Our Gods On Display

Ephesians 5:22-6:9 March 22, 2026 Pastor Chris Oswald

Thesis The way you treat people is determined by the God you serve, and in each relational role Scripture identifies the characteristic temptation where self-worship most commonly expresses itself.

Series

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Type

Expository

Tone

pastoraldidacticprophetic

Method

grammatical-historicalcanonicalapplicatory

What's in this sermon

The shape of the argument

37 units across exposition, application, illustration, theological claim, and conclusion. The pastor's argument is built from these moving parts.

Pastoral correction · unit #26

"Direct application to wives: underlying willfulness sabotages the husband's spiritual leadership, creating a causal connection between the wife's worship of self and the husband's leadership failures."

Doctrinal loci· 5 surfaced

Ethics / Moral Theology · 26 Sanctification · 11 Christology · 8 Doxology / Worship · 5 Pastoral Theology · 2

Bible citations· 33

Illustrations· 2

historical example · unit #4 — Uses the narrative of Dagon falling before the Ark to illustrate the cyclical pattern of repentance and relapse in the Christian life—idols serve self-worship and must be repeatedly knocked down by Jesus and stood back up by the flesh.
historical example · unit #14 — Uses David's encounter with his brother Eliab to illustrate how underlying worship of self produces explosive, disproportionate relational reactions—the 'mousetrap' effect where small triggers release accumulated idolatrous tension.

Theological claims· 5

The way you treat people is determined by the God you serve—either the true God or the god of self. unit #3
Christians are not entirely free from idol-worship and self-love guiding their relational interactions, as evidenced by James's teaching that internal warring desires produce relational quarrels. unit #6
Your worship life—whether of the true God or self through various idols—is guiding your interactions with all people all the time, though you deploy different idols in different relationships. unit #7
Paul's repeated use of 'as' demonstrates that every relational interaction operates on top of worship mechanics, with the God in view determining the behaviors produced. unit #12
Paul's purpose in the household codes is to expose underlying worship mechanics and call readers to honor Christ as Lord in their hearts, producing right behaviors. unit #16

Quotations· 1

"there are two societies most fundamentally, and both driven by one particular kind of love. The city of God is driven by people who have a love for God, and the city of man is driven by people who have amor sui, a love for self" — Augustine (unit #3)

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0 · Establishes the cultural and literary context for the passage—that household codes were a standard epistolary form in the Hellenistic world, setting audience expectations

of the book of Ephesians. You know, it was really normal. I think this is helpful to know. It was really normal in the Hellenistic world! to end a letter written by someone in authority with some household codes. You can find this in Greek philosophy and so forth. In other words, there's usually some sort of, you know, expansion, kind of philosophy, metaphysical stuff, and then it kind of gets to this, like, well, what should we do about this? And it usually terminates in a section on household codes. So this form would have been really pretty expected to the early Ephesians.

1 · Traces the argument structure from Ephesians 4 forward, establishing that Paul has been building a single sustained argument about the old self's futility producing wrong living

Now, I think that we need to make sure we're remembering that this is all one consistent thought, and so let me take a little bit of time just to review what we've seen up to this point, especially in chapter 4, 4 and 5. We're deep enough now into Paul's letter that we should be able to feel the current beneath the surface, and that is that Paul has really, since chapter 4, been building a single argument that the old self lives in its futility of mind, and that futility of mind produces wrong thinking and wrong feeling, which produces wrong living.

2 · Observes that Paul's catalog of sins in Ephesians 4 consists entirely of relational sins—behaviors that occur within the context of relationship with others

That's what Paul's been talking about. In the second half of chapter 4, he gets specific. He starts listing particular sins, like lying, and sinful anger, and theft, and corrupt speech, and bitterness, and wrathful slander, and wrath, and slander, and malice. And one thing that we want to make sure we notice on the list is that those are all relational sins. Those are all things that happen within the context of relationship.

3 · Articulates the controlling thesis of the sermon—that worship determines relational behavior—and supports it with Augustine's two-cities framework, establishing that all human interactions are driven by either love for God or love for self

This is the thesis that Paul is developing that's going to affect our analysis of chapter 5 and 6 today, and that is simply this. The way you treat people is determined by the God you serve. The way you treat people is determined by the God you serve. And so chapter 4 is not simply Paul saying, new God, new behaviors. It's a little bit more specific than that. It's new God, new way of treating people, new way of interacting with people, new way of seeing people. That's really what's happening here. You know, Augustine's great book, The City of God, he goes into this, the whole thesis of that book is that there are two societies most fundamentally, and both driven by one particular kind of love. The city of God is driven by people who have a love for God, and the city of man is driven by people who have amor sui, a love for self. They have a love for self. And all the interactions that happen in these two metaphorical cities are driven by these two great loves, the city of God driven by people who love God, and the city of man driven by people who love themselves.

