(upbeat music) - Hey, this is Pastor John Ryan Cantu from PNEUMA Church in Houston, Texas.

Thank you for listening to the message today.

I hope that it blesses you and all those that you share it with.

God bless you. (upbeat music) - I realize that I forgot to make this announcement last week and I really wanna make it because we are a church, you know, we've got a lot going on and we have been growing at a more rapid pace than we have before.

We're having a lot of problems in that we're having to kick people out of certain rooms and expand our nursery and we're having to add more rooms.

And we have, I think we almost had 40 kids in the kids ministry last week.

And those are good problems, but they're problems nonetheless, right?

But because we are a growing church and we are a church that moves and we've got all kinds of stuff going on, I know that not everybody has social media, not everybody looks at social media.

We also made this board out here in front of the restroom that has the months events so that you can check it out there.

But also there's one last piece because we don't want you to be without excuse.

I didn't know, brother, nobody told me.

So for the first time, I'm gonna ask you to bring out your phone, get your phone out real quick and we're not gonna go to the Bible app yet.

Instead, we have this, if you send a text message to that number, you can receive all of the notifications for PNEUMA, for our events.

So go ahead and text that number.

We're not gonna bombard you.

We're not gonna ask how your day's going or anything like that.

It's just to get you the information that you need to know so that you're always in the know.

Amen?

Praise the Lord.

This morning, I wanna take you to Ephesians 5, verses 23 through 6, 9.

We're gonna read into chapter six.

Every Sunday before Valentine's Day, 'cause this is Valentine's Day week, I like to bring a word on relationships.

Valentine's Day is on Wednesday.

And yes, we're still having Bible study.

I was asked that by a few people.

Are we still having Bible study?

If you're trying to go out on Valentine's Day, that's the worst thing you can do, first of all, because there's an hour and a half wait just to get into like chilies, you know?

And then when you finally sit down, you're sitting next to a 16-year-old couple and they're just making out.

It's just, you don't wanna do that.

Just go on the 12th or the 13th, right?

On the 14th, be here at church.

But I like to bring a word every now and then on relationships, because you know, God has put us on earth to be in communion with people, to have relationships with people.

And just like anything that we do, our relationships have to honor God, right?

Honoring God is vertical, right?

We honor God with our submission to him.

But another way that we honor God is horizontally by us honoring people.

And there's a lot of people, there's a lot of Christians who say, I don't like people.

But if you don't like people, you don't like God's creation and you are therefore being disobedient to the, you can be antisocial, but you can't be anti-people, right?

Because God created people.

And so we need to learn how to honor God through our relationships and not just the good ones, the challenging ones as well.

And last year I gave a word called Know Your Role.

And it was out of this same portion of Ephesians 5.

We talked specifically about husbands and wives and how to honor God with your singleness if you're not yet married.

It was a fun sermon.

I preached against the demonic spirit of fake eyelashes.

And I encourage you to go back and listen to it.

We have a podcast, the church has a podcast, PNEUMA Church podcast where you can check out all the sermons.

But I wanna kinda revisit that word a little bit.

So if you would stand with me, Ephesians 5, 23 through 6, 9.

So we're gonna read a little bit more this morning.

Is that all right?

Amen.

Don't let me lose you this morning.

If you have it, give me a nice amen.

It says this, it says wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord.

Come on.

For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, his body and is himself its savior.

Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

Husbands, love your wives.

As, come on, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.

In the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies.

He who loves his wife loves himself for no one has ever hated, for no one ever hated his own flesh but nourishes and cherishes it.

But as, just as a church does, I'm sorry, I'm all over the place.

Just as Christ does the church because we are members of his body.

Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh.

This mystery is profound and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.

However, let each one of you love his wife as himself and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

Now we're going into chapter six.

It says, "Children, obey your parents."

Any children in the room?

They're over there, we gotta bring them over here.

"Children, obey your parents in the Lord, "for this is right.

"Honor your father and your mother."

This is the first command with a promise that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.

"Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger "but bring them up in the discipline "and the instruction of the Lord.

