2.00 p.m.
And then I do have a note there but I haven't,
I don't know that I've really,
we have now like a bigger coffee pot
'cause I know everybody loves to take coffee breaks.
But you, I mean, I think you guys are all aware
we have a kitchen and stuff.
So if you're more than welcome to bring your stuff,
I just would ask you that you clean up for yourself
'cause I know a lot of you come from far away.
Some of you do do that where if you wanna bring your lunch
you don't have to buy lunch every Sunday,
which makes perfect sense.
You know, just you're more than welcoming to the facility.
The verse of the week is Philippians 1.16,
the one for each Christ of a contention,
not necessarily supposing to add afflictions to my bond.
With this, just a side reminder,
for those of you who are not aware,
we are doing the New Testament Bible Challenge in January.
So today is the 18th.
You should be meeting somewhere in the book of Romans,
Romans 8.
You're doing that.
And, you know, obviously we're going on the honor system
between you and God.
I'm not gonna question you.
If you tell me you read it,
then we'll give you a gift card.
That's the reward.
So let me know if you do that.
I know there's a couple of people doing that
and going through it.
I know for the children,
like my wife is sitting through that
and they're listening.
They get a prize too.
It's just not as good, obviously.
I'm gonna encourage listening, reading,
of course, reading through the New Testament
for Children harder.
Even sitting through it is hard,
but they can sit through it at least.
It's a challenge, but they'll do it.
Then the year-to-date souls one,
we're at four souls for the year.
We've had pretty good groups going out every Sunday.
Just on the first Sunday we went out,
we had a big group actually.
We just didn't have any in-souls.
If you wanna know where we're gonna go soul-winding look,
ask brother Matt, he's gonna give us the next.
He's the one preparing the maps
and he's been helping out with that.
And then we have the birthdays.
Hazel just had her birthday.
Is that correct, brother Kevin?
Yeah.
And then Zoe is coming up on the 23rd, correct?
Yeah.
And then upcoming activities,
church work day, Saturday, January 31st.
And then on February 7th,
we've got about 13 people signed up.
I have a feeling we're gonna get some last minute people,
but we have a group trip to NASA Space Center.
So sign up through the sign up genius.
I'll send it out again, maybe later this week.
If you don't have it, just reach out to me or the church.
And then for those of you, some of you are on it,
'cause I already had kind of transferred a group.
I know some of you are not on there.
Just let me know.
We have a WhatsApp group for the church,
and it's just to like let people know
where we're going soul-winning for soul-winning numbers
during the week and on Sunday.
If you wanna be on it, let me know.
I'm gonna set up some other admins.
We had another group that Pastor Shelley had started
when a lot of the previous members from Pure Work came over,
but he's the admin on it, and I can't get rid of Heretic.
So I have to start my own group
because I need to get rid of people that I don't want on there.
And then February 8th, we have Pastor Dylan Oz
of Anchor Baptist Church to keep both services for us.
And then in March, we have Pastor Bruce Mejia
of First Work Baptist Church preaching for us.
Pray for the expecting mothers,
Haley Mlutich, Christian Rogers.
And then I'm gonna only do it for the rest of this month.
And then after that, I won't,
hopefully won't have to address it.
But as we've been doing some,
especially you've been helping out Mr. Silvia,
we will do the cleanup.
I don't know who's doing it.
I'm not gonna point even to the general vicinity.
I really assume it's kids.
I already made that joke last week,
so I'm not gonna replay my sets
'cause then you guys won't laugh anymore.
But I know it's kids.
I found tissues in between the pew and the wall,
like stacked up.
So I don't know who's doing that.
The parents, keep an eye on your kids.
They do that.
I did find some hair.
The only thing I can assume again
is that it's children cutting other children's hair.
Found it somewhere in the pew.
So no toys, no scissors, no tissues, no snacks, period.
Nothing.
Now as an adult, I give you discretion.
Be able to hold up accountable even if you made a mess.
I'm assuming you're gonna clean up after the mess.
You didn't make it this far in life
without cleaning up after yourself, right?
And then the final reminder, donuts, drinks, snacks,
the parents give it to the children,
not the children grabbing it.
So that being said, we have some other general rules there.
And then just a quick update.
Sister Millie has been,
I've been seeing the post from her son on Facebook.
She's doing great.
I think she's ready to get out of the hospital.
You know, Sister Millie, I mean, she's just like a workhorse.
So she's probably going very crazy.
I know I would be, like when I hurt my shoulder,
like the hardest part was just like
not being able to do anything, I wanted to do stuff.
So I can only imagine, but she's doing great.
She did have a triple bypass.
It's been about a week.
Yeah, it's a week, right, tomorrow.
And I think we should be letting her out for feeding.
She's walked in, all that good stuff.
So praise the Lord that that went well.
Are there any other announcements
or anything that we need to update?
If not, turn your hymnals over to page 56.
And today we're gonna be in Ephesians five,
in Ephesians five.
But go to hymnal page 56.
You'll all get to heaven.
Turn your hymnals over to page 66 and then we will be,
and then we've been forgetting, so,
Brother Trey, when Brother Matt's reading,
we can take up the time and I'll present it at Calvary,
66 at Calvary.
As opposed to Ephesians five,
Brother Trey is going to come around with Ephesians chapter five,
Ephesians chapter five.
Ephesians chapter five, verse one, the Bible reads,
"Be ye therefore followers of God as dear children,
walk in love as Christ also hath loved us
and hath given himself for us,
and offering in a sacrifice to God
for a sweet smelling savor.
Fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness,
let it not be once named among you, saints.
Filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting,
which are not convening, but rather giving of thanks.
For this ye know, that no foremonger,
nor unclean person, nor covetous man,
who is an idolater, any inheritance,
kingdom of Christ and of God,
let no man deceive you with vain words,
for because of these things cometh the wrath of God
upon the children of disobedience.
Be not ye therefore partakers with them,
for we were sometimes darkness.
How are ye light in the Lord?
Walk as children, fruit of the Spirit is all goodness
and righteousness and truth,
proving what is acceptable unto the Lord.
And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works
of darkness, but rather reprove them,
for it is a shame even to speak of those things
which are done of them in secret.
But all things that are reproved are made manifest
by the light whatsoever doth make manifest is the light.
Wherefore he sayeth, awake thou that sleepest
and arise from the dead, Christ shall give thee light.
See then that ye walk circumspectly,
not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time
because the days are even.
Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding
what the will of the Lord is.
Be not drunk with wine wherein is excess,
but be filled with the spirit.
speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody
and part to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father, name
of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.
Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husband as unto the Lord, for the husband is the head
of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, he is the savior of the body.
Or as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in
everything.
Husband, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it,
that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, he might
present it to himself a glorious truth, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing,
that it should be holy and without blemish, so ought men to love their wives as their
own bodies, he that loveth his wife loveth himself.
For no man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourisheth it, and cherisheth it, even as
the Lord the Church; for we are members of his body, his flesh, and of his bones.
For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife;
they too shall be one flesh.
This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the Church.
Nevertheless, that every one of you, in particular, so love his wife even as himself, and the
wife see that she reverence her husband.
Let us bow our heads and go to the Lord in prayer.
Father, thank you for gathering us here this morning.
Thank you for your word.
Thank you for all that you've done for us, and Lord, we just want to express our gratitude
and our thanks.