4 · Uses the narrative of Dagon falling before the Ark to illustrate the cyclical pattern of repentance and relapse in the Christian life—idols serve self-worship and must be repeatedly knocked down by Jesus and stood back up by the flesh

You know, we need to understand that when we talk about idolatry, for instance, that idolatry is just a tool that we use in what is most fundamentally a worship of self. I was thinking this week about Dagon, the old story of Dagon and 1 Samuel. If you're not familiar with the story, the Ark of the Covenant, which at the time represented the presence of the Lord, is put into, captured by the Philistines and put into their temple next to their idol, the thing that they worship, named Dagon. And one morning, the priest of Dagon gets up, the Philistine priest gets up and goes into the temple and he sees Dagon, you know, flat on his face. He had fallen in the presence of God. And so, what does the priest do? Well, he and some other, you know, priests, they prop him back up again. And this repeats over and over again in the story. And I think the thing I just say is, it's like, do you have idols? Yeah. Jesus is doing a marvelous thing in your life to knock those down. But there's a part of you, the flesh, that comes in in the morning and sets them back up. And that you're not doing that because you love your idols. You're doing that because you love yourself and you're using your idols as a tool to accomplish particular ends.

5 · Bridges the Dagon illustration to Paul's purpose in writing—explaining that Paul addresses the ongoing tension between the Spirit knocking down idols and the flesh standing them back up, a tension that makes the household codes necessary

And I think that's a good metaphor to keep in mind today because a lot of what's happening in Ephesians 4 and 5 is Paul saying, you have a new God but you still kind of have an old way of doing things. And that inside of you is both the God who would, inside of you is both the Holy Spirit who's knocking down Dagon but the flesh who keeps standing and back up again. You know? And that that's actually the tension that Paul's speaking into. If it wasn't a tension, if it was just automatic that we would immediately start treating everybody exactly like we should in God's eyes, like, he wouldn't have to write all of this. The tension is is that just repeatedly we keep standing up those idols because there's part of us that still really loves ourself.

6 · Restates the core structural claim and supports it with James 4:1, adding the complication that Christians harbor multiple competing idols simultaneously at war within them, producing relational conflict

Okay, so let's go ahead and understand then that the fundamental kind of structure of Ephesians 4 and 5 and 6 is that what you worship is affecting how you interact with people. And that even if you're a Christian, you're not entirely free from the prospect that you're really loving idols and loving yourself and that that's what's guiding your interactions with people. James says in chapter 4, verse 1, what causes fights and quarrels among you and it's plural because that's the other tricky thing. Not only do you still have this tendency to stand up the idols over and over again but there's more than one and they are at war within you and they're affecting your relationships. You see that in verse 1 of James 4? Like, what causes fights and quarrels among you? It's a sinful, love of self expressing itself in disordered desires, let's say. And it doesn't just immediately go away when you become a Christian. Otherwise, half the New Testament wouldn't exist.

7 · Develops the worship-determines-interaction thesis by adding nuance: we deploy different idols in different relationships, sorting people by which disordered craving they serve, but in every case worship mechanics are operating

So it's important to understand that when you're interacting with people, you're worshiping either the true God or the God of self. When you're interacting with people, you're either worshiping the true God or the God of self and you're somewhat sophisticated about it in this sense. You tend to sort people by your various cravings. Like, you don't interact with everybody according to your lustful desires but there's some people that get into that category and there's some other people that you treat and interact with driven by your desire for esteem and respect and so on and so forth. But the whole idea I just need you to see before we get into the text is that your worship life is guiding your interactions all the time with all people.

8 · Applies the principle concretely by listing specific disordered cravings (respect, acceptance, comfort, control, approval) and showing how each one produces characteristic relational behaviors

If you have a desired craving for respect, that's going to dominate certain interactions. It's going to keep you silent and sometimes when you shouldn't be, it's just going to dominate you in certain places. It's going to cause you to say things you shouldn't say. If you have a disordered craving for acceptance, access to that inner ring, that's going to be guiding you as you interact with certain people. If you have a disordered craving for comfort or for control or for approval or whatever, all of the stuff you're worshiping, all the mechanics of your true worship life, that's what guides your interactions with people.

9 · Signals the move into the text while adding a complicating factor: both parties in a relationship bring competing idols into the interaction, making relational harmony extremely difficult

And that's the pivot Paul is making as we get into our text. And one more thing before we get into the text, it's worse than I say because the problem is, like me and my wife, I've got these idols that are at various levels of being stood up or not. Like, you know, I'm either worshiping the Lord fully or not. You know, it's like a room full of mousetraps. You know, I don't, is my heart right with the Lord or not? Am I interacting with her with idols in my heart? Am I interacting with her because I really want to be respected in this or that? Well, that'd be, that'd make a relationship really difficult. But she's got the same thing going on in her heart. And it's just like, if you want to understand why relationships are hard, it's because of that.

10 · Pastoral encouragement that the text offers immediate hope—that some of this relational disorder can be corrected even today through Scripture's instruction

And so Paul is giving us such a gift, the Holy Spirit's giving us such a gift in Ephesians 5 and 6 because some of that can get ordered rightly even today.

