Don’t Ring the Bell – Eph. 5

Don’t Ring the Bell: Ephesians 5 on Marriage

It might shock you how many relationships in a church like this are in trouble behind the smiles. I know, because I was a pastor for almost 30 years, and I was living it. Early in my marriage to my late wife Tammy, our baby daughter died. Within two weeks of burying her, Tammy tried to commit suicide by overdosing on prescription medication. By God’s grace she was saved, but the depression and the medication grew into addiction, and then alcohol, until she could not function as a wife or a mother to our three children. After a family intervention and rehab, she decided she needed to move away from her triggers, which in her mind were us, and moved to Texas. We were separated for two and a half years. She finally confided that she had moved in with a man. I was devastated. Well-meaning people told me to cut my losses and file for divorce, and that I had scriptural grounds. By God’s grace and mercy I did not.

Hell Week

I thought of the Navy SEALs’ Hell Week, five and a half days of brutal training on fewer than four hours of sleep. “Only 25 percent of seal candidates make it through hell week.” On the beach there is a bell. The drill instructors get in your face and say, “go ring that Bell and tonight you can be back home at Mama’s house eating Mama’s cooking.” Three out of four ring it. One out of four endures and becomes a Navy SEAL. In those two and a half years, I felt like ringing the bell. I had my hand on the rope.

If you are married, or ever have been, you know relationships can start out well and deteriorate. It happens when there is no intentionality, because our culture does everything it can to pull husbands and wives apart. Whether newlyweds, new parents, in career-building years, or empty nesters, you may ask, who are you? The question is “what do you do when what you’re doing isn’t working?” The good news is that God knew we would struggle, and he inspired Paul to write to the Ephesians.

Filled with the Spirit

Start in verse 18. Don’t be drunk with wine, but be filled with the Spirit. Alcohol makes you say and do things you would not ordinarily do; let the Holy Spirit control you that way. If we have a problem with the instructions that follow, it is not because of the spouse we married. It is because we are not filled with his Spirit.

Wives: Unconditional Respect

Verse 22: “Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord.” If he looks like Brad Pitt and treats you like a queen? No conditions. God did not lead Paul to give us conditions. We call this unconditional respect. How do you do it? “Sometimes you have to look Beyond him and see Jesus.” This is about your vertical relationship with the Lord, as in Matthew 25: whatever you did to the least of these, you did to me.

Husbands: Unconditional Love

Verse 25: “Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” There is no kitchen pass. That means loving her sacrificially, putting her needs and well-being before mine. It means loving her sanctifyingly, since she is a daughter of God and one day will stand before Jesus, and I am called to help prepare her. And it means loving her selflessly, as I care for my own body. Look at what you invest in her. Unconditional love means she cannot create a condition that keeps you from loving her the way Christ loves you. Jesus has loved you when you were unlovable. In the hardest times of my marriage I felt him ask, Tony, do you love me? Then show me love through Tammy. Sometimes you must look beyond her and see Jesus.

Verse 33 puts it in a bow: let each husband love his wife as himself, and the wife see that she respects her husband. These are imperatives. That was revolutionary in a Roman world where anything went and among Jewish men who prayed, thank God I am not a woman. It will revolutionize your marriage.

The Crazy Cycle

Research shows that of all a wife’s needs, the one she feels greatest is to be loved, and a husband’s greatest need is to be respected. “When a wife feels unloved she often Acts with disrespect,” and a husband who feels disrespected responds in an unloving way. Dr. Emerson Eggerichs calls it the crazy cycle, like standing on each other’s air hose. So give unconditional love and respect whether they deserve it or not, and then they can pay attention to your needs.

Do It as to the Lord

Notice the phrase: as to the Lord in 5:22, as Christ in 5:25, in the Lord for children in 6:1, and as to Christ for servants. Ephesians 6:7-8 says whatever good anyone does, he will receive back from the Lord. It is not a promise that your spouse will treat you well. Sometimes it happens, but he is looking at eternity. In the parable of the talents, he says, enter into the joy of your master. Whatever wow moments we have on earth, in heaven there is no curse, so a wow moment lasts forever.

Don’t Ring the Bell

I did not ring the bell, and I take no credit. After two and a half years, I got a call from her parents saying something was wrong with Tammy. I found her unable to feed herself, bathe, or move on her own. She had Guillain-Barré syndrome, complicated by her addictions. All my attempts to reconcile had come to nothing, and then God did it. I moved her home as husband and wife for one month, and she went to be with the Lord on October 1, 2010. I am so glad I didn’t ring the bell. God has since brought Trish into my life. “You may be in hell week right now in your relationship but if you don’t ring the bell he will reward you.”