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You Asked For It | Part 2 · Rewind

Rock Point Church

Pastor Bill Bush · Sep 3, 2018

Pastor Bill Bush · Sep 3, 2018 · 74 min watch · 3 min read

You Asked For It | Part 2

Devotional days

Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Day 7

Scripture in this message

Ephesians 5:21
Genesis 2
Genesis 2:24
Genesis 3:16
Ephesians 5:22
Ephesians 5:26

Big Idea Key points Application

Big Idea

God wired men and women differently, so the mutual submission He calls a marriage to looks different for a wife than for a husband, even though both are ultimately submitting to Jesus.

Marriage was designed to be two different people joined into one, and that is hard even before sin enters the picture. Because of the fall, wives tend to try to control out of fear and husbands tend to try to dominate out of frustration, but Ephesians 5 calls both to lay that down as an act of submission to Christ, not to each other's demands.

Key points

1
1Men and women were both made to reflect God's image, but marriage joins two genuinely different people into one, and that union is hard work.
Pastor Bill walks through Genesis 2, where God creates Eve because it was not good for man to be alone, and notes it takes both male and female to fully reflect God's image. He compares the difficulty of two becoming one in marriage to the struggle of forming 13 different colonies into one nation after the American Revolution, saying fighting a common enemy is easier than actually becoming one.
2
2The fall broke trust between God and people, and that same brokenness unloosened the connection between husband and wife.
Using the illustration of a nut and bolt he saw at the Space Needle in Seattle, Pastor Bill describes marriage as designed to be tightly connected, but sin -- believing the lie that God is holding out on us -- disconnects it. He walks through Genesis 3, where Adam and Eve immediately blame each other and God after they sin.
3
3God's curse in Genesis 3 exposes how selfishness plays out differently in women and men: wives tend toward controlling out of fear, husbands tend toward dominating out of frustration.
Pastor Bill reads Genesis 3:16 (the pain of childbearing and the desire to control the husband who will rule/dominate her) and Genesis 3:17-19 (the man's struggle to provide through the sweat of his brow). He explains these aren't commands but natural byproducts of brokenness -- women wired to feel the weight of the home, men wired to feel the weight of providing -- and both bents are ultimately just different flavors of 'I want it my way.'
4
4Ephesians 5 answers this brokenness by calling both spouses to submit to one another out of reverence for Christ, with submission looking different for each.
Pastor Bill reminds the church that last week's text (Ephesians 5:21) called for mutual submission, and today unpacks how that plays out differently for wives (submit/respect) and husbands (love/lead). He brings his wife, Carrie, on stage to share her own journey of learning that submission is not about her worth but an act of obedience before the Lord, laying down her fears rather than trying to control.
5
5Husbands are called to love their wives as Christ loved the church -- laying down his life -- which reframes leadership as going first, not as being boss.
Pastor Bill reads Ephesians 5:25-30 and explains that of all the things the passage could emphasize for husbands, it repeats 'love' because that's the harder muscle for men, just as respect is the harder muscle for wives. Quoting his father, he defines a leader as someone who goes first, goes farther, and will do it alone if he has to -- love that isn't conditioned on the wife's response.</p>
6
6The pattern for both spouses is ultimately the pattern of Jesus Himself in His final twenty-four hours: the wife modeling Gethsemane's 'not my will,' the husband modeling the cross's self-giving love.
Pastor Bill closes by connecting the wife's call to surrender control to Jesus praying 'not my will, but thy will be done' in the garden, and the husband's call to sacrificial love to Jesus on the cross praying 'Forgive them, for they know not what they do' -- giving up His life to give life to the very people crucifying Him.

Application

Pastor Bill frames it as both spouses being called to lay down the same selfishness in different directions -- wives surrendering control, husbands surrendering dominance -- as an act of submission to Jesus first.