Lord, we pray that you give us ears to hear and hearts to understand as we hear the message
from the Lord.
Please fill Pastor Reyes with your Holy Spirit and allow him to preach with fullness and
clarity from the pulpit and let everything that's said today be honoring and glorifying
to you.
We ask this in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Ephesians 5.
And the title of the sermon this morning is Submission Without Confusion.
And let's just take a look at a couple of verses there before I give you the reason
for preaching the message.
But right there in Ephesians 5, first thing we see is right there immediately in verse
number 1.
It says, "Be ye therefore followers of God as dear children."
You know, the Bible instructs us constantly that we need to what?
Be followers of the Lord.
If you love me, keep my commandments, the Bible says, right?
And then in verse 2 says, "And walk in love."
Notice it doesn't say, "Be in love," it says, "Walk in love."
Because anybody who's been, you know, around a long time or just, you know, once you get
married you realize love is a choice, it's not a feeling, right?
God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son.
It wasn't that God just felt the love, but he also made a choice to love us even though
the majority of the world rejects Jesus Christ, right?
God still loves us even though we're rebellious and we don't follow the rules and his commandments.
God loved the world, right?
And then we see there in verse number six, it says, "Let no man deceive you with vain
words," meaning, hey, don't let people lie to you or lead you astray or defraud you.
It says, "For because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience."
Hey, and there's a consequence to the children of disobedience.
If you're disobedient to the Lord Jesus Christ, and of course, this is talking to the church,
it says, hey, the wrath of God can come upon you, right?
There are consequences to our actions.
Enrique, is he back there?
Oh, he's in the restroom.
Gentry, do you mind getting me a small bottle of water, please, from the fridge?
Thank you.
I didn't think I was going to have a challenge, but now I'm having a scratchy throat.
And then right there in verse 20, when he's given us all these instructions, it says,
"Given thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ."
So this first 20 verses, he's setting this thing up and he says, hey, give thanks to
the Lord for all these things that I'm telling you to do, for making sure that you're obedient,
for walking in love, for making sure that your followers of God ask to your children.
And the reason I'm preaching this is a couple of months ago, this is several months ago,
I usually try to like log things in the back of my brain when there's subjects that come
up and then I think on them.
I don't always preach on everything right away.
And somebody brought up the fact that, you know, one of the things they've heard in Christian
counseling circles, especially about marriage, is that people will use this next verse as
this like, and they twist this verse without ever even going into the rest of the verses.
And when I, and where we're going to, thanks Gentry, where we're going to go into it says
right there in verse 21 says submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.
And when I first heard it, I was like, Oh, you know, I didn't do anything with it as
you do research.
It turns out this is a very common Christian counseling verse that they use to try to like
basically subvert the authority of not only the church, but even of the man. It just got to order
in the things of the Christian life, right? There's a specific order that God has given us.
We know that God is the God, the father of the head. Jesus is a subjection to God, the father,
but you know what? Jesus is the head of man and the head of the church. And then the man is the
head of the wife or the daughter. And then the children, I mean, they just, they just need to
obey their parents and then, you know, any authority that's around them. Right. But here we see this,
it says in verse 21 says, submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God. But the thing
is he gives us the order. So what they do is they take this verse out of context and then they go
around preaching. And I listened to a couple of just like at two times speed, because it's really
hard to listen to these preachers when they take this out of context saying, Hey, you know, the
Bible says we all need to submit to each other. And that's true. But then it gives us the order,
right? We shouldn't just take one verse without adding all the other verses that apply to this
one subject of submission. It says wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as unto the Lord.
And the reason that most people want to take the first verse 21 and kind of downplay this thing
is because the one common theme that I heard as I listened to these snippets of preaching on this
specific verse was they're like, oh, this is a very uncomfortable message that I'm about to bring.
This is a very uncomfortable verse. This is a very uncomfortable subject. You know what it
is? It's because these men fear women. I mean, that's really the reality of it, right? There's
a feminist agenda out there to destroy what God has put together, what God has said in order.
The Bible says that we need to do everything decently and in order. And yet men are afraid
to speak up about it, right? I'm not uncomfortable preaching the word of God. Look, if you're
uncomfortable, that's your problem, not God's problem. It's not my problem either. The
Bible literally and is very clearly says wives submit yourselves unto your own husbands and
unto the Lord. That's a biblical standard. It's not just there. It's found in several other places
in the Bible. It says for the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the
church and he is the savior of the body. Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the
wives be to their own husbands and everything. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also
loved the church and gave himself for it. Then immediately, you know, people get uncomfortable
with this and you know why? The reason is because we've been programmed to think that women have an
equal role in marriage and that children have a say in what the family needs to do and that the
church is a democracy and not a dictatorship and that God is a Democrat up there in heaven just
kind of feeling everybody out and trying to figure out who's doing what and then he's going to,
you know, appease everybody. No, God is a dictator, right? The reason that the word dictator is so
negative in today's America is because obviously, you know, you've got the political right and the
political left and they just throw that word out there and add a negative connotation without ever
giving you the definition, right? Dictator, all that means is to dictate, right? All the saying is,
right, as a preacher of the word of God, I'm a dictator. All I'm saying is I'm dictating the
word of God to you. Whether you do it or not, that's your choice, right? At my home, I'm the
dictator of my home. I tell my kids all the time, this is not a democracy. This is a dictatorship,
right? Dad knows best for my children. Dad knows best for my wife. Dad knows best for our family,
right? And even if I don't know best, you know who knows better? God does. And if I make a
mistake, you know who's going to, you know, basically proverbially slap me upside the head?
God will. Hopefully that's all he does, right? And he doesn't just destroy me and which is very
possible and real. And so to me, this is a really important thing. Like I said, we're going to
double down on things that are important to God and submission to the proper authorities
is really important, right? There's a time and place for civil disobedience, but that's a very
unique situation and I'm all for it, but we're not there in America today, right? We're not there in
the homes. We're not there. Those situations are far and few between people. They're like, well,
what if I marry a reprobate? Well, if you're married to a reprobate, you didn't know that
before. Now, you know, that's a very unique situation. Most families or most husbands and
wives aren't married, like some psychopath, right? Does it happen? Of course. Does the news like
harp on it? Of course. But if you were to look at, you know, the news articles that come out about
this stuff versus the 8 billion people in the world, it's a very small percentage of the
population. It happens, but it's not the norm. It's the exception, right? Like, you know, my,
my dad had fits of, you know, I think sometimes he lost his temper. You know, he had the ability
to just not always be even killed. I mean, my dad was like, we feared my dad were growing up,
but you know what? He wasn't, he wasn't a psychopath or a sociopath. He's, he's just a human.
You know, if you know anything about psychopaths and sociopaths, that's a whole other realm.
You know, that's just crazy, right? And then right there, let's just, as we get through this
intro, right there in verse 31, it says, "For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother,
and shall be joined unto his wife, and they too shall be one flesh." So that's why there's a
hierarchy because it's not two opinions, it's one. We're one flesh. My wife and I are one flesh,
right? You can't have two captains. People have tried that. You know, in history, it's always
comical. You read these things, especially like companies that will set up like two CEOs or two,
you know, types of leadership. And what ends up happening is they fail because eventually you're
going to get opposition, right? You're going to get, you know, differing opinions. And then right
there in verse 33, just in case you didn't get it before, the Bible says there in 33, it says,
"Nevertheless, let every one of you in particular, so love his wife, even as himself." And the wife
see that she reverence her husband. And that word reverence is even more than submission.
