CCC Livestream - The Gospel Shaped Family - Ephesians 5:22-33
Live Worship Gathering: 5/10/2026
Preaching: Jason Purdy
I invite you to turn to Ephesians 5.
We begin our summer sermon series today entitled “The Gospel Shaped Family.”
You cannot love Jesus without loving his family - the church.
And you cannot love Jesus without loving your family in your home as well as extended relatives.
One of the covenant commitments we make in our church membership covenant is a commitment to gospel centered families.
It reads:
“We will endeavor to build Gospel-centered homes. Husbands will seek to love and lead their wives and children sacrificially as Christ loves and leads the church, meaning husbands are ready to lay down their lives for their families. Wives will seek to submit to their husbands, as the church does to Christ. As parents, we will raise the children under our care in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and by a pure and loving example to seek the salvation of our family and friends.”
This summer, we are going to walk through some key passages on marriage, on singleness, on parenting, and on children, as well as some passages addressing key issues that we all deal with in family life.
My prayer is that God would continue to make us and shape us by His grace and through His gospel into a godly church family that is made up of godly gospel shaped families.
I remember in one of my first jobs I ever had, I worked in a call center.
And one day the CEO of the company was having lunch with us low level employees, the only time that ever happened, and he said something I will never forget.
He said, “I don’t like calling our company a family. Families are messy, filled with angst, and pain, and unproductive.”
“I consider us a well oiled machine.”
I think that CEO expressed an opinion about family that is very popular in our culture in our day.
Studies tell us that, in our culture, young people are waiting longer and longer to get married, and many are choosing not to marry at all, many more than just a few decades ago.
Couples are also choosing to have less children or choosing to not have them at all.
Why? Because in a culture that prizes self-fulfillment, self-achievement, and self-actualization, families are messy, filled with angst, and pain, and unproductive.
You see, one of the great ways Jesus sets apart His people to witness to a watching world is by giving us a distinct loving and passionate commitment to His family - the church and to our families at home, and to the creation and design of family, which is central to God’s plan.
Today, we consider one of the most famous passages in the Bible on marriage.
It is foundational to the Christian marriage relationship.
But let me say this, if you are here and are not married, this passage is just as relevant for you as for the married people in the room for two reasons:
The first is, the passage tells us that marriage is a reflection of Jesus’ relationship with his church, so everything that is written here applies to everyone when it comes to their relationship with Jesus.
And second, if you are not married now, you may well be in the near future, and even if not, you are in relationship with others in marriages that you influence and that influence you.
Listen, I realize depending on your experience in your marriage, or the experience of your parents marriage or marriage in general, you may be feeling great about the idea of marriage, or the subject of marriage is a very frustrating and painful one.
I want to encourage you that the Lord Jesus Christ cares about you right where you are, and he wants to help, and to heal, and he does that through His truth and His gospel.
I want to encourage you to say a silent prayer in your heart, whether this be the first time you have heard this passage proclaimed or the 50th time, that the Lord Jesus would work through his Spirit to exalt Christ and instruct us in what he has for us today.
Please follow along silently as I read God’s word over us:
Ephesians 5:22–33 ESV
22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.
25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. 28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 30 because we are members of his body. 31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. 33 However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.
1. Wives, Submit To Your Own Husbands, as to the Lord
The Christian life is a life centered around submission.
One of the most famous verses about our salvation is
Romans 10:9 ESV
9 because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
Salvation never occurs apart from submission to Jesus as Lord.
You must confess Jesus as Lord, which is the ultimate confession of submission, in order to be saved.
And if you do not understand salvation as containing your submission, I don’t think you know what the word “Lord” means.
Maybe you want to argue at this point and say:
Well, pastor Jason, salvation is by God’s grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.
And I would say, “Yes and amen!”
But God’s word is clear that this exclusive Christ who we place our faith in is Sovereign Lord, so to place faith in him is to submit to him.
I begin there because in our culture, Satan lies and says that all conceptions of authority and all conceptions of submission to authority is evil.
That is not true.
In Ephesians 5, Paul has just encouraged the followers of Jesus, as members of Jesus’ church, to not get drunk with wine but instead by filled with the Spirit of God.