Wives, surrender control to the Lord
Lay down the fear of where things are headed and the desire to manage outcomes, treating it as obedience to Jesus rather than a statement about your worth.
Husbands, lead by going first in sacrificial love
Stop equating leadership with being the boss or decision-maker; instead love your wife the way Christ loved the church, laying down your own preferences even when it costs you and you get nothing back.
Decide with 'what's best for her,' not 'what's in it for me'
In everyday decisions, husbands especially are asked to let the guiding question be what serves their wife rather than what benefits themselves.
Wives, show respect even before it's earned
Treat your husband like the man you want him to become; Pastor Bill and Carrie both testify that respect offered ahead of time can awaken a husband to step up.
Start with the most important step: submit to Jesus
Pastor Bill closes by praying that anyone unsure where to begin would ask first, 'Have I submitted to Jesus?' since that's the foundation everything else depends on.

Take it into your week

Rewind AI contributed study material from the sermon transcript; church-authored wording and verified sermon quotes keep their own source. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

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Scripture in this message

From the transcript
“where we left off last week was in Ephesians five twenty one. It says what we really need to do to make a marriage work is submit to one another”
Read the whole chapter →
From the transcript
“where we get this from is if you go back to the very creative story in Genesis, first of all, chapter two, God creates man. And then he says it's not good for men to be alone”
From the transcript
“in verse 24 of chapter two, it says, this explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one”
From the transcript
“if you look in verse 16 of of of chapter three, he says this. He said to the woman, I will sharpen the pain of your pregnancy, and in pain you will give birth”
From the transcript
“In Ephesians five, verse says, to submit to one another out of reverence for Christ, and right there is the key to this”
From the transcript
“for verse 22, says, for wives, this means submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For a husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church”
From the transcript
“It says in verse 20, to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God's word. He did this to present her to himself as the glorious church without a spot or wrinkle”

Rewind AI contributed study material from the sermon transcript; church-authored wording and verified sermon quotes keep their own source. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

7-day devotional

A personal reading plan from this message — scripture, reflection, and prayer for each day.

Sign in to track your progress through this devotional.

Day 1

Before anything broke, God looked at what He had made and said it was not good — not because something was wrong, but because something was missing. Man was alone, and that was never the design. So God made woman, and Adam's first recorded words are a poem. There is wonder in that moment, a deep recognition: *this* is the one. She is like me, and yet she is not me, and that is exactly the point. The sermon reminded us that God wired men and women differently on purpose. That difference is not a problem to be solved or a gap to be managed. It is the intentional architecture of a God who knew that two people becoming one flesh would require two genuinely distinct people. The very things that make your spouse feel like a mystery to you are the same things God placed there deliberately. If your marriage has felt more like a negotiation than a partnership lately, it may help to start here — at the beginning, before the fracture. God designed marriage as a gift, not a puzzle to decode. The differences you live with every day are not accidents. They are invitations to something deeper than sameness: a union that reflects something about God Himself that neither spouse could show alone.

For reflection

When you think about the ways your spouse is different from you, do you tend to experience those differences as gifts, as frustrations, or somewhere in between — and what does that tell you?

Pray

Pray for fresh eyes to see your spouse's God-given design as something worth receiving rather than managing.

Day 2

The fall did not just introduce sin in a general sense — it bent specific things in specific directions. The sermon pointed to Genesis 3:16 as the place where we see what brokenness does inside a marriage: the wife's desire turns toward her husband in a way that tips into control, and the husband's response tips into domination. Two people who were meant to be one flesh begin to push against each other instead of toward each other. What's striking is that both patterns — the grasping for control and the urge to dominate — are really the same thing in different clothes: self-protection. Fear says, *if I don't manage this, something will go wrong.* Frustration says, *if I don't assert myself, I'll be ignored.* Both are ways of trying to hold on to something instead of trusting God with it. Naming this honestly is not about assigning blame. The sermon was clear that both tendencies are human, not just one spouse's problem. The fall is something we are all living inside. But naming it is still important, because you cannot bring something to Jesus that you have not first been willing to see. The good news is that what sin bent, grace can begin to straighten — slowly, patiently, and not by our own effort alone.

For reflection

Which pattern — reaching for control or retreating into frustration — do you notice more in yourself when your marriage feels tense? What fear or wound might be underneath it?