"Bondservants, obey your earthly masters "with fear and trembling with the sincere heart "as you would Christ, "not by the way of eye service as people pleasers "but as bondservants of Christ, "doing the will of God from the heart, "rendering service with a good will "as to the Lord and not to man, "knowing that whatever good anyone does, "this he will receive back from the Lord, "whether he is a bondservant or free."

And in the last verse, "Masters, do the same "and stop threatening, "knowing that he who is both their master "and yours is in heaven "and that there is no partiality with him."

Amen.

Let's go to God in prayer.

Heavenly Father, I thank you for this word that you've spoken over your servant, Holy Spirit.

I pray that you would be on my lips this morning and that you would soften hearts this morning, soften mindsets this morning.

I pray that your word would do what your word does and that is penetrate the depths of the heart and the spirit, Father God.

I pray, Lord, that this word would bring conviction and encouragement, Father God, and anything else that you wanna bring, Father, in Jesus' name, amen.

Amen.

There's a lot here in this passage, a lot more than what we covered last year, but I still think that an appropriate title for the sermon is Know Your Role.

So we're going with Know Your Role, part two, because this is a portion of scripture that is talking about the role that God has established for his people.

How many of us know that every single person in this room has a role in God's society?

You have a role, you have a purpose, you were designed with intention in God's society.

Maybe you've been asking the wrong question, maybe you've been asking what's my role in society?

What can I contribute to the world?

Maybe you need to ask yourself what's my role in the kingdom?

What does God want me to do?

Where do I fall in the order of God's design?

Yesterday I spoke at a men's breakfast and I talked about the purpose of the man, because when you understand your purpose in God's creation, are you listening?

When you understand what your purpose is in God's creation, it creates a framework by which you live with intention.

So if you were created to worship God, well then you live with the intention of worshiping God.

If you live knowing that you were called to obey the Lord, if you were called to submit to him, then you walk in a way that submits to him.

We live to obey God.

If God says go, you say go, even when you don't wanna go.

If God says stay, you say even when you want to go.

And that obedience creates order between the God and human relationship.

And for the most part, people don't have a problem with that.

We don't have a problem submitting to God.

The problem people have is with the God-ordained model for the human to human relationship.

Christians, for the most part, we don't have an issue submitting to God.

He's God, we recognize his Lordship over our lives.

But those same Christians might have a problem submitting to other people.

And if there is any offensive word in the Bible that triggers not the world, but Christians, it's the word submit.

Man, I think I said this last year, I do a lot of weddings.

And I read this passage, I read it.

Wives submit to your husband.

And every time there's somebody in the audience rolling their eyes, mm-mm, mm-mm.

We don't, people just in general don't like to submit for whatever reason.

Pride, I think pride is a really big one.

But other reasons might be you don't feel like a person is worthy of your submission.

Come on, let's be real.

Why am I gonna submit to him?

He hasn't earned my submission.

Come on.

You might feel like in order to submit to somebody, you have to respect them first, but maybe they did something to lose your respect.

And so now you don't wanna submit to them.

And so when we read passages like this that don't only deal with the man to God relationship, they also deal with the man to man relationship.

It offends people.

And if you pay attention to the text, and the reason that I wanted to read all of it is because there is one big theme in that passage of scripture, and that theme is order.

So Paul begins with the top.

He says Christ is the head, he's the head of the man.

And then you have the husband as the head of his family, you have the wife, the head of her children.

And then he talks about servants and masters kind of in their own separate category, but it's still the same, it's still the same thematic of the theme of order.

And so the reason that this is so controversial when it comes to the man and the wife is because the man likes to puff out his chest and say, I'm the man of the house.

What just happened when I read the first line?

Amen, come on, say it again pastor.

My dad performed my wedding for me and Melissa, and he read the same passage, and I stopped him and I said, can you read it again?

That's how we are, that's how we are.

And so that's the reason that this is so controversial because the man gets all puffed up, right?

I'm the man of the house.

The culture has made men a little bit weaker, right?

And so most men today, they don't know how to hunt for food.

Why would we hunt?

I got an apple, bring me food to my doorstep.

I could sit on the couch, I'll be good.

My wife has got the same app.

I don't need you to go hunting for me.

Men are not the only ones that work anymore.

Sometimes wives be holding it down, man.

And so in this age of equal rights, there's nothing wrong with equal rights.