He says being filled with the Spirit of God evidences itself in three ways in a person’s life:
singing songs of praise to God and in the presence of one another,
giving thanks always and for everything to God in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
and finally, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.
In the English text, it can seem like this verse is saying that we all somehow submit to one another,
You submit to me, I submit to you, it’s a very popular idea being talked about in our day, the idea of mutual submission.
But that is not what Paul is saying here.
The original language reads as follows:
Submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, to your own husbands, as to the Lord.
If you look down to 6:1, children to your parents in the Lord.
And 6:5, bondservants to your earthly masters.
Submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ looks like this: wives to husbands, children to parents, and bondservants to earthly masters.
I must mention in our day and age: wives are biological women and husbands are biological men, and God only ordains a marriage between one biological woman and one biological man, any other arrangement goes again his creation design and is rebellious against him.
Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.
The command is not, women, submit to all men.
The command is not wives, submit to all husbands.
The command is wives, submit to your own husband, as to the Lord.
For any woman in the room who is not yet married, you know your Lord Jesus’ command, so you make sure you only ever attach yourself to a man who is submitted to His Lord Jesus, a man who you naturally respect and want to follow, and a man willing to submit to the leaders of Jesus’ church, and seek premarital counsel from godly family members and church leaders, because you will be commanded to submit yourself to this man.
Wives, as you submit to the Lord, submit yourself also to your husband.
Why?
Verse 23: Because the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior.
Christians who don’t want husbands and wives to have differing roles want to argue that head does not speak of authority here,
but is the exact same word used of Jesus in
Ephesians 1:22 ESV
22 And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church,
Jesus is the authority and holds supremacy in his church.
The husband is the authoritative head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior.
I think there is a huge interpretive key right there.
I believe Paul knows that we would have expected based on the theme for him to write in verse 23: For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Lord.
But that’s not what he writes, instead, he writes, Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior.
Paul in no way is implying that husbands are somehow the wife’s savior. No, never ever could it be.
But, what Paul is saying is the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and this leads to something saving, something redemptive, something good, not something controlling, something authoritarian, and something wrong.
It is good for the church that Christ is its head.
It is good for the woman that the husband is her head and Christ is the head of them both.
It is a truth for a wife to glory in, not to begrudge.
Like all authority given to mankind, this is a derivative authority, not an absolute one.
The one true God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is the only one who holds absolute authority.
So, the wife is called to submit to her husband as far as her husband submits to the Lord.
So, if the husband commands the wife to do something against the Lord, the wife must obey the Lord, not her husband.
Verse 24: Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.
Now, the words “in everything” do not negate what I just said about the husband seeking to force the wife to disobey the Lord.
Paul is simply stating that there is not some small realm of life that the wife must submit to her husband in, but in all of life under the Lordship of King Jesus.
The application for everyone whether married or not is: we, God’s people the church, are called and commissioned to submit to the Lordship of Christ with all of our lives.
The strong implication of the great commission given us in Matthew 28 is that because all authority has been given to Christ, we must be baptized to identify with Jesus as Savior, and we must obey all his commands in all of our lives submitting to Him as Lord.
The application for wives is submit to your own husband, as you both submit to Christ.
Honor the place of responsibility, provision, and care that has been given to the husband.
Remember, even though Eve sinned first by eating of the fruit of the tree, God came looking for Adam.
Honor and submit to the role of responsibility, provision, and care that has been given the husband.
Let me encourage you with one more thing before moving on: the Bible is a whole book, so all the “one another” passages apply to husbands and wives,
So submitting to your husband does not mean you should never admonish him just as it would not mean you should not encourage him.
But honor him, support him as the primary decision maker who will give an account to God for the way he leads you.
Now, the command to husbands in verse 25 completely offsets any possible sinful abuses that any husband could render in light of verses 22-24.
2. Husbands, Love Your Wives As Christ Loved The Church
You see, the readers of this letter in ancient Ephesus would not have been shocked or uncomfortable with verses 22-24.