It's like to venerate and to honor and to look up and to build up their husbands. You know, today,
like I remember growing up, I don't even watch TV that much anymore, but I remember growing up,
you know, we grew up watching Family Matters and, you know, who remember, what was it? It was Family
Matters, Steve Urkel and, you know, Saved by the Bell and Growing Pains. And, you know, I mean, I
grew up watching TV. I was a 90s kid. I was ready for TGI Friday. Thank goodness it's Friday. I
remember all that stuff and, and all the shows that would come on. And what was the one overlying
theme? Now that I look back, who was always the idiot in the show? The dad, right? The mom fixed
everything. Dad didn't know anything. You know, mom was always the smarter one of the two. Dad was
just some bumbling, fumbling idiot who just like lucky to be there, right? Or, or if you watched a
movie that, that had a family theme, the women would always pull the younger women to the side
and be like, Oh, you know, don't let, we always let the men think they're in charge, but we're
the ones pulling the strings. There were the puppets and all that stuff, but that's not God's
order. God is very clear. The man is the one that is supposed to lead, right? Because we have the
ability as men to do things that women don't. We have the ability to focus. We have the ability
at times to remove emotion from a situation and actually address things as they are, not as that
we think they are. I mean, there's a lot of things that God's given men that he just didn't give
women, right? And children, because now we live in a society where also now the theme is that
the children are instructing the parents in TV and drama and movies as to how life should be,
right? The old guard has to just get caught up with the new times. Now look, I'm all for change,
but I'm not for changing God's doctrine. I'm for keeping up with the times, but if it goes against
God's will and God's word, we shouldn't do it. Period. All right. So let me, and just so that
you guys don't think I'm just taking this out of thin air, I'm not going to bring you a bunch of
articles. I just, I think I got one in here, but I asked Google, that's how you know I'm still like
old guard, right? I guess I need to get caught up with the times and use grok or chat GPT or something,
but I still use Google, so sorry. And I didn't use Google AI, just did a regular Google search, but
Google's still really good, right? If you know anything about how these systems work, Google
since 2000 has basically been like, what is it, archiving all the questions people have about all
these different things. So when you ask a question, chances are somebody's already asked your question.
You're not that unique. This is a side point, it's not that important, but just so you know,
if you think of something, you weren't the first one to think of it, probably. Somebody's already
thought what you were thinking. I'm talking to really the young generation, because I remember
being like that, and then you realize you're not that cool, right? But at Google, I asked, it said,
give me the most common Christian therapist advice for marriage counseling based on Ephesians 521.
This is like, Google now does the stupid AI, and then it does the sponsored stuff. You don't want
to go there because that's not really what's trending. People are paying for that. But you
want to go to the next one. So the very first thing that popped up after all the advertisement
was this article. What I thought was funny is this article is from a website called the Refuge
Center, and the article says, "Understanding marriage through therapeutic modalities and a
Christian worldview." That whole thing makes no sense. You can't have a Christian worldview.
You either have a Christian view or you have a worldview. Now we are in the world, but we are
not part of the world, the Bible says, right? The thing is you can't have a Christian worldview.
And what really threw me off even worse was that it's written, this article that's one of the top
ranking articles on the subject of Ephesians 5 is written by a master's level intern,
Kalen Thistle. And you say, why are you, why are you bringing this up? If it's ranking at the top,
that means that that's what Google is finding people are reading. So one of the most read
articles on this subject is from a young lady. I don't know who she is who's in,
she's not even done with her training. I try to look her up. Obviously she's an intern,
so she has no profile. Like, I don't know if she's married or not, but first of all,
biblical advice from a female should not, it should be from God, right? And it should be from a man
and it should be from leadership. And I'm going to prove it to you. So it's right here. She writes
my thought, and I'm not going to read the whole article. I'm just reading a couple of snippets.
She's like, my thoughts on submission and misinterpretation. She said, one thing that
has always stood out to me is how people often misinterpret the concept of submission in marriage.
If he's just 522 through 24 states, why submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the
Lord? And she's obviously, she's not King James and just bear with me through this crap. It says,
unfortunately, I've noticed that this verse is frequently taken out of context, leading to the
erroneous belief that submission is one sided. In truth, Ephesians 521 instructs both spouses
to submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. This mutual submission is rooted in
sacrificial love with husbands called to love their wives as Christ loved the church. A love
categorized by self-business and bullshit. Obviously, she's not a learned theologian.
Forget it. I mean, she's not even read the Bible. Yeah, we as men are submitted to Christ. Our
leadership and our authority as men and the church is to God Almighty, which is actually kind of
scary. I mean, I'm not kidding. Stuff happens and you know, and I'll see stuff and you know,
I'll see how the Lord works in people in ministry. And it just, it strikes me with fear and trembling.
I mean, I'm not, and I'm not like trying to be dramatic here. Like I fear the Lord. I don't
want the Lord to take me out, right? That's where my submission is, but I am not to submit to my
wife or my children. She obviously didn't read those verses in context. She didn't even bring
in the whole context of Ephesians 5. She didn't even reference all the verses I'm going to give
you, but this is the kind of crap that's out there. And what ends up happening is it sets up
families, churches, individuals for failure. You know the goal of today is to help you succeed in
life, not to bring you down. Now the reason people are uncomfortable is because the majority of the
world has convinced you that going against God's Word is the way to succeed, when in reality going
with God's Word is the only way to succeed in life. We need to be submissive to the right
authority at the right time. So she goes here and you say well why are you focusing on marriage?
Well, because the place where it's most evident is in a marriage. If you can't even submit in
the proper authorities in a marriage, how are you going to do it outside in the world? How are you
going to do it in church or at your job or just anywhere else? You're not. So then she says,
this person goes on to say, this is later in the article, she's like explaining things and then
she's like this is what we do. So she's like there's different things called therapeutic
modalities in marriage counseling. Here's the problem. There's no such thing as therapeutic
modalities in counseling. The only counseling that we should do is based on God's word because
first of all, every marriage is different, right? And so what I might see wrong in somebody else's
execution, as long as it's within the biblical context, it's not wrong in their marriage,
right? You know, I mean, you have might have a predisposed idea of what it might be exaggerated
or not, but like, I'll give you an example. If like a husband, I think one of the things
that I was reading or one of the, it was Piper, which he's a Calvinist. I was listening to like
a snippet of his sermon, John Piper, if you don't know who he is, don't worry about it.
And in there, he used this example about how he was giving counseling and that the wife was really
mad at the husband. And she's like, I have to ask him for permission to go to the bathroom.
And he turned to the husband. He's like, what's wrong with you? No, what's wrong with her? First
of all, if you don't want to be asking somebody to go to the bathroom, you should have chose
right before you got married. Now you're in the marriage. That's your authority. Now it does sound
weird. And let me tell you, I would never do that. But in the context of the biblical authority,
that's right. And see, this is what makes people uncomfortable. You know, I went here this morning
to Shipley Donuts to get a donut. And I could tell the lady, you know, they usually greet me
really well. You know, I speak Spanish. I just relate to people. I go there every Sunday. So
now I know the staff, right? They're like, oh, buenos dias, good morning and everything. And I
could tell the lady who was serving me, she was just real flustered and just kind of like in a bad
mood. I said, what's wrong? You know, is everything all right? She's like, oh, you know, I was like,
okay. You know, she didn't really give me an answer. And then I, so I asked, I was like,
hey, where's Irvin and his mother? You know, I like, I know that the young kid who served me,
she's like, oh, they moved him to another store and we got a new manager. I said, oh, okay.