11 · Full reading of the primary text with a single listening instruction: pay attention to the word 'as' which signals the theological comparisons structuring each household code instruction

So I'm going to read 19 verses. All I need for you to do is two things. One, just try to understand what's happening and just focus on the word as, A-S. Just note that word, okay? I'll just read the text. Ephesians 5, 22. Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the body, his body, head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to everything, in everything, to their husbands. Verse 25. Husbands, love your wives 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. 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. 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'm 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. Chapter 6. Children, obey your parents and the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother. This is the first commandment 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 administration, instruction of the Lord. Verse 5. Bondservants, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a 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 is free. Masters, do the same to them and stop your threatening, knowing that he is both your master and yours in heaven and that there is no partiality in him.

12 · Identifies Paul's theological move in using 'as'—showing that every interaction has a worship dynamic beneath it where the God in view (true or self) produces predictable behaviors

Okay, so, a lot of as's there. Probably noticed that. What Paul is doing here is he is doing something remarkable. He is showing that there is always a worship dynamic and play in your interactions with people. There's always a God in view that dictates certain outcomes in your relationship, certain behaviors that you'll embrace. For instance, if the God in view is self and reputation, the temptation to lie in an interaction is very high. You know, to withhold, you know what I'm saying, the temptation to boast and so forth. Every relationship is just happening on top of basic worship mechanics. Every interaction, whether it be in traffic or in your home, it's all just the surface level of something going on deeper inside of you in which you are interacting with your concept of God, either the God of self or the true God.

13 · Develops the implication that in long-term daily relationships (the household relationships Paul addresses), broken worship mechanics compound over time and require getting one's God right at the heart level

And these worship mechanics that are happening underneath you, in your heart, they're going to drive really surprising behaviors sometimes. And if you're in, and really bad behaviors often. and in certain relationships where you're interacting with that person every day for decades, which are the relationships Paul's addressing in Ephesians 5 and 6, those broken worship dynamics can really jam up a relationship. They really can mess things up. And the answer, fundamentally, is to get your God right. get the right God going in your heart.

14 · Uses David's encounter with his brother Eliab to illustrate how underlying worship of self produces explosive, disproportionate relational reactions—the 'mousetrap' effect where small triggers release accumulated idolatrous tension

I was thinking a lot about 1 Samuel this week, and there's another story in 1 Samuel where David, his dad sends him to the valley of Elah to bring food to his brothers. And man, if my brother showed up with food right now, I'd just be glad. You know, I'd just be happy. It would be that simple for me. I'd like bread and cheese. That sounds great. Thank you. But David shows up in a moment when basically all the men in Israel are failing to be men. Goliath is shouting his taunts over the valley into the camp of the Israelites, and he's saying, just send one out here as your champion, and we'll do battle, and we'll see who gets to win. We'll see who wins. And the men are shrinking like little, like the tulips did or whatever flowers did after the frost the other day. They're just nothing to them. And there's an incredible amount of sin and defensiveness in the hearts of all these men. Well, David, you know, he hasn't said no to Goliath. He's the only one there that hasn't. And so he shows up, and he's open to the possibility of fighting Goliath. And so he just says, what will be done for the man who takes this challenge on? And David's brother just rails into him. It's in chapter 17. He says, what are you doing here? Who did you leave this few sheep in the wilderness to? You're just here to gawk. You're just here to watch the battle. It's like, just observe that calmly and coolly. Just imagine you're a counselor, and that just manifests itself. It's like, where did that come from? Well, David's brother was worshiping at the idol of self, and his heart was just loaded full of mousetraps. And the smallest thing provokes this chain reaction of nonsense.

15 · Applies the David-Eliab illustration directly to the congregation, universalizing the experience of explosive relational behavior and calling for honesty about underlying worship mechanics in all relationships

And listen, friends, I know some of you are actually extremely godly and very well controlled. I can't imagine that there's anybody in this room who hasn't done something like that to someone else. I would imagine we all know what it feels like, maybe even surprising ourselves. And what's going on is Paul is saying, your worship life, the things you are holding most dear and ultimate, the person whose glory you're seeking, all drives certain behaviors. And so, when we're dealing with this issue of relational conflict, whether it be children or marriage or even in the workplace, in the church, we have to be honest about the underlying mechanics. There's always a God in view that is driving a particular set of actions.

16 · Synthesizes Paul's purpose in the household codes: exposing worship mechanics and calling readers to honor Christ as Lord in the heart, which produces right relational behaviors

So, the big thing Paul is doing in this section, and I'm covering a big section so I'm not going to be able to get super specific. But the big thing he's doing is he's pointing out these mechanics to you. And he's saying, honor Christ as Lord in your hearts and do the thing you're supposed to do because he's seeking him and not your own glory, so on and so forth. Does that make sense?

17 · Structural signal indicating a reverse exposition strategy—starting with bondservants and working backward to marriage—with explicit acknowledgment of pedagogical intention

The next thing I want to point out to you, and we're actually pretty close to being done, is I want you to go to the end, so the bond servant section there, in chapter 6. And we're going to go backwards. And I have a strategy for why this is.

