***The following is an unedited auto-generated transcript and may contain serious errors and speakers other than Dallas Willard. It is included here to assist your study. Please check the original audio for an authentic record of the event.
Dallas: I know that a number of you have Bibles.
I hope you will open your Scriptures
to the passage which was just read
in the fifth chapter of Ephesians.
I’m going to use these as the basis
of a few remarks before we proceed
with the marriage ceremony.
I’m always glad
to take part in the Christian marriage.
You know the traditional marriage service says
that marriage is an honorable estate,
an estate worthy of honor,
and it is,
because in marriage
there is an opportunity
for the individual person
to find out and develop some things
in themselves by the grace of God,
like they never have an opportunity
anywhere else.
You just think for a moment about
what this involves.
Doc and Lita
are coming this morning to
make a commitment to one another.
Now you know they don’t know what’s
going to happen when their lives do.
None of us do.
They have no idea what’s going to become
of any one of us really.
Doc doesn’t know what is going to happen
with himself or Lita,
nor she with him.
And I’ll guarantee you that in ten years
from today you’ll find out.
You ask them, did you have any idea
that all these things were going to happen
that’s happened to you?
They will say, I have no idea whatsoever
that all of this is going to happen.
Did you know what was going to happen to you?
No, you didn’t.
And yet Doc and Lita are coming here this morning
and they’re going to commit themselves to one another.
And all that we know in terms of
committing yourselves to a mate
for better or for worse,
richer and poorer,
in sickness and in health,
till death do us part.
Those are words which are so strong
that you must instead stand up.
Because when we come to a commitment like that
with another individual,
that we begin to learn something about loyalty.
Or generosity.
There are many things which we all want.
We bring those wants into a marriage.
And when Lita looks at Doc,
Doc and Lita,
they see people who want a certain thing.
That’s why they’re getting married.
And the depth of that commitment
to the wants and needs of the other
expands the soul
and stretches it sometimes to where it is ready to pop
in a way nothing else does.
Sometimes I think we might do better
if we likened our church membership more to a marriage.
Perhaps in our church membership occasions
if we would have something like
for better and for worse,
for richer and poorer,
in sickness and in health,
our churches would mean something very good.
And you don’t have a real church where that happens.
You don’t have it.
You may have a building and a bunch of friendly people,
but unless there’s something in the way of that kind of commitment,
you don’t have a church.
See, the model of commitment is in the life of Beth Jesus.
And he laid down his life for his friends.
And in marriage, we have a chance to learn something about what generosity is.
The giving of one person to another simply because that other person wants.
And the giving without enslaving that other person
with all of the strains that we tend to bind our gifts up in.
And you just can’t help but think about the generosity of God,
who in effect just squandered his love upon the world.
Indiscriminate, poured it out.
And that’s the kind of ideal that is set for us in marriage,
no matter how far short we may come up.
It is there.
I think especially it is in marriage,
the relationship with man and woman,
the creation of family, whether it’s children or not.
It is in that relationship
that we have to see the primary place that God will build his kingdom.
Because as long as we have unhappy people in the home,
we’re going to have unhappy people everywhere else.
And if Satan can manage to capture the home,
he can let the flight of Christ fly anywhere else in this world.
Anywhere, if he is master in the home.
It’s so important to understand that and realize
that the home is to be the foundation of peace,
the foundation of love, Christ.
But all of that in issue,
I think you can understand why it’s so difficult to have good marriage.
And it’s not an easy thing.
The truth of the matter is, it’s like salvation.
It doesn’t come by works, it comes by grace.
Now there’s a place for work,
just like there’s a place for work and salvation,
just to have to have them in the right order.
But a marriage such as everyone really wants,
and it’s a gift of grace.
It comes when people see marriage as a graceful vocation,
as something which is given to them by God.
That’s why I ask this one scripture to read,
start a little earlier than we usually do
when we read out of the chapter of Ephesians about family.
You know where we usually begin?
We usually begin with verse 22.
Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husband,
as unto the Lord.