Pray

Pray for honesty about the ways the fall shows up in your own heart, and for the courage to bring that honestly before Jesus.

Day 3

Before the sermon ever got to what wives are called to do or what husbands are called to do, it went back to this single verse: submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Everything that follows hangs on this hinge. Mutual submission is not a strategy for a healthy marriage — it is an overflow of a surrendered relationship with Jesus. That word *reverence* is worth sitting with. It is not fear in the anxious sense, but the kind of awe that actually changes how you move through a room — how you treat the person across the dinner table, how you respond when you feel wronged, whether you are more focused on what you are owed or what you can give. Reverence for Christ reorients everything. The sermon made a point that is easy to rush past: none of what God asks of husbands and wives is possible apart from daily surrender to Jesus. You cannot give what you have not first received. A marriage built on two people both going to Jesus first — not just occasionally, but as a daily practice — looks different from one built on two people trying harder. The call here is not to be a better spouse through willpower. It is to be so regularly shaped by Jesus that what you bring home is what He has given you.

For reflection

In practical terms, what does 'submitting to Jesus first' look like in your daily life right now — and is there a gap between what you'd say and what you'd see?

Pray

Pray for a genuine posture of surrender to Jesus today — not as a technique for a better marriage, but as an act of love toward Him.

Day 4

The sermon was careful here, and it is worth being careful here too. The call for a wife to submit to her husband is not a call to silence, smallness, or subservience. It is modeled on the relationship between the church and Christ — and the church is not diminished by that relationship. It is cherished, protected, and given life through it. What the sermon pointed to was something more specific and more honest: the invitation for wives is to examine where fear is driving a need to control. That is a personal, interior work. It is not about performance or role-playing. It is about asking: *where am I holding on because I do not trust?* And then — and this is the hard part — choosing to lay that down as an act of obedience to Jesus, not as a favor to a husband who may or may not deserve it. The image the sermon used was Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. *Not my will, but Yours.* That was not weakness. That was the most costly act of trust in human history. When a wife chooses to release fear-driven control, she is not diminishing herself. She is doing something that looks, in a small but real way, like what Jesus did in that garden — choosing surrender over self-protection because she trusts the One she is surrendering to.

For reflection

Is there an area in your marriage where fear has been quietly driving decisions? What would it look like to bring that specific fear before Jesus instead of managing it yourself?

Pray

Pray for the courage to identify one place where fear has been in the driver's seat, and for the grace to lay it down — not alone, but with Jesus.

Day 5

The standard the sermon set for husbands is not a low bar. Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her. Not partially. Not conditionally. Not after she had earned it. He went first, He went all the way, and He did it while she was still far from Him. That is the model a husband is handed. The sermon named two common traps: domination, which mistakes control for leadership, and passivity, which waits for respect before offering love. Both miss the point. The call is not to lead by deciding things — it is to lead by going first in self-giving. Prioritize her well-being above your frustrations. Go farther than feels fair. Do it before you see a return on it. Verses 28 and 29 add something quietly profound: a husband who loves his wife this way loves himself. Not in a self-serving sense, but because the two have become one. What you pour into your marriage, you are not losing — you are investing in something you are part of. Sacrificial love is not self-erasure. It is the kind of self-giving that, in God's economy, actually produces life. It does not guarantee a particular response from a spouse, but it is what faithfulness looks like when it is oriented toward Jesus rather than a transaction.

For reflection

What is one concrete way you could go first in love this week — not because it has been earned, but as a reflection of how Christ has loved you?

Pray

Pray for the kind of love that does not wait for the right conditions — and for the daily grace to sustain it when the conditions are hard.