18 · Introduces Paul's second move: beyond exposing general worship mechanics, he identifies specific characteristic temptations for each role

But there's another thing Paul's doing. He's not just reminding us of the basic worship engine that's driving all of our interactions with people. There's one more thing. It's connected to that. Look at verse 5 of chapter 6. Bond servants, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart as you would Christ, not by way of eye service as people pleasers, but as bond servants 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 bond servant or is free. Same mechanics as we've talked about. The way the God that he has in his heart is driving how he interacts. In this particular case, Paul is isolating one particular temptation that is very common to workers. And that temptation is to be eye pleasers. What does that mean? It means, it means not working when no one's paying attention. It means slacking when no one's around.

19 · Develops the exposition by acknowledging that eye-service is not the only worker temptation (workaholism exists as an opposite) but affirming that Scripture identifies the most statistically common temptation for the role

Now, anybody ever experienced that? I would imagine we've all had to sort that out and maybe we're still struggling with it, but that's just a thing. Paul's nailing some very common problem to slack off when no one's watching you or to kind of load your head up with possibly real injustices that excuse you from working hard, so on and so forth. And Paul's just saying, nope, worship mechanics here, underlying your interaction with your employer, with your master here, and that is worship the Lord in your heart and certain vocational habits form. Worship yourself in your heart and certain vocational habits form. Now, is Paul only saying that this is the only problem that a worker has? No, of course not. A worker could have the exact opposite problem, which would be what? Eating the bread of anxious toil, like being overly consumed. But Paul, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, remember God wrote our book, and he knows you, and he knows me, he said, we're going to talk about worship mechanics, underlying interactions, and we're going to name the one thing that is most commonly associated with this particular relationship. You can think of it as like, this is, it's not a fair game of roulette. You spin the wheel ten times, eight times out of ten, it's going to land on, slacking off because the boss isn't looking. Right?

20 · Applies the same two-part analysis to masters/employers: worship mechanics plus characteristic temptation (cruelty and superiority), establishing the pattern that will run through all household codes

In the next section there, he does the same thing with, with masters, with employers. And he says there, don't be cruel and heavy handed and think you're better than them. Why? Because the Lord God is in charge of this. Again, worship mechanics, therefore, you know, treat him like a brother, basically. Now what's going on there is the thing I want you to notice before we go to children is, through the Holy Spirit, Paul is saying, these are the things that are most likely to be the tension points that show what you're worshiping. Make sense?

21 · Applies the pattern to children: worship mechanics plus characteristic temptation (self-willfulness against parental authority)

And then we get, we can go backwards to the next section, where in chapter, 6 verse 1, we're told about children. Children, obey your parents and the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother and so forth. Same framework. Children, worship the Lord. If you worship the Lord and not yourself, you will be honorific towards your parents. Same basic idea. Children could do a lot of wrong things, but the most common thing that's going to happen, the most common replace where they need to make check their worship mechanics is in their willfulness versus their submission to their parents.

22 · Applies the pattern to fathers with personal testimony: worship mechanics plus characteristic temptation (provocation driven by using children to serve the father's self-image)

Fathers are mentioned in the next section, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in discipline. Same idea, fathers can do a lot of possible things in those relationships with their children. Worship mechanics are needed for the whole thing. You've got to constantly be asking. For instance, I've been a father. I've sinned as a father. Here's one easy way to talk about this. I want to look good by having successful, well-behaved children. Well, what am I worshiping there? Am I worshiping the Lord God? No. My worship of self is driving how I'm interacting with my kids. There's like a million of these things. Paul's speaking about one that is most common through, again, the inspirational Holy Spirit who knows people. And he says, this one's pretty common. Kids have a tendency towards self-willfulness. They need to keep the Lord in mind as they interact with their parents. Fathers have a tendency to provocations. They need to have the Lord in mind as they interact with their children.

23 · Explains the pedagogical strategy of reverse exposition—building from least controversial to most controversial—and synthesizes the two-part logic now established: worship determines interaction, and roles carry characteristic temptations

Now, the reason why I took these in reverse order is because I started with the least personal for many of us and the least controversial in the culture so that you could now be primed to see that there is an inescapable logic happening in this passage. That logic is twofold. One, what we worship dictates how we interact with people. And two, in particular situations, according to our roles, we have particular temptations. Got it?

24 · Applies the established two-part logic to wives: worship mechanics plus characteristic temptation (willfulness against submission to husbands' leadership), with explicit defense that this is the inescapable logical conclusion of the pattern

Now, let's go back to the first section in verse 22 of chapter 5. Wives, submit to your own husbands. So, what are our mechanics? Number one, we need to be worshiping the Lord in our hearts and it will drive certain behaviors. Number two, there are certain temptations that exist in particular roles that God is speaking into and he's addressing here in his holy word and he has addressed it here in verse 22. Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the body, the church his body and is itself its savior. Now, as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. The text doesn't just say worship the Lord in your relationship with your husband, don't worship yourself, worship the Lord. It goes one step further than that and says, here is the area of your life, ladies, where you are going to be most tempted to worship self. Just as the employee has this particular area of temptation, the employer has this particular area of temptation, the child has this particular area of temptation, women have this particular area of temptation. That is the inescapable logic of what God in his holy word is saying here. Is it the only temptation? No. But God knows us and he's saying, we can see what he's doing here. That's my point.

