Ephesians 5:22-33
Without reflection we are not serious about deepening our love for God.
ICE BREAKER
If you had to describe your marriage in one phrase what would it be?
How would you say you handle conflict in your marriage?
Is it a fight to the finish?
Is it peaceful where there isn’t much fighting at all?
If you are not married, think about one of your closest relationships and think about how you handle conflict.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
- Use the app or use the church website to pull up the slides and locate the graph slide that portrays the four quadrants for each gender. Discuss with your spouse or someone close to you where you are on the graph. Share with the group your understanding of how you relate at times.
- Once you have gotten feedback from question #1 take some time alone to reflect. Ask the Spirit to come to your aid. Then ask yourself some key questions: What am I afraid of if I engage deeper in a relationship? When I choose to be busy rather than vulnerable, what am I trying to gain and what am I running from?
- Imagine moving more and more toward trusting Christ in the daily ups and downs of relationships. With a deepening trust in Christ imagine how your soul would be freed up to engage more deeply with your spouse or to risk being vulnerable at a deeper level. It is good to remember that we have a redeemed heart where Christ dwells and that His Spirit dwells in us. When this heart is released or surrendered we can do what we MOST want to do which is to love by engaging and being vulnerable. Share with the group some of your thoughts. Or, perhaps you want to set a goal where you will intentionally relate differently. Share this with the group.
- Group leaders: as you observe the group honestly reflecting and opening up to one another consider celebrating this during group or via an email after group. At times this content can be discouraging so to hear encouragement with this growing awareness is very helpful. Our pride or our discouragement shuts down reflecting like this, so, it is miraculous whenever believers are willing to engage honestly.
- How do you use your giftedness to arrange your life? Can you see how you avoid engaging in a meaningful relationship with your spouse, kids etc. when you do this?
NOTES AND QUOTES
Our heart is wounded.
We, in our flesh, are also demanding.
We tend to react out of our wounds and move toward demand.
Our biblical premise for today’s focus is:
Men tend toward a sin pattern that avoids.
Women tend toward a sin pattern of control.
The Ephesians 5 text we are using today is not popular in our culture.
This passage has been misused and misunderstood both within and outside of the church.
One of the key problems is that the text is viewed through the lens of power.
We are wrongly asking, “Who’s in charge?”
This is not the focus of this passage.
The passage is intended to be life giving. As each spouse lives out their role, life is passed on.
So, the key is for a husband and wife to look at their marriage to see how they can each give life within God’s design.
Ephesians 5:25-26 speaks of a husbands’ role.
God wants to use the conflict in our marriage to help us to reflect on our demandingness. Our natural pull is to focus on wounds and to live out of them.
Our wounds are important and there is beautiful healing available in Christ for our wounds, but, God doesn’t want us to stay stuck in our wounds as that leads to demandingness in our relating.
We arrive on our wedding day with the unspoken agenda that our spouse will make me happy.
There is a lot of reflecting, working through disappointment, repenting and restoration on this path before a marriage is life giving.
In Genesis 3:6 the serpent tempts Eve. She saw and she desired and she took the fruit and gave some to her husband.
Adam is passive in this story. He is silent.
Rom 5:12 tells us sin entered through Adam. Adam had an office but he neglected his office; he was silent.
The truth about men is that we tend toward avoidance and toward silence.
We avoid things we are not competent at. We try to build our life around our strengths. Men avoid chaos.
Why? Men do this in large measure because men feel inadequate.
They are trying to get their deepest question answered: “Am I enough; am I adequate?”
The main thing men avoid is relational conflict with their wives because it is frightening.
Men will avoid conflict in either aggressive or passive ways.
The aggressive avoider can be either a tough guy or a jerk.
A tough guy can be: succinct, aggressive and confident.
A jerk can be: mean, closed, misogynistic
The problem with the tough guy is that he wants to get rid of problems quickly.
The underlying issue is he does not know how to engage well and he is afraid. Engaging forces him to come face to face with his question of adequacy.
A jerk shuts down his wife and others with meanness. He may even stare quietly at you when he thinks you said something dumb etc.
Underneath this he has much (unacknowledged) fear.
On the passive side for men we have the nice guy and the little boy.
The nice guy is the following: accommodating, doting, passionless.
He tries to make problems go away through being nice.
His solution to a problem is to do nothing.
You sure don’t talk to someone about a problem, you let it blow over.
He’s a nice guy to be married to until you are married to him.
When you want deep connection or meaningful action it’s not there.
The nice guy hides through obtaining the approval of all around him.
The little boy is helpless, chaotic and useless.
If he is lucky people will see him as useless and then no one will go to him which is what he wants.
The strategy is that no one will look to him for help, no one will look to him for a relationship. The sign on the door says that no one is home.
In Gen 3:16 we see the curse on women.
There will be pain in childbearing. God says, “ … that your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you. “
The larger principle here is that all relationships will be marked by pain and struggle. This is not mean on God’s part, rather, this is kindness because without this struggle we would turn our back on God in our pride.
He invites us to dependency because life does not work well no matter how hard we try.
The curse on women is that a woman will tend toward control.
There are two main ways to control: aggressive and passive.
First on the aggressive side is the “busy bee”.
She is committed, competent, and cool.
She is very good at using her gifts but she is unable to engage deeply.
So, she does not relate intimately.
You go to a busy bee for advice but not for warmth.
The ”ice queen” is emasculating, closed and punishing.
She does not just want to be right, she also wants to humiliate her man. The more awkward people are around her the better she likes it.
The passive woman is the gracious hostess.
She will be pleasing, dutiful and sacrificing. But, her sacrifice has strings attached.
She will remind you of all she has done for you.
When she cooks a meal she will make sure everyone will have the food the way they like.
But again, there are strings attached.
The passive side uses guilt. “How can you do this to me after all I have done for you?”
The “little girl “ is helpless, seductive and naive.
By seductive we don’t mean sexual necessarily.
It is broader than this: if you dress and talk in certain ways men will like you and if they like you they will bend to your will.
A man feels competent when a woman relates in a helpless way.
Please see the slides for this sermon for a look at the quadrants that emerge within homes :
Upper left quadrant: boredom.
Upper right: shame
Lower left: subtle shame.
Lower right: anger.
This graph is to help us to reflect, repent and to restore.
This process invites us toward dependency on Christ.
Without reflection we are not serious about deepening our love for God.
Without reflection we are not serious about deepening our love for people.