She's like, yeah, it's just, it's really bad. And, you know, just really, they're making us like,
you know, she shouldn't, first of all, I know it sucks, but that's her job. And now she's bad
mouthing her manager to me, trying to get me to be sympathetic to the situation. Hey, you got a job.
Thank the Lord that you have a job, right? Thank the Lord that you have a way to provide means and
put food on the table. Is it sucky that you went from a bad, a great manager to a bad manager?
Yeah, but the Bible says even to the frower, we should be submissive. You know, I'll give you
that, that here in a second. So anyways, I'm not going to read all of this for the sake of time,
but here it says, like they, she's like, oh, we do emotionally focused therapy, which highlights
the significance of attachment related emotions and attachment styles and relationships. Basically,
they're being nosy, right? Cause that's what therapy really is just like gossip. It's just
really nosy, right? Most of the time the therapist will sit there and just let you tell them all
their, all your details. I don't want to know that much about you guys. Honestly, I don't. I love
you guys. Some of you are my friend. I know more friends, like closer friends than others. I think
all of you are my friends. So I know a little bit more about you than other things, but even then,
you know, what I know is that's what I want to know. I don't, I don't need to know more than that,
right? Then they go through like, they call it the Satir model, which was developed by Virginia
Satir or S A T I R. I don't know if I'm saying it right. In 1930, she takes a holistic approach
viewing all human beings as spiritual beings who already possess everything they need
to grow and thrive. Satir believed that the issues people present in therapy are often superficial.
The real problem lies in how individuals cope with these challenges. In her view,
addressing these underlying coping mechanisms is crucial for fostering personal and relationship
growth. But then the thing that, that, that she threw me, that threw me for a loop, it says here,
why I value pre-marital counseling and spiritual compatibility. And then she threw this acronym.
She goes to build a strong foundation. Many churches recommend pre-marital counseling
programs like SIMBIS. And this is an acronym S Y M B I S save your marriage before it starts.
Guys, if you're already going into your marriage, thinking you have to save it before it starts,
you're in big trouble. I'm not even kidding. That to me is super wicked. Look, you should go into
marriage knowing it's for life. There is no saving a marriage, right? It's for life. Now you can save
challenges. You can anticipate, you know, things that you might deal with. And I think those
conversations that need to have Mary Sarah and I, you know, we, I don't know if we talked about
everything, but I remember first of all, our marriage journey, that's a whole other sermon.
I keep saying, I'm going to bring it one day, but it is a hard sermon to preach because,
you know, it was very contentious at first until my father-in-law and my mother-in-law accepted me.
I don't know if it was because I'm Mexican or they just were protecting their daughter.
I like the thing is because I'm Mexican, because it just makes it nicer in my life, right? No,
I'm kidding there. But my father-in-law is like one of the greatest guys. I love my father-in-law.
I consider him a second father. My mother-in-law, you know, we miss her a ton, like one of the
greatest ladies. As a matter of fact, she literally was given the, you know, like unspokenly by all
the other parents, my father-in-law and my both, my mom and my dad, she was the queen grandmother.
She was Mimi, like nobody, everybody knew she was like the top notch, right? So we had a great
relationship. But you know, one of the things that we went into it was I said, look, I'll fight for
you as long as I know that you love Jesus more than me and that you're in it for the long haul.
She's like, yeah, that's it. That was it. I just knew that once I chose someone, it was for life.
You know, there wasn't this, I've never like considered another option. I don't, you know,
and believe me, I love my wife. I think we have a great relationship. I think like, you know,
as far as marriages go, we, I have one of the top notch marriages in my, in the world probably,
but they are challenges and we've had some good blowouts in our life and we've had, you know,
like some interesting, you know, just days where just like, man, what is going on here? But you
know what never crossed my mind was, you know, just leaving. And you know, what never crossed
her mind was leaving, right? It's just, it's not one of those things. So the problem is that the
majority of Christianity is moving away from authority and authority is what we need in our
life. And also we need order, but in order to have authority and order in our life. And actually,
let me rephrase that authority and order exists. We're the ones that are not willing to implement
it in the form of submission to the Lord Jesus Christ, right? God's already said,
here are the things that you need to do. And what we end up doing is we end up nitpicking
what we want to apply in our lives and what we don't. And that's a really bad way to live
your life. If you want to serve the Lord Jesus Christ, Hey, if you want them to take you out
early, just do whatever you want. Right? So let me give you two definitions. Then I'll give you
the points. And the reason these are important is because a lot of people also misconstrue the
definitions, right? They think submission is some form of like oppression, some freaking communist
regime. That's not what it is at all. Submission is exactly that is you submit, you're giving into
the authority. You're doing what the Lord has said, right? Submit, the word submit is just to give
or yield to the power or authority of another. It's often used reflexively, right? And by the
way, the other thing that you hear sometimes, sorry guys, I've just, it's too cold. I think
my nose is running a little bit. The other thing you hear is, and let me just clear that statement
up before because I know people have thought about it or I've heard it said, is that it's like, oh,
you know, she can leave or he can leave or it's volunteer. It's not like that at all. Christ
submitted to dying for us. There was no volunteering. That was the commitment he made so that we would
have eternal life. That was it. There was no out, right? And it's the same thing in marriage.
It is a legal contract. As a matter of fact, in this country, it was a legal contract that you
couldn't get out of until like basically the, I think it was Reagan who made like no fault divorce
popular, right? I asked my mom and I asked for permission because I, you know, my mom, you know,
just like every marriage, they've had issues and my mom, I remember her telling us a story
and I asked to verify that when we were little in Mexico, she wanted to divorce my dad. I guess
they had a big fight and she filed for divorce. And you know why she's not divorced today?
Because my dad wouldn't sign the divorce and you couldn't just up and leave. It was contractual.
It was an obligation by law that you had to meet. And I thank God that there was laws in the books
because who knows what would have become of my life and my brother's life and my mom and my mom,
you know, and it's, you know, women usually in a fit of emotion do that. And then later on,
they just get over it. Right. And I know that obviously it wasn't as serious as she thought
because they're going on almost 50 years of marriage now. So I'm not picking on her. I mean,
this is like almost 40 years ago when they first, I mean, I don't even remember most of my life in
Mexico. That's how long ago it was. Right. That's how I'm telling my age. Right. But to submit,
here's the synonyms are resign, agree, obey, bow, comply. You know what's an antonym? Fight,
talk back, do what you think was told to you, not what was exactly told to you. Right. To subject
to some kind of treatment, to present for approval to state or urge with deference,
it's to yield oneself to power authority. Right. So it's basically just yielding.