25 · Develops the application to wives by addressing a cultural lie about male emotional obtuseness and explaining that husbands can sense underlying willfulness even when wives use biblical language—the 'vibe' of self-will permeates the relationship

Now, modern men and women have been lied to so much and one of the most damaging lies that women have been told is that men are emotionally obtuse and unsophisticated and I think men believe this about themselves. It's not true. Men, you're not emotionally obtuse. You have the good sense to cry during Field of Dreams like any normal non-psychopath would do but when I sit with my wife and watch Field of Dreams, she doesn't even shed a tear. Men, you're not emotionally obtuse. You sense things. Your survival depends on it. You're verbally obtuse. You don't know how to put words to things and I bring that up because ladies, I would encourage you to assume that your husband can often sense when in spite of all of your Bible words, you are going to have it your way and that's that. I would encourage you to understand that that's a vibe that permeates your relationship and that men don't know how to talk about it or maybe don't even desire to talk about it but when it's I'm going to have it my way, you feel it.

26 · Direct application to wives: underlying willfulness sabotages the husband's spiritual leadership, creating a causal connection between the wife's worship of self and the husband's leadership failures

And here's what I would encourage you. Good luck, ladies, being led, good luck, ladies, being fed with a spirit of willfulness consistently lurking underneath your dynamics in your relationship which is the worship of self expressed in one particular area related to your inclination to your husband's leadership. The mechanics are really sound and it works all the way through Scripture. So, you not only have to worship the Lord if you're responding to this text rightly, you have to worship the Lord with a careful attention to the thing he's saying is most likely to be an issue for you and that is a struggle with your own will, a struggle with your worship of self expressing itself in the manifestation of willfulness in spite of how many books you've read and how many Christian words you're trusting and struggling in seasons you go through. Sometimes it's pretty obvious that you're just worshiping yourself and you want your own way and then you're asking me later why isn't my husband doing a better job as a spiritual leader? Maybe that's why. I mean, that's not an excuse but maybe that's why.

27 · Applies the two-part pattern to husbands: restates the worship mechanics foundation and then poses the question about men's characteristic temptation

Alright, now we'll go to verse 25. Husbands, love your wives 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. Now here again the worship dynamic is laid bare. Does this man love Jesus? Is this man loving Jesus right now or did he in his flesh as the priest of Dagon go and stand up all of his idols again in the middle of the night? Is this man interacting with his wife out of a love for Jesus or not? That's evident here as it is in every other section of scripture but what is the problem that is most characteristic of men according to God's holy word? What is his most characteristic temptation?

28 · Identifies men's characteristic temptation through a series of rhetorical negations: not failure to sacrifice or love, but failure to sacrifice specifically for the wife's sanctification—the purpose of the sacrifice is holiness, not happiness

I would say this needs to be said very explicitly it is man's specific temptation as taught in this scripture is the failure to sacrifice for his wife's sanctification. Is man's main problem a failure to sacrifice? There are cemeteries full of counter examples to that being man's main problem. They're the ones that all have the white headstones that all look exactly the same scattered throughout the world. Is man's main problem an inability to sacrifice? It doesn't look that way. Is man's main temptation not to be loving toward a woman? Not at all. There are broken men all over the world who have foolishly gave everything to the girl they shouldn't have given everything to. What's the main problem? What is man's main problem? What is the word saying here? It's not that he doesn't sacrifice for a woman or love a woman. It's that he does not sacrifice or love a woman in the way that Christ loves his church. And that has nothing to do with pouring yourself out. It has to do with the purpose for pouring yourself out. And that is holiness. The main temptation a man has is not to not sacrifice for his family. The main temptation a man has is to not give himself for the sanctification of his family. The growth of holiness.

29 · Develops the diagnosis with vivid specificity: men sacrifice constantly but for the wrong aims (nations, mortgages, vacations)—the right aim is eschatological: the wife knowing God better because of the husband

Love and sacrifice is not the main problem. Plenty of men routinely grind their lives into the ground for nations and for mortgages and ill-conceived family bonding vacations that they couldn't afford. They don't have an ammo problem. They have an aim problem. Almost every man in this room is sacrificing his life, his body, everything for something. But very few of us understand exactly what that aim should be. And that aim is to one day when you stand with your bride in eternity for the Lord to look at her and say to you, well done my good and faithful servant. This woman knew me better because of you.

30 · Direct exhortation to men: the fear of spiritual leadership must be overcome because the call is not self-defined love but Christ-patterned love aimed at holiness, not ease

And most men are just terrified to be their wife's spiritual leader. They're terrified of making their wife's holiness and not just her happiness, their life's work. And so men, I just leave in the sermon by saying this. You're not merely called to love your wives and decide what that love looks like. You are called to love your wives as Christ loved the church. And how did he love the church? By making her life easy? By letting her pick the restaurant? No. He suffered to make her holy.