Now I’m sorry, but without what goes before, that’s impossible.
That’s impossible.
And one reason why it is proven,
as a matter of fact, not to happen,
is the cause of the neglect of the comments.
And I want to look just a moment at the earlier verses.
You know the older churches
regarded marriage as one of the sacraments.
You know that.
And many times we as Protestants have thrown things away
which were very valuable just in reaction
to something which was quite wrong.
But the truth of the matter is marriage is a sacrament.
The false of the matter is
that there’s some man or group of men somewhere
who can say a few words and create it.
That can’t be done.
But it is a sacrament.
And it is given within the community of the church.
Now let’s look at that community.
That community consists of a group of people who are awake.
They are walking in the light of Christ.
They don’t walk around like fools, but like wives.
They redeem the time because they know of all the dangers.
They raise our people. They understand what the will of the Lord is.
Now we’re not talking here to any particular group.
We’re talking about all of the people in the community of God together.
We’re not talking about children or parents or wives or husbands
or masters or whatever. We’ll come to that later.
This sets the context.
Now let’s proceed to see how this culminates in verse 21.
Be not drunk with wine, wherein is it set?
But be filled with the Spirit.
And then we get a description of the Spirit filled by it.
Could you read that in your version again?
That was so good.
That’s verse 19.
Talk with each other much about the Lord.
Talk with each other much about the Lord.
Now this is an expression of the Spirit filled by it.
Read on.
Putting songs in the end and singing a single song,
making music in your hearts to the Lord.
Do you get a picture of this community?
Do you get a picture of that?
People who are happy.
People who talk to one another about the Lord.
People who sing.
But the picture here is a picture of a happy group of people.
And I want you to get that because you’re not going to have happy marriages in isolation.
A happy marriage is going to be one which finds its place in the Church of God.
And the Church of God is a happy people.
They’re happy people.
No one is.
They’re so happy that they give thanks always for all things.
Under God.
Happy people.
They’re so happy.
The 21st verse is the word of the Lord.
They’re so happy, they have so much to be thankful for,
that they can submit themselves one to another.
The old version says, in the fear of God,
it should be read, I think, out of respect for reverence to Christ.
And the word there is Christ.
They submit themselves one to another
out of regard or respect for reverence to Christ.
Now, that ends the pecking order right there.
It isn’t that some people are up here, and others are down here,
and others down here, and others down here.
And we must never see that in what follows.
But you see, we will see it unless we start up here,
submitting ourselves one to another in the fear,
in the regard, in the respect and reverence of Christ.
There’s no pecking order here.
There’s no one on top.
Jesus himself taught that if you want to be greatest, you go to the bottom.
You become servants of all.
So whom here say next wives submit yourselves to their husbands?
That doesn’t mean, you know, just wipe yourself out
and let your husband have his way about everything.
It means that possibly for the attitude of the wife.
But that wife and that husband are living in a context
where that will never become reality.
Because the husband is going to be submission to the wife.
And the child.
Submitting yourselves one to another accepting parents
won’t have to submit yourselves to your children.
But submitting yourselves one to another in the fear,
in respect and reverence of Christ.
Now what Paul does as he goes along now is to say some things about
how wives can submit themselves to their husbands
and how husbands can submit themselves to their wives
and how parents can submit themselves to their children
and how children can submit themselves to their parents
and how masters can submit themselves to their servants
and how servants can submit themselves to their masters.
You see Paul takes the three basic relationships in human behavior.
The wife, the husband and discusses that.
The parent, the child and discusses that.
And then the workman and the person he’s working for and discusses that.
And all of these, you see, there’s one thing.
submission one to another out of respect and out of regard to Christ.
Now you see when you have that community which is the church
then the marriage within that community
receives the gift of grace into that marriage
in the context of the total community.
And marriage is a sacrament.
It is something which comes into the lives of two individuals through the church.
I happen to have it under my control, thank God.
And Pastor Foster doesn’t have it under his.