We, in our culture, are tempted to be shocked and uncomfortable with verses 22-24, but in the ancient world, it would have been verses 25-30 about the way the husband is called to love the wife that would have shocked and made people uncomfortable.
We have ancient records of family law codes from that time period and all of them command the wife to submit to her husband, but none of them command the husband to love his wife.
You see, we are used to a very romanticized version of dating, and engagement, and marriage, but in ancient times, and still in many places around the world today, marriage is simply viewed as an economic and social necessity.
Love is seen as a lucky byproduct if it occurs, but it is certainly not seen as essential.
Jesus told us that the watching world would know that we belong to Jesus by the way that we love one another.
And in the same way, the world will know that a married couple belongs to Jesus by the distinct way that the husband sacrificially loves his wife, and in return the wife honors and respects her husband.
Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.
How did Christ love the church?
By not counting his great place of authority as something to be grasped onto or fought for, but instead, using his authority to willingly lay down all of his rights to the point of death on a cross.
In the same way we are all called to die to self and live to Christ, we husbands are called to die to self in loving care for our wives.
Notice, our Lord Jesus Christ loved the church by giving himself up for her.
And in doing so, verse 26, he set his church apart as holy, that’s what it means that he sanctified her.
He cleansed her by the washing of water with the word.
It is through God’s offer of his gracious word - the gospel - that has offered cleansing of all sin to his people.
So, we husbands are called to display His cleansing gospel by the way we love our wives in all purity.
Verse 27: So that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.
Now, just like earlier, I made clear that the husband cannot be the wives’ savior, we husbands cannot sanctify her, cleanse her of her sins, present her in perfect splendor, remove all spots and wrinkles and blemishes, Christ does all those things, but we are called to love her by holding her in our hearts in this way.
We husbands must set our wives apart in our hearts.
Like Paul wrote in Timothy and Titus, we are to be a one woman kind of man.
When you said yes to your wife on your wedding day, you were also saying “no” to every other woman in the world when it comes to commitment, marital love, intimacy, and responsibility.
Husbands, are you committed to daily setting your wife apart in your heart?
Are you committed to her being washed by the water of the word by leading in Bible reading, leading in prayer, leading in centering your life on the glory of God and the life of His church, not bringing anything unclean or irreverent into the life of your wife?
Speaking to her in clean, reverent, and honorable ways?
Treating her with the care, responsibility, and dignity of a priceless and spotless treasure?
This is how Christ relates to His bride - the church.
Just as all the “one anothers” must apply to the wife for the husband it is true of the husband to the wife as well.
The fruit of the Spirit characterized in love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control should all characterize your relationship to your wife.
Verses 28-30: In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body.
How do we love our own bodies?
We know what we like.
We know our favorite meals, what we like to drink, how much sleep we need to get, what we like to wear, and what hobbies we enjoy.
We generally love and take care of our own bodies.
Yet, in a greater way, as we lay our lives down for our wives, we must love and take great care toward our wives.
He who loves his wife loves himself.
That means great blessing comes to the man who sacrificially loves his wife.
Blessed is the man who loves his wife and gives himself up for her.
No one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body.
Christ deeply loves and cherishes his body - the church - and he nourishes her by giving her everything she needs to grow and flourish.
He cherishes her by being warm, tender, and affectionate towards her in order to bring comfort and security.
This is the role of Christ toward His church.
3. A Christian Marriage Is A Picture Of Christ And His Bride
Jesus Christ shed his own blood and laid down his life for His bride - the church - that he might set us apart, cleanse us through the gospel, present us in all splendor, being holy and without blemish, because we are His body.
Verse 31: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”
Here, Paul quotes Genesis 2:24, which is where God first established the institution of marriage, when he created Eve from the rib of Adam, and brought Eve to Adam and Adam identified her as a suitable helper to him as he had not found amongst the other parts of creation.
So, God established the covenant marriage relationship where a man leaves his father and mother.
It does not mean that he no longer honors his parents or provides for them in old age, but it does mean that he now has a marriage relationship takes preeminence over all other human relationships.
He is the leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife.
The phrase “hold fast” evokes the idea of permanence of commitment to his wife, for they shall become one flesh.