Shoot, I love that my wife works.

Praise the Lord for equal rights.

But all of this has led to a culture where the woman says, I ain't submitting to no man.

And the premise, let me tell you, the premise is all wrong because submitting has nothing to do with who's better, who makes more money, who's more educated or any of that.

It simply has to do with the order that God has established.

That's what it has to do with.

And so going beyond just the husband and the wife relationship, the passage lays out pretty much everybody's role in God's society.

And so we see two very important concepts here in this passage, the one of authority and one of submission.

And I wanna talk about both of those.

I wanna talk about authority and submission in the life of a believer.

Do I still have your attention or some of y'all already tuned out 'cause we're talking about submission?

Okay, authority and submission.

Every person, with maybe a few exceptions, but every person will experience both authority and submission in their life.

There will be people that you lead, there will also be people that you submit to.

You are not meant to submit to everybody, but you're also not meant to lead everybody.

And we have to learn the balance between submission and authority and human relationship because if we don't, if we fail to submit and be good stewards of authority when it comes to the human to human relationship, we fail to submit to God.

When everything is working properly, this is the way that God designed it to be.

Everybody has a place in God's design, whether you're married or not married, we've got kids, you've got no kids, whether you're a slave or a king, everybody is subject to authority with the ultimate authority being God.

And so when Paul was writing this to the church at Ephesus, he was describing an ideal society.

Like this is how Christians are supposed to operate in an ideal Christian world.

And if you're a Christian whose ultimate authority is God, well, you should have no problem submitting to your authority if that authority is also submitted to God.

Everything lines up perfectly.

But what we have done in our culture is we have overcomplicated the act of submission.

We've overcomplicated it.

It's like we've taken the biblical text and we have inserted so many exceptions and so many caveats to submission.

It's like everybody reads this Bible story or this verse and they're like, but my situation is different.

Pastor, you don't understand my situation.

And so if you're a married woman, you might say, well, my husband doesn't love me the way that the verse tells him to love me. (congregation laughing) He doesn't listen to me.

He doesn't buy me flowers.

He's never paying attention.

Pastor, he don't even go to church.

You want me to submit to a man like that?

He doesn't even go to church.

When he starts doing those things, then maybe I'll start to submit.

That's not what the Bible says.

That's not the way that the Bible says it.

And I don't wanna repeat too much of my sermon from last year, but this also works in reverse.

Men, you're not required to love your wives only when there is submission.

You are required to love your wife even when she's disrespectful and when she's not honoring you and she's not giving her best self to you.

You're to love her when she's not being that Proverbs 31 woman, even though she's got a blasted all over her coffee mugs and all over the frames in the house, a blanket she got, a pillow, said Proverbs 31 woman.

She ain't no Proverbs 31 woman, but you're to love her anyway. (congregation laughing) We're always looking for the exit, the way out.

Well, I ain't gonna submit because he don't love me.

I ain't gonna love her because she has to submit.

She's so wild, pastor.

Sometimes the order in the home is broken.

Sometimes, it's like that a lot of the time, sometimes there is a broken order in the home.

And you know what?

When something is broken, that means that other things have to work harder for the same result.

And so when you're in July and that AC goes out, you are opening up every window, you are turning on every fan, you're going to buy more fans, you got ice packs and you're just covering yourself with ice and you're taking cold showers.

Everything has gotta work harder because there's something that is broken.

And so it works the same way in the home.

Many times there is broken order in the house.

And so woman, if your husband is not walking in the ways of God, that means that you have to work harder to insert God into your home and to insert him into your marriage and into your lives.

You have to bring your, you gotta get your kids up early.

You gotta get them all ready.

You gotta bring them to church.

The man ain't helping you out.

He's at home watching TV.

You gotta work harder for God to be in your home because something is broken.

And that's how it is.

Many times, again, Paul was talking in an ideal world where everything is well, but a lot of you have come to Christ after the fact.

You got married out of Christ and then you found Christ and you're still waiting on your husband.

You're still waiting on your spouse.

You're still waiting on your kids.

Something is broken, but you have been restored.

You have been restored.

And just like the song says, it's not your battle.

It's not your fight.

It's his fight.

As long as you submit it to him, as long as you are faithful to the King, everything will work out in its due time.