There’s no other man in this world but you see the church is the body of Christ.
And he’s the head. And in that body
then you have a chance for a marriage to realize the high goal
which human beings and God and life would like to see through.
Look just a moment at what he says to the wife.
Wives, submit yourselves under your own husbands as under the Lord.
For the husband is head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church.
You see here two adverbs.
One, how is the wife to submit herself to the husband as unto the Lord.
Secondly, how is the husband to be the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church.
A loving relationship between a man and a woman
portrayed in terms of the relationship between the church and Jesus Christ.
That’s to be the moment.
When Jesus got ready in the 13th chapter of John to tell his disciples how they were to love one another
he said, love one another as I have loved you.
That’s how we’re to love one another.
The model of love in Jesus Christ sets the standard everywhere
and above all it sets the standard in man.
He goes on to spell this out, but I would rather just instead of commenting on the remaining parts of the passage
where he was discussing the life and the relation of the husband, just say
that the picture which the One Testament presents of the husband’s wife’s attitude towards the husband
is basically one of respect and sympathy for the husband’s position in the world.
It does not mean that the wife has to like everything that the husband does.
The Christian doesn’t like everything that Jesus does until later on perhaps.
The Christian doesn’t understand everything that Jesus is doing in his life.
Sometimes we wish we did, but we don’t.
Yet our attitude is one of trust and respect and sympathy for God as he works out his plan in this world.
My attitude towards the husband is to be one like that, of simple trust, of sympathy,
of respect for what the husband is having to live through.
In a very real sense, even when in marriage, the woman will never know what the woman was doing
and the man will never know what the woman was doing in a very real sense.
But even when there is a lack of understanding, whether at this point there can still be respect
and there will be disappointment, there will be disappointment.
There is no marriage that does not have its disappointments.
But there can still be sympathy and respect.
There can still be trust as unto the Lord.
The husband for his pardon is to love the wife.
Now you may think that it is odd that Paul didn’t tell the wife to love the husband.
He didn’t.
There is a reason in this.
And this is because in the world, especially as Paul knew it, the woman’s position was a very weak position.
And the truth of the matter is love is a prerogative of strength.
Love is a prerogative of strength.
That is why we love him because he first loved us.
In our weakness, we have to have love of all truths.
Paul says to the man who is in the strong position is worth loving the wife.
Love her as much as you love yourself.
Peter, in 1 Peter 3.7, speaks about dwelling with the woman according to knowledge.
Using your understanding.
How do you understand what is happening with her?
What is happening in your management?
This is a tremendous challenge, impossible really to meet in the person on the screen.
Bound to be many failures.
But he says live with them according to knowledge.
Treat her as the weaker vessel, the weaker vessel.
And he speaks about how we’re to live together as co-heirs of the grace of God.
Living according to knowledge.
Living out of respect for her and consideration and sympathy of what she has to do.
Now, when two people begin living within the community,
when they set out to give themselves to God,
to receive his grace into a marriage,
then they have a chance of the word being fulfilled,
which Jesus said when he said what God is joining together.
Let no man put something.
I’ll tell you something about that.
It’s not as if God had put something together with man and wife and was about to fly apart all the time.
When God puts a marriage together, it stays together.
It doesn’t stay together out of dreariness and duty and fear of the consequences of breaking up.
It stays together because the goodness of God is found in that marriage.
What God puts together will stay together and will be a good thing.
Stop and leave the living and walk in the church of Christ
that is described here as being.
The lives are full of joy and thankfulness and power.
As they live in the word of God and the written scriptures,
as they live in the way of experience with him as their leader,
they will be put together by God.
They will find the blessing of God and be a blessing all around them,
all around the screen which is given to them.
Now we’re going to have a time of quiet meditation and prayer,
a time when we can commune with God and if there’s anything which we feel like we should say to the group,
that too is open and free for us to do.
I want to say a good thing for us all as I intend to spend at least part of this time thinking about my own marriage,
thinking about my own life and what I should be and what I am not, but often do.
In that relationship.