And then the word, you know, cause the Ephesians five ends in the wife needs to reverence,
right? It says a feeling reverence means a feeling or attitude of deep respect tinged with all and
veneration. You know, my mom, I love her. And one of the things that she did do right, you know,
I don't know everything. I'm not picking on my mom. I'm not saying I know, but I love that she
always did this no matter how many challenges they had growing up. And you know, every,
every child has seen their parents have challenges. That's the given. She never,
she always built up my dad, right? Like she just had this admiration for my dad. Like to this day,
I admire my dad. Like, I mean, I think he's one of the smartest individuals to ever walk the
face of the earth. Like I just, he's really brilliant. He's got great wisdom. Like I just
love talking to him. He's one of my best friends to this day in my life. I, I know a lot of that
had to do with my mom, right? My mom, not just throwing them under the bus every time they got
in a fight and you know, she would get in a fight. We would come and we'd be angry at my dad because
we, you know, kids don't know any better. And she's like, look, you cannot be mad at your dad.
This is between us. This is between me and your dad, but your dad's a great guy and your dad
provides for you and your dad puts food on the table. And when you're sick, you know, and all
this stuff and you just constantly remind him, you know what? I'm really grateful to my dad for the
things he's done in my life. You should be too. And even if your dad wasn't great, like my dad,
you should be thankful because you're here because of your dad. And you also should be thankful to
your mom because you're here because of your mom. Period, right? A lot of people get a really bad
attitude towards authority, right? I mean, I tell my kids, you know, I love you, but love hurts.
Sometimes it hurts. I remind them that when I'm spanking them, I'm like, love hurts. Just,
that's just the way it goes. Sometimes I'll be joking with them, right? And I'll, especially my
son, you know, we'll, we'll roughhouse. And he's like, that hurt. I'm like, dude, I love you, man.
I don't know if it hurts, right? But I'm just picking on them. But you know, we need to have
that, like as men, we need to be in awe of who? Jesus Christ, right? We need to have this deep
respect and wives need to respect their husbands the same way. It's the outward manifestation of
this feeling, a gesture indicative of deep respect and obeisance. I'm not going to say that word in
my tongue. I'm getting tongue-tied. Bow or curtsy, the state of being revered or treated with respect,
tinch with awe. Right here, to regard or treat with reverence, to venerate. That's what it means to
reverence your husband. A feeling or attitude of profound respect, use the reserve for the sacred
or divine. Now we're not sacred or divine, so I will make sure that we will make that distinction.
Wives, revere your husbands, venerate them, look at them as awe, but they are not divine.
They're not deities, right? But it's just the state of reverence. And the challenge with this is
people will take something like Ephesians 5.21 and they'll just skip the other verses. I mean,
the Bible does say submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God, but then he gives
the order, right? Wives submit to husbands, husbands love your wives. So the submission
is to Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ says, "Hey, you need to love your wives. You need to be benevolent
to your wives. You need to lead them with love. You need to lead them with care. You need to lead
them with maturity." Like, it's not just like what I say goes. Why are you saying it? Make sure that
you actually know why you're asking the things that you're asking for. I mean, if you don't,
the wife's duty is still to submit and obey, but as men, wouldn't it just be better if you just
actually did it with a purpose? I mean, as men, we should always have a purpose. You know, if not,
what are you doing? Right? Children obey your parents. We see that in Ephesians six,
fathers raise them in the fear of the Lord. Servants obey your masters. Masters treat them
justly, but you notice the masters aren't obeying the servants. They're treating them justly, but
they're not obeying the servants. Right? So this, this thing of submission, when it means that like
for one another is what it implies is structure, rank and order. Right? That's why, you know,
I get up here and I'm like, Hey, these are the things that we need done, or please don't do this
or that. It's, but this within the church, right? And then I'm just the messenger. If you don't agree
or if I'm doing something wrong, Hey, bring it to me based on the word of God. And let's address it
from the word of God. Remember a couple of months ago, when these guys that came and were addressing
the Trinity, I was like, Hey, I have no problem having this conversation, but chapter and verse,
right? Chapter and verse buddy. Cause if I'm going to make a change for the church, it has to be based
on the word of God. Otherwise, what are we doing? Right? So let's go to the points really quick.
And, uh, but, but let me just before the first point I have for you is the foundational and turn
over to Romans 13, the foundational principle of submission, the rest of the stuff I'm going to
cover. It's basically like a very, if you've read your Bible, you're, you've seen this,
but I want to just emphasize it just cause you've seen it. It doesn't mean you're doing it. And if
you're not doing it, do it. If you're doing it, great, do it better. And that's really the goal.
And why? Because the Lord will take care of you. He will recompense you. Your life will be better
if you do it God's way, right? Modern Christianity, they often treat submission as like either a dirty
word or a word that erases entirely. And you watch these preachers of the modern contemporary
movements or these churches, cause I clicked on like five or six of them and they're all like
tippy-toeing on the issue. Like, now this is where it gets real uncomfortable. Why? I mean,
are we either Christians or are we not? How is this uncomfortable to tell people their proper
role in the eyes of God so that people will be protected by God Almighty and not have to suffer
his wrath? Why would I be afraid to tell you your proper role in God's eyes so that you lead a
better life and you lead a much more simple, you know, peaceful life than the one that the world's
giving you? You think that feminists are leading these great lives? I mean, just ask the lady that
got shot in the face. I don't know whether you agree with the way it all went down, but the
authority was the authority there, right? You know what I do, because I know cops are a hair trigger.
Hey, if I get stopped, I immediately try to take everything out. I put it on my dash and I put my
hands on the wheel. I don't want to leave any inkling. Even if I think they're wrong, you know,
I'm just going to go through the system because it doesn't matter what I think. If push comes to
shove and all of a sudden it escalates and I get shot, nine times out of ten, you know who they're
going to side with? The authority, right? We need to have proper authority because if that woman
would have first of all been married to a man, her man would have been like, "What are you doing out
there?" Right? Number two, because she doesn't believe that men are an authority, the minute
the man told her something, it probably triggered her and now she's not here. She's burning in hell
for all eternity. Right? Look, Ephesians 521 doesn't abolish hierarchy. It introduces it,
right? It's the structure of submission. But the foundational principles of submission, right?
Submission begins with what? With God. It doesn't matter the equality or the roles. Submission
begins at the top. The reason that we have to submit is because there's an authority.
God is the ultimate authority. I mean, you're there in Romans 13. The Bible says in verse one,
"Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers for there's no power but of God,
the powers that be ordained, that be ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power,
resisteth the ordinance of God. And they that resist shall receive of themselves damnation.
For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Will thou then not be afraid of the power?
Do that which is good and thou shall have praise of the same. For he's a minister of God to thee
for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid. For he beareth not the sword in vain,
for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.
You know, it would be great if our country actually feared the Lord like this, right?
I mean, if we just followed God's commandments, we probably wouldn't have so many trannies,
fusion, and you know, all the weird stuff that's going on there in the world.
Did you just get rid of it quickly? But the reason I chose this, because I want to set this properly,
the Bible tells us, hey, the highest form of authority is God. And that's why I said there are
exceptions where civil disobedience is biblical, but they're far and few between, right? Because
submission is one thing, it's not voluntary. God's asked us, we are to submit to God. Look,
if we don't submit to God after we're saved, you know what he's going to do? He's going to chastise
us and he's going to chastise us and he's going to chastise us and eventually he's going to take
us home early. He's not like, well, you know, maybe hopefully you'll do it. No, you need to do it.