31 · Traces men's characteristic temptation to its Adamic root: the error of thinking productivity can occur apart from the wife's holiness, establishing this as the defining test of whether a man loves Jesus or self

Husbands, love your wives 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. Friends, the great error of man, coming all the way from Adam, is to think that you can have a productive life without a holy wife. It doesn't work that way. It comes all the way down from your first father, to think that you can have a productive life without a holy wife. Nope. That's on you. And it will make all the difference. And it's the greatest evidence that you're truly loving Jesus Christ and not some version of yourself, is that you are doing the thing that Jesus does. Is he gives his life not to give his bride an easy life, not to, I mean, Jesus is great. He gives people food, he heals diseases, he's not indifferent to need, but it's always driving toward holiness.

32 · Synthesizes the sermon's diagnosis and solution: relationships are complicated because of multiple shifting idols, but the singular solution is consistent pursuit of beholding and loving Jesus

So, conclusions. Friends, relationships are extremely complicated because we never know which idols are standing up in which situation and it's sort of like, almost like cryptography. It's like, there's a lot of things to figure out. And really, truly, the only hope anyone has to have good, harmonious, God-pleasing relationships is to ensure, whether husband and wife, child and parent, is to just consistently pursue a life of beholding and loving Jesus Christ.

33 · Doxological climax showing that Jesus embodies every role in the household codes perfectly—wife's submission, husband's sacrifice, child's obedience, father's care, servant's humility, master's kindness—making him worthy of worship and the only power to transform worship mechanics

I just want to say, like, he's so worthy of it. Every single thing described in this passage is Jesus. Jesus was submissive to the Father. Did not consider equality with God something to be grasped. Jesus gave his life up for the bride. Jesus was the obedient son to the Father, doing only that which his Father commanded him. Jesus is, in some ways, the Father of the church, and he is careful and kind and provides for us. Jesus was the slave who had no form of appearance that anyone should be impressed by him at all. He became a slave even to the point of death on a cross, trusting God who judges justly. And Jesus is the king of the universe. He's the boss of bosses. But friends, he treats us like brothers and sisters. Jesus is worthy of your worship. He's the worthy of being the center point of every relationship you have. He's the only thing that can move the mechanics of worship in your heart day in and day out forever and ever.

34 · Returns to the Dagon illustration with eschatological hope: each fall weakens the idol until it's finally shattered, calling for repentance in confidence that Jesus will complete the work of idol-destruction until glorification

And I want to tell you this, like leave you with this Dagon story one last time. It's hard to see how selfish you are. It really is hard to see how selfish you are. And to hear that idol just fall down. And then it's hard to realize that you're the guy coming up in the middle of the night and propping it back up again. There's this beautiful part of that story and that is every time that stupid idol falls, it was getting a little weaker and one day it was just shattered all over the ground. Don't simply live a life of repentance because you know you should. Live a life of repentance in confidence that mighty Jesus will keep knocking over your idols until the day comes when that idol literally can't stand up anymore. And in the end of the day, we are none of us here that are going to heaven for all of eternity are going to be selfish people at all. We're going to be fulfilled, we're going to be loved, we're going to see the end for which God created all things. But for now, we live a very predictable life of long obedience in the same direction where time and time again when we catch ourselves steering our relationships towards self to repent, let that idol fall and make the correction as Paul is teaching us to do here.

35 · Transitions from sermon conclusion to communion observance, framing the Lord's Supper as participation in the hope just proclaimed

Well, if you're a Christian here today, I hope that you've received great hope over the goodness of the gospel of Jesus Christ and now we want you to taste and see that Jesus is good. So if you're a follower of Jesus here today and you're giving your life to him and you're well familiar with this unfortunate but honestly hopeful pattern of repenting, finding forgiveness, trusting Christ once again and we would love for you to come up, whether you're a member of Providence or not, we'd love you to come up and grab the elements and go back to your seat and we'll partake of them together.

36 · Pastoral prayer of confession and thanksgiving preparing the congregation to receive communion with grateful hearts, acknowledging that Christ has suffered for the idolatry that damages relationships

Before you do that, let me pray. Lord God, praise your holy name for being so faithful and patient and kind. Why would we want to worship anything but you? And yet so often, Father, our hearts steer toward self. And the people that we actually do love get the fallout, whether through our inflicting or our neglect, they suffer for our idolatry. That you have suffered for our idolatry once and for all. And you have made it possible for us to confess our sin and be forgiven and to know that at the end of the day, the final word goes to Jesus and that where sin has abounded, grace has abounded much more. We praise your holy name for how faithful you are to us. And now as we partake of this table, Lord, please let us partake with grateful hearts. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen.

Where this fits

Recent preaching context

The three sermons immediately preceding this one in the preaching schedule.

Mar 1, 2026

Tools for Transformation Part 1

Because God has given us a new nature in Christ and is working in us, we must work out our salvation by beholding Christ, praying for heart transformation, and making structural life changes that enable obedience — understanding that sanctification, unlike salvation, requires our conscious participation with God.

Ephesians 4:17-32

Mar 8, 2026

Tools for Transformation

Christian transformation requires understanding your dual identity as old and new self, imitating Christ as your complete pattern for life, and engineering practical systems that structurally promote obedience.

Ephesians 4:17-32

Mar 15, 2026

Marriage & The Mission of God

Marriage exists not for personal fulfillment but as a tool for God's mission in the world, and when couples surrender their marriage to this purpose, both kingdom fruitfulness and relational satisfaction follow.