If my wife is honoring me and I'm not showing her the love that Christ tells me to show her, something is out of order, but it's not because of her, it's because of me.

And the point that I'm making, church, is that you need to strive to not be the reason that something is out of order, meaning you are the one trying to keep things in order because that means that you are being obedient to your master in heaven.

Woman, if you say, I am going to honor my husband, I'm going to respect my husband, even when it's hard, even when we don't agree.

Man, when you say, I'm going to love my wife, even when she's not reciprocating that love to me, you are honoring God through your relationship.

That's what you, man of God, woman of God, are called to do.

You're not called to wait until to be doing the thing that you are required to do.

You are to do it now.

And I know that's a hard word, but I'm just a messenger.

He keeps going, right?

He doesn't just leave it with the husbands, the wives.

He says, children, obey your parents.

Obey your parents, even when the parent is wrong, amen?

Do I have any parents that agree with that?

You better obey me.

For the most part, I don't think parents have an issue with that.

We don't have an issue with that.

Oh, but if he don't tell me I'm pretty, I ain't submitting to no man, come on.

You see the double standard?

When it comes to our kids, we expect them to submit just because we're the parents.

But when it comes to adults, we come up with all kinds of excuses.

You know, my daughter, Leila, she's-- man, she's something.

She's very analytical.

She's very argumentative.

I think that she's going to be a lawyer.

Jason, keep an eye on her, man.

Because, I mean, she just presses and presses and presses.

She asks and asks and asks for why and why and why, and until you get to a point where you are questioning your whole life, like, why am I even here?

That's Leila.

That's Leila.

And so sometimes I'll tell her to do something or I'll tell her to do it a certain way, and she's got me there for five minutes trying to explain it to her.

Why do I have to do it like this?

Why can't I do it that way?

And I was very much the same way, so I don't want to just dismiss her questions.

I want to explain it to her so that she knows.

But man, I get it now.

Like, at some point, parents just get to a point where, like, I'm the parent, you're the child.

Do as I say, because the Bible says so.

Right?

And there will be times where-- there's times where Leila, she's right about something, and I'm wrong.

There's time where she has all the information.

I have none of the information, but I'm telling her to do it anyway.

And she's arguing with me, and I'm like, I don't care what you think.

You're probably wrong.

Do it anyway.

And the Bible doesn't say children obey your parents only when your parents are right.

It just says obey your parents.

Why?

Because that keeps the order.

That keeps the order.

Paul keeps going all the way down to slaves and masters.

Now, this type of relationship, we don't have anymore.

It's not common anymore.

But you might have a boss.

You might have a leader.

You might have a pastor or a teacher.

The Bible doesn't say submit unless you know more than they do.

It doesn't say submit unless you are more knowledgeable about something than they are.

It doesn't say submit unless you can do the job that they're doing better.

It just says submit.

You see what I'm saying?

We have overcomplicated submission.

We've come out with all these excuses and all these exceptions and all these caveats to why I should not have to submit to this person.

And nobody wants to submit anymore.

We have allowed the world to redefine the idea of submission.

And it's made its way into the church.

Man, I hate how the world hijacks biblical concepts.

And the enemy loves to pervert biblical concepts.

Because in the world, to submit means to be less.

It means to be less important, less strong, less influential, less wise, less intelligent.

No wonder nobody wants to submit, but in God's design, to submit is simply to obey him.

To submit, it has to do with order.

To submit means to fall in line with the way that God arranged it.

To submit means to know that God is in control, even when you don't have all the facts.

To submit means to become humble and pull yourselves into other people.

That is the biblical definition of submission.

And if you are looking at the world for their definition, you're going to be offended every time.

But let me tell you, I thank God that we have a perfect model for submission in Jesus, who went to the Father with a plea and said, Father, if there is another way out, let this cup pass from me.

I thank God that my Jesus didn't feel entitled because of who he was.

I'm glad that Jesus didn't say, do you know who I am, Mr.

Roman soldier?

Do you know that I come from heaven and I step from my throne in heaven?

Do you know who I am?

I'm glad that I have a God that didn't call the legion of angels to rescue him from the cross.

I'm glad that I have a God who understood the power of submission.