There are consequences when you fail to submit. Submission is motivated by fear of God, not fear
of man. Look, you submit not because you like the guy that, you know, like let's say you have a job,
you don't submit to the boss because you like the boss. You submit because you submit to God,
right? My life has nothing to do with you guys. If I do anything in submission, it's because of God,
you know, and it's weird because sometimes I'll sit there and even like even here in the church,
I'll argue with some of the church members like, you know, with Heath or with Matt when we're out
soul winning. Hey, Matt decided to take the lead on soul winning. And he's like, what do you think
we should do pastor? I'm like, you're in charge, go. I'm not going to overstep. Like if we put you
in charge of soul winning, then lead, right? Even in those positions, you say, oh, that sounds kind
of trivial. And I take that seriously. Like eight, if you're in charge, you're in charge. In that
moment, in that role, I'm no longer the leader. I'm just following. Leave me. Let's go. Tell me
where to go. Right? Cause submissions within order and not without authority. Go over to James
Foreman, first Corinthians 11 verse three, the Bible says, be followers of me, even as I also
am of Christ. Now I praise you, brethren, that you remember me in all things and keep the ordinances
as I delivered them to you. But I would have you to know that the head of every man is Christ
and the head of the woman is the man and the head of Christ is God. And then the other thing we need
to remember also, Hey, wives are to submit to their own husbands, not to every man,
to their own husbands. That's why I said it, it's hard for you to, like if I were to do counseling,
you know, and I've only done it a couple of times in my life, but I immediately just say, look,
divorce is not an option. And the only advice I'm going to give you is from the word of God. And
I'll try to make sure that if I give you any other advice, and it's my opinion that I'm going to
reference that so that you can take my opinion and you can discard it if you want, but you need to
stick to the word of God, right? Because the way that I deal with my wife is not the way you're
going to deal with your wife. I don't know all your personalities. My wife is really different
than all the other women, you know, that I know. It's just the way it is. James 4 verse 7, the
Bible says there, "Submit yourselves therefore to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you."
Notice some submission and resistance to the devil go hand in hand, because if you're not
resisting the devil, you know what? You're submitting to the devil and you're resisting
the ordinances of God. It's one or the other. "Draw an eye to God and he will draw an eye to you.
Cleanse your hands, ye sinners, and purify your hearts, ye double-minded. Be afflicted and mourn
and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to heaviness. Humble yourselves in
the sight of the Lord and he shall lift you up." It's a mission and humility to go hand in hand.
Go over to 1st Peter. Go over to 1st Peter. I'll read for you really quick in 1st Corinthians.
Bible says in 1st Corinthians 16 verse 14, "Let all things, let all your things be done with charity.
I beseech you, brethren, ye know the house of Stephanas that it is the first fruit of Acacia
and that they have addicted themselves to the ministry of the saints." And then what does he say?
What is Paul saying? "Hey, these guys are addicts of the ministry that ye submit yourselves unto such
and to everyone that helpeth with us and labors with us." Hey, find the guys who are doing the
most for God and then follow them and submit yourselves to them is what Paul said. 1st Peter
2, right there in verse 13, it says, "Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake,
whether it be to kings, as supreme, or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him,
for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of them that do well. For so is the will
of God that with well-doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men. As free, not using
liberty for a cloak of maliciousness, but as servants of God, honor all men, love the brotherhood,
fear God, honor the king. Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear. And by the way,
we're all, if you're serving somebody, then you are the servant to that master. I know these are
like old words, and so they have a negative connotation. Master just means that I'm mastering
over the, you know, dictating over what I've been assigned. And if you're serving in that capacity,
then this is important because right here it says not only to the good and gentle,
but also to the froward. Now, does that mean that we like it when we see it from the outside? No.
Does that mean we condone it? No. But if you're in that situation, that's the situation you're in.
You know, that lady today, and I'm not picking her. She's not a Christian. I'm just using an
example that she's got a froward boss, but from a biblical perspective says, hey, you need to be
subject with all fear. You know, the Bible's tough in these situations because we add our own emotion,
but this is correct. It says, for this is thank worthy of a man for conscious towards God, endure
grief, suffering wrongfully. Hey, by the way, as a Christian, we suffer wrongfully period. Everybody
hates you because you believe in the word of God. It says, for what is, for what glory is it if when
you be buffeted for your faults, you shall take it patiently. But if when you do well and suffer
for it, you take it patiently. This is acceptable with God, for even here unto where you called,
because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that you should follow his steps.
Who did no sin, neither was God found in him in his mouth, who when he was reviled, what? Reviled
not again. When he suffered, he threatened not, but committed himself to him, that judgeth
righteously, who his own self bear our sin in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins,
should live unto righteousness, by whose stripes you were healed, for ye were as sheep going
astray, but are now returned unto the shepherd and bishop of your souls." Psalm 66 3 says, "Say unto
God, how terrible art thou in thy works! Through the greatness of thy power shall thine enemies
submit themselves unto thee." Hey, we need to submit to the Lord Jesus Christ. And when we do
that, hey, don't tell me you love the Lord and then you're not willing to follow submission in
the other roles. Hey, if you're a child and your children say, "Hey, I love Jesus," and they're not
obeying, then, you know, maybe they're saved, but they might not, they're not going to love Jesus.
Hey, if your wife says that she loves Jesus but she's not obeying you, then, you know, is she
really loving Jesus? And by the way, you don't have to love Jesus to be saved. Salvation and love are
two different things. Hey, husbands, do you really love your wives as yourselves or are you just some
big jerk? Then you're not submitting to Christ. By the way, I mean, I'm not going to also tell you
that if you do this, that it all works out because the other thing is I read some other records where
like, they're like, Oh, well, you know, the wife submits to her husband and she listens to all
these verses, then the husband will take that and appreciate it. And that's how he's going to be
benevolent and loving to her. I believe that there's, there could be reciprocity, but that's
not always the case. It just isn't. You have to do it whether you like it or not, because it's not
guaranteed. Because the thing that I can't do is I can't control the other person. I can't control
circumstances beyond my control. You just need to obey. You know, I remember I was 23 years old
and I left home for, you know, college and I'd come back after my dad got open heart surgery,
like at 18. I came back and then I was in college, but then I went to do the college program at age
20. And so I lived on my own again for like six months. I was used to kind of living on my own
already in my early 20s. I came back and this is, I was not saved. I got saved when I was 25. So I
was partying and going out with friends and I was going to Matamoros with a bunch of guys that were
drinking and doing all kinds of things. I honestly, I always stayed away from all the drugs and
everything, but I hung out with the wrong crowd and I was coming home like at two, three, four,
five o'clock in the morning. You know, I'm a grown man. I can handle anything. I know everything.
Right. And finally, my dad, one day like sat down with me. He's like, look, this is my house. My
rules cannot come home past. I think at that time I was older. So he's like, you cannot come home
past like one o'clock. He gave me like a later curfew. He's like, but if you're going to live
under my house and my rules, this is how it's going to go. Otherwise you're out. You know,
I thank God that at the time I didn't, you know, I like living at home. I like my parents. I, you
know, it was, it was great. I was just off the beaten path. And I remember my friends gave me
so much crap cause I stopped hanging out with them. Cause I'm like, dude, I got to study.
I use the excuse that I was studying, which I was, but the really, the excuse was, you know,
I didn't want to piss off my dad. And he just saved me from a lot of hurt because it probably
just ended up go badly anyways. But Hey, those were the rules. And because I was willing to submit,
God protected me from just a bunch of other stupid stuff that would have happened in my life. But he
gave me the option. He's like, Hey, you don't want to do this. Be my guest, go live on your own.