Day 6

Related passage

The sermon held up one moment as the picture of what real submission looks like: Jesus in the garden, the night before the cross, asking His Father if there were any other way. *Not my will, but Yours be done.* He was not indifferent to what was coming. The weight of it was real. The prayer was honest. And yet He surrendered — not because He had no choice, but because He trusted the Father completely. Both spouses can learn from this moment, not just wives. The posture of *not my will, but Yours* is the posture the whole sermon is built on. It is what makes covenant different from contract. A contract says: I will give what is fair, and I will protect myself if the other side does not deliver. A covenant says: I am committed to your good regardless of what I receive, because I have already given myself to Someone whose commitment to me is unconditional. This is not a standard any of us can sustain in our own strength. The sermon was honest about that. But it is what becomes possible — slowly, imperfectly, and with regular recalibration — when a person is actually walking with Jesus day by day. The garden is not just a model. It is an invitation to know the One who prayed that prayer, and to let Him form that same trust in you.

For reflection

Where in your marriage do you most need to pray 'not my will, but Yours' — and what is it costing you to hold on to your own way right now?

Pray

Pray for the genuine willingness to release one area of your marriage to God's will rather than your own — and for the trust that makes that possible.

Day 7

Looking back across this week, a single thread runs through everything: you cannot give what you have not first received. The whole vision the sermon laid out — wives releasing fear-driven control, husbands leading through sacrifice, both partners choosing covenant over contract — is only sustainable if both people are regularly going back to Jesus and letting Him fill what they bring to the marriage. This is not a one-time decision. It is a direction. You will not get it perfectly right this week or next. There will be days when fear wins, when frustration wins, when the old patterns feel easier than the new ones. That is human. What matters is where your heart is pointed and whether you keep bringing it back. If something this week stirred up a question you do not know how to answer, or a wound that feels too heavy to carry alone, do not just sit with it in private. Find someone at Rock Point you trust — a pastor, a community group leader, a mentor — and let them walk with you. None of this was meant to be figured out alone. The same Jesus who called you into covenant with your spouse has also placed you in a community. Let both be part of how you grow. Start with Jesus. Stay close to Jesus. And let what you receive from Him be what you bring home.

For reflection

What is one thing from this week's devotional that you want to carry forward — and who in your life could help you stay accountable to it?

Pray

Pray for a marriage — and a heart — that looks more like Jesus at the end of this week than it did at the beginning, and for the humility to keep asking for that grace.

Rewind AI contributed study material from the sermon transcript; church-authored wording and verified sermon quotes keep their own source. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

Small-group discussion guide

For leading a group conversation about this message.

Open

This message takes a close look at what God designed marriage to be — and what gets in the way. Before we dive in, what's one word you'd use to describe what a healthy marriage looks like from the outside?

Discussion questions

1
In Genesis 2:24, God describes a husband and wife becoming 'one flesh.' Given what the sermon said about men and women being wired differently by God, what do you think it actually takes for two differently-wired people to move toward that kind of unity?
2
The sermon pointed to Genesis 3:16 as the source of two patterns that show up in marriage after the fall — a tendency in wives toward fear-driven control, and a tendency in husbands toward frustration-driven domination. How would you describe what those two patterns look like in everyday married life?
3
Ephesians 5:21 calls married people to 'submit to one another out of reverence for Christ' — and the sermon drew a distinction between living in a covenant versus negotiating a contract. What's the practical difference between those two postures in a marriage?
4
The sermon compared a wife's call to submit in Ephesians 5:22–24 to Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane — not subservience, but a willing choice to lay something down out of obedience to the Father. What does that comparison suggest about what submission actually is and isn't?
5
Ephesians 5:25–29 calls husbands to love their wives the way Christ loved the church — giving Himself up for her. The sermon described a husband's leadership as going first, going farther, and doing it alone if necessary. How does that picture of leadership differ from what we might more naturally assume leadership in marriage looks like?
6
The sermon closed with the idea that none of this — for husbands or wives — is possible apart from daily surrender to Jesus, and that what we bring home flows from what we're first receiving from Him. How might that shift the way we think about where the work of a healthy marriage actually begins?

Pray together

Ask God for the grace to move from contract to covenant — and for each person to find in Jesus what they need to bring to their marriage this week.

Rewind AI contributed study material from the sermon transcript; church-authored wording and verified sermon quotes keep their own source. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

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Topics

Christ-Centered Marriage Covenant vs. Contract Gender Differences Marriage & Submission Sacrificial Love

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