[APPLAUSE] He goes to the Father and he says, not my will, your will.

I wish that there could be another way.

I mean, goodness, like, if Jesus was just another entitled figure of royalty, what would he have told his dad?

Do you know who I am?

I don't need this.

I'm going to die for these peasants.

That's what you want?

Don't you know who I am?

Don't you know the power that I possess?

But Jesus understood the power of submission.

To submit to people is to submit to God.

Paul says it, he says in verses 20 and 21 of chapter 5, he says, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.

See, before, you know, he's even talking about wives and husbands and children.

And Paul speaks to the church and he says to the church, submit to one another.

He opens a chapter, he says, be imitators of Christ and walk in love as Christ has loved us and gave himself up for us.

And then later on, he talks about husbands loving your wives as Christ loved the church.

And gave himself up for her.

I want you to understand how submission means something completely different in God's society.

But in order to fully understand submission, we have to understand authority.

And so I want to talk about authority.

I still got your attention, right?

See, the reason that over the course of human history, this idea of submission has become to be hated is because authority has been abused.

If you are in a position of authority and you abuse your authority, nobody wants to submit to you.

And in many cases, they might have a right to rebel.

This is why it's so messy.

Because sometimes there are valid reasons to not submit.

But just like submission has been perverted, authority has been perverted.

And so that godly woman who is trying to submit to her husband and she's doing her best to respect him and honor him and love him because she wants to operate in the order of God, if the man is abusing his authority in a way that is harmful physically, spiritually, emotionally to the family, the wife has a right to detach from that authority.

I said this last year, if your husband is leading you to hell, you don't follow him.

Now that's usually not the case.

I don't think you guys are married to like Satan worshipers or anything, you just, maybe woman, you're married to a man that is not following you into church yet.

He's not living a godly lifestyle.

But I said this last year, we have a lot of new people, I'm gonna say it again.

If your husband, if he has no issue with you going to church, that is a win, that is a victory.

I know that you grieve because you wish he was here, but if you stay faithful and if you bring Jesus back to him in your home, if you talk at home the way that you talk in front of your brothers and your sisters in Christ, if you worship the Lord in your home, he's going to see a changed you and wanna follow you into church and then God will begin to work on the man that God has called him to be and then he's gonna begin to lead you into the ways of the Lord.

But yeah, if he's leading you to hell, run.

There are some reasons, some reasons not to submit to authority and it's not when there's a bit of tension, okay, it's not when you get a little offended, it's not when there's a little bit of a difference of opinion in the way that he's doing things or you're doing things, it's when the authority is leading you to death, that's when you run away.

In ancient Rome when the Christians were coming up, they did their absolute best to respect the authority, but in cases where they were required to renounce Jesus, now I ain't doing that.

That's where I draw the line and I'll face the consequences and I'll go to prison or I'll even be martyred for my faith, but I'm not giving into your authority because your authority is trying to take me away from my authority.

Your authority is ultimately God.

And so that is the reason that people have not wanted to submit because there is an abuse of authority.

If you are in a position of authority, whether that be over your family, over your kids or at work, you have a responsibility to honor God with your authority because even though you might be an authority, you are not the authority.

Paul tells masters, be good to your slaves.

Stop threatening them.

Stop abusing your authority.

Be good to your kids.

Stop yelling at them.

Stop making them feel inferior.

Stop making them want to rebel against you.

Be good to your employees.

Be good to the people that volunteer with you at church.

If you are a man in your home, don't just be a man, be a priest.

Lead your family in the ways of the Lord.

If you are a single mom or single dad, lead your kids in the ways of the Lord.

The authority that God has given you is meant to honor him.

Don't abuse it, man.

Because when you steward your authority well, listen, when you steward your authority well, it makes it so much easier for people to submit to your authority even when they don't want to.

Did you hear that?

(congregation laughing) You know, my wife has not always loved every decision that I've made for our family.

I'm not a perfect decision maker.

I'm almost pretty good.

But there's been times where, you know, I've in a step of faith led our family outside of our comfort zone.

There's been decisions that I've made that have taken her away from her comfort zone.

And we talk about this because I wanna be in communication with my wife and I wanna make sure that she feels at peace and she feels loved and she feels appreciated and she feels valued.