And then you get home whenever you want. The reality was if I would have left, I would have
never been able to party until two, three, four, five o'clock in the morning anyways,
because you know what I would have needed? A job and responsibility and all that, which,
you know, I still did by finishing college, but it was my dad who had to impose that rule.
And it was my choice to obey it or not. But if I didn't obey it, I was going to get kicked out.
And I would have suffered those consequences. So we need to follow God's rules. Now let's look at
it from, you know, we've got a couple of minutes here. We've got a couple of points and it really
just has to do with the structure. Point number two is authority and order in the family, right?
Submission does not go both ways. Parents don't submit to the children. Husbands don't submit to
wives. Look, if a husband's submitting to their wives, they're effeminate. They need a man up.
They need to get some stones. And children don't leave the home, right? I remember, this is just
like a couple of months ago when we went to the, when we were in the valley after my injury,
I think we went back. I was supposed to go to the doctor and I didn't, but we were there for like a
week. And my dad just kind of was losing it with my kids. Not in a bad way, but he's just kind of
annoyed. There's toys everywhere. Cause you know, in our home, you know, I have rules, but you know,
I have young children. So when it comes to the toys, I'm a little bit more lax, right? Like
usually I'm just kind of stepping over toys and stuff like that. I mean, of course I make them
clean up, but who knows as a parent, it's just sometimes it's easier to leave the toys for a
couple of days. Cause you know, they're going to come and destroy anyways. And then eventually
we have a cleanup day, but my, my dad doesn't deal with that. And he was like getting onto them.
They kind of looked at me for me to rescue them. And you know what I said? I was like,
you're, you're grandpa's house. You're at Wella's house. If Wella said, clean up,
you better clean up. Cause I don't want him to get the wrong idea that I'm going to subvert
somebody else's authority. Did I agree with my dad? Absolutely not. Cause that's not the way I do
it in my home, but I'm not in my house. I'm in my dad's house. Those are his rules. They just have
to eat like tough cookies. You know what I always tell them when they don't like something I'm like,
"That's life. Get ready. It's going to get worse." So at least you're getting some introduction into
it, right? But there is no two-way street. It's a one-way street. You know what it made me think of
as I was writing this is submission in a way, picture salvation, because what does John 14 say?
Jesus says unto them, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father,
but by me." There is no two-way street to heaven. There's only a one-way street. It's submitting to
the Lord Jesus Christ, believing on the Lord Jesus Christ, right? Then your Christian walk follows
that or should follow that. Go to Colossians 3. Go to Colossians 3. For the sake of time, I'm
going to skip to some of this. I mean, I think I've made my point, but regardless, we'll cover
some of this. Go to Colossians 3 verse 18. The Bible says, "Let the word of Christ dwell in you
richly and all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual
songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord." By the way, we just saw this in Ephesians.
"And whatsoever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to
God and the Father by him. Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands as it is fit in the Lord.
Husbands, love your wives and be not bitter against them." You know, the husband, who does he submit
to? To God, not the other way around. "Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is
well pleasing unto the Lord. Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged."
That's another verse people like to take out of context. That's a conversation for another day,
but hey, obeying the Lord and spanking your children is not provoking them to anger.
There are things that, you know, the majority of the rules that you give your children are going
to probably make them mad, just so you know. Provoking and getting them angry are two different
things, right? Provoking is like you're going and you're instigating something for your own
selfish pleasure. If you're, if you're spanking your children because you love them and you're
correcting them, that's not provoking. That's correction, right? For the sake of time, go to
Genesis 16. But we see this in the Bible, even from the beginning. In Genesis 16, we have the
story of, you know, what is it, Hagar. It says in verse 6, it says, "But Abraham said unto, but
Abram," I'm sorry, "said unto Sarai, 'Behold, thy maid is in thy hand. Due to her as it pleases with
thee.' When Sarai dealt with, hardly with her, she fled from her face." So what happened? Abraham
didn't make the best decisions here. Sarai, she's like, I can't have children. So why don't you go
and be with Hagar? And Abraham, being a man, was like, okay, I'm just going to do it. And then they
have a child, right? And they have this child and now she's mad. But Abram's like, I don't want to
deal with it. She's your servant. You deal with it. And what does Sarai do? She kicks her out,
right? I mean, I'm sorry. Sarai dealt with Harley and then Hagar fled. "And the angel of the Lord
found her by a fountain of water in the wilderness, by the fountain in the way of Shur." And he said,
"Hagar," Sarai's maid, "whence camest thou? From where are you coming? And whither wilt thou go?"
And she said, "I flee from the face of my mistress, Sarai." And the angel of the Lord said unto her,
"Return to thy mistress and submit thyself unto her hands." Hey, is that an ideal situation?
No. This is what I mean by we go by a biblical standard. It's not the everyday rule. I mean,
that sucks. Like, she's the one that instigated it and now she's unhappy with her. She's dealing
with her heartily. So she leaves and the Lord says, "Hey, you need to come back and you need
to do it this way." And it goes both ways, by the way. There's an entire book in the Bible called
Hosea and God literally says to the prophet, "Hey, I know your wife is a whore and a prostitute and an
adulteress, but you're going to remain married to her." That's pretty rough, right? But that's just,
I mean, those are obviously exceptions. In the New Testament church, we have way more liberty,
so we should choose properly because of that liberty, right? Point number three, and I've
only got two more points for you, authority and order in the church. And I'm skipping a bunch of
stuff here because I knew this was going to happen, but it's okay. But actually, before we go to the
authority right there in 1 Peter 3, the Bible says that, you know, the women obeyed, everybody's
obeying each other. It says, "For after this manner, in the old time, the holy women also,
who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjections unto their own husbands, even as Sarah
obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord, whose daughter she are, as long as ye do well and are not afraid
with any amazement. Likewise, I see husbands dwell with them according to the knowledge,
giving honor unto the wife and unto the weaker vessel, as being heirs together of the grace of
life, that your prayers be not hindered. Hey, if, which I know it probably wouldn't happen,
but if somebody, look, I wouldn't, if one of you wives started calling your husband's Lord,
hey, you're doing the biblical thing. But what I mean is you better be in proper alignment with
the Lord Jesus Christ or your prayers are hindered. And it goes both ways. The husbands are to love
your wife, be benevolent to them. The wives are to submit to the point where if you called your
husband Lord, it wouldn't be unbiblical. Authority and order in the church, right? The problem with
churches, the reason they collapse is because all of a sudden it becomes a democracy. Look, I just
have to make decisions and I just live with the fact because I'm a people pleaser. I just live
with the fact that I've already told myself and I just maybe sometimes voicing you guys have heard
me that I know that when I make a decision, I'm just not going to make everybody happy, but I
just got to make decisions, right? I know that when we painted these walls, I chose the colors.
I guarantee you that either some of you liked it and some of you didn't like it. I just had to make
a decision, but you know what I appreciate is that regardless of your thoughts, we just move on.
Because the biggest thing is to just do the things that the Lord's asked us to do, right?