Ephesians 5:22-33

March 22 · This sermon

Our Gods On Display

The way you treat people is determined by the God you serve, and in each relational role Scripture identifies the characteristic temptation where self-worship most commonly expresses itself.

Ephesians 5:22-6:9

Take it further

Discuss · apply · pray

Small groups

6 discussion questions

What does Paul mean when he tells wives to submit to their husbands 'as to the Lord' (Ephesians 5:22)? What is he saying about the connectio…

Daily readings

5-day reading plan

This week we trace how worship mechanics—the gods we serve in our hearts—determine how we treat people in every relational role, and how beholding Christ alone can dismantle the idols that corrupt our interactions.

Prayer

Prayer for Hearts Bowed to Christ Alone

Father, we come before you in awe of your sovereign grace that has made us your own through Christ. You alone deserve our worship and our ab…

Family table

The God We Worship Shows in How We Treat People

Chris talked about how the way we treat people—at home, at work, with friends—reveals which god we're actually worshiping. Use this prompt t…

Couples

The God We Worship in Each Other

In listening to the sermon, where did you sense the Spirit exposing a place where you're serving yourself rather than honoring Christ—and wh…

Memorize

Ephesians 5:25-27

This passage crystallizes the sermon's central claim that our relational behaviors flow from the God we worship—specifically, it shows that husbands' love for their wives is determined by beholding Christ's sacrificial love for the church. The verse exposes the characteristic temptation for husbands (self-worship expressed as comfort-seeking rather than sanctification-seeking) and points them to Christ as the model whose worship transforms how they treat their spouse.

Small-group discussion

6 questions for your group this week

What does Paul mean when he tells wives to submit to their husbands 'as to the Lord' (Ephesians 5:22)? What is he saying about the connection between worship and the way we treat people in our closest relationships?

Ephesians 5:22

→ Can you think of a time when you've acted toward someone based on what you really worship rather than what you say you believe?
The sermon identifies a characteristic temptation in each relational role—willfulness in wives, self-serving leadership in husbands, self-will in children, laziness in workers. Which of these resonates most with your own experience, and what does that tell you about which idols are most active in your heart?
James 4:1 says that our conflicts come from desires battling within us. How does this help explain why relational conflict is never simply about behavior—why addressing it requires us to look at what we're actually worshiping?

James 4:1

→ What's the difference between trying to change your behavior toward someone and actually changing who you're serving in your heart?
Paul tells husbands to love their wives 'as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her' (Ephesians 5:25). What does it mean that Christ's love is fundamentally about making His bride holy, not merely keeping her comfortable? How does that reshape what husbandly love is supposed to do?

Ephesians 5:25
The sermon argues that we cannot escape idol-worship through sheer willpower—that we need 'consistent pursuit of beholding and loving Jesus Christ' to have any hope of God-pleasing relationships. What does it actually look like, in a week, to 'behold' Christ in a way that dethrones the idols we serve in a particular relationship?

→ Where do you tend to encounter Jesus most vividly—in worship, Scripture, prayer, community—and how might you intentionally bring that encounter into the relationships where you're most prone to self-worship?
If the way you treat people displays which God you're actually serving, what would your relational patterns over the past month be saying about who sits on the throne of your heart right now?

→ What would need to change in your worship—not your behavior first, but your worship—for your relationships to reflect that Jesus is Lord?

Draft · pending review

Pray together this week

Prayer for Hearts Bowed to Christ Alone

Father, we come before you in awe of your sovereign grace that has made us your own through Christ. You alone deserve our worship and our absolute allegiance, yet we confess that in our homes, our workplaces, and our families, we so often bow the knee to the god of self instead. We see ourselves in the temptations Paul exposes: wives drawn toward willfulness against their husband's leadership, husbands content to provide comfort rather than to sacrifice for their wife's sanctification, children asserting self-will against parental authority, workers slacking when no one watches. We have felt the explosive relational wreckage that follows when self-worship governs our interactions, and we grieve the ways our idolatry has wounded those we love most (James 4:1).

Yet in the gospel we have immeasurable hope: Christ has already embodied every relational virtue we are commanded to pursue, and he has done so perfectly in our place. As we behold him—the one who emptied himself and suffered to make us holy—our hearts are drawn away from self-love and toward glad worship of his all-glorious name (Philippians 2:6-8). By his Spirit, he persistently knocks down our idols until they can no longer stand, freeing us to love as he has loved us.

Grant us, O Lord, a spirit of repentance this week as we recognize the worship mechanics beneath our relational failures. Give wives humble, willing hearts that submit gladly to their husband's leadership, finding spiritual nourishment there. Give husbands a Christ-like willingness to suffer for their wives' sanctification, not merely their happiness. Give children obedience that honors their parents, and give parents wisdom to lead with gospel-centered grace. Give workers faithful hearts that serve as unto the Lord even when their earthly employers are not watching. Most of all, grant us all a deepening love for Jesus Christ, such that every other worship—every other god we have tried to serve—grows pale in his presence and we are compelled to worship him alone.