One flesh, one not whole without the other.
The complete union of wholeness and completion.
It also speaks to the physical union of the marriage that is able to bring about children as they become one flesh.
Verse 32: This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.
Throughout the New Testament, when we read of a mystery being revealed, it is speaking to a reality that is not clearly perceived and spelled out in the Old Testament.
It is a truth only clearly revealed now that Christ has come and the New Covenant is inaugurated.
What is that great and profound mystery? The pronouncement that a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh, refers to Christ and the church.
He is not saying it does not apply to human marriage, but he is saying in an even more profound way, it applies to Christ and the church.
In Matthew 12, while Jesus was with his disciples, his mother and his brothers came requesting to speak to him.
Listen to how he responds:
Matthew 12:48–50 ESV
48 But he replied to the man who told him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” 49 And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! 50 For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”
You see, Jesus had left his father and mother as his primary human responsibility and relationship and he was now holding fast to his wife - the church - all those who do the will of His heavenly Father.
The book of Ephesians makes clear that at one time, we were all dead in the trespasses and sins in which we once walked.
We were sons and daughters of disobedience toward God.
We lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, making us children rightfully under the wrath of God.
Ephesians 2:4–7 ESV
4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
Jesus came to save us from the righteous wrath of God due our sin, and in great mercy and love, He laid down his life in order to bring us new life and make us alive together with Christ.
Maybe this sermon has been a difficult one for you because you are experiencing guilt and shame for all the ways you have fallen short in your marriage, or if you are not married, all the ways you have fallen short in other ways.
Can I encourage you that before this passage is about husbands and wives in marriage, it is about Christ and His church?
And it was while we were dead in our sins and trespasses that Christ came to love us and give himself for us.
And in doing that it is Christ who sanctifies us, and cleanses us by washing with the water of the word of God which is the gospel.
And it is Christ who presents us in splendor without any spot or wrinkle so that we might be holy and without blemish.
It is Christ who loves us, nourishes us, cherishes us.
For by God’s great grace through the gift of faith, we find ourselves one in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The two have become one flesh as we have been saved not only from our sin but into His family - the church - his body.
And oh Christ holds fast to his wife.
John 6:37 ESV
37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.
Christ, who began this good work in you will bring it to perfect completion.
He will nourish you, he will cherish you, he will wash you, and he will finally present you in the splendor of His holiness.
Praise God that in Christ, we do not place our confidence in our ability to hold fast to him, but we place our confidence in the fact that He always holds fast to us,
Because we are His body, we are one flesh with him, and he nourishes and cherishes us and nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.
So, may we be rooted and grounded in his great love that we:
Ephesians 3:18–19 ESV
18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
A Christian marriage is to be a picture and a reflection of the ultimate marriage of Christ and His church.
Verse 33: However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.
How do we reflect the great gospel of making us his body the church?
Husbands, love your wives. Wives respect your husband.
In the book Robin and I use for premarital and marriage counseling, it encourages husbands to love your wives graciously,
Love her sacrificially,
Love her redemptively,
Love her with understanding,
Love her with honor.
Do you faithfully pray for her, that Jesus Christ might be glorified in her and that she might know his love and grace?
Do you love her enough to confront her sins and patiently lead her into repentance?
Do you wash her with the water of God’s word or do you let pride, selfishness, or fear keep you from your God-given responsibility?
Do you lead her in active involvement and service as a member of Christ’s church?
Do you remind her of the gospel of grace and God’s active goodness toward her?
Wives, submit to and respect your husband.
Pray for him and with him.
Learn to understand him.
Communicate in ways that serve him.
Demonstrate physical affection to him.
Enjoy shared activities with him.
Are you more aware of your husband’s deficiencies or his strengths?
Are you more inclined to criticize or commend him?
Have you failed to express respect for your husband because you are so concerned with an area of sin and weakness in his life?
Are you afraid that if you encourage him in one area of his life, he will think you condone something else that is wrong?
We will never do these things perfectly, but by God’s great grace through making us one with Christ, we are called to do them genuinely.
Let’s pray.
,