It's not about personalities. It's not about feelings. The spiritual leadership, like my role
behind the pulpit is to lead the church according to God's rules. Meaning whether, you know, and I
have friends here 20 years plus and I have others that I don't know for that long, but you've become
good friends. If I step on your toes, I step on your toes, right? I'm not looking at who's the
coolest one or who ties the best or who contributes the most. Like if it applies to you, it applies
to you. Now I'm not saying I'm preaching to you. I'm just saying that sometimes I'm going to preach
stuff that's at you, even if I wasn't even thinking of you. And if the shoe fits, fits. Like I know
this type of sermon with all the women in this church. I mean, it's just by nature that probably
a lot of the women might not even agree 100%. It's just because of society, because of programming,
because everybody's in a different walk in their life. But that's the Bible. I mean, I'm not going
to sit here and just take a poll of what you guys want to hear. I'm just going to tell you what God
wants you to hear. Period. Right? So we just need to have that. But I'm, you know, just because I've
got a couple of minutes right here. Let me find, go to first Thessalonians, right? In Hebrews 13
verse 17, the Bible says, obey them that have rule over you and submit yourselves for they watch
for your souls as they must give account that they may do it with joy and not with grief for that is
unprofitable to you. Not to me, to you. You know, why, why do we want men to leave? Because guys,
as men, we have a big responsibility. We're basically the shield between the Lord Jesus Christ
and our kids. Like we have a big, well, we have to answer, we have to answer the Lord, right? In the
church, you know, we have this hierarchy here, but it's really just based on God's word. At the end
of the day, when you go home, it's your responsibility to lead your home according to Christ. And the only
one that's going to be held accountable for not doing that is you. You're the one that will be
held accountable for the way your wife is and your children are to a certain degree. Once they leave
and they become adults, well then that's their problem. But you're the one that has to lead.
And I mean, are there times, look, I just told you earlier, I have a great relationship with my wife,
but I guarantee you and she's voiced it many years after that there's things that she's
disagreed with me the way I do things and all that but you know what she's never stopped me at the
moment you know I've told you that story about how I lent money to a guy and then it wasn't like so
five six years later we're talking about it she's like yeah I never agreed with that and you know
but you know she never told me I was just like I showed up one day I'm like hey we're gonna lend
this guy $1,500 and I think the conversation went something like oh why or you know she's my wife
you know by the way I'm not she has a she has a voice and opinion I'm just not gonna if I
disagree I'm just gonna do whatever I need to do and at the time I think I disagreed and I did
whatever I wanted to do anyways and it turned out to be a really bad deal because you know what I'm
out $1,500 almost a decade later like I just never recovered if the guy went I don't know where he's
at you know he just took the money so you know she had more wisdom than me at the time but you know
who cut who protected us the Lord because we've never wanted for food we've got a roof over our
head I was really grateful last night I was praying to the Lord I said thank you Lord
even though I've lost jobs and I've had people take you know advantage of us and we even have
clients now that are taking advantage of us you know it's cold outside and we're warm under the
blankets thank you Lord. So we need to have the proper authority let's close this thing out.
First Thessalonians 5 12 I mean 11 says wherefore comfort yourselves together and edify one another
even also as ye do and we beseech you brethren to know them which labor among you and are over you
and the Lord and admonish you to esteem them and to esteem them very highly in love for their work
sakes and be at peace among yourselves. Look the pastor must submit to God and God's word members
must submit to the spiritual leisure but also to God's word and actually God's word supersedes
right everyone must submit to the truth. My plea my beseech meant for you guys is that you would
submit to the truth. Remove your feelings and emotions submit to the truth. Give me five more
minutes guys I'm right on the money so give me five more minutes. Authority and order in civil
government and I'm just going to go to Acts because I already kind of covered all this
but you we need to submit even when we disagree right the only time we disobey is when submission
ends and where obedience to God would be violated. We have a clear example in Acts 5 and verse 28
the Bible says saying these guys imprisoned right Peter and all uh and I think it was Peter and
James and said saying did we not straightly command you that you should not teach in his name
and behold you have fulfilled Jerusalem you have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine and intend to
bring this man's blood upon us then Peter and the other apostles answered and said we ought to obey
God rather than man than man sorry the way the Bible says there is hey if someone strictly
clearly is saying don't preach the word of God then we disobey but if the Bible says hey I mean but
if the government says hey we're increasing your taxes I think it sucks which I do I don't even
like paying the taxes right now you pay those taxes right if the government says that Joe Biden
is your next president you know they might revive him then he's your president you know people go
around saying oh that's not my president I've been guilty of saying that but the reality is
if you live in this country whoever's leading that country that's your president that's your authority
and it'll make your life better but it doesn't always have to it's not always like pleasant
and let me just give you the last point authority and order in our spirit right submission is a
weapon submission is not weakness right it's alignment with the Lord Jesus Christ you know
we go back to that verse in James 4 verse 7 says submit yourselves therefore to God resist the
devil and he will flee from you in Luke 10 17 the Bible says in 70 returned again with joy saying
Lord even the devils are subject unto us through thy name you know when he sent them out they
submitted but then later on like we were reading Matthew in 17 verse 21 Jesus had to get onto him
because the people came they're like hey we brought this lunatic this possessed individual
to you to your apostles and they couldn't they couldn't uh exercise them what happened and he
said hey this thing only comes he said how be it this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting
you know they weren't submitting to the right authority and they weren't able to do the things
that god asked them to do you know getting old just sucks sometimes i'm not sick i'm not anything
just when it gets cold i get this weird itch in the back of my throat and start i cough at night
for no reason i have aches and pains just i'm going to take 30 seconds of my next two minutes
i'm just like this is horrible i'm struggling up here like i'm dying now nothing's wrong with me
got this itch in my throat but at the end of the day the bible tells us in ephesians 6 verse 12
says for we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities against powers against the
rulers of darkness of this world against spiritual wickedness in high places and when we talk about
that the biggest thing is when we submit to the lord and we put on the armor of god then we can
fight against the wiles of the devil and submission looks really cool from from a spiritual standpoint
when the church is together in it submission looks cool when we're putting on the armor of god
where we fail and i'm not saying this church but i'm just saying in general society's failing is
when we say hey wives submit your husbands hey children obey your parents you know because it
doesn't sound cool when you're a teenager it's not cool to obey your parent it's right but it's not
cool when it's like hey you have a crappy job and you have a crappy boss but you're still to submit
to him yeah that's horrible every every election cycle someone's rebelling against the leadership
as christians regardless of who we like or not whoever is in leadership we need to submit to
them right trump i think is better than biden but either way i still think both of them are
horrible but who's ever up there we need to submit to them so anyway let's close in a word
of prayer heavenly follow lord thank you so much for today thank you for your blessings thank you
for giving us this time here lord but more importantly thank you for your word lord that
just teaches us so strongly to obey and to submit and uh you know you're so benevolent it's it's not
like the world has painted it you're not some hitler or you know some communist boliagar who's
just looking to destroy but instead you love us so much you've given us free will and grace and mercy
and if we just submit and obey your orders our lives will be so much better for it not always
immediate also lord but just remind us that it's not a one-day instant gratification thing but it's
a lifelong commitment and i pray that husbands would love their wives and will not grow bitter
against them i pray that wives would submit to their husbands they would reverence their husbands
i pray that children would obey their parents lord so that we could be an example to the world
but more importantly so we just leave a peaceable life thank you for all that you do lord thank you
for uh your word in jesus name we pray amen turn your handles over to page 121 121 we might have
to do it acapella oh never mind