We commit ourselves together to this glad pursuit of honoring Christ as Lord in every relationship, knowing that his grace is sufficient for us and his power is made perfect in our weakness.

Draft · pending review

Sunday-evening family table

The God We Worship Shows in How We Treat People

For the parent

Chris talked about how the way we treat people—at home, at work, with friends—reveals which god we're actually worshiping. Use this prompt to help your family see that our behavior comes from what we love most. Listen for honest answers about where self-love (doing what we want) shows up in their relationships.

Think about a time this week when you were upset with someone—maybe a brother or sister, a friend, or a parent. What were you wanting in that moment that you didn't get? (Don't worry about whether it was a big thing or small.) Now here's the real question: In that moment, were you more concerned about getting what you wanted, or about loving that person the way Jesus would?

works for ages 7+ — younger kids may need help naming what they wanted; teens and adults will go deeper into recognizing self-worship

Draft · pending review

Couples · three questions over coffee

The God We Worship in Each Other

In listening to the sermon, where did you sense the Spirit exposing a place where you're serving yourself rather than honoring Christ—and what idol did you recognize at work?
As a couple, where do we most commonly clash in a way that reveals we're each worshiping ourselves instead of beholding Jesus together—and what would change if we faced that honestly?
How can I pray for you this week as you pursue beholding and loving Jesus in the specific relational temptations you face?

Draft · pending review

Memory verse this week

Ephesians 5:25-27

Husbands, love your wives, 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.

Why this verse: This passage crystallizes the sermon's central claim that our relational behaviors flow from the God we worship—specifically, it shows that husbands' love for their wives is determined by beholding Christ's sacrificial love for the church. The verse exposes the characteristic temptation for husbands (self-worship expressed as comfort-seeking rather than sanctification-seeking) and points them to Christ as the model whose worship transforms how they treat their spouse.

Draft · pending review

Daily readings · Monday–Friday

5-day reading plan

Monday James 4:1

James traces the explosive quarrels we experience in our relationships back to the competing desires warring within us—we want what we don't have, and we're willing to harm others to get it. This exposes what the sermon calls the 'worship mechanics' beneath our relational failures: the gods of self we're serving in secret are producing the very conflicts that pain our marriages, families, and friendships. We cannot address relational breakdown by behavior modification alone; we must name the idolatry beneath it.

Tuesday 1 Samuel 5

The Philistines carried the ark of God into the temple of Dagon, thinking their idol could stand in the presence of Israel's God—but Dagon fell and shattered before the ark's power. We often imagine our idols coexist peacefully in different compartments of life: self-worship in one relationship, genuine faith in another. But idols cannot stand in the presence of Christ's lordship; they must fall, and they will fall as we persistently behold His glory reflected in how He loved and led.

Wednesday 1 Samuel 17

David's confidence before Goliath flowed from beholding the living God's character and majesty—'You come to me with a sword, but I come to you in the name of the Lord.' His speech and action were shaped entirely by his worship: he saw Goliath through the lens of God's sovereignty, not through fear of self-preservation. When we truly behold Christ's lordship, our relational choices—how we speak to our spouses, lead our children, serve our employers—flow naturally from that worship rather than from the defensive self-protection that breeds conflict.

Thursday Philippians 2:6-8

Christ, beholding the majesty and privilege that were rightly His, emptied Himself and took the form of a servant, suffering unto death for our sanctification. Every command in Ephesians 5–6 uses 'as'—wives submit 'as to the Lord,' husbands love 'as Christ loved'—because the relational behaviors Paul calls for flow necessarily from beholding and loving Jesus. We cannot manufacture these virtues through willpower; we can only receive them as the natural overflow of worshiping Him who gave everything for us.

Friday 1 Samuel 5

Just as Dagon could not survive in the presence of the ark, our idols of self cannot stand in the presence of Christ enthroned in our hearts. The household codes are not arbitrary rules imposed from above; they're invitations to dethrone the gods of self-worship and let Christ's lordship reshape how we treat everyone we encounter. As we move through this week and beyond, ask: What idol am I serving in this relationship? What would change if Christ alone were Lord of my heart?

Draft · pending review

Where this was preached

About the church

Providence Community Church

Lenexa, KS
Sundays · 10:00 AM
About us · What we believe

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# Providence Community Church

A church preaching expository sermons through the books of the Bible.

## Sermons
- [Tools for Transformation Part 1 (Ephesians 4:17-32, 2026-03-01)](/ProvidenceLenexa/sermons/2026/03/tools-for-transformation-part-1)
- [Tools for Transformation (Ephesians 4:17-32, 2026-03-08)](/ProvidenceLenexa/sermons/2026/03/tools-for-transformation)
- [Marriage & The Mission of God (Ephesians 5:22-33, 2026-03-15)](/ProvidenceLenexa/sermons/2026/03/marriage-the-mission-of-god)
- [Our Gods On Display (Ephesians 5:22-6:9, 2026-03-22)](/ProvidenceLenexa/sermons/2026/03/our-gods-on-display)

## About
- [About the church](/about)
- [Plan a visit](/visit)

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