And so I ask her, like, I don't want to create so much tension with some of the things that I decide to do.

And you know what she tells me, she told me one time, she says, "I trust that you are being led by God.

"And if you are being led by God, "I wanna be led by the man who is being led by God."

Man, when she told me that, I wanted to cry, man.

And she said, she didn't say it just like that, like I made it a little prettier, but she said pretty much like that.

Where I trust you because you are being led by God.

That's what she's doing.

That is what the woman is doing.

She's trusting her husband.

She has access to the Father.

She has access to Jesus.

She's got a prayer life.

But she also recognizes that when God speaks, he also speaks to the man as the head of the home.

And so she is trusting in me because I'm saying, "Babe, I think God is calling us to do this.

"I think God is calling us to take a step over here."

And I mean, I don't even know if I want it.

And she says, "Well, I don't want you to be disobedient "to God.

"That's my helper." (congregation applauding) That's what we do.

We help each other serve God.

We help each other follow God.

Man, I just, why don't I think about that?

I just want to choke up a little bit.

Because you know what that says to me?

It says that my wife believes that I am worthy to lead her.

She looks at me and she sees a man worthy of honor and respect.

He ain't just good looking.

He's worthy of honor and respect.

He's worthy for me to follow him because he is following the authority.

Authority is something that has been abused by people, by parents, by husbands, by leaders.

And it's made its way into the church, man.

It has perverted this idea of what biblical submission and biblical authority is, and it's made its way into the church.

Not just in the church, it's made its way behind pulpits.

Preachers and pastors and prophets abuse their God-given authority in a way that makes people not want to listen to the word of God or go to church or trust the church.

And we have people who don't want to submit because we have people who don't know how to lead.

It's a mess.

Because people don't know how to operate properly in the order of God's design.

But I thank God that just because, just like we have the perfect model of submission, we also have the perfect model of authority in Christ Jesus.

I want you to go back to verse 25 real quick, and I'm almost done.

I just, I want to dissect this little piece right here, okay?

You still with me?

Verse 25, the most controversial offensive verse in the 21st century.

Oh, I'm sorry, no, that's the other one.

This one's a little bit easier, okay.

Love your wives, husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.

One more time, let's say that together.

Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.

So I really want, I want to dig into the verse real quick because I said at the beginning of this, of the message that this passage highlights two things as it relates to human relationships, submission and authority.

So we all experience authority, we all experience submission when it comes to our relationships with people, but there's gotta be a healthy balance of both.

You need to learn how to submit, and then you need to learn how to exercise authority.

So I want you to see something in this verse.

Is it up there, yeah.

So husbands, somebody say husbands.

In this verse, according to the context of the passage, husbands are the authority.

See or no?

If you're beefing with me, take it up with Jesus. (congregation laughing) Husbands, in this passage, are the authority.

And it says, loves your wives.

In this passage, the wives are the submitters. (congregation cheering) Let's keep going. (congregation applauding) As Christ, what is Christ?

Authority, loved the submitters.

Submitters, and gave himself up for her.

Authority, loved your submitters as the authority loved the submitters, and gave himself up for her.

Here's the interesting part.

The Greek word for gave himself up, (speaking in foreign language) is what it is.

And you know what it means to give up in the Greek?

It means to surrender, hand over, submit.

This verse is reminding us that the ultimate authority submitted his life for the church that he loved.

What king would give up his own life for his kingdom?

What general gives up his own life for his army?

See, in the world, kings get soldiers to go fight.

Presidents don't fight in wars.

In every religion, except for Christianity, gods would never give up anything because to give up is a sign of submission.

And yet Christ, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, the creator of the universe, the word gave up his life for his church.

This is what we haven't learned yet about authority.

This is why there is an abuse on authority, which has led people to not want to submit.

Jesus stepped down from his highest place of authority and heaven.

The King humbled himself.

The King served.

The King loved.

And then when he gave up his life, there was only a few people by his side.

That's the difference between us and Jesus, man.

I'm gonna ask the worship team to come up.

This is the difference between people and Jesus.

We write people off when they no longer love us.

We write people off when they no longer follow us.

Pastors stop pastoring people when they stop attending their church for a few weeks.

When people turn away from our friendship, when people rebel against us, we write them off.

But Jesus literally lowered himself by distancing himself from the Father.

Do you understand the power of that?

That Jesus, who was fully God, went to the cross and the Father had to look away because all of the sins, all of the filth that belonged to you and me and everybody in this room were put upon him on that cross.

The Father had to look away.

Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.

You see how this changes things?

This is not your typical definition of authority.

In the world, authority means to never give up, never surrender, you're on top.

But the way that Jesus modeled authority is by submitting himself to his bride because that was the only way she would be washed and cleansed and sanctified by the blood of Jesus.

What if we started to use authority as a way to sanctify those in our submission?

Husbands, maybe you're fed up with your wife sometimes because she ain't acting godly.

You find yourself rebuking the spirit of Jezebel.

What if instead, you said, baby, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

You said, baby, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I know this is awkward.

I'm gonna lead you, I'm gonna lead you, I'm gonna lead you to where God is leading me.

We're gonna go to Jesus.

We're gonna figure this out together because I am a godly man and godly men lead godly wives.

And I wish Layla or Ellie were here, but godly wives lead godly children.

And godly children grow up to lead more godly children.

We talked about this last week.

This is how you preserve generational blessings, generational blessings, generational blessing by you, the man of God, leading your home.

Now, maybe there's something broken in the order.

Maybe your man isn't serving the Lord and it's just you.

Walk to Jesus anyways.

Walk towards Jesus anyways.

Walk to Jesus.

You can still submit to your husband.

You can still honor him and love him and respect him while submitting to Jesus.

What if we did authority like that?

What if we did authority in a way that wasn't selfish?

What if we did authority in a way that was intentionally meant to cleanse those that we lead?

Your kids want to follow you.

They wanna be like mom and dad.

It's natural for them to wanna follow you.

Husbands, believe it or not, your wives wanna follow you.

Some of you are saying, "Pastor, you don't know my wife."

But listen, your wife, this is what the woman wants.

She wants security.

She wants safety.

And she wants to be able to trust you.

She wants to feel safe.

This is probably why Melissa sleeps like a bear in hibernation every night.

I mean, the world could be falling apart, man.

I think we were in the middle of a hurricane one time and she was sound asleep and the girls were the same way.

And I'm there just terrified for my life. (congregation laughing) But that's the way that it's supposed to work.

When I got Jesus in my boat, there are waves, there are storms, there's a hurricane, but I've got Jesus in my boat.

And if I've got Jesus in my boat, I've got security, I've got safety because I trust him.

I trust him.

Be a man of God who she could trust.

Be a man of God who she can feel safe with.

That's your role, man of God.

That's your role, let us stand with you.

This is why we have to submit to God in everything.

Because we trust him.

Even though he does things that we don't understand, even though he does things that at times we wanna protest, we submit to his will because he's God. (gentle music) What would change in your home if your children and your wife started to trust you more?

What would change in your home if your children or your wife knew that you were being led by God?

We need a church that submits to the Father.

We need a church that submits to the Father. (gentle music) And I wanna do something this morning.

If you have your spouse here, I want you to bring your spouse to the altar.

If you don't have your spouse here, maybe you have a child here or your parents here, I want you to bring a family member.

Bring a family member.

And if you don't have a family member, I want you to bring yourself. (gentle music) I don't know if we can actually do this, if we can make it happen, but what I wanna do is with your family, husbands, with your wife, I want you to kneel before the presence of God in submission. (gentle music) And with intention, man, some of you, maybe you don't pray together, and this might be awkward for you, but I want you to take your spouse.

I want you to take your spouse and I want you to pray over her.

I want you to pray with her.

I want you to pray over your children and I want you together to commit, to commit to Jesus, commit to Jesus.

This is a moment of intention right now.

Man of God, this is where you say, okay, are we gonna do this?

Are we gonna submit?

Because I'm submitting to God. (upbeat music) - Thanks for listening.

If you'd like some more information on Pneuma Church, visit us on our website at mypneumachurch.org.

If you enjoyed the podcast, you can subscribe or share it with your friends on social media and tag us at My Pneuma Church.

Thanks again and God bless. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) [MUSIC]